Indeed, ethnic Persians constitute only a slight majority of Iran’s population. Azaris, Kurds and Arabs alone make up at least a third of that population.
By AARON BRAUNSTEINAnti-Iran protest(photo credit: MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS)
Many are asking what can be done to reverse the Iranian lurch toward nuclear weapons capability. Internal opposition among Persians has been dealt a serious blow by Western validation of the Iranian regime through the Vienna nuclear agreement. An answer should therefore be sought in a frontal educational assault on Tehran as the center of a truly evil empire, agreement or no agreement.At a recent gathering in Jerusalem with an Israeli Knesset member, I proposed going on the informational offensive against Iran as an evil Persian empire oppressing its own huge ethnic minorities. In other words, not just Iran today as a totalitarian terrorist Shi’ite religious state suppressing the human rights of all its subjects, engaged in aggressive behavior throughout the Middle East and beyond.Indeed, ethnic Persians constitute only a slight majority of Iran’s population.Azaris, Kurds and Arabs alone make up at least a third of that population.One cannot know the true size of each oppressed minority because of the likelihood that Tehran doctors its population statistics. And yet, the Persian statistics for Iran are quite similar to those of the Russian ethnic component in the former Soviet Union.In a February 2006 report, Amnesty International stated that “minorities in Iran, who are believed to number half the population, are subject to an array of discriminatory laws and practices.” The situation is compounded by the oppression of women and religious minorities, notably the Bahais. In a phrase, the Iranian totalitarian entity would not survive if its minorities were granted full and equal human rights. The recent signature of the nuclear agreement with power-drunk Tehran only solidifies its oppressive rule.The well-meaning reaction of the Israeli MK was to say, “Isn’t the prime minister already saying everything possible against that evil regime?” And the answer is: no, he is not.Unsheathing the proverbial pen against the Iranian state entity itself would entail a full-scale offensive.Some may argue that such an expansive informational outreach policy would lose the support of Persians themselves as it would challenge Persian rule over Iran, at least as a unitary state. But that rule is almost by definition oppressive, depriving also the great Persian people itself of the benefits of democracy and human rights. This was the case with the Soviet Union, in which the Russian people suffered under the yoke of its own internal Soviet imperialism.All the outwardly aggressive aspects of the evil regime in Iran are, of course, critical. But for a frontal educational assault on the ayatollahs’ rule it would be necessary for the West to go on a full-throttle offensive against the illegitimate Iranian state entity itself, at least until its current regime realizes it is risking everything, including the dismantlement of its Persian empire. When such a conclusion is drawn, there is a high probability that Tehran will retrench, roll back and wait for a “better day.”
The evil ayatollahs are convinced that the West will, in any case, implode due to its own internal immorality and impotence, so-called, as well as from its complacency toward Islamic extremism at home.An expansive Western informational attack would go to the heart of the matter, beyond Tehran’s use of proxies for imperial outreach. It would yank at the very gut of the regime. In fact, as with the Soviet Union in its day, the ayatollahs’ external aggression is a direct derivative of their illegitimate imperium of terror within their own borders.The current propaganda attacks on Israel would pale when compared to the kind of offensive the West could mount to delegitimize Tehran. It should not be too difficult to persuade many of the human rights dupes of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) ringleaders to shift their focus to the most grievous Persian violations of human rights and human lives. The ayatollahs are smiling over the piles of dead Sunni Arabs and hoards of Arab refugees in Iraq and Syria produced by their deliberate policy of ethno-religious cleansing.There is a shining historical precedent applicable to the imperial ayatollahs today.On March 8, 1983, then president Ronald Reagan stunned “politically correct” thinking when he attacked the USSR as an “evil empire.” A paraphrase of his words then, thunder when applied to Iran today: “The Persian ayatollahs preach the omnipotence of their totalitarian religion over the individual and predict their eventual domination of all peoples. They are the focus of evil in the modern world. Beware the temptation to label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, and to remove yourself from the struggle between good and evil.”With this one speech, president Reagan undermined the very legitimacy of the Soviet state. He flew in the face of conventional “convergence” wisdom at the time, i.e. that the Soviets would some-how moderate and become more capitalist, while America would become more socialist and statist, with both meeting in the middle to kiss and make up. This is the Obama philosophy in a bombshell, today.The end result was the exact opposite, with the USSR collapsing as a result of its own internal anti-democratic and economic contradictions.And so it can be today, with Ayatollah Iran under the heavy boot of its Revolutionary Guards.The West will soon learn that the recently concluded agreement with the new evil empire, if finally ratified, has only increased Tehran’s appetite for imperial subversion and expansion.If this dangerous agreement is, in fact, implemented, Iran can be expected to move full speed ahead to develop its nuclear weapons capability, its international ballistic delivery systems, while filling its coffers with hundreds of billions of euros and dollars by which to better oil its worldwide terrorist machine.Lets us be very clear to ourselves and to others that when Tehran is ready, it will hang the West in each of the agreement’s loopholes in preparation for its complete violation to achieve nuclear weapons breakout. At that point, the only thing that will “snap back” will be the West’s neck.A concerted educational struggle against the evil Iranian empire in the realm of ideas, if not of atoms, is, therefore, particularly imperative today. President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who so far has endorsed the sordid agreement, should each deliver their own “evil empire” speech to show that they are really serious about the global threat from Tehran.And, if not, America should identify other leaders who will.The author is a retired US Foreign Service officer living in Jerusalem. He is the founding president of the non-sectarian Jewish Covenant Alliance, R.A., advancing a Jewish mission to the nations in the struggle against regime evil worldwide, with website at www.covenantalliance.org in 10 languages.