Starting Points: Iran

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Jun 2, 2010

Iranian authorities step up arrests of women for 'immodest' dress

Image by Hamed Saber via Flickr

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post staff writer
Wednesday, June 2, 2010; A07

TEHRAN -- Iranian authorities have begun police patrols in the capital to arrest women wearing clothes deemed improper. The campaign against loose-fitting veils and other signs of modernism comes as government opponents are calling for rallies to mark the anniversary of the disputed presidential election, and critics of the crackdown say it is stoking feelings of discontent.

But hard-liners say that improper veiling is a "security issue" and that "loose morality" threatens the core of the Islamic republic.

Iran's interior minister has promised a "chastity plan" to promote the proper covering "from kindergarten to families," though the details are unclear. Tehran police have been arresting women for wearing short coats or improper veils and even for being too suntanned. Witnesses report fines up to $800 for dress considered immodest.

Some here say the new measures are part of a government campaign of intimidation ahead of the election anniversary this month. The hard-liners have grown more influential since the vote, which led to months of anti-government demonstrations that leaders saw as the biggest threat to the Islamic system in decades.

Iranian women are obliged by law to cover their hair and wear long coats in public. The Islamic veil protects the purity of women, preventing men from viewing them as sex symbols, clerics here say. But the law is imprecise, and interpretations vary.

On a recent day, two young women wearing bright pink lipstick and identical thigh-hugging beige coats strolled down Tehran's affluent Bahonar Street. Their peroxide-blond hair, emphasized by delicately positioned brown scarves, spilled onto their shoulders.

When seminary student Fatemeh Delvari, 24, moved to Tehran from a provincial town eight months ago, she was shocked to see how some women dressed.

"My own veil oppresses my feminine side, so I can be free and active," she said of her black chador, a garment that covers the entire body except the face and hands. "But some women seem to be only interested in looking beautiful."

"They are trampling on social boundaries," Delvari said. "Violence is not good, but they should be punished."

Delvari, a leading member of the Students Justice-Seeking Movement, which aims to revive the values of the Islamic revolution, said authorities should also restrict makeup sales, prohibit jewelry and force women to "spend some nights from their families" in order to counter improper dress.

"Our Islamic system is like a ship; we can't allow some of the passengers to make holes in the hull," she said.

During the reign of Iran's Western-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, bikinis and miniskirts were not uncommon here. But in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution, groups of Islamists armed with batons would beat women who were not veiled, shouting such slogans as "Cover up or feel the stick."

In 2006, a year after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, special moral "guidance" teams attempted to enforce dress codes in what was the most ambitious operation in recent memory. Hundreds of teams patrolled shopping centers and popular squares, stopping and sometimes arresting women they thought were poorly veiled.

Today some say the repetition of such punishments for a few women will have little effect in Tehran, a city of 12 million people.

"My white coat was three inches too short on the sleeves," said Nadia, 15, a high school student who was arrested Tuesday. "It was impounded. The guidance police called my dad to pick me up and gave me a chador to wear on the way home," she said.

"Such patrols come and go," her father said. "But they leave mental scars of intimidation."

Mohammad Hadi Ayyazi, deputy mayor of Tehran and former police commander, said the problem should not be exaggerated. "This is a cultural problem, not something the police can solve," he said in an interview.

Some who tried years ago to get women to uphold the veil now say that force will not work.

"For some women, a different form of wearing the veil is also a protest against those that want them to only wear the chador," Fatemeh Rakaee, a former lawmaker and former Islamic revolutionary, said in an interview. "Violence and patriarchy will never reach any results."

May 29, 2010

Iranian artists, musicians give voice to opposition amid censorship

Image via Wikipedia

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A10

TEHRAN -- Nearly a year after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory led to wide-scale protests and a fierce government crackdown, members of Iran's thriving and internationally acclaimed cultural scene have emerged as a driving force for the opposition.

Filmmakers, singers and rappers are, in their own way, pushing for social and political changes, and many are paying the price of speaking out against a government that brooks little dissent. In response to films, songs and paintings inspired by the largest grass-roots opposition movement the country has seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the government has arrested artists and markedly increased censorship.

Although some artists have left the country to escape restrictions, others remain in Iran and have turned their work into tools of activism. But the protest message has to be subtle or indirect, and even then the work is often produced secretly, using legal loopholes or underground distribution networks to evade the notice of authorities.

When world-renowned director Jafar Panahi decided to make a film about a family caught in the turmoil after last June's election, he did not ask for permission from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Instead, the filmmaker turned his apartment into a film studio, with his wife cooking for the crew and friends playing the leading characters.

In March, security forces raided the home and arrested Panahi, the cast and his family.

"According to the law, nobody needs permits to film in their own house," he said in an interview. "But the government does not obey its own rules." Panahi was held for nearly three months; top directors such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami called for his release. State media reported that he had been making an "illegal movie."

On Tuesday, Panahi was released on $200,000 bail, pending the start of his trial.

"They arrest individuals to set an example to others," Panahi said Wednesday as his apartment slowly filled with guests, including actors and writers who gave him a hero's welcome. "My interrogators accused me of working for foreign intelligence agencies and said I was trying to make a movie highlighting problems in Iran. But I believe the rights and demands of millions who demonstrated have been ignored. I want to give them a voice."

He isn't the only one. The latest song by popular underground rapper Hich Kas, "Nobody," has become an instant hit, often blasting from cars on Tehran's busy streets. Hich Kas sings:

Good days will come when we do not kill each other

Do not look badly upon each other

A day we are friends and hug each other like in our school days

The song might sound conciliatory, but it ends with sounds of strife from the protests. Hich Kas, whose real name is Soroush Lashkari, left Iran before the song was distributed through the Internet and street peddlers. He is now touring in Dubai and Malaysia, where many Iranians live.

Within Iran, the opposition movement has lost steam in recent months as the government has used increasingly forceful methods, including executions, to discourage protesters from taking to the streets. Government supporters now confidently proclaim that the opposition movement is dead. But there are still signs of discontent from those who believe Ahmadinejad's supporters rigged an election that should have been won by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

On Tuesday evening, 3,500 fans cheered, clapped and gave victory signs -- a popular opposition symbol -- when pop singer Alireza Assar sang a famous tune about corruption and dishonesty.

"People shouted 'Mousavi,' and almost everybody gave the 'V' sign," a witness said. "There would be immense cheering when the lyrics discussed corruption. Everybody interpreted the song as being against the government."

In a recent interview with Australian television, Iran's top performer of traditional songs, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, criticized Ahmadinejad for referring to the anti-government demonstrators as "dust and weeds."

"I announce that I am the voice of these dust and weeds," Shajarian said. "This voice always was and is for dust and weeds, and I do not let your radio and TV broadcast my voice."

His comments were widely repeated by foreign-based Farsi-language stations. Shajarian has said he will return to Iran within days.

Music, books, poetry and films filled with metaphors and irony played a significant role in the collapse of the Western-backed shah's government during the 1979 revolution. Books by the author Sadegh Hedayat were banned then because of their political content; during the annual Tehran book fair this month, his books and those of six other popular writers and poets -- some of whom died long ago -- were declared illegal by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

Government officials say censorship efforts will continue. "I promise that within a couple of years, our cinema will be mostly making appropriate films. We will try to enforce restrictions so that we can get rid of problematic films in the future," said Mohammad Javad Shamaghdari, the deputy minister, according to the semiofficial Web site Khabaronline.ir.

But filmmakers such as Panahi say they don't intend to bend to the government's will. "In the end, they want artists like me to leave, but I will never go," Panahi said. "This is my land. I will remain here and make independent movies and support what is just."

Apr 8, 2010

Turkey hopes to grow economic ties and influence within Middle East

Image by blhphotography via Flickr

By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 8, 2010; A11

GAZIANTEP, TURKEY -- Since Turkey and Syria eliminated border restrictions several months ago, the crowds of Syrians at the glittering Sanko Park Mall in this southeastern Turkish city have grown tenfold. Exports from Gaziantep to Syria are booming, and rich Turkish businessmen are stepping up their investments across the border.

"There's no difference between Turks and Syrians," said Olfat Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Syrian construction engineer with bags of goods in hand. She said she has stepped up her visits across the border since the lifting of visa requirements. "Syria is Turkey.''

The thriving trade is a sign of Turkey's rising influence with Syria, part of its effort to reach out to neighboring countries to build economic ties it hopes will also stabilize political relationships and expand its influence in the region. Those efforts, which include business ventures with Iran, illustrate to some extent how futile U.S. efforts to isolate those countries with sanctions have become. They've also raised concerns in Washington and in Israel about whether this key Muslim member of NATO is undergoing a fundamental realignment.

Turkey's efforts, however, seem as much about economic expansion as they do about foreign policy, with an aggressive strategy of seeking new markets for Turkish businessmen, many of them backers of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party.

Image by huntz via Flickr

"We want to have an economic interdependency between Turkey and neighbors and between different countries in these regions. If you have an economic interdependency, this is the best way to prevent any crisis," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The push has included an effort to broker a resumption of Syrian-Israeli peace talks, easing tensions between Syria and Saudi Arabia -- the main power brokers in Lebanon -- to help avert a political crisis there, and trying to mediate an end to the West's dispute with Iran over its nuclear program.

With wealth garnered in emerging markets and growing self-confidence as a new member of the G-20, Turkey is reaching out as much to former European enemies, such as Greece, as to its Muslim neighbors. In the past year and a half, Davutoglu and his predecessor made roughly twice as many trips to Europe as they did to the Middle East. A Turk serves as president of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly as well as the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

To some analysts, Erdogan doesn't seem as much of an ideologue as a pragmatic capitalist trying to make money and create markets. When he visited Tehran in October, he described the Iranian nuclear program as "peaceful,'' causing U.S. officials to bristle. Less noticed was Erdogan's push for a free-trade agreement.

Accompanying the Turkish leader on the trip was Rizanur Meral, chief executive of Sanko Holding's Automotive Group and president of TUSKON, a Turkish business association representing 50,000 small and medium-size Turkish companies.

Business leaders are playing an important role in Turkey's foreign policy, serving as unofficial ambassadors and advisers. Syrian businessmen in Gaziantep pushed for the relaxation of the visa requirements. When President Abdullah Gul visited Cameroon last month to sign a free-trade accord and open a new embassy, he was accompanied by three cabinet ministers, four members of parliament -- and 147 businessmen. Erdogan took similar-size delegations to India, Iran and Libya.

"The business consideration is very important for this government," said Ismail Hakki Kisacik, general coordinator of Turkey's Taha Group, which controls the country's largest clothing chain and joined government officials on the recent Africa trip. "If you're developing your business with countries, it means your relations improve.''

The United States may be an exception.

Washington's relations with Turkey took on a sour tone in February when the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution calling Turkey's killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 "genocide." Turkey recalled its ambassador, Namik Tan. The Obama administration has insisted that it does not support the panel's move.

Over the past year, U.S. officials have shown muted tolerance toward Turkey's outreach to Syria and outright disapproval of Turkey's rhetoric on Iran. The United States has openly chastised Turkey -- which is heavily dependent on Iranian-supplied energy sources -- for undercutting the U.S. push to isolate Iran internationally over its nuclear program.

"It seems, to me at least, that Turkey is contemplating a fundamental realignment,'' said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. foreign policy initiatives.

Phil Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, said recently that the United States doesn't necessarily believe that Turkey is turning away from its Western allies. He said Turkey's move to improve relations with its neighbors was understandable, but warned that that effort "should not be pursued uncritically or at any price," especially at the expense of its relationship with Israel.

Relations between Israel and Turkey were good until Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008. Erdogan's popularity soared after he lectured Israeli President Shimon Peres about the attacks in January last year.

His criticism, which has continued, contributes "negatively to the way Israel is perceived in Turkey," said an Israeli diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of relations between the two nations. "It's not clear which direction Erdogan is taking Turkey."

But to Turkish officials, the direction is obvious. As their nation has grown economically, it is only natural for Turkey seek a bigger role in global affairs.

Turkey, meanwhile, is also looking to export some of its cultural influence. In recent years, the country has had about 30 television shows broadcast across the Arab world.

Kivanc Tatlitug, a popular soap opera star, has been so effective at promoting Turkey's interests and tourism in the region that during Foreign Minister Davutoglu's recent visit to Bulgaria, "there was a question whether Turkey, as a government, is promoting these series as propaganda,"' Davutoglu said.

It is, he said, one thing the government is not doing.

Apr 1, 2010

Banking on Chalabi

Image by HYAKUNEKO via Flickr

Banking on Chalabi

Mar 31, 2010

BBC News - Iran nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri 'defects to US'

Image by Doug20022 via Flickr

BBC News - Iran nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri 'defects to US'

Mar 16, 2010

Followers of Sadr Emerge Stronger After Iraq Elections

Image via Wikipedia

By ANTHONY SHADID

BAGHDAD — The followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who led the Shia insurgency against the American occupation, have emerged as Iraq’s equivalent of Lazarus in elections last week, defying ritual predictions of their demise and now threatening to realign the nation’s constellation of power.

Their apparent success in the March 7 vote for parliament — perhaps second only to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as the largest Shiite bloc — underscores a striking trend in Iraqi politics: a collapse in support for many former exiles who collaborated with the United States after the 2003 invasion. Although rivals disparaged the Sadrists’ electoral campaign, documents and interviews show an unprecedented discipline that has thrust the group to the brink of perhaps its greatest political influence in Iraq.

The performance completes a striking arc of a populist movement that inherited the mantle of a slain ayatollah, then forged a martial culture in its fight with the American military in 2004.

After years of defeats, fragmentation and doubt even by its own clerics, with Mr. Sadr himself an expatriate in Iran, the movement has embraced the political process, while remaining steadfast in opposition to any ties with the United States. It was never going to be easy to form a new post-election government — and the Sadrists’ unpredictability, along with a new confidence, may now make it that much harder.

“As our representation in Parliament increases, so will our power,” said Asma al-Musawi, a Sadrist lawmaker. “We will soon the play the role that we have been given.”

A worshiper at Friday prayers put it more bluntly.

“Today is our day!” he shouted to hundreds gathered outside the movement’s office in a ramshackle neighborhood that bears its name where electricity wires are tangled like cobwebs and discontent surges forth from a furnace of poverty, anger and frustration.

The results of the election are not yet conclusive, and under a complicated formula to allot seats, the percentage of the vote will not necessarily reflect actual numbers in the 325-member Parliament.

But opponents and allies alike believe the Sadrists may win more than 40 seats. In all likelihood, that would make them the clear majority in the Iraqi National Alliance, a predominantly Shiite coalition and leading rival of Mr. Maliki. If the numbers bear out, the Sadrists could wield a bloc roughly the same size as the Kurds, who have served as kingmakers in governing coalitions since 2005.

In Baghdad alone, whose vote is decisive in the election, Sadrist candidates, many of them political unknowns, were 6 of the top 12 vote-getters.

“They cannot be dismissed,” a Western official said on condition of anonymity under usual diplomatic protocol.

Disregarding the Sadrists has proven a motif of post-invasion Iraq. In the chaotic months of 2003, American officials habitually ridiculed Mr. Sadr as an upstart and outlaw, oblivious as they were to the mandate he had assumed from his father, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, whose portrait still graces the offices, home and workshops of followers.

That enmity erupted in fighting twice in Baghdad and Najaf in 2004. Four years later, the movement, blamed for some of the war’s worst sectarian carnage, was vanquished by the Iraqi military, with decisive American help, only to rise again in provincial elections last year. Many politicians now see it as part of the political mainstream, albeit with a canny sense of the street and a knack for fashioning itself in the opposition.

Through those years, Mr. Sadr himself has undergone an evolution. In the earliest days of the occupation, he possessed no particular aplomb. His black turban rode a little high on his forehead, somewhat uncomfortably, and he hunched his shoulders over a frame that was squat and pudgy.

In a news conference this month from Iran, where followers say he is studying to become an ayatollah, he struck a much more forceful tone. Confident, now 36, with gray sprinkled in his beard, he spoke deliberately in graceful if simple Arabic, with a casual disregard of journalists’ questions that the imperious can possess.

The movement is renowned for cryptic statements about its intentions, yet it participated in governments in the past while rejecting the political process. This time, in his clearest words yet, insisted that his followers vote.

“This will be a door to the liberation of Iraq, to driving out the occupier and to something else which is important, serving the Iraqi people,” he said.

The success of the Sadrists has added confusion to an already anxious landscape, roiled with speculation over what coalition will form the next government. Mr. Maliki may be the big loser. Though they once backed him, the Sadrists now exude a visceral dislike for Mr. Maliki, whom they blame for the campaign against them in 2008.

“Alarming,” Sami al-Askari, a lawmaker and ally of Mr. Maliki, called them.

“Ignoring them is a problem,” he said. “Taking them with you in the government is another problem. They’re unpredictable, and no one can guess their next move.”They seem certain, too, to eclipse veteran Shiite leaders who returned from exile in 2003 and with whom the Sadrists are nominally allied. In January, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by another storied clerical family, outpolled the Sadrists. This time, they are believed to have performed so poorly that they may find themselves forced to split the alliance and join Mr. Maliki to preserve their relevance. At the very least, the Sadrists have made clear they believe the alliance’s leadership should be theirs.

“The results are going to require some parties to reconsider the size they deserve,” Asad al-Nasseri, a Sadrist leader, told worshipers Friday, in their stronghold of Kufa.

Since 2003, the Sadrists have refused any contact with the American military or diplomats.

“It would be helpful if they would change their policy,” one American official lamented on Tuesday.

But America’s loss will not necessarily be Iran’s gain. In a vivid illustration of Iranian power here, it cajoled the Sadrists to join the Supreme Council in their electoral coalition, even though the two fought in the streets a few years before. The two still air their feuds in public. But many politicians believe the Sadrists, long seen as more nationalist than other religious Shiite parties, will prove less pliable for Iran.

Mr. Sadr “is not the easiest of customers for Iran to deal with,” the diplomat said.

Perhaps most striking was the prowess the movement demonstrated in mobilizing its followers, the lumpen Shiites, whose poor neighborhoods still go days without running water. In Friday prayers and through leaflets, organizers warned followers against casting ballots for secular candidates. It insisted they not disperse their votes among several lists.

“Don’t forget to vote for one candidate only!” one leaflet declared.

One detailed diagram, drawn up by the Sadrist strategists, broke down a vast slum by precinct. For one candidate, Hakim al-Zamili, a former deputy minister of health widely accused of running death squads during the civil war, voters were organized in 22 locales. So far, he is the sixth biggest vote-getter in Baghdad and seems sure to receive a seat.

“Congratulations!” worshipers said as they greeted him at Friday prayers in Sadr City. “Good luck!” others shouted, surging forward to kiss Mr. Zamili on the cheek.

To each and everyone, he reciprocated with a smile, kiss or handshake.

“We are the masses,” he said afterward. “The rest of the parties rely on individual leaders. We’re the strength and the numbers, and we’ve risen through the election.”

Mar 11, 2010

Arab neighbors cast a wary eye on Iraq election results

With the first Iraq election results coming in, Middle East countries are watching close and gauging what the vote means for their influence on the oil-rich state.

Iraq election: Electoral workers sort through ballots cast in the national election in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday. Iraqi and UN officials say the first results from this week's parliamentary elections are likely to be released on Thursday.
(Karim Kadim/AP)

By Kristen Chick Correspondent, and Tom A. Peter Correspondent
posted March 11, 2010 at 4:08 pm EST

Cairo and Amman, Jordan —

As the first Iraq election results started to trickle in Thursday, many countries in the Middle East were watching closely for clues to how the outcome will shape regional dynamics.

A victory by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition, which initial results show leading a tight race, would likely ensure the continued presence and influence of Iran in Iraqi politics.

But majority Sunni nations are watching for a surge from Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition. Mr. Allawi, a secular Shiite and former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, is seen as an Arab nationalist whose policies would tilt toward his Arab neighbors, rather than to Iran.

Under Mr. Hussein, Iraq was a bulwark for Arab states against the regional ambitions and influence of Iran, a Shiite regime long feared and often hated by its Sunni neighbors. Arab leaders are concerned that oil-rich Iraq could become part of an expanding sphere of Iranian influence.

"The issue here will be the reaction of Iran and the Sunni countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia," said Emad Gad, a political analyst at Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a government-financed think tank. "Iran is dealing with Iraq today as a region of Iranian influence, so Iran will refuse any Iraqi government that doesn’t deal with Iran as a big brother." Saudi Arabia would likely try to isolate a new Maliki government to counter Iranian influence, says Dr. Gad.

A new phase

Many in the region are watching the election with trepidation, and wondering what kind of regime will be left behind when US forces withdraw.

"We might be moving into a new phase where as the US takes a bow the other regional players step up their own presence, but it’s difficult to tell for now," says Peter Harling, the International Crisis Group’s project director for Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. "That’s one of the question marks for the period to come, how the US withdrawal and the vacuum that it entails will play out regionally."

In largely Sunni Arab Jordan, home to the second-largest population of Iraqi refugees after Syria, grocer Majdi Hijazin says he worries about what will happen if Shiites or Kurds gain more power. Mr. Hijazin says that he, like most Jordanians, hopes the Sunnis will be the big winners in the election. If not, he fears Iran may further influence Iraq, which could negatively affect Jordan in terms of both security and business opportunities.

"Of course it will have an effect on us Jordanians, but it’s very hard to know how exactly this election will affect us," he says. "Jordanians don’t know what the Shiites will do if they come into power."

Western enthusiasm 'premature'

Others across the region were more disinterested than worried, viewing US praise of the election as somewhat naïve and saying one election will not cause a huge political shift, or even much of a difference at all.

"Right now, the Egyptians are not interested in Iraq," said Ahmed Khalifa, a newspaper seller in Cairo. "The important things are Palestine, Gaza. Iraq doesn't affect us."

Samir Al Taqi, director of the Orient Center for International Studies in Damascus, called Western enthusiasm over the elections "premature." Before observers come to any conclusions about the election, he says they must first see if the new government is representative of Iraq’s different ethnic groups. If not, violence and instability are likely to continue.

"The Iraqi elections were a decisive step in Iraq’s path towards nation building. But we can’t yet judge whether they were a success and will move Iraq forward," he says.

And even if the election is proved a relative success, it will not mean an end to the country’s problems, says Ahmad Said Nufal, a political science professor at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan. He predicts that his country and others such as Syria and Turkey will likely be hosting Iraqi refugees for years to come.

"I don’t think the election in Iraq will change anything. The problems between the parties will continue and at the same time terrorist attacks in Iraq will continue,” says Mr. Nufal. “We need two or three years to be sure before we say that [displaced] people can return back to Iraq."

Jordanians, Syrians want stability

Some Jordanians are hoping Iraq is stabilizing, providing business opportunities in the sprawling nation next door.

"If after the elections everything goes smoothly, it will affect us positively. People will start to do more business with Iraq and it will be more open between the two countries," says Georgette Fattaleh, a pharmacist in Amman. "But no one in Jordan thinks the elections will change Iraq. Now at the White House they are very happy about these elections, but it will not help."

In Syria, some hope a positive outcome to the elections will bring more stability to the region.

Amer Kasser, a telecommunications professional in Damascus, said it was positive to see a democracy emerging in the region and he hoped the government that emerges from the election would be strong enough to bring stability to Iraq.

Haifa Mohammad Said, a translator and editor at the Syrian Arab News Agency, also said she hoped the elections would be a positive step for the region, and allow Syria and Iraq to resolve border and refugee issues.

"The elections will hopefully help to do that," she says. "Whether this will happen or not depends on the results and whether there have been clean elections. Even so, Iraq still has a long way to go to get back on its feet."

Sarah Birke contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

Mar 8, 2010

In a Reversal, Sunnis Vote, to Retain a Voice in Iraq

Image by Kurdistan KURD كوردستان كردستان ا via Flickr

By ANTHONY SHADID

FALLUJA, Iraq — In this town, nicknamed the City of Mosques, the scratchy loudspeakers of muezzins that once preached resistance to the American occupation implored Sunni Arabs to defy bombs and vote Sunday. They did, in a landmark election that demonstrated how far Iraq has come and perhaps how far it has to go.

The droves of Sunni Arab residents casting ballots in towns like Falluja — the name itself synonymous with the cradle of the insurgency, where relatively few voted in the last election five years ago — promised to redraw Iraq’s political landscape. The turnout delivered Sunnis their most articulated voice yet on the national stage, seven years after the American-led invasion ended their dominance.

Yet the act of their empowerment Sunday may make that landscape even more combustible, possibly even risking a revival of sectarian conflict. The demands of Sunni voters, from securing the presidency for a Sunni to diluting Iran’s influence, could make the already formidable task in Iraq of forming a coalition government even more difficult.

At polling stations near cratered buildings, past blast walls that still bore the pockmarks of bullets, the sentiments of voters who largely boycotted Iraq’s national elections in 2005 illustrated that divide.

Even as many cast ballots for the slate of Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former prime minister, they condemned religious Shiite parties. With the invective once reserved for Americans, voters now attacked Iran, seen here as the patron of Iraq’s Shiite-led government.

“There’s no more war, it’s true, but we’re still not free,” Riyadh Khalaf, 47, a laborer, said as he stood near a polling station in the neighborhood of Andalus, where distant bombings reverberated through the morning. “We have an American occupation and an Iranian administration.”

A civil defense worker, Raad Mustafa, shouted, “We have to save our country.”

Ammar Ali, a police officer, interrupted them.

“We want someone who lives with us, someone who is from Iraq,” he said, carrying his rifle. “We don’t want the politicians who spend the night in Iran.”

In a day of remarkable images, none may have been more startling than those in Anbar Province, where just 3,375 people voted in January 2005, out of fear of insurgent threats or in protest of the occupation. People often cast the boycott then as a matter of survival, refusal to participate in an order that disenfranchised them. Similar words in another context were heard Sunday; failure to vote would amount to surrender.

“I voted for the sake of the generations to come,” said Yunus Adel, 22, a student. “My vote is going to determine my destiny. We have to have a voice.”

In another neighborhood, Mohammed Hatem walked past Martyrs School where, on April 28, 2003, American soldiers, saying they had been shot at, fired on a protest and killed 15 people, a seminal moment in unleashing an insurgency that would not end for five years. The school, on this day, was a polling station.

“The memories remain,” Mr. Hatem said. “But if you have the right, you have to exercise it.”

Voters in the Jolan neighborhood, the scene of some of the most intense fighting in 2004, barely flinched at blasts, which killed no one. Mosques that once served as refuge for insurgents blared messages imploring voters to defy the bombings.

Politics in Anbar are not for the faint-hearted. They tend toward the nasty, brutish and loud, where even nuances are conveyed as shouts. The governor lost his hand in an attack in December. A candidate near Falluja talked of the 11 attempts on his life as he might about car wrecks. Unfortunate, but they happen.

Nevertheless, in Anbar, as in predominantly Sunni regions elsewhere, politics have become far more diverse since the days when the Iraqi Islamic Party, a descendant of the venerable Muslim Brotherhood, dominated the regions. Since 2009, the province’s other currents — neo-Baathist and tribal — have rallied around lists loyal to Mr. Allawi and Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, another secular Shiite.

“Everyone in Anbar — no, in Iraq — knows that the Islamic Party is lying,” said Sheik Aiffan Saadoun al-Aiffan, a tribal leader and candidate on Mr. Bolani’s list. “They deal with Iran, they steal money and they’ve lost the support of the people.”

Mr. Aiffan is part of a new breed of politician here, as traditional as he is worldly, with a kinetic energy that helped him, on a recent day, hit the campaign trail in the afternoon, greet a procession of relatives wearing what amounts to Anbar chic — headdress, sunglasses and bandolier — at night, then run an hour on the treadmill until 3:40 a.m.

He speaks with the entitlement of inherited power. “I’ll win, sure,” he said, with a touch of humor. “People like me, and God is with me.” And in a province where conversation, hours and hours of it, is the favorite pastime, he understands a constituency that deems politics’ ambiguous grays as effeminate.

Mr. Aiffan called the surrender “of even an inch of territory” in the border disputes with Kurds a sacrilege. (“This is our faith,” he said.) He threatened to fight the Islamic Party with guns if there was a hint of vote stealing. (“It could happen.”) And he insisted that the presidency was the right of a Sunni Arab, not a Kurd — someone like his ally, Ahmed Abu Risha, another tribal leader here who leads Mr. Bolani’s list.

“This time, the decisions will be different,” he said. “We can vote for what’s right, who’s good. We’ll make the right choices.” He looked at his computer, next to three cellphones, one of which got 150 text messages in an hour.

“The problem is,” he asked, “who will be with us in Baghdad?”

Even before the voting ended, politicians and voters speculated about the fragility of coalitions, in particular Mr. Allawi’s, which seemed to enjoy a groundswell of support as the one force that could counter Iraq’s religious Shiite parties. Some speculated that Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi’s candidates might leave it and return to the Iraqi Islamic Party, from which they split.

Others wondered whether Mr. Allawi, with his reputation for high-handedness, could keep the loyalty of emerging Sunni figures like Saleh al-Mutlaq, a member of Parliament banned from the election for ties to the Baath Party, and Rafea al-Issawi, a deputy prime minister who hails from one of Anbar’s biggest tribes.

“We won’t have a war, but it will be a conflict,” predicted Mohammed Zaal, an engineer in Falluja. “It will be a political conflict of Sunni against Sunni and Shiite against Shiite. Once they lose power, they’ll look for other ways to keep their influence.”

“I’m still optimistic,” he added, “but even in the civil war, I was optimistic.”

Jan 19, 2010

Sunni Iraqis fear disenfranchisement after hundreds of candidates banned

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By Leila Fadel and Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A07

BAGHDAD -- By barring hundreds of candidates from an upcoming parliamentary election, a controversial commission whose members have close ties to Iran is threatening to disenfranchise members of Iraq's Sunni minority and weaken its fledgling democracy.

The commission, led by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician who supplied faulty intelligence to the United States in the run-up to the war, and Ali Faisal al-Lami, a former U.S. detainee, was established to help cleanse the Iraqi government of officials who adhered to the ideals of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

But the panel sent shockwaves through Iraq's political establishment when it recently announced the disbarment of 511 candidates for their alleged allegiance to the party. The move has led to recriminations that Iran, through proxies, is trying to rig the vote to ensure that Iraq is solidly in the hands of politicians loyal to Tehran.

U.S. officials, who were caught off guard by the decision, now fear that it could reignite sectarian violence and dash their hopes of political reconciliation in Iraq -- the end goal of the U.S. military strategy known as the "surge."

"If there is no balance, there will be violence," said Mustafa Kamal Shibeeb, a Sunni who was among those banned.

Outside a cemetery in the Sunni Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, Ibrahim Hamid, 22, glanced over a railing at about 6,500 graves of Sunnis buried during Iraq's sectarian war.

"This is Iraq," he said. "Always the men with dignity are banned. I'm sure there is going to be a lot of violence."

Many Sunnis boycotted a national election in 2005 to protest the U.S. occupation. Their disenfranchisement contributed to the rise of an insurgency and a civil war fought along sectarian lines. This time, there is little talk of boycotting, but there is widespread fear that Sunnis will once again believe they got a raw deal.

On Friday, at a Sunni mosque in Adhamiyah, the Iraqi army stopped a demonstration over the disbarments, residents said. Sunnis in Baghdad complain that in recent months the Iraqi army has sharply restricted movement in their districts, stifling commerce and imposing de facto martial law.

"People will keep their mouths shut," said Zaki Alaa Zaki, 38, a member of the local Sunni paramilitary force established by the U.S. military and now controlled by the Iraqi government. "We are the living dead now."

The committee that announced the disbarments is known as the Supreme National Commission for Accountability and Justice. Its chairman, Chalabi, is an erstwhile Pentagon and CIA ally who played a crucial role in the run-up to the invasion. He's fallen out of favor, and most U.S. officials now call him an Iranian agent. Chalabi's deputy on the commission, Lami, spent nearly a year in U.S. custody after being implicated in the bombing of a Sadr City government building that killed two American soldiers and two U.S. Embassy employees. He has denied involvement in the attack and claims that U.S. interrogators tortured him.

An aide to Chalabi said he was unavailable for comment. In an interview, however, Lami said he wasn't to blame that candidates failed to qualify for elections. He also disputed allegations, from U.S. officials and others, that he and Chalabi were acting at the behest of Tehran or in the interest of their own coalition vying for seats in the next parliament.

The list of barred candidates, which was endorsed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, provides vague justification for the banishments. It includes Sunni and Shiite politicians, but it seems to disproportionately target prominent Sunnis and secular leaders. There were 6,592 candidates who were screened for Baathist ties.

Being labeled a Baathist in today's Iraq, which is led by exiles driven out by Hussein, is tantamount to being called a communist during the McCarthy era. The disbarment would be likely to benefit Maliki's coalition and the predominantly Shiite bloc that includes Chalabi and Lami.

Barred candidates have three days to appeal to a newly empaneled body of three judges. Sunni politicians and U.S. officials worry that the appeals process could inflame tensions and potentially derail the election, scheduled for March 7.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill said he worries that the process could overwhelm the democratic system.

"It's a tough issue. It involves deep emotions," Hill said in an interview. "Frankly, the weight of these emotions sometimes exceeds the capacity of the institutional framework to handle them."

Vice President Biden called the Iraqi speaker of parliament Sunday to push back the disbarment of politicians until after the vote, according to the speaker's spokesman. But the call and other, similar efforts by the U.N. envoy to Iraq and Western diplomats appear to have gone unheeded.

Some Sunni leaders and analysts said more aggressive American intervention is the only way to avert a bigger crisis.

"We need to hear from you Americans. Please don't just watch this from the outside," said Mithal al-Alusi, a former member of the now-disbanded commission on de-Baathification. "The White House needs to move and move quickly."

Special correspondent Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.

Jan 11, 2010

Hariri's struggles in Lebanon show limits of U.S. influence

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By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 11, 2010; A08

BEIRUT -- The victory by a pro-U.S. faction in last June's parliamentary election has given way to a situation in which Hezbollah will keep its large arms stockpile and a veto over major government decisions, while efforts are underway to repair relations with neighboring Syria.

The compromises made by new Prime Minister Saad Hariri as he assembled a governing coalition are seen by supporters as unavoidable in a country in which complex internal politics and the influence of outside powers can make governing difficult. But they also show the practical limits of the Obama administration's overture to the Islamic world.

The June election victory by Hariri's coalition came just after Obama delivered a major speech from Cairo and just before violent street demonstrations rattled the government in Iran, considered an important influence in Lebanon because of its support for Hezbollah. Some Obama advisers went so far as to attribute Hariri's success to the mood of reform the president had brought to the region.

But victory at the polls did not translate so smoothly on the ground. Hariri spent six months trying to form a government, and could do so only after accepting key Hezbollah demands and giving up on a main aim of his coalition: to curb the Islamist group's influence.

He also agreed to visit Damascus and meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, a difficult symbolic step because of Syria's suspected involvement in the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. A United Nations tribunal is still investigating the killing. It is one of a number of political assassinations that led to a U.N. resolution and other outside pressure, prompting Syria to end its longstanding military presence in Lebanon.

"We won the election, but it looks like we lost," said Marwan Hamadeh, a member of parliament and supporter of the "Cedar Revolution," which has aimed to curb the influence of both Syria and Iran in the country at a time when other power brokers, especially the United States, want to talk with both nations. "There has been a lot of realism and a lot of frustration. The Cedar Revolution forces were convinced: Why look for a fight when everyone is trying to negotiate with Iran and Syria?"

The shape of Hariri's coalition is not seen by U.S. officials as a major setback; they view it instead as far preferable to a coalition dominated by Hezbollah and its allies. Hezbollah maintains a militia that it justifies as necessary for potential conflict with Israel, despite a U.N. resolution ordering the group to disarm. The United States regards Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The group's opponents in Lebanon argue that its arms stockpile puts the country at risk of another war, such as the one in 2006 in which Israel maintained that all of Lebanon would be held accountable for Hezbollah's actions.

U.S. military and economic aid to Lebanon is continuing, largely to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces and other state institutions and undermine Hezbollah's argument that the country can't defend itself. The United States has contributed about $400 million to Lebanon's military since 2006, a level expected to continue in the form of supplies that range from armored personnel carriers to new boots.

"It's glass half empty, glass half full," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said as he toured the country last week. "Does Hariri's visit to Damascus mean you have to beg for Damascus's dispensation, or does it mean that Bashar wants a new relationship? It remains to be seen."

It is a question central to the discussion here and connected to U.S. efforts to turn Syria away from Iran, derail Iran's nuclear program, and limit Iran's influence through proxies like Hezbollah here and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hariri's visit to Damascus, according to his supporters and others, was brokered by Saudi Arabia, which has been taking its own steps to repair relations with Assad. What's less clear -- and under debate here -- is whether the Saudis were hoping to weaken Syria's long-standing alliance with Iran by making amends or were hedging against the possibility that Obama will fail in his efforts to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons technology.

The White House has its own policy of engagement with Syria, though progress has been fitful. The expected return of a U.S. ambassador to Damascus has not occurred, and there is still U.S. dissatisfaction with Syrian efforts to control its border and halt the flow of insurgents into Iraq.

Hariri's meeting with Assad did produce some concessions, including an expectation that the countries will work more closely on defining borders and other issues that are considered a source of instability inside Lebanon and between Lebanon and Israel. Diplomats and analysts also regarded Assad's willingness over the past year to exchange ambassadors with Lebanon as an important acknowledgment of Lebanon's sovereignty.

But there is still worry here that the momentum of the Cedar Revolution has been lost, and skepticism that U.S. efforts to engage Syria and Iran will change the behavior of either. The shape of the new government has only added to those concerns.

"Everybody is waiting to see if the Syrians will deliver, and if the Iranians win or lose their battle" both internally and with the United States, said Ghattas Khoury, a former member of parliament who is close to Hariri. "I think everyone reached the conclusion that these were not things you can do much about."

Jan 10, 2010

Elite Revolutionary Guard's expanding role in Iran may limit U.S. options

Image by Hamed Saber via Flickr

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 10, 2010; A10

TEHRAN -- A major expansion in the role played by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is giving the elite force new economic and political clout, but it could also complicate efforts by the United States and its allies to put pressure on the Iranian regime, according to U.S. officials and outside analysts.

Commanders of the Revolutionary Guard say its growth represents a logical expansion for an organization that is not a military force but a popular movement that protects the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard's expanded economic role is mirrored by a greater role in politics and security since the disputed presidential election in June, which the government says was won by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a landslide but which the opposition says was stolen.

U.S. officials consider the Guard a ripe target for sanctions over Iran's controversial nuclear program because of the group's central role in repressing post-election opposition protests. The officials are also concerned that broader-based sanctions risk alienating the Iranian public at a time when the government here faces protests from an energized opposition. But they also know that because of the Guard's growing economic influence, sanctions on it could pinch the broader Iranian public as well.

Supporters and opponents alike say the Guard has dramatically expanded its reach into Iran's economy, with vast investments in thousands of companies across a range of sectors. Working through its private-sector arm, the group operates Tehran's international airport, builds the nation's highways and constructs communications systems. It also manages Iran's weapons manufacturing business, including its controversial missile program.

The Guard has received at least $6 billion worth of government contracts in two years, according to state-run media. But the amount could be much higher in reality because many deals are not made public. Known large projects include the construction of a subway system in the eastern city of Mashhad and infrastructure ventures in the oil and gas industry. In September, Etemad-e Mobin, an investment company that Iranian media have widely linked to the Guard, bought a 51 percent share of the national telecommunications business minutes after it was privatized. Its main competitor was disqualified at the last moment because of "security problems."

Current U.N. and U.S. sanctions already target the Guard, as well as some related companies, for involvement in Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The U.S. Treasury Department has assembled lists of dozens of companies that it suspects are Guard front operations or affiliates. U.S. officials say they hope to broaden the existing sanctions to include this substantial list of additional Guard companies, either with U.N. Security Council authority or through a coalition that would include major industrialized powers and key Persian Gulf countries.

Guardians of the system

Constitutionally established as a defender of the Islamic revolution, the Guard was created to work separately from the regular army, which was distrusted by the country's new leaders when they took over in 1979. The religious leadership has used the Guard to take on competing political and ethnic groups. It was also at the forefront of fighting during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Saying the Islamic revolution had entered a "new phase," the Guard led a deadly crackdown on street protests after the election last year and accused opposition politicians, dissidents and journalists of an elaborate plot to bring down Iran's leaders. The Guard has since grown into one of the most visible power players in the country and is the strongest opponent of the grass-roots movement that has staged protests in several cities.

"They [the Guard] have become the main, most faithful caste, to protect the system of Islamic government," said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a former journalist, who now works as an analyst at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran. "In exchange, wealth, power and respect are being transferred to them at an increasing rate." He was among many arrested last month after a day of major demonstrations. The reason for the arrest was not clear.

Ties between the Guard and the Ahmadinejad government are close.

Key cabinet ministries, such as oil, energy, interior and defense, are led by former Guard commanders. A former energy minister, Parviz Fattah, was appointed deputy commander of the Guard's massive Khatam ol-Anbia construction division, which is at the heart of the organization's business activities. It has 29 branches, called 'Ghorbs,' which build airplanes, dams, and oil and gas installations. Most of the Guard's contracts are with the government.

Opposition leaders say the Guard's business interests are corrupting the organization. "If the Guard has to calculate on its abacus every day to see how much the prices of their shares have gone up or down, it cannot defend the country and national interests," opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said last week in a statement posted on a Web site linked to him.

"After the war, the Guard did not become a useless military machine, which would be of no use during peacetime," said the Guard's top commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, in a September interview with the Jam-e Jam newspaper. "Today we are active in the fields that the revolution requires."

The Guard's construction garrison acts as a commercial company, but it is unclear what happens with its revenue. Commanders say the Guard income is transferred to the national treasury, but there are no public records that provide any amounts. Most of the group's contracts are carried out by its business divisions, which directly compete with private-sector firms.

The rise of the Guard

Iranian officials say they are undaunted by the threats of new sanctions. They point to four previous rounds of U.N. sanctions that have not proved very effective.

"U.S. sanctions will have no negative effect since the Guard organization is self-sufficient. Everything they need is here in Iran," Kazem Jalali, a member of the parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, said in an interview. "The Americans know that the Guard Corps is a defender of the values of the Islamic revolution. So the Americans aim to target its core."

The Guard's expansion into Iran's economy started in the early 1990s, when then-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to jump-start private enterprise in the state-run economy by allowing state organizations to undertake commercial projects. The political rise of the Guard runs parallel with the ascendancy of the reformists in 1997. The movement called for more personal freedoms, fewer Islamic restrictions and a greater role for democracy. Political hard-liners turned to the Guard for more muscle in combating the reformists; in exchange, the Guard was given more influence in the economy and in politics.

In a November interview with the Ettemaad-e Melli newspaper, which is critical of the government, Guard commander Gen. Massoud Jazayeri said that the force could now "even compete with huge multinational and international companies" and added: "We don't want to receive an income but want to satisfy the people."

The result has been that the Guard controls a large part of Iran's economy, analysts say. "You can't see a single project above $10 million that is not executed by the Guard or one of their organizations," said Shamsolvaezin, the analyst. He warned that economic power could produce more demands for political power. "Some of our leaders now fear that [the Guard] will take everything into their hands."

Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington and special correspondent Kay Armin Serjoie in Tehran contributed to this report.

Jan 8, 2010

Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iranian Leadership Dynamics

An Exploration of Iranian Leadership Dynamics

By: David E. Thaler, Alireza Nader, Shahram Chubin, Jerrold D. Green, Charlotte Lynch, Frederic Wehrey

The Islamic Republic of Iran poses serious challenges to U.S. interests in the Middle East, and its nuclear program continues to worry the international community. The presidential election of June 2009 that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and led to broad protests and a government crackdown presents yet another cause for U.S. concern. Yet the U.S. ability to “read” the Iranian regime and formulate appropriate policies has been handicapped by both a lack of access to the country and the opacity of decisionmaking in Tehran. To help analysts better understand the Iranian political system, the authors describe

Iranian strategic culture, including the perceptions that drive state behavior
the informal networks, formal government institutions, and personalities that influence decisionmaking in the Islamic Republic
the impact of elite behavior on Iranian policy formulation and execution
factionalism, emerging fissures within the current regime, and other key trends.

The authors observe that it is the combination of key personalities, networks based on a number of commonalities, and institutions — not any one of these elements alone — that defines the complex political system of the Islamic Republic. Factional competition and informal, back-channel maneuvering trump the formal processes for policymaking. The Supreme Leader retains the most power, but he is not omnipotent in the highly dynamic landscape of Iranian power politics. The evolving role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the vulnerability of the elite “old guard” to challenge, and the succession of the next Supreme Leader are key determinants of Iran's future direction. In light of complexities in the Iranian system, U.S. policymakers should avoid trying to leverage the domestic politics of Iran and instead accept the need to deal with the government of the day as it stands. Moreover, they must take as an article of faith that dealing with Iran does not necessarily mean dealing with a unitary actor due to the competing power centers in the Islamic Republic.

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