Tag: Iran

Suhrith Parthasarathy looks at how association football influenced the modern history of Iran:

Drawing links between sport and the larger cultural and political ethos of a nation can often be tenuous and far-fetched. But, in Iran, when soccer returned to the hub of social life in the late 1990s, it served, as David Goldblatt wrote in his book, The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer, as a “rallying point for opponents of the conservative elements in the theocracy.” Tehran’s national soccer stadium, built in 1971 and which can hold more than 100,000 people, is called “Azadi,” meaning “freedom” in Farsi. But ever since the 1979 revolution, which saw the Islamisization of the nation, women were altogether prohibited from watching soccer at Azadi. The boisterous celebrations following the team’s victory in Melbourne, therefore, served as much as a means to help break such shackles as it has to entrench a new form of expressing not only joy but also political protest in the country. Next month, when Iran plays in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, its matches will reverberate in significance well beyond the soccer pitch.

John Duerden fast forwards to today, when the sport remains just as politically significant:

Popular passion for the game is such that no leader can afford to ignore it. One of the first international figures that President Hassan Rouhani met after taking office last August was Sepp Blatter, the controversial chief of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), football’s international governing body, who backed Iran’s bid to host the 2019 Asian Cup.

If Rouhani hadn’t immediately grasped the power of the game, it was made abundantly clear soon enough. Just one week after his historic election inspired thousands to take to the streets, crowds of roughly equal size turned out to celebrate Iran’s qualification for the 2014 World Cup. By scoring political points in his meeting with Blatter, however, the new Iranian president was just following the example set by his predecessor. According to a diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “has staked a great deal of political capital in Iranian soccer … in an effort to capitalize on soccer’s popularity with constituents.”

Yet Iranians (NYT) don’t seem all that excited about the World Cup this year. That’s no coincidence:

It is more than the daunting competition and the controversies surrounding Team Melli that keep the Iranians from warming to the World Cup. The authorities have been working hard to nix any soccer related excitement.

Tehran’s cinemas have been told by the police that they are not allowed to show World Cup matches to a mixed audience of men and women, “out of respect for Islamic morals.” A plan to show Iran’s games on some of the large electronic billboards across the city was canceled, and on Wednesday, restaurant and coffee shop owners said they had been told by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture to refrain from decorating their establishments with the national flag or the colors of other countries.

“We want to decorate our restaurant with German flags,” said one restaurant owner who asked to be identified only by his first name, Farhad. “But even that is not allowed. Fun, people gathering in large groups, such things make the authorities nervous.”

Jeffrey Goldberg tries to talk sense into Iran hawks:

[A]t least in the short term, negotiations remain the best way to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. And U.S. President Barack Obama cannot be hamstrung in discussions by a group of senators who will pay no price for causing the collapse of negotiations between Iran and the P5 + 1, the five permanent members of the security council, plus Germany. “You have a large group of senators who are completely discounting the views of the administration, the actual negotiators, the rest of the P5 + 1, the intelligence community and almost every Iran analyst on earth,” said Colin Kahl, who, as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during Obama’s first term, was responsible for preparing all of the options that the President says are still on the table.

If these negotiations were to collapse — and collapsing the negotiations is the goal of some of the most hawkish hawks — the most plausible alternative left to stop Iran would be a preventative military strike, either by the U.S. or by Israel (Arab states, which are agitating for an American strike, wouldn’t dare take on the risk of attacking Iran themselves). Such a strike might end in disaster. …

The whole column is worth a read. Another sound point:

[W]hy support negotiations? First: They just might work. I haven’t met many experts who put the chance of success at zero. Second: If the U.S. decides one day that it must destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, it must do so with broad international support. The only way to build that support is to absolutely exhaust all other options. Which means pursuing, in a time-limited, sober-minded, but earnest and assiduous way, a peaceful settlement.

Beinart declares that “the sanctions bill is all about torpedoing a nuclear deal”:

An analysis of the legislation by longtime senate foreign relations committee staffer Edward Levine notes that to suspend the new sanctions indefinitely, President Obama must certify that “Iran will…dismantle its illicit nuclear infrastructure.” That’s pretty vague. But AIPAC’s summary of the bill helpfully explains that “Iran’s illicit nuclear infrastructure” includes “enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.”

Which would be fine, except that the Obama administration has already conceded that it can accept limited Iranian uranium enrichment so long as it’s not near weapons-grade and is closely monitored by inspectors. To suspend the sanctions, in other words, a final nuclear deal would have to include provisions that the governments of both Iran and the United States have already insisted it will not include.

Larison responds:

It’s not surprising that the bill has set such a maximalist requirement, since the bill’s co-sponsors have previously expressed their opposition to allowing Iran to retain any enrichment capabilities. This is why no one should take seriously the claim of the bill’s supporters that they are interested in a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue. According to their own standard, they will only accept a deal with conditions that Iran has repeatedly stated that it will never accept, which means that no achievable final deal can avoid triggering the sanctions that they wish to impose. It is little wonder that Iran views the passage of a new sanctions bill as a deal-breaker. If the bill became law, it would mean that the U.S. had already reneged on commitments that it made in the interim agreement.

Kilgore wants anti-war Democrats to make some noise:

You will hear some Democrats and even a few Republicans claim they are trying to strengthen the adminstration’s hand in their negotiations, but that’s a shuck. The whole idea is to torpedo the talks because Bibi Netanyahu believes they are aimed at the wrong goal: keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, as opposed to Bibi’s demand that Iran lose its capability of developing nuclear weapons. If that means war, so be it. This time around, of course, those in the Democratic Party opposing a drift into war have the White House on their side, and the precedent of what happened when a lot of Democrats supported a similarly avoidable war with Iraq. But if antiwar Democrats don’t start making some real noise, the configuration of forces in Congress will continue to deteriorate, and we could be looking at a war foisted on an unwilling commander-in-chief.

And now the House is preparing to pass the Senate’s bill, which “would speed the process of sending a bill to Mr. Obama’s desk because the two chambers would not have to go through the process of reconciling their different bills.” It’s also intended pressure Reid into allowing a vote on the Senate bill. Larison zooms out:

When it came to the questions of bombing Libya and Syria, the House leadership was perfectly happy to defer to the executive, but when it comes to the conduct of diplomacy that is properly part of the executive’s responsibility they are only too ready to butt in and meddle where they aren’t wanted or needed. The one constant in this behavior is that most members of Congress find a way to take whichever side makes conflict with other states more likely. If the executive wants to launch a war on its own, Congress will stay out of the way, but if it wants to strike a deal that makes a future war less likely to happen they are suddenly very concerned to make their views known.

(Photo: Senator Cory Booker, who is sabotaging his own president’s diplomacy on Iran, by Kena Betancur/Getty Images.)

https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/421715207652515840

Sargent is concerned about the growing support for a new Iran sanctions bill, which threatens to derail negotiations:

The basic storyline in recent days has been that the pro-sanctions-bill side is gaining in numbers, while the anti-sanctions-bill side hasn’t — even though the White House has been lobbying Dems very aggressively to back off on this bill, on the grounds that it could imperil the chances for a historic long-term breakthrough with Iran. As Josh Rogin puts it, “the White House’s warnings have had little effect.”

We’re very close now to the 60 votes it needs to pass. The Dem leadership has no plans to bring it to the floor, but there are other procedural ways proponents could try to force a vote. And if the numbers in favor of the bill continue to mount, it could increase pressure on Harry Reid to move it forward. Yes, the president could veto it if it did pass. But we’re actually not all that far away from a veto-proof majority. And in any case, having such a bill pass and get vetoed by the president is presumably not what most Democrats want to see happen.

Steve Benen adds:

Congress passed sanctions to entice Iran to come to the table, and Iran came to the table. Pressure from sanctions was intended to encourage Iran to reach a deal, and Iran reached a deal. If Congress could resist the urge to destroy its own success – new sanctions would derail all talks, force Iran from the table, and tell the world the United States isn’t serious about peaceful solutions – real progress could move forward.

Ryan Cooper thinks Democratic senators, like sanctions-supporter Cory Booker, are making a mistake:

It may seem to Booker et al. that dynamiting sanctions is the smart political play, given the strength of AIPAC and other neoconservative groups. Or it could be that he really believes this stuff: Booker has long been strongly pro-Israel, and has key rabbinical allies with similar views. Or perhaps he hasn’t grasped the danger yet. As Peter Beinart has pointed out, the anti-war left has never been very good at teaching politicians to head off conflicts in the making, as opposed to punishing them for it after the fact.

Regardless of the reason, Booker and company are making a serious error if they think that the anti-war left is dead forever, or that they’ll pay no price if they manage to successfully sabotage these negotiations.

Weigel points out that all the Senate Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns have supported new sanctions on Iran. On Friday, Trita Parsi looked at the situation from Iran’s perspective:

Khamenei supports Rouhani’s diplomacy not because he agrees with it, but because he has turned it into a win-win for himself. As long as he patiently waits till the talks either succeed or collapse due to American foul play – courtesy of senators Menendez and Kirk – he will strengthen his position both internationally and domestically.

If diplomacy succeeds, he will take credit for it. If diplomacy fails as a result of American sabotage, he will claim vindication. His mistrust of the West will have proven correct, as will his line that Iran’s interest is best served by resisting rather than collaborating with the West. Iran’s moderates and pragmatists will once again be pushed to the margins of Iranian politics. Rouhani will be weakened and momentum will shift back to Khamenei and the hardliners.

My take here.