The Seattle Times: A bid to foment democracy in Iran

The Seattle Times: A bid to foment democracy in Iran

A bid to foment democracy in Iran

By Howard LaFranchi
The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON — With Poland's Solidarity movement of the 1980s as its model, the Bush administration wants to boost support for opposition groups inside Iran as a way to counter the actions of the government.

The implicit goal: regime change from within.

With diplomacy having so far failed to stop Iran's nuclear development, and U.S. military action seen as extremely problematic, a consensus is emerging that the only option left is a pro-democracy revolution.

But even as the U.S. urges other countries in the Middle East, or those with close ties to Iran, to join in pressuring for political change there, questions are arising over the effectiveness of internal-change-from-without programs and the degree of grass-roots support inside Iran for opposition groups. There's also the risk of such a plan backfiring.

"There's no doubt Iran has a very vibrant civil society and a growing and active youth population. But how to translate those strengths into political change — and whether the U.S. can be the external driver for that change — are big hurdles to cross," says Bahman Baktiari, a Middle East specialist at the University of Maine.

Baktiari says one problem is that because of Iranians' widespread disdain for U.S. policies — including those in Iraq — "any group identified with the U.S. loses credibility."

Beyond that, he adds, the comparison to Poland is not a good one because the Iranian regime is not as weak as Poland's dictatorship was when Solidarity challenged it.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week asked Congress for $75 million in emergency funding to immediately begin ratcheting up support for pro-democracy forces inside Iran.

The view in the administration, according to State Department officials, is that the time is ripe for such action — and for getting other countries to go along. Iran is now widely seen as having crossed "red lines," as Rice says, with its return to nuclear fuel enrichment and with repeated provocative outbursts against Israel from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The money will go toward boosting broadcasts in Farsi to Iran, support for opposition groups, and student exchanges. Rice will promote the plan this week during stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Other officials will take up the cause with Western allies — considered ready to challenge Iran after it rebuffed diplomatic efforts by Britain, France and Germany to negotiate a settlement to the nuclear crisis.

There's a risk that outside pressure for change could actually bolster the regime. U.S. efforts to build an internal opposition to Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, for example, are widely credited with having solidified support for the populist leader by allowing him to attack his opponents as U.S. stooges.

"If the administration follows the path of putting money into opposition groups in a public way, that will only reinforce Iran's supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and his selected president, Mr. Ahmadinejad," says Raymond Tanter, a National Security Council Middle East specialist during the first Bush administration. "They will be tarred by association" with the U.S.

The U.S. may be forced to look again, he says, at the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK), a longtime opposition group to the Iran regime that is also on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

"Other opposition groups really don't exist," says Tanter, who spent four months studying Iran's opposition before reaching that conclusion. "If we are serious about working with groups from within, it will have to be with the MEK, because there's no other opposition force the regime cares about."

Last month, Rice repeated publicly the U.S. policy of not working with the MEK. The group is accused of terrorist acts, including killing American citizens working in Iran in the 1970s. But several members of Congress are pressing to remove the MEK from the terror-group list, and Tanter sees "the door opening" in the administration to renewed recognition of the group.

The Council for Democratic Change in Iran, based in Washington, welcomes signs of external support for Iran's opposition, says spokesman Mehdi Marand. But the Bush administration approach is not the most productive, he adds.

"The problem right now is not financial, it's political," he says. "If the U.S. really wants to help the democratic forces inside Iran, the only way is to remove restrictions from the opposition."

Others say U.S. association with the MEK would be unwise. The MEK lost credibility and support among Iranians when it received support and sanctuary from Saddam Hussein, says Baktiari.