I recently saw a good interview with Reza Aslan, in which he described the inherent problems with the Bush administration reaching out to reformers in Tehran.
“This is the dirty little secret about Iran, that it is the most vibrant, the most robust, and the most successful democracy in the whole of the Middle East outside of Israel,” Aslan said. “They’ve got the civil and the democratic institutions at the grassroots level, the women’s rights groups, the human rights groups — everything that you actually need in order to have a slow, nurturing, successful democracy. But the problem is, every time the president reaches out to the Iranian people, every time he says, ‘We’re with you against your government,’ they say, ‘Leave us out of this. Stop reaching out to us!'”
Aslan added, “The more we [bluster about a confrontation with Iran], the more that [Iranian officials], in the name of national security, clamp down on these democratic institutions.”
And in case we needed proof, here’s an example of what Aslan was talking about.
Tehran’s jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year old grandmother who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, as well as the interrogation of others with similar papers, is evidence that Washington’s latest attempt to foist change on Iran is backfiring — as Iranian democracy advocates had warned. The Bush administration had trumpeted its $61.1 million democracy program, including Farsi-language broadcasts into Iran, education and cultural exchanges and $20 million worth of support for “civil society, human rights, democratic reform and related outreach” as an important effort.
However, sources tell TIME that several key Iranian reformers had repeatedly warned U.S. officials through back channels that the pro-democracy program was bound to expose them as vulnerable targets for a government crackdown whether they took Washington’s funds or not.
What, you mean the administration blew off accurate warnings about a flawed policy in the Middle East that ended up producing the opposite of the desired goal? Why, that never happens.
Iranian civil rights activists contacted by TIME say that the cases against the Iranian-Americans have fostered the most repressive atmosphere inside Iran in years, making democracy advocates terrified to work or even speak on the telephone. Many are deeply reluctant to leave or re-enter the country, fearing that they will meet the same fate as Esfandiari, who was initially detained while heading to the airport after an eight-day visit to Iran to see her 93-year old mother. She and at least two other Iranian-Americans were charged with espionage. Esfandiari is the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mideast Program in Washington. The Wilson Center has strongly denied that she or the center has received any of the Bush administration’s funds.
Esfandiari has been a vocal proponent of greater dialogue between the U.S. and Iranian governments as a means of facilitating moderation in Iran and easing international tensions. “It is preposterous that she is accused of conspiring to overthrow the Iranian government by organizing conferences and encouraging dialogue between Iranians and Americans,” says her husband, Shaul Bakhash, a noted Middle East scholar.
TIME’s sources, who do not want to be identified for fear of retribution, say that they repeatedly warned about the negative consequences in informal talks that have been taking place for several years between figures in the U.S. and Iran who are close to their respective governments. Similar warnings were delivered to U.S. officials by others, including Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. “We had talks with the State Department and with lawmakers,” Parsi told TIME. “We pointed out the dangers. Our advice was not taken into consideration. Things have turned out worse than we expected.”
Do you ever get the sense that maybe the Bush administration just doesn’t know what it’s doing?