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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Rouhani</title>
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		<title>Iran: &#8216;The Great Satan&#8217; Still Our &#8216;Number One Enemy&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/iran-the-great-satan-still-our-number-one-enemy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-the-great-satan-still-our-number-one-enemy</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2014 05:20:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah Khameini]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245073</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The deadline for nuclear negotiations draws near -- and the Islamic Republic isn't backing down. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Hassan-Rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245076" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Hassan-Rouhani-450x299.jpg" alt="Hassan-Rouhani" width="324" height="215" /></a>The deadline for a final and comprehensive nuclear deal between the Iranian leaders and the six world powers (the P5+1: China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) is approaching in less than two weeks on November 24<sup>th </sup>.</p>
<p>It seems that the White House is also investing in the notion that after a final nuclear deal is struck between Tehran and the P5+1, and after economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic are removed, Iranian leaders will alter their foreign policies and regional hegemonic ambitions. This argument is anchored in unrealistic and naïve expectations. If we closely analyze the Islamic Republic’s political and power structures, as well as its major sources of legitimacy, it becomes evident that a major and fundamental change in Iranian leaders’ political calculations is completely unlikely.</p>
<p>Domestically speaking, for over thirty years, by blaming and pointing fingers to the United States and Israel for almost every social and political challenge that the Islamic Republic encounters, the government has been capable of deflecting attention from the high unemployment rate among the youth, high inflation, corruption, nepotism, social injustice, lack of freedoms (speech, press, assembly, etc.), and lack of equal opportunity. The fundamental and underlying tenets of the Islamic Republic are anchored in opposing the United States and Israel and their foreign policies in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Secondly, from the Iranian leaders&#8217; perspective, in order to be capable of legally oppressing and cracking down on domestic opposition, the regime must maintain an anti-American posture. Normally, any individual that criticizes the structure and legitimacy of the Iranian government, ruling clerics and the Supreme Leader, is characterized as a US agent, conspirator and traitor. These charges allow the government to use its judiciary system to oppress opposition and maintain its power.</p>
<p>Recently, in the midst of the international tensions and negotiations regarding Iran’s contentious nuclear program, Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a statement to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency pointing out that the United States, “the Great Satan,” remains the Islamic Republic’s &#8220;number one enemy.&#8221; The IRGC’s statement <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/joseph-perticone/35-years-after-takeover-embassy-tehran-us-still-great-satan-iran"><span style="color: #0433ff;">read</span></a>, “The U.S. is still the great Satan and the number one enemy of the (Islamic) revolution and the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation.”</p>
<p>Also recently, thousands of pro-government Iranians gathered around the US embassy to mark the 35<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the capture of the U.S. embassy and fifty-two Americans in Tehran by militant students. Demonstrators <a href="http://cdn.defenseone.com/defenseone/interstitial.html?v=2.1.1&amp;rf=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.defenseone.com%2Fthreats%2F2014%2F11%2Firanians-mark-35th-anniversary-hostage-crisis-protests%2F98165%2F"><span style="color: #0433ff;">chanted</span></a>  “Death to America,” “ Death to the Great Satan,” “Death to the United Kingdom” and “Death to Israel.”</p>
<p>Even if a comprehensive nuclear deal is reached between the Islamic Republic and the six world powers by November 24th, Iranian leaders’ position towards the United States, Western allies and Israel will not be altered for the following ideological reasons.</p>
<p>Having the largest Shiite population in the region, the Islamic Republic views itself as the major epicenter of Shiite revivalism across the region. Iran’s support for its proxies, Shiite militant political groups in the region (such Hezbollah in Lebanon, Liwa al-Imam al-Husayn in Syria, Asaib Ahl al-Haqq in Iraq, etc.), will remain to define Tehran’s foreign policy.<b> </b>Establishing itself as the front runner and leader of Shiism has been at the fundamental core of Iran’s foreign policy and regional hegemonic ambitions since 1979. This foreign policy objective will continue to define the Islamic Republic’s identity as long as the Ayatollahs are in power.</p>
<p>In addition, Iranian leaders have been investing in the Syrian regime, economically and politically, for over three decades. It is totally unrealistic to argue that if a final nuclear deal is sealed and if economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic are removed, Tehran will alter its unrelenting military, financial, advisory, and intelligence support to the Alawite-based government of al-Assad.</p>
<p>Without a doubt, some minor changes might occur if a final nuclear is struck. For example, Iran would be more incorporated in international organizations, particularly economically, and it would gradually open up its market to foreign and Western investors. It follows that the Islamic Republic will have to embed some international financial standards into its economic system. Nevertheless, the office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and IRGC will remain the key economic generators with a monopoly over major industries and will be reluctant to allow equal opportunity and redistribution of wealth to the lower classes.</p>
<p>Furthermore, being incorporated more into world economic systems does not necessarily indicate that more political freedom, as well as civil liberties, will be granted to ordinary Iranian citizens. Historical evidence reveals that economic prosperity for some states can result in implementation of robust policies to tighten control over the population and further centralize power. In other words, similar to other authoritarian governments, economic liberalization will not go hand in hand with political liberalizations in the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>An Emboldened Iran Takes the Stage at the United Nations</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/an-emboldened-iran-takes-the-stage-at-the-united-nations/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=an-emboldened-iran-takes-the-stage-at-the-united-nations</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 04:48:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241812</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why prospects for cooperation with the Islamic Republic look dimmer than ever. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rouhani_3048708b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241813" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rouhani_3048708b-411x350.jpg" alt="rouhani_3048708b" width="281" height="239" /></a>On Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed the United Nations in a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/69/meetings/gadebate/25sep/pdf/IR_en.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">speech</span></a> replete with anti-Western sentiments, anti-Semitism, tiresome tropes regarding the genesis of terror, and promises to continue pursuing his nation’s nuclear program.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">While acknowledging that terror had become a global issue, Rouhani sought to put the blame everywhere else. “Today’s anti-Westernism is the offspring of yesterday’s colonialism,” Rouhani insisted, proceeding to take a none-too-subtle shot at America, noting that “certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hands of madmen, who now spare no one.” Apparently omitted from this list of madmen is Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has received direct support from Iran in the form of financial assistance, and despite all denials to the contrary, hundreds of Revolutionary Guard troops <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-670210937"><span style="color: #1255cc;">fighting</span></a> in that nation. Iran also supports <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/senate-sanction-bill-target-hezbollah.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Hezbollah</span></a> and <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65462.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Hamas</span></a>, both of whom have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Thus, it was no surprise that Rouhani characterized the last war between Hamas and Israel as a conflict in which “thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza” were victims of the “Zionist regime’s aggression,” even as he characterized his own nation—the one that has <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/183332#.VCRAc-fFm3c"><span style="color: #1255cc;">openly boasted</span></a> about sharing missile technology with Hamas to improve their ability to hit Israeli cities—as one of “tranquil secure and stable nations&#8221; in the Middle East.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rouhani also aligned himself with the American left’s thoroughly misguided notions about the root of terror, “that germinates in poverty, discrimination, humiliation and injustice” that “grows in a culture of violence.” <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/183332#.VCRAc-fFm3c"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Several studies</span></a> have thoroughly debunked that contention, yet it provides Rouhani and other apologists the opportunity to obscure the reality that Islamic fundamentalism is the primary driver of terror throughout the world. Thus, Rouhani expresses “astonishment” that groups like ISIS “call themselves Islamic” and that the Western media “repeats this false claim, which provokes hatred of all Muslims” and is &#8220;part of a (sic) Islamophobic project.” Like every other religion, Rouhani insists Islam is peaceful, and like every other prophet, the taking of even one innocent life is condemned by the prophet Mohammed.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Not quite. The Qur’an is <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filled</span></a> with verses promoting violence and death against unbelievers, all the innocence in the world notwithstanding. Furthermore, the concept of <a href="http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/06/what-is-abrogation-in-islam.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">abrogation</span></a> explains that later verses in the Qur’an take precedence over earlier ones. Almost all of the violent verses appear later in the book.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rouhani nonetheless continued his deceptive characterization of the real problems of the Middle East. “The strategic blunders of the West in the Middle-East, Central Asia and the Caucuses have turned these parts of the world into a haven for terrorists and extremists,” he insists, citing Iraq, Afghanistan and the “improper interference in Syria” as examples. He further insists the Middle East wants democracy—even as it impossible to believe he is unaware of the reality that democracy and Sharia Law are fundamentally incompatible systems of governance.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That reality made itself plain last week, when six Iranians were given <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/iran-happy-dancers-get-suspended-sentences-201491913331993392.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">suspended</span></a> sentences of six months and 91 lashes for “obscene behavior” for appearing in a video singing the American pop song “Happy.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">They got off easy. In August, 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi was <a href="http://www.meforum.org/1000/why-do-muslims-execute-innocent-people#_ftnref2"><span style="color: #1255cc;">hanged</span></a> in the Iranian town of Neka. She was executed for having sex with her boyfriend. She was one of several victims executed for sexual “crimes” that violated Sharia Law.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Unsurprisingly, Rouhani addressed the issue of sanctions, calling them a “strategic mistake against a moderate and independent nation under the current sensitive condition of our region.” He falsely framed the issue as one where the “will of Iranian people,&#8221; rather than the economic squeeze imposed on his country, reinvigorated the current negotiations that were continuing in good faith, even as he warned that any other solution to Iran’s pursuit of nukes would be a “grave mistake.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rouhani made it clear that his nation remains &#8220;committed to our peaceful nuclear program” and that the &#8220;avoidance of excessive demands in the negotiations by our counterparts is the prerequisite for success in the negotiations.” He then tied those negotiations to the “beginning of a multilateral collaboration aimed at promoting security, peace and development in our region and beyond.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In short, Iran wants to use nuclear negotiations as a bargaining chip in the fight against terror.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The Obama administration has sent out <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/25/rouhani-ties-iran-cooperation-on-mideast-violence-to-nuke-deal/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">conflicting signals</span></a> with regard to such a scenario. Publicly they claim they will not share intelligence, or coordinate military activity, with the nation <a href="http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2013/202684.htm"><span style="color: #1255cc;">still designated</span></a> &#8220;world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism&#8221; by the State Department. Yet prior to bombing ISIS in Syria, the administration notified Iran about it, and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/23/us-syria-crisis-usa-iran-idUSKCN0HI2F220140923"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reassured</span></a> them they would not target the government of Bashar Assad, who remains a terrorist-abetting proxy of Iran. Furthermore, an unnamed Iranian official told Reuters that &#8220;military and security issues are being shared to fight against IS.” Secretary of State John Kerry also revealed he was &#8220;open to have a conversation at some point in time if there&#8217;s a way to find something constructive.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rouhani reiterated that a “historic” nuclear agreement with Iran is one where the West can show “that it does not oppose the advancement and development of others and does not discriminate when it comes to adhering to international rules and regulations.” He doubled-down on those questioning his nation’s motives, insisting “the notion that Iran seeks to control other Muslim countries in the region is a myth fanned in the recent years in the context of an Iranophobic context,” and that those who do so “breed imaginary enemies to sustain tensions and sow division and conflict.” He called for a “right approach” to the terror problem, insisting the proper solution comes from “within the region and regionally provided solution (sic) with international support and not from the (sic) outside the region.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As it stands now, Rouhani’s “solution” aligns perfectly with an Obama administration seemingly convinced it can fight a proxy war from the air, while the nations of the Middle East ostensibly cobble together the “boots on the ground” necessary to degrade and destroy ISIS and other terror entities congealing in the caliphate that straddles Iraq and Syria. In the meantime, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-abaci <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/islamic-state-said-to-plot-subway-attacks-in-u-s-france.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revealed</span></a> that ISIS terrorists captured in his nation said the group is planning subway attacks in Paris and the United States.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One wonders when—or is that if—it will occur to the Obama administration that prolonging this conflict emboldens terrorists, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world, including the 40 ISIS fighters from America the administration <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2765635/Obama-administration-confirms-American-ISIS-fighters-returned-US-FBI-looking-congressman-spilled-beans-week.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">admits</span></a> have returned home. With regard to Iran, prolonging the conflict allows them to use it as leverage in what ought to be seen as fruitless negotiations over Iran&#8217;s nuclear program.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In fact the negotiations are now bordering on the absurd, as the administration has reportedly floated a proposal that allows Iran to <a href="http://www.manilatimes.net/breaking_news/republicans-worry-us-let-iran-disconnect-scrap-nuclear-centrifuges/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">disconnect</span></a> thousands of centrifuges, rather than dismantle them. A senior administration official offered the administration’s rationale to the <i>New York Times,</i> insisting that “it takes a lot of time to put a cascade together, and piping is one of the most time-consuming parts of that laborious process.” Yet other experts noted this idea has been floated many times over the last decade, a reality that likely indicates a certain level of desperation on the part of the P5+1 nations who are under pressure to complete a deal—even a bad one&#8211;by Nov. 24.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Toward that end, the Obama administration has been touting the idea that Rouhani is a “<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359045/rouhani-obamas-moderate-iranian-lifeline-anne-bayefsky"><span style="color: #1255cc;">moderate</span></a>,” a notion that calculatingly ignores his abysmal human rights <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/human-rights-rouhani_b_5283081.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">record</span></a> and the reality that he is little more than a front man for the genuine seat of power in Iran: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his band of nihilistic mullahs. Mullahs who yearn for the re-emergence of the Twelfth or Hidden Imam that will bring about a period of chaos. In 2010 Khamenei <a href="http://www.thememriblog.org/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">claimed</span></a> he met the Hidden Imam and said he was assured that his reemergence would occur while Khamenei was still Supreme Leader.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rouhani’s speech at the U.N. should be seen for exactly what it is: a more aggressive &#8220;charm offensive&#8221; by the latest representative of the world’s foremost sponsor of state terror. Moreover, a nuclear Iran would precipitate a nightmarish nuclear arms race in the most unstable region in the world. And despite every obfuscation on the part of the Obama administration, and their equally weak-kneed European allies, those are the real stakes. Stakes that include the real possibility of Iran supplying such weapons to terrorists.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Why Rouhani Loves NY</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/why-rouhani-loves-ny/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-rouhani-loves-ny</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 04:49:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[executions]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241339</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The embattled regime looks to the West to save it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="color: #000000;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-09-28T114417Z_1_CBRE98R0WLW00_RTROPTP_4_UN-ASSEMBLY-IRAN-ROUHANI.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241340" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-09-28T114417Z_1_CBRE98R0WLW00_RTROPTP_4_UN-ASSEMBLY-IRAN-ROUHANI-434x350.jpg" alt="Iran's President Hassan Rouhani takes questions from journalists during a news conference in New York" width="319" height="257" /></a></span></p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-One-Why-Rouhani-loves-NY-375776">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s trip to New York next week will be a welcome relief for the Iranian leader. Finally, he’ll be somewhere where he’s appreciated, even loved.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Ahead of his trip to America, the US media continued its practice of presenting Rouhani as a moderate, and a natural ally for the US.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">NBC News’ Anne Curry interviewed Rouhani in Tehran, focusing her attention on his dim view of Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rouhani told Curry, “From the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing an innocent people equals the killing of the whole humanity. And therefore, the killing and beheading of innocent people in fact is a matter of shame for them and it’s the matter of concern and sorrow for all the human and all the mankind.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The US media and political establishment’s willingness to take Rouhani at his word when he says that he’s a moderate is one of the reasons that Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz was in such a desolate mood on Wednesday.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">During a briefing with the foreign media, Steinitz described the state of negotiations between the US and its negotiating partners – Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – and Iran regarding its illicit nuclear weapons program.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The briefing followed the latest round of the biennial Israeli-US strategic dialogue. Steinitz led the Israeli delegation to the talks, which focused on Iran, the week before nuclear talks were scheduled to be renewed.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">One of Steinitz’s chief concerns was the US’s insistence that Rouhani is a moderate.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In his words, “The only thing that has changed [since Rouhani replaced president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is the tone. The only difference is that the world was unwilling to hear from Ahmadinejad and [his nuclear negotiator Saeed] Jalili, what it is willing to listen to from Rouhani and [Iranian Foreign Minister Javad] Zarif.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Unlike the Americans, the Iranian people are through with the fiction that Rouhani is a moderate, which is why he no doubt will be happier in New York than in Tehran.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rouhani’s trip to New York coincides with his one-year anniversary in office. Since he took power, a thousand Iranians have been executed by the regime.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Forty-five people were executed in just the past two weeks.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to Iranian scholar Majid Rafizadeh, the public’s tolerance for regime violence has reached a breaking point.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In an article in the Frontpage Magazine online journal, Rafizadeh described how 3,000 people descended on regime executioners as they were poised to kill a youth in Mahmoudabad in northern Iran. The protest forced them to call off the show.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They murdered the young man the next day, when no one was looking.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Iran scholar Dr. Michael Ledeen has explained, the rise in regime brutality is directly proportional to the threat it perceives from the public.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And the regime has good reason to be worried.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Anti-regime protests and strikes occur countrywide, every day.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">For instance, from September 9-14, MEK, an Iranian opposition group, documented public protests against security forces and attacks on regime agents in Tehran, Zanzan, Bane, Qom, Karaj and Bandar Abbas.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">These actions ran the gamut from a strike by a thousand gas workers in the Aslaviyah gas fields who protested searches of their dormitory rooms by regime agents, to two separate assaults on military vehicles in Zanzan, to youth responding violently in cities throughout the country when regime agents tried to enforce Islamic dress codes on women and girls.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Under the same Rouhani who waxed so poetically against beheadings when speaking to an overeager NBC reporter, not only have state executions have massively intensified. Public floggings, public hand amputations and other public demonstrations of regime brutality have also expanded to levels unseen in recent years.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rouhani promised to protect women’s rights. Yet since he took office, women’s rights have been severely curtailed.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Last month, the Revolutionary Guards barred women from working as waitresses. In July, Tehran’s mayor barred women from sharing workspace with men. These moves and others like them, aimed at enforcing gender apartheid in all public places in the country, force millions of women into poverty. The official unemployment level for women is already hovering around 20 percent.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Then there are Iran’s other social ills, for instance drug addiction.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Iran has the highest level of drug addiction in the world. According to Babak Dinparast, a senior Iranian drug enforcement official, some 3.5 million Iranians, or 4.4% of the population, are drug users.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In April, Dinparast made the stunning claim that 53% of drug users are government employees.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to the Iranian parliament’s research institute, the average productive hours of Iranian workers is 22 minutes a day.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In Transparency International’s ranking of administrative and economic corruption, Iran ranks 144th out of 177 countries.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, Iran is coming apart at the seams. The people cannot stand the regime. The regime, incompetent and unwilling to tackle any of Iran’s problems, responds to the public’s outrage with massive, brutal repression.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If left to its own devices, in all likelihood, the Iranian regime would have been toppled five years ago when it falsified the results of the 2009 presidential elections, and so fomented the Green Revolution But the people of Iran didn’t bet on the regime’s ace in the hole: the Obama administration.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The same Obama administration that supported the overthrow of US allies in the war on Islamic jihad – Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – stood by the Iranian regime as it massacred its people in the streets of Iranian cities for daring to demand their freedom.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If the 2009 Green Revolution was the gravest threat the regime had faced since the 1979 revolution brought it to power, today the regime is also imperiled.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On Monday, Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was released from the hospital after undergoing prostate surgery. Several strategic analyses published since then claim that his days are numbered and that as a consequence, the regime faces a period of profound uncertainty and instability.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The Iranian people are watching all of this, and waiting.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As was the case in 2009, the disaffected Iranians, who hate their regime and want good relations with the US and the West, remain the greatest threat to the regime.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Beyond its borders, Iran is also under stress. With its Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah forces committed to Syria in defense of Bashar Assad, Iran finds its position in Iraq threatened by the rising power of Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet, as happened in 2009, in the midst of this gathering storm, the Obama administration is rushing to the mullahs’ rescue, begging Iran to support US efforts to fight Islamic State, indeed claiming that securing Iran’s support and cooperation is a necessary precondition for the mission’s success.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">To say that this US policy is madness is an understatement.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Michael Weiss documented in Foreign Policy in June, Iran and its puppet, the Syrian regime, played central roles in facilitating the development and empowerment of Islamic State both in Syria and Iraq. A defector from the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate reported in January that the regime helped form Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">First, it sprang Sunni jihadist leaders from Sednaya prison in 2011. Then, it facilitated in the creation of the armed brigades that became Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The idea was that through Islamic State, it could tarnish the reputation of all of its opponents by claiming they were all jihadists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">US military officers with deep knowledge of Iran’s role in Iraq told Weiss that Islamic State’s leadership entered Iraq from Iran.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">A key al-Qaida financier, Olimzhon Adkhamovich Sadikov, was charged in February by the US Treasury Department with “provid[ing] logistical support and funding to al-Qaida’s Iran-based network.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">US Army Col. Rick Welch, who served as the military liaison to both the Sunni tribes and the Shi’ite militia in Iraq during the 2007-2008 US military surge, told Weiss that the assessment of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi’ites alike was that “Iran was funding any group that would keep Iraq in chaos.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Iran sought chaos in order to prevent the establishment of a stable Iraqi government allied with the US while incrementally establishing Iranian control over the country.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Iran’s actions in Iraq and Syria, in other words, have for the past decade been focused on expanding Iranian power at the expense of the US and the Iraqi and Syrian people.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This behavior of course is in line with Iran’s global strategy. From its support for Hamas to its control over Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, from developing a strategic alliance with Venezuela to expanding its presence throughout South and Central America, through its closely cultivated relationship with Russia, Iran’s every move involves expanding its power and influence at America’s expense.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And yet, despite this, the Obama administration has made strengthening the Iranian regime and appeasing it the centerpiece of its Middle East policy.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">President Barack Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg in March that Iran is a rational actor that the US can do business with.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">He said, “If you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry now perceive things, Iran opposes Islamic State, and therefore it will play a supportive role in the US campaign against Islamic State. Moreover, by participating in the campaign, Iran will demonstrate its good faith and so make it possible for the US to cut a deal with the mullahs that will legitimize their illicit uranium enrichment – because really, how big a threat can a country that opposes Islamic State be? As for Iran, it sees its interest as having the US destroy Islamic State, and if possible, having the US pay Iran for the privilege of fighting Iran’s war – against the foe Iran did so much to create.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And this brings us back to Steinitz’s gloomy assessment of the talks with Iran. Steinitz warned against the growing prospect of the US caving in to Iran’s nuclear demands as a payoff for Iranian support against Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In his words, “Some people might think, ‘Let’s clean the table, let’s close the [nuclear] file,” in order to get Iran on board against Islamic State.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Unfortunately for Steinitz, and for the rest of the world, including the US, the Obama administration seems bent on proving him right.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today the Iranian regime is weaker than it has been since it violently repressed the Green Revolution.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And that is why Rouhani is happy to be coming to New York.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">He knows that now, as then, the Obama administration will save the regime. This, even as the mullahs advance their goal of becoming the hegemons of the Middle East at the US’s expense, and completing their nuclear weapons program, which will secure the regime for decades to come, and threaten America directly.</span></p>
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		<title>Rouhani&#8217;s One-Year Anniversary</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/rouhanis-one-year-anniversary/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rouhanis-one-year-anniversary</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:20:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[anniversary]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Moderate]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A good year for the rogue Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238675" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Rouhani-433x350.jpg" alt="Rouhani" width="288" height="233" /></a>At this time last year, Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian regime insider, assumed the office of presidency in the Islamic Republic. Rouhani was approved to run by the constitutionally-mandated and appointed 12 members of the Islamist and hardline Guardian Council, and after he gave empty promises of bringing &#8220;<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/06/13/shoulder_to_shoulder_canada_foreign_minister_iran_rouhani_human_rights"><span style="color: #0433ff;">dignity</span></a>” to the nation,  freeing political prisoners, promoting civil rights, normalcy, reintegrating Iran in the world economically and politically.</p>
<p>Other crucial reasons behind his election included his <a href="http://archive.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/hassan-rouhani-reformer-or-loyalist/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">loyalty</span></a> to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s Islamist revolutionary principles, his background profile as a government insider and chief nuclear negotiator, the blessings of Supreme Leaders for him, and the low standards that the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set.</p>
<p>The purpose of having Rouhani as the president was evident from the beginning: for the first time, Ayatollah Khamenei and the senior cadre of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards Corps deeply felt that their hold on power was being threatened. This was due to international economic and political sanctions, Iran’s nuclear defiance, along with disenfranchisement and discontent of Iranian youth (for reasons such as unemployment, human rights violations, suppression of freedom of press, expression, assembly, high inflation).</p>
<p>How has Rouhani served his regime? Under the first year of his presidency, Rouhani and his nuclear technocrat team were unprecedentedly and unexpectedly successful at reaching the regime’s objectives. He was capable of achieving the ideological, economic, and geopolitical goals of the Islamist agenda of the ruling clerics.</p>
<p>It is crucial to point out that, in the first year, Rouhani&#8217;s goal was to merge the Islamic Republic’s ideological and Islamist principles with its economic, strategic and geopolitical interests. Rouhani wanted to ensure the survival of the Islamist regime.</p>
<p>The game that Rouhani and his team played with the West and particularly the United States was anchored in utilizing softer tones while exploiting the fragile and weak position of the Obama administration.</p>
<p>First, by striking the nuclear interim deal with the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, plus Germany), Rouhani and his technocrat nuclear team were successful in obtaining sanctions relief&#8211; <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-20/iran-hails-long-day-as-it-starts-curbing-nuclear-work.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">worth</span></a> between $6 and $7 billion – and suspending certain sanctions on some Iranian industries including the automotive sector, gold and precious metals trade, and petrochemical exports.</p>
<p>On the other hand, currently, the Islamic Republic’s economy has been stabilized according to the <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930120000786"><span style="color: #0433ff;">International Monetary Fund</span></a>, and oil exports have increased by approximately <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/uk-asia-iran-crude-idUKKBN0G00C320140731"><span style="color: #0433ff;">25 percent</span></a>, specifically to Asian countries, in the first six months of the year 2014.</p>
<p>While Rouhani has spent a considerable amount of his political capital on the international arena, nuclear talks, attempting to empower the Islamic Republic in the world affairs and economy, and removing economic sanctions, Iran’s fundamental foreign policies in the region, internationally and domestically remain ideological and intact.</p>
<p>For example, President Hassan Rouhani <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irans-new-president-hassan-rouhani-vows-to-support-syrian-regime-as-president-assad-vows-to-crush-rebels-with-iron-fist-8745857.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">voiced</span></a> his support for the Syrian government, as Iran’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irans-new-president-hassan-rouhani-vows-to-support-syrian-regime-as-president-assad-vows-to-crush-rebels-with-iron-fist-8745857.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">support</span></a> for the Syrian government financially, militarily, politically and advisory continues. Even after the use of chemical weapons against the civilians in Syria, Rouhani’s administration has not shifted its support and policies towards President Bashar Al Assad.</p>
<p>In addition, under Rouhani’s administration, the Islamic Republic continues to support non state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas. In addition, the Islamic Republic’s <a href="http://forward.com/articles/184240/iranian-president-hassan-rouhani-criticizes-israel/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">foreign policies</span></a> towards Israel remain intact as well.</p>
<p>On the other hand, billions of dollars gained by the ruling cleric, are tightly distributed among the top officials. Millions of ordinary Iranian people still encounter hardship economically. In addition, the unemployment rate remains to be in <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/08/06/ineffective-economic-stewardship/hk2b?reloadFlag=1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">double digit</span></a><span style="color: #0433ff;">s</span> for millions of Iranian people.</p>
<p>When it comes to human rights and freedoms (assembly, press and speech),  Rouhani has supported the status quo of repression. According to the Human Rights Watch, there has been <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/iran?page=3"><span style="color: #0433ff;">“no sign of improvement”</span></a> and the Islamic Republic continues to violate human rights under Rouhani.</p>
<p>On March 11, Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights conditions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, released his <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/iran?page=3"><span style="color: #0433ff;">second annual report</span></a> to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), pointing out that there exists an “apparent increase in the degree of seriousness of human rights violations” and he expressed his concern at the “rate of executions in the country, especially for crimes that do not meet serious crimes standards.”</p>
<p>In addition, in October, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released his annual report expressing concerns with regards to the continuing human rights violations in the Islamic Republic under Rouhani. Human Rights Watch <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/iran?page=3"><span style="color: #0433ff;">points out</span></a> that “The government continued to block access to Shaheed and to experts with other UN rights bodies.”</p>
<p>It is an illusion to believe that any political figure in the Islamic Republic, who rises to power, will shift the Islamist, radical, and ideological perspective of this regime. Loyalty to the Islamist principles, antagonism towards Israel, and supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, or other Islamists groups, are the underlying and basic rules that each Iranian politician believes in and has to pursue, in order to survive and rise the political ladder in Iran. The higher an Iranian politician is in his political life and position, the more loyal he is to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the more he voices his antagonism towards the state of Israel publicly or covertly, and the more he views the United States as a Great Satan. This underlying rule is the political formula for survival and promotion under the Islamist and ideological regime of the Islamic Republic.</p>
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		<title>Iran: The Worst Enemy of Freedom of the Press and Internet</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/iran-the-worst-enemy-of-freedom-of-the-press-and-internet/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-the-worst-enemy-of-freedom-of-the-press-and-internet</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2014 04:30:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Crackdown in the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/201421222181573786411_Iran-ranked-173rd-in-the-world-on-press-freedoms.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-237724" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/201421222181573786411_Iran-ranked-173rd-in-the-world-on-press-freedoms.jpg" alt="201421222181573786411_Iran-ranked-173rd-in-the-world-on-press-freedoms" width="295" height="207" /></a>In the last few weeks, under the presidency of the so-called moderate Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic has ratcheted up its crackdown on the press, journalists, bloggers, Internet users, and activists.</p>
<p>More recently, four journalists have been <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/25/world/meast/iran-detained-journalists/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">arrested</span></a>. One of the journalists works for the<i> Washington Post</i> and is an Iranian-American dual citizen (his wife is also detained), while two other freelance photojournalists who are American citizens have also been held. Although the writings of the Iranian-American dual citizens were not completely and outright against the Islamic Republic of Iran, nevertheless, the authorities have detained them.</p>
<p>In 2014, according to the <a href="http://www.cpj.org/blog/2014/07/the-2009-iran-crackdown-continues-today.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Committee to Protect Journalist</span></a>, several other domestic journalists in the Islamic Republic were arrested, including Saba Azarpeik, a reformist journalist working for the weekly <i>Tejarat-e Farda</i> and the daily <i>Etemad, </i>Iranian documentary filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi was sentenced to five years in prison, 11 staff members of Pat Shargh Govashir and the news website <i>Narenji</i>, <i>Nardebaan</i> and <i>Negahbaan </i>were sentenced to eleven years in prison<i>, </i>Mehdi Khazali, a blogger, Reihaneh Tabatabei, a journalist with <i>Shargh </i>and <i>Bahar, </i>Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, an Iranian journalist who received an award from the CPJ International Press Freedom, and Marzieh Rasouli, a reporter for cultural issues, to name a few.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic has been utilizing several crucial institutions to crack down on press, bloggers, and Internet users. One is the Islamic Republic’s security forces, Nyrouhaye Amniyat, and the second one is Iran’s Islamic Judiciary system. The laws are being legalized by the judiciary system for sentencing and imprisoning the journalists and bloggers. In addition, these institutions also utilize other militia and paramilitary groups, such as Sazmane Basij-e Mostaz&#8217;afin, &#8220;the Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed,&#8221; in order to achieve their goals and objectives. In addition, in March 2012, the Supreme Council for Cyberspace was <a href="http://surveillance.rsf.org/en/iran/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">set up</span></a> in order to centralize and more efficiently monitor Internet users.</p>
<p>Other monitoring institutions, when it comes to cracking down on Internet users, include the Cyber Unit of the Revolutionary Guard as well as the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Court, which have ratcheted up their censorship.</p>
<p>The reasons for the legality are justified by factors such as insulting the religion of Islam and governmental officials, endangering the national security of the Islamic Republic, spreading propaganda, insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as offending the values and principles of Shiite Islam.</p>
<p>According to the official <a href="http://www.irna.ir/fa/News/81235378/%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%88%D9%82%DB%8C_-_%D9%82%D8%B6%D8%A7%DB%8C%DB%8C/%D9%85%D8%AD%DA%A9%D9%88%D9%85%DB%8C%D8%AA_%D9%87%D8%B4%D8%AA_%D9%81%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84_%D9%81%DB%8C%D8%B3_%D8%A8%D9%88%DA%A9%DB%8C_%D8%A8%D9%87_127_%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84_%D8%AD%D8%A8%D8%B3"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Islamic Republic News Agency<i> </i>(IRNA)</span></a>, eight Facebook users were recently sentenced by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system to a total of 127 years in prison. Their crimes ranged from insulting governmental officials and the religion of Islam, to risking the national security of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>In another report by <a href="http://www.kaleme.com/1393/03/05/klm-185771/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Persian Website</span></a>, Kalame, eight Facebook users were sentenced to a combination of 123 years in prison. According to <i>Kalame</i>, the sentences are as follows: Roya Saberi Nejad Nobakht, 20 years sentence in prison; Amir Goulestani, a sentence of 20 years and one day; Masoud Ghasem Khani, 19 years and 91 days in prison; Faribourz Kardar Far, 18 years and 91 days in prison; Seyed Masood Seyyed Talebi, 15 years and one day in prison; Amin (Fareed) Akrami Pour, 13 years in prison; Mehdi Rei Shahri, 11 years in prison; and Naghmeh Shah Savandy Shirazi, 7 years and 91 days in prison.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2014/05/facebook-sentence/">According to</a></span> the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran “The ruling by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh, which is harsher than what the law allows, is clearly intended to spread fear among Internet users in Iran, and dissuade Iranians from stepping outside strict state controls on cyberspace. ”</p>
<p>Iran has been labeled as one of the enemies of the Internet by Reporters Without Borders. In addition to Reporters Without Borders, the <a href="https://cpj.org/reports/2000/05/enemies-00.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)</span></a> has also labeled the Islamic Republic of Iran as one of the worst enemies of the freedom of press.</p>
<p>Apparently, Rouhani, who is perceived by Western countries as a good change for the Islamic Republic, has been silent about and complicit in these atrocities and human rights violations. The reasons are evident. First of all, any political figure who is allowed to run for presidency, and has the blessing of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supports the ideals of the Islamic revolutions, as well as the attempt to maintain the current status quo of the Islamic Republic’s political and ideological structure.</p>
<p>In that respect, when it comes to speaking up for ordinary people and human rights violations, all Iranian presidents across the political spectrum, including the reformist presidents (such as former president Muhammad Khatami), pragmatist ones (former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani) and moderate and realist presidents (such as Hassan Rouhani), prioritize their own political power, social and economic interests. They attempt to protect the Iranian government, and maintain their socio-political and socio-economic status. Second of all, the Iranian presidents are all political figureheads who attempt to set the Supreme Leader’s and the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy tone on the international arena. Third, and more fundamentally, the Islamic Republic is run by the security forces, the judiciary system, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Supreme Leader. All these sectors reports directly to Khamenei.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration and other Western powers praise the Iranian regime for the change in its foreign policy regarding nuclear issues, it would be constructive and encouraging if the West would also put more emphasis on the heightened human rights violations and crack down on journalists.</p>
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		<title>The Military Empire of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jun 2014 04:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is the Islamic Republic winning the battle for regional hegemony?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/iran-coup.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235225" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/iran-coup.jpg" alt="iran-coup" width="253" height="200" /></a>Western countries have taken no effective measures with regard to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s increasing interventionist policies in other countries through its Revolutionary Guard Corps.</p>
<p>As the nuclear negotiations between the P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) and Iran is progressing, and the Rouhani-Obama rapprochement is ratcheting up, the Islamic Republic of Iran has expanded the military operations of its IRGC and intensified its interventionist policies across the region.</p>
<p>Instead of warning the Islamic Republic, the Obama administration is still contemplating coopering with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds forces to fight in Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Iraq last Monday, pointed out that the United States “is open to discussions if there’s something constructive that can be contributed by Iran.”</p>
<p>This message indirectly empowers Iran’s pursuit of its regional hegemonic ambitions, legitimizes the Islamist state and its Islamist institution, and emboldens the Islamic Republic to rapidly pursue its nuclear program. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said last Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press program, “I think by far the worst outcome that could come out of this is that one of these factions, Iran, would come out with nuclear weapons capability. That would be a tragic mistake.”</p>
<p>With the assistance of its Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been masterfully capable of creating a Shiite Islamic Crescent, which stretches from Iran to Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, in order to achieve its ideological and Islamic purposes.</p>
<p>First, the Islamic Republic created Hezbollah, then dominated Syria by supporting the Alawite (offshoot of Shiism) regime of Bashar Al-Assad, and ensured the dominance of Shia over Sunni Islam in Iraq.</p>
<p>Quds forces, which the Islamic Republic dispatches for ideological and sectarian purposes to other countries (such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq), are among the most experienced cadre of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Quds forces, led by General Qassem Soleimani, are a secretive branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and a paramilitary arm of the IRGC. Soleimani, who helped build Hezbollah, has been characterized as &#8220;the single most powerful operative in the Middle East today.&#8221;</p>
<p>Under the presidency of so-called moderate Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds forces have expanded their military and intelligence operations throughout the region. A defected Syrian minister pointed out that Syria is no longer run by Bashar Al-Assad, but rather by the senior cadre of the Quds forces and IRGC.  The increasing activities of Iran’s ministry of intelligence, IRGC and Quds forces can be clearly seen across the region.</p>
<p>The IRGC’s key mission is to preserve the ideals, principles, and values of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, which were outlined by its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. There are two crucial tenets to these revolutionary ideals: anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism. Defying the United States and obstructing US foreign policy in the region as well as not recognizing Israel as a state are some of the most fundamental objectives of the IRGC.</p>
<p>Their ultimate goal is to export the ideals, principles and values of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the whole world. According to many credible reports, the IRGC has been involved in several terrorist acts across the region and even in the West. One of the crucial issues that U.S. State Department uncovered was the &#8220;marked resurgence of Iran&#8217;s state sponsorship of terrorism, through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force, its Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran&#8217;s ally Hezbollah.”  According to the U.S. State Department, <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/05/210103.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">country reports on terrorism</span></a>, the terrorist activities by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force, its Ministry of Intelligence and Security &#8220;have reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s.&#8221;</p>
<p>Under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Major General<b> </b>Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC has become a gigantic economic player in the Islamic Republic of Iran while owning most of Iran’s economic power, industries and operating on the black market enterprise.</p>
<p>Many members and governmental officials in Iran, who strongly defend the work of the IRGC and the principles of the Iranian Islamic revolution, are called principlists. They view the United States and Israel as everlasting enemies and rivals.</p>
<p>Even Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who is projected as a rational, moderate, and prudent person that pursues leniency in foreign policy, has joined the voice of the IRGC and Iran’s Supreme Leader by directly warning other countries against assisting ISIL.  Recently, he pointed out that some countries “feed terrorists by their petrodollars.” He warned that this support will have repercussions on those countries which “feed terrorists.”</p>
<p>A crucial and pressing issue is the increasing power and interventionist policies of the IRGC, as well as the export of its Islamic principles to other countries. Instead of only focusing on Iran’s nuclear program, President Obama should include the interventionist role of the IRGC and Quds forces to the negotiating table.</p>
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		<title>Failed Negotiations With Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-republic-human-rights-should-be-a-priority/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-islamic-republic-human-rights-should-be-a-priority</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 May 2014 04:20:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How a hasty nuclear deal will exacerbate human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wor_hassan-rouhani_12314_539_332_c1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225076" alt="wor_hassan-rouhani_12314_539_332_c1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wor_hassan-rouhani_12314_539_332_c1-450x277.jpg" width="315" height="194" /></a>While the Obama administration and five other world powers (</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/france?lc=int_mb_1001">France</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/germany?lc=int_mb_1001">Germany</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Britain, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/china">China</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/russia?lc=int_mb_1001">Russia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">) are rushing into a comprehensive nuclear deal without seriously and adequately taking the required safeguards, the G5+1 have failed to press the Islamic Republic of Iran on its recent egregious record of human rights violations. </span></p>
<p>One of the most effective and timely potential strategies, with regards to the ruling Ayatollah and Mullahs, is to incorporate political pressure on the Iranian regime for its unprecedented level of human rights abuses under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani. This topic has yet to be a key point in any of negotiations between the G5+1 and the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>The major reason lies behind the fact that the six world powers seem to be hurrying to strike a final nuclear deal and have their governments be recorded as the ones to have reached this historic deal. In addition, there is a convergence of political interests between the six world powers and the Iranian regime. This approach does not take into consideration the threatening and dangerous repercussions that such a hasty comprehensive nuclear deal would bear.</p>
<p>This week, U.N. atomic agency officials held talks with Iranian authorities to negotiate the process through which the Islamic Republic is supposed to provide transparency on its nuclear research program by conducting a series of steps. The six world powers and Iranian authorities, led by prime minister Javid Zarif, will also meet in the Austrian capital of Vienna on May 13 for the next crucial round of high-level nuclear negotiations.</p>
<p>The four Western members of the G5+1 (the United States, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/france?lc=int_mb_1001">France</a>, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/places/germany?lc=int_mb_1001">Germany</a>, Britain) have ignored recent statements by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who pointed out that so-called reformist and moderate president of the Islamic Republic Rouhani has failed to fulfill his promises of improving the human rights conditions in Iran.</p>
<p>The diplomats and politicians resuming nuclear talks in New York with Iranian authorities have expressed gratitude and have been optimistic about the Islamic Republic complying with the seven measures reached in February 2014.</p>
<p>Six out of the seven steps, fundamentally and generally, focus on the notion that Iranian authorities are required to provide some information about the nation’s nuclear enrichment and to permit access to nuclear sites, particularly Fordow.</p>
<p>One of the critical measures is linked to Iran’s efforts to develop explosive detonators. Almost three years ago, a report by the U.N. atomic agency indicated that Iran has secretly pursued nuclear research, advancing technology with constrained civilian purposes. According to the IAEA, the research and technology possessed &#8220;limited civilian and conventional military applications… given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device&#8230; Iran development of such detonators and equipment is a matter of concern.&#8221;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So far, the measures set by the six world powers and UN Atomic agency and IAEA, have been easy for Iran to follow. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian leaders, led by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have also joined the Western leaders, Russian and Chinese authorities to express their content that the nuclear negotiations have gone smoothly. </span></p>
<p>Iranian leaders are confident that they have fulfilled the seven agreed-to measures, which were reached between Iran and the IAEA, before the May 15<sup>th</sup> deadline.  Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of Iran&#8217;s atomic department, pointed out &#8220;Following the visit, Iran will be able to say that the seven-agreed measures between Iran and the agency have [been] fulfilled,&#8221; adding, &#8220;Already six steps have been taken.&#8221;</p>
<p>If Iranian leaders are not pressured to address the egregious human rights abuses now, while reaching their desirable nuclear deal, it will be much more difficult or impossible in the future to push the Iranian regime to respect women’s rights, gender equality, and human rights.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Last week, Iranian leaders had blatantly criticized human rights watch groups and the United Nations for claiming that there are human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic. Spokesman for Iran’s UN mission in New York Hamid Babaei, stated last week that “Iran categorically rejects baseless accusations raised in the statement of (Washington’s UN envoy Samantha Power) regarding status of human rights and civil liberties in the Islamic Republic of Iran and finds these assertions both unconstructive, obstructive and against the spirit of cooperation between sovereign member states.”</span></p>
<p>Some of the crucial threats and shortcomings of rushing into a comprehensive nuclear deal come down to the following:</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The final nuclear deal will require the international community to remove economic sanctions that have accumulated due to Iran’s decades long nuclear defiance. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A weak and flimsy final nuclear deal will empower the Iranian regime, including hardliners, reformists, and moderates in the Islamic Republic, to more powerfully suppress women’s rights, political prisoners, human rights activists and surge the level of executions, public hangings, and tortures. </span></p>
<p>In addition, while the West is rushing into a comprehensive nuclear deal before the July 20<sup>th</sup> deadline, the West, Russia, and China are ignoring the required the safeguards. The most effective policies that the West, particularly the Obama administration, should look into are providing a key platform for the IAEA inspectors to carry out intrusive inspections. IAEA inspectors should be allowed to be present in the Islamic Republic on a regular basis, and be capable of visiting different nuclear and heavy water nuclear sites and reactors. Moreover, there should be a mechanism for re-imposing sanctions in case the Islamic Republic defies IAEA standards in future. The Ayatollahs and Iranian leaders have a history of secrecy and defiance of IAEA standards after reaching deals.</p>
<p>The West needs to implement the best political and diplomatic approach to extend the temporary nuclear deal rather than rushing into a premature comprehensive one and hurriedly removing all sanctions without the necessary safeguards taken into consideration. Unfortunately, all of these safeguards are being ignored for the sake of reaching any sort of weak comprehensive nuclear deal.</p>
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		<title>Iran Inches Toward Total Economic Empowerment</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 05 May 2014 04:15:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Mullahs anxiously await the final stages of the nuclear deal. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/o-HASSAN-ROUHANI-VICTORY-IN-MODERATION-facebook.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224778" alt="Hasan Rowhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/o-HASSAN-ROUHANI-VICTORY-IN-MODERATION-facebook-422x350.jpg" width="295" height="245" /></a>The nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic of Iran and six world powers (P5+1: China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom) have inched forward toward the permanent nuclear deal and the removal of all economic sanctions against the Iranian regime.</span></p>
<p>Some proponents of the Iranian regime in the West and in Iran have been spreading a specific interest-driven narrative by pointing out that if a final nuclear is achieved, Iranian leaders are more likely to tone down their ideological and regional hegemonic ambitions as well.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to this argument, if a permanent nuclear deal is achieved, and if the diplomatic thaw between Tehran and Washington continues, Iran’s foreign policies in the region will not turn more aggressive or interventionist regarding regional and foreign policies. As a result, other countries should not be concerned about Iran’s policies and they should push for a final nuclear deal and the removal of sanctions.</span></p>
<p>In other words, those who advocate for Rouhani’s government and the Islamic Republic contend that Iranian leaders will instead become more cooperative, conciliatory, and will decrease their hegemonic ambitions and policies in the region.</p>
<p>This view fails to take into account the realities on the ground. Since the interim nuclear deal has been reached, the Islamic Republic has become more emboldened to achieve its ideological, geopolitical, and regional hegemonic ambitions. Some of the sanctions relief and billions of dollars that the Iranian regime has received from the United States and international community has empowered its assertive and aggressive stance.</p>
<p>According to Lieutenant Commander of Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base General Ali Reza Sabahi-Fard, Iran is rapidly upgrading its defense system. And as Commander of the Army Ground Force Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan announced last week, Iran&#8217;s Ground Force has test-fired new mid-range ballistic missiles and has equipped S-200 air defense system with new missiles. The S-200 system is characterized as having much longer-range capabilities as compared to previous missile systems.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to Reuters, Iran’s military is planning to target a mock-up American aircraft carrier. The newspaper </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Haft-e Sobh</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> daily quoted Adm. Ali Fadavi, navy chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, as saying, &#8220;target the carrier in the trainings, after it is completed.&#8221; Accordingly, Adm. Fadavi pointed out, &#8220;We should learn about weaknesses and strengths of our enemy.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Recently, Iran&#8217;s National Army Day orchestrated a large-scale military parade through the capital, Tehran, where fighter jets and military technology manufactured by Russia and other countries, were part of the show. Iranian leaders have made clear that their military capabilities and their missile systems are non-negotiable in the nuclear talks. The United States and other members have also overlooked this threat, and are instead focusing on reaching a final nuclear deal.</span></p>
<p>Due to the recent sanction relief, several countries, including Turkey, China, Germany, and Austria, have boosted or are planning to boost their economic ties with the Islamic Republic. Iran’s oil exports, in legal or black markets, have also significantly increased.</p>
<p>The case that Iran’s desire for regional supremacy will be tempered if a permanent nuclear deal is sealed, and if the U.S. and Iran thawed diplomatic relations, does not take into account the underlying geopolitical and economic fundamentals, as well as historical context of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>The view claiming that Iran’s ideological and hegemonic ambitions will diminish if a final nuclear deal is reached is very unsophisticated and naïve. Even when Iran’s nuclear program was not in the spotlight, for example in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Islamic Republic was at its peak in meddling in other countries&#8217; domestic affairs and showed no sign of tempering its aspiration for regional supremacy.</p>
<p>In fact, these were the times that the Iranian leaders were notably and outstandingly attempting to alter the regional balance of power in its interest by intervening in Lebanon, giving birth to one of the most formidable Shiite non-state actors, Hezbollah, fighting with Israel through its proxies, forming one of the most long-standing Middle Eastern alliances with the Syrian government, and continuing the war in Iraq for an extra six years despite the fact it was offered full compensation by other countries to cease the war.</p>
<p>More recently, even after reaching a preliminary nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic has shown no sign of tempering its foreign policies when it comes to affecting the domestic politics of other countries including Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Lebanon. The Yemeni president pointed out in an interview, “Unfortunately, Iran still meddles in Yemen whether by supporting the separatist [Southern] Movement or some religious groups in the north.” He asked the Shiite-dominated Iran to “keep its hands off Yemen” and to halt giving support to “armed groups” in the country. Reportedly, the Houthis are receiving Iranian support, and have been capable of dominating the northern Yemeni province of Saada. Asir, the Saudi province, borders the Yemeni Shiite rebel strongholds.</p>
<p>The second part of the argument made by the proponents of Rouhani’s government and the Islamic Republic is very simplistic in the sense that it overlooks the sophistication and complexity of Iran’s politics in Middle East.</p>
<p>The reason that other countries are not concerned about Iran’s foreign policies in the region if a final nuclear deal is reached (as well as in case Iran tempers its policies and regional geopolitical position), is that they take no notice of the Middle Eastern political chessboard and the Islamic Republic’s role in this political jigsaw puzzle.</p>
<p>The issue is that Iran’s nuclear file has been filled up with frequent clandestine nuclear sites revealed by external governments and organizations, a robust determination to become a nuclear power, non-transparency, secrecy, and a lack of clarity about Iran’s nuclear developments. How can other nations accept these terms of security if another country in the region is on the verge of significantly tipping the balance of power in its favor through reaching a breakaway nuclear capacity?</p>
<p>Most likely, the permanent nuclear deal will leave the Islamic Republic with some breathing space to pursue its nuclear ambitions and achieve its objectives and nuclear breakthrough. If this occurs, the chessboard that is the Middle East will witness a critical reshaping in favor of the nuclear state. This will naturally be followed by a nuclear arms race and competition in the region, which will further destabilize the region and its security. In addition, the nuclear deterrence will boost and facilitate Tehran’s regional ambitions from economic, geopolitical, and strategic prisms.</p>
<p>Even if an efficient permanent nuclear deal is reached between the P5+1 and Iran, should other countries, as some policy analysts and proponents of Rouhani’s government argue, not be concerned about Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions? It is very unrealistic and naïve to argue that the Islamic Republic will temper its ideological and regional hegemonic ambitions even if a permanent nuclear deal is reached and even if Washington and Tehran mend diplomatic ties. Iran is strongly involved in influencing the domestic affairs of other countries, through founding or backing some Shiite groups, which makes a shift in Tehran’s regional policies inconceivable. Furthermore, Tehran’s regional policies are not only aimed at achieving geopolitical and economic supremacy, but also founded on ideological landscapes, attempting to spread the Shiite version of Islam through either political movements or well-established religious seminary centers such as in the city of Qom.</p>
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		<title>To Execute a Victim of Attempted Rape</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/iran-executing-a-victim-of-attempted-rape/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-executing-a-victim-of-attempted-rape</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2014 04:36:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rape]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reyhaneh Jabbari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rouhani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Islamic Republic unveils its true face. . .again.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/jabbari21n-2-web.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224011" alt="jabbari21n-2-web" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/jabbari21n-2-web-335x350.jpg" width="234" height="245" /></a>A few days ago, the United Nations and various international human rights groups joined a growing call for the Islamic Republic of Iran to halt the execution of a woman scheduled for Monday.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran’s court has sentenced Reyhaneh Jabbari to death for the 2007 killing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who was a former employee of Iran&#8217;s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Jabbari was acting in self-defense against Sarbandi, who attempted to rape her, and she never received a fair trial and due legal process.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to testimony of “reliable sources” and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sarbandi hired the 19-year-old Jabbari, an interior designer, to work in his office. While Sarbandi was attempting to sexually harass and rape Jabbari, a struggle began, and she stabbed him.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Therefore, Jabbari was sentenced to death for her action under the Islamic judiciary system of Iran. Why would a young professional woman be executed for defending herself against unwelcome actions from her superior, a sexual abuser?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The profound irony, and the peak of the Islamic Republic’s hypocrisy, became clear this week in a speech marking Women&#8217;s Day, when Iranian president Hassan Rouhani made international headlines by condemning any form of sexual discrimination and advocating for equal opportunities and rights for women.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to Fars News, while speaking at the National Forum on Women Shaping Economy and Culture in Tehran Rouhani pointed out, &#8220;We will not accept the culture of sexual discrimination.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The liberal and mainstream media took these remarks as promoting and projecting a democratic and humane image of the Iranian president.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the 104-page UN report and UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmed Shaheed, the number of executions of women and the number of prisoners on death row has increased under President Rouhani’s rule.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Beyond these sweet remarks, President Rouhani did not even scratch the surface of women’s rights regarding the actual day-to-day discrimination that women face in the Islamic Republic. He solely commented on investing in electronic technology and marketing to lay the ground for women’s scientific progress.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In other words, there was no tangible, legitimate, or nuanced explanation about how to address the institutionalized discrimination against women or how secure equality for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For example, he did not mention practical solutions for ongoing gender inequality in terms of marriage and divorce, citizenship rights, nationality, international travel, employment, inheritance, child custody, among other things.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many Iranian women activists who live in the Islamic Republic, and several of those campaigners whom I have interviewed, shed light on a different reality for women rights under Rouhani’s presidency.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many women voted for Rouhani due to his promises for social freedom, gender equality, and for being a moderate candidate.  Nevertheless, as Sima, an Iranian teacher and women’s rights activist who lives west of Tehran in the city of Karaj, stated, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“President Rouhani has been successful in making a nuclear deal and resolving some of the tension regarding nuclear issues, but the reality is that women’s conditions have not changed. The conditions are still the same as those of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s era.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In mid-2013, based on a ruling passed by the constitutional body in the Islamic Republic, women are banned from running in presidential elections. A recent university policy excluded women from entering 77 courses of study. These are only few examples of recent laws being passed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some might make the argument that Iranian women are serving in the parliament or that President Rouhani has three female vice presidents (Elham Amin-Zadeh, Shahindokht Molaverdi, and Masoumeh Ebtekar).  However, we need to comprehend the fact that a handful of carefully selected women does not represent the conditions that millions of other disenfranchised women in the Islamic Republic face. According to the World Bank, the female population in Iran (last measured in 2011) is roughly 49.54 percent, approximately 38.1 million people.</span></p>
<p>The contradictory messages from the Islamic Republic intriguingly come from top officials and from within the system. While President Rouhani has rhetorically urged for gender equality and promotions of women&#8217;s rights, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed out in comments this week that gender equality is &#8220;one of the biggest mistakes of the Western thought.&#8221;</p>
<p>For the Supreme Leader, women’s rights and employments are acceptable as long as these rights do not come in conflict with &#8220;the main issue” of family. In other words, from the Iranian hardliners and conservatives’ point of view, based on underlying ideological biases, women’s primary role in society is the fulfillment of the &#8220;family environment and household.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rouhani’s message and position should not be analyzed as a reversal or a renegade move vis-à-vis the hardliners. Rouhani’s social base is the moderate, pragmatic section of the society and the millions of women who voted for him. This social base will be needed for Rouhani to run for reelections in a few years.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The likelihood of any positive shift in women’s rights is close to zero due to the institutionalized, unfair process in Iran’s judiciary system, Islamic and Sharia law, the fundamental ideological commonalities among moderates and hardliners when it comes to women&#8217;s critical rights, as well as the power of the Basij, the moral police, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and other governmental hardliner forces in enforcing the law. </span></p>
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		<title>Iran and the Relevance of Purim</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/iran-and-the-relevance-of-purim/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-and-the-relevance-of-purim</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Mar 2014 04:02:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Esther]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[purim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rouhani]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The eerie parallels of today to the Persian Empire's attack on the Jewish people. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/f8e349eb-fba0-436b-a345-7a6f0685ac47-460x276.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221674" alt="Hassan Rouhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/f8e349eb-fba0-436b-a345-7a6f0685ac47-460x276.jpg" width="281" height="218" /></a>As Jews worldwide and especially in Israel, celebrated the holiday of Purim (lots) last week, a sense of deja vu was in the air. Contemporary affairs evoked echoes of the text read by Jews in the Scroll of Esther. Haman, the Persian “Prime Minister,” under the Emperorship of Ahaseurus (presumed to be Xerxes I, King of Persia and Media) set out to annihilate the Jewish people in and around </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/265,56975/When-did-the-Purim-story-take-place.html">337 BCE</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Haman convinced Ahaseurus to endorse an edict permitting him to commit genocide against the Jews in the Persian Empire, a form of the Final Solution to the Jewish question in those days. The reading of Haman’s call to eliminate the Jews is an eerie reminder to Israeli Jews of how some things have not changed. The recent president of Iran (formerly Persia), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had a similar call to “wipe the Jewish State off the map.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While Ahaseurus was made to understand that he had made a mistake by his beloved wife Esther, he could not reverse his decree. He therefore permitted the Jewish people to defend themselves against those Persians who had set out to kill the Jews by engaging in what we refer to today as a pre-emptive attack.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Today, unlike the time of Esther, Mordechai, and Ahaseurus, there is no Iranian leader that would stop the genocidal threats against Israel, or refrain from propagating anti-Semitism in Iran. In fact, the Iranian Supreme Leader himself, Ali Khamenei, is plotting the very demise of the Jewish state. Deliverance for today’s Jews will not come from a benevolent Iranian leader, nor will it come from the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama. Rather it will come, as in the days of Esther, in the form of a pre-emptive attack; one that will capitalize on the vulnerabilities of the Khamenei-Rouhani regime.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran, much like Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, is not a homogeneous society. Close to 50% of Iran’s population of </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://countryeconomy.com/demography/population/iran">76.4</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> million (as of the end of 2012) is non-Persian. They include ethnic minorities such as Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs, and Baluch. The Islamic Republic of Iran under the Ayatollahs fostered discord and enmity in dealing with its diverse ethnic minorities. This will impact the regime’s ability to mobilize for war with Israel and the West should the interim agreement between the six world powers (U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) and Iran, signed in November, 2013, fail. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Under the interim agreement, Iran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear program in return for relief from some sanctions. The sanctions relief commenced in January, 2014, but it is still unclear as to how much of the nuclear program the Iranians have “rolled back” or are willing to roll back. According to Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and lead negotiator for the U.S. on the interim deal, any final agreement will be contingent on Iran taking </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.kcra.com/national/p51-and-iran-agree-on-nuclear-talks-framework/24575212">concrete</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and verifiable steps to prevent it from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. Yet, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi charged that the “[h]alting of Iran’s nuclear program and dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities are not on the agenda.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The delusional Western powers will learn soon enough that Tehran is simply buying time until it can produce a nuclear weapon. Israel cannot wait until that happens. However, a singular Israeli attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran will only delay the Iranian nuclear program. What the free world, and the U.S. in particular, should strive for is regime change. Removing the dangerous &#8220;messianic clerics&#8221; of Tehran from power and creating a multi-ethnic democratic Iranian regime is the wish of not only the oppressed ethnic and religious minorities (Sunni-Muslim, Christians, Bahai, and Jews) in Iran, but also the dream of the educated Persian middle-class that has been devastated by the Islamic Republic. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Sunni-Muslim Baluch in southeastern Iran have taken up arms against the regime of the Ayatollahs, as did the Sunni-Muslim Kurds in north-central western Iran, and the mostly Shiite Arabs known as Ahwazis (named after the capital of the southwestern province of Khuzestan).  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Israel’s Arutz Sheva reported on December 18, 2013 that “[t]hree members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have been killed in a roadside bomb in Iranian occupied Baluchistan according to the Iranian media.” Earlier in October, Baluch rebels killed 14 Iranian border guards. In retaliation, the Iranian regime hanged 16 Baluch fighters. Baluch rebels also gunned down a public prosecutor and his driver in the city of Zabol. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Baluch struggle against the Iranian regime for an independent Baluchistan has resulted in an upswing in Tehran’s severe oppression and discrimination against the Sunni Baluch. Western Baluchistan was annexed to Iran in 1928. Since the fall of the Shah, the Ayatollahs have forbidden the use of the Baluch language, and have targeted the region for deliberate economic neglect and discrimination in employment. Serious fighting between the Baluch nationalists and the IRGC erupted in 2006.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Kurds, a much larger minority in Iran, have given the Tehran regime a great deal of trouble. The Iran-based Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) began fighting the IRGC in 2004, after Iranian security forces fired on Kurdish demonstrators, killing 10 people. In 2014, PJAK was the only Kurdish group still waging an armed struggle against the Iranian regime. According to </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rudaw, </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian Kurdish youth were “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iran/23012014">disappointed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> with the traditional Kurdish parties fighting the Tehran regime, because they left Iranian territory in the 1980’s to take refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan.” One such party was the Freedom party of Hussein Yazderpana (this writer hosted him in New York City). These parties that moved to Iraq were forced to renounce attacks against the Iranian military and the IRGC to avoid reprisals against Iraqi Kurdistan thereby creating a vacuum that was filled by the PKK-related PJAK. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Vera Eccarius-Kelly, a researcher on Kurdish Diaspora and Professor of Comparative Politics at Siena College in New York, suggested that “Iran’s brutality has provided the PJAK with a level of legitimacy among young Kurds, but the current thaw in relations between the U.S. government and the Iranian regime signals an extremely difficult future for the Kurdish fighter in Iran.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In April 2005, the tensions between Ahwazi Arabs and the Tehran regime boiled to a head with the leak of a memorandum from the office of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran that set forth a policy aimed at changing the ethnic makeup of Khuzestan province. Ahwazi Arab demonstrators took to the streets of Ahvaz to protest the memorandum. Over the course of the next two weeks, the protests quickly spread through major cities and towns in the rest of the province and the Iranian government reacted with brute force. The Ahwazis responded by taking up arms and attempting to assassinate Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Ahwaz.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There is a saying in Hebrew that translates to “not every day is Purim,” and an understanding that miracles do not occur twice the same way. The miracle in our modern time will be the uprising against the Islamic regime in Tehran by the minorities who together, with the economically and politically repressed Iranians, will no longer endure the Hamans that rule them. The educated Iranian people are pro-American, even pro-Israel, and they seek a more democratic society – a free and less corrupt economy, unlike the one that is currently dominated by cronies of the regime and the IRGC. Nepotism and corruption on one hand, high unemployment and inflation on the other, are causing rising frustration among the young people of Iran.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The gist of the Purim story is the pre-emptive strike by the Jews against Haman and his cohorts. This time, the miracle would be a coordinated pre-emptive strike by the Iranian people and the Israeli Air Force that will destroy the regime’s assets, but would leave most Iranian people safe, and ultimately free.  </span></p>
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		<title>Obama’s Misconceptions on Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/obamas-misconceptions-on-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-misconceptions-on-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:35:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Does the president really believe that the Islamic Republic has moderated?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Hassan-Rouhani1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220355" alt="Hassan-Rouhani1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Hassan-Rouhani1-450x350.jpg" width="315" height="245" /></a>This week, I was invited to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, and when listening to Secretary of State John Kerry’s and Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speeches and their major points about the Islamic Republic of Iran, several underlying issues appeared to highlight the Obama administration&#8217;s misconceptions and its uninformed foreign policy towards the Mullahs.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">One of the crucial misunderstandings and misconceptions of the Obama administration is that it views the current status of American-Iranian rapprochement as similar to the American-Chinese rapprochement in the early 1970s with President Nixon’s trip to Beijing. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">One the fundamental flaws in such an analogy is misunderstanding the character of the policies and political moves of the Iranian leadership. It is crucial to point out that the shift in policy made by Mao Zedong was a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">strategic </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">one, while the current policies carried out by the Rouhani government and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Al Khamenei are </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">tactical.</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In one of his speeches, Khamenei gave an example of such tactical moves in recent nuclear talks by referring to wrestling (a popular sport in Iran), where sometimes, when the wrestler faces a strong rival, he must show some “heroic flexibility” in order to win the match or survive. Rouhani clearly wrote in his memoir that the negotiations he led 10 years ago during the Khatami era, and the agreement to suspend Iran’s nuclear enrichment for two years, not only did not halt the advancement of the nuclear program, but actually moved the program forward, expanding the centrifuges and nuclear infrastructure in those years. He added that through his policies he was capable of buying time and progressing the nuclear program to 20 percent enriched uranium with thousands of centrifuges.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">By tactical shift, I mean that Iran is not looking for any kind of actual policy change or a new era of relations with the United States, Israel, or the West. The Islamic Republic is not attempting to make a fundamental strategic shift to create new ties with the US and Israel, and it is not attempting to shift its animosity. The goal of the Islamic Republic is to make some tactical changes to recover its economy, regain power, buy time and advance its nuclear program.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">When these objectives are achieved, all the agreements on the nuclear issues can be reversed, as Iranian authorities have repeatedly said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">First of all, the Obama administration is very determined to focus on diplomatic avenues and push the interim nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic into a permanent nuclear deal.  While there is not an inherent problem in resolving Iran’s nuclear dilemma through diplomatic headways, the risk becomes much higher when the diplomatic avenues and negotiations are carried out in a flimsy, uncalculated, and marginal matter.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The shortcoming with the current diplomatic negotiations between the P5+1 (the U.S., Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany) and Iran, and the flaw with the Obama administration’s foreign policies regarding the ruling clerics in Iran, is that the final and comprehensive nuclear deal will leave Iran with some paths to becoming a nuclear power and obtaining nuclear weapons.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As a result, the danger of reaching a final deal that gives the Mullahs and Ayatollahs the tools and infrastructure to develop nuclear weapons is much more dangerous than the current situation for several reasons.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here are some of the consequences of reaching a flimsy permanent nuclear deal:  First of all, an insubstantial permanent nuclear deal will force the international community to lift all the economic and political sanctions that have accumulated as a result of decades of international consensus, sanctions, and Iran’s violations of nuclear enrichment and international standards. Secondly, as the sanctions are lifted, the Islamic Republic is significantly empowered in the regional and global arena economically, politically, and ideologically.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Third, it would be much more difficult to bring the Ayatollahs to the negotiation table once they have recovered their economy, currency value, and political status. The Mullahs will also use the loopholes in the final nuclear deal, as well as their clandestine nuclear sites, to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian leaders and the Supreme Leader have repeatedly pointed out that all these agreements are reversible at anytime.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Mullahs and Ayatollahs faced tremendous difficulty holding on to power when international sanctions in fact began working. Many years of efforts and sanctions finally brought them to the negotiating table to make tactical shifts and regain their economy, power, and maintain the advancement of their nuclear program. However, as the Islamic Republic was economically and politically desperate, and as decades of sanctions finally yielded results, the Obama administration did not carry out an informed policy plan to seize the opportunity.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In such conditions, where the Mullahs find no other way outside of coming to the negotiating table to retain their power, the Obama administration pushed for a deal that was mainly on the terms set by the Iranian leaders, instead of putting the nuclear terms based on the American and the international community’s terms. And, this continues to be the case for the final nuclear deal as well.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Money Flows Back to the Mullahs Thanks to Obama</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2013 04:15:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How the West's appeasement of Iran is already setting back human rights in the region. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1623441389.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209147" alt="1623441389" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1623441389-450x342.jpg" width="270" height="205" /></a>Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s government could not have possibly expected, or wished for, a better American government to work with than the Obama administration. The Iranians could not have imagined that an American administration could so easily buy their argument and image of a “moderate” government, allowing Iranian leaders to pursue their own Islamist and meddling foreign policies.</p>
<p>The Obama administration is attempting to persuade Congress, the international community, and its Western and European allies, that Rouhani’s government is moderate and different than Iranian governments of the past. While the American government has sent strong signals to the international community and multinational corporations that the Iranian government is moderate, the Islamic Republic of Iran is gleefully rebuilding its crippled economy. The Obama administration is also trying to prevent Congress from enacting further sanctions on Iran. As the Obama administration is attempting to halt further pressure on Iran, and is considering loosening and easing current economic sanctions (it is worth noting that it has already loosened some non-economic sanctions), Iran is getting back on the track.</p>
<p>First of all, Iran’s major economic lifeline, its oil industry, has rapidly begun to recover. According to <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2012/october/name,32248,en.html">International Energy Agency</a> (IEA) reports, in September, Iran has already increased its oil exports by 180,000 barrels per day as compared to the previous year, equivalent to a 26 percent increase.</p>
<p>An adviser to Iran’s oil minister, Mehdi Hosseini, was quoted in the Financial Times saying that the Iranian government is developing a “win-win” form of contract, which could benefit leading Western and Eastern companies alike.  The Iranian government is trying, according to Hosseini, to also change the current system of “buyback” contracts, which currently do not permit foreign companies to book reserves or take equity stakes in Iranian oil, gas, or other projects. This is can be viewed as a considerable shift in Iran’s oil industry, which has previously been exposed to little foreign investment in its oil and gas fields due to the international sanctions and pressure.</p>
<p>As the theocratic and Islamist government of the Ayatollahs and clerics are again observing the flow of wealth and cash into their government, thanks to the Obama administration loosening its policies on Tehran, the ruling Islamists in Iran are feeling more confident in their abilities to ratchet up their crackdown on minorities, oppositional groups, along with political and human rights activists.</p>
<p>Despite Rouhani’s moderate image and American outreach to Iran, the religious persecution of minorities—particularly Christians and Sunni Muslims— is increasing and continuing. According to a Christian advocacy group and international news outlets, just this week a court in Iran has sentenced four Christian men to 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion ceremony. This sentencing is part of the government crackdown on so-called “house churches.” House churches are unofficial locations where Christians meet in Iran in order to practice their faith while trying to not be recognized, detected, and persecuted. Several other political and human rights activists have also been sentenced to jail in the last few weeks.</p>
<p>According to a new UN report made in October by Ahmed Shaheed, a UN special reporter on human rights in Iran, such persecution of Christians is common in the country despite new President Rouhani&#8217;s pledge to be a moderate.  “At least 20 Christians were in custody in July 2013,&#8221; Shaheed reported, adding, &#8220;In addition, violations of the rights of Christians, particularly those belonging to evangelical Protestant groups, many of whom are converts, who proselytize to and serve Iranian Christians of Muslim background, continue to be reported.”</p>
<p>Additionally, the UN report noted that Iran’s “Authorities continue to compel licensed Protestant churches to restrict Persian-speaking and Muslim-born Iranians from participating in services, and raids and forced closures of house churches are ongoing,” and that “More than 300 Christians have been arrested since 2010, and dozens of church leaders and active community members have reportedly been convicted of national security crimes in connection with church activities, such as organizing prayer groups, proselytizing and attending Christian seminars abroad.” Furthermore, this past Saturday, Iranian authorities executed 16 Sunni insurgents. These executions were reportedly conducted as retaliation for an attack carried out a day earlier, by other groups.</p>
<p>Recently, Iran’s press watchdog has imposed a ban on a major reformist newspaper <i>Bahar</i>, because it published an article viewed as raising questions about the beliefs of Shi’ite Islam. The <i>Bahar</i> newspaper published an op-ed article in which the author casted doubts on whether the Prophet Muhammad had appointed a successor (Ali). The newspaper was banned because this statement contradicts the beliefs of Shia Muslims, Iran’s ruling clerics and Ayatollahs.</p>
<p>As the Islamist state of Iran is becoming more confident about its economy and its reopening of oil contracts, it is also further finding itself more capable of funding its proxies in the region including Hamas and Hezbollah.  Meaning that Iran is increasing its geopolitical and foreign policy influence across the region. These are some of the recent highlights and consequences of the Obama administration’s softening policies towards Iran. When foreign policies are not calculated and informed meticulously, the repercussions will be severe, not only for one nation but for security and peace regionally and internationally.  As the United States is loosening its pressure on Iran and urging other countries to do the same, more oil companies are investing in Iran, allowing Tehran to feel more confident in their persecution of minorities and political activists, along with their funding of proxies and meddling in the affairs of other countries.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Negotiations Game Begins Anew</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/irans-negotiation-subterfuge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-negotiation-subterfuge</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Oct 2013 04:56:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[New talks with Iran kick off -- and the Obama administration is eager to appease. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100826561-irans-president.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207483" alt="Iran's President Rouhani waits to depart after addressing the 68th United Nations General Assembly in New York" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100826561-irans-president-444x350.jpg" width="311" height="245" /></a>While President Obama refuses to negotiate with congressional Republicans over the terms for opening the government and passing an increase in the debt ceiling, he is perfectly happy to negotiate for the umpteenth time with the treacherous Iranian regime. A few encouraging words from the duplicitous new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his sidekick Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during their visit to the United Nations last month, as well as a hastily arranged phone call between Obama and Rouhani, was all that Obama needed to fall for Iran’s latest delaying tactics.</span></b></p>
<p>Thus, talks are now beginning to get underway in Geneva between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries, comprised of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) and Germany. Yet before negotiations had even begun, the thugs running Iran said they will not agree to a shipment of any of its current stocks of enriched uranium out of the country as part of any deal. This is less than Iran was reportedly willing to do back in 2010 when Iran, Turkey and Brazil issued a joint ten-point declaration on a nuclear swap deal, with Iran agreeing to deposit its stockpile of 20-percent uranium in Turkey.</p>
<p>All we can now expect from Teheran, in return for elimination of the energy and banking sanctions currently imposed on Iran, is some sort of possible limitation on the level of Iran’s future uranium enrichment activity and a mutually agreed upon process for increased international inspection. In order to secure even an interim confidence-building step in this direction from the Iranians, which they will be able to easily evade in any event, the West would have to begin to significantly ease the current sanctions.</p>
<p>Robert Einhorn, a former state department official who has been deeply involved in the Iran negotiations and is now with the Brookings Institute, said, “The biggest problem is going to be over the issue of sanctions relief. The Iranians will want to see some early easing, but we will want to hold back as long as possible on sanctions to ensure that we have sufficient leverage to achieve a final agreement.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as the talks drag on, the Iranians’ thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, adding to the existing stockpile of enriched uranium that Iran says it will insist on keeping as part of the final agreement.</p>
<p>Obama likes to speak of some Republicans as hostage takers and extortionists for demanding any concessions before agreeing to pass a continuing budget resolution or to raise the debt ceiling. Yet he is more than willing to enter into negotiations with a regime that actually took Americans hostage and never apologized. In order to get Iran to even consider moving back from having the means to quickly build at will the nuclear bombs and delivery systems it can use to extort its neighbors and eventually the world, Obama would have to agree to remove the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. One wishes that Obama would stiffen his spine with our country’s mortal enemies, rather than just with his domestic political adversaries.</p>
<p>Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his fellow fundamentalist mullahs, backed by the hard line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, run the show in Iran. They hate America, pure and simple. Nuclear weapons are both their insurance policy to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, as well as their ticket to seriously challenge the United States in the Middle East region and beyond.</p>
<p>Rouhani and Zarif, no matter how moderate they may sound when speaking to receptive Western audiences, are Khamenei’s puppets. And when those puppets began to even slightly stray from their master’s tight control while outside of Iran at the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Khamenei let them know of his displeasure.</p>
<p>Khamenei, for example, said that Rouhani’s brief phone conversation with Obama was “not appropriate.” Both the call and Zarif’s longer meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry were “missteps,” according to Khamenei. The supreme leader added for good measure what he really thought of the United States as a negotiating partner, whom he accused of being “seized by the international network of Zionism.”  He said that “the American government is untrustworthy, supercilious and unreasonable, and breaks its promises.”</p>
<p>Zarif, the foreign minister, did not take long to get more in line with Khamenei’s tight limits over any authorized outreach to the “Great Satan.” Iran’s influential conservative daily <i>Kayhan </i>reported that Zarif has accepted responsibility for the “missteps.” At a national security and foreign policy committee of the Majlis, called to examine the diplomacy of Rouhani and Zarif in New York, Zarif is reported to have said: “We (Zarif and Rouhani) thought that the talks (with Kerry) and the phone call (with Obama) were within the authority given to us, but it is our understanding that Hazrat Agha (Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) has criticized us for Dr. Rouhani’s phone conversation with Obama, he regards that as the first misstep, and my long meeting with John Kerry, and he regards it as the other misstep during out trip.”</p>
<p>For his part, Rouhani has managed to convince Khamenei so far that his strategy of faux negotiations will be the best path to secure some relief from the crippling sanctions. Rouhani has proven his deception has worked in the past. Last week the <i>Times of Israel</i> reported on a recently discovered four-month-old video clip of Rouhani boasting during an interview on Iranian state television about how he had taken advantage of the suspension of limited activities he offered during negotiations with the Europeans in 2003. At that time until 2005, Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Although Iran issued a joint statement with visiting European Union ministers in October 2003 setting out its pledged obligations under the so-called Tehran Declaration, Rouhani said in the interview, “We did not let that happen!” Instead, exploiting the illusion of suspension, Iran’s government took significant steps in finalizing the heart of Iran’s nuclear program – uranium conversion, enrichment and installation of many more centrifuges.</p>
<p>“Do you know when we developed yellowcake? Winter 2004,” Rouhani boasted. “Do you know when the number of centrifuges reached 3,000? Winter 2004.” He also said that the Iranian heavy water reactor at Arak, which Iran hopes to use as an alternative plutonium path to a nuclear weapon, got going during this time.</p>
<p>“We halted the nuclear program?” Rouhani asked the interviewer rhetorically.  “We were the ones to complete it! We completed the technology.”</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows exactly what is going on. He has tried to call the world’s attention to the Iranian regime’s continuing duplicity and warned negotiators not to be lulled into another Rouhani subterfuge. “He fooled the world once. Now he thinks he can fool it again,” Netanyahu correctly observed. But the Obama administration and its European partners are not listening, nor paying attention to history. While claiming to insist on meaningful, transparent and verifiable concessions, the negotiators are going to Geneva with unrealistic expectations, while giving Iran more time to cross the nuclear arms finish line.</p>
<p>The Iranian negotiators in Geneva will be looking for any wedge they can use to sow divisions among the Western team and seek to unravel the sanctions by first drawing away key European participants. The Iranians can be expected to come with a detailed, attractive looking proposal such as a future enrichment limit at no greater than 3.5%. However, it is likely to be accompanied by the condition that the West first show good faith by partially removing the sanctions, particularly at least some of the banking sanctions that have been hurting Iran’s economy the most.</p>
<p>In interviews with the European press last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu warned the Europeans against falling for such bait. “No deal is better than a bad deal, and a bad deal would be a partial agreement which lifts sanctions off Iran and leaves them with the ability to enrich uranium or to continue work on their heavy water plutonium, which is what is needed to produce nuclear weapons,&#8221; Netanyahu told <i>The Financial Times</i>. “Don&#8217;t give up now, and don&#8217;t say later that I didn&#8217;t warn you.&#8221;</p>
<p>No sanctions should be removed until Iran unequivocally agrees, and begins to take verifiable steps to implement under unfettered international inspection, the disclosure of <b>all</b> its nuclear research and development facilities above and below ground, the dismantling of nuclear-related facilities with a primarily military or dual use purpose, the halt of <b>all </b>uranium enrichment and plutonium-related activities, and the export of <b>all</b> enriched material out of Iran or its conversion into harmless fuel rods.</p>
<p>If President Obama does not hold his ground in the negotiations and set a firm deadline for meaningful results with all other options kept on the table, starting with further ratcheting up of the sanctions, he will find out soon enough what “extortion” truly looks like.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>America&#8217;s Endless Search for a &#8216;Moderate&#8217; Iranian President</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/americas-endless-search-for-a-moderate-iranian-president/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=americas-endless-search-for-a-moderate-iranian-president</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Oct 2013 04:36:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=206364</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Clinging to mirages. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/rou.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-206371" alt="rou" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/rou-450x299.jpg" width="315" height="209" /></a>American administrations have been obsessed with dividing the Middle East into “moderates” and “hard-liners.” It has never served the U.S. policymakers well, particularly as it is applied to Iran’s Islamic Republic. American administrations are not alone in viewing Iran through such a prism. Other Western governments and particularly the major Western media did so as well.</p>
<p>Yet time and again, the so called “moderate” Iranian presidents proved to be smooth-tongued fellows outwardly, while inside Iran they permitted murders, assassinations, and imprisonment of regime opponents. At the same time, they have sanctioned international terrorism.</p>
<p>Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president of Iran in 1989. In his “inaugural” address he promised the Iranian people “renewal” following the bloody 8-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the death of the Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranian economy, then as now, was close to ruin and Rafsanjani’s soothing words spurred a great deal of enthusiasm in America and the West.</p>
<p>Rafsanjani assured the German government in July 1992 (Germany’s was Iran’s major European trading partner) that the assassination of Iranian dissidents “belonged to a bygone era.” Two months later, just such an assassination occurred at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin, where the three highest ranking members of Iran’s Democratic Party of Kurdistan, along with other opposition leaders, were gunned down.</p>
<p>The Spanish philosopher George Santayana admonished that history tends to repeat itself. President Rouhani’s election in June 2013, just like the election in June, 1997 of President Mohammad Khatami, was influenced by the impact of Western sanctions on Iran. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, approved a candidate that could “soften” the West to end the sanctions against Iran. And like Rouhani, Khatami was hailed as a “moderate” who also smiled pleasantly to Western cameras. Khatami’s gimmick was the “dialogue of civilizations,” which greatly impressed the liberal Clinton administration. The Clinton administration was eager for dialogue with Khatami’s Iran. Some sanctions were lifted, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright extended an official apology to Iran for the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.</p>
<p>While Western policymakers were gushing over Khatami, brutal assaults on dissidents and opposition leaders took place in Iran. A dozen leading writers and political leaders were murdered between 1997 and 1999, but that did not end the love affair between the U.S. administration and the “moderate” President Khatami. Similar to Rouhani avoiding Obama in the UN corridors in 2013, Khatami avoided crossing paths with Clinton at the UNGA summit in 2000. Also, in 2002, during Khatami’s presidency, dissidents belonging to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and the heavy water facility in Arak.</p>
<p>According to a CIA memo, Khatami “probably joins other Iranian leaders who maintain that support to Hezbollah is an essential aspect of Tehran&#8217;s effort to promote itself as leader of the Muslim world and champion of the oppressed.”</p>
<p>President Barack Obama, who disavowed George W. Bush’s designation of Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil,” tried hard to find accommodation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2009, soon after his inauguration, he offered direct talks but was spurned and ridiculed by the Supreme Leader and his minions, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p>
<p>Now, however, in 2013, Iran’s economy is on the brink of disaster. Iranian oil exports dropped from 2.4 million barrels a day (bpd) to about 800,000, costing the regime $70 billion, and robbing it of its main revenue source. 40% of young Iranians are unemployed and the real figure is probably higher. Inflation, too, is at 40%, but most likely higher.</p>
<p>Given the economic realities in Iran, it is no wonder that the regime has sponsored a so-called “moderate” such as Rouhani, to launch a “charm offensive” aimed at the West. He is tasked with breaking the Western sanction regime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his UN General Assembly speech, revealed the true nature and aims of the Iranian regime and warned the international community to beware of Iran’s ploy.</p>
<p>Addressing the UN General Assembly on October 1, 2013, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared, “Now since [the Iranian Revolution of 1979), presidents of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, others, hard-liners. But they have all served that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgiving regime, that creed that is espoused and enforced by the real power in Iran, the dictator known as the supreme leader, first Ayatollah Khomeini, and now Ayatollah Khamenei.”</p>
<p>Netanyahu made the case to the international community and in the White House, to President Obama, not to be persuaded by the new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “charm offensive.” At his UN speech Netanyahu added, “President Rouhani, like the presidents who came before him, is a loyal servant of the regime. He was one of six candidates the regime permitted to run for office. See, nearly 700 other candidates were rejected. So what made him acceptable? Well, Rouhani headed Iran’s Supreme national Security Council from 1989 through 2003. During that time Iran’s henchmen gunned down opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant. They murdered 85 people at the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires [1994]. They killed 19 American soldiers by blowing up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia [1996].”</p>
<p>Calling Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Netanyahu asked rhetorically whether anyone can believe that Rouhani, the national security adviser of Iran, knew nothing of these attacks. Rouhani was, moreover, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005. As such, he masterminded the strategy that enabled Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program behind “a smokescreen of diplomatic engagement and very soothing rhetoric.”</p>
<p>In fact, during his recent election campaign for the presidency, Rouhani reminded Iranians, and in particular the “Ahmadinejad faction” of the ruling class, that during his term as National Security adviser, he raised Iran’s nuclear centrifuges from 300 to 1,500. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (September 6, 2013 report) “Iran continues to enrich uranium and increase the number of centrifuges installed, including around 18,000 of the IR-1 type centrifuge and 1,000 of the more efficient IR-2m type.”</p>
<p>In the final analysis, there is no substantive difference between former presidents of Iran Ahmadinejad and Rouhani. There are only stylistic changes. Both Ahamdinejad and Rouhani have sought to maintain and bolster the Islamic revolutionary regime, which has sponsored worldwide terrorism and abused human rights inside Iran. The economic hardship experienced by ordinary Iranians is putting pressure on the regime to bring relief to the nation, without much compromise on the nuclear program. Iran’s main goal is regime survival. The primary policy of the regime is to become the hegemon in the Middle East region and beyond. The nuclear option would provide it with the means to do so.</p>
<p>American policymakers must stop equating Western realities with that of Iran. The U.S. administrations and the media have wrongly used such terms as “liberal” or “moderate” and contrasted it with “conservative” or &#8220;hard-liner.” These are deceptive characterizations is applied to the Middle East in general and to Iran in particular. Rouhani is no less of a “hard-liner” than Ahmadinejad when it comes to the regime’s survival and its nuclear program. He is poised to advance Iran’s policy goals as previous presidents have done. Rather than look at the Iranian power-play as between “hard-liners” and “moderates,” Westerners should understand the inner workings of Iran’s political elites as mafia-like families warring over economic and political interests.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Renewed Iranian Romance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/obamas-renewed-iranian-romance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-renewed-iranian-romance</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2013 04:52:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The president fawns over sham moderate Rouhani -- and repeats the North Korea mistake. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/143022.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205705" alt="143022" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/143022-399x350.jpg" width="319" height="280" /></a>Three days after being snubbed at the United Nations by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, President Obama made a hurriedly arranged telephone call to Rouhani last Friday as the Iranian president was heading to the airport to return to Tehran.  This followed what Secretary of State John Kerry had described as his own “constructive” meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif the previous day.</p>
<p>Obama couldn’t wait to tell reporters after his call with Rouhani how optimistic he was at the prospect of new talks with Iran over its nuclear program.  He looked forward to resolving this issue, which “could also serve as a major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”</p>
<p>A twitter account in Rouhani’s name also expressed optimism, stating, “In regards to nuclear issue, with political will, there is a way to rapidly solve the matter.” The message added that “We’re hopeful about what we will see in coming weeks and months.” Alas, the original message text on Rouhani’s Twitter account was deleted. It was most likely too hopeful for the hardliners back home to stomach.</p>
<p>President Obama congratulated Rouhani on his election and praised the supposedly constructive statements Rouhani made while in New York for his address to the UN General Assembly. Obama also reaffirmed to Rouhani his respect for Iran’s right to develop civilian nuclear energy, but noted that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons was unacceptable.  In his comments to reporters after the call, Obama said that “we’ve got a responsibility to pursue diplomacy, and that we have a unique opportunity to make progress with the new leadership in Tehran.” However, he added that only “meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions” regarding Iran’s nuclear program could lead to a decision to ease the economic sanctions currently imposed on Iran.</p>
<p>Obama’s problem is that there is no real new leadership in Tehran, only a new figurehead. The real leader remains Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. He isn’t called Iran’s “supreme leader” for nothing. He is the ultimate decision-maker on the future of Iran’s nuclear program and on any rapprochement with the United States.</p>
<p>Rouhani is Khamenei’s errand boy to find a way to lure the West into pretend negotiations that will buy Iran more time to complete its development of a nuclear bomb and that will provide just enough bait to persuade at least some U.S. allies, if not the Obama administration itself, to lighten up on the sanctions that have been hurting Iran’s economy. Rouhani is an old hand at using negotiations as a cloak behind which the Iranian regime moved forward with its nuclear arms development program. As Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pointed out, Rouhani dragged out negotiations with the Europeans a decade ago as Iran’s chief nuclear point man. The Iranian regime used the time to get more advanced centrifuges spinning away:</p>
<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s been his past policy. What we need to do is make it very clear that we&#8217;re wise to that. We know he&#8217;s playing the same playbook that North Korea used to get nuclear weapons, to get out from under the sanctions.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rouhani himself has boasted about his successful tactics in using negotiations and temporary suspension of activities that the Iranians had already mastered technically as a smokescreen:</p>
<blockquote><p>While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Esfahan, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Esfahan. Today, we can convert yellowcake into UF4 and UF6, and this is a very important matter. In fact, UF6 is what the centrifuges feed on; it is the feed material for centrifuges. Therefore, it was important for us to conclude that process… When we wanted to negotiate with the Europeans last year, we had something like 150 centrifuges, but today we have about 500 centrifuges that are ready and operational. We could increase that number to 1,000. We would not have any problems, should we decide to do so. We have made good progress in this area.</p></blockquote>
<p>(Hassan Rouhani, Beyond the Challenges Facing Iran and the IAEA Concerning the Nuclear Dossier, from text of speech delivered to the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council in the fall of 2004 while Rouhani was still serving as chief nuclear negotiator with a number of European Union countries)</p>
<p>Rouhani claimed at a news conference last week during his New York City charm offensive, in response to a question whether his diplomatic blitz was intended to just buy the Iranians more time, that, “We have never chosen deceit as a path. We have never chosen secrecy.” This revisionist spin directly contradicts Rouhani’s speech to the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council in the fall of 2004.  Iran’s nuclear program, Rouhani said back then, “never was supposed to be in the open. But in any case, the spies exposed it. We wanted to keep it secret for a while.”</p>
<p>Iran’s secrecy about its nuclear program included its years of hiding the construction of an underground nuclear enrichment facility, a cluster of 3,000 connected centrifuges, until its hand was forced in 2009 by Western intelligence’s discovery of the site. And Iran’s secrecy continues, including regarding its Arak heavy-water production plant for weapons-grade plutonium as an alternative means of building a nuclear bomb.</p>
<p>Rouhani used his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 24th to try and set a moderate tone. Indeed, he used the words “moderate” and “moderation” throughout his speech. He even called for a new UN project entitled “the World Against Violence and Extremism.”</p>
<p>Rouhani repeated Iran’s long-standing position that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes and said that his country was prepared to prove its good intentions to the world through “time-bound and result-oriented talks to build mutual confidence and removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency.” But he also repeated Iran’s demand that its right to enrich inside Iran “and enjoyment of other related nuclear rights” be fully respected. Iran’s “nuclear technology, inclusive of enrichment, has already reached industrial scale,” he said. It would be “an illusion, and extremely unrealistic, to presume that the peaceful nature of the nuclear program of Iran could be ensured through impeding the program via illegitimate pressures.”</p>
<p>Such “illegitimate pressures” include the economic sanctions currently imposed on Iran, which Rouhani described in his speech as “unjust,” a “manifestation of structural violence,” “intrinsically inhumane,” and “against peace.” He also complained that “Propagandistic and unfounded faith phobic, Islamo-phobic, Shia-phobic, and Iran-phobic discourses do indeed represent serious threats against world peace and human security.”</p>
<p>Iran, on the other hand, is a peace-loving nation that eschews violence and intolerance, according to Rouhani. “Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region,” Rouhani tried to assure the General Assembly in one of his more deceitful declarations.</p>
<p>To the contrary, aside from Iran’s potential nuclear threat, it is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with its tentacles spread around the world directly or through proxies such as Hezbollah. It is providing funding, weapons, training, and sanctuary to numerous terrorist groups in the Middle East and beyond.  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a principal arm that the Iranian regime uses to support terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as well as to intervene in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.</p>
<p>The Iranian clerical rulers’ entire theocratic ideology is built around Shiite fundamentalist extremism and violence. They believe that chaos is necessary to bring about the early return of the 12th Imam, the latest in the succession of imams believed by some Islamic Shiite fundamentalists to be the direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad and the carriers of his message on earth.</p>
<p>According to such believers, the 12th Imam will return just before the end of the world, preceded by several years of horrendous world chaos. Before there can be peace and justice under sharia law, there must first be war and chaos. The Imam will force people to convert to Islam or be beheaded, ruling over the Arabs and world for 7 years before finally bringing harmony and total peace under one world religion, Islam.</p>
<p>Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has reportedly issued a fatwah demanding that he be obeyed as the earthly “deputy” of both the Prophet Muhammad and the 12th Imam. In July 2010, this supreme leader is said to have claimed that he actually met with the 12th Imam.</p>
<p>Khamenei wants to see Israel, the “Little Satan” which he hates, destroyed as part of the process to prepare for the 12th Imam’s arrival. Last year he declared that &#8220;From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this. The Zionist regime is a real cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut, God Willing.”</p>
<p>Ayatollah Khamenei linked Israel and the United States, the Great Satan, together as the mortal enemies of the 12th Imam and declared through a spokesman in August 2009:</p>
<p>“We have to train honest forces that can stop the obstacles that may hinder the coming of the Mahdi like the United States and Israel.”</p>
<p>In February, 2011, Khamenei proclaimed: “We will never forget who the main enemy is. We continue to shout passionately: Death to America, death to Israel.”</p>
<p>So much for President Rouhani’s pledge of peace and moderation, given that Khamenei is the real power behind the throne. But his lies to the General Assembly did not stop there. He boasted of the Iranian government’s “reliance on the ballot box as the basis of power.” The 2009 “re-election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president was a complete fraud, leading to massive demonstrations in the streets that the government brutally suppressed. The 2013 presidential election, which Rouhani won, was peaceful but hardly demonstrative of an honest “reliance on the ballot box as the basis of power.” The Guardian Council screened 680 registered candidates, approving only eight to run in the election. The eight approved candidates were conservatives <a name="0.1__GoBack"></a>not expected to challenge the absolute supremacy of Ayatollah Khamenei on all important policy decisions. Reformist candidates, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were barred from running.</p>
<p>Last week, while Rouhani was still in New York City, protesters gathered near the UN denouncing Rouhani as the “murderous moderate.” They pointed, for example, to his choice of Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi as Minister of Justice, who as deputy in the Ministry of Intelligence for years participated in the death committees responsible for the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. Rouhani’s choice of defense minister, Hossein Dehghan, is also a hard-liner. He served as a commander in the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps and in its air force, and reportedly was one of the radical students who took 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.</p>
<p>If President Obama were truly interested in actions and not words, he would look at the real record of the sham “moderate” who is lulling him into months more of fruitless negotiations and of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to whom Rouhani is beholden.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama Undoing Years of Work with Iranian Outreach</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/ayatollahs-buying-time/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ayatollahs-buying-time</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Sep 2013 04:24:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The real motive behind Rouhani's sudden softened tone. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1379942549555.cached.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205282" alt="1379942549555.cached" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1379942549555.cached.jpg" width="267" height="199" /></a>Recently, there has been an exchange of letters and pleasantries between the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, and American president, Barack Obama.</p>
<p>President Obama is the first American leader since Jimmy Carter to find a friend and pen pal in Iran. President Rouhani said in an NBC News interview broadcast on Wednesday that the tone of Mr. Obama’s letter was “positive and constructive.” Rouhani stated, “It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future.”</p>
<p>Obama had a pleasant exchange of words with Rouhani in an interview on the Spanish-language network Telemundo on Tuesday, stating that there were positive indications that Rouhani “is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it.”</p>
<p>Later, Rouhani showed an eagerness to arrange a meeting with the American leader. President Obama has indicated that he is open to meeting with President Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.</p>
<p>For several powerful, legitimate, and credible reasons, this political move by the Obama administration would work against former American administrations’ foreign policy goals and the international community’s efforts to contain the Islamic Republic of Iran, its nuclear defiance, and its theocratic Islamist leaders.</p>
<p>First of all, it is necessary to closely understand the reasons behind the Iranian leaders’ move to make diplomatic headway with the United States and the West. This political step is not due to Iranian leaders’ sudden realization that they have mistakenly had malevolent, spiteful, terrorizing, and vindictive foreign and domestic policies for decades; nor have they abruptly woken up to reality and began attempting to be a democratic, benevolent government that aims to respect human rights, rule of law, as well as the sovereignty of other countries like Israel and other Western nations.</p>
<p>This political move is indeed a tactical, calculated, and strategic action by the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>The fact is, that decades of accumulated and concerted efforts by the international community, the United States, P5+1, Western, and European countries have brought the Iranian regime to the verge of political and economic collapse.</p>
<p>Here are some fact and statistics: Iran’s oil sales and exports were roughly 2.5 million barrels a day just a few years ago. The international sanctions have slashed these sales by more than half, and Iran is now exporting and selling less than 1 million barrels a day.  The sanctions have caused an unprecedented level of inflation, domestically.  The spike in the inflation— 35 percent— has then caused an increase in domestic discontent. The rial, Iran’s currency, has been significantly devalued from 9,000 rial to an American dollar, to 31,000 rial to an American dollar. In addition, political repression has tremendously increased up under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two terms, particularly against minorities, Christians, Jews, Baha’is, human rights activists, women, lawyers, etc. The convergence of these factors has seriously and severely endangered the Iranian leadership’s grasp of power.</p>
<p>The reason behind the softening of language from Iran’s Ayatollahs comes from their sense that the economic and political sanctions have endangered their power. They are attempting to evade further sanctions by making diplomatic headway with President Obama, one of the only friends they have found.</p>
<p>Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) were absolutely accurate when they wrote in a recent letter to President Obama —sent on the eve of the possible meeting with President Rouhani— that “These measures have had an overwhelming impact on the Iranian economy, causing a sharp drop in the value of Iran’s currency and crippling key sectors of its economy, such as energy, banking and shipping,” adding, “The impact of these sanctions may finally be bringing Iran to the negotiating table, and now is not the time to delay, remove or loosen these measures. Doing so now would be extremely counterproductive. Instead, we should continue to move forward with strong implementation of our sanctions unless Iran suspends its nuclear program.”</p>
<p>Secondly, this new shrewd and even Machiavellian strategy by Iran’s leaders is the most effective way for the nation to buy time, continuing to enrich their nuclear program. According to several reports, Iran is extremely close to turning the 20 percent enriched uranium into nuclear warheads and bombs.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while Rouhani has hypocritically shown that he is eager to make diplomatic headway with the rest of the world, Iranian, Syrian, and Russian media have been spreading propaganda that the United States is in tremendous decline with the Obama administration begging Iranian leaders to make relations with the United States. These claims have worked towards tremendously weakening and undermining the American geopolitical position.</p>
<p>President Obama has unprecedentedly softened his language with the leaders of Iran, even indicating that he is open to meet with President Rouhani next week. Iranian clerics are currently overjoyed at accomplishing their political objectives, as Obama has changed his tone, reinforcing their position and messages.  Behind the scenes in Tehran, the Ayatollahs are holding parties for successfully deluding the American government.</p>
<p>The main reasons Rouhani is extending this “charm offensive” to the United States, stem from the decades of sanctions and efforts by Western powers.  President Obama is scuttling years of concentrated efforts by not only the international community, but four former American presidential administrations to contain the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Rouhani Launches His &#8216;Charm Offensive&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/rouhani-launches-charm-offensive/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rouhani-launches-charm-offensive</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:35:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[While the view looks bleaker and bleaker from Jerusalem.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Hassan-Rouhani_2641568b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-204760" alt="Hassan-Rouhani_2641568b" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Hassan-Rouhani_2641568b-450x307.jpg" width="270" height="184" /></a>It doesn’t take a genius to game the West. The West—and particularly its elite people who make or influence policy—wants to be gamed, to be convinced that there is never a need for military operations and one’s easy, luxurious life can continue undisturbed.</span></b></p>
<p>So the Rouhani charm offensive has begun. Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president since August 3, on the way to address the UN General Assembly in a few days, coos to the West and, especially, President Barack Obama:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever….</i></p>
<p><i>This government enters with full power and has complete authority. I have given the nuclear negotiations portfolio to the Foreign Ministry. The problem won’t be from our side. We have sufficient political latitude to solve this problem….</i></p>
<p><i>We do not seek war with any country. We seek peace and friendship among the nations of the region….</i></p></blockquote>
<p>And his recent exchange of letters with Obama, says Rouhani, was “positive and constructive….It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future….”</p>
<p>The charm offensive comes at a time when Iran is <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/irans-oil-revenues-drop-58-percent-since-2011-181421330.html">hurting economically</a> from the West’s sanctions, its monthly revenues from oil sales having dropped 58 percent while the rial plummets and inflation and unemployment soar. Could the charm offensive have something to do with a desire to ease the sanctions while making creaky promises to the West that it would be all too eager to accept?</p>
<p>No, it couldn’t be that. It must be that—after <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0403/How-much-is-a-nuclear-program-worth-For-Iran-well-over-100-billion">investing well over $100 billion</a> in a nuclear program that provides less than 2 percent of its energy needs, voluminously <a href="http://joshuateitelbaum.com/2012/05/24/the-iranian-leaderships-continuing-declarations-of-intent-to-destroy-israel/">proclaiming its intention to destroy Israel</a>, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/us-accuses-iran-of-surge-in-terrorism/story-fn3dxix6-1226654194920">sponsoring worldwide terrorism</a> at a level unseen in decades according to the U.S. State Department, and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/PM-Iran-has-set-7000-new-centrifuges-spinning-since-presidential-election-322399">installing at least 7000 new centrifuges</a> since Rouhani was elected—Iran has changed!</p>
<p>To believe that it has changed one has to, of course, tune out some less pleasing notes than those Rouhani has been singing. For instance, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who, as anyone with minimal Iran knowledge knows, is in charge of things no matter what nonsense Rouhani speaks about “complete authority”—<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5heDnuUWBD3I-cA-bS5p12g5nvWSw?docId=CNG.17aef595c14b6ea471952c5c568daff3.641">told</a> members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Heroic flexibility is very useful and necessary sometimes but with adherence to one main condition…. A wrestler sometimes shows flexibility for technical reasons. But he does not forget about his opponent nor about his main objective.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>For those who say Iran is gaming the West and hasn’t changed, those words about an “opponent” and a “main objective” appear to be a smoking gun—that is, unless one is determined to ignore the odor of gun smoke. And there were also <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12039">these words</a> from the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Ali Jafari:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>the arrogant enemy [America] suffered defeat in Syria in all things related to military intervention as well as with the rest of its plans. They did not succeed with anything concerning Syria. We have nothing to fear from them here in Iran….</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Not much charm there either, and again, it seems to bear out those who say Obama’s acquiescence to a <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.547654">transparently flawed deal</a> on Syria’s chemical weapons has only boosted Tehran’s confidence and contempt for the West.</p>
<p>Unless, of course, one is determined that the words of those who say such things will not be borne out no matter what.</p>
<p>For that matter, to be sweet-talked by Rouhani one has to ignore some things about him, too.</p>
<p>Such as his being a <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/rowhanis-past-actions-speak-louder-than-todays-soft-words-experts-say/">dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong follower</a> of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini;  the fact that he <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324520904578551273594278646.html">chaired Iran’s National Security Council</a> during the years of the Jewish Community Center bombing in Buenos Aires and the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia; the fact that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1512161/How-we-duped-the-West-by-Irans-nuclear-negotiator.html">he boasts of having already gamed the West</a> as Iran’s nuclear negotiator in 2003; and the fact that Iran’s June presidential elections were <a href="http://www.thetower.org/the-regime-wanted-him-to-win/">transparently manipulated by the regime</a> to give Rouhani—the faux “reformer”—the win.</p>
<p>Obama, for his part, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=20287432&amp;sid=77&amp;cid=77">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>There are indications that Rouhani, the new president, is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, too, will be addressing the UN on Iran, and on September 30 will be <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-obama-host-netanyahu-september-30-182240188.html">meeting with Obama in Washington</a>. On the Iranian issue Netanyahu has acted as Obama’s better angel, trying to apprise him of the reality of a deeply ideological, anti-Western regime that is working hard to <a href="http://freebeacon.com/iran-icbm-advances/">develop intercontinental ballistic missiles</a> that can reach the U.S.</p>
<p>It is, though, no secret that Israeli officialdom’s belief—or hopes—in Obama were hardly encouraged by his bungling of the Syrian issue. Situated where it is, Israel lacks the West’s latitude for being beguiled by Tehran. As Israeli Middle East expert Martin Kramer <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323595004579069452022413522.html">told the <i>Wall Street Journal</i></a>: “The chance that Israel may need to act first against Iran has gone up.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>President Obama’s New Pen Pal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/president-obamas-new-pen-pal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=president-obamas-new-pen-pal</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2013 04:28:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rouhani]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[What Iranian leaders are contemplating as Hassan Rouhani heads to the U.N.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3A2A9CBC-2676-4025-8628-361CE500766C_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy3_cw0.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-204543" alt="3A2A9CBC-2676-4025-8628-361CE500766C_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy3_cw0" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3A2A9CBC-2676-4025-8628-361CE500766C_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy3_cw0.jpg" width="250" height="209" /></a>After vacillating for weeks on what to do regarding his red line for the use of chemical weapons in Syria and ultimately retreating, President Obama laid down yet another of his meaningless red lines for Iran. “My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck [Syria] to think we won’t strike Iran,” Obama warned in an interview with ABC that aired last Sunday. “I think what the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical weapons issue.”</span></b></p>
<p>There is little doubt that the Iranians have learned precisely the opposite from Obama’s back-and-forth flirtation with military action over the last several weeks. Since Secretary of State John Kerry had signaled that any attack against Syria would be “unbelievably small,” it is not difficult to imagine Iran’s leadership concluding that an attack against Iran, if any, would be small as well.</p>
<p>President Obama has compounded the meaninglessness of his warning by sending mixed signals. Obama decided to exchange correspondence with Iran&#8217;s recently-inaugurated President Hassan Rouhani. Obama may also engage in some sort of informal contacts with Rouhani on the sidelines of next week’s annual heads-of-state circus at the UN General Assembly that both leaders are scheduled to address on the same day.</p>
<p>Obama reportedly sent a letter of congratulations to Rouhani on his election victory. According to one source, the letter indicated that the American government was prepared to reduce sanctions if Iran made a serious diplomatic effort.</p>
<p>Rouhani expressed thanks for the congratulations and gave his views on several issues, which have not been made public.</p>
<p>While Obama is engaging in pleasantries with his new-found pen pal, Russian President Vladimir Putin is parlaying his diplomatic coup on the handling of chemical weapons in Syria into a planned visit to Iran to help work out a strategy on its nuclear program. And just as Putin chose to lecture the United States in his <i>New York Times</i> op-ed article last week that it must show more respect for other countries, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that the United States must adopt the “language of respect” in dealing with Iran. That should not be a problem for Obama, who still thinks his charm offensive will win over our enemies. And with Rouhani, just as with the Muslim Brotherhood and its hand-picked former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Obama confuses the appearance of moderation with the real thing.</p>
<p>Rouhani showed his true colors once again recently with his remarks about an alleged Zionist conspiracy. &#8220;A study of the (present) conditions in Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Syria shows that the West has made a chain of them and seeks to strengthen Israel and weaken the resistance front,&#8221; Rouhani said in remarks to the ranking commanders of the hardline Islamic Revolution Guards Corps in Tehran on September 16<sup>th</sup>.  The aim is to &#8220;benefit Israel, to consolidate Israel and its power.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rouhani had previously expressed his strong support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and for Iran’s state-sponsored jihadist terrorists, Hezbollah, who are fighting to keep the Assad regime in power.</p>
<p>Rouhani has also labeled Israel “a wound that has sat on the body of the Muslim world for years and needs to be removed,” as reported by Iran’s semi-official student news agency ISNA, although Iran’s state-run television tried to present a toned-down version of Rouhani’s original remarks.</p>
<p>Rouhani will most likely come across as less threatening and bombastic than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the UN General Assembly next week. However, underneath the façade, there is little difference in substance. Rouhani harbors “a conspiratorial, anti-American, and anti-Israel worldview,” in accordance with the views of his close friend, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, according to Mark Dubowitz and Tony Badran of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.</p>
<p>Be on the lookout for an attractive-looking offer on the nuclear issue from Rouhani, perhaps during his speech to the General Assembly next week. As reported by <i>Spiegel</i>, he may propose decommissioning Iran’s underground Fordo enrichment plant and permitting more inspections, including the monitoring and removal of centrifuges, in return for the lifting of economic sanctions:</p>
<blockquote><p>SPIEGEL has learned from intelligence sources that Iran&#8217;s new president, Hassan Rohani, is reportedly prepared to decommission the Fordo enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to monitor the removal of the centrifuges. In return, he could demand that the United States and Europe rescind their sanctions against the Islamic Republic, lift the ban on Iranian oil exports and allow the country&#8217;s central bank to do international business again.</p></blockquote>
<p>For all we know, Putin may once again be taking leadership of a supposed diplomatic solution so that Obama can once again escape having to follow through with his declared red line while Putin emerges as the great peacemaker. However, Obama should not fall for this trick, as tempting as it may be.</p>
<p>Rouhani sees negotiations as merely a tactic to buy time in advancing Iran’s nuclear program. We know this from his own account of the tactics he used when he served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in 2003. In an in-depth interview given to the Mehrnameh periodical in May 2012 to mark the publication of his book, National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, Rouhani said that during Iran’s voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment, which Rouhani negotiated with the European Union in 2003, Iran’s nuclear program made major advances.</p>
<p>Once again, in an attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies, Rouhani is reportedly preparing to have his foreign minister offer the outlines of his latest proposed deal to Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union.</p>
<p>Agreeing to shut down the Fordo facility will mean very little if Iran’s other enrichment plants are still humming along and Iran gets to keep all of the enriched material that has been produced so far. What this shows is Iran’s confidence that it is on the threshold of having enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear warhead. And Iran is not about to give that enriched uranium up or to scrap its plans to put a heavy water reactor into operation in 2014 and begin producing plutonium for use in building nuclear bombs.</p>
<p>Iran’s claim that it has already reduced its stock of 20 percent-enriched uranium from 240 kilograms to 140 kg by converting it into fuel has been called into question by analysts from the U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security. They reported that the UN’s nuclear watchdog had as recently as August 2013 estimated that only around 30 kg of Iran&#8217;s near 20 percent-enriched uranium had been converted into fuel assemblies, far short of what Ali Akbar Salehi, Rouhani’s choice to head the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, represented to be the case.</p>
<p>President Obama may have a new pen pal in Tehran but he better read between the lines and take nothing President Rouhani says or promises at face value.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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