Khosrow Semnani

China using Iran to make cold war against U.S.

2010-02-16T00:07:00.000-08:00

With Iranians marking the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic with another round of protests, it is time for China to align its Iran policy with the long-term interests of the Iranian people. Yet, sadly, as a rising superpower China is treating Iran as a bargaining chip in a great game against the United States.

In recent weeks, China's support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has assumed a decidedly anti-American tone. Echoing Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, the People's Daily, the chief organ of the Chinese Communist Party, attributed the mass protests against Iran's rigged presidential elections as "an instance of naked political scheming" by the United States. Coming in the aftermath of its clash with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Google over censorship and human rights, China blamed the unrest in Iran on "online warfare launched by America via YouTube and Twitter." In this paranoid reading, the United States had stirred up millions of Iranians by sowing "discord between the followers of conservative and reformist factions."

China's assertion that American media are instruments, and the Iranian people stooges, of the United States distorts reality. Such a perspective on Iran, if not corrected, can harm China's relations with the United States and the Iranian people. While China may score political points with Iran's fundamentalists by fueling the myth of the Great Satan, such an Iran policy is not only an affront to President Barack Obama and the American people but an insult to millions of Iranians protesting a bankrupt theocracy founded on fraud, violence, rape and murder.

Although China has officially condemned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as interference in its internal affairs, it does not see its overt support for Ahmadinejad's coup as interference in Iran's domestic affairs. Yet it is China — not the United States — that is harming Iranians by arming Ahmadinejad and his Basij militia with anti-riot gear and vehicles. China is silent about violations of the Iranian people's civil and human rights and refuses to condemn the rape and murder of political prisoners in Kahrizak prison, a crime that even Iran's supreme leader has blamed on his own prison officials, not the United States. Further, it is China whose support for Ahmadinejad's nuclear program at the United Nations encourages Ahmadinejad's belligerent foreign policy, threatens the peace and security of the Middle East, and exposes millions to untold suffering caused by the threat of sanctions and war.

As Iran's largest trading partner, China's alliance with Ahmadinejad is not just bad politics, it is bad economics. China imports 15 percent of its oil from Iran and is responsible for more than 10 percent of Iran's imports. Sinopec, the subsidiary of China's state-owned Shengli Oil Co., has signed a 30-year $70 billion to $100 billion contract for 250 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas. Yet, far from securing its long-term energy needs, China is betting on Ahmadinejad to police its interests. A superpower cannot afford to act like a superpredator. China cannot profit by preying on the Iranian people for oil without losing face for investing in the cheapest of political commodities: Ahmadinejad's future.

Ahmadinejad has damaged Iran enough. China's relations with Iran and the United States should not become a part of the wreckage. Instead of converting Iran into a battleground for a cold war against the United States, China should join the international community by declaring and demonstrating its solidarity with the Iranian people.

Instead of resisting change in Iran, China should welcome it.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Obama could earn his peace prize by keeping war away from Iran

2010-01-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Much has been made of President Barack Obama's early and, to some, undeserved Nobel Peace Prize. How could a president leading a war in Iraq and a surge in Afghanistan possibly deserve a peace prize?
The answer may be that Obama is the only statesman with the moral imagination to avert a third, and far more catastrophic, calamity — a war with Iran.

In his Nobel speech, Obama was the first to concede that "compared to some of the giants of history who have received the prize — Schweitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight." But there is nothing slight or simple about Obama's quest for peace with Iran. Iran is the key to unraveling the tapestry of war in the Middle East.

The forces aligned against peace in the Middle East are formidable. Virtually all the hawks have a stake in discrediting Obama's diplomacy.

Obama's peace offensive not only threatens the anti-American world view of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but the political and economic monopoly of criminal cartels plundering Iran in the name of Islam. Resurrecting the Great Satan is the only way the ayatollah and his revolutionary guards can unite the Iranian people behind their odious coup. Even if Iran's nuclear arsenal were nothing more than Ahmadinejad rattling a tin can, exchanging the illusion of power to secure peace and prosperity would further undo his pretenses.

The Arab world also has an interest in war. Having funded Saddam, the Saudis and other Gulf states view the United States military as their new warhorse against Iran. As long as the United States views shia Iran as a threat, it will ignore the toxic role its ally, Saudi Arabia, plays in exporting their intolerant brand of Wahhabi Islam into Afghanistan, Pakistan and East Africa through proxies such as the Taliban, al-Qaida and Pakistan's ISI.

Having used the manufactured threat posed by Iraq's nuclear weapons program as casus belli, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing also have an interest in a clash over Iran's nuclear program. Netanyahu has granted Iran's hardliners a veto over the Arab-Israeli peace process — he has linked Israeli concessions on settlements to Iran's nuclear program. Obama must either neutralize Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy, or, failing that, through sanctions and strikes. But, if Obama were to broker a nuclear deal with Iran, a rapprochement between Iran and the United States would unleash an even greater existential threat. Netanyahu would be cornered into ending a military occupation that could trigger a civil war with his religious right. And the Palestinians would have to end their civil war to secure a peace that would weaken Hamas. But which Israeli or Arab politician would be foolish enough to follow in the footsteps of Prime Minister Rabin and President Sadat — risk assassination as down payment for Obama's peace efforts?

In the United States, the deck remains stacked for war with Iran. Neoconservatives and the Christian right attack Barack "Hussein" Obama's diplomacy toward Iran and the Islamic world as proof that he is soft on terror and weak on national security, while, in the wake of the Iran protests, liberals view nuclear negotiations with Ahmadinejad as a betrayal of democracy and human rights. As a politician, Obama must also resist the temptation of war as a ploy to stimulate the economy and boost his electoral prospects.

As for America's global challengers, China, Russia and Europe all stand to benefit from political and economic decline in the Iraq and Afghan quagmire. Why not keep America out of Iran by using the nuclear issue to profit from the threat of sanctions and strikes?

Perhaps no man can resist the domestic and international forces pushing the United States, Israel and Iran into the trap of war. But Obama's commitment to his vision of peace, even while in war, makes him every bit as great as King and Gandhi were. As he put it in his Nobel speech, nonviolence may not always be practical or possible, but the love that King and Gandhi preached "must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey."

No matter how faint the hope, in this season of peace, that North Star must guide us all.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Khomeini's spell over Iranian people has broken

2009-11-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. Fifty-three Americans were held hostage for 444 days by radical Islamist students and militants. The American hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981. Yet U.S.-Iranian relations have never recovered from the diplomatic crisis triggered 30 years ago.
That's about to change.

American politicians have been slow to recognize the nature of the seismic shift in Iranian politics, but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's spell over the Iranian people has broken. In 2009, it is not the CIA's coup of 1953, but the legacy of Khomeini's fundamentalist coup of 1979 that is at the heart of the protests for democracy and human rights in Iran.

For 30 years, Iran's leaders have made anti-Americanism the ideological cornerstone of Islamic fundamentalism. In this revolutionary demonology, the United States was branded as the Iranian people's mortal enemy — the Great Satan. Anti-Americanism became the glue uniting a broad coalition under the umbrella of Ayatollah Khomeini.

The shah and the United States were blamed for "Westitis" — the Iranian people's political oppression, economic exploitation and cultural alienation. And Khomeini's revolutionaries were glorified as Iran's saviors: the agents of Iran's liberation from corruption and contamination.

But in 2009, history has shifted. Iranians have no illusions about 1979.

The seizure of the American embassy in Iran served as a pretext for the seizure of the Iranian state and economy by radical Islamists loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. Under the cover of waging a holy war against the Great Satan, the hostage crisis allowed Khomeini and his allies on the left to stage a constitutional coup. They established a theocracy premised on the negation of democracy. Revolutionary tribunals established in Khomeini's name proceeded to stifle political and religious dissent by branding their opponents as agents of foreign powers. Thousands were executed in Evin prison after summary trials held in violation of the Iranian constitution and Islamic law. Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari rejected Khomeini's coup. He was defrocked. Ranking members of Khomeini's entourage — Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and heir designate Hossein-Ali Montazeri — became the victims of the terror unleashed in the wake of the hostage crisis.

The damage went beyond religion and politics. The Iranian state, military and bureaucracy were gutted. Iran's professional and educated middle class were marginalized, the Iranian economy crippled and society shattered. Overnight, women and youths, students and scholars, ethnic and religious minorities, particularly the Kurds and the Bahai, became second-class citizens.

The hostage crisis also paved the way for Iran's diplomatic, political and economic isolation, Saddam's invasion of Iran, the death of thousands, the displacement of millions and losses estimated at a trillion dollars.

In this sense, the political protests shaking Iran in 2009 show they have shattered the myth of 1979. It is not the Great Satan, but Khomeini's heir, Iran's supreme leader, who has sanctified a coup and ordered a military crackdown on the Iranian people.

The death of Neda Agha Soltan has reminded the world that Iranians have been hostages of terror and tyranny since 1979.

For far too long, the threat of sanctions and strikes allowed Iran's leaders to feed and fuel this anti-American mythology. That false perception has finally collapsed.

The Islamic Republic's calendar is turning against Iran's rulers.

Expect Wednesday — the 30th-anniversary celebration of the hostage crisis — to turn into an occasion for more protests. Iranians are not only reclaiming their vote, but also their history, heritage and humanity.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Obama policies spell hope for Iranian-Americans

2009-05-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama is reminding the world that no matter how grave the threat, America will not be defined by enmity but by friendship.

The stakes behind Obama's policy of engagement with Cuba and Iran could not be higher. A transformation of U.S.-Cuban relations can be the harbinger of change throughout the Americas. And a breakthrough with Iran could drain the swamps of fundamentalism spreading war and poverty in the Islamic world.

Beyond the obvious gains of advancing peace and security, the collapse of the barriers dividing the world into hostile camps — a North-South dichotomy in the case of Cuba and an East-West dichotomy in the case of Iran — can be as dramatic as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

As America mends the festering wounds of the Cold War, the moment is ripe with possibility. But, as Obama has cautioned, hope has to be tempered with history.

Recognizing that sanctions weaken civil society, Obama argued that restrictions on remittances made Cubans living in Cuba "more dependent on the Castro regime" and "isolated them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans."

In response to Obama's overtures, Cuban President Raul Castro signaled his willingness to discuss everything, including political prisoners, freedom of speech and human rights. At the Non-Aligned Movement's meeting in Havana on April 29, Castro adopted a hard line but reiterated that "we are ready to talk about everything."
Obama's diplomacy is also transforming anti-Americanism in Iran. Obama's ability to cast America's relationship with the Iranian people in a new light is making it much harder for fundamentalists to demonize the United States as "the Great Satan."

Invoking the words of the Persian poet Saadi, "the children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence," Obama celebrated Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, and praised the humanity binding Americans and Iranians together. He asked Iranians to imagine "the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities and peace between nations."

Although the hostage crisis of 1979 casts a long shadow, Iran's decision on Monday to release Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist charged with spying for the U.S., was more than "a gesture of Islamic mercy." With the Iranian presidential elections scheduled for June 12, even hard-liners recognize that anti-Americanism does not translate into votes.

Unemployment and inflation are a much graver threat to the security of the Iranian people than the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians do not have access to proper medical care, housing, food, clothes and other basic goods and services. Frankly, neither Iran's nuclear program nor the imprisonment of Iranian-Americans resolve Iran's economic decline.

Iran's leaders must recognize that it is not the threat of American sanctions but miscarriages of justice, governance and democracy that are crippling the Iranian people and economy.

Judicial misconduct exemplified by the Saberi case has a price tag: the flight of Iranian talent and capital. At a conference for Iranian expatriates in Tehran (April 14-18), deputy minister of commerce Mehdi Ghazanfar inadvertently highlighted the cost of religious and political persecution.

According to Ghazanfar, while Iran's non-oil exports were projected at $11.58 billion last year ($165 per person), the number of Iranians residing abroad stood at 3 million to 5 million, with a total estimated capital of $1.3 trillion ($260,000-433,000 a person).

Change begins with imagination. After 30 years of enmity and estrangement, it is time to undo the legacy of the hostage crisis, accept Obama's offer of friendship and abide by Iran's human and civil-rights obligations under the U.N. charter.

Like Cuban-Americans, Iranian-Americans pray for a future where we can exchange our bounty and blessings for the benefit of our adopted and ancestral homelands.

Khosrow B. Semnani, an Iranian-American philanthropist, is the chairman of Omid, a nonprofit devoted to promoting a better future for the Iranian people.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Khosrow B. Semnani the Chairman of OMID interview on Voice of America-PNN

2009-02-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

Bijan Farhoodi of Voice of America-Persian News Network interviewed Khosrow B. Semnani the Chairman of OMID: The Future of Iran on the 48 Hours program on February 21, 2009. The chairman discussed OMID’s commitment to promoting the civil, social, and humanitarian issues of the Iranian people. Approximately 55 minutes long, Persian only.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Open Letter to President Obama

2009-02-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

This letter appeared in the Washington Post on Thursday, February 12, 2009 with over 400 signatures.

Dear President Obama,

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Americans discovered friends in unlikely places, none more unlikely than Tehran, Iran. On September 12th 2001, thousands of Iranians spontaneously lit candles in solidarity with the families of 9/11 victims and the American people.
In your inaugural address on January 20th, you reaffirmed the bonds of faith and friendship that link the American people to each other and the world.
Despite the Islamic Republic’s belligerent rhetoric, the Iranian people are a proud and peaceful people whose faith binds them to principles of justice, tolerance, mercy and compassion. Having experienced the scourge of war, tyranny and oppression, the Iranian people are resolute in promoting peace and determined in their quest for freedom.
After thirty years of judicial and religious persecution-stoning, execution of minors, abduction, abuse and torture -the Iranian people’s reverence for life is undiminished. Their faith has never shattered. Instead of fearing death, Dr. Shireen Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and a new generation of Iranians-women, youth, journalists, workers, students and even some clerics-continue to fight for rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.
The idea that military strikes will moderate the Islamic Republic’s conduct or promote the cause of peace in the region is a fallacy. The fear of war enables fanatics to fuel anti-Americanism in the name of protecting Iran and Islam against the “Great Satan.” Ranking American statesmen, soldiers and diplomats recognize that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will enable a bankrupt and broken theocracy to justify failure and conceal deceit behind the veil of ideology and patriotism.
Given the proximity of Iran’s nuclear facilities to urban centers, the humanitarian, environmental and health hazards of such an attack would be catastrophic. According to a 2006 study by Physicians for Social Responsibility, the estimated immediate and long term human fatalities from exposure to fallout could rise to more than 2.6 million innocent civilians in Iran and Pakistan.
Mr. President, your administration can create political leverage by tapping into America’s soft power. As our nation’s top diplomat, you can support and publicize the cause of Iran’s civil rights movement. The more international media coverage Iran’s civil rights leaders receive, the more emboldened the Iranian people will be in their demands for democracy.
Iran’s Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, and Bahais appreciate peace, an appreciation distilled in a verse from Hafiz of Shiraz, one of Iran’s most beloved poets, a verse etched more deeply in the heart of the Iranian people than any legal code:

Plant the tree of friendship for it brings boundless joy
Uproot the sapling of enmity for it summons countless sorrows

Please Mr. President, take the poet of Shiraz as your guide: the love that binds us all as one is greater than the hatred that divides us as many.
We ask you to:

Extend the hand of peace and promise of friendship to the Iranian people. Promote peace and freedom without making concessions that legitimize the Islamic Republic’s violations of the civil and human rights of Iranians.
Champion the virtues of peace, understanding, and fellowship between peoples. Triumph over darkness and enmity by refusing military action that fuels cults of death and martyrdom.
Demonstrate your commitment to rekindling friendship with the Iranian people. Urge all Americans to join you in lighting a candle on September 12, 2009.

We are confident that by adopting these points, countless Americans and Iranians will join your struggle to offer future generations a peaceful and prosperous tomorrow.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my other punlications.

Khosrow Semnani

2008-03-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Khosrow B. Semnani is chairman of Omid for Iran. A prominent philanthropist and industrialist based in Salt Lake City, Khosrow Semnani has supported health and education initiatives in the United States and around the world. Khosrow Semnani has played an active role in lobbying against a war with Iran, as well as sanctions and other measures that would harm the Iranian people.

An engineer and entrepreneur by profession, Khosrow Semnani is passionate about promoting a better future for the Iranian people, a future based on good governance: personal security, economic opportunity, social justice and political freedom.

Click on my name Khosrow Semnani to read my punlications.