William O. Beeman Commentary on "The Case for Regime Change in Iran" Foreign Affairs January 17, 2012

The Case for Regime Change in Iran


Commentary on The Case for Regime Change in Iran by William O. Beeman

The Case for Regime Change in Iran
Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt
Foreign Affairs 
January 17, 2012


I was struck dumb with incredulity at Jamie Fly and Gary Schmitt's pronouncement favoring regime change in Iran in Foreign Affairs. First, what do these two gentlemen know about Iran? Apparently nothing. The Iranian public is already primed and on a hair trigger expecting that the United States is going to pull another coup like in the 1952 C.I.A. led overthrow of Prime Minister Mosaddeq, building on despised neo-colonialist moves from Russia and Great Britain going back to the 19th Century. That perception of American hegemony is what precipitated the hostage crisis of 1979-80.

Anyone who came to power now with the help of the US would immediately be cultural poison to the Iranians. They might endure for a little while, but they would eventually be toppled themselves. This is why the Iranian opposition tells U.S. sympathizers: "Keep your hands off!" They know that the taint of U.S. involvement will doom anything they might do to eventual failure.

This doesn't even address the absurdity of trying to effect "regime change" in the first place in Iran. This Cold War fantasy is unrealistic on a practical level. The Iranians were well aware of the dangers of having a narrow power structure at the top at the time of the Revolution of 1978-79. Therefore they ensconced the most intricate set of interlocking leadership positions one could ever imagine in their constitution. Clearly the authors of this piece have not done minimal homework to ascertain this basic fact.

There is not one Iranian supreme leader in Iran, there are about 150 power brokers at multiple stages of government. Knocking off a few of them will never topple the government.

This article would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. The right wing will be touting it tomorrow as "proof" of the value of a military strategy against Iran. When the hawks are out screaming for attacks on Iran on the campaign trail as a cheap sop to naive voters, this is very dire indeed. That a respected journal would print such unmitigated nonsense is a sign of the depths of ignorance to which we have fallen in our assessment of Iran.

William O. Beeman--No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 03, 2011

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Seymour Hersh has once again created controversy by stating in a recent New Yorker article, “Iran and the Bomb,” that there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Hersh is correct, but his statement still provokes debate.

Politico reporter Jennifer Epstein, in a May 31 article, attempts to refute of Hersh’s assertion. Among other charges, she cites criticism of Hersh for using "anonymous sources" in this and other articles. Irony of ironies, Epstein's entire story is based on an anonymous source attacking Hersh. She quotes "a senior administration official" saying: “[A]ll you need to read to be deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program is the substantial body of information already in the public domain, including the most recent IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report."

Since the most recent IAEA Report itself gives no detail whatsoever about this alleged military information, one can only conclude that the information it is talking about was leaked. Indeed, the website ISIS (Institute for Science and International Security) provided what purports to be the evidence for IAEA concern.

The information also appears to have been leaked to the New York Times. Writers David E. Sanger and William J. Broad reported on a series of unrelated “concerns” in Iranian engineering research that when considered together could lead to “triggering” technology for a nuclear weapon. Broad followed up with details in the Science Times section of the newspaper on May 31. He acknowledged that there is no evidence that such a trigger is known to be in development, and several of the elements are consistent with non-military peaceful applications.

In short, the IAEA report and the information leaked to ISIS are totally inconclusive regarding any military use of nuclear technology. If Epstein’s "senior official" wants to claim that this is the smoking gun that proves Iran to be manufacturing nuclear weapons, he or she would be laughed out of the room.

In addition, the Government’s own National Intelligence Estimate of 2011, released in March specifically has dropped language stating that Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions are a future option. Tellingly, the report has been buried by the Obama administration

According to Epstein, the "senior official" goes on to say:

“There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception, and Iran has repeatedly refused to respond to the IAEA’s questions about the military dimensions of [its] nuclear program, including those about the covert site at Qom,”

This shows once again that "they ain't got nuttin'." Iran's "refusal" to respond to the IAEA questions is limited to a mysterious laptop captured by U.S. Intelligence seven years ago containing "bomb plans" that no one has ever seen. The site at Qom is nothing but an empty hole in the ground with no fissile materials ever introduced--in short, a complete dead horse.

One can ask: Why does the administration continues to flog this non-starter of an issue in the face of its own intelligence on the issue?

Many who have questioned the Bush and Obama administration's tenacity in holding on to this nuclear non-issue have often been accused of "supporting the mullahs" or worse. This is absolutely not the issue. The issue is not support or non-support of the Iranian regime, it is concern over America's own ineffective foreign policy.

It is worth asking whether the United States is going to follow a reasoned and productive policy toward Iran or is going to keep obsessing about this non-existent nuclear issue to the exclusion of every other possible dimension of interacting with the Iranian State?

The United States really cannot afford to let this obstacle dominate our every move toward the most important political entity in the Middle East. The sad part is that the issue isn't even one of ignorance or misinformation. It is one of ideology. To accept the reality that Iran is not the most dangerous nation on the planet is obviously a political third-rail in the United States. It triggers an avalanche of other accusations, Anti-Israeli attitudes or worse, Antisemitism, being among the most common and also the most irrelevant.

Anyone in government or the press, such as Hersh, who questions the utterly unproven postulate that Iran has an active, effective nuclear weapons program risks political disaster. Therefore, otherwise responsible people are willing to embrace a foolish lie that was concocted to serve as a selling point to the American people for Iranian "regime change" during the Bush administration.

Today the specter of the Iranian nuclear bogeyman serves no purpose whatever except to obstruct progress in bringing stability to the region. People embrace the “Iranian bomb myth” not so much because they know it to be true based on hard facts, but rather in order to avoid political attack. Where are our principles? Where is our professionalism?

William O. Beeman--Regime Change in Iran: The Fantasy That Will Not Die (New America Media)

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/06/regime-change-in-iran-the-fantasy-that-will-not-die.php


Regime Change in Iran: The Fantasy That Will Not Die

William O. Beeman
New America Media

June 18, 2010

The American political establishment will not give up the fantasy that they can somehow bring about regime change in Iran—that the United States can somehow topple the Iranian leadership just like it supposedly toppled the Soviet Union.

Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Sam Brownback of Kansas have introduced legislation (S-3008) that, in Cornyn’s own words: “. . . states that it is U.S. policy to support the Iranian people’s efforts to establish a truly democratic and accountable government and free themselves from the regime headed by Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. ”

Self-avowed neoconservative Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on June 14 entitled "Iran's Revolution: Year 2.” It calls on the Obama administration to support the Green Movement to effect regime change. He writes: “By throwing in his lot with the freedom movement, (President Obama) would surely increase the odds that we won’t have to live with a nuclear bomb controlled by virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic clerics. Democrats, once the champions of promoting pro-democracy movements, need to understand that the good that they can do for the people of Iran far exceeds the great harm that comes from doing nothing.”

Not to be outdone, Democrats are doing something, too. Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) introduced a resolution in 2008 with Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) declaring that Iran was inimical to "the vital national security interests of the United States" and "demanding" that the president impose a full-scale naval, air and land blockade on Iran effectively, an act of war. The resolution failed, but Ackerman continues to press for similar actions from the Obama administration.

The question of regime change in Iran is warmed-over Cold War logic dating from the Revolution of 1978-79. In 1980, Edward Sa'id wrote a trenchant piece in the Columbia Journalism Review. He made the point that the dominant government stance after the Revolution had nothing to do with understanding Iran or Iranian history. Instead it asked just one question: "Is Islam for or against the United States?" And, of course, he meant Iran as the embodiment of Islam at that moment.

The answer that has emerged over four decades in the regime change circles is clearly that "Islam (read Iran) is against the United States." It is from that point that the fantasizing begins: How to destroy this anti-American regime.

The government of Israel has succeeded in creating a codicil--also right out of the Cold War: "What threatens Israel also threatens the United States."

The answers are Cold War answers. No imagination. No attempt to understand Iran in social, cultural or historical terms. Just a repeat of what "worked" to bring down the Soviet Union short of direct attack: isolation, inflicting economic pain, scaring the world into thinking “the enemy” is dangerous, and finally fomenting and encouraging internal dissent.

The reason this rhetoric works is because the U.S. public and perhaps many Europeans are already primed to accept both this logic and these solutions having been taught to fear the Soviet Union for three decades. However these stratagems won't work with Iran. Iran is not the Soviet Union. Iran sees itself not as the aggressor, but rather the defender.

All of these strategies have thus far failed.

Isolation of Iran is not working. At a recent conference on the Middle East in London, a leading Italian economist said: "We are Iran's largest European trade partner. When our businessmen show up in Tehran, there are three Chinese businessmen waiting in the outer office. The U.S. is driving Iran into the hands of Asian partners, and ruining our business with them--and for what? To satisfy some American ideology?" The only nation that truly desires Iranian isolation and believes that it can be achieved is the United States.

Inflicting economic pain is not only ineffective, it is counter-productive. We may have brought the Soviet Union down by creating an arms race that they couldn't sustain, but nothing we have or could do to Iran is going to cripple the country to the point of collapse, and it is laughable to think that that could happen. The Iranian people are inconvenienced by these low-level unilateral economic sanctions, such as those pushed through the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010, and the U.S. Treasury on June 16. They thus are embittered about the United States, but nothing more. It most decidedly does not make U.S. overtures to them to overthrow their own government more probable.

Scaring the world about Iran has been a complete failure outside of the United States. No one has any proof whatever that Iran has a nuclear weapons program--it is a red herring, and the world knows it. The Non-aligned Movement has continually issued support for Iran’s nuclear energy program. Even if there were a nuclear military program, Iran is years away from having anything that could pass for an effective weapon. The Gulf States may be concerned, as they always have been, about the Shi'a community, since they constitute either a majority (Bahrain) or a significant minority (UAE, Saudi Arabia), but the dead-end idea promulgated by the Bush administration and carrying forward, that Iran is about to attack its neighbors--and with a non-existent nuclear warhead--is the stuff of fiction. Iran would destroy its own economy if it did this. Its relations with its neighbors are completely symbiotic.

Finally, Cornyn and Brownback, Ackerman, Gerecht, and others of their ilk utterly misunderstand the post-1999-election Green Movement in Iran. If the movement is eventually successful, it will not usher in some kind of purging revolution that will create a pro-American government. The Green Movement is about legitimacy of leadership within the current Iranian governmental framework, not about overthrowing the government. Nor will trying to foment dissent in Iran's many ethnic communities, another strategy favored by the regime-change fans, be any more effective. The many ethnic groups that make up Iran’s pluralistic civilization have identified with Great Iranian civilization for more than two millennia.

The worst part of the push for regime change is that the more the United States and other external powers interfere in Iranian affairs, the less likely it is that change will occur. Has no one in power read Iranian history? Does no one understand how Iran has constructed the United States in its own paranoid fantasies? U.S. interference taints every attempt at reform from within, make no mistake.

If there is to be regime change in Iran, it will be from within, over time (and not such a long time frame, either). Yes, talk about the real problem of human rights. Yes, engage in dialogue, but give up the Cold War strategizing with bankrupt, inappropriate methods. They won't work. And open chatter about more strategies for "regime change" merely feeds the Iranian power elite the stuff they need to blame their every weakness and failing on the United States.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota. He has lived and conducted research in Iran and the Middle East for more than 30 years and is the author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other (Chicago, 2008).

John Bolton calls for Bombing of Iran

Note from William O. Beeman

John Bolton's call for military action in Iran (below) should be blatantly derided by the American public.

For John Bolton hope of effecting regime change in Iran springs eternal. However, my suspicion is that this piece was written to convince the Bush administration to give their blessing to an Israeli attack on Iran. Reportedly this week a passel of Israeli officials are in Washington lobbying hard to get the go-ahead on their military attack. To their credit the Bush officials are recalcitrant. You can see this in Mr. Bolton's rhetoric--excoriating the Bush administration for being pusillanimous. I certainly hope that cooler heads prevail in Washington.

Mr. Bolton is not above citing misleading and utterly false information about the Iranian situation. Of course, he claims that Iranian nuclear weapons development is an established fact when there is still no proof that it exists--including the conveniently ignored NIE Report of 2007 claiming that the weapons program does not exist. He has the gall to call diplomacy "failed" while neglecting to note that the U.S. has engaged in none of it--including the 2003 Iranian initiative, which he presumably had a hand in rejecting..

It is so shoddy and cheap for Washington to claim the diplomacy undertaken by European powers as somehow justifying American frustration with Iran, when we have done nothing, except to host Christopher Crocker hurling invective at the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad--some diplomacy! More and more it is looking like the neoconservative agenda of regime change throughout the Middle East to clear the way for American hegemony in the region is going down in flames. Bolton's editorial is the last gasp of this vampire movement, even as we try to drive a stake through its heart.

Best,

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121607841801452581.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
>
> Wall Street Journal
>
> Israel, Iran and the Bomb
> By JOHN R. BOLTON
> July 15, 2008; Page A19
>
> Iran's test salvo of ballistic missiles last week together with recent threatening rhetoric by commanders of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards emphasizes how close the Middle East is to a fundamental, in fact an irreversible, turning point.
>
> Tehran's efforts to intimidate the United States and Israel from using military force against its nuclear program, combined with yet another diplomatic charm offensive with the Europeans, are two sides of the same policy coin. The regime is buying the short additional period of time it needs to produce deliverable nuclear weapons, the strategic objective it has been pursuing clandestinely for 20 years.
>
> Between Iran and its long-sought objective, however, a shadow may fall: targeted military action, either Israeli or American. Yes, Iran cannot deliver a nuclear weapon on target today, and perhaps not for several years. Estimates vary widely, and no one knows for sure when it will have a deliverable weapon except the mullahs, and they're not telling. But that is not the key date. Rather, the crucial turning point is when Iran masters all the capabilities to weaponize without further external possibility of stopping it. Then the decision to weaponize, and its timing, is Tehran's alone. We do not know if Iran is at this point, or very near to it. All we do know is that, after five years of failed diplomacy by the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany), Iran is simply five years closer to nuclear weapons.
>
> And yet, true to form, State Department comments to Congress last week . even as Iran's missiles were ascending . downplayed Iran's nuclear progress, ignoring the cost of failed diplomacy. But the confident assumption that we have years to deal with the problem is high-stakes gambling on a policy that cannot be reversed if it fails. If Iran reaches weaponization before State's jaunty prediction, the Middle East, and indeed global, balance of power changes in potentially catastrophic ways.
>
> And consider what comes next for the U.S.: the Bush administration's last six months pursuing its limp diplomatic efforts, plus six months of a new president getting his national security team and policies together. In other words, one more year for Tehran to proceed unhindered to "the point of no return."
>
> We have almost certainly lost the race between giving "strong incentives" for Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its scientific and technological efforts to do just that. Swift, sweeping, effectively enforced sanctions might have made a difference five years ago. No longer. Existing sanctions have doubtless caused some pain, but Iran's real economic woes stem from nearly 30 years of mismanagement by the Islamic Revolution.
>
> More sanctions today (even assuming, heroically, support from Russia and China) will simply be too little, too late. While regime change in Tehran would be the preferable solution, there is almost no possibility of dislodging the mullahs in time. Had we done more in the past five years to support the discontented . the young, the non-Persian minorities and the economically disaffected . things might be different. Regime change, however, cannot be turned on and off like a light switch, although the difficulty of effecting it is no excuse not to do more now.
>
> That is why Israel is now at an urgent decision point: whether to use targeted military force to break Iran's indigenous control over the nuclear fuel cycle at one or more critical points. If successful, such highly risky and deeply unattractive air strikes or sabotage will not resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis. But they have the potential to buy considerable time, thereby putting that critical asset back on our side of the ledger rather than on Iran's.
>
> With whatever time is bought, we may be able to effect regime change in Tehran, or at least get the process underway. The alternative is Iran with nuclear weapons, the most deeply unattractive alternative of all.
>
> But the urgency of the situation has not impressed Barack Obama or the EU-3. Remarkably, on July 9, Sen. Obama, as if stumbling on a new idea, said Iran "must suffer threats of economic sanctions" and that we needed "direct diplomacy . . . so we avoid provocation" and "give strong incentives . . . to change their behavior." Javier Solana, chief EU negotiator, was at the time busy fixing a meeting with the Iranians to continue five years of doing exactly what Mr. Obama was proclaiming, without results.
>
> John McCain responded to Iran's missile salvo by stressing again the need for a workable missile defense system to defend the U.S. against attacks by rogue states like Iran and North Korea. He is undoubtedly correct, highlighting yet another reason why November's election is so critical, given the unceasing complaints about missile defense from most Democrats.
>
> Important as missile defense is, however, it is only a component of a postfailure policy on Iran's nuclear-weapons capacity. In whatever limited amount of time before then, we must face a very hard issue: What will the U.S. do if Israel decides to initiate military action? There was a time when the Bush administration might itself have seriously considered using force, but all public signs are that such a moment has passed.
>
> Israel sees clearly what the next 12 months will bring, which is why ongoing U.S.-Israeli consultations could be dispositive. Israel told the Bush administration it would destroy North Korea's reactor in Syria in spring, 2007, and said it would not wait past summer's end to take action. And take action it did, seeing a Syrian nuclear capability, for all practical purposes Iran's agent on its northern border, as an existential threat. When the real source of the threat, not just a surrogate, nears the capacity for nuclear Holocaust, can anyone seriously doubt Israel's propensities, whatever the impact on gasoline prices?
>
> Thus, instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran. We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible. At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel's path, and facilitate its efforts where we can.
>
> These subjects are decidedly unpleasant. A nuclear Iran is more so.
>
> Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
>

State Department's Iran Democracy Fund Shrouded in Secrecy

State Department's Iran Democracy Fund Shrouded in Secrecy

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
Thursday, July 10, 2008

Since 2006, Congress has poured tens of millions of dollars into a State Department program aimed at promoting regime change in Iran.

The ³Democracy Program² initiative has been shrouded in secrecy since its inception and many critics of the initiative (who are also outspoken critics of the Iranian government) believe that it is directly linked to a spate of arrests of dozens of Iranian dissidents suspected of working secretly with the Bush administration to topple the Iranian government.

Up until last November, the program was operated by the State Department¹s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and overseen by David Denehy, the bureau¹s senior adviser. The program was reportedly moved last November to the State Department's Bureau of Iranian Affairs. Denehy did not return calls for comment.

One of the influential figures who helped launch the democracy program was Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, who as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, headed the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group and, with the financial help of a prominent Republican foundation, the International Republican Institute, financed efforts of dozens of Iranian and Syrian exiles to promote a campaign to overthrow their government leaders. Elizabeth Cheney left the State Department last year to work on Fred Thompson's presidential campaign.

An aggressive effort by the State Department to fund regime change in Iran is ongoing, but the State Department has refused to provide lawmakers with specific details of the program other than to say that the core mission of the initiative is to assist ³those inside Iran who desire basic civil liberties such as freedom of expression, greater rights for women, more open political process, and broader freedom of the press.²

Congress has appropriated more than $120 million to fund the project. The State Department has spent most of the money on the U.S.-backed Radio Farda, Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe, and to broadcast Persian programs into Iran via VOA satellite television.

Some funds, according to State Department sources familiar with the how the program is run, have also been secretly funneled to exile Iranian organizations, and politically connected individuals in order to help the U.S. establish contacts with Iranian opposition groups.

In June of 2007, the State Department said it would spend $16 million on democracy promotion projects that extends beyond broadcasting. However, to date the State Department has not released details on how it intends to obligate or expend those funds.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment for this story.

Carah Ong, an Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in an interview that because the State Department operates the program under a veil of secrecy ³we don¹t know where the money is going.²

³There is no reporting requirement to Congress,² Ong said. ³There¹s absolutely no accountability at all with this money.²

Next Wednesday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations will consider the fiscal year 2009 budget that calls for setting aside $65 million http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100014.pdf for additional regime change and democracy promotion efforts inside Iran.

The State Department has said it intends to spend $1.2 million of those funds to launch Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Azerbaijani in an effort to address the lack of objective and comprehensive news and information for Azerbaijanis, the largest ethnic minority group in Iran.

The $65 million requested by the State Department ³is more than three times the amount appropriated for FY 2008, which is estimated to be $21.623 million,² Ong said of the $65 million in democracy promotion funds for Iran. ³This tripling in Economic Support Funds is the result of several developments. First, some restructuring recently occurred in the State Department and its Iran desk.

³Second, the FY 2008 Foreign Operations bill appropriated $60 million (under Section 693) for so-called "Programs to Promote Democracy, Rule of Law and Governance in Iran." It has been unclear since Section 693 was originally added as an amendment introduced by Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) to the House Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for exactly which programs this funding was meant. Was it meant to increase funding for the Economic Support Fund or the Human Rights and Democracy Fund? Or was it meant to serve as an overall guideline for total spending on so-called "democracy promotion" programs? This is still a question that needs to be answered.²

The State Department has refused to provide specific details on the nuances of the democracy promotion project. The agency told lawmakers that the classified nature of the democracy promotion project serves to protect the identity of Iranian individuals and organizations that have received funding to promote a U.S. policy of regime change in Iran from being harassed or threatened by the Iranian government.

Yet that is exactly what has happened to some Iranian dissidents?even those who have publicly denounced the program.

A letter sent to lawmakers last October by Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, and more than a dozen other Middle East scholars all of whom are critics of the Iranian government, stated that the ³secret State Department ³democracy promotion² funding has enabled Iranian authorities to label those supporting reforms or engagement with the West as foreign agents and traitors. Recent detentions of Iranian-American scholars, journalists, union leaders, student activists, and others are widely viewed as responses to threats posed by U.S.-funded efforts.²

³We believe this program, intended to aid the cause of democracy in Iran, has failed and has instead invigorated a campaign by conservative regime elements to harass and intimidate those seeking reform and greater openness in Iran,² the Oct. 11, 2007 letter says. ³The intended beneficiaries of the funding, - human rights advocates, civil society activists and others - uniformly denounce the program,²

³Rather than promoting democracy, the U.S. funding has narrowed the space for the pro-democracy movement to operate,² Parsi said. ³Today, the conditions for civil society have significantly deteriorated. Executions are at an all-time high. Many human rights workers have been imprisoned.²

Ong said most of the State Department funds have been doled out to organizations outside of Iran, such as Freedom House and Eurasia Foundation because ³no one in Iran will take the money.²

But just the possibility that some Iranians may be linked to American led efforts to overthrow the Iranian government, or have accepted money from the Bush administration, has led to numerous arrests last year. Emaddeddin Baghi, a human rights activist based in Tehran who was sent back to prison in September said ³it is neither wise nor morally justifiable for the U.S. to continue its path² of promoting regime change by trying to give money to dissidents.

Last year, Haleh Esfandiari, was arrested and sent to a prison in Tehran on charges of spying for the U.S. She was incarcerated for eight months, four of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Former Congressman Lee Hamilton told CNN last year that Esfandiari was likely captured because Iranians believed she was linked to the State Department¹s campaign to promote regime change in Iran. Hamilton said Esfandiari did not receive any funds but he said the secrecy surrounding the State Department¹s democracy program was causing more harm than good.

³If the policy of the United States government is to overthrow the government, then the Democracy Fund obviously would be viewed with a great deal of suspicion and hostility by the target government," Hamilton said in May 2007, shortly after Esfandiari¹s arrest.

In an October column published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Esfandiari, the director of Woodrow Wilson Center¹s Middle East program said ³the fact that the identity of Iranian recipients of U.S. aid is regarded as classified information by the U.S. government feeds the regime's paranoia and casts suspicion on all Iranian² non-government organizations.

Last September, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn.), introduced an amendment to the Senate Foreign Operations Bill, adopted by unanimous consent, that restored the democracy promotion funds to the $75 million requested by the State Department. An earlier version of the bill reduced the funding by less than half.

"This amendment would provide $75 million in funds, the amount requested by the administration; in fact, announced by Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice,² Lieberman said in a floor statement last September. ³That announcement, I know from sources I have, was broadly heard and appreciated within the Iranian civil society dissident movement. The committee has recommended one-third of that amount of money. This $75 million would go to labor activists, women's groups, journalists, human rights advocates, and other members of Iranian civil society. It provides Congress an opportunity to demonstrate that even as we condemn the behavior of the Iranian regime, we stand with the Iranian people, a people with a proud history who truly are, in my opinion, yearning to be free. That freedom is suppressed by the fanatical regime that dominates their lives today.²

But Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2003, explained that ³no truly nationalist and democratic group will accept² State Department funds to promote a policy of regime change because ³Iranian reformists believe that democracy can't be imported. It must be indigenous.²

³They believe that the best Washington can do for democracy in Iran is to leave them alone,² Ebadi wrote in a May 30, 2007 column published in The International Herald Tribune. Ebadi¹s column was published as Congress approved emergency supplemental legislation to fund the Iraq war, which contained a $75 million earmark for the State Department¹s Iran Democracy project.

³The secret dimension of the distribution of the $75 million has also created immense problems for Iranian reformists, democratic groups and human rights activists. Aware of their own deep unpopularity, the hard-liners in Iran are terrified by the prospects of a "velvet revolution" and have become obsessed with preventing contacts between Iranian scholars, artists, journalists and political activists and their American counterparts,² Ebadi added. ³Thus, Washington's policy of "helping" the cause of democracy in Iran has backfired. It has made it more difficult for the more moderate factions within Iran's power hierarchy to argue for an accommodation with the West.²

The final appropriation for 2008 was set at $60 million to be made available for "programs to promote democracy, the rule of law and governance in Iran."

But a statement that was included with the bill cited only two numbers related to Iran: $21.8 million for Economic Support Funds (ESF) and $8 million for the Democracy Fund. It is unknown how the State Department intends to spend the remainder of the $60 million.

Ong and Parsi have called on the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation to examine the effectiveness of the program, which the GAO said it has initiated but could not say when the report would be complete.

Additionally, Ong said she has been trying to educate lawmakers for more than a year on how the program has backfired.

³It¹s difficult to bring the voices of Iranian dissidents to the Hill to explain how the program is hurting their cause because if they speak out publicly they will be arrested when they return to Iran and accused of being spies,² Ong said in an interview. ³I¹ve tried to raise this issue with some members [of Congress] and some listen and some don¹t.²