Australia's Relations with Iran and the Australia-US Alliance

294 Pages·2016·30.73 MB·English

Australia's Relations with Iran
and the Australia-US Alliance,
1979-2005
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
of The Australian National University
Richard J. Scrivener
April 2010
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV
ABSTRACT V
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS VI
INTRODUCTION 1
Issue Areas, Linkage and Non-Linkage 4
Methodology 11
Thesis Structure 12
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK:
FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS AND DOMESTIC POLITICS 16
The Study of Domestic Politics in Foreign Policy Analysis 18
Executive and Parliamentary Interests and Special Interest Groups 21
Executive Interests and Bureaucratic Politics 34
An Explanation for Non-Linkage in Australian Foreign Policy 41
AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS
AND US UNILATERAL SANCTIONS 44
Australian Foreign Policy Interests 44
The Austra/ia-US Alliance 45
Agricultural Interest Groups and their Parliamentary Representatives 50
Australian Trade Policy and the Trade Bureaucracy 59
US Sanctions Against Iran and their Impact on US Allies 65
Motivations for US Sanctions Policy 66
Iran\ Terrorism, and US Sanctions 69
The Impact of Sanctions on US Allies 83
Conclusion 88
THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AND US SANCTIONS:
THE 'CONTESTED CIRCUMSTANCE' OF NON-LINKAGE 90
Fraser and the US Alliance 91
Australian Trade Interests in Iran 95
Australian Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 101
Australian Responses to US Sanctions Against Iran, 1980 109
Conclusion 117
DEFLECTING US EXTRA-TERRITORIAL SANCTIONS:
THE UNITY CIRCUMSTANCE' OF NON-LINKAGE 119
The Hawke/Keating Governments and the US Alliance 121
Expanding Relations with Iran: 1985 to 1996 129
Australian Responses to US Sanctions Against Iran 143
Conclusion 158
SIGNING UP TO WASHINGTON'S WAR ON TERROR:
AN UNBALANCED 'CONTESTED CIRCUMSTANCE' 160
The Howard Government and the US Alliance 162
Australian Relations with Iran: 1996 to 2001 170
Australian Relations with Iran after 9/11 188
Conclusion 203
CONCLUSION 205
Explaining Non-Linkage 206
Case Study Evidence 208
Themes of Foreign Policy Analysis in the Australian Context 213
Issue Areas and Foreign Policy Analysis 217
BIBLIOGRAPHY 220
Government Publications and Public Documents 220
Newspapers, News Magazines and News Agencies 228
Interviews 229
Books and Book Chapters 232
Articles and Conference Papers 275
Theses 287
ii
I certify that the substance of this thesis has not already been submitted for any
degree and is not currently being submitted for any other degree or qualification.
I certify that any help received, and all sources used, in the preparation of this thesis
have been acknowledged and cited.
Richard 3. Scrivener
April 2010
iii
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank everyone at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies at the Australian
National University for the resources and support made available to me, and for their
friendship. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Professor James Piscatori, for
his guidance and encouragement and to the Director of the Centre for Arab & Islamic
Studies, Professor Amin Saikal. I am also grateful to Dr Matthew Gray and Professor
Stuart Harris for their advice on early drafts of the thesis.
Fieldwork for this thesis could not have been undertaken without the generous
financial assistance of the following organisations: The Faculty of Arts, Australian
National University, The Vice Chancellor's Office, Australian National University, and the
Australian Department of Education, Science and Training, Endeavour Research
Fellowship Program.
In Tehran I wish to thank the Institute for Political and International Studies at the
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for supporting my two research visits to Iran, and in
particular Saeed Khatibzadeh and Nabi Sonboli, who provided invaluable guidance with
respect to Iranian research materials.
iv
Abstract
Australia has been a close ally of the US for over five decades. Strategic alignment with
Washington has been, and remains, a central tenet of Australian strategic thinking and
the US alliance continues to sen/e as an ideational framework for the formulation of
Australian foreign policy. In contrast, Australia's relations with Iran since the 1979
Iranian Revolution have been at the lower end of the scale of importance, and based
principally upon a trade relationship that has been dominated by the export of
Australian agricultural commodities. Considered together, these two very different
international relationships present an interesting problem, on two levels, for the study
of Australian foreign policy.
First, the extreme animosity between Washington and Tehran highlights a particular
problem for Australian foreign policy—how to manage a potential clash of interests
with a superpower ally. Second, the Australia-Iran relationship has been dominated by
trade interests, while Canberra's interests in supporting the US alliance are
predominantly strategic. Thus, the foreign policy challenges that have at times arisen
because of Australia's relations with Iran in the context of the US alliance reflect the
problem of balancing trade and strategic interests in Australian foreign policy.
For most of the period between 1979 and 2005 Australia has managed these two
relationships through a policy of non-linkage between strategic and international trade
interests. This thesis presents an analytical framework that explains Australian policies
of non-linkage in terms of the impact of domestic political dynamics on the foreign
policy formulation process. The framework employs the concept of an issue area to
analyse how domestic political and economic interests coalesce around specific foreign
policy concerns, and demonstrates that the interaction between interests associated
with strategic and international trade issue areas has determined whether Australia
pursues policies of linkage or non-linkage with respect to its relations with Iran and the
US.
This thesis contributes to the study of Australian foreign policy by offering a
framework that: 1) organises the plurality of foreign policy interests in the domestic
political domain into issue areas, 2) explains the domestic political dynamics that
determine the capacity of each issue area to shape the formulation of foreign policy
within Cabinet. It contributes to the broader field of Foreign Policy Analysis by
demonstrating that the application of issue area analysis provides new perspectives on,
and insights into, the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission
AFAR Australian Foreign Affairs Record
AFR Australian Financial Revue
AGE The Age
ALP Australian Labor Party
ANZUS Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand
and the United States of America
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
AUSFTA Australia United States Free Trade Agreement
AWB Australian Wheat Board
BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Company
CD United Nations Conference on Disarmament
CDT Clearance Diving Team
CWRI Chemical Weapons Regional Initiative
CWC Chemical Weapons Convention
DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia
EEC European Economic Community
EEP Export Enhancement Program
FTA Free Trade Agreement
GDN The Guardian
Hansard Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates Official Hansard
HoR House of Representatives, Australian Parliament.
ILSA The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, 1996
NCP National Country Party of Australia
NPA National Party of Australia
NPT Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
NYT The New York Times
SMH The Sydney Morning Herald
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
US The United States of America
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WP The Washington Post
WSJ The Wall Street Journal
Introduction
Introduction
Australia's alliance with the United States, formalised in the 1951 ANZUS treaty, has
been a central tenet of Australian strategic thinking and security policy for more than
five decades.1 Every Australian Government since 1951, regardless of political party,
has affirmed its commitment to the alliance relationship. Political leaders, journalists
and academics have on many occasions championed Australia as Washington's most
loyal ally and closest friend.2 The extensive literature on Australian-US relations
testifies to the pre-eminence of this bilateral relationship in Australia's international
relations. Canberra maintains a vital interest in supporting the US alliance. By contrast,
Australia's relationship with Iran has been of minor significance and is relatively young.
It has been dominated by trade in agricultural commodities which began in 1979,
following the US exit from Iranian markets as a result of the Islamic Revolution.
Australian interests in Iran have remained largely focused on the trade relationship,
although there have been a few significant developments in political relations. Not
surprisingly, this bilateral relationship has received almost no academic attention.
Although these two relationships are at opposite ends of the spectrum of Australia's
international relations and seem at first to have little in common, when considered
together they present an interesting problem for the study of Australian foreign policy.
Iran and the US are bitter adversaries. Relations between the two states since the
Iranian Revolution have been characterised by enmity, mistrust and misunderstanding.
Washington and Tehran have exchanged hostile rhetoric unceasingly, and have
occasionally clashed in open conflict. Washington has expended considerable
diplomatic resources in trying to isolate Tehran internationally, and has imposed more
unilateral sanctions against Iran than any other state except Cuba. US allies have been
pressured on many occasions to support these sanctions, either through the imposition
of complementary sanctions or through more general measures that endorse US policy
against Iran. Nonetheless, Australia has successfully maintained a profitable trade
1 The "Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America"
(ANZUS) is commonly referred to by its acronym.
2 See, for example, Peter Edwards and William T. Tow, "ANZUS After 50 Years," Australian
Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 2 (2001). pp. 167-174. Edwards and Tow observe
that "loyalty to the alliance ... became the price of Australian access to the benefits that
Washington could bestow, and it remains a central feature of Australia's contemporary
appeal to American policy-makers." p. 169.
1
Introduction
relationship with Iran on the one hand, and a close strategic and political alliance with
the US on the other. Canberra has remained committed to the US alliance, and
frequently worked to develop and strengthen it, while pursuing trade relations with one
of Washington's most inveterate enemies. This is the puzzle addressed by the present
study: how has Australia managed the potential clash of interests inherent in these two
international relationships, and why has Canberra sometimes supported aspects of US
policy on Iran and at other times rejected them?
To describe Australia's relations with Iran in the context of the Australia-US alliance
as a puzzle is not to suggest that disagreement between allies on specific issues is
aberrant or unusual. The literature on international alliances does not suggest that
allies will align their foreign policies on all issues. Disagreement between allies over
bilateral trade is common, and divergence in policies towards a third country is more
likely to occur. However, the unexceptional nature of relations between allies does not
preclude attempts to try to understand them more clearly. By examining in detail the
manner in which Canberra has balanced its relations with Iran and the US we can
develop a more detailed understanding of the processes and dynamics that
characterise the formulation of Australian foreign policy, and perhaps gain insights into
how Australia might respond to tensions arising from its foreign policies towards other
states with which Washington has troubled relations.
This thesis conceptualises the nexus of Australia's relations with Iran and the US as
the interaction between two foreign policy issue areas. The first encapsulates
Australian strategic interests, and the second encapsulates Australian international
trade interests. The present study, therefore, is an investigation of the interaction
between strategic and trade interests in Australian foreign policy as much as it is a
study of the interaction between Australia's relations with two states. More will be said
about the concept of an issue area as it used in the study of foreign policy in the next
section.
The starting point for the argument developed in this thesis is the observation that
Australia has balanced its trade relationship with Iran and its strategic alliance with the
US through a policy of non-linkage between strategic and international trade issue
areas. The concept of non-linkage has not been widely employed in the foreign policy
analysis literature, and its use in the present study requires some clarification. Non­
linkage is, self evidently, the opposite of linkage, and it is used here to indicate a
deliberate policy of avoiding linkage between issue areas in a state's foreign policy.
More will be said shortly about how the term 'linkage' has been defined and employed
2
Introduction
in the literature on foreign policy and international relations, but for the present study
the term is used to describe a deliberate policy of creating dependencies between
foreign policy issues in order to obtain a preferred outcome on one issue. A common
example of this sort of linkage, and one with which the case studies of this thesis are
concerned, is the imposition of trade sanctions with a view to changing a state's
strategic behaviour. The concept of non-linkage is used in the present study to
describe a deliberate policy of resisting or avoiding pressure to create linkages between
strategic and international trade issue areas with a view to securing a preferred
strategic outcome.
In the case studies examined here the pressure towards linkage arises from the
imposition, or the threat of imposition, of US unilateral sanctions against Iran. These
sanctions have become increasing comprehensive since 1984, and from 1996 have
included provisions for the extra-territorial application of US law against non-US
companies in breach of the sanctions. However, pressure to comply with these
sanctions has arisen not only externally, through requests from Washington or extra­
territorial application, but also internally, through the determination of some domestic
political actors to position Australia as a loyal ally of the US. The interest in being, and
being seen to be, a loyal ally is the primary Australian strategic interest examined in
the case studies of this thesis. Chapter 2 discusses in detail US unilateral sanctions
against Iran, examining the motivation for their imposition and the nature of US efforts
to secure compliance from US allies.
Given that Australia manages the tensions inherent in its relations with Iran and the
US through a policy of non-linkage, the primary task is to present a plausible and
consistent explanation of how this policy position has been reached. The explanation
proposed here is that configurations of interests within the domestic political arena,
and the political processes through which conflicts that may arise between them are
resolved, have determined whether Australia has adopted a policy of linkage or non­
linkage between strategic and trade issue areas. There are three possible paths
towards a foreign policy decision in these circumstances: there may be consensus
towards a policy of non-linkage, consensus towards a policy of linkage, or
disagreement as to the appropriate policy resulting in a contested decision making
process from which the outcome will be determined by the political strength of each
group involved. The case studies examined here demonstrate the first and third paths.
At times there has been consensus between strategic and trade interests that Australia
should reject linkage in support of US policy against Iran. At other times there has
3