Rooyesh

The United States announced Monday new military pacts worth 20 billion dollars for Saudi Arabia, 13 billion dollars for Egypt and 30 billion for Israel in a bid to counter Iran.Details of the new Middle East military aid bonanza came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates left Washington for a rare joint trip to the region, seeking assurances of help in stabilizing Iraq.

“To support our continued diplomatic engagement in the region, we are forging new assistance agreements with the Gulf States, Israel, and Egypt,” Rice said in a statement.

The move will “help bolster forces of moderation and support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran,” she said.

The 20-billion-dollar arms package for Saudi Arabia calls for missile defenses, early warning systems, air power and naval systems to counter Iran, said a senior US defense official briefing reporters traveling with Gates.

US media had reported that Washington was considering arms deals worth 20 billion dollars for the Saudis and five other Gulf states, but the figure discussed by the defense official was only for Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia “may come in with at least that much, the others we don’t know yet,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Twenty billion is definitely a floor.”

The official would not discuss specific weapons that would be included in the package.

“These are weapons that Saudi Arabia will be considering and will be needing over the next decade or so in order for them to meet their security needs as they confront Iran and other threats,” the official said.

Rice said before leaving that the United States had agreed a new 10-year, 13-billion pact to bolster Egypt’s capacity to address shared strategic goals.

Rice and Gates flew on separate airplanes to the Middle East.

A new 30 billion dollar pact with Israel over 10 years will soon be concluded, which hikes the value of US military assistance to the Jewish state by 600 million dollars a year on average.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states will also benefit, to help “support their ability to secure peace and stability in the Gulf region,” Rice said.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said reports of the deal showed the United States was bent on “spreading fear” in the Middle East to generate better sales for its weapons and munitions.

“The United States has always had special policy of spreading fear in the region and tarnishing existing good relations” between countries in the Middle East, Hosseini said.

Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns will to travel to Israel and the region next month to finalize the agreements, Rice said.

“We wanted to send a strong signal of support for the security concerns of all our partners in the region,” Burns told reporters.

The package was also an “effort to rebuff the attempt by Iran to advance its own strategic influence in the region,” he said.

While there was no formal “quid pro quo” for the arms sales, Burns said, Washington did expect allies to back its role in Iraq and the fragile Iraqi government.

Rice and Gates will make rare joint visits to Egypt and Saudi Arabia before separate trips to other parts of the region.

In Egypt, they are scheduled to meet ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as well as Jordan and Egypt in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Amid growing calls at home to withdraw US forces in Iraq, the duo are also expected to reaffirm US commitment to regional security against possible threats from Iran and its nuclear program.

In addition, Washington is expected to underline concerns that some Sunni Arab nations are offering financial aid to foreign fighters fueling the insurgency against the fragile Shiite-led, US-backed government in Baghdad.

Washington is particularly concerned that its most powerful Sunni Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, is bankrolling Sunni militants and serving as a conduit for them to stoke the insurgency in Iraq.

Aside from Saudi Arabia, foreign fighters flowing into Iraq via US arch-enemy Syria come from Qatar and Yemen, among other Middle East allies, US officials said.

The trip will also allow Rice, who will travel separately to Jerusalem and Ramallah to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials, to prepare for international Middle East peace talks, which President George W. Bush said would be held later this year.

Iran is the “single most important” strategic challenge in the Middle East for the United States and its allies, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday, as she flew to the region with a plan for billions of dollars in arms sales and military aid for Israel and Arab nations. Rice, who will be joined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates at high-level meetings in Egypt and Saudi Arabia , defended the proposed arms transfers as vital to reassuring America’s friends in the face of what she called Iran’s “destabilizing activities.”

“We are …very determined to maintain the ability of our allies and friends to rely on the United States to help them with their security concerns,” she told reporters.The security assistance package, which Rice announced earlier Monday, includes $30 billion in military aid to Israel over 10 years, $13 billion for Egypt in the same time frame and more than $20 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.Rice emphasized that the Bush administration intends to counter the challenge from Iran with diplomacy, not military force.he joint trip by Rice and Gates comes at a time when U.S. domestic debate over withdrawing troops from Iraq and Iran’s resurgence have eroded confidence in Washington’s 60-year-old commitment to the security of the energy-rich Persian Gulf.But whether Rice and Gates can overcome deep Arab disappointment with President Bush ’s record remains to be seen, even with the assistance package they’re offering and promises of a more robust diplomatic effort to manage the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Rice accused Iran of backing Middle East terrorist groups, supplying arms to Iraqi groups who attack U.S. soldiers and of seeking nuclear weapons.”The Iranians should stop their destabilizing activities. That’s what they should do,” she said.Taken literally, Rice’s comments place U.S. worries about Iran ahead of concerns over the war in Iraq . Although that doesn’t seem to square with the reality of the war raging on the ground, it may well describe the situation likely to develop if the United States begins to withdraw from Iraq , leaving a much broader field for Iran to maneuver.Bush’s goals for the unusual Rice-Gates mission may be at cross-purposes.Another U.S. aim is to persuade Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia , to increase their tepid support for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki .But the Saudis see Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-dominated government as little more than a proxy for Shiite Iran, their historic adversary, and have little incentive to support it.”I see a (Saudi) government that has concerns about the lack of progress on some of the elements of national reconciliation” in Iraq , Rice acknowledged. She was referring to demands by Iraq’s Sunni Muslims for more political power. “They are the same concerns, frankly … that we’ve had.”Rice said there’s been “a more active Saudi effort” recently to stop Saudi citizens from crossing into Iraq to fight alongside the anti-U.S. insurgency there.She said she would urge Saudi King Abdullah, whom she and Gates will meet in Jeddah on Tuesday night, to implement a promise to forgive Iraq’s debt from the Saddam Hussein era and consider establishing an embassy in Baghdad .Rice and Gates also will meet Tuesday in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt , with top officials from Egypt , Jordan and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council .The arms sales to the Persian Gulf monarchies are expected to include advanced air-to-ground munitions, naval upgrades and other technologies. Already, they’ve drawn opposition from some members of Congress , who say that the Saudis have done too little to support U.S. goals in Iraq and elsewhere. Israel and its backers on Capitol Hill also have expressed qualms about the sales. But a senior official on Gates’ aircraft, who briefed reporters on the condition that he not be identified, said the administration “has reason to believe” that Israelis see the “kind of strengthening of some of our friends in the region— particularly vis-a-vis Iran — is in their own interest as well.” Rice, alluding to those concerns, said the White House is determined “there not be a shift in the military balance between the parties in the region. That’s extremely important and we have it very much in mind.” After leaving Jeddah , Rice will spend Wednesday and Thursday in Israel and the Palestinian territories. She said the visit there is one of many she expects to make in the coming months, leading up to an international Middle East peace meeting that Bush called for two weeks ago.

Voice of America’s Dan Robinson reports the House of Representatives is poised to take legislative steps to increase the economic costs to Iran of pursuing its uranium enrichment program and that a vote is expected Tuesday. Congress has been steadily ramping up pressure on Iran, with a range of measures aimed at restricting investments in Iran, banning Iranian imports, and targeting Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts.

The Iranian government maintains that these efforts are for peaceful energy purposes, while the United States and its allies say Iran is also developing a nuclear weapon. On Monday, the House considered two pieces of legislation, including one approved by the House Financial Services Committee, to step up divestment efforts regarding Iran. The Iran Sanctions Enabling Act directs the U.S. Treasury Department to publish an Internet-accessible list of persons or entities in or outside of the United States investing more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector, selling arms to Tehran or extending $20 million or more in credit to Iran’s government. “If we can dry up Iran’s access to foreign investment,” said Brad Sherman, a California Democrat. “If we can sever the ties between the multinational corporations and the government of Iran, we may be able to increases the costs of Iran’s behavior and put enough pressure on that regime so either it decides, or its people insist, that it abandon its nuclear programs.” Lawmakers say the measure establishes clear congressional authorization for local and state governments and educational institutions to divest from Iran’s energy infrastructure, while giving private and public fund managers a legal shield against civil or criminal charges linked to divestment decisions. It also calls for the U.S. government’s federal employee retirement fund to initiate what is called a “terror-free” investment option. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was among Republicans rising in support, saying similar legislation she proposed earlier this year would have gone further. “I am concerned that this bill merely authorizes divestment from companies investing in Iran, rather than making divestment from those companies mandatory,” she said. House lawmakers also amend the main existing sanctions law regarding Iran, the Iran Sanctions Act, to expand and clarify the definition of companies and entities subject to sanctions. Included now would be financial institutions, insurers, guarantors, foreign subsidiaries and export credit agencies, while petroleum by-products and liquefied natural gas would be added to a category of petroleum resources. Many in Congress are unhappy with what they consider to be weak enforcement of sanctions by the Bush administration, something American Samoa delegate Eni Faleomavaega says would change under the measure. “It is more than lamentable that the administration in face has never once availed itself of the potent tools that the Iran Sanctions Act offers to deter such investment,” said Faleomavaega. “But the administration can rest assured that we will hold its feet to the fire in this session. For the sake of U.S. interests and world peace, both the executive branch and the Congress must do everything in [their] power to prevent the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran.” Other House measures include bills to ban all imports from Iran, and one to establish an international nuclear fuel supply bank, a proposal aimed directly at Iran’s justifications for nuclear enrichment. Lawmakers also want to deny a nuclear cooperation agreements to countries assisting Iran’s nuclear efforts, and to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist group. Last week, House lawmakers also approved a provision to a bill reauthorizing the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to bar that organization’s investment in Iran, along with Sudan and North Korea.

Ayatollah Ali Akbar Meshkini, chairman of Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts, died on Monday, leaving the way open for his replacement by the influential former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The 86-year-old ayatollah, who had been suffering from lung problems, was a conservative who had led Friday prayers in the holy city of Qom. 

 Mr Rafsanjani, a pragmatist critic of Iran’s rightward drift under President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, is already vice-chairman of the assembly, a directly elected body of clerics responsible for choosing and monitoring the supreme leader, Iran’s highest office. “The assembly meets infrequently – so for the time being, Mr Rafsanjani will run it,” Mohammad Ali Abtahi, cleric and former vice-president, told the FT. “Then the assembly will choose a successor, and Mr Rafsanjani has momentum from the election.” In December last year Mr Rafsanjani topped the Tehran division of the assembly’s election with more than 1.5m votes. The Mehr news agency reported that a new chairman would be chosen at September’s scheduled meeting. Mr Abtahi said the “longer-term” effect of Mr Rafsanjani becoming chairman would be to “further weaken” the ideas of Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, a fundamentalist cleric thought to influence Mr Ahmadi-Nejad. Whereas Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi has been concerned mainly with philosophy, his strong opposition to western cultural influence has chimed with Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s impassioned assertion of Iran’s right to develop nuclear technology and his scorning of the effects of western sanctions. Mr Rafsanjani, by contrast, has advocated a more measured approach in international policy. The atmosphere in Iran’s political class has been hotting up in recent weeks in the run-up to next year’s parliamentary elections. Buoyed by their relatively good showing in December’s polls for both the Assembly of Experts and local councils, reformists and conservative pragmatists have been discussing possible electoral co-ordination under a trio of Mr Rafsanjani and two leading reformists, former president Mohammad Khatami and former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karrubi.

Source: Financial Times

Israel is looking into reports that Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal. According to reports, in addition to the fighter jets, Teheran also plans to purchase a number of aerial fuel tankers that are compatible with the Sukhoi and capable of extending its range by thousands of kilometers.

Defense officials said the Sukhoi sale would grant Iran long-range offensive capabilities. Government officials voiced concern over the reports. They said Russia could be trying to compete with the United States, which announced over the weekend a billion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Despite Israeli and US opposition, Russia recently supplied Iran with advanced antiaircraft systems used to protect Teheran’s nuclear installations. At the time, Moscow said it reserved the right to sell Iran weapons, such as the antiaircraft system, that were of a defensive nature. The Sukhoi-30 is a two-seat multi-role fighter jet and bomber capable of operating at significant distances from home base and in poor weather conditions. The aircraft enjoys a wide range of combat capabilities and is used for air patrol, air defense, ground attacks, enemy air defense suppression and air-to-air combat. After years of negotiations, the Indian Air Force in 1996 purchased 40 Sukhoi-30s and in 2000 acquired the license from the company to manufacture an additional 140 aircrafts.

By: Yaakov Katz and Herb Keinon, the Jersulam Post

Iran’s head of the Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, passed away at a Tehran hospital on Monday. “The prominent cleric died at 16:30 hours local time today,” Dr. Jafar Aslani, head of the late Ayatollah’s team of attending physicians told Iran’s Official News Agency (IRNA) on Monday. Ayatollah Meshkini was born in 1922 in Meshkinshahr, Ardabil in Iran and was suffering from respiratory and kidney problems . 

The US Treasury has successfully put German financial institutions under severe pressure to cease all dealings with Iran, according to a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel released on Saturday. Der Spiegel said US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey had recently paid a visit in person to German banks and other companies.

Levey, tasked with fighting international terrorism and organized crime by cutting off their financial support, had also been in Berlin in July to press the government to end trade with Iran, Der Spiegel said, adding that this visit had been less successful. According to the report, the Tehran government has channelled some of its foreign currency earnings to German banks. The total held by German financial institutions topped 6.55 billion euros (8.9 billion dollars) in May. Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, had tacitly agreed to run down its dealings with Iran after being placed on a list of institutions dealing with rogue states compiled by the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). BASF and Siemens were also named on the list, which had been taken off the SEC website after protest, Der Spiegel also said. Deutsche Bank declined to comment beyond saying that its Iranian business made up only 0.1 per cent of turnover and was being reduced further. Another large German bank, Commerzbank, stopped financing trade deals with Iran in January, according to the report. An unnamed German banker said German institutions were effectively being “blackmailed” by the US. Der Spiegel said Levey had secured less success in pressuring the German government to end financial guarantees for exports through the Hermes scheme. Thousands of jobs in Germany were linked to the 4 billion euros in exports that go to the Gulf region every year, it noted. Source: DPA (Germany)

Anne Penketh of the Independent reports from Esfahan, Iran. We are in a makeshift ladies’ changing room, putting on protective clothing for a tour of the throbbing heart of Iran’s nuclear programme. It is a welcome respite to replace a hot Islamic shawl with a shower cap. We don surgical gloves, white trousers and tops, face masks and plastic shoe covers for an hour-long trip around the Esfahan conversion plant, whose hissing vacuums and cylinders are working round the clock to produce feed material for Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz.

The Esfahan facility in central Iran, functioning under complete United Nations scrutiny, is presumed to be a likely target of any US military strike aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear programme before its scientists can manufacture enough fuel for a bomb at Natanz. With a new round of UN sanctions looming to punish Iran for its refusal to halt the Esfahan activities and uranium enrichment at Natanz, the Iranian government has launched a charm offensive designed to ensure public opinion in Europe and the US that its nuclear intentions are purely peaceful. Western governments continue to insist that Iran must suspend enrichment as a precondition for negotiations, because of the deep mistrust stemming from the country’s 18-year concealment of the most sensitive aspects of its nuclear programme. The Independent and five other journalists from Britain, France, Germany and the US - whose governments will decide whether there can be a peaceful solution to the crisis with Iran - were invited to Iran by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with a promise of unprecedented access to the country’s most senior officials and it’s most sensitive nuclear plants. However at the last minute the Iranians set limits on the scope of the visit, cancelling trips to the critical facility at Natanz and to the controversial Arak plant under construction. The last-minute decision, put down to “technical problems”, illustrated once again the opacity of the power structure in Iran, where overall decisions are made by the spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps holds sway in the shadows. The conversion plant, in the shadow of jagged sandstone mountains into which tunnels have been excavated for security and the safe storage of nuclear material, is located just 15km south-east of Esfahan, one of the most beautiful cities in the Islamic world. The facility is approached by a half-hour drive along a desert road flanked with military hardware. Here, we can see for ourselves how the Islamic republic came to raise its nuclear programme to such a level of national pride and independence that the atomic symbol is now printed on a banknote. We are escorted into a hall where a banner proclaims: “Nuclear energy is our obvious right.” A short propaganda film, accompanied by stirring music, shows the triumph of Iranian scientists as they celebrated the production of the first vial of uranium hexafluoride from yellowcake in 2004. Since that breakthrough - according to Hamid Mohajerani, the plant’s 30-year old general manager - some 200 tons of uranium hexafluoride gas have been produced. The feed material, stored in white cylinders, is dispatched, in full view of the cameras of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for enrichment to Natanz where the IAEA has confirmed Iran’s claim to have mastered the technology to enrich the uranium hexafluoride to the 3.5 per cent level required for civil purposes. If the uranium was enriched to 93 per cent or more, Iran would have weapons grade fuel. However Western experts say the country is still between five and 10 years away from producing a bomb. The West’s need for objective guarantees of Iran’s peaceful intentions has been further reinforced with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A fierce critic of the West, he has raised tensions with Israel through his repeated references to the disappearance of the Jewish state. He is also a firm believer in the prophesied return of the Shia “hidden imam”. According to some scholars, a nuclear holocaust may be needed to hasten the promised reappearance of the 12th imam who disappeared into a cave in 878. But the Esfahan conversion plant’s public relations general manager, Hossein Simorg, stresses: “All our activities are completely peaceful, and all activities are applied for peaceful, industrial and agricultural work.” We are led through chambers where chemical processes purify the yellowcake and convert it into a variety of compounds that can be used for enrichment or fuel production. Mr Mohajerani says that the main purpose at present of the plant, which is still being expanded, is to produce hexafluoride gas for enrichment as part of a civilian programme to meet the burgeoning demand for electricity, with Iran’s oil exports predicted to dry up in 20 years. Mr Simorg appeals to us to “write about what you see, not about political matters”. But Iran’s nuclear programme is inseparable from international politics. Hence the Iranian government’s attempts to end UN Security Council involvement in order to clarify outstanding “technical” issues with the IAEA which has been unable to guarantee the programme’s “exclusively peaceful nature”. America has successfully pressured European, Chinese and Russian governments over the years into restricting nuclear cooperation with Iran. The next stop on our nuclear tour, at Bushehr in steamy southern Iran, illustrates the Iranian difficulties. The “safe” light-water power plant on the Persian Gulf has been under construction with Russian cooperation for the past 12 years. The contract is now restricted to construction of a single nuclear reactor which is supposed to produce 3,000 megawatts of electricity for the national grid. To guarantee that no nuclear fuel will be diverted for military purposes, Iran has agreed to receive uranium from Russia and to export the spent fuel back to Russia for reprocessing. The Bushehr scientists, who were sent for three-year training spells in Russia, say the reactor is 93 per cent complete and will be ready to operate in six months. They remain resolutely optimistic that the first delivery of 80 tons of uranium for the reactor core will soon be on its way. But after we ram white hard hats over our headscarves to tour the facility in humidity that soon drenches our clothes, it is clear that the huge steel reactor core and adjacent turbine chamber are still a giant construction site. The Iranian government is convinced that the long delays in completing the plant are the result of political pressure. The Russians suspended cooperation last March, officially citing payment issues. And on the day of our visit to Bushehr last Wednesday, the Russian government announced that the plant would not begin operating until the second half of next year. Iran’s invitation to Western journalists shows that the government is reaching out to the outside world. Yet the PR campaign has been accompanied by officially backed attempts to intimidate Iranians from contact with foreigners, amid fears that the Bush administration is trying to generate a “velvet revolution” that would bring down the country’s clerical rulers. When the British embassy held its annual garden party on 14 June to mark the Queen’s birthday, Iranian guests were pelted with eggs and tomatoes. And efforts have been made to discourage contact between Iranians and froeigners following demonstrations over the award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie, who in 1989 was the target of a death threat in a religious fatwa for his book the Satanic Verses. With a Bush administration weakened by the war in Iraq, it is difficult to predict where the nuclear stand-off is heading. President Bush does not want to hand over an unresolved nuclear crisis with Iran to his successor and continues to declare that all options, including military, remain on the table. This is a game of chicken played for the highest stakes, involving national pride. It holds the risk of regional conflagration and a potential nuclear arms race in the Middle East if Iran continues on its present course. But seen from here, the Iranians will not be the ones to blink first.

Anne Penketh of the Independent reports from Tehran. One month after Iran – the world’s fourth biggest oil producer – triggered violent protests by introducing petrol rationing overnight, the shock measures are beginning to bite. But will they also bite the man who introduced them, Iran’s radical President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the self-proclaimed champion of the poor? In Tehran, petrol queues have become a frequent sight.

Last Friday night, as Tehranis returned to the city after their weekly day off, cars were backed up at midnight outside one petrol station in northern Tehran, home to the city’s wealthy, Hermes-wearing elite, which has never been a fan of the populist President. Here, restaurant diners don’t even look up from their lamb kebabs when a creature in a red scarf drives her matching red sports car along Valiasr Avenue, the tree-lined road that cuts through the city from north to south. It’s a different story in the working-class southern districts, where voters turned out in their hordes to elect the Tehran mayor as President in June 2005. Impoverished Iranians who supplement their income as unofficial taxi drivers have been particularly affected by the petrol rationing, which was introduced with only three hours’ notice on 27 June, prompting motorists to burn down a dozen petrol stations around Tehran.

Although pockets of rioting were also reported elsewhere in the country, the effects of the rationing are considered to be worst in the capital, a city of 14 million. Private motorists are allowed only 100 litres a month, or three litres a day, while official taxis get 800 litres a month. In the popular Iranian resort of Kish, an island on the Gulf, travellers say it is impossible to get a taxi because of the rationing. The measures have produced three main effects in Tehran: traffic is estimated to have diminished by a third, giving the city’s notoriously reckless drivers even more scope. A black market thrives as motorists who don’t use their full quota or give it to their family members sell their surplus at the semi-market rate of 5,000 rials ($5). But at least the usual smog has lifted, revealing the Alborz mountains to the northof the city. The question now is the extent to which the President’s declining popularity will be further damaged by the rationing, which comes at a time when inflation – officially 13 per cent but estimated to be at least double that – is rising. President Ahmadinejad defended his measures on television on Thursday night and refused to back a proposal to allow people to pay the market rate for petrol once their ration runs out.

As one Western analyst put it: “The rich can’t buy their way out of it.” Some praise the President for introducing the measure which was under discussion for years. Hossein Shariatmadari, president of the conservative Kayhan group of newspapers, which supports Mr Ahmadinejad, said: “Rationing was a necessary measure which should have been taken a long time ago but, unfortunately, we did not have a government courageous enough.” He argued that Iranians would come to see that the measure was justified. He said: “Each litre costs almost 70 cents and we give it to people at 10 cents. The difference is paid by all the people of Iran – even those who don’t have a car.” Though Iran is a major oil exporter, it lacks refining capacity and has to import 60 per cent of its petrol from abroad, while continuing to subsidise petrol for domestic consumption. Mr Shariatmadari said he thought the government would not be harmed politically by the measure, as long as public transport is expanded as promised.

But there are fears of more trouble later in the year, when people who use their rations too fast run out. A Western analyst said: “It’s too early to see the real effects of it yet. It will take three or four months to have a real impact.” After a setback in local elections last December, the next test for Mr Ahmadinejad’s conservative faction will come in parliamentary elections next March. Mr Ahmadinejad faces a presidential election in June 2009. “He has no brain,” said one Tehrani as he risked his life by attempting to cross the road. So why did people vote for him? “I didn’t vote,” came the reply

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday the United States and Israel were his country’s main enemies, just days after U.S.-Iranian talks about Iraq’s security. Iran and the United States cut diplomatic ties shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. They held talks in Baghdad on Tuesday to find ways to restore security in Iraq, after an earlier round in May.

“The Zionist regime (Israel) and the American government are the main enemies of Iran, and hatred for America is deepening every day around the globe,” Khamenei said in a televised speech. Khamenei has the last say in all state matters, including resumption of ties with the United States and Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Washington accuses Shi’ite Muslim Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq. Iran denies the charge and blames the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 for the bloodshed between Iraq’s majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni Arabs. During the two rounds of talks in Baghdad, the sides agreed to establish a trilateral committee to investigate issues such as support for militias and al Qaeda in Iraq. Tehran and Washington are also at loggerheads over Iran’s nuclear work. The United States says Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian program. Iran denies this, saying it needs the technology to generate electricity. Two sets of U.N. sanctions have been imposed on the Islamic state for defying repeated U.N. resolutions demanding it suspend all nuclear fuel activity. A third set is now in preparation. Source: Reuters