Iran's President Ahmadinejad Should Not Welcomed At UN

Nasser Rashidi, The Global Politician:

The presidential elections in Iran was the worst possible scenario for the West. Now, the Iranian executive branch, like the legislative and judiciary branches, has come under the complete control of hard-liners. To cast his ballot, Iran's new president, had to walk on a street over which the flags of US, UK and Israel were painted.

The State Department says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, but will grant him a visa anyway, according to ABC News. The Iranians and many of New Yorkers are going to join a rally on Sept 14, 2005 in New York to protest Ahmadinejad's presence at UN.

"Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, he is not representing the Iranians", shouted by a 17 year old girl at Dag Hammarskjold park at 47t & 1st.

In 2000, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the absolute power in Iran, initiated the decision to purge the government and empower the Revolutionary Guards by establishing "Abadgaran-e Iran-e Islami" (literally, "Developers of an Islamic Iran"), to defeat outgoing President Mohammad Khatami's faction. The president who has now been placed in office - through an election full of irregularities - was the founder of this organization. He was one of Revolutionary Guards' commanders and involved in imprisoning dissidents and an interrogator in the dreaded Evin Prison during 80's. The new president, favored by Ayatollah Khamenei, is one of organizers of extremist groups that throw acid at women's faces because "their hair was revealed too much" and arrest and demean a young man for wearing short sleeve shirt.

John Simpson, BBC world affairs editor realized that "Ahmadinejad was a founder of the group of young activists who swarmed over the embassy wall and held the diplomats and embassy workers hostage for 444 days."

In his election campaign Ahmadinejad said "we did not revolt for democracy." From his and his supporting fanatic ayatollahs' point of view, the human rights defined in the United Nation's charters have nothing to do with the "Islamic" Iran. These fundamentalists do absolutely not consider themselves committed to international agreements that define individual freedoms. This is clearly shown in the past record of Ahmadinejad. Although, the new president is an unknown individual at the international level, domestically, he is perfectly known to political prisoners of 1980 to 19 90 and their parents and the families of 30,000 who were brutally massacred in 1988.

A state-run website called Baztab on Saturday, June 25 announced that "Ahmadinejad himself was one of those directly involved in torture of political prisoners and carrying out the coup de grace shots."

Ayatollah Khamenei who believes in divine rule of jurisprudent and does not limit the scope of his rule to the Iranian boarders admits that "Islam must be expanded throughout the region." This "Islam" which means mullahs' rule has so far executed more than 100,000 political prisoners and just during the last presidency has stoned to death 22 people, most of them women. This is the worst abuse of religion. According to a list of 21,676 executed political prisoners, released by the main Iranian opposition group, more than 90 percent of these individuals were themselves Muslims and half of them were women. With Ahmadinejad on top of the Executive branch, the ominous triangle of fundamentalism and proliferation of terrorism in a country with a Revolutionary Guard mullah, Shahroudi, as its Chief Justice and a parliament whose absolute majority since 2002 includes former Revolutionary Guards is completed. This triangle of power will extend the violations of human, and particularly women, rights in Iran and will proliferate domestic and international terrorism. Mullahs will continue their involvement in Iraq for increased influence and would not hesitate in their efforts to achieve nuclear weapons. Unless an international cooperation to confront this phenomenon forms this major threat will make the Middle East region more chaotic and endangers the world security.

The best way to fight against this source of terrorism and fundamentalism is to support the Iranian people and their organized anti-fundamentalist resistance. Foreign war is not a solution to this problem and modeling Iraq will not the remedy Iran's plight. The appeasement policy that three European countries have been advocating has failed. It is clearly proven that we should not be after the "reformist" mirage in Iran. READ MORE

No "moderate" or "reformist" will emerge from this regime. Jurisprudent is the main rule in Iran and the final decision maker.

The only reasonable and viable way for the Iranian people and the West is to support a democratic change by backing the Iranian resistance and its organized opposition.

Nasser Rashidi is an expert on Iran and a human rights activist. He is currently with the National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates (www.ncpda.com). He has been interviewed by the Voice of America (VOA-Farsi), and has written for the San Diego Union ("Earthquake will not change Iran's clerics"), National Review Online ("The End of So-Called 'Reform'"), The Sun Sentinel ("Legitimate resistance can prevail").