Rumsfeld pushes for regime change in Iran
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Iran
Published: May 29 2003 21:56 | Last Updated: May 29 2003 21:56
Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, is spearheading efforts to make "regime change" in Iran the official policy goal of the Bush administration, but his campaign is meeting with considerable resistance from other senior figures, according to officials and analysts.
A reassessment of US policy towards Iran coincides with an initiative launched by powerful conservative figures within the Islamic republic to engage the US in an attempt to restore relations -and thereby preserve the clerical regime in Tehran.
Media reports from Tehran claim that Mohsen Rezaei - a former Revolutionary Guards commander who is close to the former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - has made a tentative approach to Washington.
According to one official, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, has stepped in to freeze the fierce debate within the administration over Iran. The official denied reports that a high-level policy meeting on Iran was to be held on Thursday.
For the moment, the policy of limited diplomatic engagement with Iran remains in place, although President George W. Bush bracketed Iran with Iraq and North Korea in his "axis of evil" speech.
If regime change were to become official policy, then the US would cut off diplomatic contacts, lend support to opposition groups and intensify economic pressure. It would not necessarily involve military action.
The Pentagon had no immediate response to suggestions of Mr Rumsfeld's proposed policy change. Mr Rumsfeld's case focuses on concerns over the advanced nature of Iran's nuclear programme, its attempts to influence events in Iraq and allegations that Tehran is harbouring al-Qaeda militants who played a key role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh.
This last allegation is contested by George Tenet, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and has served to highlight the rivalry between the CIA and the Pentagon.
"Rumsfeld sees this opportunity to adopt a formal policy of regime change," said Flynt Leverett, who left his post as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council in March and joined the Brookings Institution think-tank.
He said the view of hawks in the Pentagon is that the struggle in Iran is not between hardline clerics and elected reformists led by President Mohammed Khatami, but between the people and the system.
"They [in the Pentagon] see the whole superstructure as discredited, a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice," Mr Leverett added. The European Union, which has hitherto adopted a softer line than the US towards the regime in Tehran, is also expressing increasing concern over Iran's nuclear programme, adds Judy Dempsey in Brussels.
A senior EU official said: "We now have reason to believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons. We would be fooling ourselves if we thought it was anything else."
An EU delegation will spell out its concerns to Iran over its nuclear weapons capabilities when it travels to Tehran on Sunday for three days of talks.
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