Articles

Produced by Beatriz Beiras

(Zibakalam interview follows 2:45 minutes)

Deep concerns about Iran’s potential nuclear ambitions began to rumble through western capitals in 2002. Satellite photos were made public of Natanz and Arak — secret till then. One was a centrifuge uranium enrichment site and the other a heavy water production plant linked to significant plutonium output. The White House said it feared an “across-the-board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction” by Iran. But uranium enrichment could be for civil use too.

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By: Lyse Doucet

As hard as it is, nobody wants to be the first to walk away from the best hope in many years to secure a long-term deal with Iran on its nuclear programme.
A readiness to call it quits is still a tactic – and a genuine threat – in the negotiators’ toolbox.

But, after a year-and-a-half of intensive negotiations, as well as significant progress, the Iran deal is now seen, by many, as “too big to fail”.
“We’ve come so far that to just drop all this work…” sighed one negotiator whose voice trailed off as he admitted he had not left Vienna’s luxurious Palais Coburg hotel for weeks aside from occasional one-day dashes to his capital.
Monday is now a new deadline after a third extension in two weeks. Exhausted negotiators, now talking around the clock, struggle to strike a balance between brushing off another missed mark in the calendar, while still insisting this process is not open-ended.

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By: Javad Zarif

Forget about coercing Iran; the country wants to co-operate against terrorism writes Javad Zarif

We have come a long way over the past 21 months of negotiations over my country’s nuclear energy programme. A very long way. Never have Iran and its counterparts been this close to a final accord. But success is far from assured. All that is clear about what will happen next is that things will not go back to the way they were.

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by Akbar Ganji

The likely nuclear agreement between Iran and P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany – is opposed by many. The reasons for the opposition to the agreement vary, depending on who or which country opposes it, but the ultimate goal is the same: scuttling the agreement. The hawks in Iran and the United States oppose the agreement, as do Israel, and Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies. The opposition to the agreement is expressed in different ways. Some demonize Iran, and others make outlandish claims about the “true” intentions and ambitions of the Islamic Republic.
The nuclear agreement will lead to the gradual lifting of the “most crippling economic sanctions in history” against Iran. As was discussed elsewhere (here, here, and here), sanctions represent severe collective punishment of the Iranian people and violation of their fundamental human rights. Iran’s hardliners enriched themselves as a result of the sanctions, amassing tens of billions of dollar in illicit wealth. Thus, naturally, they oppose the nuclear agreement, but hide behind the claim that the agreement will represent “treason” against Iran, and will ruin the country’s achievements and political independence.

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BEIRUT — The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed — and horrified — by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia’s ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, “Don’t the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?”

It appears — even now — that Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite “fire” with Sunni “fire”; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da’ish’s strict Salafist ideology.
Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan — please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.
Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da’ish (ISIS) — and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia’s direction and discourse.

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By: Richard Nephew 2 July 2015

For one, oil money ain’t what it used to be. And second, Tehran has bigger problems to deal with at home.

As negotiators close in on a nuclear deal with Iran, there’s been a corresponding uptick in ominous expectations about how Tehran could use the potential rush of funds from sanctions relief to prey on its weak neighbors and secure regional hegemony. U.S. lawmakers like Sen. Mark Kirk(R-Ill.) and lobbying outfits like the Foundation for Defense of Democraciesargue that once the sanctions are gone, Iran will stop at nothing to support groups like Hezbollah or Hamas, as it has in recent decades.

These fears are wildly overblown. Iran’s domestic economic needs are real, as is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s imperative to deliver on the promises that got him elected and proceed with the talks. To ensure the stability of their government, Iran’s leaders must tend to the problems at home and make the investments necessary to sustain their future. Supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other regional actors is an important, but secondary, objective.

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Akbar Ganji

The many problems that Muslim masses and Islamic countries have been grappling with, coupled with the terrorism perpetrated by radical Sunni Muslims, have given rise to the idea that Islam as a religion cannot be reformed, and that Islam’s basic tenet is problematic. Islamophobia is so prevalent that even Patricia Crone, a Professor at Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Michael Cook, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, end their book, Hagarism, the Making of the Islamic World, with the following:

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There are growing indications that the Obama administration will sign a nuclear agreement with Iran that will allow Tehran to become a nuclear-threshold state. It seems the only issue being contested at present is the extent of the cosmetic and temporary concessions the Iranians will grant so that Iran does not fully emerge as a nuclear weapons state until after the expiration of the Obama presidency. The disarming body language and genuine warmth that characterizes the public interaction between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Minster of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif seems to point in that direction, belying the fact that these two nations have not had diplomatic relations for 35 years because the government of one of those states ordered its armed thugs to attack and seize the embassy of the other nation, in the most flagrant violation of international law, holding its diplomats hostage for 444 days.

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Tehran (AFP) – An influential Iranian general who has reportedly been near the front line against the Islamic State group was quoted Thursday saying the jihadists are “nearing the end of their lives”.
General Qassem Suleimani, the once rarely seen commander of the powerful Quds Force, has become the public face of Iran’s support for the Iraqi and Syrian governments against jihadists.

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LONDON — The most dramatic moment of the 1979 Iranian revolution was Black Friday. Within a few days, the Shah was shaken by two subsequent mass demonstrations against his regime and, in order to prevent a third one, declared martial law in the early morning hours of September 8, 1978.

Like most Iranians, at the time I was sleeping on the roof of my house in order to escape the heat of summer. I was exhausted from walking for nearly 14 hours in a demonstration the day before, and from having confronted soldiers and tear gas. But I heard the military music from my father’s radio in the yard. A speaker with a strong voice — one which aimed to instill deep fear into the hearts of his listeners — read a statement declaring a curfew, in which the gathering of more than three people became illegal with severe consequences.

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