The Latest from Iran (9 November): Nuclear Sideshow and Political Main Event

See also Iran Analysis: The IAEA Nuclear Report --- Everyone's a Winner!
Iran Special Analysis (Part 1): The Nuclear Report --- "May" Is Not "Definitely"
Iran Snap Analysis: The IAEA Nuclear Report --- Serious, But Not That Serious....
Iran Special: "Activities Relevant to the Development of a Nuclear Explosive Device" --- Text of IAEA Report
Iran Opinion: It's Not Nukes, It's Not The Plot....It's Human Rights
The Latest from Iran (8 November): That Ahmadinejad Speech....

---

2100 GMT: At the Movies. Reza Allamehzadeh has directed a new film, "The Iranian Taboo", about persecution of members of the Baha'i faith.

1730 GMT: Nuke Watch. Weakest reporting today on the IAEA report on Iran's nuclear programme?

Well, The New York Times tries hard to claim the award. The headline is straightforward, "Iran Escalates Anti-U.S. Rhetoric Over Nuclear Report", but the Times slaps on a psychological evaluation that "Iran’s leaders [are] clearly worried that the long-awaited report, released Tuesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, could sway world opinion and deepen Iran’s isolation".

As for the report, there is absolutely no consideration of it apart from the dubious assurance that it is "buttressed by voluminous evidence not previously disclosed" --- most of the information has been put out in previous IAEA reports or in "leaks" from officials --- and that it "concluded that Iran had been secretly engaged in behaviors that suggested it was seeking to construct a nuclear weapon" and "also asserted that Iran may be researching ways to deliver a nuclear weapon via a missile warhead".

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (8 November): That Ahmadinejad Speech....

2110 GMT: Currency Watch. The Iranian rial continues to slide against the US dollar. Having broken the 13000:1 barrier for the first time this summer, it sank from 13100:1 on Sunday to 13280:1 today, also falling against the British pound and Euro.

Meanwhile, economic expert Bijan Abdi has sharply criticised, "Our benefit from the Year of Economic Jihad" --- declared by the Supreme Leader in March --- "is next to nothing." He blamed the Ahmadinejad Administration and Parliament for the failure.

2100 GMT: That Ahmadinejad Speech. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has pushed back hard against President Ahmadinejad.

Without naming the President, Larijani said, "We are confronted with political 'lumpenism', politicians should not agitate society mentally."

The Speaker used the derogatory term "laat-baazi", referring to the indecent behaviour of a rascal, as he indicated, "A certain political person has not enough manners or honour."

Click to read more ...

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

---

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.

Click to read more ...

Iran Special: Decoding Ahmadinejad --- Did He Just Declare the "Final Confrontation" Within the Establishment?

Over the last 48 hours, reports have emerged of an extraordinary speech by President Ahmadinejad to a group of his backers, the Supporters of Islamic Revolution Dialogue, in Tehran.

Our initial reaction was "Did he really say that?" And that as the reports built in their detail, we began to consider, "If he did say that, what does it mean for the conflict inside the Iranian system?"

For --- if the reports are true --- the President's speech was no less than a proclamation of all-out political conflict with his rivals, including a possible showdown with some in the camp of the Supreme Leader. That would explain why "mainstream" Iranian outlets only published parts of the statement, leaving out the most provocative challenges.

We are still cautious. Did the pro-Ahmadinejad website, <em>Dolat-e Ma</em>, which has published the transcript of the speech, get it right through its reporter on the scene? Is there exaggeration for effect, perhaps to scare Ahmadinejad's opponents?

Then again, no one from the President's office or amongst his media backers has denied the remarks. So we assess the significance of Ahmadinejad's declaration of a "final confrontation"...

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (6 November): Beyond the Israeli Diversion

1650 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. The Central Bankhas restricted the activities of money-lending co-operatives to their specific area.

In the recent $2.6 billion bank fraud, Iranian institutions issued Letters of Credits to companies who operated across Iran and allegedly moved funds abroad.

1630 GMT: The Battle Within. President Ahmadinejad's Thursday speech, made to the Supporters of Islamic Revolution Dialogue, continues to escalate in possible significance.

Absar News has these choice extracts. The President offered this defence of his embattled aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, "If Rahim-Mashai had stolen 1 rial (about 1/100th of a cent), 'they' would have executed him."

Ahmadinejad then implied that responsibility for the $2.6 billion bank fraud engulfing Iranian politics lay with people connected to the Supreme Leader.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (4 November): Ahmadinejad Punches Back

Iranians demonstrate on the 32nd anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy

See also Iran-Israel War Talk: "Do We Always Have to Be Taken In By This Transparent Ploy?"
Iran-Israel Opinion: Why Jerusalem Is Making War Noises
The Latest from Iran (3 November): Threats, Threats, More Threats

---

2120 GMT: Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Another angle on Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's address to the faithful (see 1515 GMT), as Fars picks up the warning to the Bahraini and Saudi regimes: "With these crimes, you will have the fate of Qaddafi and the treacherous Saddam."

But, in the end, today's message came back to America: "The US administration has never seen such days of humiliation."

2050 GMT: Economy Watch. Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, a leading MP on economic affairs, has warned that people will spend part of their support payments for subsidy cuts to buy foreign currencies, which are rising in value against the Iranian currency.

An EA correspondent analyses, "There is much chatter about people buying dollars because of fear of more sanctions and a worsening economy."

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (2 November): Politics in Tehran, Politics in Washington

1616 GMT: Diversion Watch. Is all this internal politics in Tehran just too confusing?

Well, if so, you can always make a lofty claim about the enemy. Step up, Supreme Leader: "We have 100 irrefutable documents about the US role in guiding terror plots in Iran and the Middle East."

And take a bow, Julian Borger of The Guardian, assisted by the omnipresent "Western official":

A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog due to be circulated around the world next week will provide fresh evidence of a possible Iranian nuclear weapons programme, bringing the Middle East a step closer to a devastating new conflict, say diplomats.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the latest of a series of quarterly bulletins on Iran's activities, but this one will contain an unprecedented level of detail on research and experiments carried out in Iran in recent years, which western officials allege could only be for the design and development of a nuclear warhead. "This will be a game-changer in the Iranian nuclear dossier," a western official predicted. "It is going to be hard for even Moscow or Beijing to downplay its significance."

1615 GMT: Parliament v. President. If there was a deal to avoid impeachment of the Minister of Economy and to block interrogation of the President (see 1045 GMT), it is already under the strain of confusion....

Two hours after MP Mohammad Hossein Farhangi said the effort to question Ahmadinejad had failed, with legislators withdrawing their signatures, Khabar Online --- linked to Speaker of Parliament Larijani --- says that, rather than declining, the number of signatories on the petition is increasing.

Click to read more ...

Iran Analysis: Breathing Space for Ahmadinejad after the Impeachment Vote? (Not Quite.)

So, at the end of the political drama on Tuesday in Parliament, Minister of Economy Shamseddin Hosseini avoided impeachment by a 141-93 vote. 

But is that a resounding victory in Iran's internal conflict for President Ahmadinejad?

The stakes were important enough for Ahmadinejad to make a personal appearance, telling lawmakers that Hosseini had to be retained for the sake of unity amidst the serious enemy threats to Tehran. 

Yet even that address --- despite a short video showing both the President's defiance and his attempt to sell his speech with humour and levity --- offered hostages to fortune. Ahmadinejad avoided the details of the $2.6 billion fraud case with the diversion that there were "structural problems" in the case against Hosseini. His ploy of invoking the enemy threat was clumsy --- in the same speech, he was also trying to maintain the line that the enemy's capitalist system was collapsing. Thomas Erdbrink was spot-on to note the President's stumble when he admitted, contrary to Iranian propaganda, that the sanctions were having a marked effect on the banking sector.

More importantly, Ahmadinejead's Minister survived --- at least in the public performance --- not because of Ahmadinejad but by a grand gesture by the President's sometimes rival and foe, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. It was he, in what he called an extraordinary intervention, who asked MPs to give the Minister of Economy another chance, pending the judicial investigation into the fraud. And he wrapped that initiative, and himself, in the cloak of the Supreme Leader, invoking Ayatollah Khamenei's title to call for Hosseini's reprieve.

That step is politically more significant than The Wall Street Journal's emphasis on the five speeches against Hosseini and "only one" for the Minister. Ali Larijani was claiming the Solomon role --- as the Supreme Leader's representative, of course --- and he was also ensuring that the judiciary, under the command of his brother Sadegh, buttressed its position. After all, it is that body which now gets to make the political as well as the legal decisions over the bank fraud.

Beyond there may be a bigger story to analyse. Larijani's step, like Ahmadinejad's speech, can only be dissected for elements of weakness. The decoded message is that the Iranian system --- far bigger than Hosseini or Ahmadinejad --- was the decisive issue. An impeachment vote might have struck at the President, but it also would have given the impression of weakness and even fragmentation in the regime. So in the end, converging with Ahmadinejad's call for unity, the Speaker of Parliament (and, he was saying, Ayatollah Khamenei), said critical MPs needed to back away --- while remaining content that the power of salvation was with the system, not the President.

There may be a few days of catching breath in Tehran's politics, but by no means it is a breathing space for President Ahmadinejad. The theme of this year has been the attempts by other factions in the establishment --- Parliament, the judiciary, politicians, the Revolutionary Guards, and, often silently, the Supreme Leader --- to contain the President.

Yesterday, despite the impeachment numbers and Ahmadinejad's laughter, was just one tightening of the net.

The Latest from Iran (31 October): Arrested at Neda's Grave

Activists Peyman Aref, Asal Esmailzadeh, and Sharar Konoon Tabrizi --- arrested on Sunday at the grave of Neda Agha Soltan --- with Parvin Fahimi, the mother of Sohrab Arabi, who was killed during the first mass march on 15 June 2009

See also Iran Feature: The Chinese Telecom Giant Helping Tehran Track and Block Its Opponents
The Latest from Iran (30 October): When Talking Tough Is Not Enough....

---

1630 GMT: Currency News. Mehr carries the news, put out by the reformist newspaper Shargh this weekend, that the Iranian rial has weakened beyond the 13000:1 level v. the US dollar. When the threshold was first crossed this summer, the Central Bank put dollars into the market to try and boost the flagging Iranian currency.

The website also says gold coins are becoming rare as people hoard them because of their rising value.

1620 GMT: All-is-Well Alert. The head of Iran's atomic energy programme, Fereydoun Abbasi, has said Tehran will announce "good nuclear developments in the near-future".

Abbasi asserted that neither the country's nuclear industry nor "activities in other domains" had been halted by US-led sanctions.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (30 October): When Talking Tough Is Not Enough....

See also Iran Video Interview: Hillary Clinton with BBC Persian "The Unfortunate Decsion of the Green Movement"
The Latest from Iran (29 October): The Economy, Propaganda, and the IMF

---

2130 GMT: Elections Watch. Leading reformist Ali Shakourirad has said it is too late for the regime to meet former President Khatami's conditions --- freeing of political prisoners, freedom for political parties and a free and fair electoral process, and adherence to the Constitution --- for reformists to participate in next March's Parliamentary elections. They should instead inform people of their demands and objections to the current system.

2030 GMT: Parliament v. President. Looks like the Parliamentary challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared over only a few days ago, is very much alive....

Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, said the motion to interrogate Ahmadinejad now bears 74 signatures, one more than the minimum needed for consideration.

Last week, Iranian media reported that a number of MPs had withdrawn their support for the motion, but some have now reconsidered their withdrawal and one new MP joined the petition.

The motion will be sent to a Parliamentary commission for examination. It cites 10 irregularities on which the president needs to be questioned, such as his alleged refusal to carry out legislation for funding of the Tehran subway and his disputes with the Supreme Leader over the reinstatement of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi.

Click to read more ...