Superficial Efforts, Perceived as Carrying Water in a Sieve

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Dr. Mansur Rastani
by Dr. Mansur Rastani
06-Jun-2010
 

       During Shah’s time, Iran was experiencing a limited number of random political incidents voiced by small groups of dissidents, mostly among university students mainly due to the lack of freedom in party politics here and there across the country, which were cracked down by the government forces as part of the homeland security mission. Other than lack of political freedom, Iranians were benefited from a relative welfare life and convenience and people of every racial and national character and religion had the luxury of running their lives freely. However, the leaders of World Powers at the time couldn’t tolerate observing such oppression against those small groups of dissidents and eventually under the so-called tag of violation of human rights conspired the subversive plot and managed to overthrow the Shah from kingdom.

31 years after the fall of Shah, today in Iran under the IRI regime we see no respect for human rights, no political freedom, no religious freedom, no press freedom, people have no freewill on their everyday lives, prisons are crowded with young students, and government implements harsh punishment from torture, rape, execution, to stoning and public hanging of citizens. People are not allowed to pursue their peaceful demonstration to voice their wills, they are beaten and get killed if they do, and the lucky ones get arrested and jailed. Since last June 2009, the world has witnessed large-scale protests of Iranians in millions inside the country and the brutal massive killing of the protesters by IRI, and also observed the large-scale Iranian demonstration in their support outside Iran and across the globe.

While by now the human-rights records of IRI have not been unknown to the world, yet to our disbelief we see that Western Powers’ reaction to all this not only has been non-supportive in favor of Iranian movement but frequently to understate their efforts. We see that all the Western Powers and even United Nation issue ineffective manifestos, one after another, condemning IRI involvement in non-peaceful nuclear activities, terrorism, and meddling in neighboring countries, however not a single line in their statement has been referred to the violation of human rights in Iran by IRI.  

Since 2003 several official proposals on the IRI nuclear issue has been produced through EU3 and P5+1 packages and repackages, which ended up with no result but bunch of meaningless ultimatums. Every single UN Security Council Resolution on the issue was not less ineffective, and it had the similar outcome for the governments’ diplomatic initiatives. Regardless of the lack of effectiveness of all these superficial efforts, perceived as carrying water in a sieve, they all have contributed to the fact that they:

1)      tended to overshadow the violations of human rights in Iran committed by IRI,

2)      have been used to mesmerize the world’s people and undermine the real challenges of Iranian voices for freedom and democracy, and

3)      provided the leisure and tranquility for IRI to commit its mass murder genocide of the young generation of Iran.

 If we refer to statistic of the violation of human rights in Iran, we see that under IRI regime this violation has been at least1000 time more than what we had during Shah’s time. However, when we compare the positions of Western Powers in regard to human rights violation in our country at two different stages of time, 31 years ago right before the fall of Shah and today under IRI, a question is perceived in our minds that why has the strategy of Western Powers been twisted 180 degrees?

The fact of the matter is that violation of human rights has never been an issue to Western Powers, they used it 31 years ago as an excuse to force the overthrown of the Shah’s regime merely to stop the fast pace growth and progress of the country Iran at the time, since they didn’t want to face another Japan on the world horizon, while today Western Powers are looking for an excuse to stop the democratic movement of young intellects in Iran through replacing the fanatic IRI by a government with moderate Islamic elements. Why moderate Islamic elements? Islamic, because it can be used as a vehicle in a 3rd-world-nation country with rich natural resources to keep its people non-patriotic and non-nationalist, so that Foreign Powers can continue on plundering the natural resources of that country with no trouble. Moderate Islamic, because they can exclude its fanatic suicidal sector so that the wheel of capitalism can revolve safely across the globe.

One thing that they haven’t considered in their calculation though is the passion and ambition of the Iranian young intellects inside the country for a free and secular democratic nation, which at this time no matter what, it will never fade out. The nationalist movement of young intellects inside Iran has been very much determined in their efforts to the point of achieving success in pursuing their goal, and as announced it explicitly on numerous occasions through their slogans that “Obama you are either with us or with them”, they expect the Foreign Powers to stop their support for IRI.

The era has changed, a decade-ago perception of our surroundings can’t be pursued and put to work today. The guardian of democracy on our earth is the most important responsibility of the world leaders. Soon or later Western Powers have no other choice but to stand with the people of Iran who are the legal representative of that country and not with IRI. Furthermore they ought to support Iranians for what they are standing for and not for what they can be imposed upon. At the same time they should withdraw their support from IRI, declare its illegitimacy as a government and boycott all their economical ties with them, impose political sanction on the regime, and have the United Nation send an International group of supervision for a public referendum in Iran.

Besides, the threat posed by an intransigent, conservative administration in Tehran, simultaneously pushing forward with a nuclear weapons program, expanding its influence inside Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, ratcheting up its anti-Zionist rhetoric, and seeking to undermine the legitimacy of Arab governments, acts like an active volcano, which erupt seditious disturbances all over the area and as such has made essential contribution in creating the current deplorable way of life for the people in the region.

World Powers need to realize that IRI cannot be reformed, and the regime change is the only option for Iran. Only then the world can expect witnessing the peace and start garnering prosperity for the benefit of humanity not just in the region but consequently across the globe.

  Mansur Rastani, Ph.D.//iraniandemocracydefenders.blogspot.com/ 

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