Iran Accuses American of Revolution Plot

[TexasLawyer]

Source: NYT

Iran Accuses American of Revolution Plot

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: May 22, 2007

The Islamic Republic of Iran on Monday accused a prominent American academic it imprisoned two weeks ago of conspiring to foment a velvet revolution there. A statement from the Intelligence Ministry that was reported on state television said that Haleh Esfandiari and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., along with similar institutions like the Soros Foundation, had been trying to establish a network that would work “against the sovereignty of the country."

“This is an American-designed model with an attractive appearance that seeks the soft-toppling of the country,” the statement said.

Ms. Esfandiari, 67, director of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center, went to Iran five months ago on one of her twice-annual visits to her ailing 93-year-old mother. She was prevented from leaving the country last December, then jailed in the notorious Evin prison on May 8.

While under virtual house arrest before being jailed, she had been interrogated repeatedly, and the Intelligence Ministry statement said she had confirmed that the Wilson Center "invited Iranians to attend conferences, offered them research projects, scholarships ... and tried to lure influential elements and link them to decision-making centers in America."

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/world/middleeast/22iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Kagemusha]

1. Hey, Burns didn't want more academic exchange w/ Iran for his health.

It's entirely possible that this individual was conspiring to forment revolution - and many Americans would ask, and what is wrong with that? Just because it's overt instead of covert doesn't mean it's not happily trying to work towards the violent overthrow of the Iranian government. Did they think Iran would take it lying down, or was the crackdown expected and merely to be used as even more reason to hate the Iranian regime and call for its overthrow? Maybe the latter, but it'll have to be with less help from native Iranians, won't it? And that's the Iran government's intention.