diplomacy

Middle East

My new article on Egypt-Iran film controversy

There have been quite a few interesting developments in the Egypt-Iran diplomatic tiff stemming from “Execution of the Pharaoh”:

Once the film hit YouTube it was quickly discovered to be little more than a series of clips pinched from an older Al-Jazeera documentary. So in addition to being tedious, the Iranian group behind the film, the Committee for Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, are also plagiarists. It seems they just changed the name and slapped on a dedication to Eslamboli.

Secondly, the group behind the film is now announcing that their site has been banned inside Iran. I think this shows how embarrassing the episode for Iran has been. Also last week, Iranian diplomats at the interest section in Cairo have revealed and offer they made to open a branch of Al-Azhar University in Tehran in an effort to improve Sunni-Shia understanding. It seems like what the Iranians thought to be a charm offensive backfired, and ended up upsetting the Egyptians even more.

I’d been following all these developments but not posting on them because I was doing a freelance article on the subject – cant give away all my golden analysis for free. The piece for ISN Security Watch is now online here. I’d love to hear what you think.

In other news, my family has just purchased a Nintendo Wii. Needless to say posting will be light.

UPDATE: article link was broken due to a site re-design over at ISN.  The new link is now up.

Iran

AP: US-Iran trade booming

The AP released an article today reporting that “U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold during President Bush’s years in office.”  The top export was cigarettes but they also included “brassieres, bull semen, cosmetics, fur clothing, sculptures, perfume, musical instruments and possibly even weapons.”   Here’s how it breaks down by state

But here’s the real bombshell:

Sanctions are intended in part to frustrate Iran’s efforts to build its military, but the U.S. government’s own figures show at least $148,000 worth of unspecified weapons and other military gear were exported from the United States to Iran during Bush’s time in office. That includes $106,635 in military rifles and $8,760 in rifle parts and accessories shipped in 2004, the data shows.

If the US can’t even get a handle on what it sells to Iran, how does it expect other countries to do so?  I can’t wait till Bill O’Reilly gets ahold of this.