WESTMINSTER II :

Iran's Next Revolution : America needs a strategy for toppling the ayatollahs. (MICHAEL A. LEDEEN, June 8, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

The legitimate desires of the Iranian people have been acknowledged by President Bush. Yet we still have no Iran strategy. There is no coordinated public policy, such as radio and television broadcast in Farsi, a sustained condemnation of the "mullahcracy" by our own leaders, and material assistance for those leading the freedom movement inside Iran. It is hard to imagine that the Iranian people require enormous support to rid themselves of their meddlesome priests, and, unlike the challenge in Iraq, one can readily envisage a successful regime change in Tehran without dropping a single American bomb or firing a single American bullet.

All we have to do is act in keeping with our national tradition of fighting tyranny. If the regime in Iran is brought down with our help, it will demonstrate to the Islamic world that radical Islamist regimes, whether Sunni (Afghanistan) or Shiite (Iran), ruin their countries and alienate their people, who prefer America to the mullahs. Is this not what the war against terrorism is supposed to accomplish?

Ronald Reagan's greatness lay in good measure in his ability, almost alone among his contemporaries, to see that the Soviet Union was not powerful and permanent but decrepit and tottering on the brink of collapse. His determination that all that was required to topple the Evil Empire was concerted pressure from the West made his vision a reality.

It seems at least possible, maybe even likely, that we find ourselves in a similar position today, vis a vis Islam. Many tell us that the Islamic world is incapable of reform--their reasons for saying this are sound mind you, and grounded in the ideology of Islam--but it seems worthwhile taking a chance on the idea that if we just apply steady pressure the whole system can be transformed.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 10, 2002 8:09 AM