Eye On Iran

[Rasputin]

late this past spring, Ahmad Saei received a letter that struck him as especially odd. A professor of law and international relations at Tehran University, he was used to receiving a daily notice addressing mundane school matters--religious holidays, ceremonies, talks on campus. That day's mail, however, was different. Written on behalf of the university administration, the note announced that the university would be sorry to lose four longtime professors to retirement as of the fall. He scanned down, surprised to see that the charismatic head of the faculty of law and political science--of which he was a member--was on the list. Just below that, he saw his own name--first, middle, last. He took a long sip of his black tea, shut off his computer and walked to his first lecture of the day.

Saei's "retirement" took almost everyone by surprise. He had been a professor at Tehran University since the late 1970s, when this and other campuses throughout the country were caught up in heady political storms that ended in a revolution. He had long considered himself among the revolutionaries; like thousands of other young people of his generation, he had agitated for the overthrow of the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy. But something had changed. A self-described reformist, Saei does not seem to share the vision of the new set of men who have been running the country since last year's presidential election. "They want to make the university yek dast [made of 'one hand']," he told me of the country's leadership. "But it will take a second revolution to do that."

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

US 'open to Iran talks on Iraq'

The White House has indicated it will consider talking to Iran and Syria about the future of Iraq.
Ex-US Secretary of State James Baker, who heads the Iraq Study Group, is leading a delegation to the White House for talks with President George W Bush.

The cross-party panel, due to give its recommendations by the end of the year, is believed to favour renewing contacts with Tehran and Damascus.

The White House chief-of-staff has said Mr Bush will look at all the options.

Speaking on ABC's This Week programme, Josh Bolten said "a fresh approach" was clearly needed on Iraq.

We in Syria believe that engagement with the United States on Iraq can help a lot, because we believe that we need to stabilise the situation in Iraq and support the political process there

Imad Moustapha
Syrian ambassador to the US

Asked if he favoured the idea of including Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria, in discussions, Mr Bolten said all options would be considered.

In a keynote speech in London, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair will call for Iran and Syria to be more involved in efforts to secure peace in the Middle East.

Phased withdrawal

Iraq was a key factor in the Republican defeat in mid-term polls and US defence chief Donald Rumsfeld's resignation.

Senior Democrats have called for a phased pullout of US troops.


Josh Bolten (r) said a fresh approach was needed in Iraq

"We have to tell Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over," said Carl Levin, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He said he wanted phased troop withdrawals beginning in a few months and he said some Republican senators were preparing to back him.

Mr Blair will speak to the Iraq Study Group via video link on Tuesday.

He will be making his speech in London's financial centre on Monday evening.

An aide said Mr Blair would "make clear to Syria and Iran the basis on which they can help the peaceful development of the Middle East rather than hinder it; and the consequences of not doing so".

Seeking stability

The Syrian ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha, told the BBC his government would be glad to play a role in helping to stabilise the situation in Iraq - as long as the Iraqis wanted it.

But he said the US first had to accept its policy in Iraq had failed.

Mr Moustapha said if Iraqis realised other Arab countries were supporting their peace process, it would serve to calm political tensions.

The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan US task force asked by Congress to examine the effectiveness of policy in Iraq, reportedly thinks that "staying the course" is an untenable long-term strategy.

It is said to have been looking at two options, both of which would amount to a reversal of the Bush administration's stance.

One is the phased withdrawal of US troops, and the other is to increase contact with Syria and Iran to help stop the fighting.

More than 2,800 US troops have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The US military confirmed that three US soldiers had been killed in fighting in Iraq's Anbar province on Saturday.

[Rasputin]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is set to meet US President George W Bush at the White House, with Iran, Iraq and the Palestinian conflict on the agenda.
Israel has expressed increasing concern over Iran in the light of Tehran's refusal to heed United Nations calls for it to halt its nuclear programme.

The visit also comes as Mr Bush ponders a change in policy on Iraq after the Republicans lost mid-term polls.

The US may try to involve Syria and Iran more in deciding Iraq's future.

If someone wants to reach a compromise with Iran, he must understand that Iran won't be ready to do so unless it is afraid

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert

Mr Olmert has already warned the US against the possible effects of a premature withdrawal from Iraq, which he said could lead to civil war with serious implications for moderate governments in the region.

The meeting comes six months after Mr Olmert's first at the White House and follows a summer of fighting in Lebanon and Gaza which has forced him to abandon his central policy - unilateral withdrawal from parts of the West Bank.

A recent poll put his approval rating among Israelis at about 20%.

Unidentified threat

Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned as US defence secretary after the election defeats, was opposed to any dialogue with Iran.


Israeli operations in Gaza are likely to be discussed
The man expected to replace him, Robert Gates, has suggested the dialogue could be possible.

Mr Ahmadinejad has called for an end to the Israeli state and has described the Nazi holocaust as a myth.

Mr Olmert said Iran should be more actively deterred from completing its nuclear programme, which Israel and Western powers say is intended for military use.

"If someone wants to reach a compromise with Iran, he must understand that Iran won't be ready to do so unless it is afraid," Mr Olmert said.

"Israel has various options which I am not prepared to discuss."

US support

Israel is widely considered to be the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East, although it has never admitted having the capability.

An Iranian official said on Sunday that Tehran would deliver a "swift, strong and crushing" response to any Israeli military attack on its nuclear sites, which it says are entirely peaceful in nature.

The issue of continuing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip that have left dozens dead the past two weeks will probably also be discussed.

Mr Olmert said he did not expect any change in Washington's unstinting support for Israel after control of Congress passed from Republican to Democrat.

On Saturday, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli attack in Gaza that killed 18 civilians, including women and children.

[Rasputin]

Can Iran help stabilize Iraq?

Iran has been here before, called upon by arch-foe America to assist in a neighborhood security problem. After 9/11, Iran helped the US extensively in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and establish a new government.
It anticipated better relations in exchange for its assistance. But it was soon dubbed a member of the "Axis of Evil" by President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address.

The outcome of that flicker of cooperation may increase Iran's wariness if it yet again receives a request from the US for help, this time in Iraq.

"This led the Iranians to conclude the US was intent on overthrowing their regime, and would not be affected by cooperative behavior," says Barnett Rubin, of New York University.

Bringing Iran - and Syria - into a regional process to stabilize Iraq is being touted both by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Iraq Study Group, the US commission studying options that both Republicans and Democrats hope will provide a framework for facesaving change in Iraq.

But the calculus has changed since the 2003 Iraq invasion. As the US has become more mired in the war, Iran has gained confidence that it was unlikely to face US-engineered "regime change." Iran still has numerous reasons to engage, but the price-tag may be higher.

"We're going into this with a handicap of having weakened ourselves over the past three years, and trying to negotiate over Iraq at a time when Iraq itself is in the worst situation it could be," says Vali Nasr, a professor of national security at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

"You are dealing with an Iran that is much more defiant, and much more over-confident," he adds. "Therefore Iranians may not be looking to build relations with the US ... but see it as an opportunity to pull US-Iran relations back from the brink."

The soft-spoken and reform-minded president Iran had in 2001 has also been replaced by arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has spoken vociferously at every opportunity to reinvigorate the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution, a key pillar of which was the slogan: "Death to the Great Satan."

"It is obviously in the national interest of Iran to have a stable Iraq," says Mr. Rubin, who advised UN negotiating teams on Afghanistan in 2001. "The question is whether the Bush administration is willing to overcome its ideological depiction of Iran as part of the axis of evil...[and] Ahmadinejad is willing to be pragmatic...despite his ideological commitments."

Mr. Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran's position remained that it would speak to the US, but only if American officials change their "attitude" toward the Islamic Republic, and "correct[s] their behavior." He said he was preparing a message to Americans.

Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki also offered little hint at Iran's response Tuesday, saying it would consider any offer. The day before, officials gloated over the Republican defeat, saying they hoped it would yield a "180 degree" policy change.

But beneath the heated rhetoric, Iran and the US have both sent signals for months that they are ready to engage in some way.

Even Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, approved talks about Iraq earlier this year that Washington had authorized the US ambassador in Baghdad to conduct.

Iran wants all issues on the table, from its controversial nuclear program and resumption of US-Iran ties, to Iranian support for Hizbullah in Lebanon and Palestinian militants.

The US, so far, has demanded strict limits on topics. It has also insisted that Iran suspend nuclear enrichment activities before any talks can begin.

But such a hard line was taken before Democratic victories in Congress, and the replacement of Defense chief Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, who has made clear in the past his desire to see US-Iran engagement. And before Hizbullah, with Iranian help and blessings, delivered what Tehran and Beirut declared a "victory" against Israel in fighting during July and August.

"You can say there is a cautious optimism [in Tehran] that something is going to happen," says Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political scientist at Tehran University. That hopefulness prevails even though the 2001 Afghanistan example makes Iran "far more careful about what they give and what they want."

"It should not be a cosmetic relationship, addressing issues in a superficial way, by the US telling Iran: 'You do this; you do that"; that's not going to work," says Professor Hadian-Jazy. "This takes real strategic thinking on both sides."

That means coping with inevitable clashes: Israel is concerned that Washington is giving Iran too much of the regional pie, and local Sunni nations are likely to complain that Shiite Iran's influence will rise further.

But Iran also has much to offer, if it plays a role similar to the one it played in Afghanistan. US officials routinely complain that Iran is destabilizing Iraq. Iranians say Iran has decided not to - so far.

"[Iran] has already built a very important infrastructure in Iraq - military, security - but they have not yet used these resources," says Hadian-Jazy. "It is rather a guarantee against possible US military action. They want US decision-makers to think twice before taking action."

Those dangers have long been understood in Washington and London. Prime Minister Blair talked with the Iraq Study Group Tuesday by video-link. In a speech Monday night - in which he berated Iran for putting "obstacles in the path to peace, paint us ... as the aggressors" - he said that Iran should be part of the solution.

"A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region where the same forces are at work, where the roots of this global terrorism are to be found, where the extremism flourishes," Mr. Blair said. Iran had to play a positive role, and suspend its nuclear enrichment program, he said, or "face the consequences of not doing so - isolation."

But such isolation would cause perhaps greater consequences for Mr. Bush and Blair, because of the influential role Iran could potentially play with Iraq's majority Shiite population.

"Iran has enough levers, money, weapons, political and cultural influence," says Nasr. "And if there is a political formula on the table.... There is a certain degree of trust, to get [Iraqi Shiites] to accept political compromises with Sunnis they would not before."

A similar dynamic was often at play during Arab-Israeli "talks" for decades, says Nasr, when "you always needed a regional power to handhold the partner."

That could be Iran's most important step, he says, though it could also stop funding radical parties and weapons traffic.

But those decisions may depend upon the US, and what security guarantees, if any - a longstanding Iranian demand - it is willing to offer as it calls for Iran to help.

"Iran will be more willing to cooperate, if there is a minimal understanding [on security]," says Nasr, a point that applies not just to Iran.

"All countries around Iraq are hedging their bets. They're not sure what will happen, the type of government, if the US will stay or go, [so] everybody has a maximalist position," he adds. "By limiting uncertainty, the US can bring some stability."

[Rasputin]

Iran increases Palestinian aid to 120 million dollars

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran has stepped up its aid to the Palestinians by donating some 120 million dollars to the Hamas-led government and is ready to give more, the Palestinian foreign minister said.


"Iran has handed out until now over 120 million dollars and will supply more aid. Its support is very important for us," Mahmud Zahar said following talks with Iran's top national security official Ali Larijani.

"Iran is a major actor in the region and if we can obtain the support of Arab and Islamic countries we will have the assurance that there will be no step backwards on the Palestinian issue," he added.

The sum of 120 million is more than double the pledge of 50 million dollars made by Iran in April after the suspension of funding by the United States and European Union following Hamas's election victory.

The Islamist Hamas, which is now engaged in talks over a national unity government with the secular Fatah, stands by its refusal to recognise Israel despite the aid freeze and international pressure.

Iran, which also does not recognise Israel, denies allegations that it supplies arms to Palestinian militant groups, saying its support is of a moral nature only.

"We stand by the side of Hamas and the Palestinian government in these dramatic times when the Palestinian people are subjected to an economic blockade," said Larijani.

He added that Iran "supports the formation of a government of national unity in Palestine and supports a government that is supported by Hamas."

Zahar had pledged in Tehran on Tuesday that the planned national unity government between Palestinian factions would maintain its Islamist predecessor's refusal to recognise Israel.

[Rasputin]

ماجرای یک شنود تلفنی

لو رفتن بودجه محرمانه اتمی

دلیل برکناری "فرهاد رهبر"؟



هفته نامه اشپیگل گزارشی را تحت عنوان تلاش های مخفیانه برای خرید تجهیزات اتمی در ایران منتشر ساخته است. دراین گزارش آمده است:

بموجب اطلاعات بدست آمده، ایران 418 میلیون دلار بودجه برای محرمانه برای فعالیت های اتمی خود اختصاص داده است. این بودجه با نام دیگری در بودجه عمومی کشور گنجانده شده و تاکنون هیچ مقامی درباره جزئیات این بودجه سخن نگفته است.

اشپیگل متکی به شنود تلفنی یک منبع اطلاعاتی غرب، در خردادماه گذشته، از یکی از مقامات عالیرتبه جمهوری اسلامی مدعی می شود:

بموجب این شنود، برخی اعضای مجلس ایران شاکی بوده اند که آن ها از میزان و دلایل هزینه های منظور شده در بودجه ها و مقادیر پول موجود در دست دولت بی خبر نگاه داشته می شوند.علاوه براین در رابطه با وجود «بودجه ویژه ای» مذاکره شده است که از طرف سازمان برنامه و بودجه در اختیاریک وزیر دولت با نام «فرهاد رهبر» گذاشته است. او مسئول سازما ن جدیدی است که در پائیز سال2005 با نام «مر کز مراقبت از سوالات اتمی » در جمهوری اسلامی بنیانگذاری شده است. مسئولیت دو گانه «فرهاد راهبر» این امکان را فراهم می آورد که او به علی خامنه ای رهبر جمهوری اسلامی ایران دسترسی بیشتری داشته باشد.

اطلاعات موجود نشان می دهد که« بودجه ویژه» 418 میلیون دلاری برای امور نظامی و جهت تولید بمب های اتمی از نوع خوشه ای در نظر گرفته شده است.

نگرانی محافل مسئول در غرب زمانی باز هم بیشتر می شود که با چنین بمب هائی امریکا و یا اسرائیل می توانند مورد هدف قرار بگیرند. ساخت یک پایگاه هسته ای مخفی نیز از جمله اطلاعات بدست آمده است.( معلوم نیست شخصی که بنام "فرهاد رهبر" دراین گزارش به آن اشاره می شود، همان فرهاد رهبر که در روزهای گذشته بدستور احمدی نژاد از راس سازمان برنامه برداشته شد است یا فرهاد رهبر دیگری؟ اگر این دو، یک تن باشند، آنوقت می توان حدس زد که برکناری فرهاد رهبر می تواند در ارتباط با لو رفتن اطلاعات اتمی بالا باشد!)

[Rasputin]

رئیس پلیس تهران:

متهم سی دی هنرپیشه سریال

نرگس هنوز در ارمنستان است

زهرا میرابراهیمی 2 ساعت دراختیار پلیس بود و آزاد شد تا متهم آن سی دی از ارمنستان به تهران منتقل شود. تاکنون 4 متهم در ارتباط با این سی دی زندانی شده اند.

تجاوز و فیلمبرداری

از دختران نوجوان

باند "علی میکروب" لو رفت و خانه های تیمی گروه

او در تهران، کرج و شمال کشف شد



پلیس تهران بشارت داد که یکی از میکروب های پایتخت بنام «علي ميكروب» دستگیر شده است. چون علی میکروب دانشجو و فعال سیاسی و یا فارغ التحصیل دانشگاهی و عضو سازمان ادوارتحکیم وحدت نبوده و ارتباطی هم با حزب توده و یا نهضت آزادی نداشته، مدت ها با خیال آسوده فعالیت می کرده است. از جمله با دختران نوجوان دوست می شده، آنها را عاشق خود می کرده و سپس می برده خانه تیمی اش. به آنها آب میوه بیهوش کننده و یا مشروب الکلی می داده و به آنها تجاوز می کرده است.

البته کار به اینجا خاتمه نمی یافته، بلکه از آنها به سبک هنرپیشه سریال نرگس فیلمبرداری هم می کرده و می فرستاده به بازار! البته در ابتدا برای ادامه فعالیت های تیمی آن ها را تهدید می کرده که این فیلم ها را بعنوان اعترافات جنسی به سبک اعترافات سیاسی پخش می کند مگر اینکه همکاری کنند.

سردار عليپور، نتیجه تحقيقات پليس را اینگونه توضیح می دهد:

باند علی میکروب، دختران نوجوان را تهديد كرده بودند كه در صورت عدم همكاري، فيلم*ها را در مدرسه و منازلشان توزيع خواهند كرد.

به گفته سردار علیپور، باند علی میکروب سرانجام نه توسط پلیس و نیروهای امنیتی، بلکه با مراجعه یکی از دختران تجاوز شده به پلیس لو می رود>

"دختر نوجواني با مراجعه به پليس اعلام كرد كه از سوي اعضاي اين باند مورد تعرض قرار گرفته است. با همكاري اين دختر و اطلاعاتي كه او در اختيار پليس قرار داد، «علي ميكروب»، «آرش تي*ان*تي» و «حسن خروس»، 3 سركرده 20 و 21 ساله باند دستگير شدند و به دنبال آن، 27 پسر ديگر كه بين 14 تا 21 سال سن داشتند، شناسايي و در تهران دستگير شدند.

سردار علیپور رئیس پلیس تهران در باره خانه های تیمی باند علی میکروب گفته است: " اعضاي اين باند، پس از طرح دوستي با دختران نوجوان، آنها را به منازلي در تهران، كرج و شمال كشور می کشاندند. از ابتداي سال تاكنون، 20 پرونده در خصوص فيلمبرداري از اين صحنه*ها و سوءاستفاده از آن به پليس امنيت تهران بزرگ ارجاع شده است.

فیلم معروف به فیلم خصوصی بازیگر سریال نرگس

سردار عليپور درباره پخش سي*دی هنرپیشه سریال نرگس نیز که چیزی شبیه همان فیلم های باند علی میکروب است گفت: پیگیری رد این سی دی را از يك ماه پيش پلیس شروع کرده بود، این سی دی زیاد پخش نشده بود، اما از زماني كه شايعه* خودكشي وي در يكي از روزنامه*ها منتشر شد، این سي*دي بصورت گسترده پخش شد. متهم پرونده، هم اكنون در ايروان پایتخت ارمنستان است و با اقداماتي كه صورت گرفته بزودي به كشور باز خواهد گشت.

این هنرپیشه- "زهرا میرابراهیمی"- نیز خودکشی نکرده و آزاد است. این هنرپیشه، تنها دو ساعت در اختيار پليس بود، البته 20 نفر در ارتباط با این پرونده به اتهام تكثير و توزيع آن احضار شدند و با دستگيري 7 تن، هم اكنون چهار تن در زندان به سر مي*برند.

تا انتقال متهم اصلي به تهران، بايد از گمانه*زني خودداري شود. هنوز بررسي*ها در مورد صحت این فيلم ادامه دارد.

[Rasputin]

Iran in the forefront when it comes to stem cell research

Tehran, IRAN (CNN) -- It is a country where the call to prayer echoes throughout the capital every morning, where women must cover their heads at all times, where a Supreme Leader has the final say over everything.

But when it comes to stem cell research, Iran is cutting edge. Iran has some of the most liberal laws on stem cell research. Scientists say the clergy here define life as beginning three months after conception, which gives scientists access to human embryonic stem cells left over from fertilization trials.

Scientists here are testing treatments on mice for everything from heart disease to multiple sclerosis. And they claim to have successfully cloned a sheep last month and that the sheep is still alive. Foreign observers have been invited to verify the claim.

We traveled both to a government run laboratory and a private hospital in Tehran. Men and women were laboring over microscopes and Petri dishes. And all told us things that most scientists in the West would envy. "It's quite open, we can do our work very easily, we don't have any restriction, any problem," one of the country's leading stem cell researchers told me.

Iranian history, going back to the Persian empire, is laced with scientific achievements and one doctor told me, "the scientists would now like to go back to this era and for this reason young scientists are really excited."

The new-found pride is not just about stem cells. It's also about nuclear energy. The fact that Iranian scientists figured out how to enrich uranium without having to do so in a foreign country is a big reason the people and politicians say they won't back down from the United Nations' demands to stop.

It seems science of all kinds is pushing ahead in Iran without pause.

[Rasputin]

Iran cleric gunning for students armed with sex

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's enemies are trying to corrupt university students by using an arsenal of weapons such as decadence and sex, the student news agency ISNA on Sunday quoted a top cleric as saying.

"Our university students are among the most moral in the world... but enemies have targeted our students using weapons like decadence and sex," said Hojattoleslam Mohammad Mohammadian, who represents Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in universities.

The country's conservative leaders have often voiced concern over a Western "cultural invasion" targeting young people in Iran, and accuse the West of seeking to impose its values.

"Students and professors ask me why there is no difference between college and a fashion house or beauty parlor," Mohammadian said, while still insisting that most students respect Islamic values and the dress code.

"We should seriously combat organized corruption (but) we do not want to have to police the campus," he said.

Iranians enjoyed some social liberties under the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, when many women flouting the Islamic dress code by sporting short, tight coats and with flimsy scarves barely covering their hair.

All post-pubescent women in Iran are required to cover their hair and bodies in public.

Since his election in June 2005, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has resisted taking a tough line against lapses in the dress code -- despite calls from fellow conservatives to fight "decadent" dressers and his own pledges of a return to revolutionary values.

[Rasputin]

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani has accepted an invitation from his Iranian counterpart to discuss ways of tackling the violence in Iraq.
Mr Talabani's office said he would meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Saturday. Some reports say Syria's President Bashar al-Assad may attend.

The US has given a guarded response to the prospect of the talks in Tehran.

The Iraqi government has also said Syria and Iraq are planning to restore full diplomatic ties, cut in 1982.

Conciliatory figure

The US has long accused Iran of providing bomb-making materials to Shia militia in Iraq and Syria of not doing enough to prevent insurgents crossing the border to smuggle arms and fighters.




Quick guide: Violence in Iraq
What Iran and Syria want

Analysts say the US government has been more amenable to regional diplomacy since heavy losses for President George W Bush in 7 November mid-term elections.

However, Washington gave a cautious response to the news of Mr Talabani's trip to Tehran.

State department spokesman Tom Casey said Tehran had already indicated that it wanted to help reduce the violence in Iraq, but had not backed up the words with actions.

"The problem is not what they say," he told reporters. "The problem is what they do."

The BBC's David Loyn in Baghdad says as a Kurd President Talabani is a conciliatory figure in the Sunni/Shia divide and has been to Iran before.


Syria's foreign minister (l) pledged support to restore Iraqi security

Although he will talk about trade, industry and education, our correspondent says, this is not a normal visit and follows signals from the UK and the US about the constructive role Iran and Syria might play.

Shia legislators in Iraq said Syria's President Bashar al-Assad had been invited to the talks, but a spokesman for Mr Talabani dismissed the claims.

"This is a two-way bilateral summit, said Kameran Qaradaghi. "There was no invitation for a three-way summit."

The Iraqi president's trip to Tehran will follow one by his Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, in September when he won a promise of support for his government in battling insurgents.

Restoring ties

The announcement came as Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallim paid a key visit to Iraq - the highest-ranking Syrian official to travel to Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

He promised his country's support in helping Iraq restore security.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said: "The first step is restoring diplomatic relations before the delegation leaves, God willing."

Mr Maliki told Mr Muallim he was not prepared to let Iraq get caught up in Syria's differences with the US.


Syria has called for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops

"[Syria] should settle these differences, but not at our cost," Mr Maliki said at a joint news conference with the Syrian foreign minister.

On Monday, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said between 70 and 100 foreign fighters were entering Iraq from Syria each month.

Mr Muallim said Syria wanted to be a partner with Iraq to increase security and political co-operation.

On Sunday, Mr Muallim called for the unity of Iraq to be preserved, and for a timetable for foreign troops to leave.

Escalating sectarian violence in recent months has increased pressure on the Iraqi government to stabilise the country.

In the past two days, two deputy health ministers have been attacked by gunmen. One of them was kidnapped.

Meanwhile, the US military says two members of its forces have been killed - one in Anbar province, in western Iraq, and one in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad.

[Rasputin]

There are innumerable English proverbs, adages and idiomatic expressions which revolve around the concept of home. A few of these include: "a man's home is his castle", "charity begins at home", "men make houses-women make homes", "there is no place like home", "the chickens have come home to roost", and "till the cows come home."

Perhaps, the proverb that best applies for many of the Iranian-Americans who left Iran prior to the revolution is "home is where the heart is." For those of us who are the second-generation children and third-generation grandchildren of those early immigrant/refugees to North America, Europe and other parts of the world this proverb simply doesn't apply.

Most of us were neither born in Iran, nor have we ever lived there. We have listened over the years to our parents and other elders wax emotionally and sentimentally about someday returning home and taking us with them. The problem for us, the born-abroad-generation, is that the "home" that they so vividly remember is not our home and never has been; it is theirs. While their hearts are still in Iran , our hearts are still waiting for the chance to go.

Realizing that we may spend our entire lives outside of Iran , the adage which best applies to many of us is "you can never go back home." This is especially true when that "home" has never really been your home. While I am as proud of my Iranian ancestry as any other young person, I have slowly come to realize that the home which dwells in my mother's heart and memories as brightly today as it did thirty years ago when she still lived there with her family does not dwell in mine.

My maman's experiences of growing up happily in Braim, Abadan live in her heart and head, but they do not live in mine. When she speaks about Roya Girls High School where she studied as a young girl, the Golestan and Naft Clubs where her family use to socialize with their friends, the Braim swimming pool where she spent many pleasant, sultry summer afternoons, the little store where she would buy candy and ice cream with her brother near their home, or the many other places and people whom she can still see in her mind's eye as if it were only yesterday, her heart is filled both with immense joy for the wonderful childhood she had there and profound sorrow that her people have suffered so much these past twenty-seven years. I wish I could say that her memories of life in Iran move my heart the way they do hers, but that would be a lie.

When those in the generation who left Iran as adolescents or adults say that they are Iranian, they are not merely stating a fact of their nationality they are referring to something much deeper than that. They are speaking of all the experiences, emotions and little intangibles in one's life that form one's concept of self and one's personal identity. Every sight, smell, feeling, and memory they've ever experienced went into forming their sense of being Iranians. Those of us who were born and raised outside of Iran have lived experiences that are vastly different from those of our parent's. We are Iranians simply by the fact that we are our parent's children and not because we have lived any of the experiences that our parents or relatives in Iran have lived.

Certainly, we look like other Iranians. Many among us speak Farsi, but then again, many of us don't. We celebrate Norooz and other special days like Shab-e Yalda, just like any other Iranian. We have grown up loving fesenjoon, ghorma sabzi, lubia polo and all the other wonderful dishes that our mothers (or fathers) have cooked for us. Persian music fills our homes, cars and heads with the magic of its melodic rhythms and few among us have not had our parents try to instill in us an appreciation for the gentle beauty of Persian poetry. All these things are part of our lives, but unlike our parents they are not "all" of our lives. While our parents, in most cases, have gone to great lengths to firmly instill in us a profound sense of pride in our heritage, we are not and can never be carbon copies of them.

Although my mother may never live in Iran again, I know it will remain her "home" forever, for that is where her heart is. My heart, however, is not in my ancestral home, but in my real home. Iran was my mother's real home, but it was never mine. While I look forward to my family's yearly visits to Iran , that is all they are to me, visits. For my maman, however, these journeys represent much more; for her they are and always will be "going home." Each time, when it is time for us to leave Iran, she is always filled with profound sadness for she is once again leaving the dearest place on earth to her heart.

I, however, have never once thought of our many departures from Iran as leaving home. For me, our departures have always been "going home." While I love visiting our relatives there, I also eagerly anticipate getting back to my friends my life and my routine. I'm probably not the only young person who feels this way though, especially when one considers that there are hundreds of thousands of us who've never lived in Iran. When you add to our number the hundreds of thousands of Canadian-Iranians, Australian-Iranians, British-Iranians, French-Iranians, German-Iranians and Iranians living around the globe who've never lived in Iran , the number must surely rise to well over a million, perhaps even more.

Intellectually, our elders in the Iranian expatriate community know that everything I've said about our generation being unable to feel the way they do about Iran is true, but emotionally they can't help but feel that we've let them down somehow. How can we feel as they feel, though? Circumstances have deprived us of the opportunity walk in their shoes and experience for ourselves what they have experienced. It is a hard fact for many of them to swallow that we are not Iranians in the same sense they are.

While those of us abroad with Iranian fathers may possess Iranian passports, all of us born outside Iran are hyphenated-Iranians and we always will be. The experiences we've lived in multicultural environments around the world have shaped our identities just as much as our parents and ancestry have. We are a different kind of Iranian from our parents' generation who grew up in Iran and our relatives still living there, but we are no less Iranian than any of them. Our claim to our ancestral birthright is as strong, just and legitimate as anyone else's.

None of us in the second and third generations choose to be severed from our homeland, but severed we were. Political circumstances, social upheaval and economic realities forced our parents to make the difficult decision, long ago, to make new lives as foreigners in countries with unfamiliar cultures far from the home they loved dearly. Few of us have ever questioned the decision our families made. We took for granted the wisdom of their decision and we accepted the adversity our Iranian heritage sometimes brought us in our new countries. Not only did we have to balance the demands of our mothers and fathers to be traditional within the home against the demands of the cultures in which we lived to assimilate, we did it with grace and distinction. This is evident by the huge numbers of our young men and women who have excelled academically in every country our parents raised us in and which we now call home.

Many of us are more comfortable in the language of the countries where we were born and raised than the language spoken by our parents. While many of us can fluently read, write and speak Persian, there are just as many among us who can't speak at all because their parents, for whatever reason, chose not to teach them. Some among us can speak Persian, but are criticized at every turn by elders if their command of Persian grammar, diction, vocabulary and pronunciation is anything less than perfect. If we occasionally lace our Farsi with English, or the language of the country we call home, the older generation looks down on us for mixing the languages or they accuse of showing off. Rarely, do they consider the possibility that we mix the languages because we don't know a suitable equivalent word in Farsi to use in a given situation, or that our command of Persian isn't as strong as theirs.

[Rasputin]

While their criticisms are often unhelpful, hurtful and discouraging to us, we have an obligation to future generations to do our very best to hold on to our language, no matter what. Only our knowledge of the Persian and our ability to use it in everyday situations will keep us rooted in the culture of our ancestors, so that we can pass it on to our children and grandchildren. The fourth, fifth and sixth generations of expat-Iranians must be taught how to speak, read and write our beautiful language if our community-in-exile is to survive to the end of the 21st century as a distinct ethnic community abroad. Just as our forefathers gave Persian to their children, so too is it is our responsibility to pass it on to our posterity.

We must teach our children Persian while they are very young, so as to make it as natural and easy for them to master it. Once they are old enough to understand, we must make it clear to them that Persian as a language, an ethnicity and a personal identity are inseparable. If we are successful in making them understand who they are and the noble people from whom they've come, they will appreciate the importance of passing our language and customs on to their children. As long they and those that follow them can speak Persian, Iran will always be their heart's homeland no matter how many generations of us are forced to live in this damned Diaspora. More importantly than that, however, is as long as our descendants hold fast to our language, they will always be regarded by those inside Iran as countrymen no matter how many generations have passed.

If the sad day ever comes that our descendants lose their linguistic tie to Iran, they will, for all intents and purposes, cease to Iranians. They will then simply be just flag-waving, red, white & blue, Americans, or maple-leaf-loving Canadians who have been swallowed up by and assimilated into the wider North American culture. This doesn't have to happen though. Our distant descendants future begins with us today. As long as we accept the responsibility to teach our language and culture to our children, we can from today take the first steps toward insuring that those who carry our names, long after we are dead and buried, are just as Iranian as our parents were when they left Iran.

In our community, there are many in the second and third generations who can't speak Persian, or if they can speak, they can't read or write. This must change! Whatever the reason your parents had for not teaching you when we were young don't matter now. It is water under the bridge. If you are a young Iranian who finds himself culturally and linguistically handicapped through no fault of your own, find a class and begin learning. It is never too late to recover your birthright, but it does take action on your part. If you fail to act, you must accept that you will be condemning your future children to a life in which they may be treated as outsiders by the expat-Iranian community. If that's okay with you, then do as you wish. If that's not okay to you, then find a class and start learning... now!

I have grown up in a bi-cultural family; my maman is Iranian while my baba is American. I have an older sister whom I love dearly. The age difference between us is pretty big. When she was a little girl our mother didn't speak Farsi to her. By the time I came along, my mother understood the mistake she had made in not teaching my sister Farsi from the start. She tried to start teaching her, but my sister wasn't interested in learning. My mother probably spoke her first words of Farsi to me before the two of us left the hospital delivery room after my birth. Until I was five years old and began school, my dad and sister spoke English to me and my mother spoke Farsi to me at home. By the time I left for kindergarten, I didn‚t have a first and second language; I had two first languages.

Although she's never said as much, I'm sure my sister, having been deprived of the chance to learn Farsi in those first very important five years of her life, resented it when my mother spoke to me as a baby in Farsi. Over the years, my maman kept trying to get her to learn it, but she was always too busy with high school life, her studies and just becoming a young adult. My mother felt terrible for a very long time.

Over the years our maman never gave up hope that my sister would someday want to begin learning. It was shortly after my sister left for GWU five years ago that something changed in her. Maybe she met other Iranian students there or perhaps being in Washington, she had more chances to become aware of Persian culture and art, but she suddenly she wanted to learn how to speak Persian. Our mother patiently worked with her for hundreds and hundreds of hours and my sister attended many excellent courses. I pitched in to help her to learn when I could, but she is the one that did all the work and the one who deserves all the credit.

The result is that she's now reached a level where she can easily understand TV and radio programs and she can comfortably converse in most social situations. Perhaps, she will never be as comfortable in Farsi as she is in English, but so what. She made a decision to take back what was rightfully hers and she did it. Sure, she and others like her who learn Farsi as young adults will always have some fluency problems and they will speak with an accent, but at the end of the day, who cares? The more they use their Farsi, the easier it will get for them to get better and better until whatever fluency or accent problems they have simply disappear.

I am so proud of my sister because she came to understand the importance of keeping our language alive, not only for herself, but for her future children who most probably be born outside Iran . My sister came to understand that she could never teach her children to appreciate what it means to be an Iranian, until she herself developed her own appreciation of it. Fundamental in her journey of discovery was her realization that one's identity of self cannot be rooted in a language that one cannot speak or in a culture one has no knowledge of.

My sister wasn't the only one in our extended family not to learn Farsi at home though. Last July, my maman, sister and I went on our summer holiday to Iran. While there we attended a family gathering where my sister and I met our mother's cousin from Germany , Sholeh, and her three children. Sholeh has been married for many years to a German fellow and their children only speak German.

While we all tried our best to make her children feel welcome, no one in the family was able to communicate with them unless Sholeh translated for us. Everyone tried to convince her that it was never too late for her children to start learning Farsi as my sister had done, but she seemed to think that they just wouldn't need it in their life in Germany . Her reasoning was that since Iran didn't recognize them as Iranian citizens that there wasn't much use for them to spend a lot of time, effort and energy learning how so speak Persian. Am I wrong in thinking that she is depriving them of something that she has no right to keep from them? She may be their mother and my mother's cousin, but in my opinion, she shouldn't strip them of their ancestral language. Their right to know Persian, in my opinion, greatly outweighs her right as a mother to decide that they don't need it.

While at the same gathering where I met Sholeh and her children, I had an interesting conversation with my uncle about the generation of Iranians who've never lived in Iran . He said that although we look like them and many of us have the ability to converse fluently in Persian, we still stick out like sore thumbs. He said that Iranians in Iran can discern instantly if a person has been raised outside of the country. I asked him how they could know this if a person's spoke fluently and without an accent. He said that it is not what we say that gives us away, but how we say it.

He said that we speak with and informality and directness that is very alien in Iranian society. He then said that most Iranians understand that this informality and directness of speech isn't something we've been taught by our parents, but that it comes as a consequence of living abroad and of thinking in a different manner from how our peers inside of Iran think. He said that these differences aren't surprising since western culture has influenced us as much or more as our heritage has. I asked him if most people considered our differences to be weaknesses. He said, "No, not as long as those of you abroad always remember who your real people are and where your real home is."

As long as we continually strive to perfect, preserve and pass on our language ability to our children, so they can pass it on to their children, we will never have to worry that the day will ever come when our descendants stop calling themselves, Iranians. We, in the second and third generations of the Diaspora are already different in some respects from people our age who grew up in Iran. This can't be helped. Our personal identities have been shaped as much by the social environments our adopted countries as much as our traditional heritage. Maybe being a little different from our peers inside Iran isn't all bad. The danger in us being different, however, lies in risk that we allow ourselves become too different. If that happens, future Iranians, yet to be born into the Diaspora, will be completely assimilated into the wider culture. If that day comes, it will be because our failings now. If we lose contact with the touchstone that defines us as a people and connects us to our homeland, the Persian language, it will be our posterity that will have to pay.

[Rasputin]

This Monday morning I went to check iranian.com like I do whenever I get a chance. Living in France I am blissfully free of the kind of CNNized news bombardment that one gets in the U.S. The first thing I saw, of course, was the articles, letters, and video of the ‘Tasing’ of an Iranian-American student (it turns my stomach right now to use the hyphenated form of my identity). For the life of me I did not know what the term meant I thought maybe it was a fraternity ritual gone wrong. Like Hazing. Perhaps the culture that hazes also Tases.

I found out the meaning of Tasing as I read on and finally got my Windows Media Player working to see the video. I cannot say what I felt more: anger or sorrow or shock. I have lived most of my adult life in the U.S. and consider myself to a large degree American. I am not unfamiliar with the kind of blatant racism or abuse of power that one sees every where really. What made this video viewing so incredibly difficult to stomach were two things: one that the guy was Iranian like me, two that it took place in the computer lab of a big University in L.A.

Los Angeles where Iranians feel more at home than in Islamic Tehran. Or used to anyway. Los Angeles where so many successful Iranians pay taxes. UCLA where so many fellow compatriots have studied and taught since at least fifty years ago is the last place you would expect something like this. If this took place in Texas maybe, or Alabama, but in UCLA? For heaven’s sake where are we safe any more? Who the hell authorizes the use of Taser guns (does the name come from the manufacturer?) on students who have no IDs? I remember always losing or forgetting mine when I was a student at Boston University and no one even bothered to question me. What kind of a police state has this land of liberty, where we all came to live free of theocrats, autocrats and dictators, become? And what do we do about it?

What bothered me even more when I re-watched the video is the fact that this happened in front of a whole bunch of other students! My God even the kids at Tehran University who have much more to lose for getting involved would have shown more solidarity towards a fellow student so unjustly punished. What has happened to American youth? Are they so worried about jobs and money that they have lost their very youth? Where is their sense of identity, their sense of solidarity, their sense of justice? If the young people are so docile then who is going to stop this trend? All I heard on the video clip was some guy asking over and over for the University cops badge number, for god sake that is something my mom would do not a passionate well built student of a big university.

I watched the local news clip of the incident. How I hate that accent-that fake news castereeze- how happy I am that I don’t have to listen to it any more. How can the voice of a global super power sound so incredibly provincial? I love the English language and consider it my home but fake sounding American-English turns my stomach more so now than ever. What was shocking about the news cast was that it was so matter-of-fact and bland. As if someone had gotten busted streaking at a football game!

I watched the videos of the demonstrations hoping to finally see some anger towards this blatant abuse of power, some vindication of the rights of the incredibly brave, Mostafa Tabatabai-Nejad. That disappointed me even more. This was the diet coke of demonstrations. I remember the first lecture by Howard Zinn that I attended at Boston University more than twenty years ago. How proud we were of the fact that during the Vietnam War our administrative buildings had been taken over by students for many days. Zinn reading of American History from the bottom up changed the way I looked at things forever. His activism was inspirational.

At the UCLA demonstrations you had all these students of multiple ethnic backgrounds holding little print-outs saying “do not Taser me I am a student.” The response of the students was too little and miserly. I know that I will be bombarded with emails about how the best thing to do is to let the law take revenge. I agree. But a little more noise does not hurt. If you read about how the Jews of Germany complied with the Nazi authorities until it was too late you will see that inaction or soft action amounts to appeasement.

I know that the U.S government and Americans in general are not Nazis nor are Americans of Islamic or Middle-Eastern descent treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany. But if we do not respond with passion and well-placed anger then who knows how far things will go? Some crimes merit a poetic response. Those students should be a little more concerned about defending their integrity and a little less about their grade-point averages! If a forty-something mom that I am becomes this angry watching one of her own get beat up (nothing wrong, by the way, for feeling more for an Iranian than someone else, though Rodney King video moved me just as much) then why not the much younger students of UCLA who have surely read their Thoreau, Malcom X and Howard Zinn.

Also, where are our big personalities in all of this, where is Christian Amanpour and the woman who went to space (Ansari) or all the other Iranians we have in the Media and Academia? And is Reza Pahlavi dead or just hiding, afraid of being Tased himself? Everyone better make a big deal of this or this will be just the beginning of the persecution of a minority too busy making money and maintaining grade-point averages to stand up for itself.

To those students who sit at the computers in the Powell Lab at UCLA: every time you touch that keyboard instead of screaming your outrage, you are colluding with the system. If you don’t want to break windows at least go on strike. Like the French students do regularly for much lesser infractions of their rights.

Get up and stand up for your rights not with a little print out but with a fist. Believe me sometimes following the law alone is not a proportionate response. Sometimes, when one's very being is violated, offended and damaged one needs to stand tall and scream a scream that is so unbearable everyone will want to quell it.

[Rasputin]

Today I as I read all the letters to Iranian.com regarding the taser incident at UCLA, I was amazed at how majority of us Iranians look at most situations.

I have a teenage son. He will probably attend UCLA in 4 years. Like any other parent, I would have been outraged, mad as hell and worried sick if police had tased my son 5 times for no reason. I would also have been outraged if my son would have made such a hoopla over a request to get up and leave a library, when asked by "authority". Whats wrong with packing up your things and listening to the police who has the right to ask for your ID, as well as the right to expell you if you don't have an ID.

One question that has not come up yet is why this student was asked for his ID?

There is no doubt that many of the police men and women in the U.S. are not the brightest or most worldly of the general population. If they were, they would work at jobs with better pay. But no matter how stupid or racists they may be, and like it or not, they are the authority when it comes to the UCLA campus. By law, we have to do what they say. We show our drivers license, registration and proof of insurance when we are stopped for a traffic violation. We also have to show our student ID when the campus police asks for it. If you don't have one, guess what! You gotta leave dude.

The question is why would a young man such as Mostafa Tabatabinejad (if this is his name) make such a big deal about the police's request. Why not get up and leave with a few friends, get the name of the officers and complain to the university? Someone could have as easily recorded the incident on video and submitted it to the proper authorities overseeing the campus cops with the complaint report. This kid's behavior was illogical, improper, uncivilized, suspect and with motives. Or, the kid suffers from depression or other psychological issue. Or maybe he has anger management issues. Who knows.

I don't know what motive(s) but I am sure we'll find out soon enough. Worse than this kid's behavior is the behavior of us Iranians living here in the U.S. Why are we outraged about this matter? As someone else had written in her letter, would any of us given it a damn if the kid was Chinese? or Arab, or ......

What about all the injustice the young Iranian women are facing in Iran; getting slapped in the face, being called whores etc etc by the Khaharane Ansar or the other filth that looks for improper hijab on the streets of Iran? Why are we so super selective about our causes and outrages?

Have any of you letter writers done anything to improve the situation in Iran, for the women, news paper reporters, people who can't get into Tehran university because they don't fit the Islamic model or they don't have a shahid in their family?

If the investigation of this matter at UCLA finds Mostafa innocent and the actions of the police excessive and improper, then we can use our economic muscle in California to get rid of the 4 or 5 responsible cops, their boss(es), and ask for reform of laws giving authority to the UC police. If the investigation proves that Mostafa was out of line, then we have to use this opportunity to teach our teenagers not to create drama when dealing with the police. Its that simple.

Lets get a grip people! Find out all the facts before you bombard the office of the UCLA chancellor with angry letters and emails. Lets show Americans that we are better than a immigrant group that is chumping at the bit to cry injustice, racism and minority abuse.