Amir Taheri Statement

Religion Of Submission 38 Comments

Amir Taheri stands by his story;

Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.
As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.
Interestingly, the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.
I raised the issue not as a news story, because news of the new law was already several days old, but as an opinion column to alert the outside world to this most disturbing development.

38 Replies to “Amir Taheri Statement”

  2. …shades of Warsaw Ghetto and Jewish people wearing a star of David on their clothes.
    Round round we go, will we ever learn?

  3. Ameri Taheri stands by his OPINION that’s good. My opinion is that he is a tad prejudiced when it comes to having opinions about Iran today.He was part of the America’s Shah of Iran regime. So more than a little healthy skepticism is required. He now works for a New York public relations firm, Benador Associates, where one supposes he specialized in garnering attention to things that serve his purposes(let your mind run amok here).

  4. Remember, a great deal of the rhetoric of Iran is currently directed to the Islamic world. Iran is trying to set up a specific role for itself in the Islamic world, one that is removed from democracy.
    Iran is quite worried about the expansion of democracy in the Middle East. There’s Afghanistan, there’s Iraq, there are ‘twitchings’ in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria. Democracy means a loss of tribal power. The mullahs are, I think, aware that they cannot constrain democracy by inciting civil disturbances by the ‘insurgents’ in Iran and Afghanistan, and they don’t know how long they’ll be able to repress it in Iran.
    Both Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the very deliberate vicious attacks by Islamofascists, to prevent those people from controlling their own country, are moving into such control. The West is openly talking about withdrawal, it is enabling the Iraqi military and police to take charge of the country. Therefore, the terrorist tactic of preventing democracy in both countries is not, in the long run, winning.
    Certainly, in Afghanistan, the articulated agenda of Al Qaeda was to attack the Canadians viciously, to make them ‘cut and run’ – as Canadians have openly declared their shock that their military is no longer a civic police force but might take combat casualities. This agenda failed, due to and only to, Harper.
    If the terrorist tactic isn’t succeeding in these countries, then, democracy will not only move in, but affect other countries. Iran is extremely worried that its people will rebel and want democracy.
    So, Iran is doing a number of things. It has been trying to get the West to attack it. If it could only achieve such an attack, this would bond Iranians and Islamic fundamentalists against the West, and, even in Iraq and Afghanistan, against democracy and the West.
    The West hasn’t taken the bait. And Iran has been trying very, very hard, to get the West to attack.
    It’s tried all other kinds of provocation. Denying the Holocaust – for it would suffice if Israel would attack it.
    Setting up a ‘holocaust denial cartoon’ contest. The West laughed and sent in its cartoons.
    The letters to Bush, etc – which were not to Bush but to the Islamics. Iran’s current strategy is, I suggest, to set itself up as the Apex of Islamism. To have all Islamic eyes focused on it as ‘the savior’ and ‘centre’ of Islamism. Therefore, it must spread its agenda of purity, of defense of Islam etc.
    It must get the West to attack it!
    The dress code is yet another tactic in this agenda. Setting up a specific violation of human rights and discriminating against western religions, would provoke, if not a military, at least a sanction retaliation. Iran would trumpet that to Muslims, telling them all, that the West is interfering in Iran..etc, etc.
    Would Iranians go along with such a dress code? Probably not, but, the dress code threat is not for Iranians; it may not even be ever put into practice. It has a specific agenda, to get the West to retaliate and attack. This would bond Muslims to Iran.

  5. I would suggest that Steve D. actually read the stuff that’s been put up and not prejudge Mr. Taheri, who happens to have a hell of a lot of credibility, unlike Mr. D.
    Prejudiced? Prove it; don’t just claim it. Sounds like Mr. D.’s just expressing HIS opinion here. Who will we listen to? Hmmm… a leftist troll or Mr. Taheri?

  6. Steve D.
    Let’s hear what you think the purpose of Taheri vs the Iranian Mullahs are. Perhaps you can compare and contrast.
    Thinking of which, what is YOUR purpose? Do you think that the Iranians are a danger to everyone or not? If so, what is YOUR solution and your plan B if it doesn’t work? What do you do if negotiation doesn’t work and the Iranians are threatening Israel and Europe with nukes?
    All I hear from your sorry a$$ is griping and complaints. What are your solutions? What would YOU do? What answers do YOU bring to the discussion? If nothing, what are you doing here?
    Self-righteous contempt is empty if you have nothing to offer in place of what you don’t like. What have you to offer? Didn’t think so.

  7. Well, but one must admit there is a difference between stating an opinion that something might happen, and reporting this a actual/factual news. Perhaps it was NP that jumped the gun here, but it seems also Tahari now backtracks a bit (compared to his original statements, as seen in e.g. NP).
    The most significant outcome of this story is, now that it has turned out that there is no such law (at least not yet), that those of us on the right side, who justifiably criticizes Iran’s Islamist regime, have been tainted with a credibility problem. Not good.

  8. Islam’s war against the West is 1,400 years old; it may wax, it may wane, like the moon/lunar cycles. Hint: The crescent moon with the star inside is not a fluke design; the design is Islam’s “swastika” symbol. …
    WHY THE WORLD SHOULD TAKE AHMADINEJAD SERIOUSLY
    by Amir Taheri
    Asharq Alawsat
    May 12, 2006
    Excerpt:
    In the open letter he has addressed to President George W Bush, the Islamic Republic President has even expressed the hope that the United States itself would adopt the Khomeinist model. Asserting that the American liberal democratic model has already failed and is dying, Ahmadinejad asks rhetorically whether Bush will not join the masses of the world who are supposed to be clamoring for the chance to live under a government like that of Iran today.
    Most commentators in the West, especially the United States, have received Ahmadinejad’s open letter with a mixture of derision and disbelief. They are wrong.
    Ahmadinejad represents an ideology with deep historical roots not only in Iran but also throughout much of he Middle East. According to that ideology the West is doomed to a tragic fate because it has consistently, that is to say for the past 14 centuries, refused to abandon its ” abrogated religions” and convert to the ” ultimate version of the only truth.”
    Ahmadinejad is not alone in believing that the domination of the Western model in the past two to three centuries has been a disaster for mankind. Muhammad Khatami, the mullah who acted as President of the Islamic republic before Ahmadinejad’s election last year, was also convinced that the West, which eh calls ” the child of Enlightenment”; was nothing but a monster that has set large parts of the world on fire and drenched in blood….
    http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19488

  10. It’s an interesting defense: ‘The story is not true YET, but it could be true one day soon.’
    In other news, I just won a million dollars and gave it all to charity. Well, it’s one of the options I’d consider anyway.

  11. This is different than the Mapes/Rather “fake but accurate” story.
    In this case, the law is in the future only because it hasn’t passed all of the hoops. Liken it to a law that has passed the lower house but not the upper house.

  12. Sorry Warwick, but you’re giving the story too much…
    In fact, however, the legislation contained “absolutely no mention of religious minorities”, according to Hadi Ghaemi, the chief Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), who said it included “only generalities with regard to promoting a national dress code and fashion industry that should be subsidised and supported by the government”.
    The article — and especially its attribution to “human rights groups” — was particularly unfortunate, he told IPS, because “it plays into the hands of the Iranian government that wants to discredit human rights issues that are raised at the international level”. The actual legislation was indeed “a troubling development”, but not for the reasons cited by the Post, he added, because “its main target is most probably Iranian women”.
    Other denunciations were quick to follow. One Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament, Maurice Motamed, insisted that colour requirements for ethnic minorities had “never been proposed or discussed in parliament”, let alone approved. “Such news,” he told the Associated Press, “is an insult to religious minorities here.”
    “This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false,” he told The Australian newspaper. “It is a lie…”
    Two Israel-based Iran experts, Menashe Amir and Meir Javedanfar, also denounced the original reports about the legislation, suggesting in a follow-up article in the Jerusalem Post Monday that they were based on outdated speculation about the impact on non-Muslims of the adoption of Islamic dress standards.
    Published on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 by Inter Press Service
    by Jim Lobe
    Or from Juan Cole, who knows a bit about what he speaks,
    Marsh says that Iranian journalist Amir Taheri says he is standing by his column, which set off the furor, and that the law has been passed and is awaiting implementation. The laws passed by the Iranian parliament are available on the web and in Iranian newspapers, and certainly a law like this would have been written about and published. Could Mr. Taheri provide us please with a URL to the Persian text? If he does not, we have no reason ever again to believe anything he says.
    Juan Cole also wrote this on the day (or day after the story broke)….
    The actual legislation passed by the Iranian parliament regulates women’s fashion, and urges the establishment of a national fashion house that would make Islamically appropriate clothing. There is a vogue for “Islamic chic” among many middle class Iranian women that involves, for instance, wearing expensive boots that cover the legs and so, it is argued, are permitted under Iranian law. The scruffy, puritanical Ahmadinejad and his backers among the hardliners in parliament are waging a new and probably doomed struggle against the young Iranian fashionistas. (The Khomeinists give the phrase “fashion police” a whole new meaning).
    There is nothing in this legislation that prescribes a dress code or badges for Iranian religious minorities, and Maurice Motamed was present during its drafting and says nothing like that was even discussed.
    The list goes on. If you can read it, Juan has linked to the new Iranian law through his website, http://www.juancole.com.

  13. If true, the first half of your post seems to discredit the story.
    However, you lost me when you quote from Juan Cole.
    He is the foremost propagandist for the Jihadists and someone I consider to be crassly anti-Semitic.
    It’s like quoting David Duke’s opinion on racism when discussing the crimes committed by the KKK.
    As a rule of thumb, a source who works in any university’s ME studies department is normally a Arab-fetishist and can be counted upon to be virulently anti-Israel when not outright anti-Semitic. Juan Cole is their leader now that Edward Said has finally died (not a moment too soon, either.)

  14. Ted,
    Do you know the difference between Kate and Juan Cole? Kate works for a living and invests her own money in her blog. Juan lives off the public purse…and neglects his acedemic duties in favour of his blog. As an academic myself, I find him beneath contempt, not for his opinions (there are lots of twits with opinions) but for his violation of the reponsibilities inherent in academic freedom.

  15. ET
    “This would bond Muslims to Iran.”
    It would be difficult to bond to the memory of Iran, if it were only that.

  16. Warwick: I’ve heard such allegations of him before, but have not seen any credible evidence of it. I don’t want to turn this into a flame war, and won’t say anything else about it, but if you know of any actions or statements J.C. has made I would be very interested in reading about them.
    Henry: You seem to know him very well at any rate, so I imagine he’ll defend himself and how he spends his free time and work time to you next week over beers.

  17. richfisher. No, it wouldn’t be difficult to bond to the ‘memory of Iran, if it were only that’.
    Human beings have bonded to King Arthur and his Knights, to Jesus, to Allah, to whoever…and all of these are either myth and/or memory.
    They have bonded to memories of countries, both mythic and remembered.

  18. Ted,
    Publish or perish. The man’s from a research-intensive university, not a teaching college. His blogging is distracting him from his work.
    There are objective measures of productivity, which an academic of his stature increasingly fails to meet. Peer review does not require that I drink beer with the man, merely read and assess his professional work. Check his record in the citation indices…

  19. Ameri Taheri
    He is clearly a neo-con. Just google(sorry Kate) his name and you will find lots of his writings. He has just done a fluff piece on Iraq. A kind of “don’t worry, be happy” kind of article. The kind the American Administration would pay to have done, I am not saying he is on the public payroll 😉 but if they were to pay someone to write nice things for them he would be on the list. Besides there are a plethora of conservative media in the USA and Canada to keep him very busy.
    Now perhaps if I were a neo-con I would judge his writing as fair and balanced but alas try as I will, I do read as many Conservative writings as time allows(i have lots, so bring it on).
    I have read Juan Cole regularly over the last several years. He has monitored the Iraq war very closely and can read and interpret Arabic. He lived in Egypt for a few years so he knows the area. I have a lot of respect for his views. He has shown increasing annoyance at American behaviour though. He used to be more fair and balanced(in the real sense)but he doesn’t even try to hide his loathing of the Bush administration anymore. When you monitor the incompetence on a daily basis that is what has happened to a lot of us. Though by now it is beyond anger and disgust but just sadness over all the waste of life 20 000 American dead or injured and 40 000 dead Iraqis and God knows how many injured…with no end in sight.
    No Iran has nothing to fear from America. The American people do not want an attack on Iran and definitely not an invasion. So if Bush attacks Iran he had best have a true coalition like his dad had in gulf war 1 or forgetaboutit.
    The Republicans would pay dearly in November and then Bush would be investigated to death by the Democrats. By failing to “slam dunk” Iraq he has lost his political capital as far as commander and chiefing another war is concerned. There are still neo-cons that are egging him on in that direction though. One thing we know for certain is that Bush cannot be counted upon to do the smart thing.

  20. Steve d.,
    So? What is the “smart thing” in your opinion?
    Seems you always forget to include the bottom line. What is your solution? What would YOU do?
    You are correct in that Bush has been weakened politically by the left. What’s to be done then? What’s your point?
    Would you bomb Iran’s nuke facilities or would you risk nuclear war? You offer nothing.

  21. I have read several of Juan Cole’s articles. Objectivity is obviously not his strong suit.

  22. Henry: Ah, I’m sorry I misunderstood your remark. I looked over his CV. and recent publications instead. available here: (First two links) ttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/index/indexa.htm
    Perhaps we could compare it to your own, so that everyone here could see what the CV and publication history of a professor who works hard looks like.

  23. steve d – what do you mean by ‘slam dunk’ Iraq? What does that mean?
    Bush deposed Hussein and enabled the Iraqi people to write up their own constitution, elect their own leadership, and set up their own government. What’s reprehensible about this, in your opinion?
    And, they are doing all of this against terrific odds, with insurgents from Iran, Syria, SA etc, coming in, to try to prevent the Iraqi people from developing their own government.
    Bush himself warned that the transformation wouldn’t be easy. You don’t move a society that has only lived within tribalism, and a tribal military dictatorship, into democracy that easily – that’s why the Iraqi gov’t has been negotiating with various tribes, working with them, etc. And, trying to deal with the forces from both within Iraq, the old tribal powers, and the external infiltrators, who will do anything, to incite civil war and prevent democracy. The Iraqi people have made tremendous advances.
    So, again, I simply don’t understand your ‘slam dunk’ agenda.
    I have the greatest respect for what Bush has done, so your confident assertion that he can ‘be counted on’ to do the wrong thing, is rather specious.

  24. Steve D:
    Juan’s Arabic might not help that much, as Farsi is the (main) language in Iran.
    It seems, however, critical for this debate to actually see/read the text of the law that was passed in the Majlis (if in fact it was passed).
    Is the complete text available somewhere (in English translation)?

  25. Biggest case of jorunalistic malpractice ever. And its still not enough to shatter the massive cognitive dissonance among Bushies. Sad.
    I hate to break it to you useful idiots but you’re being suckered into acting against your best interest. Being used as pawns. Again. Repost from Zerb:
    “Just for the record? I doubt Wattie had any choice in writing the story. I have reason to believe that this came from above.
    …
    Sources say that the Taheri commentary page submission — still online — was the start of the story. That’s because, I’m told, it was sent ahead of time to the Simon Weisenthal Centre which was justifiably outraged and then alarms elsewhere.
    …
    Who flagged the Taheri’s op-ed to the SWC? Unconfirmed word is, it was Taheri himself.
    And who is Taheri? (See one of the comments in my Global Issues post below.) According to his column’s tagline:
    Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.
    And who are Benador Associates?
    Oh just your typical right-wing war-mongering PR agency, that’s who.”
    More at KOS:
    “Eleana Benador has been instrumental in helping to publicize key neoconservative figures in recent years, with her company Benador Associates serving as a principal neoconservative marketing agency. Writes journalist Jim Lobe: “Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neoconservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months. Also found among her client list are other major war-boosters, including former New York Times executive editor and now New York Daily News columnist, A. M. Rosenthal; Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer; the Council on Foreign Relations’ resident imperialist Max Boot; and Victor Davis Hanson, a blood-and-guts classicist and one of Vice President Dick Cheney’s favorite dinner guests.”
    Here’s a good interview with the late owner of the National Post and self-described “Zionist” Izzy Asper:
    Jerusalem Post staffer Melissa Radler (daughter of Conrad Black partner David Radler, then prez and COO of Hollinger International, owner of Jerusalem Post) interviewed Canada’s most powerful (post-Black) media mogul. Ms. Radler provided Post readers with the following profile:
    “Without a hint of reproach, Radler describes Izzy as “a devoted Zionist who uses his newspapers to defend Israel and vent his frustrations at Canada’s lack of support.”
    Asper goes on the record with:
    A: “What we can do is demand an end to the dishonest reporting by our media… ”
    “I formed a Zionist club for young people, and instituted a media monitoring and response group to deal with the fact that the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] cannot bring itself to call Hamas a terrorist organization …”
    Q: Do you have a pro-Israel policy at your media outlets?
    A: “In all our newspapers, including the National Post, we have a very pro-Israel position. We are not soft on Israel, but our position is that we’re not optimistic about the road map, and we are the strongest supporter of Israel in Canada – so much so that the Canadian Islamic Congress has declared a boycott of all of our newspapers and TV stations.”
    Q: Do you think your policy has an effect on government action or public opinion?
    A: “I’m told it has. Certainly, we’ve raised issues that no other media has, and obviously we are strongly, continually making the case on banning [fundraising for] Hizbullah.”
    Q: You’ve come under a lot of criticism in the Canadian media for setting editorial policy, particularly when it comes to Israel. Is anti-Semitism an issue here?
    A: “When you own a newspaper, the inmates of the asylum don’t run the asylum. I’m the last guy to be paranoid; on the other hand, in almost every criticism of our ‘interference,’ every example they use it always comes back to Israel. If I were being pro-something that they liked, they might not be as tough with us. But the main thing is that with people who write for newspapers, the one thing they despise is the owners, and there’s nothing they despise more than owners who say this is the position we want to take, and if you don’t like these views, take yourself somewhere else.”
    http://www.yourmedia.ca/modules/canwest/bosspeak/bosspeak.shtml

  26. warwick
    I would believe them. They trust us and the Israelis. So lets trust them too.
    Remember, even the monster Saddam didn’t put WMD in his scud missiles that he sent in to Israel during the first gulf war. Neither did he use them against anyone in the second gulf war even when he knew they were coming for him.
    So these guys are portrayed as being crazy warmongers but where is the evidence?
    The only warmongering has been the pre-emptive war against Iraq.
    If they used the atom bomb they would be annililated by Israel and America so what would be the point. Unless you believe they would atomize 80million Iranians. Its absurd to think about it.
    How many countries have the atom bomb? How many have used it? Pushing the button is not a cavalier thing. No, I say, okay, you say you are responsible. We believe you. If you aren’t, you know you will suffer more than us. If both sides have the bomb the incentive is great on both sides. It puts both sides in a heavily responsible position. There is no more “slam dunk” bravado. It worked in the cold war. Through some very tough times both sides found a way around using it.

  27. Notice how the natives gave in when they were met by their own tactics. They were very upset and called it racism. Therefore, if there is a dress/color code in Iran then the west must institute a law to make every Iranian in our countries to wear a badge or color to identify themselves, regardless of religion. Branding a large I on their foreheads is going to far, but didn’t hitler tatoo the Jews.

  29. Clinging to the belief that Taheri’s story is true is as absurd as clinging to the belief that Iraq had WMDs but secretly shipped them to Syria prior to the invasion: you can believe it if you want, but doing so brands you as someone who likes to fix the facts around the story instead of the other way around.

  30. The reason for a tattoo on the Jews is found in the words of Moses…
    Leviticus 19.28
    I don’t think it’s equivalent to feeding bacon to the muslims… it’s permanent.

  32. Ted – Re: your 4.20pm ad hominem.
    Juan Cole’s recent referred journal articles are effectively non-existant. The serious stuff (refereed journal articles, not transcripts of interviews, or the recent spate of largely unrefereed book chapters) stops around 2003. As a senior tenured full professor soon (?) to be at Yale, he should be compared to our senior Canada Research Chair…and fails the test.
    He needs to pay attention to serious scholarship again, or quit and editorialize for a living.
    You want my CV for comparison? Try google scholar – my identity is not a secret.

  35. Henry: Ad-hominem? I was making fun of you Henry. I suppose that might be an ad-hominem in some contexts, although, attempting to hold someone up for ridicule doesn’t always. Think of roastings.
    Let me make two things clear, without the (attempted) use of humour.
    First, the story was fake. Everyone has admitted it. Before everyone admitted it I could only find two sources saying it was fake, from IPS via commondreams.org, and from Juan Cole via his website. If people here think he’s anti-semitic, or lazy or whatever, fine, go out and find another source you trust. (Drudge?).
    Second, I’m not here to argue about Juan Cole. I really don’t care what you think of him. What I find amusing is that you apparently have problems with scholars who do a lot of extra-curricular activities. Why I have no idea. Publish or perish is a good rule of thumb, but it’s not a universal rule. Maybe Juan really enjoys teaching. Maybe he prefers writing books. I don’t know and I dont’ care. But for you to say that “this is what serious academics do and nothing but” and then to dislike people who don’t follow that is just laughable. I’m sorry sir, I find you terribly amusing. I’m going to have to find out who you are so that I don’t do my Ph.D. where you’re teaching. I believe your model of acedmia has led to a volumous amount of CRAP, in terms of journals, and referreed articles. I believe publish or perish harms research and harms the quality of publications and harms the quality of teaching that occurs at universities. I have no doubt sir, that you will dislike me if I ever become a professor. And I’m fine with that.
    Best,

  37. Ah, for the record, in case anyone is still coming by this thread, the “Ted” who commented (commented well and held his own here, I might add) was not your friendly neighbourhood regular commenting “Ted” from Cerberus.
    And now you all know why I always sign off…
    Ted
    Cerberus

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