Weekly Commentary

Stay out of EU’s “Dance of Macabre” with Mullahs

Working to recruit a new member for their fellowship of appeasement, the French and German leaders lobbied hard the visiting US president last week, pleading with him to join their diplomatic charade with Iran by offering some made-in-US carrots.

There are media reports indicating an apparent willingness of Washington to join this charade. On Monday, the same day the head of International Atomic Energy Agency chided Iran for continuing the pattern of delays in divulging key information about its nuclear program, news agencies reported that President Bush is close to deciding whether to join Europe in offering economic incentives to the mullahs’ regime. President Bush in the past had correctly stressed that Tehran should not be rewarded for violating terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Years of the EU’s engagement with Tehran has been simply an exercise in futility and must serve as a stark reminder to those who are pushing Washington to join in.. The prospect of a nuclear Iran is far too ominous to leave it to Europeans. They have too many commercial ties to Tehran and some of them even have geo-political rivalries with Washington.

Germany and France should stop blaming the Unites States for their failure to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and instead take a deep and honest – that’s the hard part - look at their reprehensible policy, which has no doubt bolstered Tehran in its insistence on keeping its nefarious nuclear program viable.

The EU’s absurd suggestion that giving certain “economic incentives” to the mullahs would entice them to abandon their nuclear ambitions is only a pretext to legitimize lucrative trade with a terror-sponsoring regime. While the elixir of “economic incentive” has failed to quench the mullahs’ desire for an A-bomb, it has enabled French and German companies to pocket a huge windfall.

In a commentary entitled “Axis of Weakness”, Jeffrey Gedmin, Director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, wrote last year, “A German friend of mine once explained to me, with some embarrassment, how the policy [of constructive engagement] works: Europe is nice to the mullahs, and when this fails, well, Europe tries to be a little nicer.”

Hiding behind their claim of adhering to internationalism and multilateralism, many EU capitals have turned their Iran policy into a cowardice kowtowing to the most dangerous breed of dictators modern history has ever come to know.

The Europeans take the high ground when it comes to preaching others about human rights but they turn a blind eye to the most outrageous rights violations in Iran. They arrogantly talk about freedom of speech, but ban freedom rallies by dissident Iranian Diaspora in their capitals.

Europe’s two decades of appeasing Tehran can only be described as an all-out capitulation. Indeed, the “soft power” diplomacy the Europeans are so proud of has been reduced to legitimizing the status-quo. It has also meant silencing and blacklisting the democratic Iranian opposition forces on their own soil.

The EU naively believes it is repelling the threatening specter of Islamic fundamentalism at its door step by utilizing its “soft power” toward terrorism and countries which sponsor it. It fails to realize that this approach is only bolstering this menace.

The EU and the “Europeanists” in Washington have no place in dragging the US foreign policy and the American people into their “Dance of Macabre” with the tyrants ruling Iran. (USADI)
 

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The New York Times
February 28, 2005
Pressed, Iran Admits It Discussed Acquiring Nuclear Technology

As the International Atomic Energy Agency prepared to open a meeting in Vienna on Monday to review Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian officials reluctantly turned over new evidence that strongly suggests it discussed acquiring technologies central to making nuclear weapons and hid that fact for 18 years, U.S. and European officials say.

The officials said the documents, which are dated 1987, were handed over after investigators for the agency confronted Iranian officials with evidence gathered in interviews with members of the network run by Pakistan's top nuclear expert, A.Q. Khan. The documents, according to officials who have seen them, include an offer by Khan's representatives to provide a package of technologies - for a price that ran from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a European diplomat - including the difficult-to-master process of casting uranium metal.

That is a critical step toward making the core of a nuclear warhead, though investigators note that Iran could come up with other explanations for its wanting to fabricate uranium in a metal form…

Still, European and U.S. officials said they considered the 1987 offer some of the best evidence to date that Iran sought, starting at least 18 years ago, to assemble the technologies needed to build a nuclear arsenal. It joins with accounts that have portrayed an elaborate Iranian effort to keep the agency's inspectors from finding centrifuges and other equipment and sites critical to producing both commercial and weapons-grade uranium.

Agency officials are also expected to remind the board of two outstanding, unresolved issues involving Iran's lack of complete cooperation, European diplomats said. One is Iran's incomplete explanation of how one type of its centrifuge machines, capable of enriching uranium for both energy and bombs, became contaminated with uranium enriched at levels high enough to be of more use for weapons than for electricity production. Another is Iran's refusal to disclose the history and extent of its efforts to import and manufacture the two types of centrifuges in its possession...
 

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2004 Iran Report on Human Rights Practices
US State Department
February 28, 2005

Excerpts:
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a constitutional, theocratic republic in which Shi'a Muslim clergy dominate the key power structures… The Government's poor human rights record worsened, and it continued to commit numerous, serious abuses. The right of citizens to change their government was restricted significantly. Continuing serious abuses included: summary executions; disappearances; torture and other degrading treatment, reportedly including severe punishments such as amputations and flogging; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of habeas corpus or access to counsel; and prolonged and incommunicado detention. Citizens often did not receive due process or fair trials. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights and restricted freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion.

The Government restricted the work of human rights groups. Violence and legal and societal discrimination against women were problems. The Government discriminated against minorities and severely restricted workers' rights, including freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively. Child labor persisted. Vigilante groups, with strong ties to certain members of the Government, enforced their interpretation of appropriate social behavior through intimidation and violence. There were reports of trafficking in persons.

There were reports of political killings. The Government was responsible for numerous killings during the year, including executions following trials that lacked due process.

The law criminalized dissent and applied the death penalty to offenses such as "attempts against the security of the State, outrage against high-ranking officials, and insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic." Citizens continued to be tried and sentenced to death in the absence of sufficient procedural safeguards.

In January, security forces killed four persons and injured many others when they attacked striking copper factory workers in the Khatunabad village near Shahr-i Babak (see Section 6.b.).

In February, security forces killed seven persons in post-Majlis election violence in the towns of Andimeshk and Izeh in Khuzestan Province and the town of Firuzabad in the Fars Province.

In August, Iranian media reported that 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi was hanged in public for charges reportedly involving her "acts incompatible with chastity." Rajabi was not believed to be mentally competent; she had no access to a lawyer. Her sentence was reviewed and upheld by the Supreme Court. An unnamed man arrested with her was given 100 lashes and released...
 

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Iran Focus
February 28, 2005
Iran has 40,000 agents in Iraq on payroll - TV

London, Feb. 28 – The Iranian regime has at least 40,000 agents in Iraq on its payroll, according to a report broadcast by an Iranian opposition television.

Simaye Azadi, a Persian-language satellite television network close to the opposition National Council of Resistance, said it had obtained documents from Fajr Garrison of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which showed that the Islamic republic was running a vast underground network in Iraq with 40,000 agents on its payroll.

Fajr Garrison, near the southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz, is the principal headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards in southern Iran. The top commanders of the IRGC’s elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force running Iran’s vast clandestine operations in southern Iraq are based in this garrison.

The agents receive their salaries on a monthly basis, the television report said. When the salaries were reduced by nine dollars recently, there were many complaints from the agents, it said.

The monthly payments are smuggled into Iraq by the leaders of the network inside Iraq, who travel to Ahwaz every month for this purpose and for debriefings by senior Qods Force commanders.
 

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The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (USADI), is a US-based, non-profit, independent organization, which promotes informed policy debate, exchange of ideas, analysis, research and education to advance a US  policy on Iran which will benefit America’s interests, both at home and in the Middle East, through supporting Iranian people’s  aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government, free of tyranny, fundamentalism, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

USADI supports the Iranian peoples' aspirations for democracy, peace,  human rights, women’s equality, freedom of expression, separation of  church and state, self-determination, control of land and resources,  cultural integrity, and the right to development and prosperity.

The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties. The USADI administration is solely responsible for its activities and decisions.