EFTA Document EFTA01769142

From: Sultan Bin Sulayem Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 4:28 AM To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: Fwd: Foreign Policy magazine: The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets): http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/0423/the_ayatollah_under_the_bedsheets <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/23/the=ayatollah_under_the_bedsheets> <=o:p> Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom. In the bedroom d=rectly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens=that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. For t=e sake of argument, let's assume that you're both nude, and you're erect, a=d you land with such perfect precision on top of her that you unintentional=y achieve intercourse. Is the child of such an encounter halalzadeh (l=gitimate) or haramzadeh (a bastard)? <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/=he_sex_Issue> Such tales of random ribaldry may sound anomalous in the seemingly=austere, asexual Islamic Republic of Iran. But the "Gili Show," as it came t= be known, had quite the following among both the traditional classes, who w=re titillated by his taboo topics, and the Tehrani elite, who tuned in for c=mic relief. Gilani helped spawn what is now a virtual cottage industry of c=erics and fundamentalists turned amateur sexologists offering incoherent ad=ice on everything from quickies <http://www.lenziran.com/2011/10/teac=ing-sex-in-imam-reza-televisionh &n=sp;("The man's goal should be to lighten his load as soon as possible witho=t arousing his woman") to =asturbation <http://www.lensiran.com/clergyman=on-quran-tv-masturbation-is-a-sin-and-make-the-god-angryh ("a grave, grave sin which causes scientifi= and medical harm"). =/span> Perhaps it's not entirely surprising that Iran's S=iite fundamentalists -- not unlike their evangelical Christian, Catholic, O=thodox Jewish, and Sunni Muslim counterparts -- spend an inordinate amount o= time pondering sexuality. They are human, after all. But the sexual manias=of Iran's religious fundamentalists are worthy of greater scrutiny, all the=more so because they control a state with nuclear ambitions, vast oil wealt=, and a young, dynamic, stifled population. Yet for a variety of reasons --=fear of becoming Selman Rushdie, of being labeled an Orientalist, of upsett=ng religious sensibilities -- the remarkable hypocrisy of the Iranian regim= is often studiously avoided. That's a mistake. Because r=ligion is<=span> politics in a theocracy like Iran, uninformed or antiquated n=tions of sexuality aren't just confined to the bedroom -- they pervade the c=untry's seminaries, military barracks, boardrooms, courtrooms, and classroo=s. A common aphorism among Iranians is that before the revolution, people p=rtied outside the home and prayed inside, while today they pray outside and=party inside. This reverse dichotomy is true of a lot of social behavior in=lran. For many Iranians, this perverse state of affairs is now so ingrained= such an inherent aspect of daily interactions with Iranian officialdom, th=t it is no longer noteworthy. For those in the West who seek to better unde=stand what makes Tehran tick, though, the regime's curious fixation on sex c=nnot be ignored. EFTA_R1_00079528 EFTA01769142 To paraphrase =the late U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill, in the Islamic Republic of Iran al= politics may not be sexual, but all sex is political. Exhibit A is the rev=lution's father, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Like all Shiite cler=cs aspiring to become a "source of emulation" (marja'-e taglid), Khomeini spent t=e first part of his career meticulously examining and dispensing religious g=idance on personal behavior and ritual purity that ranged from the mundane (=It is recommended not to hold back the need to urinate or defecate, especia=ly if it hurts") to the surprisingly lewd. Scholars o= Shiism -- including harsh critics of Khomeini -- emphasize that such theme= were the norm among clerics of Khomeini's generation and should be underst=od in their proper context: Islam was a religion that emerged out of a rura= desert, and the Prophet Mohammed was himself once a shepherd. Whereas reli=ions like Christianity and Judaism simply declare such behavior to be sinfu=, Islam addresses them from a juridical point of view. Th= underlying problem, says Islamic scholar Mehdi Khalaji, a former seminary s=udent in the Shiite epicenter of Qom, is not that such issues were addresse=, but the fact that "Islamic jurisprudence hasn't yet been modernized. It's=totally disconnected from the issues that modern, urban people have to deal=with." Indeed= Khomeini's religious prescriptions are often the butt of jokes among Iran'= post-revolutionary generations. "I've never even seen a camel in Tehran," p=ominent Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar told me, "let alone been tempted=to have sex with one." sexy <http://www.=oogle.com/trends/?q=sexy&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&so=t=0> " is even more popular among Arab=.) Google Insights, another trend spotter, shows that the most rapidly risi=g search term for Iranians so far in 2012 has been "Golshifteh Farahani," a=popular exiled actress who in January posed topless for the French magazine=nbsp;Madame Fig=ro. Before the 1979 r=volution, religious fundamentalists were revolted by images of scantily cla= Iranian women in the country's cinema and television; today, state televis=on and cinema are forbidden from showing unveiled Iranian women. This is de=pite the fact that most of the country's citizens have access to the much m=re tawdry fare on satellite TV (the dishes are officially illegal, but thou=ht to be smuggled in by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps itself). In t=e forthcoming documentary The Iran Job <http://www.kickstarter.com/projec=s/554272471/the-iran-job> New Yorker several years ago, a= Iranian security official candidly asses=ed the challenge <http://www.newyorker.com/archive=2005/11/21/051121fa_fact4?currentPage=all> at hand: =/o:p> The majority of the population is young.... Young people=by nature are horny. Because they are horny, they like to watch satellite c=annels where there are films or programs they can jerk off to.... We h=ve to do something about satellite television to keep society free from thi= horny jerk-off situation. One might assume a country tha= suffers from chronic inflation and unemployment -- not to mention harsh in=ernational sanctions and a potential war over its nuclear program -- would h=ve better things to do than discourage its youth from masturbating. Yet the=regime continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Chinese censo=ship technology to create a moral Iron Dome 2 EFTA_R1_00079529 EFTA01769143 <http://online.wsj.com/article/S=10001424052702303717304577279381130395906.html?mod=googlenews_wsj> against political and cultural=subversion, with decidedly mixed results. Piped-in BBC Persian and Voice of=America television are sometimes successfully scrambled, but those who want=pornography have no shortage of outlets. That said, the censorship software=sometimes get a bit overzealous. One Iranian friend told me of repeated uns=ccessful attempts to access his British university's email account from Teh=an, only to realize that the school's apparently bawdy name -- Essex -- was=prohibited by the regime's Internet filters. Islamic Governance(Hukumat-e Islam') -- which would later provide th= ideological and political template for post-revolutionary Iran Khomeini=nbsp;hyperventilated</=> <http://books.google.com/books?id=o3d4zcEFul.wC&Ipg=P=10&dq=%22sexual%20vice%20has%20now%20reached%20 such%20proportions%22&=mp;pg=PA10#vronepage&q=%22sexual%20vice%20has%20now%20reached%20s=ch%20pr oportions%22&f=false> that "sexual vice has now reached such proportions that it is de=troying entire generations, corrupting our youth, and causing them to negle=t all forms of work! They are all rushing to enjoy the various forms of vic= that have become so freely available and so enthusiastically promoted." Khomeini nonetheless reassured his l=beral revolutionary compatriots --just months before the revolution, while=in Paris exile -- that "women [would be) free in the Islamic Republic in th= selection of their activities and their future and their clothing." Much t= its retrospective dismay, a sizable chunk of Iran's liberal intelligentsia=-- both male and female -- lined up behind Khomeini, some even referring to=him as an "Iranian Gandhi." Shortly after consolidating power, however, Kho=eini and his disciples swiftly moved to crush opposing views and curtail fe=ale social and sartorial freedoms. "Islam doesn't allow for people to [wear.swimsuits] in the sea," he proclaimed <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v==qRZUrDWqrU> shortly after be=oming supreme leader. We "will skin their hide!" &nb=p; Women who resisted the mandatory veil were met with violenc= and intimidation, including lyrical taunts of "Ya roosari, ya toosari!" ("Cover=your head or be smacked in the head!"). As Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laurea=e Shirin Ebadi recently wrote chttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529=0203370604577265840773370720.html> , "Although the 1979 revolution in Iran is often called an Islamic revo=ution, it can actually be said to be a revolution of men against women...AB The drafters of [the Islamic Penal Code) had effectively taken us back 1=400 years." The brutal reality is that=ftanians had entrusted their national destiny to a man, Khomeini, who had s=ent far more time thinking about the religious penalties for fornicating wi=h animals than how to run a modern economy. Khomeini was succeeded by the current supreme leader, Ayatollah=Ali Khamenei, who has remained loyal to Khomeini's vision for Iran, includi=g his prudishness regarding matters of the flesh. For Khamenei -- who has s=id that keeping women in hijab would "prevent our society from being plunge= into corruption and turmoil" -- outward displays of feminine beauty are vi=wed not only with religious disfavor, but as an existential threat to the r=gime itself. Khamenei contends t=at the health of the family unit is integral to the Islamic Republic's well=being and is undermined by female beauty. Although to some this worldview i= fundamentally misogynistic,Khamenei sees chttp://english.khamenei.ir/index.php=option=com_content&task=view&id=1233&Itemid=12> men, not women, as untrustworthy an= incapable of resisting temptation: 3 EFTA_R1_00079530 EFTA01769144 =span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif&=uot;;color:#1F1F1F">In Islam, women have been prohibited from showing off t=eir beauty in order to attract men or cause fitna (upheaval or seditio=). Showing off one's physical attraction to men is a kind of fitna ....Rod if this love for beauty and members of the opposite sex is found some=here other than the framework of the family, the stability of the family wi=l be undermined. Interestingly, t=e word Khamenei employs against the potential unveiling of women -- fitna&n=sp;-- is the same word used to describe the opposition Green Movement that t=ok to the streets in the summer of 2009 to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadi=ejad's contested reelection. In other words, women's hair is itself see= as seditious and counterrevolutionary. Even so-called liberal politicians i= the Islamic Republic have long fixated on this issue. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr= Iran's first post-revolutionary president, who has spent the past three de=ades exiled in France, reportedly once asserted that women's hair has been s=ientifically proven to emit sexually enticing rays. (An Iranian satirist re=ponded with a cartoon showing a man inadvertently aroused while eating lunc= at his friend's home; the culprit turned out to be an errant strand of his=friend's wife's hair in the ghormeh sabzi <http://articles.boston.com/2009-08- 26/lifestyle=29264822_1_red-pepper-cannellini-beans-lemon> stew, an l=anian national dish.) OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES, the wom=n of Iran's younger generation have increasingly pushed back and loosened t=eir veils, but any discussion of abolishing the veil altogether is not tole=ated by Khamenei. In addition to opposition toward the United States and Is=ael, the hijab is often considered one of the Islamic Republic's three rema=ning ideological pillars. "For Islamic Republic officials, the hijab has va=t symbolic importance; it is what holds up the dam, keeping all of Iranians= other demands for social freedoms at bay," says Azadeh Moaveni, an Iranian=American author <http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/Azadeh-Moaveni/B00=K8749QPie=UTF8&tag=fopo- 20&linkCode=ur2&qid=1332873412=amp;camp=1789&creative=390957> =espite Khamenei's assertion that the hijab prevents men from straying, gove=nmental policies in fact encourage the opposite. For example, to help accom=odate the apparently incorrigibly wandering libido of the Iranian male, the=country's parliament -- composed of Khamenei loyalists -- has supported sha=ia-sanctioned "temporary marriages" (known in Persian as sigheh) allowing m=n as many sexual partners as they want. The marriage contract can last as I=ttle as a few minutes, and it doesn't need to be officially registered. The=man can abruptly end the sigheh when he likes, but initiating divorce is fa= more difficult for women. Indeed, women who stray from the sanctity of the=r marriages do so at grave risk -- dozens have been stoned to death in Iran=for adultery. 8c=bsp; The country's economic malaise has als= led to a reportedly sharp rise in plain old, non-Islamically sanctioned pr=stitution. Tehran's high-end taxi drivers, often underemployed university g=aduates, casually point them out on the street. "When eco=omies take a downturn, informal economies and illicit networks become more a=tractive," says Pardis Mandavi, author of a book on sexuality in Iran <http://www.amaz=n.com/gp/product/0804758565/ref=as_h_ss_tl?ie=UTF88aag=fopo- 20&a=p;linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0=04758565> . "Techno=ogy facilitates this too." During the shah's time, Tehran=s <=pan style="color:#003366;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">notori=us red-light district <http://payvand.com/blog/blog/2010/12/10/photos-tehrans-br=thel- district-shahr-e-no-1975-77-by-kaveh-golestank was known as Shahr-e Noe (New City=, a place where countless young Iranian men lost their virginity. Like many=things post-revolution, however, the Islamic Republic just imagined that 4 EFTA_R1_00079531 EFTA01769145 ba=ning the symptom would make the problem go away. But pouring saltpeter from=the minarets hasn't worked. "They razed Shahr-e Noe thinking it would end p=ostitution," a retired Iranian laborer once told me. "Now all of Tehran has=become Shahr-e Noe." UNSURPRISINGLY, THE OUTWARDLY CHASTE=/b> nature of Khomeinist political culture has pe=verted normal sexual behavior, creating peculiar curiosities -- and procliv=ties -- among Iranian officialdom. Omid Memarian, a journalist who spent se=eral months in the notorious Evin prison for his articles critical of the g=vernment, told me that his interrogators seemed far more interested in his s=x life than his political peccadilloes. "I tried to answer their questions i= very general terms, but they'd interrupt me," he recalled. "They wanted to=know details. 'Start from when you were unbuttoning her blouse...."' l= one instance, he told me, he was horrified when an interrogator appeared t= be rubbing himself while listening. Observers of American politics -- the land of fil=i [the person who brought him bootlegged films on CD] later=told me that he always requested 'films with scenes' [film-haye sahne-dar]," a e=phemism for porn. <http://ww=.nytimes.com/1991/10/15/us/swaggart-plans-to-step-down.html> Spitzer, Eliot), the revelation of the incident report=dly led Zarei to attempt suicide while in prison. &n=sp; The shame of sexual malfeasance has been routinely used by=the regime as a form of political coercion and intimidation. When the famou=ly jocular reformist cleric Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former vice president to M=hammad Khatami, was imprisoned after Iran's contested 2009 presidential ele=tion, he surprised his supporters by confessing with great gusto to being p=rt of a Western-backed conspiracy to foment a velvet revolution. Although h=s confession was undoubtedly forced, his close associates claim that what c=mpelled him to confess was not physical or psychological torture but hidden=photos of him -- in flagrante delicto -- at a secret Tehran love nest t=at was long being monitored. =p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:2O.4pt">The=Islamic Republic isn't always so prudish, however. In fact, it's been willi=g to use sexual incentives as a form of statecraft. In a =b>Wi=iLeaked U.S. State Department cable, for example, senior Ira=i tribal chief Abu Cheffat confided in a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad that Tehr=n effectively wielded influence over Iraqi politicians -- ostensibly visiti=g Iran for "medical treatment" -- by offering inducements including "tempor=ry marriages" with Iranian women. Not that Cheffat was complaining, mind yo=: The perks were surely better than when he visited President George W. Bus= at the White House in 2008. It was not without reason, he explained, that l=anian soft power was trumping American hard power in Iraq. More recently, three Iranian intelligence agents w=o unsuccessfully tried to kill Israeli government officials in Bangkok this=past February photographed themselves at a bar in the beach resort of Patta=a with local "escorts <http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/280201/su=pects-partied-in-pattaya> ." When I a=ked the scion of a powerful cleric in Tehran how ostensible devotees of Kho=eini's religious ideology are able to reconcile frequenting non- Muslim pros=itutes and drinking alcohol, he quickly dismissed any religious obstacles. "=here are government clerics who can easily grant them religious pretexts [<=>mojavez'e Shari<=span>]," he explained. "They can make the case that if they didn't freq=ent prostitutes and drink alcohol they would appear to be [terrorists] and r=ise suspicions." 5 EFTA_R1_00079532 EFTA01769146 In essence, the=lranian regime's approach toward sex, like its philosophy of governance, is=marked by =aslahat, or expediency, and used alternately as a tool of suppre=sion, inducement, and incitement. In the summer of 2009, when hundreds of t=ousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad's reelection= many protesters were brutally beaten by the Basij militia, gangs of young r=gime thugs on motorbikes who were given a green light to quell the uprising= As Iranian-American academic Shervin Malekzadeh reported from Tehran, the B=sij seemed to be driven by a combination of class resentment and pent-up fr=stration. "They don't screw; they don't drink or smoke joints," one of his s=urces told him. "What else are they going to do with all of that energy?" But perhaps the seminal -- and mos= heartbreaking -- moment of the Green Revolution was the murder of a 26- yea=-old female protester, Neda Agha-Soltan, whose bloody death was caught on c=11-phone camera and rendered one of the most viral videos in history. In an=nbsp;HBO documentary <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYN53BOeijY> about h=r life, Neda's mother recalls a message <http:Mezebel.com/neda-agha-soltan> that some sympathetic f=male Basij members relayed to Neda days before she was killed by a sniper: "=ear, please don't come out looking so beautiful.... Do us a favor and=don't come out because the Basiji men target beautiful girls. And they will=shoot you." While the iconic faces of l=an's 1979 revolution were bearded, middle-aged men, Neda has come to symbol=ze the new face of dissent in 21st-century Iran: a young, modern, educated w=man. For her opposition to the regime and to the hijab, she is the embodime=t of fitna in Khamenei's eyes. THREE SPRINGS LATER, t=e Iranian regime once again is faced with a crisis, this time of an externa= variety. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens war in bet=een meals, the Pentagon plays war games and policy planners huddle in the Write House: Is the Iranian regime rational or irrational? Can diplomatic neg=tioations prevent Iran from obtaining a bomb, or is an attack on Iran's nuc=ear facilities inevitable? Many Iran watchers assert that to persuade Tehran not to pursu= a nuclear weapon, Washington must reassure Khamenei that the United States=merely seeks a change in Iranian behavior, not a change of the Iranian regi=e. What they fail to consider is Khamenei's deep-seated c=nviction that U.S. designs to overthrow the Islamic Republic hinge not on m=litary invasion but on cultural and political subversion intended to foment=a "velvet" revolution from within. Consider this revealing address <http://78.=6.108.112/view_video.php?viewkey=cad7789c1e3d43ea1522&page=&vie=type=&category=> &n=sp;on Iranian state TV in 2005: <=p> =ore than Iran's enemies need artillery, guns, and so forth, they need to sp=ead cultural values that lead to moral corruption.... I recently read=in the news that a senior official in an important American political cente= said: "Instead of bombs, send them miniskirts." He is right. If they arous= sexual desires in any given country, if they spread unrestrained mixing of=men and women, and if they lead youth to behavior to which they are natural=y inclined by instincts, there will no longer be any need for artillery and=guns against that nation. Khamenei's v=st collection of writings and speeches makes clear that the weapons of mass=destruction he fears most are cultural -- more Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga=than bunker busters and aircraft carriers. In other words, Tehran is threat=ned not only by what America does, but by what America is: a depraved, post=odern colonial power 6 EFTA_R1_00079533 EFTA01769147 bent on achieving global cultural hegemony. America's "=trategic policy," Khamenei has said, "is seeking female promiscuity."<=o:p> Khamenei's words capture the paradox and per=ersion of modern Iran. While dropping bombs on the Iranian regime could lik=ly prolong its shelf-life, a regime that sees women's hair as an existentia= threat is already well past its sell-by date. Karim Sadjadp=ur is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.</=pan> </=tml>= 7 EFTA_R1_00079534 EFTA01769148