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Monday, March 12, 2001

They say the step is being taken despite the administration's dislike of unilateral economic sanctions. The White House has been preoccupied with trying to shore up United Nations sanctions against Iraq and has not had a chance to review Iran policy. The administration has to extend the ban by Thursday or see it expire, the officials say.

U.S. oil companies will continue to be banned from investing in Iranian energy production under the sanctions. At the same time, the administration, like its predecessor, is not enforcing a 1996 law intended to discourage other countries from investing in Iran and Libya.

Still, supporters of an end to the U.S. embargo say they are hopeful. ''I'm very upbeat about U.S.-Iran relations,'' says Hooshang Amirahmadi, a Rutgers University professor who heads the American-Iranian Council.

A year ago, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright addressed the group to announce an easing of U.S. sanctions to permit Americans to buy Iranian caviar, pistachio nuts and carpets. In 1999, President Clinton gave permission for U.S. exports of agricultural and medical products to Iran.

Albright's speech came in the aftermath of Iranian parliamentary elections that resulted in an overwhelming victory for reformers. But in the past year, hard-liners affiliated with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader, have rejected laws, shut down newspapers and jailed prominent supporters of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

In a speech to the parliament Sunday, Khatami pledged to continue his efforts to meld Islamic principles and democratic rule. ''We have no choice but to succeed in establishing Islamic democracy,'' he said. He did not announce whether he would run for a second term in June.

The Bush administration is waiting for those elections and is taking its time formulating a new approach toward Iran, a country that has been largely hostile toward the United States since a revolution in 1979. But Washington must decide soon whether it will support renewal of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The 1996 law, which expires in August, sought to bar foreign companies from investing more than $20 million a year in the energy sectors of Iran and Libya. Amid an uproar from European countries, it has never been enforced.

''It's a white elephant,'' says Geoffrey Kemp, an expert at the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank that focuses on international relations. ''It's more trouble than it's worth, particularly when we need European cooperation on a whole array of more important issues,'' such as missile defense.

Diplomats briefed by the Bush administration say they anticipate ''smarter sanctions'' against Iran. That would ease up on civilian trade in return for a tighter ban against weapons sales to Iran, which is trying to develop nuclear weapons and backs anti-Israel terrorist groups.

© Copyright 2001 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.