Sunday, June 15, 2003

Pressure Builds for Bush to Declare Strategy on Iran

According to the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen the Bush administration has been dragging feet for two years finalising its Iran 'strategy'.

Ledeen has founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, which is looking for ways to foment a democratic revolution to sweep away the mullahs who came to power in 1979.

And on a day that Bush praises the demonstrators in Iran Lugar had this to say;

"Well, a regime change that comes through the democratic processes of Iran, through the students and the young people taking charge -- now, how all that comes about, I don't know," Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

"But I think it has to be an Iranian process, which we can assist," the Indiana Republican added.

Lugar said the Bush administration's policy on Iran had not yet been fully formulated, but he expected the U.S. Congress to support Iran's pro-democracy forces financially.


Iran is not amused;

"This is the beginning of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran which I think is positive," President Bush said during a weekend break at Kennebunkport on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

Iran's Foreign Ministry accused the United States of "flagrant interference in Iran's internal affairs" and said U.S. officials were overstating the significance of the events.

"The Americans ignore the presence of millions of people to welcome the supreme leader and president, but they call the protests of a few individuals the voice of the people," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement.


Ironic, isn't it? Rubber bullets and tear gas for U.S. protestors, cards and flowers for the Iranians.

An article offering an opinion why these demonstrations alone will not accomplish the change to a secular society.

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