The Emperors of Iran were the first secularists Mr Mattie Fein

Some people think they know about Iran's history. A good example is this one:

As with the shah's monarchy, the current dictatorship of the mullahs is an aberration from Iran's historical march towards secular democracy.

Where does Mr Mattie Fein think Iran's historical roots come from? They come from the Declaration of Human Rights by Cyrus the Great. That was the first secular move ever by any human being. And he got it by studying the Zend Avesta.

What are the valid roots of Shiite Islam in Iran compared to much older civilizations?

I find everyday, that someone asks me, or I notice in the press mention, that we Iranians have always been Shiite. That is wrong. Iran actually lost all its connection to Shiism, after Hulagu the Mongol conquerors literally wiped out Islam from the area.

So how come it came back? Well read this article. You will notice that there was a priest called Al Hilli, who converted what was a Christian Emperor of Iran, yes Christian as in Nestorian Christian, to become a Shiite. This is the root of the Shiites and in particular, the Seyyeds in Iran. People in Iran in those days really did not know about the ancient history of Iran. But we can say that after the Monguls, much of Iranian art and literature flourished, because the people were allowed to read other books than the Koran.

For two hundred years though that whole area seems to be in pieces, with many Kings and states. It is not clear what Iran looked like.

We had all these Kings:

Muzaffarid dynasty 1314–1393
Chupanid dyansty 1337–1357
Jalayerid dynasty 1339–1432
Timurid Empire 1370–1506
Qara Qoyunlu Turcomans 1407–1468
Aq Qoyunlu Turcomans 1378–1508


But eventually another King, Shah Ismail whose mother was Greek, yes Greek called Martha, converted to the ways of the Seyyeds. Why you say? Well he lost his father early on. I suspect that he was told by some Seyyed that he was descended from a Sufi called Zahed Gilani. He then felt he had a mission. So the Seyyeds helped Iranians like Shah Ismail, find a spiritual reason to oppose the Sunni Turks, and reunite Iran. At that time, the map of Iran then was pretty much the same as it is now, but for what is now called Iraq. The Seyyeds managed to capture Baghdad.

How this happened, was more to do with war tactics than what the Seyyeds did. We had a couple of English men, called the Shirley brothers come across from India and Afghanistan to help Shah Abbas to stop the Turks, with advanced war tactics. The Safavid lasted until 1700s It wasn't of course until three hundred years later, that the Turks were defeated in the WWI. But what is really important, was that the Brits forgot to give the eastern part of Iraq to Iran. They had created Iraq, which did not exist ever. So what about Babylon you ask? Well much of what became Babylon was inherited from Sumerian in Iran. Anyway, half of present day Iraq was Iran, and the western part was part of the Assyrian Empire. The Kurds were part of the Iranian Empire. But with the birth of Seyyeds suddenly we had a new area of the world purely because of Seyyed's "holy" shrines.

No one asks, what about the Holy Shrines that existed there for 6000 years for Iranians. If Cyrus the Great or Zoroaster were around, they would tell you what the map should look like. But the Brits did not bother to look at the history properly. As they and the Jews looked at the Old Testament and Torah and nothing else they just wanted to find the birth place of Abraham. And Uruk was were they found it. The name Iraq was created from the Uruk archaeological discoveries. But they are beginning to realise that much of what is Babylon comes from much older cultures to the east in Iran. I mentioned Sumerians, but recently there have been even older civilizations in:

Zayandeh Rud civilization 5th millenium
Jiroft civilization (Aratta?) 3000–5th cent.
Proto-Elamite civilization 3500–2800

Every day new discoveries are being made so look up the updates at wiki and chn.ir

Un-Muzzling The Economist

Increasingly the best press in the UK and other parts of the world, such as The Economist, cannot understand the ground swell taking place in Iran.

Read this:

Either the reactionaries are rattled by the prospect of the general election scheduled for next year, or they are flaunting their confidence. In Iran’s opaque politics, it is hard to say which.

It is so sad, that more and more news media do not want to admit to the fact that; the Iranian youth are totally ambivalent to the Seyyeds; that the Seyyeds cannot control anything in Iran, and that theatrics with the US along the nuclear fiasco is pointless.

Iran's politics is not opaque to the Iranian people. The people of Iran can see right through the Seyyeds.

Ban on shipping

It seems that the ban on shipping from Iran is being taken seriously.

More at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062600710.html

Bolton has no faith in Iran's Internal Opposition

Why is Bolton so negaitve about anything but all out war with the Seyyeds? What bother me really is how he has no faith in the internal opposition.

"Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

More at:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409649665&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Divest Terror Initiative - Starving Iran's Seyyeds

I really cannot believe this. Some people are seriously waking up to what I have been crying out about for such a long time.

Read this:

But there is a way to strike hard at Iran and encourage a change in regime or at least in policies: We can stop investing in companies that invest in Iran. Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan Pentagon official, and his group disinvestterror.org list 485 companies that do business in Iran.

More at:

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/06/26/starving_the_mullahs

and

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/home.aspx?sid=56&categoryid=56&subcategoryid=57&newsid=11567

Brave Amir Kabir Students

A student holds a sign reading, "Fascist President, Polytechnich is not your place", as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, speaks at the Amir Kabir Technical University, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Dec. 11, 2006 in a rare demonstration against the president. Ahmadinejad claimed to be delighted when reformist students disrupted his visit to the elite university, saying it showed the world that Iranians can protest "with an absolute, total freedom," the hard-line president wrote on his Web site. But at least eight of Amir Kabir University's leading reformists have been arrested since May 2007, according to their lawyers and activists inside and outside Iran. (AP Photo)

Why do US companies trade with Seyyeds in Iran?

It is about time the US Treasury showed, which companies in the US at least, that do trade with the Seyyeds in Iran.

Most of the companies listed on the site are foreign, although the list includes some US firms including Baker Hughes, Marathon Oil and Mastercard which have disclosed ties to Sudan, according to the links on the SEC's website.

The SEC said the appearance of a company on the list, however, does not mean "that the company directly or indirectly supports terrorism or is otherwise engaged in any improper activity."

The new link on the SEC's website comes after US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week urged US allies to help cut off Iran's banks from the global financial system, accusing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of funding and training Middle East militant groups.

more here:

http://www.petroleumworld.com/story07062605.htm

You're wrong Prof Zucker

Professor Zucker, in comparing Iran with Poland, thinks that the only opposition group of Iran is the MEK. Can you believe this? He ignores all the people who want a new democracy, be it as part of a Constitutional Monarchy, or a Republic. He then advocates an attack on Iran. He would rather have people, who are in many respects, even more confused than the Seyyeds, take over with the help of US.

Read this:

Instead of assisting the largest, best organized, oldest, and most popular of all Iranian opposition groups, the United States and the EU have placed the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its principal member, the Mojahedin-e Khalq, on their Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, thereby once again bowing to political pressure from Tehran and aiding the mullahs instead of the Iranian people. Whether it is political naiveté, or financial greed and a desire for lucrative deals with the Islamic Republic, the West has so far done nothing of substance to aid the Iranian people's best chance at regime change.

More at:

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2996&cid=2&sid=4

US snookered by China on Iran

You would think that the US could just hint at the US companies in China to protest at the Chinese government for their dealings with the Seyyeds.

The United States is also stepping up international efforts to isolate Iran over its defiant nuclear program but it is quietly concerned over China's potential oil and gas dealings with the Islamic republic, experts say.

Beijing has signed a 100-billion-dollar agreement to import 10 million tonnes of Iranian natural gas over the coming decades. In return, Chinese companies will become key stakeholders in Iran's oil fields.

But no, the Chinese have got the US by the balls, and there is nothing the US can do. Too much is made in China. The world needs to diversify away from China, that has an awful Human Rights record, and turns a blind eye to horrible regimes like the Seyyeds in Iran.