Repaying the debt

More than 50 years ago, Iranians elected the nationalist Mohammed Mossadegh as their president. Unhappy with the new president's desire to set an independent path for his nation, the American and British intelligence services organized a coup that restored the pro-Western Shah Reza Pahlavi to power. \nWashington worsened its legacy in Persia by continuing unabated support for Shah Pahlavi and his SAVAK secret police force during his increasingly brutal dictatorship. Indeed, when anti-Pahlavi demonstrations rocked Iran prior to the 1979 revolution, President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated a U.S. military intervention on behalf of the Shah.\nIn the power vacuum resulting from monarchy's eventual fall, Islamic fundamentalists seized power. Led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the new rulers governed even more brutally and less democratically than the last regime. In the last two and a half decades, Tehran has censored all forms of the media, denied its citizens basic human rights and crushed dissent by supporting extremist vigilante groups that attack democracy activists. \nOn Monday, the State Department announced a new policy that may reverse both the situation in Iran and America's legacy there. According to an April 11 USA Today article, the State Department will begin distributing $3 million in Iran to support "the advancement of human rights and democracy." The financial aid will attempt to repeat the effect U.S. monies helped achieve in the people's revolutions of Ukraine and Georgia.\nThe situation in Iran, of course, differs greatly from that of Ukraine and Georgia, mostly because the regime holds its power more strongly and the opposition fights against itself, having failed to coalesce around a singular leader as democratic forces did in the aforementioned Orange and Rose Revolutions.\nWashington could, however, use the new aid package to unite the various opposition forces -- which range from former monarchists like the Maryland-based son of the former Shah to quasi-terrorist groups such as the Paris-based Mujahadeen-e-Khalq. The State Department should grant the new funds to a centralized coalition of strictly nonviolent groups and thereby avoid creating an environment in which different factions undermine democratization by maliciously competing against one another for grants.\nThe regime's determination might also soon wane under the pressure of frequent popular demonstrations. Often convening after soccer games, protesters shout slogans demanding democracy and decrying the regime. Afraid of the power these actions represent, Tehran attempts to keep news of them to a minimum. Security forces, for example, brutally tortured, raped and murdered the Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi two years ago after she photographed such a rally. \nMost Iranians will welcome U.S. assistance for pro-democracy efforts. In the region where anti-Americanism runs strongest, the Iranian people buck the trend. A 2002 poll conducted by Iran's own National Security Council showed that 46 percent of the people believed American policies in Iran were "to some extent correct," according to an article by Patrick Clawson in the March 2004 Middle East Review of International Affairs. \nEven more surprising, a 2003 poll published by the Iranian paper Yas-e-Now showed that 45 percent of Iranians -- a large plurality, with only 13 percent of respondents supporting the regime's policies -- wanted a "change in the political system, even with foreign intervention." Because the regime propagates false rumors that the United States plans to invade Iran, this poll shows that the Iranian people hold such pro-American and anti-regime attitudes that they are willing to sacrifice their country's sovereignty.\nWashington should expand the new aid plan announced by the State Department and continue to ignore calls for counterproductive military action. We should not expect any miracles of democratic revolution in Iran any time soon, but direct support for Iranian democrats is the least we can do to reverse our dark legacy in their country.