‘Israel link’ in Arctic Sea case
Israel was linked to the interception of the missing cargo ship Arctic Sea last month, a senior figure close to Israeli intelligence has told the BBC.
The source said Israel had told Moscow it knew the ship was secretly carrying a Russian air defence system for Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed speculation that S-300 missiles were on board the ship. [continued…]
US Jewish leaders push Obama to act on Iran
Several hundred Jewish leaders and activists are planning to arrive here Thursday to urge top Obama administration officials and US congressmen to take action on Iran.
They are pushing for Congress to quickly pass an Iran sanctions bill sponsored by US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and otherwise take serious economic and diplomatic steps to pressure Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear capabilities that threaten Israel.
“Congress is back, legislation is on the agenda, and this is September, when at some level decisions are being made in connection with Iran,” Anti-Defamation League Washington Director Jess Hordes said of the planning of the event.
His organization will be joining the United Jewish Communities, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the National Conference of Soviet Jewry and several other groups as part of the effort. [continued…]
U.S. says Iran could expedite nuclear bomb
American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.
In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material.
The statement by the ambassador, Glyn Davies, was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country, if it failed to take up President Obama’s invitation for serious negotiations. But it could also complicate the administration’s efforts to persuade an increasingly impatient Israeli government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran’s facilities. [continued…]
ran rejected any compromise with the West over its nuclear program Wednesday, as blunt comments from the Obama administration over Tehran’s bomb-making capability suggested that the two sides were headed toward a renewed diplomatic crisis.
Iran offered Western officials a long-awaited package of proposals to restart negotiations over its nuclear program. But diplomats who viewed the offer Wednesday said the document of fewer than 10 pages essentially ignored questions over Iran’s production of nuclear fuel and instead focused broadly on other international issues.
It made no mention of Tehran’s willingness to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities or to enter into substantive talks about the future of its nuclear program, they said. [continued…]
Russia ‘delivers SAMs to Syria’
Russia has begun deliveries of Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles to Syria, some of which are expected to be passed on to Iran, Syria’s strategic ally that has largely bankrolled the deal, according to the Interfax-AVN military news agency.
Interfax quoted Yuriy Savenkov, deputy director general of the Instrument Design Bureau, or KBP, as saying that deliveries started several weeks ago. KBP produces the Pantsir and other high-precision weapons.
Meantime, Kommersant quoted Alexei Fedorov, head of Russia’s United Aircraft Corp., as confirming the existence of a 2007 contract with Syria for eight twin-engined MiG-31E interceptors.
This aircraft, NATO codename Foxhound, can fly at three times the speed of sound and engage several targets at a range of up to 110 miles simultaneously. [continued…]
Given Iran’s shortening nuclear timetable and diplomatic challenges for forging an international consensus on sanctions, we urge Mr. Obama simultaneously to begin preparations for the use of military options. Now is the time for the president to reinforce his commitment to “use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” as he stated in February. We believe only a credible U.S. military threat can make possible a peaceful solution.
By showing that he has not taken the military option off the table, Mr. Obama may also be able to convince Israel to forgo a unilateral military strike while forcing Tehran to recognize the costs of its nuclear defiance. Furthermore, making preparations now will enable the president, should all other measures fail to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, to use military force to retard Iran’s nuclear program. We do not downplay the risks of this option and recognize its complications, but we do believe it to be a feasible option of last resort. [continued…]
The political situation in Iran remains murky, to put it mildly, in the aftermath of June’s turbulent election. But some clues can be found in the recent purge of the country’s intelligence service.
The turmoil suggests that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pushing to tighten his control of the regime, even at the cost of alienating some powerful fellow conservatives. But the decisive voice remains the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His legitimacy has taken a hit — and he’s riding a tiger in trying to control Ahmadinejad — but he’s still No. 1.
The head of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, a ferocious cleric named Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei who is nicknamed “the viper” by some Iranians, was dismissed in late July. Four top deputies in the ministry were also sacked in what one U.S. analyst likened to a Stalinist purge. In the process, Ahmadinejad made some potentially dangerous enemies.
The intelligence putsch showed Ahmadinejad “moving to control” the government, says Mark Fowler, a former CIA officer who now runs the “Persia House” consulting service for Booz Allen Hamilton. He says of the ousted intelligence officers: “These are not wallflowers. These are tough guys. They have buddies who are spread throughout the system. They could cause some problems” for Ahmadinejad. [continued…]
International Jerusalem Day (Rooze jahaniye Qods) is observed in Iran on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan. This year it falls on 18 September. Jerusalem Day was designated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini as a day of support for Palestinians and opposition against Israel. It is a day when the government issues permits for hundreds of thousands of Iranians to pour on to the streets and demonstrate.
Some attend due to genuine support for Palestinians. Others take part because of government pressure. This is especially true of civil servants. Some fear that failure to attend could damage their job security and prospects. When it comes to the number of demonstrators, there is no limit on how many people can come out to the streets. In fact, as far as the government is concerned, the more the merrier.
This is in direct contrast to demonstrations held by reformists. The Ahmadinejad administration, using violence and intimidation, has done its utmost to limit such protests, if not eradicate them entirely. This has forced many of Iran’s demonstrators to come up with new ways of voicing their opposition, using seemingly legal means. One popular method is going on top of their roofs to shout “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest). This is not against the law. In fact, this is one of the methods of protest used by those who took part in the 1979 revolution. [continued…]
Ahmadinejad invites six powers to Tehran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday invited representatives from a group of six world powers, including the United States, to Tehran, but he said negotiations over his country’s right to a nuclear program would be off the table.
Discussion on the nuclear issue, he told reporters at a news conference, is “finished.”
“We will never negotiate on the Iranian nation’s obvious rights,” he said, adding that Iran would not halt its uranium enrichment efforts. Ahmadinejad said Iran had prepared a proposal for breaking the deadlock on its nuclear program, and he asked diplomats to come to Tehran to pick it up. [continued…]
Ahmadinejad levels new broadside at opponents
Three months after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided his opponents as “dirt and dust,” sending hundreds of thousands of angry protesters into the streets, he risked enraging them again Monday by likening them to “pollutants” staining “the gown of the revolution.”
The comment, during prepared remarks at a news conference, drew an immediate rebuke from a conservative clerical association in the holy city of Qom, which urged the president and his staff to “concentrate their minds seriously on economic woes and social challenges and avoid uttering unnecessary and provocative remarks.”
But along with Ahmadinejad’s defiant and boastful tone on the sensitive nuclear issue, Monday’s statement also suggested that three months of the worst domestic unrest in the Islamic Republic’s history had not caused the president to change his ways. [continued…]
Khamenei tells Ahmadinejad to listen to criticism
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to listen to “benevolent criticism” as the hardliner began another term in office amid opposition claims his re-election was fraudulent.
“There is internal criticism backed by foreign media with the aim of sabotage but there is also benevolent criticism which may not come from supporters of the government but they contain good comments,” Khamenei said in a meeting with Ahmadinejad and his cabinet, state television reported.
He called on the government to have its “ears open to criticism.”
Also on Monday a leading Iranian conservative clerical group told Ahmadinejad to avoid “provocative” comments, in a first such message to the hardliner whose disputed re-election has bitterly divided the political elite. [continued…]
Iran canceling major Ramadan events in wake of election protests
Iranian officials have canceled or downgraded major Shiite religious events during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, suggesting fear that the opposition might use them to stage protests.
A typically massive evening celebration scheduled for next weekend at the South Tehran mausoleum of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was canceled “due to problems,” the site’s public relations department said in a statement.
A traditional speech by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking the end of Ramadan, meanwhile, was changed from a large venue to one that is much smaller, the Ettemaad newspaper, which is critical of the government, reported Sunday. [continued…]
Iran’s Mousavi urges continued civil disobedience
Iran’s leading opposition figure Saturday called on his supporters to continue acts of peaceful civil disobedience, in his first major statement in weeks.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi also demanded that authorities launch an independent inquiry of the disputed presidential election and punish anyone who abused protesters or detainees during the unrest that followed.
“We shouldn’t leave any stone unturned and live to up to our commitments in our struggle against cheaters and liars,” he said in a statement on his website, kaleme.com. “In pursuing our cause, we should brave all accusations, and we shouldn’t duck any act of courage or daring.” [continued…]
Ex-president denounces Iran’s government
Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s former president, made a fiery speech Sunday against the government, accusing its leaders of trying to smear their enemies and purge them from public life with “fascist and totalitarian methods.”
The speech by Mr. Khatami, a leading reformist, came a day after his ally, the losing presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, called on supporters to deepen their protest movement, in his first major statement in weeks.
Together, the two statements, posted on the Internet by opposition Web sites, made clear that opposition leaders — much like their hard-line foes — are girding supporters for a long-term battle to be waged as much through ideas and quiet social organizing as through the public protests that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election on June 12. [continued…]
Iran announces plan to purge universities of Western influences
A hard-line deputy of Iran’s supreme leader announced steps Sunday to purge Iranian universities of Western influences even as the government faced accusations of “fascism and totalitarianism” leveled by the country’s former president.
Hamid Reza Ayatollahi, head of a government body that oversees universities, announced a plan to revise humanities curricula to bring them more in line with Islamic principles.
“Many of the syllabuses taught to students majoring in humanities are not in line with Iranian and Islamic culture and therefore their revision is a must,” Ayatollahi said in a statement published by Iranian news agencies. [continued…]
Ahmadinejad wins approval of key cabinet slots
Iran’s Parliament approved all but three of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 21 nominees for his cabinet on Thursday, handing a victory to the beleaguered president, who now has close allies overseeing the crucial oil, interior and intelligence ministries.
Iran’s new government will include Ahmad Vahidi as defense minister. Mr. Vahidi is wanted by Interpol on charges that he helped organize the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994 — charges that Iran says are part of a Zionist plot to undermine the government. The cabinet will also have its first female minister since the 1979 revolution, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, who will oversee health.
The results were announced after weeks of acrimony between the president, who initially questioned lawmakers’ right to second-guess his choices, and legislators who sharply criticized many of the nominees as inexperienced. Mr. Ahmadinejad removed from his cabinet all ministers who had questioned his harsh crackdown of post-election unrest and filled important seats with close friends and loyalists. [continued…]
Did Isreaelis intercept a ship loaded with missiles?
“You can easily hide an alley of cruise missiles under a lumber stockpile,” Kouts told an Estonian newspaper two weeks ago, and the Russian maritime expert who broke the story on Aug. 8 of the ship’s disappearance agrees with him.
“I can’t think of any other reason,” Mikhail Voitenko told ABC News. “I just can’t explain it by any other way. Not by piracy, it’s foolish. What piracy?” he asks, pointing to the low value of the ship’s official cargo.
Voitenko has been a loud voice about the lack of detail surrounding the saga of the Arctic Sea and his reporting in his online maritime bulletin Sovfracht apparently touched a nerve. A few days ago he got a call telling him he had hours to “get the hell out of Russia” or he would be arrested.
“There is something on board they don’t want anyone to see,” says Voitenko by phone from a hotel in Istanbul. He says that by reporting the missing ship he “spoiled the whole business for somebody” and now “they just want revenge, to smash me.”
Voitenko says his primary concern is the ship’s crew. When the navy took over the ship they immediately flew 11 of the 15 crew back to Moscow along with the hijackers for questioning.
The crew members were confined to a hotel for two weeks, only allowed to call their families to tell them they were alive and well. They were released over the weekend and haven’t revealed anything about their ordeal or the questioning that followed. [continued…]
A nuclear deadline looms for Iran — and for Obama
President Barack Obama took office promising to pursue a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, but so far, he’s gotten little out of Tehran. So little, in fact, that the President has given Iran a Sept. 15 deadline to respond positively to his offer of negotiations, or face a heightening of sanctions. As U.S. officials huddled with European, Russian and Chinese counterparts in Germany on Wednesday to review the issue, Iran signaled that it will, indeed, respond — by offering its own package of proposals to achieve a diplomatic resolution to the standoff. Western leaders at the meeting in Germany urged Iran to agree to a meeting with Russia, China, the key European nations and the U.S. before Sept. 23. But nobody is expecting Iran’s proposals to come close to meeting current Western demands, and that could leave Obama facing the unenviable choice either of being painted as feckless, or else moving down a road of escalation that puts a diplomatic solution further beyond reach. [continued…]
Will the real Ayatollah Ali Khamenei please stand up?
On June 19, a week after Iran’s disputed presidential election, the supreme leader shed the garb of the lofty arbiter to deliver a raging sermon in which he warned of “bloodshed and chaos” in Tehran if protests continued. They did, the next day, and I will never forget the blood that flowed at Khamenei’s behest.
Khamenei, abandoning the plausible deniability of the Prophet’s avatar, opting instead for perilous political partisanship, said then: “Please see the hungry wolves in ambush who are gradually removing their mask of diplomacy to show their true faces.” He identified the most evil of these foreign wolves as “the British government,” no less.
Now, 10 weeks later, with the Iranian revolutionary establishment still shaken by the brazenness of the June 12 electoral fraud and the rashness of the supreme leader’s gambit, Khamenei declares: “I don’t accuse the leaders of the recent incidents of being affiliated with foreign countries, including the United States and Britain, since the issue has not been proven to me.”
Well, sir, which is it? [continued…]
American sanctions against this country are not only obviously ineffective, … they often have unintended consequences that hurt American interests.
President George W. Bush’s 2005 sanctions on financial assets, meant to crack down on rogue banks facilitating Iran’s nuclear program, had two unforeseen side effects. Freezing the financial assets of these banks increased the price of credit, making it more costly for honest financial firms like ours to operate. It also increased the value of Western goods like TV satellite dishes, cigarettes and alcohol, which the Revolutionary Guards sell on the black market, netting an estimated $12 billion a year.
Today, five members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany are to meet to consider cutting off Iran’s supply of imported gasoline and diesel — which accounts for 40 percent of the country’s total consumption — if the regime does not agree to restart negotiations over its nuclear weapons program by the end of this month. Sadly, though, the only people such sanctions would hurt would be the poor, who would face higher prices for food and bus fare.
Sanctions against foreign investment firms hurt ordinary Iranians, too, because those businesses pour money into companies that make medicine and build roads and housing, providing jobs for the millions of young Iranians who graduate each year with limited job prospects.
Further isolating Iran economically may in fact play right into the hands of Revolutionary Guard hard-liners. Tougher sanctions would rally this fratricidal conservative bloc against an old common enemy and help the Guards’ many businesses, which include smuggling goods through secret landing spots on the coast. [continued…]
Iran says it’s ready to reopen nuclear talks
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that the country was prepared to resume talks with world powers over its contentious nuclear technology program and that it had prepared a package of proposals for discussions.
Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and its point person on the nuclear issue, did not disclose details of the package but said that it would be an updated version of one submitted last year. That package was criticized by Western countries for failing to address key points of disagreement.
Still, Jalili’s comments were the most substantive official remarks on the nuclear issue since the contentious June 12 election and could give the Obama administration, which has offered to have direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program, an opportunity to try to engage Tehran before resorting to a fresh round of sanctions. [continued…]
Purge of Iranian universities is feared
As Iran’s universities prepare to start classes this month, there is growing concern within the academic community that the government will purge political and social science departments of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” according to academics and political analysts inside and outside Iran.
The fears have been stoked by speeches by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as by confessions of political prisoners, that suggest that the study of secular topics and ideas has made universities incubators for the political unrest unleashed after the disputed presidential election in June.
Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences “promotes doubts and uncertainty.” He urged “ardent defenders of Islam” to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran’s universities and that he said “promote secularism,” according to Iranian news services. [continued…]
Iran news agency reports prisoner died of abuse
In what may be the first admission that a prisoner died from abuse by Iranian prison authorities in the wake of post-election unrest, a semiofficial news service reported Monday that the son of an adviser to a prominent conservative politician had died of “physical stress, conditions of imprisonment, repeated blows and harsh physical treatment.”
The report, by the Mehr News Agency, quoted “informed sources” as saying the medical examiner had determined that Mohsen Ruholamini, 25, died of abuse and neglect after being held in the Kahrizak detention center and then being transferred to Evin prison under “unsuitable conditions.” He was one of hundreds of people arrested as mass protests swept major Iranian cities after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a landslide victory in June, and one of dozens who died.
“As a result of his poor physical condition, at the end of the journey, and after a delay of 70 minutes in transferring him to hospital, he unfortunately died,” said the report by Mehr, which has close ties to conservatives. [continued…]
Son to succeed father as Iraqi Shiite party leader
One of Iraq’s leading Shiite political parties moved quickly on Monday to fill the vacuum left by the death of its influential leader last week, nominating his son to take over a party now poised to challenge Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in national elections next year.
The nominee, Ammar al-Hakim, the scion of a respected political and religious family that fought Saddam Hussein’s government from exile and emerged as a political force after its fall, was widely expected to take over the party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
His father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who died of cancer in Tehran last week, provided for the succession in his will, heading off any potential leadership challenges. The party’s television network announced the nomination, and a spokesman said it would be ratified by the party’s leadership on Tuesday. [continued…]
Pressuring Iran on nukes: would a gas embargo help?
While the Obama Administration may think that a gasoline embargo, even a partial one, would pressure the Iranian regime to suspend its nuclear activities, Tehran may be hoping for just that sanction to help it with one of its longtime goals: reducing gasoline consumption. Indeed, the Iranian government, which has been subsidizing pump prices for years and keeping them well below the international market price (at a huge burden to the national budget), would love the U.S. to take the political hit for helping to end the subsidies.
Former President Mohammad Khatami stated that his greatest economic failure during his tenure was not reducing the massive subsidies the Iranian government spends to keep gas prices low. Every year, his government had to draw millions of dollars from Iran’s special “rainy day” oil revenue reserve fund in order to pay out the subsidies. By 2003, the leaders today associated with the ongoing Green Movement opposition — Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — all supported rationing gasoline in order to reduce domestic consumption and government expenditure. [continued…]
Panel in Iran will oversee investigations into unrest
Conservative rivals of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran have continued to challenge his drive to consolidate power, appointing a committee to supervise investigations into the unrest that swept the nation after he claimed a landslide victory in the disputed presidential election in June, political analysts said.
On Saturday, a day before Mr. Ahmadinejad stepped before a hostile Parliament to defend his 21 nominees for the cabinet — one of the many internal fights he is confronting — the chief of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, announced the appointment of a panel to oversee investigations by allies of the president into the postelection unrest.
Mr. Larijani, a rival of the president, said the committee was told “to ensure that the defendants’ rights are reserved and that they are treated properly,” according to the semi-official Fars news service, offering a not-too-subtle vote of no confidence in the president’s handling of events. [continued…]
Hard-line Iranian prosecutor fired
Iran’s new judiciary chief ousted the hard-line prosecutor behind the ongoing trials against opposition figures in Tehran, replacing him with a relatively moderate newcomer from the provinces, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.
For years, Tehran prosecutor-general Saeed Mortazavi, a staunch ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been the bane of reformists, journalists and activists.
His removal suggests an attempt by the new judiciary chief, Sadegh Larijani, the scion of a powerful conservative family, to curtail the influence of hard-liners and clean up the image of the country’s legal system. [continued…]
Neither Islamic nor a republic
As the second act of the post-electoral drama unfolds in Iran, internal weaknesses are exposed more clearly than ever before. Behind the facade of victory lie deep divisions among the top clergy about what an Islamic government should be composed of and how it should treat its citizens.
Ayatollah Ali Montazeri – who is not a state official but has great religious authority in Iran – addressed “top officials” directly when he wrote: “At least have the courage to admit this is neither an Islamic state nor a republic.”
Ayatollah Khamenei sidelined Montazeri in 1989, when he should have occupied the seat of the supreme leader after the death of the leader of Ayatollah Khomeini. Montazeri has been enraged by recent developments and made public statements condemning the treatment of the detained demonstrators. In a letter responding to 293 journalists who asked his opinion on recent developments in Iran he said he expected the authorities to stop these “show trials and forced confessions” which were ridiculing Islamic justice. [continued…]
If Israel attempts such a high-risk and destabilizing strike against Iran, President Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA. History shows that although Washington seeks influence over Israel’s military operations, Israel would rather explain later than ask for approval in advance of launching preventive or preemptive attacks. Those hoping that the Obama administration will be able to pressure Israel to stand down from attacking Iran as diplomatic efforts drag on are mistaken.
The current infighting among Iran’s leaders also has led some to incorrectly believe that Tehran’s nuclear efforts will stall. As Friday’s International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s nuclear programs revealed, throughout the political crises of the last three months, Iran’s production rate for centrifuges has remained steady, as has its ability to produce uranium hexafluoride to feed into the centrifuges. [continued…]
Nuclear agency says Iran has bolstered ability to make fuel but slowed its output
International nuclear inspectors reported on Friday that Iran had significantly increased its ability to produce nuclear fuel over the summer, even while slowing the pace at which it was enriching the uranium that the West fears could one day fuel nuclear weapons.
The slowdown puzzled the inspectors, and Iran offered no clues about whether technical problems or political considerations accounted for its action.
Nonetheless, outside nuclear experts who dissected the agency’s latest report — a critical one because it comes just as the United States and its European allies are debating far more damaging sanctions against Iran — said that if Iran’s current stockpile of low-enriched uranium was further purified, it would have nearly two warheads’ worth of bomb fuel. [continued…]
Nuclear drive a casualty of Iran’s turmoil
Iran’s political crisis could prevent the nation from making any swift move to ratchet up its nuclear program, said analysts and officials, giving President Obama and Western allies more time to grapple with the issue.
The chaos over the disputed reelection of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brings into question who calls the shots in Tehran, and what any deal with the Islamic Republic involving its nuclear program would look like.
The Obama administration, concerned that Tehran is seeking to amass the materials needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, set an informal deadline of September for Iran to respond positively to an offer to discuss the matter rather than risk new economic sanctions. [continued…]
Ahmadinejad calls for prosecution of opposition leader
Iran’s president called Friday for the prosecution of opposition leaders over the postelection turmoil, saying that senior activists currently on trial shouldn’t be the only ones punished.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call stepped up the pressure against reformers in the continuing unrest that has gripped the country following the June 12 presidential election.
“Serious confrontation has to be against the leaders and key elements, against those who organized and provoked [the riots] and carried out the enemy’s plan. They have to be dealt with seriously,” Mr. Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in Tehran before Friday prayers. [continued…]
Israeli PM calls for ‘crippling sanctions’ against Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Thursday for “crippling sanctions” against Iran to stop its disputed nuclear work, on a solemn visit to Berlin marked by Holocaust remembrance.
After talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Netanyahu expressed hopes for a quick resumption of Middle East peace talks as he warned of a mortal threat to Israel’s survival posed by Iran. [continued…]
Khamenei: post-election unrest pre-planned
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the post-election unrest in Iran was pre-planned.
“I don’t accuse the leaders of the recent incidents of being affiliated with foreign countries, including the US and Britain, since the issue has not been proven for me,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with a group of university students in Tehran on Wednesday. [continued…]
Senior Iranian cleric calls system a dictatorship
Iran’s most senior dissident cleric on Wednesday criticized the ruling system under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a dictatorship in the name of Islam, the most serious attack on the country’s top official following the disputed presidential election.
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said the ruling system showed its true nature with the violent crackdown against the hundreds of thousands who protested President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election and the torture of detainees that led to at least three deaths. [continued…]
Iran’s factional disputes grow increasingly bitter
On Wednesday, aides to Iran’s president lashed out publicly at two former presidents, the nation’s most influential dissident cleric said government officials had taken a “deviant path” and a government-aligned Web site reported that the Tehran prosecutor had been fired.
In another time, the day’s flurry of crises might be seen as extraordinary. But since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a landslide victory in Iran’s disputed election in June, each day there have been flare-ups in the increasingly bitter fight between political and clerical factions.
“The game in Iran is no longer between the reformists and the conservatives,” said Mustafa El-Labbad, an expert in Iranian affairs and the director of the Middle East Center for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “It is now between the pragmatists and the radicals.” [continued…]
Iraq burns its bridges with Syria
Relations between Iraq and Syria plunged abruptly on Tuesday after Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Damascus over the recent bombings in the Iraqi capital in which 100 Iraqis were killed.
The attacks, which ripped through government buildings on August 19, were the worst in Iraq in over 12 months and came just a day after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wrapped up a state visit to Syria. While there he boosted political and economic relations with Syria and jump-started bilateral committees to see that security is strongly monitored on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Since then, however, a tug-of-war has erupted within Iraq between those who blame al-Qaeda and the outlawed Ba’ath Party and those who blame Iran for the Black Wednesday attacks.
Maliki blames both, while Defense Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi said the weapons used for the attacks had been “made in Iran”. Syria’s name emerged rather suddenly on Sunday, when a former policeman appeared on Iraqi state-run media, claiming responsibility for the attacks, saying they had been ordered by two Saddam loyalists based in Syria. [continued…]
Shiite power broker dies, in blow to Iraqi party
One of the towering figures of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite who had longstanding ties with Iran but was also a supporter of the American invasion, died on Wednesday.
His death from cancer, at age 59, was a blow to the political group he led, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, which emerged from the war as the country’s dominant political party. But it has steadily lost support over the past year, and this week it announced a new alliance with the party loyal to the scion of another revered Shiite family, the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
Still, Supreme Council members hold positions atop important ministries and in Parliament. The group runs charitable organizations, libraries and schools and has a large network of support that stretches back to when Mr. Hakim’s father, Grand Ayatollah Mohsen al-Hakim, was one of the top Shiite spiritual leaders in the world. [continued…]
Policy on Tehran faces new test
The expected release Thursday of a key United Nations report on Tehran’s nuclear program kicks off a month of international diplomacy that could severely test the Obama administration’s Iran policy, said U.S. and Western diplomats.
Washington and other Western powers are pressing Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, to include in the report a detailed summary of Tehran’s alleged efforts to weaponize its nuclear technologies, said these diplomats.
U.S. and other Western officials view the information as potentially crucial to the Obama administration’s efforts to rally international support for new economic sanctions on Tehran. President Barack Obama has set a late September deadline for Iran to respond to his calls for direct talks on the nuclear issue or face greater financial penalties.
Many U.S. and European officials who are focused on the IAEA, however, said they remain doubtful Mr. ElBaradei will include the summary Western countries want. Mr. ElBaradei will head his last Board of Governors meeting next month before handing power to Japan’s Yukiya Amano in November. [continued…]
Iran calls for death penalty on reformists in dock
Iranian prosecutors called for the death penalty in a mass trial of some of the country’s leading reformists, including six former ministers, who stand accused of fomenting riots in the wake of June’s disputed presidential elections.
The prosecution said that the men, including a key instigator of Iran’s reformist movement, had been plotting to topple the Islamic regime. It called the huge street demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud an attempt to stage a “soft coup” against the government.
Reformist critics denounced the proceedings as a “show trial”. It was the fourth mass trial so far in what opponents of the theocratic regime see as a concerted attempt to uproot all moderate opposition to the hardline leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. [continued…]
Iran reformist unveils case of raped detainee
An Iranian opposition leader on Monday released what he said was an account by a prisoner raped by his jailers in a challenge to the country’s leadership which has sought to silence claims of torture and abuses in the postelection crackdown.
The allegations of torture and even rapes against imprisoned opposition protesters have become a source of embarrassment to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s clerical leadership as they try to put behind them the turmoil of the disputed June presidential election. [continued…]
Iran wins nuclear plant support
Ian, whose nuclear facilities are under threat of possible Israeli military strikes, has enlisted the support of more than 100 non-aligned nations in its push for a ban on such attacks.
The 118-nation Nonaligned Movement backs Tehran in a letter submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency endorsing Iran’s plan to submit a resolution on the topic when IAEA nations meet next month. [continued…]
As security deteriorates in Baghdad, there’s a new cause for worry: The head of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has quit in a long-running quarrel with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — depriving that country of a key leader in the fight against sectarian terrorism.
Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, the head of Iraqi intelligence since 2004, resigned this month because of what he viewed as Maliki’s attempts to undermine his service and allow Iranian spies to operate freely. The CIA, which has worked closely with Shahwani since he went into exile in the 1990s and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training the INIS, was apparently caught by surprise by his departure.
The chaotic conditions in Iraq that triggered Shahwani’s resignation are illustrated by several recent events — each of which suggests that without the backstop of U.S. support, Iraqi authorities are now desperately vulnerable to pressure, especially from neighboring Iran.
An early warning was the brazen July 28 robbery of the state-run Rafidain Bank in central Baghdad, apparently by members of an Iraqi security force. Gunmen broke into the bank and stole about 5.6 billion Iraqi dinars, or roughly $5 million. After a battle that left eight dead, the robbers fled to a newspaper run by Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of the country’s vice presidents.
Abdul Mahdi, once an American favorite, has admitted that one of the robbers was a member of his security detail but denied personal involvement, according to Iraqi news reports. Some of the money has been recovered, but the rest is believed to be in Iran, along with some members of the robbery team. [continued…]