Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 5

The Anonymous Liberal is questioning recent concerns about Iran, not that he finds them unwarranted, but definitely over-hyped. He cites Fareed Zakaria's recent interesting analysis of the exaggeration of the Iranian threat.

Is Jahanbegloo's confession real after all?

Although I have expressed my skepticism regarding Ramin Jahanbegloo's confession, as have the majority of commentators, Hossein Derakhshan has another opinion, and it's not easily dismissed. He's not a shill for the Iranian government, and knows Jahanbegloo personally. He presents his case at Open Democracy.

He argues first of all that Ramin's confession did not follow the standard template that most coerced confessions in Iran do.

Then his next point, that he realized that his research for think tanks was actually serving the interests of those who wanted to overthrow the Iranian government:

Jahanbegloo describes how this research gradually led to a strengthening of his ties with these think-tanks, and how he eventually realised that the main people interested in the research were intelligence officials and those associated with the United States state department, who sought to use it to help form their polices towards Iran.

Derakhshan does not seem to be entirely convinced himself of this point.

He then wraps up his argument with a very interesting analysis of changes within the Iranian security establishment, which alone makes his article worth the read.

Technorati tags: Jahanbegloo

Details of Jahanbegloo's "confession"

Almost immediately after his release, the Iranian intellectual made a statement that US institutions should refrain from contacting prominent Iranians.

Jahanbegloo told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) in an interview on Tuesday, barely hours after his release from Tehran's notorious Evin prison, that contacting Iranians could result in putting them in danger of acting against their country's security. He accepted that this may have happened to him. Arrested on his way back from a seminar in India at Tehran airport on Apr. 25, Jahanbegloo is now out on 'heavy' bail. Curiously, one of his first acts was to pop into the offices of the ISNA and offer an interview, saying he trusted the agency.

To me, this sounds like code for "putting them in danger with their government." This impression is further strengthened by his subsequent remarks.

He cited contacts with U.S. think tanks as one reason for his arrest. "My relations with foreign institutions started in 1999 when I went to Canada and then to Harvard university," Jahanbegloo said. "But the chain of events leading to my arrest started when I got a fellowship from the National Endowment for Democracy which gets its budget from U.S. Congress and mostly investigates the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Later it was proposed that I do a comparative study of Iranian and East European intellectuals for them. I was arrested before I gave them the results of that research," he told ISNA.

His confession is being greeted with some sceptism in Iran, despite his assurances that he had not been tortured.

"The hard line part of the Iranian state considers the reformist movement and the contacts of individuals with circles abroad that want to strengthen civil society as attempts to undermine the Islamic republic. They call their activities 'attempts at a soft overthrow'," says an analyst in Tehran, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Jahanbegloo, women's rights and civil society activists and their like are seen as people attempting to very slowly and gradually empty the Islamic republic of its revolutionary and religious content. Jahanbegloo has confessed that he had done research for the Marshall Fund on the characteristics of the movements leading to the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The Islamic republic is so sensitive to the idea of similar attempts being made here," he says.

"Jahanbegloo is highly respected in intellectual circles and by the Iranian elite, but he was also the weakest link in the elite chain. He was not affiliated to any important political groups, nor had any revolutionary portfolio or connections to anyone influential within the system itself. He had lots of contacts with foreign entities. It was much easier and less costly for the regime to arrest him than say, for instance, Akbar Ganji, Abbas Abdi or Hashem Aghajari," the analyst says.

"Arresting Jahanbegloo was the most effective message to the intellectual elite here to know they are watched carefully and closely by the intelligence bodies of the Islamic republic and that they could be confronted seriously. The arrest and the confession could provide the Islamic republic with the opportunity to silence the elite and to reduce their relations with foreign entities to the lowest possible level. All these can very well serve to give the Islamic republic immunity to a 'velvet revolution', as Jahanbegloo was said to have been plotting,'' he added.

Jahanbegloo is not out of the woods yet. He is only out on bail, and must still stand trial. The Canadian government is declining further comment until they've heard from him personally.

Rasool Nafisi explains how the regime has found a more subtle form of pressure for intellectuals than the violence that Kazemi suffered: "bail" is their houses and their mothers' houses. If they do not respect their conditions, their mother is out on the street. Charming.

This new tactic seems to be more effective than old-fashioned television confessions, after which almost all those released reversed their statements, thus making a mockery of such orchestrated public performances. The strong bonds in Iranian families, and the fact that in most cases its house is the only property an urban family owns, mean that great psychological as well as financial pressure is exerted: the prospect of homelessness, especially for ageing family members, is intensely worrying.

In the case of Ramin Jahanbegloo, it seems that he was promised freedom and a passport if he gave an interview to "an agency of his choice", in order to tell them "just what he has confessed under interrogation." The offer had a twist: to make sure that Ramin would keep his side of the bargain, he had to post two houses as bail � his mother's as well as his own. The student news agency interview was the result.

The conclusions to be drawn are too obvious to require further comment.

Technorati tags: Jahanbegloo

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 1

Simon at Stubborn Facts makes a very clear case for some degree of human causality in climate change, although he gets some knowledgeable arguments thrown back at him.

Callimachus at Done With Mirrors has an astonishingly astute - and readable - analysis of the Iranian situation, from a guest poster with direct connections to Iran.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters chilled my blood with this post on the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Aug. 30

After my two earlier posts today, it seems appropriate to signal the Bull Moose's musings on evil and Ahmadinejad. Somehow, it ties right in.

Annie at Ambivablog is talking about the dark side of hyper-freedom, which refuses to accept any limits. Her excerpts from http://victoriaroserobin.blogspot.com/2006/07/what-is-freedom-anyway-july-4-2006.html are spot on. Unfortunately.

Anonymous Liberal muses, with some bitterness, on the importance of getting the media on your side if you are a presidential hopeful.

Technorati tags: Ahmadinejad, [tagname], [tagname]

Iranian dissident freed [Updated]

The good news is that Ramin Jahanbegloo has been released on bail from an Iranian jail. The bad news is that it apparently required a bogus confession (yes, I'm making a value judgment here) and a prohibition against communicating with foreigners of any kind, especially the media.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is that most dangerous of Iranian dissidents: a Western-educated thinker who believes in dialogue and a secular state. His invitations to Western philosophers for lectures posed such an acute danger to the Iranian government that he obviously had to be jailed for "being involved is US efforts to overthrow the government". Of course.

His dual Canadian/Iranian citizenship probably did him more harm than good, especially in the wake of the Kazemi affair. Canada doesn't exactly have any big sticks to beat Iran with in this kind of case, but the Foreign Minister, Peter Mackay, did take the highly unusual step in June of asking Germany to arrest Iranian Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, an Iranian official implicated in the murder of the photojournalist, should he set foot in Germany on the way home from Geneva.

Iran did not appreciate the gesture and Mortazavi took a direct flight home.

I applauded the action of the Canadian government at the time. It may not have been a grand gesture, but it did signal to the Iranian government that we would do whatever was in our reach to defend our citizens. Unfortunately there was little we could do in the Jahanbegloo case that wouldn't endanger him further.

***

I'm not the only one questioning the validity of Jahanbegloo's "confession".

Technorati tags: Jahanbegloo, Kazemi

August 22nd has come and gone

... in the Middle East and the world has not ended.

Technorati tags: August 22

Ahmadinejad and August 22

Now it appears it is the Iranians who are worried about August 22.

Ahmadinejad's promise to give a formal answer to the incentives package offered by the West if he suspends uranium enrichment projects by that date has had many people in the West deeply concerned. August 22 is the day that Sunni Muslims celebrate Mohammad's night flight to - presumably - Jerusalem, prompting speculation that Iran's president might be contemplating some hugely destructive act against Jerusalem at that date, or at least something that would throw the Middle East into even greater turmoil. Ahmadinejad has made it quite clear he believes the return of the Mahdi to be imminent and according to Shiite belief, this return will be preceded by a time of upheaval. Few people doubt Mahmoud's willingness to hasten things along by stirring the pot.

But now the Iranians are conducting massive military manoeuvres because they fear that terrorists are plotting an attack on Jerusalem in order to give Israel and the US a pretext to bomb Iran. Read this DEBKAfile Special Report for further details.

Sometimes I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole.

Middle Easterners are said to be fond of deliciously complex conspiracy theories. So does this mean that the Iranians are going to pull off some stunt in Jerusalem and use it as a pretext to claim that they are the ones being framed, thereby giving THEM an excuse to attack overtly? Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

My fondest hope is that Mahmoud does precisely nothing and then has a good laugh on all of us. If he has a sense of humour.

Hat tip to Dreams into Lightning.

Technorati tags: Iran, Middle East