Here are four quick unrelated items, including a link to a very well written article in the Ottawa Citizen.
One. The Ottawa Citizen has an excellent article about the imprisonment, torture, and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Iran's infamous Evin prison. The author Michael Petrou went to Iran under a tourist visa to secretly interview other Evin inmates there at the time Kazemi was beaten to death and the following cover up. The story is just very well researched and written. Go read it.
Two. Why is everybody going after the Chalabi-Tehran connection now? Not like, why are people making a big deal out of it at all, but why now? The first time I read the accusation in the press was about a month ago, and I had heard something about it a little before then even. I know the DIA just chimed in, but there doesn't really appear to be any new information. And with the way rumors are so quickly turned into fact this year, you would think last month's breaching of the item would have attracted more attention.
I am still not 100 percent convinved of this though. Bremer and Chalabi have been on bad terms, and Bremer is the one who signed the warrant to raid the house Chalabi was at. But I also wouldn't handing over some intel to the Iranian past Chalabi if it helps him gain power in Iraq. While the Bush administration currently has a more ideological position against making deals with Tehran (one that I happen to agree with), Chalabi doesn't. He is probably willing to do anything to get things to settle down to prevent Lakhdar Bramihi's plan from going into action that would lock Chalabi out of the future government.
I've been waiting for Juan Cole to say something about the Chalabi-Iran link, but so far he has remained silent on it (except for a psssing mention). If Chalabi has become an Iranian asset, even if only temporarily, that would seem to lend credibility to the idea that Iran is meddling in Iraq and that they do have a larger intelligence operation running in Iraq too. Cole has already been fairly straight forward in denying this, despite the evidence piling up including the latest report by Italian intelligence describing a wide-spread Iranian effort to destabilize the country. What is Cole's evidence to the contrary? A quote by Iranian Presdent Khatami saying that Iran wants a peaceful Iraq to emerge. And we all know how much control Khatami has over the country and how we can take his word for it.
Three. Here is a quick example of how the web of political funding can lead to some strange connections. The Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI), a Texas-based group dedicated to holding a referrendum on the Tehran leadership, and its founder Aryo Pirouznia has recently been sued for $10 million to shut it down by Kerry's main Iranian-American fundraiser, Hassan Nemazee (the same Nemzaee that was nominated to be ambassador to Angentina, but fell though). Nemazee has been a part of a few different groups that favor normalization of relations with Iran, including the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and formerly the American Iranian Council (AIC) -- same effective group, but different names. The brouhaha started when Pirouznia refered to Nemazee as a "discredited and well-known agent of the Islamic Republic," speaking figuratively. Nemazee filed suit for libel (and the usual list of other stuff lawyers throw in for free). SMCCDI has organized small demostrations against Kerry fundraisers that feature Nemazee, calling him a "traitor" to Persians everywhere. Who funds the AIC and NIAC? Halliburton is a large contributor since they stand to gain considerably from having trade restrictions lifted. So there you have it. A leader of a Halliburton funded suing another group that attacks Kerry's fundraising. The New York Sun has more: "Iran Feud Roils Bush-Kerry Contest" (sorry for the indirect citation, but the NY Sun site is down).
Four. Goli Ameri won the Republican primary for the first district of Oregon and will take on David Wu. Ms Ameri was born in Iran, and would be the first Persian to serve in Congress is she wins in November. She defeated further right Timothy Phillips, whose mother if of Indian descent and origin, and Wu is also an immigrant -- so OR-1 seems to be quite American in that regard. However, Ameri has taken some heat as most of her funding has come from Iranian-Americans out of state, but she has built up quite a warchest.
However, the most interesting part is that she is a self-described supply-sider and she seems to understand what it really means -- not just piling up tax credits and new deductions, but reductions in marginal rates and the cost of capital. For that, I will try to find time to send her a letter about how we need more strong people who really understand the supply-side/classical paradigm to get out there to almost play defense against those that abuse the term for their own desire to hand out special tax benefits to their campaign doners (if I have enough time, maybe even in my own abysmal Persian). Besides that, she is a fairly moderate Republican and she seems to know what she is talking about. And her bullet-point to "promote an international exchange rate regime based on economic fundamentals and free markets, ensuring that a single country cannot artificially manipulate its exchange rate to create a short-term competitive advantage that distorts world markets" makes me think she's even read some of suppl-side father and Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell's writings on the the need to get back to a sound currency policy.