Massively destructive

So there's an interesting Times piece currently leading the website,
Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq

James Glanz: Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

First, what's with the headline? Imagine if it were about the German ambassador to Poland--German reveals plan to expand role in Poland?

Second, wow, reveal--the Iranian ambassador reveals! In an--interview.... Wow, holy sleuthing, Times!

Third, imagine the shock! shock! if the Times discovered that Germany had an interest in ties with its neighbor. Imagine if the U.S. told Germany how dare you claim you have the right to influence your neighbor. Imagine if the U.S. told Germany to stay out of what we do to your neighbor, it's none of your business.

Sheesh. There's been a spate of article lately about how the Bush administration seems to be beating the drums for war with Iran, much like it did with Iraq. (I actually don't believe the administration has any thoughts of going to war with Iran--it's not a winnable war, for one thing; the administration's simply trying to get the most out of its blustering and threats).

Maybe someone should be writing articles about the Times' take on Iran. Where's Maureen Dowd when you need her?

Separate peace

Iranian Moolah

Farouz Farzami in the WSJ: Killing time the other day on my way to meet my boyfriend, I walked through the long narrow passages of the House of Artists in the vicinity of the old U.S. Embassy, when I came upon a graceful exhibit of books published in America.

The books had been imported by a company called Vizhe Nasher ("special publication"), which is authorized, as it must be, by the government. Most concerned the visual and architectural arts, photography, sewing and cooking, and there was a wide variety offering weight-loss techniques, but I came across one I was startled to find: "The Daily Cocktail: 365 Intoxicating Drinks," by Dalyn A. Miller and Larry Bonovan.

I live in a country where alcohol is officially banned, but where the art of homemade spirits has reached new heights. Sharing my astonishment about the cocktail book with some friends with better connections to the Islamist regime, they explained the government has a silent pact with the educated and affluent in Iran's big cities, who render politics unto Caesar, provided that Caesar keeps his nose out of their liquor cabinets.

In other words, the well-to-do Iranian drinks and reads and watches what he wishes. He does as he pleases behind the walls of his private mansions and villas. In return for his private comforts, the affluent Iranian is happy to sacrifice freedom of speech, most of his civil rights, and his freedom of association. The upper-middle class has been bought off by this pact, which makes a virtue of hypocrisy.

And you wonder why Iranians had an Islamic revoltion--the rich in that country have always been part of the problem, no matter what the regime.

The only difference is now they have to be underground; they wanna overthrow the current government not because of things like human rights abuses and an egregious foreign policy, but so they can go back to running the country and doing whatever they want whenever they want and to whomever they want.

They don't care about their own people--it's just like the rich Cuban exiles in Miami. They never talk about how when they ran the country it was under a dictatorship; they don't talk about how they hope to bring back free speech and democracy because they never had or wanted that.

It's all about the evils of the current regime, of which there are a lot--but you know, at a certain point you've got to come clean and admit it wasn't paradise that was lost, it was just your money, which was often ill-gotten at best, stolen at worst.

Caught in the middle, of course, are the poor who still suffer in the country, who hate the current regime but also remember that they hated even more the plutocracy. At least the current regimes in Iran and Cuba started out idealistic, with aspirations of change and a concept of social good.

The rich Iranians and Cubans merely want to feed.

Time/Life-Getty Images photo of the shah and his family by Dmitri Kessel and via PBS' Wideangle. More unbiased views on the Shah here.

Out of the tears

World Cup Tests Iranians' Ability to Have Fun in Public

Michael Slackman in the Times: As Iran's team prepares to step onto the field of the World Cup for only the second time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the soccer fever gripping the country reveals many of the pressures reshaping Iranian society. While Iran confronts the West over its nuclear program and its president promotes Holocaust denial, the country is also struggling with something far more fundamental: how to have fun together in public.

It is a challenge that has forced Iranians to try to sort through the intersecting strands of their identity, to confront decades of clerical rule that have emphasized traditions of mourning and to accommodate a population increasingly dominated by young people who are far more aware of the world beyond Iran.

"We do speak about this problem: how can we have a happy society?" said Behrouz Gharibpour, director of the main cultural center in Tehran. "We are in the center of trying to change, to find a good and accepted way to be happy — when we want to be happy."

Soccer, it turns out, has been one of the catalysts propelling that effort.

"As a people, we have this very sad streak in us," said Mansoureh Ettehadieh, a publisher and historian in Tehran. "Most of our music is sad. The Shia color is black." ...

"If they win, all of the people will express their emotions, 100 percent, and there will be no power to prevent them from doing this," said Ali Mudi, 44, as he sat in Laleh Park in Tehran. His friend Ahmed Maghail, 82, said he relished the idea of such a celebration: "All of the happiness and celebrations in my life were before 27 years ago."

How long can a regime last when its people are forced to keep much of life's emotions and experiences bottled up inside?

I guess one answer is it depends on whether the regime changes. China, for example, under the predecessors of its present rules went through as much madness as any modern country has had to experience, certainly more during the course of the 'Great Leap Forward' and Cultural Revolution than Iranians have had to bear.

I wonder if China's experiences then and Iran's now were and are in some ways necessary, a sort of mad cleansing to ensure a break with history. In Iran's case, the Shah--installed and maintained by the U.S.--ran a brutal dictatorship from 1941 to 1979. The mullahs have been in power for only a fraction of that time; but because the Islamic Republic stripped the previously-elite of the wealth and power they had amassed under the Shah's plutocracy, there are squawks of outrage now from them that were wholly absent when Iran's poor was the main victim.

In China's case, everybody suffered pretty much equally in the 60s and 70s as the Communist party tried to figure out how to work through the effects of installing equality in a country that was used to being ruled by others, first by Western powers, than by Japan, than by the rapacious Chiang Kai-shek.

China wound up deciding the only way to deal with its past national humiliation was to become strong economically. I wonder, however, if--given the shackles of its history--its present economic miracle would have occurred had it not been for its self-imposed suffering. Thomas Friedman in The Earth is Flat quotes the mayor of Dalian (a mid-sized for China northern city of 5.5 million) as saying:

My personal feeling is that Chinese youngsters are more ambitious than Japanese or American youngsters in recent years, but I don't think they are ambitious enough, because they are not as ambitious as my generation. Because our generation, before they got into universities and colleges, were sent to distant rural areas and factories and military teams, and went through a very hard time, so in terms of the spirit to overcome and face the hardships, [our generation had to have more ambition] than youngsters nowadays.

It's in some ways Nietzsche's what doesn't kill you and all that, but I think certain countries with specific histories need to go through a 'boot camp' sort of experience, where they're broken down--sometimes in nonsensical, heartless ways because really, how can a society disassemble itself logically--in order to find out what their national soul really is and in order to build a sustainable society.

I'm hopeful Iran will go the same path, and will start its road to recovery by giving up its draining nuclear weapons program in exchange for the U.S. ending its economic embargo. Not sure if the same regime that's dragged the country into this mess will be there to bring them out the other end.

In the meantime, until the pendulumn swings back, the Times' characterization (and it very much is a product of the Times' world view) reminds me of the opening lines of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories (which I always recommend as the perfect introduction to this greatest of living authors)

"There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue."

Polaris photo of woman at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's tomb by Newsha Tavakolian for the Times.

Iranian in Paris

19-Year-Old Muslim Shakes Off Chills and Snubs in Paris

For members of the tennis establishment like Roger Federer and Amélie Mauresmo, the nasty, clammy conditions at this year's French Open seem like a hardship as the tarps go on and off the clay and the big shots do not penetrate the way they would in sunnier times and climes.

"It's actually pretty mild, for winter," joked Mauresmo, the No. 1-seeded woman, after her 6-1, 7-6 (5) victory over the Russian teenager Vera Dushevina in the second round Wednesday.

But Aravane Rezai is not feeling the chill. Compared to her everyday existence, which includes sleeping in the family van to save money at tournaments, Roland Garros is nothing short of a theme park.

"It often happens that I cry during training," she said. "Many times I have trained with the snow falling or in the rain or outside when temperatures are below 10 degrees. That's tough, but when I come here, it's really Club Med."

It is turning into an extended vacation for Rezai, a solidly built 19-year-old French player of Iranian descent with limited mobility but big-time power.

She was denied a wild card into the main draw by French tennis federation officials who are in conflict with her father and coach, Arsalan Rezai. But the daughter has used that snub for fuel at the federation's showcase event.

Last week, Rezai won three matches to qualify for the Open. Before Federer won his rain-punctuated second-round match against Alex Falla, 6-1, 6-4, 6-3, Rezai reached the third round on the same damp stretch of clay by upsetting 22nd-seeded Ai Sugiyama, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. ...

Rezai has been coming to the tournament by subway instead of official transport, because she is staying with friends in Paris to save money.

"We've had some problems," she said calmly of the French federation. "I prefer not to talk about them and focus on my next match."

Maybe Aravane Rezai should just come to America....

AP Photo of Aravane Rezai by Francois Mori via Canada.com.

Letters and places

From Iran, With Something Less Than Love

Elaine Sciolino in the Times: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran wrote a letter to President Bush last weekend — the first formal letter from an Iranian leader to an American president since Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979. The letter has a familiar ring. In tone and structure, it is eerily reminiscent of a letter sent in January 1989 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's revolution, to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the leader of a collapsing Soviet Union.

Certainly the historical context is different. Ayatollah Khomeini was convinced that Communism was dead and the only worthwhile system of government was one based on religious truth. He was advising the Soviet leader to study the Koran. Mr. Ahmadinejad, for his part, has set out to lecture Mr. Bush on the immorality of the war in Iraq, the confinement of prisoners at Guantánamo, the United States' support for Israel, and other aspects of American foreign policy that he doesn't like.

And the letters differ in style. Ayatollah Khomeini, a revered clerical scholar, filled his letter with Koranic references and elaborate footnotes. Mr. Ahmadinejad, a mere layman, repeatedly invoked the name of Jesus Christ and the Old Testament prophets, alongside Koranic verses. But rather than footnotes, he filled his letter with taunts.

Still, the letters share something basic — a tone of pure effrontery. Both include heavy doses of lecturing and use religious knowledge with an air of moral superiority. The tone is highlighted by repeating the recipient's name again and again.

It's impossible to know whether Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter is an act of homage to the Iranian revolutionary leader, who died in June 1989, but it certainly is an imitation.

It is also an act of breathtaking audacity — Mr. Ahmadinejad dares to cast himself as the great Islamic scholar's stand-in. And Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Khomeini's official successor as "supreme leader" of Iran, has let him do it.

Ah, yes--pure effrontery! How dare these ragtag third world leaders address these first world potentates!

Heck, only America's allowed to lecture other nations, and use religious knowledge with an air of moral superiority.

Besides which, aren't these guys supposed to be terrorists? How come they're writing?!

Sheesh... Sciolino should really have a better understanding of Iranians and the context for the letters. Both times the leaders were writing from what they saw as a position of strength, vis-a-vis their adversaries. Hence, the lack of kow-towing.

And both wrote to countries that in their eyes at least might see the light and thus become partners of the Islamic Republic. I'd say that's a good thing. For all the enmity on the part of the old USSR toward Iran, and for all the harm America's done Iran, it's interesting that both times the Iranian leader at least made the gesture of reaching out.

I think Sciolino's problem is that the letters are coming from them to us; the natural order of things in her view and that of many others if for the letter and lecturing to flow the other way. Hence....

When a Diplomat Plays Postman , a Times piece in the same section as Sciolino's article that looked at how the Iranian letter got to the White House (essentially via Swiss diplomats).

The second part of Joel Brinkley's piece probably restores the natural order of things for Sciolino and her ilk:

There are more high-tech ways to send letters these days, as the State Department demonstrated last week in Africa. Robert B. Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state, was in Abuja, Nigeria, trying to persuade Darfur rebel leaders to accept a peace treaty. The rebels weren't budging. So President Bush wrote personal letters to two of them, urging them to sign the agreement.

These letters were converted to a digital graphic format and sent from Washington as e-mail attachments. When they were printed in Abuja and presented to the rebels, they had an immediate effect. The rebels' jaws dropped, and one of them signed the treaty. Meanwhile, Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria, was heard to complain throughout the day, "I want my own letter from the president."

Uncredited UPI file photo of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini via the Times.

Iranian paradox

Hostage-Taker, Reformer, Pessimist: An Iranian Life

When he was a young man, Abbas Abdi thought the shah of Iran had to be overthrown and the United States needed to be punished for supporting the government. So he helped plan and stage the takeover of the United States Embassy and the seizure of 52 Americans, who were held hostage for 444 days.

Many years later, he thought the Iranian government needed to be more responsive to the people, so he helped to create the reform movement, which twice elected a president, Mohammad Khatami, and fostered hope of greater social and political freedoms.

Now, as Tehran and the West battle over Iran's nuclear program, and ideological conservatives control every branch of government, Mr. Abdi said he saw a country intoxicated by oil wealth and headed toward "social collapse." Both of his historic ventures — helping to form the Islamic Republic of Iran, and helping to develop the reform movement — are, by his own assessment, either finished or hurtling toward oblivion. ...

As much as anybody's life, Mr. Abdi's biography traces the evolution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He rode the wave of the revolution: as a leader of the student group that seized the embassy; as an official in the early government; as a reformist writer challenging what he saw as a system grown corrupt and disconnected from the people; as an optimist, pushing for democratization; and then as a prisoner, punished and jailed by those who saw his personal evolution as a challenge and a threat.

Mr. Abdi is in a lonely place now, opposed to those holding power and sharply critical of those who led the reform movement. He said the reformers had failed not because their goals were wrong, but because they were too passive. "They did not want to pay a price," he said.

The man whose ideas once served as a barometer of change in Iranian society today expresses cynicism, disgust and concern. "Ahmadinejad's era will become like a tragedy in our history," he said of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a characterization certain to further alienate — and even antagonize — Iran's leaders. ...

Mr. Abdi has become an unlikely and in many ways a lone voice in the world, saying the United States has far more moral authority today than it did back in 1979. He seems to respect, even like, his old nemesis, and finds room occasionally to compliment Washington. He even pointed to Iraq, saying that the United States had at least tried to build democratic institutions.

"Just compare America's interference in Kosovo with its interference in Vietnam," he said. "America has changed its policies. Back then it supported dictatorial regimes. But now, for example, it is putting pressure on the Saudis, on Egypt, and calling for change."

And why is America, in his view, promoting democracy over dictatorship?

"I think one reason behind the change is the occupation of the American Embassy," he said. "It gave them a shock to re-examine what they have done. We paid for it, we paid a dear price for it, but others have benefited."

Hmm, what an interesting guy. There's a level of complexity in his life and thinking that's usually missing from most debates involving the Middle East.

I'm not sure he's right that the hostage-taking marked a watershed moment for how the U.S. treats the rest of the world--after all, we propped up the likes of Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillipines, Manuel Noriega in Panama, and even Saddam Hussein in Iraq for many years after 1979.

But I do think the fact that Iran stood up to the U.S. is an important factor driving our current dispute with Iran over nuclear weapons. On Iran's side, they feel like they're once again in the right in a dispute with mighty America; on our end, we as always have a how-dare-you attitude, enhanced by a deja vu feeling of relative helplessness.

As long as there are people like Abdi in Iran, however, we're not helpless--we just have to figure out a way for the 'right people' to get into power.

I wonder if Iranians feel the same way about America.

Polaris photo of Abbas Abdi by Newsha Tavakolian for the Times

Letters of good tidings

T

There were two stories out today that really caught my eye, and showed that if we just live up to our principles the 'war' on terror really is winnable. And we won't even have to nuke anyone in the process.

First, an Associated Press story, Moussaoui Has New View of Justice System

Michael J. Sniffen: Stunned that he was sentenced to life in prison rather than execution, Zacarias Moussaoui now believes he could get a fair trial from an American jury. Too late, the judge says.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema quickly rejected a motion the confessed al-Qaida conspirator filed Monday to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial.

In his motion, Moussaoui said he lied on the witness stand March 27 when he reversed four years of denials and claimed he was to have hijacked a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed it into the White House, "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

The 37-year-old Frenchman blamed his behavior on the effects of solitary confinement, his inability to get a Muslim lawyer and his misunderstanding of the U.S. justice system.

Moussaoui said he was "extremely surprised" by his life sentence by a federal court jury last week.

"I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," he explained in an affidavit. "But after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

Why aren't we celebrating this?! Shouldn't we be dropping leaflets with Moussaoui's motion all over the Middle East?

As I heard on a panel a couple of weeks ago, we've won when our enemies turn to our systems to confront us, instead of bloodshed.

Moussaoui's words are instantly believable, to my ears--I never thought he was some 9/11 mastermind, despite his crazy courtroom rhetoric. As Humphrey Bogart says in the Maltese Falcon, the cheaper the crook the gaudier the patter. He was just using the trial as a forum for his views, thinking he was a dead man anyway and he may as well make the most of it. From his point of view, he had no reason to believe our justice system wasn't inherently corrupt and racist. And then one day--wow, not dead after all.

How great a story is this... Islamic militant exposed to America, concludes that he was wrong. All he's said so far is he was surprised to get a fair trial, there's no indication he still doesn't want to kill Americans. But at least it's a first step; and lying awake in his jail cell at night, he's got to be puzzling out why our justice system is fair, and whether he's wrong about the bigger picture as well.

Heck, maybe it's a new trend; Iranian President's Letter to Bush Emerges Christine Hauser in the Times:

In his letter to President Bush, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared that Western-style democracy had failed and that the use of secret prisons in Europe and aspects of the war in Iraq could not be reconciled with Mr. Bush's Christian values. But the letter did not address directly the central issue that divides the two countries: Iran's nuclear ambitions.

In his wide-ranging letter, written in Persian with an English translation, Mr. Ahmadinejad at times challenges and concedes as he directs question after question to Mr. Bush but offers no concrete proposals. In Iran today, the Iranian president portrayed it as a blueprint of "suggestions for resolving the many problems facing humanity," the Iranian news agency IRNA reported.

State Department officials who read the letter suggested that it offered an interesting window into the mentality and thinking of Iran, especially because it seemed to reflect a inclination to dwell on myriad grievances of the past rather than on the problem at hand, namely Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. ...

The letter has been described as the first direct communication from an Iranian leader to an American president since 1979.

While Mr. Ahmadinejad said today in Iran that "Islamic courtesy" prevented him from revealing the contents of the letter and American government officials have not released a copy, an English translation provided by the Iranian government was released by United Nations diplomats.

As for the actual contents of the letter, some interesting excerpts via the Times:

Mr. Ahmadinejad also calls the 9/11 attacks a "horrendous incident" in which the killing of innocent people was "deplorable."

But he asks: "Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?"

The letter provides at times a striking insight into the Iranian president's vision of double standards in American foreign policy, criticizing what he portrays as a lack of support for elected Palestinian and Latin American governments.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also portrays himself as having his finger on the pulse of the Middle East region.

"As you are well aware," Mr. Ahmadinejad says, directly addressing President Bush, "I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them — many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either."

"There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies." ...

In his letter, Mr. Ahmadinejad both concedes and needles. With his country having fought a war with Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Mr. Ahmadinejad at once applauds the overthrow of the regime while criticizing what he seems to imply as a double standard.

"Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator," he wrote. "But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction."

He later adds: "I point out that throughout the many years of the ... war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West."

Its tone appears at times exceedingly polite, at least once referring to Mr. Bush as "Your Excellency," according to the translation. He also says it is not his intention to "distress anyone. "

But the Iranian president's style is to dissect what he sees as American logic, by posing question after question to make his point.

If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on issues including health and aid to the poor, he wrote, "would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American governments?"

The Iranian president also extends to Mr. Bush an "invitation" to return to governing the United States based on the values of Jesus Christ, whose name in the letter is followed each time by the letters "PBUH," which stands for "Peace Be Upon Him."

Frequently quoting passages from the Koran, Mr. Ahmadinejad calls for a return to a religious basis of government.

"Will you not accept this invitation?" Mr. Ahmadinejad asks Mr. Bush. "That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?"

Polite and aimed at dissecting American logic... not exactly typical views of Iranian leaders. And it's striking how reminiscent the letter is of Bush's domestic critics, as well sentiments expressed by our European allies and millions more the world over.

I think the most interesting thing about the letter is that the Iranians apparently think in this day and age policies could still be decided on the basis of reasoned argument.

There's something touchingly naive about this; and it absolutely belies the administration's efforts to paint Iran as a one-track monster, hellbent on getting nukes so as to pull down the temple around it. Iran's trying to reason with the U.S., they're clearly not some barbaric country going off the deep end.

It's interesting, hashing things out logically and engaging your opponent in debate are supposed to be Western hallmarks, borne of the Enlightenment. Yet in this case, it's the Iranians who, however naively and with whatever ulterior motives, seem to be going down that path, and the U.S. that, once again, is hoping to drown out the discussion with war drums.

The letter seems to harken back to the days when our Founding Fathers locked themselves up in a Philadelphia room and argued, yelled, cursed, bargained and ultimately forged our Constitution. It seems unbelievably Pollyanaish in our day and age to imagine our president and Iran's getting together to work something out--the U.S. would never accept Iran as a negotiating partner, nor the equality such a situation would entail; besides which, it's been a long time since we needed to rely on the force of our arguments or convictions to carry the day. Not to mention President Bush is no one's idea of a champion.

We really ought to be ashamed of ourselves; Iran actually has the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East, after Israel--we could stand to learn from them in this case.

The Times, for some reason, runs two articles on the letter--I'm not sure if I've ever seen that, it may be a mistake. At any rate, the second article is by Michael Slackman, who also wrote the initial article yesterday. It's actually pretty much the same as Hauser's piece, with this lead:

With the tone of a teacher and the certainty of a believer, the president of Iran wrote to President Bush that Western democracy had failed and that the invasion of Iraq, American treatment of prisoners and support for Israel could not be reconciled with Christian values.

The entire text is posted here by Le Monde. Oddly enough, despite running two articles the Times doesn't have their own version of the letter, just a link. Well, at least they provide that--and at least they've advanced beyond their moronic headline on the story yesterday, Iranian Writes to Bush; No R.S.V.P. Is Likely .Could you imagine a headline reading 'Frenchman writes to Bush'?! Besides which, unlike an invitation, you don't RSVP to a letter, you just respond.

The sad thing is I don't think our current president will read the letter, let alone respond. Even though the letter is peppered with the same kind of 'the end of times is near' beliefs Bush and his evangelical ilk are guided by. Actually, people who don't know that Muslims consider Jesus a prophet just like Muhammed, just not the final one, may be surprised by some of the language, like in the second paragraph:

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,
Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism as a civilization model, Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, Make War and Terror his slogan, And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, But at the same time, Have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the … of a … criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.

At any rate, I doubt Bush is someone who will be drawn into a debate, over the Bible or foreign policy... he probably sees it all as intellectual sophistry, he prefers to just look into people's eyes. More proof that the man is absolutely the wrong leader for the times.

All we have to do is let them see us for what we are. Terrorists are still people; they have causes and beliefs, no matter how misguided and twisted. For all the Republican puffery about Reagan's military buildup winning the Cold War, it wasn't that. It was our superior economic, political and cultural system. In the end, Eastern Europe and the USSR wanted to be more like us than we wanted to be like them.

Likewise, Islamic militancy has no real appeal for well-adjusted, normal people. In their hearts, Muslims know the mullahs are crazy. But some of them feel like they have no choice, when America won't let them do normal things like become port workers it's not surprising that some will turn to the seductive and emotional arguments of the local Jerry Falwell. Mix in dire poverty and generations of national humiliation, and it's really a testament to the moderating power of the Koran that more Muslims haven't turned to violence.

It's our challenge to create the conditions for normality to breed around the world, rather than propping up repressive regimes and waging crazy wars--either verbally or literally--to beat people into submission.

Just be ourselves, to borrow from dating advice 101. In our case, we don't need the world to love us, just to respect us and ultimately emulate us.

It will never happen, nor should it take place, at the end of a gun. The pen truly is mightier than the sword--and ink by the barrelful costs less than bullets.

Uncredited AP photo of Zacarias Moussaoui from Carver County Sheriff's Department via the Washington Post

AP Photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, waving as he is welcomed by Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, right, on his arrival in Jakarta by Ed Wray.

Finding ourselves

On the last day of the Tribeca Film Festival, I saw first-time Iranian-American director Hamid Rahmanian's Day Break. Description was:

In Iran, a murder conviction allows for the victim's family to choose capital punishment or forgiveness for the perpetrator. This harrowing, existential film shows a convicted murderer trapped in painful purgatory as his family distances themselves from him and his victim's family repeatedly delays their ultimate decision.

The film was great. Even though the screening I saw was at 10:15 on a Sunday morning, the theater was mostly full, and the audience Q&A was the most enthusiastic I saw at this fest.

The story is told in a documentary-style, and although there's some over-acting, the subject matter is so interesting and compelling that you're totally sucked in. I'm obviously more familiar with Iran and its culture than most Americans, but even I was suprised at the humanity of its justice system, as portrayed--the prisoners ate together in a communal style, individual jail cell doors were left open and the prisoners freely mingled (especially in the evening), the guards treated inmates as human.

The thing most people don't realize about Iran is that the United Nations regularly cites its government programs as a model for other developing nations to follow--it has a critical mass of intelligent, well-trained social scientists, and an engrained ethos of experimentation and humanity in its government programs.

Undergirding all of this in the film, of course, is that intriguing idea of a society saying fine, if you as a murder victim's family feel that only an eye for an eye is justified, we respect your decision--as long as you fully understand it, and the ultimate test of that is to kill the man yourself. It's the other side of Shari'a that most Americans have no clue about; yes, it may read harshly on the page (as do the tenets of all desert religions, including Judaism and Christianity), but its edge is tempered by its context of being developed in, and generally being applied in, village-like settings. In small groups, the 'rules' are not literal, and the rules are not written or meant to be taken literally--there are always conditions and assumptions and human relationships that ensure it's the spirit and not letter of things that in the end are followed.

I'm generally against capital punishment, but can understand how some who've been personally victimized in one form or another might feel differently. However, society does not allow those most interested to make decisions--that's why prospective jurors are screened for what they've heard about a case, it's why we don't just let lobbyists sit as our representatives in government. Likewise, for all the compassion we might feel for them, we can't let crime victims write our criminal justice laws. They're too biased; knowledgable, but justice isn't just based on accumulation of experience or facts.

At any rate, Rahmanian is clearly a director to watch; he's highly intelligent and sensitive, and like all the other filmmakers I've seen at Tribeca comes across as polite yet driven. The strength of his film is in how its story simply unspools, and along the way intersects with societal questions of the first magnitude. What's the purpose of our criminal justice system for starters, but also things like how do you grant the rights that someone related to a murder victim has and theirs and our interest in punishment, deterrence, vengeance, and justice, versus equally compelling and equally human qualities of mercy, hope, and sadness.

It's amazing how beautiful Iran photographs in cinema; and the faces of its people, so old world and expressive, so etched with suffering and yet also understanding. Rahmanian said afterwards that the Iranian government is considering showing his film to the families of murder victims before they decided whether to apply capital punishment to the murderer. Since his stats from 2003 show that in over 70% of the cases families choose not to go ahead with capital punishment, the government obviously is hoping to drive that rate down further--again, not necessarily how many Americans would imagine the dour Islamic Republic to operate.

Maybe Rahmanian should try to get his documentary broadcast on American television. A culture that regularly produces films like this has more common with us than many might think, or prefer.

Image from Day Break via Tribeca Film Festival.

Hark the Herald Angel sings

Now here's an interesting photo.

The structure in the background photo is the Azadi (freedom) monument, built in 1971 by the Shah at God knows what cost to celebrate the 2,500 anniversary of the Persian empire. He originally called it Shahyad (Remembrance of the Shahs) Tower, but since the victors get the spoils.... It now houses a cultural museum

It's a popular destination for protests and demonstrations, which ever since they played a role in bringing down the Shah Iranians have become very good at. Not that there are many demonstrations allowed against the current regime. Some, though.

The photoluminous nature of the backdrop squares with other modern Iranian artwork I've seen, there's a whole Middle East/European love of that kind of hyper-realism/collage/kitschiness. It's something the Japanese also tap into with their anime; it's big in parts of the U.S.--especially California--but by and large we titter at it.

Not sure if there's any other significance to the crystal light or the doves, apart from their universally-accepted meaning of peace and righteousness.

I guess Washington's not the only city that can lay claim to being shining on a hill.

Photo of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad speaking at a ews briefing with Iranian and foreign reporters in Tehran that was broadcast live with simultaneous translation by Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images via the New York Times.

Repeating history

An Iranian Missile Crisis?

David Ignatius in the Post: The emerging confrontation between the United States and Iran is "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion," argues Graham Allison, the Harvard University professor who wrote the classic study of President John F. Kennedy's 1962 showdown with the Soviet Union that narrowly averted nuclear war. If anything, that analogy understates the potential risks here.

What worries me is that the relevant historical analogy may not be the 1962 war that didn't happen, but World War I, which did. The march toward war in 1914 resulted from the tight interlocking of alliances, obligations, perceived threats and strategic miscalculations. The British historian Niall Ferguson argued in his book "The Pity of War" that Britain's decision to enter World War I was a gross error of judgment that cost that nation its empire.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. "I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world," he told me this week. "Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world."

Brzezinski urges President Bush to slow down and think carefully about his options -- rather than rushing to stop Iran's nuclear program, which by most estimates is five to 10 years away from building a bomb, even after yesterday's announcement. "Time is on our side," says Brzezinski. "The mullahs aren't the future of Iran, they're the past." As the United States carefully weighs its options, there is every likelihood that the strategic picture will improve.

Brzezinski knows of what he speaks; he was Carter's security adviser during the Iranian hostage crisis. His quote about war with Iran ending our present role in the world is pretty chilling, but probably accurate.

Ignatius, on the other hand, is wrong to expand upon Allison's comparison to the Cuban missile crisis. When Iran has scores of nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at us from 60 miles away and the might of a superpower's arsenal backing it, then the analogy might fit.

It's interesting for a confrontation over nuclear weapons that Ignatius, like some other commentators and reporters, have pointedly ignored or else buried the section of Seymour Hersh's article that reveals:

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

Throwing the word tactical in front of nuclear does nothing to change the fact that it's a Hiroshima and Nagasaki-like attack that the U.S. is contemplating. It won't result in the deaths of as many civilians, but that's entirely due to the Iranian government's refusal to use civilians as shields the way Saddam Hussein did.

The U.S. and Israel and Europe want to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons in 5-10 years because we fear they may use it against Israel. So to do that, we're going to use nuclear weapons against Iran?

In terms of logic and planning, that's more Bay of Pigs than anything else.

Image of Cuba's Bay of Pigs stamp in various places on the Web.

If pricked

Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism

Post: As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide.

Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said. ...

Speaking in Vienna last month, Javad Vaeedi, a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, warned the United States that "it may have the power to cause harm and pain, but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wants to pursue that path, let the ball roll," although he did not specify what type of harm he was talking about. ...

Former CIA terrorism analyst Paul R. Pillar said that any U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iranian territory "would be regarded as an act of war" by Tehran, and that Iran would strike back with its terrorist groups.

Would be regarded as an act of war? How about would be an act of war--I think if any country launched an airstrike against the U.S., we'd call that an act of war, so why wouldn't it hold true when we attack someone else?

It's an odd article, it boils down to: If Iran is attacked, it will hit back. Shocking! You don't say!

Of course it'd use terrorism--that's the weapon it has available to it. If we were attacked, we'd use anything in our arsenal, including and up to nuclear weapons. And I can guarantee that some of the weapons we use would kill innocent civilians.

Right now, we have the moral high ground against Iran. They've engaged in terrorism in pursuit of national policies, which sometimes amount to just making their enemies bleed.

But if we attack Iran, we legitimize their certain terrorist counter-strike. Persians have been around for thousands of years; they're a proud people, and there are a lot of them all around the world. Just as if the U.S. was attacked patriotic Americans all over the world would, love or hate the current administration, rally around it, same with Iranians. I don't think this is a war we want anything to do with, especially since we're in the right at the moment.

Give Iran time, like we did with China and are being forced to with North Korea. Things change; even if they are able to develop nuclear weapons, it's no worse than North Korea having nukes. After all, Iran is a democracy, albeit one mixed with a theocracy (Israel actually fits that category in some ways too, and a fair number of right wing Christians in this country would like us to as well).

Let's not legitimize the terrorist factions by an act of war.

1979 Raised fists poster by anonymous artist, (inscribed in Arabic There is no God but God) from one of my favorite exhibits ever, NYU's Grey Art Gallery's 2002 Between Word and Image: Modern Iranian Visual Culture.

Photo of Young Woman at Anti-Shah Demonstration, Tehran, 1978 by Abbas, from above exhibit.

Poster of 1979 silkscreen Women of the Revolution by Morteza Momayez, from above exhibit, inscribed Women are the companions of the revolution.

Trying something new

Iranians See Talks With U.S. as Historic

Karl Vick in the Washington Post: Iran's acceptance of direct talks with the United States over Iraq is being regarded among Iranians as a major foreign policy development, a historic if still tentative departure from 27 years of official enmity that held the government of the "Great Satan" as one to be spoken against, but never with. ...

Vehement opposition to the United States has been a pillar of Iran's theocratic system since 1979, the year an angry population overthrew the monarch Washington had helped install 26 years earlier in a coup engineered with the help of the CIA. From the U.S. side, a similar enmity was embedded in policy when student militants overran the red-brick U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage and holding them for more than a year.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran, and over the next quarter-century both countries consistently found a reliable villain in the other.

Inside Iran, however, an appetite for rapprochement grew along with a population whose youthful majority had no memory of the revolution.

In 2002, a poll found that three-quarters of Iranians surveyed favored talks with the United States. The pollster was thrown in jail, but the reality drove a quiet competition between Iran's two rival political forces. ...

"Whoever could take the prize" of U.S. rapprochement would, it was widely believed, dominate Iranian politics for the foreseeable future, said Mehdi Karrubi, a moderate cleric who was speaker of the last parliament dominated by reformers.

The competition, however, had paralyzed the effort: Neither side would allow the other to reach out to the United States without risking accusations of betraying the Islamic revolution.

That changed last year, when conservative clerics edged reformists out of government, unifying Iran's elaborate ruling structure for the first time in nearly a decade. It also cleared the way for the opening to Washington, and even reformists urged the conservatives to act.

"This might be a historic irony, but it's true the state is in 'harmony,' " said Mostafa Tajzadeh, a prominent reformist theoretician, speaking before the announcement of the direct talks. "No time has been more convenient for talks between the two countries. We are less sensitive than at any time since the revolution."

A few conservatives quietly urged the same. Behind the scenes of Iran's conservative establishment, insiders whispered about the prospect of negotiations. ...

"The public image the U.S. has made of Iran is a monster. They have to do something, at least break a horn," [Tajzadeh] said. "There is only a small chance. This is negotiation.

The public also appeared to welcome news of talks. "I think both sides should take advantage of this opportunity. They should be friends," said Kobra Mehdipour, 68, clutching her chador against the March wind.

Asked who in Iran might feel otherwise, she said, "There might be some illiterate people in the provinces who want to be friends with other countries but might be under the influence of some kind of propaganda."

Vick's article is one of the few informed, unbiased looks at Iran I've seen lately. The quote from the old woman is funny--part of Iran's problem has been part of it's population has always been willing to through in its lot with the West rather than with its own 'illiterate people in the provinces', an economic and psychological gap that was only enhanced by the U.S. puppet shah.

So it makes sense that, just as only Nixon could go to China, only a hard-line conservative government--American as well as Iranian--could talk to the other side.

And once you start talking, it's kindof hard to paint the other side as a monster, somehow non-human; it's why the Israelis refuse to talk to the Palestinians, and why from Israel's point of view they'd rather we continue to listen to them on Iran rather than the Iranian government.

Uncredited photo of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from China's Peoples Daily online.

March 19, 2006 photo of President George W. Bush by Jonathan Ernst/ Reuters.

Of Shahs and Ayatollahs

Showdown at U.N.? Iran Seems Calm

Elaine Sciolino in the NYTimes: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and the country's ultimate authority, who once stood before the United Nations and branded it "a paper factory for issuing worthless and ineffective orders," has also endorsed the strategy. In remarks to leading clerics on Thursday, he vowed to "resist any pressure and threat," adding, "If Iran quits now, the case will not be over."

Iran has never had much use for the Security Council.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, the Council at first did not even call for a cease-fire or the withdrawal of the Iraqi troops to the border.

When Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers later in the decade — the first verified use of chemical weapons since World War I — the Council refused to impose sanctions.

Iran had only itself to blame, the Council seemed to say. The country was seen as a renegade state that could not be trusted. It violated international law when it seized the American Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats hostage. It continued the war against Iraq for years after Mr. Hussein brought his soldiers home.

This article is ridiculous. For starters it fails to mention the U.S. supplied Iraq with the chemical weapons and also provided it with targeting data and satellite photos.

Further, how did Iran have itself to blame for being invaded by Iraq? Hussein was trying to take advantage of a change of government in Iran at the time--you think this bloodthirsty dictator would've acted differently if Iran hadn't taken American hostages in 1979?

And the hostage crisis didn't occur in a vacuum. The U.S. installed the dictator/shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into power in Iran in 1941, ousting his father because they thought he'd be more pliable. (And he was, basically anyone who helps another country overthrow his own father is gonna be pretty dependent on that outside power cause he sure won't be able to count on those who know him best).

Then, when the populist prime minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh took steps to nationalize Iran's oil industry, the U.S. overthrew him and placed absolute power in the Shah's hands. What followed was a generation of torture, murder, corruption and national humiliation as the Shah enriched himself and his cronies while kowtowing to his American masters.

This is a man who spent $300 million on one party--$1.5 billion in today's dollars!--while millions of peasants were starving. The United Nations, of course, looked the other way.

And we wonder why Iranians see the UN as toothless.

The ironic thing about all of this, of course, is if the U.S. had its government overthrown by a foreign power that then installed a medievally-repressive regime, and after regaining our independece we were then promptly invaded by a country supported by that foreign power, we'd probably be pretty hostile toward that foreign power.

Why would we assume other countries have any less pride or sense? So let's not pretend the current state of U.S.-American relations is the result of crazy ayatollahs thumbing their noses at international norms.

They would never have had a chance to be in power were it not for us.

Public domain photo of Shah's coronation via Wikipedia.