An EA correspondent from Iran replays the highlights/lowlights of the President's appearance in Parliament on Wednesday:
Ahmadinejad did not reply to any of the MPs questions properly. Instead he mixed jokes and criticism in his characteristic style, joshing and laugh. We wait to see the effect --- most of the MPs were not satisfied with the answers, believing the President had again insulted the parliament and undermined its authority.
A Message for The Designer of the Questions
Ahmadinejad indirectly insulted and questioned the competence of the writers and main planner, MP Ali Motahri, of the 10 enquiries: “If you have consulted the government, better (i.e. more challenging) questions would have been recommended. It seems that the designer of the questions is the person who has got his master degree with pressing a button!”
In the end, the "interrogation" of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was no more than a one-act show.
Some in the audience of the Western press put out critical reviews --- "His Jokes Fell Flat" --- but those missed the significance of the production. This was a play designed not to run and run, but to open and close in the same morning.
1805 GMT: Drumbeats of War Watch. Some of the better journalists on the Iran beat have noticed the "intriguing signs of potential diplomatic progress over Iran’s nuclear program", but that should not stop others from fishing for readers with the "Could It Be War?" bait.
It's late in Iran on a dark night, moonless or with heavy clouds. Suddenly the silence is broken by sonic booms, followed by the sound of jets roaring overhead.
Flying in tight formation, Israeli fighter planes drop bunker-busting bombs on a nuclear enrichment plant built into the side of a mountain.
Iranian pilots race for their own jets to fight back, but by the time they take to the sky, it's too late. The Israeli jets streak away.
And The Atlantic, which introduced "The Iran Doomsday Clock", seeks profit by arguing against itself --- James Fallows derides speculation without knowledge...by speculating without knowledge:
While I am skeptical of the journalistic bias toward guessing what might happen rather than analyzing what has actually occurred, in the current climate I'll hazard this prediction: the United States is in fact not going to bomb Iran, and in anything like the current set of facts not even Netanyahu's Israeli administration is likely to do so. Indeed we will look back on the hyped-up bomb-Iran frenzy of the past two months with an air of wonder and dismay.
1744 GMT: Bank Watch. More on yesterday's story that the Central Bank has seized $1.4 billion from seven Iranian banks, claiming that they did not provide legitimate records for foreign exchange transactions --- Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani has defended the action as one "on behalf of the Government".
1733 GMT: Oil Watch. Parliament has extended the rights of the Minister of Oil, Rustam Qassemi, to make deals for "exploration, development, production, repair and maintenance of joint oil and gas fields" without going through formal tenders and processes for compliance.
An EA reader is sceptical:
Iranian oil income is now the personal wealth of Brigadier Qassemi and he can legally, without any Majlis oversight, give it to whomever he wants for wha ever price ---China,Russia, his cousin twice removed, his mother-in-law, you name it because it is more "expedient" this way. Even some of the "principlists" are having a hard time swallowing this one.
Based on the development plan, oil must stop being used as source of income and for funding the country’s budget and instead become a source for the progress and economic might of the country and authorities must pursue this policy ...with determination....It is necessary that we act in a manner that any decision making about our oil production and sales is up to us and based on our interests and of course we have taken good steps in this regard.
On a related matter, MP Asadollah Abbasi has claimed that 4000 Iranian oil experts have "taken refuge abroad" and this could have been stopped by higher payments to staff.
1904 GMT: Oil Watch. I am sorry but --- amidst uncertainties over Iran's oil exports --- I have no clue what the Supreme Leader means in his statement today: “Based on the development plan, oil must stop being used as source of income and for funding the country’s budget and instead become a source for the progress and economic might of the country and authorities must pursue this policy ...with determination....It is necessary that we act in a manner that any decision making about our oil production and sales is up to us and based on our interests and of course we have taken good steps in this regard.”
Meanwhile, an Iranian oil official has denied a report by Reuters that 350,000 tonnes of gasoline had recently been shipped from China to Iran's southern port city of Bandar Abbas: “Iran is currently a major exporter of [various kinds of] oil products and does not need to import gasoline from any country."
1855 GMT: All the President's Men. Peyke Iran, citing Tabnak, claims that Presidential advisor Saeed Mortazavi, accused of responsibility for the Kahrizak detention centre abuses and killings in summer 2009, has been legally informed about the complaint and a trial could start soon.
Mortazavi was Tehran Prosecutor General when detainees were abused and three protesters died in Kahrizak. Although he supposedly had been suspended at one point from his duties over the case, he has never stopped service to Ahmadinejad and he has just been named head of the Social Security Fund.
The Mothers of Laleh Park, who emerged after the June 2009 Presidential election to protest killings and detentions, declared, “While the possibility of a humane life is evaporating for Iranian people and especially freedom seekers, the criminals are rising in stature, and there are no fair courts answerable to the people.”
The statement condemned the sentences imposed on human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani and the deputy head of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, Nargess Mohammad, contrasting their judicial fate with that of Saeed Mortazavi, the Tehran Prosecutor General when the abuses occurred at the Kahrizak Detention Centre in summer 2009.
The Mothers wrote, “Judge Mortazavi, whose many crimes are common knowledge, was dismissed after his offences regarding Kahrizak were revealed. But not only did he not stand trial, he was instead appointed as head of the task force against drug trafficking. And now he is being appointed to the helm of the Organization for Social Security.”
1958 GMT: Stoking Up the Temperature. Note the careful comments of Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, when he is asked about the Parchin military site and possible testing of high explosives in the nuclear programme:
"We have information that some activity is ongoing there," Amano...said at agency headquarters.
Asked whether he was concerned that Iran may be trying to whitewash the site, he said: "That possibility is not excluded ... We cannot say for sure because we are not there."
The veteran Japanese diplomat added: "We have to go there."
2133 GMT: Drumbeats of War Watch. The Associated Press, in a story eerily reminiscent of claims in February 2003 that Iraqi trucks were clearing up suspected site of weapons of mass destruction, reports:
Satellite images of an Iranian military facility show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating that crews were trying to clean it of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger, diplomats told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Two of the diplomats said the crews may be trying to erase evidence of tests of a small neutron device used to set off a nuclear explosion. A third diplomat could not confirm that but said any attempt to trigger a so-called neutron initiator at the Parchin site could only be in the context of trying to develop nuclear arms.
The images, provided to the IAEA by member countries, are recent and constantly updated, said one of the diplomats.
The diplomats are nuclear experts accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and all asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
Even if one puts the general label "pro-Supreme Leader" and "pro-Ahmadinejad" on the factions, this outcome --- at least in the numbers for the blocs --- is far from the clear victory for Ayatollah Khamenei that international media were proclaiming at the weekend.
Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 8:00
An EA correspondent from Iran replays the highlights/lowlights of the President's appearance in Parliament on Wednesday:
