Sunday Read: When Dreams Die, they Do not Rot–Three men, One Dream and The Theatre
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/07/sunday-read-when-dreams-die-they-do-not-rot
I remember the Iranian-Dutch writer, Kader Abdolah, once saying that when he first mentioned to a fellow Iranian immigrant that he wanted to be a writer in the Netherlands, his countryman told him, “Your dream is large but this country is small.” A Nigerian would have told him to “cut your coat according to your…
Visions of Darkness in Iranian Contemporary Music | Unexplained Sounds Group
▻https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/visions-of-darkness-in-iranian-contemporary-music
Visions of Darkness in Iranian Contemporary Music
1.Saint Abdullah - Unforgotten Promises 03:10
2.Xerxes The Dark - Longing To Return 06:08
3.S.S.M.P - The Blue Chasm 05:54
4.Alphaxone - A dystopia 04:29
5.Limen - Wherefore the Worm Universe 09:18
6.Ali Phi - condition.III 03:00
7.Reza Solatipour - Surviving the Darkness 05:06
8.Nojan - Revolution 06:31
9.Hossein RangChi - Mute 13:04
10.Narcissa Kasraï - Articulation 05:37
11.Rhonchus - Graph 07:27
12.DSM - Nowruz 04:14
13.idft - DT 05:37
14.Nyctalllz- Daeva 05:43
15.Poo Yar - Burried Alive 05:40
16.Anunnaki signal - Father 05:25
17.Soheil Soheili - Labrotary 05:38
18.XSIX - Lost 07:02
19.Crows in the Rain - ... (For A Film) 02:45
20.Downtown of HongKong - Downtown Valley 13:52
21.Mehdi Behbudi & Vahide Sistaani - Tehran Moonlight 16:41
Michel Sapin en #Iran pour libérer les flux bancaires
▻http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20170303-michel-sapin-iran-liberer-flux-bancaires
Les entreprises françaises qui veulent investir en Iran, qui ont des projets déjà avancés doivent ronger leur frein, faute du soutien des banques françaises. Ces dernières ont encore trop peur du gendarme américain pour s’aventurer en Iran.
[...]
L’équipe de Michel Sapin doit donc trouver des solutions techniques rapides pour dégeler les opérations. Le directeur de Tracfin, la cellule qui traque l’argent illicite, est du voyage également, il va rencontrer son homologue iranien. Leur objectif : sortir l’Iran de la liste noire des pays finançant le terrorisme défini par le groupe d’action financière qui regroupe 37 pays, dont les Etats-Unis.
Le gel des flux financiers avec l’Iran pèse sur les entreprises
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/03/04/le-gel-des-flux-financiers-avec-l-iran-pese-sur-les-entreprises_5089226_3234
Dans d’autres pays européens, le blocage financier est moins problématique grâce à la présence d’établissements dépourvus de filiale aux Etats-Unis et non exposés au dollar. Les entreprises allemandes peuvent s’appuyer sur l’Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank (EIH), basé à Hambourg, et sur certaines banques régionales. Des banques autrichiennes comme Raiffeisen Bank ou italiennes telles Banca Popolare di Sondrio acceptent aussi de financer le commerce avec l’Iran. La Sace, l’assureur-crédit italien, est à l’offensive pour accorder des garanties.
Iraq plans to acquire ’large fleet’ of oil tankers | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-shipping-oil-idUSKBN15W10M
Iraq plans to acquire a “large fleet” of oil tankers to transport the OPEC nation’s crude to global markets, Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said in a statement on Friday.
The nation’s tanker fleet was largely destroyed during the U.S.-led offensive to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, according to the state-run Iraqi Oil Tankers Company’s website. The company owned as many as 24 tankers in the 1980s.
Serving the Leviathan | Jacobin
▻https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/iran-rafsanjani-ahmadinejad-khamenei-reform
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chairman of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, died of a heart attack on January 8, 2017. Various factions immediately tried to claim this “pillar of the revolution” in the name of their competing political objectives. The wily politician would have surely recognized this technique of marshaling the spirits of the dead to score points for short-term political gain.
Temperate “principalists” (usulgarayan), technocratic conservatives (eʿtedaliyyun), and reformists (eslahtalaban) — that is, much of the Iranian political class — saw something in the elderly statesman’s legacy worth appropriating. In this way, his death mirrors his life: during his sixty-plus years of political activity, he became many things to many people, while his ultimate objectives often remained opaque, if not virtually impossible to discern.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others often painted this postrevolutionary pragmatist as a corrupt and arrogant patrician who had cast aside revolutionary austerity in favor of decadent opulence. The accusation resonated far beyond Ahmadinejad’s supporters, aligning with popular slogans that denounced the two-time president as “Akbar Shah” (meaning King Akbar, Great Shah) and compelling ordinary citizens to scrawl dozd (thief) on many of his campaign posters during the 2005 presidential campaign. He was also known to many as “the shark” (kuseh) on account of his inability to grow a fully fledged beard, though others felt it described his political modus operandi to a tee.
By 2009, however, he seemed to have aligned himself with the Green Movement, drawing closer to the reformists he once opposed. His intermittent criticisms of the Ahmadinejad government endeared him to many, who began to see him as one of the few establishment voices willing to openly defy the administration and by extension, his old ally, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He became inextricably linked with the trope of “moderation,” a powerful idea in a country on the precipice, especially after the UN imposed sanctions of 2006.
Many others remained skeptical, however, unable to forget his reputation as an arch-Machiavellian. They recycled urban legends about his family’s wealth, reinforcing his image as a power-obsessed wheeler-and-dealer.
Resisting the Shah
Born in 1934, Akbar Hashemi Bahremani grew up on his family’s small farm in the village of Bahreman in the Nuq district of Rafsanjan, Kerman province. At the behest of his father, he studied in a traditional maktab, but was still expected to help tend to the animals and orchards in a region renowned for its prized pistachio. His paternal uncle was a cleric who often took to the village pulpit, and at the age of fourteen, he left for Qom to study at the Shiʿi seminary, the chief center of Islamic learning in Iran.
Through the Maraʿshi brothers (Akhavan-e Maraʿshi), Kazem and Mehdi, fellow Rafsanjanis, with whom he lived for a number of years, Akbar quickly came to know Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, then a relatively junior mojtahed and esteemed teacher of philosophy and mysticism. In Rafsanjani’s memoir, The Period of Struggle, he recalls how he was immediately captivated by the “majesty” of Khomeini’s visage and demeanor. Thus began an extremely close and fruitful relationship that would last the remainder of Khomeini’s lifetime. Indeed, Rafsanjani’s final resting place is alongside his political and spiritual patron.
In Qom, Rafsanjani rapidly got involved in political life and activism and found himself attracted to the militant Devotees of Islam (Fadaʾiyan-e Islam), led by Seyyed Mojtaba Mirlowhi, better known as Navvab-e Safavi or “Prince of the Safavids,” whose meetings he would attend at every opportunity. The group tried to convince the Qom seminary to agitate for a strict and unforgiving nomocratic order, but with little success. Under the guidance of Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the overwhelming majority of the Qom seminary rejected the message of the Fadaʾiyan, at one point running them out of town.
Rafsanjani was studying in Qom during the years of anticolonial fervor after Prime Minister Mosaddeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (BP). He encountered Mosaddeq’s one-time clerical ally, Ayatollah Seyyed Abolqasem Kashani, who became one of the Fadaʾiyan’s initial patrons. Kashani eventually turned on Mosaddeq, and, in August 1953, a joint CIA-MI6 orchestrated coup d’état ousted the prime minister.
After the revolution, even while expressing his support for the national movement, Rafsanjani blamed Mosaddeq’s National Front and the communist Tudeh Party for their role in weakening the seminary during this period. But he still recalled with pride how the former prime minister contributed to printing and distributing his translation of The Journey of Palestine, a translation of a popular book on Palestine written in Arabic by Akram Zwayter, a Jordanian ambassador to Tehran. Published in semi-illicit form in 1961, this book marked the beginning of a long career in which he became the most prolific statesman-cum-author of the postrevolutionary era.
In 1955, Navvab was executed by firing squad, but vestiges of the Fadaʾiyan persisted, creating a vital network of clerical and lay activists in the country’s mosques and bazaars. Rafsanjani became an important organizer inside the country, following Khomeni’s exile in 1964. In January 1965, he was arrested by the Shah’s infamous secret police, SAVAK, for his role in the assassination of the pro-American premier, Hassan ʿAli Mansur. Later recollections by members of the Islamic Coalition Society have since admitted it was Rafsanjani who supplied the weapon. From 1958 until the revolution he was arrested on several occasions. He persisted in his activism despite the abuse and torture he suffered at the hands of the SAVAK, publishing illegal periodicals and distributing Khomeini’s communiqués from Najaf. It was also in 1958 that he married ʿEffat Maraʿshi, the daughter of a fellow cleric from Rafsanjan. His companion of almost sixty years, she would come to exude a formidable matriarchal presence on the Iranian political scene throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
Rafsanjani also managed to travel to the United States and Japan during these years. Many regard the latter as especially formative for his worldview and proclivity toward the seemingly indigenous, albeit technologically advanced, version of modernization he would seek to exact during his own time in power. He also penned a volume on the nationalist icon Amir Kabir (who died in 1852), who tried to streamline the Qajar court’s expenditures, consolidating the weak Iranian state in Tehran while importing technical and military know-how. That Rafsanjani died on the anniversary of Amir Kabir’s murder has only fueled the flood of hagiographies.
Internal Divisions
On February 5, 1979, Rafsanjani made his first public appearance facing the world’s media with Khomeini during Mehdi Bazargan’s introduction as prime minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. He began his government apprenticeship as deputy interior minister, and soon found common ground with another junior minister, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who held the same role in defense. More importantly, Rafsanjani also served on the revolutionary council, a secretive body dominated by clerics loyal to Khomeini that was created in lieu of a legislative branch of state.
Rafsanjani and Khamenei were on a pilgrimage to Mecca when they learned that radical students, who called themselves the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, had overrun the United States embassy on November 4, 1979. They had by this time become leading officials of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP), and Bazargan’s resignation thrust both men into the limelight. Rafsanjani took over the interior ministry and organized the first presidential elections of 1980. In the spring of that year, he was elected to the Majlis (parliament) and became speaker, a post he turned into a personal stronghold for most of the following decade.
Rafsanjani remained steadfastly loyal to Khomeini and led the clerical front that ultimately marginalized competing revolutionary organizations in the early 1980s. But their relationship was not always easy. Together with Khamenei, Rafsanjani lobbied Khomeini to allow clerical candidates into the first presidential election; his mentor’s refusal paved the way for the victory of layman Abolhasan Bani-Sadr. Only after much of the IRP leadership was killed in the Hafte Tir bombing did Khomeini relent and allow Khamenei to run for president in the summer of 1980.
They also seem to have disagreed about the war with Iraq. According to various sources, including Khomeini’s son Ahmad, the Grand Ayatollah wanted to bring the conflict to an end after taking back the southwestern city of Khorramshahr in April 1982, but Rafsanjani, among others, prevailed on him to prepare an offensive into Iraqi territory.
As the 1980s progressed, Rafsanjani’s role within the state system far surpassed his formal title of parliamentary speaker. In international settings, he was treated like the state’s foremost figure. The West — including the Reagan administration — relied on him to end kidnappings in Lebanon, and he became known as the real power behind the scenes.
By 1985, the fervent anti-Americanism he had previously displayed gave way to the realization that a tactical accommodation with the “Great Satan” was necessary. In a risky and ultimately unsuccessful move, he agreed to hold talks with a delegation led by national security adviser Robert McFarlane, which surreptitiously visited Tehran in October 1986 with much-needed weapons for the war effort. The Iran-Contra revelations severely embarrassed both Reagan and Rafsanjani, and the whole affair had major repercussions for the domestic scene. Nevertheless, two decades later, the Rafsanjani clan published a book including the delegation’s fake passports and the inscribed Bible Reagan gave to Rafsanjani to underscore the cooperation between these erstwhile adversaries.
Rafsanjani was at the heart of several crucial developments during the last years of Khomeini’s life. Many believe he took part in the efforts lead by Ahmad Khomeini and minister of intelligence, Mohammad Reyshahri, to persuade the revolutionary leader to withdraw his support for his designated successor, Hossein ʿAli Montazeri. He certainly had motivation: Montazeri’s relative and close associate, Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi, and his people were responsible for leaking the details of McFarlane’s visit. In early 1988, Rafsanjani had to navigate a major internal crisis when Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi resigned and noted — in a secret letter to Khamenei — that other figures, including Rafsanjani, had gravely eroded his authority.
That same year, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing almost three hundred civilians. Rafsanjani gloomily indicated during a Friday prayer speech that the tragedy was not an accident and warned that the United States would now intensify its involvement in the Iran-Iraq conflict. This likely contributed to Khomeini’s acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 598, which initiated the ceasefire between the two countries and which he famously compared to drinking a “poisoned chalice.”
Consolidation
Following the Iran-Iraq War and the death of the revolutionary patriarch in June 1989, many wondered if the revolutionary state and its institutions could survive without the uniquely charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini. Even before his death, the ruling establishment proved vulnerable as militant groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization and the Forqan, which opposed the political clerisy’s ascent, had assassinated several senior figures in the regime. Khamenei and Rafsanjani both survived attempts on their lives in this period, ensuring that these two friends would decisively shape the post-Khomeini political order.
Rafsanjani played a key role in elevating Khamenei as Khomeini’s successor, but the more intimate details of his lobbying have yet to be fully revealed. It occurred as the Iranian elite was reeling, both politically and emotionally. Khomeini’s death came after a period of incapacitation, but it nevertheless caught senior state figures unprepared. As a result, the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body in charge of selecting and supervising the guardian jurist (vali-ye faqih), had to decide how best to handle the succession. Rafsanjani took to the podium and declared that Khomeini had stated his preference for Khamenei, despite his lack of clerical rank and authority. The latter was not an Ayatollah, let alone a marjaʿ al-taqlid (source of emulation or Grand Ayatollah).
Khamenei’s accession unfolded in tandem with major constitutional amendments and changes in the revolutionary state’s institutional structure. The position of vali-ye faqih (often referred to nowadays as the “supreme leader”) was radically revised. No longer was his capacity to act as a source of emulation for the faithful, namely the criterion of marjaʿiyyat a prerequisite for the office. Instead, Khamenei had an “absolute mandate” to rule. At the same time, the office of prime minister was abolished, leaving a directly elected president, which Rafsanjani promptly assumed. These moves quickly consolidated power between the longstanding allies.
At this moment, Rafsanjani was at the peak of his powers. Many have speculated that he placed his ally in this role because he was counting on Khamenei’s lack of religious credentials and limited influence among the clergy, to keep him relatively weak. Arguably, it was a calculation that would come back to haunt him in the last decade of his life.
His two presidential terms have become associated with the period of the nation’s reconstruction. In the first few years, his partnership with Khamenei proved most efficacious. First in the 1990 Assembly of Experts’ elections — but most decisively in the 1992 Majles elections — they used the guardian council’s arrogation of the prerogative to supervise elections and thereby disqualify candidates to rapidly marginalize the so-called Islamic left, which included groups like the Association of Combatant Clerics, the so-called Imam’s Line, and the Mojahedin Organization of the Islamic Revolution. All of whose members had been Ayatollah Khomeini’s stalwart supporters and advocated for anti-imperialism and a radical foreign policy, state control of the economy, and the egalitarian redistribution of wealth.
In response to the country’s very real internal and external economic and political challenges, Rafsanjani and Khamenei conspired to cast aside the Left. Thus, in 1992, they either saw disqualified or campaigned against a raft of sitting MPs and left-leaning regime loyalists, including Behzad Nabavi, Asadollah Bayat, Hadi Ghaffari, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, and the infamous Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali. In fact, only 20 percent of incumbents earned reelection that year.
Consequently, the traditional right dominated the Fourth Majles, adding to the duo’s firm grip on the intelligence and security apparatuses, the state institutions regulating the Shiʿi clergy, the levers of economic power and patronage — including the ministry of petroleum — and a vast network of religious endowments. Despite starting from a position of weakness, Khamenei began to strengthen his hold on economic and military power. In Rafsanjani’s second term, a mild rivalry started to color their relationship.
With the Left on the sidelines, Rafsanjani pursued what amounted to a neoliberal agenda of privatization and structural adjustment. He also created a regional détente with the Gulf states, above all Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which had bankrolled Saddam Hussein’s war effort with US support. Journalist Mohammad Quchani approvingly called Rafsanjani’s tenure the era of “depoliticization,” where “expertise” firmly supplanted “commitment.” Technocratic competency and state-directed economic liberalization without corresponding political reforms became the order of the day. Saʿid Hajjarian — a former intelligence officer who became a preeminent reformist strategist — recalled a meeting with Rafsanjani in which the president disdainfully shrugged off the very notion of political development, a euphemism for “democratization.”
But after ejecting much of the Islamic left from the ranks of government, Rafsanjani was himself forced to cede primacy over the cultural and intellectual spheres to the traditional right. His brother Mohammad had to give up his long-standing control of state radio and television, while the future president Mohammed Khatami publicly resigned from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, replaced by arch-conservative Ali Larijani (who has since joined the ranks of centrist principalists).
The traditional right’s own predominantly mercantilist interests often conflicted with Rafsanjani’s efforts at economic liberalization. As a result, he had to pursue a more modest reform program. Resistance from below also appeared. In 1992, a tentative subsidy reform on foodstuffs and energy — which would only be implemented, ironically, under the Ahmadinejad government — coincided with inflation hovering around 50 percent, leading to tumultuous provincial bread riots.
Moreover, the privatizations that did take place were far from straightforward. Selling shares to para-statal and quasi-statal organizations sparked allegations of crony capitalism and corruption that the Fourth Majles eventually had to redress through legislation, even if the issue was never satisfactorily resolved. Moreover, one of Rafsanjani’s key allies, Gholam Hossein Karbaschi — mayor of Tehran from 1989 to 1998 — played a crucial role in the capital city’s “urban renewal.” He sold off state-owned land below market value to the connected and well-heeled and exempted large developers from zoning laws, creating a speculative real-estate boom in which certain segments of the political and economic elite were seen to massively profit.
Rafsanjani also helped create the Islamic Free University, which provided higher education to hundreds of thousands of students unable to enter the state system because of the competitive national examinations. Nevertheless, the university has been criticized for introducing market logic into education and thus exacerbating existing class divisions.
As Kaveh Ehsani writes, the Rafsanjani administration had decided that “the Islamic Republic needed to first create its own loyal, Islamic (but neoliberal) middle class.” Rafsanjani, however, ultimately failed to develop an entrepreneurial class that could fully implement his neoliberal agenda. Attempts to do so — particularly through his half-hearted wooing of expatriate businessmen who had fled on the eve of the Islamic Republic — were largely met with scorn. The Executives of Reconstruction Party, heavily populated by the president’s kin, including his outspoken daughter Faʾezeh, would belatedly attempt to consolidate this new technocratic order in 1996.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was invited by the government as a quid pro quo for its services during the war, to help reconstruct the country’s severely depleted infrastructure. Khamenei shrewdly capitalized on this development to augment his institutional power.
This period also saw a slew of intellectuals, writers, and activists assassinated, arrested, and/or tortured. The long list even extends into the Khatami era and includes ʿAli Akbar Saʿidi Sirjani, Faraj Sarkuhi, Shapur Bakhtiar — the Shah’s last prime minister, who had tried to oust the Islamic Republic with Saddam Hussein’s support — and Sadeq Sharafkandi, secretary-general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran. These killings have been strongly linked to the Iranian security apparatus, but the extent of Rafsanjani’s involvement remains unclear. Regardless, his objective of consolidating the regime he had been instrumental in building extended — with or without his direct participation — into neutralizing, by any means, dissenting and subversive voices.
Between the Establishment and Reform
When Mohammad Khatami became president in the June 1997 elections, many observers — including Rafsanjani — were surprised. In fact, the departing president would eventually admit that he had voted for Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, the establishment candidate. Nor was he temperamentally disposed to the ethos of the emerging “reformist” camp, which rallied around Khatami. Their emphasis on political, rather than economic, change and openness in the media and intellectual spheres starkly contrasted with the ambitions and priorities of his own administration.
In fact, between 1997 and 2001, the former president tilted more toward the conservatives, when the right wing became concerned the reformist coalition was taking control of the chief reins of government. In 2000, Rafsanjani ran for parliament in Tehran and sparked a major political crisis. He initially did not rank among the first thirty seats, but was reinstated after a known dissident was disqualified. The media waged a campaign against what they regarded as brazen interference, and Rafsanjani relinquished his seat at a high cost to the Khatami front.
Entrenched as leader of the expediency council — a body whose influence grew in periods of mediation between parliament and the guardian council — Rafsanjani effectively helped stymie the reformist-dominated Sixth Majles, repeatedly kicking key reforms into the long grass. As a result, the public grew disenchanted with the reformers, seeing them as incapable of implementing their program.
In 2005, Rafsanjani once again ran for president, arguing that only he could fix a deadlocked political system. His quixotic campaign used roller-skating young women to hand out posters to bemused drivers in Tehran. But Ahmadinejad’s insurgent candidacy derailed his plans and forced an unprecedented run-off. Rafsanjani scrambled and succeeded in winning the support of many moderates, dissidents, and artists, including the late ʿAbbas Kiarostami, who warned of a Chirac-Le Pen scenario.
When the veteran candidate appeared at Tehran University to this end, he responded to students chanting the name of Akbar Ganji — an imprisoned journalist and public intellectual, who had famously characterized Rafsanjani as Iran’s very own Cardinal Richelieu — by saying conditions in prisons today were far better than under the Shah’s regime. In his final televised campaign interview, he unpersuasively apologized for not holding events outside Tehran in what appeared to be a last-ditch pledge to improve the plight of the neglected provinces.
His defeat — which he half-heartedly attributed to security forces’ interference — effectively aligned him with the reformist camp he had previously been at odds with. By 2006, he recognized that Ahmadinejad threatened both the Iranian state and the fragile détente with the West that he and Khatami had laboriously engineered. For the last decade of his life, he would repeatedly call for moderation, speaking out against excesses and cautiously supporting Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the 2009 elections.
Despite warning Khamenei about possible tampering on the eve of the vote and using his Friday prayer address to call for the release of scores of reformists in July 2009, Rafsanjani managed to keep his place within the state apparatus. Rather than directly challenge Khamenei — as Mousavi and Karroubi would — he retained his position as head of the expediency council.
During the second Ahmadinejad administration, Rafsanajani stayed in the media spotlight, published his much-anticipated annual volumes of political diaries, and continued to lobby at the regime’s highest levels. Despite having few obvious cards to play, Rafsanjani drew on his myriad relationships across ministries, economic institutions, political factions, the bazaar, the clergy, and even the IRGC. He also compelled his son, Mehdi, to return home and face a jail sentence so that opponents couldn’t use the charge that his child was abroad and in the pay of foreigners against him politically.
Transformation or Rebranding?
In 2013, after remaining on the fence until the last hours of the registration window, Rafsanjani announced his bid for president without securing the customary approval from Khamenei, who rebuffed his attempts to discuss the matter. The guardian council rejected him on health grounds, paving the way for his protégé Hassan Rouhani, whom Rafsanjani had persuaded not to drop out, to carry the centrist ticket and win in the first round.
Even in his final years, after he had lost many of the institutional levers he had once wielded so dexterously, Rafsanjani managed to interject himself at crucial political moments and tilt the balance of forces in one direction or another. These interventions were not without significance or merit. His continued support for Rouhani and the nuclear accord with the P5+1 helped alleviate the atmosphere of securitization, economic distress, and growing militarization that had characterized the Ahmadinejad years. When he decried the Western sanctions that “had broken the back” of the nation, he belittled the conservative attempts to portray the accord as a sellout.
In recent years, prominent intellectuals like Akbar Ganji and Sadeq Zibakalam have debated whether Rafsanjani’s apparent “conversion” to reform represented a truly genuine transformation or another example of his essential Machiavellianism. But a more pertinent question would be what opportunities for contestation and increasing democratic accountability and pluralism were engendered as a result of his interventions and the unforeseen repercussions of elite competition and cleavage.
On the one hand, his role as mediator between the ruling establishment and the reformists in these final years played an important part in assuaging the contradictions between popular expectations and the reality of regime governance. Since the late 1990s elite competition has taken place on the terrain of electoral and constitutional politics, and Iran’s sizeable urban population and middle classes were periodically summoned to provide momentum to their own mediated demands. A process that also harbored the potential for sparking deeper political transformation, and a renegotiation of the social contract defining the relationship of government and the governed.
In the short term, reforms included resolving the nuclear impasse; returning to competent, technocratic economic management; lowering inflation and youth unemployment; releasing Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard; and loosening political and cultural restrictions.
But in the long term, the reformist horizon strove for something like a new constitutional settlement that would place the supreme leader under close supervision — if not call for his direct election — hold the security apparatuses accountable, and reverse the guardian council’s powers over elections. Reformist activists, as well as political currents with negligible official representation, saw Rafsanjani’s funeral procession as one more opportunity to articulate these manifold demands, proving even his posthumous relevance to the political balance of power.
Rafsanjani initiated a deeply personal form of statecraft, one that could not bring about a structured perestroika, but did enable the Islamic Republic to survive crises and challenges. Rafsanjani and Khamenei’s chief objective had always preserving the regime they helped build. The question of how to achieve this — and their material and institutional stake in it — rankled their relationship in later life and still divides the country.
« Probo-Koala » : drame écologique et bonnes affaires
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2016/08/19/probo-koala-drame-ecologique-et-bonnes-affaires_4984771_3244.html
Lorsque le Probo Koala, un vieux tanker battant pavillon panaméen accoste au port d’Abidjan, en Côte d’Ivoire, une odeur méphitique se répand dans la ville. Nul n’y prête vraiment attention, ce samedi 19 août 2006.
Les effluves s’échappent du navire vraquier bleu affrété par le géant suisse de négoce de matières premières, Trafigura, alors dirigé par son fondateur, le Français Claude Dauphin. En fait, les cuves du Probo-Koala sont remplies de déchets liquides toxiques qui seront déversés à la nuit tombée dans la décharge publique de la ville et sur une dizaine d’autres sites.
Avec la complicité de ministres et de fonctionnaires corrompus, une société ivoirienne a été chargée par des intermédiaires de Trafigura d’effectuer cette sale besogne. Traiter ces déchets d’hydrocarbures a un coût élevé que la société de négoce est soupçonnée d’avoir voulu éviter, quitte à contourner les lois internationales, à semer la mort à Abidjan et à provoquer une catastrophe écologique.
Près de 100 000 victimes
Trois jours après son accostage, le Probo Koala quitte la capitale économique ivoirienne. Il laisse à quai une ville angoissée par la crise politico-militaire en cours depuis quatre ans, et des dizaines de milliers d’Abidjanais subitement frappés de maux de têtes, de diarrhées, de vomissements.
Selon les autorités ivoiriennes, les 528 mètres cubes de déchets toxiques du Probo Koala ont causé la mort de dix-sept personnes et 43 000 intoxications. Près de 100 000 victimes ont assigné en justice Trafigura aux Pays-Bas et au Royaume-Uni. Mais le groupe suisse – chapeauté par une holding néerlandaise –, qui n’a cessé de nier toute responsabilité, n’a jamais été condamné et il a négocié l’abandon des poursuites par l’Etat ivoirien contre 152 millions d’euros.
Dix ans plus tard, malgré la catastrophe du Probo-Koala, Trafigura n’a jamais quitté la Côte d’Ivoire et a habilement navigué dans les cercles de pouvoir sous la présidence de Laurent Gbagbo puis de son successeur, Alassane Ouattara.
C’est d’ailleurs un neveu de ce dernier, Ahmadou Touré, qui dirige la filiale ivoirienne de la société Puma Energy, chargée des activités « aval » (raffinage, distribution, commerce) de Trafigura. Dès 2007, Puma Energy avait mis la main sur les infrastructures de stockage de carburants dans le port d’Abidjan.
« L’impunité règne »
« Cela peut sembler fou mais Trafigura est aujourd’hui en position de force en Côte d’Ivoire et dispose de passe-droit au sein du pouvoir, confie un acteur du secteur pétrolier ivoirien sous couvert d’anonymat. L’impunité règne et ils continuent à faire du business avec les responsables politiques pour qui le dossier Probo-Koala appartient au passé. »
Puma Energy négocie actuellement le rachat du réseau de distribution de la société nationale d’opérations pétrolières de Côte d’Ivoire (Petroci). Les liens familiaux de M. Touré avec le chef de l’Etat ivoirien ont-ils aidé ?
« Nous travaillons avec de nombreux partenaires locaux et nous favorisons les talentueux entrepreneurs des pays dans lesquels nous travaillons », se défend une porte-parole de Puma Energy. L’entreprise compte parmi ses principaux actionnaires, outre Trafigura, la société pétrolière publique angolaise, Sonangol, régulièrement pointée du doigt pour des importants détournements au profit du clan du président José Eduardo Dos Santos – la firme est dirigée par sa fille depuis juin.
« Comme en Angola, où Trafigura a le monopole sur l’approvisionnement du pays en carburant grâce à ses liens avec des proches conseillers du président, Puma Energy s’appuie en Côte d’Ivoire sur la famille au pouvoir », constate Marc Guéniat, spécialiste des questions pétrolières pour l’ONG suisse La Déclaration de Berne.
Mais Trafigura, dont l’image a sévèrement été ébranlée, a désormais recours à de discrètes sociétés offshore, « indépendantes » mais « alliées » pour continuer à faire du négoce en Côte d’Ivoire. Il en va ainsi de Delaney Petroleum. Par l’intermédiaire de Mossack Fonseca, le cabinet d’avocats panaméen au cœur du scandale des « Panama papers », cette société a été enregistrée en 2008 aux îles Vierges britanniques mais établie à Dubaï où réside son directeur, l’Allemand Roald Goethe, 60 ans. Ce dernier a été porte-parole de Trafigura au lendemain de « l’incident » du Probo Koala et chargé du Nigeria où Delaney Petroleum a affrété de nombreux tankers.
Un petit monde
Selon les « Panama Papers », cette société a disposé d’un compte en banque au département Energie de la BNP Paribas à Paris et a lorgné sur le pétrole irakien en nommant un représentant à Bagdad. De quoi attirer l’attention du cabinet panaméen Mossack Fonseca qui, dans un mail interne daté du 1er août 2014, s’inquiète des liens entre Delaney Petroleum et la Iraqi Oil Tanker Company « liée au financement du terrorisme », selon les Nations unies (ONU) et l’Union européenne.
Le patron de Delaney Petroleum, par ailleurs petit actionnaire de Puma Energy, est revenu cette année chez Trafigura. Il a pris en février la tête du département pétrolier Afrique, en remplacement de son ami Jean-Pierre Valentini qui avait été brièvement incarcéré à Abidjan au lendemain du scandale du Probo Koala, avec le fondateur de Trafigura M. Dauphin.
L’univers du trading pétrolier en Afrique est un petit monde. A tel point qu’une autre société, sur laquelle Trafigura se serait appuyée pour se développer en Côte d’Ivoire, est domiciliée à la même adresse que Delaney Petroleum, à Dubaï. Il s’agit de Worldwide Energy, dirigée depuis sa création en 2007 par Frédéric Fatien. Cet homme d’affaires franco-ivoirien est également consul de Côte d’Ivoire aux Emirats arabes unis, ancien partenaire de M. Goethe au sein d’une société de bâtiment avec qui il a fondé une écurie de course automobile qui compte parmi les pilotes M. Valentini.
Drôle de société que cette Worldwide Energy, fondée un an après le scandale du Probo Koala, et qui décroche d’emblée d’importants quotas d’exportations pétrolières au Nigeria et en Côte d’Ivoire auprès de la Petroci. Ce qui lui a valu d’être classée parmi les « sociétés mystérieuses ne pouvant être correctement identifiée », par Energy Compass, cabinet d’analyse risque du secteur pétrolier.
Pétrole et politique s’entremêlent
Un contrat avec la Société ivoirienne de raffinage (SIR), initialement attribué à Trafigura, est confié à Worldwide Energy en 2014 pour un montant de 200 millions de dollars (176 millions d’euros). Il s’agit d’exporter 25 000 tonnes de produits pétroliers par mois en échange de la livraison de deux tankers chargés de brut chaque année. Y a-t-il eu un accord entre Trafigura et Worldwide Energy ? Contacté, M. Fatien était injoignable et « inatteignable » selon son service de communication.
Les liens entre Worldwide Energy et Trafigura semblent néanmoins étroits. La première a ainsi pris en charge pour le compte de la seconde 30 000 tonnes de pétrole transformé en « carburants aviation » par la SIR afin de le livrer au Nigeria en décembre 2014.
Quelques mois plus tard, c’est l’inverse : Worldwide Energy a livré 650 000 tonnes de brut nigérian en échange de livraisons de produits raffinés par la SIR au Nigeria. « Worlwide Energy ne jouit pas d’un contrat SWAP [brut contre produits pétroliers] avec le Nigeria, on peut donc fortement se demander si cette société n’exécute pas un contrat obtenu par Trafigura », note un analyste pétrolier.
La petite société de trading pétrolier est même devenue un important créancier de Petroci, à qui elle concède des prêts de dizaines de millions de dollars. En échange, elle se voit attribuer d’importants contrats d’exportation du brut, au grand dam de Glencore, concurrent anglo-suisse de Trafigura.
Bien loin des hautes sphères où s’entremêlent pétrole et politique, des victimes attendent toujours leurs indemnisations. Une partie des 33 millions d’euros versés en 2009, sur décision de la justice britannique, par Trafigura à près de 30 000 victimes a été détournée par des responsables de Côte d’Ivoire. Des dizaines de milliers d’Ivoiriens se battent toujours pour percevoir leurs 1 150 euros de dédommagement.
Le #Sinn_Fein fait avancer la #réunification politique de l’Irlande
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/280216/le-sinn-fein-fait-avancer-la-reunification-politique-de-lirlande
En recueillant 14 % des voix aux élections législatives de vendredi, l’ancienne aile politique du groupe paramilitaire IRA est désormais une force politique incontournable qui s’est fait le porte-parole des anti-austérité. Au nord, elle est au pouvoir. L’unité politique de l’île se rapproche.
De plus en plus de réfugiés irakiens rentrent au pays, déçus par l’Europe | euronews, monde
▻http://fr.euronews.com/2016/01/28/de-plus-en-plus-de-refugies-irakiens-rentrent-au-pays-decus-par-l-europ
Depuis quelques semaines, le phénomène prend de l’ampleur à tel point que de nombreuses compagnies organisent des vols spéciaux pour ramener les réfugiés irakiens. C’est le cas de la compagnie aérienne Iraqi Airways à l’aéroport de Berlin. “Nous avons trois vols par semaine explique une salariée de la compagnie et environ 100 réfugiés par semaine. Leur nombre augmente de façon continue ; cela a commencé en septembre dernier et leur nombre ne cesse d’augmenter.”
Près de 30.000 Irakiens ont demandé l’asile en Allemagne en 2015. Le nombre d’entre eux choisissant de faire le voyage de retour est en constante augmentation depuis l’automne.
Allemagne : de nombreux réfugiés décident de rentrer en Irak
Déception, mal du pays ou difficultés d’intégration, ils sont de plus en plus nombreux à faire le choix du retour.
▻http://www.europe1.fr/international/allemagne-de-nombreux-refugies-decident-de-rentrer-en-irak-2658481
Migrants. “Plutôt mourir en Irak que rester en Belgique”
Un avion transportant une centaine de demandeurs d’asile “volontaires pour le rapatriement” a quitté l’aéroport de Bruxelles. C’est la première fois qu’un gouvernement européen affrète un vol spécialement à cette fin.
►http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/migrants-plutot-mourir-en-irak-que-rester-en-belgique
Disappointed With Europe, Thousands of Iraqi Migrants Return Home
BAGHDAD — Night after night, Mohammed al-Jabiry tossed and turned in his bed at a refugee center in Finland, comparing life in Europe with life in Baghdad. After many sleepless nights, he decided to come home.
Despite war at home, more Syrian refugees return from Iraq
PESHKABOUR, Iraq, Feb 8 (UNHCR) – Under a cold winter sun, 65-year-old Nazo Osi Ali and her two daughters pull their bulging suitcases out of the back of a blue station wagon at this town in northwest Iraq across the Tigris River from Syria.
Why are so many Iraqi asylum seekers abandoning Finland?
According to some sources, a large number of asylum seekers amounting to about 4,000 had abandoned plans to seek asylum in Finland. Considering that two-thirds of the Iraqis that came to Finland last year are young single men, it’s nothing odd that some are returning.
▻http://www.migranttales.net/why-are-so-many-iraqi-asylum-seekers-abandoning-finland
#Finlande
En Allemagne, des réfugiés partis pour rentrer
Depuis plusieurs mois, l’aéroport de Berlin voit des milliers d’Irakiens, d’Afghans et de Syriens rebrousser chemin, déçus par les réalités de l’exil.
Weary asylum seekers choose to leave Sweden
Increasing numbers of asylum seekers are leaving Sweden and returning to their home countries, with many tiring of long waits for their applications to be processed.
▻http://www.thelocal.se/20160504/why-weary-asylum-seekers-are-leaving-sweden
The returnees: what happens when refugees decide to go back home?
Some refugees decide that, despite completing perilous journeys to Europe, their lives will be better if they return home. Support is available for them
The Long Road Home : achieving durable solutions to displacement in Iraq
The Long Road Home is a report compiled by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), includes interviews with people living in displacement camps in Anbar and found that:
84 percent felt safer in their current camps than back home.
Only 1 percent reported knowing that they had homes to return to.
More than 50 percent report that their houses were damaged or totally destroyed.
16 percent reported that their attempts to return had been blocked.
▻https://www.rescue.org/report/long-road-home-achieving-durable-solutions-displacement-iraq
#rapport #conditions #conditions_du_retour #IDPs #déplacés_internes #Anbar
Lien vers le rapport :
▻https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/document/2515/thelongroadhomefinal28022018.pdf
PressTV-Iran bank appeals Bahrain CBB decision
▻http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/05/11/410486/Iran-bank-Bahrain-appeal-
A Bahrain-based Iranian bank has appealed a recent decision by Bahrain’s central bank to place it along with another Iranian financial institution into administration under the pretext of protecting the rights of depositors and policyholders.
“We hereby notify you of our formal appeal against the CBB’s decision to place FB (Future Bank) under administration in accordance with Article 139 of the CBB Law,” Chairman of Future Bank, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said in a letter to CBB, a copy of which was obtained by Press TV.
He was reacting to the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB)’s April 30 decision on the Future Bank and the Iran Insurance Company.
Based on the CBB Law, the Administrator shall have all the powers necessary for the management and running the business of the entity that has been put under administration and is technically called “the Licensee”.
Accordingly, the CBB in the case of the Future Bank and the Iran Insurance Company will have the power to continue or to temporary suspend their operations, the power to suspend or limit the discharge of their financial obligations, and the power to conclude deals on behalf of them.
Hemmati said, “Ever since its incorporation in 2004, the Bank has been carrying on its business in a transparent, disciplined and professional manner, providing all the information and clarifications wherever required by the BCC and ensuring full compliance to the regularity requirements and framework.”
“We were seriously disturbed and shocked to learn the CBB’s decision,” he said.
The Future Bank was established in 2004 through a joint venture between Bank Saderat Iran, Bank Melli Iran, and Ahli United Bank (AUB) Bahrain.
Valiollah Seif, the current governor of the Central Bank of Iran, was the head of the Future Bank in Bahrain before he returned to Iran in 2010.
Iran Insurance Company in Bahrain is an offshoot of a major Tehran-based insurer that has a network of branches in Iran and paid-up capital of $236 million.
KA/KA
Pour poursuivre cette série de ce jour sur Iran French Radio, qui semble très bien informée sur un sujet que nous connaissons bien : le chômage en France. Là, on a tous les éléments pour juger l’article
France : le chômage bat un nouveau record
▻http://french.irib.ir/info/international/item/367357-france-le-ch%C3%B4mage-bat-un-nouveau-record
IRIB- Selon les statistiques publiées par le gouvernement français, le taux de chômage a atteint un nouveau pic. Ainsi, le chômage a dépassé en mars la barre de 3,5 millions de personnes.
Après la présentation des exemptions fiscales sur le marché du travail et la mise en oeuvre de nouvelles mesures pour la libéralisation de certains secteurs économiques, le gouvernement français se rend compte actuellement que ses efforts n’ont guère apporté de résultat. Le taux de chômage, actuellement 10,2%, ne cesse de poursuivre sa courbe ascendante. Le gouvernement, lui, préfère mettre l’accent sur la progression trimestrielle, « la plus faible depuis début 2011 ». Le ministre du Travail, François Rebsamen, a mis en avant le chiffre trimestriel. Il y a eu 9 200 demandeurs supplémentaires entre janvier et mars en métropole : il s’agit de la « plus faible hausse enregistrée depuis début 2011 ». Ces mauvais chiffres n’ont rien d’étonnant, après deux années de croissance morose (0,4 % en 2013 et 2014). Comme de nombreux économistes, Manuel Valls concède volontiers que le chômage ne baissera pas tant que la croissance ne montera pas « autour de 1,5 % ». Un seuil que le Premier ministre compte bien atteindre dès 2015.
Pour ceux que cela intéresse, il y a toute une série d’articles sur les "penseurs contemporains iraniens" (!) sur le site d’Iran French Radio. Soit on considère ces articles comme de la propagande, soit on les lit… etc.
Connaissance des penseurs contemporains iraniens : L’Imam Khomeyni (2ème partie)
▻http://french.irib.ir/opinions/item/144902-connaissance-des-penseurs-contemporains-iraniens-
Durant la décennie70 et parallèlement à l’augmentation de la production et du prix du pétrole, le Shâh d’Iran fut pris de mégalomanie et fort de son pouvoir, réprima et terrorisa, avec, encore plus de vigueur, ses adversaires.
Le régime du Shâh augmenta, de façon abrutissante, l’achat d’équipements militaires et d’articles de consommation occidentaux, particulièrement, américains, et établit, ouvertement, des relations commerciales et militaires avec Israël.
À la fin de la mi-mars 1975, en formant le soit-disant parti « Rastakhiz », et en créant un système monopolistique, le Shâh fit que le despotisme atteigne son plus haut niveau. Il déclara que tous les Iraniens doivent devenir membres de ce parti et que ceux qui sont contre peuvent quitter le pays.
L’Imam Khomeyni déclara, immédiatement, dans une fatwa : « Etant donné que ce parti est contre l’Islam et les intérêts du peuple musulman, la participation du peuple à ce parti est illicite, pour tous, et cautionne l’oppression et la tyrannie envers les Musulmans. Les fatwas de l’Imam Khomeyni et de certains autres savants religieux de l’Islam étaient utiles et efficaces. Malgré de nombreuses propagandes malsaines, le régime du Shâh reconnut, officiellement, après quelques années, la défaite du parti « Rastakhiz » et décida de le dissoudre.
Le martyre de l’Ayatollah Hadj Seyyed Mostafa Khomeyni, fils aîné de l’Imam, en octobre 1977, et la cérémonie grandiose, qui fut organisée, en Iran, pour honorer sa mémoire, fut un élément déclencheur du renouveau des centres scientifiques et de la ferveur du peuple d’Iran. À cette époque, l’Imam Khomeyni considéra ce fait comme des grâces cachées et secrètes de Dieu. Dans le cadre de l’hostilité du régime du Shâh envers l’Imam et les religieux, l’un des scribouillards partisan du régime exacerba la sensibilité du peuple d’Iran en rédigeant un article offensant contre l’Imam. Cet article suscita l’ire populaire qui l’exprima par des manifestations d’envergure. Ce fut, d’abord, de jeunes étudiants en théologie révolutionnaires de la ville sainte de Qom, qui, le 9 janvier 1978, sont descendus dans la rue. Le régime du Shâh les massacra. Mais, peu à peu, les populations d’autres villes, comme le peuple de Qom, battirent le pavé, pour protester contre l’oppression et dénonçait l’atmosphère suffocante qui régnait dans le pays. Le mouvement gagnait du terrain de jour en jour. Dans cette situation, le Shâh fut obligé de changer son Premier ministre. Ja’afar Charif Emami fut, donc, désigné et il attribua à son gouvernement la devise de « gouvernement de la paix nationale ».
À l’époque de son gouvernement, le massacre impitoyable du peuple se poursuivit, notamment, sur l’une des places de la capitale. L’état de siège fut instauré, à Téhéran, et dans 11 grandes villes de l’Iran. L’Imam Khomeyni, (que son âme soit bénie), qui, de l’Irak suivait, attentivement, les événements de l’Iran, tout en faisant part de sa compassion aux déshérités, annonça, dans un message, qu’il avait adressé au peuple de l’Iran, l’avenir du mouvement : « Le Shâh doit savoir que le peuple d’Iran a trouvé sa voie et qu’il tiendra bon, jusqu’à la punition des criminels de cette lignée cruelle.
Grâce à la volonté de Dieu Tout Puissant, actuellement, dans tout le pays, des voix contre le Shâh et ce régime s’élèvent et grondent de plus en plus fort ».
L’une des méthodes réussies à laquelle l’Imam Khomeyni eut recours, pour faire avancer le combat contre le régime du Shâh, consistait à inviter les gens à ne pas commettre de violence, à faire des grèves et à multiplier les manifestations. Ainsi, le peuple d’Iran a commencé, grâce aux judicieuses directives du Guide suprême de la Révolution, l’Imam Khomeyni, un mouvement général contre la tyrannie et la chape de plomb qui s’était abattu sur le pays et qui l’étouffait, depuis si longtemps.
Suite aux pressions et restrictions imposées par le régime baathiste irakien, l’honorable Imam Khomeyni émigra, en octobre1978, en France, où il résida, à Neauphle-le-Château, dans la banlieue parisienne.
Dans un message adressé à l’Imam Khomeyni, le président français lui demanda d’éviter toute activité politique. L’Imam Khomeyni réagit, vigoureusement à cette injonction, en faisant savoir que ces restrictions sont contraires aux principes de la démocratie et qu’il ne cessera jamais ses activités, ni n’abandonnera les buts qu’il s’est fixé.
Pendant le séjour de quatre mois de l’Imam, à Neauphle-le-Château, cet endroit s’est transformé en le plus important centre d’informations du monde.
Dans de nombreuses interviews et lors de différents entretiens, l’Imam faisait toute la lumière sur la tyrannie et les exactions du régime du Shâh, ainsi que sur les ingérences de l’Amérique, en Iran. Il exprimait, clairement, sa pensée et ses objectifs, afin que le monde entier et le plus grand nombre de personnes puissent connaître quels étaient les intérêts qui étaient en jeu et comprendre les causes de ce soulèvement.
C’est ainsi qu’en Iran, des grèves générales se produisirent, dans les ministères, les administrations et même certains centres militaires du régime du Shâh. Le Shâh prit, alors, la fuite, au milieu du mois de janvier 1979. 18 jours plus tard, l’Imam Khomeyni rentra, en Iran, après des années d’éloignement de la patrie. Grâce à sa ligne de conduite pertinente et à l’abnégation et au dévouement du peuple d’Iran, le régime despotique et stipendié du Shâh s’écroula, le 11 février1979. À peine deux mois après cet événement déterminant, 98% des Iraniens votèrent, par référendum, en faveur de l’Ordre de la République islamique d’Iran.
L’Imam Khomeyni, (que son âme soit bénie), accordait une attention toute particulière à son peuple. Selon lui, comme la religion et la politique ne font qu’un, le gouvernement et le peuple sont indissociables. L’Imam dit à ce propos : « L’Ordre de notre pays est la République islamique : République signifie Vox populi, et islamique, les fondements, sur lesquels, notre Ordre s’appuie, à savoir, l’Islam.
D’autre part, l’Imam estimait que le rôle du peuple, dans les affaires politiques était plus important que sa participation aux manifestations, et il a insisté, à maintes reprises, sur ce fait, dans ses propos.
Après la victoire de la Révolution islamique, en Iran, les colonisateurs occidentaux ont déployé un maximum d’efforts, pour renverser la République islamique d’Iran. Ils savaient que la Révolution islamique d’Iran pouvait générer des mouvements populaires, dans d’autres pays, et conduire à des soulèvements des peuples contre l’oppression des despotes tyranniques.
L’une des méthodes, à laquelle recourait l’impérialisme, à l’encontre de la révolution iranienne, consistait à utiliser des éléments stipendiés, à l’intérieur du pays, pour assassiner l’Imam Khomeiny, car ils savaient combien son rôle est primordial dans la guidance du pays. Des plans d’assassinats de l’Imam furent, donc, neutralisés.
L’un des autres moyens des ennemis, pour renverser l’Ordre de la République islamique, consistait à saper les fondements du système, de l’intérieur. Les ennemis ont, alors, provoqué des troubles, en exacerbant les sensibilités ethniques, dans différentes régions de l’Iran. Ces tentatives visant à semer la discorde ont, également, échoué et ont été contrecarrées, grâce aux judicieuses directives du Guide suprême de la Révolution et à la collaboration du peuple. L’Imam invitait toujours le peuple d’Iran à l’unité de parole et déclarait que tout un chacun, toutes races et religions confondues, devait pouvoir jouir de droits égaux et vivre librement et de façon juste et islamique, en Iran.
Les despotes ou les "Taghoutis", confrontés à des échecs, face à l’unicité du peuple d’Iran et à la compétence de l’Imam à assumer la guidance, en réalisant que le blocus économique et les campagnes d’intoxication insalubres contre l’Iran étaient infructueux, décidèrent d’imposer une guerre à l’Iran qui dura huit ans. Le peuple d’Iran qui venait à peine de se libérer et qui voulait, enfin, jouir de cette liberté, si chèrement payée, à l’ombre protectrice de l’Islam, fut confronté à une guerre inégale. L’éclatement de la guerre imposée de Saddam contre l’Iran a inauguré une autre période où la guidance suprême de l’Imam Khomeyni s’est exercée et a fait ses preuves, sauvant le peuple d’Iran des terribles vicissitudes de la guerre.
Tous les puissants de la terre, entre autres, l’Amérique, Israël, la France, l’Allemagne et trente autres pays ont servi sur un plateau d’argent tous les équipements militaires possibles et imaginables au régime pourri irakien, alors que l’Iran était boycotté et se procurait, difficilement, des équipements militaires pour conduire cette guerre et se défendre. L’arme principale des combattants iraniens était, donc, la vigilance, la foi et la piété, des combattants qui, à la demande de leur Guide suprême, se rendaient, par légions, sur le front, et devenaient les acteurs des plus belles scènes d’abnégation et de défense de la révolution et de la patrie.
L’Imam Khomeyni était doté d’une personnalité hors du commun. Dans les affaires courantes, il croyait, fermement, à la planification de programmes et à l’ordre. Il passait des heures précises de la nuit et du jour à prier, à lire le Coran et à la lecture, en général. Même lorsqu’il marchait, il priait Dieu et réfléchissait.
A l’âge de presque 90 ans, l’Imam était considéré comme l’un des guides politiques suprêmes les plus actifs du monde. Outre la lecture quotidienne, il écoutait les informations à la radio et à la télévision iranienne, de même que les analyses et les informations des radios étrangères, afin d’être, personnellement, au courant du processus des propagandes des ennemis de la révolution. Ses nombreuses activités successives et l’organisation de colloques avec les responsables du gouvernement islamique ne l’empêchaient pas de maintenir le contact et de consulter le peuple, en tant qu’acteur principal du mouvement islamique. Il ne prenait aucune décision concernant le destin de la société, avant de, sincèrement, la mettre en délibération avec le peuple. L’assemblée, qui se réunissait en sa présence, était, spontanément, subjuguée par sa force spirituelle et beaucoup de personnes présentes versaient, inconsciemment, des larmes de joie. Dans ses invocations, le peuple suppliait Dieu d’allonger la durée de vie de l’Imam.
De manière générale, la vie de l’Imam était au service du peuple et dévouée à Dieu.
Finalement, le 3 juin de l’année 1989, (14 Khordad 1368), le coeur qui avait conduit des millions d’autres cœurs vers la lumière divine et la spiritualité, cessa de battre. Après plusieurs opérations, longues et difficiles, l’Imam Khomeyni fut rappelé à Dieu, à l’âge de 87 ans.
À la fin de son précieux testament, il avait écrit : « Par la grâce de Dieu, je prends congé de mes frères et sœurs, l’âme tranquille, le cœur rasséréné, l’esprit libéré et la conscience remplie d’espoir, pour entreprendre ce voyage vers l’Eternité. J’ai besoin que vos bonnes prières m’accompagnent.
Mots-clés : Imam Khomeyni, Shâh, Neauphle-le-Château, peuple, révolution, défense sacrée.
#Iran #Imam-Khomeini #radio-iranienne
L’ONU se décrédibilise une fois de plus.
Dans son communiqué, l’ONU martèle « que les attaques systématiques contre des civils en raison de leur origine ethnique ou de leur appartenance religieuse peuvent constituer un crime contre l’humanité dont les auteurs doivent rendre des comptes ».
Quand on lit ce communiqué on se dit qu’enfin l’ONU rappelle a Israel ses devoirs de nation civilisée
Mais non, ce communiqué s’adresse a l’Etat Islamique en Irak, groupe de mercenaires, non membre de l’ONU.
▻http://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/proche-orient/offensive-jihadiste-en-irak/la-persecution-des-chretiens-d-irak-crime-contre-l-humanite-selon-ban-k
Mais alors quel sera donc la sentence pour Israel, membre signataire de la charte de l’ONU qui, dans la meme journée, a tuer plus de 50 civils a Gaza :
« Israël doit faire beaucoup plus pour protéger les civils » palestiniens, a déclaré Ban Ki-moon lors d’une conférence de presse à Doha
▻https://fr.news.yahoo.com/gaza-ban-ki-moon-presse-isra%C3%ABl-faire-beaucoup-191227263.html
Iniquité quant tu nous tiens tu fais de nous des zombies sans conscience. Ban Ki Moon en est devenu un.
Kurdish president: Maliki “must step down”
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/kurdish-president-maliki-must-step-down%E2%80%9D
A spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish president #Massud_Barzani said Thursday national premier #Nouri_al-Maliki had “become hysterical” and should step down after he accused the autonomous region of harboring militants. Maliki “has become hysterical and has lost his balance,” said the statement, published on the Kurdish regional presidency website in English. Addressing the premier, it continued: “You must apologize to the Iraqi people and step down. You have destroyed the country and someone who has destroyed the country cannot save the country from crisis.” read more
Kerry discusses nuclear deal with Iranian FM in rare meeting
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/kerry-discusses-nuclear-deal-iranian-fm-rare-meeting
Photo dated November 18, 2013 shows #US Secretary of State John Kerry listening to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the State Department in Washington. (Photo: AFP - Nicholas Kamm)
US Secretary of State John Kerry held a rare meeting with his Iranian counterpart Sunday to discuss the next steps in resolving Western fears over #Iran's nuclear program. World powers are due to hold another round of talks with Iran on February 18 after reaching an initial accord in November to curb the nuclear activities and open up them up so as to allay Western concerns Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons. read (...)
Max Blumenthal’s “Goliath” seen as threat at heart of Israel’s propaganda machinery
▻http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/max-blumenthals-goliath-seen-threat-heart-israels-propaganda-mac
The pair met a decade earlier in the Israeli army where, the company press release states, “they both were entrusted with revising the Army’s strategic media infrastructure.”
In 2010, Thunder11 created Iran180, an astroturf operation posing deceptively as a “human rights” group. Its real goal was to demonize and incite confrontation with Iran.
Iran180’s most notorious activities have included street performances depicting sexual assaults and intended to portray former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a gay Jew. Other Iran180 productions include bizarre music videos that portray Ahmadinejad defecating and him and Bashar al Assad as misogynistic, married gay men.
Iraqi #Kurdistan president says willing to strike “terrorist criminals” in #syria
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/iraqi-kurdistan-president-says-willing-strike-terrorist-criminals
President of Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region, Massoud Barzani answers AFP’s journalists’ questions during an interview on October 12, 2013 in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil. (Photo: AFP - Safin Hamed)
Iraqi Kurdistan is prepared to strike militants anywhere, including neighboring Syria, but the Kurds must avoid being drawn into its civil war, the autonomous region’s president Massoud Barzani told AFP. Barzani’s remarks came after militants carried out a (...)
Une association de juifs irakiens dénonce la récupération de leur histoire par le gouvernement israélien, lequel tente actuellement d’exploiter le départ des juifs du monde arabe. Ce faisant, ils évoquent les fortes suspicions de l’implication sioniste dans les attentants antijuifs à Bagdad dans les années 50. Iraqi Jews reject ‘cynical manipulation’ of their history by Israel, Zionists, writer Almog Behar tells EIectronic Intifada
►http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/iraqi-jews-reject-cynical-manipulation-their-history-israel-zion
We demand the establishment of an investigative committee to examine:
1) If and by what means negotiations were carried out in 1950 between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said, and if Ben-Gurion informed as-Said that he is authorized to take possession of the property and assets of Iraqi Jewry if he agreed to send them to Israel;
2) who ordered the bombing of the Masouda Shem-Tov synagogue in Baghdad, and if the Israeli Mossad and/or its operatives were involved. If it is determined that Ben-Gurion did, in fact, carry out negotiations over the fate of Iraqi Jewish property and assets in 1950, and directed the Mossad to bomb the community’s synagogue in order to hasten our flight from Iraq, we will file a suit in an international court demanding half of the sum total of compensation for our refugee status from the Iraqi government and half from the Israeli government.
Ils rejoignent ainsi le récit de Naiem Giladi :
The role of Israel and Zionist undercover agents in helping precipitate the departure of Jews from Iraq has long been suspected.
Naiem Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who joined the Zionist underground as a young man in Iraq and later came to regret his role in fostering the departure of some 125,000 Jews from Iraq, wrote that, “Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country.” But “the terrible truth,” Giladi said, “is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.”
Giladi, who was born Naeim Khalaschi, gave his account in an article published by Americans for Middle East Understanding in 1998 which summarizes his book, Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad eliminated Jews.
Au sujet de Naeim Giladi :
►http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naeim_Giladi
Giladi has strong views on Zionism and its negative effects and his article begins with the following passage: “I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called ’cruel Zionism’. I write about it because I was part of it.”
Giladi’s position that the 1950–1951 Baghdad bombings were “perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so promote their exodus to Israel” is shared by a number of anti-Zionist authors, including the Israeli Black Panthers (1975), David Hirst (1977), Wilbur Crane Eveland (1980), Uri Avnery (1988), Ella Shohat (1986), Abbas Shiblak (1986), Marion Wolfsohn (1980), and Rafael Shapiro (1984).[5] In his article, Giladi notes that this was also the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who outlined that allegation in his book “Ropes of Sand”.[2]
D’autres informations sur la fiche des attentats de Bagdad : ►http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings
The Iraqi Jewish anti-Zionist[19] author Naeim Giladi maintains that the bombings were “perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so promote their exodus to Israel.”[20] This theory is shared by Uri Avnery,[21] and Marion Wolfsohn.[21] Giladi claims that it is also supported by Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in his book Ropes of Sand.[14]
According to Eveland, whose information was presumably based on the Iraqi official investigation, which was shared with the US embassy,[1] “In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in the synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel... most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had ’rescued’ really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.”[14]
Allegedly, identical tactics were used later in 1954 by Israeli military intelligence in operation Suzanna,[14] when a group of Zionist Egyptian Jews attempted to plant bombs in an US Information Service library, and in a number of American targets Cairo and Alexandria. According to Teveth, they were hoping that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, ’unspecified malcontents’ or ’local nationalists’ would be blamed for their actions[22] and this would undermine Western confidence in the existing Egyptian regime by generating public insecurity and actions to bring about arrests, demonstrations, and acts of revenge, while totally concealing the Israeli factor. The operation failed, the perpetrators were arrested by Egyptian police and brought to justice, two were sentenced to death, several to long term imprisonment.
The British Embassy in Baghdad assessed that the bombings were carried out by Zionist activists trying to highlight the danger to Iraqi Jews, in order influence the State of Israel to accelerate the pace of Jewish emigration. Another possible explanation offered by the embassy was that bombs were meant to change the minds of well-off Jews who wished to stay in Iraq.[11]
Yehuda Shenhav: What do Palestinians and Arab-Jews Have in Common?
►http://prrn.mcgill.ca/prrn/papers/shenhav1.htm
The possibility that Iraq’s Jews could remain in their native land – the so-called “Iraqi option” (Qazzaz, 1991) – was rendered unfeasible by two reasons that were not unrelated. One reason that the Jews were compelled to leave was the surging Pan-Arab and Iraqi nationalist movements (Shiblak, 1986). Israel’s establishment in May 1948 was a boost for the Iraqi nationalists, and the practice of Zionism was outlawed in July 1948. Jews in the civil service were dismissed, and the entire Jewish community was placed under surveillance. The situation was aggravated by Prime Minister Nuri Sa’id’s co-option of the right wing nationalist party Istiqlal into the government. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry informed the State Department in Washington that the Government of Iraq was concerned about the inroads being made by Communism and Zionism among the Jews. (Shiblak, 1986: 70) The second reason that the Jews were compelled to leave was the activity of the Zionist movement in Iraq and the establishment of the State of Israel, which resulted in the Jews irrevocable identification with Zionism. Indeed, the activity of the Halutz movement in Iraq caused many local Jews to be perceived as Zionists, and hence as a fifth column. The actions of the Zionist movement in Iraq forged a reality that, in retrospect, justified its own presence there. As Ben-Tzion Yisraeli, an emissary of the Jewish Agency in Iraq, foresaw in 1943, “They [the Iraqi Jews] are liable to be among the first to pay the price for our enterprise in the Land of Israel...”(7)
Plus loin:
Sharett responded:
“On the question of a population exchange, it was reported in the press, purportedly citing the spokesman of the Survey Group, that the Prime Minister of Iraq has allegedly made such an offer. We asked the Survey Group about the truth of this report. We received an official reply that in the course of a conversation Nuri Sa’id had ‘thrown out’ an idea along the lines of a possible exchange of Iraq’s Jews for the Arab refugees... Agreeing to this would mean, in my opinion, our agreement to have the property of Iraq’s Jews confiscated by the Iraqi Treasury in return for the Arab property we have confiscated here, and then we assume responsibility for compensating the Jews of Iraq on account of the Arabs’ property, as against the Jews’ property there. That would create a dangerous precedent with regard to Egypt and other countries. It could also be construed to mean that every Arab country undertakes to accept refugees only to the extent that it has Jews.”
AFP : L’Irak aide l’Iran à contourner les sanctions internationales
►http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gGqM7o-G7fverB9Ou8yUU_hIK0cg?docId=CNG.484964ea08036225f5b9bacc162de4c
(AFP) – Il y a 5 heures
WASHINGTON — L’Irak aide son voisin iranien à contourner les sanctions internationales dont il fait l’objet, en faisant passer du pétrole en contrebande et en laissant Téhéran participer aux opérations d’échange de devises de sa banque centrale, rapporte dimanche le New York Times.
Le mois dernier, le président américain Barack Obama a pointé du doigt la banque irakienne Elaf Islamic Bank, affirmant qu’elle avait effectué des transactions douteuses à hauteur de plusieurs dizaines de millions de dollars avec des banques iraniennes soumises à des sanctions pour leurs liens présumés avec le programme nucléaire de Téhéran.
Selon le New York Times, cette banque fait partie d’un réseau d’institutions financières et de contrebande de produits pétroliers plus large, qui a contribué à transférer des fonds vers la république islamique iranienne alors que les sanctions étouffent son économie.
The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
►http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/the-secret-history-of-americas-t.html
In Bush’s second term, Cheney’s daughter, Elizabeth, a deputy assistant secretary of State, lectured US Foreign Service officers “including those fluent in Farsi” about “the nature of Iranian society and its government” even though she “had no background on Iran,” Crist writes. The lectures were delivered to the “Iran-Syria Working Group, an interagency body co-chaired by Cheney and Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative in the Bush White House.
(via @angryarab)
Juan Cole analyse une information (non confirmée) du Iran Times selon laquelle le deuxième iranien impliqué dans la pseudo-tentative d’attentat aux États-Unis serait membre des moudjahidin du peuple :
►http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/iran-alleges-saudi-plot-story-is-mek-sting.html
The -state-backed- Iran Times carries a report from Iran’s Mehr news service that alleges that it learned from Interpol that Gholam Shakuri is a member of the People’s Holy Jihadis guerrilla group (the Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK). The MEK wants to see the rule of the ayatollahs in Iran overthrown.
Shakuri is the second person named in the Department of Justice case that holds that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was involved with expatriate Manssor Arbabsiar in a plot to blow up the Saudi Ambassador in Washington.
The paper says that Interpol has evidence that Shakuri was in Camp Ashraf, the compound where members are virtually imprisoned (in inhumane circumstances and with occasional attacks on them) by the now-Shiite government in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had given the base to the MEK so as to allow them to carry out spying, sabotage and terrorist missions against the Islamic Republic.
►http://lesliebrodie.blog.co.uk/2011/08/29/fascinating-historical-overview-of-widespread-fraud-in-the-los-
Fascinating Historical Overview of Widespread Fraud in the Los Angeles Court System As TLR Communicates with Dr. Joseph Zernik
by lesliebrodie Pro @ 29/08/2011 – 23.02:17
In response to a request by The Leslie Brodie Report ("TLR"), Dr. Joseph Zernik provided a short review (published below as a simulated interview) of the history of the corruption in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, highlighting the Iran-Contra Scandal, the Rampart Scandal, and corruption within U.S. District Court in Los Angeles as key causes of the corruption.
The vacationing doctor joined us over the net, and we shall publish selected part of the communication, below:
TLR: Doc Zernik, Good Morning, thank you for joining us.
DZ: Thank you Leslie, good morning to you as well.
TLR: The rampant corruption of the state and US courts is fully documented from coast to coast, thanks to your endless efforts. However, and as you stated, studying and quantifying corruption remains difficult. Regardless, it is estimated that Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles Superior Court remain one of the most corrupt in the nation, and we were hoping you can help us understand why such is the case?
DZ: Los Angeles County was notoriously corrupt already in the early 20th century, during the “Water Wars,” remembered by the public primarily through the movie Chinatown. In 2006, the Blue Ribbon Review Panel published its report, following a 3-year study. The report opined that corruption in Los Angeles County at that time (2006) was higher than during the Water Wars. The report also pointed out specifically the LASC as a key to the corruption.
TLR: The question, why Los Angeles, and not San Diego or Sacramento? What is so unique about Los Angeles?
DZ: A surge took place beginning in 1982 with the Iran-Contra Scandal. It was a key period in corruption of the LASC. During the period between 1982 to 1995, federal agencies engaged in wholesale trafficking and distribution of cocaine in LA County. Local and state law enforcement, as well as the courts, had to collude in such corruption, which effectively designated Los Angeles County as an extra-constitutional zone.
In the aftermath of Iran-Contra, LAPD and some federal agencies continued to control and profit from drug trade in LA, as documented in reports from the Rampart Scandal - the largest court corruption scandal in the history of the United States. However, following their conduct during the Iran-Contra Scandal, federal agencies were not ready, willing, and able to address corruption of the LAPD and the LASC. Therefore, they left the corrupt LAPD, DA, and LASC to investigate, prosecute, and adjudge themselves. The outcome was a cover up, with the resulting ongoing false imprisonment of thousands of Rampart FIPs (Falsely Imprisoned Persons).
The public and media ignored the corruption, since they it pertained primarily to the criminal courts, and the victims were almost exclusively blacks and Latinos. However, whoever thought that the same judges could be corrupt in the morning in a criminal case, and honest in the afternoon in a civil case, must have been deluded.
TLR: Any other factors?
DZ: It is claimed that already in the late 1990’s the LASC moved on from control of the drug trade to real estate and financial institution fraud as its core business. It is claimed that it was the synergy between the two corrupt organizations - LASC and Countrywide - that created the “epicenter of the epidemic.”
The current financial crisis in its core reflects widespread corruption of the US justice system, and the breakdown of any semblance of due process in deprivation of life, liberty and property.
TLR: It has been fascinating communicating with you,
DZ: Thanks. It was great to be here.
In future installments we hope to discuss with Dr. Zernik topics such as Bet Tzedek as well as alleged collision between the Daily Journal/Sustain/California State Bar and the LASC.
