Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DUBAI2756
2006-05-15 13:33:00
SECRET
Consulate Dubai
Cable title:  

IRANIAN STUDENT ACTIVIST VIEW OF IRAN AND US POLICY

Tags:  PGOV PREL IR PHUM 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO4648
PP RUEHBC RUEHKUK RUEHMOS
DE RUEHDE #2756/01 1351333
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
P R 151333Z MAY 06
FM AMCONSUL DUBAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0472
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHDE/AMCONSUL DUBAI 3429
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 DUBAI 002756 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/15/2026
TAGS: PGOV PREL IR PHUM
SUBJECT: IRANIAN STUDENT ACTIVIST VIEW OF IRAN AND US POLICY

DUBAI 00002756 001.2 OF 004


CLASSIFIED BY: Jason L Davis, Consul General, Dubai, UAE.
REASON: 1.4 (d)
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 DUBAI 002756

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/15/2026
TAGS: PGOV PREL IR PHUM
SUBJECT: IRANIAN STUDENT ACTIVIST VIEW OF IRAN AND US POLICY

DUBAI 00002756 001.2 OF 004


CLASSIFIED BY: Jason L Davis, Consul General, Dubai, UAE.
REASON: 1.4 (d)

1.(S) Summary: Amir Abbas Fakhravar (please protect),an
Iranian student activist and political prisoner on the run in
Iran since he skipped out while on prison leave in June 2005,
got out of Iran in late April with the help of "friends" who
bribed airport officials not to enter his name into the
computer. He came to Dubai where he met with Richard Perle and
received a US visa to speak about Iran, at the invitation of the
American Enterprise Institute. End summary

2.(S) Amir Abbas Fakhravar (please protect) is the head of
Jonbesh-e Mustaqeli-ye Doneshju (Independent Student Movement),
which he describes as a sub-group of Jonbesh-e Azadi-ye Iranian
(JAI or Iranian Movement of Liberation). He claims JAI has
about 20,000 members inside Iran, of whom 12,000 are formal
members of his subgroup. Other branches include a workers'
group, a women's rights group, and a high school students group.
Fakhravar met with PolEconChief May 8 and 9 to discuss the
situation in Iran. He was joined by Sahar Nahrvar, an Iranian
with a Dutch passport, who lives and works in the Netherlands.
She is a member of JAI and acts as Fakhravar's public relations
officer and translator.

3.(S) Fakhravar has been arrested 18 times and was a political
prisoner in Evin prison, including long stretches of solitary
confinement. He opposes the current Iranian regime and
advocates a secular, democratic government. He was sentenced in
2002 to eight years' imprisonment because of his book, "This
Place is Not a Ditch," in which he criticized the supreme
leader. He has spoken out repeatedly about the political
situation in Iran and the torture he endured, including numerous
interviews with foreign press and providing Amnesty
International a detailed description of his mistreatment. He
says he continues to suffer from knee problems after being
beaten in court. His discussion of human rights issues in Iran
is contained in septel.

His View of Iran's Student Movement
-------------- --------------

4.(S) Fakhravar is a leader of the part of the student movement

that calls for outright regime change, not reform. He says his
group is trying to organize and unify other groups, including
independent high school student groups and labor groups, and
that his group does not believe in the use of violence. Its
primary goal is the spread of information about the situation
inside Iran. Its medium of choice is the Internet, in part
because of its anonymity, but the group also publishes leaflets.
He and other activists also give interviews to foreign media,
including Radio Farda, VOA, and the Los Angeles based TV
stations (which he didn't hold in high regard). His group also
cooperated in the production of the 2003 BBC documentary,
"Forbidden Iran."

5.(S) Fakhravar called dissemination of information critical,
given the Iranian government's sustained propaganda campaign.
He said children in schools are taught the glories of being a
suicide bomber, and that in universities, groups are baking
yellow cakes, to express their support of Iran's nuclear
program. He said Iranians develop a psychological "complex"
because of the disconnect between what the government tells them
about the world and what they learn from other sources, and
asserted that both the Iranian government and others, such as
the US, can use the resulting discord to their own advantage.
He also claims his network has the capacity to organize "real"
opinion polls inside Iran, without specifying how.

6.(S) Fakhravar, who says he is on the board of directors of the
high council for a referendum, said he does not believe the
current government would agree to a referendum under any
circumstances. Instead, he sees the call for a referendum as a
rallying cry to unite different movements. He claims this is
the majority view, and only a minority, including Ali Afshari,
Akbar Atri, and Mohsen Sazgara (all currently in the US),calls
for international pressure on this government for democratic
elections. Fakhravar was critical of other student leaders,
specifically Atri, Afshari, Reza Delbari and Abdollah Momeni,
inferring they had links to the regime. He claimed Afshari's
father had a publication that promoted velayat-e faqih, and that
the others all had brothers with IRGC/intelligence links. He
noted that of the four, only Afshari had ever been sent to
prison, which he said was in revenge for his activities
promoting Khatami. However, in the name of unity, he would
support them.

Iranian Youth
--------------


DUBAI 00002756 002.2 OF 004


7.(S) Fakhravar projected that 70% of Iranian youth were pro-US.
He said many defy school rules and wear jeans with US flags.
Asked whether there was not a hard-line element among Iranian
youth, he was dismissive. For instance, he said when he did his
military service, it was compulsory to attend designated prayers
in civilian clothes, bolstering the numbers at Friday prayers.
When asked about the Basij, he said, "We're all Basij." For
instance, at school, they would pass out application forms and
say if you want free busing, university seats, recreation, sign
up. He said he signed up once for a free bus trip to Tehran.
They stopped en route at nice restaurants, and when they arrived
they were ushered into a stadium that seated 12,000. After
chanting football cheers, they were then instructed to chant a
cheer for the Islamic republic, which was then used on
television.

Reform Experiment is "Over"
--------------

8.(S) Fakhravar is dismissive of Iranian reformers and advocates
"closing the file" on the reform movement, saying real reform is
impossible within this regime. He attacked reformers as doing
nothing but helping the regime by pointing out its weaknesses so
it can fix them. He says all decision-making is controlled in a
triangle of the supreme leader, the Council of Guardians, and
the Assembly of Experts. Any reform outside these three
entities has no impact on the system. Reform can't touch the
triumvirate because it is self-perpetuating, as the Assembly of
Experts chooses the supreme leader who selects the members of
the Council of Guardians, who vets candidates of the Assembly of
Experts. He claims the supreme leader only fears Rafsanjani and
has ensured that the Expediency Council, chaired by Rafsanjani,
is outside this power triumvirate, regardless of his
announcement last year that the Expediency Council would have
additional oversight powers over the administration.

9.(S) Fakhravar sees three power groupings in Iran today, led by
the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, and Rafsanjani.
Fakhravar claims that Rafsanjani is still politically active but
"underground." He said Rafsanjani is trying to create a unified
opposition to the supreme leader, working with former Majlis
Speaker Karroubi, Ayatollah Montazeri, former President Khatami,
Ardebili (presumably Ayatollah Musavi-Ardebili),and Mohammad
Mousavi Khoeiniha. He thought this group was trying to ensure
that either Montazeri or Rafsanjani gained control of the
Assembly of Experts in the November elections. He predicted the
Council of Guardians would block Montazeri but that they could
not block Rafsanjani.

10.(S) Fakhravar maintained that the supreme leader controlled
the IRGC and the regular army and that the power went only in
one direction. However, he claimed that secret polling by the
interior ministry under Khatami revealed that 85% of the IRGC
and 95% of the regular army opposed the Islamic Republic. He
inferred that for conducting the poll, the minister lost his job
and his deputy is now being sentenced. He also was very
dismissive about the Iranian military's overall readiness, as a
result of years of US sanctions.

11.(S) He claimed widespread fraud in the 2005 presidential
elections, saying that the government first announced that 14
million Iranians had voted, then the next day, claimed 29
million. He also said one member of the IRGC had been arrested
with 600,000 Iranian birth certificates in his possession (he
didn't indicate the source of this information). A student
publication called "Fresh Voice" published an article asserting
that the election statistics did not add up, and was closed
down, despite the fact that the article was based on government
figures.

Future Activities
--------------

12.(S) Fakhravar called the activities of the student movement
"superficial" at this time, saying at some time in the future,
they must dig deeper into the role of religion in society.
Because people believe that abandoning religion is a sin, they
are distrustful of secularists. He calls himself a Muslim, said
he prays every day, and reads the Koran, Bible and Torah.
Although he indicated his religious belief is genuine, he noted
that some of his followers would not follow him if he were not
religious. However, he is critical of people's understanding of
Islam and is waiting for the right time to start a discussion.
He has been working on a book for ten years criticizing Shia and
the "myth" of the missing Imam. He joked that by the time it is
released, unless Iranian society had evolved, he'd be labeled
Salman Rushdie II. He said these issues - the role religion
should play in society and people's understanding of their
religious doctrines - would persist even if the Iranian
government changed. Any new government would still need to work

DUBAI 00002756 003.2 OF 004


to persuade people to leave behind the myths about their
religion. He added the Shah failed in his efforts to secularize
Iranian society because he tried to isolate religion rather than
integrate it. Fakhravar was complimentary of US culture where
religion plays a strong role, even in politics to a degree, but
the government remained separated from religious entities.

His View of US Policy Options - Sanctions
--------------

13.(S) Fakhravar's recommendation for US policy towards Iran was
"complete" sanctions, followed by a publicized plan by Iranian
activists and opposition from outside Iran for a new,
alternative form of government. He said what is key is
promotion of this new concept so that when the "uprising" comes,
the Iranian people know what they are fighting for.

14.(S) Sanctions would have to be complete, including China and
Russia. He believes such a sanctions regime would be more
effective in Iran than it had been in Iraq, because the US now
controls most of Iran's borders. He disputed the notion that
such sanctions would cause suffering by ordinary people, saying
their lives are no better now than when oil was 9 USD a barrel.
Oil profits don't reach the people. He compared salaries in
Iran to those in North Korea, and said there are no "ordinary"
jobs left, only made-up jobs and income from the black market.

15.(S) Nonetheless, he thinks such sanctions would lead people
to social protests. Asked why, if their lives would not be
impacted materially, he said because oil profits are used by the
government to fund repression of the people. He said a few
years ago, Abbas Abdi (former US Embassy takeover planner, then
reformer and political prisoner) predicted that a rise in oil
prices would bring about the end of reformers, because petro
dollars would be used to "buy" the elections. Rising oil
revenues, he said, led to the Council of Guardians budget
increase of 120%, the Basij budget 400%, as well as increases
for media operations, while social services and salaries for
teachers, laborers, etc. have not increased at any kind of
similar levels. (Note: the government has raised some salaries
in Iran, but inflation tends to offset these increases. end
note)

16.(S) He believes sanctions would also give political activists
fodder to attack the government for harming the country. He did
not think the government could make use of the sanctions to
blame others for Iran's economic problems, because the Iranian
people would not buy the argument that Iran is the only "good
guy" and the whole world is "bad."

17.(S) Fakhravar does not advocate blocking Iran's participation
in the World Cup games, although he called the team members
agents of the regime and said they will use the platform of the
World Cup to propagandize for the regime. (He pointed out
members of the Iranian football team waiting nearby, who, as it
turned out, were applying for US visas for a Memorial Day
weekend tournament

Limited Military Strikes
--------------

18.(S) While he makes clear he is not "pro war" and will not
publicly advocate a limited military strike against Iran,
Fakhravar thinks such a strike on Iranian nuclear infrastructure
would lead to a popular uprising. He is dismissive of the
alternative view (note: the majority view we hear from Iranians.
end note) that such a strike by an outside force would prompt a
nationalistic rallying round the flag. He said when Iraq
invaded right after the revolution, the Iranian people fought
for their government because they didn't know yet what their
government was like. Now that they know the kind of government
they have, he didn't think they would fight for it. He also
says the Iranian mullahs are not the same as the Taliban
mullahs, who were fighters, hardened by battle, and used to
living in caves. Iranian mullahs, he said, are used to living
like princes and are "just bluffing." Iranians are not
fighters, he said, but are generally "lazy." He claims Iranians
would welcome foreigners to "save us from ourselves." Fakhravar
was very dismissive of the view more commonly heard here from
Iranians that change in Iran should come internally. He claimed
Iranian history showed that "all" change in Iran has come from
outside, and that even prior to the revolution, the people had
been repressed by the clergy.

19.(S) On the other hand, he said he is not calling for military
action and does not want American youths to die for Iranians.
He also took the point that it is difficult to predict the
popular reaction to such a crisis situation.

View of MEK

DUBAI 00002756 004.2 OF 004


--------------

20.(S) Fakhravar said "no way" should the US ever align itself
with the Mujahedin-e Khalq. Iranians hate the MEK for having
fought with Saddam Hussein against them. He doesn't think the
group believes in pluralism or democracy; it does not even
practice democracy internally.

VOA
---

21.(S) Fakhravar said "everyone" watches VOA TV, up to the heads
of state. He said he'd get a lot of response any time he was
interviewed on it. However, he criticized VOA's editorial
policy as too neutral between the policy of reform and regime
change. PolEconChief pointed out that VOA was reflective of
overall USG policy.

Comment
--------------

22.(S) Fakhravar came across as a passionate, dedicated, and
charismatic activist, who wants to go to the US to rally support
for his cause. He claimed no interest in political asylum,
because in his words, he is a "freedom fighter" and will return
to Iran. He seemed to have little fear for his own safety. On
several key issues, his views differed from the majority view
heard here from Iranians in Dubai, such as his assertion that
limited military strikes on Iran would rally the Iranian people
against their government, not in support of it. His advocacy of
full sanctions on Iran is also rare. Most Iranians we talk to
either say change will come from within Iran, or they want the
US to change their regime, but in an undefined, painless,
bloodless way.
DAVIS