America Letter: The arrest of four Iranian-Americans in Iran has added fresh tension to the relationship between Washington and Iran, already beset by disputes over Iran's nuclear ambitions, its support of guerrilla movements in the Middle East and its involvement in Iraq. The arrests have also raised questions about Washington's $75 million "democracy fund" for Iran, which some Iranian dissidents fear may be exposing them to charges of espionage and subversion.
Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year-old academic who heads the Middle East programme at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington, was visiting her 93-year-old mother in Tehran last December when she was mugged on the way to the airport. Masked men carrying knives took all her possessions, including her American and Iranian passports and other travel documents.
When she applied for replacement documents from the Iranian authorities, she was invited to an interview with the ministry for intelligence, the first in a long succession of interrogations over the following six weeks. On May 8th, she was taken to Evin prison and accused of espionage, actions against national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
Esfandiari's family and lawyers have been refused permission to visit her but she is allowed one short phone call with her mother most days.
"These telephone calls last barely a minute. When they last a minute and a half, her mother in Tehran is ecstatic. She hangs on them so much," Esfandiari's husband, Shaul Bakhash, said in Washington this week.
A professor of Middle East studies at George Mason university, Bakhash is clearly uncomfortable with the public role imposed on him since his wife's arrest.
"I have found since my wife's arrest that we are being forced to do things in public which we don't normally do. We are a private family. We don't like to talk about health conditions of members of the family and private matters in public. It has been a very difficult period. I am concerned about Haleh's both mental and physical health because of what we know of interrogation methods at Evin prison," he said.
Former congressman Lee Hamilton, president of the Wilson Centre, has called for Esfandiari's immediate release, describing her detention as an affront to the rule of law and common decency.
"Haleh is a scholar. The work she does at the Wilson Centre is open, non-partisan, and includes a broad range of views. At the Wilson Centre, we do not take positions on issues, but rather, we bring all sides of an issue together for dialogue.
"As director of the Middle East Program, Haleh ensured that there was an open dialogue and that she convened meetings which allowed participants and attendees to discuss all views. We do not engage in propaganda," he said.
President George Bush said yesterday that he would maintain efforts on behalf of Esfandiari and the three other detainees until they are released. The US has no diplomatic relations with Iran, however, and must work through the Swiss embassy in Tehran to make representations to the authorities there.
Much of Esfandiari's interrogation before she was imprisoned focused on her work at the Wilson Centre and on the US state department's $75 million democracy fund, which Tehran fears is aimed at fomenting a "velvet revolution" in Iran. Mr Hamilton insisted this week that the Wilson Centre receives no money from the fund but he acknowledged that the secrecy surrounding the disbursement of the $75 million and a lack of clarity about US intentions was problematic.
"If the policy of the United States government is to overthrow the government, then the democracy fund obviously would be viewed with a great deal of suspicion and hostility by the target government. If the policy of the United States government is not to overthrow but to change the behaviour of the government, then I think the democracy fund represents an opportunity for constructive change. With regard to Iran specifically, I think that debate as to what the purpose of the USG is has not been clearly settled. I think the public record would show that there were public statements made both ways and that has muddied the waters.
"I think that the activities of the democracy fund should be an open book. They should be public. They should be transparent. And if that's the case, I think there would be no pretext for calling the activities espionage or subversion," he said.
