Gary Sick on Iran 27, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.Tags: Gary Sick, Iran, Kian Tajbaksh
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Iran expert Gary Sick has written an excellent short article about the fate of Kian Tajbaksh the Iranian-American academic who has recently been sentenced to 12/5 years in prison for assorted ridiculous crimes. Sick’s response is sage, commanding and irrefutable. The whole thing is certainly worth a read but here’s a couple of the most interesting points.
The prosecutors charge that Kian was in touch with me [Sick]. Right. We were both academics in New York, and we saw each other from time to time. However, I have gone back over the past 20 years with that in mind, and I am struck by something quite different. Over that period of time, I have known every Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and many members of the staff of the Iranian U.N. mission. I have spent much more time with them than with Kian.
More important, I have been in meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on four different occasions over the past three years. I have spent at least nine hours with him, much more than I ever spent with Kian. In my last meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad, I told him that if he were simply a lowly academic, instead of the president of Iran, he would be subject to arrest upon his return to Iran for meeting with the roomful of U.S. academics and think tank representatives that he had assembled at his hotel. He scoffed at the idea. Now one of my colleagues, a lowly Iranian-American professor who was about to take up a position at my university, is being condemned to 15 years in prison because, among other things, he had contact with me.
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This is not about Kian, and it is certainly not about me. It is about the abject failure of a ruling clique that has lost the confidence and support of its own people and must contrive scapegoats to excuse its own deficiencies.
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.
The Gulf blog 