Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate panel Wednesday that she plans to ask for $75 million to promote democracy in Iran, but she met with sharp questioning from Democrats about whether Bush administration policies were promoting the rise of anti-American governments around the world.
Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the money for Iran, on top of $10 million already provided in the current budget, would be used to “support the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people” and to counter the influence of Tehran’s new hard-line regime.
“No one wants to see a Middle East that is dominated by an Iranian hegemony, particularly one that has access to nuclear technology,” Rice said, later calling Iran “our biggest single strategic challenge” in the region.
She said in her prepared statement that the extra $75 million “would enable us to increase our support for democracy and improve our radio broadcasting, begin satellite television broadcasts, increase the contacts between our peoples through expanded fellowships and scholarships for Iranian students, and to bolster our public democracy efforts.”
The bulk of the money, $50 million, would go toward establishing a round-the-clock television broadcast into Iran in Farsi, according to a state department official, along with improvements to radio and satellite broadcasting.
“The regime’s policies are risking the total isolation of Iran, and the people of Iran shouldn’t suffer from that,” Rice told the Senate panel.
Rice and other members of the administration have stepped up their criticism of Iran in recent weeks, pressing for U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program and blaming the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for fomenting violent protests over the publication of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
But the focus Wednesday on Iran also reflected a sense that its standing has grown as the region has changed, with a friendly Shiite-dominated government preparing to take office in Iraq, Hamas winning elections for the Palestinian parliament and radical groups such as Hezbollah and the Egyptian Brotherhood making gains in votes in Lebanon and Egypt.