New Poll of Iranians Released; The Upcoming Parliamentary Elections; Dealing with the Nuclear Program

The Washington Post reports on a new poll of Iranians, with interesting results:

• Almost 90 percent of those polled want the supreme leader--who "can veto legislation, presidential actions, judicial decisions and candidates for office"--to be popularly elected and accountable.


• 1/3 of voters support neither the conservative nor the reformist camp; 8 percent back the former, 22 percent the latter.


• 42 percent are optimistic on the economy (the figure was 27 percent last June).


• Over 3/4 desire good relations and trade with the United States.


• A majority support their nation's acquisition of nuclear weapons, but 70 percent--down from 80 percent last year--would forego such weapons and permit inspections for aid and investment.


• About 60 percent are in favour of their government's support for Hezbollah, Shi'a militias in Iraq, and Palestinian militants.


• 45 percent--down from 55 percent--would support recognizing Israel if this were one component of a wider U.S.-Iran bargain.

The prospects for reformists in Iran's upcoming parliamentary elections don't inspire much optimism, Newsweek informs us. The obstacles faced by journalist Kasra Noori, 38, in being allowed to run for Parliament are instructive:

But when he tried to register last year as a moderate candidate for the March 14 ballot, he found his path blocked by the Council of Guardians of the Revolution. The conservative group of clerics and lawyers, which supervises Iran's elections, was on a mission to exclude almost any reformist who dared to register as a candidate.

A few days after Noori submitted his name, the inspectors from Council of Guardians' Supervision Committees started asking about him around his neighborhood. "They went to my local grocer and asked him about my personal life," says Noori. "They asked him questions like if I look at women lustfully, if I go to the local mosque to pray, if my wife dresses modestly, what I buy from the grocer. Questions that had nothing to do with my qualifications as a candidate." Still, Noori considers himself relatively fortunate that the questions were so mild. In some cases the inspectors have asked candidates if they have had illegitimate relationships with women and whether they were addicted to drugs. There are no reports that conservative candidates have come under similar scrutiny. Indeed, in some cases the inspectors are conservative candidates themselves.

Like most disqualified moderates, Noori was expelled on three main charges: lack of real commitment to the teachings of Islam; lack of belief in velayate faghih, Iran's system of governance, in which a religious scholar is the supreme leader of the country; and "notoriety," a catchall phrase that is essentially meaningless. A devout Muslim from a religious family in Tehran, Noori objected to all charges. "As far as I know I'm a good Muslim, and it seems that I'm also enjoying a relatively good reputation in public," he says. Noori challenged the claims and was finally cleared of being "notorious," but he was still disqualified on the basis of the first two charges.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as reformists concede, continues to enjoy widespread support among residents of villages and small towns who have benefited from government handouts.

So for now the moderates are pursuing a two-tier approach. They want to have some presence in the parliament in order to keep their political presence alive. "If we didn't take part in the elections, the hardliners would have totally dominated the parliament, closed our offices, and that would be the end of us as reformist activists," says Shariati. Surviving, even with the tiny number of seats they're expected to win, will also allow the reformists to prepare themselves for the presidential elections in June 2009. But first the reformists have to deal with divisions within their ranks. The likely reformist candidates for the presidency are former president Mohammad Khatami and former speaker of the parliament Mehdi Karrubi—perhaps the only contenders with enough stature to prevent the Council of Guardians from disqualifying them from the race. The factions, however, have presented different lists of parliamentary candidates and display little inclination to mend fences.

Scott Ritter has written an excellent and concise article for Antiwar.com on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. He explains:

With the IAEA now able to ascertain that the Iranian explanations about both the origin and use of its enrichment program are consistent with the information available to the IAEA, there no longer remains a technical justification for demanding the suspension of Iran's ongoing uranium enrichment activities. The IAEA has declared that it can account for all declared nuclear material in Iran and that it has adequate inspection and verification controls in place for the totality of Iran's declared enrichment program. The IAEA notes that it does not have conclusive evidence of any proscribed activities taking place inside Iran (documents made available to the IAEA by the United States, derived from sources of questionable origin, have been rejected by the Iranians as fabrications.)

Ritter calls upon the U.N. and U.S. government to lift all sanctions against Iran. The U.S. aim of ousting the Iranian regime must also be abandoned. These steps would help to begin a new chapter in the relations between the two countries, Ritter concludes.

Now is a good time to recall Iran's offer of 2003--thoughtlessly tossed aside by the warmongering Bush administration--whereby the regime would give the U.S. everything it wanted in exchange for the lifting of "sanctions, full access to peaceful nuclear technology and a recognition of its 'legitimate security interests.'" This offer shows a willingness on Iran's part to negotiate and to make serious concessions, as does the recent success the IAEA has had in learning more about the country's nuclear program. Talking to Iran isn't appeasement; it can produce the desired results without the needless expenditure of massive amounts of American blood and treasure.

Iraqi Christians in Trouble

The Christian Science Monitor reports from Bartella, Iraq in an excellent article entitled "Iraqi Christians cling to last, waning refuges":

The bullets lay on the desk amid Bibles and rosaries. They're for two pistols owned by Father Ayman Danna.

"The only solution left for our people is to bear arms. We either live or die. We must be strong," says the Syriac Catholic priest at the Church of Saint George in Bartella, a northern Iraqi town in a swath of fertile land called the Nineveh Plain that now has the largest concentration of a dwindling Christian community.

The Christians who fled sectarian persecution that followed the US invasion in 2003 are now battling to hold onto one of their final refuges. They are increasingly besieged by Sunni Arab militants on one side and by Kurdish ultranationalists on the other – both of whom have different agendas for the area.

In a sign of how grim the situation has become, Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in nearby Mosul, was kidnapped last Friday and three of his companions were killed.

On Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said everything must be done to secure Archbishop Rahho's release, days after Pope Benedict XVI described his abduction as "abominable." Sources in the Nineveh Plain say the kidnappers are asking for $1 million in exchange for Rahho's release.

Rahho is among nearly a dozen priests who have been kidnapped in Mosul since 2003. Many more ordinary Christians have been abducted. In most cases, a ransom was paid to free the priests, the sources say. Three priests were assassinated.

The situation of Christians in Iraq today is tragic; they are a small minority of a country of over 25 million with no large militia funded by an outside power, as the Shi'as do in the form of the Badr Organization.

As I wrote in December last year (but never got to post):

Christmas is as suitable an occasion as any to remember fellow Christians around the world--especially in the Holy Land and Iraq, where they've been suffering a great deal lately.

From Bethlehem, AFP reports:

Hotels booked, parties planned and lights glittering, Bethlehem is preparing for tens of thousands of pilgrims to overcome Israeli occupation and give the town the best Christmas in years.

"We are hopeful this city will remain peaceful. I'm sure we'll have a wonderful Christmas," says Mayor Victor Batarseh, determined to look on the bright side sitting next to a plastic fir tree near Manger Square.

Tourism has grown 60 percent, and he expects 30,000-40,000 tourists -- double the number last year -- to visit the town where the Bible says Jesus was born in a stable after Mary and Joseph found no room at the inn.

Hotel occupancy has risen from 10-15 percent to 45 percent in the run-up to the season. Batarseh thinks the 2,000 beds in town will be fully booked this Christmas, reversing a long slump stemming from Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Katherine Korsak, a 36-year-old Roman Catholic from Poland admits she was initially scared about coming to Bethlehem, crossing through the towering cement wall separating Israel from the West Bank and passing military security.

"But this is such an important place for us. We came with joy. Christmas is so close and for us it's a spiritual experience here," she says, showing the postcards and wooden carvings she bought, feeling sorry for the vendors.

This optimism is nonetheless overshadowed by the continuing Israeli occupation:

Israel's separation barrier has confiscated farm land, uprooted olive trees, isolated the town from Jerusalem and helped to quicken emigration and keep unemployment at more than 50 percent. Israeli raids are still frequent.

One Bethlehem olive wood workshop is modelling Nativity scenes complete with a replica separation barrier blocking the wise men from getting to the stable. A British charity has virtually sold out its stocks to worried Christians.

"I hadn't understood to what extent land was taken and freedom of movement curtailed. They are literally imprisoned. It's a horrible thing to see a community aboslutely [sic] destroyed," said charity director Gareth Hewitt.

Estimates about the proportion of Christians left here vary from 15 to 25 percent. Batarseh says they were 92 percent before Israel was created in 1948.

Samir Qumsieh, general manager of Nativity TV Station, which broadcasts religious services, said "the nightmare in my head is emigration. It's deadly. Fifteen years from now, you will not find a Christian."

World churches should finance building projects to provide jobs and give young men a reason to stay. Instead he bemoans a "shameful default" by Christians in the world and growing secularism in Europe and the United States.

Truly, his lamentations need to be heeded. Christians in the West must not forget their co-religionists in the Holy Land, and the Middle East more generally.

The Independent's Donald Macintyre elaborates on the politically-minded woodworkers and their nativity scenes:

The Bethlehem craftsman Tawfiq Salsaa says simply that he was "inspired" to produce the first model with a "political meaning" he has turned out in more than half a century of continuous carving in olive wood and mother of pearl. "I was thinking about our problems and I thought that if Jesus was to come here today, he would find a wall. Then I started working on it. That's how it came to express our situation."

"It" is certainly the most striking crib you'll find this Christmas, deftly combining the nativity with the stark realities of Bethlehem 2,007 years later. Its beautifully carved wooden parts, detachable for easier packing and dispatch, depict the familiar scene of the infant Jesus, Joseph and Mary, the three wise men, complete with camels, and depending on the buyer's taste, a palm tree or a stable, to indicate that there was no room at the inn.

But in the middle, separating Magi from manger, is an unmistakable representation of the Israeli military's separation barrier, the forbidding eight-metre-high wall that snakes round Bethlehem from the terminal-like checkpoint at the northern entrance to the city and which leaves such an indelible impression on every first-time pilgrim on their way to the Church of Nativity from Jerusalem at this – or any other – time of the year.

Unsurprisingly, according to Macintyre, this work of art "has been denounced by various pro-Israel Jewish groups for what the United States-based Anti-Defamation League has called 'a shameful, cheap gimmick ... destroying the spirit of Christmas'". If only they knew what Christian and Muslim Palestinians have had to endure throughout Israel's splendid occupation, which has been far more detrimental to the spirit of Christmas in Palestine than any nativity scene.

Now we turn to the Christian community in the war-ravaged nation of Iraq, which isn't faring much better than the one in Palestine. Writing from Baghdad, the New York Times' Damien Cave informs us:

Inside the beige church guarded by the men with the AK-47s, a choir sang Christmas songs in Arabic. An old woman in black closed her eyes while a girl in a cherry-red dress, with tights and shoes to match, craned her neck toward rows of empty pews near the back.

“Last year it was full,” said Yusef Hanna, a parishioner. “So many people have left — gone up north, or out of the country.”

[F]or those who came to Sacred Heart for Mass on Christmas Eve, there seemed to be as much sadness as joy. Despite the improved security across Iraq, which some parishioners cited as cause for hope, the day’s sermon focused on continuing struggles.

Iraq’s Christians have fared poorly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with their houses or businesses frequently attacked. Some priests estimate that as much as two-thirds of the community, or about one million people, have fled, making Sacred Heart typical. Though a handful have recently returned from abroad, only 120 people attended Mass on Monday night, down from 400 two years ago.

The service began with traditional hymns. Some songs were sung in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. It was a reminder of the 2,000-year-old history of Iraq’s largest Christian group, the Chaldeans, an Eastern Rite church affiliated with Roman Catholicism.

Initially the sermon seemed equally traditional, beginning as many do with phrases like “This day is not like other days.”

Yet the priest, the Rev. Thaer al-Sheik, soon turned to more local themes. He talked about the psychological impact of violence, kidnapping and a lack of work. He condemned hate. He denounced revenge.

“We must practice being humane to each other,” he said. “Living as a Christian today is difficult.”

A few moments later he asked, “If the angel Gabriel comes today and says Jesus Christ is reborn, what do we do? Do we clap or sing?”

His parish, quiet and somber — with the drab faces of a funeral, not a Mass on Christmas Eve — took the question seriously. And responded.

“We ask him for forgiveness,” said a woman, her head covered by a black scarf. Her voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear.

Then another woman raised her voice. “We ask for peace,” she said.

The dire straits Iraqis of all faiths find themselves in is truly tragic and should stir the world to help them. Not just the people still managing to survive inside the country, but also the millions of refugees outside it. Hundreds of thousands of these refugees in Syria are facing food shortages.

The most cruelly ironic thing of all is what "justifications" are used to continue the Iraq war. They aren't the same ones given at the start of the war; those purveyors of honesty and wisdom otherwise known as U.S. government officials knew full well that their allegations against the Iraqi regime were completely false. The rationale for war has shifted from weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and al-Qaida to spreading democracy and freedom and bringing peace to the battered country. If only that were so...

[A broken link and some bad HTML were fixed in this quote.]

Pakistan's Political Situation After 'Emergency Rule'

The Telegraph announced that Pakistan's "emergency rule" was lifted by President-(former) General Pervez Musharraf last Saturday. In effect for almost a month and a half by its end, the state of emergency saw the installment of a pro-Musharraf Supreme Court and five thousand of his political opponents thrown in jail and put under house arrest. It also saw the prior, independent-minded Supreme Court, headed by Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the "Comedian of the Year", President Musharraf, in agreement on at least one thing. Namely, that his "emergency rule" was illegal, period.

Admittedly, the situation hadn't yet plunged to depths of depravity worthy of the late dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. During his state of emergency, the last before that imposed by Musharraf, "civilians were flogged in public for drinking alcohol, politicians were tortured in squalid prisons, secret military trials were held and the death penalty was decreed for such crimes as 'arousing insecurity or despondency among the public.'" But whether or not dissidents have been executed in large numbers under this state of emergency, it has proven to be of little help to the war on Islamist militancy. Musharraf's primary goal in instituting the state of emergency was ostensibly to quell the menace of Islamic militancy, but this claim was fast forgotten in his rush not only to fulfill his other stated goal, putting out the fire of the judiciary's newly-kindled independence, but also realizing his desire to crack down on his political opponents. The Washington Times reports:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Imran Bajwa wants to know why his radio station has been off the air since a state of emergency was declared on Nov. 3 while stations controlled by radical Islamists continued to broadcast.

"This state of emergency is supposed to help [the government] battle the militants and the extremists," said Mr. Bajwa, the chief executive officer of 103 FM.

"But they have allowed Maulana Fazlullah to broadcast his hate radio for years. They close down our station on third [of] November, and they wait until last week to move against his," he said.

Pakistani officials and residents of the scenic Swat Valley told Agence France-Presse that Pakistan's best-known militant radio station was shut down during a military operation this week.

The station was blocked as Pakistani troops battled to retake parts of the valley controlled by Mullah Fazlullah, a radical cleric who used the radio to preach holy war against the government, Agence France-Presse said.

Dozens of other FM stations have been able to continue broadcasting programming that glorifies armed jihad from their strongholds in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

And it has been this way all year. As Musharraf has grappled with rising challenges to his rule on the streets and in the Supreme Court, Islamist militants were able to seize control of the Swat Valley for several months. Swat, it should be remembered, is a popular tourist getaway in the country's "settled areas". The Pakistani military just recently expelled most of the militants from the area. It was, however, only a matter of time before they tried their hand at expanding into settled territory. Al-Qaida and the Taliban (along with their Pakistani, Uzbek, and other assorted allies) enjoy a safe haven in the tribal areas, where they have reconstituted themselves. Consequently, they can freely train and recruit more fighters and plot more attacks, inside Pakistan--with its officially Western-aligned regime--and against targets around the world. Musharraf is a widely hated ruler whose immediate resignation, according to a recent poll, is desired by 67 percent of the Pakistani populace, which is unsurprisingly angry at the U.S. for propping him up as well. Low approval ratings for the U.S. might be tolerable if he actually was effective in suppressing Islamic militancy, but that is a task at which he has manifestly failed in the most abysmal way.

This is not especially shocking, however. The Pakistani regime feels that national security faces much less of a threat from the violent Islamists than from the country's enemy to the east, Hindu-dominated India: the Pakistani military has spent most of the $10-billion-plus in U.S. aid it has received over the past six years on weaponry suitable to fighting a conventional war with that country. Indeed, Pakistan actually provided the Taliban with weapons and combat troops to aid its rise to power (an event which then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto viewed favourably). Once ensconced in Afghanistan, Pakistan provided the religious militia political and economic help as well.

The same poll cited above indicates that the recently returned--to a blood-soaked homecoming--Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party would garner 30 percent of the votes if elections were held tomorrow. She and her husband face several corruption and kickback charges in various countries; her return to power probably wouldn't augur well for clean government. Bhutto's U.S.-orchestrated secret negotiations on politically working with Musharraf have not bolstered her support among the Pakistani public as of late. The incidence of these talks may be particularly damaging to Bhutto if other opposition figures and groups--such as Nawaz Sharif, a fierce foe of Musharraf, and his Pakistan Muslim League (N) party--wield her talks with the hated dictator against the former prime minister, and hint that recent flip-flopping on her part is emblematic of a base opportunism.

During Pakistan's unfolding election campaign, the U.S. and other Western governments should refrain from announcing their preference for any one candidate. Pakistanis are already angry enough at the U.S. for its longstanding support for their hated dictator, and it need not stir up a nationalist backlash by appearing to interfere in the country's elections on one candidate's behalf. The possibility of such interference is no fantastic concoction of a conspiracy theorist: it has already happened in the January 2005 parliamentary vote held in George W. Bush's Iraq. Moreover, we need look no further back in history than to the shah-of-Iran disaster to understand just how continued U.S. backing of Musharraf will blow up in our faces, perhaps sooner rather than later.

Where is the United States Headed?

The Chicago Tribune reports today:

Anti-war and free-speech advocates joined angry parents and students in their battle with Berwyn school district officials who may expel a group of students who took part in an Iraq war protest at a school last week.

The lunchtime protest Nov. 1 in the Morton West High School cafeteria was viewed as a peaceful sit-in by students, but school officials charged two dozen of them with “gross disobedience and mob activity,” which call for suspensions and possible expulsions.

The activists joined parents, students and teachers at a District 201 meeting Wednesday, during which board members were implored to reconsider the punishments.

District 201 Supt. Ben Nowakowski started reading a statement, which drew boos. Board President Jeffry Pesek told the audience not to be disrespectful to Nowakowski and said the meeting would be held up if they continued to yell.

Nowakowski said the disciplinary actions were taken because the students disrupted the educational process.

“The cafeteria was required to be shut down, and students were held in their classrooms, causing a major disturbance to the school day,” he read. “Protesting in the cafeteria rather than outside the school created an environment in the cafeteria which could have caused harm to many people. It is the responsibility of the district to correct inappropriate behavior … to preserve a peaceful and educational environment. The students are subject to the disciplinary process based on their individual roles.”

There's just one small tear in the fabric of this narrative. The New York Times informs us:

[S]everal students said the protesters, whose numbers had dwindled to about 25, obeyed the administration’s request to move from a high-traffic area in the cafeteria to a less-crowded hall near the principal’s office. There, they intertwined arms, sang along to an acoustic guitar and talked about how the war was affecting the world, said Matt Heffernan, a junior who took part.

"We agreed to move to another side of the building,” Matt said. "We also made a deal that if we moved there, there would be no disciplinary action taken upon us."

Matt said the group had been told that the most severe punishment would be a Saturday detention for cutting class that day.

Police officers were on the scene, and Berwyn’s police chief, William Kushner, said no arrests were made. "It was all very peaceful and orderly," he said.

Let's see if I get this straight: a group of students hold a peaceful protest in the cafeteria, and The Powers That Be ask them to move to a more convenient location. The students comply; the protest fails to turn violent. Yet, the remaining protesters are suspended and now face expulsion?

Then there's the Shawn Hicks incident. Hicks returned home from a night out so tired that he didn't turn on the lights, didn't turn off his house alarm, and fell asleep on his living room couch without changing his clothes. He said that he was awakened when a police officer tasered him. One of the two cops he confronted upon becoming fully awake told him that they were responding to "a call from the security company monitoring [his] home" because they "believed a break-in was in progress".

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote:

The cops had entered the home, turned on the light and found Mr. Hicks asleep on the sofa. If they identified themselves or ordered him to get up, Mr. Hicks said he did not hear it. He said he wasn't aware of their presence until he was shot in the back with a Taser.

According to Mr. Hicks, the cops were skeptical. "How do we know that you're who you say you are?" the shorter of the two cops asked.

At that point, the cop holding the Taser squeezed the trigger, sending Mr. Hicks into paroxysm of agony. It was not a short jolt like the first one he received. He fell to the floor. His screams woke the neighbors.

"What do you want?" Mr. Hicks asked. "Please stop [shooting] me." The shorter cop helped him to his feet. Swaying unsteadily, he offered to show them his identification. They searched him and found his wallet. After inspecting it, they threw the wallet on the coffee table.

"I told you I lived here and that I'm the legal resident," he shouted, believing he finally had justice, common decency and the angels of heaven on his side. A staff member at the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania, Mr. Hicks counts himself on the side of the law-abiding citizen.

The cop with the Taser squeezed the trigger again, anyway. Mr. Hicks flapped his arms wildly, but didn't fall. All he could do was scream loud enough to be heard all over the Mon Valley.

And even though Hicks was able to prove his identity, he was arrested anyway. His request for medical help was turned down, and said that he was warned that "he would wind up in county lockup if he insisted on it"--so he promptly quieted down. He was put into a holding cell until 5 AM, when he was released. Hicks' tormentors informed him, "You're free to go, but if you get into trouble in the next year, we will file charges"!

The reporter also notes, "The North Braddock police department referred inquiries to the borough solicitor, John Bacharach, but he declined to give the officers' side of the story. 'I know about the incident,' Mr. Bacharach told me. 'I don't want to comment because I am not confident enough in the facts to say one way or the other.'"

Where is the United States headed?