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December
20, 2005:
Of Mullahs and Tyranny:
The UN General Assembly passed a resolution late last week which
censured Tehran for its flagrant human rights violations,
expressing "serious concerns" about use of torture, persecution
of dissidents, politically motivated killings and restriction of
free speech. And on Tuesday, the European Union condemned Iran’s
persistent and grave human rights violations accusing it of
torture, concerns over the treatment of minorities and frequent
death penalty for minor crimes. "Iran executed more child
offenders in 2005 than in any recent year," the EU said in a
statement...
December
12, 2005:
Keep Tehran’s Hands off Iraq
Elections: In what could be seen as an insight
into the expected rise in human rights abuses in Iraq if a
Tehran-influenced government were to take over after the
December 15 elections in Iraq, the U.S. military discovered a
second secret detention center run by the operatives of
Iran-linked Badr brigade which also acts as the Interior
Ministry's special commando force. As the clerical regime is
working feverishly to secure a “win” at any price for its allies
and affiliates a couple of days from now, it is still not too
late to intensify efforts to thwart Tehran’s sinister designs to
rob the Iraqi people from a free and fair election...
December 5, 2005:
Tehran Plots to Rig Iraq’s
Election: Given the strategic implications of the
upcoming parliamentary elections in Iraq for the ruling regime
in Iran, Tehran’s public and covert campaign in Iraq has been
focused to ensure victory for its proxy Shia parties. In
addition to its expanding meddling in Iraq, the clerical regime
has allocated major resources in terms of personnel and budget
to derail and rig this election. And electoral machination is
one thing mullahs do well. They have mastered the art in the
past 27 years...
November 21, 2005:
The Many Faces of Tehran’s
Rogue Regime: Last week, the rogue government of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rebuffed by the international community
on several fronts. Early last week, it was revealed that Tehran
had infiltrated the Iraqi Ministry of Interior following the
discovery of a secret torture chamber run by the Badr Brigade,
an Iraqi militia that is a brainchild of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)...
November 11, 2005:
Reckless Iran Policy
Paralysis: Two weeks have passed since
Ahmadinejad stunned the world by his remarks in the “World
without Zionism” seminar. Much has been said and written in
condemnation of his hate speech. That’s welcome. Western
capitals, particularly Washington, however, need to go beyond
mere words and put into effect a meaningful and practical policy
toward the regime ruling Iran...
November 4, 2005:
US Dailies: Take Tehran to UN
Security Council: Remarks by Iran’s new President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against United States and Israel has
unleashed strong international scorn. Both the US House of
Representatives and the Senate passed strong resolutions to
register their condemnation, several Western capitals summoned
Iran’s ambassadors to seek an official explanation, the UN
Security Council issued a statement, and on Friday UN General
Secretary Kofi Annan canceled his scheduled visit to Iran.
Equally significant has been the opinion of the editorial pages
of American dailies...
October 27, 2005:
A Rude Awakening:
A note to those Washington “realists” who are still pushing for
the expansion of US diplomatic contacts with Tehran: How about a
little douse of reality? Iran’s new president, the former
assassin and terrorist mastermind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has vowed
that both United States and Israel must be wiped out. Although
these “realists” are notorious for their willingness to make a
deal with rouge regimes, Ahmadinejad’s venomous diatribe should
make even them to shiver. At least one hopes so...
October 17, 2005:
Suicide Bombers Thrive under
Ahmadinejad: To no one's surprise, recruiting and
training suicide volunteers has been a thriving enterprise in
Iran since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became mullahs’ president last
summer. And why not? In the last two decades, Iran’s primary
instrument of advancing its foreign policy objectives has been
terrorism or the mere threat of using it. When all else fails,
dispatch of the suicide bombers hostage-takers ranks first in
Tehran's foreign policy agenda. With the mullahs' diplomatic
machinery hitting rock bottom and in disarray these days,
there's an even greater need to revert to the old tactics...
October 10, 2005:
Thwarting Tehran’s “Secret
War” in Iraq: In his address at the National
Endowment for Democracy last week, President George Bush called
Iraq the “central front” in the war on terror. Warning that
enemies of democracy and freedom were working to create a
"totalitarian empire" from Spain to Indonesia, he specifically
named Iran and Syria as "allies of convenience" for Islamic
radicalism...
October 3, 2005:
Ahmadinejad’s Nuclear Fangs:
Following his disastrous high profile visit to the UN’s World
Summit earlier this month, Iran’s new President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad showcased his fangs to the world. Addressing a
military parade in Tehran, he promised the world “fire and
destruction” if his regime were to be punished for its
well-documented, two- decade long repeated violations breach of
the Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT). Indeed, his virulent tirade
came in the aftermath of an equally nefarious address at the UN
earlier in the week, which convinced many governments that the
clerical regime was going for the A-bomb...
September 19, 2005:
Tehran’s Determined Path to
A-Bomb: Without question Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's defiant tone and vigorous defense of Iran's
nuclear weapons program in his address to the United Nations
General Assembly last Saturday, made it amply clear that Tehran
was determined to continue its breach of international demands
to suspend its nuclear activities. Less clear is whether
Washington is resolute enough to respond with equal vigor to
Tehran rogue behavior...
August 18, 2005:
Sleepwalking In Iraq?:
Iran’s multi-faceted and multi-pronged campaign of
destabilization in Iraq is nothing short of a strategic
disaster. It represents an enormous threat to future of Iraq as
a stable, peaceful and democratic nation and one which could
plunge the whole region and beyond into carnage for years to
come. In this respect, this threat is on par with mullahs going
nuclear, if not more...
July 25, 2005:
EU at a Policy Crossroads:
The upcoming nuclear talks between Tehran and the European
Union’s Big-3, France, Germany, and Britain, would perhaps set
the tone for the overall EU Iran policy in the aftermath of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. One only hopes it would be a
reversal of its failed engagement policy. The ruling regime has
just gone through its most drastic political shake-up since its
coming to power in 1979. With failure of the Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 16-year attempt at cohabitation with
his powerful, yet rival partners, chief among them former
President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, major power realignment was
completed when Ahmadinejad became President...
July 18, 2005:
Iran's Rising Intransigence:
In recent weeks, governments and Iran observers, alike, have
focused on Iran's incoming president Mahamoud Ahmadinejad's past
record, and rightly so. Meanwhile, Tehran’s revived
intransigence at home and abroad has reinforced the view that
the door to policy of engagement of any kind has, in effect,
been slammed shot. Crackdown on social and political dissent at
home, nuclear weapons development, influence consolidation in
Iraq, and terrorism, are four main areas where Tehran has shown
early signs of escalation and defiance...
July 7, 2005:
Iran's 1999 Student Uprising
Still Resonates: Saturday, July 9, marks the
sixth anniversary of the six days of student-led uprising
against the ruling tyranny in Iran in 1999. The uprising, which
shook the regime to its foundations, has deservedly been viewed
as a milestone in the history of Iranian people’s two decades of
struggle to unseat the theocracy ruling Iran. With the blessing
of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the outgoing President
Mohammad Khatami, uniformed and plainclothes security forces
brutally cracked down on students and thousands of other
Iranians who had joined them. Several thousands were arrested
and hundreds killed or wounded...
June 30, 2005:
The Untold Story of a Rigged
Election:
In case you missed it, a well-organized political coup
last week propelled an obscure radical with a wicked past as a
hostage-taker, assassin, and interrogator - nicknamed “the
Terminator” by colleagues for firing coup de grace shots at
political prisoners - into the office of presidency. The move,
backed and blessed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
and engineered by the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps (IRGC), cements the dominance of the ultra-conservative
faction of the ruling regime over all key levers of power in
Iran...
June 23, 2005:
A Lose-Lose Outcome for
Tyranny Ruling Iran: Regardless of the outcome in
tomorrow’s second round of presidential elections in Iran, the
electoral farce marks a grave defeat for the ruling tyranny and
a huge win for Iran’s democracy movement that is seeking
fundamental change in Iran. The first round last Friday unmasked
the utter failure of the clerical regime as a system of
governance and revealed the deep infighting within the ruling
clique. Charges of rigging leveled by influential regime’s
insiders against the Supreme Leader sent deadly ideological and
political tremors within the regime...
June 16, 2005:
Rafsanjani's Crimes against
Humanity:
Nearly seventeen years ago, the tyrants who rule Iran
carried out one of the most horrific political mass killings of
our times. In what is now known as "The 1988 Iran massacre,"
tens of thousands of political prisoners were summarily executed
nationwide in a span of a few months, beginning in mid-summer
1988. Many international law experts believe this heinous
atrocity qualifies the current Iranian leadership as a
perpetrator of crimes against humanity. It is widely expected
that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's former President the
powerful Parliament Speaker and the acting Commander-in- Chief
at the time of the 1988 massacre, would be declared the victor
in the June 17 presidential election....
June 9, 2005:
The Second Reinvention of a Murderous Mullah:
On May 5, 1989, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then Iran’s
powerful Speaker of Parliament and acting Commander-in-Chief,
called on Palestinians to kill Americans and other Westerners.
Speaking at a Friday prayers congregation, he told the crowd,
“If in retaliation for every Palestinian martyred in Palestine
they kill and execute, not inside Palestine, five Americans, or
Britons or Frenchmen,” the Israelis “would not continue these
wrongs.” He continued, “It is not difficult to kill Americans or
Frenchmen. It is a bit difficult to kill [Israelis]. But there
are so many [Americans and Frenchmen] everywhere in the
world.”...
June 2, 2005:
Iran’s Electoral Farce:
Iranians know it full well: The upcoming June 17 presidential
election in Iran is a farce, a futile attempt by the ruling
regime to give itself an aura of legitimacy so its advocates and
apologists abroad can justify their lucrative commerce with
Tehran. The June election therefore must be viewed only from the
prism of factional rivalries within the clerical rule. Since
coming to power in 1979, the ruling theocracy in Iran has used
elections to serve the clerical establishment, which is built on
the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, the absolute supremacy
of clerical rule...
May 26, 2005:
EU Continues to Appease Rogue
Mullahs: Iran’s theocratic regime has an
appalling human rights record. Public hangings are daily
occurrence in Iran and just a few days ago it was reported that
another Iranian woman was sentenced to death by stoning,
bringing the total number of women killed or sentenced to death
by stoning to 11 since 1997. At least 109 persons have been
either hanged or sentenced to death since January 2005...”
May 19, 2005:
Checking Iran’s Growing
Influence in Iraq:
Iran’s foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi began his three day
visit to Iraq on Tuesday shortly after the United States’
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit there.
During her visit, Rice warned Iran to stop its destabilization
campaign in Iraq. In response to a question from CNN’s
correspondent in Iraq, Dr. Rice said that Iran “need[s] to be
transparent, [have] neighborly relations, not relations that try
somehow to have undue influence in the country through means
that are not transparent...”
May 10, 2005:
Enter “the Shark”:
On June 17, Iran’s theocratic regime will hold a presidential
election, which, like all other such theatrics, carries no
semblance of the democratic process. Hundreds may nominate
themselves, but as one election official said, the few whose
absolute loyalty to the system is rock solid will be allowed to
run. Among them is former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
nicknamed “shark” by Iranians...
May 2, 2005:
EU’s “Soft Power” Charade with
Tehran: It is time for the EU’s Big 3 to put an
end to the diplomatic charade over Tehran’s nuclear program. In
the tradition of European diplomacy, the futility of the
long-going nuclear talks with Tehran is disguised in fancy,
albeit, ambiguous phrases such as “soft power”. While European
diplomats are going out of their way to put a hopeful spin on
the stalemated exercise by reserving their cheerleading only for
the atmospherics of the talks, Tehran has been very frank and,
for that matter, brazen, in its official positions...
April 25, 2005:
Mullahs’ Many Faces of Terror:
As the ideals of freedom and democracy are driving Iranians into
daily confrontations with the ruling regime, Tehran rulers are
intensifying a campaign of terror at home and abroad. From labor
and student unrests to women challenging the misogynous mullahs,
the regime is increasingly becoming encircled....
April 18, 2005:
Making a Stand for Liberty:
It is not every week that the cause of democracy and freedom in
Iran gets back to back boosts. Last week was an exception,
however. On Wednesday, a U.S. congressional committee approved
legislation which seeks to increase pressure on Iran's
government over its weapons of mass destruction program, and to
provide greater support for Iranian democracy groups. This was a
welcome, however long overdue Iran initiative from the House....
April 4, 2005:
Zahra Kazemi’s Legacy:
Standing up to the Mullahs: Alas, it had to be
Zahra Kazemi’s life to again bring the world’s attention to the
barbaric treatment Iranians, particularly women, get from Iran’s
ruling regime. Still, it is very quiet out there. There was no
condemnation and no serious international response to hold
Tehran to account for its murderous conduct in light of new
appalling revelations...
March 28, 2005:
Tehran’s Double-talk on WMD
and Human Rights: Over the weekend, Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami, in opening remarks at the
international "ethics for co-existence" conference in Tehran,
said opposition to WMD is necessary for the sake of "morality
and ethics, to protect life and human rights, and for the sake
of respecting life for all humanity everywhere." As the
lame-duck Khatami was reciting his usual double-talk about
weapons of mass destruction, new revelations last week shed more
light on his regime’s campaign of hide-and-cheat to advance the
mullahs’ nuclear weapons program....
March 21, 2005:
In Iran, Year Ends with a Big
Bang: The arrival of
the spring on Sunday marked the start of the Iranian New Year,
Norouz, and last week, on the eve of the New Year, Iranians made
another brave stand against the tyrants ruling their country,
reaffirming the view that the seeming calm in Iran’s political
space is very superficial. The celebrations quickly turned into
an opportunity for the people to display their deep seethed
disdain of the ruling mullahs. Tehran and other cities became
the scene of major anti-regime protests, the largest, perhaps,
since the July 1999 student uprising, according to reports from
Iran...
March 14, 2005:
US Should not Join the
EU-Tehran Nuclear Bazaar: Call it a policy
shift or a tactical retreat. Either way, the announcement last
Friday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United
States had agreed to offer modest economic incentives to Iran in
exchange for Tehran's abandoning its nuclear enrichment program,
would send the wrong signal to all parties concerned. Tehran’s
immediate rejection of the offer of membership in the World
Trade Organization and of sales of spare parts for civilian
aircraft, as” too insignificant to comment about,” proved this
point...
March 7, 2005:
Elements of a Sensible Iran
Policy: On Sunday,
Iran admitted that it had achieved proficiency in the full range
of activities in enriching uranium. Several top Iranian nuclear
negotiators had previously admitted that the clerical regime was
not at such a point in October 2003 when they signed a nuclear
agreement with Europe’s big-3. The loophole-laden agreement left
lots of wiggle room for Tehran, effectively providing perfect
diplomatic cover for the mullahs to gain the most precious thing
they needed to advance their weapons program: Time...
February 28, 2005:
Stay out of
EU’s “Dance of Macabre” with
Mullahs: Working to
recruit a new member for their fellowship of appeasement, the
French and German leaders lobbied hard the visiting US president
last week, pleading with him to join their diplomatic charade
with Iran by offering some made-in-US carrots. There are media
reports indicating an apparent willingness of Washington to join
this charade....
February 21, 2005:
EU’s Appeasement of Tehran
Undercuts Trans-Atlantic Unity:
It seems rather doubtful that President Bush’s current
European tour could bridge the trans-Atlantic gap with respect
to Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and the overall Iran policy.
The EU’s big-3, France, Germany, and Britain, would be naïve to
expect the United States to join the EU’s fellowship of
appeasement of Iran’s ruling regime. The EU’s approach has
appropriately been viewed by many in Washington as a
Chamberlainesque appeasement of the mullahs, bolstering their
tyrannical rule rather than dissuading them from continued
suppression of dissent or advancing their nuclear program...
February 10, 2005:
Iran’s 1979 Revolution - 26
Years Later:
February 10 marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of Iran’s 1979
anti-monarchic revolution. The fundamentalists, led by Ayatollah
Khomeini, succeeded in hijacking the 1979 revolution where
decades of political suppression eliminated a genuinely
nationalist and democratic alternative to the Shah’s regime. The
mullahs took advantage of the power vacuum and consolidated
their reign...
February 3, 2005:
Ending Tyranny in Iran:
In his State of the Union Address, President Bush described Iran
under the theocratic rule of mullahs as “the world's primary
state sponsor of terror, pursuing nuclear weapons while
depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve.” “And
to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own
liberty, America stands with you,” Mr. Bush declared. At last, a
clear distinction was made between the tyrannical regime ruling
Iran and the Iranian people...
January 27, 2005:
Freedom for Iran is the
“Calling of Our Time”: President Bush last week
captivated many nations under the yoke of tyranny for his
visionary articulation of a compelling case for expansion of
liberty. “The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion
of freedom in all the world,” he said. For those who have been
tirelessly advancing the cause of democracy in the trenches of
the struggle for freedom, President Bush’s words had strong
resonance more so in Iran than anywhere else. Iranians probably
have their doubts if this were just another great inspiring
inauguration speech followed by business-as usual....
January 20, 2005:
Crushing the “Outpost of
Tyranny” from Within: During her Senate
confirmation hearings, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza
Rice expressed her views about Iran's ruling mullahs,
appropriately calling Iran one of the “outposts of tyranny” in
the world. Her comments were a welcome sign that a sound and
effectual Iran policy may be emerging in the coming months.
Responding to questions from two Senators known for their
pro-appeasement views on policy toward Tehran, Dr. Rice flatly
rejected the inaccurate comparison between Iran under theocratic
rule of the clerics and the Chinese government of 1972. She
repeatedly emphasized that there were no “common ground” with
the regime in Iran...
January 13, 2005:
The Making of a Sound Iran
Policy: There is no secret that successive
American administrations have been bedeviled on how to formulate
a sound policy toward Iran’s ruling theocratic dictatorship -
the first of its kind in the modern times. A range of policies
from unilateral concession to containment have been tested to
crack this policy conundrum. They have been either ineffective
or simply backfired, resulting in a more impudent Tehran....
January 6, 2005:
Lessons
of Iran for Iraq:
There is no end to the appetite of Iran’s tyrant rulers
for blood and death. Earlier this week, the mullahs’ Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei stressed that "enemies of the Islamic
Republic are trying to humiliate and diminish the value of
martyrdom and the culture of jihad in the eyes of the youth,
particularly students." The official state news agency, IRNA,
reported that Khamenei asked students to continue to promote the
culture of jihad and "martyrdom" as "a source of national
strength and foundation of pure worship." ...
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