Iran & Latin America

Brazil, Iran and the Road to the Security Council

Clovis Rossi, Project Syndicate, 4 March 2010

SAO PAULO – The attempt by Brazil’s government to participate in the international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program could well be called “A Manual for Candidates to a Permanent Membership of the United Nations Security Council.”

Brazil’s diplomatic efforts with Iran – a country suspected of developing nuclear energy for military purposes – began at a meeting last year between President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the G8+5 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

According to Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press spokesman, and Brazilian authorities, Obama said he had no objections whatsoever to Lula talking to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Obama suggested using the weight of commercial relations between the two countries to tell the Iranian leader that he should follow Brazil’s example (in Brazil, the ban on nuclear energy for military purposes is enshrined in the Constitution).

Lula and Ahmadinejad met in June 2009, when Obama was still holding out a hand to the ayatollahs. Lula acted according to Obama’s suggestion when he received Ahmadinejad in Brasilia. He acknowledged – as everyone does – “Iran’s right to pursue a nuclear program with peaceful intentions,” but immediately asked for “respect for the international agreements” and underlined the fact that “this is the road Brazil is following.”

Furthermore, he urged Ahmadinejad “to continue to engage countries interested in finding a fair and balanced solution to Iran’s nuclear question.”

“Engagement” is the key word in this affair. It was used to describe Obama’s new American diplomacy, particularly with regard to Iran, at least until the disputed elections in Iran last summer and the worsening domestic crisis that has ensued.

In Lula’s meeting with Ahmadinejad, the delicate subject of Ahmadinejad’s repeated denials of the Holocaust came up. Lula told his Iranian counterpart that to deny the Holocaust was bad, even for Iran itself. Ahmadinejad replied that he did not deny it, but only criticized what he considered Israel’s “political use” of it. Even so, Lula insisted that he should change his attitude.

“Who else is in a position to say such things to Iran’s president?” asked a top Brazilian diplomat by way of justifying a dialogue that has been sharply criticized by Brazil’s Jewish community, which is emphatically opposed to Lula’s proposed trip to Teheran, scheduled for May.

Relations between Iran and the countries that are negotiating the nuclear question have deteriorated since Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil last year, which came soon after his disputed re-election. One result is the open difference of opinion on Iran between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Lula, or between Lula and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

During his meeting in Berlin with Merkel last December, Lula insisted on the Brazilian government’s traditional position: sanctions, such as those that the United States strongly advocates, lead to nothing; the best way forward is dialogue. The Brazilian president asked for “more patience” in the talks with Iran.

The German chancellor replied that she was “losing” her patience” with Iranian leaders after “four years of negotiations in which no progress was made.” But Brazil insisted on the path of dialogue and began talking with other stakeholders in the Iranian question, such as Turkey, whose foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, recently staked out a similar position. “We want the Middle East to be prosperous and stable, governed by political dialogue and diplomacy,” Davutoglu said after a visit to Teheran. “Iran’s contribution will be very important in bringing this about.”

But Brazil’s government has also begun to criticize, albeit weakly, Iran’s performance on human rights. At first, Lula minimized the seriousness of the incidents that occurred after Ahmadinejad’s re-election and went so far as to compare them to a dispute between football fanatics. This led to a clash with Sarkozy when Lula visited Paris soon after Iran’s post-election crisis began. While Lula didn’t repeat his comparison with a football game, neither did he criticize the repression, unlike Sarkozy, who did so strongly.

Brazil’s current criticisms of Iran, along with a request for dialogue with the opposition, weak as they may be, represent a change of position, which reflects the absolute priority of Brazilian diplomacy: permanent membership of the Security Council. Brazilian officials know that they can achieve this goal only by acting independently – but without diverging too far from the positions of the current permanent members. They also know that, except for China, all of them are critics of Iran, and are determined to find a solution to the nuclear question, whether through dialogue or some other means, if “patience is lost,” as Merkel suggested.

Credits: Project Syndicate: Brazil, Iran and the road to the Security Council

Clinton's Latin America trip: all about Iran?

Josh Rogin  The Cable/Foreign Policy  1 March 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has added an unplanned stop to her Latin America itinerary: Buenos Aires. The U.S. delegation will stay overnight in Argentina Monday instead of Chile, where the government is still preoccupied with the aftermath of Saturday's devastating earthquake.

"Instead of overnighting in Santiago on Monday night we will travel from Montevideo [Uruguay] Monday afternoon to Buenos Aires in order to meet with Argentine President [Cristina Fernández] de Kirchner, instead of in Uruguay as originally planned," a State Department official on the trip said.

Clinton was in Uruguay this weekend to attend the inauguration of Jose Mujica, a former guerrilla leader turned president. The Kirchner meeting was originally supposed to happen in Montevideo, but was changed after the Chilean earthquake caused Clinton's team to re-examine her travel plans.

Although Latin American countries are no doubt hoping to discuss a range of bilateral issues, Clinton is more likely to focus on the renewed international efforts to pressure Iran regarding its nuclear program. "Iran is at the top of my agenda," Clinton told a Senate committee last week when talking about her trip.

She might find the going tough, particularly in Brazil, which currently holds a seat on the Security Council. Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim recently poured cold war on the U.S.-led sanctions push, saying, "We don't believe that sanctions will prove effective." Under Secretary Bill Burns, the State Department's lead on the issue, visited the Brazilian capital ahead of the Clinton trip, but it's not clear what he was able to achieve.

Clinton will be in Brasilia Wednesday to meet directly with President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva and Amorim. Assistant Secretary Arturo Valenzuela previewed Friday what Clinton's message will be when it comes to Iran.

"While we're cognizant of the fact that the Brazilian government has reached out to Iran and has been approaching the Iranians, it's very much on our agenda to try to insist with the Brazilians that in their engagement with Iran, we would like them to encourage the Iranians, of course, to meet their international obligations," he said, adding that the State Department views Brazil's opposition to new sanctions as a "mistake."

Credits: The Cable/Foreign Policy: Clinton's Latin America trip: All about Iran?

World Press Photo Prize Winner 2010

SPIEGEL ONLINE interview with World Press Photo Winner Pietro Masturzo

Der Spiegel Online, 23 February 2010

'You Don't Have to Risk Your Life to Tell a Good Story'

Pietro Masturzo

Italian freelance photographer Pietro Masturzo, 30, won the prestigious World Press Photo prize for his picture of women taking part in night-time protests on a Tehran rooftop. He talks to SPIEGEL ONLINE about the risks of the job and defends himself against accusations that he was a coward for not photographing the street demonstrations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: After the Iranian elections in June 2009, there were demonstrations and riots almost daily on the streets of Tehran. Why did you photograph the rooftops rather than the action on the street?

Pietro Masturzo: There were no other options. Three days before the election I was arrested, along with another Italian colleague. After I was released it became clear to me that it was extremely dangerous to report further from the streets of Tehran.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why? What had happened?

Masturzo: I traveled to Iran -- a country that had fascinated me since I was a student -- as a tourist. Arriving there one week before the elections, I knew I had to be careful because it could be dangerous to be on the streets taking pictures without a journalist's visa. But as a photographer I am happy to forget about those sorts of dangers.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What happened when you were arrested?

Masturzo: One evening before the elections I was with some colleagues on Valiasr Street. We were taking pictures of supporters of (opposition leader Mir Hossein) Mousavi in front of a large poster of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Suddenly a number of Basij, the state-controlled volunteer militia, roared up to us on motorbikes. These men asked us what we were doing and why we were taking pictures, then took us to the police station. There they checked out our equipment and confiscated our digital memory cards. They questioned me non-stop: Who was I? Why was I making propaganda against the Islamic Republic? I tried to convince them that I was a tourist and that I was traveling on to (the popular tourist destination of) Persepolis the next day.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You said you were held by the authorities for three days. Did you have to sleep in a cell?

Masturzo: At that point my colleague and I were staying in a hotel. The Basij brought us back to the hotel every night, then picked us up again at seven in the morning to take us to various police stations. After three days we were freed, without charge.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What happened later, on the rooftops of Tehran?

Masturzo: During the days before the election I had got to know a lot of people on the streets of Tehran, from different parts of the city and from all levels of society. A few invited me to spend the night with them, something that is not unusual in Iran. After I was freed, I started to spend every night with a different family. That first night after the election, I began to hear the call of "Allahu akbar" ("God is great"). With this nightly call, the people were protesting against the fraudulent election results and against the brutal tactics used by the state security forces.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did you know immediately that this form of protest would make a good subject for photography?

Masturzo: Yes, even that first night I was certain of that. The family I was staying with spent half the night talking about the highly symbolic meaning of that call. They talked about the Islamic revolution 30 years previously and how, back then, the call of "Allahu akbar" was a form of civil disobedience against the regime. I decided to make a series of pictures about that topic.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did the people you were photographing know you were taking pictures of them?

Masturzo: Often they didn't. The ones who did know I was taking their pictures asked me to make sure they wouldn't be recognizable in the pictures.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What were the circumstances around the photo that won you the prize?

Masturzo: It happened on one of the first evenings after the elections, when the pressure on the streets was almost unbearable. I was staying with a family in a very conservative working class neighborhood of Tehran. As I did every evening, I went onto the rooftop to look for photo opportunities and on the roof opposite, I saw these three women in very traditional dress. They were calling on God in protest against the results. I found a good position, where I could keep the camera stable and took the picture using a long exposure.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were you able to speak to the women?

Masturzo: No, I never found out who they were. I don't know if I could even find my way back to the roof from which I took the picture.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In Iran the decision to award you the prize for World Press Photo of the Year has been controversial. Why?

Masturzo: There has been a lot of criticism on various Web sites that I got the prize for taking a picture on the rooftops while other people were risking their lives to show the riots on the streets. A lot of young Iranians who photographed the riots on the streets under conditions of great danger objected to this. For instance, one young photographer sent me an email suggesting that I only got the prize because I am a Westerner.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does this upset you?

Masturzo: Photography can be debated and there should be no limits on that debate. Iranian colleagues certainly risked more than I did; they put their lives at risk. But when you're telling a story, you also need to use your wits. I believe you don't have to risk your life to tell a good story. I just had a good idea, that's all. During the demonstrations in Tehran I saw a lot of people with cameras. But when I looked at their photos later on the Internet or on television, there were none of the rooftops. Anyway, I also got a lot of support -- a lot of people thanked me for showing a different side of Iran.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will your life change now that you have won this prestigious prize?

Masturzo: Up until now it's been hard to make a living as a freelance photographer. I am hoping that it will get a little easier.

Interview conducted by Ulrike Putz

Credits: Pietro Masturzo/World Press Photo/Der Spiegel Online: SPIEGEL ONLINE interview with World Press Photo winner

The Pasdaran: Iran's Revolutionary Guards

The Regime's Shadow Warriors

Revolutionary Guards Keep Stranglehold on Iran

By Dieter Bednarz and Erich Follath, 16 February 2010

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran, are the regime's most important source of support. The powerful militia organization puts down street protests, spies on opposition members and controls the nuclear program. They are also the target of planned new United Nations sanctions.

Can 44 Nobel Prize winners be wrong?

The group of Nobel laureates, which included such luminaries as Nobel Peace laureates Betty Williams and Jody Williams, the writer Wole Soyinka and the economist James Heckman, as well as many leading figures from the fields of medicine, chemistry and physics, made a dramatic appeal in a full-page ad published in the International Herald Tribune on Feb. 9. "Dear President Obama, President Sarkozy, President Medvedev, Prime Minister Brown and Chancellor Merkel," it began. "How long can we stand idly by and watch this scandal in Iran unfold?"

In their appeal, the 44 laureates called upon the world leaders to finally respond to the atrocities of the Iranian regime, with its "irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions," with sharper sanctions, and to throw their full support behind Iranian opposition protesters. "They deserve nothing less," the open letter ends. The ad was paid for by the human rights foundation of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Various politicians promptly responded, each in his own way, to the unusual appeal. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the only option left was to apply pressure on Iran, while French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "Because negotiations are impossible, only sanctions remain." Israeli politicians and the influential US Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, support a military solution. It appears that the nuclear conflict with Tehran has been escalated to a new level.

Cat and Mouse

It was preceded by a roller-coaster week that began with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's surprising indication of a willingness to compromise. But then Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki set new preconditions for a deal and strengthened the impression, at the Munich Security Conference, that Iran was back to playing cat-and-mouse with the West and planned to push forward with its suspected military nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad broke off all negotiation efforts until further notice. He instructed his scientists to ramp up a portion of the production designed for 3.5-percent uranium enrichment, allegedly to produce isotopes for medical purposes. Although 90-percent enriched uranium is needed for a functioning nuclear weapon, the production of 20-percent enriched uranium that has now been approved "brings Tehran an important step closer to weapons-grade fissile material," says US nuclear expert David Albright, noting that the Iranian scientists now have "only a tenth of the way" to go to make a bomb.

Can sanctions deter the Iranian agitators from building the bomb, or will the world have to live with Iran as a nuclear power? The rulers in Tehran have already survived three rounds of UN sanctions without any apparent effect, which raises the question of what "smart" sanctions must look like to sharply penalize the representatives of the government while harming the Iranian people as little as possible.

Under the chairmanship of France, the UN Security Council will begin negotiations on the issue next week, and it is expected to approve sanctions before the end of March. The prospects of getting Moscow on board appear to be good, but whether the People's Republic of China, which has signed billions of dollars' worth of natural resource deals with Tehran, will play along is questionable.

The Extended Arm of the Regime

The only thing that is clear is the target of the sanctions, which are intended to strike primarily at an organization that is both powerful and clouded in secrecy: the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami, or Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, which has defended the theocracy against its enemies -- including its domestic opponents -- for the past 30 years. Like an octopus, the Pasdaran, also know as the Revolutionary Guards, has its arms extended into all of Iran's key power centers. It controls important economic sectors, including the nuclear industry, and it is more effective than the regular army. Wherever it goes, it acts as the extended arm of the regime.

The elite militia force demonstrated its clout once again on Thursday of last week, when it relentlessly hunted down opposition members who were using the show of government propaganda surrounding the 31st anniversary of the revolution to stage protests against the regime. Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was attacked. When it comes to the legacy of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Pasdaran knows no mercy.

It was Khomeini himself, the man who brought down the shah, who ordered the establishment of the Revolutionary Guards on May 5, 1979. With this "people's army," Khomeini wanted to create a counterweight to the military, which had been built up by Shah Mohammad Reza. Unlike the soldiers, who tended to be secular, the Revolutionary Guards were all religious zealots and sworn supporters of their leader.

'One of the World's Most Powerful Cartels'

Mohsen Sazegara, 55, is a former close associate of Khomeini who was one of the original Pasdaran leaders. Today, from his exile in the United States, he is one of the organization's harshest critics. The original plan was to establish a group of 500 officers who were to lead about half a million volunteers, Sazegara says. But today the Revolutionary Guards are much more than just a militia. "The Pasdaran is a unique mixture of army and militia, terrorist organization and mafia -- a state within a state," he told SPIEGEL.

The Pasdaran's rise to become what Sazegara calls "one of the world's most powerful cartels" began in 1981, under the command of Mohsen Rezai, who led the Revolutionary Guards for 16 years. The general took advantage of the war Iraq had instigated against Iran to expand the militia into an extremely well-armed auxiliary army. The organization soon had its own intelligence service, which collected information about regime critics and took action against suspected subversives.

The Quds Force, named after the Arab name for Jerusalem, became legendary, and it is still responsible for operations in enemy territory today. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the Quds Force in the war against Saddam Hussein, and he is believed to have led operations in the Kurdish region. Members of the Quds Force are also believed to have later been involved in the murders of opposition members abroad. The group cooperates with other extremist organizations, including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Iran's Most Powerful General

From the beginning, one man oversaw the Pasdaran and promoted its rise to power: Ayatollah Khamenei, Khomeini's personal representative and successor who has been Iran's supreme leader for the last 20 years. He recognized early on that the Revolutionary Guards could become his most important source of support, and he made sure that it received privileges right from the start of his time in office.

The Pasdaran now counts 125,000 men, making it about a third the size of the regular army. Nevertheless, its leader, Mohammad Ali Jafari, is indisputably the most powerful general in the country. He also controls 300,000 reservists and, more important, the fanatics of the voluntary Basij militia, which has an estimated 100,000 members. In times of crisis, however, the Basij is believed to be able to muster up to 1 million activists. It is these "moral police" who, under the command of the Pasdaran, have been most active in violently assaulting the opposition since last summer.

The general has become the backbone of the regime. Unlike his counterparts in the regular army, Jafari also controls a gigantic economic empire. The Pasdaran has ruthlessly hijacked the economy of its own country, with the support of its leader Khamenei. No one knows how many companies the Revolutionary Guard has already taken over, but co-founder Mohsen Sazegara estimates that it "controls more than 100 different businesses" -- from export companies for household goods to producers of automobile spare parts. The Pasdaran is believed to have established more than 500 offices of Iranian companies worldwide.

According to the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which opposes the regime from abroad, the Revolutionary Guard controls more than half of the entire import business and close to a third of Iran's export business -- which doesn't include its holdings in the lucrative oil business, with estimated annual profits of $5 billion. Conveniently, it also controls the country's biggest container port, Bandar Abbas, and the airport in the capital Tehran.

Lucrative Business Interests

A profit center of the Pasdaran conglomerate of trading companies and industrial plants is Khatam al-Anbiya, a construction company that employs and pays 55,000 members of the Pasdaran and Basij. The company began its business by expanding roads and military positions in the war, and then it built barracks for the army and runways for the air force. Today Khatam is a mixed conglomerate with about 800 holdings and subcontractors, and estimated annual sales of $7 billion. On Wednesday of last week, the United States expanded its existing sanctions against Khatam to include four subsidiaries.

To penetrate into the highly lucrative oil business, the Pasdaran has not shied away from waging small private wars. Iranian business owners in Tehran still remember how, in August 2006, Revolutionary Guards, their weapons at the ready, took a military boat out to the Orizont drilling platform and boarded the platform. A short time later, the largest privately owner Iranian oil producer abandoned the well, and from then on the proceeds from Orizont's oil went directly into the coffers of the Pasdaran.

Last fall, the militia leaders discovered the communications industry as a profitable area of business. A consortium affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard acquired a majority stake in Telecom Iran. As a result, the Guard now controls the fixed network, two mobile telephone companies and Internet providers, and it is now expanding its role in one of the country's biggest growth markets.

Most of all, however, the Guard has taken over politics, in what Tehran-based political scientist Davoud Bovand calls a "gradual military coup." While many Iranians were pinning their hopes for liberalization on reformist Mohammad Khatami, who was president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, the Guard, with the blessing of its patron Khamenei, prepared to strike back -- and in 2005 helped Ahmadinejad become president. In his first administration, five of the 21 cabinet posts went to members of the Pasdaran, and the group received lucrative contracts from the government, including the construction of a pipeline to Pakistan. In Ahmadinejad's new government, Revolutionary Guard members received 13 cabinet posts.

Nuclear Responsibilities

The manager of the world's third-largest oil reserves is Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi, the Revolutionary Guard's former head of logistics, who had already exhibited little aptitude during his previous four-year post as trade minister. The Pasdaran is believed to have recently diverted $7 billion from oil revenues.

The Pasdaran also controls a third of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis. Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament and previously Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was formerly a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard, as is his successor as chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. It makes sense that both men are former Pasdaran members, because the organization has a particularly large stake in the nuclear projects.

Its companies are charged with building the hidden tunnels, such as those at the planned enrichment facility near Qom. Its scientists are enriching the uranium, its elite troops are protecting the nuclear plants and its leaders are warning the United States and its ally Israel against attacks. "If their fighter jets manage to evade the Iranian air defense system," the head of the Pasdaran air force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said, "our surface-to-surface missiles will destroy their bases before they land." Iran's secret nuclear program, the subject of a recent SPIEGEL report based on classified documents, is run by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who is a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard.

New Sanctions

The UN sanctions could go beyond previous punitive measures by personally affecting senior members of the Revolutionary Guard -- in the form of travel bans for Western countries and the freezing of bank accounts. Sanctions against Pasdaran-owned companies could put a stop to urgently needed investments in the oil industry, while a general freeze on banks could even cripple the country. Many Iranians are already emptying out their accounts, and inflation is apparently as high as 25 percent.

In the past, neither new threats of sanctions nor mass protests and street battles could deter the zealots surrounding Khamenei and his supporters. In his propaganda speech on the anniversary of the Revolution, Ahmadinejad defiantly announced new successes: "Thanks to the grace of God," he said, the first batch of uranium had already been enriched to 20 percent.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Credits: Der Spiegel Online: The Regime's Shadow Warriors