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Weekly Commentary
A New Beginning
in Washington, an Old Menace in Tehran
As several thousands die-hard supporters of the Iranian
theocracy were marking the 25th anniversary of taking 52
Americans hostage in Tehran on Wednesday, President George W.
Bush was re-elected.
The Iranian state-run press decried Mr. Bush’s re-election as a
“victory for violence and for Zionists”. "The United States is
intrinsically opposed to the Islamic republic on matters such as
Israel, the Middle East peace process, nuclear technology, human
rights and democracy," wrote the Siassat Rouz daily. The paper,
anticipating a more vigorous campaign by Washington in support
of democracy movement in Iran, added that it expected "new
hostile measures and new accusations from the United States".
A majority of Iranians, however, had a totally different view of
the Tuesday elections, hoping that it would signal a new
beginning marked by adopting a firm Iran policy in support of
their movement for a secular democracy.
Ironically, it was the faithful 444-day-long occupation of the
U.S. embassy in Tehran, which introduced America to the evil of
the fundamentalist inspired terrorism. This menace plagued the
world ever since and culminated in the September 11 tragedy.
The 1983 suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the
1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Riyadh, the 1994 explosion of
the Jewish community center in Argentina and hundreds of
terrorist assaults on Iranian dissidents abroad were part of
Khomeini’s war on the free world.
Referring to the 1983 Beirut bombing, Iran’s former minister of
the Revolutionary Guards said in the early 1990s that Tehran had
provided “both the T.N.T. and the ideology” for the operation.
Years of appeasement, cloaked under the banner of constructive
engagement, or the less-than adequate containment policy,
contributed to the spread of Tehran-inspired terrorism as the
mullahs soon realized that by continuing their rogue behavior
they could gain diplomatic and strategic windfalls.
It is no wonder that even today Tehran is complaining it has not
been adequately rewarded for its terrorist actions. On
Wednesday, Hossein Mousavian, a top security official in Tehran
said, "We showed goodwill and helped release the hostages [in
Lebanon], but America reneged on its promises." Translation: we
ordered our terrorist proxies, the very same ones we had
directed to take American hostage, to release them but we have
not been rewarded.
The absence of a coherent and firm policy toward Tehran in the
past two decades explains why the mullahs embarked on running a
very sophisticated clandestine nuclear weapons program in the
mid-1980s. Then, warnings from nuclear proliferation experts and
the Iranian opposition about Tehran’s menacing nuclear
intentions went unheeded, prompting the clerical regime to
continue with its secret nuclear program.
Now, as the world is faced with the specter of the most active
sponsor of terror going nuclear, the European Union is again
prescribing incentives and compromise to resolve the nuclear
standoff. It has even offered more carrots following Tehran’s
rejection of its initial appeasement package and is no longer
calling for an “indefinite suspension of Iran's uranium
enrichment.”
On this side of the Atlantic, the expectation is that the
re-election of President Bush would herald a marked departure
from the “engagement” policy – a legacy of the Clinton
administration – still lurking within our foreign policy-making
circles.
Last Tuesday, majority of Americans declared their support for
President Bush’s vision that expansion of democracy in the
Middle East, particularly in countries under totalitarian rule
such as Iran, remained at the core of the war on terror and that
nuclear proliferation by rogue regimes was unacceptable.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in September,
President Bush said, “For too long, American policy looked away
while men and women were oppressed, their rights ignored and
their hopes stifled. And that era is over”. Now that he is
re-elected, he ought to put the diplomatic and political weight
of the United States behind the democracy movement in Iran that
is working to unseat the ruling tyranny.
Iranians are hopeful that America would no longer “look away”
when it comes to their struggle against the religious
dictatorship in Iran, opting instead to stand by the people and
the anti-fundamentalist democratic opposition there.
Strategically speaking, this would be the only effective “stick”
available to Washington as it tries to cope with Iran’s nuclear
campaign.
For the next four years, “democracy for Iran, security for
America” should be the guiding light of our policy towards the
terrorists who are running Iran.
(USADI)
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The Jerusalem Post
November 2, 2004
Iran: children
and nukes
While the world is busy contemplating the appropriate response
to the looming Iranian nuclear threat - be it a European grand
bargain, a covert operation, or a sophisticated military assault
- life in Teheran appears to be running its normal course:
celebrating uranium enrichment, developing a longer-range
Shihab-3 missile and, of course, promoting the rule of law.
The rule of law, make no mistake, is a major preoccupation of
the Islamic Republic. For it is not only determined to implement
its mullah-style justice at home but also keen to export it,
along with other "achievements" of its 25 years of theocratic
rule…
In mid-October, a 13-year-old schoolgirl was sentenced to death
by stoning in the northwestern city of Marivan for having an
incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old brother. Zhila
Izadi, who had become pregnant, was convicted of committing
"moral sin" and giving birth to an "unholy child." Her brother,
who would have otherwise been accused of rape, was given a
sentence of 150 lashes.
Under mounting international
pressure, the clerical regime retracted Zhila's stoning sentence
a week later and announced that she would serve time in prison
instead.
Last August, the regime executed Atefeh Rajabi, a
16-year-old-girl who allegedly had a "sexual relationship with
an unmarried man." Rajabi, an orphan who suffered years of abuse
by her relatives, was apparently raped during interrogation by
the very judge who had sentenced her to death. Rajabi was hanged
in public in the northern town of Neka. The presiding judge
personally put the noose around her neck, saying she was being
executed for her "sharp tongue.”
The mullahs' love and affection for Iranian children does not
end there.
On October 18 the Supreme Court
upheld the execution sentences of three teenage boys, the Iran
Focus news site reported. The boys are being held in the Center
for Reform and Education (juvenile prison) until they turn 18,
when they will be executed.
Last month a 16-year-old Afghan
boy, Feyz Mohammad, was sentenced to death for alleged drug
smuggling. Five other teenagers are also on death row. ...
These children join thousands of other schoolchildren killed
when they were sent, plastic "keys to heaven" around their
necks, to sweep the mine fields during the bloody Iran-Iraq war
in the 1980s. The list of child victims grows to tens of
thousands when one adds the thousands of teenagers executed for
political reasons since 1979…
In the coming weeks the world will continue its debate over the
handling of the Iranian nuclear question. Countries of goodwill
may try to reason with the Iranian mullahs in an attempt to
reach an agreement that would slow down Iran's nuclear program.
If the abject failure of the previous agreements with Teheran is
any indication, however, this exercise will also fail. Iran's
theocracy will do anything and everything to get the nukes. And
when they succeed, one can easily imagine what a regime that
cares so little about its own children may do to the children of
the "infidel" world.
"What might save us, me and you, is that the Russians love their
children too," observed the singer Sting in 1987 as he reflected
on the Cold War. In Iran under mullahs, unfortunately, we may
not be so lucky.
Excerpts from an article by Nir Boms,
the vice president of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East,
and Reza Bulorchi, the executive director of the US Alliance for
Democratic Iran.
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Newsweek
November 8, 2004
'Hey World,
Pay Attention to Us!'
Nov. 8 issue - Hossein Derakhshan is tired of listening to the
debate over Iran's nuclear-weapons program while the world
ignores oppression inside Iran. So on his blog (hoder.com) he's
pleading, "Hey, world! Pay attention to us!" He is one of
thousands of Iranian Internet geeks enraged by the country's
latest plan to clamp down on their cyberfreedoms. The government
is planning to roll out an alternative network, called Shaare'2,
that it hopes will eventually close off Iran's Web users to the
outside world and allow in only what the state approves.
The move is a response to rapidly expanding Internet access.
More than 2 million Iranians now use the Net regularly.
According to the government's figures, only 15 percent of
Iranian Web sites are hosted inside the country, which means the
others are beyond the reach of government censorship. Iranian
authorities claim they are building Shaare'2 because they are
concerned about obscenity and security, but they clearly also
want to stifle dissent, which has thrived among the nation's
blogging class.
Shutting down the current networks will be hard. The mullahs
take hope from China, which from the beginning allowed Internet
access only through a backbone of government networks. Iran
plans to build Shaare'2 as a parallel network, lure users by
offering them five gigabytes of storage space for a nominal fee
and eventually dismantle the current networks by busting
unapproved ISPs. But be warned: even China is having trouble
keeping hackers in line.
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