The Kleptocrats

By Paul Iddon

'The 1%' doesn't even begin to describe how small the minority that have stolen Persia's vast wealth for themselves are.

It's relatively rare that one encounters something so profoundly stupid that one actually has to stand in abject awe. However if one thing over the past year had me stand back in abject awe it would be those American academics who went on an official state visit to Tehran last year to hold lectures on the economic inequality the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement in the United States has held numerous rallies in protest against.

That incident was a fitting microcosm of the profound ignorance exhibited by not only large parts of American society when it comes to the repressive state of Iran today, but also by what we sometimes call American academia. The idea that the regime ruling Iran at present is somehow one that sympathizes with those opposing economic inequality is absurd. It's also a very sinister idea when it is propagated by such professors and people in academia who really do know better – unless of course they really are 'that' stupid.

Other attendants of the regimes arcane little conference included, among others, Abdul Alim Musa the fanatical imam of the Masjid Al-Islam mosque in Washington DC. A man whose outspoken pronouncements are notorious for there anti-Semitic and conspiratorial nature. He has asserted that 9/11 was a conspiracy orchestrated by the United States and that the Occupy Wall Street Movement was spearheading a fight against "global Zionism". He said, with a straight face, at that particular conference in the "Islamic Republic" of Iran that "there is no democracy and human equality in the [United States] country."

Didactic dolts with ceaseless casuistry doesn't even begin to describe these people. The blithesome disregard they have for the negation of the most basic rights of the Iranians who are repressed by a clerical cabal of elites who have plundered their country is very salient.

That conference was a wholly shameful affair, and one that still makes me feel sick when I think about it. Whilst ordinary Iranians are struggling to stay above water the country cannot, as it seems, import enough Porshes for the “pious”. This represents in its own right a creepy hark back to how nasty the situation was in Iraq in the 1990's when Saddam's son Uday couldn't get his grubby hands on enough shiny new sports cars to amuse himself whilst large swaths of the Iraqi population starved to death. 

Any business that brings in considerable capital is controlled or largely owned by members of the regimes Revolutionary Guard or Basiji paramilitary forces. Forces which seek out anyone voicing any form of dissent to the way their country is run and their destiny decided by those who proclaim that they hold ownership over them.

Nevertheless the attitudes of those at the 'inequality' conference reflect a general trend that is beginning in the west amongst academics and former politicians who package and sell their apologist arguments of totalitarianism and oppression as 'radical'. George Galloway for example has his own show on Press TV. Each episode of this call-in show consists of him shouting abuse and cheap slogans at callers, bellowing like an idiot and consistently exculpating the crimes of the Iranian regime whilst simultaneously claiming he cares about human rights. He has in the past fawned in person on both Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad, the latter of whom he is trying to distance himself from as of late. He described the Baathist Hussein family rule of Iraq as revolutionary in the same way Mao's 'Cultural Revolution' was for China. He also had a personal relationship with that heinous and criminal regime, particularly with its spokesperson Tariq Aziz.

Speaking of personal relationships and tyrannical regimes one is reminded of Flynt and Hilary Mann Leverett two analysts who have consecrated their efforts to exculpating the Iranian regime. They assert that the United States “come to terms” with the “Islamic Republic”. As was the case with Galloway they have a friend within the regime, in the form of Mohamed Marandi and we also have good reason to believe they have their own personal business interest in seeing to the United States “coming to terms” with the “Islamic Republic” given the fact that Mrs. Leverett is CEO of the energy and consulting firm called Stratega. It is therefore quite disturbing that all of their research consistently whitewashes the regime when it comes to its domestic repression and foreign support of terrorism.

Today Iranian journalists are once again being targeted and denied free speech in their own country. Many of whom will likely be tortured, humiliated degraded and completely deprived of their human rights as was the case with many before them as this brutal regime undergoes another charade of an election. Another insult to the trod upon and oppressed people of Persia.

'Westerners', particularly Americans, of a certain age who learn about history can prove to be quite naïve or unable to put themselves mentally into a time and place. They seem to have a mental predisposition that insists that, for example, were they Jews being lined up to be gassed they would not 'let themselves' be exterminated. History isn't properly understood in this writers view until the reader of it can fully comprehend that those who 'lost' also thought they were the right and righteous ones. Hence, they didn't go into battle thinking they were wrong and therefore going to lose. This is particularly true of slavery in the United States. One must comprehend the extent to which the advocates of slavery promulgated superficial arguments and logic which convinced many Americans that slavery was justifiable to truly understand the history of slavery in the United States. Of course the pro-slavery arguments look obscene and obscure with so much hindsight. But the challenge of history is to see ahistorical nonsense before it becomes just that in 'enlightened' hindsight.

History is yesterday, it cannot be changed. But tomorrow today will be history. Therefore as members of possibly the freest, most open societies of the world 'westerners' have a special obligation not to make superficial apologist arguments and excuses for the oppression of others. They have an obligation not to relativize the ownership and oppression of an entire nation by a small cabal of clerical criminals. If we forgo this elementary moral obligation future generations will look back at such attitudes and wonder what kind of utterly obscure thought process led us to conclude these criminal characters were the legitimate representatives of the learned and civilized people of Persia.

How far will they go?

By Paul Iddon

Recent testimonies from families of Iranian citizens targeted by the regime show just how cruel and savage that regime is.

Evin prison.

When one hears emancipated foreigners contend that Iranian women, among others, have their rights in their country one finds ones general appetite has been unalterably lost. You may arrive at a similar feeling my reader when you realize such empty assertions are made in direct contradiction to the reports and investigations of human rights organizations, as well as the numerous victims of the regimes brutal methods themselves. 



Following a recent visit an MP of the theatrical parliament in Tehran recently, rather lamely, referred to Evin prison as not a prison but a hotel. This particularly depraved comment isn't the first time a member or token representative of Iran's dictatorial system has made such flippant remarks with regard to the infamous prison. In the 1980's for example prison governor Asadollah Lajavardi referred to the prison, not as “Evin hotel”, but “Evin university.” The logic being that at “Evin university” political prisoners would be taught why they are wrong until they 'conceded' this was the case, following brutal, cruel, degrading mental and physical torture that is. They were tortured to the point that they are 'broken'. On top of this, several thousand of these political prisoners were callously murdered without being given any discernible form of a trial or even an actual reasonable charge for their initial imprisonment! 



Reliable reports from inside the country's prison systems reveal that regime thugs are actively distributing condoms to criminals and encouraging them to rape young activists and demonstrators. The extent of the rape is very unsettling and utterly revolting. Analysts who deny or ignore the distressing human rights reports and recorded and documented violations by the regime of the most basic semblances of civil and human rights are below contempt and should be vehemently distrusted. Because, in essence, defending the facile moral equivalences of an analyst and saying that aside from their, by their very subject matter questionable, consistently selective omissions pertaining to the regimes cruelty and heinous human rights record their work is objective and valid is the equivalent of arguing that writer David Irving's accounts of the Second World War are credible histories with the salient exception of his ridiculous denial of the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. And along with that his consistent exculpation of, and distortion of the historical record when it came to, Adolf Hitler. A few too many exceptions to make if you ask me.



There is barely a semblance of elementary rights or justice in Iran today under this regime. Peaceful activists, religious minorities and political demonstrators alike face show trials of a Stalinist nature for participating in peaceful protests where they try and voice their many justifiable grievances with the system. These Iranians, like their Shi'a kinsmen in Bahrain, have their ultimate fate decided by the brute men who interrogate them. Interrogators who are prone to coerce them and make them confess to over-the-top crimes which they did not commit. This serves as a deterrent against any open expression of the rampant discontent among the Iranian populace.



One finds that a very simple way to go about determining whether or not a states 'law-enforcement' agency is merely an in-name only oppressive arm of a tyrannical government, hence a litmus test, is to see if it seeks out rapists and psychopaths in order to jail them or hire them.



Take this account of the apparent systematic nature of these sexual assaults and rape of prisoners described by a family member of one of Iran's many political prisoners:

“During exercise periods, the strong ask for sex without any consideration. Criminals are repeatedly seen with condoms in hand, hunting for their victims. If the inmate is not powerful enough or guards would not take care of him, he will be certainly raped. Prison guards ignore those who are seen with condoms simply because they were given out to them by the guards at first place.”

As is often the case when one is pondering the motives of the morally depraved one finds oneself questioning how this system came into place. Was there a decision making process that upon discussion over the merits and demerits of the matter determined that rape is okay once the rapist wore protection?



As much a cliche as the nature of oppressive regimes is one cannot nevertheless help but to recline in disgust when one reads, or ponders, about the grisly details and torturous and murderous exploits of such oppressive systems. When one does this one can henceforth comprehend to an extent the depraved, rotten and sick nature of tyrannical regimes. 



We have recently been given a series of renewed anxieties about potential things to come in Iran following the recent public executions in Tehran. Perversely we're also seeing the introduction of rather bizarre amputation devices that will be used to amputate the fingers of thieves. We have in the past seen seen similar developments, widespread regime implemented amputation practices to torture thieves for the smallest of offenses and in turn terrorize the entire beggared and trod-on population, in Iraq in the 1990's following the Persian Gulf War when the United Nations upheld the sanctions which crippled the Iraqi economy.



On that occasion the Iraqi regime had to be as cruel and as brutal as it possibly could, it had to go miles beyond the pale of civility. Its cruelty and violence towards ordinary Iraqi citizens had to be indiscriminate and widespread in order to coerce everybody. So the mere thought of speaking out against the oppression would immediately bring to a persons mind the haunting prospects of what might ultimately be their fate if they were to stand up for themselves and voice their heartfelt grievances. 



Hopefully the severity of those dark years for the Iraqi people aren't a historical precedent for the brutal means the regime in Tehran will utilize to terrorize and subvert a discontented populace. 

But the essential question remains, how far will these tyrants go?

And furthermore, what lame pretexts will be cited for the implementation of rape and torture, the continued negation of the most basic of rights and justice and the implementation of cruel and oppressive means of coercion?



It would be counterproductive and nausea inducing to ponder, but the simple reality remains that Iran is an authoritarian state. The very tight-knit minority who have plundered it and are maintaining through force of arms their monopoly on the states capital and resources are proving to be getting consistently more violent and oppressive. As the excellent truism John F. Kennedy famously said upon his inauguration goes, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."

Plundering Persia: The Neo-Imperialism of our Age

By Paul Iddon

The ahistorical nonsensical nature of the 'rapprochement' with the "Islamic Republic" proposition.

It's not a push to say that throughout the entire modern industrial-era the people of Persia have had their civil and human rights encroached upon by both foreign and domestic elements and forces. As far back as the mid-19th century we can see the beginning of a trend that sadly continues right up to the present day.

It was back in 1834 that a secular government rose to power in Persia. This government would go on to remain in power until around 1846. Led by Mohammad Shah and grand vizier Mirza Agha it issued a decree on the 20th of April 1840 which declared that all religions in Persia were equal – this did not in turn serve to undermine the reality that Persia was still, and still is, for an intents-and-purposes a Muslim majority country. The ultra hard-liners clerics were furious as this represented the first time that they, the wealthy land-owning and pampered aristocrats, had to relinquish a little bit of power. Power, which until that point in time had been essentially unlimited. During those 12 years of the Mohammad Shah reign many new ideas for society were experimented with. There was an increase in the number of schools. For example, in Urumiye alone 120 English and French language schools were opened.

The Babi movement began during this notable period. It was a secular movement, as opposed to a religious one, with socialist traits. However the new succeeding regime of grand vizier Mirza Agha Khan did not tolerate such reformist tendencies. Neither did the Russians and the British as it happens. The Iranian government accordingly sought support from the clergy who declared via fatwa a death sentence on Babi's and anyone else that held views that were divergent to theirs. This ensured that Persia would be denied its opportunity to develop into an advanced emancipated society. A minority was essentially given a vast amount of power and the colonial powers of the day were essentially permitted to trod upon Persia and keep that highly strategic and valuable country weak and exploitable.

So in essence, about 150 years ago elite elements in Iranian society colluded with foreign forces in order to ensure that the meddling majority of the Iranian people did not have a say in their own internal affairs. In 1953 we saw a lame and sinister repeat of this when Iranians toyed with the idea that the oil in the ground of their country rightfully belonged to them. Both foreign and domestic elements ensured this was not to be the case. Since that time we've had two regimes that have used brute thugs and torturers to maintain their hold on vast amounts of wealth and power. A secular one which undertook a rapid initiative of westernization, with the very salient exception of any form of democracy, and then an obscurantist Islamic one. To our shame (as far as 'we' constitute 'the west') we gave vast support to the former and played a large role in setting the conditions of the ground that enabled the current ruling regime to come to power.

Today we're hearing voices, albeit a limited number of ones, using hollow sound-bytes such as “American interests” when they propagate a kind of rapprochement with the present regime. When speaking in such rosy language we're very seldom reminded that it is only “American interests”, and mainly economic ones at that, which these people have in mind. Nothing about the interests of the Iranian people who have suffered the brunt and wrath of a long line of tyrants. "Coming to terms", as it is phrased, with the latest brutal and oppressive regime in Persia seems like an extraordinarily cruel thing to do to the Iranian people. Especially when one recalls that we have been on quite friendly terms with torturing, wealthy, dictatorial elites that have ruled over Iran in the past.

The fact that we call Iran today an 'Islamic Republic' boggles the mind. It also, more importantly, shows the clear lack of understanding the vast majority of westerners have of the system of “government” in force in Iran today. Anyone who cares in the slightest about Persia should keep a highly suspicious and skeptical eye on those who whitewash and relativize the many crimes the clerical clique ruling it have leveled against its citizenry. They should also recognize the connotations such a coming-to-terms with such a regime would entail. That being the adaptation of what I would dub a 'neo-imperialist' policy.

In other words the policy of 'coming-to-terms' with the “Islamic Republic” is in reality something that, if implemented, will be another blatantly imperial intervention by the western powers. This time done under the guise of conciliation and understanding as the people of Persia are continually trampled upon and beggared and ruined by opulent, elite, dictatorial minorities. Iran's oil, which is what many foreigners still have their greedy eyes on, hasn't been recuperated since this regime came to power -- and succeeded the police state that was put in place following the '53 coup. It is controlled, as with nearly everything else in the country, by the thuggish regime paramilitaries. Dealing with them would be a blatant form of “neo-imperialism” since we have played a decisive role in undoing and directly undermining strong nationalist democratic tendencies in Iran and subsequently leading it to the state it is in now.

Recent reports concerning the fact that Iranians cannot get vital medical supplies whilst the elites can purchase several shiny new Porshe sports cars (more Porshes were sold to the wealthy elite in Iran in 2011 than any other Gulf country) reminds one of the manner in which, during the period of the crippling U.N. sanctions that were levelled against Iraq in 1990's, the serial murdering, rapist and all-round thug Uday Saddam Hussein was able to import countless Rolls Royce's and flashy Ferraris for himself. Such developments serve to increase ones anxiety about the situation in Iran today.

Many Americans wishing to give some historical precedent and credence to their foreign policy outlooks may quote Thomas Jefferson's proposition that the United States should have commerce with all and alliances with none. Iran today should be an exception to such policy given the active role the U.S had in forging alliances with dictatorial elements within Iran, thus meddling in its internal affairs and, as I've stressed time and again, inadvertently bringing it to where it is now. And if one is concerned about entangling alliances one should be at least a tad distressed at how the Obama Administration offered scant criticism, let alone condemnation, of the repressive actions Saudi Arabia and the Bahraini royal family took against the Shiites on that island kingdom for the 'crime' of conducting peaceful and civil demonstrations that called for much needed reform. Do we really want to conciliate and invest in the Iranian regime to the possible extent that we might have to second-guess officially criticizing its heinous human rights violations because of the negative economic affects such criticisms may have on our highly industrialized largely oil-dependent economies?

What would be more appropriate here would be Jefferson's proposition that the United States should bring into being an 'empire of liberty'. Hence the conversion of 'dangerous enemies into valuable friends'. Fittingly short-sighted interventions into Iranian affairs in the past has in turn served to alienate 'valuable friends' and has empowered 'dangerous enemies'. Interests or no interests if we are to give any kind of reparations to the people of Iran for the blatant subversive actions 'we' imperial powers have levelled against them for nearly 200 years it would do us good to support the Iranian people in their fight for emancipation and the most basic semblances of civil and human rights. If that isn't in our economic “interests” it is certainly one of our many moral obligations.

"Coming to terms" with the 'kleptocrats' that have trodden on the Iranian nation and oppresses its inhabitants seems somewhat of a regressive approach to take. As is pretending Iran is a republic in any sense of the word, which in turn is the equivalent of vigorously rubbing salt into that nations open wounds.

The Persian Gulf Facade

By Paul Iddon

Persian Gulf.

Business and politics often go hand in hand. The former often strongly influencing ones political views and composure. That's why Lee Smith's revelation that Flynt and Hilary Mann Leverett had, at least during a period in 2007, held a series of “background dinners” that were geared towards generating business for an energy and consulting firm called Stratega of which Hilary is the CEO is particularly peculiar -- when one takes into account the couples staunch apologist attitude for the actions and policies of the Iranian regime. According to Smith's investigative report, the two Iran analysts conferred with representatives from Statoil, a Norwegian company which, as it happens, was fined $21 million back in 2002 for accepting a bribe to aid in the “development of a critical Iranian petroleum project.” Fitting.

The central theme and arguments of the Leverett's latest book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran are in many ways similar to Trita Parsi's 2007 study, Treacherous Alliances: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. In the latter Mr. Parsi made several of the same arguments that the Leverett's have made since 2001. In essence they are that Iran has proven, roughly, since its revolution that it has been consistently a rational state actor. They argue that it is the United States and its regional hegemonic regional ally Israel that, through a kind of 'rejectionism' to any form of diplomatic relations with the so-called Islamic Republic, are forestalling a rapprochement with Iran and in turn undermining its own interests.

Parsi's history of the relationship between the three key players, hence U.S., Israel and Iran, was essentially written to influence the decision making process in Washington (it is nevertheless worth reading for some of the quotations and evaluations given by the 130 or so Israeli, Iranian and American diplomats and policy-makers that Mr. Parsi interviewed throughout the course of his research). This is essentially the goal of his Washington organization the 'National Iranian American Council'. He quotes the Leverett's in his summary of events post-9/11 quite favourable and paints us a picture of various pro-Israel and neoconservative figures peddling policy in Washington that he strove to demonstrate went against what was in America's interests, namely negotiating and cooperating with the regime in Tehran. The Leverett's weren't very warm to his personal views and contentions after his reaction to the brutal regime suppression, imprisonment, rape, torture and murder of several young Iranians on the streets of Tehran following the suppression of demonstrations which followed the disputed results of the 2009 Presidential elections. His assertion that the United States should support the fostering of a democratic Iran seems to have caused considerable ire from the Leverett's, who on their blog referred to his position as “neoconservatism without guns.”

Since 2009 Iran has been reduced from what could reasonably have been described as a 'hybrid regime' to an 'oppressive regime'. A categorization that is right down there at the bottom of the food chain, far worse than a dictatorship. In fact this regime has reduced Iran to a small family of brutal oppressive states such as Belarus, Syria, Uzbekistan and North Korea. Apparently this development doesn't warrant a mention by Flynt and Hilary who are the loudest voices calling for the United States to go to Tehran and embrace the 'benevolent' heads of the regime there. As a viewer of one of their talks recently very aptly summarized in a comment:

'They're masquerading as maverick truth-tellers but, in reality, they're just playing the role of knee-jerk contrarians . There's nothing novel about it. They're not the first American intellectuals to sell apologia as insight and they won't be the last. You want to push back against the simplistic garbage peddled by some news media, fine. But I'd rather they fought agitprop with truth rather than more agitprop.'

Nevertheless Going to Tehran is a very readable study, like Parsi's study it was easy to read as well as interesting due to the many different aspects of the history of Iran since 1979 that are discussed. Also it is important that a critique of American policy towards Iran is made as there are many, many instances of the United States adopting aggressive policy that serve to do little more than hurt the Iranian people. I was glad, for instance, to see the Leverett's, rightly, condemn the Obama administrations decision to officially recognize and support the MEK. Nevertheless it is little more than a manifesto of sorts of what the Leverett's see wrong with U.S policy towards Iran and how they'd like to see it 'evolve'.

The book starts off citing some common falsehood and misconceptions. Falsehoods and fabrications cited include the well-known misquotations of Ahmadinejad's infamous statement regarding the 'Zionist entity' in 2005 and Amir Tahiri's false assertion that the Jews were forcibly being made wear yellow stars on order by the regime. These examples are cited as primary examples of western intellectual discourse vis-a-vie its many flawed perceptions, and absolute falsehoods, and views of Iran. The book generally gives its reader the impression that the Leverett's haven't only been working on it for quite some time, but have written it to influence policy makers who wouldn't be privy to Iran, the regime and its history. Nevertheless the anecdotal nature of their analysis's and the many peculiar omissions, particularly with regard to the historical record, clearly show their narrative is shaped to fit the perception of Iran they have been propagating for years now. This, to a limited degree, can be tolerated since these people are lobbyists, not objective historians or researchers.

As was the case with Parsi in his aforementioned 2007 work the Leverett's cite the Madrid Conference of 1991 as a defining moment in which the United States snubbed Iran, which the Leverett's contend it had no reason to. Omitted from this narrative is the fact that Iran's gesture of goodwill in those days, hence the release of western hostages being held by their proxy Hezbollah, was granted after the United States paid the regime $278 million and issued an official statement which publicly exculpated it from any 'official' involvement in the heinous Lockerbie terrorist attack. Conveniently forgotten by the Leverett's were Rafsanjani calls for Palestinian militants to “kill and execute – and not just inside Palestine – five Americans or Britons or French” for every martyr of their own. Bellicose rhetoric and incitement to mass-murder are two different things that it is crucial we differentiate. The Leverett's however clearly do not see this as a fit distinction to make.

It was in February 1996 that Islamic Jihad did just what Rafsanjani called upon them and their cohorts to do. That was carry out four indiscriminate suicide bomb attacks within the space of four days. This was the first occasion that Israelis experienced suicide bomb attacks levelled against its civil society. Cross-border attacks from Hezbollah in the north increased at this time. Israel's premier of the day Shimon Peres was faced with an election against Benjamin Netanyahu, a hawk who saw little reason to negotiate and work for a peace accord with the Palestinians. Peres in a questionable bid to 'out-hawk' Netanyahu launched Operation Grapes of Wrath a bombing campaign aimed at Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. But he was quickly forced to halt this operation due to civilian deaths. This cost Peres the election in May leading to the rise of Netanyahu. Iran went on to increase its annual aid to Hezbollah to $100 million a year. This regime hasn't made any secret of its support of Islamist fundamentalists that want to make peace negotiations with Israel impossible. As was evident by the manner in which they openly rejoiced following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

From the get-go Israel is proclaimed by the Leverett's to practice 'apartheid-like' policies that the Iranian regime are morally obliged to oppose. That is all you really need to know according to the tone in which they address the Iranian regimes bellicose pronouncements, incitements to terrorism and proxy wars against the Jewish state. But the idea that the Iranian regime opposes Israel out of any principle of humanity or human or civil rights is absurd considering its own relationship with the genocidal regime currently occupying Khartoum (Israel was one of the few country's to take in oppressed South Sudanese citizens during that peoples struggle for independence and fight against tyranny) which has been ruthless in its suppression of Muslim citizens in Darfur and has been ethnically cleansing various minorities within its own borders who don't prescribe to their brand of Islamism.

Similarly the Iran-Iraq War is summarized in a manner that doesn't acknowledge the fact that Iran went on the offensive in June 1982. This point is essential to acknowledge as are the tactics of the regime used. I say this is the case because Khomeini's quixotic and ill-prepared offensive against Iraq saw to hundreds-of-thousands of Iranians, mostly young boys and men, die. General Shirazi for instance stated he opposed Khomeini on logical, logistical and strategic grounds adding he would resign if “unqualified people continued to meddle with the conduct of the war.” He was overruled by Khomeini who extended the war for six years regardless of what people who knew what they were talking about were telling him. Furthermore the impracticality of the regime was aptly demonstrated then by the manner in which it carried out the invasion of Iraq. 95,000 Iranian children for instance were needlessly thrown away, either by being made run into machine-gun fire or across mine fields. They were largely ill-trained and ill-equipped. This demonstrated the scandalous ineptitude and disregard for human life the regime exhibited. The decisiveness that had enabled the Iranians to recapture their territory in 1982 was essentially squandered through those tactics, as was the morale of the troops. The Iraqis on the other hand were fighting on their own home turf against an inept invasion force that was largely infantry based. This emboldened the Iraqi regime and allowed it to subdue the aspirations of the Shi'a who did not revolt in any discernibly substantial numbers to aid the Iranian invaders in their bid to overthrow the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein.

The Leverett's also dedicate significant space to reiterating their stated belief that events in June 2009 served to aptly demonstrate Iran's truly democratic nature. Journalist Reese Erlich wrote in 2009 that the Green Movement was clearly "a genuine Iranian mass movement made up of students, workers, women, and middle class folks" as well as a good deal of the rural population. Eric Hooglund, a scholar who has studied rural Iran in great detail, describes the "overwhelming" support for Mousavi he saw in rural regions which he is very familiar with, discrediting the commonly held perception that Ahmadinejad was particularly popular in rural areas. Erlich rightfully stated at the time that these protests will not damage the regime in the short term, but that it certainly sowed "the seeds for future struggles." The Leverett's on the other hand seem to think that since the regime, with its monopoly of violence subversion and control, survived an outbreak of street campaigns and demonstrations vindicates their stated assertion that the regime is in fact completely legitimate. The couple don't mention the reports of these two observers, not even to debunk their on the ground and learned observations. Nevertheless their analysis on the events of June 2009 in the book are substantially, not that this would be hard, more sober than positions they have taken in the past. Barbara Slavin, a journalist 'turned scholar' as the Leverett's call her in the book called out Flynt's stated contention, in a 2010 forum that speculated over what the Iranian people think, that all the opposition to the regime was focused in 'north Tehran'. She aptly illustrated through the citation of numerous facts how this hollow, and blatantly propagandist, claim falls flat on its face when one takes into account testimonies of people who were actually there.

On that note, Flynt, upon once again rudely and dismissively blurting his 'you must have been in North Tehran' slur regarding the suppression in 2009 in a recent interview with the Huffington Post dismissed state suppression repeating the regime tally that less than a 100 were murdered – another blatant lie. Then emphasizing his mantra that during the midst of the Cold War his man Richard Nixon embraced the killer of at least 3,000,000 people because it was in American interests. That's the couples mantra from which they will never deviate, American interests, economic ones to be precise, trump everything else. Ponder carefully reader, does someone with such attitudes strike you as someone who cares one iota about Iran and its people?

As for citing dubious polls (polls carried out from abroad to an authoritarian state are dubious by definition) one poll is conspicuous due to its absence from the Leverett's account. It deals with what the Iranian public at large and their views with regard to the United States. Abbas Abdi, an editor and columnist in Tehran in September 2002 helped Gallup conduct this poll which had to be commissioned by the foreign-affairs committee of the Majlis. The poll disclosed that some 75% of Iranians were in favour of "dialogue" at the very least with the United States. The chairman of this Majlis committee was a man named Mohsen Mirdamadi. Abdi was imprisoned for publishing the findings whilst Mirdamadi was forced out of politics by the regime and later beaten by Revolutionary Guard thugs when he made a speech in Yazd in December 2003. Again, this doesn't warrant mention.

The couple devote a substantial amount of space to debunking otherwise frivolous liberal perceptions. They take aim over the course of several paragraphs for example at Jon Stewart's satirical news show The Daily Show. However they consistently, almost to the point of frivolity, overlook and ignore the countless numbers of blatant human rights violations attributed to this regime. They even give a semblance of credence to the idea that it was Israel's Mossad intelligence service that, in a covert operation, assassinated Neda Soltani in order to tarnish the 'reputation' of the regime.

On the topic of Neda's murder the couple confer in their book the manner in which they received some hate-mail that stated they both deserved to be shot. As someone who has also been told he deserves to be shot in the head due to my views I can sympathize with this. Nevertheless bringing this up is of questionable value given the fact that we have good reason to believe that Flynt has in the past bragged about his relations with the Revolutionary Guards, who have actually shot Iranian civilians in the head. On this note he met with Mohsen Rezai in Athens in 2003. Rezai is one of the culprits behind the 1992 and 1994 terrorist attacks against the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community centre in Argentina. Both attacks killed scores of innocent civilians, most of them Argentinians, and constituted a gross violation of Argentina's sovereignty. Such actions didn't warrant any mention in the Leverett's narrative.

The Leverett's, in a petty attempt to relativize a dictatorial system, cite examples of why many Iranians prefer the theocratic one to a democratic one, citing mainly the influence popular culture has on young people. They quote one Basij paramilitary volunteer as referring to the “shit” music of Britany Spears (the blaring or mere listening of which I'm sure is proven to cause wholly unnecessary nausea and tinnitus). They also discuss how during the Shah's secular reign men were obliged to wear hats modelled after Reza Khan's cap. However they do not have any comment when it comes to the flogging, the stoning, the rape, the beating and the torture of women who refuse to abide by the enforced dress code that exists in Iran under this totalitarian regime today. Fitting.

This brings me to the following moral proposition. Which of the following serves to the moral degradation of Iranian more? The occasional drink or listening of a pop song or the degradation of Iranian women to the point that they sell their bodies for cheap sex to the wealthy mullahs who have plundered the country to enrich themselves? I'm sure any decent adherent of the Shi'a faith will tell you the latter. On a related note, if you think you can stomach it, which I could barely, I'd advise you watch Prostitution Behind the Veil and see how the rich old fetid clerics titter at the statistical reality that on nearly every street corner in Tehran there are young vulnerable women ready to sell their bodies for next to nothing. And if that's not enough to make you hurl in disgust recall the fact that the Iranian economy and people have gotten even poorer since that documentary was made.

Of course many Muslims don't want to be secular liberals (you don't have to be a “secular liberal” in a democratic society) but it is uncanny to read the manner in which the Leverett's seek relativize the nature of the regime. I feel obliged to state for the record that I find most aspects of the Shi'a 'high culture', to which many Iranians prescribe, to be highly admirable. The story of Imam Hussein and the manner in which he essentially died in staunch defense of his dearest beliefs of which a powerful tyrannical nation was pitted against (little wonder the regime wants to enforce who Iranians define as a 'martyr') epitomizes an individuals struggle against tyrannical oppression. A martyr for a cause is always something that I've always admired along with the spiritual aspects that give many Shi'a Muslims the world over peace of body and mind and enables them to live fruitful lives. The manner in which we view, as far as we constitute the west, the Shi'a faith is very important. The Leverett's are certainly correct in their assertion that a negative and misunderstood view of Shi'a Islam has formed in large parts of the west, particularly in the United States. But instead of outlining the admirable practices and traits of the Shi'a their analysis fails to clearly unequivocally differentiate the regime as being a representative of a particular kind of religious governance, one which Khomeini contrived in order to justify religious rule in the intervening time before the prophetic return of the 12th Imam and the heralding into being of a world of justice and vindication, and the religion itself. I make a point of this because elsewhere in the book the couple outline what they see as the importance of differentiating between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

They also make a lot of Cold War analogies but fail to see how their own biases hurt their defense of the regime as being a legitimate representative of Shiites. In Cold War propaganda the Soviet Union portrayed itself as socialist in order to instil in its peoples minds the positive egalitarian aspects to socialism which it claimed to epitomize. The United States also proclaimed the U.S.S.R to be socialist, but its motive was to discredit socialism by its association with an oppressive state system. Similarly by declaring the corrupt and pornographic regime in Tehran today to be a wholesome Islamic one in turn serves to associate the Shi'a faith in most sober upstanding peoples minds with the heinous crimes against humanity of which the regime has carried out. The Leverett's may be able to stomach the ignore the human rights abuses, but most ordinary people find it reprehensible.

It is true that Shi'a Muslims repudiate various aspects of the western popular culture (who doesn't?), but they see their resistance to particular vices and exorbitant lifestyles as part of their commitment and believe their way of thinking will prevail through vindication. A female adherent to Shi'a Islam for example wears her veil to show any onlookers her modesty. In Iran women for the most part have to wear a veil, not to show their modesty, but to avoid undue attention that could lead to them, as I've already stressed, getting beaten, imprisoned, raped or actually killed. An Iranian friend of mine once conferred to me how she believed her religion would prevail in Europe because of the shallow excesses and ways in which Europeans live their lives. She also stressed how those who openly professed their faith in her country are the hypocrites, shallow people who in public loudly proclaim to be moral, instead of proving through their actions and general ethics that they are. This is in essence a microcosm of the difference between the regime and vast swaths of the ordinary faithful Shi'a of Persia.

An extensive and scathing critique of United States policy towards Iran would doubtlessly be very helpful. That's what Going to Tehran advertises itself to be. But in their earnest attempts to exculpate the crimes of the regime, and their actual associations with it, the authors have essentially reduced themselves and their intellectual abilities to the point that they represent little more mouthpieces and petty moral relativists for this regime and its many crimes.

Now onto the namesake of this post, what I contend the Leverett's Nixon-China moment will lead to, a complete Persian Gulf Facade. The Persian 'Islamic' Gulf states are not states of their citizens. Honest authors and scholars have outlined this to be the case numerous times. These states and their regimes profess to rule in the name of Islam, in Iran's case as I mention a very obscurantist form, not their largely Muslim citizens. This has become apparent not only in Persia with its lush 2,500+-years of civilization, emancipation and civil society, but even in the autocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (which as it happens has a freer society today than Iran does) which has virtually no tradition, or even understanding, of democracy. It was just the other day a Saudi columnist, Khalid Al-Dakhil, wrote the following:

"...The main [implication of the Arab Spring] storm is a change in the political character of this state, which has been constant since its establishment after the First World War. [Its character is] based on a single political principle... namely that the relationship between the state and the people is unidirectional: the leadership versus the people [meaning that the people cannot make demands of the regime]. This [situation] suited the social and political circumstances half a century or more ago, but the Arab Spring storm... undermines this perception... There is no arguing that these relations must change. The question is how this change will come about..."

The Leverett's don't propose any change in Iran, they see the United States as the primary root cause of the present situation. Emphasizing security on the gulf, and of those precious hydrocarbons, this mindset is essentially advocating the United States oppose any opposition to these fallible heads of states in the region and invest their capital, diplomacy and trust in what is essentially an oppressive dictatorship, the head of which professes to be the symbolic 'father' and 'guide' of the Iranian people (sound uncannily familiar?). It's bad enough the U.S is virtually silent when it comes to the suppression of the Shi'a of Bahrain. Do we really want it to adapt such a policy with Iran. Again?

Nostalgia for Nixon

By Paul Iddon

Flynt Leverett's distortions of Nixon's presidency and the present situation in Iran.

Nixon and Mao.

Cast your mind back to 1973. An eventful year to the least. That saw monumental events in not just the Middle East, but the entire world. Probably the most grotesque thing to transpire that year took place in the south American country of Chile. There the agency which Flynt Leverett used to work for carried out a brutal coup against the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende and installed a right-wing military junta headed by the brutal Augusto Pinochet. It was a heinous assault on the small non-aggressive state, a country that had never harmed or threatened to harm the United States. Consequently it was assaulted in such a grotesque manner exactly 20 years after the CIA backed the British in their blatant subversive action against the Iranian government. The CIA upon its retrospective assessment of the events of 1979 determined that the Iranian Revolution was among other things 'blowback' for their actions in 1953. And actions in the intervening time such as the installation of a secret police force that sought out and punished, that's putting it lightly, those who voiced dissent.

So in essence the oppressive regime currently in power in Iran today was able to force its way to power as a somewhat indirect result of that American and British intervention in Iran's domestic affairs in 1953. Whilst one can counter argue this point of view by outlining the geopolitical reasons the U.S and U.K had for undertaking that assault on Iran's independence one simply cannot realistically exclude the primary influence that both oil and geopolitics had on this imperial intervention.

Flynt Leverett always stresses the importance of Iran due to its resources and geopolitical importance. He often brings up and then downplays the opposition in Iran and has exhibited classic signs of double think when he insists Iran is an 'Islamic Republic' whilst using selectively dubious sources to try and prove the Iranian public, which hasn't been allowed participate in a democratic and free referendum on their destiny for over 30 years (a very large part of Iran's population is actually under 30 years of age), supports the authoritarian regime in power there. But he never seems to be able to reconcile with the fact that the regime has done its utmost to prevent a conclusive public opinion poll from being conducted to prove to the world that is the case.

Flynt's primary contention and argument is that it is completely Washington that is at fault for not undertaking a 'Nixon goes to China' with Tehran.

“He put every ounce of political skill, Machiavellian calculation, diplomatic acumen, capacity for secrecy…all of the good and maybe not so good parts of political persona, he put all of them into this and achieved this historic breakthrough, because he knew it was strategically vital for his country.”

That was him describing Richard Nixon of all people. Granted Nixon's overture to China was a breakthrough. But it was done, as was the case with nearly everything that Nixon done, purely for reasons for Realpolitik. Flynt by evoking such admiration for Nixon's action would like you to forget that Nixon only went to China after his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a classic case of political triangulation, purposely scuttled the 1968 peace accords in Vietnam and as a result prolonged that brutal, and blatantly colonial, war against the people of that country. That inevitably resulted in the killing of a great deal of American boys in the process by Peking's North Vietnamese allies. One doesn't even want to think about the number of Vietnamese that were killed during the period of that wars prolongation. This all transpired before Nixon decided to make his 'historic breakthrough' by going to Beijing -- 'diplomatic acumen' indeed.

Flynt would like you to forget that, and he would also like you to forget that the Cold War is over and remember that Iran has lots of oil and is strategically important for the United States. But the main thing he wants you to forget is that the United States played a prime role in robbing Iran of both her resources and her peoples freedom. It was because of people like Flynt, so-called 'realist' CIA analysts and advisers, that this happened in the first place. Now he is continuing to, in this post-Cold War world of ours, advocate a policy that will essentially see to the United States once again dealing with thuggish plunderers, oppressors and enemies of the people of Persia. All done under the guise of adopting a more sober foreign policy that will suit American interests. Dealing with the regime would also on a personal basis for Flynt potentially bring vast business contracts to a certain energy and consulting firm which a certain Mrs. Leverett is CEO of.

Here's what the famous 'Gonzo' journalist, one of Nixon's main detractors in print, Hunter S. Thompson said upon the former Presidents death in 1994:

“Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man -- evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him -- except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.”

Similarly I'd wager that the cold and clumsy policies and contentions of these cold self-described 'realists' will be frowned upon by history. I am reminded as I write this of a furious outburst Victor Klemperer had when writing in his personal diaries -- which recorded the lifespan of the discriminatory and repressive state system that existed in his home country of Germany. He expressed this burst of outrage when he jotted down the following:

'If one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honourable intentions and not known what they were doing. But would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lampposts for as long as was compatible with hygiene.'

As far as we constitute citizens of 'the west', we should strongly oppose any kind of conciliation with the regime occupying Persia. The people it oppresses have done nothing to threaten or harm us. Their land has been occupied by the great powers and their destiny subverted by them. 'Honest historians' would surely wonder what we were thinking if we were to listen to the likes of the Leverett's. Worse still, carefully ponder what those who fought for the most basic of civil rights and exerted extraordinary courage in facing down the brute murderers and rapists of the Revolutionary Guards would think of us if we embraced these criminals and thugs now. And sought to, as the Leverett's continually insist we should, recognize them as the true representatives of the Iranian people.

History shows there has never been, and probably never will be, a shortage of petty moral relativists, jesters and sly apologists for authoritarianism and tyranny. Sadly history also demonstrates time and again how the average decent citizen of the world is often fooled by them. One hopes we won't be fooled about the nature of the Iranian regime, and prove to be an exception to this historical rule.

Will Iran take the Morsi line on Syria?

 By Paul Iddon

Why Tehran may switch sides in the destructive Syrian Civil War. 

Mohammed Morsi.

It's a bad sign when one grows tired of repeating something to the point that they sound like a broken record. I confess to bringing up on far too many occasions Barack Obama's past relativistic apologetic attitude towards the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt when it was a 'stalwart ally' of the United States in the region.

After reaching out to the Arab world whilst being hosted by the autocrat in Cairo Obama offered, among other things, an extended arm to the regime in Damascus offering to mend broken bridges and even going as far as proposing the establishment of a U.S embassy in Syria. Among those making excuses, it was fashionable for a time, for the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad was the magazine Vogue which went to considerable length to paint Syria's first family as admirable peace-loving and heartfelt democrats.

On a related note our friend Flynt Leverett seems to be more set on apologizing for the authoritarian nature of the regime in Tehran these days than he is for exculpating and relativizing Assad's rule -- which was what took up his time when that regime was assassinating the main advocates of secular and civil democratic society in Lebanon back in 2005.

But like Iran, “under the great leadership of the Shah”, Egypt went from a stalwart “force for stability” (how such euphemistic phrases make one cringe) in the region to a country engulfed by enthusiastic revolutionary fervour. Whilst two years on the fate of Egypt is still uncertain and hard to gauge (one can be excused for being highly cynical) one was still nonetheless inspired by the courage and power the people exhibited in that 18-day stand off against the military in Tahrir Square.

Speaking to an anonymous Christian Syrian government official last year, while covering events in Syria for his magnificent book Revolt in Syria, Stephen Starr recalls pondering the nature of the Iran-Syria relationship. It didn't make sense to him. Iran is predominately Persian and Shia, not predominately Arab and Sunni like Syria he mused. The official agreed with the peculiar nature of the relationship adding the regime wanted to make overtures with Washington in recent years, but the latter didn't even want to talk until security issues were addressed. The Syrian official put the blame on the supposed power of the “Israel lobby”.

Therefore Syria in its staunch opposition to Israel and support for the Hezbollah in Lebanon found an ally in Tehran, albeit strictly for common “Realpolitik” means and not ideological ones. Tehran has given considerable support to its ally in Damascus. Therefore the Sunnis revolting against Assad don't constitute an “Islamic awakening” as did the Egyptian Revolution. Morsi has furthermore agreed with Tehran and blamed the unrest in Syria not on the repressive regime, but on conspiratorial foreign meddling from Tel Aviv and Washington. He also quite aptly vindicated Ayatollah Khameini and seeks closer ties with the Iranian theocracy and seeks to aid the oppressed of Palestine and Bahrain.

Well what he really said was irrelevant because the Iranian regime regulated censor replaced words he said at last Septembers non-aligned conference in Tehran with ones more favourable to their position. The term “Islamic awakening” wasn't mentioned. Morsi supports the Syrian people in their struggle against dictatorship and never said anything about the Shia majority in Bahrain (even though they warrant serious attention, but not for the reason the theocratic regime is focusing on it).

But when you proclaim your words to be infallible as well as your world outlook it can in all fairness very annoying when people say things that don't fully fit this world view. It can also be annoying when other nations don't want to align with your great and self-professed – in name only -- 'Islamic Republic'. So just report that they did.

It would be almost funny if it wasn't so serious. Yet even the rulers in Tehran, with their delusions of grandeur and general delusional perceptions of itself and the world, have become hesitant regarding its support for Assad. Several analysts and commentators are pondering what the regime is thinking and whether or not its stance on Syria will change in accordance with a potential rebel victory. Hence will Iran, in a desperate bid not to be relegated into total irrelevancy when it comes to regional affairs, change its horse in midstream and throw their lot in with a victorious opposition?

Hence take the Morsi line, which is that the Assad regime has no place in the future of the Syria state. Will the Syrian struggle therefore cease to be characterized in their propaganda outlets as a conspiratorial intervention by the CIA and the Zionists (or whichever one it happens to be 'this week') and instead become, as was the case in Egypt, an 'Islamic awakening'?

Many who support or see Assad as a tolerable 'force for stability', or believe the civil war to be a wholly covert U.S/Saudi sponsored initiative to sow chaos and instability in the country, point out the fundamentalist aspects of hefty branches of the opposition. These branches of the rebels have already even began to impose strict Sharia law on territory in the countryside around the city of Aleppo which they have captured. This may be a sign of things to come in Syria if the fundamentalists prevail over both Assad and the secular branches of the opposition they are currently fighting alongside.

Iran which is striving to have an influence in the revolutionary fervour in the region may very well switch allegiances and try and ingratiate itself with a Sunni regime that may rise to power from the devastation wrought by the civil war. This could be through the offering of aid and assistance in a bid to prevent such a fundamentalist regime from starting a war with Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon -- any new government or regime that comes after Assad, if he indeed falls or capitulates in the coming months or years, will doubtlessly try and exert its influence on Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia, which has proven in Bahrain and in its own kingdoms east that it will readily use repressive measures to clamp down on the Shia, would certainly like to see Hezbollah's power and interest in the region diminish. But unlike some of the more hardcore Sunni fundamentalists they are currently supporting in Syria the Saudi kingdom nevertheless doesn't perceive it to be in its regional interests to start a proxy war with the State of Israel. Whether or not the Iranian regime perceives further confrontation via proxy with Israel in the near future to be in its interest is debatable.

One could go into numerous 'what if' situations, but the idea of Iran making such a move under certain circumstances in order to retain some degree of influence isn't far-fetched, the regime has proven with its policies and alliances that there are few depths to which it will not sink to.

Rudimentary Realpolitik

By Paul Iddon

Some of the more arcane and illogical views on the Iran issue that are propagated as 'realist' ones. 

Flynt Leverett -

LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images 

Suffice to say there has been a lot of myths and half-truths that have been propagated by a variety of different sources with regard to the image the so-called 'western world' has of Iran. The perception of a country full of Islamic fundamentalists hellbent on acquiring 'the bomb' and immediately using it to destroy the State of Israel is an image that many to the right in the U.S have been propagating since Ahmadinejad's now infamous comments regarding the 'vanishing of the Zionist entity from the page of time.' Which was, as you my astute reader well know, a quote of a statement made by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Interestingly that statement of Khomeini's was made in the early 1980's when the Jewish state was adopting a Realpolitik policy of its own, which saw to it cooperating with Iran and essentially taking its side against Iraq throughout the war. Iran's botched bombing of the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981 for example was a forerunner to the Israeli raid that successfully knocked it out. Yes, Iran and Israel cooperating in the bombing of another country's nuclear installation under the pretext of preventing said country from developing nuclear weapons, how times have changed.

Whilst one could go on for hours and hours about the dynamics of the geopolitical history of the Middle East that isn't the issue I want to address. The issue I think needs to be analyzed and cross examined is the issue Middle Eastern Realpolitik, particularly with regard to policies towards Iran and the present ruling regime in Tehran.

1953 is a year I never tire, and never will tire, of bringing up when it comes to the broader question about Iran, the present situation there and that country's future. Back then as you know it was a Realpolitik outlook the hawks in Washington took to Iran nationalizing its own natural resources. Mohammed Mossadeq was accordingly denounced as a communist and the Iranian people were forcibly denied a democratic and potentially prosperous future as a republic. And, to add insult to injury, these foreign entities went on to prop up the Shah and even trained his secret police to keep his dynasty in place and essentially solidify Iran as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the oil rich Persian Gulf. An interesting fact about this period was that it was the secularist Mohammed Reza Pahlavi who oversaw the building of a large amount of mosques during his period of modernization. This was, in part, because his 'realist' view saw them as an ideological deterrent against communism. Indeed it was the so-called 'Islamic Revolution' of '79 marked the beginning of a new era of holy war, that would see committed ideologues armed with AK-47's and Stinger missiles in next store Afghanistan fight a tough and dedicated guerrilla war against the Soviet military and force it to cease its occupation of their land.

One finds it very difficult to elaborate in any way on the subject of the 'Islamic Republic' and the term 'realism' without mentioning Flynt and Hilary Mann Leverett. A couple you could call notorious for their advocacy of rapprochement with Iran and their strong denouncements of policies of the United States. In their eyes the Iranian regime isn't the radical and fundamentalist types vying for apocalyptic war but a relatively sober actor which has been undermined time and again by an aggressive United States.

It is certainly true that the Iranian regime isn't what it is in a lot of political circles claimed to be. And certainly a more sober policy on behalf of 'the west' needs to be taken with regard to conduct towards Tehran. Very recently the Leverett duo contrasted the currently crippling sanctions being leveled against the Iranian people to the previous ones leveled against Iraq. Which is a considerable point and one I have often made with regard to suggested policies that should be taken with regard to the current situation in Syria (of whose current President-for-life Flynt wrote an entire book about back in 2005 arguing that him and his 'British-born wife' represented the perfect people to do business with, since they are convicted reformers at heart). The sanctions against Iran, contrary to statements from Benjamin Netanyahu and Ayatollah Khameini, are having an effect on Iran, but an effect on the wrong people, namely those very same Iranians whose future and lives have essentially been stolen along with a vast majority of the country's wealth by the 'kleptocrats'. The ones who rule the country and regularly employ brute force against any dissent clearly demonstrating this to unequivocally be the case. This is an aspect of the regime that the Leverett's have strove to distort and to conceal, in their lectures and writings on the subject. Such distortion reek of an agenda on their part.

The Leverett's arguments are quite a lot of the time questionable. Especially their blatant attempts to sucker us into calling Iran an 'Islamic Republic', something that it is in name only and something we should cease calling it, lest we want to palpably fool ourselves. If we're going to have a 'Nixon goes to China' moment we should at least tell the truth about what the Iranian regime is, how it came to where it is today and how recognizing it could seriously undermine Iran's democratic aspirations and could potentially serve to alienate a whole new generation of Iranians.

American imperialism is of course something that should be investigated and accordingly scrutinized where it rightfully deserves and warrants said scrutiny. However, the Leverett's are in essence advocating, through their talk and propagation of a supposedly thoughtful and symbiotic 'Nixon goes to China' type of rapprochement, another form of imperialism. This kind would see to the United States once again taking at face value a brutal authoritarian regime that is far worse than the last one it embraced.

Persia's history of British paranoia that was fostered from the colonial era is essential understanding when it comes to Iranian paranoia and conspiracy theorizing about how imperial entities are plotting against their own developments. One such theory half-jokingly asserts that if you look under the beard of a Mullah, you'll see an imprint which reads 'Made in Britain'. The obvious point being that it was the British, up to their usual tricks and malevolence again, who imposed this current regime on Iran, to rob it of any future free from the shackles of dictatorship and regression. Since a weak Persia is an exploitable Persia. Recognizing and doing business with this regime would be in essence an imperial move on behalf of the west. As would enriching and prolonging the rule of this regime a great disservice and another unjust act carried out by the west against the Iranian people as a whole.

Flynt and Hilary are right in saying that such a rapprochement would have highly significant economic advantages to the United States. They are completely correct in this regard, as Flynt is at pains to point out, Iran is very important when it comes to the geopolitics of imperial control, it has vast resources and is in a highly strategic location, and whoever controls that territory wields substantial power, influence and control in this world of ours.

Iran was effectively robbed and its people killed and even massacred by the tyrants that reigned following the coup of '53. An imperial coup that led Iran to the sorry state it is in now. What is more 'imperial' than cooperating with the gangsters in Tehran now and dealing with them as if they represent anything more than their own exorbitant business interests? What a horribly unjust thing that would be to advocate and propagate as policy. What is essentially at its base more divide and rule via proxy.

The couples upcoming book is entitled 'Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic'. When one looks up the elementary dictionary definition of the terms 'Islamic' and 'republic' one wonders how the United States could possibly come to terms with something that doesn't even exist in Iran.

Persia's Promise

By Paul Iddon

Even the most optimistic among us cannot help but to feel cynical in light of recent developments over the course of the last few months. With the Iranian economy in shambles, the regime in Tehran continuing to murder young Iranians for the smallest of what they deem “offenses”, and the looming threat of an attack on the country's growing ability to develop nuclear weapons and the possible escalation of a war that may engulf the entire region one finds the mere idea of optimism as palpably and delusionally naïve. Nevertheless one is reminded that throughout history it was through the more devastating and dire of circumstancest that the most humane of things happened and ultimately prevailed.

Right now the people of Iran are being strangled by international sanctions because of the policies of the brutal regime that rules over them. The majority of those suffering are the ones struggling to make ends meet, are wholly innocent people who just want to live their lives without violent intrusion. They don't want to and would never dream of harming another person. Their goodwill and resolve is evidently not reflected in their regime, which has consistently undermined them in front of the world and made their lives tremendously difficult. That regime drowns out their desperate pleas for help with its propaganda outlets, which constantly points the finger elsewhere. Which tries to use the genuine compassion its citizens have for the likes of the discriminated Shia majority in Bahrain to masquerade as if they stand up for truth and justice. When that regime in itself is a corrupt minority 'kleptocracy'. A 'kleptocracy' that has turned Iran into an obscurantist theocracy and away from its traditional history of promulgating equality and tolerance of other peoples and religions. If that Persia were allowed to prosper then the Iranian peoples heartfelt compassion for the oppressed of Bahrain and other minorities of the region could be translated into a sober foreign policy that could positively influence these countries, and help them change their ways for the better of those oppressed. For the real underdogs.

Instead we have a regime that manages to undercut all these good deeds and make Iranian people look, in a lot of impressionable peoples eyes, like a bunch of backward bigots. It's hard to think of a similar example of criminal billionaires so palpably plundering their country's wealth, culture and enormous potential whilst pretending to care about inequality elsewhere. The stifling hypocrisy would be almost laughable if it weren't so serious.

I often speak warmly of Persian culture and civilization. As ancient as it is one firmly believes that the values inherent in the likes of Cyrus's Cylinder is still very relevant. The tangible heritage sites of that old empire may be eroding away due to time and neglect, but the simple intangible values inherent in Persian culture is something that will never truly go away. No matter how much it is neglected, degraded or distorted. It is in dark times like these that such inherent truths become wholly relevant. It is in times of despair, when people are driven to limits they did not know they are capable of reaching that they realize who they truly are. What it truly means to be a citizen of a country and what responsibilities a true patriot has. To tell the truth in times of mass deceit, and stand firm and steadfast in defending it from systematic campaigns of defamation.

History teaches us time and again that it is the few who tell the truth, and the manipulated masses who distort it. The most supposedly civilized countries of their days in Europe attest to this rule. The large right-wing element of French society that through antisemitism and bigotry harshly discriminated and sought to degrade the Jewish people after the false charge leveled against Alfred Dreyfus (these were the same elements of French society that would later collude with the Nazis and consequently send Dreyfus's son, among many others, off to die in the Nazi camps). Similarly, in times of great difficulty and uncertainty, Germany, one of the most progressive societies in the world quickly devolved into a fascist police state that used its many abilities not to go forth and prosper but to go forth and kill millions of people. The diaries of Victor Klemperer serve as a great source of education for anyone who wants to see what is essentially the day-by-day documentation of how the most advanced of societies can be rendered into the most backward and barbarous in a relatively short period of time.

There are countless examples of this, suppressed peoples and cultures reemerging against all odds. The Irish people suffered hundreds of years of oppression and cultural suppression. Half the country's population was gone (mostly through immigration) and a million perished in a horrific famine, the survivors of which were left beggared and impoverished. Yet from that, and after six-hundred years of Anglicization and official denial of that islands heritage did a cultural revival take off in less than a generation which ultimately led to that country's succession from what was then doubtlessly, in most peoples minds, the most powerful and immovable empire in the world.

In World War II the people of the city we now know as St. Petersburg were subjected to a brutal military siege at the hands of the Nazis. The sieges intent was to starve the city's residents, and it did indeed success in starving a large part of them, reducing them to sheer abjection and many to depraved and animal like acts to survive. Yet in the midst of this several citizens, starving, cold, feeble, half-dead, mustered together the last of their inner strength and dressed in what was left of their best and went to see a live orchestra of Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” as if everything was still normal. As if a society of law and order was a tangible reality and not an obscure and abstract idea. It was revealed years later by veterans on the German side who were besieging the city that once they picked up the orchestra on their radio, they knew that was it, they would never break the spirit of the Leiningraders.

Disenchanting as the situation in Iran may be today, with the looming threat of war, the repression and the sanctions one can see latent comparisons to the cases I just outlined. In the broad overview of things and in the worst and most despicable of outcomes, that one doesn't dare to even imagine or speculate about, one knows that in the end these people I speak warmly of will win. Their spirit may be a dying and almost extinguished flame, but it is still a flame. The Persian people have thousands of years of history and civilization behind them that will ultimately overcome any criminal obscurantists and we are continually obliged not to lose faith in the goodwill and resolve of these genuinely good people. Persia may seem to be awash with despicable and traitorous hucksters at present, but underneath all that exists a people whose heritage will prevail and will enable Iran to take its rightful place among the nations of the world, where it can teach others and be a force for good, for its own people, and the people of the world.

As for today's seemingly ubiquitous loud voices that are making excuses for the regime in Tehran today. They will be mere footnotes in the history books along with the criminals they are shamelessly trying in earnest to exculpate.

Assad's Allies

By Paul Iddon

China, Russia and the Iranian regime should not be condemned for their policies vis-á-vis Syria.

China and Russia have vetoed
Security Council Resolutions
condemning Assad.

The Syrian conflict persists, the country is rapidly descending into utter despair, her cities have been bombed, shelled and largely churned to rubble, over 250,000 Syrian citizens are homeless, or are being hosted in refuge camps abroad. In excess of 20,000 people have been killed. Both the army and the armed opposition have committed heinous crimes against the Syrian people.

In the midst of such horrors it is essential that one gauges ones condemnation soberly. Looking at Iran's relation to all of this one easily can see the heavy realpolitik motive of the regime supporting its only real ally in the region, even if such realpolitik renders its rhetoric utterly nonsensical.

Similarly the Russia and China's vetoing the United Nations Security Council Resolutions condemning Mr. Assad are understandable, and don't constitute aggression against the Syrian people. Russian arms supplies to Syria since this crisis began haven't increased nor decreased, the Russians are simply steadily supplying spare parts to the Syrian military, the Syrian military isn't being supplied with any new military hardware -- let alone any new hardware in bulk -- to enable it to enhance its abiliy to seek out and eliminate the various insurgent groups across the war ravaged state.

In the broader outlook being presented to us about the Syrian conflict a lot of attention is focused in particular on Assad's brutal means of suppression and the sectarian makeup of the country, hence the idea that the Alawaii minority is being pitted against the Sunni majority. An often neglected feature of the country's ethnic makeup is that of its Kurdish population, which constitutes about 8% of the total population.

The Syrian Kurds are currently in a de-facto truce with the regime. An interesting feature of their outlook on this whole thing is their total bewilderment at the idea of Turkey caring in the slightest of human rights for Syrians after the way the Kurds have been treated at the hands of the Turks in the past. In fact the Syrian Kurds have made it clear that it will fight on the side of the regime if Turkey militarily intervenes in the conflict – which it would probably do under the pretext of a humanitarian intervention to establish humanitarian safe zones in order to protect civilians against Assad's forces.

In the 1990's during the conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK the Turks (after declaring the Kurds to be their own people) carried out an extensive campaign against the predominately Kurdish populated south-eastern Turkey. This campaign saw to – among other sordid exploits – the killing of 50,000 Kurds and the destruction of some 3,000 villages – several of which were completely obliterated from the air -- which in turn saw to the displacement of some 2 million Kurds. All of this was done under the same pretext that Assad is using for his oppressive means, to deny the “terrorists” a foothold -- in Turkey back then it was the PKK, in Syria today it is the 'Free Syrian Army'. The United States during this time supplied Turkey with an unprecedented amount of military hardware and ordnance which was decisive in enabling them to carry out that highly destructive campaign.

The United States along with the other bloc of the Security Council (the U.S. - Western Europe bloc that favours condemning Assad and have contemplated intervention on the side of the oppositional elements) should stop trampling upon the collective and cooperative ability and resolve of the international community to broker a ceasefire by providing effective humanitarian aid to the Syrian civilians who are caught in the crossfire and are struggling to survive. This would be a more humanistic approach that wouldn't constitute aggression against the Syrian state -- which the funneling of arms to the Syrian opposition by U.S. regional allies does.

It is clear that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have advisers on the ground in Syria providing the Assad regime with means in which to suppress and crush insurrections across the country. They are also more than likely aiding the Syrian Republican Guard in cyber-related activities – most likely in order to prevent the organization of anti-regime demonstrations in Damascus, etc.

We should tell the truth about Assad and his heinous crimes and exploits, but we should also comprehend and recognize the variety of factors that shape these decisions that are being made by the China and Russia bloc of the Security Council as well as the ones of the Iranian regime -- which is trying its utmost to 'cash in' on the ongoing hysteria over that 18-minute anti-Islamic film, which has offended some Muslims in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, by increasing the amount of its silly bounty on Salman Rushdies head.

Condemning the presiding regime in Tehran for its support and aid to Assad is pointless and counterproductive, what would be productive would be to officially support the likes of the brave Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi Khawaja (whose courage and determination should have made him a household name in the part of the world that prescribes to value the spread of democracy). We should do that instead of pointing the finger at the current rioters and malcontents who are trying to justify their petty vandal behaviour by stating it is a direct result of them being deeply offended by that inflammatory film. The 'enlightened' and supposedly 'civilized' and 'liberal' west really needs a more educated and deeper outlook on such developments, instead of an outlook shaped on hollow perceptions and shallow obscurantists. Such outlooks -- depressingly -- have once again prevailed in the mainstream.

The Iranian regime with its pathetic attempts of masquerading to be Islamic discreetly welcomes the mental formation of such misleading misconceptions, which is why it embraces and encourages such obscurantist Islamists wherever they sprout up, to foster the said hollow perceptions and in turn sully and demonise Muslims everywhere.

Operating behind-the-scenes while the western mainstream shines its narrow spotlight on these jesters are the true Iranians, the patriots, whose forefathers pioneered the pivotal ideas that built the foundations of civilization that people the world over take for granted.

These are the people who will be the first to put their lives on the line and fight off any attackers and defend their homeland. Any person professing to be civilized should deeply respect these people as they are the ones that should represent Iran for what it truly is. We should stop energizing and exciting the theocrats with our contempt for them, and instead energize and encourage the true nationalist and patriots of Persia with our support and heartfelt understanding.

Brain Drain

By Paul Iddon

Its latest move to marginalize Persia's women once again shows the essential hollowness and chauvinism of this regime. 

 

Iranian women.

The regime currently presiding in Tehran has once again shown petty contempt for the Iranian people, this time to the female half of the population who are amongst the most intelligent in the world. Iranian women are now -- as you know -- being blatantly discriminated against in the country's education system. They are going to be excluded from courses such as literature, languages, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, engineering, business management and several other occupations that they excel at. This move shows the regimes disdain for the independence of women. It is also most likely going to further weaken the economy and furthermore see to the further brain draining of the country. It is another reason to lament reader and to reflect upon the fact that Iran with such an educated population and such magnificent potential is once again being undermined by these clerical kleptocrats. 



Sadly its hard to say that one wasn't surprised upon hearing this news, which makes one even more cynical and paranoid about the future of the country and its inhabitants, many more patriots – the Iranians who are currently holding the country and their lives together, not the ones making threats to other countries and running the economy into the ground – within the country may be forced to leave as a result of these heinously stupid regime-implemented policies. The contempt these patriots are shown, the marginalization they have to put up with are very discouraging and disheartening factors, yet they continue to press for the most basic of civil rights and show themselves time and again to be very civilized and upstanding people in the face of the most uncivilized and thuggish of miscreants, miscreants who have proven they will work in earnest to degrade these patriots, torture them and strive to interfere in every conceivable aspect of their lives.

This development also represents an apt moment to once again show our contempt to the cretinous people who make the lame excuse that these fascistic regime policies are a necessary compromise for the country's independence. One wonders what independence these people are talking about, Iran is a country on the verge of bankruptcy, whose currency has barely any trading power, whose – as is blatantly evident from this latest escapade – intellectuals and professionals in many fields are forced out of work and denied employment opportunities in their own country by these dictatorial thugs. 



In Iran, conservatives and ultra-conservatives prevail in the theatrical parliament there. The kleptocrats who run the show have plundered the country's vast wealth and are doing their utmost to undermine its future potential by actively seeking to suppress the Iranian peoples profound potential for a better future and life. This, a country with a nearly unparalleled heritage of ancient civilization and culture is being degraded to the extent that, instead of being a profound example for the rest of the world is being run into the ground by obscurantist gangsters. These gangsters strive to prevent the bringing into being of a system and society worthy of mass emulation and aspiration on a worldwide scale. They strive to tarnish the country's image and reputation by propagating half-baked conspiratorial piffle to the world in that country's name.

If one ever wants to diminish and trample upon ones spirit all one has to do is to look around and see that the common perception of Iran is one formed mostly by the regressive traits of this regime, rather than one of an upstanding proud people with a heritage worth being proud of, one that is the Persian peoples gift to the world, the world that has – to a very large extent unknowingly – derived several of the main pillars that represent its civilization directly from Persia. The civility that the international community proclaims to practice has apparently convinced them that they have license to proclaim themselves to be on the moral high ground, due to their stated goal of promulgating concepts such as human rights to 'benighted' societies and peoples, concepts that are not only thousands of years old, but were invented in Persia in the first place. With this perception of themselves the 'civilized' countries of the world accordingly patronize Iran on simple moral issues as if the Iranian people don't see the regimes various practices and outlooks on matters to do with morality as reprehensible. It is disheartening to realize this when one looks at the supposedly "enlightened" west and the manner in which it perceives Persia and has for a large part taken the regime and its outlook on the world to be that of the Iranian people.

The regimes latest move to marginalize and discriminate the country's women represents a perfect time for the feminist and human rights groups of the world to offer their support and solidarity. However this author is palpably disheartened by commonly held western perceptions of Iran. Such petty misconceptions need to be debunked and discouraged by more in-depth and sophisticated views of Iran and her people. Hence a good education is an essential commodity to move forward and to build a better world for the mutual benefit of all. A prospect this regime has proven it fears and will actively do all it can to prevent.