Iranian Alert -- August 30, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The Iranian Student Movement Up To The Minute Reports ^ | 8.30.2003 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Thanks for all the help.

DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

IAEA: Iran Has Given the World the Run-around

August 30, 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Amir Mizroch

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/973154/posts?page=20#20

[DoctorZIn]

Jordanian Monarch to make Landmark Visit to Iran

August 30, 2003
AFP
IranMania

AMMAN -- Jordan's King Abdullah II is to make a much-delayed visit to Iran on Tuesday expected to seal a long rift in diplomatic relations, officials said Saturday.

During the two-day visit Abdullah will hold talks with President Mohammad Khatami and other officials on the situation in the Middle East, especially war-torn Iraq, the officials said.

They are also to focus on the situation in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and ways of bolstering bilateral relations. The monarch will be accompanied by Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb.

In preparation for the visit several Iranian officials have visited Jordan in the past few months, including presidential envoy Seyyed Mohammad Sadr who in April delivered a message for Abdullah to Khatami on Iraq and ways of guaranteeing peace and security for the volatile region.

Abdullah's visit is expected to seal diplomatic ties between Iran and Jordan which were restored in 1991 after a 10-year break, during which Tehran criticised the late King Hussein's over his ties with the late Iranian shah and his support for Baghdad in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iraq war.

Relations improved after Abdullah took the throne in February 1999, and the monarch met with Khatami on the fringes of the millennium summit in New York in September 2000.

The monarch's wife, Queen Rania al-Abdullah, paid a visit to the Islamic Republic in July 2000.

But Abdullah indefinitely postponed the visit to Tehran which was to have taken place in February 2001 amid a diplomatic spat last year, when Jordan decided to recall its ambassador who was at the center of new tensions with Tehran.

At the time, Iranian newspapers charged that Ambassador Bassam Amush had angered the Iranian authorities by accusing Tehran of "interfering" in Jordan's "security issues".

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=17688&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

[DoctorZIn]

PRIME SUSPECTS

NYPost
By AMIR TAHERI

August 30, 2003 -- WHO killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim?
One of the principal political leaders of Iraqi Shi'ism, Hakim, who had returned from 24 years of exile in Iran after the fall of Saddam Hussein, died in a car bomb yesterday as he was coming out of the traditional Friday prayers held at the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf.

Let us begin with a standard murder-investigation question: Who profits from the crime? In the case of Hakim, three potential profiteers-from-crime come to mind.

* The first, and possibly the likeliest, are the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime.

For almost two decades, the Ba'athist regime regarded the late Shi'ite leader as its principal enemy. Over the years, the Ba'athists killed large numbers of Hakim's family, including his eldest brother, and tried for years to bribe many more to submit to Saddam's rule, but with no success.

By murdering Hakim, the remnants of the Ba'ath Party may be trying to extend the current violence in Iraq to the heartland of Shi'ism, which has so far been generally calm.

This is a strategy of chaos designed to raise the cost of occupation while persuading world public opinion that Iraq is running out of control. The remnants of the Ba'athists know that the stabilization of the Shi'ite heartland is the key step towards normalization in Iraq.

* A second possibility is the group of shady characters formed around Muqtada Sadr, a young Shi'ite mullah who is desperately looking for a role in postwar Iraq. Sadr's current aim is to eliminate all others who may provide the Shi'ites with leadership.

Sadr, who recently visited Tehran to win support from the Islamist regime there, has not openly challenged the U.S.-led coalition. In fact, his group has cooperated with the coalition forces to keep tension under control, especially in parts of Baghdad.

His current strategy seems to be aimed at presenting himself as the sole credible interlocutor for Tehran and Washington, at a time when Iran and the United States are becoming involved in what amounts to a proxy war in Iraq.

The young Sadr has denied any role in the murder. But suspicions that his group was involved will not go away. The murder last spring of religious leader Abdel-Majid Khoi, also in Najaf, and the assassination of several other Shi'ite clerics in the past four months have established a pattern that leads back to the Sadr group.

* The third possibility is the group of hard-line Khomeinists in Tehran who see Iraq as a battleground between their brand of "Islamic revolution" and the United States.

Having publicly warned Hakim not to join the recently created Governing Council in Baghdad, Tehran hard-liners could present his murder as a warning to others who might wish to cooperate with the U.S.-led coalition.

Iranian Khomeinists have been angered by Hakim's repeated assertions that he and his party do not regard present-day Iran as a model. Hakim's espousal of a secular and democratic system for Iraq was a serious blow to Tehran's ruling mullahs, who have always dreamed of "exporting" their revolution to other Muslim countries.

Iraq, the biggest of only three Arab states where Shi'ites are the majority, was always seen by the Khomeinists as the prime target for an Islamist revolution.

The use of a car bomb to kill Hakim also points the finger at the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah, an organization created and financed by Iran since 1983. (It is also possible that Mafia-style elements gave a helping hand.) The Lebanese Hezbollah is the only Shi'ite group to have publicly denounced the liberation of Iraq as an "attack on Islam."

And its spiritual leader, Muhammad-Hussein Fadhlallah, has attacked Hakim and accused him of collaborating with "Zionist-Crusader enemies." Last March, the Hezbollah leader was one of few Muslim clerics who declared jihad to save Saddam Hussein's regime.

Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese Hezbollah's secretary-general, has declared Iraq "a battlefield" and dispatched scores of fighters there. (Some 50 have been captured by the coalition.)

BEYOND the immediate control of the most important city in Shi'ism, the current struggle for power in Najaf could have a lasting impact on how Iraq's future will be shaped.

Divided, Iraqi Shi'ites will have little chance of using their demographic strength to claim a leading role in a new Iraqi government. Their infighting could also make it impossible for a democratic pluralist system to be installed, forcing Iraq to return to the tradition of despotic rulers that began in 1958.

Hakim's tragic death increases pressure on the religious hierarchy in Najaf, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad Sistani, the primus inter pares of Shi'ite clerics in Iraq.

Sistani faces a big dilemma. His theological position, a form of quietism, is based on the belief that clerics should not interfere in government, and that religion and politics should have distinct spaces.

Right now, however, Iraqi Shi'ites need some leadership that can only come from their religious leaders.

Iraqi Shi'ites have not had the time or the opportunity to create and develop proper political parties. And the few organized political groups that they have, are ridden with factional feuds.

Hakim's elimination from the scene is likely to destabilize the Iraqi situation in the short run. In the medium- and longer-run, however, it is unlikely to have much effect.

Hakim's political organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, can quickly choose a new leader, possibly another member of the family, and continue playing its role in this period of transition.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/39549.htm

[DoctorZIn]

PRIME SUSPECTS

NYPost 8.30.2003
By AMIR TAHERI

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/973154/posts?page=23#23

DoctorZin Note: Another "Must Read" article by Amir Taheri.

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[nuconvert]

"Today, six years later, Morteza – like many Iranians – has soured on Khatami and the reform movement, frustrated by the slow pace of change and the largely successful conservative resistance to reformist proposals. That frustration is now translating into apathy with politics.
"The reformists have been ineffective. ... I won’t bother voting in the [2004] Parliamentary elections or the [2005] Presidential elections. What’s the use? The conservatives have the real power anyway," Morteza said."

This attitude, though understandable to an extent, needs to be changed . Iranians need to participate in these elections, and not allow the current regime to walk-away with the elections. They need to put their numbers to work for them, and have the largest turn-out they've ever had. There are tens of millions.
UNITE and get rid of the murdering SOB's.

[F14 Pilot]

Khatami: Muslim states favor a national government in Iraq

Tehran, Aug 30, IRNA
-- President Mohammad Khatami said here on
Saturday that Muslim states are for establishment of a lasting and
fair peace in occupied Palestine as well as coming to power of an
independent national government in Iraq.
Khatami in a meeting with the outgoing Ambassador of Morocco
Jamaleddin Ghazi stressed the need for cooperation among Muslim
states to restore their rights.
He pointed to the age-old contribution of Iran and Morocco to
Islamic civilization, calling Tehran-Rabat ties as friendly. He
emphasized the need for all-out expansion of bilateral ties based on
mutual respect.
Ghazi said for his part that senior Moroccan officials are
determined to expand cooperation with Tehran. He said cooperation
between Iranian and Moroccan parliamentary friendship groups and
Iran-Morocco commerce council is a model of enhanced ties.
He referred to historical and cultural bonds between Iranian and
Moroccan nations in the world of Islam and their excellent geographic
position, saying that Tehran and Rabat can benefit from their
potential and capacities to guarantee mutual interests.

http://www.irna.ir/#2003_08_3017_48_421

[AdmSmith]

Amir had a shortlist of three possibilities, but it is actually just two possibilities, his second and third is the same.

[GOPJ]

bump

[bourbon]

I thought you would be interested in this photo I took while I was on vacation in California. The picture was taken on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.



Pretty interesting, huh?

[dixiechick2000]

Check out the right mud flap! I think it says

Islamic fanatics
are allowed to kiss
my rear end
Go to Hell

Is that right, bourbon?

Absolutely fantastic pic, and from Stanford, no less.

Thanks for taking it and sharing it with us!

[bourbon]

yup. your "translation" is accurate. It's too bad that you can't see the big "USA" painted above the trucks' cab. As I recall, it also said "Bush is our President!"

[dixiechick2000]

"It's too bad that you can't see the big "USA" painted above the trucks' cab. As I recall, it also said "Bush is our President!"

Wow! That's awesome!

[bourbon]

I should have taken more pictures of the truck, but I didn't want to spook the owners/occupiers of the truck. It had writing all over both sides as well as the back. It was great to see such a message on an American college campus, a place where the value and meaning of freedom are too often forgotten.

[DoctorZIn]

‘The Danger is Very Close’

August 31, 2003
Newsweek
Babak Dehghanpisheh and Christopher Dickey

“Be careful and alert,” warned the Ayatollah, “because the danger is very close to us.” Above him rose the golden dome of the Imam Ali Mosque in the Iraqi city of Najaf, one of the holiest shrines in Islam.

The ayatollah, Mohamad Baqir al Hakim, had waited through more than two decades of Iranian exile to return here to worship with his followers and to shape the destiny of his country. The American overthrow of Saddam Hussein gave him that chance. His younger brother now sits on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. But with Iraq sliding toward chaos, al Hakim saw the risks ahead for him and for his people. He spoke passionately, on the edge of tears. “One day,” he said, “our movement may be wiped out.”

MINUTES LATER the turbaned cleric left the mosque through its south gate. A handful of bodyguards flanked him, their walkie-talkies to their ears, shouldering through masses of worshipers toward a street where vendors sold posters of Shiite Islam’s martyred heroes. Among them were pictures of 24 relatives of al Hakim’s murdered by Saddam, superimposed on a map of Iraq dripping with blood. the hakim family, it read. a family of knowledge and martyrdom.

A Toyota Land Cruiser waited for him, just ahead. But before al Hakim and his entourage could drive off, a thunderous blast ripped through the area, shooting a plume of flame into the sky and peppering the inlaid brick walls of the ancient mosque with burning shrapnel. “The whole street turned into fire,” says Abdul Halim Amer, 35, an engineer who sustained severe burns and a large gash on his head. “There was nowhere to run.” The explosion, thought to be a car bomb, left a three-foot crater in the asphalt and mangled cars within a 30-foot radius.

When a NEWSWEEK reporter arrived on the scene, some of the wounded and the dead lay in the street; female victims were wrapped in their black abayas or covered in bright cloth from a nearby market. The air was heavy with the stink of blood and fuel. “We could barely recognize Sayed Hakim’s body,” says Sheik Haqil Zalemi, 40, a Najaf cleric. “It was obvious he was finished.” At least 84 others were also killed, and more than 140 wounded. As one ambulance pulled away from the scene, a man in a bloodied white tunic ran close behind, beating himself on the head and asking, “Who? Who could have done this?”

It was the third devastating bomb attack by a faceless enemy—or enemies—in less than a month, and in many ways the greatest challenge yet to American hopes that Iraq can soon be stabilized. Since “major combat operations” ended on May 1, American forces have taken casualties almost daily, mainly at the hands of loosely organized Sunni guerrilla groups identified with the old regime. The attacks on the Jordanian Embassy and the U.N. headquarters targeted America’s international allies. Now a key leader of the Shiite majority in the country, who had broadly supported the American efforts, is gone. And his death could easily widen the bitter rifts among Iraqis themselves, not only turning Shiite against Sunni, but Shiite against Shiite.

No clear culprits in the earlier bombings have yet been found, and it’s far too early to say who was behind this one. In Washington, some right-wingers are already pointing the finger at Iran. They suggest it may have wanted to retaliate against a former client who was growing too friendly with the United States. On the ground, officials connected with the Coalition and its appointed Iraqi council dismissed such speculation. “There is no doubt that this is the work of Saddam loyalists, the same people who did the U.N. bombing,” says a spokesman for council member Ahmad Chalabi. “Anyone who knows anything about Islam will tell you that no Shia would ever put a bomb in the shrine of Imam Ali. This is the holiest place for Shias outside Mecca, and it is simply inconceivable that this could be an Iranian or inter-Shia attack.”

Yet after 35 years of totalitarian rule, it’s hard for many Iraqis to parse verifiable facts from conspiratorial rumors. Sanctity didn’t stop Shiite killers from murdering another prominent ayatollah near the same shrine in April. What will matter now, as the Americans and friendly Shiite leaders try to calm the current situation, is who people think was responsible for al Hakim’s death. And already some are blaming the United States.

Especially worrisome are statements attributed to Moqtada al-Sadr, the son of a revered ayatollah murdered by Saddam in 1999. Although he has little religious standing, al-Sadr has shown himself capable of rallying enormous, impassioned crowds to his anti-American banner. “The Americans will not protect our clerics nor let us provide that protection because the Americans are the enemy,” said a spokesman for al-Sadr, speaking on Al Arabiya television after Friday’s bombing.

Then again, many Iraqis, including residents of Najaf, believe it was al-Sadr who ordered the earlier murder near the Imam Ali shrine and possibly last week’s attack. Rival Shiite leaders say privately that al-Sadr’s organization was penetrated by Saddam’s agents in the 1990s. These leaders suspect that the group may still harbor covert Saddam supporters. And the murkiness doesn’t end there. Because al-Sadr is not himself a high-ranking Islamic scholar, he depends on another ayatollah to give his organization religious direction and credibility: Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, who is based in Iran.

The challenge for the American occupiers is to navigate this maze of theological and political conspiracy. After the Friday bombing, Coalition chief L. Paul Bremer III blamed nameless “enemies of the new Iraq,” and offered “deepest sympathy” to the families of the dead and injured. It was heartfelt, well meant. But not nearly enough. The danger now is that even those Iraqis who have cooperated with America—who have hoped that American forces can somehow stop the madness—will lose faith.

With Mark Hosenball in Washington and Christian Caryl in Baghdad

http://www.msnbc.com/news/959550.asp

[DoctorZIn]

‘The Danger is Very Close’

August 31, 2003
Newsweek
Babak Dehghanpisheh and Christopher Dickey

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/973154/posts?page=34#34

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[nuconvert]

" Because al-Sadr is not himself a high-ranking Islamic scholar, he depends on another ayatollah to give his organization religious direction and credibility: Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, who is based in Iran."

Every scrap of information helps to fill in the blanks.

Babak Dehghanpisheh and Christopher Dickey need to "keep the faith".

[dixiechick2000]

I'm glad you have the pic that you do!

"It was great to see such a message on an American college campus, a place where the value and meaning of freedom are too often forgotten."

Amen! Thanks, again, for the post!

[DoctorZIn]

This thread is now closed.

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread

Live Thread Ping List | DoctorZin

[meema]

bump to read later