(Times-UK) Dean Godson - The most hotly debated proposal in Iranian opposition circles today is the referendum on the 1979 constitution that enshrined the concept of government by the clerics based on Muslim law. The organizers have obtained 35,000 signatures to date from social democrats, monarchists, leftists, and disillusioned supporters of the regime. Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, now effectively living under house arrest in Qom, has endorsed the referendum. It is worth recalling how much the U.S. government and trade union movement (as well as some Western Europeans) aided the rise of Solidarity in Poland. President Bush's endorsement of the referendum proposal would be the Persian equivalent of Ronald Reagan's call in Berlin to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear this wall down." And the price would be smaller than if Tehran got the bomb or America invaded.
2005-05-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive