Iran in wait for change in US policy
2004/01/25
IRIB English News - Iran
Tehran, Jan 25 - President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday strongly pledged that any fundamental change in US policies toward Iran will change the existing atmosphere of hostility between the two arch-foes.
"If we observe a fundamental change in American policies, a new situation will prevail," he told reporters here after welcoming Austrian President Thomas Klestil who arrived on a four-day visit early Saturday evening.
"We have no enmity toward anyone, anywhere (they might be).But we also expect that others do not make enmity toward us," Khatami added.
Washington cut ties with Tehran in 1980 in wake of a hostage crisis after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and arrested its staff.
Since then, the United States has taken an antagonistic stance against Iran, assisting the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein during the imposed Iraqi war between 1980 and 1988.
http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=197186This is an Old open letter but still suitable at the moment.
An Open Letter To Mr. Khatami: RESIGN
IranMania News
August 2002
Dear Mr. Khatami:
In 1997, Iranian population took to the election pools and looking at you as a refreshing voice of hope, the only 'other' one provided to them by the conservatives, and voted for you in a large majority to become the Iranian President. This was despite the vast support of the conservatives of your opponent. Stories of the Iranian TV cameras lingering and closing on the hand of the "neutral" supreme leader- while he was clearly writing the name of your opponent on the ballot- and the subsequent massive popular vote for you was supposed to be the new chapter in the "evolution" of Iran's revolution.
Optimists like myself became hopeful to see that a new wind is coming and soon the Islamic Republic, like China or Soviet Union, will change. "The era of transparency, responsibility and accountability are upon Iran", we thought. Iranian people nicknamed you the Ayatollah Gorbachev and they thought that the implementation of your "jame'eh madani" and the Iranian Constitution would bring them some freedom. The rejuvenated masses thought of you as the new cavalry rushing to their rescue from sadness, politico-economical depression and the complete lack of the basic human rights. Reading Hamshahri on the Internet became a ritual of daily hope for us expatriates. Many similar or more progressive newspapers-permitted by your government to publish- replaced the many tired "conservative"-controlled papers. We noted a dichotomy among the ranking files.
Events that followed showed that maybe our hopes were premature. In a typical "fool me twice" you put shame on us Iranian who once again trusted a clergyman. (Recall that the prior time was when Khomeini stole OUR revolution.) In 1998, the Mayor of Tehran, one of your staunch supporters was imprisoned and gagged from the political arena. This was followed shortly by the imprisonment of several of your "close" confidents, the killing of the critics and political thinkers, the closing of many newspapers, the events of 7/19/1999 university dormitory, the arrests of the students activists, the Berlin conference, etc. Throughout this ordeal, you did not do anything to allay our fears and concerns that the Old Persian saying maybe accurate. You know, the saying that when a mullah gets on a jackass, either the jackass or the mullah has to die before mullah gets off the jackass.
Subsequent elections of the city councils, the parliamentary election and your second election to the office were also thought to be a referendum by Iranian people demanding simple social, economical and political freedoms. With each election, people were massively turning out at the pools and were voting for you and other reformists in complete disdain of your conservative friends. You were supposed to get bolder and start fighting the conservatives wholeheartedly during the second term. Do you remember that your immediate boss, Mr. Rafsanjani, could not even get elected to the last seat of Tehran when your brother, by the virtue of being your brother, was the first vote getter in Tehran. "There is no stopping him with the Sixth Parliament mostly reformers", we thought. Making ourselves believe that there is an actual divergence among your clergy ranks, we actually believed the mirage of differences among ruling clergymen. You played the "bad cop, good cop" game to a perfection. We were fooled by your charm, your smile, and your politically savvy answers to Christian Amanpour.
You have proven to be a weak, incapable human being who looked the other way when the conservatives killed students in the dormitory. You proved to be incapable of bringing justice to the killers of the Iranian political activists, poets and writers despite your mandate. Closure of the newspapers, arrests of your close associates and the attempted assassination of your comrades in arm not even convinced you that you need to do something: The need to be transparent and clearly and unwaveringly make public pronouncements of the wrong doings by the "supreme" leader, Rafsanjani and their gangs of Sha'ban Bimokhs. Or maybe that was the general plan, "Divert these fools by dangling the jameh madani in their faces, while we rob them clean." The public speeches you have delivered, using double talks, have spoken vaguely of the "elements in the regime" that are causing mayhem in your "civil" society. Sir, who are they? Do you really not know them or are you, the President of Iran with a large popular mandate, afraid of them? Sir, it is time to be honest.
It is time to declare to the world that Iranians' blood replaced one dictatorship for another. Declare to people who shed their sweat and blood for the success of the revolution- or afterwards protecting it in that ridiculous Anglo-American-Arab-Clergy aggression- that they wasted their lives, youths and blood for nothing. Tell them that they committed a faux pas. Declare to the Iranian youth that they are the most oppressed generation in the long history of Iran and there is no cavalry coming to their help. Tell them that religion is the "opium of the masses" and clergies are the pimps who are pushing the opium to the many 12-year old boys who jumped on the mines. Tell them that while we all suffered in one shape or form during the war, only very few members of the establishment suffered during the war. Tell the women who voted for you in large numbers that they are truly considered only a half human in the eye of Islam and the clergy. Tell them the truth that your clergy-sponsored seegeh is nothing but prostitution. Tell them that in the eye of Islam it is quite justified and acceptable to wed a 9-year old girl (Ayesheh) to a 60+-year-old man (Muhammad). Tell them that the women have no hope in you. Tell them that the killing of an 11-year-old girl in the hand of his father is indeed considered a paternal right of corporal punishment in Islam. Tell this people that you are without power to implement change, without intestinal fortitude to stand up against dictatorship, and that you have been toying with their dreams over the past 5 years. Tell them the real truth that the system is incapable of an "evolution". Tell them that you are a "constitutional" mirage, a smiling face to the European investors; a façade of a deeply disturbing gang of criminals who continue to plunder the country, kill the people, oppress the individual rights and freedom. Tell them that there are no "six degrees of separation" between you and Rafsanjani and expose the real puppeteers. Tell Iranians that clergymen are not their saviors. Tell them the truth behind destroying of the Iran's beautiful environment over the past twenty-plus years, the mortgaging of the countries' wealth to the multi-national oil companies, the dismantling of the hope and the stealing of the joy from the joyous and hopeful crowds who brought you to power. Tell them that they need to look for a savior elsewhere, tell them that your people- the clergy- killed their heroes and devastated the fertile post-revolutionary political field of Iran and now they are waiting for the death of the "jackass".
It is time for you to resign and let the people know that there is no hope left and that all the heroes are dead. People of Iran who were looking for a Kaveh Ahangar in you got only a weak Judas instead.
An Iranian
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=21920&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs