Jack DuVall posted this comment:

This article suggests that 'most of the money for training Iranians in nonviolent protest came not from Washington but from private sources, primarily Wall Street financier Peter Ackerman and his International Center on Nonviolent Conflict' (ICNC). That is untrue. ICNC is a nonprofit operating foundation that has openly provided educational materials on civil resistance to nonviolent activists engaged in campaigns for rights, democracy and justice in over 80 countries for almost eight years.  It organized one workshop attended by Iranians who said they were interested in human rights, and that was not a secret but rather a matter of public record. That hardly constitutes some sort of secret, extensive program as Steve Weissman implies.

Stephen Zunes posted this comment:

This article contains some gross misrepresentations, omissions, and just plain falsehoods.

For example:

The popular uprising in Serbia against Milosevic received som funding from Western sources, but the claim that it was "stage-managed by Washington" is as ridiculous as claiming that the Central American revolutions, because of their limited financial support form the Eastern Bloc, were stage-managed by Moscow.

Secondly, Weissman's implies that CANVAS is only involved doing worksohps for opposition movements opposing regimes the U.S. opposes. In reality, they have worked with at least as many pro-democracy groups challenging allied regimes, as demonstrated by their worksohps for Palestinians, Egyptians, Western Saharans, West Papuans, Azerbaijanis, and Guineans, among others. Indeed, CANVAS trainers have led workshops in the United States for peace activists, immigrants rights activists, and others.

And, despite Weissman's claims otherwise, CANVAS has refused requests from oppositionists in Bolivia and Ecuador, recognizing their undemocratic nature.

In addition, Popovich, Marovic and other CANVAS leaders are left-leaning Serbian nationalists who have spoken out against U.S. imperialism and have opposed U.S. interventionism. Marovic, for example, was recently in Honduras co-leading a workshop for Zelaya supporters.

Another blatant falsehood is the claim that the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict -- for which I and a number of other prominent anti-imperialist scholars serve as academic advisors -- has funded the Iranian opposition. Such funding is against the charter of the organization and no such financial support has ever taken place.