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USADI Dispatch
A weekly Publication of the US Alliance for
Democratic Iran
Volume II, Issue 37
Monday, December 5, 2005
Weekly
Commentary
Tehran
Plots to Rig Iraq’s Election
Given the strategic implications of the upcoming parliamentary
elections in Iraq for the ruling regime in Iran, Tehran’s public
and covert campaign in Iraq has been focused to ensure victory
for its proxy Shia parties. In addition to its expanding
meddling in Iraq, the clerical regime has allocated major
resources in terms of personnel and budget to derail and rig
this election. And electoral machination is one thing mullahs do
well. They have mastered the art in the past 27 years.
Tehran’s campaign to hijack the Iraqi election, similar to its
covert nuclear weapons program, is spearheaded by the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and the Ministry of
Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The IRGC-engineered presidency
of the Supreme Leader's hand-picked candidate, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the former assassin and IRGC commander, was just
the latest example.
Recent news coming out of Iran paints a very alarming picture of
the depth and extent of Tehran’s multi-layered, multi-pronged
efforts to undermine the December 15 elections. A editorial in
the authoritative state-run daily Sharq on Monday openly
acknowledged that, aside from the United States, Iran has been
the key player in Iraq since the war ended. Iran also views
Iraq’s last January elections as a climactic contest where the
actual competitors were Tehran and Washington, a contest in
which, according to the editorial, Washington lost and Tehran
won.
The editorial goes on to say that it seems once again the
“winning card” of Iraqi developments is in the Tehran’s hand and
that “it should be used to score points in areas where the
United States is influential.” “In ten days once again Tehran
and Washington will compete when the elections are held… If a
coalition of pro-western parties headed by Iyad Alawi in
alliance with Kurdish groups forms the next government, then the
United States has won. For Iran, only if the current Iraqi
government headed by Ibrahim Jaffari in a coalition with Kurdish
groups comes out ahead in the elections, the victory has been
achieved,” the daily added.
Plain and simple, Tehran has a very well-defined slate of
candidates and is doing all it can to ensure their victory. Iran
Focus quoted a Jordanian news website Al-Malaf, as reporting
last week that one of the “rigging methods by the Iranian regime
is to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation by
assassinating election observers.” The report said that
independent Iraqi observers feared assassinations or abductions
if they did not cooperate with groups affiliated to Tehran.
“Independent Iraqi observers are not willing to go from one
province to the other. The reluctance by these observers to go
to southern Iraq gives the Iranian regime's elements a free hand
to assign their own people as observers and prepare the grounds
for rigging”.
Also last week, Iran Focus reported that an Iraqi cleric from
Najaf had told the London-based Arab daily a-Sharq al-Awsat that
the “United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) – which includes the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the
Islamic Dawa Party – had adopted the tactic used to gain votes
in Iran during the June election of hard-line Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad as president. “The tactic involves the UIA having
the clergy announce that they have seen Imam Mahdi in their
dreams telling Iraqis to vote for a certain candidate.”
Both SCIRI and Dawa have umbilical ties with Iran’s IRGC and
MOIS dating back to the early 1980s. A recent report by the US
Congressional Research Services acknowledged as much. “Since the
fall of Saddam Hussein, Iran has showcased its growing political
and economic influence over and mentorship of the Iraqi
government”, the report said. It added: “the thrust of Iran’s
strategy in Iraq has been to engineer and perpetuate domination
of Iraq’s government by pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist movements
that would, in Iran’s view, likely align Iraq’s foreign policy
with that of Iran”.
Whether shrewd diplomatic brinkmanship or otherwise, offering to
negotiate with the clerical regime within the limited framework
of Iraq’s pre- election security issues only emboldens Tehran.
The ruling theocracy which views the November 24 decision by the
IAEA’s board of governors not to refer Iran’s nuclear case to UN
Security Council as a major victory, on Sunday rejected talks
with U.S. officials over Iraq.
And that’s where the core problem with these tyrants lies. True
to form, the mullahs who have certainly earned their infamy as
the “most active state sponsor of terrorism,” a major nuclear
proliferator and among the world's worst violator of human
rights, can never be a party to any meaningful talks to promote
regional peace and stability.
Iran’s rising influence in Iraq, similar to its advance on the
nuclear front, is mainly due to the silence and deliberate
inaction, or more precisely put, Western appeasement. (USADI)
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United
Press International
December 5, 2005
Iran's President purges
bureaucracy
TEHERAN, Iran, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Strengthening his hold on power,
Iran's new president has appointed hundreds of officers from the
country's Revolutionary Guards to senior government positions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or Sepah as it is called
in Farsi, has been the main military force underpinning support
for Iran's clerical rulers.
The appointments come as the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
purged hundreds of officials appointed by former presidents
Mohammad Khatami and Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
A former official with close ties to Rafsanjani speaking on
condition of anonymity told the Web site Iran Focus, "He
(Ahmadinejad) is virtually handing over the bureaucracy to Sepah
and the consequences are going to be huge. Anyone seen as a
protégé of Hashemi (Rafsanjani) is being booted out without any
hesitation."
The revolutionary guards was formed in May 1979 as a
paramilitary force loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but was
upgraded to a formal military unit which fought alongside the
regular army in the 1980- 1988 Iran-Iraq war.
At least 11 ministers in Ahmadinejad's cabinet are former guards
senior officers, while an estimated 75 percent of the ministers
and deputy ministers in the new government also come from the
IRGC.
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Iran Focus
December 6, 2005
U.S. will
suffer bigger defeat in Iraq than in Vietnam: Iran
Tehran, Iran, Dec. 06 – The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) declared on Tuesday that the
United States would suffer a greater defeat in Iraq than it did
in its war in Vietnam.
Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi told a gathering of senior
military commanders in the north-eastern city of Mashad that a
future Iraq would be in the hands of Muslims.
Claiming that the U.S. was attempting to establish a world order
in which only it would be a superpower, Safavi said, “America’s
uni-polarised policy in the world has been met with failure”.
Referring to the upcoming December 15 parliamentary elections in
Iraq, he said, “More than 50 percent of Iraq’s parliament will
be comprised of committed and Islamic forces. The future of Iraq
will be in the hands of Muslims”.
Washington, the IRGC chief said, was faced with two options in
Iraq. “It must either rapidly withdraw from Iraq or stay to the
point that Iraq becomes another Vietnam for America. Both
options will lead to defeat”.
“Iraq has become a great quagmire for America. This is because
of [U.S. President George W.] Bush’s warmongering policies”.
Safavi said that Washington was attempting to depict the Islamic
Republic as impotent. “The mix of Iran and Islam is a great
threat for America”.
“The U.S. knows that if it creates problems for us, its 150,000
troops that are based in Iraq will be faced with problems too”.
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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
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is solely responsible for its activities and decisions.
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