PEOPLE'S MOJAHEDDIN A THREAT TO IRAN'S MULLAHS?

By Chris Zambelis (& editorial comments from Alan)

The People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), more commonly known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (“people’s mujahideen”; MEK), is one of the most organized and controversial Iranian opposition groups. Although it maintains an armed wing—known as the National Liberation Army (NLA)—and numerous front organizations, it derives its greatest strength from the slick lobbying and propaganda machine it operates in the United States and Europe.

Alan note: the Mullahs have managed over the last decade to corrupt many of the MEK so that there appears to be "two" versions, at odds with each other and with conflicting loyalties vis-a-vis the Islamic Regime in Iran.

Surviving original MEK members (remember Khomeini had about 30,000 of them in prison when Iraq went to war against him and had them all slaughtered) are now aged close to being in their seventies.

The MEK also boasts extensive support within U.S. government and policy circles, including many of the most vocal advocates of a U.S. invasion of Iran.

The MEK remains on the list of banned terrorist organizations in the United States and European Union (EU). Both parties have indicated no intention of reconsidering their positions.

The May 7 decision by the United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal to overrule the British government’s inclusion of the MEK on its list of banned terrorist organizations, however, may pave the way for both the United States and EU to reassess their positions regarding the MEK down the line.


Alan note: last year, France already removed them from their list of banned or terrorist groups and returned all the funds they had confiscated from the MEK.

Given the MEK’s history of violence and its willingness to act as a proxy force against Iran, such a move would represent a major escalation in hostilities between the United States and Iran, with consequences in Iraq and beyond.

Ideology

The MEK is an obscure organization with a long history of violence and opposition activities. It emerged in the 1960s, composed of college students and leftist intellectuals loyal to Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq; the (very) leftist nationalist prime minister was deposed by a U.S.- and U.K.-backed coup in 1953 that restored Mohammad Reza Shah to power.

Alan note: Mossadegh was highly unpopular with most Iranians - except very liberal leftist students and gave free rein to the Tudeh (Communist) Party, whose pro-Soviet machinations through Mossadegh was about to hand Iran and its oil to the Soviet Union. Thus the West stepped in and removed him rather than restoring the Monarchy, which was a convenient method to achieve this.

Morever, as a prominent family member of the previous Qajar dynasty , he had removal of the Shah and restoration of the Qajars as his primary, unstated objective and was prepared to use the Tudeh and Soviets to achieve this at any cost to Iran. Including the oil he asked the shah to nationalize. Putting the young monarch at very grave physical danger from the West.

Its revolutionary zeal (carefully orchestrated by the Soviets through their Tehran Embassy) combined aspects of Marxist and Islamist ideologies in pursuit of its goal to overthrow the U.S.-backed Shah through armed resistance and terrorism.

Alan note: Islamist idelogical pretence was used to lure and enlist religiously superstitious and totally politically ignorant youths.

Its primary targets in the 1970s included ranking officials and symbols of the shah’s regime, both within and outside of Iran.

The regime responded in kind with intense repression through SAVAK, the shah’s domestic intelligence apparatus. (Aimed at the Marxists and Communists whose pro-Soviet policies enadangered Iran).

Thousands of members and associates of MEK were killed, tortured and jailed during this period.

(Alan note: there were less than two or three people executed in any given year by the Monarchy in the 25+ years of the Shah's rule. Not even thousands were killed in the Khomeini revlution so this "numerical fact" is totally wrong).

Consequently, like many Iranians at the time (who have lived to regret it), the MEK viewed the Islamist opposition as a positive force for change. The MEK supported the revolutionary forces and the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy and subsequent hostage crisis led by student activists in Tehran.

Alan note: Remember about 60% of Iran's population was under the age of 25 and wildly idealistic but not politically savvy, so inciting them was a relatively simple task, controlled by a team of a dozen Soviet urban gueilla psychologists, who enjoyed creating an anti-USA and Anti-Western frenzy inside Iran.

The group’s unique brand of Marxism and Islamism, however, would bring it into conflict with the rigid Shiite Islamism espoused by the post-revolutionary government.

The failure of a June 1981 coup attempt intended to oust Ayatollah Khomeini elicited a massive crackdown by the regime against the MEK, forcing the group’s leaders and thousands of members into exile in Europe.

When France ousted operational elements of the group in 1986, many made their way to Iraq, where they joined Saddam Hussein’s war effort against Iran and enjoyed a safe haven.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a (cultishly )charismatic husband and wife team that fled into exile in Europe, lead the MEK (Massoud is no longer around).

From her base in France, Maryam Rajavi currently holds the position of “President-Elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)” after her husband’s disappearance sometime in 2003. He is presumed to be in hiding. The Rajavis enjoy a fanatical cult-like following among MEK members and supporters.

The group’s cult-like character was displayed when 16 followers of the Rajavis staged dramatic public acts of self-immolation over a period of three days in June 2003 across major European and Canadian cities. The protests followed the arrest of Maryam Rajavi and 160 of her followers after a French court ruled that the MEK and its numerous front groups constituted a terrorist organization.

According to former members of the group, the MEK’s “human torches” are a testament to the stranglehold the Rajavis have over their followers and the extent to which members are brainwashed and manipulated psychologically into blindly following them.

The MEK is reported to maintain a list of volunteers ready and willing to perform acts of self-immolation on the orders of the leadership.

Like other cults, MEK members are often separated from their children and families and discouraged from maintaining contact with individuals outside of the group.

Former members who defected from the MEK describe the Rajavis as autocrats who demand unquestioned loyalty from their followers (pars-iran.com, January 30, 2006).

Women make up a significant contingent of the MEK’s ranks, especially in its armed wing. In addition to its Marxist and Islamist pedigrees, the rise of the Rajavis to the group’s leadership led to the introduction of feminist ideologies into the group’s discourse.

This aspect of the MEK’s ideology indicates their attempt to tap into local grievances and international sympathy regarding the position of women in the Islamic Republic.

In this regard, the MEK presents itself as a liberal and democratic alternative to the rigid brand of Islamism espoused by the ruling clerics, an image it has cultivated in U.S. and Western policy circles to great effect.

The U.K. court based its ruling on the premise that the MEK has renounced violence and terrorism, and that it currently maintains no operational capability to execute future acts of violence.

Violence and Terrorism

The MEK’s long history of violence and terrorism includes the abduction and assassination of ranking Iranian political and military officials under the shah in the 1970s, as well as attacks against the clerical establishment throughout the 1980s. Foreign-based MEK operatives also targeted Iranian embassies abroad in a series of attacks.

MEK militants struck diplomatic officials and foreign business interests in Iran under both the shah and the Islamists in an effort to undermine investor confidence and regime stability.

Furthermore, the MEK targeted and killed Americans living and working in Iran in the 1970s, namely U.S. military and civilian contractors working on defense-related projects in Tehran (mkowatch.com).

The group has never been known to target civilians directly, though its use of tactics such as mortar barrages and ambushes in busy areas (and bank robberies) have often resulted in civilian casualties.

In addition, the MEK’s repertoire of operations includes suicide bombings, airline hijackings, ambushes, cross-border raids, RPG attacks, and artillery and tank barrages.

Saddam Hussein exploited the MEK’s fervor during the Iran-Iraq war. In addition to providing the group with a sanctuary on Iraqi soil, Saddam supplied the MEK with weapons, tanks and armored vehicles, logistical support, and training at the group’s Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province near the Iranian border and other camps across Iraqi territory.

In a sign of the group’s appreciation for Saddam’s generous hospitality and largesse, the MEK cooperated with Iraqi security forces in the brutal repression of uprisings led by Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens in 1991.

MEK members also served alongside Iraq’s internal security forces and assisted in rooting out domestic opponents of the regime and other threats to Baathist rule.

Despite its history of high-profile attacks, the MEK never posed a serious threat to the Iranian regime. The group never enjoyed popular domestic support, despite its claims to the contrary.

Alan note: an estimated 150,000 "boots on the ground" inside Iran. They do not have a brand stamped on their foreheads and as such can remain fairly invisible inside the Iranian populace - until they open their political mouths.

Many Iranians actively oppose the clerical regime and sympathize with segments of the opposition. At the same time, most Iranians also regard the MEK as traitorous for joining the Iraqi war effort against Iran and resent its use of violence and terrorism against Iranians at home and abroad (mkowatch.com).

Alan note: much of this hatred has been repeatedly fanned into flames by the Mullah regime, which is afraid of the MEK as the only opposition group with members with military and weapons training.

Approximately 3,500 members of the MEK remain in Camp Ashraf. Following an agreement with U.S.-led Coalition forces, MEK units allowed Coalition forces to disarm the group.

Decommissioned MEK units are currently under surveillance in Camp Ashraf. Their future status, however, remains a point of controversy.

Despite their demobilization, (Islamic) Iran believes that the United States is holding on to the group as leverage in any future confrontation with the Islamic Republic (see Terrorism Monitor, February 9, 2006).

Political Activism

Although it has been disarmed, the MEK retains the capacity to remobilize, especially if it gains a state sponsor.

Nevertheless, it is the MEK’s lobbying and propaganda machine in the United States and Europe that enables it to remain a relevant force in Middle East politics and a key factor in U.S.- Iranian tensions.

The MEK’s political activism falls under the auspices of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)—an MEK political front organization that also serves as an umbrella movement representing various (leftist and Communist) Iranian dissident groups.

These efforts persist despite the fact that U.S. authorities ordered NCRI offices in Washington to shut down in 2003 (New York Observer, June 5, 2007).

From Iran’s perspective, the U.S. position on MEK is both ambiguous and at times hypocritical. On the one hand, the MEK remains on the U.S. State Department’s list of banned terrorist organizations, yet the group remains on Iraqi soil, albeit disarmed and under surveillance by Coalition forces.

The MEK has cultivated a loyal following among an outspoken network of U.S. politicians, former and active government officials, members of the defense establishment, journalists and academics advocating violent regime change in Tehran.

The MEK is even credited in some of these circles for disclosing aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.

At the same time, it is accused of fabricating intelligence information to boost its profile in the United States (Asia Times, March 4).

With their call for regime change in Iran and pleas for international support, media-savvy MEK representatives based in the United States appear regularly on the cable news show circuit and other forums in Washington, DC in a campaign reminiscent of the one led by Ahmed Chalabi and the network of Iraqi exiles who mustered American support for the Iraq war.

The MEK has also gained legitimacy as a liberal and democratic force for positive change in Iran, despite evidence to the contrary.

Conclusion

The MEK will continue to capitalize on the ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran by enlisting the support of elements in Washington seeking a bargaining chip against Tehran.

It is important, however, to see this bizarre organization for what it is; that is, to see through (disbelieve) the façade of liberalism, democracy and human rights that it purports to represent through its propaganda.

The well-documented experiences of scores of former MEK members are reason enough to consider this group and any of its claims with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Alan note: the hatred the MEK has for the Mullahs will result, should a "sponsor" appear, in a "sandblasting" cleansing of Mullahs from the Islamic Iranian scene, to be replaced with quasi Islamic pretence and Soviet style Marxism with strong cultish and feminist overtones.

As such they are an excellent tool to clear out Mullahs but not a long term solution for the opposition diaspora. Junk Yard dog type of profile. Useful but not to be trusted not to turn on you.

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS REACHING THE USA

Exclusive: Will Global Food Crisis Affect Americans Too?

Author: Jim Horn

The crisis hasn’t reached our shores yet, but hold onto your hat. The world is experiencing its first serious food crisis in years, and it could soon be coming to your pantry.

Government figures spoke of 250,000 job losses within the first quarter, 80,000 in March alone. Official unemployment rates are 5%.

But have you driven a freeway lately at morning rush hour? Where are the contractor pickup trucks, the lumber trucks, the cement trucks, the painters, the roofers? They look to be missing in action.

It seems as though those 250,000 job losses are in Southern California alone. And ask the Mexican government about their new migrant problem – huge numbers of returnees looking for food, work, and shelter – a migrant crisis for Mexico.

Many other hourly workers have had their hours cut back, and that doesn't reach the government tally sheets.

Add to this the fact that the prices of certain products are starting to soar and demand is outstripping supply. For example, my wife and I recently went to COSTCO and the rice pallet was empty.

We went a week later and that space (for rice) no longer exists because our COSTCO doesn’t have any rice. An Asian green grocer store where we often shop usually has abundant stacks of rice, but last week several pallets were empty.

Yes, we’ve heard about starvation in North Korea for years – because of the North Korean government’s mismanagement.

We’ve also been receiving reports about famine in Darfur, Sudan – in fact, throughout the Sahel of Africa. Some of that sad, tragic saga is not new. Part of the problem was created by the Europeans and Americans, but that’s another long, complex story.

The world is entering a new stage of genuine famine, and you can bet that when things really get ugly, don’t be surprised if America, the world’s whipping boy, will be held to blame for the tragedy.

Thirty years ago, the United States’ efforts in south Asia succeeded in developing new variants of hearty, fast growing, high yield rice grains that were drought and disease resistant.

It was the green revolution, and suddenly formerly famine ridden countries like India, Pakistan, China, and Indonesia became net food exporters. Bangladesh could even nearly feed its 150+ million people (all living in a space the size of Wisconsin).

Is the party over? There have been riots in Mexico over the high costs and shortages of corn. (Is it because we Americans are busily turning it into ethanol?)

People are killing one another in Haiti for a bowl of rice.

The Philippines is also facing a food crisis.

India, Brazil, Vietnam, and others have halted exports of grains in their efforts to maintain stocks to feed their own people, and to hold their domestic prices down.

The continuing Australian droughts have halted their mighty grains export business.

Corn costs are so high that ranchers are raising smaller herds, which will translate to even higher meat, milk and egg prices in the near future.

Other foodstuffs are seeing a hike in prices as well, as corn and corn syrup are used in a wide array of products.

A so-far unmanageable wheat rust (blight) has socked Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, wiping out crops.

This is spreading into grain belts of Turkey, the Ukraine, Russia, and eastern and south Asia. By next year, it could be in China and also here, in the Americas, having a devastating effect on our wheat crops if no remedy for the blight is found.

Bees pollinate crops – especially those from annuals like trees, and bee hives are collapsing. When crops go unpollinated there are very low yields, if any, so nut and fruit costs may soon soar as well.

In a year, famine will be widespread and millions people worldwide face death as a result. Here in America, it’s an election year. What are our political leaders doing – fiddling à la Nero?

Where is the House of Representative’s leadership? Where is the Senate’s leadership? Besides spitting at each other, what are Presidential candidates doing?

Is it too soon within the election cycle to raise these critical issues? I realize the public often has a short attention span, but some things are simply too important to wait for the electorate to wake up and smell the coffee.

Before you know it, the looming crisis means that Americans will be called on to ante up billions in food aid to the world’s starving. That will cost us more, in both taxes and in actual grocery charges, as we will be competing with ourselves for dwindling food supplies.

Here’s an idea:

OPEC oil producers are rolling in cash, and they ought to be the ones to ante up cash to feed the poor this time. Their gouging is part of the reason we have moved food off of the shelves and into fuel tanks.

I, for one, have had enough. And as I’m waiting for the fertilizer to hit the fan, I’m quietly stocking up on non-perishable foods.

Alan Note: Islamic jihadists, Hezbollah, various Palestinian and Syrian factions are all using food, distributed as charity from mosques and political office locations, to recruit or retain followers and engender sympathy for their various causes. Often using USA foreign aid food we give to the world free of charge and without strings in the name of humanity.

RELATED STORY.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-food18-2008may18,0,2913579.story

When will we and our Dhimmis wake up to what is happening? The tide in Europe has begun to turn in some countries less rich than the USA, such as Denmark, where new immigration laws change the "let us assimilate you into us by dancing to your tune - to assimilate yourself to us - or leave."

When will we and the Dhimmis, notice that Palestinians have again rejected a dual State of Israel and Palestine and are not "victims"? That no Arab countries - with a fine line exception of Jordan - has accepted so-called Palestinians as citizens, given them a nationality and a full status as citizen.

Why? Because they know the Palestinian "people" are a false myth and while they try to shove it down Western throats, refuse to swallow the garbage themselves.

Only last week, Iraqi Palestinians, currently mostly expelled from the section of Bahdad Saddam Hussein had allocated to them, staged a protest in the desert camp where they now find themselves with little or no food and water, by wrapping themselves in coffins and lying down in freshly dug graves.

# #

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Horn is a retired Foreign Service Officer who has served internationally for more than twenty-five years as a U.S. diplomat. He has enjoyed diverse assignments as a visa officer, an administrator, a security officer, and as an official in counter terrorism.

COMMERCE BEHIND THE BOMB

In January 2000, a German engineer living in South Africa met with a friend and business partner to hatch a deal.

Gerald Wisser, a 61-year-old broker, visited his friend's pipe factory outside Johannesburg to see if his friend wanted to make a bid on a manufacturing project.

According to what Wisser later told investigators, his friend, Johan Meyer, pointed to a foot-and-a-half tall stack of documents and said, "That is the beast. I will make an offer."

"The beast" was machinery to assist with the enrichment of uranium. It was just one part of a much larger operation. Its goal: to provide the fuel enabling Libya to produce its own nuclear bombs.

To men like Wisser and Meyer, it was just another business project.

Wisser and Meyer's deal illustrates the increasingly white-collar nature of the nuclear bomb business. The popular image of desperate terrorists smuggling enriched uranium across borders may not be the most serious nuclear threat to the world.

Instead, the people helping to make the bombs are often successful businessmen made even richer through illicit deals for making the machines to enrich uranium and build bombs. They may live in suburbs and belong to country clubs. And their ability to operate under the guise of "legitimate" business makes catching up with them far more difficult.

Wisser sent word back to his business connection in Switzerland: His partner would take the job. It would cost $2.5 million between the two of them. Wisser's Swiss connection was the intermediary for a man in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. His name was Abdul Qadeer Khan.

A.Q. Khan was the architect of an audacious global trafficking network in sophisticated technology that supplied nuclear know-how and uranium enrichment equipment to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Manufacturers and businesses from as many as 30 countries participated in the enterprise. "The beast," according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, was intended to become part of a uranium enrichment facility enabling Libya to produce as many as several nuclear bombs a year.

Gerhard Wisser and his partner, Johan Meyer, owner of the factory called Tradefin Engineering, had become part of the global network created by Khan to build nuclear weapons. Their job was to construct the inner plumbing—pipes, valves and the like—for the processing of uranium hexafluoride, a gas that is the precursor to enriched, weapons-grade uranium.

Khan assembled a network of businesses able to dodge international export controls by secretly obtaining the technology for nuclear enrichment from multiple locales. In some instances, the job was made easier by the fact that much of the technology needed to enrich uranium and build nuclear bombs has a civilian use as well, in everything from navigation to medicine to energy production, making exports far more difficult to control (and penalties, for mere export violations, far less than those for illegally building a nuclear bomb).

A global network of manufacturers, linked together by Khan according to their specialties, turned their otherwise legitimate businesses into contractors for enriching uranium. Most of them, unlike Gerhard Wisser and Johan Meyer, have yet to be prosecuted; some critics say one reason has been the United States' reluctance to cooperate on international investigations.

Khan operated his international sales network undetected for more than a decade. There is only one international body with the authority to monitor and prevent the trafficking of nuclear technology, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it wasn't looking for operations such as Khan's.

Instead, until recently, both the United States and the IAEA have focused on the smuggling of uranium by criminals or terrorists. The U.S. poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a program aimed at providing former Soviet nuclear scientists with employment to keep them out of the black market.

But while the world looked to block the traffic in enriched uranium, A.Q. Khan, with the help of men like Wisser and Meyer, set out to help countries enrich their own.

"You have a situation where what you and I would view as respectable businessmen are going about selling the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons," says David Albright, a former nuclear inspector in Iraq and now president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

The most significant threat of nuclear proliferation today, says Albright, "comes not from smugglers with pocketfuls of uranium, but from people typically who are very successful businessmen who just want more. … You'd probably be sitting down at the country club and making a deal, or walking into someone's office and making a deal in some luxurious conference room."

Tradefin is housed inside a huge warehouse in a cluster of small factories called Vanderbiljpark about 30 miles south of Johannesburg. It shares a dusty street alongside tile, tire and paint manufacturers. Inside is a complex of rusting tanks, lathes and rumbling conveyor belts.

From the looks of it, Tradefin might as well be producing ball bearings. Gerhard Wisser told German investigators that the factory was producing a water purification facility.

But when South Africa's Crimes Against the State police raided Tradefin in 2004, they found 11 shipping containers packed with machinery fully labeled for reassembly in Libya. IAEA inspectors would later confirm that the machines were capable of capturing and transporting uranium gas after it's been enriched in thousands of whirling centrifuges, the final stage before it's capable of being used for a nuclear bomb.

They also found a promotional videotape from A.Q. Khan's laboratory back in Pakistan which advertised Khan's ability to build the world's "finest uranium enrichment plants."

Tradefin did not produce the most sensitive technology offered by A.Q. Khan to the Libyans; that was provided by factories in Malaysia and elsewhere.

But it manufactured the connecting tissue, the mechanical valves and pipes, for the complex circulatory system of transformations necessary to convert uranium from its natural state in dirt into uranium hexafluoride gas and back into highly enriched, potentially explosive material for a bomb.

It's just these kinds of enterprises, doing work that looks commonplace on the surface, that make cracking down on proliferators a particular challenge, says Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's Deputy General of Safeguards, and the agency's chief nuclear inspector in Iran and Libya. "There are tens of thousands of … these kinds of workshops … doing the same kind of job that Tradefin was doing," Heinonen says.

In September 2007, seven years after "the beast" was born at Tradefin, Gerhard Wisser pleaded guilty to making and trafficking in nuclear weapons parts ordered by A.Q. Khan in violation of South Africa's laws against nuclear proliferation.

Last February, Wisser's chief engineer, Daniel Geiges, who was supervisor of the Tradefin project, confessed to similar charges. Tradefin's owner, Johan Meyer, the man who had turned that one and a half foot stack of documents into an actual, functioning "beast", had confessed to multiple charges of violating South Africa's anti-proliferation laws in 2005, and had assisted with the investigation into his former colleagues' activities on behalf of A.Q. Khan.

None will serve time in jail; all were given suspended sentences and forced to pay fines that, cumulatively, amount to more than $3 million.

The Khan network was first exposed in September 2003, when U.S. and British intelligence agents boarded a freighter en route to Libya and found a cargo hold full of centrifuges that were traced back to Pakistan. The leads generated by that intervention laid down a trail which led to some 30 countries, each one of which has different laws governing the export of sensitive technologies to nuclear or "rogue" states.

There is no international body that can bring smugglers to justice. If they are to be prosecuted, the cases must be brought by individual countries, but prosecutors may need information and help from other nations.

The discovery of the centrifuges prompted President Bush to declare, in a speech to the National Defense University, that the United States would launch an aggressive effort to cooperate with foreign military and intelligence services to "find the middlemen, the suppliers, and the buyers," and would cooperate with foreign military and intelligence services "to stop the spread of deadly weapons."

But critics say that the United States has not offered as much cooperation as Bush seemed to promise in pursuing the smugglers involved in the A.Q. Khan network. And more than four years later, not one of the members of Khan's vast network is in prison.

Out of the dozens of individuals and businesses in some 30 countries suspected of having links to the Khan network, no one other than the three businessmen in South Africa, and a fourth in the Netherlands (who served four months in prison in 2006) have been brought to justice.

One case against the man widely considered to be Khan's chief liaison in Europe, a German engineer named Gotthard Lerch, collapsed last year after the judge accused prosecutors of misconduct.

Lerch is scheduled to be retried this spring. His business partner in South Africa was Gerhard Wisser, who helped him buy prime real estate parcels in Cape Town in addition to engaging in black market nuclear deals dating back to the 1980s, according to a record of Wisser's interrogation by German police.

In late February came another blow to prosecutions of the Khan network: Swiss authorities dropped a part of their criminal case against a family team of engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco, who had allegedly organized, from Switzerland, the shipment of centrifuges from a Malaysian factory to Libya. It was those centrifuges that were found aboard the BBC China, and were ultimately slated to be connected to the equipment manufactured by Tradefin in South Africa.

Friedrich Tinner was released from detention.
David Albright ascribes the troubles with that prosecution at least partly to the U.S. refusal to cooperate with Swiss authorities. Key evidence in that case, he says, is the centrifuges that are now in U.S. custody at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge nuclear research facility.

The agency brought U.S. and international journalists to see the centrifuges shortly after taking control of them in 2005, but repeatedly refused, says Albright, to give the same access to Swiss prosecutors.

"That's been one of the most frustrating things to see," Albright says, "is that there hasn't been a lot of cooperation. The Swiss have been asking for help, but the U.S. is not giving it. ...

They're not providing help with gathering evidence and understanding that evidence so the Tinners can be prosecuted more effectively."

Albright and others have speculated that the three men were intelligence sources who were promised immunity. Albright claims there's been an ongoing and unresolved "tension between those in the intelligence business, who are more focused on finding things than necessarily stopping them ... and people who are engaged in the legal enforcement business of not only stopping people but holding them accountable. ...

It makes the world more dangerous in the end. It allows people to get away with it."

The Department of Energy refused comment on the case.
The sense of frustration made its way even to South Africa, where Abdul Minty, that country's Minister for Non-Proliferation, told us, "Some countries that we knew were particularly well-placed to assist us [in prosecutions] did not assist us in the way that we expected. I think that this is a disappointment when there is so much emphasis being put globally on weapons of mass destruction and the need to stop proliferation.

"The fact that we haven't seen much success there is disappointing. ... What is important is that those engaged in these types of activities must not get the impression that they can get away with these things, because it is extremely serious."

Ambassador Minty did not specify which countries he was referring to. The indictment of Wisser and his colleagues lists meetings, participating companies, individuals and evidence based in at least four countries: Germany, Switzerland, Malaysia and the United States.

After those 11 containers filled with equipment destined for Libya were confiscated from Tradefin, the U.S. Department of Energy took possession of the entire shipment. William Tobey, deputy administrator for nuclear nonproliferation at the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, submitted an affidavit to the South African court last May asserting that the United States would be unwilling to cooperate with the prosecution, and specifically refused to submit evidence regarding the nuclear nature of the shipment, unless the trial was held in secret, hidden from the public or the press.

The South Africans acceded to the U.S. request and put the trial under seal. But the effort to close the trial was successfully challenged by one of that country's leading newspapers, the Mail & Guardian, and a coalition of free expression organizations.

The coalition's success in opening the trial was followed in quick succession by the plea agreements of Gerhard Wisser and Daniel Geiges - whose avoidance of prison time, Albright argues, may be related to the government's subsequent inability to obtain cooperation from the United States in presenting evidence at a public trial.

"I'd rather not discuss that," responded the DOE's William Tobey when called for comment in March.

Meanwhile, A.Q. Khan himself is still a national hero inside Pakistan; he is under so-called "house arrest," confined to his mansion in Rawalpindi. Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff has repeatedly refused to make Khan available for questioning by either the IAEA or the United States.

Like those lingering networks left behind in South Africa, the knowledge and connections that Khan assembled have not gone away. Joseph Cirincione*, whom we interviewed when he was Director of Nuclear Policy at the Center for American Progress, comments, "The global nuclear black market is alive and well, despite claims by both the U.S. administration and Pakistan that the A.Q. Khan network has been smashed. It's just not true. A few people have been arrested but all the suppliers and the expediters are still out there."

As the IAEA's Olli Heinonen explained to us, "If the know-how is there, and the will is there, they don't need any A.Q. Khan. They can do it without him."

* Six months after we interviewed him, Cirincione became president of the Ploughshares Fund, one of the funders of this American RadioWorks project.

IRANIAN PRE-SLAMIC CALENDAR

The Iranian Calendar


Race and nationality as well as the related traditions, customs and culture have no relevance to the religion, faith or beliefs of a nation, and cannot be interlinked. Even if at one time Iranians have been forced to accept the yoke of Islam, they could not have lost their national identity, traditions, culture and civilization. A people’s culture and traditions are inalterably peculiar to them.


The history and culture of Iranians - and that of Semitic peoples were formed in a parallel manner; however, they latter grew in separate directions.



It was then that Aryan history and culture began to immerge. Almost all Europeans (Germans, Slavs, Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, Romans and Greeks), Northern Indians, Iranians and Armenians belong to Aryan history and civilization.



All of them are from the same descent, originating from Pamir and the Middle East. In the second millennium B.C. E., they emigrated to south and west. Because of their origin and place of birth, they are technically called Indo-Europeans.


From all those groups, the Hittites and the Medes formed the first Aryan country. Iran’s written history started with the Medes.



Hegel, the founder of Historical Philosophy, named Iran the world’s first history making country.



The Medes established their country in 708 B.C. Cyrus the Great, conquered the Medes in 550 B.C., consolidating the local Medes kingdom into the Achaemenid Empire.



Preceding Cyrus, the Medes ruled as local Anzan (Ilamit) kingdom and paid tribute to the rulers of the Assyrian Empire.


Even though later Muslim Arabs ruled over Iran for almost two centuries, it cannot be said that Iranians became Arabs.



Only under duress did Iranians convert to Islam but did not change their culture, which obviously could not have been done.


From the view point of history, every nation has a starting

point in time. Based on this framework, Mohammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina became the beginning of Arab calendar, at the start of which a desert wondering scattered people became a consolidated nation acquiring governance.


According to the Old Testament, the Semitic people are the descendants of Noah’s oldest son “Shem”, wherefore they are called “Semitic”. Some historians believe that the Semitic people came into being in the fourth millennium B.C.E. in East Africa and then moved to north.



Others believe that they came into being in the Arabian Peninsula, a theory that seems more plausible.


Where Mohammad’s Hegira from Mecca to Medina was chosen as the beginning of the Arab calendar, Iranians owe their unity to the Achaemenid dynasty, especially to Cyrus the Great. The Iranian calendar therefore deserves to be based on the beginning of the Achaemenid dynasty.



The date of Cyrus the Great’s famous proclamation, which is recognized as the first Bill of Human Rights, is the best possible date for this purpose; for it is a reminder of the greatest historical glory bestowed upon the Iranian people.


History is unalterable; at no time for any reason can it be sacrificed to the changing politics of the day; otherwise, history cannot exist.


It is necessary to reiterate that on the occasion of the same Bill of Human Rights, in the Jewish and Christian’ Holy Book “The Bible”, Cyrus the Great is heralded as a Messiah of God and diffuser of freedom on Earth.



Therefore, among billions of the world’s Christians and Jews who consider the Book as Holy Testament, Cyrus has found an exceptional status. Perhaps tens or hundreds of thousand names “Cyrus” they have given to the individuals, has a significant meaning.


Cyrus’ internationally acclaimed proclamation (found on a cylinder in Babylon and is now housed in the British Museum in London) is one of the most incomparable documents that humankind has ever seen.


This decree, along with a philosophic poem by our great Iranian poet “Saadi”, became the motto of the United Nations. It is the pride of the world and of Iranians in particular.


In consideration of all encompassing international importance of the Declaration, the date of Cyrus the Great’s declaration should be the beginning date of the Iranian calendar. In other words, such internationally recognized declaration should be every Iranian’s pride to recognize the year 538 B.C., as the start of Iranian calendar 2544; (2006 + 538 = 2544).


It is suggested that the said date be put in use starting this Now-rooz of 2545, instead of using non-Iranian base for the calendar. Every Iranian must insist on using 2545 anywhere.


The proposed date has no religious or political (Monarchy) roots, but has its unique historic and internationally acknowledged base.

Note:


This article has been written in consultation with several history books, such as Chronological History of Iran by Dr. Pasargad, The History of Iran by Habibollah Shamloui, together with exchange of ideas with knowledgeable friends and in consultation with Dr. Shojaeddin Shafa whose enthusiastic input completed this research.


Dr. Shafa’s handwritten and oral advice: “The date fixed during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was based on the history of Declaration of Cyrus the Great at the time; but due to some logically understandable political reasons, it did not meet the final approval.



Today those political obstacles have vanished and the date of the Declaration of Human Rights by Cyrus the Great becomes the best choice.

ATTACKING IRAN INCREASINGLY AN OBLIGATION NOT AN OPTION

Former mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has said that “the use of military force against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be very provocative. The only thing worse would be Iran being a nuclear power.”

Giuliani is absolutely right, but why are we sitting by as these frightful alternatives become the only two feasible options?
Seven recent developments have brought us closer than ever to Giuliani’s point:

• Results from last Friday’s second round of Iranian parliamentary elections show that the various hard-line principlist factions and their “independent” allies will once again dominate the Majlis with roughly 80% of the seats in their hands. Although not a surprise, the results do make the prospects of a negotiated settlement with Iran less likely.

• On April 25th, the U.S.’s top military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said that the U.S. is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran. Mullen also said that Tehran was complicit in the death of American soldiers and was an “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made similar comments a few days prior.

• On April 23rd, it was announced that Gen. David Petraeus will be nominated to take over as chief of U.S. Central Command (the head of all U.S. forces in the Middle East). Petraeus, a fierce critic of Tehran’s activities in the region, will be replacing Adm. William Fallon who stepped down after appearing to criticize the Bush administration’s hard line on Iran.

• The Russian news service RIA Novosti reported that Russian intelligence has information that the U.S. has completed preparations for a military strike against Iran and that everything will be ready for an attack as early as late April (the fact that this report came out on the day before President Bush visited Ukraine to back the former Soviet Republic’s bid to join NATO should not be dismissed).

• A report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that if the Iranians were permitted to acquire nuclear weapons, the Saudis and Turks would almost definitely follow suit. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons already have the world on edge. A handful of additional nations with their very own Islamic Bombs will cause a decrease in regional stability and security that will severely endanger U.S. interests.

• A report by Reuters stated that Tehran has begun to install IR-2 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. These advanced centrifuges can enrich uranium at a rate that is two-to-three times faster than that of the centrifuges currently in use. This development further erodes the small window of opportunity that exists to solve the situation without force.

• On his nation’s National Day of Nuclear Technology, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Iran has begun to install 6,000 new centrifuges (in addition to the 3,300 already in operation) at Natanz (it is not clear whether they are IR-2 or not). 3,000 fully operational centrifuges running for one year can produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.

An attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities would not be simple. Iran learned a lot from Israel’s 1981 Osirak strike on Iraq’s nuclear program. The Iranians have spread their nuclear plants around the country and have also built them deep underground and behind thick shields of reinforced concrete.

Assuming that a strike could be successfully carried out, the associated consequences would be very severe and may well consist of any number of the following:

• The 350,000+ American and foreign troops, contractors, and mercenaries stationed on Iran’s borders in Iraq and Afghanistan will almost certainly be targeted in some way as part of Iran’s response; as will Israel and nations in the Gulf and Caucasus that have a hand in the attack.

• Parts of Europe, all of Israel, and the Middle East (including the Gulf nations’ oil installations) are within the range of Tehran’s ballistic missiles.

• Iran has established biological and chemical weapons programs.

• Iran’s terrorist proxies could also be activated:

-- Iran’s militias in Iraq will cause as much havoc as possible, undoubtedly erasing all the security gains made in the past year.

-- Israel can expect to be attacked from all sides by Tehran’s proxies with Hezbollah’s Katyushas raining down from the north and Hamas/Islamic Jihad striking from the east and south.

-- Iranian funded Shia militias could also cause mayhem and unrest among the Shia populations in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

-- Terrorist attacks against Western and Israeli targets in South America (where Hezbollah has extensive terror networks and has struck on behalf of Tehran before), Europe, Africa, and Asia might also be part of the retribution.

• Iran can retaliate against the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30% of the world’s oil passes, sending the price of oil skyrocketing and dragging the economy down with it.

But what would this attack really accomplish? Domestically, the Iranian people, under attack, will presumably “rally around the flag.” In all likelihood, there will also be a vicious crackdown on all forms of dissent and opposition to the regime.

All of this, to, at best, set the nuclear weapons program back a decade.

Of course, if it comes down to bombing Iran or allowing their elementary school dropout Supreme Leader and his apocalyptic President to get within a button’s click of setting the world on fire, there really is no choice at all. However, with all of the associated consequences, military action must truly be a last resort.

So what should be done to avoid military action?

First of all, economic sanctions must be ratcheted up as much as possible. If there is any hope of getting Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons program the financial squeeze currently applied must be a lot firmer.

With Russia and China holding vetoes on any new UN Security Council resolutions, the likelihood of this within a UNSC framework is low. America and its allies could and should try to accelerate their own sanctions against Iran. But, the recent $28 billion gas deal between Swiss company EGL and the Iranians is a big step in the wrong direction.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has all but accepted that sanctions alone won’t do the trick, when she recently conceded that “this is not the time, I think, to expect changes.”

Since the prospect of sanctions alone doing the job is so minuscule, we must also do everything in our power to strengthen and support the various Iranian pro-democracy and opposition groups. Exiled groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the monarchist Constitutionalist

Party of Iran, the liberal nationalist Party of the Iranian Nation, and the Mossadegh founded National Front, as well as the various groups inside Iran representing ethnic Kurds, Azeris, Ahwazi Arabs, and Baluchis, must all be assisted.

While many of these groups have deficiencies and are far from perfect, the more hands that are pulling at this regime, the weaker, and more likely to fall, it will be.

While these may seem like obvious approaches to addressing the situation we currently face, it seems that the U.S. and Europe are doing just the opposite.

Dan Rabkin is a Middle Eastern Affairs and National Security analyst based in Toronto, Canada. He was Canada’s 2005 Governor General’s Medalist. He can be reached at
rabkin.dan@gmail.com.

NEW YORK REACHING FOR TECHNOLOGY TO FIGHT TERRORISM

New York City is putting together a technology-heavy defense for the world's most tempting terror target, lower Manhattan.

The question is whether any of the gear -- especially the network of 3,000 spy cameras -- will really work as advertised.

The 1.7 square miles below Canal Street boasts the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, City Hall, and four major bridges and tunnels. A bomb at any of these places could kill hundreds, cost the city billions, and rattle the world financial system.

Al Qaeda has hit the neighborhood twice, in 1993 and 2001. Officials say that several other plots have been broken up since.

City agencies have done their best to harden the financial district in the years since 2001. Today, explosives-sniffing dogs and two truckloads of cops wearing military-style body armor and waving M-4 machine guns surround the flag-draped stock exchange.

Black metallic barriers rise out of the asphalt, blocking traffic on Wall Street, while concrete planters and strategically parked trucks keep vehicles off Broad Street. Some of the other streets surrounding the exchange have been cut off to pedestrians, and only invited guests are allowed inside. "Closed since 9/11," the guard tells visitors.

But you can't block off every street or have a guard by every door. There's no budget for that, and no one would want to live or work in that kind of armed camp anyway. "You can make a justification for putting bollards in front of every building," says a former high-ranking NYPD counterterrorism official.

"But pretty soon you can't walk anywhere. People leave."

So New York has an audacious blueprint to wrap a high tech cloak around lower Manhattan. It will provide the most sophisticated armor of any major urban area in the world — one that relies on brains as much as brawn, on barely visible technology as much as brute stopping power.

The article in the current issue of WIRED magazine has the details.

There will be upgrades citywide, including a new, next-gen cell network and an overhaul of the subway's security system.

Electronic license plate readers, both stationary and mounted on mobile police units, can already scan thousands of cars per day and instantly alert police if a suspect in their database approaches or enters the financial district.

Massive vehicle barriers will be able to block off the busiest streets on a signal from HQ, even shutting down the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. An array of 3,000 cameras will turn the area into a 1.7-square-mile, open-air Panopticon.

And unlike London's surveillance system, the so-called Ring of Steel, New York's cameras are supposed to do more than identify terrorists after they've struck. Assistant chief John Colgan, who commands the police department's counterterrorism bureau, hopes they'll keep the next disaster from happening.

"This is about identifying and eliminating a threat, rather than dealing with the consequences," says Colgan, a compact redhead with a bushy mustache. "I'm not in the consequence-management business."

Of course, the same technology could be used to invade privacy more efficiently, and even some in the NYPD are concerned: "I certainly don't want my family to come under view just because they're walking through a certain part of town," one counterterrorism official told me.

But that's only a concern if the surveillance net actually works. So far, similar efforts have flopped, badly.

For example -- and this is an exclusive to DANGER ROOM -- Chicago officials promised in 2004 that a citywide array of 2,000 public and private cameras would be ready by March of '06.

Right now, there are only a few hundred cameras up, in the downtown "Loop," officials there tell me. All of them are city-owned. None are equipped with any kind of video analytics that would make it possible to interdict a terror attack.

The problem has been infrastructure: Chicago thought it had all the fiber it needed to put a camera ring together – over 500 miles worth; but when the city started building, it discovered it need 30 miles more, and right in the heart of town. Then the sidewalks starting collapsing.

Those are the kind of snags you run into, when you're slipping new infrastructure into hundred-and-fifty year-old streets. Now, at least, Chicago has its core network complete: the combination of wireless nodes and fiber, to string the cameras together; the 56 terrabyte storage area network, to hold the video; the hot backup site in an undisclosed location, in case it all goes down.

But it hasn't been easy. Or cheap.

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION THE BANE OF ISLAM FOR WOMEN

IRAN & SAUDI ARABIA TENSIONS RISING

Syria decided on Tuesday to postpone releasing the findings of its investigation into the Feb. 12 assassination of Hezbollah operations chief Imad Mughniyah just as Iranian media outlet, Fars News Agency, reported through its Persian language service that Syrian authorities had detained a Saudi Arabian intelligence official for allegedly participating in the assassination.

According to the Fars report, the Saudi official’s Syrian girlfriend bought the two vehicles used in the bombing that killed Mughniyah. We are also told that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a top Saudi national security official, masterminded the operation.

While Damascus is refraining from officially implicating Riyadh in the assassination, the Iranians have decided to escalate matters with the Saudis, their chief rivals in the Arab/Muslim world.

In fact, the conflicts in both Iraq and Lebanon (and to a lesser degree in the Israeli-Palestinian theatre) represent a struggle between the Saudis and Iranians for influence over the predominantly Arab Middle East. However, this struggle did not begin with the rise of Iran and the Arab Shia when the Baathist regime was ousted in Iraq at the hands of the United States nearly five years ago.

Instead, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry truly began at the foundation of the Islamic republic in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Up until that point, Saudi Arabia saw itself as the virtually unchallenged leader of the Arab/Islamic world.

Saudi Arabia claimed unrivaled status as the preeminent nation-state in the largely Sunni Islamic world, given that its founding principle was Islam (albeit Wahhabi) coupled with the fact that that the Kaaba was housed in Mecca while the Mosque of the Prophet was located in Medina.

Alongside its identity as an Islamic state, Saudi Arabia is also a pro-western country with the largest oil resources in the Middle East. More importantly it was a key U.S. ally in the region. But, the autocratic nature of the regime coupled with its western alignment made Saudi Arabia a target of resentment among emerging radical Islamists.

The establishment of a radical Islamist (though Shiite) regime in Iran, which overthrew the pro-western Iranian monarchy of the Shah, led to the rise of the worst Saudi nightmare -- a regional state with comparable energy resources and a much larger military force.

This new power challenged Saudi Arabia for leadership of the Islamic world by employing a radical brand of Islam that appeared more attractive to the Arab/Muslim masses who were disillusioned with what they perceived as the moribund version of official Islam promoted by a corrupt Saudi regime.

For the longest time, the Saudis took comfort from the fact that the Persian and Shiite character of the clerical regime in Tehran would stifle an Iranian challenge.

Another key factor that kept the Saudis comfortable was the fact that Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein. This created a buffer separating the Iranians from the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, Iraq (a Shiite majority state dominated by the Sunni minority) kept Iran occupied with eight years of war and forced the newly formed Islamic republic to temper its regional ambitions.

Tehran therefore reached an informal and uncomfortable accommodation of sorts with Riyadh.

The most that the Iranians were able to do was help create Hezbollah in Lebanon and align with Syria. It was not until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which removed a major threat to the Iranians, that Tehran was presented with an opportunity to revisit its regional ambitions by empowering pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia in Baghdad.

As a result, the return of the Iranian/Shiite threat has been the single largest security nightmare for the Saudis.

Realizing that there is not much that can be done to check Iranian gains in Iraq, the Saudis are trying to strike back in the Levant by creating a coalition against Hezbollah while forcing Syria out of the Iranian orbit. Here is where Saudi and Israeli interests converge.

A behind the scenes cooperation has emerged between the two with Prince Bandar playing a key role. This collaboration would explain why the Iranians linked him to the Mugniyah assassination. Emboldened by their growing influence in Iraq, the Iranians now feel that they can afford to up the ante with the Saudis, and hence the leak via Fars.

It is unlikely that the Iranians or the Saudis will come to blows because of these rising tensions, but their rivalry has just intensified. To what degree the Saudis can play the Persian/Shiite card against Tehran and how far the Iranians can exploit Saudi alignment with the United States and Israel against Riyadh in this race for regional domination remains to be seen.

From Washington’s point of view, so long as it exists, this conflict is perfect and one that it can use to advance its own regional interests.

TURKEY'S "AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI" ABOUT TO IMPOSE ISLAM ON HIS COUNTRY

Fethullah Gülen

by Michael Rubin

Few U.S. policymakers have heard of Fethullah Gülen, perhaps Turkey's most prominent theologian and political thinker. Self-exiled for more than a decade, Gülen lives a reclusive life outside Philadelphia, Pa.

Within months, however, he may be as much a household a name in the United States as is Ayatollah Khomeini, a man who was as obscure to most Americans up until his triumphant return to Iran almost 30 years ago.

Many academics and journalist embrace Gülen and applaud his stated vision welding Islam with tolerance and a pro-European outlook.

Supporters describe him as progressive. In 2003, the University of Texas honored him as a "peaceful hero," alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama.

Last October, the British House of Lords and several British diplomats celebrated Gülen at a high-profile London conference.

Later this year, Georgetown University scholar John Esposito will host a conference dedicated to the movement. As in 2001, Esposito will cosponsor with the Rumi Forum, an organization Gülen serves as honorary president.

The Gülen movement controls charities, real estate, companies, and more than a thousand schools internationally.

According to some estimates, the Gülen Movement controls several billion dollars.

The movement claims its own universities, unions, lobbies, student groups, radio and television stations, and the Zaman newspaper.

Turkish officials concede that Gülen's followers in Turkey number more than a million; Gülen's backers claim that number is just the tip of the iceberg.

Today, Gülen members dominate the Turkish police and divisions within the interior ministry.

Under the stewardship of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of Gülen's most prominent sympathizers, tens of thousands of other Gülen supporters have entered the Turkish bureaucracy.

While Gülen supporters jealously guard his image in the West, he remains a controversial figure in Turkey.

According to Cumhuriyet, a left-of-center establishment daily — Turkey's New York Times — in 1973, the Izmir State Security Court convicted Gülen of "attempting to destroy the state system and to establish a state system based on religion;" he received a pardon, though, and so never served time in prison.

In 1986, the Turkish military — the constitutional guardians of the state's secularism — purged a Gülen cell from the military academy; the Turkish military has subsequently acted against a number of other alleged Gülen cells who they say infiltrated military ranks.

In 1998, according to Turkish court transcripts cited in the Turkish Daily News, Gülen urged followers in the judiciary and state bureaucracy to "work patiently to take control of the state."

The following year, the independent Turkish television station ATV broadcast a secretly taped Gülen telling supporters, "If they . . . come out early, the world will squash their heads. They will make Muslims relive events in Algeria," a reference to the Islamic Salvation Front's overwhelming 1991 election victory in the North African state.

After party leaders spoke of voiding the constitution and implementing Islamic law, the Algerian military staged a coup leading to a civil conflict that killed tens of thousands.

Because of his statements and veiled threats, the judiciary in 1998 charged Gülen with trying to "undermine the secular system" while "camouflag[ing] his methods with a democratic and moderate image."

Convicted in absentia, but free to run his organized from his U.S. exile, Gülen continues a rather inconsistent approach to tolerance and secularism.

He often equates the separation of religion and state with atheism, an assertion many of Turkey's most secular officials find offensive:

Believing that religion is best kept to the individual rather than state sphere does not equate with any lack of belief in God. In 2004, Gülen equated atheism with terrorism and said both atheists and murderers would spend eternity in Hell.

Gülen has received a legal break, however. In 2002, Erdoğan's Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kakınma Partisi, AKP) won a plurality in parliamentary elections and, because of a fluke in Turkish election law, was able to amplify one-third of the popular vote into a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Erdoğan used this advantage to enact reforms which had the net affect of stacking not only the civil service, but also banking boards and the judiciary with his political supporters and religious fundamentalists.

Erdoğan's judges wasted no time. They placed liens against political opponents' property, seized independent newspapers and television stations including, not by coincidence ATV, and assigned sympathetic judges to hear appeals against earlier decisions levied against Islamists.

On May 5, 2006, the Ankara Criminal Court overturned the verdict against Gülen. While a public prosecutor — a secularist hold-out — appealed the court's action, the process is now nearing conclusion. Gülen's supporters are ecstatic.

His slate wiped clean, Gülen has indicated he may soon return to Turkey.

If he does, Istanbul 2008 may very well look like Tehran 1979.

UPDATE: the 11-man Appeals court has confirmed Gülen's acquital in MARCH 2008

Just as Gülen's supporters affirm his altruistic intentions and see no inconsistency between a secretive, cell-based movement and transparent governance, too many Western journalists also give Gülen a free pass.

If this sounds familiar, it should:

Three decades ago, the same phenomenon marked coverage of Iran. "I don't want to be the leader of the Islamic Republic; I don't want to have the government or power in my hands," Khomeini falsely told a credulous Austrian television reporter during the ayatollah's brief sojourn in Paris.

In November 1978, Steven Erlanger, the future New York Times foreign correspondent, penned a New Republic essay arguing that Khomeini's vision for Iran was essentially a "Platonic Republic with a grand ayatollah as a philosopher-king," and predicting the triumph of an independent liberal left worried more about labor conditions in Iran's oil fields than pursuing any theological tendency.

In Tehran then as in Ankara now, U.S. ambassadors preferred garden parties with the political elite and maintained contacts with only a narrow segment of the population.

They were blind. As the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency remained clueless or belittled concerns about Khomeini's intentions, millions of Iranians turned out to greet their Imam at Tehran's international airport.

Turks now say that similar crowds might greet Gülen when his plane touches down in Istanbul.

Gülen is careful. He will not order the dissolution of the Turkish Republic. But, ensconced in his Istanbul mansion, he could simply begin to issue fatwas prying Turkey farther from the secularism to which Erdoğan pays lip service.

As Khomeini consciously drew parallels between himself and Twelver Shiism's Hidden Imam, Gülen will remain quiet as his supporters paint his return as evidence that the Islamic caliphate formally dissolved by Atatürk in 1924 has been restored.

The secular order and constitutionalism in Turkey have never been so shaky. The government now controls most television and radio stations. Erdoğan has gained the dubious distinction of launching more lawsuits against journalists and commentators than any previous Turkish prime minister.

As Erdoğan discourages dissent, his and Gülen's supporters among prominent Turkish columnists and commentators equate Islamism with democracy, and secularism with fascism, a line too many Western diplomats eager to demonstrate tolerance with an embrace of "moderate Islam" accept.

Erdoğan himself has argued that it was secularism which led to Hitler; that Islamism would never produce such a result.

Last month, after one of the few independent judicial authorities filed a lawsuit against Erdoğan and the AKP for violating constitutional provisions separating religion from politics, the prime minister responded with a midnight round-up of leading academics and journalists who had criticized him.

Even Erdoğan's supporters were shocked to wake up on March 21 to learn that İlhan Selçuk, the bed-ridden octogenarian editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet described by Turks as their Walter Cronkite had been arrested in a pre-dawn raid on charges of plotting to launch a military coup; the police have yet to provide any evidence.

Nor is Selçuk the only victim in the most recent intimidation campaign. A Hürriyet columnist, Ahmet Hakan, has received threatening phone calls from lawyer Kemaletin Gülen, a relative of Fethullah.

When Islamists pursue campaigns of hatred, Western officials not only pretend nothing is amiss but also, as in the case of Palestinian leaders, often increase their support.

This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the judicial case against Erdoğan and the AKP.

Members of her staff suggest she will lend subtle support to the prime minister. Indeed, it may be tempting to condemn the court action as a political stunt:

The prosecutor's legal brief is shoddily written and poorly argued. Despite its faults, however, the underlying legal issues are real.

Rice should be silent. Any interference will backfire:

Turks, already upset that U.S. ambassador Ross Wilson seldom meets with opposition leaders, will interpret any criticism of the case as White House support for the AKP.

Secularists will ask why Turkey's liberal opposition should not have the right to all legal remedies. They already ask why the West applauds legal action taken against Austrian populist Jörg Haider and French demagogue Jean Marie Le Pen, but the same U.S. and European officials appear to bless Erdoğan's legal exceptionalism.

By undermining judicial recourse, Rice may accelerate violence and lead support to those who argue — wrongly — that the government's disdain for the law and constitution should be met with the same.

On the off-chance, however, that Rice accepts that the court case should run its course, Turkey's religious conservatives will accuse her of masterminding the approach.

Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has made many mistakes. Bush was correct to recognize the importance of democratization; bungled implementation has turned a noble ideal into a dirty word.

By equating democracy only with elections, the State Department and National Security Council fumbled U.S. interests in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon.

One man, one vote, once; parties that enforce discipline at the point of a gun; and politicians who seek to subvert the rule of law to an imam's conception of God do little for U.S. national security.

Never again should the United States abandon its ideological compatriots for the ephemeral promises of parties that use religion to subvert democracy and seek mob rather than constitutional rule.

Turkey is nearing the cliff. Please, Secretary Rice, do not push it over the edge.

FRIVOLOUS LEGAL JIHAD

by Brooke Goldstein

The Islamist movement has two wings – one violent and one lawful, which can operate apart but often reinforce each other.

While the violent arm attempts to silence speech by burning cars when cartoons of Mohammed are published in Denmark, the lawful arm is skillfully maneuvering within Western legal systems, both here and abroad.

Islamists with financial means have launched a "legal Jihad," filing frivolous and malicious lawsuits with the aim of abolishing public discourse critical of Islam and with the goal of establishing principles of Sharia law (strict Islamic law dating back to the 9th Century) as the governing political and legal authority in the West.

Islamist Lawfare is often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, and undertaken as a means to intimidate, demoralize and bankrupt defendants. The lawsuits range in their claims from defamation to workplace harassment and they have resulted in books being pulped and meritorious articles going unpublished.

Forum shopping, whereby Plaintiffs bring actions in jurisdictions most likely to rule in their favor, has enabled a wave of "libel tourism." At the time of her death in 2006, noted Italian author Orianna Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and other jurisdictions by groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of her work.

Libel Tourism has also resulted in foreign judgments against American authors mandating the regulation of their speech and behavior.

The litany of American anti-Islamist researchers, authors, activists, publishers, congressman, newspapers, television news stations, think tanks, NGOs, reporters, student journals and others targeted for censorship is long and merits brief mentioning here.

One of the earliest cases in the US dates back to 1937, where in Birmington, Alabama, an Arab Sheik sued the Birmington Post for libel over an article entitled "Arabian Sheik Asks Friend Here to Buy him an American Girl for Harem."

The Post reported that Sheik Fareed Iman, "who is 29 years old and fears he may reach 30 before he obtains a chief-wife for his four-wife harem, is ready to purchase a suitable girl from her parents. The lucky girl", the article continued, "will benefit from the traditional Arabian protective treatment of women but she can't be seen by those who are not members of the household."


The article read more like a parody of a personal ad in the dating section of a magazine and listed a telephone number should anyone reading be interested. Nevertheless, the Alabama court of appeals refused to dismiss the suit and judged the article libelous per se, or defamatory on its face, and remanded it for jury trial, where eventually the Plaintiff lost for his failure to state a cause of action.

Within the last ten years, however, we have seen a steady increase in cases pursued by Islamic organizations and Muslim individuals attempting to use Western courts to stop the flow of certain information.

They are achieving a degree of success in Europe because the judicial systems in England, France and elsewhere don't afford their citizens, or American citizens for that matter, the same free speech protections granted in America under the U.S. Constitution.

The cumulative effect of the suits abroad, and of the suits here at home even if they are not successful, and the looming threat of future suits is creating a detrimental chilling effect on dialogue concerning important matters of public concern because, naturally, people want to avoid costly litigation.

I want to mention briefly a few cases that have occurred here within the last ten years against American anti-Islamist authors and activists. It is imperative that our judicial system continue to enforce the authors' and activists' rights to free speech and free assembly against all parties attempting to stifle them here and abroad.

In 1998, America Online (AOL) permitted chat rooms in which voluntary participants could post comments and talk to one another about issues involving the Koran and tenants of Islam.

One Muslim visitor to the chat room named Saad Noah considered posts by other visitors blasphemous and defamatory against Islam. Noah then sued AOL for libel, attempting a class action on behalf of all Muslim chat room participants and claiming that AOL wrongfully refused to prevent participants from posting anti-Islamic comments.

The court properly dismissed the case against AOL, for failure to state a cause of action.

In 2003 the Council on American Islamic Relations (i.e., CAIR) sued U.S. Congressman Cass Ballenger after an interview with the Congressman was published in the Charlotte Observer wherein Ballenger exclaimed how living in Washington across the street from CAIR headquarters no longer appealed to him because CAIR was, "a fundraising arm for Hezbollah," and that the Congressman had reported such to the FBI and the CIA.

Fortunately, the judge ruled that Ballenger's statements were made in the scope of his public duties and were therefore protected speech in the interest of public concern.

The following year, CAIR sued Andrew Whitehead, an American activist and blogger, for $1.3 million for maintaining the website Anti-CAIR.net.org, on which Whitehead lists CAIR as an Islamist organization with ties to terrorist groups.

Ironically, after CAIR refused Whitehead's discovery requests, seemingly afraid of what internal documents the legal process it had initiated would reveal, CAIR withdrew its claims against Whitehead, the two parties came to a settlement – the terms of which have not been publicly disclosed – and the case was dismissed by the court with prejudice.

Whitehead's Anti-CAIR website, however, is still up and running along with the articles that were at issue.

Last year, When Joe Kaufman, an American activist and chairman of Americans Against Hate, traveled to Texas to lead a peaceful ten-person protest against the Islamic Circle of North America outside an event the group was sponsoring at a Six Flags theme park, he was served with a temporary restraining order and sued for defamation and harassment.

What is particularly troubling about Kaufman's case is that the suit was filed against him, not by ICNA, but by seven Dallas area plaintiffs who had never previously been mentioned by Kaufman, nor had they been present at the theme park. This suit currently is being litigated.

Another case that is ongoing is that of Bruce Tefft. Tefft is a former CIA official and worked as a counter-terrorism consultant for the NYPD.

After sending out emails to a voluntary list of police officer recipients in which he cut and pasted articles about terrorism – complemented with Tefft's own commentary – Tefft, along with the NYPD, was sued by a Muslim John Doe Police Officer alleging workplace harassment.

Often the mere threat of suit is enough to intimidate publishers into silence, regardless of the merit of their author's works. In 2007, when wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman, Khalid bin Mahfouz, threatened to sue Cambridge University Press for publishing the book Alms for Jihad, by American authors Robert Collins and J Millard Burr, Cambridge Press immediately capitulated, offered a public apology to Mahfouz, took the book out of print and ordered the destruction of all unsold copies and the removal of the book from the shelves of libraries – a directive certain libraries refused to follow.

Sometimes defendants targeted are able to take advantage of Anti-SLAPP statutes.

Anti-SLAPP statutes have been enacted in several, but not all, states and are aimed at preventing such lawsuits designed to hinder legitimate public participation.

In the book Hamas, author Matthew Levitt describes KinderUSA as a charitable front for terror financing. When Levitt, along with Yale Press who published his book, were sued by KinderUSA, he instituted a counter-claim against the plaintiff based on California's Anti-SLAPP statute. Shortly afterwards, KinderUSA dropped their lawsuit claiming it found the suit too costly to pursue.

Most disturbing, parties sued for reporting on U.S. government investigations into terrorist activities, or for formally appealing government authorities to conduct investigations, include The New York Times which, in 2001, reported on the US Government investigation of the Global Relief Foundation; The Wall Street Journal which, in 2002, reported on the monitoring of the Saudi bank accounts; and ADL which, in 2002, called for the investigation of a public school superintendent, Khadja Ghafur, based on indications that schools under his supervision were teaching religion.

Legal Jihad is gaining momentum with a ripple effect, and we must expect that Islamists will engage in future legal efforts along these lines. Indeed, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) have both stated publicly that they are considering filing defamation lawsuits against their critics. The Muslim World League has called for the establishment of a commission to take legal action against those who abuse Islam and its prophet Mohammed. During the recent two-day summit in Dakar, taking legal action against those who defame Islam was a key issue debated at length by Muslim leaders.
For its part, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has announced an ambitious fundraising goal of $1 million, in part to "defend against defamatory attacks on Muslims and Islam." One of its staffers, Rabiah Ahmed, has stated that lawsuits are increasingly an ‘instrument' for it to use." Moreover, CAIR's chairman, Parvez Ahmed, has stated that "People who make statements connecting CAIR to terrorism should understand the legal consequences of their attempted slander and defamation."
This is not a Left or Right issue.
The Islamist Lawfare challenge presents a direct and real threat to our constitutional rights and national security. Left unabated, this phenomenon has the potential to seriously hinder public debate on the threat of radical Islam. The United States was founded on the premise of freedom of worship, but also on the principle that one should have the freedom to criticize religion.
Should the voices of concerned Americans be intimidated into silence, a real possibility exists that the criticism of radical Islam will be stifled, and Sharia law will begin to creep into our system as we are seeing it do in the financial markets with Sharia banking.
Daniel Pipes, who founded and heads the Middle East Forum, recognized the seriousness of this threat and last spring established the Legal Project (LP) to counter it. The LP has been working to recruit and establish a network of attorneys who are willing to work as pro bono counsel for the defendants in these cases; it has also embarked on fundraising efforts to assist with the cost of litigation and is working to raise public awareness of this phenomenon. Moreover, the LP is capable of positioning itself on the offensive and has recently succeeded in causing The Muslim Weekly publication, a UK-based lslamist magazine, to issue an apology and retraction of an article in which one Tariq Ramadan made false and defamatory statements about Dr. Pipes.

Those parties who recklessly and wrongfully defame our counter-terrorism researchers should beware.