William O. Beeman Commentary on Thomas Friedman "Sheldon: Iran's Best Friend" NY Times April 5, 2014: Crude and Inaccurate on Iran

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/friedman-sheldon-irans-best-friend.html?comments#permid=11511683

Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend

APRIL 5, 2014

Thomas L. Friedman

Commentary on this article by William O. Beeman

Tom Friedman's characterization of Iran's current attitude toward Israel is both crude and inaccurate. Iran has never threatened to "destroy Israel." This is a piece of cant that has been repeated so often that it constitutes "truth by repetition." Mr. Friedman's piece uses a cheap rhetorical ploy to make his point. It is indeed "cute" to juxtapose Adelson and Iran and thus play to mistaken cultural stereotypes.

Iran has championed the Palestinians and their mistreatment by Israel. It has also defended the Shi'a population in Southern Lebanon that has been attacked in over-the-border raids by Israel in violation of international law. If Israel would resolve the Palestinian issue, Iran would gladly resume diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, since Iran has no quarrel with the Israeli people, or indeed with Jews. It may be that Sheldon Adelson may destroy Israel by promoting crude right-wing politics directed at the Palestinians, but Iran would applaud the granting of equal rights and independence for Palestinians, and this would effectively end Iran's objections to Israel.

A final point: Iran conducts considerable sub rosa trade with Israel through third parties, and Iranian Jews (and indeed others) can travel to Israel via third countries. The large Iranian Jewish population in Israel are still Iranian identifying with Iranian culture and civilization. There is far more that unites Iranian and Israeli society, but the Palestinian issue is a continual obstacle.

___________________________________________

IT occurred to me the other day that the zealously pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, actually have one big thing in common. They are both trying to destroy Israel. Adelson is doing it by loving Israel to death and Khamenei by hating Israel to death. And now even Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey inadvertently got drawn into this craziness.

What’s the logic? Very simple. Iran’s leaders want Israel destroyed but have no desire, in my view, to use a nuclear bomb to do it. That would expose them to retaliation and sure death. Their real strategy is more subtle: Do everything possible to ensure that Israel remains in the “occupied territory,” as the U.S. State Department refers to the West Bank, won by Israel in the 1967 war. By supporting Palestinian militants dedicated to destroying any peace process, Tehran hopes to keep Israel permanently mired in the West Bank and occupying 2.7 million Palestinians, denying them any statehood and preventing the emergence of a Palestinian state that might recognize Israel and live in peace alongside it. The more Israel is stuck there, the more Palestinians and the world will demand a “one-state solution,” with Palestinians given the right to vote. 

The more Israel resists that, the more isolated it becomes.

Iran and its ally Hamas have plenty of evidence that this strategy is working: Israel’s 47-year-old occupation of the West Bank has led it to build more settlements there and in doing so make itself look like the most active colonial power on the planet today. The 350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank reinforce that view by claiming their presence in the West Bank is not about security but a divinely inspired project to reunite the Jewish people with their biblical homeland.

The result is a growing movement on college campuses and in international organizations to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state because of this occupation. This “B.D.S. movement” — to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — is gaining adherents not only among non-Jews on American campuses but even within some Hillels, campus Jewish centers.

Iran could not be happier. The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel’s colonialism rather than Iran’s nuclear enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine.

And now Iran has an ally: Sheldon Adelson — the foolhardy Las Vegas casino magnate and crude right-wing, pro-Israel extremist. Adelson gave away some $100 million in the last presidential campaign to fund Republican candidates, with several priorities in mind: that they delegitimize the Palestinians and that they avoid any reference to the West Bank as “occupied territories” and any notion that the U.S. should pressure Israel to trade land for peace there. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney took the money and played by Sheldon’s rules.

In case you missed it, the R.J.C., the Republican Jewish Coalition, held a retreat last weekend at an Adelson casino in Las Vegas. It was dubbed “the Sheldon Primary.” Republicans lined up to compete for Adelson’s blessing and money, or as Politico put it: “Adelson summoned [Jeb] Bush and Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin to Las Vegas. ... The new big-money political landscape — in which a handful of donors can dramatically alter a campaign with just a check or two — explains both the eagerness of busy governors to make pilgrimages to Las Vegas, and the obsession with divining Adelson’s 2016 leanings.”

Adelson personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy and Israel’s today — swaggering oligarchs, using huge sums of money to try to bend each system to their will.

Christie, in his speech, referred to the West Bank as “occupied territories” — as any knowledgeable American leader would. This, Politico said, “set off murmurs in the crowd.” Some Republican Jews explained to Christie after he finished that he had made a terrible faux pas. (He called something by its true name and in the way the U.S. government always has!) The West Bank should be called “disputed territories” or “Judea and Samaria,” the way hard-line Jews prefer. So, Politico reported, Christie hastily arranged a meeting with Adelson to explain that he misspoke and that he was a true friend of Israel. “The New Jersey governor apologized in a private meeting in the casino mogul’s Venetian office shortly afterward,” Politico reported. It said Adelson “accepted” Christie’s “explanation” and “quick apology.”

Read that sentence over and contemplate it.

I don’t know if Israel has a Palestinian partner for a secure withdrawal from the West Bank, or ever will. But I know this: If Israel wants to remain a Jewish, democratic state, it should be doing everything it can to nurture such a partner or acting unilaterally to get out. Because, I’m certain that when reports about the “Adelson primary” reached the desk of Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran, a big smile crossed his face and he said to his aides: “May Allah grant Sheldon a long life. Everything is going according to plan.”

Ex-Envoy’s Account Clarifies Iran’s 2003 Nuclear Decision--Porter (IPS)

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/07/ex-envoys-account-clarifies-irans-2003-nuclear-decision/

Ex-Envoy’s Account Clarifies Iran’s 2003 Nuclear Decision

By Gareth PorterReprint |       |  Print | Send by email

WASHINGTON, Jul 30 2013 (IPS) - Newly published recollections by the former French ambassador to Iran suggest that Iran was not running a covert nuclear weapons programme that it then decided to halt in late 2003, as concluded by U.S. intelligence in 2007.

Ambassador Francois Nicoullaud recounted conversations with high-ranking Iranian officials indicating that Tehran’s then nuclear policy chief – and now president-elect – Hassan Rouhani did not know what research projects relating to nuclear weapons had been carried out over the years.

“I guess that most people, [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei included, were surprised by the extent of the activities." -- former French ambassador to Iran Francois Nicoullaud

The conversations described by Nicoullaud in a Jul. 26 New York Times op-ed also portray Rouhani as having difficulty getting individual researchers to comply with an order to halt all research related to nuclear weapons.

The picture of Iranian nuclear policy in 2003 drawn by Nicoullaud is different from the one in the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had halted “its nuclear weapons program”. That conclusion implied that Iranian government leadership had organised a programme of research and development aimed at producing a nuclear weapon.

Nicoullaud recalled that a high-ranking Iranian official confided to him in late October 2003 that Rouhani had just “issued a general circular asking all Iranian departments and agencies, civilian and military, to report in detail about their past and ongoing nuclear activities.”

The conversation came immediately after Rouhani had concluded an agreement with the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany on Oct. 21, 2003, Nicoullaud recalled.

The same official explained that “the main difficulty Rouhani and his team were encountering was learning exactly what was happening in a system as secretive as Iran’s,” wrote Nicoullaud.

A few weeks after, the French ambassador learned from a second official, whom he described as “a close friend of Rouhani”, that Rouhani’s nuclear policy team had issued instructions to halt projects relating to nuclear weapons.

The Iranian official said the team was “having a hard time”, because, “[p]eople resist their instructions,” according to Nicoullaud. The official remarked that it was difficult to “convince researchers to abruptly terminate projects they had been conducting for years”.

Related IPS Articles

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In an e-mail to IPS, Nicoullaud said he did not believe the Iranian government had ever approved a nuclear weapons programme. “The first challenge for Rouhani when he took hold of the nuclear,” said Nicoullaud, “must have been to get a clear picture of what was going on in Iran in the nuclear field.”

Rouhani had been the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) since 1989 and would not only have known about but would have been involved in any government decision to establish a nuclear weapons programme.

“I guess that most people, [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei included, were surprised by the extent of the activities,” Nicoullaud told IPS.

Nicoullaud’s recollections are consistent with published evidence that nuclear weapons-related research projects had begun without any government authorisation.

Despite an Iranian policy that ruled out nuclear weapons, many Iranian officials believed that a nuclear weapons “capability” would confer benefits on Iran without actually having nuclear weapons.

But the meaning of such a capability was the subject of ongoing debate. Nasser Hadian, a well-connected Tehran University political scientist, wrote in late 2003 about two schools of thought on the option of having a “nuclear weapons capability” but not the weapons themselves. One definition of that option was that Iran should have only the capability to produce fuel for nuclear reactors, Hadian explained, while the other called for Iran to have “all the necessary elements and capabilities for producing weapons”.

That debate had evidently not been officially resolved by a government decision before Rouhani’s appointment. And in the absence of a clear statement of policy, figures associated with research centres with military and defence ministry ties began in the latter of the 1990s to create their own nuclear weapons-related research projects without the knowledge of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

Such projects were apparently begun during a period when the Supreme National Security Council was not exercising tight control over the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), the Ministry of Defence or the military industrial complex controlled by Defence Industries Organisation related to nuclear weapons.

By the mid-1990s, AEOI was already taking advantage of the lax supervision of its operations to take actions that had significant policy implications without authorisation from the SNSC.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, then the spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, recalls in his memoirs that in January 2004, Rouhani revealed to him that AEOI had not informed the SNSC about a policy-relevant matter as important as the purchase of the P2 centrifuge designs from the A. Q. Khan network in 1995. AEOI officials had misled him, Rohani said, by claiming that “they had found some information about P2 centrifuges on the Internet and are studying it!”

When Rouhani was named to take over as nuclear policy coordinator in early October 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was demanding a full accounting by Iran of all of its nuclear activities. Rouhani’s circular to all civilian and military offices about nuclear work came soon after he had promised the IAEA that Iran would change its policy to one of full cooperation with the IAEA.

At the same time, Rouhani moved to tighten up the policy loophole that had allowed various entities to start weapons-related nuclear research.

Rouhani anticipated resistance from the bureaucratic entities that had nuclear weapons-related research projects from the beginning. He recalled in a later interview that he had told President Mohammad Khatami that he expected that there would be problems in carrying out the new nuclear policy, including “sabotage”.

The sequence of events surrounding Rouhani’s new nuclear policy indicates that he used Khamenei’s public posture that nuclear weapons were forbidden according to Islamic law to ensure compliance with the ban on such research projects.

Around the same time that Rouhani ordered the bureaucracy to report on its nuclear-related activities and to stop any research on military applications of nuclear power in late October, Khamenei gave a speech in which he said, “In contrast to the propaganda of our enemies, fundamentally we are against any production of weapons of mass destruction in any form.”

Three days later, Rouhani told students at Shahrud Industrial University that Khamenei considered nuclear weapons as religiously illegal.

That same week, in an interview with San Francisco Chronicle correspondent Robert Collier, Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the conservative newspaper Kayhan and an adviser to Khamenei, alluded to tensions between the Rouhani team and those researchers who were not responding to or resisting the Rouhani circular.

Khamenei was forcing those working on such projects to “admit that it is forbidden under Islam”, Shariatmadari said. He also suggested that the researchers resisting the ban had been working “clandestinely”.

After the U.S. intelligence community concluded in November 2007 estimate that Iran had halted a “nuclear weapons program”, a U.S. intelligence official said key pieces of evidence were intercepted communications from at least one senior military officer and others expressing dismay in 2007 that nuclear weapons-related work had been shut down in 2003.

But U.S. intelligence officials said nothing about what kind of work was being shut down, and revealed no further evidence that it was a “nuclear weapons program” under the control of the government.

Nicoullaud’s recollections suggest that the 2007 estimate glossed over a crucial distinction between an Iranian “nuclear weapons program” and research projects that had not been authorised or coordinated by the Iranian regime.

Nicoullaud told IPS he believes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls Iran’s ballistic missile programme, was also carrying out a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. The IRGC’s own ministry had been merged, however, with the old Ministry of Defence to form a new ministry in 1989, which implies that any such clandestine programme would have necessarily involved a wider military conspiracy.

*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan

Iranian and American Elections Have Similarities--William O. Beeman (New America Media)

http://newamericamedia.org/2013/06/iranian-and-american-elections-have-similarities.php

Iranian and American Elections Have Similarities

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 16, 2013

Much of what transpired in Iran during the presidential election on Friday, June 14 (Flag Day in the U.S.), won by Hassan Rowhani should be familiar to American citizens: A candidate replacing a term-limited president contrasting himself with a former conservative government, campaigning on social and human rights issues along with a promise for an improved economy, combined with a split vote for his opposition that assured his victory by less than a one per-cent margin. Echoes of the American election in 2012 and many earlier elections are clearly present in Iran in 2013. Apparently Iranian and American voters are more alike than either group realizes.

And like American elections often are, the Iranian presidential elections did not turn out as expected—happily for many Iranians, and not so happily for Western critics of Iranian society. The victorious Mr. Rowhani, seen as the most moderate of all the six candidates, was not predicted to win by Western pundits, who followed their own superficial ideological bias, predicting that the election would be rigged by ultra-conservative mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to favor the most conservative contender. As Iranians turned out in huge numbers—more than 80 percent of eligible voters by the most recent estimates—they gave the lie to this superficial Western view.

Mr. Rowhani’s election was engineered with adept politicking worthy of Democratic mastermind David Axelrod. Mr. Rowhani was somewhat of a dark horse at the beginning of Iran’s short campaign period. Sharp, well-articulated political speeches, including criticism of the current government, garnered him immediate attention as a politician differentiated from the pack of conservatives favored by Iran’s leaders. His endorsement by former Presidents Khatami and Rafsanjani, both seen as relatively moderate, gave him a large boost. Finally, the strategic withdrawal of the other moderate candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref in favor of Mr. Rowhani, sealed the victory.

A friend who works for Press TV, a major Iranian news station, confirmed this dynamic: “After the withdrawal of Mr. Aref, the people saw that Mr. Rowhani had a chance of winning. Many who had planned to boycott the election then decided to vote.” The surge occurred in the two days before the election. As a result, the three conservative candidates split the conservative vote, and Mr. Rowhani as the only moderate surged in the polls and in the vote.

Mr. Rowhani’s victory was decisive. He emerged on Saturday garnering three times the votes of his nearest rival for office, and thus avoiding a runoff election. The results have been met with delight in Iran. Speaking to a journalist friend in Tehran, he reported that the people were celebrating Mr. Rowhani’s victory in the streets in huge numbers. “They are very, very happy,” he exclaimed.

Mr. Rowhani‘s social issues agenda was devoured by the voters, hungry for change. He vowed to increase freedom of expression, free political prisoners, establish greater roles for women and encourage support of the arts, as well as the most important issue for Iranians, to support the Iranian economy, which has been hit hard by U.S. and European sanctions. This makes the election similar to those elections everywhere, where social and pocketbook issues are the main concerns of the electorate.

From the myopic perspective of Washington, London and other Western capitals, however, the only issue worth talking about was Iran’s nuclear program. From the perspective of the Iranian citizenry, this was a minor issue, if it was mentioned at all. At best, the nuclear question was seen as an unfair characterization by the U.S. and its allies of a program in which Iranians take great pride, because of its demonstration of Iranian technological progress and knowledge. Concomitantly, U.S. sanctions designed to force Iran to stop enriching uranium were met with anger and defiance by the everyday voter.

Even with the Iranian public downplaying the nuclear issue, there is active speculation that the election of Mr. Rowhani may open a new chapter in Western-Iranian relations. Mr. Rowhani was the Iranian nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005. In 2004 on his watch Iran voluntarily suspended uranium enrichment as a confidence building measure in hoped-for negotiations with the West. The United States and other Western powers pointedly ignored this gesture, and imposed further sanctions. After the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005, uranium enrichment was resumed.

It is important to note that despite the obvious delight of Iranian voters at Mr. Rowhani’s victory, his election is somewhat symbolic. His moderate views may be difficult to implement, given the relative weakness of the Iranian presidency compared to the nation’s Spiritual Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i , who occupies the principal seat of power in the Iranian government. Even outgoing President Ahmadinejad, seen as a conservative, frequently ran afoul of Ayatollah Khamene’i, with detrimental effects on his ability to lead.

Even so, this election will go far in mitigating the public feeling that the last election, in 2009, had been stolen by the government to give President Ahmadinejad a second term, rather than electing the more moderate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. This perception led to riots and demonstrations in Tehran that lasted for months.

The current election celebrations in Iran are reminiscent of those greeting President Obama in his victories of 2008 and 2012. As Americans know, a candidate’s promises are often more celebrated than the reality of governance. This may be Mr. Rowhani’s fate, but for the time being his election is a bright spot in a dismal region of the world.

William O. Beeman is Department Chair of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, a veteran commentator on Iran politics, and a longtime editorial contributor for New America Media.

Riding A Misinformation Train to War (Thomas Wark)

http://bordellopianist.blogspot.com/
Friday, April 20, 2012
Riding a Misinformation Train to War

by Thomas Wark

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Thomas Wark provides a compendium of press mistakes, distortions and misinformation about Iran's nuclear program. The largest media outlets in the nation are regularly engaged in this activity, bringing the United States ever closer to disastrous conflict in the Middle East. 
 
As a body politic, citizens of the United States are among the most misinformed in the world.

More Americans seek information from Fox TV, whose contempt for truth is self-evident,  than from any other source.  What's far worse, though, is that other sources, including some once held to be virtually unimpeachable, can no longer be trusted. American media, as an entity, have betrayed the mission for which their First Amendment shield was written.

Now, as a result, Americans are once again wallowing toward war in a pigsty of distortion, misunderstanding, ignorance and falsehood. Even as useful bilateral talks continue between the so-called P5+1and Iran, Americans are subject to new rounds of misinformation and misinterpretation. (P5+1 stands for the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- France, the United Kingdom, the United States, China and Russia-- plus Germany.) A new report from Media Matters  finds that the broadcast news networks — NBC Nightly News, ABC’s World News and CBS’s Evening News — “frequently” distort or exaggerate key information regarding Iran’s nuclear program. “Two egregious misrepresentations in particular repeatedly came up,” the report says, “suggesting that Iran will imminently obtain the bomb and suggesting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has major influence over the country’s nuclear program.” Neither statement is true.

How can so many be so wrong about Iran? Let us count but some of the ways:

The Basics:  David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote that in a possible compromise, " Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium to the 20 percent level and to halt work at an underground facility near Qom built for higher enrichment. Iran would export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium for final processing to 20 percent, for use in medical isotopes. . . ."

Dr. Cyrus Safdari, Michigan State University's Middle East expert: First, Iran does not have a "stockpile of highly enriched uranium". It has a stockpile of low-enriched uranium. Twenty per cent is the upper limit of what is considered to be low-enriched. Second, Iran would not be exporting this stockpile for "final processing to 20%." It would be doing so for processing into nuclear fuel rods (a technology which, Iran has now started to develop indigenously, thus vitiating a need to export the stuff and probably making the issue a better bargaining chip for the Iranians...all thanks to the sanctions on a medical reactor that posed no proliferation threat in the first place.) And the 20% uranium is not "used in medical isotopes" but is instead used to power the reactor that makes isotopes. And I'm at loss as to how Ignatius concluded that Qom is "built for higher enrichment" than 20%. It is not.

The Serious Stuff:  The common line in U.S. media is that while Iran asserts that its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes, our leadership suspects that it's really intended to produce weapons.  The United States in fact does not suspect this.  Its intelligence agencies have said publicly, twice, that there is no evidence that Iran is preparing to build weapons.  The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran "now or ever."

Even as the first "constructive and useful" P5+1 talks with Iran were being held,the New York Times published a piece by James Risen that was littered with fallacy and misinterpretation.  Quoting "some analysts," Risen wrote that Ayatollah Khamenei's denial that Iran wanted nuclear arms "has to be seen as part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling. For centuries an oppressed minority within Islam, Shiites learned to conceal their sectarian identity to survive, and so there is a precedent for lying to protect the Shiite community." As usual in this kind of Times piece, we aren't give a clue as to who these "analysts" are. But Juan Cole, one of the top Mideast scholars in the United States, points out that historically, taqiyya was not a license to lie about anything, but permission to conceal one's religious identity in the face of life-threatening sectarian prejudice. He also notes that, in the twentieth century, the tide of Shiite legal opinion ran against taqiyya, and that Imam Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, demanded that taqiyya be abandoned. Cole concludes by saying that the taqiyya argument is "just some weird form of Islamophobia."

Risen's article seemed designed to question Khameni's religious edict, or fatwa, banning the possession of nuclear weapons as a sin against Islam, just as top U.N. officials were meeting "constructively" with the Iranians.  Risen rehashed old arguments by Iran's adversaries and added some of his own.

Once again on the word of unnamed "analysts," Risen wrote that Khamenei's no-nukes posture was contradicted "by remarks he had made last year 'that it was a mistake for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya to give up his nuclear weapons program.'"

In fact, Khamenei's remarks referred to "all  his (Qaddafi's) nuclear facilities," and not to his nuclear weapons (as Risen reported). Khamenei was making a point that other Iranian leaders frequently make: merely having a nuclear program without nuclear weapons can be a deterrent to attack. They cite the Japanese model as one for Iran to emulate.

Risen wrote that Khamenei's predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, reversed his initial opposition to nuclear weapons as inconsistent with Islam in 1984, and "secretly decided to restart the nuclear weapons program." He cited no source for that sweeping accusation.

Gareth Porter, historian and investigative journalist, says he has encountered skeptics who doubt that the Khamenei fatwa even exists.  "But," he writes, "even Mehdi Khalaji of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy acknowledged in an essay published last September that Khamenei's oral statements are considered fatwas and are binding on believers."

Condi Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" threat from Iraq turned out to be thin blue smoke. But even the so-called "responsible" American media snuffed it up as the real thing.

Dare we let it happen again?

William O. Beeman--Iran's Uncertain Future (New America Media)

Iran’s Uncertain Future

New America Media, News analysis,

William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 31, 2009

It is now clear that the population of Iran is in full revolt against its leaders. There is a better than even chance that the government will fall before summer. Sadly, there is no clear successor leadership on the horizon. This may prove to be the worst of all possible revolutions—a leaderless coup often leads to a regime that feeds on itself.

The current governmental regime in Tehran, including spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made error after error in dealing with the opposition. Iran is a hierarchical society. Persons in high positions are paradoxically in the most fragile positions. Either they must support their followers, or be toppled from power.

The government has, in the face of the questionable presidential elections in June, repressed, murdered and incarcerated thousands of legitimate protestors. They have jailed former architects of the Revolution of 1978-79 that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and former government officials such as ex-Foreign Minister, Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi. These actions are a betrayal of the social ties that bind political leaders to their followers. In essence, Iran’s political elite has utterly lost its public support. There is no other possible result than that they leave the scene.

The situation has been exacerbated by the confluence of this repression with the annual observances of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. Hossein’s legitimacy to rule the Islamic community was opposed by the Umayyid Caliph, Yazid. Yazid then ordered his army to Kerbala where Hossein was encamped with his family. The male members of Hossein’s clan were beheaded and the women and children led into captivity in the Umayyid capital, Damascus.

Now the public is equating opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Musavi with Imam Hossein. They chant “Ya Hossein, Ya Mir-Hossein” in their opposition marches. Ayatollah Khamene’i is now equated directly with the Caliph, Yazid in street slogans and banners. Currency is being defaced with insults against the government. As veteran Middle East commentator, Robin Wright, has noted, the current Iranian resistance “is arguably the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign anywhere in the world today.”

However, should Ayatollah Khamene’i, President Ahmadinejad and other high officials be toppled from power, it is unclear who will replace them. The opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has proved to be utterly feckless as a leader. His fortunes only improved shortly before the June election when he suddenly was seen as a viable opponent for the increasingly unpopular President Ahmadinejad. Since the election he has been more a follower than a leader. In fact, his wife, the intrepid Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, who apparently organized his campaign, emerged as a greater political force.

Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former President and supreme political operative also engineered Mousavi’s campaign. Usually outspoken, he has been exceptionally cautious in recent weeks, and his relatives have been terrorized by Tehran’s leaders. Now in his 70’s, it is unclear that he could emerge as a strong leader in a new government.

There is also the sticky business of the bedrock principle of the Islamic Republic, the “Velayat-e Faqih,” or “Regency of the Chief Jurisprudent.” It is this principle that legitimizes the supreme authority of Ayatollah Khamene’i, who is said to be ruling as regent, or substitute for the 9th Century Imam, Mohammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be alive, but “in occultation,” until the Day of Judgment. This doctrine was established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1978-79 Revolution and is ensconced in the Iranian Constitution. If Ayatollah Khamene’i is toppled from power, either the constitution must be scrapped, or a successor must be found. Most religious leaders reject this doctrine today—a fact that has already created a de facto constitutional crisis.

Humanity has seen leaderless revolutions before, and they don’t turn out well. Those vying for power early on are condemned by those who arise after them. There is a perpetual scramble for both power and control of the ideology of the revolution. Much blood flows, and decades can pass before order is restored.

In light of this situation, the Obama administration is wise to stand aside and wait before making any commitments to the present power elite. More importantly, it behooves the administration to start preparing for a post-revolutionary phase, making sure that U.S. actions do not alienate the Iranian public or those who will accede to power.

Sadly, the U.S. Congress is not as wise as the executive branch. Still stuck with a crude and inaccurate fetishization of Iran’s nuclear energy program, they are on the brink of approving economic sanctions that will only cement the Iranian public’s already fixed notion that America only wants their nation to sink in misery and failure.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and is past president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His most recent book is "'The Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other." (Chicago, 2008).

Nuclear drive a casualty of Iran's turmoil Experts say Tehran is unlikely to speed up its program (L.A. Times)

latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nukes28-2009aug28,0,4625620.story
latimes.com
Nuclear drive a casualty of Iran's turmoil

Experts say Tehran is unlikely to speed up its program, giving the U.S. and its allies more time to work with.

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Iran's nuclear program has served as an excuse for launching an attack on the Islamic Republic since 2003. It is clear that Iran is far away from mastering the fuel cycle that would allow it to create fuel for generation of energy. Iran's attackers use weasel-words like "nuclear weapons development capacity" to make the program seem vastly more threatening than it is. In fact, there is no evidence whatever that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. This does not stop politicians in the United States, Israel and elsewhere from presenting Iranian nuclear weapons development as a fait accompli. As Borzou Daragahi points out, there would be many bumps in the road before Iran could come close to developing a weapon, if such a program actually existed, and the current political turmoil sets the clock back even farther. In the meantime, Pakistan becomes less and less stable every day, and Pakistan has nuclear bombs ready to launch. No one in Washington or Tel Aviv seems to care.


By Borzou Daragahi

August 28, 2009

Reporting from Beirut

Iran's political crisis could prevent the nation from making any swift move to ratchet up its nuclear program, said analysts and officials, giving President Obama and Western allies more time to grapple with the issue.

The chaos over the disputed reelection of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brings into question who calls the shots in Tehran, and what any deal with the Islamic Republic involving its nuclear program would look like.

The Obama administration, concerned that Tehran is seeking to amass the materials needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, set an informal deadline of September for Iran to respond positively to an offer to discuss the matter rather than risk new economic sanctions.

"The infighting in Tehran has sent up a smoke screen that further confuses the picture from the outside, and the picture was plenty opaque to begin with," said a U.S. official in Washington who is involved in formulating nuclear policy and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Tehran has long insisted that its nuclear research program is meant solely to provide electricity for its growing population. Its production of reactor-grade uranium has become a source of national pride, the atomic symbol emblazoned on the back of Iran's 50,000-rial bills.

But most Western arms-control experts believe Iran is trying to achieve the ability to quickly manufacture a nuclear bomb. And Iran continues to defy United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding that it stop producing the enriched uranium, material that, if further refined, could be turned into the fissile material for a bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is set to take up its latest quarterly status report on Iran's nuclear program in early September.

In recent weeks, Iran granted IAEA inspectors access to a heavy-water reactor and parts of the country's enrichment facility after previously barring them. The move suggests an effort by Tehran to ease pressure on itself and on its most likely supporters at the Security Council -- Russia and China -- before any new talks on sanctions.

Although Iranian scientists have continued to enrich low-grade uranium during the nation's political crisis, news agencies have reported that Tehran has not taken steps to increase its processing capacity during the last quarter. Experts say that may have more to do with technical quirks than political decisions.

For now, most Iran watchers agree that Tehran will not only be unable to respond positively to the Obama administration's offer of talks, but also is in too much political disarray to make the major decisions necessary to build a nuclear weapon. Such steps would include further enriching its uranium supply to weapons grade, or constructing controversial new facilities for speeding up the process.

"The nuclear dossier has been stalled and is in a stagnant position, with no back or forth moves," said Ahmad Shirzad, an Iranian nuclear scientist and political analyst. "The recent events in Iran put all important decision-making in limbo. The postelection events have not completely unfolded, and Mr. Ahmadinejad has not come to a conclusion what to do."

Iran's 20-year foray into nuclear technology has long benefited from a broad consensus among the nation's political elites, or at least acquiescence by foes of the program. Important institutions such as the Expediency Council, led by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the presidency; the Supreme National Security Council and parliament, along with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have played a role in the program's creation and sustenance.

Conservative Ahmadinejad likes to take credit for Iran's recent nuclear progress. But Tehran actually relaunched its dormant program under the 1980s premiership of his primary rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and the first breakthroughs on enrichment came during the presidency of Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.

"Nuclear policy has not changed regardless of the domestic problems, as the nuclear policy, like any other strategic policy, was predetermined more than two decades ago," said Ali Khorram, a former Iranian diplomat based in Tehran.

Since the disputed June election, Iran's feuding factions have been preoccupied with political infighting. Rafsanjani skipped Ahmadinejad's inauguration and the president skipped a session of the Expediency Council. At a ceremony honoring the new judiciary chief, who is a conservative rival to Ahmadinejad, the president arrived an hour late and left in haste after delivering a blistering speech calling on the jurist to go after those he termed elitists, alluding to Rafsanjani.

Within Iran's treacherous domestic political arena, any sign of weakness, or of bowing to the West, either by slowing Tehran's missile program or suspending the production of reactor-grade uranium, could be used by rivals to pounce, political analysts say. Therefore, it is likely that the current program, in which reactor-grade nuclear material is processed by at least 5,000 spinning centrifuges, will keep moving forward at its current pace.

"The nuclear program is a touchstone issue for the entire government," said the U.S. official. "No one on either side of the current controversy is going to risk his credibility by even suggesting a change in posture or a substantive pause."

Iran's political hard-liners have made dramatic moves during previous periods of domestic discord. Such measures as stoning women or questioning the Holocaust provoked an international reaction that unified squabbling domestic factions and silenced critics.

But because of the extent of the current political feuding and the stakes involved, experts say, it is unlikely that Tehran will make a dramatic move toward constructing a nuclear weapon.

"It will be hard to get an approval by all concerned," said Jalil Roshandel, an Iran expert at East Carolina University.

Moreover, he said, continued public support of Ahmadinejad's nuclear policies is no longer a given.

"Public opinion is divided, dispersed or, at best, indifferent," he said.

A "breakout" move on the nuclear issue risks not only public scorn, but also tighter sanctions, an embargo on sales of refined petroleum to Tehran or even armed conflict.

Iran's rulers may not want to risk testing the loyalty of an already volatile and angry populace..

"We must remember that the nuclear program is a means to an end," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran expert based in Tel Aviv. "Khamenei would not sacrifice his regime over it."

Anger over Ahmadinejad's domestic policies has already emboldened figures close to the opposition to speak out more forcefully against his approach on the nuclear issue.

"The Iranian authorities should know what they should expect if they do not enter the negotiations seriously and do not adhere to the repeated resolutions of the Security Council on the suspension of the uranium enrichment program," warned a commentary in the reformist newspaper Mardom Salari.

Internal paralysis, international isolation and stagnant oil prices, analysts say, could work dramatically in the West's favor, giving Tehran the incentive to make a quick deal with the West in order to concentrate on shoring up domestic stability and its faltering economy.

"So far, since the election, Iran seems to be a bit more flexible than before," said Anoush Ehteshami, a professor of international relations at Durham University in Britain.

"Given the current political climate at home, it makes sense to try to contain the nuclear crisis for as long as possible."

But some warn that any deal with Iran's current government would strengthen its legitimacy, betraying an election protest movement that has captured the world's imagination and challenged decades-old ideas about Iran's political realities.

"The Iranian people will never forget if Western liberalism and the international community abandons the Iranian nation's struggle for freedom," said Reza Kaviani, a Tehran-based analyst and opposition supporter.

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

William O. Beeman--Iran's Current Turmoil Has Deep Roots (New America Media)

Iran’s Current Turmoil Has Deep Roots

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jul 17, 2009 Review it on NewsTrust

The turbulent internal politics of Iran following the June 12 election have been most often portrayed as a clash between secularizing reform forces and entrenched religious forces. However, this is a mischaracterization. The controversy is fundamentally between two very old, very entrenched religious philosophies that have been debated for more than 300 years. It’s a debate at the heart of every major political uprising in the nation’s history from that time forward. Even if the present controversy is quelled, this debate will continue for the immediate future, likely resulting in a major governmental shift.

The fundamental debate is over the role of religion in the governance of the state. The Safavid Dynasty, founded in the 17th Century, marks the beginning of modern Iran. The Safavids were an Azerbaijani Turkish Shi’a Muslim religious order with strong ties to Sufi mysticism. They eventually conquered the Caucasus, Central Asia and Northern India.

From the very beginning the question of the role of religion in the state was a great issue. The Safavids established “Twelver” Shi’a Islam as the state religion, and from that time forward most of the institutions of modern Shi’ism were established. This included the doctrine that all Shi’a believers should choose a “person worthy of emulation” to serve as their spiritual guide. Eventually, these “Marjeh-ye Taqlid” were recognized as Grand Ayatollahs, renowned for their scholarship, which was established in a “thesis” that included their views of Islamic laws. They also believed that the Twelfth Imam after the Prophet Mohammad, called the “Mahdi,” had vanished in the Golden Mosque in Samarra and would eventually return at the end of time, with Jesus, to render the final judgment of humankind. The Mahdi remains for modern Shi’a believers the ultimate true authority.

The wisest religious scholars warned the Safavids that Islamic clerics should not get involved with government, lest they become corrupt. They pointed out that Islam says very little about statecraft or the formation of governmental institutions and that the compromises of politics are often incompatible with religious piety.

The Safavids didn’t listen. They became powerful and eventually did become corrupt, until they were weakened and conquered by forces from Afghanistan. Another Turkish Dynasty, the Qajars, arose in the 19th Century, with the same fundamental problems of reconciling religious institutions with the State. The Qajar shahs were often at odds with the clergy—particularly when they began to meet the economic and military challenges of Europe by selling “concessions” to Europeans for the exploitation of Iran’s natural resources and economic institutions. The result was an Islamic backlash with open rebellion against the state that launched the modern Islamic movement and led to Iran’s first constitution in 1905.

Toward the end of the Qajar period, prominent Islamic scholars Shaykh Fazollah Nuri and Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Na’ini maintained opposite viewpoints about the role of clerics in government. As Iran scholar Abbas Milani pointed out in a July 15 article in The New Republic, Sheikh Nuri believed that, in the absence of the hidden Mahdi, religious clerics had ultimate authority in the modern state, and could veto legislation if it was not sufficiently Islamic.

Ayatollah Na’ini asserted that no human government could substitute for the true “Islamic government” to be established by the Mahdi at his return. In the interim, humans had to do the best they could. For Na’ini, this was a constitutional democracy in which, according to Milani, “The role of ayatollahs . . . would be to "advise" the rulers and ensure that laws inimical to sharia were not implemented. But it would not be to rule the country themselves.” Na’ini approved the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled Iran until the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who lead the Islamic Revolution which deposed the shah, at first seemed to embrace Na’ini’s philosophy of clerical non-involvement. After the revolution succeeded, however, he reversed course, and embraced Nuri’s philosophy, to the consternation of the majority of the Grand Ayatollahs. The Iranian constitution, consequently, rests on the principle of the “Velayat-e Faqih,” or the “Regency of the Chief Jurisprudent,” in which a senior scholar is chosen as Regent for the absent Mahdi. This is Iran’s “Supreme Leader” today.

Clerics who opposed this doctrine at the time were stripped of their credentials, and some were placed under house arrest.

When Ayatollah Khomeini died, it was difficult to find a successor who would take on the role of Supreme Leader. Ali Khamene’i was finally chosen. He was not a cleric of the first rank, but he was quickly elevated to the rank of Ayatollah. His legitimacy was questioned from the moment he took office.

The controversy still rages. Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, one of the most conservative clerics in the holy shrine city of Qom, and spiritual advisor to President Ahmadinejad, is a supporter of the Nuri position. He has declared that elections are unnecessary now that proper Islamic rule is in place. He reportedly told election workers before the June 12 election that it would be permissible for them to fix the election to make sure that Ahmadinejad could continue in office to support religious rule.

Ahmadinejad’s chief rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is no less pious, but he espouses the religious philosophy embodied in the writings of Ayatollah Na’ini—that a secular democracy should be the basic form of government for Iran, with religious scholars serving merely as advisors.

This is also the position favored by the most influential Grand Ayatollah in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Najaf. Some of the most revered clerics in Iran have likewise denounced the election, thus tacitly revealing their opposition to the principle of the Supreme Leader.

The current attacks questioning the election are thus seen by both Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamene’i as attacks against the most fundamental principle of the current constitution of the Islamic Republic. If the reformers prevail, the constitution would likely be rewritten, and the office of Supreme Leader would be eliminated or greatly reduced in influence. This was threatening not only to the two top office holders, but to everyone else whose power depended on them, including the Revolutionary Guard, and the Basij militia forces, both of which were established to “guard the principles of the Revolution.”

Even if the current controversy dies down, and Ahmadinejad assumes a second presidential term, the crisis will continue. Supreme Leader Khamene’i has no obvious successor, and with the majority of Grand Ayatollahs opposing the very existence of the office, it is unclear who will be found to fill it.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has conducted research on Iran for more than 30 years and lived through the Revolution of 1978-79. He is the author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.

William O. Beeman--Iran’s Ongoing Revolution - New America Media

Iran’s Ongoing Revolution - NAM

Iran’s Ongoing Revolution

New America Media, News analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 26, 2009

Additional Commentary from William O. Beeman: I wrote the piece below on Tuesday, June 23. I now think that the prediction of the Iranian leadership's demise is somewhat precipitous. The Iranian government has launced an unprecedented crackdown on protestors of the election, which has quieted the protest. We learn from China and other places that such measures can definitely be effective in quelling resistance. (please see my earlier commments on this below). However, I stand by my feeling that the Iranian government has created a breach with its own citizens. Eventually, this event will live in memory, and will form the basis for govenmental change. I stand behind my characterization of the course of an ongoing resistance, and suggest that observers continue to note the culturally potent symbolic elements of resistance that characterize Iranian political, social and religious life. Today Roya Hakakian admonished all of us not to make predicting the Iranian Revolution our chief occupation. Prediction is hard, but it is a sure bet that change will come to Iran over the next 5-10 years--if the world will let Iranians do their own work and not interfere.


Iran’s most visible leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i are on the brink of losing their respective offices in the wake of the controversial presidential election in Iran June 12. It may not happen immediately, but it is a likely outcome over the long term.

Should this happen, many sectors of the American punditocracy will be thoroughly embarrassed. Having built these two figures up to mythic status, they will now have to face Iran as it really is, not as they would like to style it. It is, and has been for many years, not a calcified theocracy controlled by old mullahs. It is rather a nation on the brink of change as a new generation assumes power, and as the influence of women in the society rockets to the forefront.

Ayatollah Khamene’i has now been denounced by name in the streets — an unprecedented event. Furthermore, it is rumored that his rival, former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council, which mediates between the powerful Guardian Council and the Iranian Parliament, and the Assembly of Experts, which oversees the authority of the Spiritual Leader, is lobbying the bodies he heads to replace the Spiritual Leader.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has been accused of rigging the election along with the son of Ayatollah Khamene’i, Mojtaba, and key members of the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij strike force. Statistical analyses of the official vote published in the Washington Post a few days after the election suggest that the numbers are artificial. Documents from the Ministry of the Interior showing the “real” vote tall--in which Mr. Moussavi was the clear winner--are in wide circulation.

However, it is now clear that the presidential election has become irrelevant in Iranian political life going forward. The Iranian president is relatively powerless in any case. What is more important is that the people feel that they have been violated by the power elite of the country and are now bent on changing the very foundation of their government.

If sea change is truly in the works in Iran, how will it proceed?

People can only imagine what they can imagine. In Iran today both the people and the establishment have only one model for social and governmental change, and that is the original Islamic revolution of 1978-79. Because both sides are working with the same vocabulary of symbolism, they are groping to command those potent images that will galvanize public support in their favor.

The master vocabulary of revolution in Iran is the historical martyrdom of Imam Hossein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who was killed on the plains of Karbala in present day Iraq in 680. Imam Hossein is the central figure in Shi’a Islam, and his death is commemorated perpetually in Iranian life.

President Ahmadinejad’s chief rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, co-opted the symbolism of the Karbala tragedy early on. For his campaign, he adopted the color green, the color most associated with Islam itself, with descendants of the Prophet, and with the martyrdom of Imam Hossein. After the election, he declared himself “ready for martyrdom,” and his supporters appeared in the streets shouting “Ya Hossein,” echoing the cries shouted by groups of mourners in the annual commemoration of Imam Hoseein’s death. As a religious cry, it could not be faulted by the police and security forces. They have also taken to shouting “Allahu Akbar—God is Great,” which is both a symbolic cry in favor of change, but also a subtle reminder that change--even revolutionary change--is always in the hands of God.

Not to be outdone, the clerical establishment countered the idea of martyrdom in the election with the Iranian soldier-martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war.

The original revolution fed on occasions for public assembly, notably the three-, seven-, and 40-day mourning ceremonies for the dead. This created a cycle of martyrdom as protesters against the Pahlavi government assembled, were killed by the Shah’s forces, and were in turn mourned in an ongoing fashion. The entire Revolution took more than a year to complete before the Shah finally gave up and left. The world can expect a long and drawn-out process of resistance in this action as well—a point made by Dr. Gary Sick of Columbia University in an article printed on The Daily Beast. Dr. Sick served as a military intelligence officer during the earlier Revolution

The original revolution was led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from his exile in France. He used the technology of the day--long distance telephone and tape cassettes--to spread his revolutionary message.

In today’s resistance a remarkably appropriate figure may be poised to likewise lead from abroad--Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi who finds herself in Europe at this time. The technology of today--the Internet and the cell phone may be the organizing force that drives this current force for change.

Those who think that change will bring an end to Islamic influence in Iran are dead wrong. Neither side in the current conflict has denounced the Islamic Republic. However the current opposition wants to change the basis for Islamic government. At the core is the controversial doctrine of the Velayat-e Faqih, the Rule of the Chief Jurisprudent, in which the Spiritual Leader rules in place of the Hidden 12th Imam of Shi’a Islam, who has been in hiding since the 9th Century.

Only Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers supported this doctrine. All other Shi’a Grand Ayatollahs rejected it, or had serious reservations. Chief among the objectors today is Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is Iranian, and serves as the chief religious authority in Najaf, Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani has more followers than any other Shi’a leader.

Ayatollah Rafsanjani would reportedly replace Ayatollah Khamene’i with a triumvirate of knowledgeable clerics, of which he might be one. There is currently no willing successor to Ayatollah Khamene’i, so this problem was going to have to be addressed in the future anyway.

It is likely that the Guardian Council, which vets political candidates and approves laws passed by parliament, would also have its powers curtailed.

Iran watchers are looking carefully to see how successful the opposition organization has become and whether it will be able to sustain itself and develop a potent ideology and leadership for the long haul. It will also be important to see how the cycle of demonstrations, strikes and confrontations plays itself out over time.

One thing is certain, change has once again begun in Iran, and however it plays out, it will leave the nation in a very different state than it is in today.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has conducted research on Iran for more than 30 years, and lived through the Revolution of 1978-79. He is the author of "The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other."

The Iranian Turmoil--latest thinking--William O. Beeman

I recognize a real social movement when I see one, and the Iranian turmoil is likely to have long-term consequences. Eventually, I believe those agitating for governmental change are going to prevail and revise the constitution, but it will take better organization and a long time to come to fruition.

On the other hand, I recognize several things about the current regime:

1. Ahmadinejad's supporters, the Abadgaran, Isargaran, etc. had a large component of Iraq war veterans. They complained bitterly that they didn't get enough power when AN was elected, and he responded by giving many of them very important posts throughout his administration, where he had the authority. They are now dependent on his retaining is office for them to stay in power. I wrote about this in the last chapter of the Great Satan book. These folks are real power-mongers. They want to maintain their status at any cost.

2. As Neil MacFarquhar noted in today's NYT, Ayatollah Khamene'i also has a coterie of folks dependent on him. If he goes, so do they. Same deal, patron-client relations mean that they will fight fiercely to make sure he stays in his post. Thus for both AN and AK, they are shored up by people whose very lives and fortunes depend on their staying in office, and they will go to ruthless measures to see that this is accomplished.

3. The Iranian regime has saddled up to both China and Russia, and has seen how useful their models for government are--placate the people with electronic toys and slightly improved living conditions and crack down ruthlessly on dissent. I think this is what they have decided to do.

4. Russia and China have a very important stake in keeping things as they are. They have good energy and trade deals with Iran, and these relations are a counter to the United States and Europe. I would not be surprised if they have a heavy hand in this. There are confusing reports of soldiers who don't speak Persian breaking heads in Tehran and elsewhere.

William O. Beeman

William O. Beeman--IT'S THE AFTERMATH OF THE IRANIAN ELECTION THAT COUNTS (New America Media)

Note: The article below has been modified from the original.

IT'S THE AFTERMATH OF THE IRANIAN ELECTION THAT COUNTS


New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 18, 2009

The Iranian presidential election is over, and while the world focuses on
whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected fairly, or whether his
rival Mir Hussein Moussavi was the winner, the most serious issue for Iran
and the rest of the world is the role of the Iranian government in
conducting the election.

Government officials made many mistakes both before and after the election
that will cost them their public support. Erosion of public confidence in
the government -- already shaky before the election -- will lead to
instability, and instability in Iran means instability throughout the
region.

The most significant mistake was to unilaterally and uncritically back the
highly controversial President Ahmadinejad. He had significant support in
rural areas and among pensioners and some members of the traditional
classes, as well as the more fervently conservative sectors of the military.
But even clerical leaders expressed wariness with his grandstanding
extremist rhetoric, and his short-term giveaway economic policies that
ignored the need for infrastructure and new employment. The middle and upper
classes viewed with dismay the erosion in civil liberties under his
administration, and cringed at his millenarian personal beliefs.

If Mr. Moussavi prevailed, relatively little would have changed in Iran, but
the establishment would have retained some thread of contact with his
supporters. The establishment powers needed much more wiggle room in this
controversial election.

It may well be that Ahmadinejad actually won the election. He garnered about
the same percentage of votes, approximately 62 percent, as he had in the
runoff election in 2005. However, the way in which his victory was presented
to the public showed absolute disdain for both the Iranian people and the
electoral process. One wonders what official decided to announce that he had
won before the prescribed three-day waiting period had expired.

It made the world wonder how such a declaration was logistically possible
given the number of votes that had to be counted by hand.

Then President Ahmadinejad himself showed a cocky disdain for those who
questioned the election, likening them to disgruntled soccer fans, and
referring to them as "dust." The large-scale street protests were met with
force, and the government tried to crack down, unsuccessfully, on
transmission of information about the civil unrest.

One could see the fabric of Iran ripping and tearing with Ahmadinejad's
words and the government's subsequent deeds.

Authority in Iran depends on the existence of a social contract between
subordinate and super-ordinate powers. The super-ordinate figures are
paradoxically the most fragile in their position. They must attend to the
needs of subordinates, or risk being toppled from power -- or at the very
least undermined. Every Iranian working in a bureaucratic office knows that
the bad boss is eventually done in by his employees who lose things,
misroute files, and steal -- or in extreme cases, launch embarrassing
protests. Then they claim their subordinate status as an excuse.

In this regard, the Iranian government conduct vis-a-vis the protestors and
street demonstrators in the wake of the elections is the telling event. By
sanctioning the beating of women and young people, house arrests and
crackdowns, the authorities in Iran essentially are breaking their contract
with the people. Social order begins to fray. Ayatollah Khamene'i must
re-establish his credentials with the public if he hopes to keep the power
structure intact, and it may now be too late.

This was the lesson Ayatollah Khomeini was able to teach the nation when the
authority of his religious-based movement was challenged by other actors in
the revolution of 1978-79. He co-opted and outflanked his enemies by
adopting their radical agenda and garnering the support of the public.

As Iranian analysts have been pointing out for years, demography is playing
a huge role in this social drama. The majority of the voting population
(even with an arbitrary raising of the voting age to 18 to curtail youth
power) was bound to tip the scales in this or the next election. The tip
appears to have happened sooner than later. The power of women has also
grown to be enormous and they are very angry.

It is also telling that those being affected by the government's
heavy-handed treatment are a broad spectrum of the population, just as in
the original revolution of 1978-79. The restrictions on the foreign press
are also significant.

Who knows why the Iranian government acted in this reckless manner?

Certainly paranoia about Western interference in Iranian internal affairs
has been growing in Iran in recent years. CIA and Mossad operatives are
known to be operating in Iran. "Color" revolutions in the former Soviet
Union supported by the United States increased this anxiety. When
Ahmadinejad's chief opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, appeared with a "green"
color theme, this may have set off alarms and lack of caution.

The next 10 days will be very significant to see how this series of events
plays out. The large difference between 1978-79 and today is the extremely
complex power structures ensconced in the Iranian constitution. Toppling a
single figure or small group of figures will not automatically result in
governmental change, despite the loss of the public contract with authority.
Time will certainly tell.

-----------------------

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology
at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He has lived and worked in Iran
for more than 30 years. His most recent book is "The 'Great Satan' vs. the
'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other,"
(University of Chicago Press, 2008).

Zakaria--Everything you know about Iran is Wrong (Newsweek)

They May Not Want The Bomb

And other unexpected truths.

NEWSWEEK
May 23, 2009

By Fareed Zakaria

Comment by William O. Beeman:
Fareed Zakaria verifies what Iranian experts have been saying for years about Iran--that it is not a theocracy, that it is not a dictatorship in the conventional sense of the term, that Iranians do not have a nuclear weapons program, that Iranian elections are not unfair, that Iranian women are not hopelessly repressed. It is frustrating that unquestioned experts on Iran could have been shouting these truths for years with no effect. Let us hope that a media star like Zakaria can make a dent in the baseless AIPAC-inspired attacks on Iran, and that a saner policy toward the Islamic Republic will emerge in the Obama administration

Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini's statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.

Following a civilian nuclear strategy has big benefits. The country would remain within international law, simply asserting its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position that has much support across the world. That would make comprehensive sanctions against Iran impossible. And if Tehran's aim is to expand its regional influence, it doesn't need a bomb to do so. Simply having a clear "breakout" capacity—the ability to weaponize within a few months—would allow it to operate with much greater latitude and impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Iranians aren't suicidal. In an interview last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Iranian regime as "a messianic, apocalyptic cult." In fact, Iran has tended to behave in a shrewd, calculating manner, advancing its interests when possible, retreating when necessary. The Iranians allied with the United States and against the Taliban in 2001, assisting in the creation of the Karzai government. They worked against the United States in Iraq, where they feared the creation of a pro-U.S. puppet on their border. Earlier this year, during the Gaza war, Israel warned Hizbullah not to launch rockets against it, and there is much evidence that Iran played a role in reining in their proxies. Iran's ruling elite is obsessed with gathering wealth and maintaining power. The argument made by those—including many Israelis for coercive sanctions against Iran is that many in the regime have been squirreling away money into bank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland for their children and grandchildren. These are not actions associated with people who believe that the world is going to end soon.
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One of Netanyahu's advisers said of Iran, "Think Amalek." The Bible says that the Amalekites were dedicated enemies of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Now, were the president of Iran and his advisers to have cited a religious text that gave divine sanction for the annihilation of an entire race, they would be called, well, messianic.

Iran isn't a dictatorship. It is certainly not a democracy. The regime jails opponents, closes down magazines and tolerates few challenges to its authority. But neither is it a monolithic dictatorship. It might be best described as an oligarchy, with considerable debate and dissent within the elites. Even the so-called Supreme Leader has a constituency, the Assembly of Experts, who selected him and whom he has to keep happy. Ahmadinejad is widely seen as the "mad mullah" who runs the country, but he is not the unquestioned chief executive and is actually a thorn in the side of the clerical establishment. He is a layman with no family connections to major ayatollahs—which makes him a rare figure in the ruling class. He was not initially the favored candidate of the Supreme Leader in the 2005 election. Even now the mullahs clearly dislike him, and he, in turn, does things deliberately designed to undermine their authority. Iran might be ready to deal. We can't know if a deal is possible since we've never tried to negotiate one, not directly. While the regime appears united in its belief that Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program—a position with broad popular support—some leaders seem sensitive to the costs of the current approach. It is conceivable that these "moderates" would appreciate the potential benefits of limiting their nuclear program, including trade, technology and recognition by the United States. The Iranians insist they must be able to enrich uranium on their own soil. One proposal is for this to take place in Iran but only under the control of an international consortium. It's not a perfect solution because the Iranians could—if they were very creative and dedicated—cheat. But neither is it perfect from the Iranian point of view because it would effectively mean a permanent inspections regime in their country. But both sides might get enough of what they consider crucial for it to work. Why not try this before launching the next Mideast war?

© 2009