Day: June 29, 2024

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For long, the world’s big powers have been using cross-border assassinations to advance their domestic and geopolitical interests. Increasingly, lesser powers are also resorting to it to eliminate dissidents, separatists and terrorists.

Cross-border political assassinations, allegedly carried out by States, are no longer the exclusive preserve of the world’s superpowers. Lesser powers are also resorting to it now, to achieve their domestic goals such as the elimination of critics, dissidents, separatists and terrorists. 

Political assassinations on foreign soil are illegal at the very least and are even considered an act of war. For long, fear of consequences had kept even major powers out of the assassination game. But during the Cold War, the US and the USSR began to use assassinations as a substitute for a hot war.

The Americans tended to reserve murder for leaders of defiant countries. The US tried to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. But following severe criticism in America itself, President Gerald Ford banned political assassinations by executive order in 1976.;

But after the 9/11/2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York by Al Qaida, US restraint about assassinations disappeared and the US Congress sanctioned the use of “all necessary and appropriate force” against those deemed responsible for 9/11. It was under this that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May 2011 and military leader Qassem Suleimani in Iraq in 2020.;;

The US began to use drones rather than gunmen and justified these overseas killings saying that they were “legitimate use of military force, authorized by the 2001 congressional authorization.

The Soviets resorted to assassinating those who were a danger to the regime and resident abroad. The Soviets limited their killings to Soviet citizens who criticized the regime from their perches abroad. The earliest example of this was the killing of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 by an agent of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.;

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s Vladimir Putin perfected the art of assassination on foreign soil. In 2006 his agents poisoned defector Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope and attempted to poison Sergei Skripal, a former double agent.;

Lesser Powers

Gradually, other countries also subscribed to assassinations.;

Justin Lin in his piece in;Foreign Policy;dated January 4, 2024 had this to say about this change: “Iran and North Korea have both been accused of brash foreign murders in recent years. Pakistan, a likely target for India’s foreign assassination program, is suspected of carrying out similar murders. Israel, one of the most frequent employers of extraterritorial targeted killings, appears to have renewed its own assassination program to take out senior Hamas leadership. At least three senior figures in the militant group have been killed in recent days.”;

In a landmark case, Saudi Arabia killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Khashoggi was a carping critic of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman (MBS).

Iran was allegedly behind as many as 24 successful killings on foreign soil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Justin Lin says. An Iranian hit squad killed former Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in 1991. Bakhtiar was a bitter critic of the Islamic government of Iran.;

However, it was Israel which made assassination abroad a highly efficient tool of foreign policy. From its very founding, it had taken out Palestinian leaders and Nazi war criminals. After the attack on the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel sanctioned the killing of 24 Palestinian militants thought to be directly or indirectly responsible for the Munich attack. These killings occurred in Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus, and even farther afield, Justin Lin says.

Israel also used helicopter gunships to take out leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel assassinated even Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran. According to;The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations(2018) written by Ronen Bergman, Mossad had carried out hundreds of targeted killings since 2000.;

In 2017, Kim Jong Nam—half-brother to North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was attacked with a deadly nerve gas while transiting through Kuala Lumpur airport. But the then US President Donald Trump made friends with North Korea and the assassination ceased to matter.;

Silence enveloped the murder of Khashoggi because the US made up with the Saudis to rope them into the Abraham Accords with Israel.;;;;

In the allegations against it are proved, India will be the latest member of the club which believes in carrying out killings of separatists and trouble makers abroad. In 2023, Canada and the US alleged that Indian intelligence officials were behind the assassination of the Canada-based Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver on June 18, 2023 and the bid to assassinate US-based Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York.;

Both Nijjar and Pannun hailed from Punjab in India but were US citizens. Canada and the US argued that India had no right to kill or try to kill their citizens. India reacted saying that Canada had not given any substantive evidence of India’s involvement in the killing of Nijjar and argued that the killing could have been the result of local gang warfare.;

In the case of Pannun, the Indian government said that it was working on the case and that it was reforming its system. The US government, keen to keep India on its side in its quarrel with China, said that India was cooperating.;;;;;

Meanwhile, four Indian nationals were arrested in May this year over the fatal shooting of Nijjar in June 18, 2023. They are Amandeep Singh, 22; Kamalpreet Singh, 22; Karan Brar, 22; and Karanpreet Singh, 28.

In the Pannun case, Indian national Nikhil Gupta, suspected of being involved in a plot to kill Sikh separatist, was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US and is being tried in New York.;

According to;The Guardian;of April 4, 2024, India had allegedly killed almost 20 persons on Pakistani soil since 2020 using unknown gunmen. The allegations also suggested that Sikh separatists in the Khalistan movement were targeted.;

“According to Pakistani investigators, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also allegedly recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing infidels,”;The Guardian;said.

The Guardian;quoted two unnamed Indian intelligence officers as saying that the focus shifted to separatists and terrorists living abroad after the Pakistani terrorist attack at Pulwama in Kashmir in 2019. A suicide bomber belonging to the Pakistani terror group Jaish-i-Muhammed, had targeted an Indian convoy killing 40 paramilitary soldiers.;;

Sikh separatists of the Khalistan movement were also targeted by Indian agents both in Pakistan and the West.;

“According to Pakistani investigators, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also allegedly recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing infidels,”;The Guardian;said.

The tone for aggressive action against separatists and terrorists was set by the Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who declared in an interview to a TV channel: “If terrorists run away to Pakistan, we will enter the country to kill them.”;

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman stated that Pakistan has long been the epicentre of terrorism, organised crime, and illegal transnational activities. ” To blame others for its own misdeeds can neither be a justification nor a solution.”

Pakistan may be equally culpable, Justin Lin alleges. Karima Baloch, a human rights advocate from Balochistan, was found dead in Toronto in December 2020. Canadian police said there was no evidence of foul play, but her family had demanded a more thorough investigation. Advocates pointed out the striking similarities to the death of fellow Pakistani exile Sajid Hussain in Sweden just months earlier.

Justin Lin quotes Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, as saying that if there is no condemnation from the international community, if nobody is prosecuted, such targeted extrajudicial killings will get a lot worse.

;“The fact is that we have almost normalized targeted killings of so-called terrorists, and that it has become a quasi—if not completely—justified means of conducting legitimate war on terror,” Callamard said.

Far from making the world safer, Callamard argues, this kind of killing only contributes to global insecurity.

“The justification that has occurred over the past 20 years for many violations, in the name of terrorism and counterterrorism, has really greatly weakened our capacity to denounce, to condemn in a strong voice,” she asserted.;

It was cruel.; Sinister cruel.; While Donald Trump was always going to relish the chance to be not only economical with the truth but simply inventive about it, Joe Biden, current Commander in Chief of the United States, leader of the self-described Free World, seemed a vanishing shadow, longing for soft slippers and the fireplace with cocoa, a case of comfort rather than the battling rage of politics.

It need never have happened, and certainly not so early.; But the earliest-ever US Presidential election debate, held even before both candidates had been formally confirmed at their party conventions, did much to puncture Biden and hold Trump afloat in odd boosts of credibility.; The media were at hand to glory in the matter and taste the morsels of slaughter.; NBC News was aghast at the president, who “seemingly struggled even to talk, mostly summing a weak, raspy voice.; In the opening minutes, he repeatedly tripped over his words, misspoke and lost his train of thought.”;

There was much in the way of stumbling, incoherence, and immaturity – just the sort of thing we need for a White House occupant.; Biden mumbled nonsensically at several points, trawling his shattered memory for some reference to Covid before claiming that, “We finally beat Medicare.”; It soon became routine to expect mangled figures and fantasy mathematics.; (The claim that the Biden administration had created 15,000 jobs, for instance; or the number of trillionaires in the United States.); At some point, it became clear that the fetishised fact checkers were out of a job, if for no reason that both candidates were proving loose with their figures. ;

At stages, this left Trump, his predatory instinct aroused by a limping animal, able to land a stinging jab or two.; “I don’t know if he knows what he said either.”; At intervals, as Trump spoke, Biden seemed to vanish into a canyon of stricken vacancy, possibly struggling to recall the talking points his aides had stocked him with over the last few days along with the necessary medications to fuel him.; This was elder abuse as a gladiatorial sport, your grandfather abused on live television.

The only time when some balance was restored was the issue of the respective golf handicaps of the debaters. Biden’s claim that he had a handicap of 6 in golf received the predictable sneer from his opponent: “I’ve seen your swing.”; Here, the world’s most prominent superpower could be reduced to two elderly men talking about a sport described as being a good walk spoilt.; Priorities were confirmed.;

An army of the delusional and deluded have come out with the “truthful” defence on Biden’s part.; Forget the competence of the leader, focus on the inner gold of a supposedly good character.; Regrettably for those who believe veracity is important in politics, except when it isn’t, this is unlikely to go far.; Debates are shows of tedious pomp, displays, projecting a false sense of hot air authority.; Biden failed on all counts; Trump could at least muster a semblance of it, his lies embroidered by a passable confidence.

This is not to say that the physically and mentally feeble have evaded White House occupancy.; Presidential history is marked by cerebral infirmity and physical enervation.; What matters is election, the great electoral con.; John F. Kennedy, despite being murderously cut down at the age of 46, was ruined in body.; These are the less than flattering words from Christopher Hitchens in a scathing review of Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life in the Times Literary Supplement (Aug 22, 2003): “In addition to being a moral defective and a political disaster, John Kennedy was a physical and probably mental also-ran for most of his presidency.”; He was a walking pharmacopeia in office, mortality always more than a threatening suggestion.

Another disaster is also proof than the infirm can still find their way through campaign, ballot box and office.; Ronald Reagan may have been celebrated as the master communicator during his presidency, saddled with the grave responsibility of bringing the Cold War to its eventual end.; He also tolerated the superstitious interventions of his wafer thin wife on policy, curated through the medium of the astrologer Joan Quigley even as his own mind was taking a lengthy, eventually permanent sabbatical in the realm of dementia.; Biden, to put it simply, may still have some room to survive.; The question is: can he?

Democratic strategists, at least those reeling from the tingling shock of a cold bath, understood the implications.; Others preferred an elaborate ostrich act crowned by sycophantic reassurance.; Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina was admirably spineless in telling Biden to “Stay the course.”; That said, the sages had already given ample warnings before the debate. ;

The enchantingly shrill James Carville (mad, bad and dangerous to ignore) had warned about the risk posed by Biden’s age to electoral hopes.; Julian Epstein, former Chief Counsel to the US House Judiciary Committee and Staff Director to the House Oversight Committee Democrats, excoriated his party for revealing “their own kind of cowardice in refusing to say that President Biden shouldn’t run for re-election.”; The party faithful and apparatchiks were defiant: such criticism was ageist.; They had their man.

The choice, as things stand, is for a person weak of mind insisting that he is safer for the US and the world while “knowing how to tell the truth” over a man who remains estranged from the truth, guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying business accounts, and trumpets the winding back of US global commitments.; It left such admirers as Alastair Campbell, former communications chief for British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, mournful: Russia’s Vladimir Putin; China’s Xi Jinping, and the Islamic Republic of Iran would be stifling sobs of joy. ;

It’s a striking nightmare, throwing the Republic’s politics into sharp relief, taking the shine off a system Americans regard as sacred, exportable and relevant to the globe.; A more sober reading is that political reality has bitten, leaving Hunted Biden to barely escape the slaughter, permitting an alternative to be selected before it’s too late.; The question for the Democrats will involve allowing Biden to gracefully withdraw or take himself and his entire entourage to the electoral grave.;

The timing of the US ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ Bill holds significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.

Tibet’s exiled leader and the world’s most sought after spiritual personality, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Buddhist monk Tenzin Gyatso, is one of the most gentle, charming, kind and compassionate human beings that walk the planet. I had the good fortune to meet the Dalai Lama, for the first time in 2007, in one of the remotest states of India that borders Bangladesh. With eyes that shine from behind his iconic spectacles,; to the yellow-maroon robe that he dons, the man carries the most disarming smile that can completely bowl anyone over.

The 89-year old octogenarian monk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, in recognition of his non-violent campaign to end China’s domination of Tibet, his homeland. The peaceful monk has set an example for the world by sustaining a campaign for the last seven decades to advocate for peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect.;

I was meeting him for a television interview and before we formally started, I told him that in the true Indian spirit of accepting someone as a Guru (teacher), we touch their feet and seek their blessings. To my utter surprise as I reached out to touch his feet, he got up and bent down and gave me a hug, looked into my eyes and said “I’m a simple monk. Call all your team members and let me give them all a big hug”. I stood there in deep admiration of the man as he kept speaking while he called out to each one of our crew members and hugged them, getting photographs clicked,while words of wisdom continued to flow from his lips. There was a timelessness about those ten minutes which I have never forgotten.;

A man on whom rests the fate of a nation in exile… A man who is himself in exile thousands of miles away from his homeland… A man who has been fighting for several decades for a cause that has filled up his entire existence…. A man who can infect anyone with that miraculous smile ..;

Yes, the Dalai Lama stepped down in 2011 as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which Beijing does not recognise and views as a violation of China’s constitution. And yet, China continues to fume at any interaction that the Dalai Lama has with political personalities or even officials of other countries. They keep an eagle’s eye on his activities calling him “a dangerous separatist”.

Currently, this ‘Divine Power’ has China infuriated ! The Chinese are having sleepless nights as US lawmakers are pressing President Joe Biden to sign the bill that will push China to secure a negotiated and peaceful agreement on Tibet. The ‘Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act’, also known as the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’, recently passed the House of Representatives 391-26 and now awaits President Joe Biden for a signature to become law.

China’s restiveness began on June 19, 2024 when a group of US lawmakers met the Dalai Lama and said they would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Political analysts say that while so far Washington recognises Tibet as a part of China, the new bill reverses that position.;

Beijing, on its part, has rejected the Act, saying Tibet is part of China and brooks no interference from external forces. China’s foreign ministry has urged President Biden not to sign the ‘bipartisan’ Bill, reiterating that Tibet’s affairs are China’s domestic matters and warning against external interference.;

What exactly is this Act which has set the cat among the pigeons? 

On 12th of June, the US House of Representatives passed the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ which for the first time clearly stated Washington’s position on Tibet not constituting ‘a part of China since ancient times’. The Act also called for the dispute between Tibet and China to be ‘resolved in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter, by peaceful means, through dialogue, without pre-conditions’ while enhancing bipartisan US support to the Tibetan issue. The Act can be termed ‘historic’ in the sense that the wording clearly posits Tibet and China as two separate entities locked in a long-standing international dispute instead of the former being a part of the latter’s territory and hence the dispute being ‘internal.’ Also noteworthy is the fact that the Act stipulates the US government to counter Beijing’s disinformation of Chinese historical claims over the Tibetan plateau including not just the current Tibet Autonomous Region but also the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan.

Beijing is further intrigued and infuriated as the Dalai Lama arrived in New York last Sunday, ahead of medical treatment for his knees and was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters. This marked his first visit to the country since 2017.;

Interestingly, Dalai Lama’s US visit comes just days after a group of lawmakers including former US House Speaker Representative Nancy Pelosi met him at his exile home in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India. During the meeting, the American delegation assured the Tibetan leader that the US would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Pelosi, during her visit to Dharamsala, criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping and expressed support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. This visit coincided with the US Congress passing the Act, which urges China to resume negotiations with Tibetan leaders. It is also well known that some of these lawmakers are also trying to push Beijing to restart talks with Tibetan leaders, which have been stalled since 2010.;

In a bid to further tantalize China, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the seven-member US delegation and took stock of their visit to Dharamshala. Modi reiterated his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations for global benefit, recalling his State Visit to the US last year. He asserted that India recognises the Dalai Lama as an “honored guest” and a “religious leader” with a significant following.;

Beijing, however, views the Dalai Lama as a political figure engaged in anti-China separatist activities. The Dalai Lama, regarded as the supreme Tibetan spiritual leader, fled to India in 1959 following a failed revolt against Chinese rule. Based in Dharamsala, his advanced age has raised concerns about the selection of his successor, a potential flashpoint between Beijing and the exiled Tibetan community.;

Veteran journalist, Tibetologist and Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies & Engagement Dr Vijay Kranti says that the sequence of events during which the seven-member US Congressional delegation, led by Republican Michael McCaul, met the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, followed it up with a meeting with PM Modi in New Delhi, greeted Modi on his historic third consecutive term as PM and praised the fairness of India’s recent elections … “All this shows that the timing of the visit, the composition of this American delegation and the actual content of these US Bills hold big significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.”

Dr Kranti, who has been extremely vocal on the Tibet issue for the last three decades and is considered an authority on the subject, said that Tibet used to play as a ‘safety buffer’ between India and China for millennia. Interestingly, the new American laws say everything formally and clearly, which New Delhi wanted to tell Beijing but never had the courage to say in plain words. “It is high time New Delhi grabs this as a God-sent opportunity and joins the proposed ‘International Diplomatic Coalition’. Rather, India can also play an important role in expanding such a coalition to a dozen countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia that are suffering because of China’s “water bullying” on the strength of controlling Tibetan rivers.”

It is a matter of record that a dozen countries in south and southeast Asia, fed by Tibetan rivers since time immemorial, are now feeling the fear of perpetual droughts because of over-exploitation by China. And countries like India and Bangladesh are facing the danger of being bombed with manipulated floods by China from across the Tibetan borders.

Not that India and China have ever enjoyed a cordial relationship, but off late there have been other reasons for India to be upset. Just before the recent general elections, there were reports from the Virginia-based Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre (MTAC) highlighting China’s attempts to use AI-generated content to influence elections in various countries, including India, the US, and South Korea. Similar tactics were reportedly tested during Taiwan’s presidential elections. The Modi government has not taken kindly to this bid by China to manipulate elections in favor of the Congress party. 

Similarly, in the US, China is using fake social media accounts to poll voters on what divides them most so as to sow division and possibly influence the outcome of the US presidential election in its favor. China has also increased its use of AI-generated content to further its goals around the world. North Korea has increased its cryptocurrency heists and supply chain attacks to fund and further its military goals and intelligence collection. It has also begun to use AI to make its operations more effective and efficient.

Among the MTAC – “Same targets, new playbooks : East Asia threat actors employ unique methods”, key findings confirmed that deceptive social media accounts by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated actors have started to pose contentious questions on controversial US domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide the American voters. This quite obviously was done to gather intelligence and precision on key voting demographics ahead of their presidential election. It is not difficult to imagine how the US would have reacted to these findings indicative of the surreptitious and mischievous role that China is playing.

Not only this, fake social media accounts also made a bid to create deep mistrust in the minds of the US voters by accusing the US administration of purposefully poisoning other countries’ water supplies to maintain “water hegemony”. This was part of a wider multilingual campaign, principally focused on Japan and its government’s decision to dispose of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The campaign called ‘Storm-1376’ tried to cast doubts on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) scientific assessment that the disposal was safe.

Having borne the brunt of these fake social media campaigns by Chinese organizations, both the US and India have decided to teach China a lesson. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is already on record stating that India will not let China dictate the play’.

“Previous Indian governments have even put Chinese interests ahead of our own,” Jaishankar said. “I cannot, in the name of an open economy, open up my national security to work with a country which is laying claim to my territory. Both our economic and national security are at stake”.

In his article in The Organiser, Dr Kranti quotes a Tibetan activist and renowned Tibetan intellectual, Tenzin Tsundu, who summed up the significance of this US bill and the visit of the US delegation, saying, “This is the first time in the history of the Tibetan struggle for freedom that any country has come out openly and formally in support of Tibet with clear assertions that Tibet is an occupied country and that Tibet has never been a part of China.

More than anything else, it is the actual text of all these bills of 2002, 2019, and 2024, passed by the US Congress, which reflect the real spirit of American support for Tibet. In short, at least seven major assertions and points underlined in these bills pointedly challenge and blast every single claim and narrative of Xi Jinping on Tibet. Put together, these American assertions on Tibet and China amount to rejecting Xi’s most shouted idea of the ‘One China Policy’. These points also reflect the emergence of an unambiguous American approach towards China.

By Kian Sharifi

(RFE/RL) — The Islamic republic of Iran witnessed its lowest presidential-election turnout ever on June 28, when only around 40 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.

None of the four candidates cleared to run in the election managed to secure enough votes to be declared the outright winner.

Reformist lawmaker Masud Pezeshkian, who took 42.5 percent of the vote, and ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who won 38.6 percent,;will face off;in a second round of voting on July 5 that will determine the next president of Iran.

The historic low turnout came despite calls by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for voters to show up in droves to cast their ballots, arguing that the “durability, strength, dignity, and reputation of the Islamic republic” were on the line.

Turnout in major elections has been declining since 2020, but opinion polls carried out in Iran had suggested that this election would not be as bad as the 2021 presidential election, which saw a then-record-low turnout of 48.8 percent.

The low turnout is “obviously a sign of the decreasing legitimacy of the Islamic republic,” said Farzan Sabet, a senior research associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Ahead of the election, dissidents both in Iran and abroad had called for a boycott, arguing that past votes had failed to bring change.

Sabet said among a slew of factors contributing to the poor turnout was that a majority of the public “does not see elections as a meaningful path to change,” particularly when past presidents, such as the moderate Hassan Rohani, complain about having been blocked from carrying out their campaign promises by circles of power.

So, people question whether there is any point in voting if ultimately the government’s decision-making powers are limited, Sabet said.

Curtains On Qalibaf’s Presidential Aspirations

Another key takeaway from the election was the poor performance of conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, whose third-place finish in his fourth presidential run may have ended his aspirations to become president.

“In a sense, this might be the end of his rise in the system,” Sabet said. “Although he will go back to the parliament and continue to govern from there.”

The conservative camp had been urging Jalili and Qalibaf to come to an understanding for one of them to drop out in favor of the other to prevent the splitting of the conservative vote. Neither budged, however, and Qalibaf suffered for a couple of reasons.

Qalibaf found himself squeezed between Jalili, who appealed to more hard-line and ideologically committed voters, and Pezeshkian, who drew on the support of enough moderate and pro-reform voters to finish ahead of the pack.

The parliament speaker has also been embroiled in a series of corruption allegations and political scandals throughout his career, which may have damaged his reputation to such an extent that it could not be offset by his attempts to present himself as a competent, experienced manager with technocratic solutions.

Pezeshkian-Jalili Showdown

Pezeshkian initially was not seen as a serious challenger but as election day grew closer, his poll numbers soared.

Despite the low turnout, he managed to lure enough moderate and reformist voters out to secure a place in the runoff election.

Pezeshkian is a veteran lawmaker who backs engaging with the West and has been critical of some of Tehran’s conservative policies. But he is also committed to the principles of the Islamic republic and has vowed to follow Khamenei’s policies if elected.

Jalili, who is staunchly opposed to improving relations with the West, will be hoping to get Qalibaf’s votes after the parliament speaker endorsed him for the runoff. However, there is no guarantee that Qalibaf’s supporters will swing to Jalili.

The hard-liner Jalili has also surrounded himself with officials close to the administration of the late Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a helicopter crash in May triggered the snap election to replace him.

The last time an Iranian presidential vote went to a runoff was in 2005, when the populist candidate Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who had finished second in the first round, beat the moderate hopeful Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

If turnout remains low and Pezeshkian fails to mobilize a larger portion of pro-reform voters, Jalili could win the July 5 poll.

To convince the disillusioned public to vote, Pezeshkian needs “a clear plan and distinct approach,” France-based political commentator Mojtaba Najafi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

If Pezeshkian succeeds, he will have “a significant chance” of defeating Jalili, he said.

There is also a possibility that the prospect of a Jalili presidency is enough incentive to compel some to vote for Pezeshkian.

“I voted for Pezeshkian because I believe he is qualified, but also I was scared of Jalili becoming president,” a voter inside Iran said in a voice message to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

Sabet argued, however, that with the Iranian public having experienced the repressive Ahmadinejad and Raisi presidencies, “I’m not sure how much more frightening a Jalili administration will be.”

By Sam Rosenthal

In February 2023, I stood outside the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting handing out flyers. It was a bright, sunny day in downtown Philadelphia, but bone-chillingly cold; within just ten minutes I had lost feeling in my toes and fingers.

I, along with a handful of other volunteers, was there to spread a heterodox and unpopular message: that Joe Biden, then cruising to his party’s renomination, should not seek another term in 2024.

Our flyers pointed to Biden’s shortcomings in his first term and how they would affect his candidacy in 2024—how a lack of progressive policy achievements had damaged his reputation with critical constituencies that propelled him to victory in 2020, including young people, people of color, and grassroots activists.

We highlighted his cratering popularity within his own party, how many Democrats already said that they preferred a different nominee at the top of the ticket in 2024. We implored DNC members to take seriously the acute threat a second Trump term posed to our country’s democracy and earnestly reconsider whether Joe Biden was as well-positioned to defeat Trump as he had been in 2020.

As we flyered in front of the hotel where DNC meetings were being held, a mobile billboard truck circled the block bearing our campaign slogan—“Don’t Run, Joe!”

How did DNC members, staffers, and media attendees react to our open display of dissent? About how you would expect—most ignored us, a few others mocked us, one or two even angrily confronted our ragtag group.

U.S. media, when they grudgingly agreed to hear us out, wanted to know why, if our stance was truly held by a majority of Democrats, no one within the party agreed with us. Most of the U.S. journalists I spoke to that weekend approached me with a mix of bemusement and mild derision. None of our interviews made it into their coverage of the Winter Meeting.

In contrast, international press wanted to speak with us about our campaign. They asked thoughtful questions that revealed their honest impressions on the precarity of Biden’s position.

Meanwhile, something notable kept happening that weekend. Convention attendees would approach us, most looking over their shoulders, to express their quiet agreement with our position. “Who else is with you?” they wanted to know. Journalists told me that DNC members, even Democratic members of Congress, had privately expressed their concerns about Biden’s candidacy, but that none would go on the record.

One DNC member approached me to say that he agreed completely with us, but that there was no way of changing the party’s approach at this late stage (never mind that the election was still nearly two years away).

There was palpable anxiety bubbling under the surface of an apparently sober and pro forma party convening, but no one was willing to say the quiet part out loud.

Now, of course, the;Step Aside Joe;campaign is no longer the lone dissenting voice. Since Biden’s disastrous debate appearance on Thursday night, what was a long-simmering conversation has erupted into a full boil, with a growing chorus of voices, from across the political spectrum, in agreement that Biden is, as one commentator put it, past his “sell-by date.”

Still time for the Democrats to find someone else

There is, of course, still time for the Democrats to find someone else who can take up the party’s mantle and avert a likely electoral catastrophe, but it will require a concerted effort from voters, party leaders, electeds, and media figures to pressure Biden to end his campaign.

Nothing can happen unless Biden himself agrees to step aside. For those who are new to the Step Aside Joe terrain, I’d like to offer a few quick insights gleaned from my handful of years as one of the few inhabitants of SAJ island:

First, there is far more anxiety among party insiders than has been reported. Last night was not the beginning of a period of worry for those who have been closely following Biden’s re-election campaign; rather, it was the culminating moment wherein all of their worst fears and anxieties were realized and concretized in one, faltering performance.

Unfortunately, in modern electoral politics, to be isolated is to be on the precipice of extinction, and so almost no Democrat who has to run for re-election themselves in the coming years can afford to publicly express their misgivings about Biden’s candidacy. However, if a few brave electeds in prominent positions were to speak out, my guess is that the tide would turn quite rapidly.

Second, members of the media have long fielded concerns about Biden’s candidacy from those aforementioned party insiders. This has been going on at least as far back as the February 2023 Winter Meeting, and I suspect much farther than that.

But these sources are at pains to stay completely off the record or not for attribution by name, meaning that the media ultimately has very little fodder from which to generate a compelling story.

As we saw on Friday morning though, the sheer volume of anxious messages coming in from sources inside the Democratic Party machinery was enough for mainstream media to finally declare that a desire for Biden to step aside was widespread within the party.

In the coming weeks, Biden’s camp will want to tamp down lasting concerns about his debate performance and proceed in a business-as-usual fashion. It will be up to journalists to keep this story alive, even if it costs them access to sources within the White House.

Finally, the gulf between the Democratic Party and its constituents can be incredibly vast, party’s current approach—and they should be—they must;let their representatives know. Members of Congress are ultimately beholden to their constituents, although that fact is often easy to forget, and enough pressure from in-district voters could help nudge these elected into taking a more confrontational approach to those in the party leadership who want to stay the course.

We do not have to smash heedlessly into the approaching iceberg, but voters must take active steps to steer the party away from the consequences of its own bad decision-making. It is unlikely the party will course correct on its own.

It is not an exaggeration to say that replacing Joe Biden at the top of the ticket is critical to saving our very imperfect democracy. This is an opportunity for activists and voters to make their voices heard, but an effort needs to take hold quickly, and with urgency, if we want to avoid the coming catastrophe.

• Sam Rosenthal is Political Director at RootsAction. 

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The AfD jumped to second place in nationwide polls last year amid frustration with infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, worries over sluggish growth in Europe’s largest economy, and concerns over the impact of the war in Ukraine.

While a string of scandals and anti-extremism protests has dampened the AfD’s support in recent months, the nationalist, Eurosceptic party nonetheless came second with 15.9% in the European vote this month, ahead of the three parties in Scholz’s coalition.

AfD membership had grown by 60% to 46,881 members since January 2023, co-chief Tino Chrupalla told nearly 600 delegates at a party convention in the western city of Essen. Some 22,000 people had joined while 4,000 had left.

“Despite all the harassment you have to endure as a member of the AfD, this is an absolutely sensational figure,” Chrupalla told the convention.

The figure is still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of members boasted by the “big tent” parties in Germany, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition conservatives.

The congress was held despite resistance from city authorities — marked by the rainbow and EU flags flying on flagpoles outside the convention center — and protesters who sought to prevent AfD delegates from making it there.

Two riot police officers who had been escorting a politician were seriously injured after protesters kicked them in the head after they fell to the ground and had to be hospitalized, police reported. A further seven officers were also injured.

‘We are here to stay’

“Melt the AfD snowball before it becomes an avalanche” and “AfD = Despiser of mankind” read some of the signs that protesters carried at an anti-AfD march through the city.

The interior ministry estimated some 20,000 people participated in the demonstration, state broadcaster ZDF said.

The party congress will run until Sunday, the same day neighboring France holds the first round of a snap parliamentary election that could bring the far right to power.

“We will not be intimidated,” said co-chief Alice Weidel. “We are here, and we are here to stay.”

The AfD is on track to come first in elections in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September, according to polls, which will likely further complicate governance there as other parties refuse to form a coalition with it.

In discussing the party’s policy platform, Weidel said AfD’s future allies in the European Parliament should oppose the disbursal of taxpayer money to the “debt states” of Europe — a reference to countries such as Italy and Greece — and the idea that Ukraine belongs to the European Union, after it opened membership talks this week.

The AfD is on course to form a new political group in the European Parliament — a move which would require 23 MEPs from at least seven EU countries — after being expelled from the Identity and Democracy grouping last month, Weidel said.