Afghanistan Latest: Anger at US over Civilian Deaths; Karzai's Power Move; Drug Users Training Afghan Police?

Juan Cole offers a full round-up of developments:

Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error.

But some senators went farther, demanding that NATO or US military men responsible for the deaths be executed. Senator Hamidullah Tokhi of Uruzgan complained to Pajhwok that the foreign forces had killed civilians in such incidents time and again, and kept apologizing but then repeating the fatal mistake: "Anyone killing an ordinary Afghan should be executed in public."

Afghanistan Analysis: Dutch Government Falls Over Troop Withdrawal

Lawmaker Fatima Aziz of Qunduz concurred, observing, "We saw foreign troops time and again that they killed innocent people, something unbearable for the already war-weary Afghans."


Maulvi Abdul Wali Raji, a senator from Baghlan Province, called for the Muslim law of an "eye for an eye" to be applied to foreign troops for civilian deaths. Pajhwok concludes, "Mohammad Alam Izdiyar said civilian deaths were the major reason behind the widening gap between the people and Afghan government."

Note that those speaking this way are not Taliban, but rather elected members of the Afghanistan National Parliament, whose government is supposedly a close US ally.

Sarah Chayes, a former National Public Radio correspondent who lived for years in Qandahar but has been on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's staff for the past year, told CNN that she sees increasing frustration in the Afghan public over the killing of civilians by NATO and US strikes. She implies that how the government of President Hamid Karzai deals with this issue could determine its fate, given that it is acting like, and perceived as acting like a criminal syndicate.

In the meantime, Karzai is taking no chances. Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that Karzai took control of the supposedly independent Electoral Complaints Commission, and will appoint all 5 of its members. The system had been that 3 members were appointed by the United Nations, and the other two chosen by the supreme courty chief justice and the independent high electoral commission.

The ECC threw out about 1 million fraudulent ballots in last summer's presidential election, a move that could have forced Karzai into a run-off election against rival Abdullah Abdullah. But the latter withdrew from the race on the grounds that Karzai controlled the in-country electoral commission and refused to relinquish control of it. Many observers believe that Karzai stole the election. In short, Karzai is increasingly acting like a Middle Eastern dictator, manipulating state institutions to ensure that he cannot be unseated in an election.

Whatever US troops are fighting for in Afghanistan, it is not democracy.

As for those nearly 100,000 trained Afghan troops that Washington keeps boasting about, it turns out that the Pentagon sub-sub-contracted the troop training and "a Blackwater subsidiary hired violent drug users to help train the Afghan army." Many journalists doubt that there are actually so many troops in the Afghanistan National Army, citing high turnover and desertion rates, while others suggest that two weeks of 'show and tell' training for illiterate recruits is not exactly a rigorous 'training'-- even if it were done properly, which it seems not always to have been.

Canadian Brig. Gen. Daniel Ménard said that some estimates of the number of Taliban roadside bombs planted in Marjah were too low, putting them at 400 to 500. He said that despite what happened in Marjah, where Taliban took advantage of the ample warning NATO gave that it was coming, the same procedure will be followed this May when the Kandahar campaign begins. It is aimed at blunting the summer campaign of Taliban coming over the border from Pakistan.

Former Pakistan chief of staff, Mirza Aslam Beg, wrote in Nava-e Waqt for February 23, 2010, explaining Taliban strategy in Marjah. These passages were translated from Urdu by the USG Open Source Center:

Marjah is located some 15 km from Lashkargah City, which is the provincial capital of Helmand Province. It is a flat desert area. It has a few scattered mud houses. There is a green belt to its north and west, which is irrigated by the Helmand River. This green belt has large agricultural farms and orchards, with a population of about 6,000 to 7,000 people. The entire terrain is flat and totally unsuitable for guerilla war, which is the preferred style of the Taliban. It will be very easy for the allied air forces and ground war machine to control the movement of the Taliban in this area. Now, the question arises is why are the allied forces preparing for a similar kind of heavy attack in an area where there is hardly any resistance?

It appears there is a historical and psychological factor behind this decision. History says that every army that went to this area did not return safely. The allied forces believe that if they succeed in taking control of Marjah and the Taliban are compelled to back off, the allied forces will gain a psychological upper hand, making it easy for them to carry out operation against the Taliban in other provinces in Afghanistan as well.

The Taliban have become experts in fighting a war in the difficult desert terrain of the northern regions for the past 30 years. They are brave mujahids [holy warriors] who have full confidence in themselves and in their quest for success against their enemies. Time and circumstance are totally on their side. Thus, it is easy to understand their strategy in the battle of Marjah.

One of their strategies is to send 1,000 to 2,000 fighters under the command of Commander Mullah Abdul Razzaq. These fighters are committed to fight until their last breath and will bleed the allied forces to the end. They will defend the region with their scattered fighters spread all over the area. They will also defend the area against the attacking forces through the use of improvised engineering devices (IEDs), including the Omar bomb and booby traps. Their ground defense system, which was used by the Hezbollah against Israel in 2006, can also be used as a defense weapon. This strategy has been used by the Taliban during the last four days of this war.

The number of Taliban present in the adjacent areas of Helmand is around 10,000 to 12,000. These troops have the ability to attack the allied forces from the nearby areas of the main battleground and keep them engaged by attacking them regularly. Moreover, they will cut off the supply line of the allied forces. Under this strategy, on one side, the Taliban will continue the battle in Marjah, and on the other side, they will create problems for the allied forces by increasing attacks on them in provinces under their control.

Iraq: How Serious is the Sunni Election Boycott?

We've been trying to get our heads around the significance of Saturday's announcement that one of Iraq's largest Sunni political parties is going to boycott the forthcoming national elections. The New York Times plays down the story. Juan Cole also thinks that the effect on the election will not be devastating, but he considers the longer-term maneouvres and probable benefits to the leading Shi'a factions:

The Los Angeles Times reports that the National Dialogue Front, a secular party led by Salih Mutlak, is calling for a boycott of the March 7 parliamentary elections in Iraq. The NDF has 11 seats in parliament, but Mutlak and another prominent party member were among over 500 candidates (out of over 6000) for parliament disqualified as too close to the prohibited Baath Party. Many of those excluded from running had openly criticized the provision in the Iraqi constitution that bans members of the Baath Party from public life. The purge of Mutlak has been widely condemned in Iraq as unfair, since he left the party in the late 1970s.


Mutlak announced that the boycott decision was taken after remarks by American leaders in Iraq that the banning of candidates had been instigated by Iran. Mutlak said that the upcoming polls in Iraq had been hijacked by Iran and were being conducted according to the Iranian rules, wherein the regime predetermines who wins and some candidates are excluded from running.

Some observers worry that there will be a mass Sunni boycott of the elections, as happened with disastrous effects in January of 2005. I don't think that catastrophe can now be repeated, because at that time the elections were held on a nation-wide basis. The current elections instead have Iraqi provinces as the electoral unit. Thus, the largely Sunni provinces of al-Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninevah will return a lot of Sunni members of parliament even with a boycott (the resulting members of parliament just would not represent that many people).

Liz Sly of the LAT says that there are two main Shiite blocs for the first time in this election (the first two parliamentary elections saw the Shiite religious parties unite into a single coalition). But she says that the two " have an informal agreement" to come together as a mega-coalition after the elections, which will enable them to form the government. (In the Iraqi constitution, the largest single party or coalition in parliament gets first shot at choosing the prime minister.)

I have argued that the Shiite-dominated Accountability and Justice Committee may have banned Mutlak precisely in hopes that his National Dialogue Front would boycott, thus depriving the Iraqiya list of enough seats to make a bid to form the government.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the National Dialogue Front gave as further reasons for its boycott that it was also concerned about the lack of security for elections, by the government's arbitrary arrest of its candidates and party workers, and by the lack of a truly independent high electoral commission.

In contrast, the National Iraqi List, headed by former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi-- which the National Dialogue Front had joined in a coalition effort-- announced that it would begin campaigning in earnest after last week's one-week hiatus. Allawi kicked off the campaign with a visit to the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, for consultations with King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia has backed Iraqi Sunnis behind the scenes, and is worried about Iranian influence in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the main Shiite bloc, the National Iraqi Alliance (which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, formed in 1982 in Iran), accused the United States of interfering in Iraqi domestic politics and of plotting to bring the Baath Party back into prominence as the "neo-Baath."

Iran: Desperately Seeking Sensible US Comment about 22 Bahman

Of course, snap reaction from the US of this week's events in Iran was unlikely to catch the depth of the developments and the prospects for the future. The disturbing while gleeful response of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett was to be expected. (And, yes, I use "disturbing" without reservation: have a look at their "analysis" to see how they try to wipe away the post-election detentions, trials, and abuses.) Unsurprisingly, some Bush-era advocates of US power, having embraced the Green movement for "regime change", backtracked when the Government did not fall on Thursday --- Charles Krauthammer pronounced, "The regime has succeeded today, and unless there is some later demonstration of the power of the opposition, it could be a turning point in this process and the one that the regime will celebrate."

However, what is most disturbing is how an analyst like Marc Lynch, normally quite good about Middle Eastern affairs, could issue this declaration after a superficial review of 22 Bahman and the Green movement, "I fully believe that the Iranian regime is more unpopular and less legitimate than ever before -- but just don't see it as especially vulnerable at the moment." It is disturbing not because Lynch is duplicitous; to the contrary, he carries enough weight of expertise and of honesty in his approach for his analysis to race around the Washington network of political columnists as the final wisdom on the subject.


(A similar point could be made about Juan Cole, another influential interpreter of the Middle East and Iran, with his reductionist conclusion: "Ahmadinejad has his Alliance of Builders in Tehran, and is backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitary, and other security forces. Musavi has the little flashmobs who couldn't, at least on Thursday.")

I understand and sympathise with Lynch's motives --- "We'd all do better if we could focus public discourse less on hopes for regime change and war, and more on the less sexy but more helpful question of how to make a negotiations strategy work" --- but he has fallen prey to the trap of "raised expectations", even as he identifies it in his article. To declare the regime and Government secure, when those who have been watching the situation for months have held to "marathon, not a sprint", is a short-cut based more on analytic expediency than on careful study.

And Lynch's portrayal of the choices is a straw-man to match his reading of events. Pronouncing "regime change" (which is more an option created by those outside Iran, rather than those protesting inside the country) and "war" (which is a remote possibility in the near-future) as the only alternatives to sitting down with the Ahmadinejad Government is just as much a deception as the manoeuvres of the Leveretts or the Bush-era advocates of "down with the mullahs".

(Indeed, Lynch's conclusion puts him alongside the Leveretts, even if his analysis is put much more honestly and thoughtfully than their bang-the-drum advocacy.)

Instead of declaring the opposition dead or peripheral, perhaps one should do it the justice of considering that the best alternative to negotiations with Tehran is simply no grand declarations and "no negotiations". The battle over political authority is one which should be left to Iranians. Conferring legitimacy on a Government that many of them see as illegitimate is an unnecessary intervention; it is adding insult to injury to distort and minimise the "Green movement" in support of that strategy.

Iran on 22 Bahman: Ahmadinejad "Wins Ugly" (This Time)

I guess it was inevitable that --- to post a dramatic headline or to make artificial sense out of the complex and messy politics of events --- the open-and-shut, Victory-or-Defeat results would already be declared. Britain's Sky TV, known best for its across-the-wall sports coverage, puts the onus of loser on the opposition: "The danger for Iran's anti-Government Green movement is that after yet again failing to mobilise huge numbers on a key day, it will lose momentum....The Government looks to have maintained its firm grip on the country." The Times of London pronounces, "Iran crushes opposition protests with violence". Others leer --- The Herald Sun in Australia, "Iran regime strangles Green Movement on the streets" --- while some don't even see a contest (Time: "Where Was the Opposition?")

The Tehran Bureau ran up the white flag, "A big anticlimax," "defeat," "An overwhelming presence from the other side. People were terrified." Even Juan Cole, normally an expert offering nuanced, in-depth analysis, leaps to "Regime Victory on Revolution Anniversary; Opposition Fails to Mobilize".

OK, if we have to resort to a sporting metaphor to summarise the twists and turns of 22 Bahman, let's use one that offers some insight into what is to come as well as what has happened.

The Regime Won Ugly. And that's not the same as winning.

The Latest from Iran (11 February): Today is 22 Bahman

Let me explain: when a team "wins ugly", it doesn't triumph through overwhelming superiority, a strength that is likely to see it chalk up victory after victory. Instead, it scrapes through --- in a contest in which all sides makes mistakes and miscalculations --- because its faults aren't quite enough to take away its lead, because it hangs on with just enough of a territorial advantage, because it has a bit of luck to offset its weaknesses or enough tenacity to avoid exhaustion.


That's a good starting point for 22 Bahman. If the regime prevailed today, it did so in part because expectations of the opposition had been set so high. The dramatic scenes of protest of Ashura (27 December), fuelled in part by the recent death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the relay of strong statements by Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami, and the signs of regime fatigue offered the prospect of overcoming the blunt force and propaganda of the Government. And "overcome" was not the triumph of years or months from now but of this moment; 22 Bahman, 31 years after the Islamic Revolution's victory, might prove the triumphal day once more.

That didn't happen, and I guess in that sense, it has to be Government and Supreme Leader 1, Mousavi-Karroubi-Khatami and Greens O. But that winning score is a "negative" margin, rather than a tribute to the "positive" efforts of the regime. There was nothing hopeful in the rows of security forces who, having been prepared after the humiliations of Ashura, were not going to countenance another retreat. There was nothing of glory or Islamic value in the confrontations with Mehdi Karroubi (wounded, his son missing), Zahra Rahnavard (beaten), Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Mousavi (forced into retreat), let alone the thousands of encounters in which chains, batons, and flying-squad detentions trumped hope and determination.

"Negative", not "positive". And no, the regime's rally in Azadi Square does nothing to alter that assessment. President Ahmadinejad's speech was not even subtle enough to offer a pretence of legitimacy through economic progress, social cohesion, or political manifesto for a post-election Iran in which the election is still a matter for dispute. This was a 75-minute diversion puffed up with a "surprise" (the 20% enrichment of uranium) which had been announced four days ago, the ritual denunciations of the "West" and Israel, and a fantastical vision --- awaiting the 12th Imam --- of Iran straddling the globe. Even the snapshots of the rally were beholden to these fancies, all deployed to avoid any reference to internal issues. There was the big rocket of Presidential strength:



And there was the eternal Western evil that would sweep over Iranians if they did not acknowledge Presidential leadership:



Of course, this was converted by State media into the markers, as the numbers in Azadi Square went from hundreds of thousands to a million to 2 million to 5 million, of all of Iran unified. And that unity was sustained by the reduction of any evidence to the contrary to a "couple of hundred" protesters in an outlying square in Tehran, soon to be dispersed by security forces.

But an unity sustained only by the "negative" is destined to melt away almost as quickly as the crowds dissipated from Azadi Square, duty done, needs met, or loyalties rewarded by the time slot allocated for the Ahmadinejad speech. Come tomorrow, or perhaps after the extended holiday that ends Sunday, the 31st anniversary of the Revolution will be just a date in the calendar as economic disputes resume, the qualms over the President resurface, and the detainees languish in Iran's prisons amidst the symbolic, limited but important manipulation of abuse cases such as the Kahrizak scandal.

There are distinctions to be made in this "negative" victory. It is probably more substantial for the Supreme Leader. The window of political opportunity to curb his authority and, in extreme visions, to remove him from office has now closed; those pursuing compromise within the system like Hashemi Rafsanjani have had to do so by pledging fealty to Ayatollah Khamenei, and figures like Mousavi and Karroubi have now defined their resistance as one that accepts the Leader's rule, provided he deals with an unjust and abusive Government. Khamenei is a damaged figure, a damage that is seen not only in the failure to get resolution but in his own bouts of self-doubt, but he will survive.

Not so Ahmadinejad. He lives another day because Iran's security forces held the line, even advanced in the physical battle against the opposition. But there is no political authority accrued from his postures: even Seyed Mohammad Marandi, the staunch defender of the Iranian regime, was at great pains this morning, when he spoke on British radio to say that the Iranian people had come out for the Republic, not the President (no Marandi interview is now complete without ""I Didn't Vote For Ahmadinejad").

If the opposition had truly been "crushed" today, that might have been sufficient to ensure Ahmadinejad's longer-term survival, even in the absence of any positive measures. But the Green movement and figures like Mousavi and Karroubi were not crushed. They were bashed about, dispersed, and, most importantly, exposed as tactically naïve with today's loudly-declared plan to march from Sadeghiyeh Square to the Government's lair in Azadi. Their ranks have been thinned by the detentions, and their communications have to fight new ways to deal with regime restrictions.

But they are not crushed. They also live for other battles. A Mousavi or Karroubi declaration could come tomorrow or Saturday or later in the week. The Green websites, with new ones emerging as others are closed, will be trying to find the front foot in stories of defiance and justice. And the planning will be moving beyond the tactic of trying to "hijack" the regime's highlight days.

That does not mean easy answers for the opposition, let alone those establishment figures who would like to see the back of Ahmadinejad not today but a moment in the near-future. But --- and perhaps this was the hubris that fed into the build-up for 22 Bahman --- nothing was ever going to come easy in this post-election crisis.

"Winning ugly" doesn't mean winning. It means a scrappy, jaded, exhausting victory on this day and this day only. There will be another game soon, and the negative of force and the rhetoric of diversion may not be enough, especially if those who see behind the batons and the speech-screens refine their approaches.

Put this on your scorecards. Without "legitimacy", the President --- if not the regime --- has to "win ugly" every time. The opposition --- from within the system or without --- only have to win once.

The Latest from Iran (8 February): Staying with the Real Story

2045 GMT: But There are Limits. One leading international media organisation is proclaiming that it has mobilised itself to cover Thursday's events in Iran. It has even set up a dedicated Twitter account for Iran, announced throughout today in a series of tweets.

Only problem is that this broadcaster/website hasn't quite got the hang of using Twitter for gathering latest news rather than for self-promotion. Total number of Twitter accounts it is following? 7, all of whom happen to be its own staff.

NEW Iran Document: Khatami Statement for 22 Bahman (8 February)
NEW Iran Special: The 57 Journalists in Iran’s Prisons
NEW Iran Advice Video: Palin to Obama “Bomb and You Get Re-Elected”
Iran Special: The Weakness of the Regime “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again”
Iran: The “Reconciliation” Proposals of Karroubi’s Etemade Melli Party
Iran: “Conservative Opposition” Offer to Mousavi “Back Khamenei, We Sack Ahmadinejad”
Iran Space Shocker: Turtle-Astronauts Defect to West
The Latest from Iran (7 February): Tremors

2020 GMT: 22 Bahman is Back! The "Western" media, which only 12 hours ago seemed to be oblivious to anything Iran-related  unless it had the word "nuclear", has re-discovered the internal events and tensions. Numerous services are carrying the report of the Associated Press on the Supreme Leader's speech (1245, 1420, & 1940 GMT), while The New York Times picks up on Reuters' summary of the statements of Mir Hossein Mousavi (1635 GMT) and Mohammad Khatami (separate entry). Even America's ABC News has taken notice, catching up with Saturday's interview of Mehdi Karroubi in a German magazine.

And CNN, declaring that it was going to cover Iran closely before and on Thursday, has launched a special section on its website.

2015 GMT: Shutting Down the News. Pedestrian follows up on the arrest of photographer Amir Sadeghi, the creator of the excellent Tehran Live, and the detentions of both sisters of blogger Agh Bahman.

1940 GMT: We Are Number One (and We Will Punch You). More on the Supreme Leader's tough talk today (see 1245 GMT), one in which he did not walk out because of an inconvenient question (see 1420 GMT):

Today, there exists no system like the Islamic establishment in the world that can stand unshakably in the face of heavy, hostile propaganda, political and economic pressures and sanctions....[Because of our] reliance on God...whenever the people fear for the Revolution and sense threats and animosity, huge crowds of people, spontaneously and without convocation, take to the streets across the country.

1935 GMT: Blocking the Airwaves. An Iranian activist has reported that Voice of America Persian can no longer be received in Tehran.

1655 GMT: This Just In. Heading off to an academic commitment, but had to note this statement by the US Government and European Union, released by the White House:

The United States and the European Union condemn the continuing human rights violations in Iran since the June 12 election. The large scale detentions and mass trials, the threatened execution of protestors, the intimidation of family members of those detained and the continuing denial to its citizens of the right to peaceful expression are contrary to human rights norms.

Our concerns are based on our commitment to universal respect for human rights. We are particularly concerned by the potential for further violence and repression during the coming days, especially around the anniversary of the Islamic Republic's founding on 11 February.

We call on the Government of Iran to live up to its international human rights obligations, to end its abuses against its own people, to hold accountable those who have committed the abuses and to release those who are exercising their rights.

1635 GMT: Summary of Mousavi's Statement. Mir Hossein Mousavi told a group of youth and student activists today:

Disgracing and insulting people and the freedom of thought has nothing to do with Islam. I believe that the nation knows what is best for it and the collective wisdom is the superior wisdom and that is why the Islamic Revolution happened. If we want to save Islam as an asset for the nation, our own interests should not endanger the interests of Islam....

The only demand of the force that has come to the scene today is to return to the main laws and values of the Islamic Revolution, but it is being falsely accused. The Green Movement of the nation of Iran is independent, rational and peaceful. We are not opposed to Basij, the Revolutionary Guards or the police; but rather we are opposed to violence, beating and killing.

1630 GMT: Claim of the Day. The Los Angeles Times, citing a source inside Tehran's police headquarters, claims up to three million opposition protesters may be on the streets on Thursday. The source compared that number to 500,000 pro-Government demonstrators who were out in Tehran on 30 December. The article also claims that about 12,000 Basiji militiamen will be moved into the capital from around the country.

1445 GMT: We've just come out of a discussion of EA's coverage for 22 Bahman to see the English translation of today's statement by former President Mohammad Khatami. We've posted in a separate entry.

1420 GMT: Challenging the Supreme Leader. Khodnevis reports that, during Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent meeting with academics, Hojatoleslam Javadi-Amoli (the son of Ayatolah Javadi-Amoli), asked a pointed question about the President. Javadi-Amoli referred to an encounter between his father and Ahmadinejad, in which the President claimed that, during a speech to the United Nations General, he was covered by a halo of light. The video of the President's account was posted on YouTube but, during the 2009 campaign, Ahmadinejad claimed the story was lies made up by the enemy.

Javadi-Amoli asked the Supreme Leader, “We see many times in religious texts that the ruler of Islamic countries, in order to protect the interests of his country’s people, is permitted to hide parts of the truth, but he cannot say that his own saying is a lie and attribute it to the ramblings of a sick mind. Can one expect justice from such a ruler?”

At that point Khamenei says that he did not have time and left the meeting.

1300 GMT: The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has issued its call for Iranians to accompany Green and opposition figures in the 22 Bahman rally.

Green movement activists in Ahvaz have also put out a statement.

1255 GMT: Another Media Detention. Amir Sadeghi, photographer for Farhange Ashti, has been arrested at work.

1250 GMT: We Will, We Will Rock You. The Tehran commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Hossein Hamadani, has declared again that the Revolutionary Guard will "deal severely" with any protesters on Thursday.

1245 GMT: We Will, We Will Punch You. That is the Supreme Leader's latest line for Thursday, as he told Air Force personnel, "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (of Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman in a way that will leave them stunned."

Using the foreign agents gambit to rule out legitimate protest, Khamenei said that the "most important aim of the sedition after the election was to create a rift within the Iranian nation, but it was unable to do so and our nation's unity remained a thorn in its eyes".

1135 GMT: The Next 22 Bahman Move? A group of youth and student activists have met with Mir Hossein Mousavi today, declaring that they will march on Thursday with Green symbols to seek justice and freedom and announcing "to the totalitarians" that sooner or later they will free the Islamic Republic from oppression. We are awaiting a text of Mousavi's remarks.

1125 GMT: Another High-Profile Sentence. Former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh has reportedly been given a six-year prison term for "disturbing" national security and spreading propaganda.

1110 GMT: Targeting Mortazavi. 57 members of Parliament have written to the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, and President Ahmadinejad to demand the immediate dismissal and trial of Presidential aide Saeed Mortazavi for his alleged role in the Kahrizak Prison abuses.

1100 GMT: Khomeini v. The Regime. Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Republic, has replied sharply to the complaint of Seyed Hassan Khomeini about IRIB's "censorship" of the speeches of his grandfather, Ayatollah Khomeini: "If only you had written a protest letter to condemn the shameful events after the election...."

0940 GMT: Million-Dollar Defendant. After 216 days in detention, Feizollah Arab Sorkhi, a senior member of the reformist Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party, finally stood trial on Sunday. Proceedings are ongoing; Arab Sorkhi’s bail has been set at more than $1 million.

Meanwhile, journalist Emadeddin Baghi remains in solitary confinement despite the end of his interrogation.

0935 GMT: A New Voice. The Green Voice of Freedom website, from which we are pictured up some latest news items, has launched an English edition.

0930 GMT: Freed. Amidst the dominant news of arrests, a belated notice of released: last week 10 students from Elm-o-Sanat University, detained on and after Ashura, were let out of prison.

0920 GMT: And Now the Real News. Following the complaint from Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the Imam's grandson, to the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Ahmad Montazeri --- son of the Grand Ayatollah, who died in December --- has sent a letter of protest.

The issue is an IRIB interview with former Minister of Intelligence Ali Fallahian, who launched a fierce criticism of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.

0910 GMT: It Gets Worse. The BBC's top radio programme, Today, having done a muddled but creditable effort to get beyond the misleading headlines on Iran (see 0715 GMT), threw it all away with an appalling interview an hour ago.

The fault lay not with the interviewee, Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but with the interviewer, Evan Davies, whose obsession was to establish that Iran might soon have The Bomb. That distortion was only corrected at the end of the discussion, when Fitzpatrick --- moving from theory and fantasy to reality --- noted that Iran does not have the technical capacity to maintain its current civilian programme, let alone establish weapons capability.

Meanwhile, the Green Movement made a fleeting appearance as the device to get a "more acceptable regime" in Iran on the nuclear issue.

Across the Atlantic, Juan Cole does an effective job taking away Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "scare" rhetoric in her interview with CNN on Sunday and then putting the Ahmadinejad declaration in appropriate context.

0820 GMT: And This is Just Silly. Reuters reports, without blinking an eye, Salehi's declaration, ""Iran will set up 10 uranium enrichment centers next year."

Hmm.... At least that's not quite as extravagant as President Ahmadinejad's snap announcement last autumn that Iran would build 20 centres (an event that EA readers recalled yesterday). Reuters might also want to note, beyond its sentence, "Analysts have expressed skepticism whether sanctions-bound Iran, which has problems obtaining materials and components abroad, would be able to equip and operate 10 new plants", that Iran cannot even keep one centre, Natanz, functioning at more than 50 percent capacity.

0745 GMT: Nuclear Kabuki. Tehran keeps up the sideshow this morning, with Iranian state media headlining the declaration of the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akhbar Salehi, "We have written a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to announce our intention to enrich uranium to 20 percent. We will send this letter to the world's atomic watchdog on Monday and then start enrichment on Tuesday in the presence of inspectors and observers from the IAEA."

Dramatic? No. This is no more than a restatement of what Iran is allowed to do under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, since the 20-percent level is for civilian rather than military uses. Indeed, that is (and has been for months) the real uranium issue: whether soon Iran runs out of fuel for its medical research reactor.

0715 GMT: The gap between image and reality has widened overnight in coverage of Iran. The "Western" press, with few exceptions, have now done their lemming jump into a simplistic portrayal of President Ahmadinejad's Sunday media stunt: his declaration that Iran would immediately start producing 20-percent enriched uranium so it can ensure self-sufficiency if there is no "swap" deal with the West.

This morning, BBC's top radio programme has one of the better stories, noting both the obvious (that Ahmadinejad's expectation is "unrealistic", given the technical issues with Iran's nuclear programme( and the important (that the move, in large part, comes from domestic pressure). Even so, the piece opens with the overall declaration that this is "yet another step" in "Iran's nuclear confrontation" with Western powers, which is a bit curious since --- less than a week ago --- the Iranian President was reviving the possibility of a "swap" of enriched uranium outside Iran.
And, beyond that, the bigger picture of the post-election challenge to the Iranian Government and possibly the Iranian system fades.

CNN, for example, is making a big noise on Twitter that it is launching in-depth coverage for the demonstrations of 22 Bahman, Thursday's anniversary of the 1979 Revolution. Yet its feature story is solely devoted to Ahmadinejad's Sunday proclamation, with the internal situation distorted into two concluding paragraphs:

Sunday's announcement of the new enriched uranium plans falls within the 10-day period marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah.

Celebrations commemorating the overthrow began last week and will culminate on February 11.

The immediate damage is that the important developments inside Iran escape notice. This morning, for example, we have published a list of 57 journalists who are detained, amongst hundreds of other political prisoners.

The wider significance of such blinkered and sensational visions is that it is unlikely that the complexities of the contest for power will not be understood on Thursday. Instead, 22 Bahman will suddenly leap into the media frame as a breathless and somewhat confused story of "What are the numbers?", "Where is the violence?", and "Where is the video?", with little appreciation of the real pressure on President Ahmadinejad.

That pressure is coming from inside the Iranian establishment, as well as outside it. Perhaps more importantly, Thursday could be a marker of whether that pressure builds on other parts of the regime, including the position of the Supreme Leader.

22 Bahman is three days away.