RUTHFULLY YOURS

I was interviewed Wednesday, January 3, 2018 about the ongoing demonstrations in Iran by Audrey Russo.

In the interview, I elaborated on why these nationwide demonstrations differ, dramatically, from what I have come to refer to as the 2009 Green Movement .

The Green Movement’s chief ideologues — political leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and “spiritual guiding force” Ayatollah Montazeri (d. 2009) — were both full-throated, bigoted Shiite Sharia supremacists, who were pro-Iranian nukes (Mousavi helped godfather Iran’s nuke program; Montazeri affirmed it till his death in December, 2009), virulently anti-Western, and anti-“infidel.” Each also, sadly, championed Iran’s annihilationist, Shiite Islamic Jew-hatred. Ayatollah Montazeri, to his unique, and lasting shame, was the main contemporary Iranian clerical “revivalist” of the odious Shiite doctrine of najis. The doctrine dehumanizes non-Muslims as physically, politically, and spiritually “impure,” and in Iran has historically, through the present, made their very existence parlous.

Indeed, as I also pointed out during the interview, the elections of Rouhani in 2013 and 2017 represents the triumph of the Soylent Green ideology because Rouhani shares the views of Mousavi and Ayatollah Montazeri. As Iranian journalist Borzou Daragahi acknowledged in a January 3, 2018 essay, even amongst Iranian youth, “many of those who took to the streets in the 2009 ‘Green’ uprising … are sitting these protests out. They stood in long lines in 2013 and 2017 to elect Rouhani.”

Why might they be sitting out these protests? Unlike in 2009, the current protests are revolutionary.

They are directed at uprooting the entire Shiite theocratic system that was Iran’s form of governance (notwithstanding invasion and internal conflict in the 18th Century) from its founding by Shah Ismail in 1501 through 1925. Iran underwent a forced secularization/Westernization under the authoritarian Pahlavi Shahs from 1925 until 1979. The return of Shiite theocratic rule upon Khomeini’s ascension to power through his retrograde “revolution” had restored the theocratic norms of the 16th through the early 20th Centuries.

What were those (i.e., 1501-1925) “norms?” As characterized by the renowned Persianophilic scholar E.G. Browne in 1924: “The Mujtahids [an eminent, very learned Muslim jurist/scholar who is qualified to interpret the law] and Mulla [a scholar, not of Mujtahid stature] are a great force in Persia and concern themselves with every department of human activity from the minutest detail of personal purification to the largest issues of politics.”

“I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her.” — Nabih Wahsh, Islamist lawyer, on Egypt’s al-Assema TV, October 19, 2017.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 sparked off increasingly revolutionary movements across the Islamic world, and in the process saw women in many countries denied the freedoms they had started to acquire under earlier regimes. The veil returned widely, notably in Turkey, following the growing power of authoritarian and fundamentalist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with women’s rights being increasingly denied.

We urgently need to drop our unwillingness to contrast Western and Islamic values — whether regarding violence, treatment of religious minorities, anti-Semitism, or treatment of women. There are also growing numbers of Muslims, as we are seeing today in Iran, who find wider Islamic attitudes abhorrent and work hard, mostly against the odds, to bring their faith closer to modern values.

For a time, one could not open a newspaper or visit an online news site without finding yet another scandal about sexual harassment. Lawyers are presumably going to have a field day for years to come. In the UK, a further wave of accusations has shaken an already shaky parliament and the Government, whose Cabinet is increasingly in disarray. In the US Congress, Hollywood and elsewhere, similar claims are still being made, with #MeToo stories being shared by women, while there is an unknown number of accusations in US statehouses.

Sex scandals in the West are far from new.[1] The irony is that this brings us face to face with attitudes to the same problem in the Islamic world.

For many years in the West, it was common practice for sexual harassment and rape among celebrities and public figures to be hushed up. To secure silence, abusers often used bribes or threats. Young women feared the loss of their careers or reputations; in many instances, the police would reject claims of abuse. This happened more than once in the UK, when young victims of “Asian” grooming gangs were not believed by social workers and police; in Europe authorities tried — and still try (see here, here and here) — to cover up harassment and rape committed by Muslim migrants. There will be a lot of work to do to protect women and children from the excesses of so many men.

Just watch and marvel at this short clip from a debate on Egypt’s al-Assema TV, aired on October 19, 2017, or read an English transcript. The Director-General of al-Assema is Brigadier-General Muhammad Samir, a former spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces. His appointment has been criticized on the grounds that it is “a miserable attempt by the military regime authorities to nationalize the media, unify its message, and block any opposing voices against the government”. In that sense, al-Assema represents a semi-official voice.

On Thursday, French president Emmanuel Macron criticized the United States and Israel for encouraging anti-regime protests in Iran claiming, inter alia, that such talk would lead the world closer to war. “The official line pursued by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are our allies in many ways, is almost one that would lead us to war,” Macron told reporters.

Unlike his predecessor, who capitulated to the whims and dictates of the mullahs, President Donald Trump voiced strong support for the protesters and leveled harsh criticism against the oppressive theocratic regime. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Europe’s tepid reaction to the rapidly unfolding events throughout Iran and issued encouragement to the protesters, referring to them as “heroic” and “brave.”

With his pusillanimous comments, Macron demonstrates yet again why France is, and will always be a third rate power. Few nations in the world today pose more of a threat to world peace than the Islamic Republic of Iran. But France, steeped in the craven mindset of 1938 Munich is either unwilling or unable to recognize the clear and present danger posed by this malevolent regime.

Iran has planned and carried out dozens of acts of terror across five continents. The regime currently provides financial and military support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, groups listed as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the State Department and designated as terrorist organizations by the European Union as well as several Arab nations. Iran enabled Assad to perpetrate genocide against his own people, enabled Hezbollah to swallow Lebanon whole, has spread misery in Yemen and provided deadly Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFP) to Jihadists battling American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Israel and the U.S. are amplifying criticism of Iran’s role in Middle East conflicts, part of a coordinated effort to curb Tehran’s influence in the region as antigovernment protests put pressure on the country’s leaders.

Since protests began last week in Iran, Israel has accused Tehran of setting up a terrorist cell in the Palestinian West Bank and blamed Iran for supplying mortars fired on Israeli territory by militants from the Gaza Strip. Iran hasn’t responded to the allegations.

“The fact that they have exposed [Iran] now is related to a broader pressure campaign,” Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said of the Israeli accusations. “When Iran is under pressure it’s a good idea to increase the pressure.”
People in Iran have demonstrated against the government in the biggest wave of protests to hit the country in almost a decade. Here’s what could be next for Iran and what the unrest means for more than 80 million Iranians.

When the new year started, U.S. officials said, domestic protest in Iran wasn’t expected to be at the top of the Trump administration agenda. But the demonstrations are now part of the administration’s evolving effort to cast Iran as an international pariah.

President Donald Trump has tweeted about Iran five times in recent days. “The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime,” he said on Twitter on Tuesday. “All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their ‘pockets.’ The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!” CONTINUE AT SITE

Nikki Haley, America’s formidable ambassador to the United Nations, has done it again. The Iranian uprising has been hard to “see.” Cell phone videos, photos, Facebook posts and Twitter allow us only sporadic peeks, and even those are being shut down in places, as the Islamic regime works to close Iranian access to the wider world. Ambassador Haley used her microphone to spread the slogans of the protesters:

“Let go of Palestine”
“Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life (only) for Iran”
“Leave Syria. Think about us.”
“Don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid, we’re all together.”
“Feel some shame (Khameini). Let go of the country.”
“All these brigades have come out to the street; they’ve come out against the leader.”
“Political prisoners must be freed.”
“Independence, freedom, Iranian Republic.”

For all that the mainstream media, and erstwhile members of the Obama “echo chamber” would have us believe this is an economic uprising, it is inextricably tied to the political desire of the Iranian people for freedom and a government that responds to their needs and aspirations. It is inextricably tied to Iranian nationalism – and tied to the choices of their government to spend the national treasury on war. Yes, the Iranian economy is terrible – even after the easing of trade sanctions and the delivery of pallets of cash by the Obama administration. But the Mullahs running the Islamic Republic are not interested in the economy, the people, or nationalism. Months ago, I wrote in a different context:

Iran’s judicial authorities “continued to impose and carry out cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments that amounted to torture, including floggings, blindings and amputations. These were sometimes carried out in public.” At least one woman, Fariba Khaleghi, remains under a sentence of death by stoning. — Amnesty International.

What is worse, the vast majority of those put to death in Iran have not committed crimes that would be punished with that severity (or at all) almost anywhere else in the world, least of all in Europe, Israel, or 23 states (and the District of Columbia) in the USA.

Even before their trials, individuals accused of anti-state convictions are mistreated, tortured, kept in solitary confinement for months on end, and denied access to their families and lawyers. “‘Confessions’ extracted under torture were used as evidence at trial. Judges often failed to deliver reasoned judgments and the judiciary did not make court judgments publicly available.” — Amnesty International.

As for the mullahs, they brook no criticism from any quarter and intend to keep Iran and its people under their iron grip forever, even if that means putting to death every dissident voice.

At the end of December 2017, something almost without precedent happened in cities across Iran. It started in the largest shrine city of Mashhad, then moved to Kermanshah, which had not long before suffered a major earthquake in which some 600 people died and where survivors had been neglected by the state. After that, large-scale protests moved to Sari and Rasht in the north, the clerical city of Qom, then Hamadan, and by the December 29, Tehran itself. In the following days, people were on the streets across the country. Starting on the third day, protesters were challenged by massive turnouts of pro-regime marchers. Anti-government protests, which these were, had not been seen in this quantity since the brutally-crushed risings after the 2009 presidential elections. By January 2, at least 20 protesters had been killed and more than 450 arrested. It was reported on the same day that Iran’s Chief Justice, Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, claimed that protesters might be considered “enemies of God”, and executed.

On his website, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

“accused unnamed foreign enemies of meddling in Iran’s affairs, using money, weapons, politics and intelligence apparatuses ‘to create problems for the Islamic system’. The clerical elite is congenitally incapable of admitting that native Iranians, chafing under their harsh rule, might have genuine reasons for civil unrest.”

President Hassan Rouhani, a fake “reformist”, identified these foreign enemies as “the US, the regime occupying al-Quds [i.e. Israel] and their cronies”.

Nothing deterred, US President Trump tweeted on January 1 that:

“Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!”

Ironically, Iran’s receiving more than $100 billion in frozen assets succeeded in breaking the solidarity between the Iranian people and the Ayatollahs’ regime better than the sanctions did.

Without Iranian money, Hezbollah would not exist. At least, not exist as an Iranian foreign legion, militarily engaged against Israel and in other Middle East regional conflicts. Without Iranian subsidies, Hezbollah would be just a narco-mafia.

Hezbollah has developed deep connections to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, directly to facilitate the distribution of drugs throughout the Middle East and the US.

In the holy city of Qom in Iran, on December 30, 2017, anti-regime demonstrators shouted “Death to Hezbollah”, “Aren’t you ashamed Khamenei? Get out of Syria and take care of us”, and “Not Gaza, or Lebanon”.

In an Islamic country, whose official slogan is “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, to see Iranian people shouting “Death to Hezbollah” is totally surreal.

By wishing “Death to Hezbollah”, Iranians demonstrators were not only protesting a “rise of the price of eggs” as the Ayatollahs’ propaganda machine tried to claim. The demonstrators were demanding that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spend Iranian money for Iranian people — and only for Iranian people.

Ironically, Iran’s receiving more than $100 billion in frozen assets for the hapless “nuclear deal” succeeded in breaking the solidarity between Iranian people and the Ayatollahs’ regime better than the sanctions did. During the tough time of sanctions, the Iranian people stood by their leaders. The people only broke with their leaders when they saw that the “liberated” money was benefiting everyone but them.

Is Hezbollah eating the Iranian people’s bread? The answer is yes, absolutely. Hezbollah is an Iranian foreign legion, a tool of an imperialist Shia war being conducted in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and against Israel. This Arab Shia army was created in Lebanon by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1982, right after Israeli defense forces expelled the PLO from Lebanon. The aim of this Arab Shia legion was to demonstrate to Sunni Muslim Arabs in the Middle East that Shia Iran was a better fighter against the “Zionist entity” than any Sunni regime.

For good or evil, we may see radical changes in North Korea in 2018.

The beefed-up United Nations sanctions by midyear could lead to widespread North Korean hunger, as well as the virtual end of the country’s industry and transportation.

In the past, the West had called off such existential sanctions and rushed in cash and humanitarian aid on news of growing starvation. Would it now if the bleak alternative was a lunatic’s nuclear missile possibly striking San Diego or Seattle?

To survive an unending trade embargo — and perhaps to avoid a coup — Kim Jong Un would likely either have to recalibrate his nuclear program or consider using it.

China has always been unwilling to give up pit bull North Korea as its client. The Kim dynasty has proved especially useful over the past 30 years for aggravating and distracting the Chinese communist government’s archenemy, Japan, and its chief rival, the United States.

Yet China is now worried that the Donald Trump administration is as unfathomable as the prior Obama administration’s strategic patience doctrine was predictable.

Beijing’s sponsorship of the rogue nuclear regime in North Korea could increasingly become bad business, given global anxieties over the many possible trajectories of North Korea nuclear missiles.

What are some likely scenarios for 2018?

1) The status quo. China may loudly proclaim that it is following U.N. commercial sanctions while it secretly offers just enough sanction-busting aid to keep Kim Jong Un afloat. It might use its leverage to force Kim to cool his nuclear rhetoric — even as it stealthily supplies embargoed fuel and food.

China would then hope that an amnesiac world would move on and accept a gentler-sounding (but still nuclear and thus useful) North Korea.

The status quo — North Korean missiles pointed at America’s West Coast — is clearly untenable. Yet never underestimate China’s faith in the therapeutic forces of Western appeasement to accept the unacceptable.

2) A Chinese solution. China would cut some sort of deal to remove North Korean missiles — or even the Kim regime itself through a coup or uprising — in exchange for controlling the future of North Korea. That would likely mean not allowing a democratic, free, Westernized, and unified Korean peninsula on its borders.

Other than disassociating itself from the future status of North Korea, the U.S. should ensure that it does not give any concessions to China to remove the nukes. Such an indulgence would only reward North Korea nuclear roguery and ensure that the cycle of the last three decades would be endlessly repeated.

3) Forced removal. Barring acceptance of the status quo or a Chinese solution, the U.S. would be forced to accept widespread malnutrition of the North Korean populace and a constant ratcheting up of pressures to eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons.

Nicolae Ceaucescu and wife Elena were dispatched with extreme prejudice when the Romania people finally rid themselves of a duo so brazen in their greed and tyranny no writer of fiction would have dared invent them. It’s quite a story, not least the gullibility of leaders in the West.

Britain’s Islam-friendly politicians, led by London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan, are campaigning to cancel Prime Minister Theresa May’s invitation to President Trump for a State visit in 2018. Britain has not always been so fussy about who gets a State reception. In the wake of a trip to Bucharest I’ve been researching the Communist-era dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife, Elena (left).

They were invited to Britain by Labor Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1978. Callaghan pimped a reluctant Queen Elizabeth to meet them at Victoria Station, and put them up in Buckingham Palace. Ceaucescu even got a ride with Her Majesty in the State landau. They were accompanied by bodyguard General Ion Pacepa, who defected to the West a month later, and a clatter of Household Regiment cavalry. The Queen later described the visit as “the worst three days of my life”. She was required, among other indignities, to award him the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, subsequently revoked in 1989.

Ceaucescu came ostensibly “to make firm friends among Western nations”, as the newsreels put it, and to sign a £200-million deal to buy several British Aerospace BAC 1-11 airliners (predecessor to DC9s and B737s) and build scores more in Romania under licence for export to China and the Third World. His actual goal was to open British doors for Romanian secret service men, doubling as technicians, to steal airline, Rolls Royce engine and Harrier jump-jet technology, to be on-sold to Moscow notwithstanding Ceaucescu’s vaunted hostility to Brezhnev.

The airliner deal turned into farce. An entire assembly line was air-freighted to Romania to make six BAC 1-11s a year. At its peak the Romanians had 4400 skilled workers on the job. But the plane was already obsolete and actual production was no more than one a year. The two nearly finished planes were left to rot and rust after Ceaucescu’s overthrow. He also defaulted on the hard currency required and sought to pay in barter. The first shipload of Romanian strawberries was rotten by the time it reached the wharf.

In Bucharest I joined a tour of the Ceaucescus’ Primaverii or “Spring” residential palace, all of us especially slack-jawed at the indoor tropical garden built on top of a swimming pool, with infra-red heating equivalent to power 100 normal apartments. The pool’s rear walls comprise a million-piece mosaic of pretty fishes that took artists two years to complete. This was just one of his five official residences, 39 guest houses, 21 exclusive apartments in embassies, nine planes, three helicopters and three presidential trains. Plus the couple had a hospital reserved for themselves alone.