Abbas Djavadi's Notes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “A Separation” won the Oscar for best foreign language film on Sunday, becoming the first Iranian movie to win the honor.

Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, the domestic drama focuses on a couple going through a divorce and touches on traditions, justice, and male-female relationships in modern Iran.

“A Separation” was regarded as the front-runner for the foreign language Oscar after sweeping the awards circuit in Europe and the United States. It also garnered an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay but failed to win in that category on Sunday.

Full report:

via Iran wins first Oscar with “A Separation” – chicagotribune.com.

By Roya Hakkakian – “IF a war were to break out between Iran and Israel, whose side would you be on?” someone asked me on Facebook a few weeks ago, when an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was reportedly imminent.

From early adolescence, at the start of Iran’s 1979 revolution, my loyalties have so often been questioned that I’ve come to think of such suspicions as my Iranian-Jewish inheritance.

Full article:

via Iran and Israel Share Bonds – NYTimes.com.

FROM SPIEGEL ONLINE:

Such reports and statements usually only provide clues about what leaders and experts are thinking. But how do educated Iranians feel about these rising tensions and their potential for triggering a conflict?

Of course, it’s difficult to ascertain the views of Iranians. State censorship is tight, and foreign journalists are rarely allowed into the country. Nevertheless, it is possible to make contact with some Iranians. And when you speak with them, you learn something quite surprising: Even if they oppose Ahmadinejad, their radical president, most of these Iranians still view their country as the victim in the current circumstances. They also view the West as an enemy and fail to consider or acknowledge that there are massive differences between hawks in Israel and doves within the Obama administration.

Full article:

via What Iranian Elites Think: An Inside Look at Views of the West – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

For two neighbors who don’t trust each other and for centuries were engaged in fierce strategic and religious competition, it is remarkable that Sunni Turkey and Shiite Iran haven’t gone to war over their border since 1639. As Turkish leaders walk a diplomatic tightrope over U.S.-led efforts to pressure Iran into abandoning a suspected nuclear-weapons program, their overriding priority is to keep it that way.

Relations between the two former imperial powers became particularly strained after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which pitted a radical theocratic model of government against the fiercely secular one that Turkey embraced under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

So when, in 2010, some commentators and legislators in Washington began accusing Turkey of abandoning its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and “turning east” to join an ideologically driven “axis” with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turks were dumbfounded. They saw the American analysis as a facile, ahistorical take on their positions vis-a-vis Iran’s nuclear program, as well as on their efforts to build bridges with Syria and Hamas.

Full article:

via How the Iran Nuclear Standoff Looks From Turkey: Soli Ozel – Bloomberg.

Well argued and written though I don’t think this is THE Iranian, but just ONE Iranian view, and as I believe, one suitable for Western readers while still defending the Iranian position. But I do not believe that those in the corridors of the Beyt, the House of the Supreme Leader, share the approach of Mr. Mousavian as described here.

The past six U.S. presidents have employed a policy of sanctions, containment and deterrence against Iran. Earlier in his tenure, President Barack Obama tried to change course by offering instead to engage, stressing “diplomacy without preconditions.” Two years later, however, the talk in Washington is of an inevitable coming war.

This is entirely the wrong direction for the U.S. to be taking. The consequences of a military strike on Iran would be catastrophic for the U.S., Iran and Israel.

Whether Iran should be able to build its nuclear program cannot be dealt with separately from the larger issue of the confrontational relationship that Iran and the U.S. have had since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In his recent memoir, former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said he doubted policy makers in Washington were ever truly interested in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, but that they sought instead to achieve isolation and regime change in Iran.

Regardless of whether ElBaradei was right about that — and having sat at the other side of the table as an Iranian nuclear negotiator, it seemed that he was — it’s safe to say there won’t be a solution to the Iranian nuclear dispute as long as officials in Tehran and Washington continue to base their relationship on escalating hostility, threats and mistrust, particularly if the ultimate U.S. goal is regime change.

Full Article:

via How the U.S.-Iran Standoff Looks From Iran: Hossein Mousavian – Bloomberg.