The Latest from Iran (16 July): Explosions and Conflict

2049 GMT: In a meeting with journalists, Grand Ayatollah Sane'i has said, “One of the issues that the media should pay attention to is the topic of lying and its transformation to a culture which unfortunately has deepened its roots in our society these days. For some individuals, it is not only a culture but has become part of their nature and telling the truth does not have any meaning for them anymore.”

2045 GMT: The Bazaar Strikes. Human Rights Activist News Agency claims that intelligence agents are trying to intimidate bazaaris in Tabriz, going to their house and threatening them over closing their stalls.

1920 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Isa Khan-Hatami --- director and editor of the banned magazine Iran Mehr, secretary of Solidarity for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran, and member of Iran National Front central council --- has been sentenced to two years in prison for  assembly and conspiring to commit crimes against national security, anti-regime propaganda, and disturbing the public order.

Khan-Hatami was detained on 28 December and  released on 7 February on $50,000 bail.

An appeals court has upheld a six-year sentence imposed on student activist Salman Sima.

NEW Iran: Thursday’s Suicide Bombings in Zahedan
Iran Follow-Up: The Story Beyond the Opposition, Enduring America, and US “Neoconservatives”
The Latest from Iran (15 July): The Zahedan Bombing

1915 GMT: The Bazaar Strikes. Back from a break to find that influential MP Habibollah Asgharowladi and his Parliamentary group are pressing Bazaaris to accept the Government's deal of a 15% business tax hike.

1410 GMT: Relieving the Oil Squeeze? Mehr News is reporting that, during the summit between Russian and Iranian Energy Ministers, agreement was reached for a joint oil bank within three months.

In contrast, the construction firm linked to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has pulled out of a $2 billion natural gas project in the South Pars field. The firm was supposed to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of foreign companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Spain's Repsol.

1405 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update --- "Boobquake" Seddiqi Bounces Back.

Since his spectacular "Women's Breasts = Earthquake" performance early this week, Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi has struggled to find form. His repetition of the West is Bad, Iran is Doing Mighty Fine line just hasn't matched up for originality and exercise.

Well, today Seddiqi bounced back. Some have been putting out their deep, dark thoughts on the Shahram Amiri defecting/abducted scientist/non-scientist case; others have been raising the real story behind yesterday's Zahedan suicide bombings.

Seddiqi's magic trick was to put the two together: "This act of terror [in Zahedan] aims to cover up America's loss of face and the trampling of its intelligence authority in the international arena over Shahram Amiri's case."

Bravo, sir. But if I may, you could have gone even further with this stop-stopper: there was an earthquake in Washington, DC last night.

1310 GMT: The Bazaar Strike and Politics. HomyLafayette posts some excellent observations on what appears to be a curious development: why would the "conservative" news site Alef post photographs confirming that some stalls in the Tehran Bazaar were closed on Thursday, given that state media were trying to ignore the existence of a strike? Here's the answer:

The web site, Alef, is run by Ahmad Tavakoli, Majlis representative (Tehran) and head of the legislature's research center. Tavakoli is a cousin of Speaker Ali Larijani -- he is the son of Larijani's aunt -- and has been a critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since his first term as president. Tavakoli, who obtained his doctorate in economics from the University of Nottingham in the 1990s, was one of the first Malis deputies to accuse Ali Kordan, interior minister in Ahmadinejad's first administration, of faking his doctorate. The late Kordan was subsequently impeached. Tavakoli and several of his close allies in the Majlis have continued to denounce the government's economic policies, the level of the post-election crackdown, and the fake doctorates of several ministers and vice-presidents.

The article which was posted yesterday on Alef contended, "While [National Traders' Council chief] Ghassem Nodeh [Farahani] has spoken of the conclusion of discussions on traders' taxes [...] and business as usual in the bazaar in recent days, Alef's journalist's report shows that some portions of the bazaar remain closed." Alef posted photos of the bazaar which were purportedly taken at noon on Thursday.

HomyLafayette also considers readers' reactions to the posting of the article noting that many criticised the bazaaris, this did not translate into support for the Government. Instead, readers lambasted the state-run media for ignoring the issue.

1225 GMT: The Pretence of Justice. Zahra Rahnavard, activist and wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has visited Narges Mohammadi, the women's rights activist recently released from detention, at Mohammadi's home. Rahnavard said, "It is a shame that such things happen in the prisons of a country, whose leaders pretend they are defending justice."

1215 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have issued a statement on Iran's political prisoners, "Their most basic rights are being violated, starting with the right to adequate medical treatment."

The organisations continue, "[We] are outraged by the conditions in which these prisoners are being held. These conditions have had a considerable physical and psychological impact on their health and most of them are ill. The two organisations believe that the purpose of the denial of medical treatment is to put pressure on them and their families."

Peyke Iran claims that student Sina Golchin and Vahid Asghari are at risk because of the lack of medical care in Section 350 of Evin Prison.

1210 GMT: Parliament v. President. Emad Hosseini, the chair of Parliament's Energy Commission, has warned that the delay in implementation of subsidy cuts is breaking the law and that the Government no longer wants to introduce them.

1200 GMT: The Ascent of Mesbah Yazdi? The opposition website Peyke Iran posts photos of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi --- who this week has put out some interesting statements regarding the Supreme Leader and the President --- greeting Revolutionary Guard commanders. The caption: "Mesbah Yazdi's Rise to Power".



0925 GMT: Refugees. New Media Journal publishes a report on "Iranian Refugees: A Human Rights Disaster".

0855 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Green Voice of Freedom reports on the prevalence of Hepatitis A in the women's section of Evin Prison.

0750 GMT: Parliament v. President. MP Hamidreza Fouladgar has said that the sale of 18% of Iran's Saipa automobile company is as "superficial", i.e., fraudulent. as the  privatisation of Iran Telecom and is not in line with Article 44 of Iran's Constitution.

0745 GMT: Food Fight. Khabar Online claims that the head of Tehran's Institute of Standards will be dismissed because he confirmed imports of polluted rice, contradicting the head of  the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran and Minister of Health, who said all was fine.

0730 GMT: Remembering the Past for the Present. Gozaar has interviewed Roya Boroumand about the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation's recent report on the execution of thousands in the 1980s in Iran. Boroumand says:

I believe it’s always the “right time” for the truth of events like the 1988 massacre to be made public. In any event, the officials who helped cover up or provide justification for this event must own up to the truth someday. If we don’t acknowledge the reality of what happened, such incidents and atrocities will continue to occur without anyone ever accepting any responsibility.

0650 GMT: Remembering. During Thursday's memorial service for Mohsen Ruholamini, abused and killed in Kahrizak Prison a year ago, a war veteran cut off Hojatoleslam Abutorabi-Fard's sermon and asked why former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, now a Presidential aide, had not been held accountable.

0640 GMT: Iran Changes Mind "Psychology & Sociology Useless". According to Khabar Online, the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, has said that condemned theories of psychoogy and sociology, asserting that it makes no sense to teach them when their ideas are incompatible with religious assumptions.

Less than a month ago, Larijani had said on national television:

Don't...crimes need a cultural discussion...? Don't drugs need a cultural discussion? Doesn't armed robbery need a cultural discussion? In the whole world this is discussed. The psychology of crimes is itself a topic of discussion. Why does a robber go after robbery? Or why do some want to abuse people's families? Some of these people may actually be sick. Well all of this needs cultural work, even psychological work, and sociological work.

0630 GMT: Shutting Down Students. So you think sanctions have no effect? TOEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language), one of the two leading tests taken by Iranian students who want to study in English-speaking countries, has been suspended because its provider is "unable to process payments from Iran" after the latest UN sanctions.

That restriction complements those already in place by Iran's Ministry of Higher Education. The ministry is refusing to send students to British universities because of the political situation, and it is reported that candidates are being vetted for "reliability" as well as academic merit.

0520 GMT: Yesterday's news was overtaken, if only for a dramatic moment in this post-election conflict, by the double suicide bombing in Zahedan. We have latest updates and analysis in a separate entry.

Meanwhile....

The Nuclear Scientist/Non-Scientist Defection/Abduction Case



The battle for propaganda advantage over Shahram Amiri, the scientist who was in the US for 14 months before returning to Iran this week, continues. It appears that US officials are trying to counter any impression that the time and effort expended on Amiri was largely wasted on information of limited use.

The latest line, handed out to The New York Times, is that Amiri had been a CIA informant inside Iran for several years. He was "one of the sources" for the central 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear programme. (The officials don't seem to care that, if true, this would indicate Amiri provided information against the immediate military development of nuclear weapons: the NIE said that Tehran would not have that capability, even if it had the intention, for several years.)

Doesn't take much to guess who the primary casualty of this campaign may be. Despite the smiles in the photographs as Amiri returned to Tehran, the US statements --- regardless of truth --- put the black mark on him in Iran. A US official was forthright, “His safety depends on him sticking to that fairy tale about pressure and torture. His challenge is to try to convince the Iranian security forces that he never cooperated with the United States.”

Iran Analysis: Assessing Europe's Sanctions & Tehran's Oil (Noel)

Writing on Race for Iran, Pierre Noël offers an interesting analysis of European sanctions and Iran's oil and gas position, both regarding exports and imports. In the end, its significance is not as much economic --- Noël does not, for me, get to the heart of the tensions over whether Iran can satisfy its domestic demand, given the gap in imports and production left by the withdrawal of foreign companies, as well as cope with the restrictions on its exports --- as political: "Any issue that allows EU [European Union] member states to present a united front and make Europe exist on the world stage looks like a gift from heaven":

Iran is a country with very large reserves of natural gas, a lot of it relatively low-cost to produce.  With the right investment, Iran could become a gas exporter of global significance in about a decade.  Europe is one of the largest gas markets in the world.  Its combination of liberalized electricity markets and ambitious environmental policies has the effect of favoring gas as a fuel for power generation, at least in the mid-term.  Russia’s position in the European gas market raises concerns about market power and the politicization of gas supplies from Russia.  The EU supports new gas pipeline projects from Central Asia and the Middle East through Turkey to diversify Europe’s sources of natural gas; the availability of Iranian gas could be essential to the success of this diversification strategy.  Russia, on the other hand, should want to prevent or delay the emergence of Iran as a large gas exporter.

However, there are a number of uncertainties, which, taken together, raise serious questions about the practical validity of these interlinked propositions.  First, at the moment we do not know to what extent the latest EU sanctions will add to the difficulties already experienced by the Iranian oil and gas industry to source technology and finance.  These is a log of oil and gas activity going on in Iran, but large-scale gas export projects combining complex financing and cutting-edge engineering are not part of this activity.  This is certainly the case for LNG [liquified natural gas] projects, an area where the relevant technology is still largely controlled by Western companies; it is unclear to what extent big pipeline export projects could be carried on.

Second—and more fundamentally—it is far from certain that becoming a large gas exporter is a strategic priority for Iran, or even a clearly defined objective.  Iran’s potential to become a large gas exporter has been recognized for decades, but that potential has never materialized.  Iran imports roughly 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year (bcm/y) from Turkmenistan and exports roughly the same amount to Turkey.  The Islamic Republic’s small export contract with Turkey is notoriously unstable and has led to numerous rows over price and delivery.  European majors such as Total and Shell have had a terrible experience negotiating with Iran over LNG projects (and, during the 1990s, over oil projects as well).  When the European companies pulled back from new projects in Iran three years ago, ostensibly because of sanctions, the companies were not in a position to make final investment decisions on these projects for commercial reasons.

Becoming a large gas exporter would require a strategic decision by Iran, based on a wide political consensus—such as the one underpinning the Iranian nuclear program—to open the sector for real to foreign investors.  There is deep opposition to such a move in the Iranian political culture and the culture of its oil and gas bureaucracy, rooted in the memories of the U.S.-sponsored coup of 1953 following the nationalization of British oil concessions by the nationalist Mossadegh government.  If becoming a large gas exporter was a strategic objective for Iran, then the Iranian government would appear hopelessly incompetent at pursuing it.  Bu tgeology is not destiny; Iran may not want to be the next Qatar.

Furthermore, Iran is itself a large and fast-growing gas market, now 30% larger than the largest European markets, the UK and Germany.  Iran needs to continue developing some of its reserves simply to supply its domestic market; that is what Iran’s gas-related exploration and production activity has been about for some time and—I would suggest—that is what Iran’s gas-related exploration and production activity will continue to be mainly about.  The existing sanctions have been effective at killing proposed LNG export projects—but these projects might not have gone ahead anyway, in the absence of sanctions, for commercial reasons.  There is no indication that the sanctions have had any impact on the growth of gas production in Iran.  I do not know to what extent the Iranian industry’s exploration and production effort relies on European technology and services that would be made unavailable by new EU sanctions, and would not be replaceable by technology and services from Asian or South American companies.

This does not mean that Iran has no strategic energy policy.  In the context of the standoff with the “international community” over its nuclear program, Iran is obviously trying to use the attractiveness of its energy resources and geographical position to its political benefit.  The growing interest of Chinese oil and gas companies in Iran has been widely documented—but it has not led to any new gas export project.  Turkey’s ambition to increase its access to Turkmen gas via Iran has already been discussed on www.TheRaceForIran.com (see here andhere).  Given how strategic Turkmen gas (and the trans-Caspian pipeline) is to Europe’s Nabucco concept, Iran has an option to provide Turkey with both access to gas and leverage on Europe.  The Iran-Pakistan pipeline project, for which the Pakistani government has just reaffirmed its support, is another example where Iran uses its energy assets strategically to raise the cost of the U.S.-EU Iran policy.

The final point is about Europe’s plans for a large pipeline across Turkey that would bring gas from Central Asia and the Middle East to the EU, especially south-east and central Europe....

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