Ashura on Park Avenue or Shia and Sunni, A Ludicrously Short Primer

Posted January 29, 2007, by Abbass Raza
on 3quarksdaily

Even now, many people who hear these terms daily on the news are confused about what the real differences are between Sunni and Shia Muslims, so I, having been brought up in a very devout Shia household in Pakistan, thought I would explain these things, at least in rough terms. Here goes:

It all started hours after Mohammad's death: while his son-in-law (and first cousin) Ali was attending to Mohammad's burial, others were holding a little election to see who should succeed Mohammad as the chief of what was by now an Islamic state. (Remember that by the end of his life, Mohammad was not only a religious leader, but the head-of-state of a significant polity.) The person soon elected to the position of caliph, or head-of-state, was an old companion of the prophet's named Abu Bakr. This was a controversial choice, as many felt that Mohammad had clearly indicated Ali as his successor, and after Abu Bakr took power, these people had no choice but to say that while he may have become the temporal leader of the young Islamic state, they did not recognize him as their divinely guided religious leader. Instead, Ali remained their spiritual leader, and these were the ones who would eventually come to be known as the Shia. The ones who elected Abu Bakr would come to be known as Sunni.

This is the Shia/Sunni split which endures to this day, based on this early disagreement. Below I will say a little more about the Shia.

So early on in Islam, there was a split between political power and religious leadership, and to make a long story admittedly far too short, this soon came to a head within a generation when the grandson of one of the greatest of Mohammad's enemies (Abu Sufian) from his early days in Mecca, Yazid, took power in the still nascent Islamic government. Yazid was really something like a cross between Nero and Hitler and Stalin; just bad, bad in every way: a decadent, repressive, dictator (and one who flouted all Islamic injunctions), for whom it became very important to obtain the public allegiance of Husain, the pious and respected son of Ali (and so, grandson of Mohammad). And this Husain refused, on principle.

Yazid said he would kill Husain. Husain said that was okay. Yazid said he would kill all of Husain's family. Husain said he could not compromise his principles, no matter what the price. Yazid's army of tens of thousands then surrounded Husain and a small band of his family, friends and followers at a place called Kerbala (in present day Iraq), and cut off their water on the 7th of the Islamic month of Moharram. For three days, Husain and his family had no water. At dawn on the third day, the 10th of Moharram, Husain told all in his party that they were sure to be killed and whoever wanted to leave was free to do so. No one left. In fact, several heroic souls left Yazid's camp to come and join the group that was certain to be slaughtered.

On the 10th of Moharram, a day now known throughout the Islamic world as Ashura, the members of Husain's parched party came out one by one to do battle, as was the custom at the time. They were valiant, but hopelessly outnumbered, and therefore each was killed in turn. All of Husain's family was massacred in front of his eyes, even his six-month old son, Ali Asghar, who was pierced through the throat by an arrow from the renowned archer of Yazid's army, Hurmula. After Husain's teenage son Ali Akbar was killed, he is said to have proclaimed, "Now my back is broken." But the last to die before him, was his beloved brother, Abbas, while trying desperately to break through Yazid's ranks and bring water back from the Euphrates for Husain's young daughter, Sakeena. And then Husain himself was killed.

The followers of Ali (the Shia) said to themselves that they would never allow this horrific event to be forgotten, and that they would mourn Husain and his family's murder forever, and for the last fourteen hundred years, they have lived up to this promise every year. This mourning has given rise to ritualistic displays of grief, which include flagellating oneself with one's hands, with chains, with knives, etc. It can all seem quite strange, out of context, but remembrance of that terrible day at Kerbala has also given rise to some of the most sublime poetry ever written (a whole genre in Urdu, called Marsia, is devoted to evoking the events of Ashura), and some of us, religious or not, still draw inspiration from the principled bravery and sacrifice of Husain on that black day.

Earlier today, I took the following unlikely pictures on the ritziest road in New York City, Park Avenue:

This is the procession commemorating Ashura, or the 10th of Moharram. In front, you can see a painstakingly recreated model of the tomb of Husain. The mourners are dressed mostly in black. It is a testament to the tolerance of American society that despite the best attempts of some of its cleverest citizens to proclaim a "clash of civilizations," it allows (and observes with curiosity) such displays of foreign sentiment.

The procession is made up of Shias of various nationalities, with the largest contingents being from Pakistan and Iran.

A young Shia holds up a banner, perhaps forgetting for a second that he is supposed to be mourning.

You can see one of the coffins with roses on it, which are ritualistically carried in the procession.

The self-flagellation is in full swing at this point. (The arms are raised before coming down to beat the chest.)

This is "Zuljana" or Husain's horse, caparisoned with silks and flowers.

The self-flagellation, or matam, reaches a climactic frenzy before ending for Asr prayers. Later in the evening, there are gatherings (or majaalis) to remember the women and children of Husain's family who survived to be held as prisoners of Yazid.

nose jobs, Boris Gruchenko, and being Iranian

I have always tried to keep this blog apolitical--apart from my disdain for the far right in any shape, form, or nationality -- I consider myself as someone who always shies away from ideology.

But to live in Tehran and to stay non-political at a time like this reminds me too much of Boris, the main character from Woody A llen's Love & Death, who tried to demonstrate the depth of his commitment to pacifism by shooting his bullet into the air after being shot in the left arm by his opponent in a duel. Well, his stray bullet came back and hit him in his right arm. Moral of the story? Be a pacifist, but don't be surprised if you are shot.

This is in short--the long apology for the political content of late to those who couldn't care less about politics and with whome I would find myself under normal circumstances, or rather, normal geo-coordinates. Lonely on North 35, though started humorously, is begining to sound ominously fitting. ht

reposted from April 2006.

An Interview with Gary Sick

Posted on The Council on Foreign Relations, January 23, 2007

Gary G. Sick, a former National Security Council adviser on Iran, says an “emerging strategy” is developing that brings the United States, Israel, and Sunni Arab states in an informal alliance against Iran. He does not believe the United States would launch a military attack on Iran at this time because it lacks the military ability to be in Iraq and Iran at the same time.

By: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

Sick, founder and executive director of Columbia University’s Gulf 2000 Project that conducts research on Persian Gulf countries, also says a “very serious opposition” to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is developing in Iran. Because of this, he says the Iranians will soon be willing to seek a deal on their nuclear program.

Professor Sick, you were quoted in an interview on National Public Radio as saying there’s a kind of informal alliance among the United States, Israel, and the Sunni Arab states all worried about Iran. Does this amount to a new American policy for the Middle East?

I don’t know if you can call it a policy, but I really think it is a strategy that is being adopted. It has several very real advantages. First, all three parties—the Sunni states in the Gulf, plus Jordan and Egypt—are very worried about Iranian expansion in the region and of Shiite expansion in the Middle East. And of course Israel is very worried about Iran and makes no bones about it quite openly. For the United States, I think there’s a perception that by focusing on Iran, you can remove some of the emphasis on Iraq, which of course is a catastrophe. So there are some advantages to all sides and there also have been real contacts among all of the parties, which I think go beyond just casual talk.

Talk about the contacts. We know of public contacts—Vice President Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan as well as in the Gulf States recently. There have been rumors of the Saudis meeting with the Israelis. Have you been able to confirm that?

They obviously have released no data about what the conversations included. But there was a report in the Israeli papers that was never denied. It was simply dismissed by the Israelis as not something to be talked about that did talk about senior Saudi officials—who might in fact be Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who’s a former ambassador to the United States—meeting with very high-level people in [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government. I can’t absolutely confirm that, but I’ve seen no firm denials from the Saudis, despite the fact that you would think they would have an interest in doing so.

And, of course, we’re seeing this problem in action right now in Lebanon, where there’s a major confrontation going on between the Shiite Hezbollah and the Sunni-led government.

I do believe the whole Lebanese situation was the galvanizing moment for this emerging strategy. The action by Hezbollah in attacking Israel [last summer] was seen as an extension of Iranian power and an extension of its influence in the region. And the outcome of this, which is taking the form of Hezbollah challenging the Christian/Sunni government of [Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora, I think, is also perceived as an Iranian plot. I personally think that’s an exaggeration, at least in terms of Iranian direct control or involvement in this. But if you look at Hezbollah as an Iranian creature—which I don’t, but many people do—you come to the conclusion this is a battle between Israel and Iran or even, by extension, the United States and Iran, and that Lebanon is the battlefield where this is being fought out.

Of course when you look at this, when you talk about this kind of strategic alliance, or whatever you call it, then the Iraq invasion was a total mistake, right, because it empowered Shiites?

I think it was. And I think it was by almost any consideration that you want to take. Certainly the way it’s played out has been a complete disaster for, I think, just about everyone involved. The big issue here, however, and one of the indicators that something really is going on is not only that Bush talked about Iran quite a lot during his [January 10] speech that was supposed to be about Iraqi strategy, including the surge in forces and so forth.

He identified Iran as a very important aspect of U.S. policy in the region. And that was followed almost immediately by the arrest of Iranian officials in Iraq in various places, including Kurdistan. That sent, I think, quite a strong signal that, if nothing else, there is a shift in focus here and that perhaps Iran is being set up as the excuse for why the Iraq policy is not working very well.

And much has been made of the fact that Secretary Rice on her recent visit, particularly to Egypt, did not get into any discussion about democratization, whereas last year she was very outspoken on the need for more democratization in the Middle East.

Well, if there is a new strategy emerging, as I have postulated, I think the United States has a couple of important things that it must do for the parties to this coalition, if you like. One is that the United States is going to have to shut up about democratization—that this has put our authoritarian Sunni allies in the region on the defense and it complicated their lives. I think the days of pushing democratization in the Middle East are probably over, at least for the time being. And also, I think it requires the United States to take a more active role in promoting an Arab-Israel settlement of some sort. The Arabs—Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Jordan—if they’re going to cooperate with the United States on Iran and if that involves at least an implicit cooperation with Israel, they need some political cover.

And the obvious political cover for them would be that they can claim that there’s an invigorated effort to find peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and I think to that extent they need to have some demonstration of progress. I note that Condoleezza Rice, in her trip to all of these Arab countries, has in fact been stressing there’s going to be a vigorous push on the Palestinian issue.

The United States has also announced it’s increasing its naval strength in the Persian Gulf. Another aircraft carrier is going out there, making two aircraft carriers on station. What do you think the likelihood is of any military action against Iran?

In addition to sending the aircraft carrier, the United States is placing Patriot missiles in the Gulf. You’ve got to remember that in the event of a real or threatened military strike against Iran, the big concern is how Iran might retaliate. And one way they could is to use their existing, relatively short-range missiles to attack, for instance, oil loading on the Gulf. So I think the Patriot missiles are there to demonstrate that the United States is prepared to defend those countries if it comes to that. It’s also clear the Iranians have been actively building an infrastructure that would give them the capability to retaliate against American forces in Iraq.

I’m not at all convinced they’re in fact doing that currently. I think they’re preparing the way to be able to do it and I think the U.S. arrests of Iranian officials in Iraq are related to that process. As to the likelihood of an actual military campaign against Iran, I continue to believe that’s not going to happen. And I think the logic of the thing is that if you think you can do it with a quick air strike, you’re kidding yourself. Basically any strike that the United States would undertake against Iran would have a series of effects: one is to strengthen the current government [and] President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it will also lead to severe Iranian retaliation somewhere, against somebody, somehow, whether it’s U.S. forces or U.S. allies.

And I think the end result would be that if the United States really wants to deal with the problem, it can’t stop at an air strike, it’s going to have to go on and put boots on the ground. And the reality is, we don’t have those boots right now. Iran is a huge country. It’s far more nationalistic than Iraq. And it would actually make the Iraqi campaign look simple by comparison. So I personally think that the U.S. administration is going to talk about it as the Israelis are talking about it, very openly, but not in fact do it.

What do you think is going on in Iran now? There have been a number of reports now of vocal opposition to Ahmadinejad, including from the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Do you think there’s a possibility of any change in internal Iranian policy?

The Iranian internal political scene is always more complicated and actually more interesting than it’s made to be in the sort of stereotypes basically in the Western media. There is very serious opposition building up to Mr. Ahmadinejad in Iran. Basically the entire political elite are coming together in opposition to him. They see him as really a disaster as far as Iran’s policy is concerned.

If I’m correct about this emerging strategy on the part of the U.S., the Arabs and Israel, he bears a lot of responsibility for making that happen. He has made it easy for people to be afraid of Iran and to act against it. But I think it would be very dangerous to suppose that there’s going to be a sudden overthrow of him or something of the sort. I do think there’s a major effort on the part of the political leadership in Iran, apart from Mr. Ahmadinejad, to isolate him and to reduce his influence over events. That’s very hard to do with somebody who loves publicity the way he does and who is constantly making ill-considered remarks of all kinds.

But I think that’s part of the game. I do believe, for instance, that Iran in the next five or six weeks is probably going to celebrate the completion of a series of linked cascades of centrifuges as part of their uranium enrichment program. This is a very small achievement actually, but they will make a big thing of it and have a national celebration that they have become, in effect, a nuclear power.

At that point, I do believe that the Europeans, in particular, have an opening that if they wanted to say, "Okay, let's go back now to the bargaining table. You've proved your point. Now let's stop and talk about this," Iran would probably be in a situation where it could possibly make concessions. I hope that opportunity isn’t lost, because I do believe that if a reasonable offer is put on the table and raised with Iran under those circumstances, there’s a very real chance that the political elite in Iran will in fact use that as a rallying point and try to outflank Mr. Ahmadinejad.

You think there’s a possibility at that point that Iran might agree to a temporary suspension of its enrichment?

I think that is a very real possibility. And I’ve been hearing this from some Iranians who are quite well-plugged-in to their nation’s policies.

That would open the door to U.S.-Iranian talks.

That’s right. And I think that after the celebration is going to be the moment when that idea can be tested. And my guess is that Iran will actually be willing to consider a suspension of testing at that point.

Marquis de Sade -- Charenton, November 27, 1814

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An Animated Adventure, Drawn From Life

Ed Alcock for The New York Times
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, with whom she wrote and directed the film “Persepolis,” based on her comic book, mugging for the camera in a style reminiscent of her drawings.

By KRISTIN HOHENADEL

Published: January 21, 2007, on the NY Times
PARIS

Marjane Satrapi/Sony Pictures Classics
Ms. Satrapi’s depiction of herself as a girl in Iran, from the film “Persepolis.”

MARJANE SATRAPI’S life was flashing before her eyes. There she was, a mischievous girl on the streets of Tehran, buying contraband records during the Islamic revolution. Singing the lyrics in her bedroom at the top of her teenage lungs. Fidgeting with her head scarf at the lycée. Mourning the political imprisonment of her uncle. Falling in love for the first time. Saying goodbye to her beloved parents as they sent her, their only child, to find freedom and solace in the West.

“Imagine you see your face everywhere — from the back, from the front, as a girl, adolescent, everywhere,” Ms. Satrapi, 37, said during the making of an animated movie based on her best-selling and critically praised comic-book memoir, “Persepolis.” The original version, in French, includes the voices of the legendary French actress Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother, Catherine Deneuve as her mother and Chiara Mastroianni — the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Ms. Deneuve — as Marjane. An English-language adaptation, which will also include Ms. Deneuve, with Gena Rowlands as the grandmother, is scheduled to be released by Sony Pictures Classics this year.

Ms. Satrapi has drawn herself thousands of times. But she found it initially overwhelming to watch her own vivid gestures animated on computer screens in the skylighted atelier that is the film’s headquarters in the 10th Arrondissement. Eventually, she said, she learned to put emotional distance between herself and her character.

“From the beginning I started to talk about ‘Marjane’ and ‘Marjane’s parents,’ ” she explained, “because you cannot do it otherwise. There are people, for example, drawing my grandmother. My grandmother is dead. Here not only is she moving, but I have to look at her, image by image. If I think, ‘This is my grandmother and my story,’ I would start crying all the time. And it’s not easy for the animators if I start talking about me, me, me. I will make them crazy, and they will be walking on eggshells. They won’t let themselves go.

“When my parents came to the studio, nobody breathed. Imagine you are drawing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and suddenly a big mouse and a big duck walk in.”

Ms. Satrapi’s poignant coming-of-age story is drawn in a simple yet evocative style, which conveys maximum feeling with deceptively naïve images in minimalist black and white. It was first published in 2000 in France, where she has lived in self-imposed exile for 12 years. When the book was released in the United States in 2003, she said, Hollywood executives offered to buy the rights for adaptations that included a “Beverly Hills, 90210”-esque series set in Tehran. An ardent filmgoer who has served as a juror at the Cannes Film Festival, she concluded that making a filmed version of her own story was a bad idea.

“Normally when you make a movie out of a book, it’s never a success,” she said over her morning espresso and cigarettes, wearing all black and her trademark platform heels. But when Marc-Antoine Robert, an acquaintance and fledgling producer, offered to raise money to make the movie in France, Ms. Satrapi agreed under what she presumed were impossible conditions: despite having no filmmaking experience, she wanted to direct the movie herself, in black and white. And she wanted Catherine Deneuve to play her mother.

Ms. Satrapi teamed up with Vincent Paronnaud, a fellow comic book author who has also made a few short films. “We’re like the Coen brothers,” she said of herself and Mr. Paronnaud, who co-wrote and is co-directing the film. “We’re very complementary. I would have made much more of a Bergman movie. But I don’t want something that a couple of intellectuals in Paris and New York will watch and nobody else.”

It was Mr. Paronnaud who pushed her to dramatize emotional and violent sequences that she had insinuated in the book. “Vincent is good at knowing where the camera should go, how to cut to give scenes rhythm,” Ms. Satrapi said. “People were thinking, if you just film the frames of the book, you have a movie. If you just film the book, it would be extremely boring.” She and Mr. Paronnaud picked their moments and condensed the book into a 90-minute film, told as a flashback.

“In no way did we want to betray the book, but we had to make choices,” Mr. Paronnaud said. “The idea was to keep the spirit and energy of the book and to try and find a way to interpret it differently on film.”

Ms. Satrapi said she wrote “Persepolis” as an answer to the relentless and loaded question of what it means to be Iranian. But her book’s success has meant that she has both gently educated those in the West — “Persepolis” is taught in 118 colleges in the United States, including West Point, according to Pantheon, its publisher — and taken part in a larger conversation about the book’s global resonances.

“Little by little, as the book got translated in other languages, people were saying, ‘This is my story too,’ ” she said. “Suddenly I said to myself, ‘This is a universal story.’ I want to show that all dictatorships, no matter if it’s Chile, if it’s the Cultural Revolution in China or Communist Poland, it’s the same schematic. Here in the West we judge them because we are so used to democracy, believing that if we have something, it is because we deserve it, because we chose it. Political changes turn your life completely upside down, not because you are crazy but because you don’t have any way out.”

The executive producer of “Persepolis” is Kathleen Kennedy, a veteran Hollywood producer who approached Ms. Satrapi after the film was in production, asking to buy the rights. Ms. Satrapi declined to sell but welcomed her involvement. Ms. Kennedy found an American distributor, providing an infusion of cash while leaving Ms. Satrapi in creative control, a rare occurrence for a black-and-white animated film in progress from a pair of first-time directors.

“Persepolis” is a rarity in France: an animated feature that was entirely produced here, rather than being farmed out to Asian animators. The filmmakers favored an artisanal approach that includes hand-tracing the images on paper, an art long lost to computer animation software.

“It’s not that they do lesser work in Asia, but it’s complicated to communicate with people 10,000 kilometers away,” said Marc Jousset, the film’s art and technical director, who assembled the animation team. “Marjane is here every day. She implicates herself in every decision. And even if she had never done an animation sequence, she has given us courses in things like how the head scarf is worn at home versus on the street in Iran, things that are important for the rigor of the story.”

Mr. Jousset said it took a few months to find the right style of animation. Characters are depicted in black and white, as they are in the comic book, while the settings are richly shaded in grays that lend them a painterly quality. “The narration had to be somewhat somber and restrained, and I saw a lot of animators with too cartoonish of a style,” Mr. Jousset said. “It’s an animated film, but we wanted it to be rather realistic, as if it was being filmed live.”

The voices were recorded before the animators began work, with Ms. Satrapi coaching the actors one on one. (Aghast at the prospect of bossing Ms. Deneuve around, she said, she downed three cognacs before directing the actress, who turned out to be “funny and intelligent and a big smoker.”) Ms. Satrapi allowed herself to be recorded while acting out the physical gestures for each scene, to give the animation team a physical reference.

“We could do any number of movements to coordinate with the words,” said Christian Desmares, the chief animator, “but Marjane wanted to really personalize each character, to use precise Iranian gestures. And we don’t know how to do that.”

Ms. Satrapi interjected: “I play all the roles. Even the dog.”

It took an adjustment, she added, to transform herself from a solo artist into the co-leader of a 90-member filmmaking team, though she has gotten some practice in group dynamics by lecturing regularly in Europe and the United States.

“I realized I had a talent I didn’t know,” she said. “In France people will tell you everything is impossible. I have the enthusiasm of an American. I tell people: ‘Rah, yes! We’re going to make a great movie.’ And it pays; you can see their reaction. And suddenly you realize they have ideas that you didn’t have. It is hard for me, for my ego, to say this: For me, the movie is better than the book.”

Talking to Tehran

Originally Posted: January 22nd, 2007 under CF REPORTS, Iran, Neocons, Dialogue, Bush Administration.

For several months now, the United States and Israel have promoted what could be described as a two-tiered narrative in confronting Iran. That coming from the U.S. government has catered to the “quality” press, while that from Israel has aimed straight for the tabloid headlines. The administration line has been measured, rational, yet uncompromising. Condoleezza Rice has insisted that Iran must live up to its international obligations and curtail its nuclear enrichment program even while she reiterates the United States’ desire to find a diplomatic resolution to its differences with the Islamic state. Israel’s warnings, on the other hand — which have been voiced most insistently and alarmingly by Likud leader, Benjamin Netnayahu — suggest that unless Iran’s nuclear ambitions are thwarted, a second Holocaust is imminent.

The combination of these two approaches has stymied efforts to find an opening in U.S.-Iranian relations. This, in spite of the fact that one of the key recommendations in the November report from the Iraq Study Group was that the United States “should engage directly with Iran” in order to try to obtain its commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues.

In recent weeks, tensions have escalated. American officials are now saying that the Iran policy has broadened and that the new policy is aimed at confronting Iran in “every way but direct armed conflict, using all means short of war.” Two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS John C.Stennis, have been moved into the Gulf and in response, Iran is engaging in short-range missile tests. Inside Iraq, U.S. forces recently arrested Iranian diplomats in Irbil and a few weeks ago also detained diplomats in Baghdad.

In this context, there are precious few signs coming out of Washington that the administration is in any mood to consider talking to Tehran. Nevertheless, only a few days ago, Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who was quoted from an interview he gave to the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, said that during his last visit to Tehran he been in discussions with Iranian officials who said that they are “ready to meet the Americans but they said that the Americans should publicly announce their readiness.”

Furthermore, there are reports that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is now being reined in by supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an effort to diffuse tensions. According to the Sunday Times, a debate is currently going on inside the regime on a proposal that “an international group made up of the permanent five members of the UN security council, plus Germany or a nuclear power such as India, would oversee and monitor Iran’s nuclear programme.”

From the U.S. side, the one sign that, contrary to all other indications, the State Department may be considering an opening to Iran comes in the appointment of Ryan Crocker as the United States’ new ambassador to Iraq. According to Washington Post columnist, David Ignatius, Crocker earlier had a central role in a U.S.-Iranian dialogue that began in earnest after 9/11. At that time, meetings took place at least once a month and were, according to one former U.S. official, essential to the formation of Afghanistan’s new government under President Hamid Karzai. With Crocker, a Farsi speaker, about to take up residence in Baghdad, he would be the obvious lead if or when Washington decides it is ready to engage Tehran. The question now is this: Will Vice President Cheney once again stand in the way of such an opening, as he did back in 2003 when he insisted, “We don’t talk to evil”?

In 2003, soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran is alleged to have presented a comprehensive offer to the United States in an attempt to reach a permanent resolution to the countries’ differences. This offer is once again in the news, though it has been written about several times before. Although the contents of a document which describes the terms of this offer have been discussed at length — such as in Gareth Porter’s extended analysis in The American Prospect — the text of the document has not widely been reproduced. For that reason we provide the full text below.

More recently, this issue was central to an op-ed by Flynt Leverett (former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council), that the White House only allowed the New York Times to publish after removing references to the Iranian offer. This, in spite of the fact that Leverett had already published a paper [PDF] on this and received CIA approval for that publication.

In light of the Bush administration’s current confrontational stance towards Iran, it is now worth looking carefully at the opening that was, in 2003, summarily dismissed by the Bush administration.

Summary of letter purportedly sent by Iran to the US government in the spring of 2003 (bold text appears in the original document):

Iranian aims:
(The US accepts a dialogue “in mutual respect” and agrees that Iran puts the following aims on the agenda)

* Halt in US hostile behavior and rectification of status of Iran in the US: (interference in internal or external relations, “axis of evil”, terrorism list.)
* Abolishment of all sanctions: commercial sanctions, frozen assets, judgments(FSIA), impediments in international trade and financial institutions
* Iraq: democratic and fully representative government in Iraq, support of Iranian claims for Iraqi reparations, respect for Iranian national interests in Iraq and religious links to Najaf/Karbal.
* Full access to peaceful nuclear technology, biotechnology and chemical technology
* Recognition of Iran’s legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity.
* Terrorism: pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO and support for repatriation of their members in Iraq, decisive action against anti Iranian terrorists, above all MKO and affiliated organizations in the US

US aims: (Iran accepts a dialogue “in mutual respect” and agrees that the US puts the following aims on the agenda)

1. WMD: full transparency for security that there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD, full cooperation with IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments (93+2 and all further IAEA protocols)
2. Terrorism: decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaida) on Iranian territory, full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.
3. Iraq: coordination of Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government.
4. Middle East:

1) stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory, pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967.
2) action on Hizbollah to become a mere political organization within Lebanon
3) acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states-approach)

Steps:
I. Communication of mutual agreement on the following procedure
II. Mutual simultaneous statements “We have always been ready for direct and authoritative talks with the US/with Iran in good faith and with the aim of discussing - in mutual respect - our common interests and our mutual concerns based on merits and objective realities, but we have always made it clear that, such talks can only be held, if genuine progress for a solution of our own concerns can be achieved.”
III. A first direct meeting on the appropriate level (for instance in Paris) will be held with the previously agreed aims

a. of a decision on the first mutual steps

*Iraq: establishment of a common group, active Iranian support for Iraq stabilization, US-commitment to actively support Iranian reparation claims within the discussions on Iraq foreign debts.
*Terorrism: US-commitment to disarm and remove MKO from Iraq and take action in accordance with SCR1373 against its leadership, Iranian commitment for enhanced action against Al Qaida members in Iran, agreement on cooperation and information exchange
*Iranian general statement “to support a peaceful solution in the Middle East involving the parties concerned”
*US general statement that “Iran did not belong to ‘the axis of evil’”
*US-acceptance to halt its impediments against Iran in international financial and trade institutions

b. of the establishment of the parallel working groups on disarmament, regional security and economic cooperation. Their aim is an agreement on three parallel road maps, for the discussions of these working groups, each side accepts that the other side’s aims (see above) are put on the agenda:

1) Disarmament: road map, which combines the mutual aims of, on the one side, full transparency by international commitments and guarantees to abstain from WMD with, on the other side, full access to western technology (in the three areas),
2) Terrorism and regional security: road map for above mentioned aims on the Middle east and terrorism
3) Economic cooperation: road map for the abolishment of the sanctions, rescinding of judgments, and un-freezing of assets

c. of agreement on a time-table for implementation
d. and of a public statement after this first meeting on the achieved agreements
(A facsimile of this text can be viewed here.)

Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918)

schiele

"Egon Schiele was regarded by many of his contemporaries as the predestined successor to Gustav Klimt, but died before he could fulfil his promise.

It was in 1907 that he sought out his idol, Klimt, to show him some of his drawings. Did they show talent? 'Yes,' Klimt replied. 'Much too much!' Klimt liked to encourage younger artists, and he continued to take an interest in this gifted young man, buying his drawings, or offering to exchange them for some of his own, arranging models for him and introducing him to potential patrons. He also introduced Schiele to the Wiener Werkstütte, the arts and crafts workshop connected with the Sezession. Schiele did odd jobs for them from 1908 onwards - he made designs for men's clothes, for women's shoes, and drawings for postcards. In 1908 he had his first exhibition, in Klosterneuberg.

By 1917 he was thought of as the leading Austrian artist of the younger generation, and was asked to take part in a government-sponsored exhibition in Stockholm and Copenhagen intended to improve Austria's image with the neutral Scandinavian powers. In 1918 he was invited to be a major participant in the Sezession's 49th exhibition. For this he produced a poster design strongly reminiscent of the Last Supper, with his own portrait in the place of Christ. Despite the war, the show was a triumph. Prices for Schiele's drawing trebled, and he was offered many portrait commissions. He and Edith (his wife since 1915) moved to a new and grander house and studio. Their pleasure in it was brief. On 19 October 1918 Edith, who was pregnant, fell ill with Spanish influenza, then sweeping Europe which ultimately claimed 22 million lives worlwide. On 28 October she died. Schiele, who seems never to have written her a real love-letter, and who in the midst of her illness wrote his mother a very cool letter to say that she would probably not survive, was devastated by the loss. Almost immediately he came down with the same sickness, and died on 31 October, three days after his wife." He was 28.

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Requiem for a Dream--Darren Aronofsky

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Gustav Klimt -- Painter of Women

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