Back to Brief on Iran
[Excerpts from an article by Arnold Beichman]
The firing by Iran of a missile capable of reaching Israel, Saudi Arabia or any other neighboring country as well as U.S. troops and warships in the Persian Gulf area is the ominous first stage of a new Middle East crisis. Why new? Because a nuclear-tipped Iranian missile need only be off by a fraction of a degree and not only Jews but also Palestinians could be part of the consequent slaughter, as well as Jerusalem's holy antiquities.
…The Shahab missile has been built for aggression because Iran is the uncompromising enemy of Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia's sacerdotal domination…
But Iran isn't waiting to perfect its weapons of mass destruction before it acts. Iran's ayatollahs operate the most powerful terrorist system in the world. A State Department-approved Voice of America editorial May 10 charged that not only does Iran continue "to provide training, money, or weapons to some of the world's deadliest terrorist groups, including Hizbollah, Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad," but also that Iran hosted a terrorist conference of these groups in the fall of 1997.
In April, Sheikh Ahmad Yassim, Hamas' founder-leader, made a public visit to Iran. He received not only by Superior Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but also by the State Department's favorite "moderate," President Khatami. A State Department report linked Hamas to three suicide bombings in Israel in 1997.
There is only one way to quell Iran's campaign of international terrorism and its threat to regional stability, let alone world peace, without going war. The Iranian people… must be encouraged to overthrow the dictatorship of the ayatollahs. Former Ambassador James Akins, one of our best-informed Middle East experts, recently described to a congressional committee the ever-growing popular opposition to theocratic Iran, adding that "the time to prepare for its overthrow has arrived."
… the United Sates should link up with the National Council of Resistance, the leading secular movement fighting the Iranian regime. Thousands of Iranians in exile massed on June 21 at the 44,000-seat Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France, for the World Cup U.S.-Iran soccer match (which Iran won 2-1). They wore T-shirts bearing the likeness of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Iranian Resistance. The Council claims to have an army on the Iraq border with Iran and the ayatollah regime has testified to its existence by bombing their hideouts.
What are we waiting for? Delay in the fight against Iran is a danger to world peace and American security.
U.S. Sees Iran Medium-Range Missile Deployed Soon, Reuters, July 28
WASHINGTON - The United States expects Iran to deploy in the not-too-distant future a medium-range ballistic missile system capable of threatening Washington allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk gave the assessment at a meeting with defense reporters, at which he also said the United States believed Tehran was vigorously pursuing a clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons.
Even more threatening than the Shehab-3 was the long-range Shehab-4 system which Iran was also developing. Indyk said a test of that system was thought to be two to five years away.
Perhaps most ominous was the Iranian nuclear program, about which Indyk said there were large gaps in U.S. knowledge.
In the past, when strapped for cash, the Iranians had cut back on conventional arms spending while continuing their unconventional programs, Indyk said.
Police Bar Student Rally, Associated Press, July 28
TEHRAN - Police stopped a student rally in Iran before it even got started Tuesday.
A half-dozen students -- apparently an advance team -- stood outside the Tehran University gate for an hour before police ordered them away.
University guards and plainclothes intelligence officials prevented them from entering the campus, telling them they lacked a permit. Riot police waited nearby, but were not deployed.
Tensions have been high in Iran amid a power struggle between President Khatami and religious hard-liners determined to keep their grip on power.
The police forces remain under the control of the hard-liners. One student was seen being taken away by police, apparently for questioning.
In another incident, Islamic militants angered over a weekly newspaper's decision to publish an anonymous letter criticizing the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, threw a small gasoline bomb at the paper's office on Monday. No one was injured.
[In a statement issued from Paris, the NCR declared that: The ban on a rally by a group loyal to one of the regime's internal factions demonstrates that the theocratic regime ruling Iran cannot tolerate any dissent whatsoever and that claims about "civil society" and the "rule of law" in a system based on the principle of "velayat-e faqih (absolute supremacy of the mullahs) are baseless and far removed from reality.]