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Iranian Regime Critic Mohsen Kadivar

'This Iranian Form of Theocracy Has Failed'

Part 2: 'This Is a Battle the Iranian People Have to Win'

SPIEGEL: Can other countries do anything to aid the opposition?

Kadivar: No. This is a battle the Iranian people have to win by themselves. I think that so far, President Obama has acted very prudently and not given those looking for any reason to attack ammunition. Ahmadinejad's insistence that Washington has fueled the unrest has no effect.

SPIEGEL: Obama compared Ahmadinejad and Mousavi and commented that the difference between the candidates is only minor. Is he correct?

Kadivar: This is correct, but then again, it is not correct. The differences regarding the nuclear question and the evaluation of Israeli politics are indeed minor. As for the right to uranium enrichment, you won't find an Iranian politician who thinks differently. But on the question of democracy, the differences are formidable. Ahmadinejad takes an aggressive position, while Mousavi emphazises the adherence to laws and the constitution. I believe that the issue of democratization is presently the central problem. Everything else, including the nuclear question, is secondary.

SPIEGEL: Western politicians see it quite differently.

Kadivar: Whoever at this point in time moves the nuclear question to the forefront will not find an open ear in Iran. Blood is flowing in our streets and you keep asking me about nuclear energy.

SPIEGEL: Some in the West fear that things could get far worse -- and they mean for the world -- if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

Kadivar: We are particularly concerned about Israel. This country has handed its nuclear energy to the military. Every Muslim -- well, everyone -- is afraid of Israel. Israel's nuclear arsenal should be placed under the control of the United Nations and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

SPIEGEL: Do we understand you right, that there will be no change on the nuclear question regardless of who wins the power struggle in Tehran?

Kadivar: Every Iranian government will claim the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy ...

SPIEGEL: ... but that is not the issue. We are talking about the nuclear bomb.

Kadivar: America has it, Israel has it. What is said about my country is only potentiality not reality. If the nuclear bomb is evil, then it is evil everywhere -- not only in those countries that oppose US policy. It is a double standard policy.

SPIEGEL: What would happen if Israel or the United States attacked nuclear plants in Iran?

Kadivar: That would be in contempt of all moral values. The Iranians would take up resistance, and they would do it together, regardless of political disposition and religion.

SPIEGEL: What will Iran look like five years from now?

Kadivar: I hope there will be a democratic Iran. My country has the inherent potential to become an exemplary democratic society.

SPIEGEL: And how do you see your role in this process?

Kadivar: I will go back to Iran, but not in the coming days. If I returned to Tehran now, I too would be imprisoned. The conditions there are miserable. My friend Dr. Saeed Hajarian urgently requires medication and health care -- he should be in the hospital, not in jail. I have heard that my friends Mostafa Tajzadeh and Abdallah Ramezanzadeh have been tortured. Ramezanzadeh was the spokesman of President Mohammad Khatami and Tajzadeh his deputy interior minister.

SPIEGEL: You spent eighteen months in the infamous Evin prison in Tehran.

Kadivar: I will return to Iran and I am also prepared to go back to prison, but only after legal court proceedings.

SPIEGEL: Would you take a political office in a democratic Iran?

Kadivar: As a scholar, author and professor I have an important role to fulfull. And we have excellent political leaders in Iran -- for example Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom I support.

SPIEGEL: Ayatollah Kadivar, we thank you for this interview.

Interview conducted by Erich Follath and Gabor Steingart.