ANALYSIS

Fatal attractions

The Perils and Costs of a Grand Bargain with the Islamic Republic of Iran

by Masoud Kazemzadeh
13-Mar-2008 (74 comments)
Among other factors, the American failure to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan has fueled Iran's attempt at regional supremacy to the consternation of many in the region and beyond. The failure of the containment policy, fear that the Islamic Republic will develop nuclear weapons, and the bellicose rhetoric and policies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have given rise to urgent discussions about how best to counter the threat of the fundamentalist regime. The main policies under discussion are regime change; surgical strikes; reconfigured containment; limited, issue-based dialogue; and a "grand bargain.">>>

CANDIDATE

Why I want Obama to win

I truly believe that Obama will be better for not only the U.S but also Iran and the world

by Setareh Sabety
12-Mar-2008 (29 comments)
I backed the war in Iraq even though I have always been a democrat. My reason for cheering the Americans when they invaded Iraq was simple: I was hoping that the American success there would ignite unrest in Iran and bring about the fall of the theocratic regime. While I disagreed with Bush’s policies in every other area I was pro-war. I was a liberal hawk, as a friend pointed out, giving me the very American comfort of a label. Now, like most people, including Hillary Clinton, I have come to realize that the war was a mistake. It was a mistake because Americans don’t know how to be an occupying force in a time when information and ideology travel freely and ruthlessly>>>

IRAN

No need for another revolution

Revolutions that espouse social justice have the tendency to lead to more injustice

by Ben Madadi
12-Mar-2008 (18 comments)
Revolution seems a good thing, theoretically speaking, but historically speaking it has usually been a not-so-rosy moment in time when injustices took place, lives and relations got shattered, and societies were shaken to their cores, very often taking them a very long time to recover from the trauma. Revolutions in Russia, China, France, Iran and about anywhere else hardly brought anything extraordinary. Their peers who missed the revolutions did quite well, and usually much better. It is complicated to evaluate what would have happened if there was no revolution but one thing is certain that neither the French revolution nor Communist revolutions of Russia, China and other places, nor the Islamic revolution of Iran brought anything to be proud of>>>

WAR

Friendly fire

Removing obstacle to a feared White House led pre-emptive military strike on Iran

by Babak Talebi
12-Mar-2008 (37 comments)
The Pentagon has announced that the 41-year navy veteran and commander of US Central Command (CentCom), requested permission to retire and Secretary Gates approved his request. Last week, Thomas Barnett of Esquire Magazine published a revealing piece speculating on the possibility that Admiral Fallon might be pushed out because he “was the strongest man standing between the Bush Administration and a war with Iran.” Gates was quick to call a press conference to announce the retirement and dispel the notion that there were any policy differences between Fallon and the administration>>>

ELECTIONS

Real change

Change will not come to America… certainly not because of the 2008 elections

by Ben Tanosborn
11-Mar-2008 (4 comments)
Change, at least in America, has become solely a self-reminder of how much we may dislike ourselves in many of the things we do, or permit to have done, to others in the planet, or even to ourselves. But change – honest-to-goodness change – is something we can rest assured will not take place… not with Sen. Obama, not with Sen. Clinton; not even if either received an unprecedented and miraculous 70 percent of the popular vote – an unquestionable mandate to effect change. Change as a major transformation of our government, or of our civil society, or the way we do things, just won’t take place>>>

OBAMA

رئيس جمهور «حسين»؟

نژاد، جنسيت، مذهب يا برنامهء عمل برای فردای آمريکا

by Esmail Nooriala
11-Mar-2008 (10 comments)
آقای «باراک حسين اوباما» مطابق رسم آمريکائی ها، هيچگاه نام وسط خود، «حسين»، را بکار نمی برد، هرچند که در کتابی که دربارهء زندگی و افکارش منتشر کرده بود فشرده ای از گذشته و مکنونات خود را بيان داشته است... مردم آمريکا، طی جريانی کاملاً بی ربط با آقای اوباما، اين اسم را شناخته و نسبت به آن پيشزمينهء ذهنی بشدت منفی دارند. در واقع، طی سال هائی چند، رسانه ها و دستگاه های تبليغاتی آمريکا کوشيده اند تا نام «حسين» (در ارتباط با «صدام حسين») را در افکار عمومی مردم آمريکا با مفاهيمی چون ديکتاتوری، سرکوبگری، ماجراجوئی، تروريسم و مخالفت با دموکراسی و حقوق بشر و نظاير آن يکی کنند. و اکنون مردی پيدا شده است که مردم آمريکا رفته رفته کشف می کنند که «حسين» نام دارد و می خواهد رئيس جمهور آنها باشد.>>>

BELIEFS

We live in a different age

A superficial sketch of my thoughts

by Daniel Madarshahian
10-Mar-2008 (2 comments)
We cannot judge the past from the standards of the present. Everyone will willingly admit this. But every one will not admit the equally absurd habit of judging the present by the standards of the past. The various religions have especially helped in petrifying old beliefs and faiths and customs, which may have had some use in the age and country of their birth, but which are singularly unsuitable in our present age. The past brings us many gifts; indeed, all that we have today of culture, civilization, science, or knowledge of some aspects of the truth, is a gift of the distant or recent past to us. It is right that we acknowledge our obligation to the past>>>

WORDS

Language of Terror

When I hear hear people talking about the war on Terror, I know they are talking about me

by Ryszard Antolak
09-Mar-2008 (6 comments)
It was only later, long after the events of 9/11, that I finally realised I was a terrorist. The realization did not come easily, or all at once. After all, I had not planted any bombs or hurt anyone (not even verbally). I had not visited secret training camps in Pakistan . I had not even done anything as rash as Samina Malik, who was convicted of Terrorism recently by a British court for writng Poetry about Jihad. (Poetry has always been a dangerous activity, as all tyrants know). No. It was something far more insidious. >>>

WAR

Will the US attack Iran?

Erstwhile allies and unfamiliar Foes

by sadegh
09-Mar-2008 (38 comments)
Bravado, posturing and gnashing of teeth have long characterized US-Iranian relations. For almost thirty years, and in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution which brought Ayatollah Khomeini and his small coterie of disciples to power there has been a string of events that have gone to ensure the bad-blood and rancor between these erstwhile allies has continued unabated. Prior to the revolution, Iranians resented the US for the CIA-MI6 orchestrated coup d’etat of 1953 which overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq and later US support for the dictatorship of the Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi>>>

WOMEN

اکنون زمين زير پای زن است

در بيشتر جوامع توسعه نيافته همچنان مزد «مقام مادری» بهشت پس از مرگ است،

by shokooh.pasargad
09-Mar-2008 (6 comments)
اکنون، جوامع متمدن با باروری زن به عنوان امری کاملاً طبيعی و تحسين برانگيز روبرو می شوند؛ روابط جنسی را نيز همين گونه زيبا و طبيعی و زمينی می بينند، پوشش زن را نيز. اکنون تن عريان يک زن همانقدر جاذبه دارد که تن عريان مرد، و گيسوی زن بود و نبودش همانقدر مهم است يا مهم نيست که گيسوی مرد. و چنين است که خانواده ی بشری در قرن بيست و يکم رفته رفته، در متن اين روابط آزاد از توهم، شکل تازه و بديعی بخود می گيرد. و انسان امروز به ابتدای جهان باز می گردد، زن همان «حوا»یی می شود که برای رسيدن به، و پا گذاشتن بر زمين، نافرمانی کرد و شادمانه حتی از بهشت گذشت تا بتواند به راحتی دوست داشته باشد، به راحتی عشق بورزد، و بی ترس و نگرانی از تبعيض زندگی کند و مرد هموزن او همان «آدم»ی باشد که در درک ارزش اين نافرمانی و همسانی با او همراهی و همفکری کند. >>>

NUCLEAR

The Politics of Non-Proliferation

IAEA has facilitated the first major cracks in the NPT

by Mohammad Kamaali
07-Mar-2008 (16 comments)
If there was a time when Iranian analysts and decision makers would question the benefits of continuing to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it would be now. The IAEA has allowed systematic US intervention in Iran's nuclear file paving the way to a third round of sanctions. But while US pressure on Iran with the knowledge that no evidence of a covert weapons programme exists, is perhaps in the hope that it will finally force Iran to leave the NPT in protest, Iran seems to be one step ahead and does exactly the opposite. On Monday March 3 rd , the UN Security Council following months of political wrestling voted in favour of a third sanctions resolution against Iran, repeating previous demands to stop uranium enrichment but this time ...>>>

IRAN, IRAQ, U.S.

Two targets, one goal

Conspiracy theories will not die down so long as stupid policies remain in place

by Ben Madadi
06-Mar-2008 (6 comments)
In the minds of conspiracy theorists it is actually their inferiority (stupidity), or the incredible wickedly genius of the conspirators, that constitutes the foundation for any serious event. But let's look at the world's mightiest conspirator, the US, and its actions and their results, in order to see how 'genius' that conspirator has been in order to evaluate how stupid the conspiracy-theorists may be!You want to know how the BIG conspiracy theory goes? America wants the Iraqis to have a pro-Iranian government in place, while neither the Iranians nor the Iraqis are aware of the wicked plan, so that later on they start to hate each other as any previously friendly Muslim states (and often individuals) do, right?>>>

ZANAN

Second to none

In the 21st century, women’s rights should not be crippled by Islamic laws

by Jahanshah Rashidian
06-Mar-2008 (30 comments)
As a proposition of the Socialist International in 1910, International Women's Day (March 8) was celebrated for the first time in many industrial nations. It demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job. Since then, the International Women's Day is commemorated and is a national holiday in communist countries. It symbolises a long struggle of all women on all continents, with different ethnics, religions, cultures and social classes, who have been deprived from the equal right with men>>>

MAN

An Apology to a Woman I Didn’t Know

I felt I should have done something or said something

by KayGhobad
04-Mar-2008 (18 comments)
The violent crackdown of the Islamic Republic’s security forces on how women dress in public was well on its way when I arrived in Tehran last spring. One morning a few days after my arrival I decided to walk to the nearby Super Jordan food market , located at the corner of the famous Jordan Boulevard (aka Africa Blvd) and Golazin street, and do some food shopping. As I was approaching the store I noticed there is some commotion on the street not far from the store. The security forces had set up makeshift apprehension stations on both north and south bound direction of the boulevard>>>

IRAN-ISRAEL

Media Games

What is the source of confusion?

by Zion
04-Mar-2008 (69 comments)
In recent days mass media have been broadcasting statements from an Israeli official, Matan Vilnai, that if true would have been quite shocking and extremely unnerving: `The deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a `bigger holocaust` in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.` The truth is fortunately quite different. The Hebrew word Mr. Vilani used is `shoah`, a common word in hebrew meaning simply catastrophe. So what is the source of confusion?>>>
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