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 orouz,
the Persian New Year, is a Zoroastrian festival, and does not meet
with the favor of the ruling Iranian tyrants. Against the background
of the many anti-regime street demonstrations during recent months,
the country's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei warned the
people not to celebrate Norouz. The result? According to Radio France
Internationale and several first-hand accounts, this year's celebrations
were unprecedented. Hours before the start of the holiday last Wednesday,
flower, food, and candy stores in all the major cities were sold
out, and the streets were virtually empty as Iranians went to their
homes to gather with their families and friends. This despite constant
warnings from the regime, including orders to the media to maintain
strict silence about the holiday.
So we have
witnessed yet another referendum on the Iranian regime, and the
people have again voted against it. As if further confirmation were
required, attendance at leading mosques was sparse, even though
the Shia month of mourning — the holiest period of the year
for the faithful — started at the same time. No wonder several
leading ayatollahs have recently supported a national referendum
on the continuation of the Islamic Republic. They now fear that
the fall of the regime will bring down Islam along with it.
At the same
time, the regime has become increasingly brazen in its support of
terrorism. There are almost daily calls for further violence against
Israel and America, and even the scandalously unobservant American
press has noted that Iran is actively supporting anti-governmental
groups in Afghanistan. The mullahs want to turn Afghanistan into
a second Lebanon, for they believe that if they can drive America
out of Afghanistan, the Iranian people will lose hope for a democratic
change within Iran. In their desperate actions, the mullahs have
exposed their hand. As George Tenet accurately testified recently,
Iran is in cahoots with all manner of terrorist groups, to the point
where the CIA now acknowledges that Shia and Sunni radicals are
quite capable of cooperating in killing Jews and Americans.
It shouldn't
have taken so long to figure this out, of course. Iran and the PLO
have been cooperating intimately since 1972, but the truth is always
welcome, and one probably shouldn't quibble over a mere thirty years.
The Iranian
people are looking to Washington for inspiration and guidance, but
aside from President Bush's clear and concise condemnation of the
regime, repeated condemnations of Iranian activities by Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld, a few remarks from Secretary of State Powell,
and a brave and thorough expose of the regime's many sins by National
Security Council official Zalmay Khalilzad, this administration
has failed to address the Iranian question with the gravity it deserves.
No Cabinet secretary has delivered a major speech on the question,
and National Security Adviser Rice has been uncharacteristically
reticent. Yet they must know that no event in the Axis of Evil would
be so important as the fall of the Iranian mullahcracy, for it would
show the entire world that the first country to fall into the hands
of radical Islamic Fundamentalists — and the country that is
truly the Mother of All Terrorism — has failed miserably, and
has been rejected by its own people.
So what are
our leaders waiting for? And where are the voices of the deep thinkers
calling for democratic change in the Iranian tyranny?
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