Source: Global Politician
By: Hedayat Mostowfi
The much anticipated negotiations between the United States and Iran started underway on Monday, May 28, 2007. Once more the negotiations were announced as a “breakthrough”. But realistically, what can be anticipated from these negotiations? Communication with the Iranian mullahs has never been a problem. Both countries have communicated during the Iran-Contra crisis, during the tenure of the Clinton administration and before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem has been the behavior of the Iranian mullahs. So, the fact that Monday’s negotiations bore no actual result should not come as a surprise.
The US wants the Iranian regime to stop providing weapons, money, and training for terrorist militias in Iraq and to stop interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs. The mullahs have already proclaimed the negotiations to be a sign of US acknowledgement of Iranian power in the region. However, the mullahs aim to take full control of Iraq; this is Iran’s objective. The Tehran regime has been preparing this plan for more than twenty five years by supporting extremist Shiite leaders, establishing the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, developing the Badr Brigade, and now training terrorists and creating chaos in Iraq.
The goals of the two states are as far apart as they could possibly be. Does anyone really expect the godfather of terrorism to give up the most integral part of its existence? The aim of the Iranian regime from day one was to spread its brand of Shiite fundamentalism in Iraq. It is important to understand that fundamentalism is not a minor problem in the world that can be ignored. Islamic fundamentalism is a major force in the twenty-first century and has been established and nurtured by the Iranian mullahs. Unless we understand this point correctly, we cannot analyze the situation in Iraq and will not find the correct solution. An incorrect diagnosis gives the wrong remedy and produces no results.
For many years the international community, including the United States, thought negotiations might change the fundamentalist mullahs’ attitude. The Tehran regime has shown its cards long ago and has never compromised. The following statement is taken from the regime’s newsprint mouthpiece, Kayhan Daily, of May 5th, 2007, just before the Sharm el-Sheikh conference that led to Monday’s negotiations:
“… The Americans have not changed. Only it is that they have been strangled and they want to find a way to breathe. When they catch a breath, they will continue in their old manner. Obviously Iran will not allow its archenemy to simply get out of the swamp he is in now. The world now has a great chance to teach a lesson to this international bully. Apparently it is up to Iran to go forward with the project. Because Iran is the only country in the world that historically has earned the right to defeat the United States, the opportunity is here.”
Tehran has constantly used negotiations to buy time and to advance its destructive agenda and has never delivered what it promised. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US administration decided to “work with Iran”. Secret talks resulted in the bombing of the bases of the Iranian opposition and restricting its activities in Iraq. 4000 members of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran Organization (MEK) were disarmed and every one of them was investigated for 16 months, (after which no charges could be found against any of them and they received the status of “protected persons” under the fourth Geneva Convention). In return, the mullahs were supposed to “help” build a democratic Iraq and not interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs. Tehran, however, started funneling money, weapons and trained terrorists to Iraq. Needless to say, Iran had prepared a proxy government for Iraq, years ago, by hosting Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and his Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, along with the Badr Army, whose members were directly trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meddling in Iraq’s elections ensured a pro-Iranian Shiite government led by officials that had spent years in Iran. No wonder their first order of business was to travel to Iran and renew their brotherly ties with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Soon enough, Iranian-style executions and torture houses sprang up in Iraq. Women began to be hassled for not wearing the “hijab”. Theaters showing western movies were set on fire, and mobs paid by Iran started kidnapping and torturing those who spoke out against Iran’s interference. Now, American soldiers are killed on a daily basis by roadside bombs manufactured in Iran and planted by terrorists trained in Iran. The Iranian opposition recently revealed the names and addresses of the terrorist-training camps in Iran along with the list of 32,000 Iraqi officials paid by Iran. Not surprisingly, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and his two sons are heavily involved in recruiting terrorists inside Iraq and dispatching them to Iran for specialized training. This is how the mullahs upheld their side of the bargain!
Now, how do we confront the predicament presented by Islamic fundamentalism? This is a task for secular Moslems. Indeed, the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism can only be confronted properly by moderate Islam. It is very important point to understand that only moderate and tolerant Islam can nullify the poison of Islamic fundamentalism and remove it from the hearts of millions of people around the globe. Do moderate Moslems even really exist? Yes, and they are ready for action!
The MEK, as an organization of democratic Moslems, not only has organized Iranians inside and outside of Iran to fight against the mullahs, it has also managed to unite secular Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis against Iran’s interference in Iraq. Last July, 5.2 million secular Iraqis from scores of different cultural, ethnic and political groups signed a petition, asking for the expulsion of Iran’s proxies from Iraq and for the establishment of a democratic and secular Iraq. They pledged alliance with the Iranian opposition MEK which fights for a secular democracy in Iran. It is for this reason that the Iranian regime wants the MEK out of Iraq, because the MEK is the main obstacle preventing the Iranian regime from taking over Iraq. This anti-fundamentalist front in Iraq is the correct weapon needed to combat the fundamentalist mullahs of Iran and their proxies.
A correct analysis of the situation in Iraq that diagnoses that the Islamic fundamentalism foisted by the Iranian mullah regime on its neighbor is the main problem serves to explain why negotiations with the Tehran mullahs never worked and never will. The international community has wasted much time and resources through its appeasement policy and has let Iran continue its notorious nuclear weapons program. Right now, with the Iranian regime spreading its terrorist wings all over the world and with the specter of a nuclear Iran emerging, the stakes grow much higher. To solve the problem in Iraq, the world needs to solve the problem of mullah-rule in Iran.
It has been implied that there are only two ways to deal with Iran, either militarily with another war, or through appeasement and negotiations. Both those methods ignore the role of the Iraqi and Iranian peoples. There is another solution to the Iran problem, one that takes us out of the dead-end approach of negotiations with the mullahs and also relieves us from another military conflict. This “third option”, proposed by the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, suggests using the force of the Iranian and Iraqi peoples.
The case of Iran is different from that of Iraq in that it has a powerful and organized opposition, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (MEK). To understand the power of this opposition, suffice it to say that the Tehran asks for its destruction and expulsion to Iran in each and every round of negotiations. In 1997, the Clinton administration placed the MEK and NCRI (the National Council of Resistance of Iran that includes the MEK as a member) on the list of foreign terrorist organizations as a sign of goodwill to the Tehran mullahs. This act was just another favor that remained unreturned and has only made matters worse for the United States in Iraq.
Chances that the Iranian mullahs might change overnight and refute terrorism are less than slim to none. If we waste too much time with useless and barren negotiations, we will risk facing a nuclear Iran very soon. Iran has broadened its terrorist activities all around the world, from Yemen and Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to restore peace in the Middle East and the world. We should pursue the “Third Option” by engaging in negotiations with this united front against fundamentalism that has already been formed in Iraq. We need to upright the ship of American foreign policy that is currently running out of kilter by stopping any deals or negotiations with the Iranian government, by ending the Iranian mullahs’ diplomatic “free ride”, and by taking back the favors done for them. On the top of the list is the need to remove the Iranian opposition groups MEK and NCRI from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. After that comes the task of closing all Iraq-Iran borders and purging the Iraqi government of Iranian agents.
We cannot afford to lose any more innocent victims to the terrorism of the fundamentalist mullahs of Iran and their proxies. Moderate Iranians and Iraqis have united with virtually bare hands against the Islamist fundamentalism that has consumed their countries. Barren negotiations will only waste more time. We must remember that with a nuclear Iran emerging, time is not in our favor. Hats off to the Iranian resistance and those 5.2 million Iraqis who are fighting Islamic fundamentalism without help or recognition from the western world for their right to live in a peaceful and democratic society, and have already, in too many cases, paid the price of freedom at the cost of their lives.
Hedayat Mostowfi is the Executive Director of the Committee in Support of Referendum in Iran (CSRI).
His e-mail is Mostowfi@referendum-iran.org. www.referndum-iran.org