The Iranian Answer, Continued
The Iranians extended their response to American diplomatic overtures by arresting another American in Iran. Ali Shakeri, who ironically works as a peace activist in Irvine, California, now faces charges of espionage and potentially the death penalty:
The United States confirmed that a missing Irvine peace activist has become the fourth Iranian American detained by Iran on suspicion of espionage, and warned U.S. citizens against traveling to the country."American citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran," the State Department said after confirming that Ali Shakeri, who has been missing in Iran for more than two weeks, is being held at the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. ...
Shakeri, a founding board member at UC Irvine's Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, had been scheduled to leave Iran and fly to Europe in the first half of May.
The UCI-CCP advertises itself as "tak[ing] an integrated approach to studying the best grassroots peacebuilding methods in both domestic and international conflicts, and utilizes those findings in direct engagement in peacebuilding projects in neighborhoods in Orange County and Los Angeles, California as well as in selected communities in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and the former Soviet Union." It hardly seems the place for nefarious espionage activities, especially knowing the general political direction of UCI. In 2004, for instance, they gave a Peacebuilding Award to Mikhail Gorbachev, hardly a fan of American influence in the Persian Gulf.
However, the next year, they gave the award to Iranian ex-patriate Shirin Abadi. She has campaigned against human-rights abuses in Iran and for greater democratization there. The Iranians consider her a threat, and likely they consider any organization which honors her as an equal threat.
Ironically, Ali Shakeri has championed expanded diplomatic efforts between the US and Iran. Now he may become the center of a diplomatic effort to get himself and three other Americans released before the Iranians can execute them. This seems like a pretty clear answer to the recent efforts by the Bush administration to quiet its critics by pushing for diplomatic talks with the mullahcracy in Teheran.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on June 1, 2007 8:43 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments (7)
Posted by rbj | June 1, 2007 9:29 AM
I wonder if this will change Ali Shakeri's tune, or will he somehow blame George Bush for it?
Posted by Joe Doe | June 1, 2007 10:04 AM
In all honesty, I cannot fanthom how anyone care anymore about Iran, Irak etc - when the president is ready to sell the USA (since the Saudi sales did not go through, America itself is next). The amnesty should be top issue if there is a chance of a chance to save the country. May be too late, but at least the Captain can said that he tried.
Nobody will remember about peace activists in Iran a year from now - they are trained and capable to conduct their own negotiations with the mullahs that are pressing so hard on our throats - a chance of a lifetime to prove their ideas on their own dime. However, we will remember the sheer stupidity of being silent.
12 millions illegals - how do you know that? What if they come to 40 millions. Aaah, well, a little mistake. And above all, how much will it cost -really- the tax payer.
It is time to forget Democrat and Republican, the justice of the Iran/Irak/Korea whatever wars. Time to bring the troops home and kick all the royalties out of their cushions. Time for a reality check.
Posted by Joe Doe | June 1, 2007 10:13 AM
In all honesty, I cannot fanthom how anyone care anymore about Iran, Irak etc - when the president is ready to sell the USA (since the Saudi sales did not go through, America itself is next). The amnesty should be top issue if there is a chance of a chance to save the country. May be too late, but at least the Captain can said that he tried.
Nobody will remember about peace activists in Iran a year from now - they are trained and capable to conduct their own negotiations with the mullahs that are pressing so hard on our throats - a chance of a lifetime to prove their ideas on their own dime. However, we will remember the sheer stupidity of being silent.
12 millions illegals - how do you know that? What if they come to 40 millions. Aaah, well, a little mistake. And above all, how much will it cost -really- the tax payer.
It is time to forget Democrat and Republican, the justice of the Iran/Irak/Korea whatever wars. Time to bring the troops home and kick all the royalties out of their cushions. Time for a reality check.
Posted by NahnCee | June 1, 2007 11:51 AM
If their names aren’t Smith or Jones, why should we care? If a bunch of Iranian immigrants to America CHOOSE to return to that place to “visit their mothers”, I do not see why the United States of America should go out of its way to fix it for them, should bad things then happen. Even the ex-FBI guy *choose* to go there. It’s not the same thing as the embassy take-over or the Brit sailors being abducted, when they were there minding their own business because they had been ordered to be there. THEN the country needs to stand behind its citizens.
It’s like *choosing* to climb Mt. Everest and then expecting expensive heaven and pricey earth to be moved if you get stuck having done something stupid. Sometimes people die because of Darwinian stupidity, and to me, have successfully escaped from a Very Bad Place and then re-entering it of your own volition falls under the heading of “doing something stupid”.
Especially if you're a moonbat peacenik given to blaming everything on America and/or Bush in the first place.
Posted by Paul A'Barge | June 1, 2007 2:13 PM
Nuke Iran. Now.
Posted by Fight4TheRight | June 1, 2007 9:23 PM
Maybe I'm confused here. But are you trying to tell me that the Iranian government can find 4 Americans who are in fact, Iranian immigrants to America, in a land of hundreds of millions of Iranians and yet, we in the U.S. are supposed to believe that we can't find 12 million illegal aliens?
Lemme see if i got this right. it took the Iranian government 2 weeks to find one Iranian American in a country of what....80 million....yet we can't locate a single illegal alien here when there's 12 to 20 million in a land of 300 million?
Do I have the math wrong?
Posted by Rick Caird | June 2, 2007 3:11 PM
How much of this comes back on ABC for publishing the story of US non lethal operations in Iran? For a country as paranoid and unstable as Iran seems to be, this is both a propaganda act and a self preservation act. I suspect without the ABC story, none of these arrests would have happened.
Rick