BRIEF ON IRAN Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran No. 561 Wednesday, December 18, 1996 3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 Iran's Export of Fundamentalism, Terrorism, Agence France Presse, Dec. 15 On Sunday, the Egyptian Interior Minister, Hassan Al-Alfi, accused Iran of supporting those who try to spread Shiite thinking "by force." During a meeting with young cadres of the (ruling) National Democratic Party, he said he had "documents" showing Iran's support of a fundamentalist Egyptian group that worked for "spreading Shiism by means of force".... [Earlier in December, Radio Israel quoted the Al-Watan Al-Arabi weekly as saying that: "Egyptian security officials said Iran planned to manipulate Egyptian Shiites to carry out actions against President Mubarak in an effort to undermine Egypt's stability and security.... Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad and The Islamic Group had planned to carry out terrorist attacks, using Egyptian Shiites, during last month's economic conference in Cairo..."] Reinforced High-Speed Boats for Iran's Commandos, Der Spiegel, December 16 ...According to Arab secret services, Iran is reinforcing its navy with high-speed boats equipped with a type of mini-katyosha for its Islamic commandos. The boats are manned by crew ready for suicide missions.... Eighty of these boats are built and...they are stationed in Bandar-Abbas, ready to be used.... Saudi Close To Revealing Khobar Bomb Probe- Minister, Reuters, December 17 Saudi Arabia is close to revealing the results of its investigation into the bombing of a military housing complex..., Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef was on Tuesday quoted as saying.... Prince Nayef made no mention of Iran — alleged by U.S. media to be linked to the bombing— but said: "The whole truth without coloring is our aim and we do not want to deal with half-truths or with accusations of others, or provocations or using incidents to settle accounts (with other countries)." Saudi Arabia and its regional Arab allies have often tense relations with their non-Arab neighbor across the Gulf. They have accused Iran of interfering in their internal affairs and voiced concern over its arms build-up.... Why Ease Up On Iran?, The Washington Post, December 11 Excerpts from an article by Peter W. Rodman, the Director of national security programs at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom and a former White House and State Department official There is an understandable restlessness in the foreign policy community to the effect that the hard-line U.S. strategy of "containing" Iran is in need of revision. The policy has failed, the argument runs; in the meantime, it is harming relations with allies and other important American interests. So it's time to shift course and, among other things, try for a "dialogue" with Iran. There are hints that the administration is tempted in this direction. This restlessness, while understandable, is misplaced. It is difficult to see what Iran has done lately to deserve such a bouquet. Tehran is still the "premier state sponsor of international terrorism" (according to the State Department's own terrorist report), and some evidence even points to an Iranian hand in the deadly bombings of U.S. military facilities in Saudi Arabia in November of last year and this past June. Hezbollah in Lebanon (an Iranian protege) helped topple Shimon Peres's government in Israel by its terrorism last spring; Iran also is accused of involvement in the assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995 and in recent Islamist agitation in Bahrain. The fatwa (death sentence) against British novelist Salman Rushdie is still outstanding. Meanwhile, Iran continues its clandestine pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons while purchasing North Korean ballistic missiles to deliver them. Iran's ideological thrust remains a destabilizing force in the entire Middle East.... Whatever the tactics, the present strategy still seems the best available. Call it "containment," or whatever, it is a strategy of maximizing pressures on a militantly hostile regime -- weakening it to the extent possible, keeping it off balance, compounding all its problems. It's a long-term policy. And it's having an effect. Iran's economy, depressed by low oil prices, is seriously squeezed by the slowdown of new international lending (blocked by the United States). The value of Iran's currency is way down -- as is the volume of its arms imports. Dissension in the country has reached such proportions that even analysts unsympathetic to U.S. policy have questioned the long-term survival of the Islamic revolutionary regime. (There was rioting in western Iran all last week.) The Europeans and Japanese are in fact cooperating quietly with us in restricting weapons sales and transfers of the most advanced technology, as well as new credits. All this looks like vindication of the U.S. strategy.... [Continued on the next issue of BOI]