Posted on 01/15/2005 6:43:07 PM PST by freedom44
Iraqi official accuses Iran Sat. 15 Jan 2005
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1243
United Press International
Baghdad, Iraq - A senior Iraqi official Saturday accused Iran of channeling money into Iraq to "achieve sectarian objectives" and destabilize the country.
Waset Gov. Mohammad Ridha said $18,987.30 in Iranian tomans were seized and found to have been sent to a resident in the province "to try to entice sectarian extremism and ruin the elections process."
While he did not specify Iran by name, referring only to its currency allegedly seized, Ridha insisted there were "hidden hands trying to destabilize the province by focusing on sectarian allegiance over allegiance to the homeland."
His accusation came amid repeated charges by Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan that Iran was interfering in his country's internal affairs.
More than 200 tons of narcotics discovered in Iran in past 9 months Sat. 15 Jan 2005
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1241
Iran Focus
Tehran, Jan. 15 – More than 200 tons of narcotics have been discovered in Iran over the past nine months, according to a senior Iranian security official.
Speaking to a gathering of reporters, the State Security Forces commander, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, hinted today that such a large quantity of drugs in circulation might raise questions that drug smuggling has become institutionalized.
Qalibaf's announcement came at a time when certain departments and officials within the Iranian regime are suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking.
In the interview, Major Ghodratollah Mahmoudi, the head of the Office to Combat Narcotics in Greater Tehran, said on Wednesday that in the past nine months alone more than 700 kg of narcotics had been confiscated from addicts in the capital, adding that this figure did not include the much larger amounts of narcotics "discovered in the hands of drug lords".
The total number of illegal-drug users in Iran is estimated to be more than seven million.
I'm shocked I tell you just shocked!
Was John Kerry seated to the right or left of Zarqawi ?
What do you make of the arrest in Kuwait of an Iranian operative?
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=28736&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Saturday, January 15, 2005 - ©2004 IranMania.com
LONDON, Jan 15 (IranMania) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami rejected US charges of human rights violations in Iran, denouncing Washington's own record in abusing prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba.
"Of all the people entitled to speak about human rights, we don`t let the Americans talk about the respect for human rights in Iran," he said before leaving the Senegalese capital for Sierra Leone on the third stage of a seven-leg African tour, according to IRNA.
"I believe the American claim of human rights violations in Iran are lies and they had better stand accountable for their own crimes in Iraq`s Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons," he said, touching on a scandal which shocked the world when it was revealed last year.
"The Americans had better answer for a ruthless killing which they are routinely perpetrating in the name of democracy and freedom in the world," Khatami added. The Iranian president stressed the need for `all-out efforts` to observe human rights in the world `without any discrimination`, citing US-backed violation of the Palestinians` rights by Israel.
"As regards (respect) for human rights, cultural characteristics of each country must be taken into account; the complete observance of human rights is a process which has to evolve patiently." Khatami, however stressed that Iran `respects all the benevolent people who are righteously worried about human rights`.
"I'm shocked... shocked! To find Zarqawi meeting with the Iranians!"
Seems like Iran is rooting back to their original ideology of spreading their fundamentalism to neighboring nations. Given US presence in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq and the level of discontent within Iran this isn't surprising.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4734852,00.html
Ebadi: I Won't Obey Iran Court Summons
Saturday January 15, 2005 9:31 AM
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said Saturday she won't obey a summons by the hard-line Revolutionary Court even though she could be arrested, a challenge to the powerful body that has tried and convicted many intellectuals.
Ebadi, the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel peace prize, received the summons Thursday.
``The manner in which the summons has been arranged is illegal. I won't go to the court,'' Ebadi told The Associated Press. ``A summons has to specify the reason. That a summons is issued for somebody without specifying the reason and subject is illegal.''
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, one of three lawyers to represent Ebadi if she is charged, said the Revolutionary Court can arrest Ebadi for disregarding the order. Though a reason wasn't specified, Dadkhah said she had been summoned to testify as a witness, not as an accused.
The summons was issued Wednesday, ordering her appearance within three days. However, because she received the summons Thursday, Dadkhah said the deadline was Sunday.
In Washington, the State Department has warned it is watching the situation, with spokesman Richard Boucher saying Friday that arresting ``proponents of moderation, pluralism, and political reform'' violates international human rights standards.
``We will continue to follow closely the (Iranian) government's actions against Ms. Ebadi and others,'' Boucher added.
Dadkhah, who co-founded the Center for Protecting Human Rights with Ebadi and several other lawyers, said Friday that his center does not recognize the Revolutionary Courts because ``they are not mentioned in the constitution.''
``Even if there was a need for these courts, it was only in the early years of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A revolutionary court 26 years after the revolution seems irrelevant,'' Dadkhah said.
The Revolutionary Courts deal with security crimes. Many political activities, intellectuals and writers have been tried at the court on vague charges of endangering national security and discrediting the ruling Islamic establishment.
Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, is known to oppose the hard-liners, whose political strength has grown since last year's legislative elections.
They may be close allies but they are not that stupid to take picture together
I so hope that after Iraq gets their government set up they turn and just destroy Iran for their actions to undermine the Iraqi's.
UNHCR threatens Iran with suspension of aid for Afghan refugees
Sat Jan 15,10:13 AM ET World - AFP
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050115/wl_afp/afghanistaniran_050115151353
KABUL (AFP) - The UN refugee agency threatened to suspend aid for Afghan refugees in Iran unless Tehran stopped their forced repatriation.
"We think that the Iranian authorities have gone too far... we are not going to be instrumental in forced repatriation," United Nations (news - web sites) High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers told AFP on Saturday.
Speaking on a visit to Afghanistan (news - web sites), Lubbers said a tripartite agreement between the UNHCR, Iran and Afghanistan would not be renewed when it expires in three months' time if Iranian authorities "don't improve their behaviour."
Some 375,000 Afghan refugees returned from Iran in 2004, with the UN agency assisting many of them with packages of house-building materials including doors, beams and windows, a small cash stipend and transportation across Afghanistan.
But in recent months fears have mounted that Iranian authorities are exerting undue pressure on Afghan refugees to return home, suspending education and medical care for them and revoking their residence permits so that police who stop them on the street can threaten them with deportation.
Afghan refugees returning home in September told AFP that there was a government-run radio campaign in Iran urging them to return home and threatening them with arrest and legal action if they failed to do so.
"I think that the Iranian authorities sometimes go beyond what they should do in the propaganda as if everybody is obliged to go. It is not good," Lubbers told AFP.
More than two million Afghans fled to Iran as refugees in the years of conflict which followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, but many have begun returning home since the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime in late 2001.
However, with living conditions in Afghanistan so basic after 23 years of conflict, many refugees based in Iran are reluctant to return to the war-shattered country fearing to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Lubbers said the first returnees were very patriotic and had returned volutarily, adding: "Why do we hear these stories now? It is because we are entering these people who had good lives there and are not so patriotic and feel more obliged to go."
Since 2002, more than 1,100,000 Afghans have returned from Iran, including some 330,000 Afghans who returned under their own steam without help from the UN.
According to UNHCR, there are still 950,000 Afghans living in the neighbouring country.
However, the Iranian consul in Kabul, Muslim Salatani, told AFP in an interview last year that it was the right time for Afghans to return home.
"The war is over in Afghanistan. The country is at peace. Iran was a second home for the Afghans during the war, but now they should go home to participate in the country's reconstruction," he said.
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=28733&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Iranian web writers plead to Kofi Annan
Saturday, January 15, 2005 - ©2004 IranMania.com
LONDON, Jan 15 (IranMania) – Iran’s Association of Web Writers in an open letter to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan called on the world body to warn the Iranian regime against frequently trampling on the basic rights of Iranian people, Iran Emrooz reported.
“According to Article 19 of the UN Human Rights Charter everyone can enjoy freedom of expression, but the Iranian regime deprived the Iranians from their very basic rights as regards dissemination of information. It bans the papers and breaks the pens. Detaining and torturing journalists and authors and accusing them of the crimes they have never committed have tuned into a common practice for the Iranian government. And now that they have become apparently weary of papers and books, they have begun their anti-democratic moves against Internet sites.” part of the letter reads.
Iran’s Association of Web Writers referred to the heavy bails set by the Judiciary for the release of detained journalists and the harassment of their families by security agents.
Copies of the letter have been sent to UNESCO, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
What? You speak of another war between those countries?
I think Iraqis killed enough Iranians in the 80s and that was enough!
ISLAMIC JIHAD COORDINATES WITH OTHER GROUPS
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/january/01_16_3.html
JERUSALEM [MENL] -- The Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad has been termed a leading contractor of insurgency attacks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli security sources said Jihad has used Iranian funding to recruit operatives from other insurgency groups for major attacks against Israel. The sources said Jihad has recruited operatives from such groups as the ruling Fatah movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for suicide and other missions.
"Islamic Jihad has long sought cooperation of other groups because it does not have enough operatives," a security source said. "Now, with plenty of Iranian money, Jihad can recruit whomever it wants."
The Iranian funding has been relayed to Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria, the sources said. From there, Jihad sent the funds through couriers arriving in the West Bank.
Do you know what you are talking about????!!!!!!!!
"Was John Kerry seated to the right or left of Zarqawi ?"
Don't be shocked; or even worry.
Iran is next!
Unless the "Anti-American demonRATS" muster enough strength, to throw a "monkey wrench" into our security scheme.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f086656e-669b-11d9-a832-00000e2511c8.html
Iran's women continue to defy hardliners
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr
Published: January 15 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 15 2005 02:00
The six Iranian women and four men who make up the Mehr-Banoo classical music band are given a warm reception by an enthusiastic crowd in northern Tehran.
But the presence of female performers, wearing yellow scarves and long black shirts and trousers, outnumbering the men in the band, poses a direct challenge to Iran's hardliners, who would like to see greater restrictions on women.
Mahroo, a woman singer in the band, is not allowed to sing solo, as the regime regards it as un-Islamic for women to sing to men. Instead, she is accompanied by Hamed, a male singer.
"It is difficult to co-ordinate voices, but we do what can be done. I am happy as long as I can sing," Mahroo says.
As a woman, she is at least able to perform to a mixed audience, thanks to some liberalisation following the reform movement that followed the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997.
But even this, and other relaxations in social and political rules, are now at risk, following a shift to the right that took place after the parliamentary elections last February.
The conservatives won back control of the previously reformist legislative body after the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog, rejected more than 2,000 reformist would-be candidates, including 80 sitting deputies.
Iran's hardliners had capitalised on widespread disillusion with politics, due to the slow pace of reforms. And the balance could tilt further in their favour in presidential elections expected in June.
But despite their growing political strength, the conservatives face a challenge in the social arena. Their main source of support comes from the traditional sections of Iranian society. But there is widespread dissatisfaction with the regime among Iranians under 35 years old, who make up about 70 per cent of the population of 70m.
Many are highly educated and with access to internet and satellite TV, making attempts at censorship futile.
"The mental gap between the rulers and young people is now between 100 and 150 years," said Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president who resigned in protest at parliament's conservative shift.
Young people are able to ignore the intense power struggles within the leadership and go their own way thanks to the "institutionalisation of the reforms", says Mr Abtahi.
"During the past seven years, we managed to help society get on a train. .. It may stop because of differences in the engine room, but whenever it starts moving, it goes in the same direction - towards reforms. This path is irreversible," he says confidently.
One of the most obvious manifestations of the gulf between Iran's conservative hierarchy and the country's young is in the Islamic dress code. A quarter-century after the Islamic revolution made wearing the hijab compulsory for women outside the home, the issue remains controversial.
Many young women ignore the loose dresses recommended by the religious establishment and instead wear tight trousers, covered with short overcoats or flimsy cotton shirts. Their headscarves slip backwards to reveal as much hair as possible, and they wear heavy make-up.
Last summer, a Tehran police chief announced during a crackdown on women for non-observance of hijab that the arrest of "100 street supermodels" would resolve the problem. But this proved not to be the case, as many women responded with defiance.
Recently a member of parliament, who was also a cleric, tried to beat a woman journalist inside the parliament in protest at what he considered to be her improper dress. He was prevented by other parliamentarians from doing so.
Fatemeh Rakei, a former MP, sees a "short-sighted and restricted interpretation of Islam" as the main problem. "We are suffering from a horrible paradox. Some claim that they are serving Islam, whereas they are striking the biggest blows against Islam, because their methods are outdated and their Islam has few customers. The stick is not today's language any more."
Social challenges are not restricted to cosmopolitan Tehran. Senior clerics have raised concerns over the spread of "corruption" in the holy city of Qom, where women are expected to wear the all-encompassing black chador.
The parliamentary research centre in Tehran is working on a standard uniform for women that would fully comply with Islamic codes. But experts say that even if it was approved, it is very unlikely that people would comply. MPs behind the proposal refused to be interviewed.
Mahroo does not seem too worried about the future of her singing - even if power does fall more fully into the hands of the conservatives. "I do not want to think about presidential elections. That has nothing to do with me."
Please remember it isn't the Iranian people trying to "undermine the Iraqi's", it's the regime. The Iranian people would like to be free, too.
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Bump!
Great lead story Freedom44!
I think Iraqis killed enough Iranians in the 80s and that was enough!
Let me just mind you that freedom isn't free. And the Iraq that was at war with Iran 1980-88 is very much different from the Iraq of today. In a name, the difference is Saddam Hussein. In 1980, Saddam had just taken over the country by most undemocratic means. In 2005, Saddam spends his time in one of his presidential palaces, except that this time he isn't the boss. His greatest exploits have been limited to poetry writing and raising a garden. And hopefully sometime soon he will become acquainted with rope.
The White House says that major theme of Bush's inaugural address will be spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world. However, it'll only be about 15 minutes long, and he has a companion list of domestic items on his agenda, so don't expect too much. It won't be disappointed if I don't hear Syria or Iran mentioned by name.
The event that I'm really anticipating is the State of the Union address. Question: Does anyone know when the SOTU is supposed to be? Every year I can never find when it's supposed to be. Almost like nobody knows when it's happening 'till a week before. Which seems strange. I mean, it's basically one of the biggest political events of the year.
I'd like to see a new statement of the 'revised' Axis of Evil: Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The connection between Iran and Syria is obvious. North Korea is also a supplier for Iran for missles, as I recall. But another benefit of the War in Iraq is that we've scared Kim Jong-il. He went into hiding after March 2003, terrified that he was next. Looks like we're going to be resuming talks with North Korea. Waste of time, probably, but I guess it is just one of those things you need to do.
But back to Iran. "Peaceful" regime change could be imminent if Bush unconditionally backs the freedom-lovers in Iran, and says something to the effect of, Iran, change your habits and actions - we strongly recommend that you do. The important thing is for Bush to single out by name the dissidents in Iran, and say that we support your cause. I've seen several dissidents say that the only thing they need from the US is the president's solid backing. The Iranian people seem to have great trust in the US; they are unwilling to go out on a limb, if they can't be sure of American support.
But I think what he says in the next month will be highly suggestive of American foreign policy in 2005. I'll also be expecting some additional prime-time speeches by Bush throughout the year. Highly encouraging is Bush's statement that Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy" will be a model for the next four years of Bush foreign policy. That is one great book. If Bush follows the advice of the author, then he will truly become one of the greatest presidents in American history. Right now, I think he is comparable to Reagan, JFK, and FDR. If nothing else, Bush isn't president just to be president - he has a very ambitious agenda. I just hope his successor is of the same political mind. Unfortunately, in my mind, there are a lot of moderates looking forward to 2008 on the Republican side. Though you don't have to worry about McCain, except if he runs as a Democrat (and even then...). He'd never win the Republican primaries. I predict that a Republican will succeed Bush; but if he/she is a moderate, then I also predict that a Democrat will win in 2012. But that assumes that the Democratic Party doesn't go so far left that it walks off the edge of the cliff. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. But it ain't likely to happen; they aren't idiots.
But I digress...
My guess would be no.
5.56mm
They are the same people! No Difference to me!
no
OMG, they are destroying the youth of Iran by allowing those drugs to be distributed.
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi meeting CEO of National Geographic regarding the using of wrong phrase"Arabian Gulf" instead of the true historical name of the Persian Gulf.
Meeting with Mr. John Fahey, President and CEO of the National Geographic Society on December 3rd, 2004
OMV discovers new oilfield in Iran
Mehr News Agency
Jan 15th, 05
TEHRAN, Jan. 15 (MNA) – Austria’s biggest oil and gas company OMV, announced on Saturday it has discovered a new oilfield in Iran.
The company finally discovered a new oilfield in Iran after four years of exploration, OMV spokesman Thomas Huemer told reporters in Vienna.
Huemer added that the company would start extraction activities this year.
The spokesman expressed pleasure over the expansion of Iran-Austria ties saying the OMV would also increase participation in Iran’s oil and gas sector.
He added that the OMV is attempting to attract new customers in Europe as well as expanding cooperation with Tehran.
OMV is one the biggest oil and gas companies in Europe and its total oil and gas reserves amount to 1 billion 400,000 barrels.
http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=148824
Now, THAT'S a beheading I could watch.
Ping
Brussels wants US to engage Iran
Sunday, January 16, 2005
©2004 IranMania.com
LONDON, Jan 16 (IranMania) - A senior European Union official yesterday urged the Bush administration to join the EU in adopting a policy of engagement with regard to Iran, a view that has received unusual endorsement from a Washington group of prominent hawks and neoconservatives, FT reported.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the new EU external relations commissioner, said she was asking the US to adopt a "complementary approach".
On a day of meetings in Washington, she said: "Mutual cooperation is essential."
Meanwhile, the European Union was pleased at the positive atmosphere seen at revived trade talks with Iran held this week, an EU official said Friday. But comments by a top Iranian official on the country's nuclear drive were less well received, the official said on condition of anonymity.
"The Iranians showed themselves to be very engaged, very interested, the tone was very good," she told AFP. "What was important for these two days was the tone, not the substance."
The discussions with a 12-person Iranian delegation headed by a senior Foreign Ministry official took place on Wednesday for trade and economic cooperation, and covered political questions on Thursday.
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=28750&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Kurdish journalist Shamzin Jihad sentenced in Iran
KNC
15/01/2005
The Kurdish National Congress of North America condemns the arrest, imprisonment, and sentencing of Shamzin Jihad, a Kurdish journalist in Iran.
The Iranian government continues its prosecution of Kurds who dare to express their ethnic identity. Amnesty International reports, “Judicial authorities curtailed freedoms of expression, opinion and association, including of ethnic minorities; scores of publications were closed, Internet sites were filtered and journalists were imprisoned.” In the same report, it is stated that most executions were carried out against the Kurdish minority, often in public. Numerous reports of this kind demonstrate that the Iranian congress continues to criminalize the most basic human rights and that the Iranian judicial system is completely lacking the desire and ability to apply the most basic human laws.
Shamzin Jihad’s sentencing in the city of Mahabat is an example of how the Iranian regime criminalizes any and all expressions of Kurdish identity. The government’s case is based on her declaration that she is a Kurd and that she refers to her place of birth as ‘Kurdistan’. In this age of free speech and human rights, Ms. Jihad’s commitment to her true identity should be celebrated and not punished. We are prepared to support her through this ordeal and to bring to the world’s attention the continued injustices the Iranian regime is committing against the Kurds.
The Kurdish National Congress calls on the Iranian government to immediately release the Kurdish journalist Shamzin Jihad, stop the unjust policies against the Kurdish people in Kurdistan of Iran, adhere to United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights respecting freedom of opinion and expression, and to commit to principles of the Charter of the United Nations, article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognizing that all peoples have the right of self-determination.
For more information please call: 949-583-1417
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=6061
Freedom in Iran ~ Now!
Death To all Islamofascist terrorists ~ Bump!
Wow, great pic, Phil. Once again, you've outdone yourself. :^)
Iran conditions nuclear talks on US attitude
XINHUA, CHINA
2005-01-16
TEHRAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran reiterated Sunday that a changed US attitude toward Tehran is the sole precondition for Iran's possible engagement in a direct dialogue on its nuclear issue with the United States, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"The most explicit demand of Iran for entering into dialogue with the United States is that it changes its behavior and attitude toward the Islamic Republic," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi was quoted as saying.
"Iran has clear-cut policies in regard to this matter, and we do not really consider the negotiations necessary," Asefi said, pointing out Iran and the United States are actually holding talks through various intermediaries.
"Since the United States has shown no change in attitude and any such talks would render no positive outcome, there is no need for direct talks," Asefi added.
Iran and the United States, who had been close allies in the 1970s, turned into enemies following the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979.
The United States accuses Iran of developing secret nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorists, labelling Iran as part of the so-called "axis of evil" and imposing harsh sanctions on Iran.
Iran, in return, terms the United States as the enemy of the whole Islamic world.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/16/content_2468122.htm
Iran says EU nuclear talks going well
Sun Jan 16, 2005 09:54 AM GMTBy Parisa HafeziTEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has voiced optimism about negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear programme and a possible trade deal and says there is no need to involve Washington in the talks right now.
The European Union last week resumed talks with Iran, suspended for about 18 months, regarding a possible Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the Islamic state.
Negotiations on a possible trade deal were frozen due to increasing EU concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Tehran's decision late last year to suspend sensitive nuclear work and enter negotiations with the EU on its nuclear programme opened the way for the trade talks to resume.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, speaking at a weekly press briefing on Sunday described the trade talks held in Brussels last week as "very positive".
"Europe had some proposals which we studied and offered them our suggestions. We agreed to continue the talks in March in Tehran," he said.
Negotiations about Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran says is aimed at generating electricity, not making bombs, will resume in Geneva this week, he added.
Asked whether the nuclear talks would progress better if the United States participated, Asefi said:
"There is no need for the Americans to join the (Iran-EU) talks. Negotiations are progressing well."
European diplomats acknowledge that the nuclear talks with Iran would have a greater chance of success if Washington threw its full support behind the negotiations instead of the lukewarm backing it has given so far.
U.N. inspectors last week took samples at a military base near Tehran where Washington suspects Iran had been conducting tests aimed at producing nuclear weapons.
Asefi said Iran was confident that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had waited several months to be allowed to visit the site, would find no wrongdoing.
"We know what the result will be because we know we haven't done anything illegal. When the agency's assessment comes, it will be clear," he said.
Iran says it has the right to develop a civilian nuclear energy programme and accuses the West of forcing it to carry out much of its atomic work in the past in secret.
German prosecutors last week said four special generators which were due to be illegally exported to an Iranian nuclear plant had been seized.
Asefi said Iran was only aware of media reports about the seizure, but if true, "it is one of the unreasonable limitations which are practised against Iran and we have already said that such limitations must be lifted."
IRANIAN JUDICIARY DENOUNCED BY INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Posted Saturday, January 15, 2005
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TEHRAN, 15 Jan. (IPS) Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist and lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize refused to appear in court on Saturday, saying the summons had failed to state the charge against her.
According to her lawyer, Mr. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, an Islamic Revolution court has told him that some one has lodged a complaint against Mrs. Ebadi, but refused to identify the accuser or to specify the charges.
Mrs. Ebadi had earlier said that she would not attend the court.
“When I went to the court that has summoned Mrs. Ebadi, I was told that the affair had been sent to another branch of the Islamic Revolution tribunal”, Mr. Dadkhah told the Students news agency ISNA.
Though nothing is known about the charges, but what has surprised observers is that the prominent activist is summoned by a court that deals with security matters, like espionage, counter-espionage, activities against the security of the State etc.
Normally, a complaint must go to an ordinary court. If that court rules for its incompetence, then it will go to an appropriate court. However, the procedure here has not been upheld and the whole affair is therefore illegal”, Mr. Dadkhah added.
Mrs. Ebadi had earlier said that she would not attend the court.
"I informed them in writing that I will not show up because this summons is illegal", the British news agency Reuters quoted the 57 years-old Ebadi as having indicated.
"According to the law, the summoning letter must specify if I am accused or not and what for. This one does not", Mrs. Ebadi, the first Iranian and Muslim woman to win the prestigious Prize explained.
“Three days ago, I received a letter from the Islamic Revolution court urging me to call at the said court and if I do not comply, I could be arrested, but there was no explanation as for the charges or the reasons I was summoned”, she said.
Mr. Mohammad Seyfzadeh, a prominent lawyer, also said that Islamic revolution courts have no competence to summon people.
“As a matter of principle, these courts are illegal because they had been established in the first years of the revolution and fur specific purposes”, he told the Persian-language Radio Farda (Tomorrow), based in Prague.
The Iranian Judiciary, directly controlled by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, has in recent months increased crackdown against political dissidents, some of them defended by Mrs. Ebadi.
Her defence of several popular dissidents, incliding intellectuals, journalists and politicians has angered both the conservatives and many clerics who have denounced her as being protected by foreign powers.
Iranian political analysts said the crackdown is connected to the upcoming presidential elections, with the ruling conservatives expected to be the winner.
“Every time we approach an election in Iran, we face same kind of political showdown by the conservatives”, one analyst told Iran Press Service on condition of anonymity. “The aim is to tell the people that the regime is strong and the conservatives are in full control”, he added.
Asked about the case, President Mohammad Khatami said Mrs. Ebadi “has nothing to fear”.
"As head of state, I personally have guaranteed her safety and her freedom to continue her activities", President Mohammad Khatami assured.
"As head of state, I personally have guaranteed her safety and her freedom to continue her activities", he told reporters in Dakar, Senegal, where he was on an official visit.
"It is just an ordinary case and it is going to be settled pretty soon", he added.
But observers said in case the matter got worse and resulting in the Nobel Peace winner’s arrest, Khatami can not and would not interfere.
“So far, the Judiciary, which is independent of the Executive, has arrested several of the President’s closest allies and he has never done anything to help them”, one journalist pointed out.
Before and after winning the award Ebadi has received death threats from religious hard-liners who view her as an agent of the West intent on undermining Iran's Islamic values.
The case of Mrs. Ebadi resulted in a national and international wave of anger and condemnation. While hundreds of Iranians denounced the action of the Judiciary, the State Department said the action against Mrs. Ebadi showed the disrespect of the Iranian regime for human rights activists.
The European Parliament also criticised the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic and called on the ruling Iranian ayatollahs to rectify their crackdown on the dissidents.
Out of nine journalists and webloggers who had been arrest on orders from the Judiciary, seven have told a presidential committee that they had been subject to severe psychological and physical tortures and forced to make fake confessions, accusing respected personalities of the opposition of sexual relationship, using drugs and drinking alcohol. ENDS EBADO SUMMONED 15105
An Iranian Cleric Turns Blogger for Reform
By NAZILA FATHI
Published: January 16, 2005
EHRAN, Jan. 15 - Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a vice president of Iran until his resignation last fall in protest against the new hard-line Parliament, is that rare reformist who has kept alive the movement's promise for open communications with the public.
For more than a year, Mr. Abtahi, a midranking cleric who has been a close ally and confidant of President Mohammad Khatami, has kept a Web log to share his views and reach out to others who use the Internet.
Mr. Abtahi spends much of his time in his office in the heart of an affluent neighborhood in northern Tehran chatting electronically with young secular men and women who sometimes sarcastically question his sincerity.
Iran's reformists have lost much of the support of Iran's youth, who are impatient for change and who contend that Mr. Khatami and his allies achieved too little in the way of a more open society when they controlled Parliament. The reformists lost control of Parliament last year after hard-line officials disqualified most of their candidates and many disgruntled voters stayed away from the polls.
"We must not trust this cleric," wrote one of the people who have visited the popular Internet chat room Orkut. "He is just one of them and wants to fool us again."
But Mr. Abtahi persists. He has expressed sympathy with the critics' frustration over the slow pace of change.
"It needed a lot of courage to begin the Web log," Mr. Abtahi, now an adviser to Mr. Khatami, said in an interview. "It is hard for younger people to trust a cleric. In the beginning they thought I wanted to preach to them. But now we've become friends."
His blog, webneveshteha.com (the name means Web log writings in Farsi), has become one of the most popular Iranian sites. It has been attacked by hackers several times, apparently in some instances by people who take issue with its content. Many political sites and blogs focusing on Iran both inside the country and outside have links to his site.
"His Web site is politically very important," said Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, a blogger who was imprisoned for two months last year as part of a crackdown on free expression, which Mr. Abtahi has so far escaped. "His inside stories about the president and the cabinet aroused sympathy among people."
Mr. Mirebrahimi added that as an official, Mr. Abtahi "has given legitimacy to Web logs and has proven that Web logs are not tools for the opposition to overthrow the regime."
Mr. Abtahi said that he learned through the Internet about the huge gap between government officials and the younger generation.
"We do not understand each other and cannot have a dialogue," he said. "As government officials, we receive a lot of confidential reports about what goes on in society. But I have felt that I learned a lot more about people and the younger generation by reading their Web logs and receiving about 40 to 50 e-mails every day. This is so different than reading about society in those bulletins from behind our desks."
When he began his Web site, he declared that he was going to be "Mohammad Ali Abtahi only," without standing on ceremony as a government official.
He wrote he was starting his Web log because he had taken amusing photographs of other officials with his new cellphone, equipped with a camera, and he wanted to share them with others.
But he has strayed into deeply serious subjects. At a time when telling the truth can result in a prison term, Mr. Abtahi wrote recently on his Web site about what happened to journalists and bloggers who were jailed for a period in the fall. They were beaten so severely that the nose of one woman was broken, and they were put in solitary confinement for most of their detention, he wrote.
Then he wrote that at a meeting with two of the released detainees, which a hard-line Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, also attended, two journalists had revealed such horrifying details that their account brought tears to the eyes of others in the room.
"We had to give them water so that they could get hold of themselves and continue," wrote Mr. Abtahi, who attended the meeting as Mr. Khatami's representative.
Mr. Mortazavi had warned the released detainees not to talk about their experience, and Mr. Abtahi was summoned to the Special Court of Clergy shortly after he wrote about the meeting.
But after Mr. Abtahi wrote about it, Mr. Khatami and the chief of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, personally promised to follow up on the accusations.
"Without Mr. Abtahi and his Web log we would not have had the courage to reveal what had happened to us," said Mr. Mirebrahimi. "He met with them before we saw them and prepared them for what we were going to tell them. Otherwise they would not have believed us."
Not everyone, even among the reformists, is pleased with Mr. Abtahi's Web log. Ataollah Mohajerani, a reformist who is the former minister of culture and Islamic guidance, scolded Mr. Abtahi and said that what he was doing was "cheap."
Mr. Abtahi dismissed the comments and pointed out that Mr. Mohajerani had a Web site, too, but that he neither had a camera to take interesting photos nor knew the language of the youth to chat with them.
Is Shiite Good Will a Good Bet?
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: January 16, 2005
AGHDAD — As foreigners entered his office last week, the Basra chief of the Islamic Dawa Party made an urgent request. "No photographs of the ayatollah," he said, pointing to the picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.
"It would be misleading to show this," explained the chief, Salem al-Husseiny. "Our ties to Iran are religious, not political."
Mr. Husseiny spent some 20 years in exile in Iran, and he remains grateful for the refuge. He also knows how sensitive the questions of Iranian and Shiite clerical influence have become - for the wary Sunni Iraqis who dread the coming era of Shiite power, for the Americans, even for many fellow Shiites.
Leaders of the main Shiite parties all now voice the same soothing line: They want democracy not theocracy. They do not seek violent retribution for their oppression under Saddam Hussein, when Sunnis dominated Iraq, and they won't brook Iranian interference.
But Iraqi Sunnis and the country's influential ranks of secular professionals are wondering why they should believe all this. Are the Shiite politicians just saying what an apprehensive world and Iraq's apprehensive minorities want to hear? Or have time and experience damped the messianic streak that drove these men to revolt in decades past? And has the forbidding prospect of real national power pushed them toward moderation?
Perhaps no one, not even the leaders themselves, can answer these questions with certainty. At least one Sunni minister of the current interim government has been openly skeptical. He is calling for a postponement of the Jan. 30 elections for a constitutional assembly, warning that the Shiite parties seem certain to come out on top and that this will, in effect, mean an Iranian takeover. Feeding the fear of Iranian influence is the fact that many of the top Shiite clerical leaders were sheltered by Khomeini's Islamic revolution; but now they almost all profess a much more modest interpretation of Islam's place in the political order.
American officials and the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, leave the impression that they think the Shiite conversion is real. Certainly, there is already evidence of moderation and magnanimity from Shiite leaders like Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered cleric who is godfather of the frontrunning United Iraqi Alliance, and Abdulaziz al-Hakim, who is No. 1 on that slate and leads Sciri, its largest member party.
Since the Shiite Islamists returned to Iraq on the coattails of the coalition invasion, they have arguably showed great patience in the face of provocations. They endured the assassination of the revered founder of Sciri, Mr. Hakim's brother, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, in August 2003. And today, Ayatollah Sistani, Mr. Hakim and his followers are stoically holding back their armed supporters despite frequent murders of Shiite clerics. These, they assume, are the work of Sunni militants trying to foment sectarian war.
Perhaps the Shiite leaders feel reassured by the American presence, even though the occupation is loathed by most of their followers. The leaders have been tacitly compliant, perhaps figuring that American might is the guarantor of their electoral triumph. In a crasser sense, they may feel that a little more occupation is not so bad since, as one secular candidate observed, "the Americans are doing their dirty work" by hunting down Sunni insurgents.
Diplomats here think that the constitution-writing process, mandated by the United Nations-endorsed Transitional Administrative Law, will also push the election winners, whoever they are, toward restraint and will force them to respond to the concerns of all major groups.
To take effect, the constitution must be ratified by a two-thirds majority in 16 of the country's 18 provinces. So whatever their long-term dreams of domination, in the year ahead the Shiite parties "will have to deal," one senior coalition diplomat recently said.
The Shiites know they must somehow overcome the alienation of mainstream Sunnis, at least those not lost to the fanaticism of Al Qaeda, whom everyone assumes will have to be fought and killed in any case.
Major Sunni participation in the immediate elections is now unlikely, but Shiite leaders say they are searching for ways to bring Sunnis into the next interim government and give them a stake in a new constitution.
The newly elected legislature will appoint a rotating presidency that will almost certainly include a Sunni, a Shiite and a Kurd. The presidents can then pick anyone as the new prime minister and speculation is rife that Dr. Allawi himself, or at least someone like him who enjoys multiethnic support, might be appointed as a Shiite gesture of reconciliation.
At the same time, the job of the assembly being elected on Jan. 30, which is to write a new constitution, will force the delegates to confront contentious issues such as regional autonomy and the formal role of religion in the state.
The Kurds, who have a strong military force, have insisted on a degree of autonomy that may clash with Shiite and Sunni notions of nationhood. The role of Islamic law, and who would define it, remain to be worked out - surely an issue between Sunnis and Shiites, as well as between secular and religious Iraqis of all stripes.
And there are the larger questions of how long Shiite patience can last in the face of seemingly relentless attacks from the Sunni insurgents, and how restrained a Shiite-led government might feel once an American troop withdrawal was well under way. A few years ago, it would have seemed ludicrous to suggest that the American government would pin its hopes for this volatile region on Islamist groups that had been nurtured and even armed by evil-empire Iran.
Yet now, the Bush administration's best chance for stabilizing Iraq and extracting troops with any honor may depend on the success - and restraint - of those very people.
In all, it is possible to imagine a painful but steady sequence leading toward an Iraq the Bush administration can live with. The creation of strong indigenous security forces is, of course, another prerequisite - and a highly uncertain one - for the building of a viable Iraqi federation.
So yes, it is possible to imagine all this coming together, bit by bit, and at a continuing price in Iraq and American lives.
It is all too possible as well, however, to imagine an untamed and increasingly zealous Sunni insurgency, irreparable disputes with the Kurds, uprisings by disaffected Shiites and a thinning of central authority.
As Washington hopes for the best, it must also prepare for the worst.
Transition 2005: U.S. Policy Toward Iran
Speaker: Kenneth M. Pollack, senior fellow and director of research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings Institution; author, "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America"
Speaker: Mark Palmer, president and chief executive officer, Capital Development Company; member, Committee on the Present Danger
Speaker: David Kay, senior research fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy StudiesPresider: Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
Washington, D.C.
January 12, 2005
RAY TAKEYH: I'll just call the session in. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations, and today we are on the record with three individuals to discuss Iran and where it goes from here. Mark Palmer was the principle director and the writer of the report for the Committee on Present Danger ["Iran--A New Approach"]. And, if I remember my Cold War history, the Committee on Present Danger came about in the 1970s to talk about the dangers of the Soviet Union. It has resurfaced with a new mission and a focus on the Middle East. And it's first report was on Iran. I believe that was your first report.
MARK PALMER: Right.
TAKEYH: Ken Pollack is perhaps familiar to most of you. Author of three books, but most significantly for our purposes, "The Persian Puzzle." I had the chance to read "The Puzzle" in both manuscript and the final form, and I can say that it is accessible, readable, provocative, and comprehensive. And David Kay, of course, is currently with the Potomac Institute, but has long been examiner of weapons of mass destruction of all sorts, most recently in Iraq.
Let me just start, Ambassador Palmer, with a question about your report. I had a chance to read it this afternoon. I had read it once before. Your report goes on to suggest that Iran is a determined proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, particularly the nuclear issue, which is of particular concern. It is determined to support a wide variety of terrorist organizations, and it's, quote, "It's determined to assert its regional hegemony, both ideologically and militarily." So the prescription drug that your report has for dealing with this significant substantial threat are [a] high profile speech by the president; willingness to reopen the embassy; cultural, professional, and economic exchanges; a call for eradication of Revolutionary Guards; and an international tribunal to deal with Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali] Khamenei.
Now, when I read this report, it seems to me there is a gap between this depiction of the threat and its prescriptions for dealing with the threat. Now, before I get into the specifics of these recommendations, do you think the recommendations that you have are sufficient to disarm the threat that you say Iran poses?
PALMER: Yes, I think--ultimately. I don't--we're not saying this can be done in six months, and we recognize that Khamenei, not Iran, but this dictator and his colleagues, are determined to develop nuclear weapons, and are already terrorizing the region and terrorizing the Iranian people. We believe--our report argues that the real solution is to get rid of him, to invite him to go back to the mosque, to do what many--
TAKEYH: What if he says no?
PALMER: --what many leading Shia mullahs in Iran itself have urged, which is to separate religion and the mosque from secular affairs with the state. So, our primary emphasis is on trying to support the Iranian people in their self-evident desire, a desire they've repeatedly demonstrated, to invite Mr. Khamenei to go back to the mosque.
Now, will that be done very, very quickly? Maybe not. But we in the West have been surprised again and again by the Orange Revolution [in Ukraine], by the Rose Revolution [in Georgia], by in the last 30 years over 40 dictators going back to somewhere. So that's our prescription. But in the meantime, we believe it's very important to engage. We want to open an embassy. We support what the British, French, and Germans are doing, though we also are very suspicious that Khamenei is really serious about it.
TAKEYH: Well, I was going to ask you a question actually about the report which talks a lot about Khamenei [who is] ignoring political factions to his right, political factions to his left, political factions, period, as if the country has no politics and no institutions. And it is, as you say, a dictatorship similar to Saddam's or the hermetic North Korean regime. Is that really an accurate portrayal of what is happening in Iran in terms of this political society? And how did you arrive at the judgment that Khamenei has all these powers and all these prerogatives?
PALMER: Well, talking to Iranians. I think they believe that he is certainly all-powerful, that [Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami] has turned out, unfortunately, despite his legitimization through two elections, has not asserted his legitimate power, and does not exercise power over any of the key issues in the country. Khamenei does, and the Guardian Council do. And that group is the power in the country today. But potentially, the power is in the hands of the students, the intellectuals, the vast majority of people who voted for Khatami. Over 70 percent of the population clearly shows that they do not want the mullahs to be running the country in the fashion that they're running it today. So I don't think--most serious people don't doubt Khamenei is the supreme leader. He says he is--he is.
TAKEYH: Right. Let me ask you just very briefly, David--turn to you for a second--I'll come back. The head of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], Mr. [Mohammed] ElBaradei IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], says--he says it rather persistently--that there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has misused or diverted its nuclear technologies for military purposes. Is he wrong? And what evidence do you look for to suggest that the state is beginning to misuse its nuclear civilian program for military purposes? And where is Iran in that trajectory?
DAVID KAY: First, what you have to recognize is the instrument, the basis by which ElBaradei, Mohammed ElBaradei, draws that conclusion. And there, it's an instance of international inspection. Inspection is very good and very useful in confirming whether states are abiding by their obligations or not abiding by their obligations. Inspections are a lousy tool to unmask a clandestine program and allow you to say there is a nuclear weapons program there. In the case of Iraq, it took finding the calutrons [electromagnetic apparatus for separating isotopes] in 1991, finding the centrifuge program [to enrich nuclear fuel] later in the fall, and then ultimately seizing the documents. That was not something you did by inspection--you did by coercive examination after the conclusion of the war. So I think what Mohammed [ElBaradei] is saying is, he's looked at 18 years now--both documentary proof and Iranian admissions--18 years of violation of the nonproliferation obligations by the Iranian regime. But what they have not admitted, and in fact what inspections have not found, and probably are incapable of finding, is what is the intent, is at the core [of] their nuclear weapons program.
So I think you ought to listen--and I urge everyone to listen to what they say about what they have found, as opposed to drawing conclusions about what we really want to know about; that is, whether there is really a bomb in the basement, or a proto-program to build a bomb in the basement. International inspection, the way we have it now, is not going to find them.
TAKEYH: But let me ask you in your report, and in almost every discussion of Iran, it is sort of assumed--and I assume it, and I think Ken does too--that Iran is actually determined to develop a nuclear weapons program. And what you're telling me is you cannot decipher intent from the pattern of technological procurement, can you?
KAY: You may be able to, Ken may be able to, I may be able to as an analyst. Do not expect the head of an international inspection regime to be able to draw those conclusions. I found it very useful--and not just here, I mean it's partly scientific training: if you separate what you know, and you have evidence to back up what you believe may be happening, and then most importantly identify what you don't know--and I would put the intent of that program, its drive toward a nuclear weapon in what many of us, including you and Ken I now know [laughter]--
TAKEYH: And Mark.
KAY: No doubt Mark--probably prior to having evidence--believe the intent is a nuclear weapons program. But that's not something for what, if I or anyone else was director general of the IAEA, could say inspection has led me to find evidence of that. That's a conclusion. It's a belief.
TAKEYH: And is it fair to say the IAEA process, given this current inspection regime, is an inconclusive one?
KAY: Absolutely. Inconclusive--not inconclusive as regard to whether Iran has lived up to its nonproliferation obligations. Violations, reams of violations, have been found. Inconclusive as to the intent of those violations, the purpose of those violations, what they're designed to do.
TAKEYH: Well, let me actually turn to Ken. One of the things that the Committee on Present Danger report suggests that is that--again, I'll read you the quote and you tell me what you think of it. "Khamenei"--which in this context means Iran, they're interchangeable--"supports [anti-U.S. Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada] al-Sadr and others in Iraq, who want to become another theocratic dictatorship under Iranian tutelage." Let me ask you, given your comparative advantage, a two-fold question: A, what do you think is Iran's designs on Iraq? Is it to suggest that it's seeking a theocratic dictatorship under the leadership of Khamenei or similar like-minded folks? What is Iran's Iraq policy? And turn the angle around: What is that Iraqi Shiites and others view Iran and their prospective relationship with the Iranian government, which has been complicated in the past? So those are two questions for you.
KENNETH POLLACK: Sure. First, let me start by saying I wouldn't disagree with the quote that you just read me, insofar as it goes. Now, I don't know what the rest of the paragraph that that quote is contained in says. I have not read the report. I don't know what the context is. But I will say that I think it is a true statement that Iran is supporting Muqtada al-Sadr and others who are desirous of building a theocratic state in Iraq. I also think that's a very incomplete statement. I don't know what the rest of the report says, but I would never leave it with just that quote. The fact of the matter is, I think that in their heart of hearts many of Iran's senior leadership would love to have a theocratic government in Iraq, like their own, closely aligned with Iran. They think it is highly unlikely that they will get that outcome.
The second part of your question is an extremely important one. The Iranian leadership has made it clear time and again that they recognize that the Iraqis don't much care for them, including Iraq's Shia. They will remember the experience of the Iran-Iraq War. The ayatollahs' hope, when they invaded Iraq in 1982--a counteroffensive in response to Saddam's own invasion--when they invaded Iraq, their hope was that their Shia brethren would rise up and throw off the yoke of this awful Sunni dictator. And they didn't. Instead, the Shia fought ferociously on behalf of Saddam's regime. That was a very important lesson for Iran, and I think it is something we see playing out today. And, in point of fact, while it is true that they are providing some level of assistance to Muqtada al-Sadr, that level of assistance tends to be greatly exaggerated in the unclassified reporting in the outside press. And, what's more, they provide support to a whole variety of groups, and most of them, the most important groups, the message that they get from Tehran is, "Go along with the Americans." While it may be in their heart of hearts, as I've said, they'd love to see this theocratic Iraq, they know it is extremely unlikely that they're going to get it. And what they see as the second best, and in fact a much more likely option in fact, one that they can absolutely refine, is the success of what the U.S. is saying it will do.
If we succeed--let's set aside whether or not we're going to succeed--but if we succeed in building an independent pluralist Iraq in which the Shia majority is allowed to have political weight equivalent to its demographic weight, the Iranians believe that they will get a government that they can live with. And given the fact that for the last 30 years they've had a government in Iraq that they couldn't live with, that was their greatest principal foe, their greatest threat, that change is an enormous plus for the Iranians, and it is why you see them telling groups like SCIRI [Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq], like Dawa, the major Shia groups who do look to the Iranians at some level for some degree of support, see the Iranians typically saying to them, "Go along with the Americans--we are fine with where the Americans are going."
Now, there are always multiple games. We know that the Rev Guard [Revolutionary Guard] is in there. If you want, I can talk about that as well. The Iranian government is never consistent. But the overwhelming, the mainstream, message from the leadership is that one, and I think it's a very important thing for all Americans to keep in mind, because Iran's tacit support for our reconstruction effort has been a critical element in the success that we've enjoyed in Iraq so far.
TAKEYH: Well, let me ask you as well, ambassador, because the next big issue that's coming up in Iran's international relations is the whole negotiations that are taking place with the Europeans, that have to do with whether Iran will abide by the EU-3 [Britain, France, and Germany] agreement [concerning Iran's nuclear program], whether necessary incentives will come. And, as you know, the Iranians have said that the Europeans violated the original October 2003 agreement. What should the United States diplomacy be as the Europeans and Iranians negotiate? So far, it has been good cop/bad cop. Should that change? Should the United States be an active participant in these negotiations, which essentially imply offering concessions to the current regime? One of the things I found interesting about your report, you called for diplomatic recognition of Iran while indicting the head of state. What should the United States do? Should it be part of the diplomacy that's taking place and offering concessions, while at the same time establishing an international tribunal next door to try Khamenei? I mean, how, where should the United States go with the EU-Iran negotiations?
PALMER: We support the negotiations. The committee thinks that they're important, and it would be great if they succeeded. We just don't think that that's adequate by itself. We need--we propose a very broad dialogue with the Iranian people, and a re-engagement with the Iranian body politic--not just with Khamenei, not just with the Foreign Ministry, but with the whole of Iran, with the Iran that everybody in this room knows--with the rich complexity of Iran, not just with this one grand ayatollah who is not a grand ayatollah, who is parading around as a great figure, which he isn't.
POLLACK: Not even an ayatollah.
PALMER: Yeah, he's not even an ayatollah. So we think that it's not adequate to depend solely on the European negotiations, but that they should be supported. And that, in the negotiations that our main role should be to try to keep the game honest, not to leave the Europeans feeling alone. It's sometimes good when you're in a negotiation to have pressure on one side and pressure on the other side. It's clear they're going to get pressure from the Iranians. So we're a counter-pressure, and maybe that will help to keep the game honest and result in an outcome. I just wanted to respond that during the [former President Jimmy] Carter years, I was actually under [Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus] Les Gelb, director of the arms control office in the State Department, so I didn't jump to a conclusion about the intelligence on their program without thinking a little bit about it and looking at the evidence. I think the evidence is clear that that's where Khamenei wants to go.
If you listen, for example, to what [former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani has publicly stated would be the impact of a nuclear device exploded in Israel, as opposed to the same thing in what he called the Muslim world, he said it would be something like--he said it would be a drop in the ocean in the Muslim world, and in Israel it would destroy the state of Israel. It would completely obliterate Israel. So I think that there are people at very senior levels of this regime who want nuclear weapons and who understand what it would do to the geostrategic situation. And we cannot want that. And in our judgment, the Committee on the Present Danger believes we cannot tolerate it, and that if they get the weapons, we argue that we should take them out.
TAKEYH: Let me turn to you, Ken, because you and I have been talking about this issue a great deal. What is, if you assume as the ambassador does, why does Iran want nuclear weapons, what would it do with them? Is there anything that the United States and the international community can do to dissuade it from its current course?
POLLACK: A big set of questions there, Ray.
TAKEYH: I know you thought about them.
POLLACK: Let me start by answering your first question by quoting you back to yourself, and the question--
TAKEYH: Always a good move.
POLLACK: Right. Why does Iran want nuclear weapons or why does Iran's leaders? It depends. [Laughter] It depends on who you speak to. I mean, as you well know, the Iranian leadership is not a unanimous one. They do not move in lockstep. It is an incredibly fractious group, and many different Iranian leaders seem to have different incentives for wanting nuclear weapons.
I think that we can broadly say that there are at least two clear motives for wanting nuclear weapons: one is defensive, one is security. The Iranians seem to believe that they have to have a nuclear weapon for deterrent purposes, and principally, deterrence against the United States. The Iranian regime has defined the United States as their greatest adversary. Obviously at different times in history that definition has been justified, because we have acted as their greatest adversary. I would add in many instances they provoked us, but of course that's never the way that it seemed to Tehran. But the simple fact of the matter is the Iranians feel a grave threat from the United States. There are obviously other countries out there, but principally the United States, and they believe they must have nuclear weapons to deter us. The second clear reason is prestige. Iran wants to be a great power. Iranians believe that they should be a great power, and they see membership in the nuclear club as part of realizing those aspirations. And I think that is a fairly common set of aspirations throughout Iran's leadership.
To get to your second question, though, I think one of the great unknowns out there is to what extent will the Iranian leadership use these weapons for offensive, aggressive purposes, if they acquire the weapons? Again, I think it's clear that there are some in the leadership who do desire them for aggressive purposes, but it's just unclear how widely shared that view is. And here I think the great concern is that once Iran acquires nuclear weapons, regardless of why--they may even have gotten them for purely defensive purposes--but once they have them, they will feel so secure, they will believe themselves invulnerable that the United States, or Israel, or Pakistan, or whomever, won't be able, won't be willing to retaliate, and therefore they would be freed to go back to a very aggressive destabilizing foreign policy, similar to what they pursued in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And so we have seen other states follow that pattern. The best example of that is Pakistan, which wanted nuclear weapons initially simply to deter India. But once it got them, decided that it was so secure from an Indian retaliation that it greatly stepped up its support to the Kashmiri insurgents, and provoked the [May 1999] Kargil crisis [in the disputed Kashmir region], nearly leading to a war between India and Pakistan. So there's real precedence for that. I think that's the great concern.
Now, as for what we do about it--as you well know, Ray, in my book I look at a whole range of different policy options and tease out pluses and minuses. I would say that the approach that Ambassador Palmer laid out, I have some, in fact, I have a fair degree of sympathy for it, because at the end of the day, I don't much care for this regime in Iran, and I'd love to be rid of it. I think the greatest problem with that is the issue of timing. I like to use this analogy of two clocks, that there are two clocks ticking in Tehran right now. The first is the clock of regime change, and given the fact that most Iranians do want a different government--I think the evidence is pretty strong on that, as Ambassador Palmer suggested--I think it is pretty clear that at some point in time, we are going to have a different Iranian regime. But at the same time, the nuclear clock is ticking, and for me the problem is that the clock of regime change seems to be ticking much slower than the nuclear clock, and I am very pessimistic that regime change can take place before Iran gets nuclear weapons. And that's what I seek to avoid, is this regime getting nuclear weapons. And I also have a great deal of difficulty, even though I'm willing to say the United States should support some aspects of regime change, I would think the United States has the ability to speed regime change in Iran. In fact, I think it will wind up being counterproductive based on our long history with them. As a result, and I will say I also don't think the military options are very good. I've looked long and hard at them, and I think there are real problems. If you want, I can go into detail--
TAKEYH: We'll get to them.
POLLACK: Yeah, I'll set those aside. From my perspective, I think the best approach we can take on Iran is first to say to them, "Look, if you'd like to strike a deal, where we sit down, we give up our sanctions, we give up all the things that you don't like, and in return you give up the nukes and terrorism, et cetera, and make it all inspections," I'm glad to have that. I don't think it's going to happen, though. I mean, this is a deal that the U.S. has put on the table repeatedly, and this regime has never been willing to accept it. I don't think they're there yet. And as a result, I think that the fallback position needs to be--and you've heard other people say this, but I will repeat it--it needs to be a policy of true carrots and true sticks. I think as you and I have been talking about, what we are missing in the United States, what oftentimes you just hear, you don't hear in the public discourse, is the fact that this Iranian regime is not invulnerable. They have real weaknesses. And their Achilles' heel is their economy. Now, at the moment they're awash in oil dollars, that's certainly true. But ultimately, the Iranian economy is in very bad shape. It is failing to meet the needs of the Iranian people, and that economic weakness is creating internal instability. It is one of the greatest fears of the leadership of this regime. If the Europeans are willing to put real sticks on the table, we ought to be willing to put real carrots on the table.
I think just to summarize it, I think the approach that I would say is we--the Europeans, Japanese if we can get the Russians and the Chinese, so much the better--we have the opportunity to lay out for Tehran two very different futures: a future where they give up their nuclear program, they stop terrorism, and in return for that they get a very bright economic future, where we ultimately lift sanctions, we integrate them into the global economy--we do all the things that they need to keep their crippled economy afloat. And if they're unwilling to go down that path--and that means simply the status quo, as well as moving farther in this direction--then life is going to be very unpleasant for them, and we can impose a series of graduated sanctions on Iran that puts pressure on the one area where they do not want to see pressure--on their economy. And I will close, I will finish these remarks by simply saying that I think that if you looked at Iranian behavior, especially over the past two years, what is so striking is how sensitive to any threat of economic sanctions the Iranians are. In 2003, when the IAEA first issued its first negative report, the Iranians panicked, and they agreed to everything that the Europeans asked. It was only after six months of the Europeans assuring Tehran that they would never, ever impose sanctions on Iran that the Iranians went back and reneged. And this time around, when once again the Europeans stood fast on the agreement and said, "We want those 20 centrifuges in," the Iranians gave [in] again. The Iranians are very sensitive to this. They are not invulnerable. And I think that if we were willing to sit down and strike a deal with our European allies, I think that can have a tremendous impact on Tehran.
KAY: Let me just add I think what Ken discerns to be sensitivity on the Iranians' part is probably better characterized as their understanding of how to manipulate the Europeans. [Laughter] That is, sure, you cave for a moment, and then you go right back to it. I think there is a fundamental problem with the good cop/bad copy analogy. What's that led the Iranians to do, as it has other people, is to discount the leverage that we have, and to think that the Europeans are impotently manipulable. What we really--
PALMER: Proven to be so far.
KAY: Proven so far. And really, a failure on our part to understand a clash of cultures: the Western mentality is a belief that, essentially crudely put, everyone has his price. If we can find the appropriate carrots, behavior will change. The particular variant of Shia culture represented by the ayatollahs really is one that is much more concerned about cost than it is carrots. And in fact, as we talk about it, and you look at the Europeans, they continue to talk about--the European proliferation initiative recently just did the same thing again. The only sanctions on multilateral sanctions--multilateral sanctions heard in Iranian ears are the Chinese will veto it, it will never happen in the Security Council, and so we don't have to worry. If we're indeed ever to strike a pose with the Europeans to agree to this, we have to have an agreement that this is in fact a course we want to pursue, and it doesn't pursue through a U.N. organization, because otherwise, the Iranians are going to think, "Well, we're right back on the playing field we want to be in." So I'm not sure I would agree it's sensitive. I think they understand how to manipulate us.
TAKEYH: Let me just--before you, Ken, also even the current European deals suggest no new business arrangements--not the existing commercial relationship I guess persists.
POLLACK: David, I don't agree with the--I don't disagree with the points that you are making. I would put it this way: I think you're right. The Iranians are trying to manipulate the Europeans because, as I've said, they've always done it in the past. I think the key variable out here is Europe's willingness to stand fast against the Iranians. And that's simply an unknown at this moment--
KAY: That's pretty known.
POLLACK: The European diplomats are insisting that they're willing to do this time what they never were beforehand. I think if they were willing to do it, it would put the Iranians in a dilemma. I think you're right, the Iranians are betting that they won't have to do it, because they've never had to in the past, and of course that's always been the problem, is that they were always able to play us off of the Europeans. If the Europeans were willing to stick with us, then I think the Iranians would be in very tough shape. I think the question is, we don't know whether the Europeans really are willing--
KAY: I think we really have to be sensitive to what the Europeans are saying, because they are saying they will consider sanctions, but they're always saying multilateral sanctions, U.N. Security Council. The fact of the matter is, that is a no-go under any circumstances that we could imagine. If we are to have a dialogue with the Europeans, it is to move them not only to sanctions, but move them to the sanctions that we and the Europeans--and it would be nice but not going to happen, would be the Chinese included, it's probably not even going to be the Russians--and to recognize that that still can be a tremendous force in terms of a price the Iranians would have to pay. But the Europeans continue to hang their policy on multilateral sanctions through the Security Council. I see that, and I think Tehran sees that, as nothing but a free pass. Don't have to worry.
POLLACK: I agree with you, and you're right. And it has to be done outside the Security Council, because the Security Council is never going to make this work.
TAKEYH: OK, ambassador?
PALMER: I don't agree with Ken's understanding of the view that dictators have of their people's economic welfare and of economic growth and of economic rationality. I mean, if Khamenei and his crowd, the Guardian Council, really cared about making Iran a successful economy, they could have done it with very little trade and investment. I mean, they could just have had a rational economic policy, which they don't have. What they've done is in a classic dictatorial way, they have taken over the assets of the state for themselves. The mullahs have become rich. Their families have become rich. They control the export-import business, these families do. We've just seen, with Saddam Hussein, the limits of economic policy of sanctions on dictators. He built over half of all his palaces from '91 until we ousted him, during a period of very substantial--supposedly substantial--even European-agreed-to and supposedly implemented sanctions. In my view, economic sanctions against dictators simply don't work. They've not worked against [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro. They simply don't work because dictators have a whole other way of thinking about staying in power and about their own people.
So I think we need to invent--and we argue in our paper--we need to invent new kinds of sanctions that are much more finely targeted, that don't hurt the Iranians, that in fact our policy should be geared to helping the Iranian people have trade and investment, have a positive economic policy. We should target the reason why they have a failed economy, which is this man and his coterie.
TAKEYH: I just have to open it up to the questions, now. Sorry. I ask for you to wait for the microphone, and introduce yourself as you ask your question. So I'll open it up now for questions.
QUESTIONER: Raymond Tanter, Georgetown University. Not once did I hear from this esteemed group the word "Iranian opposition." There is an Iranian opposition, and it would appear to me that if regime change were a goal, that that opposition should be cultivated. Now, you might say, "How much support does that opposition have?" Once the great powers, I would argue, send a signal to that opposition, then more people would jump off of the fence. But it's a pretty dangerous place to be right now in terms of going to that opposition. And so I would like to put on the table the idea of a third option that is not just negotiations, that is not just military strik
