Friday, April 26, 2013

Iran unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards is turning theocracy into military dictatorship

Iran unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards is turning theocracy into military dictatorship
Ali Alfoneh's seminal treatise on IRGC, its history, influence and possible future.

Watch video clip here




Speaker Biographies

Ali Alfoneh is a former resident fellow at AEI and a doctoral candidate at the department of political science at the University of Copenhagen. His research areas include civil-military relations in the Middle East, with a special focus on Iran and the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the politics of the Islamic Republic. Previously, Alfoneh was a research fellow at the Institute for Strategy at the Royal Danish Defence College and taught political economy at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Southern Denmark.


Karim Sadjadpour is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joined Carnegie after four years as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Washington, DC, and Tehran, where he conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iranian officials and hundreds more with Iranian intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries, businessmen, students, activists, and youth, among others. He is a regular contributor to BBC TV and Radio, CNN, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, and Al-Jazeera. He has also appeared on the Today Show, Charlie Rose, Fox News Sunday, and the Colbert Report, among others. He contributes regularly to publications such as The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Policy. Frequently called upon to brief US, EU, and Asian officials about Middle Eastern affairs, he regularly testifies before Congress; has lectured at Harvard University, Princeton University, and Stanford University; and has been the recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fulbright scholarship.

 

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

گاهشمار تمام سنگي 2500-3000 ساله
 
 
بنايي با معماري‌ خاصي در «نقش رستم» وجود دارد كه از زمان حمله اعراب به ايران به اشتباه، نام «كعبه زرتشت» را به آن دادند، چون كاربرد واقعي آن را نمي‌دانستند. آن زمان فكر مي‌كردند كه هر ديني بايد براي خود بُتكده يا عبادتگاهي داشته باشد، براي همين فكر كردند اين بنا هم مركزيت يا كعبه زرتشتيان است.
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در ديوار داخل اين ساختمان لغت «کعبه» حکاکي شده است. در کتاب‌هاي زرتشتي آمده است که حضرت زرتشت «زاراتشترا» در اين محل، نيايش مي‌کرده است. اعراب، لغت کعبه را از پارسي پهلوي گرفتند. همان‌طور که در زمان داريوش کبير به كشور «عمان» امروزي «مکه» مي‌گفتند؛ بنابراين كلمه مكه نيز فارسي است.
در محاسبه روز نوروز در کتب زرتشتي نوشته شده است که زرتشت در اين رصدخانه، محل شروع نوروز را محاسبه کرد. نوروز در روز اول فروردين از محلي شروع مي‌شود که اولين اشعه آفتاب در آنجا بتابد. بر اساس برآورد گاهنامه زرتشت، هر 700 سال يک‌بار نوروز از ايران شروع مي‌شود. آخرين‌باري که نوروز از ايران شروع شد، 300 سال پيش بود. در سال 1387، نوروز از پاريس و بروکسل و در سال 1388 ار تورنتو و نيويورک شروع شد. سال آينده هم نوروز از محلي بين آلاسکا و هاوايي شروع خواهد شد.
از زمان حمله اعراب به ايران تا به امروز، يعني قرن بيست و يكم ميلادي، كاربرد و تعريف اين بنا كشف نشده بود. خوشبختانه پژوهشگر ايراني «رضا مرادي غياث‌آبادي» كه تحقيقات فراواني در زمينه ايران باستان داشته است، نتيجه كشف خود را در كتابي به نام «نظام گاهشماري در چارطاقي‌هاي ايران» توسط انتشارات «نويد شيراز» به چاپ ر

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Reza Pahlavi clarifying some  issues with regards to Shoraye Melli, invitations, the eventual committee and other relevant issues.


Monday, March 25, 2013

Prince Reza Pahlavi speaking at IWP - Democratic Transition in Iran Conference

A desperate regime

Is the regime getting more desperate as they see the noose tighten around their necks? With the increase in pressures from sanctions becoming a bane of the regime's existence, at least economically, and the newfound hope among the people with the beginning of a strong and popular National Council (Shora Melli) which has Reza Pahlavi's endorsement and perhaps a realization that the regime may be too far from achieving their goal of finally possessing a nuclear weapon, its top echelons especially Seyed Ali Khamenei have become more belligerent and agnostic in their approach and speech. This new aggression and abrasiveness was seen in his threatening words towards Israel and talk of demolition of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

One may see this as foolish saber rattling given the disparity in Iran's military capacity and Israel's (and by default, at the very least American, if not NATO's or some sort of allied forces). But we must not forget the regime sees a great opportunity in creating a war where not only it hopes to rally some support from Iranians but also a chance to use this as a way to cleanse their ranks of unsavory people such as Ahmadinejad's faction or those who may support even a slight deviation from their path. The bonus would be an excuse to insist the miserable economy is not the result of not only sanctions but also war, to the less informed populace mostly in rural areas of the country.

This reckless and destructive tendency to freely threaten our territorial integrity and well being of Iranians only to sustain their regime a few months more, and basically risking nearly everything in Iran in the process is nothing new. But the fear arises from the increasing chances of such conflicts actually coming to pass. This may be pre-empted and a war date may be advanced by a very reckless behavior and action by the more ideological and hardline factions among Sepah (IRGC) and perhaps Khamenei himself.