Iran Updates, by the Committee for the Present Danger

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Another diplomatic overture, another Iranian rebuke

On June 14th, the European Union’s foreign policy czar, Javier Solana, visited Tehran to offer Iran’s leaders a new diplomatic package designed to defuse the international crisis over their nuclear program. The generous offer included, among other things, a plan to establish a uranium enrichment consortium in Iran to help the Islamic Republic develop civilian nuclear energy. In return, Iran would suspend uranium enrichment while it negotiated with the West – a process European officials say will be measured in “months,” not years.

The offer was clearly weighted in Iran ’s favor so, not surprisingly, the “5+1” countries (Russia, China, the United States, France, Britain and Germany) were optimistic about its prospects. “I hope that the answer will be soon and positive,” Solana told reporters after presenting the offer to Iranian leaders.Iran’s ayatollahs, however, appear to have other ideas. “If the package includes suspension it is not debatable at all,” an Iranian government spokesman announced just hours after his government received the new proposal. The message could not be clearer: Iran now views nuclear capability as non-negotiable, and its leaders see greater security in continuing to enrich uranium than in any deal they might be able to hammer out with the West. All of which should give pause to the politicians, analysts, and statesmen now expounding the virtues of unconditional “engagement” with the Islamic Republic, since their preferred course of action will virtually guarantee that a nuclear Iran becomes a reality. But don’t bet on it.

Updated: 16th June 2008
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Confronting Iran: U.S. options: Harnessing All Elements of U.S. Power

How can the United States prevent the emergence of an emboldened Iran with nuclear weapons? By harnessing all elements of U.S. power “into a strategy that focuses on three key concrete goals…counterproliferation, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency,” says a new report from the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

If successful, the strategy would prevent Iran from developing the nuclear capability on which it is making real progress, curtail its ability to sponsor terrorist groups that increasingly destabilize the region, and curb its meddling in Iraq, according to Confronting Iran: U.S. Options[i], the product of a working group co-chaired by McCormick’s Brig. Gen David L. Grange (ret.) and AFPC’s Ilan Berman (a member of the Committee on the Present Danger).

Such a strategy requires action in four key areas. Those areas, and the steps required in each, include:

Diplomatic and international efforts to:
· Educate Americans about the threat of Iran;
· Enhance broadcasting into Iran;
· Spread Western ideas across Iran;
· Use new media to better communicate with Iran’s next generation of leaders;
· De-legitimize the current regime;
· Empower the regime’s opponents; and
· Clearly inform the regime about the costs of its continued rogue behavior.

Intelligence initiatives to:
· Revive human intelligence capabilities within Iran;
· Obtain better access to Iran-related information from our allies;
· Reform the intelligence bureaucracy to respond to, and plan against, the regime; and
· Create a more flexible legal framework to conduct intelligence operations.

Economic measures to:
· Increase the pressure on Iran’s trading partners;
· Enforce unilateral sanctions against countries and companies doing business with Iran;
· Consider embargos and blockades, particularly on Iran’s energy sector; and
· Elevate divestment efforts from state government to the federal government.

Military steps to:
· Comprehensively assess Iran’s operational and tactic vulnerabilities;
· Build the capacity for unconventional warfare within Iran;
· Target Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal to downgrade its offensive and nuclear capabilities; and
· Cut the regime’s ties to its terrorist proxies, with force if necessary.

Updated: 28th Nov. 2007
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Education – Iranian Style Prepping for War Against US and West Through School Texts"

Iran is using its school textbooks to indoctrinate its children in a global war against the “enemies of Islam,” with a special focus on the United States and the West, according to a comprehensive and alarming report from the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.

As you will see by reading the report or a summary, both available online at CMIP, Iran is training 15 million children to strive for “martyrdom” in attacks against the United States. In fact, the declared goal of the school curriculum is to prepare students for an armed struggle against the United States to put an end to “Western dominion” and establish the reign of Islam.

“Now, in order to continue the Islamic Revolution,” says a book for 7th graders, “it is our duty to continue with all [our] power our revolt against the Arrogant Ones [i.e., the United States], and the oppressors, and not cease until all Islam’s commandments and the spread of the redeeming message of ‘there is no god except Allah’ are realized in the whole world.”

For 11th graders, the message is, “America is known as an Imperialist country, which embarks on military intervention wherever it sees that its interests are in danger. It does not refrain from massacring people, burying alive the soldiers of the opposite side and using weapons of mass destruction (as it did in Iraq). It makes use of atomic bombs (the bombardment of Japan). It uses the weapons of human rights in order to suppress the justice seekers (as it does in its abuses against Islamic Iran). It creates the greatest dictatorships and the most violent and torturing security-oriented regimes, and defends them.

”The 11th graders are called to action: “O Muslims of all countries of the world! Since under the foreigners’ dominance gradual death has been inflicted on you, you should overcome the fear of death and make use of the existence of the passionate and the martyrdom-seeking youths, who are ready to smash the borders of unbelief. Do not think of keeping the status quo.”

This study is important – and directly relevant to the current debates in Washington and in other Western capitals about whether to confront or negotiate with Tehran – because it provides important insights into the regime’s long-term ambitions. We recommend it highly.

Updated: 12th Oct. 2007

Contact: Larry Haas,

Email: larry@larryhaasonline.com

- Earlier in this series: "Iran's Other Proxy War Against the West - Tehran's Troublemaking in Afghanistan"

- Related: "Berlin-Tehran: The Counter-Enlightenment Axis"

- Memri clip: "Children Show Demonstrates Iranian Perspective of Israel-Palestinian Conflict through a Bird Parable" or pedagogic revisionism in action