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Iran feud roils Bush-Kerry contest
May 13, 2004
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Go To The New York Sun Home Page
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Date:May 13, 2004; |
Section:Front page; |
Page:1 |
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IRAN FEUD ROILS BUSH-KERRY CONTEST
Contributors Differ on Policy Toward Tehran
By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun
Iranian-Americans are weighing in financially in this year’s presidential race in record numbers — and that activism has sparked an angry confrontation between those who favor a hard line against the Iranian regime and those who urge a conciliatory approach.
At least four Iranian-Americans have taken prominent roles fund-raising for Senator Kerry of Massachusetts.
The most notable is a New York investment banker, Hassan Nemazee. Mr. Nemazee and his family have given more than $250,000 to Democratic causes since 1997.He is a New York chairman of the senator’s presidential campaign and has raised at least $100,000 for the effort. In February, Mr. Kerry visited the Nemazees’ home on Park Avenue.
A northern California couple, Faraj Aalaei and Susan Akbarpour, have raised more than $100,000 for Mr. Kerry. Mr. Aalaei runs a technology firm, Centillium Communications. His wife has formed an organization, SiliconIran, which serves Iranian-Americans in the high-tech industry.
A New Jersey manufacturing executive,Akbar Ghahary,is a member of the Kerry campaign’s national finance committee. He said he has raised “much more” than the $25,000 it takes to join that group.
President Bush counts two Iranian-Americans among his most prolific fund-raisers.The chairman and CEO of Daytona Beach, Fla.-based ICI Homes, Mori Hosseini, is listed as a “ranger” by the Bush campaign, meaning he has raised more than $200,000. The president and CEO of Kraft Construction of Naples, Fla., Fred Pezeshkan, is a Bush “pioneer,” a category for supporters who raise more than $100,000.
The political divisions among Iranian-Americans have gained notice in Iran, as well.
Last week, a major daily there, Etemaad, carried a news story about the jockeying in the presidential race. The headline read, “The Iranians’ Powerful Lobby in America.”
Many Iranian-Americans who support Mr. Bush are deeply suspicious of those who are backing Mr. Kerry. Last year, Mr. Nemazee, Mr. Aalaei, and others organized a political action committee, the Iranian-American Political Action Committee. The group maintains that it is bipartisan and takes no position on foreign policy issues, including rapprochement with Iran.
A Texas-based group, the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, swiftly denounced the new PAC as “a lobby group for a terrorist regime.”
A leader of the pro-Democracy group, Aryo Pirouznia of Dallas, described Mr. Nemazee as “one discredited and well-known agent of the Islamic Republic.” Mr. Pirouznia, 40, also said the PAC explicitly stated that it favored restoring diplomatic relations between America and Iran “in support of the Islamic Republic and the revolution.”
In March, Mr. Nemazee filed a libel suit in Texas against Mr. Pirouznia and his group. The suit, which seeks more than $10 million in damages, alleges the student group falsely branded Mr. Nemazee as an agent of the Iranian regime. Mr. Nemazee also claims the PAC has never expressed support for the Iranian government and that the purported statement to that effect was fabricated.
In an interview, Mr. Pirouznia said he might have gone too far by describing Mr. Nemazee as an agent of the regime. “They are continuing I think the same kind of agenda,” he said.
Mr. Pirouznia said that Mr. Nemazee and his allies were “facelifting” for the fundamentalist government.
A Brooklyn-based Iranian-American writer and activist, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, said, “The people who are for the most part supporting John Kerry are people who are very much affiliated with the Islamic Republic, most of them.”
Mr. Nemazee declined to be interviewed for this article. He referred questions to Frank Wisner, a former State Department official and ambassador to India.
Asked if Mr. Nemazee might be an agent for Iran, Mr. Wisner laughed before dismissing the idea as “utterly without substance or foundation.”
In 1999, President Clinton nominated Mr. Nemazee as ambassador to Argentina. His nomination was withdrawn after questions were raised about some of his business ventures.
Mr. Wisner and Mr. Nemazee were on the board of another group vilified by the anti-regime forces, the American Iranian Council. The council, which promotes greater dialogue between America and Iran and has at times urged a restoration of diplomatic relations, gets much of its financing from large companies that would benefit from trade with Iran.
Both men resigned from the council’s board, but said they did not do so out of concerns that it was a front for Iran. “It was never a very well-run group and you couldn’t get a proper audit statement out of it,” Mr. Wisner said.
In June 2002, Mr. Kerry was the guest of honor at a dinner the council sponsored in San Francisco. In July 2003, the senator spoke at a fundraising banquet in Cliffside Park, N.J., attended largely by Iranian-Americans.
The Kerry campaign did not respond to questions about its outreach to the Iranian-American community or about the senator’s policy toward Iran.
In response to a questionnaire from the National Iranian-American Council, Mr. Kerry replied that he supports dialogue with the regime in Tehran.
“I believe it is important to have dialogue with governments, even those with which we have disagreements. In the case of Iran, there are some areas of mutual interest, such as drugs. I would support talking with all elements of the government,” Mr. Kerry wrote.
Mr. Bush’s most notable policy pronouncement on Iran came in 2002 when he included that country, along with Iraq and North Korea, in what he labeled “an axis of evil.”
Mr. Bush’s declaration is the most unambiguous statement the administration has made on the issue.
In a February 2003 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage seemed to back away from the president’s remarks.
“The axis of evil was a valid comment, [but] I would note there’s one dramatic difference between Iran and the other two axes of evil, and that would be its democracy. [And] you approach a democracy differently,” Mr. Armitage said.
He labeled as misguided the fear in some quarters, and the hope in others, that America might attack Iran after the assault on Iraq.
“I wouldn’t think they were next at all,” he said.
While CEO of the oil services firm, Halliburton, Vice President Cheney was a vocal critic of the embargo on Iran. At a Cato Insitute forum in 1998, Mr. Cheney derided American policymakers as “sanctions-happy.”
“Investment and trade can do more to open up a country than reams of cables from our State Department,” he said.
Halliburton remains a financial backer of the American Iranian Council.
Congress formalized the embargo against Iran in 1996 as part of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.The law was reauthorized in 2001 by a near-unanimous vote.
Mr. Armitage’s comments, and in particular his branding of Iran as “a democracy,” angered some in the exile community.
“Dick Armitage and Colin Powell are an absolute embarrassment,” said Ms. Zand-Bonazzi. “I have never denied that.”
None of the Iranian-Americans interviewed for this story voiced support for ending the sanctions on Iran or restoring diplomatic relations.
But in a July 2003 interview, Ms. Akbarpour said she hoped the sanctions on Iran would be lifted quickly.
“These sanctions keep Iranian youth out of the circle,” she told a reporter working for the State Department’s public diplomacy branch.
“We need to get that country into a constructive engagement in order to get them to think differently.”
Mr. Pirouznia said that approach is doomed to failure.
“How do we want to reform a theological regime?” he said. “God is so perfect it doesn’t need any kind of reform.”
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