Iran Interview: The State Department's New Man for Tehran

UPDATE 1420 GMT: An EA correspondent adds: 

The resignation of John Limbert was almost entirely because he had only a one-year leave of absence from his faculty position with the US Naval Academy. If he was a bit frustrated, I think it would be more accurate to say that he was in a learning mode for the entire time. He has almost always served overseas and was not familiar with the Washington policy process. 

Limbert's expertise on Iran is without parallel, but I was always sceptical that he could translate that into policy actions while swimming with the likes of officials like Dennis Ross and other denizens of the policy deep. 

As head of the Northern Gulf desk in the State Department, a lot of Dibble's effort went into Iran. He is no match for Limbert in terms of Iran expertise, but neither is anyone else. Dibble is a bit more of an operator, so the State Department could be trading depth of expertise for policy acumen. There is a question of how long Dibble is slated to be in the post: it is not really clear that anyone can come in temporarily and have a major impact. He does have a really smart and experienced staff.

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China This Week: Promises at the UN, Trawler Dispute with Japan, Family Planning

China and UN Co-operation: Speaking at the United Nations, Premier Wen Jiabao gave Beijing's pledge for a more active role in UN affairs.

Meeting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Wen said China has maintained coordination and cooperation with the UN to combat a series of global challenges such as climate change, as well as "hot spot" international and regional issues.

Wen also said China will continue to boost its efforts to ensure fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Wen also announced an Africa-China partnership to strengthen international AIDS prevention and treatment efforts.

According to UN statistics, an estimated 700,000 Chinese people have HIV, with 85,000 suffering from AIDS. There were 50,000 new infections and 20,000 deaths reported in China in 2007.

Wen's meeting with President Obama on Thursday focused China-US trade, the yuan exchange rate, the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, and climate change.

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The Latest from Iran (28 September): Rumbling On

2010 GMT: Rumour of Day. We have listened for days as chatter spread about the killings last week of two Tehran doctors,  Abdolreza Sudbakhsh and Gholamreza Sarabi, by gunmen on motorcycles. 

Iran officials said Dr. Sarabi was killed in revenge over a botched medical case while there were no comments about the case of Dr. Sudbakhsh.

Now Rah-e-Sabz has offered a political link in the case of Dr. Sudbakhsh, who was one of the physicians responsible for inmate health at the Kahrizak detention center, where post-election protesters were abused and killed.

The website claimed that Dr. Sudbakhsh had been ordered by Iranian security officials to give false diagnoses regarding Kahrizak detainees. For example, Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of the campaign manager of conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, was initially said to have died from meningitis. Later it was established --- and confirmed in a parliamentary report --- that he died from beatings at Kahrizak.

We're still cautious but the story has now spread to the pages of The New York Times.

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Iran Feature: Naming the Officials in the Attacks on Karroubi's House and Qoba Mosque

In the five nights before Qods (Palestine) Day on 3 September, the residential complex of opposition cleric Mehdi Karroubi was surrounded by a pro-regime crowd. Violence escalated until, on the fifth night, a group tried to storm Karroubi's apartment. Several people were injured; Karroubi's bodyguard was reported to have been seriously wounded.

On Qods Day, a pro-regime crowd launched an assault on Qoba Mosque in Shiraz, the base of opposition cleric Ayatollah Dastgheib. They entered the mosque, injuring worshippers and forcing the abandonment of services.

Now Tagheer website, linked to Karroubi, claims that Mohammad Larijani, Governor of Shemiranat country in Tehran Province, was involved in the assault on the Karroubi home. It adds that Mohammad Larijani was in regularly telephone contact with Morteza Tamaddon, Governor of Tehran, reporting on the attacks from the scene.

On the Qoba Mosque front, Arshama3's Blog posts the list from opposition websites of 41 alleged attackers. Of the 41, only Hojatoleslam Voldan has been arrested; he was released on 25 September on bail.

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An Open Letter to All Experts Bashing the "Twitter Revolution": Please Go Away --- People Are Working Here

So the counter-myth circulates. There was no Twitter Revolution. Indeed there was no Revolution at all. Indeed there was....

Well, what was there? What happened not only in the dramatic days after June 2009 but in the months afterwards? What is continuing to happen now in the incredibly complex political, economic, and social developments?

Trashing Twitter is a short-cut that means you can avoid confrontation with those questions. So much easier, rather than using social media to identify Iranian sources --- newspapers, websites, videos, voice --- to use the "reliable" messengers of The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and, I guess, The New Yorker.

Fine, do it. Do it amongst yourselves, Mr/Ms Experts. But please, for the rest of us, don't pronounce on what we should and should not do.

And please, if you --- like Mr Gladwell --- invoke "activism" to elevate your remarks, do not pronounce that you are replacing the activists whom, for some reason, you never notice in your judgements on the "Twitter Revolution".

You are not.

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Israel-Palestine: Settlements Deadline Expires, Netanyahu Wins, Abbas Plays for Time

All day Sunday, as Israel's moratorium on expansion of West Bank settlements neared expiration, we waited for breaking news from Washington. Nothing. Well, nothing, except for platitudes: President Obama's advisor David Axelrod told ABC News: "We are going to urge and urge, and push throughout this day to get some kind of resolution. These talks themselves are absolutely crucial --- we're at a critical juncture in that region."

The Israeli government did not extend the freeze. It did not offer even a conditional freeze, allowing several hundred new homes beyond those under construction 10 months ago. On Sunday, as Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the BBC that there was a 50:50 chance in finding a solution over settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned both settlers and his Cabinet to keep a low profile.

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Afghanistan Special: Bob Woodward, The US Military, and the White House's Crocodile Tears (Lucas)

I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous. 

The Washington Post, in its continuing push of its reporter Bob Woodward's Obama Wars, publishes the first of three extracts this morning, "Military Thwarted President Seeking Choice in Afghanistan".

At some point someone has to expose the exposure and reveal the costly game that is going on here. Bob Woodward is not going to do it, because to do so would cut off his access and his books. President Obama's advisors are not going to do it because it would reveal weakness beyond the "wise compromise" they wave so furiously in Woodward's account. And the US military certainly are not going to do it because it would pull back the curtain on their triumph over the White House and the person who is supposedly their Commander-in-Chief.

I am against the US military intervention in Afghanistan. But, if it is going to happen, I would at least appreciate that it be done honestly and without these crocodile tears. I would like a President who says forthrightly, "This is what we are doing," rather than one whose advisors, over the following weeks and months, whisper to their favoured correspondent, "We didn't really like this but the military was so mean. What could we do?" 

You want sympathy, boys? Go find Oprah.

And Mr President: come out from behind your whispering staff. Face your military. Command or admit that you no longer command.

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Mexico: Twitter & Bloggers Break the Silence on the Drug Wars (Tuckman)

Jo Tuckman writes for The Guardian of London:

A small army of bloggers and tweeters is filling the gaps left by traditional media in Mexico that are increasingly limiting their coverage of the country's drug wars because of pressure from the cartels.

"Shots fired by the river, unknown number of dead," read one recent tweet on a busy feed from the northern border city of Reynosa, #Reynosafollow. "Organized crime blockade on San Fernando road lifted," said another. "Just saw police officers telling a group of narcos about the positions of navy checkpoints," ran a third.

Nothing of this kind appeared in the city's papers which, along with most media outlets in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, have become better known for what they do not publish than for what they do.

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The Latest from Iran (27 September): Corruption and Economic Crisis

2034 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, at his press conference for Iran's judiciary, said officials were following up the claims of torture in detention made by Hamzeh Karami, former aide to Hashemi Rafsanjani and managing editor of the website Jomhouriyat.

Karami had written a five-page letter about his treatment in prison, parts of which came out in the opposition media. Rafsanjani also personally presented Karami's file to the Supreme Leader and asked for his intervention.

2030 GMT: Oil Squeeze. Earlier today (see 1520 GMT) we reported on the warning by Hamid Katouzian, the chair of Parliament's Energy Commission, that Minister of Oil Masoud Mirkazemi might be impeached if he defied the Majlis over international treaties. 

That was not all. Katouzian also took apart Mirkazemi's public claim that Iran was rapidly becoming self-sufficient in gasoline production, warning that such a push --- with measures such as conversion of petrochemical plants --- could be harmful in the long term to the country.

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"Our Man in Palestine": Salam Fayyad, the US General, and the Security Forces (Thrall)

So far, Fayyad’s strategy is succeeding. His administration has started more than one thousand development projects, which include paving roads, planting trees, digging wells, and constructing new buildings, most prominently in the twin cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh. He has reduced dependence on foreign aid and started to carry out plans to build new hospitals, classrooms, courthouses, industrial parks, housing, and even a new city, Rawabi, between Ramallah and Nablus. But “reforming the security forces,” Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, told me, “is the main and integral part of the Fayyad plan. Many of the government’s other successes, such as economic growth, came as a result.”

To its citizens, Fayyad’s government has presented reform of the police and other security forces as principally a matter of providing law and order—apprehending criminal gangs, consolidating competing security services, forbidding public displays of weapons, and locating stolen cars. But its program for “counterterrorism”—which is directed mainly against Hamas and viewed by many Palestinians as collaboration with Israel—is its most important element: targeting Hamas members and suspected sympathizers is intended to reduce the likelihood of a West Bank takeover and, as important, helps Fayyad make a plausible case that he is in control and that Israel can safely withdraw from the territory.

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