Wyden Calls for Policy Change toward Iran

Expresses support for Iranian people, Opposition to oppressive Iranian government

July 25, 2002

Today we are resolved to see a new, rational foreign policy toward Iran. A policy that will engage the proud people of that nation and support their aspirations to be free of the theocratic state that abuses and oppresses them.

It is time that we recognized that the forces of extremist clerics and their allies have so completely dominated the government of Iran that there is no means to achieve political liberalization within the current system. While President Khatami has often spoken of liberalization, the last five years show that either he is unwilling or unable to effect any democratic change.

In fact, the record of his administration has been increasing censorship, religious vigilantes and intimidation, and wide-spread political repression. The state department has identified systematic abuses including summary executions, disappearances, wide-spread use of torture and other forms of degradation.

Student dissidents within Iran have become increasingly better organized, and have been faced with greater repression. The frequent demonstrations by these students, women, and even religious dissidents, as well as the growing movements of expatriates show that there is a yearning for democratic change within the Iranian people. It should be a core value of our foreign policy to encourage and support any people who seek only the fundamental human freedoms laid out in our own bill of rights.

There is also self-interest involved in this move. The Iranian regime has been supplying arms and cadre to terrorist movements attacking our allies in Turkey, Armenia, and Israel and has striven to been a destabilizing force throughout the middle-east and central asia. This is not the fault of the Iranian people, but of a criminal class that dominates them and strangles their hopes for a peaceful and progressive future. In the days following the tragedy of September 11, it is these people who spontaneously filled the streets in grieving over the loss of human life.

We must focus all of our efforts in dealing with Iran toward the people, and their hopes for a free and democratic nation. The Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty must redouble their efforts to provide the light of uncensored truth to the Iranian people. The State Department must cease lending legitimacy to the current regime and pursue a policy of fundamental democratic change and this administration must seek ways to aid and sustain those movements that will effect that change, to the benefit of the Iranian and American people alike.

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