Memo to Washington: your credibility over Iran would be massively higher if you told client state Israel to stop claiming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the second coming of Hitler:
WikiLeaks has worked its magic again, illuminating US efforts to promote change in Iran – and explaining recent goings-on at Durham University. Its proposals for exchanges with Iranian media, academic, civil society and clerical sectors are set out in a “confidential” cable from the US embassy in London in April 2008. Ideas include conferences on NGOs and women, with Persian transcripts to be disseminated via podcasts or videoclips posted on YouTube or in VOA Persian TV broadcasts. It would offer “US and USG [US government] observers a useful look inside Iranian politics at a grassroots level”.
The embassy was impressed by the “political cover” among contacts within Iran that Durham was apparently able to generate, even allowing it to invite an academic and cleric associated with the Revolutionary Guard. And there was praise for an “innovative and arguably groundbreaking proposal” (needing £57,000 in funding) for workshops for students from seminaries in Qom and Mashhad with US and UK academics, to emphasise themes of human rights, democracy, accountability and rule of law.
The country’s Jewish Prime Minister, John Key, was on a TV breakfast program earlier in the week and made it very clear that democracy in the Arab world was a threat to Israeli apartheid. “Stability” and “moderation” are two vastly over-used words; they simply mean keeping Arabs oppressed to please Israel. No more:
Key: It’s a serious situation in Egypt. As we’ve seen, a number of people have lost their lives already. And, worryingly actually, is that Egypt has been one of the few Arab nations that has recognised Israel, in fact the only one. And has been very peaceful with Israel. So, the concern is what that might mean for the wider position in the Middle East. So, a real worry….Breakfast presenter Corin Dann: I’ll just take you back to that issue of the support for Israel. Egypt has been a very strong ally for the West, which makes this a very difficult situation for the likes of the US, which, I know, has not called for Mubarak to go yet. Where does New Zealand sit on that?
Key: The New Zealand Government wants a peaceful outcome to this. In the end, whoever governs your country is a matter for the citizens. And in the case of Mubarak he’s been there for a long time, 30-odd years. We respect the fact that he has done his very best to lead a country which has recognised Israel and, therefore, has wanted to make sure the position in Middle East has been a peaceful one. It’s not easy, it’s very complex, and there’s a lot of emotion.
Dann: Are you calling for him to go?
Key: No.
Dann: I guess the concern is the Muslim Brotherhood. The potential for an Islamist movement to come in and fill that vacuum. Is that the concern?
Key: Well, the concern is that there are some nations that simply do not recognise Israel. And, taken to the extreme, in Iran, Ahmadinejad has said he basically wants to see Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. So, it’s a very serious situation. Egypt’s provided stability and leadership and calmness. Obviously, the hope always being that that position would spread across the Middle East, that it would be possible to broker a two-state solution, with recognition of Palestine as well but this certainly looks like it’s taking things, potentially, in the wrong direction.’
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sought some kind of nuclear fuel swap deal more than a year ago, but faced internal pressures from hard-liners who viewed it as a “virtual defeat,” according to US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
The report, available on the WikiLeaks website Tuesday, also suggested Iran trusted the United States more than ally Russia to follow through with the UN-backed proposal: providing reactor-ready fuel in exchange for Iran giving up control of its low-enriched uranium stockpile.
The chief of the Revolutionary Guard angrily slapped Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in early 2010, as Tehran was still dealing with the fallout from last year’s election, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
The cable, written in February, said Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari blamed Ahmadinejad for the post-election “mess” in 2009, which saw the country roundly criticized by the West amid allegations of fraud and tough crackdowns on large-scale protests in Tehran.
The guard was founded after the Islamic revolution in 1979 to prevent dissident activity and is a strong internal force within the country, with economic and military wings.
Jafari is seen as close to the most conservative Iranian elements, but Ahmedinejad himself is also deemed a stalwart hawk.
The cable, titled “He who got slapped,” quotes an Iran watcher in Baku, Azerbaijan, who related that Ahmedinejad felt that in the aftermath of the post-election street protests, which turned violent, “people feel suffocated.”
In a meeting with his national security council, the president “mused that to defuse the situation it may be necessary to allow more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press,” according to the source.
This provoked an angry retort from Jafari, according to the cable:
“You are wrong! (In fact) it is YOU who created this mess! And now you say give more freedom to the press?!”
The top guard then slapped the president in the face “causing an uproar and an immediate call for a break in the meeting” which did not resume for another two weeks, the cable said.
It took the intervention of Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, a senior member of the top oversight body, the Guardian Council, to get Jafari and Ahmedinejad back to the table, according to the cable.
Hands up all those who like taking free trips to Israel organised by the Zionist lobby?
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Lenore Taylor does and her recent column simply “reported” alarmist Israeli comments over the supposed threat of Iran. It wasn’t journalism; it was very effective stenography. No alternative voices were offered.
Today, in Murdoch’s Australian, there’s Greg Sheridan (who doesn’t acknowledge who held his hand throughout the trip ie. the Zionist lobby) and he simply republishes large swathes of predictable ramblings by Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Washington.
Quick summary: Iran is a massive threat. The occupation of Palestine doesn’t exist. The Palestinians have themselves to blame for not being independent. Australia is a wonderful ally that backs everything Israel does.
One day, and this day isn’t that far away, Israel and its sycophantic Western backers will have much explaining to do. How the hell has the Zionist state become so loathed because it continues to brutalise Palestinians?
The world is moving towards a decision point on Iran and a key player in any decision will be the government of Israel. I have just spent 10 days in Israel and every discussion there – almost every thought – is infused with Iran.
Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Washington, thinks some decisions will be made in a matter of weeks. Everything is in the balance. The possible consequences are stark and enormously disquieting.
They include: a nuclear-armed Iran, an explosion of global terrorism and a new war in the Middle East. All are possible.
I met Ayalon for a long discussion in a small ante-room in Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University, oddly enough over haddock and mayonnaise.
The central question asks itself: will the world succeed in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? “I would say it’s touch and go,” Ayalon says. “Iran is a threat not just to Israel, but to Sunni regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the (Persian) Gulf countries, countries in North Africa.
“A nuclear Iran would have a disastrous effect on the entire world order.”
Ayalon, steel-grey-haired, sober, judicious and diplomatic of demeanour, then lists some of the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran: “Iran could control the oil supply and dictate oil prices.
“Anyone who says don’t rock the boat because it will jack up oil prices should try and imagine what will happen under a nuclear Iran.
The Iranians “will also have complete protection in their aggressive actions in terrorism around the world”.
“They are increasingly penetrating into Latin America through Venezuela. They are influential in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Syria, among the Palestinians through Hamas, in Africa, where they are looking for uranium.”
It is impossible to get Israeli government figures to say what the red line is for Israel with Iran, whether Jerusalem would take pre-emptive military action to destroy or at least retard Iran’s nuclear program.
Both Jerusalem and Washington have studied intensely both the risks and the opportunities of striking Iran’s nuclear program.
And there are endless reports, which Israelis will never comment on, of Israeli and US efforts to sabotage and disrupt Iran’s nuclear program by non-military means.
In Israel these are life and death matters. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has famously called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Ayalon offers a measured and mixed assessment of the effectiveness of efforts, especially sanctions, to constrain Iran.
“Probably in a matter of weeks we will have to sit down and reflect on how effective the sanctions have been,” he says. “Notwithstanding the technical problems Iran has, it’s touch and go. The sanctions were effective on the Iranian economy, and in undermining the self-confidence of the Iranian leadership. But these efforts have not yet changed the Iranians’ behaviour. The Iranians were surprised by the UN resolution (on sanctions) and by the extra measures a number of nations, such as Australia, took. This is the first time the Iranians are paying a price for their international defiance.
The Israeli ambassador to Australia found Kevin Rudd to be “very pro-Israel” and senior Australian diplomats warned the former prime minister that his condemnation of Iran risked retaliation against Australia’s embassy in Tehran, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.
The secret cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, reveal the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, was pleased with Mr Rudd’s “very supportive” attitude towards Israel’s position in the Middle East peace process and his strong attacks on the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The revelation of Mr Rotem’s description of Mr Rudd last year comes as the Foreign Minister wraps up a visit to Cairo where he expressed concern that ”no real progress” has been made in the US-brokered Middle East peace process.
Following a weekend meeting with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit, Mr Rudd said Israeli settlements on Palestinian land were ”destroying” the chances of peace. He said he would visit Israel this week and reiterate his position, but added Israel had security fears that needed to be taken into account.
The leaked cables reveal that Israeli diplomats saw Mr Rudd as an important ally.
Mr Rotem told US officials in July 2008 that during his first meeting with Mr Rudd after the 2007 federal election, the newly elected prime minister had described Mr Ahmedinejad as a ”loathsome individual on every level” and that his anti-Semitism ”turns my stomach”.
The US embassy noted that while opposition leader, Mr Rudd had taken a “very strong stance” on Iran, including calling for Mr Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for his calls for the destruction of Israel.
The Israeli ambassador said that the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Michael l’Estrange, and the director-general of the Office of National Assessments, Peter Varghese, had “met several times to convince the PM to think through the consequences of his rhetoric on Iran”.
“The Israeli ambassador believes PM Rudd is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear program and firm in his desire to do whatever possible to signal Australia’s opposition to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions,” the embassy reported. “The Israelis believe Rudd is very firm in his overall support for Israel.”
Asked by the US embassy about whether Mr Rudd’s views on Iran had elicited any response, Mr Rotem said the Iranian government had reacted to the prime minister’s statements by taking ”retaliatory measures” against the Australian embassy in Tehran.
“These measures make it harder for the embassy to conduct its day-to-day business,” Mr Rotem observed.
The Australian government has never publicly acknowledged any Iranian response to Mr Rudd’s public criticism of Iran and its President.
Mr Rotem went on to tell the US embassy that Israel saw Australia “as playing an important role in the ‘global PR battle’ on Iran because PM Rudd is viewed favourably by the ‘European Left’, many of whom are sceptical about taking a tough line towards Tehran”.
The ambassador said Israeli officials would normally have been concerned at the prospect of a Labor government: “However, this was not the case because Rudd had long gone out of his way to stress his strong commitment to Israel and appreciation for its security concerns.”
”Commenting that DFAT officials are very frank in expressing their annoyance with the PM’s micromanaging of foreign policy issues, Rotem laughingly said that ‘while I understand their point of view, how can I complain about having that kind of attention from the PM’.”
The Israeli ambassador’s enthusiasm for the Labor government extended to the deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, with the US embassy reporting in January last year that Mr Rotem was “very satisfied” with the Australian response to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
“Rotem said he had been impressed with acting PM Julia Gillard, who has taken the lead in co-ordinating the [Australian government] public and private response to the Gaza fighting … Rotem said that Gillard and [national security adviser Duncan] Lewis have been very understanding of Israel’s military action, while stressing the need to minimise civilian casualties and address humanitarian concerns.”
Mr Rotem said Ms Gillard’s public statements surprised many Israeli embassy contacts as being “far more supportive than they had expected”.
Mr Rotem told his US counterparts that several senior Labor Party contacts had told him privately that Mr Rudd had been “a bit jealous of the attention garnered by Gillard” and that this led him to speak to the Gaza issue later in January 2009.
The ambassador added that he would be “playing to Rudd’s vanity” to encourage him to pay an early visit to Israel and continue to speak out in support of a hard line against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And fears that the Zionist state isn’t a rational player:
Australian intelligence agencies fear that Israel might launch military strikes against Iran and that Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities could draw the US and Australia into a potential nuclear war in the Middle East.
Australia’s top intelligence agency has also privately undercut the hardline stance towards Tehran of the United States, Israeli and Australian governments, saying that Iran’s nuclear program is intended to deter attack and that it is a mistake to regard Iran as a ”rogue state”.
The warnings about the dangers of nuclear conflict in the Middle East are given in a secret US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald. They reflect views obtained by US intelligence liaison officers in Canberra from across the range of Australian intelligence agencies.
“The AIC’s [Australian intelligence community's] leading concerns with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions centre on understanding the time frame of a possible weapons capability, and working with the United States to prevent Israel from independently launching unco-ordinated military strikes against Iran,” the US embassy in Canberra reported to Washington in March last year.
“They are immediately concerned that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities would lead to a conventional war – or even nuclear exchange – in the Middle East involving the United States that would draw Australia into a conflict.”
A handy reminder by Nasrin Alavi in the Wikileaks dump that has been largely ignored by the corporate press (too busy covering the “embarrassment” of the US and allies):
Interestingly, though, in the very same cable in which Abu Dhabi’s crown prince declared it is merely “a matter of time” before President Ahmadinejad “takes us to war,” he also describes Mir-Hossein Mousavi—the man millions of Iranians believe was the true winner of June’s elections—as “more dangerous than his competitor.” At least, according to the Sheikh, Ahmadinejad is “an open book.” This attitude perhaps shows that what the Arab Sheikhdoms fear more than a nuclear Israel or Iran are calls for accountability and signs of democracy in the region. To shore up their power they claim to offer western allies a strict choice between “loyal Arab monarchies” in the region—or the mayhem of Islamic terrorism.
In little more than a year, the Persian-language satellite television channel beamed into Iran by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and a prominent Afghan family has rapidly become one of the most popular stations in the country.
A little too popular, it appears.
This week, a long-running campaign led by the Iranian government to undermine the channel, Farsi1, took a menacing turn: A group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army hacked into Farsi1’s Web site, as well as several sites owned by the Mohseni family, and posted a cryptic but sinister warning.
“The allies of Zionism should know this,” said the message, which stayed on the Web sites for about six hours on Thursday. “Dreams of destroying the foundation of the family will lead straight to the graveyard.”
The exact meaning of the message was unclear, but conservative Iranian leaders complain that the programming — a heavily censored variety of comedies, soap operas and dramas — is eroding traditional Iranian values.
The campaign against Farsi1 illustrates the growing fear among Iranian leaders over the intrusion of private broadcasters onto the country’s airwaves, which is challenging the state’s monopoly over the flow of information.
The cyberattack is the latest effort in a campaign to discredit the television station, which went on the air in August 2009. This year, Iranian authorities tried to jam a satellite used by the channel. Personal attacks on Mr. Murdoch, as well as on Saad Mohseni, the chairman of the Moby Group, have appeared on Iranian television and newspapers. News Corporation and the Moby Group each own half of the channel.
The Iranian authorities appear to be particularly unnerved by the entrance of Mr. Murdoch, who is not just an aggressive businessman but also a politically active one. In neighboring Afghanistan, the Mohseni family has built a successful string of television and radio stations and Web sites since the American-led invasion in 2001.
Both Mr. Murdoch and the Mohseni family were named in the renegade Web site posting that appeared Thursday.
According to American officials, as well as spokesmen for both the Moby Group and the News Corporation, Farsi1 receives no funds from any government.
Indeed, Farsi1 offers no political fare, neither news nor editorial commentary. Instead, it provides viewers with comedies and dramas, most of them from Latin America and Korea, and toned down for a more conservative Iranian audience.
Though the plots often involve romance and infidelity, anything resembling male-female contact is excised — even kissing. The menu even includes a few American standbys like “24,” which features an American federal agent who often battles terrorists from the Muslim world.
“If the script says anything that is not right or appropriate, we edit it,” said Zaid Mohseni, the chief executive officer of Farsi1 and Saad Mohseni’s brother. “Visually, if there is something not appropriate, we edit it out. We know that the majority of viewers are watching with their families. We are very sensitive to this.”
Still, Farsi1 has drawn the ire of Iranian leaders, who say that the Western-oriented programming represents an assault on traditional Iranian values and is even corrupting the Iranian people.
“Satellite TV programs such as those broadcast on Farsi1 destroy the chastity and honor of our families and encourage the young to take up lovemaking, wine drinking and Satan worship,” Mohammad-Taghi Rahbar, a member of Parliament, told the Iranian news agency IWNA this year.
“The channel is funded by ‘Zionist money’ and planned and managed by Iran’s enemies,” he said, without providing details. “What family that has any dignity would let is members watch Farsi1?”
A wonderful new book has recently been released, Hope, Votes and Bullets (here’s an internet preview of the striking pages). It documents, through wonderful imagery, graphics and text, the millions of Iranians who took to the streets in 2009 during a period of intense political upheaval. The internet was integral to spreading the word.
There was hope, fear and optimism in the air. More than one year later, the situation in the Islamic Republic is grim and human rights are routinely abused.
This is what a Serious columnist for the Washington Post, David Broder, wrote yesterday:
Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.
I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history.
What other response than ridicule to such ignorant bollocks? Perhaps Broder would like to kill Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself.
The Iranian state has to come to terms with the reality that, a generation after the revolution, no hardline Islamic student group is (or has been) able to gain control of any Iranian campus through free elections.
In the same week that Ahmadinejad was hailed as a hero of resistance in Lebanon, fellow inmates of the imprisoned human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told of her nightly interrogation sessions and the screams that could be heard from her cell. We have also heard from the father of student Hamed Rouhinejad, who has related his desperate efforts to get guards at the same prison to take delivery of his son’s medication for multiple sclerosis, “begging them to keep it refrigerated so it doesn’t go off.”
When a loopy preacher in Florida threatened to burn the Koran, there were violent protests across the Arab world, but when pro-Ahmadinejad militia attacked the offices of Grand Ayatollah Saanei last June, leaving his books and tattered copies of the Koran in their wake, a deafening silence was heard from Iran’s neighbours. Had these events taken place in the occupied territories, I suspect the response would not have been so mute. Is this not the same gross hypocrisy and double standard that we in the region often accuse the west of?
Today Iranians who are standing up for their rights deserve to be acknowledged by their Arab neighbours. Their struggle is part of a long walk to freedom that began with the creation of the first elected parliament in the region in 1906. By 1911 authoritarian rule was implemented as Britain and imperial Russia strangled the early aspirations of Iranians for democratic change. A generation later, the democratically elected government of Mossadegh was finished off in a coup backed by Britain and the US.
Whether in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia or Iran, we are all familiar with pitiful old men who sit blaming and cursing the ghosts of a colonial past. These men are forever warning us of the enemies in the shadows who will conspire and thwart our every move.
But Iran is a country of the young, where two out of every three people you see on the streets are likely to be under 30. It is also the only country in the middle east where people can’t blame corruption, tyranny or even their daily hardship on their American-backed leaders.
We buried our colonial parents during the 1979 revolution. Today, the children of that revolution are banishing the ghosts that debilitated their forefathers by demanding that we hold ourselves accountable—both for our failures and for our successes.
