President Bush Should Engage Iran's Reform Movement
As the "rent-a-crowds" of the clerical regime in Tehran prepare to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of the Islamic Republic by chanting their customary "Death to America," U.S. policy makers grapple with a continuing problem: how to deal with Iran.
As the "rent-a-crowds" of the clerical regime in Tehran prepare
to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of the Islamic Republic by
chanting their customary "Death to America," U.S. policy makers
grapple with a continuing problem: how to deal with Iran.
The United States should not invest its diplomatic and political energies
on apologizing for "past mistakes" in exchange for normalization
of relations with Tehran. Instead, Washington must lend its moral support
to Iran's nascent reform movement much like we did with dissident movements
in the Soviet bloc, says Fariborz Ghadar, director of the Center for Global
Business Studies in Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration.
"Within Iran the youth who make up a majority of the population,
journalists of reformist newspapers, junior clerics who question the legitimacy
of clerical rule and women are at the forefront of defying the ruling
theocrats. They are Washington's natural allies. President Bush should
use the up-coming Iranian New Year (March 20) to outline his vision of
engagement and collaboration between these groups and America," says
Ghadar.
