person:hassan rouhani

  • Iran circles wagons as Trump’s B Team beats war drum
    Posted on May 9, 2019 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR - Indian Punchline
    https://indianpunchline.com/iran-circles-wagons-as-trumps-b-team-beats-war-drum

    If there can be a lethal game of Russian roulette in international politics, this is it — what just began on May 8, the first anniversary of the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal of July 2015.

    Iran exercised “strategic patience” for one full year, as President Hassan Rouhani noted, upon the request from the five remaining signatories of the nuclear deal — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. That period has run out.

    Not only have the five powers failed to persuade the Trump administration to retract from its decision, but Washington has gone on a warpath of sanctions and deployment of a formidable strike group to the Persian Gulf.

    On the other hand, the five big powers couldn’t ensure that Iran got the full benefits out of the nuclear deal as envisaged under the nuclear deal, despite its full compliance with the terms of the deal, which has been acknowledged repeatedly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Only Russia and China observed the commitments given to Iran as signatories, while the three European powers merely paid lip service.

    Against this sombre backdrop, Rouhani announced on Wednesday that if the remaining signatories fail to provide Iran with the merits stated under the deal in the next 60 days, Tehran will stop complying with its nuclear undertakings in consequent phases. For a start, Iran will cease to observe the capping on the volume of enriched uranium and heavy water reserves that it is permitted to hold.

    After 60 days, if Iran’s grievances are not still addressed, it will no longer observe the restrictions on the 3.6 percent level of uranium enrichment and will resume work on its heavy water reactor at Arak. Iran has underlined that it is not withdrawing from the nuclear deal but is only taking reciprocal measures as provided under articles 26 and 32 of the agreement regarding the eventuality of one or more of the six powers failing to observe the treaty. Rouhani has specified Iran’s concerns particularly in the oil industry and the banking sector, which Washington has targeted with sanctions.

    Rouhani said that after 120 days from now, even if Iran starts enriching uranium beyond the 3.6 level and resumes work in Arak, it will give yet another 60 days for negotiations before taking additional unspecified (which could be by the yearend). Meanwhile, Iran will react strongly against any move by the western powers to approach the UN Security Council for reimposition of the old UN sanctions. (...)

    #Iran

  • Javad Zarif, le ministre iranien derrière l’accord sur le nucléaire démissionne
    Publié le 26/02/2019
    https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/diplomatie-javad-zarif-le-ministre-iranien-derriere-laccord-s

    Fait rare, Javad Zarif a annoncé sa décision sur Instagram, sans donner d’explication. Ministre des Affaires étrangères du président Rohani, il est dans le collimateur des conservateurs depuis que les États-Unis se sont retirés de l’accord sur le nucléaire.

    #Iran #Javad_Zarif

    • En Iran, le président Hassan Rohani refuse la démission de Mohammad Javad Zarif
      Première publication : 26/02/2019
      https://www.france24.com/fr/20190226-iran-hassan-rohani-refus-demission-mohammad-javad-zarif

      Démission refusée pour le chef de la diplomatie iranienne. Mardi 26 février, le président Hassan Rohani a rejeté la démission de son ministre des Affaires étrangères, Mohammad Javad Zarif, a révélé l’agence de presse iranienne Fars.

      « Toutes les interprétations, toutes les analyses sur les raisons qui seraient derrière la démission du ministre des Affaires étrangères Mohammad Javad Zarif, au-delà de ce qu’il a écrit sur son compte Instagram, ne sont pas pertinentes et, comme l’a dit aujourd’hui le directeur de cabinet du président (Rohani), cette démission n’a pas été acceptée », a indiqué le porte-parole du ministère Bahram Qasemi, dont les propos sont rapportés par Fars.

      Le ministre des Affaires étrangères iranien Mohammad Javad Zarif, cheville ouvrière de l’accord international sur le nucléaire iranien de 2015, avait annoncé lundi 25 février par un message sur Instagram qu’il démissionnait de son poste.

    • Rohani rejette la démission de Zarif
      OLJ/AFP - 27/02/2019
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1159261/rohani-rejette-la-demission-de-zarif.html

      (...) « Manque de coordination »

      M. Zarif n’était présent à aucune des rencontres qu’a eues M. Assad avec M. Khamenei et M. Rohani, et Entekhab laisse entendre qu’il n’aurait pas apprécié d’être mis sur la touche.

      Présent lors de ces deux rencontres, le général de division, Ghassem Soleimani, chef de la Force Qods, branche extérieure des Gardiens de la Révolution, l’armée idéologique de la République islamique, a assuré que M. Zarif était « bien chargé de la politique étrangère » du pays, selon Sepah News, l’agence de presse des Gardiens.

      Pour le général Soleimani, symbole du soutien apporté par Téhéran aux autorités de Damas dans la guerre qui ravage la Syrie depuis 2011, M. Zarif « a toujours été soutenu et apprécié par les plus hautes autorités du système, tout particulièrement par le guide suprême », écrit Sepah News.

      « Un manque de coordination au niveau du cabinet du président est à l’origine de l’absence du ministre des Affaires étrangères [lors des rencontres avec M. Assad] et par conséquent de ses récriminations », ajoute Sepah News en citant l’officier, pour qui « il n’y a eu aucune volonté délibérée d’écarter M. Zarif de ces rencontres ».

      Dans un message publié sur son compte Instagram quelques minutes après l’annonce présidentielle, M. Zarif remercie le « peuple iranien », « les élites et les responsables » pour « la généreuse affection » dont ils ont fait part à son égard depuis qu’il est en fonction, et « en particulier au cours des trois dernières heures » .

      « J’espère, ajoute-t-il, que le ministère des Affaires étrangères, avec l’aide [...] du guide suprême et du président, et sous leur supervision, pourra exercer toutes ses responsabilités dans le cadre de la Constitution et des lois du pays ».

      Selon des images de la télévision d’Etat, M. Zarif était présent mercredi matin à la cérémonie d’accueil, par M. Rohani, du Premier ministre arménien Nikol Pachinian, en visite officielle à Téhéran.

    • Le soutien de Soleimani renforce Zarif et isole les partisans de la ligne dure en Iran
      mars 3, 2019 Alexandra Allio De Corato
      http://actuarabe.com/le-soutien-de-soleimani-renforce-zarif-et-isole-les-partisans-de-la-ligne

      Il s’est avéré que la confiance dans le départ du ministre des Affaires étrangères était prématurée. Il retourne à son poste avec une légitimité et un pouvoir de décision renouvelés après avoir reçu l’appui d’un éventail d’élites dirigeantes de l’Iran.

      Surtout, l’éloge d’une personnalité publique qui a « refroidi » l’esprit des tenants de la ligne dure et qui a le plus contribué à renforcer la position de Zarif : Qasem Soleimani, commandant de la Force de Quds du Corps des Gardiens de la révolution islamique.

      Soleimani a soutenu Zarif en tant que « principal responsable de la politique étrangère » et a souligné qu’il a toujours eu le soutien de hauts responsables, notamment l’Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, le Guide suprême. Ses commentaires font écho à la lettre du président Hassan Rouhani rejetant la démission de M. Zarif, dans laquelle il déclare être d’accord avec son diplomate en chef sur le fait que le ministre des Affaires étrangères est « le plus haut responsable de la mise en œuvre de la politique étrangère du pays ».

  • Iran says it will send 2 satellites to orbit amid US concern
    https://apnews.com/4f432f1f5c61456baf37de1fa784ab4b

    Iran’s president said Thursday the Islamic Republic soon will send two new satellites into orbit using Iran-made rockets, despite U.S. concern the launch could help further develop its ballistic missiles.

    President Hassan Rouhani’s comments, during a commemoration for the late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, confirmed the rocket launches would take place.

    Iran typically displays achievements in its space program in February, during the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the revolution, which saw the Persian monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced by the Islamic Republic overseen by a Shiite cleric.

    “Soon, in the coming weeks, we will send two satellites into space using our domestically-made rockets,” Rouhani said, without elaborating.

    Previously, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit over the past decade, and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The U.S. and its allies worry the same satellite-launching technology could be used to develop long-range missiles.

    Raison de plus pour certains de penser qu’il est vraiment temps de s’occuper rapidement de ces enturbannés... #iran

  • Why the Khashoggi murder is a disaster for Israel -
    The grisly hit-job on Khashoggi has implications far beyond its exposure of the Saudi Crown Prince as brutal and reckless. In Jerusalem and D.C., they’re mourning their whole strategic concept for the Mideast - not least, for countering Iran

    Daniel B. Shapiro
    Oct 17, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-why-the-khashoggi-murder-is-a-disaster-for-israel-1.6569996

    For Israel, this sordid episode raises the prospects that the anchor of the new Middle East realities it has sought to promote - an Israeli-Sunni Arab coalition, under a U.S. umbrella, to check Iran and Sunni jihadists - cannot be counted upon.
    And Israel must be careful how it plays its hand. There will, without question, be a U.S. response to Khashoggi’s murder, even if it is resisted by the Trump administration. It will not lead to a total dismantlement of the U.S.-Saudi alliance, but Congressional and public revulsion will have its price. 

    President Hassan Rouhani giving a speech on Iranian TV in Tehran on May 8, 2018.HO/AFP
    The price could include significant restrictions on arms sales that had been contemplated. It is already leading key U.S. investors to distance themselves from the major development projects MBS has promoted. At a minimum, there will be no replay of the warm, PR-friendly visit by MBS to multiple U.S. cities last March, no more lionizing of him in the American press as a reformer who will reshape the Middle East.
    Israel, which has a clear interest in keeping Saudi Arabia in the fold of U.S. allies to maximize the strategic alignment on Iran, will need to avoid becoming MBS’s lobbyist in Washington. Israel’s coordination with its partners in the region is still necessary and desirable. Simple realpolitik requires it. But there is a new risk of reputational damage from a close association with Saudi Arabia. 
    It won’t be easy for Israel to navigate these waters, as the Washington foreign policy establishment has quickly splintered into anti-Iran and anti-Saudi camps. The idea that the United States should equally oppose Iranian and Saudi brutality toward their peoples, and not let MBS’s crimes lead to a lessening of pressure on Iran over its malign regional activities, is in danger of being lost.
    For Israelis, that may be the biggest blow in the fallout of Khashoggi’s murder. MBS, in his obsession with silencing his critics, has actually undermined the attempt to build an international consensus to pressure Iran.
    The damage is broad. Trump may be an outlier. But what Member of Congress, what European leader, would be willing to sit with MBS for a consultation on Iran now?
    That is the greatest evidence of MBS’s strategic blindness, and the damage will likely persist as long as he rules the kingdom.
    Daniel B. Shapiro is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama Administration. Twitter: @DanielBShapiro

  • L’art du deal à la manière persane – Notes de Pepe Escobar en marge de la 6ème Conférence Internationale de Soutien à l’Intifada Palestinienne | Mounadil al Djazaïri
    https://mounadil.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/lart-du-deal-a-la-maniere-persane-notes-de-pepe-escobar-en-marge

    L’iran a accueilli la Conférence Internationale de Soutien à l’Intifada Palestinienne et est resté froid devant le retrait de l’accord sur le nucléaire.

    Par Pepe Escobar, Asia Times (Hong Kong) 18 mai 2018 traduit de l’anglais par Djazaïri

    L’art de la transaction, pratiqué depuis 2500 ans, mène au palais de la sagesse. J’avais à peine mis les pieds à Téhéran quand un diplomate a déclaré : « Trump ? Nous ne sommes pas inquiets. C’est un bazaari (un commerçant) « – sous-entendant qu’un compromis politique sera finalement atteint.

    La réponse du gouvernement iranien à l’administration Trump se ramène à une variante de Sun Tzu : le silence – surtout après la chute de Flynn [Michael Flynn, ex conseiller à la sécurité nationale de Donald Trump], qui avait « mis l’Iran en garde » après un test de missiles balistiques qui n’enfreignait pas les dispositions de l’accord nucléaire iranien, et l’idée d’un anti-Iran formé de l’Arabie Saoudite, des Emirats Arabes Uni, de l’Egypte et de la Jordanie, soit une mini-OTAN. Les manoeuvres navales iraniennes – du détroit d’Ormuz à l’océan Indien – étaient prévues depuis longtemps.

    J’étais à Téhéran en tant que membre d’un petit groupe d’analystes étrangers, invités du Majlis (Parlement) pour la 6ème Conférence internationale de soutien à l’Intifada palestinienne. Aucun risque de rencontrer des membres du cercle de Trump dans un tel rassemblement – avec des délégués parlementaires venus de plus de 50 pays, une mini-ONU de facto. Pourtant, ce qu’ils ont raté avec l’impressionnante inauguration dans une salle de conférence ronde et bondée, c’était le centre du pouvoir iranien qui s’affichait : le guide suprême, l’ayatollah Khamenei, le président de la république Hassan Rouhani et le président du parlement, Ali Larijani. (...)

  • Behind the extravagant hype of an Israeli-Saudi ’courtship’, Israel is setting the price for Riyadh to go nuclear

    The exaggerated reports and rumours about ever-closer ties are trial balloons: Jerusalem is signalling its reluctant assent to Riyadh obtaining a nuclear deterrent – but at a high price

    Victor Kattan Feb 13, 2018

    The real stumbling block between the two countries isn’t just the Palestinian issue. The elephant in the relationship, which is far less often mentioned, is Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of nuclear power.
    Israel is currently fighting a political battle in Washington to stop the U.S. from letting Riyadh develop its own nuclear energy program that would allow it to enrich uranium that could be used to develop a bomb.
    Israel has good reason to be concerned. According to reports, the Trump administration might be willing to lower certain safeguards that prevent U.S. companies from sharing sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia for fear that it might be used to develop weapons. This administration might not insist on the same precautions that Obama did in its nuclear cooperation agreement with Abu Dhabi, for example, which forfeited its right to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium.

    Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, at a news conference to mark the 39th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran, Iran. Feb. 6, 2018ATTA KENARE/AFP
    In its negotiations with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is not backing down from its demand to enrich uranium under its planned civilian nuclear program – using, ironically, as its rationale, the conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in which Iran has been allowed to enrich uranium. Prince Turki has made it clear, more than once, that should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries would look at all available options to meet the potential threat, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons. 
    The only snag for Saudi Arabia is the U.S. Congress, because this is where Israel has influential friends. Even if a deal is reached between Saudi Arabia and the Trump administration, Congress could either block the deal or add clauses preventing the U.S. from selling Saudi Arabia technology needed to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. 
    It is more than possible that through its media campaign, Israel is sending a signal to Riyadh that it understands very well Saudi Arabia’s desire for a nuclear deterrent regarding Iran - but there’s a price to be paid for Israel reducing the level of its direct and indirect opposition in Congress to an independent Saudi nuclear capability.
    What Israel appears to be saying to Saudi Arabia, via a variety of trial balloons, is that if Riyadh wants Israel’s help with obtaining support from Congress, then Israel wants something in return: Jerusalem, overflight rights for Israeli aircraft, direct military cooperation and intelligence exchanges, lucrative business deals for Israeli companies in Saudi Arabia, and so on.
    The publication of stories about Israel’s ever-closer relationship with Saudi Arabia, which are then magnified by media conglomerates in Qatar and Iran, is certainly one way of ensuring that the messages are received loud and clear.
    Saudi Arabia would likely have anticipated that Congress could give them trouble as it has done before. 
    But this time things might be different - and these changes might scupper Israel’s strategy.

    President Donald Trump meets with Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington D.C. March 14, 2017Evan Vucci/AP
    A deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia could aid the ailing U.S. nuclear industry and have wider benefits for corporate America. Moreover, the U.S. does not have a monopoly on nuclear technology.
    Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has already visited Moscow and signed agreements with Russia to build 16 nuclear reactors by 2030. Saudi Arabia already has nuclear related understandings with China, France, Pakistan, South Korea, and Argentina. One expert has even suggested that Pakistan could assist Saudi Arabia by supplying Riyadh with sensitive equipment, materials, and the expertise that would aid Riyadh with enrichment or processing.
    Riyadh is also expanding research at the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy and developing a cadre of nuclear scientists. Saudi Arabia is home to large uranium deposits that could be extracted with the appropriate technology.
    Obviously, Riyadh would prefer Washington’s blessing and support in developing its nuclear energy program within the rules of the global nonproliferation treaty rather than having to develop the program clandestinely with the aid of other states. Israel senses this, and would be willing to help Riyadh, but has set the price high.
    Israel would far prefer a covert alliance with Saudi Arabia to contain Iran over the U.S. allowing Riyadh to develop an independent nuclear deterrent. But Jerusalem is working to prepare for both eventualities. Whether that strategy will work remains to be seen.
    But should the Iran deal blow up on Trump’s watch, and Tehran acquires the capability to develop a weapon, no one should underestimate Riyadh’s resolve for self-preservation.
    Victor Kattan is Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore and an Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Law. Twitter: @VictorKattan

  • Why Iranian Women Are Taking Off Their Head Scarves

    The founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah, banned the hijab, in a gesture of modernization, in 1936, which effectively put some women under house arrest for years since they could not bear to be uncovered in public. The leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, made the hijab compulsory in 1979.

    Mass protests by women were unsuccessful in overturning the edict. Pro-hijab campaigners invented the slogan “Ya rusari ya tusari,” which means “Either a cover on the head or a beating,” and supervisory “committees” — often composed of women in full chadors — roamed the streets and punished women they deemed poorly covered. Those who opposed the strict measure called these enforcer women “Fati commando,” a derogatory term that combines Islam — in the nickname Fati for Fatemeh, the prophet’s daughter — and vigilantism.
    While the requirements have remained firmly in place, Iranian women have been pushing the boundaries of acceptable hijab for years. Coats have gotten shorter and more fitted and some head scarves are as small as bandannas. This has not gone without notice or punishment: Hijab-related arrests are common and numerous. In 2014, Iranian police announced that “bad hijab” had led to 3.6 million cases of police intervention.

    But for years, many women’s rights activists have written off the hijab as secondary to other matters such as political or gender equality rights. In 2006, the One Million Signatures for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws campaign, one of the most concerted efforts undertaken by Iranian feminists to gain greater rights for women, barely mentions the hijab. Iranian feminists have also been determined to distance themselves from the Western obsession with the hijab, almost overcompensating by minimizing its significance. Western feminists who have visited Iran and willingly worn the hijab have also played a hand in normalizing it.

    But fighting discriminatory policies has not resulted in any real change, as the crushed One Million Signatures campaign proved. So now Ms. Alinejad and a younger generation of Iranian women are turning back the focus on the most visible symbol of discrimination, which, they argue, is also the most fundamental. “We are not fighting against a piece of cloth,” Ms. Alinejad told me. “We are fighting for our dignity. If you can’t choose what to put on your head, they won’t let you be in charge of what is in your head, either.” In contrast, Islamic Republic officials argue that the hijab bestows dignity on women.

    The government has had a mixed response to the protests. On the day that Vida Movahed climbed on the utility box to protest the hijab, Tehran’s police chief announced that going forward, women would no longer be detained for bad hijab, but would be “educated.” In early January, in response to recent weeks of unrest throughout the country, President Hassan Rouhani went so far as to say, “One cannot force one’s lifestyle on the future generations.” In the past week, faced with a growing wave of civil disobedience, Iran’s general prosecutor called the actions of the women “childish” and the Tehran police said that those who were arrested were “deceived by the ‘no-#hijab’ campaign.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/iran-hijab-women-scarves.html
    #Iran #voile #femmes

  • Misreading Qazvin in Washington: On the Protests in Iran

    By : Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

    Jadaliyya
    http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34931/Misreading-Qazvin-in-Washington

    Iran has featured protests throughout several provincial cities (e.g., Mashhad, Kermanshah, Rasht, and Isfahan) since they first started on Thursday 28 December 2017. Some reports indicate that conservative opponents of the Rouhani government in the north-eastern city of Mashhad initiated the protests. However, they have since spread and escaped their oversight. In the early stages, protestors’ demands largely revolved around spiraling prices of basic foodstuffs and bore the classic signs of frustration with the country’s ongoing economic torpor. Today, they reached Tehran and have been taken up in limited numbers by students around the university. As of yet, it is not clear whether we can speak of one protest movement or several protest movements, as there are different (and sometimes conflicting) grievances and solutions being articulated.

    Appropriating “The People”

    Commentators and self-styled experts have been quick to jump to hasty conclusions and decree what is driving the present bout of discontent. The giddy enthusiasm of the Trump administration, rightwing DC thinktanks, and many others is palpable. Predictably, the same voices who have consistently demanded Iran’s international isolation, along with the imposition of sanctions, military intervention, and regime change, have rapidly sought to bandwagon the recent expressions of discontent and appropriate them for their own imperial agendas. Such rampant and frankly malevolent opportunism is frustrating to say the least. Within the space of some twenty-four hours, and with only a small number of exceptions, nearly every mainstream Western media outlet has inclined to assimilate legitimate expressions of socioeconomic distress and demands for greater governmental accountability into a question of “regime change.”

    Needless to say, these very same individuals and venues have time and again completely ignored the fact that countless strikes and protests from Khuzestan to Tehran, ranging from teachers to retirees, have become a regular occurrence in Iran since President Hassan Rouhani’s 2013 election. The latter’s administration and those sympathetic toward its agenda have sought on many an occasion to scale down levels of securitization and similarly distinguish between those citizens who express legitimate civic grievances and others who seek the system’s overthrow. These may seem like fine distinctions which fail to assuage the liberal conscience, but they are nevertheless immensely important for the institutionalization of legal and mutually recognized channels of civic contestation. These achievements and many others besides (e.g., indications of relaxed policing of “bad hijab” and the commuting of the death penalty for drug smugglers under two kilograms) are not inconsequential or to be belittled. They harbor implications for the lives of thousands if not millions of Iranians.

  • Iran’s Soleimani sends message of defiance in calls to Hamas
    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/palestine-factions-iran-soleimani-hamas-islamic-jihad-call.html

    Also on Dec. 11, the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen News reported that in the telephone call, Soleimani stated that all the Arab resistance movements, such as Hezbollah and other groups that emerged during the Syrian war, are prepared to defend Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. He expressed Iran’s full support for the Palestinian resistance forces.

    The call came a few hours before a speech by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah urging the axis of resistance to develop a unified strategy to confront Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh also called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Trump’s decision. In a statement by Hamas, Haniyeh described the US decision as an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and the Islamic world.

    Commenting on these phone conversations to Al-Monitor, Hamas’ representative in Iran, Khaled al-Qaddumi, emphasized the ties between the resistance factions and the Iranian Republic. He explained that Soleimani’s phone call to military leaders in Gaza comes in the context of an ongoing partnership against the common enemy, Israel.

    Qaddumi further asserted that the Iranian people, represented by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Rouhani, reject Trump’s decision. Emphasizing Jerusalem’s Arab and Muslim identity, he said Iran fears the move will further inflame the Middle East region.

    In turn, Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza Khader Habib denied news reported by some Israeli media outlets that Soleimani ordered the Palestinian factions to escalate militarily against Israel. “Iran never ordered resistance activities or interfered in the resistance’s field activities,” he told Al-Monitor. Notably, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip targeting the Gaza envelope settlements increased in the wake of the decision.

    Habib noted that t

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/palestine-factions-iran-soleimani-hamas-islamic-jihad-call.html#ixzz51sh

  • Khuzestân Iran dernières nouvelles a propos des condamnations à mort de deux activistes Ahwazis
    https://nantes.indymedia.org/articles/39018

    19 et 31 Octobre 2017 nouvelles qui nous sont parvenues par le biais de l’Agence de presse Kurde Rojikurd citant une dépêche de l’Ahwazi Center for Human Rights. Dans la province du Khuzestân (Sud-Ouest de l’Iran) on ne compte décidément plus les exactions racistes et les violences discriminatoires du régime théocratique et fasciste d’Ali Khamenei et d’Hassan Rouhani, à l’encontre des populations Arabes Ahwazies. Celles ci se soldent toujours par des vagues d’arrestations et de condamnations arbitraires de masse, des cas d’enlèvements et de « Disparitions » à caractère politique, des cas de tortures physiques et psychologiques systématiques, des cas récurrents de viols de prisonniers et prisonnières politiques dans les centres de détention locaux, et bien sur de procès d’activistes locaux (...)

    #Racisme #Répression #aéroport #notre-dame-des-landes #antifascisme #Racisme,Répression,aéroport,notre-dame-des-landes,antifascisme

  • Americans Who Don’t Want War With Iran Must Speak Out Now | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/americans-who-dont-want-war-iran-must-speak-out-now?akid=16112.2663896.a8k

    President Trump’s comments at the United Nations General Assembly urging the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal sounded familiar to our guest, Jeffrey Sachs. “The last time we had this kind of rhetoric was George W. Bush with the axis of evil,” Sachs said. “It was immediately followed by the Iraq War, which was the most disastrous single step of American military action and ’diplomacy,’ or anti-diplomacy, in modern times. So this is a setup, again, for war, for conflict. And it is extraordinarily ignorant and dangerous. Iran is in compliance with the agreement that was reached.”

    JEFFREY SACHS: —bewildered. But after the deal was made, Iran had elections, and the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, was re-elected, despite opposition from hardliners. And the U.S. response is to provoke. Now, why is this happening? Because two U.S. allies—Israel and Saudi Arabia—are luring our ignorant president into this kind of vehemence. This is Israeli and Saudi policy, Saudis because of the Sunni-Shia conflict and battle for regional power, Israel because of its own narrow concerns. And all the United States is doing, Trump is doing, is being lured into this and making the U.S. unsafe and making the world unsafe. It’s shocking.

    JEFFREY SACHS: I believe the American people who do not want war—and we need to avoid war—need to speak out right now, because I believe these are the drumbeats of war. We’ve heard them many times before. Our government absolutely is war-oriented. We have a deep security state which believes in overthrowing other countries. We have a secret army called the CIA, which is engaged in covert wars all over the world. And we have a president who is openly provocative, openly gunning for war, it seems, with these two countries and heaven knows how many more.

    #Guerre #Politique_USA #Iran

  • L’émir du Qatar à Rouhani : nos relations sont profondes et solides et nous devons les renforcer encore.

    الميادين | الأخبار - أمير قطر في اتصال مع روحاني : علاقتنا عريقة ومتينة ونريد تعزيزها أكثر
    http://www.almayadeen.net/news/politics/57861/أمير-قطر-في-اتصال-مع-روحاني--علاقتنا-عريقة-ومتينة-ونريد-تعزي

    Assez logiquement, le Qatar, subissant les attaques (médiatiques pour l’heure) de l’Arabie saoudite (+ Bahreïn, Emirats, Egypte et un peu Koweït) se tourne vers l’Iran...

    Une version très proche en espagnol : Irán y Qatar dispuestos a reforzar cooperación bilaterales
    http://espanol.almayadeen.net/news/pol%C3%ADtica/11898/ir%C3%A1n-y-qatar-dispuestos-a-reforzar-cooperaci%C3%B3n-bilater

    • Qatar must choose sides over Iran | The National
      http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/qatar-must-choose-sides-over-iran

      (Site des émirats)

      Gulf leaders who have spent the past few days irritated at Qatar over the emir’s reported comments will have been incensed to wake up yesterday morning and find that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani had decided to take a widely publicised phone call from a regional leader – the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. When so much of politics is conducted by signals, what sort of message does that send? In truth, much the same message as Qatar has been sending for some time now. That, rather than see itself as part of the GCC, it wishes to remain neutral, half in the Arab Gulf camp, half in Iran’s camp. Actually, the willingness to accept a phone call from Mr Rouhani at this moment would seem to position Qatar further on that side. It shows either a shocking unwillingness to understand his Gulf neighbours – or a dangerous naivete that has allowed Sheikh Tamim to be used by Iran for publicity purposes.

  • A Guide to Iran’s Electronic Underground « Bandcamp Daily
    https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/04/06/iran-electronic-music

    “By the time I was a teenager living in Tehran, underground music was all rock, metal, and hip-hop,” says Siavash Amini from his home in the Iranian capital. “In the past [all] musicians wanted to be mainstream, but were forced to stay small and underground.” Speaking to Amini —freshly returned from his first European tour—the changes in both the climate and the mindset in present-day Iran become clear. “Right now,” Amini says, “being underground is not as much a limitation as it is a decision to disconnect from the mainstream.”

    The existence of any kind of underground or electronic music scene in Iran is a relatively recent development, arguably part of a quiet and generally slow shift in the country’s post-revolution identity. Those changes came to a head with the election of reformist and relative centrist Hassan Rouhani as President in 2013, which opened up a doorway for Iranian relations with foreign countries, all but shut off after decades of international sanctions.

    The Islamic Republic that emerged from the 1979 revolution quickly quashed the country’s burgeoning pop and rock music scene, in favor of state-approved folk and classical styles. Iranian pop and rock musicians stayed all but silent throughout the 1980s, but years later, after the arrival of globalized digital media and swappable MP3s, government repression isn’t enough to stop a new generation of musicians creating digital noise, heavy techno, and textured ambience.

    The Ultimate Guide To Iran’s Underground Electronic Musicians - Electronic Beats
    http://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/the-ultimate-guide-to-irans-underground-electronic-musicians

    Are you ready to discover quality electronic music from the margins? Look no further than Iran’s burgeoning underground music scene. The country may not be on everyone’s radar for boundary-pushing experimental music, noise and techno, but in the last few years, a handful of musicians in Tehran have carried the torch for unique electronic composition. Artists like Nesa Azakikhah, Sote and 9T Antiope are among the producers making a distinct impact on genres in the realm of industrial, ambient and minimal.

    Thanks to Bandcamp, you can now browse a playlist of nine Iranian electronic music pioneers. The article includes a detailed breakdown of each producer’s work and composition process as well as previews of some of their best tracks. Listen to some of our favorites below and check out the entire list here.

  • Russie, Iran et Hezbollah promettent un soutien accru à Assad - L’Orient-Le Jour
    Reuters | 09/04/2017
    https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1045883/russie-iran-et-hezbollah-promettent-un-soutien-accru-a-assad.html

    L’alliance militaire constituée par la Russie, l’Iran et le Hezbollah libanais a promis dimanche d’apporter un soutien accru à l’armée du président syrien Bachar el-Assad après les tirs de missiles américains contre une base aérienne syrienne.

    Dans un communiqué, le centre de commandement conjoint des alliés de Damas accuse Washington d’avoir franchi une « ligne rouge » en bombardant la Syrie.

    L’alliance, dit le communiqué relayé par l’organe médiatique Ilam al-Harbi, s’engage à « répondre à partir de maintenant avec force à tout agresseur ou tout franchissement de ligne rouge par qui que ce soit ».

    « L’Amérique connaît notre capacité à répondre comme il se doit », ajoute-t-elle en qualifiant d’"illégale" la présence de soldats américains dans le nord de la Syrie, qu’elle qualifie de « forces d’occupation ».

    Le président russe Vladimir Poutine et son homologue iranien Hassan Rouhani se sont entretenus dimanche au téléphone à ce sujet et ont convenu que les « actes agressifs » des Etats-Unis contre la Syrie étaient « inacceptables », rapporte pour sa part le Kremlin.

    Moscou et Téhéran réclament une enquête « impartiale » sur l’usage présumé d’armes chimiques contre des civils dans la province d’Idleb, invoqué par Washington pour justifier ses bombardements, poursuit la présidence russe.

    Les deux pays sont prêts à renforcer leur coopération pour lutter contre le terrorisme et assurer la stabilité du Proche-Orient, ajoute le Kremlin.

    A Washington, le chef de la diplomatie américaine Rex Tillerson a pour sa part répété dimanche pendant l’émission « This Week » de la chaîne ABC que les Etats-Unis avaient décidé de frapper l’armée syrienne en raison de l’inaction russe et de « l’échec de Moscou à respecter ses engagements auprès de la communauté internationale » en matière de contrôle des armes chimiques.

    #Syrie

  • Serving the Leviathan | Jacobin
    https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/iran-rafsanjani-ahmadinejad-khamenei-reform

    Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chairman of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, died of a heart attack on January 8, 2017. Various factions immediately tried to claim this “pillar of the revolution” in the name of their competing political objectives. The wily politician would have surely recognized this technique of marshaling the spirits of the dead to score points for short-term political gain.

    Temperate “principalists” (usulgarayan), technocratic conservatives (eʿtedaliyyun), and reformists (eslahtalaban) — that is, much of the Iranian political class — saw something in the elderly statesman’s legacy worth appropriating. In this way, his death mirrors his life: during his sixty-plus years of political activity, he became many things to many people, while his ultimate objectives often remained opaque, if not virtually impossible to discern.

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others often painted this postrevolutionary pragmatist as a corrupt and arrogant patrician who had cast aside revolutionary austerity in favor of decadent opulence. The accusation resonated far beyond Ahmadinejad’s supporters, aligning with popular slogans that denounced the two-time president as “Akbar Shah” (meaning King Akbar, Great Shah) and compelling ordinary citizens to scrawl dozd (thief) on many of his campaign posters during the 2005 presidential campaign. He was also known to many as “the shark” (kuseh) on account of his inability to grow a fully fledged beard, though others felt it described his political modus operandi to a tee.

    By 2009, however, he seemed to have aligned himself with the Green Movement, drawing closer to the reformists he once opposed. His intermittent criticisms of the Ahmadinejad government endeared him to many, who began to see him as one of the few establishment voices willing to openly defy the administration and by extension, his old ally, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He became inextricably linked with the trope of “moderation,” a powerful idea in a country on the precipice, especially after the UN imposed sanctions of 2006.

    Many others remained skeptical, however, unable to forget his reputation as an arch-Machiavellian. They recycled urban legends about his family’s wealth, reinforcing his image as a power-obsessed wheeler-and-dealer.
    Resisting the Shah

    Born in 1934, Akbar Hashemi Bahremani grew up on his family’s small farm in the village of Bahreman in the Nuq district of Rafsanjan, Kerman province. At the behest of his father, he studied in a traditional maktab, but was still expected to help tend to the animals and orchards in a region renowned for its prized pistachio. His paternal uncle was a cleric who often took to the village pulpit, and at the age of fourteen, he left for Qom to study at the Shiʿi seminary, the chief center of Islamic learning in Iran.

    Through the Maraʿshi brothers (Akhavan-e Maraʿshi), Kazem and Mehdi, fellow Rafsanjanis, with whom he lived for a number of years, Akbar quickly came to know Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, then a relatively junior mojtahed and esteemed teacher of philosophy and mysticism. In Rafsanjani’s memoir, The Period of Struggle, he recalls how he was immediately captivated by the “majesty” of Khomeini’s visage and demeanor. Thus began an extremely close and fruitful relationship that would last the remainder of Khomeini’s lifetime. Indeed, Rafsanjani’s final resting place is alongside his political and spiritual patron.

    In Qom, Rafsanjani rapidly got involved in political life and activism and found himself attracted to the militant Devotees of Islam (Fadaʾiyan-e Islam), led by Seyyed Mojtaba Mirlowhi, better known as Navvab-e Safavi or “Prince of the Safavids,” whose meetings he would attend at every opportunity. The group tried to convince the Qom seminary to agitate for a strict and unforgiving nomocratic order, but with little success. Under the guidance of Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the overwhelming majority of the Qom seminary rejected the message of the Fadaʾiyan, at one point running them out of town.

    Rafsanjani was studying in Qom during the years of anticolonial fervor after Prime Minister Mosaddeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (BP). He encountered Mosaddeq’s one-time clerical ally, Ayatollah Seyyed Abolqasem Kashani, who became one of the Fadaʾiyan’s initial patrons. Kashani eventually turned on Mosaddeq, and, in August 1953, a joint CIA-MI6 orchestrated coup d’état ousted the prime minister.

    After the revolution, even while expressing his support for the national movement, Rafsanjani blamed Mosaddeq’s National Front and the communist Tudeh Party for their role in weakening the seminary during this period. But he still recalled with pride how the former prime minister contributed to printing and distributing his translation of The Journey of Palestine, a translation of a popular book on Palestine written in Arabic by Akram Zwayter, a Jordanian ambassador to Tehran. Published in semi-illicit form in 1961, this book marked the beginning of a long career in which he became the most prolific statesman-cum-author of the postrevolutionary era.

    In 1955, Navvab was executed by firing squad, but vestiges of the Fadaʾiyan persisted, creating a vital network of clerical and lay activists in the country’s mosques and bazaars. Rafsanjani became an important organizer inside the country, following Khomeni’s exile in 1964. In January 1965, he was arrested by the Shah’s infamous secret police, SAVAK, for his role in the assassination of the pro-American premier, Hassan ʿAli Mansur. Later recollections by members of the Islamic Coalition Society have since admitted it was Rafsanjani who supplied the weapon. From 1958 until the revolution he was arrested on several occasions. He persisted in his activism despite the abuse and torture he suffered at the hands of the SAVAK, publishing illegal periodicals and distributing Khomeini’s communiqués from Najaf. It was also in 1958 that he married ʿEffat Maraʿshi, the daughter of a fellow cleric from Rafsanjan. His companion of almost sixty years, she would come to exude a formidable matriarchal presence on the Iranian political scene throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

    Rafsanjani also managed to travel to the United States and Japan during these years. Many regard the latter as especially formative for his worldview and proclivity toward the seemingly indigenous, albeit technologically advanced, version of modernization he would seek to exact during his own time in power. He also penned a volume on the nationalist icon Amir Kabir (who died in 1852), who tried to streamline the Qajar court’s expenditures, consolidating the weak Iranian state in Tehran while importing technical and military know-how. That Rafsanjani died on the anniversary of Amir Kabir’s murder has only fueled the flood of hagiographies.
    Internal Divisions

    On February 5, 1979, Rafsanjani made his first public appearance facing the world’s media with Khomeini during Mehdi Bazargan’s introduction as prime minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. He began his government apprenticeship as deputy interior minister, and soon found common ground with another junior minister, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who held the same role in defense. More importantly, Rafsanjani also served on the revolutionary council, a secretive body dominated by clerics loyal to Khomeini that was created in lieu of a legislative branch of state.

    Rafsanjani and Khamenei were on a pilgrimage to Mecca when they learned that radical students, who called themselves the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, had overrun the United States embassy on November 4, 1979. They had by this time become leading officials of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP), and Bazargan’s resignation thrust both men into the limelight. Rafsanjani took over the interior ministry and organized the first presidential elections of 1980. In the spring of that year, he was elected to the Majlis (parliament) and became speaker, a post he turned into a personal stronghold for most of the following decade.

    Rafsanjani remained steadfastly loyal to Khomeini and led the clerical front that ultimately marginalized competing revolutionary organizations in the early 1980s. But their relationship was not always easy. Together with Khamenei, Rafsanjani lobbied Khomeini to allow clerical candidates into the first presidential election; his mentor’s refusal paved the way for the victory of layman Abolhasan Bani-Sadr. Only after much of the IRP leadership was killed in the Hafte Tir bombing did Khomeini relent and allow Khamenei to run for president in the summer of 1980.

    They also seem to have disagreed about the war with Iraq. According to various sources, including Khomeini’s son Ahmad, the Grand Ayatollah wanted to bring the conflict to an end after taking back the southwestern city of Khorramshahr in April 1982, but Rafsanjani, among others, prevailed on him to prepare an offensive into Iraqi territory.

    As the 1980s progressed, Rafsanjani’s role within the state system far surpassed his formal title of parliamentary speaker. In international settings, he was treated like the state’s foremost figure. The West — including the Reagan administration — relied on him to end kidnappings in Lebanon, and he became known as the real power behind the scenes.

    By 1985, the fervent anti-Americanism he had previously displayed gave way to the realization that a tactical accommodation with the “Great Satan” was necessary. In a risky and ultimately unsuccessful move, he agreed to hold talks with a delegation led by national security adviser Robert McFarlane, which surreptitiously visited Tehran in October 1986 with much-needed weapons for the war effort. The Iran-Contra revelations severely embarrassed both Reagan and Rafsanjani, and the whole affair had major repercussions for the domestic scene. Nevertheless, two decades later, the Rafsanjani clan published a book including the delegation’s fake passports and the inscribed Bible Reagan gave to Rafsanjani to underscore the cooperation between these erstwhile adversaries.

    Rafsanjani was at the heart of several crucial developments during the last years of Khomeini’s life. Many believe he took part in the efforts lead by Ahmad Khomeini and minister of intelligence, Mohammad Reyshahri, to persuade the revolutionary leader to withdraw his support for his designated successor, Hossein ʿAli Montazeri. He certainly had motivation: Montazeri’s relative and close associate, Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi, and his people were responsible for leaking the details of McFarlane’s visit. In early 1988, Rafsanjani had to navigate a major internal crisis when Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi resigned and noted — in a secret letter to Khamenei — that other figures, including Rafsanjani, had gravely eroded his authority.

    That same year, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing almost three hundred civilians. Rafsanjani gloomily indicated during a Friday prayer speech that the tragedy was not an accident and warned that the United States would now intensify its involvement in the Iran-Iraq conflict. This likely contributed to Khomeini’s acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 598, which initiated the ceasefire between the two countries and which he famously compared to drinking a “poisoned chalice.”
    Consolidation

    Following the Iran-Iraq War and the death of the revolutionary patriarch in June 1989, many wondered if the revolutionary state and its institutions could survive without the uniquely charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini. Even before his death, the ruling establishment proved vulnerable as militant groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization and the Forqan, which opposed the political clerisy’s ascent, had assassinated several senior figures in the regime. Khamenei and Rafsanjani both survived attempts on their lives in this period, ensuring that these two friends would decisively shape the post-Khomeini political order.

    Rafsanjani played a key role in elevating Khamenei as Khomeini’s successor, but the more intimate details of his lobbying have yet to be fully revealed. It occurred as the Iranian elite was reeling, both politically and emotionally. Khomeini’s death came after a period of incapacitation, but it nevertheless caught senior state figures unprepared. As a result, the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body in charge of selecting and supervising the guardian jurist (vali-ye faqih), had to decide how best to handle the succession. Rafsanjani took to the podium and declared that Khomeini had stated his preference for Khamenei, despite his lack of clerical rank and authority. The latter was not an Ayatollah, let alone a marjaʿ al-taqlid (source of emulation or Grand Ayatollah).

    Khamenei’s accession unfolded in tandem with major constitutional amendments and changes in the revolutionary state’s institutional structure. The position of vali-ye faqih (often referred to nowadays as the “supreme leader”) was radically revised. No longer was his capacity to act as a source of emulation for the faithful, namely the criterion of marjaʿiyyat a prerequisite for the office. Instead, Khamenei had an “absolute mandate” to rule. At the same time, the office of prime minister was abolished, leaving a directly elected president, which Rafsanjani promptly assumed. These moves quickly consolidated power between the longstanding allies.

    At this moment, Rafsanjani was at the peak of his powers. Many have speculated that he placed his ally in this role because he was counting on Khamenei’s lack of religious credentials and limited influence among the clergy, to keep him relatively weak. Arguably, it was a calculation that would come back to haunt him in the last decade of his life.

    His two presidential terms have become associated with the period of the nation’s reconstruction. In the first few years, his partnership with Khamenei proved most efficacious. First in the 1990 Assembly of Experts’ elections — but most decisively in the 1992 Majles elections — they used the guardian council’s arrogation of the prerogative to supervise elections and thereby disqualify candidates to rapidly marginalize the so-called Islamic left, which included groups like the Association of Combatant Clerics, the so-called Imam’s Line, and the Mojahedin Organization of the Islamic Revolution. All of whose members had been Ayatollah Khomeini’s stalwart supporters and advocated for anti-imperialism and a radical foreign policy, state control of the economy, and the egalitarian redistribution of wealth.

    In response to the country’s very real internal and external economic and political challenges, Rafsanjani and Khamenei conspired to cast aside the Left. Thus, in 1992, they either saw disqualified or campaigned against a raft of sitting MPs and left-leaning regime loyalists, including Behzad Nabavi, Asadollah Bayat, Hadi Ghaffari, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, and the infamous Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali. In fact, only 20 percent of incumbents earned reelection that year.

    Consequently, the traditional right dominated the Fourth Majles, adding to the duo’s firm grip on the intelligence and security apparatuses, the state institutions regulating the Shiʿi clergy, the levers of economic power and patronage — including the ministry of petroleum — and a vast network of religious endowments. Despite starting from a position of weakness, Khamenei began to strengthen his hold on economic and military power. In Rafsanjani’s second term, a mild rivalry started to color their relationship.

    With the Left on the sidelines, Rafsanjani pursued what amounted to a neoliberal agenda of privatization and structural adjustment. He also created a regional détente with the Gulf states, above all Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which had bankrolled Saddam Hussein’s war effort with US support. Journalist Mohammad Quchani approvingly called Rafsanjani’s tenure the era of “depoliticization,” where “expertise” firmly supplanted “commitment.” Technocratic competency and state-directed economic liberalization without corresponding political reforms became the order of the day. Saʿid Hajjarian — a former intelligence officer who became a preeminent reformist strategist — recalled a meeting with Rafsanjani in which the president disdainfully shrugged off the very notion of political development, a euphemism for “democratization.”

    But after ejecting much of the Islamic left from the ranks of government, Rafsanjani was himself forced to cede primacy over the cultural and intellectual spheres to the traditional right. His brother Mohammad had to give up his long-standing control of state radio and television, while the future president Mohammed Khatami publicly resigned from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, replaced by arch-conservative Ali Larijani (who has since joined the ranks of centrist principalists).

    The traditional right’s own predominantly mercantilist interests often conflicted with Rafsanjani’s efforts at economic liberalization. As a result, he had to pursue a more modest reform program. Resistance from below also appeared. In 1992, a tentative subsidy reform on foodstuffs and energy — which would only be implemented, ironically, under the Ahmadinejad government — coincided with inflation hovering around 50 percent, leading to tumultuous provincial bread riots.

    Moreover, the privatizations that did take place were far from straightforward. Selling shares to para-statal and quasi-statal organizations sparked allegations of crony capitalism and corruption that the Fourth Majles eventually had to redress through legislation, even if the issue was never satisfactorily resolved. Moreover, one of Rafsanjani’s key allies, Gholam Hossein Karbaschi — mayor of Tehran from 1989 to 1998 — played a crucial role in the capital city’s “urban renewal.” He sold off state-owned land below market value to the connected and well-heeled and exempted large developers from zoning laws, creating a speculative real-estate boom in which certain segments of the political and economic elite were seen to massively profit.

    Rafsanjani also helped create the Islamic Free University, which provided higher education to hundreds of thousands of students unable to enter the state system because of the competitive national examinations. Nevertheless, the university has been criticized for introducing market logic into education and thus exacerbating existing class divisions.

    As Kaveh Ehsani writes, the Rafsanjani administration had decided that “the Islamic Republic needed to first create its own loyal, Islamic (but neoliberal) middle class.” Rafsanjani, however, ultimately failed to develop an entrepreneurial class that could fully implement his neoliberal agenda. Attempts to do so — particularly through his half-hearted wooing of expatriate businessmen who had fled on the eve of the Islamic Republic — were largely met with scorn. The Executives of Reconstruction Party, heavily populated by the president’s kin, including his outspoken daughter Faʾezeh, would belatedly attempt to consolidate this new technocratic order in 1996.

    Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was invited by the government as a quid pro quo for its services during the war, to help reconstruct the country’s severely depleted infrastructure. Khamenei shrewdly capitalized on this development to augment his institutional power.

    This period also saw a slew of intellectuals, writers, and activists assassinated, arrested, and/or tortured. The long list even extends into the Khatami era and includes ʿAli Akbar Saʿidi Sirjani, Faraj Sarkuhi, Shapur Bakhtiar — the Shah’s last prime minister, who had tried to oust the Islamic Republic with Saddam Hussein’s support — and Sadeq Sharafkandi, secretary-general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran. These killings have been strongly linked to the Iranian security apparatus, but the extent of Rafsanjani’s involvement remains unclear. Regardless, his objective of consolidating the regime he had been instrumental in building extended — with or without his direct participation — into neutralizing, by any means, dissenting and subversive voices.
    Between the Establishment and Reform

    When Mohammad Khatami became president in the June 1997 elections, many observers — including Rafsanjani — were surprised. In fact, the departing president would eventually admit that he had voted for Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, the establishment candidate. Nor was he temperamentally disposed to the ethos of the emerging “reformist” camp, which rallied around Khatami. Their emphasis on political, rather than economic, change and openness in the media and intellectual spheres starkly contrasted with the ambitions and priorities of his own administration.

    In fact, between 1997 and 2001, the former president tilted more toward the conservatives, when the right wing became concerned the reformist coalition was taking control of the chief reins of government. In 2000, Rafsanjani ran for parliament in Tehran and sparked a major political crisis. He initially did not rank among the first thirty seats, but was reinstated after a known dissident was disqualified. The media waged a campaign against what they regarded as brazen interference, and Rafsanjani relinquished his seat at a high cost to the Khatami front.

    Entrenched as leader of the expediency council — a body whose influence grew in periods of mediation between parliament and the guardian council — Rafsanjani effectively helped stymie the reformist-dominated Sixth Majles, repeatedly kicking key reforms into the long grass. As a result, the public grew disenchanted with the reformers, seeing them as incapable of implementing their program.

    In 2005, Rafsanjani once again ran for president, arguing that only he could fix a deadlocked political system. His quixotic campaign used roller-skating young women to hand out posters to bemused drivers in Tehran. But Ahmadinejad’s insurgent candidacy derailed his plans and forced an unprecedented run-off. Rafsanjani scrambled and succeeded in winning the support of many moderates, dissidents, and artists, including the late ʿAbbas Kiarostami, who warned of a Chirac-Le Pen scenario.

    When the veteran candidate appeared at Tehran University to this end, he responded to students chanting the name of Akbar Ganji — an imprisoned journalist and public intellectual, who had famously characterized Rafsanjani as Iran’s very own Cardinal Richelieu — by saying conditions in prisons today were far better than under the Shah’s regime. In his final televised campaign interview, he unpersuasively apologized for not holding events outside Tehran in what appeared to be a last-ditch pledge to improve the plight of the neglected provinces.

    His defeat — which he half-heartedly attributed to security forces’ interference — effectively aligned him with the reformist camp he had previously been at odds with. By 2006, he recognized that Ahmadinejad threatened both the Iranian state and the fragile détente with the West that he and Khatami had laboriously engineered. For the last decade of his life, he would repeatedly call for moderation, speaking out against excesses and cautiously supporting Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the 2009 elections.

    Despite warning Khamenei about possible tampering on the eve of the vote and using his Friday prayer address to call for the release of scores of reformists in July 2009, Rafsanjani managed to keep his place within the state apparatus. Rather than directly challenge Khamenei — as Mousavi and Karroubi would — he retained his position as head of the expediency council.

    During the second Ahmadinejad administration, Rafsanajani stayed in the media spotlight, published his much-anticipated annual volumes of political diaries, and continued to lobby at the regime’s highest levels. Despite having few obvious cards to play, Rafsanjani drew on his myriad relationships across ministries, economic institutions, political factions, the bazaar, the clergy, and even the IRGC. He also compelled his son, Mehdi, to return home and face a jail sentence so that opponents couldn’t use the charge that his child was abroad and in the pay of foreigners against him politically.
    Transformation or Rebranding?

    In 2013, after remaining on the fence until the last hours of the registration window, Rafsanjani announced his bid for president without securing the customary approval from Khamenei, who rebuffed his attempts to discuss the matter. The guardian council rejected him on health grounds, paving the way for his protégé Hassan Rouhani, whom Rafsanjani had persuaded not to drop out, to carry the centrist ticket and win in the first round.

    Even in his final years, after he had lost many of the institutional levers he had once wielded so dexterously, Rafsanjani managed to interject himself at crucial political moments and tilt the balance of forces in one direction or another. These interventions were not without significance or merit. His continued support for Rouhani and the nuclear accord with the P5+1 helped alleviate the atmosphere of securitization, economic distress, and growing militarization that had characterized the Ahmadinejad years. When he decried the Western sanctions that “had broken the back” of the nation, he belittled the conservative attempts to portray the accord as a sellout.

    In recent years, prominent intellectuals like Akbar Ganji and Sadeq Zibakalam have debated whether Rafsanjani’s apparent “conversion” to reform represented a truly genuine transformation or another example of his essential Machiavellianism. But a more pertinent question would be what opportunities for contestation and increasing democratic accountability and pluralism were engendered as a result of his interventions and the unforeseen repercussions of elite competition and cleavage.

    On the one hand, his role as mediator between the ruling establishment and the reformists in these final years played an important part in assuaging the contradictions between popular expectations and the reality of regime governance. Since the late 1990s elite competition has taken place on the terrain of electoral and constitutional politics, and Iran’s sizeable urban population and middle classes were periodically summoned to provide momentum to their own mediated demands. A process that also harbored the potential for sparking deeper political transformation, and a renegotiation of the social contract defining the relationship of government and the governed.

    In the short term, reforms included resolving the nuclear impasse; returning to competent, technocratic economic management; lowering inflation and youth unemployment; releasing Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard; and loosening political and cultural restrictions.

    But in the long term, the reformist horizon strove for something like a new constitutional settlement that would place the supreme leader under close supervision — if not call for his direct election — hold the security apparatuses accountable, and reverse the guardian council’s powers over elections. Reformist activists, as well as political currents with negligible official representation, saw Rafsanjani’s funeral procession as one more opportunity to articulate these manifold demands, proving even his posthumous relevance to the political balance of power.

    Rafsanjani initiated a deeply personal form of statecraft, one that could not bring about a structured perestroika, but did enable the Islamic Republic to survive crises and challenges. Rafsanjani and Khamenei’s chief objective had always preserving the regime they helped build. The question of how to achieve this — and their material and institutional stake in it — rankled their relationship in later life and still divides the country.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar_Hashemi_Rafsanjani

    #Iran #politique #islam

  • Iran to work on nuclear-powered vessels after U.S. ’violation’ of deal | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-nuclear-deals-idUSKBN14212X

    Iran ordered its scientists on Tuesday to start developing systems for nuclear-powered marine vessels in response to what it calls a U.S. violation of its landmark 2015 atomic deal with world powers.

    Nuclear experts said that President Hassan Rouhani’s move, if carried out, would probably require Iran to enrich uranium to a fissile purity above the maximum level set in the nuclear deal to allay fears of Tehran building an atomic bomb.

    Rouhani’s announcement marked Tehran’s first concrete reaction to a decision by the U.S. Congress last month to extend some sanctions on Tehran that would also make it easier to reimpose others lifted under the nuclear pact.

  • Exclusive: How Putin, Khamenei and Saudi prince got OPEC deal done | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-opec-meeting-idUSKBN13Q4WG

    Russian President Vladimir Putin played a crucial role in helping OPEC rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia set aside differences to forge the cartel’s first deal with non-OPEC Russia in 15 years.

    Interventions ahead of Wednesday’s OPEC meeting came at key moments from Putin, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, OPEC and non-OPEC sources said.

    Putin’s role as intermediary between Riyadh and Tehran was pivotal, testament to the rising influence of Russia in the Middle East since its military intervention in the Syrian civil war just over a year ago.

    Putin’s role as intermediary between Riyadh and Tehran was pivotal
    Gné !? Changement typographique chez Reuters, dorénavant, il faut écrire ReuTers :-D

  • Twitter is the strange new kingmaker of the 21st century
    http://qz.com/748929/twitter-is-the-strange-new-kingmaker-of-the-21st-century

    Systematically excluded from the process were freelance journalists. Political figures in lesser-known countries have also complained about the difficulty of getting verified. Twitter apparently refuses to verify Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s head of state. Meanwhile, the blue “verified” check has been extended to countless teenagers with high follower counts on the video-sharing platform Vine (which Twitter owns) and B-list movie actors.
     
    Twitter’s verification process opened up again recently in order to help more users avoid impersonation. But so far, my timeline remains filled with complaints from freelance journalists, academics, and NGO employees whose requests have been denied.

    […]

    Even worse than Twitter’s king-making, however, is its ability to determine for the public what (or who) is or is not a valid news source. When freelancers or small independent news sites struggle to become verified, it is consequently more difficult for them to prove their identities (and trustworthiness) to potential sources, thus strengthening the existing divide between mainstream and independent media. And when some news sources are allowed to post certain kinds of content, but other, typically unverified users are not, Twitter crosses the line into censorship.

    • Difficulté ici : réclamer un élargissement des comptes validés revient à accepter la généralisation d’une « real name policy ». Cela revient aussi à accepter le principe qu’un réseau social soit un outil de certification des identités.

  • India and Iran approve Chabahar corridor, amid heightening tensions in South and Central Asia - World Socialist Web Site
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/07/inir-j07.html

    India and Iran approve Chabahar corridor, amid heightening tensions in South and Central Asia
    By Wasantha Rupasinghe
    7 July 2016

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran for three days in late May, holding discussions with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini and President Hassan Rouhani and signing several agreements, including the “Trilateral Agreement on Establishing Chabahar Transport and Transit Corridors.”

    The Trilateral Agreement paves the way for the construction of the Chabahar port complex, which is intended to serve as the hub of a commercial-transportation corridor stretching into Afghanistan and across much of Central Asia, as well as to Europe via both Iran and Russia. The Chabahar corridor is widely viewed as a rival to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which will end at Gwadar, Pakistan, 72 kilometers (45 miles) east of Chabahar.

    The Trilateral Agreement was signed by Modi, Rouhani, and Afghan President Ashaf Ghani following a trilateral summit May 23.

    Modi’s visit to Iran was the first by an Indian prime minister in fifteen years. In addition to signing a dozen agreements aimed at promoting trade, developing transport infrastructure, and fostering cooperation in education and in cultural and scientific endeavors, Modi and Rouhani agreed to “enhance interaction on regional and maritime security,” including intelligence-sharing and cooperation in combating terrorism and cyberwar.

    #inde #iran #transport_maritime #infrastructures

  • Obama official says he pushed a ‘narrative’ to media to sell the Iran nuclear deal
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/obama-official-says-he-pushed-a-narrative-to-media-to-sell-the-iran-nuclear-deal/2016/05/06/5b90d984-13a1-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html

    Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told the New York Times magazine that he helped promote a “narrative” that the administration started negotiations with Iran after the supposedly moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected president in 2013. In fact, the administration’s negotiations actually began earlier, with the country’s powerful Islamic faction, and the framework for an agreement was hammered out before Rouhani’s election.

    Et ça ne pouvait que marcher, puisque...

    ... Rhodes, 38, said in the article that it was easy to shape a favorable impression of the proposed agreement because of the inexperience of many of those covering the issue.

    “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

    #journalisme #nul

  • The ‘Hybrid War’ of Economic Sanctions
    https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/01/the-hybrid-war-of-economic-sanctions

    Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told a large group of people in the holy city of Mashhad on Sunday that “The Americans did not act on what they promised in the [Iranian] nuclear accord [the JCPOA]; they did not do what they should have done. According to Foreign Minister [Javad Zarif], they brought something on paper but prevented materialization of the objectives of the Islamic Republic of Iran through many diversionary ways.”

    This statement during the Supreme Leader’s key Nowruz (New Year) address should be understood as a flashing amber light: it was no rhetorical flourish. And it was not a simple dig at America (as some may suppose). It was perhaps more of a gentle warning to the Iranian government to “take care” of the possible political consequences.

    Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks to a crowd. (Iranian government photo)
    What is happening is significant: for whatever motive, the U.S. Treasury is busy emptying much of the JCPOA sanctions relief of any real substance (and their motive is something which deserves careful attention). The Supreme Leader also noted that Iran is experiencing difficulties in repatriating its formerly frozen, external funds.

    U.S. Treasury officials, since “implementation” day, have been doing the rounds, warning European banks that the U.S. sanctions on Iran remain in place, and that European banks should not think, even for a second, of tapping the dollar or euro bond markets in order to finance trade with Iran, or to become involved with financing infrastructure projects in Iran.

    Banks well understand the message: touch Iranian commerce and you will be whacked with a billion dollar fine – against which there is no appeal, no clear legal framework – and no argument countenanced. The banks (understandably) are shying off. Not a single bank or financial lending institution turned up when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Paris to hold meetings with the local business élite.

    The influential Keyhan Iranian newspaper wrote on March 14 on this matter that: “Speaking at the UN General Assembly session in September, Rouhani stated: ‘Today a new phase of relations has started in Iran’s relations with the world.’ He also stated in a live radio and television discussion with the people on 23 Tir: ‘The step-by-step implementation of this document could slowly remove the bricks of the wall of mistrust.’”

    Keyhan continues: “These remarks were made at a time when the Western side, headed by America, does not have any intention to remove or even shorten the wall of mistrust between itself and Iran. … Moreover, they are delaying the implementation of their JCPOA commitments. Lifting the sanctions has remained merely as a promise on a piece of paper, so much so that it has roused the protest of Iranian politicians.

  • Nation et minorités en Iran : face au fait minoritaire, quelle réponse institutionnelle ? - Les clés du Moyen-Orient

    http://www.lesclesdumoyenorient.com/Nation-et-minorites-en-Iran-face-au-fait-minoritaire-quelle-re

    Dans un article de 2015 paru dans le journal britannique The Guardian (1), le journaliste Saeed Kamali Dehghan revient longuement sur la nomination « historique » d’un joueur d’origine arménienne, chrétien de surcroît, au poste de capitaine de l’équipe de football iranienne, l’une des meilleures d’Asie. Selon le chroniqueur, cette annonce marque le pic d’une série d’ouvertures pratiquées par le régime iranien, sous la houlette d’un président à l’image sympathique et tolérante, Hassan Rouhani. Ainsi des « améliorations significatives » ont été apportées au sort des minorités religieuses : reconnaissance (non-officielle) du génocide juif en Europe pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, rétablissement du Sabbat comme jour chômé pour les élèves juifs et déclarations chocs prononcées par des officiels du régime : « L’Iran appartient à tous les Iraniens, de tous groupes ethniques ou religions, et tous ont le droit de vivre pacifiquement (…). Nul n’est autorisé à supprimer ou bien à atteindre au droit des groupes minoritaires. Nous avons tous des droits égaux. »

    #iran #minorité #familles_ethno_linguistiques #langues#communautés #communautarisme

  • What Hezbollah stands to gain from Iran’s nuclear deal - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/iran-nuclear-deal-hezbollah-support.html

    The Hezbollah official said Tehran has looked to enhance ties with Europe and China rather than Washington, which maintains a hostile stance toward the movement. This orientation, he believes, constitutes further evidence that Hezbollah has nothing to fear from Iran’s return to the global arena.

    “Iran wanted to reach the nuclear agreement to open up and enhance ties with international players other than Washington,” he said confidently, citing the Chinese president’s visit to Iran on Jan. 23 and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s European tour, which included Italy and France, that directly followed.

    Unlike Washington, Beijing has not designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization and hence is not restricted in communicating with the movement. The European Union designates Hezbollah’s “military wing” a terrorist organization while maintaining communication with what it calls the group’s “political wing.”

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/iran-nuclear-deal-hezbollah-support.html#ixzz415dBHAe5

  • Iranian official: Republicans asked the Iranians to delay last months prisoner exchange deal
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/oh-my--6

    We can by no means take this as a disinterested claim. And no specific names are mentioned. But a high-ranking Iranian government official, who is an appointee of reformist President Hassan Rouhani, says that Republicans asked the Iranians to delay last months prisoner exchange deal until after the Presidential election.

    The original report comes from an openly pro-regime, quasi government news agency, Tasnim News Agency. And the official is Ali Shamkani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. (Here’s a backgrounder on Shamkani from al-Monitor.) But there seems little reason to doubt that the Shamkani quote itself is genuine.

  • L’Iran, bientôt une nouvelle Chine ? –
    Par Pepe Escobar – Le 29 janvier 2016 – Source TeleSur - Traduit par Ludovic, vérifié par jj, relu par Diane pour le Saker francophone
    http://lesakerfrancophone.fr/liran-bientot-une-nouvelle-chine

    Le président chinois Xi Jinping ou le président iranien Hassan Rouhani ? Quand il s’agit de nommer le négociateur géopolitique le plus redoutable, on joue souvent à pile ou face.

    Leurs routes se sont croisées la semaine dernière [le 23 janvier, NdT] à Téhéran d’une manière spectaculaire, puisque Xi et Rouhani ont scellé un accord crucial de partenariat stratégique.

    iran_china_afp.jpg_1718483346
    Les Présidents iranien Hassan Rouhani (D) et chinois Xi Jinping (G) | Photo : AFP

    Les deux nations se sont mises d’accord pour augmenter leurs échanges bilatéraux au niveau de $600 milliards pour les 10 prochaines années. Géo-stratégiquement, comme je l’ai déjà souligné, c’est un coup de maître.

    Pékin ne considère pas simplement l’Iran comme un pays de l’Asie moyen-orientale, mais aussi de l’Eurasie comme la plaque tournante essentielle pour contrer le pivot vers l’Asie dont Washington parle tant, manœuvre basée sur l’hégémonie navale américaine. Il n’est pas étonnant que Xi ait précisé que l’Iran devrait être accepté comme membre à part entière de l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai (OCS) dès cette année.