[toeslist] Iran: Who's Diddling Democracy? By: Steve Weissman
Riaz K Tayob
r u t h o u t | Perspective Steve Weissman | Iran: Who's Diddling
Democracy? http://www.truthout.org/061809J
Lifeless body of slain reformist protester. This photo of a lifeless
body - allegedly a protester killed by government forces - on the street
in Tehran was posted on Twitter. (Photo: Twitter)
Watching the protesters in Tehran, many Americans feel a strong sense of
empathy, exhilaration and hope. I strongly share those feelings,
especially since I know firsthand the danger the protesters face from
government thugs on motorcycles, provocateurs and the secret police. But
none of this should blind us to the likelihood that our own government
is dangerously meddling in Iran's internal affairs and playing with the
lives of those protesters.
Back in 2007, ABC News reported that President George W. Bush had signed
a secret "Presidential finding" authorizing the CIA to mount covert
"black" operations to destabilize the Iranian government. According to
current and former intelligence officials, these operations included "a
coordinated campaign of propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative
newspaper articles, and the manipulation of Iran's currency and
international banking transactions."
In the language of spookery, this was an updated version of the
destabilization campaign that the CIA had earlier used to overthrow the
progressive government of Salvador Allende in Chile.
The plan had the strong backing of Vice President Dick Cheney, National
Security Adviser Steve Hadley and Deputy National Security Adviser
Elliott Abrams. As ABC noted, Abrams had earlier pled guilty to
withholding information from Congress about efforts to destabilize the
Sandinista government in Nicaragua during the Iran-contra affair of the
1980s.
ABC News also reported that American and Pakistani intelligence were
backing a separatist militia of militant Sunni tribesmen from the
non-Persian Baluchi region of Iran. The group - Jundallah (Soldiers of
God) - conducted deadly raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan's
Baluchistan Province. Funding for this was reportedly funneled through
Iranian exiles with connections in Europe and the Gulf States.
US officials denied any "direct funding" of Jundallah, but admitted
regular contact since 2005 with Jundallah's youthful leader Abd el Malik
Regi, who was widely reputed to be involved in heroin trafficking from
Afghanistan.
"I think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already
afoot with the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the
region as well as opposition groups within Iran," said Vali Nasr,
adjunct senior fellow for Mideast studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations.
"And this covert action is now being escalated by the new US directive,
and that can very quickly lead to Iranian retaliation and a cycle of
escalation can follow."
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh subsequently confirmed the story,
reporting that the Presidential finding focused on "on undermining
Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through
regime change."
He also reported that the Democratic-controlled Congress had approved up
to $400 million to fund the destabilization campaign. "The covert
activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi
groups and other dissident organizations," said Hersh.
"The irony is that we're once again working with Sunni fundamentalists,
just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties," he wrote.
"Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of
the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni
fundamentalists."
Flash forward to the new presidency of Barack Obama. Did he and his CIA
chief Leon Panetta cancel the destabilization program? Not that I can
find. The tea leaves are murky, but they suggest that, so far at least,
Team Obama remains wedded to the Bush-Cheney-Abrams destabilization of
Iran.
The issue came to a head in the last few weeks. Obama wanted to bring
the Iranian regime to the table, and the administration knew through
scholars like Selig Harrison that the ayatollahs wanted a signal that
the new president would stop supporting terrorists within Iran. At the
end of May, the chance to send that signal came when Jundallah claimed
credit for a suicide bombing that killed 25 people and injured as many
as 125 others at a prominent Shiite mosque in the southeastern city of
Zahedan.
Both the White House and State Department immediately denounced the
bombing and denied any involvement in what Obama's spokesman Robert
Gibbs explicitly called "recent terrorist attacks inside Iran."
Several news articles then reported that the administration was
considering placing Jundallah on the State's Department's list of
terrorist organizations, which would have signaled a major shift in
policy. But, suddenly, the administration backed away from making the
terrorist designation or from otherwise indicating that it would stop
the destabilization campaign.
To the contrary, in the build-up to the Iranian election, Washington
sharpened its propaganda efforts. According to Ken Timmerman, the
executive director of the right-wing Foundation for Democracy in Iran,
the Persian Service of Voice of America (VOA) clearly sided with the
anti-Ahmadinejad candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi against those dissident
groups who wanted to boycott the election entirely, the position
Timmerman favored.
Timmerman claims that VOA refused to give the boycotters airtime while
giving extensive coverage to a secret fatwa that the Mousavi campaign
claim to have discovered, a fatwa that encouraged bureaucrats at the
Interior Ministry to do "whatever it takes" to get Ahmadinejad elected.
Timmerman also saw the branding of Mousavi's "green revolution" as
evidence that the US government was using its National Endowment for
Democracy to support the former prime minister.
"The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars
during the past decade promoting 'color' revolutions in places such as
Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications
and organizational techniques," Timmerman wrote on the right-wing
newsmax.com.
"Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of
pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations
outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds."
Please note that this comes from a very involved right-wing critic who
personally knows the expatriate Iranian community. It is impossible to
know how much government money went to these groups, since Congress has
purposely exempted the National Endowment for Democracy from having to
make public how it spends taxpayer money. Clearly, Congress should begin
to ask some tough questions about funding for Mousavi's "green
revolution" before any more Iranian protesters are killed.
One other clue is worth considering. The State Department somehow knew
that the social-networking site Twitter had intended to close down for
maintenance earlier this week during what would have been morning in
Tehran. So, as The Washington Post put it, the State Department asked
Twitter to delay the scheduled maintenance "to avoid disrupting
communications among tech-savvy Iranian citizens as they took to the
streets to protest Friday's re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
At first glance, those of us deeply involved in the new technology
thought this was great, a serious affirmation of our own importance.
But, to the ayatollahs, the State Department's intervention sent a clear
signal that the Obama administration was siding with Mousavi's
protesters. Ahmadinejad's government, militia and police had all the
internal communications they needed. Only the protesters stood to benefit.
Even more compelling, the benefit went to a particular group - those
among the protesters who speak English and particularly those
Iranian-Americans working with the National Endowment for Democracy.
According to news reports, Twitter does not accept input in Farsi.
Does my reading of the tea leaves prove conclusively that the Obama
administration was hell-bent on regime change? Not conclusively, but all
the evidence points in that direction, especially now that many
extremely reputable scholars are suggesting that Ahmadinejad probably
did win more than a majority of the votes cast.
Ahmadinejad is a very bad guy, as I have recently written elsewhere. But
our opposition to him does not justify meddling in another country's
election while proclaiming "universal democratic values."
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