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Autor: calimero902@yahoo.de (Calimero) (2003-06-30 12:28:08)
Statt uns im Klein-Klein über den Irak zu verstreiten, sollten wir
unser Augenmerk auf das nächste zu befreiende Land richten. Der
nachfolgende sehr instruktive Artikel weist auf die Gefahren hin,
gegenüber dem Mullahpack zuviel Zurückhaltung an den Tag zu legen.
Hoffentlich ist dieses Mal eine offene militärische Intervention
überflüssig.
Jetzt ist der CIA mal dran. Wozu bezahlen wir diesen liberalen Haufen
von "spooks" denn eigentlich?
The Danger of Appeasement
By Michael A. Ledeen
Jerusalem Post
Publication Date: June 27, 2003
Lacking the gift of prophecy, none of us is able to foresee the
immediate outcome of the wave of demonstrations that have swept Iran
for the past two weeks, and continue to erupt almost every night in
one of the countrys cities.
The mullahs, whose ruinous policies and arrogant decimation of the
Iranian people are the causes of the uprising, show a clear pattern of
fear, above all by importing Arab-speaking thugs - most recently from
the ranks of Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Badr Brigades in Iraq - to
club and slash the demonstrators into submission. Evidently the regime
does not have full confidence in its own security forces, and while it
is hard to judge such things from a great distance, it is generally
wise to rely on the reaction of the oppressors.
The mayhem has been considerable. Here again, it is hard to judge
which of the various reports is closest to the truth, but estimates of
those incarcerated in the past two weeks range as high as 3,700.
Hundreds have been wounded badly enough to require emergency
treatment, and scores have been killed. Most of the victims are young,
even by the standards of contemporary Iran, where more than 60% of the
population is under 30. In Mashad two nights ago, for example, the
local judiciary announced that half of those arrested were under 15,
and hence would have to be judged by special courts. This is terrible
news for those who, like me, have been calling for the civilized
countries of the world to support the Iranian peoples heartfelt cry
for freedom. It is terrible that so many young people are dying at the
hands of a regime that not only oppresses its own people but sends
killers abroad, from Lebanon to Iraq to Israel, Saudi Arabia and
Argentina.
And it is terrible that so many of the so-called leaders of Western
countries have remained mostly silent, and have done nothing concrete
to advance freedom in Iran. Not a word from the secretary-general of
the United Nations, Kofi Annan. Not a word from the cynically corrupt
prime minister of France, Jacques Chirac. Not a word from the suddenly
tongue-tied chancellor of Germany, or from the European Union now
hell-bent on posing as a potent military and diplomatic force - and
only mild lip-service from the multitudes of peace-seekers of the
Davos Forum that gathered in Jordan last week.
No demands - save from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
(and even those in largely muted tones) - for the release of the
political prisoners, many of whom are undergoing horrific tortures.
With one exception - the admirable Journalistes sans frontieres - no
insistence upon the release of the several journalists now suffering
in Iranian prisons.
Where is the outrage? Why is there no support for the demands of the
demonstrators - shared by the overwhelming majority of the people,
according to several soundings of public opinion - for a national
referendum on the political system, to be followed by free elections?
The arrest of a single woman in Myanmar has generated great outrage,
but thousands of arrests and scores of murders in Iran provoke a
feeble echo.
To be sure, both Tony Blair and George Bush have spoken bravely and
clearly on behalf of the Iranian democracy movement. President Bush
has done so several times, and in recent days both National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell have
picked up the theme. But these welcome expressions of concern have not
been accompanied by policies designed to advance Iranian democracy,
even though everybody knows that the Iranian regime, the worlds
number one supporter of international terrorism (including as it does
many leading al-Qaida killers), is hell-bent on the manufacture of
atomic weapons.
Rarely has a threat been so clear, and rarely has a lack of response
been so astonishing. The fecklessness of the civilized countries is
encouraged by some highly imaginative arguments on behalf of
appeasement from the intelligentsia, ranging from those who have
convinced themselves that gradual "reform" is still possible, to
those
who claim that support for the Iranian people would somehow undermine
their cause. Nothing new here; we heard the same thing during the Cold
War, when support for the dissident movement was rejected on similar
grounds. And we heard the same thing in 1991, when the Iraqi Shiites
and Kurds were abandoned to the vengeance of Saddam Hussein.
Appeasement always comes at a price, and in the current crisis the
Iranian people are paying it with their lives. But if we continue to
appease the mullahs, we will pay more and more, first in the loss of
lives on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iranian-backed
terrorists, saboteurs and religious fanatics are operating against
coalition troops and those engaged in the rebuilding of those
countries, and then in the inevitable terror attacks against our own
countries.
The war against the terror masters is a war of freedom against
tyranny. The tyrants support terrorists against the free countries,
and against their friends and allies. Iran is the most powerful, the
most brilliant, and the most lethal of those tyrannical regimes, and
is the keystone of the terror network.
If we are serious about winning the war against terrorism, sooner or
later we will have to confront the mullahs. Far better now, when the
Iranian people are fighting our war for us, than later, when many more
of them have been killed, broken or mutilated, and when the regime is
able to brandish atom bombs to deter our cause.
Max Eberl
--
"We will end those states." (Paul Wolfowitz)