Iranian Opposition Views G8 Summit With Hope

Ahmad Rafat, Adnkronos International:

As the West looks towards Iran and its new ultra-conservative president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Tehran, all eyes are upon the G8 summit which will see the leaders of world's leading industrialised nations meeting on Wednesday in Scotland. Iranians still remember the then G5 summit in 1978, where the leaders meeting on the island of Guadalupe, decided to deny the then Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Western support and in so doing, facilitated the victory of the Khomeni-led Islamic revolution in Iran. Twenty-six years after the revolution, Iranians fear and hope, that history will repeat itself. READ MORE

In 1978, it was then French president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing who asked for Pahlawi's head. According to the French leader, the last Shah of the Persian empire, was guilty of not respecting human rights, of taking control of the Persian Gulf, and finally, of dictating terms to the Europeans. The then American president, Jimmy Carter, had no other choice but to accept the "advice" of his European allies and break with the Shah, an ally that was becoming too cumbersome.

This week in Scotland, it is the Americans who are asking for the head of the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the man that today holds the real power in Iran, while most of Europe headed at the G8 by French president Jacques Chirac, have taken on the role of defenders of the Iranian regime.

Iranian leaders, from Ahmadinejad's followers to the Islamic reformists of outgoing president Mohammad Khatami, and even the pragmatic conservatives led by former president and presidential candidate Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, are not supporters of the American president George W. Bush.

The same however, cannot be said of the majority of Iranians.

From the monarchist nostalgics of Pahlavi, to the reformists asking for a revision of the Iranian constitution, and even Hossein Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are many Iranians who this time are hoping for a declaration from the eight industrial powers, that will call for the end of the theocratic regime of Iran.

The reasons for which both the West and Iranians want an end to the mullah-led Islamic Republic are however, not the same. The West is convinced of the danger posed by Tehran's nulcear programme, further reinforced after the publication of the nuclear dossier on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), highlighting Iran's refusal to allow UN nuclear inspectors to visit key military sites

The Iranian opposition to the peace process in the Middle East and the ambiguity of the link between Tehran with international terrorism, are other reasons that have determined the current strain in relations between Europe and Iran.

Yet for Iranians, those who either favour or are against the current regime, the right to nuclear power, and not just for civilian use, is a right to which they cannot and must not renounce. What counts for them is respect for democratic freedom and human righst in Iran, issues which Europe has shown little interest in pursuing.

This contradiction between what Iranians want and what Europe wants out of Iran, clearly emerged in the past few days, in the course of a meeting at the European parliament, among representatives from Iranian civil society, and European political respresentatives.

A representative of the European Commission, Patrick Laurent from France, reasserted the EU's priority issues with Iran - economic ties and negotiatons on the nuclear prgramme - this in front of an audience including lawyers representing political prisoners in Iran.

"The Europeans seem to be throwing themselves into the arms of the Americans and in particular cheering on the neo-conservatives of Washington," said an Iranian lawyer, at the meeting.

Iranian civil society for its part will be watching Bush's moves in Scotland, waiting faithfully for a Washington-sponsored signal from the G8.