Losing control?

While I’m at it, (posting yet another slightly off-topic minority-interest screed) I might as well flag up this fascinating article by Con Coughlin. 

While still trying to digest Col Richard Kemp’s comprehensive observations on the global implications of China’s relations with the rest of the world, Gatestone Institute has thrown another politically seismic situation at us that needs to be pondered over.

It’s Iran. The oil price has collapsed, coronavirus has hit hard, Iran is running out of cash and the Ayatollahs are losing control.

“The scale of Iran's deepening economic crisis is reflected in the regime's recent decision to seek $5 billion in emergency funding from the IMF, its first request for outside help since the 1979 revolution. 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has tried to put a brave face on the latest setback to hit the regime, claiming that Iran is unlikely to suffer as much as other countries from the oil price drop because it is less reliant than others on crude exports. 

If that were truly the case, then Tehran would not be asking the IMF for a bailout, and Mr Rouhani, together with Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister, would not be begging Washington to remove sanctions. 

The truth of the matter is, for all the regime's attempts to claim it has everything under control, that the country is teetering on the brink of collapse, and the ayatollahs are fast running out of options to save themselves.”

Meanwhile, they’ve been demonstrating their technical prowess with the flamboyant launch of a military satellite, which has "successfully" gone into orbit. 

If anyone is interested in ITBB’s extensive back catalogue of Rouhani-related contributions from Craig and me, click here.    What could possibly happen next?

Deal or no deal

I come at this from the standpoint of your averagely-informed listener, but I couldn’t help wondering about where diplomat  Sir Richard Dalton, former Ambassador to Iran, was ‘coming from’ when he spoke this morning about the latest pronouncement from President Hassan Rouhani. 

I've discovered that although his father was called John he’s not the chemist, physicist, and meteorologist after whom a central Manchester street is named.

Here’s the BBC’s explanation of the “Iran nuclear deal” etc: 

“Iran has suspended commitments under the 2015 international nuclear deal, a year after it was abandoned by the US.
President Hassan Rouhani said he would keep enriched uranium stocks in the country rather than sell them abroad.
He also threatened to resume production of more-highly-enriched uranium in 60 days if other signatories did not act to protect Iran from US sanctions.
The 2015 accord was aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for relief from sanctions.
But since the US left the deal it has imposed new sanctions, hitting Iran's economy and raising Iran-US tensions.”

It also includes Jonathan Marcus’s Analysis.

There’s more on EoZ from a US point of view (New York Times) and from VOA  Forgive me for assuming that Sir Richard Dalton is one of the Foreign Office ‘Arabists’ who see everything through a pro-Islam prism, but what I heard seemed (to me) to be a remarkably defensive attitude towards the Mullahs, (whom I realise are not Arabs but Islamists) and a hostile one to the US.

Throughout this discussion I detected little or no mention of why Iran is so keen to develop its nuclear programme, nor of its sponsorship by proxy of terror groups or its genocidal intention to obliterate Israel as soon as it can. 

I lie. There was such a mention, obliquely, (from Alistair Burt) but it’s pitched as a threat as to what might happen if we in the West don’t cooperate with the Iranians. 

If there are any experts out there, please correct me if I’ve got it all wrong.

OT, but see what we’re up against? Alistair Burt reTweeted this tweet, and look at the torrent of ill-informed abuse that ensued. 

John Simpson's Point of View on Iran

Those cavorting Iranian conservatives in "their robes"

Here's a sighing op-ed from from the BBC's World Affairs Editor on Today this morning. 

In it John Simpson (for it is he) expresses his view that the picture of Iran as painted by Donald Trump and the Israelis "in particular" is partial; that media coverage of Iran has been poor; that President Rouhani of Iran is essentially a good thing; and that President Trump's decision to drop the Iran nuclear deal is very much a bad thing:

John Humphrys: With the aftershocks of President Trump's decision to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal still reverberating attention is now turning to how President Rouhani of Iran responds. What's he going to do? As our World Affairs Editor John Simpson reports Mr. Rouhani, who was educated in Britain, does not easily fit the picture of an anti-Western firebrand. 

John Simpson: Soon after President Trump had announced he was pulling out of the deal we watched pictures from Iran's parliament, the Majlis, of members setting fire to an American flag with their cigarette lighters. It had been printed out on paper for greater flammability. Their chant of 'Marg bar Amrika' means ' Death to America'.  

[Sounds of chanting]. 

That's the view of Iran that 40 years of hostility have conditioned us to expect: a nation of violent, anti-Western mullahs and their supporters. What cameras didn't show us were the other benches in the Majlis - the great majority of MPs who had voted back in 2015 by 161 to 59 for the nuclear agreement in the hopes that it will lead to a better relationship with the outside world. Now the supporters of the deal sat glumly in their places or wandered round disconsolately while the extremists cavorted and chanted and tried not to catch their robes on fire. If the president, Hassan Rouhani, was watching the scene from the Majlis on his office television he probably had his head in his hands. When Rouhani made a public statement about it the bit that got all the attention was when he said America would regret its decision. What we didn't hear nearly so much of was this.  

[Voice of Hassan Rouhani].  

He's promising to talk to the British, French, Germans, Russians, Chinese - the co-sponsors of the nuclear deal - in the hope of seeing if anything can be done to keep it afloat. Rouhani doesn't fit the picture of extreme religious fury which, according to the supporters of President Trump and the Israeli government in particular, tends to characterise Iran. He's not an anti-Western extremist. He studied Law at Glasgow Caledonian University and became a diplomat, a trade negotiator and a politician. In 2013 and again last year he won presidential elections by big majorities against conservative opponents. He fought on a platform of more personal freedom, far greater rights for women and an opening up to the West. The nuclear deal was the high point of his achievement. Daily life has become a lot easier for ordinary Iranians as the international sanctions on Iran were lifted. That whole phase is now finished. President Trump's decision to pull out of the nuclear deal has given the conservative extremists in Iran their biggest boost for years. In his remaining time in office Rouhani will be a lame duck president and the reformist cause will languish. Six weeks ago on this programme I was banging on about the possibility of a war between Iran and Israel.  

[Sound of missiles being fired].  

After this week's exchange of missiles on the Golan Heights it seems rather more likely now and a war will finish off the hope for a more liberal Iran. But then, as we've seen in the international coverage, the outside world seemed scarcely aware that that side of Iran existed anyway.  

John Humphrys: That was John Simpson.

It most certainly was, Mr. Humphrys.

Moderates

According to the BBC News website a "moderate" has won the Iranian presidential election - though, unlike me, the BBC didn't put the word 'moderate' in inverted commas. 

Indeed, the BBC seems to be calling Hassan Rouhani a moderate (without qualification) across much of its output. Today's lunchtime news on BBC One, for example, saw the newsreader say, " Mr Rouhani, a moderate who agreed a deal with world powers to limit Iran's nuclear programme...", and Jeremy Bowen was on this morning saying (of Mr Rouhani), "He's a moderate who would like more openness in politics and society".

Hmm.

Sky's former answer to John Simpson, Tim Marshall, even on Twitter, knows that sometimes inverted commas are needed:

Still, here's a witty riposte from the comments section of the Times report on the same story:

Tadcaster Tory: A contest between a nutter and an even bigger nutter. Lovely.
Lyndonium (replying): But that's enough about the UK General Election...

*******

Incidentally, in the singular and plural, the label 'moderate' has lately begun to be used by Newsnight presenters and reporters to describe people in the Labour Party who aren't Corbynistas, such as Nick Watt saying:

What's interesting is that the moderates in the Labour Party are relatively relaxed about this draft manifesto which they had obviously seen.

or Kirsty Wark asking: 

Was it the moderates leaking, trying to change it, it or was it the Left leaking it, going 'This is better than Corbyn sitting there next week delivering it?'

That must make the Corbynistas either 'hardliners' or 'extremists' or, perish the thought, like President Rouhani's opponents, 'conservatives'! 

Israel must be wiped out

I was surprised to hear the headline in a news bulletin this morning. It went something like this:

Iran has launched two ballistic missiles bearing the inscription “Israel must be wiped out”

Which was odd, as the BBC usually plays down the existential threat Iran poses to Israel; rather, it's apt to portray it as merely something Israelis ‘claim.’

So, as I said, hearing a headline on the BBC (radio 4) phrased in such a way, i.e., emphasising that inscription, was quite a surprise.

Earlier, the Today programme featured an interview with an exiled Iranian named Shirin Ebadi. 

0830

The Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has called for trade exchanges with Iran to be suspended until the human rights situation there improves. She says it is now worse than when she won the peace prize in 2003, and that Western powers should have pushed Iran on its human rights during the nuclear negotiations. Ms Ebadi has been speaking to Mishal Husain.

She was saying that Hassan Rouhani, the supposedly ‘pro-west’ Iranian President, whom the media portrays as a liberating influence and reformist is in fact no such thing.    Who knew?

(Well, we did.)

A wolf in Armani

If I wake up early enough on a Sunday I enjoy listening to the radio 4‘s Profile. This morning, the clocks worked in the programme’s favour, and I listened with interest to the episode on Sir Andrew Green.

However I missed the previous episode about Hassan Rouhani so I thought I ought to listen to it on the iPlayer, to see if it would help me understand the BBC’s approach to  Sir Andrew Green, and to see if Mary Ann Sieghart would agree with Jack Straw, that Rouhani is a twinkle-eyed softie, or Benjamin Netanyahu, that he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (Rouhani wears Armani suits -  Islamic style.)

I think they’re portraying him as a canny tightrope walker -  trying to keep a balance between pleasing reformers and hard-liners. A skill that might propel him to the top job, said someone. 

I thought Mary Ann Sieghart hedged her bets, but on the whole it was a slightly more affectionate portrait than I would have liked of a man who heads an Islamic republic that is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons with which to annihilate Israel and surrounding region, and hangs people at the drop of a hat, if you’ll pardon the expression. But that’s the ‘no value-judgement’ BBC for you. 

Sir Andrew Green has already ruffled the feathers of the left with his concerns about mass immigration. The Profile, however was at pains to emphasize that as an Arabist, Sir Andrew was no racist. In fact his motive for advocating the monitoring and limiting of mass immigration was to prevent ghettoisation.

It seems that his former colleagues assume that the founder of Migration Watch and opponent of mass immigration must be a racist.  But no, not at all, say others. He didn’t like Robin Cook or Tony Blair and regarded the Iraq war as culturally insensitive. He wasn’t to be characterised as a sort of Ukip type. He was a good guy, said nearly everyone, and to prove it, added the presenter Jo Fidgen, he is “Pro Palestinian” .

Okay, so the BBC thinks being pro Palestinian is a symbol of righteousness. But does his pro Palestinianism amount to the ugly anti-Israelism that besmirches much of the pro-Palestinianism we know and love? “Jews to the gas” and so on. 

I see Sir Andrew chairs something called Medical Aid for Palestine. Well, who would oppose the principle of ailing Palestinians receiving medical aid? It’s just when medical aid morphs into terrorism aid that some of us balk. 

Imagine that the other way round. Therein lies the difference. Just as most Israelis support the two state solution so that they can get on with their lives in peace, many Palestinians want their state so that they can get on with their lives without any Jews. They want their state to be a stepping stone to an Israel-free region.

So is Sir Andrew Green is actually one of those pro-Palestinians whose pro-Palestinianism stems from anti-Israelism? The BBC is taking the trouble to do his profile, so while they’re at it shouldn’t we be told?  

Mad World

The BBC has avoided examining the most crucial implications of the election of Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani. 

Iran’s ongoing nuclear aspirations have been alluded to, as have Iran’s prospective relations with the West, particularly the US, but Iran’s uncompromising attitude towards Israel has been overlooked by the BBC. James Reynolds has also been reporting on Rouhani. I heard him again this morning.

In one BBC article he writes:” The day before he took office, Mr Rouhani said Israeli occupation was an "old wound on the body of the Islamic world", as Iran marked its annual Jerusalem (Quds) Day.”

Not only overlooked, but manipulated, as the stealthy insertion of the word “occupation” will attest.  H/T  Mladen Andrijasevic 

BBCIran's Rouhani calls Israel occupation 'old wound' on Islamic worldThe Independent
New Iran President Hasan Rouhani calls Israel ' a wound on the body of the Islamic world'
The TelegraphIran's Hassan Rouhani: Israel an 'old wound that should be removed'
Washington PostAhead of his inauguration, Iran’s new president calls Israel an ‘old wound’
NBCNEWS
Iran's President-elect Hassan Rowhani: Israel is a 'wound' on the Muslim world

Rouhani and the Ayatollahs agree with the majority of the Islamic world, that Israel’s  very existence is an ‘occupation’, and the ‘resistance’ is to the concept of Israel as a Jewish state, and not merely resistance to Israel’s defensive occupation of certain geographical portions that have been decreed “Muslim Lands.” Two-state solution? Not bloody likely.

So Rouhani, or “Hassan” as the students at Glasgow Caledonian University were encouraged to call him as they chatted chummily over this and that in the canteen, is quite a fan of the West. The BBC’s Richard Galpin has filed a number of reports about  Rouhani and his allegedly West-friendly attitude.

PM featured an item (42:30) about Rouhani’s time as a post-grad student at Glasgow Caledonian uni, graduating as a Doctor of Philosophy with a thesis on Islamic or Sharia law. The Director of the university library has the actual thesis, which people are apparently very keen to see in the flesh.

“The thesis seems to show that he’s got quite a flexible and perhaps modernising outlook” the librarian says, loyally.
In what direction will he take Iran? wonders the BBC presenter, Richard Galpin. As if we didn’t know.Off to visit professor Hassan Amin, another Iranian, one of Rouhani’s  academic supervisors.  

‘He was quite happy to be regarded as  a student,’ reminisces Prof Amin. “They would just call him Hassan, he didn’t wear a turban, he would eat in the canteen and would engage in a conversation with them even though he was quite an important figure in Iran”.
 Has it created a bond with Great Britain? wonders the BBC presenter, hopefully.
“He chose Great Britain because he had respect for the legal system here, the judiciary”  Professor Amin assures us.Yes, he’s quite a fan of the West after all, it seems. Or does it.
“To what extent is he going to bring serious change to Iran now, to ‘free up the system?’ “ continues the presenter on behalf of the BBC, who wishes to show what a friendly, pro Western fellow Hassan-the-lad really is.
“I am very hopeful that he will be successful in delivering the promises that he has made to the nation, however I wouldn’t say that it would be an immediate change, it has to be a gradual change towards an Iran of sustainable development and good relationship with the rest of the world. But it would be gradual.” He’s represented as all smiles, with plans to persuade the Ayatollahs slowly but surely to extend the hand of friendship to the Western world.

 
Galpin continues:
“The reformist groups that rallied round Mr Rouhani during the election campaign surely hope he’ll end repressive policies at home and engage with the West. Former ambassador to Iran Richard Dalton urges caution, saying Mr. Rouhani is loyal to the Islamic republic and the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, although he is a pragmatist: “He’s best described as a man of the centre, with excellent political links to all parts of the political spectrum in Iran. His maxim will be more ‘Let’s go for what works’ than to respond to a preconceived reform platform.”“For the international community the biggest issue is whether there can now be a negotiated solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme. Sir Richard Dalton believes that could happen during Mr. Rouhani’s presidency” concludes Galpin.

Special Correspondent, BBC Persian Television’s Kasra Naji outlines the key challenges Rouhani faces thusly:  

* Political prisoners.

* Relationship with the Leader.

* The Economy.

* The Nuclear stand-off with the world powers.

* Relations with the outside world.

Political prisoners.“There are presently 800 political prisoners in Iran, including  journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, bloggers, feminists, Christian priests, Sunni clerics, the entire leadership of the Bahai faith in Iran, and others. Rouhani has intimated that he is in favour of securing their release.” Well, he would say that.
Relationship with the Leader.That’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The press admits that he and Rouhani are ‘close’ but the BBC seems to think Rouhani will act as an ally to “us in the West,” gradually persuading the old fellah to loosen up. I have no idea what makes them think he will do this; other than wishful thinking.
The economy.It’s all about sanctions my dear Watson. Perhaps Rouhani will get them lifted if he asks us  very nicely.
The Nuclear stand-off with the world powers.“Mr Rouhani has said that it is possible for Iran to maintain its nuclear programme and at the same time reassure world powers. He has suggested that Iran may be more proactive in the talks, and more transparent in its nuclear activities. He said he wants to arrive at a position of mutual trust with world powers.”What can I say?
Relations with the outside world.He wants to make friends with Britain, then America.

So no mention of Israel there then.

I’ve said it before (March 17th 2012) and I’ll say it again: 

“Arguments against military intervention are boosted by speculation that Iran hasn’t got nuclear weapons yet, and is a long way off acquiring them. People cite Iran’s repeated reassurances that their nuclear activities are one hundred percent peaceful; yet still they retain, as back-up, the theory that even if the Iranians have lied, perish the thought, diplomacy and sanctions will rescue us.This argument comes with yet another back-up. If Iran has been fooling us all along, and should sanctions and diplomacy fail, we can always fall back on Mutually Assured Destruction – the all-time, ultimate deterrent. However, in a country ruled by people who are awaiting the End Times with joyous anticipation, an event that entails the coming of the Shia Mahdi accompanied by the apocalypse, the Mutual part of this deal doesn’t seem quite so relevant. Which just leaves the Assured Destruction.”

As the man says, MAD is Dead.

This brings me back to the matter of the BBC and why it considers the issue of Iran’s acquisition of nukes less unthinkable than I do. It’s because they’re not convinced of / don’t really believe in/ Israel’s right to exist.  That uncertainty underpins all their Middle East related reporting. 

Even if they are more aware of the need to conform to  the impartiality obligations in the BBC charter,  the BBC’s Supreme Leaders evidently share with their posse of on-the-ground reporters a superficial, partisan understanding of the core issues.  

Jewish history seems a dry subject, as does religious and political history as a whole, and a lack of curiosity in addition to a willingness to swallow Arab/Muslim propaganda lock stock and Bowen has resulted in the current mismatch between the BBC and an increasingly suspicious public. (such as the viewers who voted so overwhelmingly against the BBC’s subliminal pro-immigration lobbying on the Sunday Morning Live immigration poll.)  Ha very ha. 

This explains why the BBC appears uninterested in Iran’s ability to carry out its threats against Israel.  As far as they’re concerned sacrificing Israel would be a small price to pay for the perceived benefit of  good relations between the Western and Islamic worlds, because they’ve substituted wishful-thinking for reality. If a by-product of this imaginary shangri-la is the healing of an “old wound”, why complain? They doubted its right to exist all along. 

Update. I wish Tim Marshall worked for the BBC.