Show Me The Money

The State Department should have some further explaining to do about the $61.1 democracy promotion program at the center of my time.com story this week. Given the intensity of the opposition to the program among Iranian reformers, as I reported, it is hard to understand how their warnings that it would put Iranian reformers at risk for arrest "simply never came up," as a State Department spokesman told us.

Did the Bush administration do its homework about the state of democratic development in Iran, before trying to throw money at reformists and/or counter-revoutionaries?

Given that the democracy program was strongly opposed by mainstream reformers, and is even rejected by the son of deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, which Iranians were telling the U.S. that it was a good idea?

With the current crackdown on reformers being an apparent downside of the U.S. program, what good has the $61.1 million actually done?

Is the $61.1 million really designed to further democracy in Iran, or to show Bush's domestic base that he is taking a hard-line on Tehran?

I quoted an anonymous reformer saying, "Anyone having the slightest knowledge of the domestic political situation in Iran would never have created this program."

This may be true, for several reasons. The most important is that the U.S.'s long-time interference in Iranian domestic affairs, starting with the CIA-backed coup d'etat in 1953, is a national sore point across the entire political spectrum. Thus very few true democracy advocates in Iran, or in the Arab world for that matter, would or could take direct American help. American backing of the shah was a primary force behind Iran's genuine revolution in 1979. ("Operation Ajax," by the way, also involved handing out secret cash: to MPs, some mullahs and newspaper editors viewed as potentially useful in overthrowing Mossadegh in favor of the shah.) As one Arab reformer recently told me, association with especially the Bush administration is a "kiss of death," given the U.S.'s pro-Israeli policies and unilateral invasion of Iraq. At this point, even the former shah's son doesn't want to be contaminated by U.S. money.

Another reason is that despite what Barry Lowenkron, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, was quoted saying in my story, the situations in Iran today and the Iron Curtain countries before the fall of Communism are not comparable. Unlike Eastern Europe, Iran is not an absolute dictatorship (like Saddam's Iraq, say) but has a system with multiple and often competing centers of power (albeit the Supreme Leader is first among equals). More importantly, however, is that Iran has a vibrant, homegrown broad-based reform movement that has already achieved much and will achieve more.

I'm keeping an open mind, but it is tempting to see the Bush administration's Iran policy in the same light as the deeply flawed approach that led the U.S. into the Iraq fiasco: seeing the world in black-and-white, acting on the basis of political fantasy, listening to people who tell you what you want to hear, disregarding advice from credible sources, showing scant concern for future consequences. Having failed to reach out to moderate President Mohammed Khatami who was in office during Bush's entire first first term, the U.S. has moved to effectively label President Mohammed Ahmadinejad the new Saddam.

None of this is to belittle the problems with Iran, or to suggest that Iranian democrats will have an easy time achieving their goals on their own. But we learned again in Iraq--as with the unintended consequences of the 1953 coup--that policies must be built on wisdom rather than wishful thinking. We need to know more about this $61.1 million and what more trouble it might get us all into down the road.

While we're on the subject, here's a brief timeline of key American statements related to the U.S. democracy program for Iran, funding for which was dramatically increased in 2007 and may be nearly doubled against in 2008:

--President Bush, State of the Nation speech, Jan. 29, 2002:

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror... States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

--R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Statement, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 19, 2005

The FY2005 Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act doubled to $3 million dollars the funds available to our Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau to support the advancement of human rights and democracy in Iran. We are currently reviewing applications for FY2005; in 2004 we provided $1 million dollars to document human rights abuses inside Iran and $500,000 for National Endowment for Democracy programming.

--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Feb. 15, 2006:

For our part, the United States wishes to reach out to the Iranian people and support their desire to realize their own freedom and to secure their own democratic and human rights. The Iranian people should know that the United States fully supports their aspirations for a freer, better future. Over the past two years, the Department of State has invested over $4 million in projects that empower Iranian citizens in their call for political and economic liberty, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights. We are funding programs that train labor activists and help protect them from government persecution. We are working with international NGOs to develop a support network for Iranian reformers, political dissidents, and human rights activists. We will devote at least $10 million to support these and other programs during this year (FY 2006), and we are eager to work more closely with Congress to help Iranian reformers build nationwide networks to support democratic change in their country.

The Iranian regime is a strategic challenge to the United States, to the world, and a destabilizing influence in the Middle East. The tools Iran uses to further its ideological ambitions are political subversion, terrorism, and support for violent Islamist extremism. Iran is trying to add nuclear weapons to that toolbox.

The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country...

We also plan to request $75 million in supplemental funding for FY 2006 to support democracy in Iran. This money will enable us to increase our support for democracy and improve our radio broadcasting into Iran, to begin satellite television broadcasts, to increase the contacts between our peoples through expanded fellowships and scholarships in the United States for Iranian students, and to bolster our public diplomacy. In addition, we plan to reprogram additional FY 2007 funds to increase our support for the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people as we identify worthy initiatives.

--R. Nicholas Burns, testimony before the House International Relations Committee, March 8, 2006:

As we work to end the threat posed by the Iranian regime's nuclear ambitions and sponsorship of terror, we also wish to support the Iranian people in their aspirations for freedom. Some in the West watched with hope and anticipation over the course of the late 1990s, as Iranians voiced their clear desire for a government that pursued their interests in a better life, free from state harassment, ideological impositions, and isolation from the world community.

Sadly, we know the outcome of these efforts-- newspapers were shuttered and journalists jailed, student demonstrators were beaten and imprisoned, and activists from all walks of life found their efforts to promote political change stymied and repressed. The hard-liners in Iran mounted an all-out defense of their hold on the regime and its people, culminating in last June's election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as its president. The election itself was deeply flawed...

Some Iranian citizens may have voted for Ahmadinejad with the sincere hope that he represented change from the corrupt, old guard of the regime. If so, they have been sorely disappointed. Many who had hoped for a break from the corrupt past have been appalled by the rhetoric and policies of the new president and have seen him do nothing to improve their standard of living. The Iranian people deserve better. His repeated denial of the Holocaust and his threats to "wipe Israel off the map" have earned the legitimate outrage of the international community, and have deeply shamed a country that-- until its revolution 27 years ago-- had a unique history of tolerance and a large Jewish community.

Just as his comments and actions have isolated Iran internationally, Ahmadinejad has tried to turn the clock back for Iranians at home. The regime issued edicts banning Western music and demanding that Iranian television broadcast fewer programs about women's issues. He has put forward a budget that would make Iran more dependent than ever on oil revenues, and make its economy even less competitive in attracting domestic or foreign investment.

Ahmadinejad may be its most public face, but he is by no means the only hardliner or radical in the Iranian regime. Although the Islamic Republic is a complex system with multiple power centers, today, all of the levers of power in Iran are in the hands of hard-liners. These men reject the basic notion that the governed should determine their leaders and their nation's course and who use religious faith to justify perpetuating their absolute hold on power.

Perpetuating the survival of the regime remains the highest priority for the Iranian leadership and has empowered an increasingly repressive approach to the Iranian citizenry. The regime's poor human rights record worsened throughout 2005, including summary executions, disappearances, extremist vigilantism, widespread use of torture, solitary confinement, and other degrading treatment. Juvenile offenders were executed, and sentences of stoning continue to be handed down.

Just as the Middle East is beginning to open to greater political participation and economic reform, it is especially disturbing to note the intensifying repression of the Iranian people. Protesters have been arrested and tortured. Journalists and web-bloggers continue to be arrested and mistreated for daring to publish their opinions. In February the Iranian regime answered the pleas of Tehran bus drivers for better working conditions by sending paid thugs to beat them. Journalist and political activist Akbar Ganji has spent nearly six years in prison for his reporting on the murders of Iranian dissidents and his advocacy of a secular Iranian republic. Having endured solitary confinement, a hunger strike, and reported torture, Ganji is due to be released next week, but it is unclear whether the Iranian regime will indeed release him.

We have worked cooperatively with a range of other countries to highlight the situation of Ganji and the many other Iranians who have been imprisoned unjustly or otherwise punished by the regime for expressing their views. At the UN General Assembly, for the third year in a row, we co-sponsored and helped ensure passage of a Canadian resolution condemning Iran's human rights abuses. This sent an important signal to the Iranian people and their government of continued international concern at Iran's mistreatment of its citizens.

As President Bush has said, it is important that the Iranian people know we will stand with them in their struggle. We are trying to do a great deal more to help Iranians who are trying to bring about peaceful democratic change. In the face of their difficult internal conditions, the people of Iran regularly give the world reason for hope about the country's future. Iranians know that their government may punish them for voicing their views on the Internet or in the newspapers, and yet journalists continue to write provocative pieces, and thousands of other Iranians post their thoughts to web-blogs every day. They gather on the streets to demand better pay and working conditions although the forceful reaction of the regime's thugs is a bitter reality. Iranians have found ways to endure in a system that strives to deprive them of their basic rights and culture – and we are confident that they will also find ways to change that system.

Here, I would like to suggest how the U.S. Congress can help to support change and reform in Iran. The first and most important action that Congress can take is the appropriation of funding requested last month by Secretary Rice for an additional $75 million to expand our effort to reach out to the Iranian people. This funding will build upon the $10 million provided by Congress in FY 2006 to support the cause of freedom and human rights in Iran. The supplemental request would support an ambitious program of activities that will promote peaceful change and democratization in Iran.

Fifty-five million dollars, the largest portion, will be dedicated to communicating our message to the Iranian people, offering them unbiased information. Funds will be used to greatly expand our television broadcasting in Farsi into Iran to penetrate Iran's government dominated media. We will use tools we already have through the Broadcasting Board of Governors while supporting the development of competitive and independent Farsi television and radio. We intend to work through U.S. Government sponsored media, such as the Voice of America and Radio Farda, as well as broadcasting organizations in the private sector. We will seek to develop civic education campaigns that increase understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy through written publications and new technologies such as pod casting, SMS messaging, and the internet.

We plan to utilize $ 15 million of the supplemental request -- in addition to the $10 million that Congress has already appropriated -- to empower local activists and thus further human rights, support and strengthen civil society, help Iranians acquire the skills of citizenry and advocacy, support alternative political centers of gravity, improve justice and accountability, and increase tolerance and freedom of speech, assembly, and other basic rights for the Iranian people.

Finally, we will expand our outreach to young Iranians who have never experienced democracy. We will spend $5 million on Iranian student education and international exchanges, providing scholarships as well as creating professional, cultural, sports and youth exchanges designed to build bridges between our two nations. If Iranians are banned from playing Mozart in Iran, we will help them to do so in our country.

We are also working to better ensure that we streamline the process for expeditiously awarding and allocating our grants. To this end the Department of State is working with the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and others to secure the necessary licenses and waivers for our grantees to do their work.

--R. Nicholas Burns, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 29, 2007

As a result of the generous $66.1 million in funding from Congress in the FY 06 Supplemental, we have implemented a wide range of democracy, educational, and cultural programs, as well as significantly expanded our efforts to improve the free flow of information to the Iranian people. $20 million of these funds are going to support civil society, human rights, democratic reform and related outreach, while $5 million was given to the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) for increased Persian language electronic and speaker programming about American society, institutions, policy and values. An additional $5 million was allocated to the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) for new cultural and educational exchange programs to increase mutual understanding between our two peoples. The Congress allocated the remaining $36.1 million of FY 2006 supplemental Iran funds directly to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) for media programming into Iran, including our VOA Farsi television service and Radio Farda.

Our programs are open to all who are committed to peaceful, democratic progress in Iran. Their goal is to support different parts of Iranian society by promoting basic human rights and religious freedoms; building civil society; improving justice, accessibility and the rule of law; and promoting a deeper understanding of our culture, values, and ideas.

Given Iran's restricted political climate, progress toward our goals has been predictably difficult. But we are moving forward, and many brave men and women are helping promote basic civil rights and the necessity of political dialogue. In the long-term, we hope that a more open political climate that encourages, rather represses, dialogue, will stimulate a change in the behavior of the Iranian Government.

State Department officials are also reaching out to the Iranian people to convey our policies. Secretary Rice and I have given interviews on Persian language media highlighting the Iranian people's aspirations for increased respect for human rights and civil liberties, as well as a more democratic, open government.

With the recently appropriated funds, the United States has resumed official educational and cultural exchange programs between the United States and Iran, which the U.S. Government suspended at the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. In late 2006, a group of medical professionals were the first Iranians to visit the United States as part of this reinvigorated effort. Their non-political visit brought them in contact with medical professionals from the Centers for Disease Control, Harvard Medical School, and other major medical institutions. Several professional, athletic, and cultural exchanges are planned for 2007, with the goal of building greater understanding between the people of the United States and of Iran. Additionally, we are encouraging American athletes, artists, religious leaders and others to visit Iran, as well, to help promote greater mutual understanding. It is our hope that increased exchanges will provide the Iranian people with a clearer and more accurate understanding of American society, culture and democratic values.

For FY 2008, the President has requested over $100 million in Iran funding, including roughly $20 million for VOA's Persian service and $8.1 million for Radio Farda, as well as $5.5 for consular affairs, and $75 million in economic support funds to civil society and human rights projects in Iran. We appreciate the Committee's continued support of efforts in these areas which are a vital component of our comprehensive Iran strategy.

--By Scott MacLeod/Boston