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Iran's die-hards will dump democracy - if the US helps

Washington looks ready to strike a bargain with the rump republic

Martin Woollacott
Friday February 13, 2004
The Guardian

The tattered double act that has been Iranian politics in recent years is finally shuffling off the stage, and nobody knows what will follow. Campaigning for elections to the Iranian parliament began yesterday but it is unworthy of the name, since the vast majority of candidates are from the conservative wing of the political class. The reformists, who have symbolised and disappointed the hopes of most Iranians since Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997, have either been banned from standing or are boycotting the elections, with insignificant exceptions. Conservative slogans promise a parliament to "serve the nation, not create tensions within it". But what is in prospect is a parliament elected on a shamefully low turnout and a political system stripped of legitimacy.
Even in the most ruthless years after the revolution, the associates and heirs of Khomeini never quite let go of the idea of a state that would be both Islamic and democratic. Most of the excluded reformists remain believers in the possibility of reconciling the two, rather than secular politicians in waiting. Whether Iranians share their beliefs or not, it was the reformists' participation in government that gave the Islamic republic some broad legitimacy. That legitimacy has been draining away for a long time, partly because the reformists in office proved ill-organised, divided and indecisive, and partly because Iranian expectations of political and economic improvement were too high. Above all, it has been because the reformists' attempts to curtail the role of the unelected conservatives - who control the judiciary and security forces, discipline the press and vet candidates for office - have been unsuccessful.

The revolution shared out power between two sets of institutions, the pinnacle of one being the democratically elected presidency. The other was headed by a "supreme leader", whose function was to act as spiritual guide to the nation and take final decisions when necessary, with an appointed council of guardians below him. The uneasy relationship of the two orders, one dominated by conservatives and the other, in recent years, by reformists, rested on an implicit bargain. The conservatives needed the popular support the reformists brought, the reformists needed the steel of conservative resolve to prevent the changes they wanted sending Iran down the slippery slope toward a secular state. Though both agreed there was a line that should not be crossed, they could not agree where it lay. The result was the abortive politics of recent years. Much was ventured, but conservative vetoes meant nothing was gained. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, seemed more the captive of the conservatives than their chief, and consistently failed to maintain a balance between the forces.

Iranians lost patience. The once popular Khatami is now much reviled, the radical student movement has parted company from the parliamentary reformists, and in the municipal elections a year ago the turnout was less than 30%. Meanwhile, many in both the conservative and reformist ranks continued using their positions to gain wealth and advantage, adding to popular disillusion.

At this point, the conservatives appear to have decided that the reformists had outlived their usefulness. In vetting the list of candidates for parliamentary elections, they ran the red pencil through 3,600 names of would-be candidates, almost all of them reformists, including 87 sitting MPs and a number of leaders of different reformist factions. The council of guardians later reinstated about 1,000 marginal candidates but would not give way on the more important names, including the MPs. As a consequence, almost half of the parliament has resigned, almost all reformist groupings are boycotting the elections, and provincial governors have said they will not help organise the voting - leaving open the possibility that the polls will be run and controlled by the revolutionary guard.

Khatami has so far not carried out a pledge to resign if elections were not free and fair, but he could do so in the days remaining before the vote next Friday, or afterwards. It is hard to see any outcome that will not deepen the crisis. It is possible that the elections might still be postponed, as the reformists have asked, but the conservatives would resist handing such a victory to their opponents. Otherwise, Iran will soon have a parliament and a president - either a discredited Khatami, if he stays, or a successor - with only minority support.

That would be a dramatic illustration of the way in which Iranian society and the political system have diverged to the point of divorce, as well as a tragedy for those who believe Islam and democracy can be reconciled. However, chaos might not be immediately around the corner. The older generation, although disillusioned and angry, has experienced the pain of one revolution, and is not anxious to embrace another.

Against that, there is the mass of young people who have grown up since the revolution, many of them living in a kind of "American dream", in which the US has become a totem representing the economic prosperity, personal freedoms and all other good things that are supposed to magically materialise if there is a change of regime.

Iran's political crisis has come at a time when its international isolation is diminishing. In spite of questions over Iranian sincerity on nuclear matters, seen again yesterday in Vienna, a certain convergence of US and Iranian interests is evident. American problems in Iraq and Afghanistan mean that Washington needs Tehran even more than it did before. Straws in the wind included a speech last year by Richard Armitage, the assistant secretary of state, saying, "it is not up to the US to choose Iran's future"; the American reaction to the Bam earthquake; a visit to Tehran this month by Congressional staff members; and, on the European side, visits by Javier Solana and Prince Charles. Iran, in other words, may be slipping off the axis of evil and on to the end of the axis of cooperation, although clear violation of recent pledges on nuclear weapons could send it spinning back again.

There is thus a possibility, to put it no higher, of some kind of Iranian-American rapprochement, with understandings touching on Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, trade, and even Palestine. Iranian conservatives and American neo-conservatives might well balk. But the Tehran conservatives certainly know how popular such a bargain would be at home, because of the nimbus that surrounds America for many Iranians. The jobs and investment that might follow would also be welcome. It could give a wholly conservative new government some desperately needed political credit. What an irony, however, that - if such a bargain is struck - it will not be with the transformed regime many inside and outside Iran once hoped the reformists would eventually create, but with a rump republic that has discarded its democratic aspirations.

m.woollacott@guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1147075,00.html

DoctorZin Note: Interesting article but foolish in its conclusion.

Armitage slams Iran for seeking nuclear weapons

AFP - World News (via Yahoo)
Feb 13, 2004

WASHINGTON - Iran is still seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, despite commitments to the contrary made to the international community, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said.

"We have been following the question of Iran pretty closely and there's no doubt in our mind that Iran continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program," Armitage said in an interview with Washington's Salem Radio Network.

Earlier Thursday, US Under Secretary of State for Disarmament John Bolton made a similar comment in Berlin.

Iran has "not been fully forthcoming with their arrangement with the IAEA and we need to continue our effort, along with our European friends, to gain compliance," Armitage said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA said in Vienna Thursday it had found undeclared plans in Iran for a sophisticated model of a gas centrifuge, used to make nuclear material, after Teheran had promised to open all of its nuclear programs for IAEA inspection.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said in Rome that his country had no plans for the development of nuclear weapons, and reaffirmed its willingness to cooperate with the IAEA.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4892.shtml

U.N. Finds Secret Iran Nuclear Documents

Feb 12, 9:29 PM EST
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- U.N. inspectors sifting through Iran's nuclear files have discovered drawings of high-tech equipment that can be used to make weapons-grade uranium - a new link to the black market headed by the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, diplomats said Thursday.

Beyond adding another piece to the puzzle of who provided what in the clandestine supply chain headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the revelations cast fresh doubt on Iran's commitment to dispelling suspicions it is trying to make atomic arms. But Iran insisted Thursday that it was cooperating.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the designs were of a P-2 centrifuge - more advanced than the P-1 model Iran has acknowledged using to enrich uranium for what is says are peaceful purposes. They said preliminary investigations by inspectors working for the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated they matched drawings of equipment found in Libya and supplied by Khan's network.

While highly enriched uranium is a key component of some nuclear warheads, less enriched uranium can be used to generate power, which is what Iran says it was interested in.

The diplomats said Iran did not volunteer the designs - despite pledging last year to replace nearly two decades of secrecy with full openness about all aspects of its nuclear activities. Instead, they said, IAEA inspectors had to dig for them.

"Coming up with them is an example of real good inspector work," one of the diplomats told The Associated Press. "They took information and put it together and put something in front of them that they can't deny."

The diplomats said Iran had not yet formally explained why the advanced centrifuge designs were not voluntarily handed over to the agency.

Still, the diplomats emphasized that - despite putting into question Iran's pledge to be fully open - the find did not advance suspicions that Tehran was trying to make nuclear weapons.

The United States and others accuse Iran of having nuclear weapons ambitions. Iran agreed to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy late last year but only under intense international pressure generated by the discovery of its enrichment program.

"We're not convinced Iran has come completely clean," Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told a security conference in Berlin. "There is no doubt in our minds that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons. They have not complied even with the commitment they made in October."

Bolton was speaking generally, not in response to the discovery of the drawings.

In Rome, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denied Tehran had any nuclear weapons ambitions.

"We do not have anything to hide and we are ready to be inspected more (seriously) by IAEA inspectors," Kharrazi told reporters on the sidelines of a conference celebrating 50 years of Vatican-Iranian relations.

"There may be questions by IAEA inspectors but we are ready to verify those, and what has been achieved altogether up until now is out of our cooperation with IAEA," Kharrazi said in English when asked about the discovery of the drawings. "As long as we are ready to continue our cooperation, all outstanding questions will be verified."

But the Vatican issued a stern message on nuclear weapons during Kharrazi's visit, with Pope John Paul II urging Tehran to continue cooperating with U.N. inspectors and his foreign minister warning that the pursuit of such weapons only multiplies conflicts.

On Wednesday, President Bush acknowledged loopholes in the international enforcement system and urged the United Nations and member states to draft criminal penalties for nuclear trafficking.

While accusing Khan of being the mastermind of a clandestine nuclear supply operation, Bush avoided criticism of the Pakistani government, a key ally in the fight against terror. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says his government knew nothing of Khan's network, even though his military controlled the nation's nuclear program.

Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for creating a nuclear deterrent against archrival India, confessed on Pakistani television last week to masterminding a network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear technology. Musharraf then pardoned him.

In a speech Thursday, Musharraf said help with nuclear proliferation had come from different countries - not just Pakistan.

"But things happened from here also, and we need to correct our house," he said. "We are a responsible nation. We must not proliferate."

Earlier this year, Libya handed over engineers' drawings of a crude nuclear warhead linked to Khan as part of its decision to scrap all programs aimed at making weapons of mass destruction.

Malaysia pledged Thursday to share information with Washington from its investigation of B.S.A. Tahir, a man Bush described as a major player in the trafficking network. But top Malaysian officials insisted the sole known case of Malaysian involvement was the unwitting manufacture of parts seized en route to Libya last year.

Also Thursday, China declared it had a "common interest" with Washington in halting illicit arms trafficking. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Beijing would take "effective measures" to enforce rules against exports of weapons technology by Chinese companies.

In Moscow, Russian nuclear energy minister Alexander Rumyantsev postponed a trip to Iran next week because the countries have not nailed down agreements involving a reactor Russia is building. Russia has been under pressure to freeze the $800 million deal, with Washington saying the facility could help Iran develop weapons.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_AGENCY_IRAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

Iran — 'facing its greatest ever crisis'

Michael Jansen

Jordan Times, Thursday, February 12, 2004

THIS WEEK, Iran marked the 25th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution over the shah. But for the two-thirds of Iranians born after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the triumph of the revolution has become a phyrric victory because the revolution has been hijacked by a clique of ultraconservative clerics who have refused to permit democracy to emerge. Consequently, the Islamic Republic is facing its greatest ever crisis. A month ago, the ultraconservatives banned half of the 8,100 candidates, including 83 members of the outgoing parliament and other known reformists seeking to stand in the Feb. 20 parliamentary poll. They were barred from standing on the ground that they did possess the correct “Islamic” credentials. After weeks of haggling, only 200-odd candidates were reinstated, leaving the field open to candidates allied with the conservative ruling establishment which enjoys little popular support. The reformist camp argued that the ultraconservatives had deprived the poll of credibility and seriously reduced popular representativity in parliament.

The objective of the conservative clerics is to secure a majority in parliament ahead of next year's presidential poll, where they also seek victory. They do not want to risk tensions within the society created by another protracted struggle with the reform camp. The alternative is exercising total control.

During the past century, Iran had four opportunities to create a democratic government responsive to the wishes of its people. The first came between 1906-11, with the rise of the Constitutional Movement, which attempted to curb the powers of the Qajar dynasty. The Constitutional Movement, idealised by Iranian historians, failed because it was too elitist and Britain and Russia intervened.

The second opportunity occurred when the nationalist Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh took power between 1951-53, unseating the Pahlavi dynasty. On that occasion, the US and Britain staged a coup against him and reinstated the shah. While he was supposed to rule as a constitutional monarch, the shah assumed full powers, thwarting prime ministers and ignoring parliament.

The third occasion was in 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the shah and established the Islamic Republic. To ensure that the elected institutions of government remained true to his Islamic ideology, Khomeini imposed a clerical superstructure on the state, the vilayet-e-faqih, rule by theologians. In theory, this institution was to provide guidance; in practice, it put the government in a straightjacket fashioned by the most conservative of the political clerics. They imposed a restrictive social and political regime on the Iranian people and exerted close control over the economy through public companies and the wealthy charitable institutions, the bonyads. The rule of the conservative clerics became synonymous with repression, corruption and economic stagnation.

The fourth opportunity for democratisation came in 1997, when the liberal middle-ranking cleric, Mohammad Khatami was elected president by 69 per cent of Iran's frustrated voters. He promised political and economic reform and liberalisation and the establishment of the rule of law and the institutions of civil society. His objective was Islamic democracy within the framework of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. But the conservatives in faqih, determined to retain their power and privileges, fought his attempts at social liberalisation and obstructed his political and economic reforms. The tools the conservatives used in their campaign were the 12-member Council of Guardians and the conservative-dominated parliament. But the momentum of Khatami's democratic revolution within the revolution was irresistible. In 2000, Khatami's supporters won 70 per cent of the seats in parliament. Nevertheless, the conservatives continued to oppose him on every front, through the veto on legislation and candidates for office wielded by the Council of Guardians, and through the judiciary which closed down dozens of reform newspapers and jailed progressive thinkers. Khatami's efforts were stymied and he gradually lost the confidence of the Iranian people, who became disillusioned and apathetic.

While acknowledging that the conservatives have done everything in their power to obstruct Khatami's agenda and curb the reformists, Iranians also blame the president and his supporters for failing to confront the conservatives. But Iranians should never have believed Khatami would take on this task. Khatami is a middle-ranking cleric himself, totally committed to the Islamic Revolution and Iran's Islamic constitution which sets the vilayet-e-faqih above the elected institutions of government. His aim was always to democratise the existing system, not to do away with it, as radicals in the reform camp demand. Although he has repeatedly threatened to resign in response to conservative obstructionism, he has not done so. As a result, he and the reformists have lost credibility. To make matters worse, Khatami's sliding standing with the populace has recently accelerated because he rejected calls to postpone the coming poll, call upon all his supporters to boycott the poll, or support the refusal of officials in the interior ministry and provincial governors to organise the election.

Some commentators draw parallels between the shah and the faqih and predict the early demise of the inflexible mullahs. But this is unlikely. The conservative clerical faction is divided between ideologues, who seem to have the upper hand at present, and pragmatists, who could yet intervene and find a compromise with moderate reformists led by Khatami, thereby defusing the current crisis. Unlike the shah, who had few supporters towards the end of his reign, the conservatives still enjoy the backing of influential merchants and artisans and the deeply devout members of the urban working class and peasantry. Finally, the reformists have no leader other than the moderate president, and the mullahs will do everything in their power to prevent the emergence of a charismatic figure — like Ayatollah Khomeini — who could generate a new insurrection.

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/Feb/12%20o/Iran%20%20facing%20its%20greatest%20ever%20crisis%20Michael%20Jansen.htm

Iran should remain a lesson to the world of what Islamofascist do to government.

Leave it as is!

Bumping for the Brave Iranians and the eventual regime change in Iran.

That's intelligent.

Of course, if we could put the regime in a big cage and put them on display somewhere, you might have something there.

Iran's goal is to export its brand of theocracy to the rest of the Middle East. Encouraging its existence will only create more problems down the road.

U.S. Wary of Iranian Influence in Iraq

February 13, 2004
USA Today
Barbara Slavin

The Bush administration is increasingly concerned about a buildup of Iranian spies and militants in Iraq and about Iran's support for groups with a history of anti-U.S. terrorism.

Although the administration has not openly criticized Iran about the influx recently, four high-ranking U.S. military and State Department officials, who spoke on condition they not be named, said they worry that Iran is trying to influence, and possibly disrupt, plans for a transition to Iraqi rule.

Iran is setting up civilian and armed cells in Iraq to intimidate Iraqis and covertly influence elections, says one of the four officials, a high-level officer with the U.S. military command in Baghdad.

Because the topic is so sensitive, U.S. officials won't discuss it on the record. Iranian officials deny trying to manipulate the transition or set up terrorist cells in Iraq. "None of these accusations have any foundation," says Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. "We seek a stable Iraq, the return of sovereignty and the establishment of a democratic and representative system."

With a June 30 deadline looming to transfer political power to Iraqis, the Bush administration hopes Iran will not derail the transition, but it has no guarantees. "One coalition official told me candidly, 'We're relying on Iranian goodwill,' " says Jonathan Schanzer, a terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Schanzer returned from Iraq last week.

Since the fall of Baghdad in April, Iraq's 900-mile border with Iran has not been patrolled as strictly as it was under Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Iranians have entered Iraq, apparently with their government's blessing. Most are believed to be pilgrims visiting Shiite Muslim shrines. But some have a political agenda, the U.S. officials say.

The key question: What are Iran's intentions?

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service, says Iran has little interest now in disrupting a transition that seems likely to turn Iraq into a more overtly Islamic state. Iran fought a decade-long war with Iraq in the 1980s and was pleased by the overthrow of Saddam's secular, Sunni Muslim regime.

"The Iranians believe their ship is coming in and that Shiite Islamicists will achieve dominance," Katzman says. Shiites account for 60% of Iraq's 25 million people.

Among U.S. concerns:

• Iran is trying to build support for groups like Hezbollah. Hezbollah was organized by Iran after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. The group was responsible for anti-U.S. terrorism in the 1980s; its attacks on Israeli soldiers prompted Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon four years ago.

Schanzer says three different organizations calling themselves Hezbollah have offices in the mainly Shiite southern city of Basra. One is next door to the Basra governor's office.

Raymond Tanter, another Middle East expert at the Washington Institute, quotes Iranian dissidents as saying Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards also have established a covert Iraqi Hezbollah organization with headquarters in the southern city of Al Amarah and branches in other cities. "The Iranians are setting up an intelligence infrastructure in Iraq," Tanter says. "They can use it for political influence and/or military action."

Iran is building on links with other Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Dawa, or "Islamic Call," movement. The group was banned while Saddam was in power, but it now operates freely as a political party. Iran also has long ties with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Iraqi group based in Iran during Saddam's rule. Dawa and SCIRI have representatives on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. SCIRI has its own Iranian-trained militia, the so-called Badr Brigades.

• Iran is letting terrorists linked to al-Qaeda infiltrate Iraq. "Iran is the segue from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraq," Schanzer says.

• Iran is supporting social services for Iraqi Shiites in another bid to gain influence.

State Department officials say the Iranian presence in Iraq could be a form of insurance policy to deter the Bush administration from efforts to undermine the Iranian regime, which is facing a surge of protests from moderates. Two years ago, President Bush labeled Iran a member of an "axis of evil" for its support of Palestinian and Lebanese militants and efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

Mindful of Iran's leverage in Iraq, the United States has recently been more conciliatory. Last month, U.S. authorities in Iraq shut down a radio station operated by the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident group that had been harbored by Saddam. U.S. authorities also took DNA samples from several thousand MEK members under U.S. guard in apparent preparation to charge some with terrorist crimes.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-02-12-iran-iraq-usat_x.htm

Low Turnout Expected for Iran's "Sham Election"

February 13, 2004
The Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's election campaigning started Thursday, with placards, posters and leaflets handed out door-to-door, nearly all promoting Islamic hard-line candidates, after clerics blackballed hundreds of liberals and reformists parties boycotted the vote.

The biggest challenge in the parliamentary vote will be persuading people to go to the polls Feb. 20, amid apathy and disillusionment over the lack of real contests. Reformists say conservatives tried to fix the vote. Their boycott means hard-liners are sure to win -- but that the victory will be tainted.

The election furor was triggered when the hard-line Guardian Council disqualified more than 2,400 candidates. Reformers, including President Mohammad Khatami, criticized the disqualifications, and a government survey forecast that only about 30 percent voter turnout.

''By holding a sham election, hard-liners are only eroding the legitimacy of the establishment because not many Iranians will be willing to vote,'' said political scientist Davoud Hermidas Bavand, of Tehran University.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-iran13.html

Iran's Khamenei calls for mass voter turnout

Friday, February 13, 2004
IranMania News

TEHRAN, Feb 13 (AFP) -- Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Friday for Iranians to turn out in force to vote in next week's parliamentary election and defeat what he called the enemies of the Islamic revolution.

"The people, for their own sake, for that of the country and the (Islamic) regime, must go to vote and ensure these elections are enthusiastically backed," Khamenei told tens of thousands of faithful gathered for traditional Friday prayers at Tehran University.

"Some people in the world, who do not want the welfare of our people, were seeking for these elections not to be held or be well supported," Khamenei said about the February 20 poll in remarks carried on state radio.

Iranian reformists had called for the elections to be postponed after the conservative Guardians Council vetting body barred thousands of candidates -- mainly reformists -- from the elections.

Some reformist parties have said they will boycott the poll.

"Our enemies have done everything against the revolution and have failed. Today they are seeking to create a gulf between the people and the leaders, but these elections are a response to the enemy who will learn that the people firmly defend their country and their regime," Khamenei added.

He strongly denounced some European parliaments who have criticised the massive barring of reform candidates.

"Certain European parliaments have gone beyond the limits. If their intervention was confined to simple words, it would be unimportant ... but if these words are transformed into interferance in our internal affairs, the people will given them an unforgettable lesson," he said.

"The elections are a barrier against the enemies ... People should go and vote en masse so the elections are held majestically," said Khamenei.

Implicitly criticising some reformists, he said they had tried to "discourage the voters, playing the game of the enemies" of the Islamic Republic.

Khamenei has intervened several times in the political crisis into which Iran plunged after the Guardians Council announced the banning in January, as the republic was preparing to celebrate its 25 anniversary.

It was he who insisted that the reformist-dominated government of President Mohammad Khatami go ahead and organise the elections.

On Friday, eight reformist parties announced they had set up a "Coalition for Iran" to contest the poll, the bloc's spokesman Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur, said, cited by the student news agency ISNA.

Among the parties are that of President Khatami, the Association of Religious Combattants.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=22531&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

US May Want Iran Reported to UN Council -Diplomats

February 13, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA -- The United States might renew its push to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for not complying with a U.N. nuclear resolution to fully declare its nuclear program, Western diplomats said on Friday.

Iran handed over a declaration in October that it said was a full and truthful account of its entire nuclear program, in compliance with a demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board.

However, diplomats said revelations on Thursday that Iran failed to declare drawings it acquired for an advanced uranium-enrichment centrifuge that can be used to produce material for weapons showed the declaration was incomplete.

"This is a very serious matter," said one envoy. Asked if he thought it could be serious enough for Washington to revisit the idea of reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, the diplomat said he did.

Western diplomats in Vienna told Reuters on Thursday that the IAEA had uncovered designs for a centrifuge that should have been mentioned in Iran's October declaration.

Diplomats said Iran could have got the drawings from the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, or someone close to him. Khan has admitted to leaking atomic secrets.

The designs, which Libya bought for its bomb program, may also have come through a global atomic black market Khan used to deliver nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The United States has been saying for nearly a year that Iran's long history of concealing the full extent of its atomic program was a violation of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

President Bush said on Wednesday that Iran and North Korea had exploited NPT loopholes to pursue such programs and said a global effort was needed to stop a nuclear black market.

Iran has always denied trying to make a nuclear bomb, saying its atomic program was simply intended for generating power.

ELBARADEI'S IRAN REPORT DECISIVE

Another diplomat said Washington would likely wait until it saw IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei's interim report on Iran next week before making a decision on whether to push for the watchdog's board to report Iran to the Security Council.

If ElBaradei comes down hard on Tehran, Washington would likely want to bring the issue before the Council, he said.

There was also the question of whether France, Britain and Germany would support reporting Iran. The three have so far opposed such a move, preferring to use a "carrot and stick" approach with Tehran.

However, diplomats said Iran's failure to suspend all enrichment-related activities as promised in November has increasingly annoyed France and Britain. Iran has stopped enriching uranium but continues to make and assemble centrifuges, the diplomats say.

In the October declaration, Iran admitted to concealing its uranium-enrichment program from the IAEA for nearly two decades. However, it said at the time that it had come clean and would be completely open with the IAEA.

But diplomats said the IAEA's discovery of designs for a Pakistani-modified version of the Urenco "G2" centrifuge -- often referred to as the P-2 -- raised the question of whether there were any other undeclared facilities in Iran.

"This, in fact, is the smoking gun," said Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He said the IAEA governors should report Iran to the U.N. Security Council at their March 8-10 board meeting.

Western diplomats have said they were convinced Khan sold Iran the same designs for nuclear warheads that Libya bought for $50 million.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040213_142.html

US May Want Iran Reported to UN Council -Diplomats

February 13, 2004
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1077271/posts?page=14#14

Iran, 25 years on: Bring back the ‘necktie wearers’

2/13/2004
The Daily Star

Twenty-five years ago Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini triumphantly returned to Iran after 16 years in exile. Proclaiming “the spring of freedom,” the cleric who dared to defy the king was met in Tehran by a jubilant crowd of nearly 2 million people. Two weeks earlier, the shah of Iran, the self-titled “King of Kings,” departed ignominiously, a jar of Persian soil in his hand, tears in his eyes and revolutionary mobs calling for his death.

In the following year, the revolutionary coalition that toppled the shah radical leftists, nationalist democrats, communists, Islamic Marxists, pro- and anti-Khomeini Islamists fought among themselves and took blind revenge on former opponents. One revolutionary cleric, Ayatollah Khalkhali, a grotesque, almost farcically evil figure, once turned to a visiting Indian journalist while surveying a group of prisoners, and said: “Pick anyone. I’ll execute him for you!” Revolutionary committees executed former government officials on such charges as “corrupting the earth.” Meanwhile, rival revolutionary factions engaged in guerilla war, former anti-shah revolutionaries were branded “enemies of the (new) state,” and US diplomats were taken hostage.

The Khomeinists emerged triumphant from the post-revolutionary chaos. An Islamic Republic was proclaimed with a new constitution that gave decisive power to the clergy, granting only limited democratic space to the people. Though Iranians supported the revolution for greater political freedoms and economic dignity, they were handed an authoritarian theocracy with a state-dominated economy certain to impede growth. What’s more, a radical experiment in governance was inaugurated: Iran, with its 2,500-year history of monarchy, would be ruled by men of religion. The democratic winds of the revolution had been overwhelmed by Persia’s traditional authoritarianism. The king would wear a turban.

A quarter century afterward, last summer, I stood near a major Tehran intersection watching a cleric attempting to hail a taxi. None would stop for him. Residents of Tehran are familiar with this scene as anti-clericalism rises in the face of the Islamic Republic’s political and economic failures. But while stranded clerics offer a revealing anecdote of Iranian frustration, something deeper is going on among Iranians a wide-ranging repudiation of the mingling of religion and politics and a growing movement for secular democracy.

In bookstores, pro-democracy tracts fly off the shelves, while books advocating the principles of the Islamic Republic gather dust. In villages and cities, I have heard people say: “Let the necktie-wearers come back,” a reference to secular technocrats whose record of economic management in the shah’s era far surpassed that of the past 25 years. On campuses, democratic ideas dominate political thinking, and students demonstrate a level of sophistication and moderation not found in the radical generation of the 1970s, which myopically embraced the economic and political narrative of leftist revolution, even as it was imploding in the USSR, China and elsewhere. Thankfully, today’s Iranian students shun the immature utopian leftism of their parents’ generation in favor of a pragmatic, nonviolent discourse of political and economic dignity based on Western secular democracy.

Today, the country’s Islamic student unions, once a bastion of pro-Khomeini zealotry, serve as leading voices for democracy, with some embracing the vision of “Islamic democracy” as advocated by reformist President Mohammad Khatami; a growing number of people are calling outright for secular democracy the total separation of religion and state.

But it’s not just the students. In seminaries, a rising number of clerics publicly advocate the separation of religion and state, arguing that Khomeini’s vision of clerical rule upended more than 1,000 years of classical Shiite tradition that prohibited the clergy from ruling the state. It’s time to go back to the fundamentals of private religious guidance and instruction, they argue. Alas, Khomeini was not a fundamentalist, but a radical interpreter of his faith.

Anyone who travels to Iran will immediately sense an undercurrent of melancholy and frustration with the order of things. During this month, when the 25th anniversary is being celebrated amid a controversy over a conservative attempt to rig forthcoming parliamentary elections (or do so more than usual), Iranians look back on the recent past and see a revolution gone astray, one that betrayed the dreams of millions who took to the streets in search of a better life, only to be brought down to earth with a massive economic and political thud.

What went wrong? Let’s start with the economy. Today, Iranians earn a quarter of what they did before the revolution and must contend with high unemployment and widespread underemployment engineers driving taxis, professors becoming traders. Every year, some 200,000 of the best and brightest leave the country, one of the highest rates of “brain drain” in the world.

Iran’s economic failures serve as the most potent symbol of the Islamic Republic’s failures. All across Iran, people speak with nostalgia of the pre-revolution economy, with its low prices, adequate wages and more plentiful jobs. As one laborer complained: “I favored the revolution because I thought it would give me more opportunities. Instead, I work twice as hard for half the money.”

Meanwhile, leading Iranian clerics, who plied populist themes and class-based resentment in their rise to power, have settled comfortably into the villas and palaces of the shah’s elite. In public protests, people chant: “The mullahs live like kings, while we live in poverty!” Reformists who weave narratives of economic discontent into their speeches generally receive favorable applause.

Ironically, history professor Hashem Aghajari, jailed for a widely discussed speech in which he called for an Islamic reformation and urged his fellow Shiites to make their own religious decisions rather than rely on the clergy, received some of the most sustained applause with a populist line, comparing his worn, beaten car to the fancy cars driven by senior clerics.

Politically, freedoms have expanded since the revolution, yet the system is still riddled with institutions obstructing democracy, such as the office of the supreme leader, who has virtual veto power over all matters of state, and the hard-line Council of Guardians, which pre-screens candidates for elective office. The country’s reformist movement, beaten back by conservatives who still control the levers of power, may be losing the bureaucratic struggle, but their ideas of greater openness, tolerance and freedom have irrevocably entered Iranian public discourse. Some reformist leaders have shown extraordinary courage, facing jail time and the shadow of assassination at the hands of hard-liners.

Still, Iranians have grown justifiably frustrated with the pace of change and a seemingly insurmountable gap has grown between the government and governed.

What’s next? Iranian demography and history might offer hope. Two-thirds of Iranians are under the age of 30. These “children of the revolution” are searching for a life of dignity, prosperity and freedom from arbitrary power a theme running throughout 20th-century Iranian history. Never before, however, have Iranian opponents of freedom faced such a modern, urbanized, educated mass movement of young and old Iranians seeking democratic change.

As the Islamic Republic prepares to commemorate the anniversary of the revolution with the usual propaganda, Iranians ought to look back to a more relevant “revolution” in Iranian history: the 1906-11 constitutional revolution, Iran’s first attempt at democratic reform. That era produced a constitution embracing democracy, secularism, women’s rights and a strong Parliament. The movement was snuffed out by royalist reactionaries and foreign powers, but the dream of that movement of a fair society based on just laws and of an independent, democratic, secular and prosperous Iran has not died. It lives even stronger in Iran today.

That, in the end, might be the Islamic Revolution’s most lasting legacy.

Afshin Molavi is the author of Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran (WW Norton). He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/13_02_04_d.asp

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12187

Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 13, 2004

With Matt Drudge’s recent revelation that John Kerry is as faithful to his second wife as he was to his old Vietnam “brothers,” the senator’s presidential campaign may depend more than ever on the actions of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. While the mainstream media has thus far overlooked the alleged infidelity, media outlets have also overlooked a far more important story: The former Mrs. John Heinz is also in bed – financially – with the radical Left.

Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. The Tides Foundation and its closely allied Tides Center, which was spun off from the Foundation in 1996 but run by Drummond Pike, distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.

During the years 1995-2001, the Howard Heinz Endowment, which Heinz Kerry chairs, gave Tides more than $4.3 million. The combined Heinz Endowments (composed of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment) donated $1.6 million to establish the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh office of the San Francisco-based Tides Center. Since that time, the local branch has tirelessly pushed an anti-business agenda in the name of “preserving the environment.” However, it is the Tides Foundation’s national organization whose connections are most disconcerting.

The Tides Foundation is a major source of revenue for some of the most extreme groups on the Left. Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a host of causes; the donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, for a nominal fee. Drummond Pike told The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.” That becomes understandable when one views the list of Tides grant recipients. And who are the beneficiaries of this money?

The Antiwar Movement

Senator John F. Kerry has gone far with his nuanced view of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He voted for the war resolution but specified a litany of conditions the Bush administration must meet before he would support combat, then proceeded to vote against funding troops already in harm’s way – then claimed he had always supported the president when Saddam Hussein was captured. The grant recipients of the Tides Foundation, to which Kerry’s wife has steered more than $4 billion in “charitable” funds, understand no such nuance.

Tides established the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund to fund the antiwar movement. These projects fueled such hysterical protest organizations as MoveOn.org, the website that recently featured two separate commercials portraying George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. (Howard Dean, not Kerry, won MoveOn.org’s “virtual primary.”)

The antiwar movement often boasted that MoveOn.org and the radical website Indymedia provided them “alternate media coverage.” Indymedia, an enormous news and events bulletin board with local pages in most of the world’s major cities, provided a vital link for radical activists often with violent agendas to coordinate their protests. Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation.

The Institute for Global Communications is another leftist communications facilitator that received Tides grant money. IGC, which during the 1990s was the leading provider of web technology to the radical Left, links to “recommended sites” such as the War Resisters League (a group whose purpose is enabling peaceniks to refuse to pay taxes) and the leftist American Friends Service Committee. Most disturbing is the link to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, which has supported Slobodan Milosevic and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il. The IAC is the force behind International ANSWER, which sponsored the major antiwar (and anti-Bush) rallies before the invasion of Iraq. When ANSWER was outed as a Communist organization, United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member Leslie Cagan was created as a "moderate" alternative. UFPJ is also a Tides grant recipient.The Tides-funded “A Better Way Project,” which opposed war in Iraq, also coordinated efforts of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition. The celebrity-laden Win Without War Coalition, along with the Bill Moyers-funded Florence and John Schumann Foundation, ran full-page ads in the New York Times opposing the War on Terrorism. This will not be the last overlapping of far-Left causes.

The Islamist Front

Immediately after 9/11, Tides formed a “9/11 Fund” to advocate a “peaceful national response” to the opening salvos of war. Part of the half-million dollars in grants the 9/11 Fund dispersed went to the New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project to protect the rights of homosexual Arabs. The Foundation replaced the 9/11 Fund with the “Democratic Justice Fund,” which was established with the aid of George Soros’ Open Society Institute. (Currency speculator and pro-drug advocate Soros is, like Teresa Heinz Kerry, a major contributor to Tides, having donated more than $7 million.) The Democratic Justice Fund seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States, particularly from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.”

Tides has also given grant money to the Council for American Islamic Relations. Ostensibly a “Muslim civil rights group,” CAIR is in fact one of the leading anti-anti-terrorism organizations within the Wahhabi Lobby, with links to Hamas. CAIR regularly opposes and demonizes American efforts to fight terrorism, claiming, for instance, that Homeland Security measures are responsible for an undocumented surge in “hate crimes.”

CAIR officials have reason to fight Bush’s anti-terrorism measures: all too many CAIR officials are on the record supporting terrorism. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad openly stated in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Community Affairs Director Bassem K. Khafagi has been arrested for visa and bank fraud. Randall Royer, a Communications Specialist and Civil Rights Coordinator at CAIR, was arrested along with a group of Islamic radicals in Virginia for allegedly planning jihad. CAIR has defended terrorist “charities” shut down by the Bush administration. Every few months some CAIR campus official is arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism.

The Legal Matrix

The Tides Foundation has funded a number of the pillars of the radical legal establishment. Chief among these is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Commnist front organization and is proud of its lineage. At its recent convention last October, the concluding speaker was Lynne Stewart, an indicted terrorist NLG lawyer arrested for helping her client – convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman – communicate with his terrorist cells in Egypt. In her speech, Stewart said she and her NLG comrades were carrying on a proud tradition of their forebears, past and present:

And modern heroes, dare I mention? Ho and Mao and Lenin, Fidel and Nelson Mandela and John Brown, Che Guevara who reminds us, “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” Our quests like theirs are to shake the very foundations of the continents.

More recently, the NLG has endorsed the March 20 call to End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine & Everywhere” organized by International ANSWER, and has posted a petition for “Post-Conviction Relief” for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Tides’ Peace Strategies Fund has funneled money to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The CCR was stablished by Sixties radical William Kunstler, defender of the Chicago 8, and Arthur Kinoy. The two also had plans to establish a new Communist Party. Executive Director Ron Daniels has been honored by the Communist Party USA for his work. Daniels also has a long and cordial relationship with racist, anti-Semitic “poet laureate” Amiri Baraka. Since 9/11, CCR has channeled its efforts into fighting every effective Homeland Security measure. They have opposed increasing the government’s ability to wiretap Islamists suspected of plotting terrorism and moaned the sequestering of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay was an unexcusable form of “racial profiling.” CCR President Michael Ratner has portrayed American soldiers as the offenders, guilty of 9/11 by their Middle East policy and guilty of keeping Islamist killers “shackled, hooded and sedated during the 25 hour flight from Afghanistan.” CCR has also defended Lynne Stewart’s “innocence” in aiding Sheikh Rahman’s Islamic Jihad.

Tides also funds the Alliance for Justice, a group dedicated to stopping Bush judicial appointees (a cause John Kerry can agree wholeheartedly endorse). Other Tides grants have gone to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Asian Law Caucus.

Environmental Extremism

The Tides Foundation has funded the Ruckus Society, a group of anarchist Greens who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots. The Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania, established in Pittsburgh with Heinz Family funds, advocates for environmentalist measures that have helped put holes in the Rust Belt’s economy.

Tides money has also squashed free speech. Thanks to complaints generated by the Tides-funded Environmental Working Group, ABC cancelled a John Stossel piece exposing the misleading nature of environmental advocacy in public elementary schools.

Greenpeace is a well-known Tides grant recipient. Greenpeace is best known for its illegal actions, endangering humans in order to make a point about the environment. Tides gave Greenpeace a quarter of a million dollars over ten years.

Lest one think only Tides’ money is going to radicals, not funds directly controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, remember that Heinz money has repeatedly found its way to the Earth Island Institute. On September 14, 2001, the Institute’s website bore the headline “U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance.”

Heinz family philanthropic funds have also had some dubious effects on the presidential race. The League of Conservation Voters has recently endorsed John Kerry’s presidential campaign. The Heinz Family Foundation gave LCV at least $20,000 and donated almost $250,000 to a member of the LCV board.

Perhaps this circular rotation of cash and endorsements should not surprise anyone. The grant-making institutions of the Left and their feverish recipients ultimately form an amorphous, leftist entity. One never needs to search very far to find connections between a leftist foundation and extreme advocacy groups. Teresa Heinz Kerry, George Soros, Bill Moyers and the Ford Foundation fund the Tides Foundation/Center; Tides funds the National Lawyers Guild, CAIR, MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice; those organizations then unite in fluid coalitions to protest against their common political enemies (Republicans). Ultimately, their representatives end up on Bill Moyers' PBS programs or active within the Democratic campaigns of their fundraisers. Between now and the election, these organizations will run constant interference for the Democratic presidential nominee (presumably Kerry himself): they will march en masse against the Bush administration again and again; they will file more lawsuits against the administration's Homeland Security measures, decry any effective response to terrorism, claim the United States is guilty of slaughtering Iraqi civilians and petition leftist judges to open America's borders to Islamist terrorists. After they help his election, President Kerry will be indebted to them. And then they will insist he begin implementing their political agenda.

Moreover, they will have a close ally in the East Wing of the White House, an ally more intimately tied to them than she is to her (second) husband. (She only adopted his last name and political party registration less than 18 months ago. “Politically, it's going to be Heinz Kerry,” she recently said. “But I don't give a sh-t, you know?”) Teresa Heinz Kerry will play a potent role in saving her second husband’s presidential campaign now – as Hillary Clinton did in 1992, and again during her husband’s impeachment. Like Hillary, in return for her service, Heinz may demand a place at the table for her pet causes. Caveat emptor.

Ben Johnson is Associate Editor of FrontPage Magazine.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.niacouncil.org/pressreleases/press058.asp

NIAC RECEIVES $60,000 IN GRANTS FROM TIDES AND OSI

By Michelle Kohanloo

Washington, DC, February 20, 2003. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has recently been awarded $60,000 in grants to help fund civic education workshops for Iranian-American communities around the country. NIAC has developed a strong reputation for its efforts to spread the importance of Iranian-American activity in politics, from letter writing campaigns to meeting with congressional leaders, since its launch last year.

The two grants, one from The Tides Foundation and the other from the Open Society Institute, will enable NIAC to reach out to wider audience across the U.S.

Both foundations are relatively new at working with the Iranian-American community, and having recognized NIAC's integral leadership role, are also investing in the cultivation of a more cohesive, pro-active community.

"We want to emphasize to people to do more than they have been able to do," Alex Patico, NIAC Secretary, said. "We want [Iranian-Americans] to have a better understanding of the political process and to network so they can help each other out."

Many Iranian-Americans nationwide felt that because of the September 11th attacks, the community was unfairly targeted even though none of the hijackers were Iranian nationals.

NIAC reached out to The Tides Foundation, an organization that awards grants to groups helping communities directly affected by the September 11th attacks. The foundation awarded $10,000 for the development and expansion of NIAC's civic workshops around the U.S. The Open Society Foundation allocated $50,000 for the workshops and for other future projects.

"NIAC has gained a lot of recognition for what it has done so far," Trita Parsi, NIAC President, explained. "And now we are tapping into resources that few Iranian-Americans have explored before."

The first workshop will take place in New York on March 1, 2003.

Need we state the connection between NIAC, it's president, Trita Parsi, Congressman Ney, and the regime?

Khamenei Says Iranian Nation Will Severely Kick EU Parliamentarians in the Teeth

February 13, 2004
Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran
BBC Monitoring

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamene'i has said: "The extent of interference in our Majlis election affair by some European parliaments have reached the level of insolence."

Addressing the Friday prayer congregation in Tehran University this morning, Khamene'i added: "Of course, their [the European parliamentarians'] uttering of words is insignificant. Let them say whatever they wish.... However, they all should realize that for as long as they do not go beyond uttering of words, we do not care. But, when they proceed to interfere in our country's affairs, they must realize that the Iranian nation will severely kick all of them in the teeth."

Referring to the internal calls for boycott of the elections, Khamene'i said: "It saddens one to see that some people are willing to do something to be applauded by the enemies of this nation beyond our borders. This is a shame. Whenever you see that the enemy applauds you, you must look and see what you have done wrong. The Imam [Khomeyni] used to say: Woe betide us when the enemy praises us.

Well, when does the enemy praise us? Our enemies, in their hearts, appreciate many admirable virtues of our nation, our people and our Imam. However, the enemies never mention these virtues. On the other hand, when the enemies clap for someone, when they encourage someone and when they shout hurrah for someone, that person should realize that he is making a mistake.

There were some individuals who were beating the drums of boycotting the elections. There are still some who beat the same drums here and there. But thank God, they are not from the midst of the people. They are isolated individuals here and there. However, there are still some individuals who advocate boycotting the elections. They are wrong, they have chosen the wrong path..."

Source: Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, in Persian 0821 gmt 13 Feb 04

http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/nfnews.shtml#first

Khamenei Says Iranian Nation Will Severely Kick EU Parliamentarians in the Teeth

February 13, 2004
Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran
BBC Monitoring

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1077271/posts?page=19#19