Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 5.29.2005:

Gene Sharp learned how to turn nonviolence into a weapon - and helped quite literally change the world.

Laura Secor, The Boston Globe:

A CURIOUS THING started happening in the formerly Communist world in the year 2000. One after another, hated, repressive governments gave way to mass movements of nonviolent refusal. First there was Serbia, then Georgia, then Ukraine, and now Kyrgyzstan. It was as if a virus were spreading - one that led long abused populaces to wake up to their own power, which they could withhold from authorities to stunning effect.

But it wasn't a virus. Among other things, it was an 88-page booklet by a Boston scholar named Gene Sharp, which has circulated in local translation at the site of every one of these nonviolent democratic revolutions. READ MORE

Here is a portion of his book in Farsi.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• LA Times reports that recent moves by Khamenei removed whatever tiny doubt remained about who calls the political shots: What he says, goes.
• Financial Times suggested that after a wasted month of nuclear negotiations, Should we sleep less easily? Yes.
• WebIndia123.com reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described Iran's elections as "a country where an un-elected few continue to suppress the desires of its people for democratic elections."
• BBC News reported that Pakistan has denied that President Pervez Musharraf told a German magazine that Iran was "very anxious" to have a nuclear bomb.
• Kuwait News Agency reports that Yemen condemned clerics to death on charge of spying for Iran.
• IranMania reported that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said that the long-term presence of the US in Afghanistan would be a threat to regional security.
• The New York Post warns the U.S. Administration not to fall into Chavez's nuclear trap.
• Photos of Iranian students supporting imprisoned dissident Akbar Ganji.
• Photos of Iranian students asking people to boycott the upcoming elections.
• And finally, Reuters reported that Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled the country after being seriously injured in a U.S. missile attack and may have been moved to Iran. The Iranians denied this. Dan Darling weighed in and Richard Miniter believes he may be in Abu Shallal, a village north of Baghdad.