Newsweek, Iran and the Baha'is: Naivete or Much Worse?

First we had Roger Cohen of The New York Times spending three weeks in Iran and singing paeans to Persian "civility" in countless op-eds, yet mentioning the horrific persecution of Iran's Baha'is only once in a single sentence.

Now we have Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International, in the June 1, 2009 issue of Newsweek telling us (www.newsweek.com/id/199147):

Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program.

Yeah, right. Absent from Zakaria's article is any mention of Iran's May test-firing of a medium-range solid-fuel missile capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf (www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/05/20/AR2009052000523.html).

Also absent from Zakaria's article is any mention of the horrific persecution of Iran's Baha'is. As observed in a February 22, 2009 Voice of America editorial "reflecting the views of the United States Government" (www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2009-02-23-voa5.cfm):

More than 9 months have passed since 7 leaders of the Baha'i community in Iran were arrested and sent to prison with no access to legal counsel. Now the Iranian government has announced the 7 have been charged with espionage. The move is the latest in decades of repressive measures against the Baha'is, the largest non-Islamic religious minority in Iran. Those measures include barring Baha'is from attending public universities or working in public agencies, destroying or closing Baha'i places of worship, bulldozing Baha'i cemeteries, legally confiscating Baha'i property, and killing Baha'is with impunity.

One cannot help but draw parallels between the persecution of Baha'is in Iran and the persecution of Jews in pre-war Nazi Germany. This savage oppression of the Baha'is, who are deemed apostates by Iran's Shiite mullahs, must not be swept under the Persian carpet.