Middle East Inside Line: Netanyahu's Iran Speech, Obama's Next Middle East Message, Syrian-Israeli Peace?, and More...

Netanyahu's Iran Speech: Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday depicted Iran as a runaway train and the international community as a rail car waiting on the edge. "There is a technological clock and a diplomatic clock. The technological clock is like a runaway train and the international community like a car that is about to decouple."

On the diplomatic clock, Netanyahu mentioned the Israeli delegation in China and described a "wide range of mutual interests" between Beijing and Israel. Netanyahu stated that he was not successful in obtaining Moscow's consent to tougher sanctions on Tehran but said he witnessed "more understanding there regarding the dangers the Iranian nuclear program poses to us, to regional peace and world stability".

Obama Administration's Next Message to be in Israel: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is due in Israel on March 8, for a three-day visit that will also include the Palestinian Authority. An Israeli political source has told Haaretz that Biden would like "to make a speech that is important and significant for Israeli-American relations". The aims of this high-level visit to Israel are to ensure that Israel's response will be restricted with the diplomatic track and to give a strong "alliance" message to Israelis as President Obama gave in Turkey and Egypt last year.


Syrian-Israeli Agreement on Phased Withdrawal Plan?: Gabrielle Rifkind, the director of the Middle East Program at Oxford Research Group, told Haaretz via e-mail that Syria is willing to consider peace and gradual normalization with Israel. According to this plan, following an Israeli withdrawal from half the territory it holds on the Golan Heights, the two states would declare an end to the state of enmity between them as a first step.

Although Syrian officials insist on pressing ahead through Turkey's mediation, Rifkind emphasized the importance of Damascus in the region:

From a conflict resolution perspective, reaching out to Syria will involve bold steps, and experience would suggest that if Syria and Israel managed to establish an agreement on the Golan, the view from the leadership may be significantly different. There could be a potential role for Syria as a mediator between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah which could drastically improve the chances of a long-term truce - or even a permanent resolution - between these parties.

Hamas Disowns Yousef: After it was released that Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of Hamas's founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, had worked for Israel's security service Shin Bet; Hamas Web sites published a letter saying the father disowned his son on Monday.

IDF Blacklisting Israelis?: It has been reported that the details of license plates of a number of left-wing activists during demonstrations at the villages of Bil'in and Na'alin were given to IDF by Israeli police. In the document entitled "Data of vehicles used by left-wing Israeli activists and anarchists to reach demonstrations in Na'alin and Bil'in", registration numbers of 11 vehicles are listed. The IDF did not deny the report and said the organization is using information on Israelis who demonstrate against the separation fence.

Hamas Accuses Egypt & Jordan: Hamas has reportedly claimed that the security forces of an Arab state were behind the assassination of a senior group operative in Dubai. Mahmoud Nasser, a member of Hamas' political bureau, said that agents from Jordan and Egypt took part in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Iran Document: Women Activists Write Mousavi & Karroubi

A letter from Iran's women activists to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, written last week, published by Rah-e-Sabz, and passed on by Mission Free Iran:

As you know, during the 10th presidential campaign, you made promises about the obvious rights of Iranian women, which, during the course of the past 30 years have been totally ignored. Although these promises comprise only a small part of Iranian women’s just demands, during the post-election events, even those little promises disappeared from your announcements and interviews regarding your intention to pursue peoples’ rightful demands. This has happened while women and girls of this land have had a distinguished role in the green movement in pursuing the plundered rights of the Iranian people, have been in the front line of the green movement equal to men, and even have paid and are paying a higher price.


Again and again you have called the people the real leaders of the opposition movement – and that is indeed so – and what people have been seeking and are seeking are non-discrimination and freedom and equality, which demands were declared from your mouth and by those who should have had executive responsibility for the country. These responsibilities are still incumbent upon you.

Do not forget that Iranian women, in order to achieve their demands, voted for your reformist campaign promises, and those demands are impregnated in the green movement’s demands. Women of Iran expect that their demands, side by side with other political and social demands, be addressed and pursued in a distinguished way.

Messrs Mousavi and Karroubi: The historical experience of the Constitutional movement and 57 Bahman Revolution proved that women’s demands have always been overshadowed by the so-called higher reforms. Consequently, women are left with their demands unaddressed and sometimes with even more discrimination. But now we Iranian women, with experience from these two historical periods, are not going to allow our demands and identity to be overshadowed, and our expectation from you, sirs, is that in your pursuit of Iranian peoples’ just demands, do remember the role of Iranian women in raising those demands and their struggle to fulfill or achieve them.

We believe that the proposal of abolishing gender discrimination in the green movements’ demands could be seriously followed, which in that case would add to the national and international credibility of this movement, especially as an anti-discrimination movement.

Iran Analysis: The Mousavi Strategy "We Are Still Standing"

My initial reaction, on reading the full text of Mir Hossein Mousavi's Saturday interview on the immediate past and immediate future of the Green Movement, was feeling let down. Mousavi had offered a lengthy dissection of the regime's "success" on 22 Bahman (11 February), mobilising the rally in Azadi Square and blocking any mass Green display. He had stated his determination, shared by others, to "express our emotions, aspirations, and concern as a nation".

Mousavi had declared, "The Green Movement has stood firm in its civil demands. The more people’s awareness of their rights increases, the bigger will be the force behind those demands."

Yes, I thought, but what would those demands be beyond the general assertion of freedom, justice, and rights? What endpoint for this people's force? In the end, was Mousavi's "Being green is a matter of behavior and morals" an evasion rather than a confrontation of the next phase of the post-election crisis?


Others shared this perception. Borzou Daragahi, one of the sharpest observers of the Iran situation, wrote over the weekend that not only Mousavi but Karroubi offered no measures for the way forward. Daragahi repeated this when he put forth Mohammad Khatami's Monday statement, "We should not retreat from our demands." Mahmood Delkhasteh writes in The Huffington Post of the "schizophrenic Green Movement".

But as Sunday gave way to Monday and then Tuesday, I looked back over the Mousavi statement and the Khatami declaration and, before them, Mehdi Karroubi's interviews with his website and with an Italian newspapers. I read them as I watched the regime scramble, perhaps coherently, perhaps not, between prisoner releases, suspension of newspapers, and propaganda.

And I realised I was very wrong.

My mistake, which I think is common, was to think in terms of a "grand strategy". Mousavi would lay out the Green Path not just as one of hope but as a well-marked political landscape on the future of the Supreme Leader, the institutions in the Islamic Republic, and indeed the Republic itself. He would offer a new set of tactics to replace the attempts at mobilisation on national holidays --- the opposition would not hijack the regime's occasions but come up with those which were solely Green. Mousavi's would liberate the detainees, free the press, silence the purveyors of untruths, remove Ahmadinejad and his cronies, and show Khameini that he was not above the Iranian system but one part of it.

My mistake was to forget that sometimes the way forward is just to ensure someone sees you are still standing.

On 1 January, Mousavi had put out a 5-point programme which is as close as he has come to a "grand strategy": Government accountability, free press, freed political prisoners, free assembly, new election laws. If the Government could not deliver this, it would be replaced. If the Supreme Leader could not assure this, his position would be questioned.

But conditions change, events intervene. 22 Bahman was a major disappointment for those in the opposition who thought it would mark the end --- maybe not on that day but soon, very soon --- of the regime. The Green movement had been present on that day but, with the confusion in tactics and facing the massed forces of the State, it had not been seen.

So Mousavi, while he referred to his 1 January in his interview, had more immediate tasks. He first took apart the idea of a "natural", overwhelming support for the regime, represented by the 22 Bahman turnout: these were "engineered rallies".

Where on the day, beyond Tehran, was the supposed effusive endorsement of the Government? Where, in the following three weeks, has that support been? Where, once the mobilisation for a few hours is over, is the "63%" that supposedly re-elected President Ahmadinejad last June?

Mousavi's harder job, however, was to assess his own camp, to find the rays of light amidst the "difficult conditions" and "damage" inflicted by the regime through detentions, violence, suppression, and abuse of laws? Re-presenting the tablets of his five points on 1 January would only bring the response: yes, and how exactly is this to occur?

So Mousavi's effort was not to elucidate the "civil demands", not at this moment, but to give the assurance that the the demands would continue to be made. Shut down the Green Movement's newspapers and journals, and we will work through social media. Berate us with propaganda, but we will persist in our "spread of awareness". Threaten us, jail us, bribe us with release for our silence, but we will not disappear.

And that is not just Mousavi's statement. It was Karroubi's last week, and Khatami's yesterday. Away from the headlines offered by those men, it is the message every hour of every day from those who continue to get word out that matters are not settled inside Iran.

So Mousavi and Karroubi made specific if not-so-limited demands to represent that persistence. You have crushed us? Then give us our freedom of assembly, since we are not that many. You have defeated us? Then give us a referendum on your supposedly respected institutions, let's say, the Guardian Council.

In his interview, Mousavi placed the key sentence, "If this crisis is not resolved, the legitimacy of the ruling establishment will plummet even faster."

At some point, having assured its survival, the opposition will need to make its resolutions over a strategy that goes beyond "We are still standing." But the lack of resolution at this moment and for the foreseeable future, is not "victory" for the regime. To the contrary, it is testimony that legitimacy has not been secured.

Just because the end of the path is not seen, does not mean that it has been obliterated....

The Latest from Iran (1 March): In Like a Lion?

2135 GMT: Rumour of Day. Kalameh alleges that prisoners held in cellblock 209 of Evin Prison have been commanded to fill in forms about their views on election fraud and whether the protest leaders are connected to foreign countries.

2100 GMT: Dr Mohammad Maleki, the former head of Tehran University, has reportedly been released after 191  days in detention. Maleki, 76, suffers from prostate cancer.

Iran: Understanding the Assembly of Experts Statement “Crisis Continues”
Iran Document: Mousavi’s Interview “Reform Within the Current Framework” (27 February)
The Latest from Iran (28 February): What Do The Statements Mean?

2055 GMT: United4Iran has a profile of Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, former advisor to Iran’s Minister of Interior in the Khatami Presidency, who was released on 24 February after spending more than eight months in prison. According to another released prisoner, Khanjani was under pressure to confess and was constantly moved from general confinement to solidarity confinement.


2030 GMT: 2nd Picture of the Day (see 1540 GMT). The staff of Etemaad newspaper just after its suspension (1455 GMT) by Iranian authorities: "Victory".



1935 GMT: Faoud Sadeghi, the managing director of Ayande News, has reportedly been released.

Journalist Mahsa Jazini has been freed on $100,000 bail in Isfehan.

1930 GMT: Khatami Stands Firm. Back from an academic break to find a statement from former President Mohammad Khatami, responding to the Supreme Leader's declaration that opposition figures had put themselves beyond the Iranian system with their post-election challenge. He said in a meeting with students:

It is easy to create tensions in the world, but difficult to eliminate them. Detente requires courage and finesse, and the system has to take steps to that effect. We should not embark on adventurism in the world under pretext of having won so many enemies. We should hold back from speaking in a manner to inflict heavy costs....

Everyone may have had his own interpretation of reforms, but we mean reforms within the framework of criteria born out of Islam, the revolution and the nation's will. In the face of any possible deviation from Islam and Imam Khomeini's line, we have to give warning....

Go and ask the former revolutionary militants if the ongoing conditions reflect what they were after. Ask them if these arrests, blame games, vendettas and the imposition of costs on the nation were what the revolutionary forces sought. If not, our conscience necessitates that we close ranks in order to improve conditions....

We should not retreat from our demands, and we should keep fighting even if certain groups beat us on the head. Unfortunately, certain hard-line groups in the society are opposed to any compromise within the society.

1615 GMT: Really. Not-Very-Much-News. Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has denied, amidst the fuss over the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Tehran's nuclear programme, that there is any problem:

The new chief and the new managers of the agency should look at the record of Iran's cooperation. We have fully cooperated with the agency. This cooperation will continue. We have always welcomed and encouraged negotiations and talks.

1555 GMT: Rigi Mystery. This story isn't over....

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry has issued a statement saying that Iran has officially apologised for forcing a Kyrgyz plane to land in Iran. More significantly, the foreign ministry has denied that any passengers were taken off the plane, including Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi, by the Iranians: “According to information available to this ministry, media reports that s two foreigners were arrested in this fight are untrue."

Now, is Kyrgyzstan making the denial to save face and cover up that Rigi was lifted from one of its flights? Or is it the case that the Jundullah leader was never on that plane?

1540 GMT: Picture of the Day. Abdolreza Tajik after his release from prison (see 0945 GMT):



1520 GMT: A Most Symbolic Visit. Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, has visited Ali Karroubi, the son of Mehdi Karroubi who was beaten on 22 Bahman.

1515 GMT: Cutting off Business. Caterpillar, the US building equipment group, has announced steps to sever trading links with Iran. The company is barring its non-US subsidiaries from accepting orders for products that they know are destined for delivery to Iran.

1510 GMT: Not-Very-Much-News (from the Other Side). Press TV gives the Iran version:

Iran has called on the UN nuclear watchdog to bear in mind the West's past breaches of atomic fuel exchange deals with Tehran while reviewing Iran's nuclear program.

In a letter to the UN body, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), cited three instances on which Western countries failed to meet their commitments and provide Iran with nuclear fuel.

In other words, Tehran will hold out against a "3rd-party enrichment" deal involving Germany, US, or French authorities because they cannot be trusted.

But (and excuse me for being repetitive)...no mention of Japan as unreliable.

1505 GMT: Stopping the Protests. Rah-e-Sabz claims that 20,000 people were detained during the rallies of 22 Bahman (11 February).

1455 GMT: Back to the (Banned) News. Fars reports that Iranian authorities have banned the weekly magazine Iran Dokht, linked with Mehdi Karroubi. Etemaad has also been suspended.

1445 GMT: Not-Very-Much-News (cont.). Nothing --- yes, nothing --- new in the Amano report to the IAEA. It merely restates the long-standing finding, "[The IAEA] continues...to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, but we cannot confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."

This, however, will not stop many in the media from declaring that something dramatic has occurred. The lead from the Associated Press: "The chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says he cannot confirm that all of Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful."

Nor will it deflect some from overblown declarations and calls to global conflict. Jamsheed Choksy (apologies that you'll have to pay to get the full polemic) in The Wall Street Journal: "Iran's New World Order --- Its nuclear program is part of a larger plan to radically reduce U.S. power."

1430 GMT: Today's Not-Very-Much-News. Back from an academic break to find the media buzzing over the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, with a report from new Secretary-General Yukiya Amano. The section on Iran:

I would like to inform you about the current situation concerning Iran’s request to the Agency for assistance in providing fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, as I receive many questions in this regard.

In June 2009, the Agency received a request from Iran for assistance in obtaining fuel for the research reactor in Tehran, which produces isotopes for medical purposes. In October 2009, at a meeting with the Governments of Iran, France, the Russian Federation and the United States, the Agency made a proposal under which Iranian low enriched uranium (LEU) would be shipped to Russia for further enrichment and then to France for fabrication into fuel. Three of the four countries gave their consent to this proposal.

In a letter to the Agency dated 18 February, 2010, Iran said it continued to wish to buy the necessary nuclear fuel or, if this was not possible, to exchange some of its LEU for reactor fuel from abroad. Iran requested the IAEA to relay its request to potential suppliers and to facilitate the provision of the fuel. The Agency circulated Iran’s letter to Member States as requested.

The arrangement proposed by the Agency in October 2009 remains on the table. I believe it would ensure continued operation of the Tehran Research Reactor and serve as a confidence-building measure. At the same time, I am following up on Iran’s February 18 request, in accordance with the IAEA Statute, and have been in contact with the relevant countries....

Implementation of Safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran

You have received my report on Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is longer than previous reports because I wanted my first report to be a stand-alone document. I tried to make it factual, without overdoing the detail.

The Agency continues, under its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with Iran, to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, but we cannot confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities because Iran has not provided the Agency with the necessary cooperation.

The necessary cooperation includes, among other things, implementation of relevant resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors and the United Nations Security Council, implementation of the Additional Protocol and of modified Code 3.1, as well as clarification of issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.

I request Iran to take steps towards the full implementation of its Safeguards Agreement and its other obligations as a matter of high priority.

1200 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of Hashemi Rafsanjani, has declared that her father accepts no bargaining on people's rights and that the only way out of the crisis is to follow the suggestions in his Friday Prayer of 17 July. Replying to the question of why Rafsanjani has not taken the podium at Friday Prayers since then, Hashemi said, “His main reason is not to cause harm to innocent people. In his last sermon, security and intelligence forces attacked protesters and arrested some of them.”

Hashemi, indirectly commenting on last week's Assembly of Experts meeting that Rafsanjani chaired, warned that extremists were trying to unseat Rafsanjani to achieve their goals.

1100 GMT: Claim of the Day. Rah-e Sabz asserts that the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, has said that the Supreme Leader asked him to execute more protestors.

Larijani was reportedly confronted by his relatives and associates, including Mostafa Mohaghegh-Damad, the former head of the National Audit Office, who were unhappy with the  executions of Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani in late January. Larijani replied, “Go and thank God that I have lowered the number of executions.”

Larijani allegedly said that he had attended a meeting at the time  including Khamenei. Ahmad Jannati (head of the Guardian Council), Mohammad Yazdi, and Mohammad Momen Qomi all invoked of the Sharia law demanding that the protesters and the "leaders of sedition" be executed.

Khamenei responded that, although this was their religious opinion, a large number of executions would cause political problems for the regime. He then turned to Larijani saying, “In all honesty we expected more than this [two executions].” Larijani later told associates, “I have tried very hard to keep the number of executions low, as my superiors had asked for more”.

1045 GMT: Following Up the Assembly. The political moves from last week's Assembly of Experts meeting continue, even beyond Mr Verde's Sunday analysis. While the official statement --- once it finally appeared --- pledged loyalty to the Supreme Leader, there has been an overlooked postscript.

The Secretariat of the Assembly has published the report by the Assembly’s Investigation Committee into the circumstances of the Supreme Leader and his fitness to remain in the post, under Article 111 of the Iranian Constitution). The report, dated 27 February, is signed by Mohsen Mojtahed-Shabestari (Assembly member, Khamenei's representative to East Azerbaijan, and Tabriz's Friday Prayer leader.

Although the report is similar to the Assembly's closing statement, the Green website Rah-e-Sabz is celebrating the publication of this report as a victory for public pressure on the Assembly. For the first time, the Supreme Leader's fitness for his post is now a matter of public discussion.

1000 GMT: But You Could Just Watch the Nukes Instead. On the nuclear programme front, it looks like another day of media focus on the rhetorical battle between Iran and members of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA, with a new Director-General, begins a four-day discussion of the draft report on Iran's current uranium enrichment efforts, and the occasion has been preceded by a series of Iranian verbals attacks, including the Supreme Leader's denunciation of a US-controlled IAEA.

The Los Angeles Times, for example, devotes a lengthy article to the political theatre: "[Iran has] dramatically shifted its public tone toward the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, dropping its previous deference while harshly criticizing the agency's latest report and its new director-general as an incompetent and biased lackey of the West."

Amidst the furour, few take any notice of Iran's more conciliatory position accepting Japan as a country for "third-party enrichment", signalled by Ali Larijani during his trip to Tokyo. And none, to my knowledge, consider the ripples of Larijani's changed position across the Iranian political waters.

0915 GMT: And so unfolds another week in a crisis which, according to the regime, was over. Mir Hossein Mousavi's interview continues to command attention and more than a few questions about strategy and prospects for the Green Movement. After initial doubts, I'm tilting towards a more optimistic reading. Because of the importance of the issue, the analysis is still being developed: we're hoping to have it out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the regime --- which, again, has supposedly won this conflict --- continues to bluster. Basij Commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi, continuing the Government's propaganda drive on the capture of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi, declared that President Obama would confess as quickly if he came to Iran:

This pure form of Islam [practiced in Iran] is such that it will even break our staunchest enemies. This thug [Rigi] was nothing, even if Obama himself, who Rigi has confessed to cooperating with, comes to Iran he will also confess to all his sins under the influence of this [pure form of] Islam.

The U.S. and other Western countries have reached a cultural, military, political and economic dead-end and the only weapon in their hands to bully other countries is technology and if we succeed in prying this tool away from them they will be finished.

Far more significant is the news of the regime's freeing of high-profile figures from detention. Saturday and Sunday releases included editors and journalists Ali Hekmat, Abdolreza Tajik (Farheekhtegan), Mashallah Shamsolvaezin (formerly of Kayhan, Jame'eh, Neshat, and Asr-e Azadegan), Behrang Tonkaboni (Farhang va Ahang), and Mohammad Javad Mozafar (publishing house Kavir and vice president of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights), and retired science professor Mohammad Sadeq Rabani.

An Iranian activist adds that journalist Rozbeh Karimi was released today and 20 protesters arrested on Ashura were freed from Rejaie Shahr prison in Karaj last night.

It is too early to tell if this is an orchestrated strategy of mass releases by the regime --- an effective "amnesty" if those freed will just shut up, stop writing, and stay off the streets --- but it follows Sunday's carrot-and-stick statement by Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi (see yesterday's updates). Doulatabadi promises detainee releases on the eve of Iranian New Year but added that those who did not recent would be treated harshly.

The "stick" part of the strategy also has come out in a Rah-e-Sabz report:

Many of those arrested and released over the past few months have been contacted and told to be prepared for interviews, which are subsequently conducted inside Evin Prison....

Interrogators contacted these former prisoners, who have either received their initial verdict or are waiting to receive their verdict, and force them to participate in these interviews. A transcript of the interview is given to the prisoners by their interrogators and they are told to memorize the content and say it in their own words. These former prisoners have been threatened that if they refuse to participate in the interviews they will have to spend the [Iranian] New Year holiday in prison or receive a heavier sentence.

The Jaras [Rah-e-Sabz] reporter said, "Transcripts of these interviews are given to news agencies close to the Reformists and they are forced to publish them. In the recent scenario, aside from the Islamic Student News Agency (ISNA), where prisoners were escorted to upon their release to conduct interviews, Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) has been forced on board [as well]. For the news scenario, the date of the interview is sometimes days or months from the time of the prisoner's release and secondly the exact transcription has been forced on news agencies."

Still, even if the Green Movement could be quelled, the Government faces the trouble within. The latest sign of unhappiness is over the recent 18-minute video, shown on BBC Persian and then spread on YouTube, of the 15 June attack on Tehran University's dormitories. Kazem Jalali, a member of Parliament's "truth-finding committee", has hinted that some colleagues are holding out against an acknowledgement of possible wrongdoing:

It would be better if the members of the truth-finding committee all watch this film....I have followed up on the issue a few time via Mr. [Mohammad-Hassan] Abutorabi who heads the committee. I think you should also ask him this question.

However, the head of the National Security Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, has tried to pre-empt any consideration of the evidence of damage, beatings, and even killings by the attackers, whose exact affiliation with the regime is still unclear: "Since the narrator of the film is the BBC, we must look at the matter with doubt because we do not consider the BBC a reliable source."