Haleh Update: She's Free

Suddenly, Haleh Esfandiari is free. These are her first words upon leaving Iran:

After a long and difficult ordeal, I am elated to be on my way back to my home and my family. These last eight months, that included 105 days in solitary confinement in Evin Prison, have not been easy. But I wish to put this episode behind me and to look to the future, not to the past.

I am immensely grateful for the unstinting support I received from Wilson Center President, Lee Hamilton, and the Wilson Center staff. I am equally grateful to the many organizations and hundreds of individuals all over the world that called and worked for my freedom; to the journalists and news organizations that gave my case wide coverage; and to all those who interceded on my behalf. I owe thanks also to my lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, and her legal colleagues who so ably represented me.

I wish especially to thank the Austrian ambassador to Tehran, Dr. Michael Postl and his colleagues, whose friendship and concern for the well-being of my mother and myself was truly extra-ordinary.

I am sure everyone will understand my need, now, for a period of quiet and privacy before I resume my normal activities.

Haleh Esfandiari, in file photo Photo Courtesy of Wilson Center

By now, the Iranian-American scholar should be reunited with family members in Austria, as she makes her way back home to the U.S. Her ordeal began just before New Year's Day when she was abducted by knife-wielding security men enroute to Tehran airport after visiting her elderly mother. She's been under house arrest or in prison ever since, including the 105 days in Evin Prison. In May, authorities said she was accused of espionage, acting against Iran's national security and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic. In July, Iranian TV aired her "confession" and two weeks ago officials released her from prison. Over the weekend she received an Iranian passport enabling her to leave the country.

What explains this happy turn of events? I haven't seen any Iranian official statement yet, or much mention of her freedom in today's Tehran press. There is no sign that the charges have been dropped and it seems technically she could be summoned back to stand trial.

It would be nice to say that Iranian moderates got the upper hand in the continuous internal power struggle with Iranian hard-liners. That may be part of it, but not all of it. I doubt that it has much to do with President Bush's latest speech warning Iran. Despite the administration's autumn drum roll of threats, Iranian leaders are as adamant as ever in pursuing what they consider to be their right to enrich uranium. Clearly, Iran is in this confrontation for the long haul.

The Iranians probably released Esfandiari because her arrest had served most if not all of its purposes. As with the detention of the British sailors in the Gulf earlier this year, the Iranian regime wanted to send a warning. Tehran has been concerned about the administration's stealth regime-change policy, and is perhaps even more anxious about the immediate prospect of tightening economic sanctions over its nuclear program. Taking hostages like Esfandiari--and the UK sailors-- is a way of reminding Washington that it's moves will entail a certain political price.

Esfandiari's arrest has also accomplished another aim that is unrelated to its standoff with Washington: the desire of Iranian hard-liners to crush liberal activism inside Iran. The regime now has democracy activists living in a state of fear. Indeed, it continues to hold three other Iranians with Western ties:

--Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planner working with the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation.

--Ali Shakeri, a dual national, of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine.

--Parnaz Azima, also an Iranian-American, a journalist for the U.S. government's Persian broadcast channel, Radio Farda.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo