Obama and Ahmadinejad : By Amir Taheri 10.26.08

Is Barack Obama the "promised warrior" coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shiite Muslims conquer the world?

The question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shiite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bahar al-Anvar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlisi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shiite Islam. According to the tradition, Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet's cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a "tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West." Commanding "the strongest army on earth," the new ruler in the West will carry "a clear sign" from the third imam, whose name was Hussein Ibn Ali. The tradition concludes: "Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us." In a curious coincidence Obama's first and second names--Barack Hussein--mean "the blessing of Hussein" in Arabic and Persian. His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means "he is with us," the magic formula in Majlisi's tradition. Mystical reasons aside, the Khomeinist establishment sees Obama's rise as another sign of the West's decline and the triumph of Islam. Obama's promise to seek unconditional talks with the Islamic Republic is cited as a sign that the U.S. is ready to admit defeat. Obama's position could mean abandoning three resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council setting conditions that Iran should meet to avoid sanctions. Seeking unconditional talks with the Khomeinists also means an admission of moral equivalence between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic. It would imply an end to the description by the U.S. of the regime as a "systematic violator of human rights." Obama has abandoned claims by all U.S. administrations in the past 30 years that Iran is "a state sponsor of terrorism." Instead, he uses the term "violent groups" to describe Iran-financed outfits such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Obama has also promised to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference within the first 100 days of his presidency. Such a move would please the mullahs, who have always demanded that Islam be treated differently, and that Muslim nations act as a bloc in dealings with Infidel nations. Obama's election would boost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chances of winning a second term next June. Ahmadinejad's entourage claim that his "steadfastness in resisting the American Great Satan" was a factor in helping Obama defeat "hardliners" such as Hillary Clinton and, later, it hopes, John McCain. "President Ahmadinejad has taught Americans a lesson," says Hassan Abbasi, a "strategic adviser" to the Iranian president. "This is why they are now choosing someone who understands Iran's power." The Iranian leader's entourage also point out that Obama copied his campaign slogan "Yes, We Can" from Ahmadinejad's "We Can," used four years ago. A number of Khomeinist officials have indicated their preference for Obama over McCain, who is regarded as an "enemy of Islam." A Foreign Ministry spokesman says Iran does not wish to dictate the choice of the Americans but finds Obama "a better choice for everyone." Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament, has gone further by saying the Islamic Republic "prefers to see Barack Obama in the White House" next year. Tehran's penchant for Obama, reflected in the official media, increased when the Illinois senator chose Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate. Biden was an early supporter of the Khomeinist revolution in 1978-1979 and, for the past 30 years, has been a consistent advocate of recognizing the Islamic Republic as a regional power. He has close ties with Khomeinist lobbyists in the U.S. and has always voted against sanctions on Iran. Ahmadinejad has described the U.S. as a "sunset" (ofuli) power as opposed to Islam, which he says is a "sunrise" (toluee) power. Last summer, he inaugurated an international conference called World Without America--attended by anti-Americans from all over the world, including the U.S. Seen from Tehran, Obama's election would demoralize the U.S. armed forces by casting doubt on their victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, if not actually transforming them into defeat. American retreat from the Middle East under Obama would enable the Islamic Republic to pursue hegemony of the region. Tehran is especially interested in dominating Iraq, thus consolidating a new position that extends its power to the Mediterranean through Syria and Lebanon. During the World Without America conference, several speakers speculated that Obama would show "understanding of Muslim grievances" with regard to Palestine. Ahmadinejad hopes to persuade a future President Obama to adopt the "Iranian solution for Palestine," which aims at creating a single state in which Jews would quickly become a minority. Judging by anecdotal evidence and the buzz among Iranian bloggers, while the ruling Khomeinists favor Obama, the mass of Iranians regard (and dislike) the Democrat candidate as an appeaser of the mullahs. Iran, along with Israel, is the only country in the Middle East where the United States remains popular. An Obama presidency, perceived as friendly to the oppressive regime in Tehran, may change that.

Ahmadinejad and the Wrong End of the Stick

Ahmadinejad and the Wrong End of the Stick
.Amir Taheri - sharq Alawsat -
"You cannot beat anybody with nobody!"
This adage of American electoral politics seems to be the latest Americanism to enter the Iranian political folklore under the Islamic Republic. This is why the "loyal opposition" faction within the Khomeinist establishment is desperately trying to find "somebody" to stand against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in next year's presidential election. At first glance, it seems that almost anybody would do for the "loyal opposition."Among those approached is Mir-Hussein Mussavi Khamenehi, an interior decorator and former Prime Minister, whose pseudo-leftist policies earned his group the sobriquet of "The North Koreans of Islam." Another personality under consideration is Muhammad Khatami, a mid-ranking mullah who has already acted as president for eight years. Those who believe the mullahs should be elbowed out and the military elbowed in, are talking of Mohsen Rezai, a former Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a leading businessman.However, the loyal opposition ignores one crucial fact: the problems that Iran faces today are not due to personalities. Ahmadinejad's radical posture may have aggravated those problems; but did not create them.Iran's problems are due to the deception that lies at the foundation of the Khomeinist regime. This deception is stark and simple. Here we have a regime that describes itself as a republic but is, in fact, a form of medieval despotism in which a single individual has virtually unlimited powers in the name of religion.Students of history would know that the medieval despotic model worked well for a long time. Regardless of what one might think of that model in terms of ethics, it was an efficient form of government for its time. It kept the peace, provided the stability needed for economic and scientific development, and nursed the contradictions that, in time, produced its antithesis in the form of the modern bourgeoisie.The problem of the Khomeinist regime lies in its uncertain identity. It claims to be a republic but insists that power is divine and must be exercised by doctors of divinity. It calls on people to turn up and vote but does not allow them to pick from among candidates of their own choice. Even then, once the votes are counted, the mullahs could simply annul the results or even declare the losers to be winners. That leads to a structural problem that no amount of rhetoric could hide. Iran ends up with all the disadvantages of a medieval despotism minus its advantages.The adage "You cannot beat anybody with nobody" is relevant to the American situation because the US constitution is designed to allow the shaping of policies in accordance with the will of the people as expressed through elections. The Khomeinist system, however, is designed to prevent any meaningful change. In such a system, the president could achieve real influence and significant power only if he governs in accordance with the general direction of the system. This is what Ahmadinejad has been doing for the past three years. And, this is why he is the first President of the Islamic Republic to wield genuine power.The first President of the Islamic Republic, Abol-Hassan Banisadr drunk himself into near madness by believing he had a personal support base. He tried to govern against the system, forgetting that without that system he would have remained a mature student in an obscure Paris university.The second president, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, did not last long to develop any style whatsoever, as he was blown up by terrorists a few weeks after assuming office. His successor as the third president of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenehi, decided to keep a low profile and behaved as if the presidency was nothing but a thin shadow in a Chinese theatre. His gambit worked because the Khomeinist regime at the time had a prime minister who ran the executive branch. Sandwiched between the "Supreme Guide" on the one hand and the Prime Minister on the other, all the President needed to do was to keep quiet and stay out of trouble.The fourth president, Hashemi Rafsanjani developed his own style, that of trying to govern alongside the "Supreme Guide". The abolition of the post of prime minister also helped by allowing the president to assume the powers of the executive branch.Another factor was equally important. While Rafsanjani went after money, Khamenehi, who had now become "Supreme Guide", went after power. Since the two were not interested in the same thing, they could live and work together in perfect tandem. Rafsanjani became richer by the day while Khamenehi expanded his powers. Like the Americans, Rafsanjani believed that once you have money you could also acquire political power. Khamenehi, however, knew that in the East, money does not always translate into power while power can always be translated into money.The fifth president of the Khomeinist republic, Khatami, tried to govern in spite of the "Supreme Guide", albeit ever so gingerly. Misunderstanding the nature of the system that had allowed him to reach a position he would not have achieved in any other system, he deceived himself, and later tried to deceive others, by pretending that absolute rule could coexist with the relativism inherent in a pluralist system of government. Khatami led the regime to the brink of implosion by triggering dissent on a scale that Khomeinism was unable to cope with without having recourse to brutal repression.Ahmadinejad has succeeded in developing his own style. As president, he has tried to govern through the "Supreme Guide" rather than against him, alongside him, or in spite of him. Ahmadinejad's opponents have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick.If the task is to run the Khomeinist system, Ahmadinejad is by far the most successful president that the regime has produced so far. On the other hand, if the task is to lead Iran out of revolutionary crisis and towards normalcy, what needs to be contemplated is regime change rather than a change of personnel at the presidency. That, however, is the one topic that the" loyal opposition" is not yet prepared to consider publicly although more and more of its elements are thinking of it in private.

Sorry, Karl - Capitalism is Not Dying By By Amir Taheri

In one of those coincidences that add some spice to events, the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout package by the US Congress the other day came at the same time as some dyed-in-wool romantics were marking the 160th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. As you know, the slim volume penned by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 is an almost messianic hymn to the end of capitalism and the advent of the Communist utopia. It is, therefore, no surprise that some commentators have tried to see the current problems in the banking sector of the major Western economies as a fulfillment of the Manifesto's predictions. "Capitalism is dying," announced he French left wing daily Liberation.
"Maybe Marx was right, after all, "noted a British friend who has spent most of his adult life fighting Communism." I plan to go back and read the Manifesto." Well, reading and re-reading the Communist Manifesto is always great fun. I first read it more than four decades ago when its very possession could land you in jail in Iran under the Shah. I found it poetical from the very first sentence" a specter is haunting Europe etc etc. However, re-reading it the other day so that I am not caught wanting in a dinner-table discussions, I found it as pompous as the worst kind of religious literature. The kind of capitalism that Marx and Engels foresee in the little volume no longer exists, assuming that it ever did. The world is not divided into an impoverished and increasingly exploited proletariat accounting for more than 99 per cent of the population and the remaining one per cent of bourgeois leeches who suck the blood of humanity. The global economy is not dominated by a handful of giant monopolies, trusts and cartels as Marx called them, who could fix all prices plus working conditions. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that global capitalism is currently passing through a major crisis. How did this happen? Was it not only last year that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who had made his reputation as a great economics brain was telling everyone that the era of "boom and bust" was gone for good? As always when faced with a political puzzle, the best person to consult is Aristotle. The ancient Greek philosopher, known to his Muslim disciples as "The First Teacher", had a natural talent for the catching formula, what the Americans call "the sound bite." Had he been alive today he would have made a smashing career as copywriter in a major advertising agency. At any rate, in one of his formulae he notes: "Every system is corrupted by exaggerating its basic principle." Translated into plain language, this means that too much love kills love, too much religion kills religion, too much and, for our present purposes, too much capital kills capitalism. It was by following that Aristotelian precept that Muslim philosophers, starting with Farabi and Avicenna, developed their theory of measure and moderation according to which phenomena self-annihilate by going to the extreme of their possibilities. It is important to know precisely how far to go and when to stop. Now let us see how that analysis might help us understand the current crisis. Let us start with a few figures. Towards the end of the Jimmy Carter presidency in 1979, the Dow Jones index of stock values on Wall Street stood at less than 1000. Earlier this year it was hovering around 14,000, registering a 14-fold growth in just three decades. In 1979, just over five million Americans owned shares. Thirty years later, that number had risen to almost 60 million, including indirect ownership through pension funds. At the same time, the number of those who owned their homes rose from 17 per cent to more than 40 per cent. For the first time in history, a majority of the population, at least in the United States, consisted of capitalists, that is to say people who owned capital. What made this dramatic democratization of capital possible? One source of new capital was oil, producing vast sums of cash that the exporters could not invest in their own economies. According to most estimates, over the three decades in question, the oil-rich states pumped in more than a trillion dollars into the Western economies. Next, it was the turn of China to appear on the scene as a source of cheap and abundant capital. China transformed the cheap labor of its people into cash and then deposited that cash in Western banks and government bonds. By 2007, China had joined the top four investors in the US, owning American assets worth $400 billion. All this meant that the average American no longer needed o save in order to maintain the process of capital formation. All he had to do was to spend someone else's money. The Arabs, the Chinese, the Russians, the Latin Americans and, to some extent even the Europeans, did his saving for him. Things did not end there. Investment banks and brokerage houses went through a phase of creativity unprecedented in history. They transformed the already existing debts into new sources of credits and then used these to create new, and obviously notional, capital. In other words, what you owed to others, of sold to third persons, could become your capital. While all this was happening the US Federal Reserve Bank chief Alain Greenspan spoke of "irrational exuberance" but did all it could to further encourage it. Keeping interest rates at all-time historical lows, the FED, and following it other central banks, pushed the democratization of capital to limits that no economy could sustain for long. Capital lost its import and its mystique, the respect due to it. It became too accessible, the Alice Available of every economic adventurer. Interviewed on TV the other evening, there was this American gentleman from Missouri, or somewhere like that, who was wondering aloud how the banks had agreed to lend him half a million dollars to buy a luxury house. "How could they lend me that much money?" he asked. "They knew that I had never had two bent dimes to rub against one another." The answer is that when there is too much capital you cultivate the art of finding borrowers rather than savers. Banks wanted to get rid of all the money that was raining on them; they loved those who borrowed and hated those who saved.
So, the insulted, hurt and manhandled capital is taking its revenge. It is asking to be respected again. This brings us to Nietzsche who, though never to be compared with Aristotle, was also a master of catchy formulae. Here is what he said: "What does not kill me makes me stronger!"
The current crisis will not kill capitalism- sorry, Karl- but will make it stronger.

IRAN: ANATOMY OF A RISING STORM : Andrea Kean

Amir Taheri's new book to reshape the debate on the Iranian problem The story of Iran in the past three decades is a tragic tale best told by someone who has lived and felt it in his blood.

As Executive Editor-in-Chief of Kayhan, Iran's biggest daily newspaper, Amir Taheri was in a special ! position to observe the shaping of the forces that led to the Khomeinist seizure of power in 1979. One of Iran's leading intellectuals, Taheri was at the centre of a national debate over the country's future course- a debate that took place at universities, in the media, and within the framework of of cultural associations, spanning almost a whole decade. In " The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution", Taheri offers and intelligent and critical narrative of his people's experience over the past three decades and offers some pointers for the future. As Taheri explains in this book, a majority of the Iranian intellectual elite forgot the rich diversity that was the fruit of generations of critical debate and speculation, and, succumbing to the temptation of power, helped the most reactionary wing of the Shiite clergy to dominate the revolutionary movement. "The Persian Night" shows that the system created by the Khomeinists is based on three lies expressed in the" triple oxymoron" of The Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the Khomeinist regime is neither Islamic nor republican. And , although located in Iran, it is not Iranian either. This has led to a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" situation in which two Irans exist side-by-side. Iran as an expression of the Islamism is an existential threat to both the Iranian nation and all those who reject obscurantism and religious threat. Iran as the expression of a rich culture and civilization, however, is a builder of civilizations and a force for peace in the Middle East. Khomeinism is using the people of Iran as hostages, hiding behind this "human shield" to carry out its dark schemes. Seen from the Western democracies' point of view, Iran, as the expression of the Iranian herita! ge, is a friend while Iran, as a vehicle for the projection of power by Khomeinism is an enemy. The book traces the ideological roots of Khomeinism to a number of extremist and terrorist movements within Islam alongside European fascist and communist movements that have influenced religious radicals in the Middle East for generations. However, "The Persian Night" is more than a simple history of Khomeinism. It also deconstructs the total structure of the regime to reveal its points of strength and weakness. More importantly, perhaps, "The Persian Night" offers the broad outline of policies that could help defeat Khomeinism as the latest manifestation of totalitarianism to develop ambitions of global conquest. In the process, the reader is also presented with pen portraits of the main actors in the Iranian drama and a broader depiction of their social and cultural background. Scheduled for publication on 10 November 2008, The Persian Night is already on pre-sale through more than two dozen outlets on the Internet, including Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Nobel and Waterston's. " Greek Orphan" pulped Taheri's first book, " The Greek Orphan: Can Islam Find A Place in the Modern World?" was one of the first books to be seized and destroyed by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran in 1979. A collection of articles some of which had been serialized in the mass circulation daily Kayhan newspaper, the book was scheduled for publication in March 1979 in time for the Iranian New Year. However, the seizure of power by the mullahs in February had changed everything in Iran and introduced a new system of censorship imposed by the clergy. On orders from the ayatollah, Taheri's name was put on a black list of authors that now includes hundreds of names. Directly written in English, Taheri's second book " Noosepepper: A History of the Persian Press in Turmoil" was commissioned and published by the International Press Institute in London in 1980. In 1982, Taheri published "What Is Wrong with Us?', a short and passionate book in Persian and addressed to Iranians who were already becoming disillusioned with the Islamist regime. The book sold thousands of copies in Iranian exile communities and found a vast readership inside Iran in samizdat form. In 1985, Taheri published "The Spirit of Allah", the first biography of Ayatollah Khomeini, which has been acknowledged as a classic of the genre by some critics. The book caused a storm of controversy in the Islamic Republic and was the subject of heated exchanges in the Islamic Consultative Assembly's Cultural Commission in Tehran. Two years later, Taheri scored another first by publishing "Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism", a study of modern Islamist terror still regarded by some experts as a seminal introduction to a subject that has since become headline news throughout the world. Taheri's next book "Nest of Spies: America's Road to Disaster in Iran" was devoted to a study of Irano-American relations from their beginnings in the 18th century to the "Irangate" scandal. In it, Taheri challenged a number of received ideas that undermine a proper examination of a sensitive subject. Drawing on the mass of documents seized by Khomeinist students from the occupied US Embassy in Tehran, Taheri showed how successive administrations in Washington failed to develop a realistic policy towards a country that was to emerge as America's number-one source of concern in the Middle East. "The Cauldron: The Middle East Behind the Headlines" was Taheri's seventh book. Commissioned by the British publishers Century-Hutchinson, it offered a bird's-eye view of the region's many historic, political and cultural problems in a simple and accessible language. Another first, at least in English, was Taheri's "Crescent In A Red Sky", a study of Muslims in the Soviet Union offering an amazing amount of information and analysis on a subject that was virtually unknown to the broader international public at the time. Written in 1989, the book ends with a straight prediction of the imminent fall of the USSR described as "a sick empire". A portrait of the Shah Also directly written in English, Taheri's next book, "The Unknown Life of The Shah", completed his earlier biography of Khomeini, bringing together the two men who had marked Iran's contemporary history in very different ways. In 2003, Taheri published " L'Irak: Le dessous des cartes" (Iraq: What Is In The Cards?) his first book directly written in French to put the case for the liberation of the Iraqi people from Ba'athist tyranny. Co-authored with Patrick Wajsman, the book inspired much debate at a time that the French government under President Jacques Chirac was trying to prevent the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Taheri has also authored a number of long essays published in book form in Persian, English, French and Arabic, among other languages. These include a monograph on the Yazidi Kurdish tribes living in Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, and another monograph on the Druze-like communities and sects across the Middle East and Central Asia. In a bid to introduce modern Persian poetry to wider audiences, Taheri translated into English over 100 poems by three contemporary Iranian poets in a collection bearing the title of "The Wounded Rose". Throughout the 1980s, Taheri was a tireless campaigner for the freedom of press across the globe. He represented IPI in a number of trials of journalists in Turkey, Algeria and Morocco, and helped young journalists from the Muslim world to secure training courses! in Europe. In 1990, he was one of 12 editors, mostly from Western Europe, who helped create the first free school of journalism in Moscow, then the capital of the USSR.

Obama And Iran : Amir Taheri

"Unacceptable." This was the adjective that John McCain and Barack Obama used to describe the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran in their first televised debate. Beyond that, the two men offered diametrically opposed options for dealing with what both acknowledge as the No. 1 foreign policy challenge facing the United States. Leaving aside all spin, McCain's ultimate--though never pronounced--goal is regime-change in Tehran, while Obama hopes for some form of accommodation with the Khomeinist leadership. McCain regards the Islamic Republic as an enemy rather than a mere adversary, rival or competitor. The Khomeinist regime has publicly announced its desire to wipe Israel off the map, overthrow pro-American regimes in the Middle East, create an alliance of anti-U.S. forces that would include the leftist regimes of Latin America, and ultimately bring about the destruction of the "Great Satan" as a global superpower. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has just hosted an international conference on "The World Without America." Addressing a Ramadan party in New York recently, he claimed that "the post-American era" had already begun. Obama, on the other hand, believes that the Islamic Republic may have legitimate grievances that should be addressed. This was the analysis made by the Carter administration in 1979 as it struggled with the Tehran hostage crisis. Later, it was adopted by the Clinton administration and led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright apologizing for unspecified wrongs that the U.S. had supposedly done to Iran. The presence of Joseph Biden as Obama's vice-presidential running mate has strengthened the Democratic ticket's conciliatory position on Iran. Biden was an early supporter of the Khomeinist revolution and has maintained close ties with pro-Tehran lobbies in the U.S. for more than 25 years. What Obama hopes for is a change of behavior by the Islamic Republic on some specific topics, notably the nuclear project, the Middle East peace process and sponsoring international terrorism. McCain has made it clear that he would not initiate direct talks with Tehran until the Islamic Republic has changed its behavior on those issues. Obama, on the other hand, believes that only by direct talks could he hope for a change of behavior by Tehran. The American debate is followed closely inside Iran where a struggle for power is taking shape within the Khomeinist regime while anti-regime tension is rising in the broader society. Ahmadinejad and his advisers believe they have already won and point to Obama's conciliatory position as evidence. They also think that Obama will win. "Very soon," Ahmadinejad told the Ramadan meeting in New York, "we shall witness monumental changes in the world. America has suffered repeated defeats in all domains and is reaching the end of the road." The Islamic Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran, Hussein Qashqawi, has praised Obama for "offering new slogans such as change." Muhammad-Ali Far-Danesh, an Ahmadinejad adviser, has praised Obama as someone who understands that "America is falling apart from within." He has also paid tribute to Biden as "a respectable and healthy man who understands realities." By contrast, McCain is branded by the pro-Ahmadinejad media as "an old warmonger" who does not understand that "world conditions are better suited than ever for the return of the Hidden Imam" and the final triumph of Islam. Pro-reform groups in Tehran regard Obama's position as an endorsement of Ahmadinejad's claim that the Western powers in general and the U.S. in particular are "sunset" powers, while Islam represents the "sunrise" power of the future. At a more practical level, Obama's position could prove counter-productive for a number of reasons.By seeking unconditional talks, Obama circumvents four mandatory resolutions unanimously passed by the United Nations' Security Council imposing sanctions on Iran. All four resolutions demand that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program as a precondition for negotiations. In seeking direct negotiations without preconditions, Obama would be violating those resolutions. He would also destroy the coalition made of the U.S., the European Union, Russia and China to deal with the nuclear threat. Obama's position would also send wrong signals to regional allies who have tried to tighten the economic and diplomatic screws against Iran. The prospect of Washington making a deal with Tehran is certain to send shivers down many spines, from North Africa to the Indian Subcontinent. More importantly, perhaps, pro-reform groups in Iran already regard Obama's position as a stab in their back. By seeking unconditional talks with Tehran, Obama is acknowledging moral equivalence between the U.S. and the Khomeinist regime. At the same time, Obama legitimizes Ahmadinejad, who faces re-election in June 2009. Strengthened by what he presents as an American retreat, Ahmadinejad would portray his critics as cowards or traitors--this at a time when more and more voices are raised inside Iran urging him to stop his murderous rants and comply with the U.N. resolutions. The latest calls in that direction have come from Ayatollah Abdallah Nuri, the leading pro-reform figure likely to challenge Ahmadinejad in next year's presidential election. It has also been endorsed by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace laureate, and Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leader of the Pro-Reform Movement in Tehran. Statements by independent trade unions have also called on Ahmadinejad to meet the preconditions set by the U.N. in order to stop further economic hardship in Iran. Even some senior figures within the establishment, such as Hassan Rouhani, the man who broke with Ahmadinejad over the nuclear issue, have called for compliance with the U.N. resolutions. That Obama may be ignoring U.N. preconditions is a big disappointment to these, and other, Iranians who support change. Amir Taheri is the author of 10 books on Iran, the Middle East and Islam. His new book The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution will be published by Encounter Books in November.

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Beyond The Stimulus Plan

Russian is Back. But Which Russia?

Russian is Back. But Which Russia?Friday 22 August 2008By Amir TaheriEver since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Georgia this month, the headlines have screamed: “Russia Is Back!”Supposing this is the case, one might ask: which Russia is back?Students of history might suggest a return of the Russia of Tsar Alexander I. After all, it was under him that Russia first invaded Georgia in 1801, detaching it from Iran, and triggering a chain of conquests that pushed the Iranians out of the Caucasus and, by 1830, extended the frontiers of the Tsarist Empire to the River Aras.At that time, the Georgians, a Christian nation, sided with Russia against Iran while the Ossets, an Iranian people speaking an Iranic language, fought against the invaders.Alexander had vowed not to stop until his empire had reached the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and linked up with Russia’s “ brother Slavs” in the Balkans.Another theory could be that the Russia that is supposed to be back is the power that created the “prison of 100 nations”, the Gulag Archipelago, and the graves of 60 million victims of Bolshevism.Finally, one might argue that the Russia that is supposed to be back is the same that sent tanks into Warsaw and Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968 to force Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks to resubmit to their Communist yokes.Whatever the case, we know where those three Russias ended: in the dustbin of history, as Trotsky liked to quip.It may well be that the invasion of Georgia, far from being a sign of Russia’s return as a great power, is the last gasp of an anachronistic system with no place in the modern world.Ever since Russia was created as a state in 1547, its’ elite has been divided into two camps.The first were pan-Slav nationalists, initially inspired by Vinko Pribojevic, who saw Russia as “ The Third Rome” and dreamed of uniting all Slavic nations in pursuit of world conquest in the name of their Orthodox brand of Christianity. They regarded Western Europe as corrupt, and dismissed democracy as a fatal disease. Haunted by the memories of Mongol invasion and Tatar rule, pan-Slav intellectuals preached “derjavnost” which means creating a powerful state. The argument was that only a powerful state, which in practice meant a big army with plans of conquest, could protect Russia against humiliation and domination by others. Although many pan-Slavs were intellectuals themselves, they regarded intellectuals as enemies of the “ derjavnost”. Their ideal state would be run by “niekulturnyi”, men without culture and more comfortable with the exercise of raw power than the complexities of competitive democratic politics.The second camp, known as Westrenisers, emerged in the 19th century thanks to such men as Herzen, Belinksy and Turgenev. They dreamed of a European-style democratic state in which culture, rather than military force, played the central role. In such a system the state would not be allowed to become stronger than society.For a brief moment, after the fall of the Soviet Empire, it seemed as if the Westernisers would have their first real opportunity to dominate Russian politics. Under Vladimir Putin, a modified version of “derjavnost” has dominated Russian politics. The state has become stronger and society weaker.Many Russians, perhaps a majority at this time, support “derjavnost” in an emotional response to real or imagined humiliations in the wake of the empire’s disintegration. They admire the elite of “niekulturniy” led by Putin and their penchant for raw power and KGB style diplomacy.The problem for Russia is that much of the power projected on television screens may be trompe l’oeil, a grand version of the Potemkin villages that fooled Catherine II. It took Russia almost two years to plan its invasion of Georgia, a tiny nation of four million people. Even then, the invasion included scenes that resembled footage from the Keystone Cops rather than records of a modern efficient army.No, the invasion of Georgia, regardless of its causes, does not mark the return of Russia as a major power.Under Putin, Russia has become a monoculture economy. Of the 6000 or so brands dominating the global market, not one is Russian. Russia accounts for less than one per cent of patents registered in the world each year. Apart from crude oil and natural gas, Russia has few goods to offer. Once the world’s number-one exporter of military hardware, it is now in fifth place. Even when it comes to caviar and vodka, Iran and Sweden respectively sell more of each than Russia. A tiny elite, perhaps one per cent of the population, controls some 70 per cent of the national income. (Some of its rowdy representatives roam the French Riviera and the Italian lakes every summer.)Today’s Russia is not a rich country; it is a moneyed country. A rich country has good schools, universities, hospitals, national parks, libraries, research centres, and sports facilities not to mention motorways, modern railways and airports. A moneyed country just has lots of money. A rich country produces literature, art and culture, wins Nobel prizes in the scientific fields, and shines at international sports events. New Russia has produced a Mafia-style culture of materialism, greed and violence. The Beijing Olympics saw Russia knocked out of the top league of sporting nations.Also, Russia is experiencing an unprecedented demographic decline. In the last decade, its population has declined by almost 10 million. If the present trend continues, Russia may end up with smaller population than Iran by 2020. The percentage of ethnic Russians is falling even more rapidly. If the present trends continue, Turkic ethnic groups would become the largest population bloc in the Federation. By mid-century, Russia could have a Turkic and Islamic majority.No, Russia is not back in any of its previous epiphanies. It is not back because those versions of Russia no longer exist. What Russia needs is to go forward towards a strong society, not a return to a Potemkin-style strong state.Sooner or later, a majority of Russians will see through the trompe l’oeil of Tsar Vladimir’s Caucasus campaign.

Iran's Winning Latin Power Play

May 01, 2008 - The New York Post - Amir Taheri

'A Man of God and an enemy of the Great Satan": That's how Iran's official media described Fernando Lugo - the Paraguayan ex-priest who just won his country's presidency in a hotly contested election.Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - among the first foreign leaders to congratulate Lugo on his win - hopes that Paraguay will now become another link in what he calls "the counter lasso" - the chain of anti-US regimes he's supporting with the help of his "brother," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.Ahmadinejad's analysis is simple: America is trying to throw a lasso around Iran with the help of allies in surrounding regions. So Iran should throw a counter lasso via an alliance in the United States' South American backyard.

The Vatican had rejected Lugo's resignation from the priesthood but suspended him after he ran for office despite being denied permission. He visited Iran in the '90s to pay homage to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - whom Lugo has praised as "a forerunner of the modern global revolutionary movement."Since the late '80s, the Iranian-run Hezbollah, a global movement of Khomeinist militants, has built a base in Paraguay by recruiting in the Shiite community, about 15 percent of the population. That base played a key role in ensuring Lugo's victory, especially via a big fund-raising campaign backed by Iran and Venezuela.Cuba was the first Latin regime to forge an informal alliance with Iran. In the last 18 years, Iran has injected billions into Cuba's ailing economy, partly by providing free crude oil.But only in the late '90s did Tehran find a true Latin ally in Chavez - who has visited the Islamic Republic six times, setting a record for any foreign leader. He's helped Iran create a radical axis in OPEC, with Libya and Algeria as occasional allies.Tehran-Caracas ties deepened after Ahmadinejad took office, as the Islamic Republic revived its militant anti-US policy. Iran's president has visited Latin America four times in three years, more than any other region. That influence has played a crucial role in encouraging Chavez's increasing anti-American posture.Ahmadinejad and Chavez have reason to be pleased with their work: America is clearly in retreat in its own backyard.At the start of the new century, Brazil already had a moderate leftist regime under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Since then, Bolivia also elected a leftist firebrand, President Evo Morales.Chile, Argentina and Uruguay have all opted for moderate-leftist governments. Even in Peru, the return of Alan Garcia as president has revived the left's corpse.Ecuador's new president, Rafael Correa, has suspended talks for a free-trade pact with the United States and threatened not to renew the lease for the US air base at Manta. Ecuador has also returned to OPEC, increasing Iranian/Venezuelan influence there.In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas have regained power under President Daniel Ortega - who highlighted his alliance with Ahmadinejad by making Iran the first non-Latin country he visited after taking office.Lugo's win in Paraguay completes the leftist takeover in the region. South of Mexico, the only puzzle piece still tilting rightward is Colombia under President Alvaro Uribe.And a campaign is under way to "get Uribe." American leftists are trying to help by derailing the US-Colombia free-trade accord. Venezuela, meanwhile, has made military demonstrations on the Colombian border while increasing support for Colombia's narco-Marxist terrorists.All this confirms Ahmadinejad's belief that the global tide is turning against the United States. "The US is on a slippery slope to destruction," he told crowds in Tehran earlier this month. The phrase has become an official slogan, inscribed on podiums used by the president and others high in the revolutionary establishment.Tehran has signed contracts worth $40 billion with Caracas - a huge sum considering the modest size of Venezuela's economy. And it has negotiated $30 billion more in contracts with Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. (Iran's business relations with Cuba, Brazil and Peru are also booming.) These contracts come in four areas:Energy: Iran's aim is to replace as many US companies as possible in the Latin American oil and gas industry. A joint Irano-Venezuelan consortium hopes to dominate the natural-gas sector in Bolivia while launching new exploration schemes for oil and gas in Nicaragua, Ecuador and Peru.Arms: No Latin country has a credible weapons industry; Iran hopes to fill the gap. It has sold $4.5 billion worth of armaments to Venezuela and is training hundreds of Venezuelan military personnel.Security: Iranian and Venezuelan security services have set up a coordination committee and developed a system of exchanging information. Nicaragua is expected to join soon, as are Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador.Media: The first step here has come in a $1 billion Iranian investment in developing a Spanish-language TV network to compete with the major US satellite channels.The Monroe Doctrine, designed to deny European powers a dominant role in the Americas, apparently doesn't apply to Iran - which is determined to carve its own Latin American zone of influence.As Ahmadinejad likes to tell his Latin American hosts: The Americans are going, the Iranians are coming.

Bluff and Bloodshed - By Newsweek Web Exclusive

The Persian Gulf is more dangerous than ever. Will the U.S. and Iran go to war at sea?

Iraq Team to Discuss Militias With Iran
BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi prime minister is sending several senior Shiite leaders to Tehran to discuss their concerns that Iran is arming and financing militias in Iraq, senior Iraqi and American officials said Wednesday. more
By The New York Times

Rules of Disengagement
What's valued at more than 231 billion dollars? Answer: the assets of some 3.8 million current and former federal employees, everyone from letter carriers to U.S. Senators, whose retirement funds are socked away in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), one of the largest and fastest-growing 401(k)-style funds in the U.S. more
By Time

THE BASRA BATTLE: SIGNS OF IRAN

THE BASRA BATTLE: SIGNS OF IRAN
By AMIR TAHERI


March 31, 2008 -- IT was bound to happen and may well be happening right now: a war between the Islamic Republic in Iran and the new Iraq. Much of the media have portrayed the latest battles for Basra, and attempts by armed groups to undermine the recently improved security in Baghdad, as a power struggle among rival Shiite factions. In this analysis, three Shiite factions - the Fadila (Virtue), the Dawa (The Call) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - that support Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government are trying to disarm the remnants of the Mahdi Army of the elusive mullah Muqtada Sadr. But that explanation has several problems. To start with, it is the regular Iraqi army - not any Shiite armed faction - that is doing the fighting in Basra. To underline that point, Maliki went to Basra to supervise operations personally. And the kind of fighting witnessed in Basra is different from the usual militia operations. This is a war of position, with units acting as detachments of a regular army trying to deny the Iraqi government forces control of specific territories. The fighters defying the Iraqi army may be Iraqi irregulars, even nominal members of the Mahdi Army - but those leading them are acting as textbook regular-army commanders. At least some of the officers in charge of the rebel units may be seconded from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as part of a broader plan to control the Basra region, and thus the lifeline of the Iraqi economy.
This wouldn't be the first time that Guard officers and NCOs have fought at the head of native fighters outside Iran. Two years ago, Guard personnel played a crucial role in the war between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel. And Guard officers and NCOs led some armed Iraqi groups in operations against Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The type of weapons used in both Basra and Baghdad also suggests at least some outside involvement. The rebels in Basra are using a large number of armored vehicles to move men and materiel around - something no other Shiite militia, and certainly not the Mahdi Army, had ever done. They're also using heavy artillery, mobile rocket launchers and a sophisticated communications system unavailable to militias. Elements of the Mahdi Army may provide the visible face of the rebellion, but there is no evidence that the militia (supposing it even still exists as an organized force) is the sole star of this show. Sadr, after all, has extended the ceasefire he declared six months ago - and, in a recent letter, admitted that he had failed to "liberate" Iraq and create an "Islamic society." Last week, he issued another statement calling for a political settlement in Basra - a far cry from the bellicose noises made by these rebels with the help of Iranian state-owned media. Spending most of his time in Iran, Sadr is now preparing to claim a theological position within the Shiite hierarchy - an ambition that cannot be realized through gunfights in the streets of Basra and Baghdad. One other notable fact: Whoever is running the show on the rebel side has been able to devise a battle plan that included simultaneous attacks along a north-south axis that includes Baghdad, al-Amarah and Basra. No other Iraqi militia group, Shiite or Sunni, has had the resources to stage such a campaign before. The rebels are trying to retain areas that connect Basra, a vast urban sprawl, to the Shatt al-Arab, an estuary that forms part of the border between Iran and Iraq. If the Iraqi government is kept out of these areas, Iran would control both banks of the strategically vital waterway. Iran has already occupied several islands in the waterway facing Basra, using them as advance observation posts. Finally, the design of this operation recalls an Iranian plan, drafted in 1983-84, to seize control of Basra and parts of the Shiite-majority areas of southern Iraq. According to Ibrahim Yazdi, once a top adviser to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the "Basra Plan" was devised as a compromise. The ayatollah wanted the war with Iraq to continue until the fall of Baghdad, after which he hoped his armies would march on Jerusalem. His advisers, including Yazdi, knew that Iran could not win such a war and tried to placate him by offering him Basra. Visitors to Basra since Saddam's fall have often been struck by the massive "Iranian" presence there. Much of this consists of large numbers of Iraqi Shiites, known as mua'aweddin (returnees), who have come home after years of exile in Iran. There are also those who hold both Iranian and Iraqi nationality. Known as muzdawajun (double nationals), they are often accused of being loyal to Shiism rather than any secular concept as a nation state. Why has Basra, a relatively calm place for the last five years, heated up now? One reason may be the British decision last year to withdraw from the city. This left a vacuum that the new Iraqi army and police were unable to fill immediately. Iran may have seized the opportunity to try to grab as much influence and presence as it could - both via Shiite militias (including the Mahdi Army) that it has financed for years and by sending large numbers of operatives across the border. The prospect of losing control of Basra may have prompted the Maliki government to act. Whoever controls Basra could influence the outcome of next year's crucial local-government elections. Basra and the Shiite south represent the backbone of support for the Maliki coalition; without them, the coalition couldn't retain control of the central government in Baghdad. At a time when US commanders in Iraq, including Gen. David Petraeus, openly accuse Iran of having joined the Iraqi imbroglio, the fate of Basra appears important for another reason. If there were a war between the United States and the Islamic Republic, one likely early US objective would be seizure of Iranian oilfields. To do that, America and its allies would need advance bases in southern Iraq - the key to which is Basra. Iran, on the other hand, could extend the defensive perimeter of its oilfields by annexing Basra.
Both sides may simply be interested in testing the waters at this stage. But the war over who will shape the future of Iraq, indeed of the Middle East as a whole, is in its early stages.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Monolith or Jigsaw? Amir Taheri

For a quarter of a century, the regime established by Khomeini has been labelled a “mullahrchy”, a theocracy dominated by the Shi’ite clergy. Now, however, those familiar with the Iranian situation know that a majority of Shi’ite clerics never converted to Khomeinism and did not endorse the Islamic Republic. In the past few years, especially since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President in 2005, those mullahs who had converted to Khomeinism have lost some of their power privileges.Today, it is safe to say that the dominant force within the ruling establishment in Tehran is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This is, perhaps, one reason the Bush administration in Washington is mulling the possibility of declaring the IRGC a “terrorist organisation”. Were this to happen, the US would be labelling as “terrorist” the principal force that ensures the survival of the Islamic Republic.The trouble, however, is that the IRGC is not a monolith, and to label all of its as “ terrorist” may make it difficult to make deals with parts of it when, and if, an opportunity arises.Any analysis of the IRGC must take into account a number of facts.First, the IRGC is not a revolutionary army in the sense that the ALN was in Algeria or the Vietcong in Vietnam. Those two were born during the so-called revolutionary wars in which they became key players. The IRGC was created after the Khomeinist revolution had succeeded. This fact is of crucial importance. Those who joined the IRCG came from all sorts of backgrounds. The majority were opportunists who wanted to jump on the bandwagon. By joining the IRGC, an individual would not only obtain revolutionary credentials, often on fictitious grounds, but would also secure a well-paid job, at a time that economic collapse made jobs rare.Joining the IRGC enabled many who had cooperated with the ancien regime to re-write their CVs and obtain a new “ revolutionary virginity”, so to speak.Membership of the IRGC ensured access to rare goods and services, from colour television sets to more decent housing.As the years went by, IRGC membership provided a fast track to social, political and economic success. Today, more than half Ahmadinejad’s Cabinet ministers are members of the IRCG, as is the president himself. IRCG members hold nearly a third of seats in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), the ersatz parliament Khomeini created in 1979. Twenty of Iran’s 30 provinces have governors from the IRGC. IRGC members have also started capturing key posts in the diplomatic service. Today, for the first time, the Islamic Republic’s ambassadors in such important places as the United Nations in New York and embassies in a dozen Western capitals are members of the IRGC.More importantly, perhaps, the IRGC acts as a business conglomerate with interests in many sectors of the economy. By some accounts, the IRGC is Iran’s third corporation after the National Iranian Oil Company and the Imam Reza Foundation in Mash’had. In 2004, a Tehran University study, estimated the annual turnover of IRGC businesses at $12 billion. The privatisation package prepared by Ahmadinejad is likely to increase the IRGC’s economic clout. Almost all of the public sector companies marked for privatisation, at a total value of $18 billion, are likely to end up in IRGC hands or its individual commanders.The IRGC also controls the lucrative business of “exporting the revolution” estimated to be worth $1.2 billion a year. It finances branches of the Hezballah movement in at least 20 countries, including some in Europe, and provides money, arms and training for radical groups with leftist backgrounds. In recent years it has emerged as a major backer of the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas and both Shi’ite and Sunni armed groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Islamic Republic is believed to have invested some $20 billion in Lebanon since 1983. In most cases, the Lebanese branch of the Hezballah nominally in control. But a closer examination reveals that in most cases the Lebanese companies are fronts for Iranian concerns controlled by the IRGC. Hezballah’s business empire, the source of much of its power in Lebanon, is like a house of cards that could collapse with an adverse breeze from Tehran.The crown jewel of the IRGC’s business empire is the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme that has cost the nation over $10 billion so far. This is part of a broader scheme of arms purchases and manufacture, accounting for almost 11 per cent of the annual national budget.For all that, IRGC is more of a franchise chain than a corporation controlled by a board of directors. This is why a more sophisticated approach may be needed in dealing with it.The IRGC is divided into five commands, each of which has a direct line to the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi, a mid-ranking mullah, himself one of the earliest members of the force in 1980. To minimise the risk of coup d’etat, IRGC’s senior officers of are not allowed to engage in “sustained communication” with one another on “sensitive subjects.” Of the five commands in question, two could be regarded as“terrorist” according to the US State Department’s definition that, needless to say, is rejected by the Islamic Republic.One, which includes the so-called Jerusalem (Quds) Corps, is in charge of exporting the revolution. Apart from Hezballah and Hamas it runs a number of radical groups across the globe.The second command that could be targeted deals with internal repression. It operates through several auxiliary forces, including the notorious Karbala brigades charged with crushing popular revolts in Tehran. Many Iranians see these as instruments of terror.The IRGC’s officers’ corps, including those in retirement, numbers around 55,000 and is as divided on domestic and foreign policies as the rest of the society. Some IRGC former commanders who did not share the Islamic Republic’s goals have already defected to the United States. Hundreds of others have gone into low-profile exile, mostly as businessmen in The United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Turkey. An unknown number were purged because they refused to kill anti-regime demonstrators in Iranian cities.Many prominent IRGC commanders may be regarded as businessmen first and military leaders second. Usually, they have a brother or a cousin in Europe or Canada to look after their business interests and keep a channel open to small and big Satans in case the regime falls.A few IRGC commanders, including some at the top, do not seek major military conflict with the United States that could wreck their business empires without offering victory on the battlefield.There is no guarantee that, in case of a major war, all parts of the IRGC would show the same degree of commitment to the Islamic Republic. IRGC commanders may be prepared to kill unarmed Iranians or hire Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi radicals to kill others. But it is not certain they would be prepared to die for Ahmadinejad’s glory. These concerns persuaded Khamenehi to announce a Defence Planning Commission last year, controlled by his office.A blanket labelling of the IRGC, as opposed to targeting elements of it that do mischief against the Iranian people and others in the region and beyond, could prove counterproductive. It could unite a deeply fractious force by leaving it no door through which some of its members could walk out of the dangerous situation they have helped create.Amir Taheri was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
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Iran Blacks Out Day Of Protest : Amir Taheri

August 14, 2007 New York Post
'NO news is good news," goes the old adage. But one man's good news can be another's bad news - or, if the authorities have their way, not be allowed to be news at all. Consider reporting from the Islamic Republic of Iran. For Iran's authorities, last Thursday brought bad news: demonstrations throughout the country in support of jailed union leaders and labor activists. In Tehran, hundreds gathered near the home of Mansour Osanloo, the imprisoned leader of the capital's transit workers, with a simple message: We are not afraid! The authorities had organized a military operation to cordon off the streets leading to the house - but couldn't prevent union members from assembling. The day ended with the arrest of at least 15 workers' leaders. Meanwhile, in factories and workshops in and around the capital, workers organized peaceful hour-long "solidarity pauses," defying a ban imposed by the authorities. Several other major cities saw similar demonstrations, including Ahvaz, Arak, Sanandaj, Shiraz and Tabriz. Everywhere, the protesters took care to keep their actions within the law. Yet the authorities kept any mention of Thursday's events out of the official media. That the mullahs should treat this as "not news" is no surprise. For years, they have pretended to be working on behalf of Iran's poorest working masses - but now the mask is falling. It is precisely those poorest working masses that present the regime with its biggest challenge. What is surprising is that much of the global media should also regard this bad news for the mullahs as no news. According to the Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture in Tehran, 117 registered foreign media correspondents work in Iran. Yet (except for a stringer for a Japanese news agency who appeared at a demonstration in a car factory near Tehran) none paid attention to the workers' day of solidarity. Osanloo's lawyers phoned the offices of more than a dozen Western news agencies and radio and TV networks in Tehran in the hope of persuading them to cover the events - with no results. Inside Iran, some see global conspiracy to keep international opinion in the dark about what is really happening in the Islamic Republic. They ask: Why is it that world media representatives in Iran never interview any of the thousands of trade unionists, teachers' leaders, journalists, student activists, women's-lib militants and dissident intellectuals? Why is the brutal repression in several provinces, which has already claimed scores of lives, never covered on the spot? The authorities admit they've arrested almost a million people in the last four months, keeping them for anything from several hours to several weeks. Yet the news from Iran is focused on the mullahs' defiance of the U.N. on the nuclear issue. There is no conspiracy; the global media's silence on Iran's internal turmoil can be explained by three facts: * Some Western editors are sympathetic to the Islamic Republic, which they see as a plucky Third World regime standing up against Western, especially American, "Imperialist bullying." * Tehran refuses to admit the representatives of media outlets it regards as "hostile." As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated last week in his visit to the Islamic Republic News Agency's headquarters in Tehran, information is allowed only if it serves "the interests of our revolution." It is only after long negotiations that Iran's government allows foreign, especially Western, media to open offices and have correspondents in Tehran, on the implicit understanding that the concerned outlet keeps its coverage within limits fixed by the authorities. * Correspondents and stringers working for Western media in Iran are under constant psychological and, at times, even physical pressure. If they are expatriates, they could find it impossible to get a place to rent or to obtain an air ticket to a provincial capital. If unhappy with the coverage, official sources may suddenly boycott the correspondent. The renewal of residence and work permits provide bi-annual occasions for the authorities to intimidate foreign correspondents. Foreign media representatives could be seized and held hostage, as was the case with The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib and is currently the case with Radio Free Europe's Parnaz Azima. Right now, at least 11 Iranian journalists are in prison on charges of unauthorized cooperation with foreign media. Even at best, foreign correspondents, most of whom don't speak Persian, remain dependent on interpreters and minders from the Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture. The Islamic Republic is certainly not the first to keep a tight leash on foreign media. It was on similar terms that Saddam Hussein allowed a handful of foreign correspondents to stay in Iraq. The good news, however, is that, thanks to the Internet and other means of communication, information almost always ends up getting out. The real news from Iran is the struggle between those who believe that only freedom, pluralism and peace can save the country and those who wish to erect a wall around the Islamic Republic and prepare it for war. As the nation moves toward elections in 10 months' time, the struggle is likely to sharpen with the future of the country in the balance. The outside world had better pay attention. For what is known as "the Iran problem" can only be solved inside the country by its people.

A SPECTER IS HAUNTING IRAN : By AMIR TAHERI

August 1, 2007 -- THE way part of the West ern left portrays Iran, you'd think that it's a pro gressive regime opposed by a few rich reactionaries beholden to the United States. American leftists like Michael Moore, Sean Penn and Noam Chomsky have persuaded themselves that anyone who shouts "Death to America!" is fighting for "repressed humanity." The champagne-and-caviar socialists of Paris and London, meanwhile, claim that the only Iranians who oppose the mullahs are middle-class intellectuals who often have dual Iranian-U.S. citizenship - and, thus, deserve to be tortured in Tehran as hostages.

In truth, however, the Islamic Republic, far from representing the poor masses of Iran, is an instrument of domination for a new class of rulers who control the national economy through oil revenues. Over the last quarter-century, the mullahs and their relatives, plus and a few thousand military and security officers, have morphed into a nomenclatura. They have the best jobs, receive the most favors and enjoy priority access to goods, services and opportunities for social advancement. The pre-revolution middle classes, formed over 150 years, have all but dissolved into poverty, with a good part finding refuge in exile. An estimated 6.5 million Iranians, almost 10 percent of the country's population, have emigrated. The International Monetary Fund reports that more than 150,000 educated Iranians flee the country each year, "the biggest brain drain in history." In fact, the most serious challenge to the new ruling class comes from what the left labels "the popular masses." Spearheading the fight are groups of urban workers who have started to flex their muscles in the last two to three years. Starting next Thursday, these workers will confront President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration through a series of one-hour strikes to show solidarity with imprisoned trade unionists. The regime began a crackdown on independent trade unions last April. The Workers' Organizations and Activists Coordinating Council (WOACC) notes that more than 600 labor leaders have been arrested or "made to disappear." Another 4,500 workers have been dismissed, often without pay, on vague charges of "fomenting unrest" at various state-owned projects. The largest number of arrests came at the May 1 International Labor Day marches organized by the WOACC, representing independent trade unionists, in defiance of state-sponsored ceremonies. Next week's protests, however, will focus on two imprisoned independent union men: Mahmoud Salehi, leader of the Union of Bakery Workers in Sanandaj, the capital of Iranian Kurdistan, was arrested April 9. Security men raided his home, beat up his family and carried him to an unknown destination. Mansour Osanloo, president of the Tehran Bus Workers' Union, was abducted July 10 on a Tehran street and thrown into Evin Prison, "The Islamic Alcatraz." Salehi's wife, Najibeh, says the union leader is seriously ill; rumors claim that one of his kidneys collapsed after weeks of torture designed to force him to offer televised "confessions."
Salehi has not been formally charged; meanwhile, the state-controlled media spread false rumors - that he is a member of the Kurdish Communist Party, wants to detach the province from Iran and is working with Washington to bring "Jewish-Crusader democracy" to Iran.
Salehi, 45, is a charismatic figure and magnetic orator. He started as an apprentice baker at aged 14, and in 2004 rose to become a founder of the city's independent bakery workers' union. A year later, he organized a "Day Without Bread" in support of hundreds of Kurdish intellectuals, teachers and workers imprisoned, often without charge. Later, Salehi achieved national stature by emerging as a key figure in creating WOACC, Iran's first independent nationwide organization of workers, with branches in 18 of Iran's 30 provinces. The day Osanlou was arrested, he had presided over a meeting of his executive committee that rejected new government rules. These ordered bus drivers and conductors not to admit passengers who violate the Islamic Dress Code, passed into law last May, and to restrict women passengers to buses' back seats. Osanloo's lawyer, Parviz Khorshid, says that he hasn't been allowed to visit his client and that his demand for a medical examination of the prisoner was rejected. The authorities have already disbanded the Iran Labor News Agency, an independent service covering the free union movement. They have also arrested 32 WOACC militants. Despite the repression, the movement seems to be picking up momentum. A strike has shut down the textile factories Sanandaj, Salehi's hometown. In Asaluyeh, on the Persian Gulf, described by many as "the largest labor camp in the world," the estimated 150,000 workers at a dozen oil and gas projects are expected to walk out. Dozens of state-owned factories have come to a standstill as a result of strikes in Arak, Kermanshah, Alborz, Qazvin, Bushehr, Sari and several other cities. The good news is that Western trade unionists are beginning to pay attention to the struggle of their fellow workers. Several European unions have called for Salehi, Osanloo and other Iranian trade unionists to be released. There is some hope that American labor will follow.
Somewhere along the line, the Western left may realize that it has been duped by a few anti-American slogans into supporting a regime that is dedicated to destroying whatever progressive ideals it once espoused.