The main news for this item is about Iran, but first I have a few loose ends on Tuesday's article about the underwear bomber. The main loose end is for me to apologize for not catching an error in Jack's piece. Shoe-bomber Richard Reid was an al-Qaeda operative, not a lone wolf, and he has no possibility of ever seeing the outside of a jail cell; he was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. Jack sent me the info to correct these errors, but I didn't get to it in time—and I should have noticed those errors anyway.
There were two other minor clarifications that Jack sent as well. The recent suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan was not quite the worst day for the agency since Vietnam; one of the big Hezbollah bombings in Beirut in 1983 killed eight CIA officers. And Jack says that it's not quite right to say that the airliner's "passengers" subdued the underwear bomber. It was done single-handedly by young Dutch filmmaker Jasper Schuringa. More on him some other time.
But the biggest break that has come our way in the fight against the Islamists is the courage of the Iranian people in standing up to their tyrannical regime. That's a conflict that is still simmering in the run-up to the commemoration, early next month, of the 31st anniversary of the previous Iranian revolution.
The latest news is that someone has assassinated an Iranian nuclear physicist. You would normally think that this must be the work of a Western intelligence agency, probably Israel's Mossad, in an attempt to damage Iran's nuclear program, and that is precisely what the Iranian government is claiming.
But here's where the story gets interesting. Liberals and reformists in Iran claim that the physicist was not involved in Iran's nuclear program and that instead he was killed by the regime because of his backing for anti-government protests by students at the university where he taught.
Iran's hard-line Islamic government blamed the US, Israel and other Western interests for the death of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, saying the Tehran University physicist was killed as part of an effort to slow the nation's burgeoning nuclear research program.
Reformist websites and acquaintances, on the other hand, accused hard-liners of killing Ali-Mohammadi as a means of spreading fear on restive campuses that have become hotbeds of anti-government activity….
Ali-Mohammadi, colleagues said, was not even employed by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, which oversees the country's nuclear program….
[T]he reformist news websites Ayandenews and Rahesabz said Ali-Mohammadi's name was on a publicly available list of scholars who had campaigned for Mousavi during his unsuccessful run against Ahmadinejad.
This gives the lie to the claim that the US government should be as passive as possible in response to events in Iran, because intervening on behalf of the opposition would cause the US to be blamed for the unrest, discrediting the popular uprising in the minds of the Iranian public. But of course, the regime is already blaming us for everything anyway, and the reaction to the physicist's assassination shows that the Iranian people wouldn't believe the regime's propaganda even if it were true.
Even more interesting is the report below, which claims that the rejection of the Iranian regime by its people has spread outside of the universities and the urban middle class and has begun to take root in the relatively conservative Iranian countryside. That means big trouble for the regime, because it will deprive the dictators of the ignorant, fanatical foot-soldiers they would draw upon to put down a purely urban revolt.
My favorite part of the article below, though, is when a young Iranian pro-liberty activist uses the term "Islamic fascism." Wasn't George Bush skewered by the press and by the political opposition for using that term a few years back? Yet it is turning out to be an invaluable phrase to help Iranians describe their own tyrannical government.
"Iran's Opposition Spreads to Heartland," Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 10
Defying the predictions of some who dismissed it as a phenomenon limited to big cities, the "green" opposition movement appears to have spread to the heartland, with video and credible reports emerging from towns in the provinces.
There were two other minor clarifications that Jack sent as well. The recent suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan was not quite the worst day for the agency since Vietnam; one of the big Hezbollah bombings in Beirut in 1983 killed eight CIA officers. And Jack says that it's not quite right to say that the airliner's "passengers" subdued the underwear bomber. It was done single-handedly by young Dutch filmmaker Jasper Schuringa. More on him some other time.
But the biggest break that has come our way in the fight against the Islamists is the courage of the Iranian people in standing up to their tyrannical regime. That's a conflict that is still simmering in the run-up to the commemoration, early next month, of the 31st anniversary of the previous Iranian revolution.
The latest news is that someone has assassinated an Iranian nuclear physicist. You would normally think that this must be the work of a Western intelligence agency, probably Israel's Mossad, in an attempt to damage Iran's nuclear program, and that is precisely what the Iranian government is claiming.
But here's where the story gets interesting. Liberals and reformists in Iran claim that the physicist was not involved in Iran's nuclear program and that instead he was killed by the regime because of his backing for anti-government protests by students at the university where he taught.
Iran's hard-line Islamic government blamed the US, Israel and other Western interests for the death of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, saying the Tehran University physicist was killed as part of an effort to slow the nation's burgeoning nuclear research program.
Reformist websites and acquaintances, on the other hand, accused hard-liners of killing Ali-Mohammadi as a means of spreading fear on restive campuses that have become hotbeds of anti-government activity….
Ali-Mohammadi, colleagues said, was not even employed by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, which oversees the country's nuclear program….
[T]he reformist news websites Ayandenews and Rahesabz said Ali-Mohammadi's name was on a publicly available list of scholars who had campaigned for Mousavi during his unsuccessful run against Ahmadinejad.
This gives the lie to the claim that the US government should be as passive as possible in response to events in Iran, because intervening on behalf of the opposition would cause the US to be blamed for the unrest, discrediting the popular uprising in the minds of the Iranian public. But of course, the regime is already blaming us for everything anyway, and the reaction to the physicist's assassination shows that the Iranian people wouldn't believe the regime's propaganda even if it were true.
Even more interesting is the report below, which claims that the rejection of the Iranian regime by its people has spread outside of the universities and the urban middle class and has begun to take root in the relatively conservative Iranian countryside. That means big trouble for the regime, because it will deprive the dictators of the ignorant, fanatical foot-soldiers they would draw upon to put down a purely urban revolt.
My favorite part of the article below, though, is when a young Iranian pro-liberty activist uses the term "Islamic fascism." Wasn't George Bush skewered by the press and by the political opposition for using that term a few years back? Yet it is turning out to be an invaluable phrase to help Iranians describe their own tyrannical government.
"Iran's Opposition Spreads to Heartland," Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 10
Defying the predictions of some who dismissed it as a phenomenon limited to big cities, the "green" opposition movement appears to have spread to the heartland, with video and credible reports emerging from towns in the provinces.
Activists such as Mohammad are the foot soldiers, discreetly reaching out to people in small, tightknit communities that don't enjoy the anonymity of Tehran….
Immediately after the election results were announced, angry residents took to the streets of Birjand, as they did in cities across the country. Security forces charged the crowds and dragged away alleged ringleaders and a professor….
But the opposition movement didn't die, thanks largely to activists such as Mohammad, whose last name is not being published for security reasons….
In the classrooms, professors lifted students' spirits by discussing the Islamic Republic's missteps, and what sorts of protest actions were effective and which were counterproductive.
One professor spoke to students about the difference between real and superficial freedom. "He said something like, 'We are free to breathe, but not free to live; and not being free to live, we're dead, actually,' " Mohammad recalled….
At first, in his talks with onetime classmate [from a conservative family] Hamed, Mohammad acted as if he had no particular stake in the issue of Iran's election battle. But over tea and during walks, he began voicing the points of the opposition.
"I talked to him about people's rights, dictatorship and Islamic fascism," he recalled….
[I]n the crowd at one aborted protest he spotted a familiar face. It was his old chum Hamed!
Since their last encounter, Hamed had joined the movement and become active on his campus in Abadan, the southwestern city where he studies.
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