The Latest from Iran (2 July): Winners and Losers in the Economic Crisis

See also Iran Feature: A Cleric's Best-Selling DVD Guide "Lovemaking is Like Jihad"
The Latest from Iran (1 July): The European Union Cuts Off Imports of Tehran's Oil

---

2010 GMT: Diplomacy Watch. ISNA highlights an interview with Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who declares, “The other side has no choice but to come to an agreement with Iran. Otherwise, instead of interaction, the next option will be confrontation, and I don’t believe that any rational mind is after confrontation given the latest developments in the region.”

Salehi urged Iranians to be confident, "We have been subjected to sanctions for the past 33 years “come in addition to previous ones, and it isn’t a problem....[We must] show national unity and have resistance and patience against these sanctions because one has to pay the costs for preserving one’s independence."

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (19 May): An Ahmadinejad Albatross Named Rahim-Mashai

1540 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Another shot at Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai....

The weekly Ya Lesarat Al-Hossein quotes a student of Ahmadinejad’s mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi: “Mashai is a freemason and should be arrested.”

Qasem Ravanbakhsh added that the contents of the president’s public speeches prove he has been heavily influenced by Mashai’s ideas.

The head of the conservative Society of Islamic Republic Martyrs, Hossein Fadai, accused the “deviant current” in the government of trying to foster relations with the US and foreign intelligence services (see 0500 GMT).

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: The Ghosts of Ahmadinejad's Right-Hand Man (Pedestrian)

In 2009, when the Iranian elections were in national --- and international --- spotlight, during the TV debate between Mousavi and Ahmaidnejad,which kept us Iranians, all over the globe glued to our TV (or monitor) screens, something funny happened. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the soft spoken, apprehensive opposition candidate said on live TV: “this government is a government of fortunetellers and exorcists.”

Mousavi was to pay a heavy price for these words.

Following the election, when the Supreme Leader openly backed Ahmadinejad in his notorious Friday Prayer speech, he also directly targeted Mousavi’s statement, condemning those who “blatantly attribute magic and wizardry to the government".

How ironic indeed.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (8 May): Watching the Cabinet

1920 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. So, after a week of high political crisis, how does a President end his speech at a critical Cabinet meeting?

He congratulates the National Tae Kwon Do Team on its victory in the world championships.

1915 GMT: Cabinet Watch (Bin Laden Conspiracy Edition). So now that Ministre of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi has been allowed back into Cabinet meetings by the President, what does he have to say?

Iran’s Minister of Intelligence has accused the U.S. of fabricating its account of Osama Bin Laden’s death, alleging that Bin Laden had died much earlier from health complications....

[Moslehi said] Iran is in possession of “accurate information and reliable and significant documents” regarding Bin Laden’s death. He did not expand on the contents of thesaid documents....

“If the U.S. military and intelligence have truly arrested or killed Bin Laden,” Moslehi said, “why do they not show him to the world? Why do they dispose of his remains at sea?”

“We are of the opinion that the U.S. and its media dictatorship are trying to overshadow the regional uprisings with such news,” Moslehi said. “Furthermore, they are also trying to resolve internal problems such as their economical woes.”

Click to read more ...

Iran Snapshot: All You Need to Know About "Ahmadinejad's Sorcerer" (Azarmehr)

If being a Satanist, child of a prostitute and a ransom collector whose brothers and sisters were thieves and prostitutes was not enough ammunition for character assassination, the article throws in one more accusation by the unknown friend for good measure....

Abbas Ghaffari the sorcerer pretends to be a Muslim and claims to know the Koran and other holy Islamic texts by heart, but he is Jewish and wears a Star of David.

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: Ahmadinejad Floored By Bugs, Spirits, And Djinns (Tait)

Whenever cornered, Mahmud Ahmadinejad always seems to come out swinging. But Iran's notoriously abrasive president appears in danger of suffering a knockout blow over his political attachment to Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, a man widely seen as a threat to the country's clerical-based political system.

What had been a long-rumbling but low-intensity row has now become so rancorous that it appears Ahmadinejad has lost the political support of his onetime patron, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who has the final say on all state matters.

And dislike of Rahim-Mashaei, the president's chief of staff whom he is believed to have anointed as an eventual successor, has grown so visceral and widespread that some believe it has reduced Ahmadinejad to a lame duck and may even prevent him completing his second term.

Click to read more ...