Posted on 05/01/2003 12:27:52 AM PDT by DoctorZIn
TEHRAN 30 Apr. (IPS) As Iranians expresses more and more their wishes to see the Americans take action against the present regime, the Revolutionary Guards issued warnings against those who call for normalising relations with the United States.
"The Revolutionary Guards would issues warnings and cautions for the society whenever it feel it is needed. This is one of its duties to enter the arena when it considers it as a necessity", said Mr. Ali Sa’idi, the acting Representative of the leader at the Army of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution, better known as Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards.
This was the Pasdaran’s second stern warnings in as many days, coming after foreign media reported of wide spread and generalised deception of the Iranians with the present rule of hard line clerics.
In an article carried on its 25 April issue, the influential French daily "Le Monde" said the Iranian rulers are worried by a "fierce pro-Americanism" expressed by the Iranian population. "They are especially worried of the vox populi, that asks for a change of the regime with the help of the American marines", the daily wrote in an article dated from Tehran.
"If one admits that the Iraqis are delighted with Saddam Hoseyn's end, one must also think about the possibility that maybe, the Iranians would celebrate at the end of the Islamic Republic as well", the paper quoted Mr. Behzad Nabavi, an influential member of the reformist camp and a Majles Deputy-speaker.
"The Revolutionary Guards must control the action of the Majles. They must know what the deputies think. They must know if they are with the leader or against him", responded Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani, the leader’s Representative at the Pasdaran, a force that serves as the Mollahrchy’s Praetorian Guard.
Iranian observers said the cleric’s harsh words against the Majles (Iranian Parliament) could not be ushered without prior authorisation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenehi’, the lamed and unpopular, but absolute leader of the Islamic Republic, who is also the commander of all Iranian armed forces, including the Revolutionary Guards.
"This is part of the policy of massive repression concocted by the Hashemi Rafsanjani-Khameneh'i duo", said former president Abolhasan Banisadr, pointing to the renewed wave of newspapers closing, jailing of political dissidents, journalists and students as well as appointing a hard line judge as the Capita’s Public Prosecutor and Islamic Revolution’s courts.
According to "Le Monde", most Iranians are openly calling for American intervention in Iran.
"We don't want the Islamic Republic anymore", an architect told the paper on condition of anonymity. "It took us a quarter of century to realise that the revolution is a failure", he added, calling like many other Iranians, for the American help for change the regime".
"The Afghans and the Iraqis have been freed from dictatorships, why not us?" a filmmaker said.
Both Ayatollah Kermani and Mr.Sa’idi warned what they described as "the enemy’s fifth column" against insisting on opening up relations with the United States in the aftermath of the Coalition’s rapid victory over the now collapsed regime of Saddam Hoseyn in Baghdad.
"The Americans have attacked Iraq and they might attack Iran as well. But we shall be united. Our armed forces must be ready against enemy’s psychological warfare", he warned, speaking on a gathering of the Pasdaran’s Ideological-Political Department.
He also criticised Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Iraqi Shi’a’s highest religious authority, asking why he does not enter the "occupied" nation’s political vacuum left by the fall of the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hoseyn.
Known for his "moderation’ compared to hard line Iranian clerics, the Grand Ayatollah was under house arrest under Saddam and after he recovered his freedom of action, he was attacked by hard-line Iraqi clerics taking orders from Tehran.
Referring to Washington's scenario on Iraq's future, Mr. Khameneh’i said that Washington has made it clear that it will not allow establishment of an Islamic government in Iraq even if the Iraq people voted for it.
He said the Coalition forces attacking homes of Iraqi people and firing at demonstrations are signs of "the American and British democracy and humanitarian principles" and added "other nations should take lessons from the events in Iraq".
For his part, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that the Iraqi people do not trust the Americans.
"The heavy US bombings of residential areas and Iraqi schools and the magnitude of the high human casualties are too hefty to forget in a matter of months or years. The Americans have a difficult time ahead with the antagonist sentiment the Iraqis hold toward them for the human cost of getting rid of the deposed regime", the powerful Chairman of the Expediency Council added, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.
The former president also lambasted the Americans on their "cooperation"
with Iraq-based terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO), saying that it "indicates Washington's hypocrisy in the international campaign against terrorism".
According to the MKO, the American army commanders reached an agreement with them, allowing the Organisation, which is dedicated to overthrow the Islamic Republic by way of arms, to remain in their camps in Iraq.
Foreign journalists in Baghdad reported that following the "cease-fire agreement" between the American forces and the MKO, the Organisation was asked to check on the Iranians and the Iraqis Tehran has infiltrated into Iraq to stir trouble.
Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani described the ceasefire agreement between the US Army commander in Iraq with the terrorist MKO as a "great scandal" and said that in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States, Washington was portraying itself as anti-terrorist, but, it entered into a deal with the terrorist group which they have nurtured and gave it a safe haven in Washington. ENDS PASDARAN WARNINGS 30403
We don't have to invade but we should not do as we did after gulf war 1 and leave insurgents high and dry.
Now that American covert military support is available across a long land border rather than across a large body of water, the military situation of the Iranian opposition has dramatically improved.
BTW, we have not "nurtured" the MKO. We allow their political organization to operate in the United States. This may be highly questionable (and I think it is) but is no different than allowing Shin Fein (sp?) to keep offices in the United States, which may also be questionable, but does not mean that we "nurture" the Irish Republican Army.
We are certainly not interested in a different bunch of wild-eyed fanatics overthrowing the current bunch of wild-eyed fanatics in Iran. The broad, deep and democratic opposition to the mullahtocracy provides excellent prospects for a reasonably non-violent overthrow of the mullahs by protests and strikes (a la Serbia, Rumania, Poland, etc). This path is much more apt to lead to a stable, democratic and pro-Western Iran.
Too late. Wolfowitz (along with other Reaganaut advocates of an activist defense and expansion of democracy, and confrontational stance towards tyranny, like Elliot Abrams, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle, George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, et al) has been proven a visionary time and again in the last twenty years.
What you may mean is that the liberal intelligencia, or the "moderate" status-quo-fixated establishment, might finally give him and others like him credit for his vision. But I wouldn't count on that.
The "tipping point" in Iran is not centered on a militaristic insurgency. In any case that threatens only to produce more of the same radical governance. Instead the United States should funnel resources (probably only a few million dollars worth is necessary) and provide open and sincere rhetorical support to the student protest movement. They plan a nationwide strike for July 9th. If the students can bring the Iranian people generally into this strike, and can sustain it over days or weeks, it is very likely to topple the mullahs. The same tactics have worked in many other places, e.g. The Phillipines, Serbia, Rumania, Poland, etc.
I was a supporter of the Iraq war, and am not by any means opposed to the use of insurgency or outright intervention when it is truly necessary or advisable, but I don't think it is (yet) either in Iran. A non-violent overthrow at the hands of the people themselves will be very much preferable to intervention in terms of the likely results. If the strike this summer fails, then we may need to reconsider (in light of the fact that the mullahs may have usable nukes soon).
Sorry, but if the insurgents are fundamentalist fanatics (as they are) they most certainly should be left high and dry. As I have noted in other messages, there are much preferable avenues for regime change available in Iran. The pro-Democracy student protestors need to be supported, and encouraged in their intentions to make the strike planned for this July a massive and determined last push to topple the mullahs.
If, and only if, that fails, then we might need to think about getting ugly and maybe dealing with somewhat unsavory elements, but that should only be a last resort in preference to worse alternatives.
The U.S. was using the threat of supporting them as a stick, in the short term, to use against Iranian infiltration and agitation in Shiite area.
In the long run, however, the so-called "People's Mujahideen", although opposed to the mullah's rule and seeking to install a secular government, are a problem. They had close ties with Saddam's regime and have been classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Government.
Naturally, if the People's Mujahideen had not been ideologically friendly to Saddam, they would not have been allowed a base in Iraq.
It seems to me that the best course of action would be to let the "People's Mujahideen" go the way of the other Saddamist thugs. Putting them in power would only trade one set of thugs for another.
In their place, we should be training our own Iranians over the coming year.
Our Iranians should be those who are pro-American and who share our vision and share our values. After a quarter of a century of Murdering Mullah rule, Iran is filled with a vast number of young people with a vision of freedom in their eye and a fire in their belly. They are the ones we should be covertly recruiting and training over the coming year. What those young Iranians yearning for freedom lack is training, arms, logistics and the leadership that our Special Forces can provide.
Maybe such an operation is in the works right now. However, if they told us, they'd have to kill us. ;-)
Expanding on my preceeding messages, we need to "arm" Iranians with buses, to bring protestors into Teheran, with bulldozers to push aside roadblocks, with radio transmitters to get out the message of the pro-Democracy groups, with computers and cell phones to communicate and co-ordinate strikes and protests, etc.
We need to get behind this effort, quickly and publicly. We need congressional resolutions, speeches, and non-covert dispursements of funds (and covert also) to the student protestors.
Not only is this, IMHO, the best way to proceed objectively, but also provides wonderful political opportunities: to blunt the criticism that Dubya is a "war monger" by demonstrating support for non-violent democracy movements where those are available, and to shame and expose the pro-totalitarian elements of the "peace" movement by demonstrating that they won't support democracy movements even when they are non-violent.
It might have a more salutory effect on other Muslim countries if a bunch of mullahs were left hanging from lampposts.
Not really needed, my friend. We have special ops crawling all over th' place. Things are happening out of sight. When the muthahs do fall, it will be at the hands of the people of Iran who want freedom. We will just have helped them achieve their own goals.
Michael
See my Post 30 to ItsTheMediaStupid .
My nightmare scenario in a "people's rising" in Iran is the prospect of a wholesale slaughter of unarmed and untrained civilians in the streets of Iran.
Although "People Power" has worked in some countries, it has worked in countries where the military had sympathy with or were unwilling to slaughter their own people.
In Iran, however, I am afraid that the Mullah's armed forces, indoctrinated in and selected for Islamist religious zealotry, would machine gun down a demonstration of their own grandmothers if the Mullahs told them that Allah would be pleased by a river of Granny's blood.
It only takes a hundred Revolutionary Guards in APC's willing to slaughter the enemies of Allah to trump ten thousand unarmed students demonstrating in a public square.
I have visions of Hungary, Tiennemen Square and Basra after Gulf War One if such a "People Power" revolt comes prematurely to Iran.
When it does come, I believe that the U.S. should have ensured that "Second Amendment Rights" (including anti-armor capabilities) were extended to as many pro-USA Iranian students as possible so that People Power will have a fighting chance against the Mullah's fanatical Praetorian Guard.
In Iran, however, I am afraid that the Mullah's armed forces, indoctrinated in and selected for Islamist religious zealotry, would machine gun down a demonstration of their own grandmothers if the Mullahs told them that Allah would be pleased by a river of Granny's blood.
You may be right, but I question how deep the "fanaticism" of the Republican Guard runs. How many participate in the fist pumping and flag burning just to get along, but are privately, or at least potentially, hostile toward the regime? The mullahs seem to be worried about this too, and have reportedly been salting the Republican Guard with imported Arab fanatics (a palpably desperate measure for a Persian government).
The students seem to think the time is ripe. I hope they are right. We'll see. Obviously we should have some plan to leverage the consequent deligitimization of the mullahs if there is a bloodbath. Maybe Dubya or other U.S. officials should threaten, in advance of the strike, to support military insurgency against the mullahs if deadly force is used against the strikers?
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