US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: The Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance

269 Pages·2013·2.43 MB·English

by  Christian Emery (auth.)

US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution
US Foreign Policy and the
Iranian Revolution
The Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and
Strategic Alliance
Christian Emery
LecturerinInternationalRelations,SchoolofGovernment,UniversityofPlymouth,UK
©ChristianEmery2013
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To my parents, Nick and Janet, and partner, Anna
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Part I TheOriginsofEngagement
1 TheCollapseofUSPolicy1977–1979 29
2 FramingtheRevolutionasaColdWarCrisis 46
3 US–IranianEliteInteractionsandthePathologiesof
Engagement 71
Part II TheDynamicsofEngagement
4 PuttingEngagementintoPractice 93
5 TheCIAandEngagement 119
Part III EngagementHeldHostage
6 Re-evaluatingUSPolicyaftertheHostageCrisis 133
7 ViewingAfghanistanthroughthePrismofIran 154
8 USPolicyandtheIran–IraqWar1980–1981 173
Conclusion 191
Appendix 202
Notes 204
Interviews 238
ListofDocuments 239
Bibliography 248
Index 262
vii
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Professor Scott Lucas. It was truly a life-changing event
when I walked into Scott’s US foreign policy class as a final-year under-
graduatestudentatBirminghamin2002.Duringmyjourneyfromgraduate
studenttoearlycareeracademic,Ihavebeenincrediblyluckytoworkwith
some fantastic colleagues. Dr Steve Hewitt has been a friend and supporter
eversincehetrustedmetocoverhisteachingbackin2007.ProfessorsBen
RosamondandKimHutchingshavebeensupportiveandinspirationalheads
ofdepartmentatWarwickUniversityandtheLondonSchoolofEconomics
(LSE), respectively. I spent three wonderful years at the LSE and extend my
sincere thanks to all those colleagues and students who offered invaluable
feedback during research seminars, classes, or over a drink at the George.
ImustsingleoutDrTobyDodge,whohasbeenamentor,soundingboard,
and true friend. Special thanks also to Dr Roham Alvandi and Dr Bryan
GibsonforsharingtheirfriendshipandexpertiseinUS–Iranianrelations.
This project has frequently taken me to the US, including an unforget-
table summer as a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia (UVA). It is
withregretthatspacedoesnotpermitmetoextendmypersonalthanksto
themanyacademicsandformerpractitionersintheUSwhoweregenerous
withtheirtime.Nevertheless,IwouldliketospecificallythankAmbassador
NathanielHowell,whonotonlysponsoredmeasavisitingscholaratUVA,
but was generous enough to offer his own personal insights from his time
in government. I must also thank Malcolm Byrne at the National Security
ArchiveandallthestaffattheJimmyCarterLibrary.Ihavebenefittedenor-
mously from the wisdom of many distinguished individuals, but it goes
withoutsayingthatallerrorsoffactandjudgementremainmyown.
Withoutthesupportofmyfriendsandfamily,thisbookwouldhavebeen
a far more painful undertaking. I thank my sisters, Catherine and Fiona,
for their love and encouragement. This book is dedicated to my wonderful
parents, Nick and Janet, as a small token of thanks for their support and
unstintingbeliefinme.Thebookisjointlydedicatedtomypartner,Anna.
Withoutherlove,emotionalsupport,andpatience,thisbookwouldsimply
nothavehappened.Thankyouforeverything.
viii
Introduction
America’spost-revolutionaryrelationswithIranwerebornintheaftermath
ofaheavysnowstorminWashington.AsmembersoftheCarteradministra-
tionbattledthebittercoldandsnow-coveredstreetstoreachtheirdeskson
11February1979,theystruggledtoabsorbthemorning’snews:Iran’ssenior
generals had abandoned the Shah’s last Prime Minister, Shapour Bakhtiar,
and ordered their troops to return to barracks to avoid more bloodshed.
AsmallnumberoftheShah’seliteImperialGuardmountedadesperatelast
stand, but most had either switched sides or disappeared. Bakhtiar, accept-
ing the inevitable, had submitted his resignation to Mehdi Bazargan, the
mandesignatedbytheRevolution’sunassailableleader,AyatollahRuhollah
Khomeini, to be the first Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran.1
Inaradioandtelevisionaddress,Bazarganappealedforcalmandpraisedthe
army’ssupportforthe‘willofthepeople’.2Historyhadbeenmade;arevolu-
tionledbya76-year-oldclericespousingarelativelyobscureinterpretation
of Shia political Islam had succeeded in dislodging one of Washington’s
most powerful and loyal allies in the Middle East. It now posed one of the
gravest challenges to post-war US foreign policy. At a stroke, Washington
had lost its principal bulwark to Soviet expansionism in the Northern Tier,
its largest customer for sophisticated weaponry, and intelligence facilities
vitalformonitoringSovietmissiletestinginCentralAsia.
Onceapathhadbeenclearedthroughthesnow,seniorUSpolicy-makers
assembledintheWhiteHouseSituationRoomtodigestthiscalamity.With
Carter’s political opponents already lambasting his government’s failure to
protect the Shah, it was agreed that Iran was too important to ignore and
that America must rebuild some kind of connection with whatever regime
emerged there.3 Soon after, President Carter told reporters that his govern-
ment accepted the Revolution and was already in close consultation with
the new Iranian leadership and hoped for ‘a very productive and peaceful
cooperation’.4
Behindthesediplomaticnicetieslayanuncomfortablereality:theresim-
ply was no plan for a post-Shah Iran. For 25 years the US had taken
1
2 USForeignPolicyandtheIranianRevolution
for granted Iran’s status as an ally and semi-client state. As noted by
formerUSdiplomatJohnLimbert,‘DespitemisgivingsaboutPahlavirepres-
sion, corruption, economic mismanagement, and brutality, for official
WashingtontheShahremainedthelynchpinofAmerica’santi-Sovietefforts
in theMiddle East.’5 Althoughsome low-levelanalysts had longwarnedof
a crisis looming in Iran, Carter’s senior foreign policy advisors, distracted
bywhattheyconsideredtobemorepressingforeignpolicyinitiatives,had
resistedanyseriousrethinkingofUSpolicyinIran.Nowtheyhadnochoice
buttoadjusttoacompletelynewrealityinIran.
Thecentralobjectiveofthisbookistoexaminethenatureandlegacyof
thatadjustment.Itfirstexamineshowaplantoengagethenewregimewas
developedandimplemented.ItthenexamineshowUSpolicyobjectivesin
Iranwererefashionedinlightofthreemajorandconvergingcrises:theIran
hostage crisis, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and the onset of the
Iran–Iraq War. By re-examining the Carter administration’s record in post-
revolutionary Iran, it provides a fresh perspective on the origins of one of
themostbitterandenduringconfrontationsininternationalrelations.
America’sacceptanceoftheRevolution:Contestednarratives
When Carter declared his acceptance of the Revolution on 11 February, he
hadnosensethatUS–Iranianrelationswouldnotonlytransformhispresi-
dentiallegacy,butchallengeeverypresidentwhosubsequentlyenteredthe
White House. Nearly 35 years later, the confrontation between the US and
Iranhasbecomesoideologicallyentrenchedanddomesticallyvitriolicthat
it is easy to lose sight of the importance the US placed on reaching an
accommodation with the nascent Islamic Republic. The view is far more
obscuredwithinthecirclesofpowerinIran.NearlyallofIran’sseniorlead-
ershavestatedtheirbeliefthatAmericanpolicy-makersneveracceptedthe
Revolution and immediately set about destabilising the new revolutionary
government.6MorecriticallyforcontemporaryUS–Iranianrelations,current
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei maintains that America’s conspir-
acy to undermine the Islamic Republic began as soon as the Revolution
succeeded.7 In 2008, for example, Iran’s highest-ranking political and reli-
giousleadertoldanaudiencethat‘therehasn’tbeenadayinwhichAmerica
hashadgoodintentionstowardIran’.8
Inoneimportantsense,theanalysispresentedinthisbookprovidesavital
correctivetoKhamenei’snarrativeofAmericanmotivesinIran.Itshowsthat
there was no immediate conspiracy to undermine the Revolution. On the
contrary, the Carter administration tried persistently, and in good faith, to
rebuildrelationswiththenewregime.Goodfaithwasnotenough,however,
andthisbookhighlightsanumberoffactorsthatunderminedWashington’s
attempt to demonstrate its acceptance of the Revolution. Any chance of a
rapprochement, at least in the short term, was ruled out when Iran’s first
Introduction 3
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, refused to intervene when
militant revolutionaries overran the US embassy in Tehran and held 53
Americanshostagefor444days.
This cataclysmic event in contemporary US–Iranian relations, beginning
9 months after the Revolution succeeded, was not planned or executed by
anyone with significant political authority in Tehran. Nor does it appear
that the militants who seized the embassy had much in the way of a long-
termstrategy.True,Khomeini’sprolongingofthecrisiswasasemi-calculated
decisionaimedtoconsolidatehisvisionofanIslamicRepublic.Yeteventhis
piece of political opportunism was ad hoc and eventually subsumed by a
political process that was itself fluid and chaotic. As yet, nobody has been
able to convincingly demonstrate that Khomeini had anything other than
vaguenotionsofwhathehopedthecrisiswouldachieve.
Whilst there is little evidence of a tightly choreographed plan, there
has been a remarkably consistent justification for attacking the embassy
in the first place. It is often assumed to have been a response to the deci-
sion to allow the Shah to enter the US for medical treatment. Indeed,
it has been widely acknowledged that US embassy officials had predicted
that they would come under attack should Carter decide to let in the
Shah. Yet this act of purported provocation did not exist in a vacuum.
The young Iranians who climbed the wall and overpowered the small
Marinedetachmentguardingtheembassywerenotjustengaginginanact
of emotional revolutionary catharsis targeted on the symbol of America’s
presence in Iran. Nor was dubbing the embassy the ‘Den of Spies’ simply
a rhetorical flourish. Those participating had convinced themselves that
it was justified as a defensive action vital for consolidating the Revolu-
tion.Theembassy reallywas consideredthe base for counter-revolutionary
conspiracies.
Despite the irreparable damage the hostage crisis has inflicted on Iran’s
international standing, this remains the state-sanctioned version of events
and a pillar of Iran’s revolutionary identity. During one sermon at Fri-
day prayers in 1998, Khamenei told his audience: ‘From the beginning of
the Islamic Revolution, they made the embassy a place for planning con-
spiracies, and these activities led the students to attack and take over the
embassy.’9 Despite several prominent Iranian politicians having expressed
regret for the hostage crisis, including many of the students who led the
attack, its essentially defensive nature remains the narrative presented by
thestateinschoolbooksandduringperiodsofcollectiveremembrance.
This book confirms that this claim is baseless. American diplomats were
in fact rebuffing exiled Iranian groups seeking US assistance to destabilise
the revolutionary government. Rather than conspiring to bring down the
Iraniangovernment,thedocumentaryrecordindicatesthatUSofficialsfret-
tedoverIran’sfragilityandsawitsdestabilisationasthemostlikelyprecursor
toSovietadventurisminthePersianGulf.EvenastheCarteradministration