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Jewish World Review March 26, 2002 / 13 Nisan, 5762
Michael Ledeen
So we have witnessed
yet another referendum on the Iranian regime, and the people have again
voted against it. As if further confirmation were required, attendance
at leading mosques was sparse, even though the Shia month of mourning
the holiest period of the year for the faithful started
at the same time. No wonder several leading ayatollahs have recently supported
a national referendum on the continuation of the Islamic Republic. They
now fear that the fall of the regime will bring down Islam along with
it.
At the same time,
the regime has become increasingly brazen in its support of terrorism.
There are almost daily calls for further violence against Israel and America,
and even the scandalously unobservant American press has noted that Iran
is actively supporting anti-governmental groups in Afghanistan. The mullahs
want to turn Afghanistan into a second Lebanon, for they believe that
if they can drive America out of Afghanistan, the Iranian people will
lose hope for a democratic change within Iran. In their desperate actions,
the mullahs have exposed their hand. As George Tenet accurately testified
recently, Iran is in cahoots with all manner of terrorist groups, to the
point where the CIA now acknowledges that Shia and Sunni radicals are
quite capable of cooperating in killing Jews and Americans.
It shouldn't have
taken so long to figure this out, of course. Iran and the PLO have been
cooperating intimately since 1972, but the truth is always welcome, and
one probably shouldn't quibble over a mere thirty years.
The Iranian people
are looking to Washington for inspiration and guidance, but aside from
President Bush's clear and concise condemnation of the regime, repeated
condemnations of Iranian activities by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld,
a few remarks from Secretary of State Powell, and a brave and thorough
expose of the regime's many sins by National Security Council official
Zalmay Khalilzad, this administration has failed to address the Iranian
question with the gravity it deserves. No Cabinet secretary has delivered
a major speech on the question, and National Security Adviser Rice has
been uncharacteristically reticent. Yet they must know that no event in
the Axis of Evil would be so important as the fall of the Iranian mullahcracy,
for it would show the entire world that the first country to fall into
the hands of radical Islamic Fundamentalists and the country that
is truly the Mother of All Terrorism has failed miserably, and
has been rejected by its own people.
So what are our leaders
waiting for? And where are the voices of the deep thinkers calling for
democratic change in the Iranian
03/18/02: Iran simmers still: Where's the press?
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