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The Logic of US Deployments Points to Iran •
Iranians Oppose US "Pro-Democracy" Efforts
By Arlen Parsa
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Wednesday 24 January 2007
Dissidents claim America's policy is doing
more harm than good, and Iranian people will pay the price.
On July 15, 2006, a short, gray-bearded man with dark, piercing eyes stepped
out of the SUV he was being chauffeured in, leaving a New York Times reporter
on the seat behind him. The ride from the airport was over, and so was the interview.
A crowd that had been milling around and waiting, across the street from the
United Nations Headquarters in New York City, quickly gathered around him, chanting
slogans to show their support. He wore a simple strip of white fabric across
his chest which read in black marker "On Hunger Strike."
Later that day, a Fox News correspondent would ask the man if he was foolish
enough to think that a hunger strike could actually "do anything."
His name was Akbar Ganji, and he was no stranger to hunger strikes. Ganji,
a high-profile Iranian dissident, had gone on a ten-month hunger strike while
in prison after he wrote a book accusing his government of killing scores of
dissidents. As an award-winning journalist, Ganji is regarded by many as a hero
for his unwavering belief in nonviolence, despite having been tortured and imprisoned
for nearly six years by the Iranian regime for his writings.
The White House demanded that the Iranian government release Ganji in 2005,
saying "The president ... calls on the government of Iran to release Mr.
Ganji immediately and unconditionally, and to allow him access to medical assistance.
Mr. Ganji, please know that as you stand for your own liberty, America stands
with you." When Ganji was released in spring of 2006, he declined a White
House invitation, preferring to meet with American intellectuals such as MIT
professor Noam Chomsky.
Ganji is not alone among Iranian dissidents in his refusal to speak with the
US government, despite their repeated requests. In exclusive interviews, noted
dissidents explained their concerns about US policy towards Iran and why they
fear not only military action against their home country, but also the more
moderate Bush administration policy of funding pro-democracy movements within
Iran.
In attendance at the Ganji rally (which called for the release of political
prisoners in Iran) was Fatemeh Haghighatjou, another respected dissident who
declined to speak with US government officials about Iran. "Two senators
last year invited me to go to Congress, but I refused to go," she said
in an interview. Haghighatjou was invited by Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.)
and then-Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to participate in a Capitol Hill forum
on the state of human rights in Iran. Although she said she strongly believes
in the importance of diplomacy and talks between the US and Iran, the American
government should not be trying merely to talk with Iranian dissidents and refusing
to talk with the Iranian government itself.
"I think talking between two governments is useful ... diplomacy - we
should reduce tension between US and Iran; this is important for both sides,
and normalization is very important," she said. "But you know, these
negotiations should be [done] formally, not informally."
Haghighatjou was one of only 12 female members of the Iranian parliament when
she was first elected in 2000 (the Iranian parliament, called the Majlis, is
a 290-person body). After she was elected, Haghighatjou proved to be one of
the parliament's most outspoken voices in favor of human rights and critical
of the regime for its activities suppressing dissidents and torturing political
prisoners.
"All of my speeches were problematic for the government's side,"
she explained. This was because Haghighatjou's speeches were broadcast live
on Iranian State Radio and picked up in foreign media outlets. After a string
of speeches blasting the regime for its human rights record and for wrongly
imprisoning journalists (like Ganji, who was first imprisoned around the same
time) Iranian security forces arrived at her house one day and arrested her.
She was sentenced to nearly a year in prison, although after keeping a low profile
in Iran, she was able to slip out of the country with her husband and young
daughter.
Haghighatjou has still not served her time, and the Iranian government has
three outstanding cases against her as well. She fears that if she returns to
her home country, she will be arrested right at the airport itself. "This
is unfortunately very common," the former MP said regarding the regime's
habit of arresting and imprisoning dissidents immediately upon their return
to Iran.
After Haghighatjou declined to participate in the Iran panel organized by senators
Santorum and Lieberman, because she said it would be "harmful for us -
for reformists inside the country," former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami
personally thanked her for her refusal.
A translator explained, "last year when former president Khatami came
to the United States, he thanked her for not going to the Senate to testify:
he said 'we were under a lot of [political] attack in Iran, and I thank you
for not going.' If she had gone, they would have attacked [reformists] more
as traitors and sellouts." Both Khatami and Haghighatjou are members of
the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the largest reformist party in Iran. "If
she accepted to go to the Senate and testify, in Iran they would have criticized
her, [saying] 'oh, she is talking with Americans; look, our enemy; reformists
are all traitors.'"
In fact, after Lieberman and Santorum held their forum, the Iranian government
did use the opportunity to crack down on pro-democracy activists, accusing them of working in concert with the
American government.
One notable former student leader, Ali Afshari, attended the forum at the senators'
request, and used the opportunity to speak out against the Iranian government's
human rights record. Afshari had been imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian
government for more than a year, due to his prominence in the Iranian student
movement. Like Ganji, whom Afshari has said he regards as a hero, he was also
invited to the White House. Also like Ganji, however, he declined that invitation,
refusing to meet with the Bush administration because he believes that the eventual
regime change that will happen in Iran must be organic and not influenced by
outside governments.
In interviews, prominent dissidents said they felt the Iranian regime was using
the accusation that pro-democracy student groups might be working with America
in efforts to discredit them. One Iranian activist lamented in an interview,
"Our government says that if anyone wants human rights and democracy, 'this
group is an agent of the CIA.'" Ganji has cited much the same concern.
"We do not want the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, this
is our problem. Any intervention by any foreign power would bring charges of
conspiracy against us," he has told reporters.
Akbar Atri, another Iranian dissident interviewed, was a former leader in Takhim
Vahdat (known in English as the Office for Consolidation and Unity), the same
student group whose founders were responsible for the 1979 US embassy hostage
crisis in Iran. As the group evolved through the years, however, it grew further
apart from the Islamic regime with which it had been so closely allied initially.
The Islamic regime has now, ironically, begun to accuse it of acting as an agent
of the United States.
Atri, who left his home country while under investigation by the Iranian government
in 2004, was sentenced to half a decade in prison for his pro-human rights activities
while in Iran. Atri suggested that outstanding arrest warrants were used as
a means of deterrence to stop former dissidents from returning to their home
country. "If we stay in Iran, we are activists and can make problems. After
we leave Iran, they accuse us [so] we can't go back," he explained. Like
Haghighatjou, he would likely be arrested upon arriving at the airport in Iran,
should he return.
"It is common in Iran to have an open charge against political activists
in order to intimidate us," Atri told the New York Sun in early 2005, shortly
after his arrival in the United States. "They can bring these charges to
the court anytime they want."
Atri, like Afshari, was invited by senators Lieberman and Santorum to speak
on Capitol Hill about human rights in Iran. The event was cosponsored by the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a right-wing think-tank based in Washington,
DC. Atri came under fire from some Iranian dissidents in his home country after
speaking with the group, which advocates military action against Iran.
Nevertheless, Atri said he is committed to diplomacy and nonviolent means of
regime change, and expressed great admiration towards the American civil
rights movement. Atri also said he was impressed with the Orange Revolution
in Ukraine, through which regime change occurred after massive peaceful protests
during late 2004 and early 2005. Atri explained, "This regime is very worried
of anything like the Orange Revolution in Iran.
"They're very sensitive. Everybody who is talking about an Orange Revolution
or nonviolent action, they say 'okay, this is a CIA program.'"
The fact that Atri (himself a prominent student leader who had been severely
beaten by the Iranian secret police), was criticized by some Iranians back home
for meeting with senators who support forceful regime change, demonstrates the
seriousness that Iranian students have about keeping their democratization movement
organic and free of governmental ties.
The Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress allocated millions
of dollars to fund pro-democracy groups within Iran. While the dissidents interviewed
for this piece were strident in their belief that no serious groups would consider
taking money from the US government (and that it would be extremely dangerous
for them to do so even if they wanted to), they wondered where that money would
end up.
Still, Iranian dissidents said, there were some things that the United States
could do to help. For example, Atri said that he welcomed US efforts to support
free media in Iran, such as Voice of America satellite television broadcasts,
to which Congress has committed several tens of millions of dollars over recent
years.
Haghighatjou agreed, adding that these broadcasts would be viewed with more
legitimacy if they were not entirely funded by the US government. She suggested
that wealthy Iranians in exile could assist with efforts to bolster free media
in Iran instead. Most Iranian expatriates in the United States live in Westwood,
a district of Los Angeles. There are so many Persian-Americans living there
that some refer to the area as 'Tehrangeles' (a combination of the name of Iran's
capital, Tehran, and Los Angeles).
As Akbar Ganji spoke to supporters in New York on that summer day in 2006,
it began to rain. Undaunted, he continued his speech into a megaphone, and aides
took turns holding an umbrella above his head while everyone else got soaked.
A few Iranians were staging a counter-protest across the street on the sidewalk
adjacent to the UN compound. Their sign reads "We support the national
security of the USA and the leadership of President Bush." The words "President
Bush" were written in red and preceded by a heart.
They were monarchists who wished to return to the days of the US-supported
shah's regime. After they originally tried to join the much larger assembly
of Iranian dissidents meeting with Ganji, Ganji's supporters rejected them,
echoing their leader's unyielding belief in peaceful regime change.
The moment was in many ways representative of the same debate taking place
within the US government. On the one hand are those, like Lieberman and Santorum,
who have signaled that they advocate a US strike on Iran. Others, who are more
aligned with Iranian dissidents, want to reduce tension between the two countries.
It seems, for the moment at least, that voices who want to ease tensions with
Iran are being largely drowned out. On January 10, President Bush announced
he was sending another carrier strike group to the region - a move seen by many
observers as aimed at intimidating Iran's government.
"If we continue [going the direction we're going] maybe the US will use
military action," one Iranian dissident feared. "But Iranians pay
this price, not the government. The Iranian people pay the price."
---------
Arlen Parsa is a documentary film student at Columbia College Chicago.
In between classes, Parsa writes about American politics and current events
at TheDailyBackground.com.
Go to Original
The Logic of US Deployments Points to Iran
By Martin Sieff
United Press International
Wednesday 24 January 2007
The logic of the new force deployments President George W. Bush has approved
for the Middle East appeared geared towards launching an air strike against
Iran or deterring Iranian retaliation rather than preparing for a major change
in U.S. strategy to win the war in Iraq.
As we have noted in previous coverage, the much hyped "surge" strategy
the president has approved to strengthen U.S. forces in Iraq, especially in
Baghdad, will be almost negligible in its boost to U.S. troop numbers in and
around the Iraq capital in the short term.
By the end of February, only 7,000 additional troops are currently scheduled
to be sent out. The impact those numbers by themselves can have on a city of
7 million people will be negligible. The U.S. Army's own latest manual on counter-insurgency
warfare calls for a ratio of 20 troops to secure 1,000 of the general population
who need to be protected, as Trudy Rubin pointed out in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday. That would require 140,000 U.S, troops to secure Baghdad alone.
By contrast, the build up of U.S. air and sea assets in the Persian Gulf area
is far more massive than the "surge' in ground troops. A second aircraft
carrier battle group is being sent to join the USS Eisenhower carrier battle
group already in the region, in effect doubling its air striking power.
In terms of the new tactics that Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, President Bush's
choice to replace Gen. George Casey as ground forces commander in Iraq, is expected
to implement, this makes no sense. Petraeus is a renowned student and exponent
of the traditional principles of counter-insurgency war.
He has advocated greater U.S. force levels to be deployed on the ground at
grassroots level, especially in Baghdad, and that they be spread out around
the city's many neighborhoods rather than bunched up in a defensive posture
in the heavily defended Green Zone in order ensure increase protection and security
for the general population.
Adding more aircraft capable of striking at ground targets, but only at the
expense of devastating more civilian areas, increasing civilian casualties and
thereby generating far more active support for the Sunni insurgents, makes no
sense in terms of this policy.
Besides, the greatest strain on U.S. forces in Iraq is on the manpower of the
Army and Marines ground combat forces, not on carrier-based pilots. The insurgents
have no air force of their own and what ground-fired, hand-held anti-aircraft
missiles they have appear to have had negligible impact on the unquestioned
U.S. air superiority in the theater.
Similarly, as we have also note din previous columns, the appointment of Adm.
William Fallon as the new Central Command, or CENTCOM, commander-in-chief, makes
no sense if his primary mission is expected to back Gen. Petraeus in fighting
a classic counter-insurgency campaign more effectively in Iraq. Adm. Fallon
is widely respected in the Navy and by Bush administration officials.
But his primary expertise is in running the PACCOM, or Pacific Command, which
he has done with great distinction, and in being one of the U.S. Navy's most
experienced directors of deploying carrier-based air assets against land targets.
This expertise too would be superfluous against the Sunni insurgency. However,
it would be of the greatest importance in the event of any U.S. air strikes
against Iranian nuclear facilities, or if the Bush administration was anticipating
some kind of widespread Iranian attempt at retaliation.
The same logic applies to the president's approval of sending new Patriot PAC-3
anti-ballistic missile batteries to the Middle East. The Patriot is the finest
anti-ballistic missile system in the world. But it appears entirely superfluous
to the many needs of the hard-pressed U.S. combat forces in Iraq.
However, if Iran were to attempt to launch any of its Shihad -3 intermediate
range missiles at U.S. forces or allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia,
the Gulf States or Israel, then the Patriot deployments would be of the greatest
importance.
Even the extremely small augmentation of U.S. ground forces in Baghdad takes
on a different significance when interpreted from the perspective of possible
Iranian retaliation against future U.S. or Israeli air strikes. It is not remotely
enough to make a significant difference in providing security to the general
population of the Iraqi capital.
But the additional forces could be of crucial importance in deterring or putting
down a new rising by the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army militia of Moqtada al-Sadr.
Washington has been pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to commit
Iraqi army forces to suppress the Mahdi Army. But the Shiite Maliki has been
very reluctant to commit his army, which is Shiite dominated, against a force
that has heavily infiltrated it.
None of these assessments mean that a U.S.-Iran military clash in the region
is automatically inevitable or imminent. Prudent military commanders always
try and anticipate dangerous contingencies that may never come to pass. Or the
new military assets may be intended for other regions. However, the fact remains,
their relevance to current and projected U.S. military operations in Iraq appears
very unclear. And their relevance to having to constrain or defeat a hostile
Iran appears obvious.
-------
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