The Latest from Iran (14 October): Paying Attention

2025 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online claims that President Ahmadinejad will announce the start of subsidy cuts on television at the end of next week, as support payments to 15 million families begin.

2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An activist reports that Islamic Iran Participation Front member Davood Soleimani has been released after 16 months in detention.

2015 GMT: Video of the Ahmadinejad speech in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon:

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Iran Snap Analysis: Ahmadinejad's Beirut Manoeuvre

We begin this morning by looking for signs of change from President Ahmadinejad's trip to Beirut.

So far, it's hard to see impact. Ahmadinejad used his Beirut stage to put out standard rhetoric. There were the "arrogant powers" who had inflicted Israel on all of us: "In a premeditated way … and under a pretext to compensate for the World War [II] damages, they occupied Palestine … and set up an illegitimate regime and created a permanent threat for all governments and nations across the world."

There was the hailing of the "common goals and ideas" of Iran and Lebanon as they led the world in resistance against oppressors.

There was the satisfaction that the Ahmadinejad trip had "angered" the White House, with its statement, ""He (Ahmadinejad) continues his provocative ways, even as he leaves his country in further economic stress and turmoil as a result of his actions that have led to international sanctions that are having a great impact."

There was a crowd of thousands to welcome Ahmadinejad. The Lebanese President and other representatives said the required nice things, with the incentive of Iran's $450 million offer of aid to Lebanon's oil, electricity, and water sectors, and signed documents of co-operation. Sayyid Hassan Nasrullah, the leader of Hezbollah, said Iran was "the Middle East's guarantee for justice and security".

However, beyond the formalities, the effect is uncertain.

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Israel-Palestine Analysis: The Palestinian Move for Recognition and Borders

The Palestinian Authority's response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's latest offer --- an extension of the freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank in return for the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel as a Jewish state --- has been far from welcoming.

Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians will never offer "Jewish state" recognition. Senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official Yasser Abed Rabbo accused Netanyahu of using the proposal to weaken the image of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East.

On Wednesday, both the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation tried a new tactic: if Israel is setting conditions, then it must commit itself to a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders.

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Iran Interview: Mehdi Karroubi "The Green Movement Runs Very Deep" (13 October)

Laura Secor of The New Yorker interviews Mehdi Karroubi by e-mail:

LAURA SECOR: There is a widespread perception outside Iran that the Green Movement has been defeated. We no longer hear about millions-strong demonstrations, and a great many opposition figures have been imprisoned or forced out of the country. Is there still a Green Movement in Iran? Does it have an organized structure and a strategy for achieving its goals?

MEHDI KARROUBI: Because of heavy government suppression, people are not visible in the streets, chanting and demonstrating. But the movement runs very deep. If the government allowed any kind of activity in the streets, the world would see millions of people. The authorities know it, and that is why they have cracked down for the last sixteen months, shutting down any kind of opposition in the most brutal ways. The government has many problems at the moment…. The economy and foreign policy are both sources of conflict. All of this makes it very hard for the current administration to accomplish anything. In the first months and days after the election, many officials from the top down were sent to prison, and this has continued. These are clear signs that the movement is still alive.

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Photo of the Day: Ahmadinejad and the Complexities of Lebanon

There will be lots of formal photographs of President Ahmadinejad in Beirut today and tomorrow, but it was this picture posted by Gooya, as Lebanon prepared for the visit, that I think captured the complex politics and society of the country:

Ahmadinejad's Visit to Lebanon: The Top 10 Possible Outcomes (Mikdashi)

Maya Mikdashi writes for the satirical blog "Tough Niece" on the website Jadaliyya:

10. Upon hearing Ahmadinejad’s footsteps in Lebanon, [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel “Arik” Sharon rises from his coma long enough to learn that Iran is still on the road to becoming the second country in the Middle East to have a nuclear weapon after Israel. He has another stroke. Round two for Ahmadinejad.

9. Upon meeting Ahmadinejad at a fundraiser for Hezbollah, Lebanese-American Miss USA 2010 Rima Faqih assassinates him, flies back to Iran and stages a coup branded by Saatchi and Saatchi  as  "From Wilayat al Faqih to Wilayet al Al-Faqih.” President Faqih makes high heels, manicured nails, and makeup mandatory in Iran. Western feminists and [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy rejoice.

8. Upon throwing a rock at Occupied Palestine from the Lebanese border, Ahmadinejad misses and the rock falls with stunning force into no-man’s land. Oil begins to gush forth from where the rock landed. Immediately, Israel and Lebanon sign a peace deal brokered by Iran. An oil pipeline is built from Tehran to Haifa. Capitalism wins. Again. Yay.

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Afghanistan Analysis: US Military Asserting Dominance over White House Again?

Last week, the White House announced that National Security Advisor James Jones would be replaced later this month by the current deputy advisor, Tom Donilon.

Jones, a retired Marine General, had been wounded in a number of bureaucratic encounters over 20 months. Notable amongst these was his attempt to limit the military's demands for more and more US troops in Afghanistan. It was Jones, for example, who carried the message to Kabul in summer 2009 that the President would ask, "WTF?", if his commanders asked for another escalation, only months after getting additional forces. Yet by December, that same President was agreeing to another injection of 30,000 soldiers.

Well before that incident, the military had set out its tactics of briefing the press against White House attempts to check a bolstered intervention. So it was intriguing to see what happened 72 hours after Donilon, who is also seen by many as a sceptic of the ramped-up military effort, was named as Jones' successor.

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The Latest from Iran (13 October): Ahmadinejad's Trip for Legitimacy

2215 GMT: Apologies for our limited service this afternoon and evening --- EA staff have been at a seminar on Israeli Policy Towards the Middle East and Iran. We'll catch up with all the news from early Thursday morning.

1305 GMT: Mystery of the Day Solved! Wow, the power of the Internet....

Ten minutes ago, we asked what could possibly be the gift --- a "state of the art device owned by only six countries across the globe" --- that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave to Lebanon's President Suleiman?

Angie Nassar, who writes for Now Lebanon, points us to the answer. Flashback to 1981 and then come Back to the Future:

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Israel Analysis: Understanding Netanyahu's Rhetoric of "Our Good Jewish State, Their Threat"

Let's go back to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in the Knesset on Monday, looking beyond his offer of an extended freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank in return for the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by the Palestinian Authority.

For Netanyahu,  the word "nation" is defined not merely through ethnicity but also through a broader conception which includes religion. In that conception, Israel is "the best nation-state" in terms of individual and minority rights. So, given that Israel is the best, there is no possibility that a "Jewish state" will fail to support the framework of democracy.

Returning his vision to the negotiating table, Netanyahu accused Palestinians of wasting time during the moratorium on settlement construction, carrying out their hidden agenda by teaching their children that there is no Jewish state. However, Israel extends its hand once more:

There is no doubt that such a move by the Palestinian Authority [acknowledging the Jewish state] would serve as a trust-building step, one thatwould open up a new horizon of hope and trust among broad sections of the Israeli public who, in light of the events of the past decade, have lost their confidence in the Palestinian’s desire to end the conflict.

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Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu's Deal --- A Settlement Freeze in Exchange for a "Jewish State"

As Israel's Knesset reconvened after a three-month break, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered this proposal to the Palestinians: Israel is ready to extend the moratorium on settlement expansion in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state". 

The Palestinian response was clear: "the issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter."

And the Americans? From thousands of miles away, they could only give a general, somewhat tangled response: "U.S. policy has been consistent. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton are committed to Israel’s democracy as a Jewish state," a State Department official told Haaretz.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, less than 72 hours after his Cabinet mandated a loyalty oath for non-Jews who want to be Israeli citizens, both plays to his domestic gallery and puts the onus back on the Palestinian Authority. The prime issue is no longer Jewish settlements; instead, it is this challenge: you want limits on our expansion in the West Bank, then you must declare, "We Accept Israel as a Jewish State."

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