I know speaking against Haleh Esfandiari is like suicide these days. After all, with the help of her mostly American and Iranian neoliberal allies (especially Washington Post's Robin Wright whose love for Esfandiari, for some reason, surpasses that of Esfandiari's own daughter), has become a symbolic victim of the 'most repressive regime on the planet.'
But let's be honest for a moment. If an American scholar served , in Tehran, as the head of a prominent think-tank, very close to the heart of the Iranian policy making machine, and started travelling back and forth to the U.S. and tried to establish contacts and with dissident Americans (let's say the leftists) and invited them to Tehran to speak for highest Iranian policy making, top officers of the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence officers, how would the U.S., even the most liberal one like Jimmy Carter, would treat him or her?
On top of that, Haleh Esfandiari was the first Iranian fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1995, as the first group of NED fellows. (She was followed by Hossein Bashirieh, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Siamak Namazi, Ali Afshari and Manouchehr Mohammadi ever since.)
And we all know about NED's roles and functions in countries where the U.S. wants to bring about its favorite governments such as in Venezuella and the rest. Some even suggest that the links between the CIA and NED are undeniable. "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA," says Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED in 1991. (Read the entire Le Monde Diplomatique's article on the links between NED and the CIA. )
Given what we know about NED today, I believe, anyone in any country who has had any ties with NED and its affiliate organisations (International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, American Center for International Labor Solidarity and Center for International Private Enterprise) deserves to be charged and fairly and justly prosecuted.
I emphasize on the process to be just and fair because I think Iran has sometimes ignored some of its own laws when it comes to such cases. For example, withholding Esfandiari's passport and therefore keeping her in Iran without prosecuting her was totally wrong and illegal.
But more or less the rest of her case was handled fairly and legally, given the laws in Iran, that like like in many countries post 9/11, give the right to the judge to extend the time a detainee can be held without charges. But Esfandiari had a lawyer, has contacts with her mother and, at it appears, was treated well in detention.
Now perhaps Danny Postel would like to write another piece for openDemocracy and compare me this time with Adolf Hitler. I wonder what he and other Christopher Hitchens clones think about the NED.
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ali.taaba
by jamshid on Sat Sep 01, 2007 10:58 PM PDTAli aghaa zadeh,
Relax... Calm down... The looloos are still not in Iran....
This looloo, the threat of US attacking Iran..., does it make you and your IRI lackeys wake up at night only to realize you have pissed on yourself?
Jamshid
Have to laugh.
by ali.taaba on Wed Aug 29, 2007 08:35 PM PDTHave to laugh at how black and white some one like our dear “Ghool” can see the world? I mean this comment from Ghool shows how out of touch he/she is with the reality.
"Iranians demand and support the complete annihilation of
the mullahs and their barbaric system."
I mean dude!!! When was the last time you went to Iran? You spoke to some real people?... Guess what I have bad news for you, the very same Iranians that you referred to in your comment rather suffer the ultimate and not bow to Americans.
Don’t know which opposition you are from and what you are after , but certainly you view points are like your name “irrelevant”.
PS.There is a very good saying about names that are irrelevant in Persian, I think it goes like “ Bar Ax nahand Nameh Zangi Kafoor”, or “be Kachal migan Zolf-e-Ali” .
Movafagh Bashid.
Just go back to Tehran
by Alidad on Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:37 AM PDTIf you write these things to garner publicity for yourself and your blog, then fine, you are just going about your trade, though it could hardly be described as an honest one..
Otherwise, you may find that most people are incensed by your shamelessness and hypocrisy. Why, as many have pointed out on this website, do you not pack your bags and go back to Iran. Let me cut and paste the remarks someone seems to have sent you from Iran (previous message)
"To agar az amrika va keshvarhayeh gharbi badet maid va jomhoorieh
eslami ham nazeh, khob tashrif biarid iran, ya aragh ya boro aslan
arabestan. Too kanada che ghalati mikoni?"
I'd say shame on you, but you are evidently a brazen and indecent person - as indicated by the very many pictures of yourself you have put on the public domain/Internet.
President Bush has said many times: Regime change in Iran...!?
by Ghool on Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:38 AM PDTHey Hooder:
What part of the President Bush’s speeches on the complete
regime change in Iran
don’t you understand? Iranians demand and support the complete annihilation of
the mullahs and their barbaric system.
So, all of the activities of the American think-tankers in laying
out the PR apparatus, orchestration, rehearsal, and preparation for the complete
regime change in Iran should be of no surprise to you and your friends!?
In this process, if some several million mullahs, their
families and supporters, IRGCs, nochehs, jeerehkhors, thugs, killers, and other
sympathizers of the IR regime get wasted I don’t think anybody would blink an
eye!?
We all know that you are a supporter of and related to the
regime. Your close association with the criminal Rafsanjani ilk is a well known
fact among the community of Iranians in Toronto.
Confusing Justice and Truth with nation-state apparatus
by ironiciranian on Sun Aug 26, 2007 09:11 AM PDTAgreeing with pivotoftheuniverse on Derakhshan's confusing the realm of Truth and Justice with that of nation-state politics with its judiciary procedures, I'd like to point out that how his story is somehow the story of the 79 Revolution in that how the moral commitment to a just world and an ethical urge for truth that gave rise to the 79 Revolution was stifled, frozen, and even became murderous when metamorphosed into the nation-state apparatus. Similar echoes of self-rightous violence reverberates in these words of Derakhsahn, who is even too young to remember the revolution: "I believe, anyone in any country who has had any ties with NED and its
affiliate organisations ... deserves to be charged and fairly and justly prosecuted." Anyone in the world! As long as we do not differentiate between Truth and Justice with the current judiciary system and the nation-state politics both in US and Iran and keep endorsing one or the other single-mindedly, there will be more condemnation and injustices done in the call for justice and truth by the very "well-intentioned" people including Derakhshaan and others.
Bullsh*t, Served Iranian style
by Manifest Destiny on Sun Aug 26, 2007 07:06 AM PDT"Let's be honest." That's what your argument is based on. Pfft.
Khoob shod beht bloggetro azat gereftan.
yeah, but...
by pivotoftheuniverse on Sun Aug 26, 2007 03:53 AM PDTDerakhshan is wrong to try to describe the Iranian judicial and legal process as somehow legitimate in the case of Esfandiari's arrest (or for that matter of almost any other political prisoner)... Iran's judiciary is more arbitrary than even Pakistan's or even those of most other regional countries, so it cannot be a useful forum for exploring the issues of whether work such as Esfandiari's can be considered somehow treasonous.
This said, it's useful for us not to turn Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh into martyrs, and to ignore the implications of the kind of work they and others are engaged in. There are many good reasons to question how American foundations claiming to be promoting democracy operate in Iran, and how Iranian-Americans are implicated in this work. Everything I have heard says that Esfandiari is a well-meaning woman, who wished to promote connections between US and Iranian civil societies. But her employers may well have seen her value in a somewhat different light and we should not hestitate to point this out.
By arresting them without any real due process and without any transparency (not to mention, forcing them onto TV to make silly comments about their work) the Iranian gov't only shoots itself in the foot. Because now there is little opportunity to actually promote a debate about the implication of the kind of associations represented by Estandiari and Tajbakhsh and whether these are to be embraced by Iranian-Americans or not.
In regards to your article
by cyclicforward on Sat Aug 25, 2007 11:11 PM PDTI am so tired of your silly articles and meaningless arguments that I would not even bother to read them any more. I encourage all the readers also not to respond to Hoder blogs if they feel the same way. Once he notices how irrelevent he has become in the Iranian community, may be then he would Just pack up and go home.
Dearkhshan bas kon janeh nanat
by Iranboy on Sat Aug 25, 2007 10:20 PM PDTAghayeh bi tarbiateh bi nezakat!
Mardakeh bi akhlagh! Bas kon digeh. Jomhoorieh eslami hameh adameyhe koreh zamino doshman midooneh! Halehesfandiari va digaran ham nadareh. Ina hata khodeshoon ro ham doshman midoonan.digeh che bereseh be haleh.
To agar az amrika va keshvarhayeh gharbi badet maid va jomhoorieh eslami ham nazeh, khob tashrif biarid iran, ya aragh ya boro aslan arabestan. Too kanada che ghalati mikoni?