A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ayatollah Montazeri, and the Westernized youth of Tehran. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below), has somehow not contaminated unfolding events. The claim is made that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed, however. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the pre-emptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick. As for Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Ayatollah Khomeini, but lost out to the current supreme leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Ayahtollah Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians. There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs’ lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion, Ahmadinejad’s attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. It does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs, however. Commenators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad’s win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. There are credible reports, however, that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government. On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News, “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.” On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported, “Mr.
Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a U.S. military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.” On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources. These operations, for which the president sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.” The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this. Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the United States is involved in the election protests. Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’ revolutions . … Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, nonprofit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally recognized standards of human rights in Iran.” To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. |
Category: Turkey
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Are The Iranian Election Protests Another U S Orchestrated Color Revolution
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Miss India 2009 winners holiday in Turkey
Breaking News
Seven-day trip took them to various cities
The Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 winners – PFMI World 2009 Pooja Chopra, PFMI Earth 2009 Shriya Kishore and PFMI Universe 2009 Ekta Choudhary – just enjoyed a 7-day holiday in Turkey, sponsored by Turkish Airlines and TITC.
They stayed at the upscale Çırağan Kempinski hotel in Istanbul and checked out the city’s architectural marvels such as Sultan Ahmet St.Sophia and Topkapı palace.
They also saw the palaces and mansions lining the shores of Bosporus in a private yacht.
In the Cappadocia region, the girls got a feel of the unique geological, historic and cultural features of Turkey.
Visit to the luscious spas at the Swissotel and SPA, Ritz Carlton hotel allowed them to rejuvenate their mind, body and soul. Adding a streak of adventure to their getaway, the three winners ventured into hot air balloons to catch the Cappadocia sunrise.
The girls also grabbed their fill of sun, sand and sea at the sunny capital of Turkey, Antalya.
Back in India, the three winners will now start training for the international pageants scheduled for this year.
Source: www.masala.com, 21 June, 2009
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Will Iran Look More Like Turkey, or Turkey Like Iran?
Nathan Gardels
Editor, NPQ, Global Services of Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media
"Crooke’s mission in this erudite and most readable book is to reassure America and the rest of the world that Hamas, Hezbollah and the seemingly menacing Islamic governments in Iran and elsewhere are not the enemies of the West… a scholarly and closely argued critique of what passes for Western diplomacy today." –Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker magazine ISTANBUL — The effort to forge new forms of non-Western modernity in the Muslim world has pushed Iran into bloody civil strife while Turkey swirls with persistent rumors of military plots against the Islamist-rooted government. The great historical question is whether, at the end of the day, Iran will look more like Turkey, or Turkey like Iran?
As the legendary M16 agent Alastair Crooke argues in his new book, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution, the Iranian revolution was a direct consequence a half century later of the forced secularization of the Ottoman Caliphate by Kemal Ataturk. With the superstructure of the Muslim ummah dismantled and replaced with the Turkish nation-state, insurgent religious movements, from the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the Shiite imams of Qum and Najaf, moved into the vacuum to reclaim Islam from the shadow of Western modernization.
Paradoxically, Ataturk’s whole modernization project is today being recalibrated by the ruling Islamist-rooted (Justice and Development) AK party, which is seeking to reintroduce piety into public life while projecting Turkey as a neo-Ottoman regional power in the Muslim Middle East instead of a mere NATO appendage or European supplicant. At the same time, Iran, the other regional power, is moving in the opposite direction: the Twittering partisans of popular sovereignty are locked in a battle with their theocratic guardians over the legitimacy of power in the Islamic Republic.
What goes around comes around, it seems. The reaction to the Great Transformation of early 20th century modernization may have given rise to what Crooke calls the “Great Refusal” of the Islamist resistance. But now the legacy of the Great Transformation in Turkey as well as the Great Refusal in Iran are facing the reverse challenges of bringing faith back into the public realm on the one hand, and democratizing a religious state on the other.
The historical cross currents are complex. In Turkey, one AK Party leader told me, by way of allaying suspicions about an Islamist takeover, that “without its Western orientation, Turkey would be just another Muslim country.” Yet, a publisher friend worries that “without the military guarding Turkey’s secular institutions, the Islamists would take over tomorrow.” And yet again his 20-something daughter, despite the ever more prevalent sight of headscarves on the street, shrugs her bare shoulders doubtfully at the idea of Turkey ever becoming a repressive religious society like Iran.
In Iran, the very idea of an Islamic Republic, borne out of the 1979 revolution, is coming apart. What we are witnessing is a contest between the Shiite idea of an imamate, where, essentially, God is the head of state, versus the Republic, in which the people rule. What happens to the legitimacy of the state when the people, through their democratic institutions, disagree with God? How can this contradiction at the very heart of the constitutional arrangement of the Islamic Republic ever be resolved?
For all its grumblings and even rumblings, the military that stands behind secularism in Turkey has not so far frustrated the democratic aspirations of the religious resurgence there. In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards that are protecting theocracy have done just that: they have sought to crush the assertion of popular sovereignty.
The clerical establishment aligned with the Revolutionary Guard in Iran won’t be easily dislodged from power. Yet, once they’ve felt their power in the streets, as in 1979, neither will the people accept the suppression of their rights. By reasserting his authority after the election through brutal repression, Ayatollah Khameini has undermined the legitimacy of his rule. It may be a long, slow erosion, but the repression of legitimate aspirations is always the beginning of the end for any system of governance.
For now, the Turkish experiment in creating a non-Western, post-secular order seems more sustainable because it respects the will of the people. That is now the challenge for Iran.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com, June 20, 2009
‘This book is required reading at a time when alternative perspectives on the causes of global terrorism and new Western diplomatic initiatives urgently need to replace the failed policies of the Bush administration-led “War on Global Terrorism”.’–John L. Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and co-author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think
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Turkey Anxious over Mass Protests in Iran
By: Emrullah UsluIranian supporters of defeated reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi demonstrate on June 17, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Following the controversial presidential election in Iran, the Turkish media coverage has revealed a mixed interpretation of events, and appears to indicate widespread support in the country for the re-election of the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Several hours after the polls closed in Iran the reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi declared victory. Only minutes after his press conference, Iran’s state owned news agency IRNA reported that the hard-line President Ahmadinejad also declared victory (Zaman, June 13). The Turkish press had sent their correspondents to Tehran to closely monitor the election. Turkey’s leading daily Hurriyet immediately after the poll, speculated about the possibility of social unrest and protests in Iran (Hurriyet, June 13).
As the protests grew in strength, the Iranian opposition leader Mousavi issued a direct challenge to the country’s supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest against the disputed election results, and the instances of state-inspired violence against his followers. In response Iran’s most powerful military force said that Iranian websites and bloggers must remove any material that “creates tension” or face legal action (Hurriyet Daily News, June 18).
The key aspect of these developments, which attracted the attention of the Turkish media, was whether the “green wave” protests might spark a reformist revolution. Despite the fact that the opposition leader Mousavi rejected the claims that his “green wave protests are supported by outside supporters,” (Hurriyet, June 18) the nationalist Turkish press displayed a tendency to believe that Iran is facing a new revolution similar to those in Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics that were supported by the United States and the European Union.
For instance, the neo-nationalist Yeni Cag daily alleged that the west is the “dark force” behind the protests in Iran, aiming to topple the Iranian regime. Yeni Cag prefers to regard the protests as revealing that the “patience of the Iranian people is about to explode [against the protest]” (Yeni Cag, June 18).
Turkish political observers have also tried to associate the protests in Iran with the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. Mahir Kaynak in the Star daily said that the global powers were unsuccessful in their alleged efforts to bring about yet another color revolution -this time in Iran (Star, June 16).
Ibrahim Karagul in Yeni Safak suggested that the events in Iran might be a sign of new developments encouraged by the “dark forces” of the west to bring a reformist revolution to Iran (Yeni Safak, June 17). Nuray Mert in Radikal was another political observer alleging that the protests in Iran might indicate an imminent “green” revolution (Radikal June 16).
Semih Idiz of Milliyet noted that the victory of Ahmadinejad represents a huge disappointment for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries. However, when it comes to Turkey, it appears that the AKP government is not disappointed with this result. In addition, no matter whether they belong to the secular or Islamist segments of Turkish society, those with anti-American and anti-Western sentiments are happy to see the re-election of Ahmadinejad (Milliyet, June 15).
Yet there are some Turkish political observers who think that the victory of Ahmadinejad might not prove negative for the west. Kadri Gursel in Milliyet for instance, argued that a victory for Mousavi would be a good option, though he stressed that during the election campaign Ahmadinejad avoided using any anti-American or anti-Israeli sentiments to turn them into an election tool (Milliyet, June 15). The director of the International Strategic Research Center in Ankara Sedat Laciner, also believes that Ahmadinejad is signaling possible compromise with the west, and Mousavi may not be the right person to conduct such negotiations, since his reformist agenda is not supported by all sections of Iranian society (www.usakgundem.com, June 12).
It appears that, other than a small minority who care about the potential strategic significance of the election, the majority of the Turkish public regardless of their background, seem happy with the outcome of the Iranian election. In addition, they do not approve of the protests in Iran, and they believe that the West is the main driving force behind these expressions of public discontent.
Islamists in Turkey are satisfied with the Iranian election, because an Islamist has apparently won. The secularists are equally content, as they fear that the west might be sponsoring protests in Iran in order to topple the regime. Most importantly, the neo-nationalists in Turkey have long lived with the fear that the West wants to change the secularist regime, because Turkey with its nation-state structure is one of the biggest obstacles to further globalization. As a result of such an obscure conspiracy theory, neo-nationalists are also pleased to see that Ahmadinejad has secured his re-election.
Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6, Issue: 117, June 18, 2009
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Flowers of Turkey
This 1st edition guide book was published in Japan in 2008 for tourists visit in Turkey for particularly hiking and nature watching. There are 448 species of plants’ names with 7 different languages( by Latin=sientific name, English,Turkish, Japanese, German, French, Italian names) and it’s useful for the visitors of those language speakers. This book is made by light and strong quality of paper and easy to carry during your journey.Turkey is one of the full of nature lands with several different climates. Not many people know that there are over 10,000 plant species which includes 3,500 species of endemic flowers in Turkey. This is as many as in Europe all together. This book contains also the common species in other European countries , especially along to the mediterranean sea and Middle east countries.
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THE ROLE OF TURKEY IN GAS TRANSIT TO EUROPE
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
Gareth M Winrow
June 2009
Preface
The subject of Caspian and Middle East gas pipelines to Europe has become increasingly important and emotive in the late 2000s with many projects and aspirations being advanced to create a “4th corridor” aimed at significant reducing dependence on (primarily) Russian gas. The role of Turkey will be critical for all of these projects. While the details of pipeline projects are well known, the role and aspirations of Turkey as an energy transit country have
received less attention. Some have portrayed Turkey as a country critical to European energy security and a potential hub for Caspian and Middle East (oil and) gas supplies. But some Turkish statements and commercial positions in relation to pipeline projects have raised questions about the conditions which the country may intend to attach to this role, some of which could be seen as obstacles to natural gas transit.
Because of the partisan nature of much of the current debate, it was important to find an author capable of making an expert, but unbiased, assessment of the Turkish position. Gareth Winrow has long experience in Turkey and was the ideal choice to interview Turkish stakeholders in relation to the many different aspects of the country’s energy situation and the fourth corridor. I am very grateful to Gareth for taking on this project and believe that his paper adds significantly to understanding the complexity of the problems related to these issues.
Jonathan Stern
June 2009
