The Latest from Iran (19 May): Fallout

2035 GMT: The Uranium Sideshow. President Obama issued a boiler-plate, stay-the-course statement at a press conference alongside President Felipe Calderon of Mexico (which happens to have a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council):

"[We agree] on the need for Iran to uphold its international obligations or face increased sanctions and pressure, including UN sanctions. And I'm pleased that we've reached an agreement with our P5-plus-1 partners on a strong resolution that we now have shared with our Security Council partners.

Obama did not mention, for he was not asked, why he had encouraged Turkey to pursue talks with Iran leading to the uranium swap agreement in Tehran on Monday.

1845 GMT:Political Prisoner Watch. Housewife Masoumeh Yavari has been given a seven-year jail term at Rajai-Shahr Prison in Karaj. Yavari had been accused of "mohareb" (war against God), and the prosecutor had asked for the death penalty.

Zahra Jabbari, married and the mother of one child, has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. Jabbari was arrested during Qods Day protests on 18 September.

Student Activist Mohammad Yousef Rashidi has been handed a one-year jail term.

NEW Iran’s Uranium: Why Can’t the US Take Yes for an Answer? (Parsi)
NEW Iran’s Uranium: Washington “Can’t Afford to Look Ridiculous”, Makes Ridiculous Move (Emery)
NEW Iran’s Uranium: US Shows a Middle Finger to Tehran…and Turkey and Brazil and… (Gary Sick)
NEW Iran Document: Iranian Labour Unions “This is Not 1979″
Iran Analysis: Washington and the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Parsi)
Iran Alert: Filmmaker Firouz Faces Deportation From UK
Iran Analysis: The Contest at Home Over (and Beyond) the Uranium Agreement (Zahra)
Iran Analysis: Assessing the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Gary Sick)
The Latest from Iran (18 May): Getting Beyond the Uranium Agreement

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced student and women's rights activist Bahareh Hedayat to 9 ½ years in prison: six months for insulting the president, two years for insulting the Leader, five years for anti-state and anti-national security actions, and two years, previously suspended, for organizing a gathering in June 2006.


Milad Asadi, another senior member of the alumni organisation Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Bahareh Hedayat's statement for Iran's National Student Day in December 2009:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtUvxtH00Lc[/youtube]

1200 GMT: The Uranium Battle. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, has issued the highest-level reaction to the US pursuit of a sanctions resolution at the United Nations, "They won't prevail and by pursuing the passing of a new resolution they are discrediting themselves in public opinion."

0940 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Masoud Heidari, the former head of the Iranian Labour News Agency,was released from prison on Tuesday. On Sunday, Heidari had begun serving a three-month prison sentence.

0840 GMT: Alice-in-Wonderland Media Statement of Day. I guess the editors of The New York Times have not paid any attention to the events of the last 72 hours:

Brazil and Turkey should join the other major players and vote for the Security Council resolution. Even before that, they should go back to Tehran and press the mullahs to make a credible compromise and begin serious negotiations.

0830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tahereh Saeedi, the wife of detained film director Jafar Panahi, has told Rah-e-Sabz that her husband has been on hunger strike since Sunday.

Panahi has demanded access to his lawyer, visits by his family, and an unconditional release until a court hearing is held.

Six journalists and cultural activists --- Mahnaz Karimi, Hafez Sardarpour, Mehdi Zeynali, Nader Azizi, Mustafa Jamshidi, and Ramin Jabbari --- were arrested on Monday in Iranian Azerbaijan.

0820 GMT: Shutting Down the Inquiry. Parleman News writes that a reformist proposal to investigate Iran's prisons has been rejected by the Parliament. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani insists that the Majlis continues to observe prisons and has forwarded a report to the National Security Council.

0815 GMT: Claim of Day (No, It's Not about Uranium). Rah-e-Sabz claims new accusations of impropriety against Mohammad Javad Larijani, a high-ranking official in the judiciary. The website asserts that a deal has been struck: Ahmadinejad will not press a corruption case against Larijani, while the official and his powerful brothers will drop charges against First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

0810 GMT: And There's Always a "Terrorism" Story. Press TV features a summary of its interview with Abdolmalek Rigi, the captured leader of the Baluch insurgent group Jundullah: "While in Morocco, suspected Israeli or US agents had given him a list of people to assassinate in Tehran."

0755 GMT: Evaluating the Uranium/Sanctions Story. We have three analyses of the US response to the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement: Trita Parsi asks why Washington cannot take Yes for an answer, Chris Emery suggests it is because the US feels it "cannot afford to look  ridiculous", and Gary Sick thinks Washington just showed the middle finger not only to Tehran but to Turkey, Brazil, and a lot of other countries.

The Washington Post has posted a copy of the sanctions resolution introduced by the US into the United Nations Security Council.

0635 GMT: Nuclear Spin of Day. Peyke Iran tries an different angle to attack the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement. The website claims that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip is angry about his reception in Tehran: he and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were offered an Iranian breakfast of sangak bread, Bulgarian white cheese, walnuts, and inferior dried fruit.

0630 GMT: Mousavi's Bodyguard. More manoeuvring over Monday's arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi's head of security, Ahmad Yazdanfar. Khabar Online claims that Yazdanfar "withdrew" from his position, and the story that he was detained is a fiction of the "leaders of sedition" and foreign media.

Opposition outlets have responded that Yazdanfar is not "political" at all but a simple security officer. Through his arrest and the kidnapping, terror, and torture of others, the Government is slowly becoming a terrorist group.

0615 GMT: Iran's Debate on the Tehran Deal. The Government is still facing some opposition to the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement. From the conservative wing, Ahmad Tavakoli (and possibly, through indirect means, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani) made challenges on Tuesday. On the reformist side, Darius Ghanbari asked why Iran had waited seven months and expended so much capital in its foreign policy, only to move towards an agreement it could have had in October.

The response of pro-Government politicians is that this is only a "declaration", not a "treaty", so Tehran has not entered any binding commitments. Or, as Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, "If the Vienna Group (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China) accepts Iran’s terms and conditions...both parties commit themselves to the implementation” of the deal."

(Which means that Washington's response --- throwing out any consideration of the agreement in favour of a sanctions-first approach --- has sheltered the Ahmadinejad Government against its internal opponents.)

0530 GMT: For many observers, the nuclear sideshow will remain the main event today. The Obama Administration pretty much guaranteed that when, despite the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement on a procedure for a uranium enrichment deal (and despite the small fact that President Obama appears to have encouraged the Turks to pursue the deal --- more on that later), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton loudly and not very politely announced that the US was proceeding with a sanctions resolution in the United Nations.

The resolution was submitted in the late afternoon, so now we will be treated to a lot of posturing on all sides, possibly obscuring this bottom-line assessment, courtesy of the National Iranian American Council: "This is an unbelievably stupid move on the part of the Obama administration. Not only are we rejecting our own terms of the agreement, but we are doing so in as tactless and diplomatically insulting way possible."

Meanwhile, on the centre stage of Iranian politics....

Containing Mousavi

Muhammad Sahimi offers a concise summary of the latest steps by the Government to intimidate Mir Hossein Mousavi ahead of the election anniversary on 12 June, including the arrest of Mousavi's top bodyguard.

The Labour Front

We have posted, in a separate entry, the statement of the Network of Iranian Labor Unions setting out its view of opposition to the Government, "This is Not 1979".

Iran Labor Report posts an overview of recent workers' protests.

Comments

[Ange-Paris]

"This is an unbelievably stupid move on the part of the Obama administration. Not only are we rejecting our own terms of the agreement, but we are doing so in as tactless and diplomatically insulting way possible.”
I am so glad because once again we can see how much Mr Parsi is linked to iranian regime; NIAC was praising yesterday the recent agreement (Brazil, Turkey and Iran) but what they forget to see is that the recent agreement is not in the same context than last October's one ; according to my fellow Arshama and all the media in France , in this agreement :
- domestic enrichment of uranium will not be stopped,
- enough LEU will be left over for a nuclear bomb,
- declaration of new nuclear facilities to the IAEA is not guaranteed: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=...
This regime and people paid by them think that all the people around are blind, deaf , stupid and raving mad to swallow what they say and they don't know that "everything they do" and "what they think " are read and forseen for a long time; I am so afraid thinking about a military attack ; poor iranian people !; if you want to do a u-turn, begin to praise green movement and the will of our people avoiding to have the death of thousands on your conscience; why not an article about " the beginning of the end " ?? frankly and bluntly ,saying and assuming that this movement exists, that the majority of iranian people believe in and that with an attack these people are in danger ! and it's the "end "of this authoritarian regime;
Yesterday in VOA I heard an iranian analyst speaking about the policy of this regime ; they think that when you have an ill child, you can sell your house which is worth for exemple few thousands, of dollars for one thousand to save him paying his treatement, which means that they are able to do "everything" they can to save their skin, even provoking a war; we will have heavy losses of human beings and money; I am sure that iranian people will win and there is no doubts because I was brought up with good values like: lying, killing, raping, torturing , stealing .. are BAD and "JUSTICE" exists; we will win but at which costs ?

[Catherine]

RE: 0830 GMT: film director Jafar Panahi on hunger strike

More detailed information now on GVF: http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/may/19/1905" rel="nofollow">http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/may/1...

[Catherine]

U.S. radio project aimed at Iran delayed
A "high priority" part of U.S. efforts to reach out to Iranians has been silenced because of a two-year delay in building an important radio transmitter, according to a new government report. The State Department inspector general's report says the delays hurt U.S. efforts to broadcast news and information into Iran in crucial periods during the 2009 Iranian election and the following civil unrest.
More: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/17/iran.radio.transmitter/" rel="nofollow">http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/17/iran...

[Catherine]

Visits for Female Prisoners Cancelled after Mourning Session for Shirin Alam Hooli: http://persian2english.com/?p=10827" rel="nofollow">http://persian2english.com/?p=10827

[Dissected News]

As a follow up to discussions held in recent weeks, I have published a comprehensive evidence review and analysis entitled "Who Won the Disputed Iran Election?" http://www.dissectednews.com/2010/05/who-really-won-the-disputed-iran-election.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dissectednews.com/2010/05/who-really...

I was surprised, frankly, at how easy it was to dispute the claims of the Leveretts. I think the report speaks for itself.

Scott, thank you for all the help you have provided with this!

[Ange-Paris]

Thank you Dissected News for your great analysis; heavy and wise work, bravo !

[Dissected News]

thanks a lot! It was my 100th blog post, and it took a while to write, so I appreciate the encouragement.

[Catherine]

Tehran is still swirling with rumours about who is behind the theft of bronze monuments throughout the city. The affair has even sparked dry humour from a poster on the website Balatarin: "The one behind stealing the statues in Tehran is the same one who stole our votes last year."
http://www.iwpr.net/report-news/stolen-statues-spark-conspiracy-theories" rel="nofollow">http://www.iwpr.net/report-news/stolen-statues-...

[Bahman]

Scott,

I'm puzzled by your emphasis on those analysts who support IRI in its claim that it has now agreed to the P5+1's original demands.

I agree with the attached article's (in Farsi) analysis that IRI has done a magnificant job of convoluting and prolonging the negotiations to the point that by making this agreement they essentially gave up nothing and retained everything: 1) ability to continue to enrich LEU and 2) ability to continue to increase enrichment from 3.5% to 20%.

Please educate me on what I'm missing (aside from the inherent wish to disagree with everything that comes from the "bad imperialists").

http://www.rahesabz.net/story/15702/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rahesabz.net/story/15702/

[Dissected News]

More pompous commentary by an ignorant jerk.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n-haass/iran-the-limits-to-sancti_b_581759.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n-haass/i...

With a comment by a very attractive young blogger, though :)

[ScottLucas11]

Bahman,

My personal starting point is that Iran, with Brazil and Turkey, effectively agreed to the October 2009 proposal presented by the US and other powers. So why has the US now quickly dismissed this agreement, effectively adding the condition that Iran should suspend any enrichment activities, even for the Tehran Research Reactor?

And why do it so quickly, even before the IAEA has had time to look over the agreement? As Matt Duss has just written:

"I really have to question the tenor and timing of Clinton’s announcement. By not even waiting a few days to pretend to seriously examine and consider the terms of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal, the administration has potentially squandered a lot of the diplomatic capital that it generated by what was widely seen as a good-faith effort to engage the Islamic Republic toward an agreement on its nuclear program, capital that it will need to cultivate greater international cooperation in enforcing the sanctions.

It’s clear that Iran saw the announcement of the deal as a way to head off international pressure. But that doesn’t mean that its acceptance of the terms isn’t significant — it is. In my view, it would have been smarter for Obama to acknowledge the deal as a potentially positive step, but make clear that more is needed, similar to how he pocketed Netanyahu’s sort-of-but-not-really acceptance of a Palestinian state last year. As it is, by scrambling to get the UN sanctions resolution finalized in the shadow of the Brazil-Turkey intervention, that resolution now looks much more like an end in themselves, rather than a means to arriving at a mutually acceptable agreement."

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/19/by-quickly-rejecting-the-iran-brazil-turkey-deal-has-the-administration-squandered-diplomatic-capital/" rel="nofollow">http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/19/by...

This isn't to say the leaders of the Islamic Republic are nuclear angels --- far from it. But, assuming that Iran is just stalling with this step, this is still tactically a terrible response from the US.

S.

[Bahman]

Scott,

I agree with the last paragraph in that the US government (Hillary?) should've been smarter in its response. I speculate that their reasoning was the exact opposite thinking: IRI has agreed to the Turkey-Brazil deal at the last minute knowing that we were close to )or had obtained) agreement on the last set of sanctions. So why should we let them ruin all our hard work over the past months and create another 8-month delay to get to the same point?

Also, this was not as you said "adding a condition that Iran suspend any enrichment activity". That was the very original demand. The October deal was launched just because IRI had refused to agree to that original demand and P5+1 saw this deal as a way to start gaining momentum by building some interim trust.

Of course IRI prolonged the process so long that we all forgot about that!

Well done by IRI...the old chess players are still a few moves ahead of the westerners!

[ScottLucas11]

Bahman,

The problem with the US strategy is that, by suspending the "suspension of enrichment" demand in the autumn talks, Washington will find it difficult to hold on to int'l opinion by resurrecting it (especially because Iran will emphasize that US is effectively holding the Tehran Research Reactor to ransom).

To add another layer, which is hinted at in the 3 pieces today, some people in Obama Administration including Obama were supporting Turks in these talks up to the weekend. So why flip so publicly and stridently now?

S.

[Barry]

Scott

If YOU were Hilary Clinton, what would you do?

But before you answer that question, please think about this. What do you think it is that the current Iranian Regime, in it's "heart and soul", wants?? I am sure that your answer (or mine, or Hilary Clinton's) to my first question, will depend very much on what you think this is. I believe that I know what it is that they want - and if I were Hilary, I would not allow them to have it.

Barry

[Bahman]

Scott,

As I said earlier I agree with you that this week Hillary played the sanctions card poorly. But that doesn't change the fact that IRI's hostile actions and rhetoric has created a lot of distrust across the world and they must reap what they sowed.

If they are truly not after the bomb, they should not have a problem with a compromise that allows them to process enough uranium that they need for the Tehran reactor, which y the way they cannot convert to rods (and that blows up their rather recent argument that that's why they need it).

To me this is not a legal argument about who is right. This is a matter of a brutal regime that will use its nuclear program to prolong its atrocities on its own people.

That's why they must be stopped.

[ScottLucas11]

Barry (and with respect for Bahman's views),

I remember last autumn that I was in an intense, productive discussion with readers and fellow EA writers about the nuclear talks: my position was that --- given the lack of legitimacy of the Iranian Government --- I would not have pursued negotiations.

The US Government did, however (in my opinion, at the expense of a rights-first approach). Now it finds that it boxed itself into a corner. Not only has it pursued international sanctions that can never have weight in substance (take a look at the resolution and look at how mild the steps are) but it has handed the initiative to Ahmadinejad and his advisors. They now no longer have to fulfil the offer of the swap AND can blame the US and its allies for scuppering talks by pursuing sanctions so quickly and aggressively.

So the nuclear-first approach, having taking precedence over rights-first, is now in danger of running aground.

In this case, Bahman's remark about chess is spot-on.

S.

[Megan]

Scott,

“Obama did not mention, for he was not asked, why he had encouraged Turkey to pursue talks with Iran leading to the uranium swap agreement in Tehran on Monday.”

Have you considered that Obama might have asked Turkey to persuade Islamic Republic in accepting the 2009 Vienna agreement in its entirety?

[Megan]

Scott,

With respect, you did not address Bahman’s point that halting enrichment altogether was part of the October 2009 deal. Please address that.

[Kurt]

Kudos, I'm enjoying it. But, did you mean 'looming' in the beginning? I've made my fair share of mistakes in the past - I'm not here to embarrass. :-)

[Kurt]

By pompous commentary do you mean Haass or the usual Leverett-spouting apologists?

[Ange-Paris]

Scott
With all my respect, you have a short memory; in the 2009 Vienna agreement, the enrichment of uranium would have been done in Russia, transfered to France to undergo an other transformation for medical purposes and only after, iranian regime would have gotten it; one of the conditions of this agreement was that Iran "stop" the enrichment; not only it was not done, but what's more the amount of enriched uranium inside the country has changed; it's no longer the same deal !!

[Dissected News]

Do I have to choose. We'll go with both. and "looming." :)

[Barry]

Scott

I guess that I can't help but agree with you in that aspect. But I did say in another thread that the US (and UK) is now in a similar situation that they faced in the early 30's - tired from war and economic problems and the pacifist appeasers have taken over. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

Barry

[Catherine]

Here, I think the Leveretts have a point:

... The Obama Administration has only itself to blame for this situation, because it has approached--and is still approaching--the Iranian nuclear issue with unilateral hubris worthy of George W. Bush. The Administration has continued to insist that Iran cannot indigenously enrich uranium, even as part of a broader nuclear deal. It took what should have been a straightforward technical discussion on refueling the TRR--a thoroughly safeguarded facility in the middle of Tehran that produces medical isotopes--and turned it into a highly politicized effort to exchange most of Iran's low-enriched uranium for promises of new fuel at some unspecified point in the future. Washington then demanded that other countries unquestioningly support these positions. ...

... The Brazilian-Turkish deal makes explicit what the October proposal obfuscated: Iran has the right to enrich uranium on its territory. Realistically, the chances that Iran would ever surrender its enrichment program are now virtually nil. But the Obama Administration--like its predecessor--refuses to make the shift from working quixotically to stop the unstoppable to negotiating rigorous verification measures for Iran's enrichment facilities to ensure they are not producing weapons-grade fissile material. Now, others have stepped into the breach and redefined the Iranian nuclear issue for the Administration. ...

Cherry-picked from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/flynt-and-hillary-mann-leverett/hegemony-challenged-turke_b_582528.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/flynt-and-hillary...

[Ange-Paris]

the Leveretts , as usual, are wrong; from Figaro international :

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/10/20/01003-20091020ARTFIG00005-negociations-delicates-a-vienne-sur-le-nucleaire-iranien-.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/10/20...

"s'ouvrait à Vienne une rencontre cruciale visant précisément à organiser la fabrication de combustible nucléaire hors des frontières de l'Iran. "

Vienna meeting aimed to organize the manufacture of nuclear fuel outside of Iran.

"l'Iran exporterait d'abord en Russie 1 200 kg d'uranium faiblement enrichi à 4,5 %, l'UFE, soit la majorité de son stock déclaré (1 500 kg au total), afin qu'il soit réenrichi à 19,75 %. Ce matériau fissile, acheminé ensuite en France pour être transformé en combustible, serait enfin réexpédié en Iran. Un processus qui permettrait théoriquement d'encadrer l'utilisation par les Iraniens de leur uranium hautement enrichi (UHE), celui-ci étant «verrouillé» pour être rendu inapte aux usages militaires".

It's what I said above yesterday, Iran would have exported its low-enriched uranium to Russia, where after enrichment up to 20%, would have been transferred to France to undergo an other transformation providing fuel for medical isotopes; the way of putting an end to iranian's enriched uranium; "verrouillé" means "locked"( their manufacture).
I am sorry , the text is in french :-)