7 October 1997
Chicago Tribune
William Pfaff, Commentary

U.S. Gratuitous Antagonizing of Other Countries

The decision, announced Sept. 29, of French, Russian and Malaysian energy companies to develop an Iranian gas field will produce still another international row over sanctions and the current American disposition to legislate for the world.

The kennedy-D'Amato law, passed last year by Congress, requires U.S. sanctions against any company making a major investment in Iran. The French (and European Union), Russian and malaysian governments will naturally defend their companies, creating what used to be called an international "incident," but has now become something closer to an ongoing legal border war between the United States and the rest of the world. It is not a war which Washington is going to win.

The international mood already is sour as a result of Washington's refusal to join the international ban on land mines, its resistance to limits on carbon dioxide emissions and its unwillingness to pay its UN dues, even though obligated to do so by treaty. The last of these controversies follows from another effort by Congress to dictate international behavior by way of U.S. legislation.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has asked for "pragmatism" from other members of the United Nations, arguing that "the UN cannot flourish if it does not enjoy the full confidence of the American people and their elected representatives."

This translates as asking the United Nations to take whatever part of the unpaid dues Congress is willing to offer, accept the conditions Congress puts on the money and make the best of it. Naturally this does not greatly impress governments accustomed to pay their UN bills. As Norway's Foreign Minister Bjorn Tore Godal asked recently, how long can Norway "expect our citizens to continue financing free riders?"

James Schlesinger has just published an excellent article on the general question of American unilateralism. It appears in the fall issue of the quarterly The American Interest. The former defense and energy secretary (1973-75 and 1977-79 respectively), before that director of Central Intelligence (1973), writes that unrivaled post-Cold War power, native self-righteousness and our national taste for moralizing judgments on others have combined to make the United States the "neigh-on universal international nag," even as Washington declines to follow the international rules and sometimes defies international law.

The nagging goes much beyond the verbal and usually takes the form of economic sanctions against countries and foreign companies displeasing to Congress or to a particular administration. "During President Clinton's first term alone," Schlesinger writes, "the United States imposed new unilateral economic sanctions, or threatened legislative action to do so, 60 times on 35 countries that, taken together, make up about 42 percent of the world's population.

It does this for several reasons. First of all, the Clinton administration lacks a coherent and positive foreign policy that could be defended against congressional interference. Its policy is a compilation of reactions to factional economic and political pressures inside the country.

It does what corporate interests and electoral combinations dictate. Iranian sanctions, as Schlesinger writes, result mainly from New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato's interest in pleasing New York Jewish voters.

The attraction of sanctions legislation is that it seems a cost-free as well as vote-getting way of responding to international problems without actually doing anything. It is an affair of grandiose gesticulations.

However it is not cost-free. It tends to penalize U.S. trade and economic relations more than it penalizes those who violate the international prohibitions proclaimed by Congress. Total, the French Street Journal has noted, "virtually impervious to U.S. retaliation." It has negligible interests inside the United States and small exposure in the U.S. market.

All three of the governments concerned with the contract benefit from standing up to U.S. pressures, both in domestic politics and in trade and export negotiations. Russia's Gazprom profits from having a powerful European governments please voters by resisting what is seen as American bullying. And Malaysia, of course, of all the new Asian industrial economies, is the most vehement in defying Western pressures.

Sens. D'Amato and Edward Kennedy did all of them a favor with this legislation, blocking American oil companies from Iran, with the firth-largest oil reserves in the world, and damaging their competitive prospects in the ex-Soviet regions dominated by Gazprom.

The two senators were following a fashion that originated in the executive branch of government under earlier administrations. Calls for sanctions, identification of "rogue states" and denunciation of sinners have become routine in American foreign relations.

Yet sanctions against Iran have never influenced Iran's foreign policy in a direction America wanted, nor its policy with respect to terrorism, and they no doubt never will. It is naive to think otherwise.

These American attempts to legislate the conduct of others devalue American authority and reputation. The gratuitous -- and, worse, futile -- antagonizing of other countries merely encourages them to oppose the United States. As Schlesinger notes, "the tolerance of our allies, and of others whom we would have follow us, is not inexhaustible." As the psalmist wrote, "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall."

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