Yesterday the New York Times published an interesting Op-Ed piece by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, critiquing the Obama administration efforts to engage Iran.  The authors’ primary complaint is thar President Obama and his staff have not done enough to distance their policy from that of the previous administration and to work directly with with top Iranian officials.  They have some compelling arguments; such as their suggestion that no Iranian officials will be inclined to take American diplomatic moves seriously until Obama has publicly declared his intention to “cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush’s second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic”.

The Leveretts’ article, however, may be poorly timed.  I too hope that the Obama administration will make direct engagement with Iran one of its top priorities.  But I think that the decision to take it slow until after the June 12th presidential elections is a good one.  The recent release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi demonstrates that there are deep divisions among Iranian political elites, particularly about how they should interact with America.  The four candidates in the presidential race have each made relations with America and the West a key issue in their platforms. Ahmadinejahd has been under attack from all sides for his handling of foreign policy and the regime’s recent decision to block Facebook demonstrates just how threatened his administration feels by reformist opponents.

The office of the President may not hold a lot of real political power in Iran; that is reserved for the Supreme Leader.  But if there is anything that the presidency of Mohmood Ahmadinejahd has shown us, it is that the president can be an important figure in setting the agenda and influencing Iranian political culture.  On June 12th Iranian voters will vote for the candidate who best represents their hopes for Iran’s future.  By waiting until the new Iranian administration is in power to pursue direct engagement, the Obama administration is both denying the current administration to opportunity to claim a foreign relations victory and giving itself time to prepare strategies to reflect the possible outcomes of the election.

Hopefully both Iranian voters and President Obama will do their part to work for direct and meaningful diplomacy.

With just over a month to go until the Iranian Presidential election the election process is heating up.  475 people have registered as official candidates, including 42 women.  Here are two of the most interesting contenders:

• Rafat Bayat is the most well-known women to have submitted her candidacy.  She is a former member of the Majlis, the Iranian Parliament who had attempted to run in the last presidential election in 2005.  She has been a critic of the Ahmadinejahd administration’s economic policies and has stated that if elected her first deputy will be a woman.
• Koresh Mouzuni is believed to be the youngest candidate at twelve years old.  He appears to be a fan of current president Mahmood Ahmadinejahd and has said that if elected he will appoint him as his first deputy.  When asked about his stance towards Israel he answered, “I will buy Hawaii, Obama’s birthplace, from the United States and lease it to Israelis who will go live there – so that they don’t kill the children in Gaza.”  So does this mean that he supports talks with America without preconditions?

The Guardian Council will take the list of 475 potential candidates and narrow it down it a handful of top contenders, with the announcement of their selections expected to come on May 22nd.  The top candidates are expected to include two conservatives: incumbent President Mahmood Ahmadinejahd and former head of the Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezai, and two reformists: former speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Rezai, Karroubi, Mousavi have each criticized Ahmadinejahd’s administration, especially his handling of the economy.  Fellow conservative Mohsen Rezai has said that Ahmadinejahd “would drag the country over a cliff” if reelected, while Mehdi Karroubi has declared Ahmadinejahd’s statements about Israel to be undermining Iran’s international credibility.

It will be interesting to see whether or not having two candidates from each the reformist and the conservative camps will play out.  Will one reformist candidate drop out of the race in order to avoid splitting the reformist vote?  Rezai has said that he will work with reformers- will he make a deal to form a coalition government?  Will the Guardian Council disqualify any of these candidates in an effort to support Ahmadinejahd?  We’ll have to wait to find out.

Mohammad Khatami’s decision to withdraw from the upcoming Iranian presidential election, announced this past week, has shaken up the field for the June 12th poll.  The announcement was not entirely unexpected- Khatami had previously implied that he would drop from the race if another strong reformist candidate decided to run- and Khatami even went so far as to endorse another reformist, Mirhossein Mousavi, as he announced his own withdrawal.

Mousavi is relatively unknown outside of Iran but has some strong reformist credentials.  He served as Iran’s Prime Minister from 1980 to 1988 and many Iranians recall his strong leadership and economic management during the Iran-Iraq War.  These economic skills could be very appealing to Iranian voters, who are feeling the pressure of the economic crisis and who increasingly blame President Mahmood Ahmadinejahd for high levels of unemployment and inflation.

Some critics have attacked Mousavi for his lack of political experience (he hasn’t held a political office in twenty years).  Others note that it is precisely this lack of experience that makes him a stronger candidate than Khatami.  Alex Vatanka of Jane’s Defense publications argues that many Iranians became disillusioned with Khatami after his years in power produced fewer and less drastic reforms than they had hoped.  Mousavi may be able to convince those disillusioned voters that he will be more effective.

Mousavi, however, is not the only reformist  intending to challenge Ahmadinejahd in June.  Mehdi Karroubi is a moderate cleric and reformist who has been a strong ally of Khatami and who served as Speaker of the Majilis (Iranian Parliament) from 1989 to 1992.

It may appear that Mousavi and Karroubi could be gearing up for a Clinton-Obama-style struggle for reformist votes.  However some anaylsts have noted that these two candidates could help each other by difusing conservative attacks and sharing the burden of hard-line opposition.  Aboutorab Fazel suggests cooperation and coordination among the reformists will lead one candidate to drop out in order to consolidate reformist support even “just weeks before the June election”.

With two strong candidates the reformists appear to be in a strong position to keep Ahmadinjahd and other conservatives on their toes in the coming weeks.  Nevertheless, the conservatives on the Guardian Council still have many opportunities to block reformist candidates in both presidential and parliamentary elections.  As the election draws closer we will have to wait and see how Mousavi and Karroubi counter the waves of criticism and opposition that will soon be coming their way.

Radio Free Europe has an interesting article this week on how Iranian internet censorship authorities, among the most restrictive in the world, have recently decided to unblock Facebook.  Iranian internet users had been blocked from using Facebook in 2006 but the decision was reversed this past February, to the surprise and confusion of many internet activists and users.

Christophe Ginist of Internet Without Borders hypothesizes that the recent changes may be an attempt to win support for the regime as the June presidential election approaches.  He states, “During election periods, as in the case of Iran, it allows the government to give the impression that it is offering more freedom… But that’s absolutely not what’s happening, because the first thing that happens following an opening is that filters and controls are established. It means that they reopen Facebook when they have the possibility to put people in place who can control it.”

Ginist raises a good point: the internet is a double edged sword.  While it allows activists and dissidents the opportunity to communicate and share ideas, it also allows hard-liners and government supporters to do the same thing. Each side has the opportunity to solidify and mobilize its supporters.  Ebrahim Nabavi, a Belgium-based satirist, put it best: “It’s not like we’re the only people who need Facebook to get in touch with people inside Iran… Mesbah Yazdi [an ultra hard-line ayatollah said to be the spiritual mentor of current President Mahmud Ahmadinejad] also needs the Internet to be in touch with the supporters of the kind of Islam he preaches in Italy, Britain, and elsewhere.”

Newsweek notes, “Iranian cyberspace has begun to mirror the complexity of contemporary Iranian politics, with different factions—religious, paramilitary and secular—competing for influence”.  As the presidential election approaches and continues to heat up, it is certain that all of the excitement of election politics – the debates, the mud-slinging, etc- will overflow into cyberspace as well.  If John McCain is any indicator of politicians on Twitter, then I would love to see Ahmadinejahd’s tweets.

As has been previously discussed on this blog, Facebook and other social networking site can be enormously helpful tools for activists since they allow us to share information with a wide audience quickly.  This viral method of communication played a vital role in our own recent Presidential election, and I am excited to see how it will affect the political climate in Iran as June approaches.

Also, I wish that someone had captured some video of Ahmadinejahd having a shoe thrown at him last week and had posted it on Youtube.  That would be worth tweeting about.

Iran’s presidential election is already heating up.  Only weeks after the announcement that reformist candidate and former President Mohammed Khatami would be challenging incumbent President Mahmood Ahmadinejahd, Ahmadinejahd’s hard-liner allies have made it clear that they will be making Khatami’s life difficult.

Only two days after announcing his candidacy Khatami was attacked by members of a mob wielding sticks and chanting “Death to Khatami”.  According to Khatami’s organization, the Baran Foundation, he was immediately surrounded by supporters and escorted by his bodyguards to a safe location.

On February 17th, The Guardian reported that an Iranian conservative newspaper, Keyhan, has stated that Khatami risks being assassinated like Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. The statement has been interpreted as a thinly veiled threat against  Khatami, especially since the paper is known to be closely connected to the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini.  One Tehran-based analyst, Saeed Leylaz, notes, “I worry that radicals will try to convince Mr Khatami not to participate by carrying out one or two terrorist attacks in the country. It could be not just he who is under threat, but people close to him.”

As recently as Friday, the Huffington Post reported that Iranian authorities had blocked two websites supporting Khatami.  Khatami’s official campaign website is still visible within Iran, but two sites set up to support his bid in the race have been blocked to all internet users inside Iran.  The editor of one of the sites, Behrouz Shojaei, observes, “Closing down our Web sites means hard-liners are not going to tolerate Khatami challenging Ahmadinejad”.  One of the sites was blocked simply because of it had reported the people’s views on Khatami’s candidacy.

In a way, these attacks and harassment are a good sign.  They mean that the conservatives in power feel threatened by Khatami’s decision to run.  But the fact remains that hard-liners in the Guardian Council and other positions of power could continue to be an enormous obstacle for Khatami.  They must approve all candidates in all political races and it is not yet clear if they will approve Khatami.  The hard-liners certainly hold the upper hand and they have made it clear that they will use any means they can to increase their advantage.

There has been a lot of buzz about Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s recent announcement that he will be running against incumbent President Mahmood Ahmadinejahd in the up coming Presidential elections.  Many anticipate a fierce campaign with Khatamai taking up the banner of the reformist movement against Ahmadinejahd and his follow entrenched hardliners.  The Christian Science Monitor claims that “[t]he fight promises to be a clash of Iran’s political titans, between men representing opposite sides of Iran’s political and social chasm”.  The International Herald Tribune notes that “Khatami’s decision to run against Ahmadinejad could significantly shake up Iran’s politics, appealing to citizens disillusioned by the country’s failing economy and Ahmadinejad’s staunch anti-U.S. foreign policy”.

If I were an Iranian voter, however, I would not be particularly excited.  Both Ahmadinejahd and Khatami have experience in the role of President, meaning that voters can examine their records side by side and make a truly informed choice.  This choice leaves much to be desired.

Ahmadinejahd’s legacy is pretty clear.  He has alienated the international community with his fiery rhetoric, clearly mishandled Iran’s economy, and his term has been marked by the increased harassment of those who do not agree with hard line conservatives.  Ahmadinejahd has largely defined himself in opposition to George W. Bush and now that Bush has left office, he is starting to appear obsolete.  I find it difficult to believe that in the face of a global economic downturn and with the promise of a renewed relationship with the United States that the Iranian people will choose more of the same overblown rhetoric and financial fumbling.

Khatami’s presidency from 1997 to 2005 was indeed more moderate but in some ways equally dissatisfying.  While he was Iran’s first reformist president, his ability to create real change was severely limited by conservatives in the Guardian Council which often vetoed his bills.  He did enact a period of economic liberalization and of increased freedom of expression but many fellow reformists were disappointed with the limited nature of these reforms.  The ideological leader of the reformist movement, Abdolkarim Soroush, went so far as to attack Khatami for his inaction, writing, “your failure to keep the vote and your wasting of opportunities put an end to it and disappointed the nation”.  Perhaps it is unfair to attack Khatami for his lack of action when his power was so clearly limited, but one is forced to wonder what he thinks he could do differently if given a second chance.

If Khatami seriously expects to be granted another term he is going to need to prove to the Iranian people that this time he can do something differently; whether it is uniting the diverse factions of the reformist movement or devoting time and energy to drumming up grassroots support for reformist programs.  He will have to try extra hard to reach out to the thousands of young voters who were particularly disillusioned by the inaction of his last term and who represent a large percentage of the vote.  But with four months to go until the election we will have to wait to see how Khatami’s message will resonante with the Iranian people.

This past winter, I took my 18-year-old brother, Sean, to vote for the first time. It was the 2008 presidential primary: he voted for Barack Obama, got his first “I voted!” sticker and I took him out for tacos for lunch. It wasn’t the most eventful day of either of our lives, but it’s one I like to look back on. I’m glad that he wanted to vote. I’m glad that he took an interest right away. Not to sound hokey, but I’m proud of him.

We’re hearing again and again about the power of the youth vote in the upcoming election. And for good reason – 1 in 10 voters this November will be first-time voters, and 14.4 million voters have turned 18 since the last presidential election, which is the largest increase since 1980. There are a lot of us this year!

The news media has been following the promise of the magical youth vote since well before Sean and I hit the polls this January, and particularly its ability to push the race toward Obama. Now that we’re counting down the last few weeks to November 4, I’m getting curious to see if we’re really going to live up to the hype; if my brother, my students, my friends and I will really be the ultimate deciders of the next President of the United States. So I went Googling, which is where I found a TIME story which interviewed 21-year-old Matt Adler of Washington University just before Super Tuesday. Matt says,

“What Obama brings to the forefront is the issue of process. It’s not just what gets done but how it gets done; the morality of the process matters. Being honest, open, and inclusive is an issue in itself.”

Matt is a pretty perceptive guy. He picked out eight months ago what a New York Times/CBS News poll just released last week: that voters care about how the candidates are doing things. Specifically, the poll found that voters are turned off by what they perceive as the negative campaign tactics of the McCain/Palin ticket. 6 in 10 voters believed that McCain spent more time attacking Obama than explaining his own policies. Only 39% would have voted for him if the election had been held that day. On the other hand, 6 in 10 believed that Obama spends more time explaining than attacking, and 53% said they would have voted for him. Of voters whose opinions of the candidates had changed in the last few weeks, 70% had a better opinion of Barack Obama. 75% had a worse opinion of John McCain.

I’m sure the Republican party is getting worried. They have 16 days left to try to win this election, and low odds of winning the youth vote over in that time. However, they have more to be concerned about than simply this November. It’s said that young people form their political opinions in reaction to the first politicians they know: our parents’ generation compared Reagan to Carter and leaned Republican. Today, though, young people are associating the GOP with two wars, rising college costs, sinking employment rates and the utter implosion of the U.S. economy. On top of all that, we don’t like their style! If this goes on, they may find that they’ve lost not just an election but an entire generation.

When Bobby Kennedy (a great motivator of the youth vote himself) announced his candidacy for the presidency in 1968, he ended his speech by saying that

“these are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election. At stake is not simply the leadership of our party and even our country. It is our right to the moral leadership of this planet.”

There’s Matt’s morality again.

These, too, are not ordinary times, nor is this an ordinary election. The thousands of students AID works with around the country are deeply concerned with America’s moral leadership in the world: what will we as a nation do to address poverty, hunger, and unfair trade? How will we address HIV and AIDS both at home and abroad? Will we take action to protect the environment? Will we engage other nations with diplomacy and respect? Will we live up to the promise that we, the young, know ourselves to have?

This is what I will be considering when I vote this November. So will my friends, my colleagues, my students, and my little brother (as far as I know – he may just be doing this for the tacos). I certainly hope that both candidates will be considering it too.

Yesterday, CBS finally reported on where presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain stand on HIV/AIDS. Since the end of July when President Bush signed the new PEPFAR reauthorization bill (a $48 billion legislation that would reauthorize the original President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), there has been significant work done on combating and preventing HIV and AIDS abroad, including $9.6 billion spent annually by the US on the disease internationally. But what about HIV and AIDS in the US? What is being done here? Only $894.2 million is being spent on the disease in the US, while statistics show HIV infections are on the rise, especially in cities like Washington, DC, where the infection rate is 1 in 20, and among African American men, the rate is 1 in 7.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CBS reporter, interviewed two individuals about living with HIV, and also discussed both presidential candidates’ AIDS strategies. Both McCain and Obama believe that having a domestic plan for AIDS is important, but neither have issued comprehensive statements or strategies to combat HIV/AIDS in the US. But why has there been so much work on AIDS internationally and so little done for AIDS here? What is it about domestic HIV and AIDS that allows people in cities throughout the country, and especially in our nation’s capitol to be relatively ignored? AIDS in the early 80s got a lot of attention, especially in New York, but now that drugs exist to keep the disease at bay, many seem to think the fight is over, right? Wrong!

We need a national AIDS strategy that focuses on youth and high risk populations, as well as those without healthcare. We need the next president of the United States to focus on AIDS in the US. AIDS needs to be a priority for our next president because AIDS is not going away on its own. Without education, prevention and accessible treatment, HIV/AIDS is still a serious threat to the health of the American people, especially young people. But because HIV is sexually transmitted, political leaders, especially the presidential candidates have been hesitant to focus on the details of an effective solution, and understandably so; who wants to talk about sex when votes are at stake?

As the presidential election draws near, I hope we can get over our squeamishness and focus on what is most important: saving lives and preventing new infections. And that isn’t going to happen until we start pushing the candidates to do so, and making sex and sexual health a normalized topic for discussion.

To view the full CBS report, go to http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4522459

As discussed in The Nation, Senator Obama has narrowed his choice down to who he wants as his running mate. John Nichols puts it rather well:

Obama needs a running-mate with foreign-policy "stature." That’s not a
governor, and it’s probably not Bayh — whose record of accomplishment
in the Senate can best be summed up as "Democrat from Indiana."

So that leaves Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, and Clinton, whose international credentials are actually a
good deal more solid than even her advocates recognize.

Senator Biden would trump any potential candidate on foreign policy, including Senator McCain and his eventual choice in the number two spot. The VP debate would be a sight to see as Senator Biden is known for his verbosity, which would be a factor, but also his quick wit and vast experience. He can play every role necessary moving forward and while perhaps not infallible, certainly a strong and steady hand who knows his way around Washington.

It’s quite possible that Senator Obama is also considering someone who could really help navigate legislation and govern in a post-election victory. Governor Kaine or Senator Bayh can manage in their own states, certainly, but a veteran Senator with any number of chairmanships and friends on both sides of the aisle would be a whole new level that could be the most productive first hundred days in history. Senator Biden as the Vice President would create the most balanced (and potent) ticket possible, minus former Vice President Gore whom is also being whispered.

Obama/Biden is a winning combination for the party, and more importantly, for the country.

IRIN has one of these forehead-smacking no shit! articles up about how the violence in Kenya is about power, greed, and poverty, not "tribal hatreds."

NAIROBI, 9 January 2008 (IRIN) – The wave of violence that engulfed Kenya after the presidential election has been widely described as tribal or ethnic in nature. But analysts in the east African country point to basic economics as the true cause of the unrest.

Widespread violence and a humanitarian crisis were triggered by the 30 December announcement that incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won a  hotly contested presidential poll amid opposition claims of rigging and international observers’ reports of serious irregularities in the vote-tallying process.

“In the urban areas, there was a lot of senseless burning and looting, which was people taking out their economic grievances during a leadership vacuum. They just let loose and attacked any targets, burning their neighbours’ houses, regardless of whether they are PNU [Party of National Unity, Kibaki’s party] or ODM [Orange Democratic Movement, the opposition],” Macharia Gaitho, a political columnist, told IRIN.

While specific ethnic groups – there are more than 40 in Kenya – were targeted during the violence, the tensions that led to such clashes were not the result of ethnicity per se, but, according an editorial in the Sunday Nation newspaper, an almost inevitable consequence of the country’s economic system: “Kenya practises a brutal, inhuman brand of capitalism that encourages a fierce competition for survival, wealth and power. Those who can’t compete successfully are allowed to live like animals in slums.”

But, of course, admitting any of this would be, I dunno, Marxist or something –and therefore wrong, naughty, wash-you-brain-out-with-Dial-soap bad.

Oh yeah, and it would also mean admitting that, maybe just maybe, the developed world and the Bretton Woods institutions need own up to their share of responsibility when awful things happen in Africa.