Rooyesh

High domestic consumption is harming Iran’s oil industry on top of international financial pressures linked to its nuclear programme, a top oil official was quoted as saying on Sunday. “The consumption of energy is very high, efficiency is low.

There is no energy saving and consumption habits and low prices are harmful,” Iran’s representative to OPEC, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, said in an interview with the weekly magazine Shahrvand. “This is all based on figures and statistics and cannot be disputed. The government is responsible and should be held accountable,” he added. Last month former oil minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said after being sacked by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran faced a “crisis” in its oil industry if its consumption was not dampened. Iran is seeking to rein in the frenzied consumption of its highly subsidised petrol by motorists through a rationing scheme. But it is still forced to import around 30 million litres a day to make up for shortfalls in refined oil. A widely reported study published in December by the academic Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University in the United States said Iran could soon face its own energy crunch owing to failing infrastructure and lack of investment.

But Kazempour Aredebili denied that international pressures against the Iranian economy over its controversial nuclear programme were reducing the clout of the number two producer in OPEC. “They (the West) are claiming that Iran is not important and that the sanctions tool against Iran is working and if they continue it for a few more years Iran will quickly become paralyzed. “Their actions are continuing but we do not have problems since we are aware of their intentions.” European banks have drastically cut down business with Iran in recent months in response to a US drive to pressure Iran financially, complicating Iranian efforts to find much needed investment for oil projects. “What I can add that that Iran is doing its best to attract possibilities (of investment) from the world though it is faced with restrictions,” said Kazempour Ardebili. He said the government was combating the problems through long-term development plans and 200 new projects in the oil and gas sectors would become operational by 2012.

Source: AFP

THE instructor held up an unfurled green condom as she lectured a dozen brides-to-be on details of family planning. But birth control was only one aspect of the class, provided by the government and mandatory for all couples before marriage. The other was about sex, and the message from the state was that women should enjoy themselves as much as men and that men needed to be patient, because women need more time to become aroused.

This is not the picture of Iran that filters out across the world, amid images of women draped in the forbidding black chador, or of clerics in turbans. But it is just as much a part of the complex social and political mix of Iranian society — and of the state’s continuing struggle, now three decades old, to shape the identity of its people.

In Iran, pleasure-loving Persian culture and traditions blend and conflict with the teachings of Shiite Islam, as well as more than a dozen other ethnic and tribal heritages. Sex education here is not new, but the message has been updated recently to help young people enjoy each other and, the Islamic state hopes, strengthen their marriages in a time when everyday life in Iran is stressful enough. The emphasis on sexual pleasure, not just health, was recognition that something was not right in the Islamic Republic.

Such flexibility is one way the government shapes, or is shaped by, society’s attitudes and behavior. These days, however, its use is an exception. The current government has become far better known for employing the opposite strategy: insisting that society and individuals bend to its demands and to its chosen definition of what it is to be a citizen of Iran.

In fact, both tools remain part of a larger goal: securing the Islamic Republic by remolding people’s own definitions of themselves. In that way, the strategy resembles the failed effort in the Soviet Union to build a national identity — the New Soviet Man — that was based on its own criteria. The Communists used youth camps and raw terror; anyone challenging that identity, which in their case was atheistic, was seen as challenging the state.

Since 1979, the clerics of Iran have tried to forge a new national identity based primarily on a marriage of Shiite Islamic teachings with a revolutionary ideology. Initially, some leaders tried to dilute the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian traditions. But that effort proved impossible and has largely been abandoned.

Other Iranian governments since the 1979 revolution have also tried to adapt to the realities of modernity, but those efforts did not last. President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to open the state-controlled economy, and President Mohammad Khatami tried to ease the strict controls on dress, public behavior and free speech.

Both those efforts have been rolled back. Rather than rest comfortably on the reality that the Islamic Republic and its institutions have survived for three decades, hard-line leaders still seem to be afraid that the system is vulnerable. And so their struggle continues.

“From one president to another the whole orientation of the country changes,” said a prominent political scientist in Tehran who, in the current climate of fear, agreed to speak only if he remained anonymous. “Why? Because we do not have a consensus on who we are or where we are going.”

He added: “We can easily conclude that the ideological revolutionary order is an elite occupation, rather than a mass occupation.”

For the generation born after the revolution, religion has been mandatory, no longer revolutionary. Before then, a woman wore an Islamic covering or hijab, for example, as an act of rebellion. For this generation, the head scarf is an obligation, and taking it off is viewed as a challenge to the state.

“Kids born after the revolution are now much less religious than those born before the revolution,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who was a vice president in the reformist Khatami government. “Those born before, or even during the revolution, their beliefs were voluntary.”

For eight years, Mr. Abtahi worked beside President Khatami in trying to lower the temperature of the government’s rhetoric while allowing a small increase in social freedoms, intended as a salve for a young population. The people in charge now say that the Khatami years threatened to destabilize the system.

But Mr. Abtahi smiles, a smile of redemption, and referred to the realities of human nature. “We have not been in power for two years, ” he said. “There should not be a single prostitute, there should not be a single bad hijab, not a single gay person. Two years have passed since they came to power, and we see their battle has intensified.”

To force or to persuade. Mr. Abtahi and like-minded supporters of the Islamic system want to see the masses persuaded because force, they believe, just pushes people away. “Naturally, in any religious government, if there is more pressure, it does not make people more religious,” Mr. Abtahi said.

Iran is full of surprises. Life moves on for most people, as they find a way to accommodate to the pressure to conform. Take a walk through northern Tehran, which is more Western-oriented and less religious than other areas. Women wear their head scarves, but continue to push them way back. Young men spike their hair with gel. All signs of rebellion, all sharply criticized by the government.

Book City, a three-story shop, is still open. The tables are piled high with self-help books. Mehdi Tavakoli, who works there, said the best-selling titles include “Life, Meditation and Self-Knowing” and “The Play of Life and How to Play It.”

Mr. Tavakoli said that the government tried to stop publication of some self-help books, but that the genre proved so popular, publishers just reissued old editions. Many books promote spiritual and personal awakening through meditation, and through ideas with roots in India — practices that do not mesh with the leaders’ idea of a good Islamic citizen.

In this climate, the official talk is of conformity, not individual self-discovery. There is interest, for example, in building an Islamic bicycle for women, a boxy contraption that hides a woman’s lower body, a scheme that has provided comic relief to those who are depressed by the recent social crackdown.

Emad Afrough, a conservative member of Parliament, sees the current repression as a reminder that the Islamic Republic is still a new state, that its formula of religious government is a first, and that it is still trying to find the balance between society’s needs and the individual’s.

He says the Khatami government did not pay enough attention to individual responsibility to society. Now, he says, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not paying enough attention to individual rights. The few exceptions like the sex education class illustrate the challenge of finding the middle ground that Mr. Afrough says is needed. “We have to learn to balance individual rights with social rights, individual responsibilities with social responsibilities,” he said. “We are at the beginning of this road.”

Source: The New York Times

Iran has established a sophisticated spying operation at the head of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf in a move which has significantly heightened tensions in its standoff with the United States. The operation, masterminded by the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard, includes the construction of a high-tech spying post close to the point where Iranian forces kidnapped 15 British naval personnel in March.

The move has forced British and American commanders to divert resources away from protecting oil platforms in the Gulf from terrorist attack and into countering the new Iranian threat. The US military says that the spying post, build on the foundations of a crane platform sunk during the Iran-Iraq war, is equipped with radar, cameras and forward facing infra-red devices to track the movement of coalition naval forces and commercial shipping in the northern Arabian Gulf. Commanders fear that one of the main purposes of the Iranian operation is to enable the Revolutionary Guard to intercept more coalition vessels moving through the disputed waters near the mouth of the Shatt al Arab waterway south of the Iraqi city of Basra.

The disastrous British handling of the hostage crisis has convinced some in the Iranian regime that there is mileage in further such attempts. But the US military believes the listening post could also be used to help Iranian forces target commercial shipping in response to any US air strikes on its nuclear facilities. Such operations would form part of their threat to launch guerrilla or asymmetric attacks on western interests if Iran is attacked. US forces have responded by establishing their own listening post, positioning it on an oil platform just across the maritime border between Iraq and Iran from the Iranian position. The two spying posts are now monitoring each other’s activity. British naval personnel who have recently served in the Gulf have told The Sunday Telegraph that tensions between the Americans and the Iranians have soared, with both sides heavily involved in espionage and counter-espionage operations. British forces are also on high alert in an attempt to prevent any repeat of the March incident. “The Revolutionary Guard navy comes out every day to cruise around on their side of the line in their fast patrol boats and drop of supplies at their surveillance base,” one said. “Every one is being very careful. The last thing anyone wants is for things to get out of control by mistake.

“The northern Gulf continues to be tense with the Americans and Iranians keeping a close eye on each other. Both sides sends out patrol boats to watch the other side and they have both set up bases packed with spy gear – loads of radars and cameras.” British personnel said that Iranian activity had forced them to rethink their priorities in the Gulf: “Up to March, when our sailors were captured by the Iranians, coalition patrols concentrated on protecting Iraq’s oil export terminals from al-Qaeda suicide bombers. “Now watching the Iranians is our top priority. We don’t want to be taken by surprise again and we need to keep know what they are doing in case things kick off if the Yanks bomb the Iranian nuclear sites.” The Iranian spying post is located in shallow waters southeast of the tip of the Al Faw peninsular. It is located in water claimed by Iran, although the maritime boundary in the area is disputed by the Iraqi government. In March 15 British sailors and marines - 14 men and one woman - were captured when their small craft were ambushed by a larger Iranian force of gunboats during a boarding operation at the mouth of the Shatt al Arab. They were held for almost two weeks and accused of spying before being pardoned by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and deported back to the UK. The subsequent fiasco over media deals to pay some of the sailors for their stories handed the Iranians a propaganda coup. British forces say the presence of the spying post has made it even more difficult to operate in the area. “The Iranian surveillance base has been set up in a large naval crane that was sunk during the Iran-Iraq war. It is just across the boundary line and has a radar and night vision cameras to keep us under surveillance 24 hours a day.

“On our side of the line the Yanks have set up their surveillance base on a charted barge moored along side the Khawr Al Amaya oil terminal. “The boundary line between Iraqi and Iranian waters runs only few hundred yards from the exclusion zone set up around the terminal and we have little choice but to send our people out close to Iranian waters. “We are toe to toe with the Iranians here. “The US Navy and the allies don’t venture out there unless they are all tooled up and have loads of boats in support. We are not taking any chances any more.” The development is the latest sign of the growing tensions between the US and Iran, which Washington has accused of supporting attacks on its forces in Iraq. With Iran last week announcing that it had achieved its goal of 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear programme, the prospect of US military action has increased. Despite Iranian assurances that it is only seeking to develop a peacesful nuclear programme to meet its future power needs, the US believes it is intent on developing nuclear weapons. Iran has warned that it will hit back if the US launches air strikes against its nuclear facilities and shipping in the Gulf would be expected to be high on its list of targets. Iran has three submarines stationed at the Bandar Abbas naval base on the northern shore of the strategically crucial Strait of Hormuz, where the Gulf is at its narrowest, and these would be expected to play a significant role in any campaign against shipping. A report in the respected Janes Defence Weekly magazine, published tomorrow, quotes coalition naval personnel in the region reporting regular patrols by Iranian Revolutionary Guards - the same force responsible for the capture of the British service personnel in March. The Guards are reported to conduct regular patrols in small patrol craft and speed boats along the boundary of their territorial waters. Regular Iranian naval forces, which include frigates and corvettes moored at Bandar Abbas, are considered more vulnerable to pre-emptive US strikes and there is less reliance on them n the northern Arabian Gulf.

Source: Telegraph

Among the most renowned kings of the Qajar dynasty that ruled Persia for over 150 years was Nasser al Din Shah who was known to be illustrious and highly cultured. Upon visiting Queen Victoria in Windsor Palace during his first trip to the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century, he drew

a picture of her and inscribed a poem in French under the drawing that said: “the heart cannot love two at the same time… It is an ugly thing like a body with two heads.” *

This encounter inspired the royal court minister of information, Mohammed Hassan Itimad al Sultana to write a fictitious account of the visit to Windsor palace. He adapted the encounter to be a melodramatic love story in which the Shah of Iran was the protagonist and the Queen of England his beloved. At the end of the story, the fictitious character of Nasser al Din poisons the Queen’s tea and she dies in his arms. Itimad al Sultana professed that the moral of his story illustrates that the world is not big enough for two royals, while 40 Sufi dervishes could repose on one bed.

To a large extent, the present situation in Iran bears a resemblance to Itimad al Sultana’s story  except this time it’s not fictitious. This time, the two heroes are two men who have been loyal to one another since over half a century ago, sharing both joy and grief  they have even been imprisoned and exiled together. The passage of time saw their transformation from preachers and reciters of religious songs into two formidable politicians governing over Iran.

The first is Ali Khamenei who was a student under the leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Khomeini, and the second, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was almost martyred for the cause of the revolution after an explosive device was found planted by his comrades into the microphone he was using to deliver a speech.

Following that incident, fate decreed that Rafsanjani serve as president of Iran, while his compatriot Khamenei, who was the parliamentary speaker at the time, was dispatched by Khomeini to assume his duty of leading the battle front of the war against Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi president had hosted Ayatollah Khomeini for 15 years, however upon the latter’s return to his country, Saddam proclaimed him a heretic and tyrant.

On his deathbed, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini summoned his students and warned them against dissension. He said: I have conquered an emperor who had the support of the world on his side, and I was able to accomplish that because the people were on my side. But this support will not last if the people sense that there are divisions or conflicts among you. I warn you against hypocrisy and your comrades; you must back one another. If someone came to you, my son Ali [Khamenei], and said that Ali Akbar [Rafsanjani] is criticizing you and conspiring against you, or [addressing the rest of the students] if Ali Akbar [Rafsanjani] who is the closest person to you came to you and started whispering words against Ali [Khamenei] you must dismiss them and take no heed of their words.

Khomeini died the following day and the two partners headed to the Assembly of Experts to appoint a successor to their deceased mentor. But there were 80 faqihs [Islamic jurists] who were among the highest clerical echelons and who far surpassed Ali Khamenei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in rank. What the assembly witnessed during this historical meeting is still etched in the minds of many Iranians who were surprised to hear Ali Akbar addressing the members of the assembly saying: I asked our late Imam in the last hours of his life who he thought was qualified to assume the responsibility of leader and Wali Faqih [Guardian Jurist] after him. He responded immediately in a calm and confident tone and said: As long as it is between you, Ali, my son… Do not consider anyone else.

Thus, having spoken these few words, Sheikh Ali Akbar Bahramani, who is known as Hashemi Rafsanjani, nominated his life-long associate Ali Khamenei for the post of Guardian Jurist, while he assumed the presidency. Upon exiting the Assembly of Experts’ meeting, they became the most powerful figures in Iran.

Moreover, theirs was a partnership that had weathered many storms whilst remaining solid and intact. Together, they braved an avalanche of reforms while surpassing obstacles and conflicts as they appeared. However, Khamenei, after years of sitting atop the Supreme Guide’s seat, started to feel that he no longer needed a partner. He now had the ability to appoint and dismiss, and grant power or seize it as he pleased. Effortlessly, with a snap of his fingertips, Khamenei could bring someone to world renown very quickly. So, why was he sharing the power when the authority was tightly clasped in his hands?

Thus, Khamenei forgot the words and warnings of his mentor and during the last presidential elections he abandoned Ali Akbar to support the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was little known at the time. Rafsanjani could not believe that Khamenei had stood by someone else, which is why upon ascertaining the news he did not utter a word of complaint except to God.

Since the presidential elections [August 2005] until last Tuesday 4 September, Rafsanjani had lived with his sorrow. Whenever his son would show him articles and websites in which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were harshly criticizing him on a daily basis, he would smile and say: Son, the story is not over yet. Just wait a little bit and you’ll see that the day will come in which my partner will feel remorse for what he did to me.

Last Monday morning, Rafsanjani walked into the Assembly of Experts’ building. It was the result of the clever game he played 18 years ago following the death of his mentor Khomeini that enabled his friend Khamenei to ascend to power.

The newly appointed head of the Assembly of Experts sat behind the podium with his customary calm demeanor and delivered an important speech in which he discussed the state’s nuclear program issue and relations with the US. As the speaker of the powerful clerical body, Rafsanjani heads the Assembly of Experts which has the power to dismiss the Islamic state’s highest authority, the Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei.

Rasfanjani received 41 votes, while his opponent, hardliner Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who was backed by the Supreme Guide and the President, received 34 votes of which one was cancelled on the grounds of invalidity.

Thus, Sheikh Ali Akbar emerged victorious, and once again, the authority and the presidency have two heads that disagree with one another.

In the aftermath of the presidential elections, as a result of the concern and fear prevalent amongst the reformists and the pragmatists, Rafsanjani, [Mohammad] Khatami and [Mehdi] Karroubi formed an alliance to consolidate the reformists’ power, among them students, women, academics and the cadres who were appointed in the reformist leadership. This move is a preparatory one for the upcoming parliamentary elections next March.

But Ahmadinejad who enjoys the limitless support of the Supreme Guide and the radical circles in the judiciary, intelligence and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not take these developments sitting down. He closed down two pro-reformist newspapers, the daily ‘Shargh’ (East) and Ham Mihan (Compatriot), which were widely read and circulated, in addition to banning the moderate labor news agency ILNA.

These moves were aimed at depriving the pragmatists and reformists of their communication media vehicles and platforms. Internet sites, which constitute an important medium for these aforementioned trends have also been targeted, many of them restricted or shut down while all of them are being closely monitored. These developments coincided with the launch of carefully calculated smear campaigns against reformists and pragmatists in newspapers, on the internet and in mosques  some were even included the religious sermons delivered in mosques. Scores of university professors have been removed from their positions, including Dr. Hossein Bashiriyeh, Dr. Saeed Shahandeh, Dr. Mohsin Kadivar, Dr. Hadi Semat, while students were subjected to raids and arrests.

It is worth noting that with the efforts to tighten the iron grip on the reformists and those who hold different opinions, some of the key reformist figures have started to distance themselves away from their allies, Mehdi Karroubi is an example. Word among the reformist circles is that the authority has succeeded in gaining the loyalty of distinguished reformists, such as Karroubi, after promising them parliamentary seats in return for disassociating from Khatami and Rafsanjani.

Observers uphold that Iran is living turbulent times where differences are clearly pronounced, but moreover, this comes amidst increasing talk about the possibility of a US attack on the nuclear and military installations. Meanwhile, others anticipate demonstrations in the wake of the government’s implementation of the oil quota system, which is responsible for the plunge in the country’s economy and the reason behind the escalation of the dispute between Ahmadinejad and the former governor of Iran’s Central Bank, Ibrahim Shibani. The conflict snowballed to affect government ministers and intrude on the lives of millions of Iranians. According to official figures, the inflation rate in Iran has exceeded 14.5 percent, while independent sources at the Central Bank maintain that it is 22 percent. Iran’s stock exchange has also witnessed a significant drop in the value of shares whilst unemployment has reached 20 percent.

Despite all that, some regard the situation more positively while others uphold that the economy is not as bad as the opposition claims.

However, between the existing discrepancies in Iran many stories are told.

* During his visit to the United Kingdom in 1873, Nasser al Din Shah was appointed by Queen Victoria a Knight of the Order of the Garter, which is the highest English order of chivalry.

Source: Alireza Nourizadeh, Asharq Alawsat