BUSH NEEDS REAGAN IN IRAN

[Periodically, we  send out an op-ed to media outlets as a way to promote TTP.  They are a compressed summary of previous articles.  They’ll soon be another regular TTP feature. —JW]

Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the Soviet Union by supporting anti-Soviet liberation freedom fighters in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan with arms and money, and in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself with money and communications technology. 

There was tremendous opposition to his support within his own administration, primarily the State Department, but also within the CIA, the NSC, and even the West Wing.  The turning point was Reagan’s insistence over all objections that Stinger missiles be provided to the Afghan Mujahaddin. 

On September 26, 1986, a Soviet helicopter gunship was shot down by a Stinger, and over the next two years the loss of aircraft and pilots were so great the Soviets retreated, with the last Soviet soldier departing Afghanistan on February 15, 1989. 

Less than eight months later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.  Little more than two years later, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The Soviet Union collapsed because it was a colonial empire within its own borders.  It just didn’t have an empire of subjugated colonies beyond its borders like the "satellites" of Eastern Europe.  It was an empire, composed of countries colonially subjugated within it, like Latvia or Ukraine.  Iran today is just such a colonial empire.  And it’s coming apart at the seams.

Of Iran’s almost 70 million people, less than 50% are Persian, the ruling ethnic group.  36% is ethnic Azeri, Shia Turks just like in neighboring Azerbaijan.  An active secessionist movement – The South Azerbaijan Liberation Movement (SALM) – has arisen to break off northwest Iran to create a Greater Azerbaijan.

9% of Iran’s population is ethnic Kurd, neither Turk nor Arab nor Persian.  There are more Kurds in Iran than across the border in Iraq, and they desperately want to secede and join prosperous and free Iraqi Kurdistan.  An organization has been formed to do just that: The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. 

Armed guerrilla movements such as PEJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) are now fighting the regime,  killing over two dozen Iranian soldiers and Revolutionary Guards last month.

5% of Iran’s population is ethnic Arab, concentrated across the border with Iraq in a region called Khuzistan.  The focus of Iranian Arab resistance to Persian colonialism is in the capital of Ahwaz, and is organized by the National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz. 

A number of local government officials have recently been killed by bomb attacks.  Five Arab men were hung last month after being accused of the bombings, and three more are scheduled for execution. Oil pipelines were damaged after the hangings and Katyusha rockets fired at the giant Abadan refinery. 

The violence is escalating, helped by some 60 Arabic language radio and satellite television stations beaming news about the resistance into the province.  The Iranian Arabs want Khuzistan to secede and join with their Shia Arab brethren in Iraq.

6% of Iran’s population is Baluchi.  While the Azeris and Iranian Arabs are Shia, the Baluchi, like the Kurds, are Sunni.  They populate the southeast corner of Iran and share ethnic identity with their tribesmen across the border in Pakistan.  Fiercely independent, anti-Shia and anti-Persian, they want their freedom too.  Serious guerrilla attacks are being organized by Baluchistan People’s Party.

The radically Islamist regime in Tehran is at war with the US, it is at war with the nascent government in Iraq, it is the primary sponsor of terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and is trying to acquire nuclear weapons with which to attack Israel.  It is the world’s most clear and present danger, and the only way to remove the danger is to remove the regime.

Ronald Reagan realized there was no need to militarily attack the Soviet Union to defeat it.  All he had to do was support people oppressed by Soviet tyranny who were willing to fight for their own freedom. 

George Bush needs to have the same realization with Iran.  The opportunity to give the Tehran regime more trouble than it can handle internally so it can no longer trouble its neighbors is being handed to him on a silver platter.  It is not Iraq that is about to split apart – it is Iran.

Mr. Bush should heed the words of PEJAK leader Akif Zagros, who recently told a Western journalist, "We demand democratic change in Iran. And if the U.S. government wants to help us, we are happy to accept their support."