Sanctions on Iran have made an important contribution to U.S. security by depriving the Iranian government of the revenue it could otherwise have used for a military build-up. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran announced agreements with various suppliers to purchase many more weapons than it actually acquired. The reason for the shortfall was generally lack of money. With an extra $1 billion to $2 billion a year, Iran would have been able to add more weapons with which to threaten stability in the Straits of Hormuz. For instance, Chinese officials relate privately that the reason China stopped deliveries of advanced anti-ship missiles to Iran was that Tehran was behind in payments by nearly a billion dollars. Had the United States not gone down the route of sanctions to contain Iran, then Washington would have needed to implement other policies to respond to what would be a larger Iranian military—larger because an unsanctioned Iran would have had more access to international capital and therefore been able to afford more weaponry.
The United States is likely to continue sanctions on Iran as part of its efforts to delay the development of Iran's military potential. These efforts are a hedge against the possibility of a reversion by Iran to a more aggressive foreign and defense policy in the future. And delay buys time for the United States and its allies to develop counter-measures to Iranian capabilities. Furthermore, assuming that the trend towards moderation and pragmatism in Iranian politics continues, delay could be useful in putting off Iran's development of intermediate and medium-range missiles and nuclear weapons until the time when more moderate political elements are firmly ensconced in Tehran—thereby mitigating somewhat the implications of Iranian proliferation.
Some changes in the U.S. sanctions on Iran have occurred and more are likely, in order to signal to Iranians that the United States wants better relations. The initial steps have been designed to reach out to ordinary Iranians, especially by facilitating their contact with the United States. However, there will be much hesitation about relaxing that element of the sanctions which most directly deprives the Iranian government of revenue, namely, the ban on investment in, and trade related to, the oil and gas industry. Restrictions on the energy sector are likely to be among the last lifted.
The most controversial issue in the sanctions strategy has been the secondary boycott provisions of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) associated with then Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Europeans regard ILSA as an extraterritorial application of U.S. law and therefore as unacceptable in principle, irrespective of the purpose to which it is put. Washington hoped ILSA would provide a basis for negotiations with Europe about measures against Iranian terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), much as the unilateral U.S. sanctions on apartheid South Africa provided a basis for pressuring Europe to do more against that odious system. Instead, the French government, motivated primarily by anger at perceived American arrogant hegemonic behaviour, made a maximum effort to confront the United States. After agonising for months, the Clinton administration decided to give in, by waiving any sanctions for the deal by the French oil giant Total to develop Iran's offshore South Pars gas field, and by promising the Europeans it would do the same for any future European Union investment in Iran. This decision had little to do with Iran: it was overwhelmingly a product of European pressure. Furthermore, under a sunset provision in ILSA, the law expires in August 2001. It is quite possible that it will not be renewed in its present form. Therefore, ILSA is not likely to be an important factor in decisions about investment in Iran.
The Iranian oil and gas industries have not been able to attract foreign investment at the pace Iran projected. It is not apparent how much that is due to U.S. policy and how much to Iranian actions. Iran has not offered attractive terms to investors. As is most obvious in its negotiations with Caspian Basin producers, Iran has insisted on extracting every last possible advantage from the other side, rather than focusing on reaching a mutually beneficial agreement. Whether or not it has actually had much impact, the U.S. government has been in the fortunate position of being credited by Iranians for the failure to attract investment in the oil industry. This is the policy maker's dream: to be given credit for making the sun rise in the east.
Reformers and U.S. Interests
The context for U.S. policy towards Iran changed with the May 1997 election of Mohammad Khatarm as president. However, it would be inappropriate to expect that Khatami's election will lead to some sudden change in U.S. sanctions on Iran. Three considerations argue against such sudden change.
First, it behooves the United States to do what it can to help the reformers, and the most important step Washington can take is to stay away from a death hug. For long-term reform and stability, U.S. policy makers should grant Iran space. Time is on the reformers' side, yet any attempts by Western governments to boost the reform movement risk backfiring by giving hardliners a symbol around which to rally. Such attempts could, ironically, delay the reform which Iran's population, Europe and the United States would so very much like to see. The cause of the reformers could be seriously hurt if the hardliners perceived them as acting at America's behest; that could provoke a hardline crackdown. To date, the reform cause has been accepted by the hardliners for what it is—namely, a genuinely Iranian movement rather than one sponsored from abroad. It is in the U.S. interest that the hardliners continue to understand that the reformers are a homegrown phenomenon.
Second, it is by no means apparent that hardliners have given up in their efforts to have Iran support terrorism, underwrite violent opposition to the Middle East peace process, and pursue acquisition of WMD. The hardliners still control many levers of power in Iran's checks-and-balances system of government. Most important, supreme religious leader Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Khamenei is a strong supporter of the hardline cause. He has the power to overturn any law, and he alone appoints the six Islamic jurists on the Council of Guardians, which must approve every law. (The council also has six legal experts, who along with the six Islamic jurists pass judgement on the constitutionality of every law.) Moreover, hardline vigilantes still exist; in the past they have been used effectively to intimidate or kill supporters of reform. Foreign policy is an area the hardliners are particularly well placed to control: Khamenei is commander-in-chief and has set the lines of foreign policy, about which the parliament has had little say. And foreign policy is an issue about which the hardliners care intensely, so they are likely to watch carefully for any deviations from the revolutionary past. The U.S. government should not judge change in Iran on the reformers' rhetoric alone, no matter how genuine, but must view the Iranian government as a whole. The hardliners may be marginalised at the polls, but they have many other organs of power at their disposal and an agenda that remains both anti-Western and anti-reform.
Although the ongoing power struggle in Iran does not mean that the United States should cease its attempts to engage that country, it does show the wisdom of Washington's policy of proceeding slowly and cautiously. The April 2000 banning of the reformist press indicates that the reformers have not consolidated power despite three years of Khatarru"s administration and a popular mandate. Khatarm has not yet been able to extend his control over powerful organs of government such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the official news agency, the law enforcement forces and the Ministry of Intelligence.
Third, it is not apparent that the reformers care that much about changing Iran's foreign policy. To them, domestic issues are of more pressing concern than foreign policy matters.
Foremost on the reformers' agenda are easing the chafing social restrictions, fixing chronic economic problems and straightening out Iran's disorganised mess of a government (Iran is riddled with quasi-official revolutionary institutions that pay little attention to the central government; even some ministries are only loosely controlled by the president and the parliament). Foreign policy is not the issue the voters care most about, nor is it an issue on which the reform coalition is united.
If the reformers do gain full control over the government, then at some point they will turn to issues of lower priority for them, such as foreign policy. At that point—probably several years off—there is good reason to be optimistic that Iran will dramatically scale back its support for terrorist violence—arms, money and training for Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad—that undermines the Middle East peace process. Only radical anti-Western Islamists care about violently undermining the peace process; although many of the reformers oppose the peace process and want no relations with Israel, ever, they are not prepared to use violence if that means European disapproval, U.S. sanctions and potential Israeli retaliation.
Responding to Reform
Although the reformers are no great allies of the United States, their victory is in U.S. interests, if for no other reason than that the hardliners have defined themselves by bitter opposition to the United States. U.S. policy towards Iran is caught in a false debate about whether to be "tough" or "soft", which leaves the United States being too tough on the Iranian people and too soft on the hardline actions of the Iranian government. While avoiding a kiss of death to the reformers, the United States needs to reach out to the broad majority of Iranians to show that U.S. hostility is to the hardliners rather than to Iran.
The best way to achieve that is through the kind of statements that President Bill Clinton has made so effectively in the last year. Although little noticed in the United States, Clinton has referred to the respect he has for Iran as a great civilisation and to the bad treatment Iran has at times received in the past; these comments had an enormous effect in Iran. More statements of the same sort would be well received and an appropriate signal.
An example of the problem was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's 17 March 2000 speech to the Conference on American-Iranian Relations (Endnote #1). Although a number of useful ideas were broached, on balance the speech missed a golden opportunity to reach out forcefully to the Iranian people by pointing out how they and the United States both face problems from Iranian hardliners.
Front and centre in U.S. policy towards Iran should be the terrorism that has struck both Americans and reform-minded Iranians. Just days before Albright spoke, prominent Iranian newspaper editor Saeed Hajjarian was shot by men riding on a large motorcycle of the type legally restricted to the military and law enforcement officials. Meanwhile, through press reports, hardliners rejected President Khatami's proposal to respond positively to President Clinton's 1999 letter requesting that Tehran co-operate in the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, in which nineteen U.S. airmen died. The connection between domestic and foreign terrorism may be even tighter: it may be the same Intelligence Ministry that harbours those who shoot reformers and that protects the suspects in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, two of whom are living in Iran. That ministry acts like a force unto itself, unresponsive to either the Majlis (parliament) or the president. The cause of Iranian reform would benefit by a highlighting of what a problem the Intelligence Ministry has become.
Fighting the terrorists harboured inside Iran's government is one issue that unites the domestic policy concerns of Iranian reformers with the foreign policy issues that interest the United States. The U.S. approach to counterterrorism, which emphasises law enforcement and downplays terrorism's political side, is well suited to reaching out to Iranian reformers who have made the rule of law a central issue. The decision to emphasise law enforcement was used after the Khobar Towers bombing to justify the failure to take retaliatory action based on intelligence information. Having made that decision, the United States should stick with it by insisting that Iran expel the suspects. As President Clinton said, "No matter how long it takes or where it takes us, we will pursue terrorists until the cases are solved and justice is done"(Endnote #2).
Besides using its bully pulpit to remind Iranians of the common concerns they and the United States have about fighting government-sponsored terrorism, Washington should reach out to ordinary Iranians by clearly distinguishing them from the Iranian government. So, for instance, the relaxation of sanctions should focus on goods produced by private citizens, not on goods such as caviar, which are the output of government monopolies. Carpets are the principal export of the Iranian private sector, and that fact should have been highlighted in explaining why the United States is allowing in carpets but not petroleum. The explanation should have been made crystal clear: carpet sales benefit civil society, oil sales benefit the government.
The centrepiece of Albright's speech to the Conference on American-Iranian Relations was, "Today, I am announcing a step which will enable Americans to purchase and import carpets and food products such as dried fruits, nuts, and caviar from Iran." That sounds impressive, but Iranians will discover it promises more than it delivers. The secretary did not mention that Iranian pistachios—which are the main food-product Iran exports—are subject to prohibitive duties (283 per cent for raw pistachios and 318 per cent for roasted pistachios, under Antidumping Order A507502 and Countervailing Duty Order C507501, on top of the normal duty). As California Pistachio Commission president Karen Reinecke put it, "What happens when Iran gets the news today and they are all excited and want to ship to the United States but they won't be able to? It's kind of an empty promise from the United States"(Endnote #3).
On the other hand, perhaps it is good that Iranian pistachios cannot find a market in the United States. At least 70 per cent of Iran's pistachio trade is controlled by the family of former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Indeed, while he was president, Rafsanjani shut down a magazine that had the temerity to publish a petition from the pistachio growers of the Rafsanjan region complaining about how his family had monopolised the trade to its profit. It would be peculiar timing for the United States to offer a prize worth millions of dollars to the Rafsanjani family just after he was badly bruised in the Majlis elections, having barely won a seat by coming thirtieth in Tehran when he had expected the number one slot. It is not clear why the United States would want to abet the corruption of an unpopular, out-of-power politician whom a Belgian court is considering indicting for his human rights abuses, a la Augusto Pinochet.
If the pistachio announcement made the United States look hypocritical, the timing of Albright's speech made the United States look inconsistent. Four days before the speech, President Clinton wrote to the House Speaker and the Senate President extending the sanctions on Iran's oil and gas industry—an action much noted in the Iranian press. The step was purely technical: under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president can impose sanctions only a year at a time, and 15 March was the last day on which those could be renewed. But it would have been possible to renew those sanctions before Iran's 18 February Majlis elections.
Albright's speech also showed the dangers of being overly accommodating to the Iranian government. She used a dangerous formulation when addressing the problem of Iranian terrorism. Her statement was, "The authorities exercising control in Tehran financed and supported terrorist groups, including those violently opposed to the Middle East peace process"—as if there was some distinction between "the authorities exercising control in Tehran" and the Iranian government. The United States must hold the entire Iranian government responsible for the actions of its agents. She also spent too much time dwelling on past U.S. policy mistakes. She acknowledged errors, without using the magic word "apology", in U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-lraq war and for the 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. No one in Tehran broaches the idea of Iran apologising, even though Iran's government has been directly responsible for more U.S. deaths in the past two decades that any other government in the world, given its terrorist involvement from Beirut to Khobar. And it is peculiar to describe as an "error" the support to Iraq at a time when it was being invaded by Iran, while not mentioning that in 1985-6 the United States sold Iran arms with which it attacked its neighbour.
In sum, Albright's speech could have been a more powerful overture to the people of Iran than it was. The challenge facing U.S. policy makers is to extend a hand of friendship to Iranians while firmly rejecting hardline Iranian government actions.
The WMD Problem
One aspect of U.S. restrictions on trade with Iran is sure to continue well into the future, namely, the restrictions on dual-use technologies that can be used in developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or the means to deliver them. Iran will be subject to tighter restrictions on these items than are most countries, for a good reason.
Iran's clerical leadership is relatively united on the importance of a nuclear capability to Iran's national security. The reformers are proud nationalists who want a strong Iran. They will not readily agree to give up WMD. On the other hand, reformers might be more concerned than conservatives about jeopardising foreign ties and investment by a nuclear programme that violates Iran's commitments under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
However, on balance, both sides are likely to seek the status and capabilities that nuclear weapons confer. Some have doubted that Iran would want nuclear weapons, given that the United States would obviously possess an enormously superior nuclear arsenal. This argument misses the point. Even a small number of nuclear weapons would enhance Iranian military options. To be sure, Iran is unlikely to employ those weapons directly. But the weapons would have an impact on U.S. conventional options in a limited war. Iran's nuclear weapons would also increase the usability of its chemical and biological arsenal, influencing what the United States might do in response to the use of these weapons. Furthermore, the possession of nuclear weapons magnifies the importance of a disparity in commitment and in the magnitude of interests at stake. Some analysts credibly make the point that the U.S. calculus during the 1990-1 Kuwait invasion would have been different if Iraq] leader Saddam Hussein had had nuclear weapons. If Iran were thought to have nuclear weapons this would enhance its ability to conduct negotiations in the region, as the smaller states would take pre-emptive steps to avoid any crisis. The North Korean example illustrates that nuclear weapons would cause the United States and others to treat Iran with greater respect, possibly providing it with positive inducements (in the form, say, of considerable financial benefits) to dismantle its nuclear programme (Endnote #4).
Because pursuit of nuclear weapons appears to fit in well with Iran's national interest as perceived by the present government, the United States is likely to maintain for the indefinite future tight restrictions on export to Iran of any technology that could be used for nuclear weapons. This may not be enough to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons: the diversion of fissile material from the former Soviet Union could put Iran on the fast track to a nuclear capability, and the United States might not find out about such a diversion until long after it occurred. For this reason the Central Intelligence Agency has warned that it cannot exclude the possibility that Iran already has nuclear weapons. However, such an approach might provide Iran with only a few weapons. For a more robust nuclear capability, Iran would need an indigenous nuclear infrastructure capable of producing fissile material. In order to delay, if not thwart, Iranian efforts to assemble such an infrastructure, the United States will continue its tight restrictions.
The United States is also likely to maintain tight restrictions on dual-use technologies that could assist Iran's active missile programme. Iran has embarked on a missile programme that, whatever its strategic aims, is of exactly the character most likely to worry the United States. If Iran were producing missiles designed to use against Iraq, that would be a matter of little concern to the United States, which could well understand Iran's problem on this score. However, the Iranian missile programme in the 1990s has not followed in that direction; that is, Iran has not concentrated on producing large numbers of missiles with a range and payload capacity most suitable for putting Iraqi vital assets at risk. Instead, during a time of extremely scarce defence resources, Iran has devoted much effort to producing missiles of greater and greater range, well beyond anything needed against Iraq. The Shehab-3 missile, test-fired in August 1998, has a range of 1,300 km, similar to that of the North Korean No Dong. That missile is widely thought to be designed for use against Israel.
It would seem that Iran is intent on developing longer-range missiles which make little strategic sense unless they are targeted at the U.S. homeland. In a February 2000 statement, Robert Walpole, National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, summarised how the U.S. intelligence community views the Iranian missile threat:
Some believe Iran is likely to test some ICBM [inter-continental ballistic missile] capabilities in the next few years, most likely as a Taepo Dong-type space launch vehicle ... Iran is likely to test a space launch vehicle by 2010 that could be converted into an ICBM capable of delivering a several hundred kilogram payload. Some believe that Iran is likely to test an ICBM that could threaten the United States before 2010; others believe there is no more than an even chance of an Iranian test by 2010; and a few believe that there is less than an even chance before 2010 (Endnote #5).
It is difficult to conceive why Iran is developing such missiles unless it intends to use them with warheads equipped with WMD, especially since its early missiles would probably be so inaccurate that any conventional warhead might not cause any significant damage. The enormous resources Iran is pouring into its long-range missile programme are a powerful piece of evidence that Iran is pursuing WMD capabilities.
Based on its concerns about WMD-tipped missiles from Iran and North Korea, the United States is actively contemplating spending $60 billion on a national missile defence (NMD) system, despite strong objections from Russia and China as well as unease among EU members. The enormous financial and political cost that the United States is prepared to incur in order to defend against such missiles shows how seriously the problem is taken. Compared to such a high cost, sanctions against Iran are a small price to pay if they are able to slow down the development of ICBMs by reducing the income Iran has to devote to such expensive programmes and by raising their cost by complicating access to the needed technologies. Sanctions—be they comprehensive sanctions or sanctions targeted at dual-use technology—cannot indefinitely stop the development of ICBMs, but they can retard test flights, slow the development of more accurate missiles and more powerful warheads, and force delays in producing militarily significant numbers of missiles.
Engagement or Sanctions?
To evaluate how well sanctions have worked, one has to ask what are the alternatives. As noted above, one alternative is a more robust military stance, such as an NMD system. Russia is quite upset at the United States' proposed NMD system, but has done little to address the U.S. concerns about Iranian missiles which are a powerful argument for such a system. Russia has parried U.S. objections that individual Russians are exporting missile technology to Iran in violation of Russia's obligations under the Missile Technology Control Regime. By not addressing those concerns, Russia has influenced the debate in the United States about whether to adopt a more vigorous military response. Similarly, EU governments that want to discourage the United States from deploying an NMD system would be well advised to propose more robust measures to counteract the Iranian missile programme. Restrictions on trade with, and investment in, Iran may not be what Europe wants, but Europe would do well to consider whether it prefers as the alternative a U.S. NMD system.
While a more robust military stance is one alternative policy, the most often recommended alternative is in the opposite direction, namely, to use engagement with Iran as the way to promote Iranian moderation and reform, as Europe has done. Engagement has many aspects, not least of which is high-level visits: Khatami visited Italy in March 1999 and France in October 1999. Has Europe's engagement policy influenced Iran to scale back terrorism, stop violent undermining of the Middle East peace process, improve its human rights record, stop pursuing WMD, or open up its political system? The record is not encouraging.
Terrorism. There is little evidence that Iranian support for terrorism has ended during the period of European engagement. In November 1999 at a meeting of counter-terrorism officials of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, British and German officials presented evidence that the terrorist threat from Iran is growing. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. administration has concluded that Iran is increasing the flow of arms and money to Hizbollah and Hamas (Endnote #6). Meanwhile, Iran has been unwilling to act on the U.S. request to make available for questioning some suspects in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing who remain in Iran—a bombing in which nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed.
Middle East peace process. Iran's hard rhetoric against Israel and the peace process continues. For instance, on 31 December 1999 Majl1s Speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri urged "wiping Israel off the world map" and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called for the "annihilation" of Israel. In a clear criticism of Syria for negotiating with Israel, Khamenei said, "I don't want to cite the onetime revolutionary nations by name . . . but any negotiation with the Zionist regime amounts to treason" (Endnote #7).
Human rights. It is unclear whether Iran's human rights record has improved during the period of European engagement. Intense French lobbying has not been able to secure a fair trial or early release of the thirteen Iranian Jews arrested on transparently false charges of spying for Israel. When asking what European engagement has accomplished, an instructive case to consider is that of Salman Rushdie. In September 1998, Tehran and London agreed to exchange ambassadors after Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi announced that Iran would no longer pursue Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa (edict) calling for Rushdie's death. Tehran got what it wanted a boost in international confidence and confirmation in the public mind that the days of revolutionary excess were over. Yet, Ayatollah Khamenel still endorses the death sentence, and semi-official organisations including the Khordad Foundation continue to promise the bounty for the author's slaying. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a senior member of the government, preached in favour of the fatwa in sermons in March and August 1999.
WMD. There is little evidence that heavy European economic engagement with Iran has encouraged that country to slow its pursuit of dangerous technologies. As noted earlier, Iran continues to develop and test destabilising missiles unrelated to defence against Iraq. Hardliners even let slip the occasional public reference to their disdain for arms control. For example, in April 1998 Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Yahya Rahim Safavi, in a meeting with IRGC top officers, asked: "Will we be able to protect the Islamic Republic from international Zionism by signing conventions to ban proliferation of chemical and nuclear weapons?" (Endnote #8).
Domestic reform. It is not clear if engagement has facilitated reforms or instead provided the resources by which the government could muddle through without reforms. Certainly, the record of the Khatami years on political and economic reforms has been mixed. Hardline clerical courts have closed reformist newspapers and put some of Khatami's closest allies in prison. Nor has the European policy of engagement shown obvious success in promoting stability in Iran. Indeed, 1999 saw the worst rioting in Iran since the revolution, after the hardline group Ansar-e Hizbollah attacked a student dormitory. Since then, violent riots have erupted several times in poor districts.
The Wisdom of Containment
In sum, critics of Washington's Iran policy like to say there is little evidence that the tough U.S. stance has achieved U.S. goals. Perhaps not, although at least U.S. policy reduces the resources Iran has available to engage in the destabilising actions to which Washington objects. And the objection could be turned on its head: it is not clear that Europe's policy of engaging Iran has been successful in promoting more moderate Iranian actions or in helping the cause of democracy and human rights. Some of the same people who criticise the United States for having engaged undemocratic forces in Iran in 1953 propose that it should today engage Iran's undemocratic rulers.
In any case, it is not apparent that containment—America's policy toward Iran—is inconsistent with engagement. For fifty years, U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union was containment but with lots of engagement. If Iran and the United States are isolated from each other, the responsibility lies with Tehran, which refuses to talk to the U.S. government and which refuses to allow U.S. officials to visit or stay in Iran. The overall conclusion is that change is coming to Iran: the revolution has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the young to the Western "cultural invasion", as Iran's leaders call it. The future of U.S.-Iranian relations depends primarily upon the outcome of the political battles in Iran. In the meantime, the United States would do best to keep up the sanctions that cut into Iran's income, thereby slowing the pace of acquisition of destabilising weapons. Iran is the classic instance in which containment is a wise policy: the government is sure to change fundamentally in the long run, and the appropriate strategy is to use pressure that impedes its ability to cause mischief in the short term. Perhaps one could make a more far-reaching claim for sanctions, namely, that the sanctions-induced economic problems in Iran contributed to the sense of malaise that led to the reformist poll victories. Whether or not that is the case, the sanctions have clearly advanced U.S. interests and should be maintained.
ENDNOTES
1. Madeleine Albright, speech to the American-Iranian Council, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington DC, 17 March 2000 [http://secretarystate-gov/www/statements/2000/000317.html].
2. President Clinton, "Address to the Nation", 8 August 1998.
3. Kiley Russell, "Conflict Surrounds Iran Pistachios", Associated Press, 17 March 2000.
4. See Seth Carus and Michael Eisenstadt, "Iran's Nuclear Weapons Programme-Status and Implications", the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch #440, 8 March 2000.
5. Robert Walpole, "Statement for the Record to the Senate Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States", 9 February 2000.
6. John Lancaster, "Iran Gives Terrorists More Aid, U.S. Says", Washington Post, 4 December 1999.
7. "Iran Condemns Syria, Arafat, and Calls to Erase Israel from 'Map of World"', Agence France Presse, 31 December 1999.
8. "Iran's Revolutionary Guards Chief Threatens to Crack Down on Liberal Dissent", Agence France Presse, 29 April 1998.
Copyright 2000 Global Dialogue
Global Dialogue
