Mehdi Saharkhiz (“onlymehdi”) talks with Diane Sawyer of ABC News about his use of YouTube to circulate information and images of post-election events in Iran:

The Latest from Iran (12 February): The Day After 22 Bahman

Tags: ABC News, Diane Sawyer, Iran, IranElections, Mehdi Saharkhiz, YouTube

2045 GMT: But There are Limits. One leading international media organisation is proclaiming that it has mobilised itself to cover Thursday’s events in Iran. It has even set up a dedicated Twitter account for Iran, announced throughout today in a series of tweets.

Only problem is that this broadcaster/website hasn’t quite got the hang of using Twitter for gathering latest news rather than for self-promotion. Total number of Twitter accounts it is following? 7, all of whom happen to be its own staff.

NEW Iran Document: Khatami Statement for 22 Bahman (8 February)
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Iran: “Conservative Opposition” Offer to Mousavi “Back Khamenei, We Sack Ahmadinejad”
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The Latest from Iran (7 February): Tremors

2020 GMT: 22 Bahman is Back! The “Western” media, which only 12 hours ago seemed to be oblivious to anything Iran-related  unless it had the word “nuclear”, has re-discovered the internal events and tensions. Numerous services are carrying the report of the Associated Press on the Supreme Leader’s speech (1245, 1420, & 1940 GMT), while The New York Times picks up on Reuters’ summary of the statements of Mir Hossein Mousavi (1635 GMT) and Mohammad Khatami (separate entry). Even America’s ABC News has taken notice, catching up with Saturday’s interview of Mehdi Karroubi in a German magazine.

And CNN, declaring that it was going to cover Iran closely before and on Thursday, has launched a special section on its website.
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Tags: 22 Bahman, ABC News, Agh Bahman, Ahmad Montazeri, Ali Akhbar Salehi, Ali Fallahian, Amir Sadeghi, Ashura, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, BBC, CNN, Elm-o-Sanat University, Emaddedin Baghi, Ezzatollah Zarghami, Farhange Ashti, Feizollah Arab-Sorkhi, Green Voice of Freedom, Hillary Clinton, Hossein Hamadani, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Islamic Iran Participation Front, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Juan Cole, Kahrizak Prison, Los Angeles Times, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mark Fitzpatrick, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani, Mohsen Aminzadeh, Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, New York Times, Saeed Mortazavi, Seyed Hassan Khomeini, Tehran Live, Washington Post

2330 GMT: Mahmoud Down. Signing off tonight with this news — looks like the latest victim in the cyber-war is President Ahmadinejad’s blog.

2320 GMT: Another Rights-First Shot from the Obama Administration. Despite (possibly because of) the recent sanctions-related rush of spin in US newspapers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a moment to focus on Iran’s political conflict today, criticising the regime’s “ruthless repression” of protesters: “We have deep concerns about their behavior, we have concerns about their intentions and we are deeply disturbed by the mounting signs of ruthless repression that they are exercising against those who assemble and express viewpoints that are at variance with what the leadership of Iran wants to hear.”

2220 GMT: Have You Made “The List”? Fars News has published the names of the 60 organisations and media outlets “outed” by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence as unacceptable for contact by Iranians.

There are a lot of familiar faces, given that many of these dangerous groups were listed in indictments in the Tehran trials in August: Georges Soros’ Open Society Institute is here, as is the Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center, whose scholar Haleh Esfandiari was detained by the Iranians in 2007. Both the National Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute get a mention. So doe the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hoover Institute in California, Freedom House, and of course the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The National Endowment for Democracy, funded but not run by the US Government, also gets a citation, and Human Rights Watch is a definite no-go area.

Looks like we’ve missed out — in the United Kingdom, the conference centre at Wilton Park, where foreign agents must gather to plan regime change, is mentioned as is the “Centre for Democracy Studies”.

Just one question, if anyone at the Ministry of Intelligence is on Overnight Foreigner Watch: why does Yale get to be the one university to receive the Great Satan’s Helper prize? (And, yes, we’re already getting furious e-mails from our Harvard friends.)

2200 GMT: Have just arrived in Beirut, where I will be learning from the best specialists on the Middle East and Iran this week. Thanks to EA staff for finding journalist Maziar Bahari’s interview with Britain’s Channel 4. We’ve now posted the video of Bahari, who was detained for four months after the Presidential election.

2000 GMT: Britain’s Channel 4 News has just broadcast a moving interview with journalist Maziar Bahari who was held in Evin prison for 119 days. We’ll post a link when it becomes available. Chief political correspondent Jon Snow also referred back to his exclusive interview with President Ahmadinejad which took place in Shiraz just before  Christmas. Ahmadinejad denied troops were intimidating opponents and warned the West not to assume his country was weak.

NEW Latest Iran Video: Maziar Bahari on Britain’s Channel 4
NEW Iran: Five Expatriate Intellectuals Issue “The Demands of the Green Movement”
NEW Latest Iran Video: Interview with Committee of Human Rights Reporters (3 January)
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The Latest from Iran (3 January): Re-positioning

1540 GMT: I’m en route to a conference in the Middle East (more news tomorrow) so updates may be limited today. The EA team is minding the shop so keep sending in information and analysis.
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Tags: ABC News, Abdolali Bazargan, Abdolkarim Soroush, Akbar Ganji, Ashura, Asia Times, Association of Combatant Clergy, Ataollah Mohajerani, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, Ayatollah Mousavi-Ardebili, Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i, BBC, C4 News, Carnegie Foundation, Channel 4 (Britain), Committee of Human Rights Reporters, Council on Foreign Relations, David Sanger, Fars News, Ford Foundation, Freedom House, Haleh Esfandiari, Harvard University, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Heydar Moslehi, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights Watch, Iran, Iran Elections, Jon Snow, Kaveh Afrasiabi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Maziar Bahari, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohsen Kadivar, National Democratic Institute, National Endowment for Democracy, National Republican Institute, New America Foundation, New York Times, Open Society Institute, Press TV, Saban Centre, Saeed Habibi, Tajikistan, the Hoover Institute, This Week, Turkmenistan, Voice of America, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Wilton Park, Woodrow Wilson Center, Yale University

2310 GMT: Moving Towards Qom. More chatter on the post-funeral tension in Qom — Norooz claims people are moving from Isfahan and Najafabad to “defend” the house of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.

2300 GMT: Mahmoud Fights Back? On a day which began with our analysis that the President is scrambling to maintain any legitimacy, it appears he tried to send out a signal tonight with the dismissal of Mir Hossein Mousavi as head of the Arts Institute. Salaam News reports that Ahmadinejad flew back from Shiraz just for the meeting deciding on the sacking of Mousavi and will now return to Shiraz.

Then again, one wonders if that will be enough to show Mahmoud’s muscle. According to Peyke Iran, only 40 people were on hand to greet Ahmadinejad at Shiraz’s airport this morning.

NEW Latest Iran Video: University Demonstrations for Montazeri (22 December)
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Latest Iran Video: Mourning Montazeri (21 December — 1st Set)
Iran & The Nuclear Talks: The View from Tehran
Iran Video & Text: Montazeri’s Son Saeed On His Father’s Views, Last Words
The Latest From Iran (21 December): The Montazeri Funeral

2230 GMT: Back from break to find discussion still going on about possible paramilitary/security forces threat to Ayatollah Sane’i, with Rouydad saying that followers have declared their readiness to defend the cleric.
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Tags: ABC News, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Azad University Tehran, Barack Obama, Diane Sawyer, Elm-o-Sanat University, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Kayhan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manouchehr Mottaki, Mehdi Karroubi, Mike Mullen, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mojtaba Zolnour, Najafabad University, Norooz, Peyke Iran, Razi University, Rooz Online, Shahid Beheshti University, The Times

Video of the interview:

Get beyond the headline of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ admission, “I think it has been years” since the US had good intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s, and here are the important points from this interview:

1. The Obama approach on Afghanistan, no matter how many times Gates says “transition strategy”, is to “kick the can down the road”, putting off the deadline for another significant decision to mid-2011.

2. The Obama Administration still has no confidence that it can rely on a political center in Kabul. Look at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s far-from-ringing endorsement of Afghan President Hamid Karzai: “The proof is in the pudding. We’re going to have to wait to see how it unfolds.”

A Gut Reaction to Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Speech: The Halfway House of Long War (Part 1)
A Hail Mary Strategy in Pakistan: The Gut Reaction to Obama’s Speech (Part 2)

3. There is not a hint of an approach in Pakistan other than the Pakistani military being told to go and beat up the “Taliban”.

4. The Obama Administration has no real idea how to deal with the economic strain of this increased commitment, other than to hope that it goes away sooner rather than later.

5. So how to proceed, given all these obstacles? Repeat: Al Qa’eda, Al Qa’eda, Al Qa’eda.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: And we begin with the cornerstones of President Obama’s national security cabinet, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton; secretary of defense, Robert Gates. Welcome to you both.

This is the first time you’re here together on “This Week”. Thanks for doing it.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: The first time we’ve been called cornerstones.

(LAUGHTER)
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Tags: ABC News, al-Qaeda, Amanda Knox, Barack Obama, George Stephanopoulos, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mikhail Gorbachev, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Robert Gates, Russ Feingold, Stanley McChrystal, Taliban

NEW Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University
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NEW Iran Nuclear Talks: Tehran’s Middle Way?
Video: Sharif and Khaje Nasir Universities Protests (1 November)
Video Flashback: Ahmadinejad v. The Giant Flying Bug
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
Latest from Iran (1 November): Is This the Opposition’s Moment?

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2125 GMT: More University Protests. In addition to today’s demonstration and hunger strike at Sharif University (video in separate entry), about 400 students at Islamic Azad University of Roodehen, near Tehran, chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein”, “We support the brave Karroubi” , “Death to Dictator”, “Courageous student, join us at the November 4th rally” and “Viva Karoubi, Viva Mousavi” (English summary). There is also video of a rally at the University of Kashan, south of Tehran.

1930 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have visited the family of detainee Feizollah Arabsorkhe and claimed “investigators have been challenged by their daily conversations and dialogues with the children of the Revolution”.

Feizollah Arabsorkhi is a leading member of the reformist Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution and has been in prison since June.

Mr. Mousavi insisted that political activists and youth in the post-election protests are not “sabotaging or destroying”: “If the media were free and people were allowed to have their say, we would not have fallen to this state.”

1915 GMT: Back from a break to find a couple of stories on a relatively quiet day, as various forces prepare for 13 Aban.

Journalist Fariba Pajooh has ended her hunger strike, begun on 26 October, because of serious health problems. Pajooh was arrested on 22 August and has been detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Iranian authorities have barred Emaddedin Baghi from leaving the country to collect the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Baghi is a prominent opponent of the death penalty in Iran and founder of the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights.

1525 GMT: The Facebook site associated with Mir Hossein Mousavi has published an English translation of the account of Mehdi Karroubi’s meeting this weekend with the student organisation Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat. Beyond his claim that votes were allocated in advance of the Presidential election on 12 June, Karroubi’s speech was a rallying call:
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Tags: 13 Aban, ABC News, Ali Larijani, Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat, Emaddedin Baghi, Fariba Pajooh, Feizollah Arabsorkhe, Fox News, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Islamic Republic News Agency, Islamic University of Roodehen, Keyhan Bazargar, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manouchehr Mottaki, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani, Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, New York Times, Nuclear Proliferation, Qods Day, Reuters, Saeed Laylaz, Sarmayah, Sharif University, The Observer, University of Kashan, uranium enrichment, Zahra Rahnavard

Iran-US-Russia Deal on Enrichment, The Sequel
The Latest from Iran (20 October): Green Waves or Green Mirage?

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UPDATE 1930 GMT: Talks have ended for the day, to be resumed tomorrow. IAEA head El-Baradei said that negotiations were moving forward though more slowly than he had expected.

Julian Borger of The Guardian has a useful summary.

UPDATE 1825 GMT: Yep, that’s where the not-so-silly games are heading. Iran, wanting France out of the loop, is talking directly to the US delegation, according to Lara Setrakian of ABC News.

Press TV gives more details: An Iranian source confirms the “positive and constructive” bilateral discussions, adding, “It was agreed that more studies should be held on…renewing the secondary, control and electronic facilities” of the medical research reactor, the source added.

UPDATE 1810 GMT: Oh my, the Iranians are playing silly games now. Having wound up the media with their pre-talk threats, Tehran’s delegation decided today to give France a poke in the eye by never showing up at discussions. Other diplomats are insisting that this is not a walkout, and the French Foreign Ministry maintains, “It is a meeting of experts, in which we are participating.” However, Iranian officials via Press TV are declaring, “The elimination of France from the deal’s draft is certain.”

There is a likely explanation for this rather comic manoeuvring. Under the “third-party enrichment” proposal backed by the US, Iranian uranium is to be enriched by Russia and then sent to France to be shaped into metal plates. Tehran may be insisting that Paris is cut out of the process, with Russia sending the uranium, raised to 19.75 percent, directly back to Iran.

Some of the media coverage of yesterday’s opening of the Vienna technical talks on Iran’s uranium enrichment was beyond hopeless.

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Tags: ABC News, CNN, David Sanger, Dmitri Medvedev, France, Glenn Kessler, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, Julian Borger, Lara Setrakian, Matthew Chance, Mohammad el Baradei, New York Times, Nuclear Proliferation, Russia, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

Transcripts: Secretary of Defense Gates on CNN, ABC
Iran’s Nuclear Program: Gary Sick on the US Approach after the “Secret Plant”
Iran’s “Secret” Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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UPDATE 2035 GMT: The Los Angeles Times summarises Gates’ appearance on ABC’s This Week: noting that the unemployment rate is 40% among Iran’s young people, he asserted that past economic sanctions “are having an impact” and said severe additional sanctions “would have the potential to bringing them to change their policies”. The article also notes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on CBS’s Face the Nation: “World powers have learned more about how to effectively use sanctions in their recent effort to halt the nuclear and missile programs of North Korea.”

Threatening to punish Iran’s young people? Crippling the economic life of “ordinary” Iranians? I stand by my assessment below — if Tehran does not make concessions at the 5+1 meeting, can the Obama Administration really cross the line of harsh across-the-board sanctions? And will that be a precipice not only for Iran’s people but for the White House strategy, bringing confrontation rather than solution?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had a major set-piece interview on CNN today. While the most prominent issue will be US strategy in Afghanistan, he also spoke at least on Iran’s nuclear programme. And while I can see his tactical path — balancing tough talk on the “secret second plant” with the maintenance of a diplomatic track — I think he may have cluttered it with excessive rhetoric.

Gates laid the criticism on thick and without reservation: “Certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that….this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only … because the Iranians kept it a secret.”

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Tags: ABC News, CNN, Iran, Los Angeles Times, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Proliferation, Obama Administration, Robert Gates, sanctions