The Latest from Iran (31 August): Unity? What Unity?

2005 GMT: Execution (Stoning) Watch. The Los Angeles Times, citing Human Rights Activists News Agency, reports that Iranian courts have handed down two more sentences of death by stoning for adultery. The verdict was issued on Saturday to Vali Janfeshani and Sariyeh Ebadi, convicted of having an extramarital affair.

The developments follows international protests over the death sentence given to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani for adultery. Ashtiani's execution by stoning has been suspended by Iranian authorities, although there has been no clemency over capital punishment.

1905 GMT: Economy Watch. Deutsche Welle offers an article on the growing economic influence of the Revolutionary Guard, "Iran's largest employer".

1855 GMT: Karroubi, Qods Day, and A Nervous Government. James Miller, at Dissected News, offers a concise overview of latest developments from the "siege" of the Karroubi house to the Government's stumbling propaganda ahead of Qods Day this Friday.

NEW Iran: Ahmadinejad's Trash Talk (Theodoulou)
NEW Iran Witness: Activist Mahboubeh Karami on Six Months in Detention
NEW Iran: The Latest on the Karroubi “Siege” and the Qods Day Rally
Iran: The Regime Feels the Pressure on Stoning
Iran Special: Political Prisoners, Election Fraud, & The Regime’s Backfiring Propaganda
Iran Breaking: Karroubi on Election Fraud; House Surrounded by Pro-Regime Crowd
The Latest from Iran (30 August): Khamenei Slaps Down Ahmadinejad

1640 GMT: MediaWatch. Arshama3's Blog has posted a useful list of websites for Iran news and analysis.

1635 GMT: The Protests Are Not Over (Says the Regime). Ali Fazli, commander of the Basij militia, has said that last year's fitna (sedition) is like fire under the ashes; "when we let it go loose, it will start again".

Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi explains: from 1991-2010 Iran's enemies have spent $17 billion to topple the regime through "soft war", with the money handed over by several foreign embassies in Iran, European parties, "Western" foreign ministries, US-connected Iranian organisations, and dozens of foundations.

(If you're in one of these locations, you could be in for some money from "US Bureaus", according to Moslehi: Baku in Azerbaijan, Frankfurt, London, Istanbul, and Dubai.)

1630 GMT: We have updated on the "siege" of Mehdi Karroubi's house by a pro-regime crowd with an interview with Karroubi's wife Fatemeh Karroubi.

1400 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. A bit of a twist with the arrest of Hamid Hassanzadeh, President of the Council of Ahwaz....

Hassanzadeh, whose home was raided and whose belongings and computer were seized, is not a Green or a reformist. He was the Ahwaz campaign manager for the conservative Mohsen Rezaei in the 2009 Presidential election.

1330 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kurdish detainee Rahim Rashi has ended his hunger strike after 43 days.

1320 GMT: Parliament v. President (cont. --- see 1310 GMT). From the reformist wing, Qodratollah Alikhani has said, that as the government refuses to allocate funds for the Tehran Metro, it also obstructs other laws, as workers go without pay. Alikhani also criticised Minister of Science Kamran Daneshjoo for his statement warning of "flattening" universities that do not adhere to Islam.

Dariush Ghanbari said he was concerned about new restrictions on the press, suggesting that the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance should be summoned to Majlis. Ghanbari made the sharp comment that the dispute over the Family Protection Bill, now sent back to committee, obscured critical issues such as control of inflation and unemployment and stimulation of economic growth.

Meanwhile, MP Mohammad Khoshchehreh has made a conciliatory statement by claiming that the common base of conservatives and reformers is revolutionary principles and anti-imperialism, and any movement to overcome divisions is important.

Which gives us the excuse to publish this not-so-conciliatory photograph of another MP, Mehdi Kouchakzadeh, and Ali Larijani (hat tip Tehran Bureau from Mehr):



1310 GMT: Parliament v. President. Almost two weeks since the Supreme Leader's intervention, let's see how the call for unity is faring....

The President's spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr has accused the Majlis of "misunderstanding laws" and "making laws against Constitution", leading to dictatorial behaviour.

On the other side, key member of Parliament (and ally of Speaker Ali Larijani) has denounced Ahmadinejad's "rowdy" statements. Another member of the critical bloc, Ali Motahari, says the government is fleeing from laws and has established a "half-suffocating" situation: "Ahmadinejad refusing to implement laws is a sign of dictatorship."

Expediency Council member Dorri Najafabadi insists that laws approved by the Council are laws of the Islamic Republic and complains that Ahmadinejad is "not too friendly". Fellow Council member Mohammad Hashemi declares that the government is not the interpreter but executor of laws.

Leading conservative Morteza Nabavi has repeated his criticism that the President has been absent from Expediency Council meetings, saying the Supreme Leader expects Ahmadinejad to attend.

And in an intriguing statement, Habibollah Asgarowladi, leader of the Islamic Coalition Party, says that a principlism with former President Hashemi Rafsanjani on one side and Ahmadinejad on the other is "not desirable".

1240 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Heidi Hautala, the head of the European Parliament's Human Rights Commission, has called for the immediate release of activist Shiva Nazar Ahari.

Ahari has been detained since July 2009. She is due in court on 4 September, reportedly to face charges that include "mohareb" (war against God), which carries the death penalty.

Intellectuals, academics, activists, and family members have issued a statement calling for the freeing of Azeri political prisoners.

1110 GMT: The Battle Within. Monavar Khalaj of the Financial Times is on the case with "Iran's Warring Factions Reignite Tensions": "Iran’s radical and conservative fundamentalists have ignored the orders of the regime’s supreme leader and begun exchanging recriminations once again."

1105 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The court hearing for Emad Bahovar, a member of the reformist Freedom Movement of Iran and of Research Supporting Khatami and Mousavi, has been postponed again.

Bahovar has been detained since March.

1100 GMT: All the President's Men. Of Iran's 290 members of Parliament, 216 have signed a statement supporting the suspension of Presidential aide and former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, ordered by the judiciary because of Mortazavi's alleged complicity in the post-election abuses at Kahrizsak, and hoped for a quick end to the case.

1034 GMT: The Supreme Leader Slaps Down Ahmadinejad. The website of Ayatollah Khamenei has published the English summary of his Monday meeting with the President and the Cabinet, including the rebuke of Ahmadinejad for carrying out a parallel foreign policy.

However, Khamenei has offered public support for the Government subsidy reduction plan.

1030 GMT: Execution (Ashtiani) Watch. The members of Parliament of Portugal's ruling party have joined the call for clemency for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death for adultery.

1015 GMT: It's All About Me. I would not dare to call the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, self-centered; however, for the record, here is the banner from his personal website:



1010 GMT: Endorsing the Supreme Leader's Slapdown of the President. The Iranian Foreign Ministry, given cover by Ayatollah Khamenei's criticism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, has said that it is essential to avoid "parallel work" in foreign policy.

Last week Ahmadinejad appointed four special representatives for international affairs.

1000 GMT: We have posted a separate feature, written by Michael Theodoulou, on the language being used by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iranian media about internal and international disputes, "Ahmadinejad's Trash Talk".

Already there have been further developments. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said that it does not agree with insulting another country's officials and specifically denounced the description, offered by Keyhan, of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni as a "prostitute".

Keyhan, however, does not seem to be listening. Today it wrote, "Studying Carla Bruni's record clearly shows the reason why this immoral woman is backing an Iranian woman who has been condemned to
death for committing adultery and being accomplice in her husband's murder and, in fact, she herself deserves to die."

Bruni had spoken out for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery.

0850 GMT: We have posted an interview with women's right activist Mahboubeh Karami, freed on bail this month but facing a four-month prison sentence, about her six months in detention.

0710 GMT: Shutting Down Information. A reader's comment to Tehran Bureau says that the site is now blocked in Iran.

0700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Reports say Arjang Davoudi, on Day 49 of his hunger strike, is in a coma. Davoudi, a poet and teacher, is detained in Gohardasht Prison.

The detention order for blogger Hossein Ronaghi (Babak Khoramdin), who has been imprisoned for 10 months, has been extended for another month. He is reportedly being held in solitary confinement.

0655 GMT: Execution Watch. For days now, we have followed stories on the Internet that hundreds of prisoners have been put to death in Mashhad. Rah-e-Sabz is now posting the claim.

0650 GMT: In a separate entry, we post the latest on the "siege" of Mehdi Karroubi's house and, via a Deutsche Welle interview with his son Hossein, his declaration that he will not be prevented from rallying on Qods Day this Friday.

0600 GMT: A busy, tense, and dramatic Monday --- from the surrounding of Mehdi Karroubi's house by a pro-regime crowd to the Supreme Leader's slap-down of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to uncertainty in the Iranian establishment over its image on the stoning issue --- and today offers the prospect of more.

Khamanei Slaps Down the President on Foreign Policy

Very cute (and telling?) approach by Press TV to the Supreme Leader's criticism of Ahmadinejad in a meeting with the President and the Cabinet's. The website does note, from Khamenei's official website, the Leader's statement that "Iran's Foreign Ministry is in charge of leading all matters related to the country's foreign policies and affairs".

What Press can't bring itself to say is the rest of the Supreme Leader's rebuke, where he denounced "parallel" structures for foreign policy. That, of course, refers to Ahmadinejad's appointment last week of four special representatives for international affairs.

Indeed, the Press headline is all happiness: "Leader praises Govt. 'Diplomatic Spirit"

UPDATED Iran Video Special: Have Fars (& Revolutionary Guard) Faked a Reformist "Confession" on Election?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efJPPsYhd-s[/youtube]

UPDATE 1645 GMT: James Miller, who is a professional audio engineer, has gone through a YouTube version of the Fars News video of the Tajzadeh "confession". (The original video is still down.)

Miller's preliminary finding indicates --- though it does not prove --- that the audio has been manipulated. The full text of his finding is at the bottom of this entry.

Miller will examine the video further in his studio tomorrow.

UPDATE 1510 GMT: The original video of the Tajzadeh "confession" no longer loads on the Fars News site. Technical error or has it been pulled?

UPDATE 18 August: The Facebook page supporting Mostafa Tajzadeh has released material to counter the Fars video. In a question-and-answer session with readers, Tajzadeh says his claimed "confession" that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the 2009 election is based on an "incomplete understanding" and thus a "false interview" distorting comments he made in 2008.

The page also has a video of Tajzadeh's most recent comments on the 2009 election, made just before he returned to prison from temporary leave: “Based on how they (government officials) have treated us, they are admitting that they carried out a coup in the election; because if they were clear of this [charge], they immediately would have welcomed this complaint [by seven prominent reformist detainees against the military for manipulation of the election]. They would have said, sure bring this on to investigate….The Supreme Leader had been saying that we should protest though legal means. Therefore we tried the legal means and we said that we want to make an official complaint [to the judiciary] that there was an election coup. Now the response of the judiciary officials is to call us back to the prison!”

This morning Fars News posted a 43-second video claiming to show former Minister of Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh, detained in Evin Prison, "confessing" to three fellow prisoners ---reformist politicians Mohsen Safai-Farahani and Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, and an unidentified man --- that Mir Hossein Mousavi had lost the 2009 Presidential election to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Tajzadeh supposedly says:

I have experience in handling elections, so I know what happened. It is possible than one or two million votes have been displaced; we would have gotten 14-15 million votes. Not 25. We have lost the elections.

EA correspondents consulted immediately for, as one of the staff commented, "Unless they all knew that they were being filmed and wanted to either tease or appease their captors, this is quite a development."

Doubts soon emerged, however. Sources in Iran said that the sound on the video appeared to have been manipulated, with subtitles added to cover up the "doctoring" of the audio; another theory was that Tajzadeh was referring to a previous Presidential election. The location of the meeting is clearly not Evin Prison; it appears to be a residence (possibly of the unidentified 4th person in the video?).

So did Fars News carry out this video effort on its own or was it assisted? We have no confirmation yet, but our suspicion is that this was a Revolutionary Guard initiative through the website.

Still, that leaves the question: why attempt such a blunt attempt at propaganda? (I asked an EA correspondent, "How many folks inside Iran will believe this is Evin?". Answer: "Very few.")

Another EA correspondent offers the motive, "Iranian authorities simply don't have anything better against Tajzadeh. He hasn't blinked an eye in court, unlike [former Vice President Mohammad Ali] Abtahi and [journalist Mohammad] Atrianfar, both of whom gave televised 'confessions'. They are the only two who have been milked. If anyone was really confessing [in Tajzadeh's case], then it would have been done last year, filmed on pristine camera and shown on national TV."

Postscript (18 August): James Miller's Preliminary Finding on the Audio

The video can clearly be split into 4 sentences, according to the translation:

(1-12 Seconds: Fars news introduction)

12-15 Seconds: "I have experience in handling elections, so I know what happened."

18-22 Seconds: "It is possible than one or two million votes have been displaced"

23-27 seconds: "We would have gotten 14-15 million votes. Not 25."

28-29 seconds: "We have lost the elections."

Looking at the continuity of the audio, we can tell with a degree of certainty that the middle two sentences flow uninterrupted and were recorded at the same time. In the slight pause between the two, there is movement, including the knocking (audible and visual) of the right hand of the man on the right side of the video.

However, listening to the white noise that is constant in the background, one can hear slight, very subtle popping sounds after the first sentence. The same noise repeats, much louder, immediately before the last sentence of the recording, and again before the video loop begins.

Slight popping noise can often be associated with the digital manipulation of audio files. This occurs when two audio sources are put together and they do not adequately blend.

If the pop is subtle, it is because of a small (think microscopic) gap between sources. If it is louder, it is because these audio sources combine at the seem, doubling the volume for that same microscopic moment of time. In the worst case scenario, transient noise combines while the gap can still be heard, giving a little snap.

Typically, in recorded music, these noises can be minimized by crossfading the two sections together. The gap is eliminated, and the new audio source covers the pop, which has been lowered in volume. However, with white noise this is difficult for two reasons. First of all, there is very little time to blend clips together, eliminating the possibility of longer fades. Secondly, the listener can clearly make out the changes in cadence and tone of the background noise.

The popping is not terribly loud in the video because the source (the background noise) is not loud, but these seem to be inconsistent with the rest of the video where the background noise is unbroken. It is also interesting that these audio inconsistencies only occur after the first sentence, and more loudly before the last, while the middle two (which are validated by the knocking sound) are free from any change in background noise.

There is no evidence of tampering between the second and third sentences, but there does seem to be some (inconclusive) evidence of potential tampering, especially between the third and fourth sentences.

Without the full context, it appears as though Fars is trying to hide something, and their obvious manipulation (looping of the last sentence) is another sign that they are generally untrustworthy. Why has the original been taken down, and why haven't the full tapes been released, if Fars has nothing to hide?

Context is everything within an audio bite. Tajzadeh could have preceded these sentences wtih a dicussion about what the official party line would be, meaning this entire excerpt is a hypothetical quote. Also, "we have lost the elections" is a fact, rather than a statement of one's belief about the official results. (Ahmadinejad is operationally the president of Iran. Mousavi, regardless of vote count, operationally lost. That does not mean that Tajzadeh endorses the legitimacy of the fact.)

US Analysis: The Limits of Military Power (Miller)

James Miller writes for EA:

Last week, Tom Ashbrook (On Point Radio) interviewed Andrew Bacevich, retired U.S. Army colonel, and professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His newest book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, examines the constant war-readiness of the United States.

Bacevich points out that America has had a history of a military engagement with the rest of the world. From the opening salvo of our independence, through our expansion in the West, our early imperialist conquests (Puerto Rico to the Philippines), and the World War/Cold War era, the US has a long history of spreading its ideology through military might, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Large parts of the global map have been written by United States military involvement, from the Monroe Doctrine to the defeat of the Axis powers to containment of Communism.

However, Bacevich, a former colonel, argues that the policies that built American power need to change, as they no longer work in the modern world. The numerous conflicts and interventions that the US has engaged in since 1945 have resulted in limited short-term success and even more limited long-term success. The expansion of American power over the last few decades has coincided with the growth of economic disparity, global jihadism, nuclear proliferation, and many other negative events, many of which have at least partially been caused by the unintended consequences of American policy.

To be clear, neither Bacevich (nor I) are appealing for disarmament or pacifism. Instead, Bacevich points out that Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" policy has changed, since World War II, into a yell loudly and hit people with a stick approach. He asserted that we have placed ourselves as the chief military enforcers of the world, and this approach has serious consequences at home and abroad. He also questions whether these actions are the moral responsibility of the people of the United States.

The constant use or threat of our military might to maintain global order has put America in the position of picking the winners and losers in the rest of the world. The problem is that the United States has a nasty habit of backing less-than-upstanding leaders. Washington is then partially responsible for the actions of those leaders, as well as the backlash against these leaders if and when they are challenged by their own people. Haiti, large parts of South America, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Shah of Iran are all prime examples.

One of the primary weaknesses in our military approach is the sheer cost of war. Since 2001, more than $1 trillion has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, not to mention the expense of our ramped-up intelligence and security operations across the globe. We have largely financed these operations by borrowing from places like China.

In other words, to maintain our national security and expand our global reach, we traded our influence in Iraq and Afghanistan for billions that we gave to the second-most powerful economic and military power in the world. (If this was a video game, the scale of this mistake would be immediately obvious, right?) While our future generations are paying this debt while also struggling to maintain our global position, future generations of Chinese will be able to use the payments on these debts to springboard to dominance.

Furthermore, neither of these wars occurred in isolation. Both were partially, or entirely, started as a result of the intersection of American militaristic engagement in the Middle East and the long-term, unintended consequences of those actions. What were the costs of installing dictators, redrawing maps, leading coups, defending Kuwait, maintaining a no-fly zone, supporting guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan, or any of the myriad of other actions, both big and small, that have had known and unknown consequences? What are the costs to maintain the readiness to jump into these situations at the drop of a hat?

None of this even considers the human costs: upon soldiers, their families, the wounded, the dead, or the millions of civilians affected by this violence. We also have not considered the human and financial cost of terrorism and the security designed to stop it, terrorism that can often be directly linked as a response to US foreign policy.

There are larger problems with this over-reliance on military might to solve global problems. Because of the human and economic costs of military engagement, the United States has picked and chosen which threats or humanitarian crises they respond to. Any time the price tag is too high, the political or physical terrain is too disquieting, the domestic political will is lacking, or our forces are engaged elsewhere, the U.S. is forced to ignore places that perhaps should not be overlook. As long as military action is the primary tool of choice for affecting global change and stability, other tools become blunted.

Wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are not exceptions to the rule; they are the new rule. Long gone are the days where superpowers constantly worried about widespread conventional warfare. Instability is rife in large parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, parts of South America, the Caribbean, and of course the Middle East. As the world gets hotter, water dries up (or floods), and conflict over oil rages, the United States will need to rely on less expensive and dangerous tools than the threat of force.

To adequately prepare for these problems, both political parties in America will have to drastically rethink their beliefs on American military dominance. Bacevich points out that this problem is bigger than the obvious spike in neo-conservative expansionism. Both Democrats and Republicans are drinking from the "police the world and expand the role of the military" Kool-aid. In fact, no major politician, on either side of the aisle, has successfully advocated an isolationist or military-reductionist platform in recent years. These thoughts are like political Kryptonite. The generations of reliance on an ultra-strong military are so deeply ingrained into the American psyche that it is hard for us to even contemplate the idea that this military strength might have become a liability.

The time has come for America to rethink its obligation to police the world, especially in its use of the military as its strongest negotiating tool. Bacevich is repeating many of the same warnings that we have heard from commanders over the generations, including Dwight Eisenhower in his speech about the military-industrial complex. When are the politicians finally going to take the hint?