Congress eyes funds for Iran dissidents
Spending bill includes provision for $1.5m

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 12/6/2003

WASHINGTON -- For the first time, Congress is set to approve government funds openly earmarked to help undermine the Islamic government of Iran by providing money for dissidents inside the country, according to US officials and specialists.

The program calls for an initial $1.5 million to be spent next year to support the efforts of Iranians and Iranian organizations seeking to replace the government in Tehran with a democracy.

Though a relatively small amount of money, the funding carries great symbolic weight. Past efforts to use US government money to support Iranian dissidents have been sidetracked before reaching a final vote because of concerns that they would violate sanctions prohibiting any money from going to Iran, as well as an agreement in 1981, shortly after the release of US hostages in Tehran, to refrain from actively opposing the Iranian government.

But this time, Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican with close ties to the Bush administration who has long called for more active US efforts to weaken the Iranian government, has appended the funding provision to the so-called omnibus spending bill. The provision has already gone through negotiations of a House-Senate conference committee and is due to be formally approved early next week.

A spokesman for Brownback said the Bush administration knew the senator was inserting the provision and did not oppose it.

On Nov. 6, Bush announced that US policy would be geared toward supporting democracy for Middle East countries, but his administration's policy on Iran has stopped short of providing direct support for opposition leaders. White House and State Department leaders were unavailable for comment yesterday.

"It is clear from the regime's treatment of its own people that Iran is no democracy," Brownback told a group of Iranian Americans in July, in a speech his office provided to explain his position. "I understand that the State Department's job is diplomacy and the search for common ground. But now is a time for moral clarity, not excuses."