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But no major news organization — aside from this one — follows Iranian events carefully, if not day-by-day at least week-by-week, which makes it difficult to maintain perspective. More's the pity, since the past weekend's monster demonstrations all over the country suggest that the Iranians have turned an historic corner. Reporters in Tehran (there is not a single eyewitness account from any other city) estimated the number of demonstrators between 1,500 and 10,000, the first being the official figure, the latter coming from the London Telegraph. I have three eyewitness accounts of between 2,000-3,000 demonstrators in Tehran alone, as well as reports of large-scale fighting between demonstrators and security forces in several major cities, from Isfahan and Tabriz to Qom, Mashad and Shiraz, all over the country. Similarly, the newspapers reported dozens of arrests, while it seems certain that roughly 2,000 were arrested in Tehran, with hundreds more locked up elsewhere. Regular police did not participate in the repression, and were rewarded by calls of "Thank you, police!" from the demonstrators. The bulk of the dirty work seems to have been done by the so-called "Afghan Arabs," brought in from Afghanistan and Iraq. As of Wednesday morning, I was still receiving reports of ongoing fighting in several cities. It was the biggest organized demonstration, nationwide, since the revolution of 1979, and it is safe to say that foreign reporters failed to report its true dimensions because they were told they would be thrown out of the country if they did so. Plus, there was no real coverage of the biggest breaking news of the weekend, which was the crystallization of the revolt into a truly national movement, and the continuing signs of widening fissures within the regime. The demonstrations started on the university campuses, but huge crowds of citizens — orders of magnitude larger than the student groups — marched through the streets to join the protests. And their chants tell you everything you need to know about the true nature of the national movement: "Referendum! Referendum!" And, most tellingly, "We are paying the price of our parents' mistakes 23 years ago!" Which, of course, is when the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power from the shah, and installed the Islamic republic. Contrary to the constant description of the protesters as "reformists," the protests have gone far beyond calls for an Islamism with a Human Face. Their most eloquent spokesman is the distinguished scholar Dr. Qasem Sholeh Sadi, who recently published an open letter to Supreme Leader Khamenei that oozes contempt for the regime, and calls for Khamenei to resign. Derisively referring to the Supreme Leader as "Hojjatoleslam Mr. Ali Khamenei," thereby stressing his lack of theological standing, Sholeh Sadi denounces the endless failures of the regime, from foreign policy to the internal misery of the Iranian people. And he underlines the true nature of the popular vote for Khatami: "You know well that the twenty million votes for Mr. Khatami...were more a strong 'no' to you than a 'yes' to Mr. Khatami." As I wrote many months ago, Khatami was the empty vessel into which the rage of the Iranian people was poured. "You have...labeled independent press as an enemies' base, turned your wrath against the students...How long can you continue your opposition to the vote of the people?" Meanwhile, back in Washington, a national-security directive on Iran languishes somewhere in the constipated bowels of the bureaucracy. Those of us — a growing number, I'm pleased to say — who believe our national interests and our national character demand active American support for the Iranian revolution, hoped that the Bush administration would join the struggle, marvel at the stubborn unwillingness or inability of this government to support the independent Iranian broadcasters (like National Iranian TV in Los Angeles, recently silenced because they lack the funds to continue satellite broadcasting), and the Iranian opposition leaders (who could and would be even more active if they had a safety net of money to feed their children in the event of more mass arrests, and up-to-date communications gear to better coordinate action in several cities). Why is the National Security Council taking so long to formalize our policy? Why do the principals — Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, et. al. — not get this thing done? And why on earth has the president not demanded that it be done quickly? We are not talking about military war here, we are talking about the kind of support for freedom fighters that the United States has traditionally delivered in such cases, even in countries that were not involved in a terrorist war against us. But Iran is the world's leading terrorist power, the keystone of the terrorist network, the inspiration and protector of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of Hezbollah, the supplier of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, a major producer of weapons of mass destruction, and the engine of the global jihad. Faster, please. — Michael Ledeen's new book, The War Against the Terror Masters, has just been published by St Martin's Press. |
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lowly but surely the world is beginning to acknowledge the true import
of the events taking place in Iran. The Washington Post has run
two excellent editorials, as good as anything I have seen, plus a fine,
thoughtful piece by Fred Hiatt. Gerry Seib at the Wall Street Journal
wrote a perceptive piece late last week, and the editorialists at the
Journal produced their usual first-class performance on Monday.
And, for all his shortcomings, Thomas Friedman knows that something very
important is going on there, which makes him the only one of the Times's
columnists to get that one right. The AP carried the news that the new
speaker of parliament — who is also pseudo-President Khatami's younger
brother — was openly warning that the regime would fall unless it
paid attention to the protests of young Iranians.
