War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength

As I get older, I am forgetting the details.  As a good chunk of life fades in the rear-view mirror--I know, I shouldn't be looking there--I am glad that I am able to recall whatever it is that I am able to.

The principal of the wonderful school--where I always longed to look at that girl--had plenty of laudable goals that were always badly executed.  We students had many mean jokes about him, and continue to do that even now whenever we get together.  One of his goals was that students ought to be interested in local and global current affairs.  Thus, during the weekly assembly under the morning hot sun, we students stood there as one of his hand-picked favorites read a few news stories for a couple of minutes.  (No, I have never been any teacher's favorite..Not anybody's.  Not even my parents' favorite. The story of my life!!!)

One day, the guy who read it out uttered "Mr. Ayatollah" while referring to the then-new leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.  The news junkie that I was even back then, I thought it was bizarre that he said "Mr. Ayatollah."  Those were beginnings of the Iran-Iraq war and not a day passed without the The Hindu providing reports on the war, and that war was a big reason why "Mr. Ayatollah" was often mentioned at the news reports during the weekly assembly.

The war, coming on the heels of the revolution that forced the Shah of Iran to flee the country, continues to haunt the world's affairs, especially the ongoing negotiations over the nuclear deal, writes Robin Wright:

Iran suffered more than a hundred and fifty thousand dead between 1980 and 1988. In Tehran, it’s called the Sacred Defense. In the final stages, U.S. aid to Iraq contributed to Iran’s decision to pursue nuclear capability—the very program that six world powers are now negotiating to contain.

Keep in mind that this was not a war that Iran launched.  It was Saddam Hussein's war.  And, in the realpolitik of American "diplomacy," Saddam was "our son of a bitch."  Ah, yes, the twisted and tangled webs that we have woven and into which we are now trapped!

Back in the eighties, Western intelligence agencies questioned whether Iran’s eighteen-month-old revolution could survive for even a few weeks after Saddam Hussein’s surprise invasion. Tehran scrambled to mobilize remnants of the Shah’s army, the new Revolutionary Guards, and almost anyone, of any age, for a volunteer paramilitary. Tehran’s Holy Defense Museum has pictures of thirteen-year-old kids and eighty-year-old men who signed up. (Three per cent of the dead were fourteen or younger.)
Instead, the war dragged on for eight years.

 The CIA got rid of a democratically elected government in Iran so that the US and its allies could install in power the Shah of Iran who would serve as "our son of a bitch."  When the Shah was thrown out two decades later, we looked across the border and encouraged the madman Saddam.  Robin Wright narrates how that messed up things:

In 1988, for the final big Iraqi offensive, the Reagan Administration spent months advising Baghdad on how to retake the strategic Faw Peninsula, where the Shatt al Arab waterway flows into the Persian Gulf.

I was curious about the location of the Faw Peninsula.  Unlike the final year of my high school, I now have Google at my disposal, which easily informs me where this peninsula is:

Wright says this battle got worse, thanks to the madman Saddam.

Iraq also used U.S. intelligence to unleash chemical weapons against the Iranians in Faw. U.N. weapons inspectors documented Iraq’s repeated use of both mustard gas and nerve agents between 1983 and 1988. Washington opted to ignore it. At Faw, thousands of Iranians died. Syringes were littered next to bodies, a U.S. intelligence source told me; Iranian forces had tried to inject themselves with antidotes. The battle lasted only thirty-six hours; it was Iraq’s biggest gain in more than seven years. The war ended four months later, when Iran agreed to a cease-fire.

The apologies that the US owes to people all around the world! :(

Iranian officials told me that the theocracy debated countering Iraq with chemical weapons, but opted against it. However, aware that Baghdad had a nuclear-weapons program, Iran decided to resume the nuclear research-and-development program initiated by the Shah. After the war, Tehran decided to keep it.

I think it is remarkable that Iran didn't unleash its chemical weapons against the Iraqi forces.  

The Iraq war still haunts Iran—and shapes the theocracy’s positions at the negotiating table—partly because tens of thousands are still dying from chemical weapons, according to the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support. Years after the war ended, Iranian doctors noticed a pattern of patients reporting chronic pulmonary, skin, and corneal conditions associated with mustard gas. They were diagnosed with what is now known as low-dose exposure.

Wright notes this:

During my recent visit, Iran was gripped by news that the bodies of a hundred and seventy-five military divers had been recovered in Iraq—three decades after their capture by Saddam Hussein’s forces. The men had reportedly been buried alive after their wrists were tied together with wire. Tehran released gruesome pictures of the recovery, and of the decayed and bound corpses still dressed in diving gear.
The country was consumed with mourning yet again—even young people, born after the war ended, were deeply moved.

 To think that the US encouraged Saddam all those years that he was in power!  For what?

 As the country’s diplomats prepared to return to Vienna for the nuclear talks, [Mohsen Rezai, who commanded the Revolutionary Guards during the war] declared, “Iran’s enemies stood by Saddam for the whole eight years of the Sacred Defense.” It was clear that he included the United States among them.

Soon after the war ended, Saddam was no longer "our son of a bitch." 

It is unfortunate that we have never truly given peace a chance.  Oceania will always be at war, ably helped by its Ministry of Peace, wrote George Orwell in that memorable 1984. 

Perhaps it is time to start another war. Maybe against Eurasia; after all, Putin is not "our son of a bitch."

Nukes are better than TV sex because ....?

It feels like the topic is Iran everywhere I turn; but, enjoying it nonetheless.  The following sentences in this piece (ht) were way too good not to blog about:

In an interview with the New Yorker several years ago, an Iranian security official candidly assessed the challenge at hand:

The majority of the population is young.… Young people by nature are horny. Because they are horny, they like to watch satellite channels where there are films or programs they can jerk off to.… We have to do something about satellite television to keep society free from this horny jerk-off situation.

One might assume a country that suffers from chronic inflation and unemployment -- not to mention harsh international sanctions and a potential war over its nuclear program -- would have better things to do than discourage its youth from masturbating. Yet the regime continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Chinese censorship technology to create a moral Iron Dome against political and cultural subversion, with decidedly mixed results. Piped-in BBC Persian and Voice of America television are sometimes successfully scrambled, but those who want pornography have no shortage of outlets. That said, the censorship software sometimes get a bit overzealous. One Iranian friend told me of repeated unsuccessful attempts to access his British university's email account from Tehran, only to realize that the school's apparently bawdy name -- Essex -- was prohibited by the regime's Internet filters. 

 And we tremble in fear and shake in our boots over Iran's crazy clerics?  Maybe if they had a lot more sex, then they won't go after the bomb.  Oh wait, that logic does not work for the US, too!  I suppose we are doomed any which way: have sex and have nukes, or don't have sex and have nukes :(

Counting down to Feb 11th in Iran

What is special about February 11th?  The fall of the Shah's regime in that fateful year of 1979.  In other words, the anniversary of the revolution as a result of which we have the theocratic set up now.
As FP puts it:

Predicting political change, let alone revolutions, is tricky business. The United States got it spectacularly wrong in 1979. If you're looking for guideposts, the next big date to watch should be Feb. 11, the revolution's anniversary. Both sides are busy preparing. The opposition promises a strong show of support in the streets, while Ahmadinejad has vowed to strike a harsh blow against "global arrogance" (his term for the United States).

The government has launched a ten day celebration, and

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Feb. 11 would mark the demise of “the liberal capitalist system,” adding that its champion, America, was on the decline and that Iran and its Islamic Revolution were on the rise.

The guy clearly beats the clownish Baghdad Bob in terms of reporting about an alternate universe!

So, you want to be an "ayatollah" ....

You get up early morning because you have to pray. Many good clerics even get up at two or three o'clock in the early morning to pray. After the morning prayer, for example at 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, they start to read. And at 7 o'clock, the courses start. Usually the courses are 45 minutes. Each student chooses a fellow [student] to discuss each course with him each day. Sometimes I play the role of teacher for you; I teach you the same thing I was taught yesterday. If I say anything wrong, you correct me. Tomorrow you're going to be my teacher. In this way, [students] repeat the courses and correct each others' possible misunderstandings. Usually, you take three or four courses per day.

At noon, you go back to your home or, if you live in a traditional school, you go to the school. You eat something, and you get some rest. At four o'clock, you start your classes until sunset. At sunset, you pray your sunset prayer. After that, you go home and you start to read. You go to bed early because you have to get up early.

So says Mehdi Khalaji in this very interesting piece in FP

But, what he describes is, Khalaji notes, the seminary life before the full effects of the Islamic Revolution were felt in Iran. A generation later, seminary life is very different:

people are not going to the seminary for the study of religion; people are going because the seminary became a place for training employees for the government. They are going to become wealthy and to become close to the political circles. After 30 years, the new generation of the seminary is intellectually very poor but economically very rich -- just the opposite of what it used to be.

About Iran and the US: a view from India

India's newspapers are yet to shrink in size--unlike America's papers that have reduced width, fewer pages, and significantly lesser readership. Thus, they are able to have lengthy opinion pieces even in the weekday editions.

Today's Hindu has one mighty long piece on Iran, and it certainly has a strong viewpoint that might surprise the typical American reader: the author, a former diplomat, opines that the Grand Ayatollah and Ahmedinajad have come out stronger, and that the UK, the US, and Obama, are now in a much weakened position with respect to Iran. Here is an excerpt:

Paradoxically, the Obama administration will now deal with a Khamenei who is at the peak of his political power. As for President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, he will now be negotiating from a position of strength. Arguably, it helps when your adversary is strong so that he can take tough decisions, but in this case the analogy may not hold.

Also, the regional milieu can only work to Iran’s advantage. Turkey distanced itself from the European opinion. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan greeted Mr. Ahmedinejad’s victory. Moscow followed suit. Beijing has never before expressed such staunch solidarity with the Iranian regime. Neither Syria nor Hezbollah and Hamas showed any inclination to disengage from Iran. True, Syria’s ties with Saudi Arabia improved in the last six months and Damascus welcomes the Obama administration’s recent overtures. But far from adopting the Saudi or U.S. agenda toward Tehran, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem openly criticised the legitimacy of the street protests in Tehran.

He warned last Sunday when the Tehran streets were witnessing unrest: “Anyone betting on the fall of the Iranian regime will be a loser. The [1979] Islamic revolution is a reality, deeply-rooted in Iran, and the international community [read U.S.] must live with that.” Mr. Moallem called for the “establishment of a dialogue between Iran and the United States based on mutual respect and non-interference in Iran’s affairs.” ....

All things taken into account, therefore, there has been a goof-up of major proportions in Washington. The Obama magic suddenly wore off when he sounded like George W. Bush in disregarding convention and courtesy, contrary to the abundant promise in the Cairo speech. It is inconceivable that the Obama administration harboured the notion that the commotion in Tehran’s middle-class districts would weaken the Iranian regime or make it diffident and dilute its resolve while the critical negotiations on the nuclear and other issues regarding the situation around Iran commenced.

Mr. Ahmedinejad left hardly anything to interpretation when he stated in Tehran on Saturday: “Without doubt, Iran’s new government will have a more decisive and firmer approach towards the West. This time the Iranian nation’s reply will be harsh and more decisive” and will aim at making the West regret its “meddlesome stance.”