By New Age Islam Edit Desk
23 December 2020
• Does Iran Have A Plan For A Successor To Khamenei?
By Ali Hashem
• Khamenei's Double Game With The Nuclear Deal
By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
• Kenya’s Sexual Violence Survivors Get Justice,
Though Imperfect
By Naitore Nyamu-Mathenge
• Biden Needs To Build On Trump Success To Aid Iranian
People
By Mariam Memarsadeghi
• Pandemic Slows Life, Changes Discourse
By A Sreenivasa Reddy
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Does Iran Have A Plan For A Successor To Khamenei?
By Ali Hashem
Dec 28, 2020
Iranians hold their
national flag and posters bearing portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei (R) and the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini (L) during a rally in Azadi Square to mark the 36th anniversary of the
Islamic Revolution, Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11, 2015. Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via
Getty Images.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 81 years
old. For years now, a report every few months raises concern about his health.
He has been described as “ailing” in many media reports, though there is no
proof that the man who has been ruling Iran since 1989 is really in bad health.
On Dec. 15, he made an appearance in front of cameras while receiving the
family of late Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander
Qasem Soleimani and a committee organizing commemorations for the first
anniversary of the general’s assassination Jan. 3 in Baghdad by US drones.
A video showing Khamenei walking in what appears to be good
health and several photos showing his face released by his office were probably
aimed at refuting a rumor claiming he was ill and had passed his powers to his
son, Mujtaba. The rumor made headlines during the first week of December based
on one source on Twitter without fact-checking the source who broke the news
about Khamenei’s deteriorating health on four previous occasions between 2013
and 2020.
Khamenei made another appearance Dec. 20 when he delivered a
televised speech on the occasion of National Nurses Day and the birth of the
Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter, Zeinab.
The reports of Khamenei's health and his son possibly being
next in line call to mind similar reports from a different era. In the last few
years of Khamenei’s predecessor and mentor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, there
were similar suggestions claiming that with Khomeini’s health deteriorating the
strongest candidate for his succession was going to be his son Ahmed Khomeini.
His son was a mid-level cleric known to be his father’s confidant. At the time,
articles cited the powers that the son enjoyed and his strong influence that
made him one of the candidates for succession.
Even after Khamenei was elected as a temporary supreme
leader in June 1989 following Khomeini’s death, speculation in the media continued
to suggest a power struggle was ahead, putting out lists with as many names as
possible, including Ahmed Khomeini once again.
“Those who suggest Mujtaba Khamenei is going to be Iran’s
next [supreme] leader lack the basics of post-revolution Iranian politics,” an
Iranian Principlist cleric told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The
cleric added, “The Iranians won’t accept to go back in history to the days when
a ruler will bequeath the nation to his son, no matter who the father and the
son are.”
According to the same source, those circulating these rumors
“are creating an atmosphere of skepticism over the process of succession that
whenever the time comes it should be smooth and quick, given the fact that
after 40 years the revolution’s institutions are capable of managing
transitions, and the number of candidates for such a role are more than enough
for the members of the Assembly of Experts to choose from.”
As reported previously by Al-Monitor, the Assembly of
Experts has a secret subcommission of three persons elected to put together a
list of potential successors. The committee updates its list and keeps it
classified until the day comes.
In a recent interview with Fars News, Ayatollah Mohsen
Araki, a member of the Assembly of Experts, stressed that there are already
three names on the list and they remain classified. He noted that being a
member of the assembly is not a condition for being on the shortlist.
Araki explained that the list will be reviewed and those who
qualify for leadership will be registered in a secret and confidential manner,
so that they can be presented to the Assembly of Experts whenever necessary.
Another source, who leans more toward the Reformist camp,
agreed that the idea of Mujtaba Khamenei succeeding his father is more of a
dream to some “radicals.” He added, “They are aware that in a country like Iran
this is difficult, though it is known that the election of a successor will
need the blessing of the current leader’s strong son, the seminary in Qom, and
the IRGC. The 1989 succession saw Ahmad Khomeini — along with Hashem Rafsanjani
— emerging as kingmakers.”
The health of the supreme leader is always a topic of
analysis in the media, with many thinking that Iran’s direction is decided
based on who is chosen. This has prompted many to put out lists of candidates
over the past years, with names such as late Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Ibrahim
Raisi, Sadegh Larijani, Hassan Khomeini, President Hassan Rouhani, Ahmad
Khatami, among others, scattered in the media; each had or still has the
qualifications that makes them a contender for supreme leader. However, a very
important factor is missing in these reports, i.e., “the supreme leader is
alive and isn’t ailing, and if there’s nothing from God he can just live as
other clerics do,” a source close to the house of the supreme leader told
Al-Monitor. “We know he is healthier than both [outgoing US President Donald]
Trump and [President-elect Joe] Biden, and they will continue to spread rumors
because this reflects their wishful thinking.”
However, some of those who have the qualifications and are
potential candidates, or lobbies backing them within the establishment, seek to
position themselves in a good place ahead of the anticipated battle. This is
well portrayed in the political battles that are being fought on the sidelines
of Iranian politics. Following the December 2017 demonstrations, despite the
social and economic instigators, there were accusations aimed at the
Principlists that they lit the first spark in an attempt to hit Rouhani hard
and end any chance in the future of him seeking the top position. Rouhani’s
victory in the 2017 election over Raisi was also seen as a hurdle in the
latter’s path to becoming the country’s supreme leader in the future. Some
analysts also suggested the accusations of corruption aimed at one of Sadegh
Larijani’s aides are aimed at diminishing his chances of becoming Khamenei’s
successor.
Other candidates who aren’t known to the public, or not in
the spotlight for the position, might rise to the scene as a surprise for
observers, but they will be in the slow process of manufacturing Iran’s future
leader. A look back at how Khamenei ascended to the highest post could be
useful.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/iran-supreme-leader-khamenei-health-race-succession-rumors.html
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Khamenei's Double Game with the Nuclear Deal
By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
December 28, 2020
Although six world powe
rs (the US, the UK, Russia, France,
China and Germany) were parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), the 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for an easing
of sanctions, the two major players were, and still are, Iran and the US.
That is why when US President Donald Trump pulled Washington
out of the pact, it fell apart. Tehran ceased to comply with the agreement
despite entreaties from the other signatories. The re-imposition of US
sanctions on Iran’s energy, banking and shipping sectors hit its economy the
most, as foreign corporations were reluctant to do business with Iran because
of the potential repercussions.
Joe Biden has made it clear that he intends to rejoin the
nuclear deal when he becomes US president.
Since Iran’s Supreme Leader enjoys the final say in the country’s major
foreign policy issues, his stance on the nuclear deal will determine whether
the nuclear agreement can be resurrected under the Biden administration. So,
what is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s position?
In the next few months, he will probably play a double game.
In public, he will be warning the Iranian authorities not to hold negotiations
with the US because Washington cannot be trusted. Khamenei has already started
his campaign of criticizing the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. “I did not believe in the way the JCPOA
was done, and I have made this clear to the president and the foreign minister
on many occasions,” he said last week.
This is a classic Machiavellian tactic employed by Iran’s
Supreme Leader in order to evade accountability and responsibility when some
policies fail. He does not want to show weakness and loss. He shrewdly claims
that his role as a Supreme Leader does not include “intervention in executive
affairs” unless the hold on power of the Islamic Republic is in danger. “I believe
the leader should not meddle in executive affairs unless there is a risk that
the entirety of Revolution’s movement is endangered,” he says.
But the reality is that Iranian presidents and foreign
ministers have an extremely limited amount of power overTehran’s foreign
policies, all of which must be signed off by the Supreme Leader, directly or
indirectly.
In addition, by publicly showing his opposition to the
nuclear deal or any negotiations with the US, the 81-year-old supreme leader is
attempting to establish his legacy of anti-Americanism. He wants to appeal to
his hardline base and his proxies and militia groups abroad, and to show that
he is consistent, resilient, and brave in opposing the “Great Satan.”
Nevertheless, beneath Khamenei’s facade lies the truth — not
only does he wants to rejoin the nuclear deal, he is desperate to do so. In
private, he is almost certainly instructing Rouhani and Zarif to revive the
agreement when Joe takes office on Jan. 20.
Between 2013 and 2015, when Iranian officials were holding
meetings with US authorities to finalize the nuclear deal, Khamenei employed the same modus operandi. He
publicly suggested that he was not favor of making deals with Americans, but
Rouhani and Zarif could not, and would not, have reached such a critical
international accord without the approval of the supreme leader.
Khamenei knows one of the main requirements for US sanctions
to be lifted is the revival of the nuclear deal. He is extremely concerned
about Iran’s fate if sanctions persist. There have been several major
widespread protests against the regime in the past few years. For the first
time, people began chanting “Death to Khamenei” and demanding that he step
down. People in other countries such as Lebanon and Iraq, where Tehran exerts
significant influence, have also protested against Iran’s interventions in
their internal affairs. The regime’s popularity in the Middle East has reached
a new low.
The supreme leader is also witnessing how the sanctions have
substantially cut off the flow of funds to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, and its cronies and terror groups across the region. This is why he has
said: “If we can remove the sanctions, we must not delay even one hour.”
So Iran’s supreme leader is shrewdly criticizing the JCPOA
in public, while in private he both needs and wants to bring it back to life.
----
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated
Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US
foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American
Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the
Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for
Commerce and Business.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1783806
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Kenya’s Sexual Violence Survivors Get Justice, Though
Imperfect
By Naitore Nyamu-Mathenge
25 Dec 2020
The women gathered around the table as they had done so many
times before, united by their shared trauma and wounds. But this time, it was
different. This was the moment these survivors of sexual violence had waited
for, a wait of 13 years. Two bowed their heads and clasped their hands in
prayer.
Moments later, a judge from Kenya’s High Court appeared on
the screen of their shared laptop to deliver his judgement in a landmark case
seeking to hold the Kenyan government accountable for sexual assaults that
occurred during widespread violence following the contested 2007 presidential
election. As the judge read the decision aloud, the survivors sat in disbelief;
some cried, others were stunned into silence. They could hardly believe that
their pain and suffering had finally been acknowledged.
“This has been a great day for us, the court has heard us,”
one survivor exulted. “The wait has been very long but worth it. We have been
recognised as survivors of SGBV [sexual and gender-based violence]. No one can
ever say that our experiences were not real. We feel vindicated.”
The judgement in favour of four of the survivors was a
watershed moment for justice in Kenya, the first time that the government has
been held responsible for its failure to investigate crimes of sexual violence
that took place during the 2007-2008 post-election violence period. It also
marked the first time ever that the government was ordered to compensate
survivors for the harms they suffered.
“It has been a very long and difficult journey,” said
another survivor. “But we have stuck together and today we are happy that the
judgement was issued. The court has heard us today.”
The decision – fittingly delivered on December 10,
International Human Rights Day – is momentous not only for the four women who
have waited so long for the case to be adjudicated, but also for its
implications for future prosecutions of these heinous crimes in Kenya and
globally.
The case was brought in 2013 by (eight survivors – six women
and two men), three Kenyan NGOs, and the international nonprofit, Physicians
for Human Rights (PHR), where I lead the Kenya office. It was the legal end of
the road for the survivors: all other efforts to secure justice – including
through the International Criminal Court – had failed.
But what the judgement made abundantly clear is that local
mechanisms can hear and deliver judgements in cases of sexual and gender-based
violence. Like the ground-breaking 2017 case in which a Congolese mobile court
sentenced 11 men to life for crimes against humanity for the rape of dozens of
small children, the case in Kenya is emblematic of the growing recognition of
domestic processes as a venue for pursuing and securing justice.
As international justice mechanisms falter, we may be seeing
the emergence of a novel legal approach focused on domestic, civil lawsuits to
seek accountability for atrocities.
Make no mistake: The process was extremely difficult and
excruciatingly long, especially for the survivors – who endured unthinkable
violence in 2007-2008, filed this case in 2013, and were then subjected to more
than seven years of bureaucratic delays, frequent judge changes and countless
setbacks. This month, their persistence finally yielded justice.
Despite this important decision, however, justice was
imperfectly served in Kenya. Three of the women survivors whom the court
awarded were violated by police officers and members of the state security
system. The other survivor who was awarded was violated by a non-state actor,
but she had reported the case to the police. The four other
survivor-petitioners – two women and two men – were attacked by members of
gangs, but because they did not report their cases to the police, the court did
not acknowledge the state’s responsibility nor award them compensation. This is
a profound tragedy.
Identifying the state’s responsibility for crimes committed
by state agents is an important and long overdue first step. But we must go
further. The state has a clear responsibility to protect civilians and
investigate violence from all actors.
For PHR and our co-petitioners, the struggle for
accountability and justice continues. As one survivor said: “We all started
this journey together as survivors of SGBV. Sticking together has helped us get
this judgement. We will continue supporting the rest of the survivors who did
not get any compensation from the court because we know they, too, were
violated.”
It is critical to persevere not only for the four
survivor-petitioners whom the High Court failed to serve, but also for the
hundreds and hundreds of Kenyans still suffering, 13 years later, from the
unrecognised horror that was inflicted on them in the 2007-8 post-election
chaos, and for the survivors all over the world who endure the lasting trauma
of sexual violence and dare to hope for justice.
-----
Naitore Nyamu-Mathenge is head of the Kenya office of
Physicians for Human Rights.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/12/25/for-kenyas-sexual-violence-survivors-justice-though
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Biden Needs To Build On Trump Success To Aid Iranian
People
By Mariam Memarsadeghi
28 December 2020
Five years after the Iran deal, many of the policy minds
from the Obama era are headed back into government as US President elect Joe
Biden prepares to step into the White House.
They say they are ready to re-enter the Iran deal, but
despite partisan polarization, they cannot be oblivious to failures of their
old policy. Following the deal, as the US provided massive injections of US
dollars to the regime – totaling over $150 billion, with $1.8 billion in
pallets of cash – the regime’s sponsorship of the annihilation of the Syrian
nation was put on overdrive; its global terror, imperial dominion, proxy wars,
and killing of American soldiers expanded; and nothing of the financial
windfall delivered to the mafia state reached the people. While the deal was
still in place, Iranians saw their livelihood plummet, in fact, and risked
their lives to rise in protest in over 100 cities throughout the country.
Four years of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure
campaign against the regime, combined with an increasingly unified Israeli and
Arab front, as well as an Iranian society mobilized against any prospect for
government-led reform and instead for wholesale, democratic overthrow mean the
incoming Biden team wields tremendous leverage on the Islamic Republic.
Patience and strategic use of this leverage can make for a
much better deal. This better deal should be one that addresses the full scope
of security concerns while investing in development of that ultimate guarantor
of peace and security – a free Iran.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel
online or via the app.
Sanctions on the regime have targeted not only Iran’s threat
to American interests and international security, but also the violation of the
people’s most basic liberties. These violations are intensifying as the regime
is doubling down on its decades long practice of executing innocents and taking
foreign nationals as hostages. Though the sanctions hurt average Iranians, they
have been welcomed by Iran’s leading dissidents at great personal risk, and the
Iranian people’s protests, strikes and other acts of civil disobedience have
taken aim squarely at the regime, not the US or its sanctions policy. It is
common for Iranians to speak about the pain of sanctions as the price they
willingly pay to be rid of their tyrants.
If there is to be lifting of sanctions, it should be only
gradual, as calibrated rewards for improvements in human rights. Modeled on the
experience of the Helsinki Accords between the West and the Soviet Bloc,
opportunities for economic and political openings for the regime should be
conditioned on clear, independently verified fulfillment of human rights
demands.
Additionally, there are concrete steps the Biden
administration can take to ensure that its Iran policy maximizes America’s
chances to secure its interests while giving the Iranian people every chance to
secure theirs.
Even barring the effect of crippling sanctions, the regime’s
own internal contradictions, its endemic corruption and ineptitude, severe
repression, and gross negligence of the COVID crisis make a repeat of
nationwide protests a near certainty.
Future protests can result in democratic change or more
massacres; much depends on the reaction from the US government. The Biden
administration must learn from former US President Barack Obama’s betrayal of
Iranians during the Green Movement and be ready to stand with the people in
words and deeds. The Trump administration provided rhetorical support to the
democratic opposition, but practical, strategic planning is needed to take
advantage of the openings that will invariably be afforded by new civic
mobilization and to prevent violent repression. The Biden administration should
engage with the democratic opposition on this planning and devote up-front the
coordination and resources needed to help foster peaceful transition to
democracy.
A democratic Iran will mean a Middle East region freed from
the terror and corruption of an imperial Islamist state. Thousands of those who
have courageously waged the struggle for this future are in Ayatollah
Khamenei’s dungeon today. But countless more, with their welfare plummeting and
no hope for life under the regime, continue to fight. They deserve America’s
support. Just as the Solidarity movement in Poland was aided by the US because
of its existential potential to bring down communism, Iranian worker unions and
civic networks must be aided in their struggle for fundamental change away from
Islamist backwardness and toward a free, peaceful Middle East. To facilitate
this, the State Department’s grantmaking to groups and NGOs focused on helping
Iranians should be realigned away from longer term, development-oriented
programming to initiatives aimed at usurping opportunities for political
change.
To provide nuts and bolts assistance during peak civic
mobilization, the Biden team should provide what the Trump administration
promised but did not deliver: Nationwide emergency internet access when the
regime shuts down service. This will effectively be a lifeline to keep the
people’s movement alive when it reaches its tipping point.
To ensure the Iranian people have access to quality news
about their own movement and to ensure American values and support are conveyed
directly, Voice of America Persian service must be rehabilitated. In its
current state, with barely a sliver of audience, it is a waste of the American
people’s tax dollars and discredited in the eyes of the very Iranians it is
meant to honor and amplify – the country’s courageous dissidents. The Trump
administration promised such change, but VOA Persian service remains as
feckless as ever.
Another missed opportunity during maximum pressure was the
immigration policy for Iranians. The Trump administration pledged to boot out
from the US regime-affiliated individuals – but never did. The Biden
administration should do so while lifting the Trump travel ban on ordinary
Iranians who love America.
The Iranian democracy movement is fully deserving of
American support. In its commitment to unity and bipartisanship, the Biden
administration can put forth an Iran policy that melds the best of the
Democratic and Republican foreign policy traditions to provide unambiguous
backing to courageous Iranian women and men risking their lives for a free
future.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2020/12/28/Biden-needs-to-build-on-Trump-success-to-aid-Iranian-people
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Pandemic Slows Life, Changes Discourse
By A Sreenivasa Reddy
December 26, 2020
Despite optimism on vaccines. the new year is likely to be
more of the same.
Every end-of-the-year stock-taking I have read so far threw
up the same conclusion: We are bidding adieu to a year that was the most
unusual and one-of-its-kind in history and its legacy will live on for many
years to come. The havoc wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic has upended our
lives in a big way and altered our ways of thinking.
The much-neglected discipline of epidemiology has become a
trending science. Mask-wearing, sanitisers and social distancing have become
the key concepts of the virus discourse. Despite optimism abounding on account of
vaccines, the new year is likely to be more of the same. Virus protocols will
continue and easing up will be very gradual and cautious.
Just at this moment last year, we were on the cusp of a
large outbreak, though we did not realise its severity. This year too, we are
seeing the emergence of variants of the same virus with super capacity to
spread and infect more. Are more lockdowns and closures on the way? Hopefully
not, though which way it will pan out is difficult to say. At the moment the
isolated UK is battling it out.
The UAE has experienced its fair share of pandemic woes. It
has been able to rein in the virus after a few months of closures and
sterilisation measures. Our office lives went online and we perfected the art
of working from home which will remain a permanent legacy of the pandemic. Our
learning curve has been swift.
Experiences of expatriates have been mixed. Most of them are
safe and sound thanks to the strict measures put in place by the UAE. But some
of them experienced distress after losing jobs and businesses due to prolonged
closures. A few of them missed their loved ones as they were stuck in their
country due to curbs on air travel at the height of the pandemic. Some of us
could not say final goodbye to the near and dear ones who fell prey to Covid-19
and other diseases in our home country.
Social distance, a misleading term to denote a safe physical
space between each other, has altered our lifestyle. It taught us the virtues
of shunning hugs and handshakes. Sanitisers and masks are now part of any
travel kit. Liquids of varying intensity are being used to cleanse our hands of
contamination. Colourful pieces of cloth cover our mouth and nose to save us
from the floating virus aerosols. These accoutrements will remain part of our
livery for foreseeable future.
The pandemic-hit world continued to deal with long-term
issues of climate change and space travel. Though emissions were temporarily
reduced due to lower economic activity induced by the coronavirus, the greatest
number of storms in Atlantic were a rude reminder of the changing climate
dynamics. A record 30 named storms had developed in the Atlantic, some of them
making a landfall in the US and Latin American coasts, causing big material and
human losses.
Though man-made carbon emissions were down by 7 per cent,
total emissions rose due to a ghastly wildfire season in the US and elsewhere.
This year is slated to become hottest year on record. All those who believe in
climate science are celebrating the exit of climate sceptic US President Donald
Trump. Joe Biden, who was pocked in a highly polarised election, has promised
to bring the US back to the Paris climate treaty, which should bolster efforts
to save the earth from impending perdition.
Space exploration projects, though slowed down by the virus,
continued affirming the determination of the man to discover new frontiers of
the universe. Spaceships kept travelling to the International Space Station
(ISS) with astronauts on board. The UAE has successfully launched its Mars
probe Hope which is now on its way to the red planet. SpaceX, a private player
in the US, began its trips to the ISS and is nursing big ambitions to reach the
moon and Mars.
The US has shortlisted a group of 17 astronauts who will be
part of its ambitious Artemis programme which plans to set up space labs on the
moon, and launch missions from there to Mars and beyond. China has made great
strides in the space sector this year and its probe brought back rocks from the
moon successfully. If this automated process of mining extraterrestrial objects
is perfected, man may never need to plunder Earth’s resources to meet his
burgeoning needs. I was left wondering about the futility of these space dreams
at a time when man was unable to defeat an invisible, microscopic virus which
has been holding the world to ransom for a year.
On a personal level, we tended to connect more with our
immediate family members due to the work-from-home policy. Netflix, Amazon
Prime and many other streaming websites enriched our lives by creating
unforgettable experiences at home. Hit shows such as Panchayat, Paatal Lok, A
Suitable Boy, Breathe into the Shadows left an abiding impression. The Crown,
the one I am seeing at the end of the year, is mind blowing. The characters are
so vivid, so earthy and so real. This new mode of entertainment has come to
stay in our lives.
To sum it up, virus has snatched one whole year from our
lives with no assurance yet that the coming year is not hostage to it. Life
will never be the same again even after we put a conclusive end to the
pandemic.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/2020-pandemic-slows-life-changes-discourse
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