Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Iran Sizes Up ClintonBy Rowland Evans and Robert Novak Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 09:54:16 EST Message-ID: <32.1992Nov23.095416@AmeriCast.com> Iran Sizes Up ClintonBy Rowland Evans and Robert Novak The world's most vicious reaction to Bill Clinton's election is spewing from Iran's toughening regime in Tehran, helping explain quiet contacts between the Clinton camp and the Iranian opposi- tion. The most significant of these contacts, suggesting an activist international human rights policy by the new administration, came when Sen. Al Gore conferred privately with a key leader of the People's Mujahedin opposition movement. The late-October talk in North Carolina with Mohammed Mohadessin coincided with a period of intense Iranian diplomacy with China involving new weapons deals, including Tehran's import of Beijing's missile technology. What transpired in North Carolina is secret. What is not being kept secret by Clinton foreign policy aides is the president- elect's intention to resurrect Jimmy Carter-style human rights as the focal point of his foreign policy. The Islamic fundamentalists who run Iran are engaged in an unpre- cedented personal attack on Clinton himself. It is founded on fear that the United States will try to harness the West's policy toward Iran to the human rights issue, particularly in the United Nations. Ressalat, the Iranian regime's newspaper, has been publishing a non-stop anti-Clinton diatribe that included this headline over its main Nov. 9 editorial: "In response to Mr. Clinton, only one phrase serves: Thanks but no thanks." Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, one of the leading mullahs who run the country, accused Clinton of putting his campaign in the hands of "Zionist capitalists" who infiltrated and "stage-managed" the Clinton-Gore victory. Vice President-elect Gore's knowledge of the anti-regime move- ment is not based on sudden political inspiration. He has tried to help the movement in the past and, along with 67 other sena- tors, signed an Oct. 28 letter written by Republican Sen. Hank Brown to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The letter accused the regime of "unprecedented" human rights viola- tions and warned about the "chilling aspect of Iran's quest to obtain nuclear technology and weapons." Since it is unusual for a foreign insurgent leader to gain an audience with a presidential candidate or his running mate, Gore's half-hour talk with Mohadessin points to heavy emphasis early in the new administration on the growing threat from Tehran. This threat has been closely watched by the CIA, but President Bush's strong support for China may have somewhat softened U.S. reaction toward ever-enlarging military deals between Tehran and Beijing. Gen. Mohsen Rezai, commander of Iran's notorious Revolutionary Guards, visited Beijing with President Hashemi Rafsanjani in September and is due for a return trip in the next few weeks. His object: to firm up arrangements for no fewer than 10 nuclear reactors to be sent from China, which appear to be designed for making weapons-grade fuel. Rezai is also ready to sign a joint venture between China, Pak- istan and Iran to produce hundreds of the new Storm 2000 Chinese tanks. Early this month, 11 Chinese nuclear technicians went to Iran to inspect work started last year on a long-range Scud mis- sile with a production goal of no fewer than 400 a year. Clinton is likely to be more aggressive than Bush in attempting to stop this arms and technology trade. Mohadessin conferred re- cently with retired Adm. William Crowe, the former Joint Chiefs chairman who has become a top Clinton military adviser. U.S. officials believe the mullahs' tough talk against Clinton is not just braggadocio. "They (the Americans) keep saying that Iran is a threat to the United States, which is true," Jannati told a recent prayer congregation in Tehran. With Iran's Chinese deals now reaching a staggering $5 billion over the past three years and submarines coming in from Russia, Jannati this time may be telling the plain truth.< 1992, Creators Syndicate Inc.=09:11 11-23C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)