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Accept That the Regime in Iran Is Here To Stay
The Strategic Interest
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More in Forward ForumMany respectable experts on Iran, prominent among them Americans, Israelis and Iranians-in-exile, believe they know how to replace the theocratic regime in Tehran with something far more benign and friendly.
“Another $100 million for broadcasting to Iran’s disaffected youth and women will do the trick,” says a veteran Israeli security official who served in pre-revolutionary Iran.
“Half the population are non-Persian minorities — Azeris, Kurds, Baluch, Arabs,” says an American intelligence expert. “We should incite them to rise up against the Persians.”
Once you do the math with these experts, you can only conclude that nearly 100% of Iranians are so unhappy with their nasty rulers that getting rid of the Islamic regime is a slam dunk.
I have been listening to this talk, often from the highest American and Israeli government and security officials, for nearly 30 years. Much of it is based on a persistent belief that the regime brought to power by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 is an aberration, not the “true Iran” we knew back in the Shah’s day, and hence undoubtedly illegitimate in the eyes of most Iranians.
Other advocates of regime change in Tehran base their views on opinion polls of doubtful veracity, the popularity of smuggled American movies and music clips in the salons of north Tehran, or just plain faith in the longing of everyday Iranians to doff their chadors, rebuff their religious police and embrace Western-style freedom and liberty. Wishful thinking plays a role, too: This regime is indeed dangerous, hence it simply must be overthrown, whatever the price.
Like almost any Israeli and Jew, I, too, would like to see the emergence of a more tolerant and friendly regime in Iran. Indeed, I have my own special reasons of late: A few months ago, the regime contrived to manipulate the televised “confessions” of two imprisoned Iranian intellectuals so as to implicate me and the Internet dialogue magazines I co-edit in an alleged American effort to sponsor a Ukrainian-style “orange revolution” in Tehran.
These assertions are ridiculous. Not only do I not advocate changing this regime by force or outside manipulation, I believe it is a totally unrealistic proposition. Moreover, it is harmful to pursue this approach to the Islamic Republic.
True, the Tehran regime actually encourages Western regime-change advocates by its paranoia. A regime that goes to such extreme measures to suppress dissent and concoct virtual subversives must, the outsider reasons, be extremely weak and unstable.
Yet the simplest indication that regime change efforts against Tehran don’t work is the fact that for nearly 30 years they haven’t worked.
Indeed, objectively speaking, the mullahs’ regime has been in far worse straits throughout most of the past three decades than it is today, when it is flooded with petrodollars. Iranians willingly vote in their elections, however unfair and undemocratic they may look to us. They idolize the heroes of the war in the 1980s with Iraq. And when they express dissatisfaction with their abject lack of freedoms, the regime is very skillful at suppressing dissent.
After three decades, you would think that intelligent observers and analysts would get the message: This regime, however odious, is here to stay.
When it comes to Iran, it still makes sense to keep all options on the table — as long as these don’t include regime change. If international sanctions and pressures don’t bring the Iranians to their senses regarding their nuclear plans and if military action, by the United States or Israel, is judged to have a good chance of succeeding, then it cannot be ruled out, as long as we don’t delude ourselves that it will catalyze a revolution in Tehran.
On the contrary, military achievements aside, it is likely to strengthen the regime. That is but one of the reasons why, as the Iraq Study Group report advocated a few months ago, genuine dialogue should be tried first.
Israel should not fear an American-Iranian dialogue. True, Iran poses a far greater threat to Israel than to the United States. And the Islamic Republic not only appears to covet weapons of mass destruction but is actively working with Hamas, Hezbollah and other non-state actors on Israel’s borders that, like Tehran itself, advocate Israel’s destruction.
Nonetheless, if Israeli security officials and decision-makers would abandon their unfounded hope of bringing down the Iranian regime, they could more constructively confront the remaining, more practical, options.
Iran refuses to talk to Israel, but not to the United States. Fears in Israel that Washington might somehow cut a deal with Tehran that compromises Israel’s security — or, for that matter, Saudi Arabia’s security, or Jordan’s — appear to have no foundation.
If Washington does agree to sit down at the negotiating table with Iran, it cannot permit itself to be perceived by Iranians as entering the talks with dirty hands. It cannot appropriate tens of millions of dollars to encourage Iranian civil society efforts, however admirable, that are understood by the regime as subversive, and perhaps here and there encourage dissident Iranian Baluch and Kurds to oppose the regime (while reassuring Iran with a smirk that regime-change is not official American policy), and still expect to engage the Tehran regime in dialogue on a level playing field.
Whether talking to this regime will produce useful results is, of course, not clear. But it is certainly a more pragmatic option once we rid ourselves of the pathetic notion that, with a little push, or even a big push, the regime will collapse.
If and when the theocratic regime in Tehran is replaced, its demise will, like the Khomeini revolution 30 years ago, be the result of domestic developments, not outside intervention. In the meantime, containment will be an easier task if we approach Iran without illusions.
Yossi Alpher, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, is co-editor of the bitterlemons family of online publications.
Comments
the LEAST palatable option is an islamist regime armed with nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. but that is where the current iranian regime is headed, and no amount of negotiation will deter them from achieving what they see as a position of strength. (the north korean model is a perfect example of the united states deluding itself - north korea's nuclear programme is not being dismantled, either.)
the only alternative scenario is the use of force, either externally or internally.
the advantages of "regime change" are that it can be accomplished with less indiscriminate loss of civilian life, and that its effects are more likely to last. (a good example of this is south africa's now-defunct wmd programme.)
by ruling it out, we are left with different degrees of military intervention, which can vary from airstrikes on specific installations up to a full invasion of the country. but in any case, external force merely destroys the hardware and leaves the door open to a renewed weapons programme the day after the troops leave.
not only should the west not rule out "regime change" as an option, we should all be praying fervently for it to succeed!
Haven't you neo-con morons learned from the mess you caused in Iraq? It's time to put America First not look for more wars we can't afford or support!
Iran ia a [word deleted]pit of competing sources of authority-- religious, tribal, corporate-- not a monolith of Islamic theocracy. Its young, well educated population is quite capable, like much of the Middle East, of taking what it enjoys from American culture and leaving the rest alone.
It's also able to distinguish Americans- against whom Iranians feel little generalized animus- from the actions of a particular US government which works hand in glove with a noxious right-wing tendency in Israel.
Yossi Alpher is right to be skeptical of these prophesies of imminent downfall for shrewd cookies such as Khatami and Rafsanjani. They are wishful thinking or screeds designed to tickle some more US taxpayers' millions into the pockets of dubious exile groups.
It's not Iran's fauit that it is becoming the dominant power in the region. That was inevitable (given the dysfunctions of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia's unwillingness to open itself up) after Saddam's Iraq was wrecked by the USA's illegal invasion, and after the resultant chaos drove up the price of oil and enriched Iran's corrupt mullahs.
Now we face the possibility of a half-crazed old hawk such as John McCain in the presidency: a guy who never saw a blitz he didn't like, who sings "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann". At a time when we are facing the threat of Peak Oil and brownouts, McCain and the neocons and Likudniks who call themselves Americans want to rile up, or foment disorder in, one of the richest fuel sources on earth, which is already being wooed by China and Russsia.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are little better in their rhetorical belligerence against this state, which for centuries has been among the least provocative in the Middle East. The National Intelligence Estimate put paid to neocon scaremongering about Iranian nukes, and our hapless generals in Iraq have stopped complaining about every insurgent attack in the north being "backed by Iran" too. These canards were as hollow and deceitful as all those purported translations of threeats against Israel by Scary Monster Ahmadinehad.
Jews live unmolested in Tehran, while all bit half a doxen have fled fom liberated Iraq.
It's time we told the Israel Lobby to pipe down, and began consulting our national interest again. Talk to Iran.
www.nkusa,org
I have rarely read something so defeatist in the last 29 years, during which I have followed Iranian related news on a daily basis. In fact the article does not give any valid reasons why the Islamic regime can not be toppled, it just says its difficult! So should we only engage in easy tasks? Next time I am handed a project at work, I should say oh thats difficult I only want to do easy ones!
Although I have to say I agree with a few points in the article. Fermenting ethnic dissent is counter-productive to toppling the regime. Those familiar with Iranian history and Iranian psychology will realise that the overwhelming majority of Iranians are so anti-separatism talk that they will put up with the most repressive regime to keep the historic entity of Iran intact, and this includes myself. Islamic Republic does not discriminate against the ethnicity of Iranians, it discriminates against those who do not conform to the state's interpretation of religion. Islamic Republic is not a "Persian chauvinist" state, the Supreme Leader is an Azeri like myself, Persian is not a ruling ethnic group, its the common language of the Iranian people and much loved because of its richness by all Iranian people. Majority of non-Persian literature lecturers and scholars are non-Persians.
Back to my objections to the article. Is it difficult to topple the regime? Yes it is. Is it impossible? Not at all.
Why is it not impossible? Just look at the trend of its popularity in the last 29 years. In the aftermath of the Islamic revolution, 98% of the people voted in the referendum, with all its flaws in being a free election but we have to accept that the majority were in favour, not knowing what was ahead for them. Would a similar number vote now? Absolutely not. Just look at the filtering of the candidates by the Guardian Council, the regime is so scared of giving the Iranian people a real choice that even the most loyal people to the revolution are now barred from standing as candidates. If the likes of Yossi bothered to promote engagement with Iranian dissidents as well as with Iranian state officials, perhaps it would surprise him to find out from the ex-political prisoners that even their prison guards and governors would at times manifest their hatred of the religious dictatorship in Iran. That's how deeply unpopular the regime has become.
The difficulty in mobilising the Iranian masses to reach the critical mass required to topple the regime is that the regime to them seems invincible. They lack confidence, and certainly such articles by Yossi Alpher, does not help.
The people of Iran need to see that the world is not bending over backwards to the Ayatollahs, and their struggles are reported by the international media, and the regime officials are not received by the world as eminent dignatories, that the notorious judge Mortazavi is not accepted in Geneva as the head of the Iranian Human Rights delegation. They want to see a crack in the regime's invincibility, then the likes of Yossi Alpher will be surprised at how quickly the crack will spread. Just as these academics have always been surprised with any revolution. I can't recall a revolution which was ever predicted, neither in Iran, nor in East Europe, nor in anywhere or any time by any academics. Predicting revolutions is not a safe bet to bolster your academic credentials, it does not happen that often but it does.
Well said David N.
Might I pose this question to the neo-cons posting here: By what right or authority do we in the US have the gall to suggest that it falls to us to affect regime change in Iran? That is for the Iranian people alone to affect! It strikes me that "regime change" from outside often produces a regime far worse than what was in place previously. One need only look at the havoc wrecked by Henry Kissinger's diplomatic moves that undercut Rhodesian UDI 30 years ago and gave the world the likes of Mad Bob Mugabe.
Potkin says: "Islamic Republic does not discriminate against the ethnicity of Iranians, it discriminates against those who do not conform to the state's interpretation of religion."
Maybe separatism isn't popular in Iran, but ethnic groups are persecuted by the regime.
"Amnesty International is greatly concerned by continuing violations of the rights of members of Iran’s ethnic minorities, including Iranian Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs. Within the past two weeks, hundreds of Iranian Azerbaijani linguistic and cultural rights activists have been arrested in connection with demands that they should be allowed to be educated in their own language; Kurdish rights activists have been detained, and demonstrators killed or injured; and a Baluchi accused of responsibility for a bomb explosion on 14 February 2007 was executed just five days later." http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/0a890bc8-a310-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/mde130202007en.html
"Ethnic Azeris are the largest minority group in Iran. Although generally well-integrated into society, growing calls for a greater freedom of expression of their ethnic and cultural identity in recent years have been dealt with harshly by the Iranian authorities. Iranian Azeris have complained about the lack of Azeri language schools, and there have been reports that newspapers written in Azeri (a form of Turkish) have been banned. At the end of June 2005, scores of people were reportedly arrested following an Azeri cultural gathering at Babek Castle in the city of Kalaybar. Similar events in previous years have also met with repression." http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/b7b9600c-a32c-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/mde130462005en.html
"Despite the Arab population remaining largely loyal to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the central government in Tehran has continued to view Arab Iranians with suspicion. Iranian Arabs claim this has led to discriminatory policies and unequal access to resources aimed at social development. Such discrimination has led to economic deprivation and frustration among Iranian Arabs, which has tended to spill over into unrest and subsequent repression, the most recent cycle of which began in April 2005 and has become known among the Ahwazi Arabs as the Ahwazi intifada. Without measures to address the social economic and other grievances which are among the root causes of such unrest, the cycle looks set to continue." http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/36287fe3-a48d-11dc-bac9-0158df32ab50/mde130562006en.pdf
If you are saying that people should put up and shut up about ethnic discrimination and persecution, then you are an apologist for the Iranian government's anti-minority policies.
I think the discussion of ethnic persecution that "truth(?)" has picked up from my comment is somewhat deviating from Alpher's article and it should be discussed on another occasion.
However just to raise a few points on how far from the Truth, truth is, some bullet points:
- Babak is a Persian hero for your information. He fought the invading Arabs and resisted their occupation for 22 years. There were no Turkish ethnic groups in Azarabadegan at that time. The very fact that you mention the gathering at the Babak castle shows how clueless you are. So the Turkish minority in order to protest at Persian chauvinism gather and commemorate a Persian hero?? Does that make any sense to any sound mind? The reason people gather there is to have a dig at the regime from an Iranian nationalistic view, commemorating an Iranian leader who resisted the invasion of Arabs. Babak was a Khorramdin[literally translated the Joyous Religion], a version of Zoroastrianism, hence he is known as Babak Khorramdin.
- The name of the region, comes from Aturpat, the Iranain general who liberated the region from the Greek Selucid descendants of Alexander teh Great. Atur was the original form of Azar, Persian word for Fire, Aturpat or Azarpad means the keeper of fire, Aturpategan or Azerabadegan is literally the land of the keeper of fire. Next you will tell us Zoroastrianism is Turkish!
- The discrimination against the Kurds, the Baluchis, the Turkomans, ... is because they are Sunnis. Its teh same as discrimination against Jews, Christians, Bahaiis, nothing to do with ethnicity, its the religion. For example according to teh constitution the president like all other government posts should be occupied by a male Shiite Muslim. It does not say a male Persian must be president, a Kurdish person can not become president or an Azeri person can not become the Supreme Leader. Look at the hanging judge Khalkhali, a pillar of teh Islamic revolution, he was Azeri through and through.
- Actually even Shiites will be persecuted if they do not see the Supreme Leader as the head of the Shiite faithful, like Ayatollah Boroujerdi's followers, the Iranain Arabs look up to other religious leaders other than the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameneii, nothing to do with ethnicity. Look at all the Shiite Iraqis who have come to Iran and many of them occupy very high positions like Ayatollah Shahrudi, the head of the judiciary or IRGC commander Sardar Naghdi. Are they not Arabs? The entire culture of the clerics is anti-Persian and pro-Arab.
- The Azeris not only are not discriminated against they are a very powerful and influential ethnic group within the business community in Iran. Ok, so the schools don't teach the imposed Turkish dialect on Azerbijan, but do they teach the different versions of Italain dialect in Italian schools? When the Hispanics or the Italian American kids go to school in America, are they not taught in English? Most of these regional dialects are not even rich enough to have text books written in any way, they are everyday conversational dialects like the Newcastle dialect in England.
I wonder how an Israeli would view the suggestion of break up of Israel along ethnic lines? Those who propagate this silly argument do the greatest service to the Islamic Republic and undermine the basis of the regime which is a Religious Apartheid, not a racial one.
As usual, one can count on Mr. Alpher for those rare elements in political commentary, unadorned sobriety and mastery of the facts....
i was in iran before the revolution and even then, the shah's government was actively engaged in getting nukes. this i know because i lived with a family whose son worked in the ministry of energy, the "power" department and was delegated to locate computers from western firms to run things. funny, that the firms (all big names) managed not to produce one suitable product, over and over and over. who do you think encouraged them to put their installations into the mountains and underground? sound slightly familiar, slightly german or even US? (as our installations are underground) that this regime is looking for nukes is not strange, it is just another part of a 40+ year campaign to get them.
when it wasn't a theocratic regime, we (the west including israel) encouraged their nuclear drive as a cash cow and milked it for all it was worth. and after all that time and spending all that money, they have nothing to show for it. what is coming out of the mind of Cheney and the mouth of GWB is noise to make us all give in to their imperial wishes. i've been back to iran since the revolution, during the war; i've been back openly as a jew and have had many interesting conversations with the community, through the ups and downs.
what a pity it would be if some jews (the lobbies, the media) were successful in persuading other (iranian and other) jews and the world that there was a problem in iran which needed to be sorted out by US missiles and troops. then we really could say that we would be looking at something like the end of the world.
The comment box removed the formatting of my response. I reformatted my response to make it easier to read, so here it is again
Your article was so riddled with unfounded assertions and idiotic conclusions that I thought I would point out a few of them in rebuttal here.
You wrote “Other advocates of regime change in Tehran base their views on opinion polls of doubtful veracity, the popularity of smuggled American movies and music clips in the salons of north Tehran, or just plain faith in the longing of everyday Iranians to doff their chadors, rebuff their religious police and embrace Western-style freedom and liberty. Wishful thinking plays a role, too: This regime is indeed dangerous, hence it simply must be overthrown, whatever the price.”
What have you based your assertions on? You don’t even rely on any polls to make your assertions, be they of “doubtful veracity” or not. What makes them doubtful? Stating something as a fact does not make it a fact. Doff their chadors and rebuff their religious police? Do you realize how humiliating it is for women to be forced to conform to some one’s notion of what chastity means and be slapped around because some retard decides they are not covered enough? Can you imagine how intimidating it is, to be under constant observation, by the religious police, who are looking for an excuse to pick on you. Can you fathom how it feels to come home and find out your teenagers, who were doing nothing other than get together to party, in the privacy of their home, were picked up by the morality police and whipped 70 lashes, each. Have you talked to any Iranians to see how they feel about this apartheid system? Talk to some older Jews who still remember the humiliation of being picked on for their looks or being branded by yellow tags to get an idea how it feels to have a desire to “doff their chadors and rebuff their religious police.”
Ever since the victory of the Islamists in 1979, in Iran, the world has been introduced to Jihadism and Islamic terrorism and to suicide bombing, one of the very first instances of which was the blowing up of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon. Iran founded and finances Hezbollah (the founder, Imad Moghnia resides in Iran) and is encouraging factionalism in Iraq.
“Indeed, objectively speaking, the mullahs’ regime has been in far worse straits throughout most of the past three decades than it is today, when it is flooded with petrodollars. “
Objectively though, where is your objectivity? Other than your gut feel, do you have any evidence to back your statements up? What do you suppose the petrodollars are being used for? How can you explain why 40% of Iranian population is below the poverty line? People cannot afford to have fruits or pay for eggs. More recently bread was so scarce and people had to do without for two weeks at a time. Gas is in short supply and Iran does not have the capacity to refine oil and has to import refined oil, something Iranians are still finding hard to believe. Your bio indicates you have held positions which would make you privy to information about the state of the economy in Iran. Read it!
“Iranians willingly vote in their elections, however unfair and undemocratic they may look to us. “
In the last two staged election that Iran has had, people have voted for a complete unknowns to reject the candidates favored by the system. In the early days of the revolution people’s ID cards, which were used for collecting rations, were stamped green to accept, and red to reject the Islamic Republic. Which way do you think people should have voted? Do you have any idea what you are talking about when you talk about elections in Iran? Why do you suppose there are over 6 million Iranians in exile, and everyday more of the educated elite are leaving? Have you seen or heard of the student, women and labor movements that have been brutally crushed, several times? Those who have dared, have paid a heavy price. The rest are not happy, but are afraid.
“They idolize the heroes of the war in the 1980s with Iraq. And when they express dissatisfaction with their abject lack of freedoms, the regime is very skillful at suppressing dissent. ”
Who idolizes the war heroes? People respect them for their sacrifices, but it is the government propaganda machine that idolizes them and believes in martyrdom, not the people. Weren’t you just talking about elections and how the regime has had worse times? How much worse than being “skillful at suppressing dissent”, can it get?
“After three decades, you would think that intelligent observers and analysts would get the message: This regime, however odious, is here to stay.”
Why would any objective sane person compromise their human values to accept such a notion? Does it not conjure up a parallel in your mind of people arguing, in the 1940’s, that the Nazis are here to stay and so let’s forget the plight of the Jews, because, someday, there won’t be enough of them to complain? Where is your humanity gone?
“These assertions are ridiculous”
Nothing has been more ridiculous than the assertions you have made and only you know where you have pulled them out of. Iran, a nation of 70 million people, with about 70% of its population below the age of 30, has an unemployment rate of 24% in that 70% segment of the population. Iran, resembles the apartheid of south Africa, with a population comprising of regime sympathizers and enforcers (about 15%) and non sympathizers or the oppressed (85%). 40% of Iran’s oil income, earned from its precious oil reserves, is divided up between 12 “charity” organizations whose “bread winners” form the backbone of the support for this regime. While Iran is becoming a destitute nation, with sky rocketing inflation, and a crumbling economy, the regime officials are looting the nation, making grandiose palaces for themselves and taking stakes in foreign ventures. Hezbollah and other terrorist organization are getting funded by Iran, at the expense of poverty for Iranians. Where is your sense of right and wrong?
Iranians are getting tortured and killed in more gruesome ways than you could ever imagine. Their limbs are getting cutoff and people have been thrown off of rooftops, to their deaths. People have been publicly hanged and stoned to death. And you say we should accept the notion that this regime is here to stay!!? They could not ask for a better (unwitting ?) mouthpiece than you. Your loyalty should be to humanity, not self serving agendas you may have in your mind. You may say those in favor of a regime change, or intervention, are self serving too. Yes, that goes without saying, but isn’t that what you are doing? In your mind, US legitimization of the Islamic Republic will benefit Israel so to heck with a suffering population of 70 million. If the outcome (intended or unintended) of a regime change is to relieve the suffering of a whole nation, and reduce the threat of world insecurity, then it doesn’t matter who else benefits from it. It is the humane thing to do. It is the right thing to do. Next time you decide to write about a subject I suggest you do some preliminary study and collect some facts to present. Don’t make assertions and then come up with conclusions based on those assertions. You only make your self look bad. Now I have to wonder what your motivations are to make such an uninformed case for appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mr Alpher asserts the conditions for defeat and appeasement, denying the influence of outside pressures for regime change. In addition to ignoring an oppressed domestic population living in a police state, which should be liberated for their sake alone, he is oblivious to the strategic risk to the West of Iranian hegemony over the oil supply, the sine qua non of worldwide economic liberty. These are two excellent, and sufficient, reasons for regime change.
There are many others, all strong.
The head of the snake of international terrorism and Islamofacism is in Iran. Without Iranian support, Hezbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Kuds Force and all the others wither and die.
Israel has its survival at stake. Existential self-defence is sufficient grounds for regime change.
There is no historical inevitability for the Mullocracy. It can go,at a time of choosing, never to be missed.
I am afraid "Dave" is giving unfounded credit to a senile like Ronald Reagan in containing the Soviet Union. Those who ruled the Soviet Union did out-spend the U.S. in military expenditure and would have continued outspending the U.S. regardless of the consequences. It was the grain embargo by President Jimmy Carter that brought Soviet Union to its senses because it hit home with each Russian. Remember, the speeches that were written for Ronald Reagan would not have been delivered if Nancy was not sitting by his side to read each word one at a time into Ronald Reagan’s ears.
Dear Mr. Alpher .. Iran is a "multi nation" since 5000+ years .. History is evident all nations joined (and kept in) Iran "not by force" .. last 500 years, Ottomans, British, Russians tried to disintegrate Iran, but didnt work .. WHY ? because being Iranian (similar to being American) is a state of mind (and not geographical) ..
All these talks of ethnic uprising will lead to unintended surprise .. Azarbaijan not leaving Iran but Baku "joining" Iran (Iraq a good sample) .. Anybody talking otherwise doesnt know Iran ...
A friendly observation from an Iranian friend of children of Moses (even the Khazaries) .. being in Middle east you have to be one of the Middle easterner and not a surrogate of the colonial powers ..
Times have changed .. Machiaveli is history .. Cyrus (rule by justice) is the name of the game for the future ..
Giani
The Iranian regime can go away in a matter of days. Nothing is really stable in that region. The Shah's Iran was a lot more stable than the ayatollah's regime and yet, everything changed in 6 months. The regime in Iran wants to make people believe that nothing can change. The Iranian people is fundamentally againt this dictatorship but they have killed or exiled all the leaders. That is why change is not easy yet far from being impossible.
Allow me to introduce you to John Quincy Adams, who can from his grave provide a more genuine opinion than the present cadre of self centered morons who have led the USA on the path to destruction.
America's Role In The World
On July 4, 1821, and on the 48th anniversary of our independence, John Quincy Adams, then the Secretary of State, said of our Country: "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her own example. She well knows that by once enlisting under banners other than her own, were they even banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, of all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assumed the colors and usurped the standards of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."
Mr. Yossi Alpher, You’re absolutely on point. I am impressed by your coherent analysis. Your words seem like fresh air we all need in the midst of the ongoing paranoia and war mongering by Mr. Bush and many Israeli leaders. I hope you can impress Mr. Olmert and his advisors along with Mr. Bush and his loyal handlers. I truly believe that your reasoning is superb and your views are based on reality, Mr. Alpher. There are no other option. Thus, you ought to be speaking more often; you must battle to make this plan a reality. If not, then our region will be heading to a calamity of a great magnitude, God forbid . . .
I think direct talk with iran and even security guarantees would make the mullahs weaker. If they don't have the "Great Satan" to scare people with then they have to answer the questions about inflation, economy, human rights etc. The change will come from within.
Iran versus West is not a "Mullah" issue ..
New generation taking the helm ..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021002698.html
Religion is used as a "paltform" to unit the ME masses against the colonialism ..
If and when Israel "Changes the Horse" and sides with ME forces in the anti colonial move, then all will be smoooooooooth sailing ..
Times have changed .. Machiveli if out the window .. Cyrus is in ..
Slave based civilisation has no future .. Rome, Athen, Sparta, GB prove this ..
I agree that the Iranian regime is not going away, at least not anytime soon. All the more reason to defend against it.
BTW the Soviet Union didn't collapse because of containment, but because of the Reagan Administration's constant pushing against its weaknesses.