Everything you know about Iran is wrong

Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What’s the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime’s founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were “un-Islamic.” The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that “developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam.” Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini’s statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.

Read on From Zakaria in Newsweek

Slumming

‘Slumming’ was the name given to the thousands of white middle class voyeurs crossing boundaries of race, class and sexual orientation to trip into the worlds of the poor on their dorstep. There they learnt to drop the restraints of respectability and savoured an often salatious sense of sex and discovery in the period of prohibition. The jazz raged, the ‘pansies’ preened, but after the party what was the effect on the communities they visitied? Laurie talks to the author of Slumming, Chad Heap, and the writer Bonnie Greer about the impact that the wild white adventuring in urban areas had on sexual and racial politics in America.

Listen to this 30 minute piece from BBC4’s Thinking Allowed

Out of Africa?: Foreign aid is part of the problem, but so is corrupt politics

Between 2002 and 2008, sub-Saharan Africa started growing again, buoyed like much of the rest of the world by the global commodity boom and Chinese investment. Thus ended one of the most dismaying periods in the continent’s recent history, a generationlong stretch during which most countries in the region saw per capita incomes fall, sometimes to levels not experienced since the end of colonialism.

Read on from Francis Fukayama’s contribution to Slate

Re-Stalinisation of Russia

Laurie Taylor discusses what is being called the re-Stalinisation of Russia on today’s Thinking Allowed. According to exiled Russian academic Michail Ryklin, Putin’s Russia is turning the clock back and rehabilitating the most famous demon of the Soviet Union.
In a new book, he claims that although the Soviet Union proclaimed itself an aethist state, communism functioned as its religion, and when faith faded it was replaced by mass terror. But now memories of the terror and bloodshed have receded and Stalin is being reclaimed.

Listen to this 10 minute interview with Ryklin

Russia approves presidency bill

A bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years has been backed by Russia’s upper house of parliament after regional assemblies endorsed it.

All the Federation Council senators present backed the assemblies’ decision to lengthen the term, the last step in the legislative approval process.

Last month, both the lower house and upper house approved the bill.

The bill’s rapid progression is being seen as a sign Vladimir Putin may return to the presidency soon.

The changes needed the backing of at least two-thirds of the country’s regional legislatures but were approved unanimously, according to Russian news agencies.

Read on from the BBC

Is Calderon Swine?

The Mexican government’s initial reaction to the outbreak of swine flu does not inspire confidence. Practically speaking, its slow response has allowed the disease to spin out of control, leading to up to 100 deaths in Mexico and 20 cases of infection in the United States. From a political standpoint, Mexican President Felipe Calderón appears to be using the outbreak to consolidate his power.

Read on from Slate