The Latest from Iran (20 August): Grinding to a Halt
Posted by Scott Lucas in Middle East & IranThe Latest from Iran (19 August): Challenges in Parliament and from Prisons
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1810 GMT: Recognise Us Because We’re Really Nice. There have been signs this week that the Ahmadinejad Government would be more flexible in its position on the nuclear programme, and today this came from the Associated Press, via unnamed diplomats:
Iran has lifted a ban and allowed UN inspectors to visit a nearly-completed nuclear reactor. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the reactor in Arak after a year-long ban…Iran agreed last week to expand uranium enrichment monitoring of the site.
1735 GMT: Ahmadinejad and the IRGC Factor. As we wait for the fallout from the President’s televised speech on his Cabinet selections, here’s how American anlaysts get it right. And wrong.
The appointment of Ahmad Vahidi as Minister of Defense has been noticed because he was commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps in the late 1980s/early 1990s. So, it is said, Vahidi’s appointment indicates a consolidation of the relationship between the President and the IRGC in the face of opposition not only from “reformists” but from “conservative” and “principlist” elements.
Right.
And, the analysts continue, this indicates that Ahmadinejad plans to continue and maybe accelerate Iran’s material support for pro-Iranian parties and militias in the Middle East.
Wrong.
This, of course, may be a consequence over time of Vahidi’s appointment but to assert — without any evidence — that the external dimension is more important than the President’s manoeuvres in an internal crisis smacks of a view that revolves around Washington, rather than Tehran.
1725 GMT: Worst. Claim. Ever: It’s All Hillary’s Fault. Iran’s police chief of police Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam has said that the “confessions” of political detainees must be authentic because their mastermind, Hillary Clinton, has openly revealed their plans: “Some say that the police has extracted confessions by force, but I tell them: No-one has extracted confession out of Mrs. Clinton, yet she reveals all issues freely.”
While Ahmadi-Moqaddam’s statement should be called out as a crass cover-up of the state’s treatment of prisoners, it does point to the lack of wisdom in Clinton’s posturing — motivated primarily to counter domestic charges that the Administration had stood back from post-election events — when she told CNN earlier this month that the US Government did much “behind the scenes” for Iranian protesters.
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2105 GMT: Reports that 
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