A view to a coup?

• Author: Carpenter, Ted Galen
• Position: Contra Iran - US regime change for Iran

THROUGHOUT WASHINGTON'S impasse with Iran, many influential Americans have viewed regime change as a panacea that would revoke the country's Axis of Evil membership and turn it into a bastion of democracy. Such thinking gained prominence in the past year, as the prospect of a diplomatic solution became a great deal murkier. Given the disappointing progress of the EU-3 negotiations, it seems unlikely that Iran will give up its nuclear program voluntarily. The question is how to deal with this refusal.

Most neoconservatives favor regime change, and they usually argue such an operation is possible without extensive U.S. military involvement. (1) According to these proponents, there is so much domestic opposition to the religious elite that a U.S. propaganda offensive, combined with financial and logistical assistance to prospective insurgents, would topple the clerics. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute has boasted, "I have contacts in Iran, fighting the regime. Give me twenty million [dollars] and you'll have your revolution."

The initial stage of the regime-change strategy got underway with the 2005 passage of the Iran Freedom Support Act, followed by a dramatic funding boost the next year. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice outlined, the expanded program primarily funds radio broadcasts and other propaganda activities, and it provides modest support for trade unions and other dissident groups.

Despite the enthusiasm, is regime change really a feasible or worthwhile strategy? And would it actually end Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons, much less nuclear technology? Evidence indicates that the answer to both questions is a firm no.

THE REGIME-change-from-within thesis might seem more plausible had we not heard it before in the run-up to the Iraq War. Indeed, the argument for regime change and the strategy embodied in the Iran Freedom Support Act are eerily reminiscent of Iraq policy between 1998 and 2003. Congress passed and funded an Iraq Liberation Act during that period. American policymakers believed the propaganda of Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress that--with modest financial and logistical support--Iraqi dissidents could overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. It is now apparent that the INC never had more than a meager domestic following, and Chalabi's party garnered less than 0.5 percent of the votes in the December 2005 Iraqi parliamentary elections.

There are manipulative (and in some cases utterly objectionable) Iranian exiles waiting in the wings to orchestrate a similar scenario. They include notorious arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, a shadowy figure from the Iran-Contra scandal. Perhaps the most unsavory opposition group is the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), included on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations since 1997.

The MEK is the military wing of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), regarded by many neoconservatives as a key ally in the regime change effort...