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Weekly Commentary
Wages of
Appeasement
For more than two decades the “realists” in the foreign policy
establishment have had a huge, and in retrospect negative,
influence on the US policy toward Iran. The perilous nuclear
brinkmanship Iran has waged on the world is a direct consequence
of the appeasement policy.
Vacillating between engagement and containment, formulating
policy based on the notion of cultivating “moderates” or
“pragmatists” and ignoring Tehran’s role in the bombing of the
Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and the Khobar Towers in
Riyadh in 1996 have contributed to Iran becoming a clear and
imminent danger to regional peace and our security.
In the view of many of these “realist” policy experts, the
United States’ “hostile” attitude toward the Iranian theocracy
and not the depraved terrorist nature of the regime account for
Tehran’s despicable conduct. They devote a great deal of their
time to justify Tehran’s rogue behavior, its human rights
abuses, nuclear weapons drive and sponsorship of terrorism.
Now that Tehran is hell-bent on developing the A-bomb, many of
these “realists,” rather than acknowledging the failure of their
wrong-headed approach, are again proffering a new round of
engagement to reach a nuclear “grand bargain” sweetened with
lots of “incentives” for Tehran. However packaged, such a deal
would amount to no more than appeasing the fundamentalist rulers
of Iran.
Meanwhile, the “authoritative interlocutors” of such a nuclear
grand bargain are busy with the public execution of Iranians
including teenage girls. According to official Iranian media,
more than 120 people have been executed since January. The
heinous execution of 16-year-old girl in August drew
international outrage. Reports from Iran say that the clerical
regime is planning to stone to death a 13-year-old girl on the
charge of adultery when in fact she was a rape victim.
In a now familiar response to its critics, Tehran on Wednesday
accused the European Union countries of committing "blatant
human rights violations" and said it “expects European countries
to take positive actions towards improving human rights."
On the Iraq front, Tehran has increased its subversive campaign
against the nascent Interim Iraqi government and the US-led
coalition forces. Iraq's national intelligence chief Mohammed
al-Shahwani told reporters that Iran had used its embassy in
Baghdad to assassinate his Ministry’s staff. He said that
following raids on Iranian safe houses in Baghdad, his Ministry
has uncovered a “treasure trove” of documents linking Iran to
the killing of Iraqi intelligence agents by members of the Badr
Corps, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Earlier this week, the Washington Times quoted Ayatollah Jalal
Ganje'i, a prominent Iranian dissident affiliated with the
Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, as saying
that up to 800 clerics and theology students from Iran are in
the process of infiltrating Iraqi cities in time for the holy
month of Ramadan.
“The religious leaders, dispatched by the Islamic Propaganda
Organization, plan to use the holy month to propagate militant
Islamic views, he said, with the goal of strengthening Iraqi
political groups whose philosophy and aims coincide with those
of Iran's theocratic regime,” Ganje’i told the Washington Times.
Iranian officials are cunningly trying to extract as much
concessions as they can from the G-8 countries on the eve of
their meeting to discuss Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Reuters
quoted a Western diplomat as saying that Iran “might be willing”
to give up its uranium enrichment capabilities in exchange for
an "assurance of the status quo" in Iran meaning no
international support for the campaign of Iranian people against
tyranny. We must call their bluff and firmly reject these dirty
ploys. The clerical regime has unwittingly revealed that its
Achilles’ Heel is “regime change.” This is exactly what we must
pursue in order to have any leverage in dealing with Iran’s
nuclear intransigence.
With Iran working round-the-clock to destabilize Iraq, the
likelihood of democracy flourishing in that country is quite
remote so long as the big neighbor to the east remains in the
hands of fundamentalists. Similarly, the threat of a
nuclear-armed, theocratic Iran would subside only when a
democratic and secular government is established in Iran.
After a quarter century of ruling Iran with an iron fist, the
fanatical clerics are not about to abandon what has kept them in
power so far: repression at home and crisis making abroad. No
amount of concessions and incentives would dissuade the mullahs.
We must abandon the notion of engagement and all of its aliases,
including a “grand bargain” or “direct dialogue,” and
unambiguously throw our diplomatic and political weight behind
the Iranian people’s two decade of struggle against the clerical
regime. (USADI)
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New York Sun
(Editorial)
October 13, 2004
Rewards for Iran?
The press is full of trial balloons with respect to proposals
for Europe or America to offer "incentives" for Iran agreeing to
stop work on a nuclear weapon. The New York Times reported
yesterday that "The package would lift a ban on exports to Iran
of certain badly needed civilian aircraft parts, without which
its fleet of civilian airliners has been virtually grounded."
One of the lessons of September 11 is that civilian aircraft in
the hands of terrorists can do considerable damage. This is a
point so obvious that it is painful to have to point it out. On
what grounds does an officially designated terrorist regime get
help from their target countries in flying civilian airliners?
If the Europeans who are negotiating with the Iranians do not
grasp this essential point, certainly the people of New York do.
Beyond that, it will be important in considering any proposed
deal with Iran to focus on the fact that Iran's nuclear
ambitions are not at the heart of America's dispute with Tehran.
After all, India, Pakistan, Israel, and France all have nuclear
weapons and America has full diplomatic and economic relations
with them.
There are a host of other issues on the table with Iran: its
human rights record that includes executing a Canadian
journalist, jailing student dissidents, and persecuting Jews,
among others; its financial and logistical support for radical
Islamist terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that engage
in suicide bombing attacks in Israel that kill Americans and
Israelis; its harboring of Al Qaeda terrorists; and its aid to
anti-American forces in Iraq.
Even were a deal reached in which the Iranians promised progress
on all those fronts, there is no guarantee that the Iranians
would not cheat on such a deal. Iraq cheated on its United
Nations-supervised oil-for-food and disarmament arrangement.
North Korea cheated on the nuclear disarmament deal that it cut
with an overly credulous Clinton administration.
Count us as skeptical that America or its allies should send
nuclear fuel or civilian airplane parts or anything else useful
to Iran - other than aid to its democratic opposition - so long
as the regime there is aiding and harboring terrorists and
oppressing internal opposition…
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Voice of America
October 13, 2004
Human Rights Violations on
the Rise in Iran
An Iranian-American human rights group says the Iranian
government has stepped up its campaign against pro-democracy
dissidents, women and minorities with the staging of some 120
public hangings, and the arrest and imprisonment of more than 40
journalists.
Members of the National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates say
that in the past year, the Islamic fundamentalist regime has
been taking extreme measures to silence reform efforts.
The non-profit group cites as evidence of the government's
tactics an Amnesty International report of the public execution
of a 16-year-old girl for "acts incompatible with chastity."
Atefeh Rajabi was reportedly hanged in the Northern city center
of Neka on August 15.
Iranian authorities have also detained journalist and rights
advocate Emadeddin Baghi and seized his passport at Tehran
airport. As a result, Mr. Baghi is unable to come to New York
this week to accept an award for civil courage.
Haydar Akbari is president of the National Coalition. He says
human rights violations have increased since Iran's Islamic
hardliners won control of the 290-member parliament by a
landslide in the February 2004 elections.
"They closed the whole atmosphere of freedom regarding even the
freedom of clothing and scarves, freedom of music, CDs, DVDs,"
he said. "The atmosphere is totally different from last year.
Since January, more than 100 people were openly hanged, and many
journalists, many writers, many intellectuals have been
imprisoned and tortured."
Mohammed Alafchi, president of the New York Iranian-American
Association, says that as the United Nations' General Assembly
begins its sessions, his organization is trying to bring media
attention to the escalation of human rights abuses.
"The hardliners are grabbing all the powers from all different
parts of the country and they are consolidating their powers,
and they are stepping up their campaign against any freedom that
people have," he added.
Last November, a key United Nations committee approved a
Canadian-drafted resolution rebuking Iran for human rights
abuses, including torture, suppression of free speech and
discrimination against women and minorities.
VOA was unable to get a response to the coalition's charges from
the Iranian mission to the United Nations. But in the past,
spokesmen for the Iranian government have routinely rejected
such criticism, saying it fully supports the human rights of its
citizens.
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