The regime of the mullahs in Iran is ready to fall

An Iranian opposition leader in the United States whose sources inside Iran may be second to none, Mr. Homayoun has little patience with efforts to conciliate or compromise with the government in Tehran.

Westerners, he insists, are misled by the religiously inclined but ineffectual reformists associated with President Khatami. The Iranian future does not lie with them, he says, but with the growing coalition of secular nationalist forces that favor democracy.

"I believe that the solution is in the hands of the Iranian people, but the Iranian people need support," says Mr. Homayoun. "The United States should come enthusiastically, vigorously, openly in support of the Iranian people. President Bush supported Iranians before, but different voices from different branches of the administration confused the Iranian people."

Mr. Homayoun writes in the CIPA journal: "What the secular force needs is legitimization through recognition - not financial or covert assistance but rather the unconditional moral and political support of the world democratic community."

Mr. Homayoun traces the spread of Islamic militant fundamentalism to the regime in Iran. Remove that, he says, and you may stop the spread of terrorism as well.

"Nothing will be peaceful in the Middle East," says Mr. Homayoun, "unless the government of Iran changes its position, but change of position means change of government from theocracy to secular democratic government."

to shore up internal support for its own shaky government. In fact, citing the work of Washington strategic analyst Yossef Bodansky, he believes Iran already has acquired nuclear warheads from the Muslim areas of the former Soviet Union and possibly from North Korea.

So the military option is out. An attack on Iran would have unfathomable consequences, he says, and besides, change must come from within untainted by material help from abroad. He writes in WorldTribune.com that if attacked, "Iran is advanced in various fields of WMD, and those weapons could fall into the hands of radicals and terrorist groups and create problems much more extensive than those today in Iraq."

Leon Hadar Leon Hadar, a foreign policy analyst at Washington's CATO Institute, says focusing too much on Iran's nuclear potential blurs a larger picture.

"It is clear that Iran like many other mid-sized powers in the world - Turkey, Brazil, and the list can be quite long - those countries at some point in the future because of many factors, including national security considerations, are going to gain access to nuclear weapons," says Mr. Hadar. "This has nothing to do with the power of Islamic radicalism in Iran."

Mr. Hadar notes that Iran is in a rough neighborhood of nuclear armed powers: India, Pakistan, Russia, Israel and now the United States in Iraq. And nuclear weapons may not be altogether bad. It is possible, he says, they may have prevented India and Pakistan from going to all-out war over Kashmir. The cost would have been too great. He adds that a nuclear balance of power may be equally stabilizing in the Middle East.

Weapons aside, Mr. Hadar says now may be the time for the United States to start talking to Iran. In an article in The American Conservative magazine, he recalls President Nixon's approach to Communist China's rulers just when they were harshly repressing their own people during the so-called Cultural Revolution.

The President, writes Mr. Hadar, was conducting realistic diplomacy in the national interest while ignoring China's internal turmoil.

"Despite all of that, the United States was able to reach an agreement with the Chinese government at that time and started a process of détente with the Chinese, which led to the American opening to China and eventually to the reestablishment of a diplomatic relationship," says Mr. Hadar. "There is no reason why we should not at least try that kind of strategy with Iran today."

Mr. Hadar says the conservatives now running Iran may be better positioned than moderates Iran's parliament in session to reach some kind of understanding with the United States. They cannot be accused of being soft on America.

Leon Hadar cites the recommendation of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates that the United States and Iran avoid any grand bargain and work incrementally on key issues like nuclear weapons. Specifics, they say, are the way to go.

The speech, held to mark Iran's annual Students Day, marked a nadir for Khatami's relations with students who were a major force in his stunning electoral victories of 1997 and 2001.

. Now nearing the end of his second and final term, which concludes in mid-2005, Khatami has lost the backing of even some of his most ardent supporters, many of whom feel he failed to stand up to hard-liners who have blocked his efforts at reform.

... "Unfortunately what Khatami sees as his tolerance, on the contrary was his extreme weakness toward the opponents of democracy," read part of a statement distributed by one pro-reform student group at the meeting

... Khatami, visibly shaken by the students' anger, defended his record and criticized powerful hard-liners who have jailed dissidents, closed newspapers and rejected key reform bills

... "My period is going to be over soon but I do not owe anyone," he said. "Those power-seeking fanatics who ignored the people's demands and resisted reforms, they owe me. The ones who destroyed Iran's image in the world, they owe me."

... Later he said that despite restrictions on free speech in Iran, where over 100 publications have been muzzled in the last four years, the situation was better than in many countries.

... "Khatami himself is responsible for the problems created in the country," said Zahra, 19, a student of mechanical engineering. "He did not behave properly."

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Students, once the backbone of Iran's reformist movement, heckled and harangued President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) Monday, accusing him of lacking the courage to deliver promised democratic reforms in the Islamic state

Those Friendly Iranians
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: May 5, 2004

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EHRAN, Iran

Finally, I've found a pro-American country.

Everywhere I've gone in Iran, with one exception, people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. Even when I was detained a couple of days ago in the city of Isfahan for asking a group of young people whether they thought the Islamic revolution had been a mistake (they did), the police were courteous and let me go after an apology.

They apologized; I didn't.

On my first day in Tehran, I dropped by the "Den of Spies," as the old U.S. Embassy is now called. It's covered with ferocious murals denouncing America as the "Great Satan" and the "archvillain of nations" and showing the Statue of Liberty as a skull (tour the "Den of Spies" here).

Then I stopped to chat with one of the Revolutionary Guards now based in the complex. He was a young man who quickly confessed that his favorite movie is "Titanic." "If I could manage it, I'd go to America tomorrow," he said wistfully.

He paused and added, "To hell with the mullahs."

In the 1960's and 1970's, the U.S. spent millions backing a pro-Western modernizing shah — and the result was an outpouring of venom that led to our diplomats' being held hostage. Since then, Iran has been ruled by mullahs who despise everything we stand for — and now people stop me in the bazaar to offer paeans to America as well as George Bush.

Partly because being pro-American is a way to take a swipe at the Iranian regime, anything American, from blue jeans to "Baywatch," is revered. At the bookshops, Hillary Clinton gazes out from three different pirated editions of her autobiography.

`It's a best seller, though it's not selling as well as Harry Potter," said Heidar Danesh, a bookseller in Tehran. "The other best-selling authors are John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel."

Young Iranians keep popping the question, "So how can I get to the U.S.?" I ask why they want to go to a nation denounced for its "disgustingly sick promiscuous behavior," but that turns out to be a main attraction. And many people don't believe a word of the Iranian propaganda.

"We've learned to interpret just the opposite of things on TV because it's all lies," said Odan Seyyid Ashrafi, a 20-year-old university student. "So if it says America is awful, maybe that means it's a great place to live."

Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman.

One opinion poll showed that 74 percent of Iranians want a dialogue with the U.S. — and the finding so irritated the authorities that they arrested the pollster. Iran is also the only Muslim country I know where citizens responded to the 9/11 attacks with a spontaneous candlelight vigil as a show of sympathy.

Iran-U.S. relations are now headed for a crisis over Tehran's nuclear program, which appears to be so advanced that Iran could produce its first bomb by the end of next year. The Bush administration is right to address this issue, but it needs to step very carefully to keep from inflaming Iranian nationalism and uniting the population behind the regime. We need to lay out the evidence on satellite television programs that are broadcast into Iran, emphasizing that the regime is squandering money on a nuclear weapons program that will further isolate Iranians and damage their economy.

Left to its own devices, the Islamic revolution is headed for collapse, and there is a better chance of a strongly pro-American democratic government in Tehran in a decade than in Baghdad. The ayatollahs' best hope is that hard-liners in Washington will continue their inept diplomacy, creating a wave of Iranian nationalism that bolsters the regime — as happened to a lesser degree after President Bush put Iran in the axis of evil.

Oh, that one instance when I was treated inhospitably? That was in a teahouse near the Isfahan bazaar, where I was interviewing religious conservatives. They were warm and friendly, but a group of people two tables away went out of their way to be rude, yelling at me for being an American propagandist. So I finally encountered hostility in Iran — from a table full of young Europeans.

Are you kidding?

The buzz against Saddam was weighty enough that we elevated those people, mostly Kurds, speaking such things to an import that they did not deserve. (although I am a total supporter of the Kurds)

As for Castro, What do you think the bay of pigs was about?

Here in Florida, I've been hearing such nonsense for decades.

Iranian students?????
What?

Just what is an Iranian "student?"

Iranian "students of the revolution" kidnapped and held our diplomats for years, and were accorded high status for years by the Carter administration.

If you are waiting for the Government of Iran to fall from within, then I am here to advise you not to hold your breath, since they will be there for a very long time indeed, unless we end that problem.

My civilian sources tell me that when the balloon goes up, it will be quickly done, but very bloody. They want to ensure that Islam never rears its ugly head again in Iran.

The new name for the country will be Persia.

There is a truly vast supply of Russian and Afghanistani munitions and weapons in civilian hands. They have been buying at the borders since 1979 and they are loaded to the gills with small arms and bigger stuff.

The Revolution will last less than 100 hours and very few mullahs will survive it.

The anger that you see in the pictures is indicative of the general populace. I don't believe that anyone actually believes in Islam.

On the other hand, the Revolution is being approached with cold resolve, and if I weren't on the right side, it would be profoundly chilling. These Iranians are determined to free their country of the oppressive regime and possibly Islam itself.

Zoroastrianism is making a big comeback and may be the sign that the Revolution is about to happen.

If I were a Mullah I would leave now. Time may be very short.

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