Eye On Iran

[Rasputin]

Frances Harrison is moving on after three years as the BBC correspondent in Tehran. It has been a period of change, she writes, but generally not for the better, particularly for women.


Iranian women arguing with a man during the 2005 election
When I first came to Iran the reformists were still in power, not the ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But to me as a newcomer, the government then did not seem particularly liberal.

The reformists were not quite what they had been cracked up to be in the West.

Reform, I soon found out, was not a euphemism for regime change - it just meant more respect for the rule of law and human rights, in order to preserve the Islamic system of government, not overthrow it.

With the benefit of hindsight, many look back on the reformist period as a sort of golden age, where a smiling well-dressed President Mohammad Khatami spoke honeyed words about democracy, even if he did not deliver on many of his promises.

The contrast between then and now is huge.

Media crackdown

When my predecessor left, he threw a lunch party for officials. They were friendly and urbane and unfazed by the fact that I was a woman bureau chief which is still a novelty in Iran.

Now things are so bad that officials from the ministry of Islamic guidance who are helpful on a personal level did not come to my farewell lunch hosted by the BBC.

I did not take it personally. The atmosphere is now one where Iranians are afraid to mix with foreigners for fear of being accused of spying.

If they do talk to foreigners they certainly do not want to do it in front of each other.

One Iranian journalist working for a foreign news agency even asked if we had foreign diplomats coming to a farewell party in our house because, she said, if there were it would not be safe for her to attend.


Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been Iran's president since 2005
During the two years of President Ahmadinejad's government, I have watched friends have their press cards taken away by the government.

It is not that this did not happen before but now there is a sense of a widespread crackdown on the media.

I have struggled with my conscience interviewing people lest I put them at risk.

At one house, the mother-in-law of a student activist accosted me in a most un-Iranian way, saying: "Why are you here? He has children and he's just been released from jail." It is un-Iranian because of the innate sense of hospitality here.

People have come to my office with information and I have found myself warning them to be careful about coming again.

It gets to a point where you find yourself questioning the motives of anyone brave enough to speak out.

Either it is a trap or perhaps they are really naive - in which case why are we interviewing them?


Subtle opposition

But let me tell you about the subtle ways in which Iranians articulate their opposition.

This is not a culture where anyone says anything directly - and it can sometimes be infuriating for a foreigner.

But it has nuance, subtlety and a playfulness that is lost in the one-dimensional views you see in news reports.

The other night I was at a private party and two young Iranian women performed a song about a bird. It was indescribably sad and beautiful and had many of the women in the audience in tears.

Women are not allowed to sing in public in Iran - it is considered un-Islamic for men to hear them.

These women - who in today's Iran can only perform in houses of friends - sang about a bird, a crane, whose wings had been clipped and whose mouth had been covered.

It was a poetic symbol of censorship and the restrictions imposed on women. It moved the audience far more than any feminist speech or political agitation because it drew on their tradition and the Iranian love of poetry.


Persian culture survives

On the surface, Tehran is a place where you see women swathed in black and there are ugly grimy modern buildings housing rude officials.

The Islamic system of government has deliberately erased much of what was Persian culture and it is only by looking hard that you can catch glimpses of the past.

Some officials may be staggeringly rude but at home Iranians are so courteous that it overwhelms foreigners


Yes, some of the women may be covered from top-to-toe in black, but do not think that every woman who is covered up like that is submissive and docile - they wield huge power behind the scenes, often controlling the family finances.

Some officials may be staggeringly rude but at home Iranians are so courteous that it overwhelms foreigners until they get used to the ritual exchange of politesse that is rather beautiful to observe in action when done by a true professional.

The younger generation may eat pizzas and burgers and listen to rap music, but they still have a deep respect for Persian food, music, poetry and the language itself.

Of course, three years in Iran has brainwashed me.

I do believe that Iranians cook rice better than anyone else in the world, that Iranian women are the most beautiful in the world, and that the roses smell sweeter.

For all the ugliness of much of the politics here, there are still vestiges of a past beauty.

And as I leave, that is the Iran I want to treasure even though it is slowly fading.

[Rasputin]

Iran has announced that it will stop producing purely petrol-driven cars and produce more dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.
The minister of industries said the production of petrol-only cars would stop in just over two weeks' time.

Correspondents say it is not clear whether Iran can produce enough gas, or supply it to petrol stations.

The government introduced petrol rationing last week, a policy which provoked widespread anger and violence.

The move was an attempt to reduce the large subsidies the government spends on petrol and to limit the country's rising petrol consumption.

Infrastructure missing

In an unexpected announcement, Industries and Mines Minister Ali Reza Tahmasebi said all vehicles produced from 23 July onwards would have dual-fuel facilities installed.




Q&A: Iran petrol rationing
Petrol fuels president's woes

Dual-fuel cars can run on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or petrol.

"The automobiles which have been supplied to the market prior to this will gradually be converted to dual fuel too," Mr Tahmasebi added.

Last year, some 1,150,000 vehicles were manufactured in Iran.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran says the move will reduce demand for petrol and could help ease the capital's notorious pollution.

But it is not clear the infrastructure is in place yet, either to produce enough gas or to provide enough filling stations, our correspondent says.

There is already a long list of people waiting to have their cars converted from petrol-only to dual-fuel.

Black market

The government also hopes the switch to dual-fuel will provide relief for motorists affected by petrol rationing, as there are no limits on the supply of LPG.

Iran is one of the world's biggest oil producers, but has to import about 40% of its petrol because of low refining capacity.

If you want to buy petrol illegally from the black market you have to pay seven times the price.

Iranian motorist


Bloggers' dismay at curbs

Until recently, the imported petrol was sold on to motorists in unlimited amounts at a heavily subsidised rate, costing the government billions of dollars a year.

Ordinary motorists are now limited to 100 litres of subsidised fuel a month, or around three litres a day.

Some are struggling to cope and there are reports of a black market in petrol, with some people selling on their allocation at a profit.

"My work place is far away from my house and I have to drive there every day," one woman driver told the BBC. "Since rationing was introduced, the three litres a day isn't enough."

"If you want to buy petrol illegally from the black market you have to pay seven times the price."

Iran's police chief has said there were signs that petrol was being smuggled into Iran from abroad.

But officials have said rationing is still having a positive effect. Since it was introduced, petrol usage has dropped by 20-30% in many parts of Iran.

[Rasputin]

Iran conservatives worried over Ahmadinejad policies: reformist

TEHRAN (AFP) - A leading reformist party said on Tuesday that Iran's ruling conservatives were worried over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's handling of the country's nuclear programme and the economy.

In a rare comment by an opposition figure, Mohsen Armin, spokesman of the Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution Organisation, said "in the current situation signs of wrong and propagandistic policies and approaches are gravely showing," ISNA news agency reported.

"Such a situation has tremendously worried the ruling camp about its fate," Armin said, pointing to parliamentary elections due next March.

He criticised the handling of Iran's nuclear case, which has led to "severing economic ties, a major drop in foreign investment and sanctions."

Armin said "unemployment, inflation and housing prices are obvious signs of a real crisis in the economy."

He condemned crackdowns on pro-reform activists on the anniversary of bloody 1999 student riots and warned that "newer forms of such confrontations" were to be expected as parliamentary polls near.

The organisation "warns against the damaging consequences of these acts and asks all to react to measures that are being formed to limit liberties and independent political groups' activities," he said.

Iranian police arrested 16 people, including leading members of two pro-reform groups and sealed the office of Islamic Iran's Graduates Organisation, formed by former student leaders.

"Active and effective participation in next elections will be a wise and well-thought response to the designers of new scenarios," said Armin, who served as a reformist MP from 2000 to 2004.

Ahmadinejad's government has warned of a "creeping coup in the press," raising concerns about a tougher line in future with media critical of the president.

One of his top advisors defended restraints on the press, alleging some opposition media sought to overthrow the government, a few days after a leading reformist daily was banned.

[Rasputin]

Iran to hang 20 criminals in defiance of human rights criticism

Iran is to defy western criticism over its human rights record by executing 20 sex offenders and violent criminals, days after a man convicted of adultery was stoned to death.
Alireza Jamshidi, a spokesman for the judiciary department, said 20 "thugs convicted of rape, sodomy and assault and battery" would be hanged in the coming days once prosecutors had decided whether to execute them in public.

The condemned include at least 15 detained in May during a so-called "public morals" crackdown in poorer neighbourhoods of Tehran and other cities. Iran drew international condemnation following the internet distribution of photos showing some of the arrested being paraded with cans used for toilet hygiene hung around their necks and bearing signs of having suffered severe beatings.

The executions are certain to intensify international pressure on Iran after the UN's human rights high commissioner, Louise Arbour, condemned the stoning last Thursday of Jafar Kiani in a village 130 miles north-west of Tehran.
The punishment was an apparent snub to judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who ordered the suspension of the stoning verdicts against Mr Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, last month following protests from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Stoning sentences - the standard punishment for adultery under Iran's Islamic law - have rarely been implemented since Mr Shahroudi ordered a moratorium in 2002. But Mr Jamshidi suggested Mr Kiani's sentence had been upheld on the order of higher authorities to send a signal to the west. "We are not obeying pressure from human rights groups. We are obeying religious regulations and our own laws," he said. "Changing orders due to international pressure might not be very good for expediency. It is not the judge who recognises expediency - recognition of the national interest takes place elsewhere."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed to resist western pressure on human rights issues, arguing that it is designed to overthrow Iran's Islamic system.

Iran announced this week it had launched new investigations into two detained Iranian-born US academics in defiance of calls from the Bush administration for their release. Haleh Esfandiari and Ali Tajbakhsh are charged with spying offences and trying to foment a US-backed "velvet revolution".

[Rasputin]

Iran bans political campaigning

Candidates in next year's Iranian parliamentary elections will be banned from displaying posters and banners, raising concerns over whether the poll will be free and fair.

Iran's fundamentalist-dominated parliament has passed a law severely restricting political advertising during campaigning for next March's election, which is expected to test the popularity of the Islamist president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while measuring the pro-liberal reformist movement's ability to mount an electoral comeback amid increasing crackdowns on dissent.

The restrictions will stop candidates from exhibiting posters bearing their photos in public places, including car windscreens and on the doors of their election headquarters. Publicity tools will be limited to policy statements and potted biographies and to adverts posted on the internet and by text message. Would-be candidates are also being urged to convey their messages through newspapers and state-controlled broadcasters.


Critics say the move favours sitting MPs seeking re-election at the expense of opposition candidates, who will be hampered in their attempts to become familiar to voters.


Yadollah Eslami, director general of the association of former MPs, said the law would be exploited by fundamentalist and pro-government candidates with direct access to state media facilities.


"In poor areas and remote places, nominees communicate with people primarily through pictures and posters," he told the centrist website, Aftab. "Why do the authorities expect people to trust them when they don't trust the people? They are tightening the media and information atmosphere by imposing various restrictions."


Campaign photos have often played a key role in Iranian elections. The former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, used portraits to make his face known before his landslide election triumph in 1997. The success of Fatemeh Houshmand, a 25-year-old reformist, in topping the poll in last year's Shiraz city council elections was partly credited to campaign posters displaying her striking good looks.


Mr Ahmadinejad's supporters fared poorly in last December's nationwide council elections, prompting some analysts to forecast further reversals in the forthcoming parliamentary poll.


There have already been complaints that widespread participation has been discouraged by rules requiring state and government workers to resign their posts eight months before polling day if they wanted to compete.


Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this week urged the guardian council - the clerical body which vets election candidates - not to allow "political tendencies" to colour its decisions on who should stand. His remarks were interpreted by some as a plea for leniency on candidate selection.

The council disqualified thousands of reformists from the 2004 parliamentary election, in which conservatives triumphed.

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[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Quartet, Iran See Different Futures for Middle East

Pledging to make headway where others have failed, Tony Blair made his debut as the new Middle East envoy at a meeting in Portugal yesterday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and representatives of the European Union and Russia.

"There is no more important issue for peace and security in the world," Blair said at the Lisbon meeting of the Quartet, the group orchestrating Middle East peace efforts. "I'm nothing if not an optimist."

The Quartet endorsed President Bush's July 16 initiative to jump-start the moribund peace process with a meeting this fall of Israel and Arab countries willing to consider recognizing Israel. The new U.S. plan centers around helping Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stabilize the West Bank and engage in revived peace talks, while isolating the Hamas Islamic movement currently in control of Gaza. The Quartet pledged to provide humanitarian aid to stranded Palestinians in Gaza.

But in a reflection of the obstacles ahead, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad huddled with the leaders of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas in Damascus yesterday to chart their own future course for the Middle East. The four parties are the primary opponents of U.S. plans for the Middle East peace process.

After bilateral talks, Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to deepen their alliance and warned Western powers to stand back. "The enemies of the region should abandon plans to attack the interests of this region, or they will be burned by the wrath of the region's people," Ahmadinejad said at a joint news conference. He described ties with Syria as "progressing daily" and "in every field and along all lines."

Assad said Ahmadinejad's visit took on special importance, given the "circumstances changing rapidly" in the region, reflecting the polarization pitting pro-Western governments against hard-line or Islamic parties.

Ahmadinejad met separately with Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah, who made a rare trip out of Lebanon since he became a target during the Islamic movement's month-long war with Israel last year. Iran provided the rockets and missiles that have made Hezbollah the most powerful nongovernment armed force in the region, capable of waging the longest war Israel has fought. U.S. officials have expressed increasing concerns about the flow of arms back into Lebanon.

Asked at the news conference if he expects another "hot summer," Ahmadinejad said, "We hope that the hot weather of this summer would coincide with similar victories for the region's peoples and with consequent defeat for the region's enemies."

On his one-day visit, the Iranian leader also met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. Iran provides financial aid and arms to the Islamic party, which won democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority 18 months ago. A senior Hamas spokesman said Ahmadinejad promised continued support for the movement, which wrested control of Gaza last month in a bloody five-day purge of security forces loyal to Abbas.

In Lisbon, Blair said recent events generated "a sense that we can regain momentum," which could make "a whole lot of things become possible, not least the fact that those people of peace can then feel that the force is with them and not with those who want conflict." Blair is scheduled to travel to the region to develop an agenda to stabilize the Palestinian Authority and help make the transition to a real state.

Rice ruled out Hamas's participation in the forthcoming conference unless it first recognizes Israel's right to exist and renounces terrorism. The Islamic party "knows what is expected for international respectability," she said at a Quartet news conference.

But the United States' top diplomat also said a Palestinian state cannot be achieved without Israel first ending its occupation of the West Bank. "We need from the Israelis a recognition of -- and politics based on a recognition -- that the future of Israel lies in places like the Negev and Galilee, not in the continued occupation of the West Bank," Rice said in an unusually blunt comment about the closest U.S. ally in the region.

[Rasputin]

It has become a fixture of modern medical practice: women giving birth in the comforting presence of the father-to-be.
Now a custom long seen as a sign of western social progress is being adopted in the conservative setting of Iran as doctors seek to wean the country's women off their preference for caesarean births.

Sarem hospital in Tehran last week became the first in Iran to allow a father inside a delivery room for the birth of his child. The hospital is offering couples the chance to stay together during childbirth after being told that it is permissible under Iran's Islamic laws.

What has become common practice in the west is still unknown in Iran, where pregnancy and birth are still seen as women's business.
But Dr Abutaleb Sarem, a western-trained specialist obstetrician and medical director at Sarem hospital, is urging patients to bring in husbands for health and psychological reasons. He believes the presence of fathers is necessary to soothe women's nerves and make them more willing to give birth naturally.

Dr Sarem came up with the proposal after Iran's health ministry asked doctors to reduce the number of caesarean births. About 70% of babies in Iran are born by caesarean section, largely due to women's fears about the pain of childbirth and the worry that natural births make them less attractive to their husbands.

Dr Sarem said the fears about pain could be eased by fathers attending the births. "Our hospital advertised that we had all the latest facilities to make natural childbirth painless but patients were still insisting on caesareans, despite the high risks of infection and serious side-effects," he told the Guardian. "I remembered that when I worked in Austria and Germany, women were forgetting about the pain when their husbands were present at the births. The atmosphere in delivery rooms seemed so peaceful and I wondered if it was because the fathers were there. So I offered it to the husband of one of my patients.

"He agreed after we asked if it was religiously permissible and were told that it was. We gave the mother a low epidural. The environment was very spiritual and friendly, with husband and wife laughing and joking. The mother was able to help the medical team a little and delivered the baby, a girl, without great discomfort. The husband was emotional and in tears."

Caesareans were traditionally frowned upon in Iran as a sign of ill-health and weakness, but they have become more popular since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

[Rasputin]

The mishandling by the British Ministry of Defense of the return of the captured British service personnel from Iran has been greeted with indignation and anger throughout the political establishment. Inept media management, in particular the seemingly abrupt decision to allow the personnel to sell their stories to the mass media, has been seen by many as having heaped insult upon injury and effectively handed a propaganda coup to the Iranians.

It is indeed remarkable, and perhaps a salutary lesson for our times, that without a shot being fired the Iranians succeeded in not only humiliating the British Armed Forces—ridicule from allies proved particularly hard to stomach—but also brought a British Defense Secretary to the brink of resignation. But for all the talk of humiliation, the real lessons of this latest confrontation between Iran and the West have yet to be digested.

Among the most evident, and the least appreciated, is that this was an exchange in soft power, in which the media were the weapons of choice.
Media coverage in Britain and other Western countries was driven by a master narrative that contained within it a number of assumptions related to Western supremacy. (This characterization does not hold for all media outlets; however, while some broadsheets might opine of diverse views on their opinion pages, the underlying narrative followed the same pattern expressed among the more sensationalist tabloids.) Moreover, with 24-hour newsgathering and dissemination, reflection and analysis is often replaced, if not determined, by the need to provide rapid assessments and new information. What's happened is that the surplus of news outlets has had the paradoxical effect of increasing our information and reducing our knowledge.

Nuanced analysis—insofar as it exists—is replaced by stereotype, and among the most obvious is the Manichaean division of the world into good guys and bad guys, with the Western alliance most definitely among the former. In the post 9/11 world, this is a view that has been enthusiastically endorsed by Western politicians, encouraging a "You're either with us or against us" attitude, which was embraced to a great extent by the press.

An explicit example can be found in the relationship between Fox News and the Bush administration. While Fox rushed to explicitly condemn Iran as the chief protagonist during the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, more sober news outlets similarly bought the Bush narrative of Iranian guilt. Indeed, at times the anti-Iran hysteria—bolstered by words appearing on the editorial and op-ed pages of news outlets—reached such a high volume that a distinguished Princeton academic such as Bernard Lewis could write an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that declared—with no sense of irony—that Armageddon may be upon us. Certainly such an extreme view would not be published without some consideration of its authority and impact. And because it is well known that Lewis has been a close advisor to the White House and is considered an "authority" on issues Arab and Islamic, publication of these words sent a message that reverberated beyond the op-ed pages.
Lewis's piece might be an extreme example of a narrative arc gone wild, but both the writer and the newspaper are of sufficient weight to alert readers as to the extraordinary social
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Bernard Lewis: "Does Iran Have Something in Store?" The Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2006 and, in a similar vein, William Kristol's article in The Weekly Standard, July 24, 2006, "It's Our War: Bush should go to Jerusalem—and the U.S. should confront Iran."
depth of this narrative. Yet nobody thought to query such an extraordinary claim. Furthermore, in developing this narrative through the war in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, it was remarkable that no Iranian official was approached to offer an opinion.

[Rasputin]

برخی تحلیل گران سیاسی ایران معتقدند که جامعه ایران هم*اکنون فروپاشیده هست و اتهام "براندازی نرم" تنها بیان*گر هراس حکومتی است که به پایه*های خود اطمینان ندارد • مصاحبه با عباس عبدی



دویچه وله:آقای عبدی، انقلاب مخملین در ایران چه معنایی دارد، تفاوتش با اصلاحات چیست و آیا در ایران امکان*پذیرهست یا خیر؟



عباس عبدی: به نظر من در شرایط کنونی ایران امکان وقوع انقلاب مخملین به آن شکلی که مردم اقدامی بکنند، براثر حمایت*های رسانه*ای ونظائر آن تغییراتی را بوجود بیاورند نیست. به این خاطر که این*ها قطعاً با واکنش سختی مواجه می*شوند. شرایط ایران بیشتر شبیه شرایط اتحاد جماهیرشوروی قبل از فروپاشی است. یعنی شاید بیشتر با یک چنین بحرانی مواجه بشود.

البته من به لحاظ تحلیلی معتقدم که جامعه ایران فروپاشیده هست، اما خوب حکومت ایران برداشتش از انقلاب مخملین، به لحاظ یک نوع تشابهی که میان خودش با کشورهای بلوک شرق می*بیند نگران است. از طرف دیگر هم چون اصلاحات را شکست خورده و ناکام می*داند، فکر می*کند تنها راهی که پیش پای عموم هست انقلاب مخملین است. به همین دلیل است که روی این قضیه حساس است.



اگر منظور حکومت برخورد با مخالفان هست یا به عقیده برخی مقابله با جنبش اصلاح*طلبی، چرا از واژه انقلاب مخملین یا براندازی نرم استفاده می*کند، کمااینکه گفتید امکان وقوع انقلاب مخملین در ایران وجود ندارد؟



اینکه امکان آن وجود ندارد یک بحث است، اینکه آنها چه فکر می*کنند، یک بحث دیگر. آنها در واقع بیشترین خطری را که حس می*کنند از یک زاویه است. در واقع آنها معقتدند که ما پایگاه مردمی داریم، اما حکومتی که واقعاً خودش هم معتقد باشد پایگاه مردمی دارد، هیچ وقت از انقلاب نگرانی ندارد. از انقلاب کاری نمی*آید، که بخواهد انجام دهد. طبیعی است که مخالفانش هم دنبال این قضیه نخواهند رفت. اما چون آنها چنین اعتماد به نفسی را ندارند، و کنه ضمیرشان هم به چنین حمایتی اعتقاد ندارند بنابراین خودشان را در معرض این خطر می*دانند. شاید آنها فکر کنند که اصلاحات هم دنبال این نیست، اما زمینه*ها به مرور زمان منجر به این اتفاق خواهد شد. بنابراین تنها الگویی که فعلاً در مقابل آنها هست که آنها احساس خطر می*کنند، همین الگوی انقلاب مخملین است.

ولی من به لحاظ تحلیلی معقتد نیستم که این اتفاق خواهد افتاد در ایران بیشتر احتمال فروپاشی وجود دارد.



شما در نشست "دانشگاه و چشم انداز آینده" گفته*اید که "این آقایان مثل شعله*ای شده*اند که با یک فوت خاموش می*شوند. اگر نخواهیم بطور کلی حرف بزنیم و بگوییم زنان، دانشجویان، کارگران و... بالاخره این "فوت" را چه کسی خواهد کرد و پشت این به اصلاح "براندازی نرم" چه نیرویی خوابیده؟



من این*را نگفته*ام که با یک فوت این*ها خاموش می*شوند. گفتم این رفتارهایشان چنین معنایی دارد. کسانی که داعیه دارند که بسیار قدرتمند هستند، از جنس فلز هستند، خوب از یک کبریت هم خیلی نباید نگران باشند که این طور واکنش نشان دهند. این شاید تفسیر و تعبیر خودشان از ماهیت خودشان است که چنین برداشتی را دارند. البته آنها شاید یک فکر دیگری هم می*کنند، که خیلی هم بی*ارتباط به نظر من نیست: درست است که یک شعله کوچکی هست، اما چون اطراف این قضیه را یک مواد کاملاً قابل اشتعال در برگرفته، بنابراین هرآن احتمال دارد که همین شعله کوچک خیلی به سرعت به آن مواد قابل اشتعال سرایت کند و آثار و عوارض خود را ایجاد کند. برخورد آنها هم از این زاویه است که نسبت به سرنوشت خودشان نگران هستند.



آقای عبدی، در مواردی متعددی از مسئله فروپاشی صحبت کردید، منظورتان از فروپاشی جامعه ایران چیست؟



به نظر من در ایران فروپاشی اتفاق افتاده. الآن جامعه ایران به لحاظ اجتماعی فروپاشیده است، چسب قدرت آنرا نگه داشته. ببینید، این صحبتی که آقای حداد عادل پریروز در مجلس کرد*، که نظم و ترس می*خواهد برقرار کند، معنای روشن همان حرفی است که من می*زنم. نظم اجتماعی بخش کوچکش ناشی از ترس است، و برای یک تعداد افراد خاص و موضوعات خاص است. نظم اجتماعی درون*جوش است و به هرحال متأثر از یک مجموعه عوامل است. جامعه*ای که نتواند آن عوامل را داشته باشد، و فقط براساس ترس و فشار حکومت آن نظم ظاهری خودش راحفظ کند، این جامعه درواقع فروپاشیده است. در اتحاد جماهیر شوروی شاید در سال ۱۹۸۸ هیچ کس فکر نمی*کرد که این جامعه فوق نظم در سال ۱۹۸۹، در عرض یک مدت کوتاهی به ۱۵ جمهوری و ده*ها جمهوری*های کوچک*تر و با آن اوضاع تبدیل شود. منظور من از فروپاشی این است که این جامعه فاقد مؤلفه*های اساسی نظم درونی و خودجوش است. که مؤلفه هایش مذهب است، خانواده است، آموزش است، ارتباطات است... این*ها هیچ*کدام کارکردهای اصلی*شان را برای حفظ و بقای یک جامعه مدرن در ایران انجام نمی*دهند.



برای این جامعه به نظر شما فروپاشیده چه آینده*ای می*توان متصور بود*؟



این قابل پیش*بینی نیست، به*خاطر این که اگر فقط مؤلفه*های داخلی موثر بودند، شاید می*شد مواردی را پیش*بینی کرد. یک جایی به بن می*رسد و از طریق نیروهای داخلی بالاخره سعی می*شود یک تغییراتی در آن بوجود بیاید، همانطور که در شوروی همین قضیه رخ داد. تا یک دهه بعدش آثار و عوارضی هم دارد تا کم کم روی ریل بیافتد. در مورد خاص ایران متأسفانه متغیر خارجی خیلی تاثیرگذار و تعیین کننده است. به همین دلیل هم هرآن ممکن است یک اتفاقی، یک بحرانی رخ دهد. ما دو متغیر بسیار مهم داریم، روابط یا دعوا با آمریکا* و اختلاف با جهان. این دو مسئله هرآن می*توانند شکل قضیه را تغییر دهند، هم چنان که تا به*حال هم تا حدی تغییر داده*اند.



شما در آن نشست هم چنین گفته اید که حکومت ایران تصور می*کند فضای عمومی جهان برای سرکوب مهیاست. مهیا هست یا نیست؟



ایران الآن در جریان قضیه هسته ای است و همه توجه*ها به آن متمرکز است، درعین حال که آن حل شدنی نیست. ممکن است تا یک یا دوماه دیگر قضیه کاملاً برگردد به نقطه قبل و حتی شدیدتر. بنابراین تا این فاصله حساسیت*ها روی ایران مجدداً بیشتر نشده، این فضا برای این کار فراهم است که بیشتر اقداماتی از این دست را انجام دهند.

[Rasputin]

In the bowels of Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan strands of black and red wire stretch from the concrete wall to giant white tanks full of a volatile uranium compound. It is by these slender cords that the international community hopes to hold Iran's atomic ambitions in check.
The wires pass through a brass seal that has been soldered and marked in such a way that any attempt to divert the fuel to making a bomb would be spotted by UN inspectors. It is a nuclear trigger the world hopes will never be pulled.

With global tensions rising over Iran's nuclear intentions, the doors of the Isfahan plant were opened last week to a small group of journalists from Europe and America in a rare bid for transparency by the embattled but determined government in Tehran.
Ten miles south-east of the tiled mosques of Isfahan, Persia's old capital, the conversion plant is a cluster of squat yellow-brick buildings at the foot of some weathered sandstone crags, and ringed by anti-aircraft batteries dug into the surrounding semi-desert.

Inside the plant, a dense network of shining vats, pipes and gauges perform the alchemy of turning processed uranium ore, "yellow cake", into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), an elusive gas which is a halfway house to making both nuclear fuel and nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials insist they just want to make fuel, and presented the Isfahan plant as a display of scientific prowess and peaceful endeavour. "You'll be able to see for yourselves the purity of our work, and you'll be able to tell the outside world the good news," Hossein Simorg, the spokesman for Iran's nuclear industry, promised before a guided tour of the facility.

As far as the much of the outside world is concerned, however, Isfahan is a nuclear flashpoint. Almost exactly two years ago, the seals on the tanks of uranium hexafluoride were broken in front of inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an act of defiance by the Iranian government - a blunt signal Tehran was not going to halt its nuclear progress in return for the incentives Europe was offering. The order was given for uranium conversion to resume at Isfahan after a two-year gap.

That decision, in August 2005, marked the start of a crisis that has been steadily worsening ever since, to the point where Washington is said to be studying potential bombing targets, the Iranian leadership is spouting apocalyptic rhetoric, and Europe - once more caught in between - is scrambling to salvage a peaceful solution.

For the time being, the wires are back in place at Isfahan, along with two IAEA cameras that stare down from high perches on either side. But the degree of international control is tenuous at best. The very fact that the machinery is humming at Isfahan puts Iran in contravention of UN security council resolutions, calling for all work related to uranium enrichment to be suspended.

The tour given to foreign journalists was a show of openness which backfired when the government changed its mind at the last minute over what it was prepared to show. But the trip was also meant to send a clear message: that Iran has no intention of giving up any part of its nuclear endeavour, which it regards as entirely within its rights.

The Iranian government has dug in deep, convincing its population that mastery of uranium fuel production is synonymous with development and prosperity.

Before the Isfahan tour, a promotion film was screened showing the production of the first UF6 at the plant in 2004. The Iranian government also claims to have mastered the next step in the process, the engineering feat involved in spinning the UF6 in a high-speed centrifuge and separating out a variant, or isotope, of uranium, that is highly fissile - uranium-235. The work is being done at a centrifuge plant being built in Natanz, to the northeast of Isfahan.

Spinning the UF6 gas until it is up to 5% rich in U-235 produces nuclear fuel. Keep spinning until it is 90% enriched and you have the makings of a bomb.

That - combined with the fact that Iran omitted to tell the IAEA about Natanz until its existence was revealed by an opposition group in 2002 - lie at the roots of the global scepticism over Iran's programme.

But there is another huge question mark hanging over Isfahan and Natanz: why is the government in such a rush to enrich fuel, when it has no nuclear power plants in which to use it?

There is a single reactor nearing completion at Bushehr, but it is being built under contract with Moscow, and it is only supposed to use nuclear fuel provided by Russia. However, the Russian government slowed down work on Bushehr this year over what it said was a payment dispute, but which was widely seen as a veiled effort to add to the pressure on Iran to halt enrichment.

The great sphere of the power plant hangs over the ancient Gulf port like a pale rising moon. Its heavy metal doors were also opened to journalists last week, and it was immediately apparent that the Russian go-slow has left a lot of work undone.

The Iranians are increasingly pessimistic about Bushehr's future. "They are playing with us. I'm sure they will not give us fuel for Bushehr. So we came to the conclusion we have to be self-sufficient," a senior government official said in Tehran. This is at the heart of Iran's justification for its programme. The outside world cannot be counted on, and Tehran believes that only once it has mastered uranium enrichment will it be taken seriously.

"We know they don't trust us, and we don't trust them," the official said.

[Rasputin]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that Iran poses the biggest threat to US Middle East interests, as she begins a major regional tour.
Ms Rice and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates are meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Arab ministers at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The tour is aimed at uniting US allies against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

It is also trying to win support for a Mid-East peace conference planned for later this year, correspondents say.

MIDDLE EAST TOUR
Ms Rice is due to stop off in the following places:
Egypt
Tuesday: meeting ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council, as well as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Saudi Arabia
Tuesday: meeting King Abdullah to discuss Iraq and other issues
Israel
Wednesday: meeting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Shimon Peres and other senior ministers
West Bank
Wednesday-Thursday: talks with President Mahmoud Abbas


Iran spurs US move

Ms Rice held talks with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, and Rice their said discussions included the situations in Iraq and Lebanon, and the prospects for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

Ms Rice said the US was making sure its allies in the region were well protected after Iran accused the US of trying to spread fear and mistrust.

"The United States is determined to assure our allies that we are going to be reliable in helping them to meet their security needs. We have a lot of interests in common in this region: in the fight against terrorism and extremism; in protecting the gains of peace processes of the past and in extending those gains to peace processes of the future," she said.

Earlier, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini accused the US of tarnishing good relations between countries in the region.

Iran's nuclear programme and influence among Shia Muslim militant groups have long been sources of US concern.

During a stopover in Shannon, Ireland, Ms Rice told reporters: "There isn't a doubt, I think, that Iran constitutes the single most important, single-country challenge to... US interests in the Middle East and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see."

The trip is the two officials' first joint tour of the region.

They will visit Egypt and Saudi Arabia together, and other countries separately.

Mr Gates told reporters travelling with him that US officials wanted "to reassure all of the countries that the policies that (US President George W Bush) pursues in Iraq have had and will continue to have regional stability and security as a very high priority".

Congressional opposition

The meetings come after Washington confirmed plans for a massive arms deal for the region.

The main beneficiaries of the deals are Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The $30bn aid to Israel over 10 years represents a 25% increase from present levels.

US ARMS DEAL BENEFICIARIES
Israel - $30bn
Egypt - $13bn
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and UAE - to share $20bn


Send us your comments

The Jewish state said the package would allow it to maintain its military "qualitative edge" in the region.

The sale of satellite-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia, the first such sale to any Arab country, is thought to be part of the proposed $20bn arms deal with the kingdom and other Gulf states - the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

During their lobbying tour of the region, Ms Rice and Mr Gates are expected to ask Saudi King Abdullah to do more to support the Iraqi government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, has gone as far as accusing Saudi Arabia of undermining efforts to stabilise Iraq.

The weapons deals need to be approved by Congress, and appear set to encounter opposition.

Two Democratic congressmen, Anthony Weiner and Jerrold Nadler of New York, said at the weekend they would introduce legislation to block military aid to Saudi Arabia.

[Rasputin]

The wrong way to contain Iran

The announcement this week that the United States plans to sell over $20 billion worth of weaponry to Arab allies in order to counter Iran's ascendance in the Middle East appears to take a page out of Ronald Reagan's Cold War playbook: Simultaneously attempt to contain Iran and force it to spend money on an arms race instead of developing its moribund economy, intimidating it into bankruptcy.

One major flaw in this approach, however, is that it doesn't recognize that Iran's growing influence is due not to its impressive military force or expenditures (Saudi Arabia already spends four times as much as Iran), but rather its use of soft power and militias throughout the region in order to undercut the vastly superior hard power of the United States and Israel. Further arming Iran's Arab neighbors with billions of dollars of high-tech equipment (much of which they won't know how to use) does nothing to remedy this conundrum.

In the Cold War paradigm invoked by some Bush administration officials, Iran is the new Soviet Union and Iranian-backed extremists are the new Communists. While such an approach overstates Iran's global power and influence, on a regional level there are indeed Cold War parallels. Tehran and Washington both openly aspire to change the Middle East with competing ideologies, and both view conflicts in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and the Gulf as fronts in a larger war for the soul of the region.

Similar to Moscow, Tehran has generously armed and funded militant groups ever since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. As opposed to the Soviet Union, however, today Iran's preferred vehicle of choice to spread its power and influence throughout the Middle East is, ironically, democratic elections. Though Iran's clerical rulers refuse to hold free and fair elections at home, the strong electoral showings of Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shiite co-religionists in Iraq, has Tehran confident that their Islamist friends have won the battle for the region's hearts and minds, while Western-oriented liberals are in retreat. In the words of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, "Today, if a referendum is held in any Islamic country, the people will vote for individuals supporting Islam and opposing the United States."

Khamenei has a point. Opinion polls conducted among Arabs frequently rank Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Hamas leader Khaled Mish'al as the three most popular political figures in the region. These same surveys show nearly 80 percent of Egyptians and Jordanians have an unfavorable view of the United States. While the alarming depth of anti-Americanism in the Arab world could in the past be dismissed as a societal affliction with little tangible political costs, by pushing a democratic agenda in the Middle East the Bush administration has provided a concrete outlet for this rage.

But Iran's ambitions to be the vanguard of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East will ultimately be undermined by the fact that it is Shiite and Persian. Apart from the growing Sunni-Shiite rift, Muslim solidarity has never transcended the Arab-Persian divide. Moreover, despite popular admiration for Ahmadinejad, further probing usually reveals that the Arab street admires Iran much the same way that Latin Americans once romanticized Castro's Cuba: a defiant political order they praise from afar, but which they do not wish upon themselves.

Opinion polls show the Middle Eastern nation where Arabs most aspire to live is not the Islamic Republic of Iran or religiously austere Saudi Arabia, but economically thriving, socially lax and internationally integrated Dubai.

In an ideal world, Washington and Tehran would each do away with their grandiose ambitions for the region and reach a diplomatic accommodation, recognizing they have important overlapping interest in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan and combating Al Qaeda. But 28 years of deep-seated mutual mistrust and ill-will combined with the hubris of Bush and Ahmadinejad's administrations have effectively created a glum scenario whereby few good options exist: Iran's regional influence cannot be effectively contained nor militarily confronted, and similar to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, neither side believes the other is a genuine "partner for peace."

Given that neither side can achieve a decisive victory, a continued U.S.-Iran proxy war for hegemony in the Middle East will likely produce the same results witnessed in Lebanon last year: no clear winners, unnecessary and excessive civilian casualties, and more fertile ground for radical Sunni groups violently opposed to American, Iranian and Shiite influence. The standoff will continue to generate even greater civilian casualties in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and, in the event of a U.S.-Iran military confrontation, oil-rich Gulf countries, causing significant upheaval to the global economy.

In this context, an additional $20 billion of military sales to the region will only make it more, not less, combustible, and does nothing to undermine Iranian soft power. The United States would be better suited selling $20 billion worth of education and economic infrastructure to the Middle East, helping to create flourishing societies and markets like Dubai, where young Arabs are talking about Islamic bonds rather than Islamic bombs, and Iran's Islamic Republic is not a noble regime worthy of admiration, but a failed political experiment which should be avoided, not replicated.

[Rasputin]

Analysts: Iran Politics Repel Investors

The United States is on a concerted campaign to discourage foreign energy companies from doing business in Iran. But analysts say Iran's investment woes are its own fault _ it could dodge international pressure and attract more foreign money by simply offering better deals.

"They are doing the embargoing for us," said Mikkal Herberg, a former oil executive now with the National Bureau for Asian Research, a think tank partially funded by the U.S. government.


"The terms they offer (to foreign energy companies) for these deals are very poor, with low rates of return against the geopolitical risk," he said.

Even Chinese firms, eager to invest in troubled countries like Sudan, have been slow to follow through on energy deals in Iran.

The situation shows how domestic politics often hamper Tehran's ability to withstand Western efforts to curb the country's controversial nuclear program.

Iran is currently flush with oil revenue, but its economy, reliant on oil and gas, lacks the investment needed to reverse falling oil production. The shortage could seriously weaken the country in future, leaving it more vulnerable to foreign pressure.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates continued the push for sanctions against Iran recently, urging allies to support broader financial moves against the country during their Mideast visit.

Iran could do more by sweetening its own foreign deal terms, many oil industry analysts say. But that would run contrary to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's belief in self-reliance and his goal to channel oil revenues to the country's poor.

Other conservatives in Iran, like former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have pushed for economic reform to attract foreign investment. Leaders like Rafsanjani, who belong to an old guard of conservatives at odds with Ahmadinejad, are thought to hold private control of much of the oil sector.

The basis for Iran's posture goes back decades. Its constitution prohibits foreign ownership of the country's energy resources, a reaction to Britain's near monopoly control of the nation's oil industry until it was nationalized in the early 1950s.

To attract foreign investment now, Iran offers so-called "buyback" contracts that leave ownership in Iranian hands and pay international energy companies a fixed return to develop oil and gas fields.

But Herberg said the contracts are relatively unattractive because the returns are not equal to the risk of investing in a country with tense international relations.

"What you can earn gives you a rate of return of 6 to 9 percent, maybe 10 percent if you're lucky," he said. "In a very low-risk environment, you want to see 10 to 12 percent returns. In a high-risk environment, you need 15 percent plus to make sense."

Tehran was at odds with China's Sinopec over the development of the Yadavaran oil field because the company wanted a 15 percent return, and Iran something lower, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company, Gholam Hussein Nozari, told the official IRNA news agency in January.

Consistently high oil prices over the past few years have left Iran awash in petroleum revenues, with close to $50 billion in 2006. But the economy lacks the investment it needs to reverse falling oil production, mostly because Iran spends close to $60 billion a year on subsidies for fuel and other goods.

Oil production will decline 5 percent a year unless Iran gets new investment, Akbar Torkan, managing director of Iran's Pars Oil and Gas Co., was quoted as saying by the semiofficial ISNA news agency in July.

Some experts believe Iran's oil exports could go to zero within a decade.

All parts of Iran's energy industry need additional capital, noted Narsi Ghorban, an independent energy consultant based in Tehran _ exploration, development, transportation and marketing.

Iran has made some improvements to its buyback contracts over the past few years, extending their duration and allowing a company that discovers a field to develop it.

And last December, NIOC's director for exploration announced that Tehran would allow production sharing in contracts for the first time, the Economist Intelligence Unit reported.

Although commonly offered by developing countries, such a contract would be a radical departure for Iran, allowing foreign companies a contracted share of production, giving them equity rights without full ownership.

Herberg called it an ingenious way for those in Iran eager for investment to get around the country's aversion to foreign ownership.

But Alex Forbes, a consultant with U.K.-based Gas Strategies, said he was skeptical that Iran would follow through on the plan.

"I doubt it very much," he said. "They would have to change their constitution to do that."

Amy Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, noted that Iran lags behind countries like Nigeria that have used production sharing to increase oil output despite their own high risks _ in Nigeria's case, from pipeline attacks and corruption.

"There would be a fairly sizable improvement in investment in Iran's oil and gas industry if they just offered terms that make sense," Herberg said.