The Latest from Iran (3 December): Normal Service?
Posted by Scott Lucas in Middle East & Iran
2000 GMT: What War Game is The Economist Playing Out? The British journal has an “analysis” which, given the publication’s usual journalistic standards, is shocking: “An Iranian nuclear bomb, or the bombing of Iran?”
The piece starts with a series of false steps and distortions to get from premise — the second enrichment plant at Fordoo near Qom — to conclusion: “brazen”, “belligerent” Iran is “on the threshold of becoming a nuclear (military) power”. That’s pnly a prelude, however, to “news” posing as advocacy of Bomb, Bomb Iran.
The journal gives unwarranted prominence to a road show by two former US Senators and a former Air Force General who are talking up a strike and then intones, “Israel’s threats of military action might be more credible than America’s”. That allows The Economist to play big boys with big toys, sketching out how a military attack might unfold, before offering a most sensible “compromise”:
So which will it be: a war with Iran, or a nuclear-armed Iran? Short of a revolution that sweeps away the Iranian regime—ushering in one that agrees, like post-apartheid South Africa, to give up its nuclear technology—sanctions may offer the only hope of avoiding the awful choice.
1940 GMT: Strike. A statement from the “Lawyers of the Green Movement of Iranian People” calls for strikes as “a civil action for acquiring one’s rights” and adds this summary of the movement: “The Green Movement doesn’t belong to anybody. Its leaders are different shades of people that are gathered around democracy. It is the people that are leading the movement.”
Any information about this initiative would be appreciated, as the group is new to us.
1920 GMT: Preventing 16 Azar. An article in Deutsche Welle summarises that more than 90 students have been arrested in the last three weeks. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran outlines some of the cases of the “stepped up persecution and prosecution of student activists throughout the country”.
1910 GMT: A Signal from the Leader? An EA reader tips us off that Ayatollah Khomeini’s office has distributed copies, not published before, of a Supreme Leader speech from this summer reminding members of Parliament of their proper role and responsibilities.
Now, this would have no connection whatsoever with the troublesome rebellion of more than a few legislators against the Ahmadinejad Government, right?
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The Latest from Iran (2 December): Postures and a Resolution
1810 GMT: Any Connection Here? On the same day that a Government minister threatened his son with arrest and trial, Hashemi Rafsanjani put forth another general criticism of that Government: “Today there is no room to hide the matter. The difficulties presented by the political disputes are grave.”
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2110 GMT: Ezatollah Zarghami has celebrated getting a five-year renewal as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, 
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