.

Ms. Nazanin Ghasemian: What

Ms. Nazanin Ghasemian: What are your connection to the Islamic Republic? How long have you lived in the U.S.?

Sensitive topic

Ms. Ghasemian, I can understand his father being a sensitive topic, but don't quite understand why Reza Pahlavi would be such "an overly sensitive topic." He is just a well-known Iranian who is concerned about his country, just like millions of other Iranians inside and outside Iran. A referendum may not have been "the buzz" in the diaspora, but it was an idea that floated around Iran. As I have mentioned twice already in my other posts, Mohsen Sazegara, former founder of the Pasdaran, was a well-known advocate of the referendum, along with members of Tahkime Vahdat.

Referendum Movement

Secret Agent Man

Who's talking about secret agents here? By true colors, I meant that you dislike Reza Pahlavi, which is fine, but it was not a topic that I brought up -- I brought up the issue of the referendum, which many Iranians supported, including Mohsen Sazegara. You're the one who felt the need to throw in a cheap shot against Reza Pahlavi, who by the way has publicly condemned any ideas for attacking Iran. And I will respect your right to hate Reza Pahlavi. But remember, you're the one who brought it up. If I offended you, I apologize. But, let's not change the subject here -- the issue was the referendum, which many Iranians, including Reza Pahlavi, supported.

Ledeen is a liar

Ledeen doesn't know anything about Iran. I remember that other diary where people kept saying DOCTOR Ledeen cares about Iranians. Whatever... this guy sells arms to the Ayatollahs and then turns around and claims to care about Iranians? Only complete idiots would believe that.

Nazanin: Yes, he is a

Nazanin: Yes, he is a nobody. So, don't give any attention because truthfully, he is irrelevant.

Ledeen is not an oracle

Nazanin: Have you tried

Nazanin: Have you tried writing a letter to him or write on his blog?

//pajamasmedia.com/xpress/michaelledeen/

You might also be interested in knowing that he warned Carter et al against supporting the mullahs in 1978 and predicted most of the things that have happened since but noone took him seriously then and I don't think anyone is taking him seriously now.

Address my topic or please start your own blog

Iran was not invovled in

Iran was not invovled in 9/11 and the US knows that. However, Leeden does not care about Iran or Iranians. And why should we expect him that he does? It's unrealistic and ludicrous.

He cares about Israel and its survival and rightly so. If I were an Israeli surrounded by hostile Islamists/jihadist countries, I would be scared too and will do anything in my power to eliminate the threat as does the Islamic Republic to ensure its own survival. Why is this so hard to grasp??

The real point here

Ms. Ghasemian, you have shown your true colors. I never referred to any plan for a referendum proposed by Reza Pahlavi -- but as I recall, Mohsen Sazegara, a former founder of the Pasdaran, also supported the idea of a referendum, so let's not let our obsession with all things Pahlavi get in the way here, Ms. Ghasemian. I merely stated that we should wait for the results of a free and fair referendum on the IRI before we say that the majority of Iranians want the IRI to stay. It is hypocritical for the IRI to advocate the holding of such referenda in other countries when it absolutely refuses to do so in Iran. Since the IRI fears the will of the Iranian people and refuses to allow such a referendum, we must depend on opinion polls that show Iranians want change: //edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/16/iran...
But it is sad that we will never have official confirmation, because the IRI is simply too cowardly and must intimidate and harrass individuals, such as reformist Abbas Abdi, who held his own poll on whether Iranians would like to re-estabish diplomatic ties with the US.

Lack of Evidence & Referendum

I never
asserted whether Iran participated in 9-11. What I wrote strictly concerns
Michael Ledeen’s assertions and evidence for such. Please limit your responses by relating them to
the topic of my blog entry. Otherwise, I encourage you to write your own blog.

In my review
of Ledeen’s assertions about Iran and 9-11, I stated that he offers no evidence.
And if that should make any of us resign from Ledeen’s argument, he asks that
we allow time to deliver us the evidence of Iran’s participation. That’s
ridiculous.

I haven’t
asserted anything regarding the majority of Iranian support. Ledeen has,
though. His statistic claims to cover 60% of Iranians is laughable,
considering he has never been to Iran, and a referendum/poll has not taken
place to pronounce such a claim as true. I also refuse to credit Iranians such
as some Pamela Constable quotes in her 9/26 article as sources for how Iranians
hope to be governed since these are the people Ledeen exploits to make his
points. All I could ever venture to say in my experience about a majority of
Iranians is that they aren’t vegetarians.

I’ll answer
your final question even though it is unrelated. While I cannot speak on behalf
of the Iranian government, I’ll tell you what I think. The referendum proposal
by Reza Pahlavi as a challenge to the Iranian government in his book Winds of
Change is ridiculous. Not only did his father not do such a thing, the United
States government and all others which strive to stay in power refuse to
entertain such proposals. That doesn't automatically mean that the Iranian government is scared.

.

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Your assertions are laughable

You say there is no evidence at all linking the Islamic Republic to 9-11; however, you might want to read the 9-11 commission report which clearly states that several of the 9-11 hijackers freely passed through Iran and their passports were not stamped by the authorities. Is that enough proof to say that the IRI was behind it? No. But it is naive to say that they had nothing to do with it at all.
Also, your assertion that a majority of Iranians support the IRI regime is laughable. If this is true, why doesn't the IRI hold a free and fair referendum on this question: "yes or no to the Islamic Republic." The IRI has advocated a referendum for Israel & Palestine, and also for Bahrain and whether it would want to rejoin Iran, so why wouldn't they do it for this basic, simple question regarding their illegitmate rule? What are they so afraid of?

To Kaveh

Kaveh,
.
I agree with you about Bollinger but disagree regarding Ledeen. While Bollinger is just a buffoon who panders to the establishment and special interest groups and should be ignored, Ledeen IS the establishment.
.
AEI in general and Ledeen in particular set the foreign policy of this Administration. We saw this all too well in Iraq. Ledeen has been accused of being responsible for Iraq yellowcake Niger fake documents.
.
He is a weasel and should be confronted by all Iran loving people at every opportunity. Sadly, some of our "opposition" in diaspora have a very warm relationship with this guy. Radio Seday-e-Iran talks about this guy constantly as if he is Iran's best friend! Sad to see really.

Iran is none of business of Leeden and other Gavcheronha!

Treason

Two points.
.
Micheal Ledeen has argued that "Iran has been at war with the US since 1979." It has been well documented that Mr. Ledeen and his buddy Ghorbanifar acted as middlemen between Reagan Admin and Iranian government to sell Iran arms (Iran-Contra affair). So would it not follow that Mr. Ledeen was helping and abetting the enemy of US by selling arms to a country that was at war with the US? Isn't that called treason?
.
Secondly, why are our beloved Saltanat Talabs and Mr Reza Pahalvi rub elbows with such an individual who clearly wants to disintegrate Iran? After all Mr. Ledeen is on the record in saying that the US should use the various ethnic divisions in Iran to its advantage to fight Iran. I really would like to know.

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excellent!

As Iranian who are against IRI, we need to understand peoples motives. Ledeen and his like have no intention of bringing prosperity to Iran and Iranians. They are using us, like they used the Iraqi opposition to make a case to divide and destroy these countries.

In the post cold war era, strong regional government is no longer important and unfortunately, most of us have yet to learn that. Therefore, a weak divided country is best thing to exploit a place. As you can see in Africa, now Iraq and soon Iran.

As much as we hate what IRI has done to Iran, these guys will do worst, and we may have to be forced to go a long with IRI to pick the lesser of two evils.