Menashe Amir: 'Iranian Dissidents Will Welcome New Sanctions On Dictatorial Regime' 'More Than Sixty Per Cent Of Iranians Now Demand Regime Change' 'Despite German Chancellor Merkle's Public Criticism Of Iranian Regime, German Companies Do Booming Business With Iran'
Iran
continues to defy U.S. President Barack Obama’s January deadline and
continues to produce enriched uranium as part of its nuclear weapons
project. This week, IDF Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin disclosed the Iranian
nuclear clock is still ticking and every day Tehran is enriching a
‘number of kilograms of low grade uranium’. At the latest meeting of
the ‘five plus one’, China and Russia again blocked any serious attempt
to impose new and harsher sanctions on the Iranian regime. Israeli
analyst Menashe Amir, who was born and bred in Iran, assessed the
current situation in an address to the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs in Jerusalem. IsraCast’s David Essing recommends Amir’s
analysis as an inside look into what is happening in the Iran file
which is far from closed.
Listen to Menash Amir on failure of international community to impose new sanctions, dissident Green Movement, what steps should be taken, why Ahmadenijad denies the Holocaust and the overview.
‘I believe
most Iranians hope the international community will impose new and
harsh sanction on Iran’. That’s the assessment of Menashe Amir, a
leading Israeli expert who was born in Iran, speaks the language and
maintains direct contact with Iranian dissidents to the dictatorial
regime of President Ahmadenijad. The demonstrators who have been
defying the regime in the streets have actually been discouraged by the
failure to impose the sanctions by the ‘five plus one’ members, while
the regime has been encouraged. In Amir’s view, sixty to seventy per
cent of Iranians now seek a major regime change and believe new
sanctions would aid their campaign to topple Ahmadenijad and his regime
of fanatical Islamists. However, Western countries do not really
understand the nature of the Iranian regime that aspires to
reestablishing a Shiite Islamic empire that will not only rule the
Islamic world, but the entire world.
This explains why U.S. President
Obama, European Union, China and Russia have failed to take effective
action on blocking Iran’s nuclear weapons project. In this context,
Amir referred to sharp criticism of Iran by German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, while at the same time German companies do a booming business
with the Iranian regime and even participate in Iran’s nuclear program!
Amir warned that Ahmadenijad and his Revolutionary Guards who run the
country truly believe their are on divine emissaries of the Shiite
Messiah, who is about to make his appearance. Therefore, Iran believes
she needs nuclear weapons to achieve world domination. This was not
only their religious belief but also their political strategy and
foreign policy. The religious fanatics have no compunctions over
sacrificing Iranian human lives in striving for this goal. For example,
when the late Ayatollah Khomeini was criticized for causing the deaths
of half a million Iranians in the eight year war he provoked with
Saddam Hussein, the response was: ‘What’s the problem, in the meantime
seven million Iranians have been born!’
As for the
Green Movement of dissidents, they can be expected to again take to the
streets on February 11th, another public occasion, and chant ‘ death to
the dictator!’ as they again clash with the Revolutionary Guards and
Beseej militia.
What are the possible scenarios? There were
two options: the regime will collapse due to the demonstrations, as did
the Shah’s thirty-one years ago. Amir does note the chances the chances
very high. What is more probable is that the regime will clamp down
even harder against the protesters. Ahmadenijad and Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei have absolutely no intention of compromising on the
nuclear enrichment issue – their proposals are simply designed to buy
more time and keep the ‘five-plus-one’ on the defensive and prevent
them from imposing new sanctions. So far it has been working and Amir
asks why it has taken the Obama administration a year to reach this
conclusion.
Although the international community keeps groping for a
diplomatic solution there was no possibility that the Iranians could be
talked into abandoning their nuclear weapons project. In Amir’s view it
was necessary to present Tehran with a military ultimatum – not only
Iranian nuclear facilities but also bases of the revolutionary Guards
would be bombed at a specific time and date unless they halted the
nuclear weapons project. This should be combined with a broader set of
serious sanctions similar to those that induced Libya to abort its
nuclear program. In addition, further steps should be imposed
simultaneously designed to topple the regime.
