The Latest from Iran (17 February): Psst, Want to See Something Important?

2250 GMT: Cyber-Warfare. Looks like someone wants to stop the latest Karroubi surge. The "Sun Army" took down Karroubi's website Saham News. The Saham staff have control of the site again but a message indicates that it is "under construction".

2230 GMT:It is reported that Parisa Kakaee of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters Maziar Samei of the One Million Signatures Campaign, Bahar Tarakameh, and Nazanin Hassania have been released from prison. 26 other political prisoners are also reported to have been freed.

1830 GMT: I'm on an evening break which happily involves dinner at Birmingham's best Iranian restaurant.

1820 GMT: More Importantly (Rafsanjani Front Continued). Hashemi Rafsanjani, manoeuvring against the pressure on him, has issued another statement declaring his loyalty to the Supreme Leader:

Certain people inside Iran are fanning divisions that never existed and do not exist, and foreigners looking for propaganda feed themselves some tasty morsels....Why should we have differences? Even now we sit together every two weeks and discuss every issue in the country. These are meetings where we speak without restrictions because they are not recorded.

NEW Iran Analysis: Ahmadinejad Stumbles; “Karroubi Wave” Surges
NEW Iran Nuke Shocker: Clinton/White House "Tehran Not Building Weapons"
NEW Iran Document: Fatemeh Karroubi “My Family Will Continue to Stand for the People’s Rights”
Iran Special: Live-Blogging Ahmadinejad Press Conference (16 February)
Iran: Why The Beating of Mehdi Karroubi’s Son Matters
Iran Document: The 10-Demand Declaration of 4 Labour Unions
Iran Document: Shadi Sadr at the UN on Abuse, Justice, and Rights (12 February)
The Latest from Iran (16 February): Un-Diplomatic Declarations

1815 GMT: For What It's Worth. Some outlets are giving lots of play to the Supreme Leader's use of Hillary Clinton's "dictatorship" statement to issue his own challenges to the "West".

You can get notable extracts in that coverage --- frankly, I know this script and I can't be bothered to post any more of it.


1810 GMT: Shahabeddin Tabatabei, of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been released on $500,000 bail after eight months in detention.

1800 GMT: And the Karroubi Front. Following up our analysis of the renewed Karroubi challenge to Ahmadinejad and the text of the interview of Mehdi Karroubi's wife Fatemeh, some more news:

The mother-in-law of Ali Karroubi, the son of Mehdi who was beaten on 22 Bahman, has followed Fatemeh Karroubi’s letter to the Supreme Leader with one of her own: "As a mother of three martyrs of Iran-Iraq War, I ask you to listen to people’s voices and help them and punish those who hurt protesters." Like Fatemeh Karroubi, she said that her letter was not only for Ali but for any innocent person who has been jailed, beaten, or run over by cars as in the Ashura demonstrations.

The children of Hashemi Rafsanjani and the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini have visited Ali Karroubi and condemned the attack on him.

1755 GMT: On the Rafsanjani Front. Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, has responded to the jibe of Fars News that he has "settled" in London. Hashemi said in a letter, "I am doing my Ph.D. abroad just like any other Iranian. I have not become the refugee of any country. And I will return to Iran when the time comes."

1750 GMT: The Challenge on the Economy. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani did not wait long to respond to the President's press conference. He made 15 points against the proposed budget and said that he had mentioned his dissatisfaction in a meeting with the Supreme Leader.

The pro-Larijani Khabar Online is also featuring the statement of an MP that, if Parliament did not have to follow procedure, it would have questioned Ahmadinejad over his illegal actions.

1740 GMT: From the blog of Shadi Sadr, via Pedestrian, referring to journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi, who has been sentenced to six years in prison:

An hour ago, I walked out of the post office and was hurriedly walking towards the metro when I saw a man on the sidewalk with two bags of fruit in his hand. I first saw the tangerines in one of the bags, and then I saw his face, as he was passing by me. He looked so much like Ahmad Zeydabadi! My heart sank. I thought: there were certainly days when Ahmad Zeydabadi too would buy fruit on his way home … those simple days of the past seem like so long ago!

I did not know Ahmad Zeydabadi personally. But I have a distinct memory of him in mind. A few years ago when the Committee of Human Rights Reporters had a press meeting to speak against the controversial family laws, Zeydabadi went to the podium, and instead of talking in difficult, muddled terms, like the politicians who spoke before him, he only spoke of his personal experience, growing up in a family of two wives. And through that, he spoke about how in a family where there are multiple wives, not only do the wives endure pain, but so do the children. His were some of the most honest words I’d ever heard, and I will never forget them. The day after, when I went through the news, no matter how much I looked, I did not see any of Zeydabadi’s words anywhere. Even those friends of mine who were filming the meeting, had not thought anything of Zeydabadi’s speech and had not filmed it! That’s when I realized how much our own culture is still resistant to men who want to break stereotypes.

I can write about Zeydabadi, because I did not know him personally. But I can’t write of my own friends who are in prison, because I’m afraid of what their interrogators will do. I’m afraid that they might put my friends under even more pressure. I can only say this: it has been a good while now that I know that every morning when I wake up and turn on the computer and read the news, a long list of my friends, acquaintances, colleagues, someone I used to know, will be in the list of new prisoners. Every day, familiar names are added behind the walls of Evin Prison, and everyday I ask myself: where did they go, those simple days? …

1735 GMT: Economics 101. Iran's Deputy Energy Minister, Mohammad Behzad, says 20 power plants will be privatised in the first half of the next Iranian year, ending 20 September.

Q. Given the problems in Iran's electricity industry, with the Government owing millions and up to 900,000 workers facing layoffs, who would want to purchase a power plant?

A. Maybe an up-and-coming firm with absolutely no connection whatsoever with the Islamic Revolution GuardsCorps?

1640 GMT: Changing the Numbers. EA readers may have noted our scepticism over some of the President's economic claims in his Tuesday press conference. Jahan-e San'at shares the view, criticising Ahmaninejad for citing data from 2007/8 as the figures for 2008/9.

1635 GMT: The reformist Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party has thanked all those who participated in the 22 Bahman rally despite threats and intimidations, and it has condemned "hard-line" propaganda for claiming that all those who participated in the rally were supporting "the coup government".

1630 GMT: Tabriz Lockdown? The speech of reformist member of Parliament Mohsen Armin, scheduled for today, has been cancelled. The cancellation follows the claimed halt of an appearance by Mir Hossein Mousavi in the same city on 22 Bahman.

1625 GMT: Iran v. Coma Countries. Quote of the day goes to Brigadier-General Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri, "The West has gone into a coma after mounting a propaganda campaign to sway the public opinion over Iran's nuclear issue."

1600 GMT: Labour Pessimism. Back from a break to find an analysis by two Iran-based journalists, "Opposition Fails to Organize Strikes". Javoo Akbar and Nivoo Sarvi (pseudonyms) conclude:

The absence of an independent workers’ union and the lack of interaction between their different associations across the country has resulted in low levels of political consciousness. That and the fact that so many of the weapons are in the hands of the authorities, means there is no prospect of either the opposition or organised labour initiating widespread workers’ strikes to back Mousavi or any other opposition figure.

1320 GMT: Putting Hashemi in His Box (cont.). More on yesterday's update about renewed attacks against former President Hashemi Rafsanjani ahead of next week's meeting of the Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani chairs.

Kalameh reports that Hamzeh Karami, manager of the Jomhouriyat website, which was active during the elections, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison and payment of six billion tooman (just over $6 million).

The link to Rafsanjani? In the Tehran trials last August, Karami gave a high-profile "confession" that implicated Mehdi Hashemi, Rafsanjani's son, in corruption and diversion of election funds to undermine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

1225 GMT: How that "Regime Change" Thing Works. First, a couple of US Congressmen, John Cronyn and Sam Brownback, introduce an "Iran Democratic Transition Act" committing the US Government "to fully and publicly support efforts of the Iranian people to oppose and remove the current regime and transition to a freely elected, open, and democratic government in Iran".

Then Press TV gets hold of the bill, which is more a bit of political posing than likely legislation, to drive home the "foreigners" v. "good Iranian nation" theme:

Two Republican senators have once again introduced a draft bill in the US Congress seeking full support for the Iranian opposition and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government in Iran. Senators John Cornyn and Sam Brownback introduced the so-called “Iran Democratic Transition Act” bill on February 11, coinciding with the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in which unprecedented tens of millions of Iranians poured into the streets to rally and celebrate the 31st anniversary.

An 'extraordinarily' high number of people marched across different cities in the country, throwing their lot with a revolution which toppled a US-backed monarchy in Iran.

The bill repeats the old rhetoric about human rights violations in Iran, its nuclear energy program, and alleged support for terrorism, fully advocating a “regime change” in the country.

1215 GMT: The Clinton Charade. The theatre continues today, with the Supreme Leader using Hillary Clinton's "dictatorship" remark to strike a pose. Khamenei accused her of spreading "lies" and said, "Those who have turned the Persian Gulf into an arms depot in order to milk regional countries for money have now dispatched their official to go around the Persian Gulf and spread lies against Iran."

1115 GMT: For What It's Worth. CNN has posted the video of its interview with Iran's top "human rights" official, Mohammad Javad Larijani: "Iran is the greatest, the only democracy in the Middle East."

1055 GMT: Alireza Beheshti, Mir Hossein Mousavi's chief advisor, has resumed teaching at Tarbiat Modarres University. Beheshti was recently released after several weeks in detention.

1030 GMT: A Buffet of Analyses. We've got Sharmine Narwani taking apart the US Government's conflicting signals on Iran's nuclear programmes, an analysis of Ahmadinejad's stumble and the "Karroubi wave", and the English text of Fatemeh Karroubi's interview with Rooz Online.

0855 GMT: More on the Economic Front. Ali Asghar Yousef-Nejad, a member of the Parliament's Industries Commission, has declared that budget details are unclear and asserted that the Minister of Economy has projected only 3% growth, instead of the 8% envisaged in the budget. (Yesterday the President simply made up a figure for Iran's 2009/10 growth.)

0825 GMT: Not That Close to the US. More fencing on the nuclear issue and "America": Haghighat News, linked to the President, has denied that Ahmadinejad's chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashai met with US officials in Qatar. His trip, which coincided with the stay of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her delegation, "was simply aimed to observe the condition of Iranians residing in the Persian Gulf Arabian country".

0815 GMT: In Rah-e-Sabz, Farid Modaresi offers a lengthy analysis on the relationship between Qom's clerics and the Government. Amidst its interesting insights is a meeting between Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani and the head of Bonyade Shahid, the charitable trust for war veterans and their families. Nouri-Hamedani requested that this message be passed the President: "If you want to stay in power, eliminate problems like high prices (from which 70% of the population suffers), unemployment, discrimination. Eliminate also housing problems."

0750 GMT: Want to See an EA Analysis in Action? Here's a big clue pointing both to the economic Achilles' heel of the Ahmadinejad Government (see 0645 GMT) and the hope that it will just go away. Press TV headlines its summary of the President's press conference, "Ahmadinejad says Iran to install advanced centrifuges."

Number of paragraphs devoted to the nuclear issue? 11
Number of words devoted to the economic questions that dominated the conference? 0

0745 GMT: Evaluating the Movement. Ali Farhadzadeh offers a lengthy critique of the origins and development of the post-election opposition:

No one can deny the role of a leader in bringing protesters together in the freedom movements of modern history, such as the role Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King played in the progress and triumph of the movements of India, South Africa and African Americans in the United States. However, in the Green Movement the lack of leadership is somehow compensated by virtual social networks.

0735 GMT: American Postures. Another shot at Tehran from a US official, although this may be just a specific statement from the American military linked to Iraq's internal development rather than part of a wider get-tough strategy:

The top American commander in Iraq says the U.S. has "direct intelligence" that two senior Iraqi officials in charge of keeping Saddam Hussein loyalists out of the Baghdad government have ties to Iran. Gen. Raymond Odierno says Ali al-Lami and Ahmed Chalabi "are clearly influenced by Iran" and have attended senior-level meetings with members of the hardline Shiite regime there.

0730 GMT: We've posted Tricia Sutherland's human rights special this morning, summarising developments between 7 and 14 February.

0725 GMT: Closing Iran's Movies. The first time EA has taken a story from Hollywood's newspaper, Variety:

Iranian helmer Jafar Panahi has been denied permission by local authorities to travel to Berlin.
Panahi, whose "Offside" was awarded the fest's jury grand prize in 2006, was scheduled to participate in a panel discussion on Iranian cinema during the fest's World Cinema Fund Day today.

The Berlinale sent out a press release Tuesday announcing that Panahi would not be attending the fest, where he was an honorary guest.

"We are surprised and deeply regret that a director who has won so many international prizes has been denied the possibility to take part in our anniversary festival and to speak about his cinematic visions," said fest director Dieter Kosslick.

Iran Analysis: Ahmadinejad Stumbles; "Karroubi Wave" Surges

A curious and possibly important Tuesday. It did not promise drama at the start of the day: the Iran stories were mainly of significant but behind-the-headlines sparring on the economic front, while the Western press were distracted by the chest-puffing of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki over "dictatorship" and the nuclear issue.

But then came a series of developments, punctuated by two events: the press conference of the President and the "Karroubi wave".

Iran Document: Fatemeh Karroubi “My Family Will Continue to Stand for the People’s Rights”
Iran: Why The Beating of Mehdi Karroubi’s Son Matters
The Latest from Iran (17 February): Psst, Want to See Something Important?

EA had the chance to live-blog the Ahmadinejad 2-hour show and it proved a revelation. The President was trying to use this occasion to re-assert his authority after his claimed success of "tens of millions" at the pro-Government 22 Bahman rally, putting out his double line on uranium enrichment --- "we can be self-sufficient, but we will also negotiate" --- plus standard rhetoric of Iran's strength and Western weakness.



But the President's plan unravelled as he was challenged time and again on his economic plans --- because of the opposition within the establishment to the budget and subsidy proposals, not to mention concern over the state of Iran's economy, there is plenty of space for journalists to press the topic. And there were even queries over the realities of 22 Bahman and the post-election detentions. (Credit to the brave reporters who brought up the issue. Take note: pro-regime mouthpieces might deny there is any problem, but almost all Iranian journalists will do their jobs with the knowledge that colleagues are in jail and sometimes serving lengthy sentences.)

Then, only five days after 22 Bahman, there was the clearest sign that this conflict isn't over. A new "Karroubi wave" of opposition has surged. Mehdi Karroubi signalled this weekend that he would soon be meeting with Mir Hossein Mousavi to discuss next steps, but in one sense they are already occurring.

While the cleric stands back for the moment, his wife Fatemeh and son Hossein --- using the detention and beating of Karroubi's younger son Ali but going far beyond it --- have pushed the core issues of the detentions, abuses, and injustices now undermining the values and stability of the Islamic Republic. Most importantly, the Karroubis are now doing so in a direct challenge to the Supreme Leader: none of them bother to mention Ahmadinejad and they explicitly dismiss Iran's judiciary as impotent.

Of course, there is a long way to go with this strategy. One will have to watch for the reaction of other Green factions to the challenge, and it is not clear if the high profile given to Karroubi outside Iran is matched inside the country. That said, it has been Karroubi's interventions --- his open letter at the end of July first raising the detainee abuse issue, his appearances at rallies such as Qods Day and at public events such as the Tehran Fair, his recent declaration on "Mr Khamenei" and a "selected rather than elected" President --- that have contributed to surges in protest.

The regime may have thought they had finally blunted Karroubi when they turned him back on 22 Bahman, tear-gassing his entourage and detaining and beating his son. In fact, the statements of Fatemeh and Hossein Karroubi point to the opposite effect. The attack on Ali Karroubi --- whether it was carried out by security forces or "rogue" units, whether it was sanctioned by the Supreme Leader or occurred without his knowledge --- has offered a new platform for the wider campaign. And this time, the Karroubis are not bothering with the President or his officials; they are going straight to the top with the presentation to Ayatollah Khamenei of the issues.

Neither of these developments is likely to see the light of day in Western media coverage. CNN, for example, cannot see beyond "Iranian president warns against tougher sanctions" and "Iran official (Mohammad Javad Larijani): Clinton 'inconsistent'". The New York Times misses the stories entirely, featuring instead yet another weak analysis of Washington's policy on Iran.

But I think shrewd Iran observers would be wise to keep eyes on the economic situation and the resurgence of a Karroubi-supported opposition. EA is not in the habit of making predictions, but if we're right about yesterday, this conflict ain't over.

Iran Nuke Shocker: Clinton/White House "Tehran Not Building Weapons"

Sharmine Narwani writes for The Huffington Post:

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs have been on a roll since Friday defending Iran's assertions that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

You heard right.

In response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent claims that Iran had enriched uranium to the 20% level required for medical isotopes at the Natanz enrichment facility, Gibbs declared: "The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching."

Latest from Iran (17 February): Psst, Want to See Something Important?

If that is the case, then how on God's earth can the Iranians enrich uranium to the 90% level required for a nuclear bomb?



Natanz, where the alleged enrichment took place --- or according to US officials, didn't --- is the site that Israel most threatens to bomb. The Jewish state claims that Iran is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. Or maybe not. Last June, Israel's Mossad Chief Meir Dagan extended the date for when Iran could produce weapons grade uranium or have "breakout capacity" to 2014.

While the US media rallied to cover Ahmadinejad's declaration on Thursday that Iran was now a "nuclear state", Gibbs dismissed those assertions, responding that "Iran has made a series of statements that are far more political than they are. They're based on politics, not on physics."

So which is it? Is Iran working on a nuclear bomb or not? Let's look at the evidence most recently cited by US officials. Speaking on Sunday at a US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar where the US secretary of state is conducting a three-day tour --- in part to persuade Persian Gulf allies to support Obama's initiatives to contain a nuclear Iran --- Clinton said there was mounting evidence that the Islamic Republic was pursuing a nuclear weapon: "The evidence is accumulating that that's exactly what they are trying to do...Iran has consistently failed to live up to its responsibilities. It has refused to demonstrate to the international community that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful."

When asked to point to evidence of a nuclear program, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying: "Given the current trajectory that Iran is on - the fact that it still has centrifuges spinning, and the fact that it is unwilling to constructively engage the international community - we have to assume that Iran is pursuing a nuclear programme."

He continued: "Given all the steps that Iran has taken and all the actions that Iran refuses to take, we can only begin to draw the conclusion that Iran's intentions are less than peaceful."

If that is the basis on which the US is assembling a multi-national alliance to apply economic sanctions on the Iranian government, then it is deeply flawed premise. For one, it is virtually impossible to assess "intentions" when there is no real communication with the Islamic Republic, and therefore no way to anticipate or know its psyche.

A hostile stance toward US foreign policy is not a compelling barometer for assessing a country's preparedness to engage in risky belligerent actions --- neither is negative rhetoric or political posturing as Gibbs suggests. If that were the case, we would need to act on the perceived "intentions" of half the world's nations.

Secondly, for every one of the handful of allies who have bought in to our "intentions" theory, there are ten nations who do not see an Iran of harmful intentions. And it isn't just China and Russia that are hesitant. It is Brazil, Turkey, India, Qatar - important US allies - and the vast majority of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement.

A RAND report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force Directorate of Operational Plans and Joint Matters to take a fresh look at Iran's military, economic and religious strengths and limitations, last spring cautioned the administration to differentiate between Iran's rhetoric and its actions, an important factor in assessing intentions:

"Its revolutionary ideology has certainly featured prominently in the rhetoric of its officials," the report says. "However, the record of Iranian actions suggests that these views should be more accurately regarded as the vocabulary of Iranian foreign policy rather than its determinant."

The Report concludes that, in spite of its rhetoric and the concerns of neighboring states, Tehran does not seek territorial expansion or ideological exportation of its Islamic revolution. Instead, the report cautions that "the ideology and bravado of Iran's President Ahmadinejad and its religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei mask a preference for opportunism and realpolitik -- the qualities that define 'normal' state behavior."

The reading of events in the world is a major driver of US foreign policy formulation. Which is why these determinations should be taken out of the hands of elected officials and political appointees and placed squarely in the laps of area specialists of the non-ideological variety. There could be no better example of this than the Iraq WMD debacle, where American political ideologues pursued an agenda based on their "perceptions" and skewed world view rather than on reality and accumulated intelligence data.

And now we face more of the same erroneous logic regarding Iran's nuclear program, where "evidence" is based on perceived "intentions" rather than on indisputable fact. Which is why the number of nations willing to participate in rigorous sanctions against the Islamic Republic is miniscule compared to those against.

Worse yet, Gibbs' statement last Friday reveal that we know there is no real evidence of a growing Iranian nuclear capability. If they can't even enrich uranium to 20%, then they can't make a bomb --- period.

Middle East Special: "Why Chuckles Greeted Hillary Clinton's Gulf Tour"

Rami Khouri writes for Beirut's Daily Star:

American secretaries of state have been coming to the Middle East to create all sorts of complex alliances against Iran for most of my recent happy life, but every time this show passes through our region I learn again the meaning of the phrase “lack of credibility.” Hillary Clinton is the latest to undertake this mission, and like her predecessors her comments are often difficult to take seriously.

We are told that her trip to the region has two main aims: to strengthen Arab resolve to join the United States and others in imposing harsh new sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear development program; and to harness Arab support for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In both of these critical diplomatic initiatives the US has taken the lead and achieved zero results. Either the actors involved – Arabs, Israelis, Iranians – are all chronically, even chromosomally, dysfunctional (for which there is some evidence) or the US is particularly inept when assuming leadership.

Middle East Transcript: Hillary Clinton at Qatar Town Hall Meeting (15 February)
The Latest from Iran (17 February): Psst, Want to See Something Important?

The weakness in both cases, I suspect, has to do with the US trying to define diplomatic outcomes that suit its own strategic objectives and political biases (especially pro-Israel domestic sentiments). So Washington pushes, pulls, cajoles and threatens all the players with various diplomatic instruments, except the one that will work most efficiently in both the Iranian and Arab-Israeli cases: serious negotiations with the principal parties, based on applying the letter of the law, and responding equally to the rights, concerns and demands of all sides.



Two Clinton statements during her Gulf trip this week were particularly revealing of why Washington continues to fail in its missions in our region. The first was her expression of concern that Iran is turning into a military dictatorship: “We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, is being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,” Clinton said.

Half a century of American foreign policy flatly contradicts this sentiment (which is why Clinton heard soft chuckles and a few muffled guffaws as she spoke). The US has adored military dictatorships in the Arab world, and has long supported states dominated by the shadowy world of intelligence services. This became even more obvious after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Washington intensified cooperation with Arab intelligence services in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East are military and police states where men with guns rule, and where citizens are confined to shopping, buying cellular telephones, and watching soap operas on satellite television. Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, as well as the entire Gulf region and other states are devoted first and foremost to maintaining domestic order and regime incumbency through efficient, multiple security agencies, for which they earn American friendship and cooperation. When citizens in these and other countries agitate for more democratic and human rights, the US is peculiarly inactive and quiet.

If Iran is indeed becoming a military dictatorship, this probably qualifies it for American hugs and aid rather than sanctions and threats. Clinton badly needs some more credible talking points than opposing military dictatorships. (Extra credit question for hard-core foreign policy analysts: Why is it that when Turkey slipped out of military rule into civilian democratic governance, it became more critical of the US and Israel?)

The second intriguing statement during Clinton’s Gulf visit was about Iran’s neighbors having three options for dealing with the “threat” from Iran: “They can just give in to the threat; or they can seek their own capabilities, including nuclear; or they ally themselves with a country like the United States that is willing to help defend them. I think the third is by far the preferable option.”

This sounds reasonable, but it is not an accurate description of the actual options that the Arab Gulf states have. It is mostly a description of how American and Israeli strategic concerns and slightly hysterical biases are projected onto the Gulf states’ worldviews. These states in fact have a fourth option, which is to negotiate seriously a modus vivendi with Iran that removes the “threat” from their perceptions of Iran by affirming the core rights and strategic needs of both sides, thus removing mutual threat perceptions.

This is exactly the same option the US used when it negotiated détente and the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union (and whose results ultimately brought about the collapse of Communism). Why the US does not use the same sensible approach to the perceived threat from Iran is hard to explain. Perhaps two reasons explain it: Washington would have to deal with Iran (and other defiant Middle Easterners) through negotiations rather than haughty neo-colonialism; and, Israel would have to submit to nuclear inspections and end its aggressive behavior.

Today on EA (16 February 2010)

Iran: More posturing today over the nuclear issue, as well as slurs and counter-claims between the US and Iran on which country is the "dictatorship". Human rights continues to dominate internal news, and labour activism appears to be gathering speed, although there no firm signs of a nationwide general strike yet. We have live-blogging from Ahmadinejad's press conference, and as always, all news and links will be updated throughout the day on our live weblog.

Late-breaking news is of a rising challenge from the Karroubi family, with both Mehdi Karroubi's wife and son making pointed challenges to the regime. That bears out the importance of the analysis by EA's Mr Verdeof the beating of Medhi Karroubi's son Ali: "Imagine for a moment that the son or daughter of a Presidential or Prime Ministerial candidate in the US or Britain had been taken away by plainclothes security forces and kept in an unknown locations for days. Imagine that he or she had been beaten and threatened with rape...."



We've posted the text of human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr’s address to the United Nations last Friday: “In addition to the numerous examples of human rights that are systematically violated…during the post-election events, basic and fundamental human rights remain in serious peril, such as equality of persons before the law, the right to peaceful assembly, the rights of political prisoners, and the rights of human rights defenders and civil society activists.” Four labour unions published a public declaration of their ten minimal demands.

Middle East: We have the full transcript of US Secretary of State Clinton's interview by Al Jazeera at the Qatar Town Hall Meeting on 15 February.

Middle East and Afghanistan: Ali Yenidunya's Inside Line picks up on the capture of the second-ranking official in the "old Taliban" of Afghanistan and on the Saudi line for action against Iran.