...The State Department has not been reformed, our real tools of diplomacy (namely our idle military capacity) are still being squandered, and the Neros at State fiddle around with pacification...
I was not claiming the state department has suddenly been reformed. But we were successful in getting them to reassert their support for the Iranian people's effort to create a true secular democracy.
I agree, we got their attention. Progress is progress, anything encouraging is better than what we heard from Powell.
Tehran in turmoil as students protest
By Michael Theodoulou
July 10, 2003
THOUSANDS of prodemocracy demonstrators converged last night on Tehran University and fought street battles with police and Islamic vigilantes on the fourth anniversary of campus protests that were brutally suppressed.
Police clashed with hardline Islamic vigilantes, who tried to approach the area where the demonstrators had formed a long traffic jam in their cars. They also fired teargas at the protesters.
“The atmosphere is very tense, the smell of teargas is thick in the air. Police have clashed with youths, the youths have fought with basijis and I saw police fighting basijis trying to get closer to the university,” a witness said.
The basij militiamen, identifiable only by their beards, clubs and untucked shirts, are fiercely loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, Iran’s most powerful figure. They are outside the control of the reformist President Khatami, who indirectly supervises the civilian police through the Interior Ministry and the National Security Council, which he heads.
Hundreds of riot police reinforcements later poured in to take control of the area, dispersing crowds and chasing youths into side streets and beating them with batons.
Police appeared to have a firmer grip on security than during last month’s unrest, when at times they stood by and watched as vigilantes beat protesters with chains, cables and clubs and roared around on motorcycles attacking protesters at will. But cars still clogged the downtown area into the night, with drivers beeping horns in support of the protesters when basij or police were not looking.
The authorities had taken measures to silence radio and satellite television stations run by exiles in California. Authorities had also banned gatherings and closed campuses in the expectation of possible unrest to mark the anniversary, which came shortly after a wave of student demonstrations.
Last month 4,000 people, including some 30 student leaders, were arrested during ten nights of sometimes violent protests across Iran that received warm support from Washington. At least 2,000 people are still being held.
Those detentions, together with a lack of organisation and direction among protesters and disunity among student groups, mean that the regime is not under the sort of immediate threat that hawks in the Bush Administration might hope, analysts say.
But the June protests were a warning that the old guard will ignore at its peril because the students were joined by many ordinary people who voiced some of the most daring anti-regime slogans ever heard. Frustrations have been steadily mounting among the young population at the old guard’s determination to block attempts by elected reformist politicians to liberalise the Islamic system.
The clashes last night came after Iran attempted to relieve external pressure by agreeing to work with the United Nations nuclear watchdog on the prospect of allowing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear programme.
Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that he would send a team of experts to Iran next week to clarify the country’s concerns over signing an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that would allow surprise visits to its facilities.
“I hope that, once these issues have been clarified, Iran will be in a position to sign the protocol. But naturally that is a decision for the Iranian Government to make,” he said.
He described his talks in Tehran with President Khatami and other senior officials as “open, direct and constructive”.
Gholam-Reza Aghazedeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, said that he was “certain that co-operation with the IAEA will bring very good results”.
Iran denies American accusations that it is using the nuclear energy programme as a cover for developing nuclear weapons, but has said that it would only consider signing the additional protocol if other NPT signatories met their obligations relating to the transfer of civil nuclear technology.
There were indications that Iran might agree to sign an additional protocol, diplomats said. “An increasing number of government spokesmen and majlis (parliament) deputies are talking about Iran’s readiness to sign an additional protocol, although there’s nothing concrete yet,” an Asian diplomat said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-740779,00.html