THE IRAN THREAD

Iran's Future? Watch the Streets
Iran's Future? Watch the Streets
By Peter Ackerman and Ramin Ahmadi
The International Herald Tribune
Wednesday 04 January 2006

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.

While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.

The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.

While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.

The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

CIA Gave Iran Bomb Plans, Book Says
CIA Gave Iran Bomb Plans, Book Says
By Josh Meyer
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 04 January 2006

The nuclear designs were intentionally flawed, but Tehran was tipped off and could have made use of them, the writer contends.

In a clumsy effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the CIA in 2004 intentionally handed Tehran some top-secret bomb designs laced with a hidden flaw that U.S. officials hoped would doom any weapon made from them, according to a new book about the U.S. intelligence agency.

But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful for designing a bomb, writes New York Times reporter James Risen in "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration."

The clandestine CIA effort was just one of many alleged intelligence failures during the Bush administration, according to the book.

Risen also cites intelligence gaffes that fueled the Bush administration's case for war against Saddam Hussein, spawned a culture of torture throughout the U.S. military and encouraged the rise of heroin cultivation and trafficking in postwar Afghanistan.

Even before the book's release Tuesday, its main revelation - that President Bush authorized a secret effort by another intelligence outfit, the National Security Agency, to eavesdrop on unsuspecting Americans without court-approved warrants - had created a storm of controversy when it was reported last month in the New York Times in an article coauthored by Risen.

In the book, Risen says he based his accounts on interviews with dozens of intelligence officials who, while unnamed, had proved reliable in the past.

Bush has confirmed the existence of the program, but condemned the newspaper for the December report and for its use of confidential sources.

The CIA added its own criticism Tuesday, saying the book contains "serious inaccuracies."

The NSA domestic spying controversy is at the heart of an intensifying debate over whether the president has overstepped his authority in fighting the U.S.-declared war on terrorism by not adequately consulting or allowing oversight from Congress and the courts.

The Justice Department disclosed Friday that it was conducting a criminal investigation to find out who leaked classified details of the domestic spying program.

The book's release date was moved up in the wake of the NSA controversy, and it provides additional details of that domestic spying effort, in which Bush did not seek permission for domestic wiretaps from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The New York Times delayed for a year publication of its article on the NSA's domestic spying, in part because of personal requests from the president. Critics have questioned whether the paper could have published the information before last year's presidential election if it had decided against a delay. Newspaper officials have refused to comment on reasons for the delay or on the exact timing.

Top New York Times officials also refused to publish a news article about the reported CIA plot to give intentionally flawed nuclear plans to Iran, according to a person briefed on the newspaper's conversations by one of the participants. That person said the New York Times withheld publication at the request of the White House and former CIA Director George J. Tenet.

U.S. officials have long maintained that Iran's rulers want to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran has insisted that it seeks to develop only a civilian nuclear energy program. Whatever the case, the CIA was desperate to counter what it believed was a clandestine nuclear program, and turned to a Russian defector who had once been a nuclear scientist in the former Soviet republics, according to the book.

The book says the CIA worked with the U.S.-based defector to concoct a story about how he was destitute, but in possession of valuable nuclear weapons blueprints that had been secreted out of Russia.

CIA officials had concerns about the man's temperament, Risen says, but sent the defector and the blueprints to Vienna anyway, with orders to hand-deliver them to someone at Tehran's diplomatic mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

His CIA handlers never imagined that the Russian defector would tip off the Iranians to the fatal flaw that they had hidden deep within the blueprints. But that, the book adds, is exactly what the Russian did, in part because the CIA failed to send anybody to accompany him out of fear that it might make the Iranians suspicious.

The book does not say whether Iran used the plans, but reports that a senior Iranian official visiting Vienna appears to have taken them immediately to Tehran after the defector dropped them off.

"He [the Russian] was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W. Bush has called the axis of evil," the book contends.

Two nuclear weapons experts who say that they have no knowledge about whether the covert effort described in the book occurred added that a deliberate flaw in the plans could have been easily found by the Iranians.

"Iran has excellent scientists and any information related to weapons designs could move its program ahead," said a European nuclear weapons expert, who refused to allow his name to be used because his government prohibits comments on nuclear weapons or designs.

David Albright, a former weapons inspector for the IAEA, agreed with the other expert that the plans could have shaved many years off Iran's nuclear effort.

"I wouldn't call it a colossal failure" by the CIA, said Albright, now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. "But I don't quite understand the purpose of it, why you would want to hand something like this to the Iranians. It's unlikely to work."

According to the book, the CIA effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear effort came on the heels of another massive intelligence failure, in which a CIA officer mistakenly sent an Iranian agent a trove of information that could help identify nearly every one of the spy agency's undercover operatives in Iran.

The Iranian was a double agent who turned over the data to Iranian authorities. They used it to dismantle the CIA's spy network inside the country and arrest or possibly kill an unknown number of U.S. agents, the book says.