November 25, 2002

Government slaps outright ban on student demos

TEHRAN, Nov 25 (AFP) - Iranian authorities have slapped an outright ban on further student demonstrations against the sentencing to death of a pro-reform dissident academic, a top official was quoted as saying Monday.
[...]
His comments confirmed suspicions of a total ban on student rallies, which began on November 9 after a hardline court convicted Hashem Aghajari, an ally of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, of blasphemy and ordered he be hanged.

Protests have continued, with increasingly wider political overtones, even after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded to protests and ordered the judiciary to review the verdict.
[...]
Said Hajarian, a leader of the Islamic Iran Particpation Front (IIPF), told a press conference said "certain people are ready to declare the country to be in a state of emergency."

Michael Ledeen, the great American spokesman for a Free Iran, took the meaning of the last few days' events in Iran one step further over at the National Review Online in his piece today entitled "How Tyrannies Fall: Opportunity Time in Iran.
He unequivocally states that the Iranian mullahs "could have been defeated this weekend" by, one presumes, an insertion of US forces (?) or at least vocal US support in the press, particularly on the part of Bush Administration leaders.
Here's Ledeen's juicy and tantalizing opening paragraph:

"If the American government, or the chatterers, or the academy were at all serious about trying to understand the real world, we would be in the midst of a discussion of the potentially earth-shaking events in Iran.
And the main topic of discussion would be how close we are to the downfall of the mullahcracy in Tehran.
Last Friday something like half a million Iranian citizens took to the streets to demonstrate their disgust with the regime of the Islamic Republic (the very same Islamic Republic with which some of our diplomats unaccountably continue to make deals, and which our secretary of state unaccountably refuses to condemn in the same clear language used by the president, the national-security adviser, and the secretary of defense).
Contrary to what little you have been able to read in the popular press, these demonstrations were not limited to Tehran, but spread all over the country, with amazing results.
And it was particularly noteworthy that there were very large numbers of female participants; in Tehran, some people I spoke to estimated that between one-half and two-thirds of the demonstrators were women.

We can only take on this global war on Islamist terrorism one country or hot spot at a time.
President Bush and Colin Powell had their hands pretty full over the weekend ushering in the Age of Liberty in a real way in Eastern Europe and Russia.
The less intervention and outright agitation (for democratic governments everywhere) the USA is "guilty" of the better.
While this period may be hard on the Iranian people, it sounds like they're doing fine coming to the conclusion that rule by Islamic Shari'a Law is the pits all by themselves.
I'm sure the Bush Administration knows that once Baghdad falls to us, things in Iraq cannot stay the same and will change--we all hope and pray fervently--for the BETTER.
Let Freedom Ring in Iran and throughout the Middle East!
Throw off the tyrannical oppression of Islamic Rule!
Or as Ledeen puts it, "Faster please, CONFOUND IT!"