[Mb-civic] SUGGESTED READ-FW: Will Washington Support DemocracyinIran?

[richard haase]

which is why we need to get everybodys money for shows michael lol
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin McNamara" <olhippie at tampabay.rr.com>
To: <mb-civic at islandlists.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Mb-civic] SUGGESTED READ-FW: Will Washington Support
DemocracyinIran?


> Right On Michael !
>
> Peace
> Robin
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Butler" <michael at michaelbutler.com>
> To: "Civic" <mb-civic at islandlists.com>
> Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 3:12 PM
> Subject: [Mb-civic] SUGGESTED READ-FW: Will Washington Support Democracy
> inIran?
>
>
> This is a worthwhile article about the current situation.
> For certain the current regime in Iran was/is far more dangerous to world
> security than Iraq ever was.
> Planning a pushover our neocons sure blew it. They picked on the local
bully
> ignoring the monster.
> Michael
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Golsorkhi <grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net>
> Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 14:06:52 -0500
> To: <michael at michaelbutler.com>
> Subject: FW: Will Washington Support Democracy in Iran?
>
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:07:39 -0500
> Subject: Will Washington Support Democracy in Iran?
>
> Will Washington Support Democracy in Iran?
>
> by Michael Rubin
> Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: Issue Brief
> February 13, 2005
> http://www.meforum.org/article/680
>     ?
> After a first term marked by schizophrenic Iran policy initiatives, the
> Bush White House will soon develop a coordinated policy to promote
> peaceful regime change in Iran. The Bush administration is heartened by
> the apparent success of the Iraqi election and believes that Iranians
> are ready to exert their democratic rights.
>     ?
> Bush policy is motivated by the grave and growing threat from the
> Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, and the realization that
> neither Iran nor the European Union are sincere in preventing Iran's
> acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The Islamic Republic's potential
> threat to American security emanates from Tehran's determination to
> develop satellite launching capability which could well substitute as
> an intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system as well as from
> the regime's continued sponsorship of terrorists.
>     ?
> A new U.S. policy will also recognize that the dichotomy within Iran is
> not one of reformers versus hardliners within the Islamic Republic, but
> rather proponents of democracy versus proponents of theocracy. Even if
> Iranian acquisition of nuclear capability is inevitable, the threat
> comes from the nature of the regime rather than from the Iranian
> people.
>     ?
> As hardline ideologues consolidate power in Tehran, Iran will mark a
> number of important anniversaries which might spur ordinary people to
> agitate against their government and for democracy as they call for a
> new national referendum on the future of Iran.
>
> A Stalemated Iran Policy
>
> In his January 20, 2005, inaugural speech, President George W. Bush
> declared, "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their
> chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude." Less than two
> weeks later, Bush argued in his State of the Union address that "the
> victory of freedom in Iraq will...inspire democratic reformers from
> Damascus to Tehran." Such statements are not mere rhetoric, but mark a
> new willingness to advance democracy in Iran.
>
> During Bush's first term in office, the U.S. government lacked an Iran
> policy. The State Department, Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency,
> and Treasury Department twice failed to reach consensus on a National
> Security Policy Directive. Neither then-National Security Advisor
> Condoleezza Rice nor the President forced the issue. As a result,
> American policy was schizophrenic. While Bush labeled Iran as part of
> the "Axis of Evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union Address,
> Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage described Iran as a
> "democracy."1
>
> With no clear White House policy direction, Senate Republicans likewise
> took contradictory positions. While Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) dined
> with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations,2 Sam Brownback
> (Kansas) introduced an Iran Freedom and Democracy Support Act which
> would have created a $50 million fund to support opposition satellite
> stations and civil society.
>
> State Department lawyers, meanwhile, argued that non-interference
> clauses in the 1980 Algiers Accords, the agreement which had led to the
> release of the U.S. embassy hostages, prohibited funding of opposition
> media. Retired National Security Advisors, though, disputed the State
> Department's line.3 In recent weeks, the White House legal office has
> opined that nothing in the Accords prevents assistance to Iranian
> democrats.
>
> New National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's decision to remove
> Richard Haass protégé Meghan O'Sullivan from the Iran portfolio (she
> retains her position as senior director for Iraq at the National
> Security Council) also bodes well for a more activist policy,
> especially as the new National Security team again reviews Washington's
> policy - or lack thereof - toward Tehran. O'Sullivan had long been both
> dismissive of Iranian dissidents and a proponent of engaging the
> Islamic Republic.
>
>
>
> Why Now?
>
> The Bush administration's new focus on Iran is a reflection not only of
> the President's sincere conviction that the Iranian people deserve
> freedom and liberty, but also of the belief that the United States
> cannot live with a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran. While many
> European officials and American academics describe Iranian politicians
> like former president and current Expediency Council chairman 'Ali
> Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as a pragmatist,4 U.S. policymakers do not
> dismiss his December 14, 2001, threats to initiate a nuclear first
> strike against Israel,5 nor do they dismiss as rhetoric banners reading
> "Israel must be uprooted and erased from history," draped over
> medium-range Shihab-3 missiles in a September 22, 2003, military
> parade.6
>
> The Islamic Republic's potential threat to American security is just as
> serious, though, both because of Tehran's determination to develop
> satellite launching capability which could well substitute as an
> intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system,7 and because of the
> regime's continued sponsorship of terrorists. American officials
> continue to blame Iranian intelligence for planning the 1996 bombing of
> an American military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.8 The 9/11
> Commission's bipartisan intelligence review found that the Iranian
> regime lent passive support to many of the 9/11 hijackers, between
> eight and ten of whom transited Iran in the year before the attack.9
> Washington also takes seriously reports that Iranian authorities have
> sheltered senior al-Qaeda figures in Revolutionary Guard bases near the
> Caspian town of Chalus.10
>
> While some editorialists and politicians argue that Washington should
> support the diplomacy of the European Union troika of London, Paris and
> Berlin, many European diplomats and analysts privately acknowledge that
> they believe Tehran's acquisition of a nuclear bomb to be inevitable, a
> tacit admission that European diplomacy is a charade. American
> officials may not be so blunt, but many believe their European
> counterparts care more about the preservation of the Nuclear
> Non-Proliferation Treaty than they do about Iran going nuclear. If the
> European Union allows the Islamic Republic to negotiate acquisition of
> nuclear capability, then they need not admit the emptiness of the
> current non-proliferation regime.
>
> Even if Iran's acquisition of the bomb is inevitable, to American
> strategists, the question is not whether the United States can live
> with a nuclear Iran, but rather whether the United States can live with
> a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran. To many Bush administration
> officials, the danger is not necessarily that the Islamic Republic
> would use its nuclear weapon against the United States, but rather that
> the feeling of immunity from retaliation that a nuclear capability
> might lend regime ideologues would lead to an increase in terrorism in
> the Middle East and Europe, and violent attempts to subvert Iraq and
> Afghanistan. Iranian authorities, for example, ignored numerous Turkish
> diplomatic demarches, and only scaled back support for Kurdistan
> Workers Party [PKK] terrorists operating in Turkey after the Turkish
> Air Force bombed the Iranian border town of Piranshahr.11 Had the
> Islamic Republic enjoyed a potential nuclear retaliation capability,
> Turkish authorities could likely have not forced an abandonment of
> Tehran's PKK support. Meanwhile, American authorities are increasingly
> concerned by the resurgence of the Revolutionary Guards within the
> Islamic Republic's political class. Revolutionary Guard influence has
> been most recently evidenced by their effective veto of Turkish
> commercial involvement in the communications sector and Tehran's new
> airport.12
>
> Such concerns - and the unwillingness to assume that regime ideologues
> will not try to act upon their deeply-held beliefs about the United
> States and Israel - are responsible for the current debate about the
> efficacy of military action. While targeted strikes on nuclear and
> ballistic missile sites might not eliminate the Islamic Republic's
> capability, the question is whether they could delay Tehran's nuclear
> ambitions beyond the lifespan of the Islamic Republic.
>
>
>
> Are Iranians Ready for Democracy?
>
> The best option from an American point of view would be a peaceful
> transition of power leading to an Iranian abandonment of the Islamic
> Republic's more threatening convictions. The relevant question
> therefore becomes whether the Iranian people are ready for democracy
> and, if so, when they might rise up and demand real rather than
> cosmetic rights. No one in Washington seeks to use military force to
> oust the Iranian regime, and rumors that the U.S. government even
> considered lending support to the Mujahidin al-Khalq are without basis.
> Democracy advocates within the Bush administration are likely to ask
> whether they can take any actions which would catalyze the Iranian
> people's ability to replicate last year's peaceful revolutions in
> Georgia and the Ukraine.
>
> Both anecdotal and statistical evidence indicate the Iranian people are
> ready for change. While some outside analysts continue to speak of a
> dichotomy between hardliners and reformers, most Iranians now accept
> that the political tension within Iran is between regime and dissident.
> On December 6, 2004, students heckled Mohammad Khatami, chanting "Shame
> on you" and "Where are your promised freedoms?"13
>
> In August 2002, the Tarrance Group, a professional polling outfit,
> conducted a survey of Iranian public opinion. They randomized the last
> four digits of every Tehran telephone exchange, and surveyed residents
> rich and poor. Just 21 percent of the statistically-representative
> sample of more than 500 people said that the Guardian Council
> represented the will of the Iranian people, while only 19 percent
> supported a politically-active clergy. The poll also found significant
> economic malaise, perhaps motivating the disillusionment with their
> leadership. Only 16 percent felt that their economic situation had
> improved during the Khatami years, while 68 percent said their family's
> financial situation had declined since the Islamic Revolution.14
>
> A quarter century of theocracy has moderated the Iranian people. While
> studying in Iran in 1996 and 1999, many Iranians told me they supported
> Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini less out of an endorsement of his views
> than out of a reaction to the dictatorship of the Shah. While American
> and European intellectuals may criticize Bush's "Axis of Evil" rhetoric
> as simplistic, the fact remains that there is a correlation between
> Bush's moral clarity and the willingness of Iranians to take to the
> street, as they did en masse in July 1999,15 October 2001,16 November
> 2002,17 and July 2003,18 and at a number of more localized
> demonstrations.19
>
>
>
> Historic Opportunity: The Call for a Referendum
>
> Iranians, inheritors of a 2,500-year-old culture, are far more
> historically aware than many in the West. Recent democratic
> developments in Iran coincide with a number of symbolic anniversaries.
> December 2005 marks the hundredth anniversary of the start of Iran's
> Constitutional Revolution when merchants, liberals, clergy, and
> nationalists rose up to demand basic rights in the face of an
> autocratic ruler. After a year of struggle, the Shah granted the
> Iranian people a constitution. In December 2006, Iranians may ask why
> their forefathers had rights today's Iranians no longer enjoy.
>
> On April 1, 2004, Iranians marked a more recent anniversary - the
> 25-year anniversary of Khomeini's declaration of an Islamic Republic.
> On that day, Khomeini announced the results of a referendum asking a
> simple question: "Do you want an Islamic Republic." Ninety-eight
> percent of Iranian voters said "Yes." "By casting a decisive vote in
> favor of the Islamic Republic," Khomeini told an enthusiastic crowd,
> "you have established a government of divine justice." Increasingly,
> though, a growing and disparate number of Iranian groups are suggesting
> that Iran is ready for a new referendum.20 Many Iranians suggest a
> simple question, "Theocracy or democracy." The Tarrance Group poll
> found that 71 percent of Iranians would favor such a poll.21 While it
> is not likely that the Islamic Republic's leadership would ever consent
> to an internationally-supervised referendum - they understand the
> contempt with which most of their charges view them - such a referendum
> would better focus international attention on the fundamental issue of
> the Islamic Republic's lack of legitimacy and moral bankruptcy.
>
> Into this tinderbox was inserted the success of Iraq's January 30,
> 2005, elections, that country's first free poll in a half century. It
> is a juxtaposition Iranians - many of whom believe themselves to be
> culturally superior to their Arab neighbors - cannot miss. In June
> 2005, Iranians will march to the polls to elect a president. Under the
> terms of the Islamic Republic's constitution, the new president will
> have only limited power and will remain subordinate to the unelected
> Supreme Leader, Ayatollah 'Ali Khameini. While the unelected Guardian
> Council in Iran severely limits the choice of candidates in Iran,
> Iranians have already noted the full range of candidates allowed to
> compete in Iraq's elections. Many European, American, and Arab
> commentators sought to correlate voter turnout with election legitimacy
> in Iraq. The same standards might be applied to Iran, where many
> Iranians may choose to stay home as Iranian pilgrims in Iraq estimated
> that 80 percent of their compatriots did during the February 2004
> Majlis elections.
>
> After four years of policy ambiguity, the Bush administration will
> finally make a concerted approach to change the status quo in Iran.
> European officials may calculate they can live with a nuclear Islamic
> Republic of Iran, but they are wrong. If the current regime goes
> nuclear, Iran will unleash a new and potentially devastating wave of
> terrorism which will end any hope for stabilization in Iraq and
> Afghanistan, and peace in the Middle East. The White House is right to
> pursue democratization as a solution. Europe would be wise to hope for
> its success because the alternative for Washington might not be
> acceptance of a nuclear Iran, but rather military action.
> ---
> Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute,
> is editor of the Middle East Quarterly. He served as an Iran and Iraq
> staff advisor to the Office of the Secretary of Defense between 2002
> and 2004.
>
> Notes
>
> 1. Robin Wright, "U.S. Now Views Iran in More Favorable Light; a Top
> Official Makes a Distinction between the regime in Tehran and those of
> fellow 'axis of evil' members North Korea and Iraq," Los Angeles Times,
> February 14, 2003.
> 2. Robin Wright, "Activity Heats Up as U.S. and Iran Flirt with Closer
> Ties," Washington Post, February 1, 2004.
> 3. Michael Ledeen, "Act on Iran," Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2002.
> 4. Reuel Marc Gerecht, "Going Soft on Iran," Weekly Standard, March 8,
> 2004.
> 5. Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, December 14, 2001.
> 6. Ron Kampeas, "As Palestinian Picture Improves, Ominous Signs About
> Iranian Nukes," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 22, 2004.
> 7. "Iranian 'Sputnik' Could be Trojan Horse for Tehran's Ballistic
> Missile Program," Aviation Week Group, November 28, 2004.
> 8. The 9-11 Commission Report, p. 60.
> 9. The 9-11 Commission Report, p. 240. Also see: "Iran's Link to
> al-Qaeda: What the 9-11 Commission Found," Middle East Quarterly (Fall
> 2004).
> 10. "Nearly 400 al-Qaeda members and other terror suspects in Iran,"
> Agence France Presse, July 15, 2004.
> 11. "Iran Accuses Turkish Jets of Bombing its Territory," Associated
> Press, July 18, 1999.
> 12. Karl Vick, "Politics on Collision Course at Shuttered Iranian
> Airport," Washington Post, August 10, 2004.
> 13. "Students Heckle Iranian President," BBC News, December 6, 2004;
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4072887.stm
> 14. Public Opinion Survey in Iran, August 23-28, 2002, Tarrance Group.
> 15. "Fateful Moment in Iran," New York Times, July 14, 1999.
> 16. "Tehran Gripped by Pro-Western Street Violence," Independent,
> October 27, 2001.
> 17. "Iranian Student Protestors Call Referendum on Hard-Line Rulers,"
> New York Times, November 29, 2002.
> 18. "Student Leaders Seized by Vigilantes in Iran," New York Times,
> July 10, 2003.
> 19. See reporting, for example, of the Student Movement Coordination
> Committee for Democracy in Iran, www.daneshjoo.org
> 20. Eli Lake, "Iranian Democrats Establish a United Front," New York
> Sun, December 7, 2004.
> 21. Public Opinion Survey in Iran, August 23-28, 2002, Tarrance Group.
>
> ---
> You may freely forward this information, but on condition that you send
> the text as an integral whole along with complete information about its
> author, date, and source.
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