Israel Matzav

Iranian exile rips US-EU 'engagement' policy

Writing from exile in Germany, an Iranian author rips the European strategy of 'engagement' with the Ahmadinejad regime. He also rips the American adoption of the European policy since Barack Hussein Obama came to power.

Sure, France immediately condemned the violence against peaceful protesters and called for "a political solution." Italy called "for a dialogue with the opposition." And the United States and Germany joined with their talk of the Iranian people's "universal rights" (U.S. National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammer) and that the world "will observe and not look away," in the words of German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.

These words sound hollow to the Iranian people. Over the past 30 years, the West has done nothing except to "look away" whenever Iranians were oppressed, tortured and murdered. What only really counted, particularly for Europeans, was trade. And now six months after the emergence of powerful yet peaceful resistance that is bringing down one of the most brutal dictatorships of our age, the international community still has not been able to put the needs and wishes of the millions of freedom-loving Iranians at the center of its Iran policy. Words of solidarity mean nothing if they are not followed by tough action.

Since the rigged June elections, there can be no more doubt that this regime is as illegitimate is it is oppressive. And yet it was precisely during this period of popular unrest against the mullahs that the free world restarted negotiations with Tehran. This was a stunning betrayal. A betrayal of the freedom-seeking people of Iran and a betrayal of our own universal values. Despite the pictures of millions of Iranians risking their lives for freedom, the international community refuses to acknowledge and support the democratic, peaceful and prosperous alternative to the Islamist rulers. People in the West still think this all about the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and don't recognize that it is regime change that the Iranian people want.

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It is obvious that these young and educated Iranians, literally connected with the world through new information technology, want to overcome tyranny. But these facts have never shaped Europe's Iran strategy. Instead, Europe insisted on keeping up a "dialogue" with a brutal apparatus of power that does not even respect its own citizens, let alone people in the West. The talk about dialogue was of course only camouflage to cover up the trade and appeasement.

And since this year, even the new U.S. administration has joined this appeasement policy. It's a failed policy that has already cost so many lives of my fellow Iranians. It has brought the Islamic Republic closer to nuclear weapons, endangering the entire region.

How can the world ignore what's going on in Iran? The same way it ignored what went on in Europe during the Holocaust, in Stalinist Russia, in Pol Pot's Cambodia and in the Darfur region of the Sudan (and I'm not trying to equate any of those - only to point them out). The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sorry to disappoint you but Barack Obama isn't that much different than a host of other leaders who have appeared on the World stage.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:34 PM