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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Iran Protests
Aired December 10, 2002 - 12:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And the role of another neighbor of Iraq could be critically important, as well as the U.S. ponders the possibility of going to war against Iraq. The situation in Iran is very, very important. The case of one condemned professor in Iran has brought a lot of attention on what's happening in the streets of Tehran and other cities throughout Iran. Indeed, some say it's reaching a boiling point. The professor's death sentence bought on because he questioned Islam clerical rule, is sparking the largest student protest in Iran in three years. About 4,000 students clashed with police on Saturday alone over this case.
Let's bring in CNN's Christiane Amanpour. She's standing by in London, who has been covering the story and knows a great deal what's going on.
Christiane, give us some perspective, how significant are these protests?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: well, I think very significant in the fact that there have not been these kind of protests in Iran for many, many years. They're still quite small relatively, but they're consistent. They still haven't broken out, if you like, of the confines of the university campuses, where they are limiting their protests in order to avoid violence by some of the shock (ph) troops of the hardliners who run Iran right now.
But they are consistent. They're asking not just for the death sentence on this very popular professor to be overturned, but for basic freedoms. Young people in the streets are saying, we wouldn't be in the streets if we were allowed to have free lives, if men and women were able to mingle freely, if we could just have some kind of economic future at the end of our college, at the end of our rainbow there, if you like. There is a lot of dissatisfaction.
The people of Iran are mostly very, very young, and for four or five years now, in every available election from presidential to local, they have overwhelmingly voted for the reformers.
Unfortunately, the tide of reform such as it is has been stopped dead in its tracks and is under great assault by the hardliners who run foreign policy, the Army, the judiciary -- all the real leaders of power.
BLITZER: Christiane, before I left Washington not that long ago, I had a high-level intelligence briefing. The assessment, at least the U.S. assessment, was that the U.S. basically keeps a hands off policy toward Iran; the reformist movement is going to succeed and get rid of the more hardliners in the Iranian government. Is that a fair assessment based on your reading of what's happening in Iran?
AMANPOUR: Well you know, it's really hard, because sometimes they say we should do more hands on and help. Sometimes they say we should keep our hands off and let the situation play out for what it is.
Certainly, whatever the United States does is taken by the hardliners and used against the reformers, whether it's a hand-off approach or a hands-on approach. So that is certain.
However, what appears to be happening here is that the people are way ahead of the politicians, even way ahead of the reformist President Khatemi. They have consistently spoken not just for their own domestic and local freedoms, but also for renewing relations with the United States. There was a Gallup poll, or rather a poll that was taken several months ago, which was extraordinary and overwhelming majority of the Iranian people polled say they're in favor of renewing relations with the United States, and for that, the pollsters, the people who publish that poll, are on trial in Iran today.
So a lot of dynamics are going on right now. In terms of whether this people power, if it grows, will make a difference, who knows? The real question is, are the people of Iran willing to come out into the streets and challenge the powers that be? Are they willing to take that risk and really put their money, if you like, where their mouth is? We know what they want and what they voted. Are they willing to take the risk to see that their Democratic right, that their vote at every election is actually respected.
BLITZER: Christiane, before I let you go, a question about the Iranian attitude toward a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq. As you well know, there's no love lost between the Iranians and Iraqis. They did fight a bitter war throughout the 1990s. But lately at least some of the public statements urging the United States not to go to war against what once was their bitter enemy. Where exactly does the Iranian government stand on a U.S.-led war?
AMANPOUR: Well they are officially against any kind of war, against any kind of intervention. However, if you have briefings and meetings with government officials, Iranian diplomats, they'll tell you they will do what they did in the first Gulf War. Should there be another war, they will take an officially neutral stance. You remember when Iraq invaded Kuwait, it was Iran's neutrality that was of great importance and of great help in the end to the -- to the American and Allied liberation of Kuwait, and they're bound to do the same thing again. That's at least what they tell us journalists in background briefings.
You know they pretty much helped the United States, or at least didn't hinder and promised to meet their international obligations if any Americans were to use Iranian airspace, if pilots were to be shot down during the war in Afghanistan last year. So that is the position that I believe that they will take. They will not oppose it physically once it goes on, if it does.
BLITZER: Very interesting developments, fascinating developments. All of us will be covering that part of the story as well.
Christiane, in London, thanks very much for joining us.
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