TOP FIGURES BARRED FROM IRAN'S JUNE BALLOT
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's election overseers removed potential wild-card candidates from the presidential race Tuesday, blocking a top aide of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a former president who revived hopes of reformers.
Their exclusion from the June 14 presidential ballot gives establishment-friendly candidates a clear path to succeed Ahmadinejad, who has lost favor with the ruling clerics after years of power struggles. It also pushes moderate and opposition voices further to the margins as Iran's leadership faces critical challenges such as international sanctions and talks with world powers over Tehran's nuclear program.
The official ballot list, announced on state TV, followed a nearly six-hour delay in which the names were kept under wraps. That raised speculation that authorities allowed some time for appeals by the blackballed candidates and their backers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say in all matters.
But the official slate left off two prominent but divisive figures: former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The decision also appeared to remove many potential surprise elements in the race, including whether Rafsanjani could revitalize the reform movement or if Ahmadinejad could play a godfather role in the election with his hand-picked political heir.
Instead, the eight men cleared by the candidate-vetting Guardian Council included high-profile figures considered firm and predictable loyalists to the ruling Islamic establishment, such as former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.
Just one approved candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, might draw some moderate appeal because of his role as vice president under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
The rest of the choices, at the very least, would create a possibly seamless front between the ruling clerics and presidency after years of political turmoil under Ahmadinejad, who tried to challenge the theocracy's vast powers to make all major decisions and set key policies. Iran's presidency, meanwhile, is expected to convey the ruling clerics' views on the world stage and not set its own diplomatic agenda.
Mashaei called the decision unfair and said he will appeal to Khamenei. "God willing this will be resolved," semiofficial Fars news agency reported late Tuesday.
Rafsanjani did not comment, but his supporters denounced the decision on social media.
While the election is not expected to bring major shifts in Iran's position on its nuclear program - which Tehran insists is peaceful despite Western fears it could lead to atomic weapons - it could open opportunities to renew stalled talks with a six-nation group that includes the U.S.
On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said Iran's nuclear stance will "not change either before or after the election."
The ballot rejection of Mashaei brought little shock.
He has been badly tarnished by Ahmadinejad's feuds with the ruling clerics. Hard-liners have denounced Mashaei as part of a "deviant current" that seeks to undermine the country's Islamic system - which made ballot approval highly unlikely.
This leaves Ahmadinejad politically orphaned going into the final weeks in office. He still has significant public support and could try to bargain with other candidates or break away and start his own political movement.
Few powerful voices came to Mashaei's defense in a sign of Ahmadinejad's fallen fortunes. But the case for Rafsanjani was more complicated.
His unexpected decision for a comeback bid - 16 years after leaving office - jolted hard-line foes and was cheered by beleaguered reformists and liberals after years of crackdowns.
Rafsanjani faced a barrage of attacks in the past week from powerful critics who suggested the 78-year-old does not have the stamina for the presidency and is disgraced for criticizing the heavy-handed tactics used to crush protests following Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in 2009.
Rafsanjani's youngest daughter, Faezeh, was released from jail in March after serving a six-month sentence in connection with the postelection chaos. His middle son, Mahdi, also is to stand trial in coming weeks for his alleged role in the riots.
Late Monday, authorities closed down the Tehran headquarters of Rafsanjani's youth supporters.
But Rafsanjani still carries a legacy with a sweeping reach.
Moderates see him as a pragmatist who can deal deftly with the West and use his skills as patriarch of a family-run business empire to help repair Iran's economy, battered by sanctions and mismanagement. Others, even ideological foes, respect his high-profile role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution as the closest confidant of its spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In a sign of possible lobbying on Rafsanjani's behalf, he received apparent support from some influential members of the Assembly of Experts - the only group with the power to dismiss the supreme leader. Rafsanjani was pushed out as the group's chairman after failing to get enough support to leverage possible concessions from Khamenei on the 2009 postelection clampdowns.
One member, Ayatollah Mohieddin Haeri Shirazi, sent a letter to Khamenei saying "omitting a prominent figure from the election was incompatible" with giving wide choices to voters, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.
Another assembly member, Ayatollah Mohammad Vaez Mousavi, told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that Rafsanjani's age is not a weak point and many Iranian leaders "accepted responsibilities when they were quite old."
Prominent political analyst Saeed Leilaz said the "intensified defamation campaign" suggested worry among hard-liners that Rafsanjani had a real potential to rally moderates and others and win the election.
"What matters today is who can save the country's economy," he said, "Who has a plan to take Iran away from isolation and improve living conditions."
Iraq news ........
Updated at 8:15 p.m. EDT, May 20, 2013
Coordinated bombing attacks resumed today. At least ten blasts were seen in the capital alone, and a pair of rare explosions occurred far south in Basra. Both Sunni and Shi’ites targeted in them. Overall, at least 133 people were killed and 283 more were wounded, but the figures are likely to rise. Some of the dead and wounded were Iranian pilgrims.
Twelve policemen were killed and four were wounded during a raid in Anbar province. Security forces were trying to liberate policemen who had been kidnapped two days ago. It is unclear how many of the casualties were victims or security forces. Five of the kidnapping victims had been discovered dead yesterday. A political candidate was kidnapped in Rawa today. In better news, three abductees from Karbala were released.
In Baghdad, a bomb at a Shabb marketplace left 14 dead and 24 wounded. A blast in Jisr Diyala killed two people and wounded 34. In Shoala, two people were killed and 16 more were wounded in an explosion at a market. A bomb in Ilam killed two people and wounded 15 more. Two people were killed and 11 more were wounded in Kamaliya. In Zaafaraniya, a blastwounded seven people. Five people were wounded in Kadhimiya when a bomb exploded in a garage near Aden Square. A blast in al-Shurta al-Rabeaa wounded 10 people. Three people were wounded in an explosion in Saba Bour. At least 26 more were killed in the attacks and another 29 were wounded.
Thirteen people were killed and 50 more were wounded in two separate bombings in Basra.
A blast targeting a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims in Balad killed 14 people and wounded 13 more. Iraqis were among the casualties.
Thirteen Sahwa members were killed and nine more were wounded in a blast that took place as they gathered to collect their salaries in Samarra.
In Hilla, a car bomb at a Shi’ite mosque and husseiniya killed 12 and wounded 26 more 256
Eight policemen were killed in Zgerdan.
In Mosul, two soldiers were wounded in a blast. A bomb targeting the head of the provincial council wounded three bodyguards. A roadside bomb in a tunnel wounded two people.
One gunmen was wounded during a clash in Jurf al-Sakhar.
Armed forces killed a militant at a barracks in Albu Ali Jassim.
Mortars struck a civilian home in Tal Afar, leaving one resident dead and another wounded.
Four policemen were killed and three more were wounded in an attack in Rawa.
A car bomb in Rutba left one dead and four wounded.
A sticky bomb killed a married couple and wounded their son in Tikrit. The father was a police officer. A car bomb delivering wounded from Baiji exploded; no casualties were reported, but the driver was arrested.
A suicide bomber in Baiji targeted a Sahwa leader. He and two others were wounded, but two bodyguards were killed in the bombing.
In Baquba, mortar fire left one dead and four wounded.
An I.E.D. wounded three people in Jalawla.
A car bomb was discovered in Kut and disarmed. A bomb explosion was reported, as well as a grenade attack.
and ....
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/iraq-veering-back-to-civil-war-as-shia-rule-with-heavy-hand-1.1397887
Iraq veering back to civil war as Shia rule with heavy handAnalysis: prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has been light on powersharing with his nation’s Sunnis and Kurds
Ever since the American invasion of 2003, the story of Iraq has been more and more the story of its three sectarian or ethnic components, its Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.
Under Saddam Hussein, and his Sunni-minority regime, it was pure despotism, war and repressive violence that kept the country in one piece. But after the despot’s fall, the three were supposed to come together in the new, “democratic” Iraq of America’s making.
Under an ethno-sectarian powersharing system, comparable to Lebanon’s long-established one, the communities’ representatives were to engage in a continuous, institutionalised “dialogue” about each one’s portion of authority and entitlement within the whole. But Lebanon’s history has shown that, when it breaks down, such a system is apt to lead to civil war; and that is what it is now perilously close to doing in Iraq.
Dialogue of the deaf The “dialogue” increasingly became a dialogue of the deaf – and of the very unequal. For, in this “democratic” Iraq, one community, the majority Shias – or, more precisely, one man, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki – have emerged just as dominant, within the ruling apparatus, over the other two as Saddam and his Sunnis were in the former, despotic Iraq.
Maliki’s is essentially a Shia regime. And though he may be an “elected” ruler, he has turned into not much less of a despot than Saddam himself. Consummate manipulator of the grey areas of constitution and law, he has amassed a positively Saddam-like array of personal powers.
Last November, with the latest breakdown in the dialogue between the central government and the Kurdish “regional government”, he sent his army to the frontiers of the Kurdish region in a confrontation that could have led – as he put it – to a full-scale “ethnic war” between Arabs and Kurds. It didn’t. But if, since then, the tension has eased on Iraq’s ethnic Arab-Kurdish front, it has been steadily growing on that other sectarian Sunni-Shia, one.
Sunni flex muscles It was in December that the Sunnis began their protest movement in their provinces of central and western Iraq. Its objective was to end the marginalisation and exclusion from public affairs which the Shia regime has inflicted on them, and restore their place in a genuinely representative powersharing system.
There were restraints on both sides. The protesters remained basically peaceable. Maliki opted for prudent containment. He seemed to expect they would eventually tire, and that the minor concessions he offered them would suffice to divide themand provide his government with a facade of Sunni participation.
But the uprising – largely spontaneous and “popular” in origin – persisted and expanded, and fell increasingly under the tutelage of tribal and religious leaders. On April 23rd, there came what may prove to have been a fundamental turning point. Government forces stormed a sit-in in the northern town of Hawija, resulting in 50 deaths, while helicopter gunships bombarded alleged Sunni insurgents in villages roundabout. The operation may have been designed to deter any resort to violence on the protesters’ part by hitting them first – and hard. If so, it had the opposite effect, and what Maliki calls the [Sunni] “sectarian conspiracy” began preparing itself for real war.
‘Burn their machines’
The Sunni provinces rang with calls for an “army of the tribes” to protect the “Sunni people”. The “Naqshabandi Army’”, led by Baathists and former members of Saddam’s Republican Guards, proclaimed itself patron of an armed “resistance” that was now “completing preparations to march on Baghdad”. The influential Sheikh Abd al-Malik al-Saadi – whom the protesters want to anoint as their spokesman – forsook his moderate tone with a fatwa declaring “self-defence” against attacking government forces to be a “duty”; “burn their machines”, he said, “and those inside them”.
After Friday prayers in Mosul recently, worshippers chanted “the people want a [Sunni] region”, after their imam told them that “we face three choices: end our protest and accept exclusion and killing at the government’s hands, establish the self-government of our Sunni areas, or take up arms for a sectarian civil war”.
If things come to that it will qualify as the second of its kind. The Sunnis essentially lost the first one in 2006-2007. This time, however, it will not be just an internal Iraqi affray, but one in which Iraq constitutes the central arena – along with Syria – of a much wider struggle as well. Maliki himself clearly sees it that way when he says that “sectarianism is an evil that needs no licence to cross from one country to another . . . and it has come back to Iraq from another place”.
By which he means Syria, where Sunnis form the backbone of the rebellion against the quasi-Shia, Alawite regime of Bashar al-Asad, and whom Iraqi Sunnis look upon as partners in their struggle against Maliki himself. And this is deeply worrying to him. For what is happening in Iraq and Syria perhaps marks a great turning of the tide in the “war of religion” which now, more than any other of its proliferating conflicts, is shaping the destiny of the Middle East.
Military solution Like Asad before him, Maliki is toying with a “military solution” to his woes, despite the Syria-like horrors that would surely entail. Should that happen, it will be hard to imagine Sunnis and Shias ever coming together again in the kind of ethno-sectarian democracy America sought to install.
And harder still when one considers the latest action of the third component of the Iraq mix, the Kurds. The Kurdish Peshmerga seized territory around Kirkuk.
Six months ago it might have been enough to trigger that “ethnic war” that Maliki warned of. If it is unlikely to do that today, it is at least partly because Maliki has the more pressing business of another war in the making .
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201352071548212347.html
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Iran Election Judges ban Ransanjani and Mashaei from standing from the Presidency in the June Election - this paves the way for conservative allies of the presiding Clerical leadership.....Iraq continue its slide toward Sunni vs Shia Civil War in Iraq.....
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