Iran Media Focus

Aware of the insurmountable volume of media traffic on the Iranian crisis, we strive to keep abreast and present our readers with regular updates on major developments and aberrations in media reportage and analysis

18 Jun 2013

Hassan Rouhani: Five Points for the Media

Now that the confetti’s been swept away and the bubbly’s been polished off- in western capitals, anyway – we’d like to present our Hassan Rouhani fact list (aided by his recent post-victory address) critical to future media reporting. In short: back to reality.

1. Rouhani is an integral part of Iran’s inner circle and strategic decision-making process, including longstanding membership in the Supreme National Security Council – where he’s served in recent years as the Supreme Leader’s personal representative.

2. At no point during the campaign did he criticize Iran’s defiance of UN Security Council and IAEA demands to stop its nuclear activities and cooperate. Rather, he called into question regime tactics and style which brought more sanctions, indicating that he would strive to further advance the program while incurring less of a price.

3. By constantly referring to his experience as nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005, Rouhani has made it clear that he views that period as a role model for his presidency. It is therefore perfectly legitimate for the media to view that timeframe – and his 2004 address– as a barometer.

4. In this context, we would like to illuminate a new document briefly referred to in a previous blog. While written by an Israeli official, readers should take note of this review of the crisis as handled by Rouhani:

 Iran’s motivation to advance the nuclear program remained high throughout the crisis, including at its height. After successfully removing the Security Council threat, Tehran focused on making concrete progress – which could explain its conduct during the months before they canceled the suspension.

Food for thought when it comes to the question of continued pressure.

5. Rouhani tows the regime line on Syria and Hezbollah.

Anyone say ‘change’?

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16 Jun 2013

Bravo, Thomas Erdbrink

First things first: we wish the Iranian people well, following their elections.

Now to media coverage. While even an Iran-obsessive blog like this one had trouble keeping up, we did notice that at least two journalists worked tirelessly to get the word out. One of them being RFE’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who as far as we could tell was one of the first – if not the very first – to tweet the final results.  Kudos.

But if we were giving out a trophy, it would definitely go to the New York Times’ Thomas Erdbrink. Particularly since we’ve gotten on his case occasionally, we feel it’s important to give credit where credit’s due. Following his twitter account on election day was riveting: hitting the pavement until he dropped, reflecting the mood among the people, telling it like it is re the regime,  and of course also filing the obligatory piece.

Excellent article at that. After paying mandatory lip service to the latest vogue – the oft abused word “moderate” – he fairly quickly gets to the point:

“Rowhani’s election was not expected to represent a break with Iran’s nuclear policies (…).”

While not the most startling of revelations – readers of this blog would have noticed the attention given to Rouhani (forget SEO, can we have spelling uniformity, please?) throughout the campaign – it still needed to be said. For beneath the confetti and good cheer remains the cardinal question: what does this mean for the nuclear crisis?

Erdbrink doesn’t hesitate to answer this question, either, by choosing to illuminate Rouhani’s 2004 speech in which he “made it clear that his goal was ultimately about mastering the nuclear process” - and presenting Pakistan as his role model for defying international demands.

Great work, Mr. Erdbrink!

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13 Jun 2013

And the World Sat Back, Watching

Bored with waiting for Iran’s election, we set out to identify decision makers who took a clear stand against this exercise in pseudo-democracy. Gut feeling (in lieu of relevant media coverage): not good.

As far as we could tell, the single most important step taken was the US decision to authorize the sale of communications software, hardware and services to Iran. That’s putting your money where your mouth is.

As for declarations, Canada was particularly vociferous in its condemnation of the Iranian electoral process: “The regime is hollow,” said Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry also expressed his misgivings vis-à-vis the upcoming vote:  ”I do not have high expectations that the election is going to change the fundamental calculus of Iran,” he told reporters. Israel didn’t surprise anyone by guaranteeing that the elections won’t change anything in the nuclear crisis – but at least it spoke up.

In comparison, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague hesitated- and in the end missed his chance.

Instead of taking her cue from Baird and Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton followed Hague -  saying in an EU statement

“But after the elections seems to me the right time to think about another meeting. I think we have to wait and see how the elections turn out because depending on who’s elected there may be differences.”

That’s how Lady Ashton will be remembered by the beleaguered Iranian people. Really.

Not satisfied, we turned to civilian society. Found encouraging gestures, like this event by some good folks in Germany.  Theirs is the message the world should have been conveying to the Iranian people from the start of the campaign. But it didn’t.

Please correct us if you think we’re wrong.

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12 Jun 2013
1 Comment

The Candidate Info Gaps

Several ambitious news services took the initiative and prepared guides to the clueless about Iran’s election candidates. We’re curious to see who was thorough, and who brought to light new information and who dropped the ball.

 

Foreign Policy

Probably the best of the lot, with some little-known information – like this:

But you have to give Jalili credit for his optimistic lemons-into-lemonade attitude. “At least over the past few years when I have been carefully following the effects of sanctions, I see that they can be easily bypassed and turned into opportunities,” he added.

And this –

 In 2009, as Velayati contemplated a bid for president, an aide reached out to U.S. diplomats expressing interest in cooperating with the West and asking that some sanctions be lifted in order to help raise funds for Velayati’s campaign, according to leaked cables.

But oops – not all is perfect. Foreign policy calls Rouhani “Iran’s most cooperative – if short-lived — nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005,” while the historical fact (by his own admission) is that he pretended to be cooperative while deceiving his western interlocutors.

 

BBC

Pretty straight forward, includes most of the required information. But its contention that the Velayati of AMIA and opposition to the Additional Protocol is somehow “an irreproachable character” is a gross exaggeration.

 

CNN

Seems to us like they support Velayati – and in any case strongly oppose Jalili. seems like they forgot their job and chose to take sides.

 

New York Times

Thomas Erdbrink really killed us with this one:

“But if the presidential campaign is any indication, rather than forcing a capitulation, the sanctions seem only to have stiffened Iran’s will to resist.”

So, Mr. Erdbrink, what drove them forward the two decades before sanctions were imposed? please Let us know.

Posted in Media Coverage and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
10 Jun 2013
3 Comments

The Great Nuclear (Non) Debate

Iran’s election campaign is heating up. Beyond the weekend debate, in a broader sense the past week’s declarations have been quite an eye opener.

The media was all over it, for sure.  But from our point of view, the “news” coming out of the debate is not that Rouhani and Velayati attacked Jalili – they’re running for office, after all – but the common denominator among them all:  an unwavering commitment to reaching the nuclear threshold and beyond. Let’s take a closer look.

Ali Akbar Velayati:

 “Well, Dr. Jalili, speaking of diplomacy, it’s not a philosophy class to say that our logic was strong,” said Velayati, responding to Jalili’s efforts to defend his performance. “You have been in charge of the nuclear issue, we have not made a step forward, and the [sanctions] pressure has been exerted on the people.”

And

Velayati portrayed the talks in Almaty as wasted opportunities for Iran, hinting that Jalili should have accepted the offer as an interim step.

Hassan Rouhani:

“All of our problems stem from this – that we didn’t make the utmost effort to prevent the [nuclear] dossier from going to the UN Security Council,” Mr. Rohani said.

And

“We suspended it? We mastered the (nuclear) technology!” The 64-year-old argued the Islamic Republic had expanded uranium enrichment during his tenure while demonstrating the program’s peaceful nature and preventing a US military attack.

“We didn’t allow Iran to be attacked.”

The campaign declarations indicate a clear attempt to mesh the nuclear and economic issues. But when decoupled, observers are left with the inescapable sense that what the candidates actually want is to continue advancing the nuclear program while avoiding the consequences – whether diplomatic resolutions, political isolation, economic pressure or the threat of force.

It won’t wash.

Posted in Other News and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
07 Jun 2013

Automating Coverage on Iran

The Iranians never stop  complaining about the media; they’re so hypocritical.  Sometimes they even manage to find someone to agree that “it’s not us – it’s them”.

Enter the University of Maryland’s  School of Public Policy (always best to have the imprimatur of a well-known school) and its “research” trying to show that major western media outlets give short shrift to presenting Iran’s sides of the argument in the nuclear crisis.

Naturally, the authors’ conclusions were immediately trumpeted by Iran’s official news agency Fars – a sure sign as to the tendentiousness of their arguments.

Of course, the Iran issue in the mainstream media is hardly a one-sided affair; as we wrote recently, there are plenty of journalists who are providing the Iranian spin. Apparently the “researchers” skipped over that part.

Blaming western media for Iran’s woes is nothing new. Beirut Daily Star columnist Rami Khouri recently chimed in on the subject, bemoaning after a recent trip to the U.S. how “annoying” it is to follow news coverage of Iran in the US media.  Mr. Khouri, there’s a reason for that:  How about nuclear deception?  Subversion?

Actually, the Iranians should be thankful for the battle fatigue generally prevailing in the media. For example, how much have readers seen about this week’s IAEA conference? Huh?

Perhaps Khouri & Co. would prefer western media follow the advice of Tufts University’s Prof. Daniel Drezner, who a while back suggested  automating blog posts  on Iran. Drezner says that until there’s a change in the status quo in the crisis, he’ll just link back to his previous blogs on “What to Do About Iran.”

Drezner’s post is from February, but it was too good to ignore… what, no sense of humor? What a serious bunch of readers we have!

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04 Jun 2013
2 Comments

The “F” Word

The Threat of Force as a legitimate part of the tool box has crawled out from under the mountain of spin that practically smothered coercive diplomacy on Iran.

It happened after the containment argument replaced the anti-sanctions argument as the flavor of the month – when former senior Administration official Dennis Ross and a think-tank colleague dared to write in a Washington Post op-ed that:

“the supreme leader must be made to feel that when the United States says the time for diplomacy is running out, we mean it — and that the consequence is likely to be the use of force.”

Of course, all hell broke loose in the blogosphere the moment the Ross piece saw the light of day – everything from reasoned counter-arguments to nasty tweets (we’ll spare you).

Too late. Seems many Iran watchers are thinking along the same lines – most notably IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, who complained that the Agency’s talks with Tehran have been “going around in circles” for some time (Russia and China are reportedly also dissatisfied with Iran).

Then there’s the Israelis. Their conviction on force is reflected wherever you look:  from this paper by a  former military intelligence head examining attack scenarios, to this IDF-sponsored study determining  that Iran “is moving toward the point in which the international community will have no significant immediate-impact preventive tool or other means of leverage to employ except the use of force.”

 But as we said, it’s not just Israel. Perhaps the Iranians’ progress in the plutonium route, as well as aggressive nuclear rhetoric coming out of their elections campaign, have clarified to many that diplomacy without a coercive element is a dead-end. The media might want to check it out.

Posted in Media Coverage, Military, Sanctions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
02 Jun 2013
4 Comments

Iranian Elections & Nukes

We know Iran’s elections are still two weeks out, but where it counts – Iran’s threat to global peace and security – it’s already a done deal.  They’re not interested in negotiations, and the ballot box isn’t going to change that. Regrets to the overly optimistic.

Exhibit A: Nuclear negotiator Jalili likes to emphasize his opposition to “nuclear retreat” and stress that Iran is standing up to “oppressive powers” that have “surrendered.”

If he loses the election, we’d love to be a fly on the wall at his next meeting with Lady Ashton, to see the look on the face of Wendy Sherman and the rest of her P5+1 counterparts from the “oppressive powers”  (he’s including Russia and China, no?).

Exhibit B: The others. As pointed out by RAND analyst Alireza Nader, the eight dwarfs are competing for the favors of their Snow White: Khamenei. Just look at them: Rouhani, who admitted to deceiving his interlocutors and exploiting diplomacy to advance nuclear technology; Rezai, former head of IRGC and wanted by INTERPOL for the AMIA bombing; and Velayati, timeless Khamenei caddy also implicated for AMIA.

Then there’s Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf: Senior Basij commander, IRGC air force head, suppressor of student protestors, national police commander, and reportedly backed by none other than Qasem Soleimani – commander of the IRGC Quds force,  mastermind of Iran’s worldwide terrorism activities.

Ghalibaf and Soleimani probably roomed together at IRGC cadet school or something.

Exhibit C: One of the guys really calling the shouts, head of Iran’s nuclear organization Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, just made it crystal clear: “Definitely the result of the presidential election will not have any influence on the nuclear issue.”

So you can stop tweeting about this and move on to something else.

Posted in Other News and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
31 May 2013
5 Comments

Argentina & Subversion in Latin America

If there wasn’t so much else going on (especially Syria), the latest news concerning the AMIA investigation should have caused a media earthquake. Pretty big news, actually.

This week a 500-page document was submitted by Alberto Nisman, Argentina’s tireless prosecutor into the AMIA bombing. Nisman accused Iran of establishing “intelligence and terrorist networks” throughout Latin America going back to the 1980s – his report identifying such networks not only in Argentina but also in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname.

Release of Nisman’s report is an opportune moment to remind readers that two of the candidates for Iran’s presidency, Velayati and Rezai, have been implicated in the AMIA bombing (an INTERPOL arrest warrant is out for Rezai). Rafsanjani, too.

Last time we visited the AMIA issue, Buenos Aires was still waiting for the promised Majlis approval. Still waiting, of course – and here’s where it gets tricky: while the Majlis actually seems opposed to the entire arrangement, Tehran’s representative in Buenos Aires claims (in Spanish) that his government is bypassing the parliament to enforce the investigation agreement.

Considering that Iran is currently busy with an election campaign, there’s (at least) three explanations for the dissonance: either there’s gross miscommunication between the two capitals; or Ahmadinejad decided to get chivalrous with CFK before leaving office (in Spanish); or it’s just the familiar smoke and mirrors.

Ahmadinejad may be leaving, but his Latin American legacy will live on. During the past week or so there was quite a bit of contact between Iran and its Latin American friends, as well as Tehran’s friends among themselves. Prosecutor Nisman, hang in there – still much to watch!

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29 May 2013
10 Comments

Syria: Behind Iran’s Call for Diplomacy

Interesting sub-plot developing in the Syrian crisis: Iran desperately wants in on diplomacy. The media is pretty much on top of Tehran’s multi-track approach of guns, butter and diplomacy, but there’s something we think deserves illumination.

Our point of departure: this tweet by Dina Esfandiary from the IISS. Referring to the staunch French opposition to inclusion of Iran in efforts to resolve the crisis, she sarcastically writes:

Fabius: “..we’re opposed (to incl #Iran in talks) bc it is not after a political solution”. But the #Russians are?

Moscow is protecting Assad, for sure, while Iran aspires to preserve the Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah monster on the loose. The call for diplomacy seeks to prevent its years-long investment from going down the drain (Iran also probably fears public exposure of its strategic activities with Damascus). Tehran has tried this before, for instance during the 2006 Lebanon War when it sought to protect Hezbollah.

Back then, it was the French foreign minister who praised Iran’s “stabilizing role” in the Lebanon crisis – conveniently ignoring that Tehran had created and nurtured the monster it was proposing to constrain. Esfiandiary should actually be congratulating Paris for now adopting a policy much more consistent with the realities on the ground.

Indeed, France is right to link the Syrian and Iranian crises together, as Foreign Minister Fabius did in a recent interview to Le Monde when he asked:

“If the international community isn’t capable of stopping a movement in which Assad’s men are powerfully supported by the Iranians, how credible will we be in ensuring that Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear weapon?”

The response of Trita Parsi, head of the DC-based pro-regime lobby? Forget about nukes, give Iran a seat at the table. No daylight there with Tehran.

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