The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 23 The Iranian Challenge Tehran will continue to challenge U.S. interests at multiple levels and remain intertwined with our broader interests in the region. Important as it is, the country’s nuclear program is far from our only concern. Others include: • Iranian support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas; • Iran’s economic and security support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has helped him stay in power since 2011 and continue the massacre of his people; • Substantial support to Iraqi Shia militias, which have attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and exacerbated Shia-Sunni tensions; • Support to extremists in Afghanistan (including its former enemy, the Taliban), some of which has been used against U.S. forces there; • Iranianmanipulation of festering Sunni-Shia schisms in places like Yemen and Bahrain to advance its own interests; • Geostrategic risks to our security interests throughout the region, including the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf; and • Violations of human rights in Iran, including the repression of women, religious minorities, political activists and journalists. The Iran Watcher Program Is Born The effectiveness of any policy depends on the quality of the information on which it is based. The classic example of miscal- culation due tomisinformation in our post-1979 Iran policy was the Iran-Contra affair. Proponents of that secret deal argued that the United States could help empower “good guys” within the Iranian political system, but the plan quickly fell apart because it was based on faulty assessments of the internal political situation. Some American political careers were ruined, and public mistrust of the U.S. government grew as a result, but it didn’t lead to war. After 9/11, however, the risks of miscalculation grew exponentially. The State Department had long depended on its diplomats in Dubai for some coverage of Iran, given the significant bilateral trade between the two countries and the large Iranian expatriate community living there. The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs created the first formal overseas Iran watcher position in 2002, assigning fluent Farsi-speaker Alan Eyre to the slot in the United Arab Emir- ates. At the time, I was one of two Iran desk officers in NEA’s North- ern Gulf Affairs Office, which covered both Iran and Iraq. The primary focus of that office—and the Washington policy com- The obvious challenge, however, is how to make sense of a country where we have no access. The State Department’s Iran watchers at a gathering in Washington, D.C., in 2010 with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (center) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran John W. Limbert (to her right). Author Jillian Burns is to the left of Clinton. DOS/Courtesy of John Limbert