We have a snap analysis of the interview in Today’s LiveBlog. The interview of the Basiji member to which interviewer Jon Snow refers is also on Enduring America:
Jon Snow: “Mr President do you accept that this country is at a cross roads? We are one week away from the end of the year and that the deadline when you have to give a response to the nuclear offer made by the P5+1.
“The P5 group that meets with Germany from the security council of the United Nations – apparently representing the security council that has made this proposal about enrichment taking the material outside the country, bringing it back. And they say by the end of this year that is the deadline for a response.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “I think part of this question must be corrected. Actually we have given the proposal for the exchange of the fuel and according to the regulations they have to provide the fuel without any conditions. Read the rest of this entry »
2310 GMT: Moving Towards Qom. More chatter on the post-funeral tension in Qom — Norooz claims people are moving from Isfahan and Najafabad to “defend” the house of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.
2300 GMT: Mahmoud Fights Back? On a day which began with our analysis that the President is scrambling to maintain any legitimacy, it appears he tried to send out a signal tonight with the dismissal of Mir Hossein Mousavi as head of the Arts Institute. Salaam News reports that Ahmadinejad flew back from Shiraz just for the meeting deciding on the sacking of Mousavi and will now return to Shiraz.
Then again, one wonders if that will be enough to show Mahmoud’s muscle. According to Peyke Iran, only 40 people were on hand to greet Ahmadinejad at Shiraz’s airport this morning.
2230 GMT: Back from break to find discussion still going on about possible paramilitary/security forces threat to Ayatollah Sane’i, with Rouydad saying that followers have declared their readiness to defend the cleric. Read the rest of this entry »
1745 GMT: Swinging Wildly. A couple of punches from regime supporters this afternoon. The Supreme Leader’s representative to the Revolutionary Guard, told Presidential staff that the Khomeini Archive, run by the late Imam’s family, is “a base for monafeghin (hypocrites)”. The term “monafeghin” is commonly used to refer to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the group which has tried to overthrow the Islamic Republic since 1979, often through violence.
And Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi took aim at Hashemi Rafsanjani. Yazdi claimed that, when he was head of Iran’s judiciary, Rafsanjani asked him to cover up a criminal case against the former President’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi. Yazdi also questioned the intellectual credentials of Mir Hossein Mousavi.
1604 GMT: Confirming the Sentence. We had learned days ago that economist and journalist Saeed Laylaz had been sentenced to nine years in prison. The break-down of the sentence has been released: five years for acts against national security by holding meetings with foreign embassy officials, one year for participating in the protest march of 15 June; two years (and 74 lashes) for insulting officials, one year for propagandizing against the Establishment in his economic analyses over the last eight years.
1558 GMT: Pushing the Issue. For the first time in months, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have requested a permit for a march from the Ministry of Interior.
1555 GMT: Sanctions? Oops! “A senior official says that a meeting by five world powers on Iran’s nuclear program has been canceled due to China’s opposition.
The U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany had planned to meet Friday. The official from one of the five world powers demanded anonymity Monday because his information was confidential.
The meeting was to be in Brussels or on the sidelines of the Copenhagen summit.” (hat-tip to EA reader) Read the rest of this entry »
1935 GMT: A Note from the Media Fair. As the rumors and discussion continue over the events and protests of the week, another incident, reported by the Iranian Labor News Agency and passed on by an EA correspondent:
A stand for the “Wave of Law” website (a deliberate twist of the term “Green Wave”) was dismantled at the press exhibition in Tehran for collecting signatures for a petition seeking a complaint against Mir Hosein Moussavi. The stand faced reluctance from exhibition visitors.
Permission to set up the stand for this new website was given in circumstances in which eligible applicants had been refused. Warnings from the organizers of the Tehran Press Fair were instrumental in the stand’s ejection.
1920 GMT: The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has intervened again with an open letter to the former prosecutor of Tehran, judges, Revolutionary Guard, and the Ministry of Intelligence:
We do not open this letter with “greetings”, as it is a symbol of all that you and your colleagues have denied us and those like us….The mass assault of the agents of the former Tehran prosecutor on the central office of the Participation Front, the election headquarters, and newspapers as well as the mass arrest of the members of the Participation Front, other political, and media activists happened not long ago, and the wave of arrests still continue.
This time you and your colleagues have created a new wonder. Thirty years after the establishment of the “Islamic” system, you silenced the “O God! O God!” prayer in the throats of this nation’s sons and daughters and the innocent families of [political] prisoners by your weapons and handcuffs. We remind you of this because it is the duty of every Muslim to stop their religious brothers and sisters from committing bad deeds that we hope are not being committed deliberately and knowingly but rather unintentionally and under pressure.
Before it is too late come to your senses and don’t be the tools of oppression for the tyrant masters of power. Someday that God willing is coming and is not too far away, they will be too caught up as the results of their words and actions to be able to help you.
1715 GMT: We haven’t forgotten you. It is just a relatively quiet period in Iran, and we’re heading out to catch up with friends and colleagues. Back later to round up the day’s events.
1530 GMT: Saturday Football Story. Looks like the Green wave has made it into a photo of the Iran national team on the Press TV website — see separate entry.
1455 GMT: The Curious Development with the Nuclear Deal. Something very strange is happening as the Iranian Government deliberates whether to accept the Vienna proposal on uranium enrichment.
2030 GMT. Harrumph, harrumph. The Financial Times, which is vying with The Times of London to be the at-hand Government channel for “news”, uses several hundred words as a backdrop for this fist-shaking from “a senior British government official”:
It is important that IAEA inspectors are given access to Qom immediately. We regret that Iran is delaying this until October 25. We see no reason for a delay. What possible reason can there be for it?
Given that the IAEA and even most of the Obama Administration welcomed the agreement, one has to wonder whether this is the same “rogue” British official who gave the FT their recent non-story on “secret Iran nuclear arms plan”, whether this is a concerted London effort to play “tough cop” alongside a more conciliatory US, or whether Gordon Brown’s Government has decided it really doesn’t want meaningful negotiations.
1945 GMT: We’re not asleep. It’s just a very slow night for news, and we’re also suffering from a bit of fatigue after a heavy academic day.
However, I think you can look forward to some new analysis on Hashemi Rafsanjani by the morning. And we’re trying valiantly to track down the video of last night’s interview on CNN by Christiane Amanpour of Ray Takeyh, formerly of the National Security Council, and Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran. (Coincidentally, I’ve worked with both on academic projects.)
Picture of Day. OK, so Hashemi Rafsanjani showed up in the front row of the Supreme Leader’s Eid-al-Fitr prayers near Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he doesn’t look too thrilled about the President, does he? Captions welcomed.
2000 GMT: The Clerics’ Relatives. More on the Saturday release of the grandchildren of Ayatollah Montazeri (see 0840 GMT). They each had to post $20,000 bail as did the children of Ayatollah Mousavi-Tabrizi and Ayatollah Nazemzadeh.
1810 GMT: Stand by Your Man. In a move overshadowed by Qods Day, President Ahmadinejad has reconfirmed Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai as the head of his Presidential office.
This is far more than an appointment. Given the conservative and principlist opposition that forced Ahmadinejad to withdraw Rahim-Mashai’s selection as 1st Vice President, this is a symbol that the President rules within the Establishment. The reconfirmation also comes despite Rahim-Mashai’s recent suspension over charges of financial misconduct.
1455 GMT: Speculation of Day – Khamenei-Rafsanjani Deal? Some Twitter-based Iranian activists have come up with the most intriguing analysis of the Khamenei speech and Hashemi Rafsanjani’s attendance. Read the rest of this entry »
We have decided to be proactive, to expedite the end of the occupation by working very hard to build positive facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be ignored. This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly.
Fayyad added that if a functioning de facto state existed — with or without Israeli co-operation — including competent security forces, functioning public services and a thriving economy, it would force Israel to put its cards on the table as to whether it was serious about ending the 42-year occupation of the West Bank.
Yet this is far from a declaration of resistance to the current Israeli line. Fayyad’s reference to “security forces” indicates he is ready for a de-militarized West Bank, and “a thriving economy” implies a blank cheque for Israeli investment and a welcome for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic improvement plan. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 13 August, 0630 GMT: A good psychological warfare campaign can’t go silent for long. Reuters reported on Wednesday: “Under a photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting the previous day in the cockpit of an F-15I long-range fighter-bomber, mass-selling [Israeli newspaper] Ma’ariv quoted the official as saying Israel could carry out such a strike without U.S. approval but time was running out for it to be effective. The official said, “”The military option is real and at the disposal of Israel’s leaders, but time is working against them.”
You have to hand it to The Times of London: when it comes to propaganda, their reporters never run the risk of subtlety.
On 3 August, an article signed by no less than three intrepid reporters, including the Defence Correspondent, proclaimed, “Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb.” A research programme to create weaponised uranium had been completed in the summer of 2003, and Iranian scientists “could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order” from Khamenei.
Two days later, Foreign Editor Richard Beeston, one of the three authors of the Bomb Is Imminent piece, found another angle in a pair of articles, one co-written with Nicholas Blanford, “Tehran is investing…in its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah”, which had “amassed tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of bombarding half [of Israel]“.
The threat of an Iranian nuclear attack, coupled with its sponsorship of a regional war on Tel Aviv? Where could Beeston and his companions have discovered these master plans? According to one of the articles, “Western intelligence sources”.
2310 GMT: Moving Towards Qom. More chatter on the post-funeral tension in Qom — Norooz claims 
1745 GMT: Swinging Wildly. A couple of punches from regime supporters this afternoon. The Supreme Leader’s representative to the Revolutionary Guard, 
1935 GMT: A Note from the Media Fair. As the rumors and discussion continue over the events and protests of the week, another incident, reported by the Iranian Labor News Agency and passed on by an EA correspondent:
2030 GMT. Harrumph, harrumph. The Financial Times, which is vying with The Times of London to be the at-hand Government channel for “news”, uses several hundred words as a backdrop for 
Picture of Day. OK, so Hashemi Rafsanjani showed up in the front row of the Supreme Leader’s Eid-al-Fitr prayers near Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he doesn’t look too thrilled about the President, does he? Captions welcomed.
After Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that there would be no Palestinian state in the next 16 years, Palestinian (West Bank) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad talked to the Times on Tuesday and declared that 
UPDATE 13 August, 0630 GMT: A good psychological warfare campaign can’t go silent for long. 
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