Latest Iran Video: The Bahari Interview on CNN (Part 2)

On Sunday CNN aired the second part of Fareed Zakaria's interview with Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who was freed after 118 days in detention on charges of "working with foreign governments" in the post-election conflict. (Part 1, as well as Bahari's article in Newsweek, was posted on Enduring America last week.)

Beyond Bahari's personal reflections, the most interesting parts of the interview are his framing of a Revolutionary Guard takeover of the Islamic Republic and his representation of the Iranian opposition. Bahari reduces the current Green movement to an uncoordinated, confused collections of groups which include "terrorists" and are becoming "militarised". We're so intrigued and concerned by this perception of the opposition, and whether it is shared by the Obama Administration, that we've posted a separate analysis.

Iran: How Washington Views the Green Opposition — The Next Chapter
Iran Video & Text: Maziar Bahari on His 118 Days in Detention
Iran Video: Maziar Bahari Tells CBS of His Detention and Post-Election Conflict

Video (1 of 2)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow4iYiYNgDg[/youtube]

Video (2 of 2)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TllGmYIcPF0[/youtube]

Iran MediaWatch: Has "Green Reform" Disappeared in Washington?

UPDATE: Within minutes of posting this, I read an article in The Washington Post which points to an answer to my question:

Two weeks before President Obama visited China.... Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, both senior officials in the National Security Council...traveled to Beijing on a "special mission" to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program. If Beijing did not help the United States on this issue, the consequences could be severe.

The Chinese were told that Israel regards Iran's nuclear program as an "existential issue and that countries that have an existential issue don't listen to other countries," according to a senior administration official. The implication was clear: Israel could bomb Iran, leading to a crisis in the Persian Gulf region and almost inevitably problems over the very oil China needs to fuel its economic juggernaut, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week, the White House got its answer. China informed the United States that it would support a toughly worded, U.S.-backed statement criticizing the Islamic republic for flouting U.N. resolutions by constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant. The statement, obtained by The Washington Post, is part of a draft resolution to be taken up as soon as Thursday by the 35 nations that make up the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

1. Key personnel in the National Security Council, notably Ross, are hell-bent on getting sanctions as soon as talks with Iran are declared to have broken down.
2. To pursue those sanctions, these officials are prepared to exaggerate to the point of hysteria: "Israe could bomb Iran".
3. To pursue those sanctions, these officials will leak private conversations with foreign powers and sensitive documents to accommodating reporters.
4. To pursue those sanctions, these officials will ignore obvious difficulties: "While diplomats and arms-control experts welcomed China's support of the IAEA resolution, some acknowledged that it is not clear whether Russia or China would go further and agree to new sanctions against Iran."
5. The issue of what is happening inside Iran --- be that "reform", "justice", "human rights" --- is irrelevant to these officials.

Iran: 3 Problems (for the Greens, for the US, for Ahmadinejad)
The Latest from Iran (26 November): Corridors of Conflict

Have "the Greens" disappeared in Washington?

Yesterday's New York Times editorial is an exercise in frustration, bluster, and irrelevance. Its legimitate concern at the oppressions of the Iranian regime falls away into obsession with and distortions of the nuclear issue --- "time is running out"; "Iran’s repressive leaders cannot be allowed to threaten the rest of the world with a nuclear weapon" --- and the knee-jerk call for tougher sanctions through the United Nations Security Council. ( To recap: 1. The Security Council won't adopt such sanctions; 2. They would have little effect on Tehran's position on the nuclear programme; 3. They do nothing to solve the dilemmas of engagement on issues such as Afghanistan; 4. They do nothing with respect to the human rights issue which supposedly concerned the NYT at the start of the editorial.)

Far more interesting is this morning's opinion piece in The Washington Post by Maziar Bahari, the journalist detained for 118 days after the June election, especially if his sentiments are shared by Obama's officials.

After making a striking assertion, "The [Revolutionary] Guards are becoming stronger than the President and the Supreme Leader," Bahari offers an equally striking recommendation,

Can the West, especially the United States, have a dialogue with these people? Yes. Because there is no other choice. The West has to negotiate with Iran on the nuclear program and the stability of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not talking to Tehran doesn't work.

So engagement has to be pursued, even if we don't like the Iranians in charge (including Bahari's jailers).What is most striking, however, is Bahari's treatment of Iranians beyond the Guards, the Supreme Leader, and the Ahmadinejad Government. In contrast to his clear position on engagement, this seems to be a muddled attempt at escapism from his earlier political calculations:

The rumor du jour in Iran is that Obama and the Guards are reaching a deal to normalize relations, in exchange for which America will ignore human rights abuses in Iran. Hence, the opposition movement's slogan "Obama, either with them or with us." The United States has acted against the interests of the Iranian people in the past. Repeating that mistake for tactical gains would be the biggest mistake of the Obama administration.

As for the Iranian people, the more immediate victims of the brutal regime, we have to think long-term. Our anger should be sublimated into something more positive. We have been brutalized to think of the world in black and white. Seeing the shades of gray can be our strongest weapon against those who would jail, beat and torture us.

Given the New York Times flight into nuclear worry and sanctions and the reality of Bahari's engagement --- it is not with the reformists, either as individual figures like Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami or with the grassroots mass of the protest movement, what exactly is the "long-term more positive"?

The Latest from Iran (24 November): A Larijani-Rafsanjani Alliance?

1910 GMT: Prosecuting Journalists. Reporters without Borders has published a summary of latest news on journalists who have been convicted and arrested (and even one who was released).

1900 GMT: Some Good News for Mahmoud. President Ahmadinejad and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signed 13 cooperation agreements on trade, energy, stocks and banking, agriculture, news agenices, technology, culture, and visa requirements.

1735 GMT: Mortazavi Mystery Over? After days of rumours that he was in Evin Prison, former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi has appeared at the memorial service for Ali Kordan, the former Minister of Interior who died this weekend.

1725 GMT: Isolating Rafsanjani? Division of opinion here amongst EA staff: one colleague is saying Hashemi Rafsanjani is a spent force while another is arguing strongly that "the Shark" is far from finished and about to make another move.

If the latter, those in the regime opposed to Rafsanjani (and possibly worried about the possibility of his working in combination with Ali Larijani) will try to block it. Having dismissed him from the rota for Friday Prayers in Tehran and the Qods Day Prayer, authorities are now taking away the Eid al-Adha Prayer from Rafsanjani and giving it to Ahmad Khatami.

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1715 GMT: Back from teaching break to find that Mousavi activist Majid Zamani has been released on bail.

1335 GMT: Your Daily University Demonstration. Video is now in of Monday's protest at Qazvin University; we've posted it in a separate entry.

1320 GMT: Atrianfar Sentenced. A reliable Iranian activist reports that journalist Mohammad Atrianfar's sentence, passed this weekend, was six years in jail and that he --- like former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi and student organisation leader Ahmad Zeidabadi --- has been released on bail while the sentence is appealed.

The same source claims that student activist Atafeh Nabavi has been sentenced to four years.

1230 GMT: A Persian-language site has published the names of more than 70 students who have been detained recently by the regime.

1100 GMT: Mr Smith Gets It Right. Back from a research seminar on Chomsky to find that Iran's Foreign Ministry has opened the door a bit on the talks on uranium enrichment:

Iran is not opposed to sending its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad but wants 100 percent guarantees of receiving higher-enriched fuel in return for a medical research reactor...."Nobody in Iran ever said that we are against sending 3.5 percent-enriched uranium abroad," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. "If we say we are looking for 100 percent guaranteees, it means that we want 3.5 percent enriched uranium to be sent out under such circumstances that we make sure that we will receive the 20 percent fuel."

That statement seems to bear out the analysis from EA's Mr Smith, offered last week: "[Iran's proposed] arrangement would allay Iranian fears that its uranium supply might be held indefinitely by some foreign party, including Russia."

0840 GMT: Today's Bang the War Drum Moment. The Guardian of London reaches far this morning in its presentation of all shades of opinion. Benny Morris, once a good historian and now a loud polemicist, wrings his hands over an Israeli military attack on Iran: "Obama will soon have to decide whether to give Israel a green light, and how brightly it will shine."

I think Morris would like the missiles to fly but he's passed the buck to the US President because of...

...the likely devastating repercussions –-- regional and global. These will probably include massive rocketing of Israel's cities and military bases by the Iranians and Hezbollah (from Lebanon), and possibly by Hamas (from Gaza). This could trigger land wars in Lebanon and Gaza as well as a protracted long-range war with Iran. It could see terrorism by Iranian agents against Israeli (and Jewish) targets around the world; a steep increase in world oil prices, which will rebound politically against Israel; and Iranian action against American targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf. More generally, Islamist terrorism against western targets could only grow.

0830 GMT: As for Dissent.... In this morning's New York Times, Robert Worth picks up on several developments in recent weeks to summarise the regime's efforts to defeat the opposition:

Stung by the force and persistence of the protests, the government appears to be starting a far more ambitious effort to discredit its opponents and re-educate Iran’s mostly young and restive population. In recent weeks, the government has announced a variety of new ideological offensives.

It is implanting 6,000 Basij militia centers in elementary schools across Iran to promote the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, and it has created a new police unit to sweep the Internet for dissident voices. A company affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards acquired a majority share in the nation’s telecommunications monopoly this year, giving the Guards de facto control of Iran’s land lines, Internet providers and two cellphone companies. And in the spring, the Revolutionary Guards plan to open a news agency with print, photo and television elements.

The government calls it “soft war,” and Iran’s leaders often seem to take it more seriously than a real military confrontation.

0815 GMT: Rooz Online are pressing the idea of co-operation between Ali Larijani and Hashemi Rafsanjani against the President. An analysis has highlighted Larijani's defense of Rafsanjani as a "pillar of the revolution" and, as we have in a separate entry, contrasted this with a view of Ali Reza Zakani's speech on the election and the National Unity Plan as an attack on Larijani.

0730 GMT: The US View of the Green Movement. Over the last two weeks, we have had intense debate over Washington's perception, inside and outside the US Government, of the Iranian opposition. Amongst this was a discussion of how the American elites might view filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, with his recent talk at the Carnegie Endowment, as the spokesman for the Green Wave.

Interesting then to see Robin Wright, one of the top US-based journalists on Iran and the Middle East, highlight Makhmalbaf's speech and declare, with one quick qualification, "Iran's Green Movement Reaches Out to U.S."

0720 GMT: Nuclear Rhetoric or a Powerful Signal? Fars News' English-language site is putting a clear message on top of Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi's comments on Sunday: "Leader Has Final Say on Iran-US Talks". Mohammadi said in a roundtable at Tehran's Amir Kabir University:

The negotiation with the US is not possible without the permission by Imam and the Leader, and any kind of talks with the US must be permitted by the Supreme Leader. No Iranian President or Foreign Minister has had or will have the permission to act on establishment of relations with the US.

So is Mohammadi's declaration just the formal reiteration that Ayatollah Khamenei is atop the Iranian system? Is it a reassurance that any show of engagement with the US and Iranian proposals have the backing of the Supreme Leader? Or is this a message to Ahmadinejad and pro-deal allies to step away from the discussions?

0710 GMT: The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has stepped up its line of US and Pakistani support of the Baluch insurgent group Jundallah, including last month's deadly suicide bombing in Baluchistan.

Addressing IRGC commanders in Isfahan, Brigadier General Gholam-Reza Soleimani said the US Central Intelligence Agency has been spending millions of dollars in its campaign against the Islamic Republic: "The CIA makes a contribution of more than one billion dollar each year to Pakistan's intelligence agency (Inter-Service Intelligence) as part of a campaign to eliminate individuals with anti-U.S. mentalities." He added that there was evidence of ISI and US involvement in many terrorist incidents in Iran, including the October bombing that claimed several IRGC commanders amongst more than 40 dead: "There exists documented evidence of links between (Abdolmalek) Rigi's terrorist group (Jundallah) and the CIA."

The Latest on Iran (23 November): Releases, Rumours, and Battles

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The Latest from Iran (22 November): Abtahi Sentenced, Ahmadinejad Scrambles

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2030 GMT: Punishment Going Up. Reports now indicate that Ahmad Zeidabadi, whose sentencing we reported earlier (1620 GMT), received a six-year prison sentence. In addition, he will spend five years in exile in the northeastern city of Gonabad and be banned from civil activities for life. Bail for his freedom while the case is appealed is $500,000.

2025 GMT: Ahmadinejad in Brazil. That's right, it's a second continent today on the I'm a World Leader, Get Me Out of Tehran tour (see 0635 GMT), though there is little more than a picture to report.

1925 GMT: More on Larijani v. Ahmadinejad. Khabar Online (the online version of the newspaper which either chose to close today in favour of Web publication or which has been suspended by the Government) is schizophrenic over a possible bust-up between the Parliament and the President.

The English-language version goes to great pains to deny tries to curb talk of a rift, with MPs blaming media and anti-Ahmadinejad opposition for the rumours. The Persian-language site, however, highlights a speech by Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani warning against "dictatorship" and defending former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.



1645 GMT: We've posted a video of yesterday's demonstration, one in a series of ongoing protests, at Khaje Nasir University.

And it looks like we might be covering a major emerging story of the conflict between Iran's Parliament, specifically Speaker Ali Larijani, and President Ahmadinejad. The first installment has been posted; more to come after we take a break for academic duties.

1620 GMT: Journalist and reformist activist Ahmad Zeidabadi has reportedly been sentenced to five years in prison and released on $350,000 bail while the verdict is appealed.

1535 GMT: Here's Why Obama's Engagement Lives. Skip the headlines in the "mainstream" US press and go to Halifax, Canada, where Washington's officials are urging Iran to "engage" the West.

On the surface, Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security talked tough to the delegates at the security forum, "We would prefer that the Iranian regime follow through on the opportunity to engage....[Tehran] asked for engagement with the United States. It has it. Now what is it going to do? Is it going to stand up and say that they're going to take our deal... or are they going to use some other flimsy excuse to duck."

The overriding point is, however, that Tauscher's comments were based on a continued engagement rather than cut-off of talks with Iran. Why might that be? The security forum's main item for discussion, Afghanistan, is the blunt answer. Iran is the prevailing outside power in western Afghanistan, so it has a place in the future American plans for the country.

So while some table-thumpers at the gathering like former Bush National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley, hinted that Israel may strike Iran, don't be fooled. The Obama Administration, caught up in its Afghan conundrum, cannot afford renewed hostility with Tehran.

1525 GMT: More Iran-Russia conflict. The tension between Tehran and Moscow, which is a key motive for the Iranian counter-proposal on uranium enrichment, emerged again today. Iran's deputy foreign minister Manouchehr Mohammadi declared, “The problems regarding the Bushehr plant has a technical as well as a political aspect. The Russians… want to launch the plant under certain conditions, but we will not surrender to them."

1255 GMT: Not Big Politics, Just a Baha'i Temple. Appears that Hamshahri was not closed because of a major political move within the Iranian regime but because it included a tourist advertisement showing a Baha'i temple.

1220 GMT: More Bust-Up, Another Paper Banned. Now it's the principlist newspaper Hamshahri which has been banned.

However, an Iranian activist now reports that Hamshahri will be suspended for only a few hours and will likely reappear today.

1050 GMT: A Shot at Larijani? The word is spreading that Khabar, the principlist newspaper close to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has been closed by Government order this morning. I'm sensing a real bust-up between Larijani and the allies of President Ahmadinejad (see 0555 GMT and the separate entry on MP Ali Reza Zamani's revelations).

1025 GMT: Rumour of the Day (Denied). On Sunday we noted that questions were being raised about the whereabouts of former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, unseen in public for two months, with the most provocative rumour that he was in Evin Prison.

Still no verification of those claims, but at least one conservative Iranian website has gone to the trouble of noticing and denying them. Parcham says Mortazavi, now one of Iran's Deputy Prosecutor Generals, is being reclusive because he is waiting to be confirmed as the new division chief handling financial crimes.

0905 GMT: Bluster. Of course, even if the air-defence show is propaganda (see 0810 GMT), that doesn't mean the Revolutionary Guard will do it quietly (especially if, as I think, this is being done to undercut those in the Iranian establishment pushing for a deal or, alternatively, to cover up any impression of "weakness" from such a bargain).

"One step out of line and Israeli warplanes will be completely destroyed," IRGC Air Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh declared. "Even if they escape our sophisticated defense system, they will never see their bases again; because our surface-to-surface missiles are on their marks to target Israeli military bases before the dust settles."

0810 GMT: Shrug. The Washington Post devotes its Iran article this morning to Sunday's air defence exercise, loudly announced by Iran's military --- not surprising, given the supposed drama and the "military warning to Israel" theme in the Post's sub-headline.

We had not even bothered to mention the exercise, which was clearly a propaganda move by Iranian commanders rather than a significant military development. If there is any importance here, it lies in the relationship to the more important story: Iran's uranium enrichment talks with the "West". Is the Revolutionary Guard fighting back against those Iranian leaders who want a deal --- which is still very much on the table, despite the Post's limited knowledge of it --- through their aggressive posturing?

0800 GMT: Yesterday Pedestrian posted a most interesting speech from pro-Government, high-ranking member of Parliament Ali Reza Zamani which is a virtual admission of election fraud. We've put up the blog, as well as our analysis, in a separate entry.

0635 GMT: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's I'm a World Leader, Get Me Out of Tehran tour has opened in Gambia with talk of expanding investments in industry and agriculture.

0555 GMT: Mohammad Javad Larijani, the high-ranking judiciary official, has stepped beyond his official brief to intervene on the nuclear issue. He declared Sunday, "Iran has "many reasons 2 distrust West, but they have no reason 2 distrust us," and added:

If the West won't sell 20% enriched uranium [for the Tehran medical research reactor], we will produce it ourselves. To produce 20% enriched uranium we must change orientation of centrifuges. We know how & we will do it.

MJ Larijani, joins his brothers, Speaker of Parliament Ali and head of judiciary Sadegh (who also went beyond his designated position to speak out), in criticising the Vienna deal for uranium enrichment. However, the question is left open: are the Larijanis wiling to accept the Iran Government's counter-offer of a "swap" inside the country?

0545 GMT: For the opposition, Sunday's headline event was confirmation of the release of Mohammad Ali Abtahi from more than five months in detention. The photograph of Abtahi and his family is one of the most joyous pictures amdist and despite the post-12 June conflict.

It should not be forgotten that Abtahi was sentenced to six years in jail and is only free on a very high ($700,000) bail while he appeals. Others were also sentenced this weekend, including the journalist Mohammad Atrianfar, although the prison terms are not yet known.

Still, the symbolism and impact of Abtahi's release should be noted. As the Green movement tries to withstand yet more arrests of activists and student leaders and prepares for the 16 Azar (7 December) protests, the freeing of the former Vice President --- accompanied by his promise to resume blogging --- is a welcome boost.

It also may be a sign that there may be a limited fightback within the regime against the power of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. More and more evidence is accumulating, as in journalist Maziar Bahari's account released this weekend, of the Revolutionary Guard's key, perhaps dominant, role in overseeing detentions and eclipsing the power of other agencies like the Ministry of Intelligence and Iran's judiciary. In recent weeks, high-ranking judiciary officials and members of Parliament have been demanding a process to "wrap up" the detentions with formal sentences; since last Tuesday, it seems that the trials and verdicts have accelerated.

Iran: Economics, Missing Money, and Ahmadinejad v. Parliament

We have followed closely the President's contest with Parliament over his economic policies, but an article in Rooz Online indicates that this may be only the tip of the political iceberg. As our updates today are also indicating, there may be a showdown between Ahmadinejad and the Majlis over charges of mismanagement and, implicitly if not explicitly corruption.

Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani fired another shot yesterday:

The Majlis can consider judicial action against the administration’s refusal to provide it with reports. We have reminded the administration orally and in writing of the urgency of receiving reports, but unfortunately the reports have not arrived. The Economics Committee can investigate the issue and present its finding to the Majlis so that the necessary judicial steps can be taken to receive the requested reports.

SEE ALSO: The Latest on Iran (23 November): Reading the Signals of Abtahi’s Release

Larijani's rather bureaucratic statement rests upon a potentially explosive Parliamentary committee report on Ahmadinejad's privatisation policies:


“The money that the administration has deposited into the treasury from the proceeds of privatizing public entities is 47.8 percent less than the amount passed in the 2008 budget bill.” The reason for the drop in revenues is hinted at in another passage, criticising the administration for selling off companies without changing their management or structure. The firms are not being bought by private entities but by "quasi-governmental" groups who reap the profits of the change of ownership:

A large portion of the 190 thousand and 114 billion Rials of the purchased stock until October 2009 in the name of privatizing state-owner entities was essentially purchased not by private entities but by entities affiliated with state institutions that are not part of the private sector.

The report notes the distribution of the millions of dollars of stock in large state-owned enterprises to families, with the administration refusing to pay dividends on the stocks and, thus not deposited the proceeds of payments to the national treasury.

Even more provocative, however, is the report's citation of two cases involving companies in which the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has a significant interest: the sale of the Anguran mine, the largest lead mine in the Middle East, and the recent sale of 51 percent of the Iranian Telecommunication Organization’s stock to the “Tose’e Etemad Mobin” corporation .