During her Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice expressed her views about Iran's ruling mullahs, appropriately calling Iran one of the “outposts of tyranny” in the world. Her comments were a welcome sign that a sound and effectual Iran policy may be emerging in the coming months.

Responding to questions from two Senators known for their pro-appeasement views on policy toward Tehran, Dr. Rice repeatedly emphasized that there is no “common ground” with the regime in Iran.

"This is just a regime that has a really very different view of the Middle East and where the world is going than we do," including an "appalling" human rights record, Dr. Rice said.

It is no secret that successive American administrations have been bedeviled by how to formulate a sound policy toward Iran’s ruling theocratic dictatorship. A range of policies from unilateral concession to containment have been tried to crack this policy conundrum. They have been either ineffective or simply backfired, resulting in a more impudent Tehran.

There is almost total agreement in various policy circles that Iran’s nuclear weapons program, its support of terrorism and its destabilizing campaign in Iraq pose a clear and present danger. But a review of what’s on the table makes it clear that when it comes to substance, no matter which of the proposed approaches becomes the much-anticipated policy direction of the second Bush administration on Iran, the US will still end up suffering from an Iran policy paralysis.

The appeasement camp -- which despite the repeated failure of this policy in all its variations over the past two decades, still presses for a new round of engagement -- has nothing to build its case on except the other camp’s failure to make a feasible argument to support its “regime change” proposal.

In a nutshell, the engagement camp contends that although Tehran is immensely unpopular and loathed by Iranians, it is “well-entrenched.” And with the military option for a regime change or otherwise certain to fail, the argument goes, the only chance for success is engagement based on an incentive package.

The regime-change camp correctly dismisses this line of reasoning and instead sees the removal of this regime as the only effective solution. It, however, fails to articulate how this regime change would come about in order to achieve its intended objective.

To be sure, the Iraqi-style invasion of Iran does not constitute a viable solution. There are some in this camp who vaguely talk about regime change from within by the Iranian people, but offer no concrete ideas. Nor do they outline how the anti-regime democracy movement inside Iran could be helped politically and diplomatically in a constructive, meaningful and realistic way.

The fact is that neither engagement nor military invasion is the answer. The only viable policy toward Iran would be the one which at its core recognizes that a change of regime in Iran should and could be achieved only by relying on the Iranian people and the organized opposition that has been challenging the regime for the past quarter century.

This policy should also articulate the practical means by which the United States would use its diplomatic and economic might to help the democratic opposition in Iran. Washington’s support, if done in a serious, transparent, and meaningful manner, is not going to be a “kiss of death” for the opposition as some experts fear.

That said, this support must by necessity include reaching out to anti-fundamentalist Iranian opposition groups who have been fighting for a secular and representative government in Iran. A meaningful first step would be to end the terrorist designation of Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen (MEK), which has significant organizational discipline and capability as an actor of change and is singularly dedicated to unseating Tehran’s tyrants.

In a recent appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Ambassador Mark Palmer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and currently a member of Committee on the Present Danger, remarked that: “Whatever the history of the MEK… the fact that Khomeini ended up executing tens of thousands of MEK people, and that the MEK was able to organize an army demonstrates that this is a serious opposition… I think [that] goes without question… And if serious people in the CIA and elsewhere come to the conclusion that it is not today a terrorist group, we should de-list them and work with them.”

As Washington is grasping the sheer extent of the destructive and multi-faceted threat Iran poses to the well-being of Iranians and to the security and stability of the region, it should recognize that the call of Iranians for regime change must be heeded and the door to engagement must be shut. There is a great chance to crush this “outpost of tyranny” from within. It should not be squandered.

The US Alliance for Democratic Iran is a US-based, independent, non-profit policy advocacy organization, which aims to advance a US policy in support of Iranian people’s aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government.

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