November 23, 2000
By Dariush Sajjadi
Most Iranians who immigrated to the US after the 1979 Islamic Revolution are financially well-heeled and academically top-notch, features that could make Iranian Americans influential. But the Iranians’ historic individualism has seriously blocked them from acting as a convergent group and thus prevented them from serving as a powerful US lobby bent on fostering their motherland’s national interests.
This feature has been further ingrained in the post Islamic Revolution era through the Iranian government’s paranoid outlook toward Iranians abroad and through the expatriate Iranians’ deep-seated distrust of Iranian officialdom, a distrust that has prompted them to equate "opposition with the Islamic Republic" with intellectualism.
Mohammad Khatami’s sweeping 1997 presidential victory, his popular mandate, and his motto of "Iran for all Iranians" somewhat assuaged the hostility between Tehran and Iranian expatriates, but there is still a long way to go to root out this animosity. As such, the Khatami administration has not as yet been able to mobilize the US-based Iranians as a lobby that would foster the interests of the reformist camp.
Also both Iran and the US seem to be very poorly informed of each other’s political developments due to the two-decade long severance of diplomatic ties. Over these twenty years, individuals and organizations have endeavored to serve as the sole authority to bridge the Tehran-Washington gap by way of disseminating information and mediating between the two sides. But their incompetence and lack of sound information on Iran’s politics have robbed them of the chance to offer a reliable analysis of Iranian developments to the Americans or to the expatriate Iranians living in the US.
In the absence of other competent sources and bodies, the White House and some Iranian politicians have deemed the American-Iranian Council (AIC) as the only US-based organization fostering Tehran-Washington rapprochement, thanks to Dr. Hooshang Amir Ahmadi.
Amir Ahmadi’s close contact with American politicians has been used as a vehicle to lure the Iranian statesmen into believing that he is the only person in the US who can assist the betterment of Tehran-Washington ties.
This unique standing enabled Amir Ahmadi to approach the Iranian conservatives during the final years of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency and to get an implicit green light from them to serve as Iran’s unofficial representative in the process of US-Iran rapprochement.
Amir Ahmadi’s tendency toward the Iranian conservatives stemmed from predictions verging on certainty that the conservative candidate Nateq Nouri would win Iran’s 1997 presidential elections. Amir Ahmadi thus put all his eggs in the conservatives’ basket.
Nateq Nouri’s unexpected defeat, however, was such a shocker for Iran’s political circles that it kept the Iranian conservatives in a prolonged state of confusion and also prompted Amir Ahmadi to keep a low profile for some time.
But the realism associated with politics gave this Rutgers University professor the chance to re-emerge after this short span of time and strive to translate the AIC goals into action. This time, however, Amir Ahmadi approached the Iranian reformists who had just come to the helm.
Amir Ahmadi, who has always tried to convince the Americans that he is a close associate and friend of the Iranian government administrators and reformists, initially attempted to pose as a reformist before the Iranians. To this end, in an interview with the Washington-based Iranian and in other circles, he claimed to have mooted the idea of "civil society" in Iran long before President Khatami ever set it forth.
In his attempt to pose as a reformist, Amir Ahmadi went so far to attribute the termination of the Iran-Iraq war and acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 598 to himself, noting that Iranian officials heeded his diplomatic views that benefited the country.
Amir Ahmadi’s new round of political efforts in the US coincided with the right-wing Tehran-based Kayhan daily’s publication of inane disclosures which, ironically, served to boost his credibility and fame in the US.
Such coincidence granted Amir Ahmadi the golden opportunity to use the right-wing paper’s disclosures to prove to the American diplomatic circles that he was close to Khatami’s reformist camp and was thus being criticized by the right-wingers.
Amir Ahmadi’s political efforts over the three years of Khatami’s tenure reached an apex when he brought US Secretary of State Madeline Albright to the AIC podium at a March 2000 Washington meeting to admit that the US administration was involved in the 1953 coup against Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq’s government and to implicitly apologize to the Iranians.
Though a big success on first glance, this move was very risky for Amir Ahmadi who had, through overt or covert reasoning, convinced the US statesmen that this admission would facilitate Iran-US rapprochement. After the speech was made, Amir Ahmadi faced the American statesmen’s heightened demands and expectations for betterment of Tehran-Washington relations.
The US believed it was high time for Iran to take the second step after Washington’s confession and apology and thus expected Amir Ahmadi to prompt the Iranian authorities to take this step, given his claims of closeness with Iranian officialdom.
Amir Ahmadi felt that Albright’s speech was so moving and luring for Tehran that even in the worst case he would reap huge benefit from it, the least of which would be recognition of his unique role in Iran-US rapprochement.
Though Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei immediately delivered a biting speech in reply to Albright, Amir Ahmadi did not take the speech to signify the failure of his efforts.
From then on, Amir Ahmadi zoomed in on the reformist camp. But contrary to his expectation, Amir Ahmadi was cold-shouldered by both President Khatami and Parliament Speaker Mahdi Karrubi during their separate visits to New York this summer for UN conferences. This development disillusioned the Americans who realized that Amir Ahmadi could not exert any influence on Iranian officials.
Amir Ahmadi felt that Iranian authorities were so grateful to him for his successful attempt to get the US to admit to orchestrating the 1953 coup that they would at least hold private meetings with him and hear him out. Actually, Amir Ahmadi had always claimed in private meetings that he was on friendly terms and in cordial association with Iranian reformists, boasting to the Americans of his influence over Iranian decision-makers.
The question currently at point is whether Amir Ahmadi considers himself as an asset that has "gone with the wind", now that he has lost his charm for the Americans? Perhaps he would postpone any reply to this question to the near future, when the new US and Iranian presidents take office and settle the question of Tehran-Washington relations.
Amir Ahmadi’s success or defeat will, nevertheless, have no impact on the Iranian government’s deprivation of Iranian expatriates’ lobbying power in the US. The major question which the Islamic Republic of Iran poses prior to stepping in the way of improved relations with the US is whether it can cherish any hope on the Iranian Americans as a powerful lobby?
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