War in Context

Time for an Israeli strike?
By John R Bolton, Washington Post, July 2, 2009

With Iran’s hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Iran’s nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — As John Bolton watched events unfold in Iran over the last three weeks, one thought couldn’t escape his mind — in fact it’s the only thought that seems to inhabit his mind: now’s a good time to bomb Iran.

What he somehow managed to miss was that perceptions of Iran have not only changed around the rest of the world but also inside Iran-fearful Israel. As Zvi Bar’el wrote in Haaretz recently in an article ironically headlined “Which Iran would Israel bomb?“:

Suddenly, there appears to be an Iranian people. Not just nuclear technology, extremist ayatollahs, the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad, and an axis of evil. All of a sudden, the ears need to be conditioned to hear other names: “‘Mousawi’ or ‘Mousavi,’ how is it pronounced exactly?”; Mehdi Karroubi; Khamenei (”It’s not ‘Khomeini’?”). Reports from Iranian bloggers fill the pages of the Hebrew press. Iranian commentators - in contrast to Iranian-affairs commentators - are now the leading pundits. The hot Internet connection with Radio Ran (the Persian-language radio station in Israel) is the latest gimmick. And most interesting and important is that the commentary on what is taking place in Iran is not being brought to the public by senior intelligence officers, but via images transmitted by television.

Israel is now gaining a more intimate, accurate familiarity with the Iranian public. The demonstrations have made quite clear that there is not one Iran or even two, but rather a number of Irans. There is the Iran that belongs to those who screamed, “Death to America and to Israel,” and there is the Iran that screams, “Down with the dictator.”

So for Israelis Iran has evolved beyond pure nemesis.

Even so, let’s humor Bolton’s imagination a little and suppose that the Israeli strike he’s picturing goes stunningly well and Iran’s nuclear program is crippled with minimal loss of life. What happens then inside Iran? How much traction is Bolton’s public diplomacy campaign going to get — that is, the message that the bombs were aimed at the regime, not the people?

The answer is simple: the regime will have its own public diplomacy campaign. Do you support your nation or are you in sympathy with the Zionist-entity and its American supporters?

An are-you-for-us-or-against-us? campaign worked well enough for George Bush and Dick Cheney, even though those of us who rejected their rallying cry had little fear of being jailed, beaten up or shot for simply protesting. For Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, equipped as they are with crude but effective means to enforce the same message, its acceptance — heartfelt or otherwise — is sure to be near universal. The Iranian government will be rewarded by spectacular displays of national solidarity. The rifts that are now open wide will not be healed but they will most effectively be buried.

Whether an Israeli strike would be successful in crippling Iran’s nuclear program is debatable; that it would profoundly undermine Iran’s reformist movement should be beyond question.

And then there’s another small detail that Bolton forgot to mention: Is an Israeli government that regards itself as being under “withering pressure” and is “being driven to its knees” by the Obama administration on the issue of settlements, about to turn around and bomb Iran? Not unless it gets a green light from the White House. And that’s the one thing Bolton is realistic enough to understand is not about to happen.

Israel’s ready to bomb Iran? Only in your dreams Mr Bolton.

The irresistible illusion
By Rory Stewart, London Review of Book, July 9, 2009

We are accustomed to seeing Afghans through bars, or smeared windows, or the sight of a rifle: turbaned men carrying rockets, praying in unison, or lying in pools of blood; boys squabbling in an empty swimming-pool; women in burn wards, or begging in burqas. Kabul is a South Asian city of millions. Bollywood music blares out in its crowded spice markets and flower gardens, but it seems that images conveying colour and humour are reserved for Rajasthan.

Barack Obama, in a recent speech, set out our fears. The Afghan government

is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency . . . If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can . . . For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralysed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al-Qaida terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.

When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. ‘There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject. Obama and Brown rely on a hypnotising policy language which can – and perhaps will – be applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan. It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion.

It conjures nightmares of ‘failed states’ and ‘global extremism’, offers the remedies of ‘state-building’ and ‘counter-insurgency’, and promises a final dream of ‘legitimate, accountable governance’. The path is broad enough to include Scandinavian humanitarians and American special forces; general enough to be applied to Botswana as easily as to Afghanistan; sinuous and sophisticated enough to draw in policymakers; suggestive enough of crude moral imperatives to attract the Daily Mail; and almost too abstract to be defined or refuted. [continued…]

Pakistan plays dangerous double game
By Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich, The Independent, June 29, 2009

The assassin struck shortly after morning prayers, storming into a room at the compound where Qari Zainuddin was staying and opening up with a volley of fire. The militant leader was rushed to a nearby hospital but declared dead. Meanwhile, the gunman - apparently dispatched by Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud - escaped in a waiting car.

The following day, in a cemetery of Muslim and Christian graves encircled by fields of maize, the 26-year-old, who in recent months had pitched himself against Mr Mehsud, was buried. The militant leader’s funeral was notable for two things. Firstly the town was filled with checkposts manned by both Taliban and Pakistani security personnel. Secondly, when the dead man’s brother, Misabhuddin, vowed to reporters that he would take revenge against Mr Mehsud, he also let slip something else. “Jihad against America and its allies in Afghanistan will continue as well,” he said.

The killing last week of Mr Zainuddin, who had been staying in a compound provided by the country’s ISI security agency, has opened a window on a complicated, controversial and perilous element of the battle against militants inside Pakistan. Mr Zainuddin, himself a Taliban leader who supported al-Qa’ida and jihad against Western troops in Afghanistan, had recently been recruited by the Pakistani authorities to join their battle to kill Baitullah Mehsud, who has emerged as the country’s deadliest militant. In essence, Islamabad is recruiting anti-American fighters to bolster a joint US-Pakistani operation.

The arrangement underlines the competing strategic priorities in the region for Pakistan and the US, even as their leaders opt in public for the language of common interests and shared enemies. “Pakistan just wants to concentrate on the Pakistani Taliban. They do not want to go after the Afghan Taliban,” said Giles Dorronosoro, a regional expert at the Carnegie Endowment. “The US wants to put the Pakistan-Afghanistan border under control. They have totally different goals. And the issue is not resolvable.” [continued…]

Growing gulf between U.S. and Israeli Jews on Obama
By Nathan Jeffay, The Forward, July, 2009

He swept to power with the support of 78% of American Jews. But has Barack Obama become the bane of Israeli Jews?

A gulf between American and Israeli Jews was evident even before Obama moved into the White House. Just a third of Israelis would have endorsed him had they been allowed to vote, polling indicated, while almost half would have chosen John McCain.

In recent weeks, several public opinion surveys have suggested that Obama’s popularity has dropped far below this already low point. A Jerusalem Post-commissioned poll released on June 19 reported that only 6% of Jewish Israelis consider his views pro-Israel.

To Rafi Smith, head of the polling firm that conducted the survey, it is clear what is happening. Israelis, he said, see Obama “as the opposite of George Bush, who was perceived as the biggest friend of Israel. Obama is seen as a 180-degree turn.” [continued…]

Hussein pointed to Iranian threat
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 2, 2009

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as “a zealot” and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from “fanatic” leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a “security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region.”

Former president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq six years ago on the grounds that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to international security. Administration officials at the time also strongly suggested Iraq had significant links to al-Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. [continued…]

How to deal with America’s empire of bases
By Chalmers Johnson, TomDispatch, July 1, 2009

The U.S. Empire of Bases — at $102 billion a year already the world’s costliest military enterprise — just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new “embassy” in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don’t occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy — a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways. [continued…]

Opposition leaders court arrest by defying ‘unlawful Iranian regime’
By Martin Fletcher, The Times, July 2, 2009

Three of Iran’s most prominent opposition leaders flagrantly courted arrest yesterday by denouncing President Ahmadinejad’s Government as illegitimate, one day after the regime said that it would tolerate no more challenges to the election result.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister who lost the election, said that the suppression of dissent was tantamount to a coup. “It’s not yet too late,” he declared on his website. “It is our historical responsibility to continue our protests to defend the rights of the people . . . and prevent the blood spilt by hundreds of thousands of martyrs from leading to a police state.”

Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami, 65, a popular former President, accused the regime of mounting a “velvet revolution against the people and democracy” and called the security crackdown “poisonous”.

Mehdi Karroubi, 72, another defeated presidential candidate, said that “visible and invisible forces blocked any change in the executive power”. He added: “I will continue the fight under any circumstances and using every means.” The regime responded by shutting down his newspaper. [continued…]

Mousavi to disclose tell-all documents
Press TV, July 1, 2009

As the Iranian opposition continues to express skepticism about the election result, defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi says he will present documents that prove electoral fraud.

Mousavi, who has rejected the result of Iran’s presidential election as fraudulent, said on Wednesday that a number of Iranian scholars are set to form a committee to preserve the vote of the people.

The committee aims to “make public documents proving fraud and irregularities in the election,” Mousavi said in his latest statement issued on Wednesday. [continued…]

Time for Obama to make a course correction
By Roger Cohen, New York Times, July 2, 2009

Demonstrations may have disappeared from Tehran’s streets of shame, but Iranian acceptance is at an all-time low. The government is now illegitimate. Power has been usurped. The equation has changed.

I think Mahmoudi’s right. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad may begin to unclench their fist, as isolation and sullen defiance grow, in a bid to deliver what they would not allow the reformists to initiate: détente with America.

Obama must leave them dangling for the foreseeable future. He should refrain indefinitely from talk of engagement.

To do otherwise would be to betray millions of Iranians who have been defrauded and have risked their lives to have their votes count. To do otherwise would be to allow Khamenei to gloat that, in the end, what the United States respects is force. To do otherwise would be to embrace the usurpers.

The slow arc of moral justice is fine but Iran is gripped by the fierce urgency of now. Obama, the realist on whom idealism is projected, is obliged to make a course correction. [continued…]

Europe weighs pulling envoys from Tehran
By Alan Cowell and Stephen Castle, New York Times, July 2, 2009

Iran risked diplomatic isolation from the European Union, as European officials discussed whether to withdraw the ambassadors of all 27 member nations in a dispute over the detention of the British Embassy’s Iranian personnel.

European diplomats said Wednesday that they had made no formal decision to order their envoys home, but that the measure was an option as the European Union — Iran’s biggest trading partner — tried to work out how to defuse the dispute in a way that would shield other embassies in Tehran from similar action.

Withdrawing all 27 ambassadors would be a rare and unusually forceful display of European anger at Iran’s crackdown on dissent after the June 12 presidential election, and several diplomats said the European Union would prefer to avoid such a move. [continued…]

Witness to Neda’s death to be prosecuted
Raye Man Kojast? Where Is My Vote?, July 1, 2009

Fars News Agency in Persian on 1 July 2009 reports that the commander of the Law Enforcement Force said: Arash Hejazi who as the witness of the murder of Neda Aqa-Soltan has created uproar is being prosecuted by the International Police (Interpol).

Speaking to a gathering of reporters, General Esma’il Ahmadi-Moqaddam added: Arash Hejazi is being prosecuted by the Ministry of Intelligence and Interpol forces.

He stressed: The murder of Neda Aqa-Soltan is a scenario which has no links to Tehran’s riots.

Arash Hejazi, the doctor who was present at Neda Aqa-Soltan’s murder scene, has held certain sensational interviews with foreign media on this murder case after departing the country. [continued…]

Neda in Palestine, sentenced to die alone
By Max Blumenthal, Huffington Post, June 30, 2009

For over a week, major American news outlets have broadcast on a virtual loop the video of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, an unarmed 26-year-old Iranian woman, by Iranian security services. The poignant footage of Neda dying before a throng of grief-stricken bystanders crystallized the vulnerability experienced by the millions of demonstrators who have filled cities across Iran to confront authoritarian forces determined to suppress their voice through brutal means. When the mainstream American press chose to broadcast the graphic video — as moving as the footage is, it is difficult to watch — it made a commendable decision that nonetheless highlighted its hypocritical attitude towards Palestinians who resist Israeli occupation on a daily basis, and who often meet the same fate as Neda. [continued…]

Israel’s man of conscience
By Ezra Nawi, The Nation, June 29, 2009

My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.

I will be sentenced on the first of July after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers in 2007 while struggling against the demolition of a Palestinian house in Um El Hir, located in the southern part of the West Bank.

Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.

After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I “provoke local residents.”

This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After all, was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?

Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children?

Did I hit the elderly?

Did I poison the Palestinian residents’ sheep?

Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors?

Did I block roads and restrict movement?

Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity?

Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes? [continued…]

The settlers defying Obama
By Seth Freedman, The Guardian, June 29, 2009

At first glance, the dusty dunes of the South Hebron hills appear splendidly frozen in time. Small encampments of nomadic farmers are dotted across the landscape, sparse groves of olive and fruit trees surrounding the ramshackle tents huddled together in their midst. Flocks of sheep and goats graze on the scrubby foliage under the watchful eye of teenaged shepherds; the silence of the plains is breathtaking, the only noise an occasional cautionary bark from the villagers’ ever-vigilant guard dogs.

But the glorious isolation in which the rural communities seem to dwell is an illusory facade. A closer look at the way their camps are arranged reveals the true picture of modern life on the land they’ve tended for generations. Soldiers stand guard in pairs at strategic spots on the hillside, enforcing the no-entry zones surrounding the rash of settlements spread across the region, the mini-towns growing bigger by the month, swallowing up more and more of the Palestinians’ land in the zero-sum game eternally stacked in the settlers’ favour. [continued…]

Israel’s settlements are on shaky ground
By Sarah Leah Whitson, Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2009

The debate over Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is often framed in terms of whether they should be “frozen” or allowed to grow “naturally.” But that is akin to asking whether a thief should be allowed merely to keep his ill-gotten gains or steal some more. It misses the most fundamental point: Under international law, all settlements on occupied territory are unlawful. And there is only one remedy: Israel should dismantle them, relocate the settlers within its recognized 1967 borders and compensate Palestinians for the losses the settlements have caused.

Removing the settlements is mandated by the laws of the Geneva Convention, which state that military occupations are to be a temporary state of affairs and prohibit occupying powers from moving their populations into conquered territory. The intent is to foreclose an occupying power from later citing its population as “facts on the ground” to claim the territory, something Israel has done in East Jerusalem and appears to want to do with much of the West Bank. [continued…]

Israel OKs West Bank construction
By Joshua Mitnick, Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2009

Israel said Monday it authorized the construction of 50 new residential units in a West Bank settlement, defying rising pressure from the U.S. and the international community for a building freeze in territory claimed by the Palestinians as part of a future state.

The expansion of Adam, a settlement near Jerusalem surrounded by three Palestinian villages, is part of a defense ministry plan to relocate 300 residents of the unauthorized hilltop outpost of Migron. [continued…]

Iran: The whole world is watching
By Jon Alterman, World Politics Review, June 29, 2009

Four decades ago, when police and national guardsmen attacked protestors at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the protesters shouted, “The whole world is watching.”

However arresting those images were, they could not possibly compare to the flood in recent weeks of YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, Facebook pages, and blogs dedicated to events in Iran. Today, the world is not only watching — in an important way it is participating, as observers dig down for their own raw footage, reporting, and analysis pouring out of Iran.

It is easy to be swept up by all of these images coming out of Iran and think that the days of dictatorship — in Iran and the rest of the world — are numbered. Overnight, normally innocuous social networking tools swiftly turned political, and local events found international audiences mere instants after they occur.

That prompted Verizon’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, to exult on the Charlie Rose Show this week that Iran’s efforts to manage public sentiments via restricting Internet access was a losing proposition. “The power of the people will override that without any question,” he said. “And it’ll happen sooner than they think, because the technology is just too pervasive.”

If only that were true. The way the outside world sees Iranian protests is markedly different from the way Iranians themselves do, and the government is increasingly asserting its authority over the information space in the country. While many in the West see a potential revolution in Technicolor, the green banners of opposition activists from the election campaign are quickly fading to black. [continued…]

Why do Arabs not revolt?
By Rami Khouri, Tehran Bureau, June 29, 2009

The stark contrast between the street demonstrations in Iran in the past two weeks and the absence of any such popular revolts in the Arab world during the past half-century is more than just fascinating in terms of political anthropology. A major question that hangs over the Arab world like a ton of bricks is: Why do the top-heavy, non-democratic political control and governance systems of the Arab world persist without any significant popular opposition or public challenge?

The events in Iran — the second major popular rebellion in the past 30 years — accentuate the relative quiescence in the Arab world, but this is not for lack of grievances among Arabs. The same pressures and indignities that annoy many Iranians and push them to openly challenge their rulers are prevalent throughout much of the Arab world: [continued…]

Requiem for a revolution
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, June 30, 2009

If this military dictatorship of the mullahtariat continues to appease its working-class support base with a little redistribution of oil revenues, they can stay in power for a long time.

The West may try to boycott them - but not Russia and China, as both made it clear in no time. Both are the driving force of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is an observer and sooner, rather than later, will be a member. Iran’s oil and gas are absolutely crucial to Europe - not to mention Asia. Nobody’s going to embargo Iran’s oil exports. So the military dictatorship of the mullahtariat will be able to repress and suppress whatever comes its way, using or not using Shi’ite eschatology to justify it.

There are echoes of the former Soviet Union in all of this. But what happened in the streets is more like Prague 1968 - and not the turbulence before the death of communism in 1989. In the end, the revolution was not YouTubed and Twittered simply because there was no revolution. The army - the IRGC - didn’t support the people. And the bazaari merchants and the oil and gas industry workers didn’t go on strike.

People were angry because they felt their vote had been stolen: there was nothing ideological about that. When they took to the streets they made clear that they wanted a better economy, less unemployment, a less stifling regime, a little more freedom of speech and of dress for women, less fiery rhetoric from Ahmadinejad, in sum, a better life. But on the other side of the spectrum there were the millions of pious Basiji - who are very happy with the meager and shabby existence the revolution grants them and who remain deeply, deeply alienated from Western culture.

This doesn’t mean this was a Gucci, YouTube, Twitter uprising of the petit-bourgeoisie. It’s easy to fall into this temptation as the people in the streets of Tehran were supported by the West en masse. But to believe that Iran’s national interest and the aspirations of the excluded Iranian masses will be defended by this new military dictatorship of the mullahtariat is to completely miss the point. [continued…]

Is Khamenei controlled by the Revolutionary Guards?
By Gary Sick, The Daily Beast, June 27, 2009

There are many different ways to look at the developments in Iran. One perspective that seems to have been ignored is what I regard as the cardinal role of the Revolutionary Guards.

Over the 20 years that Ayatollah Khamenei has been the rahbar, or leader, he has allied himself ever more closely with the Revolutionary Guards—to such an extent that it is no longer apparent to me who is leading and who is following. The Revolutionary Guards have been granted extraordinary influence over all functions of the Islamic republic—military, political, economic, and even Islamic. Technically, they take their orders from the leader, but has he ever dared to contradict them? On the contrary, he seems always to court them by granting them ever-greater influence and responsibilities. [continued…]

Iran Revolutionary Guards amass power while backing Ahmadinejad
By Kambiz Foroohar and Henry Meyer, Bloomberg, June 29, 2009

The 125,000-strong Guards Corps was created by Iran’s clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Its influence has grown under Ahmadinejad, himself a guards veteran, said Michael Eisenstadt, a senior analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Eight of the 21 posts in the president’s cabinet are held by former members, according to Ali Alfoneh, an analyst at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute. Among them are Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, whose agency ran the election, and Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar.

Another five places are occupied by past Basij commanders. The state broadcasting arm is headed by Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former guard. At least one-third of Iran’s parliament members are former guards, according to Nader.

Under Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, 65, only three ministers had belonged to the guards or Basij. [continued…]

The Islamic Revolution faces the classic dilemma of all revolutions
By Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch, June 28, 2009

Between 1979, the year of the Islamic revolution, and 1999, Iran’s population doubled to 65 million, two-thirds of them under 25 years of age. Those young Iranians had no direct experience or memory of the pre-Islamic regime of the Shah — its inequities and injustices, and its subservient relationship with Washington. Therefore, their commitment to the Islamic regime was less than total. Moreover, the post-revolutionary educational system had proven inadequate when it came to socializing them the way the republic’s religious leaders wanted.

During those two decades, Iran’s student body increased almost threefold, to 19 million. The overall literacy rate jumped from 58% to 82%, with the figure for females — 28% in 1979 — tripling. There was a remarkable upsurge in the enrollment of women in universities. Nationally, their share of university student bodies shot up to 60%. At prestigious Tehran University, they were a majority in all faculties, including science and law.

The total of university graduates, which stood at 430,000 in 1979, grew nine-fold in those years. As elsewhere in the world, university students and graduates would become a vital engine for change. [continued…]

Khamenei uses the Cheney torture methods
By Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic, June 28, 2009

With the distressing news of so many democracy activists being rounded up by the Iranian regime, the specter of torture for false confessions emerges. The confessions “prove” that the demonstrations were entirely a function of a foreign plot. And, more to the point, the torture techniques include those adopted and championed by the neocon right in the US. Among the Cheney techniques that are used by the Khemenai regime are sleep deprivation, forced nudity, beatings, solitary confinement, and stress positions. [continued…]

Torture in Iran - 60 Minutes, April 9, 2009

Will Iran take the heat off Israel over settlements?
By Tony Karon, Time, June 29, 2009

Iran has now forced its way back to the top of the White House agenda, as a result of Tehran’s violent crackdown on its own citizens protesting claims of election fraud. The domestic political pressure on the Administration to take a tougher stand against Iran’s regime may actually help Netanyahu resist pressure for a settlement freeze. After all, the President may find it difficult, in Washington, to muster pressure on Israel over settlements at a moment when he’s being berated for speaking too softly on Tehran’s crackdown. Members of Congress are now proposing new sanctions legislation and even demanding hearings on U.S. policy toward Tehran. And that’s exactly the conversation that Netanyahu wants dominating the nation’s capital. [continued…]

Israel May Shift an infinitely short distance on settlements freeze amid broader effort
By Ethan Bronner, New York Times, June 29, 2009

Israel would be open to a complete freeze of settlement building in the West Bank for three to six months as part of a broad Middle East peace endeavor that included a Palestinian agreement to negotiate an end to the conflict and confidence-building steps by major Arab nations, senior Israeli officials said Sunday.[…]

The officials who spoke of the prospect of a temporary freeze said the issue was explosive in Israel, so they were not prepared to have their names publicly associated with the idea at this stage. But they spoke with clear authority. They calculated that about 2,000 buildings were going up in West Bank settlements now and said that they would be completed under their proposal, but nothing new would start. They also said that if broader peace efforts came to naught, the building would start up again. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — There comes a point where clear language has been so thoroughly and persistently abused and avoided that the only means left for communication are non-verbal. If Barak is actually on his way to Washington with this as his offer, then the White House should turn the humiliation dial up a few more more notches from the recently canceled meeting between Netanyahu and Mitchell in Paris. At that point the Israelis were told there was no point sending Mitchell until Netanyahu had “finished his homework” on halting settlements. This time around perhaps Barak’s meeting should be canceled while he’s midway across the Atlantic.

What a freeze can’t do
By David Ignatius, Washington Post, June 28, 2009

[Rahm] Emanuel’s view is that settlements are not a security issue for Israel but a domestic political problem. According to a senior White House official, Emanuel has argued that if the Israelis insist on expanding settlements, “You’re doing it on your own dime. We don’t want our credibility to be compromised as you work out your domestic politics. We’re not going to pay for that one.”

What has surprised the Israelis, says the White House official, is that “for umpteen years, they’ve been trained to hear one thing from America on settlements but see us do another. It takes some adjustment.”

The White House believes that if it comes to a showdown, Netanyahu will compromise. His coalition government, the administration reasons, is too weak to sustain an open break with its key ally, the United States. If Netanyahu defies the United States, his coalition will splinter. The administration is already talking with Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader and defense minister, who might form a new government if Netanyahu falls.

It’s a hardheaded strategy, but it has one big flaw: The Obama team is assuming that if it can pressure Israel into a real settlements freeze, the Arabs will respond with meaningful moves toward normalization of relations — which will give Israel some tangible benefits for its concessions. But that hope appears to be misplaced. [continued…]

Walking miles in Palestinian feet
By Claire Messud, Boston Globe, June 29, 2009

What is a world where you cannot go for a walk, cannot assemble to read and discuss literature in public, cannot be certain of visiting your grandmother in a neighboring city? What is a world where you cannot lose your temper, cannot laugh in the wrong place? (Imagine, if you will, living your entire life in the security line at the airport, on a bad day.) For us, the French and British consulates opened their doors; but they can’t always do so for the Palestinians. [continued…]

Gaza residents ‘live in despair’
BBC, June 29, 2009

The International Committee of the Red Cross has described the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza as people “trapped in despair”.

In a report, it said that a main cause was the continuing Israeli blockade.

The report comes six months after the end of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in which at least 1,100 Palestinians died. [continued…]

Ayatollah Taleghani’s warning about the return of despots
Via Mir Hossein Mousavi’s Facebook page, June 28, 2009

“If things go the way they are, despots will rule over us. If we don’t appreciate this free and peaceful environment and create an environment of trickery, an environment full of suffering and chaos, just like the Koran mentions, the result will be the appearance of despots…”

Ayatollah Taleghani was one of the leaders of the Islamic revolution. He died in September 1979, a few months after the fall of the Shah.