The Unknown Arab Uprising: Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia Keep the Protest Movement Alive

Posted on April 5, 2013 by iPouya

The Global Post: Editor’s Note: When Arab Spring protests broke out in Saudi Arabia in 2011, the government reacted quickly. It pumped $130 billion into the economy, including hiring 300,000 new state workers and raising salaries. It also brutally cracked down on dissent, in some cases breaking up peaceful protests with live ammunition. While the carrot and stick approach worked in some cities, the Shia Muslims in the Eastern Province continued to protest. Shia make up some 10-15 percent of the Saudi population and have long rebelled against discrimination and political exclusion.

Demonstrations continued in the city of Qatif but got little publicity because foreign journalists are banned from reporting there. Correspondent Reese Erlich, on assignment for GlobalPost and NPR, managed to get into Qatif, meet with protest leaders and become the first foreign journalist to witness the current demonstrations. This is his account:

QATIF, Saudi Arabia — Night has fallen as the car rumbles down back roads to avoid the Saudi Army’s special anti-riot units. To be stopped at any of the numerous checkpoints leading into Qatif, would mean police detention for a Western journalist and far worse for the Saudi activists in the car. They would likely spend a lot of time in jail for spreading what Saudi authorities deem “propaganda” to the foreign media.

In Saudi Arabia all demonstrations are illegal, but here in Qatif residents have defied the ban for many months. At least once a week the mostly young demonstrators march down a street renamed “Revolution Road,” calling for the release of political prisoners and for democratic rights.

The anti-riot units deploy armored vehicles at strategic locations downtown. The word on this night is that if demonstrators stay off the main road, the troops may not attack.

Foreign journalists are generally denied permission to report from Qatif. Activists said this night was the first time a foreign journalist has been an eyewitness to one of their demonstrations. Asked if the troops will use tear gas, Abu Mohammad, the pseudonym used by an activist to prevent government retaliation, says, “Oh, no. The army either does nothing or uses live ammunition.”

I really hope it will be option #1.

Suddenly, young Shia Muslim men wearing balaclavas appear, directing traffic away from Revolution Road. All the motorists obey the gesticulations of these self-appointed traffic cops.

Minutes later several hundred men march down the street, most with their faces covered to avoid police identification. Shia women wearing black chadors, which also hide their faces, follow closely behind, chanting even louder than the men.

One of their banners reads, “For 100 years we have lived in fear, injustice, and intimidation.”

Despite two years of repression by the Saudi royal family, Shia protests against the government have continued here in the Eastern Province. Though Shia are a small fraction of Saudi Arabia’s 27 million people, they are the majority here. Most of the country’s 14 oil fields are located in the Eastern Province, making it of strategic importance to the government.

Shia have protested against discrimination and for political rights for decades. But the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 gave new impetus to the movement. Saudi Arabia is home to two of Islam’s most holy cities, and the government sees itself as a protector of the faith. But its political alliances with the US and conservative, Sunni monarchies have angered many other Muslims, including the arc of Shia stretching from Iran to Lebanon.

Saudi officials claim they are under attack from Shia Iran and have cracked down hard on domestic dissent.

 Saudi authorities are responsible for the death of 15 people and 60 injured since February 2011, according to Waleed Sulais of the Adala Center for Human Rights, the leading human rights group in the Eastern Province. He says 179 detainees remain in jail, including 19 children under the age of 18.

The government finds new ways to stifle dissent, according to Sulais. Several months ago the government required all mobile phone users to register their SIM cards, which means text messaging about demonstrations is no longer anonymous.

Abu Zaki, another activist requesting anonymity, says demonstrators now rely on Facebook and Twitter, along with good old word of mouth. Practically everyone at the recent Qatif protest march carried iPhones. Some broadcast the demo in near real time by uploading to YouTube.

Organizers hope their sheer numbers, along with government incompetence, will keep them from being discovered. “The government cannot follow everybody’s Twitter user name,” says Abu Zaki. “The authorities have to be selective and, hopefully, they don’t select my name.”

When protests began, demonstrators called for reforms. But now, younger militants demand elimination of the monarchy and an end to the US policy of supporting the dictatorial king.

Abu Mohammad, Abu Zaki and several other militant activists, gather in an apartment in Awamiyah, a poor, Shia village neighboring Qatif. In this part of the world a village is really a small town, usually abutting a larger city. Awamiyah is one such town, chock full of auto repair shops, one-room storefronts, and potholed streets. It is noticeably poorer than Sunni towns of comparable size.

Strong, black tea is served along with weak, greenish Saudi coffee. The protest movement in Qatif, they observe, resembles the tea more than the coffee.

Abu Mohammad tells me protests have remained strong because residents are fighting for both political rights as Saudis, and against religious/social discrimination as Shia.

Shia face discrimination in jobs, housing and religious practices. Dammam, the largest city in the area, has no Shia cemetery, for example. Only six Shia sit on the country’s 150-member Shura Council, the appointed legislature that advises the king.

“As Shia, we can’t get jobs in the military,” says Abu Mohammad. “And we face the same political repression as all Saudis. We live under an absolute monarchy that gives us no rights and steals the wealth of the country.”

The government denies those claims of discrimination and repression. In Riyadh, Major General Mansour Al Turki, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, is the point man who often meets with foreign journalists. Al Turki is smooth and affable and practiced at the art of being interviewed by Westerners.

He dismisses Shia charges of discrimination as simply untrue.

“These people making demonstrations are very few,” he tells me. “They only represent themselves. The majority [of Shia] are living at a very high level.”

Such assertions, however, don’t account for the frequent and sizable Eastern Province demonstrations supporting Sheik Nemer al Nemer. The charismatic Shia cleric has long been a thorn in the government’s side. His willingness to speak out against discrimination and call for militant action endeared him to the younger generation of activists. For months he avoided arrest by shifting residences and only appearing in public during large rallies.

Then in July 2012 authorities made an arrest while he was briefly visiting his house in Qatif. He was shot and seriously wounded. Police claim it was an armed shootout in which they fired in self defense.

The Sheik was unarmed, according to his brother, Mohammad al Nemer. He says his brother hasn’t been publicly charged, but has been told that he faces a long jail term for instigating unrest against the king and organizing illegal demonstrations.

Four police bullets shattered his brother’s thigh bone, says al Nimer. “If he doesn’t receive proper medical care, he will have a lame leg for the rest of his life.”

Al Nemer’s popularity has grown exponentially since his arrest, with graffiti demanding his release sprouting up throughout the area and marchers regularly chanting his name.

Shia leader Sheik Mohammed Hassan al Habib offers understanding of the continuing protests. The cleric lives in a modest home on a side street outside Qatif. Sheik al Habib adds something special to the usual proffering of tea and coffee: Swiss chocolate.

Al Habib tells me that the Eastern Province movement seeks democratic reforms while maintaining the power of the monarchy.

“We need to give real power to the parliament,” he says. “The government should allow establishment of political parties, freedom of speech and assembly.” But the king would still have final authority, he concedes.

“We don’t want toppling or removal of the regime,” he emphasizes.

He acknowledges, however, that many younger protestors have given up on reform. For example, activist Abu Mohammad says, “People now want the overthrow of the ruling family as a reaction to the escalation of repression in Qatif. I think the best form of government for Saudi Arabia is constitutional monarchy like they have in Britain.”

While calling for a UK-style constitutional monarchy is rather tame by western standards, it’s treasonous in Saudi Arabia.

“People must complain through the legal process,” argues the Ministry of Interior’s al Turki. The legal process does not include calling for an end to the monarchy.

Al Turki adds that the opposition is controlled by Iran and seeks to establish a Shia Muslim dictatorship. The Iranian government does “affect such people,” he says. “But its influence is very limited.”

Al Habib denies the movement is directed from Iran. In fact, he criticizes the Iranian government for its treatment of demonstrators demanding democracy after the 2009 presidential elections.

“I was in Iran in 2009,” he says. “That was their legitimate right to demonstrate. The Iranian government should not have repressed them.”

But the “Iranian threat” remains a cornerstone of Saudi policy, justifying, for example, sending Saudi troops to neighboring Bahrain in March 2011 to help put down that country’s indigenous, Arab Spring uprising. It also justifies massive US military sales to the Saudi armed forces.

Because of oil riches, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has been a high priority for US presidents dating back to Franklin Roosevelt. The US sent its first military mission to the kingdom in 1943 and began training Saudi troops in 1953. The US built up Saudi Arabia’s military as part of Cold War competition with the USSR. Saudi Arabia provided a steady flow of oil to the west; the US didn’t interfere with the royal family’s internal repression.

In recent times, Saudi Arabia has allowed the US to establish a drone base on Saudi territory, and it continues to receive massive US military aid.

In 2010, the US Congress passed legislation calling for $60 billion in military aid to the Saudis over 10 years. In 2011, the Obama administration allocated $30 billion of that to purchase US-made, advanced fighter jets and other hi-tech equipment.

Saudi Arabia spends 10 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on the military, ranking it third highest in the world on a per capita basis. Both US and Saudi leaders argue that such aid allows the kingdom to defend itself from outside attack.

Speaking of the $30 billion package, Andrew J. Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, says the sales would “enhance Saudi Arabia’s ability to deter and defend against external threats to its sovereignty.”

Unfortunately, Saudi armed forces have not proven to be adept at such defense. When Iraq invaded nearby Kuwait in 1990, the Saudi military was virtually helpless in defending itself against the perceived threat. The US and European allies fought the Gulf War while the Saudis footed the bill.

Saudi Arabia’s arms have proven effective, however, in quelling domestic dissent. In response to the repression, the State Department report on human rights offers a pro forma list of “reported” problems in Saudi Arabia. “The most important human rights problems reported included citizens’ lack of the right and legal means to change their government….”

Activists sharply disagree with US support for the royal family, pointing to the difference between US stands on Syria and Saudi Arabia.

“America supports the royal family because they protect its interests,” says Abu Zaki. “The pressure is growing. People are getting angrier and angrier” at US policy.

The Saudi royal family used a combination of repression and economic improvements to quell protests that broke out around the country in 2011. Authorities announced a $130 billion spending program that would hire 300,000 more state workers, raise salaries, and build subsidized housing.

But neither government spending nor harsh crackdown have so far deterred the protesters in Qatif.

The demonstrators see themselves waging a political battle in which popular support can overcome the government’s repressive apparatus. The Shia of the Eastern Province are the only Saudis regularly holding protest marches, but as Shia cleric Al Habib tells me, Sunnis in other parts of the country also call for reform.

“We work with reformers who don’t care about your sect,” he tells me. “They look only for reforms. We hope Sunni and Shia will get together one day to pursue this goal.”

After a sip of black tea and a final piece of chocolate, we say goodbye to the cleric and head out to that night’s demonstration. Somehow we manage to avoid the checkpoints. And for that night, at least, there was no violence.

Posted in Arab Spring, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy | Leave a comment

Iraqi Sunnis await a Baghdad spring

Posted on April 3, 2013 by iPouya

The Guardian: Abu Saleh sits in a striped tent pitched by the side of the highway joining Jordan and Syria with Iraq and reflects on the latest, improbable twist in his 10-year career fighting those he considers the enemies of his fellow Iraqi Sunnis.

A decade ago, when the Americans rolled into Ramadi in their tanks and Humvees, the former Saddam regime security officer led a group of Sunni fighters who took the fight to the occupiers with improvised explosive device (IEDs) and ambushes.

The scars of their insurgency are still visible in Ramadi’s industrial quarter: deserted shops riddled with bullet holes, metal shutters twisted like foil, black soot covering the walls.

But Abu Saleh and his fellow fighters lost their way, he says. “We made mistakes. We took people randomly. Some of us resorted to kidnapping to fund the resistance, then it became an industry, detaining people inside their neighbourhood, planting IEDs in front of people houses.” He explains how the resistance fragmented into competing groups, how they began to fight each other and al-Qaida and how their neighbours eventually turned on them.

By 2009 they had been, in effect, run out of town by a local militia hunting them on behalf of the Americans. Like thousands of other Iraqi Sunnis, Abu Saleh took refuge in neighbouring Syria.

Now in his mid-30s, Abu Saleh is back in Ramadi, borne on a tide that sprung from the revolutions of Tahrir Square and Benghazi and gathered force amid the bloodshed in Syria. Abu Saleh and other Iraqi Sunnis believe it is a tide that could flow all the way to Baghdad, sweeping away the Shia government they despise.

Outside Abu Saleh’s tent, a familiar scene unfolds. Thousands of men line the highway standing in long, neat lines praying on coloured prayer mats placed on the ground, in effect blocking the main route linking Iraq to Jordan and Syria.

After prayers the men gather in front of a podium planted in the middle of the road and demonstrators catalogue a long list of grievances: corrupt and brutal security forces who detain them at will, draconian anti-terrorism and “de-ba’athification” laws that are tailored to target their community, thousand of their sons and fathers languishing in prisons for years.

The grievances are punctuated by anti-Shia rhetoric, accusing them of being Iran’s agents, and threats to march on Baghdad. “Baghdad is ours and we won’t give it back!” the crowd thunders in response to one rabid orator after another. Some demonstrators wave Saddam-era Iraqi flags as lines of heavily armed soldiers and riot police look on.

Similar scenes have been played out in several Sunni cities in recent weeks in the runup to the charged 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion. Every Friday, thousands of peaceful demonstrators have poured into the streets of Ramadi, Mosul and Falluja mimicking the Arab spring protests elsewhere in the region.

In Mosul and Falluja, tent cities have sprung up in public squares. Some have even demonstrated in Sunni areas of Baghdad, braving the draconian Friday security measures imposed on them.

But perhaps more remarkable is the scene inside the tent. Among the tribal sheikhs and activists around Abu Saleh are former enemies and victims, men who feared him and men who hunted him on behalf of the Americans. Sensing an opportunity, Sunni factions have put aside their differences to mount a common front against Baghdad.

Abu Saleh, rotund and balding, explains how a week after the first demonstrations in Sunni cities, he and other fighters commanding the remnants of Sunni insurgent groups held a series of meetings to form a pact and use the momentum in Sunni cities.

“Call us the honourable nationalistic factions – people here are still sensitive to using words like mujahideen or resistance. We decided to sign a truce with the tribal sheikhs, other factions and even moderate elements in al-Qaida,” he said.

“The Sunnis were never united like this from the fall of Baghdad until now. This is a new stage we are going through: first came the American occupation, then the resistance, then al-Qaida dominated us, and then came internal fighting and the awakening … now there is a truce even with the tribal sheikhs who fought and killed our cousins and brothers.

“The politicians have joined us and we have the legitimacy of the street. To be honest, we had reached a point when people hated us, only your brother would support you.”

One of the things that transformed the reputation of men such as Abu Saleh in the eyes of their fellow Sunnis has been their involvement in the Syrian conflict, a few hundred miles west along the highway.

The conflict pitted Sunni rebels against government forces and Alawites, backed by Iran, also patrons of Iraq’s Shia leadership. Weapons flowed to the rebels from the Iraqi tribes – sold for a comfortable profit – while the Iraqi Shia prime minister toed the Iranian line and lent his support to the Syrian regime. With both sides using the same sectarian rhetoric, it was easy to join the dots between the two conflicts.

Abu Saleh found himself fighting his old war in a new field. He lent a hand to the novice Syrian rebels and joined the fight, commanding a unit of his own operating in the city of Aleppo and the countryside north of it.

“We taught them how to cook phosphate and make IEDs. Our struggle here is the same is in Syria. If Syria falls, we are liberated; if we are liberated, Syria will be liberated. We have the same battle with Iran – by defeating them we break the Shia crescent of Iran, Syria and Lebanon.”

Abu Saleh claims that once he and his men had been accepted back in Ramadi, they formed three battalions that had hit convoys carrying supplies to Syria as well as an Iraqi army helicopter.

In another echo of recent Arab uprisings, Abu Saleh says he and other Sunni leaders have now secured support from wealthy Gulf state figures who funded them during the early years of their insurgency against the Americans.

After the truce between Sunni groups, he says, a meeting was set up in the Jordanian capital, Amman, between a united front of Iraqi factions and representatives of “charities” from the Gulf.

The Iraqis asked for money and weapons; after a decade of war their arsenals were almost depleted. What didn’t get destroyed by US or Iraqi forces was sold to the Syrians. They needed money to train and recruit new fighters but more importantly a religious sanction from the religious authorities for a new round of fighting.

The Gulf figures asked for more time and a second meeting was held in Amman, this time attended by a higher-ranking group of officials from the both sides. The answer was yes: the “charities” would offer support as long as the Iraqi Sunnis were united and used their weapons only after Iraqi government units used force against them. Another Sunni leader confirmed to the Guardian that the Amman meetings had taken place.

“There is a new plan, a grand plan not like the last time when we worked individually,” another commander told me. “This time we are organised. We have co-ordinated with countries like Qatar and Saudi and Jordan. We are organising, training and equipping ourselves but we will start peacefully until the right moment arrives. We won’t be making the same mistakes. Baghdad will be destroyed this time.”

Posted in Arab Spring, Iran, Iraq, Syria | Leave a comment

Caught Shopping While Iranian: Diasporic Solidarity and the Globalization of Collective Punishment

Posted on April 3, 2013 by iPouya

Jadaliyya: In recent years, the Iranian New Year, Norooz, has become a fairly predictable time for US presidents to gesture towards “dialogue” and mutual respect between the United States and the Iranian people, while criticizing the repressive policies and nuclear aspirations of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). George W. Bush spoke often of the Iranian people’s right to live in a “free society,” and ended his presidency with an opulent haft sin display in the dining room of the White House. More recently, Barack Obama has taken to YouTube to deliver his missives to the Iranian people, and to frame his sanctions regime as an exercise in supporting human rights. At a time when US-led sanctions are creating an artificial shortage of medicine and contributing to soaring inflation in Iran, the Norooz message has become a handy public diplomacy technique for the US government, and another juncture where culture is leveraged as foreign policy. Obama expresses his support for human rights and freedom in Iran, and then wishes Iranians a happy new year (in Persian!), while the sanctions programs strengthened by his administration collectively punish civilians and inch the country towards humanitarian crisis.

Inducing regime change in Iran has long been a foreign policy fantasy among US officials, particularly if the bill could be footed in non-American and non-Israeli lives and suffering. Under Obama, sanctions have become the preferred policy tactic on his oft-cited table of policy options for pressuring Iran on its nuclear program. As was the case with Iraq in the 1990s, there seems to be consensus in the beltway that the astronomical human suffering was, in the words of Madeleine Albright, “worth it.” Despite the fact that the Iranian regime has not ceased uranium enrichment, along with evidence of the harmful effects of the sanctions program, there are factions in the Iranian diaspora that have also taken a pro-sanctions stance. Iranian American advocacy groups have issued statements and reports in support of the sanctions, qualifying their support by saying pressuring the regime through sanctions weakens its power and fuels greater demands for political and social freedoms. Another commonly heard refrain is that the sanctions are actually targeting IRI officials who are converting national monies into personal fortunes, and that the hardships facing the Iranian population is more reflective of decades of economic mismanagement by the regime than of the effect of the sanctions.

While diasporic support for sanctions exists, other Iranian American advocates and organizations have condemned the sanctions for imposing severe hardship on the Iranian people while maintaining a critical stance regarding the IRI. These fissures are productive of cultural politics of solidarity, in which the claim to membership in the Iranian nation is interrogated, as is loyalty to the “Iranian people.” These contests have become more visible as the effects of the sanctions manifest in settings and circumstances that go beyond Iran’s borders. Increasingly, we are seeing the sanctions being invoked at sub-state levels and by private sector actors to target Iranian nationals and US citizens of Iranian origin outside of Iran. As a result, there is a need for a deeper engagement with the movement of the effects of sanctions across borders; such an engagement yields important questions worth investigating on both the growing institutionalization of discrimination and the diasporic politics of solidarity.

Institutionalizing Discrimination

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the governmental body responsible for enforcing and defining the Iran sanctions. Since the Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) of 1996, the sanctions have been targeted towards limiting companies from doing business with Iran or investing in the Iranian energy sector. In 2006, the ILSA was renamed the Iran Sanctions Act, and along with a series of presidential executive orders, the sanctions subsequently have been tightened to include (among other provisions) regulations at the individual level as well. While OFAC has issued clarifications and exemptions to the sanctions, commercial entities are left to their own devices to determine what constitutes violating the sanctions. This has resulted in the de facto outsourcing of enforcement from OFAC to companies to comply with export regulations. In practice, this means that malls and college campuses have become the front lines of US foreign policy, where sales clerks and bank tellers double as export control specialists. Given that Americans’ knowledge of culture, geography, and history has never inspired confidence, it is not surprising that shopping while Iranian is becoming seen as a threat to US national security.

Two recent events highlight how the sanctions are contributing to an institutionalization of transnational discrimination against Iranians and US citizens of Iranian origin. In June 2012, Sahar Sabet—a young woman of Iranian origin (and US citizen)—was not allowed to purchase merchandise at an Apple Store in Alpharetta, Georgia after an employee there overheard her speaking in Persian with her uncle and cited “bad relations” between Iran and the United States as the reason for refusing the sale. While media reports suggested that the iPad was for a family member in Iran, the purchase of the iPad was intended for Sabet’s older sister, a resident of North Carolina. The Apple employee in Alpharetta cited the company policy of not selling or exporting Apple goods to Iran and North Korea, and said that the policy will always be to “not sell to anyone from Iran.” Since this story broke, there have been reports of similar incidents at other Apple Stores.

In December 2012, TCF Bank sent notices to twenty-two Iranian students at the University of Minnesota who had accounts with the bank that their accounts were to be closed without explanation. It should be noted that TCF has a special (if not exclusive) relationship with the University of Minnesota. TCF Bank is the official U Card Bank and the only bank that can connect student U Cards to a checking account. When asked for comment by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a spokesperson for TCF said “nationality had nothing to do with the decision” and “banks have to follow regulations that shut down accounts that appear to be connected with terrorist funding or money laundering.” TCF sent the notice of account closure before collecting any information from the students, in effect suggesting that being Iranian was reason enough to be suspect. Another Iranian student at the University of Minnesota was not permitted to open an account at TCF after the bank teller saw his Iranian passport. Subsequently, TCF has sent detailed questionnaires to the Iranian students, in an attempt to collect evidence after presuming a level of guilt on the part of the students. While TCF is the latest institution to target its Iranian customers, it is not the first. To take another example, TD Bank in Canada has similarly frozen or blocked the accounts of Iranian nationals and Iranian Canadians.

It would not be entirely accurate to say that the sanctions are generating discrimination against Iranian nationals and those of Iranian origin, since discrimination and anti-Iranian sentiment in the United States are not new. More troubling are the ways in which these “new” ways of legal compliance reinforce forms of exclusion that map on to decades-old processes of marginalization of Iranians in the United States. Notably, national origin, political intent, and language are being openly acknowledged by retailers as selection criteria to determine who may or may not use their products and services. Without clearer guidelines and intervention from the federal government, it is clear that the sanctions are being over enforced and used indiscriminately by a growing number of private sector actors in the name of avoiding liability. What remains uncertain is whether this silence by the US government represents a calculated outsourcing of its dirty work to the private sector.

Wither Diasporic Solidarity?

Not surprisingly, these incidents have also generated debate among diasporic Iranians over whether to respond and how. After her ordeal, the nineteen-year-old Sabet (who described her experience as “very hurtful and embarrassing”) advised anyone Iranian not to say anything about Iran or being Iranian in Apple stores, to avoid being refused service. In several conversations with Iranian friends and acquaintances in Atlanta, I heard others angrily voice a desire to educate Apple (and a broader US audience as well) that Iranian Americans should not be subject to such treatment, since they not only oppose the IRI, but because they are also an accomplished, educated, and affluent ethnic community in the United States as well.

Playing up “model minority” attributes may be an understandable impulse in moments of increased public scrutiny and suspicion, but accommodating racist norms that presume all Iranians to be inherently untrustworthy is not an effective strategy to overcome institutional exclusion. One’s citizenship status, language, level of education, religious beliefs, or penchant for identifying as “Persian” over “Iranian” should not be the basis to individually opt out of discrimination. Moreover, meeting such exemptions alone does not refute a larger paradigm of guilt by association, which increasingly confronts Iranian nationals and citizens of Iranian origin alike.

In Minneapolis, the Iranian students at the University of Minnesota have received tepid support and are viewed with some wariness by the local Iranian community in the Twin Cities. Some here have proposed vetting the students to see whether they are affiliates of the IRI before offering their public support to the students. The claim that vetting the students in such a manner is a non-issue—if they have nothing to hide—echoes claims made by US law enforcement officials who defend the use of profiling practices.

It is also indicative of a historical amnesia on the part of those Iranians who have lived in the United States for decades, but somehow have forgotten the history of surveillance and harassment that Iranians in the United States have been subjected to in the past. The Minnesota students are not the first Iranians to come to the United States as international students and have to prove they weren’t Iranian spies as well. Following the hostage crisis of 1979, Jimmy Carter implemented an “Iranian Control Program,” which targeted nearly sixty thousand Iranian students studying in the United States, interrogated them on a case-by-case basis, and ordered the deportation of over three thousand individuals who were found to be out of legal status.

Borrowing from Marx, if such measures were tragic in 1980, then what is happening now is farcical. Those claiming to need proof of innocence of the Iranian students before supporting their right to access their own funds and pursue their education are reproducing this history and unwittingly demonstrating that rights in the United States remains tiered, with different registers and protections available to different groups. What kind of solidarity can be spoken of when it is contingent upon those most affected by the sanctions having to prove their innocence? Why the attendant belief that US citizens of Iranian origin need to act and self-represent in particular ways to be seen and accepted as good Americans? Why validate the view that anyone who happens to be in the United States with an Iranian passport is an extension or affiliate of the Iranian regime? Taking such positions affirm that being Iranian is reason enough to be suspect, and so Iranians have to do more to prove themselves worthy of the right to immigrate, live, bank, shop, and go to school in the United States.

Any “community” is diverse in its political views and in its willingness to speak and be seen in particular ways. Diasporic ambivalence towards the sanctions—and the effects they produce—indicates the contested nature of solidarity among Iranians, as well as ethical and ideological stances that constrain the possibilities of collective action against collective punishment. In this case, “solidarity” has so far amounted to a patronizing declaration of “let’s wait and see,” which justifies the trampling of Iranian international students’ rights and interests in the United States and increasing hardship in Iran in the name of winning “liberty” there. David Cole has mapped this “their liberties our security” argument, in which non-citizens’ rights are seen as expendable in the name of US national interests and security. Introducing and examining the role of diaspora into this idea highlights the complex ways in which Iranians in the US may also serve as key figures in upholding this discourse, which has the dubious distinction of hurting Iranians in Iran and increasingly constraining their own right to equal protection under the law in the United States. Of course, this position may change the next time the educated, affluent (and self-important) US citizen of Iranian origin gets treated like an ”ordinary” Iranian, Arab, or Muslim.

Simplifying solidarity to binaries of pro-US/anti-IRI and pro-IRI/anti-sanctions—and casting the players therein as “good Iranians” versus “bad Iranians”—eliminates alternate meanings and agentive possibilities. Moreover, such binaries render invisible the growing number of voices who critically interrogate indiscriminately punitive US policy towards Iran along with the repression and brutality of the IRI. Thankfully, the Iranian American community speaks with many voices, even if they are not all heard equally.

Posted in Iran, Racism, US-Iran Relations | Leave a comment

Continuing Through Bitter Days

Posted on March 31, 2013 by iPouya

From a former student of mine, Banen Al-Sheemary

Ten years ago today, I remember sitting in front of the television watching the sky turn bright yellow from the massive blasts. Slowly, I turned away from the screen to see my parents’ reaction: absolute silence.

That was the first time I had seen my parents watch the TV news without voicing an opinion. I only saw their sullen silence as they watched their beloved country explode into flames.

My twelve-year-old self had already been indoctrinated with the quintessentially American good guy / bad guy mentality, to which many unfortunately adhere. I struggled to understand the logic behind the invasion of Iraq. Was Iraq a bad country? What had we done wrong? Why is it America’s right to invade and change it? I looked over at my parents again and I could tell their hearts were reeling.

“Believe it. Liberation is coming,” said an arrogant George W. Bush as he spread more war propaganda in his visit to Dearborn, a city in Michigan with the largest Iraqi diaspora community in the United States. All I knew was that the ruthless Saddam Hussein would soon be gone. But what I didn’t know was what would become of Iraq.

Soon I would find the answer: under the guise of cynically named Operation Iraqi “Freedom,” the Iraq I knew would be completely destroyed.

March 20, 2003 marked the day I was able to return to the country from which my family fled as refugees in the early nineties. It was the day “Shock and Awe” began. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer stated that in his thirty years as a journalist, he had never witnessed anything as severe as the attack on Baghdad. With no concern for civilian life, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s genocidal “shock and awe” bombardment on the people of Iraq was America’s quick and easy solution to its imperialist intent for the country.

In an instant, Iraq was forever changed. The Cradle of Civilization was overtaken by incessant chaos, destruction, and death. Now, it is a nation of 4.5 million orphans, 2 million widows, over 4 million refugees, with over half the total population in the country living in slums.

This is the new Iraq.

As the Bush Administration boasted about its murderous accomplishments, all I could see was the rising Iraqi body count. The post-2003 Iraq is not the country my parents longed for.

Barred from returning to Iraq until 2003, I will never know the country in which I was born. I was too young to remember my family fleeing during the first invasion of Iraq. Before we fled, we got rid of all our belongings. My baby pictures were burned to ensure that when Saddam’s thugs checked, there would be no proof of my existence. It was as if my identity was erased, and until March 20th, 2003, I was locked from the this part of my life.

From Operation Desert Storm, to the sanctions of the Clinton Administration and the 2003 occupation, I still couldn’t decipher the US Government’s plans for Iraq. But what I was consistently sure of was the jingoistic attitude that pervaded every American administration and that shaped a foreign policy meant to degrade human life.

Iraq saw treacherous times in the nineties because of the imposition of history’s most comprehensive sanctions to date. Iraq was broken and denied any ability to thrive, even in the most basic of ways. These brutal sanctions led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. My older sister recalls Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine K Albright’s infamous interview in which she was asked if the price of half a million Iraqi children was worth it. She simply said: “We think the price is worth it.”

It was an easy decision for the Clinton Administration to make on behalf of all Iraqis, because Iraq was forced to pay. As young as I was, I understood that people of different religions and backgrounds weren’t treated as equals. The dangerous underlying notion that certain people are more worthy of life than others heavily shapes American foreign policy and is upheld from one administration to the next.

In retrospect, the amount of propaganda that fueled and attempted to legitimize the war is staggering. I recall watching the news and being angry at the distorted images of Iraq and its people. I now understand how the media engineered public opinion to justify the invasion. Maintaining the “us versus them” binary was crucial in validating the administration’s agenda and furthering the so-called War on Terror. Soon enough, I heard my classmates echo these falsities and other absurd made-for-CNN headlines. I’ll hold back on the silly names I’ve been called as a result of this.

Hearing my parents’ stories about Iraq helped me put the pieces together. The story starts in their young adult years.

My parents never experienced Iraq under sanctions. During the seventies and eighties, the country was a powerhouse of academia with a thriving economy. In 1979, an Iraqi dinar was equal to $3.20. Nowadays, an Iraqi dinar is practically worthless. Saddam’s effort to lead in the Arab world led to many positive reforms, especially for women. As was required by the state, my mother enjoyed free transportation to work and a six month fully paid maternity leave. Despite his cruel methods of subjugation and obsession with monopolizing and maintaining power, his push to make Iraq the leader of the Arab world resulted in economic and social reform.

My family resides in southern Iraq and we, amongst others, have been brutally persecuted by Saddam’s party for decades. Many of the conversations I have about post-Saddam Iraq revolve around “Well, Iraq is better now because Saddam is gone and America is there.” However, the sanctions, Saddam’s regime, and the American invasion and occupation all left millions of Iraqis with broken homes, empty fridges and bleak prospects for the future. Whether under totalitarian rule or a foreign occupation, millions of Iraqis are still suffering. The meaningless discussion of which regime Iraq is better under is irrelevant and ought to be put to rest.

Ten years passed. In my University of Michigan classes, discussions about Iraq still revolve around that same foolish debate. The outright denial of the claim that oil played a decisive role in the invasion is still somehow considered a legitimate stance.

It was time for me to return and experience the Iraq of today.

January 2012 marked my first return to Iraq. Before my flight, I sat in the airport reading as the time passed. Hundreds of American soldiers returning from Iraq were received by family and friends, applause, and even a news crew. I shook my head because of what the soldiers represented to me. For many, they symbolize freedom, nobility, and honor. To Iraqis, they are the physical embodiment of terror, supremacism and occupation.

I thought back to the times I was called un-American because of my criticisms of American policies in Iraq and refusal to support the military. I was “crazy” for not supporting the push to remove Saddam from power. Most Americans equated support for the administration’s bombing campaign with patriotism and justice, with a complete disregard for the consequences of war and foreign occupation.

Iraq has become fragmented and pieced. I think of how long it will take to assemble the pieces back together, and to try to bring together those shards of glass that once made a beautiful piece of work.

Nowadays, the occupation dictates every aspect of Iraqi life. The remnants of the brutal invasion manifest themselves on the faces of the people that continue to live and struggle there everyday. Suicide and car bombings, fighting between armed militias, kidnappings, and snipers result in a feeling of despair and no sense of security. Simple everyday tasks like walking to a local market or sending children off to school became impossible.

On my first day back in Iraq, massive explosions rocked Baghdad. I was awakened to the realities of this so-called newly democratic country. Both the Iraqi and American governments promised many things for the people, like building a sewage system. They could not even fulfill this basic necessity.  Inadequate water resources have caused massive death and disease in several cities. The two-hour electricity limit halts any work that needs to be done for the day. Birth defects will continue for decades because of the depleted uranium weaponry used by American soldiers.

This was Iraq.

“The war in Iraq will soon belong to history” stated Barack Obama, in an address marking the supposed end of the occupation of Iraq. America will remember it as history, but Iraqis live through it every day.

I shy away from reading articles on the commemoration of the invasion of Iraq, written by journalists who don’t understand. I become frustrated and always stop after reading just the headline. I laugh at every mention of the ‘lessons to be learned’ so that America can move forward. Iraq is stuck in a phase of sorrow, but we as Americans must learn from the occupation? I watch as oil companies, “defense contractors,” and corrupt government leaders profit off of an occupation that cut Iraq from any lifeline it had. The fortress called the U.S. embassy, staffed by thousands of foreign soldiers, stands as a permanent reminder of the occupation. America is able to move forward and rebuild its economy, but Iraq and its people must endure the harsh realities of the unwelcoming decades to come.

A lesson to learn from Iraqis is one of human dignity and perseverance through trying times. Have we learned? In a new documentary covering Dick Cheney’s legacy, he mentions, “If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.” And today, mainstream media outlets and the government aggressively continue to build a case against Iran, eerily reminiscent of what we saw ten years ago.

We will never learn until they stop seeing people and countries as strategic plans, as means to an end, as valueless unknowns.

My first visit to Iraq was in 2012, because the occupation had made it too dangerous to travel there in earlier years. One afternoon, my uncle and I drove through Hilla. I forced him to speak about the occupation. After an hour of hearing horrendous stories of crimes committed by American soldiers, he tiredly says, “We are nothing to them. To America, we are simply strategic. Through their eyes, our lives aren’t worth anything.” That was the end of the conversation.

I noticed that Iraqis never speak of the occupation. It was like a faint, unthinkable memory. I sensed that Iraqis have perseverance built within them because of the decades of unrest that they have lived through; they keep on living every day as they can. These are the Iraqis that are reconstructing what is rightfully theirs.

Everyday Iraqis have been partaking in reconstructing Iraq after a destructive occupation in which they were robbed of their agency, future and country. Iraqis create and expand projects as the current government continues to neglect the citizen’s needs. Upper class Iraqi citizens and expatriates living in the West play a role in funding these projects. Many social service facilities are being rebuilt, with a focus on widows, orphans, the elderly, and disabled.  Whether it is building bridges or starting up a water filter company, these projects are opening doorways for job opportunities and steadily decreasing unemployment rates. Despite the lack of security and political and economic turmoil, the hardships that Iraqis face are slowly easing and will be ultimately resolved by the resilient Iraqis that continue to resist and struggle for a better life. Iraqis are forging a path of their own to recreate their Iraq: one away from the government’s corrupted plans and free from the American occupation’s stifling grasp.

Ten long and painful years have passed. The orphan Mustafa from Baghdad says “I feel like a bird in a cage here. I wish there was someone to listen to us.”

Iraqis are listening. I see the same resilience and perseverance in Iraqis that I see in my parents. Years will pass before Iraq will prosper, but I see a future for Iraq because of the millions who are working for it.

When I visit Iraq I smile and blink the tears away. The anger from my heart dissipates when I see shops open for business, human rights organizations assisting widows and orphans, and college students organizing an event for Iraqis. It will come together. Justice and progress will flourish because the people demand it- and they will succeed. This is Iraq.

About the Author:

Banen Al-Sheemary is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan. She majored in History and Arabic. Banen and her family fled Iraq during the first invasion of Iraq. They settled in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia for years. Her goal is to raise awareness about the numerous challenges Iraqis face as a result of the occupation. Follow Banen @balsheem.
Posted in 22 Khordad | Leave a comment

The Syrian “Jihad” Part 3: Tunisian Architect Turned Jihadist Talks of Holy War in Syria

Posted on March 26, 2013 by iPouya

France24: Abou Ayman is a young Tunisian architect who left everything behind to wage holy war thousands of kilometers from his home. He is one of several thousand foreign jihadists currently fighting against the Syrian regime.

Syria’s best-known rebels, those who belong to the Free Syrian Army, say they are fighting with one sole objective: to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. In contrast, jihadist rebel groups — most notoriously, Jabhat al-Nusra — are fighting in the name of Islam, and their ranks are swelling.

As an example of their growing influence, one need look no further than the videos paying tribute to the “muhajirins” (foreign jihadists) that died in Syria. These videos, in which Islamic fighters openly discuss their goals, have been making the rounds on social networks.

At the start of the revolution, the Syrian regime played the religion card, condemning Islamist “terrorists” that were trying to destabilize Syria. These claims were baseless in the beginning, when the rebellion was still peaceful. However, jihadists quickly came into the picture as the conflict became more violent — and as the conflict continues to drag on, Free Syrian Army rebels are increasingly fighting alongside jihadist groups.

The first foreign jihadists to fight in Syria arrived with combat experience from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, and even the Caucasus — experience that the Syrian rebels otherwise sorely lacked. However, this is no longer the case: many of the new jihadists arriving in Syria are as inexperienced in the realities of war as the rebels used to be.

Abou Ayman was an architect in Tunisia. He was recruited by the Ansar al-Sharia fighting unit, closely linked with the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which the United States considers to be a terrorist organisation.

Our first goal was just to help out, not necessarily by using weapons. We were ready to babysit, help old people, cook, set up tents, etc.

Once on the ground, we very rapidly made contact with Syrian rebels returning [to Jordan] to visit their families. After a lengthy discussion, they accepted to introduce us to people who would help us enter Syria. At this point, the most serious threat came from the Jordanian intelligence agency, given that we were very conspicuous due to our foreign accent and many other details that betrayed our Tunisian nationality.

Crossing the border was not difficult, but once in Syria, we had to split up. Now, each of us is fighting with a different group in different areas of the country. I’ve come quite far since crossing the border. I am now fighting on the front lines in Damascus region. But I am keeping in touch with my travel companions in various ways, which I cannot talk about.

After having left everything behind in my country, my only desire is to see the rebellion succeed. Once this victory takes place, my duty will have been fulfilled and I can return to my family and my old life.

Mohamed is the head of the Ansar al-Sharia unit.

“

In my unit, which consists of about 300 men, there are many foreigners, and we welcome them with open arms.
For us, the term “foreigner” is not adequate, because we believe that all Muslims are brothers in Islam. The “muhajirins” are the most pious and motivated. Even though they weren’t forced to, they left behind their possessions and families to come fight by our sides. So they are even more deserving of admiration than the sons of Syria, who are fighting for their families and their land.
Some sold everything they had to pay for the cost of the trip and, once here, they often provide financial support for the war effort [purchase of weapons, ammunition, and food for fighters, etc.] or to help the Syrian population.
In my unit, there are several people of several different nationalities: Tunisians, Kosovars, and Chechens. We fight shoulder to shoulder with a unit that includes Americans, Frenchmen, Malysians, Romanians, etc.

I recently had tea with a French fighter. This man, who is over the age of 50, is not of Arab origin —he is a white man who converted to Islam and chose to come fight with us against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”
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Cristiano Ronaldo ‘Snubs Israel Shirt Swap to Support Palestine’

Posted on March 26, 2013 by iPouya

What clarity of thought, what a statement, what a Muhammad Ali-esque move! Bravo, Ronaldo! Read about it here.

Posted in Palestine | 1 Comment

Happy Nowruz to you all!

Posted on March 20, 2013 by iPouya

To mark the festive occasion, I’d like to share this awesome video with you… a classic never dies! The header above is a spectacular image of Chaharshanbeh Soori festivities in Iran.

Posted in Iran | 1 Comment

The Shifting Discourse on Palestine in the U.S.

Posted on March 18, 2013 by iPouya

This video makes me hopeful.

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Thomas Friedman on the 10 Year Anniversary of the Iraq War

Posted on March 18, 2013 by iPouya

Look at this gerbil speak. He still thinks that Iraq was linked to 9/11. Didn’t this myth get shattered long ago? Did I miss something?

Posted in 22 Khordad | Leave a comment

12 Iranians, 12 Opinions, 1 Stance

Posted on March 18, 2013 by iPouya

“We might disagree on a lot of things, but we are all opposed to blind and broad sanctions on Iran.” See the video here.

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Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’

Posted on March 16, 2013 by iPouya

I wonder if right-wing Iranian-Americans know about such a disturbing tragedy when they advocate for war or strikes on Iran: The Independent – Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened”.

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. “During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city,” recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: “My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.”

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality. Hitherto the Iraqi government has been loath to respond to complaints from civilians about damage to their health during military operations.

Researchers were initially regarded with some suspicion by locals, particularly after a Baghdad television station broadcast a report saying a survey was being carried out by terrorists and anybody conducting it or answering questions would be arrested. Those organising the survey subsequently arranged to be accompanied by a person of standing in the community to allay suspicions.

The study, entitled “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009″, is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are “similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout”.

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

The US cut back on its use of firepower in Iraq from 2007 because of the anger it provoked among civilians. But at the same time there has been a decline in healthcare and sanitary conditions in Iraq since 2003. The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004. War damage was only slowly repaired and people from the city were frightened to go to hospitals in Baghdad because of military checkpoints on the road into the capital.

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The Syrian “Jihad” Part 2: Saudi Youth Fighting Against Assad Regime in Syria

Posted on March 14, 2013 by iPouya

What a miserable state of affairs. The Syrian Uprising had such hope and promise. Now look at it, it’s turning into a Salafi Jihad (in part).  Part of the blame must be leveled at the Syrian regime. Had the regime avoided using lethal force to deal with what was certainly a peaceful uprising, there wouldn’t be such a call to arms.  Another part of the blame must be leveled at the Persian Gulf states, specifically the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which are funding and arming the most fanatic of the armed groups. The Global Post: Following a circuitous route from here up through Turkey or Jordan and then crossing a lawless border, hundreds of young Saudis are secretly making their way into Syria to join extremist groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, GlobalPost has learned.

With the tacit approval from the House of Saud, and financial support from wealthy Saudi elites, the young men take up arms in what Saudi clerics have called a “jihad,” or “holy war” against the Assad regime.

Based on a month of reporting in the region and in Washington, over a dozen sources have confirmed that wealthy Saudis, as well as the government, are arming some Syrian rebel groups. Saudi and Syrian sources confirm that hundreds of Saudis are joining the rebels, but the government denies any sponsoring role.

The Saudis are part of an inflow of Sunni fighters from Libya, Tunisia, and Jordan, according to Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.

“Most of the foreigners are fighting with al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham,” both extremist groups, Zelin said.

Sunni extremist fighters are now part of a vicious civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people and created more than a million refugees. The fighters are also part of a larger struggle in a region in which opportunistic leaders stoke the age-old rift between the Sunni and Shia in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia itself.

The Saudis hope to weaken their regional competitor Iran, a Shia theocracy that is backing Assad. Saudi officials also hope to divert simmering political unrest at home by encouraging young protesters to instead fight in Syria, according to Saudi government critics.

The government seeks to “diffuse domestic pressure by recruiting young kids to join in another proxy war in the region,” said Mohammad Fahd al-Qahtani, a human rights activist and economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Riyadh. They are joining ultraconservative groups who “definitely are against democracy and human rights. The ramifications could be quite serious in the whole region.”

In one documented case, a Saudi judge encouraged young anti-government protesters to fight in Syria rather than face punishment at home. Twenty-two year old Mohammed al-Talq was arrested and found guilty of participating in a demonstration in the north-central Saudi city of Buraidah.

After giving 19 young men suspended sentences, the judge called the defendants into his private chambers and gave them a long lecture about the need to fight Shia Muslims in Syria, according to Mohammed’s father, Abdurrahman al-Talq.

“You should save all your energy and fight against the real enemy, the Shia, and not fight inside Saudi Arabia,” said the father, quoting the judge. “The judge gave them a reason to go to Syria.”

Within weeks, 11 of the 19 protesters left to join the rebels. In December 2012, Mohammed al-Talq was killed in Syria. His father filed a formal complaint against the judge late last year, but said he has received no response.

Saudi Arabia shares no border with Syria, so young fighters such as Mohammad must travel through Turkey or Jordan.

Those without criminal records can fly as tourists to Istanbul. Those convicted of crimes or on government watch lists cannot travel without official Ministry of Interior permission. Critics say the government allows such militants to depart with a wink and a nod. Then they sneak across the Jordanian border into southern Syria.

The young militants are sometimes funded by rich Saudis. They acquire black market AK-47s and cross at night along the now porous Syrian borders, according to a local journalist.

Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym of an exiled Syrian journalist who regularly reports from inside the country, has carefully observed the flow of the Saudi fighters to Syria. He told GlobalPost that groups of 3-5 Saudis often join Jabhat al-Nusra, a prominent rebel faction the United States says has links to Al Qaeda.

Al-Nusra went public in February 2012 after taking credit for several major bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. Its reputation as one

of the most effective fighting groups, as well as its efforts to provide aid to average Syrians, has won over some in the opposition.

Many Syrians “like the fact that Saudis come with a lot of money,” Hamwi said. “Civil society activists do not like foreign fighters. They think they will cause more trouble.”

The term “civil society activists” refers to the largely secular, progressive Syrians who led the initial stage of the Syrian uprising but who have since been eclipsed by the armed militias.

Saudi officials deny that the government encourages youth to fight in Syria. They point to a religious decree (fatwa) issued by Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh. He urged youth not to fight in Syria, noting that aid to rebels should be sent through “regular channels.”

But Saudi authorities also admit they have no control over people who legally leave the country and later join the rebels.

Fighting with the rebels in Syria is illegal, declared Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior. “Anybody who wants to travel outside Saudi Arabia in order to get involved in such conflict will be arrested and prosecuted,” he said. “But only if we have the evidence before he leaves the country.”

That position gives the Saudi government plausible deniability, according to Randa Slim, a scholar with the Middle East Institute in Washington. The Saudi government purges the country of young troublemakers while undermining a hostile neighbor, she said. “In the name of a good cause, they are getting rid of a problem.”

Human rights activist al-Qahtani called the Saudi stand a “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.” Saudi authorities have a strategic goal in Syria, he said.

“Their ultimate policy is to have a regime change similar to what happened in Yemen, where they lose the head of state and substitute it with one more friendly to the Saudis,” al-Qahtani said. “But Syria is quite different. It will never happen that way.”

Last week, a Saudi Court sentenced al-Qahtani to 10 years in prison for sedition and providing false information to foreign media. Human rights groups immediately defended al-Qahtani, saying he is being persecuted for his political views and human rights work.

Meanwhile, evidence mounts that Saudis are pouring into Syria.

Last year a close friend of Abdulaziz Alghufili bought a Kalashnikov rifle and slipped into Syria to join an extremist militia fighting the Assad regime. “My friend is putting his life at risk,” said Alghufili, an electrical engineer not involved in his friend’s activities.

So far his friend remains alive. But dozens of Facebook pages and Twitter feeds document the deaths of other Saudis not so fortunate. Almost all joined the al-Nusra Front.

“Most people going there don’t think they will come back,” Alghufili said. “They will fight to die or win freedom.”

The Muslim Brotherhood maintains the most support among rebel fighters, but has recently met strong competition from extremists, including al-Nusra, which supports the establishment of an Islamist state and a harsh version of Sharia law in Syria.

Al-Qahtani argues that Saudi support for al-Nusra resembles their aid to the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then Osama bin Laden was a scion of a Saudi construction magnate who transferred his inherited wealth out of Saudi Arabia and into what came to be called “The Base,” English for Al Qaeda. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia encouraged the flow of Arab fighters and arms to the Afghans, part of a proxy war against the Soviets.

Saudi authorities set up networks to support the mujahedeen. “They recruited kids to fight there,” al-Qahtani said. “They financed them and provided them with [airplane] tickets.”

In the 1980s, the CIA and Saudis backed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ultraconservative Islamic extremist because his group was the best organized and most anti-communist, although it lacked popular support. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Hekmatyar switched sides and today is fighting the United States and NATO.

The Saudi government faced a similar problem with its former clients. When the Soviet backed regime fell and the fighters returned to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, some engaged in terrorist bombings and assassinations in an unsuccessful effort to overthrow the government. A nascent form of Al Qaeda began to take shape, metastasizing throughout the region and eventually lining up against the Saudi and US governments.

Al-Qahtani notes that the current support for Syrian rebels falls well below the massive effort in Afghanistan, in part because the Obama administration has tamped down Saudi efforts, worried about the growth of extremist groups.

Some US officials and analysts argue that the Saudi government doesn’t arm extremist groups at all, having been chastened by the Afghan experience. According to their view, the Saudi government and al-Nusra ideologically oppose one another and compete for the same, conservative political base in the region.

A State Department official described Saudi Arabia as an opponent of Syrian extremist groups. “The Saudi government and Arab League share the same concerns about Nusra,” he said. “Nobody wants instability.”

The Washington Institute’s Zelin agrees.

“All the funding for such groups comes from private sources,” Zelin said. “The Saudis learned the lessons of Afghanistan in 1980s.”

The Middle East Institute’s Slim sees truth in both arguments.

The Saudi royal family certainly doesn’t want a repeat of terrorist fighting on its own soil, nor does it want to anger its chief ally, the United States, Slim said.

“To avoid US ire, they can have individuals fund al-Nusra while the government funds groups vetted by the US,” she said. ”The Saudis are outsourcing the fight.”

Officially, the Obama administration offers political support to the Syrian rebels and provides only “humanitarian” aid in the form of communications equipment, food and medical supplies. The British provide humanitarian supplies that may include body armor and night vision goggles.

But the CIA has also facilitated covert military aid since at least the middle of 2012. The CIA sent operatives to southern Turkey to vet various factions of the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group encompassing most of the local militias fighting Assad. Those fighters who passed muster received arms from Saudi Arabia and the gulf emirate of Qatar, according to the New York Times.

In May 2012, a Saudi- and Qatar-financed shipment of small arms landed in Turkey and was trucked to the Syrian border without interference from Turkish authorities. The shipment included AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and small-caliber machine guns. In 2013, CIA sources admitted that the agency is training Syria rebels in Jordan.

The US initially helped supply militias led by the Muslim Brotherhood, but later soured on the Brotherhood and sought to arm other groups more in agreement with US policy, according to Brotherhood leaders.

Officially, the Obama administration is proceeding cautiously to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of extremist groups like al-Nusra. Syrian opposition leaders say, in reality, the United States is being parsimonious with aid because it hasn’t found rebel leaders it can trust.

“The Americans haven’t supported the revolution strongly enough because they are still looking for someone who can ensure their interests in the future,” Omar Mushaweh, a spokesman for Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood living in Istanbul, said last year.

The activities of Saudi Arabia — along with Turkey, Qatar, Iran and the United States — have significantly complicated the Syrian civil war, according to Saudi human rights activists.

“The people of Syria want their revolution to be as clean as possible,” al-Qahtani said. “Once foreigners are involved, it could lead to the situation of Afghanistan. It could give an excuse for the Syrian regime that it is foreigners who are fighting, which is a wrong policy.”

Posted in Saudi Arabia, Syria | 2 Comments

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticised for hugging mother of Hugo Chavez

Posted on March 11, 2013 by iPouya

There is a tremendous amount of controversy regarding this little news story (posted below).  Some Iranians are convinced that it was photoshopped in order to embarrass Ahmadinejad. I do not think it was altered whatsoever. Others have rightly criticized him for expressing such emotions in ’13 when he condemned those dying on the streets in ’09. The conservative clerics in Iran have exploited this image in order to condemn Ahmadinejad.  What petty politics. The Telegraph – The Iranian president’s domestic opponents reacted furiously after photos emerged of him giving Elena Frias de Chavez, 78, a consoling hug at last Friday’s funeral in Caracas – at which he also kissed Mr Chavez’s coffin.

Religious conservatives said the act insulted Iran’s religious dignity and amounted to “haram” – a term used to describe a religiously forbidden act under Islamic rules.

Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, the Friday prayer leader of Iran’s second city, Isfahan, told Mehr news agency that Mr Ahmadinejad had “lost control”.

He added: “Shaking hands with a non-mahram (unrelated by family) woman, under any circumstances, whether young or old, is not allowed. Hugging or expressing emotions is improper for the dignity of the president of a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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