Al Arabiya claims a victory over its more popular rival, Al-Jazeera, over the news cycle about Iran. Al-Jazeera has had unprecedented access in Iran, because Qatar (which owns the channel) is close to the Iranian regime, and had refrained from critical coverage. But Arab viewers wanted to see blood:
"Al Arabiya aired a shocking footage of the demonstrations and bloody clashes with the Basij and in which gunshots were heard. The video, which Al Arabiya obtained from BBC Persian, was broadcast without a comment, a rather unprecedented way of news broadcasting. For almost 10 hours, Al Arabiya kept broadcasting a rerun of the controversial video. On the other hand, al-Jazeera only ran a brief story on the clashes then moved to Somalia right away."
"Had al-Jazeera presented full coverage of the events in Iran within the framework of its usual political stance [i.e. pro-Iranian], what happened in Iran would have been a conspiracy by the West. However, because Al Arabiya came first, it became obvious to all Arab viewers that what is happening in Iran is a crime and that its regime is a big lie. Al-Jazeera was struck with a mysterious curse that turned it from a fiery, controversial channel that "stirs stagnant waters," according to its famous slogan, to a passive, timid one. Al Arabiya exchanged roles with al-Jazeera and is now the fiery, exciting channel. Al-Jazeera used to side with the people whereas Al Arabiya sided with the regimes. Now it's the other way round."
-Jon
A view from the Arab side of the Gulf. From al-Arabiya:
"In order to avoid arousing the wrath of the Iranian citizen, the regime will be forced to increase domestic spending - which will place huge pressures on the budget – so as to win over the broad angry masses. No matter what it costs it and whatever the justifications may be, the regime will refrain from raising prices."
"Major powers that support Iran, like China and Russia, will wait and reassess the domestic performance of the Iranian government. If they realize that the popularity of this regime is dropping, this would be an indication of long and exhausting problems for the regime. They will thus not risk supporting Tehran's political stands as they used to do before Iran was struck with the recent political earthquake."
-Jon
Restructuring the US intelligence community has been a "priority" since I was in first grade (born in 1986, you can do the math). Yet for all of the books, editorials, and general hand-wringing, little has actually changed.
Josh Kerbel, former intelligence analyst for the Navy and CIA and current DCI staff member, provides a convincing argument for why the USIC should not be happy with superficial restructuring and how it can do better.
Money quote:
"What's needed today is an analysis-centric, rather than collection-centric, model that would elevate the importance of unclassified information and discourage compartmentalization. It would encourage analysts to hunt and gather data, rather than living on a restricted diet of the secret -- or, for that matter, open-source -- data pellets that the current collection system feeds them. Intelligence should provide context and allow imaginative hypothesizing. Most importantly, modern intelligence would need to link analysts in partnership with policymakers, abandoning the producer-customer relationship of the past. We could then help identify opportunities, and not just threats."
-Evan
The basis of my thinking on this issue is that Khamenei, by denying Moussavi (and his backers, Rafsanjani and Khatami) the presidency, rejected a policy shift towards more liberal domestic policies and a less belligerent foreign policy.
- Jon
The history of international diplomacy is full of characters. General Patrick Hurley, FDR's man in Iran, was certainly one of them. In an interesting biographical sketch, which also doubles as a brief history of America's Iran strategy, Abbas Milani explores Hurley and his plans to turn Iran into a democracy.
-Evan
Apparently there is a new comer on the international beer market- from North Korea. I can't wait for the extra hoppy Kim Jong-Il IPA or the Kim Il-Sung Summer Wheat Ale.
Here is the full story from the KCNA:
Taedonggang Beer
Pyongyang, June 25 (KCNA) -- The beers including black beer and rice beer made by the Taedonggang Beer Factory are these days popular with the Pyongyang citizens. Beer houses are crowed with working people who look pleased with their successes in the current 150-day campaign.
It was Juche 91 (2002) that the just built Taedonggang Beer Factory began supplying beer to the citizens. The cold and soft Taedonggang beer rich in gas content immediately came into great favor among the customers by catering to their tastes. Its fermentation degree is 77.5 percent.
The beer houses distributed rationally in residential quarters regularly serve beer carried to them directly from the factory.
The refrigerator vans carrying beer have a traffic privilege on the streets of Pyongyang like cars carrying soybean milk to children.
The citizens call Taedonggang beer "cold yet warm beer" as it is associated with the warm care of General Secretary Kim Jong Il for the people.
Thanks to the informative and entertaining folks over at armscontrolwonk.com for this one.
-Evan
Her own summation of the article:
"In short, stop talking about talking and start talking with Iran."
Huh? "Talking" is not a policy. You have to talk about something, tosomeone. Do you talk to Khamenei? Ahmadinejad? Moussavi? When do you start talking? When the "dust settles" is hardly a clear answer. Will the American public even support dialogue after the current bloodshed? Do you engage in private talks? Do you talk through an interlocutor, e.g. the Swiss? Will the hardline leadership, assuming it is able to consolidate its power after this current bout of protests, even be receptive to talking?
And then the real issue- what do we talk about? It is a waste of time to talk about the nuclear issue with Ahmadinejad (I doubt Khamenei would enter negotiations). Making Iran nuclear is the cornerstone of Ahmadinjad's platform and is broadly popular in Iran. We have no common interests when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation. There is, however, always progress to be made in cooperation over Iraq and Afghanistan, two places where American-Iranian interests coincide.
But after the events of the past two weeks, the U.S. really has nothing to talk about with Ahmadinejad, or even with Khamenei. I wish things were different, because I always favor engagement. But the times call for containment. American problems with Iran are endemic within the current power structure.
What does containment mean? It means prying away Syria, continuing to support the March 14th coalition in Lebanon (which won again in the last elections), working to improve Arab-Israeli relations, improving Russian-American relations, and keep selling arms to the Saudis.
Thankfully, the Iranian people have ripped off the facade of the Islamic Republic and exposed its government to be nothing more than a loathsome sham. Ultimately, we'll have to contain Iran and wait for the current regime to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. But "talking" isn't a policy by itself, and as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to talk about as long as the current leadership remains in power.
-Jon
To piggyback on Jon's post on media coverage of the Iranian election in China, Burma, and Cuba, here are few more examples:
Russian Media: Julia Ioffe over at TNR wrote a great article on coverage in Russia. Money quote:
"Though it's impossible to generalize, there's one fairly obvious explanation for such uniformly accepting coverage: This just doesn't look like a rigged election to Russians, because Russians don't rig their elections; they engineer them."
Arab Media: Salameh Nematt at the Daily Beast and Josie Delap and Robert Lane Greene at TNR both do an excellent job of reviewing the similarities and more importantly the difference in coverage across the Arab world. (Nematt's post is here and Delap and Greene's here.)
Chinese Media: Evan Osnos analyzes Chinese blog coverage of Iran here.
-Evan
Well, no, he wasn't. But millions of Muslims are convinced that he was. Ali Eteraz has a hilarious explanation of this phenomenon.
-Jon
This is actually my favorite song sung by Michael Jackson (it's a Bill Withers cover). It's from the Jackson 5 period, and it really showcases Jackson's ridiculous talent as a singer. He's just a young teenager here, still innocent and pure. Enjoy:
