Galloway interviewing Ahmadinejad 19, August 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad interview, Galloway, Galloway interview, Galloway interviewing Ahmadinejad
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Amazing. Not in a good way.
Where is Iran Headed? 10, September 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahma, Ahmadinejad, Iran, Iranian elections, Mousavi, Tehran Bureau
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…is an interesting article on the Tehran Bureau website about, as you might expect, Iran’s trajectory after the recent election debacle. Whilst it’s quite long and in-depth, it’s worth the read. The conclusions are not hopeful.
…in the view of many, the political establishment is neither Islamic nor a republic…The hardliners have made it increasingly difficult for many of the conservatives to support them.
So, in summary, here is where the author believes the Islamic Republic is headed: A situation in which the fissures at the top become even deeper, as the hardliners’ circle of ‘insiders’ become increasingly smaller, while at the same time, the anger and frustration of the people rapidly grows.
Unless the hardliners somehow decide to retreat and undertake deep and lasting reforms, the nation is moving toward a confrontation between the unarmed, but determined majority of the people, and the highly armed small minority that the hardliners represent.
Britain as old Great Satan 25, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Britain, Empire, Great Satan, Iran, Iran elections, Obama
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Just a quick thought on my earlier article on Britain as the New Great Satan. I’ve spoken to a few people about this and had some interesting comments. I am well aware, though my title might have belied that, that Britain and Iran’s relationship goes back some distance and that Iran has a long, seething and passionate hatred for the UK. I’ve spent most of this year reading about the 17th, 18th and 19th century history of the Gulf and Britain’s involvement along with many other powers.
Whilst I do agree with some the sentiment of David’s comment that ‘Britain has ALWAYS been enemy number one in Iran’ I do feel that recently, at least, the empirical evidence disagrees. It is not Britain’s name that Iranian’s have been castigating as the Great Satan for the last thirty years in Friday prayers. It seems to me, moreover, that Britain as the arch-enemy is a straw-man, which has a nice, familiar and potent resonance in Iranian history. I don’t think for one second that Ahmadinajad et al really believe the the UK has been up to anything particularly nefarious in Iran. But that with America being so manifestly popular at the moment and a chance of detente potentially around the corner, they need to go to their back-up enemy, the British.
Ali Ansari from St. Andrews has a peice in the Times of London discussing briefly the background of the Iranian-British relationship. Also, David points to a fascinating article in Prospect Magazine. I think that this article must be taken, however, with a pinch of salt. The author is selling his book, after all, which – as luck would have it – takes something of a controversial tone repletajade with ornate, verbose language and somewhat clumsy ‘I was there reporting’.
Iranian women v the Basij 23, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Basiij, Iran, Iran elections, Iranian women, The Basij
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Iranian quasi-secret police, the Basij, beat a man with truncheons, whilst Iranian women come to his defense.
Whether Iran’s election was fair or not, having apes like these Basij beating people on the streets is a disgraceful sign of the authorities in Iran.
Hat tip: MEI blog
US support for Mousavi 20, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, Iran.Tags: Ahmad, Ahmadinejad, Iran election, McCain, Mousavi, US support
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Thank God that McCain is not in the White House. Of course, were he there, maybe he’d act differently. Yet his call for Obama to offer some kind of support for the protesters on the streets would be, as Michael Collins Dunn simply summarises, devastating for Mousavi’s movement.
Any open support the US offers, other than the cautious sort of comments made so far by Obama, could be used by the regime against the protesters. Being able to paint Mousavi and his backers as American puppets — and Ahmadinejad is trying hard to do that — would guarantee the outcome. We’re the “Great Satan,” remember? And Mousavi was Foreign Minister and Prime Minister in the days of Imam Khomeini himself: his approach has been to call for returning to the principles of the revolution, not to the policies of the monarchy.
I’m not talking here about private citizens: Bloggers who change their website color to green in empathy, for example, or the Twitter posters who last night were urging others to change their location and time zone to make it appear they were in Iran, in order to confuse the security forces trying to track down tweeting Iranians. What I’m talking about is any open governmental support such as McCain and others seem to be calling for. That would be precisely the wrong thing to do.
It is not far from terrifying to think that someone so close to the White House would or even could countenance such a reaction. It just seems so startlingly obvious that to support them would offer Ahmadinajad such a staggeringly open goal and a guaranteed way to sink any (slim) hope that Mousavi has. Anyone heard of ‘the Great Satan?’ Ring any bells? To castigate someone as being US supported in Iranian politics is about as bad as it gets. To be openly supported at this stage by an American administration would just be suicidal. I realise that I am saying the same thing over and over again, but, it’s just such a ridiculous and worrying idea that I feel i must emphazise and then emphasize and then over emphazise just how bad and idea it is.
Iran election comment round up 16, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Gary Sick, Iran, Iranian election, Juan Cole, MEI blog, Mousavi
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Here is a round up of the best of the analysis of the Iranian election shenanigans:
– As usual Michael Collins Dunn offers a sage eye weighing up both sides over at the MEI blog.
– Arab Media Shack and the Washington Post caution people against assuming a coup of some description simply because Ahmadinejad is not the West’s favorite leader. Overall though, I disagree with their interpretation.
– Juan Cole on the election and a rebuttal to the Washington Post’s conclusions.
– Gary Sick with an excellent overview.
– Brian Ulrich – always worth a read.
– And another link to Eskandar Sadeghei’s take on it all.
Iran election farce 16, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran election, Mousavi
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Do read this commentary by an extremely able PhD student friend of mine on the recent Iranian election debacle. As you’ll read, it is clearly as insightful as anything you’ll read in the media more generally.
Live Iranian TV gaffs exemplify absurdity of Iranian leadership 11, March 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian elite, The Guardian, toy monkey
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There is a wonderful children’s TV show in Iran called Amoo Pourang (Uncle Pourang). I say it’s wonderful not speaking a word of Farsi or ever seeing the show. However, thanks to an excellent little article in the Guardian detailing some of the incidents on the show in recent times, it is now firmly one of my favourites. In the West, such incidents as transpired on this show might raise a chuckle or two; nothing more. However, in Iran, where religious sensibilities can not be offended on pain of death, things are different. Indeed, it is not so much religion taking itself far too seriously, but the general nature of a government so full of its own importance, so imbued with pomp, so thoroughly hamstrung in having to maintain such unmanageable levels of propriety and so thoroughly unable to laugh at its self that ‘gaffs’ like this are all the sweeter.
Children ring into the show and, amongst other things I presume, are asked a few questions by the presenter.
– A small boy, when asked the name for a small toy monkey that his father had given him, said that his father called it Ahmadinejad.
– When another child was asked to pass the phone to his mother or father, the child replied that they were both in the shower.
– When twins were asked who their father kissed first when he came back from work they (shockingly) replied that he always “kissed mummy first.”
Robert Tait, the author of the Guardian article, also commented that back in the 1980s Ayatollah Khomeini gave death sentences for the makers of a radio programme after a caller named a Japanese soap opera character as her favorite role model, as opposed to the Prophet Mohammad’s daughter, Fatima. Though he did later rescind the sentences, this goes to show that the Ayatollah was – clearly – crazy.
Such examples show better than anything else I can think, the true ridiculousness of the Iranian elite and their eternal but utterly futile struggle to overcome basic human tendencies, desires and behavior.
Ahmadinejad severely criticised by ex-Presidential advisor and Parliamentary spokesman 26, January 2008
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Iranian support, Nuclear
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Mohammad Shari’ati, advisor to former Iranian President Khatami, savaged Ahmadinejad on Al Jazeera. His criticism were wide ranging and severe. He began by prefacing his criticisms by saying that considering that Ahmadinejad had little international experience when he started, he changed far too many policies. With their neighbours, he believes that Iran ought to have continued along with their ‘friendlier’ policies of the last regime. He is also critical of the Ahmadinejad’s dealings on nuclear issues. The policies of Khatami, Rafsanjani, and al Rouhami were all “more realistic.” The fallout of this is that the former Iranian UN nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani had to resign – he seemed to be inferring – because of the dichotomy between the old and new policies and the difficulties of negotiating across the change.
Regarding Hamas and Hezbollah, Shari’ati maintained that they could not be cut off, but that they must be dealt with in some kind of framework. It was unclear what he was specifically referring to, but he went on to maintain that Iran ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, be it Iraq, by supporting militias about whom they really know quite little, or Lebanon where Iran “has ties everywhere.”
Domestically, he complained that there is, overall, less work and less money for Iranians and he castigated the government for signing fake contracts, to look as if they are doing something productive. Ahmadinejad’s excuse that this “is the result of out steadfastness” cut no ice whatsoever. Also on domestic issues, Hadad’Adel the Iranian Parliamentary spokesman, angrily reacted to Ahmadinejad’s attempts to abolish certain Majlis (parliamentary laws) by saying that only the Guardian Council had the right to do so.
The Gulf blog 