Iran The Politics of Humanitarianism

When Iran’s leaders said they would accept relief assistance from any source after the mighty earthquake that bulldozed the nation’s northwest provinces two weeks ago, they were careful to stipulate two exceptions: Israel and South Africa. It did not occur to them to tag on a third — the writer Salman Rushdie. And so Tehran last week faced the choice of spurning an $8,700 donation or accepting money from a man sentenced to die by the Ayatullah Khomeini for the alleged blasphemies in his book The Satanic Verses.

By week’s end Iran had not said which way it would go on the offer. But Rushdie’s contribution put into sharp focus the contorted politics of giving and receiving aid in a case like Iran’s. Moved by the awesome scale of the destruction — the death toll was put at 40,000, making the temblor one of the worst in this century — even the country’s most bitter foes have held out a friendly hand. Up to a point, Iran has been a gracious recipient, raising speculation that this momentary congruence of urgent need with the outpouring of global support could yank the renegade Islamic republic back into the orbit of nations. But at this stage, the hopes remain just that.

So far, some 171 foreign aircraft from 86 countries have landed in Tehran to disgorge thousands of tons of relief supplies. Many came from Iran’s enemies in the West, like the two Swiss jets carrying $630,000 worth of aid from the U.S. Government, which severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 in the midst of the hostage crisis. The official and private efforts by the British, who cut ties with Tehran over the Rushdie affair, have so far totaled $2.6 million. From France came 195 civil-defense specialists, and the U.S.S.R. sent 200 medical workers.

Iran’s estranged Muslim brothers have also pitched in. Among them: Iraq, which fought the Iranians in a savage war from 1980 to 1988; Kuwait, whose oil tankers were attacked by Iran during that conflict; Egypt, which fell out with Tehran a decade ago over Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel; and Saudi Arabia, which broke with Iran in 1988 after 402 Muslim pilgrims died in Iranian- inspired clashes in Mecca.

Naturally, the donor countries insist that their motives are purely humanitarian and that they expect no political kickback for their charity. Says a U.S. official: “This is not a quid looking for a quo.” Yet the givers , cannot but hope that their generosity will soften Iran’s heart, perhaps even toward the Great Satan. The magnanimity of the foreigners may give pragmatic President Hashemi Rafsanjani an edge over radical rivals, who are fighting his efforts to revive Iran’s economy by opening the country to the world. “If at some point down the road Rafsanjani needs something he can point to as proof of the West’s goodwill,” adds the U.S. official, “he can point to this.”

For now, the relief effort appears not to have won over new middle-of-the- roaders in Iran so much as it has revived the festering internal conflict over how to deal with the West. Kamal Kharrazi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, took the unusually conciliatory step of asserting that Iran’s tragedy “may create a better atmosphere for relations between the Iranian and American peoples.” But lawmakers in the hard-liner-dominated Parliament sharply warned that American aid would not buy better relations. Dismissing U.S. assistance, the radical newspaper Jomhuri Islami declared in an intemperate editorial, “Our people, even under the rubble, chant ‘Death to America.’ ” At Friday prayers, Rafsanjani rebuked the paper, saying, “We should be thankful to those foreigners.”

In truth, compared with the $34.5 million raised to assist victims of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, which killed 25,000, the $4 million in private American contributions that reached Tehran last week has been puny — for understandable reasons. Memories of the hostage crisis and anger over the continued detention of six Americans by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon are still too strong for most U.S. citizens to overcome.

Given the relatively paltry amount of U.S. aid, “one shouldn’t have extraordinary expectations about the political payoff,” says Shireen T. Hunter, the Iranian-born deputy director of Middle East studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. On the other hand, U.S. donations, public and private, comprised a fifth of the $21.8 million in total international aid received by Iran last week, and the pace of private American contributions is accelerating. What’s more, notes the U.S. official, “with the history of our relations, I would think the Iranians might find it amazing that they got donations at all.” Appreciation might eventually translate into better relations, but that process, like the very efforts to rebuild the shattered lives in Iran’s northwest, will proceed slowly, one painful step at a time.