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) 
 
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