If you guessed the meaning of the suffix –stan, you’re correct.

The suffix –stan is Persian and Urdu for “place of,” or “where one stands.”  It is found in the names of seven countries: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In most of these titles, the first part of the name refers to an ethnic group that lives in the nation: the Afghans (or Afghanis), the Kyrgyz, etc . . .

There are countless regions within other countries, or toponyms, whose names end in –stan, such as Tatarstan, a republic in central Russia..

The Proto-Indo-European root sta means “stand.” In Russian, stan means “settlement” or “semi-permanent camp,” and in other Slavic languages it means “apartment.” The root is also found in Germanic languages for words meaning “city.”

Incidentally, the name Stanley, or Stan for short, has nothing to do with –stan. Stanley derives from the Old English for “stone field.”

The suffix is not just found in the names of established places. -stan has a rich history of being part of proposed names, fictional names, and forgotten names. Dravidistan is name for a proposed Indian country that would encompass Tamil Nadu and other southern states. Berzerkistan is the invention of “Doonsebury” creator Gary Trudeau. In the comic strip, Berzerkistan is a fiction republic run by a genocidal maniac.

Frangistan is one of the historical -stans. During the Crusades, Muslims of the Middle East called Christians Franks. So, Frangistan was a term that was used to refer to Western Europe, “Land of the Franks.”

We’ve mentioned some of the -stans. How many can you name without looking it up?

(Source: The Hot Word blog)

Google is about to cut a deal with Verizon that would end the Internet as we know it. According to a front-page New York Times story, the deal allows “Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.” It would create fast Internet lanes for the largest corporations and slow lanes for the rest of us. That’s why we’re starting a mass protest by Google users to stop these two companies from joining forces to sell out millions of people like us who use the Internet.

If Millions Join Our Call, We Can Stop this Deal: Tell Google, “Don’t Be Evil” Google’s motto is supposed to be “Don’t Be Evil.” But this deal puts the company in bed with the devil.

From the beginning, the Internet has been a level playing field that allows everyone to connect to one another and the world of content available online — whether it’s ABC News or your cousin’s wedding video. There’s only one Internet, and it shouldn’t matter who your provider is or whether you’re logging on from home or your cell phone.

This deal will change all of that, allowing Google and Verizon to pick what websites you can see over others. The result couldn’t be bleaker for the future of the Internet and for free speech and independent voices online. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google to make information freely available to everyone online. But this deal is a complete reversal that abandons their core principles:

Sign this letter and tell Google’s founders: “Your Verizon deal IS evil, and it must be stopped.”

It’s up to the millions of people who use Google every day to tell the company to do the right thing. Google must walk away from this bad deal, and make sure Internet users everywhere can enjoy the entire open Internet wherever, whenever and however they want.

And now, sanctions are punishing Iranian youth seeking to study abroad.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) announced on July 15 that because of US-led sanctions, Iranians cannot register for the GRE and the TOEFL — tests necessary to study abroad.

This cannot be what the President had in mind when he promised: “[E]ven as we continue to have differences with the Iranian government, we will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people. For instance, by increasing opportunities for educational exchanges so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities…”

A pattern of contradictions seems to be emerging between the President’s promises on Iran and the actual policies that are being pursued.

We must remind President Obama of his promises and urge him to act to ensure young Iranians are not barred from studying abroad.

Already, on Norooz, President Obama committed to increasing educational exchanges for young Iranians. Since then, thousands have written the President urging that, as a first step, the US fix the “single-entry only” policy in which Iranians studying at American colleges may not leave the US at any time without losing their visas. That issue has yet to be addressed by the President, and now the situation for Iranian youths hoping to study abroad has grown even worse.

Please take a moment to remind President Obama how important it is that we not punish in

Recently imposed sanctions on Iran have already grounded civilian passenger planes, revoked a “goodwill gesture” that enabled Americans to import Iranian carpets and pistachios, and disproportionately punished Iran’s middle class.

And now, sanctions are punishing Iranian youth seeking to study abroad.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) announced on July 15 that because of US-led sanctions, Iranians cannot register for the GRE and the TOEFL — tests necessary to study abroad.

This cannot be what the President had in mind when he promised: “[E]ven as we continue to have differences with the Iranian government, we will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people.  For instance, by increasing opportunities for educational exchanges so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities…”

A pattern of contradictions seems to be emerging between the President’s promises on Iran and the actual policies that are being pursued.

We must remind President Obama of his promises and urge him to act to ensure young Iranians are not barred from studying abroad.

Already, on Nowruz, President Obama committed to increasing educational exchanges for young Iranians.  Since then, thousands have written the President urging that, as a first step, the US fix the “single-entry only” policy in which Iranians studying at American colleges may not leave the US at any time without losing their visas.  That issue has yet to be addressed by the President, and now the situation for Iranian youths hoping to study abroad has grown even worse.

Please take a moment to remind President Obama how important it is that we not punish innocent Iranians, including students seeking to study outside of Iran.  Urge the President to keep his promise and ensure that sanctions don’t block Iranian students from “a more hopeful future.”

nocent Iranians, including students seeking to study outside of Iran. Urge the President to keep his promise and ensure that sanctions don’t block Iranian students from “a more hopeful future.”

On July 3, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was shot down by USS Vincennes on the Bandar Abbas-Dubai rout, which resulted in the loss of life of 290 innocent civilian from six nations including 66 children. There were 38 non-Iranians aboard.

On the morning of that disastrous day, 3rd of July, the captain and crew of Flight 655 were at Bandar Abbas airfield in southern Iran, preparing for the second leg of their routine 150-mile flight over the Persian Gulf to Dubai. Flight 655 was a commercial flight operated by Iran Air that flew on a Tehran-Bandar Abbas-Dubai route.

Flight 655, an Iran Air passenger aircraft similar to this Iran Air Airbus A300B2 was shot down by USS Vincennes, a US Navy cruiser, in July 3, 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew from six nations including 66 children.

The plane, an Airbus A300B2, registered EP-IBU, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17am that day, 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time of 09:50am. It would have been a 28-minute flight. At that same time, the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, USS Vincennes, fitted with the AEGIS combat system, was nearby in the Strait of Hormuz, which the commercial airliner, flown by Captain Mohsen Rezaian, would pass over. USS Vincennes was stationed in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war, U.S. presence was intended to escort and defend Kuwaiti oil tankers registered under the U.S. flag; and limit Iranian marine activities as well as the tightening of US imposed embargo against Iran. In command of Vincennes was Commander William C. Rogers III. At the time of the incident, Vincennes, in support of Operation Earnest Will, was within Iranian territorial waters, following combat with and pursuit of Iranian gunboats. The USS Sides and the USS Elmer Montgomery were nearby.

Like most modern aircraft, the Iranian airliner was equipped with an aircraft identification transponder, a modern form of the old “identification, friend or foe” (IFF) system of World War II. When interrogated by a radar signal from a potential adversary, the transponder “squawks” (gives off a specific response signal) in a prespecified, fixed mode.

After taking off from runway 21, Flight 655 was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a twenty-mile-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. Owing to the short distance, the flight pattern would be a simple trajectory–climbing out to an altitude of 14,000 feet, cruising for a short time, and then descending gradually into Dubai.

USS Vincennes (CG-49) is a U.S. Navy Ticonderoga class AEGIS guided missile cruiser well known for shooting down Iran Air Flight 655 in July 3, 1988 killing 290 innocent civilian from six nations including 66 children.

Because of the delay in takeoff, it appeared on the Vincennes‘s radar at 10:17, and at 10:19, the Vincennes began to issue warnings on the Military Air Distress frequency. According to U.S. government accounts, Vincennes mistakenly identified the Iranian airplane as an attacking military fighter. The officers identified the flight profile being flown by the A300B2 as being similar to that of an Iranian Air Force F-14A Tomcat during an attack run. According to the same reports Vincennes tried more than once to contact Flight 655, but there was no acknowledgement. The official ICAO report stated that these attempts to contact Iran Air 655 were sent on the wrong frequency and addressed to a non-existent “Iranian F-14″.

The Iranian F-14s at Bandar Abbas have been set to squawk in “Mode II,” a mode that would identify to the U.S. ships that the aircraft in question were military, and Iranian. Being a commercial flight, Iran Air 655 was instructed to squawk in Mode III, a signal that identifies civilian traffic. A unique transmission code number, 6760 in this case, was assigned to distinguish this particular flight from others.

During the next three minutes, the Vincennes issued a number of warnings on both military and civil distress frequencies, it (mistakenly) identified the Airbus 320 as a possible Iranian F-14, it (mistakenly) reported hearing IFF squawks in Mode II, and it (mistakenly) reported the aircraft as descending toward the ship when it was in fact still climbing according to its usual flight plan.

At 10:24 am, Captain Rogers, the Commanding Officer of Vincennes ordered to fire two SM-2ER antiaircraft missiles at the assumed F-14 fighter jet. A few seconds later, with the Airbus still on its assigned climb out, and slightly to one side of, but well within air corridor Amber 59, it was intercepted by one or both of the missiles at a range of eight nautical miles and an altitude of 13,500 feet. Flight 655, with some 290 people, tumbled in flames into the Persian Gulf. The whole flight had taken less than seven minutes. There were no survivors. By noon that day, Iranian helicopters and boats began to search the area and recover the bodies. It was not until later in the day that the officers and men of the Vincennes would learn that what they had shot down was not an Iranian F-14, but a commercial, civil flight.

Since the “black box” flight recorder on board the Iranian Airbus has been irrecoverably lost in the waters of the Persian Gulf, we shall never know exactly what her flight profile was, whether the crew ignored the American challenges or simply did not hear them.

However, the Vincennes had a black box of its own. The SPY-1A, Command and Decision, and Weapons Control System computers were all equipped with magnetic tape equipment that tracked and recorded all of the signals received and processed by these key pieces of electronic equipment. Because of this, investigators have been able to verify the timing and nature of all actions.

The situation aboard the Vincennes that day was one of confusion and disorder. The story told by the data tapes is straightforward. Iran Air Flight 655 took off from Bandar Abbas at 10:17 a.m. on the morning of July 3, on a heading of 210 (runway 21). Squawking Mode III, Code 6760 continuously, it kept on a more or less constant heading of 210, climbing steadily to its cruising altitude while gradually gaining speed. Data and testimony from the USS Sides corroborate the flight path and the Mode III IFF squawk. Indeed, the Sides was to identify the unknown aircraft as non-hostile and turn its attention elsewhere only seconds before the Vincennes launched its missiles.

The story told by those inside the CIC aboard the Vincennes is quite different. From the first alerted contact, various personnel began to report a “Mode II” squawk on a code associated with Iranian F-14s. Although none of the data recorders reported any IFF response other than Mode III, Code 6760, those aboard the Vincennes continued to consistently misreport the signal.

As the range closed, the Vincennes began to broadcast increasingly urgent warning messages to the unknown aircraft; at first, these were general challenges on both military and international civil distress nets. But as the notion that the aircraft was indeed an F-14 became fixed in the minds of the key operators, the challenges were made more specific and were addressed only to an unidentified “Iranian F-14.” A quick thumb-through of a listing of commercial flights missed the clear listing for Flight 655, although it was on course and nearly on time.

A warning of possible “COMAIR” (commercial aircraft) issued a minute or two later was acknowledged by the CO, but essentially ignored. Commander Lustig, the Anti-Air Warfare Commander (AAWC) new to his post (and generally regarded as inexperienced and a weak leader), de facto leadership fell upon the more junior Tactical Information Coordinator (TIC), who by that time was almost literally shouting about the immediacy and seriousness of the threat.

Captain Rogers did allow the unknown aircraft to close to well within its possible missile firing range before asking for and receiving permission to intercept, and he did so only after repeating the challenge several more times. Only then, convinced that the threat to his ship was too serious to ignore, and under pressure to act quickly to avoid the earlier fate of the USS Stark, did he authorize the firing.

Was Captain Rogers justified in his perception of a real threat to his ship (which was the US Navy’s claim)?

Was the whole incident a regrettable, but unavoidable, accident of war (which is precisely what the resulting U.S. attitude was, in the Pentagon, in Congress, and in the press)?

The question to be asked is: Was an error made on the U.S. side at all? The U.S. Navy finally claimed that Captain Rogers of the Vincennes acted correctly in appraising the threat. Others in the United States asserted that such blame as there was attached solely to Iran.

The large-scale technical military system operating in the Persian Gulf on that day, of which the Vincennes was the central feature, was not waging total war, but rather a highly selective engagement in an arena known to be filled with civil traffic on air and sea. This very sophisticated piece of equipment had been placed in a situation for which it had never been designed precisely because it was thought to be most capable of making the kinds of quick and accurate judgments that would be necessary. But it failed.

Throughout its final flight IR655 was in radio contact with various air traffic control services using standard civil aviation frequencies, and had spoken in English to Bandar Abbas Approach Control seconds before Vincennes launched its missiles. Vincennes at that time had no equipment suitable for monitoring civil aviation frequencies, other than the International Air Distress frequency, despite being a sophisticated anti-aircraft warship. Subsequently U.S. Navy warships in the area were equipped with dialable VHF radios, and access to flight plan information was sought, to better track commercial airliners.

The Investigation
The Navy investigation board was convened by Rear Admiral William M. Fogarty at Bahrain beginning on July 6, while the events were still fresh in the minds of the participants. Formal hearings began a week later, and the entire procedure was completed and the report delivered to the Navy on July 28. Even in the cleansed form provided to the public, the report is rich in personal and technical detail. Perhaps the most striking feature is the degree to which the recollections of the participants as to the nature and assessment of the presumptive threat differ, and the variance between what was reported by the SPY-1A computers and what its human interpreters were reporting.

The record shows that the decision to fire was taken more or less calmly and deliberately on the basis of personal advice passed from junior officers to the senior AAWC, and from the AAWC to the CO–in the face of a stream of contrary evidence from the electronics aboard.

Medals awarded
While issuing notes of regret over the loss of human life, the U.S. government has, to date, neither admitted any wrongdoing or responsibility in this tragedy, nor apologized, but continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, even won the navy’s Commendation Medal for “heroic achievement”, his “ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire” having enabled him to “quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure.” According to a 23 April 1990 article printed in The Washington Post, the Legion of Merit was presented to Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Commander Lustig for their performance in the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988. The citations did not mention the downing of the Iran Air flight at all.

The incident continued to overshadow U.S.-Iran relations for many years. Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 six months later, the British and American governments initially blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian militant group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Iran Air Flight 655. The blame was later shifted to Libya.

Vice President George H. W. Bush (later President of United States of America) declared a month later,
“I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”

Newsweek, August 15, 1988

Public Statements on the Destruction of an Iranian Jetliner by the United States Navy Over the Persian Gulf July 3, 1988

Independent sources
Independent investigations into the events have presented a different picture. John Barry and Roger Charles, of Newsweek, wrote that Commander Rogers acted recklessly and without due care. Their report further accused the U.S. government of a cover-up. An analysis of the events by the International Strategic Studies Association described the deployment of an AEGIS cruiser in the zone as irresponsible and felt that the expense of the ship had played a major part in the setting of a low threshold for opening fire. On November 6, 2003 the International Court of Justice concluded that the U.S. Navy’s actions in the Persian Gulf at the time had been unlawful.

It is worthy to mention that United Arab Emirates, records showed that the Vincennes was actually inside of Iran’s territorial waters, not forty miles south (where the ship had been officially ordered by fleet headquarters to stay) as Captain Rogers and government reports had claimed. Furthermore, Flight 655 was directly inside of its commercial flight path, not four miles outside of it–as Rogers and the Vincennes crew also claimed.

Three years after the incident, Admiral William Crowe admitted on ABC Nightline that the Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the shoot-down. This directly contradicted the official Navy claims of the previous years.

Compensation
On February 22, 1996 the United States of America under presidency of Bill Clinton agreed to pay Iran and victims of Flight 655 US$61.8 million in compensation ($300,000 per wage-earning victim, $150,000 per non-wage-earner) for the 248 Iranians killed in the shoot-down. This was an agreed settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice. The payment of compensation was explicitly characterized as being on an “ex gratia” basis, and the U.S. denied having any responsibility or liability for the incident.

Actor Brian Jones reads Frederick Douglass’s “Fourth of July Speech, 1852″ on May 2, 2007 in New York, New York. Part of a reading from Voices of a People’s History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.) Happy 4th of July!

I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

To frustrated Americans who have begun boycotting BP: Welcome to the club.  It’s great not to be the only member any more!

Does boycotting BP really make sense?  Perhaps not.  After all, many BP filling stations are actually owned by local people, not the corporation itself.  Besides, when you’re filling up at a Shell or ExxonMobil station, it’s hard to feel much sense of moral triumph. Nonetheless, I reserve my right to drive by BP stations. I started doing it long before this year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

My decision not to give this company my business came after I learned about its role in another kind of “spill” entirely — the destruction of Iran’s democracy more than half a century ago.

The history of the company we now call BP has, over the last 100 years, traced the arc of transnational capitalism.  Its roots lie in the early years of the twentieth century when a wealthy bon vivant named William Knox D’Arcy decided, with encouragement from the British government, to begin looking for oil in Iran.  He struck a concession agreement with the dissolute Iranian monarchy, using the proven expedient of bribing the three Iranians negotiating with him.
Under this contract, which he designed, D’Arcy was to own whatever oil he found in Iran and pay the government just 16% of any profits he made — never allowing any Iranian to review his accounting.  After his first strike in 1908, he became sole owner of the entire ocean of oil that lies beneath Iran’s soil.  No one else was allowed to drill for, refine, extract, or sell “Iranian” oil.

”Fortune brought us a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams,” Winston Churchill, who became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, wrote later. “Mastery itself was the prize of the venture.”

Soon afterward, the British government bought the D’Arcy concession, which it named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.  It then built the world’s biggest refinery at the port of Abadan on the Persian Gulf.  From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain’s standard of living was supported by oil from Iran.  British cars, trucks, and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, powered its ships with Iranian oil.

After World War II, the winds of nationalism and anti-colonialism blew through the developing world.  In Iran, nationalism meant one thing: we’ve got to take back our oil.  Driven by this passion, Parliament voted on April 28, 1951, to choose its most passionate champion of oil nationalization, Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister.  Days later, it unanimously approved his bill nationalizing the oil company.  Mossadegh promised that, henceforth, oil profits would be used to develop Iran, not enrich Britain.

This oil company was the most lucrative British enterprise anywhere on the planet.  To the British, nationalization seemed, at first, like some kind of immense joke, a step so absurdly contrary to the unwritten rules of the world that it could hardly be real.  Early in this confrontation, the directors of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and their partners in Britain’s government settled on their strategy: no mediation, no compromise, no acceptance of nationalization in any form.

The British took a series of steps meant to push Mossadegh off his nationalist path.

They withdrew their technicians from Abadan, blockaded the port, cut off exports of vital goods to Iran, froze the country’s hard-currency accounts in British banks, and tried to win anti-Iran resolutions from the U.N. and the World Court.  This campaign only intensified Iranian determination.  Finally, the British turned to Washington and asked for a favor: please overthrow this madman for us so we can have our oil company back.

American President Dwight D. Eisenhower, encouraged by his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a lifelong defender of transnational corporate power, agreed to send the Central Intelligence Agency in to depose Mossadegh.  The operation took less than a month in the summer of 1953.  It was the first time the CIA had ever overthrown a government.

At first, this seemed like a remarkably successful covert operation.  The West had deposed a leader it didn’t like, and replaced him with someone who would perform as bidden — Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

From the perspective of history, though, it is clear that Operation Ajax, as the operation was code-named, had devastating effects.  It not only brought down Mossadegh’s government, but ended democracy in Iran.  It returned the Shah to his Peacock Throne.  His increasing repression set off the explosion of the late 1970s, which brought to power Ayatollah Khomeini and the bitterly anti-Western regime that has been in control ever since.

The oil company re-branded itself as British Petroleum, BP Amoco, and then, in 2000, BP.  During its decades in Iran, it had operated as it pleased, with little regard for the interests of local people.  This corporate tradition has evidently remained strong.

Many Americans are outraged by the relentless images of oil gushing into Gulf waters from the Deepwater Horizon well, and by the corporate recklessness that allowed this spill to happen.  Those who know Iranian history have been less surprised.

Stephen Kinzer is a veteran foreign correspondent and the author of Bitter Fruit and Overthrow, among other works.  His newest book is Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future.

Speakers included:
Freedom Glory Project
Mamak Khadem, formerly of Axiom of Choice
Kathy Kelly, Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Professor Hossein Kamaly, Barnard University
Austin Heap, Haystack Creator

Link to Youtube Playlist.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the contested re-election of President Ahmadinejad. How do you read the situation in Iran a year later? What are the internal dynamics?

While the government succeeded in violently quelling the momentum of the opposition Green Movement, the country’s deep internal rifts—both among political elites and between the population and the regime—have yet to be reconciled. The morale of the opposition is understandably low. Their brain trust is either in prison, under virtual house arrest or unable to freely communicate. And for that reason they lack strategy and organization. But the fact that the regime has announced it will mobilize two million security forces to the capital for the anniversary of last year’s election shows that the regime more than anyone appreciates the fact that the political, social and above all economic discontent which sparked last year’s tumult may be out of sight but not out of mind.

One of the criticisms of the Green Movement has been that it has relied on street protests even though it has been repeatedly overwhelmed by government forces. What other tools are available to the Green Movement and are they using them?

It’s an apt criticism in that street protests accentuate the Green Movement’s weaknesses and the government’s strengths. By virtue of the fact that the Green Movement espouses democracy, tolerance and coexistence, green activists are not the type of people who are willing to martyr themselves in the streets, whereas government militia have shown themselves very willing to kill—if not die—to retain power.

If the opposition wants to really challenge the authority of the regime, they will have to go beyond street protests and focus more on ways to bring the country’s economy to a grinding halt. That means trying to mobilize laborers from major industry, government workers, bazaar merchants and oil workers. This is a tall order, for these labor groups are just as unorganized as the Green Movement itself.

The Green Movement leadership also needs to do a better job of articulating to working-class Iranians how a “Green” Iran is in their interest. Democracy and human rights are important concepts for some, but as a friend of mine in Tehran told me several years ago, “You can’t eat democracy and human rights.”

The leadership of the Green Movement needs more technocrats who can talk about how the Iranian economy is being mismanaged and how to fix it, and fewer intellectuals who spend their time rehashing religious and philosophical debates from centuries ago.

What is the economic situation like?

There is endemic mismanagement; in the aftermath of the elections there was a further purge of technocrats from important ministries and budgetary offices, in favor of inexperienced cronies. This compounded the contraction of oil prices and a lack of foreign investment. The key economic indicators—unemployment and inflation—hover around 20 percent (unofficially).

An important flash point in the coming months will be the bill that is being deliberated now in the parliament to eliminate as much as a quarter to half of subsidies on daily staples such as foodstuffs and petrol, and instead dole out cash to people. This could spur rampant inflation and potentially more tumult.

Going back to the post-elections dynamics; one of the things that people focused on was the rifts within the clerical class. How has that played out over the past year?

The rifts among the clergy are worrisome but not fatal for Khamenei. From the onset of Khamenei’s tenure as Supreme Leader, by virtue of his inferior clerical credentials he sought legitimacy in the barracks rather than the mosques. Signs of dissent among the Revolutionary Guards would be far more unsettling to him.

As opposed to Khomeini, who was a bonafide ‘object of emulation’ for the clergy, Khamenei is more like the ‘Godfather’ to them, in the sense that they simultaneously fear him and rely on him financially. They may not like him, but they’re afraid of crossing him.

Is there a relationship between the rifts within the clergy and the effectiveness of the Green Movement?

Though two of the three nominal leaders of the green movement—Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammed Khatami—are clerics, and they’ve also had the support of grand Ayatollahs like Montazeri and Sanei, the seminaries have been mostly quiet up until now.

When and if the clergy sense that the center of gravity is shifting towards the opposition, I can see many of them quickly changing sides. But I don’t think they’re going to be spearheading this movement.

When you look back at the iconic images of the 1979 Revolution, they were images of bearded, middle-aged, traditional men, oftentimes clergy. The iconic images of the Green Movement agitators are images of young, modern, educated women and men.

What about the Revolutionary Guards? As you said, Khamenei’s power, and—to a large extent Ahmadinejad’s—come from the Revolutionary Guard. How has their power shifted or changed in the past year and what is their relationship with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad?

By virtue of the fact that Khamenei is much more reliant on the Revolutionary Guard to maintain order, he has had to cede a lot of influence and authority to them. Yet he’s still their commander-in-chief; he hand picks their top commanders, cultivates them over the years, and changes them frequently. It’s a symbiotic relationship in that they both need the legitimacy of the other. But certainly the balance of power has shifted away from Khamenei since the election.

That said, the Revolutionary Guards are somewhat of a black box as there are many indications that the rank-and-file is more representative of Iranian society at large. They’re not simply a group of 125,000 men who are ready to kill in order to uphold Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Similar to the clergy, the Revolutionary Guards are not a monolith.

Moving onto the international stage; what do you think were the Iranian leadership’s goal in making the nuclear fuel agreement with Turkey and Brazil and how was it received in Iran?

I think the regime’s goals were to get credit for feigning a major concession—which in fact was not that major—in order to accentuate the rifts within in the international community and scuttle any sanctions resolutions

What they didn’t calculate was the fact that Russia and China were not pleased to be upstaged by Turkey and Brazil and had no qualms moving forward on the sanctions resolution.

Ahmadinejad initially agreed to the first agreement that was made with the Vienna group, or his representatives did or appeared to, and then came home and were criticized by everyone. How was this agreement received in Iran?

There are some important distinctions between the Turkish-Brazilian proposal and the October proposition . First, it was six months later so Iran had doubled its stockpile of low enriched uranium. Second, it neither explicitly nor implicitly required Iran to cap its enrichment at 20 percent. Third, there was a provision in the Turkish-Brazilian agreement that would allow Iran to renege on the deal and retrieve all of its uranium if it was not happy.

For the above reasons, the Turkish-Brazilian proposal was seen as a win-win in Tehran. They thought they could undermine the sanctions resolution without having to make any significant compromises. The small victory they achieved was that Turkey and Brazil voted against the resolution.

One and a half years into the Obama administration and one year since the elections, how would you assess U.S. policy towards Iran, both in terms of the nuclear program and in terms of internal opposition?

The irony of Obama’s engagement approach toward Iran is that it failed to do what it intended, which was to moderate Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but it succeeded where it hadn’t intended, which was to catalyze Iran’s democracy movement. I’ve said this many times before but I truly believe that whereas the Bush administration’s hardline approach unintentionally united Iran’s competing political factions against a common threat, Obama’s approach widened Iran’s existing internal divides, both among political elites and between the population and the regime.

Today I think the administration has to tackle several difficult questions: How do you go about reaching an accommodation with a regime that need you as an adversary? How do you engage the Iranian regime without betraying and demoralizing the millions of Iranians who continue to believe their regime is illegitimate? How do you champion democracy and human rights in Iran without tainting the independence of the Green Movement?

These were challenges that we were seemingly able to reconcile during the Cold War, in our policy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc. Iran policy is somewhat different in that it’s not yet a nuclear power, and we’re still feverishly focused on preventing that possibility, rather than thinking about how to expedite political transformation in Tehran.

Another challenge is timing. The leadership of the Green Movement doesn’t have the same sense or urgency as the Obama administration to see political change in Tehran, they’re taking a much more deliberate approach, trying to wear down the regime over time.

Many of the countries in the region are concerned about the possibility of the U.S. and international community accepting Iran as a nuclear state. If that in fact is the direction you think we are moving in, then how do we allay the concerns of countries like Israel and the Gulf States that have great concerns?

That’s a question that people are wrestling with. Israel and the Arab Gulf states are very concerned that the U.S. is going to adopt a containment approach that may implicitly signal to Tehran that it’s okay for them to weaponise and America will acquiesce.

The problem is I don’t think we share identical interests with them vis-à-vis Iran. Arab nations, broadly speaking, don’t want Iran to get the bomb and they don’t want Iran to get bombed. Nor, however, do they want to see a U.S.-Iran rapprochement or the advent of a democratic Iran that would enable Tehran to emerge from its largely self-inflicted isolation and begin to realize its enormous potential.

I think many Israelis would welcome a more democratic Iran because they believe its foreign policy would be less ideological. But despite its own enormous nuclear arsenal, Israel seems to have an even great sense of insecurity vis-à-vis Iran than the Arab world, and is far more willing than the U.S. to consider taking military action that would have enormously negative reverberations around the region.

Aside from the nuclear issue, how has Iran been acting in the region over the past year? How has what happened internally affected its projection in various countries?

Iran’s image in the region was certainly sullied after the election, but as long as there remains popular outrage in the Muslim world about the policies of Israel—such as the recent flotilla incident—I think Iran’s defiant ideology is going to find resonance. Iran is cognizant of the fact that it can be the champion of the region’s down-trodden and alienated, but they can’t be the champion of the region’s upwardly mobile. So it’s actually in Iran’s interest to see continued tumult and disaffection in the region, to deprive it of normalcy.

And would you say that’s true across the board? In Iraq, for example?

A U.S. general once said that Iran offers to help resolve problems which it itself helps to create. If Desiderius Erasmus were alive and a U.S. foreign policy maker, he might reprise his infamous quote about women to read, “You can’t live with Iran, and you can’t live without them.”

Without Iran’s cooperation it’s going to be doubly difficult to bring stability to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Levant and the Holy Land. But at the same time, a peaceful and prosperous region seems inimical to the cynical interests of the Islamic Republic.

Abdollahi came to the US when he was just three years old. After his father received a PhD at the University of Michigan, the Abdollahi family realized they had fallen in love with their new home and decided to apply for US citizenship. But due to a simple error in processing their immigration form – their attorney told them the fee was $20 less than it actually was – their application was rejected and they lost legal status.

Now twenty-four, Abdollahi has lived in the US nearly his entire life. “You don’t realize you’re any different growing up,” Abdollahi reflects. “Playing in the playground with all the other kids, you’re all the same. I was the same as everyone else.”

But when he finished high school and his friends left to go to college, Abdollahi was reminded of his limits as an undocumented immigrant when he was denied entrance into Eastern Michigan University despite qualifying credentials.

In the ensuing years, Abdollahi has worked actively to change policies that impact undocumented immigrants like himself who came to the United States as children and have lived here most of their lives.

On May 17, the anniversary of the historic civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, Abdollahi led a protest in Arizona for immigration reform with four other civil rights leaders. The five staged a sit-in at Senator John McCain’s Tucson Office in attempt to bring attention to the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act), legislation that would enable anyone who entered the US before the age of 16 and who has lived in the country for five consecutive years to be eligible for conditional permanent residency. After obtaining a college degree or completing two years of military service, they would be eligible for a green card and to apply for citizenship.

Without the DREAM Act, this path would be otherwise unavailable to these youth. For Abdollahi, in lieu of passage of the DREAM Act, he would be unable to obtain a green card and faces deportation from the US.  He would face execution if sent to Iran, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.

Michigan state representative Kim Meltzer, discussing Abdollahi’s situation, offered few condolences. “That’s an unfortunate scenario [and] I think it’s terrible you can executed for that, but how is that America’s problem?” Meltzer said undocumented immigrants like Abdollahi “have to go back to their country and fight for a democratic process — just like we in our country and we’ve fought for it and we’re fighting for it still.” Meltzer neglected to acknowledge that Iranians have been fighting for democracy for decades.

Abdollahi has literally put his life on the line in hopes of mobilizing support for the DREAM Act.  He hopes that with his involvement, he will bring more attention to the DREAM Act, which has the potential to change the lives of many Iranian undocumented youth.

“It’s just not talked about, it’s taboo,” said Abdollahi regarding the Iranian community’s attitude towards the issue of undocumented immigrants. “There are a lot of undocumented Iranians, but because we don’t talk about it, we lose a lot of support… It’s considered very shameful.”

“The issue of legalization is different for the Iranian community than for other immigrant communities,” said Azadeh Ghafari, Coordinator of Outreach to the Middle Eastern Community for Dreamactivist.org. “Because Iranians cannot simply cross the border, most enter the country legally but many continue to live with the frustrations that come with lost immigration paper work, not having the funds to file the proper work, or simply falling out of status due to overstaying a visitor or student visa.”

To get involved and help ensure that young Iranians like Mohammad Abdollahi are able to lead normal lives in the US, you can help raise awareness and support for the DREAM Act.  Click here to tell your officials to cosponsor the DREAM Act before it is too late.

Learn more about Abdollahi’s story.