The Latest from Iran (27 August): Catching Breath

NEW Iran: The Regime’s Knockout Punch? Not Quite.
NEW Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Talks, Threats, and Propaganda

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis



2120 GMT: Well, unless the unexpected happens, it looks like all will be quiet until tomorrow morning's setpiece of President Ahmadinejad's speech introducing Friday prayers in Tehran.

2110 GMT: We took an evening break to recharge but, to be honest, we've returned to a standstill --- no  political developments.

There is, however, curious (and darkly humourous) goings-on at Press TV. The website has repackaged the Supreme Leader's Wednesday night speech under the headline, "Leader urges support for Ahmadinejad's strong suits", and the first paragraph: "The Leader of the Islamic Revolution sheds light on the recent course of events in Iran, urging the nation to stand by the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

That opening is superimposed on paragraphs 2-9, which are truer to the original account of the speech (and thus not so warm towards Ahmadinejad, with the exception of one sentence --- not included here --- which has been heavily edited and thus distorted):

Be sure that no crime or atrocity will go unpunished, but with issues of that importance the judiciary should rule based on solid evidence....The establishment [the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran] should take broad actions only after taking into consideration all aspects of the issues, and avoiding assessing the situation only from one dimension....Irregularities and atrocities have been committed during the aftermath of the elections, crimes that will be certainly dealt with....Irregularities and atrocities have been committed during the aftermath of the elections, crimes that will be certainly dealt with.

Question: who made Press TV stick on a "better" headline and opening paragraph, which have little to do with the rest of the article?

1730 GMT: Catching Up With The Story. We had a pop at Michael Slackman and The New York Times earlier today (1320 GMT), so it's only fair to note that Slackman is now up to speed with developments, including the Supreme Leader's statement last night. In "Iran’s Supreme Leader Softens Accusations Against Reformists", just posted on the Internet, and presumably to be published in the print edition in the morning, Slackman writes:

Ayatollah Khamenei’s comments were the latest in a series of small, if significant, steps that appear aimed at slowing President Ahmadinejad’s drive to consolidate power and define members of the reform movement as enemies of the state.

Slackman's article should also be read as the prevailing opinion of US-based analysts like Abbas Milani and Karim Sadjadpour, both of whom are quoted.

1500 GMT: It's All Because the West Hates Me. There is one political statement to note this afternoon. At his eftar dinner breaking the daily Ramadan fast yesterday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explained the cause of the post-election crisis: "[Western countries] have been humiliated in the last four years and, therefore, wanted to take revenge by encouraging continued unrest....Like you have been slapped in the face by the Iranian people in the last three decades, you have also been slapped this time."

The President then offered a deal to his enemies, "Although they [the West] did not act rationally, I still hope they can make amends for their mistake by making a global commitment not to interfere in Iran anymore."

Hmm....Apparently, Ahmadinejead hadn't received the message that, just before his dinner, the Supreme Leader was denying that the Western countries were behind "continued unrest".

1400 GMT: By far the quietist day in the post-election crisis, with next to nothing coming out of Iran on political and legal manoeuvres. The reformist site Norooz is highlighting new photographs of the alleged site of secret burials of 40 protestors at Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery. Reuters is running, from Parleman News, the statement from an unnamed MP: ""Raping of some detainees with a baton and soda bottle has been proven to us."

1320 GMT: How Twitter is Overtaking Mainstream Media. I've just had an interesting exchange with some correspondents, appropriately enough via Twitter, on its use for reporting and analysis. My position is that Twitter is invaluable in finding and putting together and interpreting the latest news, as opposed to the position --- held by some "mainstream" broadcasters --- that it is primarily useful to give the reactions of readers/viewers, since it is unreliable as a source for news.

In that context, a note. Enduring America, following up Twitter leads, first reported on the Supreme Leader's important speech to student leaders at 1845 GMT yesterday. We had an interim analysis up by 1915 GMT, and it was a key part of today's in-depth analysis, "The Regime's Knockout Punch? Not Quite", posted at 0655 GMT.

CNN's first mention of the Supreme Leader's speech? "US, UK Not Meddling in Iran", published at 1256 GMT today.

1040 GMT: US Media to Iranian Protestors, "You're Pawns in Our Nuclear Game."

It's bad enough that supposedly top-quality US media are now well behind the story in Iran. In today's New York Times, Michael Slackman writes that "aides to Iran’s president lashed out publicly at two former presidents" on Wednesday but still seems unaware that Hashemi Rafsanjani was attacked the day before in the Tehran trial.

What's really unsettling, however, is that The Washington Post isn't bothered any longer to consider the story as one of Iranians seeking changes to their Islamic Republic. At least Slackman and The New York Times tried today to assess the political situation --- the Post doesn't bother with an article.

Instead, the Post launches into an editorial attack instead on the "sickening spectacle" of the "Stalinist mass show trial". It does so, however, not out of concern for the rights of the defendants, detainees, or demonstrators. Three days ago, the newspaper seized on dubious propaganda spread by "Western officials" to demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency disclose information supposedly proving that Iran is pursuing The Bomb. Today, for the newspaper, any concern is reduced to that all-important nuclear question and "the challenge for Washington in engaging with a regime of questionable legitimacy, dubious lines of authority and an uncertain grip on power".

1010 GMT: Professor Alireza Farshi has been released on bail from detention. It is also reported that lawyer Abdolfatah Soltani is free on bail after 72 days in prison.

0900 GMT: To be honest, after the dramatic twists of the last 48 hours, there is very little to report this morning. So we've concentrated on our analysis of the Ahmadinejad Government's failure to knock out the opposition with Tuesday's trial and on another developing story, the propaganda around Iran's nuclear programme ahead of an important international meeting on 14 September.

One very disturbing incident to note, however, with the sudden re-appearance of the blog of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi (pictured). It's an obvious propaganda move by the Government, with Abtahi generously allowed to resume his writing while still in detention: "I said, 'Anything that I write must be my own. You can only tell me what things I should NOT write.' [The interrogator] agreed."

Maryam at Keeping the Change reprints the blog entry with a short, sharp analysis: "While the blog entry does include a call for the release of the political prisoners, the overall pro-Establishment message seems clear....The government is likely to keep Abtahi in detention and blogging, for some time."

Translated Text: The Indictment in the Tehran Trials

The Latest from Iran (12 August): Two Months Later

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

From Evan Siegel in Iran Rises, translating the indictment originally published in Fars News. Siegel's initial comment is that much of the "evidence" appears to rely on Hossein Derakhshan, the blogger detained in November 2008 and initially accused of spying for Israel and the US. Whether or not this is the case, Siegel's subsequent note that this indictment reads like "whistling past the graveyard", with the prosecutor "knowing full well...that the precise opposite of what he is saying is true" is on target. Indeed, it reinforces our analysis the day after the first trial, "The indictment and presentation of charges offered no evidence of substantive criminal acts....The “foreign plot” scenario [is] almost laughable, turn[ing] US-based academics into directors of an Iranian insurgency."

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The text of the Tehran judiciary’s charges against the defendants in the defeated project for a velvet coup:

“When We make mankind taste of some mercy after adversity has touched them Behold! they take to plotting against our Signs! Say: “Swifter to plan is Allah!” Verily Our messengers record all the plots that you make!” (Koran, Yunos 21)

Honorable President of the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court,

Peace be on you.

As you have been apprised, the wise Leader of the revolution, with his Imam-like wisdom, stated that the aware nation of Islamic Iran has created an astonishing and unprecedented epic by their unusual presence at the ballot boxes during the elections for the tenth term of the presidency, which showed the Iranian nation’s political maturity, revolutionary, powerful and civil capacity, and determined visage in a beautiful and glorious display before the eyes of the world.

Any fair-minded person could comfortably witness the great accomplishments of this huge epic in various political, cultural, social, and economic dimensions on the domestic and international level.

First, these elections have been transformed into a display of true democracy which inspires pride and it brought a message to the world that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the safest and most stable countries for investment and advancing economic projects.

Second, in the realm of international relations, this vast national support increases the power of bargaining for and winning the legitimate rights of the sovereign people of Islamic Iran to a high level and has raised our country’s success in the region and the world to silence [literally, to cut out the tongues of] those who make lying claims about freedom, democracy, and human rights. And so, these Iranian statesmen and masters of diplomacy can from now on, can perform their roles on the regional and world stage and in exchanges with the countries of the world with an increasing decisiveness and based on wisdom, splendor, and the nation’s interests better than ever.

Third, the deep impact of this conscious presence on the way the people of the world, particularly its outstanding personalities, look at the Iranian people’s rich culture and political feelings, which arise out of their Islamic and revolutionary beliefs, has more than ever drawn the attention of the nations’ public opinion to the efficacy of the model of religious democracy.

Fourth, since popular support is considered one of the most important ingredients of the national security of the sacred Islamic Republican system, the participation of 85% of the people in the elections has indubitably played an irreplaceable role in the stabilization of the foundations of national security, the government which appeared from this enthusiastic and passionate majority will be more powerful than in the past on the domestic, regional, and international scene, and this power will be as a vast national wealth in solving domestic and foreign problems and increasing and advancing our dear Islamic country more each day.

The defeated and despondent enemy immediately went into action and set off a chain of chaos and riots in Tehran through the mobilization of its propagandist, political, and local agents. Our dear compatriots suffered many losses of life, property, and mental health as a result. According to documents which we have obtained and the confirmed confessions of the accused, the occurrence of these events was completely planned in advance and proceeded according to a timetable and the stages of a velvet coup in such a way that more than 100 of the 198 events were executed in accordance with the instructions of Gene Sharp for a velvet coup.
Honorable president of the court.

A velvet coup is a kind of coup which has the same goals of a military coup but totally different in methods and means.
In this connection, Mr. Robert Helvey, a retired CIA officer and a student of Dr. Gene Sharp, writes in his book titled On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals, “Non-violent conflict [i.e., that same velvet coup—Mojtaba] does not have any special difference with military conflict except that the weapon used in it is different and unique to this technique.” [not from the original]
Another of the differences between a velvet coup and a military coup is in the way it is formed from start to finish and its long duration, which can at times last a decade or more.

The most important point which must be noted concerning a velvet coup is that the theoreticians bought by the West’s spy and intelligence services have developed this method at the orders of their commanders to get World Arrogance out of its practical dead end by overthrowing independent systems or systems which are not in alignment with the West’s hegemony and lust for domination. It is the result of years of research and fieldwork in various coup-prone countries. This technique of fomenting coups is so planned out that by employing so-called civil and long-term methods, it can stealthily and quietly complete the stages of the velvet revolution without attracting serious attention among the people or the political systems of the countries. By the time the political systems come to their senses, the velvet coup has usually reached its final stage and the probability of its success has greatly increased.

Years ago, numerous foundations and institutions came into existence through the Western countries’ spy agencies and other governmental institutions which, through a division of organizational labor and concentration on various missions, were tasked with the joint purpose of implementing a velvet coup project. The most important of these institutions and foundations are the Soros Foundation (the Open Society Institute), the Rockefeller Institute, the Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, Freedom House, the American Council on Foreign Relations, the German Council on Foreign Relations, and the Centre for Democracy Studies of Britain.

In further elucidating this issue, it is necessary to point to the statements of a spy who is now in detention and who had returned to Iran with the aim of fulfilling a role in the elections for the tenth term of the presidency.

He says, “In the voyage I made to Israel, I became familiar with an institution called MEMRI which belongs to the United States, but is based in Israel and whose mission it is to monitor the Middle Eastern media. This institution’s task is to struggle against anti-Israeli activities which are arising in other countries. It pursues a project whose goal is to support the reformists in the Islamic world, including Iran. The man in charge of this project is an old intelligence officer in the Israeli army whom I visited. In this meeting, he told me, ‘Our task is to nourish and spread the ideas of thinkers like Abdol-Karim Sorush in Iran.’”

This spy continued, “Another of these active institutions is the Dutch agency HYFUS [?], with whose officers I had meetings. This institution had good relations with institutions and NGOs inside Iran and even spent 10 million Euros towards the end of Khatami’s presidency in Iran, most of which was given to the women’s movement. HYFUS got its budget from bribes from Dutch oil companies which wanted to evade paying taxes.”

Concerning Radio Free Europe, the above-mentioned said, “Radio Free Europe, like many of the soft coup institutions, began its work during the Cold War and are connected with the CIA. During the Cold War, the Americans used politics, culture, and media and the cover of beautiful words like democracy and freedom and human rights to pressure the Soviets. Many of the institutions which are active at present in the field of soft coups are left over from that time, and Radio Free Europe is of this type. The Persian section of this radio is active under the name Radio Farda. This radio covers [uses the word “pushesh”, a literal translation of an American idiom] many of the protests and vastly exaggerates them.”

This spy continued, discussing another of the soft coup institutions called the Berkman [Center], saying, “Global Voices is under the purview of an institution called the Berkman Center in Harvard University. This project began in 2004 and I participated in its first meeting in Harvard. The goal of this project was to concentrate on all the bloggers of the world, especially the anti-American countries like Iran, to be able to achieve its purposes, i.e., to bring about a psychological war in these countries.

“The Soros Foundation, which contributes to most NGOs, provided financial backing for this project. This project’s manager is someone named Ethan Zuckerman. He is an American who had previously worked in the Soros Foundation. He has worked hard on using the internet for soft coups in various countries and also has ties with American security-intelligence institutes.”

He continued, “The Berkman Center is managed by someone named John Palfrey, who himself claims that his uncle is Kermit Roosevelt, who organized the 28 Mordad Coup.”

The above-mentioned added, referring to America’s role in planning soft coups, “America uses various theoreticians to plan soft coups, such as Gene Sharp, who spent fifty years of his life in his foundation to plan how to make know governments’ weak points for a soft coup. This foundation’s website offers instructions in some twenty to thirty¹ of the living languages of the world in the methods of peaceful resistance. Of course, these languages are not German, French, or Spanish, but Burmese, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, etc., languages which the Americans would love the countries in to have soft revolution.²

“Other people, such as Mark Palmer, the president of the Konos Foundation,³ have also done much research about Iran. Two or three years ago, he even organized classes and directly invited activists of the 2 Khordad movement like Amad Baqi, and taught them the stages of a soft coup.”

Honorable President of the Court.

So far, the velvet coup project has been implemented in several countries and has generally been successful, from Georgia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, the Ukraine, and Kirgizstan. In most of these countries, the velvet coups came in the form of an election and have much in common with the project of the defeated velvet coup of Iran, whose final stage was set off under the excuse of the elections to the tenth term of the presidency. Of course, this conspiracy was crushed thanks to the awake and ever-present people’s alertness and our country’s powerful security and policy institutions’ decisive and timely treatment.

The arrested spy answered the question, “What model did America use for the velvet coup in Iran,” by saying: “This model was based on elections and began at least two years before the elections were held. They first begin with a plan and choose a candidate for themselves. For example, Mr. [Mikheil] Saakashvili, the current president of Georgia, has without a doubt not simply emerged in the world of politics. Rather, he received money from Fulbright, which is associated with the American Foreign Ministry. He has studied for years in this country and was trained for these days. After determining the candidate they want, they pour vast sums of social capital on him. In this way, supporters of this candidate set about educating the people through a network, with the trademark Gold Quest, which is a standard way of recruiting to campaigns. After this stage, they choose a graphic and color for this candidate and begin to prepare public opinion to vote for him. On the other hand, they prepare themselves before the elections so that if they lose, they begin to cast doubts upon the elections and announce that there had been fraud and bring the government’s legitimacy under question and begin to hold strikes and, ultimately, have the elections nullified or have the elections held again under international supervision, in which their candidate will win.”

The above-mentioned continued, “This has been done in Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Croatia and succeeded. It is worth noting that the same educational texts which were used in Serbia have been translated into Persian and used in Iran with minor changes.⁴ These matters depend on the society’s culture, customs, and religion. The most important factor for executing this revolution is the youth, who are a good investment. They count on the youth’s energy, since they are the only people who devote two or three months of their lives without money for the sake of elections.”

He added, “Iran’s velvet revolution is very similar to the Serbian velvet revolution. In that country, a student group called the Otpor [Resistance] began recruiting, which is very similar to the Green Wave in Iran. In the educational brochure which is posted on the Albert Einstein [Institution] site, under the title of “Difficult situation” which covers the issues of the greatest strategic importance that places governments in the position in which they cannot confront the protesters. It says that the protests must be put under the cover of religious customs and activities like street processions must be held which no government can restrain. Ultimately, this educational brochure points to several frames of an educational film about the Serbian revolution which is even dubbed in Persian and posted on the web site.⁵

There is another brochure about how to seize a city’s sensitive locations and buildings. In it, it teaches protest groups how to take over important centers.

It is necessary here to indicate an important point in the court’s presence. The educational film about the Serbian velvet coup which had been translated into Persian was edited and read by someone named Nader Seddiqi.⁶ He is someone who first introduced Mr. Tajbakhsh to Messrs. Hajarian and Tajzadeh. Mr. Tajbakhsh said of Mr. Nader Seddiqi’s role, “It is not clear to me what Mr. Nader Seddiqi’s role was and who introduced me to him and at whose instructions he was responsible for having me meet with Messrs. Hajarian and Tajzadeh.” At the present time, the afore-mentioned [Nader Seddiqi] is a fugitive.

This arrested spy, whose name we do not mention out of security considerations, believes that a soft coup or that same velvet coup has three arms: intellectual, media, and executive. He explains as follows: “Each of the velvet coup’s arms are in contact with a number of American foundations and institutions, and indeed there has been a division of labor.”

He said in this connection, “In the coup triangle (the intellectual, the media, and the executive arms) each American institution performs a special activity and cooperates with a group of people in Iran. The most important of them is an institution called the Hoover Institution which is under the supervision of Stanford University and was formed in the context of the Cold War.

This foundation has a project called Democracy in Iran on its agenda, which is under the supervision of three security elements named Abbas Milani, Larry Diamond, and Michael McFaul.

Abbas Milani was arrested during the time of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for activity in leftist groups. He then turned into an enthusiastic monarchist so that after living in Iran for a year or two after the revolution, he left the country for America where he wrote a number of books in which he praised the Pahlavi regime’s accomplishments. He gradually turned into one of the opposition’s leaders who was distinguished in this basic way from the rest: his relationship with domestic reformist elements.

This arrested spy added, “The Iran Democracy Project works on the Iranian people’s popular culture, like music, blogs, and sexual issues.

“The student wing of this foundation is very active and people like Ms. [Fatemeh] Haghighatjoo, Arash Naraghi (from Kian’s [corrected by Ramin Jahanbegloo; thanks] clique and close to Sorush) make speeches in their conferences. Within Iran, too, people who are close to the Executives of Construction Party cooperate with this institute. For example, [Mohammad] Atrianfar, in every magazine or newspaper in which he works, interviews Abbas Milani under cover of his being a historian. Abbas Milani’s importance for the CIA is greater than even Reza Pahlavi’s, since he has good relations with the reformists; he even maintains all of Akbar Ganji’s financial expenses outside the country.”⁷

Footnotes

1 Actually, 40.
2 It includes the languages of a number of American allies–Azerbaijani (in the Latin-based alphabet favored in the Republic of Azerbaijan), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish.
3 We have found no reference to such a foundation in any of his biographies.
4 This is the first I have heard about these pamphlets…
5 Since an article by the 9/11 “truther” Thierry Meyssan, the proprietor of Voltaire Net, appeared, more or less fringe figures in the cybersphere have followed Meyssan in attacking it. The Einstein Institution issued a (fairly tepid) statement by Dr. Sharp defending himself. A statement signed by such progressive luminaries as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky rejected the charges. For a list of some of the back and forth on this issue, see the Source Watch article on the Albert Einstein Institution. For a powerful and convincing rejoinder to the Institution’s critics, see this piece in the Huffington Post.
6 Extrapolating from a brief biography presented about him in the pro-government Fars News Agency website, he used to be in charge of preparing government bulletins about the People’s Mojahedin. He became disillusioned when Said Hajarian, one of the founders of the Ministry of Intelligence, was assassinated. He later gravitated, according to Fars News Agency, to Abol-Hasan Bani-Sadr.
7 I have no independent information about much of what is said in this article in general and the last paragraph in particular. As for Prof. Milani financing Mr. Ganji, if the former has indeed پول داد از جیب فتوت, show some generosity, it only raises him a little in my estimation and does nothing to discredit Mr. Ganji, who I know for certain lives a meager darvish’s existence.

Iran Special Analysis: The Politics of the Tehran Trial

The Latest from Iran (2 August): Assessing the Trial

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

Saturday, for the first day in recent weeks, it was the regime on the offensive. Ayatollah Jannati's tough address at Friday prayers in Tehran was followed by the showpiece of the trial of almost 100 defendants, including a former Vice President and Deputy Ministers, key members of reformist political parties, and journalists.

As legal process, the courtroom scene was, to be frank, ludicrous. There were no defense lawyers, and the only official press in the courtroom were those from media favourable to the State.

The indictment and presentation of charges offered no evidence of substantive criminal acts apart from the relatively minor acts of throwing stones at security forces. More sinister allegations of bombing relied upon the past, rather the current, records of defendants (and did not include any of the most prominent detainees). And the "foreign plot" scenario was almost laughable. It turned US-based academics into directors of an Iranian insurgency. (Abbas Milani has no love for the regime, but he is a solid historian and political analyst, and Gene Sharp works with theory, rather than application, of non-violent regime change. Mark Palmer may be an irritating polemicist, but he is not a CIA mastermind.)

The central act of the prosecution's play was the testimony of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. While dramatic in its content, it offered no detail of a treasonous plot. Instead, this was blatant political manoeuvre, designed to stigmatise Mohammad Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavai (although he was portrayed as naïve campaigner rather than malevolent schemer), and, above all, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Only Abtahi knows whether his testimony was genuine or coerced. His family and attorney declared that he had been tortured and drugged. Pictures from the courtroom showed a man who looked haggard and unhealthy, losing a lot of weight in his detention. His "confession" had apparently been circulated in advance to news services that would give it the correct interpretation.

Opposition politicians denounced both the trial and Abtahi's suspect testimony. Mousavi's camp declared, via Ghalam News, "The people's movement is peaceful in nature and relies on the demand of the public to achieve their rights which have been trampled upon during the last elections." They specifically ruled out the allegation of conspiracy with foreign agents, responding not only to the trial but some unhelpful calls from outside Iran for regime change: "Despite claims of the dissidents, this just and spiritual movement has no connections with the foreigners and is completely domestic, and our nation is mindful of staying away from foreigners."

Rafsanjani was briefer in his response, calling the testimony "an obvious lie". Significantly, however, his advisors issued the statement through the offices of the Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani heads. The message to the regime? If you want a fight, we have our own bases of support within the system.

What matters in the short-term is not the cold dissection of yesterday's events but the emotive reaction. Will the regime succeed, days before the anointing of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President, in mobilising public opinion against the opposition or at least ensuring acceptance of its authority? Or is this another instance of going too far in trying to crush protest as illegitimate?

The challenge for the regime is that it cannot sustain the high-profile denunciation on a daily basis. It has played its strongest card with Abtahi. Meanwhile, the opposition is countering. A show of dissent was scheduled for this morning outside the offices of the head of Iran's judiciary, and there is talk of protests not only for Wednesday, when Ahmadinejad is inaugurated, but also Monday, when he is approved by the Supreme Leader, and Friday, a day of celebration for Imam Mahdi's birthday.

It is one thing to crush a reformist faction like the Islamic Iran Participation Front, whose leading members are on trial. It is another to take on both the Green movement and Rafsanjani by linking them so blatantly (and, I think, crudely).

The regime may "win" but, to do so, it is gambling. And far from cleaning up the resistance with an easy bet, it is having to raise the stakes.

1440 GMT: Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Ahmadinejad's press secretary, has resigned from his post. Javanfekr stated that " there is a need for fresh blood to take over the responsibility,  and one must make way for these individuals".

http://parlemannews.com/?n=2376

The Islamic Participation Front, one of the reformist parties has responded to the trials via its news site Norouz:

"The show goes on: Wholesale killings and suppressions, wholesale arrests and wholesale trial and sentencing. The trial of the political activists arrested after the presidential elestions has started. As it could have been expected and just as political activists and parties had warned the trial was held eschewing all legal presuppositions favoring the defendants. The Islamic Participation Front states that the sole reporting news agency in the court was the pro-government and mendacious Fars news agency. Considering the track record of this agency in propagating falsehoods, it is obvious that none of the statements of this agency possess any credibility.

Nourouz states that a credible source located in the court has stated that none of the statements of Fars are true and the court is effectively a kangaroo court.

The Latest from Iran (1 August): The Regime Gets Tough

NEW Iran: Interpreting Ayatollah Jannati’s Challenge at Friday Prayers
The Latest from Iran (31 July): And Now….?

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis



1340 GMT: The "reformist" Parliamentary group Imam Khomeini Line has denounced today's events as a "so-called trial".

1330 GMT: Fars News Agency has published the "confession" of former Vice President Abtahi; this differs somewhat from the version reported out of the trial (see 1210 GMT). This may be because Fars had an advance "script" of Abtahi's testimony.

1210 GMT: Blaming Hashemi. And now to the political point of today's proceedings. Take note of how the "confession" of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, as described by Fars News, is set out to tie former President Rafsanjani into the "plot" of the opposition:

After the election [Mohammad] Khatami and Rafsanjani had sworn to have each other's back, and I don't understand the point of it, knowing the diference [in votes between Ahmadienjad and Mousavi] was 11 million....Hashemi wanted to take revange on Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader....

Mousavi probably did not know the country, but Khatami, with all due respect... knew all the issues. He was aware of the capability and power of the leader, but he joined Mousavi and this was a betrayal,...I see myself as a reformist but stated that Khatami did not have the right to force [this] on Mousavi. I did not agree with Ahmadinejad's presidency but believe in people's votes, and congratulated as people's choice as  the president.

It was wrong of me to take part in the rallies, but [Mehdi] Karroubi told me that we cannot call the people onto the streets with such a meagre number of votes, so we had better go to the streets ourselves to demonstrate our protest.

But, if Rafsanjani is the chief villain, Iran can thank its ultimate hero:

If the Supreme Leader would have backed up even a bit, today Iran's distress would have gone as far as that in Afghanistan and Pakistan; therefore people should thank the supreme leader for his moves. I am telling all friends and all that hear our voices to know the election matter was a lie to make an excuse for riots so Iran would have changed to another Iraq and Afghanistan so [the opposition] could hurt the regime and take over.

1140 GMT: How Serious is that "Foreign Plot"? Well, Mark Palmer is far from a covert practitioner of regime change: he is the author of Breaking the Axis of Evil, which "has the gumption to argue what diplomats and political leaders dare not speak: that global peace with not be achieved until democracies replace the world's remaining dictatorships". A former State Department official, he advocated the invasion of Iraq well before March 2003, and he is now with the American Enterprise Institute.

Abbas Milani is also not very secretive: he is one of the most prominent US-based analysts of Iran. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, another "conservative" think tank (one of its most notable associates is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). While critical of the Iranian system, Milani has not advocated "regime change".

And Gene Sharp, singled out in the prosecution's indictment (see 0938 GMT), is an academic who has written for decades "on the strategic uses of nonviolent struggle in face of dictatorship, war, genocide, and oppression". A long-time fellow at Harvard University, the "instructions" cited in the indictment are not direct orders to the defendants (unless the prosecution has some dramatic evidence that Sharp has ever met any of them) but a reference to the general theories and analysis in his books.

Put bluntly, if this is a "foreign plot", as the Iranian prosecutors allege, it's a very poorly-designed one indeed, given that it took me five minutes to assemble the above information.

1105 GMT: Finding the Foreign Agents. This from the prosecution's opening statement:

Some people like "Mark Palmer", President of "Konos Institute" have carried out much research on Iran and formed classed two or three years ago, to which they invited reformists like Emad Baqi to train them in "soft overthrow" of the Government.

There is a institute in US which is called "Hoover", and one of its member is Abbas Milani. His value to CIA is more than Reza Pahlavi [the son of the Shah] because of his good relationship with reformists and some members of the Kargozaran Party especially Mohammad Atrianfar. The institute has a project called "Democracy in Iran", and also Milani covers all of Akbar Ganji's financial costs overseas.

1100 GMT: This trial is clearly an effort to break the "reformist" Islamic Iran Participation Front, with several of its high-ranking officials amongs the defendants. In addition to those listed in earlier entries, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the Vice President of the IIPF, is on trial.

1040 GMT: Sea of Green Radio is dedicating itself to establishing and publicising the death toll in post-election conflict: "Any failure to hold Iranian authorities to account has one key consequence: it extends to repressive forces in Iran a licence to continue to kill without fear that the full scale of these murders will be exposed." Today it interviews the author of Iran Revolution, a blog pursuing an up-to-date confirmation of casualties.

1010 GMT: Other defendants include Mohsen Mirdamadi, General Secretary of  the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Mohsen Aminzadeh, a founding member of the Islamic Participation Front and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Khatami, and journalist Mohammad Atrianfar.

1000 GMT: Summary of prosecutor's introduction of defendants:

"What we have seen is a part of an unsuccessful velvet coup d'etat. Many arrestees have been previously arrested for being with Monafeghin [anti-Iranian terrorists]", including involvements in bombings. Others have travelled to Iraq to meet American troops and have sent American authorities videos of their plans for bombings. "Emad Behavar [leader of the youth wing of the Freedom Party] was an activist in Mousavi's campaigns, which was making film and distributing them to others in Iran....They betrayed their country by sending footage out to foreign media to change the image of Iran." One defendant is accused of destroying banks and other public property.

0938 GMT: From Revolutionary Road, who is live-blogging from the first trials of the detainees, the text of the indictment:

Every fair man can easily see the big achievement of this great epic [election] in the political, cultural, social, and economic fields at national and international levels.

Firstly, this election converted into real democratic pride and performance, with a message to people around the world, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most secure and stable countries in the world for investment and progress in economic projects.

Secondly, in the field of international relations, this great national election contributed to the achievement of the full realization of peoples' rights. Therefore, there in no place for false claimants of freedom, democracy. and human rights [to challenge this]. From now on, Iranian diplomats and statesmen can do their roles better than ever in the world.

Thirdly, the profound effect of this election was that, more than ever, the national public realized that the pattern of religious democracy is efficient.

Fourth, since the support of the people is one of the most important components in national security to the holy Islamic Republic, the 85 percent turnout iof people in this election stabilised the national security and will help Iran in its domestic and foreign problems.

But as the supreme leader Ali Khamenei had warned people about enemies and their malicious intrigues, the losers and hopeless enemies immediately started to turn this victory into bitterness for the Iranian nation. According to available documents and evidence and the reasonable confessions of the accused, this was a pre-designed and scheduled velvet coup. More than 100 of 198 instructions of "Gene Sharp" for velvet coup have been carried out.

0925 GMT: The Battle Amongst the Clerics. Picking up on some news from yesterday: the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, a "reformist" group, issued a statement asking protesters to continue. The Association asserted, "Grand Ayatollahs are worried and disappointed by the recent developments ,and what the
Friday prayer leader [Ayatollah Jannati] says in the Friday sermon does not reflect thoughts and beliefs of the Grand Ayatollahs and the professors and teachers in the seminaries and the Hawzahs [schools of clerical learning and interpretation]."

0845 GMT: Fars News Agency has posted a series of pictures from the trials. There is no update on the proceedings.

0600 GMT: Iranian state media are reporting that the first trials of demonstrators in the post-election conflicts have begun. It is unclear how many are being tried, but the estimates of 30 to 100 are greater than the original figure of 20 put out this week. The charges of rioting and vandalism seem relatively minor; the catch-all and more ominous allegation are "acting against national security" and "having ties with counter-revolutionary groups".

Fars News says that the trials began in "chaos and turbulence" at 9:10 a.m. local time (0440 GMT). There are "nearly 100" defendants, including former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Behzad Nabavi, former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, and former Deputy Ministry of Economy Mohsen Safai-Farahani.

Kurdish officials in Iraq said last night that three American tourists have been detained by Iranian security forces after they strayed across the border during a mountain hike.