Interview: Anwar al-Awlaki - Focus - Al Jazeera English

In light of recent claims of killing Awlaki by the US government, here is a very interesting interview of al-Awlaki by Aljazeera dated about a year and a half ago:

Interview: Anwar al-Awlaki - Focus - Al Jazeera English

"How the State Department Came After Me"

Here is a very interesting case that is developing between a current member of the State Department and his freedom to criticize his own organization.

Peter Van Buren spent some time in Iraq and subsequently wrote a piece criticizing some of the ridiculous expenditures, but more importantly, fundamental failures of post-war Iraq "reconstruction." His story was published in Foreign Policy, read here.

Then some controversy ensued, and you can read about Van Buren's response here. It essentially boils down to the State Department's hypocracy in criticizing foreign governments for censoring media while the Department engages in the same practices at home, including intimidating its own employees, threatening them, and stifling innocuous speech just to save some face.

I included, in my opinion, the most eloquent passages from the article  below:

"We have been battered to death with public statements from the Secretary of State on down demanding the rights of bloggers and journalists in China, Burma and the Middle East be respected. While the State Department does not lock its naughty bloggers in basement prison cells, it does purposefully, willfully, and in an organized way seek to chill the responsible exercise of free speech by its employees. It does this selectively; blogs that promote an on-message theme are left alone (or even linked to by the Department) while blogs that say things that are troublesome or offensive to the Department are bullied out of existence. This is not consistent with the values the State Department seeks to promote abroad. It is not the best of us, and it undermines our message and our mission in every country where we work where people can still read this.


I have a job now at State that has nothing to do with Iraq, something I enjoy and something I am competent at. To me, there is no conflict here. I'd like to keep my job if I can, and in the meantime, I'll continue to write. I have no need to resign in protest, as I don't think I've done anything wrong absent throwing a few pies at some clowns and bringing to daylight a story that needed to be told, albeit at the cost of some embarrassment to the Department of State. That seems to me compatible with my oath of office, as well as my obligations as a citizen. I hope State comes to agree with me. After all, State asks the same thing of governments abroad, right?"

اولین پست به فارسی!

به هدف این که نویسندگی فارسی ام را بهتر کنم، قصد دارم  بعضی از پستهایم را در فارسی منتشر کنم. در خواست میکنم که دوستان فارسی زبان نوشتارم (یا 'نویسندگی ام؟' -- فرقش چی هست راستی؟) را حتما ویرایش و انتقاد کنن. متاسفانه تا حالا نتونستم نوشتارم را  زیاد تمرین کنم و خیلی خوشحال میشم اگر تواناییم در فارسی افزایش پیدا کنه .


دوتا  از مشکلهای  اصلی که دارم این است که (۱) وقتی فارسی مینویسم تو ذهنم  گرامر انگلیسی دارم استفاده میکنم، و (۲) لغتها و جملاتی که استفاده میکنم عامی هستن.


!اگر خوانندگان وبلاگم هیچ پیشنادی داراند، خیلی خوشحال میشم

Geopolitical Journey: Iran at a Crossroads

Geopolitical Journey: Iran at a Crossroads

This is a good article to read about an analyst's recent trip to Iran. I agree with most , if not all of what he says about domestic Iranian politics -- mainly that the Islamic Republic has massive popular and elite support and that the Green Movement has always been a constrained force.

He also makes a very interesting point that the region is undergoing a political awakening -- not a religious revival -- and that the uprisings have been limited to the Arab world, thus the term "Islamic Awakening" (thus extending to non-Arab nations as well) may not be apt. This is a quite interesting point and one I would definitely like to engage further in future posts.

The question, at the heart of the matter, is what is motivating these events? Islam, at least nominally, was at the forefront of revolutions and uprisings in the Middle East from the middle to late 20th century including the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Muslim Brotherhood movements in countries such as Egypt, Syria and Turkey.

In light of this, we should ponder Asef Bayat's assertions on "Post-Islamism" and how, as he argues, the current "theme" of Muslim societies has turned away from "Islamic fundamentalism" to focusing on better government and lively civil society. Bayat published his book in 2007, but it seems to be extremely relevant today. Are we in a "post-Islamist" world, and what does that mean? What has taken the place of Islamic revivalism?

Ahmadinejad Coverage

Compare these two stories published on Ahmadinejad's latest UN speech:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/200679.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44627475/ns/world_news/?ocid=ansmsnbc11

The first is published by Press TV, an Iranian government funded news organization, and the second (which includes a video of Ahmadinejad's speech) by MSNBC, an American corporate news organization.

Same speech, completely different framing by the news organizations. Anyone care to point out the differences? Feel free to comment.

Internal Dynamics

Stratfor has recently published two publicly accessible analyses which intelligently reflect how internal politics affects a country's foreign policy.

The first article is an excellent piece on how the Obama administration has come up short in the domestic politics game and how Obama is stuck between trying to solidify his base and capturing centrists. Essentially, the article states that Obama will be deeply focusing on domestic affairs for at least up until the next election and will be unable to undertake serious foreign policy initiatives as that would take away focus from re-election.

The second analysis, a video, discusses the unique role Ahmadinejad has been playing in Iranian politics and how differing factional alignment in the conservative camp is creating new dynamics and narratives. It raises a lot of good points regarding domestic Iranian politics and the competitions which shape the Iranian polity, namely how weakening clerical legitimacy does not necessarily give space to Reformists, but may instead empower the Revolutionary Guards and the security apparatus.

American Hikers Freed

Press TV reports that the two remaining Americans "hikers" which had been detained for about two years by Iran left Mehrabad airport today.

The New York Times further added that these men are most likely headed to Oman, which probably played a crucial role in releasing them, just as the Omani government had with Sarah Shroud. It's not clear whether these individuals were actually spies are not, their story is a bit shady but the Iranians, for their part, unfortunately played into making this a political case instead of a judicial one. For example, they allowed the mothers of these individuals to visit them in a very publicized manner and allowed this story to take on a "humanitarian" spin, not a legal-procedural tone.

A 'red telephone' between Tehran-Washington?

Shargh, a left leaning paper in Iran published a very interesting story speculating on whether an emergency political hotline would be set up between the United States and Iran (for non-Persian speakers, I apologize for the rough google translation). The article states that American officials, worried about a possible showdown in the Persian Gulf or elsewhere, requested that this hotline be set up.

This is quite interesting (and rational) -- I remember a friend, who was very intimate with this situation, telling me in Tehran that Iranian and US navy commanders in the Persian Gulf were actually on very good terms with one another (even calling each other on a first name basis) and were cooperating quite extensively and thoroughly regarding maneuvers, etc. since both sides did not want any accidents to happen in the highly pressurized atmosphere of the Gulf.

Who thought the men in uniforms would be the ones to extend diplomatic initiatives and niceties?

'Iran’s Post-Cold War Foreign Policy'

This is a very interesting talk by Shireen Hunter who talks about Iran's foreign policy after the Cold War. She views Iranian leadership as pretty inept, but more importantly, as ignorant about basic realities. The main point that she makes -- which in her opinion proves that the Islamic revivalist/pan Islamic outlook of the clerical leadership is wrong -- are that Arabs will never like Iranians because they are (1) Ajam (i.e. Persian non-Arabs) and (2) Shia. Arabs are naturally distrustful of what Saddam called "fire-worshiping Persians" and that can never change, therefore why even try? She comes to the conclusion that Iran's natural allies in this region are Israel and the United States and that if Iran wants to prosper it must make peace with Israel, just as the Shah had, and counterbalance against it's Arab neighbors.

Of course, this was before the Arab Spring and the current extreme fallout that Israel has been facing as it must now deal more directly with the people of the region instead of secular westernized elites who had to repress the street in order to keep peace with Israel. However, I don't think she's right on all her assumptions and she's clearly very typically distrustful of Arabs (as a former diplomat under the Shah, what do you expect). Further, I think that Iran should be given credit for acting a lot more strategically than Hunter gives Tehran credit for; surely, a lot of that is circumstantial given America's serious blunders, but a lot of it comes from a strong base and strategic vision from the Bait-e Rahbari i.e. the Supreme Leadership in Tehran.

Nonetheless, I think Hunter makes a lot of unfortunately good points that have to be dealt with even as the region is changing so rapidly and unpredictably. Namely, her assertion that big powers don't like mid-range powers and that Iran has a basic set of strategic realities it has to recognize before it can implement sound foreign policy, not to mention the centuries long Arab-Ajam situation. But these are important questions that have to be asked and debated on a consistent basis if they are to be understood correctly.

Leverett Interview

This video and article concisely summarizes where the United States and it's Middle East policy stands today, 10 years after September 11th.

10 years and one day after

A decade and one day after the events of 9/11, it is now clear that it wasn't U.S. arms or the example of a "free, democratic" Iraq that spurred the most monumental of changes in the Middle East -- as Bush Hawks so eagerly used to assert. Instead, it was the people of the region, acting of their own accord, that shook the grip of dictators in the Middle East and struck fear into their hearts. And it was long overdue. As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put it "the future [was] delayed."

What Davatoglu meant was that the Middle East was in a state of obvious disequilibrium; the political systems that ruled over the ummah, especially the Arab world were not natural nor fit for the times. In a region with probably the most youthful population in the world, how is it possible for aging octogenarians to rule over the same people with static, unresponsive policies? Did anyone really think Mubarak -- or more accurately, what Mubarak represented -- would last? What was his stake to legitimacy?

More importantly, did anyone think this completely implanted political system imposed on arbitrary borders created after the first world war and based on notions of the liberal nation-state but which morphed into kleptocratic autocracies and defied over a  millennium of Muslim political thought would be anything but a hiccup in the continuous history of the region?

Davutoglu, a historian at heart, declares in March of 2011, at the cusp of springtime, that "we are going through a natural flow of history. Why? Because there was a need for change...

There were two abnormalities in the last century in our region. The first abnormality was colonialism. And the second abnormality was the Cold War, which divided the societies, the countries, which divided our region. The first abnormality, colonialism, in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, divided the region into colonial entities and separated the natural links between tribes and communities... The countries [which] were divided because of the Cold War - South Yemen, North Yemen. Those countries who lived together for centuries became enemies to each other, like Turkey and Syria... Now it is time to naturalise the flow of history. I see all these processes as a delayed process... This is a paradigmatic shift. This is a natural flow of history. Everybody must respect this will of the people."

Thus, my biggest hope is that the flow of history is naturalized, as Davutoglu puts it. The region is not used to such foreign implants, and the changes which happen have to be organic and natural. From the bottom up, so to speak. The Muslim world and it's scholars, or ulema, to their credit, had tried to foster notions of unity and Muslim brotherhood from Islam's conception to the brink of the first world war. It didn't matter that you were Egyptian or Indian, as long as you were Muslim, you should be judged on your piety, not ethnicity. (although it didn't always work out that way). It didn't matter that Turks ruled over Arabs as long as the Turks were justly holding the banner of Islam and resisting against foreign powers, they were legitimate in the eyes of many Muslims. This mentality is not a bad one; it doesn't obsess over borders that much. As one of my professors said in Tehran, the borders before the age of nationalism were political borders, they were not social ones. My dream is that these social and cultural borders open up and that the Arab Spring can usher in dialogue between societies which had previously been rudely interrupted by the West.

"What is the future if this is the past? The past was the abnormality. The present change is a natural flow of the history and our future is our sense of common destiny. All of us, we have the common destiny."


Video streaming by Ustream

Winning Coalitions

There is a very interesting interview Charlie Rose has with Hosni Mubarak in 2000 (below). The most interesting thing Mubarak states is when he is talking about Syria's Assad: Mubarak states that Assad cannot give land concessions to Israel for peace and that even if we assume Assad is a dictator, he cannot act unconstrained. Charlie retorts by saying "but he can do whatever he wants." "No!" replies Mubarak, that's an assumption Westerns always carry. Assad may be a dictator, Mubarak continues, but he rules the country through his party, and while those forces are hard to see, he has to ultimately be answerable to them... unfortunately for Mubarak, he learned this the hard way when the Army forced him from office.

Academic Imperialism - Seyyed Mohammad Marandi

A wonderful talk by Dr. Marandi on the effects of cultural hegemony and Eurocentrism. As someone who just came back from Iran a week ago, I can say that Dr. Marandi is dead-on with his analysis... it's not just Europeans who think their standards are superior, it's Iranians too, and that's the most damaging aspect of it all.

Bill Keller's "Unfinished Business" | Stephen M. Walt

Bill Keller's "Unfinished Business" | Stephen M. Walt