Rasfanjani Planning To Oust Khamenei?

June 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Babak Sarfaraz at The Nation:

Khamenei’s anguished sermon on June 19 was not provoked simply by the popular uprising in the streets. According to a well-placed source in the holy city of Qom, Rafsanjani is working furiously behind the scenes to call for an emergency meeting of the Khobregan, or Assembly of Experts–the elite all-cleric body that can unseat the Supreme Leader or dilute his prerogatives. The juridical case against Khamenei would involve several counts. First, he would be charged with countenancing a coup d’état–albeit a bloodless one–without consulting with the Khobregan. Second, he would stand accused of deceitfully plotting to oust Rafsanjani–who is the Khobregan chairman and nominally the country’s third-most-important authority–from his positions of power. Third, he would be said to have threatened the very stability of the republic with his ambition and recklessness.

Rafsanjani’s purported plan is to replace Khamenei’s one-person dictatorship with a Leadership Council composed of three or more high-ranking clerics; this formula was proposed and then abandoned in 1989 by several prominent clerics. Rafsanjani will likely recommend giving a seat to Khamenei on the council to prevent a violent backlash by his fanatic loyalists. It is not clear if Rafsanjani will have the backing of the two-thirds of the chamber members needed for such a change, though the balance of forces within the Khobregan could be tipped by the events unfolding in the streets. As a symbolic gesture, Rafsanjani is said to favor holding the meeting in Qom–the nation’s religious center, which Khamenei has diminished–rather than in Tehran, where it has been held before.

Mousavi Under House Arrest

June 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

After a 48 hour absence, Mousavi just updated his twitter account:

The Living voice of the Movement was heard again”Allahu Akbar”.This Friday, We all are going to send GREEN BALLOONS to the sky #iranElection

All in all, Tehran was pretty much quiet today, but there are some interesting developments behind the scenes.

Earlier Thursday, a defiant Mir Hossein Mousavi was placed on house arrest Thursday after a meeting with 70 social scientists Wednesday. The professors were later detained and all but 4 were released.

Mousavi also slammed the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a statement on his website. The LA Times reports:

“I am not only prepared to respond to all these allegations but am ready to show how election fraudsters joined those who are truly behind the recent riots and shed the blood of people,” he said in comments that appeared on his website and were distributed to supporters via e-mail. “I am not prepared to give up under the pressure of threats or personal interest.”

Mousavi’s forceful remarks appeared to show that he was willing to risk his standing as a pillar of the Islamic Republic to take on Iran’s powerful leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And they seemed aimed at securing his position at the head of a broad and youthful movement seeking reform.

At least some of his comments were apparently delivered in a meeting Wednesday with a group of 70 social scientists, who were later arrested and taken to an unknown location.

Khamenei vowed Wednesday that he would not reconsider the lopsided official results, which have spurred infighting among the Islamic Republic’s elite and street violence between pro-government forces and demonstrators.

Though the cleric is usually considered beyond public reproach, Mousavi seemed more than willing to take on Khamenei, who broke with tradition by openly taking sides in the country’s factional political rows.

“The leadership’s support to the government under normal circumstances is helpful,” Mousavi said. “However, if the leadership and the president are the same, it will not be in the interests of the country.”

Rezai: Complaint Withdrawal Was Protest

June 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Many viewed third place opposition Mohsen Rezai’s election complaint withdrawal as a blow to the uprising, but Rezai’s spokesperson says it was done because of his disgust for the Interior Ministry and the Guardian Council:

Another opposition candidate, Mohsen Rezai, who won far fewer votes than Mr. Moussavi and was regarded as the most hard-line of the opposition candidates, formally withdrew complaints about electoral irregularities on Wednesday.A representative of Mr. Rezai said that he had withdrawn the complaint in disgust because the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry never undertook even the limited recount they said they would. The representative, Ali Ahmadi, said that more than 200 of Mr. Rezai’s men were ready to monitor the recount but “the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry never started the recount in any of the provinces or polling stations,” the tabnak Web site reported.

Ahmadinejad Calls Obama The New Bush

June 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Well I knew this was coming. Though President Obama has made sure — at least vocally — that his foreign policy wasn’t going to resemble the ‘failed’ Bush years, he has nevertheless made it clear that America’s standing was dependent on the Iranian regime not to define him as the bad guy. President Obama shouldn’t have expected Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Co. to be so kind:

After the official presidential results were announced, giving Mr. Ahmadinejad an 11 million-vote margin, President Obama was initially cautious in his response. But he has gradually adopted a much tougher stance, saying Tuesday he was “appalled and outraged” by events in Iran.

“Mr. Obama made a mistake to say those things,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said Thursday at a ceremony to open a petrochemical plant.

The election had brought a chance for a “new start in international relations” in which Iran would “speak from a different position based on dialogue and justice,” he said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency,

While Iran believed Britain and other European countries had a “bad record” in their relationship with Iran, he said, “we were not expecting Mr. Obama” to “fall into the same trap and continue the same path that Bush did.”

He also demanded an apology from President Obama for his most recent statement. “I hope you avoid the interfering in Iran’s affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian people find out about it,” he said.

But as he assailed the American leader, Mr. Ahmadinejad also faced a new challenge at home.

President Obama wanted to appear humble, as a post colonial, post imperial image for America, all while endorsing the legitimacy of a regime he deferentially calls the “Islamic Republic.” In his Cairo speech and more recently he frequently sold short America’s reputation by invoking the 1953 coup against Mohammed Mossadegh, Operation Ajax. All the while the Iranian people never sold America short, and continue to make pleas for our support.

Now President Obama doesn’t have devious motives. He wasn’t against Mir Hossein Mousavi as some suggest. He just figured that if he projected a more humble foreign policy, he could limit backlash against American presence in the Islamic world. He also wanted to stay true to his campaign promise of engagement with the theocratic Iranian regime seeing them as a pivotal player to the Middle East peace process.

President Obama also became adamant about playing it safe, believing that if he put his support behind the people’s movement and they failed at regime change, he would limit America’s options and wouldn’t be able to bring Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to the peace table to neutralize their nuclear program.

Unfortunately by following the course of humility he is continually boxing himself into the diplomatic track which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad will apparently have no part of and which — ironically — they are now demanding an apology for. To his credit President Obama did say the recent turn of events were “not encouraging in terms of the path this regime may try to take.”

As Christopher Hitchens noted on Tuesday, President Obama is also risking close ties with the Iranian people by not lending his pulpit to those sacrificing their lives for freedom on the streets of Tehran to Isfahan.

President Obama would do well to inspire hope for the Iranian people to change their country. At the very least, the regime would be continually weakened politically (it is reported that only 105 of 290 parliamentarians attended Ahmadinejad’s victory party last night), providing an opportunity for President Obama to leverage the power and prestige of his Presidency against those committed to a policy of terror and de-stabilization. Such a move would also undercut the oppressive regime’s supporters throughout the Middle East, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as all any mujaheddin who claim — of all things at this moment — to be the vanguards of the oppressed.

President Obama can always return to the negotating table, but revolutions are a once in a lifetime event.

Featured Articles — June 25, 2009

June 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Iran’s Embattled Supreme Leader: A Test for Khamenei By Robin Wright, Time
The fate of Iran’s Islamic revolution now rests in the hands of an enigmatic cleric who is little understood at home, let alone by the outside world. For the past 20 years, pictures of Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, with his oversize glasses, black turban and untrimmed white beard, have adorned shops, government offices and living-room walls throughout Iran.

The Prescription From Obama’s Own Doctor By Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
As a society, we trust doctors to be more concerned with the pulse of their patients than the pulse of commerce. Yet the American Medical Association is using that trust to try to block a robust public insurance option as part of health reform.

ObamaCare Isn’t Inevitable By Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost — in money and personal freedom — of the president’s nanny-state initiatives.

Heartless: The disturbing glee at Mark Sanford’s downfall. By John Dickerson, Slate
Mark Sanford is no longer missing, but he’s obviously lost. The South Carolina governor’s press conference was excruciating: apology, followed by self-flagellation, followed by apology. It was like watching a man light himself on fire. I thought about his kids mustering up the courage to watch it on YouTube some day.

Bet on the Followers of Neda By David Ignatius, Washington Post
On one side you have all the instruments of repression in Iran, gathering their forces for a crackdown. On the other you have unarmed protesters symbolized by the image of Neda Agha Soltan, a martyred woman dying helplessly on the street, whose last words reportedly were: “It burned me.”

Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements By Elliot Abrams, The Wall Street Journal
Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. As the Obama administration has made the settlements issue a major bone of contention between Israel and the U.S., it is necessary that we review the recent history.

An Iranian Revolution That’s Not Over Yet By Ramin Ahmadi, Forbes
The 2009 Great Iranian Revolution has a lot in common with its earlier 1979 version. The students and middle-class youth are the engine of the movement and, rich or poor, are putting their lives at stake.

Iran’s Democrats Deserve Full Support By Gary Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal
Regardless of its short-term outcome, the Green Revolution in Iran is already a tremendously important event. Iranian citizens are risking their lives to defend their votes and giving the lie to the idea that democracy cannot sprout in hostile soil without external influence. This is of great relevance to people living in autocracies, especially in Russia, my home country.

Free to Be a Kurd By Asli Aydintasbas, The New York Times
On hillsides across southeastern Turkey, you often see the national slogan — “Happy is one who can say I am a Turk” — in giant letters that can be read from miles away.

From imam to dictator By Asim Siddiqui, The Guardian UK
Islamic leadership, if it denies the sovereignty of the people, as in Iran, is no different to any other kind of dictatorship

Mousavi Spokesman To World: Don’t Recognize Ahmadinejad

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

I’m still waiting for the Iranian people to channel Mossadeq,  but so far Andrew Sullivan and others who continue to advocate the reverse psychology of non-support for the people of Iran (and who inflate and broadcast America’s moral failings to our enemies) must be disappointed. They will also be disappointed by this video appeal from Mousavi spokesperson and filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf:

Do I dare say that Mr. Makhmalbaf is advocating for some American support? Some key quotes:

We need to continue protesting in front of the embassies and lobby the issues pertaining to the people of Iran – with help from world government, journalists and citizens.

We need the world to recognize Ahmadinejad as the leader of a coup d’etat and not the leader of Iran, It this happens we will be successful.

Is President Obama listening?

A Rift To Big To Fail?

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | 1 Comment 

Laura Secor at The New Yorker writes that though the protests have dwindled and communication has jammed, there are irreparable rifts within the clerical leadership, a Supreme leader that is politically discredited, and enough wind in the sails of the people’s uprising:

It is clearly true that Iran’s élites are disunited, but to place great emphasis on this fact is misleading. Factional differences have riven the Iranian political establishment since the Islamic Revolution itself, and sometimes quite dramatically, as during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, from 1997 through 2005. As for Rafsanjani, about whose possible role much has been made, he has been a rival of Ahmadinejad since losing the presidency to him in 2005; this has increasingly driven him toward the reformist camp, where he has been accepted only partially and reluctantly. None of these cleavages are new. In a country that does not tolerate political parties or associations in its civil society, the contest for power, and over the future of the political system, has been largely confined to the establishment itself. Khamenei has spent much of his twenty years in power checkmating his rivals inside the system and discrediting them with their supporters outside the system.

What is new today is not that cracks have opened inside a monolithic system, or even that particularly powerful figures, like Rafsanjani, have broken onto the side of the reformers. What is new is the fierce mass movement from below, which is not confined to students and intellectuals but seems to span demographics and age groups. Even while exercising legal rights, nonviolent methods, and issuing constant appeals to Islam and to the ideals of the revolution, this movement has openly defied Khamenei, the Basij, and the Revolutionary Guards, by ignoring the threats of bloodshed and mayhem. Nothing like that has happened in thirty years. In the late nineteen-nineties, Khatami, like Mousavi, had the wind at his back in the form of a very large wave of popular support, but he made it clear to his followers and to Khamenei that he would not directly defy the Supreme Leader or question the system. When activists challenged the system during the Khatami years, they found themselves isolated, a diminishing crowd without political support or mass mobilization to defend them. And so Mousavi has done a remarkable, unprecedented thing in challenging the Supreme Leader—but in doing it, to borrow a phrase from his June 20th speech, he followed his supporters.

That is not to diminish the historic nature of Mousavi’s decision. One Iranian who spoke of it to me seemed frankly gobsmacked—doesn’t Mousavi know that if he loses this battle, his life, and his family’s life, is finished now in the Islamic Republic? But it is all the more remarkable to consider that Mousavi and his movement are acting not as pawns in an internal argument between Khamenei and Rafsanjani. Rather, they have brought a tidal wave of pressure to bear on a regime of which Khamenei has just attempted to seize total control. It is the élites who have been forced to choose sides. Maybe some of those figures will reverse course, as Mohsen Rezaiee (Ahmadenijad’s main conservative challenger) has already done, if they feel Khamenei is winning the battles in the streets. But even if they lose, Mousavi and his supporters will have permanently changed the landscape of protest in Iran by breaking what had once seemed an impermeable barrier of fear.

Luke Nichter On Dean’s Nixon Library Appearance

June 24, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under John Dean At The Nixon Library, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Library, Nixon in the News, U.S. History, Watergate, Yorba Linda | 1 Comment 

At www.nixontapes.org, Luke Nichter of Tarleton State University (who was extensively quoted in the AP article Frank Gannon discusses below) takes a look at John Dean’s appearance at the Nixon Presidential Library last week. (This post also appears at History News Network, where it is accompanied by a comment by Maarja Krusten, whose thoughtful remarks have so often appeared at TNN.)

Chilling Audio: “You should stop this, you should help the people of Iran who demand freedom.”

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

From CNN, a woman in Tehran obviously distressed, laments today’s massacre at Baharestan Square and begs America to do something:

As these unfortunate developments unfold, Andrew Sullivan — in the spirit of partisanship — still stubbornly believes that any repudiation of what Bush might do is the best policy.

Hot Dog Diplomacy Axed

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Via Fox News:

The White House says invitations to Iranian diplomats to 4th of July celebrations around the world, have been rescinded.

“Given the events of the last few days, those invitations will be no longer extended,” announced Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Wednesday.

The State Department last month told its US embassies that they could invite “representatives from the government of Iran” to 4th of July events.

Gibbs said “not surprisingly, based on what we see in Tehran, no one has RSVP’d”

Given the events of the last few days, will the President still hold talks with Ahmadinejad and Khamenei over Iran’s nuclear program?

Mousavi On House Arrest?

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Rumor from the twittersphere:

Everybody is under arrest & cant move – Mousavi – Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guard – #Iranelection -

“in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat – blood everywhere – like butcher”

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Ayatollah Khamenei says that he wouldn’t bow to pressure and has apparently vowed to continue the crackdown on dissidents.

The New York Times reports that “hundreds, if not thousands” of protesters gathered at the Baharestan Square in front of parliament. They were soon met with a cadre of  guns, batons, and tear gas, in what could be the bloodiest crackdown yet:

Defying government warnings, hundreds, if not thousands of protesters, had attempted to gather in front of the parliament on Baharestan Square, witnesses said. They were met with riot police and paramilitary militia, who struck at them with truncheons, tear gas and guns. One witness said he saw a 19-year-old woman shot in the neck. Others said the police had shot in the air, not directly at demonstrators.Some opposition supporters said that presidential candidate and opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi had been scheduled to address the crowd, but initial reports indicated that he had not appeared.

A reliable source from Twitter describes the brutality:

I see many ppl with broken arms/legs/heads – blood everywhere – pepper gas like war – #Iranelection

they were waiting for us – they all have guns and riot uniforms – it was like a mouse trap – ppl being shot like animals #Iranelection

all shops was closed – nowhere to go – they follow ppls with helicopters – smoke and fire is everywhere #Iranelection

in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat – blood everywhere – like butcher – Allah Akbar – #Iranelection RT RT RT

they pull away the dead into trucks – like factory – no human can do this – we beg Allah for save us – #Iranelection

The source also says that government is cutting internet connection:

phone line was cut and we lost internet – #Iranelection – getting more difficult to log into net – #Iranelectionabout 5 hours ago from web

Video from today below (viewer discretion is advised):

Iran Interior Minister Explains Violence Against Protesters

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Again as expected –and affirmed yesterday by Christopher Hitchen’s Slate piece — it will ALWAYS be someone else’s fault:

Interior minister Sadeq Mahsuli, a wealthy ally of Ahmadinejad, alleged that opposition groups abroad were fomenting the disturbances, which have left up to 100 dead nationwide. Mahsuli accused the Paris-based Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization and the ethnic Baluchi militant group Jundullah as well as “Los Angeles-based groups supported by the CIA” as behind the rallies.

‘Recount’ Legitimizes The Election Results

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

While the state police and Basij beat people on the streets, as expected the regime has re-affirmed the June 12 election results:

TEHRAN, June 24 (Reuters) – Iranian state television said on Wednesday a partial recount of the vote in the country’s disputed June 12 presidential election had verified the result.

Official results released a day after the election showed hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won by a landslide, but his main moderate challenger Mirhossein Mousavi said the vote was rigged and called for it to be annulled.

Iran’s English-languate Press TV said in a scrolling headline: “Iran: partial vote recount verifies election result.” It did not give details. (Writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Matthew Jones)

Mousavi Office Raided, Journalists Arrested

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

The regime is likely laying the ground work for Mousavi’s arrest, raiding his office for “country’s security.” The state run Press TV (a.k.a. propaganda wing) reports:

The Tehran Police say a building has been identified in the city which has been used as a ‘headquarters’ to promote post-election unrest.

The Intelligence and Security Department of the Tehran Police has declared that the building — located on Tehran’s Haft-e-Tir Square — was investigated on Monday night after a search warrant was obtained, IRNA reported.

The plotters have been arrested and are currently under investigation.

Documents found in the building indicate an ongoing plot against Iran’s security was being implemented, the police said in a statement.

“After scrutinizing the building, which was the campaign office of a presidential candidate, it was discovered that the organization of illegal gatherings, the promotion of unrest, and efforts to undermine the country’s security were carried out from the building,” the statement added.

Evidence has been found in the building that reveals the role of foreign elements in planning post-election unrest.

The building has in fact been a “headquarters for a psychological war against the country’s security,” the police said.

The building, sources told Press TV, was used by a Mir-Hossein Mousavi election campaign.

25 journalists from Mousavi’s newspaper “Green Word” have also been arrested.

Killed Or Detained List

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Via The Lede blog, here is a list from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Khamenei Won’t Bow To Pressure

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Reuters reports:

Police and militia have largely succeeded in taking back control of the streets this week after the biggest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The hardline leadership is refusing to give ground.

“I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue,” said Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran. “Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost.”

Historians And Partisans

June 24, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under National Archives, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 4 Comments 

The Nixon Library has just released some 30,000 pages of new presidential records and 150 new tapes from January and February 1973.   Among the many subjects covered are the end of the war in Vietnam.  The New York Times, Politico, and the Los Angeles Times all turned to Ken Hughes, of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, for explanation and explication.  Charlie Savage in  The Times quoted Mr. Hughes at some length:

Ken Hughes, a Nixon scholar and research fellow at the University of Virginia’s Presidential Recordings Project, said he was struck by listening on one of the new tapes to Nixon telling his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, that to get Thieu to sign the treaty, he would “cut off his head if necessary.”

“What this quote shows is that Nixon was willing to go to any length to force the president of South Vietnam to accept a so-called peace settlement that Nguyen Van Thieu, Henry Kissinger, and Richard Nixon all realized would lead to a Communist military victory,” Mr. Hughes said.

Mr. Hughes said the conversation bolstered his view that Nixon, Thieu, and Mr. Kissinger all knew at the time that the ceasefire could not endure, and that it was not “peace with honor,” as Mr. Nixon described it, so much as a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war. In 1975, North Vietnam would violate the ceasefire and conquer Saigon.

Andrew Glass’ Hughes quote  in Politico was more concise but no less definitive: “All three [of them] realized [these terms] would lead to a communist military victory following a face-saving (for Nixon) ‘decent interval” said Ken Hughes, a Nixon scholar at the Miller Center for Public Affairs in Charlottesville, Va.”

The notion that RN purposely prolonged the war for political gain and then faked a peace that he knew would fail is still held by many hardcore critics. But on the spectrum of Vietnam criticism it is unquestionably extreme.  And it has been challenged by more recent scholarship.

The Miller Center’s website describes Mr. Hughes’ background as “a reporter and anchor and as a freelance journalist. As part of the Presidential Recordings Project, Ken coordinates team of scholars reviewing and transcribing President Richard M. Nixon’s White House tapes.”  And Mr. Hughes is up front about his opinions.  His website is called Fatal Politics, and he describes its genesis and its mission:

I decided to make the Fatal Politics web documentary videos because, at some point in my study of the Nixon White House tapes as a Research Fellow with the Presidential Recordings Program of the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia, it occurred to me that every voting age citizen of the United States needs to know how a President could prolong a war and fake peace for political gain. The videos incorporate the research I’ve presented at academic conferences, but they’re made for everyone 18 and older.

This blog builds on the Fatal Politics web documentary miniseries. It’s an attempt to correct/dispel/shatter myths that Nixon created about his exit from Vietnam, myths that persist in news media reports and political debate today.

More inquisitive reporters might have thought twice before making such a definitive authority of such a self-identified partisan.

The Washington Post ran an account of the new material by Cal Woodward of AP’s Washington bureau.  He deals more fairly with the controversy surrounding the Vietnam war’s settlement:

Nixon historian Luke A. Nichter said the circumstances surrounding Nixon’s acceptance of a flawed peace-deal will probably be what scholars note from the latest disclosures.

“Producing the Vietnam peace agreement took the administration to the emotional brink,” he said. “At the very moment of triumph after finally ending combat operations in Southeast Asia, that process caused deep and lasting fissures among the top ranks in the White House.”

UPDATE 12.30 PM:

Is it possible that over at The New York Times (or at least in Charlie Savage’s cubicle) there are readers of The New Nixon?  (Admittedly unlikely, but stranger things have happened.)  Whatever the reason, The Times has removed Mr. Hughes’ provocative quotation and replaced with a more measured paraphrase.  And on Fatal Politics, while noting this change, Mr. Hughes acknowledges the outlier nature of his opinions:

But now my beautiful, beautiful quote is gone — gone — vanished!

Here, I have a picture of it, before it was torn from its natural habitat.

It’s there! I know it’s small, but look closer. Look! Gaze upon its quotatiousness.

This week the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations convenes and, gentle reader, I was so gonna rock my New York Times quote at SHAFR.

At last, I can hear myself saying, at last, some mainstream media recognition of Nixon’s “decent interval” exit strategy.

It would’ve been swell.

Now I’m afraid I’m gonna get paraphrase-probed. It’s gonna hurt.

“Mr. Hughes said the conversation bolstered his view that Nixon, Thieu and Mr. Kissinger knew at the time that the cease-fire could not endure, and that it was not “peace with honor,” as Nixon described it, so much as a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war. In 1975, North Vietnam would violate the cease-fire and conquer South Vietnam.”

So, Ken, I can hear them all snidely sneering, wasn’t it basically everyone’s view that the ceasefire would not hold? And to say that Nixon did not achieve “peace with honor,” well, isn’t that a little vague? Like “a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war”? I don’t know, we were expecting something a little . . . more.

Come back, li’l quote! I love you!

Cohen’s Latest Dispatch

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

I’m surprised I’m writing this, but Roger Cohen again encapsulates what we have seen so far in Iran and is able to capture the underlying political and social dynamics.

Cohen also poses two important questions, that dare I say should be directed at President Obama as he ponders his next moves:

Thirty years from the revolution, the core question of this election was: Must Iran stand apart from the forces of economic and political globalization in order to preserve its Islamic theocracy?

Or is it confident enough of its Islamic identity, and its now firmly established independence from America, to trash the nest-of-spies vitriol and an ultimately self-defeating isolation?

The answer has been devastating.

The Criteria For A Successful Revolution

June 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Interesting that Andrew Sullivan linked to this piece today. As a vocal supporter of the Iranian uprising and ardent supporter President Obama’s ‘realism’ (for this matter the President’s relative silence) he has been jockeying to justify his own personal political contradictions. Anyway, Gideon Rachman adds some his own criteria to a successful revolution. As you can see I emboldened the ‘meddlesome’ point:

● A divided ruling elite.
● A sense of revolutionary momentum from events overseas; Europe in 1989 and 1848 show that revolution can be catching.
● External help.
● The use of violence by the authorities, which can either make or break a revolution.

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