Thank you.
I'm going to put my question to both of the witnesses, although I think the issue was more directly addressed by Professor Mahdavi in a more conceptual sense in his remarks. That is, much of the witness testimony before this committee and much of the discussion outside this committee by decision-makers, policy-makers, scholars, Iranian human rights activists, and the like, has identified four distinct but interrelated threats emanating from what's called Ahmadinejad's Iran. I want to distinguish the latter from the people and public in Iran who are targets of massive domestic repression. I think what you said, Professor Mahdavi, is important in appreciating the century-old, and even longer, civilizational underpinnings of Iran and its important historical role.
The question with respect to these four interrelated threats is what is to be done. I would agree with you that the military option should not be on the table. I would also agree with you—though maybe not fully—and maybe with Ms. Redman as well, by inference, that it's been a mistake in Obama's engagement with Iran, which I support, to focus on the nuclear issue. While I understand the focus and I understand why the nuclear threat, for all the reasons you appreciate, which I need not go into, is seen as being serious enough to focus on, I think it has had the effect of marginalizing, if not sanitizing, the other threats, in particular the massive domestic repression.
Having said all of that, we come to the question of what is to be done. Many of the Iranian human rights people with whom I speak and work—some of whom have appeared before this committee—have in fact said that while initially they did not support sanctions, they now do support sanctions, let us say, since June 12. While initially they felt that Iran had the right, like any other country, to the peaceful uses of atomic energy, they are concerned that what might be called the “serial” violations of UN Security Council resolutions by Iran and its accompanying deceit may have in fact invited the sanctions that would not otherwise be there to hurt Iran.
I was just at part of a conference this morning where two Iranian human rights people made the point that Iran is now at a tipping point. In their view, while the change would have to come from within, this regime change could be facilitated by targeted sanctions, directed not against the Iranian people but against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for example, who now control 80%, let's say, of Iranian commerce and the underpinnings of the energy infrastructure, the petroleum industry, and the like. So they are in favour of targeted sanctions directed against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the companies that help facilitate what the Revolutionary Guards are doing, whether it be the sale of surveillance equipment or the like. These kinds of targeted sanctions may help to bring about what all of us would like to see, an indigenous people's movement that would succeed in restoring Iran to the civilizational roots that are at its core.
That's my question in that regard.