‘Watching the Fall of Islamic Theocracy’
The protests in Iran have entered a third week and the state media acknowledges that the death toll has reached 19 and that hundreds have been injured. Fareed Zakaria, a man not noted for idle leaps, proclaims, "we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy." In an interview with CNN, he explains: No, I don't mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 21, 2009 08:24
Engaging Iran
The United States is a very large and diverse country, its people have many differing views as you'd expect in such a country, and, not particularly surprisingly, some of those views are in diametric opposition. That's particularly apparent in Americans' views of how we should interact with Iran. Isolationism remains a strong strain of thought in the United States and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 18, 2009 09:59
Revolution is Not a Spectator Sport
Like James Poulos, "I like the Iranian reformers more than I like the mass politics of solidarity by symbolism." As such, I'm sympathetic to John Cole in thinking that the rabid coverage of the Iranian election controversy by enthusiastic American bloggers who know next to nothing about Iran is overblown. (I include myself in the decided non-expert on matters Persian category.) ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 16, 2009 09:07
Iran Elections: What Happened? What Now?
Over at New Atlanticist, I've published my thoughts on this weekend's Iranian election mess in two separate posts: Iran's Elections: What We Know (And What We Don't) and Iran's Elections: What Now? The short answers: "Not a whole hell of a lot" and "The same thing we do every day, Pinky." I'm reasonably sure that the elections were stolen. Indeed, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 15, 2009 15:14
Iranian Mullahs Order Election Probe
I'm going to write up a longish piece trying to make sense of the Iranian elections for New Atlanticist later today. Since comparisons to happenings in America seem to be the blogospheric rage de jour, however, I will just note that I have received the news that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the Guardian Council to "look into ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 15, 2009 08:58
What Happened in Iran?
As it turns out there was an independent nationwide poll taken in Iran three weeks before the election and the results of the poll were consistent with the election results. In their op-ed in the Washington Post Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, whose organizations produced the poll, conclude: Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 15, 2009 08:29
Reality on Iran from Flynt Leverett (Updated)
In Spiegel Flynt Leverett throws cold water on the Iran election conspiracy theorists in the West: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mahmud Ahmadinedschad hat einen überwältigenden Wahlsieg errungen. Sind Sie überrascht? Leverett: Nein. Ich wäre überrascht gewesen, wenn er verloren hätte. Die westlichen Medien haben die Begeisterung für seinen wichtigsten Herausforderer Hossein Mussawi grob überschätzt. Sie haben fast gar nicht mitbekommen, wie eindeutig Ahmadinedschad etwa ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 14, 2009 15:11
Iran Aftermath: I Don’t Know Nothin’ But What I Read in the Newspaper
The Western media are continuing to react in stunned disbelief to the results of the Iranian election: TEHRAN, June 13 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday an election in which he secured another four-year term was "free and healthy", rejecting allegations of irregularities by a moderate rival in the vote. "People voted for my policies," the conservative president said ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 14, 2009 09:07
Analyzing the Iranian Election (Updated)
My advice: don't. Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been pronounced the winner in Iran's presidential election: TEHRAN —President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran’s presidential election in a landslide, officials of Iran’s election commission said Saturday morning. But his main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi, had already announced defiantly just two hours after the polls closed on Friday night that he had won ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 13, 2009 09:14
Mutual Respect
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has responded to President Obama's message to the Islamic world, delivered in an interview with al Arabiyah this week: The US should apologise for "crimes" it has committed against Iran if it wants a better relationship with Tehran, the Iranian president said today, after recent overtures to the Muslim world from the new administration in Washington. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 28, 2009 09:58
U.S. Stationing Diplomats in Iran
The United States has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Iran since our embassy there was stormed and its staff taken hostage on November 4, 1979. That may soon change, Ewen MacAskin reports for The Guardian. The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 17, 2008 12:22
Iranian Nukes Breakthrough? (Updated)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his gang of mullahs are said to be "seriously considering" the latest EU 5+1 proposals on resolving the international standoff on the Iranian nuclear program and are telling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to pipe down. Warren Strobel: Iran's senior diplomat said Tuesday that Tehran was seriously considering a new offer from six world powers to resolve the dispute over ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 2, 2008 07:12
Iran 6 Months Away from Nuclear Weapons?
Remember that National Intelligence Estimate saying that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program years ago? It turns out that Iran is as little as six months away from nukes. And it's not some neo-con warmonger saying thus but none other than International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. In an interview with Al-Arabiya, he said, "If Iran wants ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 24, 2008 12:33
Obama’s Prudent Inconsistency
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Barack Obama is a wise man, indeed. He's changed his mind a lot lately. The latest example is NAFTA. After having campaigned in Ohio and elsewhere on the need to renegotiate our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and excoriating Hillary Clinton for her long-time support ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 19, 2008 08:37
Obama’s AIPAC Gambit
Dana Milbank makes a funny at Barack Obama's expense: Now, here's a change we can believe in. A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner. Classic. As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 5, 2008 10:53
