by Jasmin Ramsey

The talks in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear program will likely continue past the July 20 deadline for reaching a final deal. President Barack Obama noted “real progress” but hinted at an extension yesterday after being briefed by Secretary of State John [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

The talks in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear program will likely continue past the July 20 deadline for reaching a final deal. President Barack Obama noted “real progress” but hinted at an extension yesterday after being briefed by Secretary of State John Kerry, who held several meetings with the Iranians this week.

On Wednesday, an Iranian diplomat told the Japanese Kyodo News that the talks could be extended by two months, but there’s still no official word. The editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post have meanwhile come out on the side of continued negotiations.

Presently there’s not a lot of buzz around the question of whether Congress will push for more sanctions on Iran. Indeed, senior Senate aides told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that they do not see the same level of tension over a possible extension compared with the beginning of the year.

Still, as Jim wrote earlier this week, key lawmakers here in Washington are trying to make sanctions relief to Iran conditional on Congressional approval.

While the prospects of reaching a comprehensive deal any time soon are far from certain, one thing is for sure: important actors, from all sides of the political spectrum inside Iran, support the diplomatic process. Indeed, just this week the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) released a study showing leading Iranian activists’ support for the negotiations.

The report, Voices from Iran: Strong Support for the Nuclear Negotiations, shows that support for a successful deal are equally forthcoming not only among human rights victims and former political prisoners, but also among those who believe that the negotiations themselves would have no effect on the human rights situation in Iran.

“Opponents of the nuclear talks cannot use human rights concerns as a tool to undermine the negotiations,” said Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director of the Campaign. “The very individuals who have suffered the most from the human rights crisis in Iran remain fully committed to the negotiations.”

More than two-thirds of the 22 key human and civil rights defenders interviewed said they felt an agreement resulting in the lifting of sanctions would improve the economic conditions of ordinary people, who would then be enabled to focus on improving civil liberties.

“Every single human rights advocate — along with journalists, editors, private business owners and so on — I have met in Iran hopes for the resolution of the nuclear conflict and eventual ending of sanctions for two basic reasons: one is economic and one is political,” said independent scholar and LobeLog contributor Farideh Farhi.

“As one prominent human rights advocate told me, the right to economic livelihood is also a human rights issue. Given the comprehensive nature of US-led sanctions, these folk see them as major violations of the Iranian peoples’ rights and want them removed,” said Farhi, who is currently in Tehran.

“Politically, while the lifting of sanctions is not presumed to automatically lead to better treatment of dissidents and critics by the state, there is hope that the reduced threat perception and reduced fear of regime change will eventually lead to the further loosening of the political environment,” she added.

“Conversely, there is fear that a breakdown in the nuclear negotiations may lead to the intensification of domestic factional and institutional conflicts, which have historically harmed the more vulnerable political and civil rights activists as well as members of the press,” she said.

This should be important news for US, Canadian (also see here) and EU politicians who appear worried that seriously engaging Iran on its nuclear program will lead to worsened human rights violations and/or believe further punitive measures at this time will improve the situation.

As Jim noted:

While [House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif and ranking member Eliot Engel, D-NY] were releasing their letter, on one side of the Capitol, Sen. Mark Kirk, by far the biggest Congressional recipient of AIPAC-related funding in his 2010 re-election campaign, teamed up with Marco Rubio, the keynoter at last year’s Republican Jewish Coalition convention, to introduce The Iran Human Rights Accountability Act on the other. Among other provisions, it would impose visa bans and asset freezes against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. It’s just the kind of thing that generates a lot of goodwill in Tehran. Indeed, one of the Act’s chapters could only be interpreted as “regime change:” it declares the “policy of the United States” to be laying “the foundation for the emergence of a freely elected, open and democratic political system in Iran that is not a threat to its neighbors or to the United States and to work with all citizens of Iran who seek to establish such a political system.” Another gift to the hard-liners in Tehran who are as eager to undermine their negotiators in Vienna as the hawks here are to blow up the negotiations.

“The study makes clear that anyone concerned about human rights in Iran should not use human rights to undermine a nuclear deal,” Mike Amitay, a senior policy analyst at the Open Society Policy Center, told LobeLog. “Human rights issues should be addressed in tandem with support for the negotiations and in a way that does not undermine the success of the negotiations.”

“In this regard, recently introduced rights legislation is counterproductive and offered now as an attempt to scuttle a deal,” he said.

By the way, here’s Josh Fattal, who spent 2 years as an American hostage in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, urging Congress to support the nuclear talks with Iran:

The most important point I’d like to impress on our negotiators and members of Congress is that this is a historic opportunity. Additionally, the human toll from decades of confrontation is immeasurable. My suffering as a political hostage in Evin Prison from 2009 to 2011 was a result of decades of mutual hostility between the U.S. and Iran. But, taken in context, I got off relatively easy with only 26 months behind bars. A resolution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear capacity will finally lead us down a different path that no longer punishes the Iranian people for the actions of their leaders.

Photo Credit: The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

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by Farideh Farhi

Iranian news agencies are reporting that a “knowledgeable source” is suggesting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif cancelled his dinner meeting with EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton on the eve of nuclear talks in Vienna to protest her meeting with civil and women’s rights activists, including the [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Farideh Farhi

Iranian news agencies are reporting that a “knowledgeable source” is suggesting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif cancelled his dinner meeting with EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton on the eve of nuclear talks in Vienna to protest her meeting with civil and women’s rights activists, including the mother of Sattar Beheshti, a blogger who was tortured and died while in custody, during her recent visit to Iran.

I do not know if the reason given for the dinner cancellation is true. There are indications that Ashton may have been occupied in Brussels with discussions on EU sanctions against Russia, and her spokesperson said there were no plans for dinner in the first place. At some level, it is irrelevant whether this is true or not. It is now a “fact” and other reports that the respective deputies of these chiefs did have dinner together are irrelevant since this particular public dance and drama over human rights in Iran is not about policy but about appearances and posturing.

The released photo of Ashton’s meeting with the activists tells it all. Although there were other women in the room, Ashton is presented with only two (besides her translator) — Narges Mohammadi and Gohar Eshghi. The first is a human rights advocate whose inhumane treatment in prison while she was ill, and her quiet dignity in the midst of it all, became a legend; the second is an aggrieved mother from a working class neighborhood who carries a framed picture of Beheshti (her son) everywhere. I would like to know who released the photo and with what intent. But that may also be irrelevant because when it comes to Iranian politics, like elsewhere, what something turns into usually overtakes intent, many times even undermining it.

Ashton is gone and the political storm she ignited has been left behind. She has no EU parliamentarians asking questions about what she did in Iran. The symbolic photo is of good use for placating the constituencies who worry the EU will abandon human rights for the sake of a nuclear deal. She reportedly showed compassion. She told Eshghi that she sympathized because she is also a mother and that she would talk to authorities regarding her desire for a public trial on charges of first degree murder (a trial has been set for the accused in early April for second-degree murder). There is no evidence that Ashton actually carried out her promise of talking to an official before she flew out of Tehran. But the photo is for keeps.

In Tehran, though, pandemonium and controversy combined with quite a bit of comedic relief have been the order of the day. As was the case when a European Parliament delegation met with Sakharov Prize winners Nasrin Sotudeh and Jafar Panahi, no government official is taking responsibility for Ashton’s itinerary. Everyone is feigning aghast at what happened, but on the question of who allowed it to happen, the official response is more like mystification.

Meanwhile Iranian hard-liners could have limited themselves to making a big fuss and hurling insults at the appearance and age of the female leader, as they usually do in response to US nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman’s statements. Additionally, the 40 or so hard-line MPs, generally close to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s Steadfastness Front, could yell at the foreign and intelligence ministers for either permitting the meeting or not preventing it; drag them in for questioning and explanations that would not be satisfactory in any case; warn against the rise of sedition yet again; and then move on to another controversy.

But for the opponents of Hassan Rouhani’s government, Ashton’s meeting was both an opportunity and challenge. An opportunity because Ashton’s sudden turn towards human rights, after so many years of being known solely as someone leading negotiations with Iran, was a timely confirmation of the point made again last week by Leader Ali Khamenei: Western pressure will not end even if the nuclear issue is resolved. He has repeatedly stated that they will come after us for other stuff including human rights. (One colorful cleric took this further during a Friday Prayer by saying that after human rights it’ll probably be animal rights).

Ashton’s photo gave hard-liners an opportunity for a twofer: questioning Western motives in nuclear talks and screaming sedition at domestic opponents. One MP announced thunderously that Iran is not Ukraine! But the photo also provided them a winning point regarding Western hypocrisy. A poster that showed up in Tehran, collating Ashton’s half-face with Saddam’s — highlighting the human costs of the chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by Europeans during the Iran-Iraq War — was intended to remind everyone that the humanitarian impulse is applied very selectively when state interests are involved.

The photo is nevertheless also a challenge since it exhibits what the defenders of doctrine fear most: a collusion of dissidents and the usually devoted, working-class poor against doctrine and injustice. So threatening is the photo that the Javan daily decided to do its own reframing. It simply used Photoshop to delete Eshghi’s image (state TV did the same a few days later) and then, when Javan was ridiculed (since the photo with Eshghi in it had already been published by a reformist paper) said it did not want to offend the aggrieved mother by placing her next to a “seditioner.” (The seditioner in question, Mohammadi, was even called a terrorist by a female MP, a charge Mohammadi responded to with her pen).

According to Javan’s explanation, the deletion had nothing to do with the discomfort caused by Eshghi’s appearance, which so resembles that of thousands of other mothers who saw their sons “martyred” in the Iran-Iraq War. Even more discomforting is that the photo of her son she carries everywhere brings to mind the images displayed throughout Iran of the many young Iranian “martyrs” who died in the Iran-Iraq War. The Islamic Republic has celebrated the courage, endurance, patience, and piety of these mothers and sons unremittingly. Separating Eshghi from the mothers who sent their sons to the war front, who suffered quietly and longingly when their boys died but still took pride in what they died for, makes the digital elimination of her image the only possible solution to a very uneasy predicament.

In the words of the young and very funny Iranian satirist, Aydin Sayar, writing for the Qanun daily, all this explains why Photoshop is the greatest of human inventions: it allows us to visualize every desire. But Javan’s editorial staff should really be faulted for not using Photoshop to its full potential. In Sayar’s vision, they could have, for instance, transposed Eshghi to a photo of Ashton meeting with former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Eshghi and Jalili, meeting Ashton together, confirm doctrine and assure continued political clout.

My bet is that with the reported creation of a “truth commission” in the Parliament to examine the “issue of Ashton’s meeting with an element of sedition” this round of loud criticism directed at the foreign and intelligence ministries will likely last longer than the previous round involving members of the European Parliament. But it will also eventually pass, probably when a better opportunity arises. (It should be pointed out that Zarif is getting it from the other side as well. Mohammadi wrote a public letter criticizing him for calling her a seditioner in an interview; never mind that the reporting of Zarif’s statement was in Mashreq, a hard-line news site that’s not usually a reliable source for exact wording.)

Zarif, like other cabinet members in general, is in the process of perfecting the art of lying low and not reacting much. But he did increase the drama when he stated on his Facebook page that for the sake of the “national interest” he will remain silent for now. He also called on all to avoid hasty judgments and instead focus on the joy of the World Cup victory of the Iranian wrestling team in Los Angeles as the Iranian New Year approaches. Expressions of humility and positivity in the face of an aggressive opponent’s charge are as good as the foreign minister is going to give for now.

Beyond the immediate situation, though, the loud noise surrounding Ashton’s visit does reveal a point regarding the effectiveness of external pressure in relation to human rights. Her visit has been used by hard-liners to yell sedition ad nauseam but it has also stirred a conversation regarding whether foreign officials (including ambassadors) should be allowed — or are entitled — to meet with the opposition without controversy. After all, it is said that Iranian officials meet with opposition figures in other countries all the time. So the reality of Iran’s polity being contested, and its civil society alert, opens up the possibility of using external concerns for Iranian human rights to push for some sort of change.

But loudness may also undercut efficacy. For instance, in the past couple of months, several prominent Iranians, including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and MP Ali Mottahari, have made the point that negotiations for the release of former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi (and his spouse Zahra Rahnavard) were getting somewhere but came to a halt when there was too much noise. According to Motthari, who has repeatedly called for the release or trial of these political leaders, the lifting of limitations on them was in the works in October but was derailed by discussions of the issue in the press and “the reformist claims of victory.” He went on to say that the intent is “to remove the limitations gradually in a way that is not really noticed.”

It is hard to see how such politically charged issues can be managed in an unnoticed way but the appeal for quiet diplomacy inside Iran as well as gradual and incremental (mini-steps, really) is nevertheless offered as a better alternative to making more drastic demands or moves that carry the potential of turning the hard-liners’ screams into reactionary policy. With the experience of the reformist era in everyone’s mind, the worry is that drastic moves or bold and unattainable demands at this point will end up frightening and again pushing the more middle of the road conservatives into the hard-liners’ arms.

Not surprisingly, there is evidence of the government’s preference for — and perhaps a degree of effectiveness in — quiet and incremental change. Last week the charismatic student leader Abdollah Momeni was released one day before his 5-year term was over. According to an interview his wife gave to the Europe-based Rooz Online, he was taken out of prison quietly and left in the middle of the street to find someone to take him to his home and spouse. She suggested that this was done to prevent a noisy greeting party the day he was supposed to be released. This was certainly not a decent thing to do, but the fact that no new charges to prevent the release of this political prisoner were made up could also be considered a quiet step.

Another tiny step was taken yesterday when Mousavi and his wife were allowed to visit Rahnavard’s old and ailing mother. When they encountered a dozen other visitors by chance, the guards, after some resistance, ultimately allowed the family to briefly talk to each other. This surprising event was seen as a sign of opening up made possible by Rouhani; minimal, but nevertheless a change.

The debate over how fast or how loudly to challenge the issue of political prisoners is also happening among the reformists. Even some reformist political prisoners who have in the past written public letters criticizing the conduct of the highest officials have gone quiet in the past couple of months, perhaps persuaded that quiet diplomacy will work better for now. Others have not.

Even if the government manages to persuade most of Iran’s citizens that this is the time for patience and tiny, step-by-step incremental change, it cannot convince everyone. Nor can it control the impatience of many networks outside of Iran that monitor Iran’s human rights situation on a daily basis with its slow pace of change and even occasional reversals. Any opening energizes them to call for more. This is just the way human rights activism works throughout the world.

This leaves the Rouhani government with a delicate balancing act between taking mini-steps for change and defending itself against pressures and charges that will come from forces on both sides of the political spectrum. So far, Rouhani is more or less managing the situation; Zarif met with Ashton this morning and it was all nuclear talk.

via IPS News

Thirty-five years ago today, millions of Iranians embraced a religious leader promising freedom from a corrupt monarchy and national independence. Now many want a better standard of living and improved civil rights.

“Living standards are 50 percent higher today than they were before the revolution, [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

Thirty-five years ago today, millions of Iranians embraced a religious leader promising freedom from a corrupt monarchy and national independence. Now many want a better standard of living and improved civil rights.

“Living standards are 50 percent higher today than they were before the revolution, but so are expectations, which is why the average person believes they had a better time before the revolution,” said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economist who regularly visits Iran.

After years of sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank and integral oil revenue, and government mismanagement of funds, the country is financially devastated, with a depleted budget and unemployment above 14 percent (25 percent for youth).

“Early on, revolutionaries focused their attention on the provision of health, education, and infrastructure [electricity, clean water, and roads] for underprivileged areas,”  the Virginia Tech professor told IPS.

“These developments have helped move large sections of the poor into the middle class and a modern life style,” he said.

Today, citizens from that expanding middle class and across Iranian society — now more educated than ever — desire better social and civil freedoms in addition to improved work opportunities.

“The Iranian president [Hassan Rouhani] has released a citizen bill of rights and one positive thing he did is put this out there and ask for comments, but it really falls short on women’s rights and the rights of minorities,” said Sussan Tahmasebi, an Iranian women’s rights activist and the co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), an NGO dedicated to women’s rights.

Tahmasebi, who lived and worked in Iran from 1999-2010, also decried the continued imprisonment of student activists and reformist leaders, as well as Iran’s high rate of executions, which have increased in recent months.

“Iranians want to live in an environment that’s safe, where the law is there to protect them rather than punish them,” she told IPS.

Still, Tahmasebi acknowledges that the Rouhani government’s top agenda items are resolving the nuclear issue and improving Iran’s economy.

“Once he has made serious progress at the international level, he will have more clout to push for more controversial issues at home,” she said.

Iran’s ruling elite has meanwhile experienced a major overhaul since the June 2013 presidential election of Rouhani, a centrist cleric promising “hope,” “prudence” and “moderation.”

While Rouhani’s election would have been unlikely without the backing of reformist and centrist leaders, he must now maintain their support while also dealing with hardliners eager to regain their upper hand in politics.

Iran is currently implementing the first-phase “Joint Plan of Action”, a deal achieved with world powers known as the P5+1 in Geneva on Nov. 24, 2013. Talks for a comprehensive solution to the nuclear issue are set to begin in Vienna on Feb. 18.

Meanwhile, some of Iran’s most stalwart revolutionaries have raised the volume on their criticism of the Rouhani government’s handling of the nuclear issue.

Members of the Revolutionary Guard, a powerful paramilitary unit, and several parliamentarians claim that Rouhani has given much more than Iran has received in negotiations.

On Tuesday, anniversary commemoration rallies attended by millions in Tehran, according to state media, featured banners and posters responding to a Barack Obama administration mantra on Iran: “all options are on the table,” a reference to military force.

“We are eager for all options on the table,” read some of the placards.

Marchers also reportedly shouted an Iranian revolutionary mantra, “Death to America,” while others added, “Death to [Wendy] Sherman,” the U.S.’s lead negotiator and under secretary of state for political affairs.

But despite domestic criticism, the Rouhani administration enjoys the support of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly urged unity and faith in the government.

“Considering the fact that it is only a few months [since] the administration has taken charge of the country, we should give executive officials time so that, by Allah’s favour, they can move things forward in a firm and powerful way,” said the Grand Ayatollah in a Feb. 9 speech to air force commanders posted on his website.

“We should not allow the enemies’ agents inside the country to take advantage of weak points and to create disorder,” he added.

Since last week, Iranian news outlets have been featuring stories on Iran’s military, showcasing comments by commanders stressing Iran’s preparedness to respond to military threats, and military weapons tests, such as the test-firing of domestically made missiles on Monday.

In a speech celebrating the revolution on Tuesday morning to a rally at Tehran’s Freedom Square, Rouhani declared, “Today, if any side plans to launch aggression against Iran, it should know that the Iranian nation will stand against aggressors with its full might and make them sorry,” according to the Iranian Student News Agency.

The president also emphasised Iran’s willingness to engage in “fair” and “constructive” talks on the nuclear issue.

“Our negotiations with the P5+1 have all been based on Iranians’ peace-seeking nature,” he said.

“We wanted to convey the Leader’s Fatwa [a religious decree against the creation of nuclear weapons] to the whole world during the negotiations and help them understand the Iranophobia project is a big lie,” stated Rouhani.

“While negotiating with the world powers, we want to say sanctions against Iranians are cruel and inhuman,” he added.

In Washington on Monday, a former hostage from Iran’s seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, John Limbert, noted at a Wilson Center event that some Iranian participants in that divisive event, “now older and wiser”, joined reformist administrations in Iran.

Limbert, a historian who speaks fluent Persian, added that the recent opening of the embassy to the public “may be symbolic of larger changes in the Islamic Republic’s relations with the rest of the world, especially with the U.S.”

“Both sides, after 34 years, have made a very startling discovery, that diplomacy — long-neglected tools of listening, of seeking small areas of agreement, of careful choice of words — can actually accomplish more than shouting insults, making threats and the wonderful self-satisfaction of always being right,” he said.

Photo: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani greets a rally in commemoration of the Islamic Republic’s 35th anniversary of its 1979 revolution in Tehran, Iran on Feb. 11, 2013. Credit: ISNA/Hamid Forootan

by Farideh Farhi & Jasmin Ramsey

Editor’s Note: Following is Jasmin Ramsey’s introduction and interview with Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar and expert on Iran from the University of Hawaii who has been in Tehran since the end of August. 

The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Farideh Farhi & Jasmin Ramsey

Editor’s Note: Following is Jasmin Ramsey’s introduction and interview with Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar and expert on Iran from the University of Hawaii who has been in Tehran since the end of August. 

The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated just three months ago and two important historic events have already occurred under his watch: the private meeting between Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of September’s UN General Assembly in New York and President Barack Obama’s 15-minute phone conversation with Rouhani on Sept. 28.

The hope that was generated in New York — where Rouhani and Zarif effectively presented Iran’s new administration to the world — carried through into the Oct. 15-16 resumed talks in Geneva between Iran and the 6-world power P5+1 team. While all parties have remained officially silent on the details of those talks, Iran, the US and the EU concluded with positive statements.

At the very least, it was obvious that Iran’s new negotiating team, led by Zarif — a well-known diplomat with demonstrable knowledge of the US and how to solve political quagmires — has entered negotiations with a serious plan and intent to resolve the nuclear issue once and for all. Of course, Iran and the P5+1 insist on certain bottom lines and it remains to be seen whether the stars will align in Tehran and Washington enough to allow a deal to happen. With that in mind, I spoke by phone with the Iran expert Farideh Farhi, who’s currently in Tehran, to get a sense of where things stand ahead of the next round of talks scheduled for Nov. 7-8 in Geneva.

Jasmin Ramsey: What is the political environment like in Iran right now in relation to the nuclear issue?

Farideh Farhi: A good part of the Iranian political spectrum is supportive of their nuclear negotiating team’s different approach and efforts for resolving this issue. The folks who are not supportive of this effort are effectively marginalized because of the presidential election’s results; the only argument that they have at this particular moment is: “it’s not going to work.” They’re hedging so that if the talks fail, they can come back and say: “we told you so.”

Does that raise the stakes for the Rouhani administration?

This government has a lot riding on the resolution of the nuclear issue because it made it a campaign promise and priority. Had Mr. Rouhani’s rival, Tehran mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, been elected a failure on the nuclear diplomacy front would have posed less of a problem since Mr. Qalibaf’s campaign platform was more focused on the better management of Iran’s economy. But Rouhani’s campaign promise, as well as a quick jump on the nuclear issue, has raised the stakes for him and his foreign policy team (failure on this front may also end up impacting his promises on the domestic front). This is not to say that Rouhani is ready or desperate to make any deal in order to save his presidency or his other agenda items. The Iranian political environment continues to make the acceptance of an agreement that does not acknowledge Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) impossible. So, the acceptance of a bad deal is politically even more dangerous for Rouhani than not reaching an agreement.

Are the Iranians reasonable in terms of what they are expecting from the other side as part of a mutual deal?

While discussing the complex web of sanctions that have been imposed on Iran, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Europe and Americas, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, argued that in exchange for Iran’s confidence-building moves, at least one of these sanctions should be removed as a first step. This suggests that Iran will not be asking for the removal of all sanctions immediately, as it has done in the past, but is looking for something that will show a change of direction in the U.S. approach to this issue. A reversal of the sanctions trend is important for selling whatever compromises the Iranian nuclear team makes to its audience back home.

As I mentioned previously, this government has a lot riding on this issue and if it is unable to frame the results of the negotiations as also protective of Iran’s rights, then it will not only be unable to sell the agreement domestically, it will also begin to face serious challenges regarding its domestic agenda.

Can you elaborate? 

Mr. Rouhani’s election platform had three prongs. One was related to foreign policy; he promised a reduction of tensions with the Western world at least partly through successful nuclear negotiations. Then there was the economic prong, which has a management component. Against the backdrop of deteriorating economic conditions, Rouhani promised both better management of the economy and more rationalized state support for the private sector and productive activities. Finally, he called for the de-securitization of Iran’s political environment.

The continuation and further tightening of the sanctions regime will force the private sector and producers in Iran to rely even more on the state for protection against a deteriorating economic environment and the challenges of getting around sanctions. It will also increase the threat perception of the political system as a whole and as such make the further easing of political controls more difficult.

What about what’s happening in Iran domestically. Earlier this month the daughter of a key opposition figure, Mir Hossein Mousavi — who’s currently under house arrest — was reportedly harshly harassed by a guard outside of Mousavi’s home. Can movement on the nuclear issue aid the de-securitization of Iran’s domestic environment?

If a movement on the nuclear issue ends up reversing the economic war that has been waged and eliminate the threat of military attack that keeps being issued against Iran, then it is not too outlandish to think of the further opening of the Iranian political system. It should be noted that the high participation rate in the presidential election has already had some impact in terms of reducing the systemic fears that motivated the terribly restricted political environment of the past four years. In other words, on the domestic front the move towards the center, supported by the electorate, has already eased tensions within the country. The removal of external threats is likely to further this process. But if Mr. Rouhani’s foreign policy agenda is blocked by the United States taking a maximalist position, then there is no guarantee that this process will continue. In fact, it is more likely that old fears about outsiders — and particularly the US — trying to foment domestic disturbances will once again resurface.

So President Rouhani definitely wants to relax the state’s hand in the personal lives of Iranians?

He has certainly expressed his desire for a less interventionist state in the personal lives of the citizenry as well as a less repressive state in the treatment of critics and dissidents. His Intelligence Minister even said recently that dealing with security issues through securitizing the political environment is not something to boast about. So the expression of desire and/or pretense is there.

But there has been more than an expression of desire or hope. As I mentioned before, the political environment has also opened up considerably since the election. No doubt hundreds of political prisoners, including former presidential candidates, remain. Abuses such as the one you mentioned regarding Mousavi’s daughters also continue to occur. Just last week, a reformist newspaper was shut down for an article that should have been challenged through a critical engagement rather than shutting down a whole newspaper. Still, I arrived in Tehran two months ago and have yet to meet someone who does not acknowledge a vastly different political environment than prior to the election. This may be just temporary given how bad things were after the 2009 election, but there is nevertheless a palpable and acknowledged sense of relief and political release. 

President Rouhani and the Iranian nuclear negotiating team have referenced a limited timeline for reaching a deal. How long do you think it will be before they say too much time has passed?

The process has become accelerated, but I don’t think anyone is expecting the sanctions regime to crumble within 6 months. People have even talked about some sanctions remaining for a long time — they reference the sanctions on Iraq and the time it took for them to be lifted. Nevertheless, there is expectation or hope regarding a reversal of these deteriorating trends.

The bottom line is that a good part of the Iranian population as well as the leadership is ready for a compromise. Under these circumstances, there is readiness for a full-fledged process of give and take and as such, agreements to keep meeting are no longer deemed satisfactory. Hence the expectation that something needs to happen by the next meeting. I don’t think this necessarily means immediate major concessions from either side, but I do think that once the first step is taken, there is no reason why this process cannot become even more accelerated.

In a speech on Sunday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei essentially voiced support for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team and told hardliners to hold back for now. Does this signal a shift on his part?

It does not signal a shift, but it does highlight two key elements of Iran’s approach to the nuclear talks. First, his words make clear that despite the noise made by the hardliners criticizing the negotiation team’s softness, excitement, and perhaps even gullibility, Zarif and his aides have full systemic support in their efforts to find a reasonable solution to the nuclear conflict — a solution that addresses both Iran’s bottom lines in relation to the right to peaceful uranium enrichment as well as western concerns regarding potential weaponization. Secondly, Khamenei’s words also made clear that Iran’s approach to negotiations is quite pragmatic. As he said, if the negotiations work, “so much for the better”, if not, Iran will carry on with a more inwardly oriented approach to its development. By giving full support to the negotiating team — led by the very popular Foreign Minister Javad Zarif — the Leader is positioning himself on the side of public opinion, which favors talks, while making sure that the same public opinion eventually does not consider him a stumbling block to a reasonable solution. Such a positioning will make it more likely that domestic public opinion will blame US unreasonableness, egged on by the Israeli government, and not inflexibility or lack of diplomatic acumen of a Zarif-led negotiating team if talks fail.

Do you sense that Iran’s hardliners are willing to support a nuclear deal?

It’s not a question of their willingness; despite the hardliners’ loud voices at this particular moment, they’re marginalized. A systemic go-ahead has been issued for the perusal of some sort of compromise that acknowledges Iran’s right to enrichment despite limitations on the levels and extent. The hardliners will come out of the margins if the Obama administration insists on the maximalist position of no enrichment that is being pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or is unable to offer any kind of meaningful sanctions relief in exchange for significant Iranian concessions.

So Rouhani is walking a fine line in trying to balance his foreign policy agenda on the nuclear issue with the tricky situation he’s dealing with politically at home?

No doubt, but I would say that at this particular moment, President Rouhani and his team have some leeway regarding how to frame an agreement because of the consensus that was generated by the election. I would even argue that their hands are less tied than President Obama’s, considering Congress’ hardline position on the sanctions regime.

On that point, it’s quite interesting, because on one hand there’s almost a sense among those who are hopeful here regarding negotiations that Obama needs help. But on the other hand there seems to be a tactical urge on the part of others to mirror US policy on Iran. So, while some would like to reduce expressions of anti-Americanism that have long been present in the Iranian public sphere through slogans, posters and so on, others argue that the pursuit of diplomacy while emphatically chanting “Death to America” is Iran’s version of the US’ dual-track policy of sanctions and diplomacy on Iran. 

Do you think the taking down of anti-US billboards earlier this month in Tehran is part of that?

Yes, they were taken down by the Tehran municipality and that was apparently on Mayor Qalibaf’s order. I saw smaller versions of those billboards, calling on the Iranian negotiators not to trust the American negotiators, being carried by demonstrators on Nov. 4, the anniversary of the US embassy takeover.

The protest rally in front of the former US embassy was more robust this year as well. Many people showed up or were bused in and instead of avoiding “Death to America” chants, Saeed Jalili, the former nuclear negotiator and presidential contender, made the case that it is perfectly fine to simultaneously negotiate and chant “Death to America.” He added that the chant is not directed at the American people, only at the US government. There was a clear rhetorical play on the US’ dual track of sanctions and diplomacy; the underlying point was that chants of “Death to America” are not directed at the US public in the same way that both the Obama administration and US Congress make the claim that sanctions are not directed at the Iranian people.

There have been several reports recently that foreign commercial actors such as oil companies are thinking about how they could return to Iran in the event of a nuclear deal. Are you seeing any of that on the ground?

Not yet. The sanctions regime is still in full force. I was talking to an Iranian businessman the other day and he told me that he can’t even receive brochures through the mail from German companies because they fear they would be violating sanctions. Of course, he then told me how he gets around that issue byway of Dubai.

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zaganeh has stated that the Petroleum Ministry is re-evaluating its terms and conditions for investment in the country’s oil and gas sector with an eye for offering better terms. He has also acknowledged conversations with some European companies but he said all of this is just at the level of initial talks. So, people do seem to be getting ready for something — the mood for now seems to be that things may work out well because people are also sensing some change in the Obama administration. That said, everybody remains extremely cautious; they know very well that things could also fall apart very quickly.

by Shawn Amoei

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

by Farideh Farhi

Iran’s cabinet confirmation hearings this week were painful, but not for its new president Hassan Rouhani, despite the rejection of 3 out of his 18 ministerial nominees. They were painful for Iran’s hardliners, whose mismanagement of the country was spotlighted along with their weakening form of political speech.

A [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Farideh Farhi

Iran’s cabinet confirmation hearings this week were painful, but not for its new president Hassan Rouhani, despite the rejection of 3 out of his 18 ministerial nominees. They were painful for Iran’s hardliners, whose mismanagement of the country was spotlighted along with their weakening form of political speech.

A good number of Iran’s political class and punditry must have watched in awe as the people who have been framing and dominating public discourse in Iran — particularly in the last 4 years — adopted the role of the opposition. As they spoke, what has gone wrong with the Islamic Republic became more and more evident: the ideological governance, which is quite distinct from ideological rule, that frames the Islamic Republic as a system. The tension between the ideological framing of the Islamic Republic and the technocratic exigencies of a developmentalist welfare state has existed in the Islamic Republic from day one. But it was dramatically on display in these public hearings.

The undoing of Iran’s hardliners

In rhetorical confrontations between national-level figures and parochial-like local politicians, it’s not hard for the former to outshine the latter. But something else was going on here as well. The questioning of the center-reformist cabinet nominees by the parliament’s hardliners was consumed with the relationship of the nominees to the so-called sedition (fetneh) and had nothing to do with the nominees’ proposed ministerial plans and polices. In other words, the nominees’ qualifications were overshadowed by a focus on what they did during Iran’s 2009 post-election unrest. To boot, the questioning was carried out in a street-talk manner, which is completely out of place in a public forum broadcast on national television. One member of parliament even spoke about the “club” Iranian Lurs use to treat those who do not walk a straight line. He had to apologize for imputing a tendency towards violence to his own ethnic group.

The contrast between the MPs and Rouhani’s nominees — who maintained their dignity while responding to their opponents without transgressing acceptable political speech — was striking. After all, if post-election protests are identified as fetneh in official discourse, one would have a hard time achieving a ministerial post while admitting they supported them. But one can defend one’s record while stating allegiance to the Islamic Republic and its institutions, including the office of the Leader Ali Khamenei. And although some were better than others, Rouhani’s nominees defended themselves well and even engaged in a degree of pushback regarding why they acted more properly and humanely than MPs who showed no sympathy for Iranian protesters who were harmed or even killed.

Again, the contrast between the way Rouhani’s nominees’ spoke in defense of their policies and political outlook and the accusatory language of the MPs was striking. Of course, public displays of official denunciatory language aren’t new for the Iranian public. Indeed, it has been the dominant form political speech in the past few years. What made the broadcasted hearings fascinating was the gradual public realization that the folks who have led Iran into disaster are now sitting in judgment of the folks the electorate voted for. They were voted in precisely because they promised to run the country with managerial expertise and to loosen the grip of ideology over decision-making.

As the hearings proceeded — on the first day sedition-related words were reportedly used over 1,600 times — it became clear that “sedition” is the only ammunition the hardliners have. A prominent conservative MP even said out loud that hardliners have become “merchants of sedition” who are making a living from applying the label. But the confirmation of four of Rouhani’s key nominees who were accused of cavorting with seditionists was a disaster for the discourse of sedition. It’s obvious that the hardliners’ favorite mode of attack is becoming increasingly weak.

Ultimately, out of the many effective speeches given by the nominees, two stand out for me because of the unraveling of tensions that accompanied them.

Iran’s new foreign minister

Mohammad Javad Zarif’s speech literally quieted the cacophonous parliament hall. Zarif has spent most of his adult life in the United States as a student and later as a diplomat. This by itself makes him suspect. He did not serve in the Iran-Iraq War even though he was at age for military service at the time. Among other things, he was accused of being educated in the West, meeting with American diplomats and Iranian civil society activists who reside in the US and even suspiciously losing a briefcase that included important documents while he was there. In short, he was portrayed as a man who lost his soul in the West. What Zarif said was not as important as the way he broke apart that image.

Many in the US have heard him publicly speak in English, which he is very good at, but neither the MPs nor the Iranian public had heard him give a speech in Persian. And they had never seen him recite so many Qoranic verses! But Zarif’s speech on Tuesday seamlessly combined expertise and religious rhetoric. In a rather blunt way, he also pushed backed against the accusations that were hurled against him. He reminded the MPs that the previous government had forced him into retirement at the age of 47 and even made teaching difficult for him but that he had not left the country in more than 6 years even for teaching opportunities that had arisen elsewhere. His body language, voice and speech-content confirmed that he was as much of a stakeholder in the Islamic Republic as those who were judging him and that he had every right to be the foreign minister of a president whose promises of a foreign policy involving both expertise and moderation aided his election. Zarif also made clear that the power of Iran’s foreign policy rests on the electorate’s popular confidence in their government at home. As I already mentioned, Zarif’s performance was so stunning that it quieted the Majles chamber — the only time this happened during the hearings.

A noteworthy loss

Another important speech was given by Mohammad Ali Najafi, Rouhani’s nominee for the Ministry of Education. Again, the contrast between his speech and demeanor and the accusations leveled against him was something to behold. His pushback was also telling. Najafi was accused of meeting the families of protestors who died in 2009, to which he essentially responded with: I went to see the aggrieved families in my capacity as a member of the Tehran City Council, which would have been unnecessary if you guys had done your job of at least comforting them.

Although Najafi failed to receive the required number of votes for confirmation, the yay votes outnumbered the nays and a one-vote switch would have made him the cabinet minister. This situates him as an important advisor or a candidate for other posts if he desires them.

Beyond this, Najafi’s near confirmation turned into an argument for some Tehrani voters. Had they not mostly abstained in the 2012 parliamentary election and, ignoring reformist disqualifications and disarray, voted for a moderate conservative slate — which did exist — Najafi would have been the education minister today. The leader of that moderate conservative slate — Ali Mottahari — was the only one who made it into Parliament in 2012 and was a key organizer of votes for the Rouhani cabinet. One more deputy from that slate — which was possible with more participation — would have made a small but important difference in the scheme of things. Of course, yesterday that difference didn’t appear as small to the many teachers who were hoping for Najafi’s successful appointment.

Several blunt exchanges involving the intelligence and judiciary ministries should also be listened to by anyone trying to understand the tensions and polarizations of today’s Iran. The focal point of these tensions is based on issues related to human and civil rights, dignity and the operation of Iran’s surveillance state.

Rouhani’s position

In his closing speech, Rouhani laid out his argument for how to leave behind or at least lessen the deep rifts that resulted from the 2009 election. He argued for an acknowledgment that both sides had made mistakes. He did this by mentioning two words in one sentence: Kahrizak and orduskeshi. He said both were mistakes, giving them equivalency.

Kahrizak is the prison in which many of Iran’s 2009 protesters were abused and several were killed. Ordukeshi is the word used by the Leader to negatively describe the 2009 protests. Instead of acknowledging the constitutionally protected right to peaceful protests, the term frames the events as something the losers of the election illegitimately did by turning the electoral competition into street confrontations. Rouhani surely knows that this is a highly offensive term to many people who voted for him particularly in the city of Tehran, in which protests lasted much longer than the rest of the country.

By saying that mistakes were made in both Kahrizad Prison and by ordukeshi, Rouhani’s message seemed clear: rightly or wrongly, neither side can play the game of political righteousness. Stop asking each other for apologies, which will not be forthcoming from either side; learn to live with this reality. Let’s just move on based on the premise that the time for the continuation of the purge game is over because it is a dangerous game to play when the country is in dire need of civil interactions in the face of external pressures. This was not moral posturing; it was a plea for all to search for their pragmatic side.

These words can only be taken as serious advice if there is some movement on the front of reintegrating those who were purged because of the events of 2009, which will be a challenge for Rouhani. The ministerial confirmation of several former advisors to Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is still under house arrest, is a step in that direction. But it is not enough even if public tolerance for gradualism and moderation — and taking things slowly — seems relatively high at the moment.

Photo Credit: Amir Kholousi

by Mohammad Ali Kadivar

In a historic letter to President Barack Obama, 55 Iranian political prisoners describe the effect of the crippling sanctions regime on the Iranian people and plead for a new approach to the nuclear issue. They write:

Mr. President! We believe it is time to replace sanctions [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mohammad Ali Kadivar

In a historic letter to President Barack Obama, 55 Iranian political prisoners describe the effect of the crippling sanctions regime on the Iranian people and plead for a new approach to the nuclear issue. They write:

Mr. President! We believe it is time to replace sanctions with an effort to achieve a mutually acceptable resolution of the nuclear issue. To achieve such an end and given the chronic nature of the deep-rooted conflict, all sides concerned should strive for a dignified solution in which no party will be considered the loser. Such a solution should be based on genuinely addressing international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program by the Iranian government on the one hand and acknowledging the legitimate rights of Iran to peaceful nuclear energy, in compliance with international legal standards, by the US and the West on the other.

For the last four years, Iran’s political prisoners have operated as a visible and influential actor in a severely repressed political atmosphere. They are now becoming an important voice in Iranian foreign policy by sending messages to politicians in Tehran and Washington.

The letter’s cosigners are politicians, journalists and democracy activists who were imprisoned during and after the government’s crackdown on the 2009 uprising against the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The heavy-handed response suddenly increased the number of political prisoners in Iran to hundreds — at times even thousands. Many of them included prominent figures in Iran’s political and civil society.

In Iran, imprisonment operates as a conventional method of silencing political dissidents, but many of these prisoners continued their oppositional activities from the beginning of their sentences. What made this new round of prison activism more effective was the Iranian opposition movement’s strong Internet presence. When the Green Movement emerged in Iran, many analysts pointed to the activists’ innovative use of digital technology in initially organizing the electoral campaign and then publicizing information about protest events and regime atrocities.

The government’s crackdown attempted to stifle the public presence of Iran’s democracy movement, but the activists turned the Internet into an oppositional space. This included sharing updates about political prisoners’ situation and actions and spreading open letters smuggled from the prisons.

Sociologists refer to “abeyance structures” as spaces and communities through which social movements continue to exist in periods of repression and public inactivity. Ironically, prisons were a major abeyance structure for Iran’s Green Movement after the 2009 crackdown. During the years of the Green’s decline, Iranian prisoners sustained activity both through direct actions, such as hunger strikes, as well as adopting positions on issues through individual and collective open letters.

In addition to individual strikes against the abuse of prisoners’ rights, hunger strikes were also organized in solidarity with other prisoners and against regime atrocities conducted outside prison walls. In the most stunning example, 12 political prisoners went on hunger strike in 2011 after fellow prisoner Hoda Saber died after prison guards beat him while he was hunger striking against the tragic death of another activist on the outside, Haleh Sahabi. This collective action led to a burst of solidarity among Iranian dissidents inside Iran and among those in exile.

Prisoners also engaged in radical political positions in a country where political activists fear hosting meetings in their homes. In one of the boldest examples, political prisoner Abulfazl Ghadiani publicly accused Leader Ali Khamenei of despotism and compared him to Iran’s pre-revolutionary autocratic monarchs.

In other open letters, prisoners reflected on Iran’s political landscape and offered strategic analyses of Iranian politics and proposed courses of action. In discussions about boycotting or participating in the recent presidential election, Zia Nabavi, an exiled student sentenced to 10 years in prison, argued that Iran’s civil society needs active citizenry who won’t be easily discouraged by destructive authoritarian actions and will act with hope and rationality. He endorsed Hassan Rouhani in that letter and encouraged all democracy supporters to actively participate in the election. As with other letters by political prisoners, that letter became part of the pragmatic wave that resulted in Rouhani’s electoral victory.

During his campaign, Rouhani suggested his election could result in the release of political prisoners. That was one of the major demands that Rouhani’s supporters made during his electoral campaign and in celebrations of his victory. This will be one of the major tasks of the new president’s first term.

All these factors have provided political prisoners with a unique place in Iran’s political landscape. They are, after all, the people who have paid the highest price in fighting for freedom and equality for the Iranian people. A year before the election, Hamid Reza Jalaeipour, a prominent reformist sociologist, stated that political prisoners are even more important than reformist organizations. For all these reasons, the prisoners’ recent letter to President Obama contains significant ramifications for politicians in Washington and Tehran.

The message to Washington is clear. Regardless of whether the goal of sanctions or calls for military action is to empower the Iranian people, a suffering element of Iran’s democracy movement is stating that sanctions have been disempowering and should end.

Iran’s political prisoners are also teaching all of us an important lesson: one should not sacrifice the people’s wellbeing and interests for personal revenge. These prisoners had many reasons to ask for more sanctions on a government that has illegally imprisoned them for unjustifiable reasons, deprived them of their most basic rights and tortured them and their families. But they prioritized the Iranian peoples’ interests and asked both Iran and the US to engage in constructive diplomacy rather than blind hostility.

Let us hope that Iran’s leaders, especially Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, learn this lesson and facilitate the release of these prisoners while starting a new era in Iran’s foreign policy.

- Mohammad Ali Kadivar is a sociology PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studies global democratization and popular mobilization and writes about Iranian politics in Farsi and English.

Photo Credit: Nima Fatemi

Since Saturday, more than a dozen young journalists working for five reformist newspapers and journals, one news agency (Iranian labor News Agency or ILNA), and one website (Baztab), have been arrested mostly at their place of work on order from the Iranian Judiciary. Little is yet known about the reasons for [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Since Saturday, more than a dozen young journalists working for five reformist newspapers and journals, one news agency (Iranian labor News Agency or ILNA), and one website (Baztab), have been arrested mostly at their place of work on order from the Iranian Judiciary. Little is yet known about the reasons for their arrests (one has already been temporarily released). But various Iranian news media outlets are suggesting that their arrest warrants were issued by the Judiciary based on the charge of cooperation with “Persian anti-revolutionary media” located outside of Iran. Meanwhile, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance said today that he is “sure their charges are not media related.” In other words, he is saying that they were not arrested for what they wrote.

The arrests come on the heels of reports of harassment suffered by families of journalists who work for BBC Persian and just a week after the spokesperson for the Judiciary, Mohseni Eje’I, said that “reliable sources” had told him that a number of journalists, along with those writing for domestic newspapers, “have their hands in Western and anti-revolutionary hands,” whatever that means.

About three years ago, the Intelligence Ministry made “contracts and receiving of resources” from 60 foreign institutions, including Persian speaking media, illegal as part of its attempt to manage the “Soft War” waged against Iran by Western enemies. In 2011, the Ministry arrested 6 filmmakers on charges of cooperation with BBC Persian despite the BBC’s denials that anyone works for its news service in Iran.

Cartoon by Mana Neyestani

The recent arrests, however, are by the Judiciary and not the Intelligence Ministry, and if the reporting of Fars News is to be taken seriously – and that’s a very big “if” – the journalists’ “crime” was “attempting to participate” in the BBC’s online photojournalism classes with the intent of shooting films with their mobiles and presumably sending then to the BBC eventually.

In addition to these arrests, the popular conservative website Tabnak has now become completely blocked. Tabnak belongs to former IRGC (revolutionary guard) commander and presidential candidate, Mohsen Rezaie, and had been operating without filter. According to Fararu, another conservative website, the popular site was blocked because of the publication of improper reader comments (public insults against religious authorities is against the law and punishable; in the same way, contact with Persian-language “anti-revolutionary” sites is also considered illegal).

As Jamshid Barzegar of BBC Persian has written, the simultaneous arresting of journalists is unusual for two reasons. First, while during the height of the reform era a number of newspapers were closed at the same time (hence depriving many journalists of work), this is the first time such a large number of journalists have been arrested in their work environments. Second, the arrests — combined with the blocking of Tabnak – provide a hint that there has been a change in the pre-election norm of relative openness for the media.

The Iranian leaders’ desire to increase participation rates in the presidential election has usually been deemed reason enough for pre-election relative media openness. In this context, the question of whether these moves indicate that the Iranian leadership could care less about participation rates in the presidential election becomes an important one. The worry that the election might get out of control seems to be trumping the desire to elicit higher participation rates as an indicator of state legitimacy.

The way the Iranian deep security state continues to show its pre-election nervousness is nevertheless puzzling. Newspapers for which the arrested journalists worked have not been shut down and unless there is a much wider crackdown they will continue to publish critical commentaries that are not made up by journalists but uttered by commentators that range from university professors to members of the Parliament to business leaders to former presidents of the Islamic Republic. What happened in Iran in the past few years has moved the country so much to the extreme right that even center-right presidential candidate such as Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf or former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani — if they decide to compete — will run on a platform that will be critical of the direction the country is going in. Arresting journalists will not change this.

The move, which will be given a veneer of legality, will keep journalists generally scared and worried about the way they report on issues, even non-political issues since a couple of arrestees are in charge of the social desks of various newspapers. It will also make everyone wary of their contacts with the outside world. But it will not address the fundamental contradiction faced by Iran’s security establishment, namely: the more it highlights as a threat the linkages of regular folks doing their jobs inside Iran to outside or anti-revolutionary manipulation and machinations, the more it advertises its own failures in creating a more “secure “environment for the Islamic Republic.

For Iran, 2012 will go down as the year of economic woes. The mantra of the “enemy’s psychological war against Iran” will no longer be blamed more than internal mismanagement even by the most ardent supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Leader, Ali Khamenei. The “resistance economy” against the “economic war [...]]]> via Lobe Log

For Iran, 2012 will go down as the year of economic woes. The mantra of the “enemy’s psychological war against Iran” will no longer be blamed more than internal mismanagement even by the most ardent supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Leader, Ali Khamenei. The “resistance economy” against the “economic war unleashed against Iran” has become the name of the game. Several years of expansionist fiscal and monetary policies — underwritten by high oil prices and government spending and accentuated by liberal import policies — clashed directly with the ferocious sanctions regime imposed by the United States and its allies. Highly contested politics continued to reign as well. A nationwide election — the first after the contested 2009 election — was held; domestic and international objections regarding the government’s treatment of Iranian citizens continued; the attempt to delineate the qualification and age limit of presidential candidates failed. I am not particularly good at ranking events based on importance, but upon Jasmin Ramsey’s request, here are my top 10 picks for Iran in 2012.

1. The Rial’s Freefall

The gradual drop in the value of Iranian currency, the rial, begun at the end of 2011 and continued until about September when the bottom literally fell off, registering a 50 percent drop in one month. The government eventually cracked down on the unofficial market, which as economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani pointed out, is a limited currency market, and created a foreign exchange center for importers and exporters based on a managed floating system. It also continued to maintain a much lower fixed rate for the import of critical goods such as medicine and some foodstuff. By the end of the year, the foreign exchange rate stood a bit below 25,000 rials per dollar (in comparison to about 15,000 rials per dollar in the unofficial market in January 2012 and about 10,000 a year before).

The cause of the deprecation consumed much public commentary. Some accused the government of cynically manipulating the market in order to sell its dollars at a higher rate and using the generated money to cover its budget deficit. Others lamented the Central Bank’s incompetence while Ahmadinejad blamed unknown market manipulators as well as US-led measures despite his previous dismissal of sanctions as nothing but “torn paper.” But no matter who or what was at fault, the rial’s drastic drop was the most significant event of the year, not necessarily because of its economic impact, but because all the government’s talk about everything being dandy despite sanctions could no longer be listened to with a straight face. Of course, many outside observers’ predictions that the rial’s crash would lead to the collapse of the Iranian economy did not materialize either. Ultimately, the rial devaluation showed that the Islamic Republic is hurting, but far from dying.

2. Sanctions, Sanctions, and Even More Sanctions

Since its onset, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced sanctions, including some imposed by the United Nations and unilaterally by various countries. However, 2012 should be marked as the year that the US-led and promoted sanctions regime went after the Iranian economy’s jugular. In January, US pressures led the EU to impose an oil embargo on Iran and the freezing of Iran’s Central Bank’s assets. In March 2012, all Iranian banks identified as institutions in breach of EU sanctions were disconnected from the world’s hub of electronic financial transactions, SWIFT. This was followed by the EU placing sanctions on Iran’s best technical university, Sharif, in December.

The EU seems determined to prove Ahmadinejad’s 2007 claim that “In addition to the closure of our country’s nuclear centers, they were after the closure of universities and research centers connected to peaceful nuclear research, including classes in physics and mathematics and they had announced this officially.” At present, both EU and US institutions look like bodies filled with what can only be described as sanctionholic politicians and bureaucrats desperately in need of a 12-step program. Unable or unwilling to offer Iran a nuclear package that it can accept, they act like people who cannot help themselves because they are addicted to just one thing.

In Iran, sanctions began to bite not only because oil exports dropped significantly (by about 40 percent) but more importantly because banking restrictions prevented the transfer of currency into the country. People are complaining that even vital drugs — not on the sanctions list — have become difficult to import because of payment restrictions. There is, meanwhile, little evidence that Tehran is reconsidering its position or that it’s willing to accept a nuclear deal that it previously rejected. Perhaps 2013 will be the year that the Iranian leadership will finally crack and cry uncle, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

3. The Parliamentary Elections

Elections for the 9th Islamic Consultative Assembly or Majlis were held on March 2 with a second round on May 4 in the 65 districts where candidates did not receive 25 percent or more of the votes cast. Stricter qualification criteria saw fewer candidates registering than in previous elections. Still, more than a third were disqualified by the Guardian Council, leaving about 3,400 candidates to run for the 290 seats that represent Iran’s 31 provinces. This was the first election held since the contested 2009 presidential election and much was made of it being an eventless event which nevertheless registered a respectable participation rate for the legitimacy of the Iranian state. Posters exhorted people to vote as a means to prevent military attacks and displayed emphatic declarations by Khamenei that in this “critical” election, high turnout would be a “slap” in the face of the enemy.

Official figures showed a 7 percent increase in voter turnout compared to the last parliamentary election in 2008 — from 57 to 64 percent – but many doubt the veracity of this figure. Participation rates in parliamentary elections have ranged from 51 to 71 percent and, given the disaffection of many voters after what happened in 2009, the likely turnout was probably on the lower end. Turnout in large cities such as Tehran has historically been much lower. Despite the failure of more than 65 percent of sitting MPs to return to the new session (the incumbency rate is historically low in Iran and only between 30 to 35 percent), the election was mostly a competition between conservatives and ultra-conservatives wherein the latter did not do as well as the more traditional conservatives. This outcome assured the re-election of Ali Larijani as Speaker along with deputy speakers who are also traditional conservatives. Historically, parliamentary elections held right before the president’s second term is over have been harbingers of trends for the next presidential election. So, although Iranian presidential elections have proven unpredictable the last few times, a lackluster election with slim pickings will likely be the name of the game for June 2013. Still, even disgruntled non-voters will probably be hoping for a move away from the radicalism and erratic conduct of the current president.

4. The Majles Questions, Ahmadinejad Mocks

After weeks of wrangling, in a first for the Islamic Republic, President Ahmadinejad was called to the Majles in March to answer questions regarding his refusal to implement legislation passed by the Parliament, controversial cabinet appointments, and a tense relationship with Khamenei. Ahmadinejad’s responses turned out to be both evasive and dismissive; they were performed by a man safe with the knowledge that he would not be impeached. Members of parliament complained that he insulted and mocked their questions but did nothing given the costs of bringing him down during the midst of all the external pressures Iran is under. A second attempt in November to question Ahmadinejad regarding the devaluation of the rial was suddenly halted by Khamenei, who once again expressed his wishes for the president to finish his term without too many disturbances. Still, nothing is over until it is over and Khamenei and the whole country will have to endure much more heartburn in 2013 before Ahmadinejad leaves his post by August. Given the support he has given to Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Khamenei deserves the stress, but the country doesn’t.

5. The Suspension of the “Great Economic Surgery”

The Parliament was manhandled by Ahmadinejad on many occasions but did manage to strike back at the heart of his economic program. Fearing greater inflation than the official 25 percent, and concerned about the unauthorized use of foreign exchange to cover the budget deficit, the Parliament suspended the second phase of the Targeted Subsidies Reform Act of 2010 — the center-piece of Ahmadinejad’s “Great Economic Surgery” — in November. This suspension halted more public utility price increases and further rises in monthly welfare cash payments to households, as was planned by the Ahmadinejad Administration. The parliament also voted in a new law which explicitly states that “all money received from the sales of oil and gas proceeds at new higher exchange rates is part of the government’s general revenue, and no part of it can be used to raise monthly cash payments.”

6. Death and Resistance in Iran’s Prisons

This year forcefully disproved the assumption that imprisoning political and civil society activists and critics silences them and fixes the Islamic Republic’s dissident problem. Former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi remained incarcerated in their homes (the former along with spouse Zahra Rahnavard) without being charged and remained mostly without any kind of access to the outside world. But letters written by political prisoners about prison conditions and solidarity among prisoners — as well as the woeful state of the country’s politics — made it out of the prisons and were sufficiently covered by external news and activist outlets for many inside Iran to become aware of them.

Beyond letters, prisoners also staged hunger strikes. Of particular note was the 49-day hunger strike by Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer serving a sentence for “acting against national security.” She ended her strike after judicial authorities acceded to her demand to lift a travel ban imposed on her 12-year old daughter. Her mistreatment and courage was widely reported outside of Iran (Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi were awarded the EU’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought), but also received publicity inside Iran. The dynamic between prisoner resistance inside the country and the persistent coverage of government mistreatment by Iran-focused non-governmental organizations outside of Iran — such as the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) — has proven effective in keeping civil rights at the center of the country’s political discourse. Sadly, this did not prevent the death of Sattar Beheshti, a working class blogger who reportedly died soon after he was beaten by members of the cyber police. His mistreatment was immediately reported in a letter written by 41 fellow prisoners that was smuggled out of prison and his death created an uproar leading to the dismissal of the chief of the cyber police and a parliamentary investigation. In the words of the ICHRI’s Hadi Ghaemi, the Beheshti case marked a milestone in showing that ordinary Iranians risk much harsher treatment by security services than those with name recognition. But the publicity also showed that “the culture of human rights is really taking root in Iran – that they can’t cover it up and run away like they did before.”

7. The UN and Human Rights in Iran

The year of 2012 was also a bad year for Iran’s human rights record at the United Nations. The UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the special rapporteur on Iran that it had established in 2011 (it was the first country-specific rapporteur established by the Council since its inception in 2006). UN actions this year included two damning reports by the Special Rapporteur, Ahmad Shaheed, a rebuke of Iran’s rights record by the UN’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee, and a call by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for Iran to release a prominent human rights activist from detention. The year ended with a rebuke at the General Assembly, which condemned human rights violations including arbitrary detentions, the persecutions of minorities, efforts to interfere with the freedom of expression, and inhumane conditions in Iran’s prison system where torture and cruel punishments have been used. Tehran charged that the GA resolution was politically motivated. Politically motivated or not, Iran’s troubles at international forums intensified with its leadership caught in the paradox of wanting to be a respected member of the international community while protesting the alleged manipulation and bullying of international institutions in the same community by bigger powers.

8. The NAM Showcase

It must be considered pure fortuity for the Islamic Republic of Iran that the decision to hold the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran was made three years ago in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Although the previous summit took place shortly after Iran’s contested 2009 presidential election, it’s unlikely that anyone could have predicted the significance of the summit in light of systematic Western efforts to squeeze and isolate Iran. The extraordinary effort put into the event by the government was intended to showcase Iran’s global role and offer concrete evidence that the US-led initiative to isolate Iran has failed — but it did not go as smoothly as was hoped. The unpopularity of Iran’s support for the Syrian government became evident when the Iranian television mistranslated Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s denunciations of the tragedy in Syria.

The summit did, however, have some positive aspects for the Iranian leadership. For instance, the large economic contingent that accompanied Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit underscored the reality that while the opportunity costs of the sanctions regime are huge for Iran, the country’s location and resources are countervailing forces that cannot be ignored. Quite a few countries look at Iran’s economic strangulation as a prospect for positive gains. This dynamic is likely to continue as the US actively tries to impose new ways of restricting Iran’s trade while other countries collude with Iran in finding ways to get around them.

9. No More Birth Control Policy

In a major reversal in August, with what was considered one of the most successful post-revolutionary plans, the budget for the national birth control program was eliminated. The Health Ministry will instead get funding for “fertility health” with a focus on the health of mothers and children to come. According to Farzaneh Rouhi:

Iran has stood out for lowering its fertility in a short time without coercion or abortion. The fertility rate dropped from 6.6 births per woman in 1977 to 2 births per woman in 2000 and to 1.9 births per woman in 2006. The decline was particularly striking in rural areas, where the average number of births per woman dropped from 8.1 to 2.1 in a single generation. (European countries took about 300 years to experience a similar decline.)

But Iran’s population is now aging rapidly. The latest census figures show that only 23.4 percent of the country is under 14 (a steep drop from 44.5 in 1986) and the median age has increased from 17.4 in 1976 to 27. The policy reversal unofficially began a couple of years ago when the Ahmadinejad administration began to give financial incentives for child birth. But the official abandonment of birth control policies occurred without parliamentary action and upon the words of Khamenei, who said that he had made a mistake in supporting the policy for too long. Reversal may nevertheless be hard to implement in practice. In Rouhi’s words, “Iran may not be able to reverse public practices, in part because small family size is now enshrined in the psyche of both men and women. The public is now used to having control over reproductive rights and may continue to do so, whether through government-sponsored health services or the private sector.”

10. Threats of War and the Ongoing Nuclear Soap Opera

It would have been easy to place the continuing conflict over Iran’s nuclear program at the top of this list. It certainly was the most reported news regarding Iran. But “ongoing” is the operative word here. Yes, there were three rounds of talks in Istanbul, Baghdad and finally Moscow. Yes, these talks were described by Hillary Clinton as “perhaps a last chance to demonstrate a way forward” that can satisfy the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Yes, there was another report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detailing how Iran used the summer to double the number of centrifuges installed deep under a mountain near the holy city of Qom, while allegedly cleansing another site — Parchin — where suspicions persist about past explosive experiments that could be relevant to the production of a nuclear weapon. And yes, there was a lot of war talk, underwritten by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to use the US presidential election to pressure the Obama administration to establish a red line of intolerance for Iran’s nuclear activities.

From Iran’s standpoint, though, what happened was business as usual: lots huffing and puffing in order to sell sanctions as an “alternative to war.” Indeed, the business of selling alternatives to war became so prolific that even the covert war of sabotage and cyber warfare was sold as a substitute without any hint of irony or discomfiture. In reality, all the discussions of red lines and deadlines revealed more about the state of politics in both Israel and the US than in Iran. Netanyahu’s speech at the UN — armed as he was with a Roadrunner cartoon of a nuclear bomb — matched Ahmadinejad’s past craziness and signaled the extent to which radicalism has become the norm in Israeli politics. Meanwhile, in the US the limited appetite or outright distaste for yet another attack on a Middle Eastern country was clearly revealed along with much harder to deny distortions from lobbies backed by Israeli hardliners which have been inserted into the US foreign policy making process. (This tale continues with the frenzy surrounding former senator Chuck Hagel’s possible nomination for Secretary of Defense, because, in the words of Elizabeth Drew, “Iran more than any other single issue is at the core of the opposition.”)

The year of 2012 began with hopes for change in the battle over Iran’s nuclear program. It ended with more of the same and would have remained so even if the pressure on Iran was substantially increased. We begin the coming year with a keen understanding that more of the same may not be sustainable for too long. But the question of when there will finally be a change in this trajectory — and if so, whether it will be for better or worse — remains elusive, with the answer residing in Washington as much as it does in Tehran.

Cartoon: Peter Schrank, the Economist