Drop plans to attack Saddam, Tehran tells US 

Simon Tisdall of the Guardian
Wednesday July 24, 2002
The Guardian 

Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, warned the US yesterday to abandon its 
plans to attack Iraq and denounced what Tehran believes is a calculated Bush 
administration campaign to provoke mass insurrection in Iran. 
"We wish to caution the great powers against further interference in the 
region and against the exacerbation of the flames of war," Mr Khatami said 
during a visit to Malaysia. "We live in a very frightening situation today. 
We have never witnessed war being so much promoted in the US." 
Iran's leadership would not bow to US "threats and insults", he said. 
In a pointed reference to US hopes to depose Saddam Hussein and impose 
"regime change" in Iraq, Mr Khatami said that any such action could 
destabilise the entire region, with unpredictable results. 
"No one has the right to decide for the people of Iraq. The people of Iraq 
should decide for themselves," he said. Tehran's own disputes with Baghdad 
notwithstanding, "we condemn any foreign interference in Iraq". 
In a measure of how sharply US-Iranian relations have deteriorated in recent 
months, he also accused Washington of colluding with Israel in a policy of 
"genocide" against the Palestinians. 

Mr Khatami's remarks raised the possibility that a US military attack on Iraq 
could trigger a regional conflagration, drawing in Iran and possibly even 
Israel, Iran's sworn enemy. 

The reformist Iranian leader, who is engaged in a long-running battle at home 
with conservative opponents, spoke as officials in Washington suggested a 
significant hardening of US policy on Iran. 

The officials indicated that the Bush administration has decided to drop the 
policy of engagement supported by Britain, the EU and former US president 
Bill Clinton, and instead adopt a more confrontational approach, including 
open encouragement of anti-government forces in Iran. 

Mr Khatami and his pro-reform supporters in government "are too weak, 
ineffective and not serious about delivering on their promises", one official 
told the Washington Post. "We have made a conscious decision to associate 
with the aspirations of the Iranian people." 

Earlier this month, George Bush appealed to ordinary Iranians, suggesting 
that they were, in effect, being held hostage by the country's Shi'ite 
clerical establishment. He also accused Iranian leaders of corruption. 
"In the last two Iranian presidential elections... the vast majority of the 
Iranian people voted for political and economic reform," Mr Bush stated. "Yet 
their voices are not being listened to by the unelected people who are the 
real rulers of Iran. 

"Uncompromising, destructive policies have persisted... Meanwhile, members of 
the ruling regime and their families continue to obstruct reform while 
reaping unfair benefits. Iran's people... have no better friend than the 
United States of America," Mr Bush said. 

His statement was conveyed directly to Iran via the government-funded Voice 
of America radio station. 

Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fierce 
response: "America has spread the shadow of war and death in the region, 
threatening officially to overthrow the people and government of Iran," he 
said last week. "The great Iranian nation will not retreat." 
The US policy shift concludes a process begun last January when Mr Bush 
labelled Iran a "rogue state" linked to terrorism and a part of the "axis of 
evil" that includes Iraq and North Korea. Mr Bush also accuses Tehran of 
seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. 

The tougher US position puts it at odds with Britain and the EU, which favour 
"critical engagement" with Iran, in the hope of encouraging reform, and have 
been negotiating a trade pact with Tehran. The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, 
has visited Tehran and a German government delegation is due there next 
month. 

"We believe engaging with the reformers is the best way forward and we still 
do," a Foreign Office source said last night. 

Mr Bush's statement, issued on July 12, caused anger and astonishment inside 
Iran, dismaying reformists who have been struggling against a growing 
conservative backlash and provoking anti-American demonstrations. 
US analysts interpreted Washington's harder line as another setback for the 
secretary of state, Colin Powell, and an advance for hawks within the 
national security council and the Pentagon.