Trying to stop the two nations from acting ‘like kids.’
By: Jeff Milgram
In a cramped but neat office off Nassau Street, Hooshang Amirahmadi explains why the United States cannot ignore Iran.
Iran, Dr. Amirahmadi says, is situated between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, an area that contains 75 percent of the world’s energy resources and has the fourth-largest reserve of oil and the second-largest reserve of natural gas.
And of the 65 million people who live in Iran, Dr. Amirahmadi says, 45 million are under 30 years old and want to know about democracy and human rights and want to be part of the global community and friends with America.
"You can’t ignore a country like that," said Dr. Amirahmadi, professor of international development at Rutgers University and the president of the American Iranian Council.
He also adds some other statistics: There are 1.2 million Iranians in America, mostly in Los Angeles and Washington, and more than 75 percent of them have college educations.
Born in Iran, Dr. Amirahmadi came to this country in 1975 and received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Cornell. He joined the faculty at Rutgers in 1983 and has served as director of its Middle East Program. Dr. Amirahmadi freely acknowledges that his work at Rutgers is his day job and the council, formed in 1997 and based on Nassau Street, is "my public service … and I believe it’s a great public service."
The council, through programs it organizes itself or those it co-sponsors with other groups, hopes to bring together the people of both countries – two former friends who no longer speak to each other officially.
It has a small staff, and a small, but high-powered corps of members including former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
"We’re involved in education and peacemaking," Dr. Amirahmadi said.
The council has no affiliation with either the United States or Iranian governments and does not engage in lobbying.
But in some circles, Dr. Amirahmadi is considered a threat. A recent front page photo in a right-wing Iranian newspaper showed Dr. Amirahmadi with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. The caption described Mr. Amirahmadi as a spy.
"We’re not out there to get a congressman to write for or against legislation," Dr. Amirahmadi said. "We tell congressmen, presidents, secretaries of state what we think."
And what Dr. Amirahmadi thinks is that the U.S. and Iran are acting "like kids" who can’t get along without bickering and name-calling.
He doesn’t think the U.S. will become friends with Iran, and he doesn’t necessarily desire that.
"We don’t want U.S.-Iranian relations to be friendly. We want the relationship to be normal," Dr. Amirahmadi says. "The new generation (in Iran) is for a logical, normal relationship."
There are grievances on both sides. The Iranians cannot forget American involvement in the 1953 coup that ousted the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and restored Shah Reza Pahlavi to the throne.
The U.S. then helped build up the Iranian military and provided assistance and training for the Shah’s hated secret police, SAVAK.
The Shah was overthrown in 1979 and a fundamentalist Muslim revolutionary regime was installed. After the Shah was permitted to enter the U.S. for cancer treatment, Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking hostage 52 American diplomats and holding them for 444 days.
The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations.
Dr. Amirahmadi said both sides must not be held hostage to the past. And, in fact, there is evidence that the two countries are beginning to let go of the past. At a council conference in Washington in March, Ms. Albright said the 1953 coup was "regrettable." And Iran’s President Khatami has said Iran regrets the hostage-taking.
On Aug. 30, the council will help host a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in honor of Mehdi Karoubi, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, and other visiting Iranian legislators.
Dr. Amirahmadi said both countries must come to an understanding. Iran must accept the fact that "America is what America is. It’s a global player. And America will have to accept … that Iran is not Kuwait. Iran has almost 3,000 years of civilization … It was never colonized. It could never have been colonized," Dr. Amirahmadi said.
He said the older generation in Iran is still bitter about their country’s treatment by the U.S. And that the older generation of American diplomats have a better understanding of Iran than the baby boomers who came into prominence after diplomatic relations were severed.
Dr. Amirahmadi said 80 to 85 percent of Americans polled want the U.S. to have some kind of relations with Iran.
"The average Iranian, the average politicians in Tehran is for … building understanding, improved relations," he added.
But he acknowledged there are people in both countries who are against the restoration of diplomatic relations. And, he said, there are people in Europe who are against U.S.-Iranian ties because it would mean a loss of business for them.
"I’m a hopeful guy," Dr. Amirahmadi said. "The road is very bumpy but I think the direction is set right for normalization, sooner or later. I think it will be sooner."