[Mb-civic] FW: M. Rubin in Wall St. Journal: "The Radioactive Republic of Iran"

[Golsorkhi]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:00:18 -0500
Subject: M. Rubin in Wall St. Journal: "The Radioactive Republic of Iran"



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> From: "MEF News" <mefnews at meforum.org>
> Date: January 16, 2006 10:07:03 AM EST
> To: shahla at thesamiis.com
> Subject: M. Rubin in Wall St. Journal: "The Radioactive Republic of Iran"
> Reply-To: "MEF News" <mefnews at meforum.org>
> 
>   
> The Radioactive Republic of Iran
> by Michael Rubin
> Wall Street Journal
> January 16, 2006
> http://www.meforum.org/article/889
> 
> On Friday, George Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood together in
> the White House to condemn Iran. "Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon, poses a
> grave threat to the security of the world," Mr. Bush said. "We will not be
> intimidated," Ms. Merkel added. The press conference marks a turning point in
> a decade-long saga. Europe's engagement with Iran has failed. While Iranian
> diplomats met with their British, French and German counterparts in Vienna and
> Geneva, Iranian technicians toiled to ready Iran's uranium enrichment
> capability. European officials discussed a China model for Iran, in which they
> could use trade to catalyze political liberalization. Between 2000 and 2005,
> EU trade with the Islamic Republic almost tripled. But rather than moderate,
> Iranian authorities used the hard currency to enhance their military. They
> built secret nuclear facilities and blocked inspections. They failed to
> explain why there were traces of weapons-grade uranium on Iranian centrifuges,
> and refused to detail what assistance Tehran received from Pakistani nuclear
> scientist A.Q. Khan. On Sept. 24, 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency
> declared Iran to be in non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty's
> Safeguards Agreement.
> 
> Still, diplomats and doves hold out hope. After a Jan. 12 phone conversation
> with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Kofi Annan assured
> reporters that Tehran was interested in "serious and constructive
> negotiations." As Mr. Bush met Ms. Merkel, British Foreign Secretary Jack
> Straw told the BBC that military action was "not on the agenda" and insisted
> that the crisis "can only be resolved by peaceful means." But while Mr. Bush
> and his European allies may agree to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council,
> traditional diplomacy will not work for a simple reason: Iran's quest for
> nuclear weapons has nothing to do with the U.S. or Europe. The crisis with
> Tehran is ideological, not political.
>  
> * * *
> Destruction of Israel is a pillar of the Islamic Republic's ideology. Soon
> after leading the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared,
> "Every Muslim has a duty to prepare himself for battle against Israel."
> President Ahmadinejad's recent Holocaust-denial and call for Israel to be
> "wiped off the map," may have shocked Europe, but his statements mark only a
> change in rhetorical style, not ideological substance. When it comes to
> Israel, there is no difference between hard-liners and reformers. While Mr.
> Annan honored Mohammad Khatami for his Dialogue of Civilizations, the
> reformist president's instructions to the Iranian people were less
> high-minded. "We should mobilize the whole Islamic World for a sharp
> confrontation with the Zionist regime," he told Iranian TV on Oct. 24, 2000.
> "If we abide by the Qur'an, all of us should mobilize to kill." In a Dec. 14,
> 2001 sermon, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, perhaps the second most powerful
> man in Iran and one often described as a pragmatist by Western officials and
> journalists alike, declared, "The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel
> will destroy everythingŠ It is not irrational to contemplate such an
> eventuality." During a Sept. 22, 2003 military parade, authorities displayed a
> Shihab-3 missile draped with a banner reading, "Israel must be uprooted and
> erased from history."
> 
> The ideological venom of their leaders carries little weight among the people.
> While the Iran-Iraq War killed hundreds of thousands, Iran and Israel have
> never exchanged a single shot. Many Iranians express pride that Israeli
> president Moshe Katsav was born in Iran. Indeed, the real ire of ordinary
> Iranians is expressed toward their government, not the outside world. In a
> 2002 labor protest, workers demanding back pay marched through Tehran,
> chanting, "Forget about Palestine and think about us."
> 
> Iran's youth want no more to live under theocracy than do Americans or
> Europeans. Iran Institute for Democracy telephone polls sampling opinion in
> every Tehran neighborhood suggest that 80% of the population have lost faith
> in the Islamic Republic. The Iranian people have little say in their
> leadership. The Supreme Leader wields autocratic power and reigns for life.
> The Guardian Council selects who can run for office. Before the 2005
> elections, this clerical council disqualified more than 1,000 candidates,
> allowing the public to choose from only eight, all of whom endorsed theocracy
> and opposed far-reaching reform. Ordinary Iranians ignore the sham: While the
> Iranian government claims 50% voter turnout, Iranian pilgrims in Iraq say it
> was less than 20%. Contrast that with Iraq, where 70% of the population braves
> bombs and bullets to vote.
> 
> The Iranian religious leadership recognizes that demography is against them.
> Reform is a slippery slope, democracy a theocrat's hemlock. For the
> Ayatollahs, there can be no Orange, Rose, or Cedar Revolutions. Popular will
> is irrelevant. Legitimacy comes not from the people, but from God as channeled
> through a cabal of religious leaders. While Western analysts divide Iran's
> politicians into hard-liners and reformists, the difference is one of style,
> not belief. Take Mr. Khatami: Viewed by diplomats as a reformer, he
> nevertheless demonstrated disdain for popular sovereignty. "Knowledge of God's
> commandment must be the foundation of Š life," he wrote in the state-run daily
> Kayhan. "People are not able to comprehend God's will through the explanations
> contained in the Quran and Sunna. Acquiring such comprehension requires
> several years of studies and much effort." Democracy is fine, but only clerics
> should be able to participate fully. Khomeini's successor and Supreme Leader
> Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called liberal democracy "the source of all human
> torment."
> 
> Such statements ring hollow among the Iranian people. This year marks the
> 100th anniversary of Iran's constitutional revolution. Many people wonder why
> they no longer have today rights they had a century ago. Since the 1999
> student protests, they have taken to the streets with increasing frequency to
> demand real reform. Iranians are losing their fear of the Islamic authorities.
> State control is eroding. Televised confessions once broke dissidents, now
> they build them. A stint in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison has become a badge
> of honor. Last summer, dissident author Akbar Ganji shook the Islamic Republic
> with a two-month hunger strike that captivated his countrymen. "I have become
> the symbol of justice in the face of tyranny," he wrote from prison, "my
> emaciated body exposing the contradictions of a government which has reversed
> justice and tyranny."
> 
> The ideological guardians can suppress wildfires of dissent, but Iran remains
> a tinderbox. Demography pours fuel on the fire. The leadership is following a
> different China model: Only with a nuclear deterrent can the ayatollahs launch
> the Cultural Revolution that will ensure their survival without fear of
> outside interference. The Revolutionary Guards are preparing for not one, but
> dozens of Tiananmen Squares.
> 
> As they cleanse their home front, the theocrats may use their nuclear
> capability to act upon their ideological imperative to destroy Israel. The
> West once ignored Saddam Hussein's threats against Kuwait. But dictators often
> mean what they say. Even if Iran does not use its bomb, a nuclear deterrent
> will enable it to lash out conventionally without fear of consequence.
> 
> Diplomacy can only work when both sides are sincere. Like an abused spouse,
> Western policy makers blame themselves rather than understand the fault is not
> theirs. There is no magic formula waiting to be discovered. To Tehran, the
> West is naïve. More diplomacy will only give the Islamic Republic time to
> achieve its nuclear goal. The only solutions that can rectify the problem are
> those that deny the Islamic Republic its nuclear arsenal or those that enable
> Iranians to cast aside theocracy and its aggressive ideology and instead
> embrace freedom.
>  
>> Mr. Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is co-author, with
>> Patrick Clawson, of "Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos" (Palgrave, 2005).
> 
> 
> 
> 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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