Ticking Time Bomb

President Bush's speech last night and General Petraeus's testimony this week coincided with the publication of "The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction," by American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen.

The book could not have been better timed. Even as we are succeeding in Iraq, Iran is working against us, and we will not achieve peace in the region if we ignore its threat.

Since 1979 Iran has changed from a society where women could attend university and have careers, to one where they are second-class citizens and have been sold as slaves and punished by stoning. Iran's rulers routinely torture political dissidents, with numerous examples documented in the book.

Not only does Iran treat its own people with cruelty, but it is funding insurgents in neighboring Iraq, and it has openly called for the destruction of America and its allies.

The takeover of the American embassy in Teheran in November of 1979 was followed by Iranian-funded Hezbollah's bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in April 1983, its attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in October 1983, and numerous other acts of war, all ignored by America.

And Iran is one of the main funders of Hamas. Hudson Senior Fellow Meyrav Wurmser has estimated that with Hamas now in power, Iran has increased its annual contribution to $250 million from $20 million a year, exclusive of weapons and military training.

Why aren't we in America doing more to stop Iran terrorizing its citizens and waging war against us?

Mr. Ledeen suggests encouraging the highly educated Iranian opposition to defeat the current regime and set up a democratically elected government. He estimates that approximately 70% of Iranians would like a change of government, compared to a small percent of Russians in the heyday of the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union could be defeated, why not President Ahmadinejad?

As a nation, we can do little to cripple the Iranian economy. Trade with Iran has been trivial. Since 2000, we have imported only $150 million to $200 million worth of Iranian goods. We import more from China in 8 hours than we import from Iran in an entire year.

But there is much political pressure that could be generated against Iran by America and its allies. Specifically, protests could help reveal to the American public how morally corrupt the Iranian government has become. The Iranian leaders would be harmed politically, and the Iranian opposition would be strengthened and encouraged.

Unions could follow the example of the AFL-CIO, which is trying to free imprisoned Iranian union leaders, Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is divesting its pension funds of

companies that do business with Iran.

According to the general president of Teamsters, James Hoffa, "I believe that divestiture of investments in companies that do business with Iran can help bring peaceful change to that nation ... I also believe that divestiture of investments in companies linked to Iran is the patriotic thing to do as well as a wise investment strategy."

University students in the 1960s and 1970s organized divestiture movements, boycotts, and other programs that effectively persuaded many businesses that doing business in South Africa could be unprofitable in other parts of the world, and apartheid eventually ended. The same might be done for Iran.

Feminists criticize American employers for allegedly paying women only 78% of men's wages, and for not promoting more women to the corner office. Yet when their Iranian sisters are forced to wear veils, sold into slavery, and stoned on mere suspicion of adultery, they say nothing.

Why weren't feminists up in arms about Iran's imprisonment of the American professor, Haleh Esfandiari, on trumpedup charges of spying? Mrs. Esfandiari returned to America last week — no thanks to the American Association of University Women or the National Organization for Women.

As we hear about developments in Iraq, we need to remember that Iran should be at the top of America's list of demon governments for constant attempts at destabilization. It funds insurgents that kill our troops in Iraq. It threatens to destroy America and America's friends around the world and develops nuclear weapons to back up its threats. After almost three decades of closing our eyes to Iranian horrors, it's time to change course.

Ms. Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.