The Latest from Iran (4 September): Back to Business?

See also Iran Feature: Regime to Media "Print Only Hope and Joy About Sanctions"
Iran Snapshot: The Military's New Weapon --- "Deceit Perfume"
The Latest from Iran (3 September): "This Country is Broken"

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2039 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Looks like the President did not heed the command of his officials, noted in our separate feature, to spread only "hope and joy" about the economy and sanctions....

Western media headline Ahmadinejad's statement in his interview, "There are some problems in selling oil and we are trying to manage it," and his effective admission of the impact of sanctions through his accusation that "the enemy" was using "psychological warfare".

The President said the sanctions were "blocking off conduits... like the conduits of selling oil, foreign exchange, our banks and the central bank....We are working to bypass them day and night...[but] most of the time when an obstacle is created, it takes a long time to remove it."

Ahmadinejad did finally find some hope: "We have oil and the world needs it," adding that his government was also running a "very rigid budget".

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Iran Feature: The Regime Isolates the Rafsanjani Family (Alem)

Faezeh HashemiLast week women's rights activist Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, was sentenced to six months in prison and a five-year ban on political, cultural, and media activities on charges of "spreading propaganda against the ruling system". The next day, the passports of the family of Mehdi Hashemi, Rafsanjani's son, were seized at Imam Khomeini International Airport outside Tehran.

Analyst Yasmin Alem speaks to The Iran Primer of the US Institute of Peace about the apparent campaign against the Rafsanjani family:

Why was Faezeh Rafsanjani charged?

Hashemi is the most politically active of former President Rafsanjani's children. She is a prominent social activist and leading Islamic feminist. A supporter of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in the 2009, she participated in a number of opposition rallies after the disputed poll. Ms. Rafsanjani was arrested and briefly detained by security forces on two occasions and barred from travelling abroad.

But her conviction on 2 January 2012 stems from an interview with Rooz Online, an opposition online newspaper. The interview was conducted after she was harassed by plainclothes security agents in April 2011. She told the opposition news website that “thugs and hooligans” were running the country.

She was subsequently accused and convicted of “insulting Islamic Republic officials". She was sentenced to six months in jail and banned from membership in any political organization as well as taking part in online and media activities for the next five years. Hashemi is likely to file an appeal. While she may be able to get her jail sentence overturned, the ban on her political activities is unlikely to be lifted.

Her sentence reflects the longstanding rivalry between two of the Islamic Republic’s founding fathers: former President Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The two men have jockeyed for the upper hand—and the country’s political direction—since the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Hashemi’s conviction is another way for the supreme leader to pressure his political rival at a time when Rafsanjani is already at the nadir of his power.

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Iran Feature: Parliament, the Regime, and the Influence of the Clerics (Alem)

Today, the role of the clerics in parliament from both factions can be described as negligible. There are only a few exceptions to this rule.

Does the trend in parliament reflect clerical influence in other spheres of power?

No. Clerics are still at the crux of all the three branches of government.

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The Latest from Iran (8 March): From International Women's Day to the Assembly

2125 GMT: Claimed video of the security presence in Tehran today:

2115 GMT: The Assembly of Experts. Reuters offers an overview of the significance of today's vote removing Hashemi Rafsanjani as head of the Assembly, with EA making this cameo apperance:

In the short-term Ahmadinejad has scored a victory in terms of his immediate authority within the establishment, but it raises questions for those beyond Rafsanjani who may have questions about that authority.

It is a question of who's next?

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Iran Guide: Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani, and the Battle in the Assembly of Experts (Khalaji)

The power struggle within Iran's political elite will be on full display during the March 8-9 semiannual meeting of the Assembly of Experts [Editor's Note: We are working with the dates of 7-8 March], the body charged with selecting the country's Supreme Leader and, in the case of the imminent meeting, electing a head of the assembly for the coming year. The assembly is now led by Rafsanjani himself, who twenty-two years ago played the lead role in selecting Ali Khamenei to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini as the country's Supreme Leader. In the present predicament, President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and other hardliners are trying to prevent Rafsanjani from maintaining his leadership of the assembly, yet removing him would further narrow the field of Iran's religious and political elite who support Khamenei.

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The Latest from Iran (2 March): Marching Through the Blackout

2135 GMT: Economy Watch. Voice of America profiles the five- to ten-fold increase in domestic gas prices after the removal of subsidy cuts.

2125 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Farah Vazehan, arrested after the Ashura demonstration of December 2009, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Vazehan was originally condemned to death.

Reformist activist Davoud Kahnamooei was arrested in Tabriz during Tuesday's protests.

Kahnamooei is a member of the East Azerbaijan branch of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and of Mir Hossein Mousavi's 2009 Presidential campaign.

Three other activists distributing green wristbands have also been detained.

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Iran Analysis: Karroubi's Challenge --- Who Acts and What Happens Next?

The President, as he presses on with his appointments, his rhetoric, and his journeys --- "Look at Cyrus the Great." "Now Look at Me." --- has thrown the Supreme Leader's intervention for unity back at his feet. 

So after Rafsanjani put out his coded jab at Ahmadinejad at the Assembly of Experts this week, after Karroubi tossed in his brick of a letter, and after the President persists in his grandstanding, does the Supreme Leader finally set aside a "unity" which is not happening? Does he point the finger at the Larijanis --- or others in the establishment --- and say....

"Will not someone rid me of this troublesome....?"

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Iran Breaking: Karroubi Intervenes with Letter to Rafsanjani "Take Charge"

UPDATE 1910 GMT: Rah-e-Sabz has published the full text of the Karroubi letter to Rafsanjani.

BBC Persian is reporting that opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi has made a pointed intervention with a letter to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, in Rafsanjani's capacity as the head of the Assembly of Experts.

Karroubi's letter, sent to Rafsanjani just before this week's bi-annual Assembly meeting, called on the Assembly to exercise its powers to "monitor the functions and institutions under the auspices of Iran's Supreme Leader". Karroubi cited problems such as "a lack of independence of the judiciary and courts", the interference of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and Basij militia in political issues, and the IRGC's expanded involvement in Iran's economy.

And, in an even more provocative challenge, Karroubi pointed to the Assembly's powers, under the Iranian Constitution, to remove the Supreme Leader if he becomes incapable of carrying out his supervisory role.

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Iran Analysis: Is Rafsanjani Ready for a Fight?

UPDATE 1725 GMT: Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi says "the file remains open" in the case of Mehdi Hashemi, Hashemi Rafsanjani's son. Iranian authorities have threatened to arrest Mehdi Hashemi, who currently lives in London, if he returns to Iran.

Raffers is back. Possibly.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani used the bi-annual meeting of the Assembly of Experts, which he heads, to put out a rather pointed challenge to the Government yesterday.

So President Ahmadinejad thinks he can wave away sanctions as a "used hanky"? Not so fast, said Rafsanjani: "Throughout the revolution, we never had so many sanctions (imposed on Iran) and I am calling on you and all officials to take the sanctions seriously and not as jokes....Over the past 30 years we had a war and military threats, but never have we seen such arrogance to plan a calculated assault against us."

Sure, that's a headline slap at "the West", but it's also the signal of a lack of confidence in both the President's politics and his skills at managing the economy.

So, is Rafsanjani ready to rumble?

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The Latest from Iran (15 September): Ahmadinejad and His Challenges

1710 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Foreign Policy Move --- A Reminder (see 1310 and 1325 GMT). The Associated Press, for inexplicable reasons, is reporting that the President has "demoted" six aides from "senior envoys" to "advisors" for international affairs.

No, that's not a demotion, that's just another name for Ahmadinejad's staff as they take on foreign policy posts. (And AP might have noted that the President, far from backing down in the face of the Supreme Leader's criticism, has added two envoys-now-advisors to the four he originally named.)

And while we're talking who is trying to claim Iran's foreign policy, let's note a statement from the office of one of Ahmadinejad's Vice Presidents: it was the President who took the final decision on the release of US hiker Sarah Shourd, acting "for humanitarian reasons".

1700 GMT: Oil Squeeze (Subsidy Cut Edition). Tehran has postponed increasing the price of gasoline, despite the subsidy cut plan which was to be implemented next week.

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