IRAN NEEDS A CHANGE OF DIRECTION
Walid Phares and Behrooz Bahbudi
The Washington Post
Sunday, December 10, 200
Iran's President, M Mahmoud Ahmedinijad recently sent a letter to the American
people explaining his views and the views of his regime regarding America, its
values and US policy worldwide. We, the authors of this fourth letter to the
American People, wish to respond to Tehran's ruler and inform the public in both
nations about the realities of Iran's involvements in world crisis. We wish to
create a better understanding between the American and Iranian peoples and
between all Democracies and Democracy-loving societies for a better future.
On the disastrous Foreign Policy
Under President Ahmedinijad and since the so-called Khomeinist revolution,
Iran's foreign policy in the region and worldwide has been moving from one
disaster to another. Instead of addressing the pressing socio-economic and
cultural crisis in the country, a clan among the Mullahs grabbed power and
dragged Iran into internal violence, Jihadi demagogy, destructive wars and
Terrorism. The Oil revenues were diverted to buy weapons for new expansionist
wars, creating HizbAllah in Lebanon and backing Terror groups worldwide. What
did the regime's foreign policy achieve for the Iranian people and for peace?
Only disasters:
The regime spent billions of dollars on acquiring weapons and equipping the
Guardians of the Revolution (Pasdaran) and the Basij (regime's militia) for the
purpose of keeping the masses under oppression and intimidating neighboring
countries.
The regime sent hundreds million dollars to feed a Terrorist organization in
Lebanon, endangering the country's Shiia community and breaking its precarious
community balance. Weapons were shipped to southern Lebanon to trigger bloody
regional wars instead of defending Iran's national soil.
The regime formed an axis with another oppressive regime in Syria, putting Iran
at odds with the moderate Arab world and making Iran an associate in the
brutalization of both Syrian and Lebanese Peoples.
The regime funded Hamas and Islamic Jihad with the goal of taking over the
Palestinian Authority and blocking any Peace Process between Arabs and Israel.
The regime has since April of 2003, along with its axis partner, fueled
insurrection and terror in neighboring Iraq, dragging its long oppressed Shiia
community into sectarian tensions with the Sunnis and weakening the moderate and
enlightened leadership of
Grand Ayatollah Sistani through the support for radical Muqtada al Sadr.
The regime has been exporting its Terrorist foreign policy throughout the world.
Argentina has indicted a number of officials in the bombings of 1993.
Venezuela's populist President, Hugo Chavez, is now the chief associate of
Tehran's rulers in his attempt to world instability.
And worse of all, Iran's regime and its head Ahmedinijad are challenging the
world with irresponsible and dangerous nuclear projects that would bring
disaster to the Iranian People and catastrophes to the region.
On the disastrous domestic policy
The regime in Tehran, and especially under Ahmedinijad, has been conducting
disastrous policies towards the Iranian people, economy, cultures, and social
well being. Since 1979, the overwhelming majority of Iranians, Persians and
minorities alike, have been abandoned by their authorities to a miserable state
of affairs. In addition to the suppression of freedoms and liberties, Iranians
were deprived of the benefits of their nation’s rich resources, while a tiny
ruling ideological faction lives in comfort and delusion.
The Iranian public continues to suffer from a fundamental suppression of basic
rights, including political, social and cultural. The oppressive machine of the
regime has physically eliminated any form of credible opposition. Political
parties opposed to the Khomeinist rule are banned and their leaders executed.
The country resembles Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia in the 20th century.
Iranian women, the single largest social component of the Iranian nation, have
been marginalized, suppressed and subjected to insulting status. As under the
Taliban, but with cosmetics, half of the nation is obstructed from producing,
expanding and creating its own talents.
The youth of the country, generation after generation, are channeled into
militarism and xenophobia instead of enabled to develop freely and
constructively like their counter part around the world.
The country's economy is in ruin with the stretching of Iran's oil industry into
becoming a factory feeding wars and terror instead of prosperity and
progress.Every sector in Iran is in decay and its socio-financial structure is
in jeopardy, thanks to the Khamenei-Ahmedinijad agenda of state Jihadism,
instead of social advancement.
We believe that Iran's People deserve a better leadership and a better life, and
that the region and the world deserve a better Iran. If there should be a change
of direction in the Middle East it should start in Iran and with its regime.
First, the Iranian regime should cease its intervention in Iraq and withdraw its
operatives from the country.
Second, the Iranian regime must stop its financial and military backing of
HizbAllah in Lebanon, and withdraw its weapons deployed in that country. Tehran
must spend the billions of dollars in aid to Mr Hassan Nasrallah on the poor
people in Iran's major cities and countryside.
Third, the Iranian regime should eliminate all its support to international
Terrorism and abrogate its military axis with the Syrian regime. It should stop
its military adventures with North Korea and Venezuela, which are a threat to
world peace.
Fourth, the Iranian regime should comply with the international agreement on the
nuclear industry and refrain from building a nuclear weapon.
Fifth, the Iranian regime should reestablish democracy in Iran, accept the
formation of free political parties, liberate women, and tolerate minorities'
cultures.
Sixth, the Iranian regime should put the well being of all Iranians ahead of any
state policy of aggression, expansion and intimidation.
We call on all Iranians, Middle Easterners, Americans and all democratic
societies to join a global movement in support of Iran's people in their quest
to obtain the most important rights: self governance and freedom.
Dr Walid Phares Dr Behrooz Bahbudi
Senior Fellow President
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Global Unity Partnership
PS: The article is published in the paper edition only