Iranian Alert -- July 2, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” Most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

A Proper Policy

July 02, 2004
The Jerusalem Post
Michael Ledeen

Properly understood, the recent little contretemps between Iran and Great Britain tells us a lot, both about Iran's regional strategy and Great Britain's ongoing appeasement of the mullahs.

There was considerable befuddlement among the chattering classes when the Iranians seized some British patrol boats (originally misidentified as "warships") and arrested some sailors and officers in the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iran and Iraq. After all, that would seem to constitute a causus belli, and one wouldn't think that the Iranian regime was looking for a fight with the coalition.

The Iranians complained that the Brits had drifted into Iranian waters, but a British spokesman dryly observed that this was hardly an unusual event; it happens almost every day, due to the narrowness of the waterway. Why, then, had the Iranians suddenly decided to take action?

The Iranians subsequently made dark references to the materiel they had found on board the three boats, calling it "suspicious" and "hi-tech" and the like. I believe that the Brits were in the process of installing an underwater detection network that would alert them to any approaching vessels, and they were doing that because of recent attacks on Iraqi oil facilities in the area.

Thus the explanation for Iran's action: the mullahs are determined to strike at Iraqi oil production, and they don't want an efficient detection system in the area. Why, you might ask, is Iran so interested in stopping the oil flow from Iraq? The answer might surprise you. It's because they are desperate to swing the upcoming American presidential elections against George W. Bush, and they think that if they can get oil prices up to, say, $60 a barrel, that might do the trick.

INDEED, THE American elections are one of the driving issues behind all Iranian actions these days because the ayatollahs believe that if Bush is reelected, he will come after them and try to achieve regime change in Teheran, while they do not think that John Kerry will do the same. Whether or not they are right in their evaluation of the two candidates is beside the point. They believe it. So I think we can expect ongoing sabotage of oil facilities throughout the Middle East and perhaps even in South America, where Iran supports an extensive Hizbullah network.

The Brits have every right to feel annoyed at this latest example of Iranian desperation, for they have shown enormous dedication to appeasing the mullahs. Jack Straw has commuted to Teheran with remarkable energy, constantly praising Iran's presumed willingness to be cooperative on everything from trade to human rights and the ongoing charade of "discussions" about the Iranian nuclear project.

In fairness to Straw and his boss Tony Blair, the Iranians have indeed rewarded Great Britain with several juicy oil and natural gas contracts (although Jacques Chirac is by far the big winner in this competition). But Iran's repression of free speech, random street beatings of democracy advocates, summary executions, and extensive torture is so bad that even Human Rights Watch felt obliged to issue a particularly graphic condemnation of the Islamic Republic. And the toothless International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly found Iran lying about its race to build atomic bombs. Yet the Foreign Office lobbies the State Department in Washington to go easy on the mullahs.

It should be clear to all - indeed, it should have been clear a long time ago - that if Iran is left to its own devices, we will shortly face a radical Shi'ite regime, the world's leading supporter of international terrorism (the State Department last week once again gave the blue ribbon to the mullahs), the haven of al-Qaida, the creator of Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, and the prime mover of Hamas and prime supporter of Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, armed with atomic bombs. One would have thought it inconceivable that we should have arrived at this situation without any Western country having made the slightest effort to bring down the evil regime in Teheran. Yet no one has done anything. Worse yet, leading American officials such as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage openly call Iran "a democracy."

On occasion, the refusal to see Iran for what it is reaches comic proportions. The Iranian regime recently issued sign-up forms to recruit suicide terrorist volunteers; and with that crackpot realism that sometimes characterizes such undertakings, there was a line where the volunteer could choose where he or she wished to achieve martyrdom: Iraq, Israel, or some other site. Yet this remarkable official document, which tells us most everything we wish to know about the intentions of the Teheran mullahcracy, went virtually without comment in the Western media.

Alas, the West has convinced itself that action against Teheran is too risky. This is an inversion of reality. Doing nothing is the most dangerous policy, especially since regime change in Iran can probably be accomplished without firing a single bullet or dropping a single bomb. It would suffice to support what President Bush has long called "the legitimate desire of the Iranian people to be free."

Anybody want to play?

If so, here's an outline of the game plan:

First, support the Farsi-language broadcasters in southern California. There are several of them, and they carry an authority that no government-operated radio or television station can.

Second, throw the full moral and political support of the West behind the Iranian people. This includes such steps as calling for regime change in Iran (best accomplished by holding a national referendum to select the form of government and then free elections to select the leaders), supporting freedom of speech and press (today Iran is one of the major press "predators" - to use the word favored by "journalists without borders" - in the Middle East, having summarily silenced nearly 100 publications), demanding an end to the long list of violations of human rights (instead of sending European delegations that pretend not to see the widescale use of torture, arbitrary arrest and execution, closed tribunals and the like), supporting workers' rights (major sectors of the Iranian workforce haven't been paid for nine months or more), and so forth.

Third, put some teeth into the IAEA and sanction Iran for its defiance of the nuclear safeguards to which it has already formally agreed.

It is not hard or particularly expensive - certainly not compared to the cost of permitting a fanatical Islamic regime to lay its hands on atomic weapons. These are not acts of war, they are the minimum actions that normal civilized people expect of their leaders. They would be proper even if there were no terror war underway, and even if Iran were not on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.

Given the current circumstances, a proper Iran policy is a life-or-death imperative.

The writer, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is author of The War Against the Terror Masters.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1088650987552

A Common Flop - Europe and Iran

July 01, 2004
The Economist
Europe

Europe's deal with Iran falls apart

The Europeans' soft approach to Iran seems to have failed

It was worth a try. But hope is fading in Britain, France and Germany that engagement with Iran might succeed, where America's cold shoulder failed, in coaxing the regime in Tehran into giving up the nuclear experiments and technologies that it has spent 18 years hiding from the world.

Last October, the three European countries were cock-a-hoop over a deal to get Iran to come clean about its nuclear dabblings to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and to suspend its recently uncovered uranium-enrichment programme. In return, the European trio agreed to resist American pressure to report Iran's transgressions to the UN Security Council. Had “temporary” suspension turned permanent, ridding Iran of technologies that the government insists are for peaceful purposes but which can also make bomb material, the Europeans would have agreed to sell other technologies to the Iranians.

For the Europeans, the deal was the sweeter because it showed a new unity after the bitter divisions over Iraq, argues Steven Everts in a report for the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. It bolstered the case for non-proliferation-by-inspection rather than force, and showed that multilateral diplomacy and “soft power” could work even on hard problems. And success would have shown that the European Union's common foreign policy (the full EU backed the big three) could make its weight felt beyond its own backyard.

So why has the diplomacy soured? Censured again last month by the IAEA‘s 35-country board for the gaps in its nuclear story, Iran last week wrote to the Europeans, accusing them of failing to keep their side of the October bargain. The Iranians now say they will restart the manufacture and testing of their uranium-enrichment machines at a pilot plant at Natanz.

Inspectors are still at work in Iran: this week they took samples at what the government admits is a military site (though not a nuclear one), called Lavizan, in Tehran, where recent satellite photographs showed that buildings had been demolished and topsoil carted away. They are due to report to the IAEA board in September. Iran insists its case should be dropped. That is unlikely to happen.

If Iran disrupts inspections or pulls out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Europeans would have to go to the UN. More likely, though, it will press on with its enrichment preparations, contrary to the IAEA's request and the October deal. Iran is also building a heavy-water reactor that could produce plutonium, another bomb ingredient. Neither technology is outlawed by the NPT, so long as it is for peaceful use. Despite having only a limited nuclear-energy programme, Iran claims an inalienable “right” to both. But past violations and unexplained traces of (potentially militarily useful) highly enriched uranium suggest that Iran is using the cover of electricity generation to acquire nuclear-weapons capability.

The premise of the October deal was that, offered a face-saving way to come clean and find a better relationship with the West, Iran would quietly drop any weapons ambitions. Although the premise appears to have been wrong, the Europeans have, so far, merely held up negotiations on a new trade and co-operation agreement. They have other levers at their disposal: some 40% of Iran's imports come from the EU which, with Japan, is also Iran's best hope for badly needed investment in its oil and gas industries.

Iran and the Europeans seem now to be playing for time, awaiting the outcome of November's presidential election in America. But whoever wins, America is unlikely to tolerate a nuclear-arming Iran. Some Europeans hope that a new administration might try talking to Iran. But, with America tied up in Iraq, the Iranians may calculate that time is on their side and—so long as the IAEA finds nothing new—that the Europeans will never agree among themselves to a tougher line. If so, far from being a success for Europe's common foreign policy, Iran could become a big irritant in relations between America and Europe.

http://www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2877961

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