A year ago, before Obama’s election to the American presidency, Tehran pretended to be open to a dialogue with Washington if it were not conditioned to preliminary demands of a freeze of its nuclear activities. Tehran was seeking a de facto recognition of its right to uranium enrichment in order to obtain the abandon of American sanctions that were leading the regime to bankruptcy (confirmed since.)

At the same time, Shirin Ebadi who in the past had denounced “the American policy of double standards in the nuclear issue” (allowed for Israel but not for the Mullahs) made this demand of a dialogue without preliminary conditions hers in an interview with the Italian newpaper Corriere della Serra on 22 December 2008 [1]. While the journalist was questioning her on the situation of human rights in Iran, instead of denouncing the latest hangings of homosexuals, minors or political dissidents, she concentrated her efforts in calling on Obama “to engage himself in an immediate dialogue with Ahmadinejad without any preliminary conditions.”

A month after Ebadi’s call, Obama took into office and immediately proposed a dialogue without preliminary conditions with the Mullahs. This dialogue was not at all the kind that the Mullahs wished for. Obama’s preliminary conditions concerned Tehran’s ongoing experiences in enriching uranium but in no way did it mean a recognition of Tehran’s right to it that would have put an end to the crisis and the sanctions. Obama deprived Tehran of the pretence to avoid the dialogue. Spiteful of the American ruse, the Mullahs welcomed America’s change of tone but also demanded that Obama speak less and act more on this new approach by taking the 2 first decisive steps of lifting all sanctions against Tehran and by restituting Iranian assets confiscated by the U.S. in 1980.

Shirin Ebadi, who had called on Obama on this dialogue, instead of backing the American President in his approach, defended the Mullah position by declaring in an interview with the Canadian press : “Barack Obama’s tone is very positive. Bush’s tone was counterproductive and stigmatized the Iranian regime into continuing their violence. But for things to really change actions need to follow : After the Iranian Revolution, Washington had confiscated all Iranian assets in the U.S. The first gesture would be to unblock these assets !”

In just about all subjects, Ebadi goes in Tehran’s line : on a French television show she qualified the Shoah as a detail in History. When the world were shocked by the stoning of women in Iran, she penned an article in Le Monde on the progress in human rights in Iran by the Mullah regime. She is also an accomplice of another of the regime’s disgusting crimes : the legalized pedophilia authorizing marriages between adult men and young girls declared adults at the age of 9. This law in 1980 has made Iran a pedophile sexual touristic destination. According to regime’s own statistics 900 000 young girls live in a marital status. Ebadi who is the regime’s democratic alibi exploits her international status in the Mullahs’ agenda in which she believes.

Today, her intervention is in conformity with the regime’s wish. For Tehran does not want either a dialogue or an appeasement with the U.S. If Iran reaches an entente with Washington, it would lose the Arab public’s opinion support which remains its most effective weapon against the U.S., for it gives Tehran the possibility of creating instability within the American-allied Arab nations. Tehran needs to refuse all appeasement, which would mean heavier sanctions that in its actual difficult economic situation would lead to its downfall. Tehran is therefore maneuvering in all directions so that the rupture in dialogue comes from Washington and not Tehran.

To obtain this result Tehran has tried all sorts of provocations, but the U.S. has ducked all of its attempts in breaking the dialogue. The regime has doubled its violations of human rights by allowing images to reach the western media in order to make any dialogue with them unacceptable, but the U.S. read the ruse and maintained the dialogue. It’s last resort remains Shirin Ebadi, another Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, to force Obama to abandon direct talks with Tehran.

To escape the American ruse, Tehran is sawing one leg off by accusing itself of all imaginable crimes by the intermediary of Shirin Ebadi. Tehran, through the voice of Ayatollah Shirin Ebadi demands “that we focalize on the violations of human rights in Iran”,a vast program that should eliminate any possibility of dialogue with such a regime.

For us it is an enjoyable situation !

Unfortunately, Obama’s agenda is very different from our wishes for Iran : embracing the Mullahs in order to make them their strategic allies in the Middle East and Central Asia. That is why Ayatollah Ebadi’s call has been ignored for the moment, but it could be used in a few months when all attempts for an entente with the Mullahs would have failed. When that moment arrives, Shirin Ebadi and the regime will regret her words, for, they will be used wittingly by the Iranian people.

As the Iranians say : the game has only begun, it is urgent to wait.