Not Factually Correct

The founders of Monthly Review were always meticulous with their facts. The author of your recent piece on Iran is not. He makes the false statement that United4Iran is funded by the US Endowment for Democracy. We should be careful not to be taken for a ride by supporters of Ahmadinejad who have a long tradition of labelling opponents, especially on the Left, of “agents of foreign powers.”

Ervand Abrahamian

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Ervand Abrahamian (B.A., M.A., Oxford University; Ph.D. Columbia University), an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England,  teaches world and Middle East history. He has published Iran Between Two Revolutions, The Iranian Mojahedin, Khomeinism, Tortured Confessions, and Inventing the Axis of Evil. He teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, and has taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He is currently working on two books: one on The CIA Coup in Iran; and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press.

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Rejoinder From Stephen Gowans

Ervand Abrahamian mischaracterizes what I wrote . I did not write that United4Iran is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy. I wrote that “United4Iran is sponsored by a number of organizations that receive funding from philanthropic foundations dominated by corporate interests and by the US National Endowment for Democracy.” That United4Iran’s supporters are funded by ruling class foundations, the NED and Western governments is a matter of public record and easily veri fied by anyone with access to the Internet. Two examples: One of United4Iran’s supporters, Human Rights Watch, receives major funding from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, George Soros’ the Open Society Institute, the Mott Foundation, BMO Financial Group, and the RBC Financial Group, among scores of other wealthy individuals, corporations and corporate foundations, as well as the Save Darfur Coalition. See pages 52-53 of HRW’s 2008 Annual Report at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/AR2008-web.pdf. NED support for the notoriously anti-Cuba Reporters without Borders, another United4Iran supporter, is readily verified by perusing the group’s statement of finances, available online at http://www.rsf.org/Income-and-expenditure,22503.html .

Stephen Gowans

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Stephen Gowans http://gowans.blogspot.com/