The Latest from Iran (7 November): The Week of Dangerously Missing the Point

See also Iran Special: Decoding Ahmadinejad --- Did He Just Declare the "Final Confrontation" Within the Establishment?
Iran Analysis: The Week in "Objective" US Journalism --- War, War, Secret War, Future War, War
Iran Feature: Explaining the Israeli "War Talk" --- Look to the Domestic Politics...And Who Wins
The Latest from Iran (6 November): Beyond the Israeli Diversion

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2015 GMT: The Battle Within. Reports in the Iran media today that the Supreme Leader has ordered his aides to review the "faults" in the Constitution --- is this another signal of a move to a Prime Minister chosen by Parliament, rather than a President chosen by the people?

1945 GMT: The Ahmadinejad Speech. MP Emad Afrough, a former Ahmadinejad supporter, has criticised the President for attacking the judiciary, saying that Ahmadinejad apparently believes that his sensational approach is the only way to stay in power.

Afrough added the jibe that the President seems to "believe that running around, physical presence, and scandalous speeches are 'work'".

Journalist Mehdi Mahdavi-Azad offers the analysis that Ahmadinejad has challenged the Supreme Leader and attacked the Larijani brothers --- one the Speaker of Parliament, another the head of judiciary --- intimidating them with claims of the files of a huge land robbery.

Mahdavi-Azad parallels our analysis when he assesses that, when Ahmadinejad had control over Iran's intelligence services, he sorted out large amounts of secret files about his political opponents and is now using the information to contain them.

1935 GMT: Embezzlement Watch. The National Audit Organization is examining the alleged 1000 billion Toman ($800 million) fraud in Iran's pension and social security funds.

1925 GMT: The Ahmadinejad Speech. Digarban summarises the pressure on website who posted the President's provocative speech from last Thursday --- Doulat-e Ma and Absar News were filtered temporarily, Mahramaneh Online halted its activity, and Ammariyon withdrew the article about the statement.

1245 GMT: Hype Watch. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned against an Israeli military strike on Iran, "This would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences.

Lavrov said there could be no military resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue, as onflicts in Iran's neighbours Iraq and Afghanistan had shown the human suffering and large numbers of casualties.

1240 GMT: Surveillance Watch. The Swedish Migration Board has warned that Iran has both the ability and the inclination to monitor political activists living in Sweden.

"Things have deteriorated in Iran in recent years in the wake of the 2009 election. The regime has also shown a growing concern over witnessing several governments in the Middle East and Northern Africa fall,” said the Board's legal expert Mikael Ribbenvik.

THe Migration Board has been criticised after refusing to grant asylum to a politically-active Iranian man in September.

1230 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. A few days after his provocative speech warning of a "final confrontation" within the Iranian system (see separate analysis), President Ahmadinejad has declared that the Supreme Leader wants a "period of quiet" within Iran.

The pro-Ahmadinejad website Dolat-e Ma, which published the text of last Thursday's speech, was blocked earlier but is now accessible.

1225 GMT: The Battle Within. Iran's High Court has dismissed a verdict against MP Elias Naderan, a leading critic of the Government, and returned it to the lower court.

Naderan had been found guilty over allegations against 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, suspected of involvement in a major insurance fraud. The High Court said that Rahimi must bring his case against Naderan through a personal complaint.

1055 GMT: Hype Watch. David Remnick offers the intellectual high ground in The New Yorker:

A unilateral attack from Israel...would be a grave mistake for all the reasons made plain by Meir Dagan and so many others. It is terrible enough to imagine what might happen if Iran came to possess a bomb; but an attack now would almost certainly lead to a tide of blood in the region. The Middle East today is in a state of fragile possibility, full of peril, to be sure, but also pregnant with promise. A premature unilateral attack could upend everything and one result of many would be an Israel under fire, under attack, and more deeply isolated than ever before.

Julian Borger of The Guardian tries to assess the validity of the leaked "information" from Western officials on Iran's nuclear programme --- the most significant conclusion is that those officials are putting out the same "information" to a Washington Post reporter that they gave Borger two years ago.

And Associated Press takes the easy road of hype on another front, "Iranian Influence Seeping into Iraq".

1015 GMT: Nuke Watch. Israel's Ha'aretz chimes in, "Iran has already acquired the knowledge, technology, and resources to create a nuclear bomb within months, according to Western experts who were briefed on the intelligence information due to be released in this week's report by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency."

0915 GMT: Forgive us for the late start this morning, but we have been working on what we consider one of the most analyses that EA has posted in three years of Iran coverage: "Decoding Ahmadinejad --- Did He Just Declare the "Final Confrontation" Within the Establishment?"

We do not go as far as to say that the President's speech last Thursday is the announcement of a final confrontation with the Supreme Leader. However, it is just short of that --- if the transcript of the statement is accurate, Ahmadinejad just laid the gauntlet to the highest-ranking officials in the system, apart from Ayatollah Khamenei. And in that confrontation, he pretty much told the Supreme Leader: Back Me.

However, we have to admit --- in a separate analysis --- that media outside Iran are likely to be fixated today on the whipped-up drama of possible military conflict, as they are led by unnamed officials to condemn Iran --- on the basis of an International Atomic Energy Agency report which they have not seen, but which has been interpreted for them by sources --- for pursuing a nuclear weapon.

What is interesting this morning are the cracks in the coverage which reveal the diplomatic game between that tale-twisting of the media. For example, Reuters, wittingly or unwittingly, lifts the curtain on a propaganda drive which, all along, has been trying to bolster the economic pressure on Tehran:

There is little chance that the U.N. Security Council will impose tough new sanctions on Iran anytime soon, despite a new U.N. report expected this week to contain evidence suggesting Iran wants atomic weapons.

The reason for this, Western diplomats say, is the reluctance of Tehran's traditional sympathizers China and Russia, which have the power to veto any council resolution, to sanction Iran's oil and gas sectors.

As a result, it will be hard to get anything out of the U.N. that is tougher than the last round of Iran sanctions passed in June 2010.

"The reality is that a new substantive step forward on sanctions will be very difficult," a senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

"The last set of sanctions were very substantive, and essentially the next stage would be to go into the oil and gas sector," he said. "If you get into the oil and gas sector, then obviously there will be opposition from China in particular, but also from Russia. More so China."