1910 GMT: Reuters has picked up Zahra Rahnavard’s latest interview, highlighting the line, “I have said many times that this government is illegitimate…but because the government claims to be legitimate, it has to carry out its duties.”
1900 GMT: From Washington With… ? We’ve posted the video of yesterday’s “Iran at A Crossroads” conference.
1855 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Readers have rightly noted an apparent lapse in our coverage of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The reformist daily Bahar claimed on Wednesday that, in a clear sign of reconciliation with the regime, Rafsanjani would soon lead Friday Prayers in Tehran. (He has not done so since his 17 July address, which was a catalysts for demonstrations against the Government.)
Sarkozy Steps Back from Palestinian State: On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas discussed the future of negotiations and a Palestinian state. Sarkozy made two points: there should be no unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state before borders are defined with Israel, and there was no time to be waste in starting negotiations since “if there are no talks….we take the risk, the international community, of a third intifada”.
Abbas supported Sarkozy’s line, “Negotiations first, proclamation of a state later.”
Israel Pushes Washington for Harsher Sanctions on Iran: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the US on Tuesday, for five days of talks with senior American officials, including US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that will focus on Iran.
PA Security Prevents Attacks into Israel: According to Haaretz, the Palestinian Authority prevented a suicide attack about six weeks ago that a young woman (from Islamic Jihad) from Nablus had planned to carry out in Israel. Palestinian security sources said that it was not the first success to thwart such terrorist activities. Read the rest of this entry »
2200 GMT: And The Pace Accelerates. Hard to keep up tonight — Mehdi Karroubi’s Etemade Melli party has now made another move for 22 Bahman, following up the cleric’s declarations today with a list of proposals for reconciliation. We have posted them in a separate entry.
2100 GMT: An Extraordinary Offer? We have posted what we think might be a significant move by the “conservative opposition” to the President: an open letter to Mir Hossein Mousavi with the offer, “Back Khamenei and We Can Move Against Ahmadinejad”.
1950 GMT: Another Attack on Ahmadinejad’s Camp. Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani has effectively asked for the President’s Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, to be put on trial. Once again, the challenge is circulated through the pro-Rafsanjani Ayande News.
Juan Cole is scathing about the most recent political effort by the Obama Administration in Pakistan:
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been a public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts [after the unexpected Republican victory in the US Senate vote]. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.
The Pakistani public has a widespread resentment against US incursions against the country’s sovereignty (64% say the US is a danger to the country’s stability). But it also has a sort of paranoid obsession with Blackwater, which they suspect of covert operations to disrupt security in the country (i.e. they blame Blackwater for bombings that Americans see as the work of the Taliban). Thus, Gates’s statement produced a media frenzy. (Jeremy Scahill has alleged in The Nation that Blackwater is in fact in Pakistan in a support role to CIA drone attacks in the country’s mountainous Northwest on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets).
More updates on Haitians trapped under the rubble even a week after the earthquake:
A source in Haiti posted this on their Facebook page:
Martine Peirre is still sending messages out! She is alive under the rubbles at Universite Caraibes at Delmas 29 with others send help
(Can someone help? Please?)
0810 GMT
As the earthquake ruins more families and shatters more lives, the people of Port-au-Prince are forced to leave their homes and try to get as far away from the disaster zone as possibel. The New York Times reports on this tragic development:
It is striking that, after six weeks in the high-profile US media of scepticism and even hostility towards the Iranian opposition, there appears to be another honeymoon of American sentiment for the Green Wave(s). While the protests of 13 Aban (4 November) were largely put aside by the US press, the smaller demonstrations of 16 Azar have been embraced as the valiant defiance of Government oppression.
The Christian Science Monitorsaw the resurrection of “the country’s Green Movement , [which] has found new ways of organizing and keeping its message alive”, and Los Angeles Times published a lengthy editorial, “Help Iran’s Student Protestors”:
The students, for their part, seem to be girding for a long fight, and the West should follow their lead. Western governments should offer the reform movement moral support, as President Obama did in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, promising to be a voice for the aspirations of reformers such as the “hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran.” But the West also must be careful not to undermine the reformists with too close an embrace. This is a national movement, and the Iranians who are questioning the legitimacy of their own government are diligent students of their revolutionary forefathers.
Meanwhile, CNN has converted a general statement from Assistant Secretary of State John Limbert, “”We believe as we have always believed that the Iranian people deserve decent treatment from their government,” into a portrayal of Washington’s renewed backing of the opposition with the headline, “Official: U.S. Will Not Ignore Iran Protests”. Read the rest of this entry »
This interview is not as useful as that on ABC News, which we posted and analysed earlier. There’s very little beyond the Administration spin. (The duo were also interviewed on CBS News, but frankly I can’t be bothered to post the same rhetoric thrice over.)
It’s what is missing that is most interesting. How many words in this transcript concern non-military measures?
Get beyond the headline of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ admission, “I think it has been years” since the US had good intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s, and here are the important points from this interview:
1. The Obama approach on Afghanistan, no matter how many times Gates says “transition strategy”, is to “kick the can down the road”, putting off the deadline for another significant decision to mid-2011.
2. The Obama Administration still has no confidence that it can rely on a political center in Kabul. Look at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s far-from-ringing endorsement of Afghan President Hamid Karzai: “The proof is in the pudding. We’re going to have to wait to see how it unfolds.”
3. There is not a hint of an approach in Pakistan other than the Pakistani military being told to go and beat up the “Taliban”.
4. The Obama Administration has no real idea how to deal with the economic strain of this increased commitment, other than to hope that it goes away sooner rather than later.
5. So how to proceed, given all these obstacles? Repeat: Al Qa’eda, Al Qa’eda, Al Qa’eda.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: And we begin with the cornerstones of President Obama’s national security cabinet, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton; secretary of defense, Robert Gates. Welcome to you both.
This is the first time you’re here together on “This Week”. Thanks for doing it.
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: The first time we’ve been called cornerstones.
1910 GMT: Reuters has picked up Zahra Rahnavard’s latest interview, highlighting the line, “I have said many times that this government is illegitimate…but because the government claims to be legitimate, it has to carry out its duties.”
It is striking that, after six weeks in the high-profile US media of scepticism and even hostility towards the Iranian opposition, there appears to be another honeymoon of American sentiment for the Green Wave(s). While the protests of 13 Aban (4 November) were largely put aside by the US press, the smaller demonstrations of 16 Azar have been embraced as the valiant defiance of Government oppression.
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