…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Bahrain: Letter Calling for Pardon of Human Rights Defender Nabeel Rajab
10 November, 2103 – Front Line Defenders

On 8 November 2013, Front Line Defenders sent a letter to the King of Bahrain Shaikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa calling for the pardon of human rights defender Nabeel Rajab; who has been imprisoned since May 2012 after being convicted on charges of inciting illegal gatherings. Nabeel Rajab is currently awaiting a response to his application for pardon.

The human rights defender is the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. He is one of the most prominent human rights defenders in the Middle East and has been a leading voice in the Arab Spring in Bahrain. He has faced physical intimidation, arrest, detention and travel bans as a result of his work.

In its letter Front Line Defenders requests that the Bahraini government grant Nabeel Rajab access to his basic right to benefit from the Law for Pardons. Under the existing provisions, pardons are available to persons imprisoned for misdemeanours. So long as a prisoner’s conduct is satisfactory, he or she may apply for a pardon after completion of 75% of their sentence.

Nabeel Rajab’s lawyer has formally applied for a pardon but has yet to receive a decision from the judge. If a pardon were to be granted, Nabeel Rajab would be released from prison on 29 November 2013. …source

Bahrain’s October 2013: more than 1253 violations
10 November, 2013 – Al Wefaq

The Liberties and Human Rights Unit in Al Wefaq National Islamic Society has documented more than 1253 violations perpetrated by the Bahraini Authority, through its security and military forces, in October 2013.

The number of total arrests in October reached 151, 142 of which were men and of which were children*. Most arrests took place during home raids and which summed up to 79, while arrests from streets reached 39.

102 detainees were released during October, however, only 31 of whom were of the 151 arrested in the same month.

…source

BCHR: Authorities promoting sectarian tensions by targeting Shia during Ashoura
10 November, 2013 – Shia Post

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights and the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights express grave concern in regards to the targeted attacks on Shia Muslims in Bahrain by security forces during the religious period of Ashoura.

Since the beginning of the Islamic month of Muharram, security forces have led provocative attacks on several Shia Muslim neighborhoods in Bahrain. Pictures and videos show them taking down religious flags and banners that were placed earlier on homes and religious centers as part of the annual season for Shia Muslims commemorating the “martyrdom of Imam Hussain”, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

On 4 Nov 2013, riot police attacked a group of people participating in a religious procession in Maameer, which have taken place in Bahrain for decades. The riot police used excessive tear gas against dozens of people that included elderly citizens and children. People of all ages participate in these processions given that they do not expect to be attacked as they are not political protests.

On 7 Nov 2013, riot police stormed a religious center “Matam” in Aali without presenting any warrant. On the same day, security forces took down flags and destroyed religious banners in Tubli and Sanad.

On 8 Nov 2013, riot police fired tear gas in Nuwaidrat on people who tried to stop the security forces from taking down the religious banners in their neighborhood.

Furthermore, several citizens received police summons without a name specified on the summon, stating only “for the house’s owner”, due to placing Ashoura flags or banners on their own homes.

Additionally, the Government of Bahrain blocked a website which does live broadcasts of the religious events of Ashoura from over 30 areas in Bahrain http://matam.tv

The BCHR and BYSHR regard the above mentioned targeting and attacks as violations of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and a practice of discrimination against Shia’s with the intent to further cause a sectarian split in the society and push towards to sectarian violence.

These practices are not new and the BCHR had documented similar attacks in the past (Nov 2012 reporthttp://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/5502), however due to the culture of impunity, and the policy of discrimination, the harassment against Shia Muslims continues through judicial means.

The BCHR and BYSHR respectfully reminds the Government of Bahrain of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.

Maryam Al-Khawaja, the Acting President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said: “All sects and religions must be respected in Bahrain; that includes religious events. The Government of Bahrain is trying to purposely instigate a violent response from Shia Muslims by targeting them during an important religious period; and we have previously warned of the consequences of pushing people towards sectarian animosity. Allies of the Government of Bahrain must apply pressure for the immediate halting of sectarian based targeting; and promote respect for all religions and sects equally.”

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights calls on the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations and other allies and international institutions to pressure the Bahraini authorities to:

1. Immediately end the systematic attacks on religious liberties.

2. Immediately stop all forms of sectarian attacks and/or promotion of sectarian tensions/violence.

3. Immediately investigate and hold accountable those who gave orders, overlooked and/or carried out attacks on religious liberties.

4. Guarantee freedom of religion to all religions and sects in Bahrain.

…source

Regarding the Geneva Civilian Convention: …As explained below, there are several allegations and recognitions with respect to the denial of food, the denial of medicine and medical supplies, and the denial of freedom from arbitrary and inhumane detention and controls… Moreover, if specific intent to commit these types of denials is shown, the denials can even constitute international crimes of genocide….

Amnesty urges treatment of jailed Bahraini activist
10 Novmebr, 2013 – PressTV

A human rights group has called for “specialized medical treatment” for one of Bahrain’s leading jailed activists as the Al Khalifa regime continues its crackdown on protesters.

Amnesty International said in a statement that Abdelwahab Hussain has been denied much-needed medical treatment for his chronic diseases.

The 59-year-oil prisoner “needs urgent access to specialized medical treatment. His health condition has deteriorated and his family’s last scheduled visit to the prison was cancelled without explanation,” the London-based rights group said.

In June 2011, a military court sentenced Hussain and 12 other opposition figures to life imprisonment on the charge of plotting to topple Al Khalifa regime and change the constitution.

Amnesty also urged Bahraini authorities to “release all 13 opposition activists immediately and unconditionally, since they are prisoners of conscience, convicted solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.”

Meanwhile, another rights group, Front Line Defenders, has requested that King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa pardon the head of Bahrain’s Center for Human rights, Nebeel Rajab.

Known for being a vocal critic of the regime, Rajab began serving a three-year sentence May last year.

He was convicted of inciting anti-government demonstrations and sharing online posts against the country’s long-time prime minister.

The Manama regime is under fire for its heavy-handed crackdown on protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since a popular uprising began in Bahrain in early 2011. …source

Bahrain: Special Investigations Unit Makes Claims to False Achievements and Colludes to Extract Revenge On Political Prisoners, Prisoners of Conscience
16 September, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses dissatisfaction over the Bahraini authorities continued avoidance to comply with the recommendations which aim to limit human rights violations. Many official institutions were established which propose to value the protection of human rights, while in reality they follow the government’s official policy of impunity and discrimination. The BCHR has monitored the performance of the Special Investigations Unit at the Public Prosecution over the course of a year and a half, and concluded that this unit is only one of the many attempts of the Bahraini regime to present the image of reforms, while acting as a tool to punish political prisoners and prisoners of conscience for their peaceful activism.

The Special Investigations Unit was established on February 28, 2012 after an order from Attorney-General Ali AlBuainain to establish a specialized unit at the Public Prosecution for the investigation of torture crimes, abuse and ill-treatment that may have been committed by government officials. Specifically, this unit is designed to investigate into the facts arising from the events in 2011 during the three month state of emergency declared by the government, and which are included in the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), as well as any facts or other issues decided by the Attorney-General to be referred to the Special Investigations Unit.

The establishment of this Unit came as an implementation to recommendation No. 1716 of the BICI report, which stated “To establish a national independent and impartial mechanism to determine the accountability of those in government who have committed unlawful or negligent acts resulting in the deaths, torture and mistreatment of civilians with a view to bringing legal and disciplinary action against such individuals, including those in the chain of command, military and civilian, who are found to be responsible under international standards of “superior responsibility”.

However, what is witnessed on the ground in Bahrain is quite different from the recommendation. The unit is headed by the Chief Prosecutor, and there is no mechanism in which the use of the independent experts to conduct investigations is compulsory, which stands in violation to the very essence of the recommendation, particularly as the involvement of the Public Prosecution itself in the abuse of detainees during the investigation period has been documented. In the investigation cases referred to the unit, some of the cases were documented while others were suspended, and many resulted in the acquittal of those involved in torture as occured in the case of doctors lawsuit against Mubarak bin Huwail and Noora AlKhalifa. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) believes that the formation of this Unit was primarily intended to stop international human rights pressure on the government, while the reality shows a deliberate avoidance of real reforms that are at the heart of the recommendation.

The torture allegations has always been one of the most important and concerning issues regarding human rights in Bahrain. These allegations have been documented by well-respected human rights organizations in their statements and reports, including Human Rights Watch, which issued in February 2010, a detailed report entitled “Torture Redux: the Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain,” The report was based on interviews with former detainees in addition to forensic reports and the courts which proved that the officials has practiced torture in an attempt to extract confessions from suspects in security cases. This report, considered along with the recommendations made in the report of the BICI constitutes clear evidence on the existence of practices of ill-treatment and torture. There is also evidence that responsibility lies throughout the chain of command, those individuals must be held accountable while victims are provided with compensation; these points are a test of the will of the authorities in working towards true reconciliation, but the government of Bahrain continues to ignore the claims of torture while torturers are set free to continue practicing violations against citizens voicing their opposition to the government. The King of Bahrain is therefore responsible for the outbreak of the policy of impunity and the protection of violators.

The BCHR believes the lack of accountability of the torturers whom were mentioned by name in the report from Human Rights Watch, is what prompted the continuation of the practice of torture as a means to extract confessions in the absence of an accounting policy and legal accountability. The number of victims that have suffered from this policy has doubled since February 2011. The former head of the National Security Khalifa bin Abdullah Al Khalifa and the current Minister of the Interior Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, amongst others, are senior officials who have not been held accountable for the serious allegations against them, and in some cases senior officials have been promoted within the government instead of facing trial.

Mubarak bin Huwail was facing a lawsuit regarding the torture of medical staff and others. He was visited in his home by Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and was informed that the law cannot be applied to him similarly to how it can not be applied to the royal family. Such statements make the presence of institutions such as the Special Investigations Unit at the Public Prosecution a clearly powerless institution, which functions to serve the system by which it was established.

The Complicity of the Public Prosecutors in Covering up the Torture Crimes

Detainees and activists have filed complaints over the years against the collusion between the Prosecutors and the Criminal Investigations Unit in concealing crimes committed by the authorities, and in particular of the torture practices. The interrogation of the detainees in the majority of cases are conducted at dawn and without the presence of their lawyers, leaving the detainees under great pressure to confess to charges they did not commit. In some cases, the Public Prosecutor has ignored allegations documented the testimonies of the detainees about torture or documentation that shows clear marks of torture on the bodies of the detainees. Many of those whom were detained and tortured refrained from filing a complaint against their torturers either in fear of being subjected to torture again or due to the lack of confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the judiciary in Bahrain, particularly in light of widespread policy of impunity and the acquittal of the torturers. …source

France wrecks P5+1 deal for Arab money
10 November, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

The French deal-breaking intervention at the P5+1 negotiation with Iran may have been motivated by France wanting to ingratiate itself with the Persian Gulf monarchies for strategic economic reasons.

Negotiations to resolve the nuclear deadlock and lift economic sanctions on Iran appeared to be near a breakthrough agreement after three days of talks in the Swiss capital, Geneva, over the weekend.

The hasty arrival of US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany raised expectations that a potential deal was in the offing. But it was the French diplomat, Laurent Fabius, who threw a spanner in the works at the last-minute.

Fabius invoked “security concerns of Israel” and announced that his country was not going to sign a draft agreement. The French intervention appeared to catch participants by surprise.

An unnamed Western diplomat told Reuters, “The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively for months on this proposal and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations.”

However, contrary to Fabius’ words and speculation by some analysts, the French motive seem less about appeasing Israel and France’s formidable Jewish lobby, and more to do with pandering to the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Israeli opposition to any deal with Iran over the 10-year nuclear dispute is, of course, obvious. On the eve of the latest talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was almost apoplectic in urging Western states to reject “a deal of the century for Iran.”

Equally as disconcerted about a possible accord were the Wahhabi monarchies led by Saudi Arabia, which view Shia Iran as an archenemy for influence in the Middle East. Only days before the latest round of P5+1 talks in Geneva, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal told the Washington Post in an interview that his country was opposed to lifting sanctions on Iran.

One of the most striking political developments in recent months is the alignment of Israel with the House of Saud and the other Persian Gulf Arab regimes in terms of foreign policy objectives and adversity towards Iran.

Another salient development has been the strategic economic cooperation between France and the Persian Gulf oil kingdoms. Major sectors of interest include energy, water and electrical infrastructure, construction and weapons sales.

The French government has been embarking on an aggressive bilateral investment drive with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

In April this year, Paris hosted a Saudi-French Business Opportunities Forum attended by 500 businessmen from both countries.

French ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Bertrand Besancenot, said, “Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner of France in the region and the bilateral relationship is of paramount importance in the economic field,” pointing out that bilateral trade has doubled over the last five years.

In July, French company Veolia won a $500 million contract to build and operate water desalination plants in Saudi Arabia. That contract is reckoned to be the biggest of its kind in the Middle East, and from the French point of view, it is a model for the future, given that water and electricity infrastructure right across the Persian Gulf oil kingdoms is a vital development need for decades to come. …more

Abbas Abdulnabi Marhoon, 19 years-old, is suffering from severe injuries after he was shot with a tear gas canister in the head on the 16th of October 2013. Witnesses reported that Marhoon was shot directly at the head and was taken, unconscious, to a nearby medical center: the Hamad Kanoo health center. Due to the seriousness of his injuries, Marhoon was transferred to the operation room in the Bahrain Defense Force Hospital. He was shot near the brain and eye, which caused him to suffer from fracture in his skull, serious bleeding, and he is currently being closely monitored.

As Marhoon struggling for his life, recently leaked documents from Bahrain Watch show that the authorities in Bahrain have made plans to import a massive shipment of tear gas canisters from Korea. It was one such canister that Marhoon was injured with, and the police have been documented in many videos using these weapons illegally. …more

When a Defiant President Refuses to Go Away

Putting Egypt’s Coup on Trial
by ESAM AL-AMIN – 8 November, 2013 – Counter Punch

When Egypt’s Defense Minister, General Abdelfattah El-Sisi, deposed President Muhammad Morsi in a military coup depicted as a popular revolt, on July 3, coup leaders were confident that Morsi and his supporters, led by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), would quickly capitulate and recognize the new reality.

Within hours of the coup, hundreds of MB and other anti-coup leaders and popular public figures were rounded up, as most TV and satellite channels deemed to be anti-coup or simply critical of the army’s brazen intervention, were swiftly banned and closed down. At the time, Sisi claimed that he had intervened in order to prevent an impending civil war, and he promised security, stability, and prosperity. But it seems that the generals and their enablers have badly miscalculated. Four months into the bloody coup, Egypt’s deep and unprecedented crisis keeps growing.

It’s a fact that millions of Egyptians initially supported the military intervention in order to overthrow Morsi and the MB and genuinely detested the group or were exasperated with the deteriorating security and economic conditions in the country. However, as I explained in a previous article much of the opposition against Morsi was co-opted by the remnants of the old Mubarak regime and the deep state (the complex web that ruled Egypt for six decades, which comprised of various corrupt but powerful elements within the military, intelligence services, security apparatus, oligarchs, media, judiciary, and state bureaucracy).

Yet, contrary to the image Morsi tried to cultivate during his one-year rule, he was really never able to scratch the surface of, let alone dismantle or control, these powerful and entrenched state institutions, which in reality never recognized his authority. Since then, more evidence has emerged to buttress this fact including footage of a high-ranking police officer admitting before his comrades that the police and army had been planning to overthrow Morsi weeks before the coup. In another audio post a former leader of Tamarrud – the youth movement that suddenly burst into the political scene calling for popular demonstrations and overthrow of Morsi on June 30- regretted his involvement and exposed the surreptitious relationship between his group and pro-Mubarak state security officers.

Since then, millions of other Egyptians have taken to the streets in major demonstrations throughout Egypt on a daily basis, in defiance of the state of emergency imposed by the coup government. The demonstrations call for the restoration of the country’s nascent democracy while demanding the return of the first democratically-elected civilian president, the reinstatement of the parliament banned by the coup, and the restoration of the suspended constitution that was ratified two to one just six months earlier.

The Coup Fails to Subdue its Opponents

But the scheme enacted by Gen. Sisi and his cohorts in order to legitimize their coup and take control of the country hinged on their ability to subdue the opposition and the population, and it rested on three main assumptions. First, Sisi believed that Morsi would quickly follow in the footsteps of Mubarak and resign voluntarily or under pressure. Morsi was essentially kidnapped by the army, kept in isolation, and detained in a hidden location for weeks in an attempt to pressure him to accept the new reality and give up his claim to the presidency.

Nevertheless, Morsi stubbornly rejected all such attempts, insisting that he was the legitimately-elected president and demanding to be restored to his position. Even when the military-backed government resorted to outside mediators, such as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, to convince Morsi and his colleagues that it was over, he still insisted on his legitimacy and refused to step down.

The second tactic was to crack down on the senior leadership of the MB in order to force them to recognize the new regime and accept the new power structure and its political roadmap for the country. In this phase, the military used carrots and sticks, promising inclusion and an undetermined future political role for the group, while it arrested, banished and prosecuted them. But their overtures were once again rejected as the MB negotiators insisted on the restoration of the constitution, the president, and parliament and proclaimed that these democratic institutions were the main achievements of the 2011 popular uprising.

But before the negotiations for an acceptable resolution between the antagonistic parties were further explored, the hardliners within the coup government, led by anti-Islamist high ranking officers from the old state security apparatus and military intelligence, pushed for a military solution. Thus, the tactic of adopting an iron-fist policy by stamping out the MB from all aspects of society prevailed, prompting the resignation of or condemnation by several public figures that initially either encouraged the coup such as Mohammad ElBaradei or accepted it such as AbdelMoneim Abulfutooh. …more

Syria crisis: Saudi Arabia to spend millions to train new rebel force
By Ian Black – theguardian.com – 7 November, 2013

Saudi Arabia is preparing to spend millions of dollars to arm and train thousands of Syrian fighters in a new national rebel force to help defeat Bashar al-Assad and act as a counterweight to increasingly powerful jihadi organisations.

Syrian, Arab and western sources say the intensifying Saudi effort is focused on Jaysh al-Islam (the Army of Islam or JAI), created in late September by a union of 43 Syrian groups. It is being billed as a significant new player on the fragmented rebel scene.

The force excludes al-Qaida affiliates such as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, but embraces more non-jihadi Islamist and Salafi units.

According to one unconfirmed report the JAI will be trained with Pakistani help, and estimates of its likely strength range from 5,000 to more than 50,000. But diplomats and experts warned on Thursday that there are serious doubts about its prospects as well as fears of “blowback” by extremists returning from Syria.

The Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is also pressing the US to drop its objections to supplying anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to the JAI. Jordan is being urged to allow its territory to be used as a supply route into neighbouring Syria.

In return, diplomats say, Riyadh is encouraging the JAI to accept the authority of the US and western-backed Supreme Military Council, led by Salim Idriss, and the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

“There are two wars in Syria,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst for the Saudi-backed Gulf Research Centre. “One against the Syrian regime and one against al-Qaida. Saudi Arabia is fighting both.”

Saudi Arabia has long called publicly for arming the anti-Assad rebels and has bridled at US caution. It has been playing a more assertive role since September’s US-Russian agreement on chemical weapons – which it saw as sparing the Syrian leader from US-led air strikes and granting him a degree of international rehabilitation.

The JAI is led by Zahran Alloush, a Salafi and formerly head of Liwa al-Islam, one of the most effective rebel fighting forces in the Damascus area. Alloush recently held talks with Bandar along with Saudi businessmen who are financing individual rebel brigades under the JAI’s banner. Other discreet coordinating meetings in Turkey have involved the Qatari foreign minister, Khaled al-Attiyeh, and the US envoy to Syria, Robert Ford.

In one indication of its growing confidence – and resources – the JAI this week advertised online for experienced media professionals to promote its cause.

The appearance of an “Army of Muhammad” – with its equally obvious Islamic resonance – appears to be part of the same or related effort proposed by Syrian Sunni clerics to unite disparate rebel groups into a 100,000-strong force by March 2015. …more

Report: Saudi Arabia investing in nuclear deal with Pakistan
7 November, 2013 – UPI

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 7 (UPI) — Saudi Arabia has been investing in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, believing it could get such weapons at will, sources told the BBC.

While framed in the context of countering Iran’s nuclear program, the BBC reported Wednesday it now was possible that Saudi Arabia could have the capability to deploy a nuclear device more quickly than Iran.

The BBC said a senior NATO official earlier this year saw intelligence reports that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan for Saudi Arabia were ready for delivery.

Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said during a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”

The BBC said the Saudi project is decades old. Western experts also said Saudi Arabia provided financial assistance to Pakistan’s defense sector, including its missile and nuclear labs.

In 2003, a paper leaked by senior Saudi officials outlined three possible scenarios about the kingdom’s changing security environment and the possibility of nuclear proliferation: acquiring their own nuclear weapons, entering into an arrangement with another nuclear power to protect the kingdom or relying on establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

In 2007, U.S. diplomats in Riyadh said they were being asked questions by Pakistani diplomats about U.S. knowledge of “Saudi-Pakistani nuclear cooperation,” the BBC reported.

By the end of that decade Saudi leaders were voicing unambiguous warnings of their intention to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did.

Simon Henderson, director of the Global Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told BBC he believed the Saudis weren’t bluffing, noting when “the Saudis speak about Iran and nuclear matters very seriously.”

The BBC said it contacted the Pakistani and Saudi governments.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry called the reporting “baseless,” and said, “Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapon state with robust command and control structures and comprehensive export controls.”

The Saudi Embassy in London issued a statement noting it is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has worked for a nuclear free Middle East. It also said the United Nations’ failure “to make the Middle East a nuclear free zone is one of the reasons the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejected the offer of a seat on the U.N. Security Council.”

The Saudi statement said the lack of international action “put the region under the threat of a time bomb that cannot easily be defused by maneuvering around it.”

…source

Saudis Fight a Lost Battle against Change
7 November, 2013 – The Tripoli Post – Nicola Nasser

The ongoing aggressive Saudi policy for a militarised “regime change” in Syria is more an expression of internal vulnerability, trying hopelessly to avert change outside their borders lest change sweeps inside, than being a positive show of leadership and power, but Syrian developments are proving by the day that the Saudis are fighting a lost battle against change.

Riyadh is fighting several pre-emptive battles outside its borders in its immediate proximity in a disparate attempt to prevent an historic regional tide of change from changing the country’s pre-medieval system of governance and social life.

Surrounded by a turbulent changing regional and international environment, the Saudi Arabian rulers seem worried as hell that their system is facing an historical existential test for the survival of which they are unwisely blundering in foreign policy to alienate friends, win more enemies, exacerbate old animosities and trying counterproductively to promote their unmarketable way of life as the only way they know to survive, instead of reforming to adapt to modern irreversible changes that are sweeping throughout their surroundings and the world like a tsunami of an irresistible fate.

Change is inevitable and if they insist on resisting it they will be shooting themselves in the legs and fighting back a lost battle, which might delay change for a while, but cannot stop it from flooding their outdated feudal type of family governance, where more than seven thousand royal princes spread over the country like a spider’s net of rulers who dominate every aspect of the political, administrative, security, military, economic and social life.

True, there is the oil factor underlying the aggressive Saudi regional policies, especially vis-à-vis Iran and Iraq, which is covered up by trumpeting the not so unrealistic threat of sectarian Shiism, Iranian regional hegemony and Iran’s nuclear threat lest they endanger the Saudi similar sectarian Wahhabi theology and political prominence in the region where the United States has been the only real hegemony since the Saudi family came to power in the Arabian peninsula some one hundred years ago. …more

Kerry says no deal yet in Iran nuclear talks
8 November, 2013 – Al Akhbarhttp://www.crookedbough.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=wp-to-twitter/wp-to-twitter.php

World powers and Iran have yet to reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program but are working hard to do so, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.

“There is not an agreement at this point,” Kerry said shortly after arriving in Geneva Friday to help seal what is hoped to be a landmark with Tehran, but stressed that the six world powers leading the talks were “working hard.”

“I don’t think anybody should mistake that there are some important gaps that have to be closed,” he added.

Meanwhile, the UN nuclear agency said that its chief Yukiya Amano will hold talks with senior Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday with the aim of “strengthening dialogue and cooperation.”

His decision to accept an Iranian invitation to visit may be a sign of progress in long-stalled efforts by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate the Islamic state’s disputed atomic activities.

Kerry met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Friday before heading to Geneva for landmark three-way talks with Iran and the EU.

The Israeli prime minister denounced the possible deal as a “historic mistake.”

In an effort to help narrow the differences in negotiations, “Secretary Kerry will travel to Geneva, Switzerland today at the invitation of EU High Representative [Catherine] Ashton to hold a trilateral meeting with High Representative Ashton and [Iranian] Foreign Minister [Mohammed] Zarif on the margins of the P5+1 negotiations,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement early on Friday.

A senior State Department official said that since the first round of talks with Iranian President Hassan Rohani’s administration last month, “Kerry has been open to the possibility of traveling to Geneva for this round of negotiations if it would help narrow differences.”

The official added that Ashton had asked Kerry to attend the Geneva talks help bridge the gaps,

“As we’ve said, this is a complex process. And as a member of the P5+1, he is committed to doing anything he can to help,” the official added.

The US clarified that Kerry’s arrival in Geneva is not indicative of a sealed deal with Iran after years of foot-dragging and suspicion.

Western governments and Israel suspect Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability under cover of its civilian program. Tehran denies any such ambition and, since Rohani took office in August, has made overtures suggesting it is prepared to scale back its enrichment of uranium in return for the easing of crippling Western sanctions.

World powers and Iran are working intensively to advance talks in Geneva over Iran’s disputed nuclear program, a spokesman for Ashton said on Friday. …more

N-talks can reach end game in under 1 year: Iran
8 November, 2013 – Shia Post

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Iran and six major world powers can reach an end game agreement in their nuclear talks in less than a year.

In a Thursday interview with CNN, Zarif expressed optimism that Iran and the six powers can start serious work on Friday morning to prepare “some sort of a joint statement” that would address the “common objective for all seven of us.”

The Iranian foreign minister said that the two sides can reach “an end game – that we all tried to reach – within a limited period of time, hopefully in less than a year, and a series of actions that the two sides have to take reciprocally in order to build confidence and address their most immediate concerns.”

“I believe it is possible to reach an understanding or agreement before we close these negotiations tomorrow (Friday) evening,” Zarif pointed out.

“I believe the ingredients are there. It takes a quite a bit of effort and a quite a bit of good faith and political will. I know that we have it on our side and I hope that we can expect the same from the other side and in that fashion and in that spirit we can move forward,” he added.

The head of Iran’s diplomatic apparatus rejected remarks by Chairman of the US Congress Committee on Foreign Relations Robert Mendez, who had said if Iran wants favorable results from the nuclear negotiations, it should suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

He referred to Iran’s suspension of its enrichment program from 2003 to 2005 to build confidence, adding, “So we have tested that and it did not produce positive results. We are not going to test that again,” Zarif said.

“I believe that people should stop trying to impose a solution. They have got to be creative. They have got to be innovative and deal with situations on the basis of realities not on the basis of illusions and I believe at the end of the day everybody will be happy with a deal that can be achieved today. Otherwise one year down the road we will be wishing for the same deal that could be achieved today and the opportunity was missed.” he added.

“There is a window of opportunity now that has been created by the Iranian people through the election of President [Hassan] Rouhani and that opportunity needs to be seized and I believe the people should accept the realities; should learn a lesson from what has been achieved in the past,” he said. …more

Saudi ‘House of Pseud’ thrives on deception
6 November, 2013 – Finian Cunningham – PressTV

The House of Saud is such a decrepit domain of duplicity it is hard to know where to begin in listing its numerous deceptions, but suffice to say that any appraisal should start, in the first instance, with a name change. Henceforth, in the cause of truth and plain language, the Saudi rulers would be better referred to as the House of Pseud.

A “pseud” is a poser, a pretender, and this term is eminently applicable to a regime that rules by fear, terror and tyranny, yet which claims to represent the Muslim World – the Ummah – by pointing to itself as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques of Islam”.

The truth is that this “custodian” has inflicted more suffering and violence among Muslims than perhaps any other agency in history, through its sponsorship of sectarianism, hatred and terrorism. The Saudi rulers with their obscurantist Wahhabi version of Islam are anathema to the worldwide diversity and collectivism that truly reflects the religion and spirit of “Islam” – meaning “peace”.

Syria’s information minister Omran al-Zoubi hit the nail on the head this week when he lambasted the Saudi regime for “betraying” the Arab world and Islam.

Indeed, one could say that since its inception as a state in 1932 at the hands of the British Empire, Saudi Arabia has continually betrayed the Arab people, including its own population, in the service of imperialist interests. The Saudi rulers, from the first so-called King Ibn Saud to the present King Abdullah, have siphoned off the oil riches of the Arabian Peninsula while the ordinary people struggle with unemployment, homelessness and poverty. The lion’s share of wealth of the world’s biggest oil exporter feeds the Saudi elite and their foreign patrons, and what’s more this wealth is used to suppress and oppress.

Roughly, the lifetime of the Saudi state parallels the genocide of the Palestinians since at least the 1930s. Yet in all that time, the Saudi rulers have done nothing to alleviate or defend the rights of their Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine. Indeed, as the Zionist regime now turns to dispossessing the Ummah of its third holiest site – al Aqsa Mosque in East Al Quds (Jerusalem), the Saudi royals have not bothered to raise even a whimper of objection.
[Read more →]

My encounter with a human rights defender
By Caroline Sanden – 6 November, 2013

The Rafto price 2013 is awarded to Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). Sunday 3. November Maryam al-Khawaja, acting President for BCHR, accepted the prize on behalf of BCHR at the National Stage in Bergen. On the occasion of the Rafto Prize award ceremony I got the opportunity to interview the young human rights activist.

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m waiting outside an assembly room inside the Radisson Blue Hotel Norway. The tension in the air suggests that it is an important person waiting behind the closed door. I’m a bit nervous, something my fingernails will know.

The door opens, and I get the green light to enter. I am greeted by a warm smile, and we shake hands. Maryam has a clear voice, which fills the room. She has a way of talking that captures the listeners attention immediately.

Bahrain in the future

The mission of BCHR is to encourage and support individuals and groups to be proactive in the protection of their own and others’ rights, and to struggle to promote democracy and human rights in accordance with international norms. They will document and report on human rights violations in Bahrain, and use this documentation for advocacy to influence international policies according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

How will this award affect your organization (BCHR)? This is doubtfully the first time she has heard this question, and the answer comes quickly and concisely without hesitation.

– First of all it brings much-needed media attention to the situation in Bahrain, which doesn’t even exist, or exist in a very low level. It also gives us a platform to speak from.

Do you think Bahrain will make any progress with fundamental human rights in the close future?

– I think that as long as the local culture of impunity in Bahrain continues, and the international situation of impunity of the Bahraini government continues, then no. If we were able to get international accountability for the Bahraini government, and consequences and reactions, then yes.

Banned from her country

Maryam has been active in participating in protests and volunteering for human rights organizations since she was a young teenager. Her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, is former president and co-founder for BCHR. He was banned from Bahrain in the mid-1980s, and they got political asylum in Denmark, where they lived until 2001 when they were allowed re-entry into Bahrain. She is currently in exile in Denmark, where she has been since the Bahraini uprising in 2011. …more

Women in Bahrain
Anonymous Contribution – 6 November, 2013

– Women in Bahrain can’t vote, assemble in public, hold up a banner, speak about the political situation or demand change, freedom and democracy.

– Women like the men can be picked up in the middle of the night from their homes by violent police, detained without their family knowing their whereabouts, abused, sexually assaulted and tortured.

– Women have gone through show trials, with no prosecution apart from confessions under torture, no defence, (Judge Dhahrini walks out whilst the defence lawyers speak) and unfair long sentences.

– At least thirteen women have died since 14th February 2011 and no-one has been held accountable.

– Women have been tortured, and no-one has been held accountable. (Noura Al Khalifa was brought to trial for torturing Dr Fatima Haji, but she was cleared.)

– Hundreds of women were sacked for participating in the pro- democracy demonstrations and those who were re-instated had to give up their trade union membership and employment rights.

A few cases.

Rula Al Safir, President of the Nurses Union, 6 months jail, tortured, 35 day hunger strike, retrial after foreign pressure, found innocent. Sacked and unable to return to work. Offence – treating the injured at demonstrations.

Jalila al Salman, Vice President of Teachers Union, detained for 6 months, tortured, smeared by pro- government media. 3 years sentence, reduced to 6 months. Fired, not allowed to work. International pressure helped.Offence- leading a teachers’ march.

Rayhanna Al Mousawi. Young mother and activist. Wore a political Tshirt at 2013 F.I. Tortured, made to stand stripped in a doorway, sexually abused, ill with cancer, treatment refused. Picked up for “planning to bomb” FI and membership of 14th February Coalition. 5 years sentence, plus a further trial. Her appeal, (although not allowed to consult her lawyer in person is on 18th November 2013.

And finally Nadia Saleh, heavily pregnant, jailed with no charge, because she objected to her husband Abd Yousef Saleh being picked up at a checkpoint when they were leaving their village. She was released on October 2nd, has given birth, but was still due in court on 31st October.

Attacks on women in Bahrain must be viewed in the context of the even worse treatment of the men who have died under torture and been sentenced to 15 years and life for demanding freedom and democracy. The main opposition party Al Wafaq, support a constitutional monarchy but as their Speaker, Mr Marfooq was detained and was back in court on 24th October, their position will harden.

The British Government should rise above its obsession for “oil security” and supporting the Khalifas and support the democratic forces in the Gulf. That is the future for stability in the Gulf.

The egregious sentence of 10 years for Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Mahfoodh was reduced through appeals in Bharain’s Court of Injustice, to an egregious sentence of five years in November, 2012. Sheik al-Mahfoodh remains unjustly detained by the Al Khalifa Regime in Bahrain to this day. Phlipn

Interview with Hajar al-Mahfoodh – daughter of jailed opposition leader
4 October, 2011 – Bahrain Justice and Development Movement

A Bahrain military court today jailed Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Mahfoodh, Chairman of the opposition Amal Party, for 10 years.

His daughter Hajar says whilst in detention he was tortured so badly she could barely recognize her own Father. She affirms there is no tangible evidence against him and his case is clear political persecution.

Another 13 members of the party received sentences of between 5 and 10 years at the same hearing.

Sheikh Mohammed Ali was first arrested on 2nd May 2011 but according to Hajar the Security Services had been trying to arrest him since one month before.

“They broke into my home four times and told me it’s either your husband or your daddy”. On April 2nd police arrested her husband in what she says was a ‘hostage situation’ to secure the arrest of Sheikh Mohammed Ali. In the same incident items were stolen from her home and she says she feared leaving the house in case they returned.

One month later when police finally caught up with Sheikh Mohammed Ali, they also arrested two of Hajar’s brothers at the same time.

By the end of May both brothers and the husband had been released but there was no word about Sheikh Mohammed Ali until the family received a call to say they could visit.

“I felt the man I met wasn’t my daddy. He couldn’t focus, his voice was different and he looked like a different man”. Hajar describes her visit to see her father in prison. “It was only later when I found out he had been tortured using electricity that I understood why he was in this state”.

A few days after the visit Sheikh Mohammed Ali’s first hearing began. The family was allowed to meet him for a few brief minutes after the hearing began and in this time he detailed his ordeal.

“He did not want to give full details, because he was worried about upsetting me, but he told me they wanted to kill him”. He told his daughter that he had been in solitary confinement for 45 days and given no food or water for the first 15 days, twice being admitted to hospital.

“They used mostly electricity and whipping to torture him and he is sure all those investigating were of Jordanian nationality”.

Since that first hearing Sheikh Mohammed Ali has faced a new hearing every 2 weeks until his sentencing today.

Hajar says from a legal point of view, as the defense lawyers pointed out, the trial is biased to say the least. “The defendants do not meet the lawyers regularly and the accused are not allowed to speak for themselves. She also says no tangible evidence of guilt has been offered according to the defense lawyers.

Sheikh Mohammed has been accused of trying to damage the image of Bahrain at an international level. There are 3 main prosecution witnesses, all claiming that he confessed his crime during detention. Something she categorically denies.

On the other hand there are “26 defense witnesses who all prove that there was no wrong doing on the part of the accused”. But in Bahrain the truth counts for nothing.”

Hajar says she fears for the future of Bahrain and thinks that unless real reform happens soon, violence will soon erupt.

“I am a peaceful person and my father is too. All we want is peace and unity in Bahrain. But the situation is getting worse and these military trials are pushing the country to the edge of breaking.”
…source

Display team hits repressive kingdom amid negotiations over fighter jets contract

Red Arrows hit Bahrain as Britain bids to sell weapons to royal family
By Padraig Reidy – 4 November, 2013 – Index on Censorship

Britain is to send the Royal Air Force Red Arrows display team to perform Bahrain, just weeks after negotiations opened on the sale of BAE Eurofighter jets to the tiny Gulf Kingdom.

Bahrain’s ruling family has been engaged in brutal repression of protesters since a democratic uprising began i n February 2011. Britain has been repeatedly criticised for selling weapons and other military hardware to the regime while the crackdown continues.

Earlier today, Index reported the awarding of yet another international prize to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, which has been battling peacefully for democracy in Bahrain under increasing repression since the uprising. The campaign group won the Norwegian Rafto Human Rights Prize.

Center leader Nabeel Rajab was imprisoned not long after accepting an Index on Censorship Free Expression Award in 2012, and remains in jail.

There have been dozens of violent deaths in Bahrain since the beginning of the uprising, many put down to the regime forces’ indiscriminate use of tear gas, which it is reported to be stockpiling.

A press release published on the Bahrain News Agency Portal today says:

” One of the world’s premier aerobatic teams, Britain’s famous Red Arrows, is to display in Bahrain as part of a Middle East tour.

The team, which currently fly BAE Systems Hawk aircraft, consists of nine display pilots, all of whom are from frontline squadrons. Each has previously operated other Royal Air Force fast jets, such as the Tornado or the Typhoon multi-role combat aircraft. ”

Bahrain has a great interest in the excellence of British hardware and expertise. As well as looking to buy an “unspecified number of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets”, Bahrain already imports hardware including weapons from Britain. Meanwhile, former senior Metropolitan police officer John Yates was engaged to advise the government on policing and dealing with civil unrest. …more

Without Snowden leaks, the president wouldn’t even know that the NSA spies on world leaders.

President Obama: Incompetent or Liar?
4 November, 2013 – By Steven Hill

If what they are saying is true, then President Obama is either lying or his top aides did not inform him and they are not stepping forward to take responsibility.

“What did he know, and when did he know it?” A firestorm is gathering under the Obama presidency that imperils its future. First there was the fiasco over his HealthCare.gov web site – which the president was unaware of until after its launch, it has been claimed. Now the most recent case of “not in the loop-itis” is over the revelation that the National Security Agency has been spying on the telephones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 34 other world leaders.

This is in addition to previous leaks that the U.S. government spies on the phone logs, Internet activity and credit card transactions of virtually every U.S. citizen, of Spanish and French citizens, and that the United States has bugged European Union offices as well as the United Nations and world leaders at international conferences of the G-20.

It is a startling admission to say that President Barack Obama was in the dark on this one. If that’s true, does he realize that means that even the President of the United States needed leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden in order to know what his own top spies are doing?

But hold on—current and former U.S. intelligence officials are saying that, in fact, top-ranked officials in the White House and State Department signed off on the surveillance of phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders. If what they are saying is true, then President Obama is either lying or his top aides did not inform him and they are not stepping forward to take responsibility. It also raises troubling questions about how honest—or informed—Obama has been in his previous defenses of the surveillance state.

So while the chief executive and the nation’s top spies engage in a “he said, she said” spat over who knew what when, the rest of the nation is left puzzling over whether their president didn’t know what he should have known, or is lying. No matter how one answers that question, it reflects badly on Obama. And for U.S. stature on the world’s stage.

Upping the ante, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has invoked that notorious echo of Watergate, “What did President Obama know, and when did he know it?” Because it’s just not credible to claim, as White House officials are trying to do, that the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way that it wouldn’t have been practical to brief the president on all of them. How could it possibly make national security sense that the man in the Oval Office did not have to approve or at least be informed about a decision on bugging the phones of most of the free world’s leaders?

But let’s keep our bafflement bipartisan, shall we? Thanks again to the whistleblower Snowden, it was reported in the German publication Der Spiegel that the monitoring of Merkel’s cell phone began back in 2002, when President George W. Bush was chief of the spies. What did he know, and when did he know it?

Congressional “Dimwit of the Season” award has to go to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. As chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was established in 1976 as a result of the Church Committee investigation into CIA abuses to provide oversight and serve as a restraint on such espionage activities, Feinstein has been chief Democratic Party cheerleader of the national security state. She has previously insisted that the NSA is subject to stringent congressional oversight and monitoring from the executive branch.

Yet now even she’s backtracking. Recently she stated, “It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary. … It is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed.”

This is the same clueless Senator from my home state of California who in June condemned Snowden as a traitor, saying, “I don’t look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it’s an act of treason. … He violated the law. It’s treason.” And yet if it wasn’t for his “treasonous” acts, Chairwoman Feinstein would still be clueless.

So flip a coin: heads Obama is incompetent, tails he’s a first-rate liar. My coin flip says he’s incompetent, but he also has terrible judgment over the danger posed by his national security policies and priorities. He’s advancing the instruments of surveillance that future presidents will use. Imagine a Dick Cheney in the Oval Office, with an even more developed nest of zealous spies. The current moment has some of the same feel as the out-of-control days during the Reagan administration, when Lt. Col. Oliver North and his accomplices ran gun- and drug-running operations to support the Contras in Nicaragua, and co-authored with Attorney General Edwin Meese a plan for imposing martial law during national emergencies, called Rex 84 (Readiness Exercise 1984). It seems the off-the-shelf rogues, goons and spooks are back. Regardless of which party has the presidency, they lurk in the White House basement, making vital decisions regarding the nation’s foreign policy and remaining unaccountable to the nation’s elected leaders. The promise of Obama’s election in 2008 has been replaced by “Yes We Scan.”

If Obama truly wants to regain his footing, he must reverse not just specific policies but also his direction. He can partially redeem his tattered reputation by firing whichever of the head spooks that gave these orders. But that seems unlikely. White House spokesman Jay Carney has said that “the president has full confidence in General [Keith] Alexander and the leadership at the NSA.” …more

The U.S. Role and Iran in Southwest Asia
2 November, 2013 – Rachel Eliasi Kohan, Ph.D. – Iran.com

Déjà vu all over again, the U.S. foreign policy has once again arrived at a critical historical crossroad. It is either faced with the prospect of continuingto escalate the geopolitical stability of Southwest Asia aka the Middle East, through its unilateral and preemptive military interventions and the unwavering support of unpopular dictatorial regimes in the region on the one hand, or to commit to a multilateral dialogue and achieve our strategic security, and economic and political objectives in the context of the aspirations of the people in the region for sovereignty, democracy, freedom, equality, justice and peace, on the other. Whereas one might argue that the first option will in the short run lead to a quasi-stability and economic and political concessions by the regimes in the region, it is the latter paradigm that in the long run will ensure the organic acceptance of our leadership for the mutually sustainable economic development and trades that benefit all parties concerned.

After spending up to four trillion dollars and losing thousands of precious American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq within the past ten years-never mind the catastrophic miseries inflicted on the locals- the question still remains as to whether such a heavy toll endured by all sides, has enhanced our strategic objectives or the daily lives of the indigenous. The so-called Arab Spring, which led to a degree of reforms in Tunisia and Egypt and the current stalemate in Syria, seems to have subsided. The struggle of the majority Shiite population in Bahrain, governed by the Saudi-transplanted Sunni clan the Al-Khalifa, for democracy and equality, is quenched (with U.S. approval as the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain by the heavy-handed Saudi military forces essentially occupying the “pearl” archipelago. Similar to all other Sheikdoms in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain is a new island nation set up by the British in the early 70’s, which, for the preceding millennium was an integral province of then Persia aka Iran.

After having no diplomatic relations since 1979, the prospect of a possible rapprochement between the U.S.-West and Iran seems most promising. The Islamic Republic regime, IRI, isolated from the international community for thirty five years, is increasingly faced with some of the most serious existentialist dilemmas. Sanctions spearheaded by the U.S. have now impacted every segment of the society, including the acquirement of medicine and food. Overpopulation, unemployment, underemployment, monetary devaluation, corruptions, a systematic violation of civil and human rights, a multitude of shadow government organs, pillage and rampage of natural and financial resources, and repressions of dissent and civil society are exacerbated due to sanctions. The IRI government, acting schizophrenic for its very legitimacy, should take most blame for such blatant failures. The IRI’s political rhetoric inside and outside Iran has faded away into oblivion and its economic and socio-political agenda has miserably failed. The IRI’s mistrust of the West-the U.S., especially after having witnessed the fatal demise of the uncooperative regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt, is understood. By the same token, the U.S. animosity toward Iran has only been bolstered by events as taking the American diplomats hostage in 1979, which in relation led to provocation and western support of Iraq in a prolonged border dispute skirmish against Iran of inclusive end. It brought up to one million lives lost, Iraqi extensive use of chemical weapons against Iranian civilians, and a half trillion economic loss for both sides. The Americans should finally move beyond the loss of Iran’s Pahlavi monarchy as the closest strategic ally in region; the Shah stretched the green Islamic belt along the southern Soviet borders and served as the gendarme of the west preventing the Russian longing to stretch its feet into the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Ironically, the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown due in part to their return to power and erosion of democratic principles back in 1953 when the only nationally elected Prime Minster Dr. Mohammad Mosadegh was overthrown by a coup orchestrated by the CIA.

With the election of Hassan Rouhani as President in Iran and his recent UN address and conversation with President Obama, the question has emerged as to whether the IRI is genuinely interested in joining the international community while allowing the civil society and the rule of law to take hold inside the country. If so, what does the future role of the U.S. in Southwest Asia, to be manifested through Iran, look like?

Iran to outsiders in the occident looks like a theocratic monolithic State. Upon closer examination, however, one can discern a broad spectrum of socio-political forces, not only among the grassroots populace, but also among the so-called establishment oligarchs, that are in a power struggle with one another (see the endnote). The clergies of the religious minorities: the quarter of a million Armenian and Assyrian Christians, thirty thousand Jewish, fifty thousand Zoroastrians and the nearly ten million Sunnis remain apolitical. Nonetheless, as recognized in the IRI Constitution, they have representatives in the Majles, the Iranian Parliament. Up to a half million followers of the Baha’i faith, founded by the Shirazi merchant Mohammad Ali Bab (Bab, means gate to paradise) who claimed to be the last emerging 12th Imam, and his successor ironically a Shiite clergy, Bahau’llah in Iran in the mid-19th century, are not recognized and in fact persecuted by the government. Baha’ism coincided with the national movement for modernization, reformation, and the rule of law and civil society in the mid to latter part of the 19th century. Such progressive movements led to the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy in 1907 replacing the absolute monarchy 2,500 years in the making. Violation of human and civil rights, imprisonment, torture and execution of political prisoners of conscience remain grave concerns in Iran. Baha’i followers are particularly singled out and more harshly persecuted, discriminated, imprisoned, tortured, exiled and sometimes executed. …more

Obama Pushes for Return of Iraq’s Tribal Militias
4 November, 2103 – Military.com – by Richard Sisk

President Obama and embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed Friday to coordinate on reviving the “Sons of Iraq” Sunni militias to counter a growing Al Qaeda insurgency as part of an overall effort to bolster the Shiite-led Baghdad government.

U.S. and Iraq officials said in a joint statement that Maliki’s forces would stress “security operations coordinated with local officials, and renewed efforts to empower local security structures, such as the Sons of Iraq, to mitigate extremist infiltration.” The statement was issued after Maliki’s meeting with Obama.

The Sons of Iraq were local militias recruited by tribal sheikhs and paid by the U.S. Many considered the Sons of Iraq as a major factor in the success of the U.S. troop surge in 2007 in beating back Al Qaeda insurgents in Anbar province and other Sunni majority areas.

The two sides also agreed to press ahead with a major arms package for Iraq to include attack helicopters to combat Al Qaeda in Iraq, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

While backing the arms deal, Obama called on Maliki to mend fences with the restive Sunni and Kurd minorities, and to assure the path to national elections scheduled for next April despite a terror campaign that the United Nations estimated has killed at least 7,000 in Iraq this year.

Obama hosted Maliki in the Oval Office nearly two years after the last U.S. combat soldier left Iraq at Maliki’s insistence following more than eight years of war that killed nearly 4,500 U.S. troops, wounded more than 30,000, and cost more than $800 billion.

“We had a lot of discussion about how we can work together to push back against that terrorist organization that operates not only in Iraq, but also poses a threat to the entire region and to the United States,” Obama said.

Obama also called on Maliki to work for political reform “to ensure that all people inside of Iraq — Sunni, Shia and Kurd — feel that they have a voice in their government. And one of the most important expressions of that will be elections next year.”

Speaking through a translator, Maliki stressed his “common vision” with the U.S. on the way forward for Iraq despite major past differences on the U.S. presence in the region and Syria.

The U.S. and Iraq were especially in sync “when it comes to diagnosing the return of terrorism and we talked about how to counter terrorism,” Maliki said.

“We discussed details of our cooperation,” Maliki said without giving specifics. “What we want is for Iraq and the region to be able to work together, and we are working at the security, intelligence and social and all levels in order to counteract terrorism.”

Maliki also did not give details on how he intends to heal the rifts with the Sunni and Kurd communities.

“We do know that the democratic experience in Iraq is nascent and fragile, but it was born very strong,” said Maliki, who pledged to hold national elections on schedule next April, when he was expected to run for a third term as prime minister. …source