Iran’s missile attack after the US assassination targeting Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, and Hashd Shaabi Commander al-Muhandis in Baghdad has opened a new era in the region.
The United States thought there was not a country that could respond with its military until Iran’s missile strikes targeted its bases.
Iran’s strikes have brought political consequences that have destroyed the American prestige, which is more than military action.
Iran’s proxy organizations threatening the US’s interests in the region have now further encouraged the fight against the United States.
Iran’s strike has destroyed the taboo of «the invulnerable United States», which happens to exist in many anti-US organizations in the region.
Nevertheless, all the reasons, such as Iran’s strength, brave decisions and its readiness for war, have forced America to remain silent about this attack.
The targeted killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week broke an old taboo: Finally a US president held Iran responsible for the proxies it uses to kill Americans.
Candidate Trump also promised GOP hawks and the overwhelmingly pro-Israel evangelicals that he’d undo President Barack Obama’s catastrophic nuclear deal with Iran.
Of late, brave young Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest against their corrupt rulers and Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
Since September, more than 500 Iraqis have been killed for opposing the Iranian satrap-state that rules them.
The departure of US forces would restore the regional dynamics to their natural state, in which Iran is a Persian Shiite power surrounded by a sea of Sunni Arabs, more keen for revenge than ever, after the depredations suffered over the last two decades in Iraq as well as Syria.
He was focused on his signature foreign policy initiative — the Iran nuclear deal.
In time, Obama came to see the anti-ISIS campaign as a way to join US and Iranian interests.
Together they would fight ISIS — or any Sunni that the Iranians defined as ISIS.
In effect, US troops were used as a constabulary force to police Iraq on behalf of Tehran’s new Middle East order, stretching from the Straits of Tiran to the port of Beirut.
The Iranians were happy to have American forces stay in Iraq, so long as they kept their weapons pointed at Sunnis in open rebellion against the Baghdad government.
When Trump re-imposed sanctions crippling the Iranian economy, Soleimani directed Iraq’s Shiite militias to target US forces and eventually the American Embassy; he wanted to break the president’s will.
In November 2018, 250 mostly Iranian American Jews gathered at the Iranian American Jewish Federation for a first-of-its-kind program: the Taboo Summit.
The project was an outgrowth of the fifth cohort of the Los Angeles-based Iranian Jewish organization 30 Years After’s Maher Fellowship — a six-month leadership-in-training program developed by and for young-professional Iranian American Jews ages 21-35.
Persian Jews, said Sam Yebri, co-founder of 30 Years After , are «to some extent tethered to the trauma of our families leaving Iran, and the Old World mentality and norms that grow out of that. … balancing what it means to be an American and maintaining Iranian traditions».
When many Persian Jews left Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and came to the United States, they started over.
The Maher Fellowship is designed to fill this gap by training young Jewish Iranian American professionals to «take responsibility over the millennia-old narrative and heritage that they have, that was actively suppressed by the fact that they were immigrants and refugees in America,» said Tabby Davoodi, 30YA’s first executive director.
The intention, Youdeem said, was to «start from our grandparents in Iran, our parents’ transition and to our generation, to start telling that story,» which many young Persian Jews have not heard before.
« to some extent tethered to the trauma of our families leaving Iran, and the Old World mentality and norms that grow out of that. … balancing what it means to be an American and maintaining Iranian traditions.» — Sam Yebri
In addition to the Taboo Summit, Maher fellows encounter and connect with experts, thought leaders, politicians and influencers in the Jewish, Iranian and greater American communities, and participate in a fully subsidized trip to the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D,C.
President Hassan Rouhani urged Iranian lawmakers to «cooperate» with his government in a speech on Wednesday during the inaugural session of the new parliament following February elections swept by conservatives.
Iran is scheduled to hold a presidential election in spring 2021.
The signing of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme in 2015 had raised hopes for a bright economic future and an opening up of the country to the world after years of isolation.
But these hopes were dashed before being totally buried in 2018 when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord and began reimposing sanctions on Iran.
But he said the Iranian nation had stood up against «the enemy» and that its resistance had won.
The president praised his government’s performance in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak as a source of «great pride», adding that Iran was «among the countries that have succeeded».
Iranian theater director Hossein Parsaee calls Victor Hugo‘s classic a «masterpiece without borders» but his groundbreaking production of «Les Miserables» that has hit the stage in Tehran has a few unique twists.
This is, after all, the capital of the Islamic republic, even if the blockbuster show in the luxurious Espinas Hotel feels a world away from the usual stereotypes about Iran.
There is, for instance, always at least one other voice accompanying an actress when she sings — since female solos are taboo — although spotting the second voice can be tricky.
Read also: Iran sees ‘revival’ of imperiled Lake Urmia
Foreign-made TV, film and cartoon versions of «Les Miserables» — a French 19th-century epic on sociopolitical tumult, crime and punishment — have been frequently shown in Iran, where the book has also been translated.
The new production is being hailed as the most spectacular play yet staged in Iran, and arrives at a topical moment with the ongoing «yellow vest» protests in France.
The play has come at a volatile moment in Iran, when anger at economic inequality and corruption dominates political debate.
Tickets, priced between 500,000 and 1.85 million rials , are beyond the means of most Iranians.
‘No taboos broken’
Much of the show seems to run against Iranian taboos, not least the mixed dancing and drinking in brothels and inns.
No taboos were broken».
«I was depressed for days, thinking why can’t we do this? I vowed to myself that I would one day make a musical in Iran».
«I’ve opened the door on musicals in Iran, and now, like a relay race, others must advance it to a point that there won’t be any difference between Iran and Broadway».
Mr Nasr said the most important thing right now about talks on Afghanistan is the breaking of the taboo.
This is significant that the US has broken the taboo — now the talks are on the table.
There are some positive signs: the taboo is broken, Pakistan and the US are on the same side, and Iran, Russia and China will also like the US to leave.
Iran, Russia and Hezbollah will not accept that.
On the subject of economy in the region vis-à-vis China, Mr Nasr said the Chinese are interested in ways Europeans are trying find ways around sanctions on Iran.
It wants to do trade with Saudi Arabia and Iran, but doesn’t want to even help bridge the gap between them.
Although weightlifting has always been one of Iran’s medal-winning fields in the Olympic Games and Asian Games, almost all Iranians consider this as a male-dominated sport.
But now the taboo is being broken.
With the emphasis of the International Weightlifting Federation and the Iranian federation’s consultation with the Ministry of Sports, women’s weightlifting was officially started in Iran, and finally a number of Iranian women participated in the 2019 Asian Women’s Championship for the first time.
Poupak Bastami, 27, was the first Iranian female weightlifter who competed in 2019 Asian Women’s Championship in China while wearing hijab.
Perhaps setting a total record of 143kg is a good one, but everyone is hoping Iranian female weightlifters would make more significant progress in the future and even win a medal.
Q: The presence of Iranian women with hijab has attracted the attention of many media and weightlifting officials.
Iranian activists have called the early release of Vida Movahedi a «huge victory» for women in the Islamic Republic after the protester was arrested in March for her opposition to compulsory hijab laws.
Omid Memarian, Deputy Director at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, told Newsweek that Movahedi, like the African American civil rights figure Rosa Parks, had reset the expectation for what was acceptable in Iran with her protest.
«What she did was enormous, in any movement the first one who stands up, like Rosa Parks, breaks a huge taboo.
The image of Movahedi brandishing a white hijab from a stick during street protests that rocked Iran at the end of 2017 into the beginning of 2018 became a rallying call on social media for other women to protest mandatory dress laws in the Islamic Republic.
Memarian said, like Parks who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger in 1955, Movahedi had redefined debate in Iran.
Movahedi was initially arrested during protests across Iran in December 2018, when she removed her headscarf on Tehran‘s Revolution Street.
A growing number of women in Iran are protesting against the mandatory hijab by waving their headscarves on the streets of Tehran. #WhiteWednesdays #GirlsOfRevolutionSt — IranHumanRights.org January 29, 2018
She was later arrested in October 2018 while standing on a dome in the middle of Revolution Square in the Iranian capital waving her hijab.
Her early release came after intense public pressure was brought to bear on the Iranian authorities.
While activists welcome her release, the allowances made for Movahedi buck the trend as the Iranian regime, buckling under the pressure of U.S. sanctions, cracks down on dissent.
Compulsory hijab protesters Yasaman Aryani and her mother Monireh Arabshahi remain in detention for their activism, while at least 32 women have been arrested in Iran since 2018.
Four women including Movahedi in total have been prosecuted for protesting Iran‘s hijab law since last year.
Under Iran‘s legal system, women found not to be wearing an Islamic hijab in public places face a sentence of between ten days to two months’ imprisonment or a fine.
The US has abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, which would have prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons for at least 10-15 years; begun withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty ; and, as part of a massive nuclear force modernization program, restarted production of low-yield nuclear warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles .
Iran is the foremost example, as its nuclear weapon ambitions are linked in part to creating a credible deterrent against the regional nuclear capabilities of the US and Israel.
The JCPOA was intended precisely to freeze Iran’s program, and the torturous negotiations to that end were, in degree of difficulty, second only to those with North Korea.
Currently, Iran continues to uphold the essential obligations covered under the JCPOA, but US withdrawal has given it cover to resume its nuclear program, notably uranium enrichment, which it has threatened to do by July 2019 after announcing recently that it was suspending compliance with other provisions of the agreement.
The closer Iran gets to a workable nuclear device, the more its case will resemble that of the North Korean nuclear negotiations.
Of the many reasons to be concerned about Iranian proliferation, one of the gravest is that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions provide incentives to other regional states to acquire nuclear weapons.
For Saudi Arabia, this is no mere speculation: the government has publicly stated that Iranian acquisition of nuclear bombs would, «without a doubt,» cause Riyadh to develop its own nuclear deterrent.
As for Turkey and Egypt, they represent a lower proliferation threat, but, given the regional balance-of-power dynamics attendant to a nuclear Iran and Saudi Arabia, Ankara and Cairo would closely examine going nuclear.
North Korea as a nuclear problem case goes beyond the fact that it possesses nuclear weapons, but rather how it plans to use them; its strategy, speaks to an important consideration about the international community’s current problem with nuclear nonproliferation, arms control and the taboo on nuclear use.
Perhaps the US believes the trade-offs are worth it—that the erosion of the institutional and balance-of-power bulwarks against nuclear proliferation by more states is outweighed by the perceived value of punishing Iran and fielding modernized US nuclear forces against China or Russia.
The text of this article was generated by the Breaking The Silence system that collected 9 news articles posted on the web from January 2019 to September 2020 and clustered for the taboo subjects related to Iran
