Why Iranians Have Not Risen Up?

"why have not the Iranian people risen up and given the Ayatollahs and their poodles the Mussolini treatment, shot and hanged upside down from a lamppost? The Pharaohs of Tehran have now ruled Iran for 29 years, oppressing and impoverishing the Iranians and directing terrorism against the outside world..."

To be sure, the Iranian people are suffering under the mullah’s tyranny.

But they are also suffering from inaction and disillusionment due to reasons which include:

(a) The regime has all but eliminated any and every form of opposition inside the country by mostly murdering them. It seems there are no Mossadegh's, Lech Walesa's, or Kamal Ataturk's left in Iran, thanks to the regime's political murder machine.

(b) Vacillating or lack of meaningful support for democratic movement in Iran from the West, and in particular the ever-changing hot/cold US policy towards the regime. In the eyes of the Iranian people who seek a secular democracy, US Iran policy cannot be trusted since US sate department has been seeking more to make deals (e.g., Grand Bargain) with the terrorist regime, than to confront it in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, this misguided and inconsistent US policy has created, amongst Iranians, mistrust and lack of confidence about US support for a genuine democratic movement in Iran.

(c) Most Iranians are afflicted by a combination of fear, political apathy, regime media propaganda and brain-washing, depression, day to day survival battling soaring prices, etc.

(d) In addition to being frightened of the regime, the more affluent, the technocrats, the Bourgeoisie, etc. in Iran do not care about politics per se. They are too busy making huge profits on a real estate bubble economy and import/export with Gulf States, and with their indoor dinner parties, Caspian Sea and Kharg Island villas, etc.--This class has an undeclared "silent pact" with the regime: leave us alone, and we will leave politics alone.

(e) Most youth, high school and college age students are into everything but politics these days. Fashion and style, plastic surgeries to improve facial features (for males as well as females), fixation on clandestine sexual gratification, fad drugs, and other superficialities seem to have taken an upper hand to the bitter and painful realities of living in the hell that the mullahs have created for the young generation. The ones who can afford it, are dying to get out of Iran at any cost.

There are other reasons, but the above are just some major ones that come to mind.

Don't Count On "Students" Changing Regime in Iran

It was only 2-weeks ago or so when Condi Rice said, again, that US is willing to discuss "normalcy" in relations with Iran if only Iran stopped enrichment, etc. (can you say, ‘Legacy’?). And President Bush, in turn, made the same old hollow "warnings" to the "Tehran Regime" in his State of Union address. But the contradiction in their Iran policy is so severe and pathetic that even Iran regime’s assistant foreign minister reacted to Bush's Iran references by saying that Bush "warnings" to Iran were "repetitive and boring rhetoric"!

As for the student demonstrations in Iran now and in the past, yes, these students are chanting "Death to the Dictator", but they have never have chanted "Death to the Islamic Republic of Iran". The reason is quiet clear to the people inside Iran: these students are supported by the reformist faction within the regime, i.e., Euro-mullahs faction led by Khatami and Rafsanjani. Since the parliamentary 'elections' are near in March, these 'students' are once again instigated by reformist to stage demonstrations not against the regime as a whole, but against the faction opposing reformists, i.e., Ahamdinejad and Khamenei et al. These reformist-instigated protests are designed to weaken the hardliners politically so that the reformists could come back into majority in the parliament come spring.

These 'student' protests are no call for revolution, I am afraid; indeed they are in fact for the strengthening and preservation of the "reformist" faction within the same regime. They are designed to preserve the regime, not to destroy it. So, it would be wishful and naive to see these protests as a sign that 'regime change' will happen from within Iran. There are no meaningful, genuine, or organized opposition that will pose a threat to the regime as a whole. The opposition that could organize a regime changing movement has been systematically arrested, and killed by the regime in the past 27-years.

As for “sanctions”, the first 2 have had no meaningful impact on the regime, and the coming third, and watered-down sanction, also promises to be as ineffective.

There is only one solution left for Iran regime change, but no one wants to talk about it. And that's not happening for the foreseeable future. In fact if Hussein Obama is elected, we will have an “Anti-Regime Change” in Iran with Hussein Obama drinking Persian tea and eating sweets with the Iranian mullahs shortly after he places his hand on the Koran (like it is purported that he did when being sworn in as a Senator) to swear in as the President of the USA.

Islamist Plant in US Political System

Hussein Obama: I'm Not a Muslim!

Yeah, right; and Hitler was a jew too, I suppouse!...

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/muslim_obama_carolina/2008/01/22/66563.html

Iran Regime Oil Sales Booming

More and more evidence every day that US policy towards Iranian regime has utterly failed politically, as well as economically.

It's time for a new Republican adminstration who is actually willing to be decisive and take action against the Theocracy in Tehran to take over the White House.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=205413&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=30297

Game of Gulf: US Inaction & Weakness

The Tehran Theocracy's hardline faction, i.e., Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and their cohorts had obviously pre-planned and pre-staged this ridiculous show of thuggish-ness in the gulf.

As to the reasons for it, here is why I think they did it:

1) To send a warning to US and Israel (however unprofessionally and clumsily); by making it coincide with Bush’s trip to Israel where he wants to unite the region against Iran and its clients Hezbollah and Hamas. The message being that they can, at any time of their choosing, attempt to blow up a hole in the side of a US navy ship (like the Yemen event during Bill Clinton.)

2) To show --once again-- that they (Iranian regime) are irrational, international thugs and rogues who do not give a hoot about international maritime protocol or law. A kind of thuggish "Don't Mess with Me" message.

3) To send a loud warning to the "reformists" (mullahs with European ties) inside the Iranian regime who are now preparing themselves to be included in the parliamentary elections in 2 months time in Iran. Khamenei made a speech only yesterday condemning those "reformists" whom he called "traitors" for calling for the presence of international observers (including American observers) during the said elections. Khamenei also heard what Bush said a day or two ago that he, Bush, supports "moderate leaders" from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut (It now seems painfully clear that our President has totally lost grip on Iran, and has lost his way on Iran altogether to the forces of appeasement in the state department who support the European mullahs faction in Iran.)

4) The Iranian regime knows that US/Bush cannot do anything militarily against them right now since this is an election year, and also due to the NIE on Iran which helped the mullahs greatly in their objectives. So, they are pulling Bush's chain by these theatrics in the gulf to show to all Arab gulf states that, as the mammoth banner inscription says above Khamenei’s head whenever he delivers a speech, “America Cannot Do a Damn Thing!” (This is, incidentally, Khomeini’s old phrase.)

So, yeah, unless something really unexpected happens between now and 2009, it seems that this President will be retreating into his bunker on Iran for the rest of his term: And that is exactly what the mullahs are hoping for.

The mullahs also hope for Hussein Obama, who has a soft spot in his heart for all Islamists internationally, to get into the White House in 2009; when we will all be in bed together with Iranian regime, and be singing kumbaya with the mullahs as conducted by Hussein Obama himself. But that will only mean that the mullahs will get us again and again, on the time of their choosing. And that the regime will, on a more likely basis than not, get their nuclear weapons during Obama’s term.

Treacherous days await America.

US Appeasement & Weakness on Iran -- Again & Again

The point is, it was a US President who used the term "Axis of Evil" with Iran regime amongst one of the Evils that must be confronted. But instead, several years after his speech, we are making deals with Iranian regime, and appeasing them every chance we get. And we have not done anything drastic or really threatening to the existence of that "Evil" regime, either. That is something we have to face.

We have switched between soft and hard (only in rhetoric) policy so many times with Iran since 2001, that it is enough to spin any mullah's head and ultimately make him laugh out loud at our painfully transparent and ineffective policy towards them.

Not only we have not helped the opposition to overthrow the regime, but we have been actively seeking --desperately I might add -- to make deals and compromises with this member of the now hollow term "Axis of Evil".

We have also failed to do much with another "Axis of Evil" member, North Korea; as we have managed to make Iraq into a blazing quagmire for which we now seek and need another "Axis of Evil" member, Iran's help to "fix"? What happened to our high and mighty goals for the region here?

It's high time we faced our own evils, our inconsistent foreign policy, and failure in achieving what we set out to do.

As John Bolton said recently, our foreign policy is in a "free fall". He must be congratulated on his straight forward realism in seeing things as they really are.

But, the fact is that our on-again/ off-again, confused, and extremely inconsistent policy towards Iran has created the perfect breeding grounds for all sorts of theories to emerge.

Another one of these theories is that in US's latest round of "play nice" with Iran recently, Iran's "help" in Iraq (to quell violence that Iran itself started), could have been part of a back-door deal between US and the regime in Tehran. The deal was purportedly exchanged releasing some (10) remaining Iranian "POWs" in Iraq, and more importantly US finally giving the "go ahead" to Russia to deliver the nuclear fuel that Iran had been begging from Russia for over a year.

I think the best way to prevent people from coming up with theories is to fix our own policy towards Iran, which has been -quiet frankly- a disastrous failure.

Bush's 'Axis of Evil' Scorecard & Failure on Iran

December 21, 2007
Bush's 'Axis of Evil' ScorecardBy Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Just four months after 9/11, George Bush identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" and declared that defanging these rogue regimes was America's most urgent national security task. Bush will be judged on whether he succeeded.
Six years later and with time running out on this administration, the Bush legacy is clear: one for three. Contrary to current public opinion, Bush will have succeeded on Iraq, failed on Iran and fought North Korea to a draw.

Iran. Bush has thrown in the towel on Iran's nuclear program because the intelligence bureaucracy, in a spectacularly successful coup, seized control of the policy with a National Intelligence Estimate that very misleadingly trumpeted the claim that Iran had halted its nuclear program. In fact, Iran only halted the least important component of its nuclear program, namely weaponization.

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The hard part is the production of the nuclear fuel. Iran continues enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges at work in open defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Once you have the necessary fuel, you can make the bomb in only a few months.

Thus to even speak of the Iranian program as having been stopped while enrichment continues is absurd. And that is true even if you discount recent dissidents' reports that the weaponization program, suspended in 2003, in fact resumed the following year -- contrary to the current NIE estimate, offered with only "moderate confidence," that it has never been restarted.
The administration had to immediately release and accept the NIE's sensational conclusions because the report would have been leaked and the administration then accused of covering up good news to justify going to war, the assumption being that George Bush and Dick Cheney have a Patton-like lust for the smell of battle.

The administration understands that the NIE's distorted message that Iran has given up pursuing nukes has not only taken any military option off the table but jeopardized any further sanctions against Iran. Making the best of the lost cause, Bush will now go through the motions until the end of his term, leaving the Iranian bomb to his successor.

North Korea. We did get Kim Jong Il to disable his plutonium-producing program. The next step is for Pyongyang to disclose all nuclear activities. This means coming clean on past proliferation and on the clandestine uranium enrichment program that North Korea had once admitted but now denies.

Knowing we have no credible threats against North Korea, we now come bearing carrots. President Bush writes a personal letter to Kim Jong Il, in essence entreating him to come clean on his nuclear program so we can proceed to full normalization.

Disabling the plutonium reactor is an achievement and we do gain badly needed intelligence by simply being there on the ground to inspect. There is, however, no hope of North Korea giving up its existing nuclear weapons stockpile, and little assurance that we will find, let alone disable, any clandestine programs. But lacking sticks, we take what we can.

Iraq is a different story. Whatever our subsequent difficulties, our initial success definitively rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his monstrous sons. The Hussein dynasty will not -- as it would have, absent the U.S. invasion -- rebuild, rearm and threaten the world.
The taking down of Saddam led directly to Libya's full nuclear disarmament and, undoubtedly, to Iran's 2003 suspension of weaponization. As for Iraq itself, after three years of disorientation, the U.S. has finally found a winning counterinsurgency strategy.

It took Bush three years to find his general (as it did Lincoln) and turn a losing war into a winnable one. Baghdad and Washington are currently discussing a long-term basing agreement that could give the United States permanent military presence in the region and a close cooperative relationship with the most important country in the Middle East heartland -- a major strategic achievement.

Nonetheless, the pressure on this administration and the next to get out prematurely will remain. There are those for whom our only objective in Iraq is reducing troop levels rather than securing a potentially critical Arab ally in a region of supreme strategic significance.
On North Korea and Iran, with no real options at hand, the Bush administration heads to the finish line doing what Sen. George Aiken once suggested for Vietnam: Declare victory and go home. With no good options available, those decisions are entirely understandable. But if Bush or his successor does an Aiken on Iraq, where success is a real option, history will judge him severely.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Regime Change? What Regime Change?

Suddenly, Iran is helping quell the violence in Iraq, US is talking ‘talks’ and compromise with Iran, Iraq violence subsides, and Iranian regime gets its long awaited nuclear fuel shipment from Russia for its Bushehr nuclear plan (which incidentally, President Bush actually praised since he said it meant that Iran does not have to continue with enrichment anymore.) What?!

What could be the possible reasons for such sudden White House playing happy times with Iran?

The White House says Iran is helping quell violence in Iraq since the Iranians have realized that the violence they instigated was turning the Shiite masses. A weak argument at best, since Tehran regime has never shied away from mass opposition to it. Case in point are the Iranian people themselves who have been by a large majority against the regime, yet the regime keeps on persecuting them un-flinched for almost 29 years.

The most plausible reason for this sudden semi-détente with Tehran is what the Bush administration has not told us about. And that is, a back door, behind-the-scene deal between US and Iran: Help us bring back peace to Iraq in exchange for US backing out a notch on your nuclear program. The Iranians brought up their POWs in Iraq, and their long awaited nuclear fuel shipment from Russia that has been blocked by the US so far. In return, US agreed to deliver, releasing Iranian POWs in Iraq, and signaling to Russia that it was now OK to release the first shipment of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

So are we ready to send Condi Rice to Tehran to sing Kumbaya with the mullahs now? Perhaps not, but we are certainly laying the foundation for having the option to not to oppose it later.

Furthermore, it could seem that US, in a tactical move, is cooperating with Iran in order to quiet down Iraqi violence for political reasons, most likely for the 2008 presidential elections. When Iraq calms down, US troops will be relocated to Afghanistan which will help boost Bush’s poll numbers. The Bush administration is trying to create an atmosphere in which the next Republican presidential nominee (most likely McCain) could actually win.

If true, it could be deduced then, that any serious, drastic action against the Iranian regime –if it ever happens at all—is being postponed until the next Republican president takes hold of the White House in January 2009.

The new Republican president, if he does get elected, may –some time in his term-- initiate military action against Iranian regime for the purpose of regime change, or just surgical strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

On the other hand, depending on how many more Iran-appeasing deals Condi Rice makes with the mullahs between now and 2009, and whether the internal political structure in Iran changes in favor of the ‘reformist’ Khatami/Rafsanjani crowd (who have EU ties), we could be setting the stage for shelving the ‘regime change’ idea permanently in favor of ‘peaceful co-existence’ with Iran for the foreseeable future. And naturally, this will be especially true if an Obama, or a Chelsea’s Mama get into the White House in 2009.

Condi Rice: Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Thanks to Condi Rice, what is actually happening vis a vis Iran right now is about 180 degrees in opposition with any sort of 'regime change'.

The President has, sadly, given up the helm of our most critical foreign policies, both substantively and directionally, to appeasers and deal-makers like Condi Rice, Robert Gates, et al.

"US Has No Permanent Enemies", asserted our esteemed secretary of state on December 21, 2007. "I continue to say that if Iran will just do the one thing...— and that is suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities — then I'm prepared to meet my counterpart any place and anytime and anywhere and we can talk about anything.", Rice continued. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/21/national/w073848S16.DTL

By emphasizing only one condition to start getting chummy with Iran and begin the Libya-nization of the Iranian regime, Rice has been betraying the initial 'axis of evil' directive to overthrow the 'axis of evil' regimes. Instead, she has long been extremely eager to sit down at the table and please the Iranians at any and all cost. Rice and her cohorts have betrayed the original 'axis of evil' policy set by the President, as well as our interest in the region.

But Rice has done more than that: She has also betrayed the secular democracy movement in Iran.

Instead of supporting Iran's secular democratic opposition by any and every means at our disposal, we are actually trying our damnest to make deals with a rotting, wobbly, medieval despotic Theocracy in Tehran. By saying last week that it is time for those who oppose Uranium enrichment in Iran to step forward, Rice is only hoping for the return of the Iranian "reformists" like Khatami and Rafsanjani, the mullahs in the regime who have European ties.

So basically, Rice’s version of ‘regime change’ in Iran is ‘No’ to Ahmadinejad, but a big ‘Yes’ to Khatami and/or Rafsanjani and their Euro-mullah crowd.

Seems some in the Bush administration are so desperate to leave some sort of a legacy behind that they are quiet willing to sacrifice not only our national security, but even democracy itself to achieve their fantasized and hollow legacy.

Questions that should be asked by serious observers here are these: Is this really our policy towards Iran? Is this what we wanted from the start?