Did the U.S. Incite Iran's Crackdown?

The Bush Administration has proposed that the program's budget be increased to more than $100 million annually. In April, before Esfandiari's case was made public, Barry Lowenkron, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, likened the program to efforts the U.S. made to undermine Communism behind the Iron Curtain. "There is always an inherent risk in this," he told reporters. "It has been there throughout the Cold War. It has been there beyond the Cold War. It's been there wherever people stand up and say I want to live in a society free from fear and free from intimidation. And so those that volunteer, those that stand up and say I want a better future for my fellow Iranians — as would be the case in any other country — they work with organizations indigenous and foreign organizations and we help."�

Asked about the warnings from Parsi and others, a State Department official told TIME that "the warnings simply never came up over the last year or so." Even if they had, the official argued, it is wrong to blame the arrests on American "democracy promotion" given that the Islamic regime is upset about U.S. policy on other fronts such as Iraq and has been detaining dissidents and activists for years. The official notes that the Iranian government has nonetheless not cut off cultural exchanges — including some being financed with the pro-democracy funding. With reporting by Adam Zagorin/Washington