Aadel Collection

In Iran, a Hostage-Taker Is Now Hostage

          
          Robin Wright -- In IlBn, Mohsen MiMamadi Is a Target of His Own Re , ,, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp.dyn/oontent/artioleI2009/08/07/AR...
          Sign In I Register Now
          TODAY'S NEWSPAPER
          Subscribe I PostPoints
          TOOLBOX
          J Resize Print E-mail
          Yahoo! Buzz
          XV EMAIL MARKETING
          FREE FOR 60 DAYS !
          COMMENT
          20 comments i VlewAII s
          POST ACOMMENT
          You must be logged in to lea e a comment. Log
          in I Register
          t lWhyDo I Naveto Log In Again?
          Post
          j Discussion Policy
          WHO'SBLOGGING :‘nvcrcdbySphart
          Links to this article
          r - beIqtess . Slate Explor. Now ‘
          > APPLY NOW
          NO ANNUAL FEE
          YOUR FIRST YEAR.
          NEWS POLITICS OPINIONS BUSINESS LOCAL SPORTS ARTS & LIVING GOING OUT GUIDE JOBS CARS REAL ESTATE RENTALS CLASSIFIEDS
          SEARCN: Q (/%eshingtOnpOstcOm rweb Results by ( ,(‘) Ie I Search ArchNes
          ceshingtonpost.com > Opinions > Outlook & Opinions
          In Iran, a Hostage-Taker Is Now Hostage _____________
          By Robin Wright
          Sunday, Augu 9, 2009
          Last week Iran's theocracy widened its crackdown from
          suppressing an opposition movement to putting on trial
          the very revolutionaries who launched the Islamic
          republic. This new purge may be more profound
          politically than the campaign against the followers ofMir
          Hossein Mousavi: The Iranian revolution is eating its
          children.
          Mohsen Mirdamadi saw it all coning He warned me
          about it five years ago. The only thing he didn't foresee
          was his own role. Last week, he sat in a revolutionary
          court, dressed in gray prison pajamas, as one of its
          victims.
          I've followed Mirdamadi since the 1979 U.S. Embassy
          takeover. In 1981, I stood below the plane that brought 52
          American diplomats to freedom in Algeria and wondered
          about the type of people who seized, interrogated and
          brutalized hostages for 444 days. Mirdamadi was one of
          three ringleaders. Former hostage John Limbert remembers
          him as “particularly nasty.” I met him a decade ago.
          A surprisingly small man, Mirdamadi
          took the powerful chairmanship of
          parliament's national security and foreign
          relations committee, a platform he used
          to advocate political openings, freedom of
          assembly and speech, women's rights,
          and an independent press, albeit within _________
          the boundaries of Islamic propriety. He
          launched the newspaper Norouz - - or ___________ _____
          New Year -- which advocated the rule of ____________ ______
          law and challenged authority. Ultimately,
          the authorities charged him with libel,
          subversion, “encouraging hooligans to
          Like many early revolutionaries, Mirdamadi had evolved over the intervening two decades from
          a scruffy student radical into a balding, pinstnpe-suited realist. In 2000, he ran for parliament as
          a reformer.
          “Our emphasis originally was on winning independence from foreign influence and creating an
          Islamic state,” he explained at the spartan headquarters of the Islamic Iran Participation Front,
          just two blocks from the old U.S. Embassy. “But today our emphasis is on freedoms Our
          tactics have shifted, too. Before, we carried out a revolution. Today, we're trying evolution.”
          Innovations i i News P
          Acisertisement Your M Here
          The flumCw4Eum
          Arncrkais Pspre OPEN'
          fli
          I ,
          LEAftN HOW
          SUCCESSFUL
          BUSINESSES
          CAN BENEFIT
          . r lrrHr ?
          TRADE T MS ON
          V iRTUALLY
          EVERYWH E
          OPEN
          Calling all buuatzslvdrnnr
          • Police Officer
          OLD BETHPAGE, NY- NYPD
          • Part-Time Package Handler(Night )
          HARTFORD, CT- UPS
          • Part-Time Package Nand icr
          HARTFORD, CT- UPS
          • Part-Time Package Handler lEntry Level )
          FARM INGVILLE, NY- UPS
          • CommunityConcierge
          STAMFORD, CT-AVALON BAYCOMMUNITIES
          SEE ALL JOBS
          keywords location
          Jobs by Sins
          FIND JOBS
          Me tvtwftington j 1oøt
          t
          EARN UP TO 3 FREE NIGHTS WITH 151 PURCHASE.
          TI-IF STARWOOD PREFERRED GUEST CREDIT CARD FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS ‘
          1 of 4
          8/10/2009 10:5 1 AM
        
          
          Robin Wright -- In IlBn, Mohsen MiMamadi Is a Target of His Own Re , ,, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp.dyn/oontent/artioleI2009/08/07/AR...
          undermine public order” and propagating FEATURED ADVERTISER LINKS
          “moral decadence.” The paper was Attorney, Asbestos Lung Cancer, Failed Cochlear Implants
          banned. La er: Mesotheliom FentanM, H droxycut, Pain Pumps
          Save Up To 75% On Cruises at Vacations To Go
          Unrepentant about the hostage drama he
          Debt destroyIng your day?NewDebt Wise helps you decrease your
          nevertheless urged better relations with debt!
          Washington. “Once enmity with America
          Ads byGoogle
          was in line with our interests,” he said in
          2002 “but it is not like that today. Our Amazing Deals at JCPenney
          Hot Buss at Your Hartford Store H urry GrsbThem While They Lsst!
          interests today lie in detente with JCPenneycom
          America.”
          Mirdamadi came to represent the forces
          that carry revolutions into their final
          phase, what Crane Brinton in his classic “The Anatomy of Revolution” called “the
          convalescence.” But he apparently went too far. When he registered to run for reelection in
          2004, he was disqualified by the clerical Council of Guardians despite his fame. Dozens of
          incumbents and some 2,500 others were also disqualified. Mirdamadi led a mass resignation of
          124 parliamentarians, almost half the total, in protest. It was the beginning, he told me a few
          months later, of what he feared would become a “bloodless coup.”
          In 2006, he became leader of his party, the largest reform faction. In 2008, he backed Mousavi
          for president. And in June, he was among the first arrested when Iran's uprising erupted. While
          Mirdamadi was in parliament, Amnesty International issued 13 “urgent action” appeals asking
          supporters to write him demanding the release of political prisoners. Last month, it issued an
          appeal about him -- as a political prisoner.
          Mirdamadi sat in court last week with 100 others, including a former vice president, cabinet
          members, presidential advisers and spokesmen. An Iranian news agency said some may face
          charges of being “mohareb,” or God's enemy, which can carry the death penalty. The best-ease
          seenano is that, after more “confessions,” they are pardoned but banned from politics and their
          parties dissolved.
          The irony -- one of many in the current crisis -- is that the purge taking place to prevent an
          allegedly foreign-backed “velvet revolution” may in fact spur one. President Mahmoud
          Ahmadinejad's inaugural speech Wednesday was full of inane bluster. “We must play a key role
          in the management of the world,” he told parliament.
          But the regime only looks more desperate with each passing week. Tens of thousands of
          security forces had to be deployed in Tehran to preserve order on inauguration day, yet
          YouTube snippets still showed Iranians on crowded subway escalators shouting “death to the
          dictator” for all to hear. The widening polarization of society will make it difficult for
          Ahmadinejad to rule during his second term.
          “The goals of the revolution are being forgotten as this government becomes more of a
          dictatorship,” Mirdamadi said, predicting the current turmoil. “But people still want change.”
          eontaet ( robinwright.net
          Robin Wright, aformer Washington Post reporter and apublic policy scholar at the Woodrow
          Wilson International Center for Scholars, is the author offour books on Iran.
          More ye to share this Article...
          Reddit Twitter
          dig g
          myapace delicious
          digg it
          NewsTrust Stumble RI
          Understand more about:
          c m _
          parliament I Islamic Iran
          2 of 4
          8/10/2009 10:5 1 AM
        

Download Attachments:

Show More

Related Articles

Back to top button