Iran: The Conspiracy that Wasn't (Amir Taheri)

EVER since its creation in 1979, the Islamic Republic in Iran has been obsessed with conspiracy theories, especially "foreign plots" to topple it. This paranoia was demonstrated again Wednesday with the televised confessions of two U.S. citizens of Iranian origin arrested in Tehran and accused of working for the "Great Satan."

To most Iranians who watched the sordid show, the two "enemies of Islam" seemed unlikely heroes of an international conspiracy. Haleh Esfandiari-Bakhash, 67, is a petite grandmother who works for a Washington think tank; Kian Tajbakhsh, a 40-something researcher working for a foundation created by billionaire George Soros.

According to Tehran state-controlled media, the two went to Iran as part of a U.S. plot to promote a "velvet revolution." Yet their TV confessions were so obviously forced that even the Public Prosecutor's Office in Tehran has distanced itself from them. A spokesman for the office told reporters: "The confessions must be regarded as a television production. . . . What the accused said on TV is not related to actual charges against them."

Frequent visitors to Iran, the two had never been molested before. Both belong to groups opposed to regime change in Iran and critical of the Bush policy of challenging the Islamic Republic.

Esfandiari works for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars - whose director, ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton, has championed normalization with the Islamic Republic for decades. He was a key member of the Iraq Study Group, which urged the opening of a dialogue with Tehran practically on terms demanded by the mullahs.

Rep. Lee Hamilton, has championed normalization with the Islamic Republic for decades. He was a key member of the Iraq Study Group, which urged the opening of a dialogue with Tehran practically on terms demanded by the mullahs.

1994 spring : (CLINTON ADMINISTRATION DOES NOT OBJECT TO CROATIA'S REQUEST TO ALLOW THIRD-COUNTRY [IRANIAN] WEAPONS TO PASS THROUGH TO BOSNIAN MUSLIMS - See LEE HAMILTON'S 1996 EXCUSE FOR LETTING POTENTIAL TERRORISTS RECEIVE IRANIAN ARMS) In the spring of 1994, the Administration had a difficult decision to make when approached by Croatia on the question of allowing third-country weapons to pass through Croatia to the Bosnian Muslims. If we had objected to potential arms shipments from Iran, the Muslim-Croat Federation might have been destroyed in its infancy and a bad situation for the Bosnians might have worsened. The approach we took--of neither objecting to nor supporting the arms transfers--sought to balance our concern about the spread of Iranian influence against the adverse military situation facing the Federal. In the process, we did our best to serve the cause of peace in Bosnia. The arms deliveries helped sustain the Muslim-Croat Federation and reduced the military imbalance without the certain risks and pitfalls of the alternative courses of action. --------- Congressional Record: THIRD-COUNTRY ARMS DELIVERIES TO BOSNIA AND CROATIA -- HON. LEE H. HAMILTON (Extension of Remarks - June 11, 1996)

JULY 6, 2006 : (FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION LEE HAMILTON JOINS SANDY "STUFFED PANTS" BERGER'S COMPANY STONEBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL) On July 6, 2006, Stonebridge International, a global strategy firm, announced that it had added a new member to its high-profile, five-member advisory board – former Democrat Rep. Lee Hamilton. True to form, the major media ignored the Hamilton appointment. They should not have. Hamilton, who had served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, had just joined a firm headed by the man who had criminally undermined that very Commission, Stonebridge chairman and founder Samuel "Sandy" Berger. In the words of a recent House Committee report, Berger had perpetrated "a disturbing breach of trust and protocol that compromised the nation's national security," a breach that had come at the expense of the 9/11 Commission's very mission.
The unseemly nature of this new alliance apparently did not trouble Hamilton, Berger or the Washington media. By the spring of 2006, Berger felt sufficiently comfortable in his relationship with that media to execute a brazen, political drive-by on the one man who most seriously threatened the Clinton legacy and his own reputation, namely Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania. ----------------- "How Sandy Berger Paid Back the GOP," by Jack Cashill, World Net Daily, January 29, 2007

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