The first Secular Islam Summit

[Emit]

The first Secular Islam Summit - a ground-breaking event bringing together some of the most courageous people on earth, Muslims who publicly seek to reform their religion - took place last weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla. Producer Andrew Marcus caught several of the key participants - Walid Phares, Ibn Warraq, Irshad Manji, Nonie Darwish, Tawfik Hamid, Wafa Sultan and event organizer Michael Ledeen - in exclusive interviews for Pajamas Media.

Filmmaker Andrew Marcus attended the summit, and produced the following video for Pajamas Media.
Video: http://secularislam.org/blog/post/SI_Blog/23/Behindthescenes-video

More discussion here:
http://www.secularislam.org/blog/SI_Blog.php

I have posted previously on the topic of Regime Change in Iran.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=233209

I think it is an important issue to follow because it appears that there are many elements in play at the moment concerning an attempt to chip away at Iran.

I'd like to hear other DUers' thoughts on this topic, especially considering who the players are that are involved (i.e., Ledeen).

And speaking of Ledeen, here he is criticizing the left for ignoring "the heroic struggle of the women of Iran" and defending "all the tyrants who threaten" our "prime enemies," "the United States, Israel, and George Bush."

Guy from the Guardian Gets It
His name is Peter Tatchell and he asks the right question: how come the Left doesn’t support the Iranians’ desire to be free? I think the answer is pretty obvious: because the Left has made the United States, Israel, and George Bush their prime enemies, and they defend all the tyrants who threaten these enemies.

To put it differently: they never forgave us for bringing down the Soviet Empire. We destroyed their utopian dreams.

Here’s the key stuff from Peter Tatchell:

The liberal western media - including The Guardian - has mostly failed to report these women’s protests and their bloody suppression. The left, too, ignores the heroic struggle of the women of Iran. Misogyny and police brutality are not okay in Britain, but apparently acceptable in Tehran. Why the double standards?

http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/michaelledeen/2007/03/08/guy_from_the_guardian_gets_it.php

edit-spelling

[Emit]

1. kick for morning crowd n/t

[Emit]

2. kick -- I'd be curious what others think about this subject

On the one hand, we have hardliner neocons whose goal it has been for some time to restructure the Middle East, with Iran being a primary target of their regime change desire. Otoh, we have legitimate Iranian dissidents who want desperately to see their homeland embrace modernism and democratic values -- to shed the oppression of fanatical regimes.

[blm]

6. This is more CYA from the very people who supported the agitation of the extremist Muslim

segment in the first place. The extremists were USEFUL to the BFEE crowd LeDeen works for throughout the 80s and 90s.

[Emit]

7. And STILL useful

We know the MEK is involved per Hersh and others, and certain neoconservatives support MEK, although Ledeen is careful to not openly state support for this known terrorist group.

And, there have been several posts in the past few weeks concerning Baluchostan and the unrest there --

See these for more info:
Subthreads from blitzen's: "MSNBC.com Breaking: 18 killed in bus bombing in SE IRAN"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=206283#218780

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=206283&mesg_id=212651

Here's a recent article by Ledeen latest on Balochistan:

Beyond Balochistan

by Michael Ledeen

Among the many peoples who compose Iran, the Baloch are perhaps under the greatest threat, for their “homeland” occupies territory in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they have long since mastered the arts of both political maneuver and asymmetric warfare against more powerful enemies.

The Balochistan People’s Front of Iran, which has claimed credit for several recent attacks on the regime’s security forces in the area, has issued a fascinating and potentially important assessment of these activities. It’s a well written and well argued “lessons learned” from the point of view of an armed resistance group inside Iran.

Their conclusions are remarkably upbeat, which you would expect from an organization that is trying to inspire people to rise up against the mullahs, but their success does warrant attention. As the BPFI argues in this document, the ability of the regime to repress dissent, and even open confrontation, may be overestimated, both by the leaders of the Islamic Republic and by the world at large.

In the past few weeks there have been two widely reported attacks on units of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the regime’s prime instrument of domestic repression (as well as of foreign paramilitary and terrorist operations), in which more than twenty IRGC soldiers were killed, and many more injured. And there have been many other attacks as well, not widely reported, but well known to the opponents of the mullahcracy.

~snip~

Indeed. And so can the many other pro-democracy groups in Iran. I entirely agree with the BPFI document that the regime continues to lose popularity, that the Khomeinist ideology has lost traction with the Iranian people, and that, paradoxically, the outside world is far more vulnerable to the mullahs’ propaganda than the Iranian people are.

All of which of course adds up to the great imperative of American foreign policy:

Faster, Please!

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/03/beyond_balochistan.php

Balochistan is in East Iran, next to Pakistan and south-west of Afghanastan:


And Ledeen had an AEI Conference last year, "The Unknown Iran - Another Case for Federalism?" that didn't sit well with a lot of Iranian dissidents, where several groups, some advocating seperatism, came to discuss the future of Iran.

"The AEI had initially 'selected' four speakers in the name
of the Iranian-Azari, Iranian-Kurd, Iranian-Arab and
Iranian-Balootch ethnicities. Such questionable selection
which was curiously just limited to Iran's border zones has
helped fuel the controversy. ..."


Subthreads from Emit's: "Regime Change in Iran"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=233209#274439

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=233209#274751


For specific comments by concerned Iranians' reactions to Michael Ledeen and AEI, please see subthread from patrice's "Chomsky: the will of the People regarding Iran IS irrelevant to the Oil Gang":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x277535#281656

[porphyrian]

3. That's wonderful, although I question what they call the "liberal Western media." - n/t

[blitzen]

4. Hardly the first....There is a lot of progessive Islamic scholarship

this event seems to be another right-wing effort to smear Islam and to act like only these righties know the direction for "reform"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Indeed. This is an AEI thing.

This Ledeen character's constantly trying to drum up support for a war in Iran.

This is that sort of "but they want us to invade their country" shit we saw before Iraq.

[Emit]

9. Spot on! It IS an AEI thing.

Check out the bottom part of this post above regarding Ledeen/AEI/Iranian dissidents:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=374906&mesg_id=377544

[Emit]

8. Did you catch Ledeen's interview on that video clip I posted in the OP?

He's so arrogant.

[Emit]

10. Still seeking feedback on this info -- n/t

[Emit]

11. Bush & Co. are going to use these kinds of things to push for Democracy in Iran

-- while at the same time, they'll continue with their false flag operations and strong arm techniques and shady deals with fanatical dissident groups -- and they're going to slam liberals for criticizing it. Manipulation. Pure manipulation.

It's very difficult to explain to people why you have a hard time supporting AEI's or Ledeen's, et al work on democracy in the Middle East, knowing what most DUers know. When you're the average Joe, or Sue, or whatever (my apologies to Joes and Sues), all you see is that they are doing great things to promote democracy in these oppressive "evil" and "backward" countries. If the librals' can't get behind that, then we support the oppressive terrorist regimes.

This bothers me greatly. I've met and talked to people from Iran. I know they want change for their country. But at what cost?

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. What is "secular Islam"? Is that like "military pacifism"?

More doublespeak from the neocons who sponsored and continue to sponsor radical Sunni terrorism to counter the "Iranian threat".

They felt betrayed by their buddies, the Saudis and Bin Laden.

The same people who have redefined "liberal" and "reformist" in Eastern Europe to refer to Reaganism/Thatcherism ONLY.

Which is what the upper middle class "secular reformist" elite in Eastern Europe and the Middle East support, because it isolates and elevates them from the rest of the population, creating a permanent 2nd world society of haves and have-nots. Dictatyorship is "bad for business" you see.