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Commentary
by U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Sending
the Right Signal to Tehran
Earlier in the week, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told the New York Post’s
editorial board that a stable Iraq will act as
"a block" against Iran's growing regional
ambitions, whereas an unstable Iraq will serve
as "bridge" for Tehran. Secretary Rice's
accurate observation was reflected in the
President’s remarks later in the week when he
told an audience in Lancaster, PA, that standing
firm in Iraq would send a crucial signal to
ayatollahs while chaos and timidity “would
embolden Iran."
France has been also increasingly vocal in its
denunciation of Tehran’s drive for nuclear
weapons and its destabilizing campaign in Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told
reporters on Thursday that Iraq has become an
arena for Tehran’s “operations aimed at backing
armed groups whether Shiite or Sunnis to spur
conflicts among the different components of the
Iraqi people.”
Meanwhile in Strasbourg, France, Maryam Rajavi,
the leader of the major Iranian opposition
coalition, the National Council of resistance of
Iran, noted that the extent of Tehran’s advances
in Iraq is far greater. She said that Iran’s
clerical regime is the “de-facto occupier of
Iraq.” Rajavi who was addressing the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
warned that “the danger of the Iranian regime's
meddling and terrorism in Iraq is a hundred
times more dangerous than its nuclear threat.”
The message of her remarks was well understood
in Tehran. Several days after her speech,
Associated Press reported that Iran's parliament
speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel canceled a
planned speech to the Council of Europe,
protesting Rajavi’s invitation to the Council.
Even before the opposition leader’s meeting, a
group of parliamentarians from all major
political groups in the Council had protested
Haddad Adel's visit, calling on fellow lawmakers
to leave the building if he spoke.
Rajavi’s warning comes at a time when more than
700 Iraqi political figures, among them
Parliamentarians, governmental officials,
Jurists and tribal leaders wrote a letter to the
UN Secretary General in which they held Tehran
responsible for the ongoing insecurity and
carnage in Iraq.
The letter, demanding the UN to hold early
elections in Iraq states that, "4 million
refugees, 650 thousand dead and millions injured
and devastation of all the economic, social,
service and security infrastructure is the heavy
price paid for infiltration of Iranian regime
and its proxies in our country.” The signatories
expressing their contempt for the ruling
Tehran-backed Shiite coalition in Nuri al-Malki’s
sectarian-based government stressed that
"Everyone knows that the basis for the
government is not democracy or people’s vote but
murder, terrorism, death squads, instilling fear
and imported bombs from Iran.”
The letter's assertion was amplified on Friday
when the Multi-National Force – Iraq said in a
statement that “Coalition forces were targeting
a Special Groups commander believed to be
associated with members of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard – Quds Force” killing 25
militants. Last month U.S. forces arrested a
senior commander of the notorious
terrorism-spawning Quds Force of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud
Farhadi in northern Iraq.
Before his capture, Farhadi served as the Deputy
Commander and senior intelligence officer of
Quds Force's Zafar Tactical Base. Lt. Gen.
Raymond Odierno, the U.S. top commander in Iraq
has described Farhadi as a "significant" player
who is suspected of providing weapons, money and
training to Iraqi militants since 2005.
Earlier in the week, US military spokesman Major
General Kevin Bergner told a news conference in
Baghdad that Farhadi has been driving Tehran's
intelligence operations in Iraq for more than a
decade and "as Zafar commander, he was
responsible for Quds Force operations in
north-central Iraq, including cross border
transfers of weapons, people and money.”
Given this background, Farhadi’s presence in
northern Iraq disguised as a “business
delegation” was no coincidence. The Dallas
Morning News reports that the regime in Iran has
been behind the recent resurgence of Ansar
al-Islam's, a terrorist Kurdish outfit with ties
to al-Qaeda, with “a lurid reputation for
beheadings and bombing beauty salons and family
restaurants.”
To ensure that Iraq will become "a block"
against Tehran, not a “bridge” for its regional
ambitions, the clerical regime must be evicted
form Iraq; ideologically, politically,
economically and militarily. Any other policy
recommendation is either meant to serve the
strategic interests of Tehran in Iraq, or is
based on a reckless naiveté about the true
intentions and capacity of ayatollahs’ for
turning Iraq into a roaming ground for
fundamentalist terrorists and extremists who
would have easy access to oil revenue and
possibly nuclear bomb, and to more than a dozen
states in the region.
In his speech in Lancaster, President Bush said
that "Negotiations just for the sake of
negotiations often times send wrong signals.” It
is time to send the right signal to Tehran
tyrants. (USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |