for the majority who have not heard!

["Shahab Mesbah" <meteor2@moscow.com>]

> The Wall Street Journal
>                            Tuesday, October 30, 2001
>
>                            The Answer to Terrorism? Revolution.
>                            By Michael Ledeen
>
> An event of world historical potential is underway in one of the largest
> and most powerful countries of the Middle East, yet almost no one seems to
> have noticed. Ever since the night of Oct. 12, the citizens of Iran have
> repeatedly demonstrated against the murderous Shiite theocracy that has
> oppressed them for the past 22 years. The most recent demonstrations
> started last Wednesday and ran for four successive nights in Tehran and
> other major cities.
>
> These events are unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic.
> They involved hundreds of thousands of people at a minimum. One second
> hand account I received spoke of more than a million anti government
> demonstrators in Tehran alone. The first "victory" in our war on terror
> could be the fall of the regime in Iran.
>
> Attacking the Ayatollah
>
> Unlike previous demonstrations, which were largely limited to students at
> major universities, the latest round involved young people from all walks
> of life and of both sexes. And while all the riots started following
> soccer matches involving the national team, they were clearly political.
> Demonstrators carried slogans attacking the Islamic Regime and its leader,
> Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They chanted national anthems, demanded political
> freedom, and hurled stones at the dreaded security forces.
> In an outright show of contempt for the guardians of the revolution, boys
> and girls danced in the streets, taunting the Islamic authorities.
> Thousands of young people have been arrested (the regime admitted to more
> than 2,000 as of last Thursday), and countless others hospitalized.
> Detainees under 18 were herded into special detention centers, while older
> ones face judgement at the hands of the Islamic revolutionary courts.
>
> The country's leaders are visibly shaken, to the point where the minister
> of the interior was allegedly told to "fill all the hospital beds in the
> country". The Mullahs were may well be entering their final days in power.
> They have become objects of ridicule because of their panicky reaction to
> the demonstrations, which first erupted following Iran's 1-0 defeat of
> Iraq on Oct. 12.
>
> A week ago Sunday, fearing new outbursts, the government apparently
> ordered the national team to throw its match against Bahrain, a no account
> team. But when Iran lost 3-1, new riots ensued. Then, last Thursday, the
> latest demonstrations started after Iran beat the United Arab Emirates
> 1-0. The government has responded by confiscating all the satellite dishes
> in the country, a confession that nobody believes the official "news", and
> a ham-handed move likely to provoke a new round of street confrontations.
>
> It has long been clear that the Islamic regime has lost any semblance of
> popular support, and has maintained power only through the systematic use
> of terror against its people. But the population of Iran is very young
> -well over half is under 25- and Iranians listen to international radio
> (including our own Radio Freedom, in Farsi) and watch satellite
> television. Many are wildly pro-American, and to live in a free society.
> Tellingly, Islamic radicalism flourishes in corrupt, pro-American
> countries in the Middle East, but is hated in an Anti-American,
> fundemantalist country like Iran. The Iranian people have been vaccinated
> against radical Islam; if they succeed in freeing themselves from its evil
> oppression, they will send a message of hope throughout the region. It is
> harder to imagine a greater triumph for our war against Islamic terrorism.
>
>
> The lesson to our policy makers could hardly be clearer: the future of
> freedom lies with the the Iranian people, not with the Islamic regime in
> Tehran, just as lies with the Syrian, Palestinian and Iraqi people, not
> their ruling tyrants. Sad to say, many of our most influential diplomats
> have been arguing for an alliance with the Mullahs, which would represent
> a betrayal of brave people fighting for democracy in the streets of every
> major Iranian city, not to mention a betrayal of our own values.
>
> The president should instruct the secretary of state and the director of
> central intelligence to terminate any and all contacts with the Mullahs,
> lest the freedom fighters interpret American demarches as an embrace of
> the regime itself. He should increase our broadcasting to Iran, and
> express our concern at the feverish repression now under way. With a
> little luck, we will soon see the defeat of an Islamic terrorist state at
> the hands of its own people.
>
> The lesson of Iran is equally valid for our terror-supporting enemies in
> the region. Behind the anti-American venom from the secular radicals in
> Baghdad, the minority tribe in Damascus, and the kleptomaniacs in the
> Palestinian Authority is the knowledge that they are hated by their own
> people. Their power rests on terror directed against their citizens.
>
> Given the chance to express themselves freely, the Iraqi, Syrian, and
> Palestinian people would oust their current oppressors. That's why our war
> is not, as so many have insisted, a new form of warfare. It is actually a
> very old kind of war, the kind of war at which we have long excelled: a
> revolutionary war against tyrannical regimes. The entire 20th Century
> stands as tribute to the enormous power of our revolutionary energies.
> Again and again we were dragged into war,  and we have tossed an
> impressive number of enemies onto history's trash heap of failed lies.
> We even destroy despots when it is not part of our formal policy, because
> the rest of the world assumes it is. In the 1980s, President Reagon
> instructed the CIA to organize some Nicaraguans to disrupt the flow of
> weapons from Nicaragua to the communist guerrillas in El Salvador. The
> operation envisaged at most a few hundred people, but once American
> officials went into the field to recruit, thousands of Nicaraguans,
> assuming this was the beginning of the end for the Sandinista regime in
> Nicaragua, raced to sign up. A few years later the, the Sandinistas fell.
>
>  No Mere Manhunt
> The manhunt for Osama Bin Laden and his network must be merely one salvo
> of a great revolutionary war that will transform the Middle East. Yet, in
> one of those little paradoxes that make the study of history so
> intriguing, the potentially earth shaking events in Iran have escaped the
> notice of our top policy makers and our media. I could not find any decent
> discussion of it in any newspapers as of yesterday- two full weeks after
> the demonstrations- and when I spoke to one of our top foreign policy
> officials Saturday afternoon, he angrily asked, " Why have I heard nothing
> about this?".
> The Middle East's freedom lovers and tyrants, however, have been watching
> carefully and acting clearly. On Sept. 11th tens of thousands of young
> Iranians lit candles in the streets to mourn the innocent Americans
> murdered by Islamic terrorists. The tyrants, meanwhile, show in their
> panicked behavior and mounting repression that they fully understand their
> survival is now at risk.
>
> Mr. Ledeen is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest
> book "Tocqueville on American Character," has been published in Paperback
> by St. Martin's Press.
>
>
> Caricature Caption:
> Iranians are demonstrating against their own regime-but Washington is too
> busy cozying up to the ruling Mullahs to notice.
>
>                            (Can't upload the image, and sorry can't link
> to online)
>
>