2125 GMT: Reports have emerged that two more journalists, Mohammad Ghaznavian and Hamid Mafi, have been detained. They join more than 60 others in Iran’s prisons.
2120 GMT: We have posted a snap analysis of what appears to be a serious challenge by Khabar Online, the website linked to Ali Larijani, to President Ahmadinejad. If we are on the mark, then in light of this week’s suppression of Ayande News, it will be intriguing to see the Government’s response to another location of “conservative” criticism.
2025 GMT: We have posted the text of Mehdi Karroubi’s first interview after 22 Bahman.
1955 GMT: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has written the academic colleagues of imprisoned Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, “The espionage charges leveled against Dr. Tajbakhsh are groundless. The State Department is using every available diplomatic tool to achieve Dr. Tajbakhsh’s release.”
Tajbakhsh was jailed for 15 years in October on charges of espionage. Clinton said in her letter that Kian Tajbakhsh has not been allowed to meet with Swiss diplomats, who serve as the United States’ diplomatic representatives in Iran, because Iran considers Tajbakhsh an Iranian citizen.
1940 GMT: A Friday Prayer for All. Neday-e Sabz Azadi reports, via Radio Zamaneh, that the Friday Prayers leader of Zahedan, Molavi Abdolhamid, described the Islamic Republic as a system that gives equal freedom to both pro- and anti-Government groups and allows voices of opposition to be heard: “The people of Iran brought the Revolution to victory to achieve its goals and now they demand the reviewing and realization of those goals.”
2200 GMT: Closing Notes (Until Tomorrow). Big news is that, despite attempts by some analysts to declare “Much Ado About Nothing“, Mehdi Karroubi has not only clarified his challenge today, not only maintained it, but declared that he will soon be extending it by setting out his demands on the electoral, legal, and political processes.
Elsewhere, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has maintained his own defiance by appointing aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, the target of both “reformist” and “conservative” opposition, as the chief of the President’s youth advisors. This is an addition to Mashai’s positions of President’s deputy for affairs of Iranians living abroad, special advisory of President in oil affairs, head of assembly for free economic zones, and the chairman of the cultural commission in the cabinet.
Mohammad Taqi Rahbar, the head of the clergies committee in Parliament, is not impressed, however: he has criticised Ahmadinejad’s special relationship with Mashai, declaring that the President is sacrificing the regime and Government for Mashai’s favour.
2145 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz Suspends Publication. The editors and reporters of the Green Movement website Mowj-e-Sabz/Mowjcamp, a key source of information in the post-election crisis, have announced tonight that they are suspending the posting of articles.
The authors declare that this is the “end of a wave but the beginning of a path”, as they “leave the arena temporarily to other Green [activists]“. The announcement points to 22 Bahman (11 February), the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a key date for mobilisation.
Overall impression? The Mowj-e-Sabz activists, having been under constant regime pressure and having had their domain “seized” by hackers (the announcement claims they were Russians hired by the regime) this week, are taking a step back and drawing breath. The impression is of an opposition movement preparing to move more slowly but consistently in a long-haul battle.
2130 GMT: Paying Respects. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have visited former Vice President and recently-released detainee Mohammad Ali Abtahi in his home.
2125 GMT: More than 900 Sharif University students have signed an open letter protesting the arrest of protesters on 16 Azar (7 December).
1920 GMT: Propaganda of the Day (2). Israeli officials are putting out the story that President Obama, on his trip to Beijing in November, “warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer”. This “part of the U.S. attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran” matches up with leaks to the US media from a faction (probably including Dennis Ross of the National Security Council) in the Obama Administration — which we noted — that Israel would send the missiles into Iran if nothing was done about Tehran’s nuclear program.
The bigger story, however, lies beyond the spin. The Israeli officials added that the effect on Beijing was short-lived: “the Americans now understand that the Chinese agreed to join the condemnation announcement [at the International Atomic Energy Agency] only because Obama made a personal request to [Chinese leader Hu Jintao], not as part of a policy change”. They noted that China has “refused a Saudi-American initiative designed to end Chinese dependence on Iranian oil”.
If true, that means — for all the bluster of the pro-sanctions crowd in Washington in conjunction with the Israelis — any notion of economic punishment including the Chinese is a fantasy. Read the rest of this entry »
2110 GMT: No to Sanctions. The National Iranian American Council has responded quickly to the news that members of the US House of Representatives are pressing for a vote on petroleum sanctions against Iran within the next two weeks: “Sanctions can play a constructive role within [engagement], but in order to be effective they must target the Iranian government and the individuals responsible for the government’s reprehensible behavior, with a special emphasis on those guilty of human rights violations.”
2020 GMT: Here’s the Real Nuke Story. Put away the distracting rhetoric from Tehran and keep an eye on Saeed Jalili, the Secretary of the National Security Council and one of the key players in Iran’s nuclear manoeuvres. He has been in Damascus bending the ear of President Bashir al-Assad, and now he is in Turkey meeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Jalili may be needing Turkish help more than ever, because it looks like he got a cold shoulder from Damascus. Rumours are circulating that Syrian-Iranian relations are deteriorating, to the point where yesterday’s bus explosion may have been a tough signal to Tehran.
So here’s a question, given that Turkey has been a broker for the “third-party enrichment” deal? Is Jalili trying to get the Turks to accept a package where uranium stays inside Iran? Or will the pressure work the other way, with Tehran trying to find a way to accept third-party enrichment and not lose face? Read the rest of this entry »
1945 GMT: Reports that today’s gathering of mothers of political prisoners, held every Saturday in Laleh Park in Tehran, was attacked by security forces with tear gas. Despite the assault, 150 people participated.
1915 GMT: The Revolutionary Guard Posturing. It comes from commander Mohammad Ali Jafari: “The era of threatening Iran with force is over, especially at a time when the majority of Iranians are willing to defend the Revolution and their country.”
Speaking in Shiraz, Jafari added that the intimidation “even failed at the height of the nuclear issue, and now Iran is standing firm despite economic, political and cultural pressures”.
1815 GMT: Tough talk. The Associated Press is featuring a statement by Mohammad Karimirad, a member of Parliament’s National Security Commission, declaring that Iran should block IAEA inspections and consider withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The media are also noting hostile statements from the Revolutionary Guard. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 12 October 0845 GMT: EA’s Mr Smith offers his reading of the Foreign Affairs analysis:
“I do not see what this adds to what we knew already. Besides making the silly mistake of identifying Mesbah Yazdi with Mohammad Yazdi, and stating that the former was head of Iran’s judiciary (in reality his real influence and authority are, until proven otherwise, rather limited to “spiritual guidance” of Ahmadinejad), the rest are allegations that have been fed to him after having floated on the Web for months. The Taeb-Jalili-Khamenei trio was floated by Roger Cohen [of The New York Times] in one of his dispatches from Tehran.
The only tidbit that would be interesting, if verified, is the purge of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and the removal of pro-Mousavi Guardsmen before the elections. That would make sense, and it would be interesting to have real statistics on that.
– Earlier this week Foreign Affairs published an article by Jerry Guo on “the rise of a new power elite” of “the Revolutionary Guard and its allies” in Iran. The article raised points which have been discussed by Enduring America readers for several weeks, considering politics, the military situation, and the battle for control of key sections of Iran’s economy. In addition to Guo’s attention to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, notice his inclusion of Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and the Supreme Leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, amongst the “coalition of power”.
Letter from Tehran: Iran’s New Hard-Liners
The headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are in a European-style palace, replete with Greek columns and a grand staircase, in the eastern suburbs of Tehran. From here, the IRGC orchestrated the crackdown that followed Iran’s disputed presidential vote in June, beating protestors on the street and torturing those behind bars. More ominously, the IGRC and other extreme hard-liners have sidelined fellow conservatives in the Iranian government, carving out their own power base in a regime that is becoming increasingly insular, reactionary, and violent.
On Sunday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour followed up her interview with chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili with a discussion with Dr Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran and Dr Ray Takeyh, formerly of the US State Department and now with the Council on Foreign Relations.
There is little here in the way of new analysis on the nuclear talks: Marandi is now CNN’s “go-to” academic for a view supporting the Iranian Government, and Takeyh will be generally supportive of an Obama strategy of engagement.
The key paragraph instead is on Iran’s internal situation. Note how Marandi links Iran’s sovereignty to the question of Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy, citing two very suspect opinion polls to put his central point. Accept the President and life will be a lot easier:
Iran is quite stable, and unlike what one often hears in the western media, I don’t think that the country is in any serious problem.
I think that it’s important for the American government to recognize that and to deal with the reality on the ground in Iran. If you’ll recall, Terror Free Tomorrow, they had a poll before the elections that showed that Mr. Ahmadinejad was well ahead. And then the more recent University of Maryland poll also showed that he won the elections, or he was far more popular than Mr. Mousavi.
This doesn’t go down well in the United States, I know. But I think that the United States, in order to be able to move towards rapprochement, and to be able to deal with Iran, they have to finally come to understand that Iran is not going to go away and the Islamic Republic of Iran is not going to collapse. If they do come to that recognition and they do come to respect the country, then I think that rapprochement would become much more easy, and I think that the Iranians are quite willing to move in that direction.
AMANPOUR: The Iranian government has invited hundreds of journalists, as well as six ambassadors from the so-called Non-Aligned Movement. There are no western countries represented here. Nonetheless, the Iranian government is saying that this is a transparency visit designed to show the world what it claims to be its peaceful nuclear program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: That was early 2007, at another of Iran’s nuclear facilities near the city of Esfahan. So, nearly three years later, will the Geneva talks between Iran and the U.S. lead to a new era of dialogue?
We turn to Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, and to Ray Takeyh, a former adviser to the Obama administration on Iran.
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Ali Shirzadian said on Saturday that International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s two-day trip to Iran had previously been planned and is not linked to last Thursday’s talks between Iran and the 5+1 group.
No, the more important loud whisper is that Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi, the head of Iran’s armed forces, is being removed from his post. We held off reporting this, as there was no supporting evidence, but now his office has felt the story was serious enough to issue a denial.
1945 GMT: Mehdi Mirdamadi, the son of Mohsen Mirdamadi, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been released after 17 days in detention.
1635 GMT: Amidst all the confusion over the claimed drafts of National Unity Plans (see 1040 GMT), Pedestrian offers a thoughtful and pointed analysis. There are two drafts, one which would have be inclusive of opposition figures such as Mousavi and Karroubi and one put about by hard-liners who want to steal the limelight and quash an inclusive arrangement:
Now, the other side doesn’t want to be left behind and is trying to release a plan of their own. They don’t want the Mousavi camp to be the group to come up with “the” national unity plan. Which is just funny, since Mousavi and Rafsanjani after him were the ones who have been talking about a plan for months. RajaNews and FarsNews sound like a kid who suddenly decides to steal his classmate’s homework.
Sure, they could have waited for Mousavi’s and ignored it, but they know that it will be read by a whole lot of people, “national unity” is of utmost importance right now, and as much as they can yell and holler that nothing has happened, they know the cords it will strike and they want theirs to be front page news.
1616 GMT: Spinning Out the Game. First, it was the denial by Saeed Jalili’s spokesman that Iran had agreed to “third-party enrichment”. Now a member of the Iranian delegation from the Geneva talks says not only that no agreement was made on delivery of uranium to a country such as Russia but also that there was no deal on inspection of the second enrichment plant near Qom in the next two weeks: “In the Thursday talks, Iran elaborated on its package of proposals and how to implement them… and it was agreed that negotiations should continue on Iran’s package of proposals and the common points in this package and the package drawn up by the other side, and there was no other agreement.”
1610 GMT: International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammad El Baradei has arrived in Tehran to discuss arrangements for the inspection of Iran’s second uranium enrichment facility.
1435 GMT: MediaCheck (EA v. CNN, Round 78) . Enduring America ($0/story), 2 October, 0700 GMT: “Big Win for Tehran at Geneva Talks”.
2125 GMT: Reports have emerged that two more journalists, Mohammad Ghaznavian and Hamid Mafi, have been detained. They join more than 60 others in Iran’s prisons.
2145 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz Suspends Publication. The editors and reporters of the Green Movement website Mowj-e-Sabz/Mowjcamp, a key source of information in the post-election crisis, 
2110 GMT: No to Sanctions. The National Iranian American Council 
1945 GMT: Reports that today’s gathering of mothers of political prisoners, held every Saturday in Laleh Park in Tehran, was attacked by security forces with tear gas. Despite the assault, 150 people participated.
On Sunday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour followed up 
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