کنترل نیروی شبه نظامی بسیج به مجتبی سپرده شده استKhamenei's son running Baseejees

Guardian reports Khamenei's son has been put in charge of Baseejees

چهارشنبه 08 ژوئيه 2009 - 17 تیر 1388

• اين صفحه را برای ديگران بفرستيد
• چاپ مطلب

گاردین: 'بسیج در کنترل پسر خامنه ای است'

منبع گاردین مدعی است "پایگاه رهبر ایران در میان مرجعیت شدیدا تضعیف شده است"

روزنامه گاردین به نقل از یک "منبع بلندپایه سیاسی" در ایران گزارش می دهد که کنترل نیروی شبه نظامی بسیج به مجتبی خامنه ای، پسر آیت الله علی خامنه ای رهبر ایران، سپرده شده است.

There are ambitious plans for protests tomorrow 9 Julyهمه منتظر تظاهرات ۱۸ تیر هستند

ABC's Jim Sciutto: Buzz Over Plans For Fresh Tehran Protests

ABC's Senior Foreign Correspondent Jim Sciutto covered the recent Iranian election protests from the streets of Tehran:
Speaking to dissidents on the ground in Tehran, there are ambitious plans for protests tomorrow to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1999 student uprising. The demo’s are just ambitions for now -- recent planned demo’s have fizzled -- but tomorrow’s appear to be more organized. Protesters plan to make a showing in a number of Iranian cities. They’ll gather in several locations to confuse police -- nine locations in Tehran, nine locations in Shiraz, similar numbers in Isfahan and other cities -- and then march toward a common gathering place. Word is spreading organically: fliers, internet notices and friends calling friends.
“In the past, people would just go to the university,” an opposition supporter told ABC News over the phone. “Now there are fliers, it’s all over the internet, people are calling each other.”

Protesters are emboldened in part by opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi’s refusal to back down, but more so by their own continued anger and frustration. They, like several prominent Iranian leaders from Mousavi to speaker of parliament Ali Larijani to many leading clerics in the holy city of Qom, believe they’re fighting not just to overturn the presidential election but to rescue the last vestiges of democracy in Iran -- as opposition presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi told me in Tehran, to keep the ‘republic’ in the ‘Islamic Republic’.
Many protesters are speaking in bold terms. “We’re ready for anything, to be killed, beaten up, arrested,” said the opposition supporter. “When we go out there, it’s real war.”
Government security forces are certainly aware of the plans -- which have been advertized widely on Facebook, Twitter, etc. -- and will be waiting for them.
One Iranian dissident in London told ABC News, “Security forces are so repressive. Just one person with a gun can disperse a hundred protesters.”
It’s an open question as to whether protesters can somehow regain the upper hand but their intention is to show they can still generate numbers.
UPDATE 12:55pm EST: To answer some concerns, protesters themselves have put out the general outlines of tomorrow's planned protests via websites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is not a secret they're hoping to draw large numbers of people. And I have not reported specific details such as the exact locations protesters will gather.

Iranian Cleric Khadivar denounces the Coupآیت اله خدیور منتقد کودتاچیان

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,633517,00.html

International

IRANIAN REGIME CRITIC MOHSEN KADIVAR

Davis Turner

Mohsen Kadivar:The protesters "want fair elections," and "he who refuses those demands risks acivil war."

'This Iranian Form of Theocracy Has Failed'

Pravda's Article declares demise of freedom movement مقاله ی تازه ی روزنامه ی روسی پراودا علیه جنبش آزادی خواهانه ی مردم ایران

Stop Violence in Iran !

انقلاب رنگین در ایران ناکام ماند

http://www.akhbar-rooz.com/news.jsp?essayId=22167

Nothing is going to be the same againآوازِ قویِ جمهوریِ اسلامی

نوشته برنارد-آنری لِوی
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/the-swan-song-of-the-isla_b_219323.html
(persian text)
(translation of article by Hanry Bernard Levi in French)

New York Times 4 July 2009مقاله مرجان سترپی در نیو یورک تایمز

Stop Violence in Iran !

July 4, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
I Must Go Home to Iran Again
By MARJANE SATRAPI
PARIS — Six years ago, I went to listen to a man, whom I will not name, in a café in Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/opinion/04iht-edsatrapi.html?ref=global

ROGER COHEN in New York Times Let the Usurpers Writhe

July 2, 2009
GLOBALIST
Let the Usurpers Writhe
By ROGER COHEN
TEHRAN — Think of normalized relations with the United States as the big prize. Who gets to deliver it? One thing is certain: Iran’s ruthless usurpers are determined to ensure reformists are never in a position to claim the breakthrough.
That at least is the view of Mohsen Mahmoudi, a 34-year-old conservative cleric I ran into at a post-electoral rally for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and got to know over the ensuing week.
Rightist yet drawn to America, a card-carrying Basij militiaman from the University of Qom, a prayer leader at an Islamic cultural center in north Tehran, Mahmoudi backs the regime’s brutal clampdown but concedes there will be a cost.
“This is going to cause a huge gulf between generations,” he told me. “I was talking to a young woman who was a good friend of mine before the vote and she said she doesn’t respect me any more. She’s so angry she’s ready to die.”
Mahmoudi looked surprised. I’m not. Sentiment has shifted radically in Iran as multiple security forces deploy in defense of a lie. For Ayatollah Ali Khamouenei, the supreme leader, the question of how to win back support will in time arise. Enter America, the target of Great-Satanism but dear to most Iranians.
“Relations with the United States are the big taboo, and whoever breaks the taboo will be a hero,” Mahmoudi said. “The real fight is over whether the right or the left should rebuild ties.”
Referring to the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and the former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, the cleric explained: “We would never allow Moussavi or Khatami to restore relations, because they would then have heroic status.”
Two weeks after Iran’s ballot-box putsch, mysteries still envelop it. Why have a pre-electoral freedom-fest, bring hundreds of journalists to Tehran to witness it, then put on a horror show, throwing them into jail or out of the country? Everything I saw — the sheer brazen clumsiness of the vote theft and its hysterical, club-wielding aftermath — suggest a last-minute decision.
I think there were two determining factors — one internal and the other external — behind this violent gamble, this historic error.
Nobody predicted the Moussavi surge in the last two weeks of the campaign. Even in mid-May, he was dead in the water. Then his why-spurn-the-world message connected, delivering millions of young Iranians from apathy to activism, and sparking the green wave that had “Velvet Revolution” alarms flashing in every Ahmadinejad acolyte’s zealous little mind.
You can hear the militia and Revolutionary Guard commanders conspiring: “We let this Moussavi guy win, or we go to a run-off, and this thing could get away from us.” For “this thing” read, our revolution and our ideology and our piles of cash (not necessarily in that order.)
The external factor was subtler. President Obama had unsettled the regime with his outreach. Questions from within assailed Khamenei: Is Great Satanism so integral to the revolution that you won’t talk to Barack Hussein Obama — black man of part Muslim heritage — even as the economy nosedives and the Middle East map shifts?
Then the regime sees Moussavi looming and the danger of a rapprochement with the United States over which it loses control: the nightmare scenario.
The guardian of the revolution panics. Operation Jackboot goes into effect on the night of June 12, decreed in the name of a co-opted God, despised and derided by a clear majority of Iranians. As repression (once selective and now general) spreads, so does popular rage.
I asked Mahmoudi, a big and garrulous man who sat in the front row at Khamenei’s ferocious June 19 sermon, about the election hailed as “a miracle” by the leader.
“Moussavi was supported by people who have lost faith,” he said. “We believe legitimacy comes from God. They believe legitimacy comes from the people, from votes. As long as it was a fraternal fight, it was O.K., but when it’s a fight about religious belief, the situation becomes unacceptable.”
The facts don’t support this view. Moussavi has redoubled his expressions of devotion to Islam; Allahu Akbar is the cry of his followers. No, the issue is simpler: Iranians, Moussavi among them, believe votes must be counted in the uneasy hybrid of a country called the Islamic Republic.
Khamenei may be transplanted from heaven, as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was before him, but this transplant embedded in the Constitution has a price: The people don’t get to reverse the transplant but have some marginal, quadrennial say about its nature. At least they believed that until June 12. Now they don’t, which is why the regime may have stuck a dagger in its own heart.
So, I asked Mahmoudi, if legitimacy comes from God, why hold an election? “To get a level of acceptance,” he said. “The legitimacy of the election comes from the supreme leader’s approval, but the level of acceptance comes from votes.”
That Talmudic clarification is helpful. Demonstrations may have disappeared from Tehran’s streets of shame, but Iranian acceptance is at an all-time low. The government is now illegitimate. Power has been usurped. The equation has changed.
I think Mahmoudi’s right. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad may begin to unclench their fist, as isolation and sullen defiance grow, in a bid to deliver what they would not allow the reformists to initiate: détente with America.
Obama must leave them dangling for the foreseeable future. He should refrain indefinitely from talk of engagement.
To do otherwise would be to betray millions of Iranians who have been defrauded and have risked their lives to have their votes count. To do otherwise would be to allow Khamenei to gloat that, in the end, what the United States respects is force. To do otherwise would be to embrace the usurpers.
The slow arc of moral justice is fine but Iran is gripped by the fierce urgency of now. Obama, the realist on whom idealism is projected, is obliged to make a course correction.
I say all this with a heavy heart. Non-communication between America and Iran is bad for both countries and the world. It complicates and undermines every U.S. objective from Gaza to Afghanistan. It’s dangerous and it’s unnecessary.
I’ve argued strongly for engagement with Iran as a game-changer. America renewed relations with the Soviet Union at the time of the Great Terror and China at the time of the Cultural Revolution. Operation Jackboot has not, as yet at least, involved mass killings.
But the Iran of today is not the Iran of three weeks ago; it is in volatile flux from without and within. Its Robespierres are running amok. Obama must do nothing to suggest business as usual. Let Ahmadinejad, he of the bipolar mood swings, fret and sweat. Let him writhe in the turbid puddle of his self-proclaimed “justice” and “ethics.”
Mahmoudi told me that when he went to study in Qom, he had no idea what Iran’s nuclear program was. But there were regular classes on it. Scientists were brought in to enlighten the clerics. They were sensitized. The aim was that “We go back to towns and villages and talk in the mosques about the people’s nuclear rights.”
“It’s because Ahmadinjad stood for this that he became a hero to many,” Mahmoudi said. “He equated it with the nationalization of our oil industry and made it the core symbol of our independence and pride.”
But Ahmadinejad made many enemies along his mystical-militaristic way, not least Ali Larijani, the finger-to-the-wind speaker of the Majlis, or Parliament, and a potential compromise replacement. Larijani is not alone in realizing that the president has become the most divisive politician in the revolution’s 30-year history.
The price of Obama’s engagement may just have become Ahmadinejad’s departure. I think it has. His defenestration is not impossible; it would be forced from within where disaffected clerics and moderates abound; and it would restore an Islamic Republic, recognized by Obama, where both words of that self-description mean something, a land of God and people.

Faces of dead and detainees

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jun/29/iran-election-dead-detained

Britain freezing Iranian assets. بستن یک میلیارد ذخیره‌های ارزی دولت در انگلیس

Britain has frozen $1.6 billion in Iranian assets
Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:13pm EDT

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LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian assets of nearly one billion pounds' ($1.64 billion) are frozen in Britain under international sanctions imposed over Tehran's nuclear program, the British government said on Thursday.

"The total assets frozen in the UK under the EU (European Union) and U.N. sanctions against Iran are approximately 976,110,000 pounds," Ian Pearson, economic secretary to the Treasury, said in a written statement to parliament.

The statement gave no further details.

Iran has been gripped this week by its most violent demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution, sparked by its disputed presidential election last Friday.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran since 2006 over its nuclear program, which Western powers suspect is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Tehran says its program is designed only to generate electricity.

The U.N. sanctions include freezing assets of, companies and people alleged to be engaged in or supporting sensitive nuclear work or the development of ballistic missiles, including state-run Bank Sepah and firms controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.

The EU has frozen assets of Iran's biggest bank, Bank Melli.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

میلانی: این بار همه هستند، تیزهوش‌تر از ۳۰ سال پیشMilani analysis of the movement in Iran (persian text)

فونت متن را تنظیم کنید | چاپ کنید

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۱۳۸۸/۰۳/۲۸

میلانی: این بار همه هستند، تیزهوش‌تر از ۳۰ سال پیش

نيما تمدنتوسط

به دنبال درخواست میرحسین موسوی، نامزد اصلاح طلب از هوادارانش برای برگزاری مراسم سوگواری به یاد شماری از افرادی که چند روز قبل با شلیک نیروهای بسیجی در تهران کشته شدند، روز پنجشنبه روز سوگواری اعلام کرد.

در همین حال محمود احمدی نژاد، برگزاری انتخابات اخیر را تاییدی بر چهار سال ریاست جمهوری خود توصیف کرده است.

عباس میلانی، رییس مرکز مطالعات ایران در دانشگاه استنفورد کالیفرنیا، در باره تحولات مربوط به انتخابات ریاست جمهوری دهم با رادیو فردا گفت و گو کرده است.

رادیو فردا: اگر به هر طریقی، اعتراض های عمومی در ایران خاتمه یابد و محمود احمدی نژاد رسما دوره دوم ریاست جمهوری اش را آغاز کند، بروز چه وقایعی قابل انتظار است؟

عباس میلانی: اگر دولت چهار سال دوم آقای احمدی نژاد سر کار بماند، دوران بسيار پر تنشی را در سياست داخلی ايران می توان انتظار داشت. مشکل اصلی جامعه ايران اين است که مردم دموکراسی می خواهند و رژيم ولايت فقيه جوابگوی اين دموکراسی نيست و مانع آن است.

اين مشکل در مراحل مختلف مصاديق گوناگونی پيدا می کند؛ يک روز آقای اسانلو گره اين مسئله می شود، يک روز حبس آقای گنجی، يک روز جنبش دانشجويان و يا ضرب و شتم خانم عبادی. هر کدام از اين گره ها به انحای مختلف مصاديق مشکل بنيادی کشور است و اين بار نيز انتخابات گره ظاهری آن است.

ولی اين بار يک تفاوت با گذشته وجود دارد، تعداد کسانی که اين بار به صحنه آمده اند و خواستار احترام به حق بديهی دموکراتيک خود يعنی حق رأی هستند، بی سابقه است و محدود به کارمندان دانشگاه، کارگران اتوبوسرانی و دانشجويان نيست بلکه از همه سطوح و طبقات اعم از زن و مرد و فقير و غنی در آن شرکت دارند.

به علاوه بخش مهمی از رژيم هم احساس خطر می کند و متوجه اجتناب ناپذيری شناسايی حق دموکراتيک مردم شده است.

اگر دولت کودتایی آقای احمدی نژاد بتواند سر کار بماند، از يک طرف با مقاومت مردم روبه‌رو می شود و از طرف ديگر در درون خود تضادهای جدی خواهد داشت. من بعيد می دانم بعد از اين که سپاه و بسيج به طور علنی تر به صحنه ضرب و شتم آمدند، قدرت را برای آقای خامنه ای پس بگيرند و آب رفته را به جوی او باز گردانند، (همچنان) بخواهند کماکان در درجه دوم قدرت باشند.

آقای خامنه ای درست يک روز بعد از انتخابات با انتشار پيامی به طور صريح به محمود احمدی نژاد تبريک گفت و از همه مردم ايران خواست نتيجه اين انتخابات را بپذيرند، ولی ديديم که بر خلاف موارد گذشته به اين اظهارات تمکين نشد. به نظر شما چه اتفاقی روی داده است؟

آقای خامنه ای هميشه سعی می کرد جانب احتياط را رعايت کند و خودش را در مواضع دشوار بدون راه گريز قرار ندهد و سعی می کرد دست خود را در اين سرکوب ها پنهان کند و خود را جدای عوامل سرکوب نشان دهد.

او تا حدی در اين امر موفق بود و توانست اين واقعيت که سر نخ تمام وقايع از ميکونوس گرفته تا سرکوبی دانشجويان و آزادی رکسانا صابری به بيت او بر می گردد، پنهان کند.

ولی اين بار بر خلاف ۲۰ سال گذشته، آقای خامنه ای قبل از اين که فرصت قانونی طی شود و صحت انتخابات تاييد شود، صراحتا پيام داد و اين نتيجه را تاييد کرد و حالا پس گرفتن اين حرف ها بسيار دشوار شده است و اين که دستور داده چند تا صندوق را دوباره بشمارند مسئله ای را حل نمی کند.

مقالاتی که دانشجويان و محققين خارجی و ايرانی نوشته اند و از طريق مطالعات نمونه ای برخی شهرها و از طريق قانون آماری، نشان می دهد اين ارقام ساختگی است و اين ارقام را چنان ساخته اند که يک طرف را ۳۰ درصد جلو نشان بدهند. شما اگر تمام صندوق های تهران را بشماريد و آنها را به حساب آقای موسوی ثبت کنيد باز هم اين تفاوت را حل نمی کند.

اين که گفته اند صندوق ها را باز شماری خواهيم کرد، مغاير خواست آقای موسوی و کروبی است و حتی ممکن است از اين به بعد مغاير خواست آقای رضايی هم باشد. بازخوانی آرای چند صندوق در انتخاباتی که يک نفر ارقام را به دلخواه نوشته است چيزی را اصلاح نمی کند.

به نظر من از دو حالت خارج نيست يا کار را سپاه و طرفداران آقای احمدی نژاد انجام داده اند و آقای خامنه ای را در مقابل عمل انجام شده قرار داده اند که يا بايد در مقابل کودتای انتخاباتی سپاه سر تعظيم فرود آورد و يا در مقابل سپاه بايستد ويا اين که از اول گرداننده اين بازی خود آقای خامنه ای بوده است. در هر دو حالت، در آينده تکرار ساختاری که همه به حرف او تمکين می کردند هرگز متصور نيست.

اکنون می بينيم که آقايان موسوی، کروبی، رضايی، رفسنجانی و خاتمی و همچنين آيت الله صانعی، آيت الله زنجانی و آيت الله منتظری همه می گويند که انتخابات مخدوش است و بايد انتخابات تازه ای برگزار شود.

برگزاری انتخابات تازه هم لطمه شديدی به آقای خامنه ای می زند و بنابراين می بينيم که اين بار کار آقای خامنه ای بی تدبيرانه بوده است.

اکنون سانسور شديدی بر عملکرد رسانه های داخلی و آن دسته از رسانه ای خارجی که درايران نماينده داشتند اعمال می شود. از تعداد زيادی از خبرنگاران خارجی خواسته اند ايران راترک کنند و بخش باقيمانده به شدت تحت نظر هستند که خبر و گزارشی به طور مستقيم تهيه نکنند و در اين شرايط تنها شبکه اطلاع رسانی اينترنت است. شما اخير در گفت وگويی با شبکه «ان بی سی» گفته ايد حتی اگر حکومت ايران بتواند جنبش اخير را سرکوب کند نمی تواند جريان اينترنت را به طور کامل درايران قطع کند. چرا؟

چون همان قدر که سيستم اينترنت و تلفن مورد نياز مردم است، مورد نياز دستگاه های سرکوب هم هست و سپاه، بسيج و دستگاه های اطلاعاتی متعدد نياز دارند با هم تماس داشته باشند. اگر تلفن کشور را مختل کنند، تجارت کشور هم مختل می شود.

ما با تکرار يک پديده جالب تاريخی روبرو هستيم؛ در انقلاب مشروطه دستگاه های استبدادی می توانستند محله ها و آخوندها را کنترل کنند و اجازه ندهند در کشور چاپخانه راه بيفتد، اما مردم از چاپخانه های ترکيه و روسيه استفاده کرده و با انتشار روزنامه ها يک حرکت انقلابی ايجاد کردند.

در دوران انقلاب ۵۷ هم رژيم شاه می توانست مطبوعات را کنترل کند و راديو تلويزيون را در اختيار داشت، ولی آيت الله خمينی از نوار استفاده کرد. رژيم های سانسورگر و استبدادی هميشه يک قدم از مردم عقب تر هستند، چون عقل مشترک عام مردم همواره تيزبين تر از عقل سرکوبگر است.

اينها تمام تلاش خود را کردند و بيشتر سايت ها را بستند اما مردم باز هم در هر تظاهرات يک ميليون نفر را به خيابان آوردند و به هم اطلاع رسانی کردند و اينها متوجه نيستند که مردم جلوترند.

شگفت انگيز است که خود آقايان، کسانی بودند که ۳۰ سال پيش با استفاده از عقل و درايت توده مردم رژيمی به قدرت شاه را برانداختند اما حالا فکر می کنند چون خودشان سر کار هستند، ديگر مردم تيزهوشی ۳۰ سال پيش را ندارند.

اما مردم تيزهوش تر شده اند و جوانان ايرانی بسيار باهوش تر از ۳۰ سال قبل هستند و اينترنت را می شناسند. همان طور که از اينترنت يک سال و نيم پيش برای ايجاد موسيقی زيرزمينی در ايران استفاده کردند، اکنون از اين شبکه برای سياست استفاده می کنند.

يک سال و نيم پيش بعضی از متخصصين می گفتند سياست در ايران تمام شده و جوانان به سياست اهميت نمی دهند و همه فکر موسيقی راک و جاز و خوشگذرانی هستند.

اما ديديم شبکه هايی که برای توسعه موسيقی آقای نامجو يا گروه کيوسک و برای پخش فيلم هايی که اجازه پخش نمی گرفت ايجاد شد، اکنون همان شبکه ها استفاده می شود که رژيم سرکوب و فضای خفقان را بشکند و من ترديد ندارم اين تضاد به نفع عقل مشترک آزاديخواه مردم تمام می شود.

---

© 2009تمام حقوق این وب‌سایت بر اساس قانون کپی‌رایت برای رادیو فردا محفوظ است.

Foreign Firms Trading With Iran Face Limitsنوکیا و زیمنز بخاطر فروش لوازم الکترنیلی به ایران با کنگره آمریکا مساله دارند

* The Wall Street Journal


* JUNE 26, 2009



By SIOBHAN GORMAN and CHRISTOPHER RHOADS

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are seeking to crack down on foreign companies that provide spy technology to Iran with a bipartisan bill that would bar firms that provide sensitive technologies to Iran from doing business with the U.S. government.

The legislation responds to a Wall Street Journal article this week that Iran had built an extensive monitoring system, including equipment provided by a joint venture of Finnish cellphone maker Nokia Corp. and German conglomerate Siemens AG.

Both companies do extensive business with U.S. agencies. Siemens has nearly 2,000 contracts with the U.S. government valued at a total of more than $250 million for 2009, according to a federal government spending Web site. It holds more than 300 contracts with the Pentagon alone, and many more with the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Energy.

Nokia Siemens Networks, the joint venture, holds at least six contracts with the U.S. government totaling $5 million and covering communications and radiation detection, the site shows.
Read More

* Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology

Nokia Siemens Networks has since said its equipment is used for local voice traffic only, on fixed and mobile lines, and isn't used for any censoring of Internet traffic. A company spokesman said he declined to comment on the bill until he sees its contents. The bill, which Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) plan to introduce Friday, aims to end all such crossover business with the U.S. and Iranian governments.

"It is utterly outrageous that Western companies sell equipment that allows them [the Iranian government] to spy on their citizens, prevent communications between citizens and thwart any type of uprising against the regime," Sen. Schumer said in a joint interview with Sen. Graham.

The bill would require the Obama administration to identify foreign companies that have contracts with the U.S. government and also export sensitive technology to Iran. Those companies would have to terminate their business with Iran before renewing existing U.S. contracts or applying for new ones.

The president could waive the requirement, but would be required to report to Congress on why the waiver was in the national interest.

"One of their biggest weapons [against the protesters] is technology," Sen. Graham said in the interview. He called the measure "effective action, rather than words alone" that "will put pressure on Western companies who are empowering the regime to oppress their own citizens."

Sen. Graham predicted it would become law, saying it would be hard, politically, for his colleagues to vote against the bill.

A spokesman for Sen. Schumer, Brian Fallon, said the measure builds on current law. The U.S. prohibits American firms from investing in and trading with Iran. The 1996 Iran Sanctions Act requires the president to sanction foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in one year in Iran's energy sector or that sell weapons of mass destruction technology. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Congress required the Commerce Department to review all U.S. sales of monitoring technology to China; that requirement is still in force.

The lawmakers believe the European Union and other World Trade Organization members will support this effort to ensure Iran isn't given more tools to monitor its citizenry, Mr. Fallon said.

The two senators also wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday, asking her to press the EU at the coming G-8 summit to assert more control over technology exports to Iran.

Consumers and human-rights advocates have also voiced anger this week over the role of the Siemens-Nokia joint venture in providing technology to Iran, both on the joint-venture company's Web site and on social-networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

On Thursday, the American Islamic Congress, a nonprofit civil-rights group based in Boston, said it launched a formal letter-writing campaign demanding that mobile-phone networks stop selling phones from those companies. They also said the companies should tell Iranian consumers how to circumvent any monitoring equipment they have provided in Iran.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com and Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Téhéran en crise, ou le retour aux sources de la révolution de 1979LE MONDE | 27.06.09 | 15h44

[Original English text appear at the end]
Téhéran en crise, ou le retour aux sources de la révolution de 1979, par Slavoj Zizek
LE MONDE | 27.06.09 | 15h44

uand un régime autoritaire approche de sa crise finale, sa dissolution suit en général deux étapes. Avant son effondrement, une mystérieuse rupture se produit : les gens réalisent tout d'un coup que la partie est terminée, et ils cessent d'avoir peur. Non seulement le régime perd sa légitimité, mais l'exercice du pouvoir est perçu comme une réaction de panique impuissante.

Nous connaissons tous la scène classique des dessins animés dans laquelle le chat se trouve au-dessus d'un précipice mais continue de marcher sans tenir compte de l'absence de sol sous ses pattes ; il commence à tomber lorsqu'il baisse les yeux et aperçoit le gouffre. Lorsqu'il perd son autorité, le régime est comme un chat suspendu au-dessus du précipice.

Dans Le Shah (éd. 10-18, 1994), une description classique de la révolution de Khomeyni, Ryszard Kapuscinski situait le moment précis de cette rupture : un manifestant qui se trouvait à un carrefour de Téhéran refusa de bouger lorsqu'un policier lui ordonna de partir, et le policier embarrassé s'en alla ; en quelques heures, tout Téhéran avait entendu parler de cet incident et, bien que les combats de rue se soient poursuivis pendant des semaines, tout le monde savait d'une certaine façon que la partie était terminée. Assistons-nous à quelque chose de similaire ?

Les interprétations de ce qui se passe aujourd'hui en Iran sont multiples. Pour certains, c'est le point d'orgue du "mouvement réformiste" pro-occidental dans le droit-fil des révolutions "orange" en Ukraine, en Géorgie, c'est-à-dire une réaction laïque à la révolution de Khomeyni. Ils soutiennent les protestations car ils les considèrent comme le premier pas vers un nouvel Iran démocratique libéral et laïque, libéré du fondamentalisme musulman.

Pour les sceptiques, au contraire, Ahmadinejad a remporté les élections : il est la voix de la majorité, alors que Moussavi est soutenu par les classes moyennes et leur jeunesse dorée. En bref : abandonnons les illusions et reconnaissons que l'Iran a, en la personne d'Ahmadinejad, le président qu'il mérite. Il y a ensuite ceux qui ne voient en Moussavi qu'un membre de l'autorité cléricale, ne présentant que des différences de pure forme avec Ahmadinejad, décidé lui aussi à poursuivre le programme nucléaire et opposé à la reconnaissance d'Israël ; il a par ailleurs joui du soutien de Khomeyni lorsqu'il était premier ministre durant la guerre contre l'Irak.

Finalement, les plus tristes de tous sont les sympathisants de gauche d'Ahmadinejad : ce qui est en jeu pour eux est l'indépendance iranienne. Ahmadinejad a gagné parce qu'il a défendu l'indépendance du pays, dénoncé la corruption au sein de l'élite et utilisé les richesses provenant du pétrole pour augmenter les revenus de la majorité défavorisée. Il s'agit là, nous dit-on, du véritable Ahmadinejad, derrière l'image véhiculée par les médias occidentaux d'un fanatique négationniste. Ce qui se déroule en Iran ne serait donc qu'une répétition du renversement de Mossadegh en 1953 : un coup d'Etat financé par l'Occident contre le président légitime.

Bien que divergentes, toutes ces versions interprètent les protestations iraniennes selon l'axe de l'opposition entre extrémistes islamistes et réformistes libéraux pro-occidentaux, ce pourquoi il leur est si difficile de déterminer la position de Moussavi : est-il un réformateur soutenu par l'Occident qui veut renforcer la liberté individuelle et l'économie de marché, ou bien un membre de l'autorité cléricale dont la victoire ultime n'aurait aucune répercussion sérieuse sur la nature du régime ? De telles oscillations prouvent qu'ils passent tous à côté de la vraie nature des protestations.

La couleur verte adoptée par les partisans de Moussavi, les cris "Allah akbar" qui retentissent depuis les toits de Téhéran le soir montrent qu'ils voient leur activité comme la répétition de la révolution de Khomeyni, en 1979, comme un retour à ses sources, l'effacement de la corruption ultérieure de la révolution. Ce retour aux sources n'est pas seulement programmatique ; il se rapporte davantage au mode d'activité des foules : l'unité incontestable du peuple, la solidarité générale, l'auto-organisation ingénieuse, l'improvisation de moyens pour exprimer la protestation, le mélange singulier de spontanéité et de discipline, comme la marche menaçante de milliers de personnes dans le silence. Nous avons affaire à un soulèvement populaire authentique des partisans déçus de la révolution.

Nous devons tirer de cet aperçu plusieurs conséquences déterminantes. Premièrement, Ahmadinejad n'est pas le héros des islamistes défavorisés, mais un vrai populiste islamo-fasciste corrompu, une sorte de Berlusconi iranien dont le mélange de rodomontades clownesques et de politique de coercition impitoyable cause un malaise jusqu'au sein de la majorité des ayatollahs. Sa distribution démagogique de miettes aux pauvres ne devrait pas nous induire en erreur : derrière lui se trouvent non seulement les organes de la répression policière et un appareil de communication très occidentalisé, mais aussi une nouvelle classe riche et puissante, fruit de la corruption du régime - les Gardiens de la révolution en Iran ne sont pas une milice populaire, mais une entreprise géante, le plus puissant centre de la richesse du pays.

Deuxièmement, nous devrions établir une claire différence entre les deux principaux candidats opposés à Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi et Moussavi. Karroubi est un réformiste qui propose en substance une version iranienne de la politique communautariste, en promettant d'octroyer des faveurs à tous les groupes particuliers. Moussavi incarne quelque chose de différent : son nom représente la véritable réanimation du rêve populaire qui soutenait la révolution de Khomeyni, même si ce rêve était une utopie.

Cela signifie que nous ne saurions réduire la révolution de 1979 à une prise de pouvoir des extrémistes islamistes : elle représentait bien plus que cela. Il est temps aujourd'hui de rappeler l'incroyable effervescence de la première année qui suivit la révolution, avec l'explosion époustouflante de créativité politique et sociale, les expériences organisationnelles et les débats parmi les étudiants et la population. Le fait même que cette explosion ait fait l'objet d'une répression démontre que la révolution de Khomeyni était un événement politique authentique, une ouverture momentanée qui libéra les forces inédites de la transformation sociale, un moment où "tout semblait possible".

Suivit alors une fermeture progressive à travers la prise du pouvoir politique par les autorités islamistes. Pour le dire en termes freudiens, le mouvement de protestation auquel nous assistons est le "retour du refoulé" de la révolution de Khomeyni. Enfin et surtout, cela signifie que l'islam renferme un véritable potentiel libérateur : pour trouver un "bon islam", nul besoin de remonter au Xe siècle ; nous l'avons ici, sous nos yeux.

L'avenir est incertain. Très probablement, les détenteurs du pouvoir endigueront l'explosion populaire, et le chat, au lieu de tomber dans le précipice, regagnera la terre ferme. Le régime, loin d'être le même qu'avant, sera juste un gouvernement autoritaire et corrompu parmi d'autres. Quelle que soit l'issue, il est important de garder à l'esprit que nous assistons à un grand événement émancipateur qui excède le cadre de la lutte entre les libéraux pro-occidentaux et les intégristes anti-occidentaux. Si notre pragmatisme cynique devait nous faire perdre la capacité de reconnaître cette dimension émancipatrice, alors nous, Occidentaux, serions en train d'entrer dans une ère post-démocratique, nous préparant à accueillir nos propres Ahmadinejad. Les Italiens connaissent déjà son nom : Berlusconi. D'autres attendent leur tour.

Philosophe

Traduit de l'anglais par Christine Vivier
Slavoj Zizek
Article paru dans l'édition du 28.06.09

Original Engish


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Zizek on Iran’s 2009 post-election crisis
June 25, 2009

“Will the Cat Above the Precipice Fall Down?”

By Slavoj Zizek

When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…

In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now?

There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq.

Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% – can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough – they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left.

Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests.

The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.

There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).

Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.

And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.

The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.

http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/06/will-cat-above-precipice-fall-down.asp

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

* WILL THE CAT ABOVE THE PRECIPICE FALL DOWN?
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* What’s Next
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The War of the Ayatollahs جنگ بین آیات الاه !

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The War of the Ayatollahs
By HANA H. in Tehran | 25 June 2009
[TEHRAN BUREAU] The fact that there is a war going on between “two senior revolutionary clerics” is not a big secret. The cat was out of the bag when right after one of the election debates one of the two bunched up his robes and headed to Qom to lobby the ayatollahs there.
While no one really knows what happened in Qom, there has been speculation that cleric #2 has tried to unseat cleric #1 and for this, he desperately needs the support of the god squad.
Rumor has it that #2 has approached one of the top sources of emulation in the Shia world to allegedly garner support for his cause, which does not seem all that clear as he has not officially taken a stance on it.
One privilege of being in the same profession is that one usually knows all there is to know about others moving in the same circles and when at war, this information can be used as leverage as this is what appeared to have happened last Friday.
Cleric #1 addressed the nation, issued threats and offered incentives. Mysteriously hinted at the things he knew and would tell all if things did not quiet down. Dangled the good old carrot and brought down the stick. His words however appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
This Friday cleric #2, who has so far kept silent in appearance and not flinched even after his family members were arrested to perhaps get a reaction out of him, was the person who was supposed to take the pulpit.
Every one anticipated his speech as it could have been detrimental, he could have chosen to raise the white flag or declared war and even made counter threats. However it does not seem like he will be given the chance as the one addressing the nation this week will be another cleric who is in cleric #1’s team.
The god squad in Qom which had waited out the turmoil to see who was more likely to come out of the ring a winner before deciding which side to support has slowly begun to realize #1 has more pull and now one by one they are coming forth calling for an end to the dispute.
The crisis in Tehran is beyond the defeated candidate and the winner of the race as both are puppets in the game.
The defeated candidate keeps blowing ‘hot and cold.’ One day he urges people to calm and the next he tells them to protest and says that he is ready for martyrdom; one day he urgently tweets that he wants people to join him in front of Parliament and the next he issues a denial saying he never tweeted this.
He asked people to join him in Tehran’s cemetery on Thursday for mourning. Gathering in Tehran cemetery is of great importance, as it is what happened when the founder of the Islamic Republic returned to the country. It was the speech he delivered at the cemetery where the martyrs of the revolution had been laid to rest that changed the future of Iran.
The puppeteers of this show knew that such a gathering taking place would mean giving legitimacy to the cause of the defeated candidates. What could have turned into a bloody confrontation was called off by organizers.
The winner of the race appears to be assured of where he stands as there have been no statements coming from his direction. The streets of Tehran look more like the streets of Baghdad with checkpoints set up throughout the capital and IRGC uniformed men patrolling the streets and stopping people at whim.
Fewer and fewer people seem to be coming out and protests seem to have lost their momentum. After dark, the sound of Allah o Akbar still resonates through the night followed by gunshots to frighten people.
They even say that certain people go around and spray paint the doors of homes where the sound of Allah o Akbar comes from so that they can arrest people the next day. Maybe even to scare them into thinking that someone is on to them and they could be arrested at any moment.
People seem to have lost their hope and to have realized that the change they were looking for will never come. They seem to have accepted that they have no power to assert their rights and justice is deaf, dumb and blind.
The winner of the Ayatollah wars has proven his point and taught everyone a lesson.
Copyright © 2009 Tehran Bureau

"Un cadeau providentiel" à Netanyahou, par Jean Daniel NOUVELOBS.COM | 16.06.2009 | 11:12

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English translation ELECTIONS IN IRAN

" A providential present " to Netanyahou, by Jean Daniel

NOUVELOBS.COM ¦ 16.06.2009 ¦ 11:12
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By WAITING The speech was announced by Benjamin Netanyahou of this Sunday, June 14th, we can already say that it will have received as a providential present, the result of the Iranian elections.
We know for a long time that there are " objective alliances " between the enemies. Extremes have the virtue to join before claiming to exterminate. But the case of the Iranian and Israeli governments becomes exemplary.
Because what there is of private individual in the victory of Amadinedjab, it is that she was taken away at the conclusion of an election campaign where all the provocative subjects of the Iranian president were radically run.
Doubtless, his inspired talent and the lack of charisma of his main opponent they are for something there. Doubtless also, is advisable it not to forget that the Shiite heat, the nationalism, the Persian president, the nuclear patriotism and the antiZionist hatred are a part of fundamental principles of the revolution inaugurated and impulsed by the ayatollah Khomeiny from the previous history. But each of the interpreters had adapted the initial message under the circumstances. This time, there is indeed an adaptation but in the sense of the radicalism. In the Barak Obama's tense hand, Amadinejab answers chief of state - democratically elected - by requirements which can look like threats.
Exactly what we called " the Iranian threat " inspires a holy terror, not only to the Israelis but to Emirates, to Saudi Arabia and to Egypt - without speaking about Sunni populations of Iraq. Contrary to what we can read almost everywhere, this threat was by no means under estimated by Barak Obama or by his European allies, notably by France.
But the question was to know if the " Iranian priority " had to darken all the others. It is on this point that the differences which separated both camps are going to deteriorate today. For the Israelis, it is advisable, especially after the victory of Amadinejab, to dedicate itself to the defence against the Iranian threat and to make stop the pressures in favour of both Palestinian and Israeli states. For Barak Obama, as for his Sunni Arabic allies and his British, Russian allies, and UN, it is only with one Palestinian the beginning of regulation of the problem that a Moslem assembling can come true against a leader of state who claims to embody the Islam.
We are going henceforth and again to envisage in Washington, at the same moment the fear of seeing the Israelis bombarding some Iranian nuclear sites and the study of a spectacular intensification of the penalties against Iran.
Barak Obama has never excluded the eventuality of this hypothesis. But it is in this test that he at need to count on all his allies and on all his partisans.
Jean Daniel

خامنه ای‌ و احمدی‌نژاد آب به آسیاب دشمنان ایران میریزند

Mideast Hawks, Take Wing
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, June 28, 2009
PARIS -- "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brutal clampdown on his opponents is a tragedy for Iranians. But the shredding of Iran's pretensions of being a stable, democratic state may offer positive change in the Middle East in the longer term.
Such an outcome is far from guaranteed -- and is likely to come only after sharp new regional tensions or even violence sparked by Iran, Israel or both nations acting separately in reinforcing fashion. The idea that the use of force can make things better has not been abandoned in the Middle East.
The election crisis has entered the all-important moment of interpretation by Iran and its neighbors. What counts now is not what Washington says or does but what Tehran, Jerusalem, Riyadh and Cairo make of the loss of prestige, political unity and leverage suffered by the Iranian "president" and the hard-line ayatollahs who support him.
Some hope that Ahmadinejad will emerge chastened and seeking to get back into the international community's good graces. "The sense that the Iranian revolutionaries were on a triumphal march across the region has been deflated," a senior French official told me. "They now have to reassess policies that have brought them economic and political disaster at home and deep distrust abroad."
Syria's decision to highlight a warming of relations with the United States and prospects for peace talks with Israel -- publicly endorsed last week in Damascus by President Bashar al-Assad -- goes in that direction. Washington and Paris are working together to wean Iran's main Arab ally from an enfeebled Iranian regime.
But Ahmadinejad's default position in crisis is to become more confrontational, as the thuggish beating, killing and jailing of protesters in the streets of Tehran have shown. His reasonable facsimile of a dictatorship is more likely to act as such regimes usually do: They exhibit the same aggressive, chest-thumping behavior in foreign policy to intimidate or impress the home audience.
The clampdown serves the purposes of those who feel their grip on power is loosened by responding positively to President Obama's offer to negotiate. They raised the threshold of what Obama must swallow to get a deal to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"In the short term relations will definitely get worse, but in the long term the U.S. really has to rethink its policy," Mohammad Marandi, head of the North American studies department at Tehran University, told the Reuters news agency. Marandi thus vaulted to the top of the list of candidates for the 2009 Hoagland Trophy for Unadulterated Chutzpah, Persian division.
Ahmadinejad does have several jokers up his sleeve. Iran has not been deeply involved in creating troubles for Afghanistan's beleaguered, U.S.-supported regime. But President Hamid Karzai worried aloud to a visitor last week that the Iranian turmoil may end the pattern of relative restraint. The same holds true in Iraq.
It is not clear if Ahmadinejad grasps how dangerous such tactics would be. Openly stirring the fire -- especially in ways that endanger U.S. forces -- would weaken Obama's political ability to restrain Israel from carrying out its implicit threat to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who visited Paris last week, also faces serious short-term pressures on his unwieldy coalition government. He heard a clear echo from President Nicolas Sarkozy of what Washington says to him: Netanyahu's June 14 speech finally endorsing a Palestinian state was appreciated, but it did not buy him any relief from demands by Obama and Sarkozy that Israel freeze any increase in settlement activity on the West Bank.
French officials are encouraged that Netanyahu's carefully hedged overture -- ostensibly to the Palestinians but basically aimed at shoring up sagging support in Washington -- gained him a boost in Israeli opinion. Green shoots of peace are glimpsed in some quarters here.
But the region's history suggests that great shocks more often create the conditions for conciliation than do diplomatic parleys. Anwar Sadat got the Sinai back from Menachem Begin by going to war and then unexpectedly going to Jerusalem.
Israel launched a harsh but effective three-week assault against Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip in late December. That operation has been followed by increasingly moderate statements from Hamas leaders who live in Gaza. They suffered directly, unlike the radicals who live comfortably in Damascus. Palestinian security on the West Bank has also improved.
Doves are lovely, inspirational birds that we admire. In the Middle East, hawks also count.
jimhoagland@washpost.com

(The Washington Post-Iran's Lessons 27 June 2009

Iran's Lessons
Shouldn't 'realism' mandate regime change?
Saturday, June 27, 2009
EACH DAY Iran's extremist regime offers the world new lessons in its true nature. Yesterday we heard the cynicism of the Guardian Council, which announced that this month's presidential election, in the words of its spokesman, "was the cleanest we have ever had." On Thursday the belligerent arrogance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on display, as he demanded that President Obama apologize for condemning the massive human rights violations his security forces have perpetrated. All week we have witnessed the cold ruthlessness with which "robocops" attack peaceful demonstrators on the streets of Tehran and the mass arrests of opposition political activists and journalists.
It's still too early to say whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mr. Ahmadinejad will succeed in their hard-line coup; de facto opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi remains publicly defiant. Yet it is becoming quite clear -- for all who care to see it -- what the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime will offer if it survives: harsh repression at home and unrelenting hostility toward the West. If the regime chooses to "engage" at all with the United States, it will be to bolster its shaky legitimacy, not to surrender its nuclear program or its support for terrorism. The only plausible path toward ending the threat it poses is that demanded by the demonstrators: regime change.
Some have theorized that Mr. Ahmadinejad's repression of the massive popular uprising could at least make it easier for the United States to build a coalition able to impose tough sanctions. But this week brought a depressingly familiar indication of how that diplomacy will unfold. Russia, which along with China has recognized Mr. Ahmadinejad as the election winner, blocked a Group of Eight meeting from even condemning the government's violence. "Isolating Iran is the wrong approach," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, repeating his standard line. With U.S. support, the G-8 ended up renewing its invitation to Iran to open negotiations on its nuclear program -- even though the blood on Tehran's streets is not yet dry.
That stance would seem to contradict the position Mr. Obama took on Tuesday, when he denounced the regime's violence, said the protest movement was "on the side of history" and suggested that his policy of engagement would be put on hold. After meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, Mr. Obama refined that stance, saying that while "multilateral discussions" with Iran could proceed on the nuclear program, the "direct dialogue between the United States and Iran" would be subject to the wait-and-see approach. There may be some tactical sense in that: The administration could preserve the international coalition it is trying to build while denying the shaky supreme leader the political boost that would come from direct dialogue with Washington.
Still, by now it ought to be clear that the best chance to protect what Mr. Obama calls "core U.S. security interests" lies in a victory for the Iranian opposition. That may look unlikely for now. But it is considerably more probable than a turn toward detente by those now engaged in murdering young women. There may not be much that can be done to help the opposition, though some tangible steps -- more money for broadcasting into the country, for example -- are readily available. But at the least, nothing should be done that would harm the cause of change. That is not just the moral course; it is the most pragmatic and realistic.

The Second Sex-Roger Cohen of NYT

The New York Times

June 27, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Iran’s Second Sex
By ROGER COHEN

TEHRAN

From Day 1, Iran’s women stood in the vanguard. Their voices from rooftops were loudest, and their defiance in the streets boldest. “Stand, don’t run,” Nazanine told me as the baton-wielding police charged up handsome Vali Asr avenue on the day after the fraudulent election. She stood.

Images assail me: a slender woman clutching her stomach outside Tehran University after the blow; a tall woman gesticulating to the men behind her to advance on the shiny-shirted Basij militia; women shedding tears of distilled indignation; and that young woman who screamed, “We are all so angry. Will they kill us all?”

How can a revolution kill its children? The post-1979 generation has risen, not alone, but in the lead. Perhaps Iran cannot be an exception to the rule that revolutions devour themselves.

A friend told me he no longer recognizes his wife. She’d been of the reluctantly acquiescent school. Now, “She’s a revolutionary.” I followed as she led us up onto the roof. The “death to the dictator” that surged from her into the night was of rare ferocity.

Women marched in 1979, too. But when the revolution was won, women were pushed out. Their subjugation became a pillar of the Islamic state. One woman told me that she had been 20 when she fought to oust the shah. “It’s simple,” she said. “We wanted freedom then, and we don’t have it now.”

In a way it is simple: laws that can force a girl into marriage at 13; discriminatory laws on inheritance; the segregated beaches on the Caspian; the humiliation of arrest for a neck revealed or an ankle-length skirt (a gust of wind might show a forbidden flash of leg); the suffocation that leads one artist I know to raise her hands to her neck.

Yes, it’s simple. From the outset, the regime targeted women, calculating that the patriarchal culture of the country would embrace the idea of an Islamic diktat that “put women in their place.”

But then again nothing in Iran is simple. One benefit of the massive show of resistance to a stolen vote, and future, has been to awaken Americans to the civic vitality of Iranian society — a real country with real people rather than a bunch of zealous clerics posing a nuclear problem.

This is a sea change. Iran has been denuclearized, not in the sense that the problem has gone away (on the contrary), but in the sense that a rounded picture, beyond to bomb or not to bomb, has formed.

Say Iran and murdered Neda Agha-Sultan surges where a bearded mullah once stood. Young, modern, connected, Neda just wanted to live her life. She personifies a certain Iran I’ve tried to evoke since the beginning of this year.

In some senses, women of her 20-something generation have benefited from the revolution; I told you to forget simplicity. It took an ayatollah to tell traditional families to educate their daughters. Today 60 percent of university students are women, about double the figure in 1982.

Here we stand close to the tragedy of this election. The vote offered an opportunity to bridge the gap between a fast-changing society of highly educated women and the regime. Past elections have served that purpose, nudging the clerical establishment in reformist directions.

Instead, hard-liners around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opted for schism, a historic error. The Iran of yesterday is gone, the Iran of tomorrow not yet born.

I don’t want to suggest that Iran is a nation of women thirsting to cast off their chadors. As Saeed Leylaz told me before he was thrown in jail along with most of Iran’s reformist brain trust, “Our feet are in traditionalism and our heads in modernism.” Zahra Rahnavard, the strong-willed wife of Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader, troubled as she inspired.

When a friend asked one Ahmadinejad supporter his reasons, the reply was brusque: because “all the whores are with Moussavi.” Cultural battle lines of great clarity have been drawn since June 12.

Women are angry with the state, of course. But they are also angry with the passive way men have accepted discrimination. Be strong! Fight harder! These are immediate messages summoned from old frustrations.

Their courage and pain haunt me. We need Delacroix to paint them. We need President Obama to put engagement — still the right medium-term objective — on hold in their name.

Islam has a lot to say about the rights of women; the mullahs of Qom have lots of training in how to say the opposite of what they said before. The revolution might have bent toward the women it fashioned. But it has stiffened against what it birthed, never wise.

I asked one woman about her fears. She said sometimes she imagines an earthquake in Tehran. She dashes out but forgets her hijab. She stands in the ruins, hair loose and paralyzed, awaiting her punishment. And she looked at me wide-eyed as if to say: do you understand, does the world understand our desperation?

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Demonstrators attack Iranian Embassy outside Stockholm

Protesters break into Iranian embassy in Sweden
By LOUISE NORDSTROM
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Friday, Jun. 26, 2009
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Sweden Iran Embassy

Demonstrators, centre with sticks, attack Iranian Embassy security personnel on the Embassy's grounds, outside Stockholm, the Swedish capital Friday June 26, 2009. About 150 protesters, some masked, rushed the embassy gates, but it was not immediately clear if any managed to get inside the building, police said.
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Sweden Iran Embassy

Demonstrators attack Iranian Embassy security personnel on the Embassy's grounds, outside Stockholm, the Swedish capital Friday June 26, 2006. About 150 protesters, some masked, rushed the embassy gates, but it was not immediately clear if any managed to get inside the building, police said.
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Sweden Iran Embassy

Demonstrators attack Iranian Embassy security personnel on the Embassy's grounds, outside Stockholm, the Swedish capital Friday June 26, 2009. About 150 protesters, some masked, rushed the embassy gates, but it was not immediately clear if any managed to get inside the building, police said.

STOCKHOLM Angry demonstrators broke into the Iranian Embassy outside Stockholm on Friday, climbing in through shattered windows and injuring one embassy worker, police said.

More than 150 people had gathered outside the embassy to protest against the Iranian regime, when some of them attacked the building with rocks and tore down a fence to enter the embassy grounds, police spokesman Ulf Hoglund said.

"A few managed to climb through broken windows into the building," Hoglund said. He said one member of the embassy staff was injured inside the building, but didn't know how seriously.

Fifty police officers and an ambulance were dispatched to the scene. Hoglund said police had evicted the demonstrators from the building and arrested one person.

Organizers of the demonstration said a few of the protesters were injured in clashes with the embassy's security officers.

"We want a regime change," said Firouzeh Ghaffrpour, one of the organizers. "The Islamic system is not wanted by the people of Iran."

The protesters, mostly Iranians, also demanded the embassy be closed.

Police said the situation was under control later Friday, but demonstrators continued to block the entrance, preventing embassy personnel from leaving.

The protest followed several peaceful demonstrations in Sweden after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a June 12 vote that the opposition claims was marred by massive fraud.

Cries of allahoakbar through the night continue

June 26 2009
پيك نت ايران بانگ "الله اکبر" دیشب نیز خواب کودتاچی ها را آشفته کرد هر روز که می گذرد تثبیت کودتا دشوارتر می شود برخلاف ظاهری که کودتاچیان بعنوان پیروز صحنه به خود گرفته اند، در دوازدهمین روز کودتا، برنامه های تبلیغاتی سیمای جمهوری اسلامی که سردار ضرغامی فرماندهی آن را برعهده دارد و همچنین نوشته های روزنامه کیهان و خبرگزاری فارس و روزنامه ایران که همگی از ستاد کودتا دستور می گیرند، همگی حکایت از تشدید ساعت به ساعت آشفتگی در جبهه کودتا دارد. تلاش جنون آسائی که مجموعه رسانه های سخن وی کودتا می کنند تا کشتار مردم را به هر شکل ممکن از گردن خود باز کرده و به گردن دیگران بیاندازند، از جمله فشارهای سنگینی است که از جانب روحانیون قم و حتی در خود حاکمیت بر جبهه کودتا وارد می آید. انبوه فیلم هائی که از کشتار مردم تهیه شده و در اختیار مراجع مذهبی نیز گذاشته شد و همه نمایندگان مجلس و خبرگان و بقیه، اعم از نظامی و غیر نظامی آن را دیده و درجریان هستند، مانورهای رسانه ه ی زیر سلطه کودتاچیان را به یک بازی کودکان تبدیل کرده است. از جمله نمونه فیلم هائی که نشان میدهد چه کسانی از بام ها به سوی مردم شلیک کردند، فیلمی است که بارها و بارها از شبکه تلویزیونی سی ان ان پخش شده است و ما درشماره امروز پیک نت آن را نقل کرده ایم. اظهارات شتابزده سردار علی فضلی که چند روز غایب بود و حالا بعنوان مدافع کودتا به =D 8حنه بازگشته و ادعای کشته شدن بسیجی ها در جریان کشتار مردم بی سلاح را طرح کرده نیز خود دلیل دیگری بر تشدید فشار و آشفتگی در جبهه کودتاست. حتی سخنرانی رهبر برای نمایندگان مجلس نیز حکایت از همین وضع دارد. در آن شرفیابی، برخلاف همه مراسم مشابه، این بار هیچ کس در کنار علی خامنه ای ننشسته بود. او به نمایندگان توصیه کرد با احمدی نژاد مهربان باشند. اما خود او کاملا مطلع بود که از جمع همه =D 8ن نمایندگانی که در مقابلش و این بار برخلاف همیشه روی صندلی نشسته بودند و نه روی زمین و او بر فراز صندلی، دعوت احمدی نژاد را برای شام آشتی نپذیرفته و نرفته بودند. از جمله اعضای هیات رئیسه مجلس. درحالیکه رهبر، اکنون 7 روز است کار انتخابات را تمام شده اعلام کرده و چند بار هم بر آن تاکید کرده، هنوز نه شورای نگهبان جرات می کند این تق ب بزرگ و تاریخی را رسما تائید کند، نه مجلس شورای اسلامی پذیرفته و نه مراجع تائید کرده اند. در آخرین بیانیه ای که سرانجام پس از مذاکرات بسیار و حتی التماس دعا، آیت الله مکارم شیرازی شب گذشته منتشر کرد، توصیه به "آشتی ملی" شد و نه قبول نتیجه انتخابات! و این درحالی است که حداقل دو تن از مراجع، یعنی عبدالکریم موسوی اردبیلی و صانعی رسما نتیجه انتخابات را قبول نکرده اند. موسوی اردبیلی B 9ضو شورای انقلاب، رئیس شورای عالی قضائی(جانشین آیت الله بهشتی پس از انفجار حزب جمهوری اسلامی و از جمله سه روحانی است که پس از درگذشت آیت الله خمینی قرار بود عضو شورای رهبری شود. شورایی که در آن علاوه بر او، هاشمی رفسنجانی، احمد خمینی وعلی خامنه ای قرار بود عضو باشند.) و در راس همه اینها آیت الله منتظری قرار دارد که اعلم ترین مرجع مذهبی ایران است و گفته می شود آیت الله سیستانی او را=2 0مرجع اعلم در ایران می داند. وی با شدیدترین موضع گیری کودتای انتخاباتی را محکوم کرده است. این هنوز، همه واکنش ها نسبت به کودتای 22 خرداد و آشفتگی در جبهه کودتاچی ها نیست. کودتائی که برای نخستین بار صف بیعت با خامنه را در حاکمیت جمهوری اسلامی شکست و میخی شد بر تاب "فصل الخطاب". جمعه گذشته و در تحلیل خطبه های نماز جمعه علی خامنه ای در نD9از جمعه که در آن عملا فرمان تیراندازی به سوی راهپیمایان را صادر کرد، سایت تورجان که معمولا منعکس کننده فضای حاکم بر محافل مذهبی است، در باره آن نماز جمعه نوشت: «سخنان امروز آیت الله خامنه ای کاملاً قابل پیش بینی بود. اما آنچه که در نماز جمعه امروز نمود بیشتری داشت و برای خود من قابل تأمل بود، غیبت معنA 7دار هاشمی رفسنجانی، ناطق نوری، حاج حسن خمینی، میرحسین موسوی، خاتمی و کروبی بود. در نماز جمعه ای که قرار بود نماد وحدت و بیعت با رهبری باشد، غیبت بی سابقه این چند چهره همیشه حاضر و بویژه هاشمی و ناطق نوری و خاتمی که در چنین نماز جمعه هایی حضور داشته اند، آیا به معنای خروج آنها از بیعت با رهبری است؟ نظر شما چیست؟» باز هم، اینها هنوز بازگو کننده همه آنچه درجبهه کودتا می گذرد نیست. در مجلس شورای اسلامی، علیرغم توصیه های رهبر، بسیار بعید به نظر می رسد کار احمدی نژاد به این آسانی به سرانجام برسد. آن هم در شرایطی که تنها یکصد نماینده وابسته به موتلفه اسلامی، سپاه و معدود باقی مانده یاران احمدی نژاد برای حمایت از احمدی نژاد باقی مانده است. این رقم نیز با یک چرE حوادث می تواند آب شود. آغاز تحقیق در باره تقلب در انتخابات، آن هم با سرپرستی فردی مانند علاء الدین بروجردی معاون سابق وزارت خارجه و با نفوذ ترین فرد حاضر در مجلس(همطراز لاریجانی و شاید برتر از او)، حادثه کوچکی نیست که ستاد کودتا بتواند آن را نادیده بگیرد. بویژه ملاقات این هیات با هاشمی رفسنجانی و میرحسین موسوی. بخشی از جنجال سا زی های روح الله حسینیان در مجلس علیه لاریجانی ناشی از چراغ سبزی است که او به بروجردی برای این تحقیق داده است. آیا امکان دارد لاریجانی بدون همآهنگی با ایت الله جوادی آملی در قم و آیت الله خرازی در شورای نگهبان، و حتی برخی فرماندهان سپاه وارد چنین عرصه ای شده باشد؟ شتاب فراکسیون یکصد نفره احمدی نژاد در مجلس برای سرهم بندی کردن م راسم تحلیف و معرفی کابینه و سخنان و تائید های فراقانونی رهبر درباره انتخابات – درحالیکه هنوز شورای نگهبان هم نظر خود را نداده- و ... همگی می گوید هر روز که از حضور نظامی ها در خیابان ها و چهره نظامی شهرهای ایران میگذرد، کار بر کودتاچی ها دشوار تر می شود. بویژه که بانگ الله اکبرهای شبانه همچنان ادامه دارد. مراجعی که نگران آینده جمهوری اسلامی و از کف دادن آن هستند، قطعا گوش خود را بر7ی نشنیدن این الله اکبرها نگرفته و در آن پنبه نکرده اند. برای آنها هنوز فریاد اعتراضی مردم با الله اکبر توام است و فرصت برای نجات اسلام و جمهوری اسلامی باقی. دراین تب و تاب است که بالاخره عکس جدیدی از مجتبی خامنه ای پیدا شد. آن هم در کنار استادش آیت الله مجتهد تهرانی که دست کمی از آیت الله مصباح یزدی ندارد. این آقازاده که تصور کرد7 "شاپورعلیرضا" پهلوی است و از "محمدرضا" ( بخوانید مصطفی، برادرش) قاطع تر است و به پدر ( بخوانید رضاشاه) شبیه تر، با نقشی که در کودتای انتخاباتی ایفاء کرد، اگر جمهوری اسلامی را برباد ندهد، کرسی ولایت پدرش را تا اینجای کار تق و لق کرده است!