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Iran unleashes rapid aerial strikes on perceived enemies in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, while its yemeni proxies, the Houthis, retaliate for us and british airstrikes by targeting more U. S. And commercial vessels. We ask A-U-S. Security analyst why the Houthis keep striking back at the more powerful west. Can the Houthis be deterred? And I think the information thus far would suggest no, they can’t be deterred. Iran’s top court upholds death sentences against four minority kurdish dissidents. A rights activist in London tells us what could spare them an imminent execution. The only way to save these people is by international pressure on the regime, and we’ll find out how a fishmonger in northern Iran who charmed Instagram users with a song and dance routine overcame government efforts to silence him. From the voice of America, this is flashpoint Iran good morning. I’m Michael Lippin in Washington. Iran has escalated its involvement in regional conflict, saying it carried out missile strikes on northern Iraq and Syria late Monday and less than 24 hours later announcing a missile and drone strike in Pakistan. Tehran said its strike on the iraqi kurdish city of Irbil targeted what it labeled as an israeli spy headquarters, while its strike in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province hit suspected positions of the Sunni Muslim Islamic State terror group. Iran followed those attacks by announcing through state media a missile and drone strike in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Tuesday, targeting bases of another Sunni Muslim US designated terror group, Jaish al Audal. Pakistan condemned what it called an unprovoked iranian violation of its iraqi Kurds gathered in Irbil on Tuesday to denounce Iran’s attack. Baghdad withdrew its ambassador from Tehran in protest. There was no comment from Israel. The US military says it carried out a third round of airstrikes in Yemen on Tuesday to destroy ballistic missiles that houthi militants were preparing to launch. The iranian proxy group has been firing missiles and drones at U. S. And commercial ships in waters off Yemen for months. The US carried out two previous strikes on the Houthis, one with british involvement on Friday and Saturday. Here’s how U. S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described those actions in a call with reporters on Tuesday. We believe that we did have a good effect with those strikes in terms of disrupting and degrading their capability to conduct military offensive operations. As for what the next turn is here, I won’t get ahead of potential military operations one way or the other. Gregory Brew is an Iran analyst with the Eurasia group. He shared a more skeptical view of those strikes. When I spoke to him by phone on Tuesday, the US telegraphed these attacks very clearly. The Houthis had at least four or 5 hours of warning based on how news was leaking, particularly from the UK side. These were joint US UK strikes. They hit at least, I think, 16 targets scattered across Yemen. So they were fairly expensive strikes, but they were very clearly telegraphed. The Houthis knew that they were coming, and I don’t believe they were expected to significantly degrade Houthi capabilities, and they clearly didn’t, because in the aftermath of the strikes, we’ve seen at least three attempts by the Houthis to strike passing ships. Two of those attempts have been successful. So the strikes have not had any significant impact on Houthi capabilities. We’re likely to see continued Houthi attacks for the foreseeable future. So why do you think the US and the UK would not want to significantly degrade the Houthi infrastructure when you would think that they could do that if they wanted to? So I think there really is one major reason why the US, the UK, the other members of the US led task force sort of walked up to the edge of the line as far as significantly degrading Houthi capabilities, and that’s the escalation risk. From the beginning of this crisis, the US has been very concerned with trying to contain escalation, trying to keep the broader regional conflict from boiling over into a general war. And really, when they’re looking at the escalation risk, they’re looking in one direction, and that’s Iran. Now, Iran backs the Houthis. Iran supplies them with weapons, has been providing them with funding support. More recently, there’s strong evidence to suggest that iranian ships near the Red Sea have been assisting the Houthis in targeting passing commercial vessels. So the United States is very aware that Iran supports the Houthis. And I think it’s concerned know a very large, broad air campaign against the Houthis that significantly degraded their capabilities would increase the risk of an iranian escalation. Well, the Houthis clearly know that the US and Britain have much greater firepower than they do. So why would they continue their strikes on commercial shipping? There was another vessel in the Red Sea hit today, on Tuesday, when they know that they could get really punished as a result. That’s the big question, right? Can the Houthis be deterred? And I think the information thus far would suggest no, they can’t be deterred. If anything, strikes against their positions are serving to bolster the Houthi position. They’re offering them a degree of prestige. I mean, the Houthis have been using this crisis to boost their profile, if, you know, using this regional crisis to kind of come onto the world stage. They’re very heavily armed. They feel much more secure now than they did in previous years, since they’re on the verge of securing a ceasefire agreement with Saudi Arabia that will end Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the yemeni civil war. The Houthis don’t want to be considered a rebel group anymore. They want to be considered the sovereign government of Yemen. They’ve seen a boost in their position across the sort of broader so called resistance front of groups that are backed by Iran. So I don’t think the Houthis will be deterred by continued attacks. If anything, increased us strikes against their positions may embolden them and may encourage them to launch repeated and even more successful attacks on commercial shipping. That being said, I think the Houthis are still calibrating their actions. Right. They’re targeting ships that had an attachment or connection to Israel. Now they say they’re going to target ships that have a connection to the United States or to the UK. They don’t seem interested in attacking ships carrying oil or natural gas coming from the Middle east. They don’t really want to escalate with regional states. They’re not trying to pick a fight with Saudi Arabia or the UAE. They’re launching these attacks in a fairly calibrated way because they feel emboldened. They feel willing to take the risk, and they’re not worried if the US hits back. Well, Iran, which is the main backer of the Houthis, also has taken some actions lately that appear to be provocative. The US Navy just stopped what they said was a vessel carrying iranian weapons headed to the Houthis. Iran officially denies that they armed the Houthis, but there was this us seizure. And Iran also seized an oil tanker, formerly known as the Suez Rajan in the Persian Gulf last week. So what is your take on what Iran is up to with these kinds of actions? So I’ll touch on the iranian connections of the Houthis first, because I think the story there is pretty straightforward. I mean, Iran has been supplying the Houthis with weapons for nearly a decade. The Houthis are fairly well developed at this point. They can build a lot of their own weapons themselves, particularly drones. It’s likely that they can continue building their own drones, using them against ships for the foreseeable future. Missiles is a slightly different story. Right. The missiles they’re using anti ship ballistic missiles fairly complex pieces of military hardware. They can build some of the components themselves other components they need to get from Iran. They don’t have the means to build them themselves so the vessel that was stopped by the US was carrying complex missile parts from Iran that were bound for the Houthis. The Iranians have been doing this for a while. They’re going to continue to do this. The vessel in question was pretty small so it’s likely that there are other vessels involved in this kind of smuggling. It does suggest that the US is trying to take a more assertive role in blocking Iran’s ability to support the Houthis and that does pose something of an escalatory risk. If Iran is worried that the Houthis s are losing their ability to build missiles and fire them against passing ships that could suggest Iran may escalate to try to draw the US pressure off. That’s what I think the connection is there when it comes to the Suez. Rajan yes. Iran seized an oil tanker in the In the Persian Gulf, a very provocative move, given the Persian Gulf’s significance to the global oil economy. But this particular tanker is sort of special. Iran has a history with this tanker, and it goes back to early last year when there was kind of a tit for tat exchange between the United States and Iran. Iran seized several tankers in the Persian Gulf, and it was in response to the United States seizing this tanker, Suez Rajan, for allegedly carrying iranian oil, iranian oil, which, of course, is under heavy US sanction. Iran’s been selling oil to China now for over a year, selling quite a lot of it. They’re having quite a lot of success in exporting their sanctioned oil. And the US going after the Suez Rajan last year was meant to be sort of a deterrent against Iran continuing to sell that oil. The US did seize the tanker, impound it, and then sell the oil on auction in the Gulf of Mexico. The Iranians regarded this as a obvious blatant provocation. So the Suez Rajan, I think the Iranians always had it in their sights. They were going to take it back at some point doing it. Know the timing is significant, but given the status of this particular tanker and the Iranians history with it, I don’t think we can expect additional seizures of tankers in the gulf. If we did, that would clearly be a signal from Iran that it’s upping the ante and taking a more aggressive, more forward stance in the regional crisis. Well, Gregory Brew, Iran country analyst for the Eurasia group, on the line from New York City. Thank you so much for being with us on flashpoint Iran. Thanks for having me on. Iranian rights activists are sounding the alarm about four minority kurdish dissidents whose death sentences were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court this month. Pejman Fatehi, Mozan Masloom, Wafa Azarbar and Mohammed Faramarzi were arrested in June 2022 and later convicted of collaborating with Israel. Activists have said the four members of the Kurdistan Komaleh party were tortured into false confessions. The mother of Fatehi went to the entrance of Tehran’s Evan prison on Sunday and recorded a video message for Instagram. In the video, she appealed to governments and people around the world to prevent the execution of her only son. Shiva Mahbubi is the co founder of the rights group campaign to free political prisoners in Iran. I asked her in a Friday phone call under what circumstances the four men might get a reprieve. The only situation that these individuals and many others who are now in danger of being executed is if there is a protest inside Iran and internationally. That’s the only way. We don’t have any evidence when they have forced the individual to forcefully confess to something they have never done, to be free, to be pardoned or anything like that. Can you give an example of how this kind of protest action that you talked about has worked in the past? In some cases, what happened when they all protest, the prisoners, either their execution get late or their execution sentence reduced to life sentence. One of the very example that happened in the past, someone like Sohil Arabi, a well known activist and blogger, who was sentenced to death, and because of the international campaign for him, then it was reduced to basically life sentence. So it’s commuted. Yes, exactly. So what I mean by that, the only way to save these people is by international pressure on the regime, effective international pressure. And also in Iran, demonstrating on the street strikes or being in front of prison. And obviously, social media always helps because we had cases, actually, they postponed the execution just because there were protests on social media. Many people use the hashtag name of that person and stop executions in Iran. And it’s really helped. We have seen protests outside iranian prisons in the past. When people inside Iran hear about an impending execution, what are you hearing from your sources inside Iran about what activists there might do to try to help the four kurdish individuals in Iran? Obviously, people don’t announce what they’re going to do because of the threat of the islamic regime. So therefore, there could be protests or not. We don’t know often what they do. They gather in front of the prisons. That’s one of the things they have done always, and speak to the media. Like right now, the families of these kurdish political prisoners, they have spoken openly to the media. They have asked the international community to help them. So that’s one way that they try to reach the audience or the mothers of some of them. They have tried to put a video on the social media. Reza Rasai, one of these eight people who just had last visit, apparently, and that means that he might be executed any minute now. You actually told the VOA persian service in a recent interview with my colleagues that these executions that Iran has been carrying out at an increasing pace in the past year are an effort by the iranian leadership to try to scare off people from coming back to the streets and protesting. But what about the prospect of executions actually angering so many people that they have the opposite effect, which is to actually increase the number of protests in Iran. How much of a risk is there of that scenario? Well, the latter one, basically making people more angry is the case because imagine like 44 years they’ve been executed, thousands, and that didn’t scare people. And now we are in a situation in Iran, especially after killing Gina Masa Amini and the revolution of woman, life, freedom, now people are more eager, more fearless to protest against him. So this execution is actually making them more angry. Bear in mind that regime knows there are upcoming mass protests. They know that they haven’t killed the protests and Lucian, but we have to remember that right now because of the war in Gaza, they use this opportunity that the international community and the people around the world, they’re not watching Iran. And therefore, they actually execute prisoners on a daily basis. And I mean generally prisoners in Iran. This year, the rate has increased 30% compared to last year. This just make people more angry. You’re absolutely right. But they do not have any choice. They can’t not execute because this is a regime is based from the beginning on execution and torture in prison. And therefore, they know that they have to do that right now. According to our campaign’s daily update, more than 100 political prisoners are on their death row. But the reason the regime, they don’t execute many of them because they’re quite scared of protest. So that’s why they use different opportunity secretly to execute prisoner and then announce their name. As you notice, there is another change. Since last year, they did not execute any prisoners for saying you participated in the protest because the international support for people during the last year, quite huge. So what they do, they torture them and they tell them either you have to say you’re a spy for Israel or you have killed the security forces. In these cases, they legitimize or they rationalize their execution and they kill them. Well, Shiva Mahbubi, co founder and spokeswoman of the campaign to free political prisoners in Iran. CFPPI speaking to us from London. Thank you very much for sharing your insights on this issue with flashpoint Iran. Thank you, Michael. You’re listening to VOA’s flashpoint Iran. I’m Michael Lippin. In last week’s show, we played you a clip of that song by 73 year old iranian fishmonger Sadeg Baghari. It became Came an Instagram hit in November with its unusual display of the man singing and dancing in public at a food market in the northern city of Rasht in December, Baghari’s account went offline for several days as reports emerged that authorities detained him. Mariam Sinai, a correspondent for news Network Iran International, has been following Bughari’s ups and downs. In the second part of our conversation, she explains what happened when he briefly went silent. Well, I think he said in a video afterwards that he was not arrested, and I think he was not lying. Most likely, he was called in by intelligence and security agencies and threatened with prosecution, but not held or not held for long. Not for more than a few hours or maybe overnight. But they did call him in, and then they realized that this was ridiculous because he hadn’t done anything that deserved any action, like arrest. And it didn’t take very long. Just after a couple of days, he came back, his page was restored, and he said that he wasn’t arrested. But during these two, three days, his Instagram followers increased from around 8000 to 800,000. Oh, my goodness. Within that time. Within that time, as I was writing my article about him for Iran International, I kept checking, and the followers went from 700,000 to 850 or 900,000, just as I was writing. In a matter of hours? In a matter of hours, yes. So it seems like whatever the authorities who called him in wanted to achieve may have backfired. Is that your take? Yes, exactly. It did because they realized what a mistake they had made before, that not so many people knew him. But all of a sudden, with the action they took, and thanks to social media, which spread the story about what they were doing, even people outside Iran came to know about him. They saw the video of his song and dance, and it made the regime look very ridiculous. Speaking of people around Iran and the world learning about him, what have you seen in terms of the social media reaction and the imitation videos that have sprung up in the last couple of weeks? There are so many videos from inside, one young and old people imitating the dance. But one that was really interesting to me was the one from Japan I saw on Instagram. Japan of all places. Japan of all places. I’ve been to Japan. And you know how serious they look when they put on their traditional costumes. And this video showed three japanese ladies in kimonos and full traditional makeup and hairdo and everything, looking into the camera very solemnly. Then all of a sudden, the music came on and they broke into this funny o dance. So it’s really become an international sensation in a. Yeah, yeah. He has become. Well, what do you think is the secret? What is behind the viral success of Abaghari’s song and his personality? I think it’s happiness. Many Iranians feel like they’ve lost happiness over the past few decades because in the islamic republic, the authorities and the religious establishment, they really fall upon anything that’s display of happiness, display of joy. We have a lot of occasions when people gather for different ceremonies, et cetera, but they somehow manage to make everything into sad one, even into a mourning occasion. You’ve seen men beating their chest and crying for certain islamist rituals. Yeah, they condone that, but any display of happiness, they disapprove of. And there comes this old man. He’s encouraging people to be happy with his song and dance. And it’s interesting that I was looking at the pictures of his shop, and there’s a sign that says something like, enter with a smile or do your shopping with a smile. He really wants to make people happy. And that’s what he says all the time. He wants to make people happy. And his happiness is quite contagious. I think that was the reason for his success. And because people felt him to be one of their own, somebody like everybody else. He’s not a celebrity. He’s just one of them. Or he wasn’t a celebrity. Now he is. He’s very relatable. Yeah. And also in the past few years, dancing has become a way of displaying civil disobedience. Exactly for the same reason. Because people are not allowed to dance in public. Singing is okay, but dancing in public, especially if it’s women it’s not only disapproved of, also can get you into trouble. So he was, in his own way, displaying civil disobedience, and that’s what people connected with. Well, he certainly has had great success. And it’s great to get your perspective on Baghari’s rise to viral stardom. Mariam Sinai, correspondent for Iran International’s english website, speaking to us from the UK. Thank you for coming on to Flashpoint Iran. Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to speak about Mr. Boghari and his success, which I think has made many Iranians proud. That’s all for our show. I’m Michael Lippin in Washington. Join us again next week for another flashpoint Iran.
