The Latest from Iran (22 April): This Isn't Over

1230 GMT: EA On the Move. Hopefully, we'll be relocating from the US to the UK today, so updates will be restricted until tomorrow afternoon. My thanks to all for their patience, and for keeping up going through news and comments while I'm heading home.

1215 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (If You Know Someone in MKO, You're a Criminal). There seems to be a pattern in a number of recent sentences, including death penalties. As we reported yesterday, six people have been handed down orders for execution because they are related to or acquainted with members of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the political wing of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq "terrorist" movement.

An Iranian activist now reports that Monireh Rabaei has received a five-year sentence, upheld on appeal, on the basis that she has an uncle in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, home to many PMOI members. The following sentences have also been passed on the basis of "connections with MKO": Zia Nabavi 15 years, Ozra Ghazi-Mirsaied three years, and Mahdiyeh Golro 28 months.

NEW Iran Document: Detained Nourizad’s Letter to Khamenei “We Have Lost Our People”
NEW Iran Document: Ayatollah Sane’i “Some Want Islam For Their Own Agendas”
Iran: The Latest Post-Election Death Sentences
NEW How Iran News is Made: Adultery, Earthquakes, and the BBC
The Latest from Iran (21 April): Waiting for News

1115 GMT: Economy Watch. Rooz Online's claims of layoffs are not quite as dramatic as those in the Human Rights Activists report (see 1100 GMT), but they are still striking:

Labor news sources report the laying off of at least 2,500 industrial and leather workers in Ilam and Mashad. Counting other laid-off workers in industrial and large cities such as Abadan, Ahwaz, Khorramshahr and Shiraz, during the last two weeks, more than 4,000 workers have lost their jobs just in the recent past.

...The crisis in Iran’s industrial sector has reached such a level that, in an interview yesterday, the head of Iran’s House of Labor predicted the closure of hundreds of large and medium industrial firms per year and the subsequent laying off of 200,000 workers every year after that.

1100 GMT: Firings and Abuses. Human Rights Activists in Iran has released a report claimed more than 38,000 cases of firings and human rights abuses in Iran in the past month.

Of the cases, more than 90% (37,519) are the layoffs of workers in Iran, as 166 production lines in the country have been shut down every month, according to a labour official. At least 11 protests and gatherings have been staged by workers in the country in the last month alone.

The group cites 537 cases of abuse of students’ rights, 255 cases of abuse against political and civil activists, 34 cases of capital punishment, 259 cases of torture and prisoner abuse, at least seven cases of citizens killed in frontier provinces, 124 arrests and abuse of national minority rights, and 68 cases of arrest and abuses against religious minorities.

Human Rights Activists says that, because of the scale of the abuses and the difficulties in documenting them in a rigid security atmosphere, the cases are only a fraction of the abuses that are occurring.

1055 GMT: Is Google A Regime Enemy? The Iranian Labor News Agency reports that a ban on Google Images has been lifted by Iranian authorities, 24 hours after it was imposed.

1045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Women’s rights activist Dorsa Sobhani has been released after a detention of more than six weeks. Sobhani spent 25 days in solitary confinement.

The brother of Majid Tavakoli says that the student leader, detained on 7 December after a speech at a National Student Day rally, remains in solitary confinement.

Student activist Nader Ahsani has been re-arrested and taken to Evin Prison.

1040 GMT: "We Had to Save the System". A potentially explosive admission....

Aftab, from the weekly Panjareh, quotes an unnamed high-ranking intelligence official, who admits that post-election arrests, especially those of the first round of senior reformists, were planned ahead of the 12 June vote.

The detentions were a preventive measure because Iranian intelligence agencies anticipated major unrest which could get out of control. The official said, "Our law is not appropriate to fight against 'soft war', so we had to take these measures [to save the system]. The fifth statement of Mosharekat party [Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution] clearly speaks of establishing a secular system."

1030 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. On another front, Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has warned the regime to "stop spreading lies" and to "beware of the time, when I speak out". Hashemi, who is currently in London, has been threatened by the Iranian authorities with prosecution for alleged corruption and misuse of funds during the Presidential election.

0945 GMT: After an extended break, we return today to a series of powerful responses to the regime, all of which make clear that the challenge to legitimacy will not be crushed.

In a separate entry, we have posted the latest statement of Grand Ayatollah Sane'i, criticising the Government for its misuse of Islam in its lies and detentions.

We also have a second feature: from inside Evin Prison, the detained journalist and filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad has written a letter to the Supreme Leader requesting that he "declare this year the year of national reconciliation and do not fear the reproach". In itself, that is not a direct challenge to the regime --- it acknowledges Khamenei's authority, after all --- however, the letter has special potency because Nourizad's detention was prompted by a previous appeal to the Supreme Leader to recognise the illegitimacies of the election.

Mohsen Armin, member of Parliament and former Vice Speaker, has also launched a spirited criticism of the Government. A senior member of the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party, which is now under threat of suspension, Armin denounced lies and threats of prosecution and demanded that the regime address the basic issues of rights and equality.

MP Mohammad Reza Khabbaz has asserted that the inability of the Ahmadinejad Government to make appropriate use of $370 billion oil income is a "catastrophe".

Iran Document: Detained Nourizad's Letter to Khamenei "We Have Lost Our People"

Pedestrian offers both the introduction to and the translation of Mohammad Nourizad's letter to the Supreme Leader....

Mohammad Nourizad is a writer, producer and journalist. He began his work for the state broadcaster IRIB with the late Morteza Avini’s Revayateh Fath [Tales of Resistance] – a documentary series on the Iran-Iraq war.

Prior to the election, he wrote for the hardline newspaper Kayhan, but what made him a household name was his support of the opposition after the election, and his letters to the supreme leader for which he is now serving time in prison.

He’s now written a fourth letter to the leader while in Evin Prison:

Iran Document: Ayatollah Sane’i “Some Want Islam For Their Own Agendas”
The Latest from Iran (22 April): This Isn’t Over

It’s been nearly four months now that I have been in prison for writing your eminence a letter. I have spent 68 days in solitary confinement. I have been insulted and beaten by my interrogators. In all of this, I have continued to speak of you as an intelligent, wise leader and I still believe that if change is to be brought to the country, this change will only be doable and sustainable if it comes from you. Personally, I have no hope in other bodies and individuals within the establishment. I know you closely. I know of your great soul. You in turn know me quite well.


While in prison, I have been unaware of what has been going on in the outside world. But in a brief encounter I had only once, with my family, I found out that in my absence, Mr. [Mir Hossein] Mousavi, Mr. [Mohammad] Khatami, and Mr. [Mehdi] Karroubi have gone to see my family. I don’t know why, but somehow I wished that you, with the greatness I know of you, would have made the effort to see my family, to comfort them, and tell them that: in those chaotic days when I, the leader, was under constant attack from all around me, this fellow, Nourizad, came to my defense with his writings, with his TV programs.

Now, today, he is in prison for criticizing me! And he must learn manners in prison. His wife and children must be insulted by the rude, ignorant interrogators, and he must be crushed under brutal beatings, humiliation and threats. But this doesn’t mean that I, the leader, do not appreciate his previous efforts. It doesn’t mean that even if I don’t visit his family, I won’t send a representative to do so.

Dear Leader, my family’s anticipation to see you or our representative went nowhere. I guess that in this world, people have an expiration date. And when this date arrives, they must be thrown to the curb, like dirty napkins. But me and those like me, we were not pulled towards you because of a particular gravitation towards Khamenei himself. In the elegance of your thoughts, we saw the lost dreams of our nation and that of the world.

I remember that in recent times, when I was trying to meet with you, Hossein Mohammadi, your chief of staff, kept promising me a meeting for months. So I wrote him a letter and said, "I seek refuge from Khamenei, in the arms of the God that Khamenei believes in." And I never came to you again. And you returned the gesture.

Because I know that you do not see the people’s wishes, being blocked from you by the ignorant fools who surround you. These are the very things I wanted to tell you in those meetings, but it appears that those who surround you, know of the words I wished to say to you, and know of my thoughts. After a meeting you had with the PEN Association, of which I am a member, this very Mr. Mohammadi told me: “Mr. Nourizad, swear to God, I am scared of you.” His fear came from that very constrained meeting in which without reservation, I spoke about the widespread drug addiction among our people and our youth, and the chaos that has ensued in our cities, big or small.

And now, why do I write you from prison? Because still, in bewilderment, I have hope in you, yes, in you. My belief is that: only you can think of a way out of this chaos our people are in. Today, which people do you consider yourself a leader to? I do not see many people with you. Leadership over a small number of people is not something to be proud of. You nor I, we should not be tricked by seeing the leagues of people who come to greet a state official, or even you. If you allow other people to speak, you will see of the fire and frenzy with which those individuals too will be greeted. But those who come to greet a state official, those populations are not a point of reference, and have never been.

Today, you lead a country whose people have broken ranks with the leadership. A country facing many questions. A country whose unity has been broken, by you, and those who surround you; today, a trivial, narrow worldview has taken over. I don’t know what you have named this year. But I know that in your naming, you have referred to diligence and hard work. [[Khamenei gives every year a name: this year he has called "double diligence and double work", from which many jokes have ensued]. This naming convention shows that your advisors are not honest or efficient. We would have all applauded you if you had named this year "the year of national reconciliation" and had stepped forward for this hard and difficult task.

If hard work and diligence are important to you, you must use them towards national reconciliation.

Dear leader, I know that my troublesome words are bitter and chaotic. But I ask you to accept these honest, bitter words over the servile words of those who surround you. Our society sits amidst a great explosion. It is a pressure cooker on the verge of explosion, on the nozzle which we’ve stuck a burning match, for not wanting to hear it boil.

I write of you with the same reassurance I wrote of you before. We are reaching the end days of this great test. Destiny, this heavenly tradition, will soon end our chance to grapple with this test. A test which we have only answered with chaos and devastation in the past thirty years. Me and you, we have lost our people. If you see them calm or silent, that is only because of fear of guns and terror. If you do not believe me, submit to an imaginary test: in two countries, Iran and another country, say Sweden or Canada or even Malaysia, we announce that for one day, only one day, there will be no police or militias or weapons. And they are free to do whatever they wish. In the end of this day, what do you imagine our country would look like? and how about the other country? In this comparison, I do not mean to lay praise to the West. But rather, I want to point to the deceptive silence prevalent in our own society.

Dear leader! many like me still hold respect for you and wish the best for our country. We have faith in your leadership. With your leadership, we wish to reach the highest peaks. But it seems as if you do not wish the same. It seems that your friends and advisers who surround you, are quite ignorant and only serve to deceive you by providing false information. And they speak untruthfully on your behalf. Friends like Mr. Shariatmadari from [the newspaper] Kayhan. Come it a day when all have left you, and you and him are stranded alone on an island, he will come to your blind defense even if that means opposing you.

Even with the bitter tone of my letter, I sing loud and clear to the universe: we love you and hope to see your fate end well. Believe me, believe us. At the very least, in your mind, imagine that we are right. Imagining this will come at no cost for you. In your mind believe that your good friends, even though they have been labeled in the ranks of the enemy, worry for your fate, and hope to see you shine bright in these final days of the lord’s great test. With great courage, the courage I know you have, declare this year the year of national reconciliation and do not fear the reproach. God is enough for us. The God that will place the people’s hands in yours.

~Your son: Mohammad Nourizad, Evin Ward 240, Cell 57

The Latest from Iran (19 April): Stay Firm, Spread the Word

2045 GMT: Who's "Mohareb"? Ayatollah Dastgheib has repeated his denunciation of the Government's labelling of dissenters as "mohareb" (warriors against God), a charge which carries the death penalty: “The pious would never make baseless accusations.”

Dastgheib also implied that the real "mohareb" are those who have used violence against protesters: “Mohareb is a person who violates people’s right by pulling a gun, a knife or a weapon on them.”

1945 GMT: We've posted the English text of the speech Mohammad Khatami would have given at this week's disarmament conference in Hiroshima, Japan. Khatami was pressured by Iranian authorities not to leave the country.

NEW Iran Document: The Speech Khatami Would Have Given at Japan Disarmament Conference
NEW Iran Document: “Our Sons’ And Daughters’ Agony” (Sahabi)
Iran Document: The Supreme Leader on Nuclear Weapons (17 April)
Iran Analysis: And The Nuclear Sideshow Goes On…And On…And On
The Latest from Iran (18 April): Strike A Pose

1900 GMT: Nuke Talk. Back from extended break to find today's Iran Government uranium talking points in my Inbox.

It's Kazem Jalali of Parliament's National Security Commission putting out the line that the UN-hosted review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), held every five years, will follow up Iran's good work this weekend with its disarmament summit.

Jalali said of the May gathering, "Two fronts will battle out in New York: a US-led one will seek to limit non-nuclear states which are hoping to develop peaceful nuclear technology; the second front will consist of countries with no nuclear bombs that seek global nuclear disarmament."


1255 GMT: No More "Legal" Reformists? Iranian state media are repeating the news, which we reported a few days ago, that Iran's major reformist political parties, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, have been banned.

The leading reformist newspaper Bahar, which only recently resumed publication, has again been suspended by Iranian authorities.

An EA correspondent notes concisely, "Seems like it's a case of repression, and more repression, considering the definitive sentences slapped on [reformist politicians] Mostafa Tajzadeh and Mohsen Mirdamadi."

1245 GMT: On the theme of "Stay Firm", we've posted a letter from veteran Iran politician Ezzatollah Sahabi, "Our Sons' and Daughters' Agony".

1050 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist and human rights activist Davood Khodakarami has been arrested in Zanjan, while journalist Rahim Gholami was imprisoned in Ardebil last week.

According to EA colleagues who are maintaining a list of  those imprisoned or on heavy bail but under the threat of re-arrest, the total is now 78 journalists. We hope to post the updated list soon.

1045 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. So did Hashemi Rafsanjani meet with the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, to discuss the possible criminal prosecution of Rafsanjani's son, Mehdi Hashemi?

The judiciary have strongly denied the claim, which Khabar Online says is being spread by Elyas Naderan, the "conservative" MP who is a sharp critic of the Ahmadinejad Government.

At the same time, pro-Ahmadinejad legislator Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash has insisted that Mehdi Hashemi and Rafsanjani's daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, must be prosecuted for "acting against the basis" of the Iranian system.

1040 GMT: Staying Firm. Seyed Hadi Khamenei, the brother of the Supreme Leader, has said that, despite Government pressures and restrictions, the demands of the Iranian people are only increasing.

1030 GMT: Nuclear Shocker --- Iran Proclaims, Media Jumps. Today's ritual declaration in state media of Tehran's nuclear advance comes from Ahmadinejad advisor Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi: "The president has confirmed the designated location of a new nuclear site and on his order the building process has begun."

My reaction is that the 25th or 35th or 235th time the same announcement of new sites --- whether it is 1, 10, or 20 --- is made, it ceases to become news and moves into the category of chanting. Reuters, however, is undeterred from announcing for the 25th or 35th or 235th time, "[This is] part of a big expansion of its nuclear program which has contributed to fears in the West it aims to build a bomb."

1025 GMT: Mystery Aide Contest. Khabar Online reports that a group of clergy who serve in the Parliament will meet the Supreme Leader on Monday to discuss Government-Parliament issues, raising criticism of a close ally of Ahmadinejad for "anti-cultural" moves.

So to whom is Khabar Online, the site linked to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, referring?

1020 GMT: Subsidy Battle. The Government may have won an apparent victory with Parliamentary concessions allowing greater spending from subsidy cuts, but the criticism continues.

Khabar Online features the commentary of Professor Hassan Sobhani, who maintains that the Ahmadinejad subsidy cuts will not raise people's purchasing power but reduce it.

1000 GMT: Following Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement to reformist students calling for all in opposition to be "new media" --- for every blog closed, let 100 spring up --- Mehdi Karroubi, in a meeting with activists and families of political prisoners, has declared:

Has our government become so desperate and weak that even the funeral ceremonies of people, either political or non-political, face problems?....Why are you trying to make our strong and powerful system seem weak in the minds of nations and governments? ....Unfortunately it seems like instead of trying to attract most and repulse least, we are trying to achieve the most repulsion and the least attraction.

The government prefer their own views and methods of ruling to the strict rulings of Islam. People have become more cautious and their movement is growing. Stay firm on your legitimate and legal demands and insist on them.

Iran Document: The Supreme Leader on Nuclear Weapons (17 April)

From Fars News, via the US Government Open Source Center and Juan Cole:

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

I would like to welcome the honorable guests who have gathered here. It is a pleasure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is hosting the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament today. Hopefully, you will make use of this opportunity and present human societies with the timeless and valuable results that you will obtain through discussion and consultation.

Iran Analysis: And The Nuclear Sideshow Goes On…And On…And On
The Latest from Iran (18 April): Strike A Pose

The study of atoms and nuclear sciences are one of the greatest human achievements which can and should be at the service of the well-being of nations across the world as well as the growth and development of all human societies. The applications of nuclear sciences cover a wide range of medical and industrial needs as well as energy requirements, each of which has considerable importance.


For this reason, it can be said that nuclear technology has gained a prominent position in economic areas of life. And with the passage of time and the rise in industrial and medical needs and energy requirements, its importance will continue growing, and the efforts to achieve and utilize nuclear energy will increase accordingly. Just like other nations of the world, Middle Eastern nations that are thirsty for peace, security, and progress have the right to guarantee their economic position as well as a superior position for their future generations through utilizing this technology. Preventing the nations of the region from paying serious attention to this natural and valuable right is probably one of the goals behind creating doubts about the peaceful nuclear programs of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The interesting point is that currently the only nuclear criminal in the world is falsely claiming to fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is while there is no doubt that it has not taken any serious measures in this regard, and it will never do so. If America’s claims of fighting the proliferation of nuclear weapons were not false, would the Zionist regime be able to turn the occupied Palestinian lands into an arsenal where a huge number of nuclear weapons are stored while refusing to respect international regulations in this regard, especially the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty]?

Unfortunately, although the word atom is associated with the progress of human knowledge, it is equally associated with the most appalling event in history and the greatest genocide and misuse of man’s scientific accomplishments. Although many countries have made an effort to manufacture and amass nuclear weapons — which in itself can be considered a preface to committing crimes and has seriously jeopardized global peace — there is only one government that has committed a nuclear crime so far. Only the government of the United States of America has attacked the oppressed people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in an unfair and inhumane war.

Since the detonation of the early nuclear weapons by the US Government in Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a human disaster of unprecedented proportions in history and exposed human security to a great threat, the global community has reached a unanimous agreement that it is necessary to completely destroy such weapons. The use of nuclear weapons resulted not only in large-scale killings and destruction, but also in indiscriminate massacre of people — military members and civilians, young and old, men and women. And its anti-human effects transcended political and geographic borders, even inflicting irreparable harm on future generations. Therefore, using or even threatening to use such weapons is a serious violation of the most basic rules of philanthropy and is a clear manifestation of war crimes.

From a military and security perspective, after certain powers were armed with this anti-human weapon, there remained no doubt that victory in a nuclear war would be impossible and that engagement in such a war would be an unwise and anti-human act. However, despite these obvious ethical, intellectual, human, and even military realities, the strong and repeated urge by the global community to dispose of these weapons has been ignored by a small number of governments who have based their illusory security on global insecurity.

The insistence of these governments on the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as increasing their destructive power — which are useless except for intimidation and massacre and a false sense of security based on pre-emptive power resulting from guaranteed annihilation of everyone — has led to an enduring nuclear nightmare in the world. Innumerable human and economic resources have been used in this irrational competition to give the superpowers the imaginary power to annihilate more than a thousand times their rivals as well as other inhabitants of the world including themselves. And it is due to this reason that this strategy has been known as pre-emption based on guaranteed mutual annihilation or insanity.

In recent years, a number of governments who possess nuclear weapons have even gone beyond the pre-emptive strategy based on mutual annihilation in dealing with other nuclear powers to the extent that in their nuclear policies they insist on maintaining the nuclear option even if they are faced with conventional threats from countries violating the NPT. This is while the greatest violators of the NPT are the powers who have reneged on their obligation to dispose of nuclear weapons mentioned in Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These powers have even surpassed other countries with respect to promoting nuclear weapons in the world. By providing the Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and supporting its policies, these powers play a direct role in promoting nuclear weapons which is against the obligations they have undertaken according to Article 1 of the NPT. These countries, headed by the bullying and aggressive US regime, have posed a serious threat to the Middle East region and the world.

It behoves the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament to investigate the threats posed by the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons in the world and propose realistic solutions to counter this threat to humanity. This will prepare the ground for taking steps toward safeguarding peace and stability.

We believe that besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is itself a victim of chemical weapons, feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats.

We consider the use of such weapons as haram (religiously forbidden) and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.

UPDATED Iran Analysis: And The Nuclear Sideshow Goes On...And On...And On

UPDATE 1200 GMT: The US side of this nuclear dance just gets stranger. In a clear sign of the bureaucratic in-fighting, the Pentagon has issued an official statement repudiating the Secretary of Defense's reported three-page memorandum denouncing a lack of clear US strategy. Spokesman Geoff Morrell said the Obama Adminsitration has "spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort considering and preparing for the full range of contingencies".

So who was the original mischief-maker (and from which agency) who fed the Gates story to The New York Times?

The first day of Tehran's 48-hour nuclear disarmament festival, a response to Barack Obama's Washington summit, dazzles the non-Iranian media this morning. Even the top analyst Juan Cole follows the lead, with attention to the Supreme Leader's declaration that the use of nuclear weapons is forbidden (haram) in Islamic law:

An American audience just assumes that Khamenei is just lying and they feel (with some justification) that he is simply engaged in anti-American propaganda, and so he words fall on deaf ears here. But in much of the world, Khamenei’s speech will be taken as devastating to the US position.

I'm not sure how much rhetorical devastation has taken place --- I suspect that shrewd onlookers, despite the media brouhaha, will see both the Washington and Tehran gatherings as posturing in the US-Iran political contest.

However, our old friend David Sanger at The New York Times, fueled by the US Government, has his own mini-explosion to contribute:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

One senior official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the memo, described the document as “a wake-up call.” But White House officials dispute that view, insisting that for 15 months they had been conducting detailed planning for many possible outcomes regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

If Sanger took a moment's retreat from his dramatic prose, he might realise he is being given a walk-on part (see the precedent of Rosencrantz and Guildestern in W. Shakespeare's political case study Hamlet) in a bureaucratic battle over Iran policy. Gates isn't entirely happy with the State Department's diplomatic approach, so he fires off some paragraphs to the NSC to ask them to have a look at military options. Some of his staffers or allies in other departments pick up the phone to Sanger so he, as reporter, could put on some public pressure. Other officials (NSC? State Department? White House?) counter with the assurance that the US policy is being thoughtfully and carefully formulated.

Beyond this internal battle, Gates' "military alternatives", contrary to Sanger's implication in his lead paragraph, does not mean attacking Iran but strengthening the "containment" of Tehran in the region through a bolstered US presence and through the now ever-present rationale of tying the nuclear issue to "terrorism". That is not that distant from the policy being considered in other parts of the Obama Administration; the issue is one of degree --- how far to consider Iran as rival to be contained? how far to think of Tehran as a power who can be approached in discussions, to the point of pursuing a rapprochement over issues such as Iraq and Afghanistan?

Needless to say, Sanger never countenances the possibility that Iran is far from marching --- a la Khamenei's own theatrical declaration --- toward an atomic bomb. And he sprinkles in, from his unnamed Government officials, generalisations such as, "[Gates] wrote the memo after Iran had let pass a 2009 deadline set by Mr. Obama to respond to his offers of diplomatic engagement."

(Set aside Iran's media spin that it is taking the lead in diplomatic engagement to pursue disarmament. Tehran's reiterations that it wants discussions on a swap of uranium fuel --- albeit still murky as to whether that occurs inside or outside Iran --- is enough to puff away this US Government-supported article.)

Oh, well. Another 24 hours in Tehran of poses and declarations today. Then we'll be back to the rat-a-tat-tat, with no "That's All, Folks", of sanctions, sanctions, sanctions v. Iran's declarations that it stands tall in the face of Western provocation.