The First Charter of Human Rights, By The Persian Emperor
Kourosh The Great Over 2700 Years Ago

"Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"

Ruling Mullahs in Iran: Delivering Armageddon

- By Alan Caruba - March 10, 2004 ~ Vol. 6, No. 10

While most of our attention is fixed on Iraq and the difficult process of instituting a democratic government there (and in Afghanistan), the news out of Iran is largely erroneous and does not focus on the fact that, along with Saudi Arabia, it is the leading supporter of Islamic terrorism in the world.

It is Iran that identifies the United States of America as "the Great Satan."

It is Iran that has been systematically seeking to develop a nuclear arms program since the 1980s and lying about it. It is Iran that will not only be able to destroy an American city with a nuclear device, but it is also Iran that is the most likely to do so.

The mainstream American press has not been well served by reporters for majornews services who, for example, continue to refer to recent elections in Iran as having been between "reformers" and "conservatives" as if to suggest that there is a real chance of reform in Iran. There hasn’t been any such opportunity since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power on February 1, 1979 after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had fled the country.

The Islamic Revolution that began then is now twenty-five years old and Iran has long since sunk into the Dark Ages of the same Islamic Revolution being pursued by al Qaeda and other Islamic terror organizations would impose on the entire world. To look at Iran today is to see what the future would be if this violent revolution should ever succeed.

"The reality is our situation is like a nightmare," said one prominent Iranian intellectual. The demographics of Iran are interesting. Two-thirds of Iranians are under 30. They are a generation of well-educated men and women. Fully 60 percent of university students are women. They can see the outside world via satellite television and have access to the Internet. They want good jobs and opportunities, but so long as the ayatollahs remain in control, they have few of either. A recent report on Iran by Borzou Daragahi notes, "The economy remains in the control of conservative clerics and their allies who seized businesses at the beginning of the revolution."

Largely unknown or ignored by the mainstream press is the way the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his unelected Guardian Council retains total control over all aspects of life in Iran. The so-called parliament of Iran is composed of only those people who have been approved for membership. The notion that President Mohammad Khatami favors reform is easily dismissed by ignoring what he says for public consumption and reviewing his record of doing nothing to open Iranian society to less oppression. There is, simply stated, no credible internal opposition to the dictators who run Iran.

Like all dictators, the Supreme Leader and his cohorts will not yield their power through elections and, controlling all the instruments of power in Iran, the people there have no means to initiate any change. Earlier efforts, mass marches in the streets, have given way to despair. Just as in Iraq, any change will likely require military intervention. This is the sad, inevitable truth about the Middle East and it is one that many Americans either don’t understand or might well oppose given our current commitment along with its problems and costs. Neocons argue that whatever we spend toward these goals saves the US from far worse costs from attacks such as 9-11. I agree. As it was, 9-11 continues to have a negative impact on our economy.

The fact remains that without change Iran poses as great, if not the greatest threat to the United States and the world so long as it continues under the present leadership.

The record is there for anyone to examine. First came the 1979 taking of US diplomats as hostages for 444 days. This is unprecedented in modern history. Other American hostages were those taken in Lebanon in the 1980s. Iran provides the funding for Hizbollah, the terrorist organization that has staged so many terror bombings in Israel (along with Hamas, the Palestinian organization). It was Iran that funded the truck bombing of 241 US Marines in Beirut on October 23, 1983.

Intelligence sources, according to a recent issue of Insight on the News told that magazine that Iran "supplied the explosives" for the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of US embassies in Africa.

It was Iran that funded the attack in 1996 on the Khobar Towers barracks for US military personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed nineteen soldiers and injured 400 others. Former FBI Director, Louis Freeh, testified the attack was "planned, funded, and sponsored by the senior leadership of the government of Iran."

It can and should be argued that we have been in a state of war with Iran since 1979. At the very least, it is obvious that Iran sees itself as being in a state of war with America.

Just as we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq to eliminate the threat that fanatical Jihadists represented there, the need for regime change in Iran is ten times more essential because this is a nation with the will to destroy America.

No doubt the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency will, with US pressure, find their way to the United Nations Security Council and no doubt they will linger there just as the many resolutions regarding Iraq lingered until the US took action. No doubt, too, Europe and the IAEA bureaucracy will seek to delay that action.

As much as Americans find their role in transforming the Middle East distasteful and costly in terms of the lives spent and the billions required, it is the only realistic option. We have had one 9-11. That’s enough.

No More Dictatorships by 2025

In late February, Parade magazine’s cover article was about the "The World’s Worst Dictator." We have reached this new century after one wracked with wars begun by its dictators, the long "Cold War" sustained against the dictators of the former Soviet Russia, and the creation of the United Nations, intended to end such wars.

We live in a world where just forty-five men rule the lives of more than two billion people. In his book, "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictatorships by 2025", former Ambassador Mark Palmer lays out the plan by which the entire population of the world could begin to live in democratic nations. They include Hu Jintao of Communist China, Kim Jong II of North Korea, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, Ayatollah Ali Khameni of Iran, and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The greatest concentration of dictators is in the Middle East and Africa. Others are in Southeast Asia. Still others run the former Soviet republics, such as Saparmurat Niyazo of Turkmenistan. Red China stands alone simply for its vast population ruled by the Communist Party that poses a threat to the stability of everyone on their borders.

The one universal reason for ridding the world of these men is a moral one. They are murderers and thieves on a grand scale. Another reason is the right of all people to live in freedom, to live where the rule of law exists and the will of the people determines the decisions made by elected, representative leaders.

Then and only then could the Universal Declaration of Human Rights become a reality with everyone enjoying regular and free elections, a free press, trade unions, and an independent judiciary. This document is the heart of the aspirations set forth with the creation of the United Nations, but the UN accepts as members, those same dictatorships and treats them as equal to free nations.

There is another compelling reason. As Ambassador Palmer notes, "the free nations produce 89% of the world’s economic output; the dictatorships just 6%." Imagine how productive the world could be if the remaining captive nations could be set free to tap the energies of their people? We would see an end to famine everywhere. We would see the great flow of trade and goods that would enrich everyone. We would see the "hidden hand" of competition that would insure the affordability of those goods.

What many Americans have not understood about the invasion of Iraq by the United States and a coalition of willing nations was the absolute need to remove one of the world’s worst dictators, Saddam Hussein. Even now we hear influential voices saying that we could have continued to accept his rule, that he really didn’t pose an immediate threat to the United States, that he didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. All this ignores Saddam’s endless potential as a continuing threat, willing to threaten war against his neighbors and to hatch grave plots against the US with its enemies among the fanatical Islamic Jihad movement.

In the few short months since the invasion, it has significantly transformed the entire region. Pakistan, a hotbed of Jihadists, is now an ally in the war on terror. Libya’s dictator has declared he no longer wants to have WMDs or to support the Arab League that has fomented the Jihad. Syria’s dictator is desperately trying to seek peace with Israel and considering withdrawing from Lebanon. His neighbor, Iran, is no longer friendly and is contemplating letting international inspections of its nuclear facilities. Saudi Arabia’s rulers are contemplating what changes they must make to save themselves from the very Jihadists it has funded and supported for decades. Other Middle East nations such as Bahrain and Kuwait seek to ally themselves with the United States and consider movement toward establishing some aspects of democracy.

Ambassador Palmer states that the "removal of dictators is first and foremost a domestic political matter, undertaken by the people living under tyranny." That said, he outlines the steps the United States and other free nations can take to support such efforts. Nor does he rule out military intervention such as that undertaken in Iraq.

The reason for eliminating the remaining dictators is the simple proof of history that "by attempting to base US security in other parts of the world, the practitioners of foreign policy common wisdom not only failed but also undermined American credibility worldwide."

When people ask why do people around the world hate us, the answer is they have seen our great example of democracy and wondered why we have accepted to work with and even praise dictators who are utterly corrupt. The last century demonstrated why this simply does not work. Why appeasement only leads to war. An estimated 169,000,000 people died in the last century due to war and famine that was the direct result of the tyrannies of Nazi Germany, Japan, Red China, and the former Soviet Union. Others died on the vast African continent and continue to die every day because of the tyrants who rule so many of its nations.

The notion that Americans should live in a republic governed by the world’s oldest, living Constitution, and that others in the world do not yearn for the same blessings of liberty is absurd. We saw that in the 1989 when thousands gathered in Tiananmen Square, the heart of Red China, to protest peacefully for more representative government. Deng Xiaping made it very clear that the protesters wanted to "overthrow the Party, state and socialist system and to replace it with pro-Western bourgeois republic." He was right. That is why the protesters had created their own Statue of Liberty. It was crushed beneath the treads of Communist tanks and many were killed by Communist guns.

It is a wonder to me that people still go around mouthing all the lies and nonsense about Communism and Socialism as the answer to the world’s problems. They have always been and remain one of the world’s greatest problems. It is why Communists resist all efforts toward democracy and freedom. It is why Socialist nations cannot even begin to compete with those utilizing our Capitalist system. Both systems are inherently corrupt. Both systems concentrate power in government rather than allowing the economy to flourish and its benefits to enrich and enhance the lives of free citizens.

The concentration of power in the hands of forty-five dictators or in governments where citizens have no say in the conduct of their lives is a tyranny that must end. There is a movement toward that and it is called the Community of Democracies. Ambassador Palmer calls it "the best-kept secret in foreign affairs." It has met in 2000 in Warsaw ad produced a founding document. It met again in Seoul in 2002. Ultimately, the CD must replace the UN. The UN is an utterly failed and flawed international institution. The Ambassador also sees an expanding role for NATO.

It is time to let the world’s remaining dictators know their time is up. It is time for free and democratic nations to join together to encourage domestic opposition to them. If they don’t, the lethal technologies of the new century can make the millions of deaths in the past one look puny by comparison.

The good news is that, in 1972, there were only forty-three free countries in the world. Today there are eighty-nine. We are about to add Iraq to the list no matter how messy that effort may seem. Americans are dying there for the same reason they died in far greater numbers to free Europe and Asia in the last century. That’s what free people do. They fight and they die to free others because it is the right thing to do and because a free world is a safe world. a g

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