Bush and Rice dangerous to those already working for democracy in Iran

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U.S. push for democracy in Iran could backfire

Activists say they could be unfairly tainted as American agents

By Karl Vick and David Finkel
The Washington Post
Updated: 10:27 p.m. ET March 13, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11800939/

TEHRAN - Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don't need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.

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"Unfortunately I've got to say it has a negative effect, not a positive one," said Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer recently released from seven months in prison. After writing in a newspaper that his clients were beaten while in jail, Soltani was charged with offenses that included spying for the United States.

"This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers," said Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. "This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society."

Activists here said the Bush initiative demonstrates the chasm that often separates those working inside Iran for greater freedoms -- carefully calibrating their actions to nudge incremental changes in a hostile system -- and the more strident approach of many Iranian exiles who often have the ear of Washington policymakers.

"Our society is very complicated," said Vahid Pourostad, editor of National Trust, a new newspaper aligned with Iran's struggling reform movement. "Generally speaking, it is impossible to impose something from outside. Whatever happens will happen from inside.

full report: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11800939/


This is what happens when you let idiots run the country. The planned assault on Iran's government is a textbook failure before it even begins. Elizabeth Cheney is leading the push for regime change in Iran from several new posts, including one in Dubai. Yesterday, Bush actually took them on about their theocracy, with his own in theocracy-in-waiting in Iraq sitting pretty courtesy of the U.S. military.

How much can this man break before we fly him back to Crawford for good?

[MadMaddie]

1. Translated....

Everything the the * cabal touches turns to shit!!

[schmuls]

2. Maybe they want things to turn to shit...think about it...by the way,

what does Mrs. Cheney have to do with Iran policies??!!???

[bigtree]

3. Cheney daughter leads ‘cold war’ on mullahs

March 05, 2006

THE war in Iraq is her father’s business but Elizabeth Cheney, the American vice-president’s daughter, has been given responsibility for bringing about a different type of regime change in Iran.

Cheney, a 39-year-old mother of four, is a senior official in the State Department, which has often been regarded as hostile territory by Dick Cheney’s White House team. Nonetheless father and daughter agree it would be better for the mullahs’ regime to collapse from within than to be ousted by force.

The question is whether democratic reform can be achieved before Iran becomes a nuclear power. That is the younger Cheney’s job. In the State Department she is referred to as the “freedom agenda co-ordinator” and the “democracy czar” for the broader Middle East. “She’s fantastic and dynamic,” said a colleague.

Her official title is deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and she is in charge of spending the $85m (£48m) — up from $10m last year — recently allocated to promote democracy in Iran. Much of it will be spent on broadcasting the views of exiles, dissidents and reformers inside Iran.

full report: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2070419,00.html