If the Iranian Clerical Regime Does Not Fall, Bush and Blair Will Be Ashamed - 2003-06-12

If the Iranian clerical regime does not fall, Bush and Blair will be ashamed - June 12, 2003. Michael Ledeen, Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2003. The same fears that gripped the leaders of the former Soviet Union, the fear of being besieged among hostile countries, have also seized the clerics in Iran. For an outside observer, accurately assessing the capabilities of an anti-authoritarian movement in another country has always been difficult. However, today, there are far stronger reasons to have a positive assessment of the democratic movement in Iran than there were to defend the democratic movement in the Soviet Union; unless the lust for oil money blinds the West to defend the Iranian people's opposition to the Islamic regime. Those who have taken to the streets of Iran over the past two years are led by 'students'; but do not think these students are like the youth of Paris or Northern California in the sixties. Some of these students are over thirty or forty years old, and years of struggle in the streets, prisons, and torture have hardened them. The Islamic regime knows what a formidable force is seeking its destruction and has recently issued a special order to use lethal force against demonstrators preparing to commemorate the 18th of Tir. Among the repressive measures is an order banning interviews with foreign Persian-language media, except for the BBC, Radio Moscow, and Radio France International. All experts agree that Iran is the main supporter of terrorism. Hezbollah is a creation of Iran, and the Revolutionary Guards have a foreign legion that has sent its Muslim missionaries as far as North Africa and South America. Iraq's support for terrorism in counter to Iran's activities is of no account. Currently, three governments are at war for their survival in Iraq: Iran, the United States, and Britain. If Iran can drive the coalition out of Iraq, George Bush and Tony Blair will know the meaning of defeat and humiliation, and we will have lost one of the major battles against terrorism. But if we defeat the clerics and freedom prevails in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, we will change the world, and the terrorists will be finished.