Iran on the move

OpenDemocracy.org-Iran has experienced of one of the most exciting presidential elections since the Islamic revolution of 1979. All of the four candidates who appear on the ballot-paper in the first round of voting on 12 June 2009 may be handpicked by Iran’s Guardian Council, and each can be considered either a father or a child of the revolution. But two are reformists who embrace progressive agendas, and whose popular campaigns suggest that millions of Iranians - 70% of whom are under 30 years old - believe that Iran needs reform.

For Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. The leader elected in June 2005 expected an easy contest from opposition candidates who could be easily discredited for past failures or outflanked on nationalist rhetoric. Instead, he has been forced to grapple with harsh criticism of his economic policy, foreign policy and human-rights record - and is resorting to extreme denunciation of his rivals as a way of shoring up his core support. Read more

Foreign Policy 101: What President Obama Could Learn…

For President Obama, who already has shown his desire to talk to Iranian leaders, there is no foreign policy lesson more helpful than that of Roxana Saberi’s case of arrest and release. It shows how the Iranian government functions and could teach the United States how to speak to hard-liners in Tehran. These lessons are:

1- Everything in Iran is impossible, and at the same time, anything is possible. One day you can be accused of espionage for no apparent reason, go to prison and three months later you could walk free, simple as that. On the contrary, you can go to prison under the same conditions and reason (like the case of Silva Harotonian who has been jailed since June 2008, simply, for working for an American NGO) and stay in prison for years. It all depends on many different factors. Uncertainty rules! Read more

Roxana Saberi and the Iranian Fast Spy-Making Machine!

HuffPost-The Iranian intelligence services are constantly announcing the capture and arrest of spies that gather classified information for the Western countries. Roxana Saberi, an American-Iranian journalist is the latest person to be facing such a charge.

Most people who have been accused of spying are detained without access to a lawyer or any other fair and free judicial process including a just trial. Usually they are released from prison after a few months. Surprisingly, most of these people then leave Iran within a few more months. This has made the government in Tehran the only government on the earth that catches and releases its spies.

The authorities have announced that Roxana has accepted all of the charges. No surprise! Many prisoners do accept all the charges after spending a few months in solitary confinement under huge psychological and physical pressure. To understand why, here is a joke that masterfully tells the story of how Iran’s intelligence service operates: Read more

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

When Palin Meet Ahmadinejad in Tehran?

  It was a meaningful moment this morning for Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be present in the General Assembly Hall to listen to President W. Bush’s last speech to member states. But, is this a message to the United States? It certainly is. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the mood in Tehran and Washington has changed.

It might seem that Ahmadinejad’s third appearance at the United Nations this week seemed to provide the Republican campaign with another chance to attack Obama over his previous promise that, should he become president, he will meet with U.S. adversaries, including the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the fact of the matter is that, regardless of who goes to the White House this January, the U.S. will start negotiations with the Iranian government, whether or not Ahmadinejad is Iran’s new president. Read more