http://www.change.org/ideas/view/leave_iraq_now

From the War in Iraq to the violence in Gaza to Afghanistan and even a bloated military budget, War is SO Over! So vote to make leaving Iraq one of the Nation’s top priorities and Change.org will send the message to the incoming Administration when the Top 10 ideas are delivered to Obama on January 16th.

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Iklass and Raed are married with five children (unfortunately I can’t remember/spell all their names, but if I ever find a mini USB cord and upload pictures, you better be sitting down because the cuteness is overwhelming). They left Iraq several years ago to escape threats from all sides: they were simultaneously in danger from American bombing, Shi’a extremists targeting all of the Sunnis in their neighborhood, and militia factions threatening to kill Raed if he did not join them. Things became unbearable when their Sunni neighbors who had received the same written threats they did were killed. Around the same time, a bomb exploded near one of their small sons, who suffered serious brain damage, and their daughter developed a kidney disorder and required regular medical care, which was simply unavailable. So the family fled, joining the growing population of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

This population is estimated at somewhere between 165,000 and 800,000, depending on which study or organization you believe. A Jordanian official we spoke with estimated the number at approximately 500,000, which he got from the most recent international study, plus the border entry numbers from 2008.

The first step for a newly arrived refugee in Amman should be to register with UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. It doesn’t cost anything, and it opens the door of eligibility for a number of benefits, most of which UNHCR pays for through grants to other NGO’s (Caritas for medical care, IRC for cash assistance and so on). UNHCR also refers registered refugees to other charities (like the Jordan River Foundation, which works on domestic violence and empowerment issues). If necessary, it also refers Iraqis to their Special Protection Unit (if they’re under a specific threat even in Jordan), and/or to the Resettlement Office. Even though registration is, by all accounts, pretty simple (we haven’t heard of anyone turned away), only 70,000 refugees have taken this step. Where the others are and why they haven’t registered is somewhat of a mystery, but it probably has to do with misinformation, rumors of deportation, and fear of authority, all pretty natural responses to the total destruction of their former lives.

OK, so this is where things get a little more complex. Our family is registered, they’re certain they cannot return to Iraq, they’re running out of money here, and their children aren’t getting necessary medical treatment. They need to be resettled, and through the Collateral Repair Project are in touch with Oregonians who will help them transition and establish themselves there.

But they couldn’t take their resettlement needs directly to the US department, since they didn’t work for the US government in Iraq (which would get them Special Immigration Visas), and they don’t have blood relatives in the US (which would help them apply for a green card directly). So they were required to apply for a referral from the UNHCR’s resettlement office. UNHCR interviews resettlement applicants and judges them based on a list of 11 priority categories,* and if they are approved, refers them to one of the embassies whose host country is accepting refugees for resettlement.** The UN allows applicants for referral to appoint a legal representative, although there are not really legal resources available to most of them (yet), and Iklass and Raed did not have one.

Nevertheless, Iklass, Raed and their children, since they were medically vulnerable and persecuted based on their religious origin, were referred to the United States Embassy, via IOM (the International Organization for Migration, which the State Department essentially contracted out this review work to), so they made it to the next level of refugee bureaucracy. Here, the IOM opened another file on them and did another interview, but the process stalled. Since it is socially unacceptable for a woman, rather than her husband, to attend an official function like this, Raed was in the interview by himself, and when he was asked what would happen if he went back to Iraq, he made a mistake (if you can call it that).

He said he didn’t know.

Of course, no one knows what would happen to them if they went back to Iraq, although the most reasonable prediction would be death for one or all family members, but at this point his interviewer closed his file and the family got a notice from the US embassy that they were “ineligible for resettlement,” that “there is no appeal” and that the principal applicant may make a detailed request for review based on new evidence or significant error within 90 days.

There are no guarantees that we will be successful in pressing Iklass and Raed’s case, of course. But I hope I’ve demonstrated that at this point, a family in their situation needs a lawyer. Any rational person faced with this final determination on their entire future peppered with legalese would head straight for the nearest directory of attorneys. Unfortunately, refugees at this stage have no right to legal representation. No, more than that, they’re not allowed it. Our legal advocates can help them prepare their documents, make legal arguments on their behalf, and moot them before their last interview, assuming it is granted. But unlike an asylum seeker (who has already made it to US soil), these applicants may not bring a legal representative with them to meetings at IOM, and their representatives are not allowed access to their files. Their legal rights are about on par with someone applying for a tourist visa – none.

By the way, there have been some large demonstrations here, and yesterday the police tear gassed a pro-Palestine rally. I’m completely fine, but if you’re the slightest bit worried about my safety, it would be great if you could channel that into supporting the end of the siege: http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=4410. Thanks!

*

1. victims of severe trauma, detention, abduction, torture by state or non-state entities

2. members of minority groups and/or individuals which are/have been targeted owing to their religious/ethnic origin

3. women at risk

4. unaccompanied or separate children, children as principal applicants

5. dependants of refugees living in resettlement countries

6. older persons-at-risk

7. medical cases and refugees with disabilities with no effective treatment available

8. high profile cases and/or their family members

9. Iraqis who fled as a result of their association with Multi National Force, Coalition Provisional Authority, UN, foreign countries, international and foreign institutions or companies and members of the press

10. stateless persons from Iraq

11. Iraqis at immediate risk of refoulement

** Many applicants get stuck at this point in the process, since if they’re not approved, they’re also not denied – they just sort of stay in limbo and keep renewing their registration. This can be terrible if, for example, the applicant is very ill, since they don’t know whether to go home to Iraq to die, or to stay in Jordan hoping for resettlement and risk dying here, separated from friends and family.

9 Steps To Peace for Obama in the New Year

by Deepak Chopra

You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn’t the same as bringing peace. America has been on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago. We spend more on our military than the next 16 countries combined. If you have a vision of change that goes to the heart of this country’s deep problems, ending our dependence on war is far more important than ending our dependency on foreign oil.

The most immediate changes are economic. Unless it can make as much money as war, peace doesn’t stand a chance. Since aerospace and military technologies remain the United States’ most destructive export, fostering wars around the world, what steps can we take to reverse that trend and build a peace-based economy?

1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.

2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.

3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax incentives and direct funding.

4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.

5. Phase out all foreign military bases.

6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure.

7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.

8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy that no longer exists.

9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense and homeland security budgets.

These are just the beginning. We don’t lack creativity in coping with change. Without a conversion of our present war economy to a peace economy, the high profits of the military-industrial complex ensures that it will never end.

Do these nine steps seem unrealistic or fanciful? In various ways, other countries have adopted similar measures. The former Soviet army is occupied with farming and other peaceful work, for example. But comparisons are rather pointless, since only the United States is burdened with such a massive reliance on defense spending. Ultimately, empire follows the dollar. As a society, we want peace, and we want to be seen as a nation that promotes peace. For either ideal to come true, you as president must back up your vision of change with economic reality. So far, that hasn’t happened under any of your predecessors. All hopes are pinned on you.

Deepak Chopra is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest leaders in the field of mind-body medicine. He is the author of over 50 books, including Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment and Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.  Spiritual philosopher

This article was originally posted on Alternet.

From Starhawk:

Dear friends,

All day I’ve been thinking about Gaza, listening to reports on NPR, following the news on the internet when I can spare a moment.  I’ve been thinking about the friends I made there four years ago, and wondering how they are faring, and imagining their terror as the bombs fall on that giant, open-air prison.

The Israeli ambassador speaks movingly of the terror felt by Israeli children as Hamas rockets explode in the night.  I agree with him—that no child should have her sleep menaced by rocket fire, or wake in the night fearing death.

But I can’t help but remember one night on the Rafah border, sleeping in a house close to the line, watching the children dive for cover as bullets thudded into the walls. There was a shell-hole in the back room they liked to jump through into the garden, which at that time still held fruit trees and chickens.  Their mother fed me eggs, and their grandmother stuffed oranges into my pockets with the shy pride every gardener shares.

That house is gone, now, along with all of its neighbors.  Those children wake in the night, every night of their lives, in terror.  I don’t know if they have survived the hunger, the lack of medical supplies, the bombs.  I only know that they are children, too.

I’ve ridden on buses in Israel.  I understand that gnawing fear, the squirrely feeling in the pit or your stomach, how you eye your fellow passengers wondering if any of them are too thick around the middle. Could that portly fellow be wearing a suicide belt, or just too many late night snacks of hummus?  That’s no way to live.

But I’ve also walked the pock-marked streets of Rafah, where every house bears the scars of Israeli snipers, where tanks prowled the border every night, where children played in the rubble, sometimes under fire, and this was all four years ago, when things were much, much better there.

And I just don’t get it.  I mean, I get why suicide bombs and homemade rockets that kill innocent civilians are wrong. I just don’t get why bombs from F16s that kill far more innocent civilians are right.  Why a kid from the ghetto who shoots a cop is a criminal, but a pilot who bombs a police station from the air is a hero.

Is it a distance thing?  Does the air or the altitude confer a purifying effect?  Or is it a matter of scale?  Individual murder is vile, but mass murder, carried out by a state as an aspect of national policy, that’s a fine and noble thing?

I don’t get how my own people can be doing this.  Or rather, I do get it.  I am a Jew, by birth and upbringing, born six years after the Holocaust ended, raised on the myth and hope of Israel.  The myth goes like this:

“For two thousand years we wandered in exile, homeless and persecuted, nearly destroyed utterly by the Nazis.  But out of that suffering was born one good thing—the homeland that we have come back to, our own land at last, where we can be safe, and proud, and strong.”

That’s a powerful story, a moving story.  There’s only one problem with it—it leaves the Palestinians out.  It has to leave them out, for if we were to admit that the homeland belonged to another people, well, that spoils the story.

The result is a kind of psychic blind spot where the Palestinians are concerned.  If you are truly invested in Israel as the Jewish homeland, the Jewish state, then you can’t let the Palestinians be real to you.  It’s like you can’t really focus on them.  Golda Meir said, “The Palestinians, who are they?  They don’t exist.”  We hear, “There is no partner for peace,”  “There is no one to talk to.”

And so Israel, a modern state with high standards of hygiene, a state rooted in a religion that requires washing your hands before you eat and regular, ritual baths, builds settlements that don’t bother to construct sewage treatment plants. They just dump raw sewage onto the Palestinian fields across the fence, somewhat like a spaceship ejecting its wastes into the void.  I am truly not making this up—I’ve seen it, smelled it, and it’s a known though shameful fact.  But if the Palestinians aren’t really real—who are they?  They don’t exist!—then the land they inhabit becomes a kind of void in the psyche, and it isn’t really real, either.  At times, in those border villages, walking the fencelines of settlements, you feel like you have slipped into a science fiction movie, where parallel universes exist in the same space, but in different strands of reality, that never touch.

When I was on the West Bank, during Israeli incursions the Israeli military would often take over a Palestinian house to billet their soldiers.  Many times, they would simply lock the family who owned it into one room, and keep them there, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days—parents, grandparents, kids and all.  I’ve sat with a family, singing to the children while soldiers trashed their house, and I’ve been detained by a group of soldiers playing cards in the kitchen with a family locked in the other room.  (I got out of that one—but that’s another story.)

It’s a kind of uneasy feeling, having something locked away in a room in your house that you can’t look at.  Ever caught a mouse in a glue trap?  And you can’t bear to watch it suffer, so you leave the room and close the door and don’t come back until it’s really, really dead.

Like a horrific fractal, the locked room repeats on different scales.  The Israelis have built a wall to lock away the West Bank.  And Gaza itself is one huge, locked room.  Close the borders, keep food and medical supplies and necessities from getting through, and perhaps they will just quietly fade out of existence and stop spoiling our story.

“All we want is a return to calm,” the Israeli ambassador says.  “All we want is peace.”

One way to get peace is to exterminate what threatens you.  In fact, that may be the prime directive of the last few thousand years.

But attempts to exterminate pests breed resistance, whether you’re dealing with insects or bacteria or people.  The more insecticides you pour on a field, the more pests you have to deal with—because insecticides are always more potent at killing the beneficial bugs than the pesky ones.

The harshness, the crackdowns, the border closings, the checkpoints, the assassinations, the incursions, the building of settlements deep into Palestinian territory, all the daily frustrations and humiliations of occupation, have been breeding the conditions for Hamas, or something like it, to thrive.  If Israel truly wants peace, there’s a more subtle, a more intelligent and more effective strategy to pursue than simply trying to kill the enemy and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity.

It’s this—instead of killing what threatens you, feed what you want to grow.  Consider in what conditions peace can thrive, and create them, just as you would prepare the bed for the crops you want to plant. Find those among your opponents who also want peace, and support them.  Make alliances.  Offer your enemies incentives to change, and reward your friends.

Of course, to follow such a strategy, you must actually see and know your enemy.  If they are nothing to you but cartoon characters of terrorists, you will not be able to tell one from another, to discern the religious fanatic from the guy muttering under his breath, “F-ing Hammas, they closed the cinema again!”

And you must be willing to give something up.  No one gets peace if your basic bargaining position is, “I get everything I want, and you eat my shit.”  You might get a temporary victory, but it will never be a peaceful one.

To know and see the enemy, you must let them into the story.  They must become real to you, nuanced, distinctive as individuals.

But when we let the Palestinians into the story, it changes.  Oh, how painfully it changes!  For there is no way to tell a new story, one that includes both peoples of the land, without starting like this:

“In our yearning for a homeland, in our attempts as a threatened and traumatized people to find safety and power, we have done a great wrong to another people, and now we must atone.”

Just try saying it. If you, like me, were raised on that other story, just try this one out.  Say it three times.  It hurts, yes, but it might also bring a great, liberating sense of relief with it.

And if you’re not Jewish, if you’re American, if you’re white, if you’re German, if you’re a thousand other things, really, if you’re a human being, there’s probably some version of that story that is true for you.

Out of our own great need and fear and pain, we have often done great harm, and we are called to atone.  To atone is to be at one—to stop drawing a circle that includes our tribe and excludes the other, and start drawing a larger circle that takes everyone in.

How do we atone? Open your eyes.  Look into the face of the enemy, and see a human being, flawed, distinct, unique and precious.  Stop killing.  Start talking. Compost the shit and the rot and feed the olive trees.

Act.  Cross the line.  There are Israelis who do it all the time, joining with Palestinians on the West Bank to protest the wall, watching at checkpoints, refusing to serve in the occupying army, standing for peace.  Thousands have demonstrated this week in Tel Aviv.

There are Palestinians who advocate nonviolent resistance, who have organized their villages to protest the wall, who face tear gas, beatings, arrests, rubber bullets and real bullets to make their stand.

There are internationals who have put themselves on the line—like the boatload of human rights activists, journalists and doctors on board the Dignity, the ship from the Free Gaza movement that was rammed and fired on by the Israeli navy yesterday as it attempted to reach Gaza with humanitarian aid.

Maybe we can’t all do that. But we can all write a letter, make a phone call, send an email. We can make the Palestinian people visible to us, and to the world.  When we do so, we make a world that is safer for every child.

Here is a good summary of some of the actions we can take. Please feel free to repost this. In fact, send it to someone you think will disagree with it.
Starhawk

www.starhawk.org

Have you ever realized, after a particularly bitter fight or an angry encounter, that you’ve flat out broken your relationship with someone, whether they’re a friend or a stranger? You know that sinking feeling you get, realizing how much work it will take to repair the trust?

This morning we met with Najlaa, a former teacher from Iraq now working for Direct Aid Iraq, a small and very focused group that responds to the immediate medical and other needs of refugees that are unable to access urgently needed help from more beaurocratic aid agencies. She is an incredibly competent woman, accomplishing a great deal in terms of concrete benefits to the refugees who call her for help. But she also sustains a philosophy that bringing help directly from American citizens can heal the broader traumatization of Iraqi/American relations, preventing future conflict. Each act of assistance is accompanied by a statement of American goodwill, so that recipients are provided both a concrete benefit and a message in furtherance of peace. Nearly all of DAI’s funding comes from the United States, and hundreds of refugees here in Amman have already received this double gift. She described the process on both sides as “washing the heart with tears.”

Najlaa’s lesson of intentional reconciliation was brought into focus for me as our bus driver returned us to the hotel. Seeing a march up ahead, he swerved up a side street and pulled over, insisting we walk the rest of the way ourselves. He didn’t want our bus (oh-so-subtley labeled “Tourists” in big lettering) to get rocks thrown at it on its way through the crowd.* The demonstration was in response to the recent bombings in Gaza, not directly against America, but the proverbial cycle of violence was clearly present: “Arafat, teach us how to blow up airplanes” chanted one section of the 2,000-person crowd.

This post is emphatically not about guilt (as I read in a rather cheesy book I won’t name, guilt is the ego tricking us into thinking we’re making moral progress). There will always be people learning how to bomb airplanes (and cities and embassies and innocent civilians), and when it’s not done in God’s name, I notice it’s often done in ours. So the rest of us will just have to learn other skills, like how to pick up the pieces.

* We’re pretty sure he was just being overly cautious. We walked through the crowd to the hotel and definitely did not get stoned. Jordan is pretty safe, and the people have been nothing but kind and welcoming toward us - more on that later.

*  President-Elect Obama, you were elected in large part because of your promise to end the War in Iraq.  Will you sit down with leaders of the peace movement to talk about bringing our troops home?

*  What will you do to find a viable, negotiated solution that ends the violence in Afghanistan and fosters sustainable economic development, women’s rights, healthcare, education and civil society in the region?

Here’s how you can vote:

1.  Go to the Change.gov Open for Questions page
2.  Sign In to your account
3.  Search for the questions using the keyword:  peacevoter
4.  Vote by hitting the checkmark next to each of the questions

After voting, you can also submit your own question for Obama.

Update:  Jodie Evans wrote a piece for Tikkun magazine today to President Obama calling for him to End War Altogether and meet with the peace community.  Check it out here.

Travelling to Iran as a Citizen Diplomat for Peace

Just a month ago, while Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and U.S. President Bush met for the last time as heads of state in late November, 2008 in Washington and continued their relentless bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, I and three activists from the United States were in Iran as citizen diplomats talking with Iranians on their views of a new American presidential administration and their hopes for their country.

We went to Iran with no illusions.  We knew well the history of United States involvement in Iran.  We knew of Iranian support for organizations U.S. administrations have labeled as “terrorist” groups.  And we were very familiar with international concerns about Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and human rights record.

We wanted to talk with members of the Iranian government as well as with ordinary Iranians. We ended up meeting with officials in the President’s office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with two women members of the Iranian Parliament (Majles).  We also spoke with businesspersons, members of nongovernmental organizations, writers, filmmakers and university students and faculty.

Writing about the concerns of the Iranians we met leaves one open to comments of being one-sided, not speaking with enough Iranians to provide the “real” voices and of picking and choosing voices to record.  I acknowledge the possible criticism in advance, but believe our discussions are worthy of presentation to those who have not been so fortunate to have travelled to Iran to see and hear for themselves.  So here goes.

Iranians Want Peace Not War

Codepink Women for Peace co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, Fellowship of Reconciliation Iran program director Laila Zand and I were reminded in virtually every conversation that Iranians want peace with the United States, not war.  Not one person in Iran told us that first, she believed her country would begin a war with the United States, or any other country to include Israel, and second, that if the United States initiated military actions against Iran, that those actions would resolve problems in Iran or with the United States.

They reminded us that, unlike the United States that has invaded and occupied Iran’s neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has not attacked any country in the last 200 years.  They reminded us that Iran was the victim of an eight year war in the 1980s when Iraq invaded Iran and in which the United States and European countries provided Iraq with military equipment, intelligence and chemical weapons that were used at least 50 times against Iranian civilians and military forces. We learned that during the eight year war the Revolution’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini had mandated that it would be against Islamic precepts to bomb Iraqi cities or use chemical or unconventional weapons on Iraq-and Iranian military forces complied-even though the Iraqi military bombed Iranian cities including Tehran and used chemical weapons on Iranians.

Most Iranians Have Issues With Their Government, As Most Americans Have Issues With Theirs

Iran is a county with a population of about 70 million (two and one-half times as many people as Iraq) and a geographic area about the size of Alaska (four times as large as Iraq). Tehran, the Iranian capital, has 7.5 million people in the urban area and 15 million in surrounding areas.  It is a modern city, with a beautiful subway, cosmopolitan shops, as well as a huge traditional bazaar and an incredible number of cars, trucks and motorcycles.  Tehran and Iran have recovered from the Iraq war that ended 20 years ago and are holding up remarkably well to U.S. and international sanctions.

Most Iranians with whom we talked openly said they have issues with many aspects of their government.  Many said the Iranian people share a common dislike with Americans–dislike of their governments, noting that President Bush’s and the U.S. Congress’s approval ratings with the American people are extremely low, as is Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s ratings, particularly in urban areas. But, they strongly said they do not want outside interference in the internal political events of their country and definitely do not want a political system and government installed by invasion and occupation.  Their democracy, even with its flaws, is better than a U.S. enforced democracy, they said.

America’s best policy would be to treat Iran with respect and not with threats of military action.  Any attempt to overthrow the Iranian government would be met with stiff opposition, even from those who don’t like the government, they repeated.  “Regime change” will come in due time and in an Iranian manner.

U.S. Interference in Iran’s Internal Affairs

Several reminded us that in January, 1981 the United States signed the Algiers Accord, in which the U.S. agreed “not to intervene directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in the Iran’s internal affairs.”  The Algiers Accord was the agreement signed by the United States and Iran to end the 444 day US Embassy hostage crisis. (www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords.pdf)

However, this Accord has been violated numerous times by the United States.  Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that, in late 2007, President Bush requested and received from Democratic Congressional leadership $400 million reprogrammed from previous authorizations to fund a Presidential Finding that substantially increased covert activities designed to destabilize Iran’s religious leadership. These covert actions involved support for the Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations.  Hersh also revealed that United States Special Operations Forces had been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since 2007, including seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” who could be captured or killed. Hersh said operations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) were significantly expanded in 2007 by this authorization.  (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh).

Iran’s Nuclear Program

Iran has had a nuclear program for almost 50 years, having purchased a research reactor from the United States in 1959, during the Shah’s reign. The Iranian government states that its nuclear energy program will allow increased electricity generation to reduce consumption of gas and oil to allow export of more of its fossil fuels.  The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)  made public December 3, 2007 concluded with “high confidence” that the military-run Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down in 2003, but that Iran’s enrichment program could still provide enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon by the middle of the next decade, a timeframe unchanged from previous estimates. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iran.html?hp)

Virtually everyone with whom we spoke said they believe that their country has a right to have a nuclear enrichment program and to produce nuclear energy. Many questioned why Iran would ever need a nuclear weapons program, unless as leverage against the United States’ 30 year antagonism toward their country.  They reminded us that Iran is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike nuclear-states Israel, India and Pakistan that refused to join the NPT and developed nuclear weapons purposefully outside the treaty.)  Additionally, they insist that Iran is in compliance with the IAEA standards according to the November, 2008 IAEA report, despite the interpretations of the report by the United States and Israel.

Some reminded us that on August 9, 2005, at the IAEA meeting in Vienna, 60 years after the US atomic bombing of Japan, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that he had issued a fatwa, or religious mandate, forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.  Importantly, the Supreme Leader controls the Iranian military and the nuclear program of Iran, not the President of the country, Mr. Ahmadinejad. (http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=302258)

Iran, Israel and the United States

Iran, Israel and United States have had a disturbing, but fascinating, history over the past 30 years.  Iran’s current relationship with Israel and Western countries seems to be defined by President Ahmadinejad’s October, 2005 widely reported, but tragically and dangerously mistranslated and misinterpreted, statement that “Israel should be wiped off  the face of the earth.”  According to highly respected Middle Eastern scholar Juan Coles, Ahmadinejad was “not making a threat, but was quoting a saying of Ayatollah Khomeini that urged pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope– that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah’s government. Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that “Israel must be wiped off the map” with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people.” (http://www.themiddleeastnow.com/wipedoffthemap.html)

But the history of Iranian-Israeli relationships is more than just Ahmadinejad’s misinterpreted statement.  Israel, like the United States, had a long history of selling arms to the Shah, which Iran’s revolutionary government was willing to exploit secretly, despite its public animosity toward the state of Israel. In the early years (1980-82) of the Iranian Revolution and during the war with Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini’s government sold oil to Israel in exchange for weapons and spare parts.  Even during the American hostage crisis (1979-1981) in which 52 U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days, Israel made weapons deals with Iran. Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig gave permission to Israel to sell U.S.-made military spare parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981.

In another remarkable relationship known as the Iran-Contra affair, funds from the sale to Iran of U.S. weapons by Israel in 1985-1986 were used by U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Advisor Admiral John Poindexter, National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane (President Reagan’s first NSA) and National Security Council staffer U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North to fund the Contras’ war against the revolutionary government in Nicaragua. This was in violation of a Congressional ban on funding the Contras and took place during the Iraq-Iran war when the U.S. was also providing military equipment including chemical weapons to Iraq, Iran’s opponent in the war.  Iranians remember that those convicted for their actions including Weinberger, Poindexter, McFarlane and North, were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush who was Vice-President during the period of criminal actions conducted by government officials during the illegal Contra Affair.

Iranian Support for Hamas and Hezbollah

When asked about one of the most contentious points in U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relationships, the Iranian government’s support for Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Iranians pointed out that the U.S. has consistently and heavily funded Israel during its 62-year existence (U.S. provides about $4 billion per year to the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces.)  Many Iranians suggested that Palestinians who have lived in refugee camps during those 62 years must be provided assistance. Hezbollah began in 1982 as a small militia fighting against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and is now not only a military group but a political organization that won seats in the Lebanese government, has a radio and satellite television-station and provides social development and humanitarian assistance for much of southern Lebanon.  Iranians strongly felt that Hamas, the elected (and they emphasize elected) government of Gaza, needs financial support, particularly now in current extraordinary humanitarian crisis due to the lengthy Israeli blockade of foods and services into Gaza.

Iraq

On the question of Iraq, many Iranians who lived in the border regions with Iraq during the eight year war, said they personally knew the agony of deaths, injuries, destruction and other costs of war and do not wish that on their former enemies.  They talked of the irony of the political outcome of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in which many Shi’a Iraqis, who lived in exile in Iran during Saddam’s regime and have long standing ties to the Iranian government, are now in leadership positions in the new U.S. backed Iraqi government.

Afghanistan

Other Iranians reminded us of Iran’s help to the U.S. in 2001 and 2002 in the early days of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan.  When we asked about recent United States intelligence analysis that indicated Iranian support for the Taliban, we were met with laughs.  The Taliban are of the Sunni branch of Islam while the Iranians are of the Shi’a branch.  They reminded us that in 1998 the Taliban murdered 11 Iranian diplomats and one Iranian newsperson at the Iranian consulate in Afghan northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, an incident which Iranians have not forgotten.  The Iranians consider the Taliban their adversaries and feel that a Taliban government in Afghanistan would make the region more unstable.

Sanctions are Drying Up Lines of Credit for Businesses

We found that Iranians are proud of their creativity to outwit the 29 years of various sanctions the U.S. has placed on their country.  They say the U.S. has only isolated itself commercially by its sanctions as Iran trades with many other nations.  The Europeans, Chinese, Russians and Indians have had flourishing businesses with Iran.  However, the recent international sanctions clampdown on lines of credit for Iranian banks has had a rippling effect into the business community, where money for loans to Iranian businesses for purchase of materials is drying up.  Oil dollars that paid for an incredible amount of imports are drying up with the downturn in oil prices, and the government is beginning to reevaluate the large subsidizes given to the population for food, gasoline and services.

We spoke with four businesswomen (an architect, a chemist, a business consultant and an agricultural professional) who said each of their businesses had been affected negatively with the shrinking of money available for purchase of materials from outside the country and for continuation of current levels of operation or expansion of their business.

One of the most of incredible stories we heard about the effect of the sanctions was on the alternative energy sector.  Since there is so much rhetoric in the U.S. about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program, we decided to see if there were alternative energy companies in the country. On the aircraft flying into Iran, we met a European businessman who said he would put us in touch with the director of a wind energy company.  He introduced us by telephone to the director of Saba Niroo, an Iranian company that makes wind turbines and is the largest regional wind power manufacturer (http://www.sabaniroo.co.ir/eng/index.asp).  We met with the director and staff at the modern, state of the art, factory, in south Tehran. Saba Niroo has installed some of the 143 wind turbines planned for the wind farm in Manjil, Guillan province and the 43 wind turbines planned for the Binalood wind farm in Khorasan Razavi province. They have installed 4 wind turbines in the Pushkin Pass wind farm in Armenia.

However, the director told us that because of U.S. sanctions pressure, Vestas, a Danish wind energy company (http://www.vestas.com/) with whom the Iranian company has had a contractual relationship, has now refused to honor its 15 year contract to furnish critical parts for the wind turbines.

As a result, Saba Niroo has 50 huge, 70 foot long wind blades and corresponding chassis and installation towers lying useless in its warehouse and warehouse yard. Saba Niroo may go bankrupt in six months if it is unable to complete and sell the wind turbines-all because of U.S. sanctions and pressure.

As a part of citizen diplomacy, we decided to defy sanctions and show our support of alternative energy programs, by purchasing shares in Saba Niroo.  We have also decided to purchase shares in the Danish company Vestas, which has a big U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon.  As shareholders, we could put shareholder pressure on Vestas to honor its contract with the Iranian company.

Join the campaign “Winds for Change” to support for alternative energy and for sanctions breaking and purchase a shares with us.    (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/12-5)

Human Rights in Iran

On the question of human rights in Iran, executions, political prisoners, rights of gays and lesbians, many Iranians strongly want changes in their government’s policies. In response to a question in September, 24, 2007 from an audience at Columbia University in New York, President Ahmadinejad drew widespread criticism when his answer was translated as “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals in our country , we do not have this phenomenon.  I don’t know who told you that we have it.” In October, 2007, one of Ahmadinejad’s media advisor’s said that the President had meant that “compared to American society, we don’t have many homosexuals–In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/world/middleeast/11iran.html?_r=1

Homosexual acts are punishable by law: sodomy (defined as “sexual intercourse with a male) is punishable by execution and punishment for “lesbian acts” is 100 lashes.  However, conviction takes the testimony of four witnesses and if the accused recants before witnesses testify, the reportedly accused will not be punished. The discussion of human rights of youth and gay youth combined in the much publicized 2005 execution by hanging of two young men in Iran.  Some say they were executed because they were solely because they were gay and others say the two young men, minors, were convicted and hanged because they criminally sexually assaulted another youth.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071902061.html)

Interestingly, sex change is legal in Iran and there are more sex change operations in Iran than any other country except Thailand.  The Iranian government provides grants up to $4500 for the operation and further funding for hormone therapy on the theory that persons wanting a sex change have a “treatable disorder.”

Iranians want change to come from within their society, not imposed by another government, especially one, as we were reminded, that has its own human rights issues, including incarceration of the highest percentage of its citizenry of any country in the world, high rates of execution (Texas in particular), state-sponsored kidnapping from other countries (known in the Bush administration as extraordinary rendition) , imprisonment without due process, extrajudicial courts and a military and an intelligence agency that are notorious for torture.

Women’s Issues

When thinking of women in Iran, many in the West immediately respond with comments about the clothing women must wear.  Few realize that 70% of all university students are women, 30% of doctors in Iran are women, 80% of women are literate (88% of men can read), women receive 90 days of maternity leave at 2/3^rd pay and right to return to her job, and the number of children per woman has declined from 7 in 1979 to 1.7 now. Abortions are illegal in Iran, but it’s the only country I know of were couples must take a class on modern contraception before being issued a marriage license.  It has the only state-supported condom factory in the Middle East and it produces 45 million condoms a year in 30 different colors, shapes and flavors.

In one of the most successful instances of women’s grassroots organizational pressure on the government, in September, 2008, over 100 advocates for women’s rights successfully lobbied against proposed changes to marriage laws which were detrimental to women and forced the Iranian Parliament to drop the regressive amendments.

Clothing Restrictions

Yes, there are mandatory clothing rules for women, including wearing a scarf and clothing that covers the arms to the wrists and legs to the ankles, and they are cited by Western women as a form of human rights concern.  In fact, as our aircraft arrived at the Tehran International Airport terminal, the aircraft crew announced “By the law of the country of Iran, women cannot leave the aircraft without a scarf on their heads-and there will be an Iranian official outside the aircraft to return women who are not properly covered.” While some Iranian women say wearing the scarf is burdensome, others are comfortable with the dress code. In any case, clothing restrictions are not the main focus of women’s rights advocates.  Rights to custody of children and property after divorce, right to education and health care are more important than mandatory wearing of a scarf.

In the Month Since Our Visit

Sparks Fly Over Iranian President’s BBC Christmas message– “Jesus Christ Would Stand Up to Bullying, Ill-Tempered and Expansionist Powers”

In what they surely knew would be a very controversial request, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) asked Iranian President Ahmadinejad to deliver the BBC channel 4’s traditional “alternative Christmas message” to the Queen’s Christmas address.

The head of BBC News and Current Affairs said the decision to ask President Ahmadinejad was because “As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad’s views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view.  Channel 4’s role is to allow viewers to hear directly from people of world importance with sufficient context to enable them to make up their own minds.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7799652.stm)

It turned out that Ahmadinejad’s short, 36 second message in Farsi with English subtitles broadcast on Christmas Day, 2008, probably resonated with much of the world, but predictably  provoked a British government hornet’s nest with his comment that if Jesus Christ lived today he would stand up against bullying powers.  “If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.” Ahmadinejad, a devout Muslim, criticized the “indifference of some governments and powers” towards the teachings of the “divine prophets, including Jesus Christ” and said that “the general will of nations” was for a return to “human values”.  “The crises in society, the family, morality, politics, security and the economy … have come about because the prophets have been forgotten, the Almighty has been forgotten and some leaders are estranged from God.”

Ahmadinejad’s remarks received very little media coverage in the United States, miniscule when compared to the news story of the month– President Bush’s encounter with the Iraq shoe thrower.  However, a spokeswoman for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office in predicting anticipated Bush administration displeasure said: “President Ahmadinejad has during his time in office made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements. The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offence and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad.”

Labor Member of Parliament (MP) Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the Labor Jewish Movement, said: “I condemn Channel 4’s decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the Holocaust, while preparing for another, and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street. Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a member of the Commons all-party media group, said: “Channel 4 has given a platform to a man who wants to annihilate Israel and continues to persecute Christians at Christmas time. ”

Media Relations Not a Strong Suit of the Iranian Government

It’s almost as if the Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who is up for election in the summer, 2009, has hired lame-ducks U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert as his foreign policy, national security and media consultants.  How else could the Iranian government have come up with so many incidents in the past weeks that give ammunition to those in the United States and Israel who do not want dialogue with Iran on nuclear and regional security issues, who want human rights issues to publicize and who wish ill to the Iranian government and people?

For example, on December 22, 2008, the Iranian government closed down two human rights organizations headed by 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.  The government accused the organization of carrying out illegal activities, such as publishing statements, writing letters to international organizations, and holding news conferences. The Center for Participation in Clearing Mine Areas helps victims of landmines in Iran and Defenders of Human Rights Center reports human rights violations in Iran, defends political prisoners, and supports families of those prisoners. Ebadi was also taken into police custody briefly following the raids.

And the first week in December, 2008, in a campaign against Western cultural influence in Iran, Qaemshahr city police arrested 49 people during a crackdown on “satanic” fashions and unsuitable clothing and closed five barbershops for “promoting Western hairstyles.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3548370/Iran-arrests-49-for-wearing-satanic-clothing.html)

And now, there is the predictable increased international criticism about the Russian government providing the Iranian government with S300s, anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, triggered by the Bush administration’s decision to put a “missile shield” in Poland and the Czech Republic.  On December 23, 2008 United Press International (UPI) reported that the Russian government had begun delivery to the Iranian government of some of its most modern anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, the S-300s.  These missile systems can shoot down ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes as far away as 100 miles.  Iran conducted well-publicized air force and ballistic missile defense exercises in September, 2008.

The Bush administration’s ballistic poke in the eye of Russia and Iran by the deployment of  ballistic missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic “to protect against attacks from rogue states” (http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/2008/space-081115-rianovosti01.htm is perceived by many Iranians as a strategy to ensure that tensions in the region continue to escalate.  The United States is planning to deploy 10 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors in Poland and batteries of shorter-range Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missiles to protect the Interceptors.

Iranians Not Optimistic About Future Relations with the United States Under an Obama Administration

Despite President-elect Obama’s comments during the Presidential campaign that he would have dialogue with the Iranian government without preconditions, many Iranians with whom we spoke are not optimistic that there will be meaningful change in U.S. policy during an Obama administration.  Citing appointments of former Israeli Defense Force member and US Congressman Rahm Emanuel, as Chief of Staff, Hillary Clinton, who during the summer campaign said she would “obliterate” Iran if Iran used nuclear weapons against Israel (a statement that Iranians find incomprehensible since it is Israel that has nuclear weapons, not Iran, and Israel continues to threaten Iran), and Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator during the Clinton and Bush administrations, Iranians said they hoped the AIPAC lobby in the United States had not already determined Obama’s agenda toward Iran.

Iranians Want Peace

To emphasize again, the overwhelming comment from Iranians during our visit was that they want peace with the United States.  They hope that the new President of the United States will talk with their government to resolve issues, instead of resorting to the threat, much less, the use of military action.

Our Future with Iran - A Hope for Diplomacy Not Military Action

As we have seen from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of our military to resolve security issues kills and injures innocent civilians, destroys cities and villages, creates more people who dislike/hate our country and who may be willing to use violence against us, and jeopardizes, not enhances, the security of the United States.

As a retired US Army Colonel and a former US diplomat, I hope that the Obama administration will throw away the old template of 30 years of crisis, threats of military action, vindictiveness and retaliation and look to diplomacy to develop a peaceful future with Iran!

Originally Posted on Common Dreams

I spent the night sleeping in bits and pieces on my flight to Amman, waking up occasionally to chat and sympathize with Eric, the Blackwater security contractor seated next to me. We joked about the food and the cramped seats, but he also told me a little bit about his job over our twelve hours together. He told me about how he misses his wife and kids. About how he hates working in Iraq, he’s sick of the violence, but he gets paid more than he could ever make at home. He told me about how after seven years in the military, he quit and went into private security because it pays far more for essentially the same work, and explained that his company can pay more than the government because they don’t have to have the same support network, and the government is willing to pay a lot for the contract because it “keeps their hands clean.” He also likes working in the private sector because he gets assignments for only three months at a time - he was once kept in Iraq for a fifteen month tour.

I tried to keep the conversation somewhat lighthearted (Eric was a very nice guy), but really, it’s tough. When I started flipping through my lonely planet trying to learn some Arabic phrases and asked if he knew any, he shrugged. “Naw. Just ‘put your hands behind your head’ and ‘freeze’ and ‘down on the ground.’”

Well, what can you do? I learned the word for freeze - kif - which who knows, maybe will come in handy. I passed on the other phrases though.

Sidenote: this one time, I went speed dating in Boston and I met an interrogator for the Navy in Guantanamo. True story. He told me that Americans don’t understand what has to be done to protect them. The end of our eight minute date cut short our conversation, but John, if you’re out there, I understand what is being done, and it isn’t protecting anyone. Not me, not the Iraqi people, not the young Americans who have now spent years risking their lives chasing the aftermath of phantom weapons of mass destruction and their imagined mushroom clouds.

P.S. I’ll be blogging over the next ten days or so about my experiences in Amman. I generally won’t use the real names of the people I meet in the interest of their safety.

On December 20, 2008, a group of Code Pink members and friends staged a ‘freeze action’ at the Barton Creek Mall in Austin, Texas. The message was ‘don’t buy war,’ encouraging shoppers to avoid buying war toys and to think about the horrors of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To read more about this action and to view the video, click here

A rally calling on the Iraqi Government to free Muntadhar Al-Zeidi, the man who threw his shoes at George W. Bush, will be held Monday, December 29 at noon in front of the Iraqi consulate to the United States, located at 1801 P Street NW in Washington, DC.

The rally is timed to immediately precede Mr. Al-Zeidi’s appearance in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq on Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve. Mr. Al-Zeidi was arrested December 14 after hurling his shoes at Mr. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad.

“Al-Zeidi did not attempt to physically hurt George Bush but to insult him and express the deep anger that so many Iraqis feel over the U.S. occupation. He should be immediately released and the Iraqi government should be held accountable for abusing him while in custody,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK.

“The treatment Al-Zeidi has received should shame all Americans and is likely to motivate as much anti-American sentiment as have the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib,” said David Swanson, cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org. “While our President and Vice President openly confess to authorizing torture, their puppet government in Iraq tortures a man for throwing shoes, in complete absence of even the pretense of ‘interrogation,’ much less a ticking time bomb. Freeing Al-Zeidi will not fix this situation. We must also put Bush and Cheney behind bars.”

“There are credible reports that Muntadhar Al-Zeidi has been tortured while in the custody of the government of Iraq,” said Nick Mottern, Director of Consumers for Peace, one of the rally organizers, “and this alone provides the basis for setting him free.”

“Mr. Al-Zeidi’s act, in the context of the suffering caused by the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, can be seen as a legitimate form of self-expression,” Mottern said, “but in any case his action is something that should be treated as nothing more than a misdemeanor in which his time already spent in jail would be more than sufficient.”

The rally is being called by a coalition of peace and justice organizations including: CODEPINK: Women for Peace; Iraq Veterans Against the War; AfterDowningStreet.org; Consumers for Peace; and others.

At the close of the rally, organizers will deliver a petition to Ambassador of Iraq to the United States Samir Sumaida’ie at the Iraqi embassy at 3421 Massachusetts Avenue NW.