Tuesday
Mar232010
The Latest from Iran (23 March): Inside and Outside the Country
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 20:38 
2030 GMT: For What It's Worth. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, a senior aide to President Ahmadinejad, has launched today's attack on the Obama Administration, claiming that its policies were sometimes worse than "the dark era of [former president] George W. Bush":Today we witness that the US is increasing the number of its forces in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of withdrawing its troops from these countries and is behind the massacre of people and the expansion of poverty in these countries more than before.
Hashemi said that Tehran expects Obama to "rectify the dark Bush-era policies toward the Iranian nuclear program and give up confronting the Iranian nation".
Iran Analysis: Politics and Subsidy Reform (Harris)
Iran: View from Tehran “Changes within the System are Impossible”
The Latest from Iran (22 March): The Economic Clash
1730 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Iranian authorities have released Hassan Lahouti, the grandson of Hashemi Rafsanjani, after less than two days in detention. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi said, "After some investigations and after he expressed regret over his actions, he was released from prison on bail." Lahouti's freedom is conditional: his bail was set at $70,000, and Doulatabadi said his completed file would be sent to a court for consideration of further action.
Lahouti, a student in Britain, was arrested early Monday morning as he flew into Iran for the Nowruz holidays. Rah-e-Sabz claims, from an "informed source", that Lahouti was detained for criticising the Supreme Leader in a phone call monitored by Iranian agencies.
Rah-e-Sabz also claims that Hashemi Rafsanjani has spoken with Sadegh Larijani about Lahouti’s arrest.
Larijani allegedly told Rafsanjani that the intelligence services have been tapping Lahouti’s telephone conversation.
1620 GMT: Hey, Let's Have an All-Out War! One problem with a slow news day is that it lets the inmates out of the asylum. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina decided his time addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee would be best spent advocating a full-on military assault: "All options must be on the table....You know exactly what I'm talking about." While war is a "terrible thing", "sometimes it is better to go to war than to allow the Holocaust to develop a second time....Time is not on our side."
What kind of war? A really big one:
If military force is ever employed, it should be done in a decisive fashion. The Iran government's ability to wage conventional war against its neighbors and our troops in the region should not exist. They should not have one plane that can fly or one ship that can float.
The call to arms is at the 2:20 mark:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtv629Wys1Y&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
1300 GMT: Will Sanctions Work? Suzanne Maloney of the Saban Center at The Brookings Institution offers a detailed paper, "The Economics of Influencing Iran". The take-away paragraph:
Sanctions must be narrowly construed, in order to offer any real prospect for obtaining Iranian compliance and for attracting sufficient international support. However, Washington’s interests in Iran transcend the nuclear issue, particularly at a moment when Iranian internal dynamics are more fluid than in recent history. For this reason, the Obama administration should make a concerted effort to couple the new efforts at using economic pressure to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions with an intensification of rhetoric and measures that call attention to Tehran’s human rights abuses.
0905 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Filmmakers have protested in front of Evin Prison on behalf of the detained director Jafar Panahi.
0850 GMT: Green Shoots in Zahedan? Rah-e-Sabz reports that a Green Movement has been formed in Zahedan in southeastern Iran. The statement of "Jonbesh-e sabz-e Zahedan" begins with a commitment to civil rights and equal rights, regardless of gender or belief and goes farther in its political declaration of objectives than figures such as Mir Hossein Mousavi statements. It denies adherence to any ideology.
0800 GMT: Subsidy Battle. The Supreme Leader may have his work cut out for him in the attempt to restore peace (see 0755 GMT). Khabar Online presses Parliament's case with a statement from MP Mohammad Reza Khabbaz: "Instead of [Ahmadinejad's proposed] referendum, the Government can test subsidy cuts in several provinces."
0755 GMT: Parliament v. Ahmadinejad Watch. With all the attention to the Supreme Leader's US-bashing in his Nowruz speech, this important passage has largely been ignored. Khamenei called on the Parliament and the President to reconcile their differences over the subsidy reform plan, declaring that any division into "winners and losers" is the plot of the foreigners.
0745 GMT: A quieter political start today. We've taken the time to update the report on Sunday's protest over Japan's imminent deportation of activist Jamal Saberi.
We're also reading an article by Roger Cohen of The New York Times on "two Iranians, two exiles, one truth of a people defrauded and denied". He uses the cases of Mohammad Reza Heydari, the Iranian diplomat in Norway who resigned his post in protest against his Government, and Negar Azizmoradi, a refugee in Turkey, to put his point: "Her own government stifled Negar’s voice. But the world must listen. It’s her country after all — and the ballot-counting Heydari’s."
Reader Comments (14)
Afghan Prisoner WAtch: more than 5,000 are thought to be in Iranian prisons
Afghan Prisoner Watch: more than 5,000 Afghans are thought to be in Iranian prisons, with many on death row: http://www.rferl.org/content/Outcry_In_Kabul_Over_Afghans_On_Death_Row_In_Iran/1990287.html
Protest .... then party! There is even a special term for it: Bazm-o-Razm (which means “Battle and Bacchanalia” or “Fight and Fête”), referred to repeatedly in revered Persian poet Hakim Abol Qasem Ferdowsi’s 10th century epic, the Shahnameh.
The Double Lives of Tehran’s Middle Class
بزم تهرانیها در گرماگرم رزم
Jafar Farshian | Tehran | 19 March 2010
http://www.mianeh.net/en/articles/?aid=0287
AIPAC Watch: The Pro-Israel Lobby's Plan to Storm Congress
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1973983,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Economy Watch: China imports less Iranian oil
China's imports of Iranian crude oil shrank by nearly 40 percent in the first two months of 2010, compared to the same time last year, despite the Asian economy's expanding hunger for foreign oil. Chinese customs data issued on Monday showed Iran, which was China's third biggest foreign supplier of crude oil last year, slipped to fourth behind Russia in the first two months of 2010.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Business%20Report&fArticleId=5399851
Analysis by Mehrdad Emadi, an economic advisor for the European Union:
http://persian2english.com/?p=8806
One thing that struck me about Khamenei's latest speeches was his seemingly taking offense to America's "carrot and stick" diplomacy. He didn't mention it by name but described it, and said that it was unacceptable, in the sense of being an offense against respect and honor, for the US to refer to Iran in that kind of way.
I would like to make sure everyone understands that while this metaphor does refer to driving a mule, a beast of burden, this is not meant as any offense. America will always be a farming country at heart, and to the farmer the mule is not unclean or offensive in any way, she is the heart of the farm, the engine that drives everything, and the family completely depends on her. People often describe themselves as working "like a mule" when they are working very, very hard.
Carrot and Stick does not mean that one person is the master over another. Both people in a negotiation could simultaneously use it on each other. The IRI could offer America the carrot of exchanging fuel for fuel rods outside Iran, and the stick of...well that's a matter for another discussion. But the USA would not be offended by this, if Khamenei were to come out and say here is my carrot, here is my stick, that would make total sense and not be considered demeaning at all.
People even speak of using the carrot and stick on themselves, like if they go on a diet to lose weight they might pick one special treat to look forward to all day, as the carrot, and then if they cheat on the diet they don't get to eat it, or have to do extra exercise or something, as a stick. It's just a general method of motivating people, or yourself, to do something, which you would naturally want to do in a negotiation situation.
Some have said that the differences in culture between the IRI and the USA could be responsible for a lot of hostility, with just fundamentally incompatible patterns of thinking butting heads against each other. I'm thinking there's a lot of truth to that, if the Supreme Leader is offended that the USA would frame the debate this way, a way that seems like pretty much the only way any negotiation CAN be framed, from the American point of view. If you didn't have rewards and punishments, what would you be negotiating about? Clearly a lot more cultural exchange needs to go on!
@Rev. Magdalen
The fact that Khamenei is taking the expression as a personal offense proves without the shadow of a doubt something we already all knew : the "Supreme Leader" is an old donkey.
An interview of Raffers asking him to compare 12 farvardin of 1958 ( referendum for having an Islamic Republic ) to 2010's; in my opinion he invites people to demonstrate in 12 Farvardine asking for a referendum, I would like to know if I am right ! ?
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=110629715620482&ref=mf
This is all very interesting.
@REV MAGDALEN
Different cultural imperatives are very important and certainly need to be considered and taken into account.
But am thinking that the matters you have discussed may boil down more to physchological differences than cultural differences.
Three points have always stood out for me - when observing Iran over the past 30 years.
"Victim mentality" - this is a common way of thinking that some people have. They (people who possess a "victim mentality") constantly and consistently blame their current situation on something that happened to them in the past. Their past prevents them from moving on to a more constructive, positive future.
"Inferiority complex" - this is a way of thinking whereby people either genuinely feel inferior to others internally - or think that others see them as inferior. It quite often manifests itself as displayed attitudes of superiority to others and aggression.
"Living with past glories" - this is a way of living whereby people whose past was in fact very different to what it is today. Their past lives were much more "glorious, rich, powerful, etc". They display attitudes of anger, resentment and yearn for the past glorious days.
Barry
Well we now know who owns the factory putting out the T-Shirts "Nukem till they glow" none other than Senator Lindsey Graham!!! "Ya might be a redneck if your involved in two wars and want to start another!!!" Sadly I have relatives in Kentucky who think it's bombs away time!!!
Here's the real nightmare scenario: McCain/Palin could've been the in the White House!
you gotta love this story: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LC25Ak04.html
Cameron,
Even being a republican I cringe whenever I think that McCain and Palin could have been in office. It would have been more of the "bombs away" rhetoric of the bush just the 2.0 version.
Thx
Bill