Iran: President Ahmadinejad's Battle in Parliament

The Latest on Iran (10 August): Threats and Concessions

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Yesterday we reported the story from Press TV's website that President Ahmadinejad was going to the Majlis to "consult" over his choices for the Cabinet. Well, here' s the real reason for the consultation, courtesy of Etemad Melli Etemad:

After a "highly unsatisfactory meeting" with Ahmadinejad, Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani sent a letter "with threatening overtones" to the office of the President; significantly the letter was cosigned by 200 of the 490 members of Parlaiment. Ahmadinejad immediately retreated and invited  the MPs of the "principlist" bloc, the largest in the Majlis, to refute Larijani's contention that Ahmadinejad and his advisors are "a bunch of egotists".

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad supporters suddenly showed up in the corridors of Parliament, trying to convince MPs that Larijani's motive is to get a high-profile Government role and smoothing ruffled feathers by claiming that a misunderstanding has occurred and Ahmadinejad wants to consult them.

There were heated scenes in the Parliamentary chamber, with principlist MPs critical of Ahmadinejad in arguments with the President's supporters over the claim, "Ahmadinejad has already up his mind with regards to the cabinet, and he just wants the MPs to rubber stamp his choices."

Etemade Melli concludes,"The tenuous connection between Parliament and Pasteur Street [the President's office] is becoming more strained by the hour: the Ahmadinejad faction feels free to use any kind of [abusive] rhetoric against Larijani, while Larijani's supporters overtly threaten to withdraw their support from ministers suggested by Ahmadinenad that are not to their liking. This demonstrates that the current frostiness between Parliament and Pasteur street may erupt into a full-fledged war."

Turkey's Importance: “Signature Bridge" for an Alliance of Civilizations

The position of Turkey --- geographic, political, economic, and social --- in the Middle East, in "Europe", and in the world has always been a key issue in the evolution of international affairs. This will be no less true in the decade to come; indeed, Ankara's significance is likely to redouble. In this article, Colette Mazzucelli, Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, and Laura Wicks combine analysis with the hope that Turkey's approach to Europe and the "East", including the Middle East, can be a vital response to the notion of a "clash of civilizations".

As the years pass, Turkey’s significance on the Western and global scenes is likely to increase as that country’s interest in joining the European Union begins to wane. Turkey’s geography, which straddles the Western, Slavic Orthodox, and Persian civilizations, raises the question of what it means for this vital country to be a bridge between East and West. The world continues to bear witness to the East in the midst of an early 21st century Renaissance lifting millions out of poverty on an unprecedented scale as the West experiences a crisis, foretold ironically in that period in which too many were prematurely celebrating a mythical “end of history".

The evolution in Europe’s neighborhoods brings strategic considerations to the fore as the balance of power in the world shifts to the Orient. The Union is not likely to enlarge to Turkey or Ukraine in the near future. Without enlargements that double its present market potential to close to a billion inhabitants and which mitigate the staggering impact of aging on its societies, the Union cannot aspire to compete on the global scene with rising powers China, India, or even Brazil.

Turkey is vital to European and global security not only in terms of geopolitics. We must also consider the ways this country can participate in 21st century institutions of governance to develop its specific role in global affairs. In other words, how can Turkey build a “signature” bridge, which maximizes its unique potential to span East-West and North-South relations? The present institutional architecture still reflects the world of 1945, when the interests of rising powers as well as strategically vital states must be taken into consideration in reflections about what Peter D. Sutherland has identified as an “alliance of civilizations”.

Reflections on Europe as “empire by integration” must confront the reality that the Union faces: the persistent challenge of cultural assimilation. For nation-states that have long defined their separate identities on cultural and linguistic homogeneity, the prospect to integrate peoples from diverse civilizations poses considerable difficulties. This is more complicated if one restricts the notion of citizenship. National citizenship can privilege a singular identity as a way to exclude.

In contrast, European citizenship offers hope in the prospects to accommodate inclusiveness within Union member states. A culture of hope is the foundation upon which Europe’s Union must build to avoid those sharp categorizations, which, in Sen’s words, create the “illusion of destiny”. Europe’s security challenge and Turkey’s signature bridge capacity are one and the same: refuting Huntington’s clash of civilizations, which, in the member states of Europe’s Union, is increasingly a clash from within.

Yet this convergence of interests faces tremendous challenges. Enlargement fatigue and the limits of the present EU institution’s absorptive capacities occur as Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise. Terrorism as well as anti-Western ideologies threaten human security inside the Union’s borders. Russia has cultivated its relationship with Iran providing that country with intelligence, technology, and weapons. Stronger EU relations with Turkey, and Russia, will bring the Union into greater contact with Iran, which is the growing regional power in the Middle East and a gateway to the Orient in terms of energy supplies.

With approximately 20 million Muslims living within the borders of the Union, anti-Islamic sentiments in many European countries are on the rise. Just this month, the EU announced a new visa regime that allows the citizens of Serbia, Montenegro, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to travel to Union member states without a visa, while excluding three other Balkan countries with a majority Muslim population: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo.

Improving dialogue with the Islamic civilization presents a huge challenge for the Union. However, Turkey presents solid evidence that democracy and Islam can be compatible, and the Turkish model in the Islamic world is of particular interest to the United States in terms of the balance of power emerging in the Middle East. As President Obama and his advisors contemplate a comprehensive regional strategy, a stronger relationship with Turkey is the glue to cement an alliance of civilizations. With its 99 percent Muslim population, Turkey has significant soft power potential vis-à-vis the countries in the Muslim world. It plays an important role in the projection of democracy, freedom, the rule of law and human rights in the Balkans, the Middle East, the Black Sea region, Central Asia, the Mediterranean, and North Africa.

The Union should try to put the engine on a different track to engage Turkey in European security. Instead of focusing on the differences in an enduring rhetorical war over Turkish accession, Europe’s leadership must act strategically in ways that consistently strengthen Turkey’s integration into EU frameworks. This is particularly important regarding openness in global trade relations. Turkey’s human capital must be developed to respond to a service-oriented global environment. Education is a key area that must receive more attention in order not to squander the youth potential, which is a vanishing asset as the Turkish population of approximately 72 million ages. As Turkey overtakes Germany in population growth from 2023, the country’s leadership will face the same problem demographically in terms of policy choices as Europe.

This is perhaps the most important reason why the promotion of Turkey’s human capital is essential in the construction of its signature bridge. The Turkish model is still the best hope for the West to combat religious terrorism, which is plaguing many different countries around the world. Avoiding the illusion of destiny, which is wedded to a singular identity for a person or a country, is critical to sustain an alliance of civilizations. Turkey’s evolution makes it possible to recognize both a Muslim country and a modern Western democracy, identities are neither mutually exclusive nor incompatible. These identities are neither mutually exclusive nor incompatible, which is a recognition as necessary in the promotion of the Continent's external security as in the consolidation of domestic peace within Europe's increasingly diverse nation-states.

Dr. Colette Mazzucelli has taught on graduate faculty at New York University's Center for Global Affairs since 2005. Dr. Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, a native of Turkey, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown College. Miss Laura Wicks is a recent graduate of the M.S. Program in Global Affairs at New York University.

Iraq Breaking News: Bombings Kill at Least 46

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Bombings this morning in Baghdad and Mosul have killed at least 46 people, mainly day labourers, and injured 215.

A car bomb targeted labourers in a Shi'ite neighbourhood in Baghdad, and two roadside bombs exploded in a Sunni area. In Mosul, two truck bombs killed 30 and wounded 130. The casualty toll is likely to rise with bodies buried in at least 32 houses destroyed in the attack.

On Friday, five bombings aimed at Shi'a targets killed 50 and wounded 154.

The Latest from Iran (9 August): Once More on Trial

NEW Video: Hillary Clinton on Iran (9 August)
Iran Special Analysis: The Tehran “Foreign Plot” Trial as a Political Weapon
More Iran Drama: Will Rafsanjani Lead This Friday’s Prayers?
Iran: Ayatollah Sistani Intervenes
How Not to Help Iran: The Folly of US Sanctions
The Latest from Iran (8 August): Regrouping

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1915 GMT: In a meeting that could offer significant clues to his political future, President Ahmadinejad
"will attend the  [Parliament] session on Monday to exchange views and interact with lawmakers," according to Principlist MP Vali Esmaeili.


1650 GMT: Fars News English says two more citizens of Western European countries have been arrested for "recording an illegal gathering in Vanak Square [in Tehran] using a hi-tech camera." The pair allegedly also had "footage of some Israeli towns" from a 10-day visit to Israel.

1640 GMT: Etemade Melli, the newspaper of Mehdi Karroubi's party, has summarised a letter written by Karroubi to Hashemi Rafsanjani "10 days ago". Karroubi asked the former President to ensure an investigation was launched into the abuse of detainees, including allegations of rape of women and young boys.

1635 GMT: The Threat Against Mousavi. The move by a bloc in Parliament to convict Mir Hossein Mousavi of "leadership" of post-election rioting has been complemented by the head of the political office of the Revolutionary Guard, Yudollah Javani. Writing in the weekly Sobheh Sadegh, affiliated to the Guard, Javani declared, "If Mousavi, [Mehdi] Karoubi and [Mohammad] Khatami are main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary...to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them".

1625 GMT: To Fire Two Ministers is a Misfortune, To Fire Four is a....The civil war within the Ministry of Intelligence, which we've been following as a marker of even bigger battles inside the Government, continues. Apparently, it is no longer two Deputy Ministers --- as well as the Minister, Gholam-Hossein  Mohseni Ejeie, who have gone. According to Mazin News, "the purification project is continuing" with the dismissal of the Deputies for Parlaiment and for Technical Affairs.

1315 GMT: Setting Up a Firebreak. A "firebreak" is where you deliberately burn out a rows of trees to establish a line to check a forest fire. In Iran, this weekend's firebreak is the head of Kahrizak prison, who has just been fired and put in jail (1230 GMT). Getting rid of him draws a line of the head of police, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the man who announced the firing, because a leading the "principlist" bloc, which holds the most seats in Parliament, has put responsibility on Ahmadi-Moghaddam. Hamid-Reza Katouzian said, “Unfortunately, the gross misconduct of Kahrizak officials have resulted in the murder of scores of young people. The Iranian Police Chief is duty bound to provide a clear explanation in this regard.”

1230 GMT: Another Limited Concession. In another sign that the Government is balancing pressure on the opposition with some acknowledgement of its errors by sacrificing lower-level officials, Reuters reports, via the Islamic Republic News Agency, the statement of Iran police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam  "The head of the [Kahrizak center has been sacked and jailed. Three policemen who beat detainees have been jailed as well."

Ahmadi-Moghaddam also repeated the statement of chief prosecutor Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi (0750 GMT) that some post-election detainees had been abused in the prison.

1200 GMT: We've separated out this morning's initial update as a special analysis on the political meaning of the Tehran trial. There is also an analysis of an important criticism of the Supreme Leader by the influential Iraq-based Ayatollah Sistani, and the latest news on whether Hashemi Rafsanjani will lead Friday prayers in Tehran.

1000 GMT: Getting the Story Straight. Last week President Ahmadinejad reportedly told a gathering in Mashaad that he wanted to "take [the opposition] by the collar and slam their heads into the ceiling". This, however, may have been a bit off-line. Forget the impression that Ahmadinejad might have been condoning the rough treatment of detainees: could you picture the President trying to power-lift Hashemi Rafsanjani?

So Ahmadinejad has revised the script to fit the "foreign plot" trial: "After speaking at the meeting a number of media outlets reported that I was referring to my opponents, but I was in fact referring to the bulling and interfering powers."

0955 GMT: Just in case folks hadn't figured out the purpose of the Tehran "foreign plot" trial, a group of pro-Government members of Parliament have lodged a complaint against Mir Hossein Mousavi "as the driving force behind the recent turmoil which swept across the country".

The story, which is on Press TV's website, is very sketchy. The initiators of the complaint are labelled vaguely as "the influential clerics' bloc in Iran's parliament along with a number of other Majlis representatives", with a member of the National Security Commission, Mohammad Karami-Rad,  taking the lead: "We are pursuing the complaint against Mousavi and soon this letter of complaint will be handed to the judiciary so that the legal proceeding is conducted [on the matter] and the rioters are brought to justice."


0930 GMT: The Tehran Times reports a statement from the Deputy Head of Majlis [Iranian Parliament] National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Hossein Sobhaninia, that the commission would discuss the case of three detained Americans in its weekly meeting on Sunday. The trio were picked up by Iranian security forces after crossing the border while hiking in Iraqi mountains.

0830 GMT: While Ahmadinejad is choosing his Cabinet, he may want to have another word with his staff handling Iranian media. After pro-government outlets claimed that Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi sent a congratulatory message to the President, an official from the Ayatollah's office stated, "His eminence has not congratulated Ahmadinejad and does not intend to do so. These [claims] are perversions of the truth emanating from individuals who until now have been applying pressure to us and are now forced to manufacture and propagate falsehoods."

0810 GMT: During a visit to "the club of young reporters" on Saturday, President Ahmadinejad said that he will introduce his cabinet at the beginning of next week. He promised, "The young will have a prominent presence in the new cabinet."

0750 GMT: The New York Times, however, isn't concerned with Chief Prosecutor Dorri-Najafabadi's statement on Saeed Hajjarian (0740 GMT). Instead their newsflash, overtaking even coverage of the Tehran trial, is that Dorri-Najafabadi "Acknowledges Torture of Protesters". They highlight the passage in the press conference where the prosecutor said, “Painful accidents [had occurred] which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished.”

Dorri-Najafabadi specifically talked about “the Kahrizak incident”, referring to the detention centre whose closure was ordered by the Supreme Leader. He insisted, “Maybe there were cases of torture in the early days after the election, but we are willing to follow up any complaints or irregularities that have taken place.”

0740 GMT: One piece of news which, in the smallest of ways, cuts against the Government's latest moves to break the opposition.Iran's head prosecutor, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, has recommended that Saeed Hajjarian should be moved and kept under control in his own home. Hajjarian was transferred from detention in late July to a residence owned by the Iranian Government.

Dorri-Najafabadi added that, despite the recommendation of Hajjarian's physician that his patient be released due to his physical state, Hajjarian is in good health.

Boiling Point for US-Israeli Relations: The Warning to Israel from Within

UPDATE (9 August, 1920 GMT): The Israeli Government is bringing the hammer down on Nadav Tamir after his criticism of the Netanyahu Government and its endangerment of US-Israeli relations. He has been summoned home and disciplined for his "very regrettable" memorandum.

You want to know how much trouble is Tamir in? Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon not only went public on Army Radio with criticism of the diplomat. He took the trouble to Twitter, "Nadav Tamir's document was not the work of a professional and contained more opinion than data."

How serious is the effect on US-Israeli relations of Israel’s uncompromising hard line on Palestine?

According to the Israeli daily newspaperHaaretz, Israel's consul general in Boston, Nadav Tamir, wrote a warning letter to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Tamir accused the Netanyahu Government of endangering relations with Washington and risking the alienation of the Jewish lobby in the United States:

The manner in which we are conducting relations with the American administration is causing strategic damage to Israel. The distance between us and the US administration has clear consequences for Israeli deterrence.

There are American and Israeli political elements who oppose Obama on an ideological basis and who are ready to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries for the sake of their own political agendas.

There has always been a discrepancy in the approaches of both states [on the issue of settlements], but there was always a level of coordination between the governments. Nowadays, there is a sense in the United States that Obama is forced to deal with the obduracy of the governments in Iran, North Korea, and Israel.

The administration is making an effort to lower the profile of the disagreements, and yet it is [Israel] that...is highlighting the differences.

The letter of Israel's Consul General is an explicit rejection of Israeli political language, which has been intensifying around the importance of Israeli ethnicity and Judaism, especially on the issue of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Moreover, it underlines the effect on US perceptions. Israel’s image is shifting from a democratic and modern ally to “the source of obduracy” in the region as Israeli politicians dig in their heels on the issue of a freeze on settlements.

Indeed, the wider context bears out the pertinence of Tamir’s warning, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s ultra-nationalism and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s selective reading of political history.

In an interview with The Times of London in June, Lieberman  applied the “clash of civilizations” theory to the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was part of a broader "clash of values between civilizations" and was not the key for bringing peace to the region. He asserted, "With 9/11 and terrorist acts in London, Madrid, Bali, in Russia, I can't see any linkage with the Israeli-Palestinian problem."

In his major foreign policy speech in June, Netanyahu rejected an open approach to negotiations for a one-sided presentation of history:

Those who think that the continued enmity toward Israel is a product of our presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, is confusing cause and consequence… The attacks against us began in the 1920s, escalated into a comprehensive attack in 1948 with the declaration of Israel’s independence, continued with the fedayeen attacks in the 1950s, and climaxed in 1967, on the eve of the six-day war, in an attempt to tighten a noose around the neck of the State of Israel… All this occurred during the fifty years before a single Israeli soldier ever set foot in Judea and Samaria.

Palestine, for the Prime Minister, is always “the other” Israel's “universal, modern and right” values…

It is these statements that are the target of Tamir’s letter. Can Lieberman and Netanyahu sustain these statements when there are increasing doubts in Washington --- both because of the direct consequences for Palestine and the wider efects in the region --- over whether the political situation issustainable?