THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 16, January 17, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE RADIOACTIVE REPUBLIC OF IRAN
By Michael Rubin
A NUCLEAR IRAN: THREAT TO WORLD PEACE & INTERNATIONAL SECURITY -- WHY DIPLOMACY & INTERNATIONAL
TRADE WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM -- THE NATURE OF ISLAMIC REPUBLIC IDEOLOGY & ITS ROLE IN CREATING &
SUSTAINING THE IRANIAN REGIME'S DETERMINATION TO BECOME A NUCLEAR POWER & THREATEN THE WORLD -- WHAT
MUST BE DONE TO ELIMINATE THE THREAT
FULL STORY:
On Friday, January 13, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood together in the
White House to condemn Iran. "Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon, poses a grave threat to the security of the world,"
President Bush said. "We will not be intimidated," Ms. Merkel added. The press conference marks a turning point in a
decade-long saga.
Europe's engagement with Iran has failed. While Iranian diplomats met with their British, French, and German counterparts
in Vienna and Geneva, Iranian technicians toiled to ready Iran's uranium enrichment capability. European officials discussed
a China model for Iran, in which they could use trade to catalyze political liberalization.
Between 2000 and 2005, EU trade with the Islamic Republic almost tripled. But rather than moderate, Iranian authorities used
the hard currency to enhance their military. They built secret nuclear facilities and blocked inspections. They failed to
explain why there were traces of weapons-grade uranium on Iranian centrifuges, and refused to detail what assistance
Tehran received from Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. On September 24, 2005, the International Atomic Energy
Agency declared Iran to be in non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty's Safeguards Agreement.
Still, diplomats and doves hold out hope. After a January 12 phone conversation with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator, Kofi Annan assured reporters that Tehran was interested in "serious and constructive negotiations." As
President Bush met Chancelor Merkel, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC that military action was "not on the
agenda" and insisted that the crisis "can only be resolved by peaceful means." But, while President Bush and his European
allies may agree to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council, traditional diplomacy will not work for a simple reason:
Iran's quest for nuclear weapons has nothing to do with the U.S.A. or Europe. The crisis with Tehran is ideological, not
political.
Destruction of Israel is a pillar of the Islamic Republic's ideology. Soon after leading the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini declared, "Every Muslim has a duty to prepare himself for battle against Israel." President Ahmadinejad's
recent Holocaust denial and call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" may have shocked Europe, but his statements mark only
a change in rhetorical style, not ideological substance. When it comes to Israel, there is no difference between hard-liners
and reformers. While Mr. Annan honored Mohammad Khatami for his Dialogue of Civilizations, the reformist President's
instructions to the Iranian people were less high-minded. "We should mobilize the whole Islamic World for a sharp
confrontation with the Zionist regime," he told Iranian TV on October 24, 2000. "If we abide by the Qur'an, all of us
should mobilize to kill." In a December 14, 2001, sermon, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, perhaps the second most powerful
man in Iran and one often described as a pragmatist by Western officials and journalists alike, declared:
"The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy
everything…. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
During a September 22, 2003, military parade, authorities displayed a Shihab-3 missile draped with a banner reading, "Israel
must be uprooted and erased from history."
The ideological venom of their leaders carries little weight among the people. While the Iran-Iraq War killed hundreds of
thousands, Iran and Israel have never exchanged a single shot. Many Iranians express pride that Israeli President Moshe
Katsav was born in Iran. Indeed, the real ire of ordinary Iranians is expressed toward their government, not the outside world.
In a 2002 labor protest, workers demanding back pay marched through Tehran, chanting, "Forget about Palestine and think
about us."
Iran's youth want no more to live under theocracy than do Americans or Europeans. Iran Institute for Democracy telephone
polls sampling opinion in every Tehran neighborhood suggest that 80% of the population have lost faith in the Islamic
Republic. The Iranian people have little say in the decisions and actions of their leadership. The Supreme Leader wields
autocratic power and reigns for life. The Guardian Council selects who can run for office. Before the 2005 elections, this
clerical council disqualified more than 1,000 candidates, allowing the public to choose from only eight, all of whom endorsed
theocracy and opposed far-reaching reform. Ordinary Iranians ignore the sham: While the Iranian government claims 50%
voter turnout, Iranian pilgrims in Iraq say it was less than 20%. Contrast that with Iraq, where 70% of the population braves
bombs and bullets to vote.
The Iranian religious leadership recognizes that demography is against them. Reform is a slippery slope, democracy a
theocrat's hemlock. For the Ayatollahs, there can be no Orange, Rose, or Cedar Revolutions. Popular will is irrelevant.
Legitimacy comes not from the people, but from God, as channeled through a cabal of religious leaders. While Western
analysts divide Iran's politicians into hard-liners and reformists, the difference is one of style, not belief. Take Khatami:
Viewed by diplomats as a reformer, he nevertheless demonstrated disdain for popular sovereignty. "Knowledge of God's
commandment must be the foundation of … life," he wrote in the state-run daily Kayhan.
"People are not able to comprehend God's will through the
explanations contained in the Qur'an and Sunna.
Acquiring such comprehension requires several years of
studies and much effort."
Democracy is fine, but only clerics should be able to participate fully. Khomeini's successor and Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei called constitutional democracy and a broad electoral suffrage "the source of all human torment."
Such statements ring hollow among the Iranian people. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Iran's constitutional
revolution. Many people wonder why, today, they no longer have rights they had a century ago. Since the 1999 student
protests, they have taken to the streets with increasing frequency to demand real reform. Iranians are losing their fear of the
Islamic authorities. State control is eroding. Televised confessions once broke dissidents, but now they build them. A stint
in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison has become a badge of honor. Last Summer, dissident author Akbar Ganji shook the
Islamic Republic with a two-month hunger strike that captivated his countrymen. "I have become the symbol of justice in
the face of tyranny," he wrote from prison, "my emaciated body exposing the contradictions of a government which has
reversed justice and tyranny."
The ideological guardians can suppress wildfires of dissent, but Iran remains a tinderbox. Demography pours fuel on the fire.
The leadership is following a different China model: Only with a nuclear deterrent can the ayatollahs launch the Cultural
Revolution that will ensure their survival, without fear of outside interference. The Revolutionary Guards are preparing for
not one, but dozens of Tiananmen Squares.
As they cleanse their home front, the theocrats may use their nuclear capability to act upon their ideological imperative to
destroy Israel. The West once ignored Saddam Hussein's threats against Kuwait. But dictators often mean what they say.
Even if Iran does not use its bomb, a nuclear deterrent will enable it to lash out conventionally without fear of consequence.
Diplomacy can only work when both sides are sincere. Like an abused spouse, Western policy makers blame themselves
rather than understand the fault is not theirs. There is no magic formula waiting to be discovered. To Tehran, the West is
naïve. More diplomacy will only give the Islamic Republic time to achieve its nuclear goal. The only solutions that can
rectify the problem are those that deny the Islamic Republic its nuclear arsenal or those that enable Iranians to cast aside
theocracy, reject its aggressive ideology, and embrace freedom.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Military Weaponry & International Security:
Weapons of Mass Destruction & Arms Control
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is co-author, with Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran:
Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave, 2005).
The foregoing article by Michael Rubin was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2006, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
January 16, 2006
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