2225 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. This could be interesting — Hossein Marashi, cousin of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s wife and a Vice Secretary-General of the Kargozaran Party. has been arrested.
2220 GMT: Edward Yeranian of the Voice of America offers an analysis, “Iranian Government Releases Prisoners for Persian New Year”, with contributions from EA staff.
2215 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Women’s rights activist Somaiyeh Farid was arrested on Wednesday. Farid was at Evin Prison enquiring about her husband, Hojat (Siavash) Montazeri, who was arrested on 5 March.
For me, Barbara Slavin’s article in The Washington Note confirms my view of the uranium enrichment negotiations since June between Tehran, Washington, and other countries: 1) they were genuine, motivated by Iran’s crisis of a shortage of 20-percent enriched uranium for its medical research reactor; 2) the primary obstacle to a deal was internal divisions in Washington Tehran.
But now the questions for March 2010: 1) Is there still a crisis in Tehran over uranium stock? (Yes) 2) Does this mean the regime wants to re-open discussions for a deal? (Probably, but there are still internal manoeuvres to be made) 3) Will the US still be receptive? (Likely) 4) Does this mean “engagement” is back on? (Unknown):
A senior U.S. official Wednesday confirmed that the United States offered the first civilian nuclear cooperation with Iran in three decades under the terms of a deal that Iran walked away from last fall.
The news stories in recent days might appear unrelated, but all of them point to behind-the-scenes manoeuvres and disagreements within the regime. It is too early, given the limited information, to understand exactly what is going on within the Islamic Republic, but it is well worth watching for emerging significance.
1. The Release of Mostafa Tajzadeh
During the week, Mostafa Tajzadeh, leading member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and former Deputy Interior Minister, was released without bail for the Iranian New Year.
After a year of grandiose declarations on Mideast peace prospects and a gazillion trips to the region by US envoy George Mitchell, the Obama administration has come up with this?
“Proximity Talks.” Look it up in the Dictionary of Realpolitik and you will find the following: “Negotiations going nowhere fast. Wear seatbelts lest the speed of self-destruction spins you off the earth’s axis.”
Palestinians and Israelis are not even going to be at the table together. Mitchell could not even make that happen. This isn’t phase one of a longstanding conflict. These are adversaries who have sat across many tables and struck many agreements over the past 19 years.
GALLO: Is Iran really trying to build a nuclear weapon?
CIRINCIONE: There is no doubt that the Iranian regime is moving to acquire the technologies that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon. We do not know if the regime has reached a decision to actually build a weapon, however.
2135 GMT: Rumour of Day. Kalameh alleges that prisoners held in cellblock 209 of Evin Prison have been commanded to fill in forms about their views on election fraud and whether the protest leaders are connected to foreign countries.
2100 GMT: Dr Mohammad Maleki, the former head of Tehran University, has reportedly been released after 191 days in detention. Maleki, 76, suffers from prostate cancer.
2055 GMT: United4Iran has a profile of Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, former advisor to Iran’s Minister of Interior in the Khatami Presidency, who was released on 24 February after spending more than eight months in prison. According to another released prisoner, Khanjani was under pressure to confess and was constantly moved from general confinement to solidarity confinement.
2045 GMT: Sunday Absurdity. A slow day, which leading to a perusing of opinion in the newspapers. Unfortunately, that turns up a piece of anti-Muslim diatribe posing as analysis by Ephraim Karsh in The New York Times: “Muslims Won’t Play Together”. The slurs have to be read to be believed, but here is the policy recommendation: “A military strike must remain a serious option: there is no peaceful way to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, stemming as they do from its imperialist brand of national-Islamism.”
1700 GMT: Where’s Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad has been at a conference in Tehran attended by Palestinian leaders such as Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal, Islamic Jihad’s Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command), Ahmed Jibril. Ahmadinejad offered this commentary:
On Friday, Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak met with his US counterpart, Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As Barak reiterated the need for “imminent harsh sanctions” against Iran, Clinton urged her guest to ease sanctions against Gazans. However, the two saw eye-to-eye on “security”.
2225 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. This could be interesting — Hossein Marashi, cousin of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s wife and a Vice Secretary-General of the Kargozaran Party. has been arrested.
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