Iran Calls Shots in Syria

MASSACRING THEIR OWN PEOPLE By Tom Gross April 26

This dispatch is a follow-up to my recent article on Syria.

Because some in the international media are still not covering the six-week-old Syrian uprising properly, and indeed certain journalists are still taking Assad regime propaganda at face value, I attach four videos below.

(As recently as yesterday, the correspondent for The New York Times, for example, was still referring to Bashar Assad as though he was some kind of moderate reformer who may have little or nothing to do with the current crackdown in Syria, much in the same way that for years other writers at The New York Times made excuses for Yasser Arafat, deluding themselves that Arafat had nothing to do with the terrorism which he was in fact initiating.)

Bashar Assad, even more than his father, has formed an ever closer alliance with the regime in Tehran, hence U.S.President Obama’s reference yesterday to the role of Iranian advisors in the present massacre of Syrians.

Israel is on high alert in case Assad and his partners in Tehran create a crisis in Lebanon or Gaza. We should not forget that the cause of the crisis that led to the 1967 Six-Day War was Syrian instability, and the willingness of Syria’s Alawite rulers to act against Israel in order to maintain their rule.

Carrying out acts of terror is nothing new for the Assad family, of course. They have been aiding and abetting terrorism against Israelis, Lebanese, Kurds, Iraqis and others for decades.

Al Jazeera is carrying interviews with witnesses in the city of Daraa, and in the Damascus suburb of Duma, saying that after Syrian security forces have shot unarmed demonstrators, they have then executed many of the injured, and shot anyone trying to help them. The authorities have turned off water and electricity in the area, so the injured can’t be treated properly in hospitals in any case.

Meanwhile, Syria is still in line to become the newest member of the (cruelly misnamed) U.N. Human Rights Council when a vote takes place on May 20 at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Be warned, this first video (filmed over the weekend) is one of the most graphic I have ever posted. (The other two videos after that are not nearly as gruesome. In particular I recommend watching the second video. There are some other notes after the three videos.)

-- Tom Gross

Is Ahmadinejad in Political Trouble?

Iran’s president was missing from a cabinet meeting on Wednesday for the second consecutive time adding to speculation that the rift with the country’s supreme leader was widening on Wednesday, agencies reported.

The rift is over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s decision to dismiss Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi last week, a decision that was revoked by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr. Moslehi was present on Tuesday at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, the body that regulates educational and cultural issues, and which he chairs, Agence-France Press reported.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s absence in that meeting was particularly noted, as he is known for never missing any opportunity to appear in the media and delivery fiery speeches, AFP said.

No reason was given for his absence by the state’s media.

Earlier on Saturday, in a speech that aired on state TV, Mr. Khamenei said he would intervene in government’s affairs “whenever necessary”—a rebuke to the president for challenging his all-encompassing authority.

The power struggle between the two leaders could be indicative of a serious political crisis in the making—especially ahead of legislative elections scheduled for March 2012. The presidential election will take place in 2013.

Analysts told The Associated Press that Mr. Ahmadinejad is looking to control the intelligence ministry in a bid to influence the next parliament as well as to determine the next president.

However, Mr. Khamenei is also seen as intent on helping shape a new political team, free of Ahmadinejad loyalists, to lead the next government.

It looks like the ayatollah is flexing his muscles to remind Mad Mahmoud exactly what "supreme leader" means.

UPDATE: After I wrote this, AP wrote this up about the topic:

A hard-line cleric warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday to end an escalating power struggle with Iran's supreme leader, calling it a religious obligation to do so and accusing the country's enemies of trying to sow rifts among its leadership.

The split threatens to destabilize Iran at a time of tension with the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program and appears to center on a battle for influence between the two men over next year's parliamentary election and a presidential election in 2013.

"Obedience to the supreme leader is a religious obligation as well as a legal obligation, without any doubt," said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami. He did not mention Ahmadinejad by name, but it was clear he was referring to the president.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the final word on all matters of state in Iran, and hard-liners consider him above the law and answerable only to God.


As David G wrote in the comments, "'Obedience?!' What does he think Ahmadinejad is? A woman?"

Ahmadinejad Backs One Arab Dictator: Assad

Ahmadinejad accused his arch foe the United States and other Western nations of hatching a plot, singling out Tehran's ally Syria which is being rocked by anti-government protests.

"They want to save the Zionist regime (Israel) by interfering in the region aimed at creating discord among the regional nations and governments," he told a news conference.

"America and the Zionist regime want to weaken Syria's resistance by creating discord between the Syrian government and the Syrian nation," said Ahmadinejad

Consistency? Who needs consistency?

Elder of Ziyon

Why Should US Execute Qaddafi?

A few years ago, in the context of Hezbollah’s war with Israel, I penned a piece re-examining the issue of assassination in American policy. The fact is that in many circumstances assassination is not illegal under international law. The moratorium on assassination is more a matter of choice. Certainly, fear that assassinating foreign leaders might open a Pandora’s Box of retribution is valid, although rogue leaders will try to assassinate Americans anyway. Still, targeted assassinations are not a policy to be embarked upon lightly or for any reason but to prevent (further) war.

When foreign leaders are, like Qaddafi, unelected and unstable dictators and military commanders, they are valid targets. Qaddafi certainly does not deserve immunity which is what, in effect, Obama now promises him. When terrorist leaders spark conflict, they should be held personally accountable. Qaddafi may be willing to fight to the last conscript, but he may be less enthusiastic about risking his own skin.

There is also the question of deterrence. While it’s conventional wisdom in certain circles that Israel lost the 2006 war, I quibble: By trusting in the international community, Israel lost the peace and allowed Hezbollah to rearm. This past fall, however, when I was in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon and southern Beirut, locals were talking about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon. Ahmadinejad was his bombastic self, but what Lebanese were gossiping about was that Hassan Nasrallah did not take the stage with his patron. Whereas before 2006, the Hezbollah secretary-general appeared in public often, post-2006 he is simply too scared. It’s time to make Qaddafi fear for his life as well. By doing so, we might avoid far greater bloodshed both in Libya now and down the road. The point is not aggression, but deterring war and ultimately saving lives.

If only we had gotten both Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah during that trip.

Labels: Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Muammar Gaddafi, targeted killings

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:55 AM

Israel Plans for a Nuclear Iran

For the first time, an Israeli government body is preparing for the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Revelations on Sunday of a Foreign Ministry team working on these contingency plans was the first admission that the government is giving serious thought to adjusting to a reality where Israel is no longer, according to foreign sources, the sole nuclear power in the region.

That the government is preparing various contingency plans for if it “wakes up one morning and there is a nuclear Iran” does not mean that Jerusalem has come to terms with this eventuality, but rather that it is preparing for it if it transpires, one government official explained.

“You prepare for a natural disaster even though you do everything in your power to make sure that it doesn’t happen,” the official said. “You have fire drills, even if you do everything you can to ensure that a fire never breaks out.”

The Foreign Ministry is not the only body drawing up “day after” options for Iran; the National Security Council is believed to be preparing similar papers as well.

I find this report deeply disturbing.

The article goes on to say that these sorts of preparations go on in the US all the time. That is true. But thus far, Iran does not have an ICBM to reach the United States, it has not declared its intentions to destroy the United States, and it is more than a few hundred miles away from the United States.

Is it going to be 'last one out, please turn out the lights' again (as was the case before the 1967 War)?

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Lebanon: Ahmadinejad Says Israel Doomed

Ahmadinejad tells Israelis their country is doomed The Daily Star, Lebanon

BEIRUT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday Israel was doomed to perish as he addressed thousands of supporters of Hizbullah at a rally in Bint Jbeil, just four kilometers from the Israeli border.

Ahmadinejad’s tour in south Lebanon drew sharp criticism from the US and Israel as tensions ran high on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israeli officials have said the tour represented an attempt to set up an advanced front line for a proxy war between Iran and Israel.

“Bint Jbeil is alive and today stands proud and cherished against all enemies whereas the Zionists are mortal after the sons of Bint Jbeil made the enemy taste defeat,” Ahmadinejad said while supporters chanted “death to Israel.”

Scary: POTUS still Doesn't Understand What Iran About

Anne Bayefsky compares President Obama's UN General Assembly address with President Ahmadinejad's and concludes that Obama doesn't understand what's at stake.

When Obama took center stage at the U.N., it got off to a bad start and only got worse. The president arrived late and, as leader of the host nation, delivered his speech one slot after its originally scheduled time. He then spent just a few short sentences on the most lethal threat to peace and security today: the acquisition of the world’s most dangerous weapon by the leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. In those few minutes, Obama chose not to speak the plain truth — that Iran seeks nuclear weapons — or to commit his government to stopping them, period. He said instead that Iran had not yet demonstrated peaceful intent and asked Ahmadinejad to “confirm” this intent. Obama’s primary message was that “the door remains open to diplomacy should Iran choose to walk through it.”

Ahmadinejad has heard this plea from the Obama administration so many times before that he has clearly stopped counting. Ahmadinejad understands perfectly well that confronting Iran is out of sync with the “new era of engagement” that is the trademark of Obama’s foreign policy. “Engagement” looks like this: The president of the United States keeps talking about “extended hands” and “open doors,” and the president of Iran keeps building nuclear weapons. As recently as September 19, even Secretary Hillary Clinton told Christiane Amanpour, “We’ve said to the Iranians all along…we still remain open to diplomacy. But it’s been very clear that the Iranians don’t want to engage with us.”

Ahmadinejad, therefore, took the opportunity provided by the U.N. to slam the door once more in President Obama’s face. While he lectured about the “lust for capital and domination” and “the egotist and the greedy,” the American U.N. delegation sat stoically in their seats. They had instructions to tough it out until Ahmadinejad really got offensive — though what would count as sufficiently offensive was never publicly announced.

...

In fact, President Obama played to his U.N. audience just as the president of Iran did. Obama made the centerpiece of his speech an overt squeeze on the state of Israel. Before a U.N. audience infamously hostile to Israel, he demanded that Prime Minister Netanyahu renew the moratorium on building “settlements.” He made no such specific demands of the Palestinian side. Instead, he painted a picture of moral equivalence between the terrorists that seek Israel’s annihilation and Israel’s reasonable skepticism of a negotiating partner that still refuses to accept a Jewish state, referring to “rejectionists on both sides” that “will try to disrupt the process with bitter words and with bombs.”

Ahmadinejad got the message. Israel is vulnerable with President Obama in office, and Iran has no serious reason to believe that hate and terror will be on the losing end any time soon.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Maybe They Should Take Him to Auschwitz

The man who wants to perpetrate a second Holocaust has once again denied the first one.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a conversation with reporters in New York that the Holocaust was exaggerated in order to create a pretext for starting a war. He remarked that the Holocaust is a matter that must researched further.

"We need to ask where the Holocaust took place, and why must the Palestinian people continue to suffer because of it?" Ahmadinejad said. During the conversation he also said that he is not anti-Semitic but rather anti-Zionist.

I'd love to see someone take Ahmadinejad to Auschwitz like these people went. It's not that I expect him to change his mind. I'd just like to see the worm squirm when confronted with reality.

"Anybody who is a Holocaust denier should deserve a free ticket to see Auschwitz and Birkenau, because seeing is just not the same as reading about it. And we met people who have seen and witnessed it,” he continued. Qadhi said that he couldn’t peer into the displays of children’s toys and shoes without thinking about his own four children.

Anyone want to take Mahmoud to Auschwitz?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Rabbis Protest Annihilation of Israel

New York Board of Rabbis Human Chain in Protest at United Nations



"This is a Day of Outrage"



On TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2010 @ 9:45 AM, at the SOUTHWEST CORNER OF 40TH & 1ST AVENUE, the New York Board of Rabbis (NYBR) gathered at 1st Avenue and 40th street to protest the President of Iran .



“There is no place for this evil-entity to be at the U.N. A sad day for New Yorkers and Americans.”

Hitler in NY Begs for His Nation's Destruction

The genocidal Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that if the US starts a war against Iran it will – in his words – know “no limits”.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday that an attack on his country’s nuclear facilities could spark a war with “no limits,” US media reported.

“The United States doesn’t understand what war looks like. When a war starts, it knows no limits,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in response to a question about any US-supported strike by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and UN summit against poverty and hunger.

“The United States has never entered a serious war, and has never been victorious,” the Atlantic magazine’s online edition quoted him as saying.

“Do you think anyone will attack Iran to begin with?” he said, according to the monthly’s website. “I really don’t think so. The Zionist regime is a very small entity on the map, even to the point that it doesn’t really factor into our equation.”

Talks about Iran’s nuclear ambitions reached a stalemate months ago. (more here at The Star)

Ahmadinejad Warns of Capitalism's Defeat

"The discriminatory order of capitalism and the hegemonic approaches are facing defeat and are getting close to their end," Ahmadinejad said at a summit meeting assessing progress on achieving U.N. goals to drastically reduce poverty by 2015.

"The undemocratic and unjust governance structures of the decision-making bodies in international economic and political fields are the reasons behind most of the plights today humanity is confronting," he said, according to an English translation of his prepared remarks.

In an interview with PBS, he accused Israel of being a "Zionist and racist regime that occupies, creates wars, terrorizes, and destroys the homes of people, and prevents people from accessing water, medicine, and food in their own home, attacks its neighboring countries, and threatens everyone around."

He added: "A Jewish state means a racist regime." More here at FOX news.

Not only is this madman begging for the free world to take him out, his own people are begging us to do it. Today Rabbis and other members of various churches protested the annihilationist (no sign of CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MAS, MSA, or the Muslim Brotherhood axis or other Islamic supremacists. Where was peacemaker Rauf?).

Tomorrow Belongs to Me

NEW YORK -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "the future belongs to Iran" and challenged the United States to accept that his country has a major role in the world.

The comments came in an hour long interview Sunday. More here.

Obama still kissing this annihilationist's ass.

The thing is that Ahamadinejad speaks as if he knows. He knows Obama is weak. He knows the USA will do nothing. He knows Israel is alone. And he knows what Iran is going to do.

Iran Starts to Feel the Heat

Iran Starts To Feel Heat
by Charles Krauthammer
Human Events
07/30/2010


"They (the United States and Israel) have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months."
-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, July 26

WASHINGTON -- President Ahmadinejad has a penchant for the somewhat loony, as when last weekend he denounced Paul the Octopus, omniscient predictor of eight consecutive World Cup matches, as a symbol of decadence and purveyor of "Western propaganda and superstition."

But for all his clownishness, Ahmadinejad is nonetheless calculating and dangerous. What "two countries" was he talking about? They seem logically to be Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah in Lebanon has armed itself with 50,000 rockets and made clear that it is in a position to start a war at any time. Fighting on this scale would immediately bring in Syria, which would in turn invite Iranian intervention in defense of its major Arab clients -- and of the first Persian beachhead on the Mediterranean in 1,400 years.

The idea that Israel, let alone the U.S., has the slightest interest in starting a war on Israel's north is crazy. But claims about imminent attacks are serious business in that region. In May 1967, the Soviet Union falsely told its client, Egypt, that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. These rumors set off a train of events -- the mobilization of Arab armies, the southern blockade of Israel, the hasty signing of an inter-Arab military pact -- that led to the Six-Day War.

Ahmadinejad's claim is not supported by a shred of evidence. So what is he up to?

It is a sign that he is under serious pressure. Passage of weak U.N. sanctions was followed by unilateral sanctions by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union. Already, reports Reuters, Iran is experiencing a sharp drop in gasoline imports as Lloyd's of London refuses to insure the ships delivering them.

Second, the Arab states are no longer just whispering their desire for the U.S. to militarily take out Iranian nuclear facilities. The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to Washington said so openly at a conference three weeks ago.

Shortly before the 1991 Gulf War, Pat Buchanan charged that "the only two groups" that wanted the U.S. to forcibly liberate Kuwait were "the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States." That was a stupid charge, contradicted by the fact that George H.W. Bush went to war leading more than 30 nations, including the largest U.S.-led coalition of Arab states ever assembled.

Twenty years later, the libel returns in the form of the scurrilous suggestion that the only ones who want the U.S. to attack Iran's nuclear facilities are Israel and its American supporters. The UAE ambassador is, as far as ascertainable, neither Israeli, American nor Jewish. His publicly expressed desire for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities speaks for the intense Arab fear approaching panic, of Iran's nuclear program and the urgent hope that the U.S. will take it out.

Third, and perhaps even more troubling from Tehran's point of view, are developments in the U.S. Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden suggested last Sunday that over time, in his view, a military strike is looking increasingly favorable compared to the alternatives. Hayden is no Obama insider, but Time reports ("An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table," July 15) that high administration officials are once again considering the military option. This may reflect a new sense of urgency or merely be a bluff to make Tehran more pliable. But in either case, it suggests that after 18 months of failed engagement, the administration is hardening its line.

The hardening is already having its effect. The Iranian regime is beginning to realize that even President Obama's patience is limited -- and that Iran may actually face a reckoning for its nuclear defiance.

All this pressure would be enough to rattle a regime already unsteady and shorn of domestic legitimacy. Hence Ahmadinejad's otherwise inscrutable warning about an Israeli attack on two countries. (Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Fox News: "Who is the second one"?) It is a pointed reminder to the world of Iran's capacity to trigger, through Hezbollah and Syria, a regional conflagration.

This is the kind of brinksmanship you get when leaders of a rogue regime are under growing pressure. The only hope to get them to reverse course is to relentlessly increase their feeling that, if they don't, the Arab states, Israel, the Europeans and America will, one way or another, ensure that ruin is visited upon them.

Mr. Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Obama and Ahmadinejad doing it with Mirrors

Or like the Islamic regime leadership in Iran, which facing increasing pressure from the populace and from warring clerical and secular factions, has suddenly announced that out of some 10 people who were responsible for the tortures and rapes at the notorious Kahrizak prison, two had been condemned to death, eight condemned to prison, 80 lashes, fines and temporary suspensions from duty and one found not guilty.

However, none of the ten have been named, nor any information released about the proceedings, so it is certainly a sham to appease/confuse and diffuse the populace just as Oba-Hussein is doing in America to grab/retain power.

Moslem Oba-Hussein and the Moslem regime in Iran both use "taqqiyeh" (bald face lying) as a legitimate method to protect Islam and themselves.


Anti-Mullah

The Myth of Iran's Isolation

Isolation is pointless if Iran rushes headlong to become a nuclear power regardless; besides, it’s not isolated.

In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran’s increasing “isolation” from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an “extended hand” policy, in response to which Iran actually accelerated its nuclear program — more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels — Iranian “isolation” is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim.

“Isolation” may have failed to deflect Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it does enjoy incessant repetition by the administration.

For example, in his State of the Union address, President Obama declared that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated.” Two months later, Vice President Biden asserted that “since our administration has come to power, I would point out that Iran is more isolated — internally, externally — has fewer friends in the world.” At the signing of the START treaty in April, Obama declared that “those nations that refuse to meet their obligations [to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, i.e., Iran] will be isolated.”

Really? On Tuesday, one day before the president touted passage of a surpassingly weak U.N. resolution and declared Iran yet more isolated, the leaders of Russia, Turkey, and Iran gathered at a security summit in Istanbul “in a display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States,” as the New York Times put it. I would add: And calculated to demonstrate the hollowness of U.S. claims of Iranian isolation, and to flaunt Iran’s growing ties with Russia and quasi-alliance with Turkey, a NATO member.

Apart from the fact that isolation is hardly an end in itself and is pointless if Iran rushes headlong to become a nuclear power regardless, the very claim of Iran’s increasing isolation is increasingly implausible. Just last month, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted an ostentatious love fest in Tehran with the leaders of Turkey and Brazil. The three raised hands together and announced a uranium-transfer deal that was designed to torpedo U.S. attempts to impose U.N. sanctions.

Six weeks ago, Iran was elected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, a grotesque choice that mocked Obama’s attempt to isolate and delegitimize Iran in the very international institutions he treasures.

Increasing isolation? In the last year alone, Ahmadinejad has been welcomed in Kabul, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Caracas, Brasilia, La Paz, Senegal, and Gambia. Today, he is in China.

Three Iran sanctions resolutions passed in the Bush years. They were all passed without a single no vote. But after 16 months of laboring to produce a mouse, Obama garnered only twelve votes for his sorry sanctions, with Lebanon abstaining and Turkey and Brazil voting no.

From the beginning, the Obama strategy toward Iran and other rogue states had been to offer good will and concessions on the premise that this would lead to one of two outcomes: (a) the other side changes its policy or, (b) if they don’t, the world isolates the offending state and rallies around us — now that we have demonstrated last-mile good intentions.

Hence, nearly a year and a half of peace overtures, negotiation, concessions, two New Year’s messages to the Iranian people, a bit of groveling about U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup, and a disgraceful silence when the regime’s very stability was threatened by peaceful demonstrators.

Iran’s response? Defiance, contempt, and an acceleration of its nuclear program.

And the world’s response? Did it rally behind us? The Russians and Chinese bargained furiously and successfully to hollow out the sanctions resolution. Turkey is openly choosing sides with the region’s “strong horse” — Iran and its clients (Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas) — as it watches the United States flailingly try to placate Syria and appease Iran while it pressures Israel, neglects Lebanon, and draws down its power in the region.

To say nothing of Brazil. Et tu, Lula?

This comes after 16 months of assiduously courting these powers with one conciliatory gesture after another: “resetting” relations with Russia, kowtowing to China, lavishing a two-day visit on Turkey highlighted by a speech to the Turkish parliament in Ankara, and elevating Brazil by supplanting the G-8 with the G-20. All this has been read as American weakness, evidence that Obama can be rolled.

The result is succinctly, if understatedly, captured in Wednesday’s Washington Post headline “U.S. alliance against Iran is showing new signs of vulnerability.”

You think?

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group.

Is It Time to Bomb Iran?

Enough. It's overdue. They are nuclear weaponizing. They are promising the second holocaust. Why do we have to wait until they do it? They have said it repeatedly for years.

Everyone knows this is our only option now. By dithering and circle jerking for the past four years we have assisted in jihadi nukes. By doing nothing and watching them run those thousands of centrifuges. Bush failed us. He capitulated to the left, and here we are with no options. Obama is useless on this, as he tacitly agrees with them and has said so in not so many words - just ask those Iranians who took to the streets marching for freedom only to be met with bullets, rape and torture with America's blessing. Waiting for the catastrophe is not an option. I told you so is not an option.

It is not Israel's problems. It's the free world's problem. It is the problem of dar al harb. It is the problem of the non-Muslim world.

It was the Mufti of Jerusalem's promise when he allied with Hitler during the second World War. It's the same war after a brief period of peace. The enemy must be defeated. Or we will surely be toast.

Ahmadinejad: "Israel reached the end of its road"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday warned Israel that initiating a new war in the Middle East would not save it from downfall. Speaking in the southern Iranian Province of Hormozagan, Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a Western prodigy that had now "reached the end of its road."

"See what has become of Israel. They [the West] gathered the most criminal people in the world and stationed them in our region with lies and fabricated scenarios. They waged wars, committed massive aggression… and made millions of people homeless," he told a crowd of supporters in the provincial capital, Bandar-Abbas.

Source: Pamela@atlasshrugs.com

Iran System Based on Force Illegitimate

Iran System Based on Force Illegitimate
[[MONTAZERI]]
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: On Saturday in Iran, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the most senior cleric living in Iran and one of the two top sources of religious emulation in Shiite Islam, issued a series of fatwas suggesting that the supreme leader could be illegitimate and saying that he could be working with the government against religion. Montazeri has called on people to take action against injustice, even if they have to pay a heavy price for it. Now joining us from Denver is Nader Hashemi. He teaches Middle Eastern and Islamic politics at the University of Denver. Thanks for joining us, Nader.

NADER HASHEMI, PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE EAST AND ISLAMIC POLITICS, UNIV. OF DENVER: Glad to be with you.

JAY: Nader, before you talk about Ayatollah's statement, just give us a little bit of your own background and your connection to Iran.

HASHEMI: I'm the product of Iranian Muslim immigrant parents to Canada. My father in the early 1960s was active in the early pro-democracy movement in Iran, and he was very close with several people who ended up being leaders in the 1979 Islamic revolution. So there's a long history in our family of pro-democracy activism. Our family actually moved back to the Iran after the 1979 revolution, where I was able to witness firsthand the early post-revolutionary era power struggle, political conflict, contestation, and human rights violations.

JAY: And tell people quickly the name of your new book.

HASHEMI: Yeah, and I'm the author of a new book, called Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy, published by Oxford University Press, that came out this year.

JAY: Okay. I'm going to read a section of the Ayatollah's statement and then talk a bit about what you think the significance of it is. "Preserving the political system is not by itself an issue, particularly when the system becomes the same as a person [who rules the system and the people]." (http://tehranbureau.com/grand-ayatollah-montazeris-fatwa/) The Ayatollah went on to say, "A political system based on force, oppression, changing people's votes, killing, closure [of organs of civil society], arresting [people] and using Stalinist and medieval torture, creating repression, censorship of newspapers, interruption of the means of mass communications, jailing the enlightened and the elite of society for false reasons, and forcing them to make false confessions in jail is condemned and illegitimate." So, Nader, that's pretty powerful words. He doesn't in the statement directly accuse the supreme leader of doing it, but it's pretty clear, the context within which he is saying it. So tell us who this ayatollah is and how important is this statement.

HASHEMI: Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri is one of Iran's leading grand ayatollahs. There's only about a dozen of them. He is one of the most senior, and he's also one of the most politically active. He's widely regarded to have been one of the leaders of the 1979 Islamic revolution, and for most of the first decade in Iran, he was the designated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, in large part because of his activism against the pro-Western monarchy in Iran in 1979, where he was in jail, he was imprisoned, he was tortured. And he also ended up developing and devising some of the most important theological justifications for the current Islamic republican system. So he's both a learned senior cleric who has a lot of moral authority in a religious society, he's one of the founders of the Islamic Revolution, and he was the designated successor of Ayatollah Khomeini until he was forced to step down when he became vocal and outspoken in terms of the growing authoritarianism of Iran's political system and the abuse of human rights. So he's someone who has a lot of moral authority in Iranian society, both by virtue of the fact that he's a grand senior ayatollah, but also because he's a politicized ayatollah. He is someone who frequently comments on political affairs. He has been a thorn in the side of the regime for many years, dating back to the late 1980s when he started to speak out against growing corruption, human rights violations. And he's really stuck to that position. It's been a consistent pattern. And this latest statement or fatwa is really the most, I think, vociferous denunciation of the political status quo in Iran, the crisis of state and society undermining and questioning the very legitimacy of not only the supreme leader but the Islamic Republic of Iran as it manifests itself today in Iranian [society].

JAY: And a lot of the interviews we've been doing, we've been getting a picture of the Iranian elite, which we understand is a quite complicated class, but with two kind of primary camps right now: Rafsanjani, who has been backing Mousavi; and then the other camp: the supreme leader, the Revolutionary Guard, Ahmadinejad. And roughly we've been seeing this picture of two camps, both camps—certainly Rafsanjani and the Revolutionary guard—having deep economic interests, Rafsanjani a multibillionaire, the Revolutionary Guard controlling more and more of the economy. Is Ayatollah Montazeri allied with one of these camps? Or is he considered in sort of a clerical third force?

HASHEMI: Well, he's not allied with any camp, because he doesn't hold political power. The different groups that you mentioned—and, by the way, I would say that there's more than simply two camps, but, you know, we can go into that later. But he is aloof from politics. I mean, he is really someone who stands—after he was deposed in 1988 as the successor to Khomeini, he basically went back to his religious teachings and his seminary in the holy city of Qom and focused his time and attention on his theological studies, but also became sort of a moral critic of the political system. So he's not allied to any of these camps, but he has been a resource for reformists, for pro-democratic forces to draw upon, precisely by virtue of the moral authority and religious authority that he has. So they would appeal to him during moments of crisis such as this one for advice, for commentary.

JAY: So just how influential it is Montazeri? So, for example, he issues this statement. Do people of Tehran know about it? I assume state television isn't going to carry it. But do imams read it? Do people in the countryside ever know that he issued this statement? How does this get out?

HASHEMI: Well, thanks to the wonders of globalization—there's a lot of criticism of globalization, but there is a technological and telecommunications revolution that makes it very difficult for authoritarian regimes to prevent, despite their best efforts, access to information. So this gets circulated through a variety of means. And to those people who are interested, it does filter down and it does inform their political consciousness.

JAY: But the majority of people in Iran don't have access to the Internet. I know there's been a lot of talk about this being a Twitter revolution, but I would assume the majority of people that were in the streets probably don't get on the Internet. So just how far—is there any way this filters out through the religious institutions itself? Or is it really dependent on the Internet and such?

HASHEMI: Most people do not have access to Internet, and this whole discussion of a Twitter revolution, I think, makes for great reporting, but it it doesn't, I think, represent the political reality in Iran today. Religious clerics, people in the seminaries, political activists will know of this statement and they will, particularly those on the Democratic side of the debate, will gain a lot of succor and sustenance from this statement.

JAY: Ayatollah Montazeri's been a critic of this regime, as you mentioned, for quite some time. Is there anything radically different about this statement? Or are people going to his say, well, he's always been a critic, so there's nothing really new here?

HASHEMI: I think this statement is to be distinguished from previous statements, because in many ways, I think, he accurately sort of captures the political status quo in terms of the growing repression of the regime, the growing clampdown on human rights, and the growing illegitimacy that many people feel, particularly those who are religiously minded. I mean, he's speaking here to the—and his influence is among those who are pious, who are religious, and who form a large part of Iran's political constituency. So I think that this statement will resonate. And what distinguishes it from previous statements [is] it is much more bolder. He's actually drawing parallels with Stalinism, with communist and fascist regimes. And that's a heavy indictment for this regime in Iran today.

JAY: Yeah. I'll read one more segment of this. He says: "Iran belongs to the people, not to you and me, and they make the decisions, and the officials are their servants. People must be able to gather peacefully, and defend their rights both in writing and orally. When the Shah heard people’s revolutionary voice, it was too late. It is hoped that the officials will not allow the same situation to develop again, by being as flexible as possible about the people’s demands." Comparing this situation to the overthrow of the Shah is quite radical. He's talking about the system itself could be in jeopardy here. Is he in any danger saying these things? And to what extent does he reflect clerical opinion here?

HASHEMI: Well, he's not in any danger, because he is in his 80s, he's in very frail health. He was under house arrest for five years after he issued a very famous criticism of the supreme leader and the growing authoritarianism of the regime in 1997. So there's not much the regime can do to him physically except try to silence his views and not allow them to be disseminated. And to what extent does his ideas—are they a reflection of clerical opinion? Well, it's difficult to say, but my general reading of what's taking place in Iran today is that there is an increasingly vast number of clerical members, younger, up-and-coming religious scholars, students, who are very sympathetic to Ayatollah Khomeini's critique of the Islamic Republican system, in large part because the last 30 years has been a very educational experience for large numbers of Iranians in terms of the problems and the dangers of a close embrace between religion and politics. And people are realizing that, look, the status quo is no longer untenable [sic], and that in order to preserve religion's integrity in society, its value, its respectability among the population, there has to be some reconsideration of the current political status quo. And so he's basically offering a moral and ethical critique of the relationship between religion and politics, and making very courageous and bold sort of statements and comparisons, essentially saying that Iran is in a situation very similar to the situation just prior to the 1979 revolution. And he's coming very close to saying that the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is behaving like the former monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

JAY: Thanks for joining us. And on the next segment of this interview, let's talk about who's been on the streets, what makes up that movement, and what is the role of Western policy, and perhaps, as some people have said, Western involvement, in what's going on in Iran. Thanks for joining us on The Real News Network.

DISCLAIMER:

Please note that TRNN transcripts are typed from a recording of the program; The Real News Network cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Sitting with Ahmadinejad

Hamid Tehrani, Voices Without Votes

Speaking in Israel, President George W Bush cited the remarks of a U.S. Senator who proposed in 1939 that he could have negotiated with Hitler to avert the Nazi invasion of Poland. The American President continued: “We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history” - prompting presidential hopeful Barack Obama to condemn Bush for launching a ‘false political attack.' Several Iranian bloggers reacted to Bush's remarks and the Democrats' reaction to it.

Voacapitol says [Fa] that Senator Josef Liberman, who supported President Bush's remarks, asked how Obama could sit at the same table with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President who sends weapons to Hamas, Hizbollah or other terrorist groups?

The blogger adds although White House speaker Dana Periono says Bush did not mean Obama, many politicians believe he was the target. Republican candidate John McCain also said he did not think Bush was talking about Obama but that Bush must explain what he wanted to say to Ahmadinejad, whom he called a ‘corrupted corpse.'

Vahshateh Marg, which translates to Fear of Death, believes [Fa] that Bush's comments were targeted towards both Ahmadinejad and Obama. He adds:

The Democrats already reacted to Bush's Speech. Now we should wait for Ahmadinejad's reaction to that.

The blogger reminds us how several months ago, Mohmmad Javad Larijani, an Iranian politician (his brother was former chief Iranian negotiator on Iranian nuclear program), told a reporter about negotiating with the US: “If we find ourselves in the heart of hell, we will negotiate even with Satan.”

Khomenei's Generation says [Fa] that Jewish communities in the United States are afraid of Obama because they consider him a disciple of Noam Chomsky! He adds:

I remember 10 or 11 years ago, Iranian Leader [ Ali Khamenei] predicted that everything will start the moment that the American people will come to the streets and take the power out of the hands of the Zionists in the USA!

Iran Trashes Iran

'Iran: A New Year Begins'

by Hamid Tehrani

Yesterday, marked the first day of spring and the Iranian New Year. Nowruz or Norouz is celebrated in Iran and several other countries such as Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Several bloggers celebrated the day and shared their wishes and ideas on this occasion.

Some, like Raze No (meaning "new secret") added photos of festivities and spring to their blog (as above).

1Pezeshk (meaning "one doctor" in Persian), a creative blogger, asked several bloggers to express themselves on Iranian New Year in a podcast [Fa]. Seven Iranian bloggers and one Afghan blogger answered his call, and the result was a joint podcast.

Khabgard writes [Fa] with irony that the Iranian government, in the final days of last year, gave Iranians another gift: "Nine magazines were shut down!" The blogger adds that the government has delivered so many surprises, that Iranians can no longer predict what the future holds in store for the new year, let alone tomorrow!

Falosofah writes [Fa] about the difficult situation for writers and translators in Iran. He says:

The first idea crossing the mind of writers and translators is the following: "Can I keep living at the same standard as I have in the past 10 years, or will I be forced to move to smaller cities or emigrate? Each time a society faces political and economic troubles, the most affected people are the ones involved with culture and science. If you talk with a publisher or a bookstore owner, they will tell you that the prices of all other goods they sell have increased enormously, while book prices, like for other cultural products, have decreased.

Azadi Barabary blog has published [Fa], a message from Kaveh Abbassian, a left wing student leader. He says that some of his best friends are still in prison, and that students in all universities are under pressure, and freedom of speech and free association are under attack. He adds:

Despite all the pressure we say: We are present! We stand up! We don't negotiate our will to defend freedom and equality. We are stronger and more determined than ever.

Jomhour called [Fa] President Ahmadinejad's message for New Year unrealistic. The Iranian president praised economic, cultural and political achievements in last year. The blogger says the government's mismanagement created high unemployment rates and inflation. He says maybe we should change the meaning of the word 'achievement' in the dictionary.

You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/03/21/iran-a-new-year-begins/