October 25, 2002
efreedomnews.com
On July 3, 2002 Michael Ledeen wrote in National Review Online:
[Link]
July 3, 2002 8:45 a.m.
The Iranian Time Bomb
A nation on the brink.
Iran hurtles toward chaos, and we are still dithering. July 9 will mark the third anniversary of the student uprising at Tehran University, and the capital is girding for new demonstrations against the increasingly unpopular and insecure regime of Ayatollah Khamenei. Two recent polls suffice to demonstrate the hatred of the Iranian people for their leaders, whether "hardline" or "reformist." The first, a secret survey carried out by the Interior Ministry for the ruling mullahs, found that only six percent of 16,000 people in Tehran said they were satisfied with the regime; the other 94 percent said they were unhappy with it. Moreover, nearly half of those polled — 45 percent — said it was impossible to reform the system and must be totally changed. In thinking about these striking numbers — as clear a picture of failure as any regime could dream of — it must be remembered that, if anything, the numbers understate the discontent of the people, since a number of them must have believed that the pollsters were really agents of the state, and that anyone who denounced the regime was liable to be arrested and tortured.
Elected President Khatami has become more impotent as his term in office goes by. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has organized new police directly under his control to "reestablish social order and to fight against all forms of depravity" - meaning to physically and brutally enforce strict fundamentalist Islamic behavior - while the youth of Iran continues to organize and flaunt pro-Western "sinful behavior as listening to Western music, dancing together, drinking alcohol or, in the case of women, failure to wear appropriately Islamic garb."
On August 5, 2002, major demonstrations for democratic freedom took place in every major city in Iran, commemorating the establishment of a constitutional monarchy long before Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic fundamentalists deposed the Shah of Iran. The Revolutionary Guard and religious militia forces attacked the demonstrators to put down the demonstrations. National Review Online's Michael Ledeen reported:
"The regime responded with unprecedented violence. There was widespread street fighting. More than 1,000 people were arrested. Several were apparently killed. Even late on Tuesday conflicts were ongoing in Khorassan, and not a single word appeared in a major Western publication, or on the news wires, or on any television broadcast of which I am aware."
Not only has President Khatami been emasculated, but Khamenei's forces have jailed over 400 clerics from Qom who were followers of the two clerics who have openly challenged Khamenei, Ayatollahs Taheri and Montazeri. The military has been purged of any officer not completely loyal to the mullahs.
Iran is backing attacks against the new fledgling government in Afghanistan and US troops there. Iran gave birth to Hezbollah, fully backs Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Al Qaida is strongly and safely entrenched, and fully supported within the Iranian borders. Despite the horrible war fought with Saddam Hussein in the 1980's, the current regime is openly assisting Saddam, selling him munitions, missiles and aircraft and condemning their common enemy, the United States. Along with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia are allies in maintaining their vicious despotic rule - and allied against the United States - not because they hate the United States per se - they hate the freedom and democracy the United States represents, and the threat that poses to their rule.
Khatami is powerless, a figurehead, but continues his public struggle to empower the elected side of the Iranian government. His real problem is not just that Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei is not about to allow the government to take away any of his power. The fact is, the Persian population, kept in check only by physical violence and fear, are no longer interested in Khatami's democratic version of Islamic rule. The Persian people see the current regime as unacceptable. They are demanding full democratic freedoms, unlike this twisted Islamic version of democracy, where women and non-Muslims are not equal, and human rights do not belong to dissidents.
Akbar Ganji, a jailed Iranian journalist, somehow released last month "The Islamic Republic of Iran," calling for civil disobedience, criticizing the original Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini for installing a theocracy after promising democracy, and stating, "So long as this system...is in place, there is no way for Iranians to acquire democracy."
"Like the Soviet empire and other failed tyrannies, Iran has a great capacity for evil outside their borders. Their Achilles' heel is at home, where their sway over the Iranian people grows weaker by the day. Although the regime is intensifying its repression against its critics, demonstrations continue apace throughout the major cities, and the open wound in the clerical body is getting ugly. In recent days, the celebrated Ayatollah Montazeri — the author of the famous fatwa a couple of months ago that condemned suicide bombing as an anti-Islamic action — wrote a letter to the newspaper Hambastegi in Tehran, saying that no one is obliged to support a religious government, since belief or disbelief in religious rule is not a crucial issue, either for good government or for good religion. This is yet another devastating attack against the religious legitimacy of the regime.
The UN has failed. On April 24, 2002, the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva defeated an American resolution to condemn Iran for its many egregious actions against its own people. On April 23, 2002 "the regime hung six young men in public, under the pretext that they had "disturbed public order." [Iran on the Brink]
The Europeans placate the Iranian mullahs along with Saddam so that oil contracts worth billions can stay in place. The US is just as guilty for not standing up to the Sauds.
It is up to the United States, and her allies, to support the movement for freedom in Iran, to stop the despotism, internal and exported terrorism of the Iranian Mullahs, Saddam, the House of Saud, the Syrians and their puppet Lebanon. The worry of a "potential" all-out middle east war is unnecessary. The war is well underway. The worry is the lack of recognition by the politicians, the media, and the free people of the world.
