Book Review: The Shadow Commander by Arash Azizi

Today, as never before was such a need for intellectual clarity and extensive information about the main actors - political, military, other - in the Middle East. Despite the abhorrent character and crimes perpetrated by some, it is important to know to whom belong those names that suddenly make it on the Breaking News. 

The Shadow Commander. Soleimani, the US and Iran´s Global Ambitions by Arash Azizi is a noteworthy and the first substantial research in English on the biography of the general Qasem Soleimani, killed in an American drone attack at the beginning of this year near Baghdad International Airport. 

A ´boy from the margins of the society´, a provincial karateka, his seamless raise on the top of the revolutionary Iran hierarchies and complicated intrigues occured during the Iran-Iraq war and further on, by leading various local operations in his native Kerman. Since January 1988 he was appointed on the top of the Quds - from Arabic al-Quds, ´the Holy one´ referring to the city of Jerusalem - Force that he will lead until his death, turning it ´into the most ambitious expeditionary army in the history of the modern Middle East´.

The soldier-diplomat Soleimani become feared and appreciated - depends on which side of the Sunni-Shia divide one´s stand - for his bloody attacks he perpetrated and the direct, sometimes spontaneous, involvement in various local battles. His death was celebrated openly in Iraq and Syria where his survival victims were still having fresh memories of his attacks. In Iran, a majestic set-up was ordered and display, soon after massive protests all over the country ended in a brutal crackdown. Soon after, the authorities hit accidentally - but refused to acknowledged for a long time - an Ukrainian airplane killing the 176 passengers on board, mostly young people searching for a stable and brighter life in Canada. Indeed, while busy to play bloody cards in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, what a big achievement of the Islamic Revolution and its proxies to be the cause of the massive brain drain in the country´s history!

The current minister of Foreign Affairs, Javad Zarif, is portrayed - frequently and uncritically - as a fine diplomat, aimed to charm and sometimes charmed too, by a Western audience. He may have been more than once in conflict with Soleimani but the fact that he played on his music and acquiesced to the placing of Quds ´diplomats´ that perpetrated or planned acts of terror using the diplomatic network doesn´t diminish his responsibility within the regime. 

Although the book deals with complex Middle Eastern policies, it is written in a very captivating style, with political facts evolving sometimes with a cinematic alacrity. The journalistic, non-pretentious yet informative style helps a lot to avoid information overload. After all, Soleimani was not any kind of academic, but a person of action and this approach suits both the reader and the subject.

Even for someone with basic to middle level of knowledge about local politics and Iranian ambitions, it was interesting to observe how Tehran in the post-Islamic Revolution realm ambitioned in turning into a Moscow of the Middle East. The desperate internationalism with a pregnant Shia Islam outreach ended up by creating deep divisions within the fellow Muslim countries. It also recalibrated dramatically the regional alliances until this very day: Once upon a time, countries like Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia were part of a larger policy of alliances endeavoured by Israel to counter the vocal - but often just for the sake of the cameras - Arab bloc. Nowadays, it´s the other way round, as both Iran and Turkey are lead by personalised regimes endangering the fragile post-Cold War geopolitical balances.

The damage in the region made by violent outtakes authored by Soleimani is hard to evaluate as for now. In the case of the beloved ´Palestinian case´, Soleimani´s interposers played and still playing more or less consciously a game that does not serve a long term solution to the conflict. Actually, it fuelled it by supporting radicalised actors whose only raison d´etre is a permanent state of conflict, otherwise they may be out of work. ´The Quds Force might still claim that it was a ´´voice of the oppressed´´ but in practice it had become an instruments of Iran´s state-based foreign policy of extending Iranian influence in the Aran world and doing so through sectarian Shia proxies´. Although I´ve found a bit forced more than once the comparisons between the left internationalist movements of the Cold War and the Shia-oriented one, when it comes to the Middle East, both Moscow and Tehran may be proud of playing their own dirty games in full disrespect of the free will of the everyday Palestinians. 

Books like The Shadow Commander, on other main regional and Iranian players - no matter their despicability - aimed at an international audience are a very useful source of information for a different, realistic approach of a region that for the time being has the highest potential of ongoing frequent mentions on the Breaking News reports.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review 

Book Review: The Age of Aryamehr: Late Pahlavi Iran and Its Global Entanglements

 The Shah of Iran regime is generally evaluated and judged through overcritical lenses. The most frequent - and in most of the cases justified - references are to the deep corruption of his regime, the abuses against human rights and religious freedom and the lack of democracy. However, the job of an academic researcher is to outline the mentality patterns and directions which, when using the right neutral theoretical matrix, may reveal new and interesting aspects.

The Age of Aryamehr. Late Pahlavi Iran and Its Global Entanglements edited by Roham Alvandi is an outstanding collection of essays covering a big variety of topics related to the late years of the Pahlavi regime. Some of them are relatively well known, such as the Shiraz Festival of Arts or the 1971 Persepolis Celebrations, but what in my opinion stands up is the divergence of all the studies towards identifying global trends and the move towards a different political and geopolitical identity for Iran.

What for my own interests was equally relevant were the articles and points dedicated to intellectual history, specifically of the European left and it´s misreading of the Islamic revolution (the article by Claudia Castiglioni). The intellectual West was unable ´to fully capture the meaning and the possible implications of the Iranian revolution´. ´Universal in scope, but with a strong national connotation, anti-communist, despite the global emphasis placed on social justice, fought under the banner of religion despite the professed secularism of many among its protagonists, the Iranian revolution presented a conundrum for intellectuals, especially those of leftist orientation´. 

The ways in which the political representatives of the late Shah tried to use culture as an efficient tool of soft power was more than an abusive way of self-embelishment of the Shah - which at a certain extent it was - but a powerful statement trying to reposition Iran on the global trends, particularly during the complexities of the Cold War. From the mid-1960s, the Shah tried to create his own pattern of political alliances, playing the global card with the big players of the bi-polar blocks. He tried to integrate the cultural assumptions of a Great Civilisation - tammadon-e bozorg - into a larger geopolitical narrative. 

However, no matter what, he lost all his local cards and he was not the only one who was taken away by the debacle. 

This book is an example of quality intellectual discourse on topics that in most cases ignite ´for´ and ´against´ mindset. It shows how much the academic research and advancement of thoughts may win when the research is driven exclusively by intellectual curiosity and desire to find the truth.

Rating: 4 stars

Short Dream about Cosmopolitanism...

Some ideas are so easy to practice, but it´s frustrating to see that the easier the way the harder the acceptance.

The Ghanian-British philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has an optimistic outlook: cosmopolitanism has a chance because of intellectual curiosity and openness. Differences can be easily overcome as long as there is an openness to understand and accept the differences.

Written in the post-9/11 environment, and taking fully into account the new identity challenges, this relatively short book about cosmopolitanisn - that I´ve read in the German translation - goes through a variety of examples, mostly from the literary realm. He sees cosmopolitanism as ´an adventure´ and ´an ideal´ that takes into account the differences as they are, without trying to circumvene them to other universal category than the humanity as such.

Interestingly, by explaining various examples from the religious world, it outlines how the religious universalism may exclude in fact the difference and be insensitive to tolerance.

Although I´ve found that the book does not go beyond the general - optimistic - approaches of the topic, it creates a certain frame for an ideal world where cosmopolitanism is a possibility, a high one. It´s mostly a free choice, but one of the best one can make, in fully knowledge of the intellectual advantages of such a position.

Rating: 4 stars

What Covid 19 Crisis Brought to the Intellectual Debate

The unfolding Covid 19 Crisis brought a couple of interesting ideas and debates that affect not only the everyday practice of the state of law, but equally issues that on the medium and long term may change the approach to citizenship and solidarity.

From the very beginning: I am a strict mask wearing follower, with a problematic immunity condition. I respect the lockdown - partial and complete - decisions in my home country of Germany, I am trying as much as possible to limit my human contacts, and using intensively the online tools video options for connecting both to my work, academic and personal contacts. I am working from home since mid-September and me and my mini-family we spent religious holidays and birthdays and other personal encounters in very reduced format. I did the Covid test preventively twice and every time I have to attend a doctor meeting, I keep a track of my symptoms and temperature, at least 5 days in advance. I didn´t travel out of Germany and actually out of Berlin since the beginning of March. I am pushing for extra caution and I do not put into question the state decisions regarding the overall rules and regulations as well as responsibility during the pandemics.

However, as a political scientist and historian of mentalities, I am observing trends and challenges and I am keeping an eye on the eventual consequences for human rights and freedoms. There are a couple of aspects that I´ve noticed in the last months that I would outline, without making any clear conclusions as the situation is on the run as for now and most probably there will be more challenges taking place. My observations are based on everyday interactions with people and news and analysis pertaining to a large diversity of sources mostly from US, France, Germany, Sweden, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe. I wish I have more available time and resources to extend my observations to other corners of the world, such as Latin America, Australia or Africa.

-  An important aspect that is common all over the world is the critical situation of the medical system. No matter where and what. There is not enough medical personnel and the hospital beds simply do not reach the high demand not only for Covid 19 patients, but generally. The sector is underpaid and so is the personnel. 

- The full chain of support for the medical personnel is also lacking, and this applies as well to the people working in other essential sectors, such as rule of law - justice and police - or educational personnel. 

- Single parents and people with a precarious social situation - including refugees and old people - are directly affected by the economic restrictions and laydowns that enfolded in the last months. Some countries are lacking a proper social system to compensate those staying at home or unable to work during the pandemic. The number of people at high social risk increased significantly and it´s a very dangerous situation from the social point of view.

- There are categories at risk - women and children - of being the target of an increased domestic violence. The fact that the institutions and organisations in charge with preventing such abuses were on ´home office´ which often meant unreachable either by email or by phone and without access to basis files and information - at least the case in Germany - complicated the situation.  

- From the scientific point of view, we are far from fully understanding how the virus operate, what and how fast are the mutations and what exactly we can do to prevent its spread. The lockdowns operated pretty well, but once people are back to normal, the number of cases are increasing. The solution of a vaccine is welcomed, but how life will look like in one year or two is hard to evaluate. The rules of the scientific research may require a lot of analysis and investigation and careful conclusions and there is a pressure on behalf of the society, including for economic reasons, to find a solution. Scientists cannot operate properly under such conditions.

-  As for now, it is not clearly known how the virus spreads. The dynamics within a family, for instance, can vary, with cases when both parents were infected, while children not. For children growing up in a climate of fear and suspicions that they may be the cause of infection for their beloved ones it is a high risk of psychological trauma. The fact that they may go to school and requested to limit their contact with their peers, as well as with their parents and grandparents adds on more distress. 

- The old people, some of them isolated for months in care facilities do experience their own trauma as well, besides the inevitable problems of the old age. Many of them died alone, some are unable to have contact with their beloved one which increases their anxiety and alienation. 

- People living separated from their beloved one also represent a category of mental health risk. Living alone in a foreign country, for different reasons, separated from your beloved ones, that may be themselves in critical situations, creates difficulties that video calls may diminish but still cannot replace the reality of a close hug. The therapists and mental health personnel are faced with new situations and proper answers are relatively improvised solutions as for now.

- Let´s talk statistics. First and foremost, in countries with a limited or non-existent democractic system, the official data released regarding the Covid 19 rates of infection and death are largely put into question. Reporting a high number of data may create credibility issues for the political regime therefore hiding the truth is what the local politicians will rather do. On the other hand, when it comes to democratically elected countries, there are still difficulties in offering a credible account of the extent of the pandemic as sometimes the medical causes of death are not corroborated with previous medical conditions. The ways in which data are reported, from the statistical point of view is also largely different from a country to another and, in case of federal systems, from a region to another. Therefore, when political decisions are based on those data, there may be slight issues. 

- What about civil liberties? The decisions to introduce the lockdown were mostly imposed by political decision makers, without democratic debate, on the argument of high security. Some countries even used in this respect tracking systems in order to secure the full implementation of those measures. The respective personal data were shared by intelligence agencies creating high suspicions about how easily those information can be politically instrumented. The freedoms of movement were limited and controlled by agents of the state authority - mostly police. Security was considered prevalent for freedom, on the base of the emergency. For non-democratic systems it was automatically possible based on their authoritarian reflexes. In democracies, it created a big debate and the state actors aimed to protect the rule of law and human freedoms started to impose different decisions on political rulings - particularly in Germany. The question is also: Will this create a precedent of retraining political liberties? What are the democratic antibody that should activated in this case? 

- Responsibility and solidarity: Angela Merkel´s discourses related to the Covid 19 often mentioned the need of solidarity and responsibility towards each other. The decision of wearing a mask and respecting the social distance, as well as the minimal sanitary measures is an expression of responsible free will. We are more than isolated individuals, but we are part of a human network and social context that involves a minimal solidarity. What are the daily rituals that build this solidarity? How do we become responsible for one another? On the other hand, there are cases when people do request the intervention against fellow citizens as purposely not implementing the lockdown requirements. Such situations reveal a mistrust in people belonging to different cultural and religious groups therefore expressions of a deep mistrust and discrimination tendencies. 

I am looking forward to follow many of those ideas, hopefully from the comfort of a location safe from the health point of view and while enjoying at least a minimal social contact with my beloved ones. 

Giving Voice to Women in Spy Stories

Let´s talk women in the more or less history of espionage...Automatically, it comes to mind the glamours of Mata Hari and the swings of Josephine Baker and some equally glamorous counterparts of James Bond. However, although unequally represented on the economy of jobs, women working in espionage, all over the world, mean more than that. And, contrary to the generally accepted stereotype, they can do more than being ´honey pots´.

A French freelance author Chloé Aeberhardt had the idea of writing a book about various women from all over the world famous intelligent services. A tremendous and not always successful work because of the secretive and sensitive nature of the work. The book was recently turned into short animated series on Arte that I just finished watching today. 

Truth to be told, the life of women involved in intelligence is limited. The life of a woman in general is limited by family, children, family and house-related obligations. But more and more women are able to make it through and succeed. Because, in fact, there is no intelligence related job that a woman cannot do. Only that society is limiting a woman´s ability to outperform. Sometimes, women too are resigning to accept their limitations, which is also a matter of choice.

The women featured in the TV mini-series (I have the book too and hopefully will be able to read and review it soon) are former operatives of CIA, KGB, French intelligence, Stasi and Mossad. My favorite case, for her freedom is the hero of the episode Yola and Hotel Mossad featuring a former ELAL flight attendant, part of a massive Mossad operation in Sudan aimed to smuggle endangered Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The story was recently featured in a movie on Netflix, The Red Sea Diving Resort but probably the reality was even more complex than the fiction. One of the stories I never heard about was how the Manuel Antonio Noriega was caught out of the Embassy of Vatican where he took refuge following the American invasion of Panama.

Another woman featured in the movie is a former Stasi operative in the then West Germany that was recruted through the so-called Romeo-network of the famous Markus Wolf, the head of the Main Directorate for Reconaissance, the foreign intelligence division of Eas Germany´s Ministry for State Security. The so-called Romeos were Stasi agents sent to the West Germany to recruit women working in top/sensitive working positions. They were usualle falling for the boys and were further recruited to work for the East. At a great extent, the success of this operation confirmed the weakness label of women leading to women being considered as a liability therefore not deem of a trustworthy work within the security network, unless it involved sex. Gabriele Gast, interviewed in the movie, started to collaborate with the East for a purposely love story, but ended up working for convinctions, without accepting any payments.

It´s one of the many new beginnings in she-writing the history with a focus on female actors and although it is just a start, it´s worth continuing because it not only allows to make a difference, but equally create a space for new debates and understandings.

Decadence&Downfall: The Shah of Iran´s Ultimate Party

The Shah of Iran´s tragical story has not only historical consequences for the Pahlavi dynasty itself but equally for the country itself that was thrown in decades of turmoil and abuses. What if the Shah would have understood better that it is about time to really understand its people? Unfortunatelly such projections are too late and historically toxic.

Decadence&Downfall: The Shah of Iran´s Ultima Party was released by BBC in 2017. The 1h30 documentary is primarily featuring the grandiose celebrations of 2,500 Years of Persian monarchy in 1971, where 2,500 guests from all over the world were offered lavish celebrations for three days spending an amount that was three times the annual budget of the rich Switzerland.

The movie features fragments of interviews with the Shah and Farah Diba - speaking a very elegant French and English - as well as with people involved at various level of organising the festivities, from the serving personnel to foreign journalists and local politicians at the time, as the former and loyal diplomat Ardeshir Zahedi, who happened to be the son-in-law of the Shah who never ceased to be a proud Iranian. 

´I have a divine command of doing what I am doing´, is the Shah confessing in one of those interviews. The megalomanic party and his entire court routine and display of outrageous luxury in a country where half of the people still leaved below the poverty line. The display of diamonds and majestic richness was more than part of the westoxification - gharbzadegi - a very popular concept among the opponents of the Shah, introduced by Jalal Al-e Ahmad. It was a statement of independence and of assumed bold stake in a world that was becoming strongly bi-polar therefore with no concerns for the ambitions of the ´King of Kings´ - the title that Shah Reza awarded himself in 1967. But in this respect as well, the Shah ignored the realities. In the end, he was a victim of his and his entourage ´bubble life´. His beloved people would be the victim of his errors until today.

The documentary is relatively fair and informative and the archive recordings are alternating with interviews of various people involved in the preparations of the ceremonies as well as connected with the Iranian monarchy. 

Personally, I am looking forward this weekend to read more about the global entanglements of the former Shah, but this movie is an eye-opening especially as it offers a strong visual approach to the historical identification and continuity with the reign of Cyrus the Great - Khoros, in Persian - who is nowadays under the reign of the Islamic Republic reduced to the silence of history. 

About Racism, in Germany

I am glad that there are so many books taking frontally racism in Germany, especially the everyday racism. That kind of racism that people not born here and with a different skin colour and obvious religious observance has to deal with every day.

Alice Hasters´ Was weisse Menschen über Rassismus hören wollen aber wissen sollten (in my approximate translation What white people don´t want to hear about racism but should know about) is partly a personal memoir of a woman of colour born and living in Germany but partly is an overview of racism atittudes in the everyday life. Indeed, you don´t have to be a Nazi to be a racist. It´s enough to start with that question: Where are you coming from, originally? Or to address in a broken English a person with a non-German sounding name and a darken skin colour. 

´We are here, in Germany´, sounds the micro-agression in the Kita when one parent insists that pork is part of the German culture therefore he requests in a a kindergarten with a high diversity of children to introduce the aforementioned animal on the daily menu. That´s my experience that I will explain in detail on another occasion, maybe.  

The book is written in a very personal, authentic style creating an open dialogue with the reader. It´s a kind request to try changing the way of looking at people, considering more than their hair and their skin colour, but also taking into account historical perspectives and colonial burried past, acknowledged only in the last decade. It is also a request to reconsider critically not only the Enlightment period - which was far from being enligthened, as it revealed a system of thought that lead to racist mindsets, especially in scientific research - but also symbol thinkers and philosophers, like Kant and Hegel. 

Alice Hasters covers a lot of issues, from the family connections and relating to her white German grandparents and relatives, to school relationships, cultural appropriation and the wrongs of acting white. Through the examples, it serves very well as a kind of guide and orientation for white people helping them to stop being racist. As there is nothing like good racism anyway.

I had access to the book in audio format, in the reading of the author.

Another reliable source of information about what does it mean being a POC in Germany is the book by the journalist Marvin Oppong: Ewig anders. 

Rating: 5 stars

´The Education of Kim Jong-Un´

The current North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un is often read in an ironic, comic-book like key. Or he is considered a cruel tyrant killing not only his people, but also his own family members - which probably is. But what´s the intelligent approach to his rule?

Jung H. Pak worked for the CIA as intelligence community analyst on Korean issues and is a Brookings Institute Senior Fellow, as well as on author on topics related to Korea, particularly the North. The Education of Kim Jong-Un is a very short - under 50 pages book - yet insightful approach to the man who´s both despised and admired but for sure has a mind of his own, which is mostly unpredictable if following the wrong analysis matrix. 

Compared to other books I´ve read this year about Kim Jong-Un this short introduction is very useful if one wants to get familiar with ´the hardest of the hard targets´. A spoiled boy who lived his own life under the sign of priviledge, that was on a boarding school in Switzerland while his people was starving, Kim wants to raise high. It´s a new type of dictatorship he is practising but placed under times of tremendous change and unpredictibility. Hence, the need of a more elastic, creative approach of his regime and, eventually, post-Kim North Korea.

´Kim has made it clear that he will not tolerate any potential challenges. And his rule through terror and repression - against the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparks - means that the terrorized and the repressed will continue to feed Kim´s illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Korea´s destiny´.

In other words, it´s a smarter game taking place out there than you may read in the media - at the time the book was read, there was not too much a fuss about Kim´s health and the raising of her sister on the top of the party hierarchy. Adding Kim in a box with the stamp of ´Craziness´ on the top of it would have been too easy. The guy who did an over 100 kilotons bomb test in 2017 - for the sake of the comparison, as mentioned in the book, the bomb the Americans threw on Hiroshima had just 15 kilotons - has also the power. Nuclearization is an important asset of this regime and ignoring or deriding it is as dangerous as dancing with the bombs. 

Instead, Jung H.Pak suggests a suple and subtle approach, which involves increasing the regional alliances - particularly between US (that´s from an American perspective that the author considers the facts and further developments), South Korea and Japan, as well as through efforts of cutting the resources that fund the nuclear weapons program, a constant cyber war, raising awareness about human right violations and, one of the most important things, creating an alternative vision for a post-Kim era. What I´ve felt is missing for the analysis is the mention of other - less-democratic - interests in the region, such as China and Russia, which would have create a better picture of the real situation on the ground.

The Education of Kim Jong-Un is a practical and insightful read about North Korea and its leadership, which includes fine observations and useful future political projections. The future only will tell what´s the best and how things will evolve in the next months and years.

Rating: 4 stars