Oct 20th, 2007
Democracy Promotion in Iran
I normally try to steer clear of writing about political issues on Drift Reality, mostly because my own background in the subject area is so pitiful. However, sometimes a perspective just seems so intuitively sensible to me that I can’t help but offer up my opinion.
For a while now, the National Iranian American Council (of which I am a member) has been a voice of reason (as well as the only perceptible voice of the Iranian American community) with regard to foreign relations between the US and Iran.
Just a week back, their efforts to oppose US democracy/insurrectional funding in Iran was chronicled by the Washington Post. Saman Zarifi from Human Rights Watch was quoted in the article as such: “Giving tens of millions of dollars to support Iranian activists inside Iran is counterproductive. First, Iranian activists don’t want it and can’t get it. Second, it supports Iranian government efforts to cast activists as foreign agents.”
Yesterday, Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute delivered an op-ed through the Post, defending democracy/insurrectional funding in Iran, where he claims, “Successful democracy promotion must have teeth.”
Personally, I wonder if Rubin has spent any substantial time in Iran or with Iranians for that matter. It just strikes me as more than a little peculiar that many neo-cons who take hard line, passionate stances on foreign policy issues simply have no personal vested interest nor experience in said issues.
I’ve posted links to both the Rubin article as well as the NIAC Web site so you can decide for yourself about this issue.
