Mediaboss Marketing

by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Sina Azodi

In Washington, the policy of Iranian regime change that blossomed during the Bush years and withered under Obama has flowered again in the Trump administration. But those advocating regime change and those arguing vociferously against it are both losing sight of the fact that profound change is already happening in Iran.

In the Iranian political arena, differences of opinion and vision among reformists, centrists, and hardliners are daily on public view. Two strands of influence have shaped the political system of the Islamic Republic since 1979. The clerical establishment has wielded authority and determined laws and policies according to a deeply patriarchal and paternalistic approach that assumed that the people needed guidance. But the revolution also rekindled the idea of public reason and peoples power to shape their own destiny. These two divergent ideas came together in the states identity as simultaneously Islamic and a republic.

Tensions between these two tendencies have been evident since the 1990s, and the balance of power is now shifting. At a July 19 cabinet meeting, President Hassan Rouhani reminded his team of the demands of the public and the democratic process to which the officials are accountable. These shifts in attitude are critical indicators of change occurring within the system.

The change in the political sphere is prompted by the dynamic transformation of Irans social and cultural space since 1979. One of the best indicators of this transformation is the status of women, who have been key players all along. In the 1970s, the reform of family law that gave women increased rights under the shah helped to rile up the traditional clergy against Irans westernization. The clergy in turn mobilized women from poorer and more conservative communities to support the revolution. But the suspension of the family law, forced imposition of the hijab, and early attempts to take away womens rights to vote prompted a fierce backlash from women across the social spectrum. In the 1980s, barred from certain university degrees, women fought back and reclaimed their spaces, so much so that in 2015 some 70% of science, technology, engineering, and math graduates in Iran were women. The late, great Maryam Mirzakhani, the only woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, was among the generation of girls born after the revolution into a system that overtly discouraged gender equality. Mirzakhanis ascendance was not unique. On July 11, 2017, Irans flagship airline, Iran Air, appointed 44-year-old Farzaneh Sharafbafi as its first female CEO.

Women have also fought their way into politics. The 2016 parliamentary elections led to a new majlis with the largest number of women since the revolution. Similarly, in the 2017 city council elections, there was a 6% increase in womens victories. In the highly conservative Sistan and Baluchistan province, some 415 women won council seats. Meanwhile, there is outcry at the absence of women in the newly appointed cabinet, despite President Rouhanis election promise to appoint more women to ministerial posts.

The Iranian public has long shown that it wants the regime to change, but it does not want regime change a la Washington or Riyadh. Regime changers in Washington try to co-opt the human rights agenda by claiming that the majority of the Iranian public would support the toppling of the regime. But the 73% voter turnout in Iran and among the diaspora in the May presidential elections sent a loud and clear message: people want peaceful evolution with order, not chaotic revolution with disorder and violence.

There is good reason for this caution. Iranians historically have experienced the cycle of harj-o-marj (chaos and turmoil) when one dynasty has toppled its predecessor, destroying the good along with the bad and the ugly. The Pahlavis did it to the Qajars, who did it to the Zandiyeh dynasty. If there is fatigue about internal disruptions and fear of the unknown, there is positive revulsion at the thought of foreign interference. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Iranians tried to ward off the colonial drive of the Russians and the British. In 1953, they were blindsided by the arrival of the American empire on their doorstep, undermining the countrys most popular and most democratic of leaders, Prime Minister Mohamad Mossadeq. The blowback came in 1979 with the har-o-marj that accompanied the toppling of the shah, the US embassy hostage crisis, and the emergence of the Islamic Republic.

It has been a tough 38 years. Those who were children when the revolution occurred saw their lives change overnight, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Iran-Iraq war in the trenches and across the nations cities for eight years. The following generations have often been thwarted by the limitations imposed by the hardliners, but they have also learned the lessons of the past. It is easy to reject a system and demand its demise, but the fundamental question is: what comes in its place? The lessons of Iraq and Libya, which were plunged into chaos in the name of freedom and democracy, are sobering. Wary of violence and the disintegration of their own country, Iranians do not want the same fate.

Of course, regime-change advocates claim that there are legitimate, publicly supported opposition movements waiting in the wings to take control and bestow democracy on the Iranian people. Sadly, they are backing losing horses, such as the reviled Mojaheddin-e-Khalq that supported Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. Meanwhile, Iranians did not heed the call of the erstwhile crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, for civil disobedience and election boycotts and treated his statements with derision.

In reality, although regime changers may claim to be defenders of democracy, they either want a malleable client state or a collision between the US and Iran. And knowing that indigenous and independent voices of dissent and dual nationals will be at even greater risk, the regime changers demonstrate a calculated cruelty by claiming to side with them. But any attack, bloodshed, or imposed leadership by external forces will prompt greater internal cohesion. When the dust settles, a population that desperately desires moderation and engagement will be angry with the world and more dependent on the very hardline forces that are currently on the wane.

There is also great danger. Iran is situated in a turbulent region, with difficult borders to control. If a weakened state can no longer police those borders, then Pakistan with its mix of Taliban, the Islamic State, and nuclear weapons would have easier passage to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Iran itself has a population of some 80 million people, mainly young and highly educated. But if the country falls into chaos, the potential ramifications of its instability would engulf the entire region.

The Iran of today is a very different country to that of 1979, 1989, 1999, or even 2009. The population increasingly has a democratic mindset. There is a genuine desire to find a transformative path to a world of live and let live. Unstoppable socio-political change is in motion with women at the lead. The best the US can do is let Iranians fulfill their own destiny, one that will be better for Iran, the region, and the U.S.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is the executive director of the International Civil Society Action Network and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.Sina Azodi is a current PhDcandidate in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at The University of South Florida. Photo:Farzaneh Sharafbafi

Read more from the original source:
Iran: The Change that Matters is Happening Already - LobeLog

A young Iranian who was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death as a child was executed Thursday, a semi-official news agency in Iran reported.

Human rights group Amnesty International called the killing of Alireza Tajiki "shameful."

Tajiki was 15 years old when he was arrested six years ago for murder and sodomy.

Ana.ir quoted general prosecutor of Shiraz city Ali Salehi as saying the execution took place Thursday morning and was "legal."

Ali said Tajiki had a "fair and just" prosecution and that Iran's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence following an appeal, the news outlet reported.

Under Iranian law, murder, rape, sodomy and armed robbery are punishable by death.

Separately, authorities arrested six young people for promoting Zumba, the Latin-inspired dance exercises, and other types of exercise, according to local media.

The reported arrests are part of Iran's decades-long crackdown against influences of Western culture. In June, Iran banned Zumba and other exercises considered un-Islamic.

Thursday's report says the six included two women. They were arrested by the powerful Revolutionary Guard in the town of Shahroud, about 250 miles east of the capital, Tehran.

See the rest here:
Iran Executes Alireza Tajiki Who Was Arrested at age 15 for Sodomy, Murder - NBCNews.com

Photo Credit: Hillel Maeir / TPS

by Andrew Friedman

Education Minister Naftali Bennett has warned the international community, including diplomats, politicians, not to allow the immediate threat posed by the Islamic State (ISIS) to blind them to the long-range threat posed by Iran.

In an English-language video published Thursday, Bennett excoriated Iran for violating the human rights of its own citizens by executing homosexuals, jailing reporters without cause and requiring women to obtain permission to travel, work or drive.

Bennett also outlined Tehrans support for international terrorism as well as the countrys growing military strength, including plans to build a nuclear weapon.

Asked whether Bennett feels the international community is listening to Israels concerns about the Iranian threat Bennetts former boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning about the issue from every available podium for nearly two decades a spokesperson for the minister told TPS that he feels the message is, in fact, beginning to make waves overseas.

A good illustration is [Bennetts] op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The fact they were willing to publish it shows that they are listening. I can also say that there are many politicians, diplomats, journalists and others who really are prepared to listen, even if they dont always agree with us, he said.

The spokesman added that more and more, the international community is beginning to open up to the notion that while ISIS is a difficult tactical threat right now, the answer is not to give Iran additional tools to fight ISIS now as this would serve Irans ultimate goal of building a Shiite corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean Coast.

This corridor is an Iranian dream, said Bennett in the video. It is a highway to transfer weapons. It is a highway to transfer extremism. It will bring Iranian aircraft to striking range from Europe. It will bring Iranian ships and submarines to the Mediterranean.

Here is the original post:
Bennett: Don't Take Eye Off Iran In Fight With ISIS - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2017 With 50 percent of Raqqa, Syria, now under the control of Syrian Defense Forces and holding forces in place in Mosul, Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has no safe haven left in either country, the Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman said today.

Army Col. Ryan S. Dillon, briefing the media live from Baghdad, gave an update on operations in Syria and Iraq, noting that determined SDF fighters continue to make progress against ISIS as they fight block by block in Raqqa.

The SDF has now cleared more than 50 percent of the city from terrorists, Dillon said.

The SDF are in a fierce urban fight and have almost managed to link up their forces along the eastern and western axes as they conduct deliberate clearance operations of areas under their control, he added.

Syria Operations

Fighting in the tightly packed old city is difficult because buildings and even corpses are rigged with improvised explosives by ISIS to stall the SDF advance, the colonel said.

In the past week, ISIS has used car bombs to attack evacuating civilians and working journalists. In attacks two days in a row, ISIS used armored vehicles packed with explosives to kill six noncombatants and wound five reporters, he said.

The Raqqa Internal Security Force, otherwise known as the RISF, now more than 1,000 strong and composed mainly of Arabs from the Raqqa area, is filling in behind the SDF to provide security and prevent ISIS from returning to cleared neighborhoods, Dillon said.

In southern Syria, near the Iraq-Syria border, there were clashes Monday between ISIS and militia groups, he said, noting that there were initial allegations of coalition strikes on Iraqi popular mobilization forces.

"We verified that the coalition did not conduct air or ground artillery strikes in that location at that time," the colonel said. "This has since been confirmed and corroborated by Iraqi security forces and Iraqi popular mobilization forces."

Rebuilding Iraq

Holding forces are in place in Mosul, Dillon said, and the federal police, the 16th Iraqi Armored Division and some Counter Terrorism Service battalions remain in eastern and western Mosul to provide security as the cleanup begins and civilians start rebuilding their lives.

We have seen the resilience of the Moslawis in East Mosul and we are beginning to see it in the west as markets open and people begin to return to their neighborhoods. The coalition continues to support the [Iraqis] as they reset and prepare for follow-on operations in Tal Afar, he said.

The coalition conducted more than 50 strikes in the past week against ISIS defensive positions, headquarters, weapons caches and vehicle bomb and road bomb factories in Tal Afar and Kisik Junction, which is about 30 kilometers east of Tal Afar, Dillon said, where ISIS is defending the approach to the city.

The coalition estimates that about 2,000 ISIS fighters are in and around Tal Afar, and the colonel said the fight to root them out from one of ISIS' last Iraq strongholds is expected to be difficult, he said.

In former ISIS strongholds, where local Iraqis are back in control and taking care of their people, we see continued progress, Dillon said.

In Tikrit, liberated in April 2015, more than 95 percent of those who fled the city have returned, the colonel said. In Ramadi, liberated in February 2016, more than 300,000 displaced persons have returned, and 20 schools, 18 health centers and 250 houses are rehabilitated, he added.

In Fallujah, liberated in June 2016, 400,000 displaced persons have returned, clean water is pumped to 60 percent of residents, and projects have begun to rehabilitate more than 10,000 houses over the next 18 months, Dillon said.

After ISIS is removed from an area, it is cleared of hazards, international aid and local governance resumes, he said.

Degrading ISIS Finances

Highlighting success in degrading ISIS financial resources, Dillon said the coalition conducted precision airstrikes on five ISIS financial centers in Iraq and Syria over the past two weeks.

In southern Syria, two airstrikes in Abu Kamal destroyed an ISIS financial headquarters and a bulk cash depository, and another ISIS financial headquarters was destroyed in Deir ez-Zor. Two airstrikes in Iraq destroyed ISIS financial centers in Huwayjah and al-Muthanna, the colonel said.

The coalition is disrupting ISIS financing across Iraq and Syria to keep the terrorist organization from raising, moving and using the resources to pay for fighters and fund terrorism around the globe, Dillon said.

The coalition has struck about 30 ISIS banks and financial centers over the past three years, destroying tens of millions of dollars, and Iraqi government has cut off more than 90 bank branches inside ISIS territory from global financial systems, he added.

ISIS also is under significant pressure because the coalition is targeting its oil and other revenue streams, the colonel said.

They have been forced to cut fighter pay by half, and having lost Mosul, and with the SDF making steady progress in Raqqa, ISIS has lost much of its revenue base, Dillon explained.

ISIS is becoming increasingly desperate and resorting to more arbitrary taxation and extortion, undermining credibility with the local population and attractiveness to recruits, he added.

These efforts along with ISIS battlefield losses, leader deaths and degraded propaganda all contribute to a losing organization, Dillon said.

ISIS does not have the same level of leadership it once had. They do not have the same level of grandeur. People just no longer want to come and join these terrorists. And they do not have the resources they once had, he noted.

ISIS is losing [and] it will continue to lose under the pressure of our partner forces and the coalition until they are defeated in Iraq and Syria, Dillon said.

Follow Cheryl Pellerin on Twitter @PellerinDoDNews

View post:
OIR Spokesman: No Safe Havens Left for ISIS in Syria or Iraq - Department of Defense

People cool off under an open-air shower in Baghdad as temperatures soar. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

While Europe does battle with a heatwave named Lucifer, the Middle East is enduring a summer so brutal that even those accustomed to Baghdads searing August are labelling it ungodly.

As temperatures rose towards 51C on Thursday, Iraqs government declared a mandatory holiday, allowing civic servants to shelter at home.

So far this month in the Iraqi capital, every day but one has reached 48C or higher, and the forecast is for the high temperatures to continue for the next week. July was little different, in Iraq and in Syria, where the capital, Damascus, has also been several degrees hotter than usual nearly every day since late June.

In Kuwait, where birds have reportedly dropped from the skies, and Riyadh, where building work has ceased this week, locals have called for mercy from a hotter-than-normal air mass that has remained nearly stationary over central Arabia for more than three weeks, stretching the capacity of electricity networks beyond limits.

While the centre of the region is being scorched, on the Mediterranean coast Beirut and Istanbul have also been blighted by a cruel summer in their cases, extreme humidity that has made comparatively modest daytime temperatures seem far higher.

In Baghdad, the perennially under-funded state power network has again failed to cope with the annual onslaught, as demand for power for air conditioners and water coolers far exceeds the capacity to supply it.

We had the day off today, said Mohanad, from central Baghdad. The heat is ungodly. The generator in my neighbourhood that provides electricity for about 300 houses has caught fire from the heat. All it generates is smoke. We dont know what to do. Men can go to the pool here but what do we do with our women, elderly and our babies? Even the ACs in the car arent working properly. Its over 53 degrees today.

Its disgusting. The government cannot do anything to help us even if they tried; the electricity generators were built in the 1960s and havent been changed or modified since. They cant stand against this heat. We are a poor folk, the Iraqis, its hell, its misery. Do not be surprised if you hear on the news about people dying from the heat. Weve never witnessed such a summer before.

Salam al-Saade, from the eastern suburb of Mashtal, said: The heat is unbearable. Everyone around me is so sick of it. We are going to the pool and sending our kids there from the morning till night-time to cool off a little. A lot of people are suffering from headaches. The government is not going to help us in any way. We get 12 hours of national electricity a day but it is not consecutive. It comes for two hours then cuts off. When it does cut off we generate our own and pay for it. This year is the worst weve seen.

In Lebanon, Faysal al-Banna, the chief of ground observation for Beiruts meteorological department said: We definitely do not have it as bad as Iraq and other places. Today it is 30 degrees but we feel its much hotter because of the humidity. Its the humidity from hell, its on fire this year. I guarantee you the next few days will be worse.

Additional reporting by Nadia al-Faour

View post:
Iraq sends workers home as 'ungodly' heat grips Middle East - The Guardian