Iranian nuclear deal edges closer as main obstacles overcome: Sources
#IranNuclear
Iranian officials reveal to MEE that real progress has been made with a deal likely emerging as early as 9 July
P5 + 1 foreign ministers and other ministers attend the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria on 6 July, 2015 (AA)
Gareth Porter
Tuesday 7 July 2015 15:50 UTC
Last update:
Tuesday 7 July 2015 18:17 UTC
05
VIENNA - As the US and Iranian negotiators move toward completion of a historic deal in Vienna, the lifting of sanctions against Iran - which is the most difficult outstanding issue in the talks - is on its way to being resolved, Western and Iranian sources close to the nuclear negotiations told MEE.
With talks being extended until 10 July and Iranian sources suggesting that a deal could be penned as early as the evening of 9 July, it appears that the United States and Iran have agreed on most of the provisions in the agreement governing the lifting of unilateral and UN Security Council sanctions.
The one sanctions issue that has remained as a stumbling block in the past few days involves the text of the UN Security Council resolution that both sides have agreed will replace a series of resolutions passed between 2006 and 2010.
Until now, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) have insisted that the text of the new resolution include a continuation of the conventional arms embargo that was imposed by a 2007 Security Council resolution. But Iran has been objecting strenuously.
An Iranian official who could not be identified under the rules of his briefing to the press on Monday, revealed the Iranian negotiation position on the issue. “The arms embargo should not be part of the comprehensive plan,” the official said. “There is no evidence that the arms embargo had any relation to the nuclear issue.”
However, the Iranian position appears to have been strengthened by deep divisions over the issue among the six powers. The P5+1 minus Germany - which is not a permanent member of the Security Council - met on Monday night to review their negotiating position on the arms embargo, according to a senior European diplomat who asked not to be identified, because of the extreme sensitivity of the discussions.
At the talks, the Russians and Chinese were firmly opposed to its inclusion, and France was wavering, the European diplomat added. The absence of a consensus for the position taken by the six powers up to now suggests that the last major issue relating to sanctions removal will now be resolved.
How the 'PMD' obstacle was eliminated
Another potential stumbling block to an agreement was eliminated during the early days of the Vienna round of talks. That diplomatic leap forward was suggested by the surprise announcement by International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Yukiya Amano on Saturday that the experts, with Iranian cooperation, will be able to complete his report on the ‘Possible Military Dimensions’ (PMD) issue by December.
The P5+1 has taken the position in past negotiating rounds that UN Security Council sanctions would be lifted only after Iran cooperated fully with the IAEA on resolving the PMD issue. Western diplomats had even suggested to news media that the P5+1 would delay the resolution of the PMD issue in order to maintain leverage on Iran for years to come. The Iranians meanwhile objected to any attempt by the six powers to stretch out the process of resolving the PMD issue, calling it an “endless game” that would allow the United States and its allies to hold on to some sanctions.
Despite their objections, the Lausanne framework included the PMD issue as one of the conditions that Iran was required to meet in order to lift the UN sanctions and it remained unclear how Iran would avoid a crisis in the implementation over that issue.
But the Obama administration was determined to eliminate the chances of such a crisis. Less than two weeks before they started, Secretary of State John Kerry signalled in a press briefing that the PMD issue would not be allowed to interfere with an agreement. Then in the first days of the Vienna talks, Amano had a meeting with Kerry and two meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. That was followed by a quick Amano trip to Tehran to meet with President Hassan Rouhani and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani.
The result of the meetings with Amano, according to two Iranian officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss these sensitive negotiations, was an agreement between Amano and Iran that his final report would reflect “two narratives” on the issue of whether Iran had sought nuclear weapons.
One of the Iranian officials told MEE that Amano had assured the Iranians that the Iranian case against the intelligence that the IAEA has touted in the past would be reflected in his report along with his anticipated repetition of the line taken by the IAEA in past reports.
The sequence of events clearly indicates that Kerry made it clear to Amano that the United States wants him to issue a report that will contribute to the implementation of the agreement rather than becoming a stumbling block to it.
Creative diplomacy and sanctions relief
An even more important diplomatic success on the problem is a detailed plan on the timing of sanction removal that was hammered out by technical experts last week and is to be submitted to political directors of the P5+1 and Iran for approval. A second Iranian official who also insisted that he not be identified outlined the plan to MEE last week.
According to the official, the plan, which had not yet been approved by political directors of the six powers negotiating with Iran, reconciles US and Iranian positions on the issue that had seemed earlier this year to be so sharply contradictory as to rule out any diplomatic compromise.
US officials had said repeatedly that sanctions on Iran could only be lifted after the IAEA had verified Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments and then would be lifted only in a “phased” manner.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, however, had demanded that the sanctions were to be lifted immediately on the agreement going into effect.
The solution to that apparently intractable problem was first presented by the US delegation to the Iranians, according to an Iranian official involved in the negotiations who spoke on condition that he not be identified. It was based on two crucial ideas in which each side agreed to reinterpret central elements in the plan.
The United States accepted for the first time that, realistically, lifting the sanctions would be far more complex and time consuming than simply signing a legal document. It acknowledged that lifting sanctions would require a whole series of actions that would make the commitment by the P5+1 to end sanctions truly effective.
Iran, for its part, agreed to interpret its demand for the sanctions relief from the very first day of implementation to mean that the United States would guarantee the sanctions relief on the first day of implementation and complete the work necessary during the same time period in which Iran was carrying out its part of the deal.
Those mutual concessions are the basis for what would be called the “operationalisation phase” of the agreement. In that phase, the actions of the two sides to carry out their obligations would be “simultaneous and parallel”.
That crucial phrase would allow Iran to selling sell the deal within Iran as consistent with Khamenei’s demand that the lifting of sanctions would take place on the first day of implementation.
Iran’s commitments to reduce its nuclear programme were already agreed in detail in the Lausanne framework agreement reached on 2 April. What the final agreement will do is spell out in a technical annex exactly what the United States and the European allies - who imposed sanctions on Iran in 2012 - will do to make the lifting of those sanctions truly effective and how the timing of implementation will be synchronised.
The first step in the process detailed in the annex - to be taken immediately at the beginning - is what the Iranians view as the “guarantee” that the United States and its European allies will carry out the sanctions removal. The “guarantee” would take the form of a pledge to take specific legal steps necessary to suspend US sanctions and terminate the EU sanctions upon IAEA verification of the Iranian implementation measures, according to the Iranian official.
Equally important to assure Iran that the sanctions will actually be lifted effectively is a series of steps the Western allies would be required to take in the months that followed the initial commitment to educate the global business and financial community about the implications of the agreement to end sanctions.
“They need to do preparatory work to change the culture of sanctions,” the Iranian official explained. That will entail informing major financial institutions and business associations that they will no longer be subject to the extraterritorial sanctions against companies that do business with Iranian banks once the operationalisation phase is completed.
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Despite Misgivings Iranians Support the Vienna Nuclear Accords
William O. Beeman
Most Iranians are very hopeful that the Vienna talks will be successful. They never talk about nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. They only talk about the lifting of sanctions.
I have just returned from a three-week trip in Iran in which I interviewed hundreds of Iranian citizens on this topic from 12 different cities in Western and Central Iran. I speak fluent, unaccented Persian, so I am able to talk with Iranians of all ages, ethnicities, education and income levels quite easily.
Young people in particular see success in the talks as benefiting the problem of unemployment for university graduates. Four million Iranians will graduate with their "lisans" (undergraduate degree) this year. That is 5% of the entire Iranian population--a huge number. For lower-income Iranians this unemployment situation has created great unhappiness.
Many families have sacrificed greatly to send their children to college. If they cannot pass the rigorous government entrance exams, or if they live in a remote area, they can attend the Daneshgah-ye Azad, the "Free University" established in the 1990s by President Rafsanjani. However, it is not "free", they must pay tuition. This tuition varies by faculty, but it seems to be about 10 million rials per semester--about $300). Middle and upper class Iranians can pay this, but for the lower income groups who may make below $9,000 annually, it is very hard. Of course attending excellent government institutions is free, but many students who are admitted still have to work to support themselves. After all this sacrifice, when these students emerge with their college degrees and cannot find jobs, both they and their families become extremely bitter. Despite their hope, many realize that the lifting of sanctions will not result in immediate jobs.
More realistic (one might say, cynical) people believe that the lifting of sanctions will not result in any immediate benefits for the less affluent populations. The most cynical people say that if sanctions are lifted it will only really benefit the very wealthy who are going to be best prepared for foreign investment, which, based on the enormous number of foreign businessmen and women I met seems to be inevitable. Iran's GDP growth was in excess of 3% last year by independent measures (World Bank, IMF) which exceeds that of the United States. Iran's absolute poverty level stands at 12%, but the United States is at 15% as is Australia and Japan.
And why not extensive international investment? Anyone can see in a trice that Iran is prepared for it already. One of the most important things I learned on this trip was that Iran has developed an extremely robust internal economy and that highly developed infrastructure has emerged since the revolution--and aided by the sanctions (which insulated Iran from the global recession, paradoxically).
One can see the robust infrastructure everywhere. There are factories, mining facilities and thriving businesses in every part of the country we visited--Tehran, Zanjan, Hamadan, Kermanshah, Khorramabad, Ahwaz, Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan, Na'in and Kashan. Roads--four-lane divided highways between major cities--are better than any other nation in the region. Railroads are expanding and air transport covers the entire nation with frequent service. The roads are full of commercial transport vehicles loaded with agricultural and consumer goods and basic materials such as stone, wood, petroleum products and manufactured building materials.
International business people come and see industrial and commercial facilities and networks that are already established and working full-steam. They have written about this in leading business journals which are cited proudly by many Iranians. The strong message to the international community is that no primary investment will be necessary for international partners in many cases--only expansion both of the scope of manufacturing and in marketing and distribution.
Iranian agriculture has also greatly expanded (at the expense of water resources, however). The nation is groaning with high-quality food. The produce is beautiful and abundant as the amount of land under cultivation has expanded tremendously. This is an incredible difference from the period just before the revolution when Iran was importing so much food. Now Iran exports to Iraq and the Persian Gulf States. Several farmers told me that they could easily export high quality produce to Europe if the sanctions were lifted.
Again, the cynics in Iran point out that much of the import-export economy is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard officers and other high public officials. People on the street told me over and over that these people oppose the Lausanne/Vienna accords because their grip on international trade will be broken if the markets are opened.
So we have a curious paradox. Everyone I talked to, without exception wanted the accords to succeed. Many emphasized not the economic benefits but rather the need for "friendship" between the United States and Iran. One elderly Qashqa'i woman put it succinctly: "Why can't we just be friends. Why all this fighting? Who does it help?"
In the United States we have several factors that create opposition to the Vienna talks, but it is hard to explain these obstacles to Iranians, who see great benefits accruing to the United States and other Western nations if the accords are successful.
First, Americans do not have an accurate image of Iran. The idea that Iran is a backward, hostile nation with terrorists running around everywhere and women under total oppression is very widespread. I have never seen such a huge gap in perception between fact and reality. This is partly due to nearly 40 years of estrangement. Many Americans think that Iran is a dangerous place, and that if they were to travel there they would be arrested or terrorized.
This makes it very easy for pro-Israeli groups in the United States to demonize Iran in American public opinion. Groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its offshoot, the Washington Isntitute for Near East Policy (WINEP) are propaganda think tanks with a huge grip on American legislators and American Public media.
The New York Times is one of the worst offenders in telling outright lies about Iran. The New York Times has an inordinate influence on public opinion in the United States. The reporters David E. Sanger, William J. Broad, Rick Gladstone and Michael Gordon have been writing inaccurate, negative articles about Iran regularly for at least 12 years. The editorial staff, who writes the headlines for their articles also makes their articles look even more negative than they are. These articles circulate in Iran and create great distress among Iranians, who have cited them to me with great indignation.
Because the American public has such a negative view of Iran, politicians have found out that attacking Iran is good for their political ambitions. No politician ever lost a vote by attacking Iran. Saying negative things about Iran draws applause and general public acceptance. Moreover, if a politician says something even mildly positive about Iran, like: We should talk to Iran, they are immediately attacked as anti-Isarael or even anti-Semitic. Here again, Iranians know about these matters. They know who Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Lindsay Graham are, and they are upset about their anti-Iranian rhetoric.
However, Iranians also are aware that the aforementioned business forces in the United States favor the accords as does the Obama administration. This difference of opinion in the American system is a further source of confusion and consternation for Iranians with whom I talked.
By contrast there is great admiration for Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, are very accomplished negotiators. Iranians feel that if it were up to these two men, they would have finalized these accords in a minute. People regularly told me that Secretary Kerry's son-in-law is Iranian, and that Foreign Minister Zarif's Ph.D. was earned in the United States, and so they have a common mutual understanding.
There is an additional pervasive belief among Iranians that the other members of the P5+1 group will ratify the accords. So even if the United States does not, trade will resume between Iran and Europe. One businessman told me: "Iran does not need the United States to benefit from success in these accords."
But nevertheless, Iranians overwhelmingly want Iran and the U.S. to be friends again, even if conservatives in both Iran and the United States oppose this. Aside from the economic benefits, this strong and pervasive desire for friendship between our two nations was the strongest sentiment I encountered on this trip.
William O. Beeman
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
395 HHH Center
301 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-3400
wbeeman@umn.edu
academic website: http://www.williambeeman.com
blog: http://www.wbeeman.com
download publications: https://umn.academia.edu/WilliamOBeeman
Generally politicians and the media have no clue about the unlikelihood that Iran could or would ever produce a nuclear weapon in a short period of time without detection. See the authoritative analysis by Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group:
Missing the point on
Iran’s nuclear breakout time
Analysis: Five common misperceptions on the metric that has dominated debate over a nuclear deal with Tehran
March 2, 2015 7:00AM ET
by Ali Vaez @AliVaez
One reason for the urgency behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress on Tuesday is the fact that a nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is reportedly taking shape in Switzerland. The parameters of the agreement under discussion — and, indeed, of any deal that can plausibly be reached right now —will leave Iran with infrastructure that could potentially be repurposed toward weaponization. So, the key metric by which the U.S. Congress will judge any agreement will be breakout time, the minimum period required for Iran, using that infrastructure, to produce 25 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium. That would be enough for a single bomb, should Tehran decide to build one.
The timescale for Iran to produce a bomb’s worth of fissile material is an appealingly simple criterion in light of the technical complexity of the negotiations. But it’s also a deceptively simple one. Five common misperceptions make breakout time a misleading gauge of the potential threat:
Misperception No. 1: Breakout time measures the time needed to build a nuclear weapon
Not really. Breakout time measures the time needed to produce fissile material for a bomb, not the bomb itself. After enriching enough weapons-grade uranium hexafluoride gas, Iran would have to turn the gas into powder form, convert the powder into a metallic core, assemble explosives around the core and finally integrate a miniaturized weapons package into the nose cone of a missile. Those steps would require a further 6 to 18 months after creating the fissile material, depending on how far Iran progressed in its alleged weaponization research that U.S. intelligence concluded had been shelved in 2003. Even if Iran got everything right on a first attempt, it would still need to test its bomb — as every nuclear-armed country has done — which would require more than one device and lengthen the time frame. (See Misperception No. 2.)
Misperception No. 2: Breakout time is measurable
Far from it; breakout time is estimated rather than calculated. Different experts using the same numbers come up with different time frames, even among the countries negotiating with Iran. They differ on assessments of average centrifuge efficiency and the time required to chemically covert uranium into feedstock, reconfigure centrifuge cascades and recycle waste. Breakout estimates, moreover, usually assume that an Iranian dash for the bomb would face none of the technical challenges that have plagued the program over the past decade.
More importantly, the breakout capacity measure ignores the reality that a single bomb does not make a nuclear deterrent. Assuming that Tehran would at minimum need two bombs’ worth of material in order to test one, the breakout time estimate doubles; assuming that Iran, like other nuclear-armed countries, would want a small arsenal, the time frame increases several times over.
Finally, while the number of centrifuges attracts disproportionate congressional attention, it is only one factor in the complex equation that determines breakout time. Other elements include the type and efficiency of centrifuges, the configuration of interconnected machines, the level of enrichment and the amount of stockpiled enriched material. And some of these elements are inversely correlated.
Misperception No. 3: Breaking out is Iran’s most likely path to weaponization
That’s a misguided assumption. The U.S. intelligence community has long concluded that Iran will not, in fact, use the intrusively monitored nuclear facilities under discussion in the current talks to pursue a nuclear weapon. Washington believes that should Iran decide to build nuclear weapons, it would be more likely to try to “sneak out” in a clandestine facility. Over the past three decades, this has been the route chosen by virtually every country dreaming of nuclear weapons, including North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Romania, with varying degrees of success. Both Iranian enrichment facilities, in Natanz and Fordow, were built covertly and declared only after being exposed by Western intelligence agencies. Fixation on a possible breakout distracts from the greater risk of a sneak-out and therefore from the two main safeguards for preventing one: transparency and monitoring.
Misperception No. 4: A shorter breakout time reduces Washington’s ability to prevent an Iranian sprint to nuclear weapons
Incorrect. Under all conceivable agreements — and even under the status quo inspection regime — the discovery of any trace of uranium enriched beyond civilian-grade would trigger an alarm. Skeptics counter that such evidence would likely be ambiguous and require time-consuming analysis, which combined with the West’s aversion to confrontation may prevent the mobilization of forceful action in time. But the scale of enrichment activity required to produce bomb material would require a brazen breakout, significantly increasing the prospects for speedy detection under a watchful monitoring regime. Such evidence would prompt and in the eyes of world powers legitimize a firm response, for which the U.S. and Israel probably already have extensive contingency plans. Given the extensive long-term U.S. deployments in the Persian Gulf, air strikes could be launched — with or without international blessing — in a matter of days. And that capacity to strike means there’s little practical difference between six, 12 or 24 months of breakout time.
Misperception No. 5: If the breakout time is short enough, Iran will dash to build a bomb
This idea is not supported by the factual track record. Iran’s nominal breakout time over the past four years has, in fact, been less than six months but that did not prompt weaponization. Now it’s negotiating a deal that would extend the breakout time, by the same measures, to one year and subjects it to enhanced monitoring. Since 2007, the U.S. intelligence community has consistently assessed Iran to have the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so, but that no such political decision had been taken. In addition, U.S. National Intelligence Estimates have concluded that Iranian leaders’ decisions on whether to build nuclear weapons will be based on their perception of their threat environment and on a cost-benefit analysis. If leaders in Tehran believe that their survival requires the ultimate deterrent, they would likely be willing to endure even more punishing sanctions to acquire the bomb.
Beyond technical parameters of a nuclear deal, the question facing Western powers is how to shape Tehran’s perception of its threat environment. By that logic, pursuing a more expansive engagement with Iran on economic, political and security questions may become even more important than lengthening breakout time.
Ali Vaez is the International Crisis Group’s senior Iran analyst. He tweets at @AliVaez.
William O. Beeman
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
395 HHH Center
301 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-3400
wbeeman@umn.edu
academic website: http://www.williambeeman.com
blog: http://www.wbeeman.com
download publications: https://umn.academia.edu/WilliamOBeeman
Fact-checking Bibi and Company’s
Talking Points on Iran
by Marsha B. Cohen
There’s been considerable media buzz in the past several days about Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer’s role in engineering an invitation from Republican leaders for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address both Houses of Congress about Iran. Dermer’s partisan machinations deliberately excluded the White House and State Department from any knowledge of the invitation.
Israeli sources report that Dermer “has turned himself into persona non grata” within the Obama administration. Word is also getting out that Israel’s Civil Service Commission has reprimanded Dermer for engaging in prohibited political campaigning on Netanyahu’s behalf and using the American media to score points for his boss. Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before Congress on March 3, two weeks before Israel’s parliamentary elections.
The real story, however, is that Dermer has already leaked the core of Netanyahu’s likely invective against Iran. In a speech to an Israel Bonds fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida on January 25—the text of which he posted to Facebook immediately afterwards—Dermer leveled a litany of accusations against Iran. He repeated several of these charges in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic on January 30, intoning that Netanyahu had a “moral obligation” to address Congress “while there is still time.”
It is reasonable to assume that Dermer’s talking points not only reflect Netanyahu’s own thinking but anticipate what the Israeli leader would tell the House and Senate. A former Republican operative from Florida who is often referred to as “Bibi’s brain,” Dermer truly does speak for his prime minister (and possibly vice versa). Dermer said, in part, that:
Iran is the world’s most dangerous regime. It has already devoured four Arab capitals—Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Saana in Yemen—and it is hungry for more. Iran is the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world, perpetrating or ordering attacks in 25 countries on five continents in the last four years alone.
Iran is responsible for the murder of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of Marines in Lebanon. It is responsible for the bombings of US Embassies in Africa and for the twin bombings two decades ago in Argentina.
This reign of terror and violence has all happened without Iran having a nuclear weapon. Now just imagine how much more dangerous Iran will be with nuclear weapons.
And do not think that America is beyond Iran’s reach.
Today, Iran is building ICBMs—Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Now only in cartoons do ICBMS carry TNT. In the real world, they carry nuclear payloads. And those ICBMS that Iran is building are not designed to hit Israel. Iran already has missiles for that.
Those ICBMs are designed to reach Europe and the United States—to reach New York, Washington and Miami.
For Israel, a nuclear armed Iran would be a clear and present danger.
Iran’s regime threatens Israel with destruction. Its leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, recently tweeted—in English—that Israel must be annihilated. Iran has used Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other proxies to fire thousands of rockets and threaten Israel from Lebanon, Gaza, the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Iran’s regime is both committed to Israel’s destruction and working toward Israel’s destruction.
Today, the international community stands at the precipice of forging an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.
The agreement that is being discussed today is not an agreement that would dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, but rather one that could leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state. That is an agreement that could endanger the very existence of the State of Israel.
LobeLog invited several experts to evaluate and weigh in on Dermer’s contentions about Iran since they are likely to be echoed and reiterated by Netanyahu before Congress next month. Here’s what they had to say:
“Iran is the world’s most dangerous regime…”
North Korea is “far more dangerous” than Iran, according to Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow of the Arms Control Association and a former Foreign Service officer:
The Kim regime has withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and has tested nuclear devices three times within the last decade. It is now believed to possess at least a few nuclear weapons and it has recklessly threatened to attack the American mainland. The country’s inexperienced 30-year-old dictator has absolute power, and its population is almost completely isolated from any outside contacts.
Iran, on the other hand, remains a member of the NPT, has no nuclear weapons, has never tested nuclear devices, and argues that any development, possession, or use of nuclear weapons is immoral. Even the Supreme Leader does not have absolute power in Iran’s complicated and semi-democratic political system. Its population is relatively well-educated and connected to the wider world.
It has already devoured four Arab capitals…
“The only capital Iran has any real influence in, beyond military supplies, is Baghdad, and that is only because of the U.S. overthrow of Saddam in 2003,” Charles D. Smith, professor emeritus of Middle East history at the University of Arizona, observes. “The irony in Damascus is that Assad’s support relies largely though not only on the non-Muslim Christian communities of various denominations who fear a radical Sunni takeover.”
“Iran, unlike Israel, is not in occupation of any territory outside its borders,” notes Peter Jenkins, former British ambassador to the IAEA between 2001-2006. “Iran is entitled to be on friendly terms with the governments of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, just as Israel is on friendly terms with the government of Saudi Arabia.”
“It assumes that Iran dominates the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq,” says William O. Beeman, professor and chair of the Anthropology department at the University of Minnesota, and author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. “This is beyond ridiculous. Believe me, if Iran did dominate these nations, there would be a lot more stability!”
“Iran is the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world…”
“The old ‘greatest sponsor of terrorism’ nonsense [is] especially silly given the support for ISIS/ISIL/IS coming out of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States,” Beeman says. “Also, where is the proof of predominant support for Hamas from Iran? They get 80% of all support from the Arab world.”
“Iran’s regime is both committed to Israel’s destruction and working toward Israel’s destruction.”
“Iran is opposed to the existence of a state that privileges Jews at the expense of Palestinians,” Jenkins avers. “It is not committed to killing the inhabitants of Israel.”
“Today Iran is building ICBMs…designed to reach Europe and the United States…”
Thielmann challenges Israeli and U.S. claims that Iran is developing a long-range missile capability, which he insists Iran neither needs nor has the technological capability to produce:
Today, Iran is building short- and medium-range missiles up to 2,000 kilometers in range. No longer-range missiles have ever been seen in Iran, flight-tested or deployed by Iran. Iranian political and military leaders, who have vociferously justified Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, have never asserted a need for ICBMs (missiles defined as having a range of 5,500-plus kilometers). If as Ambassador Dermer contends, Iranian ICBMs are designed to reach Miami, they would have to fly 11,000 kilometers! The physics and engineering of missile development have not changed since the vice chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council explained to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1995 that making “the change from a short- or medium-range missile…to a long-range ICBM…is a major technological leap.
“The agreement that is being discussed today…is not an agreement that would dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons capability…”
“Iran has had a capability to eventually build nuclear weapons for some time,” Thielmann explains.
This capability, which flows from the knowledge of Iranian scientists and the industrial and technical infrastructure of the country, was explicitly acknowledged in the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s Nuclear Program. It cannot be negotiated away (or destroyed from the air). Instead, the P5+1 negotiations with Iran seek to achieve a comprehensive agreement that ensures Iran’s nuclear program is sufficiently transparent that the international community is confident that it is entirely peaceful and shuts off the pathways to quickly break out of the NPT in pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
“Over 10 years with more than 7,000 man-day inspections, the IAEA has confirmed no evidence of diversion,” says Seyed Hossein Mousavian, associate research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. “The number of inspections is unprecedented in the history of the IAEA.” Although the maximum the international community can expect is an agreement within the NPT, Mousavian insists that Iran is willing to go well beyond its NPT obligations—and its voluntary as well as obligatory Safeguard Agreements—in order to achieve a final deal. Iran would cooperate “on the major confidence-building measures assuring non-diversion for a number of years,” including capping enrichment at 5%, capping Iran’s nuclear stockpile, capping plutonium production, and no reprocessing. “These measures are all beyond the NPT.”
“…one that could leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state.”
“Threshold states do not possess nuclear weapons,” former IAEA Ambassador Jenkins points out. “That is why they are not outlawed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
“…an agreement that could endanger the very existence of the State of Israel.”
Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar and affiliate graduate faculty member in Political Science at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, observes:
It is interesting that after a whole treatise about the physical danger a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the world, Dermer ends up stating that a mere threshold status made possible by the agreement would endanger the very existence of the state of Israel. As such, despite all the bravado that usually comes from the hardline Israeli right about Israeli might, this is the best testament to the depth of Israeli vulnerability and a great sales pitch in support of an agreement to hardliners in Iran who oppose any agreement with the U.S.
William O. Beeman
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
395 HHH Center
301 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-3400
wbeeman@umn.edu
academic website: http://www.williambeeman.com
blog: http://www.wbeeman.com
download publications: https://umn.academia.edu/WilliamOBeeman
سال نو مبارک
How to talk and listen to Iran
Guest Editorial by William O. Beeman
William O. Beeman is a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He is the author ofLanguage, status and power in Iran (Indiana 1986), The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran demonize each other (Chicago 2008) and Iranian performance traditions (Mazda 2011). His email is wbeeman@umn.edu.
Current negotiations with Iran
Happy Persian New Year (Nowruz!) Sal-e now mobarak!
سال نو مبارک
over its nuclear programme in Geneva have raised hopes that there may be rapprochement between Iran and the West. This recalls an earlier potential ‘thaw’ in US-Iran relations on 7 January 1998 when some US officials reacted to the then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s call for better relations between the United States and Iran in an interview with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
But American analysts have apparently not learned from that event. The ‘thaw’ failed, largely because the Americans at that time focused narrowly on what they mistakenly thought to be the substance of President Khatami’s pronouncements, namely that Iran was willing to capitulate to a whole list of American demands for ‘better behaviour’.
In so doing, they missed the real message that Khatami wished to send. His was a message outlining how rapprochement could proceed in terms of salutary communication dynamics between the two nations. The United States has largely repeated these misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication in the current negotiations, making them exceptionally difficult.
The situation is complicated further by the fact that the United States is not acting alone in the current negotiations. The other P5+1 nations are also involved, and with so many parties with so many cultural communication dynamics, it is not surprising that these negotiations have been tortured and difficult.
***
The multicultural basis for the current negotiations is overshadowed by the insistence on the part of the United States that Washington’s representatives take the lead in the talks. This is problematic in and of itself, since, to put it charitably, Americans tend to be tone deaf when dealing with intercultural communication dynamics, a point made bluntly by the late Margaret Mead in assessing American prospects for world leadership following World War II.
Briefly, and particularly with regard to Iran, Americans often miss subtleties of communication in dealing with other nations for two important reasons. First, they do not appreciate the importance of status differences. Second, they believe that contrition is honourable and a precondition of improving personal relations.
Americans despise status differences, and repress the overt expression of status even when it is clearly present in interpersonal communication. The boss tells his or her employees, ‘Call me Chris’ and the employees obey, though they know that the boss has the real power in the organization.
Iranians are dramatically different. Status is of enormous importance in Iranian life, and individuals spend their careers in an elaborate dance balancing status differences, sometimes emphasizing their lower relative status, sometimes their higher relative status in order to advance their interests.
‘Getting something off your chest’ is a well-advised American strategy in interpersonal relations, requiring clear evidence of contrition in court cases in order to obtain mercy in meting out punishment or in obtaining parole or pardon. If anything, such expressions of regret for past deeds enhance an individual’s standing in the opinion of others.
Iranians may admit guilt or become contrite but only as a conscious decision to accept a decisive lower status position vis-a-vis another person or group. Contrition is only a method that is used when an Iranian accepts a lower status position. It is often insincere, as it provides for an advantage in dealing with a person known to have much more power and authority. This can be advantageous as a way of escaping responsibility and garnering favours, but it is unseemly for a leader, or group of leaders, who need to protect their status – and in Iran’s case, by extension, the status of the nation they represent. Consequently, Iran’s leaders are never going to show contrition for acts and policies they believe to be justified.
***
In the interview with Amanpour in 1998, President Khatami told the United States in no uncertain terms that, although Iran was more than willing to enter into negotiations as an equal partner, Iran would not enter into communication with the American government as a lower-status partner. In 2013 newly-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif told the United States the same thing – not just once, but over and over. Iranians have a long history of dealing with this perceived status inequality on the part of the United States. The Iranian perception of the relationship between the two nations before the revolution of 1978-79 is one where the United States assumed the status of patron (US) to client (Iran), all engineered by the Shah without any Iranian public input. This status relationship has been vehemently rejected by Iranian leaders since the revolution. President Khatami, his successor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and current President Rouhani had to defend this position to retain their own power.
This means that Iran has not and will not respond to accusations of perceived wrongdoing from the United States with anything but denial and counter-accusations, because to accept the American accusations, even as a topic for discussion, places the United States in the higher status position. On the other hand, back in his interview in 1998, President Khatami did provide a way to talk about things of mutual concern without invoking the hot-button of status difference. In talking about the past, he was able to provide analogies in US history for all of the bad behaviour of which the Iranians have been accused. In effect, he was saying: ‘We can discuss our mutual pasts in a common framework without needing to determine who was the wrongdoer’. With regard to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, President Khatami provided statements that indicated that Iran found these to be general problems that faced the region, and indeed the world.
These problems, he claimed, required broad dialogue for progress to be made. His call for people-to-people contacts was similarly a way of opening discussion between Americans and Iranians without confronting the status-guilt problems that loom in the government-to-government contacts favoured by Washington officials. Thus, eschewing the need to make Iran admit guilt and place it in a lower status position is what President Khatami desires for renewed dialogue with the United States.
President Ahmadinejad adopted a far more confrontational stance vis-à-vis the United States. His style and rhetoric was irritating to Americans and other nations, but if one focuses solely on his style, one misses the fact that he was essentially sending the same message as President Khatami – that Iran was not going to submit to accepting the humiliating status of subordinate to the United States. President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, both Western-educated, have returned to President Khatami’s more accommodating approach to communication with the United States, but once again, the message is still the same: Iran will not be subordinated to the United States.
***
Americans are not without precedent for non-status marked dialogue. The business world provides continual examples where companies sued for liability quietly fix the problems ‘out of court’ without admitting guilt. This has been the standing model for dealing with banking and financial violations over the past decade. Lawyers are often effective mediators in such situations. This model clearly shows the way to make progress with Iran. A mediated dialogue as equal status partners, without any requirements for admission of guilt, and a commitment to fix global problems of mutual interest will establish the two nations on the road to healthy communication. Tentatively the current Geneva negotiations may be inching toward this model. We cannot know precisely what is taking place behind closed doors, but it would be reasonable to assume that the presence of the other P5+1 nations may have resulted in mediation in the problematic US-Iran relationship.
Unfortunately, congressional legislators in the United States have not evolved in terms of communication with Iran. They entertain the belief that harsh economic sanctions have forced Iran into a lower status position at the negotiating table. The US Senate recently tried to pass a new bill that would actually put new sanctions in place if negotiations with Iran did not result, essentially, in the dismantling of its nuclear programme. This bill was clearly designed to humiliate and subordinate Iran even further. Foreign Minister Zarif was clear that if this bill were passed, it would result in the abandonment of negotiations. Many US legislators completely misread this statement, opining that this showed just how insistent Iranians were on making progress toward building a nuclear weapon. In fact the real objection on Iran’s part was once again the prospect of being forced into a subordinate position.
One hopes that the sophistication of President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif will allow them to accommodate the historic blind spots and deficiencies in American cross-cultural communication abilities. Secretary of State John Kerry is multi-lingual with a lot of foreign experience. He seems to be confident in his ability to talk to foreign leaders. However, it is clear that most of the accommodating is currently being done by the Iranian diplomats. The unsophisticated American leaders at home only make this job more difficult.
***
Since people-to-people communications cannot actually be controlled by either government, the United States would be wise to graciously endorse the suggestions of Iranian leaders to widen them. President Khatami clearly made a strong opening to Washington in 1998. President Rouhani has repeated these suggestions and has shown the way for further productive communication at informal levels. Ironically the whole world travels to Iran regularly – except US citizens (who can travel there, but largely believe they cannot).
Sadly, here again, the United States presents an obstacle. The US Treasury Department, citing currency transfer restrictions, throws up financial roadblocks for cultural and intellectual exchange at every opportunity – sometimes violating their own regulations. We can only hope that US national leaders have the sensitivity and wisdom to transcend narrow US cultural models to carry the dialogue forward both in official and unofficial settings.
Update: The Geneva talks between Iran and the P5+1 nations, led by the United States were preliminary discussions leading to a six-month negotiation period in Vienna starting on January 20, 2014. The first round of talks ended on March 7, 2014.
--
William O. Beeman
Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
__._,_.___
It is now 21 years since the United States began accusing Iran of building nuclear weapons. The first official pronouncement was by National Security Council member Robert Gates, who later became Secretary of Defense under Bush and Obama. Gates had absolutely no evidence that such a program existed, and there has never been any evidence since that such a program exists. Not one scintilla of evidence anywhere. After all this time, one would think that AIPAC and right-wing politicians would stop this nonsensical accusation. The Iranian nuclear energy program had started as far back as the Eisenhower administration at the instigation and encouragement of the United States. The neoconservatives picked up on Gates' pronouncement and gradually created a program of disinformation that broke into open hostility against Iran in 2003. We have been spinning our wheels on the Iranian question all this time.
One reason that the accusation of an Iranian nuclear weapons program persists is that, after so many years of truth-by-repetition, the public began to believe this. It then became an election "gimmie." No politician--Democrat or Republican--ever lost a vote by attacking Iran, and it is still true. Finally, however, the public is beginning to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for more than 20 years. It is about time--just as right-wing forces still lust after a scenario where the United States initiates a military action against Iran.
With crossed fingers, we may have finally passed a milestone. Robert Gates, who began it all is no longer in government, and the Obama administration has begun a much more positive course vis-a-vis Iran--a course that will change the world for the better if only the right-wing chicken-hawks can be headed off from their continual warmongering.
UN finds no evidence Iran seeks nuclear arms: Rouhani
President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that despite "thousands of hours" of inspection, the UN's atomic watchdog has found no evidence of military objectives in Iran's nuclear drive. His remarks came o...
NEWS.YAHOO.COM
Iran's nuclear facility in Arak has been cited as a possible source of plutonium (and a bomb). The facility was declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2002 and and is nowhere near complete today. A progress report to the IAEA was made on August 25, 2013. In this report one can see that it is intended as a benign facility. See the excellent article below for details.
Best, Bill
<http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Concern-about-Arak-Heavy-Water-Research-Reactor-Just-an-Excuse-or-a-Reality-.htm>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <firouzeh.mirrazavi@iranreview.org>
Date: Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 12:43 AM
Subject: Iran Review: Concern about Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor (Hassan Beheshtipour)
To:
Iran Review.Org
Concern about Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor: Just an Excuse or a
Reality? Saturday, November 16, 2013
http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Concern-about-Arak-Heavy-Water-Research-Reactor-Just-an-Excuse-or-a-Reality-.htm
Hassan Beheshtipour
Introduction
In this article, the author aims to answer the simple, but very important
question that whether Iran's nuclear plant in Arak should be a cause of
concern for the Western states. The Arak plant is located close to the
city of Arak, some 290 km southwest of the capital city, Tehran. It is
among 17 nuclear sites that Iran is currently operating under the
supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The plant
consists of two main parts:
A) Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor
As the useful lifespan of Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) almost reached its
end and the equipment and systems working there gradually became obsolete,
like all other similar reactors in the world, Iran decided to find a
replacement for that research reactor. In addition, domestic demand in
Iran for various radio drugs that are used for a variety of diagnostic and
therapeutic purposes as well as demand for radioisotopes that are used in
various fields of industry and research kept rising. The rise in demand
came despite various limitations that Iran has been facing even for the
provision and procurement of such radio isotopes from foreign sources. As
a result, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran made up its mind to build
a new research reactor in order to replace the Tehran Research Reactor. To
achieve that goal, a general plan was made for the construction of Arak
research reactor, which is of heavy water type and capable of generating
40 megawatts of power. The reactor is known as IR40.
The basic part of the project was finished in 2002 and construction
operations got underway in 2004. Paragraph 35 of the last report presented
to the IAEA's Board of Governors by Director General of the United Nations
nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, says, “In a letter dated 25 August 2013,
Iran informed the Agency that ‘based on the practical progress of
construction work’ the previously indicated ‘start-up’ date for the IR-40
Reactor was ‘not achievable, so it cannot be the first quarter of 2014.’”
Construction of the power plant will most probably end in the fall of 2014
and its final commissioning has been scheduled for early 2015. In his
latest report dated August 28, 2013, Amano has noted that Iran has built
10 nuclear fuel assemblies all of which have been stockpiled at the
manufacturing facility. In Paragraph 47 of the same report, Amano has
informed the IAEA Board of Governors that: “On 17 and 18 August 2013, the
Agency carried out an inspection and a DIV at FMP and confirmed the
ongoing manufacture of pellets for the IR-40 Reactor using natural UO2. As
indicated above (Paragraph 34), since the Director General’s previous
report Iran has started to manufacture fuel assemblies containing nuclear
material for the IR-40 Reactor.”
B) Arak heavy water production plant
Arak heavy water production plant was inaugurated by the former Iranian
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on August 26, 2006. According to
Gholamreza Aqazadeh, the then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of
Iran, the plant had an original production capacity of eight tons. Upon
inauguration, its capacity reached 16 tons of heavy water with a degree of
purity of 99.8 percent. The Arak heavy water production project is a
hallmark of Iran's nuclear advances and plays a determining role in
meeting the country’s need to nuclear material for medical purposes such
as control of various kinds of cancer and AIDS. The heavy water produced
there can be also used as coolant for other heavy water reactors. As this
industrial unit opened, Iran became the ninth country in the world with
necessary equipment to produce heavy water. Argentina, Canada, India and
Norway are among the biggest producers and exporters of heavy water in the
world.
Analysis: Why Western countries are concerned about Arak project?
As Iran has frequently noted, the main goal behind the implementation of
the heavy water research reactor project was to produce radio drugs that
are used to treat intractable diseases such as various kinds of cancer.
Such drugs are needed by about 850,000 Iranians every year. The plant is
also meant to produce various radioisotopes which can be used in various
fields of industry and agriculture. The Western media, however, have
frequently claimed that Iran can reprocess the spent fuel of the reactor
to separate plutonium. They have alleged that eight kilograms of this
nuclear material is sufficient to be mounted on a missile warhead and turn
it into a nuclear warhead. Mass media in the West have been launching a
heavy propaganda campaign around this project claiming that Arak facility
will be ready at the end of 2016 to be used for the production of enough
plutonium which would be, in turn, sufficient to make one or two nuclear
bombs. Since 1992, the falsehood of such claims and invalidity of dates
given for Iran's nuclear steps has been frequently proven. One clear
reason for the falsehood and invalidity of such claims is that they have
never come true.
Reasons that refute Western countries’ concerns about Arak facility
1. To produce plutonium from the spent fuel, a special facility built on
the basis of cutting-edge technology for the separation of plutonium from
nuclear refuse is needed. Iran lacks such an advanced facility.
2. To produce plutonium out of nuclear waste, “hot cells,” which are big
storage facilities with special covering are needed. Iran does not have
such cells.
3. For a country like Iran, which has already mastered the technology used
for the enrichment of uranium, it would not be very difficult to build a
nuclear bomb. To manufacture a nuclear bomb, it will just suffice to
repeat the process of uranium enrichment from lower levels to over 90
percent purity, which is needed to make a nuclear bomb. However, safe
maintenance of the nuclear bomb in order to prevent its detonation and
destruction of the country’s facilities, and even more importantly, using
such a hypothetical bomb at the right time and the right place against the
enemy forces, needs very complicated and more advanced technology. The
Western countries are well aware that Iran neither possesses such
technology, nor has it been ever trying to obtain it.
4. Arak nuclear plant is under strict supervision of the International
Atomic Energy Agency. The Director General of the IAEA Mr. Amano, and head
of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi, recently
signed an agreement in Tehran according to which Iran has voluntarily
allowed the IAEA to inspect its heavy water facility in Arak just in the
same way that Arak Research Reactor has been under the oversight of the
IAEA since 2006. Although production of heavy water, per se, is not
considered as part of a country’s nuclear activities, Iran has voluntarily
allowed the IAEA to inspect this facility in order to strip the Western
countries of any possible excuse to mount pressure on the Islamic Republic
of Iran.
Untold realities about Arak nuclear plant
Now, the important question that is posed is why a nuclear plant, which is
almost two years away from full commissioning, and is being inspected by
the IAEA in every respect, should be a source of concern for the Western
countries?
It should be noted that Arak nuclear plant is located on the surface of
the ground and is quite accessible for all kinds of enemy warplanes.
Therefore, in an extreme case, it would be easier to destroy this plant
than the underground uranium enrichment site in Fordow, which is used by
Iran to produce enriched uranium under the supervision of the IAEA.
Ephraim Asculai, a senior research associate at the London-based Institute
for National Strategic Studies (INSS), has noted that inauguration of Arak
nuclear plant will cause immunity for Iran's nuclear energy program; a
proposition which is totally unacceptable to the Western states.
Therefore, he added, concerns about the Arak nuclear plant mostly seem to
be of a tactical and military nature than being related to the
proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction.
Now, why the French Foreign Minister [Laurent Fabius] should use such a
plant as an excuse to balk at an agreement that could have been reached
between two negotiating partiers [in recent Geneva nuclear talks] and
would have been a major stride toward confidence building between the two
sides? To answer that question, it is noteworthy that the other
negotiating parties may have already reached an agreement among them in
order to play the “good cop, bad cop” game in a bid to take more
concessions from Iran.
Alternatively, one may guess that the hefty amounts of money that France
has received from Saudi Arabia have provided Paris with good incentive to
engage in such a dirty game. One may even believe that when the Israelis
saw that the United States Secretary of State John Kerry is not willing to
give in to their illegitimate demands, they have asked their old friend,
Laurent Fabius, to resort to childish excuses [to prevent a nuclear deal
between Iran and the P5+1 group]. However, in doing so, the French foreign
minister has also tarnished the political credit of France in the eyes of
the Iranian people.
Conclusion
Acting on the erroneous assumption that its economic sanctions are
bringing Iran to its knees, the West is just losing opportunities. The
Western countries are ignoring the fact that if they lose the opportunity
for reaching an agreement with Rouhani-Zarif team, it is not clear whether
such an experience could be repeated in the future. The forthcoming
negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group, which have been scheduled
for November 20, can be considered a turning point in this regard because
in those talks, the West will come to realize that such illogical behavior
and childish quibbling cannot continue forever.
*A researcher, documentary producer, and expert on nuclear issues, Hassan
Beheshtipour received his BA in Trade Economics from Tehran University.
His research topics span from US and Russian foreign policy to the
Ukrainian Orange Revolution.
Best Regards
Firouzeh Mirrazavi
Deputy Editor
Iran Review.Org
Iran-Tehran
http://www.iranreview.org/
http://www.iranreview.org/iranSpectrum/
Be a Member of Iran Review and receive our Weekly Newsletter every Sunday
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In order to placate Israel and Saudi Arabia, the US must accept the lies both nations tell about Iran. The US must also ignore the self-serving reasons both nations have for calling for "action" against Iran. Both nations talk pious cant about protecting the world, etc., but they are entirely venal in their motives.
Israel, and particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu, uses Iran as a bogeyman to shore up his own domestic credentials. Despite the fact that there is no evidence for a nuclear weapons program in Iran, and even his own military and intelligence advisers clearly state that Iran is "no danger" to Israel, Mr. Netanyahu continues to talk about "Iran's nuclear weapons program." He doesn't even use the hedge "nuclear weapons capacity" that is used in the West to avoid the fact that a weapons program is non-existent or impossible to prove. He continues to talk about Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria--even Hamas--as Iranian "puppets" in a breathtaking display of misinformation and chicanery.
The Saudis are desperately afraid of the Shi'ite majority in the Eastern Province where their oil reserves lie. For this reason they have actively repressed the Shi'ite majority in Bahrain and are supporting the resistance forces fighting against the Shi'ite Alawite rulers in Syria.
The United States must stick to facts. Netanyahu and the Saudis clearly don't want the facts about Iran to be known, the better for the US to do their dirty work!
Kerry Seeks to Reassure Israel on Iran
www.nytimes.com
Secretary of State John Kerry has been confronting frictions from America’s key Middle East allies over the direction of its policies in the region.
The Israeli government continues to spread the propaganda that "Iran" fails to acknowledge or condemn the Holocaust. President Rouhani's remarks should put this falsehood to rest. However, I don't doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu will claim that this was not "sincere" or some other rhetoric to continue impeding progress on Iranian-American rapprochement.
Thanks to Behrad Nakhai for forwarding this.
Date: Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 5:43 PMSubject: Iran president acknowledges Holocaust, talks Syria and Twitter - Amanpour's Full interview with Rouhani
To: Behrad Nakhai <nakhai@gmail.com>Watch full interview:
http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/25/iran-president-acknowledges-holocaust-talks-syria-and-twitter/
By Josh Levs and Mick Krever, CNN
Iran's new president has acknowledged that Nazis killed Jews, furthering the stark contrast between himself and his predecessor, who called the Holocaust a "myth."
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, he also discussed Israel and Syria.
"Any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime the Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jews, was reprehensible and condemnable," President Hassan Rouhani said in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
"Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we condemn, because genocide, the taking of the human life, is condemnable and it makes no difference whether that life is a Jewish life, a Christian or a Muslim or what. For us it's the same."
He also referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"But this does not mean that on the other hand you can say Nazis committed crimes against a group, now therefore they must usurp the land of another group and occupy it. This, too, is an act that should be condemned. There should be an even-handed discussion," Rouhani said, speaking through a translator.
Rouhani emphasized that he is "not a historian."
The Anti-Defamation League responded quickly.
"It is about time an Iranian leader acknowledged the Holocaust as a tragic fact of history," ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a written statement.
"But in practically the same breath President Rouhani engaged in the more subtle form of Holocaust revisionism, minimizing it by accusing the Jewish survivors of taking vengeance on the Palestinians in fulfilling their 2,000-year-old dream of returning to their homeland, Israel. This was a gratuitous swipe at the survivors.
"There is no moral equivalency between the slaughter of 6 million Jews and millions of other innocent men, women and children in the Nazi gas chambers and the plight of the Palestinian people living in the West Bank and Gaza. The Iranians, apparently, are willing to come only so far."
Days earlier, in an interview with NBC, Rouhani declined to say whether the Holocaust happened.
The country's previous president, the firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, infamously called the Holocaust a myth.
"If the Holocaust is a reality of our time, a history that occurred, why is there not sufficient research that can approach the topic from different perspectives?" he once asked.
CNN asked Rouhani about another of Ahmadinejad's remarks - that Israel should be wiped off the map.
"We have no intention of attacking any country or getting into a war with any country," he said. "Even if our armed forces are built up, it is for defense purposes alone."
The "issue of Palestine" should resolved through the ballot box, he said.
In New York for the U.N. General Assembly, he brought along the only Jewish member of the Iranian parliament.
"Our effort here is to tell the world public opinion that Iran is not only not anti-Semitic, but rather that it respects the customs and beliefs of the Jewish people," Rouhani said.
"We are proud of our history of peaceful coexistence with followers of all belief systems," he said.
Human rights organizations have chronicled Iran's treatment of some religious minorities, particularly members of the Baha'i faith.
Despite the recent release of more than a dozen political and religious prisoners in Iran, "religious minorities and other prisoners of conscience in Iran continue to suffer for their beliefs, including more than 100 imprisoned members of the Baha'i community and its leadership," said Robert P. George, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a statement Monday.
Also, "a renewed crackdown on Protestant Christians in recent weeks has led to numerous arrests," the commission said. "Of those Christians already imprisoned, Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini continues to languish in Evin prison while his eight-year sentence was upheld just last month."
Rouhani told CNN he is pursuing a citizenship charter that will work to improve freedoms. "So I will spare no effort to ensure that those who are currently in prison will see an opening door," he said.
Iranian president on Syrian conflict
Rouhani also addressed Iran's role in the Syrian civil war.
Some Iran troops are fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, Amanpour noted.
Rouhani insisted the Iran's involvement does not even number hundreds of people.
"We have close relations with Syria from a long time ago," he said, adding that Iran has military attaches and experts stationed there.
Asked about Iranian weaponry being used by the Syrian regime, Rouhani cautioned against baseless "propaganda."
"Are you encouraging the regime to give up its chemical weapons as the deal between the U.S. and Russia says?" Amanpour asked.
"We believe in general that the entire region of the Middle East has - as far as that region is concerned - all weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, have to be eradicated from the region," Rouhani responded.
Iran is glad Syria has committed itself to the Chemical Weapons Convention, he said.
Rouhani on why no meeting with Obama
"I would like to say to American people: I bring peace and friendship from Iranians to Americans," Rouhani said in English, marking the first time he's spoken the language in a TV interview since becoming president. For the rest of the interview Rouhani spoke Farsi.
In many ways, Rouhani is the "it" man of the U.N. General Assembly, as Western leaders look to gauge whether his diplomatic overtures will translate into concrete policy changes.
There was widespread speculation that he and U.S. President Barack Obama might meet face-to-face.
"There were some talks about" a possible meeting, Rouhani told Amanpour through a translator. "And preparation for the work was done a bit as well."
But no such meeting happened.
Two senior U.S. administration officials told CNN Tuesday that the encounter was called off because it was considered "too complicated" for Iran back home.
"I believe we didn't have sufficient time to really coordinate the meeting to the full extent that we needed to," Rouhani told CNN.
Given that U.S. and Iranian leaders have not met face-to-face for 35 years, he said, "we must give time for diplomacy to work itself, for dialogue to come about, for circumstances to be laid properly."
Still, the two men recently exchanged letters, and Rouhani said the ice is "already beginning to break because the environment is changing and that has come about as a result of the will of the people of Iran to create a new era of relations between the people of Iran and the rest of the world."
Resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear program is the priority, he said. "If the nuclear issue is settled conclusively, I believe that that will pave the way for numerous other issues that can be discussed."
Iran insists its program is for energy purposes; the United States and several other countries believe it could be a guise for building nuclear weaponry.
Rouhani also called for sanctions against his country to be lifted.
Rouhani said he has full permission from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to negotiate with the West.
"I think that the president of Iran has the authority whenever the national interest of the country is involved," Rouhani told Amanpour. "The supreme leader of Iran has said that should negotiations be necessary for the national interest of the country, he is in fact not opposed to it."
"Now, if an opportunity was created today, had arisen today," the Iranian president said, "and the prep work for that had been done, most probably the talks would have haven taken place, primarily focused on the nuclear issue or the developments on the Middle East. Therefore the supreme leader, I can tell you, has given permission for my government to freely negotiate on these issues."
Rouhani: Social media may be coming to Iran
An irony surrounding Rouhani's leadership is that his office tweets and posts on Facebook - even though those social media platforms are banned in Iran.
"All my efforts are geared to ensure that the people of Iran will comfortably be able to access all information globally and to use it," he told CNN. "There are large social networks at a global level around today. And I believe that all human beings have a right, and all nations have a right to use them."
He also noted that some countries including Iran have "ethical frameworks" that they try to follow.
The Iranian government needs "to be open to criticism" expressed through social media, he said. "So one of my plans is to reduce the problems that people face currently on these issues, so that within those sort of moral frameworks that we have for ourselves, that we are able to access these social network sites."
--
William O. Beeman
Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
395 HHH Center
301 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-3400
wbeeman@umn.edu
academic website: http://www.williambeeman.com
blog: http://www.wbeeman.com
During 2013-2014 I will be Visiting Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Stanford University.
Note: Professor Karen-Sue Taussig <taussig@umn.edu> will serve as Chair of the Anthropology Department in 2013-2014. All matters pertaining to Department Administration should be referred to her and our Associate Administrator, Kara Kersteter <kerst003@umn.edu>
New America Media, Commentary, William Beeman, Posted: Sep 08, 2013
There is great division of opinion regarding potential U.S. military action in Syria. However, one group is ecstatic over President Obama’s endorsement of a military attack on Damascus. These are the Neconservatives who dominated the George W. Bush administration, and who still hold tremendous influence in Washington. An attack on Syria would be one step in fulfilling “stage two” of a longstanding neoconservative plan to bring about regime change throughout the Middle East in three stages: Iraq, Syria and finally Iran.
The pattern for this plan has been to wait for an event that can be sold to the world public as justification for military attack, and then to push forward, pressuring the military and government officials to move forward with the next stage of regime change.
President Obama is, perhaps unwittingly, fulfilling this plan, conceived in 1996 by an informal organization, the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, headed by Richard Pearle and including well-known neo-conservatives, Douglas Feith, Meyrav Wurmser, David Wurmser, Robert Loewenberg, Charles Fairbanks, Jr. and James Colbert. All are connected with organizations favoring right-wing extremist Israeli policies toward Palestinians and other Middle East nations. The Study Group plan, titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” was prepared for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The “clean break” refers to their advice that Israel break from the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
The 1996 plan explicitly calls for attacks on Iraq, Syria and eventually Iran. It states: "Israel can shape its strategic environment . . . by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions."
Many of the same figures carried this plan forward two years later under another rubric, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. In a letter to President Clinton and House Speaker Gingrich in 1998, the members of the PNAC, including Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Zoellick called for the removal of Saddam Hussein, carrying out the first stage of the agenda of the “Clean Break” plan.
Once George W. Bush was elected president, many of these figures took up prominent positions within his administration. Following the tragic destruction of the Twin Towers in New York and the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the removal of Saddam Hussein became a policy objective for the United States.
The PNAC wrote a letter to President Bush in 2001 stating: “...even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”
It was at this time that Iran came more clearly into focus for the neoconservatives. The theory they promulgated was that Iran was the prime mover in all anti-Israeli activity in the region through Iran’s purported support for Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas. Syria was seen as complicit in this, and was regularly identified as a “client state” for Iran. However, neither legislators nor the public could be incited by this theory, for which there was, and continues to be, no credible evidence.
In 2003, the neoconservatives, working through right-wing think tanks such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were able to convince the Bush administration that Iran’s 40 year old nuclear energy program was really a plot to develop nuclear weapons to be used against Israel. This theory eventually became accepted as gospel in Washington, notwithstanding that American and International intelligence agencies asserted there was no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. However, based on this baseless assertion, these same players called for military action against Iran.
Following the “Arab Spring” popular revolts against standing regimes in the Middle East the longstanding tension between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Alawite ruling minority in Syria exploded in resistance against Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad. This conflict had been festering for two generations. In 1982, armed resistance from the Sunni population resulted in a massacre in the city of Hama under orders from Hafiz al-Assad, Bashar’s father. Bashar retaliated to the more recent revolt with unprecedented cruelty, and has been accused of using chemical weapons against Syrian rebels. Whatever the United States or other nations might do to remove the Assad regime, the civil war there will continue unabated.
However, neoconservatives have seized on this more recent revolt against the Assad government as justification for military action to carry out regime change there, but not just because the Assad regime is objectionable, but rather because in an attack on Syria they see an opportunity to strike a crippling blow against Iran. As conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks stated on the PBS News Hour on September 6, “this isn’t really about Syria. . . . the real issue is the broader credibility of the President, the international credibility of the United States, especially vis-à-vis Iran. This is really about Iran more than Syria.”
Brooks’ widely held view is a miscalculation. Even if the Assad regime is removed from power, Iran will not be significantly damaged in its foreign, nuclear or economic policy.
A quick examination of all of these efforts—the pretext based on the 9/11 tragedy for ousting Saddam Hussein, weak justification for U.S. involvement in a longstanding and ongoing civil war in Syria, and the claim that Iran is not only directing all anti-Israeli action in the Middle East, but is also a nuclear threat show that the neoconservative agenda is a tissue of fantasy designed to convince the world, episode by episode, to completely reshape the region with U.S. military firepower.
Americans should not be listening to these neoconservative voices. They have been responsible for a debilitating and useless conflict in Iraq already. Their “advice” to President Obama and his administration will only drag the United States into another useless and debilitating conflict in the Middle East that will accomplish nothing, and will exacerbate violence rather than bringing the world closer to peaceful resolution of the tensions in the region.
William O. Beeman is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and Visiting Professor at Stanford University. He has worked in the Middle East for more than 40 years.
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William O. Beeman
Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
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Former New York Times reporter Thomas Wark with dismay the latest New York Times Report on the Iranian nuclear program by David Sanger and William Broad. Not surprisingly, Sanger and Broad have completely fabricated information to substantiate the claim that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. This information has infected U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who has passed the false information on to his constituents. When a staunch Democrat like Schumer can be taken in by this false information, it becomes difficult to counter the lies.
Best,
Bill Beeman
bordellopianist.blogspot.com
Sunday, May 26, 2013
The study group Just Foreign Policy says the New York Times has "gone Judy Miller" again, a reference to the discredited NYT reporter who shilled for the invasion of Iraq. JFP's complaint centers on the paper's stenographic reportage of the U.S. government line rergarding the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, without a scintilla of responsible journalistic skepticism or supplemental reporting.
In my opinion the Times "went Miller" a long time ago in its reporting on Iran's nuclear program, and continues to do so in articles like the recent story by William Broad and David Sanger under the headline "Iran Is Seen Advancing Nuclear Bid." For several years, these two reporters and others at the Times have been, at the very least, writing about Iran's nuclear program in loaded language, reeking of pro-hawk bias. At worst they seem to have been weaving into their stories tainted information, colored by Mossad, concocted by Likud, conveyed by AIPEC and intended to influence world and American public opinion against Iran.
The Times's public editor, an independent monitor of the paper's ethics, reportedly is looking into the Syria business. Let us here and now look once again at the Iran reporting, because the Times and other complicit journalists like George Jann of the Associated Press have created a climate wherein, when a reader sees the phrase "Iran's nuclear program," he or she thinks "Iran's nuclear weapons program." There is no credible evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran.
At least as far back as 2010, the Times has used quarterly reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to introduce hints, innuendo or outright falsehoods. On March 1, 2010, an independent online analyst wrote, "The Times imputes to the IAEA report statements, declarations anad conclusions that just are not there." The very same statement can accurately be made about the latest Broad-Sanger piece.
The headline writer obviously intends one to infer "weapons bid." The lede paragraph reports what the IAEA reports -- that Iran continues to enrich uranium -- but immediately invites the reader to doubt that it's doing so for peaceful purposes. It goes downhill from there.
Two essential points must be made here: 1. Iran, thanks to technology originally given to it by the United States during the reign of the Shah, has been enriching uranium for years. As new technology has become available, Iran has acquired some of it. The enrichment levels it produces are about 5% -- suitable for a wide range of medical procedures and treatments -- and exactly 19.7%, suitable to produce fuel for nuclear power plants like the 105 now operating in the United States. According the the American Federation of Scientists, 90% enrichment is the minimum threshhold for "weapons grade" material. Broad and Sanger, in their latest article, describe Iran's uranium as being "close to" weapons grade. That is like saying $19.70 is "close to" $100. Second point: As a signatory to the international accord on atomic energy, Iran was legally entitled to enrich uranium up to the maximum levels for peaceful (power, medicine, etc.) use. The Islamic republic insists that it retains that right. Israel and its western allies, particularly the United States, the U.K. and France, say, "No, we took that right away from you because you broke the rules." But the issue has never been adjudicated in anything resembling an international body of law. A diplomatic solution has been sought through negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 -- the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany. No new talks were scheduled when the April session ended with little progress. Broad and Sanger characterized the talks as "collapsed." An American government official said, however, “There may not have been a breakthrough, but there also was not a breakdown." Surely the difference between these characterizations cannot be lost on such experienced diplomatic reporters. Sober analysts in such diverse countries as Japan and Canada have suggested the obvious: the talks are in suspended animation until Iran elects a new president in a little more than two weeks from now.
Once they've written circles around the fact that there's very little news in the latest IAEA report, Broad and Sanger go off on a tangent that seems as transparent as the bizarre Rube Goldberg devices the AP's Jann has fallen for. I've reread the IAEA text half a dozen times and find nothing in it to substantiate their claim that it bares a new three-part strategy for Iran to get A-weapons before Israel and the U.S. can stop them by going to war. It reads like a "what-if" memo written by a Mossad intelligence analyst.
It concludes: "The third element of the strategy involves speeding ahead with another potential route to a bomb: producing plutonium. The energy agency’s report indicated that Iran was making significant progress at its Arak complex, where it has built a heavy-water facility and is expected to have a reactor running by the end of next year."
Nowhere -- repeat, nowhere -- in the IAEA document does the word "plutonium" appear. Nor does its U.N. chemical ID symbol (Pu) or any of its variations appear in the text. Its mention of the Arak heavy water plant notes that its inspectors were there in August of last year, but since have had to rely on satellite images to monitor its activity.
Perhaps the Times raised eyebrows at those parts of the IAEF report that mentioned the production or transfer to other facilities of small quantities of UO2 or U3O8. While these could be used to produce plutonium, they are also consistent in their reprocessed state with efforts to produce high-efficiency fuel for a new Iranian nuclear power plant nearing completion.
Just as one must learn to walk before one runs, so also most of the verified Iranian nuclear activities could be stepping stones to starting work on nuclear weapons. My neighbor just bought shoes for his two-year-old toddler. Ergo, the kid plans to enter the Olympic Games.
No wonder Sen. Chuck Schumer thinks Iran already has enough weapons-grade material to arm a nuclear warhead, and has broadcast that lie to his constituency. He read it in his hometown paper. The one that used to be respectable.
TW
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139352/akbar-ganji/meet-ahmadinejads-chosen-successor
April 30, 2013
Meet Ahmadinejad’s Chosen Successor
[1] [2]
Essay
The Latter-Day Sultan [3]
Akbar Ganji [4]
The real decision-maker in Iran is Supreme Leader Khamenei not President Ahmadinejad. Blaming Iran's problems on President Ahmadinejad inaccurately suggests that Iran's problems will go away when Ahmadinejad does.
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei speaks in Tehran, July 2009 (Yalda Moaiery / Courtesy Reuters)
On June 14, Iran will hold a presidential election. If the acrimony and fraud of the 2009 election was not enough to cast a pall over this vote, then the ongoing power struggle between Supreme Leader Aytollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surely is. Term limits prevent Ahmadinejad from running for reelection, but he refuses to leave office quietly -- he has been grooming his chief of staff and close confidant, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, as a successor. Khamenei does not like either Ahmadinejad or Mashaei, seeing them as part of a “deviant faction” that stands in the way of clerical rule. It is a nasty squabble without any heroes, and regardless of who wins, the real loser will be democracy in Iran.
For a period of five days next month, from May 7 to May 11, Iran’s Guardian Council will vet the candidates, choosing who can and cannot run. Mashaei has not yet officially announced his candidacy, since this can be done only during those days, after which the council has ten days to rule on his candidacy.
Mashaei, a young-looking 53-year-old, has a broad range of experience in Iranian government and society. An electrical engineer by training, he worked after the 1979 revolution in Kurdistan and the Iranian province of Western Azerbaijan for the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence division. He also held positions in the Ministry of Intelligence, as chief of a special department dealing with Kurdistan; the Ministry of the Interior, as a general manager; and on government radio. He got to know Ahmadinejad while working for the Tehran municipality when Ahmadinejad was the city’s mayor.
Ahmadinejad and Mashaei are clashing with the clerical establishment, but that does not mean that they are fighting for democracy and secular rule.
Mashaei filled several different posts during Ahmadinejad’s first term, from 2005–9, and was appointed vice president at the beginning of the second term. Mashaei’s promotion led to protests on the part of the “sources of emulation,” the primary religious authorities followed by pious Shiites, and the faqihs (Islamic jurists). In July 2009, Khamenei requested that Mashaei be removed from office, but Ahmadinejad refused to dismiss him. Khamenei’s office insisted, writing to Ahmadinejad that the appointment was “contrary to your interests and those of the government and will cause division and dismay among your admirers. You must declare this appointment null and void.”
The supreme leader ultimately got his way, and Mashaei resigned. Ahmadinejad still wanted him around, though, so he appointed him to be his chief of staff in September 2009. Once again, the so-called principlists, hard-liners who support Khamenei, raised their voices in protest, but Mashaei was able to stay on.
Ahmadinejad and Mashaei are clashing with the clerical establishment, but that does not mean that they are fighting for democracy and secular rule. Ahmadinejad is a dictator just like Khamenei. One by one, he has removed the principlist forces and those close to Khamenei from his government, surrounding himself with a loyal coterie. The principlists believe that Mashaei is the guiding hand behind this purge, and they worry that his readiness to buck the conservatives on political, cultural, and social positions presents a grave threat to the Islamic Republic.
What is it about Mashaei that the clerical establishment finds so threatening? First is his defense of Iranian nationalism over Islamism as the guiding force of the country. “Islamism has run its course,” he said in 2004 and repeated in 2008. He also opposes forcing women to wear veils in public. In January 2011, he pointedly asked, “If the veil was not required, what percent of ladies would use it?”
Another of Mashaei’s controversial moments came in July 2008, when he declared that “Iran today is friends with the people of America and Israel,” a statement meant to distinguish himself from the mainstream politics of the Islamic Republic. This matter set off such an uproar that Khamenei delivered a pointed response to Mashaei in a sermon several months later: “This is not right,” he retorted. ”It is illogical. Who are the people of Israel? They are the same people who seize houses, seize land, who seize farms, who seize trade. This is the rabble of Zionist elements.”
The spat extends to the religious sphere, too. Iran’s clerics consider themselves to be governing in the stead of the Twelfth Imam, a messianic figure in Shiism, according to the principle of wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurist). The clergy claims a monopoly on relations with the imam, but Mashaei insists that he, too, has had direct contact with him. The clerics do not like such rivals, so they have accused Mashaei of witchcraft, saying that he acts on commands from satanic genies and has bewitched Ahmadinejad. In mid-2011, 25 of Mashaei’s associates were arrested on charges of practicing witchcraft and economic corruption and sent to prison.
Copyright © 2002-2012 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
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