Robert Baer: American politics Run on Ideology, Not information
(My interview with Robert Baer former CIA agent and the author of “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower”)-Tehran’s foreign policy toward the United States, based on the idea that “if you mess with Iran, something bad is going to happen in some part of the world…has been a very successful policy” Iranians used it after the revolution, according to Robert Baer, the author of The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower. “This is why President Bush could not afford to take any aggressive action against Iran.”
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer in the Middle East, during an interview with Rooz, explained the details of 1980 hostage crisis and Iran-Israel arm deal as one of the outcomes resulting in the release of hostages just 20 minutes after Ronald Regan was sworn as the President of the United States. Read more
January 14, 2009 1 Comment
Suzanne Maloney: Both Obama and Clinton want negotiations but not a nuclear Iran
The United States will not initiate dialogue with the Iranian government, given the possible boost for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-elections next June, according to Suzanne Maloney, former State Department policy advisor and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
During his campaign Barack Obama has insisted on negotiating with Iranian leaders, regardless of its extensive political risk. But considering Iran’s domestic politics, American diplomats prefer to wait and see who will be Iran’s next president.
Many believe that Iran’s worsening economic situation, demonstrated by its high inflation, skyrocketing unemployment and the fall of oil prices, which have prevented Ahmadinejad from fulfilling his promises to the Iranian people, might change the result of the upcoming elections. Read more
December 22, 2008 2 Comments
Q&A: Will Olympics Break China’s Human Rights Paralysis?
Interview with Minky Worden, media director of Human Rights Watch- NEW YORK, Jul 7 (IPS) - Barely a month before the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympics in China, it remains uncertain whether the Chinese government will respect basic human rights and press freedom during the Games.
To secure the 2008 Summer Games, Beijing committed to major reforms, such as allowing international reporters unfettered access throughout the country. In July 2001, in his final presentation to win the bid for the Olympic Games at the Moscow vote, Beijing Mayor and Bidding Committee President Liu Qi boasted that the Beijing Games would “benefit the further development of our human rights cause”.
In an interview with IPS correspondent Omid Memarian, Minky Worden, the editor of “China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges” (Seven Stories Press) and media director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, pointed out that although most of the world thinks of the Olympics in the context of athletics, inside China, the Games serve a principally political role for the government: to boost its legitimacy and standing at home and abroad. Read more
November 30, 2008 6 Comments
Q&A: “Longing for the Past Yet Belonging to the Present”
NEW YORK, Aug 1 (IPS) - Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, thousands of intellectuals, activists and poets have left Iran, many fleeing to Europe and the United States. A new book brings together the work of 18 Iranian poets from this diaspora to share their experiences with a wider audience.
“Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World” (North Atlantic Books, August 2008) is a bilingual (Persian/English) anthology, edited and translated by Niloufar Talebi, who is passionate about making contemporary Iranian voices heard in translation. Read more
November 30, 2008 Leave a Comment
Q&A: Hezbollah’s Triumph Is Blowback for Israeli Policy
Interview with journalist and author Deborah Campbell- NEW YORK, Aug 18 (IPS)
- Since the Israel-Lebanon 34-day war two years ago, and particularly after the Doha accord in May which restored Hezbollah to the Lebanese government and essentially gave it the veto power it demanded, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been the most popular figure anywhere in the Arab world.
“For decades, the Shia were seen as the shoeshine boys and street-cleaners, and now not only have the Shia had their honour restored but also they are becoming educated and rising in social status,” Deborah Campbell, author of “This Heated Place”, a narrative exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, told IPS in an interview.
Over the past seven years, she has extensively chronicled the fault lines in the Middle East from Iran to Palestine, immersing herself for extended periods in the societies she writes about. Read more
August 4, 2008 4 Comments