Current Events

Her body language tells all

"A liar is uncomfortable facing his questioner/accuser and
may turn his/her head or body away."

"A person who is lying to you will avoid making eye contact."

Source:

//www.blifaloo.com/info/lies.php

Marandi is scum

Here he is excusing the Syrian and Iranian regimes of torture, rape and murder.  I hope and pray that one day the situation is reversed so that he can taste his own medicine.  What a liar and hypocrite.  He knows full well that these two governments have the worst human rights records and here he is trying to pull the Salafi card in order to deflect any type of criticism.

Responsibility and Conspiracy

• Yes there was a conspiracy to install Khomeini as ruler of Iran.
• Yes the real responsibility is with us Iranian people.

The others may try to cheat us and harm us. But we did not have to fall for it. We could have accepted Bakhtiar and had real democracy. Instead chose to go for an idiot. Yes we are responsible and should accept it. I hope this explains my position.

Why she is

looking up instead of looking at the camera. It's so annoying to watch her. I guess she is looking for Emam zamoon!

amirparvizforsecularmonarchy

You say:

"The USA is doing everything in her power to make sure only radicals and
fundamentalists can hold power in Iran, the greater middle east and
north africa.  One group of radicals against another to get its own new
crazies in power."

"Guess which secret service was funneling $150 million dollar wires at a
time (and several times) to khomeini's account in france? (equal to $1.5
Billion in todays money)?

Guess who paid for training thousands of his followers in terrorist activities under the PLO's supervision"

This is exactly what I meant about conspiracy theory interpretations of Iranian political history!  For god's sake man there is no proof that the US gave $150M  to Khomeini!  You guys take what ever hearsay you find embellish it and then propagate it.  That's utter non-sense.  The modern Tamerlane, Khomeini, is in Iran now because of the Shah's arrogance and incompetence.  Fact: The Shah was returned to power because of a CIA MI6 sponsored coup.  The information is available to all and is not hearsay like your information.  The Shah destroyed the Nationalists and the Leftists and we were left with Islamists as the only channel of opposition.  Yes your Shahanshah is the reason that we have Khomeini's blood sucking regime today in Iran!

Until we Iranians don't learn to take responsibility for our own actions and stop blaming others for our troubles we will never cross our obstacles to development.  The US would love to see a democratic secular regime in Iran.  Do you know why?  It's very simple: Money.  The US wants to trade freely because it would beat everyone in fair trade.  Why hasn't the US managed to get rid of this regime for the past 32 years?  What bigger thorn has been in America's eye except for Iran for the past 32 years?  Oh wait your reasoning must be that because they want the ME to be ruled by a bunch of morons so that they can take the oil for cheap.  Or some other non-sense convoluted conspiracy theory.   The US cannot get rid of this regime even it spent $1B.  In my opinion the only reason that spending $1M to overthrow Mossadegh (operation Ajax) worked was because our own people did not come to the streets in his support at the behest of Shah's friend Ayatollah Kashani. 

Some leftist

Thanks friends for exposing this fake leftist. I have more leftist tendencies than she does. We must not confuse America hating with "left". I wonder what she thinks about murder of massive number of leftists by Khomeini? 

Roozbeh jan thanks for the

Roozbeh jan thanks for the link. You are correct. Soraya Ulrich is neither a Left wing Iranian or nationalist, she is, as you say a confused Gucci Socialist. A person who is Left Wing in her mind but enjoys all the trappings and wealth which Imperialist America has to offer. A person who supports Ahmadinejad's anti-west propaganda but is too blind to see that he and the regime have screwed Iranian workers royally. Soraya is truly a horrible human being.

The Gucci Leftist.

somebody called this sandis khor woman with a big crush on "doctor" mammot and his agha a "leftist"! I wonder how many years of an Iranian factory worker's wages would be needed to pay for  the necklace worn by this Beverly hills "leftist" mozdoor?

"leftist", my foot!

Here is a real leftist Iranian woman.

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

i agree with simorgh and reality....

a couple of weeks in evin, and the 'nigthly' visits from the guards, and this lady will stop apologizing for the mullahs LOL

holy crap....

as soon as saw that idiot marandi, and the 'looney' expert, ulrich, I knew this would be another USA bashing session....without a mention of their paymasters' 30 years of brutality, theft, and deceit.

Rastgoo, you are hilarious you believe An was rightful winner

If I knew that I would not wasted my time answering your post about your misguided view on Iranians.

For Now you are very lucky, The USA is doing everything in her power to make sure only radicals and fundamentalists can hold power in Iran, the greater middle east and north africa.  One group of radicals against another to get its own new crazies in power.

The day will come when they can not do that anymore, at least now they have realized they can not contain them and soon they will have to turn back out and when that happens you AN, every single one of over 200,000 mullahs, basiji, VF, guardian council and all others will experience a very panful reality.  At least worse than what they are dishing out at EVIN to stay in power.

Unlike the wishes of Reza Pahlavi, it will be in the peoples hands and they will have their justice.  I don't think Iranians have the imagination to realize what will befall this regime (once it loses its secret international backing) and most economists see that happening in less than 10 years, by which time Russia and China will both be within the top 5 GDPs

Rastgoo, we are very niave if we don't pay attention to facts

Guess which secret service was funneling $150 million dollar wires at a time (and several times) to khomeini's account in france? (equal to $1.5 Billion in todays money)?

Guess who paid for training thousands of his followers in terrorist activities under the PLO's supervision?

Not conspiracy but has been widely written about since then and in several best selling books in the USA.

Below is An old but accurate piece from TIME.  It wll help clear your mind a little bit, niavite is dangerous, your optimism is even more funny, shows that some of us still need to learn... and hopefully there are enough of us that learned to at least make a difference to offset the impact of the ignorant remainders.

(This originally appeared in the TIMES (London), 6 November 1984)

[Kindly uploaded and provided with notes by Freeman 10602PANC]

  Who  remembers Iran?   Who  remembers, that  is,  the shameful
stampede of Western journalists and intellectuals to the cause of
the Iranian revolution?  Who  remembers the hysterical propaganda
campaign  waged  against the  Shah,  the lurid  press  reports of
corruption, police  oppression, palace  decadence, constitutional
crisis?   Who  remembers  the thousands  of  Iranian  students in
Western universities  enthusiastically absorbing  the fashionable
Marxist nonsense purveyed to them by armchair radicals, so as one
day to lead the campaign of riot and mendacity which preceded the
Shah's downfall?
  Who  remembers the  behaviour of  those  students who  held as
hostage  the envoys  of the  very same  power which  had provided
their  'education'?   Who remembers  Edward  Kennedy's accusation
that  the Shah  had  presided over  'one  of the  most oppressive
regimes in history'  and had stolen  'umpteen billions of dollars
from Iran'?
  And who  remembers the  occasional truth  that our journalists
enabled us to  glimpse, concerning the  Shah's real achievements:
his  successes  in  combating  the  illiteracy,  backwardness and
powerlessness of  his country,  his enlightened  economic policy,
the reforms which might have saved his people from the tyranny of
evil mullahs,  had he been  given the chance  to accomplish them?
Who remembers the freedom and security in which journalists could
roam Iran,  gathering the gossip  that would  fuel their fanciful
stories of a reign of terror?
  True, the Shah was an autocrat.  But autocracy and tyranny are
not the  same.  An  autocrat may preside,  as the  Shah sought to
preside, over  a representative  parliament, over  an independent
judiciary, even over  a free press  and an autonomous university.
The Shah, like Kemal Ataturk  [umlaut over the 'u'], whose vision
he shared,  regarded his autocracy  as the means  to the creation
and protection  of such institutions.   Why did no  one among the
Western political  scientists trouble  to point  this out,  or to
rehearse  the  theory  which  tells us  to  esteem  not  just the
democratic  process,  but also  the  representative  and limiting
institutions which may still flourish in its absence?  Why did no
one enjoin us to  compare the political system  of Iran with that
of Iraq or Syria?
  Why did our  political scientists rush  to embrace the Iranian
revolution,  despite  the evidence  that  revolution  under these
circumstances must be the prelude  to massive social disorder and
a regime  of terror?   Why did  the Western  intelligentsia go on
repeating  the  myth  that  the   Shah  was  to  blame  for  this
revolution, when both Khomeini and the Marxists had been planning
it for 30 years and had found, despite their many attempts to put
it into operation, only spasmodic popular support?
  The answer to all those questions  is simple.  The Shah was an
ally  of  the  West, whose  achievement  in  establishing limited
monarchy in a vital strategic  region had helped to guarantee our
security,  to bring  stability to  the Middle  East and  to deter
Soviet expansion.  The  Shah made the  fatal mistake of supposing
that the  makers of Western  opinion would love  him for creating
conditions which guaranteed their freedom.  On the contrary, they
hated him.   The Shah had  reckoned without the  great death wish
which  haunts our  civilisation and  which causes  its vociferous
members to propagate any falsehood, however absurd, provided only
that it damages our chances of survival.
  For a while, of course,  those vociferous elements will remain
silent  on the  embarrassing topic  of  Iran, believing  that the
collapse of Iranian institutions,  the establishment of religious
terror,  the Soviet  expansion into  Afghanistan  and the  end of
stability in the region are all  due to some other cause than the
Iranian revolution.  Those who lent their support to this tragedy
simply turned their back  on it and went  elsewhere, to prepare a
similar outcome for the people of Turkey, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Chile, South Africa  -- or wherever else  our vital interests may
be damaged.
  Of   course,    it   is    difficult   now    for   a  Western
correspondent to enter Iran, and if he did so it would not be for
fun.  He  could not,  like the  ghouls who  send their despatches
from Beirut, adopt  a public posture of  the front-line hero.  He
would have to witness, quietly and  in terror of his life, things
which  beggar  description:  the  spontaneous  'justice'  of  the
revolutionary guards,  the appalling scenes  of violence, torture
and demonic  frenzy, the public  humiliation of  women, the daily
sacrifice of lives too  young to be conscious  of the meaning for
which they are condemned to destruction.
  He  would  also have  to  confront  the truth  which  has been
staring  him in  the face  for  years, and  which he  could still
recognise had the habit of  confessing his errors been preserved:
the truth that  limited monarchy is the  right form of government
for  Iran, which  can be  saved  only by  the restoration  of the
Shah's legitimate successor.   But such a result  would be in the
interests not only of  the Iranian people, but  also of the West.
Hence few Western journalists are likely to entertain it.

                                               (6 November 1984)

Rastgoo

This is my last response on this matter to you. Reality-Bites already explained it. You admit the elections are not fair. Then turn and claim that AN won fairly. One more time I will go:

• Without freedom to run there are no valid election results are void. What is the difference of twiddle dee and tweedle dumb.
• Without freedom to campaign people are not able to be informed and that means they are not able to make informed votes.
• The polls in a military dictatorship are not valid. People are scared to tell their minds.
• Goons going around beating people does not allow free elections.
• The "parliment" is a joke since the real dictators aka Mollahs are the real power.
• The VF does not even allow AN to pick his own VP!

But you still insist that the election were somehow fair and AN won. Just come out and admit your real position. No more playing with words please! We had enough of pretense and made up excuses. That is why I am done with this sham debate.

..........

She was Iranian of the Day a year ago:

//iranian.com/main/2010/sep/soraya-sepahpour-ulrich

She is an active member in CASMII:
//www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=columns

Amirparvizforseculardomcracy

"How come no one mentions The USA backed support for KHOMEINI"

Because we have shed the traditional Iranian conspiracy theory interpretation of history approach and we now believe that we make our own fate!  This type of thinking and over anlayzing led us to see Imam's picture in the moon and the rest is history.  I'm guessing that you are a monarchist, o wait, a secular monarchist,
and monarchists are the epitome of this faulty method of analysis.

All I know is that Soraya is really sexy!

She reminds me of the English porn actress Kay Parker!

How come no one mentions The USA backed support for KHOMEINI

Surely 1979 dwarfs all these foreign organised revolutions/arab spring.

Reality-bites and VPK

I agree that there are no free elections in Iran so long as there is a guardian council and that all the candidates are hand picked.  However, this does not mean that there was cheating during the elections.  I'm not saying that there is no cheating.  What I claim is that there was not a significant amount of cheating for the followings reasons:

1.  Polls both inside and outside Iran showed that AN was on track to win the elections.  I respect the argument that telephone polls don't always tell the truth.  But there were plenty of traditional polling that took place inside the country.

2.  If there is always cheating then why do we accept that Khatami won 85% of the popular vote in 2001?

3.  Why don't we see the lower classes in the demonstrations?  The non-jean wearing and chaddor cladded masses? Ibelieve that is the reason why the Iranian revolution has not occurred yet even though it really began in the late 1990's: the lack of support from the lower classes (poor) in direct contrast with the 1979 revolution.  The poor are mostly non-educated and hence easily swayed by their religious feelings.  And there is no class in Islam that is more unholy than our holy men. 

My contention is that the current state of the Green movement (paralysis) is due to the fact that it is not supported by the lower classes of the Iranian people.   I'm not saying that the elections are democratic.  But I believe that their own vetted elections are for the most part clean.  I am just tired of foolishly believing 32 years of hyperbole from the Iranian opposition groups that this regime will fall any day.  Unfortunately this is not true unless we manage to include the poor in the revolt and I'm sure it will happen in the future anyway but not just now.

To Zoroastrian "Pendar-e Neek"/ Marxist-Leninist Comrade

Was our beloved Stalinist "Comrade" purged during a Communist Party cleansing and subsequently reincarnated as Zoroastrian words of wisdom? In any event, Cuba's much-vaunted (by West-residing Stalinists, of course) health care system is still below that of Costa Rica and capitalist Chile (where Pinochet ruled for almost 2 decades) in terms of life expectancy. In addition to longer life expectancies, Costa Rica and Chile have freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and multiparty democracies where one thuggish Soviet tool who has sat on his decrepit throne since 1959 doesn't hand off the state in a dynastic fashion to his own brother (not to be mistaken with the Marxist-Leninist Kim dynasty in that other Workers Paradise, North Korea). In a related development, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have risked life and limb to flee their Workers Paradise for capitalist US of A. What gives, O Comrade/Pendar-e Neek?

Rastgoo jaan

A few points you need to consider about whether Ahmadinejad and indeed all elections under the IRI are proof if this regime has majority popular support in Iran.

1 The Majles/Parliament and the Presidency have no real power in Iran. The real power lies with the Supreme Leader and his appointed Guardian’sCouncil (Shoraayeh Negahbaan) who control the Army, Police, the Judiciary, Intelligent Services, and The Revolutionary Guards.

2- The Guardian Council, made up of 12 unelected Mullahs, also decides who can or can’t run for President (additionally the Council has the final say on any law that is passed by theMajles). If any candidate is not deemed sufficiently Islamic and pro-IR, he is not allowed to stand as candidate, no ifs and buts.

Indeed the Council consistently disqualifies even IR supporting candidates who might be somewhat reform minded from taking part in the election as candidates. So, the reality is no true opposition figure is ever allowed to run for presidential election in Iran. This means people, especially those living in rural areas, never get to hear the case by any real opposition figures as free speech/advertising/election campaigns by opposition are never allowed to happen in Iran.

3- So basically the people only have the hand-picked candidates to vote for, that have been especially vetted and selected by the Mullahs themselves. And if ever any of the hand-picked candidates, like Moussavi and Karroubi, unexpectedly make some noise about even limited reform and attract support from people who have no other choice, it's not much of a problem for the IR to ensure its preferred hardline candidate, like Ahmadinejad, ends up as the winner regardless of how the voting goes, because guess what?

The Mullas also control the entire election process, from setting up and manning the voting centers to transporting the ballets to making up names of people, who don't exist, to vote for their candidate and to doing the actual (mis)counting.

In other words, as well as not being truly open and free to all candidates, the IRI's election process in not in any way independently conducted or even monitored. The whole thing is controlled by the IRI from start to end. The idea of democracy under the IRI is joke.

4- Regarding questionnaire polls showing that IRI has popular support in Iran, well, as someone said earlier, it is highly unlikely that people in Iran, fearful of IRI's reaction/retribution, would be entirely honest with any overseas pollsters.

One last point my friend, if you don't believe Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an IRI mouthpiece after watching the clip in the article, then please take a look the clip posted by pedramx.

Rastgoo

I agree she is a leftist sure. But she admires AN. I think her admiration for IR is based on hatred of the West. IR is against West so she is for IR. Plain and simple.

Regarding the elections I already said I think it was a sham. There is no such think as a free election in Iran. The reasons have been mentioned so many times I will not bother. to retell it.

VPK

Are you saying that she believes in the Islamic ideology of the regime?  I think that she is basically a "leftist" (in quotation since they are not progressive but rather recessive) who is just so anti-American that the IRI has become a valid regime.  Having said that the "left" will often argue that the IRI is a popular regime and has the people's mandate.  They believe that the anti-imperialism of the regime is a progressive policy that should be supported by the left in the hope that it will eventually lead to other progressive notions like social welfare, and other social policies.  So, I don't think that she's an Islamist but she is a leftist a la the Tudeh and the Fadaian majority.  Her belief in the popularity of the regime may be well founded based on the election results.

"Cuba claims over 95% of the population votes..."

...and in case they get sick on the voting day, their doctor and/or hospital bills are covered by the state..........long story....sorry for the interruption....

AMIR1973 Jan

Well of course they are a sham. What kind of election preselects who runs? You nailed it right on the head. So long as there is a VF; "Assembly of ..." and this idiotic "constitution" there will not be free elections.

Not to mention gangs of thugs who beat you up if you campaign! They might as well be honest and openly admit it is a dictatorship.

VPK

VPK and Rastgoo: IRI "elections" are a sham

First of all, the Leader of the country, who holds the most important position by far, can NOT be popularly elected. Rather, he was chosen by 86 Shia male "experts" 22 years ago and is basically the Leader for Life. Second of all, any man (since women basically cannot become president) that opposes Khomeinism, the ideology of the IRI, can NOT even stand for office. There is one and only one political line allowed in the IRI: Khomeinism, that's it (although different Khomeinist tendencies, like "reformist" or "conservative", etc. are present in the system, just as Eastern bloc countries had different Marxist tendencies). The USSR, Cuba, Syria, and North Korea all have sham "elections" too (and Cuba claims over 95% of the population votes in its "elections").

Rastgoo

Clearly by the way that she is dressed she is not a supporter of the IRI!

Wrong! Soraya is a well known dyed in the wool IRI supporter. Anyone who knows the least bit about her knows this fact. This is not like NIAC where we debate it. This is a known fact.

Anything out of her mouth is suspect.

I won't waste one minute listening to her nonsense. You need not wear a chador to be an IRI supporter.

Re: 2009 polls

You are right Iranian do not want to tell others how they voted. I am in the USA and still do not tell the pollsters how I voted. I either make something up or just hangup. It is in our blood after years of fear. Polls of Iranians are inaccurate.

........

Hi! Vildemose,

      She lives in Irvine.....I was wondering if Iranian.comers run into this lady........I drove by Irvine just yesterday!

It was funny that she kept rolling her eyeballs during the interview! LOL!

I saw her Riz Khan interview

I saw her Riz Khan interview as well. Why does she roll her eyes up all the time. Maybe she is waiting for divine intervention to help her.

Proof

Like the majority of you I am also against this regime and would love to see the Greens come to power and hopefully replace this regime with a secular Democracy.  However, in all honesty there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the presidential vote was rigged.  The evidence that exists is circumstantial and would be dismissed from any court with an ounce of respect for the rules of evidence.  I think the Greens lost the election by the margin stated but we just cannot accept it.  This I believe stems from a superiority complex that the well-off Iranians (middle class) have with respect to the common working folk in Iran.  How dare their vote counts the same as mine?  I am the teacher and the doctor and the engineer who is running this country!  These workers are just ordinary common folk incapable of deciding for themselves!  This is the motivation behind Soraya's assertions.  Clearly by the way that she is dressed she is not a supporter of the IRI!  And to claim that anyone who is not taking the Green's side is with the regime is ludicrous.  I know it hurts but the Greens did not win the election and by extension they are not the majority of the Iranians.  The majority of the Iranians are the poor workers who work for 16 hours a day for $20 and cannot make their ends meet.  Unfortunately what we are seeing is deep class divisions in Iran. I really hope that I'm wrong and the majority of the Iranians are against this regime.  But don't you think that if they were the Iranian regime would have gone the way of Tunisia or Egypt or Libya or Syria.....The middle class will not go out there and get itself killed.  It has too much to look forward to.  It is the poor and the downtrodden that is the instruments of change in any revolution and the Green movement has been unable to attract them so far.