LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Iran's leaders have developed a new political strategy seeking to discredit student protestors who rocked universities around the nation last June. They are accusing them of trying to undermine centers where science and technology, especially nuclear physics, is being taught to make Iran a major world power.
After two days of popular pro-reform demonstrations in Tehran, the Iranian Student News Agency on June 12 quoted Iran's Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as making this case.
Far from blaming the teaching of science for the riots, or criticizing it as being inimical in any way to the religious principles upon which the Islamic Republic was based, Khamenei emphasized the government's goal of supporting the teaching and application of science and technology. It was Iran's enemies, he said, who opposed this and wanted to discredit and undermine the institutions where these things were taught.
"The enemy has realized that young Iranian scientists have got to know about nuclear science and that is why they are threatening our universities by rioting," Khamenei said. "They want to prevent us from getting the opportunity to improve our knowledge."
Khamenei also claimed that the United States was behind all the unrest and rioting in Iran. "The enemies bluntly support those adventurers who can become their mercenaries by disturbing people's security," he said. "Thus, the whole nation, the youth and officials in particular, must remain vigilant."
The U.S. government had been forced to adopt a strategy of indirect subversion through encouraging the student protests because it could not directly challenge the unified determination of the Iranian people, Khamenei said.
"If the Americans had been able to eliminate the Islamic establishment, they would not have hesitated even for a day; but the enemy has realized that it cannot do anything against the valiant Iranian nation," he said.
The Iranian media also reflected growing official concern that the United States was acting energetically to initiate a policy of destabilization and eventual regime change in Iran.
On June 4, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency released a report from the city of Shiraz quoting a member of the national Expediency Council and former head of Parliament, Ali-Akbar Nateq Nouri, warning that "the United States would not move militarily against Iran but it would seek to overthrow Islamic system through internal popular uprisings."
Also on June 4, IRNA reported from the city of Hamedan that a representative of Supreme Guide Khamenei in the Revolutionary Guards named Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani had condemned the U.S. efforts to wage psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic.
Addressing a gathering to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic's founder, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, Movahedi Kermani rejected calls for major systematic reform.
"Change to the present system is not needed, but those favoring change should be expelled from the system," he said, according to the IRNA report.
While emphasizing Iranian unity in the face of student protests, the Iranian media also sought to discover and emphasize splits between the United States and its closest allies on policies towards their country.
The daily newspaper Hambastegi on June 12 quoted British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, as saying that London opposed regime change in Iran. According to the report, Straw said British officials were trying hard to continue constructive negotiations and contacts with Iran.
The Tehran daily Entekhab also gave prominent coverage on June 4 to a report that U.S. officials had confessed they knew that Iran did not have any nuclear weapons and that the United States and Britain were split on policy towards the Islamic Republic. However, "Despite the confessions of U.S. officials that Iran has no nuclear weapons, (U.S. Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that Iran will soon have access to nuclear weapons," it said.
Iranian officials energetically hit out at Israel as well as the United States in the verbal war of claims and counter-claims over Iran's nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, on June 10 blasted comments by Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Iran's nuclear activities as "ridiculous controversy and opportunism," IRNA said.
Iranian analysts have also interpreted the Bush administration's Middle East policies as part of a grand design to outflank and weaken major European nations that might otherwise challenge Washington.
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders expressed skepticism even on the -- to them -- rare occasions when prominent U.S. officials seemed to be holding out the hand of friendship rather than the closed fist of confrontation.
On June 12, IRNA reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi made this point in his response to a relatively friendly statement two days earlier by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
IRNA said Powell in his statement of June 8 had expressed Washington's desire to resume friendship with Iran, but "ironically not a single day passes without a new conspiracy emerging to tarnish the image of the Islamic Republic before the international community."
"If the United States desires friendship with Iran, it would naturally be expected not to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs and show respect for the decisions of the Iranian people and their values," Kharrazi said.
(Mojdeh Sionit is a former Iranian journalist now resident in the United States.)
