phoenix80
Banned
WASHINGTON: An influential US senator on Thursday proposed a $100 million boost in American spending on pro-democracy efforts in Iran and an end to World Bank lending to the Islamic republic.
Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas, who chairs a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee and co-chairs the human-rights watchdog US Helsinki Commission, said the United States has an obligation to fulfil President George W Bush’s State of the Union promise of support for Iranian freedom.
He said the administration is “searching ... for legitimate options” on how to do this. But he acknowledged that Washington, still bogged down in Iraq almost three years after toppling Saddam Hussein, gets nervous at talk of “regime change”. Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad easily won election last year, but the United States dismissed the vote as anti-democratic, on the grounds that Iranian authorities excluded many candidates and shut down newspapers. Ahmadinejad has since antagonised Washington by calling for Israel to be wiped out and defiantly pursuing nuclear activities the West says are aimed at a bomb. Tehran says it is only seeking to produce energy.
“America respects the people of Iran and we respect your right to choose your future, but we must do more to help you be able to exercise that right,” Brownback told the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “I’m calling for the appropriation of $100 million this year to support democracy and human rights in Iran,” up from a current “pittance” of $14 million, he said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C04%5Cstory_4-2-2006_pg4_13
Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas, who chairs a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee and co-chairs the human-rights watchdog US Helsinki Commission, said the United States has an obligation to fulfil President George W Bush’s State of the Union promise of support for Iranian freedom.
He said the administration is “searching ... for legitimate options” on how to do this. But he acknowledged that Washington, still bogged down in Iraq almost three years after toppling Saddam Hussein, gets nervous at talk of “regime change”. Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad easily won election last year, but the United States dismissed the vote as anti-democratic, on the grounds that Iranian authorities excluded many candidates and shut down newspapers. Ahmadinejad has since antagonised Washington by calling for Israel to be wiped out and defiantly pursuing nuclear activities the West says are aimed at a bomb. Tehran says it is only seeking to produce energy.
“America respects the people of Iran and we respect your right to choose your future, but we must do more to help you be able to exercise that right,” Brownback told the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “I’m calling for the appropriation of $100 million this year to support democracy and human rights in Iran,” up from a current “pittance” of $14 million, he said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C04%5Cstory_4-2-2006_pg4_13