Iranian Alert -- May 6, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

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

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE U.N.'S POWER GRAB IN IRAQ

By AMIR TAHERI
NYPost

May 6, 2004 -- WITHIN the next week or so, the United Nations' special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to unveil his plan for handling the transition in Baghdad. How America and its Coalition allies react to that plan could determine not only the future of democracy in Iraq but also the fate of President Bush's strategy for a new Middle East.

Judging by his statements so far, Brahimi is expected to ask that the United Nations be recognized as the brain of the Iraq project, while the U.S.-led Coalition provides the muscle, and the money.

The United Nations would not only pick the members of the transition government but would also dictate their mission. And, again, it would be the U.N., not the Coalition, that would decide the modalities of the general election planned for next year. The U.N. would also dicate the principles around which a new constitution is written.

For weeks, Brahimi and his aides have talked about the need for a "broadly based" authority in Baghdad to represent the restoration of Iraqi national sovereignty.

That is based on two false assumptions. The first is that the Iraq Governing Council is not representative enough.

In fact, the council is a broadly based authority that, with the exception of the Ba'ath, includes all political forces - from Communists to Monarchists, with liberals, democrats, social democrats and Islamists. The council has been endorsed by virtually all of Iraq's religious, tribal, social and community leaders. The only way that the United Nations can pro- duce a more broadly based authority is by including the Saddamites.

The United Nations has always resented the fact that it was not consulted in the Governing Council's formation. Later, the council made itself even less popular with the U.N. crowd by leaking information about alleged U.N. involvement in corrupt practices linked to the Oil-for-Food program. Last year, the United Nations instructed its staff in Iraq to keep their contacts with the Governing Council (whose members were branded "quislings" working for "the occupying powers") to a minimum.

The second false assumption behind the United Nations' position on Iraq is that the country has somehow lost its sovereignty, which must now be restored by Annan and Brahimi.

That is a strange view, especially coming from the United Nations - under whose rules a nation, even if occupied by foreign powers, does not lose its sovereignty. The United Nations' Security Council reiterated that fact in Resolution 1511, unanimously passed earlier this year.

The issue, therefore, is not Iraqi sovereignty but the powers needed to exercise it in an effective way. Right now those powers are mainly exercised by the Coalition Provisional Authority and not the Governing Council. To transfer those powers to the United Nations, rather than an effective Iraqi transitional authority, would not change the reality on the ground.

In normal life, he who pays the piper sets the tune.

Now, however, the United Nations is demanding that America and its allies should bear the cost of rebuilding Iraq (both in terms of lives lost in combating insurgents and terrorists, and taxpayers' money to the tune of over $100 billion), but have virtually no say in deciding the direction the Iraqi transition should take.

The talk at the United Nations is that Kofi (Annan) is getting Dubya off the Iraqi hook on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, and that all America should do is show gratitude.

Bringing in the United Nations has become something of a refrain for all those, from France's President Jacques Chirac to U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry, who have no clue on Iraq, and little interest in that nation's future.

But giving the U.N. the leading role in Baghdad could be a recipe for disaster for all concerned, starting with the Iraqi people.

There is no guarantee that, once Iraq becomes a U.N. "problem," the American public would have any incentive in accepting further sacrifices in rebuilding a distant nation whose people would be regarded as ungrateful, if not downright unfriendly.

And without a massive American political, military and financial commitment, Iraq would have little chance of building a stable political system as part of a broader, long-term democratization program. The country could fall apart, be plunged into sectarian violence or, worse still, see another despotic regime emerge in Baghdad.

The impact of failure in Iraq on the region cannot be overestimated. Democratic aspirations throughout the Middle East would suffer a strategic setback, while a new era of instability could threaten energy resources vital to the global economy.

Failure in Iraq could encourage the mood of radicalism that has generated the most deadly forms of terrorism the world has witnessed. It could also trigger a new race towards the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms, throughout the region.

Iraq needs wholehearted American commitment at all levels for years to come. Building democracy in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, is neither a luxury nor a form of do-goodism. The stakes are high and the investment of political energy and money, not to speak of lives, in Iraq is worth making from the point of view of U.S. national security.

This is what President Bush said last November: "The establishment of a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed for the global democratic revolution." How true.

To succeed in Iraq, America must stay in the driver's seat, not as an occupying power but as an ally working closely with a representative transitional authority until a freely elected government is in place. Even then, such a government would still need U.S. support for years to come, just as did the governments of liberated Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War.

All this does not mean that the United Nations has no role to play. It can help organize and supervise the elections, and provide a range of services through specialized agencies such as UNICEF and WHO. A new Security Council resolution, committing the U.N. to rebuilding Iraq as a democratic state, could also be useful in diplomatic and political terms.

If Iraq is abandoned to the United Nations, be sure that the United States will have to return and fight another war in the Middle East within just a few years. The 2003 Iraq war of liberation had to be fought because America and its allies shrunk from finishing the 1991 war once they'd liberated Kuwait. Had the U.S.-led coalition marched on Baghdad in 1991 to depose Saddam Hussein and install a pluralist regime, the 2003 war would not have been necessary.

With strategic success in Iraq within grasp, it would be dangerous for America to let tactical fears dictate policy, and thus allow history to repeat itself.E-mail:

amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20231.htm

TV Series with Polygamy Plot Angers Iranian Women

May 06, 2004
Reuters
Parinoosh Arami

TEHRAN -- An Iranian television series in which a woman introduces a friend to her husband for marriage has outraged female activists in the Islamic state who say it encourages polygamy and reinforces prejudice against women.

Protest gatherings and editorials in feminist publications have singled out the "Another Woman" mini series, whose run on state monopoly IRIB ended last month, as a prime example of the broadcaster's negative portrayal of women.

"Promoting polygamy in television programs is a big insult to women here," reformist parliamentarian Akram Mosavarimanesh told Reuters.

Men in Iran, where Islamic law has been in force since 1979, can marry up to four permanent wives and as many "temporary wives" -- via religious contracts lasting as little as a few hours to several years -- as they wish.

Women, in contrast, require their husband's permission to work or travel abroad and enjoy far weaker divorce and custody rights than men.

But in a country where female graduates now outnumber men and many women run their own businesses and occupy senior management positions, female activists say practices like polygamy are outdated and should not be encouraged.

"Such measures aim to wreck attempts to further improve women's role in society," Mosavarimanesh said.

There are no official statistics on polygamy in Iran but sociologists say it is more common in small cities and rural areas where divorce and the discussion of marital problems outside the family are frowned upon.

Newly elected conservative parliamentarian Fatemeh Alia said polygamy can preserve family unity and helps ensure fewer women end up alone with no one to support them.

POLYGAMY NOT JUST FOR FUN

IRIB's steady diet of religious programing and tame dramas has been criticized by reformist officials for failing to attract young viewers who turn instead to foreign satellite programs and Western films on DVD which, although illegal, are readily available.

In "Another Woman," a woman who thinks she cannot bear children and also knows she is dying from cancer persuades her husband to marry her friend so he can have a child.
Leading female activist Marzieh Mortazi-Langhroudi said such plots were common and could influence some viewers' thinking.

"Women in cities may look at it as just a movie and laugh, but in some remote places couples think it is possible for them to solve their marital problems through polygamy," she said.

Writer Mehri Suvizi agreed. "There is a strong tendency in many television programs to promote temporary marriage and to prepare the conditions for society to accept second wives and polygamy," she wrote in the latest edition of her monthly magazine, Eastern Woman.

"Such programs ...threaten family foundations," she said.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5058231

Time to Deal With Iran [An Excerpt]

May 06, 2004
The Washington Post
James Dobbins

Iranian diplomats have shown up in Baghdad, reportedly at British government urging. London hopes that Iranian intervention can prove helpful in tamping down Shiite resistance to the U.S.-led coalition and in building support for an emerging Iraqi interim government. This must sound odd to American ears, accustomed to hearing the Iranian regime described as a member of the "axis of evil." But this would not be the first time Tehran has come to Washington's aid in the war on terror.

Before there was Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was Operation Enduring Freedom. Americans tend to think of that earlier campaign for the liberation of Afghanistan as a similarly U.S.-initiated and dominated effort. But in fact the war to displace the Taliban had been underway long before the United States became involved. It was being fought by a coalition consisting of Iran, Russia, India and the Northern Alliance. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States joined this coalition and, with the essential addition of U.S. air power, Northern Alliance forces were able to take Kabul and drive the Taliban from power.

Two weeks after the fall of Kabul, all the major elements of the Afghan opposition came together at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Bonn. The objective was to create a broadly based successor government to the Taliban. As the U.S. representative at that gathering, I worked both with the Afghan delegations and with the other national representatives who had the greatest influence among them, which is to say the Iranian, Russian and Indian envoys. All these delegations proved helpful. None was more so than the Iranians. On two occasions Iranian representatives made particularly memorable contributions. The original version of the Bonn agreement, drafted by the United Nations and amended by the Afghans who were present, neglected to mention either democracy or the war on terrorism. It was the Iranian representative who spotted these omissions and successfully urged that the newly emerging Afghan government be required to commit to both.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5838-2004May5.html

Director Accuses Iran of Film Ban Says Film-makers are Being Forced to Leave Iran

May 06, 2004
BBC News
BBCi

An award-winning Iranian film-maker has said the Iranian government stopped him from making a film about what he called "the suffering" of his people. Mohsen Makhmalbaf said Iran's ministry of culture had refused him a permit to film his script, called Amnesia.

The director, who made the acclaimed movie Kandahar about the Taleban regime in Afghanistan, complained of a "new censorship strategy" in Iran.

No spokesman for the Iranian government was immediately available for comment.

Makhmalbaf said the Iranian ministry of culture and Islamic guidance had officially refused a permit for the film on Tuesday.

He said the story "reflected two decades of pain and sufferings of the Iranian people and artists", and had taken him "years" to write.

"It seems that the new censorship strategy intends to push the Iranian artists to migrate from the country," Makhmalbaf said.

It had finally been completed in autumn last year when he was admitted to hospital in Tehran because of heart problems.

Shooting on the film had been due to begin in Tehran shortly.

Makhmalbaf also said his films had been subject to what he called "improper screening" in Iran in recent years.

'Pretentious'

In a statement on Thursday, he said: "Many of these films are either prevented from (being shown) or, in a pretentious manoeuvre, are shown in a couple of theatres for a short time and disappear before anyone finds out about the showings."

Makhmalbaf's film Kandahar, released in the West in 2001, won the ecumenical prize at that year's Cannes film festival.

Filmed inside Afghanistan, it tells of a female journalist who returns to the country to rescue her sister who has become depressed.

Makhmalbaf's daughter, Samira, competed for last year's Palme d'Or in Cannes for her film At Five in the Afternoon, about a girl struggling to survive in Afghanistan after the Taleban.

A spokesman for the Iranian government in London said he could not comment on Makhmalbaf's claims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3690857.stm

The CIA controls Osama bin Laden!

A Vast Conspiracy
Nothing funny about this top-ten list.

By Steven Stalinsky
May 06, 2004, 8:35 a.m.
National Review Online

Abd Al-Munim Said, head of the Al-Ahram Research Center in Egypt, once said: "We thought that by the end of the 20th century, the Arab mind would be open enough not to explain everything with a 'conspiracy theory'...the biggest problem with conspiracy theories is that they keep us not only from the truth but also from confronting our faults and problems...This way of thinking relates any given problem to external elements, and thus does not [lead] to a rational policy to confront the problem."

Since 9/11/01, conspiracy theories against the U.S., the Jews, and the Zionists have been rampant in the Arab world. These notions are spread not only by marginal personalities and media outlets, but, more important, by prominent members of mainstream governments and media.

Some of last year's most far-fetched conspiracy theories in the Arab world include: U.S. soldiers cannibalized Iraqi civilians; the U.S. was responsible for the car bomb that killed Iraqi Shia leader Muhammad Bakir Al-Hakim; the Jews were behind the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia; the U.S. was behind the SARS virus; and the Iraq war was launched to coincide with the Jewish holiday Purim. The following highlight the top ten Arab conspiracy theories in recent months:

10. Pakistani Jamaatud-Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was quoted in the Islamic Republic News Agency on November 13, 2003, stating that al Qaeda was not responsible for the Riyadh bombing that month. Rather, "It is a Jewish and American conspiracy against the mujahadeen and al Qaeda."

9. According to an editorial in the November 20 Yemen Times, the Istanbul bombings during Ramadan this past November could not have been committed by Muslims, as "the international Zionist establishment was keen on instigating this crime. This is strongly supported by the fact that no Muslim in his right mind could ever condone such crimes."

8. The Islamic Republic News Agency reported on February 28 that the U.S. captured Osama bin Laden in a tribal region of Pakistan. It claimed that Donald Rumsfeld's recent trip to Pakistan was related to the capture. The report said that the U.S. will announce the capture shortly before the November presidential elections.

7. Professor Galal Amin, a professor at the American University of Cairo, writing in the April 1 edition of Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, explained: "There is still doubt that the September [11] attacks were the outcome of Arab and Islamic terror.... Many writers...suspect that the attacks were carried out by Americans."

6. Writing in Kuwait's Al-Watan on March 14, columnist Adnan Zayid Al-Kazimi identified the real culprit in the Madrid bombings: "I claim with certainty that the ones who attributed all evil to the Arabs and the Muslims are the Zionists, those who are closest to carry out such an operation like the other operations [that they carried out]."

5. Said Al-Subki, columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Watan, also blamed the Madrid bombings on the Jews in its March 19 edition. He criticized Arab intelligence services for being "incapable of discovering the hidden Zionist fingers planning many terror operations in order to entangle the Arabs and Muslims."

4. Deputy editor of the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya wrote an article on March 18 that accused the Jews of perpetrating every terrorist attack throughout the world. Regarding the Madrid bombings that took place March 11, Abd Al-Wahhab Adas claimed, in reference to the explosives and cassettes of the Koran found at the site, "It is obvious that the Jews are the ones who placed these things, in order to prove to the entire world that the Arabs and Muslims are behind the bombings." Adas added about the Jews: "It is they who are behind the events of September 11."

3. In an interview with Al-Arabiyya TV, Lebanese Druze leader and parliamentarian Walid Jumblatt stated on March 21 that, as part of a "born-again Christian" scheme that included 9/11, the CIA controls Osama bin Laden.

2. According to the Iranian Mehr News Agency, Hossein Sheikholeslam, the former Iranian ambassador to Syria, stated that the series of bombings that hit Damascus in the last week of April were "a bid to force Iraq's neighbors to submit to their Iraq policy, the U.S. and the Zionist regimes orchestrated such terrorist attacks." He noted, "This is not the first time that the U.S. and Israel have employed al Qaeda elements to help them reinforce their terrorist objectives."

1. After the bombing in Yunbu, Saudi Arabia, on May 1, Crown Prince Abdullah stated: "Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that."

Steven Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405060835.asp

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