Following up on this post, I want to be sure to highlight this article by Akbar Ganji on the power wielded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Religious Guide of Iran and the person Barack Obama tells us he really wants the United States to negotiate with when he is accused of wanting to sit down with president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Read the whole thing, but consider especially passages like this one:

At his first meeting with cabinet ministers as supreme leader, in 1989, Khamenei expounded a "theory of terror" that has since defined his approach to internal security issues. Based on his interpretation of the Koran and the early history of Islam, he said at this meeting, "The majority of the people in the state are silent. A selfless group of individuals can make the state endure by using terror." This theory has served as the justification for assassinating dissidents in Iran and abroad and otherwise silencing anyone who has posed an ideological challenge to the regime.

In keeping with Weber's understanding that under a sultan "traditional domination develops an administration and a military force which are purely personal instruments of the master," Khamenei has relied on the intelligence services and the armed and security forces to implement his policies -- to an unprecedented extent. After the overthrow of the shah in 1979, Iranian revolutionaries and left-wing groups called for the armed forces to be disbanded. Khomeini did not oblige, and instead he reconstituted the army, executing or dismissing many of the top commanders who had not already fled abroad. He also established a parallel military force, the Revolutionary Guards, to protect the revolution and ordered the creation of the Basij, an all-volunteer paramilitary organization to help with law enforcement, the policing of moral issues, and the provision of social services. The Revolutionary Guards developed air, naval, and ground capabilities in parallel to those of the conventional army, and they assumed command over the Basij. Still, Khomeini frequently and openly opposed its involvement in political affairs. As a charismatic figure and an established senior cleric with a solid base among the religious establishment and the pious masses, he hardly needed the military's backing.

Khamenei, on the other hand, lacks such credentials -- so much so that the conservative Association of Seminary Teachers, in Qom, refused to endorse him as a senior cleric until 1992, when the Revolutionary Guards surrounded its headquarters. Thus, he desperately needs the military's support. He has also long been interested in military and security work. He was Khomeini's representative in the Defense Ministry during the interim government in 1979, then worked on the military's joint staff, and later served as deputy defense minister. When the Intelligence and Security Ministry was created in 1984, while he was president, Khamenei argued that it should fall under his jurisdiction.

So the person Obama wants to negotiate with is a thug with a junta at his beck and call. And he needs that junta because, as I wrote previously, he doesn't have the theological or revolutionary credentials to survive politically without it. As a result, Khamenei regularly wins the contest for "Most Hardline Person In The Room."

How on Earth do we negotiate with an interlocutor for whom the slightest concession to American negotiating positions constitutes a severe lurch towards political suicide? How do we expect to make progress with a negotiating partner who does not have a vested interest in finding common ground with us because such an activity would compromise his political position?

The Obama campaign still has not answered these questions. No one in the mainstream media has asked these questions. And as of this writing, we have only a little over four weeks before the election.

Ever since Barack Obama said that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela without preconditions, politicians from Hillary Clinton to John McCain have pilloried him for doing so. Passions are particularly intense concerning talks with Iran since Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is such a polarizing figure. In an apparent attempt to ratchet down such passions, the Obama campaign has been at pains to point out that while Ahmadinejad is the president, he may not be when talks actually take place and that the real power in Iran is the Supreme Religious Guide, Ali Khamenei. Presumably, negotiating with Khamenei should be less polarizing than talking with Ahmadinejad.

But why should this be the case? Well, presumably because Khamenei's power relative to other Iranian politicians is much greater and therefore, it is more worth our while to strike a deal with him. But it is clear that Khamenei is also a useful stand-in as an interlocutor for those who believe that Ahmadinejad is too noxious a figure with whom to deal. The search for "moderates" in positions of power in Iranian politics has taken on a fabled quality and listening to some of the rhetoric concerning negotiations with Iran, one can be forgiven for thinking that those who advocate discussions with Khamenei believe they have found just the "moderate" they have been searching for.

If that is the belief, it is sorely mistaken. Those who sit down with Khamenei will likely find him to be at least as hardline as Ahmadinejad is. Indeed, the chances are good that he will be found even more unreasonable an interlocutor than the current Iranian president.

Click on "Full Story" to read more.

So let us note anew that Zimbabwe is going to Hell:

Zimbabwe's central bank on Friday outlawed one of the last functioning parts of the country's ravaged financial system, hampering businesses already brought to the brink of collapse by rapidly worsening hyperinflation.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and a close ally of President Robert Mugabe, suspended electronic transfers between banks on the grounds that they were "being used for illicit foreign exchange deals" and to charge excessive prices for goods and services. "We have no option but to take this drastic measure in order to maintain sanity in the financial system," Mr Gono was quoted as telling state radio.

With cash scarce and card payments cumbersome, businesses have relied on transfers between bank accounts to settle transactions with suppliers and receive payments from customers. The transfers take a day to be completed, making them far preferable to cheques, which require a minimum of five days to clear - by which time their value has plummeted.

If the regime of Robert Mugabe purposely wanted to annihilate Zimbabwe, it could not do a better job than it is currently doing. His incompetence, and that of his supporters, is nothing short of staggering.

I have to admit, I was a little down in the dumps over the whole "Bosniak" issue. Of course, I felt it was a duty to correct myself but obviously, admitting error is no one's idea of fun.

On the upside, however, my error on the use of the term "Bosniak" was nowhere near the error Joe Biden made in discussing Lebanon.

Well, someone has to pay attention:

The Iranian regime's assault on peaceful minority rights activists continues, and the pace seems to be increasing.

On September 10th, security agents arrested more than nineteen Azeri-Iranians -- journalists, university instructors, and poets -- gathered in a private home in Tehran for an Iftar celebration, the meal breaking the fast during Ramadan. Among them were the wife and children of jailed Azeri-Iranian minority rights activist Abbas Lisani. The same day, Hassan Rahimi, another prominent Azeri Iranian human rights defender, was also arrested in Tehran. Some of those arrested, including Rugeyya Lisani and the Lisani children, have been released. But many remain in Evin prison.

The arrests of the Azeri Iranians follow a campaign of repression targeting minority groups in Iran, including Kurds and Balouchis, as well as Azeris.

Link:

As human rights advocates gathered in New York on Monday to protest rights violations by Iran's government, the fate of two Iranian physicians who initiated their country's first comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment program remains uncertain as they languish in jail cells in Tehran.

Brothers Arash and Kamiar Alaei have been held without formal charges in the high-security Evin prison since late June, when Iranian security forces seized them from their mother's Tehran home, and have virtually no contact with the outside world, according to Susannah Sirkin, a spokeswoman for the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights.

Speakers at an international AIDS conference in Mexico City in August used the forum to appeal for the release of the brothers, who spearheaded Iran's innovative and successful strategy to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS by focusing on drug addicts. A petition for their release has been signed by more than 3,200 prominent AIDS researchers, colleagues and public health activists worldwide.

The arrest of the Alaeis is part of a wave of arbitrary detentions of professionals suspected of acting on behalf of Western interests in Iran.

Speaking on the eve of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said that "a broad crackdown on dissidents of all kinds" was one of the main features of Ahmadinejad's administration, along with a refusal "to acknowledge that anything of the sort is happening."

As always, stories like these tend to speak for themselves.

The scene: Iran, 2008. The country is suffering from an inflation rate that is close to 30%.

The remedy: A tight-money policy proposed by the governor of Iran's central bank.

The problem: Tight money interferes with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populist give-money-to-everyone policies.

The solution: Fire the governor of Iran's central bank. Which of course leads to . . .

The scene: Iran, 2008-at the very least the immediate future. The country continues to suffer from an inflation rate that is close to, if not surpassing, 30% . . .

Can we call Hugo Chavez a dictator now?

Venezuela brusquely expelled two activists from U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Friday who had accused President Hugo Chavez of political intolerance and eroding democracy during nearly 10 years in power.

State television played a video of officials reading an expulsion order to activists Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson, who were filmed packing their bags and being escorted on to a plane that took off just after midnight.

The move highlighted the leftist leader's intolerance of international criticism and may further strain ties with the United States, Venezuela's main oil customer, a week after Chavez also ejected the U.S. ambassador.

Here is the information Chavez got so upset about. It's utterly damning.

I give you this:

Iranian rights groups and lawyers have stepped up a campaign against execution of juvenile offenders hoping to save about 120 people convicted as minors who are now on death row, a lawyer behind the push said Wednesday.

Attorney Mohammad Mostafaei said five of the 120 face imminent execution for crimes they were convicted of committing as minors.

Iran is the world's biggest executioner of juvenile offenders. While a few other countries still execute minors -- including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Pakistan -- Iran has accounted for more than two-thirds of such executions in the past three years, according to international rights groups.

Mostafaei said the execution of juvenile offenders is a "blatant violation of international law" and a "flagrant breach of Iran's international obligations and commitments."

And what does one say about the government of a country that forces its lawyers to be engaged in matters like this?

You probably should not count on Barack Obama's help.

I am not excerpting any of this. The column is long but immensely useful. Go forth and read.

Wouldn't it be interesting if this turned out to be true?

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il may have suffered serious health problems including a stroke in the past month, U.S. officials believe, raising worries about the stability of the U.S. nemesis and negotiations to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Word that the reclusive leader may be incapacitated came after North Korea recently hardened its position in the delicate talks among six countries over its nuclear program. U.S. officials who discussed the situation in recent days expressed concern that they're not sure who is in charge of the country or the negotiations. Mr. Kim is not known to have taken steps to prepare for a succession, possibly setting the stage for political paralysis or a battle for control.

Any new instability in the Pyongyang government also could require other nations to count more on China as an intermediary, while opening the door for Beijing to exert more influence in the region.

U.S. intelligence is far from perfect when it comes to North Korea, and Mr. Kim could re-emerge in firm command. But he was absent from the country's 60th-anniversary celebration Tuesday, after speculation had already grown about his health because of a South Korean press report that he collapsed last month and has been visited by doctors from China.

For the record, I don't think that there is any danger concerning the North Korean nuclear arsenal in the event that Kim is incapacitated. If North Korea could survive the death of Kim Il Sung, it will survive the death of his son.

The danger, as the excerpt points out, is that Chinese influence will be dramatically augmented in the region--potentially to the detriment of that of the United States. We rely on the Chinese, of course, to assist in helping organize and move along the six-party talks aimed at nuclear disarmament in North Korea. Through that process, we accept a certain increase in Chinese influence and prestige in the region. The question is whether any power vacuum in North Korea and the internal disruption that would come with that chaos, will serve to help China not only become a regional force, but a genuine regional hegemon.

And of course, there is no talk whatsoever concerning this issue on the campaign trail. A pity; I thought that we were in the process of electing a President.

The Russian counterargument to what it perceives as Western imperialism and interference concerning issues like Russo-Georgian relations and the status of relations between Russia and other former Soviet states in general is that Russia is merely exercising its power in its own sphere of influence. Implicit in that argument is that Russia would not interfere in the spheres of other great powers and especially not in the sphere of a superpower like the United States.

Fair, right?

Well, maybe. But even assuming that it is, the Russians have decided that they don't do "fair":

Several Russian ships and 1,000 soldiers will take part in joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea later this year, exercises likely to increase diplomatic tensions with Washington, a pro-government newspaper reported on Saturday.

Quoting Venezuela's naval intelligence director, Salbarore Cammarata, the newspaper Vea said four Russian boats would visit Venezuelan waters from November 10 to 14.

Plans for the naval operations come at a time of heightened diplomatic tension and Cold War-style rhetoric between Moscow and the United States over the recent war in Georgia and plans for a U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Missile defense systems are, of course, defensive. Russian naval maneuvers can easily be seen as having an offensive purpose.

The Russian economy, the actual state of its military and Russian demographics all argue against Russia emerging as a great power threat against the United States in the near term or even years outside the near term. But it is not as if the Russians aren't trying. And the danger is that great power or not, Russia may well instigate a conflict between itself and the United States that costs lives and deteriorates security down the road.

The latest from Iran:

Iran's Central Bank says the inflation rate hit 27.6 percent in August -- a 1.8 percentage points jump from the previous month.

It's the highest figure ever released by Iranian authorities.

On the upside, at least that whole "We're Not Zimbabwe!" chant is gaining credence as the new Iranian national motto.

Oh wait . . . there is no real upside to that, is there?

Asif Ali Zardari is the top man in the country now. Obviously, nation-state interests will change very little--if at all--but the United States had better be preparing on how to deal with Zardari. Pakistan will remain something of a powder keg for the foreseeable future; there was a suicide bomb attack outside of Peshawar just today and with the continued presence of al Qaeda in the country and tensions between Pakistan and India threatening to flare up to dangerous levels from time to time, the region will need expert attention from American policymakers.

It would be nice if we got some commentary regarding the state of affairs in Pakistan from the people on the campaign trail. Alas, thus far, there hasn't been all that much of that.

Be sure to read this remembrance. And take note of this astonishingly powerful passage:

Solzhenitsyn knew the macabre, arbitrary workings of totalitarianism from the inside. In the winter of 1945, when he was fighting with the Soviet army on the Prussian front, he was arrested for being an enemy of the State. The crime? A reference to Stalin in a letter to a friend as "the man with a mustache." He was shuttled between numerous prison camps before finally being released in 1953 and sent to the desolate village of Kokterek in Kazakhstan, where he remained in forced exile until 1956.

For most of his incarceration, Solzhenitsyn was not permitted writing materials. He saw some Catholic prisoners with rosaries whose beads they had fashioned from chewed bits of bread. He employed a similar device to compose A Day in the Life. Each bead represented a passage that he would repeat until he had it thoroughly memorized. He then moved to the next bead and another passage. He committed 12,000 lines to memory using this laborious process.

In the end, mighty as he was, Stalin never stood a chance. He lost the battle against the likes of Solzhenitsyn even before the battle began to be fought.

I haven't touched on this story because I took the day off yesterday. But it is too important to go unmentioned:

Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for American forces in Iraq. A U.S. marine or soldier died in the province nearly every day, and the provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins. Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory, with some so ferocious in their views that they did not even allow the baking of bread.

On Monday, U.S. commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police. The ceremony, including a parade on a freshly paved street, capped one of the most significant turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago.

Over the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks against Iraqis and Americans has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been severely degraded, if not crushed altogether, in large part because many local Sunnis, including former insurgents, have taken up arms against it.

Since February, as the security situation improved, U.S. commanders have cut the number of marines and soldiers operating in the province by 40 percent.

The transfer of authority codified a situation that Iraqi and American officers say has been in effect since April: The Iraqi Army and police operate independently and retain primary responsibility for battling the insurgency and crime in Anbar. The United States, which had long done the bulk of the fighting, has stepped into a backup role, going into the streets only when accompanied by Iraqi forces.

[. . .]

"Not in our wildest dreams could we have imagined this," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, who flew in from Baghdad. "Two or three years ago, had we suggested that the Iraqis could take responsibility, we would have been ridiculed, we would have been laughed at. This was the cradle of the Sunni insurgency."

We are assured, of course, that this progress may be "fragile" and to be sure, things can change. But a little over one year, the thought that the surge and counterinsurgency strategy implemented by American forces could buttress and augment the effect of the Anbar Awakening and other awakenings throughout Iraq was dismissed as nothing short of ridiculous.

Now, the thought is so accepted it is commonplace. Once again, those who supported and advocated for the surge and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy--President Bush and John McCain amongst them--deserve credit for having shown a lot of guts and a lot of foresight. And those who discounted the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy--Barack Obama and Joe Biden amongst them--owe an explanation for how they could have possibly botched so important a foreign policy and national security call. As, for that matter, do a lot of other people.

Michael Totten's blog is one must-read after another. Here is the latest. Given all of the attention that is rightfully focused on events in Georgia, you owe it to yourself to check out his reporting from the region.

It is depressing to see that Robert Mugabe still has the whip hand in Zimbabwe. But it is very heartening to see that there are more and more people willing to fight back.

The cloud of war obscures much, but can anyone imagine a warfaring party that has gone as off the deep end as have the Russians? I mean, consider:

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike--100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

As threats go, this one is probably quite empty; no one actually believes that the Russians will nuke Poland over the fact that it has accepted a missile interceptor system from the United States. But the mere fact that the Russians decided to escalate the rhetoric by orders of magnitude can't help but boggle the mind. At a time when people are working to lower tensions, this "we will nuke you soon" statement will only serve to further rally international support against Russia.

As will, of course, this:

A Russian military convoy advanced to within 55 km (34 miles) of Tbilisi on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in the deepest incursion since conflict with Georgia erupted last week.

The advance by some 17 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and about 200 soldiers coincided with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to secure Georgia's signature on a French-brokered peace plan to end the fighting.

Initially 10 APCs moved along the main highway from the Russian-occupied town of Gori, 25 km (15 miles) from breakaway South Ossetia, before stopping in the village of Igoeti. Several APCs headed down side roads and seven more arrived later.

The exact mission of the incursion was not clear.

At a news conference after President Mikheil Saakashvili signed the agreement, Rice called for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces.

It's safe to say that a Russian withdrawal is not happening anytime soon--a fact that justifies President Bush's tough statements against Russia. If the war of words and attendant international tensions increase, the Russians will only have themselves to blame. They could not be doing more to outrage international sensibilities if they tried.

All of this having been written, however, it is important to keep matters in perspective:

Many in the west seem to think there is nothing to be done. Authoritarianism is back in fashion and Russia's return as a great power is one of the ineluctable geopolitical trends of the 21st century. The west must adjust to the reality, ceding the ground that Mr Putin seeks.

This analysis misses one of the paradoxes of Russia's power. The riches and political leverage provided by gas and oil have restored Russia's economic and geopolitical standing. Yet, for the medium and long term, almost all the other indicators point to a future of relative decline.

Low fertility and high mortality rates hold the prospect of a fast-shrinking population in a country where vast tracts of territory are already empty. Demographers estimate that the present Russian population of about 140m will fall by about 10m within a decade or so. By 2020 Moscow will struggle to find sufficient recruits to maintain its conscript army.

Demographic decline is mirrored by crumbling health and education systems and by decaying civil infrastructure. Corruption is rife. The present political leadership is better described as a kleptocracy than an autocracy. Vast amounts of Russia's wealth are being siphoned off in bank accounts abroad rather than reinvested at home.

The price of Mr Putin's aggressive nationalism has been to starve the oil and gas industry of foreign technology and investment. In spite of the emergence of a Russian middle class, there are few signs that the petro windfall is being used to broaden and deepen Russian prosperity.

Read it all. It is right for us to be concerned about Russian territorial depredations, but at bottom, Russia is a paper tiger seeking to relive the glory days of its Czarist and Soviet empires. Whether it is allowed to do so is solely dependent on the nature of the West's response. A robust reply to Russian aggression plus a healthy recognition of the fact that as of now, Russian power is limited in scope will likely equal an outcome that will cause the Russians to reconsider their aggression--as well as to think again about whether they really have the power to influence international events in the manner they clearly wish to.

With Pervez Musharraf apparently ready to quit, the time has come for a serious and fundamental re-examination of our relations with Pakistan. This includes an examination of our counterterrorism strategy in the region, our military and national security relations in general and the work we are doing to try to keep any conflict between Pakistan and India to a low boil at most. We have invested far too much in the person of Pervez Musharraf in the past and his departure necessarily means that American policy will be thrown into at least a semi-chaotic state for some time to come.

I would hope that there are constant and intensive contacts being established between the American diplomatic mission in Islamabad and people like Prime Minister Zardari and Ashfaq Kayani. Chaos may not merely be visited on American policy in the wake of Musharraf's departure. It may be visited on Pakistan itself and we had better ensure that we have people to call in the event that things get violent. And we cannot rule out the possibility that things might indeed get violent as the political transition process takes place in Pakistan.