Iran: Getting to the Point on Detentions & Human Rights (Sadr)

Yesterday we posted a concise, moving blog of Shadi Sadr, lawyer and human rights activist, in our updates, but I want to re-post it as a featured entry. Let me explain why.

Yesterday morning I watched a video discussion between leading US analysts Flynt Leverett and Barbara Slavin, filmed the day after the 22 Bahman rallies. Around the four-minute mark, this exchange occurred:

SLAVIN: An Iran that had a more representative Government was less paranoid and fearful, that didn't have to throw hundreds, thousands of people in jail would be a better Government, not just for us to deal with but for the Iranian people. It sometimes seems to me that you just don't care what happens to these people....

LEVERETT: What I care about, Barbara, are American interests, and I think that American interests at this point require us to pursue serious strategic engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran as it is, not as some might wish it to be.

SLAVIN: Is there a part in there for human rights?

LEVERETT: You know, human rights is always going to be an element in American foreign policy. My own view is, in dealing with important countries....I don't think human rights should be this positive.

I was going to note this but then refrained. The time has long past for strategic engagement with Leverett, given his unsupported assertions, wilful distortions, and reliance on thin reeds of "evidence",such as the questionable polling of Iranian views before and after the Presidential election, to justify his position. And, after walking away for a cup of tea, I saw no value in posting from anger.

Yet the sheer callousness of Leverett, who will be hailed by pro-Government supporters when he visits the University of Tehran this week, stayed with me. It was at that point that, from Pedestrian, I read Shadi Sadr's personal reflection. I don't expect that Mr Leverett, as he maintains a stand against "positive" human rights, will take any notice, but I hope it might be of value for others:

An hour ago, I walked out of the post office and was hurriedly walking towards the metro when I saw a man on the sidewalk with two bags of fruit in his hand. I first saw the tangerines in one of the bags, and then I saw his face, as he was passing by me. He looked so much like Ahmad Zeydabadi [the journalist who were recently given a six-year prison sentence]! My heart sank. I thought: there were certainly days when Ahmad Zeydabadi too would buy fruit on his way home … those simple days of the past seem like so long ago!

I did not know Ahmad Zeydabadi personally. But I have a distinct memory of him in mind. A few years ago when the Committee of Human Rights Reporters had a press meeting to speak against the controversial family laws, Zeydabadi went to the podium, and instead of talking in difficult, muddled terms, like the politicians who spoke before him, he only spoke of his personal experience, growing up in a family of two wives. And through that, he spoke about how in a family where there are multiple wives, not only do the wives endure pain, but so do the children. His were some of the most honest words I’d ever heard, and I will never forget them. The day after, when I went through the news, no matter how much I looked, I did not see any of Zeydabadi’s words anywhere. Even those friends of mine who were filming the meeting, had not thought anything of Zeydabadi’s speech and had not filmed it! That’s when I realized how much our own culture is still resistant to men who want to break stereotypes.

I can write about Zeydabadi, because I did not know him personally. But I can’t write of my own friends who are in prison, because I’m afraid of what their interrogators will do. I’m afraid that they might put my friends under even more pressure. I can only say this: it has been a good while now that I know that every morning when I wake up and turn on the computer and read the news, a long list of my friends, acquaintances, colleagues, someone I used to know, will be in the list of new prisoners. Every day, familiar names are added behind the walls of Evin Prison, and everyday I ask myself: where did they go, those simple days? …

Iran: Desperately Seeking Sensible US Comment about 22 Bahman

Of course, snap reaction from the US of this week's events in Iran was unlikely to catch the depth of the developments and the prospects for the future. The disturbing while gleeful response of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett was to be expected. (And, yes, I use "disturbing" without reservation: have a look at their "analysis" to see how they try to wipe away the post-election detentions, trials, and abuses.) Unsurprisingly, some Bush-era advocates of US power, having embraced the Green movement for "regime change", backtracked when the Government did not fall on Thursday --- Charles Krauthammer pronounced, "The regime has succeeded today, and unless there is some later demonstration of the power of the opposition, it could be a turning point in this process and the one that the regime will celebrate."

However, what is most disturbing is how an analyst like Marc Lynch, normally quite good about Middle Eastern affairs, could issue this declaration after a superficial review of 22 Bahman and the Green movement, "I fully believe that the Iranian regime is more unpopular and less legitimate than ever before -- but just don't see it as especially vulnerable at the moment." It is disturbing not because Lynch is duplicitous; to the contrary, he carries enough weight of expertise and of honesty in his approach for his analysis to race around the Washington network of political columnists as the final wisdom on the subject.


(A similar point could be made about Juan Cole, another influential interpreter of the Middle East and Iran, with his reductionist conclusion: "Ahmadinejad has his Alliance of Builders in Tehran, and is backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitary, and other security forces. Musavi has the little flashmobs who couldn't, at least on Thursday.")

I understand and sympathise with Lynch's motives --- "We'd all do better if we could focus public discourse less on hopes for regime change and war, and more on the less sexy but more helpful question of how to make a negotiations strategy work" --- but he has fallen prey to the trap of "raised expectations", even as he identifies it in his article. To declare the regime and Government secure, when those who have been watching the situation for months have held to "marathon, not a sprint", is a short-cut based more on analytic expediency than on careful study.

And Lynch's portrayal of the choices is a straw-man to match his reading of events. Pronouncing "regime change" (which is more an option created by those outside Iran, rather than those protesting inside the country) and "war" (which is a remote possibility in the near-future) as the only alternatives to sitting down with the Ahmadinejad Government is just as much a deception as the manoeuvres of the Leveretts or the Bush-era advocates of "down with the mullahs".

(Indeed, Lynch's conclusion puts him alongside the Leveretts, even if his analysis is put much more honestly and thoughtfully than their bang-the-drum advocacy.)

Instead of declaring the opposition dead or peripheral, perhaps one should do it the justice of considering that the best alternative to negotiations with Tehran is simply no grand declarations and "no negotiations". The battle over political authority is one which should be left to Iranians. Conferring legitimacy on a Government that many of them see as illegitimate is an unnecessary intervention; it is adding insult to injury to distort and minimise the "Green movement" in support of that strategy.

Latest Iran Video: What Does the Iranian Public Really Think? (4 February)

Earlier today, I wrote --- somewhat in jest, somewhat in indignation --- about the claim to know "what the Iranian people really think" through the promotion of a set of old polls.

Those surveys were being resurrected in part for a two-panel seminar at the New American Foundation on Wednesday. The first panel features Steven Kull, the Director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, who carried out a poll in August-September 2009 and assessed this with 11 earlier polls (10 by the University of Tehran, 1 by a Canadian firm) in their latest assertions. He is joined by Jon Cohen, Director of Polling at The Washington Post. The second panel is made up of Flynt Leverett of the New America Foundation, Hooman Majd, a former translator for President Ahmadinejad and the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, and Barbara Slavin of The Washington Times.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKG-hUyk1_0[/youtube]

Iran Spam, Spam, Lovely Spam: Mass E-mails, Polls, and “Analysis”
The Latest from Iran (4 February): The Relay of Opposition

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_a4KgvG-78[/youtube]