Iraq in the Obama Adminstration

The U.S. Institute of Peace has published a concise discussion of policy concerns and options for the incoming Obama administration.  The document, which entails the input of a number of scholars, experts, and former officials, offers 15 recommendations, some of which are especially thoughtful.  The signatories include a number of the people who advised the Iraq Study Group. 

Cross-posted with From the Field.

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HEED THE POOR TO HEAL THE NATION

by PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
(published as "Heed the poor as democracy starts from the ground up" in the Bangkok Post, December 17, 2008)


Thailand has taken a small but significant step on the road to normalcy after a long period of instability and intense factional struggle.

Newly selected Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva certainly has his work cut out for him, but he brings to the job a mannered civility that has been sorely lacking in recent Bangkok dust-ups. As such, his elite overseas education is both asset and liability depending on which Western values he draws from; will it be a cool, condescending noblesse oblige or democracy in the more egalitarian sense of the word, recognizing the equal rights and equal worth of all citizens?

After seeing the country immobilized with invective, wobbling close to the brink, moderate, common sense voices are needed to restore balance and order; if they succeed, things will start looking better than they have for a long time.

Abhisit, like US president-elect Barack Obama, strikes a public pose that is rare in the rough and tumble world of politics. From the personal one might infer potential political strengths; a calm, collected and humble leader is just what a rife-torn country needs to reach out across the political divide and reduce the bitter factionalism that has almost made the country ungovernable.

Abhisit, again like Obama, is youthful, well-spoken and well-educated, but has a modest record in terms of accomplishment outside of academia and remains untried. Yet at this critical juncture in history, when the global economy teeters, when massive unemployment looms and communal tensions flare, new leaders are not granted much of a grace period; they must learn to ride in the saddle.

Both men face challenges that would be daunting to even the most seasoned politico, which might explain why both men find themselves surrounded by seasoned politicos, not all of whom are savory or deserving of emulation.

But as the example of Abraham Lincoln shows, sometimes a leader has no choice but to embrace rivals. Lincoln was one of a kind and very much a product of his era, not unlike his accomplished Thai contemporary King Mongkut. But even a century and a half later, lessons can be drawn from the life of great men whose passion for justice helped end slavery in both America and Siam.

As illustrated in Doris Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," a popular book which has had a marked influence on Obama team-building, Lincoln pulled it off because he was humble when necessary but never lost sight of his humanitarian mission and steadfast political values. The humility with which "Honest Abe" listened to his erstwhile rivals had a great healing effect and the strategy is applicable even to those born of the silver spoon.

An unexpected but so far efficacious example of embracing a rival has already been accomplished in Thailand with the unusual case of Abhisit foe-turned-ally Newin Chidchob. If the energies of rural power broker of mixed repute can be tapped for the common good, if a meaningful partnership can develop that is not about sharing the spoils but sharing the burden, then the differences, not just between urban and rural rivals but between the city and countryside can effectively be bridged.

Everyone's life story has something to teach; the challenge for the urbane Abhisit is to encourage the better impulses of homespun, self-made men such as Newin, without compromising core civic values.

Newin has already offered some sage advice. "If the Democrats can perform in a way that wins over the hearts of the people in Isan," the Buriram politico reportedly told his new allies, "the people there will soon forget Thaksin."

While observing grass-roots campaigning in rural Isan during the run-up to Thaksin's first big electoral victory, I noticed village women folk clamoring for Abhisit's poster, asking for copies at every stop. When I enquired about this they said they liked him because he was "handsome," and considered his local proxy to be a decent man, but would vote instead for Thaksin's local proxy because he was wealthier and more in a position to "influence" things.

This is not a question of voter ignorance in Isan, it's the way democracy, an imperfect but generally worthwhile system, works. Voting for someone based on looks or because of a perceived ability to deliver the goods is not the height of intellectual sophistication, but it can be found everywhere; physical charm was vital to the success of both John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, and Ronald Reagan and both Bush Sr. and Jr. all racked in votes on promises of handouts in the form of tax cuts.

Thai author Khamsing Srinawk wrote incisively about the cavalier vote-buying techniques of politicians trawling impoverished Isan nearly half a century ago, citing the gift of one rubber slipper, and the promise of a second one to be delivered upon a certain electoral result. In Thailand's chronically impoverished Northeast, the vulnerability of poor and marginalized people hasn't changed much since. People take what they can today because, in their experience, the generosity of those who seek to rule in their name is contingent and doesn't last for long.

Thai politics has never been short of strange alliances, and unexpected twists and turns are the norm, but the polarity has now reversed for the better. Still it will take much forbearance to restore confidence in the country, not just on the part of investors and tourists but among the divided populace itself.

If Abhisit wants to heal the deep-rooted political malaise facing the nation he would do well to devote himself to the needs of the most down-trodden, for true democracy starts at the ground up. Read more on this article...

Pakistanis Hold Vigil for Mumbai Victims

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: progpak@gmail.com / 917.922.9836


Pakistanis Hold Vigil for Mumbai Victims
Call Upon India and Pakistan to Work Towards Peace

When: Saturday, December 13th, 4:00 pm
Where: Union Square NORTH (16th Street) – across the street from Barnes and Noble

(New York, December 8, 2008) - Action for a Progressive Pakistan (APP) condemns the violence of Nov 26th which claimed the lives of over 180 people in Mumbai, and expresses solidarity with the people of India. The group calls upon the democratically elected governments of India and Pakistan to work together in bringing the perpetrators of this heinous act to justice.

APP will hold a vigil this Saturday, December 13th at 4pm in Union Square to express sorrow at the loss of innocent life and call for peace and stability in the region. It demands that measured and deliberate steps be taken to ensure the safety and security of all the citizens of India and Pakistan, who remain the true targets of these extreme agendas. The group also calls upon the governments of India and Pakistan to work for a peaceful resolution of the current crisis, and asks that the world community support the two countries in this endeavor.

"The people of Pakistan stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in India because we also bear deeply the scars of terrorism," said Assistant Professor of Sociology Saadia Toor who’s also a founding member of APP. In 2007 alone, 1500 people were killed in terror attacks in Pakistan. This year, forty people were killed and as many as 350 injured including school children when bombs destroyed a federal government building in the heart of Lahore on March 11th. Another fifty were killed by a terror attack on the Islamabad Marriott hotel in September. These acts of violence, whether in India or Pakistan, are a backlash to the global War on Terror by non-state forces seeking to destabilize the region and derail long-overdue peace initiatives being pursued by the two countries.

The only defense against terrorism is a prosperous democracy. Pakistan has just elected its first civilian government in over a decade after a protracted struggle against the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf. The civilian government has already taken several key steps towards de-militarizing the domestic political sphere, and has made overtures towards trying to solve the issue of Kashmir. The civilian regime has managed to impose some limitations on the military but it must do more. To ensure peace and security in the region, the world community must support Pakistan's democratic institutions. This support must include development assistance geared towards addressing the needs of Pakistan's poor. APP calls for an immediate end to US airstrikes inside Pakistan's borders, as they are contributing greatly to the destabilization of the region and causing hardships for innocent civilians.

Action for a Progressive Pakistan stands with the people of South Asia in their struggle for peace in the region.The group, comprised of concerned Pakistani professionals and academics, is committed to ensuring peace, democracy and development in South Asia.

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Student Day in Iran

Today is Student Day in Iran and I am posting below a smart piece I just received from Rasmus Chritian Elling about the student movement and dilemmas it is facing regarding the upcoming presidential elections and its role in politics in general. Rasmus writes for the collective blog of Copenhagen University Middle East and Islam Network that those interested in Iran and the Middle East in general should check regularly.

An addendum to Rasmus’ post is that Iran's minister of higher education had announced last week that Ayatollah Khamenei was going to attend a student gathering at the Science and Technology University (the university Mahmoud Ahmadinejad graduated from and occasionally taught at) for the first time on Student Day. But his plan was suddenly cancelled without any reason given. In all likelihood, concern about protests - even someone shouting something that shouldn’t be uttered or singing a song that shouldn’t be sung - was the reason for the cancellation.

The same worry is the reason for the government not to give most student organizations, with the exception of conservative ones, permission to hold rallies this year.

Former president Mohammad Khatami was also expected to come to the University of Tehran tomorrow but his plans were postponed until next week due to “certain considerations” and in order “to prevent the occurrence of probable interferences and misuse.” His worry must have been that his presence at the university on this particular day would turn into a support rally for his candidacy for president and then get out of control.

Student Day in Iran
by Rasmus Christian Elling

Today, it is Ruz-e dâneshju or ‘Student Day’ in Iran: it is time to reassess the status of and situation for the Iranian student movement.

Revolution, reformism, repression, revival
Since ‘modern’ universities were established in Iran in the 1920s and 30s, they have been key centers of political dissidence, arenas for ideological battles and homes to alternative voices. Universities played central roles in the revolutionary movement that ousted the Shah in the late 1970s and in the reformist movement that brought Khatami to power in 1997. Indeed, during the so-called ‘Tehran Spring’ of 1997-99, it seemed as if a democratic student movement was ready to burst out of university and revolutionize Iranian society.

However, the severe clampdown on students – and in particular, the violent attack on Tehran University dormitories in July 1999 that resulted in widespread riots throughout Iran – curtailed this movement. The repression eventually seemed close to completely wipe out the Iranian student movement through juridical and extra-juridical measures, violence and threats. The state apparatus placed legal obstacles on student groups and partially seized their organizations, harassed and intimidated their spokespersons, and closed down their facilities and newsletters.

However, instead of disintegrating, the key organizations of the movement – the so-called Islamic Student Societies (anjoman-hâ-ye eslâmi-ye dâneshjuyân) and their umbrella organization, The Office to Consolidate Unity (daftar-e tahkim-e vahdat, hereafter DTV) – underwent a painful divorce from the parliamentary reform movement, its institutions and its head, Khatami. DTV succeeded in distancing itself from the waning image of the reformists and has since struggled to transform itself into a platform for a wide variety of grass roots and civil society groups. The aim of DTV today is to reach out beyond the walls of universities and into Iranian society.

While the process of bridging the intellectual and theoretical discourse of a student movement with general discontent in other layers of society has been quite difficult, the greatest challenge came with the election of the neo-conservative hard-liner Ahmadinejad in 2005.

Since this election, government has sought to ‘re-Islamize’ and control universities by discharging critical professors and appointing loyal managers, by segregating facilities in certain universities, by installing CCTV surveillance and by burying ‘martyrs’ of the Iran-Iraq War right on university campuses and thus imposing the militant ideology on students. Student activists all over Iran have faced official and unofficial reprimands, abductions to secret interrogation facilities, mock trials, torture, incommunicado detention and heavy sentences that span from exclusion from university and forced transfer to other universities to fines and jail sentences. Individual students are even given ‘stars’ depending on his/her level of political activity in a ludicrous evaluation scheme aimed at intimidating and punishing student activists.

However, the difficulties facing the student movement are not just political. Students are also confronted with a wide array of problems including the fierce competition for enrollment in prestigious universities, the dwindling quality of teaching and research in Iranian universities, the severe problem of brain drain, social problems such as drug addiction and suicide as well as issues related to everyday student life such as appalling conditions in dormitories, lack of pastime facilities and, of course, the prospect of post-graduation unemployment.

Yet despite all these obstacles and challenges, there is still good reason to argue that student activism is alive and kicking in Iran today. Indeed, students have staged small but vocal demonstrations and sit-ins, and some have even attacked Ahmadinejad’s policies directly. Recently, it seems students have become particularly active. Tensions have been felt as far away as Sistan-Baluchestan on Iran’s southeastern border, where students have clashed with security forces. In the provincial capital Hamadan, students have reported a wave of intimidation and threats by local authorities that are concerned with student activities.

Student Day 2008
Thus, the Iranian student activists are to mark Student Day today – a tradition that dates back to 1953 when 3 students from Tehran University were killed by the Shah’s security forces. This year, students have not limited themselves to Student Day itself but have indeed declared December 2 to 9 a ‘Students Week’. The last month or so, Iranian media have claimed that students are secretly preparing unrest and mayhem around Students Day. A Basiji student group has claimed that ‘violence-seeking’ individuals are ‘planning riots’ on Khajeh Nasir University in Tehran. And on the conservative website Tâbnâk, journalists reported that ‘some domestic extremist groups’ have been planning to provoke unrest, including melli-mazhhabi proponents (Religious-Nationalist, i.e. the domestic opposition of moderate ‘Islamo-nationalists’), who have allegedly called for a student-led riot like that of July 1999. The journalists even claimed that students from ethnic minorities studying in Tehran are planning disturbances to further their ethno-nationalist aims and that DTV has been in contact with opposition activists in exile. DTV denied this report and criticized it together with a series of accusations and rumors published by state-run dailies and news agencies.

With the severe security measures installed by the neo-con government and its cohorts in the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militias and the police forces in mind, it is difficult to see how students could indeed create such unrest. ”Students are under attack from all sides by the government and the fundamentalist media”, Bahare Hedayat from DTV’s public relations bureau stated recently. Hedayat, who has been imprisoned for her activities several times, argued that “the stored-up concerns and discontent amongst students over the last three years” were the result of “the clampdown by authorities outside the universities” on student activists and “the erroneous [university] management of officials selected by the Ministry of Science”.

According to Hedayat, ‘unrest’ is simply a negative term hyped by media controlled by ruling forces who are afraid of student activism: “The sick minds who cannot tolerate even a student protest gathering in university, are referring to peaceful meetings and protests within the milieu of the university as ‘unrest’”, she stated. Even ISNA – the Iranian Students News Agency, which was founded to reflect the voices of students – has “been turned into a platform for anti-student organizations”, Hedayat argued.

Student activists, in particular those at Amir Kabir Technical University, have reported that pro-government groups, Basiji students and university authorities are coordinating a counter-strike in case of student unrest on or after Student Day. These reports surfaced while DTV a week ago published its call for marking Student Day. In a thinly veiled attack on Ahmadinejad’s government, DTV stated: “[O]nce again, we will rise and sound the call of protest against oppressors who are busy stripping Iran and the Iranians of their national resources, honor and integrity, and whose erroneous policies have resulted in pervasive corruption, widespread poverty, disregard for civic rights, destruction of Iranians’ prestige all over the world, international sanctions, unemployment, and thousands of other problems”. DTV has called for a demonstration in Tehran University tomorrow and Khatami has said that enshâ‘allâh, he will come to speak. Four years ago, students heckled Khatami when he came to Tehran University on Student Day. It could become an interesting moment when Khatami and the students come face to face.

The students and ‘the reformists’
With the 2009 presidential elections looming on the horizon, the so-called ‘reformists’ seems to be looking to the student movement, hoping it could again play a significant role. Indeed, the ‘reformists’ would benefit from a re-activation of the huge potential among Iran’s two million university students. Yet, significant change is needed: since Khatami’s ‘lame duck years’ as president, and in particular, his reluctant and belated response to the state clampdown on students in 1999 and subsequently, the activist milieu has been marked by a profound skepticism towards the ‘reformists’. Indeed, the spokeswoman of the DTV stated that “reformists should know that the students are watching their behaviors and will not forget”. In other words, reformists will certainly have to redefine their ambitions and strategy in order to attract the much-needed votes of Iranian students. It seems the students, despite previous boycotts, have not yet rejected the idea of participating in the elections – so it might pay off for reformists.

However, when evaluating the ‘potentials’ of the student movement, one should keep in mind that since they ‘divorced’ from the parliamentary reformist faction, DTV and its local cells have focused on social, cultural and civil society activities – indeed, DTV declared in 2005 that it would henceforth function as a ‘Civil Society Watch’. In an interview with Roozonline.com two days ago, DTV secretary, Mehdi Arabshahi, stated that the new DTV would not repeat the fault of earlier generations in this organization: that is, to act as a political party and to play the role of opposition within the boundaries of the political system. Thus, we should not expect the students to act as a sort of ‘youth division’ of any political faction, including the reformist, in the future. Indeed, stated Arabshahi, the new DTV would not repeat the old mistake of seeing elections as “a remedy for all the nation’s troubles”.

Yet, at the same time, Arabshahi would not rule out the possibility that the election of a new government could bring about better conditions for social movements. Hedayat, the spokeswoman mentioned earlier, also explained in a separate interview that the situation had changed dramatically since the DTV boycott of the presidential elections in 2005: now, said Hedayat, a fresh analysis was needed. In other words, DTV might not boycott elections. Whatever the DTV chooses to do, Hedayat stated that the organization would strive to have its demands and issues reflected during the elections.

DTV and the student movement in general has been criticized for not participating in the 2005 elections and thereby having contributed to the loss of votes for the reformists and thus, indirectly paving the way for a neo-con victory. However, student activist spokespersons stand by their old decision. The former DTV figurehead, ‘Abdollah Mo‘meni, who is now spokesman for DTV’s alumni division, Advâr-e tahkim, stated in an interview that he would defend the decision and that the failure of reformists to mobilize voters could not be reduced to the role of students. Indeed, said Mo‘meni, the reformists had much graver problems than DTV’s election boycott: the fact that they couldn’t even agree on a single candidate to represent them, that they had made their constituencies disillusioned and that they participated willingly in a ‘commando-election’ – these were more likely the reasons for their failure.

In other words, the reformists will have to ‘deliver’ if they want to have any hope of regaining the confidence of the young generation: they will need a strong and charismatic leader, a clear and resolute program and they will need to address the key issues championed by social movements, the women rights movement and the student movement.

A student movement?
So, the question remains: can we speak of an Iranian student movement today? ‘Ali-Reza Raja‘i, a melli-mazhhabi, recently argued that “the activist atmosphere has been restricted to some extent. However, it is perfectly clear that if there is an opening of the political environment, [the student] movement will take on more visible forms”. In other words, Raja‘i thinks that the student movement right now is not a movement per se, but rather a potential movement waiting for a window of opportunity to become active again and develop into a broad-based movement.

However, the wounds inflicted over the years upon the student movement, and indeed the tormented history of democratic struggle in Iran, has left many pessimistic. Indeed, there is a widespread feeling that it will take more than a new government and more than a student movement to change Iran. “Democratic struggle is eating itself from within”, wrote the renown dissident Taqi Rahmani recently: without an active civil society and without organizations representing, for example, professional, labor or ethnic minority interests, any democratic movement is doomed to failure, Rahmani argued. This is why Iranians are prone to be disillusioned when they see that their votes have not brought about a miracle. This is why the Iranian voters are tired and weary: the constant impediments and numerous obstacles placed in front of democratic movements by the rich and powerful elites throughout history. Only by creating a strong and vibrant civil society can Iran move towards democracy.

While DTV has yet to announce its position vis-à-vis the presidential elections, it is clear that people like Raja‘i are warning the students not to boycott the elections. Indeed, Raja‘i and his ilk – the tolerated ‘opposition’, ‘the reformists’ and ‘the moderates’ – still believe that it is possible to reform and change Iranian politics and society through elections. Even though DTV earlier seemed to reject the possibility of the Islamic Republic reforming in a democratic direction, they have, as stated, not rejected a possible participation in next year’s elections. It remains to be seen what the student activist milieu would do if Khatami – or another key reformist figure – was to run for president again; and it remains to be seen what measures the neo-conservative government and its supporters in the clerical and paramilitary elites would take to obstruct the reformists. No matter what happens, it is too early to rule out a revival of the Iranian student movement. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Bedu tribe in Galilee reveals links to Obama

Tabrik, Shaikh Obama. It seems they may be Druze, not Muslims, so there should not be any negative reaction. Read more on this article...

A.Q. Khan Speaks

Pakistan's nuclear godfather has suddenly emerged from seclusion (involuntary) and penned a risible column for the Daily Jang. It is notable, this column, for his self-aggrandizing, self-importance, and self-service. Keeping to the tradition, he sprinkles the column with bits of Urdu poetry (though not the tired old morsels), and frames himself as a "just a worker". And then he launches into a tirade against Musharraf, as well as a glorification of the Bhutto family. I thought that the greater English-speaking world would want a peek into the mind of A. Q. Khan, so I translated it. Enjoy:

'Til The Dawn
- Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan

Why ask me the cause of my silence?
There must be some reason why I remain quiet

In 1961, I was about to embark, for higher education, to the most acclaimed technical university in Berlin. I thought that I should inform the Pakistani public, especially the students, about the conditions in Germany. In those days, the office of the Daily Jang was on Karachi Business Road. During college (D. J. Sindh Goverment Science College), I would routinely walk by the office. So I went in to meet Mir Khalil al-Rahman Sahib and seek his advice. At that time, Taki Sahib was the Editor and he immediately arranged for me to meet Mir Sahib. I had heard of him, and now I knew him in person. Mir Sahib was a handsome, tall man with a commanding personality and his intelligence was reflected in his broad forehead. He met me with great affection. He was very keen on my idea and told me to certainly keep the readers of Jang informed from Berlin. And thus, I left for Germany. Berlin, in those days, was the playing field for the political conflict between East and West. Only ten days earlier, East Berlin (i.e. the Eastern Communist Germany) had erected the Wall. Innumerable Germans were running from the Communists towards West Berlin and many were dying from the bullets of VOPOS, ie the East Berlin militia. In the skies, the Russian Mig fighters were daily breaking the sound barriers over the city. My hostel was roughly fifteen minutes away from the Brandenburg Gate, and near the Victory Column.

From there, I began to send reports to Daily Jang under the heading "Letters from Berlin" - which were regularly published. This continued for two years. In the pages of Jang I predicted that the mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt, would one day become the Chcancellor of Germany. And indeed, in a few years, he did. In late 1963, I shifted from Berlin to the famous technical university in Holland and stopped writing "Letters from Berlin".

Due to current affairs, I though, why not indulge my disposition, and write once again on the important matters of the country. I have always held a fondness for writing, and if there is anything important, I do write. The habit is ...
I cannot break this pagan habit...

Which is not to say that the public remains unaware of my thoughts and my emotions:
I sit quietly, but it appears
as if the whole world is telling my story

No doubt, whenever someone begins to write for the newspapers, the public tries to decipher the intent or the cause:
You may or may not be suspicious, but we
Just gain comfort from telling our painful story

We all know that Good and Evil will always battle in this world. Almighty Allah has warned us of this repeatedly in the Qur'an and declared, "Allah, protect me from the evil of the evil doers and the oppressors". Some selfish and oppressive people, purely for the sake of their self-interest, trample the rights of the people under their feet. Drunk with power, they even, God forbid, deny the existence of God and his Might. The example of Musharraf is in front of you:
In every age, humans have done evil
In every age, humans have tried to become gods

But, God forbid, the haughtiness of being a god does not make one a god. Even if such people forget entirely about God:
The oppressors now think
As if there is no god left in the world

Our bureaucracy and sycophants play a large role in making these false gods into God. Musharraf is F.A. pass (high-school equivalent), a qualification which we use to employ attendants. By a mistaken promotion, he became our commander-in-chief. It nauseated us to see such a dim-wit lecture the highly educated and the experts on economics, education, foreign policy, commerce and industry. And they would bow in front of him and wag their heads and exclaim at his intelligence. The way of an intelligent ruler (or Dictator) is that he doesn't choose his companions on the basis of their flattery but on the basis of their expertise and their knowledge; he listens to their advice; and gives them all the help for the completion of important projects. There was this rumor going around about Musharraf that he complains to his Army friends, "I am saddened to see that if uneducated people cannot understand my arguments, it is ok, but even educated people cannot follow me." The reason is obvious. The ability to pull the trigger of a gun and the ability to make an intelligent statement are clearly different.

Selfish and opportunist people mix heaven and earth in false praise of such rulers, and make them into Plato. These are the people, who because of such actions, weaken the foundations of the country. These people operate like Hitler and his minister of propoganda, and say so many falsehoods that the ruler begins to believe them to be true and begins to consider himself intelligent. The results appear in the destruction of the country. Such was a lie spoken by Mujib ur-Rahman that the money derived from Jute sales, West Pakistan is paving streets with gold in Karachi. It was such a big lie, it was immediately accepted.

I returned to Pakistan in the fourth week of December. This is in 1975, i.e. nearly 33 years ago. I had returned at the request of Bhutto Sahib. Along with my wife and two daughters (aged 7 and 51/2 years), I had intended to return on January 15th. At the sincere request of Bhutto, and for the benefit of the country, I did not hesitate for even a moment: I left the best career, big income, and excellent facilities and stayed behind. I did not receive first salary, 3,000 ruppees monthly, until six months later. And no other compensation from the state:
Strange is God's grant to the exalted ones
Strange are these people, who bear sorrows but keep their hearts alive

Some of the most prominent expert scientists of the country spread falsehoods in the ears of Bhutto Sahib and Ghulam Ishaq Sahib that this young ruffian is here to make a fool out of you. He will enjoy himself for a few days and them take his leave. They explained the intricacies of the technology and the difficulties and that only three developed countries of the world, ie Holland, Germany and England, have the necessary expertise - an expertise they gained after 20 years of hard work and after the expenditure of nearly 2 billion dollars. Bhutto Sahib and Ghlam Ishaq Khan Sahib possessed the power to see the hidden truths. They had no doubts over my capacity for the truth and knew that I had not said a false word to them. Even though some people told me to declare that we will have an atomic bomb in two or three years.

I refused to tell a lie. They may have used this lie as a basis of their foreign policy and been defeated, as a result. And then some famous scientists decided that they could put some two or three thousand tons of explosive materials in some cave and then explode it and Bhutto Sahib will be satisfied and his obsession will be over. Listen. If politicians tell lies, than it is their profession and they can, without any shame, practice their profession in front of the general simple-minded public. But it is incumbent on us scientists and engineers to always keep our profession and our conscious in mind, and speak only the truth. I have always operated on this principle and never told a lie:
Truthful I am, in my word, O Ghalib God is my witness
I tell the truth when I say, I don't lie

The jist is that with the help of my colleagues, I made the impossible, possible. In only eight short years, and for a minuscule cost, made this depressed nation into a nuclear power. Bhutto Sahib, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and General Zia ul-Haq helped without fear and without regret. Any task undertaken with good intentions and with true hard work, is rewarded by Allah. With the help of Honorable Benazir Bhutto, this country became a missile power. At my request, she granted me permission to seek missile technology from China and North Korea and install it here. In this General Mirza Aslam Beg and General Abdul Wahid Kakar played key roles. It is worth thinking that even as countless selfish, bribery-prone, traitors were busy tearing the country apart like hungry wolves, there remained some honest, pious, and skilled people who sacrificed their lives to keep this country on the slow path of progress. With the help of such people, by God's Will, we will make our country into a developed, welfare-based Islamic state.

I have spend the majority of my life, nearly all of my life. When I look back at my life, it is with peace and contentment, that I did my utmost to serve my dear country. I did not do any favors for my country. Instead, it is this nation that granted me all these favors, which I tried to pay back - piece by piece. I gained higher education and technical excellence in Europe for 15 years and I wanted to use that to serve the country in important matters. In 1999, I proposed that we launch a satellite but this high-school pass dictator did not approve my request. Still, I am proud of my service to my country. In addition to providing it with nuclear, and missile, power, I founded countless educational and welfare organizations. From Khyber to Gawadar, the love that exists in people's hearts is my greatest prize. One despicable, traitorous foreign agent donned the costume of Presidency and tried to harm me, but he failed in his dirty deed. Instead he, himself, was evicted from the Presidential house in disgrace. And now this self-styled Commando cannot even set a foot in the street of this country. The public will tear him into little pieces and feed him to the eagles. My relationship is with the 170 million people, and it will always remain. No one can stop me from serving this country. We have, in our front, the golden examples of the sacrifices of Honorable Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. They gave their lives but did not sell their country and became living legends. This is the reason that in "'Til the Dawn", I will reveal my thoughts, now and then:
The flame burns in every light, 'til the dawn

x-posted at CM Read more on this article...

YES WE CAN WHAT?

BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM

America appears to be swept up in a feel-good moment, but as much as Barack Obama wows people as a public speaker and wordsmith, as much as his candid, inclusive style represents an antidote to everything rotten redolent of George W. Bush, as thrilling as it is for black Americans, who have proudly claimed the mulatto son of a Kansas mother and Kenyan father as one of their own, and by his precedent feel empowered by his victory, the feel-good moment has not yet arrived, or if it has, it is cruelly illusory.

That Obama gives good speeches is a given, his acceptance speech stands as one of the best ever, good enough to rouse even jaded political commentators to goose bumps. Good enough to drive people to tears, not just Americans but even foreigners. I watched the acceptance speech in Kyoto with a classroom full of Japanese students and by the time the 16-minute speech had ended, a good number of students were crying.

“Wow. What did you think of that speech?” I asked.

“I wish we had a leader like that,” said one.
“It’s so powerful when he says ‘Yes We Can’!” chimed another.
“I am so moved, he is kind to everyone,” answered a third.

And despite misgivings rooted in a media analyst’s appreciation for Obama’s truly awesome and awesomely manipulative gift for language, I too was almost speechless after hearing his speech. It was such a sterling performance, so brilliantly crafted and so naturally read from two strategically placed teleprompters that it seemed like he was talking from his heart to his closest friends.

Barring a few tired, over-worn clichés about Wall Street and Main Street, barring the braggadocio of American exceptionalism and the incantatory, quasi-religious refrain “Yes We Can,” Obama’s speech was a speech for the ages, down to the touching review of a century of history as imagined through the eyes of a 106 year old voter, taking us back to “before there were cars on the road and planes in the sky” to the moon landing all the way on to the promise he made to his kids, that a puppy would be accompanying them to the White House.

Finding time to embrace erstwhile bitter rivals John McCain and Sarah Palin, finding time to include every one who didn’t vote for him in his mandate to be the president of one and all, he seemed a man incapable of having enemies.

And therein lies the problem. Obama wants to play nice, and to do that in a contentious, demanding job, he needs to surround himself with people who are not so nice. This became immediately obvious with his first and most important political pick, Rahm Emanuel for White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel, with his impressive resume as Washington insider, Clinton White House retread, wealthy investment banker, and a harsh reputation as a political enforcer, is not only more Wall Street than Main Street, but rather akin to one of those hard-core Republican political operatives like Karl Rove or Newt Gingrich who Democrats so love to hate.

Politely described in the mainstream press as “aggressive” or “Rahmbo” or “obnoxious” or “combative,” the kind of guy who the New York Times reported as having shoved a steak knife into a restaurant table while expressing anger about political enemies, Emanuel can be as infuriating and blood-curdling as Barack Obama is inclusive and charming.

While still serving in the Clinton White House, Rahm Emanuel gave a talk to a seminar I attended at Harvard. When challenged on matters of policy or ethics, even in a friendly small group discussion over sherry and canapés, he would leap forward at those who dared to question him, clenching his fists with a menacing physicality that was either comical or intimidating depending on how much you liked to fight.

But that’s just personality; it’s the old hawkish ideas he espouses that are troubling. American voters, fed up with the old Washington politics, suffering and anxious for absolution and release after eight years of heartache and disappointment, elected the ultimate anti-Bush only to get an anti-Obama appointed into the most strategic White House office slot, second to the President.

Proximity to an ax-man is not likely to alter President-elect Obama’s almost magical poise and good-humored equilibrium, but it will influence policy and raise judgment questions almost as serious as John McCain’s lapse of judgment in choosing the ditzy Sarah Palin as his running mate.

What further deepens the disappointment with the man who promises to bring peace to a wounded world is his right-hand-man’s hawkish identification with right-wing Israeli politics –Emanuel did a stint with the Israeli military during the first Gulf War—a gung-ho gesture if not a sign of confused allegiance. More generally, Emanuel’s hawkish foreign policy views and his take-no-prisoners approach to domestic foes promises not only to confound hopes for a more equitable and balanced worldview in the White House, but also serves to keep political strife and war on the table. For those who followed the flowering of Obama’s foreign policy thinking over the last few months rather than getting distracted with his flowery, seductively-scented rhetoric, it’s no secret that he is not only not anti-war but actively considering military escalations that even old battle-ax Bush was hesitant to make in tinderbox locations like Pakistan.

The brilliance of Obama’s speaking style lies in his ability to fire up sentimental notions of unity while evading matters of substance. In this sense he is both a better and worse speaker than his speech-giving teacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

From what I’ve seen on TV and You-tube, including “controversial” material that was used against Wright by Republican political operatives, I was impressed by the preacher’s style and forthright substance; you know where he stands even if you can’t agree with all of it. I like his dramatics, his vivid hand gestures, his ability to fire up an audience, his passion for his people. Barack Obama, who was exposed to virtually no such talk in Indonesia and little such talk in Hawaii, chose an effective inner-city mentor and eventually exceeded his mentor in talking the talk of the street and the pulpit, while toning it down and fine-tuning it for political viability and political correctness.

In short, if this was truly a victory for African-Americans, we’d see more Wrights than Rahms at Obama’s side in the White House, but that’s not going to happen any time soon.

In the meantime, I hope Obama starts to show some real insight and originality in picking the rest of his administration, --please no more Clinton retreads like Richard Holbrooke or Robert Rubin-- because America, saddled with twin disasters of a failed military policy and a failed economic policy, cannot afford to have the same old hawks and same old investment bankers peddling the same old wine in a new bottle labeled “Yes We Can.”


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Rubin: Messages on Obama from my Inbox

Since the election, I've gotten quite a few notes from people around the world in the form of emails, text messages, and Facebook messages. I thought I would share a few:

A Western reporter in Southern Afghanistan:

It [Tuesday] looked like an extraordinary night from here. I was on an embed last week. The failure here is complete. As you know, the challenge in Afghanistan and Pakistan is staggering. Several Afghans made impromptu declarations to me today that Obama's victory filled them with hope. We may have a window here, albeit a very small one.

A senior official of the Afghan government:

I read the speech of Mr. Obama, "Yes we can". It is great. It seems his charisma, speaking and oral skills have played a great part in his victory. Although the speech is largely for American audience, it is appealing to everybody in any corner of the world. I also read Senator McCain's speech. It shows how much maturity is in the US elections. I always thought should Obama lose the contest, US will remain a superpower but not necessarily from a moral point of view. Now however the US can be an example of morality in politics for many many countries.

A senior official in Tehran (two messages):

(1) Hope all is well with you and your family. I want to say congratulations. Hope CHANGE could bring better for all.

(2) I know you are busy in these days but my wife that is following your presidential election really impressed and insisted me to convey her warmest congratulation to you and your family. When she saw the emotion of your people after the result of the election in the TV she told me, she remember our people emotion when Dr. Khatami won the first period of his presidency.

A photographer in Paris:

yes you could and you did it bravo and thanks for all of us.

A Kenyan UN official from the same ethnic group, Luo, as Obama’s father, from Kigali:

Well done!!! America has made history! There is partying across the continent and tomorrow is a public holiday in Kenya! I will miss it as I am in Rwanda!

Another UN official, in Sudan, with the same surname as the Kenyan above, to whom I mistakenly wrote at first:

You may be surprised to know that I am a Sudanese Luo. But the Luo we speak is just the same as the Acholi of Uganda. You mention eating dinner in Nairobi with [O., the Kenyan UN official] in 1998. Oooh! that's when I was just 18 years old. Anyway am a different O. in Sudan. I pray, Obama has to win, and in Jesus name he will win!

An Afghan journalist at BBC Persian Service:

Many many congratulations. I’m so happy for Americans and the world. You have made the history. The world is behind you.

From a colleague in Saudi Arabia:

All brothers saying Tabrik. See you soon.

From a Pakistani friend wandering around Europe flogging his book:

It’s a bloody landslide! Thank God, he won. Barney, don’t accept anything without consulting me first please. I don’t trust your judgments on these things.

From an Italian colleague:

Subject: I love America!

Last January I pledged that, should Barak Obama be elected President of the United States of America, I would finally become a citizen of this great country. Tonight, after eight years of doubts and disappointments, I found again the country I fell in love with when I decided to make it my home twelve years ago. The country where I decided to raise my family. A country where everyone has an opportunity, really. Tonight, I am extremely proud of the United States, and of everything it stands for. I want to be part of it, today and forever. Tomorrow morning, I will mail out the application for naturalization that my students brought to me at the beginning of the semester.

From a young Afghan from Kabul, currently studying in India:

Congrats Barney. Sir, The world is all yours, coz this is now Obama who is leading the horse!!! Let's see how much his so-called "CHANGE" would affect the lives of innocent Afghans.

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Rubin: Hitchens on McCain and Khalidi

I don't always agree with Christopher Hitchens, but it is uniquely satisfying to read him when I do. His rambunctious counter-attack on McCain-Palin for their shameful (shameless?) slur on Rashid Khalidi is worth savoring. Read more on this article...

Rubin: McCain's Racism Trifecta

I can't stop stewing over this attack on Rashid Khalidi. Even the Washington Post editorial board called out the Republicans on this one, quoting Rashid as saying he would just wait till the "idiot wind" blows over. That's the editorial's title: Idiot Wind."

I have been wondering why among all the awful things going on this one is occupying so much of my mental space, and I think I figured it out. Partly it's because I know the person involved (I'm writing this sitting at the dining-room table where Rashid was a guest two weeks ago), but it's beyond that.

What did John McCain do?

He exploited the Holocaust AND the Nakba to stimulate anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry in order to frighten Jews from voting for an African-American secretly stigmatized as a Muslim terrorist. Wow! My whole life flashed before my eyes. That one sentence attacked virtually everything I ever considered important.

No victory can be big enough. Let's get out there and take back our country. Read more on this article...

Rubin: My Friend, the "Neo-Nazi"

It is really strange to turn on the television and see actual presidential and vice-presidential candidates charging that someone who had dinner at my apartment two weeks ago -- Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University -- is a "neo-Nazi." Yet John McCain actually said this yesterday. Sarah Palin also attacked him, as a "radical professor" and "former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization." (Rashid never held such a position, though he did at one time try to present the Palestinian point of view to journalists in Beirut. I think this is the same PLO whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is the elected president of the Palestinian Authority, the U.S.'s preferred "moderate" Palestinian leader, and Israel's partner in negotiations, but maybe it is some other PLO, known only to Sarah Palin.)

But all this is beside the point. I actually find it demeaning, insulting, and depressing to have to defend Rashid. I could say, I know him, he has been a guest in my home in New York and in my rented house in Provence, he bears absolutely no resemblance to the image these despicable people are trying to project of him, and lot's more. I could point out that I am Jewish and have VISIBLE JEWISH ARTIFACTS IN MY HOME, which did not appear to alarm Rashid, if he even noticed them, but it is all just so ridiculous I don't know what to say.

I don't want to treat these charges with the respect of a refutation. I just want to express my disgust with those who uttered them and my solidarity with my friend, Rashid Khalidi.

UPDATE: After I put this up, I saw that Juan Cole has commented on this far more cogently than I, as has Scott Horton, a fellow guest at the above-mentioned dinner party and house in Provence. Read more on this article...

Rubin: U.S. and Iran in Afghanistan

An article I wrote with Sara Batmanglich about U.S.-Iran relations in Afghanistan has been posted on the website of MIT's Center for International Studies. It opens:

AFGHANISTAN IS ONE of several contexts in which the long-term common interests of the U.S. and Iran have been overshadowed by the animus originating in the 1953 CIA-led coup in Iran and the Iranian revolution of 1979, to the detriment of the interests of the U.S., Iran, and Afghanistan. This confrontation has served the interests of the Pakistan military, Taliban, and al-Qaida. Re-establishing the basis for U.S.-Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan would provide significant additional leverage over Pakistan, on whose territory the leadership of both the Taliban and al-Qaida are now found.

And it ends:

There is, however, a major strategic judgment to be revisited. The military and intelligence agencies of both Pakistan and Iran have systematically used asymmetrical warfare, including terrorism, as a tool of their security policy. Which of them poses a greater threat to U.S. national interest and international peace and security? How should responses to these two threats be balanced? Since the Iranian revolution, the U.S. has overreacted to the Iranian threat and engaged in systematic appeasement of Pakistan, which is now home to the leadership of both al-Qaida and the Taliban (both Afghan and Pakistani). These countries are rivals for influence in Afghanistan and are sponsoring competing infrastructure projects for road transport and energy trade. Iran and India are building a combined rail and road link from the Iranian port of Chah Bahar to Afghanistan’s major highway. Pakistan, with Chinese aid, is building the port of Gwadar in Baluchistan, aiming at a north-south route to Central Asia. “Taliban” regularly attack Indian road building crews in southwest Afghanistan, and Pakistan charges that India is supporting Baluch insurgents from its consulates in Afghanistan.

A reevaluation of the threats originating in Iran and Pakistan should lead to a recalibration of U.S. policy in Afghanistan to tilt away from Pakistan and more toward Iran. Yet it would be wrong and destructive to treat Pakistan with the type of enmity now reserved for Iran. Like Iran, Pakistan’s policy is motivated by a combination of genuine security threats, ideological aspirations, and institutional interest. In Pakistan’s more open political system, it is far easier for the U.S. to engage with allies inside the country against the security services whose covert policies the U.S. finds threatening.

Ultimately, U.S. interests would be best served by supporting efforts to extend and improve governance and security in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby depriving al-Qaida and its epigones of refuge on either side of the border. Using Afghanistan as a base for anti-Iran policies handicaps the U.S. in pressing for Pakistani cooperation, thus undermining one of the country’s most important strategic objectives. Of course, such recalibration will also require shifts in Iranian policy away from the path it has taken. Clearly abandoning any U.S. agenda of forcible regime change in Iran will make such a shift much more likely.

Read more on this article...

Iran’s Presidential Election Takes Off

Farideh Farhi

After enduring almost two years of incessant presidential politics in the United States, I must say that I am not really looking forward to yet another prolonged race, this time in Iran. But the reality is that the campaign for the presidency of Iran, to be decided on 12 June 2009 or a few weeks later if the contest again goes to the second round, has already become heated, even if the picture regarding who and how many will actually end up being candidates is still far from clear.

The fact that Iran is into full presidential mode this early is rather unusual for an election that almost certainly will involve a candidate who is an incumbent running for his second term. Iranian presidents are limited to two four year terms but asides from the two early and very short-term presidents, who were either impeached and subsequently forced into exile (Abolhassan Banisadr) or assassinated (Mohammad Ali Rajai), two term presidencies have been the norm since the presidential election of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s current supreme leader, in 1981.

In fact, Iran’s last three presidents (Khamenei, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Khatami) were not significantly challenged in their second runs and no one entertained the possibility that they might not be re-elected. Even Khatami, whose candidacy was in doubt for a very short period of time because of his own frustration in pushing his reform agenda, no one really doubted that he would be re-elected in 2001 once he decided to run.

This election will be, and one might even say is already, different. To be sure, few doubt that Ahmadinejad will run and he will be the man to beat. As I mentioned above, even in the short history of the Islamic republic, there are things that have become part of the norm or tradition and as elsewhere traditions are hard to break. At the same time, the extent to which Ahmadinejad’s mismanagement of the economy and his office has become part of the Iranian political discourse, I think, is unprecedented. This is why, for the first time the possibility that a president running for the second term may face serious challenge is openly discussed and contemplated. With the drop in oil prices and the specter of larger than expected budget deficits for the current fiscal year, talks of Ahmadinejad’s wrong-headed policies as well as incompetence are bound to intensify.

So far only one person – Mehdi Karrubi of the National Trust Party - has openly declared his candidacy with the proviso that he might step aside if something like a council of mediating elders among the reformist and centrist forces settles for another candidate deemed more likely to be elected. Few believe that he will do so and his insistence on running may ultimately be the most important card he has in forcing the hand of the reformists to support him at the end.

Given the history of verbal acrimony between the reformists and Karrubi - who as the Speaker of the Sixth Parliament refused to support the sit-in of reformist deputies when they were disqualified by the Guardian Council to stand for re-election - members of the reformist Islamic Iran’s Participation Party and Islamic Revolution’s Mojahedin will undoubtedly be holding their noses if they ultimately decide to side with Karrubi. But this is a decision they will have to contemplate knowing very well that only agreement among centrist and reformist forces over one candidate will enhance their chances.

In a recent and very interesting interview on October 8 with Etemaad Daily, Alireza Alavi Tabar, one of Iran’s most interesting political analysts and a reformist, suggested that in order to win the reformists need to garner at least 5 million more votes than their opponents (about 45 million are eligible to vote and in the first round of the last presidential election close to 30 million voted). According to his analysis, 5 million is the maximum number of votes that can be manipulated in Iran.

It is improbable that this 13 to 14 percent vote manipulation hurdle can be overcome in the likely scenario of only about 50 to 60 percent of eligible voters participating in the election. Improbability however is bound to turn into certainty if reformist and centrist groups enter the election with multiple candidates. Without compromise meager reformist and centrist chances will turn into nil.

But the election is still seven months away and the reformists are not yet in the mood for compromise. Their clamor for the past couple of months has been to convince former president Khatami to run. But he has remained rather coy about his intentions and I personally will be very surprised if he decides to run for a couple of reasons.

Most importantly is the fact that he is not crazy and ambitious enough to put himself through the abuse and obstacles that he will have to face both in running and governing. Someone with a good sense of humor said a while back that the difference between Khatami supporters and Khatami is that they think about the Election Day while he thinks about the day after the election! I think this is about right although the amount of mud which will be thrown at him during the campaign will not be insignificant either.

Khatami has developed something quite rare in Iran: respect as a former statesman who remains politically engaged without holding office and speaks truth to power. Just yesterday he blasted the government by saying “Looking at official slogans, one gets the impression that this is a country of flowers and nightingales in which there are no rising prices, unemployment, poverty, corruption and prostitution.” He went on to say that he considers the most important duty of the president to be the execution of the Constitution; an obvious dig at the current occupant of the office who was just accused on national television, no less, by his own former interior minister and the current head of the government’s audit office to have improperly withdrawn money from Iran’s foreign exchange reserves without the required parliamentary approval.

To make the story short, I think giving up the position of an elder and trusted statesman will be hard for Khatami and his family. He will only do so, as he said publicly, if he receives assurances from a wide spectrum of people, including some well-known conservatives or so-called principlists, that his next attempt at presidency will be different.

Considering that in the chaotic and highly competitive political environment of Iran such assurances are almost impossible to come by, a Khatami candidacy can essentially be considered a non-starter. Of course, in making this assertion I am not totally rejecting the possibility that he may run but essentially echoing the words of the well known Iranian analyst Abbas Abdi who suggested a while back that if Khatami does run he will do so only with the confidence that he will win; a highly unlikely scenario.

Lacking this confidence, Khatami’s second reason for not running is tactical. He knows that the principlists are divided over Ahmadinejad’s presidency. The question of support for Ahmadinejad is not settled for them yet and there are other conservative or center-right candidates – such as Tehran mayor Mohammad Qalibaf, former chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani, and even former interior minister Mustafa Purmohammadi - who are contemplating runs along with perennial presidential aspirants like parliamentary deputy Ahmad Tavakoli and former commander of Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps Mohsen Rezaie. Some principlist politicians, including one hard-line parliamentary deputy, have talked about conditional support for Ahmadinejad provided he retracts from some of his recent policies and appointments. Others have simply said that so far there is no agreed upon principlist candidate. In short, it is not yet clear whether there will be one or several candidates representing the principlist camp.

But if Khatami runs, given his relative popularity, principlist equivocation will probably give way and there will be tremendous pressure on all factions to the right of the political spectrum to close rank behind Ahmadinejad who after all is the current president and, given his name recognition, will have the best chance of winning in a manipulated competition against Khatami.

Even if it is not true, this will be the case Ahmadinejad’s supporters will be making to all principlists from now until the election. The hard-line Kayhan Daily has already gone there in its 16 October editorial, warning all principlists that “the replacement for the current administration, if it has to go, is not going to be a principlist individual but someone outside the [principlist] current.”

The mere fact that Kayhan has to warn the principlist camp about the possibility of reformist revival in order to marshal support for Ahmadinejad is by itself a reflection of the trouble the president is facing in his standing among the Iranian elite. Just to give a few examples, in the past week or so Hassan Rowhani publicly blasted him twice for losing opportunities generated by unprecedented high oil prices and U.S. troubles in Iraq and not buttressing Iran’s foreign exchange reserves in order to cushion against the shock that the Iranian economy will face as oil prices fall.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad’s Economic Transformation Plan that includes reform of the tax and subsidy systems among other things has been questioned for being at best undeveloped and at worst highly inflationary and disruptive. Even in situations where his administration has really not been at fault, such as the parliamentary mandated implementation of a value added tax on Iranian merchants which was resisted through bazaar strikes, his administration has been criticized for giving insufficient information to merchants who, it was said, would not have opposed the tax had they understood it better.

The Iranian parliament, under the leadership of Ali Larijani, has also already signaled that it will not easily give in to Ahmadinejad’s announced desire to give cash subsidies (somewhere between $40 to $80 monthly depending on income brackets) to the majority of Iranians beginning early next year or right before the June election. Some members of the parliament have deemed the giveaway inflationary while others have been less charitable, identifying it as election bribe.

Larijani, himself, explicitly stated yesterday that he will not run for president. When asked whether he will be willing to do so if called upon to serve, he said “so far there has not been a call to duty and rest assured that there are many others in the arena that will make such things unnecessary.” Despite his avowed lack of interest, however, he did not miss the chance to point out that given the financial troubles of the world which will impact Iran also, Islamic Iran should begin its fourth decade with a new “political logic” that avoids the extremisms of both the left and the right and rely on all the ‘managerial capabilities” that exist in the country among the reformists and principlists.

No doubt this should be considered a statement of dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad who is constantly accused of only relying on a small circle of advisors. But even more generally it should be considered an expression of the yearning for going beyond the extreme divisiveness that has characterized Iranian politics in the past decade but has been particularly fanned during Ahmadinejad’s presidency. In this context, the new “political logic” simply means a logic that creates a space for a less dysfunctional political system.

Ultimately the issue for principlists critical of Ahmadinejad is not dissatisfaction with the current occupier of the office or the current state of affairs - they are clearly dissatisfied, but whether it is possible to dislodge him from office without risking the possibility of a reformist win. For them the best scenario entails the prospect of a crowded field that will open the way for a second round confrontation between Ahmadinejad and a more centrist, and presumably more competent, principlist candidate who will at the end emerge victorious.

Given Iran’s hyper-politicized environment, this scenario is not easy to implement. But the machinations in Iran’s various political camps to devise a game plan that will lead to electoral victory, while being mindful of Ahmadinejad’s concrete failures, will keep the Iranian political dynamics fluid for the next seven months.

This fluidity in turn will keep the business of speculation about who will actually run for the president quite robust until May when the registration deadline for candidacy arrives. Among the candidates discussed none is likely to be vetted but who knows by the time May comes who else might appear on the scene.

These dynamics should be considered part and parcel of a competitive political system that doesn’t have a well or even minimally developed party system and relies on constant negotiations and shifting positions among contending and at the same time intersecting elite factions. It is going to be a long, chaotic, and in all likelihood ugly campaign. Read more on this article...

Online Ayatollah

Maziar Bahari is a filmmaker and journalist stationed in Iran and in this report shown on Aljazeera English he sheds light on the daily life and work of the reformist cleric and Shi'ite source of emulation, Ayatollah Sanei. It is an interesting watch. Read more on this article...

Rubin and Rashid in Foreign Affairs: From Great Game to Grand Bargain

Ahmed Rashid and I have just published an article in Foreign Affairs: From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It opens:

The Great Game is no fun anymore. The term "Great Game" was used by nineteenth-century British imperialists to describe the British-Russian struggle for position on the chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia -- a contest with a few players, mostly limited to intelligence forays and short wars fought on horseback with rifles, and with those living on the chessboard largely bystanders or victims. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become involved, and the intensity of the violence and the threats it produces affect the entire globe. The Great Game can no longer be treated as a sporting event for distant spectators. It is time to agree on some new rules.

I think it is fair to say that Ahmed and I are not as sure of anything as we sound in the article, but we thought it was time to introduce some broader perspectives. We are looking for debate and discussion, not agreement. Read more on this article...