Hardliners Still Think In "Stone Age Terms", Claims Iran's President Rohani

Video compilation of Iran's President Hassan Rohani talking about the threat of terrorism from the likes of ISIS, though he doesn't specifically mention the group, and how they will help Iraq if asked.

Interesting to note: he refers to a "certain group" (Iranian hardliners, one would assume) as still thinking in "Stone Age terms." And mentions that if Iranians want the world to speak to them courteously, they must speak courteously to the world.

MEMRI video here.

Iranians Still Hate Us Lots- Largest Protest Ever On Anniversary Of 1979 US Embassy Takeover

Today was the anniversary of the 1979 US Embassy takeover in Tehran (the highlight of the Iranian revolution) and as they have done every year since, Iranians took to the streets with anti-U.S. placards to show just how much they still hate the "Great Satan".  Protesting in front of the former U.S. Embassy, the largest crowd ever gathered at these annual US bashing demonstrations burned American and Israeli flags, carried effigies of Barack Obama and John Kerry, and shouted "Death To America."  All this in spite of the fact that current President Hassan Rohani is trying to reach out, sort of, to the U.S. and the West, with the blessing, sort of, of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini.

Some of the more moderate elements in Iran asked that the "Death To America" chants be dropped, but hard-liners refused,

...including commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), [who] have rejected those calls and said that the habitual refrain of "Death to America" will remain eternal.

Though Rohani did not attend the rallies taking place in other cities besides Tehran, Said Jalili was there.

Among the main speakers at the rally were former senior nuclear negotiator and defeated presidential candidate, hard-liner Said Jalili, who said the capture of the U.S. Embassy, called "the nest of spies" by some officials, showed that the revolution was on the right path.

Jalili defended the "Death to America" slogan as the slogan of the most "thoughtful and honest" Iranians and added the slogan was not directed against the American people but against its government officials.

He also said that Iranians monolithically support the clerical establishment, the government, and the team in charge of nuclear negotiations.

Video of the protests on Washington Times.
Photos and twitter comments on BuzzFeed.

Still so  many haters out there.

Did Iran's President Rouhani Wish Jews "A Blessed Rosh Hashanah"?

Did Iran's supposed "moderate" new Prez Hassan Rouhani really wish the Jews a blessed New Year via Twitter?

As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah.

According to NPR's Scott Neuman maybe, maybe not.

If true, quite a departure from his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hatred of the Jews, including his Holocaust denial claims.

Iranian Councilor Barred For Being Too Pretty and Sexy For Office

Hassan Rowhani, duly elected president of Iran, promised change in his country, especially for women.  One of his campaign promises was:

“Discrimination against women will not be tolerated.”

He also said in a campaign debate:

“I will form a women’s affairs ministry to return their trampled rights to them.”

But good luck trying to find one female member of his cabinet.

And the government of this so-called champion of women's rights has barred Nina Siakhali Moradi, city councilor for the city of Qazvin, from taking office because she's too pretty and  "too sexy."  Even though Moradi was fairly elected, the religious hardliners overturned it.

Even with more than 10,000 votes in the June election, putting her 14th out of 163 candidates and winning her a council seat, the 27-year-old engineer and website designer had her political career cut short because she was deemed too attractive to take up the post.

“We don’t want a catwalk model on the council,” a senior official in Qazvin told local press.

Moradi ran under the slogan “Young ideas for a young future,” pushing for better women’s rights in Qazvin, the restoration of the old city and greater youth involvement in town planning. She had been vetted and approved as a candidate by Iran’s judiciary and intelligence services. Her liberal views appeared popular with the electorate, The Times reported.

And  even though she adhered to strict Islamic dress code (full hijab with no hair showing) in her campaign posters, the conservatives complained to the governor calling them  “vulgar and anti-religious,” and anti-Islamic.

Others took umbrage with the fact that her headquarters

... became a gathering place for local young people, whose behavior and clothing provoked criticism from her opponents, mostly older conservative men.

The complaint was challenged but ultimately upheld. She was disqualified for not “observing the Islamic norms.”

She wasn't the only female candidate targeted. Maryam Nakhostin-Ahmadi and Shahla Atefeh both were detained and questioned and had their campaign posters removed.

Israel A Wound That Needs To Be Removed- Says New Iranian President Rohani

Anyone who thought things might change under the leadership of the new so-called 'moderate' Iranian president Hassan Rohani (Rouhani) can lay those hopes to rest. At least when it comes to Iran's relationship with Israel. Rohani claimed that Israel is "a wound" that must be excised.

"The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed," Rouhani was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

The president-elect also expressed doubts about the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal even as the two sides resumed negotiations in Washington this week, ending a five-year freeze in Mideast talks.

"Israelis show a compromising face to the world but continue their expansionism in practice," Rouhani said, according to Fars, another semi-official news agency.

Talk about showing one face to the world, but he's simply echoing what most every Muslim in the Middle East believes.

Peace in that region? Never. The Muslims will always hate the Jews/Israelis, and the Sunnis will always hate the Shia and vice versa. They're incapable of embracing peace. There are a few exceptions, but not enough to make a difference.

Read more here.

More Christians Sentenced To Jail Time In Iran

More Christians have been sentenced to jail time in Iran.

The Revolutionary Court in Shiraz, 571 miles (920 kilometers) south of Tehran, issued prison sentences of 44 months to Mojtaba Seyyed-Alaedin Hossein, Mohammad-Reza Partoei, Vahid Hakkani, and Homayoun Shokouhi for “attending a house church, spreading Christianity, having contact with foreign ministries, propaganda against the regime, and disrupting national security,” according the Mohabat News Agency. They were tried in absentia.

They had been arrested in February 2012, when police raided their house-church meeting. Officials rejected their appeal for release on bail. Hossein and Shokouhi, previously arrested in 2008 on similar accusations and handed five-year suspended sentences, received an additional eight months of imprisonment above last week’s sentence of 44 months. Additionally, Shokouhi’s wife, Fariba Nazemina, and their son, Nima Shokouhi, each received two-year suspended prison sentences.

The four men are being held in Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, which houses hardened criminals and often lacks heating or health facilities. Officials also routinely deny medical treatment to prisoners, and as a result, Hakkani is in critical condition due to internal bleeding, according to Mohabat. Prison doctors say he is in urgent need of surgery but has little chance of receiving treatment.

Will moderate Hassan Rohani make any changes when he takes over from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? I sincerely doubt it, but I hope I'm wrong.

Iran's President-Elect Tied To 1994 Argentinian Jewish Center Bombing?

While some consider Iran's President-elect Hassan Rohani a moderate, others don't.  He certainly wasn't some 20 years ago when his son committed suicide over his dad's extremism. And now there are allegations that he probably knew about and was part of the planning of the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1994.

Iranian President-elect Hassan Rowhani was on the special Iranian government committee that plotted the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, according to an indictment by the Argentine government prosecutor investigating the case.

The AMIA bombing is considered the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history, killing 85 and wounding hundreds more. The Argentine government had accused the Iranian government of planning the attack and Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah of carrying it out. Numerous former and current Iranian officials are wanted by Interpol in connection with the bombing.

Former Iranian intelligence official Abolghasem Mesbahi, who defected from Iran in the late 1990s, testified that the decision to launch the attack was made within a special operations committee connected to the powerful Supreme National Security Council in August 1993.

According to the 2006 indictment, Mesbahi testified that Rowhani, who was then serving as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, was also a member of the special committee when it approved the AMIA bombing.

The rest here.

Iran's President-Elect Rohani's Son Killed Himself Over Dad's Extremism

The eldest son of Iran's so-called "moderate" president-elect Hassan Rohani committed suicide in 1992. The reason?  According to his suicide note: his dad's affiliation with Iran's head honcho, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I hate your government, your lies, your corruption, your religion, your double acts and your hypocrisy," wrote the future president's son in his suicide note, published in London by exiled Iranian political commentator Ali Reza Nouri.

"I am ashamed to live in such environment where I'm forced to lie to my friends each day, telling them that my father isn't part of all of this. Telling them my father loves this nation, whereas I believe this to be not true. It makes me sick seeing you, my father, kiss the hand of Khamenei," read the letter published in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat

Naturally, the Iranian press denied it had anything to do with politics and blamed it on troubles in love, but we all know which is more likely the truth.

People can and do change, but has Rohani truly changed?  We shall see.

Quotes From Iran's New "Moderate" President Hassan Rohani

No more Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make fun of, but I'm happy that the Iranians have someone who is relatively moderate (emphasis on relatively) taking the reigns.  They just might have a chance to join the rest of the world, though only time will tell; after all, Hassan Rohani (aka Rowhani and Rouhani) is a cleric, and was part of the Islamic Revolution that turned the country into an Islamic state.

So who is this man, who handily won the election? RFE/RL  put together a list of recent quotes from interviews, his website and the presidential debates that provides a little insight into the president-elect of Iran:

"Using the Internet, I must say, is one of my hobbies regardless of whether I need it."

"Regarding reading, I must say I prefer reading academic papers rather than a novel. I prefer historical movies, but in general I like movies and I spend part of my free time watching films."

"Eight years of isolation is enough."

"All the people in our country, no matter which ethnicity or tribe they're from, should feel they're the citizens of one country and enjoy equal rights."

"We need moderation and rationality; we have to move away from extremism. Likewise regarding the issue of foreign policy -- we need to preserve the interests and national security of the country and we have to create the conditions for the necessary opportunities in the political, economic, cultural, and other spheres for our people."

"If we want to compete with countries like Turkey, Malaysia, and South Korea, we need to create a real revolution in our economy."

"There are a number of media in our country, but there is no variety. The press should work within the framework and shouldn't play with people's reputations."

"Our revolution was a revolution of light and morality, but today, where is morality in our society?"

"We have to give people a free hand; we shouldn't intervene so much in people's private lives and culture."

"In a government of 'Hope and Prudence,' men and women, boys and girls will feel free."

And from Al Arabiya, a list of other quotes on various subjects while campaigning:

Women
“Discrimination against women will not be tolerated.”

Nuclear issue

“We will stand firm to get our nuclear rights recognised as we do for sanctions to be lifted. We need nuclear energy for the nation’s progress and my government will ensure this right is recognized at the lowest cost.”

Iran-U.S. relations

“The U.S. is a world reality which no one can ignore. It is a superpower and the world’s first economy, military and scientific power.”

“We will first convert existing hostile relations to a one-on-one relationship but with tensions, and in the second phase we will gradually decrease tensions. It is then that one can think of other phases in relations.”

The economy

“I have come forward to save Iran’s economy and forge a constructive interaction with the world through a government of wisdom and hope.”

“This administration (of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) made fun of sanctions, deriding them as scrap paper, while we could have avoided them or to some extent reduced them.”

Unemployment

“There are 3.5 million people unemployed in Iran, of whom 867,000 are university graduates. We have to concentrate on national production and technology development. We will invest in small businesses that do not require much capital.”

Political affiliation

“Personally, I believe that the majority of the people seek moderation and rationality. In all of my political career I have had very good relations with the moderates of both political factions, reformists and conservatives. I believe the majority of our society is comprised of moderates.”

He sounds promising, and perhaps anyone would be better than Ahmadinejad, but some people just aren't buying it. Joel C. Rosenberg, author of "The Last Jihad" and "The Twelfth Imam", is one of those, and he explains why.