As we mourn Anthony’s loss, we hope his legacy will remain a great source of inspiration for all those who aspire to write and report on that complex place called Middle East. We invite you all to visit Anthony’s personal website to explore more about his great works and fabulous journey in journalism: http://anthonyshadid.com

God bless Anthony’s soul.

Reza Akhlaghi

Houshang Hassan-Yari sat down with Reza Akhlaghi, senior writer at Foreign Policy Association, to answer the above questions and discuss what’s in store for the greater Middle East.
Dr. Houchang Hassan-Yari is Professor of international relations and strategic military studies at Royal Military College of Canada.

In the current geopolitical climate involving Iran and the West marked by loud and reciprocal threats, intensifying sanctions, non-dollar trade paradigms, and an apparent shadow war, what do you think is in store for the region as it pertains to Iranian-Western rivalries?

Hassan-Yari: I think the current situation cannot continue for too long. If there is no peaceful solution in the nuclear issue of Iran, the cul-de-sac will be opened in another way. The war will be the most plausible. Iran is very much isolated in the region.
The United States and Israel have been successful in creating an association between the Iranian nuclear program and nuclear weapons. They were also able to join the vast majority of Arab countries to their perception of the danger that Iran poses to stability in these countries. The sum of U.S. efforts and concerns of the militarily weak Arab regimes have resulted in the necessity to contain a dangerous Iran. If there is a rivalry between Iran and West in the Middle East, it is clearly favourable to the West.

Iran has recently conducted a number of naval and air drills in the Persian Gulf in the course of which it has put on display new surface-to-sea and surface-to-surface missile capabilities. It has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. How do you assess Iran’s military capabilities in countering U.S. Navy presence in the Persian Gulf and in closing the Strait of Hormuz? What do you think would galvanize the U.S. and its allies into concrete military action against Iran?

Hassan-Yari: In this climate of distrust and suspicion which prevails in the Persian Gulf, a miscalculation by the parties involved could lead to a war that nobody wants. The threat of Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, a threat that is taken lightly by the Iranian authorities, will lead to war.
Any aggression aiming international navigation in the Strait may trigger hostilities. It seems to me that the majority of the Persian Gulf Arab countries want to settle once and for all the “Iranian issue”. The problem is that they are unable to do so themselves. This is where the utility of American military power comes in. In other words, Arabs are pushing Americans to a war they want but cannot perform. Israelis also are in a similar situation.

Since taking office, and in particular during his second term, the policies of President Ahmadinejad and his administration have been synonymous with the rise of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iranian politics and economy. Given the prominence of the IRGC in the socio-political and economic management of the country, has it been an effective and capable force in formulating various policies and in executing those policies?

Hassan-Yari: President Ahmadinejad is only one factor that facilitated the rise in the status of the IRGC. The indispensable actor that greatly opened the door to the predominance of the IRGC in all aspects of Iranian life is the leader himself. The latter could not do so under Mohammad Khatami because of the popularity and the resistance of the reformist president. We should not forget that Ahmadinejad is one of them and owes his presidency largely to the intervention of the IRGC in the electoral process of 2005.
The multifaceted IRGC is not a homogenous force. Nor is it a force formed to formulate and implement policies for the common good. The main concern of the Force is to protect the leader and the revolution as it intends to do. Everything it does in the field of security, political, economic and social serves this purpose. In other words, its allegiance is first and foremost the Leader.
Dependency of political power to the military force of the IRGC has forced the former to give exclusive mega contracts to latter in all economic sectors. But as the Guardians do not have expertise in all these areas, they often fail to deliver a good quality product. However, the poor quality of their work was never an obstacle to prevent the IRGC to receive new contracts worth billions of dollars.
Their imprint is deeply engraved in all aspects of life from sport to aviation to missile technology to nuclear programme of Iran.

Recent statements made by former high-ranking officials and parliamentarians (Hossein Alaei of IRGC and Emad Afrough of Majles) appear to be part of a new paradigm in directly challenging the clerical establishment. Do you think these statements signify a new rupture in Iran’s power structure? If that is the case, how could this new rupture play itself out in the upcoming Majlis elections?

Hassan-Yari: What Alaei, Afrough and other rightwing moderates (Principalists /Ossoulgarayaan) pose as a question today are after-shocks of the popular protests of 2009 and the tremors of the recent Arab awakening. These individuals are also very sensitive to preserve intact the legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini which is fast eroding since the coming to power of Ahmadinejad and the unconditional support he received from the Leader. They attempt to salvage the Islamic Republic by returning to the values of the 1979 Revolution. They directly challenge the entourage of the Leader and indirectly the Leader himself who has created a propitious environment for the growth of political immorality and toadyism.
This new phenomena is certainly a break with the established order since coming to power of Ayatollah Khamenei in 1989. It is expected to expand gradually as the gap in the conservative camp is widening, a situation that Khamenei is incapable of controling effectively.
A number of scenarios for the outcome of Majles election could be envisaged. If the elections are carried by the camp of Ahmadinejad, the status of the leader will be further weakened and the consequences could be fatal to the Republic as we know it today. A possible victory by the leader’s entourage should not be interpreted as the return to normality.
I think that a return to the former situation when the leader was not objectionable is impossible without resorting to brutal force. Even then, the lull is only temporary. The sanctity of the Leader is broken and with it the unchallenged position of the clergy close to the government. It is quite possible that we witness a return of the clergy in its religious schools leaving power to the ‘civilian’. In Iran, people break the personality before breaking the person.

Iran and Israel seem locked in a strategic rivalry that has gone through different stages, each stage with its own narrative. What are the key aspects of this strategic rivalry that have made the U.S. an indispensable player in it? Do you envision a point at which security establishments from the U.S., Iran, and Israel would decide to negotiate (most likely secret negotiations) as a way out of the current atmosphere of brinkmanship to avert a potentially large-scale regional conflict and save the global economy from spiralling down a path of sever instability?

Hassan-Yari: First, on Iran-Israel rivalry. From the perspective of the Iranian political elite in power, this rivalry has a clear ideological pronouncement. It goes back to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s epoch and the pre-1979 revolutionary romanticism when Iranian islamists received their military training in Lebanon and sympathized with the Palestinian cause. For them, Israel is a colonial creation, artificial and usurper. It is an illegitimate entity, so to disappear. For Israel, Iran was an opportunity to lessen the Arab pressure.
Since the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this rivalry has taken on new dimensions. Israel remains not only as an ideological enemy, but also a military obstacle that challenges Tehran’s supremacist claim on the regional leadership. In addition, since the Israeli danger to Iran’s nuclear program has become more pressing, Tehran uses its Lebanese and Palestinian allies to keep Israel concerned about its own safety and away from the Iranian border.
On the other hand, Iran is the only country in the Middle East that poses a challenge to the qualitative predominance of Israel’s powerful military machine in the region. In the final analysis, if Israel can live with a non-militant Iran, Tehran cannot co-exist with a ubiquitous ‘Zionist danger’ in the region. This is where the United States enters into the equation as a moderating force. While Washington would prefer a more cooperative Iran, it seeks to remain the final arbiter of the regional game. It seems that neither Iran nor Israel want their regional importance overshadowed by the American omnipotence.
In regard to a possible “ménage à trios”, Iran-Israel-U.S., in the field of regional security, this hypothesis seems very unrealistic under current conditions. If the United States and Israel can provide manageable compromise to Iran over its security considerations without losing face, the latter, on the contrary, has everything to lose by entering into this game that goes against its identity as “defender” of the dispossessed. The only situation, in which the Islamic Republic will make painful compromise, is if it concludes that its own survival is at risk by persisting in its belligerent posture in regional and international security issues.

Russian officials have repeatedly made it clear that they are fiercely opposed to any military confrontation between the West and Iran. From geo-political and geo-energy perspectives, what are at stake for Russia? Do you think a political tilt by Iran toward the West would change the geo-political equation in Eurasia/Middle East?

Hassan-Yari: Russian resistance to any military intervention in Iran is not a matter of principle, nor is it aimed at preventing another catastrophic war in the region. The Russian calculation is based on geopolitical considerations. Russia is still looking for the lost place of the Soviet Union on the world stage. Any U.S. military intervention in the region further isolates Russia. It is also in this context that we must understand the resistance from Moscow to any foreign military intervention in Syria. For Russia, this is a zero sum game. In addition, an isolated Iran strengthens the position of Russia as an intermediary between this country and the West. Iran’s isolation and demonization has helped Russia develop advanced military and commercial relations with Iran. The same is true for China, with more emphasis on the economic relations with Iran.
A dominant U.S. presence in Iran could compromise Russian’s not too comfortable authority in the Caspian Sea basin. One of the reasons for creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was to counterbalance the U. S. presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The fall of the Islamic Republic could revive the spectrum of Soviet containment through a new security belt connecting Europe to Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

This year Russia and Iran started doing trade in their respective national currencies, replacing the U.S. dollar and Euro. Similarly, trade has been taking place between Iran and China in Chinese Renminbi and between Iran and Japan in Japanese Yen including for the sale of Iranian oil. Do you think the exclusion of U.S. dollar and Euro from trade by these trade partners could hold geopolitical implications? If so, in what ways?

Hassan-Yari: Since the day after the revolution Iran has tried to to break free from the yoke of the dollar, without much success. The currencies of Russia and China are not convertible, which reinforces the dependency of Iran on Russians and Chinese. It’s an ironic situation because Iran claims to want to break from the grip of the U. S. dollar and to free itself of turbulence of American imperialism by creating more dependency on secondary powers like Russia and China. In its business dealings with Moscow and Beijing, Iran is forced to buy Sino-Russian merchandise. However, the quality of those goods does not meet consumer expectations in Iran. The continuation of this trade policy increasingly limits Iran to two or three unreliable suppliers who put their own national interests ahead of Iranian welfare in any dispute with Americans. Russia in particular has demonstrated that it is not a feasible partner. There is no other country in the world that has hurt Iranian interests as much as Russia since the 19th century.
The recent currency crisis that deeply hit the value of Iran’s Rial showcased the significance of dollar as a safe currency for ordinary Iranians. During the crisis, no one was looking for Russian or Chinese currency. It is also ironic that some ministers in Iran use the dollar as reference when they talk about their non-petroleum exports, the value of the national economy or foreign investment. The language that the average Iranian better understands is that of Dollar, not the Rouble, or the Yuan. In addition, the Central Bank of Iran often manipulates the value of dollar to regulate the amount of liquidity in circulation.
The exclusion of U.S. dollar and Euro from trade by Iran and its trade partners could hold geopolitical implications if Euro Zone dismantles itself and if China decided to dispose its massive dollar reserve. Among some other possibilities one can invoke the unlikely scenario of the Arab oil producers to join the Russia-China-Iran trio in replacing dollar by other currencies. Iran’s economy is too small to have a geopolitical impact on the dollar.

How stable is the regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria? How Iran could be impacted by Assad’s fall?

Hassan-Yari: Assad’s regime is extremely weak. It has reached a point of no return and condemned to disappear. Its fall will have major implications for the safety and security of the Islamic Republic as well as the rest of the Middle East. The survival of the Syrian regime is so crucial to the Iranian theocratic system that it forced Tehran to denounce the Syrians protesting against Damascus as agents of Zionism and imperialism while praising Arabs in other countries as Islamist followers of Iran’s Islamic revolution. This position has highlighted the contradiction in the official discourse of the Iranian leadership by substantially weakening its claim to the universality of the Islamic revolution.
Syria is the only strategic ally of Iran in the Arab world. It also acts as a bridge between Iran and Lebanon. It gives Iran direct access to Israeli territory through the Hazbollah and some Palestinian groups. The fall of the Assad regime will also weaken the position of Shiite militants in the region. A regime change in Damascus further limits Iran’s ability to intervene on the regional scene. It will deprive Islamic Iran of a vital window to breathe. Finally, it will make Iran even more vulnerable in facing a possible foreign military attack. Within Iran itself, it will strengthen the resolve of opponents of the Islamic regime.

The Saudi government has made significant military hardware purchases from the United States. The Saudi diplomacy has been also active in countries impacted by the Arab Spring. How do you assess the future of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and in light of Arab Spring, what are the chances of having a more representative leadership in Saudi Arabia?

Hassan-Yari: The Islamic Republic is not the only country embarrassed by the Arab awakening. The United States and Saudi Arabia have also taken contradictory positions to events in Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere.
The future of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia depends largely on the Kingdom’s internal dynamics. A democratic Saudi Arabia will be more independent in its foreign policy. It will also have much less appetite for accommodating dictatorships in surrounding countries.
But since we are not there yet, I cannot envisage any strategic change in the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship, even if there is a few sporadic surmountable bumps.
As for democratic changes in Saudi Arabia, they will be introduced very gradually in the absence of a popular revolution. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can not remain immune to the political and military changes that inflame its neighbourhood. The question is the degree and level of change that the descendants of Al-Saud are forced to introduce.

The following piece was written by Reza Marashi in Foreign Policy Magazine on January 19, 2012. Mr. Marashi is Director of Research at National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and a former Iran Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of State.  The image in this piece, however, is a choice of FPA.
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by Reza Marashi

An eerily familiar drumbeat of war is intensifying across Washington, just as the United States ends its decade-long adventure in Iraq. The ghosts of America’s neoconservative past have dusted off their Iraq playbook to make the case for war with Iran. Their formula is simple but effective: Portray the Iranian government and its nuclear program as existential threats, insist that a chain of catastrophic events will result from inaction, and minimize the costs and risks of war.

If one looks back, however, neoconservative officials in the U.S. government weren’t alone in their push for war with Iraq. A crucial aspect of selling the war to the U.S. public was support within the Iraqi-American community. Iraqi dissidents living abroad, such as Ahmed Chalabi and Kanan Makiya, as well as supposed whistle-blowers turned known fabricators like the infamous “Curveball,” led a contingent of vocal Iraqis who pushed for steadily more aggressive actions to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. Their promise that the invasion would be a cakewalk and that U.S. soldiers would be greeted with flowers and candy didn’t quite pan out. Now, the fruits of their labor are clear for all to see — a broken country, devastated by war and sectarian strife, with no discernible end in sight.

Iranian-Americans, in stark contrast with the Iraqi diaspora, have largely opposed a rush to war. This is a fact that I have observed up close, while working in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs and now at the National Iranian American Council, where I maintain close and continuing contact with Iranian-Americans to ensure we accurately represent their views. Together, these two vantage points have crystallized one key takeaway: Iranian-Americans deeply resent the Iranian regime, but prefer U.S. policies that emphasize engagement and de-escalation.

Why have Iraqis and Iranians living abroad reached such drastically different conclusions? For more than three decades, the Iranian-American community has grappled with the paradox of wanting to make Iran a better place — but fearing success as much as defeat. Some worry that contributing to positive changes inside Iran will only strengthen a draconian system, extending its lease on life.

For many Iranian-Americans, this dilemma was resolved by their disastrous historical experience with revolutionary upheaval. Rather than laying the groundwork for democracy, Iran’s 1979 revolution simply replaced one dictatorship with another. As a result, Iranian-Americans strongly prefer to use the rule of law to alter not only the Iranian government’s behavior, but also the thinking of Iranians inside Iran.

Efforts by the Iranian-American community to promote engagement and oppose military intervention have been consistent and cohesive. The University of California, Berkeley, conducted a scientifically sound opinion survey that found that roughly 70 percent of Iranian-American respondents favored dialogue and negotiations between the United States and Iran. In 2008, the Iranian-American community mobilized this majority into a successful campaign to defeat a congressional resolution that would have taken a decisive step toward war.

The Iranian-American community’s overwhelming support for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign is also a telling indicator of its political attitudes. For every dollar raised by Republican nominee John McCain from Iranian-Americans, Obama — who was running on a platform that promoted engagement with Iran — raised five.

Iranian-Americans understand from personal experience that abrupt political change is unlikely to produce the desired result. Retired ambassador John Limbert, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran during my tenure in Foggy Bottom, reflected poignantly on this understanding in a 1999 speech. “Our liberal-minded Iranian friends,­ whom we counted on to contain the [1979] revolution’s excesses, proved to be helpless in political turmoil,” he said. “They were too much like us: They could write penetrating analyses and biting editorials, but lacked the stomach for the brutality that wins revolutions.”

Despite the fact that a majority of Iranian-Americans favor a more tolerant, pluralistic, and democratic system in Iran, they see little evidence that U.S. efforts to topple the current regime would bring Iranian democrats to power. Within Iran, rampant popular dissatisfaction has yet to evolve into a sustainable and coherent challenge to the system. The Iranian government’s monopoly on violence has prevented such challenges, but has not ended the desire for change. Even the original leaders of Iran’s Green Movement, which emerged from the country’s contested 2009 presidential election, were attempting to push for peaceful change through the ballot box.

The ongoing death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the Iranian-American community even warier about foreign efforts to “liberate” their ancestral homeland. Right or wrong, many in the Iranian diaspora see the U.S. invasion of Iraq as less about nuclear programs or democracy, and more as a gambit to seize oil resources. These conspiracy theories may seem absurd, but behind them lies a deeper reality that is very powerful in the minds of Iranian-Americans.

Few Iranian-Americans would welcome the prospects of a U.S. intervention under the auspices of democracy promotion that, in turn, shattered any semblance of stability and ignited a destructive cycle of conflict. Iran’s contested 2009 presidential election and the ongoing human rights abuses have left Iranian-Americans searching for new ways to help foster peaceful, indigenous change. Their ideas remain diverse, but there is near-unanimous consent that change should occur without bloodshed.

Like their Iraqi brethren, Iranian expatriates want to change their government — it is their methods that differ. A majority of Iranian-Americans would welcome an improvement of relations between Washington and Tehran because it increases the prospects for positive, peaceful change from within. The watershed event of the Islamic Republic’s nearly 33-year history — widespread protests in 2009 — occurred at the height of Obama’s “mutual interests and mutual respect” initiative. Many of the West’s Iran analysts and experts, both Iranian and American, assert that the regime needs a U.S. enemy for its survival. If true, wouldn’t sustained offers of friendship — which would put the Iranian regime’s domestic agenda at the forefront — provide the biggest threat to the regime?

Engagement with the Iranian government understandably spurs many moral dilemmas for Iranian-Americans. Most, however, understand the alternatives — particularly when juxtaposed with Iraq, where war has resulted in nearly 200,000 Iraqis dead (based on conservative estimates), 1.3 million Iraqis displaced, and decades’ worth of destroyed lives for those still living in a perpetual war zone.

Let’s not kid ourselves: There are Iranian-Americans who support U.S.-sponsored regime change in Iran — and in due time, American neoconservatives will find their kindred spirits. We undoubtedly have our Chalabis and Makiyas — some long-established, some coming of age. But it’s clear that most Iranian-Americans distrust anyone who welcomes foreign armies into the motherland.

There is no arguing that Iran must change. The Iranian government’s human rights record is appalling, people lack basic freedoms, and economic disarray prevents Iranians from managing the present or planning for the future. Few Iranian-Americans are calling for sitting idly by and waiting for the situation in Iran to improve on its own. But it’s a rare voice indeed that is calling for war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: Reuters

In his NYT op-ed today entitled ‘Don’t Do It, Bibi,’ Roger Cohen issued another stern warning to his favorite target, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In his piece, he warns about the grave repercussions if Israel were to attack Iran without political support from the United States.

This article is the latest installment in Cohen’s crusade against Netanyahu and the Likud-led governing coalition in Israel. Cohen solemnly recites all the ways in which Netanyahu has mistreated President Obama before he settles down and proceeds with his analysis of Iran’s nuclear threat.

Cohen argues that Netanyahu has stalled in his negotiations with the Palestinians because he foresees a rabidly pro-Israel Republican nominee beating Obama in the 2012 presidential elections. Yet in the next paragraph Cohen contends that Netanyahu is sorely tempted to bomb Iran before the elections because he and his advisors increasingly believe Obama can win in November.

Now, almost everybody following the Middle East understands that Netanyahu is a savvy politician who is not oblivious to American election cycles. Perhaps even more than most politicians, Netanyahu may be better characterized as “cynical” than “shrewd” in formulating his political agenda. And it may be true that Netanyahu indeed forecasts a Republican victory in 2012, but wants to hedge his bets by bombing Iran’s nuclear reactors while Obama courts the Jewish vote in the swing state of Florida.

However, Cohen makes the same mistakes in this article that he has consistently made throughout his analysis of the Iranian threat.

First, he implies that any attack by Israel would be a massive bombing campaign that would instantly and irreversibly unite all of Iran’s people under their oppressive regime and against the West. For starters, any aerial attack would be limited to the nuclear reactor sites and would probably result in few civilian casualties. With the possible tacit support of the US, in the last few years Israel has already attacked Iran’s nuclear program with a computer virus, assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, and sabotaged missile bases in Iran that resulted in dozens of Iranian deaths. Meanwhile, less than three years ago Iran’s regime was strongly challenged by its populace. While the theocratic government may have suppressed the mass protests in 2009, there is still a strong anti-regime sentiment among Iranians. Moreover, the “regime” itself is an uneasy coalition between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that is showing highly visible signs of strain. I’m not sure how Cohen can absorb these facts and compute that an attack by Israel “locks in the Iranian Republic for a generation.”

Second (and he is not alone in this truly bizarre line of argumentation), he reckons that Israel’s security is threatened more by the status of the occupied territories than by Iran. I fully agree that Israel must keep striving to find a way to ensure that Palestinians have a fully functioning state. While the on and off again courtship between Hamas and Fatah certainly complicates matters, it is also reasonable to argue that the Netanyahu administration has shown a distinct lack of urgency in its approach toward negotiations with the Palestinians. I am also gravely aware of the risks that any aerial attack by Israel on Iranian reactor sites would entail (although per above I disagree with Cohen about their nature.) However, I struggle to comprehend how the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, which is grinding toward its 45th year of existence, can be compared to the existential threat posed by the nuclear program of a country whose stated intention is to destroy Israel.

Asghar Farhadi’s thrilling drama from Iran won the best foreign language film at the 69th Golden Globes on Sunday. In accepting the award, Mr. Asghar Farhadi, the director of the movie, dedicated the award to the people of Iran, whom he described as a “truly peace-loving people”.

Most Unexpected Event: The Return of Gilad Schalit

Gilad Schalit (center) was welcomed home by Defense Minister Ehud Barak (far left), Prime Minister Netanyahu (left) and Head of IDF Lt. General Benny Gantz (right). (Photo: SFGate.com)

There was no bigger surprise inIsrael this year than the return of five-year captive, Corporal Gilad Schalit.  On June 26, 2006, Corporal Schalit was captured on the Israeli-Gaza border by Hamas militants.  Several proofs of life were provided throughout the duration of his captivity, but in the back of most Israeli’s minds there was the likelihood that Schalit was dead.  The odds were against him, as most Israeli soldiers who have been captured by enemy states and non-state actors have either returned in coffins, or not at all.  Corporal Gilad Schalit defied the odds.  The Israeli population, who intensely lobbied the Israeli government and international community to secure his release, was overwhelmingly satisfied, proud, and inspired by his return.  They could be seen on television weeping and praying.

While a joyous occasion, Schalit’s release was surrounded by controversy.  There was significant debate about the price Israel had to pay for Schalit, more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.  Several of the prisoners were directly responsible for the murder of Israelis. A handful of Knesset Ministers and community leaders felt that the prisoners being released would return to terrorism, and would lead future attacks on Israelis.  There was also the issue of how Egypt handled Schalit’s return to Israel.  Before being allowed to speak with or see his family, Egyptian authorities forced Schalit to do a shameful, and mistranslated, interview on Egyptian national television.

Regardless, the return of Gilad Schalit was a full display of Israel’s value on life, and was a welcomed jolt of optimism to a country that has been experiencing increased international isolation.

Person of the Year: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Though he is not an Israeli, I could not pass up making Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas my 2011 “Person of the Year.”

2011 saw the most recent attempt by the Palestinian Authority to gain full-fledged membership in the United Nations.  Given its timing in relation to current peace-talks and failed Palestinian unity discussions, it is arguable whether this was in fact in the best interest of the Palestinians.  President Abbas did, however, do an admirable job of bringing it global attention.  What makes him man of the year is how little he did with that attention.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressing the United Nations. (Photo: TheCommentator.com)

In the lead up to the UN General Assembly, there was much speculation about whether membership would actually be granted to the Palestinians.  Most understood that for political reasons it would not be. Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barak Obama were noticeably nervous and dismayed.  They made significant attempts to change President Abbas’ mind and lure him back to the negotiating table for direct talks with Israel.  President Abbas found himself in a unique, and rare, position of power and control.  It would have been more than possible to make reasonable demands of Israel and the US in order to get peace talks back on track.  It could have been a turning point in discussions, bringing some long lost muscle and credibility back to Palestinian leadership.  Instead, President Abbas chose to pursue full-membership to the UN.  As expected, his application was rejected and his reputation spoiled.

Since his failure at the UN, President Abbas has been mostly stagnant and the Palestinian resolve has further eroded.  In the last two-weeks he has openly stated that he is considering Hamas membership in to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  This would likely halt all discussions of peace and lead to a Hamasization of the West Bank.

Forecast for 2012

Given the events of 2011, the upcoming year will likely be a pivotal one for the Jewish state.  There are lots of unanswered questions: what is the future of Israeli-Turkish relations? Will the social protests actually lead to change? What is the future of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank?  What will the elections in Egypt mean for the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty? And of course, what is going to happen with Iran?

It would be nice if one could be optimistic about the answers to the above questions, but it is unfortunately difficult.  Israeli-Turkish relations are likely to break off completely barring a change of heart in Turkish regional ambition.  Given the gridlock system of the Israeli government it is unlikely any kind of social change will happen in the near future.  If Hamas is allowed in the Palestinian Liberation Organization the West Bank will likely turn in to Gaza 2, with peace-talks hitting an all-time low.  The Muslim Brotherhood, the likely future ruling party of Egypt, is preaching moderation and peace with Israel, but political pundits believe otherwise.  It will not be the first time politicians have lied about alliances in order to gain international support.  The only place one can find any remote sense of optimism/neutrality in predicting Israel’s 2012 is that it will certainly keep up its covert operations against Iran’s nuclear program.

The truth is that Israel is one of the most dynamic and unpredictable countries in the world.  On any given day, anything can happen.  The only thing that is certain is that Israel will continue its economic development and that its people will do their best to live happy and normal lives.

The sudden changes in the region have been reflective of an immense buildup of frustration, distrust, and cynicism among an increasingly connected and well-educated Arab youth, who have lost faith in political and economic management systems they see fraught with corruption. Their continuous rage against Middle East’s incumbent dictators brings a key question: Will the new emerging governments become democratic or will they be aligned mainly with religious extremists whose political movements and participation in public life have been suppressed under decades-old Western-back military and monarchical dictatorships?

What started as hopeful developments in North Africa against lifetime presidential dictatorships and leaderships of Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gadaffi, is slowly and clearly shaping as a great victory for Islamist parties with chances of success for secularism on the wane. Whether or not the domination of Islamist groups and parties over Middle Eastern politics will be a long-term trend is clearly questionable, but their successful emergence as key power brokers in a new Middle East appears to be assured.

In Tunisia, where the first post-uprising and free elections were held in late October, the Ennahda, believed to be a moderate Islamist party, won over 40% of the vote, securing over 90 seats in the country’s 217-seat parliament. Since then Ennahda has formed a coalition government with two other secular parties.

In Egypt, where the post-Mubarak political jolt has been followed by continuous aftershocks against the ruling military elite, the December 15 elections have resulted in a landslide victory for Islamists, securing over 72% of seats in the parliament. The two key winning parties are the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Al-Nour (“The Light”) Party, Egypts largest Salafist party that was born out of Al-Daawa Movement in Alexandria. The Salafists are believed to enjoy great financial and logistical support from the House of Saud. The Saudis are also active in Egypt’s publishing industry, sponsoring and subsidizing publications that promote their extremist version of Islam (Vahabism).

In Libya, where the revolution became possible with significant support from NATO’s military muscle, the post-Gadaffi political power structure under the National Transitional Council (NTC), is still being shaped with elections set for June or July 2012 and presidential elections slated for 2013. Libya’s Islamist groups, including Al-Qaeda sympathizers, were heavily involved in the armed resurrection against Gadaffi, so their presence, and subsequent success, in the elections is expected to be heavy given their brutal suppression and treatment under Gadaffi’s rule.

And as to Syria, the country seems drifting toward full-blown civil war with significant logistical support to dissidents first and foremost by Turkey and the Saudis. More on Syria in a bit.

Emerging New Rivalries

In 2011 the Middle East became witness–vis-à-vis the Arab Spring–to a brewing rivalry that seeks to claim the leadership torch in the region. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are two key power brokers active in cementing new relationships with newly established governments born out of Arab Spring. Qatar is another emerging player, bent on raising its regional and international profile.  Qatar has used its financial muscle to pressure dictators like Gadaffi and Assad into succumbing into demands of their people while silently condoning the repression of pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain. Qatar, however, is part of what could be a slowly emerging new bloc of Sunni governments in the region with potential to become a counter balancing act against Iran.

Turkey, whose “zero problem” foreign policy doctrine was debunked by the Arab Spring, spent much of 2011 repositioning itself in the new Middle East as the region’s incumbent dictators with whom Ankara enjoyed increasingly close ties were removed from power one after another. Turkey is currently the chief power broker behind efforts to topple the Assad regime. The Syrian National Council was announced in Istanbul in early October and senior defectors from the Syrian army conduct military planning and operations from the Turkish border city of Hakkari against the Assad regime. Turkey has been also sending trade delegations to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, promoting trade ties with the new leaderships of these countries. While Turkish efforts and diplomacy, particularly with regard to Syria, have raised eyebrows in Tehran, Tehran needs Turkey. Iran is becoming increasingly reliant on Turkish trade routes as international sanctions against Tehran become more forceful and biting.

For Iran 2011 was a year marked with economic and diplomatic failures as well as intensification of economic sanctions that are set to get hardened over the next few months, raising further tensions between Iran and the West. The intensification of sanctions against Iran could have two outcomes. The first outcome could be continued intransigence on the part of Iran and the West as Iran views tough sanctions as bullying by the West and the West, for its part, views Iran uninterested in diplomacy even under economic pressure. This outcome, unfortunately, could set the ground for an inevitable military confrontation.

The second outcome that the West could be seeking from sanctions is intensified factional infighting and internal strife as Iranians feel the heat of economic sanctions and find the government’s foreign policy responsible for their economic woes, leading to the emergence of a new political force in Iran, in the form of a coup d’état, by a specific faction within the ruling elite say the Revolutionary Guards. If the latter were to take place, it is expected that chances of military confrontation with the West will be dimmed significantly.

Israel and Regional Uncertainties

With Islamist parties on ascendancy and religious sentiments expressed without the fear of repression, Israel’s security becomes a pressing question for policy makers in Israel. One question remains whether the prevailing anti-Israeli sentiment in Arab societies will translate into official policy by the newly established Islamist governments with potential for confrontation with the Jewish state.

Israelis have lost one of their key regional allies (Turkey) and been involved in efforts to contain and slow Iran’s nuclear program and its impact on the security and geopolitical standing of the Jewish state. In this environment, Israeli policy makers would find the emergence of an Arab bloc primarily made of Islamists particularly worrisome. For Israel accommodating Middle East’s new Islamists could be a challenge that requires astute diplomatic maneuvering on multiple fronts.

Best Books on Middle East & Person(s) of the Year

I was asked by the Foreign Policy Association to name some of the best books on the Middle East and name the region’s person(s) of the year. Some of the best books on the Middle East that I had a chance to read and would highly recommend are as follows:

The Shah, by Abbas Milani,
Palgrave Macmillan: 488 pp.

A detailed biography of the last Persian emperor who was toppled in the Iranian revolution of 1979. The book is written in a captivating prose by Dr. Abbas Milani of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. It offers a portrait of the Shah and his life and policies and the implications they had for the Shah, the Peacock Throne of Persia, and the region. I think it should be a required reading for anyone who wants to develop an in-depth understanding of today’s Middle East. The book is free from personal and ideological biases, making it all more interesting a read.

Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World by Robin Wright,
Simon & Schuster: 320 pp.

Written by the preeminent Middle East reporter, who is presently a fellow at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the U.S. Institute of Peace, Robin Wright offers a different side of the new Middle East in which extremism is being rejected and women have decided to demand for their rightful place in Muslim societies. Wright makes the voice of those Muslims heard that we hardly get a chance to hear.

Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian,
Grove Press 322 pp.

A book by Roya Hakakian, Iranian-American poet/journalist, that puts on display the Mykonos restaurant affair, a true story about the assassination of four members of an Iranian opposition group in Berlin. The Mykonos affair led to the subsequent arrest of suspects and their prosecution by German prosecutors, whose tireless and fearless efforts culminated in the indictment of Iran’s top leadership in the assassination. The book reads like a riveting international thriller that keeps the reader glued to its pages irrespective of the reader’s knowledge of Iranian affairs.

I think the persons of the year are undoubtedly the incredibly brave protestors in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, and Bahrain who fearlessly opposed truly brutal dictators and overcame fear as an impediment to their fight for freedom. As Islamist parties come to the fore of Arab politics, a key question in the mind of many in the region and beyond begs for answer: Once in power, will the Islamist parties respect the democratic process and value human dignity and women’s rights?

Assassins of the Turquoise Palace

by Roya Hakakian
322 pages- published by Grove Press

“Number seven,” he said to the agent beside him”. These were the words uttered by Parviz Dastmalchi, a survivor of and witness to an assassination that shook Europe and the continent’s relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Parviz was asked by the German police in Meckenheim to identify suspects in a shooting that had taken place two months earlier at a Berlin restaurant whose name, Mykonos, became synonymous with the Iranian leadership’s campaign of assassinations across Europe.

Roya Hakakian

On the night of September 17, 1992, armed men stormed into the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin and assassinated four guests who were members of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group, including Sadegh Sharafkandi, the group’s leader. The bold operation, at the time a great success for Tehran in inching closer to the elimination of its key opponents outside the country, unmasked the façade that was known as the emerging “moderate” Iran.

Roya Hakakian is the Iranian-American poet/journalist and author of the book “Assassins of the Turquoise Palace”, in which she puts on display the Mykonos affair. The affair led to the subsequent arrest and prosecution of suspects by German prosecutors, whose tireless and fearless efforts culminated in the trial of suspects and indictment of Iran’s top leadership.

“Assassins of the Turquoise Palace” is remarkable from a number of perspectives. First and foremost, it reads like a riveting international thriller that keeps the reader glued to its pages irrespective of the reader’s knowledge of Iranian affairs. But what makes it all more interesting is the fact that it is a non-fiction work in which all characters and events are real with no depiction of imaginary scenes by the author.

The book reads like a Scheherazade story in which the author, chapter by chapter, manages to keep her readers captivated as events surrounding the murder become more intriguing and the sophistication of perpetrators exposed along the way. Another striking aspect of the book is the widespread use of similes and metaphors that are capable of communicating the emotional and psychological contexts in which events unfold.

Hakakian’s success does not lie only in offering an enjoyable read. For anyone interested in international affairs, she brings to the fore a highly significant case as “it [Mykonos] was the first time since World War II that a German court would consider the crimes of a foreign government”.

Central to Hakakian’s efforts in the illustration of events is the unyielding character of the chief prosecutor, Bruno Jost, and his firm determination to ensure the independence of his country’s legal system against all odds, in particular the increasing trade ties between Iran and Germany in the 1990s. Despite many threats, pressure from German officials, and relentless procrastination by the defense team in preventing the court from reaching a verdict, Jost pursued the case.

For Bruno Jost “to yield to the [German] chancellery and the foreign ministry struck the chief federal prosecutor as a violation of the independence of his office”. Nearly four years of perseverance by Jost and his team–who were aided by Parviz Dastmalchi and Shohreh Dehkordi, widow of one of the murdered guests at Mykonos–culminated in the indictment of Iran’s top leadership including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The court also issued an arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, Iran’s minister of intelligence at the time.

For the Iranian Diaspora, notorious for their disunity, the verdict was a massive victory; a victory against a government that was brought to power by their very own efforts and sacrifices in a revolution that changed Middle East’s geopolitical map. As Hakakian puts it “they [Iranian dissidents] were disenchanted citizens, paid by no one, seeking neither fame nor glory, hoping to rid themselves of their tyrants. Politics, as they knew, was nothing but penance”. Following the verdict, the German government, and subsequently those of other European nations, recalled their ambassadors from Tehran.

The Mykonos case essentially brought an end to the wave of assassination of Iranian dissidents outside the country. The publication of “Assassins of the Turquoise Palace” comes at a time of heightened tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s suspected nuclear program and its gross violation of human rights at home with the possibility of military confrontation looming large.

Named by the New York Times among the notable 100 books of 2011, “Assassins of the Turquoise Palace” offers a unique account of the sorry state of Iranian affairs. Scheherazade, with her stories over 1001 nights, managed to change the mind and the character of her murderous king, while the Iranian leadership has yet to demonstrate its tolerance of dissent after nearly 33 years (12045 nights) in power.

2011 was in many ways a milestone in modern Turkish history. First, the Arab Spring not only shook the Western influence in the region, it also ended the post-colonial period in the Middle East, marked by authoritarian-suppressive regimes, which in their way mirrored and reflected their perception of their countries experience with post-World War I imperialism and colonialism. In that sense, Turkey returned back to the Middle East for the first time since the Middle East slipped away from its fingers with the 1916 Arab Revolt, at a time when the countries of the Middle East are rising against the by-products of their separation from the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey’s return back to the Middle East game of course, brought with itself endless references to an improperly defined ‘Ottoman past’ and rather unfortunate taxonomy of ‘neo-Ottomanism’ (traditional ‘Ottomanism’ has never been associated with foreign policy in Ottoman imperial history; it defines a constructed citizenship identity during the Tanzimat period. In that, neo-Ottomanism is really a nonsensical term). Many Turkish government officials and over-excited Western observers portrayed this as a sensationalist ‘Turkey reconnects with its history’ and-or ‘rise of the Ottoman Empire’ themed analyses, which didn’t really explain what kind of Ottoman experience we are talking about and which aspect of its Ottoman history Turkey really connected with.

Looking at Turkey’s foreign policy in 2011, one observes unprecedented Turkish popularity, not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Caucasus and the Balkans, every country or group constructing Turkish influence in a different (and sometimes conflicting) way. In that, 2011 will go down to history books perhaps not as Turkey’s discovery of its past, but rather its invention of a constructed marketing idea in foreign policy, which sells in Kosovo as well as it sells in Bengazi. If we were to survey the Arab Spring countries about why they thought Turkey is so popular, they would identify Turkey with the thing that they desire, and not necessarily with what Turkey really offers to the region.

The ever-elusive concept of the ‘Turkish model’ has become a successfully created brand that is currently being mass-consumed via the Arab Spring. And nobody can really define what that ‘Turkish model’ is. Marketing genius.

The Most Unexpected Event

Earthquakes in Van. The first one took place on October 26 and took everyone by surprise. Turks demonstrated excellent cohesion by launching numerous aid campaigns, but as the relief efforts dragged on, government’s capacity to coordinate aid efforts took a lot of flak by the people in the region. With the secondary earthquake of November 9, some of the buildings that were deemed ‘safe’ by the government collapsed as well. Together with the government’s reported reluctance to deal with the local Kurdish mayor and officials to deny the Kurdish BDP any political success, which seriously disrupted the governments effectiveness in transferring aid to the remote villages and towns, the ruling Justice and Development Party’s popularity took a plunge. Even though the government consistently claimed that it has been successful in relief efforts, daily media broadcast of the continuing humanitarian situation around Van made the public think otherwise.

One must remember that the 1999 earthquake in Izmit had exposed Turkish state agencies’ inability to deal with a disaster, creating a series of political events that had led to the rise of the Justice and Development Party in 2002. Earthquakes and other natural disasters have the power to expose a government’s power and a state’s capacity to protect its citizens; in that they can damage the popularity of a government to a great deal. While Turkish PM Erdogan was making heated speeches about how the world failed to deliver in Somalia, his government’s inability to deal with Turkey’s own disaster had restrained his ability to pressure foreign governments in the Somalian case.

People of the year.

I’d nominate two. First, Professor Barry Buzan of the London School of Economics, whose Regional Security Complex Theory explains the post-Arab Spring dynamics of the region and the rise of historical and cultural ties as the primary determinant of regional affairs better than any other theory and approach. His work is surprisingly neglected in the American scholarship and it is difficult to understand why. Second, I’d perhaps nominate Professor Gary A. Fuller, who had introduced the idea of the Middle East youth bulge back in 1989 and published a CIA manuscript in 1995 on how this poses a long term challenge to the United States. He argued that if the population growth in the Middle East continued with the 1989-95 pattern, by 2010, the region would fall to unemployed youth demonstrations in a domino effect. He effectively predicted the Arab Spring 21 years in advance.

Forecast of 2012

If systemic influences remain the same, I expect more Turkish involvement in the Middle East. There may be an assassination attempt against Assad in 2012. Some trigger-happy circles might want to get rid of the Syrian situation in a quick way by plotting an assassination of Assad, without properly calculating that the regime will still fight for its survival even if he’s gone.

I also expect an Israeli action against Iranian nuclear sites. This perhaps won’t take the form of an explicit air-strike but assassinating or kidnapping nuclear scientists, cyber attacks against the computer network controlling Iran’s nuclear reactors (especially the one in Qom) are likely actions.

I also expect growing pressure on Turkey to act in Syria without a substantial NATO backing, given the fact that especially European members of NATO don’t really want to commit financial resources on military adventures while their economies are in crisis. This might quite surprisingly bring Turkey and Israel together as allies, but Turkey will most certainly stand back from any action involving Iran.

With the American withdrawal from Iraq, Iran will push for influence in the Shia south and Kurdish north. Turkey will also prioritize cutting Iranian-Syrian link, as well as pursuing a non-sectarian policy in Iraq to counter Iranian influence. This will often take the form of supporting Sunni-Arab and Kurdish groups and fighting a proxy war with Iran through militant organizations. This effectively will bring back the Ottoman-Safavid heritage of conflict in Iraq and will likely take a sectarian Sunni-Shia confrontation.

Finally, I expect U.S.-Turkish relations to reach a new high in the first half of 2012. With the growing security challenges in the Middle East, which target Turkish and American interests and a withdrawal from Iraq, there will probably be an unprecedented level of cooperation between Ankara and Washington. Last week, US Congressman Robert Wexler commented on Turkish PM Erdogan’s speech about Syrian sanctions by: ”I felt like listening to the US President”.

Turkey and the US is on the same page with many issues in the Middle East currently and I expect this trend to continue in 2012.

In an exclusive and wide-ranging discussion with Reza Akhlaghi, senior writer at the Foreign Policy Association, Ramin Jahanbegloo and Mehdi Khalaji talk about the current state of Iranian affairs.

Topics discussed include:

• Shiite clergy and institutionalization of violence in Iran;
• Socio-cultural factors and civil, democratic institutions in Iran;
• Iran’s Reformists;
• Corruption; and
• Iran’s Foreign Policy

Ramin Jahanbegloo is Professor of Political Science and a Research Fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University of Toronto and a board member of PEN Canada. Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, focusing on the politics of Iran and Shiite groups in the Middle East.

Akhlaghi: In Iran’s evolving post-2009 politics, how do you assess the Iranian government’s theoretical and ideological needs? I bring this up because there seems to be an uncertainty and shift in the ideological direction of the ruling class, namely characterized by the IRGC. Given the continuous internal crises in the Islamic Republic and the ensuing political tugs of war, do you think they stem from a crisis of ideology? In other words, do you think the Islamic Republic is suffering from an ideological bankruptcy?

Jahanbegloo: I think there are several levels of legitimacy crisis going on in Iran. The present crisis, which followed the presidential elections in 2009 is mainly rooted in the quest for democratization of the society and the violent reaction from the regime against it. It is a crisis deep seated in the ideological structure of the Iranian revolution. As we saw in the post-electoral movement in June 2009 in Iran, some of the architects of the Iranian revolution found themselves in the pro-democracy movement. And this caused difficult questions for the legitimacy of the Velayateh Faqih. This widened the gap between the state and the people. This ideological crisis is followed by two other crises, one is the political legitimacy, which we see in the role of presidency becoming meaningless and the other is legitimacy crisis in the economic management of the country, which can be talked about later on, but the legitimacy crisis in the economics has put Iran’s ruling class as managers of Iran’s social and political system in an embarrassing position. They’ve proved themselves unable to address the demands of the Iranian people in social and economic spheres. So it has brought a major credibility crisis for those in charge of the economic management of the country, leading to greater crisis of legitimacy for the entire political system.

Khalaji: I think the ideological crisis in the Islamic Republic started after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini when his successor [Khamenei] lacked the necessary religious and political credentials. Additionally, there were irregularities in the transitional period. Khamenei came to power based on the criteria outlined in the revised constitution, though at the time the revised constitution was not yet ratified. These problems during the transitional period caused a crisis in the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. But we must bear in mind that the Islamic ideology of the Islamic Republic, based on the notion of Velayateh Faqih (rule of jurist), is inherently contradictory and paradoxical because it gives authority to a single jurist who can overrule both Islamic law and constitution any time he wishes. In other words, the notion of Velayateh Faqih is self-destructive and leads to a new form of autocratic rule. So it is my view that the ideological crisis in the Islamic Republic is not new; what is new is the popularity crisis, which largely took shape in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections. The government, which formerly claimed popularity and demonstrated this through elections and public demonstrations, was suddenly confronted with problems using both of these indicators. If you look closely, it’s more a crisis of popularity than legitimacy. People are no longer interested in the debate of intellectuals and religious thinkers about Velayateh Faqih and legitimacy because it is viewed as indefensible.

Akhlaghi: You mentioned the “self-destructive nature of the Velayateh Faqih”. What do you mean by that?

Khalaji: Ayatollah Khomeini argued that in order to implement Islam, a jurist, or expert in Islamic jurisprudence, should act as the head of the state. However, when he came to power, he realized that Islamic laws are not compatible with the requirements of modern times and Iranian society. So he introduced a new notion of Maslehateh Nezam, or raison d’état, which allows the ruling jurist to overrule Islamic law whenever he deems a law contradictory to the interests of the regime. In other words, the Islamic Republic exists under a lawless situation or an exceptional state. Therefore, all laws can potentially be suspended due to the interests of the regime, making Islamic laws meaningless.

Akhlaghi: I’d like to move to the topic of civil institutions in Iran and their viability for contribution to social change. Almost invariably, the overarching themes in civil society discourse in Iran have revolved around the notions of competing foreign interests, threat from outside powers, and concentration of executive power in the hands of a few powerful individuals. But I’d like to bring up the issue of culture. What role, do you think, Iran’s social and political culture has played in impeding the formation of civil institutions?

Jahanbegloo: I think it is very much related to your first question. The institutionalization of Islamic bureaucracy and what we have seen as the concentration of power in the hands of very few people after the revolution actually created a new political culture. I think after the first period of the revolution we saw the boundaries of the Iranian society somehow occupied and political citizenship defined in terms of political loyalty to the regime or even religiosity or non-religiosity of individuals. Therefore, when we talk about the political culture in today’s Iran we have to remember that we talk about a public sphere that has been colonized by the political ruling elite and at the same time coercively Islamicized, rigidly dominated and oppressed. So the result has been a new political culture which has been dominated by the state and you see these mechanisms of domination not just in the social sphere but also in the economic and cultural spheres. These coercive practices have demoralized the Iranian society and led to social and political violence. Nevertheless, I think we can say that over the past 33 years the Iranian society, the Iranian civil society and its institutions in particular, have been trying to shape their own strategies and political culture against the concentration of power. So, I think there are two levels of culture in the Iranian society today, one which has been pushed by the Iranian state and the other shaped by Iranian civil actors that we have seen actively in women’s rights movement, at the intellectual level with their reformist and critical views seen in the Iranian student movement.  Yet, we need to bear in mind that the political culture in Iran has been fragile by the limits of its civic actors who have tried to empower themselves by creating a competing and parallel political culture of their own.

Khalaji: I have little to add to Ramin’s statements, but if I may, I’d like to emphasize the fact that there are both internal and external problems in the formation of civil society in Iran. In addition to the various kinds of pressure coming from the state over civil society, I believe that there is a crisis of education in Iran, which goes back before the Islamic revolution. In Iran’s educational system, children are taught to compete with each other instead of learning how to cooperate with each other. Such patterns of social behaviour are taught in schools from elementary to high school and are unhelpful to the formation of civil society and civil institutions in Iran. I believe that this behavior and despotic way of thinking is seen in the education system, in the family, and almost everywhere. The government is part of the society not just a result of the society. We see this even when Iranians leave Iran, where there is no pressure from the Iranian government to suppress them and prevent them from forming institutions. They are not very successful. Iranians have failed to create their own independent institutions outside Iran over the past 30 years; and it has nothing to do with the Islamic Republic, it has to do with the Iranian political culture.

Akhlaghi: In a political culture where executions have become public spectacles and sexual violation of political prisoners has become an institutionalized form of punishment, and women have been subject to various forms of institutionalized marginalization, where do you think the Shiite clergy stand and what role they have played in the institutionalization of this culture of violence in Iran?

Khalaji: I think that we must first define clergy. Clergy is associated with jurisprudence. As you know, during the classic era of Islamic civilization, many sciences such as philosophy, mysticism, mathematics, physics, and so on, thrived in Muslim societies, as did jurisprudence. What we see now in the traditional schools of Shiism and Islam in general is mostly jurisprudence. Because a cleric is one who studied jurisprudence and teaches jurisprudence, his mindset is purely juridical. The problem with the clergy in Iran is a problem of traditional jurisprudence or traditional legal interpretation of Islam, as Islamic jurisprudence is based on various sorts of discrimination against women, children, animals, nonbelievers and homosexuality. This systemic discrimination is therefore embodied in the juridical system of Islam. The clergy have studied, institutionalized, and fought to implement this jurisprudence in society, and pressured the government to implement it more and more. In last hundred years we have rarely seen clergy in Iran pressuring the government to be more tolerant and accepting of modern democratic norms and other beliefs. Instead, we have always seen the clergy wanting the state to be more Islamic.

I think that in this regard, we are very lucky to have someone like Ayatollah Khomeini and Khamenei as a leader, because by applying the theory of “the expediency of the regime”, they have enabled ruling jurists to ignore Islamic laws. Islamic law in the current regime is, in fact, ignored. We even have institutions that are in charge of overruling the implementation of Islamic law. If we had traditional clergy in power that wanted to implement all Islamic laws, Iran would have a situation like Afghanistan under the Taliban. In sum, the clergy is the main supporter of legal institutionalization of discrimination in Iran, and without a paradigm revolution in Islamic jurisprudence, this reality will not change.

Jahanbegloo: I totally agree with Mehdi and think we need to define here the concept of violence, as we previously defined the clergy. I think there are two levels of violence that we have seen in Iran over the past 33 years. One is actually what Mehdi talked about, which is closely related to the role of Islamic law and the Islamization of the Iranian society and I would add to that the role of the hard-line clergy and those who control all means of violence in the Iranian society. This monopoly of violence by the clerical class has been practiced against different social classes in the Iranian society, but it has also been activated against different ethnic and linguistic minorities. The clerical class has been very sensitive towards issues such as homosexuality and certain forms of intellectualism, which they see as dissident ways of thinking and subversive in nature. Hence the regime’s containment of democratic spirit and pluralistic values in the society. Here I’d add the role of the military arm of the regime. I believe that the clerical classes, including the current ruling class, need the military and paramilitary institutions to monopolize the violence to protect their interests.

To be frank, I also think that the regime has injected its own social culture and political psychology in the veins of all Iranians. People are not aware of this, but they continue using the same form of violence among themselves and that’s the hidden violence, which you can see in Iran, manifested in people’s body language and in the way they behave. This violence has, in a sense, trickled down to the masses and their social behaviour. Look at the domestic violence and the surge in killings and murders. Iran has had a history of tribalism in the past, which suggests a certain level of violence has existed before. But any acute observer of Iranian affairs can see that we have not only political violence, but also sexual, social, and domestic violence. So if we don’t create a counter-culture against this culture of violence, the current situation ends up being taken for granted. This cycle can cause the society to become even more violent like in Libya.

Akhlaghi: Iranian thinkers and intellectuals have had a rocky relationship with the clergy. What have been the key aspects and characteristics of this relationship in the post-revolutionary era?

Jahanbegloo: We can talk about those intellectuals who participated in the Iranian revolution and considered themselves to be revolutionary intellectuals, but they failed to present an alternative narrative and perspective to the dominant discourse of the 1978-79 era. They were somehow hand-in-hand with the clergy with the exception of those who went into exile. So Iranians ended up waiting until the 1990s when two diverse groups of intellectuals emerged in terms of their relationship with the Islamic regime. One group was what came to be known as religious intellectuals and the other group known as secular intellectuals. Between the two you had what I would call neo-conservative intellectuals who somehow collaborated with the regime.

The interesting thing about reformist or religious intellectuals is the widening of a rift between them and the clergy. These intellectuals went so far as to reconcile with the secular intellectuals. In this group I’m talking about Mohsen Kadivar, Mojtahed Shabestari, Abdollah Nouri, and Yousefi Eshkevari, all of whom had either a clerical background or a clerical education in Iran’s seminaries. You see in their efforts a rethinking of what constitutes as democratic Islam or, in the case of Shabestari, the idea of bringing hermeneutics in the study of the Qur’an. These efforts have led to what we can call de-theologization of the Shiite thought.

I also think the work of secular intellectuals have been very important in the way they became more conscious of their actions before the revolution. For example, in 1978-1979 Marxist intellectuals had no understanding of the clergy and their influence over the Iranian society, or of the way the Iranian society operated in the 1960s and ‘70s. These intellectuals moved away from fundamentalist politics and utopian rationalities and embraced value pluralism, dialogue with the West and understanding of modern culture and traditional Iran. And because of this exit from their ideological views there has been a dialogue between the religious and the secular intellectuals.

So with the end of the Al’e-Ahmad syndrome, Iranian intellectuals are now moving toward a more cross- cultural dialogue, which is a new phenomenon.

Khalaji: I agree with Ramin’s description of the Iranian intellectuals above, but I would briefly add that the Islamic Republic, from its early days, has been very consistent in its hatred of intellectuals. Ayatollah Khomeini made it clear that, under his rule, there would be no room for secular intellectuals to write and publish. After more than 30 years, we now see a total war being waged against humanities and social sciences in Iranian universities, the commander in chief of which is Ayatollah Khamenei. This hatred towards intellectuals has significantly altered the clergy and the clerical establishment over the last 20 years. Hatred impacts the person who hates, and this has created a very ambivalent relationship between the clergy and intellectuals. On one hand, they hate the intellectuals, but on the other, they seek to imitate them.
If you look at Iran’s educational system and seminaries today, they mimic the university system and its bureaucratic administration.

If you go to Qom and visit different book shops, you’ll see that young clerics are more eager to read intellectual books than they are to read their own religious books. It’s very complex. The clergy know that there are many things that they don’t know, but they won’t admit it. This is actually characteristic of much of Islamic history. When the clergy oppose a foreign intellectual power, they fight furiously against it and accuse it of heresy, but over time, that same foreign intellectual power gradually influences them. It’s fascinating to see how in Qom, clerics read works by western thinkers on ethics and the history of religion. One of the most radical clerics in Qom, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, heads a research institute at the Imam Khomeini institute in Qom, where he has created a library with the best collection of books on ethics and philosophy of religion in all of Iran. The collection includes books in English, German, French and other western languages. This tells you a lot about the clergy’s ambivalence toward intellectuals and western culture and their lack of confidence in the comprehensiveness of their own work.

Akhlaghi: The Arab Spring continues to make its impact felt throughout the region in the form of new geopolitical calculations, recognition of newly formed interim governments, and secret and sometimes not-so-secret negotiations and meetings in the annals of power in Middle Eastern and Western capitals. Based on your observation, what are Iran’s chief strategic objectives as well as chief strategic concerns in formulating its foreign policy as events continue to unfold in a region that Iran considers its sphere of influence?

Jahanbegloo: First of all, I think the chances of witnessing the kind of uprising that swept Tunisia, Egypt, and brought down their rulers seem very remote in Iran in the near term. In Iran the opposition and its leadership are not as coherent as they were in the countries affected by the Arab Spring. Another point is that unlike many young Arabs, many young Iranians are leaving the country instead of confronting the establishment and believe resistance is too costly. Young Iranians don’t romanticize the idea of revolution after 33 years of revolutionary politics.

As to the strategic objectives of the regime, the first and foremost is its survival as we can see in the Iranian politics. The Iranian foreign policy is based on regime’s survival. At the same time, the regime also has the goal of making Iran a permanently dominant regional power with a leading role in the Islamic world.

We see these in the regime’s official discourse as well as its deterrence and retaliation policies. The fact that Iran has maintained and fed its proxies in the region with weaponry and financial support indicates that its strategic objective is about regional supremacy. The latter happens to be closely related to the goal of survival. Whereas in the early days of the revolution the export of revolution was a key foreign policy component, today regime survival is key to regime’s policy with military strategy part of this policy. One can see a shroud of ambiguity with regard to the Iranian government’s strategic objectives with its military presence in places where non-aligned countries are based such as South America.

The Arab Spring, which initially started as the Iranian Spring in 2009, is a concern for the Iranian government because it wanted to endear itself to the Arab street and dominate the Middle East. In this context, the Iranian authorities have tried to tie the events in the region to the 1979 revolution and frame them as inspired by the Iranian revolution. And by not talking about the uprising in Syria and instead focusing on Egypt, Tunisia, they have clearly demonstrated a sense of double standard.

Khalaji: Iran’s attitude toward Arab revolutions has been different from one country to the next. Of course, Iran is very concerned about its survival due to events in Syria. If Iran loses Syria as its main and only Arab ally, it will be very hard for it to implement its regional policies. Assad’s removal would break Iran’s bridge to Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical groups, and it could have a fatal impact on the Iranian regime.

In Bahrain, Iran feels very frustrated. Iran has tried to project itself as a Shiite government protecting the interests of the Shiite community around the world, especially in its own region. But in Bahrain, Iran proved completely unable to do anything to protect Bahrain’s Shia against their Sunni rulers. 80% of Bahrain’s annual budget comes from Saudi Arabia, essentially in the form of a donation. In a way, Saudi Arabia owns Bahrain. For the Saudis, it was important to save the al-Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain to preserve Saudi influence in the country against Iran’s similar desire for regional supremacy. Yet during the suppression of the Shiites in Bahrain, the Shiite community learned that when it comes to physical need at a crucial time, Iran might consider its own interests instead of coming to the aid of Shiite community.

We saw this in the 1990s when Iran took the side of Christian Armenia against Shiite Azerbaijan in the conflict between the two former Soviet states. History shows that Iran’s claim to be a Shiite state protecting Shiites is meaningless, and the Shiites in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have learned this lesson. However, in Egypt, Iran would like to see a fundamentalist group or Islamist group like the Muslim Brotherhood take a greater share of power, which would impact Egypt’s relations with Israel and ultimately with the U.S. In Tunisia, Iran has very little interest, so it looks at events there from an ideological perspective.

Akhlaghi: From an economic perspective, over the past three decades Iran has lagged significantly from many developing countries. It has also experienced drastic decrease in the living standards of its citizens with a bureaucracy considered fraught with corruption. What role the ideological nature of power structure in Iran has played in the above socio-economic picture?

Khalaji: It’s very hard for me to understand the concept of ideology in the context of Iran because for me it’s more of an autocratic regime than an ideological one. There are no ideological constraints on Ayatollah Khamenei when he makes a decision. His decisions are based on his own interests and on the interests of the inner circle of power upon which he relies. So in this dictatorship, it’s not surprising to see contradictory economic policies. Sometimes the Iranians advocate a socialist economic policy and sometimes they implement subsidiary reforms, which is a policy favored by the World Bank.

What we are seeing is ideological chaos. I cannot say on which ideological basis the Iranian economy is currently functioning. It is working to protect the interests of the Revolutionary Guards and a very small political elite, with Ayatollah Khamenei above them. To protect them, Ayatollah Khamenei needed somehow to expand the circle of beneficiaries of the Islamic Republic. So the number of people who benefit from this current system is in the millions, and the economy does not follow any recognized western pattern. That is why you see a lot of corruption, and it is not limited to a select few near the locus of power. Millions of people in Iran are corrupt; their economic life is corrupt. A great portion of Iranian citizens do not respect the law, do not pay their taxes, and try to bypass most of the regulations when they deem it necessary. So Ayatollah Khamenei, or any dictator, needs to make a great portion of the society corrupt in order to stay in power. This is more than ideology. It’s more dangerous than ideology in that it makes the government less predictable.

Jahanbegloo: Usually autocracy and corruption go hand-in-hand. In the case of Iran, we can talk about autocracy as the rule of a jurist who has unlimited legislative and executive powers, but the Iranian regime also has semi- totalitarian symptoms, which go beyond the rule of a single ruler and extends to the realm of militarization of violence. I think corruption in Iran takes many forms and we need to distinguish between them. We have incidental corruption, which is about bribing the officials, which impacts governmental institutions. So we have a corruption that exists at the level of government and another at the social level.

It’s part of this autocratic psychology in Iranian society that legitimizes corruption and makes people, even those who are against the government, to bribe government officials in order to get their daily work done. With respect to root causes of corrupt practices in the government, one needs to understand two important aspects of the regime: one is the existence of an unlimited authority at upper levels of management; the other is the absence of an independent supervision (as evidenced in the case of recent banking embezzlement) on the economic and political management. We need to understand that corruption in Iran has deteriorated the public confidence in the state and the legitimacy of those in charge of the country’s political and economic management. I think it’s fair to say that the Iranian society is a sick society: part of it is political and part of it, as Mehdi said, related to Iran’s mass psychology.

Akhlaghi: What is your assessment of reformism movement in Iran since the presidency of former president Mohammad Khatami and of the movement’s contribution to the development of civil institutions in Iran and move toward a culture of non-violent change? What are the chances of Iran’s reformists in bringing about change?

Jahanbegloo: When we talk about non-violence and the potential for non-violent resistance in Iran, it goes beyond the reform movement. There are elements of reform movement that can be violent, but non-violence is a new political culture in a society like Iran. I believe in Iran we have somehow two political struggles going on; one is the struggle for democracy and the other is a struggle for a non-violent negotiation. We need to integrate the two concepts in one strategy. It’s a big challenge for most of us. From my point of view, non-violence is the best means to achieve social change and political transformation in the Iranian society, but it’s not a short-term solution; it is a moral high ground that we need and of course it’s going to be a difficult choice; nevertheless this is one of the ways to change the Iranian society.

And on the chances of reformists in Iran achieving their goals, I don’t think reformists have any chances of continuing their agenda, if they don’t have a critical view of their past and don’t take into consideration their weaknesses. If reformism situates itself in the judicial structure as Mehdi was referring to, that means they are close to the clerical culture. I don’t think reformists have much of a chance in Iran’s future. I think reformists have to switch to a new political culture that would involve being more critical of their own political attitudes. They need to think of a new political culture for the Iranian society in the future.

Khalaji: The will to reform must come from the government, not the people. When a government is divided into different factions, reformist policies can succeed if even one faction takes a reformist stance. In Iran’s case, however, the government is divided into two radical factions and reformists have little power and are so politically marginalized that they have little chance of success. Moreover, under the current regime even small political changes will be costly for the public, who typically seek reform at the lowest possible price. If the regime is unwilling to accept even small changes, let alone reform the system, any external reformist effort is bound to fail.

In Iran the term ‘revolution’ is typically associated with violence, while reformism is associated with non-violence. Unfortunately, these associations are not necessarily true. Both a violent reform movement and a non-violent revolution are distinct possibilities. A non-violent revolution, however, could potentially lead to regime change, constitutional reform, transformation of the political elite, and the eventual establishment of a new political system.

Iranians have become wary of the word ‘revolution’, as they equate the term with violence. I think, however, that one can exist without the other.

Akhlaghi: What mechanisms, in your opinion, exist in de-ideologizing the country’s political and economic management system? Does de-ideologization necessarily need to involve a wholesale transformation of the political system?

Khalaji: Let’s look at it this way; the Islamic Republic labels its dissidents counter-revolutionary. The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, however, might also be considered a counter-revolutionary par excellence. He plays a large role in delegitimizing both the Islamic ideology and the republic because he systematically tries to weaken institutions established by the Islamic Republic. Look at what he has done to the Majlis, the Iranian parliament; or the presidency, for example.

Khamenei has tried to undermine the achievements of the revolution and the Islamic ideology of Iran. He is attempting to reduce the power of elected institutions and transform a very sophisticated revolutionary government to a conventional dictatorship. The actions and policies I have mentioned that were put in place by Ayatollah Khamenei serve to delegitimize the Islamic Republic more than any other internal or external force.

Jahanbegloo: What I would like to add to Mehdi’s remarks is when we talk about de-ideologization of a religious regime we tend to think not only of bringing more pragmatism and rationality to the Iranian politics, but also working more closely with other cultures and nations, which I think is very important. So the process of rationalizing the public space is very important, which can actually show itself in different levels of the Iranian society. A simple example would be privatization of the Iranian economy with meaningful economic reforms, which we know is practically impossible since we are operating in the arena of criminal capitalism in Iran rather than liberal capitalism.

So the de-ideologization that you’re referring to should take place at the state level as well as at the level of the citizens, which means public participation in the affairs of the state. This is actually a demand for transparency and accountability that the Iranian people have been seeking in their struggle for democratization.

Contact: Nobar Elmi at National Iranian American Council (NIAC)
Phone: 202-379-1638
Email: nelmi@niacouncil.org

With regard to Iran, it appears that most Americans (69%) view the Iranian military capabilities significant enough to thwart any Western military aggression against the country. A potential military engagement with Iran is a worry to a large number of Americans first and foremost because of the potential it holds in loss of American lives and, perhaps equally, due to enormous financial costs involved, not to mention the damage to American interests in the Muslim world.

What the U.S. needs as an effective policy tool in confronting Iran and its nuclear proliferation threat is a truly concerted effort (not merely confined to a few NATO members) in building a unified diplomatic front against Tehran. The more unified a front against Iran, the more effective a change in Iran’s behaviour.

Amsterdam – More than 56,000 people from over 40 countries have joined a popular campaign on Change.org demanding the Swedish government grant asylum to 20 Iranian Kurds who face prosecution and possible execution in Iran.

Carin Zallerman, a concerned New York City resident, launched the campaign on Change.org after Swedish authorities decided to deny the activists refugee status and send them back to Iran. In response to this decision, all 20 people went on a hunger strike, sewing their lips together and coordinating street actions with Zallerman’s online campaign.

“It is a violation of human rights that the Swedish government still continues to deport refugees seeking asylum back to Iran, where they face torture and/or execution,” said Caren Zallerman, who launched the campaign on Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing platform for social change. “Sweden must drastically change its current asylum policy and halt all deportations of political activists to Iran.”

The group of Iranian activists has run its social media-driven campaign from a tent in the center of Stockholm, attracting global attention and increasing pressure on Tobias Billström, Sweden’s minister for migration and asylum policy.

“This campaign is a unique example of close cooperation between the hunger strikers at the square and a global community of concerned citizens,” said Change.org Human Rights Organizer Dmitry Savelau. “Since their lips are sewn shut, they’ve been campaigning internationally using the Internet and, together with Carin Zallerman, have managed to recruit thousands of supporters from over 40 countries to their cause. Change.org is about empowering individuals all over the world to demand action on the issues that matter to them, and it has been remarkable to watch Carin’s campaign take off.”

Among the tens of thousands of supporters is Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who condemned the actions of Swedish authorities and met with the Iranian activists this past Saturday.

Live signature totals from Carin Zallerman’s campaign:

http://www.change.org/petitions/sweden-stop-deportation-of-refugees-facing-execution-in-iran

Journalists interested in contacting the Swedish Migration Office’s public relations staff should try:

Linda Norberg, Press Secretary of Tobias Billström
Email via http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/14159/a/158627
+46 08-405-57-96
+46 70-226-09-04

Johan Rahm, Head of the Press Unit, Swedish Migration Board
migrationsverket@migrationsverket.se
+ 46 10-485-66-55 (office hours)
+ 46 70-830-83-40 (outside of office hours)

Bodil Sundén, Press Information Officer, Swedish Migration Board
migrationsverket@migrationsverket.se
+1 (202) 555-1213

For more information on Change.org, please visit:

http://www.change.org/about

In 2007 the Human Rights Watch announced that seven Iranians including Hassan Zarezadeh Ardeshir are among the writers who received the prestigious Hellman/Hammett prize, an award that recognizes writers globally who have been victims of political persecution. Mr. Ardeshir is currently executive director of the Toronto-based organization The International Center for Human Rights for Iran.

by H. Zarezadeh Ardeshir

Efforts for release of political activists have always been the top priority of Political and human rights activists. Many believe the release of political prisoners is one of the main steps towards democracy and restoration of human rights in Iran. On Saturday September 3rd, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced release of one hundred political prisoners.

Tehran prosecutor Mr. Abbas Jaafari Dowlatabadi announced last Friday that hundred “security” prisoners (political prisoners) have been released under the amnesty of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr. Dowlatabadi claimed that the released prisoners had confessed to their sins and that they had shown repentance for their crimes, asking for forgiveness. Hence the amnesty from the supreme leader. As it can be observed, the Tehran prosecutor intends to make two important points:

1. Political prisoners have done wrong. Therefore, they felt regret and subsequently asked for forgiveness from the Supreme leader.

2. The Supreme leader has accepted their requests; the prisoners are guilty and the regime is tolerant of dissent.

I contacted some of the released political prisoners and their families and found out many of them had not asked for forgiveness—contrary to the prosecutor’s claim.

Furthermore, Tehran’s prosecutor claimed seventy prisoners had been released last Saturday and thirty others were to be released in following days. However, the number of released prisoners on Saturday was nearly forty, and they have yet to reach seventy–let alone one hundred.

What is more is that most of the released political prisoners did not even need such amnesty as they had mostly finished their jail terms. The rest had already passed half of their prison terms and thus based on “Conditional Prison Rule” could be discharged. Moreover, the released prisoners were from the notorious Evin prison in Tehran with no one from other jails such as Rajai prison in Karaj (Gohardasht) among them.

Hardest opponents of the regime such as Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, Behrouz Javid Tehrani, Majid Tavakoli, Ahmad Zayd Abadi, Isah SaharKhizi, Keyvan Samimi, and many others are still held in Gohardasht prison. There are also well-known political prisoners in Evin prison such as Mohammad Sedigh Kaboudvand, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Mahdiyeh Golroo, Bahareh Hedayat, Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, Bahman Ahmadi Amooyi, Abdollah Momeni, Mahdi Khodai who were not among the released prisoners.

The release of political prisoners is sure a sign of political maneuvering on the part of the regime as a preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections and the expected visit of the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur to Iran. So the judiciary strives to score political credits for the supreme leader and the regime. As history tells us, regime would never forgive those who are considered a serious threat to its security, and it goes as far as executing them. Therefore, what lies behind the “release of one hundred prisoners” is a façade intended to cover a senseless propaganda.

That education is a universal right is a principle enshrined in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, for a large part, in the psyche of humanity. Therefore, the idea that one would be barred from higher education based on one’s religious convictions becomes absurd at best. This is the absurd reality that the Iranian Baha’i Community knows far too well.

Baha’i students are barred from attending university in Iran solely based on their religious convictions. In response to this continual deprivation of educational access the Iranian Baha’i Community formed its own institute of higher learning (BIHE) (http://news.bahai.org/human-rights/iran/education/). This peaceful institution has sought to provide an alternative of hope for Baha’i students in Iran.

With each passing year BIHE has seen increased pressure and repression of its work. In one sweeping blow, this past May, 16 Baha’is were detained and 30 homes associated with staff and faculty of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education were raided. Most recent information indicates that 11 of these individuals remain in prison. In addition, press reports in Iran have recently announced that BIHE has been declared illegal.

The Baha’i International Community has responded with an open letter to Kamran Daneshjoo, Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology, asking him “How is it that a government would debar a population of young citizens from access to higher education and then, when their families, with the help of one another, make private arrangements that bring them together in their homes to study such subjects as physics and biology, pronounce such activity to be ‘illegal’ by citing law that are in fact intended to guide the operation of educational institutions that serve the general public”?

In this situation one need not feel helpless and can in fact take action. A group of individuals have launched a campaign called “Can You Solve This?” which can be followed in the following link:

http://can-you-solve-this.org/

If we regard access to education more than simply the process of enrolling in classes, but rather a foundation upon which one’s careers, dreams, and capacity to serve one’s communities and country is built, the actions of the Iranian government become even more unacceptable. For those of us outside of Iran, now is the chance to speak out in defense of the thousands of young people, Baha’i or otherwise, who face increasing pressure and censorship as a result of a discriminatory education system.

The full content of this letter can be viewed here:

http://news.bahai.org/sites/news.bahai.org/files/documentlibrary/848_BICLetter_English.pdf