GOOD MORNING AMERICA AND WATCH OUT DEMOCRATS

Its wishful thinking to hope that Iran’s ayatollahs would commit to more constructive policies in the region. This is against all that the Islamic Republic has written, preached, or practiced world-wide for 27 years.

The Message to the Americans : The U.S. needs to get one very important thing right on Iran. By Farhad Mansourian .
In the February 1, 2007, issue of the Iranian journal Sobheh Sadegh, Reza Zaker, the head of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Strategic Research Institute, states that “kidnapping American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Pakistan, India, Africa, Latin America, and even Europe and transferring them to safe houses is even easier than ordering a container full of Chinese junk.” The article continues, “We can open our purse just a little and witness the capture of a long line of blue eyed and blonde officers trapped by hungry fighters who are simply waiting for our direction.” Meanwhile, Hassan Kazami Qumi, Iran’s ambassador in Iraq, brags to the New York Times that Iran is going to “greatly expand...economic and military ties with Iraq.” In the Gaza Strip, Fatah says its arrested seven Iranian military “trainers.”The Islamic Republic is no status quo power. The Iranian government is expanding its operations into Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and elsewhere.



With the partisan shift in Congress, pressure on the Bush administration to begin negotiations with Iran is mounting. In the February 8 Washington Post, two Iranian-American scholars argued that the U.S. should begin unconditional negotiations with Tehran. They spoke of the Iranian government’s factions, but did not mention that all Iranian politicians, regardless of faction, are subject to the dictates of the Supreme Leader.
Under today’s conditions it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for Iran and the U.S. to find a diplomatic solution to their ever-increasing conflict. Faced with strategic stalemate, we can break it only by changing the strategy itself.
It is imperative that the U.S. government achieve unity on Iran policy.
The issue of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a partisan one, but rather an American one. Democrats need to know that as suggested by Baker-Hamilton report “the need to unconditionally engage Iran in the hope that Iran’s ayatollahs would commit to more constructive policies in the region” is simply not in line with what the Islamic Republic has written, preached, or practiced worldwide for 27 years. If the ayatollahs sense that all they have to do is keep the Middle East in chaos until the Democrats take control of the White House, then American and world security will continue to be gravely compromised. Democrats must be reminded that if they win the White House, they would also inherit this mess.
The Bush administration needs to strengthen its message to the Iranian people and their Islamic regime. They need to clearly understand that, as Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said, the Iranian government “have to understand that there are consequences to their actions.” The Iranian people must be reminded and the White House and Congress must affirm that if it has to pursue dialogue, it does not mean abandoning the freedom-aspiring Iranian people.
The dialogue must have both moral clarity and purpose.
The Bush administration and Congress should commit to aiding internal Iranian efforts that strive to bring about democratic regime change from within.
Only through these efforts will we, as Americans, be safe from this peril that the Islamic Republic has become.— Farhad Mansourian is a research fellow at the Center For Promotion of Democracy & Human Rights.