MERIP Media Resource List, February 16, 2006

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- Bush administration plans for supporting democracy in Iran
- Iraqi government still unformed
- US policies of democracy promotion in Iraq and Palestinian Authority

KAVEH EHSANI
Kaveh Ehsani is a research scholar at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is on the editorial boards of Middle East Report and Goft-o-gu (Dialogue) journal in Iran. He commented today: "The multiplication of the money allocated to 'support democracy' in Iran only further compounds the Bush administration's misguided Iran policy. As before, the Iranian regime will use this as an excuse to brand all opposition as being in the pay of the United States. The only constructive course of action with Iran is to negotiate directly with regard to security and nuclear issues, but hold firm in demanding that the Iranian regime respect political freedoms and human rights at home."

QUIL LAWRENCE
Quil Lawrence is a BBC reporter who covers Iraq for "The World," a BBC/PRI radio program. He recently reported from Falluja for the December 15 election. He commented today: "Iraqi politicians say that Ibrahim Jaafari may have been chosen to be prime minister again not as the strongest leader, but as the compromise that was acceptable to the powerful factions."

SHEILA CARAPICO
Sheila Carapico is professor of political science at the University of Richmond and a member of the editorial board of Middle East Report . She is the author of Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and is currently researching Western and international programs designed to promote democracy and civil society in the Arab world. She commented today: "The landmark Arab election this winter was not the troubled American-engineered exercise in Iraq in December 2005 but the remarkable Palestinian balloting in January 2006, when for the first time in memory Arab incumbents were voted out of office. In presenting Iraq as a 'model' for the region while threatening to punish Palestinians for electing Hamas, the US undermines its self-proclaimed role as the patron of democratization."

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