Iranian Paper Shut Down for Obama Cover

[TitsMcGee]

Michael Theodoulou

The Times of London

A Tehran news weekly that featured a smiling photograph of the American President-elect on its front cover last week and asked "Why doesn't Iran have an Obama?" has been closed down.

It appeared to be a taunt too far for Iran’s notoriously thin-skinned president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and saw the magazine Shahrvand-e Emrouz (Today’s Citizen) promptly banned by Iran’s Press Supervisory Board.

The closure of the propular reformist weekly suggests that Mr Ahmadinejad is determined to silence his critics as he prepares for elections next June that could hand him a second-four year term. Where victory had once seemed assured, now he must expect a bruising contest with an uncertain outcome.

Numerous problems, all widely covered by the Iranian media, have bedevilled Mr Ahmadinejad in recent weeks. His expansionary budget is blamed for rampant inflation, oil prices have plummeted, aides have admitted that he suffers from strain and exhaustion, and an embarrassing forgery scandal claimed the scalp of his interior minister last week.

Ironically, Mr Ahmadinejad’s chances of re-election could now lie in the hands of Barack Obama, the charismatic American beaming from Shahrvand’s last-ever front page on Saturday.

As the populist Mr Ahmadinejad realises, normalising ties with the “global arrogance” would be very popular with Iran’s electorate, even though any rapprochement would be bitterly resisted by a minority of Tehran’s radical hardliners.

Most Iranians were delighted by Mr Obama’s victory and Mr Ahmadinejad lost little time in sending an unprecedented message of congratulations to the incoming leader of a superpower that severed ties with Iran 28 years ago.

Mr Obama and his future vice-president, Senator Joseph Biden, have in the past urged unconditional dialogue with Iran. But Tehran can expect no dramatic initiative from Mr Obama when he takes up residence in the White House in January. Most analysts believe he will instead wait for the outcome of the June elections.

The tacit message to Iranian voters will be that there is a better chance of rapprochement if they elect a moderate, such as the charismatic former president Mohammad Khatami, who has yet to declare his candidacy.

“Given his (Ahmadinejad’s) considerable mismanagement of the economy, it will be difficult for him to run on the platform of economic justice and populism that got him elected in 2005,” Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in Washington, wrote in a recent paper offering advice to the next US president.

“A major overture from the United States before the elections could redeem his (Ahmadinejad’s) management style and increase his popularity,” Mr Sadjadpour continued. “For this reason, it is better for Washington to begin with cautious limited engagement with Tehran until June 2009, when Iran’s domestic situation will become clearer.”

Iran’s government clearly was rankled by Mr Obama’s keenly-anticipated first remarks on Tehran after his election triumph. Serving notice that he would be no pushover on the Islamic Republic, he declared: “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable. We have to mount an international effort to prevent that happening.”

For good measure, he told a press conference on Friday: “Iran’s support of terrorist organisations, I think, is something that has to cease.”

Iran’s foreign ministry described as “unacceptable” Mr Obama’s unproven assertion that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is aimed solely to generate electricity so that it can export more oil and gas.

At a press conference in Tehran today, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman affected official disinterest in the outcome of the American presidential elections. “We should not expect much change or development in the strategic fundamentals of US foreign policy,” Hassan Qashqavi said.

Shahrvand’s closure will help mute Mr Ahmadinejad’s domestic critics. He has received important backing to crack down on unsupportive media from Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who spoke out last week after parliament impeached the president’s interior minister, Ali Kordan.

The press had ridiculed the minister, who was forced into admitting that his much-vaunted Oxford degree was bogus. Mr Ahmadinejad had stood by Mr Kordan as the scandal intensified, but Ayatollah Khamenei declared: “This careless atmosphere of talking against the government is not easily forgiven by God.”

Nevertheless, parliament, which is led by Ali Larijani, one of the President’s key conservative rivals, made another veiled jibe against Mr Ahmadinejad’s support for Mr Kordan this weekend when it tightened the rules for people hoping to contest next June’s elections. A new stipulation requires candidates to hold the equivalent of a master’s degree from a university or seminary: it went without saying that such qualifications must not be forgeries.

Iranian media, including newspapers, news websites and agencies of all political persuasions, have been hit by a string of closures since Mr Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. But many newspapers remained relatively outspoken, provided they were affiliated to various factions within the fractious regime. Journalists critical of the system as a whole tend to blog, often anonymously.

Shahrvand had carried material that would have spoiled Mr Ahmadinejad’s Saturday breakfast on many occasions. Since hitting the stands in March 2007, it featured articles by economists critical of his policies and carried the memoirs of one of his bitter rivals, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a still highly influential former president.

Many banned newspapers have promptly re-surfaced under different guises. Sharvand was launched by the directors of a leading reformist daily, Shargh, which was shut down in August 2006 after it carried an interview with an Iranian poet resident in Canada. Her “crime” in the regime’s eyes, was more serious than Mr Kordan’s forged degree: she was accused of being a lesbian.

Maybe Obama as president will do some good...it could get this quack out of office.

[candyman]

Maybe Obama as president will do some good...it could get this quack out of office.

It is Iran though so who said that politicians were in control in the first place?

[Head Wreck]

+1

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable. We have to mount an international effort to prevent that happening.”

Are we not already doing that?

[candyman]

Are we not already doing that?

Yes we are, but just about as fast and efficiently as the UN. So I guess that would actually mean no. Hmmm...call Team America!

[Azeuron]

tell them its located on bakka lakka dakka street