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Sending the Right Signal to Tehran |
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Saturday, 06 October 2007 |
Commentary by U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Earlier in the week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the New York Post's editorial board that a stable Iraq will act as "a block" against Iran's growing regional ambitions, whereas an unstable Iraq will serve as "bridge" for Tehran. Secretary Rice's accurate observation was reflected in the President's remarks later in the week when he told an audience in Lancaster, PA, that standing firm in Iraq would send a crucial signal to ayatollahs while chaos and timidity "would embolden Iran."
France has been also increasingly vocal in its denunciation of Tehran's
drive for nuclear weapons and its destabilizing campaign in Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters on Thursday
that Iraq has become an arena for Tehran's "operations aimed at backing
armed groups whether Shiite or Sunnis to spur conflicts among the
different components of the Iraqi people."
Meanwhile in Strasbourg, France, Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the major
Iranian opposition coalition, the National Council of resistance of
Iran, noted that the extent of Tehran's advances in Iraq is far
greater. She said that Iran's clerical regime is the "de-facto occupier
of Iraq." Rajavi who was addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe warned that "the danger of the Iranian regime's
meddling and terrorism in Iraq is a hundred times more dangerous than
its nuclear threat."
The message of her remarks was well understood in Tehran. Several days
after her speech, Associated Press reported that Iran's parliament
speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel canceled a planned speech to the Council
of Europe, protesting Rajavi's invitation to the Council. Even before
the opposition leader's meeting, a group of parliamentarians from all
major political groups in the Council had protested Haddad Adel's
visit, calling on fellow lawmakers to leave the building if he spoke.
Rajavi's warning comes at a time when more than 700 Iraqi political
figures, among them Parliamentarians, governmental officials, Jurists
and tribal leaders wrote a letter to the UN Secretary General in which
they held Tehran responsible for the ongoing insecurity and carnage in
Iraq.
The letter, demanding the UN to hold early elections in Iraq states
that, "4 million refugees, 650 thousand dead and millions injured and
devastation of all the economic, social, service and security
infrastructure is the heavy price paid for infiltration of Iranian
regime and its proxies in our country." The signatories expressing
their contempt for the ruling Tehran-backed Shiite coalition in Nuri
al-Malki's sectarian-based government stressed that "Everyone knows
that the basis for the government is not democracy or people's vote but
murder, terrorism, death squads, instilling fear and imported bombs
from Iran."
The letter's assertion was amplified on Friday when the Multi-National
Force - Iraq said in a statement that "Coalition forces were targeting
a Special Groups commander believed to be associated with members of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - Quds Force" killing 25 militants.
Last month U.S. forces arrested a senior commander of the notorious
terrorism-spawning Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig.
Gen. Mahmoud Farhadi in northern Iraq.
Before his capture, Farhadi served as the Deputy Commander and senior
intelligence officer of Quds Force's Zafar Tactical Base. Lt. Gen.
Raymond Odierno, the U.S. top commander in Iraq has described Farhadi
as a "significant" player who is suspected of providing weapons, money
and training to Iraqi militants since 2005.
Earlier in the week, US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner
told a news conference in Baghdad that Farhadi has been driving
Tehran's intelligence operations in Iraq for more than a decade and "as
Zafar commander, he was responsible for Quds Force operations in
north-central Iraq, including cross border transfers of weapons, people
and money."
Given this background, Farhadi's presence in northern Iraq disguised as
a "business delegation" was no coincidence. The Dallas Morning News
reports that the regime in Iran has been behind the recent resurgence
of Ansar al-Islam's, a terrorist Kurdish outfit with ties to al-Qaeda,
with "a lurid reputation for beheadings and bombing beauty salons and
family restaurants."
To ensure that Iraq will become "a block" against Tehran, not a
"bridge" for its regional ambitions, the clerical regime must be
evicted form Iraq; ideologically, politically, economically and
militarily. Any other policy recommendation is either meant to serve
the strategic interests of Tehran in Iraq, or is based on a reckless
naiveté about the true intentions and capacity of ayatollahs' for
turning Iraq into a roaming ground for fundamentalist terrorists and
extremists who would have easy access to oil revenue and possibly
nuclear bomb, and to more than a dozen states in the region.
In his speech in Lancaster, President Bush said that "Negotiations just
for the sake of negotiations often times send wrong signals." It is
time to send the right signal to Tehran tyrants.
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