David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy:

[I]t may come as a surprise to Columbia faculty and students to learn that a current professor at Columbia has argued that there are no homosexuals in the entire Arab world, except for a few who have been brainwashed into believing they have a homosexual identity by an aggressive Western homosexual missionizing movement he calls "Gay International." The article is called, "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World," and it appears in Volume 14, issue 2 of the journal Public Culture, and was elaborated upon in a book, Desiring Arabs, published by University of Chicago Press (UPDATE: BTW, I read the article, which is accessible through my GMU library account, but not the book). According to the author, "It is the very discourse of the Gay International which produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist" (emphasis added).

The author doesn't deny that same-sex sexual contact exists in Arab countries, but claims that the category of "homosexual" is purely a Western one exported to the Arab world by Western cultural imperialists. He suggests that by encouraging Arabs to adopt a Western homosexual identity, westernized Arab homosexuals have naturally provoked a counter-reaction against the importation of decadent Western culture into their societies. The article, to say, the least, is not at all sympathetic with the Western gay rights movements, and the author could easily write, replacing "Iran" with "the Arab world," "in the Arab world we don't have homosexuals like in your country." (See here for a good critique of the author's thesis.)

Oh, and the author/professor is Joseph Massad, whose name has come up in this blog many times before because of his "creative" scholarship, such as claiming that the movie "Exodus tells the story of the Zionist hijacking of a ship from Cyprus to Palestine by a Zionist Haganah commander." (As I've noted previously, this is analogous to saying that Schindler's List was a movie about Jews taking a working vacation in Poland.)

Goodness. Don't tell Lord Byron. Or Benjamin Disraeli. Or Michael Jackson.

If there's anyone with a firm grasp of the mullahs' paranoia about regime change, it's Haleh Esfandiari. Jailed for eight months in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for the crime of visiting her aged mother -- surely a pretext for doing State Department reconnaissance -- Esfandiari is that rara avis of an Iranian-American, one who has an intimate knowledge of both countries' power structures. (She's director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which didn't help her at customs in Tehran.)

Her advice is that the U.S. should stop funding Iranian NGOs since that only makes it harder for them to go about their business:

The intractable realities in the diplomatic arena and on the ground in Iran call for a change of approach to one that would reverse the current focus of U.S. policy: Governments should talk to governments, while Iranian and American NGO's should be permitted to interact in a transparent fashion without the intrusion of governments. If the United States is to have any chance of enlisting Iranian cooperation on issues of major concern -- stabilizing Iraq and resolving the nuclear impasse -- it must make clear that its objective is a change in Iranian behavior, not a change of regime. That would shift the onus to Tehran and force its multiple power centers to confront the consequences of Ahmadinejad's policies for Iranian interests. Although such a U.S. assurance is no guarantee of success, it is the prerequisite for a change in Iranian foreign-policy behavior, as well as for positioning the United States to win multilateral support for meaningful action at the United Nations if Iranian intransigence continues.

The problem with this recommendation is that it, too, is premised on the desirability of "velvet revolution" in Iran. By letting NGOs alone, Esfandiari argues, they'll be better able to do exactly what the U.S. wants: destabilize the regime. Will the Iranians fail to see through this gambit of what I'll call positive neglect? To the totalitarian, all strategies of an opponent -- whether that opponent be real or imagined -- are suspect and worthy of counteracting with feverish, far-reaching methods. Iranian NGOs will not go unpunished just because they're free of the largess of the United States.

I don't see why we couldn't have it both ways: Engage the mullahs diplomatically and also continue a $75 million program to aid their opponents. The argument that Iran must be dealt with lightly because it continues to abet terrorism in Iraq is valid. But given that the Shia parties in control of the Iraqi government are more interested in nationalism than they are in becoming a satrapy of the Islamic Republic, Iran's influence next door will likely diminish anyway--with or without a continued American troop presence. (If it doesn't, then Iran's takeover of Iraq is an inevitability, which frees us to act even more liberally with respect to funding its opposition.)

We adopted the same mailed-glove handshake policy during the cold war when the Soviets were likewise funding forces responsible for U.S. military casualties in Korea and Vietnam. Given that Iran represents an even greater danger in the age of sacred nukes, why should we act any differently?

This past Friday night Bill Maher continued his slide from politically incorrect to merely incorrect. The habitual defender of Israel had this to say about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

"[T]he main reason we hate Ahmadinejad is because of what he said about Israel. At least that’s what sticks in my craw. And I think most people – certainly the New York papers – because he said “Israel should be wiped off the map” – some people say it’s a mistranslation. Whatever. Horrible thing to say. And he denies the Holocaust. But, those are things he says to get elected. Okay? There are Jews in the Iranian Parliament. He can’t be that anti-Semitic. I think those are the equivalent of when the Republicans in this country say, “Gay marriage will lead to death."

Continue reading...

Here's a petition that asks Mahoud Ahadminejad to release this brave Iranian whose actions aim only to improve the lot of impoverished bus workers, who "undermine" the regime not a whit.

Hat tip: Gadgie.

The International Trade Union Confederation has published its annual survey of violations of trade union rights for 2007. (Hat tip: David at Harry's Place). Here's what it says about Iran, whose recognition of any form of labor rights is nil:

Protest activity: Despite the ban on strikes, workers' protests and other work stoppages are a daily occurrence throughout Iranian enterprises. They are often repressed. Most of these protests concern either low wages, the non-payment of wages, lay-offs or factory closures. The minimum wage set by the government is $US 140 per month, while the official poverty line stands at $US 300. Nearly two million workers have not been paid - some for nearly two years.

Barriers to organising: Obstacles to organising include the presence of security and intelligence forces in workplaces, and the increasing trend towards temporary contracts. It is common practice in Iran to fire workers the day before a three month probation period expires. They are then rehired on a new contract with a new period of three months probation. The practice is then repeated endlessly. A worker hired under such a contract is not entitled to benefits and severance pay. According to statistics reportedly provided by the government, more than 1.5 million workers are hired under such circumstances.

Suppression of Workers’ Rights Advocates: During the past year, those who tried to advocate workers rights were detained, harassed, interrogated and subjected to official and unofficial intimidation. One notable example was Dr. Nasser Zarafshan, a renowned human and workers’ rights advocate who faced several attempts on his life while in prison for defending the families of assassinated writers and intellectuals.

Other groups and individuals were also subjected to this policy of legal and illegal intimidation. Their unions were not recognised, their newspapers and websites were closed or subjected to pressure, and they were called for questioning and warned to be silent or face the wrath of the "Islamic Judiciary". Organisations like the Coordination Committee to form Independent Workers Organisations, the "Steering Committee for the Pursuit of the Right to Form Independent Workers Bodies and Organisations", the Founding Board of the Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers and even "Factory Committees" were refused recognition and subjected to different forms of harassment and intimidation.

Now here's Iraq, which has failed to rescind Saddam's labor laws. Perhaps the most depressing fact is that trade unionists are targeted by sectarian militias, terrorists, and joint U.S.-Iraqi forces. Should we ever find ourselves subjectively on the same side as the Mahdi Army or Al Qaeda?

Most workers banned from union membership: Given the predominance of the public sector in Iraq, many workers are deprived of the right to organise. Sectors like banking, insurance, oil and others are overwhelmingly state-owned. Even industrial factories producing batteries or cement are very often state-owned.

Only one national centre officially recognised: The only officially recognised trade union is the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW). It represents progress in the sense that it was created, in September 2005, as a result of a merger between three unions, the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU), previously the only one to have official recognition, the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions (GFITU). However, the fact that only one national trade union confederation has been granted official recognition limits freedom of association. Organisations such as the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) have been refused recognition.

Some employers also refused to recognise trade unions as they were not formally registered, simply due to the lack of registration offices.

Threats against workers trying to start a strike: Some employers have referred to provisions in former laws to threaten any worker attempting to take strike action in a state-owned company.

Trade unionists in danger: In the current, unstable situation in the country, trade unionists are targeted by Iraqi militias, terrorist groups, allied occupation troops and others. So many violations of trade union rights occur in Iraq that those reported at the international level can only be considered a random sample.

And here's what the international left used to say when confronted with grim realities like the above. Forgive Billy Bragg his "Manichean" tendency, won't you:

This government had an idea
And parliament made it law
It seems like it's illegal
To fight for the union any more

Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on
Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on

We went out to join the picket line
For together we cannot fail
We got stopped by police at the county line
They said, "Go home boys or you're going to jail"

Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on
Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on

It's hard to explain to a crying child
Why her Daddy can't go back
So the family suffer
But it hurts me more
To hear a scab say Sod you Jack

Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on
Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on

I'm bound to follow my conscience
And do whatever I can
But it'll take much more than the union law
To knock the fight out of a working man

Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on
Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on

It's the last Friday of Ramadan and you know what that means: It's Quds Day. Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.

From Khomeini's original declaration of the holiday in 1979:

Quds Day is the day of Islam; it is the day when Islam should be revived, so let us revive it and implement Islamic laws in the Islamic countries. Quds Day is the day when we must warn all the superpowers that they can no longer keep Islam under their control by means of their evil agents. Quds Day is the day to give life to Islam. The Muslims must awaken, they must come to realise the power they have, the material power and the spiritual. What are the Muslims, who form a population of one billion, enjoy divine support and have Islam and their faith behind them, afraid of? . . . The governments in the world should know that Islam will not be defeated, Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an should prevail in all countries. Religion should be the religion of God and Islam is the religion of God so it should advance on all regions of the world. Quds Day is the day to announce such a matter, the day to announce ‘Muslims, advance!’ Advance on all the regions of the world. Quds Day is not confined to (matters pertaining to) Palestine alone, it is the day of Islam, the day of Islamic government, the day when the flag of an Islamic Republic should be raised in all (Islamic) countries, the day when the superpowers should be made to realise that they can no longer advance on the Islamic countries.

Breitbart reports on festivities in Iran:

Tens of thousands of Iranians marched through Tehran on Friday proclaiming solidarity with Palestinians and chanting "Death to Israel" in the Islamic republic's annual protest against the Jewish state.

Iranians of all ages began the march through the centre of the capital to Tehran University to mark Quds Day, calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians.

Coloured bibs were haIrnded out to protestors with the legend "Death to Israel, Death to United States" while "Palestine will only be free with fighting and faith" was the slogan on one banner.

Despite the heavily politicised nature of the demonstration, there was a festive mood with the numerous children present having their faces painted as cats and rabbits in entertainment laid on by the municipality.

Thousands marched in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Friday, torching the flags of Israel, the United States and Britain in an annual day of protest called by Iran in solidarity with Palestinians.

Demonstrators marched from the town of Beit Lahiya to Jabaliya in the north of the territory where the Islamist Hamas seized power in mid-June.

Urging on the crowd as it burned the flags, Khader Habib, an official with the radical Islamic Jihad group that organised the march, promised to continue resistance against Israeli occupation.

"Israel is a cancerous tumour that has sprouted in the region, but we will continue the jihad and the resistance until Jerusalem is liberated," he said.

Hasan Zaidi, Divisional President, Imamia Students Organisation, told The Post that Al-Quds rallies would disseminate the message of love, peace and unity among the oppressing nations and pay the way for the freedom of Baitul Muqaddas, which was the first Qibla and the most sacred place for the Muslims all over the world.

What's the old Buckley definition of a conservative? Someone who stands athwart history and yells, "Stop!" The Newsweek editor hauls out a few helpful but insufficient facts:

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

I had the same cosmological inquiry when I read the transcript of Mohammed ElBaradei's speech to the 51st Regular Session of International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference. The IAEA director listed four points about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons:

First, the Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has continued to provide the access and reporting needed to enable Agency verification in this regard.

Second, Iran has provided the Agency with additional information and access needed to resolve a number of long outstanding issues, such as the scope and nature of past plutonium experiments.

Third, contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, calling on Iran to take certain confidence building measures, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, and is continuing with its construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak. This is regrettable.

Fourth, while the Agency so far has been unable to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran´s nuclear programme, Iran and the Secretariat agreed last month on a work plan for resolving all outstanding verification issues. These verification issues are at the core of the lack of confidence about the nature of Iran´s programme, and are what prompted actions by the Security Council. Iran´s agreement on such a work plan, with a defined timeline, is therefore an important step in the right direction. Naturally, Iran´s active cooperation and transparency is the key to full and timely implementation of the work plan. If the Agency were able to provide credible assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran´s past and current nuclear programme, this would go a long way towards building confidence about Iran´s nuclear programme, and could create the conditions for a comprehensive and durable solution.

In other words, the mullahs are baiting a global regulatory body for more time to amass the very arsenal they say they don't want. Points 1, 2 and 4 are meaningless without 3, don't you think?

Zakaria's mention of North Korea as the real totalitarian menace that should keep Mssrs. Giuliani and Podhoretz awake at night is, to me, only a further validation of their fears.

North Korea is a beggared failed state. It manufactures no substantial good worthy of export, save for military materiel. It enslaves and brainwashes its population under the maxims of a messianic death cult moored to a decades-old revolution. It envisions itself as the perennial victim of foreign aggression and imperialism and assumes no responsibility for the sorry lot of its own people. It possess no real domestic industrial or commercial base. Whatever semblance of an intellectual class it may have once had, it has murdered or hounded into non-existence. It has, by its own transparent behavior, earned almost the entire world's suspicion and scorn. It sees a nuclear arsenal as the only means of self-preservation because it can use the threat of unleashing that arsenal to blackmail thriving nations into helping it improve its economy.

Does any of this sound at all familiar?

I'm with Zakaria on keeping perspective about the mad mullahs. Ayatollah Khameini is not Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, and to compare him to them diminishes some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. (Neoconservatives would do well to remember one Straussian injunction -- the one against moral equivalence.) However, the Islamic Republic can and should be examined on its own terms and with due attention to how it operates in war. One can learn a lot about a regime by how it chooses to defend itself. A regime that creates "human waves" of sacrificial soldiers and a large army of suicidal children, all promised divine reward for their hollowed-out and dismembered cadavers, is not that can be called anything other than totalitarian. Three to eight years before such a regime has a nuke? OK, then. What can we do to ensure it never has it?

Zakaria errs, too, in saying that Iran has not "invaded a country since the late 18th century." What the hell is it doing in Iraq right now?

Persia: Not Ahmadinejad's IranMy girlfriend is Persian, which is a nice way of saying "Iranian" if you live in America and want to draw a line between yourself and, say, ululating, consulate storming terrorists and elected Holocaust deniers. I'm serious. I believe it is this distinction that allows her brother, who is an actor, to get parts on Law and Order as an evil doctor or evil TV executive rather than being put in a long beard and told his character is planning to blow up mini-malls in Totowa.

Apparently, 6' 2" Persians are even harder to cast on TV than Mexicans. Or, as George Lopez, who's show was replaced by "Caveman," which is based on the Geico ad character, put it, "So a Chicano can't be on TV, but a caveman can?"

Of course, anyone who would confuse my girlfriend, a North Carolina born, Ivy-league educated lawyer who works for a bank with a terrorist would be the kind of person who doesn't doubt that Bin Laden has Totowa's famed Holiday Inn high on his list. ("They provided transportation to the mall.")

But growing up in the South in the '70s, she faced the pressure of being lumped in with the students holding Americans hostage--this despite her parents having moved to the US to avoid exactly the same extremist Islamic government.

Calling yourself "Persian" was the only recourse. Either people could understand the reason for distancing oneself from Iranian politics, or they simply had no idea where Persia was anymore than Paraguay. Either way, conflict avoided.

However the issue hasn't gone away and it's the same as it always has been: racism. It's what keeps Carlos Mencia on TV making the kind of fat, gay, black, Asian, Mexican, Jewish, jokes that frat boys, anonymous website commenters, and Beavis and Butthead enjoy. At least Beavis and Butthead was supposed to be ironic.

It's the same thing that Jewcy has been pointing out about the ADL selecting which kinds of genocides qualify as "mean spirited enough" to be real genocide.

There's no point trying to shut up the idiots, but at least we can call their bluff and remind them that they are what they are. On a trip to Australia an old man I'd met said to me, "New York City? You know there are 3 million Jews there?"

"No," I responded, "Actually, there's 2,999,999, because I'm here with you."

Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, Rangoon

A few years back I received a group email that linked to a chart listing the number of Jews in every nation in the world. The two figures that most blew my mind were those representing the number of Jews in Iran: 20,000, and the number of Jews in Afghanistan: 1. The first number surprised me because I had no idea so many Jews remained in Iran after the Revolution. The second number gripped me on a purely existential level. I imagined, rather dramatically, this lone Jew living out his days against a monochrome landscape of bleached sand and rubble, without a single co-religionist in sight. Practically a sci-fi existence.

The chart linked to this guy’s story, and I was pretty fascinated. For a while there was one other Jew in the country, but the two fought over a bible and became hateful enemies. Then the second to last Jew in Afghanistan died. You can read more about the last Jew in Afghanistan here.

I just came across another interesting statistic, though. There are twenty Jews left in Burma. Their mini-community is in the capital, Rangoon, and they occasionally celebrate holidays with Buddhist monks. Here’s Ynet News on what it’s been like for them lately:

"These are the saddest Rosh Hashana and Sukkot we've had in a very long time… we had to adjust the prayer services to the military's curfew, the streets are crawling with soldiers and the situation here is very unstable. The Jews, like many others here, fear for their lives," said Samuels.

The tensions between the military junta and Buddhist monks have made the Jewish community take extra precautions and they have recently hired a private security company, to guard Yangon's only synagogue.

"The unrest here makes it hard for us to even find the quorum needed for prayers," said Samuels. "There are usually a lot of tourists here this time of year, but this year, because of the riots, there are very few of them. Everywhere you look all you see are people rushing home," he added.

"We all pray that the UN negotiations will help restore the peace and quiet to this country," the article quotes one of the twenty as saying. Pray, indeed. Today, China’s ambassador came out against sanctions, and Burma’s ambassador said he can’t understand why there would be need for international action of any kind. Once again, we witness U.N. paralysis at the hands of sinister opportunists treated as statesmen.

Here’s to justice for the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and all other good people of Burma.

The more the Iranian president plays the clown and gadabout, the more time the mullahs buy themselves. Like maintaining a dungeon beneath a circus:

The other day National Review's Jay Nordlinger was musing about our habit of referring to some benighted part of the world's "humanitarian needs," and wondered when we'd stopped using the term "human needs," which is, after all, what food, water and shelter are. And his readers wrote in to state the obvious: That "humanitarian" prioritizes not the distant Third World victim but the generous western donor — the "humanitarian" relief effort, the "humanitarian" organizations, the NGOs, the western charities: it's about us, not them. Bill Clinton's new bestseller on charity is called Giving — because it's better to give than to receive, and that's certainly true if the giver is busying himself with some ineffectual feel-good "Save Darfur" fundraiser while the recipient is on the receiving end of the Janjaweed's machetes. The Sudanese government appreciates that, as long as we're allowed to feel good about ourselves and to participate in "humanitarian relief," the killing can go on until there's no one left to kill. Likewise, Ahmadinejad knows that, as along as we're allowed to do what we do best — talk and talk and talk, whether at Columbia or in EU negotiations — his regime can quietly get on with its nuclear program. 

According to Breitbart: 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.

Ahmadinejad, who was giving a speech to a select group at the university to mark the beginning of the academic year, ignored the chants of "death to the dictator" and continued with his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said.

Anne Applebaum is right to say that Columbia played right into his hands by changing the subject from free speech in Iran to free speech in the U.S. I'd have asked that the Haleh Esfandiari, just released from Tehran's brutal Evin Prison, be allowed to speak right after Ahmadinejad.

Here are Lee Bollinger's opening remarks: 

Today The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli authorities have started to talk about the September 6 IAF attack on targets in northern Syrian. Up until now Israeli officials had been uncharacteristically mum on the incident, leaving everyone to speculate on the nature and intent of the operation. The Jerusalem Post's round-up:

The Washington Post reported that the target had been a facility involved in a joint Syrian-North Korean nuclear project - a claim backed by former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.

Britain's Sunday Times, meanwhile, reported just over a week ago that soldiers from the IDF's elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) had seized North Korean nuclear material from a secret Syrian military installation before it was bombed by IAF jets.

The paper claimed that the IAF attack on September 6 was sanctioned by the US after the Americans were given proof that the material was indeed nuclear-related. It also stated that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who used to head the unit, personally oversaw the operation.

Someone who claims to have access to Binyamin Netanyahu told me that the strike was essentially a test of Iranian surveillance capability - to see what Iran could catch and how soon. Sounds far fetched, but who knows?

I was shocked from the start that this story wasn't a much bigger deal. It would seem to me that a nuclear nexus of Iran, Syria, and North Korea pretty much defines our worst nightmare. This comes, by the way, two months after a mysterious accident in northern Syria, widely believed to be the result of chemical weapons development, killed both Syrian and Iranian engineers.

What I find most interesting about this is that Victor Davis Hanson said a long a time ago we would start to see Saudi Arabia and Turkey and others in the area give Israel the implicit okay to take out regional threats to stability. Hanson said they'd condemn Israel publicly, but not do a thing about it. I'm not sure I've even seen the public condemnation.

Bush should take Ahmadinejad up on the offer: 

"If their president plans to travel to Iran, we will allow him to make a speech" at a university, Ahmadinejad told state TV before leaving New York to travel to South America earlier this week.

There are a host of multi-dimensional links between Kurds and Jews (to say nothing of the many thousands of Kurdish Jews.) It is sometimes claimed that Abraham was Kurdish. Historically, a good number of Kurds felt positively toward Israel and were none too happy with Palestinian support for Saddam. The Kurdish people, being victims of persecution and genocide, looked to Israel as a sort of hopeful model for their own liberation. Furthermore, DNA research shows that Kurds are Jews’ closest genetic relatives. So, perhaps this Kurdish-Jewish romantic comedy was inevitable. From The Seattle Times review of "David & Layla."

Inspired by the real-life marriage between a Kurdish Muslim refugee and a Jewish New Yorker, the movie hits all the requisite plot points, some hopelessly contrived (like a first kiss disguised as the need for CPR) while others earn big, fat, non-Greek belly laughs.

David (David Moscow) is an agnostic Jew who hosts a Brooklyn public-access TV show called "Sex and Happiness," for which he conducts highly personal man-in-the-street interviews. He's got a Jewish fiancée (Callie Thorne) but is truly smitten with Layla (Shiva Rose), a smart, sexy Kurdish refugee for whom marriage is the best defense against imminent deportation

You can pretty much guess the rest. But while writer-director Jay Jonroy (an Iraqi Kurdish exile with a tragic family history under Saddam Hussein's tyranny) fumbles with occasionally forced humor — including a terribly written infidelity scene that's played for slapstick and left unexplained — he's remarkably adept at exploring complex divisions between well-meaning but prejudiced families united by love.

If there is a Hell, I’d have to guess this movie is running on a continuous loop in Saddam’s sulfurous suite.

Apparently the film doesn’t shy away from politics and gets big points for addressing the U.S.’ previous betrayal of the Kurdish people. The movie is being independently released and seems pretty hard to find, but I’ll make sure to see it one way or another. I should add here that I highly recommend the 2004 Kurdish Iranian film “Turtles Can Fly,” in spite of its horrific title. It’s an achingly beautiful movie about the children of a Kurdish refugee camp on the eve of the U.S. attack on Saddam.

One of the fringe benefits of liberation is enjoying the talents of the liberated. With their emerging proficiency in film the Kurds may find they have yet something else in common with Jews.

Thirty-five of you took part in yesterday's first Shvitz blog poll, the subject of which was: "Should the U.S. Bomb Iran?"  Ten of you expect to see Slim Pickins riding a payload over Tehran sometime soon; 15 of you don't.

Mom, you voted twice. 

Roughly at the same time he called Jews (not Zionists, mind you) "beastly people":

"If you think that by bombing and assassinating Palestinian leaders you are preparing ground for new attacks on Lebanon in the summer, I am telling you that you are seriously wrong," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in the city of Isfahan.

This site dedicated to the jailed Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari features statements from her husband and daughter, the text of a Congressional resolution calling for her release, as well as information about Kian Tajbakhsh, another person whose mind the Iranian regime finds disagreeable.

It's worth noticing who is responsible for the site: The American Islamic Congress. These days, championing the rights of Muslim academics who suffer at the hands of authoritarian regimes can quickly get you accused of collaborating with neocon warmongers (as if there's nothing to choose between sympathizing with mullahs and bowing to Bush.) Their About Us page is worth a look:

American Muslims must take the lead in building tolerance and fostering a respect for human rights and social justice at home and throughout the Muslim world. Within the Muslim community, we are building a coalition around the agenda of unequivocal denunciation of terrorism, extremism, and hate speech.

If your politico-religious ideology recommends a peculiar fear of and hostility toward cartoons, take that as warning sign numero uno that you're into something pretty batty. Mehdi Halhor, the Iranian government's adviser on cinematic affairs, condemned the recent success of the animated feature Persepolis at the Cannes Film Festival and called it an example of "Islamophobia."

The film, adapted from Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, looks fantastic:

Justin Raimondo believes, with emphatic certainty, that "Iran is no threat to Israel, and that there is no danger of Iran dropping nukes on Tel Aviv." Likewise he says that "Iran, with or without nuclear weapons, represents no threat to America." Far be it from me to take Mr. Raimondo seriously when he says such things – his contributions to last week's exchange were studded with so many hateful condemnations, bizarre declarations, and quarter-baked ideas that doing so would require me to empty my brain of everything I've learned about both the Middle East and foreign policy. But these two platitudes do serve as a good jumping-off point for discussing the true nature of the Iranian threat, which is, I believe, why the editors of Jewcy asked me to contribute to this debate.

Iran is indeed a threat to both the United States and to Israel – but the threat does not come in the cartoonish form of Mr. Raimondo's fevered imagination, with Iranian bombers nuking Tel Aviv and Iranian ICBM's rocketing their way toward New York. Those scenarios are red herrings intended to make Raimondo's task of turning America and Israel into the world's leading belligerents much easier.

The actual threat posed by a nuclear Iran involves the manner in which such a development would upset the balance of power in the Middle East, which no doubt for Mr. Raimondo is a boring subject as it does not provide ready opportunities for Israel Lobby hysteria and mushroom cloud fantasies. To understand the consequences of a nuclear Iran, we have to look to the recent history of Middle East power arrangements.

Before the American-Israeli alliance was solidified in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Middle East -- especially the eastern Mediterranean half of it -- was home to regular warfare. This bloodshed arose from the conviction among the Arab nations that they could destroy Israel, which they tried to do repeatedly: in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. Even though some of the Arab countries were allied with the Soviet Union, Israel repulsed the invaders, and in the latter two wars even captured territory from the attacking armies. In doing so Israel created for itself a reputation as the most militarily competent country in its half of the region.

And then, as Martin Kramer explains, "the United States began to look at Israel as a potential strategic ally. Israel appeared to be the strongest, most reliable and most cost-effective bulwark against Soviet penetration of the Middle East. It could defeat any combination of Soviet clients on its own and, in so doing, humiliate the Soviet Union and drive thinking Arabs out of the Soviet camp."

In contrast to the benefits that Israel's victories provided the United States in its maneuverings against the Soviets, the 1973 war did create something of a crisis for America, in the form of the Arab oil embargo. Having suffered a gasoline shortage at home, American strategists decided to attempt to impose peace in the region by showing so much support for Israel that the Arab states would henceforth refuse to challenge it. And this strategy has been a resounding success: Since 1973 there have been no more wars between Israel and Arab countries. This security arrangement even ended up prying Egypt away from the Soviets and into an alliance, later joined by Jordan, with America.

What does all of this have to do with Iran today? It has to do with the Islamic Republic's prospects for success in its endeavor to undermine this American-enforced security architecture. Iran is trying to destabilize the Middle East by creating its own set of alliances and clients that it hopes will rival America's. This is why it funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and now Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories; has cultivated an alliance with Syria that seeks to engulf Lebanon and allow Hezbollah free reign there; and provides weapons, money, and leadership to insurgents in Iraq.

Iran's intentions are clear: it wants America out of the Middle East, so that it can control the Persian Gulf and manipulate the rest of the region through its alliances and proxies. Are these goals going to be easier or harder to accomplish with the benefit of nuclear deterrence? The answer is obvious, and it is the real reason why preventing a nuclear Iran is both in the American and Israeli interest. The short-term stakes, though, are higher for Israel (and Lebanon, for that matter). A nuclear Iran allied with Hezbollah to the north and Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the Southwest and East would dramatically embolden Israel's enemies, suppress foreign investment and tourism in Israel, and over time would cause the economic and psychological attrition of the Jewish state -- with no bombing runs over Tel Aviv necessary.

And so the true disappointment of Israel's war against Hezbollah last summer was its failure to act as a competent American client by dominating the part of the region it is responsible for keeping quiet. The war against Hezbollah was a particularly important conflict for Israel to win, because Hezbollah is more than just another disruptive presence in the Levant -- it is a vanguard force in the Iranian arsenal that is attempting to make American involvement in the region as costly as possible. It is one of the means by which Iran can summon a counterattack should the U.S. or Israel strike its nuclear facilities, and it is the primary asset of the Syrian-Iranian project to co-opt Lebanon, defeat the American-allied nascent democracy there, and bring uncontested Iranian power to Israel's northern border.

In one of his many dumb asides, Raimondo says that people who favor preventing Iran, by force if necessary, from acquiring nuclear weapons "don't have any compunction about throwing the entire region into chaos." This is probably the most wrong-headed of his many ridiculous assertions. Western acquiescence to a nuclear Iran would do perhaps more than anything else to throw the Middle East into chaos. It would shatter the balance of power that has governed the region, however shakily, for nearly forty years. Second-tier powers, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, would be sent scrambling for their own nuclear weapons and new alliances, and the United States would almost certainly be forced from the region. Raise your hand if you're in favor of handing over control of the U.S. economy to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian democracy activists tell Canadian Time Magazine that the recent imprisonment and harassment of Haleh Esfandiari is only emblematic of a larger crackdown. The new wave of repression, they say, has been facilitated by the Bush administration's talent for ignoring people who know that they're talking about:

"...warnings were delivered to U.S. officials by others, including Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. "We had talks with the State Department and with lawmakers," Parsi told TIME. "We pointed out the dangers. Our advice was not taken into consideration. Things have turned out worse than we expected." Parsi says that, in the past, individual democracy activists have been arrested without a pretext, but that the Bush Administration's program gave the regime an opportunity to go after as many as 10,000 non-government organizations and their memberships. "There is tremendous self-censorship going on," Parsi says. "They know that the money has made them targets."

D'you ever get the image of the Bush administration as Frankenstein's monster, tossing the little girl in the lake with the best of intentions then watching with a dumbfounded look on his face as she drowns? Stupid Frankenstein--what did you think the mullahs would do upon hearing the American Satan was going to funnel tons of loot into projects aimed at their demise?

Might Herr Doktor send Fritz out for some replacement cortex?

Akbar Ganji: Iran's Dissident Rock StarBecause you've seen enough scary photos of clerics and dictators, meet Akbar Ganji.

He is a journalist, a champion of Iranian democracy, and fierce opponent of the velayat-e faqih.

No, seriously.

Khaled Hardani was one of 11 members of an extended family who attempted to commandeer a scheduled flight between the southern Iranian cities of Ahvaz and Bandar Abbas, and force it to fly to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Security guards already on board ended the hijack attempt while the plane was still on the runway at Ahvaz, reportedly shooting Khaled Hardani in the process. The family were reportedly trying to escape the poverty and hopelessness they were experiencing as members of Iran's Arab minority. Khaled Hardani was sentenced to death, together with his brothers-in-law, Shahram and Farhang Pourmansouri, on charges of "acts against national security" (eqdam 'aleyhe amniyat) and "enmity against God" (Moharebeh) rather than charges relating specifically to hijacking an aircraft. At the time of the hijacking, the brothers were reportedly aged 17 and 18 respectively.

Hardani is now serving time in Raja'i prison, awaiting execution which is scheduled for July 4th, 2007. Various groups, including Amnesty International, and The International Committeee Against Execution, are calling for immediate action in the form of protests, petitions, and most of all, just getting the word out. Read more on this at Maryam Namazie's blog. (Also read about the new organization for which she is a spokesperson--an answer to the Muslim Council of Britain: The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, an offshoot of the Central Council in Germany.)

George Orwell once remarked of an idea or statement that it was so stupid, only an intellectual could have come up with it. If somewhat reductive itself, this observation gets at what makes deep thinkers so silly half the time -- they try to force reality into the procrustean bed of their own theory. It'd have been all well and good for the thesis of Orientalism if the Western media had been hopelessly condescending and naive about the Iranian Revolution. However, taking Ayatollah Khomenei at his word (and how condescending and naive is that?) was only ever unfathomable to Edward Said and les clercs. David Zarnett explains:

Said's analysis marginalized Khomeini in two ways. First, when defending Khomeini, Said showed no understanding of the major themes that were at the centre of many of the Ayatollah's writings and lectures. In effect Said ignored Khomeini's ideas. Second, when Khomeini could no longer be defended, Said resorted to simply bracketing his existence and preeminent role in the new Iranian state. In 1982, Said, alongside Richard Falk, personally endorsed a public statement by the 'The Emergency Committee for the Defense of Democracy and Human Rights in Iran' which, while lambasting the Iranian regime for its human rights abuses and anti-democratic practices, curiously makes no mention of Khomeini.[32] And it was in a 1984 eulogy of the French post-modernist Michel Foucault, who had a great influence on Said, in which he dedicated only a few sentences to the philosopher's very public endorsement of Khomeini and his revolutionary politics that was by no means marginal to his intellectual career, as Said himself admits.

One of the most hilarious and idiotic claims of those offended at Rushdie's knighthood is the one that begins "we," the British, have heaped scorn on "them," the Muslims. This happens lately when people talk about almost any political event or situation involving Muslims. The implication is always as follows: Islam is a given, bounded entity, with borders determined by a central authority. These borders are not to be transgressed by "us," lest we reap the due punishments of cultural insensitivity. There is no dissent within the "Muslim world," nor are there differing opinions, nor are there Muslims who have a take on the matter. All Muslims think with Muslim brains, which are different than "our" brains, and "their" brains (unless tainted) will invariably turn up a conclusion that is at odds with ours.

Further, we are to respect their irreducible otherness and view any opinion that expresses exaltation of freedom of speech or literature as one colonized by the "Western" mind and therefore not authentically Muslim. The corollary of this line of thinking is profoundly racist: that "we" invented free inquiry and cultural tolerance, respect for art, debate, and difference of opinion. We are free as individuals to question our cultural traditions and institutions of authority, but when they do so, they are merely emulating us because the only "true Muslim" is the stooge of tradition and groupthink. We are allowed to use the wellspring of human thought and the lessons of global history to inform our understanding of our local situation, but they must use only local, indigenous knowledge, otherwise they are collaborators with Western imperialism. This is the new Orientalism.

India Knight, herself a British Muslim and part Iranian, makes the following comments about the way this phenomenon is playing out in Britain:

Union Jacks were burnt in Pakistan, with rioters shouting “Kill him!” If I were Pakistani, I’d be more inclined to riot about the monstrous off-the-scale corruption that riddled my government, and the corrupted version of Islam that brainwashed disenfranchised young men in the madrasahs, but anyway...One might respectfully suggest that if people who seek to impose their grotesque distortion of Islam on their unfortunate peoples will insist on making these inane pronouncements, they might at least do so with a degree of calm and a semblance of rationality, because otherwise it’s hard to take them seriously (assuming one were inclined to do so, which is quite an assumption).

It’s as though the Vatican took such exception to The Da Vinci Code that, instead of putting out composed-sounding statements and seeking (not entirely successfully) to reassure people that super-creepy Opus Dei is not in fact creepy at all, its spokesmen started foaming at the mouth like nutters and ordered crusades against Dan Brown for having the temerity to invent a story and write fiction.

Actually it’s not like that, because Rushdie is a brilliant writer and Brown is a sort of rich monkey with a typewriter, but you get the gist.

Travel abroad and come back labeled a "spy." Run a newspaper and don't even think about reporting economic crisis or the possibility of your country's discussions with the United States about Iraq. There's really nothing newsworthy in pointing out that Iran is a closed society. But when its sclerotic regime tries to vacuum seal the place in the face of growing opposition -- well, then you get a New York Times article:

Not that everyone has been intimidated. More than 50 leading economists published a harshly worded, open letter to the president saying his policies were bringing economic ruin. High unemployment persists, there has been little foreign investment and inflation is galloping, with gasoline alone jumping 25 percent this spring.

Gasoline rationing is expected within a month, with consumers so anxious about it, reported the Web site Ruz, financed by the Dutch government, that skirmishes broke out in long lines at some pumps on June 17.

Negar Azimi has a highly discussed piece in the New York Times Magazine on the dangers of U.S. financial support for Iranian opposition groups. Azimi's thesis is more or less: "Please don't show us the money." Given the heightened paranoia of the Iranian regime about attempts to undermine it, pro-reform groups such as Voice of America and Radio Farda, which receive do their employees small favors by cashing checks from the U.S. State Department. Fair enough, but the alternative is what, exactly?

Letting these groups raise funds from domestic Iranian sources will hardly cause the regime to react in a more kittenish manner, especially as its latest crackdown on dissident elements is a sign of its insecurity and weakness -- tied as much to economic woes as to political ones. The Great Satan is quite right to be shoveling dollars into Tehran, just as opposition groups are quite right to abjure any affiliation with their true bankroller. (If it was a matter of their not wanting the cash, they could simply refuse it.)

What seems especially silly in Azimi's implicit critique of what I'll call the Persian high wire transfer is that the Bush administration's supposed advocacy of regime change jeopardizes the situation any more than a modest advocacy of reform would do. How are the two mutually exclusive in a state lorded over by theocratic fanatics? Reform means undermining the regime; it means revolution, be it bloody or velvet.

Azimi writes: "The administration now finds itself in the curious situation of having its allies — potential and existing — feeling that they must publicly distance themselves from the White House, the State Department and America in general." The administration would find itself in that position, regardless of its democracy-or-bust foreign policy.

Or does anyone think that if the advice of the ever-fallible realist Lee Hamilton were followed, and we cozied up the mullahs on the shared objective of stabilizing Iraq, that we would be performing a service to the Iranian opposition? Their grievances would be the first brushed into the pragmatic dustbin.

Beneficient socialist Hugo Chavez further demonstrates his committment to people's democracy:

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who both often rail against Washington, also signed a series of other deals to expand economic cooperation, ranging from setting up a dairy factory in Venezuela to forming an oil company.

"The two countries will united defeat the imperialism of North America," a beaming Chavez told a news conference during an official visit to the Islamic Republic, which the United States has labeled part of an "axis of evil".

I know it'll upset some readers to think of this as a Hitler-Stalin pact in miniature (after all, Chavez hasn't purged any bolivarians yet -- he's just taken to eliminating all forms of opposition), but this alliance will no doubt be welcomed effusively by those "leftists" who see hatred of the United States as ideology enough. 

Daniel at Venezuela News and Views puts it well:

What is Chavez doing in Iran again, when Iran is now openly involved with the Hamas takeover of Gaza, when the Iran backed Syrian interference in Lebanon is vox popili, when Ahmadinejerk is cracking down on any dissent as he faces for a tough nuclear situation? Chavez has nothing to do there, of course, since even the Iranian model of repression would not apply much in Venezuela. But he is so bereft of ideas that he cannot pass an opportunity to go to a country where at least one street will be lined with flag waving supportive people.

In answer to the eardrum-splitting, almost constant chorus of folks who ask, "Where are the Muslims who don't endorse violence, an authoritarian states etc., etc.," I offer up the example of one Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Borujerdi and pose a question as an answer. Where are the media outlets who will make airtime for an Iranian cleric who is on death row because of his claim that:

...real Islam is free of political ornaments[...]It is included in verses whose interpretation is different from that provided by [the authorities]. Its interpretation is from 1,428 years ago. It is about the rule of the Prophet (Muhammad) and how he lived; he was against repression and opposed discrimination. Our divine leaders took food from their mouths and the mouths of their children to give it to the poor. Today, unfortunately, despite the immense wealth of this country, people live in poverty.

It is especially noteworthy that Borujerdi claims that his is a traditional interpretation of Islam.

Plenty has been said about the reformation, analogous to Christianity's Protestant one, that Islam so desperately needs in order to catch up to the modern world. But if Borujerdi's interpretation is nearly 1,500 years old and the Islamic Revolution just coming up on the big 30, one has to wonder whether it makes sense to make a fuss about 'reforming' Islam. It sounds like the reformists are the problem.

Unfortunately in reporting a story like this, one finds oneself unable to find any reasonable excuse to juxtapose Ahmadinejad's mug with a mushroom explosion...

The IDF thinks that Iran will go nuclear about 5 years sooner than the date projected by a United States National Intelligence Estimate. This doesn't come as a shock (the IDF is probably only weeks away from handing down a report that they've spotted split hooves under the Grand Ayatollah's robe and horns under his headgear). What's actually bizarre is that Mr. Olmert seems to believe that Ahmadinejad speaks for his country:

Iran, through the voice of its president [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, calls almost daily for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Considering that the only people who like Ahmadinejad in Iran are roughly equivalent to the people who still like Bush in the U.S., a statement like the one above is hardly different from saying that the United States, through the voice of its president, speaks like a rodeo cowboy. Clearly, most in the U.S. despise their president. Easy to do, really--although I will say those Bushisms sometimes merely show a fellow who, for better or for worse (usually for worse), doesn't mince words.  Sometimes cutting to the chase is necessary and refusing to do so can make you look even more like an idiot.

Mr. Bush only a few months ago astutely noted:

There's a lot of blowhards in the political process, you know, a lot of hot-air artists, people who have got something fancy to say.

How right he was. The Italian premier Prodi, with whom Olmert was meeting to discuss the Iranian problem actually said the following:

Because Iran is a regional power, it must act responsibly, and give up any nuclear military program

According to the illogic of this rhetorical sidestep, the reason for abandoning nuclear program would also be incidentally the only precondition for acquiring such a thing! He should have just reminded us that clerical fascists like Kahmeni and wacked out populist nobodies like Ahmadinejad are blowhards. That would have made some sense. No nukes for blowhards. Simple as that.