The Race for Iran
Video of the Leveretts on Charlie Rose
Posted on March 30th, 2010 under featured and general with 544 replies.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett appeared on The Charlie Rose Show last night.
The video can be viewed here.
– Ben Katcher
544 Responses to “Video of the Leveretts on Charlie Rose”
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Bill Davit (Scott Lucas' biggest fan) says:April 13, 2010 at 2:12 am
Eric,
If your have trouble following the post above let me know. The issue I had was the formatting would not translate on the post. I have a word copy that is much easier on the eye and if you email me I can forward over a copy. You can email me at wdavit@gmail.com.
Thx
Bill -
kooshy says:April 12, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Eric , your last post so perfectly to the point
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Reverend,
We are getting side-tracked on non-election issues – important issues, but not what I have focused on. Though it may appear otherwise to you (and that mistaken appearance may be entirely my fault), my purpose in writing about the election has not been to challenge the Green movement, or anyone else in Iran or outside Iran, on issues unrelated to the election itself, including the treatment of post-election protesters. I tried to make that very clear up front in my article:
“Charges that the Iranian government brutally mistreated protesters after the election must be taken very seriously. A protester’s human rights should not depend on the merits of his position, just as our respect for a soldier should not depend on the merits of the war he is sent to fight. The question considered here, however, is not whether the government mistreated those who protested the election result, nor whether Iran’s government ought to be run by different people with different policies. Nor is the question whether more candidates ought to have been declared eligible to run – a complaint made by many critics but not by Mousavi. Obviously he made the list, and the exclusion of other candidates probably improved his chances. The question here is simply whether Ahmadinejad won the election, fair and square.”
Nor do I mean to suggest that those who challenge the 2009 Iran election are the same people who shouted down the WMD-doubters before the Iraq invasion in 2003. To the contrary, I recognize that many election-doubters today were WMD-doubters back in 2003. Unfortunately, the potential consequences of their doubts are quite different this time: last time, they opposed war AND they opposed those who pressed for war; this time, they oppose war but tacitly SUPPORT those who press for war. They don’t intend to, but they do.
A good example is Justin Raimondo, webmaster of the Antiwar.com website. He has strongly challenged the fairness of the 2009 Iran election. Does Raimondo exchange holiday cards, or play tennis on Saturday mornings, with John Bolton, Max Boot, Alan Kuperman, Joshua Muravchik or any other member of the “bomb-Iran” crowd? Probably not. Nonetheless, all of them probably are grateful to Raimondo for his fervent support of their position on the “stolen election” issue. They consider themselves fully capable of fashioning the appropriate remedy (bomb Iran) without further assistance from Raimondo.
In short, just as fabricated claims of WMD – accepted uncritically by most Americans and many others – played into the hands of those who wanted the United States to bomb Iraq in 2003 (many of whom probably knew the WMD claims were false), so do baseless claims of a “stolen election” play into the hands of those who want the United States to bomb Iran in 2010 (some of whom probably know those claims are false).
To participants in the Green movement, I suggest this: Read my article. If you disagree with me, don’t change your behavior at all. If you agree with me but you nevertheless believe you have sufficient reasons for protesting apart from the baseless “stolen election” claim, by all means protest. But if you agree with me and do not believe you have sufficient reasons for protesting apart from the baseless “stolen election” claim, consider carefully the possible unintended consequences of your protesting. You may well further the aims of people with whom you do not agree at all: the bomb-Iran crowd. You probably will not intend or want to do that, but you may be doing so nonetheless.
To leaders of the Green movement, I suggest this: Read my article. If you disagree with me, ignore what I have to say. But if you agree, tell your followers the truth about the 2009 Iran election. If you believe they ought to be protesting even so, make your best arguments to that effect and let them decide. Just don’t use false claims about the 2009 election to influence their judgment.
It’s really as simple as that.
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 4:16 pm
“Both Eric and Fiorangela criticize me for not providing proof, or at least evidence, of the Saudi lobby’s greater influence over American foreign policy than Israel’s. Both lobbies operate in an atmosphere of great secrecy and so such evidence, much less proof, is very difficult to obtain. I happen to believe that the Saudis, as Guardians of Islam’s holiest sites and masters of the oil cartel, outclass the Israelis by far in this contest. You believe otherwise.”
Thanks, Tom.
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Reverend,
“It’s irrational to expect that Mousavi and Karroubi themselves would list out each of these violations in detail as you request.”
My focus has been on the election (as I sometimes need to remind myself). So let’s stick here to election-related violations. Imagine again that the result was different, and consider these two questions:
1. If Ahmadinejad claimed fraud, would you think it was “irrational” to ask Ahmadinejad to detail his complaints?
2. If Ahmadinejad claimed that Mousavi’s election was invalid because the Guardian Council treated Iranian like “children” by excluding many candidates, should Mousavi have declined to take office?
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Rev. Magdalen says:April 12, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Eric A. Brill,
To answer your question about our hypothetical UN investigator, I would assume that this investigator would have the intelligence to see Mousavi and Karroubi’s broad public statements indicating that abuse is happening as a signal to dig deeper into the documented specific cases monitored by the numerous human rights organizations, some dedicated to Iran, some global, which keep careful track of each reported violation of human rights in Iran.
In addition I would expect this investigator to realize that both Mousavi and Karroubi keep records of the complaints they receive from citizens, which, while not incorporated in detail into their public statements, would be available for the UN investigator to see. Or at least these documents would have been available had they not been confiscated from their offices by security forces.
It’s irrational to expect that Mousavi and Karroubi themselves would list out each of these violations in detail as you request. Would you expect Obama to have read out the name of every uninsured child to make his case for health care reform? You are being disingenuous and attempting to perpetrate a logical fallacy, that since Mousavi or Karroubi might say “those who have been arrested for their political views” or some such general phrase, without listing the specific names of hundreds of detainees each time, that therefore no such specific cases exist.
Human rights organizations have been listing specific cases of abuse in Iran for decades now, and if you want to make the case, as some have done, that these abuses are justified by religion, that’s one thing, but to say you don’t believe they exist, because two politicians didn’t give you enough specific detail, is ridiculous. We don’t judge human rights abuses by the rhetoric of politicians, we judge them by the registries of abuse victims created by Amnesty International and other human rights watchdog groups.
If you want to make a case that these groups are conspiring to tell lies to make the Islamic Republic look bad, well, frankly I will not engage in that argument because it is simply not credible on its face. One would have to accept the premise of an international Zionist conspiracy to defame the Islamic Republic as a whole, and rational people know that such a thing does not exist.
Since you apparently have not yet taken the time to Google any of this, here is just one of the many registries of human rights abuses to get you started:
www.iranrights.org/ It has a searchable database for your convenience. -
Tom A. Milstein says:April 12, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Eric A. Brill and Fiorangela Leone:
Sorry for the delay in responding. I find the blog form difficult to keep up with; I’ll try to do better in the future. And I’ll try to keep a civil tone!
This debate is not about me. But since you have brought it up, yes, I did once contribute articles to the American Thinker. Quite a while ago I was banned from publication in that venue, mainly though probably not exclusively because of my article on Iran. In fact, the article cited by Fiorangela, “The Balance of Terror in the Middle East,” was written to support Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear deterrent.
Do Boeing advertisements appear in American Thinker? Well, so what? This blog is sponsored by Flynt Leverett, a proud former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Well, so what? In my lifetime I have cheerfully associated with Communists, socialists, reactionaries, liberals, spooks of various (and probably multiple) loyalties. Some were persons of integrity and some were not. (I’ve actually learned more from the shadier among them than from the decent ones.) Such is the way of the world.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Neoconservative.
As for my email to Fiorangela citing Max Boot, I tipped no hand by referencing it; you completely missed my point, which I shall now attempt to reinforce. Please note that my email also cited an attack on Boot’s defense of General Petraeus by Andrew C. McCarthy, appearing in (horrors!) National Review. The subject of their controversy? Petraus’ alleged criticism of Israel as a detriment to relations with the Arabs. Here are the links I supplied to Fiorangela: article[dot]nationalreview[dot]com/430708/petraeuss-israel-problem/andrew-c-mccarthy, and www[dot]commentarymagazine[dot]com/blogs/index[dot]php/boot/274061
Fiorangela, I don’t agree with any of the parties to this dispute. I only invoked it to provide evidence of a new development in American politics: the looming disintegration of Neoconservative support for Israel. If you are not interested in this subject, please forgive me for troubling you about it. By the way, who is Mike Evans? His article sounds interesting. Can you provide a link? But, let’s move on.
Both Eric and Fiorangela criticize me for not providing proof, or at least evidence, of the Saudi lobby’s greater influence over American foreign policy than Israel’s. Both lobbies operate in an atmosphere of great secrecy and so such evidence, much less proof, is very difficult to obtain. I happen to believe that the Saudis, as Guardians of Islam’s holiest sites and masters of the oil cartel, outclass the Israelis by far in this contest. You believe otherwise. But I don’t think any of us would deny that both exercise substantial influence over this government and have for a long time. How do we know that? Not so much by actual evidence (although it is out there, if we care to look), as by its effects. The U.S. does all kinds of things that can only be explained by reference to these influences. As Mr. Leverett would no doubt say, “just walk the cat back.” (To which I, not being so polite as he doubtless is, would add, “…to the litterbox.”)
Could I ever convince you of the Saudi’s greater influence, no matter what evidence I might bring? Could you ever convince me of Israel’s? I doubt it. But one thing on which we can agree is that the combined influence of both has been most detrimental to Iran’s interests. Therefore, if the President of the United States decides, for whatever reasons, that he must choose between the claims of these two lobbies, should we not sit up and take notice?
Here is a fact: Obama is about to stage a nuclear non-proliferation festival from which Iran has been excluded, and Israel has felt obliged to exclude itself.
And here is an inference: the above fact is the 2010 equivalent of the “ping-pong diplomacy” of 1971 between the U.S. and China. Sooner or later, it will eventuate in a rapprochement between the world’s two pariah nations. And that will certainly separate the Sunni Arabists from the Shi’ite Iranists in the Middle East, if not on this blog!
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Rev. Magdalen says:April 12, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Eric A Brill,
Regarding your statement that Khamenei did not forbid demonstrations at the Friday Prayer when he announced the election results were final, that is simply wrong. I listened to the speech live while reading a simultaneous translation, and I have gone back and read the translation again, and it is quite clear that Khamenei says that anyone who continues to protest the election results is “mohareb”.
Perhaps you are unaware of exactly what that means. The literal translation is “waging war against God,” but in practice it means that vigilante mobs are allowed to enter your dorm while you are asleep and beat you to death. People who are mohareb are worse than infidels, and not entitled to any consideration as human beings. Declaring that the protesters are mohareb is definitely saying that people are forbidden to protest, in fact it is saying that anyone who protests the election results is not a person at all, they have forfeited all rights as a human being.
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Rev. Magdalen says:April 12, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Eric A. Brill,
Regarding the seven Baha’i, the exact charges against them are: espionage, “propaganda activities against the Islamic order,” the establishment of an illegal administration, cooperation with Israel, the sending of secret documents outside the country, acting against the security of the country, and “corruption on earth.” So you are correct, the charges against them are not literally “being Baha’i”, thus maintaining the veneer of compliance with the constitution.
However, the actual specific acts characterized as “espionage” and “propaganda” which these people committed were acts of religious observance in their Baha’i faith; it is the actual practice of that religion which is considered to be establishing an illegal administration, propaganda against the Islamic order and corruption on earth, and it is normal religious correspondence which is considered as espionage, cooperation with Israel, and sending secret documents.
It’s important to remember that these seven are only the most recent in a pattern of abuse directed against many other Baha’i, and that espionage is the catch-all crime which Maziar Bahari the Newsweek reporter, and our own American hikers are also charged with. You can read more about the international condemnation of the consistent persecution of the Baha’i here: news.bahai.org/story/749
The lawyer for these particular Baha’i is Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Prize for her work in this area, so if you’re going to make the argument that the Baha’i are not singled out for persecution, you’ll have an uphill battle convincing the international community of it. Many others before you have looked at this situation and found a clear pattern of abuse, which they have honored Ms. Ebadi for fighting against.
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Reverend,
You’re making my case. I just read (reread) the Mousavi statement on the Facebook link you provided. Maybe the best way to clarify this is to ask you to imagine that you’re an eager-beaver, top-notch, independent investigator brought in by the UN to check out Mousavi’s allegations. Your boss hands you Mousavi’s statement and tells you to get out there immediately and find out if what Mousavi says is true. You read Mousavi’s statement and you notice that it doesn’t contain a SINGLE verifiable statement — it doesn’t say WHO, WHERE and WHEN. You ask your boss if Mousavi has presented any more details so that you will be able to investigate. Your boss replies, “No. You have all you need. Get to work!”
Tell me, Reverend: if you were that hapless young investigator, where would you start?
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 1:27 pm
“In fact, Khamenei went out of his way to openly and clearly violate the constitution when he announced at Friday Prayers after the election that the election question was now settled and no one would be allowed to demonstrate to express a contrary opinion. That is not constitutional in Iran. People have the absolute constitutional right to gather whenever they wish, without any special permission, as long as when they gather they do not violate the principles of Islam.”
Actually, you’re being too generous with the last sentence. The constitution doesn’t say anything about demonstrations violating the principles of Islam.
More important, Khamenei didn’t say what you claim. He said the election result was official, decided, certified, over with; Ahmadinejad had won. People nevertheless were free to gather and express their disappointment peacefully. What they were NOT free to do, however, is what they had been doing almost non-stop for the preceding week: gather to throw rocks through windows of government buildings, beat policemen and militiamen, and set police cars on fire. And if they did, they’d be arrested and held responsible for their actions. In other words, they’d be treated exactly the way they’d be treated in the United States. Bill of rights or not, I can guarantee you that if a crowd of angry Muslims (or Christians, or Buddhists, or whatever) march through downtown Washington, beating up policemen, setting police vehicles on fire, and chanting “Death to Obama!”, the Washington police and National Guard will not behave exactly as you suggest they ought to.
Consider this imaginary scenario. Suppose MOUSAVI had won the election by 11,000,000 votes. Ahmadinejad and his supporters promptly claimed “fraud, fraud, fraud” and staged several violent rallies in which they threw rocks through windows of government buildings, beat policemen and militiamen, and set police cars on fire. The police and militia responded very harshly, wounding and even killing Ahmadinejad supporters, and arresting many of them. Ahmadinejad and his supporters offered no evidence of fraud, despite numerous requests to do so — no documents, no testimony, no evidence at all — just broad allegations of fraud, but no who, what, where or when that would make it possible to investigate his complaints. Ahmadinejad’s representatives even stopped attending Guardian Council meetings held to discuss his hundreds of minor election complaints. The Guardian Council nevertheless investigated those hundreds of minor complaints with whatever information it had despite Ahmadinejad’s lack of cooperation, conducted a 10% recount (which Ahmadinejad was invited to observe, but he declined), and certified the results — a little bit later than required by law, in an effort to give Ahmadinejad some extra time to substantiate his allegations. Despite the certification, Ahmadinejad’s supporters continued to hold “rallies” at which they continued to throw rocks through windows of government buildings, beat policemen and militiamen, and set police cars on fire. Finally, Khamenei delivered a speech in which he declared that the election was settled, pointed out that Ahmadinejad had not presented evidence to back up his allegations of fraud, and firmly declared that Ahmadinejad’s supporters must stop holding so-called “rallies” at which they throw rocks through windows of government buildings, beat policemen and militiamen, and set police cars on fire. If they continued to do so, Khamenei warned, they would be held responsible for their actions — meaning they would be arrested, prosecuted, tried and punished — just like other people who throw rocks through windows of government buildings, beat policemen and militiamen, and set police cars on fire. Ahmadinejad nevertheless urged his supporters to continue holding rallies, and they did, and many of them indeed were arrested. When they were, Ahmadinejad claimed their human rights had been violated, and vowed to sacrifice his own life if necessary to ensure that the will of the people was respected. Six months later, his supporters were still holding “rallies”, chanting “Death to the Leader,” lighting police vehicles on fire and beating up police and militia.
Would you still strike the same balance between security and freedom of assembly?
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Rev. Magdalen says:April 12, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Eric A. Brill,
I find it hard to believe that a researcher as capable and intelligent as yourself would be unable to locate the writings of Mousavi, as they are released on facebook by one of his supporters on a regular basis, with English translations. Here is a link to one of his most detailed and poignant calls for a return to constitutional rights in Iran: www.facebook.com/notes/mir-hossein-mousavi-myr-syn-mwswy/bynyh-smrh-17-mwswy-bh-mnsbt-wqy-swr-w-rwzhy-ps-z-n-mousavis-statement-17-regard/231350482605 Many people have only read the summary of this statement and do not realize how much detail it contains, laying out very specific complaints of unconstitutional activity.
Karroubi, of course, has had trouble getting his words out to the world, as his newspaper, Etemad Melli, has been shut down. He has successfully appealed and won the right to reopen the paper, but security forces have declined to honor the judicial decision, and the paper is still shut down. I would think that would be a pretty specific unconstitutional act right there, something actually happening to Karroubi himself at this very moment.
In addition, of course, Karroubi is well known to have presented to the Majlis the specific details of a number of unconstitutional prison abuses, including the cases of several individuals who say they were raped as part of their interrogations. In fact, this is the issue that has caused Karroubi to be summoned to court and have his newspaper shut down. Publishing the claims of these individuals and asking that they be investigated was considered a threat to national security, so the newspaper was shut down. Does that sound like the Iranian Constitution you read?
It’s true that these two prominent figures rarely use their public podium to read off a specific list of constitutional violations, preferring instead to make more general statements encompassing the whole pattern of abuse, and I think that’s entirely appropriate and normal for politicians and religious leaders to do.
For specifics and long detailed lists, we turn to those organizations that dedicate themselves to keeping track of these things, who make this type of information available to everyone. I would refer you to specific sites, but I would rather not try to shoehorn more links into this post, so I will just tell you to Google search the term “Iran human rights” and you will find several sites devoted to human rights in Iran, some with searchable databases, containing the names, dates, and all other information you could wish to know about Iranian human rights abuses, which are all unconstitutional because, as you have pointed out, the Iranian Constitution does actually contain a number of provisions to protect people from this kind of abuse.
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 12:56 pm
“I urge you to read the portion of the Constitution which details the qualities the Leader must exhibit in order to keep his post. If he fails to demonstrate any of those exceptional qualities, such as by lying in any way about anything, he has demonstrated unfitness for office.”
Can you be specific about his lies?
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 12:55 pm
“seven Baha’i were scheduled to go on trial just today for the crime of being Baha’i.”
Can you point me to the actual charges?
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Eric A. Brill says:April 12, 2010 at 12:53 pm
“I think you must be joking when you say you think Americans might prefer the Iranian Constitution.”
I didn’t say that. I was comparing the preferences of hypothetical Iranian and American leaders. I concluded that the Leader had a better deal in Iran — until one took into account that the US president really doesn’t require Congressional permission to go to war (my mother was picking out her prom dress the last time any American Congress declared war), upon which a hypothetical leader would choose instead the US president’s set of powers.
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Rev. Magdalen says:April 12, 2010 at 12:50 pm
For the record, to make it perfectly clear, I consider PMOI/MKO/MEK/etc a dang