Category: Farhang Jahanpour

Time for new beginnings in the Middle East

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By Farhang Jahanpour

Momentous changes are afoot in the Middle East. The Arab uprisings have not yet run their course, the Egyptian revolution has not yet ended, terrorist atrocities in Iraq have intensified, the carnage in Syria still continues, and there seems to be no end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Yet, in the midst of all these scenes of doom and gloom there are some positive developments that may change the face of the Middle East for many decades to come. President Obama’s opening to Iran and the election of a moderate Iranian president who wants to reciprocate the American gesture of goodwill provides a glimmer of hope that after 34 years of estrangement, the two countries may reconcile their differences and open a new chapter in their relations.

However, just the slim prospect of a US-Iranian rapprochement has created a backlash among many people who are stuck in the past and who look at any change with dread. There are many powerful voices both in the United States and Iran that are trying to prevent better relations between the two countries.

In addition to domestic opposition in Iran and the United States, many countries in the Middle East have also reacted with alarm to the possible end of a hostile Iran that they can demonize as a boogeyman. Israel and her powerful friends in the Congress and in US think tanks and the media have launched a massive campaign to prevent any possible end to hostilities. The leaders from the powerful pro-Israeli lobbies, from the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, AIPAC, the Anti Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, took part in an extraordinary White House meeting on Tuesday 28 October to warn the president against rapprochement with Iran. Read More »

A tale of two speeches: Rouhani and Netanyahu at UN General Assembly

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By Farhang Jahanpour*

With the progress of the talks in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers (the so-called P5+1) on 15 and 16 October, there is growing optimism about a lasting solution to Iran’s nuclear program and to the resumption of relations between Iran and the United States after 34 years of estrangement. After an hour-long power-point presentation by the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, which he called “closing unnecessary crisis, and opening new horizons”, Michael Mann, the spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who is leading the talks for the P5+1 group, described the Iranian proposal as “very useful” and said: “For the first time, very detailed technical discussions took place.” (1)

The exact choice of words was also repeated by a senior US official taking part in the talks. After the formal talks between the two sides, there was another US-Iran bilateral meeting between the chief US representative in the talks, Ms. Wendy Sherman, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi who led the Iranian delegation after the Iranian foreign minister’s original presentation. This was the second time after the meeting of Iranian and US foreign ministers in New York that senior officials from the two sides had had a bilateral meeting.Read More »

A crisis averted: Now time for serious work to bring peace to the Middle East

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By Farhang Jahanpour

The “framework document” (1) agreed by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Saturday 14 September has averted an imminent crisis and has provided hope for the eventual resolution of the Syrian civil war by peaceful means. The document stipulates that Syria must provide a full inventory of its stockpile within a week, all production equipment being destroyed by November, and all weapons being removed from Syria or destroyed by mid-2014. This certainly is a positive development compared to the alternative that entailed a military attack on Syria with all its unpredictable consequences.

Both Russia and Iran played the leading role in persuading the Syrian President Bashar Asad to get rid of his chemical weapons. President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin welcomed the agreement. China, France, the UK, the UN and NATO have also expressed satisfaction at the agreement. This agreement has clearly a number of winners and losers.

The Winners of the Kerry-Lavrov Agreement

1- Clearly, the greatest winner has been the cause of peace and common sense. In 2007 when running for office, the then candidate Obama said that the President “does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” (2) Yet now, President Obama was insisting that he had the authority to attack Syria even without Congressional approval. However, a military attack, even if it had received the approval of the Congress, which seemed unlikely, would have been illegal, would have compounded the problems, and would have portrayed the United States as an aggressive country.

The Kerry-Lavrov accord has changed the pattern of behaviorRead More »

Britain leads the way

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By Farhang Jahanpour
September 1, 2013

In his most statesmanlike statement, a short while ago (31 August 2013) President Barack Obama announced that he would seek Congress’s approval before ordering military action against Syria. After all the hype about an imminent strike, this statement was a breath of fresh air, and it has renewed many people’s faith in President Obama. Not only would any other action have been against international law, it would have even been against the US Constitution that gives Congress the right to declare war, except in emergencies.

That right had been usurped by a number of recent presidents who exceeded their executive prerogative. The Congress will be back in session during the second week of September and this delay provides a breather and an opportunity for cooler heads to prevail, and hopefully the chance to find a comprehensive solution to the Syrian crisis.

However, it is important to give credit where it is due, namely to the British Parliament that led the way in imposing the views of the majority of the electorate on the government that was going to get engaged in a rash action.Read More »

The Failure of democracy in the Middle East

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By Farhang Jahanpour

The terrible events in Egypt, especially the massacre of thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, have not only marked the failure of Arab Uprisings, especially in the most important and the most populous Arab country, they have also revealed the lukewarm attitude and even the hypocrisy of many people in the democratic West towards the whole concept of democracy and representative government.

First of all, it is important to point out that democracy is not the same as majority rule. Many Middle Eastern rulers, including former Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and right-wing Israeli politicians, believe in a winner-take-all philosophy and imagine that just because a group or a party has received the largest number of votes in an election it is entitled to rule the way that it wants and ignore the wishes of many other sections of society.

Iranian rulers often speak of Islamic democracy and argue that as the majority of Iranians are Muslims, the government must be based on Islamic law, the Shari’a, while many right-wing Israeli politicians want Israel to be an exclusively Jewish state. Other governments that have come to power after having won an election believe that achieving a majority in the election entitles them to rule as they wish.

Of course, here we are not dealing with many governments that are in power on the basis of hereditary monarchy, coup d’états or military rule. Majority rule is only one essential element of democracy, but it basically means nothing without a number of other prerequisites. Read More »

A ray of hope in Iran’s next presidential election

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By Farhang Jahanpour

The next crucial round of Iranian presidential elections will be held on 14 June 2013. It has just been officially reported that Hassan Rowhani has declared his candidacy for the election.(1) Rowhani is an influential reformist politician and cleric. He was the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator under President Mohammad Khatami, who negotiated successfully with the Troika of European countries, UK, France and Germany.

Under his supervision, his team agreed to temporarily suspend nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities for two years during the course of the negotiations.(2) Uranium enrichment was resumed after his successor, Ali Larijani, who was appointed Iran’s nuclear negotiator on August 14, 2005 by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad shortly after assuming power, said that European countries had not lived up to their promises to help Iran with peaceful nuclear technology. Khatami’s government had threatened to resume enrichment if there was no progress in negotiations with the West, but the resumption of enrichment took place under Ahmadinejad’s government.

So far, the long, lackluster list of the candidates who have officially declared their candidacy is made up largely of the so-called Principlist wing of the Iranian politics. This term applies Read More »

President Obama’s Middle East visit

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By Farhang Jahanpour

After a great deal of criticism from Israeli leaders and pro-Israeli groups in the United States for not having visited Israel during his first term, President Barack Obama chose Israel as the first point of call at the beginning of his second term. Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s overt interference in the US presidential election and open support for his old friend, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Netanyahu was rewarded not only with the first visit in the second term, but also with effusive praise for Israel and its policies.

Many pundits have regarded President Obama’s visit to Israel as a wasted opportunity and indeed as a depressing spectacle, because it finally admitted the failure and the total abandonment of US mediation for a two-state solution. At the beginning of his first term, Obama gave top priority to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and made determined efforts to achieve that goal. In various speeches he rightly pointed out that continued settlement activity and the erosion of the remaining Palestinian territory would be an obstacle to peace, and he openly called on Israel to stop further violating international law by stealing more Palestinian land. Netanyahu’s response to all that pleading was downright rejection and deliberate provocation.Read More »

As Obama greets Iranians on Nowruz, he’s made some medicines hard to afford

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By Farhang Jahanpour

Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, is one of the oldest festivals celebrated in the world. In fact, the palace of Persepolis built in the sixth century BC was an audience hall for celebrating Nowruz. It takes the spring equinox (falling on 20 or 21 March each year) as the start of the year, and it is celebrated in Iran and in many other countries, including Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other Central Asian states, as well as Arran (Republic of Azerbaijan) and some other countries in the Caucasus. It is celebrated by the Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Turkey and many other peoples who have a shared history with Iran. It is a time of renewal and rebirth. Continue here This link also contains Obama’s speech to the Iranian people.

Militarism is a Greater Threat Than Terrorism

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By Farhang Jahanpour


Published about 10 years ago on July 3, 2003

If Usama bin Laden is still alive – and the indications are that he is – he must be feeling very pleased with himself, because his terrible terrorist activities are beginning to bear fruit, and his main aim of polarising the world and creating a clash of civilisations is on the point of fruition. His call to the Muslims of the world, “you are either with the faithful believers or with the infidels”, seems to have been echoed by President Bush’s insistence that “you are either with us or with the terrorists.”

Last summer I visited the United States after many years. I was very pleased to find that the Americans have regained their composure after the dreadful events of 11th September and that they are the same positive, optimistic, friendly and hospitable people that they have always been. At the same time, I found some signs of hardening of attitude among some politicians and opinion formers that I found rather disturbing. I will refer to some of the unfortunate developments that have taken place during the past couple of years that go against American values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and that everyone is presumed innocent until proved guilty.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington many Americans who had nurtured a feeling of indifference towards Islam became very interested to learn about Islam and the Middle East. Books on Islam sold like hot cakes, and even the Koran became a best seller. This was a positive sign of strength and inquisitiveness and showed that Americans wanted to learn about the cause of what had happened. However, after a few months, there was a perceptible change of emphasis. At first, many students and others began asking: “Why do they hate us so much?” There was a substantive and healthy discussion about what it is about the nature of the American presence in the world that creates a situation in which movements like al-Qaeda can thrive and prosper. That was a very promising sign.

But shortly afterwards that discussion got short-circuited. A few months after 9/11 the tone of that discussion switched, and it became: “What’s wrong with the Islamic world that it failed to produce democracy, science, education, its own enlightenment, and created societies that breed terror?” Although this is a valid question to ask, it should not completely overshadow the earlier question.

In fact, a situation arose when if anybody tried to find the reasons for those barbaric events he or she was accused of trying to justify them. There was at times a concerted attack on those who thought it could be useful to bring at least a minimal degree of historical reference to bear on the event.Read More »

Crying wolf over Iran’s nuclear program

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By Farhang Jahanpour

Crying wolf – the evidence

After producing his comic diagram during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last September, drawing a red line in order to stop Iran’s alleged imminent nuclear bomb, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for immediate action against Iran before it was too late.

However, as the result of President Barack Obama’s insistence that he wanted to resolve the dispute by peaceful means, the war fever subsided to some extent. However, on the eve of the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the forthcoming visit of President Obama to Israel, Netanyahu has once again started to press the panic button about Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Referring to Iran’s announcement that she was installing new centrifuges for enriching uranium, and undaunted by his earlier false predictions, Netanyahu once again claimed that the new centrifuges could cut by a third the time needed to create a bomb.1)

However, when Israel’s intense campaign to start a war with Iran stalled, Israeli officials said that their original assessment about the deadline for dealing with Iran had been false. As Jacques E. C. Hymans points out in his recent article in Foreign Affairs, Israeli intelligence officials have now downgraded their assessment of Iran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb.2) Now, they say: “Iran won’t be able to build a nuclear weapon before 2015 or 2016, pushing back by several years previous assessments of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”3)Read More »