2240 GMT: We close tonight by posting a video of the comments of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, defending the regime’s approach in the Presidential election and against subsequent protests, on CNN.
2155 GMT: News from Evin Prison. Another demonstration tonight by families of detainees and their supporters — Peyke Iran reports hundreds present. The website claims 23 detainees have been released to the cheers of the crowd.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is looking at a bright future under the aegis of the visionary leadership of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and the support of a considerable number of devotees inside and outside the country…
“Ceremonies marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution will kick off this year at a time when Iran has made great progress in various fields of science and technology. The global powers, along with their supporters inside the country, desperately sought to undermine the principles of the Islamic Revolution.
So, Mr Firouzabadi, we pass over to you the EA All is Well Trophy Video:
2015 GMT: The speaker of the reformist minority group in Parliament, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, resigned to protest restricitons such as the filtering of the party’s website Parleman News and the banning of its reporter from the Parliament and preventing guests of MPs from entering the Parliament. (Those guests include family members of political prisoners. One delegation was turned away today.)
The Deputy Speaker and members of the party intervened and requested Tabesh to remain in his post.
In Iran Review, published in Tehran, Dr Mahmoud Reza Golshanpazhooh considers the domestic and international landscape for Iran over the last 12 months. What struck me in particular is the careful, even coded, treatment of the post-election conflict: “What is important for an expert in Iranian affairs here is the capability to distinguish superficially changing trends from the profound and reflective developments within the establishment and the society.”
The year 2009 was a very significant and decisive year for the Islamic Republic of Iran. In fact, on the 30th birthday of the Iranian revolution (1979-2009) some kind of transformation or rebirth occurred in the scene of internal developments so that for the first time over the past three decades, domestic politics overshadowed foreign policy. In other words, the events before and after the June presidential elections caused many of the conceptual frameworks in the IRI establishment’s interactions with the internal and external environments to be revised, transformed or reconsidered. In the meantime, during the same period of time, Iran’s foreign policy faced its own ups and downs like the previous years.
Among Iran’s foreign policy priorities in 2009 mention can be made of the nuclear issue, relations with the US, relations with the EU, interactions with neighboring countries, continued hostility with Israel, regional role in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, expansion of ties with various corners of the world including Latin America, and efforts to play an effective role at international organizations through promotion of multilateral diplomacy.
The following report discusses some prominent points and significant events and interactions Iran went through and experienced in 2009.
Domestic Policy
The presidential elections began to overshadow all internal issues and developments in Iran from the early days of the spring 2009.
The clashes between the Yemeni Government and an insurgency from Houthi Shi’a escalated, both in visibility and intensity, when Saudi forces became involved earlier this month, striking Houthi positions. Most of the media attention is now putting the internal conflict not only into a Saudi context but into a regional arena based on Saudi-Iranian rivalry, given Tehran’s support for the Houthi.
Military clashes between government forces of Yemen and al-Houthi Shiites in Saada province are gradually turning into a full-blown, destructive war. Yemen is meanwhile grappling with various crises which reflect wide gaps between the Government of Abdullah Saleh and the opposition in north Yemen as a result of increasing influence of the separatist forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Writing for Iranian Diplomacy, foreign policy analyst Keyhan Barzegar suggests a “middle way” in the enrichment negotiations, in which Iran can send some of its uranium to a third country — thus meeting “Western” concerns — but retain some of its stock.
Barzegar’s view is very much that of a pragmatic diplomat, and I’m not sure it takes account of the political considerations both in Western countries and within Iran. (It is interesting to see his representation of Parliamentary objections to the Vienna deal as a reflection of public anxiety rather than as part of a power struggle within the establishment.) The bottom line of the analysis, however, deserves attention: for Barzegar, Iran’s response to the enrichment proposal is not a manipulation or evasion but a genuine reflection of its technical as well as political concerns.
Explaining about a draft agreement on nuclear fuel for the Tehran research reactor, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki has noted, “The two sides decided to go through the draft. It has been done in Vienna and Iran will soon declare its viewpoint.” At the same time, some officials have already voiced their opposition to the recent nuclear agreement.
The main point evident in all those opposite remarks is lack of trust. Iran still distrusts the West and maintains that Western countries are trying to deprive it of its right to enrich uranium in the long run. Therefore, Tehran maintains that it should take a multilateral strategic approach to this issue.
We noted last week, in the immediate aftermath of the Jundallah bombings that killed more than 40 in southeastern Iran, that the Ahmadinejad Cabinet was moving quickly to use the incident as a catalyst for discussions with Pakistan. Iran Review has translated an analysis from the Etelaat daily newspaper which points to the strategy. Notice that such a strategy, at least in this editorial, pivots on the portrayal of Saudi elements as a common enemy to both Tehran and Islamabad:
We and Pakistan
Abolqasem Qasemzadeh
We, Iranians, and Pakistan are suffering from common maladies which include terrorism and assassination. Pakistan is currently plagued with the Taliban that has frequently endangered public security in that country through assassinations and bomb blasts. The Islamic Republic of Iran too has been a victim to terrorist groups which avail of financial, military and propaganda support of Iran’s adversaries since the victory of 1979 the Islamic Revolution. For years, we and Pakistan have been hit hard by the Wahhabi thought, which seeks to divide Sunnis and Shias. Petrodollars spent by Wahhabi groups in the Islamic Iran have sought to disturb security in border regions through assassinations and acts of terrorism. Read the rest of this entry »
Iran Review has posted an interesting essay by Dr Mahmoud Reza Golshanpazhooh considering “the extent of Israel’s isolation in the world”. The article starts from the controversy over the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, but it quickly moves to “Israel['s] game of posing military threats to Iran’s nuclear facilities”. Golshanpazhooh notes shrewdly, “This policy has got an expiry date because the more it is repeated, the less it would be taken seriously by the audience”, and then links Gaza, Palestine, and Iran in a challenging conclusion:
it is time to add another variable to Israel’s threat analyses on possibility or impossibility of an Israeli attack on Iran: Israel’s international prestige….Tel Aviv cannot possibly afford to further damage its international image in return for destruction of nuclear facilities where no international body [or] intelligence agency (even that of Israel) has been able to prove any deviation from non-peaceful military activities.
Golpanshooh is an academic, rather than Government official, but if his view is shared by Tehran’s bureaucracy (and I think it is), then Iran’s international strategy is now based on a stronger bargaining position.
Israel: International Prestige & Attacking Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
First: On September 29, the meeting at the United Nations Human Rights Council was quite different from the preceding days. Security was tight, entries and exits were controlled, there were limitations for representatives of nongovernmental organizations and media crews and all seats were occupied to prove that the day’s agenda was a special one. In fact, it was nothing but the report of the Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the war in Gaza with its author, Justice Richard Goldstone, and his three colleagues doing their best to show that it has been based on justice and objective observation. Read the rest of this entry »
In the aftermath of the Geneva talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, there are clear signals that Tehran wants some re-assurance of Russia’s support. Moscow may have backed away from its initial signal, after the revelation of the second enrichment plant, that it might accept tougher sanctions, but there is far more in play, as Iran tipped off in its high-profile references at Geneva to “regional issues”. Beyond the headlines on “missile defense”, positions from the Middle East to the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Basin are being contested.
These two articles from Iran Review— the first by Dr Hassan Behestipour on the Iran-Russia-US triangle and the second by Behzad Ahmadi Lafuraki on the threat of Russia’s accommodation with NATO — are far more than academic exercises in making the point:
Iran and Washington’s Game with Moscow Dr. Hassan Beheshtipour
After Obama was elected president in February 2009, relations between Russia and the United States somehow changed after two years that had passed since the Munich meeting. The new administration had given up past conservative policies and Obama paid a visit to Moscow in July 2009. In the new era, Washington ignores repression of Chechens by Russia, which in turn, helps the United States in Afghanistan.
Iran Review has posted this reaction to last Thursday’s speech by President Obama in Cairo from Dr. Mahmoud Reza Golshanpazhooh of the Tehran International Studies and Research Institute. The analysis expands on Golshanpazhooh’s “window of hope” article that we posted last month: “The Obama speech is an undeniable turning point. But the most important part of the story is to put these words into action.
Obama’s Address: A Point of View
As US President Barack Obama was preparing to deliver his address to the Muslim world in Cairo this week, the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei was almost simultaneously addressing a ceremony on the occasion of the late Imam Khomeini’s demise anniversary in Tehran.
“I say firmly that introducing change and transforming a new image would not be realized through speech and slogans. It rather requires action and making up for the numerous violations of rights of the Iranian nation and the regional nations,” said Ayatollah Khamenei in his address. Read the rest of this entry »
The clashes between the Yemeni Government and an insurgency from Houthi Shi’a escalated, both in visibility and intensity, when Saudi forces became involved earlier this month, striking Houthi positions. Most of the media attention is now putting the internal conflict not only into a Saudi context but into a regional arena based on Saudi-Iranian rivalry, given Tehran’s support for the Houthi.
Writing for Iranian Diplomacy, foreign policy analyst Keyhan Barzegar suggests a “middle way” in the enrichment negotiations, in which Iran can send some of its uranium to a third country — thus meeting “Western” concerns — but retain some of its stock.
We noted last week, in the immediate aftermath of the Jundallah bombings that killed more than 40 in southeastern Iran, that the Ahmadinejad Cabinet was moving quickly to use the incident as a catalyst for discussions with Pakistan. 
Iran Review 
In the aftermath of the Geneva talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, there are clear signals that Tehran wants some re-assurance of Russia’s support. Moscow may have backed away from its initial signal, after the revelation of the second enrichment plant, that it might accept tougher sanctions, but there is far more in play, as Iran tipped off in its high-profile references at Geneva to “regional issues”. Beyond the headlines on “missile defense”, positions from the Middle East to the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Basin are being contested.
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