A pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas candidate for the Iranian presidency, a man linked to Iranian-controlled front groups, brought former Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to speak at Rutgers University in 2007, according to another professor on campus.
Hooshang Amirahmadi, who led Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies when Hagel came to campus, is the founder and president of the American-Iranian Council. He arranged for Hagel’s speech on March 2, 2007, the faculty source told The Daily Caller.
Iran’s Guardian Council cleared Amirahmadi to run for the presidency in 2013. Approval of the regime is required before candidates’ names can appear on the ballot. To be approved, candidates must be Shia, male, and committed to the Islamic revolution.
...
A press release in 2007 noted that the “Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies” — Amirahmadi’s campus group – ”is hosting the senator’s visit to the university.”
Amirahmadi’s CV discloses that he has received financial support from the Alavi Foundation, a wealthy organization that the U.S. government has called “a front for the government of Iran.”
And IRS records provided to TheDC by FoundationSearch.com show that between 2003 and 2008, Rutgers University received $688,000 from the same foundation.
The New York Post reported in 2009 that the Alavi Foundation contributed $100,000 towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University.
“We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation,” Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, told the Post in 2009.
Read the whole thing. Hagel is like a gift that keeps on giving with one thing after another being uncovered. And yet... not one Democrat has said he (or she) would vote against him. What will it take to wake these people up as to who Hagel is? What is sufficient to be termed a smoking gun?
(mfs other) Iranian suspicion grows over Turkey’s regional role. (AlArabiya) A senior Iranian political figure has spoken out against Turkey hosting Iran’s next talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program, in the latest anti-Turkish broadside from politicians in Tehran, Fars news agency reported late on Monday. Last month Turkey offered Istanbul as the venue for talks expected to take place on April 13, a proposal which appeared to gather momentum last week when Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Istanbul would be “the best option.” Turkey has repeatedly backed Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear technology. The United States and its allies suspect Tehran of covertly working on nuclear weapons and have imposed tough new sanctions on its financial and energy sectors. Tehran, which says its nuclear activities are purely peaceful, has agreed to renewed talks with the five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- and Germany this month. Once-warm Iranian-Turkish ties have cooled over the past year due to the popular revolt in Syria, Iran’s closest Arab ally and a steadfast backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.“Given the fact that our friends in Turkey have failed to fulfill some of our agreements, the talks... had better be held in another friendly country,” said former presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaie, Fars News reported. Speaking to staff of the Economic Cooperation Organization, a regional trade body with offices in Tehran, Rezaie did not specify what Turkey's failures were, but said that Baghdad, Damascus or Beirut would be a more suitable venue. “Offering Istanbul as the venue for the upcoming talks ... might give this wrong impression to the opposite side that Iran has grown weak and is in weak conditions,” he added. Rezaie has been an influential figure in Iranian politics for more than three decades since he was appointed commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, the elite force created to protect Iran’s system of theocratic rule. A critic and electoral rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, Rezaie is now secretary of the Expediency Council, an influential body that advises Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who directs nuclear policy. His comments are a rare public criticism of neighboring Turkey whose prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, stressed the value of relations with Iran during a visit to Tehran last week.Iranian MP Esmail Kowsari has accused Turkey of being a messenger of the United States and Israel, saying that “it would surely be hated by its own people and other nations in the region because it is hand in hand with the arrogant (Western) powers,” the Iranian Labor News Agency reported on Monday. Kowsari ridiculed Turkey’s hosting on Sunday of a “Friends of the Syrian People” meeting of mostly Western and Arab countries, which he described as only enemies of Syria. Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called the Istanbul event a “conference to bribe Israel” and said regional nations that described Syria as a dictatorship were no better themselves, Fars reported.Read the full story here.
politics, politics, politics... this Syrian situation sure has soured the relationship
Israeli newspapers on Sunday were thick with innuendo, the front pages of the three largest dailies dominated by variations on the headline "Mysterious Explosion in Iranian Missile Base." Turn the page, and the mystery is answered with a wink. "Who Is Responsible for Attacks on the Iranian Army?" asks Maariv, and the paper lists without further comment a half-dozen other violent setbacks to Iran's nuclear and military nexus. For Israeli readers, the coy implication is that their own government was behind Saturday's massive blast just outside Tehran. It is an assumption a Western intelligence source insists is correct: the Mossad — the Israeli agency charged with covert operations — did it. "Don't believe the Iranians that it was an accident," the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. "There are more bullets in the magazine," the official says.
The powerful blast or series of blasts — reports described an initial explosion followed by a much larger one — devastated a missile base in the gritty urban sprawl to the west of the Iranian capital. The base housed Shahab missiles, which, at their longest range, can reach Israel. Last week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had experimented with removing the conventional warhead on the Shahab-3 and replacing it with one that would hold a nuclear device. Iran says the explosion was an accident that came while troops were transferring ammunition out of the depot "toward the appropriate site."
[I]n Sunday's editions, the Hebrew press coyly listed what Yedioth Ahronoth called "Iran's Mysterious Mishaps." The tallies ran from the November 2007 explosion at a missile base south of Tehran to the October 2010 blast at a Shahab facility in southwestern Iran, to the assassinations of three Iranian scientists working in the nuclear program — two last year and one in July.
At the very least, the list burnishes the mystique of the Mossad, Israel's overseas spy agency. Whatever the case-by-case reality, the popular notion that, through the Mossad, Israel knows everything and can reach anywhere is one of the most valuable assets available to a state whose entire doctrine of defense can be summed up in the word deterrence. But it doesn't mean Israel is the only country with a foreign intelligence operation inside Iran. The most recent IAEA report included intelligence from 10 governments on details of the Iranian nuclear effort. And in previous interviews, Western security sources have indicated that U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies have partnered with Israel on covert operations inside Iran. Sometimes the partner brings specific expertise or access. In other cases, Iranian agents on the ground who might harbor misgivings about Israel are allowed to believe they are working only with another government altogether.
Saturday's blast was so powerful it was felt 25 miles away in Tehran, and so loud that one nearby resident with combat experience thought he had just heard the detonation of an aerial bomb. "Frankly it did not sound like an arms depot from where I was because when one of those goes off, it is multiple explosions over minutes, even hours depending on the size of the facility," the resident says. "All I heard was one big boom. I was sure from the quality of the noise that anyone in its immediate vicinity was dead. Something definitely happened, but I would not trust the [Revolutionary] Guards to be absolutely forthcoming as to what it was."
The list of Iranian "accidents" over the past few years includes:
November 2007 - Explosion in a missile base south of Tehran. Dozens of technicians are killed.
July 2008 - Explosion in a convoy of trucks carrying missiles probably intended for Hezbollah. 15 deaths.
August 2009 - a passenger plane crashes after takeoff from Tehran. On board were probably explosives and rockets destined for Hezbollah. 168 dead.
October 2010 - Explosion of the Revolutionary Guard base in south-western Iran where Shahab missiles are stored. 18 dead.
June 2011 - aircraft carrying Russian scientists who assisted in building the Bushehr reactor crashes. Dozens killed, including six scientists.
November 2011 - Explosion at the base of the Revolutionary Guards missile. 17 killed.
A Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran was a key figure in Iran's missile program, the elite military force said in a statement Sunday.
Gen. Hasan Moghaddam was killed together with 16 other Guard members Saturday at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Tehran.
Saeed Qasemi, a Guard commander, said Iran owes its missile program to Moghaddam.
"A major part of (our) progress in the field of missile capability and artillery was due to round-the-clock efforts by martyr Moghaddam," Qasemi told the conservative news website rajanews.com.
Another Guard commander, Gen. Mostafa Izadi, called Moghaddam a "founder of the Guard's surface-to-surface missile systems."
Qasemi said Moghaddam was one of a few Guard commanders favored by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"The exalted leader had a special interest in him," he said.
Mako says that Moghaddam had worked closely with Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas member assassinated in Dubai nearly two years ago.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, when asked to comment on the explosion, answered with the Hebrew phrase "כן ירבו" which translates roughly to "May there be many more."
Jalal Talabani, who recently participated in the “International Conference for the Global Fight against Terrorism” in Tehran, promised Khamenei that he would deliver the letter and the message to American officials.
Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with Iranian officials on June 30, warned that the U.S. — in a complicated plot — tries to create problems for Syria, and that the nature of the regional awakening was anti-U.S. and anti-Zionist.
Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is a media branch of Hezbollah , quoted several of its Tehran-based sources as saying that the Iranian leadership also warned Turkey against taking any military action against Syria. The report adds that any militaristic meddling in Syria by the Turks would be considered “crossing a red line” and will not be tolerated by the Iranian regime.
The Arab-language newspaper Al-Ahram reports that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently sent a letter filled with threats to American officials.
The letter, which is said to have been delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, accuses the U.S. of meddling in Syrian affairs.
According to Al-Ahram, Khamenei has ordered the U.S. to cease and desist pressuring the Syrian regime leadership, cautioning that Iran will retaliate against American troops stationed in Iraq should Obama refuse to take the warning seriously
Iran faces the prospect of an early presidential election after opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial leadership united behind calls for a vote to coincide with next year’s parliamentary polls.
“We believe the next presidential election will be held sooner than its legal time and that a clergy will be elected to have more humbleness towards the Supreme Leader,” said Ghodrat Alikhani, a prominent religious MP.
Mr Ahmadinejad counted on the support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to survive a popular revolt against the election that granted him a second term in 2009 but he has since fallen out of favour with the Supreme Leader.
There are signs that the rift between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni is widening.
Allies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were arrested this week for being "magicians" and invoking spirits, Iranian website reported on Wednesday. Ahmadinejad's chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei as well as other people close to the Iranian president were accused of invoking djinns. One of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, was called "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds," Iranian news site Ayandeh reported.
In response to U.S. President Barack Obama's speech of support for the Iranian people to mark the Persian New Year yesterday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei mocked Obama.
Khamenei said: "We don't know whether the current American president understands what he's saying, or is ignorant and confused. He said that the [Iranian] people in Azadi ('Freedom') Square in Tehran was like the Egyptian people in Al-Tahrir ('Liberation') Square in Cairo, while the [Iranian] people gathers every 22nd of the month of Behman [February 11, Iran's Islamic Revolution Day] in Azadi Square in Tehran and repeats its call (of 'Death to America')."
[Nazarbayev] said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni told him that even if Iran compromises on the nuclear issue, the United States would always find another reason to criticize "because they hate us -- all the United States wants is to conquer the entire region and steal the oil." General Petraeus interjected, "We could have bought all the oil in the region for 100 years for what we've spent in Iraq!" Nazarbayev, looking a bit amused, said, "I know. I'm just telling you what he said."
Shayan Ghajar
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began his visit to Tehran early on October 18, meeting first with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and then with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maliki’s visit is yet another ominous indication that Western governments with a stake in the Iraqi elections face competition from Iran for the outcome of the effort to form a unity government.
The Iranian government is already celebrating Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon last week as proof that “Iran is on top” in the Middle East, not Europe or the United States, according to a senior Iranian MP quoted in Fars News, a semi-official news agency with links to the IRGC. Consequently, Maliki’s visit is being heralded as another sign of Iran’s triumphant foreign policy in the Iranian state-owned or affiliated press.
Indeed, Maliki’s own rhetoric during the meetings stressed the Iraqi government’s ties with Iran: “Iraq’s relations with the Islamic Republic are strategic and on top of our relations with other states,” Maliki declared, according to Fars News. This statement is a not-so-subtle signal to the United States that Maliki is not inclined to form a government with secularist leader Ayad Allawi, instead opting to use Iranian support to form a primarily Shi’a coalition. The United States, hoping to avert sectarian conflict, is urging a secular rather than Shi’a government which satisfies Sunni Arab and Kurdish demands for inclusion.
Iran played a pivotal role in shaping Maliki’s nascent government, using its spiritual authority to urge the influential Moqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Shi’a cleric, to lend his support to Maliki. As a result, Maliki’s number of seats in parliament is far closer to that which is required to form a government.
Thus, while the United States urges Maliki to gradually build a secular government, Iran’s leadership is urging the various Iraqi factions to hurry up and support Maliki. Ayatollah Khamenei repeatedly emphasized in his meeting with Maliki, “All Iraqi officials and politicians and those who care for Iraq should focus their efforts on the swift formation of a unity government,” according to www.khamenei.ir, the official website of the Supreme Leader. Khamenei also urged the rejection of the influence of the United States or other Western governments. Ahmadinejad continued in the same vein, asserting that the Middle East can be managed by Middle Eastern nations without interference.
Maliki returned the favor by declaring that “Iraq pursues increasing relations with Iran in all fields.” According to Iran’s official English-language agency, PressTV, Maliki also praised Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to Lebanon: “During your visit to Lebanon, the Zionist regime [of Israel] was on high [military] alert, which proved they are really cowards,” he declared.
Just days previous to Maliki’s visit, his secularist rival Ayad Allawi accused Iran in a CNN interview of actively manipulating Iraqi politics, while sponsoring destabilizing terrorist groups across the region.
One almost feels for these guys. One of the things I am getting from this is that A'jad compared to the others is a moderate. Politics is bizarre. I spent eight years thinking that America was Right wing... only to realize that actually Bush was kind of a Leftist in reality. The reputation of these guys is bullshit. I'm not saying A'jad is a good guy... I'm just saying we really don't understand him. A'jad is a "Socialist" who is not a "Nationalist". He views the world through a Universalist glass of the Shi'a. A'jad dislikes ethnocentrism and would love to see America and Israel adopt his world view.
Ryan Mauro
The in-fighting inside the Iranian regime has become so intense that Ayatollah Khamenei has been forced to give a “serious warning” to the competing factions that they must reconcile. His intervention shows that the regime is now divided against itself and the Supreme Leader has become genuinely worried. It is encouraging to see the regime’s foundations shake, but Iran may now lash out in the hopes of solidifying its ranks against a common enemy. A series of internal rifts have compelled Ayatollah Khamenei to publicly discipline his government. The latest dispute surrounds a man named Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son. Mashaie was chosen by the President to become Vice President but he was fired by Khamenei last summer. His appointment had caused outrage among hardliners disgusted that he once said that Iran’s conflict with Israel is limited to their government and that the country is a “friend” to the people. Ahmadinejad publicly defended Mashaie and then chose him as his chief of staff.
On August 6, Mashaie got into more trouble after he made comments that appeared to put Iranian nationalism above Shiite Islam. Prominent officials condemned him for allegedly harming the security of the country, essentially calling him a traitor. Two hundred members of parliament signed a letter demanding that he be fired. Ahmadinejad refused to back down and upped the stakes by appointing Mashaie as the special envoy for Middle Eastern affairs.
This follows another clash between Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Majiles (parliament) and Ahmadinejad. The two have been at odds over domestic policy for some time, with Larijani going so far as to say the country is being ruled by “extremism and delusion.” Their battle escalated when Ahmadinejad’s camp tried to take control of the privately-owned Azad University that is tied to Larijani’s camp, Ayatollah Rafsanjani and other opponents. During the public fight, Larijani called Ahmadinejad and his supporters “vicious, illogical and loudmouths” and Basiji members threatened to set the parliament on fire. Ultimately, the Majiles sided with Larijani.
Amil Imani, an Iranian dissident, told FrontPage that Larijani and other Iranian officials are sensing the rising anger against Ahmadinejad and are positioning themselves to gain politically.
“Ali Larijani and his older brother Mohammed Jawad have moved across the Iranian political spectrum… [they] were considered pillars of the moderate wing in the political spectrum, and the ease with which they changed sides and moved to the conservative bloc was perceived as a case of blatant political opportunism,” Imani said.
The pressure over human rights abuses is also causing a division. The parliament has reported that Saeed Mortazavi, the Prosecutor-General of Tehran during the summer 2009 uprising, was responsible for ordering the torture of at least 147 political prisoners and holding them in inhumane conditions. He and two other officials were blamed for the deaths of at least three specific protestors and were suspended. One of the victim’s attorneys argues that the report opens up the door for Mortazavi to be prosecuted, although it is unlikely Ahmadinejad and Khamenei would allow anything serious to happen to such a loyal servant. Already, Ahmadinejad has named him as the director of an anti-smuggling body.
the State of Lebanon is in conflict with UN Resolution 1701, have let Hezbollah into their government and have become a vassal of Syria
Although the Obama administration has hesitated before rushing headlong into renewing relations with Damascus, it has undertaken a series of gestures that have demonstrated that any real policy of isolation is over. This goes hand in hand with the broader regional stance of the administration of attempting "engagement" with the Iranian regime.
Far from signaling to Middle Eastern powers that a new world of cooperation is about to commence, what this US stance conveys to friends and foes in the region is that Washington no longer has the stomach for holding fast against the bid by Iran and its allies for regional hegemony.
The clients, and the clients of the clients, therefore move to make their accommodation with the changed reality.
they can't control themselves from murdering people? Do you have any idea how much money these people in power in the Middle East have? every criminal organization has conflicting parties that people might have empathy for. Every great dramatic villain has a sob story. That is the nature of evil. Were not the Germans themselves victims of harsh punitive actions from WWI?
In Washington, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman failed to persuadePresident Barack Obama to drop objections to Hizbullah's rearming, and instead "exert further pressure" on Israel to withdraw from disputed areas along its border with Lebanon. Suleiman acted "more like the Syrian ambassador than the Lebanese president," observed Farid Ghadry, the Washington-based head of the Reform Party of Syria.
Obama publicly told Suleiman he should enforce UN Resolution 1701 by disarming Hizbullah and halting its "extensive" arms smuggling, which poses "a threat to Israel." Suleiman disagreed, insisting that part of the resolution no longer applies to the militant group because it is a legitimate political party and part of Lebanon's government, which has authorized it to retain its weapons. The real threat, he told Obama, is from Israel.
The argument you have is they can't help but send missiles? If my neighbor next door were launching missiles to the next town and I knew that there would be missiles back... I'd do everything I could to get those missiles out of a residential area. These people are responsible and it is the population that will suffer. Their country is culpable and they will suffer casualties. I'm not going to let my family get killed because other people don't have the chutzpah to contain the hate in their neighborhood. If these people do not follow the terms agreed... the only situation is to kill back... and this is not said lightly because the missile capability is three times what it was in 2006. I suspect you have some kind of orchestrated bias against Jewish people living if you feel otherwise. Keep in mind that Hariri is backed by the Sauds. He has all the money in the world. if he wanted to he could buy soldiers with loyalty. he is meeting with Syria because he benefits double. don't believe that sob story about his dad for a second. these guys kill each other all the time and for all we know Assad had nothing to do with the death of his father. It might of been some fringe Shia group. Hariri is picking his allies. don't pity him. he isn't caught between anything. don't worry about these murderers. Hariri can afford a miliary. He chooses Syria because he is united in hate against Israel. if Sunni Hamas can take money from Iran... so can Hariri
original post 12/27/09
Last week's visit by Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri to Damascus is the latest marker in the return of the coercive Syrian presence in Lebanon. It is also an indication of Syria's successful defiance of the west.
Assad’s regime assassinated Saad Hariri’s father, Rafik, in 2005 for just gingerly opposing Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. There is no alternate universe where Saad Hariri is OK with this or where his generically “positive” statements at a press conference were anything other than forced.
The pro-western and pro-Saudi March 14 movement, led by Hariri, achieved a modest victory in elections in June. This victory was effectively nullified in the lengthy coalition "negotiations" that followed. The new government as finally announced in November represented the unusual spectacle of a wholesale capitulation of the electoral victors before the vanquished.
The Hizbullah-led opposition kept their effective veto power in the Cabinet. The government's founding statement included an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of Hizbullah's continued armed presence.
Now, with Hezbollah playing a more active role in the Lebanese government, Lebanon could be held more responsible for Hezbollah actions against Israel, Israeli security officials and experts say.
Lebanon has to decide which side it's on. Either it can stand up to Hezbullah the way the Iranian people are now standing up to the mullahs or it can bear the consequences when Hezbullah uses their infrastructure to fire cannon fodder at Israel. While I feel sorry for those Lebanese who don't support Hezbullah and want to live in peace with us, I feel more sorry for the Israelis who are likely to be under fire by Hezbullah in the next war.
I was invited to dinner at Hariri’s house earlier this year and had a long and frank discussion about politics with him and some colleagues. I can’t quote him because the meeting was off the record, but trust me: the man is no friend of the Syrian government or Hezbollah, and it’s not just because someone in that crowd killed his father. His political party, the Future Movement, champions liberalism and capitalism, the very antithesis of what is imposed in Syria by Assad’s Arab Socialist Baath party regime and the totalitarian Velayat-e Faqih ideology enforced by the Khomeinists in Iran and in the Hezbollah-occupied regions of Lebanon.
Hezbollah and its sponsors in Tehran and Damascus have forced Hariri to do a number of things lately — to give it veto power in his government’s cabinet and to surrender to its continuing existence as a warmongering militia that threatens to blow up the country again by picking fights with the Israelis.
Hariri and his allies in parliament resisted an extraordinary amount of pressure on these points for months before caving in, but cave in they did. They didn’t have much choice. The national army isn’t strong enough to disarm Hezbollah,
and unlike Iran’s tyrant Ali Khamenei, Hariri doesn’t have his own private army. Hezbollah militiamen surrounded his house last year and firebombed his TV station when the government shut down its illegal surveillance system at the airport. At the end of the day, Hariri has to do what Hezbollah and its friends say unless someone with a bigger stick covers his back when push comes to shove.
No one has Hariri’s or Lebanon’s back, not anymore. He and his allies in the “March 14″ coalition have sensed this for some time, which is why Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has grudgingly softened his opposition to Assad and Hezbollah lately. When Hariri went to Damascus, everyone in the country, aside from useless newswire reporters, understood it meant Syria has re-emerged as the strong horse in Lebanon.
Walid Jumblatt is another member of what David Schenker calls the Murdered Fathers Club. Assad’s ruthless late father, Hafez Assad, put Jumblatt through a similarly gruesome experience back in the 70s during the civil war. First Assad murdered Walid’s father, Kamal, then summoned the surviving Jumblatt to Damascus and forced him to shake hands and pledge his allegiance. Who can even imagine what that must have felt like? Hariri knows now, and Jumblatt still tells everyone he meets all about it.
Hariri generally doesn’t like having long conversations with journalists on the record because he doesn’t want to calculate how everything he says will be simultaneously interpreted in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Israel, the United States, France, and Saudi Arabia. I can’t say I blame him. He lives under virtual house arrest as it is, with barely more freedom of movement than Hassan Nasrallah. Here is something he said, though, back when it was safer for him to do so: “Action must be taken against Syria, like isolation, to make the Syrians understand that killing members of [Lebanon's] parliament will have consequences.”
The U.S. and France did effectively isolate Assad with Saudi assistance when George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac were in charge, but presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy think they can save the Middle East by “engaging” its most toxic leaders. Syria, therefore, is no longer isolated. Lebanon’s little anti-Syrian government doesn’t stand a chance under these circumstances, especially not when Hezbollah is the dominant military power in the country.
“It’s a dangerous game these people are playing,” Lebanese activist and political analyst Eli Khoury said last time I spoke with him in Beirut, “but I think it’s only a matter of time until the newcomers burn their fingers with the same realities that we’ve seen over and over again. I’ve seen every strategy: Kissinger’s step-by-step approach, full engagement — which means sleeping with the enemy, basically — and the solid stand as with the Bush Administration. I’ve seen them all. The only one that works so far in my opinion, aside from some real stupid and dumb mistakes, is the severing of relationships. It made the Syrians behave.”
It did make the Syrians behave a bit for a while, but now the U.S., France, and Saudi Arabia are bringing Assad in from the cold and giving him cocoa. His influence, naturally, is rising again, in Lebanon and everywhere else. That’s good news for Hezbollah, of course, which means it’s also good news for Iran. It’s bad news for the Lebanese, the Americans, the French, the Saudis, and the Israelis. None of this was inevitable, but — in Lebanon, at least — it was predictable.
An Iranian-style intifada seems to be in the making. At the beginning of the current period of opposition, which started soon after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, quiet periods of seeming normalcy occurred between what were less frequent demonstrations.
This photo obtained by AP shows Iranian protesters beating police officers during an anti-government demo in Teheran on Sunday. I have no doubt that the insurgency is real, but I'm not sure why anyone cares. These people are no more supportive of freedom then the present government. I have not heard any explanation about what type of government these people would support. Internationally the Green Revolution does not seem to have any different interest then the present administration. It is nothing but a power struggle that is common in Islamic culture.
Judging from the events of Ashura, however, the protests now seem to carry the potential to turn into a full-scale civil disobedience campaign, not unlike the first intifada the Palestinians initiated against Israel in 1987. oh well happy joy joy... let them get a little taste of their own medicine
Such an uprising will mean continuous periods of strikes and civil disobedience, as well as more confrontations between members of the public and security forces. wow... really? I'm upset
The main factor contributing to the new status quo is the unrelenting policies of the supreme leader, which have pitted his philosophy of the Islamic Republic against longstanding Islamic institutions.
THIS IS a battle that Khamenei will find extremely difficult to win. In fact, if developments continue in their current form, they can result in significant changes to the structure of his regime, or more drastically, lead to its total demise.
His decision to allow the Basij to mount an attack on mourners at Ayatollah Montazeri's funeral was one factor leading to the spread of opposition in rural areas, faster and more efficiently than any campaign the reformist camp could have orchestrated. Yes, members of the opposition tried to take advantage of the mayhem, but also many genuine mourners had come to pay homage to a grand ayatollah. To Khamenei's forces, they were all the same. To allow attacks against the residents of a holy city where the seeds of the 1979 revolution were planted was not just dead wrong from a religious perspective, it was politically counterproductive as well.
To make matters worse, the very next day, the supreme leader's forces attacked mourners attending a ceremony for Montazeri at Isfahan's Seyyed mosque, where inside members of the public were beaten. The Basijis also tried to assault Isfahan's former Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Jalaleddin Taheri, who had arranged the ceremony. However, his supporters protected him.
IF THE Shah had committed such an affront, one could have attributed it to his brute dictatorial secularism. But for the supreme leader of an Islamic republic to order violence against Islamic institutions means turning against the very establishment that formed the foundation - or the very DNA - of the current regime.
In 1987, to Palestinians, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the deteriorating political and economic situations there formed the nucleus of the political ideology that legitimized the first intifada. those were different peoples. these are the same people cannibalizing... but I understand the media likes to glorify the Intifada whenever it can
Khamenei's increasing attacks against the Iranian public, followed by full-scale assaults against mosques and religious members of the community, are creating the nucleus of an ideology that is legitimizing opposition, not just in cities, but throughout Iran.
However, ideology is not enough. To succeed, what is needed is to increase the frequency of opposition to the point where the morale of the regime and its forces are sufficiently eroded and they can no longer afford to carry on with their current policies, or their ability to function.
Here again, Khamenei seems to be aiding the opposition. The brutal attack against the mourners at Montazeri's funeral meant that more people were motivated to turn up in the streets on Tasua (the day before Ashura), as well as on Ashura, which happened to fall on the seventh day of Montazeri's passing. In fact, small demonstrations have continued in different places since Montazeri was buried. way to go Khamenei! keep up the great work. we are counting on you
Further, on Ashura, his forces killed Seyed Ali Habibi Mousavi Khameneh, the nephew of Mir Hossein Mousavi. It's very possible that he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the Mousavi family might understandably assume that he was targeted for assassination. After all, how is it possible that among thousands upon thousands of demonstrators, he was one of the few shot dead? Was he followed from the beginning by an assassination team? Was he marked for death before he left the house? These are questions that cannot be overlooked.
And now his funeral, as well as the seventh day of his death, will provide other occasions for the opposition to demonstrate. Add to this 15 religious holidays, plus at least five major political ones. Meanwhile, more are expected to be killed or arrested, meaning further mourning congregations and demonstrations. Put all of these dates together and the regime could start facing an unprecedented number of demonstrations.
Things could get much worse if the opposition turns to public strikes. With violence against the public expected to continue unabated and Ahmadinejad's plan to cut subsidies, translating to more economic misery, the regime could add to the attraction of this backbreaking scenario.
More than ever, the future of this regime hinges on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He can save his regime and keep it in its current form if he learns from his recent mistakes and modifies the way his forces and government reach out to the public. Failure to readjust could turn out to be a very costly mistake. let's hope he doesn't learn a thing This article was originally written for The Tehran Bureau, a partnership with PBS Frontline, at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau.>
via jpost.com
In Washington, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman failed to persuadePresident Barack Obama to drop objections to Hizbullah's rearming, and instead "exert further pressure" on Israel to withdraw from disputed areas along its border with Lebanon. Suleiman acted "more like the Syrian ambassador than the Lebanese president," observed Farid Ghadry, the Washington-based head of the Reform Party of Syria.
Obama publicly told Suleiman he should enforce UN Resolution 1701 by disarming Hizbullah and halting its "extensive" arms smuggling, which poses "a threat to Israel." Suleiman disagreed, insisting that part of the resolution no longer applies to the militant group because it is a legitimate political party and part of Lebanon's government, which has authorized it to retain its weapons. The real threat, he told Obama, is from Israel.
