Robert Dreyfuss, foreign affairs journalist for The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and several other publications, was one of the 13 Americans on a recent Peace Delegation to Iran to discuss US/Iranian relations and foster more peace between the countries in March 2008 along with Transcendence singer/songwriter Ed Hale, author Larry Beinhart, Carah Ong, Iran Program director for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, and fifty year veteran activist Stephen Chinlund. Dreyfuss just recently published an article on the trip in The Nation Magazine, reprinted below.  

Letter From Iran – by ROBERT DREYFUSS
This article appeared in the May 19, 2008 edition of The Nation.

Across the street from the sprawling shrine to Fatima al-Masumeh,
the revered sister of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite imam, a group of
campaign workers on a rooftop are busy unfurling wall-sized election
posters for a conservative candidate in Iran’s March parliamentary
election. We’re in downtown Qom, a city of 1 million about 100 miles
southwest of Tehran. Qom is Iran’s religious capital, the wellspring
for a host of fundamentalist clerics who’ve ruled Iran since 1979,
and it is an eerie place. Unlike some other cities in Iran, where
urban professionals, merchants and the middle class try to push back
against onerous restrictions on freedom of expression and women’s
dress, there’s little evidence of that in Qom. Women are cloaked
head to toe in black garments, and turbaned mullahs on motorbikes
are a common sight.

Under a brilliant blue sky, mourners are lining up to enter the
shrine and pay their respects to Fatima, whose remains are entombed
inside an Oz-like green-mirrored vault. Among the mourners, in
formation behind a green banner, are a phalanx of grim-faced,
muscled militiamen, members of the Basij corps, wearing black T-
shirts and black headbands. The Basij is an estimated million-strong
volunteer paramilitary force that serves as an adjunct to the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and in 2005 the Basijis voted en
bloc to help elect hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president.

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By Robert Dreyfuss

At least 400 dissidents, activists and intellectuals--a number far larger than previously reported–were murdered in Iran during a wave of officially sanctioned, government death-squad activity that ended in 1999, according to Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Prize-winning human rights lawyer who is currently on a speaking tour in the United States. But Ebadi insists that US threats against Iran and rhetoric about regime change could make things worse, giving Iran’s leaders an excuse to intensify repression.

In an interview with The Nation, Ebadi said that she has documentation for one-third of those killings, and that information about the rest comes from the personal testimony of a man who admitted his role in the November 1998 murders of Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, who were hacked to pieces in their Tehran home. The Forouhars, critics of the Iranian regime, were part of the coalition that supported Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, the nationalist leader who was toppled by a CIA-backed coup d’état in 1953.

Ebadi, a Tehran-based attorney and former judge who has battled the government over human-rights abuses for years, says that what she calls the pattern of “chain murders” has halted since then. But she warns that the human-rights situation in Iran remains grave. On April 2, Ebadi herself received an anonymous threat in a letter delivered to her office that read: “Your death is near.”
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Guest Essay in the Brighton-Pittsford Post by Lynda Howland :: Originally printed in the BRIGHTON-PITTSFORD POST

Lynda Howland of Pittsford traveled to Iran recently as part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation along with singer/songwriter Ed Hale of the rock group Transcendence, Larry Beinhart of the Wag the Dog movie and Fog Facts book, and foreign affairs journalist Robert Dreyfuss.

The roots of distrust between the US and Iran were sown by several twentieth-century events. In 1953, the US overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, putting an end to their fledgling democracy. The US installed the Shah, supporting his brutal regime for 25 more years. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah, and students took hostages in the US Embassy. In 1980 Iraq invaded Iran, and the US sold chemical materials to Iraq, which were used to kill tens of thousands of Iranians. In 1998, the US shot down an Iran Air commercial flight, killing 290. Deep resentments and suspicions remain on both sides.

In 2003, Iran presented an offer (through the Swiss Embassy) to President Bush for comprehensive negotiations on all issues, including recognition of Israel, support of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran’s nuclear program. Bush did not give Iran the courtesy of a reply, and reprimanded the Swiss for delivering the offer. Bush continues to rebuff other Iranian offers for negotiations. Even after acknowledging the significance of Iran’s help in overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan, Bush made his Axis of Evil speech.

We negotiated with Libya and North Korea. Why not Iran? Because Iran is the last stumbling block to US control of the Middle East. As US economic power wanes and its “moral” leadership is severely compromised, it is relying on military power to “protect American interests” around the world. Control of Middle East resources is essential to this goal. What means are we willing to use to achieve this goal? As we “conveniently” blame Iran for Iraqi resistance to US occupation a US fleet is stationed in the Persian Gulf, prepared to unleash the terror of nuclear weapons on Iran, a non-nuclear nation that has no history of invading other countries. US special-operations teams are waging a covert war within Iran to destabilize it. Would we tolerate such actions against us?

I recently traveled to Iran with a Fellowship of Reconciliation peace delegation. We met with religious and governmental leaders, including ex-president Khatami. Their messages were similar: “If there are to be constructive negotiations, the “demonizing” on both sides must end, and the US must treat Iran as an equal partner and respect its sovereignty. Sanctions, threats of attack and regime change, and intimidation are the tools the US has used in its dealings with Iran. These do not constitute “negotiations.” They are condescending, and meant to humiliate and bring Iran to its knees.”

The hostile rhetoric of the US has a very negative impact on the reform movement within Iran, alienating even Iranians who oppose their government, and hardening the position of conservatives. The arrogance shown by the US administration can only incite more violence and extremism throughout the Middle East. Iran views nuclear power as a symbol of independence and progress. Their present peaceful nuclear program is legal, and neither the National Intelligence Estimate nor the United Nation’s IAEA has found evidence that Iran intends to begin a nuclear weapons program. Still, the world is justified in being concerned about Iran and other nations developing nuclear weapons. Likewise, we should be concerned about the existing nuclear weapons of nine other countries, including Israel and the US (the only country to use nuclear weapons). Five additional countries are enriching uranium. As we passed the Natanz nuclear power plant, guarded by a few anti-aircraft guns, I thought about the carpet maker, the geology teacher, the seven insightful young Iranian professionals with whom we shared a vibrant conversation, the smiling school children who surrounded us wherever we went in nearby Esfahan. If the US bombs Natanz, they could all die.

Their lives depend on Americans opposing an attack on Iran and supporting a peaceful negotiated solution to our differences. Iran is no match for a nation that spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. As our government attempts to increase our fear of Iran with misleading rhetoric, and make it into our next enemy, we must protest the buildup to the destruction of yet another country.