Freedom from Tyranny

Fire of Liberty
The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful editorial (Freedom in Farsi) out today lauding the Bush administration and the State Department's request for some $85 million to promote democracy amongst the Iranian people and how it is one more way to tear the Persian carpet that the mullahs have wrapped tightly around their purely pro-American citizenry(Even if the regime tries to portray them otherwise.) Probably the best place that the funding is going towards is the increased devotion to VOA Radio and TV transmissions in Farsi to the folks of Iran. While the mullahs have been co-opting with the Cuban government to jam these broadcasts from the US as well as its many other efforts to stop such info from reaching the "true democrats," it seems that we're achieving great success in this venture. Now don't take my word for the gospel but just read what the editors at the WSJ editorial board had to say:

We are skeptics of most foreign aid, but the VOA's Farsi broadcasts have proved to be money well spent. "Next Chapter," a youth-oriented TV show that airs samizdat political videos, is a hit in Iran, as is the VOA's Radio Farda (meaning "Tomorrow"). Labor unions are also a potent source of political opposition in Iran, just as they were during the Communist era in Poland. The current Iranian bus drivers' strike has led to the arrest of hundreds of drivers, evidence of the regime's fear of where the strike might lead.

A larger dose of VOA programming won't solve the looming crisis over Iran's nuclear programs. But as we learned with the old Soviet Bloc, totalitarian regimes are often more brittle than they seem. Outside of Israel, the U.S. may have no better friend in the Middle East than the Iranian people. The more we make our voices heard over there, the likelier it is that they will someday have a chance to make their voices heard too.

No matter how we look at it, the mullahs are one of the last remaining totalitarian state in the world who know that knowledge and the truth are two things that will dissolve the locks on their chains that have shackled the people to the dictates of the Islamic state thus forever changing the nature of the regime. So let's keep on pumping the money into such efforts, the more the better.