The Middle East Studies Association's letter of protest to the government of Iran, telling it to "grant her [Esfandiari] access to legal counsel and family members, and allow her to return to her family in the United States as quickly as possible," is not unwelcome.
It would be better, though, if the MESA, as well as other scholarly organizations like it, also protested so-called "democracy assistance" conducted to further US geopolitical designs, not just with regard to Iran but across the board. No academic organization has come out against that yet.
* <http://www2.irna.com/en/news/view/line-22/0705220331013754.htm> Today: Tuesday May 22, 2007 Intelligence Ministry elaborates on Esfandiari's arrest Tehran, May 22, IRNA
Intelligence Ministry-Esfandiari
Public Relations of IRI Intelligence Ministry here Monday elaborated on detainment of Haleh Esfandiari.
In Intelligence Ministry's communique, a copy of which was delivered to IRNA, we read, "Intelligence surveys on efforts made by certain US institutes, foundations, and organizations aimed at influencing the developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran reveled certain facts for us."
It adds, "The truth of the matter is that those bodies are under the umbrella of such titles as democracy, human rights, and...playing the role that their intelligence and information services used to play against countries in question in the past."
The Intelligence Ministry announced, "Regarding Mrs. Haleh Esfandiari, too, we point out that she is the head and founder of the Middle East Program of Wilson Center in the United States, whose budget is allocated by the US Congress."
"That center is the connection ring between the Iranians and the US organizations and foundations whose main objective is fortifying the social trends that act in line with the interests of the aliens. For instance, Ramin Jahanbeglou, who was one of the guests of this center, had been chosen by the NED Foundation, relying on the cooperation of other US foundations, theoretized the model of East Europe's collapse, matched it with the situation in Iran, and tried to pursue it as a project."
The Intelligence Ministry reiterated, "In conducted research Mrs. Esfandiari has pointed out that the center's activities and programs related to Iran were sponsored and financed by the famous Soros oundation, that is a US foundation owned by George Soros that has played key roles in intrigues that have led to colorful revolutions in former USSR republics in recent years."
The Ministry's Public Relations has furthermore stressed, "Relying on cooperation of Mrs. Esfandiari the head and representative of the US based Soros Foundation in Iran was identified and an arrest warrant was issued for him, the complementary research about the matter still continues."
The Intelligence Ministry announced, "In primary interrogations, she reiterated that Soros Foundation has established an unofficial network with the potential of future broader expansion, whose main objective is overthrowing the system."
According to those elaborations, some of those foundations send invitations to Iranian thinkers to give lectures, participate at seminars, or to present research projects, allocating budgets to such activities... trying to choose active partners in our country and link them to the decision maker circles and organization in the United States.
"In this respect the unseen key role played by certain intelligence agents and undercover officials in pushing forth the objectives of such projects is to be noted."
The Intelligence Ministry reiterates, "Although the short term objectives of the above mentioned foundations are mainly lined to their apparent activities, their mid-term objectives include a type of culture making, foundation making, and network establishment in the country, and their expansion in the long run, that is seriously pursued."
At the end, the Intelligence Ministry points out, "The ultimate goal of those foundations, too, is to fortify those networks at fields that are of interest for them and reaping the fruits of such activities in due time, that is nothing but people's confrontation with the system. This US designed model with its hallucinating and chanting sign is aimed at soft overthrowing of the system." 2329/1771
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/21/AR2007052100774_pf.html> American Scholar Is Charged in Iran Tehran Accuses Her Of Seeking to Topple Ruling Establishment By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 22, 2007; A08
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/world/middleeast/22iran.html> May 22, 2007 Iran Accuses American of Revolution Plot By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/21/AR2007052101180.html> Iran see "soft revolution" in U.S. academic's work Reuters Monday, May 21, 2007; 5:48 PM
** The best known recent examples are the USG and its allied NGOs' activities in post-Soviet Eastern Europe:
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1206sussman.htm> The Myths of 'Democracy Assistance': U.S. Political Intervention in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe by Gerald Sussman
We are at present working discreetly with all our might
to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of
the clutches of the local nation states of the world.
-- Arnold Toynbee, 1931
One of the notable shifts in post-Soviet world politics is the almost unimpeded involvement of Western agents, consultants, and public and private institutions in the management of national election processes around the world—including those in the former Soviet allied states. As communist party apparatuses in those countries began to collapse by the late 1980s and in almost bloodless fashion gave way to emerging political forces, the West, especially the United States, was quick to intercede in their political and economic affairs. The methods of manipulating foreign elections have been modified since the heyday of CIA cloak and dagger operations, but the general objectives of imperial rule are unchanged. Today, the U.S. government relies less on the CIA in most cases and more on the relatively transparent initiatives undertaken by such public and private organizations as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Freedom House, George Soros's Open Society, and a network of other well-financed globetrotting public and private professional political organizations, primarily American, operating in the service of the state's parallel neoliberal economic and political objectives. Allen Weinstein, who helped establish NED, noted: "A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."1
*** Iran's history explains the paranoid streak. For that, see Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley: University of California, 1993, <http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6c6006wp/>):
The British, determined to undermine Mosaddeq from
the day he was elected premier, refused to negotiate
seriously with him.
For instance, Professor [Ann] Lambton, serving as a
Foreign Office consultant, advised as early as November
1951 that the British government should persevere in
"undermining" Mosaddeq, refuse to reach agreement with
him, and reject American attempts to find a compromise
solution. "The Americans," she insisted, "do not have the
experience or the psychological insight to understand
Persia."[32]
The central figure in the British strategy to overthrow
Mosaddeq was another academic, Robin Zaehner, who
soon became professor of Eastern religions and ethics at
Oxford. As press attaché in Tehran during 1943-47,
Zaehner had befriended numerous politicians, especially
through opium-smoking parties. Dispatched back to Iran
by MI6, Zaehner actively searched for a suitable general
to carry out the planned coup.[33] He also used diverse
channels to undermine Mosaddeq: Sayyid Ziya and the
pro-British politicians; newspaper editors up for sale;
conservative aristocrats who in the past had sided with
Russia and America; tribal chiefs, notably the Bakhtiyaris;
army officers, shady businessmen, courtiers, and members
of the royal family, many of whom outstripped the shah in
their fear of Mosaddeq. Helped in due course by the CIA,
Zaehner also wooed away a number of Mosaddeq's
associates, including Ayatollah Kashani, General Zahedi,
Hosayn Makki, and Mozaffar Baqai.[34] Baqai, a professor
of ethics at Tehran University, soon became notorious as
the man who abducted Mosaddeq's chief of police and
tortured him to death. MI6, together with the CIA, also
resorted to dirty tricks to undermine the government,
one of the more harmless ones being the rumor that
"the communists are plotting against Mosaddeq's life and
placing the responsibility on the British."[35]
It is therefore not surprising that the 1953 coup gave rise
to conspiracy theories, including cloak and dagger stories of
Orientalist professors moonlighting as spies, forgers, and
even assassins. Reality -- in this case -- was stranger than
fiction. These conspiracy theories were compounded by
the fact that some Western academics did their best to
expurgate from their publications any mention of the CIA
and MI6 in the 1953 coup. In fact, recent autobiographies
reveal that the shah often subsidized British and American
academics whose publications tended to reinforce the court
view of modern Iranian history, especially of the 1953 events.[36]
-- Yoshie