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USADI
Commentary
At
Tehran’s Service
The debate about how Washington should deal with
Iran’s rogue rising has heated up amidst reports
about planning for a military option and the
"realist" policy circles' call for "direct
talks" with Tehran. The latest resurrection of
the pro-appeasement camp coincides with Tehran's
announcement that it had succeeded in enriching
uranium and escalating terrorist activities and
rising number of executions and public hangings
in Iran.
There is nothing new about the essence of the
case made for the direct talks. It seems,
depending on who the president is in Iran, the
line of reasoning changes but the policy call
remains the same: Begin direct talks with
mullahs and sweeten the deal with "broad
economic and security concessions."
In 1989, the case for engagement hinged on the
“pragmatist” President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
in 1997 on the “reformist" and “moderate”
President Mohammad Khatami, and in 2006 on the
“populist” and “nationalist” President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. The bitter fruit of sixteen years
of engagement with the clerical regime was the
emergence of the thug-par-excellence Ahmadinejad
at the helm of a regime running an advanced
nuclear weapons program. And, given Iran’s
increasing rogue behavior, a new round of such a
dangerous exercise would be a strategic blunder
of colossal proportion. Appeasement of the
terrorist tyranny in Iran is in fact the fastest
rout to the war option; an option which, except
Tehran, nobody wants.
It is quite amazing that no matter how many
Iranians the mullahs torture and murder, how
many suicide bombers they dispatch abroad, how
many lies they tell about their nuclear weapons
program, how many agents they send to Iraq,
there are always some policy pundits who are
more than willing to trivialize the mullahs’
crimes at the expense of a sound and
strategically beneficial policy toward Tehran..
Emboldened by these Chamberlainesque calls for
bilateral talks, the clerical regime capped a
week of belligerent moves with more recruitment
of suicide volunteers to carry out "martyrdom
missions" against U.S. and British interests,
setting up a new terrorist training camp in
Eastern Iraq border region, heralding the
annihilation of Israel, and declaring that it
has “fully identified the weak points of the
United States and Israel”.
Iran’s president further heightened
international worries when he publicly admitted
his regime was going to enriching uranium using
the more advanced P-2 centrifuge technology.
This would dramatically shorten the estimated
time tables forecasting when Iran would have a
nuclear weapon. The world's number one terror
sponsors in Tehran are now further assured that
their continued rogue behavior and defiance of
the international community is paying off.
The root cause of the nuclear crisis with Iran
is not a shortage of “economic and security
incentives”; it is the nature of regime in power
in Tehran whose behavior can not be changed.
Iran seeks to gain strategic leverage in the
region and beyond. On a doctrinal level, along
with sponsorship of terrorism, export of
fundamentalism abroad, and continued crackdown
on political dissent at home; possessing nuclear
weapons capability is a strategic component of
the mullahs’ calculus of survival. It serves to
shield the regime from increasing political
vulnerability at home. It would be naïve to
assume that the mullahs will agree to undermine
their survivability by abandoning one of its
main pillars. No amount of incentives would
convince Tehran to do otherwise.
Washington must continue on its path to
diplomatically isolate the Iranian regime in the
UN Security Council and elsewhere while
supporting the Iranian people in their struggle
for democracy and freedom. It should recognize
that only a free and democratic Iran, brought
about by the Iranian people and the organized
opposition, could put an end the mullahs’ reign
of terror at home and abroad.
The tyrants in Tehran are far more susceptible
to the yearning of Iranians for freedom and
indigenous resistance movement than sanctions,
naval blockades, or a military strike. Standing
with Iran’s organized democratic opposition is
the true strategic leverage Washington and the
European capitals would have over the mullahs.
(USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |