The 'Manchurian Mullah'
Iran's Education of Muqtada Al-Sadr
Amir Taheri
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02012008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_manchurian_mullah_637677.htm?page=0As the "student" arrives in a bulletproof limousine with heavily armed guards, his teachers, ignoring that he's two hours late, greet him deferentially.
The scene takes place at the Shiite seminary in Qom, Iran's holy city. The 35-year-old "student": Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, a militia often deemed one of Iran's chief assets in Iraq.
Sadr has spent much of the last 10 months in Iran, living in a 14-bedroom villa in Tehran's posh Farmanieh neighborhood. From there, he travels 90 minutes to Qom twice a week, for a crash course designed to transform him first into a Hojat al-Islam (Proof of Islam) and then a full-fledged ayatollah (Sign of God).
Sadr hails from an old family of clerics but was never meant for the cloth. His father and uncle were grand ayatollahs - until Saddam Hussein put both to death, then also eliminated Muqtada's elder brothers, who might have emerged as credible clerics. Thus, when Saddam fell in '03, Muqtada, although wearing a turban and a beard, had little religious training.
In the ensuing confusion, he tried to transform himself into a political leader by playing the pan-Arab card. Thanks to his family's renown and to Iraqi Shiites' thirst for power, Muqtada became a player in post-Saddam politics.
But it soon became clear that he would always be hamstrung by his lack of religious authority. Each time he tried to go beyond certain limits, Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the primus inter pares of Iraq's Shiite clergy, intervened to curtail his ambitions.
For a while, Sadr sought clerical cover from two ayatollahs whom his father had named "worthy of trust": Ayatollah Bashir Fayyadh, an Afghan-born cleric who lives in Najaf, and Ayatollah Muhammad Ha'eri Yazdi, an Iranian theologian based in Qom. They raised millions of dollars for his movement, but neither would endorse his maverick project - which, if pushed too far, could split the Shiites and give Iran veto power over Iraqi affairs.
By the end of '04, Muqtada had become almost dependent on Tehran - which he had castigated as an "evil power" a year earlier. And the Iranian regime, having adopted him, set out to transform him into a religious authority.
It normally takes at least 12 years of intensive studies to become a "mujtahid" (who can offer religious guidance). And the title "Sign of God" can't be secured solely by studying: Ayatollahs bestow it on only a few individuals in each generation. The candidate must author a "resaleh" (dissertation), with at least one grand ayatollah publicly acknowledging its theological value.
Traditionally, no man under 40 could pretend to be a "Proof of Islam," for it was at 40 that the Prophet Muhammad was approached by Archangel Gabriel and informed of his divine mission.
But the "Muqtada Project" envisages shortcuts. Sadr is to complete the 12-year course in four or five years, by which time he'd also be 40. Someone could write a resaleh for him and someone else could attest to the work's authority. He could then receive endorsement (tasdiq) from ayatollahs close to the Tehran authorities.
Sometime in 2012 or so, we may meet Ayatollah al-Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr al-Mahallati al-Tabatabai. By then, Najaf's four aging grand ayatollahs could have passed on, thus making it easier for Tehran to market Muqtada as a religious authority for Iraqis.
To win control of Iraq after the Americans leave, Iran needs to control Najaf. But none of the senior clerics there now is prepared to accept the authority of Iranian "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei (himself the product of a similar political project for manufacturing an ayatollah). So Muqtada's makeover is of vital importance to Iran's strategy in Iraq.
Yet that plan faces other problems. The US may not run away after all. And Sadr's followers may not wait until he has finished his makeover. Several influential mullahs are already calling for the Mahdi Army to end its self-declared cease-fire and resume killing Sunnis and attacking Americans.
Indeed, Sadr's movement is growing fragmented and marginalized. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has all but excluded the Sadrists from his coalition, and is determined not to let them make a splash in the coming municipal elections.
Despite Tehran's largesse, the Mahdi Army can't meet its costs without its usual criminal activities, including oil smuggling, hostage-taking and dipping hands into the government cookie jar.
Muqtada faces a tough choice. Should he continue with the Iranian project, in hopes of winning big in four or five years - at the risk that others will fill the vacuum in his absence? Or interrupt the Iranian project and return to Iraq to reactivate his armed gangs - possibly exposing himself to the Americans' full fire - which, with Sunni pressure almost gone, could crush him?
Sadr's best bet would be to distance himself from Tehran and return to Iraq to lead his faction with full respect for the new constitution and the principle of changing policies and governments via elections, rather than armed action.
The Sadrists represent a real constituency; they pulled almost 11 percent in the last general election. They can and must have a place in Iraq's new pluralist system; they do not need to become Tehran's cat's paw in Iraq.
But does Sadr have the freedom to decide his future? He might be a virtual prisoner, along with his new Persian bride, in that villa facing the snow-capped Towchall mountains.
A'Jad's Endless Iraq Debacle
Amir Taheri
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03082008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/ajads_endless_iraq_debacle_100962.htm?page=0It had been billed as a "tri umph" for the Islamic Re public and "a slap in the face of the American Great Satan." However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day state visit to Iraq last weekend showed the limits of Iranian influence in the newly liberated country.
Weeks of hard work by Iranian emissaries and pro-Iran elements in Iraq were supposed to ensure massive crowds thronging the streets of Baghdad and throwing flowers on the path of the visiting Iranian leader. Instead, no more than a handful of Iraqis turned up for the occasion. The numbers were so low that the state-owned TV channels in Iran decided not to use the footage at all.
Instead, much larger crowds gathered to protest Ahmadinejad's visit. In the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, several thousand poured into the streets with cries of "Iranian aggressor, go home!"
The visit's highlight was supposed to be a pilgrimage to Karbala and Najaf, the "holiest" of Shiite cities in Iraq. There, Ahmadinejad was supposed to become the first Iranian government leader since 1976 to pray at the mausoleums of Imam Hussein and Imam Ali.
In the end, however, the tour was canceled amid reports that Shiite pilgrims, including thousands from Iran, were planning to demonstrate against his presence at the "holy" cities.
A more important reason motivated Ahmadinejad to drop his planned visits to Najaf - his failure to arrange an encounter with the leading ayatollahs of the "holy" city, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the leading Shiite clergyman. For a president who claims that he's the standard-bearer of a global Shiite revolution, that was one photo-op to die for.
Initially, Ahmadinejad asked that Sistani visit him at a villa that once housed the Iranian consul-general in Najaf. This is because Ahmadinejad, as Islamic Republic president, mustn't acknowledge the supremacy of any cleric apart from Ali Khamenei, the Iranian "Supreme Guide." Under Iranian protocol, the president goes to the "Supreme Guide other mullahs must go to the president.
But Sistani wasn't prepared to go to Ahmadinejad. That would have acknowledged the superiority of a secular position to a clerical one, something no grand ayatollah would do.
Eventually, a compromise was found: Ahmadinejad was to call on Sistani supposedly because the ayatollah was in poor health. This was to be an exercise in "visiting the sick," highly recommended in Islam.
At the last minute, however, Sistani's entourage insisted that there should be no pictures and that neither side should issue a statement at the end of the planned 20-minute meeting. This would've deprived Ahmadinejad of his photo op and prevented him from claiming Sistani's support for the Iranian policy in Iraq. The only solution was for Ahmadinejad not to go to Najaf at all.
The Iranian thus ended up like a devout Catholic leader who goes to Rome but fails to visit the Vatican or call on the pope.
He had already been obliged to cancel a visit to Samarra, where the "Hidden Imam" disappeared in a well on 941 AD. Ahmadinejad had hoped to visit the ruins of the golden-domed Mausoleum of the Two Imams that was bombed by al Qaeda in 2005 and 2006 and announce a plan to rebuild the mausoleum.
The project is of special importance to Ahmadinejad, who claims to be in direct contact with the "Hidden Imam." (Last year he told his Cabinet that the "Hidden Imam" had accompanied him to the United Nations and filled the General Assembly's hall with a green light during his speech.)
But two days of demonstrations against Ahmadinejad's planned visit by the people of Samarra forced him to strike the city off his itinerary.
Nor did Ahmadinejad's presence in Baghdad go as smoothly as he'd hoped. A good part of the Iraqi political elite, including Cabinet ministers and members of the parliament, boycotted functions held in his honor. Tehran has branded the boycotters as "Saddamites and Sunnis in fact, a good number of Shiite politicians, including the leaders of the Fadila (Virtue) Party, also stayed away.
Protest marches against Ahmadinejad weren't limited to predominantly Sunni Arab cities such as Mosul, Kirkuk and Fallujah. Thousands of people also turned out in Shiite-majority Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, to oppose the visit and condemn the Islamic Republic's intervention in domestic Iraqi affairs.
The visit's political side was equally disappointing for Ahmadinejad. He failed to persuade the Iraqi leaders to stop negotiations with America on long-term arrangements ensuring US commitment to new Iraq for several more years. Nor did he succeed in obtaining cast-iron guarantees that new Iraq won't seek to renegotiate aspects of the 1975 Treaty with Iran. (Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told an interviewer last year that the treaty, signed by Saddam Hussein, doesn't reflect the interests of the Iraqi people.)
Ahmadinejad's visit also failed to produce results on such perennial Irano-Iraqi problems as the fate of thousands from both sides who remain missing in action since the 1980-88 war, and plans for reopening the Shatt al-Arab border estuary to allow a revival of maritime transport in that corner of southwestern Iran.
The Iranian visitor failed on another issue close to the heart of Iran's ruling mullahs: the handover of some 4,000 members of the Mujahedin Khalq (People's Combatants), an armed Marxist-Islamist group who live under US protection in a camp northeast of Baghdad. The Iraqi leaders paid lip service to the idea of getting rid of the "terrorists" but offered no timetable for expelling them, let alone handing them over to Tehran and certain death.
Ahmadinejad had come to Iraq to show it was an Iranian playground. He ended up by showing that Iran's influence in Iraq is widely exaggerated.
To be sure, Tehran exerts influence through a number of Shiite militias it has recruited, trained and financed for years. And some insurgent groups depend on Iran as their main source of weapons, especially sophisticated explosive devices. Iran also remains Iraq's biggest trading partner and the second-biggest investor in the Iraqi economy. Iranian pilgrims account for more than 90 percent of all foreign visitors in Iraq.
Yet the visit highlighted one crucial fact: Few Iraqis wish to see their country dominated by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.
Iraq proved too hot for Ahmadinejad. He had to get out as fast as he could.
Human Rights In Iran
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2008-03-14-voa6.cfmThe U.S. State Department has published its annual report on the status of human rights around the world. Once again, the Iranian government is among the worst violators of the basic rights of its citizens. Here is Jonathan Farrar, Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor:
”Countries in which power is concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers remain the most systematic human rights violators. Here we would cite North Korea, Burma, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan.”
The State report says that in 2007, the Iranian government’s poor human rights record became even worse. Iran’s security forces engaged in torture and officially-sanctioned severe, barbaric forms of punishments, including flogging, death by stoning, and amputation.
Civil liberties, including freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and religion were severely restricted, according to the report. Authorities used excessive force against demonstrators. Violence and legal discrimination against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and homosexuals remained problems. Workers’ rights, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, were severely restricted. Students were detained for exercising their freedom of speech.
The report cites the plight of Iran’s political prisoners, incarcerated solely because of their beliefs. Their exact number is unknown, but is estimated by the U.N. Special Representative for the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Expression to be in the hundreds. They include, among others, Azeri Iranian cultural rights activist Abbas Lisani, dissident cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeini Boroujerdi, student activists Ahmad Batebi and Ali Nikunesbati, human rights lawyer Emadoldin Baghi, workers’ rights leaders Mansur Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi, and women’s rights advocates Hana Abdi and Ronak Safarzadeh. In addition, the report notes the continuing crackdown by the Iranian government on journalists.
U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, “In too many countries, champions of human rights are denounced and persecuted, vilified as traitors or targeted for repression.” But, she says, “As long as citizens around the world champion the universal values of human rights, there is hope. And we, in the United States, continue to believe it is our duty to support these courageous men and women.”
Iran Could Have Enough Uranium for a Bomb by Year's End
By Markus Becker
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,536914,00.html
Could Iran be building an atomic bomb? When the US released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) late last year, it seemed as though the danger of a mullah-bomb had passed. The report claimed to have information indicating that Tehran mothballed its nuclear weapons program as early as autumn 2003. The paper also said that it was "very unlikely" that Iran would have enough highly enriched uranium -- the primary ingredient in atomic bombs -- by 2009 to produce such a weapon. Rather, the NIE indicated "Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough (highly enriched uranium) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 timeframe."
It didn't take long for experts to question the report's conclusion that Tehran was no longer interested in building the bomb. And now, a new computer simulation undertaken by European Union experts indicates that the NIE's time estimates might be dangerously inaccurate as well -- and that Iran might have enough fuel for a bomb much earlier than was previously thought.
As part of a project to improve control of nuclear materials, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy set up a detailed simulation of the centrifuges currently used by Iran in the Natanz nuclear facility to enrich uranium. The results look nothing like those reached by the US intelligence community.
For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100 percent efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year. Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency -- just 25 percent. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010.
For the purposes of the simulation, the JRC modelled each of the centrifuges individually and then hooked them together to form the kind of cascade necessary to enrich uranium. A number of variables were taken into account, including the assumption by most experts that Iran isn't even close to operating its centrifuges at 100 percent efficiency. What is known, however, is that the Iranians are operating 18 cascades, each made up of 164 centrifuges. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself said last April that the country had 3,000 centrifuges in operation. At the time, most Western observers discounted the claim as mere propaganda. But the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Ahmadinejad's assertion in November.
Centrifuges from Pakistan
Another variable is the type of centrifuge Iran is using. For its simulations, the JRC assumed cascades using 2,952 P1 centrifuges -- the P stands for Pakistan, where the centrifuges were manufactured. But recent reports indicate that Iran might be in the process of installing so-called "IR2" centrifuges. These centrifuges -- the IR stands for Iran -- are made out of carbon-fiber instead of aluminium and are an estimated 2.5 times as powerful as the P1 devices.
It remains unclear, however, if the new centrifuges can be used in the same way as the old ones. Independent experts doubt whether Iran is able to produce the old-style aluminium centrifuges themselves. Given the strict embargo currently in place against Iran, it is possible that the centrifuges currently in use are still from the stock delivered to Iran by Pakistan. The Pakistani government admitted in March, 2005 that Abdul Qadir Khan, the scientist responsible for the Pakistani bomb, sold centrifuges to Iran.
Despite the uncertainties, however, the scientists at the Joint Research Centre are confident that their simulations are realistic. But, the group is quick to point out, they are theoretical. They don't make any claim to know whether Tehran is currently working toward the production of an atomic bomb.
Just why the new simulations came to such a different result than the National Intelligence Estimate issued by Washington is "a good question," a JRC expert told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The American government, he points out, wasn't clear about the technical details upon which its report was based.
Thin Line between Military and Civilian
Another possible reason for the differences could be the fact that the US intelligence report focused solely on uranium enrichment done in secret and on possible steps taken toward the production of a bomb -- but not on Tehran's claimed civilian nuclear power program. But the line between civilian and military nuclear programs is a thin one, as a number of states have demonstrated. The atomic weapons programs in Israel, South Africa, Pakistan and China all grew out of civilian nuclear programs.
There are a number of indications that Iran isn't just interested in civilian nuclear technology. Just on Wednesday, an exiled Iranian opposition group published satellite images it claims shows an Iranian atomic bomb-making facility. In January, physicist Richard Garwin, who is also a US government adviser, calculated that the Natanz facility -- even were it to reach its maximum capacity of 54,000 centrifuges -- could not produce enough low-enriched uranium for a nuclear power facility. But, he said, the 3,000 centrifuges currently in operation could be sufficient to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon.
Iran's successful launch of a ballistic "research rocket" into space at the beginning of the month is likely doing little to reduce concerns. A rocket that can carry a satellite into space, after all, could be modified to carry a nuclear warhead.
Roland Schenkel, the director-general of the JRC, says it is time for European politicians to re-evaluate. It is time, he said in Boston during a weekend meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for the world's atomic powers to allow inspections of their nuclear facilities and to take steps toward disarmament instead of modernizing their nuclear arsenals. Both the US and Great Britain have recently invested large amounts of money in their nuclear weapons caches.
Industrial Capacity
Schenkel would also like to see more competencies for the International Atomic Energy Agency. "The IAEA needs a real weapons control program," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. As it stands now, the IAEA must focus solely on fissile material and on nuclear facilities. "The goal should be checks in the service of non-proliferation," Schenkel says. "The checks need to have more bite."
Many experts likewise believe that more checks need to be carried out in Iran itself -- a position that was not changed at all by the US intelligence report. "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program," the report reads. But it is not this conclusion that is the most decisive one in the report. Rather, it was the final sentence: "We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so."