@@ ZioNazis really love & care for Iranians!!! @@
Arash
December 22, 2004
Hawks Plan 'Peaceful' Regime Change in Iran
By Jim Lobe
A heavyweight group of mostly neoconservative hawks has published a new
proposal for Iran policy that relies heavily on "peaceful" strategies to
achieve regime change, such as those used by Washington since the 1980s in
Central and Eastern Europe, most recently in Serbia and Ukraine.
The group, the Committee on the Present Danger
(http://www.fightingterror.org), targets Iran's Supreme Authority, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, and the theocratic apparatus that supports him in the paper
titled, "Iran - A New Approach", and assumes, "Iran's people ... are our
allies". http://www.fightingterror.org/newsroom/CPD_Iran_policy_paper.pdf
"They want to free themselves from Khamenei's oppression and they want Iran
to join the community of prosperous, peaceful democracies," it says,
characterizing its policy recommendations as a "peaceful but forceful
strategy to engage with the Iranian people to remove the threat and
establish the strong relationship which is in both nations' and the region's
interests."
While reserving "the right to take out or cripple [Khamenei's] nuclear
capabilities" if Tehran fails to comply with current agreements with
Britain, France, Germany, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
the paper strongly advocates a policy of people-to-people engagement -
particularly for young Iranians who are seen as especially alienated from
the regime - as well as greater use of television, radio, and the Internet
to "communicate directly with the Iranian people."
It also calls for re-opening the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which was closed 25
years ago after militants invaded the embassy grounds and took U.S.
diplomatic personnel there hostage.
The plan does not address the possible use of covert paramilitary action
against Iran's nuclear program or the regime, despite published reports that
the administration of President George W. Bush has already authorized covert
operations aimed at destabilizing the government. The paper's main author,
Mark Palmer (http://www.state.gov/s/p/of/cal/24152.htm), told IPS on Tuesday
such actions should not be necessary.
http://www.fofg.org/ourwork/images/mark_palmer_interview.jpg
http://clearwisdom.net/emh/article_images/2002-8-1-img_6603.jpg
Ambassador Mark Palmer
Palmer, a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan who also served as
ambassador to Hungary and has been a tireless promoter of U.S. "democratic"
assistance abroad, said some CPD members opposed the paper initially because
it smacked too much of "engagement" with Tehran.
Among the most prominent members of the CPD, founded last summer as a lobby
group designed to rally support behind the broadest aims of the "war on
terrorism," are former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief James Woolsey
(http://www.benadorassociates.com/woolsey.php); Center for Security Policy
Director Frank Gaffney
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/gaffney/gaffney.php); former Republican
Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich); and a flock of other hawks
from the American Enterprise Institute (http://www.aei.org), the Project for
the New American Century (http://www.newamericancentury.org), and other
groups that beat the drums for war against Iraq before the US invasion in
March 2003.
Until now, many CPD members have called for dealing with Iran, particularly
its nuclear program, almost exclusively with isolation and confrontation,
including military action.
"There was concern that [sending an ambassador to Tehran] would strengthen
or legitimize the regime as it is," said Palmer, who characterized the
two-month process that led to the paper's approval as a "vigorous
discussion."
"Our view was that was too narrow a view," he added, noting that Washington
had embassies in Soviet bloc nations in the 1980s but still supported
democratic forces that led the mainly peaceful ouster of the Communist
regimes there.
Palmer, whose recent book, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the
World's Last Dictators by 2025
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0742532542), has been greeted
with considerable skepticism by regional specialists in academia and
Washington think tanks, was strongly backed during the discussion by former
Secretary of State George Shultz
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/shultz/shultz.php), who co-chairs the
CPD along with Woolsey.
The fact that Shultz, seen by some analysts here as an eminence grise of the
Bush administration, is backing the policy is especially significant. The
taciturn diplomat, who introduced National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
(http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Condoleezza_Rice) to Bush a
year before the 2000 election and encouraged her to move to the State
Department post in a second term, has also long championed one of her most
influential advisors, Middle East director for the National Security Council
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc), Elliott Abrams
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/abrams/abrams.php), as well as Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/wolfowitz/wolfowitz.php).
Although Shultz's efforts to reach out to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
in the late 1980s deeply disappointed prominent neoconservatives, he has
taken a very hard line, generally consistent with their own, in the "war on
terrorism."
Shultz, who co-chaired the short-lived Committee to Liberate Iraq, has been
especially hawkish on terrorism since Washington's ill-fated intervention in
Lebanon after Israel's 1982 invasion. The paper notes, "Iran under
Khamenei," in addition to pursuing "regional hegemony" in the Middle East,
"continues to be the world's foremost state supporter of terrorism."
It asserts that the regime's policies have led to "deep alienation" within
Iran as demonstrated by the 1997 and 2001 elections for parliament and the
presidency that reformists won by large margins, as well as the regime's
resort to "hired paramilitary thugs" to quash student demonstrations in
2002.
Specific elements of a new U.S. policy, according to the paper, would
include:
- A major policy address by Bush that would pledge to "reconnect with the
Iranian people, to help the vast majority of Iranians who want democracy to
achieve it ... to assure their security in return for not acquiring nuclear
weapons and to help develop their economy";
- An announcement of U.S. willingness to re-open its embassy in Tehran and
the designation of a senior official devoted to the coordination and
implementation of the policy, including lobbying U.S. allies, speaking with
Iranians via various media, and engaging with senior Iranian government
officials, as opposed to "ordinary diplomats in the Foreign Ministry";
- Making clear that Washington will not accept Iran's possession of nuclear
weapons and will back that up with force, presumably unilateral, if
necessary;
- Supporting Iranian democrats and dissidents "to make clear that they are
our partners in a new dialogue and that even as we meet with representatives
of the Khamenei regime, we consider these to be illegitimate." Support would
include sending Iranian activists abroad for short seminars with their
counterparts, "who have been successful in organizing civic campaigns in
Serbia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere";
- Developing relations with the military and various other security services
in Iran in order to undermine the regime's "pillars of support," and
marshaling evidence for a legal case against Khamenei for indictment in an
appropriate tribunal;
- Devising other "smart" sanctions to isolate the regime and its supporters,
including the revolutionary foundations, or "bunyads," by publicly
identifying companies and bank accounts controlled by them to highlight
alleged corruption and prepare legal cases for economic crimes; and
- Attempting to launch a "dialogue with Khamenei and the clerics around him
about how to arrange "a way to exit peacefully from political power,
combined with indications of the alternatives (jail or hanging)."
"For too long, an academic debate over engagement versus containment,
dialogue versus regime change has dominated and weakened America's approach
to Iran," according to the report.
"The [CPD] believes that we need a new approach, one based on a sober
recognition of the threat Khamenei presents, but also an appreciation of our
new strengths and the opportunity before us."
One Iran specialist, "William Beeman"
(http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/Beeman.html) of Brown
University, said he was "appalled" by the six-page paper.
"They have no idea about Iranian politics or governmental structure. They
have decided for some bizarre reason to present Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as if
he were some kind of Saddam-like dictator. I suppose this helps their
audience fit the current Iranian governmental structure into a ready-made
pigeonhole."
* Jim Lobe, works as Inter Press Service's (http://www.ipsnews.net)
correspondent in the Washington, D.C., bureau. He has followed the ups and
downs of neo-conservatives since well before their rise in the aftermath of
the September 11, 2001 attacks.