Iran: Targeting the Heart of Terrorism

By David Johnson
A handful of religious fascists are working to hijack a religion with 1.2 billion followers. Instead of preaching peace and tolerance, as the Koran proscribes, they preach the most vitriolic, violent and inflammatory diatribe.
These men do not hide their apocalyptic, sectarian intentions; in fact they put their conspiracy theories and hate on the stage every week during Friday prayer sermons.
By David Johnson, July 19, 2005
On the surface, the recent terror bombings in London and the recent ascension of fundamentalist radicals, including but not limited to President-Elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad, to high ranking positions in Iran may appear unrelated. However, they both should serve as a stern wake-up call.
The core threat they both represent is a deadly and barbaric fanaticism under the cloak of Islam. The core threat is by no means alone. Its spin-off threats include clandestine nuclear proliferation, facilitation of terrorist operations world wide and heinous human rights violations perpetrated against Muslims and non- Muslims alike.
The cause for concern is clear. A handful of religious fascists are working to hijack a religion with 1.2 billion followers. Instead of preaching peace and tolerance, as the Koran proscribes, they preach the most vitriolic, violent and inflammatory diatribe. These men do not hide their apocalyptic, sectarian intentions; in fact they put their conspiracy theories and hate on the stage every week during Friday prayer sermons.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – during a Friday prayer session in the run up to the historic parliamentary elections in Iraq late last year – said, "they [the Americans] want to keep the Iraqi public busy and to spread allegations and disagreements among them [Iraqis] in order to snatch this extraordinary opportunity out of their hands." Khamenei’s twisted and conspiratorial logic reveals his contempt for democracy and the United States. He absurdly blames the United States and its allies for terrorist attacks that killed Americans, as if democratic leaders were in the business of murdering the citizens they serve!
The fact is that tyrants, not democrats, murder their own people to maintain power. Khamenei is no different. Under the mullah’s rule dissidents including democracy advocates, web loggers, journalists and protestors are subjected to torture, imprisonment and in some cases execution for their beliefs.
 
Last week in Tehran thousands of Iranians poured into the streets shouting, "Free All Political Prisoners Now!" The police crackdown that followed was typical of demonstrations in Iran these days. State Department Spokesman Tom Casey said of the event, "we’re disturbed by reports of police brutality against peaceful protestors who were demonstrating in Tehran. We call on the Iranian regime to exercise restraint and to permit the Iranian people to exercise their legitimate right to peaceful assembly and to free speech."
No matter how rational Tom Casey’s comments may sound to Americans, free speech and peaceful assembly are exactly what Supreme Leader Khamenie is fighting against, both at home and abroad. Democratization and peaceful coexistence in the Middle East are diametrically opposed to the plans of all fanatic radicals in the region.
These preachers of death and destruction are not divided by nationalism or by religion. Shia fundamentalists’ spiritual icon Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini repeatedly mourned the fall of the Sunni led Ottoman Empire in his sermons. Therefore, it would be naïve to assume that Iran’s Shia rulers have no links to terrorist activities of Sunni groups. The pivotal element is neither Shi’ism nor Sunnism, nor petty nationalistic rivalries, but the establishment of a global Islamic rule.
Iran’s ayatollahs seek a utopian Islamic fundamentalist empire. They have been reaching out to Muslim communities across the region and beyond, in Lebanon, Sudan and now Iraq in an attempt to spread their violent ideology.
The same totalitarian logic that guaranteed the downfall of the Soviet Union can be found in the institutions governing Iran today. No freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, zero tolerance for domestic dissent and relentless psychological warfare against its enemies at home and abroad are hallmarks of both regimes. The promises of Soviet Utopia were empty as are the twisted ambitions of Islamic fundamentalism today. When the heart of the Soviet empire stopped beating in Moscow, the fragile Soviet empire imploded.
To effectively confront terrorism, free nations must target the heart of the issue. The war on terror is not a war on Islam. Rather it is a war that has to target the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism to be won. With the collapse of the ayatollah’s fragile government in Tehran, it is reasonable to expect a democratic renaissance to take place across Iran and that that renaissance would spread throughout the region. Once the West abandons its futile policy of offering political and commercial incentives to appease Iran at the expense of the Iranian people, it should then focus its attention on Iran’s organized opposition.
Any serious Iranian opposition to the tyrants of Tehran will have to face the fanaticism the Ayatollahs evoke and must have a reply to it that specifically counters it. Muslims who subscribe to the separation of religion and state must play a leading role. Without an indigenous counterweight to Islamic fundamentalism, the War on Terror is likely to miss the core cause of the Middle Eastern terror.
The Islamic Republic of Iran emboldens fanatics to carry out attacks like the ones that occurred in London last week. The fall of the Islamic Republic Iran would be a major step forward in the effort to eliminate inspiration for such attacks. When the West adopts a unified and explicit policy in support of Iranians’ quest for the fall of this regime, it is imperative that U.S. and EU policy include an indigenous counterweight to Islamic fundamentalism. A truly multilateral alliance of this nature is likely to facilitate a rapid implosion of Iran’s fragile fundamentalist government.
The right alliance could facilitate the fall of Islamic fundamentalism and the terrorist threat it poses faster than any of us in the West might imagine.
David Johnson currently serves as the Director of Operations of the U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran.  USADI is based in Washington DC .