Majid Ghaemi Heidari is welcomed at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport. He and four other Iranians were freed after 30 months in U.S. custody in Iraq. (Photo: Javad Moghimi / Fars News Agency)

After a long absence, pro-Mousavi cleric Rafsanjani to lead prayers.  Former President Mohammad Khatami reportedly will also attend Iran’s weekly keynote sermon Friday. The reformists’ return to the event can be seen as a challenge to hard-liners or a sign of a truce.

By Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times on July 13, 2009

Reporting from Beirut – A powerful cleric who has been a driving force behind the opposition movement challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will lead Friday prayers this week after a two-month absence that was considered a sign of conflict within the Iranian establishment.

The semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Sunday that Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will deliver the nation’s weekly keynote religious sermon. Rafsanjani, who chairs powerful boards that oversee the office of the supreme leader and adjudicate disputes between government bodies, is the highest-profile backer of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who lost to Ahmadinejad in an election marred by allegations of vote-rigging.

Mousavi’s Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/mousavi) said that he and his ally, former President Mohammad Khatami, would attend the prayer sermon. The Facebook page invited supporters who poured into the streets in recent weeks to attend, though Mousavi’s website, Ghalamnews.ir, carried no such announcement.

News of the return of reformists and moderates to the official Friday prayer ceremony could serve as a challenge to hard-liners, led by supreme leader Ali Khamenei, on their home turf. Alternately, it could be a sign that the two sides have brokered a truce in their continuing political conflict. The election and subsequent demonstrations, attended by hundreds of thousands of Iranians, have led to numerous deaths and arrests.

On Sunday, news websites and human rights groups reported the killing of Sohrab Arabi, a 19-year-old who was apparently shot in the chest by government security forces or allied Basiji militiamen during a June 15 demonstration and had been missing since. His funeral is to be held today.

On Sunday, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, army chief of staff, blamed such deaths on unruly demonstrators.

“The rioters, armed with weapons from the U.S., Israel and England, opened fire on people in a futile attempt to accuse the police and the Basiji, with the cooperation of foreign media,” Firouzabadi said in an open letter addressed to Imam Mahdi, a venerated Shiite Muslim who disappeared hundreds of years ago and whose messianic return, it is believed, will herald a new age.

“Our security forces never used any arms and they were beaten up, injured, martyred and crushed under wheels,” he wrote in the letter, published in multiple news outlets. “On the other hand, the rioters mourned their fake dead.”

Meanwhile, five Iranian officials described as diplomats by Tehran arrived in the capital Sunday after 30 months in U.S. custody in Iraq. They were detained in early 2007.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Iranian government was entitled to sue the Bush administration “for this savage act.”

The failure by Barack Obama to chart another course in the Middle East, to defy the Israel
lobby and to denounce the Bush administration’s inexorable march toward a conflict with
Iran is a failure to challenge the collective insanity that has gripped the political leadership
in the United States and Israel.

Obama, in a miscalculation that will have grave consequences, has given his blessing to
the widening circle of violence and abuse of the Palestinians by Israel and, most
dangerously, to those in the Bush White House and Jerusalem now plotting a war against
Iran. He illustrates how the lust for power is morally corrosive. And while he may win the
White House, by the time he takes power he will be trapped in George Bush’s alternative
reality.

“Humanity Does Not Change”

There is nothing in human nature or human history to justify the idea that we are
progressing morally as a species.

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to stay the hand of Israel, which is
building more settlements—including a new plan to put 800 housing units in occupied
East Jerusalem—and imposing draconian measures to physically break the 1.5 million
Palestinians in Gaza. We need, most of all, to prevent a war with Iran.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, in a letter to President Bush on May 8, threatened
to open impeachment proceedings if Bush attacked Iran. The letter is a signal that
planning for strikes on Iran is under way and pronounced.

“Our concerns in this area have been heightened by more recent events,” Conyers wrote.
“The resignation in mid-March of Admiral William J. ‘Fox’ Fallon from the head of U.S.
Central Command, which was reportedly linked to a magazine article that portrayed him as
the only person who might stop your Administration from waging preemptive war against
Iran, has renewed widespread concerns that your Administration is unilaterally planning
for military action against that country. This is despite the fact that the December 2007
National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program
in the fall of 2003, a stark reversal of previous Administration assessments.”

The administration, in rhetoric that is eerily similar to that used to build the case for a war
against Iraq, asserts that the Iranian Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in Iraq
and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets. It
dismisses the National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that Iran suspended its nuclear
weapons program. The White House has not provided evidence to back up its claims. I
suspect it never will. And when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz tells the Israeli
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an attack on Iran is “unavoidable” if Tehran does not halt its
alleged nuclear weapons program, what he is really telling us is we should prepare for war.
Conyers’ threat is too little too late, especially if the Bush White House, possibly assisted
by Israel, launches airstrikes on some or all of 1,000 selected Iranian targets in the final
weeks of the administration. But it is an effort. Conyers tried.

This is more than we can say for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama went
before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Wednesday and said he will
stand with the right-wing Israeli government, even if this means backing an attack on Iran.
“As president I will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” he said. “I will
do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in
my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”
Obama went on to blame the Palestinians for the conflict, although the ratio of
Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 was 40 to 1. This is an increase from 30 to 1 in 2006
and 4 to 1 in 2000-2005.

“I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. That starts
with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage, …” Obama told AIPAC. “I will ensure
Israel can defend itself from any threat, from Gaza to Tehran. …”
Obama spoke about Israelis whose houses were damaged by the crude rockets, most
made out of old pipes, fired from Gaza on Israeli towns. He never mentioned the Israeli
siege of Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, or that Israel was deploying fighter jets
and helicopters to attack densely crowded refugee camps with missiles and iron
fragmentation bombs or that it had cut off food and fuel. He ignored the steady expansion
of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. He called for Jerusalem to become the
“undivided capital” of the Jewish state, erasing Arab East Jerusalem from the map in
contravention of international law. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are
internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian territories, which Israel took over in
1967. Obama’s stance is the moral equivalent of assuring the Johannesburg government
during the apartheid era that one would support their repressive efforts to punish the
restive blacks in the townships.

The deterioration of the conflict in Israel, which would be accelerated by airstrikes on Iran
and an ensuring regional war, will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in the
Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical Christian right. And so, with
Obama’s enthusiastic endorsement, we barrel toward a Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
No one will be able to say we did not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore
and death. Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with consternation over
our death spiral, are frantically trying to reach out to Tehran diplomatically.

The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will
devastate the American economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well
as on American military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of
dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as
a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah
will renew attacks on northern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long,
messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the
American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.

The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is increasingly bellicose and threatening.
The Israeli prime minister, after a 90-minute meeting with Bush in the White House on
Wednesday, said the two leaders were of one mind. “We reached agreement on the need to
take care of the Iranian threat,” Ehud Olmert said. “I left with a lot less questions marks
[than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American
resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian
threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his
term in the White House.”

This time around, unlike about the war with Iraq, the Washington bureaucracy, loathed by
the Bush White House, did not remain silent and complicit. The National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program released last Dec. 3 distinguished Iran’s enrichment of
uranium at Natanz and Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had
halted in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq. Adm. Fallon, who put his country and
his integrity before his career, spoke out against a war with Iran, tried to stop it and lost
his job as the head of CENTCOM. He has been replaced with Gen. David H. Petraeus,
whose devotion to his career admits no such moral impediments.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” Obama assured AIPAC. “This
audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should
have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support
of Israel’s security. … The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us
across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race
and … its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y
goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

Barack Obama, when we need sane leadership the most, has proved feckless and weak.
He, and the Democratic leadership, is as morally bankrupt as those preparing to ignite our
funeral pyre in the Middle East.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on screen receives applause during
his address before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference 2008 in
Washington.

President George Bush and his tag-along buddy John McCain are repeating almost word for word about Iran the pattern of lies and threats they used to justify the war against Iraq.

Our intelligence agencies have said that Iran gave up the pursuit of a nuclear weapon three years ago. President Bush makes speeches as if he’s never heard of any intelligence agencies. That’s what worries me about President Bush. His words very often defy and contradict reality.

Recently, he almost repeated word for word a theme he often used in the buildup to the Iraq aggression. It was, he said, unthinkable to allow “the most dangerous regime to acquire the most dangerous weapons.” This guy might actually launch an attack on Iran before his term expires. If he does, you can kiss the world economy goodbye. You don’t like $4-a-gallon gas? How about $10 a gallon?

In the first place, Iran is far from the most dangerous regime in the world. I would say it is not dangerous at all, so far as the United States is concerned. Except for idiots, sane people assess threats based on capability, not on political rhetoric, intentions or imagination.

So what are the capabilities of Iran? It has no nuclear weapons. We have about 3,000 or more. One American submarine could destroy the entire country of Iran and its population. Iran has no missiles that could reach us. It has no aircraft that could reach us. Its army couldn’t even defeat Iraq.

So what I want to know is how in the blankety-blank Hades Bush and McCain define the word “dangerous”? When their statements about Iran are placed side by side with the known facts, Bush and McCain sound insane.

Nothing alarms me more than the thought of an irrational person in the White House. I’m OK with stupid. I can live with venal. I can tolerate a womanizer, even a drunk, but a crazy person in command of our nuclear forces gives me the heebie-jeebies. Somebody who can’t tell the difference between a nuclear-free Iran with no ICBMs and Russia with thousands of nuclear warheads sitting atop advanced intercontinental missiles has no business being allowed in the White House, even as a tourist.

There are two countries that have the capability of being a threat to us – Russia and China. That’s foreign policy and geopolitical strategy at the kindergarten level. They have the capability. No other country in the world does. Only a moron would worry more about an ex-college professor with a long name whose office doesn’t even control the armed forces than he would about Vladimir Putin. This present American administration, in one of the dumbest moves in the history of diplomacy, neglected our relations with Russia while it got us bogged down in two small desert countries that don’t amount to a hill of coffee beans.

Also bear in mind that it doesn’t matter diddly squat if some small country manages to make a few nuclear weapons. A few is no threat to many. Nobody with a few would be tempted to attack any country with many nuclear weapons.

Deterrence worked when the Soviet Union had 30,000 nuclear warheads, but these moronic, unscrupulous, intellectually dishonest, dishonorable neocons would convince you that deterrence wouldn’t work against Iran.

I know most secular folks equate religion with insanity, but they are not the same. Iran is a religious nation, but its leaders are not crazy. They are smart and well-educated. They fought a long, grueling war with Iraq, and I think what they want more than anything else is a little peace and prosperity. But I think they are worried about Bush, McCain and Israel, and I don’t blame them.

 

Stephen Kinzer teaches journalism and political science at Northwestern University and is the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.” He is scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Chicago City Council committee that is considering a resolution urging negotiations with Iran.

The complete article can be viewed at:
 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-iran-war_thinkmay11,0,7229998.story

The ominous sound of war drums is once again echoing from Washington. Hardly a day goes by without new and more vivid threats against America’s newest supposed enemy, Iran. It seems almost unbelievable that the United States, so bloodied and weakened by its adventure in Iraq, would contemplate an attack on another Middle Eastern country. Yet some American leaders seem bent on it.

It may well be true that groups in Iran are training guerrillas to cross into Iraq and fight U.S.-sponsored factions there, even killing American soldiers. Logic also suggests that Iranian leaders, under constant threat from two nuclear-armed powers, the U.S. and Israel, might wish to develop nuclear weapons of their own.

Americans have every reason to fear these developments. An angry, anti-American Iran with nuclear ambitions could gravely threaten Israel and U.S. interests in the Middle East. Attacking Iran, however, would intensify rather than ease those threats.

There are three possible ways for the U.S. to deal with growing threats from Iran. One is to do nothing, which will allow Iran to intensify its nuclear program in ways that could profoundly threaten the region and global stability. The second is to launch a military attack, which would have devastating “blowback” consequences for the U.S., Israel and the Western world. The third is negotiation. This option is so low-cost that it seems folly not to try.

WHEN: Thursday May 1, 2008 7pm
WHERE: All Souls Church; Reidy Friendship Hall
1157 Lexington Ave, @ 79th St. New York, NY USA

212-535-5530

SPEAKERS: Dr. Shahriar Khateri and Dr. Mohammad Soroush, founders of the Society for
Chemical Weapons Victims Support www.scwvs.org

On tour in the U.S. from Iran, Dr. Shahriar Khateri and Dr. Mohammad Soroush, have
many years experience treating victims of chemical weapons used in the Iran/Iraq war of
the 1980s. Speaking to both medical professionals and to the general public, they address
the short and long term medical consequences of chemical warfare hoping to heighten the
awareness of the devastation of weapons of mass destruction and to remind us that we
must work to abolish these weapons.

Tour Sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) www.psr.org and the
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII)
www.campaigniran.org/casmii/

The tour sponsors hope this tour will increase efforts for diplomacy to between U.S. and
Iran and bring us closer to peace.

Co-sponsors: Peace Task Force of All Souls Church and Action For Justice of Community
Church NYC Info: russellbranca@yahoo.com tel. 718-843-0515

Mecca’s Ka’ba

More than a billion people call themselves Muslim. Of all the world’s religions, only Christianity claims more believers. So, what’s Islam all about? In a word, “surrender.”

In the Beginning

Islam began with the visions of Muhammad (“the Prophet”), a merchant born in the year 570 in Mecca, Arabia (now Saudi Arabia). One day, at the age of 40, Muhammad was meditating in the mountains surrounding Mecca when an angel appeared to him and said, “You are the messenger of God.” Until his death in 632, Muhammad frequently experienced visions that he believed came either directly from God or from the angel Gabriel.

The term “Islam,” Arabic for “surrender” or “submission,” suggests much of what Muhammad saw in his visions. Humans were created to serve and be obedient to God, but in their pride they presume equal partnership with the divine, or reject God entirely. The believer, by contrast, finds salvation in surrendering to God’s will.

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None of this should sound foreign to Jewish or Christian ears. In fact, Muhammad accepted much of the religious history of Judaism and Christianity, but said those religions had failed to fully accept God’s word. Muslims view Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as prophets in a series that culminated in the last prophet, Muhammad, who proclaimed Allah’s religion in its final and most perfect form.

“There Is No God But God”

Islam’s scripture is called the Qur’an (“reading”). Originally memorized and communicated orally, it was written down a few decades after Muhammad’s death. The words of the Qur’an are believed to be God’s own, dictated to Muhammad for him to learn verse by verse. Because of this, Muslims believe it cannot be successfully translated from Arabic. Translations of the Qur’an into other languages are regarded as paraphrases and not used for ritual purposes.

Muslims can also look for guidance in the Hadith (“report”), a collection of the words and deeds of the Prophet and his family. A third source of guidance, known as ijma (“consensus”), began to develop in the 8th century to standardize Islamic law and belief. Between the Qur’an, Hadith, and ijma, Islam is held to provide a complete blueprint for human society, encompassing guidelines not only for belief and behavior but for society and government as well.

The Qur’an and Hadith spell out the essential duties of a Muslim, known as the Five Pillars of Islam. These duties are:

1. Shahada, the profession of faith that “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” This profession of faith must be pronounced at least once in a lifetime, with a full understanding of its meaning and inner assent to its truth.

2. Salat, the ritual prayer performed five times a day–at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, evening, and night–while facing toward Mecca. On Fridays, there are services in the mosque, with sermons based on verses from the Qur’an.

3. Zakat, alms to benefit the poor and needy. Islam regards charity and other social service as essential; prayer and professed faith are nothing in the absence of good works.

4. Sawm, fasting, obligatory between sunrise and sunset during the month of Ramadan and recommended at other times. All healthy adult Muslims, excluding pregnant women, abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sex during the fast.

5. Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims must perform at least once in their lives if they can afford it. More than 2 million Muslims converge on Mecca each year.

For some Muslims, jihad (“fighting” or “striving”) represents a virtual sixth pillar, though the concept has been interpreted in various ways. Islamic tradition says that jihad can be fulfilled by the heart (struggling against one’s own evil impulses); by the tongue and the hand (supporting what is right and correcting what is wrong); or by the sword (combating the enemies of Islam).

People of the Book

From its beginning, Islam has had a special relationship with Judaism and Christianity. Jews and Christians are numbered among the “people of the Book” (that is, they too have a relationship with God), and while they do not enjoy full rights in Muslim states, tradition dictates that as long as they pay a special tax (the jizya), their beliefs should be tolerated.

The three religions overlap in space as well. The most sacred place for Muslims is the Sacred Mosque at Mecca, which contains an ancient shrine known as the Ka’ba believed to have been built by Abraham. Second in sanctity is the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, where Muhammad is buried. Jerusalem is also a holy city and the place from which Muhammad is said to have made an ascent into heaven.

Sunni or Shi’ite?

After Muhammad died, the struggle to determine who would lead his followers was long and violent. Eventually, the community chose a leader, called the caliph, to rule the temporal and spiritual affairs of all Muslims. The fourth caliph was Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, but he was killed trying to maintain his authority, and the caliphate passed to people not related to Muhammad.

This led to the first and greatest split within the Muslim community. Shi’ite Muslims hold that only descendents of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law (and, they believe, chosen successor), can rule as caliph. The majority Sunnis, on the other hand, will accept the authority of any caliph who rules according to Islamic precepts. Over time, the Sunnis and Shi’ites have developed doctrinal differences as well. Most notably, Shi’ites believe that a messianic figure called the Mahdi will return at the end of time to institute a golden age and usher in God’s judgment.

Mark Diller
January 10, 2006

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