Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year! 
"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”
The Fundamentals of an Iran in Exile
Forward Magazine - By Roya Hakakian
Aug 6, 2004
The diplomatic officer asked, for the third time, how I'd been persecuted as a Jew in Iran, as he leafed through my application for political asylum. But I said nothing.
His stern tone, his fierce gaze demanded certainty, clarity and conviction — all the things that I could not find within. Sitting opposite him in his office at the American embassy in Vienna on that April day in 1985, I remained silent until my mother finally rushed to offer what I would not.
It's 19 years later, and I'm only beginning to form the answers the officer once wanted. The five years following the 1979 revolution and the way in which they had affected the Jews of Iran were difficult to sum up, though all the alarming signs existed: A few leaders had been executed. Several schools, including my own, had been taken over by diehard Islamic ideologues who were proselytizing the students. School bathrooms had been segregated by religion. And derogatory terms and symbols that I had only known through my father's childhood stories, distant and unreal as fairy tales, suddenly had thrust themselves upon my reality.
There had been no overt or official decrees, but Jews could not receive passports or exit visas. And for a brief period, business owners were ordered to display signs in their shop windows that read: "This establishment is being operated by a member of a religious minority." The war with Iraq had begun, and though the demand for medical professionals had soared, hospital administrators hesitated to hire Jewish professionals, as the wounded members of "Hezbollah" — the "Army of God," as was first coined by Ayatollah Khomeini — didn't wish to be touched by non-Muslims. Life had, without a doubt, worsened for Jews in Iran.
But life had worsened for everyone I knew. In some ways, life had worsened for our Muslim friends, neighbors and colleagues far more than it had for us. Whereas Jews had lost the opportunities to thrive academically and professionally, secular Muslims who didn't share in the new regime's outlook were losing their lives.
The mullahs considered Jews "people of the book," a legitimate religious minority, and allowed us luxuries that they denied Muslims. When music was banned, the Bob Dylans and Joan Baezes of Iran were allowed to perform only at foreign embassies and Jewish organizations, where adoring fans who once dreamed of a handshake sat to meals with their beloved icons. And as for the crime of possessing books and literature with subversive themes, a Jewish youth had a far better chance of escaping arrest — "Jews only got money on their mind, not politics," was the thinking of the authorities — than did a fellow Muslim youth.
What drove Jews out of Iran were the ruling mullahs, not an antisemitic nation. Our neighbors prayed for our safe passage, and marked our departure by throwing water behind us for good luck. Our friends shed tears as they saw us to the airport to bid us farewell. What drove us out of Iran was a fundamentalist regime that did not tolerate those who did not share its worldview. They eliminated their own secular Muslim counterparts with no less vehemence.
The regime's campaign was not a campaign of "ethnic cleansing," but one against secularism and modernism, against everything they identified as manifestations of their most ubiquitous enemy: the West. It was all the same war, and waging it against the Jews was easier under the old, familiar guise of antisemitism.
There are signs in many parts of the world that attest to the rising tide of antisemitism. But Iran is another story.
Though the Jewish community in Iran has shrunk significantly since 1979, 2,000 years of history of coexistence between Jews and their Persian neighbors ought to be seen as the rule, and the past 25 years as the exception. The Iran of the 1970s, with its booming economy and modernist strides, had dismantled ghettos. Segregation in schools or trades had nearly vanished. Then came the fiery ayatollahs, in whose flames everyone burned. Fortunately for Jews, finding a refuge outside of Iran offered the exit everyone was searching to find.
Whether Jews and Muslims can live together in peace is the question of our time. But looking at history since 1948 offers too small a window for an informed view. Nor can the search for hope begin in Jerusalem. Tehran is still home to the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel.
To address the issue of Iran's shrinking Jewish community is to address the issue before all Iranians: an intolerant regime that knows no civil liberty and grants no freedom to its citizens. To promote the cause of democracy in Iran is to reinvigorate a coexistence that had been, despite some grim periods and practices, peaceful for the most part.
It is this ancient and intimate experience for which Iranian Jewish expatriates yearn as they hold fast to all things reminiscent of "home." It is this yearning that kept me from giving an answer to the foreign service officer so many years ago, the same yearning that keeps my father from driving in America. These roads, he says, don't lead to any place where he first left his heart.
Roya Hakakian is author of the forthcoming memoir "Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran" (Crown Publishers).
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7474.shtml
Support grows for UN showdown with Iran over nuclear programme
Financial Times - By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Aug 5, 2004
The US administration is gaining European support for a diplomatic showdown with Iran over its nuclear programme next month, as a first step towards imposing sanctions.
US officials and European diplomats said momentum was building after a bad tempered meeting in Paris last week between Iran and France, Germany and the UK - the three governments that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran last October.
Iran was warned that if it continued to move in the wrong direction, it could not avoid the issue being referred to the United Nations Security Council at the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on September 13.
Iran accused the Europeans of being US lackeys and not upholding their side of last year's agreement. At its last meeting in June, the IAEA "deplored" shortcomings in Iran's co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog, accusing it of withholding information on its advanced P-2 centrifuges and tests to enrich uranium, and demanding clarification.
Iran has since resumed assembling centrifuges. US and European diplomats believe it may also start enrichment. While neither development would breach Iran's commitments if declared to the IAEA, the US insists Tehran has lied to the agency and not complied with its obligations as signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Although meetings with Tehran continue, loss of European support would deal a serious blow to Iran which has long pursued a strategy of widening transatlantic divisions over policy towards the Islamic regime.
The hardliners' rigging of elections this year also depleted Tehran's diplomatic capital with Europe. Officials said France and the UK supported the US position, while Germany was close. The Bush administration, which accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear programme as a front for developing weapons, is piling on the pressure while refusing to negotiate directly with Iran. Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, said this week that Iran would be confronted, probably in September, with some "very tough resolutions".
"The Iranians have been trouble for a very long time. And it's one reason that this regime has to be isolated in its bad behaviour, not quote-unquote, engaged," Ms Rice told Fox News, also referring to Iran's alleged refusal to co-operate over its detention of al-Qaeda suspects. Referral to the UN Security Council is intended to lead to condemnation of Iran's alleged breach of its nuclear commitments and a possible warning of sanctions that could, for example, halt Russia's construction of a civilian reactor in Iran.
Iran insists it has co-operated fully with the IAEA, but the rhetoric in Tehran has hardened since the Paris talks. With nationalist feeling running high, no politician or newspaper is airing the idea that Iran should accept long-term international supervision of its nuclear programme.
"Why are our politicians persisting in negotiations with the Europeans, who have broken their promises?" blazed an editorial in the conservative Jomhuri Eslami. "Regardless of the content of Iran's nuclear programme, the EU should not address the Iranian nation in this tone. Maybe they don't know who they are talking to."
Hossein Shariatmadari, chief of the conservative Kayhan newspaper, regretted that Iranian negotiators had "not torn up" a European draft that made "colonialist demands".
He said the trio wanted a declaration that Iran would not leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a recognition that concerns about its nuclear programme were justified and an undertaking to keep them informed about its nuclear activities.
Some deputies to Iran's conservative-dominated parliament argued Iran should not ratify the additional protocol allowing more intrusive inspections by the IAEA. Some said Iran should leave the NPT. Hossein Mousavian, a senior member of the Supreme Council of National Security, said Iran had nothing to fear from sanctions, which had proved ineffective over 25 years.
He also brushed off reports that either the US or Israel might launch a military strike on Iran's facilities. "These threats are baseless, just part of a psychological war," he said.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7473.shtml
Terror Tradecraft [Excerpt]
New York Post - By Peter Brookes
Aug 5, 2004
THE mother lode of intelli gence recently plucked from al Qaeda computers in Pakistan shows that we're not dealing only with lethal terrorists, but highly capable spooks as well.
The quality of al Qaeda's information on targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., indicates a covert intelligence-collection capability on par with some of the world's best spy services.
The FBI estimates that there are as many as several hundred al Qaeda-associated extremists in the United States. It could be a deadly mistake not to take recent terrorist threats seriously.
Al Qaeda's casing operations were certainly serious. Its operatives collected more than 500 digital photos, documents and drawings. They detailed building layouts, security and construction and pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow.
They noted employee routines and watering holes. And they mapped the location of the first responders such as hospitals, police and fire departments ? all with an eye to killing as many people as possible.
Bottom line: It's top-notch intelligence work that would make any clandestine service stand up and take notice.
Moreover, the intrusive, coordinated, long-running casings went undetected. Working under cover as couriers and delivery people, al Qaeda operatives were able to observe and enter the buildings without alarming security personnel. Recruited terrorist agents may have even been employees of the targeted facilities, making it a real inside job. (Some of the casing notes were in English.)
Although the information seems to have been collected a few years ago, it's unlikely it went only to the computers seized in Pakistan. The smart money says this intelligence was shared with others in Terror Land, too.
Beware: This surveillance information has likely been updated by other al Qaeda cells since it was first acquired. And it may be tied into the other streams of intelligence we're receiving on threats against U.S. targets this summer.
In raising the terror level to "high," the Department of Homeland Security was spot-on. It would be foolish to assume these plots have been canned.
But where did al Qaeda learn to conduct such thorough sleuthing? Not surprisingly, it had help from the usual suspects.
Iran: The 9/11 Commission fingers Iran as having trained and supported al Qaeda as far back as 1992. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security are thick as thieves with international terrorists, providing intelligence, training, funding and material support.
Remember the expulsion of Iranian (faux) diplomats for intelligence-collection activities last month in New York City? That was the third set of Iranian spies asked to leave the U.S. in the last two years for casing possible terrorist targets. (See New York Post op-ed, "Spooks, Lies and Videotape," July 6, 2004.) The Iranians might well be sharing this intel with al Qaeda.
Hezbollah: The commission also mentions that al Qaeda received training from the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in the early 1990s in Lebanon's terrorist snake pit, the Bekaa Valley. "Bin Laden showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one [used by Hezbollah] that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon in 1983," the report notes.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7483.shtml
Allow me to introduce myself with these statements:
I’ve got a “thing” about theocracies. I’m glad I don’t live in one because I have enough
empathy to know I’d be dead by now if I did. I’d just as soon not acknowledge them. But,
due to certain recent strategic pushes by lobbyist groups like the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Atlantic Council, we could be forced to do just that. These groups are
seeking the United States’ “reconciliation” with the Islamic Republic of Iran on the basis
that the previous twenty years of disengagement have essentially provided limited
opportunities for commerce and dialogue. I say this should not be about effectiveness. It
is about keeping our hands clean.
I refuse to attempt “reconciliation” with a governmental system that denies its
citizens the right to free expression and whose judicial system is a medieval travesty.
How can I ethically support a policy of “dialogue” between us when the Iranian
government actively quashes it within its own borders? I could stand a little hostility
between us if it ascertains the fact that we find these practices unacceptable: death
sentences for blasphemy and prison terms for “insulting religious sanctities” (of which, in
a theocracy like the Islamic Republic of Iran, it has been demonstrated that any criticism
of the government can be arrogantly construed as blasphemy), procedural torture in front
of judges in closed-door trials, judicial approval of the stoning to death of women,
cross-amputations for punishment, regular shuttering of newspapers by the Judiciary for
specious reasons, being what Reporters Sans Frontières calls “the biggest imprisoner of
journalists in the Middle East,” government sponsorship of basiji (unofficial thugs) who
assault, often with deadly weapons and deadly intent, and intimidate dissenters and
protesters while the police stand by with orders not to intervene, wholesale
disqualifications of thousands reform-minded candidates from parliamentary elections
without the avenue of appeal, and the incitement by the unelected Supreme Leader
Khamenei (ref: http://www.memritv.org ) during his leading of his weekly religious
sermons with the chant “Death to America.” Oh, wait, that’s me. It’s probably you, too.
So here’s the jist of my screed: I encourage you to mass mail the addresses of the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council listed herein with nastygrams. I
also recommend you contact your own representatives with the message that
“reconciliation” without reciprocity from the Islamic Republic of Iran is unacceptable,
especially considering the what Amnesty International calls “flagrant” abuses of human
rights, and that they should actively avoid the recommendations and lobbyists of the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlanic Council. Contact your favorite candidate
for office about this very issue, just to be safe, and contact the one you don’t like as well.
Remember; for bonus points of lobbyist douchebaggery please note: Council of Foreign
Relations representative Zbignew Brzezinski who co-prepared the Independent Task
Force study recommending the United States reengages with the mullahs of Iran is also a
paid consultant for BP/Amoco ...oh, yeah. Oil company, that. THAT never turns around
to bite us in the ass within a generation’s time when we accept the practices of dictatorial
regimes in the name of expediency.
Forward this message around to interested and uninterested parties. I thank you
for your time. Now here’s all the cut and paste:
I must speak out against the recent motions by certain lobbyists and their agencies; The
Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council in particular, to present
reengagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran as a excusable path of policy. The
concept is reprehensible, as this is one of the increasingly few instances where a demand
for disengagement in the name of human rights and the demand that we as Americans
must keep our hands clean by not appeasing tyrannical governments is being respected.
There is no proof of reform in the Iranian theocracy, nor is there any evidence of the very
capability of reform as is, and the audacity of these suggestions is inexcusable coming at
a time when, in a single week these events happened: the acquittal in the trial of the
murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi occured after shutting down the
process and expelling the press and the Canadian ambassador, the shuttering of two more
newspapers by the government (a seemingly bi-weekly occurance), and the continuing
conviction on “lesser charges” of Dr. Hashem Aghajari who twice was sentenced to death
for questioning the clerical regime in Iran. As a United States citizen, I forbid you to
entertain the notion of engagement when there is no attempt to embrace even the most
basic of the human right of expression on their part.
Please make a very public refusal of this notion of engagement as there is so much
evidence that we are indeed the heroes in this confrontation of ideology because we as
Americans refuse to place commerce above human rights. A public statement to this
effect on this issue will reinstate a lot of faith in our own government, and worldwide
respect shall follow. I demand to be The Good Guy on this.
Sincerely,
Troy Zimmermann
P.S.: For further evidence to be considered, please review my own letter to the offending
parties, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council, which is copied and
pasted here below. You can contact via email certain members of the Council on Foreign
Relations that produced the Independent Task Force study that seeks to legitimize the
unelected mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran and let your horror be known at
communications@cfr.org , membership@cfr.org , fellowships@cfr.org ,
corporate@cfr.org , meetings@cfr.org , national@cfr.org , studies@cfr.org ,
HumanResources@cfr.org , webmaster@cfr.org , dcmeetings@cfr.org , pdorff@cfr.org ,
janmuth@cfr.org , jschein@cfr.org , kburns@cfr.org , jgasn@cfr.org , jchung@cfr.org
(this organization IS NOT to be confused with the official body of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, but I encourage you to respectfully contact them with your own
concerns by this link: http://foreign.senate.gov/contact.html , and as long as you’re out
and about, also make your courteous concerns known at the State Department at
http://contact-us.state.gov/ ) . The Atlantic Council can be contacted at info@acus.org ,
CMakins@acus.org , crnelson@acus.org , fburwell@acus.org , jsandrock@acus.org ,
jpurcell@acus.org .
The great thing is, this is not a “conservative” or “liberal” issue, both stripes can happily
lay claim to it with pride, so please stop the righteousness contests and please forward
this to everybody with the orders to contact your own government representatives
courteously and helpfully and contact the above-mentioned apologists of the CFR and
AC angrily and frequently. Please personalize your own message, but you may refer to
mine for my own direction on the matter:
To the Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council:
It is my duty to inform you that we have no evidence of the Islamic Republic of Iran
"reforming internally."
Here’s just one little justification for the continued policy of disengagement in order to
register our demand for human rights, just for starters: the name Dr. Nasser Zarafshan.
He is the Iranian lawyer investigating the extrajudicial killings of journalists in 1998,
which actually did turn out to be instigated by agents of the government security services.
He was arrested in 2000 and his trial was conducted behind closed doors by a military
court, strangely enough, considering that Zarafshan is a civilian, where he was convicted
of “disseminating state secrets,” which turned out to be the names of the agents under
investigation, information that an attorney should have in the course of his work.
According to an Amnesty International Urgent Action Appeal in 2002, Dr. Nasser
Zarafshan was sentenced to 70 lashes, five years' imprisonment and has been banned
from practicing law for five years. As he was 56 at the time, he underwent medical tests
to determine whether he is healthy enough to face the flogging sentence handed down on
March 19 and upheld by an appeal court on July 16 of that year.
Have you let the implications of that statement sink in?
This is so normal in the Islamic Republic of Iran that this is procedural in its
bureaucracy.
Can any member of the Atlantic Council or the Council on Foreign Relations’
Independent Task Force that produced this apologist screed that encourages engagement
with Iran picture any of their family members with grey hair being whipped?
Dr. Nasser Zarafshan recently ended a 21-day hunger strike, along with several other
political prisoners, in Tehran’s Evin Prison to call attention to the arrest of Mustafa
Piran. His crime? He refused to write an apology begging the Judiciary for forgiveness on
behalf of his son Payman who is serving a ten-year sentence for publicly protesting this
year’s rigged parliamentary elections in which reformist candidates were barred from the
process. As a result, Mustafa was beaten, arrested, his family was evicted from their
apartment and is now being threatened with internal exile apart from each other.
That is just one little justification, for starters. For other justifications, you may Google
the names of Siamak Pourzand, Dr. Hashem Aghajari, Ahmad Batebi, Zahra Kazemi,
Hassan Yusefi-Eshkevari, and others worth so much more than an et cetera. Go on.
Follow some links. It gets worse. Those other little justifications start to add up when
they get into the thousands. I’d invite you research the name of Moshen Mofidi, but you
needn’t bother: he’s dead. He died soon after his prison sentence and flogging. He was
35.
This is not the evidence of reforming internally. Do not delude yourself into thinking
otherwise, and do not think you can delude us.
No “significant mutual interest” in the name of partnering with “an ‘indispensable player
in the world economy’” is worth the criminal complicity of engaging with the
government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the system that Reporters Sans Frontières
declares to be the Middle East’s biggest imprisoner of journalists.
Legitimacy is won by accepting things as a normal practice. Engagement presupposes
legitimacy. I refuse to give such a system legitimacy, as would anyone with a conscience.
As we have witnessed repeatedly in history, totalitarian systems do eventually collapse
from internal decay. When it does, are you willing to stand before their damaged
citizenry and inform them that their prolonged misery up to that point was diplomatically
and economically acceptable? This will be their view of those who practiced and
condoned “engagement.”
Shame on you, all of you on the Atlantic Council, and we all should have nothing but
contempt for Zbignew Brzezinski, Robert M. Gates, Suzanne Maloney and others of the
CFR for laying this foundation of acceptability.
Do you still believe this is only an internal matter? If you believe an official policy of
fear is currently being promulgated by Washington, you must realize the complicity of
the Iranian government in this very practice by using its state-run television channels to
broadcast Friday sermons by the unelected Supreme Leader Khamenei in which the chant
“Death to America” is a common refrain (ref: http://www.memritv.org). I can't help but
take that personally. Will you be willing to publicly state in forum your views of
engagement with the Iranian Government as such a broadcast plays alongside you and
still consider this to be evidence of reform?
As for “hoping” that diplomacy will produce better results, I cannot help but think of
those who work in Battered Women’s Clinics who hear the justifications of continuing
abusive relationships along the lines of “my love can change him” to the point where it
becomes a painful cliché.
We must have evidence of reform as a prerequisite for engagement. We have none as it
stands. We Americans shall not tolerate the path of appeasement for tyrants in the name
of expediency any longer, because, as current events show, it just comes around to
damage us within a generation's time. Do not be a party to leading us down this path, for
we shall see to publicizing your role in this tragedy, the current one and the eventual one.
Sincerely,
US Can’t Equivocate on Iran Much Longer
Amir Taheri, Arab News
LONDON, 6 August 2004 — As if trying to add a last-minute item to a banquet menu, the Bush administration is busy concocting an “Iran policy” for the Republican Party’s convention in New York this month.
During the past weeks the administration has solicited input from many experts and Iranian-Americans. There are no signs, however, that the end product will amount to a blueprint for dealing with a problem set to dominate American Middle East policy for years.
To some it may be news that the Bush administration is drawing to a close without having worked out a policy outline on Iran. Many will be surprised that Condoleezza Rice and her team have produced National Security Directives, the standard guidelines on policy, on more than 70 countries, but none on Iran.
The reason for this paralysis is the Bush administration’s divisions on an analysis of the problem, not to mention possible solutions. Early in his presidency, Bush included Iran in an “Axis of Evil”, and came close to committing himself to regime change there.
The Pentagon supported that position. The State Department, however, retained the analysis made in the final year of the Clinton administration that saw Iran as “something of a democracy” with which the US must seek “positive engagement.” The National Security Council, for its part, avoided taking sides by refusing even to commission a paper on Iran.
The policy vacuum has encouraged some ultra-right Republicans to try to commit the US to regime change in Iran through legislation, as happened with Iraq during the Clinton administration.
The Democrats have tried to exploit the Bush administration’s lack of policy by promoting rapprochement with Tehran.
This is in sync with Sen. John Kerry’s long-held views. In a conversation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, almost two years ago, Kerry spoke of his desire to “engage Iran in a constructive dialogue”. And last December in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Kerry promised to adopt “a realistic, non-confrontational policy with Iran”, ultimately leading to normalization “just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam, a decade ago.”
Last month the CFR endorsed Kerry’s position in a report on Iran produced by a Task Force led by President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates. The report amounts to an attempt at reopening Iran to American oil, aircraft, and construction companies.
Both the ultra-right Republicans and the CFR advocates of detente, however, base their different strategies on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Iran.
Advocates of “regime change” claim that the Islamic Republic is on the verge of collapse and that what is needed is an extra push from the United States. The promoters of détente, including Sen. Kerry, on the other hand, insist that the Khomeinist regime is “solidly entrenched” and that Iran is “not on the brink of revolutionary upheaval.”
Both are mistaken because they see Iran as a frame-freeze, ignoring the realities of a dynamic political life in which nothing can be taken for granted.
The “overthrow” party underestimates the resilience of a regime that is prepared to kill in large numbers while buying support thanks to rising oil revenues.
The détente party, on the other hand, underestimates the growing power of the movement for change in Iran.
Both camps also ignore the dialectics of the Irano-American relations.
The “overthrow” party ignores the fact that improving relations with Washington could help the Khomeinist regime solve many of its economic and diplomatic problems, thus strengthening its position.
The détente camp, for its part, fails to acknowledge that a commitment by the US to help the pro-reform movement win power in Iran could alter “the solidly entrenched” position of the Khomeinists, and encourage “revolutionary upheaval”.
In other words any action, or inaction, by the US could help alter the picture in Iran.
Both the “overthrow” and the détente camps in Washington see Iran through the prism that was used for determining policy on Iraq under Saddam Hussein — a prism that assumed no role for Iraqi domestic politics. Its modified version ignores the realities of Iran’s complex domestic political life. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq lacked internal mechanisms for change, and was subject to the second law of thermodynamics. Even the assassination of the despot would not have produced real change, at least in the medium term. Under Saddam only intervention by a deus ex-machina could have altered the fundamentals of the Iraqi situation— for better or worse.
The Iranian system, however, is not dependent on an individual and his clan. There are internal mechanisms for change in Iran — mechanism which, if helped to function properly, could produce the changes desired both by the people of Iran and the major democracies led by the United States.
Iraq was a tête-à-tête between Saddam and Washington. Iran is a triangle in which the Iranian people, the Khomeinist regime, and the United States have different, at time complementary and at others contradictory, interests and aspirations.
Whatever the outcome of the coming US presidential election, Washington cannot equivocate on Iran much longer.
Anyone with knowledge of Iran would know that a majority of the Iranian people are unhappy with the status quo. The US shares that discontented, albeit for different reasons.
The reasons for American discontent cannot be eliminated by endorsing the status quo in the name of détente, thus helping consolidate a regime, and policies, that caused the discontent in the first place.
The Iranian people and the United States share an interest in promoting change in Tehran. But that shared interest does not mean that the people of Iran would give Washington carte blanche for regime change.
Iran is passing through a phase experienced by virtually all nations that have emerged from a major political revolution. In such a phase, the divergent interests of the state and the revolution come into conflict.
Any student of Iranian politics would know that today there are two Irans: One embodies the Khomeinist revolution that controls the instruments of power; the other represents the Iranian nation-state as shaped over the past 400 years.
In some cases the interests of the two coincide; in many more they diverge.
Today, Iran is one of only two countries in the Middle East; the other is Israel, where the US enjoys popular support.
The reason is that the US is seen as the only major power not yet prepared to appease the Khomeinist regime. Those who preach détente are, unwittingly perhaps, trying to appease the Khomeinists — an ultimately self-defeating task. If implemented, their policy could turn the people of Iran against the United States, thus, paradoxically, underpinning the regime’s anti-American message.
The “overthrow” scenario could also alienate the Iranian people by confirming the Khomeinist claim that the US “imperialism” is out to impose its will regardless of domestic popular movements.
Rather than hastily endorsing half-baked ideas to fill the vacuum on Iran, President Bush and Sen. Kerry should use the campaign for debating the issue at some depth, thus allowing a more realistic understanding of Iran to emerge as the basis of a serious policy.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=49467&d=6&m=8&y=2004
Subject: Bomb Found at Rafsanjani's resident
Source: MPG
Date 28-07-2004
Reports indicate that a bomb has been found at Rafsanjanis resident.
Soon after the incident a call had been made to the wife of Rafsanjani and the location of the bomb was revealed. The bomb was moved with a crane after the bomb squad's failer to disarm it.
Rafsanjani has not been seen at his resident for 2 days. It is believed that people behind the assault belong to the regime.
http://www.marzeporgohar.org/index.php?action=news&n_id=15787&l=1
Sistani Heads For Treatment In UK
August 06, 2004
BBC News
BBCi
Iraq's most influential Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has left Iraq and is on his way to London to be treated for a heart condition. Airport officials in Beirut said the ayatollah arrived on a chartered jet from Iraq before departing for London.
The ayatollah lives in the holy city of Najaf and has been receiving treatment from cardiologists.
But aides have said they fear violence in Najaf could hamper his access to proper medical care.
The ayatollah is the prime marja, or spiritual reference, for Shias everywhere.
He is one of only five living grand ayatollahs and the most senior Shia cleric in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3541082.stm
Four Iranians Arrested in Karbala for Terror Attacks
August 05, 2004
Xinhua News Agency
Xinhuanet
BAGHDAD -- The police in the central Iraqi cityof Karbala arrested four Iranians who were suspectedly involved incarrying out assassinations and bombings in different areas of thewar-torn country, said Azzaman newspaper on Thursday. The four Iranians were arrested in a wide campaign made by thepolice in the city in search of foreigners who had entered thecountry illegally, said Rahman Mishary, media director of theKarbala police.
He said the Iranians had admitted their involvement inimplementing several terrorist operations.
The four suspects said they fled to Karbala, 100 km south ofBaghdad, after carrying out attacks in several parts of thecountry, Mishary said.
Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan has recently accused Iranof interfering into Iraq's internal affairs and penetrating intoIraqi government institutions, including the defense ministryitself.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/05/content_1722156.htm
Iranian Youth Despair
August 06, 2004
Khaleej Times Online
Editorial
Two-thirds of Iranians are dissatisfied with the administration of Iran, as per the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) survey. The survey said young people were mainly unhappy with the lack of transparency in the country's governing executive. At present, 70 per cent of Iranians are in the age group of 0-30.
All these young people require jobs, which they find difficult to get. In addition to unemployment, numerous social restrictions are placed on them by the Guardian Council, which mainly consists of conservative clerics. Now, in Iran, the government is the main executive power, according to the constitution, but the final say lies with the supreme religious leadership, currently in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While the government of President Khatami is pro-reforms, conservative elements in the Guardian Council have scuttled every effort of the government to usher in more reforms in the country. This will be disastrous as youth power cannot be put on leash. The youth of Iran are angry and frustrated at the lack of challenging employment opportunities, while they are depressed by the lack of progress towards a more people-oriented, democratic system.
The youth of Iran want to express themselves in new and creative ways, but the ultra-conservative stranglehold prevents them from doing so. Thus, their restless, creative energies spill out onto the streets of Teheran and elsewhere in Iran, in the form of mass protests. The government is unable to control them because it has not given them enough reasons to be happy and satisfied. While Khatami's government wants to give more freedom to the youth, the Guardian Council acts as a moral police, telling them to conform to the straight and narrow path. Only eight per cent of the Iranian youth have found their way to higher education, and half the youth are unemployed, and even those who have jobs are not satisfied with them. In such a scenario, it would be wise for the Guardian Council to ease the pressure on the nation's youth and let them realise their full potential. The government too must see to it that more youths get jobs - and meaningful ones - according to their abilities and qualifications. For, unhappy youth can prove to be calamitous for the country.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/editorial/2004/August/editorial_August12.xml§ion=editorial&subsection=editorial
Europe Mum Over Next Step on Iran
August 05, 2004
Deutsche Welle
DW staff
The US says it's working with Europe on a "tough set of resolutions" demanding Iran's compliance on the nuclear issue, but it's not clear whether Europe will abandon its engagement with Iran to follow the US position.
Earlier this week, the United States stepped up its rhetoric against Iran, warning that Tehran would face increasing international pressure if it refused to back down on its nuclear program. White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned that the Iranian government would be isolated if it fails to comply with measures to ensure full disclosure and transparency of its nuclear activities.
"Iran is going to be confronted," Rice told the US broadcaster Fox News. She said that a "very tough set of resolutions" demanding Iranian cooperation would be ready for consideration in September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next meets to discuss Iran's nuclear program.
The warnings came two days after Iran said it had resumed building nuclear centrifuges, which the US says are intended to make weapons-grade enriched uranium for use in bombs.
No progress in Paris
Last week, diplomats from the European Union's "big three" -- Germany, France and Britain -- held talks in Paris with Iranian officials about the country's nuclear program, and stressed their wish to see a halt to Iran's work on the centrifuges. The talks produced "no substantial progress." Iran denies that it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb, and says the centrifuges are being used to meet increasing demand for electricity.
The US wants to refer Iran to the UN Security Council and impose economic sanctions. But asked whether Europe would go along with US plans to increase pressure on Iran, Rice said Washington would "just have to keep working with the French, the British and the Germans to make certain" they follow the US position.
European diplomats have kept quiet on how they intend to proceed. While there's little doubt that European negotiators were frustrated by the lack of progress at last week's talks, Europe has been committed to a process of engagement with Iran, which the EU says has been developing in a "positive direction."
According to reports in the Iranian media, European diplomats in Tehran said they will continue engagement and communication, though there was mention of a "cooling off period," referring to the pause in negotiations on a Trade and Cooperation Agreement between Brussels and Tehran.
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1289065_1_A,00.html
Khatami Accuses US of Double Standards In Iraq
August 06, 2004
AFP
Khaleej Times Online
BAKU -- Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Friday said the United States was using double standards in its war in Iraq and accused it of sparking interethnic conflict.
Addressing the Azeri parliament on the second day of his visit to the former Soviet republic, Khatami defended both Iraq and Palestinian territories against the West.
“Unilateral international policies followed by double standards create difficulties among people, and this can be seen in Iraq and Palestine,” Khatami said.
“The Islamic religion allows for peace and security in the region and a true dialogue for between the world’s civilizations,” he said.
Khatami was paying the first visit by an Iranian leader to the former Soviet republic since 1993, trying to build ties between two countries embroiled in a dispute over oil access in the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan’s closer recent relations with the United States.
Khatami is due to leave Azerbaijan on Saturday.
In recent months, the Pentagon has been ramping up its military assistance to Azerbaijan, which, like Iran, has a Caspian shoreline.
The US military has run joint exercises with the Azeri navy in the Caspian.
The US is backing a major project to export Azeri oil from the Caspian Sea -- home to some of the world’s biggest untapped oil and gas reserves -- to international markets.
But Iran is suspicious of US motives, particularly after President George W. Bush described the country as part of an “axis of evil” following the September 11 attacks.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2004/August/middleeast_August172.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
Israel Presses for Halt on Iran A-Bomb
August 06, 2004
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Leslie Susser
After months of keeping a low profile on Iran’s nuclear program, Israel has launched an intensive diplomatic campaign to convince the international community to pressure Tehran to drop its efforts to produce a nuclear bomb.
Israeli officials say the campaign, involving the United States, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is focusing on a September IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna. That body has the power to refer the "Iranian nuclear dossier" to the U.N. Security Council, where international sanctions could be imposed.
The Israeli diplomatic move has been accompanied by a veiled threat of attack on Iranian nuclear facilities if the international community fails to stop Tehran’s nuclear weapons drive. However, the Iranians, undeterred, are continuing to pursue an ambivalent and potentially military nuclear program.
Like Israel, the United States is seeking stiffer international action. The EU position has been less decisive, however, and it is not clear whether the union will back a U.S. demand for sanctions. Europe’s position could be crucial.
Israel stopped its public criticism of Tehran after Iran and Libya intimated a readiness late last year to cooperate with the international community in dismantling their nuclear weapons programs.
At the time, Israeli experts said Libya was serious, but they didn’t trust Iran. Still, given the new situation and not wanting to draw attention to its own alleged nuclear capabilities, Israel decided to adopt a low profile on Iran and let the United States and Europe take the lead in pressuring Tehran to drop its nuclear weapons drive.
Now, Israel feels the international community has not been firm enough and has allowed Iran to get away with a pretense of cooperation, while clandestinely furthering its nuclear ambitions.
In late June, Israeli leaders decided to change tack. As a first step, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom initiated a July 2 meeting in Washington on the Iranian issue with Condoleezza Rice, U.S. national security adviser. Afterward, Shalom declared that the international community "cannot allow the Iranians to move forward in their efforts to develop nuclear weapons."
Less than a week later, Mohammed El- Baradei, IAEA director general, visited Israel, where all his interlocutors, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, stressed the danger to world peace of nuclear weapons in Iranian hands.
On July 22, when the EU’s foreign policy boss, Javier Solana, visited Israel, his hosts made sure his itinerary included a meeting with Mossad Chief Meir Dagan, who provided Israeli intelligence material purporting to show Iran’s nuclear duplicity.
The day before, Maj. Gen. Aharon (Farkash) Ze’evi, head of Israeli military intelligence, briefed the Cabinet, delivering an assessment — immediately made public — that unless Iran was stopped, it would go nuclear by 2007 or 2008.
Hawkish legislators Ephraim Sneh of the Labor Party and Ehud Yatom of Likud took their cue.
"If the international community continues to show ineffectiveness, Israel will have to consider its next steps — and fast," Sneh said.
Yatom was more explicit, saying, "Israel must destroy the Iranian nuclear facility just as we did the Iraqi reactor in 1981."
Earlier, there had been what appeared to be a calculated leak to the press. On July 18, the London-based Sunday Times reported that the Israeli air force had completed military preparations for a preemptive strike at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and would attack if Russia supplied Iran with fuel rods for enriching uranium.
An Israeli defense source, who confirmed that military rehearsals had taken place, was quoted as telling the paper, "Israel will on no account permit the Iranian reactors — especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help — to go critical."
By breaking its silence on Iran, Israel was indicating that it does not take the Iranian threat lightly — and neither should the West. Beside the obvious warning to Iran, the subtext of the Israeli message seemed to be directed at the international community: Act to stop Iran going nuclear, or Israel may feel it must take preemptive military action, with all the potentially destabilizing consequences.
Then, on July 29, Israel conducted a successful test off the California coast of its Arrow 2 anti-missile system. Some observers saw the test as yet another message to Iran: In a conflict situation, Israel would have the overwhelming strategic advantage of being able to intercept and destroy incoming missiles, another reason for Iran to reconsider its nuclear program.
The Iranians, however, are showing no signs of backing down. On July 25, Seyed Masood Jazayeri, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, warned that if Israel attacks, "it will be wiped off the face of the earth."
A week later, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi confirmed that Iran had resumed building centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium. His statement followed a meeting in Paris in which Britain, France and Germany failed to persuade Iran to stop making the centrifuges and allow spot inspections of its nuclear facilities as promised.
The Europeans had offered to close the Iranian nuclear dossier if Iran cooperated with spot inspections and stopped all production of weapons-grade uranium. But Iran has been delaying the inspections, and — though it repeatedly has insisted that it was not making weapons-grade uranium — it acknowledged that it was continuing to make centrifuges that could be used for uranium enrichment. It also has said nothing will stop it from joining the world’s nuclear club.
Like Israel, the United States maintains that Iran is dissembling, pretending to run a civilian-use nuclear program while clandestinely conducting a full-scale nuclear weapons drive. With huge oil reserves, U.S. officials note, Iran hardly needs nuclear energy for civilian purposes.
Israeli officials say much will depend now on how the Europeans respond to the latest Iranian rebuff in Paris and what line they take at the September IAEA board meeting. If they back the American position, the result could well be a U.N. Security Council debate on a joint resolution threatening Iran with sanctions.
That would be a new phase in the international community’s efforts to stop Iran from getting the bomb. And if that happens, Israel may feel that its new more aggressive campaign had something to do with it.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12637
'Tests In Iran'; New Missiles Being Readied
August 06, 2004
Arab Times
Agencies
WASHINGTON -- The United States has determined that North Korea is working on new ballistic missile systems designed to deliver nuclear warheads and that it is testing the technology by proxy in Iran, an official in President George W. Bush's administration said Thursday.
Having agreed to a self-imposed test ban, North Korea is sharing technology information with Iran, which carries out missile tests on North Korea's behalf, the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The missile program is based on Russian technology and has been conducted with help from Russian scientists - help the United States thinks may be continuing, the official said.
A leading military publication, Jane's Defense Weekly, reported recently that North Korea was developing two new ballistic missile systems that "appreciably expand the ballistic-missile threat." A version of the missile capable of being launched from a submarine or a ship is potentially the most threatening, the weekly said. Not all of the details of the North Korean program are known to the United States, the administration official told The Associated Press. One important question, he said, is whether the missiles are exactly patterned on a Russian model. Another, he said, is whether the missiles could reach the United States.
US officials think North Korea may have the technology for a submarine-launched ballistic missile, but it is not clear whether North Korea has a missile platform, the official said. The Bush administration is working with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to negotiate an agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly held talks with South Korean officials this week in Washington in preparation for a resumption of negotiations, possibly in September.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=3036&cat=a
Iranian Journalists boycott the official press day and step up their struggle
Canada News Wire - Report Section
Aug 6, 2004
MONTREAL - Reporters Without Borders voiced support today for the journalists who plan to hold a one-day hunger strike to protest against press freedom violations tomorrow - Press Day in Iran - and to boycott an official ceremony at which the minister of culture and Islamic guidance is to award prizes to the press.
"While staging a pseudo-homage to the work of journalists, the Iranian authorities try to strip them of their right to work and push forward day by day with their campaign of repression," the organisation said. "We reaffirm our support for the movement of Iranian journalists who bravely refuse to let themselves be gagged, and we call on the Iranian authorities to listen to their demands."
Tomorrow's protest will be a continuation of the movement begun on 26 July with a sit-in by more than 250 people outside the Journalists Association in Tehran. It will be a day of "mourning" for the closure of the major reformist newspapers and the threats hanging over the press. Tehran state prosecutor Said Mortazavi announced at the end of July that journalists who wrote for the closed newspapers will be banned from working altogether. They are appealing for international support and solidarity for their movement.
It is also tomorrow that Emadoldin Baghi - a figurehead of the reformist press - is due to appear before the Tehran prosecutor. No explanation had been given for this summons, the latest of many Baghi has received since his release in February 2003. Baghi was sentenced in October 2000 to three years in prison for "threatening national security" and "dissemination false news."
Following his release, he edited the reformist daily Jomhouriat, which was forced to close on 18 July. He also founded a group that defends prisoners' rights.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7496.shtml
Only Iranian Shoah Survivor Shares Life
by Karmel Melamed, Contributing Writer
In August 1939, Menashe Ezrapour could have escaped the horrors of the Holocaust by boarding a train in the French city of Grenoble, but instead, he chose to stay, ultimately becoming the only known Shoah survivor of Iranian Jewish descent interned in concentration and work camps during World War II.
Recently, Ezrapour, 86, came forward for the first time in more than 60 years to publicly share his story of survival, perhaps bringing the local Persian Jewish community closer to the Shoah.
A number of Holocaust experts, including ones from Yad Vashem in Israel, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said Ezrapour is probably one of the few — if not the only — Iranian Jewish survivors held captive in the camps during WW II.
"To my knowledge, I have not heard of any Iranian Jews being held in camps during the war," said Aaron Brightbart, head researcher at the Wiesenthal Center.
Upon learning of Ezrapour’s Shoah experience, several local Iranian Jewish leaders said his story may personalize the Holocaust for Iranian Jews who in the past may not have been as impacted by its effects as most European Jewry was.
"We [Iranian Jewry] have always felt a close bond with the Shoah," said Dariush Fakheri, co-founder of the Eretz-SIAMAK Cultural Center in Tarzana. "This new revelation for the community just makes it so close to a personal experience for us."
Talking with The Journal at his residence on Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood, Ezrapour can still recall the names, dates and events surrounding his internment in various camps in southern France.
Ezrapour’s life-altering experience began when he and his brother, Edward, left their home in the Iranian city of Hamadan and went to Paris in September 1938 to pursue higher education. In August 1939, Ezrapour and his brother journeyed to Grenoble in southeastern France. Shortly afterward, when war in Europe seemed imminent, they decided to return to Iran.
"As we were preparing to leave, my friend from Baghdad, Maurice, who was an Iraqi Jew, encouraged me to stay," Ezrapour said.
His brother returned to Iran, but Ezrapour remained in Grenoble and continued his engineering education at a local university. For the next three years, Ezrapour said that neither France’s German occupiers nor the Vichy government bothered him. However, he was eventually forced to register as a Jew in 1941, because Vichy laws required Jews to identify themselves.
In late 1942, he and several hundred Jews in the area were rounded up and sent to nearby detention camps. The French police took Ezrapour to a work camp called Uriage. He said the prisoners there were worried that they’d be deported to Germany.
"After one month there, I got permission to return to Grenoble for two days, and I never returned to the camp," Ezrapour recalled.
Ezrapour said he stayed in the Grenoble home of a Christian woman for two weeks and used false identification papers to get around. He was ultimately arrested after the Christian woman was tricked by a police officer into revealing his whereabouts.
After 45 days in jail, Ezrapour said he was convicted of using false papers and sentenced to serve 40 more days in the Shapoli work camp. From Shapoli, he and other Jewish prisoners were taken to the infamous Gurs concentration camp, 50 miles from the Spanish border.
According to the "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" (Facts on File, 2000), Gurs was the first and one of the largest concentration camps in France, with approximately 60,000 prisoners held there from 1939 to 1945. According to the 1993 book, "Gurs: An Internment Camp In France," the internees included approximately 23,000 Spanish Republican soldiers who had fled Franco’s Spain in 1939, 7,000 International Brigade volunteers, 120 French resistance members and more than 21,000 Jews from all over Europe.
Ezrapour said living conditions were unbearable at Gurs, with too many people crowded together into small barracks and very little food.
"Every day, the only food available was one bowl of watered-down turnip soup and 75 grams of bread, which is the size of a teaspoon," Ezrapour said.
Gurs held thousands of Jews prior to their final deportation to the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor in Eastern Europe. However, more than 1,000 detainees at Gurs died of hunger, typhoid fever, dysentery and extreme cold conditions , according to the "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust."
After a month at Gurs, Ezrapour said he and 40 other prisoners were sent to a work camp in southern France called Meyreuil near Marseilles, instead of being deported with thousands of other Jews to Auschwitz.
"After two days there [at Meyreuil], an officer issuing identification cards asked me if I was Jewish, and I told him I was not, and he luckily did not identify me as a Jew," Ezrapour said. "This was an incredible miracle, because later in 1944, two Gestapo officers came to the camp and saw my Jewish name on the list and asked for me. The camp commandant told them I was an Iranian-Iraqi, and they didn’t ask for me any further."
Ezrapour said he was subsequently sent to labor long hours in the coal mines near Meyreuil. He also worked as an electrician.
In August 1944, Ezrapour said, Meyreuil was liberated by American forces, and he left the camp. He sought refuge with rebels in the Spanish underground living in a nearby border town.
For the remainder of the war, Ezrapour returned to Grenoble, where he completed his education in engineering. He returned to Iran in June 1946 and worked in the automotive spare parts business.
Despite enduring tremendous hardships at camps, Ezrapour said the experience has not made him bitter but only reinforced his belief in God.
"After witnessing all of the miracles I encountered then, I have always been grateful to God," Ezrapour said. "I had, and still have, a strong belief in God and his powers, that’s what got me through the experience."
The list of Dachau prisoners in Paul Berben’s book, "Dachau 1933-1945: The Official History" (Norfolk Press, 1975), indicates that there was one survivor of Iranian nationality at the camp in Germany when it was liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945. However, the list does not identify the prisoner’s religion. Berben’s book also indicates that non-Jews were also interned in Dachau during World War II.
Records from Yad Vashem’s Hall of Names reveals that a total of five Jews born in Iran perished in the Holocaust.
This past April, the Wiesenthal Center posthumously honored the Abdol Hossein Sardari, the Iranian ambassador to German-controlled France during World War II, who forestalled the deportation of 200 Iranian Jews living in Paris at the time. In addition, Sardari was also honored for saving several hundred non-Iranian Jews in Paris in 1942 by giving them Iranian passports to escape Nazi persecution.
Ezrapour said that while he did not encounter any other Iranian Jews during his internment in the French camps, most Iranian Jews he has known over the years have expressed great sorrow over the loss of their brethren at the hands of the Nazis.
"They do feel great pain, because their co-religionist brothers were murdered," Ezrapour said. "Perhaps my experience will give them a better idea of the seriousness of what happened."
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12633
IN SEARCH OF AN IRAN POLICY [Excerpt]
By AMIR TAHERI
NY Post
August 6, 2004 -- AS if trying to add a last- minute item to a banquet menu, the Bush adminis tration is busy concocting an "Iran policy" for this month's Republican Party convention.
In recent weeks, the administration has solicited input from many experts and Iranian-Americans. There are no signs, however, that the end product will amount to a blueprint for dealing with a problem set to dominate America's Middle East policy for years.
To some, it may be news that the first Bush administration is drawing to a close without having worked out a policy outline on Iran. Many will be surprised that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her team have produced National Security Directives (the standard guidelines on policy) on more than 70 countries, but none on Iran.
The reason for this paralysis is the Bush administration's divisions over an analysis of the problem, not to mention possible solutions.
Early in his presidency, Bush included Iran in an "Axis of Evil," and came close to committing himself to regime change there.
The Pentagon supported that position. The State Department, however, retained the analysis made in the final year of the Clinton administration, which saw Iran as "something of a democracy" with which the United States must seek "positive engagement." The National Security Council avoided taking sides by refusing even to commission a paper on Iran.
The policy vacuum has encouraged some Republicans to try to commit the United States to regime change in Iran through legislation, as happened with Iraq during the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, some Democrats have tried to exploit the Bush administration's lack of policy by promoting rapprochement with Tehran.
This is in sync with Sen. John Kerry's long-held views. In a conversation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, almost two years ago, Kerry spoke of his desire to "engage Iran in a constructive dialogue." Last December, in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, Kerry promised to adopt "a realistic, non-confrontational policy with Iran," ultimately leading to normalization "just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam, a decade ago."
Last month, the CFR endorsed Kerry's position in a report on Iran produced by a Task Force led by President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Bzrezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates. The report amounts to an attempt at reopening Iran to U.S. oil, aircraft, and construction companies.
Yet both sets of advocates — of regime change and of détente — base their different strategies on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Iran.
Advocates of "regime change" claim that the Islamic Republic is on the verge of collapse and that what is needed is an extra push from America.. The promoters of détente insist that the Khomeinist regime is "solidly entrenched" and that Iran is "not on the brink of revolutionary upheaval."
Both are mistaken because they see Iran as a frame-freeze, ignoring the realities of a dynamic political life. The "overthrow" party underestimates the resilience of a regime that is prepared to kill in large numbers while buying support thanks to rising oil revenues. The détente party, on the other hand, underestimates the growing power of the movement for change in Iran.
Both camps also ignore the dialectics of the Irano-American relations. The "overthrow" party ignores the fact that improving relations with Washington could help the regime solve many of its economic and diplomatic problems, thus strengthening its position. The détente camp fails to acknowledge that a U.S. commitment to help the pro-reform movement win power in Iran could alter "the solidly entrenched" position of the Khomeinists and encourage "revolutionary upheaval."
In other words, any U.S. action, or inaction, could help alter the picture in Iran.
Both the "overthrow" and the détente camps in Washington see Iran through the prism that was used for determining policy on Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But the Iranian system is not dependent on an individual and his clan. There are internal mechanisms for change — mechanisms which, if helped to function properly, could produce the changes desired both by the people of Iran and the major democracies led by the United States.
Iraq was a tete-à-tete between Saddam and Washington. Iran is a triangle in which the Iranian people, the Khomeinist regime and the United States have different, at time complementary and at others contradictory, interests and aspirations.
Whatever the outcome of the coming U.S. presidential election, Washington cannot equivocate on Iran much longer.
Anyone with knowledge of Iran would know that a majority of the Iranian people are unhappy with the status quo. America shares that discontented, albeit for different reasons. The reasons for U.S. discontent cannot be eliminated by endorsing the status quo in the name of détente: Instead, that would help consolidate the regime, and policies, that caused the discontent in the first place.
The Iranian people and the United States share an interest in promoting change in Tehran. But that shared interest does not mean that the people of Iran would give Washington carte blanche for regime change.
Iran is passing through a phase experienced by virtually all nations that have emerged from a major political revolution. In such a phase, the divergent interests of the state and the revolution come into conflict.
Any student of Iranian politics would know that today there are two Irans. One embodies the Khomeinist revolution that controls the instruments of power; the other represents the Iranian nation-state as shaped over the past 400 years.
In some cases the interests of the two coincide; in many more they diverge.
Today, Iran is one of only two countries in the Middle East (the other is Israel) where the United States enjoys popular support. The reason is that the U.S. is seen as the only major power not yet prepared to appease the Khomeinist regime.
Those who preach détente are, unwittingly perhaps, trying to appease the Khomeinists — an ultimately self-defeating task. If implemented, their policy could turn the people of Iran against the United States, thus, paradoxically, underpinning the regime's anti-American message.
Yet the "overthrow" scenario could also alienate the Iranian people by confirming the Khomeinist claim that the U.S. "imperialism" is out to impose its will, regardless of domestic popular movements. ...
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/26321.htm