From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: Mad Mullahs R Us

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Mad Mullahs R Us

February 25, 2004

Iran has announced a new proxy voting system: no need to actually vote. The, um, authorities will do it for you. OK it's Scrappleface, making things up again. And perilously close to the truth, as always.

Now the NYT reports our CIA says the recent elections - in which thousands of unsuitable candidates were removed from the ballot beforehand by ruling clerics - heralds a new era of repression and inflexibility.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellows and Stanford University political scientists Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani aren't quite so downbeat. Of course, they're not trying to cover for Bush. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Even after the election, the prospects for a democratic breakthrough are greater there (Iran) than anywhere else in the Middle East......President Bush...must make public statements to assure Democratic forces inside Iran that the U.S. is still on their side. (He) should meet publicly with Iran's genuine democratic leaders....
...The future of Iran, and of its potential democracy, must be determined inside Iran. But the U.S. can play a crucial role by making clear that democracy is the paramount foreign policy goal...Arms control negotiations with the mullahs may serve American short-term interests, but at the expense of more lasting gains. If Iran becomes a liberal democracy, surely the Iranian nuclear threat to the U.S. will disappear definitely. After all, did not Poland's Solidarity do more to end the Cold War than any Soviet American arms agreement?

Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Mark Palmer, vice-chairman of Freedom House, vice president of the Council for a Community of Democracies, and author of "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil," writes, "The reawakening of Iran's tradition of student activism, a predominant force in the 1979 revolution, cannot be lost on (theocratic dictator Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei. In the end he will have to step aside for this growing wave of opposition, or be swept away as it clears the way for a post-theocratic Iran."