The Crisis in Iran Is Just Beginning - The Daily Beast

The Crisis in Iran Is Just Beginning - The Daily Beast


The Crisis in Iran Is Just Beginning
by Gary Sick
June 22, 2009 | 11:28pm
AP Photo Gary Sick, the key White House official during the 1979 hostage crisis, says this revolution may be more of a marathon than a sprint, with no clear winner or loser. The watchwords for Obama: Do no harm.

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Gary Sick's analysis below reflects both wisdom and experience. Having personally lived through the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 I can verify what he says about the long-term nature of social change. His statement that Iranians prefer chess to football is only partially true. They like football a lot, but only as punctuation for the greater long game. It is also important to note that this was predictable. I have been writing for a number of years that a generational turnover was about to happen in Iran that would precipitate social change. Added to this is the extraordinary rise of female power in Iran. Added to this is the fact that there is no clear successor to Ayatollah Khamene'i. The core principle of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the "velayat-e faqih" or "regency of the chief jurisprudent," where the chief religious figure of the nation rules in place of the "hidden" 12th Imam of Shi'ism, is under fire. Only Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers subscribed to this principle. The other Grand Ayatollahs of the Shi'a world were opposed, claiming that clerical participation in politics would lead to corruption. Well, the corruption is now palpable and real, and exposed for all to see. The Iranian Presidency is now a side issue in the greater game of control of the nation.

____________________
As I set forth on a long vacation trip, here are a few observations about the situation in Iran based on my own experience of watching the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis from the White House 30 years ago.

Don’t expect that this will be resolved cleanly with a win or loss in short period of time. The Iranian revolution, which is usually regarded as one of the most accelerated overthrows of a well-entrenched power structure in history, started in about January 1978, and the shah departed in January 1979. During that period, there were long pauses and periods of quiescence that could lead one to believe that the revolt had subsided. This is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Endurance is at least as important as speed.

The Iranians prefer chess to football, and a “win” may involve a negotiated solution in which everyone saves face.
There may not be a clear winner or loser. Iranians are clever and wily politicians. They prefer chess to football, and a “win” may involve a negotiated solution in which everyone saves face. The current leadership has chosen, probably unwisely, to make this a test of strength, but if they conclude that it is a no-win situation, they could settle for a compromise. The shape of a compromise is impossible to guess at this point, but it would probably involve significant concessions concealed behind a great public show of unity.

Leadership is the key. Ayatollah Khamenei, the rahbar or leader, has chosen—again probably unwisely—to get out in front as the spokesman of the regime. Unlike his predecessor, the father of the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini, he has openly taken sides with one faction over another. He is clearly speaking for the ultraconservative leaders of the Revolutionary Guards and their equally reactionary clerical supporters, who fear any possible threat to their dominant power. Curiously, President Ahmadinejad has largely vanished from sight, which adds to the impression that he is more of a pawn than a prime mover in this affair.

On the other side is Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the erstwhile colleague and now principal antagonist of the rahbar. He has chosen, as he usually does, to stay behind the scenes as a master strategist, leaving the public field to Mir Hossein Mousavi and the other disappointed candidates and their followers.

The irony of two former colleagues now competing for power over the expiring corpse of the Islamic republic that they created with such grandiose expectations is lost on no one. The important subtext, however, is that these two understand very well what they are doing. They know how a revolt can be turned into a revolution. They also know they have everything to lose. The shared consciousness of high stakes has until now prevented an all-out political confrontation between rival factions in the elite. That may help explain why the rahbar and the Revolutionary Guards were so reckless in their insolent contempt of the reformers and the public. They may have believed that no one would dare take it to this level.

Now that it has arrived at this point, both protagonists are faced with decisions of unprecedented gravity. There has been nothing like this in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, and today there is no Khomeini father figure to moderate and mediate among the warring factions. They must improvise in conditions of severe uncertainty. If anyone tells you that they know how this will turn out, treat their words with the same regard you would have for any fortune teller peering into a crystal ball.

For the United States, the watchwords should be: Do no harm. The situation in Iran is being exploited for short-term domestic political purposes by those who have been looking for an opening to attack the Obama administration. Wouldn’t it feel good to give full-throated expression to American opposition to the existing power structure in Iran? Perhaps so—but it could also be a fatal blow to the demonstrators risking their lives on the streets of Tehran and it could scotch any chance of eventual negotiations with whatever government emerges from this trial by fire.

The crisis in Iran is an Iranian crisis and it can only be resolved by the Iranian people and their leaders. There is no need to conceal our belief in freedom of speech and assembly and our support for the resolution of political disputes without bloodshed. But we should not be stampeded by domestic political concerns into pretending that our intervention in this crisis could be anything but pernicious.

Can President Obama play chess as well as he plays basketball?

Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, where he is senior research scholar, adjunct professor of international affairs and former director of the Middle East Institute (2000-2003).

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).

Beeman--Elections and Governmental Structure in Iran

In 2005, I wrote an article for the Brown Journal of World Affairs laying out the structure of Iranian government and election procedures that are followed in Iran. The article has proved to be very popular and sturdy, and was incorporated into my book, The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other (Greenwood Press, 2005; 2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2008). The article can be found here:

http://www.bjwa.org/article.php?id=NYybYi5qit7Wdt5H9f79JylSLrCi7itJgdAJcms5

The article is in PDF format, and you may have to register with the Brown Journal of World Affairs before you can access it. It will explain in brief how Iranian governmental bodies are elected or selected, and how elections proceed.

The election this Friday, June 12, which pits front-runners Mir-Hossein Mousavi and existing president Ahmadinejad is especially interesting because a near majority of eligible voters are young people who do not remember the revolution of 1978-79.

Turnout will be essential in this election, and the participation of women absolutely crucial to victory for any candidate. The election was advanced by one year, presumably because of dissatisfaction with President Ahmadinejad.

Have We Already Lost Iran? Flint Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett [New York Times]

The New York Times

May 24, 2009
Op-Ed Contributors
Have We Already Lost Iran?
By FLYNT LEVERETT and HILLARY MANN LEVERETT

Washington

Commentary by William O. Beeman:
The ducks at AIPAC, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) are pecking the Obama administration to death on Iran. Dennis Ross, in particular, as outlined in the article below, is a fifth-column neoconservative connected with WINEP who is trying to make sure that negotiation with Iran fails in anticipation of an eventual military attack on the Islamic Republic. ("We tried everything, and so now we have to bomb them"). Americans should understand that the little rat terriers at these institutions are obsessed with Iran, and will not give up their monomaniacal inability to support any rapprochement between Iran and the West. As long as we have such people in positions of power, the Middle East region will continue to be an unstable and dangerous place.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S Iran policy has, in all likelihood, already failed. On its present course, the White House’s approach will not stop Tehran’s development of a nuclear fuel program — or, as Iran’s successful test of a medium-range, solid-fuel missile last week underscored, military capacities of other sorts. It will also not provide an alternative to continued antagonism between the United States and Iran — a posture that for 30 years has proved increasingly damaging to the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

This judgment may seem both premature and overly severe. We do not make it happily. We voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and we still want him to succeed in reversing the deterioration in America’s strategic position. But we also believe that successful diplomacy with Iran is essential to that end. Unless President Obama and his national security team take a fundamentally different approach to Tehran, they will not achieve a breakthrough.

This is a genuine shame, for President Obama had the potential to do so much better for America’s position in the Middle East. In his greeting to “the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” on the Persian New Year in March, Mr. Obama included language meant to assuage Iranian skepticism about America’s willingness to end efforts to topple the regime and pursue comprehensive diplomacy.

Iranian diplomats have told us that the president’s professed willingness to deal with Iran on the “basis of mutual interest” in an atmosphere of “mutual respect” was particularly well received in Tehran. They say that the quick response of the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — which included the unprecedented statement that “should you change, our behavior will change, too” — was a sincere signal of Iran’s openness to substantive diplomatic proposals from the new American administration.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is backing away from the bold steps required to achieve strategic, Nixon-to-China-type rapprochement with Tehran. Administration officials have professed disappointment that Iranian leaders have not responded more warmly to Mr. Obama’s rhetoric. Many say that the detention of the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi (who was released this month) and Ayatollah Khamenei’s claim last week that America is “fomenting terrorism” inside Iran show that trying to engage Tehran is a fool’s errand.

But this ignores the real reason Iranian leaders have not responded to the new president more enthusiastically: the Obama administration has done nothing to cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush’s second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic. Under these circumstances, the Iranian government — regardless of who wins the presidential elections on June 12 — will continue to suspect that American intentions toward the Islamic Republic remain, ultimately, hostile.

In this context, the Saberi case should be interpreted not as the work of unspecified “hard-liners” in Tehran out to destroy prospects for improved relations with Washington, but rather as part of the Iranian leadership’s misguided but fundamentally defensive reaction to an American government campaign to bring about regime change. Similarly, Ayatollah Khamenei’s charge that “money, arms and organizations are being used by the Americans directly across our western border to fight the Islamic Republic’s system” reflects legitimate concern about American intentions. Mr. Obama has reinforced this concern by refusing to pursue an American-Iranian “grand bargain” — a comprehensive framework for resolving major bilateral differences and fundamentally realigning relations.

More broadly, President Obama has made several policy and personnel decisions that have undermined the promise of his encouraging rhetoric about Iran. On the personnel front, the problem begins at the top, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As a presidential candidate, then-Senator Clinton ran well to the right of Mr. Obama on Iran, even saying she would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel. Since becoming secretary of state, Clinton has told a number of allies in Europe and the Persian Gulf that she is skeptical that diplomacy with Iran will prove fruitful and testified to Congress that negotiations are primarily useful to garner support for “crippling” multilateral sanctions against Iran.

First of all, this posture is feckless, as Secretary Clinton does not have broad international support for sanctions that would come anywhere close to being crippling. More significantly, this posture is cynically counterproductive, for it eviscerates the credibility of any American diplomatic overtures in the eyes of Iranian leaders across the Islamic Republic’s political spectrum.

Even more disturbing is President Obama’s willingness to have Dennis Ross become the point person for Iran policy at the State Department. Mr. Ross has long been an advocate of what he describes as an “engagement with pressure” strategy toward Tehran, meaning that the United States should project a willingness to negotiate with Iran largely to elicit broader regional and international support for intensifying economic pressure on the Islamic Republic.

In conversations with Mr. Ross before Mr. Obama’s election, we asked him if he really believed that engage-with-pressure would bring concessions from Iran. He forthrightly acknowledged that this was unlikely. Why, then, was he advocating a diplomatic course that, in his judgment, would probably fail? Because, he told us, if Iran continued to expand its nuclear fuel program, at some point in the next couple of years President Bush’s successor would need to order military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. Citing past “diplomacy” would be necessary for that president to claim any military action was legitimate.

Iranian officials are fully aware of Mr. Ross’s views — and are increasingly suspicious that he is determined that the Obama administration make, as one senior Iranian diplomat said to us, “an offer we can’t accept,” simply to gain international support for coercive action.

Understandably, given that much of Mr. Obama’s national security team doesn’t share his vision of rapprochement with Iran, America’s overall policy is incoherent. For example, while the administration recently completed a much-ballyhooed review of Iran policy, it has made no changes in its approach to the nuclear issue. Administration officials argue, with what seem to be straight faces, that the Iranian leadership should be impressed simply because American representatives will now show up for any nuclear negotiations with Iran that might take place.

Similarly, some officials suggest that the administration might be prepared to accept limited uranium enrichment on Iranian soil as part of a settlement — effectively asking to be given “credit” merely for acknowledging a well-established reality. Based on our own experience negotiating with Iranians, and our frequent discussions with Iranian diplomats and political figures since leaving the government, we think that it will take a lot more to persuade Tehran of America’s new seriousness.

Tehran will certainly not be persuaded of American seriousness if Washington acquiesces to Israeli insistence on a deadline for successful American engagement with Iran. Although the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, had told reporters that no such deadline would be imposed, President Obama himself said, after his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that he wants to see “progress” in nuclear negotiations before the end of the year. He also endorsed the creation of a high-level Israeli-American working group to identify more coercive options if Iran does not meet American conditions for limiting its nuclear activities.

More specifically, Secretary Clinton and Mr. Ross have been pushing the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany to intensify multilateral sanctions against Iran if Tehran has not agreed to limit the expansion of its nuclear-fuel cycle program by the time the United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York at the end of September.

This diplomatic approach is guaranteed to fail. Having a deadline for successful negotiations will undercut the perceived credibility of American diplomacy in Tehran and serve only to prepare the way for more coercive measures. Mr. Obama’s justification for a deadline — that previous American-Iranian negotiations produced “a lot of talk but not always action and follow-through” — is incorrect as far as Iranian behavior was concerned. For example, during talks over Afghanistan after 9/11 in which one of us (Hillary) took part, Tehran deported hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban operatives who had sought sanctuary in Iran, and also helped establish the new Afghan government. It was Washington, not Tehran, that arbitrarily ended these productive talks.

Beyond the nuclear issue, the administration’s approach to Iran degenerates into an only slightly prettified version of George W. Bush’s approach — that is, an effort to contain a perceived Iranian threat without actually trying to resolve underlying political conflicts. Obama administration officials are buying into a Bush-era delusion: that concern about a rising Iranian threat could unite Israel and moderate Arab states in a grand alliance under Washington’s leadership.

President Obama and his team should not be excused for their failure to learn the lessons of recent history in the Middle East — that the prospect of strategic cooperation with Israel is profoundly unpopular with Arab publics and that even moderate Arab regimes cannot sustain such cooperation. The notion of an Israeli-moderate Arab coalition united to contain Iran is not only delusional, it would leave the Palestinian and Syrian-Lebanese tracks of the Arab-Israeli conflict unresolved and prospects for their resolution in free fall. These tracks cannot be resolved without meaningful American interaction with Iran and its regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Why has President Obama put himself in a position from which he cannot deliver on his own professed interest in improving relations with the Islamic Republic? Some diplomatic veterans who have spoken with him have told us that the president said that he did not realize, when he came to office, how “hard” the Iran problem would be. But what is hard about the Iran problem is not periodic inflammatory statements from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or episodes like Ms. Saberi’s detention. What is really hard is that getting America’s Iran policy “right” would require a president to take positions that some allies and domestic constituencies won’t like.

To fix our Iran policy, the president would have to commit not to use force to change the borders or the form of government of the Islamic Republic. He would also have to accept that Iran will continue enriching uranium, and that the only realistic potential resolution to the nuclear issue would leave Iran in effect like Japan — a nation with an increasingly sophisticated nuclear fuel-cycle program that is carefully safeguarded to manage proliferation risks. Additionally, the president would have to accept that Iran’s relationships with Hamas and Hezbollah will continue, and be willing to work with Tehran to integrate these groups into lasting settlements of the Middle East’s core political conflicts.

It was not easy for President Richard Nixon to discard a quarter-century of failed policy toward the People’s Republic of China and to reorient America’s posture toward Beijing in ways that have served America’s interests extremely well for more than 30 years. That took strategic vision, political ruthlessness and personal determination. We hope that President Obama — contrary to his record so far — will soon begin to demonstrate those same qualities in forging a new approach toward Iran.

Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation’s geopolitics of energy initiative and teaches at Penn State’s School of International Affairs. Hillary Mann Leverett is the president of a political risk consultancy. Both are former National Security Council staff members.

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

William O. Beeman--Roxana Saberi’s Release Bodes Well for U.S.-Iran Relations (New America Media)

Roxana Saberi’s Release Bodes Well for U.S.-Iran Relations

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: May 11, 2009

Roxana Saberi, the 32-year-old Iranian-American journalist convicted of espionage in Iran has been released to her family, and will soon return to the United States.

While her international community of family, colleagues and friends can rejoice in her release, it was predictable from the moment of her arrest, based on the history of such events in Iran in the past.

Although no one will know for sure exactly how events proceeded against her, it is possible to speculate how Saberi’s arraignment and trial developed.

The espionage charges against Saberi were utterly unfounded. They were likely the result of an escalation within the Iranian judicial system as official after official tried to cover their tracks for a series of abortive attempts to charge her with a crime.

She was first detained for the relatively minor offense of having purchased a bottle of wine. Since religious minorities in Iran are allowed to manufacture, sell and consume alcohol, the country is awash in liquor. It is easily obtainable by everyone—even government officials. Most likely the arresting official did not know that Saberi was an American passport holder born in the United States, and was probably chagrined to discover that this case was likely to create international brouhaha.

A more serious charge was then sought to justify the first arrest. The discovery that her press credentials had expired some months earlier provided that opportunity. Saberi had continued to file stories for a number of American news outlets, reportedly because officials assured her that the expiration of her press pass was inconsequential. Since she could demonstrate that Iranian officials had allowed her to continue writing, this charge would also not hold water.

Finally, the serious charge of espionage was lodged. As foolish and unsubstantiated as this charge was, it was plausible in Iran. Rumors that American CIA operatives were active in Iran were widely promulgated in Iran. These suspicions were reinforced through extensive documentation found in New York Times reporter James Risen’s 2006 book “State of War.” Additionally, on April 4, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz confirmed an earlier rumor that an Iranian nuclear scientist had been assassinated by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, inside Iran.

Iran experienced one horrendous situation involving a foreigner arrested for spying in Iran in 2003. Canadian-Iranian Zahra Kazemi was raped, beaten and tortured to death (although Iranian authorities claimed she died of a stroke) for allegedly having photographed prohibited parts of Evin Prison, where she was later incarcerated. Her death caused an international uproar. The Iranian government, clearly badly burned by the Kazemi case has since been careful to make sure that her situation is not repeated.

Foreigners -- dual nationals -- accused of espionage have been held for a time, usually in conspicuously humane circumstances, while the government wrings as much publicity out of the event as possible for a domestic and regional audience. The accused prisoners are then released in a show of clemency.

This was the case with Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Ms. Efandiari was visiting her 90-year-old mother in 2006 when she was arrested. It is likely that her connection to Lee Hamilton, director of the Wilson Center, made her an object of suspicion. Hamilton had long connections to the CIA and to groups promoting democratic revolutions in places like Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Kian Tajbakhsh was arrested at about the same time on the same charges. Tajbakhsh worked for George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros had also been active in the same “revolutions” in the region.

Both Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh were held under relatively humane circumstances and released some months later.

The Iranian presidential election next month was also a likely reason for a quick dispensation of Saberi’s case. Iran would like the world to focus on the election, and not on an ongoing saga of an international journalist in their prison system.

In the Saberi case, Iran actually did itself some good. It showed that it had a functioning judicial system—however imperfect—with an appeals process that eventually yielded the correct result.

The Obama administration, by engaging in diplomacy and sober statements of concern regarding Saberi, not only aided the process of her release, but likely set the stage for further improved relations between the United States and Iran. We now have a situation where Iran undertook an action of which the United States disapproved. The United States expressed itself in a non-hostile manner, and the Iranian government responded with a positive redress of that action. This bodes well for future U.S.-Iranian relations. It is only regrettable that this had to come at the price of Saberi’s unjust incarceration.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He is past president of the Middle East section of the American Anthropological Association. 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).

Lecturer Beeman dicusses U.S.-Iranian relations (Wheaton Wire)

Lecturer Beeman dicusses U.S.-Iranian relations

By: Elspeth Lodge '10

Posted: 4/29/09
The United States and Iran have been 'ghahr' with each other for approximately 30 years now: while the two countries do not diplomatically talk to each other, they have not exactly broken off their relationship. "We keep sticking needles in each other from afar," confides William Beeman, Middle East Studies Specialist and Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

There is a need for "someone to force the relationship back together," due to the U.S. not understanding Iranian's cultural differences from the United States.

Beeman gave his lecture titled "Learning to Live with Iran: How Cultural Awareness Can Improve U.S.-Iranian Relations" to a full crowd. He meant to impart an understanding of Iran's cultural mechanisms, which are very foreign to the American sensibility.

"The people who want to create change in Iran have got to deal with this," says Beeman. "It is true that the United States and Iran have cultural conceptions of each other that sometimes get in the way of understanding each other. As an anthropologist I am especially aware of cultural differences."

"Iranians, like all humans have the same basic wants and desires in life. There is no 'Iranian mind' any more than there is an 'Arab mind' to site the egregious and misleading title of Raphael Patai's thoroughly discredited book of three decades ago."

Beeman uses a PowerPoint presentation to discuss a myriad of culture oriented topics including. but not limited to, patterns of interaction, complexity in Iranian interaction, independent symbiosis in Iranian hierarchy, and dimensions of different social status. And, of course, he discusses Iranian linguistics. "I'm a linguist, I can't resist," he says.

One example of a cultural misunderstanding of Iran is how political structures function and the basic schema of Iranian government, which according to Beeman, is "a very complex structure." It is designed to keep one group of people in power for a very long period of time; terms of political office are staggered. In effect no group is completely out of power at one time.

An example of one misunderstanding of government is something so simple as how the Iranian president functions. While in the U.S. the executive branch has a great deal of power, in Iran the president has very little power in any arena. He has no control over military, foreign affairs, or the infamous Iranian nuclear program.

Beeman also covers political strategies and factions and the emerging factors, such as media, which are effecting the government. He imparts that the Internet is alive and well in Iran, saying "every candidate has a blog." Beeman also cites that women are becoming more involved, as evident by the fact that more woman than ever are attending universities and literacy rates have increased. There is also an emerging youth population which will soon have a major impact on the balance of the political system.

There are many polarities between the U.S. and Iranian culture. While Iran recognizes hierarchy, the U.S. suppresses hierarchy. While Iran makes distinctions between the private and public political spheres, people in the U.S. try to conflate the private and public spheres of politics. Iranian culture values personalism in public business -- family and personal ties are essential. Contrastingly the U.S. culture denies personalism.

"It is only with the Obama administration that we are starting to see a thaw. I am hoping that with the Obama administration [Iran and the U.S.] will have a greater understanding of each other," says Beeman. © Copyright 2009 Wheaton Wire

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Editorial: Step up push for Saberi's release

Editorial: Step up push for Saberi's release

Senior statesman could help secure journalist's freedom.


The news about North Dakota journalist Roxana Saberi is increasingly grim. First arrested in Iran, ostensibly for buying wine, the 31-year-old journalist is now held in a notorious Iranian prison on espionage charges. Her quickie trial on Monday played out behind closed doors. A military tribunal is now secretly weighing her fate.

Still, there's reason to be optimistic about the scholar/beauty queen's prospects. Experts point out that others jailed in Iran under similar circumstances were released relatively quickly. And while Iran remains a nation of hardline theology, it is increasingly aware of its worldwide reputation and diplomacy's opportunities. There are more advantages than disadvantages for this status-conscious nation to let Saberi go. The thousands of supporters who have rallied on Facebook and elsewhere shouldn't lose hope because there's more work to do on her behalf.

Although the espionage charge may give some pause, here's some perspective. State Department officials, as well as North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad and U.S. Rep. Earl Pomeroy, have bluntly dismissed the allegations. Iran has offered up zero evidence, and the fact that her trial was done in a day suggests to University of Minnesota expert William Beeman that officials didn't have much on her.

Beeman, chair of the Department of Anthropology, is an author and linguist who has worked in Iran for the past 30 years. He believes there's strong precedent for Saberi's release. In 2006 and 2007, several scholars and journalists with dual Iranian-American citizenship like Saberi's were imprisoned in Iran on antigovernment activity charges. Three were released after several months. Beeman said Saberi's situation seems similar, and he's hopeful that Iranians will realize that they've made a point with her arrest -- that foreigners must respect their laws -- and then let her go.

Iran has also previously capitalized on its ability to generate international goodwill by releasing high-profile prisoners. In spring 2007, it allowed 15 British soldiers and marines to return home as an "Easter present" to the British people. Now's an excellent time for a similar gesture. Clemency for Saberi would only improve Iran's global stature. It would also be a welcome gesture to a powerful, popular new American president as both nations move toward more rationale relations.

Thanks to the Internet, this newspaper is read far beyond Minnesota. Comments from Iranian U.N. ministry officials suggest they've seen previous Saberi editorials. It bears repeating their message: The push for Saberi's release will continue. The Council on Foreign Relations this week offered up an excellent idea: enlisting a senior statesman whom Iranians would respect. CFR Iranian expert Elliot Abrams said Minnesota is home to just such a world figure. His name? Walter Mondale.

Mondale was traveling this week and couldn't be reached. But organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists would do well to ask for his help. Every avenue that can help bring Saberi home must be explored.

_____________________

CHANCE FOR RELEASE

"My feeling is that she will be released and I hope I'm right. I think there's been enough international attention to this; it gives the Iranians a chance to show that they are civilized and extend clemency to people.''

William Beeman, chair of the University of Minnesota Department of Anthropology and author of "'The Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the U.S. and Iran Demonize Each Other.''

Expert on Iran says clemency possible for Saberi; ND congressional delegation reacts with dismay to conviction

Published April 18 2009

Expert on Iran says clemency possible for Saberi;

ND congressional delegation reacts with dismay to conviction

FARGO – An expert on Iran said today that given the harsh sentence American journalist Roxana Saberi received, it’s possible the Iranian government may grant clemency as an act of generosity.

By: Sherri Richards, INFORUM

FARGO – An expert on Iran said today that given the harsh sentence American journalist Roxana Saberi received, it’s possible the Iranian government may grant clemency as an act of generosity.

“That’s something that’s not unknown,” said William O. Beeman, an anthropology professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied Iran for 30 years.

“Put someone in dire straits and then grant them clemency, and the person is grateful,” Beeman said today.

North Dakota’s congressional delegation reacted with dismay to news of Saberi’s conviction in an Iranian court.

In separate statements, they said they would continue to work with the U.S. State Department to bring Saberi home.

Fargo native Saberi, 31, has been jailed in Iran since late January. Authorities originally said she was being held for working without press credentials. She was later charged with espionage, and a trial was held in Iranian court Monday behind closed doors.

Her attorney said today she had been convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Sen. Byron Dorgan called the verdict a “shocking miscarriage of justice.”

“The Iranian government has held a secret trial, will not make public any evidence, and sentenced an American citizen to eight years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit,” Dorgan said in his statement. “I call on the Iranian government to show compassion and release Roxana Saberi and allow her to leave Iran and come home to the United States.”

Sen. Kent Conrad called the ruling “preposterous,” and said that, “Iran is doing enormous damage to their creditability on the world stage with behavior like this.”

Rep. Earl Pomeroy described Saberi as a “fine young woman of intelligence and integrity,” and hoped she would be allowed to return to the United States as a humanitarian consideration.

Beeman said it’s possible Saberi will not be immediately incarcerated, released on bail, and be allowed to leave the country.

“I think that we’re not completely without hope in this situation,” Beeman said.

He said the harsh rhetoric against the Iranian system that the sentence will spur is going to be counterproductive, and that Saberi’s situation is an opportunity to continue toward better relations between the U.S. and Iran.

He hopes Saberi will not be incarcerated, for any amount of time.

“I think everyone, internationally and those people looking at this case in Iran, knows the charges are groundless. This (incarceration) would really set back U.S.-Iranian relations,” he said.

Her parents, who traveled to Iran from their home in Fargo in a bid to help win their daughter's release, could not be reached for comment today.

William O. Beeman--A New Era in U.S.-Iranian Relations? [Foreign Policy in Focus]

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5867
Foreign Policy in Focus

A New Era in U.S.-Iranian Relations?

William O. Beeman | February 12, 2009

Editor: John Feffer

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org



Iran is in the middle of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and with him, the extraordinary influence the United States had on Iranian life. According to many right-wing pundits, the revolution was the start of an era of hostility between the United States and the Muslim world — an era that they see as still underway.

President Barack Obama, however, has inaugurated a new rhetoric on Iran. The United States doesn't assume an automatically hostile posture toward Iran or the Muslim world but will base its actions and reactions on deeds rather than perceptions of ideology. That Obama's mere willingness to talk to Iran comes across as earth-shattering in some quarters reveals the depths of our past mutual hostility.

After the Revolution

The Iranian Revolution wasn't anti-American, but an anti-colonial revolution directed at all outside control of Iranian affairs. Americans forget one of the great slogans of the revolution: "Neither East nor West." The United States unfortunately inherited the mantle of Great Britain and Russia, who oppressed the Iranian state for more than 150 years before Ayatollah Khomeini began to rail against the Shah. Iran was just as upset with those powers as with the United States, and still remains distrustful of all European influence in its affairs.

Even after 1979, Iran sought not simply to oppose the United States, but rather to chart its own course as a regional power, an industrial leader, an economic force in the region, and a diplomatic broker for its neighbors. Although its revolutionary ideals drove many of its early policies — such as the founding support for Hezbollah in Lebanon — these ideals soon proved to have little currency in an Islamic world that viewed the Iranian Shi'a with suspicion.

The original revolutionary ideals, initially hailed throughout the Islamic world, now have little practical force, and Iran has changed in turn. Today Iran's politics are less ideological and religious than practical. It has good diplomatic relations with all of its neighbors, and despite the fiery pronouncements of its largely powerless president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, operates with caution in the region. It no longer has any effective control over Hezbollah and never had much direct influence over Hamas or other regional oppositionist groups.

Better Weather Ahead?

There are now many possibilities for building ties with the United States if Americans can only wake up to them. The United States has common cause with Iran on many fronts. In political terms, the United States and Iran both oppose Islamic extremists like al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Despite attempts by the Bush administration to tie Iran to these groups to frighten the American public, Iranians oppose these extremist groups because the latter utterly reject Shi'ism — even to the point of sanctioning the murder of Shi'a believers, such as the Hazara minority in Afghanistan.

Like the United States, Iran favors stability in the region. Contrary to the Bush-era accusations, Tehran's leaders aren't pleased with the militarism of individuals like Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, and have worked to quiet his opposition groups in Iraq in the name of a more comprehensive stability for the Shi'a community, which will eventually rule Iraq. Tehran's leaders also want stability in Afghanistan. Iran hosts millions of Afghan refugees. It would like most of them to go home, and that can't happen until Afghanistan is quiet once again.

Other areas of potential cooperation include prevention of drug trafficking, environmental protection, health care, trade stabilization, and international transport. Iran also has a strong stake in culture and tourism. The whole world travels to Iran to see the astonishing historical and archaeological sites — except for Americans.

It's no paradox that Iranians love Americans and American culture. Iranians prioritize independence and nationalist sentiment over opposition to the West. As long as the United States doesn't try to dominate Iran, treating the Islamic Republic with "mutual respect" (to quote Obama), Iranians have no problem with Washington. Iran's youthful population now has a majority of citizens who have no experience of the original revolution, or remembrance of Ayatollah Khomeini or other revolutionary leaders.

Washington won't likely offer Iran congratulations on the anniversary of its revolution. But stopping the U.S. invective will be congratulations enough. It's time to realize that a generation has passed since the hostile U.S. reception of the revolution. With a new generation comes a new opportunity. With luck we'll see the mood of Washington change. It was always permissible to denigrate Iran in American politics. A good first step toward a "breakthrough with Iran" would be for the Obama administration to declare such cheap political rhetoric no longer acceptable.

Foreign Policy In Focus contributor William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He is president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association and the author, most recently, of The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.

US professor William O. Beeman: Obama transition team has no expertise on Iran [IRNA]

US professor William O. Beeman: Obama transition team has no expertise on Iran

New York, Feb 11, IRNA -- William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota said that Obama transition team has no expertise on Iran, but, the fact that President Obama called for dialog with Iranians was a huge development.

He said that in a new American administration it takes some time to confirm new officials, and to get the new organization in place. Also, right now the priority of this administration has been on domestic economic matters.

Q. In the past three weeks, the new US Administration has just made a series of statements, threats, judgments …etc on Iran. Do you see a resolve on part of the US to have direct dialogue with Iran?

A. It is too soon to tell what precise actions the Obama administration will be taking with regard to Iran. In a new American administration it takes some time to confirm new officials, and to get the new organization in place. Also, right now the priority of this administration has been on domestic economic matters. Nevertheless, there is reason for caution. The Obama transition team has almost no expertise on Iran. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) is a prominent neoconservative organization supported by AIPAC. Former Ambassador Dennis Ross is an important member of this and several other anti-Iranian groups. The White House has said that he will be “special envoy” to Iran. This is a mistake, in my opinion. Moreover, the influence of WINEP should be severely curtailed if relations with Iran are to be improved. WINEP favors military action against Iran, and has been instrumental in spreading false information about Iran’s nuclear program.

Q. Aside from sugar coating the same nature of rhetoric that we’d heard from previous administration, is there any move or gesture by this administration that proves such tendency?

A. It is important to remember that attacking Iran has been a common political activity for both Democrats and Republicans. The American public now believes that Iran is a danger to the United States thanks to consistent negative publicity on Iran. So, any administration official that expresses any kind of sympathy toward Iran is going to be in a dangerous political position. For this reason we should expect the Obama administration to go VERY SLOWLY in approaching Iran. The mere fact that President Obama called for dialog with Iranians was a huge development, and it created a lot of criticism for him.

Q. In your view how is Obama going to be able to create stability in the Middle East using Iran’s assistance as it is in the view of some analysts.

A. I am not sure that the Obama administration appreciates how much help Iran can be in stabilizing the region. Iran can help in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the Gulf region. Iran has no control over Hezbollah or Hamas, but they can be used as intermediaries for these groups. The sooner the United States sees Iran as a partner and not an enemy, the sooner progress will be made toward peace in the region.

Q. Some share the view that Israel is extremely worried about the improvement in US Iran relationship and by creating obstacles is trying to prevent such improvements. Do you agree with that view?

A. Israel has ALWAYS been worried whenever Iran and the United States seem to become friendly. Whenever talks start, Israelis put out report, directly and through organizations like WINEP and AIPAC, about Iran supporting terrorism, attacking Americans in Iraq or elsewhere, or developing some non-existent weapon. Israel will DEFINITELY try hard to sabotage any rapprochement between Iran and the United States. This is absolutely certain. I only hope that the Obama administration and more sober foreign policy specialists can help expose these tricks. Mostly it is important to get to the American public to tell them that these accusations are not real, that they are designed to torpedo movement toward normal relations.

End News / IRNA / News Code 350244

Willliam O. Beeman--A New Era in U.S.-Iranian Relations?

A New Era in U.S.-Iranian Relations?

William O. Beeman

Iran is in the midst of celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Since the United States has also had a recent revolution of sorts in its political life, it would make sense to see how these two events might coincide to produce a new future relationship between the two nations.

The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and with him the extraordinary influence that the United States had on Iranian life. According to many right-wing pundits, the revolution was the start of an era of hostility between the United States and the Muslim world—an era that they see as still underway.

However, now with President Barak Obama in the White House, clearly a new rhetoric has taken hold—one in which the United States does not assume an automatically hostile posture toward Iran or the Muslim world, but will base its actions and reactions on deeds rather than perception of ideology. The depths of our past mutual hostility can be seen in the fact that President Obama’s mere willingness to talk to Iran is seen as earth-shattering in some quarters.

In this light it is important to look at matters from an Iranian perspective. The Iranian Revolution was not an anti-American Revolution, it was an anti-colonial revolution directed at all outside control of Iranian affairs. Americans forget that one of the great slogans of the Revolution was “Neither East nor West.” The United States unfortunately inherited the mantle of Great Britain and Russia, who had oppressed the Iranian State for more than 150 years before Ayatollah Khomeini began to rail against the Shah. Iran was just as upset with those powers as with the United States, and still remains distrustful of all European influence in its affairs.

Even after the Revolution, Iran sought not simply to oppose the United States, but rather to chart its own course as a regional power, an industrial leader, an economic force in the region and as a diplomatic broker for its neighbors. Although its revolutionary ideals were the driving force in many of its early policies—such as the founding support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, these ideals soon proved to have little currency in an Islamic world where the Iranian Shi’a were viewed with suspicion.

So, the original Revolutionary ideals, initially hailed throughout the Islamic world now have little practical force, and Iran has changed in turn. Today Iran’s politics are less ideological and religious than practical. It has good diplomatic relations with all of its neighbors, and despite the fiery pronouncements of its largely powerless president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, operates with caution in the region. It no longer has any effective control over Hezbollah, and never had much direct influence over Hamas or other regional oppositionist groups.

Indeed, now there are many possibilities for building ties with the United States if Americans can only wake up to them. The U.S. has common cause with Iran on many fronts. In political terms, the United States and Iran both oppose Islamic extremists like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Despite attempts on the part of the Bush administration to tie Iran to these groups to frighten the American public, the truth is that Iranians oppose them fervently. One prime reason is because these extremist groups utterly reject Shi’ism, even to the point of sanctioning the murder of Shi’a believers, such as the Hazara minority in Afghanistan.

Like the United States Iran also favors stability in the region. Again, contrary to the Bush-era accusations, Tehran’s leaders are not pleased with the militarism of individuals like Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, and have worked to quiet his opposition groups in Iraq in the name of a more comprehensive stability for the Shi’a community, which must eventually rule Iraq. Tehran’s leaders also want stability in Afghanistan. Iran is host to millions of Afghan refugees. They would like most of them to go home, and that can’t happen until Afghanistan is quiet once again.

Other areas of potential cooperation include prevention of drug trafficking, environmental protection, health care, trade stabilization and international transport. Iran also has a strong stake in culture and tourism. The whole world travels to Iran to see the astonishing historical and archaeological sites—except for Americans.

Americans see it as a paradox that Iranians love Americans and American culture, but this is no surprise given the primacy of Iranian independence rather than opposition to the West in its national sentiment. As long as the United States does not try to dominate Iran, treating the Islamic Republic with “mutual respect” (to quote President Obama), Iranians have no problem with Washington. Iran’s youthful population now has a majority of citizens who have no experience of the original Revolution, or remembrance of Ayatollah Khomeini or other Revolutionary leaders.

It is not likely that any administration will offer Iran congratulations on the anniversary of its Revolution, but just stopping the invective pouring out of Washington will be congratulations enough. It is time to realize that a generation has passed since the United States’ hostile reception of the Revolution. With a new generation comes a new opportunity. With luck we will see the mood of Washington change. It was always permissible to denigrate Iran in American politics. A good first step toward a “breakthrough with Iran” would be to let it be known that this cheap political rhetoric is no longer acceptable in the Obama Era.

__________________________

William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and past President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. His most recent book is The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other (Chicago, 2008).

Interview with Roberto Gonzales, author of "American Counterinsurgency" (Inside Higher Ed)

Interview with Roberto Gonzales, author of ‘American Counterinsurgency’

(University of Chicago Press, 2009)

Commentary by William O. Beeman: The Human Terrain System of the U.S. military, where social scientists are embedded with combat troops to give cultural and social advice has created controversy in Anthropology and other disciplines. The central issue is the potential for violation of professional codes of ethics that dictate that social scientists do nothing to harm the people among whom they live and learn from in the course of their research. Roberto Gonzales provides great insight about this problem in his new book and in the interview below


The Human Terrain System, a program which embeds social scientists with brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, is billed as a mechanism for improving the U.S. military’s knowledge of culture and local populations — heretofore perceived as sorely lacking. “It’s a chance to change the military; it’s a chance to change the Army,” one HTS member said at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting in November. The HTS Web site states that the program “does not collect intelligence or have a role in targeting.” However, AAA’s executive board has formally opposed the program, citing a number of ethical issues including the potential misuse of anthropological information for targeting purposes — which would violate the bedrock principle that those studied should not be harmed.

One of the leading critics of HTS has been Roberto J. González, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. In American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain, forthcoming February 1 from Prickly Paradigm Press, and distributed by University of Chicago Press, González strongly critiques the human terrain concept in its historical and contemporary contexts. He answered some questions for Inside Higher Ed.

Q. Would you summarize the magnitude and mission of the Human Terrain System, as you understand it, today?

A. The Human Terrain System (HTS) is a $200 million U.S. Army program that embeds anthropologists and other social scientists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. The program’s building blocks are five-person “human terrain teams” that include armed personnel. Approximately 25 teams have been deployed since the program began in 2006, mostly in Iraq. According to the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s budget justification, the goal of the program is “to collect data on human terrain, create, store, and disseminate information from this data, and use the resulting information as an element of combat power.” In other words, HTS is designed to help the military gather ethnographic information — intelligence data about Iraqis and Afghans — in order to improve its war fighting capabilities. Human terrain team members are employed by BAE Systems, a British firm awarded the contract to manage the program.

A revealing description of HTS was published in Military Review. In it, the authors state that the program is designed to “understand the people among whom our forces operate as well as the cultural characteristics and propensities of the enemies we now fight.” They also note that HTS is a “CORDS for the 21st Century” — a reference to a Vietnam-War era counterinsurgency initiative (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support). CORDS gave birth to the infamous Phoenix Program, a secret operation in which ethnographic data on Vietnamese civilians was collected and turned over to CIA-funded paramilitary troops. In the end, Phoenix operatives assassinated more than 26,000 suspected Viet Cong sympathizers. The possibility that HTS might be used for such purposes deeply concerns me, and it’s what inspired me to write American Counterinsurgency.

Q. You write, “The way in which HTS has been packaged — as a kinder, gentler counterinsurgency — is completely unsupported by evidence.” Instead, you argue that HTS was created “primarily as a tool for espionage and intelligence gathering.” Could you summarize the evidence you rely upon in making this argument?

A. To fully understand HTS, we should place it in the broader context of what might be called today’s “cult of counterinsurgency,” which centers around the personality of General David Petraeus. For several years, he and a loyal group of advisors — many with Ph.D.s in the social sciences — have been involved in an effort to whitewash counterinsurgency. In other words, they have tried to clean up the image of counterguerrilla warfare, which is always a dirty business. The U.S. military has more than a century of experience of this kind of warfare (going back to the bloody “Indian Wars” of the 1800s and the cruel campaign against Filipino revolutionaries in the early 1900s), yet Petraeus and others have portrayed it as a newer, gentler method of fighting — “the graduate level of war” in the words of one enthusiast. HTS was developed as a central component of this “new” old method.

Many sources indicate that HTS was designed primarily as an intelligence-gathering program. As I’ve mentioned, government budget documents and military journals describe the program as means of collecting ethnographic intelligence to boost “combat power.” In the Department of Defense’s 2008 Global War on Terror Amendment, human terrain teams are described as military intelligence assets which “have proven invaluable in identifying and tracking threats.” The statements of brigade commanders are also revealing. For example, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile recently wrote that “these human terrain teams, whether they want to acknowledge it or not ... contribute to the collective knowledge of a commander which allows him to target and kill the enemy.” This fits the military’s definition of human intelligence.

Q. In your book, you trace the term “human terrain,” prefacing the chapter on the term’s origins by writing, “When I first heard the term ‘human terrain,’ a nightmarish vision came to mind.” If Webster’s asked you to write a definition of the term, what would you write?

A. I’ve always felt uneasy about the Orwellian juxtaposition of the words “human” and “terrain.” Linguistic anthropology tells us that in military contexts, such a term will tend to objectify and dehumanize people, because it implies that they are geographic space to be conquered. Personally I wouldn’t want to give “human terrain” the legitimacy that goes along with a spot in Webster’s Dictionary! But if I had to provide a definition of the term, it would probably be something like: “a euphemism referring to civilians living in a war zone, or under military occupation.” (Last year, the American Dialect Society declared “human terrain team” the most euphemistic term of 2007!)

In conducting research for my book, I learned that human terrain appeared more than 40 years ago in a report by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee — the same committee responsible for whipping up anti-communist hysteria in the 1950s. The report (Guerrilla Warfare Advocates in the United States) evoked images of a country threatened from within. It warned that militants like the Black Panther Party might possess “superior control of the human terrain.” From these beginnings, human terrain was linked to domestic counterinsurgency campaigns at a dark moment in U.S. history, when the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) — which brutally repressed political dissent within our country — was in full gear.

Q. The Human Terrain teams themselves have been in the headlines. But you write of human terrain as a much broader phenomenon, one that’s being embraced by the military, industries, and research universities. How so?

A. HTS has indeed been in the news, especially since three of its social scientists have been tragically killed in action over the past nine months. In American Counterinsurgency, I wanted to go beyond the headlines, to examine the development of the human terrain concept and how it has been transformed over the years. I discovered that the concept was reborn in the early 21st century, when influential people like retired Lieutenant Colonel (and neoconservative pundit) Ralph Peters, Major General Robert Scales, and Senator John McCain embraced the concept. It diffused quickly across the armed forces and into the private sphere and university research labs. After Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, there was a boom in funding for projects focused on human terrain research and “culture-centric” warfare, and this attracted dozens of companies from what Dwight Eisenhower once called the “military-industrial complex” — BAE Systems, Aptima Corporation, MITRE, RAND Corporation, Wexford Group, MTC Technologies, NEK Advanced Securities Group, and Alpha Ten to name a few. Today contract funds connected to human terrain dwarf funds allocated by the National Science Foundation for basic anthropology research.

Modeling and simulation programs and dynamic social network analysis are the latest fads in human terrain research. Engineers, computer programmers, and social scientists seek to integrate ethnographic data into predictive computer programs. Each year the Pentagon spends tens of millions of dollars in a quest to find a technological holy grail that forecasts political hot spots — organized protest marches, riots, or full-blown terror attacks. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Purdue, and other universities are competing with private corporations for these funds. It’s become a real growth industry.

Q. You write of parallels between HTS and anthropology’s historical role in helping colonial powers retain control of their empires. In your opinion, are there any ways that social scientists can productively engage with the U.S. military, without binding themselves in that colonial legacy?

A. Many people have written about anthropology’s support of colonial governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Oceania — not to mention its role in the subjugation of Native American peoples — but it’s a much more complex picture. History tells us that anthropology has occasionally played an essential role in resisting imperialism. For example, in the 1930s a young Kikuyu man named Jomo Kenyatta from British East Africa (today Kenya) arrived in London and attended seminars led by the renowned anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. In 1938 Kenyatta published a stirring ethnography of Kikuyu life, Facing Mount Kenya, which inspired many people by examining the painful consequences of British colonialism from an insider’s perspective. He used anthropology as a tool for challenging — not supporting — colonial rule. Kenyatta became a revolutionary leader and eventually the first Prime Minister and President of independent Kenya in the 1960s. His experience illustrates how students of the human sciences are as capable of challenging imperialism as they are of serving it.

With respect to working with the U.S. military, I think that there are many anthropologists who have consulted for the armed forces ethically — that is, without violating professional codes of ethics established over the past 60 years. For example, medical anthropologists such as Genevieve Ames have conducted research on the way that U.S. “military culture” might contribute to excessive drinking and tobacco use. Others, like William Beeman, have addressed officers at the Naval Postgraduate School to explain why many Iraqis are revolting against the U.S. in a way similar to the revolts against Great Britain in the 1920s. These social scientists are doing fine work that bears no resemblance to neo-colonial counterinsurgency projects such as HTS.

Q. Is there a way for HTS to fix itself — and if so, where would you start — or is it, in your opinion, fundamentally flawed?

A. Some argue that HTS is suffering from poor management and lack of oversight, and that if these problems could be corrected then it would be successful. I disagree. Conceptually, the entire program is flawed because human terrain team members are thrust into an impossible situation in which they are torn between conflicting interests. I’ve interviewed current and former HTS employees who have expressed serious concerns about this. On the one hand, they must be loyal to combat brigades — in fact, the Human Terrain Team Handbook stipulates that the teams “belong to the [brigade] Commander.” On the other hand, the teams’ social scientists are expected to respect and trust Iraqis and Afghans who they are interviewing. One can imagine all sorts of situations in which team members might confront grave ethical dilemmas: What should team members do if a commander requests field notes or targeting information in preparation for an attack? Are human terrain teams obliged to identify Iraqis or Afghans suspected of having ties to insurgents? How is it possible for embedded social scientists to obtain informed consent if they are attached to armed units conducting door-to-door searches? Each of these situations demonstrates basic flaws with the HTS concept. Like all counterinsurgency projects, it is designed to control or suppress popular movements. This runs completely counter to normal anthropological approaches which seek to bridge societies by promoting cross-cultural understanding. You can be a counterinsurgent, or you can be an anthropologist, but you can’t be both.

The Iranian Veto on Mideast Peace (The Terror Journal)

The Iranian Veto on Mideast Peace


Commentary by William O. Beeman: Neoconservatives in the United States from organizations such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and many supporters of the Israeli incursion in Gaza have tried to claim that Israel is "really" fighting Iran, not Hamas. These groups call Hamas a "proxy" of Iran. In fact, the claims of Iranian support of Gaza are hugely exaggerated, and show the poverty of Israel's argument for its disproportionate response to Hamas' pitiful offensive to Israel's isolation of Gaza, an isolation that has left thousands starving and without medical supplies. The "blame Iran" strategy is a desperate red herring that masks the recalcitrance of Israeli leaders to find a serious negotiated peace with the Palestinian community. It also masks the somewhat venal political posturing by political parties in Israel in advance of an upcoming general election, in which each party tries to show itself to be tougher than the other parties. Targeting Iran is a safe political stance, as it always garners public support, even when this posture is based on lies. Readers should interpret Robert Kaplan and others cited below as reflecting this neoconservative ideology.


In the political calculus driving Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Iranian ambition has emerged as a critical–if not always clearly defined–variable. In Washington, President Bush has supported Israel’s strike as necessary self-defense, though some analysts believe an Israeli defeat by Iran-supported Hamas would embolden Tehran and weaken prospects for U.S. diplomacy in the region. And while Israel publicly stresses the need to tackle Hamas rocket fire, analysts, including CFR’s Steven A. Cook, note Israel’s desire to reassert its dominance following the disastrous 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Launching its attack in the final hours of the reliably pro-Israeli Bush administration, writes CFR Senior Fellow Michael Gerson in the Washington Post, is no coincidence, either.

Iran’s mullahs, meanwhile, have followed up the rearmament of Hezbollah by demonstrating an interest in influencing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. Hours after Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead” on Hamas targets, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, blasted the “horrific atrocity of the Zionist regime,” lashed out at the Bush administration for “complicity in the large crime,” brushed aside European governments for “their indifference,” and chastised the “silence” of Arab regimes–Egypt and Jordan chief among them. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also weighed in (IRNA), and an Iranian general has called for an oil embargo against the West (Straits Times) to protest Israeli action. As the Wall Street Journal observes, attention on Gaza “could become a convenient distraction” for Iranian leaders besieged by worsening economic news at home.

Yet parsing Iran’s broader goals–and discerning its ability to implement them–remain points of departure in foreign policy circles. Some analysts see a clear connection between Israel and Iran in Gaza. As Robert D. Kaplan writes in the Atlantic, Israel’s attack on Iranian-backed Hamas–considered a Foreign Terror Organization (FTO) by the U.S. government with a stated aim of destroying Israel–”is, in effect, an attack on Iran’s empire.” Israeli intelligence sources from 2003 estimate that Iran contributes $3 million to Hamas annually (PDF). But other observers say ties between Iran and Hamas are less substantive than Israel claims. William O. Beeman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, argues that isolation of Gaza in recent years has effectively limited Iranian material support, a belief shared by Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a new interview with CFR.org. According to a November 2008 Congressional Research Service report (PDF), Hamas reportedly received about 10 percent of its funding from Iran in the early 1990s but has since turned to “wealthy Persian Gulf donors and supporters in Europe and elsewhere.”

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Crisis Guide: The Israeli-PalestinianThere is more agreement on how the various outcomes in Gaza will ripple across the region. For Israel, defeat is not an option, though analysts differ on how victory might be defined. Surrounded by forces hostile to the Jewish state, some believe Israel must reassert the military dominance it lost in Lebanon in 2006. Haaretz columnist David Grossman suggests a cease-fire would better suit Israel’s strategic aims. For the United States and the incoming Obama administration, a victory is also seen as essential. As former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk suggests, a convincing defeat of Hamas could lead Iran to reevaluate its support (NYT) for terrorists and even prompt a change of course on its nuclear program. An Israeli defeat and a Hamas victory, on the other hand, could bolster Iranian influence and ambitions in the Arab world, some analysts argue.

Outside of those who believe Egypt should be forced to take control of Gaza (FOX), most analysts agree the United States must broaden its regional strategy to help stem the violence. Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland suggests Washington should reach out to its moderate Arab allies in the region “put on the spot by Israel’s Gaza onslaught.” One possible avenue of cooperation, Hoagland suggests, is to begin selling civilian nuclear technology to the United Arab Emirates as a show of goodwill in the region. Mohammad Yaghi, a Palestinian political expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agrees that the only way out of the impasse is to encourage moderate Arab states to push Hamas into a peace deal. Yet as one Egyptian official tells the International Crisis Group, countering the influence of Iran and other actors will also be key. “The situation in Gaza has more to do with Hamas’s relations with the region than confrontation with Israel,” he said.

Tehran Wanted to Deny Carter any Kind of Victory--Interview with William O. Beeman (Rooz Online)

Tehran Wanted to Deny Carter any Kind of Victory
Interview with William O. Beeman - 2009.01.21
Barack Obama’s views on the Middle East are not very different from the Bush Administration’s, said Professor William Beeman, Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, in an interview with Rooz.

However Barack Obama’s promise of change during the presidential election has led many to expect his Middle East foreign policy approach to differ from that of President Bush.

Almost thirty years ago Iran’s revolution, and the hostage taking tragedy, was tied to U.S. presidential elections and now, once again, Iran seems to be one of the major foreign policy issues that the new President will face in the White House. Iran’s increasing influence throughout the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Lebanon and Palestine, and Tehran’s nuclear program has been the major concerns of the U.S. towards Iran over the past years.

Beeman's most recent work, The “Great Satan vs. the Mad Mullahs: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other”, deals with the highly negative rhetoric and discourse between Iran and the United States over the three decades since the Iranian revolution, and its effects on national attitudes toward the Bush administration's policy towards Iran, as well as the possibility of military confrontation between the two nations.

In an interview with Rooz, Beeman explained how the delay in releasing American hostages in 1980, contributed to the fall of President Jimmy Carter. “I believe the Iranian government wanted to deny Carter any kind of victory, so yes, I believe the delay from the Iranian side was enacted on purpose,” said Beeman adding that, “The characterizations of Carter in Iran were very bitter, likening him to all kinds of mythological villains.”

At this time many Iranians are hoping that Obama’s election will bring a new approach by the new administration to start talking to the Iranian government, and an end to three decades of punishment of the Iranian people because of Iranian government’s international defiance, Beeman believes that picking Denis Ross, as the key person at the State Department to deal with Iran will be a mistake. “The neoconservatives do not want a different policy,” said Beeman adding that, “They want to continue to attack Iran, or have Israel do it, and the Obama administration is not able to do anything about it.”


Rooz: Do you believe that in 1980 there existed politicians in the United States who were interested in using the hostage issue in order to influence the results of the presidential elections?

William Beeman (WB): We will probably never know whether there was a real "October Surprise," though there has been much evidence in support of it. There is no question that ANY issue coming before an election is used by both parties to affect the outcome of the election--even the silliest and most trivial matters become important, largely because voters are very shallow in their opinions and in their research of candidates.


Rooz: Do you believe in the October Surprise Conspiracy theory in the 1980 elections? And that Ronald Reagan’s elections campaign had attempted to convince Iranian officials in its talks with them to postpone the release of the American hostages until after the elections in the US in return for providing American weapons to Iran?

WB: Personally, I don't believe in the conspiracy. Moreover, the hostage crisis had been settled by the time of the elections. It was only the actual release of the hostages that was delayed. I think that Carter's overall incompetence, particularly the abortive rescue mission, was the more important factor affecting the election.


R: Why did the congressional and the Senate investigations about the possibility of an October Surprise lead to no proof in this regard?

WB: I am assuming that there was no proof because there was no proof. As I said above, it almost doesn't matter. The hostage crisis had already doomed the Carter administration. I suppose that if the hostages had been released before the election, things might have been different, but Carter was already far down in the polls. Also, the U.S. economy was in terrible shape, and that usually is more important than any foreign policy issue in determining the election.


R: Was there a pre-determined desire to disprove the October Surprise possibility?

WB: Certainly, the Republicans wanted to disprove this. They wanted their candidate to be elected on his merits, not by default.


R: In the last meeting of the Iranian Parliament on the subject in October 1980, in which it had to decide on the release of the hostages, representatives who were opposed to the release of the hostages who constituted a minority prevented Parliament from reaching a decision through an obstruction thus postponing the release of the Americans to after the elections (specifically, 20 minutes after President Reagan was sworn in). Do you believe that this was an accidental event?

WB: Quite aside from whether Reagan made a "deal" with the Iranians, I believe the Iranian government wanted to deny Carter any kind of victory, so yes, I believe the delay from the Iranian side was enacted on purpose. The characterizations of Carter in Iran were very bitter--likening him to all kinds of mythological villains, like Zohak, the White Div, and Yazid.


R: To what extent did the hostage taking of American diplomats in Iran impact the outcome of US presidential election in 1980?

WB: It was important, because it showed Carter to be ineffective.


R: In addition to some American analysts supporting the October Surprise theory, the then-President of Iran and the Foreign Minister at the time (who was subsequently executed by the regime) have both stressed how Iranian officials from the ruling party met with officials from the US Republican party and agreed to postpone releasing the hostages to after the 1980 elections so that Carter would not use the opportunity for his re-election bid. The Russian intelligence apparatus in 1993 in response to a Congressional inquiry about the October Surprise, also confirmed the views of the Iranian officials. Were the above-mentioned Russians and Iranians points either wrong or they have been untruthful?

WB: There was definitely a confluence of interests between the Republicans and Iranian officials, all of whom wanted to deny Carter a victory. There is some indication that Iran and the U.S. were on somewhat better footing in the Reagan administration than, say, today. The Iran-Contra affair could not have taken place if there was not some kind of communication between the two parties. Also, accusations of support of terrorists, despite Iran's support of Hezbollah, did not occur during the Reagan administration. The U.S. was blaming Libya during this time for support of terrorism (under AIPAC guidance). Also, Iran was engaging in arms trafficking with Israel, so things were somewhat friendlier between Iran and the U.S. It certainly could stem from this communality of interest. It is also interesting that initially, Iranian officials expressed a preference for George W. Bush, saying that Iran had generally fared better under Republicans than Democrats. Of course the Bush administration broke that pattern.


R: Tuesday, the 20th, is the swearing in day of Barack Obama as the next President of the U.S. In your view, what role did issues in the Middle East, and particularly Iran, play in electing Obama to the presidency?

WB: Not very much. Obama's views on the Middle East are not very different from the current administration. He has called for negotiations in preference to force as a way of dealing with the problems of the region, and he called for American withdrawal from Iraq. The Republicans tried to use these two positions against him without success. Most Americans seem to agree with Obama on these points.


R: What has been the impact of issues regarding Iran on the US presidential election until now?

WB: Only Obama's opinion that talks should be undertaken with Iran was even used in debate. Obama has officially called for Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment and "stop supporting terrorism." The neo-cons are very cynical. They think that they can agree to let talks take place on the assumption that they will fail, and then the U.S. can go ahead with its former hostile posturing.


R: Do you have a personal anecdote that may be of interest to Iranian readers about the U.S. presidential election in 1980 and the impact of the timing of the release of the American hostages after the election?

WB: Yes, Professor Marvin Zonis and I were consulting with Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance. As soon as we left his office, he resigned his position. He showed us that he was disgusted with the ineffectiveness of the Carter administration and was furious at the rescue mission, which was undertaken without his knowledge while he was on vacation. The mission (which failed) was a total surprise to him. I later cited this incident in calling for Colin Powell to resign after his fatal speech to the United Nations, because he had been equally badly used by the Bush administration.

You should know that I was in Iran until February 1979, and witnessed the entire revolution, but not the hostage crisis. A number of my friends were hostages.


R: You mentioned that Obama's foreign policy would not be much different than George W. Bush. With Denis Ross, as the key person to deal with Iran at the State Department, and given his background in this field, how will Obama's premise of change be accomplished?

WB: Clearly, it won't. Ross is being pushed by the neocons (WINEP, AEI), and the Obama transition team is in the pocket of AIPAC. They want to plant their operatives in the Obama administration.


R: President Bush changed the Republican's pattern toward Iran. Is there any potential that Democrats break their pattern as well and initiate a more friendly relation with Iran?

WB: Obviously, I hope so, but both Democrats and Republicans have had more or less the same policy toward Iran since the Revolution. No politician ever lost a vote by attacking Iran.


R: Thomas Friedman once said, Iran and the United States are natural allies. How does the possible designation of Denis Ross contribute to this?

It won't. Picking Ross is a mistake, if the idea is to have a different policy toward Iran. The neocons do not want a different policy. They want to continue to attack Iran, or have Israel do it, and the Obama administration not able to do anything about it.


R: The United States is facing with a variety of difficulties in the Middle East and the possibility of going to war with Iran seems pretty slim. Can the Obama administration live with a nuclear Iran, in case both countries compromise on some of their positions and policies?

WB: Do you believe Iran has an active nuclear weapons program? I don't. We can definitely live with Iran having nuclear power. The US is selling nuclear power to the UAE for heaven's sake.


Regarding the wall of mistrust between the two countries, in what sort of scenario would negotiations with Iran succeed?

It all starts with opening formal relations. Right now the U.S. and Iran have no relations whatever. Until they do, nothing can proceed.