by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

January 29, 2009

A wide variety of concerns about Iran — including its nuclear intentions, its treatment of women and minorities, and its controversial president’s chances for reelection in June — will be on the agenda Feb. 1 at a conference at Drew University in Madison.

The forum, Engaging Iran: A Conference on Human Rights and Nuclear Proliferation, will feature four panelists whose expertise covers areas of politics, human rights, nuclear proliferation, and foreign policy.

For the Community Relations Committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, which is organizing the program, the range of topics is key to understanding and confronting the Iran challenge.

“We want to bring together different streams of advocacy working on issues of concern related to Iran,” said CRC associate Melanie Gorelick. “That includes issues of human rights, women’s rights, religious freedom, and AIDS advocacy.”

“The groups we invited haven’t come together before. We want the human rights groups to understand that groups concerned with nuclear proliferation are not necessarily Hawkish, favoring a military solution, but are people who are genuinely concerned and want to prevent an escalation,” said Gorelick.

Serving as forum moderator will be Middle East expert Barbara Slavin, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Times and author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Slavin doesn’t believe “the Iranians want nuclear weapons per se. I think what they want is what we call ‘strategic ambiguity,’” she told NJJN. “They want the rest of the world to think they could build a nuclear weapon very quickly and easily. Their hope is to deter attack on them by the United States or Israel or others.”

Panelist Mark Wallace will discuss the economic sanctions against Iran and whether they should be strengthened to dissuade it from its pursuit of nuclear arms.

Wallace, a former Bush administration appointee as a United Nations representative involved with budget issues, is president of United Against Nuclear Iran.

“Iran is on the economic brink,” his press spokesperson, Joe Kildea, told NJJN. “We must rally the world to pressure Iran economically at this key time to lay ground for a diplomatic resolution to its nuclear program.”

Although her organization does not take positions on nuclear proliferation issues, panelist Elise Auerbach of Amnesty International sees “huge problems” with the Iranian government’s widespread use of the death penalty, as well as a legal system that discriminates against women and its crackdown on advocates for social change.

Two recent victims were two brothers who have made international contacts in HIV/AIDS research. Arash and Kamiar Alaei “were at the forefront of innovative responses to the AIDS crisis in Iran,” Auerbach said.

But the brothers were arrested last summer after attending a conference on AIDS in the United States, accused of plotting with the Bush administration to overthrow the Iranian government.

Gorelick said she does not anticipate that the panel will focus on Israel and Iran.

“We are separating the issues of Israel and the United States,” she said. “We are looking to see what we in the United States could do to deter Iran.

“Many organizations share concerns about Iran,” said Gorelick. “This conference will broaden the discussion beyond the Jewish community.” Like Darfur, people should come together and be a unified voice as much as we can to make the administration effective and strong.”

Two other panelists will be Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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