Archive for the 'Politics' Category

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Twitter Jumps the Shark?

Published on June 19, 2009 in Politics and Security. 0 Comments

I have removed the #IranElection Twitter feed from our right nav bar because it has become more a source of spam than interesting tidbits. Twitter is still an important resource, but given the credible reports of manipulation on both sides, it must be used with extreme caution and read alongside all other possible sources. The massive amount of spam cluttering up the conversation also means it now takes longer and longer to digest the feed.

I am very skeptical about the notions going around that Twitter is the essential tool for Iranians organizing on the ground. There are very few tweets in Persian, and it seems the Twitter story here is more about getting info out of Iran and influencing world opinion than it is about Iranians coordinating protests with each other.

In other tech developments, Google has rolled out a Persian machine translation engine. You can access it through http://google.com/translate. I gave it a quick spin this morning and would say it is miles behind Arabic MT, which itself is not great. Proceed with caution.

-WW

Iranian Oxford Student Arrested at Airport

Published on June 17, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

880326000reza

I am translating this article from the website of Third Wave, a pro-Mousavi and Khatami reformist group, on today’s arrest of Mohammadreza Jalaeipour, who is a student at St. Antony’s College, Oxford.  -WW

Mohammadreza Jalaeipour, an official and spokesman for the pro- Khatami and Mousavi movement Third Wave, arrested Wednesday morning.

According to Third Wave, Mohammadreza Jalaeipour, a third year doctoral student at Oxford University studying Sociology of Religion, was departing for England with his wife at 1 AM this morning when he was arrested by security forces at the airport and his passport seized.  According to Fatimeh Shams, his wife, who is also a member of the central committee for Third Wave, Jalaeipour is among the Iranian intellectual elite who won the first prize in the Konkour (Iranian national college entrance exam) in the year 1380 (2001-2).  He is also winner of the gold medal in the national round of the Literary Olympics.  He is currently a student at Oxford University.

His wife, Fatimeh Shams, said she was particularly worried by the way the arrest took place, “After about 5-10 minutes of waiting, an agent wearing civilian clothes took my husband with him without presenting any official order, and giving him only a few seconds to speak with me.”

She added: “My husband had come to carry out some research related to his doctoral thesis and had reserved a return ticket to England two months ago to return to Oxford at the end of the term to present his results.  However he was prevented from travelling by this unknown accusation.”

Mohammadreza Jalaeipour has been a part of the Third Wave civil-legal campaign since  last summer.  During this time, he has been bound to all legal and administrative principles of this socio-political campaign.

Any further information on this situation will be immediately released.

UPDATE: There are reports on 14 Sept, 2009 that Jalaeipour has been released from Evin prison after 88 days.

Iran: Significance of the Protests

Published on June 15, 2009 in Politics and Security. 0 Comments

My eyes are getting tired from staring at this news for too long but wanted to post one more. There is quite an interesting debate going on about the nature of the Mousvi movement and the base of support for the current protests in Iran. Rob at Arabic Media Shack sums up a debate between Juan Cole on the “elections clearly rigged” side and Andrew Exum, among others on the “Western media are elitist and underestimate Iranians’ true arch-conservatism” side. Rob came down on the Exum side, asking if we were wildly misreading Iran through the lens of Western journalists. For me, watching the videos of the Mousavi protests that came out today left little doubt that there is a fairly broad based mass movement on the Mousavi side, not just some pajama wearing twitter jockeys (spoken with love from someone who has been glued to the twits all day and not left the house). So what’s going on and how do we know these are significant? A few points:

  • Khamenei has already backed down and assented to an investigation into vote rigging. This is the day after he declared Ahmadinejad’s a “divine victory.” A huge climb down any way you look at it.
  • The government all day on state media had been announcing that the protests were not legal or had been cancelled. The protests ended up being enormous, to the point where the government resorted to gunfire to break them up. (Last I heard they were decamping to a Tajrish protest led by Karroubi)
  • The shots fired and casualties mean that there will be memorial services in 40 days for those killed tonight, thus lowering the chances that this will go away quietly
  • Coverage is bad outside Tehran, but I am seeing some Twitter reports of violent protests in other cities. This is a place where projects like Swift and Meedan have a lot of potential – filtering out the “reTweets” and organizing the information in a more usable way
  • We need to see how this plays out, but there is a major component of intra-elite competition and rivalry going on within the government. This is not just a mass movement of disaffected youth, but one that is tearing the Islamic Republic’s leaders apart. Witness the statements by Rafsanjani before the vote and after, the protests of several clerics, and also voting objections raised by former Revolutionary Guard commander and candidate Rezai — not exactly a narrow sliver of Iran’s political spectrum. The best roundup of these angles is in the Jim Muir’s snap analysis here. I agree with him and ISN’s Kamal Nazer Yasin that all eyes will now be on Qom for more clergy to announce where they stand.

This is a developing and explosive situation, and there is no telling how it will end up. At very least, it will mean a severe reshuffling of who the major Tehran power players are. I think, however, it goes far beyond the smaller bouts of unrest we have seen in the last ten years. The Obama Administration is doing well to express concern, but avoid getting to far into the fray.

Signing off for tonight but keep up to date with Cole, NIAC, CUMINet, Meedan, Sullivan, Uskowi, Ulrich.

-WW

Karroubi Fifth out of Four??

Published on June 14, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

karoubi

Here’s a screen cap from the front page of today’s Etemad-e Melli, the mouthpiece of Mehdi Karroubi’s party of the same name. It reads “Interior Ministry announces Karroubi comes in fifth.” But wait, there were only four candidates running? According to the ministry 1.04% of ballots were declared invalid, which bested Karroubi’s reported .85%.

Meanwhile. over Nader Uskowi is citing “reliable source at Iran’s Ministry of Interior” who said that the real totals were as follows:
Mousavi: 19,075,623 = 52%
Ahmadinejad: 13,387,104 = 37%

-WW

"Reform Sheikh": Gulf Must Let Go of Sectarian Strife

Published on June 12, 2009 in Politics and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

In an interview with Asharq AlAwsat Sunday, June 7, Mehdi Karroubi, head of the Etemad-e-Melli party and a Reformist candidate for President, described current relations between Iran and the GCC, Egypt and Yemen as ‘tense’. Karroubi, a.k.a. the “Reform Sheikh”, attributed this to mis-understandings between each side regarding the ultimate goals and political ambitions of the other. He said further that the Gulf region must be a place of lasting peace, free of “constant sectarian recriminations. ” With respect to Yemen, Karroubi said he felt that much of the tension in relations sprang from current problems within Yemen.

In an interview with the same publication the following day, and presumably partly in response to Karroubi’s statements, Yemeni Foreign Minister Dr. Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi said Yemen was in favor of better relations with Iran, based on “non-intervention in domestic affairs.” He added that he did not believe that Iran was backing Zaidi (Shiite) Houthi Rebels in Northern Saada provice—at least not as a matter of policy. –EDC

Mousavi Supporters Fear Stolen Vote

Published on June 12, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

Iran’s 10th Presidential Election on June 12, 2009 has created a rush of adrenaline throughout cities, towns, and villages all across the country. Streets are painted with political fervor, excitement, and beyond all hope. As Election Day draws closer Iran’s political climate is getting more charged, with presumptions of behind-the-scenes rigging.

According to Aftab News, on Thursday June 11, 2009 at 11 PM–only 9 hours before the start of polling–, Ahmadinejad’s government commanded the banning of SMS messages. It is believed that these measures were taken to restrain and limit the digital space for the supporters of the leading reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi. In response to this ban Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, the head of the Committee for the Protection of Votes has submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology demanding an immediate resolution to the instability in the country’s wireless phone systems. Mohtashamipour argues that such conditions prohibit communication amongst the representatives monitoring the fairness of elections at different polling stations. These events occur in the backdrop of a heated presidential race that can serve as a tipping point for the future of Iran and its 66 million citizens.

–Negar Mortazavi

Victory for Mousavi or Enghelab-e Makhmali?

Published on June 11, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

election

The usual suspects, Juan Cole, Gary Sick, Laura Rozen, and Rasmus Christian Elling are all over tomorrow’s Iranian elections. The main storyline these days is the huge groundswell of support that seems to be welling up for the reformist Mir-Hosein Mousavi (betting on Intrade has him up by a minimum of four points), and the accompanying backlash from conservative elements. But I’m worried by this news in my inbox this morning:

“The presence of supporters of Mirhossein Mousavi on the streets are part of the velvet revolution,” said Yadollah Javani, head of the Guards’ political office, using a term used to describe the 1989 non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia.

“Any kind of velvet revolution will not be successful in Iran,” he said in comments published on the Guards’ website.

The “enghelab-e makhmali” or “velvet revolution” charge is political dynamite in Iran — calculated to tweak that hyperactive bit of Ali Khamenei’s brain stem that guards at all costs against being thrown from power by a peaceful protest movement (for more on this check Karim Sadjadpour’s brilliant report on Khamenei from a while back). It was these charges that hardline elements cited to justify holding Haleh Esfandiari, cracking down on student protesters, rights activists, etc. Casting the Islamic Republic’s constitutionally mandated elections process as a counter-revolutionary coup takes this thinking to a whole new level. Via Gary Sick, here’s a video of Mousavi supporters taken from a few days ago when they formed a human chain on Tehran’s longest thoroughfare Vali Asr – pretty scary stuff:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP-iji4VTQQ&feature=player_embedded]

Faced with the prospect of vicious infighting following a Mousavi win (see also Rafsanjani’s recent appeals to Khamenei against Ahmadinejad) , the depressing question for the U.S. is if it would have been better to negotiate with a conservative united rather than fractious Iranian government. I think Trita Parsi (as usual) gets it right in this piece by Rozen:

But such internal fissures could paralyze a political system that needs a certain level of consensus to function, according to Parsi. ‘[The Iranian leadership] may simply be too divided and involved in trying to heal rifts to be able to deal with the United States,’ he said.

I for one am still not convinced that Mousavi will win. During the Iranian elections cycles you tend to get a North Tehran effect where media coverage centers on the more liberal, reform-minded segments of the population and doesn’t venture out to the provinces where Ahmadinejad’s base lives.

But whatever happens, the main legacy of this election will be the sheer volume of awesome campaign theme songs it has produced. I for one will be rocking out to this Mousavi track at the gym later today:

Mousavi Song (MP3)

-WW

Gotcha: Ahmadinejad at the GCC

Published on June 6, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

ahmadinejad

A friend forwarded me this image showing Ahmadinejad sitting smugly at a GCC meeting, and above his head lettering of the organization’s full name: “Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council.” Ahmadinejad has attended GCC meetings in the past but I have no idea if this is a real picture or an election season dirty trick – I just like the look on his face. -WW

Weekend Reading (and Listening)

Published on May 30, 2009 in Politics, Security and Trade. 0 Comments

Will Ward

I want to quickly flag three important resources that are all well worth a click.

  • Check out this talk and accompanying oped by Bryan Early, who is a fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center working on sanctions policy. Early’s research is on the dynamics of (mostly) American sanctions and the effects these have on the trade of sanctions target countries with third party states. The work is based on an econometric analysis of over a hundred cases and found, among other things, the counterintuitive result that an alliance between the sanctioning state and a third party state means that the third party state is more likely to engage in sanctions busting trade with the sanctioned state. Why? Think about the USA-Iran-UAE trade triangle. US sanctions on Iran create market distortions – pent up demand in Iran and supply in the US. These imbalances lead to hugely profitable opportunities in countries like the UAE, which for cultural, geographical and historical reasons already have good trade relations with Iran. To make its sanctions more effective, the US needs to put pressure on the UAE to stop this trade but this is unlikely to occur because a) profitable trade with Iran produces domestic groups in the UAE who stand to lose a great deal from sanctions enforcement, and b) if the US pushes too hard, it could jeopardize its security alliance with the UAE.
  • Anthony Cordesman has a new working paper (PDF) on the Gulf military balance and terrorism/ asymmetric threat scenarios. Probably the best open source military analysis out there. Thumbnail is that Iran has a head and shoulders advantage over the GCC states in small craft naval warfare, but is severely outgunned in airpower, and that the biggest security threats are low intensity/ terrorism / infrastructure attacks but that a conventional war is unlikely. Also highly recommend their March report (PDF) assessing Israel’s (not great) military options against Iran.
  • Gary Sick who runs the terrific Gulf/2000 listserv has a new public blog Gary’s Choices to post his expert commentary on Iran and US-Iran relations. Although I can’t seem to link to individual posts, be sure to check out his post from May 27 responding to the Leveretts’ NYT oped on Iran policy.

Iran lags in Arab Poll

Published on May 20, 2009 in Politics and Security. 0 Comments

Will Ward

In the new Arab Public Opinion Poll released yesterday Shibley Telhami’s team surveyed 4087 individuals across six Arab states and the numbers are not looking great for Iran. The incidence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being listed as a “most admired” foreign leader dropped from 2008. Respondents also were more likely to list Iran as a “threat” and support international pressure to curb its nuclear program.

leaders

In his talk, Marc Lynch hits it on the head in attributing this to the propaganda campaign in Egyptian and Saudi media that has gone into overdrive in the last year or two. I would only add that this campaign is not limited to state media, but has often carried over to religious figures like Qaradawi who have also helped turning up the anti-Iran/ anti-Shia rhetoric in recent months. The fact that Ahmadinejad’s year on year figures dropped more sharply with Egypt included (-7%) than with it excluded (-4%). should give pause to those who might worry about Iran attempting to gain influence in Cairo by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

I’d be fascinated to see polling data on some of the countries in the region with warmer relations with Iran – Oman, Syria, Iraq. But the holy grail would be some solid data on wider Arab attitudes towards Iran across the Sunni- Shi’a divide to better test the reams of ‘Shi’a crescent’ style punditry that puts sectarian indentification in the analytic drivers seat.

The above image is taken from the slides presented at the Brookings event. You can download them here (PDF), and watch the video recap here.