"The American attack on Iraq and the downfall of Saddam are synonymous of better situation for both the Iraqi and the region’s people compared to the past. In other words, it is an occasion for the leaders of the region who, needing such an occasion, to profit from it in order to change their standard policies by defending the national interests of their nations and respond to the aspirations of their people", the student’s leaders said.

The "Analytical Statement", published on several Iranian internet websites on Monday, comes exactly one week after 127 members of the Iranian parliament called on Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i to "drink his own cup of poison" by choosing between the continuation of the present authoritarian rule, "one which would inevitably lead to the collapse of the regime", or to adhere "sincerely" to democratic principles.

But whereas the lawmakers where urging candidly the leader to save the Islamic Republic from collapse before it is too late, the students openly told the officials that if they do not bow to the people demands for democracy, freedom and respect of human rights, then the people would be right in calling on superior foreign powers to do it, "as the people in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and recently the Iraqis did".

In their analysis of the current situation of Iran and the region in the aftermath of the downfall of Baghdad’s former Ba’this regime and the behaviour of Iranian officials, the authors observes that "the spectacle of burned buildings in Baghdad and the statues of the brutal dictator Saddam Hoseyn being pulled down must be a lesson for all other tyrants that if they refuse to come down from their imagined ivory towers, they would "also disappear, as other promised lands, thrones, kings, caliphs and emirs did in the past and would in the future".

Observers said since the start of the process of writing open letter to the leaders, this analytic statement was the most daring, the most open and the most direct in criticising the ruler’s policies, both domestic and foreign, mostly their way of tackling the Iraqi conflict and their defence of the doomed Iraqi dictator and his regime.

"Was there any other way, fastest, more practical, lest costly in human lives and materials to put an end to the rule of a blood thirsty, dangerous man like Saddam and his oppressive rule in the past 30 years than to attack him, as the Americans did?" the 24 signatories asked, observing that the number of the people killed in the Coalition military operation against Iraq was "much less" the those Saddam would kill in two weeks prior of the start of the conflict.

"Which of Israel’s act, if any, did more harm to the interests of Iran and to the Iranian people more than the damages inflicted on us by Saddam’s aggression during the eight years of war? With which one of Israel’s actions against Islamic nations are comparable the damages this war inflicted to the unity of Muslims and Islamic nations? Which one of (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat’s peace with Israel and Turkey’s friendly relations with this nation in the one hand and the Muslim Iraq’s attack on Kuwait, on the other, cost the Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Saudi Muslim peoples more human and economic damages?, the statement asked.

After observing that all the analysis, reports, news and views presented by the Iranian Radio and Television as well as officials, including "small and tall" officers of the Revolutionary Guards about the Iraqi conflict had proved "utterly wrong", the leaders of students associations from the nation’s 24 universities urged the Iranian ruling ayatollahs that in case they continue to ignore people’s basic rights for freedom and democracy, then "not only the United States, but any other nation would have the right to intervene in saving the people from despots".

"Now that everyone has seen by himself that contrary to all predictions and analysis of leaders of the Islamic Republic and the Radio and Television, the United States overcame so easily, in less than 20 days, the so-called mighty Iraqi forces, time has come for them (Iranian officials) to make the best use of this occasion to wake up, stop closing newspapers, imprison dissidents, attach students, journalists, political activists, the elite, ruining young generation’s hopes. In one and last word: Let this Nation to become again the people’s land", the statement ended. ENDS STUDENTS LETTER 27503