Vol. 71/No. 24      June 18, 2007

The U.S. rulers are using the arrests of the four Iranian Americans to further squeeze and isolate the country. A chorus of politicians, organizations, and well-known figures—including many liberals and left-wing publications—have issued public condemnations focusing their fire on Tehran over the confrontation.

Noam Chomsky, for example, a professor at the Institute of Technology and a self-professed anarchist, issued a statement May 26 “strenuously condemning the persecution and now imprisonment of Haleh Esfandiari” as a “gift to Western hardliners.”

Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at a government-financed “think tank” called the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is the most prominent Iranian American being detained by Tehran. The other three are Parnaz Azima, a reporter for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; Kian Tajbakhsh of George Soros’s Open Society Institute; and Ali Shakeri, a businessman who is on the board of the University of California’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.

At a recent news briefing, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the detainees are “Iranian nationals, and authorities are reviewing their case. They are in the investigation process.”

At the same time five Iranian officials detained in Iraq in January by U.S. forces during a U.S. raid on the Iranian consulate in the northern city of Irbil remain in U.S. custody, despite demands by the Iraqi government that they be released. The U.S. military claims the men are being held on suspicion of plotting against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Nervousness and factional divisions within Iran’s ruling class appear to be sharpening as the pressure by imperialism mounts.

The Ministry of Intelligence issued a statement May 21 saying Esfandiari was part of the effort by the U.S. government to use intellectuals and others to bring about a “soft overthrow” of Iran’s government “modeled after their East European” method of regime change.

A few days later, a spokesman for that ministry said a spy network connected with Washington and London had been discovered, which operated on “borderlands to foment dissension among nationalities.” Among the areas he claimed the “spy network” operated were Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, and Khuzistan. These are areas which are home to the three main oppressed nationalities in the country. Khuzistan is a province bordering Iraq and is home to an indigenous Arab nationality.

Hossein Mousavian, a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team until 2005 and former ambassador to Germany, was arrested April 30 in Tehran. Fars news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying, “Mousavian was arrested because of connections and exchange of information with foreign elements.”

Mousavian was considered a close ally of former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who currently heads the high-level Expediency Council. He was released on bail after six days. The Expediency Council made a statement welcoming his release and saying “those who wanted to sow divisions within the regime for their factional interests did not succeed.” According to reports in Iran’s press Mousavian is still under investigation by the Ministry of Intelligence.
 
 
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