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The invaluable website Enduring America (see link above) has published the comments of Iranian Grand Ayatollah Montazeri on a set of contemporary political issues. Montazeri was, together with Ayatollah Khomeini, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic. He later became critical of the way it was developing and was dismissed by Khomeini. Montazeri spent years under house arrest but has become even more outspoken in the wake of the June elections. These comments were made on the day before 13 Aban (November 4 in the Western calendar), the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and the beginning of the 444-day hostage crisis.

Here are some excerpts:

The seizure of the America Embassy in the beginning of the Revolution, which was supported by most of Revolutionary classes of people and the late Imam Khomeini, was also supported by me. However, due to the negative consequences and the excessive sensitivity that this has provoked amongst the American people which still exists today, it is evident that this was a mistake… .

If national interest calls for relations with America, tensions and distrust must not be aggravated by empty slogans. It is obvious that Israel and its lobby in America have been and will be completely against the Iranian-American relationship and find their interests in the continuation of the current crisis between America and Iran. It is unfortunate that statesmen of the country do not pay attention to this fact… .

It is obvious that with the crisis that the government created after that “magnificent” election [of 12 June], it cannot negotiate with the powerful governments of the world from a strong position… .

I believe that, in a wise and calculated decision, the government can immediately free all the political prisoners, free all the press, and strip away the prejudices of government institutions and universities. It can replace this with a hiring process that looks at those who are capable and deserve their positions. With such a revolutionary and pious decision, the government can return the lost authority of the establishment. It is through this [solution] that the establishment can negotiate with the powerful nations with power and authority… .

A government that keeps its people unsatisfied, oppresses and desecrates rights of people, and imprisons a large group of educated scholars and political activists with unknown accusations cannot claim to be in a struggle against the imperialists and imperialism. Without attending to public dissent to gain the support of people, without revival of the rights of all classes and freedom of the journalists and media, fighting imperialism is impossible and impractical… .

I spent all day today at the conference on “Iran After the 2009 Elections” that was hosted by the University of Maryland’s Roshan Center for Persian Studies and The Sadat Chair for Peace and Development. It was a star-studded event and is available in its entirety on streaming video. My own participation was on the second panel, dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, which you can watch at the above link (I appear at the 48th minute). For all three panels, go to http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=2001 If you have a real interest in what is happening in Iran today, this is a very good place to start.

Christiane Amanpour of CNN, on her new show for CNN International that bears her name, put together a 30-minute show featuring former hostage John Limbert, myself, and (from Tehran) Ebrahim Asgharzadeh who was the mastermind of the embassy takeover in 1979. It was broadcast today.

Also of interest, on the website is some footage shot in the newsroom after the program of a three-way conversation between Limbert, me and Amanpour that expands the discussion considerably. You can see it at the link above.

Incidentally, on the day after this was filmed, John Limbert assumed a new post as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the U.S. State Department.

Mahmoud Vahidnia, a star math student at one of Iran’s most prestigious universities, took advantage of a visit by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, to deliver a face-to-face 20-min critique of the actions of the Islamic Republic and of the institutions run by Khamenei himself. One of those institutions is the national TV network, which was broadcasting the event live but turned off the cameras when they discovered what was happening. This link from the blog of LA Times reporter Borzou Daragahi includes a photo of the event and embedded video of the response of Khamenei and of his fellow students. Despite concern for Vahidnia’s safety, he insists he has not been arrested. Heroes come from the least likely places…

As some may know, I have a long association with Human Rights Watch. Recently HRW has come under attack for its reporting on Israel. Below is the text of a letter from the Executive Director of HRW, Ken Roth, which was published in Haaretz newspaper, replying to these charges:

Critics of Human Rights Watch’s work on Israel raise three main points. First, they say we disproportionately focus on Israel, and neglect other countries in the Middle East. Second, they claim our research methodology is flawed - relying on witnesses with an agenda. Third, as recently expressed by our founding chairman Robert Bernstein, they argue that we should focus on “closed” countries such as China rather than “open” societies like Israel.

I reject all three claims.

Human Rights Watch currently works on seventeen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iran, Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia. Israel accounts for about 15 percent of our published output on the region. The Middle East and North Africa division is one of 16 research programs at Human Rights Watch and receives 5 percent of our total budget. Israel is a small fraction of what we do.

Our war coverage in the region has documented violations by all sides. No international human rights organization has done more to highlight the war crimes of Hezbollah and Hamas, challenging their leaders and the Arab public to think critically about the unlawful conduct of these groups. Our Civilian Protection Initiative, launched five years ago, has sought the support of Arab civil society leaders to discredit terrorist attacks.

The research methodology employed in these wars is the same we use around the world: in-depth private interviews with multiple witnesses. We corroborate their accounts with field visits, ballistics evidence, medical records and other means. Unfortunately, since late 2008, the Israel Defense Forces have refused to meet with us or answer any of our detailed written questions.

The problem of witness intimidation is not new, and we take it into account.

Contrary to the claims of some critics, in Gaza we found there were Palestinians who would speak about violations by Hamas. Palestinian victims and witnesses of abuse were the primary source for a report we published on Hamas torture and executions - a report cited publicly by the Israeli government.

We apply the same international human rights standards to all countries, open and closed. We work extensively on China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but we also investigate abuses in the American criminal justice system, police killings in India, “disappearances” in Sri Lanka, and migrants’ rights in Europe. All governments, regardless of their political system, are obliged to uphold the same international norms.

At the heart of our critics’ arguments lies the view that we should hold Israel to lower standards. There is no dispute that the country was founded on the ashes of genocide and is surrounded by hostile states and armed groups. But some believe that these circumstances give Israel’s democratic government the right to take whatever steps it deems necessary to keep the country safe.

A country’s conditions do not remove its obligations under international law, though. Whether a state is an aggressor or acting in self-defense, whether it faces a regular army or insurgents that commit abuses, the laws of war apply, imposing a duty to minimize civilian harm.

And being a democratic country prevents Israel from committing wartime abuses no more than it stopped the United States from torture and unlawful detentions at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

The serious Israeli abuses we documented also put the country at greater risk. By failing to hold those responsible to account, Israel increases anger and resentment among the Palestinian population and in the wider Arab world, and undercuts moderates who wish to pursue peace.

Our critics have every right to challenge the substance of our findings on Israel or any other country, though they rarely find errors. But if they want to challenge repressive regimes and combat armed groups that terrorize civilians, they will not serve that cause by trying to exempt Israel from human rights laws that are the best defense against such abuse. Nor does it help to attack those organizations that are working to uphold those laws around the world.

The writer is executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The Ahmadinejad regime just hit an Iranian-American scholar with a 15-year prison sentence. The Daily Beast’s Gary Sick on his role in the case—and why it’s proof of Tehran’s moral bankruptcy.

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Last week, an Iranian-American colleague of mine, Kian Tajbaksh, was sentenced in Tehran to 15 years in prison. The indictment included the charges that (1) he was in contact with me; (2) that he was part of the Gulf/2000 network that I manage; and (3) that I am an agent of the CIA.

Normally, I simply ignore silly accusations such as this. They are nothing new. On one hand, it has been intimated that I must be under the influence of Iranian intelligence (by prominent neoconservatives who believe that my views on Iran’s political development and especially its nuclear program are not sufficiently alarmist). I have also been accused (by such worthies as Hossein Shariatmadari, the ultra-radical editor of Iran’s Kayhan newspaper, who is also a representative of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei) of being a CIA agent. I regard these insinuations as badges of honor, since they merely confirm that I do not subscribe to the ideological extremes of either of these groups. I have always felt that my reputation could speak for itself and required no public defense.

However, this time the accusations are really not about me but about a friend and colleague. Moreover, they are not just newspaper hyperbole by people who have an ax to grind and whose desire to make a political point exceeds their respect for the truth. These assertions are a matter of law—an official indictment by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is often said that it is impossible to prove a negative. How do I prove that I am NOT an agent of the CIA? How do I prove that the Gulf/2000 Internet project is NOT engaged in overthrowing governments? How do I prove that Kian—a friend and a colleague—was NOT trying to lead a “velvet revolution” against the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Let me simply reverse the questions. I spent 24 years in the U.S. Navy—my only connection with the U.S. government. The Navy sponsored my education at the University of Kansas. It took me to the Persian Gulf for my first exposure to the region that has become my professional specialization. It sponsored my graduate work for a Ph.D. degree at Columbia University. And it paid my salary while I was on the National Security Council staff at the time of the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis. I never received a paycheck from any other agency of the U.S. government. Do the prosecutors in Iran have evidence to the contrary? If so, please let me know.

There are a number of commentators on Iran, such as Reuel Gerecht, Graham Fuller, and Bruce Riedel, who indeed worked for the CIA. Although their political views disagree sharply, they always identify themselves as former CIA employees. I do not identify myself that way for the very simple reason that I never worked for the CIA.

The prosecutors charge that Kian was in touch with me. Right. We were both academics in New York, and we saw each other from time to time. However, I have gone back over the past 20 years with that in mind, and I am struck by something quite different. Over that period of time, I have known every Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and many members of the staff of the Iranian U.N. mission. I have spent much more time with them than with Kian.

More important, I have been in meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on four different occasions over the past three years. I have spent at least nine hours with him, much more than I ever spent with Kian. In my last meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad, I told him that if he were simply a lowly academic, instead of the president of Iran, he would be subject to arrest upon his return to Iran for meeting with the roomful of U.S. academics and think tank representatives that he had assembled at his hotel. He scoffed at the idea. Now one of my colleagues, a lowly Iranian-American professor who was about to take up a position at my university, is being condemned to 15 years in prison because, among other things, he had contact with me.

Iranian security officials are notably lacking in any sense of irony or humor. But I do wonder whether President Ahmadinejad is being considered for indictment because of his extensive contacts with me over the past four years.

The Gulf/2000 network is an Internet project that began 16 years ago to facilitate communication and information sharing among individuals who have a professional association with issues involving the Persian Gulf. It includes individuals of widely differing backgrounds and opinions, including both private citizens and government officials from countries around the world, including Iran. If any Iranian government official wishes to know about G2K, as we call it, he need only consult his colleagues who are members.

G2K is routinely cited in international conferences in Tehran and elsewhere as a reliable source of informed commentary and factual information about issues involving the Persian Gulf. It is limited to specialists, but it is not a secret. It includes individuals of every possible political persuasion. And it is not engaged in overthrowing governments.

The indictment against Kian is in fact an indictment of the legal and security structure of the Iranian government. The charges are false, deliberately false. They consist of a series of political fabrications devoid of even the flimsiest effort to verify the truth.

These accusations cast shame on any institution that professes respect for justice and law. They substantiate the words of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, one the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, that this government is no longer either Islamic or a republic but merely the latest in the shabby succession of Middle Eastern military regimes. These charges remind us of the excesses of the Stalinist show trials and the abominations of the Chinese Red Guards—examples of revolutions that betrayed their own ideals.

This is not about Kian, and it is certainly not about me. It is about the abject failure of a ruling clique that has lost the confidence and support of its own people and must contrive scapegoats to excuse its own deficiencies.

Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.

A brief peek at Iran’s youth culture by a writer who spent the summer there “crashing on couches.” Bottom line: there is no agreement about anything among the members of the coming generation.

A tough but fair appraisal of the situation in Iran today, with some perceptive thoughts on what has brought Iran to this point. The author, Ahmad Sadri, is a first rate analyst and an Iranian-American who is committed to a less repressive Iran.

How much do you really know about Iran’s nuclear program and how much is just hype? Joseph Cirincione, a specialist on nuclear policy and the president of the Ploughshares Fund, explores five myths.

On October 15, IPF National Scholar Dr. Steven L. Spiegel interviewed Professors Gary Sick and Mohsen Milani on negotiations with Iran.

Professor Sick is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Professor Milani is a Professor and Chair at the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida.

Listen to the interview here.