Bad Times for Iranian-Americans in Iran
Rice herself, however, said of the pattern of arrests: "It just shows again what kind of regime this is."
The Bush administration has asked two unnamed countries with diplomatic relations with Tehran to urge the Iranians to release the Americans, U.S. News has learned. The efforts of those two come in addition to those of Switzerland, whose embassy in Tehran houses a U.S. interests section.
Some analysts are concerned that the Americans are being held to create bargaining chips for five Iranian officials who were captured by the U.S. military in Iraq. Those five are accused of serving in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and assisting militias that are attacking U.S. troops with explosives and other weapons. Another theory is that hard-line officials in Iran's security agencies, watching the heavy U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf and U.S. efforts to target alleged Iranian supply networks for Iraqi militias, are responding with their own pressure tactics. Washington is embarking on another round of lobbying at the United Nations Security Council for deeper sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop making nuclear fuel, which the West fears will find its way to nuclear weapons.
Iranian elites, goes the thinking, are nervous that their society, with U.S. help, could turn on them. "It [Iran's government] thinks that a 67-year-old grandmother [Esfandiari] is going to bring down the regime," says Patrick Clawson, deputy director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
A third line of speculation on the Iranian arrests is that they reflect a struggle for influence between hard-liners and moderates, who favor direct talks with the United States about Iraq and Iran's nuclear program.
U.S. officials are puzzling over Iranian motives. "It's difficult to divine the thinking behind Iranian actions sometimes," says the State Department official. "The United States has always been the third rail of Iranian politics since the revolution."
advertisement
