Iran's Internal Troubles--Condi Rice No Help

There's a lot going on in Iran.

Too bad Condi Rice doesn't have control of the State Department; otherwise, this could turn out well for the US.

News coming from Iran these days runs the gamut from the specter of the terrorist/rogue state poised to acquire nuclear weapons to the hopeful defection and disappearance of one of its top military men, Gen. Ashgari. The media seem to be overwhelmed by this 1938-like moment and not up to the task of reporting a story so multifaceted and so frightening. Perhaps this is because the events assume a fiction-like aura. Missing is one positive aspect of the crisis: Iran is fighting, on numerous fronts, its own revolutionaries.

...Over the past few years, Iranian Kurds in the Northwest have launched more attacks, but in the lawless Southeast province of Baluchistan, the attacks are the most lethal and dramatic. In December 2005, a Baluchi group called Jundallah (God brigade) attacked Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s motorcade, killing one bodyguard. On Feb. 14, 2007, the same group killed 11 elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces and wounded 31 others in a bus bombing using weapons similar to those the Iranian regime is smuggling into Iraq. Two days later, Jundallah forces waged an all-out gun battle with Iranian security forces right in the Baluchi capital city of Zahedan.

...I also asked Roya [an Iranian expat living in California] if she had any information regarding the mysterious defection of Gen. Ashgari. She told me that her sources have told her that there would be many high-level defections coming soon. In fact, the mullahs have been alerted and are conducting Stalinist-like purges of suspected traitors and have just imprisoned another high-level intelligence officer, Mashallah Abas Zadeh.

...Finally, there is the case of Kazemeini Boroorjerdi. He is a mullah also in prison in Tehran. His crime is advocating separation of mosque and state and peace with the West. He and several of his family members are in prison in Tehran. While he awaits his inevitable execution, his own mother has died under torture.

I spoke to Ken Timmerman, author of Countdown to Crisis, The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, and asked him to comment on the revolutionary movements inside Iran. He said: “Groups such as Jundallah exist because there is a broad base of resentment against this regime. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Iranians reject the regime. ... But what we need to be doing is finding a way to get all of these groups to work together rather than supporting separate wars. What’s needed is a coordinated nationwide movement. A violent revolution will only open a Pandora’s box for a future dictator.”

Asked if the U.S. is making strides in that direction, Timmerman said: “No. My greatest regret is that we continue to miss real opportunities to assist the pro-democracy forces [inside Iran]. I can’t emphasize too strongly that the entrenched bureaucracy at the State Department has hijacked the pro-democracy funding put in place by the White House and steered it towards so-called reformers such as the former president, Rafsanjani. We’re funding groups in Iran who only seek to reform the attitudes of the West toward the Islamic Republic.”

Notice that there are Shi'ites who believe in 'separation of church and state' as Vatican sources have stated clearly (see earlier post).

The US State Department has a track record (going back to FDR's days, at least) of independence from US interests, or of serving interests directly in conflict with the US' interests--or serving as an employer of subversives.

Other commentators have remarked that Secretary Rice is 'in way over her head' at State; this is merely another straw in the wind.