Monday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 11.14.2005:

Ethnic Unrest in Iran is Not a Sign of Separatist Sentiments

Michael Rubin, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

*The Islamic Republic of Iran is facing a new wave of domestic violence, with multiple bombings in the provinces of Khuzistan and Baluchistan in the past six months.

*Iran is ethnically diverse. While the recent terrorism may have some ethnic or sectarian component, Iranian nationalism trumps ethnic separatism. Often, regional violence is more a sign of weak central government control and local disaffection than separatist sentiment.

*When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, Saddam Hussein sought to play the ethnic card. The Iraqi leader portrayed himself as the liberator of the Khuzistani Arabs. His rhetoric backfired. Rather than divide Iran, he unified it.

*Any U.S. or Western attempt to play an ethnic card in Iran will backfire and betray not only the Iranian people, but also long-term Western interests. ...

The Iranian regime is unpopular among the majority of its population. Persian-language telephone polls - surveying random households in every telephone exchange - consistently show that only 20 percent of the population supports the philosophical underpinnings of the Islamic Republic. Eighty percent do not think the system can be reformed.21 READ MORE

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

• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online in a special report provided behind the scenes details of a meeting of government economic advisors meeting with Ahmadinejad and their counsel to temporarily close Tehran’s Stock Exchange.
• Rooz Online published the letter political activists sent to the head of Iran’s Judiciary to impartially review Akbar Ganji's case.
• Iran Focus reported that 75% of the ministers and deputy ministers in the government of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad come from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
• The People's Daily reported that Iran said on Sunday that it is pursuing a balance between the West and the East during nuclear negotiations.
• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that French Muslims are being told that rather than obeying the laws of the French Republic, they should follow “fatwas” concocted by the Muslim Brotherhood and members of various militant Islamist groups presenting themselves as an alterative to state authority.
• CBS News reported that El Baradei has thrown his weight behind a plan calling on Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia.
• MosNews reported that the work to construct the Bushehr nuclear power plant is 80 % complete.
• The Hindu reported that a senior Russian official who is visiting Iran has denied giving specific proposals to his hosts that would help defuse the Iranian nuclear crisis.
• The Associated Press reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave her strongest rebuke yet on Sunday to the renewed hardline Islamic leadership of Iran.
• William O. Beeman, The Age reported that Mr Ahmadinejad has rejected the establishment Islamic leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
• The Financial Times reported that Iran dismissed the latest U.S. allegations about its atomic ambitions.
• And finally, Iranian Student News Agency published photos of Tehran University students protesting against the poor conditions.