A letter from the Iranian government appearing on opposition web sites orders the media to refrain from reporting on two defeated presidential candidates, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, as well as former President Mohammad Khatami. -db The New York Times August 25, 2010 By William Yong and Robert F. Worth TEHRAN — In a further clampdown [...]

Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former president Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government’s grip over the remaining news outlets.



Iran - Mohammad Khatami - Middle East - Government - Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Reports: Iran bars local coverage of opposition DUBAI, United Arab Emirates ? Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government’s grip over the remaining news outlets. The document, which has appeared this week on pro-reform websites, requires Iranian newspapers and ... Read this article on Gaea Times at : Iranian media banned from coverage of opposition leaders, says pro-reform websites.

Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government's grip over the remaining news outlets.

Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government's grip over the remaining news outlets.



Iran - Mohammad Khatami - Middle East - President of the United States - Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government's grip over the remaining news outlets.



Iran - Mohammad Khatami - Middle East - President of the United States - Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government's grip over the remaining news outlets.

Some time ago in April 2006, in what it seems were different times, then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw remarked that a preemptive nuclear attack on Iran over its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons under the cloak of a nuclear energy program was “completely nuts”. That remark is widely regarded as the final ‘straw’ that facilitated his removal in a later cabinet reshuffle at the insistence of the Bush administration. Yet, it was a rare moment of honesty and wisdom from an experienced member of the foreign policy elite. Straw had driven a negotiation round with Iran outside of the realm of the Bush administration and in doing so championed an alternative to the polarized positions that had come to characterise the Iranian-American standoff on the Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

Such diplomatic gestures, though well intentioned, will fail in the future as they have in the past and are continuing to do so in the present. Why? Because Iran has its sights set on gaining full mastery of the nuclear cycle, not on a deal (no matter how generous it seems) involving a compromise over enriched uranium from a third party nor anything other than full independence in the nuclear process.

Iran has continually played the compromise game in a characteristic brinkmanship strategy to scatter attention and play for time, before withdrawing and continuing on its pre-ordained path. Negotiators therefore proceed, and have proceeded, with the false assumption that Iran wishes to negotiate. 

Similarly, the posture of the Bush administration (and the bulk of the international community) made it continually clear that there was no compromise on its insistence that Iran must not possess full, independent mastery over the nuclear cycle. When both sides begin a negotiation process with incompatible demands, and proceed to maintain those incompatibilities, either a conflict or a reappraisal of position from one or both parties is the inevitable eventuality. In this case, America, Israel and the international community must learn to live with a nuclear Iran, as the alternative – attacking it to remove its nuclear program – is much less palatable.

The quest to find a mutually acceptable way for the international community, most vocally America, to tolerate the reality of the Iran having a nuclear programme dates back to 2003 when the EU-3 (Britain, Germany and France) collectively pursued a diplomatic solution to the issue. Faced with American insistence that the Iran was not to be trusted with enriching uranium due to the possibility that this could be used to build nuclear weapons, and the general climate internationally considering the Bush doctrine and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there were genuine concerns that a major regional incident would unfold including a possible preventive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by either Israel, America or both in tandem. After all, this had happened before in 1981 when Israel secretly bombed a French-built Iraqi nuclear plant over fears that Iraq might use it for a nuclear weapons program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s arrival as Iranian president in 2005 presented a major problem for the negotiation process. The overt international mistrust in Iran and its intentions, developed over 25 years of witnessing rogue behaviour and state support for terrorism, had been downplayed (though certainly not forgotten) during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. Ahmadinejad’s arrival coincided with a resurgence in suspicion of Iran due chiefly to the belligerent posture of the new president and his government. His actions provoke opposition often by default, particularly regarding the perceived ‘personality’ of Iran internationally, in much the same way as President George W Bush did of America amongst nations opposed to his foreign policy posture as he polarised friends and allies alike. The result of this dynamic has been to reinforce stereotypical attitudes and fears over Iran’s character that had somewhat abated, or were at the very least open to interpretation, during Khatami’s presidency. One example that can be attributed to Ahmadinejad personally is the resurgence of an openly hostile position towards Israel together with overt holocaust revisionism, harking back to the mantra of the revolutionary father of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini.

The EU-3 process failed to reach a conclusive deal, though it did have some success in stalling the Iranian programme and providing time for a future deal to be worked out. A change of administration in America, together with a highly publicised promise delivered personally by the president via video message to ‘reach out a hand’ to Iran, brought America into direct involvement in the successor P5+1 negotiations which included the original EU-3, China, Russia and America. This was a landmark considering that there have been no direct official negotiations between America and Iran for almost 30 years. Despite this, no deal with any realistic chance of long term success looks likely to be made. 

Why? The international order as we have come to know it and the Islamic Republic of Iran are incompatible. This is the inescapable fact of international politics that no sugar coating or talk of potential reformist leadership in Iran can mask. Iran will continue to enrich uranium, and continue to generally do what it likes in spite of international diplomatic rambling, much as it has done since 1979. It is not impossible that some deal will be fashioned, but if so, it is highly unlikely that it will serve as anything more than another stalling move in a larger political game by Iran in which all roads lead, and always have led, to full and independent mastery of the nuclear cycle.

Ahmadinejad recently noted that America under President Obama had not changed from the America of George W Bush in its foreign policy as applied to the middle east. Obama has stalled on closing Guantanamo Bay despite promising to do so, has not altered the American refusal to countenance a truly independent Iranian ‘civilian’ nuclear program, and he has not changed course in Afghanistan or Iraq. Similarly, support for Israel, the frequent demon in Iranian domestic discourse regarding America, has been retained (though with some qualifications). The friendly appearance and conciliatory rhetoric of the Obama administration, the Nobel Peace Prize award, and its refusal to use the term ‘war on terror’, do not detract from the reality that regarding foreign policy towards the middle east, nothing of substance has indeed changed. The fact that arguably the world’s most notorious ‘elected’ statesman has pointed towards this elephant in the room does not mean that it should be ignored. America may have not changed much recently as Ahmadinejad laments; but then again, neither has Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran owes its existence to its identity as a reaction against the western way of life and of doing business. To come to a conciliation with the international community, spearheaded by the American insistence that Iran must never have full mastery of the nuclear cycle is in essence dismantling the foundations and the pride of the regime. From its inception it was a lone actor, surviving in spite of the uproar within the international community over the 1979 hostage crisis and a gruelling war with Iraq, which it did not start. In short, it has a siege mentality soldered into its psyche. 

Iran has always been a nation that despite different manifestations in its internal shape and character has aspired to a greater stature internationally, or at the very least regional predominance. For example, the Shah of Iran whose rule was brought to an end by the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran, had harboured grand designs for Iran as the premier nation of the middle east and the Persian Gulf from early in his reign. This vision, although resisted by Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy was shared by later American administrations, particularly the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations which generously armed Iran with advanced weaponry and aircraft in the mid-1970s at levels dwarfing its regional peers, including Israel, to enable it to transition from a client state to a security exporter. The current regime is in this sense, no different to the Shah, with the significant caveat that the regional and global role Iran was to play under the Shah was largely in line with western desires, while the role envisioned of the Islamic Republic is perceived as deeply antagonistic at best.

Put simply, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not consider itself the pariah state the international community, especially America, sees it as. It views itself as an ambassador for a non-western way of life, free of a perceived American global hegemony. It additionally is imbued with an incredibly adversarial and over-simplified view of the world, especially of America and Israel, another legacy of Khomeini, in which everything tends to be reduced to notions of good and evil.

Fast forward to the present day, supposedly a new era in international politics, inspired by a multilateral and diplomatic American administration, led by a man who appears in every sense to be the opposite of George W Bush, Barack Obama. The problem of course is, Iran. That ever present thorn on so many a president’s foot, is in danger of revealing Obama as another thinly veiled president of ‘more of the same’ when it comes to foreign policy. It is an often observed trend in international politics, particularly American politics, that foreign policy rarely changes. Rather it slowly evolves. President Truman famously declared that he saw foreign policy as residing above the partisan divide. In American politics and the politics of national security, his words have indeed proven largely accurate, and Iran is a valid case to that effect.

Obama has inherited a foreign policy momentum in the middle east that he has chosen to see through, rather than halt. There have been changes in language and posture, such as the careful jettisoning of the term ‘war on terror’, yet the general thrust of the Bush legacy in the region remains intact. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Iran case. It was highly doubtful even to the most faithful in the change camp that Obama would drastically re-appraise the Iraq and Afghanistan situations due to the fact that the situation on the ground in both theatres was far from ‘mission accomplished’, and in any case Congress seems to be doing that for him as its revisionism increases and its fiscal reticence increases. But in the case of Iran, Obama made visible signs that he was prepared to listen, to ‘reach out a hand’, towards Iran. This constituted a clear and incontrovertible gesture toward a 180 degree turn in policy. This was a rare occurrence, which will certainly go down in history as an early sign of naiveté and perhaps of arrogance.

As Iran marches on with its nuclear program, with any possibility of domestic revisionism dying when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ‘triumphed’ in the allegedly rigged election of 2009, Obama has reverted to the familiar constant left in place prior to his arrival in the Whitehouse of keeping the option to attack Iran ‘on the table’, as confirmed recently by a high level official. It begs the question of what exactly Obama expected the Iranian leadership to talk to him about when he reached out his hand? After all, he has always maintained the precondition that Iran must negotiate on its nuclear program (a Bush leftover). Yet, it is clear that this insistence is the very factor that has rallied Iran, in another episode in its now famous belligerence towards America.

Iran will never negotiate on the independence of its nuclear program, something that pre-dates Ahmadinejad’s reign and has been a steady goal of the regime. What is less widely known is that whilst Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, was talking of embracing the west in a ‘dialogue of civilisations’ and appearing to be a reformist character, Iran was engaged in a full-scale, clandestine nuclear program that reached as far back as the 1980s. With that in mind, it is worth noting that nuclear proliferation is an all around winner when viewed within the distorted logic of middle eastern politics. Firstly it provides much needed deterrence from attack from a nuclear-armed Israel and from the ‘Great Satan’ itself, America. Secondly, it provides additional strength for the faltering clerical regime, focusing the domestic discourse on the embattled and besieged nation of Iran and redirecting sympathy and loyalty to the leadership. It is via a combination of these two factors that the solution-less and reciprocal logic of the entire situation becomes clear. In this case, change rather than continuity is looking increasingly unlikely in Washington despite the supposed presence of ‘change’ in the White House itself.

The stark truth is that the international community, and America, simply must accept Iran’s nuclear program. This is not a desirable admission, nor is it a triumph for anyone, including the Iranians themselves who would presumably more happily receive the funds spent on their own faltering economy and increasingly dire social situation. Yet, it must be seen within the deterrence paradigm, and as such, no realistic threat to anyone. If we are to accept that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a rational actor wishing to survive and prosper, then we must accept that it is fully aware that using its nuclear arsenal or placing a bomb into the hands of a terrorist group such as Hezbollah or Hamas would be national suicide at worst and suicide for the regime itself at best. Its alleged proliferation is therefore a non-issue outside of standard international concerns when a country goes nuclear. 

The alternative, when viewed through the increasingly Bush-like Obama (when it comes to Iran) is to attack Iran and open up pandora’s box in the middle east. Something that is potentially so toxic that talk of World War III is surely not an exaggeration. Israel must continue to be restrained from launching an offensive against Iran, for the same reasons. Additionally, attacking Iran would put the domestic reform movement in Iran back twenty years as it would embolden support for the regime as the Iran-Iraq war did, as nationalism frequently trumps politics.

There is simply no middle ground to tread. Talk of containment and sanctions is unhelpful and tiresome in this case. Iran has been dealt every card in the containment deck short of direct force for over thirty years, and has prevailed intact, somehow. A middle ground cannot be possible when both sides insist on mutually exclusive postulates.

Iran is a rogue state in every sense of the word, but its history proves that it is also a rational actor in international politics. It must also be stated for factual purposes that neither the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor the Shah’s Iran before it ever attacked another nation. Consequently, there are only two options on the table: either to continue strangling Iran from a distance, standing tall and hoping that its internal organic political movement will enlighten or revolutionise the stale, corrupt clerical regime or, secondly, initiate the end of the Iranian nuclear program by force (most probably outside the bounds of international law). This option involves unleashing potential hell on the region that would make the current fallout from the war on terror look like a picnic. One would hope that the American military is genuinely too fatigued (or perhaps too sensible?) to genuinely push for such a mission, the Obama administration has learned the lessons of miscalculation and arrogance in foreign policy from its predecessor, and that the Israelis don’t take the initiative and do something they will regret as recent news reports suggest they are considering at a high level of urgency.

Therefore, in every sense of the word and for every sensible reason ‘on the table’, attacking Iran in any sense, at any time, remains completely nuts.

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Iran and the United States: time to engage

 

Obama's New Map

As he assumes leadership of this freaked-out world, the success of our new president's foreign policy — and presidency — will depend on the thinking he does inside the box.

By Thomas P.M. Barnett

Esquire, March 2009, pp. 53-54.

For roughly the past quarter century, America has run the world using the following two levers: its massive consumption rate and its willingness to deploy military forces around the planet. Together these two drivers facilitated the rise of many new great powers by enabling their export-fueled growth and obviating any need for them to engage in distracting military buildups or overseas interventions.

That U. S. grand strategy has essentially run its course, having proven both amazingly successful (the death of great-power war in East Asia) and extremely exhausting (our crippling debt overhang).

As President Obama renegotiates America's role in this world that we created, four potential flash-cum-bang points stand out for the year ahead.

Flash Point No. 1

First, and most obviously, is the second global economic summit in April to deal with the world's ongoing financial crisis. With the EU and Japan accompanying us into recession and our economy unlikely to turn any corner until early 2010, China's Keynesian role as globalization's "spend to save" stimulant is of critical importance, meaning that China today plays the same role vis-à-vis America that we played to imperial Great Britain at the end of World War II: The imperial power needs a bailout, and the rising power has the cash. As a rule, the price for such cooperation is steep — to wit, America got to call most of the shots in the resulting Bretton Woods financial order.

So what does China want? It wants to graduate from the kiddie table that is the expanded G20 crew of emerging economies and gain a seat at the more exclusive G8, where actual heads of state meet. If Obama is serious about his "team of rivals" philosophy, he'd do well to acquiesce, even to the point of permanently expanding the G8 to include the adjunct dozen.

But here's the tough compromise that may hold up this much-needed expansion: The EU seems determined to get some sort of global securities-and-exchange commission to regulate intermarket financial flows in the future — in effect, viewing the current global crash as Washington once did Wall Street's 1929 collapse. As far as emerging markets are concerned, that's going to feel suspiciously constraining; having just achieved some wealth, the rising East and South now face the West's desire to regulate crucial investment flows so as to smooth out an inevitable global business cycle. Which is like wanting to go all the way on the first date — that trust simply does not yet exist in the system.

Obama's balancing act here is difficult. No one wants to derail the emergence of a global middle class, the bulk of which will be found overwhelmingly in emerging markets in coming years, but globalization's periodic panics have clearly grown more frequent and more volatile. Obama must ask China to grow up very fast and assume a lot more leadership (read: exposure to monetary risk), meaning his "fair trade" agenda must inevitably yield to Beijing's definition — and, by extension, New Delhi's and Brasília's — of a fair deal for its still-impoverished masses.

Flash Point No. 2

Flash point No. 2 will be the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, which took on more urgency after Pakistani militants tried to trigger a diversionary war with India by launching the frighteningly effective mini-invasion of downtown Mumbai.

Washington's national-security community is wrapping up a comprehensive strategy review, much like it did on Iraq a couple of years ago, and this time the logic of regionalizing the solution damn well better prevail. If the Obama administration displays an inkling of Bush-Cheney's Great Gamesmanship, then say goodbye to the "good war," because the Hindu Kush is where bankrupt empires go for slaughter.

If Obama is smart enough to socialize the problem beyond NATO (because it's truly beyond NATO in every sense of the word), then we're into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's roster of member states and observers. You know that old bit about crazy in your bedroom versus crazy on my front lawn? Well, this is their front lawn.

Besides India's hard-earned seat at the table, China must be included in some high-viz capacity (Britain's PM Gordon Brown recently floated the notion of Chinese peacekeepers joining the fray) and so must nuclear bad-boy Iran (more on that below). Hell, we should also rehabilitate the Russians, if Obama is clever enough to exploit the situation to defuse recent tensions over Moscow's August smackdown of Georgia.

Remember: This insolvent Leviathan needs some immediate credit-default swaps (what we called "burden sharing" in the Before Time) in both the financial and security realms, so don't be surprised to see both great-power dances (the mega-stimulus package and the new military strategy) either succeed or fail in concert. The era of "separate lanes" is over in American grand strategy.

Flash Points No. 3 and 4

The next two potential flash points are equally intertwined: No. 3, the presidential election in Iran, and No. 4, the question of Obama's follow-through on Bush's August deal to deploy missile-defense facilities in Eastern Europe — ostensibly to protect NATO from Iranian missiles. (Feeling out of the loop on ancient Polish-Persian hatred? You're not alone.)

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad manages to win reelection (and yes, Israel's Gaza adventure strengthens his hand), it'll signal that the Supreme Leader isn't looking for any "Nixon goes to China" overtures to rescue its moribund economy with Western investments and technology. Such a dead end would complicate any future U. S. cooperation with India and China on either global finance or Afghani-Pakistan, because both states need long-term access to Iran's energy as their own domestic demand grows. It would also make it near impossible for Obama to finesse the missile-shield issue (i.e., indefinitely delayed until "further testing"), thus further antagonizing Moscow when Putin's already in a pissy mood and looking to test our young leader.

If Ahmadinejad is toppled by either the moderate former president Mohammad Khatami or the technocratic Tehran mayor, Mohammad Qalibaf, then Iran is definitely back in play, giving Obama plenty more wiggle room elsewhere, but only if he and Hillary Clinton can keep a lid on Israel's hard-line factions, which seem intent on taking out Iran's nuclear facilities preemptively. (Such strikes won't succeed, but they would trigger Iran's hard-line retrenchment, no matter which candidate prevails.) To that end, when the Obama camp coolly floats the notion of extending America's nuclear umbrella over Israel and — implicitly — any friendly neighboring Arab state that desires it, the former junior senator from Illinois is breaking out the big-boy voice of the world's sole military superpower.

That's the cluster of strategic issues that either facilitates or foils Obama's first year as leader of the freaked-out world. Everything else waits on this unscrambled Rubik's Cube, unless Kim Jong Il decides that he's so lonely that he wants to pop off another nuke to get back on Washington's radar.

And in the end, everything depends on how many new frenemies Obama is willing to add to his great-power Facebook. If our new president decides that America is still stuck with the same old friends we've always had, then he will quickly find himself as boxed in as George W. Bush was at the end of his second term and as impotent as Jimmy Carter was at the end of his only term.

The worst thing Obama can do coming out of the gate is attempt to demonize any of these rising powers with doofus labels (e.g., axis of evil/diesel, league of autocracies) or to simultaneously "contain" all their regional ambitions. Trust me, if they're not a significant part of the solution, they'll invariably constitute the insoluble heart of the problem.

Thomas P. M. Barnett is a contributing editor and best-selling author whose new book, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush (G. P. Putnam's Sons), is being published this month. 

Abdollah Nouri, the former interior minister during Mohammad Khatami's administration, in an Iftar ceremony hosted a great number of Green leaders and activist, reformists as well as senior and well-known political activists and intellectuals.

0955 GMT: Truce Over? So what is happening less than 48 hours after President Ahmadinejad and Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani supposedly reconciled with. ... In the continuing tale of how Iranian authorities are trying to shut down news, The Guardian of London follows up yesterday's revelations that the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has issued an order to newspapers to avoid all mention and images of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami: ...

Security officials have considerations about publishing news, photos and speeches of Mr Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami, therefore according to the clause 2 of the article 5 of the press code publishing news, ...

 

Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, And, Oh Yeah, Create a Future Worth Living

by Thomas P.M. Barnett

 

Esquire, February 2005, pp. 90-93-128-29.

 

So you say you have no concern for your legacy. That some historian eighty years from now will figure out if you were a good president or not. Fair enough, but let's review so far. Your big-bang strategy to reform the Middle East took down Saddam, which was good; you've completely screwed up the Iraq occupation, which is bad; and now you don't seem to know exactly where you're going, which is not so great. This brings me to the bad news. The two players with the greatest potential for hog-tying your second term and derailing your big-bang strategy don't even live in the Middle East. Instead, they're located on little islands of unreality much like Washington, D. C.: Taiwan and North Korea. When either Taipei or Pyongyang decide to sneeze, it's gonna be your legacy that catches a cold, and here's why: Either country can effectively pull all your attention away from the Middle East while simultaneously torpedoing the most important strategic relationship America has right now. Yeah, I'm talking about China, a country your old man knows a thing or two about (hint, hint), even if the neocons don't have a clue. Your posse rode into town four years ago convinced that China was the rising military threat to America, only to be proven wrong by bin Laden on 9/11. Enough said.

3 SIMPLE STEPS: Iran, you can have the bomb, but you must recognize Israel. Next, China. Let's be partners. Sorry, Taiwan, the defense guarantee's got to go. We've got bigger fish to fry. Namely, Kim Jong Il.

What I'm here to tell you is this: You can achieve the fabled Middle East peace, but only if you lay down an effective fire wall between that region and the two potential flash points that can still ignite East Asia and send this whole global economy up in flames in a heartbeat. China is the baby you can't throw out with the bathwater you've dubbed the "global war on terrorism." You lose China, you might just kill globalization, and if that happens, it won't be just a matter of what historians write eighty years from now; you'll spend the rest of your days wondering why the world thinks you personally destroyed the planet's best hope for ending war as we know it.

So here's the package you need to pursue: Co-opt Iran, lock in China, and take down North Korea. Let's get started, shall we?

Nixon Goes to Tehran

WORK WITH ME ON THIS ONE. Iran getting the bomb could be the best thing that's ever happened to the Middle East peace process.

Whoa! Don't put down the magazine before I've had a chance to explain.

Iran is the one country standing between you and peace in the Middle East. You can't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without its say-so, because the mullahs are the biggest potential spoilers in the region. They fund the terrorist groups that can effectively veto peace efforts in both Jerusalem and Baghdad. Iran is the one regional power that can still menace the Gulf militarily. Everyone else there operates in Tehran's shadow.

You and I both know Nixon would have inevitably headed to Tehran by now, absent 9/11 and your subsequent Axis of Evil speech. The Shiite revolution is a spent force in that country, whose sullen majority pretends to obey the mullahs while they pretend to rule over a very young population that's frighteningly ambitious for a better life. We're looking at a very late-Brezhnev-type situation here, with the Gorby already on the scene in the person of reformist president Mohammad Khatami. His version of perestroika took one step forward and then ten steps back once we lumped him in with Saddam and Kim, but even though his preferred course of treatment is on hiatus, the political diagnosis remains the same for Iran.

I know, I know. If the mullahs are so weak and scared, then why do they reach so obviously for the bomb?

Look at it from their perspective, Mr. President. Those scary neocons just toppled regimes to Iran's right (Afghanistan) and left (Iraq), and our military pulled off both takedowns with ease. Moreover, your administration has demonstrated beyond all doubt that you don't fear leaving behind a god-awful mess in your war machine's wake. Frankly, you're as scary as Nixon was in his spookiest White House moments on Vietnam. All I'm saying is now's the time to cash in on that reputation with Iran.

And don't tell me we can't do that rapprochement thing with a hostile regime that supports international terrorism. If we could do it with the Evil Empire back in 1973, we can do it with the Axis of Evil's number two today.

Our offer should be both simple and bold. I would send James Baker, our last good secretary of state, to Tehran as your special envoy with the following message: "We know you're getting the bomb, and we know there isn't much we can do about it right now unless we're willing to go up-tempo right up the gut. But frankly, there's other fish we want to fry, so here's the deal: You can have the bomb, and we'll take you off the Axis of Evil list, plus we'll re-establish diplomatic ties and open up trade. But in exchange, not only will you bail us out on Iraq first and foremost by ending your support of the insurgency, you'll also cut off your sponsorship of Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli terrorist groups, help us bully Syria out of Lebanon, finally recognize Israel, and join us in guaranteeing the deal on a permanent Palestinian state. You want to be recognized as the regional player of note. We're prepared to do that. But that's the price tag. Pay it now or get ready to rumble."

This is a win-win for everybody. The ruling mullahs desire survival most of all, and once Iran opens up economically, its people will stop blaming them for all that's wrong with the country because they'll be too busy taking advantage of all that opportunity. Israel wins because Tel Aviv finally gets someone on the Muslim side who is big enough and scary enough to sit down with the "Little Devil" as a real nuclear equal but still willing to guarantee Israel's existence. I know, it might seem insane to Israel (especially the Likud party), but mutually assured destruction really works and, frankly, Mr. President, now's the time to use some of that political capital you've built up with Ariel Sharon.

No doubt some neocons will try to sell you on a military option in Iran, but don't pull that thread under any circumstances, because if you do, you'll find yourself having to go medieval across an "arc of crisis" stretching from Riyadh to Islamabad, and nobody's got cojones that big. Trust me, Afghanistan and Iraq alone are enough to tap Central Command and Special Operations Command.

I'm also aware that there are plenty of regional experts who'll tell you we've got to do this or that with Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but, frankly, neither of those regimes has shown the ability to do squat when it comes to forging a lasting Middle East peace. Iran's the key. Squeeze it now while it's scared--and while Arafat's still dead. America has played bad cop long enough with Iran. For crying out loud, Iranians are the only people in the Middle East who actually like us!

What's more, Iran is the gateway for bringing both India and China into the mix. Both countries have recently cut huge oil and gas deals with Tehran. You know you want India and China to feel secure about their energy flow, and you know Iran's simply too big a player on both counts for either country to pass up. Plus, India considers itself both a major Gulf security player and Iran's natural mentor, while China's emerging alliance with Tehran (not to mention its ties with Pakistan) should be exploited for all it's worth. New Dehli and Beijing want to stabilize the Islamic arc of crisis as much as you do.

If detente with Iran secures Iraq to the south, then it's clear whomwe need to romance in the north on the issue of the Kurds--Tur-key. Yes, the role of the Kurds in Turkey is a long and complex tale, but who the hell else is going to step up to the plate on that one?

The price tag is not hard to dream up. You twist some arms in the European Union until they either fall off or Turkey's admission gets fast-tracked. If NATO won't come to our rescue in the Sunni triangle, it's the least Old Europe can do.

Speaking of the triangle, that stinker's going to remain ours for the long term, but with Israel and Palestine off the table and real cooperation from both Iran and Syria in clamping down on all those jihadists with a one-way ticket to paradise, we'll extinguish the dream of the Saddam Baathists who are still fighting hard by effectively killing Iraq as a unitary state. Eventually, Iraq's Sunni population will realize that it can either become the recognized master of the triangle and nothing else (the same narrowing solution we forced on the Serbs in the Balkans), or it can choose to live in the region's new West Bank, surviving on intifada for the rest of its days.

Lock in China at Today's Prices

TO UNDERSTAND CHINA TODAY, you have to remember what it was like for the United States back in the early years of the twentieth century. Here we were, this burgeoning economic powerhouse with a rising yet still relatively small military package, and all the old-school powers worried about us as an up-and-coming threat. While the European form of globalization predominated at that time, our upstart version ("We don't need no stinkin' empire!") would come to dominate the landscape by the century's midpoint, primarily because Europe decided to self-destruct all its empires via two "world" wars that in retrospect look like the European Union's versions of the American Civil War.

China is the United States of the early twenty-first century: rising like crazy, but not really a threat to anyone except small island nations off its coast. (God, I miss T. R. and the Rough Riders.) Hu Jintao, China's current president and party boss of the country's fourth generation of leaders, has tried to calm global fears by proposing his theory of Peacefully Rising China, a tune that, frankly, none of the Pentagon's hardcore neocons can carry.

Why? The far Right is still gunning for China, and precious Taiwan is its San Juan Hill. Nixon burned Taiwan's ass back in the early seventies when he effectively switched official recognition from Taipei to the mainland, so the price it demanded was the continued "defense guarantee" that said we'd always arm Taiwan to the teeth and rush to its rescue whenever China unleashed its million-man swim of an invasion.

That promise is still on the books, like some blue law from a bygone era. Does anyone seriously think we'd sacrifice tens of thousands of American troops to stop China from reabsorbing Taiwan?

I know, I know. China's still "communist" (like I still have a full head of hair if the lighting's just so), whereas Taiwan is a lonely bastion of democracy in an otherwise . . . uh . . . increasingly democratic Asia. So even though the rest of Asia, including Japan, is being rapidly sucked into China's economic undertow (as "running dogs of capitalism" go, China's a greyhound), somehow the sacredness of Taiwan's self-perceived "independence" from China is worth torching the global economy over? Does that strike anybody as slightly nuts?

Here's the weirdest part: China's been clearly signaling for years that it's perfectly willing to accept the status quo, basically guaranteeing Taiwan's continued existence, so long as Taipei's government maintains the appearance of remaining open to the possibility of rejoining the mainland someday.

Now I know people say you don't read books, Mr. President, but being a Southerner, you know something about the Civil War. Imagine if Jefferson Davis and the leftovers of the Confederacy had slipped away to Cuba in 1865 to set up their alternative, nose-thumbing version of America on that island. Then fast-forward to, say, 1905 and imagine how much the U. S. would have tolerated some distant, imperial power like England telling us what we could or could not do vis-a-vis this loser sitting just off our shore. Imagine where old Teddy Roosevelt would have told the Brits they could shove their defense guarantee.

My point is this: In a generation's time, China will dominate the global economy just as much as the United States does today. (Don't worry, we'll be co-dominatrices.) The only way to stop that is to kill this era's version of globalization--something I worry about those neocons actually being stupid enough to do as part of their fanciful pursuit of global "hegemony." That nasty, far poorer future is not the one I want to leave behind for my kids, and I expect you feel the same about yours. China won't go down alone; it'll take most of the advanced global economy with it. So on this one, let's go with those vaunted American interests I keep hearing about and look out for number one.

This may seem a back-burner issue, but there's credible talk of Taipei doing something provocative like adding the word Taiwan in parentheses behind its official name, the Republic of China. That may not seem like much to us, but Beijing's reluctant hand may be forced by this act. Seems crazy, doesn't it?

Again, how much of the global economy--how many American lives--are you prepared to sacrifice on your watch just so Taiwan can rejoice in this moment of self-actualization?

I vote for zero. Zip. Nada.

Take America's defense guarantee to Taiwan off the table and do it now, before some irrational politician in Taipei decides he's ready to start a war between two nuclear powers. Trust me, you'd be doing Taiwan a favor, because it's my guess that our defense guarantee would evaporate the moment any Taiwan Straits crisis actually boiled over, leaving Taipei severely embarrassed and Beijing feeling excessively emboldened.

Let's lock in a strategic alliance with rising China at today's prices, because it's got nowhere to go but up over the coming years. Buying into this relationship now is like stealing Alaska from the czars for pennies on the dollar; it'll never be this cheap again.

More to the point, preemptively declaring a permanent truce in the Taiwan Straits is the quid we offer for Beijing's quo in the solution set that really matters in East Asia today: the reunification of Korea following Kim Jong Il's removal from power.

Kill Kim: Volumes 1, 2 & 3

NOW WE GET TO THE GOOD PART. The Koreas issue is the tailbone of the cold war: completely useless, but it can still plunge you into a world of pain if middle-aged Asia slips and falls on it. North Korea is the evil twin, separated at birth, and yet, because it's still joined at the hip with its sibling, its better half grows ever more irrationally distraught as time passes, contemplating the inevitable invasive surgery that lies ahead.

So while it might seem at first glance like a job for Team America: World Police, you'll want something less South Park in its comic simplicity and a little more

Tarantinoesque in its B-movie grandeur. That's right, we need a Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to make Kim an offer he can't refuse.

Kim Jong Il's checked all the boxes: He'll sell or buy any weapons of mass destruction he can get his hands on, he's engaged in bizarre acts of terrorism against South Korea, and he maintains his amazingly cruel regime through the wholesale export of both narcotics and counterfeit American currency. Is he crazy? He once kidnapped two of South Korea's biggest movie stars and held them hostage in his own personal DreamWorks studio. But if that doesn't do it for you, then try this one on for size: The Kim-induced famine of the late 1990s killed as many as two million North Koreans. If that doesn't get you a war-crimes trial in this day and age, then what the hell will?

Here's the squad we need to assemble: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, plus Russia.

You just shook hands with China over Taiwan. Japan's there because both China and America are on the team and because it's got the most cash to finance the reconstruction. The Aussies and Kiwis are invited out of respect for their longtime security role in Asia, and the Russians are in because they might just run a pipeline to Japan through the Korean peninsula when it's all said and done. As for the wobbly South Koreans, just smack 'em upside the head and tell them it's strictly business--nothing personal.

Those are the Seven Samurai that walk into Kim Jong Il's palace and offer him three possible endings to this thriller: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Version #1 (Good) is the Baby Doc Duvalier package. Keep your money, keep your women, keep your entourage, keep it all . . . just somewhere else. China can offer Kim a fabulous forbidden city somewhere in Inner Mongolia. Hell, promise this Cecil B. Demented a five-picture deal and tell him Steven Spielberg wants to do lunch.

If he doesn't bite on that one, then show Kim Version #2 (Bad). He goes on trial in the Hague for years on end, paraded around like the freak job he is, and once he's thoroughly stripped of what passes for his "majesty," we'll let him rot in a jail cell for the rest of his days.

Version #3 (Ugly) is delivered sotto voce. Just have Paul Wolfowitz show Kim the "six-month reconstruction plan" the Pentagon neocons drew up for the postwar occupation. If he thinks you're bluffing, then instruct Wolfie to slip him some of those morgue shots of Uday and Qusay looking all stitched up like a pair of Frankensteins. Kim'll get the hint. Your administration has proven that you're willing to wage war with almost no concern for the resulting VIP body count, the subsequently incompetent occupation, or the inevitable political uproar back home. I say when you've got it, flaunt it.

If it comes to trigger-pulling, can we pull it off? You know we can, and even here we've got a choice between the stripped-down package (i.e., just kill Kim) and the tricked-up models (e.g., smash-and-grab WMD, decapitating command-and-control, pounding ground forces). North Korea's military will prove less brittle than Saddam's Republican Guard but hardly invulnerable. Plus, on this one the local players will provide plenty of boots on the ground (South Korea, China) and humanitarian aid (Japan) just to prevent refugees from flooding across their borders. Moreover, Kim's slim power base sits atop a Mafia-like criminal empire that features the usual "honor" among thieves, so bribing his fellow kleptocrats with golden parachutes is quite feasible. Finally, the postconflict investment flow will be heavy on this one, because there will be no insurgency, no jihad, no nothing, just a gulag's worth of political prisoners to set free.

But the truth is, it probably won't come to that simply because both you and the neocons have such a scary reputation that you can likely stare down Lil' Kim, so long as you've got China glaring at him disapprovingly over your shoulder. You know China would just as soon jettison Kim because he's a genuine nut and he's terrible for property values. So what you really need to offer the Chinese on the far side is something truly useful, and that something is an Asian NATO. That's right: Kim's tombstone should mark the spot where a NATO-like security alliance for East Asia is born.

If you terminate Taiwan's defense guarantee in order to bring Beijing to Kim's table, then you offer to kill all your plans for missile defense to get the Chinese to pull the chair out from under him. Star Wars has been the single worst boondoggle in the history of the Pentagon--nearly $100 billion wasted and not even Tang to show for it. By securing America's military alliance with China, Japan, and Korea, you not only kill the concept of great-power war in Asia for good, you've just ended Osama bin Laden's bid to pit East against West.

That's it. And you've got about ten months to get it all rolling, with maybe another twenty months to wrap most of it up. By the summer of 2007, your presidency and all the power you wield right now will begin to be severely discounted by politicians both at home and abroad.

Mr. President, I know you're committed to following through on what you've set in motion in the Middle East, and I know you're hell-bent to prove all the eggheads wrong about the possibility of democracy taking root there--and I like your certitude on both points. You're the just-do-it president. You react from your gut more than either your heart or your brains, and you know what? You're as big a gift from history as 9/11's wake-up call turned out to be--and almost equally hard for many Americans to swallow.

You believe that America will defeat global terrorism only if it is willing to transform the Middle East in the process, and I agree. But just as we had to make peace with the Soviets before we could "tear down that wall," your administration will have to make peace with Iran's mullahs before we can begin dismantling the many walls that still isolate that insular region from the global economy and the mutually assured dependence that defines its long-term stability and peace. The road to lasting security in both Jerusalem and Baghdad starts in Tehran, and ultimately it must run through Beijing as well.

You lock down Asia by putting a leash on Taiwan, inviting China into the copilot seat and shoving Kim underground, and you'll not only free up America's military resources for more-urgent tasks in the Middle East, you'll create a sense of strategic despair in the minds of bin Laden and Zarqawi that they'll never be able to overcome. Their dream is to split up the advancing core of globalization and stop its creeping embrace of their idealized Islamic world, which they know will be forever altered by that integration process. Their best strategic hope in this conflict is that some hostile great power will rise in the East to challenge the American-led West. You lock in China today, Mr. President, and you will corner and kill transnational terrorism tomorrow.

And not that you care, Mr. President, but there's your legacy.

[The President then speaks of the opposition "within the system", describing Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami but not naming them.] GALLOWAY: Are they still inside the system? AHMADINEJAD: Almost in the system. ...

Kourosh Ziabari - It's more than 8 years that the world's newspapers are filled with miscellaneous news, reports and commentaries concerning Iran's nuclear program. Controversy over Iran's nuclear program has spanned through two administrations in Iran: ex-President Mohammad Khatami's government and the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. The term "Iran nuclear program" returns more than 6 million results in Google web search. Thousands of scholars, journalists, politicians and political pundits have made their own statement regarding this debatable subject.

Terminologically, Iran's nuclear program calls to mind the words holocaust, Israel, Zionism, Axis of Evil, George W. Bush, stretched hands and uranium enrichment. The world is watching the uninteresting continuation of confrontation over Iran's nuclear program and the opportunist journalists find this tedious charade the best subject to entertain their readers and enrich their portfolio.

Iran says that it needs enriched uranium to meet its energy demands and produce electricity. The United States and its European allies claim that Iran wants to produce nuclear weapons in order to launch a military strike against Israel. Israel, over the past 5 years, has been incessantly threatening Iran with a preemptive attack, warning that it would not allow Iran to achieve nuclear technology.

The United Nations Security Council, under the pressure of United States and its stalwart allies, has imposed 4 rounds of backbreaking financial sanctions against Iran to dissuade it from developing "nuclear weapons". Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the claims that they're moving towards developing nuclear weapons and called the sanctions ineffective, valueless.

The forthright politician has compared the treatment of protesters in his country to that of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
Read the exclusive Guardian interview with Mehdi Karroubi

Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of the Iranian parliament under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, came fourth in last summer's election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected president after a disputed vote.

Known for his directness, the 73-year-old infuriated hardliners by alleging that male and female protesters were raped by their jailers in the crackdown on mass protests after the election.

When one hardline cleric called for Karroubi to be prosecuted for making the claim, he went further, saying some detainees had been tortured to death and comparing the treatment of prisoners with that at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Born in 1937 in Aligoudarz, a town in western Lorestan province, in south-west Iran, Kerroubi has been a fixture in Iranian politics since the 1979 Islamic revolution. His father was a cleric, and he studied theology in Qom before becoming a supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the early 1960s.

After Khomeini was arrested in 1963 and sent into exile, Karroubi was active in distributing Khomeini's open letters to government officials and spreading his teachings to the people.

Between 1963 and 1977, Karroubi was arrested several times and spent years in jail, including stints at the notorious Qasr and Evin prisons in Tehran.

During the protests against the Shah in 1978 and 79, Karroubi was in charge of the local committees that distributed food to protesters and strikers. After the Shah's overthrow, Karroubi was elected to the Iranian parliament.

During last year's election, he won the support of many young voters for his willingess to challenge the status quo, speaking openly about the need to revise the constitution to make it more democratic.

The most vociferous opposition figure since the 2009 election, Karroubi has dismissed Ahmadinejad's government as illegitimate and illegal, and has attacked state media for their one-sided coverage of political developments.

Karroubi's wife, Fatemeh, comes from a wealthy family from Aligoudarz. She has been a social activist herself, involved in women's issues. They have four children, all boys.

Exclusive: Former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi tells Guardian US and British policy is a gift to Ahmadinejad regime
Profile: Mehdi Karroubi

Punitive international sanctions imposed on Iran have strengthened the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and assisted its post-election crackdown on the opposition Green movement, the leading reformist politician and former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi has told the Guardian.

In his first interview with a British newspaper since widespread unrest erupted after Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election as president last June, Karroubi blamed the US and Britain for adopting counterproductive policies to combat Iran's suspect nuclear programme, describing sanctions as a gift to the Iranian regime.

"These sanctions have given an excuse to the Iranian government to suppress the opposition by blaming them for the unstable situation of the country," Karroubi said in emailed responses to the Guardian's questions.

Karroubi, 73, a former speaker of the Majlis (Iranian parliament) under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, and a candidate in last year's election, said that isolating Iran would not bring democracy to the people.

"Look at Cuba and North Korea," he said. "Have sanctions brought democracy to their people? They have just made them more isolated and given them the opportunity to crack down on their opposition without bothering themselves about the international attention."

The UN security council agreed a new round of sanctions on Iran in June after the US and Britain, which believe Iran is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, obtained backing from Russia and China. The EU, and individual countries such as the US and Britain, subsequently imposed additional punitive measures.

The tougher action against Tehran followed Washington's rejection of a proposed deal, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, under which Iran would have handed over nearly half of its stock of low-enriched uranium in return for "safe" nuclear fuel supplies that could not be used in bomb-making.

Turkey and Brazil voted against the new UN sanctions, but today Brazil announced that it was reluctantly prepared to enforce them.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, who helped lead the protests following last summer's election, co-authored a public letter with Karroubi last week in which they condemned the sanctions while blaming Ahmadinejad's government for mishandling negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme.

"Sanctions have targeted the most vulnerable social classes of Iran including workers and farmers," the letter said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Karroubi said: "On the one hand, the government's mishandling of the economy has resulted in deep recession and increasing inflation inside the country, which has crippled the people of Iran and resulted in the closure of numerous factories. On the other hand, we have sanctions which are just strengthening the illegitimate government."

Karroubi, who was imprisoned before the Islamic revolution in 1979, said that despite widespread corruption, the Shah's regime treated its opponents less harshly than the current government, partly because the Shah was sensitive to international criticism.

"But because Iran is getting more isolated, more and more they [Ahmadinejad's government] are becoming indifferent to what the world is thinking about them," he said.

Last summer's unrest resulted in the killing, beating or arrest of hundreds of protesters who took to the streets convinced that Ahmadinejad, who is backed by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, had stolen the election.

Hopes that the regime would call a fresh vote or might even collapse under the weight of public anger dissipated in clouds of teargas, officially organised pro-government counter-demonstrations, and often brutal repression.

Since then Iranians have suffered a widening crackdown on dissent and an increase in human rights abuses.

Yesterday the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, issued an appeal to Iran to honour its international treaty obligations to respect the civil and human rights of its citizens. She expressed concern about the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery. In his interview with the Guardian, Karroubi condemned Ashtiani's sentence and said he was opposed to stoning in principle.

Karroubi said that since the election, his office has been sealed off and his newspaper, Etemad-e-Melli (the National Trust), closed down, while he was under informal house arrest. Wherever he went, he said, groups of government supporters, sometimes accompanied by plain-clothes basiji militiamen, followed him, placing whomever he met at risk of arrest.

Karroubi said he tried to keep up the opposition's political momentum by meeting Mousavi on a weekly basis, and they sometime issued statements together.

"In the last year, they [officials] have tried to suppress me in many ways," he said. "Once I was physically attacked, on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, and my son Ali was arrested and severely tortured.

"During a recent visit I had to Qazvin province, they went further in attacking me and opened fire on my car and later raided my house."

Ayatollah Khamenei, the ultimate authority in Iran, has never attacked him or Mousavi by name but always referred to them as "leaders of sedition", a term that is now used routinely to describe opposition leaders. Last month, during a visit to the holy city of Qom, Karroubi was greeted by government supporters shouting "western stooge".

Despite having to call off protests in the face of the government crackdown, Karroubi said he believed the Green movement has not been defeated.

"It's no longer possible for the opposition movement to pour out en masse into the streets ... But we also do not think it's necessary any more to do this," he said.

The Green movement's message had already reached the world, he said. "People were out in the streets to inform the world of what is really happening inside Iran, and they succeeded in doing so. Now the world knows what is the problem in Iran and what the opposition movement is seeking."

The fact that the regime was still arresting activists and mounting show trials were an indication that the Green movement was still very much alive.

Karroubi said he still believed in the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic but not the current ruling system. "I should make it clear that we are a reformist movement, not a revolutionary one ... We are seeking nothing more than a free election [in accordance with] the current constitution."

Asked about criticism that the opposition has no clear leader and sometimes appeared divided, Karroubi said: "In my opinion, it's an advantage that no specific person is the leader. I think that the only reason the Green movement has not been stopped yet is because it doesn't have one leader or unified leadership. If it had, then by arresting that leader they could have controlled the whole movement."

Reaching out to ordinary people inside Iran remained the opposition's biggest problem; any newspaper that mentioned the Green movement would be immediately closed down, he said. "We are not even allowed to publish a funeral announcement at the moment."

The Guardian

The Widening Rift Among Iran's Clerics International Herald Tribune In every presidential election since 1980, including those of the impeached Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and the reformist Mohammad Khatami, senior clergy in Iran ... Music fails to chime with Islamic values, says Iran's supreme leaderThe Guardian Teaching of Music Incompatible with Islam in IranNews By The Second (blog) all 40 news articles »

Kourosh Ziabari - Global Research: It's more than 8 years that the world's newspapers are filled with miscellaneous news, reports and commentaries concerning Iran's nuclear program. Controversy over Iran's nuclear program has spanned through two administrations in Iran: ex-President Mohammad Khatami's government and the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. The term "Iran nuclear program" returns more than 6 million results in Google web search. Thousands of scholars, journalists, politicians and political pundits have made their own statement regarding this debatable subject.

Terminologically, Iran's nuclear program calls to mind the words holocaust, Israel, Zionism, Axis of Evil, George W. Bush, stretched hands and uranium enrichment. The world is watching the uninteresting continuation of confrontation over Iran's nuclear program and the opportunist journalists find this tedious charade the best subject to entertain their readers and enrich their portfolio.

A summary of Monday's meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami, from Khatami's website via Payvand: stressed that 1) firm.

The United States of America has joined the United Nations group calling itself the "Alliance of Civilizations." President Obama joined this group, when former Pres. G.W. Bush refused to do so in 2006.

And Kalemeh clarifies our news yesterday that Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Karroubi, and Hassan Khomeini had all called Grand Ayatollah Sane'i in the aftermath of the attack on his house by regime ...

Tehran (AFP) June 16, 2010
Former president turned opposition backer Mohammad Khatami called Wednesday for Iranian unity against the UN sanctions, which he said were the latest "hostilities" against the Islamic republic.

"We must be united in the face of the animosity (sanctions) against us, otherwise how are we to stand against this animosity?" Khatami was quoted as saying on the reformist website Parlemannews.ir.

"These hostilities against Iran will only hurt the people and no one can accept these acts against Iran and the revolution."

But the cleric, who was president between 1997 and 2005, criticised government policies, which he said were resulting in "disintegration and empowering of the enemy."

"There is considerable pressure on Iran. The resolution adopted in the (UN) Security Council is targeted at our country at a time when not only no measure is taken against Isareli atrocities, there is also support for them."

He too insisted that Iran wanted a civilian nuclear programme.

A few days before the sanctions were imposed on June 9, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi also opposed them.

"Although we regard the current situation a result of mismanagement and adventurism in foreign policy, we cannot agree with sanctions which will affect people's lives," he said.

Former two-time president and opposition supporter Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani too called for unity a few days after the sanctions were imposed.

Khatami: They Want To Pass Fascism As Islam Wednesday, 16 June 2010 23:46 Written by Former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami condemned pro-gover...

If the current impasse is to be surmounted, Mousavi's Green movement must confront strategic and ideological weaknesses

A year has passed since Iran's rigged presidential election, which bestowed another four-year term upon hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the aftermath of that fateful day, the world's attention was focused on the largest mass protests Iran had ever witnessed – millions of people marching peacefully and bound together by the unifying chant of: "Where is my vote?"

There was a dark side to the story. One that is still unfolding despite the fact that attention has shifted towards the status and course of Iran's controversial nuclear program. It involves open repression and brutality undertaken by the security and revolutionary forces, above all the notorious basij militia, captured for all to see with the aid of a new generation of "citizen journalists"; Stalinist show-trials and phantasmal tales of "velvet revolution"; the death of an Iranian woman by the name of Neda, who has since been elevated to the status of an international icon; and allegations of rape and torture in Kahrizak and Evin prisons. There is also the arrest and detention of virtually the entire reformist elite, with the exception of former president Mohammad Khatami, and the two nominal heads of the Green movement, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, and the death of the Green movement's most senior clerical patron and a founding father of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri.

I witnessed the protests with my own eyes – it was undoubtedly one of the most incredible things I had ever seen or experienced. The protestors were calm, dignified, fraternal and generous, and came from all walks of life, not just the wealthy suburbs of northern Tehran. Those moments, in my humble view, attested to nothing short of the redemptive power of the human spirit. But those days are gone, swept away in a whirlwind of arrests, intimidation and executions.

The brute reality of state power had overwhelmed an opposition ill-equipped and incapable of mounting a crippling blow to the former's "iron fist" – sporadic and/or poorly co-ordinated street protests, chanting "God is great" from the rooftops, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, BBC Persian and Weblogestan were certainly effective in disseminating the presence and scattered demands of the Green movement, but were always going to be limited in their ability to provoke a fully fledged socio-political transformation; and even while the people's rage and ire has continued to bubble beneath the surface, the semblance of calm returned to the streets and the state has been in reasonable control.

For many, life has simply gone on, with the imperative of earning one's daily bread in a troubled economy taking precedence. So, while a definitive "legitimacy crisis" can be said to have taken place as the republican dimension of the Islamic Republic is tossed aside, the threat of arrest and violent retaliation has proven itself effective in the short term.

During this time a number of issues have come to the forefront, which can no longer be ignored:

The supreme leader is not, nor was he arguably ever, a neutral and apolitical arbiter of factional disputes – given that Iran is ultimately a theocracy, with only a subordinate and highly problematic "democratic" element, the role could never be understood as strictly "spiritual". The opposition's promise of constitutional amendments that would threaten his grip on power and the legally enshrined foundations of theocratic despotism could never be allowed to see the light of day.

A marriage of convenience between the supreme leader, the ninth government and a powerful arm of the revolutionary guards has decisively seized the reigns of power and is no longer content with the hitherto limited pluralism dividing up the political elite. It wishes to dispense once and for all with their more pragmatic and reformist rivals. Even a founding father and pillar of the revolution, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has ceased to be immune, as he and his family are badgered and threatened with arrest. Relatives of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, now face similar treatment if they dare dissent. Moreover, this marriage of convenience is as much about control of Iran's economy as it is of political power. Crudely put, the guys presently calling the shots have the guns and they're willing to use them to ensure their power, economic interests and ultimately self-preservation remain beyond question.

This cabal is not without moorings in Iranian society, and is able to mobilise a formidable segment of the population – as witnessed by the pro-government demonstrations held on 11 February, the anniversary of the revolution. Many basijis, civil servants, school children, villagers and according to one account even prostitutes were coerced, fed or bribed for their presence. The polity is divided and the government undoubtedly has its supporters among the populace (some 10-15%) dividing friends, neighbours and families. Even if many might be appropriately termed "clients" of the Iranian rentier state, this is by no means always the case. Disembedding such groups from the bosom of the state is a long-term aspiration, for which there is no short-term fix.

But where does the Green movement go from here?

Hopes for a government-in-exile remain unhelpful and wishful thinking. Street demonstrations and student protests have been adeptly isolated, picked off and dismembered. Strikes in both the bazaar and the oil fields have failed to materialise and it is in this respect that the Green movement has failed to translate its challenge to the establishment into tangible leverage, which could open up the possibility of meaningful concessions and a decisive political breakthrough – they've even failed to secure the release of political prisoners, let alone reach the seat of government.

The hope for a massive turnout of disgruntled protestors for the election's anniversary has been blunted by Mousavi and Karoubi's wholly legitimate fear of further bloodshed and may well mean that street protests, at least for the time being, as a strategy of pressuring the government have come to a dead-end. This attests to the immense difficulties faced by a non-violent movement confronting the hard metal of guns, batons and motorbikes wielded by an authoritarian state.

Unlike the revolutionary movement of 1979, which was able to bring the country's economy to a grinding halt, the Green movement in terms of material results has achieved very little. Though there is little doubt Mousavi has maintained effective leadership and enumerated a list of basic demands and objectives under the most harrowing of circumstances (even losing a nephew to assassination), the Green movement continues to meander and react to events, often with only the barest cognisance of what it genuinely stands for and envisions for the future of the country.

This is an unfortunate reality that at least for the present needs to be confronted if the current impasse is to ever be surmounted. We ought to remember, however, that the process of reform is not a sprint but a marathon, it was taking place before 12 June and will go on irrespective of the government's desire to turn back the clock some 30 years to the apogee of revolutionary fervour, and that young, hopeful and idealistic women, students and citizenry – the supporters and vehicles of reform – possess the seeds of cataclysmic change. As the Green movement itself shows, it's no longer a matter of "if", but only "when" age-old autocracy will wither away and fade into the annals of history.

“My throat smells of hot lead, father / The Ba’athist hit you with two bullets / They… every day / Shoot me in the mouth”.   

These are the words of Fatemeh who like tens of thousands of Iranians lost a family member in the epic Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, launched by Saddam Hussein. These fallen occupy a special place in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political and moral iconography: almost every official speech on a national theme refers to the sacred blood of “martyrs” who - like Fatemeh’s father - are forever exalted. But this is not an innocent act, for it involves a posthumous conscription of their loyalty: to the revolution of 1979, to Islam, to the Islamic republic’s leaders.

Many descendants of those who sacrificed their lives in the war have come to question the regime’s claim on their loved ones, and by extension on them too; others among the Iranian generation that has grown to adulthood since the revolution have been shaken out of any residual bond with Iran’s governing system. The ranks of the “green” movement that gathered around the prominent reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi - before and after the stolen presidential election of 12 June 2009 - include many whose parents are esteemed for their bravery in the war.

Which side would the latter - among them Mohammad Jahanara, Mehdi Zeinadin, Mohammad-Ebrahim Hemmat, and the heroic brothers Mehdi and Hamid Bakeri - be on today? Hamid’s daughter Asieh Bakeri, in a speech to her fellow students at Tehran University, gave one answer: "perhaps if my father and uncle were alive today, I would have had to visit them in jail".

The murals of such renowned figures still adorn every street-corner in Tehran. But after the mass protests and demonstrations, the wave of arrests and show-trials of the post-election months, the honoured fallen are less symbols of continuity with today’s Iran than of what has been lost. The children of “martyrs”are now trying to remember history differently in order to create a different future.

In place of fear

They are not alone. Even after the brutal crushing of the protest wave that erupted in June 2009 and lasted for many months, dissent is everywhere and found in surprising places. A small example is a live television interview in May 2010 when the former defence minister, Admiral Ali Shamkhani - an Iranian Arab who lost two brothers in battle against the Ba’athists of Arab Iraq - was asked why he had stood against the reformist president Mohammad Khatami in the presidential election of 2001. The interviewer hoped to solicit criticism  of Khatami. But Shamkhani’s membership of a “martyr” family or his own shining war-record is no longer offers any guarantees: to the interviewer’s visible discomposure he replied “Khatami and I are both friends and competitors” and - in a clear reference to the unaccountable clique empowered under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency - added that he had competed in the elections to show that “the military must only enter (power) through the ballot-box”.  

Another case of reality breaking through s the live televised screening of a memorial ceremony on the twenty-first anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic republic’s founder, was seen being jeered by the invitation-only crowd with shouts of "death to Moussavi!”. Again, the painful reality for regime-loyalists seeking to bludgeon their enemies with the mantle of the revolution is that most of Khomeini’s offspring - such as Hassan himself - are reformists who back the green movement. 

The clerical hierarchy in Iran’s holy city of Qom offers a potent symbol of discontent with the government. A clear majority notably failed to observe the usual protocol of posting an official acknowledgments Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s proclaimed electoral victory. Two grand ayatollahs, Bayat Zanjani and Saanei,  have voiced their “disgust” at the state’s ruthless post-election violence.

From the inside

But dissent goes far deeper and wider than Iran’s elite and its scions. A different kind of heckling - unreported inside Iran - was heard at the end of May in the southern city of Khorramshahr; locals greeted the appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with angry chants of: "we are unemployed!"  The frequent (western) media cliché of privileged urban discontent is misleading;   most of Iran’s prominent student leaders, for example, come from the kind of working-class or rural families that are often seen as Ahmadinejad’s political heartland. They also now have their own “martyred” fallen to honour; on 1 June 2010, hundreds of students at Tehran’s Elm-va-Sanaat University met to commemorate their colleague Kianoush Asa, who was shot a year ago by the security forces. The campuses - the “source of the threat” facing Iran, according to the establishment hardliner Morteza Nabavi - remain volatile.

The revolution of three decades years ago has come full circle. It is being undermined from within by the very religious and social factors that brought it to power and sustained its existence. The inner core of the security elite that in mid-2009 chose to side with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the end more to fear than protesters who have been brutally, yet temporarily, silenced.  

The student leader Majid Tavakoli, wrote a few days ago from Evin prison in celebration of the election of 2009 and the largest street-protests in the thirty years of the Islamic republic: “Tyranny…. will eventually retreat under the pressure of the people's demands and desires.” 

Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox: 

Nasrin Alavi, We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs (Portobello Books, 2005)

BBC - Iran crisis

Planet Iran

Tehran Bureau

Ali Gheissari & Vali Nasr, Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2006)

Rooz

Ali M Ansari, Iran under Ahmadinejad: The Politics of Confrontation (Routledge, 2007)

Michael Axworthy, Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran (C Hurst, 2007)

Sidebox: 

Nasrin Alavi is the author of We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs (Portobello Books, 2005)

Also by Nasrin Alavi in openDemocracy:

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fear" (1 November 2005)

“The Iran paradox” (11 October 2007)

“Iran’s circle of power” (23 October 2007)

“Iran’s election signals” (18 March 2008)

“Iranians' interrupted freedom” (8 October 2008)

“Iran: after the dawn” (2 February 2009)

“Iran: a blind leap of faith” (2 June 2009)

"Iran's coming of age" (17 February 2010)

"Bahareh Hedayat and the heroes of Iran" (16 April 2010)

Related stories: 

Iran's stolen election, and what comes next

Voices of a new Iran

Iran's election: people and power

Iran: a green wave for life and liberty

Iran: a phantom victory

Iran: revolution for the hereafter

The children of Iran: lives in tumult

Iran's ocean of dissent

Iran: torch of fire, politics of fun

Iran: what happened, where now?

Iran: from protest to politics

Iran: a time to rethink

Iran 2010-11: four scenarios and a nightmare

How to make peace with Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: a political shadow

Iran's tide of history: counter-revolution and after

It is a story worthy of a great director. In the year since the contested reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a dramatic struggle has played out between Jafar Panahi and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In July the filmmaker was arrested at a funeral service for protester Neda Agha-Soltan. In August, after Panahi organized a demonstration in solidarity with opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi at the Montreal Film Festival, the government revoked his passport. And on the night of March 1, he was seized from his home in Tehran on charges that he was filming a documentary about the opposition Green Movement. After three months in solitary confinement at the city’s notorious Evin prison,­ and a week after launching a hunger strike, Panahi was finally released on bail on May 25.

The regime is clearly threatened by the intrepid, 49-year-old filmmaker. And with good reason: Over the past ten years, Panahi has devastatingly chronicled the country’s transformation from a budding democracy to a thuggish theocracy. So with the first anniversary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection approaching, it’s worth looking back at the work of the man who has been called “the filmmaker laureate of the Green Movement.”

 

Panahi’s artistic and political prominence has been growing steadily in the decade since he made The Circle, a searing account of the everyday persecution of women on the streets of Tehran. The film earned the top award at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, which came amidst a remarkable run in Iranian cinema that stretched from the late ’90s to the early 2000s, the result of a short-lived cultural thaw under then-President Mohammad Khatami. While many Iranian filmmakers rely—and relied, even then—on allegory to evade the country’s censors, The Circle addresses Iran’s most contentious political issues with remarkable candor. Opening with the birth of a baby girl and closing with a young woman’s return to jail, Panahi’s serpentine narrative moves across seven storylines to depict the traumas inflicted by domineering husbands and abusive fathers, oppressive laws and stifling social customs. It is a breathtakingly risky work.

Panahi’s next film, Crimson Gold (2003), follows a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war as he ekes out a desperate existence as a pizza deliveryman. Nuanced in its critique of class privilege, revealing in its depiction of life in Tehran, Crimson Gold is most successful in underscoring the extent to which Khatami’s presidency was marked more by the frustration of reformist aspirations than by any noticeable improvement in the material and social conditions experienced by ordinary Iranians. Take the scene where a delivery brings Hussein to the lavish home of a former army supervisor who, much richer now, no longer recognizes him. A less artful filmmaker might have shaped this interaction into a chest-thumping manifesto on inequality, but Panahi frames his performers at a reflective distance, issuing a quietly affecting appraisal of the Islamic Revolution’s unrealized ideals of mustaz'afin (“solidarity with the oppressed”). Panahi’s understatement makes for both good cinema and a vivid snapshot of contemporary Iran.

Panahi’s last film of the decade was Offside (2006), a portrait of a group of female soccer fans defying the laws that forbid Iranian women from attending sporting events. As Panahi’s plucky protagonists wait in a holding pen along the walls of a stadium, their humorous exchanges with their boyish guards reveal the absurd, Orwellian logic of life under the Iranian theocracy. "When Japan comes to Tehran to play Iran, how come the Japanese women are allowed into the stadium?" asks one of the young women, her face painted in the colors of the Iranian flag. "Because they're Japanese," a soldier retorts, stating the obvious. Her biting response: “So the problem is I am Iranian?"

Offside’s semi-improvised storyline was shot without permits on the margins of a World Cup qualifying match in Tehran. The real-life danger lurking among the “extras” only serves to amplify Panahi’s increasingly audacious marriage of life and art, aesthetics and politics. And the film’s subversive energy anticipates the popular resistance and youth-oriented politics (70 percent of Iranians are under the age of 30) that have emerged with the rise of the Green Movement.

But Panahi’s evolution into a symbol of opposition has led to his recent troubles with the authorities. Iranian artists have played a crucial role in mobilizing the Green Movement, and the regime is targeting cultural icons to intimidate their less prominent peers into self-censorship. The Ministry of Culture and Guidance has moved against the national film industry with particular vigor, announcing in December that President Ahmadinejad would personally lead a new government body to supervise Iranian cinema. It should not come as a surprise that the most prominent Iranian films to reach international audiences in the past year have been made by filmmakers who have fled the country. At a recent D.C. screening of No One Knows About Persian Cats, a provocative film about underground music in Tehran, Iranian-Kurdish director Bahman Gobadi spoke of the pressures that led to his current exile in Berlin. If he returns to Iran under the current government, Gobadi told the audience, he “will end up just like Jafar Panahi.”

Though the details of his alleged offenses have still not been given, Panahi’s indictment has been sent to the Revolutionary Court for future action and he may be brought to trial. Meanwhile, the international community has been offering much in the way of support: There was a special tribute to Panahi at last month’s Cannes Film Festival, an open letter by a group of major American filmmakers condemning his detention, and an official statement by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner welcoming his release from prison. But, really, who knows if it will help? Mohammad Nourizad, a less prominent filmmaker, was just sentenced to three and a half years in jail for criticizing Ayatollah Khamenei.  

When thinking about Panahi’s uncertain future, I prefer to recall the final scene in Offside. As the film’s protagonists are being hauled to the Vice Squad, a sea of jubilant soccer fans emerges in front of the police wagon, heralding an Iranian victory. The young women flee their guards in the ensuing frenzy and enter the crowd singing “Ey Iran,” a paean to Iranian arts and culture. Even when threatened with imprisonment, or worse, they never lost the creative energy and defiant patriotism that have sustained so many other young Iranians in the struggle for a more just society.   

Will Di Novi is a journalist based in Washington, DC. He has written on politics and the arts for The Atlantic, The Nation and Salon, among other publications.

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Si tout se passe selon les vœux de Walt Disney Pictures, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, produit par Jerry Bruckheimer et dont l'acteur principal est Jake Gyllenhaal, sera le premier film d'une franchise au budget colossal. Étant donné qu'il s'agit d'un film d'action basé sur une série de jeux vidéo dont le lien avec la Perse ancienne est très ténu (excepté pour deux jeux de 2008 qui empruntaient au zoroastrisme), rien de surprenant que les effets spéciaux priment le contexte historique. Or, si Bruckheimer et compagnie avaient voulu s'inspirer de jeux vidéo plus authentiques, ils n'auraient pas eu de mal à en trouver. Il leur aurait suffi d'aller en Iran.

Le pays de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad possède en effet une industrie moderne du jeu vidéo, qui emprunte largement à la mythologie perse-et, ironie quand tu nous tiens, à la série américaine Prince of Persia. À en croire certains membres de la communauté d'Iraniens expatriés adeptes des jeux vidéo, ces jeux d'action et d'aventure novateurs sont tout aussi populaires en Iran qu'aux États-Unis et en Europe. La série, qui se déroule dans une Perse pré-islamique richement détaillée (mais à la précision historique parfois douteuse), a captivé toute une génération de concepteurs de jeux iraniens. La conséquence en est peut-être que la plus grande partie des jeux vidéo iraniens destinés à l'exportation sont des jeux «porte-monstre-trésor» médiévaux qui doivent beaucoup, tant du point de vue du style que de celui du thème, à Prince of Persia.

Quest of Persia, la série de jeux la plus populaire d'Iran, s'inspire de façon évidente de son prédécesseur américain. Le fabricant de jeux Puya Arts déclare de façon très explicite que ses jeux sont plus «persans» que Prince of Persia. Dans le matériel publicitaire de la version 2006 de Quest of Persia: The Revenge of Ghajar, Puya explique que «Quest of Persia est un jeu sur la Perse, élaboré par des Persans. Contrairement à des jeux comme Prince of Persia, qui a davantage un thème arabe ou indien, Quest of Persia est 100% persan, de la musique aux décors, en passant par les personnages».

La série Quest of Persia ne joue pas dans la même cour que les titres développés par les grandes firmes américaines et japonaises. Les dessins de Quest of Persia: The End of Innocence, datant de 2005, par exemple, sont plutôt grossiers, et les commandes de la version de 2008, Quest of Persia: Lotfali Khan Zand, sont plutôt aléatoires. En revanche, du point de vue du jeu lui-même, la série est extrêmement captivante; j'irai jusqu'à dire qu'elle peut rivaliser avec la plupart de ce que proposent les fabricants de jeux vidéo occidentaux de taille plus modeste.

La principale raison du caractère relativement primitif de ces jeux est que l'industrie des jeux vidéo du pays n'a vraiment décollé qu'au milieu des années 2000. Certes, des programmateurs amateurs créent des jeux gratuits en Iran depuis les années 1980, mais le secteur n'a vraiment explosé qu'en 2006, quand la fondation iranienne pour les jeux informatiques, financée par le gouvernement, a fourni le capital initial et l'aide nécessaire aux développeurs.

Saddam Hussein, héros de jeu

La traduction en anglais de la charte de la fondation met en avant un mélange de marketing («Soutenir les tentatives de canalisation du potentiel national dans l'industrie des jeux vidéo») et de propagande («développer et promouvoir les principes culturels et l'identité islamo-iranienne à travers ce secteur») pour justifier son soutien à l'industrie des jeux vidéo. Cependant, la majorité des jeux iraniens distribués à l'étranger insistent davantage sur le côté iranien qu'islamique. Les titres de Quest of Persia mettent tous un accent très particulier sur l'histoire régionale et la culture.

Dans The End of Innocence, qui se déroule pendant la guerre Iran-Irak, les personnages principaux sont traqués par les gardes républicains de Saddam Hussein. Lotfali Khan Zand est un jeu qu'on dirait conçu par des diplômés d'histoire, dans lequel les joueurs incarnent le dernier shah de la dynastie Zand cherchant à protéger la Perse du sanguinaire Agha Mohammad Khan. Nader's Blade, de 2009, le jeu le plus sophistiqué de la série, est un antérieur dont le protagoniste, un monarque perse du XVIe siècle, est chargé d'arrêter une invasion afghane.

On retrouve les mêmes cadres quasi-historiques et le même nationalisme persan dans la plupart des jeux iraniens populaires. Dans Garshasp, un jeu de combats à l'arme blanche ultraviolent dans un monde fantastique, à paraître, le joueur incarne un tueur de monstres légendaire qui chasse Daeva, le démon traditionnel du zoroastrisme. Age of Heroes est un jeu d'aventures basé sur le poème épique perse de Ferdowsi, le Shahnamah, et vise avant tout un public national d'adolescents (ce jeu a été conçu par la fondation iranienne Ferdowsi dans l'espoir d'éveiller l'intérêt des jeunes pour ce poème).

Le piratage contre la production locale

Comme le souligne un récent article du Washington Post, la vie n'est pas facile pour les concepteurs de jeux vidéo iraniens. Bien que le pays ne manque pas de nombreux programmateurs talentueux, ils sont souvent bruts de décoffrage et inexpérimentés. Augmenter les ventes nationales est difficile, car l'Iranien moyen n'a pas beaucoup d'argent à dépenser en jeux vidéo. Les sanctions compliquent la commercialisation des jeux dans les pays occidentaux, et la menace de censure et d'interférence gouvernementales est omniprésente. Arash Jafari, membre de l'équipe derrière Garshasp, a confié à Thomas Erdbrink du Post que la date de lancement du jeu en Iran était retardée à cause du climat politique. «Les gens sont tristes en ce moment, inquiets», a-t-il confié. «Certains membres de leur famille sont emprisonnés. Ce n'est pas le bon moment pour faire la promotion de notre jeu».

Conséquence de ces pressions sur le marché, les jeux produits localement sont souvent incroyablement peu onéreux. Selon Puya Dadgar, chef de projet à Puya Arts, la plupart sont proposés 6 ou 7 dollars US sur le marché national, et entre 25.000 et 60.000 exemplaires sont vendus. Même à des prix aussi bas, la compétition avec les jeux occidentaux est rude: l'Iran est l'une des capitales mondiales du piratage de logiciel et les copies de contrebande de jeux comme Call of Duty et Bioshock 2 se trouvent facilement dans les étals de rue ou les bazars à moins de 3 dollars pièce.

Les jeux iraniens ne sont pas tous des jeux de sandales et d'épée. À côté des épopées conçues pour les ventes à l'étranger, beaucoup de jeux nationaux se complaisent dans une intolérance et un fanatisme bien trop répandus. Rien de surprenant que ces jeux farouchement anti-réformistes et anti-américains soient bon marché et de facture médiocre (en cela, ils ont beaucoup de points communs avec les jeux vidéo islamistes à la conception minable venus du Moyen-Orient arabophone).

La politique source d'inspiration

Dans Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue, jeu de tir subjectif développé par le groupe ultraconservateur Union des étudiants islamiques, les joueurs sauvent des scientifiques nucléaires iraniens héroïques des griffes de soldats américains et israéliens. Malgré sa date de lancement, en 2007, le jeu ressemble à une resucée de reliques des années 1990 comme Doom (à sa sortie, Al Jazeera s'était moqué de sa piètre qualité). Fighting the Leaders of Sedition, jeu de tir à la programmation peu soignée disponible gratuitement sur Internet, est encore plus dérangeant car il vous demande de tirer dans la tête des réformistes iraniens Mir Hossein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi et Mohammad Khatami (Mousavi, Karrubi et Khatami ripostent tous).

Les Iraniens qui préfèrent une bonne épopée faussement persane n'auront pas à attendre très longtemps-des copies clandestines de Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time seront sûrement en vente dans les rues de Téhéran quelques jours après la sortie américaine du film grâce à la prolifique industrie iranienne des DVD pirates. Il semblerait que les fans de jeux vidéo iraniens l'attendent avec impatience. Jerry Bruckheimer lui-même a été interviewé par le populaire site d'expatriés Iranian.com et dans les commentaires, les lecteurs persanophones dissèquent avec passion l'intrigue et les personnages du film à la recherche de référence au Shahnamah. Après tout, comme le souligne un commentateur, les jeux Prince of Persia ont une résonnance culturelle pour les vrais Persans : «Si vous êtes iranien et que vous avez des enfants entre 12 et 42 ans qui ont grandi en Occident, ils y ont probablement joué».

Neal Ungerleider

Traduit par Bérengère Viennot

Photo: DR

HE Dr Seyed Mohammad Khatami public lecture: ‘Dialogue, Justice and Peace’ at The Australian National University. His Excellency Dr Seyed......click here to continue reading Related posts:

1. HE Dr Seyed Mohammad Khatami at The Australian National University, 24 March 2009 (pt8)
2. HE Dr Seyed Mohammad Khatami at The Australian National University, 24 March 2009 (pt9)
3. HE Dr Seyed Mohammad Khatami at The Australian National University pt3

The Obama administration is not just talking about reinvigorating America's participation in international organizations; it's actually doing it. This week marks the latest in a series of international events that will see full State Department participation for the first time.

Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Esther Brimmer is in Rio this week leading the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum, which includes about 2,000 participants from about 119 countries and organizations. As of 2010, the United States is now a full member country, and while U.S. officials had participated in selected events relating to the organization before, Brimmer's involvement is meant to show a renewed U.S. commitment to international institutions.

 "The alliance itself is essentially a clearinghouse for information on cultural exchange, and we were particularly interested because we thought that it was developing in a way that was showing some innovation in terms of broadening out cultural exchange and trying to counter some of the forces of polarization and extremism," Brimmer told The Cable.

The AOC forum began in 2005 as a Spanish/Turkish attempt to respond to serious ongoing problems in relations between the Muslim world and the West, as illustrated by riots over cartoon portrayals of the Prophet Mohammed that year.

The U.N.'s then secretary-general, Kofi Annan, appointed a high-profile group of international luminaries to get it started, including former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

But the group's 2006 report created controversy when it made several recommendations that touched upon the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"Our emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not meant to imply that it is the overt cause of all tensions between Muslim and Western societies," the report's authors wrote. "Nevertheless, it is our view that the Israeli-Palestinian issue has taken on a symbolic value that colors cross cultural and political relations ... well beyond its limited geographic scope."

U.S. conservatives were up in arms.

"The Report of the High-level Group of The Alliance of Civilizations is testament to the limited value of such exercises by the U.N. The report focuses obsessively on the failings of Western countries while largely ignoring the faults of Muslim countries," wrote the Heritage Foundation's Brett Shaefer at the time. "The report glosses over the underlying reasons behind the economic problems of many Islamic countries in favor of a laundry list of objectives."

But Brimmer said the AOC has now changed and expanded its focus, partnering with UNESCO and the German Marshall Fund.For example, the AOC and GMF established an international fellowship program in 2009 to bring together youth from America, Europe, and Muslim countries. Also, the State Department's office dealing with UNESCO is now involved in the AOC effort.

 "The AOC itself was really expanding to try to take, on in a more structured way, working on countering extremism and supporting cultural exchange," said Brimmer, adding that the State Department is in "listening mode" and still thinking about where and how exactly to get involved.

That, in and of itself, is a shift from the Bush years. Let's not forget that it was one of her predecessors, John Bolton, who famously said about the U.N., "If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

"I think for this administration multilateral diplomacy is an integral part of overall U.S foreign policy," Brimmer said, "But that means being active in those bodies -- attending meetings, going to conferences, talking to the delegations, and we try to support that."

Attempts at silencing creative artists have been in vain as Iranian film-makers are acclaimed both at home and abroad

He missed the Cannes film festival while in solitary confinement on hunger strike in Evin prison in Iran. Jafar Panahi, the internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, was released on bail today. He went on hunger strike on 16 May to protest at his treatment and the accusations against him. He was arrested in February for allegedly making a film about the contested presidential elections of last June, which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back to power.

Panahi is known for his social realism films and has won awards at the Venice and Berlin film festivals. While on hunger strike in prison, he was due to be acting as a judge at the Cannes film festival last week. His chair was left empty throughout this year's competition in protest at his incarceration.

Panahi's mentor, the Iranian film director, Ahmad Kiarostami, called his arrest a tragedy.

Speaking last week at a press conference in Cannes for his own film, Certified Copy, Kiarostami said "art is in prison" in Iran and condemned the "continued pressure" on filmmakers. Referring to accusations made against Panahi's unfinished film, Kiarostami ridiculed the fact that in Iran "a film director has to go to prison for a film he has not made yet". Last year a travel ban was imposed on Panahi who was accused of wearing green at a rally in favour of the green movement.

Apart from Panahi, who has received continuous international support, another filmmaker, Mohammad Nourizad, is reported by the opposition Jaras website to still be on hunger strike. Having spent 70 days in solitary confinement in Evin prison, Nourizad is reported as having lost the sight in one eye due to repeated beatings. Jaras has reported his wife's interviews demanding an explanation for the harsh treatment he has received in prison over the last five months.

Nourizad supported the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, but has spent most of his career as a documentary maker working with official media in the Islamic republic and supporting the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

He was a columnist in the hardline Keyhan newspaper and angered the regime by writing several letters to the supreme leader criticising the treatment of protesters. In his personal blog he asked the leader to side with the people and "renounce Ahmadinejad". Iranian filmmakers and art students have written separate letters to the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, protesting at the arrest and aggressive treatment of Nourizad.

Cinema has, in the last decade, played an increasingly active political role in Iran. Most film and documentary makers, as well as TV serial producers, have used the smallest loophole in Iran's censorship to make socio-political protests. Jafar Panahi's Offside, which won the 2006 Berlin film festival's Silver Bear award, protested at women being unable to attend football matches; Circle, which won the Golden Lion as best film at the Venice film festival in 2000, was also highly critical of the treatment of women, and The White Balloon, which won a Camera d'Or at the Cannes film festival, circumvented the censor by speaking through children.

Bahman Ghobadi's No one Knows About Persian Cats portrayed the pressures on young musicians and pop groups banned in Iran; Manijeh Hekmat showed the horrors of female prison cells; Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's May Lady illustrated the difficulties for a woman in love in the Islamic Republic. She has pushed the limits of censorship in Iran by focusing on taboo subjects such as poverty, crime, prostitution, polygamy, divorce, and illicit love.

Regarded as the leading contemporary female film director in Iran, Bani-Etemad was also a pioneer in supporting the green movement and putting her signature to most letters of complaint about the treatment of protesters in the months after the June presidential elections.

Another internationally acclaimed film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, became the international spokesperson for Mousavi and has been actively speaking and writing in condemnation of the Islamic Republic's brutal methods against protesters over the last year. Several leading filmmakers signed letters in support of Panahi condemning the treatment of their colleagues in Evin prison.

The relatively more open cultural atmosphere of the reform era, led by the former president, Mohammad Khatami, which allowed some space for many of these filmmakers, turned sour when Ahmadinejad came to power five years ago. His hardline policies had little respect for international fame and disowned creativity and free speech in cinema and the arts. The establishment became increasingly angered by the fact that filmmakers dared to confront the regime directly. For them, cinema and the arts had to be revolutionary and committed to serving Islam and the Islamic Republic.

However, their attempts at silencing cinema and the arts have so far been in vain. Iranian filmmakers are receiving international acclaim and at home they are holding a prominent position on the screen – as well in the political sphere. Despite government pressure, Iranian cinema, and documentaries reflecting those basic difficulties of social and political life have become the outspoken voice and vision of the educated and the young in Iran.

Recent news from Iran gives an ambiguous impression. The regime carries out more arrests. It concentrates and extends its power: political (President Ahmadinejad's chief advisor Esfandiar Rahim Mashai now holds 18 additional offices), economic (the extensive sale of state-owned companies ... One may ask why the embattled Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and the former President Mohammad Khatami have not yet formed a joint front of opposition . ...

The reformist "Parlemannews" website has posted several pictures of Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Musavi, Mehdi Karrubi, and former President Mohammad Khatami at last week's wedding of the son of the head of the reformist Mosharekat party, Mohsen Mirdamadi, who was jailed in the ...

In the last 72 hours, there have been statements from Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami. Mousavi and Karroubi met on Sunday, although there are still no details of the discussion. Iran Document: Khatami “Khordaad ... In the continued manoeuvring over the Iran-Brazil-Turkey proposal and the US-led push for more sanctions, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, “If I was in the place of Russian officials, I would adopt a more careful stance. ...

Hojatoleslam Ruhollah Hosseinian, an Ahmadinejad supporter in Parliament, has “revealed” that, after meeting global financier George Soros, former President Mohammad Khatami anointed Mir Hossein Mousavi for leadership by “putting the ...

Players deploy fighter jets to shoot down targets that resemble opposition leaders, as pressure mounts ahead of election anniversary

Iranian conservatives have been invited to take part in virtual repression with a new computer game in which they can "destroy" Mir Hossein Mousavi and other opposition leaders.

In the game, called Fighting the Leaders of Sedition, players deploy fighter jets to shoot down targets that resemble Mousavi and fellow reformists Mehdi Karrubi and the former president Mohammad Khatami. Iranian websites have reported that copies of the game have been distributed in Isfahan province, apparently with the permission of the local police.

Mousavi, who was prime minister in the 1980s, is under mounting pressure from hardliners ahead of the anniversary next month of the presidential election that he and his supporters claim was rigged in favour of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Yesterday, after the arrest of his veteran bodyguard at the weekend, Mousavi ordered his staff not to report for work. The arrest fuelled fears of a new crackdown against Mousavi's Green movement, and opposition websites have speculated that it could be the prelude to his own detention, or at least his house arrest, in order to prevent him from organising new demonstrations.

Last week 175 of 290 MPs in the conservative-dominated parliament called on the judiciary to put Mousavi on trial after he condemned the execution of five people, four of them Kurds, who were convicted as terrorists and "enemies of God" – a charge that carries the death sentence in the Islamic republic. Gholamhossein Elham, a member of Iran's guardian council, condemned Mousavi himself as "an enemy of God".

Analysts say Mousavi has hardened his stance in recent weeks, condemning a dictatorial "cult" and a corrupt power structure ruling Iran in the name of Islam.

Concern is mounting over the fate of one of the country's most outspoken film directors, Jafar Panahi, who has been under arrest since March. In a message posted on the website of the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, Panahi said he had begun a hunger strike in his cell in Tehran's Evin prison, and would continue to refuse food or drink until his demands were met.

"I do not want to be a laboratory rat, a victim of their sick games, threatened and psychologically tortured," he wrote on laregledujeu.org, detailing "bad treatment" inside the notorious jail, including being told his family could be imprisoned and his daughter "mistreated".

Panahi, who is a notably absent juror at this year's Cannes film festival, said he would refuse all sustenance unless he could make contact with his family and have "complete assurance" that they were safe. He demanded to be able to see a lawyer and to be freed until the day the courts reached a verdict on his alleged crimes, thought to relate to his activities as a filmmaker.

"I swear on the cinema, in which I believe: I will not stop my [hunger] strike until my wishes are fulfilled," he wrote. "My last wish is that my corpse be given back to my family so they are able to bury me where they like."

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“Garotas só querem se divertir”, afirma o refrão de uma música da cantora pop norte-americana Cyndi Lauper. A letra também vale para as jovens iranianas, que não raras vezes driblam o regime islâmico dos aiatolás para ir a festas, mostrar uma mecha do cabelo ou exibir a silhueta, como fazem as mulheres ocidentais. Na semana passada, a polícia de Teerã prendeu 80 jovens em um concerto considerado ilegal pelas autoridades. O chefe de polícia, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, disse aos jornalistas iranianos que os detidos estavam praticando atividades que buscavam o prazer. Segundo ele, bebidas alcoólicas — proibidas na república islâmica — também foram apreendidas.

Dolatabadi também relatou que, ao chegar ao local do festival, encontrou dezenas de jovens de ambos os sexos vestidos de forma inapropriada. Os rapazes não podem mostrar as pernas em público e as moças devem usar o hijab — vestimentas que só deixam à mostra o rosto, as mãos e os pés. Além disso, a legislação do país proíbe homens e mulheres de dançarem em público; de frequentarem aulas de dança; ou de se tocarem, se não forem casados ou parentes muito próximos.

O britânico Idris Tawfiq, ex-padre católico e hoje especialista em islã, explica que os muçulmanos não precisam copiar ou fazer comparações ao jeito que os não muçulmanos celebram suas festas. “Nós não precisamos de álcool ou coisas pecaminosas (haram) para nos divertir. A beleza do islã está em sermos muito felizes e nos divertimos somente com as coisas que Alá permitiu”, afirma Tawfiq.

“Festas mistas com garotas e garotos não são permitidas, mas às vezes elas são feitas às escondidas, em casa, por exemplo”, conta ao Correio, pela internet, um iraniano que pediu para ser identificado apenas pelas iniciais A.M.. Ele reconhece que os jovens namoram escondidos, porque o regime islâmico não permite qualquer tipo de liberdade sexual antes do casamento — nem mesmo dar as mãos. “Se a polícia entende que um rapaz e uma moça estão sentados juntos num parque, por exemplo, os pobrezinhos podem ter alguns problemas”, diz. Ele acrescenta que, no melhor dos casos, “os jovens podem ser levados a uma delegacia, onde os policiais chamarão os pais de ambos para avisar que seus filhos andam se encontrando fora de casa”.

Reforma educacional
Desde 1979, o Irã aplica uma legislação baseada na interpretação da sharia (lei islâmica). A repressão a festas ilegais tem aumentado e os aiatolás também estão preocupados com a flexibilização do uso do hijab. Na oração da última sexta-feira, o clérigo Kazem Sedighi atribuiu às vestimentas pouco modestas a causa de terremotos e desastres naturais. “As túnicas encolheram até a mínima expressão e os lenços voltaram a cair até a metade da cabeça, como não se via desde a presidência do reformista Mohamed Khatami”, afirma Ángeles Espinosa, correspondente do jornal espanhol El País em Teerã.

Já o ministro do Interior iraniano, Mustafa Nayar, destacou que o hijab não tem sido uma norma. “O mau uso do véu é preocupante até nas creches”, disse Nayar, um ex-responsável da Guarda Revolucionária. O uso obrigatório do hijab no Irã começa na escola para meninas a partir dos 7 anos. “A melhor forma de lutar contra quem não respeita o hijab é por meio da educação e do fortalecimento da sociedade contra a invasão cultural estrangeira”, disse o ministro, prometendo facilitar “empréstimos para as creches que respeitarem os preceitos islâmicos”. No fim de junho, o mais provável é que haja novas manifestações de jovens contra o presidente Mahmud Ahmadinejad. O site Iran Focus revelou na quinta-feira que adolescentes picharam muros com a mensagem “morte a Khamenei” (o aiatola Ali Khamenei, líder supremo religioso) nas principais ruas de Teerã.

Festas mistas com garotas e garotos não são permitidas, mas às vezes elas são feitas às escondidas, em casa, por exemplo”
A.M., rapaz iraniano (ele não quis ter o nome divulgado), em entrevista ao Correio

Loucas por futebol
O técnico brasileiro René Simões morou entre 2005 e 2007 em Teerã, treinando a seleção nacional de futebol. “O Irã tem a melhor técnica da Ásia”, disse Simões ao Correio, por telefone. Tem também a melhor torcida: “Eles são alucinados por futebol, os estádios estão sempre cheios”. Uma paixão que se transformou em protesto político (1) na Copa de 1998. E uma curiosidade: René diz que as iranianas treinam tanto quanto os homens. “Somos todos loucos por futebol. Os estádios ficam cheios para assistir à seleção ou aos times locais”, conta à reportagem, por telefone, a estudante de tradução Myriam Hussein, 24 anos, que costumava praticar o esporte em um clube perto de sua casa, na capital.

Não é à toa que o time feminino disputará as Olimpíadas da Juventude, em agosto, em Cingapura. Na semana passada, as jovens jogadoras receberam uma boa notícia: a Fifa e o comitê nacional de futebol concordaram que, apesar de não serem autorizadas a jogar de véu, elas poderão cobrir os cabelos com bonés. Foi a maneira de adaptar a decisão da Fifa, de deixar o véu islâmico fora do gramado, em nome da segurança das jogadoras e de não misturar esporte com religião.

“Nós estamos muito contentes”, disse o chefe da Federação Iraniana de Futebol, Farideh Shojaei, para quem a decisão “aumentou a inspiração” das adolescentes. “Elas estão determinadas a treinar mais e mais”, garantiu. No Irã, as moças podem ser treinadas por iranianos ou estrangeiros de ambos os sexos. No entanto, Myriam admite que, nos últimos anos, a maioria das meninas tem sido treinada por mulheres. “E o jogo delas só pode ser assistido nos estádios por mulheres”, acrescenta.

René Simões pondera que, apesar da excelência técnica, o Irã ainda precisa aperfeiçoar a organização do futebol. Ele conta que muitas vezes a saída do país pode ser dificultada: “Ou os jovens estão na escola, ou no exército, e nem sempre são liberados para jogar no exterior”. O técnico brasileiro chegou a ter apenas cinco jogadores titulares, em uma ocasião. Outra barreira que René teve de vencer foi a do idioma. Pouca gente falava inglês e o jeito foi entrar para um curso de farsi. “Foi o único lugar onde também trabalhei como intérprete”, conta, em tom divertido.

Apesar de considerar que um ano e meio foi pouco tempo para conhecer o país a fundo, René destaca que sua experiência foi muito positiva, mesmo com os limites impostos pela guarda religiosa. “É um povo extremamente familiar, trabalhador, fazem festas ótimas… E tem mais: nunca vi um assalto sequer e nunca soube de homem-bomba iraniano”, destaca. René até arrisca um palpite sobre a visita do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva e sua política de ampliar a cooperação bilateral. “Acho ótimo ver o Brasil como jogador ativo nesse tabuleiro internacional, fortalecendo a economia e seu papel político.”


1 - Revolução no estádio
A dramática classificação do Irã para a Copa da França, em 1998, coincidiu com um período de efervescência político-social e resultou na efêmera “revolução do futebol”. Na euforia da conquista, a euforia transbordou pelas ruas de Teerã e atropelou o tabu segundo o qual homens e mulheres não podem cantar e dançar juntos em público. Por uma noite, moças e rapazes fizeram tudo isso e talvez mais um pouco. Sob o governo do presidente Mohammad Khatami, partidário da liberalização nos costumes, o Parlamento discutiu uma autorização para que mulheres pudessem frequentar estádios, mas a velha guarda religiosa colocou prontamente uma pedra sobre o assunto.

An Iranian blog is hosting a downloadable videogame that lets users blast away at the adversaries of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s regime.

Avatars in the game represent Iranian reformers, including Green Party leader (and former Prime Minister)  Mir Hossein Musavi, Etemad-e Melli party founder (and ex-Parliament Chairman) Mehdi Karrubi and former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

The title of the game is “Fighting the Leaders of Sedition.” Radio Free Europe notes that “Sedition is a term used by hard-liners and government officials to describe the street protests after the reelection of President Ahmadinejad.”

It’s unknown who created the game, but RFE reports that “Several Iranian news websites, including “Kharabonline” and “Aftabnews,” are reporting that copies have been distributed in some cities in Iran’s Isfahan Province.”

TEHRAN, May 10 (UPI) -- Slogans by the elite ruling class aren't enough to resolve the political issues in Tehran, former President Mohammad Khatami said.

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