Kings and Presidents by Bruce Riedel

Author:Bruce Riedel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Iran

Iran was the other half of Clinton’s dual containment policy. The containment of Iran appealed to the Saudis’ long-standing and deep concerns—dating to the shah’s rule—about Iran’s pursuit of regional hegemony in the Persian Gulf. But unlike Iraq, no United Nations resolutions limited Iranian ambitions and no sanctions kept Tehran under international controls. Indeed much of the world was eager to expand economic and trade relations with Iran and to sell products to Iran in exchange for oil.

Iran in the early 1990s was especially interested in buying a large number of civilian aircraft to replace aging civilian planes from the shah’s time. The European consortium Airbus and the American company Boeing were the two suppliers most likely to make such a deal. Clinton did not want to block the Boeing company from a lucrative deal, and, thus, benefit its competitors, but he also did not want Iran’s purchase of American jets to weaken his containment effort.

I proposed that Washington persuade Saudi Arabia to buy a large number of American civilian aircraft, to keep the airline business happy, while reaching a private understanding with the Saudis that we would then not compete for Iran’s business. I raised the idea with Bandar, who was enthusiastic. So was the president, and several weeks later, in 1993, Clinton sent Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and me to the Kingdom, where Fahd agreed, and the Saudis bought $6 billion worth of jets. The massive deal was formally announced (without mention of the Iran connection) in February 1994.16

On June 25, 1996, the most important U.S. military facility in the Middle East was attacked by terrorists. A large truck bomb (equivalent to 20,000 pounds of TNT) was detonated outside a barracks at the Dhahran air base, in a suburb called Khobar. The attack on the residence known as Khobar Towers killed nineteen United States Air Force personnel and wounded another 372. Several hundred Saudis and guest workers in the nearby town were also injured. Dhahran was a vital facility, home to the Operation Southern Watch aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.

At the time I was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near East and South Asia affairs and traveling in the region with Secretary of State Warren Christopher. We learned of the Khobar attack while we were in Jerusalem, and Christopher immediately decided to go to the scene of the attack. En route my boss, Secretary of Defense William Perry, instructed me to stay in Dhahran after Christopher left and wait for him to come to the region in a few days. I spent a week in Dhahran living in the consulate residence and working with the embassy and U.S. Air Force on the aftermath of the bombing.

Prince Bandar arrived on the scene shortly, as well. I met with him at the palace of the governor of the Eastern Province. Bandar said the Saudis were still developing information on the attack, but he clearly pointed a finger at Iran as responsible for the operation.

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