The Latest from Iran (5 November): You're A Terrorist --- No, You Are...

See also Iran Website Special: The Basij Militia's "Wall Street Fall"
The Latest from Iran (4 November): Ahmadinejad Punches Back

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1445 GMT: Hype Watch. Yet another spin effort by unnamed "diplomats" to international media ahead of next week's release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's nuclear programme....

The Associated Press is the chosen outlet to declare findings of "computer models of a nuclear warhead and other previously undisclosed details on alleged secret work", including "satellite imagery of...a large steel container used for nuclear arms-related high explosives tests".

AP reports, without critique, that "the newest compilation of suspected weapons-related work is significant in substance and scope".

1434 GMT: The Plot. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has again denounced the US claim of an Iran-backed plan to kill the Saudi Ambassador to Washington. He reiterated that Gholam Shakuri, the Iranian military official who is at the heart of the allegations, is actually a member of the insurgent group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO).

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Iran Special: How Bahrain's Foreign Minister Fed "The Plot" to Top Washington Post Columnist

Bahrain Foreign Minister Al-KhalifaEarlier this week we wrote of how David Ignatius, the star columnist of The Washington Post, was being used by US and Saudi officials to spin the story of the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to Washington.

Indeed, Ignatius was doing much more: he put out the claim that Tehran was behind the slaying of a Saudi official in Pakistan (on 16 May in one paragraph of Ignatius' story, in July in another paragraph). Iran was involved in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and threats against Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Beirut. And Gholam Shakuri, the Qods Force officer indicted in The Plot, "had helped organize militant Shiite protesters in Bahrain".

And now the rest of the story....

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The Latest from Iran (18 October): The Same Old Mahmoud

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1955 GMT: Movie Watch. Doesn't look like the Supreme Leader will be going to the premiere of Footloose --- he told a crowd in Kermanshah, "Hollywood is in the service of human degradation."

1858 GMT: Currency Watch. Despite the Central Bank's promises to strengthen the value of the Iranian currency, the rial is still 1250 to $1 on the free market, as opposed to an official rate of 1056:1.

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Iran Analysis: Sometimes A Plot is a Drug Deal Gone Wrong (Porter)

Sketch of Manssor Arbabsiar at Court HearingIn the [US] complaint, the closest to a semblance of evidence that Arbabsiar sought help during that first meeting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is the allegation, attributed to the DEA informant, that Arbabsiar said he was "interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia". 

Among the "other things" was almost certainly a deal on heroin controlled by officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Three Bloomberg reporters, citing a "federal law enforcement official", wrote that Arbabsiar told the DEA informant he represented Iranians who "controlled drug smuggling and could provide tons of opium".

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Iran Analysis: Sometimes A Plot is Just A Plot (Dreyfuss)

Manssor ArbabsiarAs strange as it may seem, it's entirely possible that the witting participants in a plan that, had it taken place, could have triggered an all-out U.S. attack on Iran's military facilities and nuclear research installations didn't rank very high. That, in part, might explain the staggeringly inept nature of the plot, which involved easily traced transfers of large sums of money to unvetted bank accounts, clumsily disguised, barely coded conversations over open phone lines, and the plotters' reliance on a bungling, pot-smoking Iranian-American businessman with a criminal record. Still, when drugs, guns, and money are involved, participants are not usually members of Mensa. In particular, there have been media reports that Shahlai, Arbabsiar's cousin, was something of a drug-running gangster himself, which could explain why he gravitated to a plan intended to contract the attack on al-Jubeir with Los Zetas, a vastly powerful Mexican mafia organization.

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Iran 6-Point Analysis: Obama and the Regime Walk Tightropes Over the Plot

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There is an important conclusion which goes far beyond any assessment of the Plot. With this response, the US has thrown back the attempt by President Ahmadinejad to renew discussions on Iran's nuclear programme, expressed in a series of public signals in New York last month. 

For now, the Americans will be using stick, stick, and more stick not only over the nuclear issue --- which is no longer the leading symbol for US-Iran relations --- but over co-operation rather than political conflict in the region and beyond. If there is going to be any carrot of direct talks with Tehran, it will only follow the region's self-humbling with an admission of guilt for The Plot.

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Iran Opinion: The Plot --- What the US Got Wrong

In the past 24 hours, there have been a few new facts about the alleged Iran plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US and many more opinions and conjectures. The baseline, however, is still the way the US Government presented its case.

Given the fact that the US has only one Iranian-American, Mansoor Arbabsiar, in custody --- about whom no one really knows much --- and the courts have yet to decide whether he is guilty or not, it really is a stretch to blame the highest echelons of the Iranian regime for orchestrating the attack. Yet this is precisely what Washington did, not in the formal complaint against Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, his supposed Revolutionary Guards handler, but in the declaration of indictments against three senior Revolutionary Guards officers, including the head of the force, for orchestrating the attack.

This is not a question of capability --- the regime has shown in the past that it is capable of violence --- but of complicity. Without presenting further evidence, the US Government cannot expect its narrative of confirmed guilt to take hold.

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The Latest from Iran (12 October): A Plot to Kill the Saudi Ambassador?

See also Iran Analysis: The Plot to Kill the Saudi Ambassador --- Does This Story Make Sense?
Iran Feature: 10 Questions About the "Plot to Kill the Saudi Ambassador to US"
Iran Document: The Formal Complaint over "Plot to Kill Saudi Ambassador to US"
Iran Document: US Account of the "Plot to Murder the Saudi Ambassador to Washington"

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Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of FBI Robert Mueller set out the allegations of the Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US

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1810 GMT: Space Watch. Sad news from Iran --- the monkey died.

Last week, we reported that Iran had indefinitely postponed plans to send a live monkey into space, without giving any reasons. Hamid Fazeli, head of Iran's Space Organisation, said, "One cannot give a set date for this project and as soon as our nation's scientists announce the readiness, it will be announced."

The rest of the story came out today. Deputy Science Minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri said, "The Kavoshgar-5 rocket carrying a capsule with a live animal was launched during Shahrivar (23 August to 22 September). However, the launch was not publicised as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished.

Mehdinejad-Nouri insisted that the launch of a live animal into space was "strategic, and a priority".

1800 GMT: Supreme Leader Watch. More on Ayatollah Khamenei's speech in Kermanshah today....

The Supreme Leader gave this advice to the Iranian people for Parliamentary elections: "Vote for those who are not connected to the centres of power and wealth".

A video extract of the Supreme Leader's address:

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Iran Document: US Account of the "Plot to Murder the Saudi Ambassador to US"

The US Department of Justice summary of the alleged plot, backed by elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US:

WASHINGTON—Two individuals have been charged in New York for their alleged participation in a plot directed by elements of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with explosives while the Ambassador was in the United States.

The charges were announced by Attorney General Eric Holder; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller; Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

A criminal complaint filed today in the Southern District of New York charges Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen holding both Iranian and U.S. passports, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force, which is a special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that is said to sponsor and promote terrorist activities abroad.

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