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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (201934)	11/11/2001 2:04:14 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I think Muslims want freedom. Everyone wants freedom. The type of freedom America offers. The problem is, we support despots in the interest of stability, now including the dicatator from Pakistan. This is wrong. Very very wrong. So, how do we respond to Iranians, if the scenario outlined in yesterday's Washington Post is accurate? November 10, 2001 10:41 What U.S. newspapers are saying Washington Post In its dealings with the Arab world, the United States faces notionally pro-American states that all too often pander to anti-American popular opinion. In its dealings with Iran, the nation faces the opposite phenomenon. The ayatollahs who still control much of the apparatus of state power routinely denounce the "Great Satan," and last Sunday they staged the usual Nov. 4 anti-American demonstration to commemorate the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy. But ordinary Iranians are increasingly pro-American. They have demonstrated against the theocracy by dancing in public to Western rock music, an illegal act that led to mass detentions. And on Sunday there was a pro-American demonstration at Tehran University. The Iranian irony shows the complex interaction between American ideals and American statecraft. The ideal of individual freedom has a broad and powerful appeal, especially in a country that has suffered under oppressive anti-American Islamists. But that appeal can be muddied by American diplomacy, even though this is far from the intention. Disgruntled Egyptians and Saudis see that their autocratic governments are supported by the United States, and so dismiss American idealism as empty. It is the lack of American involvement with Iran's government that enables ordinary Iranians to love America. That lesson points to a dilemma for the Bush administration. Iran's pro-American drift makes it tempting to drop sanctions and engage the country, or at least the democratic half of its two-headed polity. Alongside the mullahs, Iran has an elected parliament and moderate president, who would happily engage with the United States if the constitution gave him more power to challenge the theocracy. Moreover, Iran hates Afghanistan's Taliban regime and has long backed the Northern Alliance, which the United States is now arming. Iran has promised to help rescue American personnel from Afghanistan if need be, and it has cooperated with some American requests for help in delivering aid to Afghan refugees. For European governments, this is enough: Several have held high-level meetings with Iranian leaders recently. But the United States should be cautious in following. Iran's foreign and security policies remain dominated by the unreconstructed mullahs, who back terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, who may have been behind the 1996 killing of American servicemen in Saudi Arabia and who are bent on developing weapons of mass destruction. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of Iran's judiciary, recently summed up the view of this wing of the government: "Our national interests lie with antagonizing the Great Satan," he stated. Two-thirds of Iran's 69 million people were born after the revolution that gave birth to that epithet: Time is on the side of the westernizers. It would be a mistake for the Bush administration to warm relations without serious progress in reining in Iran's nuclear program and terrorist links. At this stage, exploratory talks and some cooperation may make sense. But embracing Iran's autocrats would be a mistake, as Iran itself teaches. newsalert.com