How to undermine the Iranian regime
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, James K. Glassman and Michael Doran explain how the United States government can support the 'green revolution' and undermine the Iranian regime. Such a policy would have four separate tasks:Of course, to do this, the Obama administration would first have to decide that it wishes to get rid of the Ahmadinejad regime. So far, it has been more interested in propping up that regime through 'engagement.'
• Provide moral and educational support for the Green Revolution. Here third parties, rather than the U.S. government, should play the main role. Dissidents should be reminded that others have succeeded on the same path they are travelling.
We should, for instance, publicize reports on what worked in Ukraine or Georgia, spread testimony by leaders like the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel, and distribute, in Farsi, guides to nonviolent change like Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy" and Peter Ackerman's "A Force More Powerful." It's time to dub into Farsi documentaries on the fall of Ceausescu, Milosevic and Pinochet; the transitions in South Africa and Poland; and the achievements of the U.S. civil-rights movement.
• Tighten sanctions on the Iranian economy and publicize the connection between regime belligerence and economic malaise. Despite Iran's oil wealth, the economy has for years been in miserable shape thanks to bad management, corruption and the squandering of funds on Arab terrorist groups and the nuclear program. The slogans of the protestors demonstrate that they are connecting the dots between the regime's foreign policy and economic privation.
• Do all we can to increase communications within Iran, as well as between Iran and the outside world. Opposition movements succeed through sharing and disseminating information. Broadcasting by the taxpayer-funded Radio Farda and Voice of America satellite TV should be ramped up, and we should encourage the U.K. to do the same with the BBC. We also should vigorously protest attempts by Iran to jam broadcast signals in defiance of international law, back private media—from satellite TV pitched at young people to cell-phone messaging to social networking—and help Iranians get the technology to overcome regime attempts to block and censor.
• Finally, we should refute, in campaign style, the four key propositions of Iranian propaganda. These are that the reformers are unrepresentative and unpatriotic; that the U.S. is in decline and wants to cut a deal with Iran and extricate itself from the Middle East; that Iran's nuclear program will advance the country technologically; and that international opposition to the program is a Western plot to keep Iran, as a Muslim nation, poor and backward.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:28 PM
4 Comments:
Oh My G-d!!
Everyone writing about how to prop up the Green Revolution as though there is as much time to waste in either direction as there are grains of sand~
All this wishful thinking of undermining the Iranian regime is nothing more then deflecting from the real threat which means the inhalation of Israel.
Does anyone really understand there is literally no more time? Past US administrations sucked up any available time by diddling or doing nothing. We certainly know for a fact world leaders led by the impotent Jew hating UN chewed up time like it was popcorn.
Undermining the Iranian regime will take years, not months!
The debate on what Obama is not doing and what he should do is nauseating me. He along with the rest of the world will do nothing.
NOTHING.
We are freaking running out of time while the dance of dunces (including us) continues.
the WSJ article you link to seems to think military action is unlikely. a terrorist state is building a bomb and they see military action as unlikely? unlikely because we are idiots maybe.
propaganda through advanced technology is always a great idea. in fact the Iranians have been doing it to us all decade through the likes of a relationship through Robert Scoble @Scobleizer and his social media scene on twitter and friendfeed, who while disloyal to the Iranian regime is very loyal to the Green Revolution and strangely PressTV
Do not be so sure that the tech scene is loyal to Western interests. Iranian tech politics might not be in unison, but they are far from interested in being pals with us.
The Gulf States have been begging the UN and the USA to free the Tunb islands and Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf, illegally and militarily occupied by Iran since 1971. The UAE have attempted to bring the dispute before the International Court of Justice, but Iran refuses to do so. There is no political will to solve this problem, let alone to change the despotic regime of Tehran!
Obama pushing for regime change in Tehran? In your dreams!
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