Trump’s State Department spent over $1m in Iran to exploit unrest for ‘regime change’, documents reveal
At
the end of 2017, a dozen cities across Iran, including the capital
Tehran, were rocked by spontaneous protests which continued into the
New Year. What role did the United States play?
Part
5 - Bankrolling anti-regime propaganda
The US
government’s ‘democracy promotion’ projects in Iran have
focused heavily on influence through information, according to the
Congressional documents.
Projects
include “Iran-specific US broadcasting services such as “Radio
Farda (‘tomorrow,’ in Farsi) [which] began under Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in partnership with the Voice of
America (VOA), in 2002.”
Based in
Prague, Radio Farda broadcasts 24 hours a day and has 59 full time
employees. Its budget is approximately $11 million per year. The
document denies that any US government assistance has been provided
to Iranian exile-run stations.
VOA
briefings confirm that its separate Persian Service, previously
called Persian News Network (PNN) costs “about $20 million per
year”. The service consists of Internet, an hour of radio a day,
and six hours of television rebroadcast throughout the day.
In
August 2014, VOA officials told the Congressional Research Service
that a greater effort was made to reach “young, educated,
anti-regime Iranians who are looking for signs of US official
support.” VOA Persian is now viewed weekly by nearly
one-in-four adults in Iran.
Axiom:
The US government is currently spending at least $33 million a year
on soft propaganda through Radio Farda and the VOA’s Persian
Service to undermine Iran from within.
The
document further confirms that US State Department ‘democracy
promotion’ programs in Iran have been escalating since 2006,
including an effort to increase “the presence of
Persian-speaking US diplomats in US diplomatic missions around Iran,”
partly to “facilitate Iranians [to] participate in US
democracy-promotion programs.”
Earlier
that year, the State Department established its Office of Iranian
Affairs, to channel funds to groups that could aid opposition
factions within Iran. The Office, according to the new Congressional
document “is reportedly engaged in contacts with US-based exile
groups.”
A third
Congressional document by Katzman, published in November 2017,
observes that “Domestic Iranian factors could cause Iran’s
foreign policy to shift.” Among these factors, the report says
that: “An uprising in Iran or other event that changes the
regime could precipitate policy changes that either favor or are
adverse to US interests. The unexpected departure from the scene of
the Supreme Leader could change Iran’s foreign policy sharply,
depending on the views of his successor.”
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