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Weekly Commentary
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.
Lacking the capacity to move Iran toward democracy and
development, Khomeini’s theocracy embarked on establishing its
pillars of power through demagoguery and brute force. The Friday
prayer sermons became a place to spew out venomous invective
against any voice calling for democracy, branding the opposition
groups as "hypocrites", "anti-Islam", and "pro-American."
Tens of thousands of political activists were executed or
imprisoned in the name of God, and political groups, women,
ethnic and religious minorities were subjected to a harsh
crackdown. By the early 1981, there was nothing left of the
republicanism of the "Islamic Republic"; the theocracy was in
full swing.
Externally, Tehran pursued a deadly and intransigent foreign
policy of “exporting revolution,” or as the world came to know,
exporting fundamentalism and terrorism. The mullahs’ regime
vowed to “liberate Jerusalem via Karbala” and made asymmetric
warfare became the cornerstone of its military doctrine that
relied on development of weapons of mass destruction.
A quarter century later, however, the mullahs’ theocratic regime
has grinded to a halt. And with capitulation of the “reformist”
faction of Khatami, the fallacy of “change from within” has come
to an embarrassing end.
Meanwhile, Iran’s secular democracy movement has endured and
expanded. Contrary to assertions by the engagement advocates,
Iran is in a “pre-revolutionary” period. The 1999 student
uprisings gave the world a glimpse of the explosive dynamic of
Iran’s younger generation. A report by the Council on Foreign
Relation’s Iran Task Force’s said last summer, “Iran’s
theocratic system is deeply unpopular with its citizenry… across
a wide spectrum of age, class, and ethnic and religious
backgrounds.”
The CFR’s report added that Iran rulers “have repeatedly
demonstrated their willingness to preserve the regime by
crushing anti-regime protests and imprisoning or even killing
their political opponents.” Indeed, the Islamic Republic’s
immense capacity to suppress political dissent is shielding this
house of cards from its citizens.
The tyrants in Tehran would be very vulnerable in the face of a
popular uprising if their capacity to crush anti-regime protests
could be undercut. They are far more susceptible to the yearning
of Iranians for freedom than sanctions, naval blockades, or a
military strike.
Indeed, standing with Iran’s organized anti-fundamentalist and
democratic opposition is the true strategic leverage Washington
has over the mullahs. The ludicrous idea that we can dissuade
the mullahs by an economic package demonstrates dangerous
naiveté about the nature of the clerical regime.
In his State of the Union Address, President Bush pledged to the
Iranian people, “As you stand for your own liberty, America
stands with you.” Left to their own devices the mullahs will
never stop suppressing Iranians, closing down their torture
chambers and dismantling the gallows. Therefore, Washington must
move to empower Iranians’ resistance movement for freedom to
tear down this wall of suppression to pave the way for the
Iranians to bring down this tyranny.
This support should include reaching out to anti-fundamentalist
Iranian opposition groups. To his end, a meaningful first step
would be to end the terrorist designation of Iran’s main
opposition group, the Iranian People’s Mujahedeen. Other Iran
policy experts have made similar demands.
Last week, Iran Policy Committee comprised of former
administration officials and foreign policy experts, released a
policy paper entitled “U.S. Policy Options for Iran,” calling
for “a central role for the Iranian opposition to facilitate
regime change." IPC stressed that “Removing the MEK's terrorist
designation would be a tangible signal to Tehran and to the
Iranian people that a new option is implicitly on the
table—regime change.”
Neither “selective engagement” nor a military strike represents
viable options in dealing with Iran’s increasing threat.
Ironically, either approach would in different ways perpetuate
the clerical regime. This “outpost of tyranny” should and could
be brought down by Iranian people’s organized resistance.
(USADI)
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Iran Focus
February 10, 2005
Iran exiles hold
rally, call for end to clerical rule
Berlin, Feb. 10 – Thousands of Iranian exiles braved cold and
rain, and defied bans by two European governments, to hold a
rally in the heart of the German capital on the twenty-sixth
anniversary of the revolution that ended monarchy in Iran.
The exiles, supporters of the dissident coalition National
Council of Resistance of Iran, had received authorization from
municipal and police authorities in Berlin to hold a
demonstration at the landmark Brandenburg Gate on February 10 to
support democratic change in Iran on the anniversary of the 1979
Islamic Revolution.
Organizers said the rally -- transferred to Berlin at short
notice after French authorities refused to allow it to take
place in Paris -- was intended to send a message in support of
democratic change in Iran. In all, 40,000 Iranians from 20
countries across Europe were expected to attend the rally.
In the early hours of Thursday, however, the Berlin authorities
banned the demonstration and thousands of policemen were
deployed throughout the city to enforce the ban. Police blocked
entire streets as policemen went to hotels, airports, and train
stations to warn the thousands of Iranians coming into the city
not to join the rally.
Many buses and private cars were prevented from entering the
city, passengers of chartered planes were kept waiting for hours
on the tarmac, and Iranians who stayed in Berlin overnight were
woken up by noisy policemen at dawn, telling them the rally had
been cancelled and asking them to return home immediately.
Police finally gave way and removed restrictions on protesters
after rally organizers got an emergency injunction from the
Berlin courts, which ruled that German police action against
Iranians attending a peaceful protest with prior permission was
unlawful.
Prior to the court ruling, Iranians began holding smaller
gatherings in different parts of the city. A dozen
parliamentarians, jurists and human rights advocates from
Germany, France, Britain, and Belgium held an impromptu press
conference in Nikolsburger Platz, where several thousand
Iranians had gathered.
They denounced what they described as "a Paris-Tehran collusion
to gag Iranian dissidents in Europe" and supported the "third
option" proposed by opposition leader Maryam Rajavi in her
speech at the European Parliament in December. Rajavi rejected
foreign ''appeasement'' of the Iranian regime and opposed war
and invasion as a solution. Instead, she called for an "Iranian
solution": an end to the religious dictatorship by the Iranian
people themselves.
The rally had been sponsored by more than 100 political and
human rights organizations as well as 250 parliamentarians from
across Europe.
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United
Press International
February 10, 2005
A third option for Iran
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush, in his State of the
Union address issued a not-so veiled warning to Iran, for
pursuing its nuclear weapons program. Earlier this week,
Condoleezza Rice also warned Iran while on her first European
tour as secretary of state.
A number of Washington think tanks are jumping into the fray,
calling either for dialogue or more muscle to be applied. The
Iran Policy Committee, a new Washington group of former Middle
East experts, offers a third alternative to negotiations, which
they say are getting nowhere, or the military option, which they
view as adventurous. The IPC supports regime change in Tehran,
though they advocate doing so by supporting and empowering the
Iranian resistance form within.
More specifically, the IPC want the U.S. government to support
one particular group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. But first, they
need to convince the Bush administration to remove off the U.S.
State Department's terrorist list.
IPC is comprised of former U.S. officials who have worked on the
Middle East in the White House, State Department, Pentagon,
intelligence agencies, Congress, and experts from think tanks
and universities, such as former Ambassador James Akins, Paul
Leventhal, founder of the Nuclear Control Institute, Lt. Gen.
Thomas McInerney, former assistant vice chief of staff of the
Air Force, Bruce McColm, of the Institute for Democratic
strategies, Raymond Tanter, a former member of the National
Security Council under Ronald Reagan and Clare Lopez, a former
intelligence analyst…
IPC's argument strongly favors the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an
organization designated as a "terrorist group" by the U.S. State
Department since 1997...
That said, the MEK are probably largest and the better organized
than any other Iranian opposition group. Females constitute
nearly a third of its rank and file...
Currently the president's options consist of the following:
Continued negotiations, military action and support for the
Iranian opposition.
The IPC report points out that Washington has been divided
between those who favor engagement with and those who support
military strikes against Iran. They support keeping diplomatic
and military options on the table while providing a central role
for the Iranian opposition to facilitate regime change. Not a
bad idea, but the United States should not invest entirely, or
solely with the MEK…
Some U.S. policy advisers are urging refrain from the Bush
administration. They oppose harsh action with Tehran because
they interpret recent developments in Iran as pointing to an
impending collapse of the system, much along the lines of the
implosion that led to the end of the communist regime in the
Soviet Union. Other policymakers advocate engagement.
The middle option, as presented by the IPC, "encourages a
campaign of destabilization," to weaken the grip of the ruling
regime over the Iranian people sufficiently that Iranian
opposition groups inside the country and abroad are empowered to
change the regime.
IPC recommends backing the MEK, whom they say enjoys
"indisputable support." as it is the largest and most organized
Iranian opposition group. It claims there are nearly 3,800 of
its members in Camp Ashraf, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
In its support of the MEK, the Iran policy Committee requests
that in the event "Unites States reach a decision to support an
explicit policy of regime change in Iran," calls for a
Presidential Finding on the MEK as a first step," which would
open the door to future cooperation…
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San Francisco Chronicle
February 9, 2005
Emerging strategy
against Tehran
In recent weeks, the Bush administration has toughened its stand
against the fundamentalist Shiite Muslim government of Iran,
calling it one of America's key enemies.
But the administration has not yet presented a clear-cut
strategy for dealing with Iran, instead hinting alternately that
the solution may be European-led negotiations with Tehran, an
Israeli military attack or a rebellion led by the Iranian
opposition…
In place of negotiations, the administration and many members of
Congress seem to be suggesting that the Iranian people should
revolt. In his State of the Union speech, Bush seemed to signal
such an approach, saying, "To the Iranian people, I say tonight:
As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."
Last month, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., introduced the
Iran Freedom Support Act, which would authorize direct aid to
opposition radio and television stations. The bill was
co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, and 49 other House
members. A likely recipient of this aid would be NITV, a Los
Angeles satellite station that beams its programs into Iran 24
hours a day…
The key tool in this strategy is the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, an
Iranian guerrilla force that has 4,000 fighters housed in a
U.S.-guarded military base north of Baghdad. This group, known
as MEK, is supported by some Washington neoconservatives and
liberals, as well as by many European lawmakers, but nonetheless
has been designated since 1997 as a terrorist organization by
the U.S. State Department.
The group has suspended its guerrilla activities within Iran
since 2001, apparently hoping to improve its international
reputation. Its backers hope the administration soon will take
the MEK off the terrorist list and give it a green light to
resume guerrilla activities in Iran...
The MEK's Paris-based civilian leadership avoids openly
appealing for U.S. aid but makes clear that it sees itself as a
U.S. ally.
Shahin Gobadi, a member of the foreign relations committee for
the MEK's political wing, the National Council for Resistance in
Iran, praised Bush's State of the Union speech. "The remarks by
Bush were a very necessary and important step for distancing the
West from its appeasement of the fascist dictatorship in Iran,"
he said. "But we hope for further, more practical steps in
confronting this regime. We should be freed to help lead the
opposition to the mullahs."…
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Agence France Presse
February 8, 2005
Seeking regime change in Iran
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush has been actively
behind "regime change" for Iran, but the route to that end has
yet to be defined and the perils are great, US experts said.
Bush and his top aides have turned up the volume in their verbal
attacks on the Islamic republic, calling it an "outpost of
tyranny" and one of the principal backers of international
terror, on its way to developing a nuclear weapon.
US officials shy away from pronouncing "regime change," a
controversial phrase on the international scene, but their
intentions are clear, analysts said.
"I have no doubt the president and his closest advisers believe
that the way both to solve the nuclear problem but also to deal
with terrorism and improve the lives of the Iranian people is
regime change," said George Perkovich, an Iran specialist at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think
tank.
"The question is how this regime change happens, and that's the
issue.
"It's very important to distinguish between the idea of regime
change and the means. And on the means I think there is a
division in the administration, but that (Secretary of State
Condoleezza) Rice made very clear that the means that they will
pursue would be non-coercive and more political."
Bush clearly encouraged opponents to the regime last week,
during his annual State of the Union address before Congress:
"To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own
liberty, America stands with you."
Bush also said Iran "remains the world's primary state sponsor
of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people
of the freedom they seek and deserve."
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