The Latest from Iran (25 February): Misleading Statements?

2110 GMT: Not-Over-The-Top Statement of Today. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testifying to a Congressional committee, reveals that the current manoeuvres over Iran's uranium enrichment are just like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:

My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy. It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons.

That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran.

2100 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. After all the political positions (take your pick) he adopted at the Assembly of Experts, Hashemi Rafsanjani used a ceremony at the tomb of the late Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a warning about "uninformed individuals" (who are they?): "These individuals shirk from their responsibilities and make irrelevant declarations, thus causing the leadership to bear the responsibility of all the actions that the people reject."

1935 GMT: Diplomatic Poses (cont.). Well, I guess Washington had to strike its own posture given the statements of President Ahmadinejad and his Syrian counterpart Bashir al-Assad in Damascus today (1335 GMT). Here's State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley:

As the secretary [Hillary Clinton] reiterated yesterday, we have expressed our concern directly to President (Bashar) Assad about Syria's relationship with Iran. This is ultimately a decision that Syria has to make, but as President Assad assesses Syria's long-term interests, he need only look around the region and recognize that Syria is increasingly an outlier.

We want to see Syria play a more constructive role in the region. One step would be to make clear what Iran's need to do differently and unfortunately there was no evidence of that today.

The key here is that it is a spokesman making the statement, not the President, not the Secretary of State. Yes, of course, the US would prefer that Damascus put Iran into isolation. But they know that, given the regional dynamics, Syria will not publicly cut off Tehran. So the real diplomacy will take place away from these statements.

1925 GMT: Back from a lengthy academic break --- the US Ambassador to Britain was in Birmingham today --- to catch up on the full force of Iranian propaganda. Here is the "confession" of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi, tailor-made to put the US as the main sponsor of his terrorism:

After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting.

I said we didn't have any time for a meeting and if we do help them they should promise to give us aid. They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran.

They asked to meet me and we said where should we meet you and he said in Dubai. We sent someone to Dubai and we told a person to ask a place for myself in Afghanistan from the area near the operations and they complied that they would sort out the problem for us and they will find Mr. Rigi a base and guarantee his own security in Afghanistan or in any of the countries adjacent to Iran so that he can carry on his operations.

They told me that in Kyrgyzstan they have a base called Manas near Bishkek, and that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and that if such high-ranking people come to the United Arab Emirates, they may be observed by intelligence people but in a place like Bishkek this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach an agreement on making personal contacts. But after the last major operation we took part in, they said that they wanted to meet with us.

The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran…not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don't have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them.

One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level.

NEW Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery
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The Latest from Iran (24 February): Shocks and Erosions

1350 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Hengameh Shahidi has been arrested again.

Ebrahim Yazdi, former Foreign Minister and head of the Freedom of Movement Iran, underwent open heart surgery soon after his 10-day release yesterday. His family said that the surgery was a success.


1340 GMT: Trying to Shut the Door. The Supreme Leader has returned to his rhetoric of last June. In a statement reported by Iranian state media, he said those not accepting the results of the Presidential election "would be disqualified from participating in the Islamic system, and they have already lost their credibility". Certain individuals caused the post-election turmoil because they wanted to "deny the vote of the people."

1335 GMT: Damascus Poses. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made their declarations during the Iranian President's visit.

Assad gave a lecture to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her comments that the US is "troubled" by Syrian ties with Tehran, "We hope that others don't give us lessons about our region and our history. We are the ones who decide how matters will go and we know our interests. We thank them for their advice."

Ahmadinejad was even bolder, "(The Americans) want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that. We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."

No real surprises in either man's pose. What is more important is whether there is any substantial support from Damascus for Iran, and more specifically Ahmadinejad, beyond the rhetoric of increased cooperation and cancelling of visa restrictions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, vowed increased cooperation during a meeting in Damascus and canceled visa restrictions between the countries.
1330 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. An activist updates that Mousavi campaign aide Asghar Khandan has been sentenced to 2 years and 74 lashes. Another aide Jahanbakh Khanjani, a former senior official in the Ministry of Interior, has been released on bail after eight months in detention.

1038 GMT: Claim of Day. According to Kalemeh, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Hosseini, has said that "there is no censorship" of the press.

1035 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad is in Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. Let's see if he can trump Ali Larijani's political manoeuvre.

1000 GMT: Larijani's Nuclear Move. This looks like it may be big news. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, after talks with Japanese officials, has said Japan's offer to enrich Iran's uranium "has the substance to be worth discussing. We want to deepen the discussion on it."

That would be a major shift from Iran's line since November that uranium had to be enriched or swapped inside the country, and it is a dramatic change in Larijani's previous hostility to third-party enrichment. A likely assumption is that the Speaker is representing the views of the Supreme Leader.

So now the key political question: is Larijani also speaking for the President or is he making a move to claim personal credit, surpassing and pushing aside Ahmadinejad?

0950 GMT: The Rigi Mystery. It may be that Iranian state media, when it finally settled on the story that the leader of Jundullah, Abdolmalek Rigi, was detained on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, had it right (and that our reports of Rigi's detention last week were inaccurate). The deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan's national airline has confirmed that a plane was forced to land in Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on Tuesday (in fact, other information indicates that the interception occurred Monday night) and two passengers were taken away by Iranian authorities.

0905 GMT: The Wrong Lawyers. An unexpected but still stunning story from Rooz Online about the screening of "unsuitable" human rights lawyers:

Last week the administrative committee of Iran’s bar association has disqualified nearly half of the candidates seeking to serve on Iran’s bar association.

The official website of the Iranian Bar Association reported yesterday that 36 candidates running for management positions at the Association’s headquarters were disqualified. The Association’s President, Seyed Mohammad Jondoghi-Kermanipour...said, “Today we received a letter from the administrative judicial tribunal, which stated that, pursuant to their previous letter, only 43 candidates were qualified, the remaining candidates having been disqualified for failing to meet the specified criteria.”

[As well as] Jondoghi-Kermanipour, other prominent attorneys such as Abdolfatah Soltani, Naser Zarafshan, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, Mohammad-Ali Dadkhah, Nemat Ahmadi, Farideh Gheirat, Goudarz Eftekhar-Jahromi (former head of the Association), Ali Najafi-Tavana, Reza Nourbaha, Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi, Jahangir Mostofi, Akbar Sardarizadeh, Ramezan Haji-Mashadi have been disqualified.

0855 GMT: Satire of Day. Ebrahim Nabavi sets a Philosophy Quiz for readers. A sample question:

[Government spokesman] Gholam-Hossein Elham said, "Cutting off AN's government is the insurgents' next project." What is the logical mistake in this sentence?

1 - There exists no government to be cut off.
2 -  The government will be cut off by itself. There is no need for the insurgents to do anything.
3 - Even if the insurgents killed themselves, they could not stop the downfall of the government.
4 - The Agha [Supreme Leader] himself has started this project a long time ago.

0840 GMT: The Forgetful Assembly. Amidst the confusion over the statement/non-statement from the two-day meeting of the Assembly of Experts (see separate analysis), the Green website Rah-e-Sabz offers an overview of the divisions within the body since the election and declares that it is suffering from "Continuous Alzheimer's".

0825 GMT: Comparing the Numbers. Iran News Now, using video and photographs, compares the non-crowd at the President's speech in Birjand, Khorasan, yesterday with the masses who turned out for a Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign rally and concludes:

Let’s look at the crowd gathered in Birjand for Ahmadinejad...and let’s be realistic. This thing is FAR from over. The aspirations of the Iranian people will not go unheeded.

EA's Mr Verde adds, "The interesting fact about the turnout (if one can claim it is interesting at all) is that even in a place close to Ayatollah Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad, people don’t really care about Ahmadinejad."

0820 GMT: Economy Watch. Mohammad Reza Khabbaz, a member of Parliament's Economy Committee, has denounced President Ahmadinejad's proposed budget as "unrealistic".

0815 GMT: This is a Secure Regime? Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Hamedani, in his statement yesterday, announced that the number of Basiji bases in Tehran would be increased from 6 to 22.

0800 GMT: Wednesday was marked by loud proclamations from the Government. There were the attempts to limit the damage of the video of June's attack on Tehran University dormitories, the aggressive promotion of the "terrorist" threat from Jundullah to Kurdish groups to the Green Movement, and the President's sparsely-attended speech in eastern Iran (see  inset.

However, the most intriguing statement by far was the supposed proclamation of the Assembly of Experts supporting the Supreme Leader and warning against the "sedition" of opposition leaders. This morning, however, it looks this was a non-statement, an attempt by pro-Ahmadinejad members of the Assembly and media to create the image of a regime ready to crush Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami (and, probably, to back Hashemi Rafsanjani into a corner). We have a special analysis.

Middle East Inside Line: Ahmadinejad to Syria "Destroy Israel", Blackwater to Leave Iraq, Israel's Arabs, and More

Ahmadinejad to Assad: "Destroy Israel": Reuters carries the report of RIB, Iran's state broadcaster, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called his Syrian counterpart on Wednesday evening and said: "If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all."

Washington's Leaves Behind Its Military Equipment: Americans plan to leave a significant amount of equipment in Iraq to assist local security forces following the official withdrawal at the end of 2011. The rest will be stocked in Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.


After the Pentagon doubled the value of emergency military stockpiles in Israel to the value of $800 million last month, Brigadier General Ofer Wolf, head of the IDF’s Logistics and Technology Branch, said: “Officially, all of this equipment belongs to the US military. If however, there is a conflict, the IDF can ask for permission to use some of the equipment.”

Israel's New "Arab Initiative": Israel's Minorities Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman told Israel Radio Tuesday that a $50 million fund is being launched for the country's Arab development. He said that most of the fund will be underwritten by private Arab and Jewish businessmen and the rest will be contributed by the government. One-fifth of Israel's citizens are Arab.

Palestinian Arrest Warrant for Shabaneh: After the former top anti-corruption official of the Palestinian Authority, Fahmi Shabaneh, made accusations against PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, the Authority issued an arrest warrant against Shabaneh on charges of --- ironically --- corruption and undermining the PA.

Countdown for Blackwater in Iraq: Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press Wednesday that he ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations.

Israel: A Loose Cannon for a Middle East Conflict?

Sharmine Narwani writes in The Huffington Post:

Another war is looming in the Middle East, say the pundits. It is hard to ignore the whispers -- now louder -- when they are regularly punctuated by hostile statements from various officials in the region, leading further credence to a possible conflagration.

The likely site of the newest regional battle is the Levant. Funnily enough, nobody can pinpoint exactly where, although it is clear that Israel will be involved. Which should tell us something right there.

Middle East Inside Line: Hamas in Russia, Iran FM on “Crazy Israel”, Palestine Talks
Israel, Hamas, and Russia: Who is in Bed with the Bear?

Since the Jewish state's military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a "do-over." Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war. The month-long bombardment of Lebanon resulted in a stalemate -- an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

To add to the indignity, it was a mere few thousand men -- not even a national army -- that took the IDF by surprise.

The cornerstone of Israel's military strategy is deterrence -- whether though brandishing a nuclear arsenal to warn off threatening nation-states, or by Gaza-style intensive attacks that send a strong message to a weaker party. This is a highly militarized state that has lived under the legacy of conflict its entire existence. Loss -- or even perceived loss -- is not an option.


So instead of self-examination, Israel's conflicted, and increasingly right-wing political body unleashed a belligerent tone -- angry, defiant, threatening, unfocused like a petulant and wounded child. Diversionary tactics came into play to focus domestic and international attention elsewhere and fill the frustrating void -- Hamas in Gaza, the potential nuclear aspirations of Iran, Palestinian intransigence on peace talks, Hezbollah's weapons, Syria, Turkey, anti-Semitism, the Goldstone Report.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made inflammatory statements about conflicts on half a dozen fronts.

SYRIA:

"When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," right-wing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman challenged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last Thursday, after Assad claimed that Israel is "driving the region towards war, not peace."

Lieberman went further and hit at the heart of any future Israeli-Syrian rapprochement: "We must bring Syria to realize that...it will have to give up on its ultimate demand for the Golan Heights." Israeli leaders have in the past accepted in principle that the Syrian Golan Heights, captured and occupied by Israel in 1967, would necessarily be part of any bilateral peace deal.

GAZA:

In January -- one year after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that lead to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians -- Major General Yom Tov Samia, former head of the IDF's Southern Command, told the Jerusalem Post: "We are before another round in Gaza... another war with Hamas is inevitable." And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Gaza's leaders to "watch their step, and not to cry crocodile tears if they force [us] to take action."

The hue and cry about Hamas' rockets hitting Israeli towns was Tel Aviv and Washington's driving narrative in defense of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Still is. But just this week, the Jewish State announced that a new $200 million rocket defense system called the "Iron Dome" will not be deployed against Gaza as promised. Too expensive for Gaza, says the military, explaining that it will be deployed elsewhere where there is more of an "imminent" threat.

And this comes after months of Israeli insistence that Hamas has significantly boosted its military capabilities and has obtained long-range rockets, mostly from Iran. So which is it -- either they do or don't have weapons, either they do or don't pose a threat?

LEBANON:

No two other parties have been more relentlessly subjected to Israeli threats than Iran and Hezbollah. Last summer, after it was clear that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah would likely participate at the cabinet level in any unity government formed following Lebanon's June elections, Israeli leaders fell over themselves in their rush to issue warnings. Netanyahu, Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon all threatened that any border attacks would be blamed on the Lebanese central government -- with repercussions.

Just last month, Israeli Minister Yossi Peled opined, "Without a doubt we are heading for another round (of battle) in the North. No one knows when, but it's clear that it will happen."

And so both Hezbollah and Israel have moved weapons systems closer to their mutual borders.

IRAN:

Iran, in turn, has been the recipient of non-stop bombing threats from Israel over its civilian nuclear program, which the Jewish State claims is really a clandestine plan to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Never mind that some two dozen International Atomic Energy Agency reports over six years show no diversion of materials to weaponization. Or that Israeli military intelligence has been extending the date for a finished Iranian nuclear warhead since the 1990s. Last June, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan declared the new date for the first Iranian nuke would be in 2014. But Israel's war drums have kept beating as though these weapons were already sitting on launch pads, ready to go.

TURKEY:

Relatively new on the scene in the game of belligerent words is Turkey. A rare Israeli ally in the Middle East both in political and military terms, Turkey has drawn away from the alliance since Israel's widely-criticized Gaza attacks last year, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the particularly brutal IDF campaign.

Things have gone from bad to worse since, culminating a month ago in the now-infamous Ayalon row when the Israeli deputy foreign minister publicly and deliberately humiliated Turkey's ambassador in front of cameras. Israel has called Turkey anti-Semitic and very recently slammed the Turkish prime minister again when he drew attention to the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza and its daily violations of Lebanese airspace.

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Some Israeli critics suggest that the destabilizing escalation in rhetoric may not just be as a result of Israel's psychological loss in 2006, but more recently, because of an increased paranoia about international isolation -- the result of war crimes allegations documented against Israel in the UN's Goldstone Report about the Gaza war, and the country's ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands.

In a stunning attack on his government two weeks ago, Israeli writer Gideon Levy wrote a commentary piece in Haaretz in which he takes to task their "cynical" use of Holocaust Remembrance Day to propagandize toward political ends:

"An Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget."

But the escalation of rhetoric from Israel's right-wing government is not being viewed as simple political posturing -- more, like a promise of battle. As concerned as the Jewish State may be about conflict on its borders, its neighbors -- having been on the receiving end of superior Israeli weapons, and having suffered far larger numbers of civilian casualties -- are taking these words very seriously.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at a joint press conference with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Thursday pointed to this verbal escalation of hostilities by calling on Israel to "desist from making threats against Gaza, southern Lebanon, Iran and now Syria."

Because rhetoric after all creates a perception. And perception is 100% of politics -- not to be played with when standing on a tinderbox. The Levant has always been rife with small-scale border skirmishes -- that is the way of an area re-mapped by foreigners, with unnatural, artificial borders. But it is only Israel that has, since 1973, launched full-on military battles from these skirmishes. And without a doubt it is gearing up for a fight. Where, is anyone's guess.

Israel-Syria: Vows, Pledges, Calls for Peace....

On earlier Sunday, Syrian Minister of Information Mohsen Bilal told a seminar that Syria would "stand firm in the face of Israeli ambitions". President Bashar Assad declared that Damascus would stand by Lebanon's side against any Israeli "aggression."

Bilal, who dismissed Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights as "worthless", said: "We are working tirelessly towards true and lasting just peace, in which the occupation ends and the land is returned."

Israel-Syria: Will Their Tensions Lead to War in Lebanon?

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at his weekly cabinet meeting, said:

Israel aspires to reach peace with all its neighbors. We did so with Egypt and Jordan and we aspire to do so with Syria and the Palestinians. We can achieve this with two conditions: The first is that we hold negotiations without preconditions. We will not accept the notion that Israel makes major concessions in advance. We will not enter negotiations for which everything is decided in advance.

The second condition is that any agreement will safeguard Israel's security interests... Solid security arrangements will help maintain a strong peace. I hope that we are now looking at the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians, and we are open to new talks with the Syrians as well.

Israel-Syria: Will Their Tensions Lead to War in Lebanon?

After the exchange of threatening statements between Israeli and Syrian officials this week, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman continued his bombardment in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 news:

I don't work for the media or for public opinion. My response, which was made to clarify that the situation is unacceptable, was immediately met with hysteria in Israel: 'How dare we annoy the tyrant?' I am sorry about this habit of the left in Israel. I think that in the Middle East serious things should not be left unanswered.

Israel & Syria: Different Political Calculations, Different Conclusions

On Saturday, Saudi daily Al-Okaz reported, from senior Lebanese sources, that Hezbollah has announced emergency readiness because of the possibility of an Israeli operation amidst the growing tensions between Syria and Israel.

The official Syrian newspaper Tishreen said that "whichever path Israel chooses, it will find Syria prepared for either peace or war". In Israel, Haaretz's Aluf Benn warned that the continuing tension will draw Israel and Syria to a war in the region.