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Tehran -- History shows us that a continued, perhaps amplified Iranian influence in the Middle East could help bring safety and stability to the region. Western powers have tried to check Iranian influence in the Middle East, but despite such short-sighted policies, Iran has maintained its traditional significance in the region.
Tehran, Iran - For the last 25 years, international trade with Iran has been subject to an unfair, albeit failed political agenda to isolate Iran with sanctions. Blocking Iran's WTO application was a cheap political tool. But alas, Iran's natural gas and oil reserves remain in demand.
Tehran, Iran - I have spent more than five hours today searching Google and world newspapers for articles about the Iran nuclear deal. Thanks to modern technology, I found more than 2100 headlines-- and that is just in English! What amazes me is not Google's search technology, but rather the hype and impatience around the discussion. Diplomacy and negotiations have been rudely overtaken by spin and imagination.
Tehran, Iran - Iranian papers are busy debating the economy. And there is a lot to discuss: a very high rate of real growth (at more than 5% over the last year). We are debating what to do about creating even more value-added activity. All of this takes place within a structural shift of the economy toward increasing liberalization.
Tehran, Iran - I tend to focus on trends rather than personalities when analyzing this part of the world. I look for concepts and structures that are gaining currency here.
Tehran, Iran - It's too easy to carve the world into blocks like the American media often does. It contrasts the West, the Muslim world, the former USSR, and "others". It then injects its simplistic religious analyses into complex events to explain the plight of women abroad. Despite what American media claim, it is not religion or culture that affects women most, but education.
Tehran, Iran - I write from a tough neighborhood at the hub of it all. It seems that all political forces have ganged up to stop the local economy in Iran.
About 11 days ago, 15 members of a foreign naval force in uniform, bearing arms and the British flag in service of Her Majesty’s Government, had trespassed into Iranian waters. Media hype ensued and a campaign of disinformation by the British government attempted to paint it as a UN peacekeeping mission. Nevertheless, these soldiers did not bear the UN flag or the internationally recognisable “Blue Helmets” insignia. In all, it was yet another round of media spin tricks: Eisenhower and his televised denials of violating Soviet airspace with an American U-2; Colin Powel and his satellite photos of mobile WMD labs in Iraq; George Bush and his facts on Iraqi purchase of uranium in Niger.
Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war,” and one ought to frame Columbia University’s debate in such a context. But the invitation proved to be a cheap and failed ruse, put on by aggressive and skewed observers who once supported cakewalk actions and are now suffering from intellectual bankruptcy.
We have to accept that we live in an era of intellectual rip-offs, tactics sold as policy and instant strategies broadcast live on TV. The show on the plastic box and talking-head spin-meisters will do the thinking and planning for us all. Accordingly, we lower expectations and shall not be surprised when we see childish games are sold as a mimic of statesmanship. His Excellency, the president of a superpower, is now demanding that the world forget what it knows and listen to his version of stories.
One thing a president, or a superpower, cannot afford is to be ridiculous. Nevertheless, George Bush lurched into that fatal category and true twilight of his presidency with all the discomfiture that he earned. The about-face of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), originally requested by Congress to update rudimentary knowledge of Iran, flew in the face of the fabrications, hallucinations and innuendoes pigeonholed as the “foreign policy” of a world power. Although it was finalized two months ago, the NIE was the subject of a drawn-out, agonized debate about leaks of such facts. (The Washington Post reported that the White House disclosed it to Congress and allies after sharing the report with Israel, a foreign nation.)
The year 2007 will mark the beginning of a trend towards the real end of the Cold War, the same war that appears to remain in progress in the Anglo-American world, whose thoughts and concepts are fossilized in 1950s daydreams. As an observer, I frame this slow awakening process -- thousands of Starbucks shops and strong caffeine notwithstanding -- with the exit performance of American ministers of war enigma (Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, and John Bolton, to name a few) and the return of American intelligence services and military to professionals that are, relatively speaking, in touch with reality. The unraveling process gained momentum with the departure of Tony Blair in Britain, and elections in Australia. The massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar and the reality of inflation affirmed it. Napoleon’s financial and political loss after its attack on Russia serves as a fair model.
The Current Discussion: With the U.S. presidential primary season in full swing, there's a lot of talk here about "change" vs. "competence" in leadership. Which does your country have more of? Is that a good thing?
The U.S. presidential primaries are mind-numbing for most foreigners. It appears to be a media jamboree and a quest to get a 30-second clip out of a day’s worth of talk, discussion and speeches. And the most baffling part is that it is a process very different from the actual job of presiding over a powerful and complex country.
When trying to explain the process to a novice, it is as confusing and difficult as explaining the sport of American football. An ordinary football (soccer) fan in the rest of the world is perplexed about different groups of players that come on and off the field. Why the three hours of stop-and-go and how is it that the clock runs on some occasions, but stops on others? Why are there different referees and judges on the field? What is the purpose of those cheerleaders, mascots and massive loads of statistics in a blurring, high energy discussion? Moreover, why do Americans call that oddly-shaped object “the ball,” which is usually a round object elsewhere in the world? Nevertheless, it is a uniquely American event. It is best left to Americans to find their own definitions of change or yardsticks for competence. All can be shrugged off -- live and let live!
The Current Discussion: Seymour Hersh reports a $400 million U.S. covert action program against Iran. On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the likelihood of an American or Israeli military attack on Iran before Jan. 20 (Inauguration Day), and why? For extra points, name the date.
I cannot measure it on a scale of one to ten. Scales are a logical system of measure, be it logically metric or traditionally imperial. The scale of measure needed for the way of thinking in Washington can best be described as neo-Batman pseudo-Imperialist – essentially a comic, cartoonish substance mixed with a silly phantasm of hallucinated bursts and a juvenile vigor in a mutinous breakdown of the legal system.
The Current Discussion: Will the current financial crisis discredit free-market policies in your country? Is socialism an echo of the past or a preview of the future?
I write from what may be the country least affected by this crisis, where the impact of the latest post-hurricane storms in Anglo-American financial markets is virtually nil. Iran has no exposure to the problems and mortgage-related transactions that, over the last 12 months and according to the Financial Times, have nominally summed up to twice the total of all other credit transactions in the world.
The Current Discussion: Are Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama on a collision course over Iran and the Palestinian problem? What would be the consequences of a breach between the United States and Israel?
After the de facto defeat in Iraq, America seems to have reached an awakening long overdue: America’s national interests are fundamentally different from Israel's. The Zionist regime has confused America’s support (initially a humanitarian assistance program) with a silly perception of a right to occupy Washington or somehow game and dictate policy to the largest economy in the world. Alas, the game is up. These childish tactics are unsustainable and incompatible with national interests of America—despite Israeli hype, lobbies and calculated ill will of mislabeling of other religions as a political ideology.
The Current Discussion: Are we witnessing a pro-regime coup in Iran? What should the world do in response? How will the election aftermath affect Iran's projection of power into the Middle East?
The truth is that Iran is exemplary in the region when it comes to timely, scheduled elections, maintaining the rule of its constitution (such as term limits) and orderly transfer of power. It has political discipline without peer in the region, despite absurd foreign hallucinations for “regime change”, petty vilification campaigns by lobbyists and a cheap psychological Cold war officially funded by at least one foreign nation. This is not a replay of the 1953 coup or the 1979 Revolution, and the elusive recycling of a few morally compromised politicians plucked from heaps of yesteryears is silly and futile.
The Current Discussion: Are we witnessing a pro-regime coup in Iran? What should the world do in response? How will the election aftermath affect Iran's projection of power into the Middle East?
This observer in Tehran can inform you that the (English-language) media frenzy and its sensationalism has breached the limits of reality and has hijacked the essence of debate in Iran. It is used as a diversion to eclipse a rejuvenation of a democratic process. The hyped protests, all within a square mile in west of Tehran, are simply a storm in a teacup and all of it must be framed in perspective. A civil war, a revolution or regime change, it is not.
Let us first remember that Iran is a country of about 72 million people, a third of whom are under 25 years old. A turnout of some 50,000 angry mobs (or even one million people, something that has not happened) is not exemplary of the rest. The other 71+ million people also have rights, lives and a desire for quiet pursuit of happiness and peace. Isn’t democracy about the will and rule of the majority, as well as the rule of law and civil order? Or should it be narrowly interpreted (by foreign media) as the right of a select tech-savvy few with computers, email and foreign language skills to project a distorted scuffle and civil disorder? Are elections not about discipline and order, after all? Or should the rules be overturned at random by crying foul and burning down banks and shops, simply because losers dislike the results of the very same system in which they signed up and ran campaigns?
Secondly, the blatant sudden turn of events after the election has not been properly explained to most Iranian youngsters and foreigners with a cursory knowledge of Iranian affairs. In fact, it has nothing to do with the election itself. The violence of June 20th marked the 28th anniversary and a rerun of a major street battle in Tehran between the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MKO-MEK) and their rivals during the early days of the Revolution. The rivals won 28 years ago and the MKO-MEK (a Stalinist, violent group that has no mind for the democratic process or even internal elections) was forced into exile. Many of their members were arrested and jailed when Mr. Mousavi was prime minister.
The MKO-MEK can be best described as the Persian speaking wing of the degenerated Iraqi Baath Party and an earlier species of Al Qaeda back in early 1970s-- a contemporary of the Red Brigades and the Baadermeinhof terror organizations in Europe. For decades, it has been designated as a terrorist group by most countries. They murdered American military advisers in Iran prior to the 1979 Revolution. MKO was on Saddam’s payroll to kill Iraqi Shiites, in exchange for having a base in Iraq. The source of their budgets remains murky, but MKO maintains an underground system in most European and North American cities, with lobby networks and a few chameleon fronts and disguised names that mask the organization.
MKO’s Camp Ashraf base was under protection of American forces and, despite the terrorist designation, they did “business” with Mr. Rumsfeld’s secret Task Force 20 for a few terror jabs at Iran in a hostile, ill-conceived regime change dream concocted by Mr. Cheney & Co. After the pullback of American forces in Iraq, the Iranian and Iraqi government have negotiated to close Camp Ashraf north of Iraq and extradite the key figures, the final round of which has been postponed until after elections in Iran. Hence the tsunami of one-way, ill-informed pressure on mostly English-speaking media by the MKO-MEK lobbies machine, an attempt to derail recent events beyond reality and divert attention away from formation of democracy. In other words, modern politics is snuffed out by a wave of violence, using uninformed young protesters as a shield—many of whom were not even born 28 years ago and are clueless about it all.
Otherwise, why would a legitimate Iranian “protester” hold up a sign in English, a foreign language, and pose for cameras if the idea is to protest against the Iranian state in Persian?
Recent developments in Iran are two distinct different matters, albeit foreign media have stitched it all up into one big bubble of insane hype. Somehow, all have forgotten about the purpose of an election. Simply put, the foreign mass media has been duped by a terrorist organization with modern (terror?) techniques of vilification in an abusive manipulation. Polluted prejudice and a lazy default on absurd vocabulary and zingers such as “regime change”, talk of “rogue behavior” or relapse to the perception of the 1953 coup has hijacked reality.
It is time for the world to realize that the Iranian political system is maturing. It is futile and silly for foreigners to insist upon their perceived views of Iran, even if media outlets turn to full time bullhorns of hostile policies of their governments. In the real world, in a territory about the size of Western Europe, Iran conducted a peaceful and historical election without peer in the region and Iranians have embarked on a new course of democracy, not a violent revolution or a coup or a crackdown plan to serve divide-and-dominate games of hostile foreign governments.
It is sad to see civil disorder in any place. But it must be framed in perspective and it is nothing short of a travesty to see the essence of a democratic process is summarily trampled in favor of sensationalist views of the relative few troublemakers with a questionable past and foul intentions.
Democracy is a process, not a project. It must be encouraged with cool heads and it must even-handedly left to the indigenous people to find their own way over time. Within living memory, meddling by foreigners in Iranian politics bluntly delayed and damaged the century-old desire of Iranians for a democratic system.
Iranians have not forgotten that and chances are that an absolute majority of Iranians are not going to let such meddling happen again.
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