Iran: Desire for Fire of Liberty present, will US help with kindling?

Fire of Liberty

According to this article by Eli Lake in The New York Sun, the Iranian Dissident movement led by individuals like Ghassem Sholeh Sadi is seeking the support for the US in their push for a national referendum that asks the people of Iran do they want to continue the mullacracy or seek a freer form of government. Just read some of what Lake wrote:

While a member of parliament, Mr. Sholeh Sadi was critical of policies of unofficial prisons and gave speeches blasting the justice ministry for their arbitrary detentions. In 1999, then a professor of political science at the University of Tehran, he wrote an article for Khordad newspaper broaching the government's policy of disappearing dissidents in what are called "unofficial prisons."

Mr. Sholeh Sadi crossed a line in 2002 when he wrote an open letter to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini publicly refusing to recognize his religious authority. Its opening lines pointedly left out the honorific "Ayatollah." "If you really possess the conditions of religious authority, among which are the conditions of religious scholarship and justice seeking, then I will choose you," Mr. Sholeh Sadi wrote. "But I have my doubts concerning you."

The letter compelled the Islamic Republic to begin pressing a variety of charges against Mr. Sholeh Sadi, who briefly left Iran for Europe after publication of the letter. When he returned to Iran, he was arrested and spent time in the infamous Evin prison, where he said yesterday he was beaten and suffered broken bones near his neck. "Most of my friends told me to pipe down. I am charged with taking actions against the internal security of the country, administering propaganda. Too many charges to name."

I hope the US steps up and support this growing democracy movement. With the recent passing of the Pope, Americans have heard the wonderful talk of how The Vatican and the United States provided enormous support and material to Solidarity in Poland to battle the Soviets during the Cold War. In the same manner as Solidarity, the US has to push the same in Iran. The President and State worked together some 80% during the Cold War and should do the same with Iran. I hope President Bush rereads Sharansky's The Case for Democracy and various biographies on Reagan to refresh his mind on how powerful the president's words and acts of support provide great succor for the dissident and democracy movements in past and present "Outposts of Tyranny."