Taking Iran Down a Notch
The Bush administration says Tehran is getting too cocky, but the broad U.S. pushback carries big risks
U.S. officials call Iran complicit in the killing of American soldiers by providing weapons and training to Shiite militias. Military officers cite Iran as the source of a powerful form of roadside bomb: the "explosively formed projectiles" that penetrate even armored humvees. Iran denies arming militias. One U.S. hope is that taking out Iranian operatives and intercepting supplies will create leverage with Tehran—bargaining chips if the White House opts for talks with Iran about Iraq. "So we need to do things they want us to stop," explains a senior U.S. official, who says the aim is "to reset the relationship with Iran."
There are also military moves outside of Iraq. Bush has approved the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier, the USS John Stennis, and its battle group to the Persian Gulf, as well as the deployment of more Patriot antimissile batteries to allied Arab states across the gulf from Iran. That will boost U.S. firepower in the region and, officials say, reassure friends anxious over Iran's attempts to extend its influence.
Elsewhere, the administration has been supporting both the rearming of Lebanon's Army as a bulwark against Hezbollah and weapons shipments to the Palestinian Fatah movement loyal to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, who is locked in a sporadically violent political confrontation with Iranian-backed Hamas. U.S. officials plan to fund democratic reformers in Syria opposed to President Bashar Assad, an Iranian ally. In Afghanistan, the United States. has stepped up monitoring of Iranian moves to gain sway with tribal leaders.
In diplomacy, Washington is promoting what amounts to an anti-Iranian grouping of the Gulf Cooperation Council nations, Jordan, and Egypt. The group met last week in Kuwait as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice barnstormed across the region. Rice is talking up a "new alignment" in the Mideast: pro-U.S. reformers and moderates pitted against Iranian-backed militants bent on destabilizing the former.
On the nuclear front, Washington is attempting to keep the heat on Iran for its refusal to stop nuclear fuel-making activities, as demanded in a hard-won but limited United Nations Security Council sanctions resolution adopted just before Christmas. Burns tells U.S. News that Iran is expected to proceed "full bore," accelerating uranium enrichment work at its Natanz facility within the next 30 days. American officials already assume that harsher penalties will be needed, despite opposition in the Security Council.
Washington is also attempting to build economic pressure on Iran well beyond the U.N. sanctions. The Treasury Department has slapped U.S. sanctions on Bank Sepah, an Iranian institution said to handle financing for Iran's missile trade. More broadly, officials have been traveling the world, urging European and Asian banks, as well as oil and gas companies, to cut their ties with Iran. Last week, Burns lobbied senior officials visiting Washington from four major European countries to consider suspending export credits to Iran and to come out against Russia's arms sales to Iran.
The more aggressive administration strategy could alienate some of the countries that have, with varying degrees of reluctance, supported the first, modest set of penalties on Iran. Some of the European allies want to focus on implementing those sanctions before embracing other pressure steps. And Russia, in particular, is inclined to view the U.S. squeeze as unjustified. The administration, says a senior Russian official, "sees [the resolution] as a good pretext to raise pressure." He adds, "There is no good faith."
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