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Arash Azizi Profile picture
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24 Feb, 6 tweets, 3 min read
Why did we Iranian progressives who have long chafed at our own regime's oppression opposed Trump's exit from #IranDeal?

Hear it from this 2018 piece from legendary musician Kayhan Kalhor.

You might agree or disagree but at least listen to us.

dallasnews.com/opinion/commen…
I should add that there is no easy solution for #Iran; no certainty about how things would have turned out had Trump not quit the #IranDeal; no easy way to put the genie back in the bottle (although I support a return to #IranDeal, supported in paper now by both US and Iran)
Also the criminality and the obscene repression of the Iranian regime didn't change by #IranDeal, obviously. Ali Khamenei didn't stop being one of the worst criminals in power today anywhere in the world and he will never be.
But those of who supported #IranDeal, oppose #IranSanctions and believe opening up #Iran ultimately weakens authoritarianism have our own analyses and arguments.
While we are it, read NPR's excellent journalism on the story of Kayhan Kalhor, caught as he is between Iran, the US and our turbulent times

npr.org/2021/02/10/955…
Great work by @anastasiat

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More from @arash_tehran

Arash Azizi Profile picture
22 Feb
Anis Naqqash, a notorious Lebanese assassin and pro-Iranian regime activist, is dead at 70. He died in a Damascus hospital after contracting Covid-19. Image
Naqqash had been sentenced to life in prison by French courts after his failed 1980 assassination attempt on the life of Iran's last pre-republican prime minister, the social democratic Shapur Bakhtiar, in which two other people died.
Bakhtiar himself would be killed by another team supported by Tehran, 11 years later, at the age of 77.

In the 1980s, as #France President Francois Mitterand attempted to push Iran to free French hostages in Lebanon, it pardoned Naqqash and released him.
Read 8 tweets
Arash Azizi Profile picture
22 Feb
#Breaking:

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that #Iran is ready to enrich up to 60 percent of uranium which might be necessary for technologies like "driving force"

#IranDeal had limited enrichment to less than 4 percent.

BUT he didn't actually change Iran's position
Khamenei did his usual bluster but he also repeated Iran's position which: If the other side does their obligations, Iran will also go back to #IranDeal, i.e. bring down enrichment to below 4 percent.
Khamenei also repeatedly said Iran won't build a nuclear weapon since it sees that as contrary to Islamic teachings. He said Iran won't even "think" of building such a weapon.
Read 6 tweets
Arash Azizi Profile picture
22 Feb
Thousands around the world are taking part in a #TwitterStorm (12-1 pm EST) to protest the assault on the members of the #Baha'i religious minority in the village of #Ivel in northern Iran. Their houses and lands are being confiscated.

Say no to this! #ItsTheirland
The Iranian #Baha'is of #Ivel have the support of many in the international community, not least their Muslim brothers and sisters.

Canadian Council of Imams (@CCImams ) has came to their support: opa.bahai.ca/files/uploads/…

#ItIsTheirLand
American Islamic Congress knows what discrimination looks like. Which is why it has come to support the Iranian #Baha'is of #Ivel and say no to the confiscation of their lands and property. They know that #ItsTheirLand

bahai.us/wp-content/upl…
Read 5 tweets
Arash Azizi Profile picture
15 Feb
Iranian Reformist Front (Jebheye Eslathalabane Iran) was officially founded yesterday in Jamaran, Khomeini's historic house near Tehran.

The founding meeting elected Behzad Nabavi as an interim head since he is oldest.

And also 5 people as a committee to draft the IRF's by-laws
The five are:

1- Outspoken Tehran MP @mah_sadeghi
2- Faraj Komijani, politician with a base in an official teachers union
3- Ali Bagheri (low-key politician)
4- @MansooriAzar , noted reformist politician
5- Rouhani's ex-VP @mowlaverdi
Some more pictures of the meeting.

The next meeting of the group is on Wednesday and will be held virtually.

The top question remains whether and who (and how many candidates) to run for the coming #IranElections2021
Read 11 tweets
Arash Azizi Profile picture
13 Feb
#Iran's embattled reformists will launch a new umbrella organization, probably by tomorrow.

The "Iranian Reformist Front" will bring together reformist parties (and not personalities) and will decide whether and who to run for #IranElections2021
Its first head will be ex-MP, ex-minister Behzad Nabavi who is the oldest at 78 (it's a tradition that the oldest member of a body will be its first interim head.) He might also run for the permanent leadership, I am told.

The body has the support of former president Khatami
The 'parties not personalities' distinguished the 'Front' from the already-existing Reformist Policy Council which has about 30 or so members who act as individuals.
Read 5 tweets
Arash Azizi Profile picture
27 Nov 20
Great writing by @AnshelPfeffer on the BDS, why it has failed and why Bibi and Pompeo want to pretend it's all powerful.

"BDS is a useful foil for the right-wing in Israel which needs to continue maintaining a siege mentality among Israeli citizens"

haaretz.com/us-news/.premi…
"But for a certain type of American Jewish organization and philanthropist, so lacking in imagination and independent thought that they need to subcontract their Jewish identity to Israel, BDS provides a "battle" in which they can easily take part."
What the same writer wrote in another article is illuminating:

"For the last decade no one has stopped Israel from doing pretty much whatever it likes in Gaza and the West Bank. No one has put any meaningful pressure on Israel to end the occupation."
Read 5 tweets

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