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Jewish World Review July 16, 2002 / 7 Menachem-Av, 5762
Michael Ledeen
The president's eloquent call for freedom in Iran went largely unreported in this country, but provoked the
inevitable firestorm in official Tehran, as Supreme Leader Khamenei fulminated against this "interference in
Iranian affairs," and President Khatami, the phony "reformer" who is the darling of the State Department's
office of appeasement (a.k.a. policy planning), indulged himself in a tirade against America and lapsed into
the blatant lie that everyone in the Iranian government has been duly elected. This is Khatami's reply to the
120-plus "reformist" members of parliament (more than one-third of the total membership) who called upon
him to get some real results in a hurry, or else step down.
Meanwhile, in Isfahan - -the epicenter of the anti-regime demonstrations (just as it was the eye of the
hurricane that brought down the Shah 23 years ago)-there have been numerous proclamations and rallies in
support of the regime's most visible critic, the Ayatollah Montazeri. Montazeri, who has been under house
arrest for years, issued a fatwah some weeks ago, denouncing the practice of suicide bombing as sinful, and
was praised last week by Ayatollah Taheri, who resigned as Imam of Isfahan and issued the most violent
denunciation in the history of the Islamic Republic of the evils of the regime. The mounting support for this
aged cleric is yet another sign of the disintegration of the extremist religious tyranny that has wrecked Iran at
the same time it has devoted enormous resources to the support of anti-American terrorism.
Travelers recently returned from Iran tell me heart-rending stories of both material and moral disintegration,
of young women driven to prostitution because there are no jobs and there is no future; of young people
openly flaunting the strict moral code against sexuality and alcohol, daring the security forces to arrest them;
of police and security forces protecting demonstrators against the regime they are paid to protect; of
foreigners who do not even speak Farsi being imported to maintain order. It all reminds me of the final days
of the Soviet Empire, as the people awaited signs that the Kremlin lacked the will to crack down yet again.
For this is the only issue now. Tyrannies do not fall simply because they have wrecked the national economy,
impoverished the people, and rendered their lives miserable. Tyrannies fall when they no longer use all the
instruments of terror to maintain their power, thereby signaling the people that revolt can succeed. The crucial
turning point is always in the minds and hearts of the tyrants and the tyrannized, and it cannot be measured by
social scientists or intelligence analysts. It can only be smelled by those with noses trained to sense that the
rot has set in, and the whole edifice is hollowed out, an empty shell of a regime.
This is a moment when those who claim to support freedom must embrace the legitimate cause of the Iranian
people, the brave Iranians who lit candles to mourn our dead on the eleventh of September, and who lit fires
to celebrate the fourth of July with us earlier this month. The president has done this twice, first in his "axis of
evil" speech, and now again in honor of the demonstrators. It is important that his not be a lone voice. If
Secretary Powell understands the moral and geopolitical stakes in Iran, he must speak out, and he must insist
that his friends and admirers in Europe do the same. Alas, this week the European Union is sending a
delegation to Tehran to discuss lifting sanctions and reopening full trade. It is a very bad thing to do, and the
Iranian people will certainly remember it when their dictators have been removed.
They will also remember everything that we can do for them now: support for Farsi-language broadcasting,
much of it based in Los Angeles and a handful of European cities. Support for some of the representatives of
Iranian opposition groups now approaching Western governments, the most important of which speak for
Iranian student groups. And surely it must be possible to organize some material assistance to those young
Iranians who are being starved and corrupted by this horrid regime.
Faster, please.
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07/12/02: The State Department Goes Mute: It's official: State has no message
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