The Latest from Iran (28 September): Signals of Power

NEW Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Scott Lucas in La Stampa
Non-Proliferation and “Iran’s Nukes”: Chris Emery on Al Jazeera English
Latest Iran Video: The Universities Protest (28 September)
NEW Translating Iran: The New Site for Latest Documents

Iran: English Text of Dastgheib Letter to Assembly of Experts (22 September)
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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1940 GMT: Pedestrian offers some additional information on the events at the University of Tehran today. Contrary to our earlier report (0940 GMT), Minister of Science and Technology Kamran Daneshjoo was present. However, as Pedestrian notes from photos of the gathering, the crowd was sparse with almost no students in the audience.

1640 GMT: Getting Serious with Law-Breakers. Two stories showing the Government's firm and not-in-any-way-nervous response to protest. Drivers who honk their car horns during protests have been warned that they may be summoned to court. Fans attending the biggest match in Iranian league football, the Tehran derby between Esteglhal and Persepolis, should expect special security measures (which, of course, are in no way connected with recent Green Wave protests at football matches).

1635 GMT: Credit to the BBC. Earlier today we were less than charitable about "mainstream" media who did not seem to notice that demonstrations were occurring at Tehran University. The BBC's main site has posted a story with video.

1630 GMT: HomyLafayette has published an excellent overview of the sell-off of the Iranian state telecommunications company, in which a consortium linked to the Revolutionary Guard took a 51 percent stake.

1620 GMT: The Facebook site connected with Mir Hossein Mousavi has posted an extract from his statement today: "Ironically those who feel defeated in this year’s Qods day events were those who benefited the most from it. They found out in the most obvious way that three months of unprecedented violence not only did not have slightest effect on people’s presence, but rather made it more extensive."

Mousavi also made an indirect response to those who questioned his appearance at the rally amidst "pro-Government" demonstrators: "In the last Friday of this year’s Ramadan, I was present among those who some of them were welcoming me with their fists and were wishing my death. I was reviewing their faces as we were participating in the rally and I saw that l love them and that our victory is not something that anyone would be defeated in it."

1610 GMT: The BBC Persian report on the Assembly of Experts plan (1545 GMT) may not mention details but another account does allege that three conditions have been attached to the proposal: 1) no mention of "velvet revolution"; 2) no condemnation of street protests; and 3) no statement of support for the Ahmadinejad Government.

1555 GMT: Excuse of the Day. As long-time readers might recall, Enduring America has a special Swine Flu crisis team. So we were impressed to see the Iranian Government suddenly invoke the virus to close down universities for a week. We are certain that this is an imminent threat, even more imminent than Iran's nuclear programme, so that the closure has nothing to do with today's demonstrations. After all, Government ministers said in July that swine flu might delay the start of the academic year, a statement which was entirely unconnected with the political protests that were occurring at the time.

1545 GMT: The Rafsanjani Plan? BBC Persian reports the statement of Hashemi Rafsanjani that he brought ideas from the Expediency Council to last week's Assembly of Experts meeting for a resolution of the political crisis. Details of the plan were not given.

1525 GMT: It appears that all websites connected with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are now down.

1405 GMT: Mehdi Karroubi has written another letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani, pressing the former President on how far he and the Assembly of Experts will seek to change the system and its handling of issues including the abuse of detainees (the subject of Karroubi's first letter to Rafsanjani in late July) but also privatisations benefitting the Revolutionary Guards, social questions, and the propaganda of State media.

1350 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi has issued a new statement on the "turning point" of the Qods Day demonstrations. He has also argued against further sanctions on Iran, for example, over its nuclear programmes, as the Iranian people have suffered enough under their "coup government".

1225 GMT: Latest news is dominated by what is coming out of Iran on the university protests. Not that anyone in the "mainstream" media is taking a bit of notice.

Indeed, there is a de facto alliance between Iranian state media and its "Western" counterparts to ignore the demonstrations in favour of narrow attention to Missiles, Missiles, Missiles. Fars News' triumphalism or Press TV's headline, "IRGC: We test fired upgraded missile models", can be swapped with CNN's lead story, "Iran fires off long-range missiles in latest test" or the BBC's "Iran tests longest range missiles" or Al Jazeera English's "Iran tests Shahab 3 missile".

0940 GMT: Universities Open, Protests Begin. As one of our readers has noted in Comments, reports are coming in of protests at universities as they begin the new academic year. An account of the demonstrations at the University of Tehran with chants of "Death to the Dictator!" is on-line, and video of the protest at  has been posted. There is a claim of more than 1000 students demonstrating at Daneshkadeh-ye Khabar (News College).

No one from President Ahmadinejad's office was present at the opening ceremony at the University of Tehran, and the Minister of Science was also absent.

0720 GMT: Missile Games. Iranian state media has published the next part of its script, Iran Is Really, Really Tough:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has successfully tested long-range Shahab-3 missile in a military drill dubbed The Great Prophet IV in a bid to bolster its defense capabilities, Press TV has learned....Shahab-3 missiles are said to have a range of 1,300 to 2,000 kilometers.

"Western" media will now take the stage to say, "Iran is Going to Kill Israel" (filling in the name of the country, which is not mentioned in the Press TV newsflash). Israeli leaders will hint darkly that they may now have to pursue military action,  and everybody will be very, very flustered as the 1 October talks in Geneva turn from engagement into showdown.

0635 GMT: Academic Fact of the Day. Yesterday we noted the allegation of the French newspaper Liberation that the Iranian Minister of Transport, Hamid Behbahani, plagiarised from French, Canadian, and Chinese scholars in a 2006 article. An EA reader adds, from the same article, that Behbahani was the Ph.D. thesis director of....Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

0615 GMT: And let's also pay tribute to Pedestrian for this item about Hojatoleslam Dehnavi on Iranian state television on the threat of “prank calls”, warning “housewives not to get emotionally attached to the callers":

Married women shouldn’t start talking, because before long, a longing develops. One housewife told me how she gets flustered if the caller does not call for one day. One other told me to find a way to pull her from this sinkhole of corruption she’s gotten herself into. These are married women after all, with husbands. Save yourselves from this sinkhole of corruption. What will you do with your conscience?

So, to elevate this serious discussion readers, what's your favourite prank call that, of course, does not threaten innoncent housewives? (I favour, "Do you keep Prince Albert in a can?", but I don't think that translates into Farsi.)

0600 GMT: Pedestrian has more --- much more --- on Javad Larijani's assault on the Green movement (0445 GMT).

Larijani not only linked the opposition to the Muhajedin-e-Khalq (MKO), with its 30-year campaign to overthrow the Iranian Government, he directly equated Mir Hossein Mousavi with Masoud Rajavi, the long-time head of the MKO: “Mousavi lost a good future in politics. He could have remained a great figure, but...[his] betrayal of the revolution is at one with Rajavi’s.” Larijani also launched a furious verbal assault on Seyed Hassan Khomenei, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomenei: “It is very inappropriate for the Imam’s family to support a certain political faction that is being applauded by traitors and zionists.”

Perhaps most intriguing, however, is an apparent attempt by Larijani to split the opposition by refraining from an attack on Mehdi Karroubi: “Karoubi is a pleasant man and considering his influential role in the revolution, we shouldn’t be too hard on him.”

0445 GMT: While international attention is almost exclusively on the Iranian nuclear programme, with the construction of the second enrichment facility near Qom, the internal power politics are far more significant for the fate of the Ahmadinejad Government.

We've published the text of a letter by Ayatollah Dastgheib, which highlights the intense debate within the Assembly of Experts over the future of the Islamic Republic and the space that should be given to the Green opposition. Meanwhile, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Judiciary's Human Rights Division (and the brother of the Speaker of the Parliament and the head of Judiciary), has tied the Green Wave not only to Israel but to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which has challenged the Islamic Republic for 30 years with assassinations, bombings, and sabotage: "“Mousavi was guilty of a great sin after the revolution and launched the reformist faction in the direction of protesting the system....If they had kept themselves from being angry after the elections, they would have seen that many of the Hypocrites [People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, the political wing of Mujahedin-e-Khalq] and Zionists were applauding their activities.”

Fars News chooses, however, to avoid the internal disputes in favour of the Iranian challenge to the world on its military programmes. It upholds the Revolutionary Guard's praise for the "very high precision" of the missiles that Iran has test-fired in military exercises.

The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue

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2100 GMT: Back to Compromise? After a day of tough signals, this paragraph on Press TV's website from President Ahmadinejad return-from-US press conference in Tehran jumps out: ""By his change of rhetoric, Obama has signaled a strong commitment in the presence of the General Assembly. If the American government is seriously pursuing the path of change, Obama's speech can be considered a start."

2045 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi's website Kalemeh is down, and Mehdi Karroubi's Tagheer is still suspended 72 hours after announcing it was going off-line for construction.

1830 GMT: Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi Giving Up Key Position? Tabnak offers the intriguing report that Ayatollah Yazdi, a firm supporter of President Ahmadinejad, is resigning from the Secretariat of the Assembly of Experts.Yazdi will retain his membership of the Assembly and his Vice Chair post, but his withdrawal from the Executive diminishes a key challenger to Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Yazdi was absent from the recent Assembly of Experts meeting.

1545 GMT: An Economic Victory for the Republican Guard. An Iranian consortium in which the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps is reputed to be a major actor has bought a 51 percent stake in the State telecommunications firm in the biggest privatisation in Iran's history.

1445 GMT: Another Ministerial Fraud? After the criticism of the Ministers of Interior and Science for dubious doctoral degrees from British universities, now it is the Minister of Transport Hamid Behbahani who faces allegations of false credentials. An article in the French daily newspaper Libération, claims Behbahani plagiarised parts of a work of the Professor Christophe Claramunt, his Chinese colleagues, and the Canadian academic Gerry Forbes for a 2006 publication in a Lithuanian journal.

1440 GMT: Your Latest Proof of the "Velvet Revolution". A Revolutionary Guard offical has said that the television signals of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting were jammed during the election campaign. Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali claimed that "enemies of the country" had tried to jam the transmission during a Presidential campaign debate.

1200 GMT: Report that student activists Ali Rafai and Mohsen Jafari have been released from detention.

1045 GMT: The New York Times Gets the Story Wrong...Big-Time. EA's Mr Smith picks up on this morning's article by , NewDavid Sanger and William Broad, which opens:

The Obama administration plans to tell Iran this week that it must open a newly revealed nuclear enrichment site to international inspectors “within weeks”, according to senior administration officials. The administration will also tell Tehran that inspectors must have full access to the key personnel who put together the clandestine plant and to the documents surrounding its construction, the officials said Saturday.

The story asserts that, while "Iranian officials have...said the facility near Qom is for peaceful purposes, they have not explained why it was located inside a heavily guarded base of the Revolutionary Guards".

Mr Smith notes:

This is incorrect. In remarks yesterday to Iranian Television, [Iran's top nuclear offcial Ali Akhbar] Salehi said that they felt like they needed to build a plant for uranium enrichment with maximum security to avoid 'stopping the production of enriched uranium for peaceful purposes'. I think everyone agrees that Natanz [Iran's first enrichment plant] isn't that secure, built as it is in open air. Therefore you would have to think that Iran is getting pushed in going underground with its nuclear plants because of the never-ending military threats, mostly from Israel but also, incessantly, from the US.

So I wonder what would have happened if the hawks in Tel Aviv and DC had actually kept quiet rather than waving the military scarecrow all the time.

The US can say whatever it wants, but the heart of the matter is that, unless the IAEA proves that Iran has been feeding uranium into these plants, there is no violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now, we can discuss ad libitum what the real aims of Iran are, as Sick has valiantly done, but everyone is, so far, putting intentions on trial, rather than actual, hard evidence on violations by Iran. True, Iran has been lying and is not reliable in its disclosures. But does this amount to legal violation? It doesn't appear so...

0835 GMT: This is More Like It. A day after Iran's nuclear negotiator offered Iran's willingness to consider International Atomic Energy Agency access to the second enrichment facility, its ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, puts on a show of defiance: "I categorically reject that there have been any concealment or any deception."

As we predicted, Soltaniyeh rests Iran's legal case on the second plant on the claim that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty did not force revelation of the facility's construction, only its imminent capacity for enrichment: "It is a pity that none of these three leaders have legal advisers to inform them that according to comprehensive safeguards we are only obliged to inform six months before we put nuclear material [into the plant]."

The ambassador adds the flourish that it is Washington, Paris, and London who are the nuclear rule-breakers:

Those three countries in fact have violated for the last 40 years NPT articles. The United Kingdom has [a] secret program of [Trident] nuclear submarines...[costing more than £30 billion.... France is also working on the nuclear weapon programs continuously. Americans are working hard on the nuclear weapon posture review. These are all deceptions and concealment.

0825 GMT: Two new pieces on the Iran nuclear programme. Ali Yenidunya takes a look at Israel's intervention (rhetorical so far) while Gary Sick assesses how the "secret plant" story shapes US strategy and tactics in talks with Tehran.

0655 GMT: Acting Tough. In a move about as surprising as the Pope's endorsement of Catholicism, Iran has announced that it has test-fired two short-range missiles in a missile exercise called "Great Prophet IV". And there will be more launches as the exercise is planned to last several days.

The signal to the "West" --- We Won't Be Pushed Around --- will poke US and UK media into headlines of how this demonstrates Tehran's threat in the context of the furour over the second enrichment plant.

0615 GMT: And a Deal on the International Front? US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moved quickly to welcome the comment of Iran's lead official on the nuclear programme, Ali Akhbar Salehi, that Iran would permit visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency, under the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to its second enrichment plant (a "defensive facility"). Clinton said:

It is always welcome when Iran makes a decision to comply with the international rules and regulations, and particularly with respect to the IAEA. We are very hopeful that, in preparing for the meeting on October 1, Iran comes and shares with all of us what they are willing to do and give us a timetable on which they are willing to proceed

Hmm.... Salehi's remark appears to have been a holding statement while the Ahmadinejad Government considers its next move, and Clinton's welcome --- unsurprisingly --- fits into a US strategy to back Tehran into a corner of acceptance. The Los Angeles Times reports this morning:

The U.S. and its allies plan to demand that Iran provide "unfettered access" to scientists and information regarding an underground uranium enrichment plant suspected of being part of a secret nuclear weapons program, an Obama administration official said Saturday. A deadline for the access has not yet been determined, but Iran probably would have to comply within weeks.

0600 GMT: Relatively little breaking in Iran this morning, as we look for further signals that there is a compromise plan, led by or involving Hashemi Rafsanjani, making its way through the Iranian system.

What little has come out points more to the continued fencing between opposing camps. Reports are circulating of more official complaints against Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, while Mehdi Karroubi's Etemade Melli party website has published information about the abuse and rape of another detainee.

The most interesting claim is that Sardar Khorshidi, the father of President Ahmadinejad's son-in-law and a decorated commander during the Iran-Iraq War, has said he personally witnessed vote-rigging in the June election. He also points to the fragility of the regime: ""If each protester had a stick on Qods Day, the Army wouldn't have withsood them."

Iran: The "Die Zeit" Article on Opposition and Change

The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?
The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue

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For days, there has been a buzz about an article in the German newspaper Die Zeit. Most of it is a summary profile of the opposition in Iran, but deep in the article, there is the claim of "preparations for a new government", including "a group of five to eight clerics" on fixed terms to replace the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad's resignation in favour of Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf. The translation is by Paleene on the Anonymous Iran site:


The Green is not fading out

Protest of the mothers and planning for the Day X: How the Iranian opposition organizes and continues to fight.

BY CHARLOTTE WIEDEMANN

In a live broadcast on Iranian state television a mullah gives spiritual advice. An in-caller is talking about her marital problems, then she suddenly says: "Coincidentally, my husband has the same name as our newly elected president, Mir Hussein Mousavi," The moderator silences, the program is interrupted.

On money you will nowadays often find a green victory sign or the words "Down with the dictatorship”. Or a thumbnail portrait of Neda, the best known dead from the unrest in the days after the election in June. The print works give a professional impression, instructions circulate on the internet.

A football match in Isfahan, many spectators wearing green. The television cameras are trying to avoid these images. However, Green is the colour of the football club in Isfahan; now the club is requested to find a different colour.

The movement for democracy is visible in Iran, despite of all repression, torture and show trials. It is not strong enough to stop the Ahmadinejad government. But it is strong enough to keep the country in tension. Because meetings are banned, official occasions are subverted, eg. last Friday: During the anti‐Israel Quds rallies tens of thousands held their fingers up forming the V‐sign, demanded the release of imprisoned reformers. On this day, an experience from June repeated and changed the psychology of society: It is possible to take to the streets and defy prohibitions. It is dangerous but possible.
Another hidden source of energy is feeding the green movement; it has conciliated generations in families, bridging the gap between the old, who revolted 30 years ago, and the young, suffering from the outcomes today. Thus, sons started talking with their fathers again.

Every Saturday afternoon, the mothers of the killed protestors gather silently in Tehran's Laleh Park, all dressed in black . Other women surround them in silent solidarity. On a list of 72 dead, who are known by name, there are also workers, shoe salesmen, small employees. How the battle lines harden can be observed by the violation of previously existing taboos. Mohammad Khatami, the ex‐president, was pushed to the ground last Friday, his black turban torn down. In the first place, the usually moderate Khatami had accused the regime of "fascist" methods.

There is almost no way back after such actions and words. The events in Iran roll forward with a tenacious implacability. But where to? And can anyone control this process?

The young look forward to the great turning point, the elders are afraid of the chaos

The young, the students whose creativity influenced the aesthetics of the movement, still burn for the hope of something great to happen, a radical change ‐ in the system as in their lives. More prudent Iranians fear the power vacuum of a regime falling apart rapidly.

The 68‐year‐old Mir Hussein Mousavi, a candidate in June, remains the figurehead for all sides; but it is the width of the movement which makes him virtually incapable of acting. Coming from the system himself, the former prime minister wants to win as many of Ahmadinejad's conservative opponents as possible. For the moderates within the nomenklatura, Mousavi offers a great advantage, an insider explaine: "You know, he might take away their power, but not their lives.” But at the same time Mousavi has to appear unyielding, if he doesn’t want to lose the support of the young, and of the modern middle classes.

On the street outside his home, the regime has installed surveillance cameras. When Mousavi leaves home, a double cordon accompanies him: his own people and a troop of the Revolutionary Guard. The danger of being arrested is become greater for the leading group, so earlier plans for founding a party or a mass organization were discarded. The movement for democracy is to expand as a "network" which can’t be banned.

“Everyone appreciating the Iranian and Islamic identity of the country as a value and the constitution as the fundament for action is welcome "said Alireza Beheshti, a close adviser Mousavi. “The framework of the Islamic Republic should remain, but with corrections”, can be heard in Mousavi’s vicinity. Especially the civil rights under the constitution should show to advantage, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

In his statements "to the people of Iran”, which Mousavi only can send out on the internet, he calls for: a reform of the electoral law, press freedom, the licensing of private radio and television stations, a law prohibiting the military to intervene in economics and politics, the release of political prisoners and the penalisation of atrocities in the prisons. In Tehran, it is said that along with this minimum catalogue subject-specific sections have begun "with the preparations for a new government". Members of the current administration as well as Iranians living abroad are said to be involved in these groups.

Replacing the powerful revolutionary leader, a group of five to eight clerics should directly be elected by the people for a limited period of time. They should represent a religious pluralism equivalent to the freedom of choice in Shiite everyday life, where believers are free to choose the teachings of a scholar they want to follow. In future, nobody should be allowed to rely on divine authority. Mousavi: "Nobody has the right to say: How I look at the Islam is the one and only valid way."

This will be no quick go. Sustained pressure and a progressive wearing down of Ahmadinejad’s regime could force him to resign over the medium term, that is the hope. Mousavi does not insist in replacing him. To gain time for the elucidation of the population, an intermediate solution might be necessary. This could look like this: Ahmadinejad resigns in favour of the Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The moderate, popular conservative had recognized the width of the People's Movement in June, when he estimated the demonstrators to be in the three millions.

Mousavi seems to be aware of being severly influenced by three decades of Islamic Republic, so not to be able to represent Iran's future. As a strict Muslim, he constantly would struggle inwardly to meet the youth’s demand of a liberalized lifestyle. Iranians drinking alcohol should have a place in the movement ‐ but Mousavi does not want to sit down at a table where the wine is drunk.

Mehdi Karroubi, the second reform candidate, is acting much more aggressive. In recent weeks, the fine-boned clergyman was the real challenger of the regime. He published that men and women were raped in detention ‐ which has deeply shaken many Iranians, even the more simple, religious people in Ahmadinejad's clientele. Karroubi wouldn’t make a leader who is appealing the masses, but he has made the cracks in the system visible.

Mousavi is resembling the figure of the king in chess: small moves, in case of danger retreat, always covered by his men. It is not cowardice. His fellow campaigners assume the movement to slide into the underground, to radicalize and to narrow dangerously, if Mussawi is detained. He sees himself as someone who can open an unbloody way to change. But then the people have to decide which system they want to live in.

For the first time since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Iranian opposition abroad has found a common language with the forces of change within the country. This opens up options that were unthinkable only recently. In the case Mousavi and Karroubi are arrested, the leadership of the Green movement would automatically be taken over abroad. Soon a statement will be released in Tehran, saying a five‐member committee in the diaspora ‐ the names are not disclosed ‐ is authorized to replace the leadership in case needed. The symbolic gesture says a lot in a country where the fear of foreign agents is almost obsessive. And Mousavi signals the regime: Look out! If you arrested me, you obstruct the peaceful path to change.

In the diaspora, former bitter enemies have reconciled. The monarchists are relegated to irrelevance, while the advocates of a secular republic criticize Mousavi only mutedly as for the time being. Several prominent heads of the reformers are currently in the West, among them the former Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani in London, the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Paris, and reform theologian Mohsen Kadivar in the US.

Kadivar, currently teaching at Duke University, appealed to "the Iranian bourgeoisie" to provide funds for a new, independent national television. "The cost of a green medium have to be borne by Iranian investors." The Iranian women are requested to donate their jewels as a patriotic gesture. Free, uncensored and genuine Iranian Radio and satellite television: That's what currently is worked for in four countries. In Amsterdam, Mehdi Jami as a former head of the Farsi-speaking Radio Zamaneh has a lot of experience with bloggers in Iran. Now he wants to establish citizen journalism as a new generation of broadcasting, giving the young Iranians, who constantly provide their clandestine videos on YouTube, a national platform.

Thus, networking, making various voices audible and being virtual, is the strength of the green movement ‐ and its weakness. It lacks a clearly audible voice, which eg comments on the resuming nuclear negotiations between Iran and the international community, beginning 1 Oct. Suspicion about Ahmadinejad buying legitimacy abroad which he is denied at home is rampant even among those who want the dialogue, basically. In Mousavi’s vicinity they say that "what ever is agreed now has no validity until it has been reviewed by a legitimate, new government of Iran." Mousavi does not want to seek confrontation in this highly sensitive issue.

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2140 GMT: We've now posted an English translation of the Die Zeit article, with its explosive rumours of significant change in the Iranian system.

2005 GMT: Rouydad carries an explosive story, from an inside source, that the Ministry of Guidance and Culture has created a five-person committee to create and spread disinformation, including the claim of a meeting between billionaire George Soros and former President Mohammad Khatami as part of the "velvet revolution". The committee allegedly includes the head of a news agency, an expert on the Internet, a television presenter, and an intelligence official. Millions of dollars are being devoted to the effort.

1955 GMT: President Ahmadinejad has returned from New York with an upbeat political assessment of his "satisfactory" and "successful" stay in the US. He has emphasised the need for change in the management of the United Nations, including the Security Council. No mention, however, of the nuclear issue.

1925 GMT: Report that activist and Mehdi Karroubi supporter Housein Mahdavi has been arrested in Khoramabad.

1730 GMT: Today's "Velvet Revolution" Showcase. It comes courtesy of the Supreme Leader's Advisor For Military Affairs, Major General Seyed Yahiya Rahim Safavi, who said on Saturday, "The (enemies') soft war is aimed at changing the (Iranian nation's) culture, views, values, national beliefs and belief in values. Soft warfare is a complicated type of political, cultural, information operations launched by the world powers to create favorable changes in the target countries."

1715 GMT: The Wall Street Journal, snarling for a confrontation with Iran, inadvertently exposes the weakness in the dramatic presentation of the second enrichment facility:

"Let's also not forget the boost Iran got in late 2007, when a U.S. national intelligence estimate concluded that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and kept it frozen. The U.S. spy agencies reached this dubious conclusion while apparently knowing about the site near Qom."

Probably for the chest-thumpers at the WSJ is that the conclusion is not dubious at all (see the State Department's defense of it in a separate entry). Even if the second facility had taken in shipments of uranium, which is not alleged even by the US Government, even if high-grade centrifuges had been installed, which is not established, even if those centrifuges had begun enriching uranium, which is not claimed anywhere, that would not establish a direct link with a resumed nuclear weapons program. It would merely establish that Iran now had some quantity of enriched uranium which might or might not be for military rather than civilian purposes.

However, the WSJ's railing do not have to be logical to show the problems for the Obama Administration's strategy. Opponents will now claim that the 2nd enrichment facility shows that all intelligence assessments from 2007 must be thrown out and will put by default the faith-based assertion that Iran is hell-bent on the Bomb and beyond diplomacy.

1650 GMT: The Institute for Science and International Security has posted images "of two possible locations of the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction near Qom, Iran. Both are tunnel facilities located within military compounds approximately 30-40 kilometers away."

1620 GMT: Just to follow up on the biggest of rumours (see 1400 GMT) for change in the Iranian system, with the five-person committee to replace the Supreme Leader and the replacement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Tehran Mayor Qalibaf. I've read the Die Zeit piece, and it reads like rumour, Chinese whispers, and wishful thinking rather than hard information on any plan from Hashemi Rafsanjani or another source.

1600 GMT: The Grand Rafsanjani Plan? While the details of Hashemi Rafsanjani's purported political compromise are in the category of rumour, its existence is verified by the number of politicians and clerics asking for its consideration. Reformist MP Darius Ghanbari has called for "more efforts...to achieve...consensus and a calm atmosphere" and said, "Hashemi has all these features to bring the sides together", although "this will be achieved only when conditions that allow the rebuilding of trust to eliminate extremism and hatred." Another MP has called on Parliament's National Security Commission to act on the lines set out by Rafsanjani's 14 July Friday Prayer speech as the "best solution for an exit from the current situation".

1445 GMT: Not-So-Dramatic Breaking News. Iran's chief official for the nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Salehi, says Tehran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the second uranium enrichment facility.

Look for the media to play this up as an important development. It's not. The logical strategy for Iran is to draw out the process of negotiation over access, appearing to be receptive to international demands for inspection while defending sovereignty and political position. That's why Salehi "didn't specify when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency could visit the site" and said "the timing will be worked out with the U.N. watchdog".

1410 GMT: The Battle Among the Experts. Ayande News Agency has revealed the bitter division in the Assembly of Experts. Hussein Ka'abi criticised Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib, who has been prominent in his condemnation of the "illegitimate" Ahmadinejad Government and the brutal suppression of post-election dissent, and started a petition amongst the members of the Assembly for Dastgheib's dismissal. It is claimed that the Supreme Leader rejected the petition.

1405 GMT: Political activist Maysam Roudak was detained on Tuesday. She was previously arrested in September 2007, charged with acting against national security, and then bailed for $50,000.

1400 GMT: Noting the Even More Intriguing Rumour. This morning (0455 GMT) we wrote about the unconfirmed story that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to bring a political resolution through the intervention of the Expediency Council, which he chairs.

Even that pales, however, before the stunning claims in the German Die Zeit. The scenario is that a new system of "Supreme Leaders" with set terms would replace the current overall Supreme Leader with office for life and, more specifically, that the current Mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, would replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President.

We're looking for the original German article, but a Farsi summary is available via Deutsche Welle.

0930 GMT: Nonsense and War Talk. The "analysis" of the Iran in many of today's newspapers is simply awful. The Guardian of London's "Q and A Guide" bluntly informs, "[This] shows Iran has not been telling the truth about its nuclear activities," omitting little points such as Tehran's declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday and the differing interpretations of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The journalist, Ian Black, blithely assures, "It seems unlikely that a revelation of such importance would have been made without rigorous checking of sources." Which sounds good unless you realise that Black's next paragraph, "It is known that two years ago the US managed to penetrate Iranian computer systems," refers to the highly suspect American claim of a magic Iranian laptop, supposedly obtained from a defector, which has yet to be seen by the IAEA.

All of this might be harmless if ludicrous, were it not for the inconvenience that it aids and abets talk of War, War, War. In The Wall Street Journal, Anthony Cordesman, exalted by the US media as a top military expert, explains, "Israel must consider not just whether to proceed with a strike against Iran—but how", and kindly offers his "Iran Attack Plan". And the BBC's flagship radio programme, Today, having just heard from the British Foreign Minister, David Miliband, that diplomacy must be pursued, immediately turned to Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who declared, well, no, the military option should be prepared.

0505 GMT: The Iranian (State) Line. Press TV frames President Ahmadinejad's political strategy, which is to downplay any dispute and offer on the surface an accommodation over the second enrichment facility: "Ahmadinejad: 2nd nuclear site open for inspection". It summarises the President's New York press conference, which was delayed yesterday, and features his stance that Iran is within the law (which we picked up in Friday updates): "According to the IAEA rules, countries must inform the Agency 6 months ahead of the gas injection in their uranium enrichment plants. We have done it 18 months ahead and this should be appreciated not condemned."

0455 GMT: And, if you're not caught up with the "secret nuclear plant", what are the internal developments in Iran? To be honest, in the last 48 hours, all parties have caught breath and assessed their positions. The most intriguing possibility is that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to seize the initiative by setting up the Expediency Council as the proposer and arbiter of a political settlement. The Council is a different body from the clerical Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani also heads: its official function in the Iranian system is to rule in disputes between the Parliament and the Guardian Council, but it works primarily as an advisory body to the Supreme Leader.

At this point, the story is still rumour, but it is prominent in Internet chatter. Our readers offer a useful introduction in their comments on yesterday's updates.

0420 GMT: A "false flag" ship is one that disguises its true origin by sailing under the colours of another country. The parallel for Iran today is a near-hysterical situation in which an issue far removed from the critical questions of the post-election conflict suddenly becomes the primary, and even the sole, criterion by which Tehran is judged.

The "Western" media run headlong, escorted and often led by a Government agency, towards a finish line of the most dramatic and damning tale. The Times of London turns itself into Boys' Own Intelligence Journal, "How secrecy over Iran's Qom nuclear facility was finally blown away".

The New York Times gets closer to the immediate politics in its opening paragraph, "On Tuesday evening in New York, top officials of the world nuclear watchdog agency approached two of President Obama’s senior advisers to deliver the news: Iran had just sent a cryptic letter describing a small “pilot” nuclear facility that the country had never before declared." Then, however, it takes the US Government's bait, substituting supposed anguish and hurt for Washington's balancing of "engagement" and pressure on Tehran (see Chris Emery's analysis, which is far beyond anything in mainstream media this morning), "The Americans were surprised by the letter, but they were angry about what it did not say. American intelligence had come across the hidden tunnel complex years earlier, and the advisers believed the situation was far more ominous than the Iranians were letting on."

CNN, meanwhile, hits a new low in its spiralling coverage of Iran, falling into the Iranian President's own public-relations campaign by putting him on The Larry King Show, which usually devotes itself to interviewing Hollywood celebrities, participants in headline crime stories, or anyone loosely connected with Michael Jackson. Ahmadinejad's far-from-stunning revelation? ""We simply didn't expect President Obama to say something that was baseless."

None of this hyperbole and alarm, fuelled by the US Government's need to put pressure on Tehran before talks begin in Geneva on 1 October, comes close to the complexity of the politics on the uranium enrichment facility near Qom. None of it appreciates what an EA correspondent points out:

Let's hold our horses on this one. The International Atomic Energy Agency has to certify that the plant is not new and that Iran has been working in it for years. Right now there is complete discordance between the Iranian and Western versions of events on this, but both curiously point out to one key factor: no enrichment is happening right now in the Qom installation, and construction is still in progress.

But all of the hyperbole and alarm replaces any consideration of and even attention to the internal developments in Iran.

Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Interviews on CNN's Larry King (September 2009 and September 2008)

The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue
Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine

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Many apologies that, in a bit of editorial haste this morning, an old Ahmadinejad interview was posted. An extract from yesterday's interview is now posted, along with the September 2008 full interview. The person responsible for the blunder was thrashed and sacked. Unfortunately, as that person is me, he has been rehired.

September 2009: Part 1 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmrszPpeP08&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 2 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqI6GR_eHDU&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 3 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkjI1bxBsvs&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 4 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ekh5ofRMYE&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 5 of 6



September 2008: Part 1 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjuCXuESyyA&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 2 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQezkb5MRsM&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 3 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxYT0PBPniY&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 4 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V415rE4WZ1M&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 5 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Qxoqq8ECo&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 6 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2YtiQOwdug&feature=related[/youtube]