Iran's Brutal Crackdown

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Dec. 8, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

         Perhaps the tragic unintended consequence of President Barack Obama’s Dec, 1 decision to escalate the war in Afhghanistan is the U.S. standing idly by while the world watches the most brutal modern-day repression since Chinese rolled tanks over pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square June 5, 1989.  Since opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi protested his loss June 14 in a fraudulent election to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s mullahs, led by Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has used Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to beat, arrest, torture, incarcerate, convict and execute hundreds—if not thousands—of anti-government protesters.  Spread too thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. does nothing to stop Iran’s advanced Gestapo tactics.  More than Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq or North Korea, Iran is America’s biggest threat to national security.

            Arresting more that 200 protester Dec. 7, the mullah’s not-so-secret police continue to harass pro-democracy students in mass arrests, threatening the most harsh punishments in which only death represents relief from the state’s abuse of power.  “Kill me,” said Mousavi, after disguised Revolutionary Guards harassed him at his Tehran office, daring masked Basiji militiamen to martyr him, before aids whisked him to a safe location.  Mousavi led pro-democracy protests following the June 12 fraudulent election.  Over the summer, thousands of protesters met an unknown fate, likely executed, by Iran’s militiamen and Revolutionary Guards, for opposing Iran’s brutally repressive Shiite regime.  New waves of nationwide protests indicate that anti-government protests bubbled up beneath the surface of a fierce crackdown by Ahmadinejad’s authoritarian regime

            Rejecting a recent U.N. proposal to reprocess Iran’s enriched uranium in Russia, Ahmadinejad thumbed his nose at the International Atomic Energy Agency, refusing to abandon his nuclear enrichment program.  Foreign nuclear experts believe Iran already has enough enriched uranium to build two A-bombs, with enriched uranium stockpiling occurring daily.  Ahmadinejad reacted to expected U.N. Security Council sanctions by promising to build more enrichment facilities.  But despite this pressing global threat, the U.S. finds itself too embroiled in Iraq and now Afghanistan to back up tough new U.N. sanctions.   Without the credible threat of military action, Ahmadinejad laughs his way to building more enrichment facilities, cracking down on anti-government protesters with ferocious impunity.  Unlike Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Iran represents a far more formidable threat to U.S. national security.

            Dispersing crowds with tear gas, students scrambled to escape the brutal onslaught by Basiji militiamen, sparing no violent tactic to end student protests.  Tehran’s police chief Gen. Azizullah Rajabzadeh confirmed 2004 arrests, promising more harsh treatment should protests continue.  “So far, we have shown restraint.  From today, no leniency will be applied,” said Iran’s top prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi in Iran’s official IRNA news agency.  Ejehi, a hard-line cleric, fiercely defends Iran’s mullahs, whose power, since revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei toppled the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Dec. 3, 1979, has grown more lethal.  While Khomenei consolidated his power inside Iran, today’s mullahs seek to dominate the Persian Gulf, indeed the entire Middle East.  Obama’s decision to escalate Afghanistan, gives Iran’s mullahs the nuclear green light.

            There’s no limit to Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters.  “We will not tolerate anyone who commits actions against security, and we will confront them,” said Ejehi, warning that no one, not even Mousavi, would escape his reach.  Iran’s Fars news agency warned that Mahdi Hashemi, the son of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a reform supporter, was subject to arrest.  Basiji militiamen, wearing masks, blocked Mousavi from leaving his office.  “You’re agents.  Do whatever you’ve been ordered to do, kill me, beat me, threaten me!” said Mousavi, provoking the masked Basiji militiamen to take action.  Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, was pepper-sprayed by Basiji militiamen at Tehran University.  Mousavi, a nephew of Iran’s Supreme Leader Al Khamenei and former editor of Khomeini’s revolutionary newspaper, has been leading the opposition against Ahamadinejad.    

            Iran’s hard-line clerics, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his mouthpiece President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have allowed their perverted vision of Islam to justify a brutal repression on individual and human rights.  Persecuting, harassing, jailing, convicting and executing dissidents parallel some of the world’s most heinous regimes.  While the Obama administration scours Afghanistan for remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban, Iran’s radical mullahs continue their feverish pursuit of nuclear weapons.  All indications point toward blatant defiance of the IAEA and U.N. Security Council, whose attempts to stop Iran from enriching uranium have been ignored by Iran’s power elite.  While the U.S. gears up in Afghanistan, the world watches a shameful crackdown, allowing the fraudulently elected government to enrich uranium, bulldoze legitimate protests and trash human dignity.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2012 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.