Steven Vincent, Basra and Iran

24 MB MP3

Extra: full interview with Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, Steven Vincent’s wife

Steven Vincent was murdered last week in Basra, where he had been working as a blogger and a freelance reporter. The day before, he had published a piece in The New York Times, describing overwhelming Iranian influence in Southern Iraq. On his own blog, In the Red Zone, he writes

Down Basra way, the country most preoccupying the locals is not Amrika, but that brooding, seething, over-cleric’d Mordor to the east, Iran. Whether its supporting religious parties, smuggling oil and gas, sabotaging the energy infrastructure, orchestrating sectarian assassinations or other neighborly deeds, Basrawi detect the stealthy hand of Tehran in nearly every aspect of their lives. “We don’t talk about this in public,” a professor at Basra U. told me. “Get too explicit and you get ‘disappeared.'”

Steven Vincent, July 2, 2005, In the Red Zone

Vali Nasr

Author, The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power

Co-Author, State and Democracy in Iran (2006)

Author, The Shia Revival: How Conflict within Islam will Shape the Future (2006)

An editor, Oxford Dictionary of Islam

His works on Political Islam and Comparative Politics of South Asia and the Middle East have been published in The New York Times and the Washington Post as well as a number of academic journals.

Lisa Ramaci-Vincent

She was married to Steven Vincent for 13 years. Chris spoke with her earlier today.

Steve Mumford

Painter (portfolio)

Lives in New York. He’s created watercolor, oil and ink drawings as an embedded sketch artist in US occupied Iraq. He joins us from Maine.

Alan Chin

Freelance photojournalist, on assignment in Basra for the New York Times. He spent time with Stephen Vincent in June. He joins us from Detroit, MI.