I have talked to Congressman Sherman's office in LA. I went into details of how counter productive this legislation would be both for Iranian/Americans here and for the Iranian Jewish community in Iran.

We need to act immediately. Please urgently contact Congressman Sherman's staffers in LA and in DC even more so. The person in charge of this legislation is Don McDonald. They requested a written letter about our concern and request for a meeting.

So I have prepared the enclose letter. We need to stop this before he introduces the bill. In the meantime we need as many people as possible to contact his office as well as your own congressmen ASAP please. It's been said that fax is a very effective method as well.

Best,

Mozhgan Mojab
World PAC

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Congressman Brad Sherman
Sherman Oaks, California, 24th district.

Email: Sherman.personal@mail.house.gov

DC office 1524 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202 225 5911
Fax: 202 2255879

LA office 21031 Ventura Blvd., #1010
Woodland hills, CA 91364
Phone: 818 999 1990
Fax: 818 999 2287

The Honorable Brad Sherman
U.S. House of Representatives
1524 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Brad Sherman
U.S. House of Representatives
21031 Ventura Blvd., #1010
Woodland hills, CA 91364

Dear Congressman Sherman:

Good greetings. We Iranian-Americans are writing to convey our distress over the legislation you intend to introduce in the House to reinstate the sanctions on Iran. This legislation is said to be in response to the ten Jewish Iranians convicted of espionage by the Iranian judiciary court in Shiraz.

This proposed legislation would most certainly negatively impact any possibility of reduced/dismissed sentences for the Iranian Jews. According to the reports, the lawyer for the Jews thinks that the convictions may be reduced or dismissed on an appeal.

This legislation may also lead to retaliatory legislation against the community of one and a half million Iranian-Americans here in the States, as well as increase the possibility of retaliation against the Iranian Jewish community in Iran. It will also impede the efforts of President Khatami to resolve the situation.

Congressman Sherman, you have received strong support from the Iranian-American community in both your elections here in Los Angeles. This legislation would be a clear disservice to the Iranian- American community.

In March 2000, the Iranian- American community petitioned the House of Representatives to lift the economic sanctions on Iran. You may contact Congressman Robert Ney to see the hard copy of the over eight hundred pages of the petition along with the numerous signatures of the highly educated constituents. We understand that you have been in touch with some specific isolated groups of our community. Regardless of whether they are Jewish or Moslem, they do not represent the majority's points of view. The majority of Iranian-Americans are tired of being treated as terrorist suspects. Most Jewish Iranians speak very highly of Iran and state that they dream of visiting their homeland. In our community there is a great deal of unity between Jews and Moslems. Iran today is a democracy in progress. The choice of the vast majority of the people is a non-violent, gradual and grassroots approach towards democracy. By widely participating in the elections and achieving an overwhelming victory in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, this majority has shown the world that it is devoted to building civil society and democracy in Iran, just as our founding fathers did here in the U.S. Many of us in the Iranian-American community refer to Iran as our mother and the U.S. as our father.

Congressman Sherman, how are you going to justify to your constituency that, in clear contradiction to American values, you are asking for further punishment for the people of Iran instead of standing by their newly formed democracy? How are you going to justify to your constituency that your proposed legislation could very well be considered as a part of a strategy referred to as the "chaos theory" (which has been circulating in Washington and which advocates the promotion of instability in Iran), and not really a response to the conviction of the Iranian Jews in Shiraz. It clearly does not help them in any shape or form.

Congressman Sherman, it was not long ago that the Secretary of State had to apologize for the CIA intervention in Iran that resulted in the overthrow of Prime Minister Mosadegh's government in 1953. The above mentioned chaos theory is counterproductive for both U.S. national security and the U.S. national interest in that region. As history shows, this theory failed in Chile in 1973, resulting in the brutal dictatorship of General Pinochet. It also failed in Iran in 1953, giving control of the government to the dictatorial regime of the Shah for 25 years. The global community has witnessed the consequences of this misguided policy during the past twenty-one years of bitter and costly animosity between Iran and US. The cost of implementing this proposed theory is too high for the U.S. to bear, as it was in the previous two cases. It is bound to fail again in Iran and it would give the control back to the hardliners.

The undersigned, hereby, express our extreme distress over the proposed legislation to reinstate the sanctions against Iran. We request that you withdraw from proposing such legislation. We would welcome a meeting with yourself and a community hearing in the Congress to present the factual concerns by the members of our community in person.

We also take this opportunity to request that you work with us to defeat those who would advocate a policy of promoting chaos in Iran. Imagine what American voters would think if they picked up their local newspapers and read that the U.S. is actively engaged in undermining the democracy supporting reformers in Iran.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.