Opposing Theocratic Repression in Iran or Playing into Hands of US Warmongers?

The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) salutes and lauds the organizers of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the signatories of the Iran petition for your efforts to impede the U.S. war of aggression. We are grateful that you have lent your good name to draw attention to the dire consequences of wars of deception. We are however strongly critical of some substantial issues raised in your petition, which we believe have strongly undermined your own antiwar stance. We are writing to you to open a constructive dialogue on this in the antiwar movement in the West.

The petition is in defense of humankind, of justice; we have this goal in common with you. It was during the French Revolution that history first witnessed the birth of ideas such as the 'inalienable rights' and freedoms of individuals, as they were enmeshed in domestic political constitutions of the European countries, later to be further enriched by the American Constitution. Equally sacred, and upheld by international law and the UN Charter, is the inalienable rights of national states, their freedom, their undisputed sovereignty. Without such sovereignty, the people of any country will be deprived of their individual freedoms. It is the inalienable national rights of Iran that CASMII is defending, and by extension, the right and freedom of the Iranian people.

The US and Israel are intent to deprive Iran of its 'inalienable right' under Article IV of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop a civilian nuclear program -- a right which belongs collectively to the nation and which will benefit each individual. It is this 'inalienable right' which CASMII is striving to defend and which must be granted to Iran as a sovereign nation.

The west is accusing Iran of having a covert nuclear program, an accusation used by the US and Israel to justify sanctions and military intervention in Iran. However, hundreds of intrusive snap visits in three years by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, when the Iranian government accepted to enforce IAEA safeguards well beyond the Additional Protocol, have failed to produce any shred of evidence of this. Iran has repeatedly stated that it does not seek nuclear weapons and has called for a nuclear weapon free Middle East. Ayatollah Khamenei who has the final say on national security matters has issued a religious decree against nuclear weapons and Iran last September offered to invite Western companies for a joint venture to develop its civilian nuclear technology, which together with the strict safeguards of the IAEA exclude any possibility of diversion into a weaponization program.

The international crisis over Iran's nuclear issue, which has been created by Washington, is thus centered around Iran's right under NPT to enrich Uranium for a fuel cycle on its soil. Regrettably your petition does not explicitly defend this inalienable right of Iran. Your requests at the end of petition does not demand that the US should recognize this right which is the key issue in the present stand-off at the UN Security Council. What is far worse is that you have in effect supported the campaign of stirring up hysteria against Iran by expressing doubt about Iran's assurances that it does not seek nuclear weapons and by asserting that if Iran acquires nuclear bombs there is no guarantee that it will not use them or not pass them to others. Are these assertions not exactly the reasons that the Bush administration gives to deny Iran its inalienable right for a civilian nuclear technology? Are they not precisely the reasons the neoconservatives are using to justify a military attack on Iran including by tactical nuclear strikes? Are they not in line with the same propaganda against Iran that the Bush Administration is using as a pretext for an attack and regime change?

Washington aims to deprive Iran of her autonomy. As you correctly stated in the opening of your statement "Just as it did before its invasion of Iraq." Once the deception in Iraq was made obvious, the WMD reasoning gave way to "democratization." However, democracy is not an import, it is learned, adapted, adjusted, and at times, rejected. Iranians, like Americans, are working to make their society, culture and government more democratic, but they are doing this at their own pace, with their own tradition and in their own way. The progress they are making should not be undermined by foreign interference as it was in 1953 when the CIA organized its coup d'etat against the democratically elected government of Dr Mohammad Mosadegh.

Today, we are witnessing a far graver interference: the threat of military action and regime change by the US neoconservatives who condemn the "repressive regime" of a handful of "unelected clerics" in Iran and vow to support the Iranian people to liberate themselves from the "tyranny of the mullahs." Unfortunately, your petition includes a similar substance.

At a time that Washington's plans to attack Iran are according to Seymour Hersh in their operational phase, it is regrettable that your petition caves into US propaganda by devoting more space in its text to condemnation of the Iranian regime, which is to a large extent based on fallacies, inaccuracies and exaggerations, than to opposing the US warmongers.

As citizens or residents of western countries, our essential duty is to oppose the aggressive and imperial policies of our own elected governments which we face and can impact rather than present a misleading and condescending picture of the internal situation in Iran and promote our version of "democracy" for a country with a different culture than ours.

Otherwise, are we not guilty of the same imperial mentality, which we accuse the neoconservatives of? Are we not engaged with the same neoconservatives' method when we confidently analyze "lack of democracy" in Iran and provide our recipes for that country by calling for "regime change by people," which incidentally is precisely the same propaganda slogan of the neoconservatives a la Michael Ledeen?

Rather than demanding the US to disengage from the Middle East and give up its imperial interests, interference and meddling in this region, your petition calls for a US foreign policy which "promotes real democracy" in the Middle East. Does this not lend legitimacy to the neoconservatives' strife to change the map of the Middle East by "democratizing" it?

In our view, the petition as it stands does not work in favor of the freedom loving people of Iran, nor does it justify the good intensions of the thoughtful people behind it. In sharp contrast, deviating from its true purpose, it drives home the neo-con message with its condemnation of the Islamic Republic, thus amplifying not only the war drums, but lending support to the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration whose ultimate aim is 'regime change' -- a point made painfully clear in your petition.

Rather than joining the bias Western media and condemning Iran for human rights violations at a time when there are explicit plans in place to attack Iran, we feel that it is our obligation to expose the double standards of the Western media and the leaders. The war crimes and the gross violations of human rights committed by the coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the human rights issues in Israel, and the Arab client states of the United Sates, as well as the violations of the U.S. Constitution, international renditions, Guantanamo Bay, and torture, will remain our main area of public focus.

Of course, your petition does mention all of this. However, by giving even more weight to an analysis of "repression" in Iran and by calling for a regime change by the people of Iran when the US military attack is imminent your petition severely undermines its opposition to the warmongers and unwittingly aids the chorus in the western media in the prelude to a new war.

In our view, an effective opposition to imperial wars and policies can only be based on defending the sovereignty and national rights of developing countries. Self-determination of nations is the absolute prerequisite for any democracy which at any rate has to be developed independently by the indigenous people themselves. Our foremost task in the west is to fight against the imperial aspirations of our own governments and in this effort we should not assist the imperial bandwagon in publicly condemning a sovereign country for lack of democracy when it could soon be facing a military attack by the US.