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The 25th (and hopefully last) Anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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The 25th (and hopefully last) Anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

Looking back on Iran's revolution

BBC
Tuesday, 10 February, 2004, 19:13 GMT

As Iran marks the 25th anniversary of the revolution which saw the US-backed Shah ousted by supporters of the Islamic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, two people with contrasting experiences describe how the event changed their lives.

Mashallah Shams-ol-vaezin, revolution supporter-turned-dissident

Mashallah Shams-ol-vaezin, born to a traditional religious family, was 19 when the Shah was ousted. On hearing the news, he returned to Iran from exile with excitement and optimism. More than two decades later, a prominent reformist editor, he found himself jailed by the ruling regime having seen several of his newspapers closed.

Shamolvaezin: 'The revolution devoured its children'
"I was in Karachi when the news broke out. A few months previously, I had fled Iran after fleeing the garrison where I was performing my compulsory national service.

"I decided to flee when Ayatollah Khomeini said that serving the Shah's government was prohibited by Sharia law. I did not want to face the people as a soldier. I was planning to go to France.

"But I returned to Iran after the revolution. I thought that the people's ideals were going to be made reality."

"The revolution took place so quickly. I was wondering whether it would attain its goals - independence and freedom. But the tremendous and joyful victory left little room for any doubts. There was an inner sense of satisfaction."

A few years later, Mr Shams-ol-vaezin became the editor-in-chief of the country's leading newspaper at the time.

He became disillusioned when fighting for freedom of speech brought him into conflict with the ruling regime.

"When I was jailed in an Islamic Republic prison, I came to believe that revolutions devour their children.

"I also came to believe that the Islamic revolution was an exception. It not only devoured, but also chewed and crashed and digested its children.

"I am an example of such children. I was seriously distressed. I had committed no crime, I was loyal - but still I was imprisoned at the notorious Evin prison with a group of other innocent people."

On his release from prison last year, Mr Shams-ol-vaezin stopped working as a journalist.

Dariush Homayoun, information minister under the Shah

Former information minister and newspaper publisher Dariush Homayoun, now aged 70, was one of the Shah's key aides. In the dying days of the Shah's rule, about 20 top officials were sent to prison in the hope of staving off the regime's collapse. Mr Homayoun was one of them.

Anti-Shah protests mounted until the regime collapsed
"I survived at the end only because I was in jail. We heard shots from outside the prison and then somebody said that it was over, the regime was gone and we were free.

"My first concern was my own security. I did not want to be arrested again. So I handpicked a few people to contact. Only my father and a friend of mine knew where I was after I escaped from the prison.

"I stayed in Iran for 15 months. Then my father was arrested and I feared that he might speak abut my whereabouts under pressure. So I left my hiding place. One week later, revolutionary guards stormed it.

"Then my friends helped me to get out of the country. On the way out, I came to understand my fellow countrymen once again and to find out what a great people they are. I owe a lot to the people who helped me."

"During the days I spent in my hideout, I was thinking about the future of my country. I feared that my worst nightmares would come true.

"I feared that the leftists and the Islamists would take over the country. I kept thinking about the reasons why all this had happened. How could the people become so unbelievingly backward?"

Homayoun still hopes to return to Iran, one day. He says he never thought he was going to stay abroad for such a long time. "But this is politics," he says. "You cannot be sorry about it."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3476851.stm#dariush

Iranian-Americans in LA protest Iran's hard-line government

SFGate
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
(02-10) 22:55 PST LOS ANGELES (AP) --

Thousands of Iranian-Americans rallied in opposition to Iran's hard-line government Tuesday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Nearly 3,000 attended a rally outside the federal building in Los Angeles' Westwood section, police said. About 1,500 then marched while calling for a boycott of Iran's legislative elections on Feb. 20.

Iran's governing council recently disqualified hundreds of reformist candidates. The action drew strong protests from reformist lawmakers and criticism from President Mohammad Khatami, but several attempts to get all candidates reinstated failed.

Tuesday's protests were designed to show solidarity with reformist candidates, many of whom are pledging to boycott the election, activists said.

Protesters also want Western nations to distance themselves from Iran's oppressive government.

"The message is change," said Iman Foroutan, a spokesman for the Iran of Tomorrow Movement, a reformist group based in Los Angeles. "The people in Iran are ready to take matters into their own hands. All they need is ... moral support and pressure from other countries on the government."

The protest, held by a coalition of opposition groups and media outlets, coincided with this week's 25th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, during which religious clerics overthrew the American-backed shah and seized power. The hard-liners promised democracy but have ruled with an iron hand.

The three-hour march snarled traffic but was peaceful, police Sgt. Terri Brinkmeyer said. No arrests were made.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/02/10/state0155EST0208.DTL

How Iran spilled the beans implicating Pakistan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-2-2004_pg7_50 - see also http://www.iht.com/articles/128041.html and http://www.isis-online.org/

WASHINGTON: Until the middle of January this year, Iranian officials continued to insist that they obtained sensitive centrifuge drawings and components through “intermediaries” and that they did not know the original source of the items.

According to David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Iran had many other important suppliers. Individuals and companies in Europe and the Middle East also played a key role in supplying Iran’s centrifuge programme. China was the most important supplier to Iran’s programme to produce uranium compounds, including uranium hexafluoride, the highly corrosive gas used in centrifuges. Although Iran encountered many difficulties in making and operating centrifuges, postponing by many years the construction of a pilot centrifuge plant, it appears to have secretly achieved self-sufficiency in centrifuge manufacturing by the mid and late 1990s.

The ISIS experts said although Western intelligence agencies detected many of Iran’s sensitive procurements, they missed some key ones. Because it had only incomplete information, the United States had trouble convincing its allies until 2002 or 2003 that Iran’s effort to build secret gas centrifuge facilities had reached an advanced state. Lacking actionable information or intrusive inspections, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was unable to determine until recently that Iran had significantly violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Mr Albright and Mr Hinderstein said that in 1987, Iran made a significant breakthrough, obtaining a complete set of centrifuge drawings and some centrifuge components. This specific procurement may have been part of a much larger package that helped Iran understand and build centrifuges. “Armed with component specifications and drawings, Iran would be able to design and implement a strategy to develop a reliable centrifuge and create a manufacturing infrastructure to make thousands of centrifuges. It would be able to find foreign companies to make specific components, often unwittingly. In parallel, it could locate companies that would sell the equipment Iran needed to make the components itself,” they pointed out.

The ISIS team said Iran acquired drawings of a modified variant of an early-generation Urenco centrifuge built by the Netherlands. Some experts familiar with these drawings have assessed that, based on the design’s materials, dimensions and tolerances it is a modified precursor to the Dutch M4 centrifuge. IAEA inspectors noticed that someone modified the design in distinctive ways. In addition, the original drawings were shown to inspectors and their labels are in English, not Dutch or German. According to intelligence information, the design resembles one built by Pakistan in the 1980s and early 1990s that is sometimes called the P1. In addition, the centrifuge components Iran bought match those bought by Pakistan. There was other evidence that pointed to Pakistan as the source of the drawings and of at least some of the components. Much of the highly enriched uranium that the IAEA found in Iran by taking environmental samples may be consistent with material produced in Pakistan.

Last autumn, Iran provided the IAEA with a list of five middlemen and company officials who, it said, provided the drawings and other key items. Iran characterised these middlemen, who are European and Middle Eastern, as putting together orders—buying items from various companies and delivering them to Iran.. Iran’s statement to the IAEA implied that one or more of the three Germans who were identified as middlemen obtained a classified centrifuge design from Pakistan and sold it to Iran. Mr Albright and Mr Hinderstein said that in late 2003 Iran provided the IAEA with a long list of equipment suppliers, including when the equipment was purchased. Iran has also not removed or otherwise hidden nameplates that contain company names and serial numbers. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of the items Iran wanted were loosely controlled by national or international export controls. Between 1993 and 1995, it received enough components through middlemen to build 500 centrifuges. It is from centrifuges made from these imported components that traces of highly enriched uranium have been found by the IAEA, at both the site at Natanz and at Kalaye Electric in Tehran. —Khalid Hasan

Iran's mullahs protests EU criticisms

Feb 10, 2004 EUpolitix.com

Iran's ambassador to Brussels, Abolgasem Delfi, has fired off a letter to European Parliament chief Pat Cox protesting the attitude of some MEPs towards Iran.

According to reports on the Iranian News Agency, the letter stresses that this month’s parliamentary elections in the Islamic republic is an internal affair and foreign interference will not be productive.

The letter reportedly underlines that any interference in the February 20 elections would not help to strengthen Iranian ties with the European Parliament.

Iranian diplomatic sources say the text notes that Iran has its own ways to solve difficulties in relation to the poll.

A decision last month by Iran's ruling Guardian Council to ban up to 80 sitting MPs and roughly 2000 aspiring parliamentary candidates from the elections sparked international criticism.

The European Parliament is to debate the elections in Iran on Thursday and will vote on a resolution it adopted a text on Iran calling for an immediate revision by the Guardians' Council of its decision to bar some candidates from the elections.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_1687.shtml

How Charles Became a Political Pawn

February 11, 2004
The Daily Express
Paul Callin

As prince Charles faced the sun-baked heat of Riyadh yesterday it became increasingly clear that his whistle-stop tour of some of the Middle East's most controversial states is more than his usual glad-handing exercise.

Although the main reason has been touted as humanitarian, his appearance in the oil-rich state raises the question of whether the Prince is being used as a political pawn.

Quite simply, should the Prince of Wales be involved in a blatant political manoeuvring at a time when the Middle East is still a boiling cauldron of intrigue? Charles is known to have close links with the Saudi royal family, has made many private trips there and makes no secret of how much he enjoys himself there.

But this is a country which is known to have acted as a fundraising centre for Osama Bin Laden.

Critics of the Prince's visit have also pointed to Saudi Arabia's atrocious human rights record.

He has gone there in his role as President of the Red Cross. In Iran, which he visited on Monday, he was clearly moved at the sight of endless rows of tents housing survivors of the recent devastating earthquake in Bam which killed 43,000 people.

He was deeply anguished to learn that the rich citrus groves and date orchards could not be harvested because too many of the farmers had died. All this is commendable sympathy from the Prince but there can be no doubt that the trip has heavy political overtones.

The hand of the Foreign Office is clearly behind his brief visits to Iran, Iraq and now Saudi. His was the first visit to Iran by a member of our Royal Family since the abolition of the monarchy under Ayatollah Khomeini 25 years ago. While officials at Clarence House pressed the line that the trip was "totally nonpolitical" it's difficult to see how this could be the case.

BRITAIN is keen to foster close relations with Iran despite its past turbulent relationship with the West. The US is less keen on Iran and still considers it part of the "axis of evil". Is Charles being "used" in some sort of diplomatic ploy? Unfortunately, the recent disqualification of many reformist candidates means that the forthcoming elections in Iran will not be free or fair. It is unfortunate that Charles's visit seems to endorse this status quo.

The use of the Royal Family for political reasons is always dangerous. The royals should not be seen to venture in this arena, however well-meaning the mission may be. They should always be seen to be well above politics and the Foreign Office should not be able to bend the unwritten rules whenever it feels so inclined.

Although Prince Charles may well have strong political opinions of his own, he is constitutionally forbidden to be seen entering that contentious arena.

There is absolutely no harm in the Prince visiting British soldiers in Iraq and boosting morale among troops who are in a state of constant peril - although there is often a sense of weary cynicism among squaddies at such grand royal appearances. I have accompanied Prince Charles on such lightning trips in the past and, while they provide magnificent photo opportunities, the effect on the troops is not as electric as would be believed.

Soldiers, by their very hard-pressed nature, tend to grumble and the sudden appearance of Prince Charles in desert fatigues is often greeted with apathy.

There can be no doubt, though, that the Prince's advisers have seized on this entire visit as yet another image-enhancing exercise for him.

Since his divorce from Princess Diana, and particularly following her death, Prince Charles has suffered badly in the public perception.

Most recently, the Paul Burrell affair and his curious relationship with his former aide Michael Fawcett have all but held him up to public ridicule. His angry explosions over small matters, even his insistence of having a valet press his toothpaste out on to a brush - plus a myriad other revelations - have not helped his public image.

Many continue to see him as a spoilt, over-indulged middle-aged man who is deeply frustrated at not really having anything to do. There is also the question of Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles over whom the nation seems divided. Since the shadow of the late Princess Diana continues to loom over their relationship, a large section of the country remains strongly anti-Camilla.

Many people still blame her for breaking up the Prince's marriage.

It is a sad fact that, whatever Charles does in his unhappy life, he will face strong criticism. This Middle East visit is a case in point.

One wonders about the quality of his advisers when it came to weighing the pros and cons of the trip.

Surely they would have seen that it could only have raised the matter of political interference in an area that needs the most delicate handling.

Nor is he helped by his good friend Nicholas Soames, Tory defence spokesman, telling Radio 4's World At One that the visit "sends all sorts of good and valuable signals and is very much in the national interest".

In fact, the signals are those of princely political pawn-usage - and are a dangerous precedent. Judging from reports, it seems the Iranian people - though courteous - were less than impressed by the Prince's presence. On hearing that Prince Charles said that "my people in Britain are praying for you", one farmer observed that mere words were not enough.

As he put it: "It is no use if visitors just come, see what has happened and then go off. We still need help in irrigation and housing."

THE Prince should measure this sentiment up against the usefulness of his visit - and whether, in future, he should allow himself to appear to at the beck and call of the Government for blatantly political reasons. He must never be allowed to stray into an arena that can only cause him grief and further tribulation.

Nor should he allow his advisers to be so consumed with polishing his public appeal that they ignore the constitutional implications.

In Iraq, the Prince did not visit Baghdad, which with the everpresent threat of suicide bombers and anti-Western feeling was considered too perilous. Instead, he flew to the troops in Basra - though a spokesman admitted: "We don't normally take the Prince to places as dangerous as this." Let's hope that in future the Prince's advisers take notice that danger comes in many guises.

http://www.express.co.uk/

North Korea Holds Rally to Mark Islamic Revolution in Iran

February 11, 2004
BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific

Pyongyang -- A rally and film show were held here on Tuesday [10 February] on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Text of report in English by North Korean news agency KCNA

Pyongyang, 11 February -- A rally and film show were held here on Tuesday [10 February] on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Ri Won-il, minister of labour who is chairman of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]-Iran Friendship Association, said in his speech that the Iranian people put an end to monarchism and won a victory of Islamic revolution through all-people resistance under the leadership of Imam Khamene'i.

He noted that after victory the Iranian people have vigorously struggled for the sovereignty of the country, the territorial integrity and the national dignity and honour and prosperity, bravely smashing the moves of imperialists.

Saying that the Korean people should always stand by the Iranian people in the accomplishment of the just cause to defend the sovereignty of the country from imperialist aggression and interference, he noted that the Korean people would work hard to boost the friendly and cooperative relations with Iran.

Jalaleddin Namini Mianji, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the DPRK, in his reply said that the leading officials of Iran have paid deep attention to the development of the relations with the DPRK.

The mutual visits of lots of delegations of the two countries in various fields and contracts, agreements and pacts signed in the process have tightened the bonds of friendship between Iran and the DPRK, he said.

He said that the Iranian government supports the government and people of the DPRK under the wise guidance of Kim Jong-il are making progress in various domains and struggling to reunify the country despite all forms of imperialists' pressure.

He hoped for a peaceful negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula. The participants in the rally saw an Iranian feature film.

Source: KCNA news agency, Pyongyang, in English 0418 gmt 11 Feb 04

http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/

Bush Plans to Focus on Fuel Ban to End Spread of A-Bombs

February 10, 2004
The New York Times
David E. Sanger

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is to announce a new proposal on Wednesday to limit the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel, senior administration officials said Tuesday. He will declare that the global network in nuclear goods set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, developer of Pakistan's bomb, exposed huge gaps in accords to stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology, they added.

In an afternoon speech at the National Defense University, they said, Mr. Bush will call for a re-examination of what one official called the "basic bargain" underlying the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: that those states that promise not to pursue nuclear weapons will receive help in producing nuclear fuel for power generation.

Iran admitted last year that it had cheated on that agreement for 18 years, secretly building uranium enrichment facilities, though the country denied that it intended to produce weapons. North Korea abandoned the treaty last year and declared it was making nuclear arms.

Dr. Khan's network secretly sold equipment to both countries, and to Libya, American and Pakistani officials have said.

The administration officials said Mr. Bush would not call for a reopening of the 1970 treaty, which one said would be "too hard." Instead, he will appeal to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, 40 countries that sell most nuclear technology, to refuse to sell equipment to any country that is not already equipped to make nuclear fuel, either by enriching uranium or by reprocessing spent fuel for plutonium.

But the officials did not describe any new enforcement mechanisms.

In a briefing on Tuesday evening, one administration official said Iran and North Korea were examples of "regimes which have cynically exploited loopholes in the existing treaty" to build up their capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

While proliferation experts have long agreed that the treaty is flawed, Mr. Bush's proposal is bound to raise protests from developing nations, which say the United States and, by extension, the other declared nuclear states — Britain, France, Russia and China — are trying to extend their rights to produce weapons while denying that status to other states.

In addition to those five, Israel, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and North Korea is believed by American intelligence agencies to have at least two and perhaps several more.

Israel is a particularly difficult case for the United States because it has never declared its nuclear ability and has never signed the nonproliferation treaty. Its Arab neighbors and Pakistan have said that any reopening of nuclear regulation should start with forcing Israel to sign the treaty.

In the briefing, the official also said Mr. Bush would discuss for the first time the details of how Dr. Khan's network operated, being careful to praise President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and to portray Dr. Khan, the former head of Khan Research Laboratories, as a rogue scientist.

Another administration official said Mr. Bush would cast the Khan case as a victory for American intelligence operations, describing "how we uncovered the reach of the network, how we identified the key individuals, how we followed the key transactions, and how we monitored the movement of material and recorded conversation and penetrated operations."

The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, made a similar case last week, and administration officials clearly hope the story of the intelligence surrounding the Khan network will be a counterpoint to criticisms of how Iraq's weapons program was misjudged.

Mr. Bush is also to identify B. S. A. Tahir, a Sri Lanka-born trader who moved to Dubai as a child, as the "other major node" in the Khan network.

It was Mr. Tahir, who divides his time between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, who negotiated with a Malaysian company called Scomi to produce parts for high-speed centrifuges, which enrich uranium, Scomi officials have said. It was the interception of one such shipment to Libya in October that allowed American intelligence officials to present Pakistan with evidence about Dr. Khan.

In recent days, efforts to reach Mr. Tahir in Malaysia have been unsuccessful. He owns 49 percent of a computer company, S.M.B. Computers, in Dubai, according to Dubai government documents. Scomi officials have identified him as one of the men who negotiated the deal under which they produced the parts.

Mr. Bush's speech will mark the first time Mr. Tahir has been publicly identified by the United States as a major player, though intelligence officials have mentioned, on background, what they say was his central role in arranging the transfer of centrifuge components from Malaysia to Dubai and on to Libya.

Mr. Bush's proposals appear to be intended to crack down on states like North Korea and Iran without reopening negotiations that could limit the United States' own ability to produce nuclear fuel for weapons and power, or stop allies like Japan from producing such fuel for power plants. China says Japan's program could be diverted to weapons.

He is expected to implicitly reject, for example, an alternative proposal by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, for an international organization to control the production of all nuclear fuel and how it is used.

The Bush adminstration has already, in effect, dismissed that approach as unworkable, in part, experts say, because it would limit Washington's ability to produce fuel for its nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Bush's insistence on moving ahead with research on a new class of so-called bunker-busting nuclear weapons has been cited by his opponents — including many in Europe — as an example of a double standard in which he seeks to stop other states from building weapons while continuing to improve the American arsenal.

The official also said in the briefing that Mr. Bush would propose expanding the Nunn-Lugar program, in which Congress appropriates funds to destroy weapons and retrain former Soviet weapons experts.

His plan would extend the program to scientists in other nations, including Iraq. But Mr. Bush will propose no new financing, and no expansion of the program is included in the budget he sent to Congress last week. Democrats say the existing program is underfinanced.

Mr. Bush will also call for an expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a loose affiliation of countries, organized by the United States, to intercept unconventional weapons. The seizure of the Libyan shipment in October was the biggest single success, though other equipment has been seized on the way to North Korea.

In the briefing, the administration official said Mr. Bush would propose several changes to the internal operations of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency, which has had rocky relations with the Bush administration over Iraq, did not know that Mr. Bush planned to speak on nonproliferation until informed by a reporter on Tuesday.

The official said Mr. Bush would call for a new committee within the agency to monitor compliance with "safeguards" agreements, which allow inspection where nuclear fuel or weapons work may be conducted.

He will also call on the agency's board to bar from it any country under investigation. Iran was a board member throughout a confrontation last year over allowing full inspections of its facilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/politics/11PREX.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Iran is Moving Into Afghanistan

February 11, 2004
National Review Online
Jed Babbin

With Karzai's permission, Iran is establishing terrorist bases in Afghanistan.

Last Saturday, the Iranian government made an extraordinary announcement. The mullahs' Islamic Republic News Agency said that they had completed construction of ten "border outposts" inside the Harat province of Afghanistan. According to the report, these are in addition to others all along the border, inside Nimrouz, Sistan, Baluchestan, and Farah provinces. That the mullahs are doing this at all — with the apparent consent of the Karzai government and without any objection from us — is simply astounding. In effect, Karzai has invited them in to foment terrorism and insurgency against our forces and against his struggling government.

Iran is the central terrorist nation. Hezbollah — the terrorists who operate as functionaries of Syria — are backed and paid for by Tehran, as are several other terrorist organizations. Iran has admitted that several of the al Qaeda leadership are in Iran, supposedly under arrest, but more likely being given sanctuary and assistance. Iran, already well armed with missiles and WMD, has built several nuclear "research" sites, many of which are well buried to protect them from air strikes. They don't want to be the recipients of a message from Israel like the one that destroyed Iraq's Osirak facility in 1981.

As Undersecretary of State John Bolton explained last November, Iran's nuclear program is — despite what the Clouseaus of the International Atomic Energy Agency say — working hard to develop nuclear weapons. Enriched plutonium, which even the IAEA managed to find at one Iranian nuclear site, has no peaceful purpose. More than two years ago one of Iran's leaders, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, said that if the Islamic world can get nuclear weapons it should use them on Israel, because they can destroy Israel while the Islamic world would survive a nuclear counterattack. These are the people Karzai is inviting into his country.

The Iranians are being quite clever, saying that their Afghan outposts will be manned by "special police" for a campaign against poppy cultivation. Iran's interest in poppy production is the same as its interests in nuclear weapons: They don't plan on using nukes on themselves, and they have an active antidrug campaign that works against the heroin traffickers who try to sell their wares in Iran. But others cross Iran from Afghanistan to reach heroin labs in eastern Turkey and in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. Heroin sales are used to finance terror. Intercepted al Qaeda shipments of heroin prove that well enough. The Iranians' having antidrug cops inside Afghanistan may aid them in stopping some shipments to local drug sellers, but it will also allow them to provide safe conduct for those shipments that are meant for their terrorist allies and operatives.

By allowing the Iranians in, the Afghans are providing them with the best cover they can get: a legal right to operate inside Afghanistan. The Iranians will catch a few "suspect" druggies to show the world that they're good guys. To better achieve their "mission" against poppy growing, Iranian forces will range over large areas of Afghanistan. They will claim that any interference in any of their operations is unlawful and only helps the drug smugglers. If American troops interfere in their terrorist operations, the Iranians will fight. There will be small skirmishes between Iranian "police" and our special-ops troops. But the Iranians don't want an open war against the United States, at least not yet. So they will complain to the Karzai government, which, having trapped itself, will have to ask us to leave the Iranians alone. The whole mess may end up in another drawn-out U.N. debate, which will blame America for helping the drug smugglers. We can't let it get that far.

At this writing, there are still about ten thousand American troops and eight thousand NATO troops in Afghanistan, trying to stabilize the country so that democracy can take hold. Facing them — or, more accurately, operating in the shadows all around them — are the resurgent Taliban, al Qaeda, and agents of both the Pakistani and Iranian regimes. Pakistan's military intelligence agency — the ISI — was instrumental in the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and is allied with terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. Iran is more powerful, and thus more of an immediate threat to Afghanistan. The dozen Iranian outposts are also a direct challenge to the American and NATO forces. They will have to be watched every moment, and movement of people beyond their immediate vicinity will have to be stopped. This will tie up many of our special-ops troops, who are also out chasing the Taliban remnants and bin Laden himself.

The Iranians are setting themselves up to take Afghanistan by stealth, gradually and certainly. They will use their outposts to smuggle al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, as well as weapons and money, in and out of Afghanistan. They must be stopped with whatever force it takes. Otherwise, Iran's presence will grow, and so will its interference in the Afghan government's ability to establish security for its own people. The Iranians are preparing to fight a guerilla war against the Karzai government and the Western forces now in the country. They are readying the battlefield for a coming fight on their terms. We cannot allow this to proceed, and we need to force them out, but before we can we must persuade the Karzai government to reverse itself and deny the Iranians permission to enter Afghanistan.

If Afghanistan is free — or at least free of the Taliban regime for the time being — it is to President Bush's credit. But in Afghanistan, like Iraq, the battle is far from over. Karzai must act quickly and withdraw his permission for the Iranians to bring any police or troops into Afghanistan. The Iranians should be told to pack up and get out of town by sundown. If they don't, they should be evicted with whatever force may be required. Closing these outposts will not end infiltration from Iran, but it will make a stealthy invasion much harder.

— NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration.

http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin200402110915.asp

Bring on the Revolution, Says Reza Pahlavi

February 11, 2004
The Times
Charles Bremner

A quarter of a century after the Shah fled Iran, his son and heir to the Peacock Throne is convinced that his country is ripe for peaceful revolution.

However, the coming regime change is, he says, not being helped by visits from the Prince of Wales or by other Western overtures to Tehran.

Reza Pahlavi, 43, voiced his dim view of the Prince of Wales's trip in an interview with The Times yesterday. He urged the world to desist from dealing with what he depicts as a doomed Islamic republic.

"There is still confusion about supporting a reformist movement," the man who would be king said. "On one hand are the people of Iran; on the other there is the regime. You take your pick. Whose side do you want to be on?"

Sitting in a little Paris office with the royal tricolour behind him, the man known to his entourage as The Prince said that Iranians appreciated the concern of British royalty for Iranian earthquake victims, but that such contacts with Tehran helped to prop up the ayatollahs' state. "When you are in a very critical period, any kind of engagement could be seen as a gesture of appeasement. It would obviously be detrimental," he said.

Some may see his opinion as marginal. He has not seen Iran since the American-backed monarchy fell to a popular uprising in 1979. He was 18 and learning to fly in Texas at the time. For a few years he led a nomadic existence, but, since settling and studying in the United States in 1983, Mr Pahlavi, as he is known there, has devoted his life to the cause of a democratic Iran.

Nostalgia keeps the big Iranian diaspora -which is concentrated in Los Angeles and Paris -loyal to him. He has also emerged as a figurehead for the young in Iran. They are weary of the impotence of President Khatami and parliamentary reformers in the face of the Islamic Governing Council. Tehran students chanted Mr Pahlavi's name in the 1999 protests and there is evidence of support in Tehran on Persian-language satellite television from the US.

Mr Pahlavi looks and sounds more like a polished executive than a throneless "King of Kings" and uses a light touch to plead his case in elegant English and French.

He quotes from a crumpled printout from the Iranian Information Ministry, which says that 89 per cent of voters intend to boycott the elections next week to the Majlis (parliament).

Mr Pahlavi's grandfather, Reza Shah, was installed as ruler of Iran in a coup supported by Britain in 1921. He says that he would like to resume the throne "if the people so choose", but insists that his greatest preoccupation now is to use his name simply to encourage and promote better co-ordination between the opposition movements.

His aim is a "grand coalition" for democracy inside and outside Iran that could lead to a referendum.

http://timesonline.co.uk/

Tens of millions of Iranians boycott revolution's 25th Anniversary "celebration"

Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran ^ | 2.11.2004 | SMCCDI (Information Service)
Posted on 02/11/2004 7:55:00 AM PST by DoctorZIn

Tens of millions of Iranians boycotted today what was supposed to be qualified as the "Celebration" of "25 Years of Glory". Millions and milions stayed home by turning, once again, their backs to the Islamic republic regime and its dark legacy.

In Tehran, the regime was just able to gather a professional crowd rich of less than 150 thousands and in main provincial cities the number was much lesser than any other year. It's to note that the population of the Greater Tehran is around 15 millions of inhabitants and that some of the regime's mouthpieces have reported that the today's demonstrators were brought to the Azadi square by around 4000 buses which had departed from 7 "gathering points".

SMCCDI had revelead eralier that confirming reports from main Iranian cities and especially the Capital were stating about the start of mass transfers of paid "celebrators" and future "voters" to these cities. These transfers managed and supervised by the Offices of Islamic Propagation and the Pasdaran Intelligence are made in preparation of the "celebration" of the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, on Wednesday, and the regime's sham parliamentary elections of Feb. 20th.

Full buses reached the cities of Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, tabriz, Mashad, Hamadan and Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) by delivering their load of paid rural people who are receiving money, gifts, promises and free full paid travel to cities.

Most of the state's foundations' hotels and dorm places, Bassij centers, mosques and even part of the regime's military facilities, such as in Lavizan (NE of Tehran) are lodging these guests.

The regime intends by this way to boost its "popular legitimacy" and avoid empty streets on these days while each of the ministries received the order to gather groups of employees, school students and plainclothes militaries and to send them for the two events.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1075968/posts?page=1

25th Anniversary of Iran's Revolution

By Alireza Jafarzadeh
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 11, 2004

Today, February 11, marks the silver anniversary of the popular revolution that toppled the dictatorship in Iran, but turned into a nightmare when Ayatollah Khomeini and his firebrand clerics erected a fundamentalist theocracy.

Exploiting the anti-Western sentiments, Khomeini perverted the revolution as an Islamic crusade against the “Great Satan” and brutally crushed the democratic opposition.

Having eliminated all voices of dissent by sending tens of thousands to the gallows, the ruling clerics, as desperate as ever, have now turned on their partners of the past twenty-five years by disqualifying thousands of rival candidates in the parliamentary elections set for February 20.

While some in the West continue to paint the recent row as a “hard-line” vs. “moderate” showdown, the impasse reflects the dire state of a ruthless, incompetent and corrupt regime that has run aground, to the point where it can no longer tolerate its accomplices in a quarter of a century of bloody rule.

To run for office, all candidates must declare their “heart-felt” and “practical” allegiance to the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute clerical supremacy). In all these years, Mohammad Khatami and his camp have gone out of their way to assure the rival faction and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of that loyalty.

That the watchdog vetting body, the Guardian Council, disqualified out of nearly 8,200 candidates some 3,000, including dozens of incumbent deputies, underlines the undemocratic and illegitimate nature of this election.

The Iranian public’s widespread apathy toward the developments in recent weeks, including the sit-in in the Parliament building by dozens of disqualified deputies, makes it clear that for the vast majority of Iranians elections is a sham. No more than 10 percent of the electorate cast their ballots in the “Islamic” councils’ elections last year that pitted the so-called reformers against the hard-liners. Even more so, most observers believe, the upcoming parliamentary elections will be shunned by the vast majority of the Iranians.

The Supreme Leader insisted that the election must go ahead as planned, and not a day later. He warned his rivals not to play into the hands of “foreign” enemies and those bent on toppling the Islamic Republic. “Elections will be held on time on the basis of your order,'' obeyed the lame duck president in a letter. Once again Khatami did not live up to his promise when he had earlier vowed to only hold elections that were “competitive, free and fair.”

“Khatami should not turn into an instrument in the hands of hard-liners,'' an angry prominent supporter of Khatami told the Associated Press.

In addition to proving the “reformist” faction a total travesty, this has further exposed the vulnerability and the fragile state of the ruling theocracy to the point where it cannot tolerate even those who have helped this fundamentalist regime remain in power since its inception. It has also shown to the outside world what millions in Iran have already opined: The mullahcracy is illegitimate and must be removed in its entirety.

Where does this leave the international community and the United States?

To be sure, the Europeans, in hot pursuit of business, continue to promote engagement with Tehran, reflected in the French President’s receiving last month of Hassan Rowhani, one of the most hard-line pro-Khamenei clerics. They appear to have found some allies among traditional Iran appeasers in Washington who are still in search of illusory moderates in Iran.

Others argue, as did former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, in his address to some 5,000 Iranian Americans in Washington last month, that “there is no question where the power lies in Iran today; it isn’t through the electoral process... It’s a hand full of self appointed dictators. And to believe that we can do business with them is to fail to completely understand what we are up against.”

“What the mullahs fear the most is the expression of the people of Iran. That is why they would do everything they can to resist a referendum and that is why there must be a referendum,” added Mr. Perle.

The United States has now the historic opportunity to side with the millions in Iran in their call for a United Nations supervised referendum as the last peaceful recourse to regime change in Iran.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the president of Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. in Washington and is a longtime commentator on Middle Eastern and Iranian affairs.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12136

This just in from inside of Iran…

The regime is reporting their crowd in Tehran is over 1,000,000.

A student in Tehran wrote me saying this is impossible.

Here is his reasoning.

He claims the length of that street the demonstration took place in is not more than 7 or 8 kms and the width is around 40 meters.

So if you multiply 8000 mts by 0.4 mt, you get 3200 Sq Mts (surface of the region that people stood on).

So if only 100 people stand on every 1 sq mt of that surface (( which is impossible ))
then you wont be able to see more than 320,000 protestors which most of them are imported to the city.

DoctorZin Note: February 20th we will see the size of the support the regime actually has when the elections are held. Most observers expect fewer than 10% of the potential voters will actually got the polls and large numbers of them will do so out of fear.

Khatami Calls for 'Third Way'

February 11, 2004
The Associated Press
MSNBC News

TEHRAN, Iran -- On the 25th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, its reformist president attacked the vast powers of ruling conservatives Wednesday, saying restrictions on political freedoms pose a “threat to the nation.”

President Mohammad Khatami’s warning could heighten the current political friction ahead of Feb. 20 parliamentary elections that many reformers plan to boycott.

“Elections are a symbol of democracy if they are performed correctly,” Khatami told crowds gathered in a huge square to celebrate the collapse of the Western-backed monarchy in 1979. “If this is restricted, it’s a threat to the nation and the system. This threat is difficult to reverse.”

The setting for Khatami’s remarks showed the depth of the nation’s political turmoil. Normally, revolution anniversary events are dominated by predictable praise for the Islamic struggle and denunciations of “enemies” led by the United States.

But Khatami broke with tradition by using the nationally broadcast forum to discuss his frustration about hard-line tactics that have pitched Iran into one of its most serious political crises since the revolution.

Reformist candidates disqualified

More than 3,000 reformist candidates for Iran’s 290-seat parliament, or Majlis, were disqualified from the election by the hard-line Guardian Council, which claimed the candidates lacked the criteria to stand for office.

The disqualified candidates included 80 sitting members of parliament.

Liberal lawmakers countered with sit-ins and protests. The council later reinstated about 1,100 candidates, but reformists said that was insufficient.

Khatami bowed to pressure from the powerful theocracy and agreed to hold the elections, but he said the polls will be unfair.

“For the prosperity of the nation, I don’t know any path other than reforms,” he said. “Whether I succeed or not and whether obstacles keep preventing me from fulfilling my promises or not, I know no other path and won’t choose a path other than reforms.”

A major boycott — urged by a wide-ranging coalition from activists to academics — likely would return control of parliament to conservatives.

The backlash, however, could lead to huge political rifts and greater street demonstrations calling for ruling clerics to relinquish some of their virtually unlimited controls.

Khatami calls for 'third way'

In his speech, Khatami called for a “third way” avoiding Western-style models and a Taliban-like system led by “those who don’t consider the rights of the people ... and oppose freedom and democracy using religion.”

“Blocking the demands of the people and their right to vote ... causes frustration, especially among the young,” he said.

Iran’s largest reformist party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, has joined the boycott camp. The party is led by the president’s younger brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, who is deputy speaker of parliament and one of those barred from the election.

State media has urged voters to ignore the boycott and turn out in large numbers.

Reformists won control of parliament in 2000 for the first time since the 1979 revolution, which deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and brought a conservative clerical government led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.

But hard-liners have used their control of unelected bodies such as the 12-member Guardian Council to thwart attempts to liberalize Iran’s political system and relax its strict Islamic social code.

Anniversary celebrations

Most events scheduled for the anniversary celebration gave little hint of Iran’s current political crisis. Millions of Iranians held marches around the country, waving banners and flags.

In Tehran, some of the banned reformist candidates even joined the rallies — attempting to contrast the revolution’s dream of greater freedoms with their current showdown against forces some dissidents have called an “Islamic dictatorship.”

A statement distributed by a pro-reform group, Organization of the Islamic Revolution, said, “Unfortunately the people ... are struggling for the freedom that was promised them but never implemented.”

Tens of thousands of people streamed to Azadi Square to hear Khatami or gathered in other areas that had a street-fair flavor with food stalls and music.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4241570/

Election Boycott Could Signal New Iranian Revolution

Scotsman
2.11.2004

Under banners and balloons praising the Islamic Revolution, crowds streamed on to the streets of Teheran today to celebrate a death – the end of the Western-backed monarchy 25 years ago.

In another part of Teheran – away from the speeches and patriotic songs – a student activist was waging a quiet counterattack on the system that succeeded the shah.

He worked the phones and faxes to support the boycott of February 20 parliamentary elections that liberals consider have been hijacked by Iran’s ruling theocracy.

The dissident also dreams of someday joining an even bigger protest.

He calls it a “pink revolution:” applying the same tactics of mass resistance and clear goals that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used to claim control of Iran in 1979.

“I don’t like what has happened,” said Roozbeh Riazi, a leader of the Office for Fostering Unity, Iran’s biggest reformist student movement.

A growing array of believers – from think tank analysts to veterans of Iran’s political scuffles – say next week’s elections may offer a defining moment for the country.

It could, they say, finally clarify and energise the so-called reform movement that started with the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and his calls for “Islamic democracy”.

“This boycott is the beginning of the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Qasem Sholeh Sadi, a former lawmaker who wrote a stunning open letter in 2002 to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei complaining about a lack of political openness. “The boycott is the start of social disobedience.”

For years, Iranian reformists have been unable to find a unifying theme. Some pressed for more social freedoms. Others sought a greater voice in political affairs or expanded human rights.

But the anger over the elections could sharpen the focus straight to the top: the almost unlimited power of the ruling clerics.

President Khatami has not made it clear whether he will join the boycott. But he used the Islamic Revolution ceremonies to take a sharp jab at the system.

“Elections are a symbol of democracy if they are performed correctly,” Khatami said in a speech. “If this is restricted, it’s a threat to the nation and the system. This threat is difficult to reverse.”

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2520153

"I" as in Icarus

February 06, 2004
Iran Institute for Democracy
Professor Adam Przeworski In an interview with Ramin Parham

“I” as in “Icarus”*

“Daedalus conceived to escape from the Labyrinth with Icarus from Crete by constructing wings and then flying to safety. He built the wings from feathers and wax, and before the two set off he warned Icarus not to fly too low lest his wings touch the waves and get wet, and not too high lest the sun melt the wax. But the young Icarus, overwhelmed by the thrill of flying, did not heed his father's warning, and flew too close to the sun whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.”
The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus

From the University of Warsaw (Philosophy, and Sociology) and the Polish Academy of Sciences, to the University of Chicago and Northwestern University (Political Science); From Mannheim Germany to l’Université de Genève onto the Paris-based Ecoles des Hautes Etudes Pratiques; From Kanpur India’s I.I.T., to Santiago Chile’s FLACSO, Adam Przeworski, Carroll and Milton Petrie Research Professor of Political Economy and Democratic Theory at New York University, co-author of “Modernization, Theories and Facts” (1), a statistical analysis into the interaction and putative correlation between “affluence” and “democracy”, accepted our invitation with interest and generosity. And he did so, despite “the heavy winter storm” …

The answers are rooted in experience and knowledge, overlapping geography, geopolitical upheavals, and scientific domains. Some of the questions remain open, for questions are meant to be open-ended. And the storm goes on, for the storm will never end.

Ramin Parham (RP): In 1959, Lipset observed the relation between democracy and affluence. Could you please elaborate on this and tell us to what degree, in your knowledge, Lipset's theory had an influence on those years' development programs in developing countries?

Adam Przeworski (AP) : Lipset observed that most developed countries were democratic while most poor countries suffered from various forms of dictatorship. But he was not clear as to why this pattern would emerge. Through most of his writing, his main hypothesis was that "the more affluent a country, the more likely it is that it would sustain democracy" (I am quoting from memory), that is, once democracy is installed, it is more likely to survive in a more developed than in a less developed country. This hypothesis must be distinguished from the claim that as countries develop they are more likely to establish democracy, which was the main claim of the modernization theory. But Lipset vacillated between the two stories.

The hypothesis that attracted the attention of the US policy makers was the latter: they believed that there was a "benign line" that led to development and to the emergence of democracy. This hypothesis, in turn, was combined with the widespread belief, influenced by the economic success of the communist countries, that dictatorships promote economic growth of poor countries more effectively than democracies (I summarize this literature in my 2000 book). When combined together, these beliefs led to a policy of supporting dictatorships, so that they would generate development, with the expectation that once countries develop democracy will emerge spontaneously. Later on, in the 1980s, a distinction was made by Jane Kirkpatrick, between "authoritarian" dictatorships that are capable of turning into democracies and the "totalitarian" ones that never would. Hence, the Reagan administration could support the military dictatorship in Chile, while at the same time combating communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. As we show in DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT neither of these beliefs was true: dictatorships, on the average, do not develop faster than democracies, and even when they develop, they are not more likely to transit to democracy.

RP: In 1968, Samuel Huntington puts the emphasis not on "the form of the government" and their "holding elections" but on the "degree of government" meaning the "degree of organization". What was Huntington’s position about? To what extent this view differed from that of Lipset? What were its basics tenets? What was its impact on policy making in the developing world?

AP: Huntington observed that democracies were falling in several countries that reached middle levels of development. His view was that while democracy does survive in the most developed countries, development of poor countries generates political instability, promoting dictatorships. The reason, he thought, was that development promoted political participation which, in turn, led to demands that could not be satisfied given the level of development. Hence, development generates crises of "governability." What mattered, in his view, was that countries were effectively governed, but not how the rulers were selected. His prescription was to restrict political participation. Hence, he provided a rationale for policies supporting authoritarian regimes of all stripes as long as they maintained order.

RP: What is "modernization"? How does it differ from "westernization"?

AP: The theory of modernization which emerged in the 1950s maintained that development is a general process in which particular social transformations necessarily follow one another. Industrialization leads to urbanization, which in turn leads to increased communication, an expansion of education, and eventually to political participation, that is, democracy. The exact causal sequence was a matter of dispute among modernization theorists, but they shared the belief that such transformations necessarily lead one to another.

This theory generated two types of dissent. Almond and Verba (CIVIC CULTURE) observed that while modernization generates all these economic and technological transformations, it does not automatically produce a "democratic," Western culture that in their view is necessary for democracy. Huntington, as well as O'Donnell (BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITARIANISM), observed that this process is not linear: modernity produces democracy but modernization creates conflicts that end in dictatorships. "Modernization," in these views, was the same as "Westernization”. Since all countries had to follow the same path, they would all end in the same place, which was the pattern of the already developed countries, all of which were "Western."

RP: Under an evolutionary angle, how would you see the evolution of governance?

Do not know.

RP: Borrowing from biology, would it possible to talk about the ontogenesis of democracy?

AP: Modernization theorists would certainly think so. I do not. Even when they share the same distant path, particular countries varied enormously in their subsequent economic and political history. Between 1946 and 1999, Argentina experienced nine regime changes, Costa Rica continued as a democracy (except for a brief civil war in 1948), while Paraguay continued as a dictatorship. I do not believe that there are general patterns of development.

RP: In the concluding remarks to your study "Modernization: Theories and Facts", World Politics 49, Number 2, January 1997, you state that "there are no grounds to believe that economic development breeds democracies". Can democracy be established from "above"? If yes, are there any precedents?

AP: I have a view on this which not everyone shares, namely, I believe that in a way all democracies are established "from above," that is, as a result of bargains among elites. But at the same time, I believe that elites are led to such bargains -- to agree to disagree -- only when there is strong popular pressure in support of democracy. Perhaps the extreme case where this pressure was almost non-existent was Hungary in 1989. But even in Great Britain, the successive extensions of suffrage followed periods of popular mobilization, in fact, both in 1832 and in 1867 riots.

RP: England had its land reform in the 13th century (the Japanese on the aftermath of WWII; Iran in 1963). Subsequently, the British understood very early the relationship between a "capitalist market" economy and "freedom" (reform of serfdom) [cf. "In the Wake of the Plague", by Norman F. Cantor, Perennial editions 2001). Does "freedom" come before "democracy"? If yes, in what form?

AP: This hypothesis goes back to Marx (CAPITAL, vol. III) and finds echoes in Schumpeter (CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM, AND DEMOCRACY). Marx's idea was that since capitalist production requires the mobility of labor (otherwise firms could not compete), under capitalism political authority must be distinct from property. Under feudalism, the lords were at the same time the owner of peasants' labor and their political superior. Under capitalism, labor must be free. As Marx once said "that medieval proverb “nulle terre sans seigneur” was replaced by that other proverb “l'argent n'a pas de maître”. (I cite from memory). The current view is that "the rule of law" preceded democracy, understood as a method of choosing rulers through competitive elections, but this is a complicated topic (See HOLMES in MARAVALL AND PRZEWORSKI (EDS), DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW, NEW YORK: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2003). In any case, this hypothesis cannot be interpreted to imply that once capitalism is established, democracy must follow. There are quite a few countries where capitalism flourished for a long time without democracy.

RP: 8. "Modernity" seems to be to the social sciences, what the genetic approach is to biology and the quantum theory to physics: a unifying theory. Most cultural entities, from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism ...in the East to Judeo-Christian cultures in the West have embraced Modernity at some point. What is "Modernity"?

AP: I am afraid that this issue is so ideologically charged that I prefer not to get into it. Perhaps at one time we knew what "modern" was supposed to mean but if you read the "post-modern" literature, it becomes completely unclear. Certainly, "traditional" vs "modern" is not a good distinction. It turns out that many "traditions" are newly invented. All I can say is that I do not believe that the approach that dominated the social thinking since the beginning of the nineteenth century -- a necessary evolution from "traditional" to "modern" -- has proven not to be illuminating.

RP: Professor Przeworski, thank you for your time and insightful comments.

(1) World Politics, 49, January 1997, No. 2, p. 155-183.

* The Myth OF Daedalus & Icarus: Daedalus was a highly respected and talented Athenian artisan descendent from the royal family of Cecrops, the mythical first king of Athens. He was known for his skill as an architect, sculpture, and inventor and he produced many famous works. Despite his self-confidence, Daedalus once committed a crime of envy against Talus, his nephew and apprentice. Talus, who seemed destined to become as great an artisan as his uncle Daedalus, was inspired one day to invent the saw after having seen the way a snake used its jaws. Daedalus, momentarily stricken with jealousy, threw Talus off of the Acropolis. For this crime, Daedalus was exiled to Crete and placed in the service of King Minos, where he eventually had a son, Icarus, with the beautiful Naucrate, a mistress-slave of the King. Minos called on Daedalus to build the famous Labyrinth in order to imprison the dreaded Minotaur. The Minotaur was a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. He was the son of Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, and a bull that Poseidon had sent to Minos as a gift. Minos was shamed by the birth of this horrible creature and resolved to imprison the Minotaur in the Labyrinth where it fed on humans, which were taken as "tribute" by Minos and sacrificed to the Minotaur in memory of his fallen son Androgenos. Theseus, the heroic King of Athens, volunteered himself to be sent to the Minotaur in the hopes of killing the beast and ending the "human tribute" that his city was forced to pay Minos. When Theseus arrived to Crete, Ariadne, Minos's daughter, fell in love with him and wished to help him survive the Minotaur. Daedalus revealed the mystery of the Labyrinth to Ariadne who in turn advised Theseus, thus enabling him to slay the Minotaur and escape from the Labyrinth. When Minos found out what Daedalus had done he was so enraged that he imprisoned Daedalus & Icarus in the Labyrinth themselves.

Daedalus conceived to escape from the Labyrinth with Icarus from Crete by constructing wings and then flying to safety. He built the wings from feathers and wax, and before the two set off he warned Icarus not to fly too low lest his wings touch the waves and get wet, and not too high lest the sun melt the wax. But the young Icarus, overwhelmed by the thrill of flying, did not heed his father's warning, and flew too close to the sun whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea. Daedalus escaped to Sicily and Icarus' body was carried ashore by the current to an island then without a name. Heracles came across the body and recognized it, giving it burial where today there still stands a small rock promontory jutting out into the Aegean Sea, and naming the island and the sea around it after the fallen Icarus.

http://www.iraninstitutefordemocracy.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=37

Arafat's Wife Under French Scrutiny, Will Millionaire Mullahs be Next?

February 11, 2004
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRIB News

Paris -- The Paris public prosecutor's office is investigating the wife of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on suspicion of money laundering, the weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported Wednesday.

According to the paper, prosecutors want to know the source of some 9 million Euros (11.4 million dollars) transferred between July 2002 and July 2003 from Switzerland to two Paris bank accounts belonging to Suha Arafat, who lives in the French capital.

The inquiry was opened in October of last year after the French Finance Ministry's money-laundering cell alerted Paris prosecutors to the transfers.

The paper reported that of the sum allegedly transferred to Suha Arafat's accounts, 2 million Euros were paid to the office of the well-known interior decorator Alberto Pinto, for reasons that remained unclear.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=198330

Iranian News Agency Alleges Presidential Candidate John Kerry Sends Email Message

February 12, 2004 No.661
Memri.org

According to an article published in the Tehran Times, the office of U.S. Senator and leading Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry sent an email message to the Mehr News Agency . The following is the article as it appeared in English : [1]

"The office of Senator John Kerry, the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary in the U.S., sent the Mehr News Agency an email saying that Kerry will try to repair the damage done by the incumbent president if he wins the election. The text of the e-mail follows:

"'As Americans who have lived and worked extensively overseas, we have personally witnessed the high regard with which people around the world have historically viewed the United States. Sadly, we are also painfully aware of how the actions and the attitudes demonstrated by the U.S. government over the past three years have threatened the goodwill earned by presidents of both parties over many decades and put many of our international relationships at risk.

"'It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States to restore our country's credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.

"'We are convinced that John Kerry is the candidate best qualified to meet this challenge. Senator Kerry has the diplomatic skill and temperament as well as a lifetime of accomplishments in [the] field of international affairs. He believes that collaboration with other countries is crucial to efforts to win the war on terror and make America safer.

"'An understanding of global affairs is essential in these times, and central to this campaign. Kerry has the experience and the understanding necessary to successfully restore the United States to its position of respect within the community of nations. He has the judgment and vision necessary to assure that the United States fulfills a leadership role in meeting the challenges we face throughout the world.

"'The current Administration's policies of unilateralism and rejection of important international initiatives, from the Kyoto Accords to the Biological Weapons Convention, have alienated much of the world and squandered remarkable reserves of support after 9/11. This climate of hostility affects us all, but most especially impacts those who reside overseas. Disappointment with current U.S. leadership is widespread, extending not just to the corridors of power and politics, but to the man and woman on the street as well.

"'We believe John Kerry is the Democrat who can go toe-to-toe against the current Administration on national security and defense issues. We also remain convinced that John Kerry has the best chance of beating the incumbent in November, and putting America on a new course that will lead to a safer, more secure, and more stable world.'"

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD66104

George W. Bush -- Grand Strategist

February 11, 2004
TownHall
Tony Blankley

The Boston Globe -- the respected, liberal newspaper owned by the New York Times -- ran an article last week that Bush critics might wish to read carefully. It is a report on a new book that argues that President Bush has developed and is ably implementing only the third American grand strategy in our history.

The author of this book, "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience" (Harvard Press), which is to be released in March, is John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of military and naval history at Yale University. The Boston Globe describes Professor Gaddis as "the dean of Cold War studies and one of the nation's most eminent diplomatic historians." In other words, this is not some put up job by an obscure right-wing author. This comes from the pinnacle of the liberal Ivy League academic establishment.

If you hate George W. Bush, you will hate this Boston Globe story, because it makes a strong case that George Bush stands in a select category with Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and James Monroe (as guided by his secretary of state, John Q. Adams) in implementing one of the only three grand strategies of American foreign policy in our two-century history.

As the Globe article describes, in reporting on the book and an interview with Professor Gaddis, "Grand strategy is the blueprint from which policy follows. It envisions a country's mission, defines its interests and sets its priorities. Part of grand strategy's grandeur lies in its durability: A single grand strategy can shape decades, even centuries of policy."

According to this analysis, the first grand strategy by Monroe/Adams followed the British invasion of Washington and the burning of the White House in 1814. They responded to that threat by developing a policy of gaining future security through territorial expansion -- filling power vacuums with American pioneers before hostile powers could get in. That strategy lasted throughout the 19th and the early 20th centuries, and accounts for our continental size and historic security.

FDR's plans for the post WWII period was the second grand strategy, and gained American security by establishing free markets and self determination in Europe as a safeguard against future European wars, while creating the United Nations and related agencies to help us manage the rest of the world and contain the Soviets. The end of the Cold War changed that and led, according to Professor Gaddis, to President Clinton's assumption that a new grand strategy was not needed because globalization and democratization were inevitable. "Clinton said as much at one point. I think that was shallow. I think they were asleep at the switch," Professor Gaddis observed.

That brings the professor to George W. Bush, who he describes as undergoing "one of the most surprising transformations of an underrated national leader since Prince Hal became Henry V." Clearly, Professor Gaddis has not been a longtime admirer of George Bush. But he is now.

He observes that Bush "undertook a decisive and courageous reassessment of American grand strategy following the shock of the 9/11 attacks. At his doctrine's center, Bush placed the democratization of the Middle East and the urgent need to prevent terrorists and rogue states from getting nuclear weapons. Bush also boldly rejected the constraints of an outmoded international system that was really nothing more than a snapshot of the configuration of power that existed in 1945."

It is worth noting that John Kerry and the other Democrats' central criticism of President Bush -- the prosaic argument that he should have taken no action without U.N. approval -- is implicitly rejected by Professor Gaddis as being a proposed policy that would be constrained by an "outmoded international system."

In assessing Bush's progress to date, The Boston Globe article quotes Professor Gaddis: "so far the military action in Iraq has produced a modest improvement in American and global economic conditions; an intensified dialogue within the Arab world about political reform; a withdrawal of American forces from Saudi Arabia; and an increasing nervousness on the part of the Syrian and Iranian governments as they contemplated the consequences of being surrounded by American clients or surrogates. The United States has emerged as a more powerful and purposeful actor within the international system than it had been on September 11, 2001."

In another recent article, written before the Iraqi war, Professor Gaddis wrote that: "(Bush's) grand strategy is actually looking toward the culmination of the Wilsonian project of a world safe for Democracy, even in the Middle East. And this long-term dimension of it, it seems to me, goes beyond what we've seen in the thinking of more recent administrations. It is more characteristic of the kind of thinking, say, that the Truman administration was doing at the beginning of the Cold War ... "

Is President Bush becoming an historic world leader in the same category as President Franklin Roosevelt, as the eminent Ivy League professor argues? Or is he just a lying nitwit, as the eminent Democratic Party chairman and Clinton fundraiser Terry McAuliffe argues? I suspect that as this election year progresses, that may end up being the decisive debate. You can put me on the side of the professor.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/tonyblankley/tb20040211.shtml

Prince Charles's Visit Seen As Attempt To Maintain Influence

February 11, 2004
Radio Free Europe
Jan Jun

London -- Prince Charles's visit this week to Iran -- and the earthquake-destroyed city of Bam -- has been hotly debated in the press.

Reaction has been mostly critical.

It was the first visit to the country by a member of the British royal family since the Islamic revolution 25 years ago. As such, commentators said it was laden with political symbolism, reflecting Britain's keenness to improve ties with Tehran."There is a political motive to it, apart from, obviously, the humanitarian visit to Bam. The reason essentially would be that the British government is trying to show its support...for the constructive, critical dialogue with Iran."

Many newspapers said the visit could be seen as giving support to authoritarian regimes. This rings true in Iran right now, as it appears conservatives have gained the upper hand in a recent election row with reformers.

Ben Faulks, a country expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, says UK officials badly miscalculated if they thought the visit would not have symbolic or political overtones.

"British men in the Iran embassy were saying that it was a non-political visit, but of course it was impossible not to foresee that it was going to be perceived as a political visit. In the sense that, clearly, it's a highly charged environment you are walking into, particularly at the moment, so I think that if that was the intention [to have a non-political visit], then they have miscalculated," Faulks said.

Commentator Michael Gove went further in the London "Times" newspaper. He wrote, "If the prince really wanted to do more to help Muslims then he could have used his trip to Iran to ask some pertinent questions. He could have drawn attention to the absence of a free press, free elections and free speech." The paper continued: "[The prince] could have asked why the tragic people of Bam were condemned to live in [poorly constructed] housing in an oil-rich country that uses its resources to fund terror abroad and build nuclear weapons."

But not everyone sees it that way. Ali Ansari is a lecturer in Iranian studies at Exeter University in the U.K.. He says in his opinion, on balance, the visit was a good thing. He says the appearance of Prince Charles in Iran focused newspaper attention on Iran's problems.

"There is a concern that many Iranians will interpret this as British support for the regime, but I think that on balance, the visit was probably a good thing because it's drawn attention to what's going on in Iran in a way that the British [newspapers] were not paying any attention at all prior to that. This has drawn an amazing amount of coverage in the press. And the other thing is, of course, that Charles's humanitarian side, I think played very well. But it has focused the mind, I mean it is certainly true that irrespective of Charles going or not, the silence of the Europeans on what is going on in Iran has been quite deafening," Ansari said.

Ansari says the British government is wise in keeping diplomatic contacts going. He says these contacts help to bridge over the one defining characteristic of Iran's conservative faction -- its antagonism to the U.S. and U.K.

"I mean, I think there are two levels here. One is to keep a diplomatic offensive in terms of securing Iran as an ally in the war on terror in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and I think in some ways that will, in any case, bring results that the reformists want anyway. If Iran has rebuilt bridges with the United States and the United Kingdom, by default, the conservatives will have orchestrated their own demise, because what they are doing is bridging over the one real final distinguishing factor of the Islamic revolution in Iran, which is antagonism with the United States," Ansari said.

Faulks agrees Britain should keep communication open.

"There is a political motive to it, apart from, obviously, the humanitarian visit to Bam. The reason essentially would be that the British government is trying to show its support, this policy that is ongoing for some time now for the constructive, critical dialogue with Iran. It's quite a bold thing to do. It is quite a juncture, I would say," Faulks said.

Mahjoob Zweiri, a research fellow at Durham University, says the reason may be simpler. He points out that Britain and Iran have a long tradition of good ties dating back to the 19th century. Perhaps, he says, Prince Charles's visit was just intended to emphasize this.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/2/63FF98E0-201E-4E65-B855-F5BC18FC688F.html