Talking about talking

Anyone who has followed the endless, sometimes painfully monotonous, US presidential marathon has most likely heard the three major candidates' positions vis-à-vis Iran - all of whom have unfortunately taken incoherent stances regarding their characterization of diplomatic engagement.

The Republican nominee, John McCain, seems to have forfeited his once "maverick" persona in exchange for a carbon copy of George Bush's foreign policy (i.e. not negotiating with "rogue nations" or conversely engaging terrorist organizations). A few weeks ago he pledged that he would be Hamas' "worst nightmare" [1]. In the United States, and in many Israeli policy circles, this popular Palestinian militant group has been incorrectly labeled as an "Iranian proxy". Yet, even if we assume that this oversimplification of complex and endemic Palestinian politics is true, the same John McCain, in 2006, stated that the United States should now "deal" with Hamas, since they had become the elected Palestinian government [2].

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (18)

Educating journalists about Iran

Most Iranians, including myself, have grown quite accustomed to the pseudo-intellectual discourse that masquerades as journalism or honest analysis about the countryof Iran. The constant deluge of fabrications, innuendo, and absurdities recycled in the mainstream Western press about what happens within the Iranian nation has grown to the point of sheer science fiction. At times, those of us who are now numb to such stupidity, simply smirk in bewilderment on why the West seems so deluded about what happens within Iran. I suppose this is just emblematic of the larger epistemological malaise that the United States or Europe has entered into concerning Middle Eastern affairs - the debacle that the Iraq War has become and the travesty of Afghanistan clearly points in this direction.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (37)

The future of US-Iran relations

Realizing that for the first time in American history, the US president had been reduced to the role of Oliver Twist when he recently begged his Saudi counterpart to increase the output of oil is only indicative of the impotent state of the world's sole superpower. And as the American president, resembling a poor orphan boy, grudgingly lifted his proverbial bowl in hopes of an infrequent show of mercy from the jolly, oil-soaked Arab parish beadle, it has become all but appropriate to understand what seven years of a foreign policy based upon a comic-strip view of the world actually accomplishes.

Hopping from one Arab despot's lair to another in a farewell tour d'horizon of the Middle East, Bush's promise to "confront" Iran failed miserably- at one point in the UAE., the Sheikh of Dubai seemed so annoyed by Bush's calls to isolate his biggest trading partner, that he hurried one of his minions to fetch a prized desert hawk for his artless Western guest to play with until he boarded his plane. Yet for all extens and purposes, it is time now to understand that the destructive hurricane which was the presidency of George W. Bush is happily coming to an end and more importantly, what the future implications of the US-Iran relationship will look like for his successor.

The new realities of the Middle East make it incumbent upon the next American president to talk directly to his or her Iranian counterpart, which most likely will NOT be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This will mean that the two of them would embark into uncharted territory- having to meet, at some place and time, sit down, and discuss EVERY issue that these nations disagree over. This is a reality that many in the West will have to come to terms with.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (49)

The neo-con's devotion and disarray

To understand the neo-con, his perception about the world around him, the school of philosophies that shaped his ideology, the doctrines which he holds to be infallible and the blind fortitude which borders on lunacy, it is first imperative to come to terms with the self-image of such a person and how he views himself in relation to the rest of mankind. The neo-con is of the persuasion that he is not only considerably enlightened, as of a divine gift, but truly ahead of his time - a harbinger of illumination to a world void of reason. The neo-con has adopted the sincere belief that he is the archetype of all that is noble, the forbearer of humanity's hopes and aspirations. He dons the image of the guardian of righteousness, the vanguard against corruption and malevolence- modern-day's Jeremiah in a besieged proverbial Jerusalem exhorting his countrymen on the dangers of the neo-Babylonians that surround them.

The unreserved allegiance to this unshakable conviction drives the neo-con to not only espouse a foreign policy that has habitually failed in disparate cultures, times, and places, but to deny the very same reality that has spawned from the implementation of such imprudent hypotheses. 

As Iraq lies in ruins and its capital is currently being ethnically cleansed from all and anything associated with the Sunni persuasion of Islam, and as regional nationalist forces are ripping the war-torn nation into autonomous subdivisions, displacing millions of innocents and introducing a new reality that will have nothing but enduring ominous, consequences for the region at large, the neo-con inanely interprets this as being a "sign" of progress.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (21)

The West's questionable remedies

The December 27 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister and leading opposition figure, Benazir Bhutto, places the broader Middle East/South Asia in the most precarious state of crisis since the 1995 murder of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin. And if the ominous predictions of what may ensue truly materializes, this event may signal the possible disintegration of this capricious nation, perhaps through civil war spawned by ethno-religious secessionist movements resulting in the stark reality of incipient autonomous oblasts controlled by elements of Pakistan's Taliban and other radical Islamic "puritans" all the while the fate of the country's nuclear arsenal hangs in the balance.

Bhutto had only returned from self-imposed exile this past October and from the day she entered the volatile country, numerous threats against her supporters, her party's representatives, and her personal safety immediately emerged. Since her return, Bhutto had not only escaped a previous assassination attempt in Karachi, which ended in the deaths of more than 150 people, but was also put under house arrest (coinciding with the Pakistani President's declaration of emergency rule), severely censored from the public airwaves in her attempts to garner support for her January bid for the prime minister's office, and heavily restricted from campaigning due to the obvious security risks, which the central government consistently displayed an unusual apathy towards, yet which the dangers ultimately manifested themselves in Rawalpindi.

The aura of optimism that surrounded the proposed agreement between Bhutto and Musharraf (in which future executive authority would be somehow split by reason of the former becoming Prime Minister and the later holding the Presidency) quickly dissolved once meet with the reality that these two disparate leaders with distinct constituencies and irreconcilable agendas for this factionalized country could not and would not share power.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (5)

A familiar scene in Teheran

Some time ago, as Teheran's violent heat finally subsided signaling summer's demise, I found myself wandering in a certain bustling city square in search of an elusive hole-in-the wall that is world-renown for its pomegranate juice. As I made my way through the labyrinth that is Teheran's mid-day traffic to reach the other side of the square, I suddenly noticed that there were two large police buses accompanied with a few police vehicles surrounded by male officers overlooking the activities of their female cohorts as they questioned pedestrians.

To Teheranis, this familiar scene is usually displayed when "cultural vagrants" were being purged (i.e. women whose shade of lipstick, painted toe nails, or snug mantoes (Persian for long baggy dress, taken from the French word "manteau") happen not to coincide with Islamic virtues. On occasion, though rarely, even men were known for being impeded; questioned on why they were wearing a Metallica T-shirt or why their hairstyle made them look like some cartoon character from a Japanese animation series.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (7)

The killing of the weak

Any current poll taken in the ME, Europe, or Asia sees the US as not this esoteric image of Reagan's "shining city on a hill" but more like a predatory leviathan that is intoxicated with achieving its own objectives, no matter how many lives it costs.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (24)

Endemic Democracy

Each political system is drastically different from the other, by reason of the distinct nuances that make up the people of each society and the historical milieu that shaped their cultures.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (7)

Bullets, Bhutto, and the Bomb

October's assassination attempt against self-exiled opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, reveals not only Pakistan's war within but also its struggle to find its identity.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (11)