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Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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TEHRAN TYRANY'S 25TH

by Amir Taheri
New York Post
February 10, 2004

TEN Little Indians" is the title of a nursery rhyme that inspired one of Agatha Christie's best loved thrillers. In it, the "Indians" in question disappear one after another until we learn that "then there was none."

This could be a parable of Iran's Khomeinist revolution, which marks its 25th anniversary tomorrow. The revolution started with quite a few "Indians."

In 1978 it had forged a coalition of parties that had nothing in common except hatred for the Shah.

The heart of the coalition consisted of Khomeinist militants ready to kill, and to die, to install their "Imam" to head a system in which a single mullah, claiming to represent God on earth, is the absolute master of the nation.

Khomeinism, a form of fascism, was, and remains, a consistent political doctrine. Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini was honest enough never to promise a pluralist system. He raised the banner of revolt against the Shah not because Iranians did not have enough freedom, but because, he claimed, they had too much.

Nevertheless, many who described themselves as liberals, democrats, social democrats and supporters of a constitutional monarchy, rallied to Khomeini.

Each must have known that Khomeini, or for that matter any mullah from any religion, is unlikely and unable to offer democracy. They all believed that they could use Khomeini as a bridge over which to walk to power. They underestimated Khomeini's intelligence. Having planned to double-cross him, they ended up being double-crossed by him.

There were other "little Indians" around the ayatollah. They included a variety of mullahs - Iran had almost a quarter of a million of them in 1978 - who pursued different agendas. They, too, wanted to use Khomeini to win a bigger share of the pie, all along thinking that, once they had achieved their goals, they would double-cross him.

Again, Khomeini proved too clever for them.

But the strangest of all "little Indians" of the time were the leftist parties whose leaders suddenly grew beards, bought rosaries and started going to the mosques for prayers.

The members of the Soviet-created Communists of the Tudeh (Masses) Party replaced their portraits of Marx and Lenin with those of Ali Ibn Abi-Talib and Hussein Ibn Ali, the first and third imams of Shiism.

Their chief ideologist, the octogenarian Ihsan Tabari, even wrote a book to prove that Ali had been the true founder of "Socialism." Then there were the People's Mujahedin, a Marxist-Islamist terrorist organization that specialized in robbing banks and killing policemen. Alongside them were two versions of another terror group, the so-called People's Fedayeen Guerrillas, one pro-Moscow, the other pro-Peking.

There were, as well, the Trotskyites, the Spartacists, the Guevarists and countless other leftist terrorist gangs with names like "Storm," "Thunder," "Workers' Banner" and "Red Star." They, too, secretly hoped that once the Shah was gone they could stab Khomeini in the back and seize power for themselves. Khomeini, however, was not as gullible as the "little Indians" imagined.

Once in power he began destroying his former allies one by one, starting with the weakest.

Within months, Khomeini had put Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari under house arrest and disbanded his People's Republican Party. All the other "little Indians" applauded, naively hoping that they would escape a similar fate.

Next to disappear were the Musaddeqists, fans of Muhammad Mussaddeq who had served as prime minister for a couple of years in the 1950s.the "Islamist-Nationalists" were next to go. Their leader Mahdi Bazargan was used by Khomeini as prime minister for a few months, before being disposed of like a used napkin.

Then came the crackdown against the Mujahedin, followed by a campaign to annihilate the leftist guerrilla groups.

By 1983 most of the "little Indians" who had hoped to double-cross Khomeini had been liquidated.

According to Amnesty International, between 1981 and 1983, the ayatollah executed some 25,000 people, almost all of them his former supporters. Also, dozens of prominent politicians and mullahs were assassinated by hit-squads set up by Khomeini.

Khomeini destroyed virtually the entire opposition to the Shah's regime, from the extreme right to the extreme left - something the Shah had failed to do.

The "little Indians" took years to understand what had happened. They complained about having been "duped" by Khomeini. Even today remnants of the "little Indians" do not realize that they only have themselves to blame. They lied to Khomeini, lied to the Iranian people and, above all, lied to themselves.

Logically, a communist, a Mussadeqist, a socialist, a liberal, a nationalist, or a democrat cannot vote for "Walayat Faqih," the Khomeinist system under which power is concentrated in the hands of a single mullah. And yet, in the constitutional referendum that Khomeini organized within months of coming to power, they voted for that system.

Twenty-five years after the victory of the Khomeinist revolution, only two "little Indians" remain standing. One represents the genuine Khomeinists who believe that theocracy is the best system not only for Iran but for all nations.

These Khomeinists sincerely believe that a woman is half as valuable as a man and that she should cover her hair because it emanates rays that drive men wild with lust. They genuinely believe that men who shave their beards will go to hell. They regard the West as a civilization in decline, and its values, including human rights and democracy, as decadent.

Their strategic goal is to destroy Western-dominated civilization and replace it with a better, Islamic, one. They dream of wiping Israel off the map and, one day, hoisting their flag of faith atop the White House.

At the same time they are realistic enough to know that the current balance of power is not in their favor and that they should not become involved in a direct clash with the West. Thus they are ready to offer concessions, including some humiliating retreats, which may be required in foreign policy, provided their power inside Iran is not threatened.

The second group are the ersatz Khomeinists who suffer from split personality. They are fascinated by the West and would die to be accepted by it as "reformists" and/or "democrats." At the same time they are unable to cut their ties to Khomeinism. Outside Iran, they talk of democracy and pluralism. In Tehran they go on pilgrimage to Khomeini's tomb and light candles so that the Imam will save them from annihilation. These fake Khomeinists are the latest "little Indians" to be seen off by the revolution. The next general election, on Feb. 20, could seal their fate.

Once these double-fakers are out of the way Iran will be left with the last group of "little Indians," the hard-core, real McCoy Khomeinists. And then we can look forward to the day when they, too, will disappear.

And then there will be none.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/17543.htm

DoctorZin Note: Story about the regime's "Rent a Anti-American Demonstration". The regime has to ship in demonstrators from the rural areas and pay them to create a crowd.

Mass transfers of "celebrators" and future "voters" start again
SMCCDI (Information Service)
Feb 10, 2004

Confirming reports from main Iranian cities and especially the Capital are stating about the start of mass transfers of paid "celebrators" and future "voters" to these cities.

These transfers managed and supervised by the Offices of Islamic Propagation and the Pasdaran Intelligence are made in preparation of the "celebration" of the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, on Wednesday, and the regime's sham parliamentary elections of Feb. 20th.

Full buses are reaching the cities of Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, tabriz, Mashad, Hamadan and Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) by delivering their load of paid rural people who are receiving money, gifts, promises and free full paid travel to cities.

Most of the state's foundations' hotels and dorm places, Bassij centers, mosques and even part of the regime's military facilities, such as in Lavizan (NE of Tehran) are receiving these guests.

The regime intends by this way to boost its "popular legitimacy" and avoid empty streets on these days while each of the ministries have received the order to gather groups of employees, school students and plainclothes militaries and to send them for the two events ahead.

The Jihadis' Primal Scream

February 10, 2004
National Review Online
Michael Ledeen

Zarkawi's "Yaarrrhhh!"

Unless you depend on CNN for information — CNN totally and stunningly transformed the story, Instapundit informed us yesterday — by now you have heard of the New York Times story about the discovery of a 17-page letter from Abu Musab al Zarkawi, written from Iraq in the middle of last month to the leaders of al Qaeda. It's an extremely explosive story.

According to the Times — whose correspondent, Dexter Filkins, saw both the Arabic original and a military translation, and "wrote down large parts of the translation" — the letter is a sort of jihadist primal scream. It says that the jihad against the Americans in Iraq is going badly. The Iraqis are not signing up for martyrdom or jihad, they do not even permit the jihadis to organize their terrorist attacks from local houses, and, worst of all, the Americans are not afraid of the terrorists. With that charming neglect of logic that seems to define much of the radical terrorist "mind," Zarkawi says both that the Americans "are the biggest cowards that God has created," and that "America...has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."

And he adds, "we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases."

If we had a government capable of advancing its case to the world at large, those phrases would be broadcast around the world, because they constitute an admission of defeat by a man in the forefront of the campaign against us in Iraq.

If that were all it said, it would be sensational for most Americans, although certainly not for NRO readers. I pointed out a couple of months ago that the terror masters in Damascus, Tehran, and Riyadh were undoubtedly gnashing their teeth, because their grand design for mass slaughter of Americans and bigtime insurrections all over Iraq, had failed. They had expected a bloodbath of epic proportions, and the same sort of "revolutionary" demonstrations that they had used so effectively against us in Lebanon in the 1980s and against the Israelis a decade later. But instead, they have discovered that the Iraqis don't like them (can we all finally put a nail in the coffin of that idiotic "they're all Shiites so they will all work together" myth?), and that the country is, indeed, headed toward democracy. Zarkawi even uses the word, as he gasps, "by God, this is suffocation!"

But there is more. He says the only chance for victory in Iraq is to provoke a Sunni/Shiite civil war, and the best way to do that is to unleash jihad against the Iraqi Shiites — referred to as "the perverse sects" — expecting that they will blame the Sunnis for it. The civil war would then "awaken the sleepy Sunnis..."

I have said for some time that the strategy of terror masters — above all, the mullahs in Tehran — was to foster civil strife in Iraq. They have been trying very hard to foment Kurdish/Turkamen, Sunni/Shiite and intertribal conflict for at least the past few months. But they greatly underestimated both the savvy of the Iraqis — who have seen the hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers and their al Qaeda allies swarming all over the country, guiding the suicide bombers, organizing the radio and television broadcasts, and intimidating the locals whenever possible — and the slow but deliberate progress of the American armed forces. We aren't nearly as stupid as we look, and, as Zarkawi has discovered to his dismay, we don't run from a fight. At least not so long as this president is confidently in charge.

At the same time they underestimated us and the Iraqis, they overestimated their own capabilities. Iranian leaders have been told for months by their operatives in Iraq that large-scale destruction and major political action was just around the corner. But with every passing week, they realize they've been the victims of their own fantasies.

Although Zarkawi has often operated from Iran — as proven by court documents in Italy and Germany, and by information gathered by both our military and our intelligence folks in Europe and the Middle East — he is not Iranian. He's a Jordanian Palestinian, whose basic mission is the overthrow of the Hashemites in his native land. To judge by this letter, he is not particularly sophisticated about the requirements of the mullahcracy back in Tehran. They cannot "pack up and leave and look for another land," for, as President Bush rightly said in his Sunday session with Tim Russert, they are mortally threatened by the spread of democracy in the Middle East. They will have to play every card they have to drive us out, and, as Zarkawi's letter shows, they realize they are on a tight schedule: Once an Iraqi government is in place in June, "the sons of this land will be the authority...This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts."

So we can expect to see a desperate campaign against us and against the Shiites in the next several weeks.

Meanwhile, back in Iran, the natives are reading the various auguries, wondering what the primal forces of world history have in store for them. On the one hand, the parade of appeasers added a distinguished figure from the country that coined the word itself. Britain's very own Prince Charles sneaked off to Tehran to meet with the impotent President Khatami in yet another effort to make a deal that would save the tyrants from their doom. On the other hand, a handful of parliamentarians, mostly those rejected by the regime and thus denied high status and a guaranteed monthly wage, went to the universities to join in the boycott of the February 20 general elections. Their support is hardly necessary — a government poll in Tehran a week ago produced a truly amazing statistic: More than 90 percent do not intend to vote — but they deserve high marks for personal and political courage. Most Iranians expect that the regime will install a new Stalinism once the elections have been held, leading judicial figures have publicly scolded the parliamentarians to expect punishment, and the regime's thugs have launched a preemptive war on student leaders all over the country.

Nonetheless, demonstrations continue all over the country. Demonstrations in Kerman a couple of weeks ago were so large that the regime was forced to bring in helicopter gunships to mow down the protesters, and the usual thugs were unleashed on student demonstrators in Tehran and Shiraz in the last few days. Despite the calls for appeasement from the State Department and a handful of our elected representatives, the Iranian people can see what is going on in Iraq, and they must take a measure of comfort from it. And the regime was so upset by President Bush's passing reference to Middle Eastern tyrants who feel threatened by the liberation of Iraq (this weekend), that on Monday the official news service reported that Bush had threatened Iran with the same treatment he had delivered to Iraq. I can hear the Iranians sighing, "oh, if only it is true."

We do not need to fight a war to liberate Iran, but we must liberate Iran in order to win the terror war in Iraq. Zarkawi is part of a terror network that is based in Iran, and receives enormous support from the mullahs. If Iran were a free country, Iraq would be immeasurably more peaceful. It is time for Secretary Powell to call an end to the shameful efforts at appeasement, and throw his enormous personal prestige behind the just cause of the Iranian people. He disappointed them last summer, when he proclaimed that we did not wish to get engaged in the Iranian "family squabble." But it is not that; it is part of the life-and-death struggle in which we are now engaged. The longer we wait to support freedom in Iran, the more Americans, Italians, Poles, Japanese, Dutch, Romanians, Spaniards, and others, will be killed in Iraq.

Faster, please.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200402100835.asp

This just in from a student inside of Iran...

"I would like our Freeper friends to know that the Rallies in Tehran, on the anniversary of the IRI victory in 1979 revolution, that they may watch on TV, or read on papers are not showing the popularity of the regime.

They import poor people from Suburb and order Military Servicemen to join the rallies.

I strongly ask the people in the US not to believe what they might see tomorrow and please keep supporting us in order to liberate Iran sooner.

Thank You! "

"Celebration" ornaments and posters destroyed

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Feb 10, 2004

Many "Celebration" ornaments and posters praising the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution have been destroyed by groups of opponents working during night time.

The popular move is in reaction to the official propaganda praising the legacy of what is qualified by the majority of Iranians as the "Holocaust".

The regime which has spent millions of dollars for these materials, shows which will take place on Wednesday and transfers of paid celebrators in order to fill the streets has a hard time to control the popular reaction despite the heavy presence of its forces.

Tracts are distributed calling for empty streets.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4843.shtml

Students Call on Khatami to Resign Over Election Flop

February 08, 2004
Iran Weekly Press Digest
WPD

Hundreds of students gathered inside the Tehran university on Sunday and, while protesting against efforts by the conservative clergy to eradicate republicanism in Iran, called on President Mohammad Khatami to resign.

“Our final word is this: if you (Khatami) can still hear the voice of the people and still care for them, then resign,” the students news agency ISNA quoted the students as saying in a letter addressed to the president.

Students blamed the president to have once again made a flop in confronting the hardline clergy following the elimination of more than 2000 liberal candidates, including 87 sitting legislators, in the February 20 parliamentary elections.

Khatami’s efforts to persuade the conservative clergy in the senate-like Guardian Council to revise the eliminations finally failed and he eventually gave in to holding the polls as scheduled although he had earlier vowed to prevent undemocratic and uncompetitive elections.

“Khatami is not the Khatami of 1997 (when first elected as president) and if he was no longer capable to lead the reform movement, then he should resign,” the students said.

The students further said that the conservative clergy with less than 20 per cent of popular support plan to eradicate not only republicanism nut also the right of electing and replace it with appointing deputies for the parliament.

Several students groups, in line with liberal groups, have proclaimed that they would boycott the elections in protest against the elimination of liberal candidates.

http://www.iranwpd.com/

Iran Urged to Stop Harassing Journalists

February 09, 2004
Reporters Without Borders
RSF

Reporters Without Borders is concerned at an upsurge in harassment and obstruction of journalists since the 11 January ruling barring huge numbers of reformist candidates from contesting 20 February parliamentary elections.

The international press freedom organisation has called on the authorities in the Islamic Republic to allow journalists to freely report on the political crisis currently shaking the country. Reporters Without Borders also urged the authorities to grant visas to all foreign journalists who apply for them.

Eight reformist dailies - Yas-e no, Sharq, Nassim-e Sabah, Tosseh, Aftab-e Yazd, E'temad, Hambastegi, et Mardomsalari - were threatened by the legal authorities in the week of 29 January for their coverage of the sit-in by reformist deputies in front of the parliament.

Prosecutor Said Mortazavi has called on the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Orientation to issue a warning to these newspapers accusing them of "sowing discord". The prosecutor went even further on 8 February with the threat, "Any newspaper carrying articles about the election boycott will be immediately closed down."

Five journalists have also been officially summoned by the Justice Ministry :

- Shadi Sadr, journalist at Yas-e no and publisher of the site www.womeniran.com is due to appear shortly before a court in Qazvin to respond to a complaint from the prosecutor's office.

- Abdollah Nasseri, head of the official IRNA news agency, was summoned by Section 1083 of the Teheran court to respond to complaints from the prosecutor's office linked to his coverage of the political crisis.

- Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, editor-in-chief of several major banned reformist newspapers, was summoned on 28 January by the 6th section of the Teheran court over his articles on the parliamentary crisis.

- Abdolrassul Vessal, publisher of the daily Iran, was summoned by the 6th section of Teheran court over its report on the government spokesman's speech during the reformist deputies' sit-in at parliament. He is accused of "publishing false news".

- Rassul Montakhabnia, reformist deputy and journalist, was summoned by the Clergy Court over a highly critical article about a speech by the Guide of the Islamic Republic about the press in Iran.

Throughout the country and particularly in provincial cities, journalists have confirmed to Reporters Without Borders that they have received phone threats over articles about the political crisis. Courts have summoned some newspaper bosses this week on the basis of complaints laid many months or even years earlier.

Finally, several media have been shut down :

- The weekly Hadith-e Kerman, in Kerman province was closed on 7 February for coverage last year of serial killings committed by armed militia.

- Another weekly in Khorrassan province, No Andish, was suspended for one year on 4 February on the order of the 7th appeal court in Mashhad, on the basis of a complaint from the prosecutor's office. The editor-in-chief, the publisher and a journalist were fined five million rials (about 500 euros at the official rate) and another journalist was fined 1 million de rials (about 100 euros).

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9204

ConocoPhillips Pressured to End Iran, Syria Work

Reuters - World News (via Yahoo)
Feb 10, 2004

NEW YORK - ConocoPhillips, the No. 3 U.S. oil company, is ending its operations in Syria and Iran after a New York City official asked the company to examine its ties with countries that "promote terrorism."

New York City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. on Tuesday released a letter from the Houston-based company which said it had agreed not to "approve business ventures in sensitive countries unless it is convinced that it can do so legally and within the spirit of U.S. law."

Thompson last year made a proposal on behalf of the New York City Police and Fire Department Pension Funds -- which have $34.8 million invested in ConocoPhillips -- that the company ensure oversight of operations in Iran and Syria.

ConocoPhillips has now ended its business connections with Iran and said a contract for a partial stake in a gas-processing facility in Syria could end as early as next year, Thompson said in a statement.

The agreement also extends to the company's domestic and foreign subsidiaries.

New York City's five pension funds, overseen by Thompson, have more than $164 million invested in ConocoPhillips. The story was first reported in amNewYork, a daily newspaper in New York City.

ConocoPhillips was not immediately available for comment.

"I hope that these decisions will encourage other companies to thoroughly examine their relationships with rogue nations, and any ties that can promote terrorism," Thompson said.

"Over the next few months, my office will expand the scope of our efforts and increase pressure to ensure responsible relationships," he added.

Thompson has also asked General Electric Co. and oil field services company Halliburton to end their operations in countries that sponsor terror.

However, he expressed "displeasure" that neither of those companies have taken measures similar to ConocoPhillips.

He recently submitted a renewed shareholder proposal calling on Halliburton to review its operations in Iran. Halliburton in February 2000 opened an office in Iran through a Cayman Islands unit, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd.

Thompson expects to submit another shareholder resolution with GE later this year.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4845.shtml

Reza Pahlavi's Opening Statement at the French - American Press Club in Paris

February 10, 2004
Reza Pahlavi Secretariat
rezapahlavi.org/

A quarter century ago, a disease from the middle ages took over my country. Its symptoms were fear of freedom and a fanatical zeal to reverse the march of civilization. With strange mutations, the disease spread as far as North Africa and the Far East, creating a brotherhood of terror which is the greatest threat to international security today.

The strategic vacuum created by the Islamic Revolution in Iran drew the Soviets into Afghanistan the following year. To counter them, the West organized and trained the killers we now know as the Taliban. Similarly the Iran-Iraq war brought the West to Saddam's support, fueling ambitions responsible for the current predicament. Iran itself became a convention center for the terrorist industry, a meeting place for those who fund, organize, lend logistic and scientific support, plan events and coordinate strategies against the free world. Add up all of that cost - This is a problem that must be solved!

All cure starts with a good diagnosis. It is critical not to mistake so-called reforms and elections as a cure for the Islamic Republic. Even perfect elections are meaningless for a Parliament that does not have the right to make laws. This is a theocracy; remember… where daring to think free and decide your future is seen as the arrogance of the infidel. The obligation of the faithful is obedience to those who reveal the law of God, those around the "Faghih," the Supreme Leader.

This may all sound gloomy, but actually, today I came here to bring you positive news. My compatriots, particularly the young generation, have found the antidote to fanaticism in their passion to join the free world. For you see, while the governments the world over were struggling against fanatical terrorists, in Iran these were the government. Having suffered the most, it is no surprise that it is Iranians who are now rising to stamp out the epicenter of the disease.

Physically, it may be the regime that separates Iranians from the world and from each other. Politically, however, it is the people who are isolating the regime, cutting off support and sapping its authority. Indeed, it is striking the extent to which this regime has lost authority, not just vis-à-vis the people, but within the regime and with respect to the organs of the government itself.

This is what gives us confidence. This is why I spend my every moment leading an effort to bring together political movements in Iran, from different persuasions and walks of life, for the coordinated action required to force this regime to crumble. My compatriots' hope and energy allows me to guarantee to you today that Iranians will soon tear down the black wall of the Islamic Republic, join the free world, and demonstrate that, given the opportunity, all men prefer the light of enlightenment to the darkness of fanaticism.

Marxism faded when the wall came down and people saw the reality behind it. Religious intolerance too will lose its virulence as the Islamic Republic of Iran crumbles. Civilized nations will no longer have to fight each other over how to defeat terror. Free of fear, a world without barricades will create a better life for all of its citizens.

This is our collective future. We will get there - later, if the free world lends the regime credibility, sooner, if it supports the people in establishing a new order based on popular sovereignty and fundamental human rights.

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/fapc21004.html

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC IS A "CENTRE FOR TERRORIST INDUSTRY":

REZA PAHLAVI

By Safa Haeri

PARIS, 10 Feb. (IPS) Iran, under the rule of the ayatollahs, has become a "convention centre for terrorist industry" and the Islamic Republic has created a "brotherhood of terror which is the greatest threat to international peace and security", according to Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi.

"The strategic vacuum created by the Islamic Revolution in Iran drew the Soviets into Afghanistan the following year. To counter them, the West organized and trained the killers we now know as trhe Taleban. Similarly the Iran-Iraq War brought the West to Saddam’s support, fueling ambitions responsible for the current predicament. Iran itself became a convention center for terrorist industry, a meeting place for those who fund, organize, lend logistic and scientific support, plan events and coordinate strategies against the free world. Add up all of the cost. This is a problem that must be solved", he said during a press conference held on Tuesday at the Foreign Press Centre in Paris.

Speaking on Tuesday to a packed audience of journalists, Mr. Pahlavi reiterated that he had no other mission than to help Iranians organize a national and free referendum on the future regime of Iran and recommended "civil disobedience" to achieve this goal "peacefully", reminding that the method that started in India yielded "positive results" in South Africa, some Latin nations as well as in the former Soviet Union satellites like Poland, Czechoslovakia or Serbia.

"It is noteworthy that the idea of national referendum – that he suggested more than two years ago -- has become the leitmotiv of the majority of Iranians opposed to the regime, among them and foremost the students ", he gladly observed, calling on all Iranians of all walks and political ideologies opposed to the Islamic Republic to unite together in achieving this goal.

"We are all in the same boat and we have to row in unison. In the past 25 years, we never had such a golden chance. It is up to all of us to take it and the international community will also help", he went on.

In Paris to launch the French translation of his new book entitled "For Iran"*, a 248 pages of interview with Mr. Ahmad Ahraar, one of Iran’s most respected journalist and commentator reckoned also by all critics as one of the most serious analyst of Iranian affairs, Mr. Pahlavi also cautioned the Western world against sending "confusing signals" that Iranians translates as support for the present theocracy.

"If you are really for democracy, human rights and freedom in Iran, meeting and talking with the powerless president (Mohammad) Khatami about the so-called dialogue of civilizations is not the best way", he said, referring to the just concluded trip to Iran by Prince Charles of England and his talks with Mr. Khatami.

Expressing his "confidence" to see the Islamic Republic "crumble" as did the Soviet Union, he told his fellow Iranians: "We also would be free. Later if the free world lends this regime credibility, sooner if it supports the people in establishing a new order based on the sovereignty of the people and fundamental human rights", he added.

"You have to choose between the 90 per cent of the Iranians which reject this regime and the 10 per cent that cling to power for their own personal interests. But don’t forget that the day the Iranians free themselves from this regime, they would remember the governments that turned their back to them during the hard years they suffered", he said, increasing visibly the tone of his criticism against the European Union.

To those in the West, officials, analysts or journalists, who see in the present cacophony over the elections signs of democracy, the son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was toppled by the Islamic Revolution in January 1979 said "it is critical not to mistake the so-called reforms and elections as "a cure" for the Islamic Republic.

"Even perfect elections are meaningless for a parliament that does not have the right to make laws. This is a theocracy where daring to think free and decide your future is seen as the arrogance of the infidel. The obligation of the faithful is full obedience to those who reveal the law of god, those around the Faqih, or the Supreme Leader. This is not election, but a masquerade of selection", he noted.

Asked about plans by Washington to also attack Iran, Prince Reza observed immediately that the situation in Iran was "totally different" from those that prevailed in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq. "In Iran, you have a sold administration with experienced cadre, a people that despite repressions expresses its demands, dissidents that despite crackdowns challenge the regime, a lively society that oppose the system that wants keep isolated from the world that the Iranians, particularly the younger generation, want to join", he said.

To a question about Tehran backing the Iraqi Shi’ite for an Islamic Republic similar to the one ruling Iran, Mr. Pahlavi observed that in the struggle between the "hauzeh" (religious circle) of Qom where religion "has been nationalized" and is crumbling fast in the one hand and that of Najaf in Iraq that has "recovered its freedom and increases its influence" the Islamic Republic would let "no one stone unturned to spread trouble".

However he expressed optimism as to the Middle East crisis, seeing peace coming back to the region after the resent Iranian theocracy changes into a free, secular, democratic regime based on a parliamentary system, "a nation then that would play the key role in maintaining stability for the whole of area".

To a question about the future regime he recommends for Iran, Prince Reza said that was not his concern. "What I’m interested and all my efforts are turned and concentrated is to achieve the referendum. The form of the future regime would be and must be decided by the people, no matter if they go for a constitutional monarchy or a republic, provided either form is based on parliamentary democracy, secularism and plurality, where all Iranians are equal, regardless of sex, ethnic or religion". This is my mission and don’t expect more than that from me”, he pointed out, adding with conviction that the future king of queen should reign, but not rule”, a veiled reference to the former Monarchy where his father had become an authoritarian Monarch.

ENDS REZA PAHLAVI PRESS CONF 10204

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/reza_pahlavi_press_conf_10204.htm

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