USADI Dispatch

A weekly Publication of the US Alliance for Democratic Iran

Volume 1, Issue 54

Thursday, November 11, 2004

 

Weekly Commentary


Shameless Empowering of Tyranny and Terror


“We cannot sit back and allow this blood-thirsty band of terrorists [ruling in Iran] to grow into a monster too big for anyone to handle,” said former New York Senator Alphonse D’Amato in 1995.


Thanks to the masterminds of the disgraced policy of “constructive engagement” in European Union, and their trans-Atlantic allies in Washington, that could soon be the case.


Having mastered the art of protracted nuclear diplomacy through endless negotiations, Tehran could be only months away from the nuclear point of no return. The Europeans are not denying Iran that is running an extensive and robust nuclear weapons program. To deal with this threat, however, they insist on appeasing the mullahs out of their rogue behavior.


The EU has offered so many “carrots” to the mullahs, some Iranians say sarcastically, that it is now trying to import some from the United States because its own supermarkets have ran out.


In a recent commentary entitled “Axis of Weakness”, Jeffrey Gedmin, Director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, wrote, “A German friend of mine once explained to me, with some embarrassment, how the policy [of constructive engagement] works: Europe is nice to the mullahs, and when this fails, well, Europe tries to be a little nicer.”


While Iran’s nuclear menace has been getting most of the headlines, the mullahs’ campaign of destabilization in Iraq continues to grow. Quoting senior Kurdish officials in Iraq, the Boston Globe wrote last Sunday that Iran was working “to train, raise funds, and plan terrorist operations in Iraq, infiltrating operatives across a porous, rocky, high-altitude border.”


It added, “Kurdish officials point to what they say is tangible footprints of Iran's collaboration with terror and insurgent groups responsible for attacks inside Iraq. Iran, the officials say, continues to aid groups like Ansar al-Islam and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, now named Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.”


Last week, Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar accused Tehran of orchestrating attacks in his country. "Iran is playing a negative role in Iraq. It is behind the assassination of more than 18 Iraqi intelligence officers. It is also playing a negative role in southern Iraq," he said. Last summer, his defense minister called Iran his country's "first enemy," and said Tehran's policies had "added fuel to the fire."


Forcing the US-led coalition out of Iraq as a prelude to establishing itself as the preeminent power broker there constitutes a primary component of Iran’ strategy of expanding its dominance to the whole region. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters recently that his regime was in fact playing a “positive role” in Iraq.

 
Positive? Of course not for the Iraqi people and the rule of law in Iraq, but for Tehran’s sinister designs in that country.


Despite being behind all these seditious activities, Iran has been invited to attend a high profile international summit in Egypt in late November, where the U.S. and other G-8 states are expected to discuss cooperation on Iraq’s “security” and stability.


What business does Iran, a terror-sponsoring regime and a major cause of Iraq’s insecurity, have in a meeting for ensuring security there? Did anyone not forget to invite Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi to attend?


Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “the 20th century should have taught the citizens of liberal democracies the catastrophic consequences of placating tyrants.”

 
He contended that the root cause of September 11 tragedy was the precedence left by the 1979 U.S. embassy takeover in Iran. “Roll the tape backward from the USS Cole in 2000, through the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the Khobar Towers in 1996, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993…, until we arrive at the Iranian hostage-taking of November 1979,” Hanson wrote.


The September 11 catastrophe was for the most part a product of “placating tyrants” and appeasing terrorist regimes, above all Tehran.


There is an abundance of tough, but ineffective, talk about Iran. Washington needs to put together an overall policy to facilitate the replacement of the current regime by the Iranian people. Short of a military invasion, everything else should be on the table, from throwing our diplomatic and political resources behind the Iranian people democracy movement to supporting the anti-fundamentalist Iranian opposition.
(USADI)

 

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The Boston Globe
November 7, 2004
Along border, Kurds say, Iran gives boost to uprising


TUWELLA, Iraq -- A dirt track winds from this Kurdish border outpost to the top of a jagged mountain ridge separating Iran from Iraq's northern Kurdish enclave.

 

For years, and with the blessing of Iranian officials, Islamist terrorist groups have smuggled weapons and money into Iraq on this road, many Kurdish intelligence and security officials said. When US special forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters attacked Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda affiliate, in March 2003, hundreds of its members fled to Iran, the officials said, and have regrouped in several towns just over this border.


There, they continue to train, raise funds, and plan terrorist operations in Iraq, infiltrating operatives across a porous, rocky, high-altitude border that has long been a haven for smugglers and that, in practical terms, is impossible to police, the Kurdish officials say.


Iraqi and US officials have grumbled for more than a year about what they perceive as Iranian interference in Iraq. Iran has repeatedly and forcefully denied any such interference. But here in the mountains of Kurdistan, the Kurdish officials point to what they say are tangible footprints of Iran's collaboration with terror and insurgent groups responsible for attacks inside Iraq.


According to a half-dozen officials in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, known as the PUK, which controls the southern half of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and commanders in the peshmerga, the force that provides security in the region, Iran has extended its network of agents inside Iraq. Iran, the officials say, continues to aid groups like Ansar al-Islam and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, now named Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.


Even though Iran is a Shi'ite theocracy, these officials said, it helps Sunni insurgent groups because it wants to prevent a strong unified government from taking shape in Iraq. "They go back and forth after running missions here," said Anwar Haji Othman, head of security in the area around Halabja, including a long stretch of the Iranian border.…


Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said at the time: "From the outset, Iran has tried to help Iraq overcome its problems."


But Othman, the Kurdish regional security chief, said that despite impressive internal security forces, Iran has not stopped terror groups from living and training just across the border in a group of Iranian Kurdish cities.


According to information gleaned from questioning of the arrested Ansar members, Othman said, former Ansar fighters are now based in the Iranian border towns of Marivan (home to about 60 Kurdish Islamists), Sanandaj, Dezli (where about 30 Iranian villagers have joined the Islamist cause) and Orumiyeh (the base for up to 300 Islamists, including Gulf Arabs, Afghans and Kurds). They have a training camp in Dolanau, just a few kilometers from the Iraqi border. Three other leading officials have confirmed this…


Mohammed Mohammed Saeed, a peshmerga commander and the top PUK official in the region around Halabja, said that Iran regularly sends intelligence agents into Kurdistan to monitor the Kurdish peshmerga and the movements of Americans.


Iran used to have offices in Suleimaniya and Halabja until US special forces landed in the region in March 2003. But, Saeed said, the Iranians have retained their spy network inside Iraq, and are now using it to watch American forces and to help insurgents.


"The Iranians are worried," he said. "They don't want a pro-American government in Iraq. The Iranians want neighboring countries to be full of anarchy, violence, and chaos."…
 

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Arab Times
November 11, 2004
Syrian, Iranian dresses ablaze


IF POLITICS is about managing and serving the interests of one's country, surely the Iranian and Syrian regimes lack this knack. Viewed from this perspective there is no real politics in these two countries. Or maybe their brand of politics belongs to the bygone era as it is based on the instinct of protecting and ensuring the existence of oneself. The policy of these two regimes is to ignore the policies of others unless they are enemies. These regimes need such illusory animosity to prove they are effective and needed. Such illusions are based on slogans, which try to fuel the emotions of people against an enemy who doesn't exist...


This was obvious when the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa went to Tehran to discuss what they can do about the "Angry Ghost" operation which is sweeping through Falluja. Damascus and Tehran have condemned the military operations of the coalition forces in Falluja. This makes us wonder why these two countries are against the operations to flush out terrorists. Why are they crying foul while other countries in the region such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan are maintaining a studied silence? Can we ask why Syria and Iran are raising such objections at this point in time?


The only answer to these questions is the fact that the real fight in Fallujah is between Syrian and Iranian intelligence agents on the one hand and Iraqi and coalition forces on the other. The Syrian and Iranian regimes are trying to mislead their people on a war they can't win. But they surely can raise all sorts of objections from the side. These regimes adopted the policy of killing innocent people to ensure their survival. The dress of Iran and Syria are in flames because of the fire they set in Iraq and Lebanon…


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The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (USADI), is a US-based, non-profit, independent organization, which promotes informed policy debate, exchange of ideas, analysis, research and education to advance a US  policy on Iran which will benefit America’s interests, both at home and in the Middle East, through supporting Iranian people’s  aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government, free of tyranny, fundamentalism, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

 

USADI supports the Iranian peoples' aspirations for democracy, peace,  human rights, women’s equality, freedom of expression, separation of  church and state, self-determination, control of land and resources,  cultural integrity, and the right to development and prosperity.

 

The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties. The USADI administration is solely responsible for its activities and decisions.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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