Cool doings in Iran
I'm seeing wire reports that say Ahmadinejad's nets are doing poorly in both local elections and one for "college of cardinals"-type body expected to pick current ailing ayatollah's successor, where supposedly the ex-pres (must be Rafsanjani)) is leading the vote.

If all that end's up being true, that's stunning. Imagine John Kerry winning a national election in 2006 to be the new Supreme Court Chief Justice.

So to me, this is like Ahmadinejad suffering a very humbling mid-term election.

Be clear on this point too: what's unfolding in the clerics' council isn't the will of anybody but the mullahs on top, who want Ahmadinejad reined him for all his elaborate foolishness that clouds their truly seriously pursuit of a nuclear shield against U.S. Military attack.

A while back TM Lutas said this election would signal Ahmadinejad's power, and I countered that it would really show the desire of his opponents to stop him. I thought that was a good comeback at the time (TM brings this out in me), but at the time I feared TM was far closer to the truth. I am greatly pleased to find otherwise.

To me, this election offers Bush a huge opportunity, so well-timed by the ISG report, to push the Mideast pile very differently, vis-a-vis Iran, and I mean a once-in-lifetime chance to reshape a region (his original dream going in).

And that's--more than anything--what saddens me about this administration: it started that amazing Big Bang, getting so much going (and so confounding the experts in the process) and THEN Bush-Cheney went braindead on Iran, rerunning the whole WMD dynamic, apparently because it worked so well the first time with Iraq.

But here fate intervenes more than Bush deserves, by delivering unto us a leader whose exceeding (and unthinking) brashness now rivals Bush's own exceeding (and unthinking) stubbornness.

All good things to optimists who wait.

As so often is the case in this business, just when someone declares the "end," it ends up just being the beginning.

December 11, 2006; 8:21:06 AM
The Persian Abyss: "Fear and loathing" in the I.R.I
Posted by REZA ZARABI |

Reza is a student and writer of Persian descent living in the US. He is currently visiting friends and family in Iran.

With all the depressing news coming from the western media about Iran and its nuclear ambitions, surely the Iranian people are not noticing, even in the slightest bit, the fears of Western woes.

Having been in Shiraz, Esfahan, and now back in Teheran, I can easily conclude one thing: Iranians still party like no other. See, it works like this: If you go to a party or a club in Ibiza or Madrid, you usually come home at 10:00 a.m. the next morning, but in Iran you come home the following week. There are no clubs or bars in Iran (that is common knowledge to most of the world) but really nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to a house party in Teheran.

Every repressed attraction to the opposite sex, every urge to have a beer with your lunch, every desire to have a "happy hour" after a long day's work, every desire to give your partner a kiss at a restaurant forms into a tidal wave of absolute debauchery consisting of heavy drug use, massive alcohol consumption and, unfortunately, not-so-safe sex. With unemployment so high, inflation that doesn't cease, and a generation of youth that have lost ALL hope in their national government, the best thing you can do, for the time being, is pour yourself some illegally imported Russian vodka, light up a cigarette, and watch the world, as you know it, go to hell.

As a visitor, it is a very common to be invited to some of these parties. Naturally, I went to most of them and I always found myself sipping a very strong drink poured by the host and observing the interaction between the men and women. In these ominous parties that are full of cigarette smoke, strong perfume, and pounding techno, one can find the true nature of the Iranian population and what they desire. No talk of politics, religion, or the economy allowed - just have a drink and feel the rhythm.

The Iran I now know is an enigma that I have difficulty explaining sometimes. The true nature of Persian culture is now kept in the confines of one's home. For example, before the formation of the I.R.I., Iranian wine (i.e. Shiraz wine) was one the most expensive and prestigious in the world. Now that alcohol is deemed illegal, all of the Iranian vineyards in Shiraz and the northern Iranian city of Ghazvin have been forced to shut all operations, creating the reality that Shiraz wine no longer comes from Iran. The demand for Shiraz wine has forced the Australians and the French to try to duplicate the process, making a much more inferior product (but of course that is a tale for another night).

See, the regime has tried for approximately three decades for Iran to become some Psudeo-Saudi Arabian nightmare, yet the people continually reject this proposition, year in and year out. They have even banned some fundamental Iranian festivals, such as the "Jash-neh- Mehragan" (or the festival of Mehragan, on the months in the Iranian calendar). They see these pre-Islamic "events" as somehow anti-Islamic but either forget or ignore that these "events" are a staple of our precious Iranian culture that have never died for the last 4,000 years.
In their never-ending quest to change a princess into a pig, the regime has not only caused the population to turn a deaf ear to everything they say but has successfully drawn a strong distinction between them and the people.

Send your comments on this blog.

* * *

Readers' Comments:

Stan Goodman, Israel: Not very encouraging. Completely analogous to the hippy dropout subculture of mid-twentieth-century US -- self-indulgent, and avoiding even discussion of what's wrong with their country. They are marginal in their society, and probably are living, even physically, on borrowed time, until the regime gets around to them.

Gregory Ticker, Canada: What author is writing is obviously true for urban, westernized middle class, which never had been the bedrock of support of Islamic republic. Like in my native Russia in 1917 in misguided search for more freedom they helped mullas to bring down Shah, but real social base of islamists is in villages and on the "bazar", whose mores and habits are quite different

Semsem, New York, USA: I find this story deceiving. While many Iranians do not support this regime, many do,

Ian Fauss, NYC: I have heard about these house parties as well. Some Iranians I know tell me that at times some powerful people in Iran have these parties and have Iranian police as their security for the events. Also the variety of booze available would put most liquor stores to shame here in the US. I didn't quite believe him then.

I think this blog is a great insight into the Iranian youth and their mindset. Something we need to know more about to help us understand Iran better.

Report: China weighs covert ops to overthrow North Korea's Kim

Special to World Tribune.com

EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM Friday, December 15, 2006

China has begun drawing up plans to attack North Korea, according to the Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter.

Hu Jintao, head of the Central Military Commission, has ordered the Chinese military to draw up the attack plan as a move "deliberately meant as a threat to the regime of Kim Jong-Il." The report said the plan was leaked to sources close to Western intelligence in Hong Kong.

The action follows China's displeasure at the Oct. 9 nuclear test, which Hu regarded as a snub to the International Affairs Leadership Group that he has headed since 2003.

The report said Hu has dealt with Kim in a conciliatory manner, unlike his predecessor Jiang Zemin, who disliked the North Korean ruler.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Il and his generals inspect a Korean People's Army Unit in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on December 6. AFP
According to the report, intelligence activities against the Kim regime also are being considered. The Chinese military intelligence service, known as 2 PLA, "is toying with the idea of a palace revolution that would kick out the 'Kim dynasty' and replace it with 'pro-Chinese generals,'" the report said.
China's top military officer on North Korea is said to be Gen. Yan Jiangfeng, current vice president and secretary-general of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIIS), a think tank close to 2 PLA.

Yan was a military attaché in Pyongyang and is close to retired Gen. Xiong Guangkai, also at CIIS and who was close to Jiang.

URL: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=BARNETT-12-15-06
America should work with China for world peace

By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT
Scripps Howard News Service
15-DEC-06

Incoming congressional Democrat leaders signal they'll "get tough" on China over both trade and human rights. While stipulating that Beijing must progress on both fronts, let me tell you why this myopic focus may ruin an historic opportunity.

China is on the verge of a generational leadership change that will profoundly shape its emergence as a global power over the next decade. Approached strategically, America should take advantage of this new cohort's eagerness for China to play an actively constructive role in international affairs.

To understand this future, you must know what has come previously.

Modern China's first generation of leaders was inevitably winnowed down to just one man _ Mao Zedong. Like most revolutionaries once they achieve power, Chairman Mao became obsessed with two goals: maintaining the regime's revolutionary spirit and maximizing his personal dictatorship.

Stunningly, Mao's long reign resulted in mass death of a scale beyond that attributed to any 20th-century leader, including both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Emerging from those chaotic years, a wounded China was soon resurrected by the strategic vision of Mao's successor _ Deng Xiaoping. No single event has shaped our current world more than Deng's decision at the start of the 1980s to launch China on a modernizing path that saw it turn toward markets while voluntarily opening itself up _ for the first time in centuries _ to the world outside.

Arguably, the tiny Deng stands as the most towering historical figure of the second half of the 20th century, surpassing both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Deng's second generation was followed by a third fronted by Jiang Jemin, China's president and party boss across the 1990s. Jiang's rule was roughly book-ended by the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989) and Hong Kong's return from the British (1997).

What's important to note about the third generation is that it was largely educated in the Soviet Union, the birthplace of the socialist camp. The technocratic flavor of that formative experience emboldened this generation to extend Deng's economic reforms far deeper into Chinese society, even as these leaders steadfastly refused political liberalization.

That brings us to the current or fourth generation of leaders represented by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, a risk-avoiding pair who've quietly helmed "peacefully rising" China since 2002. Internally, their focus has been on "harmonizing" the huge imbalance between the booming coastal provinces and left-behind rural poor of the interior.

Since 9/11, China's been almost invisible in international security affairs, essentially free-riding on America's vigorous prosecution of both the global jihadist movement and the so-called axis of evil, despite being a potentially key player in many instances. After all, China has long stood as North Korea's patron and now emerges as a dynamic investor for energy and raw material providers throughout the Middle East and Africa.

But understand this: China's fourth-generation leaders did not travel abroad for their educations, trapped as they were by the Cultural Revolution, Mao's last-gasp purge of "counterrevolutionary thought." So it's hardly a surprise that these homebodies have later proven reticent to step out internationally.

But that's changing as China's fifth-generation leaders prepare to be named next year and soon after begin their years-long transition to rule, slated to begin officially in 2012. Increasingly, China's next generation of leaders speak openly of the nation's impending achievement of great power status.

Here's both the challenge and the opportunity presented by these fifth-generation leaders: starting in the 1980s many of them were educated right here in the United States _ birthplace of today's market-driven globalization. Simply put, we have never faced a more sophisticated set of Chinese rulers, who may well understand globalization's governing dynamics better than we do, as their economy is far more immediately subject to its powerful forces.

How America engages China's emerging elite in coming years could well determine _ for good or ill _ the lasting contours of the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century. Bind America and China together and globalization cannot be derailed, but set them persistently at odds and a worldwide economic crash becomes entirely plausible.

The scariest aspect to this relationship right now is that America's economic interdependency with China vastly outweighs the two nations' political and _ more importantly _ military connectivity.

To me, that's a recipe for danger as America navigates the next two years of a badly wounded, lame-duck presidency and a protectionist, homebody Congress.

(Thomas P.M. Barnett is a distinguished strategist at the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Read his blog at www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/. Contact him at tom(at)thomaspmbarnett.com.)

December 18, 2006
In Chinese Boomtown, Middle Class Pushes Back

By HOWARD W. FRENCH
SHENZHEN, China — When residents here in southern China’s richest city learned of plans to build an expressway that would cut through the heart of their congested, middle-class neighborhood, they immediately organized a campaign to fight City Hall.

Over the next two years they managed to halt work on the most destructive segment of the highway and forced design changes to reduce pollution from the roadway. It became a landmark in citizen efforts to win concessions from a government that by tradition brooked no opposition.

And it was no accident that the battle was waged in Shenzhen, a 26-year-old boomtown that was the first city to enjoy the effects of China’s breakneck economic expansion and that has served as a model for cities throughout the country.

Increasingly, though, with its growing pains multiplying, Shenzhen looks like a preview, even a warning, of the limitations of the kind of growth-above-all approach that has gripped much of China.

Shenzhen’s 28 percent average annual growth rate since 1980 is likely to stand as a record in China for some time, but the price of this phenomenal success is painfully evident. Throughout most of the year its skies are thick with eye-burning smoke. Street crime is high. And the workers it has drawn so effortlessly in the past from the countryside are becoming harder to recruit, as their options increase elsewhere.

But Shenzhen may also herald more promising changes. Possibly the greatest force taking shape here is the quiet expansion of the middle class, thicker on the ground here than perhaps anywhere else in China. This middle class is beginning to chafe under authoritarian rule, and over time, the quiet, well-organized challenges of the newly affluent may have the deepest impact on this country’s future.

“Many people laughed at me, because they don’t have confidence in the government,” said Qian Shengzeng, a 62-year-old former rocket scientist who led the movement against the expressway. “They think the government is hopelessly rotten. However, our view is that maybe there is a remaining sliver of hope, and the government needs to be pushed.”

In newly rich Shenzhen, as in much of China, social change is being driven by economic transformation and, more than anything else, property ownership.

Red-hot real estate markets have given birth to a new class of people, known as mortgage slaves, because the financial burden of buying into the middle-class dream of home ownership has suddenly become so great. The new property owners have poured their energy into everything from establishing co-op boards to spar with landlords, to organizing real estate market boycotts to force down prices.

Others, meanwhile, have begun running for office in district-level elections, where they hope to make the city government more responsive to their needs, though, like governments at every level in China, the ultimate power here rests with Communist Party officials.

Shenzhen has also spawned a local research group known as Interhoo, an independent association of civic-minded professionals who discuss municipal policy issues, publish position papers and quietly lobby the government over development strategy and other issues.

“In the past five or six years there are signs that new politics, economics and culture are emerging in Shenzhen,” said Jing Chen, a scholar with the China Development Institute, a local research group, and a member of Interhoo. “There is an awakening of awareness on public issues. The 6,000 members of Interhoo discuss these issues and have published books that have had a great influence over the government.”

Academics and others who study the city’s development say it is no surprise that Shenzhen is emerging as the cradle of movements like this. From the start, its proximity to Hong Kong has made it unusually open to outside influences. The city is also new, founded in 1980, and populated by migrants who contribute to a culture of greater individualism and risk-taking than anywhere else in China.

Even with all of this political activity, China is a long way from participatory democracy, even at the local level. Yet a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says that Shenzhen’s expanding middle class now accounts for about 10 percent of the city’s population of 12 million — a higher percentage, most here believe, than in any other city in China, though reliable figures are hard to come by. As the middle class grows, civic leaders say they expect to see a steady growth in citizen involvement.

“This is a process of struggling for our interests,” said Jiang Shan, a computer software expert who works in advertising. “It’s difficult, with serious obstacles from the administration and pressure from the powerful. In the long term, to have a good outcome we have to speed up education about law, including election law.”

More than most, Mr. Jiang knows how hard that fight is. Together with a small number of other middle-class Shenzhen residents, he has been at the forefront of a battle to turn what has been a symbolic neighborhood elective office into a real force in people’s lives.

It started when Mr. Jiang filed a series of lawsuits to try to resolve a number problems related to property management. After a string of defeats, he sought help from his local representative, only to discover that the man was a party to one of his lawsuits.

“It was only then that I realized that according to the election law, if I could get enough votes in the community, I could become a representative myself,” Mr. Jiang said. Or so it appeared.

Mr. Jiang began sending out hundreds of short messages with his cellphone to seek backers for his candidacy. He printed campaign cards, which he distributed in the neighborhood to encourage residents to vote.

When he had enlisted enough support he tried to register his candidacy, but he was turned away by officials who told him he was not a Shenzhen resident and therefore could not even vote locally.

On the eve of the election, Mr. Jiang filed suit over the denial of his voting rights. Three days before the trial was to begin, registration officials tried to force their way into his apartment. He agreed to meet them outdoors, whereupon the officials informed him that they would allow him to vote. Minutes later, court officials showed up telling him he could be a candidate if he dropped his lawsuit.

Mr. Jiang refused, saying the process was too tainted for him to participate, and his lawsuit was later dismissed. In another part of town, another resident sought election to the local district council, only to see the number of eligible voters double after the close of registration. Saying it was a clumsy attempt to fix the outcome, the candidate, Ma Jinhua, withdrew in protest.

“If I continue to participate, I will lose,” said Ms. Ma, the owner of a local gardening business. “By quitting at least I can send a warning to the government so that in the future things can be done in a more fair and reasonable way. It’s a reminder that says, ‘Pay attention, you can’t get away with this again.’ ”

Others in the city’s bulging middle class have taken their activism into other arenas. Zou Tao, a Shenzhen golf equipment supplier, recently won national attention when he started a home-buyers’ boycott aimed at reining in real estate prices that have been increasing at a clip of 30 percent a year.

“Prices have been stirred up by speculators stockpiling houses, and by officials and businesspeople joining hands,” Mr. Zou said. “The government hasn’t done its job well in supervising the market.”

From Shenzhen, Mr. Zou’s boycott quickly spread to other large cities, allowing him to collect more than 100,000 signatures. He has also earned the ire of the authorities, who he says have tapped his telephone and barred the press from writing about him or using the words “housing boycott.”

But Mr. Zou has refused to back down, prompting the government to bar him from television and to block Web sites that he operates. “Facing boiling public opinion, the first thing the authorities think of is not ‘maybe we should listen,’ but repression,” he said.