Translated Text: The Indictment in the Tehran Trials

The Latest from Iran (12 August): Two Months Later

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From Evan Siegel in Iran Rises, translating the indictment originally published in Fars News. Siegel's initial comment is that much of the "evidence" appears to rely on Hossein Derakhshan, the blogger detained in November 2008 and initially accused of spying for Israel and the US. Whether or not this is the case, Siegel's subsequent note that this indictment reads like "whistling past the graveyard", with the prosecutor "knowing full well...that the precise opposite of what he is saying is true" is on target. Indeed, it reinforces our analysis the day after the first trial, "The indictment and presentation of charges offered no evidence of substantive criminal acts....The “foreign plot” scenario [is] almost laughable, turn[ing] US-based academics into directors of an Iranian insurgency."

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The text of the Tehran judiciary’s charges against the defendants in the defeated project for a velvet coup:

“When We make mankind taste of some mercy after adversity has touched them Behold! they take to plotting against our Signs! Say: “Swifter to plan is Allah!” Verily Our messengers record all the plots that you make!” (Koran, Yunos 21)

Honorable President of the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court,

Peace be on you.

As you have been apprised, the wise Leader of the revolution, with his Imam-like wisdom, stated that the aware nation of Islamic Iran has created an astonishing and unprecedented epic by their unusual presence at the ballot boxes during the elections for the tenth term of the presidency, which showed the Iranian nation’s political maturity, revolutionary, powerful and civil capacity, and determined visage in a beautiful and glorious display before the eyes of the world.

Any fair-minded person could comfortably witness the great accomplishments of this huge epic in various political, cultural, social, and economic dimensions on the domestic and international level.

First, these elections have been transformed into a display of true democracy which inspires pride and it brought a message to the world that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the safest and most stable countries for investment and advancing economic projects.

Second, in the realm of international relations, this vast national support increases the power of bargaining for and winning the legitimate rights of the sovereign people of Islamic Iran to a high level and has raised our country’s success in the region and the world to silence [literally, to cut out the tongues of] those who make lying claims about freedom, democracy, and human rights. And so, these Iranian statesmen and masters of diplomacy can from now on, can perform their roles on the regional and world stage and in exchanges with the countries of the world with an increasing decisiveness and based on wisdom, splendor, and the nation’s interests better than ever.

Third, the deep impact of this conscious presence on the way the people of the world, particularly its outstanding personalities, look at the Iranian people’s rich culture and political feelings, which arise out of their Islamic and revolutionary beliefs, has more than ever drawn the attention of the nations’ public opinion to the efficacy of the model of religious democracy.

Fourth, since popular support is considered one of the most important ingredients of the national security of the sacred Islamic Republican system, the participation of 85% of the people in the elections has indubitably played an irreplaceable role in the stabilization of the foundations of national security, the government which appeared from this enthusiastic and passionate majority will be more powerful than in the past on the domestic, regional, and international scene, and this power will be as a vast national wealth in solving domestic and foreign problems and increasing and advancing our dear Islamic country more each day.

The defeated and despondent enemy immediately went into action and set off a chain of chaos and riots in Tehran through the mobilization of its propagandist, political, and local agents. Our dear compatriots suffered many losses of life, property, and mental health as a result. According to documents which we have obtained and the confirmed confessions of the accused, the occurrence of these events was completely planned in advance and proceeded according to a timetable and the stages of a velvet coup in such a way that more than 100 of the 198 events were executed in accordance with the instructions of Gene Sharp for a velvet coup.
Honorable president of the court.

A velvet coup is a kind of coup which has the same goals of a military coup but totally different in methods and means.
In this connection, Mr. Robert Helvey, a retired CIA officer and a student of Dr. Gene Sharp, writes in his book titled On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals, “Non-violent conflict [i.e., that same velvet coup—Mojtaba] does not have any special difference with military conflict except that the weapon used in it is different and unique to this technique.” [not from the original]
Another of the differences between a velvet coup and a military coup is in the way it is formed from start to finish and its long duration, which can at times last a decade or more.

The most important point which must be noted concerning a velvet coup is that the theoreticians bought by the West’s spy and intelligence services have developed this method at the orders of their commanders to get World Arrogance out of its practical dead end by overthrowing independent systems or systems which are not in alignment with the West’s hegemony and lust for domination. It is the result of years of research and fieldwork in various coup-prone countries. This technique of fomenting coups is so planned out that by employing so-called civil and long-term methods, it can stealthily and quietly complete the stages of the velvet revolution without attracting serious attention among the people or the political systems of the countries. By the time the political systems come to their senses, the velvet coup has usually reached its final stage and the probability of its success has greatly increased.

Years ago, numerous foundations and institutions came into existence through the Western countries’ spy agencies and other governmental institutions which, through a division of organizational labor and concentration on various missions, were tasked with the joint purpose of implementing a velvet coup project. The most important of these institutions and foundations are the Soros Foundation (the Open Society Institute), the Rockefeller Institute, the Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, Freedom House, the American Council on Foreign Relations, the German Council on Foreign Relations, and the Centre for Democracy Studies of Britain.

In further elucidating this issue, it is necessary to point to the statements of a spy who is now in detention and who had returned to Iran with the aim of fulfilling a role in the elections for the tenth term of the presidency.

He says, “In the voyage I made to Israel, I became familiar with an institution called MEMRI which belongs to the United States, but is based in Israel and whose mission it is to monitor the Middle Eastern media. This institution’s task is to struggle against anti-Israeli activities which are arising in other countries. It pursues a project whose goal is to support the reformists in the Islamic world, including Iran. The man in charge of this project is an old intelligence officer in the Israeli army whom I visited. In this meeting, he told me, ‘Our task is to nourish and spread the ideas of thinkers like Abdol-Karim Sorush in Iran.’”

This spy continued, “Another of these active institutions is the Dutch agency HYFUS [?], with whose officers I had meetings. This institution had good relations with institutions and NGOs inside Iran and even spent 10 million Euros towards the end of Khatami’s presidency in Iran, most of which was given to the women’s movement. HYFUS got its budget from bribes from Dutch oil companies which wanted to evade paying taxes.”

Concerning Radio Free Europe, the above-mentioned said, “Radio Free Europe, like many of the soft coup institutions, began its work during the Cold War and are connected with the CIA. During the Cold War, the Americans used politics, culture, and media and the cover of beautiful words like democracy and freedom and human rights to pressure the Soviets. Many of the institutions which are active at present in the field of soft coups are left over from that time, and Radio Free Europe is of this type. The Persian section of this radio is active under the name Radio Farda. This radio covers [uses the word “pushesh”, a literal translation of an American idiom] many of the protests and vastly exaggerates them.”

This spy continued, discussing another of the soft coup institutions called the Berkman [Center], saying, “Global Voices is under the purview of an institution called the Berkman Center in Harvard University. This project began in 2004 and I participated in its first meeting in Harvard. The goal of this project was to concentrate on all the bloggers of the world, especially the anti-American countries like Iran, to be able to achieve its purposes, i.e., to bring about a psychological war in these countries.

“The Soros Foundation, which contributes to most NGOs, provided financial backing for this project. This project’s manager is someone named Ethan Zuckerman. He is an American who had previously worked in the Soros Foundation. He has worked hard on using the internet for soft coups in various countries and also has ties with American security-intelligence institutes.”

He continued, “The Berkman Center is managed by someone named John Palfrey, who himself claims that his uncle is Kermit Roosevelt, who organized the 28 Mordad Coup.”

The above-mentioned added, referring to America’s role in planning soft coups, “America uses various theoreticians to plan soft coups, such as Gene Sharp, who spent fifty years of his life in his foundation to plan how to make know governments’ weak points for a soft coup. This foundation’s website offers instructions in some twenty to thirty¹ of the living languages of the world in the methods of peaceful resistance. Of course, these languages are not German, French, or Spanish, but Burmese, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, etc., languages which the Americans would love the countries in to have soft revolution.²

“Other people, such as Mark Palmer, the president of the Konos Foundation,³ have also done much research about Iran. Two or three years ago, he even organized classes and directly invited activists of the 2 Khordad movement like Amad Baqi, and taught them the stages of a soft coup.”

Honorable President of the Court.

So far, the velvet coup project has been implemented in several countries and has generally been successful, from Georgia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, the Ukraine, and Kirgizstan. In most of these countries, the velvet coups came in the form of an election and have much in common with the project of the defeated velvet coup of Iran, whose final stage was set off under the excuse of the elections to the tenth term of the presidency. Of course, this conspiracy was crushed thanks to the awake and ever-present people’s alertness and our country’s powerful security and policy institutions’ decisive and timely treatment.

The arrested spy answered the question, “What model did America use for the velvet coup in Iran,” by saying: “This model was based on elections and began at least two years before the elections were held. They first begin with a plan and choose a candidate for themselves. For example, Mr. [Mikheil] Saakashvili, the current president of Georgia, has without a doubt not simply emerged in the world of politics. Rather, he received money from Fulbright, which is associated with the American Foreign Ministry. He has studied for years in this country and was trained for these days. After determining the candidate they want, they pour vast sums of social capital on him. In this way, supporters of this candidate set about educating the people through a network, with the trademark Gold Quest, which is a standard way of recruiting to campaigns. After this stage, they choose a graphic and color for this candidate and begin to prepare public opinion to vote for him. On the other hand, they prepare themselves before the elections so that if they lose, they begin to cast doubts upon the elections and announce that there had been fraud and bring the government’s legitimacy under question and begin to hold strikes and, ultimately, have the elections nullified or have the elections held again under international supervision, in which their candidate will win.”

The above-mentioned continued, “This has been done in Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Croatia and succeeded. It is worth noting that the same educational texts which were used in Serbia have been translated into Persian and used in Iran with minor changes.⁴ These matters depend on the society’s culture, customs, and religion. The most important factor for executing this revolution is the youth, who are a good investment. They count on the youth’s energy, since they are the only people who devote two or three months of their lives without money for the sake of elections.”

He added, “Iran’s velvet revolution is very similar to the Serbian velvet revolution. In that country, a student group called the Otpor [Resistance] began recruiting, which is very similar to the Green Wave in Iran. In the educational brochure which is posted on the Albert Einstein [Institution] site, under the title of “Difficult situation” which covers the issues of the greatest strategic importance that places governments in the position in which they cannot confront the protesters. It says that the protests must be put under the cover of religious customs and activities like street processions must be held which no government can restrain. Ultimately, this educational brochure points to several frames of an educational film about the Serbian revolution which is even dubbed in Persian and posted on the web site.⁵

There is another brochure about how to seize a city’s sensitive locations and buildings. In it, it teaches protest groups how to take over important centers.

It is necessary here to indicate an important point in the court’s presence. The educational film about the Serbian velvet coup which had been translated into Persian was edited and read by someone named Nader Seddiqi.⁶ He is someone who first introduced Mr. Tajbakhsh to Messrs. Hajarian and Tajzadeh. Mr. Tajbakhsh said of Mr. Nader Seddiqi’s role, “It is not clear to me what Mr. Nader Seddiqi’s role was and who introduced me to him and at whose instructions he was responsible for having me meet with Messrs. Hajarian and Tajzadeh.” At the present time, the afore-mentioned [Nader Seddiqi] is a fugitive.

This arrested spy, whose name we do not mention out of security considerations, believes that a soft coup or that same velvet coup has three arms: intellectual, media, and executive. He explains as follows: “Each of the velvet coup’s arms are in contact with a number of American foundations and institutions, and indeed there has been a division of labor.”

He said in this connection, “In the coup triangle (the intellectual, the media, and the executive arms) each American institution performs a special activity and cooperates with a group of people in Iran. The most important of them is an institution called the Hoover Institution which is under the supervision of Stanford University and was formed in the context of the Cold War.

This foundation has a project called Democracy in Iran on its agenda, which is under the supervision of three security elements named Abbas Milani, Larry Diamond, and Michael McFaul.

Abbas Milani was arrested during the time of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for activity in leftist groups. He then turned into an enthusiastic monarchist so that after living in Iran for a year or two after the revolution, he left the country for America where he wrote a number of books in which he praised the Pahlavi regime’s accomplishments. He gradually turned into one of the opposition’s leaders who was distinguished in this basic way from the rest: his relationship with domestic reformist elements.

This arrested spy added, “The Iran Democracy Project works on the Iranian people’s popular culture, like music, blogs, and sexual issues.

“The student wing of this foundation is very active and people like Ms. [Fatemeh] Haghighatjoo, Arash Naraghi (from Kian’s [corrected by Ramin Jahanbegloo; thanks] clique and close to Sorush) make speeches in their conferences. Within Iran, too, people who are close to the Executives of Construction Party cooperate with this institute. For example, [Mohammad] Atrianfar, in every magazine or newspaper in which he works, interviews Abbas Milani under cover of his being a historian. Abbas Milani’s importance for the CIA is greater than even Reza Pahlavi’s, since he has good relations with the reformists; he even maintains all of Akbar Ganji’s financial expenses outside the country.”⁷

Footnotes

1 Actually, 40.
2 It includes the languages of a number of American allies–Azerbaijani (in the Latin-based alphabet favored in the Republic of Azerbaijan), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish.
3 We have found no reference to such a foundation in any of his biographies.
4 This is the first I have heard about these pamphlets…
5 Since an article by the 9/11 “truther” Thierry Meyssan, the proprietor of Voltaire Net, appeared, more or less fringe figures in the cybersphere have followed Meyssan in attacking it. The Einstein Institution issued a (fairly tepid) statement by Dr. Sharp defending himself. A statement signed by such progressive luminaries as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky rejected the charges. For a list of some of the back and forth on this issue, see the Source Watch article on the Albert Einstein Institution. For a powerful and convincing rejoinder to the Institution’s critics, see this piece in the Huffington Post.
6 Extrapolating from a brief biography presented about him in the pro-government Fars News Agency website, he used to be in charge of preparing government bulletins about the People’s Mojahedin. He became disillusioned when Said Hajarian, one of the founders of the Ministry of Intelligence, was assassinated. He later gravitated, according to Fars News Agency, to Abol-Hasan Bani-Sadr.
7 I have no independent information about much of what is said in this article in general and the last paragraph in particular. As for Prof. Milani financing Mr. Ganji, if the former has indeed پول داد از جیب فتوت, show some generosity, it only raises him a little in my estimation and does nothing to discredit Mr. Ganji, who I know for certain lives a meager darvish’s existence.

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2015 GMT: Lots of Twitter chatter about a demonstration for the Central Bazaar in Tehran, and bazaars in other Iranian cities, at 10 a.m. local time tomorrow.

1650 GMT: Speaking of the Revolutionary Guard. Here is the article which caused so much fuss this weekend, and which we have been covering extensively, by Yudollah Javani in the Guards' house journal. It concludes with the call for the judiciary to pursue the arrests of "ringleaders" of demonstrations such as Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi.

1620 GMT: Stepping Up Pressure, But On Whom. The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, has called for "confronting soft threats in all the cultural, economic, political and social arenas": "IRGC's strategy for confrontation with soft threats comprises preventative measures, full intelligence information on the type of a given threat and the time of its occurrence and plans for preventing its occurrence and formation."

Jafari added that the IRGC is preparing its infrastructure for confronting military, hard, and soft threats, with the battle against soft threats delegated to the Basiji militia.

Yet what is meant to appear as a tough statement against the foreign-inspired "velvet revolution" may also be a tactical retreat. Jafari did not repeat the threats, issued by other IRGC outlets, of arrests of opposition leaders.

And, in what appears to be a coordinated public relations assault, the commander of the Basiji, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb has warned, in an address to his forces, "The enemy always strives to hinder unity among the (Iranian) people and seeks to attain its devilish goals through sowing discord as a means of soft threat."

Taeb was not as careful as Jafari to limit his comments at the foreign menace, "The enemy stepped into the scene of the presidential election...to achieve its goals by means of its agents and elements in Iran."

1555 GMT: Press TV Turns Up the Heat on Mahmoud. Not one but two stories on Press TV English's website sound a warning to President Ahmadinejad. First, it carried the story, which we revealed yesterday in a special analysis, that the President had to scurry to a meeting with more than 200 members of "principlist" majority bloc in Parliament because of challenges to his Cabinet choices.

Then, four minutes, another article reported that senior "reformist" MP Mostafa Kavakebyan had demanded in Parliament that Ahmadinejad report on "constitutional violations" during the post-election conflict: "It is the duty of the President to pursue such issues. However, the president has made no move in this regard.” The same article mentioned the submission to Parliament by the Mousavi campaign of the numbers of protestors killed and detained.

1550 GMT: From the Asosciated Press: "President Nicolas Sarkozy's office says a French Embassy employee on trial in Iran has been freed from prison. A statement says Sarkozy has spoken with Nazak Afshar since her release."

However, the statement also indicated that French national Clotilde Reiss is still being held and implied that Afshar has been bailed and still faces prosecution: "Sarkozy also wants the charges against Afshar, a French-Iranian citizen, to be dropped."

1450 GMT: There is still some confusion over Hashemi Rafsanjani and Friday prayers in Tehran. Khabar Online adds two comments to the official statement of Rafsanjani. The first is from Mohammad Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who pleaded ignorance of his brother's position. The second is from a close relative who insisted on remaining anonymous: "Mr. Rafsanjani has not completely made up his mind about his presence in the Friday prayers....The current conditions are special conditions that require Mr. Rafsanjani to re-evaluate his decision."

1430 GMT: We've split off this morning's first update as a special analysis, "Sifting Through Rafsanjani's Decision".

1420 GMT: A very slow day on news front, but reports that some detainees are being released, albeit with high bails. Amir Hossein Shemshadi, a member of the Green 88 campaign, was freed after $50,000 was posted; photographer Majid Saeedi put up $120,000.

1050 GMT: More on the Revolutionary Guards' Threats. Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, who is featured in today's roundtable discussion on "Truth and Reconciliation in/for Iran?", has published a useful overview of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' warnings of possible arrests of opposition leaders. The article is in the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, but for those who don't know Italian, the general sense can be picked up through Google Translate.

0920 GMT: Who's Trashing Larijani? The pro-Ahmadinejad Raja News claimed yesterday that Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani called Mir Hossein Mousavi on the phone "in the afternoon of the elections day" to congratulate him on his imminent win.

The article criticizes Larijani for acting irresponsibly, given that he had access to confidential information. In addition, it cases doubt on the legitimacy of Larijani's doctorate.

0900 GMT: Reuters reports, via Sarmayeh in Iran, the statement of Alireza Beheshti, chief advisor to Mir Hossein Mousavi, "The names of 69 people who were killed in post-election unrest ... were submitted to Parliament for investigation. The report also included the names of about 220 detainees."

Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said at a separate press conference that more than 4000 protesters were arrested in demonstrations after 12 June, "but 3,700 of them were released in the first week after their arrest.

0815 GMT: We've just posted a challenging in-depth discussion amongst four specialist Iran-watchers on "truth and reconciliation", in light of an open letter from 31 academics to The Guardian of London.

0800 GMT: Media Silence. This is eerie. No one is noticing Rafsanjani's official announcement. CNN International's last Iran story is from more than 24 hours ago, on the Revolutionary Guard's threat to arrest opposition leaders. BBC English posted yesterday morning on the Karroubi letter to Rafsanjani, as did Al Jazeera English.

Iran: Sifting Through Rafsanjani's Decision

The Latest from Iran (11 August): Rafsanjani’s Decision

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UPDATE 1800 GMT: The Iranian Labor News Agency reports that Hashemi Rafsanjani, meeting with an attorneys' organisation today, emphasised the protection of the rights of defendants. Press TV is playing up the story, "Rafsanjani Demands Prisoner Rights amid Accusations [of Mistreatment", with the extract from his statement, “Judgment...as well as the rights of the accused can provide guarantees for the presence of justice in the final verdict.”

After a day of confusion and speculation, former Hashemi Rafsanjani confirmed publicly this morning, in a brief statement on his website, that he will not lead Friday prayers in Tehran “to avoid possible conflict”.

The immediate reading of the decision, as well as the politics around it, is that my Enduring America colleagues got it right in our last update yesterday. Rafsanjani had made his decision 24 hours ago but held back from confirmation while there was a battle over how it would be presented. Those behind the regime, both within the system (the head of the Friday Prayers Committee) and in the media, quickly put out the line that Rafsanjani had stepped down because of the threat of opposition manipulation of the event. The former President’s advisors countered by implying that he withdrew because of the threat of violence, as security forces tried to prevent a mass gathering around the prayer site.

That publicity contest will play out today, but I think it is already surpassed by the fallout from this decision. This is a blow for the opposition movement, even as President Ahmadinejad struggles and possibly sinks, and it may mark a re-arrangement of the forces in the post-election conflict.

First, the immediate winner. Step up, Supreme Leader.

The fear of Khamenei has always been that Rafsanjani would work closely with the leaders and protestors of the Green movement. That is why he paid special attention to the former President in his Friday Prayers address of 19 June, trying to split off Rafsanjani from those irresponsibility challenging the election result. Initially, Rafsanjani did remain quiet, waiting more than two weeks before making a guarded statement, as the conflict was defined between the Green Wave and the regime.

Then two events occurred. In mid-July, a group of “hard-line” clerics tried to take Rafsanjani out of the picture, attempting to remove him from leadership of the Assembly of Experts. That effort backfired badly, with other clerics rallying around Rafsanjani. The former President did lead Friday prayers on 17 July, bringing a massive opposition rally to the site and on the streets. And his address was no longer so guarded — this was a challenge to the position of President Ahmadinejad and a criticism of the system that Ayatollah Khamenei was leading.

The 17 July address boosted the Green movement, as it found the energy for new demonstrations, and it gave support to a growing number of secular and religious figures — not just from the movement but from “principlist” and “conservative” factions — focusing on the Government’s use of violence and detentions. The inauguration of Ahmadinejad became a peripheral event. More importantly, there was talk that the Supreme Leader’s ultimate authority might be challenged.

The fear for the regime must have been that Rafsanjani’s appearance this Friday, even if his words were again guarded, would give the platform for a confrontation which is no longer about the 12 June result but about the legitimacy of the current system. That has now been removed. The Supreme Leader again has a “breathing space” amidst the ongoing political manoeuvres.

Second, the opposition. The post-election challenge has always been two halves of a walnut. One half has been the public show of anger over the current situation and of hope that changes could be made. The other half has been the less dramatic, often behind-the-scenes political manoeuvres.

Rafsanjani’s importance has been not so much that he is part of that public movement but that, as a former President and current head of the Assembly of Experts and Expediency Council, he is a key member of the Establishment. He had a political base not available to Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, or even former President Mohammad Khatami. And his own resumé, as an Ayatollah and a long-time political leader, brings together the clerical and secular dimensions within the Islamic Republic.

So before 17 July, the former President was a potential symbol bringing together the two halves of the challenge and, after 17 July, he was a very real force galvanising resistance. Opposition leaders and protestors have to confront the cold fact this morning that this may no longer be the case.

There was an incident this week which pointed to this difficulty. Two days ago, Mehdi Karroubi’s advisors published a letter from the Presidential candidate to Rafsanjani that had been written at the end of July. Karroubi had asked Rafsanjani to pursue an enquiry into the abuses of detainees, giving graphic examples. Apparently the former President never replied, so on Monday the letter was posted in the newspaper of Karroubi’s party. The underlying question to Rafsanjani was now on the surface: are you really with us?

In the short term, the reactions of Mousavi, Karroubi, Khatami, and other leading politicians and clerics will be worth watching. In the longer term, however, the response will have to go beyond these leaders, just as it has to move beyond Rafsanjani: can the movement find the strength and the occasion for another public display of opposition?

And finally (for now), Rafsanjani. Had this been any other politician stepping down, the headline would be “Defeat”. When Rafsanjani skipped his turn in the rota for Friday prayers on two occasions in June/July, he did so from a position of control, considering his next moves. This time, the withdrawal looks like it was forced upon him by the regime.

This, however, is not any other politician. This is Rafsanjani, one of the prominent figures in (and for almost all of) post-1979 Iranian politics. This is a man who, even after his defeat by Ahmadinejad in the 2005 election, has continued to inspire admiration from his supporters and fear from his opponents. This is “The Shark”.

So what is his move? Personally, I’m not sure that he can mend relations with the leaders of the Green movement. So is his manoeuvre, including this withdrawal, an indication that he is positioning for compromise with leaders within the system, including the Supreme Leader? Is there an expectation that, with a possibly terminally wounded President, there may be a space for Rafsanjani to move again for even higher offices than the ones he now occupies? Or, for once, did he simply get wrong-footed and pushed into a defensive reaction, one where he will have to reconsider his position?

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuv8NzmSgPI[/youtube]

Truth and Reconciliation in/for Iran? A Roundtable Discussion

The Latest from Iran (11 August): Rafsanjani’s Decision

On July 31st, a politically diverse group of 31 academics, students, and anti-war protestors published an open letter in The Guardian of London, criticising what they viewed as the western media’s one-sided coverage of the post-election developments in Iran.   Foremost amongst the fallacies they perceived was the portrayal of the election results as “the start of a ‘velvet’ revolution against the Islamic Republic". At the same time, the letter alleged that the US State Department has used the crisis to “justify its continuation of Bush-era policies of financing anti-Iranian government organisations". Not only was this an act of political opportunism on the part of advocates of regime change, this interference and propaganda campaign aided the Iranian Government’s crackdown on the opposition and slowed the pace of democratic progress.

The authors contend that is only without foreign threats and interference that “the Iranian people [can] reach their aspirations of freedom and establish their unity in a framework of independence and national sovereignty.” For the reformist and Green Movement to affect real change in Iran, there must be a reversal of the West’s opposition to Tehran’s nuclear program and an “end [to] all their illegitimate economic, political and military pressures aimed at the internal destabilization of Iran".

Beyond this critique of Western policy towards Iran, the authors issued suggestions for finding a “reasonable solution for the conflict”. They demanded of the Government an end to attacks upon activists and the immediate release of political detainees. The letter also calls for a spirit of national conciliation facilitated by the establishment of an “independent truth and national reconciliation commission with representation from all candidates, such that it can gain the trust of the people of Iran". Addressing the leaders of the reformists and the Green movement, the authors suggest that “in order to prevent exploitation of the current crisis by western propaganda and opportunist groups, they unambiguously oppose all sanctions and condemn regime change. operations and any foreign support for the anti-Islamic Republic opposition".

The publication of this letter provoked a spirited debate within academic circles, so Enduring America invited interested parties to participate in a roundtable discussion. The exchanges touched upon all the issues raised in the letter but also spread to a wider debate on how the academic and media approach critical analysis of Iran. Participants included: Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, a Doctoral Candidate in Contemporary Iranian History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Holding dual Iranian citizenship, he has reported extensively on Iranian affairs for national Italian newspapers; Dr Farideh Farhi, a leading US-based scholar of Iran and co-author of the letter; Chris Emery, a British-based Doctoral Candidate who has written on Iranian affairs for The Guardian and contributes regularly to Enduring America; and Nathan Coombs, a Doctoral Candidate in London who specialises in revolutionary politics and is co-editor of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies.

SIAVUSH RANDJBAR-DAEMI: The authors introduce themselves as “anti-war activists” and proudly highlight their recent efforts against the “the pervasive deception created by western and Israeli-influenced media”. The group further attempts to remember that it does not wish to see a particular faction in Iran advance its goals, rather they wish to see the country’s “national rights” to be respected and be borne to fruition.

Like many Iranians across the globe, this group has been taken aback from the aftermath of the heady June 12 elections. They state that they wish to “help develop realistic solutions for the benefit of all our compatriots of whatever political persuasion” and particularly propose the creation of a South African-styled “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to solve the current divergence internal to the regime and express hope that the large number of political activists and civil society practitioners currently imprisoned and facing trial will be freed soon.

What makes the “Open Letter” unappealing for informed readers are the frequent generalisations contained in some of its salient points. Particularly of concern is the lampooning of the Western media. While it is certainly true that segments of the European or American press have been incorrect if not entirely libellous in their respective Iranian coverage in past years - as unconfirmed scoops on the supposed military capabilities of the Iranian nuclear programme or the fake Yellow star story published by Canadian National Post in 2006 suggest - the concept that Western media as a whole has acted in unison to portray a constant skewed, biased and negative image of Iran is questionable. Even more alarming are sweeping judgements such as “The western media, by their one-sided coverage of the post-election developments, portrayed the street demonstrations protesting the election results as the start of a "velvet" revolution against the Islamic Republic”.

At the heart of this particular issue lies a more tangible definition of the “Western media”. The tendency to identify the latter with a few well known villains of the piece, such as BBC, CNN, Fox or Al Jazeera runs into serious trouble if one were to be present in media events in Tehran in the week preceding and following June 12. Nothing less than hundreds of reporters were accredited by the Iranian Culture Ministry for the elections, and most of whom catered for audiences that went in to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Coordination across several time-zones, languages as well as experience in direct reporting from Iran that went from journalists on their first assignment in Tehran to experienced hands who pointed out to sign-posts left unchanged since 1979 to produce any sort of “one-sided coverage” was well-nigh impossible. Rather than preach the ills of an inherently diverse group of reporters, the authors could have spent more time detailing the specific parts of the western media that engaged in deception and wrong-doing.

The analysis of the internal situation offered by the open letter also raises some questions. The bulk of the current political-legal quandary faced by the reformists internal to the Islamic Republic is essentially blamed upon the “provocative and confrontational policies” of George Bush, which, according to the authors, “played a key role in the defeat of Iranian reformists in the parliamentary elections of 2003 [sic] and the presidential election of 2005”. Whereas there are no grounds to dispute the erroneous and inhumane traits of Bush’s Middle East policy, the attribution of the conservative victories in 2004 - when the Guardian Council, a distinctively hawkish body, disqualified thousands of would-be reformist candidates from the Majlis race - and 2005, when the reformists and pragmatists such as Hashemi Rafsanjani paid the price of an extremely lacklustre political performance in preceding years, to foreign political meddling is a conjecture that would most likely baffle even the more staunch reformists in Tehran. While it is certainly true that the perception of increased outside intervention made life difficult for Khatami’s camp, one is left wondering why the latter successfully convinced the Supreme Leader to accept to a series of major overtures to the West in that same time frame, such as the wide-ranging settlement proposal sent to Washington soon after the Iraq war in 2003 ,which included a radical overhaul of Iran’s entire regional foreign policy, or the Tehran Nuclear Agreement between the EU3 and Iran in late 2003.  One is therefore left to ponder whether the reformists have been the target of their own undoing on the national political scene, going as they did from total control of Parliament and the presidency in 2000 to the almost total exclusion from institutional participation of present.

The analysis provided within the open letter as to the cause of present disturbances raises some questions. Most peculiar is the attribution of the decision by millions of Iranians to flood the streets of Tehran within hours of the election results to “various irregularities [...] including the suspension of reformist newspapers and mobile telephone SMS service on election day”. It would have been perhaps ideal at this stage to recall the main slogan of the protesting masses: “Where is my vote?” Iranians did not take to the streets to reclaim the distribution of reformists’ dailies or request the resumption of the ability to send text messages. Rather, they felt that an undeniable right of any modern society, and most particularly their own, that has spent the best part of the past century inconclusively engaging in a long-drawn state-building exercise, the chance to choose an official candidate of its liking, had been abruptly taken away from them. Far from being an irregularity whose classification can be cloaked under the term “various”, this request stands at the heart of the unparalleled tension between the different wings of the political elite of the Islamic Republic. Its omission from the discourse of the “open letter” is therefore surprising and of concern.

The open letter ends on a number of valid points, including the invocation to allow Iranians to be masters of their own destiny and the invitation, to Western governments, to avoid a repeat of the 1953 coup or any other sort of interference. However, in their role of informed and esteemed academics, the signatories should perhaps adopt a less generalising approach and one more inclined to grasp the complexity of the dynamics of the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the West and its domestic politics, whose insularity to winds of change occasionally blown from abroad appears to be remarkably resistant three decades after the Revolution that sought to end Western interference in Iran once and for all.

CHRIS EMERY: Although I found myself agreeing with large segments of this letter, I found its overall message confusing. This letter seems to have three aims: to criticise Western policy in Iran, to condemn Western media coverage of the current crisis, and to make suggestions to resolve the impasse. The first two assertions require a more detailed interrogation than is possible here and thus fall flat. The third aim requires MUCH more detailed elaboration, especially regarding the composition, remit, time frame and powers of the "national reconciliation commission". Without this, the purpose of this letter is as unclear as its intended audience. It reads more like a collection of academics trying to get something off their chests than a serious roadmap for solving the impasse.

Though I agree with many of the letter’s critiques of Western policy, several analyses are less persuasive. Firstly, the authors contend that the only thing standing between President Khatami's successful reformist agenda (1997-2005) and rehabilitation of Iran's relations with the West was Bush. This is simply false; Khatami had already faced a hard-line backlash in 1999 following the student riots and there is little to suggest the Supreme Leader was as equally committed to normalised relations. Even Khatami’s overtures were carefully pitched as a dialogue between faiths and peoples rather substantive talks between two governments. I think it is also disingenuous to suggest that Iran’s cooperation with the US in toppling the Taliban was a personal gesture by Khatami aimed more at rapprochement with the US than as an action clearly in Iran's security interests.

Whilst recognising the counter-productive nature of Western policies, I disagree that the final success of democracy and reform in Iran is dependent on the actions of the West. This, in my view, absolves the Iranian authorities of their primary responsibility for their actions.

FARIDEH FARHI: Siavush's criticism is certainly well-taken and there is no doubt that not all Western reporting has been as the statement describes, although much has. But I don't see how Chris' point about the understanding of  Khatami's gestures can be construed from the statement. The point is simply that Bush's policies helped to undermine the reform movement (I believe the sentence says it played "a key role" and not "the" key role). Is this a wrong point? As to the West’s responsibility, show me a state that has not moved in the direction of securitization and away from democratic practices when under foreign threat.

Are there objections to our suggestions? Are they problematic or wrong suggestions? I will be delighted if this statement begins a conversation in this regard even if all the suggested ideas are rejected and replaced

NATHAN COOMBS: The authors’ focus on the Western media’s portrayal of the post-election insurrection follows two recognizable trends that we have witnessed since the elections in Iran.

First is the reformists' rhetorically convenient emphasis on the opinion of the unreconstructed (and-ill informed) anti-imperialist Left in the West, for whom Ahmedinijad is seen as the representative of the poor and a bulwark against American ambitions in the region. Need it be said, this is a distorted and caricatured portrayal; based as it is on a marginal strand of the Left’s take on the situation, never mind the Western media as a whole.

All the Western media, barring some exceptions that stand out precisely for their rarity, were firmly behind the uprising; not just in the sense of uncritical cheerleading for [Presidential candidate] Mir Hossein Mousavi, but in portraying the events as a broadly class-composed popular uprising. This impression was established through the reliance on English-speaking Tehranese ‘informants’ and Iranian scholars based in the West such as Professor Ali Ansari. It was not a critically examined proposition, whatever the truth of the matter.

As such the claim that the Western media portrayed the uprising as a “velvet revolution” by anti-Islamic Republic forces (implying that it was doing so for the benefit of foreign regime-change advocates) does not hold water at all. If anything, there was a clear recognition by the likes of the BBC that what was unfolding was an intra-establishment power play, to which Western commentators predominantly came down firmly on the side of Mousavi, to the exclusion of more radical currents.

Second, the overall framing of the letter is firmly nationalist. In its thorough conflation of anti-Islamic Republic forces with pernicious foreign influence, the letter amounts to essentially a whitewash of the realities of the Islamic Republic and an elaborate piece of apologism. The sub-text is status quoist. From the opening paragraphs to the last, the woes of the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] are firmly lumped at the feet of imperialist forces and the policies of the specific government of Ahmadinejad, rather than the Islamic system itself. In its call for a premature truth and reconciliation commission, the authors’ seek to co-opt the spirit of the uprising to refine and buttress the Islamic Republic.

This is justified in terms of seeking to bring in the interests of the bourgeoisie more firmly within the apparatus and juridical norms of the state. As the letter puts it, “These social and political pressures, along with government mismanagement caused by the removal of competent technocrats, have negatively impacted the public interest and put enormous pressure on the middle class, the educated class, journalists and artists. These people must be allowed a more open and free environment in order to fulfil their instrumental roles in service of the country.” And in the spirit of national unity, under the justification of representing the interests of the middle class, the authors applaud the fact that: “extremist elements who used the opportunity to create chaos and engaged in the destruction of public property were condemned by Mousavi". Finally, in a total denunciation of any authentic revolutionary anti-IRI ambitions: “We call on the political forces of both sides to move toward building such a constructive climate and toward creation of an economic, political, and cultural agenda that can respond to all social needs.”

One can only hope that the siren call of this letter is not heeded, and that the workers, students, and radicalized of Iran can build some sort of organization to surpass the inhibiting reformism of Mousavi and his nationalist supporters of the IRI. The Western media has little, if anything, to do with it.

EMERY: Farideh, I do not deny the damage Bush's policies have wrought. However, I think this letter overemphasized Khatami's ability to reconfigure Iran's relations with the West. Certainly, Bush's policies didn't help, but in many ways the instruments of the state were more arbitrary and 'rogue' in the 1990s.

As you say, the main point is that we talk about these issues. Given the enormously broad spectrum of political beliefs and perspectives amongst the authors of this letter, I do wonder how this can be coherently achieved.

FARHI: Chris, if you are reading the statement as though it is trying to discount the overall responsibility of Iran's leaders for political, economic and judicial failures, then that is a shortcoming that was not the intent of the statement. At least in one paragraph tries to deal clearly with those failings (and note that there is a reason the first recommendations address the domestic situation and forces).

At the same time, the intent was also not to shy away from discussing the context of the past two decades of containment and regime change policies on the part of the US and the impact of those policies on distorting Iran's body politic, making many already paranoid officials even more paranoid. Does this mean that the US is the cause for the mess Iran is in today? Of course not. Ultimately culpability lies with those who have other choices but choose to stunt their people's citizenship.

Did Iran have many rogue elements in the 90's? Yes, but Iran was also gradually moving in a direction that could be considered positive even during the Rafsanjani presidency (1989-1997). I have no difficulty acknowledging that the trend was deemed dangerous by hardliners and hence their resistance and reaction. But I don't see any useful purpose in not placing that resistance and reaction in the context of external pressures and threats that by the way were not limited to the Bush Administration.

FARHI: Are the hard-line forces wrong in using these props to justify their authoritarian policies? Of course they are, and they should be condemned as the statement does. But I do not see any useful purpose in toning down the discussion of the instruments they were given, which they have recklessly used and should be held responsible for, since they had the option of not using them.

Frankly, I do not see any reason for anyone interested in the expansion of civil liberties and equal treatment of citizens as well as a somewhat independent foreign policy (yes I am a shameless and hopeless liberal) to shy away from attempting a balanced view, even if that attempts ends up being flawed as you suggest.

EMERY: These are very compelling clarifications. However, I feel the fact that such detailed elaboration is required reinforces my point. The above debate is enormously complex and, I think, treated in much less measured terms in the letter. Likewise, the issue of how the West has covered the current crisis requires examples, comparisons, and historical and political context.

As Siavush pointed out, there has been some fantastic reporting of current events by some outstanding journalists, if of course there have also been some awful, politically motivated, and historically ignorant pieces. It strikes me as a) unfair to tar the former with the latter b) slightly naive to issue a call for the latter to end. It won't, anymore than the ridiculous reporting by the Iranian media.

So I am still unsure what the overall focus and intended audience of the letter was. It seems to be doing quite a lot, often with a slightly complacent reliance on an anti-imperialist framework. Your fundamental point is that the West should butt out and give the reformists space. I think this is essentially what the US Government has done. Obama was resolute in his insistence that this could not become a US-Iranian issue. He has not vocally supported the Green Movement and has not even alleged fraud in the elections.

You say that Obama has kept 'many of his predecessors' policies'. I think Bush would have claimed the Green Movement for himself, immediately condemned the elections as a sham, and would have used all of this as a platform to ramp up his confrontational policies.

If we are emphasising the need for external forces to moderate their policies to allow the political space for domestic change, why are there no suggestions for the Iranian Government to moderate its rhetoric and policies vis- a-vis the West, particularly in the Middle East?

I agree that there probably is a link between external threats and democratisation. I would disagree, however, with the implications of the statement, “Only under these conditions, without any foreign threats, can the Iranian people reach their aspirations of freedom.” Many non-democracies strengthen or uphold this state with or without facing external threats (Saudi Arabia, Burma, Guinea, China). In fact, the Central Asian region is littered with such states. The fact remains that the IRI's attitude to political and human rights has ebbed and flowed, but has never really shown a structural capability to tolerate dissent. Structural and bureaucratic obstacles are MUCH more significant than the external strategic environment.

FARHI: Chris, as to your point about the US government butting out, the statement did point out the difference between Obama's and Bush's approaches and noted the trend was positive, but it also pointed out that the general framework of US policy regarding Iran's nuclear program has remained the same, at least so far. Obama has continued to be interested in a sticks-and-carrots approach, so has his Secretary of State who has talked about "crippling sanctions" if Iran doesn't abandon its pursuit of a weapons program (The US Senate just passed legislation to that effect as well). To be sure, the linguistic shift to a "weapons program" and away from "enrichment suspension" is an important shift, but so far I have not seen any concrete manifestation of what that shift will mean in terms of policy. Suspension as a pre-condition has been removed, but that demand as an outcome has not necessarily been abandoned).

As to the equivalence you imply we should have endeavored to pursue regarding both the US and Iran's immoderate foreign policies, it just doesn't make sense in terms of the purpose of the statement written by people who identify themselves anti-war. Such people are worried about a US attack on Iranian territory, about which there has been not only a whole lot of loose talk but actual threats and policies

Finally, the IRI has been criminal and rigid more often than not but what has distinguished it from many other countries in the region and also other post-revolutionary societies is the level of conflicts and disagreements within it among various groups contesting for power. There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s, and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point. These conflicts are structural in so far as they represent different interests and ideas. The writers of the statements, despite their ideological diversity, believe that the contending forces --- and there are more than two --- need to find democratic and non-violent rules to live with each other, rather than attempt to purge the other from Iran's body politic.

From my point of view, there is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state, is both incorrect and I believe dangerous. It is part and parcel of the hope that a simple wishing away of the Islamic Republic or the street mobilization we have seen will do the trick.

The statement, by the way, is also written in Persian, and its intent for multiple addressees, I think, is clear in the five suggestions.

COOMBS: Farideh, let me take just two of your responses:

"There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point.”

Could this also not have something to do with the fact that Mousavi, then Prime Minister, presided in 1988 over one of the most brutal mass executions of political opposition in the 20th century? The search for a revolutionary party to overthrow the IRI was not abandoned as much as extinguished.

Ultimately, what you write here, that people basically need to learn to live together, is a confirmation of my reading of the letter: the denunciation (in the contemporary lingo of democracy and pluralism) of the need for the overthrow of the IRI, and advocacy of the recuperation of the bravery of some of the protestors into a status-quoist regime realignment in favour of the reformists.

"There is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state is both incorrect and I believe dangerous."

I would of course reject any crass resource to the populist language of "the people". Likewise, I would also reject the naive belief (unfortunately promoted by many of the reformists supporters and sympathizers) that you can do away with the state through a "simple wish" or just "street mobilization". Here we at least can find some agreement. No, to bring down a system is a monumental affair. The idea that the IRI will just crumble when faced by street protest and intra-regime dissent is a laughable fallacy of our post-1989 world; informed by the entirely unhelpful analogy of the fall of Communism in the Eastern bloc. What is needed is genuine organization and the rebuilding of revolutionary organizations that can play the long game.

Politics, and more so revolution, needs to be constituted through a long ideological struggle. What the reformists and young liberals on the streets have as now failed to do (at least to my knowledge) is start to build these principled organizations, autonomous from the regime.