Amil Imani

A Call to New Resolve
August 29, 2009
 

Unlike anything encountered in recent memory, the formidably complex and unique situation present in today’s Iran poses an enormous challenge. It defies any conventional solution, and simply resorting to civil disobedience is the equivalent of fighting off a pack of hungry and blood-thirsty wolves with tooth-picks! The incredibly ruthless, deceptive, and cunning nature of the present regime, bundled together with an Islamic modus operandi, creates an enigma and a number of paradoxes.

It goes without saying that learning about peaceful movements and bloodless revolutions is intrinsically valuable and can help the people. But, regretfully, that alone does not work in Iran. A Gandhi or Martin Luther King type of resistance may indeed be useful tactics, but that by itself does not work in a totalitarian state of Islamofascism. Not when Khamenei is getting his orders from "Allah.”

Quran 8:60: "Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster that you may strike terror in the enemies of Allah, and others besides them not known to you.”

Ali Khamenei and his handpicked agent of "Saheb-ul-Zaman” (the lord of the age, Mahdi), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are sworn enemies of Iran and its culture. Have no doubt about it, they have no trouble killing millions of unarmed Iranians before they start running and hiding in a hole, like Saddam Hussein.

The Western leaders and, in particular, President Obama, must know that Ahmadinejad and his ilk are not interested in any negotiation, any compromise or live-and-let-live policy. You cannot negotiate co-existence with Islamofascists any more than the Clinton administration succeeded with its compact with North Korea. Before the ink dried on the Clinton-North Korea agreement, the North Koreans embarked on cheating. Now, we are faced with a suicidal-genocidal adversary with nuclear weapons headed by a megalomaniac playboy.

The ruthless mullahs of Iran are plenty evil without the bomb. With the bomb, the end is truly at hand. Some influential pundits pontificate that we can live with a nuclear Islamists in Iran, if it comes to that. They argue that the Islamists would never use the bomb. Because the mullahs, the fanatic zanies as they may be, are not going to risk Iran becoming a radioactive parking lot by the massive U.S. retaliation. Wrong. The civilized people cherish and celebrate life. The Islamists relish death as stated in their ideology and practiced daily.

Once again, these well-heeled know-it-all pundits are seeing things through their own spectacles. The mullahs have no compunctions about killing tens of thousands of their own people. They have set up a "Special Court of the Clergy” to try and imprison any of their own clerics who dare to oppose their doomsday designs. They even arrest and torture the ordinarily untouchable ayatollahs for speaking up for the rule of law and tolerance.

Obama’s administration must have no doubt about the Khomeinist regime’s steadfastness to its cause even if it means its own annihilation. If invoking catastrophe will expedite their Mahdi’s arrival, their sentiment is "let’s do it.”

President Obama should reconsider his good faith gesture of opening dialogue with this brutal, inhumane and illegitimate Islamic government. The Islamic Republic has no respect for the olive branches being extended to it by the Obama administration; it still continues with full-speed ahead in its quest for nuclear weaponry — and the power to intimidate the region as well as the entire world.

The best predictor of the future is the past. The religious fanatic mullahs’ record is one of deception, dissimulation, treachery, violence and much more. These Quran-trained and directed agents of a wrathful Allah can never be trusted. They are master schemers. They have been at the business of scheming for centuries. They have perfected the art of deception, doubletalk, double-dealing and treachery.

It is for this reason that any type of Obama’s overture to this illegitimate government will only embolden them and their iron fists will be tighter than ever before, especially towards the Iranian people. Let us hope that President Obama does not follow the democratic genius; Jimmy Carter’s handling of the 1979 Revolution in Iran. The 1979 uprising of the Iranian people was hardly Islamic until Carter and his advisors decided to support the mullahs, instead of going to the aid of the secular Iranians who yearned for a democratic society.

The Western world must rid themselves of the "happy talk” as we tranquilize ourselves by reasoning that these doddering old-world religious fools may be mischievous, but they could never do real harm. Oh, sure, they might be arming some Iraqi Shiites, killing a few US soldiers, providing a little support for Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas terrorists in Palestine, building several bases in South America and Africa, murdering Iranian people and calling for the eradication of Israel—but they have no global destructive capacity. After all, we pacify ourselves that we’re not exactly talking about criminal masterminds like Hitler, or are we?

Islamic clergy, the parasitic prime beneficiaries of Islam, are master practitioners of the carrot and stick strategy. By drawing heavily from the Quran and the Hadith, the conniving mullahs and imams have assembled a potent arsenal of threats and promises to keep the faithful in line. They had little trouble in so doing, by shooting at peaceful demonstrators, killing a large number of unarmed people and arresting tens of thousands of protesters since the June 12, 2009 election.

They call the demonstrators who just want their voices to be heard "terrorists," "thugs” and "agents of foreign governments.” If they do not shoot people outright, they savagely attack them with knives, axes, chains, batons and any other crude weapons they can get their hands on. Many people with broken legs or arms could not even go to hospitals because they would be picked up at the hospitals and taken to jail.

As soon as they arrive at jail, they are beaten up again so savagely that they break down and confess to what the government asks them to confess to and then they are paraded in front of the state-run TV cameras so that the public can hear their "confessions.” There is no doubt that torture and other threats were used in show trials to force the victims confess. They are following the blueprint of "Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s” show trials and confessions.

While detained and in custody of butchers of Evin and other prisons, they are savagely raped and beaten to death. These agents of terror are brainwashed and trained to believe any defiance to the supreme leader as defiance to their God, "Allah.”

How about the recent infighting among the Mullahs? The infighting within the establishment is all about survival. One bunch is having it all while another is sidelined. We must understand that there has never been one united house of the Mullahs. Mullahs are like packs of wolves. Each pack hunts and eats its prey. Packs of wolves fight one another for valued prey, particularly in the face of scarcity.

The coffer of the Islamic Republic of Iran is flush with the extortion-high oil revenues. A reasonable question is: why don’t the Mullahs simply share the wealth and attend to the business of fighting the external enemy? When it comes to money, enough is never enough. "There is enough to meet everyone’s need, but not enough to meet everyone’s greed,” observed Gandhi. And greed is in the very bones of the Mullahs, since it is the only way that parasites know how to live.
 

Another point that needs clarification is the myth widely circulated by the mainstream media and the ivory tower pundits: the claim that there is a major division among Shiites regarding the relationship of the mosque and the state. Let this myth be dispelled once and for all.

There is absolutely no such division among the Shiites. The perceived difference is in fact a strategic one. One camp, led by the late ayatollah Khomeini, believes that it is admissible for the Mullahs to rule the state directly, as is the case in the present Iran. The other camp believes that the Mullahs should only supervise the civilian government. In other words, one group wants to be the king, while the other wants to be the king-maker. The difference is academic. As a matter of fact the latter camp led by the grand ayatollah Al-Sistani of Iraq can have its cake and eat it too, so to speak. It can have all the say and power it desires by proxy and, at the same time, absolve itself of any responsibility for governmental wrongdoing or failure.

These are terribly trying times. Free people and governments must decide their priorities with foresight and wisdom and shy away from shortsighted simplistic solutions. It is by far more prudent to face the implacable Islamofascists on the march now than to cut a deal and run.

Recommendations for governments worldwide:

▪ Declare unequivocally the commitment to respect the territorial integrity of Iran, as well as the rights of the Iranians to decide, through a democratic process, all matters pertaining to their life and country.

▪ Declare and treat unequivocally and without delay, the clerical regime as illegitimate.

▪ Support wide-ranging economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Sanctions may have harsh effects on the people, but only in the short-run. It will also shatter the widely-believed myth that the Islamic Republic is "self-sufficient” in various sectors including import of gasoline.

▪ Obtain court orders to freeze the overseas assets of the Islamic Republic (IR) leaders, since they are clearly ill-begotten funds that rightfully belong to the nation. Britain has recently frozen $1.6 billion stolen Iranian assets.

▪ Block and freeze covert the Islamic Republic assets in the United States.

▪ Identify "front” companies in the US that are owned by IR or IR officials. Where possible, do the same in other countries.

▪ Sanction and fine companies that do business with the Islamic Republic.

▪ Identify, investigate, and freeze personal accounts of mullahs and government officials in North America and Europe.

▪ Identify and investigate personal properties of the above.

▪ Reduce the staff or completely shut down the Islamic Republic’s mission.

▪ Severely restrict IR officials and nuclear scientists from foreign travel. Recall your ambassadors from Iran.

▪ Help Iranian people with communication devices, including the Internet, satellite and most effective way of all, a shortwave radio.

▪ Identify the agents and the regime’s lobbyists and prosecute them as promoters of international terrorism.

Recommendations for expatriates:

▪ Your Ideological differences should not stand in the way of uniting against Islamofascists who have made life miserable for all Iranians. Breaking unity at a time when the Islamic vultures want to extinguish the forces of resistance is an abandonment of your national duty.

▪ Fight back the disinformation campaign launched by the Islamic Republic through radio and TV broadcasts into Iran.

▪ Combined with a proposed strategy that emphasizes the interdependence of a secular and free Iran with economic rewards for industrialized nations is another major step in gaining meaningful support.

▪ It is imperative to launch a wide-spread information campaign into Iran and across the globe that exposes the regime and its evil deeds.

▪ Counter negative PR against the US/Israel and broadcast meaningful and structured information into Iran that will counter the IR propaganda.

▪ Inform people about the true nature of Islam and its counter-cultural impact on Iranian civilization, culture, and traditions. This must be done tactfully and in an informational manner.

▪ Strongly emphasize the role of the Iranian civilization in shaping Western and Eastern civilizations and influencing many schools of thought.

▪ Expose the atrocities committed against the people of Iran (i.e. gross violations of human rights) and the terrorist acts committed against the world at large.

▪ Reemphasize the importance of the unity of different Iranian ethnic groups based on common cultural roots.

▪ Ward off opportunistic separatist movements by exposing their phony historical and linguistic "justifications.” Reinforce the fact that irrespective of linguistic differences, the Iranian people’s common enemy is the Islamic regime. Expose separatists' deceptive tactics.

▪ Expose the real reason for the pursuit of nuclear technology

▪ Work with LEGITIMATE opposition inside Iran and expatriates that are in tune with the CURRENT issues inside Iran.

▪ Expose the regime’s lobbyists and sympathizers with personal agendas and those who have had any connection to the Islamic Republic in the past or present.

▪ Unite your forces with secular democratic groups and persons who promote freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

▪ Avoid those whose perceptions of Iranian realities are locked in the 1970s and have no concept of day-to-day issues facing the Iranian people.

▪ Work with labor and organized grassroots movements inside Iran. Non-stop, support independent secular movements.

▪ Form a provisional coalition of capable individuals, preferably trained in conflict resolution, leadership, and management who are also charismatic and pragmatic enough to lead the post-IR transitional government.

▪ Try to work with Iran’s real military forces for the complete destruction of the paramilitary forces, such as Basij, Pasdaran, Ansar Hezbollah and other pressure groups.

▪ Work with International agencies to capture and round-up the commanders of these forces and the leaders and key figures of the Islamic regime for handing them to an international tribunal for crimes against humanity.

▪ Review 50 crucial points about non-violent struggles.

▪ Provide financial and moral support to those individuals and organizations that are fighting Islamofascists.

In my view, for all the above stated reasons, we must reformulate the action plans and come up with more effective ways of dealing with the problems in Iran. I believe the current idea of promoting civil disobedience is a great idea, however, that alone is not sufficient enough when dealing with the suicidal Islamists in Iran. I do not think that piecemeal and small scale civil disobedience, in light of the present disunity and lack of a common plan, can accomplish too much since we are trying to fight ruthless sub-human barbarians who lack the slightest shred of decency and are devoid of any ethical values and civilized modes of behavior. We need to use all our resources more optimally and should use more viable tactics that involve meaningful help from as many sources as possible, including help from the international world-body including the United States. It is in the interest of the United States and Western world in a long run to assist freedom loving Iranians.

I do not claim to have all the answers, but have a fair idea of where to begin. It is high time to realize that we are not dealing with the same social factors or even the same people of three decades ago. We need to collaborate on this effort and invite others who can contribute to this cause without placing personal fame and secondary gains ahead of the ultimate goal of reeducating, rebuilding and liberating Iran.

What we should envision is a secular Iran which will allow the seeds of our ancient wisdom and goodness to grow and flourish again through our art, music, poetry and social dynamics. The U.S. has, in secular Iranians, its best friends in the entire Islamic world. It is imperative for the U.S. to help these Iranians to dislodge the vicious doomsday Mullahs, not as an act of altruism, but as a prudent measure of enlightened self-interest.