No one can but rejoice at the release of Japanese-American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi from Tehran’s Evin Prison today. I have met personally with students once incarcerated in Evin and let me assure you a stay in Iran’s most famous jail makes Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, however you conceive them, seem like the Four Seasons. The former prisoners I interviewed had faces that looked like early cubist Picasso’s from their beatings. One had had his brother murdered in a nearby cell.
Nevertheless, it’s worth speculating on the timing of the release of Ms. Saberi, who originally had a one-day (closed) trial and then suddenly had a five-hour (closed, of course) appeal that turned an eight-year sentence into a two-year suspended sentence. I’m no expert on the internal workings of the mullocracy, but it strikes me they are not in as great a position as it would seem at this moment. The Arab states are getting fed up with them and are more than a little bit concerned about Iranian nuclear ambitions. Israeli PM Netanyahu is about to arrive in Washington. Conventional wisdom goes that the Israeli PM is on the hot seat with an increasingly unfriendly US administration. That is certainly true to a serious extent. But oddly enough, the Iranians, paranoiacs par excellence, may not be perceiving it that way. They may see themselves as suddenly boxed in by a burgeoning alliance between (largely Sunni) Arabs and Israel with US backing. Hence – they have sent a signal. You see, we’re not such crazies. Of course, as we all know, the subtext is – leave us alone to build our bomb. Let’s hope the Obama Administration pays close attention to this behavior. [Are you optimistic?-ed. Are you?]
UPDATE: For those of you who thought Maoism was dead, it may be finished in China but it’s alive and well on Salon with Glenn Greenwald, who writes of reactions to Saberi’s release: “It simply would not be possible for his brain [Eli Lake in the New Republic] to process the fact that what he’s describing as the hallmark of an uncivilized country is that which the U.S. does repeatedly and in far more oppressive ways than what Iran did in the Saberi case. In that regard, he is a typical American journalist.”
[How do you think Greenwald would react if he were incarcerated in Evin Prison?-ed. I hope it's not in Section 209.]
Great news for Ms. Saberi and her family.
Whatever the reason for her release, you know it wasn’t out of the goodness of anyone’s heart.
Virtually nothing this administration has done in foreign policy to this point should inspire much optimism. Israel is on its own, and when the time comes (gotta be soon, right?) they’ll do as they have to.
Hopefuly the 2 yr. Probation will allow her to leave the country immediately, as the Iranians like the game of Chess & a Paun is a Paun like a fox is a fox.
Will be interesting to hear Washington’s take on this change of sentence, however thankful we all are to see it happen.
I’m grateful that she has been released and can try to recover her life and livelihood.
I hope that at some point in the future she will address the fact that she knowingly continued reported in Iran after she knew that her permit for doing so had expired.
The glory ride of her release should not be used to conceal the liberalese that got her arrested in the first place: dual citizenship didn’t protect her, even as she was playing “the good liberal person who really doesn’t hate Iran, but wants everybody to understand what the mullahs really mean” or whatever was going through her head.
We live less than 2 hours from her home town, and I have yet to hear a single reference in local media hoopla about the fact that she was knowingly violating Iran’s laws for several months before she was arrested. They just want to make it all shiny and wonderful. She took a chance and lost. And is very, very fortunate to have her life back.
Iran’s government ain’t nice. Now maybe she knows that.
The mullahs are manipulating those naive Westerners who are going out of their way to say nice things about the radical Iranian regime. Cynically, a lot of people are going to believe Saberi’s release means we can work successfully with these thugs. Obama will most assuredly hint that his administration deserves some credit for engaging in quiet, behind the scenes, “soft power” diplomacy. Totalitarians like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin were also masters at throwing an occasional bone to the gullible.
The diplomacy, no doubt, included a bribe of the Iran-Contra variety. Eventually that will leak out although the news media is unlikely to report it.
Roger, this is great news, but keep in mind: it is a common tactic in diplomacy to create a continuing irritant towards a party you’re in negotiations with. The irritant can be removed at will, as a symbol to trade against tangible concessions.
Every power, including the USA, does this. I suspect that Saberi was being held partially as a diplomatic poker chip. Coming right before the PM visit, it could be interpreted as a part of a diplomatic thaw.
That poor woman will probably be traumatized for some time but at least she has her life back.
Sorry, Roger, but Maoism is far from dead in the Middle Kingdom (at least from what I can see out my window). Otherwise, your post was on the mark.
Thanks for the background on Iran’s Evin prison. For contrast, readers may wish to check out Christian Amanpour at CNN today — she actually says that Iran gave Saberi a “slap on the wrist”. If America had incarcerated a journalist she’d be the first in line suggesting it was confirmation that America is a Nazi state. When it comes to her cherished Iran, kangaroo courts, torture jails, and international extortion are a mere “slap on the wrist”. It’s insane analysis like that after the Islamic Revolution which has resulted in the gathering storm of global Jihad, Muslim nukes, and 9/11. We’ve been sold down the river by countless wicked apologists and politicians who continue to lie, whitewash, andinimize the enoities committed by Muslims across the spectrum and across the globe.
“and minimize the enormities”
Apologies – posting on the iPod tonight — lame.
Perhaps it has nothing (or not much) to do with external situation and a lot to do with internal one – with soon-to-be presidential elections and with pre-electoral accusations of corruption, errors, economic idiocy and so on flying every which way in IRI this month.
Just a thought.
Iran needs to be stopped. It’s within your power to help.
Right now Iran is in trouble economically, mostly due to the recent collapse in the price of oil. Now is the time to hit them in their wallets.
* Get in touch with every business you know of that is doing business with Iran and let them know that they’ve lost you as a customer until they cease their connections with Iran.
* Boycott every business that does business with Iran.
* Send copies of your correspondence to the media and your favorite blogs.
* Get the word out – Forward this to as many people as you can, post this on websites, blogs, facebook, etc.
Go here for a list of businesses working with Iran
Lets stop Iran now!
DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on Guns Politics Defense from Israel
“what he’s describing as the hallmark of an uncivilized country is that which the U.S. does repeatedly and in far more oppressive ways than what Iran did in the Saberi case”
Christ, what an ass is Greenwald! If there were a shred of truth to the above he would have been beheaded long ago.
@ 14
How is it not true? Does america not imprison foreign nationals indefinitely at places like Gitmo anymore?
Derek #15:
If I’d only known that Gitmo was filled with poor suffering al Qaida journalists like Derek did, I probably would have voted for Obama too.
Emboldened by their America loathing Master, the insane Left no longer bothers to conceal theor abject hatred for America. Equating Iranian actions incarcerating journalists and students with incarcerating terrorists rounded up on the battle field only reveals a sewage mind spewing sewage thoughts.
To all of you that write in such negatives regarding America and are living here ,” WHY “, return to your countries. I am refering to those that ran from
the failure of their countries to have a democratic way of life, as we have had, till you have infiltrated ours with your hatred & terrorist culture. Keep in
mind if you succeed in this direction you will destroy this safe haven you came too for freedom of oppresion. Have a peaceful life
A known sock-puppet and useful idiot, Greenwald is also a crashing bore.
Derek: foreign nationals? You meant to say freedom fighters, I’m sure, because Gitmo isn’t exactly teeming with Japanese tourists and touring polka bands. They are terrorists. In fact, that’s sort of the whole point; these are not uniformed soldiers fighting under a particular nation’s flag – they are unlawful enemy combatants who kill indiscriminately in service of their ideology. The belief that infidels like Derek, Lightnin’, Roger, even Glenn Greenwald either must be murdered or submit to slavery. Not to worry though, AG Holder may be able to get some of them released right here in America, maybe even your hometown. Keep those fingers crossed.
The Iranian regime was, is, and will continue to be a religious thugocracy until we somehow convince the Mullahs to leave power, or remove them. In the book “Reading Lolita in Tehran” there’s a particularly revolting sequence in which one of the author’s students recounts that one of her female friends was arrested on the street by the religious police for the crime of being too pretty (essentially the religious cops wanted to have sex with her, and trumped this up), taken to prison and raped repeatedly, and the finally she was executed (after a short show trial) for promiscuity. From what I understand this sort of behavior by the government and its minions isn’t rare, and no one does much to stop it.
The problem here is the risk/reward ratio in the Muslim world is rather lopsided. When/if a Muslim leader devises a way for his country to destroy Israel, and implements such a method successfully, that leader will quite quickly become not just a popular leader in his own country: every Arab and Muslim yearns for the day when the “Arab Nation” is unified, and the destroyer of Israel will be the one who leads the new country. Other leaders will (some of them anyway) protest, but they’ll be swept away by the mob. Then, of course, the rest of the world had better look out, because they’ll imagine they can conquer the world, and they’ll try. Not a pleasant thought, is it?
They had to release her. Even the Iranian government didn’t think this was right.
“They had to release her. Even the Iranian government didn’t think this was right.”
You really think they released her because it wasn’t “right”? One would then have to also think they would have released her if there hadn’t been so much publicity. Somehow, I’m not buying it.
@ 21
They did not have to release her. Many other people in Iran did not get released although the accusations of spying/working for western interests/working against islamic republic were not true.
As for Iranian government – it does not care what is true or not true, it cares what is good for the government and at the moment the release was good propaganda for Antarinejad (:-)) government.
The Obama haters lost a chance to disgorge in criticism.
I told you no one knows what goes on behind the curtains . . .
Wow, you’d think people here would be happy whatever but they just can’t pass up a chance to toss their sole two cent’s worth of foreign policy expertise.