Salmiya

The realities in international chess-playing Iran are analyzed today by Bernard Avishai and Reza Aslan for the Washington Post . While the notorious Bush Administration seems to be less willing in its last days to launch an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran, Israel still tackles the pros and cons. The arguments again and again circulate around the Iranian President and his unacceptable rhetoric. But that wiping-off-the-map ado has long been debunked as an intentionally wrong translation of a president’s not really diplomatic show-off who is not really the leader of the country. As Avishai and Aslan correctly state, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who alone commands Iran’s military and dictates foreign policy, has adopted a much softer tone with regard to nuclear negotiations with the West. Through his Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close confidant of the President, the US was described recently as “one of the best nations in the world”. “Today, Iran is frien...

The Iranian President in his interview with NBC today. That's absolutely true. But is it realistic to assume that they won't become a major issue in the 21st century, too? I doubt. That Mr. Ahmadinejad now personally addresses the American people but also all of us does not mean that the problems with Iran and its nuclear program are off the table. I would appreciate a clearer statement that Iran does not threaten any other nation and in particular not Israel. I would really appreciate ensuring human rights in the Islamic Republic. Iran might consider itself meanwhile a regional superpower . In a way hubris. But problems, be it regional or even global, have to be dealt with in concerted actions. Mr. Ahmadinejad might understand that his unacceptable rhetoric has never been helpful but is in fact counterproductive. Of course, there is a demand for independence, especially after extremely bad experiences with the UK and, in particular, the USA in the past 50 years. Operation Ajax...

The present election campaign of the Democrats in the US has led to unpleasant mud-wrestling mainly driven by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But in pleasing or appeasing her potential voters Clinton recently used too strong expressions on what she would do with Iran if becoming the next president. It is a conditional phrase, of course. If…, then…. So, the question in an interview in ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 was what she would do if Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel). "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. "That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic." In the meantime, Tehran h...

Six kilometers east to the center of the holy city of Qom, at the fringes of the great Dasht-e Kavir desert, lies the mosque of Jamkaran. It is a holy place where it is said that Mohammad Mahdi, the 12th Shi’a Imam, had appeared in 373 AH, together with Al-Khidr. There is a well where the faithful drop their letters with wishes and desires. Not from Jamkaran but Samarra in what is now Iraq, the Mahdi will reveal himself at the end of all time. One of the first acts of the government of the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to donate $10 million to the mosque in Jamkaran. My visit of Jamkaran was mainly inspired by an article by Ulrich Ladurner in the German weekly DIE ZEIT from October 2006. Ladurner painted a most strange picture of Iran and the Iranians, emphasizing special features of Shi’a beliefs in the return of the Mahdi. The article conjured up a completely irrational society waiting, and indeed preparing for, an apocalypse. He argued that the current President of ...