Shirin Neshat of Sarbazan: Where are the Reds and Pinks of Stop the War on Iran on the Crimes of the IRI Regime?
by Shirin Neshat of Sarbazan

February 26, 2006
Los Angeles, California

The organization StopWarOnIran.org and its circulating petition of protest against a possible war between the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) regime and the West ( see here ), is yet another example of the Pink/Red portion of the constituency that contributed to the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. Mr. Ramsey Clark, the former United States Attorney General, who in the best tradition of American humorist Will Rogers has never met a Leftist or Communist he didn't like, has re-emerged as a spearhead of this latest attack upon the Persian Monarchy and the memory of the Shah. Worse yet, Mr. Clark and his fellow-travelers have maintained a complete silence regarding the criminal character of the IRI regime, and its continuing assault upon the human rights of the men, women, and children of Iran--a record which includes the murder of independent journalists, the assassination of political dissidents at home and abroad, the systematic denial of the rights of Iranian women, the routine torture and execution of minors, the employment of the tenets of Islamic fundamentalist theocracy to destroy the foundations of a Constitutional Republic rooted in democratic freedom of _expression, and now the "election" of Mr. Ahmadinejad last summer as President--a personal participant in mass murder as an especially zealous past member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who now struts his credentials as a Holocaust denier and one committed to "wiping Israel off the map."

And the distorted history of the Pahlavi era in Iran presented by StopWarOnIran.org and its petition cannot be corrected in a single letter. I would simply refer those interested in the real history of this era to the Shah's final memoirs in his book, Answer to History. Can anyone believe that a fair reading of the history of Iran between 1953 and 1978, whatever its shortcomings and failures, can possibly be compared to what Islamic fundamentalism has wrought in our Nation for the last 27 years?

But even more important for the luminaries who serve as signatories for this petition--ranging from QueerJustice.org to the Communist Party, USA of Wisconsin--the following question must be asked: What would the fate of these Leftists and Reds be if they resided in the Islamic Republic of the Mullahs? The alliance of Red (Communist) and Black (Islamic Mullahs) which overthrew the Shah in 1979 had its primary Marxist component in the form of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist organization. But once the Mullahs were triumphant, what happened to the MKO and its sympathizers in post-Revolutionary Iran at the hands of the Islamic theocrats? The answer to this should be a wake-up call to Mr. Clark and his allies to re-examine their own strategy and motives in giving the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) regime a free pass from the critical standards they seem to apply exclusively to the Shah's reign--which itself ended at the hands of a conspiracy of British Petroleum, the Ball/Brezinzski crowd at the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group in 1978 which ushered in the reign of terror of Khomeini as a chosen tool of the global corporate interests Mr. Clark claims to oppose. This last fact is also conveniently ignored by the other denizens of StopWarOnIran.org.

Now I freely admit that war between the United States and Iran is frought with risk and potential tragedy beyond human comprehension, including the danger of a mushrooming expansion of such a conflict into a 3rd World War. I also acknowledge that American conservatives like Pat Buchanan and my friend, Mark Dankof, have also sounded the alarm on the dangers of the use of a preemptive military policy against Iran. But it is equally true that the deterioration of the situation between the West and Iran which might end in such a cataclysm is the direct result of a collective policy of wholesale appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) on the part of Western governments, mass media, and academics. This is the central truth of the matter that has now resulted in the present diplomatic standoff and impasse. And had this policy of appeasement been replaced with one of principled, unified opposition to the Mullahs and their sick ideology over a period of many years, the Islamic Republic of Iran would have already been consigned to the ashheap of history. The people of Iran would be free. The world would not be faced with the terrible choice of either preemptive war or nuclear capability in the hands of a cabal of corrupt religious fanatics. There would be a regime in place in Iran which reaffirms the Monarchy with the accompanying foundational vision for human rights which characterized Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenids, along with a freely elected Majlis and Prime Minister operating under the 1906 Constitution of Iran.

Finally, do Mr. Ramsey Clark and his ilk want Islamic fundamentalists who believe in the totalitarian Doctrine of the Jurisprudent to possess the capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon? And if such a capability is attained--and later used--by the Mullahs, will the resulting mass death and destruction to the innocent of the world not be the primary moral fault of those who turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the crimes of Islamic theocracy, and who failed to implement a collective global policy of economic and political blockade of such a criminal regime by the world's civilized governments as an alternative to what now seems to be an inevitable war?

Oh, yes. There is another question on my part. What are the significant international sources of funding for StopWarOnIran.org? Arab regimes? Russia? Communist China? Others? Will they be fairly identified? Or will they continue to operate in the darkest of shadows as they did 27 years ago?

Shirin Neshat
Sarbazan
P.O. Box 16166
Beverly Hills, CA 90209
Phone: 310 863 8218