The Latest from Iran (29 March): Questionable Authority

1755 GMT: "Expert" Speculation of the Day. Meir Javedanfar gets himself into The Huffington Post with this assertion:

Until recently, both Tehran and Jerusalem saw the health care debate as an item that could significantly weaken Obama's standing at home, which in turn would reduce his leverage abroad. They were hoping that a defeat would force Obama to focus on his troubles at home.

I'll check with Ali Yenidunya on the Israeli angle, but I have seen nothing to indicate that the Iranian Government was counting on the health care issue to limit and even damage the US President.

1525 GMT: Jailing Persian Cats. On the same day that we noted the drama-posing-as-documentary No Time for Persian Cats, its storyline of Iranians trying to evade the authorities to play music comes true: underground rap artist Sasi Mankan has been arrested.

Just trying to learn more about Mankan, but here's a sample of his music:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suqzMyBEZ8k[/youtube]

NEW Iran: A View from the Labour Front (Rahnema)
NEW Iran’s Nukes: False Alarm Journalism (Sick)
Iran’s Nukes: The Dangerous News of The New York Times
The Latest from Iran (28 March): Dealing with Exaggerations

1300 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA claims that children's rights activist Maryam Zia Movahed, detained since 31 December, has been moved to a clinic in Evin Prison after starting a hunger strike on 17 March.


Peyke Iran writes that Azeri journalist and human rights activist Shahnaz Gholami has been given a prison sentence of eight years in absentia by a Tabriz court. Gholami is currently in Turkey and seeking asylum. The site also claims that Abdolreza Qanbari, a teacher from Pakdasht, has been sentenced to death for "mohareb" (war against God).

Rah-e-Sabz has published the names of 41 detained human rights activists.

1230 GMT: Parliament v. President. There's a sharp analysis by Hamid Takapu in Rah-e-Sabz of the debate over subsidy cuts since 2008. Takapu argues that the sword of a referendum, demanded by the President on his current proposals, could cut two ways: a successful challenge could reduce Parliament to a symbolic body (Takapu uses the analogy of the Russian Duma) but it could also strike Ahmadinejad if people ask for referendums on bigger issues.

0950 GMT: Labour Watch. We've posted a lengthy extract from an interview with Saeed Rahnema, a labour activist in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, analysing the state of the labour movement and, more broadly, of activism in the post-election conflict.

0655 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Professor Seyed Ahmad Miri of the Islamic Iran Participation Front has been arrested in Babol, while journalist Sasan Aghaei and women's rights activist Somaiyeh Farid have been released on bail.

0615 GMT: We begin this morning with a series of dubious attempts to claim authority in and about Iran. The New York Times' claimed reporting on the Iranian nuclear programme, which we criticised yesterday, is taken apart further by Gary Sick.

Inside Iran, President Ahmadinejad continued his campaign to overturn the Parliament's decision on his subsidy reforms and spending plan, using a marker and whiteboard to provide the truth to journalists. He thus proved beyond doubt that this will be another year of prosperity and "huge victories" for Iran.

The problem for the President is that not everyone believes him. While his supporter Mohammad Karim Shahrzad has challenged one of Ahmadinejad's leading Parliamentary critics, Ahmad Tavakoli, to a televised debate, legislator Seyed Reza Akrami says the President has taken an oath to implement the law and thus the decision of the Parliament.

Iran: An Internet Strategy to Support the Greens? (Memarian)

Omid Memarian writes for The Huffington Post:

We have learned in school that "information is power". In some countries, information and spreading the truth among the people means saving lives and alleviating the suffering of those who are in pain. That's why many of activists, bloggers, and journalists, who are aggressively trying to stop the tragic human rights violations in Iran by gathering and spreading information about current events, believe that providing Internet access for the Iranian people, and other people in the world in similar conditions, is not a political, but a moral act. There is a direct, and positive connection between free access to Internet-information, and the quality of people's lives.

I've talked to many of my friends-- bloggers, journalists and those who have difficulties to even send a simple e-mail or chat on Yahoo Messenger over the past eight months. Almost all of them believe that any kind of support to give Iranians more access to the Internet is supporting human rights and democracy in the country, supporting security in the Persian Gulf region, and most importantly saving the lives of many people who are threatened by restrictions on information that allow the Iranian government to operate behind closed doors as it violates their basic rights.



Almost all of them believe that it's a form of moral support. It should not be seen or used as a means to pursue hidden political purposes, but as promoting human rights as defined by international standards. Providing Internet access for Iranians should not be seen as a part of a possible regime change plan in Iran, because it is up to the Iranian people to decide what to do with their freedom.

Some might say Iranians' obstacle to have access to the Internet is Tehran's domestic issue. But it's not. It concerns a country stuck between other countries that either suffer from radicalism or that export terrorists to the rest of the world, a country between two major sources of conflict in the region, Iraq and Afghanistan. That's why such support is directly related to the security of the region and the world in a long run.

We should not forget that if it were not for the Internet, we would have the same picture of the Iranian government that we had 9 months ago. And if it were not for the limited access to Internet that exists, God knows how many more people would have been killed or tortured inside prisons in Iran.

The United States and some European countries have shown interests in supporting Iranians to fight with Internet censorship and provide more access to information via the Internet. But they should not forget the importance of applying standards in a balanced--not political--way. Not only Iran, but also numerous other countries, violate the right to access the Internet, and the United States and European countries should support compliance across the board. Otherwise, the charge of holding double standards will stick.

But what should be done? Here is a list of actions, policy shifts, and issues that are essential to give Iranians more access to information and help them fight with the Tehran's strong censorship:

Modifying the U.S. sanctions on Iran

Certain sanctions or interpretations of the sanctions have seriously damaged the ability of Iranians to access the Internet and need to be modified.

1) Software download is blocked to IPs from Iran: Many of major companies such as Google and Microsoft block downloads to people in Iran in fear of sanctions. For example, Google Talk or Google Chrome, one of the safest web browsers, is not available for download to Iranian users. All mass-market software that is useful for publishing, communications, and education should be exempted from the sanctions.

2) Online advertising is not allowed for Persian websites: Many companies such as Google or Facebook do not include Persian (Farsi) as a supported language for online advertising websites or allow targeting users with such a language. This is problematic when activists want to use such advertising tools to reach out to Iranians in Iran. It also prevents many of the human rights activist websites from making small amounts of money on advertising that can help them to pay for their server costs.

3) Iranians are not allowed to pay for domain purchase and related issues. In result, Iranian government-sponsored hackers stole many of the domains belonging to Iranian human rights activists because such activists have difficulties registering such domains under their names and have to do this through proxies. But, there is no way to verify their location or identity when their web domains are stolen. Just in the past few months, a few hundred domains registered on Godaddy have been stolen by the Iranian government and there is no way to get them back because the original owners were not allowed to buy those domains legally on Godaddy in the first place.

4) Funding is needed to allow hiring a limited number of web developers in Iran. Many of the small activist groups need to hire developers to build their websites. The number of web developers with a command of the Persian language outside of Iran is very few. These groups need to be allowed to hire web developers in Iran. The amount of payments could be capped to $10000 per year to make sure such a solution is not abused for other purposes.

5) Online access and advertising should be exempted from the current sanction regime via a categorical order. Without a categorical order, such a problem cannot be solved. The reason is that the Iranian market is very small and many of the US-based Internet companies prefer to stay away from it instead of spending tens of thousands dollars on legal fees to apply for an export license.

6) European companies who still sell surveillance or censorship technology to the Iranian government need to be exposed and face sanctions. A number of large European countries have provided Iranian government with technologies to monitor SMS and communications between Iranians. Without the pressure from the European Parliament and U.S. government, taking actions against these companies would be impossible.

Internet access and Security:

1) Giving VPN accounts to the activists and journalists in Iran: VPN provides the best security and functionality compared to any other solution. VPN accounts would need to be bought from different VPN providers and distributed to the activists through different online websites. Each major human rights or pro-democracy website would be given between 100-500 VPN accounts. They would distribute them to trusted activists in Iran they know. [A Virtual Private Network gives extremely secure connections between private networks linked through the Internet. It allows remote computers to act as though they were on the same secure, local network]

2) Purchasing Skype credits for activists in Iran: Using Skype credits, activists in Iran can make secure international calls. Skype's encryption is one of the best among all the voice services.

3) Anti-jamming for satellite broadcasts: The Iranian government sends jamming signals to commercial satellites. Many of the commercial carriers are reluctant to broadcast independent or reform-oriented Iranian TV content because the Iranian government can blind their satellite. Commercial satellites can be jammed because the upload and download signal is the same and the upload signal is a fixed frequency. However, military satellites are built to resist such jamming. For Iranian broadcasts, the US government could dedicate a specific satellite, which is hardened against jamming using technologies similar to military satellites.

4) Provide Iranians with free satellite Internet: The technology for Internet access is not cheap but considering the importance of Internet access in Iran, it is worth investing on this issue. There are technologies for one-way delivery of content or two-way interactive Internet access. Providing such services free of charge to the Iranian people can go a long way in breaking the monopoly of the Iranian government on the dissemination of Information in Iran.

5) Email security: Unfortunately, no secure free email provider exists. Yahoo is particularly insecure, while Gmail provides more security but is still vulnerable to key loggers. For activists, there is a need for an email service to have security as high as PayPal accounts or bank accounts. For example, the login process should be resistant against keyloggers. This can be achieved by showing images or other techniques.

6) PC security: One idea is to provide the activists with free security software and anti-virus software.

Collaborating with the human rights community

Finally, private companies and initiatives can provide resources to support the development of technology designed to combat Internet censorship including those technologies that surpass filters. There are a number of professionals and companies that are focused on developing software that provide such technologies for Iranian users that could be supported.

Middle East Analysis: Syria, Thomas Friedman, & "Why We Fail" (Narwani)

Sharmine Narwani writes in The Huffingon Post:

Nothing annoys me more about New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman than his tendency to scuttle his occasionally insightful commentary with fabricated assumptions to fit his narrative.

This makes it really hard for me to like him.

You know that irritation that grows under your skin when somebody is making a lot of sense and then suddenly -- wham -- they hit you with a doozy so ridiculous you feel disproportionately deflated?

Well, that is my Friedman experience time and time again. Not always though -- sometimes I am irritated from the get-go.



In his latest column on Tuesday, Friedman shines a light on a very true Middle East reality -- one that quite deliberately gets downplayed in Washington's power centers: The Mideast is now, for the first time since the Cold War ended, largely defined by two blocs of influence and their respective worldviews.

The first, is the US-led bloc consisting of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- the latter three often ignominiously referred to as the "moderate" Arab states. The second, is the grouping sometimes referred to as the "resistance" bloc that consists of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Friedman's column posits that there are five key actors in the Israeli-Palestinian equation today: Israel, America, the "moderate" Arabs, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and the resistance bloc.

Look, I can give him that -- I don't have a fundamental problem with the fact that he only includes one key individual from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to represent the entire Palestinian side. Fatah, on its own, is rather irrelevant these days, except in the minds of the US bloc. And kudos to Tom for recognizing this nuance.

Friedman then makes his main thrust, which is that only two of these actors actually have clear strategies for a Palestinian-Israeli solution:  Fayyad, the former World Bank economist who, peace or no peace, wants to create a de facto Palestinian state on the ground within two years -- and the resistance bloc. That's true enough. Friedman goes on to press the other three players to forge a clear, unified strategy -- preferably backing Fayyad's plan -- which can foil the agenda of the resistance bloc.

And then I did my double take. Iran... Hezbollah... Hamas... Where was Syria?

Ah, Thomas. You did that doozy-thing.

The Alliance of Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas

It is more than abundantly clear that in Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Cairo, all efforts are being made to wrest the reluctant Syria from this "resistance" bloc. It is equally obvious for those who live in the real world, that Syria has no intention of parting ways with its longtime friends.

When US President Barack Obama moved ahead with plans to reinstate an American ambassador in Damascus in 2009, the gleeful thinking in Washington was that Syria would prostrate itself in gratitude, jump at bilateral peace talks with Israel and walk into the US bloc's fold. Increasingly, however, even US analysts are grumpily acknowledging that the chances of this now happening are akin to Sarah Palin embracing a vegetarian diet.

But not our Thomas. He decided that this is how he wanted things to be, and so -- voila -- it just was.

As an opinion writer, Friedman still has the responsibility to convey the facts as they are - he can always spin his analysis around them or not include them in his deliberations if he wants to produce substandard commentary. But to just unilaterally change the facts? That isn't just wishful thinking -Friedman is trying to create the facts. And here is why his exclusion of Syria from this bloc is so completely disingenuous:

Syria Makes Its Position Clear

Renewed Syrian-US relations, rapprochement between Damascus and Riyadh, and Syria's disengagement from Lebanon brought hopes last year that the government of Bashar Al-Assad would take a more independent regional stance. When speculation reached a fevered pitch, Assad decided to nip it in the bud by staging a photo op worth a thousand words.

Last month, he convened a high-profile meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadand Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah just to underline the cohesiveness of this bloc and quash all speculation of potential rifts.

The message, according to savvy, Damascus-based political analyst, journalist and author Sami Moubayed, was two-fold. Firstly, it was a warning for Israel to abandon all thoughts of launching another war in the region -- as in Gaza in 2008/9 and Lebanon in 2006: "The meeting de-escalated tension in the region and served as a deterrent by reminding all parties that the amount of destruction that would result from any war would be too much to bear."

Secondly, the meeting represented a clear signal to the US that this alliance will stand firm and cannot be ruptured because of the will of external players. Moubayed explains:

You don't sever relations just because another party wants you to -- you only do so when you have been wronged or there is a state of war, and those conditions don't apply at all to Syrian-Iranian relations.

In fact, throughout the 1990s Syria enjoyed relationships with Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US -- relationships with one party never precluded relations with another. That is not the way of diplomacy.

London-based Syrian diplomat Jihad Makdissi concurs: "We have always enjoyed good relations with both Iran and the West, so why is there suddenly a necessity to break links? This Iranian-Syrian relationship is devoted to the stability and security of the region, and the West should take advantage of this friendship instead of antagonizing both countries."

Invest, Not Divide

What does this mean? In the world of realpolitik, far, far away from Friedman's Mideast musings, this means that the US and others can "use the leverage that Syria has within this group to moderate them", says Moubayed.

He believes that after over a year of active engagement with Syria, the US bloc has in effect tacitly surrendered to the notion that "if they can't break this alliance, the best possible alternative is to invest in it instead."

There is evidence of this "investment" already: in the past two years, Syrian backdoor diplomacy has gained the release of high-profile Western captives in both Iran and Gaza. And recognition of Syria's role has come from the highest quarters in European capitals.

As Moubayed notes, the departure of US troops in 2012 will leave a vacuum in Iraq, which Iran and Saudi Arabia will compete to fill. Secular Syria is in the enviable position of enjoying a "cross-confessional network of allies (read Shiites and Sunnis) which it can use to stablilize and normalize Iraq - to the collective benefit of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States".

Even if the Syrians and Israelis struck a deal to swap the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for peace -- highly unlikely given the make-up of the current, right-wing Israeli government -- Jihad Makdissi insists that nothing would fundamentally change in relation to an alliance with Iran:

In Syria's view, for normality to prevail in the Middle East, Israel needs to withdraw from all occupied Arab land. The occupation is the problem in the region, not Iran.

So, Tom -- peace talks or not, nuke talks or not -- Syria is an active adherent of the increasingly popular regional worldview that includes Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. All the wishful thinking in the world won't alter a relationship that has outlasted five US presidents, and provides vital strategic value to its participants.

In all fairness, Friedman is just doing something that has been a hallmark of US policy in the Middle East for decades. Denying inconvenient facts that have left us deaf, dumb and blind to the realities we face in the region. It is no wonder we cannot claim any lasting victories.

Blind spots everywhere, and then we wonder why we fail.

Iran Analysis: The Mousavi Strategy "We Are Still Standing"

My initial reaction, on reading the full text of Mir Hossein Mousavi's Saturday interview on the immediate past and immediate future of the Green Movement, was feeling let down. Mousavi had offered a lengthy dissection of the regime's "success" on 22 Bahman (11 February), mobilising the rally in Azadi Square and blocking any mass Green display. He had stated his determination, shared by others, to "express our emotions, aspirations, and concern as a nation".

Mousavi had declared, "The Green Movement has stood firm in its civil demands. The more people’s awareness of their rights increases, the bigger will be the force behind those demands."

Yes, I thought, but what would those demands be beyond the general assertion of freedom, justice, and rights? What endpoint for this people's force? In the end, was Mousavi's "Being green is a matter of behavior and morals" an evasion rather than a confrontation of the next phase of the post-election crisis?


Others shared this perception. Borzou Daragahi, one of the sharpest observers of the Iran situation, wrote over the weekend that not only Mousavi but Karroubi offered no measures for the way forward. Daragahi repeated this when he put forth Mohammad Khatami's Monday statement, "We should not retreat from our demands." Mahmood Delkhasteh writes in The Huffington Post of the "schizophrenic Green Movement".

But as Sunday gave way to Monday and then Tuesday, I looked back over the Mousavi statement and the Khatami declaration and, before them, Mehdi Karroubi's interviews with his website and with an Italian newspapers. I read them as I watched the regime scramble, perhaps coherently, perhaps not, between prisoner releases, suspension of newspapers, and propaganda.

And I realised I was very wrong.

My mistake, which I think is common, was to think in terms of a "grand strategy". Mousavi would lay out the Green Path not just as one of hope but as a well-marked political landscape on the future of the Supreme Leader, the institutions in the Islamic Republic, and indeed the Republic itself. He would offer a new set of tactics to replace the attempts at mobilisation on national holidays --- the opposition would not hijack the regime's occasions but come up with those which were solely Green. Mousavi's would liberate the detainees, free the press, silence the purveyors of untruths, remove Ahmadinejad and his cronies, and show Khameini that he was not above the Iranian system but one part of it.

My mistake was to forget that sometimes the way forward is just to ensure someone sees you are still standing.

On 1 January, Mousavi had put out a 5-point programme which is as close as he has come to a "grand strategy": Government accountability, free press, freed political prisoners, free assembly, new election laws. If the Government could not deliver this, it would be replaced. If the Supreme Leader could not assure this, his position would be questioned.

But conditions change, events intervene. 22 Bahman was a major disappointment for those in the opposition who thought it would mark the end --- maybe not on that day but soon, very soon --- of the regime. The Green movement had been present on that day but, with the confusion in tactics and facing the massed forces of the State, it had not been seen.

So Mousavi, while he referred to his 1 January in his interview, had more immediate tasks. He first took apart the idea of a "natural", overwhelming support for the regime, represented by the 22 Bahman turnout: these were "engineered rallies".

Where on the day, beyond Tehran, was the supposed effusive endorsement of the Government? Where, in the following three weeks, has that support been? Where, once the mobilisation for a few hours is over, is the "63%" that supposedly re-elected President Ahmadinejad last June?

Mousavi's harder job, however, was to assess his own camp, to find the rays of light amidst the "difficult conditions" and "damage" inflicted by the regime through detentions, violence, suppression, and abuse of laws? Re-presenting the tablets of his five points on 1 January would only bring the response: yes, and how exactly is this to occur?

So Mousavi's effort was not to elucidate the "civil demands", not at this moment, but to give the assurance that the the demands would continue to be made. Shut down the Green Movement's newspapers and journals, and we will work through social media. Berate us with propaganda, but we will persist in our "spread of awareness". Threaten us, jail us, bribe us with release for our silence, but we will not disappear.

And that is not just Mousavi's statement. It was Karroubi's last week, and Khatami's yesterday. Away from the headlines offered by those men, it is the message every hour of every day from those who continue to get word out that matters are not settled inside Iran.

So Mousavi and Karroubi made specific if not-so-limited demands to represent that persistence. You have crushed us? Then give us our freedom of assembly, since we are not that many. You have defeated us? Then give us a referendum on your supposedly respected institutions, let's say, the Guardian Council.

In his interview, Mousavi placed the key sentence, "If this crisis is not resolved, the legitimacy of the ruling establishment will plummet even faster."

At some point, having assured its survival, the opposition will need to make its resolutions over a strategy that goes beyond "We are still standing." But the lack of resolution at this moment and for the foreseeable future, is not "victory" for the regime. To the contrary, it is testimony that legitimacy has not been secured.

Just because the end of the path is not seen, does not mean that it has been obliterated....