The Persian Lynchpin
Let’s do what we’re supposed to do here, and get right “to the point”: The most important country in the world at this moment is Iran.
Note the new link we’ve posted on the TTP home page: The Movement of Iranian Students. I urge you to read the Proclamation they issued: “To the Free People of the World” this past Sunday, June 22, 2003 (www.iran-daneshjoo.org, click on the 6/22/03 Press Release). It will absolutely blow you away.
These are the folks conducting the demonstrations you’ve been reading about in Tehran and other cities in Iran. Here are some excerpts from their Proclamation:
We want to breathe, breathe, and breathe freely; we want to be allowed to feel like a human being again. We want to feel alive!
Mullahs, with your depraved minds you have suffocated us. You have reduced us to sub-humans. Iranians were respected for their culture and humanity. Today, the adjective of terrorist follows us. You have done this to us, you ignorant gang of Mullahs! We want to belong to the human race once again; we want to join the world again. You belong to the dark ages, we want to move forward; it is the twenty-first century!
(You) hijacked a nation and took its population hostage under the sham of religion and (your) perverted brand of Islam.
You have taken our nationality, identity, our heritage, our dignity and our honor. You have made every attempt to erase and deny us our nationalism and 2,500 years of history and civilization. You have taken our music, our glorious literature, our poetry and our beautiful traditions. You have tried to kill every human emotion in us; we are not monsters like you hypocrite mendacious bunch of criminals. You have buried us alive!
How dare you claim to represent God on this earth? We would burn in Hell before we allow you to come between our God and us. You have already placed us in Hell on this earth; you have created a ” Satanic Republic” and we are burning in it!
They explicitly denounce their government’s support for Hezbollah and other Palestinian terrorist groups, noting that the regime has hired Hezbollah goons to beat them up on the streets of Tehran. “Palestine is not our cause,” they announce. “The Arab-Israeli conflict is not our fight. That is totally between the parties involved.”
Their demands are clear:
We demand our freedoms: freedom of thought, expression, religion, and freedom to be and feel human. We demand total separation of religion and state.
They condemn the United Nations as “pathetic” and UN General Secretary Kofi Annan as “ineffective and sycophantic.” “Even fiction,” they say, “couldn’t come up with a more dysfunctional organization than this.”
And what do they want from us?
All we ask is the moral support of the United States. All we expect is that the United States will remain true to its principles of liberty, justice, and its ideals of democracy.
Not to much to ask, is it? It is, evidently, way too much for them to ask for concerted support from the Iranian exile community here in the US. Iranians in the US are the wealthiest exiles in the world — and the cheapest.
The best example is NITV (National Iranian Television, www.nitv.tv (note the .tv — tiny Tuvalu in the South Pacific is capitalizing on its Internet country code). Based in L.A. and run on a shoestring by an Iranian patriot named Zia Adabai, NITV’s signal is pulled down by millions of satellite dishes throughout Iran. It is the Iranian people’s primary source for real news about their government, and the struggle for freedom against it.
Yet the key word in the last paragraph is “shoestring.” Wealthy Iranian exiles refuse to open their bulging pocketbooks to adequately support NITV. My friend Michael Ledeen recently gave a speech at a NITV-sponsored conference. He told the attendees they should be ashamed of themselves. “If American Iranians supported efforts to bring freedom to Iran such as NITV like anywhere close to the financial support American Jews give Israel,” Michael scolded them, “Iran would have experienced ‘regime change’ a long time ago.”
American-Iranian cheapskates have delayed a revolution in Iran — but it is coming nonetheless. 70% of Iran’s population of 68 million are under 30. The student rebels understand how to leverage their massive demographic advantage. They are seriously educated, having made a comprehensive study of the constitutions of a number of countries. They know the U.S. Constitution — and The Federalist Papers — inside-out.
They have the brains — and they have the balls to fight. This is what the Iranian exiles don’t have. Reza Pahlavi (the son of the former Shah), for example, is smart as a tack but has no cajones. The student rebels do. Already they have moved beyond street demos which are easy targets for the Basij Militia & Morals Police sent by the regime to assault them. Armed attacks are now being carried out on Basij bases all over the country, like at Dizicheh near Isfahan on June 19 and 20.
There is no way the mullahs are going to hold this off for very much longer. The panic among them is so deep that many are now afraid that Islam in Iran will be brought down with the regime, that it will be discredited for the next two or three generations. Islam is increasingly rejected by Iranian youth, who are turning to Zoroastrianism, the original Persian religion until suppressed by the 7th century Arab Conquest, viewing Islam as an “Arab religion.” (Remember that, as any Persian will very proudly tell you, Persians are not Arabs.)
Once the Mullacracy in Iran is overthrown, the consequences of a pro-America anti-terrorist free and democratic Iran are simply gigantic. Here are the highlights:
• An Islamic Reformation. A New Islam will be created embracing women’s rights and democratic freedoms, enabling the Moslem world to be a part of, instead of struggling against, the 21st Century. The New Islam will progressively replace the Old Islam in Moslem countries from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia.
• An End to Islamic Radicalism. Iran borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban are making a comeback supported by Pakistani radicals and the ISI (Pakistani intelligence). This support will be shut down, making stability, peace, and freedom much more likely in both neighbors.
• An End to Islamic Dictatorships Iran also borders Saudi Arabia, and Turkmenistan, and props up Syria. The inertia of Iranian Democracy will spell doom for their tyrannical, freedomless regimes.
• An End to Islamic Terrorism. Iranian sponsorship of Palestinian terrorist groups and cooperation with Al Qaeda will come to an end. With no sponsors and sanctuaries, they will shrivel into the entropy.
• Stability in Iraq. Iran’s longest border is with Iraq. A Democratic Revolution in Iran ends Iranian-sponsored anarchy and guerrilla warfare there, and solidifies the building of Iraqi democratic institutions. It makes our job of rebuilding Iraq enormously easier.
• The De-Politicalization of Oil. A free and stable Iran and Iraq not only liberates their gargantuan oil reserves, but also allows Caspian reserves an outlet through the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia no longer controls the market, OPEC is neutered, and oil reaches fair market prices of $12 to $15 a barrel.
Those are some of the major consequences. More will emerge. Now you can see why Iran — Persia — is the lynchpin of the world.
The least that needs to be done is for the State Department to get out of the way, for fools like Undersecretary Richard Armitage, who has huge biceps and a teeny zibb, to shut up about what great democrats the mullahs are.
The most that can be done…. Well, let’s just say that the latest poll showing a majority of Americans would support a U.S. military invasion of Iran to destroy its nuclear bomb facilities made the mullahs wet their robes.
Freedom is coming in Iran. The Nightmare of the Mullahs will soon be over.