The Iranian Government is Targeting the Diaspora, not the United States
I wrote about this issue on Iranian Truth, but I think it’s relevant to address this matter in a more direct way, given that there have been various theories posited in regard to Iran’s recent arrests of Iranian-Americans. These arrests are not an attack against America. They are an attack against us, the Iranian diaspora. They are a method being used to silence our dissent and our efforts to discuss democracy and human rights openly and without fear. They are part of a process being used to make us second-guess our efforts, our thoughts, our beliefs, and our hopes. See the effect:
In a recent NY Times interview Professor Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian studies program at Stanford University, is quoted as saying, “People don’t want to come to conferences, they don’t even want to talk on the phone. The regime has created an atmosphere of absolute terror.” The National Iranian American Council notes that Iranian-Americans are hesitant to go to Iran this summer due to the arbitrariness of the arrests and detentions. As a result, in fact, the State Department has gone so far as to specifically advise Iranian-Americans to “consider the risk of being targeted by authorities before planning to travel to Iran.”
by Lawrence
Nema, you act as if the Islamic Republic was arresting ordinary Iranians. This has nothing to do with the Iranian diaspora and former Maoist Abbbas turned neocon Milani is confused. Let me guess if he went back to Iran he would be an innocent academic too, even though he works for Hoover and briefs the Bush White House on how to overthrow the government? Why has the US press not mentioned ONE TIME that Haleh Esfandiari used to work under Farah Pahlavi and invited her to Wilson center to speak about her new book. If Haleh was serious about Iranian politics and its future then she wouldn’t be inviting the wife of a former dictator to Wilson Center. You can not act as if these detentions are occuring in a vacuum. They are occuring in an environment of consistent pressure and attempted subversion by the world’s largest superpower which is currently surrounding Iran on its western and eastern border. If US is permitted to detain thousands of Muslims indefinitely in Guantanamo and elsewhere under charges of threatening the national security of their country, I do think the Islamic Republic is permitted to detain a few Iranians who are suspected to be part of a CIA plot, whether those charges are real or not. The paranoia is more than justified.
I also noticed in your other article about Imam Khomeini that we shouldn’t “judging something based on how it contrasts with the thing we dislike the most.” Yet it seems this is exactly what you and much of the Iranian diaspora do in reaction to “political prisoners” in Iran. Half of which end up coming to US and working for the cause of american imperialism. Milani the guy you quoted being one. Ali Afshar, recently another. And the list goes on. Islamic Republic doesn’t need to take advice from those who are naive about US ambitions in the region. Know this much, Iran doesn’t need the negative publicity, and thus these detentions are being made with a certain amount of knowledge of their activities.