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Neo cons broadcast opposition radio into iran { December 5 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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US lobbyists tune in for regime change in Iran
By Guy Dinmore
Published: December 5 2003 20:53 | Last Updated: December 5 2003 20:53
With a touch of under-statement - "we are trying something a little out of the ordinary today" - one of America's most influential neo-conservative lobby groups this week started broadcasting a live radio chat-show out of its Washington headquarters and into Iran, featuring interviews with opposition activists in both countries.
The teaming-up of the well-funded and well-connected American Enterprise Institute (AEI) with Los Angeles-based Radio Sedaye Iran (Voice of Iran) marks a new step in the efforts of the US right to influence regime change in the Islamic republic.
Danielle Pletka, acting as AEI host, expressed the often-heard view among America's neo-conservatives that President George W. Bush's forceful policy messages on spreading global democracy were not being matched by action.
US policy over Iran was unclear, debate within the Bush administration "has not been as robust as one might hope" and as a result little had been done, Ms Pletka told a packed audience at AEI headquarters on the capital's 17th Street.
Frustration over Iran is running high among US hawks, especially after Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, explicitly told Congress in late October that the administration was not pursuing regime change there, and was open to renewing direct contacts if the country resolved the issue of its detained al-Qaeda suspects.
"It is not up to the United States to choose Iran's future," Mr Armitage said. He repeatedly quoted Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer awarded the Nobel peace prize, as saying change had to come from within.
What officials described as a US opening to Iran had been approved by Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, in response to Iran's agreement to allow unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities and suspend its uranium enrichment programme.
For several years before it invaded Iraq, the US funded Iraqi opposition parties, notably the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmad Chalabi, a close friend of AEI. But efforts by neo-conservatives and supporters in Congress to extend official US aid to Iranian groups have come to nothing, so far.
AEI, from whose ranks the administration draws advisers, such as Richard Perle, has set out to question the assessment of the Central Intelligence Agency and others that outright US support of the opposition would only serve to discredit it inside Iran. So, who better to ask than the Iranians themselves?
Using the offices of AEI and the radio station's equipment, the Farsi-language programme presented by Saeed Farahani called the first "activist" in Iran. The Washington audience donned headphones for simultaneous interpretation.
"Reforms have no chance. We gave [President Mohammad] Khatami more than six years and nothing happened," declared a woman, describing herself as a "housewife and activist".
Mr Farahani explained that, to protect its listeners, the radio station would call the activists on pre-arranged numbers and that they would use pseudonyms.
He dialled "Nargess". She too was frustrated with the failure of the president's reforms and believed that no religion was compatible with democracy.
Tellingly, Nargess said the lack of leadership had hurt the opposition movement and suggested that Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah, could play a role.
Most of the Los Angeles-based exile radio stations have monarchist leanings and several listeners reflected those views. While Mr Pahlavi, now a resident of Virginia, has the backing of some AEI members, the panel of exiled opposition activists assembled in Washington to go on air represented a broader spectrum.
Manda Zand Ervin, head of the International Alliance of Iranian Women, served under the Shah before the 1979 Islamic revolution and is regarded as close to the monarchists.
Roozbeh Farahanipour is a nationalist with Hezbeh Marzeh Por Gohar (the Glorious Frontiers party). Aryo Pirouznia works with the Student Movement Co-ordination Committee, and Ramin Parham has founded the Iran Institute for Democracy.
All are professed secular democrats, but they are also virtually unknown inside Iran. The US-based opposition websites and radio and television stations, their signals sometimes jammed by the Iranians (most recently from Cuban territory), tend to exaggerate the size of their audiences and impact of their messages.
Due to a mix of fear, apathy and lack of organisation, opposition calls to Iranians to flood the streets in protest on the occasion of various symbolic anniversaries have tended to fall on deaf ears.
So far. Ms Pletka said the broadcast was an experiment, intended to stir debate within the Bush administration, and it put the Iranian leadership on notice.
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