Free Republic

-excerpt- As far as the Islamic Republic is concerned, anti-Americanism may be even more important than professing Islam. This is why Tehran has forged close ties with the handful of regimes across the globe that, each for a reason of its own, shares that visceral hatred of the US. -exceprt- In the dispute over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran supported Christian Armenia against Shia Muslim Azerbaijan. The reason was Armenia's close ties with Russia, while Azerbaijan had become an ally of the US and established full diplomatic ties with Israel. What mattered for the Khomeinist regime was not Islam but...

To jump or not to jump? For Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that has become the question. Not long ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad was regarded as the most powerful of the five presidents the Islamic Republic in its three decades of existence. With the opposition "green" movement almost silenced, his administration faced no serious challenge within the Khomeinist movement establishment. Ahmadinejad also marked some success selling his doctrine of "Iranian Islam" as a substitute for the hotchpotch concocted by Ayatollah Khomeini. Translated into 30 languages, his authorised biography, "Ahmadinejad: The Miracle of the Century", was supposed to have sold a million copies....

-Excerpt- The Iranian opposition consists of a wide variety of parties and groups with different ideologies and goals. Messrs. Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi miss few opportunities to declare that they are not seeking regime change but change within the regime. They claim that Mr. Ahmadinejad has abandoned "the true teachings" of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979. The trio are often labelled "reformists" although they have not indicated a single reform they plan to introduce. Their main threat is that, unless they are allowed to form political parties, they will boycott the coming Majlis elections...

Until a few years ago, the global map of Islamist suicide terrorism included a single tiny patch of territory: Israel. Since then, the map has expanded to include first Iraq, where suicide attacks have claimed thousands of lives, and then Afghanistan, where the Taliban use it as a war tactic. Then Pakistan, where suicide attacks have become part of daily life. Wednesday's suicide attack in Chabahar, the principal Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman, has shown that Iran, too, is now part of that sinister map. The double attack, which claimed at least 39 lives, wasn't the first of...

Things are not going very well for Agha Mahmoud. A year after his landslide re-election as President of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing what political commentators have long labelled 'the second term blues.' This particular affliction concerns virtually all those who serve a second term as president. Having won the re-election with the promise of 'the best is yet to come' they quickly realise that this is simply not the case. Consider a few items with regards to President Ahmadinejad. He had promised a reconciliation tour that was to take him to 20 of Iran's 30 provinces in...

Iran’s tactic of portraying its enemy as facing inevitable destruction is proving successful As Iran’s leadership prepares to dispatch a Red Crescent flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its propaganda organs are spreading one message throughout the Muslim world: the Jewish state, branded by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “the Zionist stain of shame”, is heading for its inevitable destruction. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said of these aid ships that “if this symbolic campaign continues, it will result in the surrender of the Zionist regime, which will certainly be one of its biggest defeats”. Over the past three years,...

At first glance, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei might seem a happy man. The pro-democracy movement had promised that last Thursday, the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, would be a turning point for the cause of freedom. But Mr. Khamenei's regime contained the mounting opposition. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controlled Tehran with the help of tens of thousands of club-wielding street fighters shipped in from all over the country. Opposition marchers, confined to the northern part of the city, were locked into hit-and-run battles with the regime's professional goons. An opposition attempt at storming the Evin...

Iran has pursued its nuclear project with a strategy inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Purloined Letter. In that short story, the police fail to find a stolen letter because they think it must be elaborately hidden. Instead, the thief outwits them by placing it right under their noses. To those who have followed the evolution of Iran’s military doctrine since the 1980s, the leak to The Times of confidential intelligence documents indicating that Iran is working on a key final component of a nuclear bomb comes as no surprise. The regime in Tehran has not hidden its nuclear...

A month ago, Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, vowed to stop further antiregime demonstrations in Iran and break what he termed "this chain of conspiracies." But this week the "chain" appeared to be as strong as ever: Students across the nation defied the general and his political masters by organizing numerous demonstrations on and off campus. The various opposition groups that constitute the pro-democracy movement have already called for another series of demonstrations on Dec. 27, a holy day on the Muslim Shiite calendar. Meanwhile, the official calendar of the Islamic Republic includes 22 days...

Obama's First Year and Buyer's Remorse 27/11/2009 By Amir Taheri Remember the designer accessory you bought with so much passion? And, what about the gadget that set you dreaming about boundless possibilities? Well, if you do remember such things you would also recall the sense of regret that set in soon after you acquired the coveted objects. In marketing parlance, that sense of regret is known as "buyer's remorse", the feeling that what we have acquired with enthusiasm is not so hot after all. In a recent tour of the United States to promote my new book, I gained the...

Eight years ago this week, the Taliban emptied the coffers of the Central Bank and ran away from Kabul. Yet a number of myths still haunt the debate on Afghanistan -- and the Obama administration's policy. Myth No. 1: No foreign power ever managed to subjugate Afghanistan, "The graveyard of empires." Historic truth is different. What's now known as Afghanistan was part of successive empires until 1702, when a Persian adventurer, Ahmad Dorrani, set it up as his fiefdom. With the European powers' rise, it became a buffer state separating the domains of Russia, Britain and Persia. The Afghans did...

BY all accounts, Thursday's talks between Iran and the 5+1 group of major powers represent a diplomatic coup for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he faces continued political unrest at home. Before the talks, Ahmadinejad's opponents -- among them former Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mussavi, the man who believes he won last June's presidential election -- claimed that Tehran's stance on the nuclear issue was driving the country toward "sanctions and war." Ahmadinejad had countered the claim by promising to lock the 5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) into "long and well-planned talks" with an agenda...

Throughout last year’s presidential campaign, Barack Obama lambasted the Bush administration for fighting “the wrong war” in Iraq and ignoring the right one in Afghanistan. Iraq was a “war of choice,” Obama claimed, while Afghanistan was a “war of necessity.” Repeatedly, he claimed that, if elected president, he’d unveil a new “stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy.”

Throughout last year’s presidential campaign, Barack Obama lambasted the Bush administration for fighting “the wrong war” in Iraq and ignoring the right one in Afghanistan. Iraq was a “war of choice,” Obama claimed, while Afghanistan was a “war of necessity.” Repeatedly, he claimed that, if elected president, he’d unveil a new “stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy.” In March, in one of those solemn-looking occasions in which he excels, Obama said that the new strategy, which he did not elaborate, was already in place. He speeded up the troop buildup ordered by the Bush administration, and a few weeks later named...

HAS Iranian President Mah moud Ahmadinejad won his first diplomatic victory since his disputed re-election in June? Last Thursday, Tehran presented what it calls "an updated package" as the basis for fresh talks with the G+1 (the UN Security Council's five permanent members, plus Germany). On Friday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the package "unacceptable" but added that America would seek "an early meeting" and give the Islamic Republic until year's end to make up its mind. On Monday, Iran announced that fresh talks would start on Oct. 1. The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that European Union...

IN Kabul these days, those wishing to sound knowledgeable fire one phrase at visiting reporters: "This has no military solution!" One hears it from President Hamid Karzai, UN "experts" and diplomats. Yet they appear stuck when asked: What precisely is the "this" that has no military solution? If pressed, they offer various answers: Afghanistan's poverty, gender inequality, corruption, the drug trade, ethnic rivalries and intrigues by rival... --snip-- An old proverb goes: You can't buy an Afghan, but you can always hire him. More than 150,000 armed ex-mujahedeen are waiting on the sidelines. The policy of shunning them, and branding...

July 27, 2009, 0:00 a.m. End of DiscussionIn Iran, there is a growing consensus that it is time to move beyond Khomeinism. By Amir Taheri No one knows how the current Iranian insurrection, triggered by last month’s disputed presidential election, will end. However, one thing is already clear: The doctrine of walayat faqih (“government of the theologian”), the cornerstone of the Khomeinist system, is dead. The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini invented the doctrine to justify the claim that he drew his legitimacy from Allah and was accountable solely to Him. In practice, walayat faqih was supposed to work the...

When Iranians want to highlight someone's isolation, they use the proverb: "Ali is left with his pond!" The proverb was on many minds last Monday during a live telecast of ceremonies in which Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme Guide" urged "the elite" to close ranks behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The cameras did their best to show that, in this instance at least, Ali was not alone at his pond. The "Supreme Guide" was surrounded by men in uniforms, sporting ferocious beards. There were a dozen or so African dignitaries in colorful tribal attires. (What they were doing there we never fond...

AS Iranians mark another day of mourning for demonstrators killed by the Is lamist forces last week, protest-movement leaders are engaged in behind-the-scenes debates over strategy. Pointing to the diminishing size of the protest crowds in Tehran, some Khomeinist-regime apologists have already concluded that the protest movement is fizzling out. In fact, the movement has won a major victory by ending the myth that the regime controls "the street" through "the popular masses." The last 12 days have shown that the opposition can produce larger, more determined crowds. The only way the regime can regain control of "the street" is...

BILLED as "unity prayers," yesterday's congregation at Tehran University's campus instead highlighted the deep divisions that are tearing apart the Khomeinist ruling elite. The gathering was supposed to reassert the authority of "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei and defuse the crisis triggered by the "re-election" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Khamenei did deploy his oratorical talents in a desperate appeal for calm -- yet his total support for Ahmadinejad indicated the regime's determination to rely on force rather than oratory to regain control. Khamenei went further, asserting that Ahmadinejad's views on "both domestic and foreign policies" are closer to his than...