SZG-Agahi: Jun 21, 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013

ايران پرس نيوز - «خارج کشوری‌ها» صدای آزادِ ایران - الاهه بقراط

«خارج کشوری‌ها» صدای آزادِ ایران - الاهه بقراط

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رژیم سال‌هاست گروهی را به عنوان مثلا «اپوزیسیون» از درون خود سازماندهی کرده و بعد هر بار که با مخالفت و بحران روبرو می‌شود، به مردم می‌گوید بفرمایید، این هم اپوزیسیون! بروید پشت سر اینها! موسوی و کروبی هم که فکر کرده بودند واقعا «اپوزیسیون» هستند، تنبیه ‌شدند! ولی اگر هیچ تغییری در سیاست‌های کلان ایجاد نشود، فروپاشی رژیم ناگزیر خواهد بود. آیا «اپوزیسیون» ساخت رژیم قادر خواهد بود با «اصلاح» بر موج فروپاشی سوار شود؟! و آیا اگر روحانی می‌خواست و می‌توانست سیاست‌های کلان نظام را تغییر دهد، اصلا امکان داشت از صندوق‌های رأی بیرون بیاید؟!
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کیهان لندن 20 ژوئن 2013
> الاهه بقراط
www.alefbe.com
www.kayhanlondon.com
«خارج کشوری‌ها» صدای آزادِ ایران
یکی از آن سرِ بزنگاه‌هایی که چند هفته پیش نوشتم، همین جمعه 24 خرداد 92 بود. یک عده این همه علیه «دولت پادگانی» و «کودتای انتخاباتی» گفتند و نوشتند، بعد وقتی موقع عمل شد، بدون آنکه ادعاهای خودشان را به یاد بیاورند، به توصیه «مقام معظم رهبری» عمل کرده و رفتند تا «حماسه سیاسی» به وجود آورند و ظاهرا نیز توانستند رییس جمهوری را که به قول خامنه‌ای «قوی» باشد و بتواند منویات وی را در سیاست‌های کلان اجرا کند، بر مسند بنشانند (این مقاله پیش از اعلام نتیجه قطعی نوشته شده است).
یک واقعیت سیاسی به نام استبداد دینی
> رسانه‌های زیر سلطه نهادهای سیاسی و نظامی رژیم، مانند کیهانِ تهران وابسته به بیت رهبری و وزارت اطلاعات، و خبرگزاری فارس وابسته به سپاه پاسداران، پس از آنکه محمدرضا عارف به سود حسن روحانی کنار رفت، شکست «اصلاح طلبان» را پیشاپیش و کمتر از دو روز مانده به انتخابات تقلبی و فرمایشی اعلام کردند. اگر جنبه ضداطلاعاتی برخی خبرها و تحلیل‌ها را که منتشر می شوند تا بر ارزیابی و واکنش دیگران تأثیر بگذارند، در نظر بگیریم، مجموعه حرکات سیاسی و رسانه‌ای رژیم مسیر روشنی را در برابر چشم قرار می‌داد که التهاب اجتماعی و واکنش مردم در آن فقط به عنوان احتمالی برای سرکوب شدن در نظر گرفته شده است: در سیاست‌های کلان تفاوتی بین نامزدهای رژیم وجود نداشت و هر کس که گزینش شود، می‌بایست خود را مانند رییس جمهوری‌های پیشین با اختیارات و سیاست‌های ولی فقیه تطبیق دهد. تغییر سیاست‌های کلان بدون موافقت و همراهی «مقام معظم رهبری» ممکن نیست.
کیهانِ تهران در «یادداشت روز» خود به تاریخ چهارشنبه 22 خرداد 92 اصلاح طلبان را دو روز پیش از رأی گیری، در صورت توافق اصولگرایان بر روی یک نامزد، «بازنده انتخابات 24 خرداد» اعلام کرد و با تحقیر نوشت که آنها «پیروزی» خود را در داشتن «فاصله کم با نامزد پیروز اصولگرا» تعریف می‌کنند که «البته» همین هم برایشان زیاد است! ولی سه نامزد اصولگرا به نفع یکدیگر کنار نرفتند و همین از یک سو این گمان را که احتمالا اراده نظام بر روی کار آوردن حسن روحانی است، و از سوی دیگر امکان کشیده شدن رأی گیری به دور دوم و آنگاه تک نامزدی شدن اصولگرایان را تقویت کرد. تیتر کیهان در روز 25 خرداد نیز بر خلاف دو دوره پیشین که احمدی نژاد را پیشاپیش با عناوینی مانند «ملت کار را تمام کرد» پیروز اعلام نموده بود، بسیار محتاطانه بود و امکان گزینش حسن روحانی را بیشتر تقویت کرد: «مردم به فراخوان رهبری لبیک گفتند، اوج حماسه سیاسی، دنیا باز هم شگفت زده شد»!
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> خبرگزاری فارس نیز در یک گزارش کوتاه اصلا روحانی را از دور خارج کرد و بر اساس نظرسنجی «یک مرکز معتبر افکارسنجی» که نام آن را ننوشت، اعلام کرد: «قالیباف و جلیلی به مرحله دوم انتخابات می‌روند» و میزان مشارکت نیز 74 درصد است! به نوشته فارس، این «مرکز معتبر افکارسنجی» در دو استان خراسان جنوبی و هرمزگان حتا به این نتیجه رسید که بیش از 90 درصد ساکنان این دو استان در «انتخابات» شرکت خواهند کرد. معلوم نیست در سرزمینی که کودکانش از کودکستان با «ضرورت» دروغ گفتن به مثابه یک ابزار مؤثر و مفید برای «تنازع بقا» آشنا می‌شوند، تا چه اندازه «افکارسنجی» یک «مرکز معتبر» اما نامعلوم واقعا اعتبار دارد!
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> با این همه معلوم نیست اگر حسن روحانی برنده «انتخابات» اعلام شود، آیا نامزدهای دیگر و هوادارانشان ساکت خواهند نشست یا نه. اگر چنین شود، پس باید به کسانی که این «انتخابات» را واقعا «مهندسی» کردند آفرین گفت!
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> مشکل رأی دهندگان روحانی اما اینجاست که ریاست جمهوری وی از یک سو همه توجهات را از «رهبر» به سوی او جلب کرده و وی وارث تمامی فلاکت‌های به ویژه اقتصادی هشت سال ریاست جمهوری احمدی نژاد خواهد شد و از سوی دیگر او را در برابر توقع رأی دهندگانی قرار خواهد داد که به امید «تغییر» ادعایی به او رأی دادند. کسانی هم که به او رأی دادند تا «جلیلی» نیاید، طبیعتا به کف و سقف مطالبه خود رسیده‌اند! موضوعی که هنوز قابل پیش بینی نیست رویدادهایی است که در سال‌های 84 و 88 پیش آمد. آیا ممکن است با وجود اینکه تا صبح شنبه 25 خرداد روحانی پیشتاز رأی‌گیری اعلام شده، نامزد دیگری از او جلو بزند و این تصویر را تغییر دهد؟
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> یک خرافه سیاسی به نام اصلاح رژیم
> در این میان، در حالی که بیشترین مخالفان رژیم اتفاقا در داخل کشور هستند، «خارج کشوری‌ها» در سی و چند سال گذشته صدای آزاد ایران در برابر استبداد دینی، و سال‌ها حتا تنها صدا در برابر این استبداد قرون وسطایی بودند. بسیاری از کسانی که امروز به خارج کشور کوچ کرده‌اند و مانند احمدی نژاد مرتب در حال رهنمود دادن و حل مشکلات همه جهان هستند، به همت تلاش خارج کشوری‌ها بود که «نامدار» شدند اگرچه جان به در بردنشان برای اینکه بیایند و بلای جان مدافعان خود در خارج کشور شوند، ممکن است به عوامل دیگری مربوط بوده باشد.
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> همه اینها، از طرفداران اصلاح رژیم تا اصولگرایانش به گونه‌ای از «خارج کشوری‌ها» و مخالفت آنها با رژیم سخن می‌گویند که گویی در ایران همه موافق رژیم هستند! در این میان، برخی که در سال‌های اخیر به خارج کشور گسیل شده و بعضی از آنها هم از آخور کشورهای غربی می‌خورند و هم از توبره جمهوری اسلامی، اتفاقا صدایشان علیه «خارج کشوری‌ها» بلندتر از دیگران است! دلیل این رفتار را زمانی بهتر می‌توان درک کرد که دریابیم خرافه اصلاح جمهوری اسلامی که به خارج کشور نیز صادر شد، یک نقش استراتژیک در سیاست‌های نظام به ویژه در موسم رأی‌گیری‌ها بازی می‌کند.
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> چند روز پیش، دوستی که حدود سه سال در جنگ ایران و عراق در جبهه‌های کشور بوده و از دلبستگان دکتر محمد مصدق است، به نکته‌ای اشاره کرد که بیان دیگری از همان «پروژه امنیتی و استراتژیک اصلاحات» است. این دوست به درستی بر این واقعیت تأکید کرد که رژیم سال‌هاست گروهی را به عنوان مثلا «اپوزیسیون» از درون خود سازماندهی کرده و بعد هر بار که با اعتراض و مخالفت و بحران روبرو می‌شود، به مردم می‌گوید بفرمایید، این هم اپوزیسیون! بروید پشت سر اینها! کافیست به همین روند رأی‌گیری‌های رژیم و رد و تأیید صلاحیت‌ها از سوی شورای نگهبان نگاه کنید! با ساختن این «اپوزیسیون» افسار قدرت و تسلط بر منابع سیاسی و اقتصادی کشور همواره در دایره خودی‌ها و خانواده‌های مافیایی رژیم باقی می‌ماند. فقط سهم‌ هر کدام هر بار اندکی کم و زیاد می‌شود! برخی هم مانند میرحسین موسوی و مهدی کروبی که موضوع را واقعا جدی گرفته و فکر کرده بودند واقعا «اپوزیسیون» هستند، تنبیه می‌شوند!
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> جمهوری اسلامی در پیشبرد این سیاست استراتژیک، و هدایت بخش «معترض» جامعه به پشت سر اپوزیسیون ساخته خودش تاکنون موفق بوده است اگرچه اعتماد افراد و گروه‌های بسیاری را نیز از دست داده و سخن بی سابقه خامنه‌ای مبنی بر اینکه «ممکن است بعضی‌ها به هر دلیلی نخواهند از نظام جمهوری اسلامی حمایت بکنند اما از کشورشان که می‌خواهند حمایت کنند» بیانگر همین واقعیت است. خامنه‌ای به گفته خودش می‌خواهد با یک رییس جمهوری «قوی» سیاست‌های خود را در برابر غرب پیش ببرد پس این رییس جمهوری، هر کسی که باشد، از جمله روحانی، در هماهنگی کامل با اهداف و اعمال وی از صندوق بیرون می‌آید. یعنی این «انتخابات» هم برای پیش از برگزاری و هم پس از آن کاملا «مهندسی» شده است.
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> اینها را حتما نباید خارج کشوری بود تا دید. «خارج کشوری‌ها» هم در همان داخل کشور مخالف نظام بودند و بعد «خارج کشوری» شدند! بسیاری از آنها در خارج کشور این امکان بی‌همتا را به دست آوردند تا از یک سو برای رشد فکری خود و تمرین واقعی دمکراسی بکوشند و از سوی دیگر به صدای آزاد ایران تبدیل شوند.
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> اینک نیز اگر هیچ تغییری در سیاست‌های کلان رژیم، از برنامه اتمی تا تروریسم و حقوق بشر ایجاد نشود، فروپاشی اقتصادی و سیاسی رژیم با همین «رهبر» و با هر رییس جمهوری، ناگزیر خواهد بود. ولی آیا «اپوزیسیون» خودساخته جمهوری اسلامی قادر خواهد بود بر موج فروپاشی سوار شود؟! آیا در صورت گزینش حسن روحانی، این «اپوزیسیون» و مدعیان اصلاح طلبی که پیروزی روحانی را به حساب نیروی خود خواهند نوشت، می‌توانند از این نیروی ادعایی برای پیگیری مطالبات خود، یعنی «اصلاح» رژیم استفاده کنند؟! آیا مخالفان دمکرات رژیم، از راست و چپ، آن بنیه متحد و متشکل را فراهم آورده‌اند که بتوانند بر خلاف افغانستان و عراق و مصر و لیبی و سوریه، چه در داخل و چه در خارج ابراز وجود کنند؟! کدام نیروی سیاسی و اجتماعی پس از سه دهه سرکوب بی امان، این توانمندی را دارد که سرِ بزنگاه، خلاء قدرت را در کشور پر کند؟!
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> تمام تلاش روشنفکران در داخل و خارج کشور بایستی یافتن پاسخ مناسب و عملی به این پرسش‌ها باشد. پاسخی که دست به دامان بیگانگان برای انتقال قدرت از راه جنگ و حمله نظامی نشود، شالوده‌های اقتصادی کشور را از آنچه هست، بیشتر نابود نکند، و بدون فراموش کردن تبهکاری‌های زمامداران رژیم، با آشتی ملّی و عفو عمومی راه نوینی به سوی آینده‌ای بگشاید که طلیعه پیوند و همبستگی ملی‌اش، در رویدادهای پس از 22 خرداد 88 هر چند کوتاه متجلی شد و تنها در کمین فرصتی است تا بار دیگر خود را به نمایش بگذارد. آیا اصولگرایان خواهند توانست این راه را سدّ کنند؟! آیا اگر حسن روحانی از صندوق‌ها بیرون بیاید، شهامت و اختیار آن را خواهد داشت تا تغییراتی را که خود وعده داده است عملی کند؟! تغییراتی که کمترین آنها باید آزادی زندانیان سیاسی خودی و لغو حصر خانگی موسوی و رهنورد و کروبی باشد. وگرنه تغییر در موقعیت برنامه اتمی و تروریسم و حقوق بشر بدون تغییرات بنیادی در سیاست داخلی و خارجی رژیم امکان ندارد. پرسش اصلی همین جا مطرح می‌شود: اگر روحانی می‌خواست و می‌توانست سیاست‌های کلان نظام را تغییر دهد، آیا اصلا امکان داشت که از صندوق‌های رأی بیرون بیاید؟! هم پیشینه و هم وعده‌های او درست مانند دیگر نامزدهای رژیم، چنین شواهدی را به دست نمی‌دهد.
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> 14 ژوئن 2013
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> لینک به مقاله «درست سر بزنگاه مهم است»
> http://www.alefbe.com/journalist/?p=892
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> لینک به «یادداشت روز» کیهانِ تهران
> http://www.kayhan.ir/920322/2.htm#N200
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> لینک به افکارسنجی خبرگزاری فارس
> http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13920321001203

Can Iran be stopped?......Economist

Persian power

Can Iran be stopped?

The West should intervene in Syria for many reasons. One is to stem the rise of Persian power

Jun 22nd 2013

IN 2009 Iran was on the verge of electing a reformer as president. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, subverted the vote and crushed the ensuing protests. Last week the same desire for change handed a landslide victory to Hassan Rohani—and Mr Khamenei hailed it as a triumph.

When a country has seen as much repression as Iran, outsiders hoping for a better future for the place instinctively want to celebrate along with all those ordinary Iranians who took to the streets. The smiling Mr Rohani's public pronouncements encourage optimism, for he sounds like a different sort of president from the comedy-villain, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who precedes him. Yet even if his election bodes well for Iranians, it does not necessarily hold equal promise for the rest of the world. Iran's regional assertiveness and its nuclear capacity mean that it is a more dangerous place than it ever was before.

The case for Qompromise

Given the country's obvious weaknesses, that sounds implausible. Inflation is running at over 30%, and the economy shrinking. Inequality is growing, with 40% of Iranians thought to be living below the poverty line. Sanctions restricted May's oil exports to just 700,000 barrels a day, a third of what they used to be; as a result there are shortages of basic goods and growing unemployment caused by factory closures.

Yet the Persian lion has not lost its claws, nor has the theocracy suddenly become a democracy. Mr Rohani was indeed the most reformist of the candidates on offer at the election, but in much the way that Churchill was more of a teetotaller than George Brown. The 64-year-old cleric has been a loyal servant of the Islamic Republic from its inception. For years he headed the national security council (see article). He is constrained by a system that deemed just eight people fit to stand in the recent election and rejected 678 others (including a former president). The president's power is limited by Iran's other institutions, many of which are in conservative hands.

While Iran's politics have probably changed less than Mr Rohani's election suggests, the balance of power between Iran and the rest of the world has been shifting in Iran's favour for two reasons. First, thanks to heavy investment in nuclear capacity by the mullahs, and despite attempts by the West and Israel to delay or sabotage the nuclear programme, Iran will soon be able to produce a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium in a matter of weeks (see briefing). Iran has installed more than 9,000 new centrifuges in less than two years, more than doubling its enrichment capability. It is a short step from the 20% enriched uranium that the country's facilities are already producing at an increasing rate to conversion into the fissile material needed for an implosion device. Although Western intelligence agencies think Iran is still at least a year away from being able to construct such a weapon, some experts believe that it could do so within a few months if it chose to—and that the time it would take is shrinking.

This makes a nonsense of Western policy on Iran. Round after round of negotiations to try to persuade Iran not to get a bomb have been backed up by the implicit threat that armed force would be used if talks failed. But now it looks as though Iran will soon be in a position to build a weapon swiftly and surreptitiously. Should the West decide to use force, Iran could amass a small arsenal by the time support for a military strike was rallied.

Against that background, a friendlier president becomes a trap as well as an opportunity. He may offer the chance of building better relations through engagement and the gradual lifting of sanctions. But Iran could take advantage of this inevitably slow process to build a weapon.

The other development that threatens the West's interests is happening around Iran. Despite its economic troubles, the Iranian state is a powerful beast compared with its neighbours, and is keen to assert itself abroad. The Iraqi government is now its ally. It has sway over chunks of Lebanon through Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia it finances. And it has sent Hizbullah into Syria, where its fighters have joined Iranian advisers, money and special forces to help turn the tide of the war in Bashar Assad's favour. Ostensibly the reason why Barack Obama agreed last week to arm the rebels in Syria (see article) was Mr Assad's use of chemical weapons; but many believe that the greater reason was his reluctance to see Mr Assad hold on to power as a client of Iran's.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

This analysis may be too gloomy. It is possible that Mr Rohani's arrival heralds a more pragmatic and less aggressive position. The new president used to serve as Iran's main nuclear negotiator, and during his campaign made clear the link between Iran's economic weakness and the nuclear sanctions, and called for better relations with the West. The West should reciprocate, making it clear that it has no intention of impeding Iran's peaceful development. At the same time, it should continue to push for progress on the nuclear negotiations.

But it must do so warily. Any deal offered to Iran should include restraints draconian enough, and inspection intrusive enough, to prevent it from building a weapon surreptitiously, otherwise it would be worse than not doing a deal at all. And such a deal would very likely be unacceptable to Iran.

The growing risk of a nuclear Iran is one reason why the West should intervene decisively in Syria not just by arming the rebels, but also by establishing a no-fly zone. That would deprive Mr Assad of his most effective weapon—bombs dropped from planes—and allow the rebels to establish military bases inside Syria. This newspaper has argued many times for doing so on humanitarian grounds; but Iran's growing clout is another reason to intervene, for it is not in the West's interest that a state that sponsors terrorism and rejects Israel's right to exist should become the regional hegemon.

The West still has the economic and military clout to influence events in the region, and an interest in doing so. When Persian power is on the rise, it is not the time to back away from the Middle East.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21579835-west-should-intervene-syria-many-reasons-one-stem-rise-persian-power-can

Iran's new president

Will he make a difference?

Iran's new president, Hassan Rohani, has been hailed abroad as a reformist breath of fresh air. But at home he may still have to accommodate the crusty old guard

Jun 22nd 2013 | TEHRAN |From the print edition

THE first-round victory on June 14th of Hassan Rohani, with almost 51% of the vote in a field of six candidates, stunned both Iranians and the world at large. In the run-up to the contest, the most conservative of the candidates, Saeed Jalili, was widely tipped as the favourite. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all crucial matters of state, would—it was surmised—look on with approval, perhaps with vote-rigging officials poised to enforce the desired result, as they did last time round, in 2009, when the country was thrown into a year-and-a-half of turmoil. In the event, Mr Rohani, with the overwhelming backing of voters wanting reform, thrashed all his opponents by so wide a margin that it would have been politically impossible to fiddle the outcome, even if the most reactionary of the ruling clerics and the powerful Revolutionary Guard had wanted to.

Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, came second with 17%, while Mr Jalili limped home with barely 11%. Some 73% of registered voters in a population of 74m turned out. The winner got 18.6m votes, even more than the 17m recorded by his populist predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his run-off triumph in 2005, when he was elected to the first of his two controversial terms.

Mr Rohani, a 64-year-old cleric, campaigned on a platform of engagement with the West (including on nuclear issues) and an easing of restrictions at home. Though he has served at the heart of the establishment for many years, he was plainly the most liberal of the eventual runners, though all of them had been vetted by the Council of Guardians, a clutch of clerics and lawyers, to ensure their fidelity to the tenets of the Islamic revolution of 1979. It helped Mr Rohani that the so-called "principlist" bloc of the four most conservative candidates, led by Mr Jalili, failed to rally around one man.

Three days before the poll the reformist camp, all but eviscerated in 2009, persuaded its most outspoken candidate, Muhammad Reza Aref, to drop out of the race to let reform-minded voters rally behind the less abrasive Mr Rohani. The next day Mr Khamenei declared, most unusually, that even those Iranians who "did not support the Islamic system" should cast their vote. These two events enabled reformists and some in the conservative establishment to converge on the middle ground, where Mr Rohani cannily emerged as a candidate they could both embrace.

Whether Mr Khamenei helped Mr Rohani along or just watched events unfold is unclear. The result may, at any rate in the short run, boost the ruling establishment. For the first time in many years it looks solidly in control, especially compared with its counterparts in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

After Mr Rohani was declared the winner, people celebrated in the streets, from middle-class northern Tehran to the holy city of Qom in the conservative heartland. "They knew people had reached their breaking-point," said a joyful 32-year-old engineer in Tehran's tree-lined main boulevard, Vali Asr Street, referring to the country's economic slump as a result of Mr Ahmadinejad's mismanagement and the international sanctions imposed on Iran because of its nuclear ambitions. A student whose hijab was purple, Mr Rohani's campaign colour, asked a policeman if he was happy with the result. "We are happy to see you happy," the policeman replied. "It is better than having to beat you all," he joked. A reformist paper carried the headline "Hope comes again". Another ran an editorial telling Iran's hardliners, "Your era has passed."

An early token of goodwill would be the release of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the reformist widely thought to have won the election of 2009, and of his fellow candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, both of whom have been under house arrest for the past two years. Mr Rohani has not publicly mentioned them by name; he stayed silent at his post-election press conference when an excited member of the audience shouted, "Mir-Hossein should be here!"

The supreme leader and Mr Rohani, who has long served on the supreme leader's security council and was previously Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, have known each other for more than 40 years. Mr Rohani can certainly soften the tone of government. More debatable is how much he can affect nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 (the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany). But he has been quick to call for a rapprochement with the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia. "Relations between Iran and America are a complicated and difficult issue," he said. "After all, there is an old scar. We must act prudently to heal it." America, he added, must forgo "unilateral and bullying policies toward Iran."

Some analysts suspect that Mr Rohani's diplomatic manner, especially after Mr Ahmadinejad's bellicose posturing, will divert attention from Iran's nuclear programme, perhaps even smoothing its advance. However civilised in manner, says Nima Mina of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, "his goal is to pursue the nuclear programme...He was allowed to run because he is capable of moving it forward quickly." Others, especially in Israel, caution against seeing Mr Rohani in too gentle a light.

It is also generally assumed that he will back Syria's embattled president, Bashar Assad, to the hilt, as his predecessor and the ruling establishment have done. Much store will continue to be set on strengthening the Shia axis that now stretches from southern Lebanon, where Hizbullah, a Shia party-cum-militia, reigns supreme, through Syria under its Alawite rulers, and across to Iran from Iraq, under the thumb of an increasingly sectarian Shia leader.

But at home and on the wider world stage, a very different sort of president from the previous one, at least in style, is likely to emerge after he takes office on August 3rd. Within a month he is to present a new government, probably including figures from both ends of an argumentative establishment. It may take a while to see whether he will differ in substance.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21579826-irans-new-president-hassan-rohani-has-been-hailed-abroad-reformist-breath

Iran's nuclear programme

Breakout beckons

Neither Iran's election, nor sanctions nor military threats are likely to divert it from the path it is on to getting nuclear weapons

Jun 22nd 2013

THE resounding victory of Hassan Rohani, the most moderate and outward-looking of the presidential candidates deemed fit to contest the election by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has raised hopes for a nuclear deal between Iran and the international community. As the Islamic Republic's nuclear negotiator for nearly two years from October 2003, he showed a degree of flexibility that was depressingly absent in the most recent talks between Iran and the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany (P5+1).

Mr Rohani seems pragmatic enough to know that Iran needs relief from sanctions to revive its economy, and that a more constructive negotiating stance on the nuclear programme will be needed to get that. Nevertheless, the change in Iran's top civilian office is unlikely to bring an end to the interminable Iranian nuclear crisis.

Even if Mr Rohani wanted to do the kind of deal that would be acceptable to the West (and there is nothing in his past to suggest that he might), the guiding hand behind Iran's nuclear policy will remain that of the supreme leader, whose introspective, suspicious view of the world outside Iran has not changed. The die is already cast: nothing is likely to stop Iran getting the bomb if and when it decides it wants one.

The last set of talks between the P5+1 and Iran, the fifth of the current round of negotiations, were in early April and ended on a downbeat note. They followed a proposal in February to allow a modest easing of sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran's uranium-enrichment programme and more comprehensive inspections by the IAEA. Intended as a prelude to a more far-reaching deal, the offer represented a slight softening of the six powers' position, by allowing Iran to keep a small amount of uranium enriched to 20% (for use in a reactor to make medical isotopes) and calling only for the suspension of enrichment at Fordow, a plant buried deep within a mountain, rather than its closure.

Iran's negotiator, Saeed Jalili (an unsuccessful presidential candidate close to Mr Khamenei), replied that he wanted a suspension of all sanctions in exchange for only a temporary halt to 20% uranium enrichment, an impossible demand.

Mr Rohani's election means the next round of negotiations will be conducted in a better atmosphere. But to what end? The answer is that the process serves a purpose for everybody. For Iran, the continuation of talks is a means of getting some easing of sanctions in exchange for concessions that will have little impact on its nuclear programme. For America and its allies, the absence of progress up to now has kept the international community lined up behind sanctions. Both sides, preferring to avoid a military confrontation, have an interest in demonstrating that the diplomatic path to a solution has not yet reached a dead-end.

Yet the inconvenient truth is that while the talks seem destined to continue, Iran is close to what is known as "critical capability"—the point at which it could make a dash to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one or more bombs before the IAEA or Western intelligence agencies would even know it had done so. Despite the severe economic pain that the tightening of sanctions has inflicted on Iran's people and their evident desire for change, Iran's strategic calculus has not shifted. The nuclear programme is worth almost any sacrifice because it guarantees the regime's survival against external threats, as America's differing policies towards Libya and North Korea illustrate.

Speeding up

How close is Iran to critical capability? British and American intelligence sources think it is about a year away from having enough fissile material to make a bomb and further still from mastering the technologies to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto one of its Shabab-3 ballistic missiles and carry out the tests needed to be confident that the system works.

But two of the most respected independent analysts—David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security and Greg Jones, a RAND Corporation researcher who writes on Iran for the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre (NPEC)—believe that time is running out more quickly. Mr Albright thinks that by mid-2014 Iran will be able from a standing start to produce enough fissile material for a single bomb in one or two weeks. Mr Jones reckons that later this year Iran will be able to produce within about ten weeks enough weapons-grade uranium for a couple of nuclear weapons.

If Iran has a small clandestine enrichment facility designed to enrich uranium from 20% to 90% (highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, or HEU) it could quite soon be able to manufacture enough material for five bombs in about 14 weeks using a new generation of advanced centrifuges it has already begun to install in its main enrichment site at Natanz. Mr Jones, in a recent report for NPEC, says that although a secret facility would put Iran in breach of IAEA safeguards "the time needed for Iran to produce HEU by this method is becoming so short as to make it doubtful that any effective action could be taken before Iran obtained a nuclear weapon."

For both Mr Albright and Mr Jones, what matters most is the relentless pace at which Iran is adding to its enrichment capabilities and thus the speed at which it can produce the fissile material needed for an implosion device, the most common form of nuclear bomb. As Mr Albright puts it, the critical component for "a fissile-material dash" is the quantity and quality of Iran's centrifuges. Despite wide-ranging attempts by the West and Israel to delay or sabotage the nuclear programme, Iran has installed around 9,000 new centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow in less than two years, more than doubling its previous enrichment capacity. Reflecting this surge in capacity, Iran's stockpile of 3.5% or low-enriched uranium has gone from about 2,500kg to around 4,300kg in the same period. In March, Iran announced that it was also building 3,000 of the new, more advanced centrifuges (known as the IR-2m) that are said to be up to five times more efficient than the older IR-1 design. Nearly 700 of the new centrifuges have already been installed. Iran is also making progress with its heavy-water reactor at Arak. Capable of producing plutonium, it could provide an alternative route to a bomb at the end of next year.

Paradoxically, these developments are proceeding without Iran appearing to risk crossing either the red line announced by Barack Obama or the most recent limit set by Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Both men have threatened that the consequence of Iran crossing their respective lines would be attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but neither line has been drawn clearly. In Israel's case, the ultimatum set by Mr Netanyahu in September last year was that Iran must be prevented from having enough 20% or medium-enriched uranium (MEU) to allow it to produce the 20 or so kg of HEU required for a nuclear weapon. But how much is that?

More than enough for a bomb

Mr Netanyahu has since suggested that if Iran had 250kg of MEU it would have crossed his red line. But that seems a very high figure for a single nuclear device (see chart). He may have been referring to MEU in the form of uranium hexafluoride that Iran's enrichment process produces rather than the amount of 20% enriched uranium itself. That is because 250kg of hexafluoride would produce about 165kg of MEU, which is about right for one bomb. Mr Jones reckons the amount of MEU needed for a single bomb could be between 94kg and 210kg depending on how the enrichment to HEU is carried out. Since Iran started producing MEU just over three years ago it has produced 219kg of 20% enriched uranium, of which over 40% has been converted to uranium oxide, some of which has been made into fuel rods for a research reactor in Tehran.

However, that still leaves a 123kg stockpile of MEU, enough for a bomb if Mr Jones is right and therefore already well across Mr Netanyahu's red line. In the last quarter Iran converted 67% of its MEU production into oxide, but still increased the stockpile by 10kg. Even though Iran is managing its MEU stockpile carefully to keep the negotiations going and preserve ambiguity, on any reckoning it is likely to be well over the line set by Israel before the end of this year. Does that suggest that Israel will carry out a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities some time in the next six months? Probably not. Israeli red lines have come and gone in the past.

A while ago, Israel wanted it to be thought that Iran would face attack if it gained the capability to build a nuclear weapon. That point was probably passed some years ago. Making a bomb depends on Iran's ability to convert HEU into a metal sphere for the weapon's core, to make a reliable detonator and then to create a warhead small enough to put on a ballistic missile, a process known as "weaponisation". Mastery of the techniques required is not beyond Iran's engineering capacity.

Western intelligence agencies used to reckon that Iran had suspended work on weaponisation in 2004. But after the IAEA published a report in November 2011, since when Iran has refused to allow the agency's inspectors into the Parchin military research complex facility, that assumption has been challenged. In December 2011 Mr Jones estimated that Iran could produce an implosion-type device within two to six months, thanks in part to the help it is thought to have received from Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear weapons designer. North Korea is also believed to have given substantial technical help.

Israel subsequently came up with another red line that its then-defence minister, Ehud Barak, called the "zone of immunity". This referred to the moment when Iran had enough centrifuges in the Fordow facility, which is impregnable to Israeli conventional weapons, to continue enrichment even after an attack. That line was probably crossed a year or more ago.

As Iran's nuclear programme has advanced, Israel has become less confident of its ability, acting alone, to do more than temporary damage to it. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution says that Israel might have attacked three or four years ago, but that it is less likely to do so now. Until last year Mr Netanyahu appeared to hope that if Israel struck first, America would be forced, whatever its initial reservations, to step in and use its greater military resources to finish the job. After being warned unmistakably by Mr Obama that he could not count on any such thing and that America would not be "complicit" in such an attack, Mr Netanyahu came perilously close to trying to influence the presidential election in favour of his friend, the more hawkish Mitt Romney.

Clear enough?

Since then Israel's prime minister has concentrated on keeping up the pressure on Mr Obama to honour his commitments on Iran. When the president visited Israel in March, both leaders said they shared a "common assessment" of how close Iran was to getting a bomb and were equally determined to prevent it from doing so. Mr Netanyahu said his red line might be crossed before Mr Obama's and Mr Obama ceded Israel's right to defend itself as it saw fit. But the reality is that Israel will contemplate a unilateral strike on Iran only if it comes to believe that America has betrayed it by ruling one out. Even then, suggests Mr O'Hanlon, the intention might be to signal to Tehran that Israel "had not gone soft" rather than out of any conviction that it could delay Iran's progress to a bomb by more than a year or two.

What could prompt Mr Obama to order an attack? In March last year he said that "Iran's leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" and that a "military effort" might be required to divert it from that course. The former defence secretary, Leon Panetta, went further, saying that if America received intelligence that Iran was "proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon" or that a decision had been taken to that end, America would "take the necessary action to stop [it]". Moreover, the Obama administration has repeatedly claimed that it would know when such a decision had been taken and would have time to respond. So, not much ambiguity there, then? Well, actually, quite a lot.

Mr Obama's red line rests on at least three questionable assumptions. The first is that the evidence that Iran has taken the political decision to become a nuclear weapons state will be sufficiently compelling to allow for no other interpretation. The second is that there will be a significant interval between such evidence presenting itself and Iran actually having a weapon that it might be willing to use to deter an attack. The third is that a strike or series of strikes bringing America's military might to bear on Iran's nuclear facilities would achieve its aims.

Mr O'Hanlon believes that Mr Obama is "locked in" to taking military action if Iran signals its intentions, for example by renouncing the Non-Proliferation Treaty and throwing out the IAEA's inspectors. Kenneth Pollack, of the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at Brookings and author of "Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy" (to be published in September), is less convinced that the "US will get a clean shot" of that kind. If Iran left the NPT, it would say it was doing so because it regards the agency's inspectors as spies, not because it wants a nuclear weapon. Moreover, he believes that Mr Obama will demand a very high standard of proof following the intelligence debacle over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The idea that there will be plenty of time between Iran making the decision to build nuclear weapons and actually getting them is a comforting conceit that Western intelligence agencies have clung to. The implication is that there will be opportunities for careful alliance-building and diplomatic ultimatums before any strike has to take place. But with Iran approaching critical capability that may not be true. As time goes on, the period that Iran needs to produce not one or two but several devices undetected shrinks, increasing the chances of Iran being treated in much the same way as other aspirant nuclear states that have crossed the threshold, such as Pakistan and North Korea.

The third questionable assumption is that air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would achieve their objective. If Iran, after leaving the NPT, had stockpiled sufficient MEU for several bombs and hidden it well, the chances of finding and destroying it would be small. It could decide to absorb an attack and then, using a still largely intact Fordow or a clandestine plant, move quickly to fissile material production.

No good options

Mr Obama may well conclude that if his military planners cannot be confident of delaying Iran's progress to nuclear weapons for a long time—at least five to ten years—or changing Iranian behaviour, it is not worth trying. Just as troubling, if bombing was tried and it failed, Mr Pollack thinks Mr Obama would have to follow up with a full-scale invasion. "No American president would or could say, we gave it our best shot, but we can't finish the job," he says. Mr Jones has similar fears. He says that such is the scale of the country's centrifuge enrichment programme that a prolonged bombing campaign would be required to halt it and that "would run a serious risk of turning into a large-scale war with Iran". America could hammer Iran, but having brought American forces home from Iraq and Afghanistan this is the last thing that Mr Obama wants for his war-weary, financially drained country.

Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC says that one choice is containment and the other military strikes—followed by containment. Given that sanctions and diplomacy are unlikely to alter Iran's course and that force will not achieve a lasting solution, he thinks America and its allies must start thinking through what containment and deterrence of a nuclear Iran will require.

What nobody knows, quite possibly not even the supreme leader himself, is when and how Iran will step across the nuclear threshold. Pakistan waited nearly 12 years between acquiring enough fissile material for a bomb in 1986 and carrying out a succession of nuclear tests in 1998. Iran might be similarly patient, a course Mr Rohani may advocate. On the other hand, if he fails to win softer sanctions Iran could try to bring things to a head more quickly. What is increasingly hard to believe is that it can be dissuaded or prevented from getting the bomb by force. The challenge for Western policymakers may be less about stopping Iran than managing the consequences of it having a nuclear weapon, which include the unravelling of the entire non-proliferation system

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21579815-neither-irans-election-nor-sanctions-nor-military-threats-are-likely-divert-it-path

ايران پرس نيوز - بلال فروشی که به شورای ‌شهر راه یافت

MOBARAK ast ........H.

(((( بلال فروشی که به شورای ‌شهر راه یافت ))))

>
دکه آنلاین: یکی از شهروندان مهاباد در باره انتخاب محمد ابراهیمی در متنی نوشته است: در انتخابات این دوره شورای شهر مهاباد، ۲۰۵ نفر نامزد شدند و ۸۰ درصد مردم هم شرکت کردند و آقای محمد ابراهیمی ملقب به ممد چکول به معنی «ممد کوچولو» که یک بساط بلال فروشی در میدان ساعت شهر داشت، توانست به عنوان نفر دوم به شورای شهر راه یابد. وی مدرک لیسانس شیمی دارد و با توجه به شرایط زندگیش فقط دست فروش بوده… ابراهیمی در بخشی از شهر که بساط داشت و در برخی مناطق عشایرنشین شهر بسیار محبوب بود. او در قسمتی از شهر (میدان استقلال) زندگی می‌کند که منطقه فقیرنشین مهاباد محسوب می‌شود.
> وی برنامه خاصی در تبلیغات خود اعلام نکرده بود و اینکه "دو دیگ دارم و یک فرغون و یک حساب بانکی دو میلیونی و از خانواده ای فقیر هستم که با زحمت درس خوانده و با اینکه لیسانس دارم دست فروشی می‌کنم"، تمامی چیزی است که ایشان در دوران تبلیغاتی خود گفته است.
> تنها چیزی که از او، البته نه به طور تاییدشده، شنیده شده این بود که: "یکی از اعضای مبارزه با سد معبر شهرداری را اخراج می‌کنم"… (گویا کسی به اسم …. است که دست فروش‌ها را زیاد اذیت می‌کرده… ابراهیمی گفته اولین کارم اخراج این مامور از شهرداری خواهد بود). در کل شهر دو نگاه به این فرد وجود داشت، گروهی به حالت تمسخر به او نگاه می‌کردند و می‌گفتند "کار شهر به کجا کشیده که یک دست‌فروش نامزد شده است"… و گروهی دیگر هم با این نگاه که "یک فقیر با مدرک تحصیلی لیسانس، دست‌فروشی می‌کرده و حالا آمده با این همه دکتر و مهندس و پولدار رقیب شده و جلوی آنها قد علم کرده، از او حمایت می‌کردند. البته همواره همه مردم از نظر اخلاق عمومی و شخصیت از او تعریف می‌کردند.