Iranian Alert -- January 17, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

TREATED AS A FUTURE HEAD OF STATE, ROHANI ENDED VISIT TO PARIS

By Safa Haeri
PARIS, 16 Jan.
(IPS)

Iran’s rising political figure, Jojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, belittling the present political crisis over the disqualification of a number of prominent reformist lawmakers, assured France on Thursday that the “problem could be resolved very easily”, after the leader of the regime, ayatollah Ali Khamenehe’i ordered the Council of the Guardians to review its decision.

The 12-members Council that has the right to approve or reject the eligibility of all candidates to all Iran's elections has rejected nearly half of the candidates who registered to run for the 292-seat elections, due for 20 February, among them nearly 80 sitting Members of the Majles, or the Iranian Parliament.

Intervening in the dispute, Mr. Khameneh’i, who has the last word on every major issues, urged Wednesday on the CG that is controlled by the conservatives to allow some of the best-known MMs, among them the younger brother of the President, Dr Mohammad Reza Khatami as well as senior tenors of the Second Khordad Coalition that support the powerless Mohammad Khatami to run in the upcoming race.

“France is following the election with great attention and interest", France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin said during a joint press conference in Paris with the presence of his Iranian guest, without making any direct reference to the disqualifications that has been criticised by both the European Union and the United States.

On Thursday, the Iran Committee of the German Bundestag, or Parliament as well as a number of Eurodeputies expressed sympathy with the disqualified Iranian lawmakers who continued a protest sit-in and assured that they would continue the action until the CG overturn its controversial decision.

"Obviously we accept meddling from no country in our internal affairs", Rohani observed. "With a friend like France we have a friendly discussion ... but with the United States it's another matter", he added, and pointing at American elections, he said: "The situation of past American presidential elections, which unwound in a truly catastrophic and dramatic manner, no longer allows the United States to speak about elections in other countries".

"I asked Dr. Rohani that a gesture of clemency be made", Mr. de Villepin said referring to political prisoners in the Islamic Republic. "We hope that a page will definitively be turned with the next legislative elections", he added.

Talks between the two men also covered Iran's nuclear program, the Middle East conflict and post war Iraq, where the two sides called for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis and a bigger role for the United Nations in both that process and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation.

As Mr. De Villepin and Rohani were talking to reporters, thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in the predominantly Shi’ite city of Basra on the Shat-el-Arab-Arvand Rood border river just opposite Iran, responding to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shi’a leader who is of Iranian origin, urging the departure of occupying forces, the transfer of power to the Iraq’s Provisory Governing Council and elections at the earliest possible date.

As in Vienna, some members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were again expressing concern over Iranian “hidden” nuclear activities, most particularly enriching uranium, Mr. De Villepin said he was “satisfied” at Tehran’s respect of engagements undertaken in the framework of the Additional Protocols to the Non Proliferation Treaty.

De Villepin, who alongside his colleagues from Britain and Germany went to Tehran last October and convinced Mr Rohani, the Secretary of Supreme Council on National Security to sign the Protocols that allows international nuclear inspectors to make instant, unrestricted inspections on any suspected Iranian atomic project, said he was pleased with Iranian advances toward greater transparency in the nuclear program.

"These meetings must continue in the future", de Villepin said. "I'm convinced that in the framework of deepening this dialogue we will find a solution".

But informed sources told Iran Press Service that on behind closed-doors talks, Mr. Rohani, a cleric who is very close to the Iranian leader, urged his French hosts to “respect’ their side of the Tehran agreements, meaning the transfer to Iran of advanced nuclear technologies for civilian purposes.

For Tehran, providing some of the fuel for the nuclear-powered electrical plants Iran projects to erect in the future by the French nuclear firm Eurodif, of which Iran is still a shareholder is part of the engagements taken by the IAEA against Iran’s signing of the Protocols, sources noted.

Iran plan to built six new electrical plants powered by atomic energy besides the one that is under construction in the Persian Gulf port of Booshehr with assistance from Russia and counts on France and Germany to jump on the occasion, as Moscow has already announced its readiness to oblige.
The 1000 megawatts electrical plant the Russians are building in Booshehr was originally designed and started by the German firm of Siemens before the Islamic revolution of 1979 that stopped all major contracts that were signed by the Shah, including two similar projects undertaken by French companies in the oil-rich Province of Khoozestan.

The United States, pressed by Israel, is accusing Tehran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, using civilian projects, but Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared only toward producing electricity and agreed last month to accept unannounced inspections by the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency.

During his three-day stay in Paris, Mr. Rohani, expected by many Iranian analysts to become Speaker or President, was given an almost state welcome by being received by the French President Jacques Chirac and addressing the French Senate.

ENDS FRANCE IRAN 16104.

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Jan_04/france_iran_16104.html

Death of a pizza salesman
A movie retraces the tragic life of a disillusioned Iranian.
By David Sterritt | Film critic of The Christian Science Monitor

A man stands just inside the doorway of a posh jewelry shop, holding a gun and looking in bewilderment at the crowd gathering outside. Eventually he points the pistol at his head and kills himself.

The movie, "Crimson Gold," then leaps back in time to trace the causes of this violent, seemingly abrupt event.

That sounds like the starting point of a Hollywood melodrama, but the origins and aims of Jafar Panahi's latest Iranian film are very different from those of most American movies. "Crimson Gold" is a serious, unsensational exploration of class discrimination and urban alienation in a large city - in this case, Tehran - seen through the eyes of a pizza delivery man whose job exposes him to a wide cross section of society.

Panahi's movie - written by Abbas Kiarostami, the greatest Iranian filmmaker of them all - is at once a boldly conceptualized drama, a complex character study, and a gripping suspense thriller.

Some of its episodes are unlike anything I've ever encountered on the screen, as when the main character is delayed on his route by police waiting outside a ritzy apartment building to pounce on alleged wrongdoers when they try to go home from a party.

The reasons behind the story's explosive culmination are sketched in a similarly original, even eccentric, way as we follow the pizza man's increasing antipathy toward the people who look down on him.

It's easy to snicker at him, since he's often loutish; but it's just as easy to sympathize with him, since he's enjoyed few advantages in life and has no idea how to counter the condescension he inspires in smarter and wealthier people.

The eruption of Iran's great cinema is arguably the world's most exciting filmmaking development of recent years, and it hasn't stopped yet. Many Iranian movies tackle political and psychological questions through ingenious uses of metaphor, since state-sponsored censors are wary of direct approaches to sensitive issues. Gifted filmmakers like Panahi and Kiarostami keep pushing the limits, though, and "Crimson Gold" shows how thrillingly their efforts are paying off. It's a troubling, courageous, compulsively watchable work of art.

• Not rated; contains violence.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0116/p18s02-almo.htm

CIA: Saudi Arabia Will Go Nuclear

January 17, 2004
WorldNetDaily
WorldTribune.com

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded Saudi Arabia intends to acquire nuclear weapons, the intelligence newsletter Geostrategy-Direct reports.

The assessment is contained in a report by the National Intelligence Council, a group under CIA director George Tenet. The council has released a report, called "NIC 2020," that envisions trends in the Middle East and other global regions over the next two decades.

The intelligence community regards Saudi Arabia as being next in line to acquire nuclear weapons, the report said. The council asserted the United States would have more difficulty in handling Saudi Arabia, a leading exporter of crude oil, than it would have with Libya and Syria.

As Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reported in June, Saudi Arabia is among a growing list of nations that could pose a nuclear threat to the United States. Like Egypt, it has missiles and a large army and is a candidate for an Islamic revolution similar to Iran's 1979 conflict that overnight turned the country from being a stable U.S. ally to a vicious enemy.

Geostrategy reported in June that the Saudi royal family has become alarmed by the prospect of its neighbors having a nuclear bomb and has been secretly obtaining help from Pakistan for its missile and nuclear program. Riyadh helped finance Pakistan's nuclear program precisely to ensure that the royal family will have a bomb in case of an emergency, Geostrategy said.

The CIA report envisioned Saudi Arabia as reducing its dependency on the United States and using nuclear weapons to bolster the kingdom's security.

In contrast, the intelligence community sees Libya and Syria as seeking a rapprochement with Washington.

"Ironically, some of the most significant proliferation might involve moderate states such as the current Saudi regime rather than 'rogues' such as Libya or Syria," the report said. "The former will seek ways to ensure their security without overly heavy reliance on the United States. The latter will seek to escape the opprobrium of being 'rogues' and to be fully rehabilitated as members of the international community."

The report was released on Dec. 8, 11 days before the Bush administration announced a Libyan agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons and medium-range missiles. The CIA participated in a British-U.S. team that toured Libyan nuclear and missile facilities in October and December 2003.

The United States has expressed satisfaction over Libya's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspections of Tripoli's nuclear facilities. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the administration could soon review the lifting of a range of U.S. sanctions on the North African state.

"The next step is to make sure we have a clear understanding of what Libya possesses, make sure it matches up with what we think they possess and what they tell us they possess," Powell said Tuesday. "And they are very forthcoming to this point. And then make sure that we have worked with them to verify their holdings and the destruction of those holdings in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

"When we get that under control and we have a good sense of all of that, then we'll start to examine the political and policy issues that relate to bringing Libya back into a different relationship with the United States and with the rest of the international community," he said.

Intel contradicts administration

The U.S. intelligence community assessment of Saudi Arabia contrasts with statements by administration spokesmen that the kingdom would not seek to acquire nuclear weapons. That assertion, by the White House and State Department, came in October after Saudi Arabia was reported to have signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan.

The NIC report also appeared resigned to the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a development that was said to have prompted Saudi cooperation talks with Pakistan. The Iranian drive for nuclear weapons might not be affected by a change a regime in Tehran, the report said.

The intelligence community envisions increasing unrest in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A regime change in Saudi Arabia would prompt a major increase in oil prices, rock the Persian Gulf region and lead to increased tension with neighboring Iran, the report said.

"Replacement of the Saudi regime by a radical Islamist successor, for example, might increase Arabian-Iranian tensions, with a rivalry for Islamic leadership – one party Sunni, and the other Shia – overshadowing whatever common characteristics would set both regimes apart from the Al Saud," the report said.

"Radical regime change would unavoidably affect relations with Washington and probably the U.S. role in the region. It also would affect the Arab-Israeli equation – in a major way if the change of regime occurred in Egypt or Jordan."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36646

Turkey Seeks Closer Ties With Syria, Iran , Saudi Arabia

January 17, 2004
The Associated Press
Dow Jones Newswires

ISTANBUL -- Turkey, a predominantly Muslim ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is aggressively pushing for closer ties with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Turkey's government this month held high-level talks with both Syria and Iran , countries that the U.S. has accused of terrorism. And Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan headed to Saudi Arabia for a regional economic forum, ahead of talks with President George W. Bush in Washington later this month.

The diplomatic drive comes as Turkey tries to mobilize Iraq's neighbors to oppose Iraqi Kurds' plans for a federation that would include a self-governing Kurdish zone in the north. Turkey and neighbors Syria and Iran fear Iraqi Kurds might eventually push for independence and bring instability to their borders.

"We have said that a federation based on ethnic lines wouldn't be right," Erdogan told reporters Saturday before departing for Saudi Arabia. "We share this concern with neighboring countries."

Many countries in the region have long been suspicious of Turkey, because of its close ties with the U.S. and Israel.

But some of those suspicions softened last March, when the Turkish parliament, facing widespread public opposition to a war in Iraq, refused to allow U.S. troops in the country ahead of the Iraq invasion. The decision upset relations with Washington, but was hailed by many others in the region who also strongly opposed the war.

"Regional countries perceived what Turkey did as standing up to the U.S.," said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

But now Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party is eager to restore relations with the U.S. as it seeks influence in Iraq.

U.S. support for Turkey's economy also is important and in 2001 was crucial in helping Turkey to secure billion in loans from international lenders amid a crippling economic crisis.

The simultaneously improving ties with Washington and states in the region are increasing the Turkish influence and could make it a conduit between Washington and nations like Syria and Iran , which are increasingly edgy about Iraq's future, analysts say.

U.S. officials, including Bush, have spoken of Turkey as a model of a secular democracy in the region.

Syrian President Bashar Assad flew to Ankara earlier this month in the first visit to Turkey by a Syrian head of state to discuss concerns about Iraq, including the Kurdish issue.

The visit raised hopes that Syria could use warming relations with Turkey to ease ties with Washington and raise contacts with Israel.

"Iraq is becoming a unifying factor in the region," said columnist Somi Kohen of the daily Milliyet. "Turkish diplomacy is trying to mobilize public opinion in the region now. This gives Turkey the opportunity to play the role of a regional power."

In an effort to improve relations with Washington, Turkey agreed after the war to open its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition for logistical support. It even offered to send peacekeepers to Iraq, an offer that was, however, shelved because of strong Iraqi opposition to the deployment.

Turkey also is allowing more than 100,000 U.S. troops to pass through a southern air base in the coming months in a major rotation of U.S. troops - a move unforeseeable last March.

"Turkey's geography gives it an opportunity to serve as a bridge," Kohen said.

Turkey also has been careful to emphasize that its new relations with other nations in the region don't mark a shift away from the U.S.

During Assad's visit to Ankara, for example, Erdogan helped support U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region by relaying a message from U.S.-ally Israel that it was willing to sit at the table and negotiate with Syria. Syria and Israel are technically at war.

Kohen said Assad also told him in an interview that he planned to give Erdogan a message to give to Bush in Washington.

Diplomats say the U.S. doesn't appear alarmed by Turkey's new diplomatic status. But they add it is too early to say whether Turkey will have any success in pushing countries like Syria or Iran to reform.

Turkey's new diplomacy "is an attempt by the current government to enhance its current relations with the United States by acting as a conduit to Syria and Iran ," said Bulent Aliriza, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But the success of this depends more on the United States."

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=01&d=17&a=5

Damien Hirst Leads Britart's Diplomatic Mission to Iran

January 18, 2004
Independent
Mark Irving in Tehran and Raymond Whitaker

... but Antony Gormley and Mona Hatoum are withdrawn to appease Islamic hard-liners.

Damien Hirst, the enfant terrible of Britart, is spearheading a British cultural and diplomatic charm offensive in Iran - but other artists seen as more mainstream, such as Antony Gormley, have been deemed too controversial.

Contentious works, including a Hirst sculpture incorporating a human skeleton never exhibited before, will go on show in Tehran next month, just after elections that have already caused bitter tensions between Islamic hard-liners and liberals. Other works were held back by the British Council, however, including body casts by Gormley and a wheelchair with knives by Mona Hatoum.

The Hirst work, called Resurrection, consists of a human skeleton glued vertically to two interlocking panels of glass. Owned by the artist's agent, Jay Jopling, it is the centrepiece of the first exhibition being staged in Iran by the British Council since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

"The British Council is trying to establish the kind of contact that exists on a non-political level," said Michael Willson, the organisation's director in Iran. But the timing of the show will be seen as an indication of warmer relations between Britain and Iran, following the theocratic regime's agreement late last year to open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

Britain and Iran restored full diplomatic relations in 1999 after a decade-long rift caused by the late Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. But Western culture remains a delicate issue in Iran, where political moderates are engaged in a bitter confrontation with conservatives in the run-up to the 20 February election.

The British exhibition opens four days later at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art, a meeting-place for young Iranians who chafe at the restrictions imposed by hard-line clerics.

The museum's director, Dr Ali-Reza Sami-Azar, who is well-practised at knowing how far to push the boundaries, plans to display Resurrection next to a large window at the entrance. While admitting it willbe "provocative", he said it would not "cross the red line", adding: "Artists should be allowed to express their own opinions. As long as it doesn't offend against religious sensibilities or display explicit eroticism, then it can be shown."

In this respect, Breath, a new work by Shirazeh Houshiary, a London-based Iranian female artist, is particularly daring. It consists of four video screens showing breath misting on glass as texts sacred to the four great world religions - Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism - are recited.

The British Council excluded other works from the show as "too risky", including Hatoum's wheelchair with knife blades for handles. Given Hatoum's Palestinian origins, said Dr Sami-Azar, the British felt "it might create a controversy due to feelings about suicide bombers". Those feelings have been illustrated by a row last week in Sweden, where Israel's ambassador smashed a work showing a suicide bomber's portrait floating in a pool of red liquid.

The British Council, said Dr Sami-Azar, had been "quite conservative, more so than us. We didn't reject any artist they proposed".

Five other Hirst works are in the exhibition, along with sculptures by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Anthony Caro and Eduardo Paolozzi. The recent Turner Prize nominee, Anya Gallaccio, will fill a gallery with 10,000 red roses.

Speaking of the tensions in Iran, Dr Sami-Azar said he "could be sacked at any moment", adding: "Everyone looks for some excuse to take advantage of a situation and to make political capital out of it. There are those who don't like the relatively open atmosphere we have managed to build up here."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=482326

Arising in Iran

January 17, 2004
The Boston Globe
Globe Editorial

It is becoming harder than ever to ignore the contradictions at the core of Iran's Islamic Republic. The sham quality of the system's democratic facade was on display Wednesday when Iran's unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the 12 clerics he had appointed to a watchdog committee they should reconsider their disqualification of 3,600 reform candidates for Parliament. Khamenei's action in response to reformist protests might appear more democratic, but it leaves intact the Guardian Council's power to ban candidates.

The primary lesson Bush administration policy makers should draw from Iran's political crisis is to be patient. The spectacle of Iran's hard-liners thrashing about to beat back all challenges to their power while timid reformists are losing the support of a youthful population should bring home to President Bush and his advisers the value of that virtue.

The theocratic rule of the mullahs in Iran is doomed. Two-thirds of Iran's population today is under 30 years old. By overwhelming majorities they have now voted several times for regime change. They want a truly free press, freedom of speech and association, women's rights, and jobs for a rapidly expanding work force -- jobs that will come only in an economy that has been liberated from the mobster-like hold of corrupt clerics running unregulated conglomerates called religious foundations.

Since the clerics' vessel is sinking of its own accord, Bush should avoid any interventionist measures that the hard-liners might be able to use to legitimate their rule, rallying Iranians to them under the banner of nationalism. The longer the misrule of the mullahs goes on, the more Iran's youth are alienated from both the hard-line clerics and those figures such as the ineffectual President Mohammad Khatami who want to preserve the current system by making it only marginally less repressive.

Young Iranians are being inoculated against the lures of autocracy and extremism. The lesson has been painful, but they are learning to demand true democratic self-government. They have become partisans of civil and human rights and of Iran's opening up to a diverse world.

The clerical hard-liners on the Guardian Council revealed their fear not only of reformists but also of the popular will when they disqualified about half of the 8,200 candidates in the parliamentary election scheduled for Feb. 20. More than 80 of the 3,000 reformist candidates purged from the ballot are current members of Parliament, and many of them have been conducting a sit-in to protest the hard-liners' contempt for basic democratic fairness.

This is a drama about the decomposition of the system built by Khomeini. It should not be interrupted by outsiders.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/01/17/arising_in_iran/

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