Monday, January 25, 2010

Denmark's Saxo bank makes outrageous predictions every year to challenge markets' wisdom and assumptions in the year ahead. By putting together bits and pieces of information, especially Mousavi's and Karoubi's latest statements and the crisis in the banking system, some similarly outrageous predictions could be made about the direction of events in Iran. Ahmadinejad has apparently dissolved Iran's equivalent of federal reserve board of governors in recent days, which even in normal countries would send tsunami waves throughout the system. This is just the beginning: as the sanctions go in full gear and the subsidies end, people may end up paying many orders of magnitude for basic products and services. All this combined with the inability of the regime to crush dissent and defection among its own ranks has made many within the regime skeptical as to the ability of the Ahmadinejad administration to carry on (aka buyer remorse). But since Ahmadinejad has the backing of Khamanei, sacrificing him has to be done in such a way that Khamenei doesn't lose face. One way is for Majlis to impeach Ahmadinejad and/or his ministers over the economic crisis forcing him to resign which after thankful acceptance by Khamanei will pave the way for new elections. Reading between the lines of Karoubi statements today and Mousavi's statements a few weeks ago, one could sense some outcome like this might be in the works/promised to these gentlemen. A lot will depend on the events in the next 3-4 weeks, especially 22 Bahman and unfolding of the banking crisis. This is just an outrageous prediction but one with a pretty good chance of coming true. At a minimum it makes us think "outside the box" in the same way that Saxo banks predictions are designed to.

Friday, January 22, 2010


To those who advocate pacifism blindly. You shook hands with the devil thirty years ago and brought us this national disaster. Now you ask us to shut up, don’t rock the boat and perhaps let another thirty years go by. Have you ever wondered that the birth of Islamic Republic when seen from historical prospective could be the beginning of the end to the life of Iran as a nation? Nations have come and gone. This could be the beginning of our demise. This is when the intellectuals come in to keep us away from such national calamities. They failed miserably thirty years ago and some of those who advocate blind pacifism in my opinion are failing miserably again.

Thursday, January 21, 2010


  •  آقای کدیور بعد از شش صفحه استدلال و فلسفه بافی نتیجه گیری کرده است با آنکه ولایت فقیه و این نوع حکومت را قبول ندارد ولی از دید وی حرکت در چهارچوب ولایت فقیه تنها مسیر ممکن است! شکی در این نیست که جایگزینی ولایت فقیه با یک حکومت دموکرات کاریست دشوار و در موفقیت آن تضمینی نیست ولی عدم اطمینان از رسیدن به مقصود مطلوب بسیار والاتر است از مطالبه ای که نه مطلوب است و نه عملی. تجربه پانزده سال اخیر نشان داده که ولایت فقیه حتی کوچکترین قدمها در جهت گسترش جامعه مدنی را بر نمی تابد و از این رو حتی رسیدن به کف مطالباتی که از سوی موسوی مطرح شده است به گواه این تجربه پانزده ساله در قالب حکومت ولایی نا ممکن است. علاوه بر آن کسی که با ادعا و یا بدون ادعای رهبری با صدور بیانیه ده ماده ای پنج نفره به شکلی دست به تبین خواستهای جنبش سبز می زند چگونه مردم را به چیزی فرا می خواند که بگفته خود به آن اعتقاد ندارد.
  • محمد خاتمی بنا به خواست ولی فقیه اش ظاهرا دست به شفاف کردن مواضع خود زده است و در این راستا افراطیون دو طرف را مورد حمله قرار داده است. حال ببینیم افراطی آن طرف کیست و افراطی این طرف کیست. افراطی ان طرف می کشد، تجاوز می کند و می گوید فتح المبین می کنیم، با ماشین از روی معترض رد می شود و به جای دستگیری قاتل، شاهد قتل را دستگیر می کند، ندا را در روز روشن در خیابان می کشد و می گوید ندا خود نقشه قتل خود را کشیده بود، خواهر زاده را ترور می کند و قتل را به گردن دایی اش می اندازد، پزشک کهریزک را مسموم می کند و با کمال وقاحت وعده سرکوب هر چه بیشتر می دهد. افراطی این طرف دستمال سبز به دهان می بندد و فریاد نه شرقی نه غربی جمهوری ایرانی سر می دهد. افراطی این طرف قاتل ندا را می گیرد ولی پس از شناسایی آزادش می کند. افراطی این طرف ... و افراطی آن طرف...

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Fierce Urgency of Now

There is a group of “veteran” Iranian politicians with a track record mostly characterized by longevity than accomplishments whose idea of nonviolent activism can be better described as some toothless pacifism. Ezatollah Sahabi is an excellent example of such veterans. The sad irony is that someone who published a circulation titled “Iran-e-farda” (Iran-of-tomorrow) is so incapable of understanding that the “tomorrow” has actually arrived and if not seized on today will be wasted as the past thirty one years have. How many opportunities did we miss in the past 31 years? At the time when the end of cold war era was about to bring renewed hope for prosperity and freedom to many nations, we began a backward search in the dungeons of the dark past. The collapse of the former Soviet created historic opportunities for Iran to form strong alliances, cultural or otherwise, with the former Soviet republics in the south and near the Caspian Sea. Instead the incompetence of the regime; its repulsive ideology and the way of life it promotes; its dumb fascination with nuclear program; and obsessive hostility towards US and Israel not only deprived us from seizing on this historic opportunity but even led to Iran’s diminished role in the Caspian Sea area as the Mullahs were desperate for Russian support. And where are we now? We have a population of 70 million, 75% of whom are under 30 years of age, many of them well-educated. The regime does not even remotely understand the desires and aspirations of this population. On the other hand the regime is facing unseen pressure by the international community on its nuclear program. It is reacting by ending subsidies, which will lead to higher prices of basic products and services, creating grounds for an effective large scale civil disobedience campaign. If we cannot seize on these opportunities and the potential offered by this vibrant populace to make political transformation and rebuild our nation now, we will be missing another historic opportunity, this time with far more catastrophic consequences than anything we have seen in the past. “Tomorrow” will be simply too late. Is there anyone who understands “the fierce urgency of now”?

Monday, January 11, 2010


On the 10 commandments of the 5 musketeers!

The more I read the 10 commandments issued by the gang of 5 (Ganji et al), the less it made sense to me. Even if there was a semblance of meaning to be extracted from this 10 point declaration - which only Robin Wright was apparently able to decipher - the follow up interview by a member of the band (Mohajerani) sent me back to square one. Never mind what this declaration is all about. Let’s consider an easier question. Who is the target audience of this declaration? Obviously not me, and most likely not you my dear reader. And absolutely not the Iranian diaspora. Oh, Mohajerani said it in his interview: it’s talking to all the good God fearing people of Iran who according to Mohajerani make up the majority of the people. So let me see if I get it now. People have been risking their lives, tortured, raped, killed because they want Khamenei to answer to the Assembly of Experts. Hmm, are we talking about the same Assembly of Experts whose speaker is Rafsanjani, whose members are tied via a circular process back to Khamanei himself, and which by the way reinstated Khamenei in his position just a few months ago? Of course! How ignorant of me! Now that the gang of 5 has spoken, the Iranian people who have been incapable of expressing their demands by now, have suddenly found a new meaning and purpose in life. Yes! It’s all clear. It all makes sense now! Never mind who this declaration is talking to. Let’s consider another question. What happened to the Ganji of the Republican Manifest? What happened to the person whose courage and intellect broke new grounds? What happened to the person who set a new discourse in the fight against religious tyranny? What happened to the person who you could not stop admiring even if you didn’t agree with a word of what he said? I want that Ganji back. We need that Ganji more than any other time.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Those Leverettes

I have made several comments under SKA here and below is my latest.

Leverettes' arguments are so void of intellectual rigor and knowledge of the Iranian history and culture that their "three questions" come across as mere rhetorical ones. As a matter of fact their "questions" are nothing more than simplistic highlighting of contrasts between this movement, and in their mind, the Islamic revolution of 79. Their argument then goes something like: the 1979 Revolution succeeded, our three questions show how different these two movements are, therefore this movement is doomed to fail! Then they look for "data" from regime's propaganda outlets and a questionable poll to back their so called "analysis". This is so embarrassing for someone who carries the titles of director of this and professor of that. Even their knowledge of the 1979 revolution seems to be embarrassingly shallow and limited. For example, contrary to what Leverettes think the only clear consensus among the political forces of the time was to depose Shah. Even the constitution that according to the Leverettes Khomeini had in hand upon return to Iran was 180 degrees different from what was passed later on (the first version was pretty much a copy of the French constitution and there is no such thing as Velayate Faghih in the French constitution the last time I checked).

Now let's be more specific about their questions. The 1979 revolution obviously enjoyed strong central leadership. Let's even give it to the Leverettes that its "demands" were crystal clear from day one. Nowhere in their piece have they shown that strong central leadership or clear demands are prerequisites to success of a movement. Josh Sharyar refuted this claim by means of an example. Another example is Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905- 1911 that succeeded with almost no central leadership through a loose alliance of merchants, western educated intellectuals, clerics, provincial strongmen, and tribal leaders. As a matter of fact there are other parallels between the two movements. They both started from relatively limited demands but expanded later, to some extent as a result of the brutal actions of an unyielding government (the Constitutional Revolution initial demands were establishment of the so called "house of justice"; the green movement started off with "where is my vote" slogan) . The increased communication and exchange to the rest of the world are key factors in both movements. More interestingly they both display a serious rift within Shia clergy as to the role of the religion in matters of State.

During the past few months, the protesters seem to be increasingly united around their opposition to Seyed Ali Khamanei. No one can tell exactly the circumstances by which Khamanei may be deposed or the movement may succeed in its minimal demands. One thing that is near certain is that the regime will have extremely hard time surviving events of magnitude and intensity similar to Ashura's if spread continuously over several days/weeks.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010


A new outlet for Leverettes' op-ed pieces

The opinions of two kinds of experts should be always viewed with deep suspicion: those who are driven by ideology and those who are driven by agenda. While the first group is blind to facts, the second group does everything to blind others from seeing the facts the way they are. Flynt Leverett is of the second kind. Everyone knows he is after a "grand bargain" with the Iranian regime. An idea that got some following in Washington on the basis of a fax sent by Iran ambassador to France at the height of Bush administration's campaign in the Middle East and Mullahs fear of being next in line.

Back to the claims of the article. First Leverettes do not have the courage to reveal their sources of "data" when assessing the size of pro and anti government demonstrations. But someone familiar with the Iranian media outlets can have a pretty good idea where these numbers may come from. The 2000 to 4000 number comes most likely from daily Kayhan, the mouthpiece of regime's security apparatus. When it comes to accuracy, fact checking, and quality of journalism, Weekly World News stories can be taken far more seriously than Kayhan's. How about Leverettes' claim of million march in support of government in Tehran which was organized by bussing people from all around the country, giving them free metro tickets, juice and cakes? Leverettes' "reliable source" seems to be tabnak.ir. Not as bad as Kayhan but not as reliable as Leverettes would like you to believe. This is a site that is close to Mohsen Rezaii, a former IRGC commander who despite his attempt to play the middle of the road game these days cannot be regarded as an independent party by any stretch of imagination. If Leverrets want to play the number game why not quoting Ghalibaf the mayor of Tehran (another former IRGC commander) as to the size of demonstrators who filled the Iranian capital in opposition to the fraudulent elections last summer? His estimate was 3,000,000. So according to Leverretes' calculus that would make it the largest gathering in the capital after Khomeini's death, right? And by the way Ghalibaf is by no means a reformer or an opposition sympathizer and is definitely no less independent than Mr Rezaii is.

The point here is that the Leverettes are using "demonstration size" data from regime's propagandists and other questionable sources to make a claim that is just as grand as their "grand bargain" idea. That the regime is here to stay. Something that even Khamanei is not too sure about these days.

I strongly recommend Levrettes to start sending their op-ed pieces to where they get their facts from, i.e. the daily Kayhan. I am sure they will be more than happy to publish them!