In full, the petition reads:

Dear Madams/Sirs, Prosecutors of the International Court of Justice,

Based on the constitution of the Islamic regime ruling Iran, Ali Khamenei, the leader designated as The Absolute Theocratic Guardianship, has unlimited authority, his commands must be unconditionally enforced and he cannot be challenged or opposed in any way. As such, Ali Khamenei acts in nothing more than in his own self-interest, in dereliction of his duty to safeguarding the lives, property and dignity of the people of Iran and maniacally runs rough shod over our nation; and with the aid of his oppressive henchmen, they add to the multitudes of the tortured and murdered of this land. This is a dictator whose inept and brutal policies has stiffled any expression of dissent and has squarely put our country in the path of destruction.

This suffocation and continued injustice has drowned out the voices of protesting groups such as the legions of workers, teachers, students, writers, journalists, bloggers, etc. Each day the number of the executed and tortured, in the prisons increases, all simply as a result of differences of opinion or opposition to the regime�s course of action.

As a result, in view of the recent warrant issued by your court, in the case of Omar al-Bashir, the criminal leader of The Sudan, we the below signatories, call upon you to also investigate crimes committed by Ali Khamenei, and to also issue a warrant for his arrest.

15 June 2009

With the semi-spontaneous demonstration in Tehran and other major cities (including Shiraz, where we have had eyewitness accounts by members of my family), the civil unrest that began on 13 June with opposition to the announced results of the presidential election of 12 June has entered a new phase. The assumption of the election having been rigged is now a “social fact.” It is no longer relevant if the election was or was not rigged. Millions of Iranians believe it was and they are putting their lives on the line to announce and assert it—with at least 12 fatalities, as just reported by The Guardian.

We need to have a careful and accurate summation of what has happened so far. On 12 June upward of 80% of eligible voters, about 40 out of 46 million, have voted. This has been the most magnificent manifestation of the political maturity of Iran as a nation and their collective democratic will. This nation does not need, nor has it ever needed, either a medieval concoction called the Vali Faqih in Qom or Tehran to patronize it or else a Neocon chicanery called “Iran Democracy Project” in Hoover Institution in California to promote it. This nation, as always, can take care of itself. It needs nothing but the active solidarity of ordinary people around the globe to be a witness to their struggles and demand from their media an accurate and comprehensive representation of their movement. So please, hands off Iran! No “democracy project,” no sanction, no threat, no military attack, no regime change.

The day after the results were announced, on 13 June, there was a spontaneous demonstration in Tehran by supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi demanding recount and charging vote rigging. The following day, on 14 June, the government staged a major pro-Ahmadinejad rally in which his supporters were bussed in from surrounding villages. It is important to keep in mind that Ahmadinejad’s supporters come from the poorest and most disenfranchised segments of Iranian society, subject to his and his campaign’s populism and demagoguery. From this fact one should not conclude that all the impoverished segments of Iranian society, suffering from double digit inflation and endemic unemployment, are on his side or fooled by his charlatanism. The supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the Reformist movement come from a vast trajectory of Iranian society.

Today, on 15 June 2009, the uprising has assumed an entirely different dimension and may have already transmuted into a full-fledged civil disobedience movement, with hundreds of thousands (according to BBC, which is usually quite conservative in its estimations), demonstrating peacefully and joyously between Meydan-e Enqelab and Meydan-e Azadi. Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami have led the demonstration and made speeches, as has Zahra Rahnavard, now an inspiration and role model for millions of Iranian women. Please take a good look at her and keep a print of her picture and the picture of other women participating in these demonstrations in your files before some other charlatan comes and crops it for the cover of the next edition of Reading Lolita in Tehran, or else puts together a collage of it for yet another book on “Sexual Revolution” or “Sexual Politics” in Iran. Whoever has won this particular presidential election, lipstick jihadis, career opportunist memoirists, obscene and fraudulent anthropologists on a summer “field work” in Iran, useless expatriate “opposition,” and comprador intellectuals in general are among its main losers.

What we are witnessing today may indeed be the commencement of a full-fledged civil disobedience, led by an aging revolutionary, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, battle-tested, literally, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), a war hero to his followers, and then gone into seclusion for almost 20 years (reading, writing, teaching, and painting), and has now come back with a vengeance against the opportunist populism of Ahmadinejad. The movement that he has led has been fortunately peaceful so far, except for at least 12 reported fatalities, perhaps more. Demonstrators have been savagely beaten up both in streets and in student dormitories. But by and large this civil disobedience has been relatively peaceful.

Tomorrow we need to see how the dialectic among three forces will unfold: (1) a mass cross-section of society supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi and demanding at the very least a recount of the rigged votes; (2) the leadership of this movement by Mousavi, Karrubi, and Khatami, and the Reformists in general; and (3) opposing them are the brutal and vicious charlatanism of Ahmadinejad, the autumn of the Vali Faqih’s patriarchy initially supporting him, and the platoon of conservative clergy like Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi in Qom.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi has the make up of an Iranian Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. in him. We have to wait and see.

Hamid Dabashi
New York
15 June 2009

It is unlikely that these new sanctions would prove successful in persuading the Iranian leadership to abandon its nuclear program. Previous sanctions have failed, and although members of Congress seem to think that the new legislation will allow Iranians to choose between their economic welfare and their country’s nuclear program, there is little historical evidence leading one to believe that economic sanctions are an effective method of altering a regime’s behavior (take Cuba, South Africa, Iraq, et. cetera).  Rather than encourage domestic opposition to the Iranian nuclear program, the sanctions could have the opposite effect and may end up uniting Iranians against the United States and its agenda in the region.

Finally, I should mention that the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative think tank with close ties to the Israeli right wing, is actively lobbying in favor of these sanctions. In order to thwart their efforts and in order to prevent a future crisis with Iran,  it is of paramount importance that these sanctions be resoundingly rejected as policy options. It is essential that Congress defeat the proposal, as it would do nothing more than increase the economic difficulties facing the Iranian people and further poison Iran’s relationship with both the United States and the West.

We should join J Street’s campaign to notify our members of Congress of our opposition to further sanctions. Here’s the link: http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2723

Reading by Hooman Hedayati
Music: Hamid Reza Rezai Kalaji – Tehran, Iran
Camera: Aryan Hedayati

I am sorry to say that I am disappointed with your recent moves towards the political right. As soon as you won the Democratic primary, you went to AIPAC to pledge your allegiance to the Israeli right wing. And just yesterday you went back on your commitment to public financing. But really, the icing on the cake came when you recently indicated that you support the FISA bill that legitimizes wireless surveillance. You certainly are amazing.

What’s really interesting is your stance on Iran. In 2004, you said that America might need to launch “surgical airstrikes” against Iran and its nuclear program. But by 2007 you had reversed this position, instead favoring direct diplomatic negotiations. Not to worry, just this month you announced that you had changed your position once again and were no longer committed to negotiations without preconditions. In addition, you recently called Iran a “threat,” telling a pro-Israel audience that the “military option” is not out of the question.

Where’s the difference between your position and that of Senator McCain? Gone is the Obama who, during the Democratic primary campaign, warned about the consequences of a war with Iran. You don’t mention the issue in your speeches anymore, and you don’t seem so concerned about the possibility. Your new position on Iran is unfortunate, but who can expect anything different from someone who has recently changed his views on a whole multitude of issues?

So, I ask you: Do you honestly believe that there is a military solution to the standoff with Iran? Do you really think that Iran is such a threat to the security of Israel (A country that, by the way, possesses 150 nuclear weapons and is the world’s 8th largest arms exporter)? And are you willing to reject the current U.S. stance towards Iran and instead make a genuine effort for peace and cooperation? So far, the answer to these questions appears to be a clear “No,” as you seem genuinely committed to continuing the policies of warmongering,  occupation, and profiteering.

AIPAC lobbied furiously for the war in Iraq and is now pressing for an attack on Iran. American politicians, and especially Senator Obama, need to stop kissing up to AIPAC, which, by the way, represents the “lobbyists” that Obama claims he rejects.

If Obama was serious about peace, he’d listen to the 64% of Israelis who want to pursue direct diplomatic talks with the Palestinian leadership, which is actually run by Hamas – a group that Obama labels as “terrorist.” He’d also listen to the 67.2% of Israelis who oppose an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama is letting AIPAC get in the way of peaceful solutions to the problems facing the Middle East.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then…later on…comes Netanyahu in a baby carriage!

http://www.barackobama.com/2008/05/09/at_60_israel_has_much_to_celeb_1.php

It’d be generous to say that Obama’s record on the Mid East has been contradictory. In 2007 he declared that “no one suffers more than the Palestinians.” Then, facing pressure from pro Israel supporters, he completely reversed this statement. Indeed, as a state senator, Obama was initially considered pro Palestinian – but then decided to change his position as his career advanced. Such distinguished political courage is rare in our times.

Just last year Obama said that he would unconditionally meet with the leaders of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela – countries that the US government has accused of everything from communism to terrorism – in the first year of his presidency. But to Obama, the elected leaders of the Palestinian authority are an entirely different story – Barack says he doesn’t want America or Israel to negotiate with these “terrorists.” A recent Israeli poll showed that 64% are in favor of diplomatic talks with the Palestinian leadership. In other words, Obama rejects the views of the Israeli public, rejects peace talks, and instead chooses to “appease” the right wing, which has accused him of being soft on terrorism.

Obama has highlighted his hypocrisy by saying that his commitment to diplomacy was misunderstood and that he will not, as pledged, engage in unconditional diplomacy with the leaders of Iran and Cuba. Just last week, Obama echoed Bush and called Iran a “threat” that must be confronted. And just this week he traveled to Miami and addressed a crowd of Cuban Americans, telling them that he won’t negotiate with the new leader of Cuba unless the Cuban leadership agrees to allow Cuban exiles to sit in during the meetings. Being at least somewhat intelligent, Obama must certainly know that Raoul Castro would never agree to such an unacceptable precondition. So, in other words, Obama has no plans of ever negotiating with Cuba – at all. Amazing, isn’t it?

Obama’s record of flip flopping on important political issues is quite disturbing. A creature of political expediency, Obama’s compromises and backtracks on his positions whenever he is criticized (Take Reverend Wright, for example). This is quite typical of the Democrats. After all, it was Clinton-Gore who expanded the War on Drugs, cut government spending, ended welfare assistance for the poor, and bombed Iraq for eight years straight. Obama’s behavior is unsurprising. Hope. Change. And, of course……

Honesty

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a prominent member of the NCIR, recently became a “Foreign Affairs Analyst” for none other than the FOX News network. There he has become a cheerleader for a U.S. attack against Iran, repeatedly arguing that diplomacy cannot work and Iran must be confronted. He has denounced US-Iran talks as counterproductive and continues to repeat unsubstantiated claims about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. What a tool.

The picture? Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the MEK, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.