A Vital Political Question For 2010

February 5, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Annals of the Obama Administration, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Intelligence, International Affairs, Iran, Islam, National Security, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Terrorism, War on Terror | 1 Comment 

In the waning days of the 1980 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan used his allotted time in the closing moments of his only debate with President Jimmy Carter to ask a question. It was one of the most effective rhetorical devices in American history.

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

Because most Americans answered a resounding “No” that night, Mr. Reagan was able to pull the line out again four years later, this time as President and against Walter Mondale, who ran a quixotic campaign to oust him. And Americans answered by electing Reagan to a second term.

Over the years, the question about being “better off” has been used to great affect by many politicians, including later aspirants to the White House. It became, in effect, a rhetorical trump card.

Now there is another question in the room—one that was asked, in a manner of speaking, during several recent special elections and will be commonplace this November as all of us go to the polls in the “off-year” ritual. The question is: “Are you safer than you were four years ago?”

It is hard to find anything about President Barack Obama’s first term—at least anything of substance—that can be realistically characterized as successful. And by successful, I mean accomplishing one’s stated goals. Whether it was the healthcare bridge too far, cap-and-trade, or dramatically improving the economy, this administration has simply not delivered on what it promised. Of course, in the area of national security they have tried to make good on pledges, but have found the resistance to every move to be surprising strong.

And one gets the feeling that not only did they not see failure coming in the euphoria of those early halcyon days in charge—but they really don’t have a clue as to where to go from here. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of national security and dealing with the very real threat of Islamist terror. And nowhere are the stakes any higher.

The other day, Leon Panetta, Director of CIA, in concert with other leaders in the national security community, told Congress that a terror attack (the indication being that this would be an attempt of significant magnitude) is likely during the next three to six months. It was also suggested that this warning is based, at least in part, on information gleaned from the man who tried to blow up an American airplane en route to Detroit on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Presumably, this so-called “underwear-bomber” has been cooperating with authorities lately, following the intervention of some of his family from Nigeria, such intervention being prompted by FBI visits to that country.

With its too-sad-to-be-farcical “you-could-have-had-me-at-enemy-combatant” Miranda prolonged delay, this episode is in a real sense a window into the thinking—some would say, lack thereof—of the Obama administration on the whole issue of terror, Islamism, “detainees,” and national security. It seems that there is this naïve insistence on seeing and framing the issues as something nuanced—an almost “shirts versus skins” game—instead of a very grave matter of life and death.

A President is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and by extension, therefore, those under its cover. The founders and framers did not fashion a document for global governance, nor did they seek to extend its protection beyond “we the people.” But these days we are witnessing the most ambitious attempt ever to broadly interpret its provisions.

On the domestic side, “we” the people is giving way to “for” the people, as those wiser-than-the-rest-of-us seek to “fundamentally transform” (to use Mr. Obama’s words) America. And when it comes to foreign policy and international issues, apparently now this new-improved understanding of our Constitution—one that makes Franklin Roosevelt look like a paleo-conservative in comparison—reads, “they” the people. It covers not only illegal aliens, but also non-U.S. citizen enemy combatants, giving them more rights than any of us would ever receive in some Islamist majority country.

“Are you safer than you were four years ago?”

Iran moves arrogantly and confidently forward to develop the materials and technology to soon become a nuclear power. Just the other day, its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, talked of delivering a blow to “global arrogance” as that nation marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution on February 11.

Sure we protest, but words from a teleprompter don’t make much impact on a man who thinks he gets his ideas directly from Allah. And at any rate—the whole first year of Mr. Obama’s administration and its mea culpa “we like you” overtures to the Islamic world, notwithstanding—there is no evidence that anyone who hated us when George W. Bush was in town, hates us any less now.

In fact, someone in the White House should take a look at something else the mahdaviatist President of Iran said the other day in that same speech:

“If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles.”

Did you see that? The enemy is “liberalism and Marxism.” So as the current administration tries to pursue some kind of rapprochement with Iran and other Islamist nations, while at the same time trying orchestrate a decidedly more liberal agenda domestically—one that smacks of “Marxist” thinking at many turns—something ironic is happening. The new “good guys” who tell us that America is now going be loved more around the world because bad old George Bush and the cranky conservatives are gone, have missed a key plot-point: Islamists hate democratic liberalism—with its socialist vision—even more than they hate militaristic neo-conservatism.

Oops.

Of course, I hope and pray that we are spared any such terror attack this, or any, year. And I pray that there remains a sufficient remnant of discerning men and women in key areas of expertise and responsibility across the land, people who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of liberal statism and diplomatic naïveté, in place to forestall such a disaster.

But I must admit, there seems to be an inexplicable zeitgeist, combining lackadaisical apathy with arrogance that makes me feel anything but safe.

Someone talked to me recently about how, if we are attacked, people will rally around our new president like they did George W. Bush in 2001. I countered that I wasn’t so sure. That was a different time—before we really knew what terrorism meant on these shores. Post game analysis back then revealed so many areas of weakness leading to that dreadful day of terror on Sept. 11.

If such a thing, or anything similar, were to happen these days, I am not sure that those in charge now would get the kind of good will that translates into a political pass—or future.

HAK: Don’t Take Iraq Off The Table

February 4, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran, Iraq War, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

In the Washington Post, RN’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State writes that the Obama administration should keep Iraq at the forefront of its policy discussions as the fledgling democracy will be a key factor in how the United States approaches Iran:

Before the war, the equilibrium between Iraq and Iran was a principal geopolitical reality within the region. At that time, the government in Baghdad was a Sunni-run dictatorship. The Shiite-dominated, partly democratic structure that has emerged from the war has not yet found the appropriate balance among its Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish components. Nor is its long-term relationship to Iran settled. If radicals prevail in the Shiite part, and the Shiite part comes to dominate the Sunni and Kurdish regions, and if it then lines up with Tehran, we will witness — and will have partially contributed to — a fundamental shift in the balance of the region.

The outcome in Iraq will have profound consequences, above all, in Saudi Arabia, the key country in the Persian Gulf, as well as in the other Gulf states and in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, financed by Iran, is already a Shiite state within the state. The United States therefore has an important stake in a moderate evolution of Iraq’s domestic and foreign policies.

The Obama administration is stalemated in negotiations with Iran to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Whether the nuclear issue is settled by diplomacy or other evolutions, the stability of the region will be crucially affected by the ability to bring about a political and strategic equilibrium between Iran and Iraq. Without such an arrangement, the region runs the risk of living indefinitely on top of a heap of explosives toward which a smoldering fuse is burning.

Obama To Iran = Nixon To China? A Dissenting Opinion

January 15, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Iran, Presidents | 7 Comments 

In the palmy days of a year ago, when, as every comics collector knows, President Obama was expected to personally assist Spiderman and other superheroes along with his usual duties, one of his superpowers, according to our best and brightest liberal pundits, was going to be the ability to straighten everything out with the Islamic Republic of Iran by some in-person diplomacy in the tradition of President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972. In the months since, as the mullahs and their government have effectively brushed off all the President’s overtures, this hope has faded, and now, at the website of Foreign Policy magazine, Michael Singh maintains that there is no point to pursuing a policy of Presidential diplomacy where Iran is concerned. The gist of his argument is in the following paragraphs:

Those who argue in favor of containment generally have in mind nuclear deterrence — that is, preventing Iran from actually using a nuclear weapon. And history suggests that they have a point — no nuclear power besides the United States has ever employed the bomb, and a combination of missile defenses and a declaratory policy promising retaliation could prove powerful deterrents to Iran doing so. While we should not count too heavily on the Iranian regime’s rationality — its officials have, after all, mused about destroying Israel — neither should we exaggerate the likelihood that Iran would initiate a nuclear conflict that would prove its own demise.

The possibility that it would use a nuclear weapon is, however, only the beginning of the dangers that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose. Of perhaps greater concern is that Iran would transfer its nuclear know-how to other countries or, far more alarming, to terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. This scenario is not far-fetched — nuclear powers have regularly transferred their technology to others, and Iran in particular has been generous in sharing advanced military hardware with its proxies, like the advanced rocketry employed by Hezbollah against Israel or IEDs used by Iraqi insurgents against American troops. Even if they were denied the ultimate weapons by Tehran, these groups would surely feel emboldened under its nuclear umbrella to step up their activities against Western and Arab interests.

Added to this danger is the likelihood that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would fundamentally change the security landscape in the Middle East. Iran’s neighbors would be faced with a grim choice — pursue a nuclear weapons capability of their own, or resign themselves to Iranian hegemony for the foreseeable future. Given their longstanding mistrust of Tehran, it is likely that those which could pursue the nuclear path would do so. Such a development would leave the United States not simply to contain a nuclear-armed Iran, but to manage a broadly nuclearized Middle East and its implications for the already-shaky global nonproliferation regime. These are threats against which even the most advanced missile defense or the strongest declaratory policy afford no protection.

The November Chronicles

November 6, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Cold War, Europe, History, International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

Mark Twain often suggested that history doesn’t always repeat itself, “but it does rhyme.” This chronological cadence is particularly true when you note some of the key events in the past century that happened in early November.

November 7, 1917 was when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, unleashing a still too-often ignored and dismissed era of tyranny and terror (the idea of an “October Revolution” has to do with the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars). Long since discredited by the verdict of history, the ideas that formed the basis of what Ronald Reagan aptly called an “evil empire,” have found new adherents – some in high places in our land. But ignorant neo-Marxists in our midst notwithstanding, the reality of what took place under the czars-of-all-things-Soviet for more than seven decades was horrifying.

Much is rightly made of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Germany and we are regularly reminded that we must never forget. I agree. But while remembering all the depravity wrought by Hitler and his henchman, why do Communist leaders and regimes so often get a pass these days? Even by conservative accounts, more than 100 million people died via Communist oppression. Yet some apparently feel that the ideas behind the system are somehow still valid. Really?

Fast forward to November 4, 1956, and see Soviet tanks penetrating the Pest side of the Danube in Budapest, Hungary, in their offensive to put down a nationwide revolt against the so-called Peoples Republic of Hungary. Brave patriots sought to wrest control of their nation from the grip of Soviet-style Stalinism.

Meanwhile, America stood sadly down. The great General, who had led the allies to victory 11 years before, sent mixed signals. Freedom fighters were emboldened by what we were saying on Radio Free Europe, but the official policy turned out to be nothing more than impotent ambivalence. Within days, the courageous movement was crushed.

Speaking of the 4th day in November and presidential impotence, let us now move ahead to the year 1979 – the moment Iranian “revolutionaries” seized control of our embassy in Tehran, initiating a 444-day Hell for 52 American hostages. This was the moment when many average Americans first came face to face with the ugly egregiousness of Islamism. Jimmy Carter lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in those days, but his presidency would languish due to lack of foresight, insufficient resolve, and malaise-driven methodology.

Exactly one year later – yep, you got it – right smack dab on November 4, 1980, Ronald Wilson Reagan trounced Mr. Carter, who vainly sought re-election, with the networks calling the race even before many Americans had voted. The hostages would thereafter celebrate the very moment of Reagan’s inauguration the following January 20th as their moment of liberation. Clearly, the nuts running the show in Tehran had the requisite lucidity to know that they did not want to deal with the Gipper.

Another November 4th, this one in 1989, saw a crowd of nearly 1,000,000 people cram Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, rallying for freedom. This would lead in less than a week to something for many years thought to be unthinkable – the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. A little more than two years earlier, that same Ronald Reagan had challenged his Soviet counterpart-though-no-real-match, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall.” Those words penetrated hearts, minds, not to mention concrete that day, leading to the barrier’s ultimate demise as a metaphor.

Eventually, we came to yet another November 4th – this one in 2008, with Barack Obama’s election as U.S. President, an event that to many heralded a whole new world to come. But the “change we can believe” soon began to appear more and more like an awkward combination of antiquated socialism and naïve geopolitics. Frank Gaffney, president of The Center for Security Policy in Washington, suggests that the “Obama Doctrine” can be summed up in nine words: “Undermine our allies. Embolden our enemies. Diminish our country.”

You see, the toxins of Lenin’s bunch in 1917, and those of the gang in Tehran in 1980, share common and deadly DNA. To miss this leads to the very real potential for unparalleled peril.

Once we had leaders who instinctively understood the danger of sinister ideology. Now, all evidence seems to indicate that people in key roles overestimate Marxism and underestimate Islamism. The welfare state, once nearly dismantled after we had apparently learned its dark lessons, is now expanding exponentially once again with a vengeance. Our government preaches stimulation, but practices hegemony. Mr. Reagan always reminded us about the virtue of creating wealth. Mr. Obama seems dead set on redistributing it.

And this Monday, November 9th, on the 20th anniversary of the day Reagan’s instruction about that wicked wall was enthusiastically followed by a Berlin crowd, our new president will be a no-show. He has nothing against speeches in Berlin. Been there; done that. It’s not the venue that makes him uncomfortable. It’s the message.

When the wall came tumbling down, it was the most dramatic demonstration of the inherent bankruptcy of the ideas of Marx in actual practice. Sure, the doctrine promises hope, change, and the idea that human self-interest will one day “wither away,” but it has never really delivered – simply because it can’t. Harvard professor Richard Pipes has suggested the Soviet system collapsed because of “the utopian nature of its objectives.”

And when it comes to Islamism, the continued and persistent minimizing of its threat is not only misguided, it approaches political malpractice. The president, this past November 4th, reached out to Tehran seeking “a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on mutual interests and mutual respect.” In response, leaders there vow to continue to show “unquenchable anger against the Great Satan.”

That, by the way, is how a clenched fist responds to an extended hand.

So here we are in another November in time and a 39-year old Army major – a psychiatrist and lifelong Muslim – climbs onto a table crying, “Allahu Akbar,” and opens fire on fellow-soldiers. Many die, while others cling to life. But will anything be learned?

It seems that the history of the past 100 years has been, in many ways, a battle of Novembers. At times, tyranny has temporarily triumphed; at other times freedom’s flag has flown. Yes, Mark Twain said that history could rhyme. But often these rhymes – so simple and clear – come across as riddles to those who are apparently determined to miss the obvious.

Gvosdev: President Obama Has No Russia Game

September 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran, Russia, The National Interest | Leave a Comment 

The National Interest’s Nicholas Gvosdev argues that President Obama doesn’t have a coherent diplomatic strategy with Russia vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program. In other words, he made a big concession and is now hoping for the best:

What we’ve gotten so far from the Kremlin is not substantive help over Iran in return, but a Russian commitment that Iskander short-range missiles will now not be deployed in Kaliningrad as a response. So Moscow can argue two things: 1) the Iranian threat isn’t that bad after all, if the United States is canceling a program that before was seen as so urgent for the defense of Europe and the West, and 2) Russia has already responded, trading one missile deployment for another.

And if Russia does not intensify pressure on Iran, then what? The Obama team re-activates the BMD program in eastern Europe—after admitting that it doesn’t think that the technology in hand can meet the threat?

This could have all been avoided—and handled much better—if there were clear organizing principles in terms of how to prioritize the threat posed by Iran, and consistent, reliable threat assessments that would enable Washington to firmly and decisively put the matter to its friends and partners. But there are not. Thus, when the president says at the United Nations that there should be “new coalitions that bridge old divides” in tackling issues like the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states like Iran, there is no mechanism in place to build them. Neither is there a better understanding of what trade-offs Washington would be prepared to make with Russia to ensure full Russian participation in and compliance with the needs of such a coalition. The BMD system was cancelled on the lack of its own merits—and Moscow knows this. To try and then get concessions from Russia on Iran in the absence of both a clear negotiating framework and without a sense of the costs and benefits involved seems another example of “U.S. officials hoping for the best.”

Missiles, Crocodiles, And Doves

September 18, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Europe, History, International Affairs, Iran, Russia | 2 Comments 

Cue the doves in places like Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Tehran, and Caracas. Peace is at hand. Peace in our time. Central Europe, the region that has provided the kindling for so many of the conflicts that have burst forth into full flame for nearly 100 years, is once again safe from its protectors. Pardon me while I pause to fan myself as I tear up. We have been once more delivered – we, as in all humanity, that is – delivered from the mean old policies of Dubya, and company. The good guys know better. Trust them.

Pardon the preacher in me (it is, in fact, my day job), but I can’t help but think of a scripture, one that has an ominous ring to it, in light of the recent decision by the Obama administration to back away from the previously proposed and planned nuclear missile shield in and around the Czech Republic and Poland.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them… – I Thessalonians 5:3 (KJV)

One might call what we are seeing these days Yogi Berra-like foreign policy, as in “It’s déjà vu all over again.” We are underestimating Iran and appeasing Russia – all in the same fell swoop. Remarkable!

Okay, one more time. The year is 1938, and there are some very bad people who are being underestimated by some very, supposedly bright, but actually just incredibly naïve people. Though it happened more than 70 years ago it is still relevant. Its relevance is reinforced each and every time those who play with matches and kindling ignore the obvious-to-anyone-with-a-brain lessons. The story will cease to be relevant when the world finally figures it out. My advice is: Don’t hold your breath.

In fact, the long ago, yet up-to-date, fiasco is known now simply by the city-name-as-a-metaphor, Munich – apologies to that wonderful Bavarian city, a place unfortunate enough to have been an international and diplomatic crime scene. David Faber, the grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, and a former Conservative Member of Parliament (1992-2001), has written a fresh, factual, engaging, definitive, and, well, haunting account of what happened back then.

The book is called, Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II.

Appeasement was never really a bad word until it became forever identified with the foreign policy failures in Great Britain under the premiership of Neville Chamberlain. The word itself simply means to pacify or soothe. Most of us understand that there is a measure of this required for peaceful and civilized living and discourse.

But when appeasement met Adolf Hitler, it was manipulated, twisted, scorned, and ultimately dismissed. To put it in the words of Sean Connery playing a character in the 1987 movie The Untouchables, Mr. Chamberlain had brought a knife to a gunfight in Munich. A knife crafted out of a very thin sheet of paper. But our leaders are doing even better – they are throwing the knives away.

The appeasement of the 1930s, gave way to the resolve of the 1940s, but it was a lesson learned the hard way. Is history repeating itself?

I think a better case can be made that history may be reversing itself. Back then, our nation moved from isolation and denial toward eventual engagement. It was a progression that was somewhat understandable – after all, who wants war? Now however, it seems that some are determined to move us from resolution and vigilance – the qualities that have, indeed, kept us safe for the past eight years – toward appeasement.

Think of it this way: It’s one thing to cut Neville Chamberlain some slack for what he did back then with his deliberate policy of appeasement. Many people then had been seduced into a sense of sleepy underestimation of Hitler and his henchmen. After all, even former Prime Minister David Lloyd George had visited the dictator at Berchtesgaden a couple of years earlier and was clearly smitten. He returned home, calling his Nazi host “the greatest living German” and “the George Washington of Germany.” He even had a device installed at his home in Surrey – one that would lower a large picture window into the ground, creating “the feel of a covered terrace.” It was something that had captivated him at the Eagle’s Nest.

Then there was the other Nevile, now largely forgotten in the appeasement story, Nevile Henderson (he spelled his name with only one “L,” unlike the PM, the only apparent difference between the two men). He was the British Ambassador to Germany at the time and was fond of saying things about the Nazis like:

Far too many people have an entirely erroneous conception of what the National Socialist regime really stands for. Otherwise they would lay less stress on Nazi dictatorship and much more emphasis on the great social experiment which was being tried out in Germany.

These days, you could sub out the words “National Socialist” and “Nazi” and “Germany” and insert the names of guys like Putin, Castro, Chavez, et al – and it might sound eerily familiar to some current diplomatic-speak coming out of Washington, or the U.N. But I digress.

Oh, and we must not forget good old Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, better known as the Earl of Halifax, or Lord Halifax. He was Chamberlain’s Foreign Secretary. He had been to Germany, as well – as a hunting guest of Hermann Göring. All of this is chronicled fascinatingly in Faber’s book.

Of course, Winston Churchill – a voice in the wilderness of those days – said, famously: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.”

But again, this was new territory for all of them. In fairness, they had no clue at first that the rules of geopolitics and diplomacy were quickly changing, such a revolution being driven by a mad man. They all saw the light, eventually. And even Winston Churchill, who had been so solitarily tough on his Conservative party brothers over the whole appeasement issue, understood – graciously so – that Chamberlain and company were sincere in what they tried. Speaking at his Downing Street predecessor’s funeral in November of 1940, and as events by then had cruelly proved Neville Chamberlain so sadly wrong, Churchill waxed philosophical:

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart–the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.

Now, however, things are both the same and different. We are certainly bearing witness to the forming of threatening storm clouds. And it’s all being largely ignored or minimized by those who should know better. History, yet to be written, will not, however, cut current leaders – who are apparently convinced that today’s threats aren’t substantive or substantial – any such Churchillian slack.

Why? Because we ought to know better. Our experience, sense of the past, not to mention just plain old common sense should scream to this moment: “Crocodiles eat doves!”

Becoming Nixon In Tehran?

August 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under China, Iran, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

At the UAE’s Khaleej Times, Kishore Mahbubani — the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of public policy in Singapore — advocates a Nixon-To-China style rapproachement with Iran:

It is useful to recall President Richard Nixon’s words when, prior to restoring diplomatic relations China, he visited Beijing: “We have at times in the past been enemies. We have great differences today. What brings us together is that we have common interests which transcend those differences. As we discuss our differences, neither of us will compromise our principles. But while we cannot close the gulf between us, we can try to bridge it so that we may be able to talk across it.”

In engaging Iran, the West should ignore the nature of its regime. It is almost impossible for any outsider to understand Iran’s real internal politi-
cal dynamics.

Just when the world reached a consensus that Ahmadinejad was merely an instrument of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, Ahmadinejad appointed a Vice-President against Khamenei’s wishes (though he later retracted the appointment). What we do know with certainty is that the regime is divided.
These divisions will allow new forces to emerge in Iranian society. So all means should be found to reach out to Iranian society at all levels. Iranian students should be encouraged to visit and study in Asian universities, where they would discover how confident young Chinese and Indian students are about the future — which might well cause them to reflect on why young Iranians do not share that optimism.

No Legitimacy, Many Problems

August 3, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under China, International Affairs, Iran, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Russia | Leave a Comment 

Thirty-seven years ago today Congress ratified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, in what was the culmination of a diplomatic coup crafted by President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger in visits to China and Russia.

During the Cold War, President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger knew that the only course in obtaining such a peace was to establish an unbreakable framework in which legitimate governments could reach settlements at the bargaining table. Revolutionary governments — such as in Russia and the China — were to be limited in their opportunity to invoke the whimsical — if not downright irrational and maniacal — fervency of post-modern ideology in favor of a permanent peace.

According to the Hossein Askari, a George Washington University Professor writing at The Nixon Center’s National Interest magazine, the current regime of Iran has lost all tenets of legitimacy within the Muslim world, relegating itself to a military dictatorship after an evidently rigged election and violent clashes with unarmed protesters. The current regime appears to be left with little choice but effective martial law.

The government cannot regain any pretensions to legitimacy. Yes, it may survive for a few weeks, months, or even for a few years, not as an Islamic Republic, but as a military dictatorship. Ayatollah Khamenei cannot stay on as supreme leader with religious and constitutional legitimacy. He has lost all claims to both as a result of recent events. He could survive as the supreme head of a military dictatorship. The majority of Iranians will not accept Ahmadinejad’s presidency as legitimate.

There are three basic options for Iran. The first is to preserve the Islamic Republic; Ayatollah Khamenei would have to be replaced by a respected senior grand ayatollah, someone with no political ambitions. The constitution would have to be modified so as to afford Iranians a more direct say in the selection of their leaders. There would have to be a new presidential election. This is the preferred solution of the clerical establishment, including Hashemi Rafsanjani, who would, of course, like to be the power behind the throne.

The second, and most likely option is the emergence of an absolute dictatorship. Such a tyranny would in time be overthrown, because Iranians are unlikely to succumb to force. What makes the second option the most likely short-term solution? Religious scholars and Grand Ayatollahs have no guns. But the regime does. The two leaders, namely Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, are fully aware that the IRGC and the Basij will not give up their privileged status easily and would fight to keep them in power. They will fight until too many Iranians have died or until the regular military turns against the IRGC. The only way that the second option can be avoided is if Ayatollah Khamenei abides by the teachings of the religion that he touts, supports the first option and resigns in favor of a new supreme leader.

The third option would be to abandon the clerical system in favor of a simple republic with a totally new constitution. This is the most unlikely option as neither the clerics nor the IRGC will go away quietly. But in my opinion, this is the option that would best serve the long-term interests of the Iranian people.

In retrospect, the late shah, after a thirty-five-year rule, most of it unpopular, had the decency to yield to the will of the Iranian people and to avoid excessive bloodshed. Unfortunately, the supreme leader and President Ahmadinejad are unlikely to follow in his footsteps.

With a more conventional enemy, this might be an incredible moment of opportunity for a diplomatic coup on the seemingly vulnerable, but armed to the teeth an apocalyptic talking regime with little options, may leave us with very little.

Ahmadinejad: Iran Will Bring Down West

July 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

It’s going to be hard to confer legitimacy on a regime that is insistent on maintaining its quixotic raison d’être:

Ahmadinejad’s fierce attack on Tehran’s “enemies” is likely to further disappoint the United States and its allies, which are trying to engage the Islamic Republic in direct talks over its nuclear program.

Western leaders have criticized a crackdown on protests that followed the June 12 presidential election, which the defeated moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi says was rigged.

Ahmadinejad said enemies had tried to interfere and foment aggression in Iran. He said Tehran wanted “logic and negotiations” but that Western powers had insulted the nation and should apologize.

Iranian leaders often refer to the United States and its allies as the “global arrogance.”

“As soon as the new government is established, with power and authority, ten times more than before, it will enter the global scene and will bring down the global arrogance,” he said.

“They should wait as a new wave of revolutionary thinking … from the Iranian nation is on the way and we will not allow the arrogant (powers) to even have one night of good sleep,” Ahmadinejad said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Meanwhile, signaling greater rifts within Iran’s leadership nuclear chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh has recently resigned his decade long post:

The man who heads Iran’s nuclear program has stepped down, the ISNA news agency reported on Thursday, prompting speculation that the key Iranian official’s departure may be related to the turmoil following the contested presidential election last month.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who has led the country’s nuclear program for more than a decade, tendered a resignation that was accepted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency), a semi-official newswire. He also resigned his post as vice-president of the country.

Although no official reason was given for the resignation, which was apparently tendered more than two weeks ago, analysts say they see Mr. Aghazadeh’s stepping down as a clear sign of ruptures in the upper levels of the Iranian regime.

Praying In Force At Tehran University

July 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Khamenei nemesis Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani will be leading the Friday prayers at Tehran University. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi will also make a much anticipated public appearance:

The Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi will attend Friday Prayer at Tehran University, making his first appearance at an official event since unrest began over the nation’s disputed presidential election, a statement on his Web site said.

The prayers, which are normally broadcast throughout the country, will be led by the influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, state news agencies said. Mr. Rafsanjani is a rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but has not commented publicly on the post-election turmoil. The opposition insists the election was rigged in favor of the declared victor, Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Opposition supporters vowed on Web sites and social networking sites to show up at the prayers in force. There were reports that green prayer mats — the color green symbolizing both Islam and the opposition — were sold out across the city.

The opposition has not held a street protest since last Thursday, when thousands poured into central Tehran before being dispersed by security forces firing tear gas and wielding wooden truncheons. In the days after the June 12 vote, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets, but their numbers have dwindled in the face of a heavy government crackdown.

The vast hall at Tehran University where prayers are held was expected to be stacked on Friday with government supporters, and the intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, was quoted by the Fars News Agency as warning Iranians to not turn the sermon “into an arena for undesirable scenes.”

My guess is that there will undoubtedly unrest between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad supporters.

But more significantly how will the regime react to Rasfanjani’s and Mousavi’s very public posturing? Will the Basij dare shoot at those who praying and expressing them in a very Islamic way, effectively undermining the legitimacy of the regime’s “Islamic” pretense? In any case, it appears that Rasfanjani has put Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into a bit of a fix.

The Yazdi Dictatorship Of Iran

July 13, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | 2 Comments 

More than a split among the power hungry in Qom, the rift between Khamenei and Rasfanjani has taken on a greater ideological tone, shrouded in the apocalyptic creed of Ayatollah Mohamed Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spiritual father:

This aim has its roots in the ideology espoused by Ahmadinejad’s spiritual guide, hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohamed Taqi Mesbah Yazdi. Yazdi believes in the removal of the “republic” element from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the replacement of the current “guardianship of the clerics” system with an Islamic government. In effect, this would result in a dictatorship of the clerics, with elections no longer necessary.

Yazdi is also the leader of a radical messianic group known as the Hojjatieh movement. According to Shiite teachings, the hidden Imam, or Mahdi, will one day return to bring Islamic rule to the whole world. The Hojjatieh take this a step further, believing that he will only return when Iran is in a state of total chaos and disaster. For this reason, Yazdi did not support the 1979 revolution that brought down the shah and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. In his view, fighting corruption and misrule only delays the return of the Mahdi and, with it, global Islamic rule.

After the Islamic revolution, Yazdi was isolated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for his extreme views. He returned to prominence only after Khamenei’s accession to the office of supreme leader in 1989. In fact, Yazdi, along with Rafsanjani, helped secure Khamenei’s appointment.

After returning to the scene, Yazdi worked hard to consolidate his base of power in order to spread his ideology. He has been incredibly successful in placing his followers in positions of power, particularly since Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005. Yazdi’s key supporters include Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and Ahmadinejad’s closest political advisor, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi.

Securing Ahmadinejad’s re-election was meant to further this process of empowering Yazdi’s conservative followers. By contrast, a victory for Rafsanajani and the reformist vision would be particularly dangerous for conservatives at this point, because according to numerous reports, Khamenei’s health is weakening. At the same time, appointing a council, rather than an individual cleric, as Khamenei’s successor — an option known to be favored by Rafsanjani — has been gaining support in Iran.

If the supreme leader were to pass away in this climate, and with a reformist president in office, the likely result would be the weakening, or even the elimination, of the institution of the supreme leader. That would leave Khamenei’s five sons, all of whom are clerics and students of Yazdi, with little power. Yazdi and the clerics that subscribe to the messianic movement — of which Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is a key figure — would be marginalized.

Significantly, protesters yesterday chanted slogans targeting Mojtaba Khamenei, signaling a recognition of the dynastic element of the “election coup” engineered by Ali Khamenei. As for the question of whether Khamenei was motivated by a desire for power or ideological conviction, in a system that mixes religion and political power so intimately, the answer is inevitably an explosive combination of the two.

Sistani, Democracy, And Street Power

July 12, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Ruel Marc Gerecht, a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, writes that Ayatollah al-Sistani — who has emerged as a powerful voice in a democratic and post-Saddam Iraq — carries much weight in an Iran that desires reform:

The influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s preeminent cleric and probably the most respected Shiite jurist in the world, comes into play here. Iranian clerics have been free to go to Iraq on pilgrimage and for study since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and some Iranian clerics in Iraq will tell you flatly that what they admire most about Sistani is that so many Iraqi Shiites voluntarily follow his advice.

Sistani, an Iranian by birth who still speaks Arabic with a Persian accent, has embraced democracy in Iraq even though he and many of his fellow clerics in the holy city of Najaf are no doubt worried about where democracy, with its potential for moral relativism, will eventually carry their flock. There is not a single cleric in Iran who can command the allegiance–or street power–of Sistani. Skeptics of Sistani will tell you that the grand ayatollah is being coopted by access to Iranian state funds (and he has undoubtedly received money from Tehran). Given Sistani’s preeminent position in Iraq, and how much he’s been able to do with how little (in 2003 he humbled American viceroy L. Paul Bremer and George W. Bush with little cash in the till), it’s doubtful this is a serious worry. What’s interesting is the reverse: the potential appeal in Iran of the Iraqi model–the cultural and religious authority that comes from the Shiite tradition of keeping a certain distance from power, combined with a modern, moral embrace of democracy.

Iran’s Revolutionary Sleuths

July 10, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Internet, Iran | Leave a Comment 

The regime is catching on to social networking and their tactics aren’t pretty:

A scary anecdote from Iran. A trusted colleague – who is married to an Iranian-American and would thus prefer to stay anonymous – has told me of a very disturbing episode that happened to her friend, another Iranian-American, as she was flying to Iran last week. On passing through the immigration control at the airport in Tehran, she was asked by the officers if she has a Facebook account. When she said “no”, the officers pulled up a laptop and searched for her name on Facebook. They found her account and noted down the names of her Facebook friends.

This is very disturbing. For once, it means that the Iranian authorities are paying very close attention to what’s going on Facebook and Twitter (which, in my opinion, also explains why they decided not to take those web-sites down entirely – they are useful tools of intelligence gathering).

Second, it means, as far as authorities are concerned, our online and offline identities are closely tied and we have to be fully prepared to be quizzed about any online trace that we have left (I can easily see us being asked our Facebook and Twitter handles in immigration forms; one of the forms I regularly fill flying back to the US has recently added a field for email address).

Third, this reveals that some of the spontaneous online activism we witnessed in the last few weeks – with Americans re-tweeting the posts published by those in Tehran – may eventually have very dire consequences, as Iranians would need to explain how exactly they are connected to foreigners that follow them on Twitter (believe me, I’ve observed enough bureaucratic stupidity in Eastern Europe to know that even some of the officials who follow Twitter activity on a daily basis may not know how it works).

I am curious if there have been other reports of foreigners being asked about their social media activity on traveling to authoritarian states. Any ideas?

Despite Vow To “Smash” Protesters…The Protests Continue

July 9, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

The AP reports that weeks after the Iranian election uprising was quelled thousands are back on the streets in opposition to the clerical regime.

Rasfanjani The Stealth

July 9, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

The very powerful Iranian cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani has been scheming behind the scenes in the Holy City of Quom, effectively bolstering support for the opposition among the clerics, all while maintaining magnanimity:

As this religious war continues to unfold, there will no doubt be casualties and beneficiaries. At this moment, it appears Mousavi might be the sacrificial lamb; many high-ranking hard-liners are calling for his trial and imprisonment. The editor of the Kayhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari, who is a mouthpiece for Khamenei, argued recently that Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami should be tried for “terrible crimes.” He might get his way. With hundreds of reformist foot soldiers already in prison, it appears the hard-liners are still deciding the fate of the reform movement’s key leaders.

The likely beneficiary of this religious struggle is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. If the statement from the association in Qom is a clue, then the former president, who has been lobbying behind the scenes in Qom for weeks, has used his time well. A skilled political operative once known as “the Shark,” he has been doing what he does best: leaving no fingerprints. He appears one day to be retreating back into the fold of the hard-line regime and on another siding with the opposition. At this point, it is unclear where he stands, which is precisely the place he prefers to be, as long as other heavyweights, such as the members of the Qom clerical association, do his bidding for him.

When the dust settles, Iran could turn out to be a gentler Islamic republic. With leading reformers in jail and the street tamed, the voices for radical change are falling silent. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, could be dwarfed by Rafsanjani and the mainstream clerical establishment, which may not be particularly fond of Rafsanjani, but think he is a better alternative for preserving the Islamic system. Meanwhile, to ensure that system remains intact, Rafsanjani might well turn a blind eye to the trial and imprisonment of the reformers he so fiercely defended and claimed as his allies over the last several months. It wouldn’t be the first time he has sold them out.

Iran Is The New Iraq?

July 6, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran | Leave a Comment 

A month ago, I posed the question: would a meeting between powerful cleric and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani and Iraq’s spiritual leader Ayatollah al-Sistani have been possible if it weren’t for the fall of Saddam Hussein? In an article today at Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens poses a similar question and goes further to raise the postulation that the emergence of competitive elections and an animus toward velayat-e faqui (a doctrine detested by Sistani) helped propagate the recent uprising in Iran and erode the legitmacy of the current regime:

Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about “the liberation of Iraq,” he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran’s regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a “let’s pretend” election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself.

There are, no doubt, other determining factors as well. Contrary to the simplistic distinction between the “liberal urban” and the “conservative rural” that is made by so many glib commentators, Iran is a country where very rapid urbanization of a formerly rural population is being undergone, and all good Marxists ought to know that historically this has always been a moment pregnant with revolutionary discontent. In Saddam’s Iraq, the possession of a satellite dish was punishable by death; everybody knows that the mullahs in Iran cannot enforce their own ban on informal media and unofficial transmission. And yet, precisely because they are so dense and so fanatical, they doom themselves to keep on trying. Every Iranian I know is now convinced that if this is not the end for the Khamenei system, it is at least the harbinger of the beginning of the end.

Where Is The Chessboard?

July 6, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Nixon in the News | Leave a Comment 

Despite rifts within leadership (an influentual group of clerics have recently called the June 12 elections “invalid”) , President Obama continues to call for a narrow policy of engagement with Iran:

President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in separate interviews this weekend, said that the accelerating crackdown on opposition leaders in Iran in recent days would not deter them from seeking to engage the country’s top leadership in direct negotiations.

In an interview with The New York Times, a day before his scheduled departure for Moscow on Sunday, Mr. Obama said he had “grave concern” about the arrests and intimidation of Iran’s opposition leaders, but insisted, as he has throughout the Iranian crisis, that the repression would not close the door on negotiations with the Iranian government.

It might be said that President Obama is mimicking the Nixonian-Kissingerian approach of imposing “legitimacy” on a state (Iran) that considers itself “revolutionary” just as the two conferred on the USSR and Red China. But as Alistair Horne notes in his new book Kissinger: 1973 The Crucial Year the goal is to attain stability, not necessairily perfection, the former created by a structure in which the unruly actor must comply. For Kissinger, according to Horne, he would endorse the Metternichian approach to these ends not through the disastious consequences of declaring intentions in full view, but rather through “backchannel diplomacy.”

Most Iran Election Historical Analogies Are Misleading and Dangerous

July 2, 2009 by Paul Saunders | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Nixon Center | Leave a Comment 

Originally published at US News and World Report:

Outrage over the Iranian government’s violent suppression and intimidation of dissent has appropriately produced considerable concern in the United States and fueled a debate over U.S. policy toward Tehran. Many political leaders and pundits have called for more active and vocal American support of the Iranian opposition, typically on the basis of analogies to oppressive regimes of the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of these analogies are misleading and even dangerous if used as guides to policy. The historical cases most similar to present-day Iran should instill caution.

Some have compared Iran to the Philippines in 1986 or South Korea in 1987, both cases in which the Reagan administration lent support to domestic groups pressing for greater democracy (after a stolen election in the Philippines and in restoring direct presidential elections in Korea). These two analogies are both fundamentally flawed because both countries were American allies over which the United States had considerable leverage. To the extent either case can be compared to Iran, they are more similar to the Iran of 1979 than 2009.

Others warn that Iran is headed toward a situation similar to 1989’s Tiananmen Square. This implicitly suggests that the George H. W. Bush administration could have prevented the Chinese government’s decision to crack down on China’s pro-democracy protesters, which seems doubtful but is ultimately unknowable. However, the focus of this comparison is typically criticism of the Bush administration’s post-Tiananmen engagement with China. Either way, there has thankfully been no event on this scale in Iran. Partially motivated by the collapse of communism in Central Europe, Tiananmen also demonstrates the potential danger of using strategies that were successful in one place and time in a radically different environment. (Though the blame for the outcome lies overwhelmingly with the Chinese government, not the protesters.)

The bulk of the history lessons filling editorial pages have to do with America’s Cold War and modern policies toward the U.S.S.R. and former Soviet bloc countries. Some mention Hungary in 1956—when the U.S. essentially encouraged a revolt via Radio Free Europe but was ultimately unwilling to come to aid the country’s revolutionaries—or the Prague Spring in 1968, which Washington did not particularly encourage beforehand or support afterward. Both demonstrate the calculations that have led past American leaders, Republican and Democratic, to shy away from active intervention in such circumstances.

Others cite the Reagan administration’s support for Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement in the early 1980s, though few acknowledge that the Solidarity protests led to the imposition of martial law and considerably greater repression. Poland did not have a non-communist government until 1989, nine years after the first Solidarity strikes. The fact that Soviet leaders—and Polish and other Central European leaders—were no longer prepared to use large-scale violence to suppress opposition was decisive in the largely peaceful revolutions of 1989.

Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution is another popular case, doubtless because it is a recent example of electoral fraud akin to Iran’s and because American political intervention was important to Viktor Yushchenko’s eventual installation as president. Yet “revolution” is clearly an overstatement of the degree of change in Ukraine and its subsequent governments have been quite unstable. Actually, the country’s recent history is an illustration less of the success of U.S. pressure in producing democracy than of the fact that democracy requires much more than the ‘right’ election outcome, especially in a divided country.

Finally, many talk of the Soviet Union, especially of President Reagan standing up to Soviet leaders or Reagan and others supporting Soviet dissidents. U.S.-Soviet relations are mostly irrelevant to Iran, however. At the time of the Cold War, the U.S.S.R. was the pre-eminent threat the American national security and was a global competitor. The United States subordinated much of its foreign policy to the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Few today seem prepared to afford Tehran the same role in shaping U.S. global policy and strategy, notwithstanding the real danger of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its regional support for terrorism. Moreover, America’s defense of Soviet dissidents was a long-term strategy, like support for Solidarity, not one expected to produce the immediate results for which today’s observers appear to hope.

One of the most wrong-headed comparisons between Iran and the former U.S.S.R. is the comparison to the August 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin’s iconic image resisting the coup atop a tank, which has led some to complain that Mir Hossein Mousavi lacks Yeltsin’s courage. The problem with this line of thinking is that Yeltsin was already the president of the Russian Federation at that time and had the backing of Russia’s parliament. Perhaps even more important, there was a tank in front of the parliament for him to stand on because the Soviet armed forces were divided. There is scant evidence of such divisions in Iran.

Historical patterns can clearly be useful tools for thought and action in shaping policy, but in using them it is essential to avoid becoming locked in to psychologically appealing narratives that can skew expectations. It is likewise important to remember that history took a long time to happen and that most of the decisive events to which we look back were the final stages of extended processes. What does this mean for U.S. policy toward Iran? Stay calm—and don’t try to turn today’s events into something they are not.

Secretary Clinton Pushed President Obama To Speak Up

July 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Fox News’ Brett Baer reports:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly spent two days urging President Obama to toughen his language on Iran’s post-election crackdown before he finally took her advice. The Washington Times writes that the president resisted Clinton’s initial counsel, and that when he finally relented, he did not tell her first.

The president had been criticized for his cautious tone on the situation. Then at last week’s news conference, Mr. Obama said he was “appalled and outraged,” and he “strongly condemned” the violence.

An administration official called it “a happy surprise. It was echoing the line the secretary had been pushing for a couple of days.”

But the Times characterized it as — “the first known example of awkwardness between the two former rivals” — since Clinton took the job.

Mousavi, Karrubi, And Khatami Stand Firm Against Government

July 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iran | Leave a Comment 

Via CNN:

Presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi wrote a letter in his party’s newspaper, saying he would not recognize the government and vowing to “stand by the people and the revolution, until the end of my life.”

His statement prompted Iran’s government to block publication of the newspaper.

Ahmadinejad’s main political rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, also released a statement Wednesday criticizing the government and its crackdown on the media, which he said has created a “bitter, coup d’etat atmosphere” in Iran.

“We will stand firmly in order to preserve this valuable accomplishment [revolution],” Moussavi said. “Unless we succeed in this, this government will not have legitimacy. The system and the heritage of the Islamic revolution are the fruits of our 200-year-old struggle against oppression.”

Iran’s former reformist President Mohammad Khatami called on Iranians to keep up the struggle, noting that “all doors are not yet closed.”

“We must not lose our social capital this easily,” Khatami told progressive Iranian newspaper Tahile Rouz. “I know Moussavi as one of the faithful, original and valuable capitals of our revolution, and considered his return to the political scene as a great chance.”

In his statement, Moussavi called for the release of jailed reformists and said he will participate in the creation of a “legal organization” that will release proof of fraud in the June 12 presidential election, and take its case to the courts.

He said the current political issue is a “family dispute” and cautioned against asking for outside help, warning, “We will regret it.”

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