Clashes erupt at Iran mass rally

Thousands of opposition supporters have clashed with security forces during a government-sponsored rally in Tehran.

(BBC News | 18 September 2009) – Iran’s reformists had been warned not to try to turn the pro-Palestinian Quds (Jerusalem) Day marches into anti-government protests. Read the rest of this entry »

Conditioning a U.S.-Iranian Dialogue

Talks between the United States, Iran, and world powers are scheduled for October 1, but analysts are deeply divided over whether gathering around the negotiating table will prove fruitful.

(Greg Bruno | Council on Foreign Relations | 15 September 2009) - President Barack Obama has confirmed a willingness to press ahead with negotiations to try to end the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program. Talks between the United States, Iran, and world powers are scheduled for October 1, possibly in Turkey (Reuters). And while the Islamic Republic may not be interested (PDF) in dwelling on its nuclear activities, U.S. and other Western negotiators clearly are. “It will be part of that discussion,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised this week. But analysts are deeply divided over whether gathering around the negotiating table will prove fruitful. Iran’s disputed presidential election changed the calculus, these observers say. Read the rest of this entry »

Exclusive: Read Iran’s New Proposal for Nuclear Talks

(Dafna Linzer | ProPublica | 10 September 2009) - The Iranian government has told the Obama administration and its Western allies that it is ready to hold “comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive” negotiations on a range of security issues, including global nuclear disarmament. Read the rest of this entry »

Think Again: Realism

(Paul Wolfowitz | Foreign Policy | 24 August 2009) - Amid war and recession, Americans are in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact mood. But that, says a leading architect of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, is no reason to adopt a misguided doctrine.

“We’re All Realists Now.”

No. Pragmatists maybe, but not “realists.” Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president delighted many people, especially the self-described foreign-policy “realists” who accused his predecessor, George W. Bush, of denying reality in favor of dangerous idealism. Obama has praised the realpolitik of Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush. And a White House official recently told the Wall Street Journal, “[Obama] has really kind of clicked with that old-school, end-of-the-Cold-War wise-men generation.” The elder Bush’s national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, called Obama’s election a rejection of the younger Bush “in favor of realism.” Read the rest of this entry »

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Showing Who’s Boss

Iran’s hard men purge opponents and line their pockets

(The Economist | Aug 27th 2009) - BACK in 2007 the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced an important change of mission. From now on the main task for his 120,000 guards, as well as for the 3m or so members of the baseej paramilitary volunteer force that had just, and for the first time, been placed formally under his command, would be to deal with what he called internal threats. Just what he meant has grown increasingly clear since the disputed presidential elections in June that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an ex-guardsman, to power. The hardline faction centred on the IRGC embraces a network of former officers and like-minded men in other security branches. Despite outrage over the post-electoral crackdown, this faction has escalated its offensive against dissent even as it consolidates its hold over Iran’s politics and economy.

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Ahmadinejad Wants Opposition Tried

(AP Tehran | New York Times | 28 August 2009) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called for the leaders of the opposition to be prosecuted over Iran’s postelection turmoil, stepping up pressure against the pro-reform movement that says he won the election by fraud. Read the rest of this entry »

Top Iran reform figures on trial

The trial has begun in Iran of a number of senior opposition figures following June’s disputed presidential election.

(BBC | 25 August 2009) - The defendants, who include former ministers in the 1997-2005 Khatami government, are accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest. Read the rest of this entry »

Counter-Revolution and Revolt in Iran: An Interview with Iranian Political Scientist Hossein Bashiriyeh

(Danny Postel with Hossein Bashiriyeh | Logos | Vol. 8, Issue 2.) - Hossein Bashiriyeh is one of post-revolutionary Iran’s key political thinkers. Known as the father of political sociology in Iran, he has influenced, through his voluminous writings and his 24 years teaching political science at the University of Tehran (1983-2007), both the study and practice of politics in Iran. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran’s president unveils cabinet

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-election triggered a political crisis in the country, has unveiled his list of cabinet ministers.

(BBC | 20 August 2009) - For the first time in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic it includes three women. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Iran’s Basij stay loyal?

At any opposition demonstration in Iran they materialise from nowhere. For opposition supporters, they have become notorious. (See BBC video).

(Jon Leyne | BBC News | 13 August 2009) – The government’s Basij militia have become President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief enforcers, as he tries to consolidate power in the wake of his disputed re-election. Read the rest of this entry »