Change at hand in Iran
Baltimore Sun, January 5, 2010
Foreign Affairs Analyst and Iran Expert
Transcript
In
streets across Iran, on rooftops late at night and city
walls, the cry now is "Death to Khamenei!" and "Death to the
dictator!" There is no question that the nationwide
uprisings target nothing less than the foundation of Iran's
ruling theocracy.
After seven months of murder, rape and torture, the arrests
of hundreds of dissidents, and a brutal crackdown in the
streets, the theocratic regime has failed to turn back the
movement. Both the opposition and the regime are on an
irreversible path that can only lead to the latter's
downfall. As the opposition deepens and spreads, the
political fissures at the top, including within the clergy,
will also expand. There is no going back.
The increasingly desperate regime will resort to more
violence in coming weeks. The trend was evident in the scale
of brutality displayed by the regime's security forces last
week on the Shiite holy day of Ashura. Hundreds of
protesters were wounded and at least 11 killed when storm
troopers opened fire. But the brute force is no longer
decisive or even effective. A video on YouTube shows a young
woman shouting back at a government agent filming her: "Take
my picture, film my face - you can't silence me."
The wheels of change ending the reign of the mullahs' regime
are rolling, and it is a matter of when, not if. As one
protester recently told an American newspaper, "At the end,
this government must go."
The battle raging in Iran is the culmination of more than 30
years of a corrupt, backward, financially incompetent
religious dictatorship. Tehran's ayatollahs have killed and
imprisoned tens of thousands of Iranian dissidents. In 1988,
they massacred thousands of political prisoners in the span
of several months. They have plundered Iran's vast natural
resources to sponsor terrorism, destabilize regional states,
acquire nuclear weapons and develop a long-range missile
program. All they have wrought has brought only
international isolation for a great nation.
At the core of this battle is the struggle for an Iran where
democracy, popular sovereignty and rule of law thrive in
place of theocracy, tyranny and rogue behavior. The triumph
of the democratic opposition in Iran will also promptly
resolve the current nuclear standoff, reduce regional
tensions and address he unresolved challenges in Iraq, all
of which emanate from the behavior of Iran's ruling regime.
It is, therefore, only logical to suggest that rather than
offering economic and political incentives to Tehran's
current rulers and continuing with long-proven futile
nuclear negotiations, the most effective option to deal with
Tehran's nuclear ambitions is to empower the democratic
movement. The key question now is what meaningful and
practical measures the international community, in
particular the United States, should take.
As evident by chants of "Obama, Obama, are you with the
killers or with us?" during pro-democracy uprisings,
Washington's insistence on negotiating - even after all the
killings and beatings witnessed in the streets of Iran - are
viewed as a tacit nod to Tehran's tyrants.
President Barack Obama realizes now that the U.S. is at a
"pivot point" in its Iran policy. His statement that the
Iranian people's demands for their universal rights "have
been met with the iron fist of brutality" of the ruling
regime is a welcome, albeit long-overdue, step. It must be
followed by other measures. The most immediate is to ensure
that Washington ends its blacklisting of the main Iranian
opposition group, the PMOI (MEK), as a terror organization.
The designation is an inherent part of the old policy of
appeasement; the group figured prominently as a bargaining
chip in now-failed bridge-building efforts with Tehran.
Regrettably, Tehran has used the terror designation to
justify cracking down further on group members inside Iran.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have now de-listed
the organization. A large, bipartisan block of U.S.
lawmakers favor removing this leading dissident group from
the terror list. By doing so, President Obama would take a
major leap toward standing on the side of the Iranian
people.
Other measures should include effective international
sanctions aimed at isolating Tehran's rulers financially and
diplomatically. Iran's people are ready and willing to
sacrifice for the greater good. Months before the 1979
revolution, a strike by oil workers was fully supported by
the people, though it brought them hardship during a very
harsh winter. But those measures need not include money or
arms to the opposition, much less deploying troops.
The United States can hasten democratic change in Iran by
siding with the opposition, while slowing the ticking
nuclear time bomb with effective sanctions. This is the best
option for dealing with a regime on a collision course with
its own people and the world.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
