Rooyesh

The Guradian has learaned the balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months. The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates. Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week. Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

“Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact,” said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway. “The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.” Almost half of the US’s 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time. No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route. Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the possibility of a freeze in Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. Tehran has so far refused to contemplate a freeze, but has provisionally agreed to another round of talks at the end of the month.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is seeking a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear activities before Tehran disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency’s deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced “good results” and would continue. At the UN, the US, Britain and France are trying to secure agreement from other security council members for a new round of sanctions against Iran. The US is pushing for economic sanctions that would include a freeze on the international dealings of another Iranian bank and a mega-engineering firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Russia and China are resisting tougher measures.

After 5 days in detention, reports indicate that Amir Yaghoub-Ali has been transferred to the 209th Section of Evin Prison, which is administered by agents of the Ministry of Information and Security. Amir Yaghoub-Ali was arrested on July 11, 2007, while collecting signatures in support of the One Million Signatures Campaign, in Andisheh Park in Tehran. His parents and other women’s rights activists went to the Revolutionary Courts in an effort to pursue his case, on Thursday July 12.

During his court hearing, Judge Jamshidi, issued a 48-hour order of arrest. A subsequent court hearing was scheduled with the security branch of the courts, for Saturday July 14, after which it was believed that Amir Yaghoub-Ali would be released on Bail. His family members followed his case on Saturday, but instead of receiving answers to his whereabouts and the status of his case, they were given the runaround, and forced to go from the court to the detention center, and back. Instead of releasing Amir, as promised by Judge Jamshidi, family members were reportedly informed that Amir has been transferred to the 209th Section of Evin Prison. This order was apparently issued by Judge Hadad, in the security branch of the Revolutionary Courts. Amir is one of a growing number of young men, involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign, and the women’s movement. Through their growing activism on behalf of equal rights for women, these young men not only forgo the rights unjustifiably accorded to them by law, but take risks and face imprisonment in an effort to ensure that women in Iran are viewed as full human beings under the law. Their commitment to human rights and equality should be met with applause and encouragement, not imprisonment. It should be noted that the act of collecting signatures for a petition intended for the Parliament is not defined as an illegal activity under Iranian law. To date 13 members of the One Million Signatures Campaign have been illegally arrested for involvement in this most civil and peaceful of activities. Source: Change for Equality

No one reads the headlines about the U. S.-Iran imbroglio — which swings wildly between threats of war and flirtations with diplomacy — more closely than Iranian Americans, who number 50,000 in the Bay Area. For them, Iran is not part of the “axis of evil,” it’s where a grandmother, brother or favorite cousin lives. Most arrived here with the late-1970s diaspora, escaping the tyranny of the Ayatollah Khomeini only to face harassment by Americans who blamed them for the 444-day hostage crisis. Years later they were caught in the post-9/11 net of suspicion and scrutiny against all Middle Easterners, despite no hint of a connection between Iran and the tragedy.

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The Financial Times reports the Iranian state television news channel IRINN has broadcast the first footage of two imprisoned Iranian-Americans, Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh. The station on Monday trailed a programme called “In the Name of Democracy”, which it said it would air on Wednesday and Thursday to highlight individuals and networks linked to the United States. IRINN said the programme would include interviews with Ms Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh, as well as with Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent Iranian intellectual imprisoned and freed last year.

Ms Esfandiari, the director of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Centre, was arrested on May 8, three days before Mr Tajbakhsh, an associate of the George Soros Open Society Institute. Fars, the semi-official news agency, said Ms Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh, who have been charged with “acting against national security” and “espionage”, would be shown making confessions. The television trailer showed Mr Tajbakhsh, 45, describing the work of the Open Society Instutute, and Ms Esfandiari, 63, discussing activities being carried out “in the name of dialogue, empowering women and democracy”. She said her role was to “identify speakers” in Iran. Both were dressed in civilian clothes and appeared to be relaxed. The detentions have been seen in Iran as a means to track millions of dollars allocated by the US administration for “democracy promotion” in Iran. While most of the cash has gone to Persian-language broadcasting, some is secret. Iran announced earlier this month it was extending investigations into the cases of Mr Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh after fresh evidence had come to light. Two other Iranian-Americans are facing similar charges. Ali Shakeri, a Californian-based businessman and peace activist, is in jail while Parnaz Azima, a broadcaster with the US-funded Radio Farda, is unable to leave the country after her passport was confiscated. For Iranian television to air confessions would be a revival of a practice – begun originally under the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution – dropped in the mid-1990s because of public scepticism. But Iran did earlier this year show video confessions made by some of the 15 British sailors and marines held for 12 days after being detained in coastal waters off the coast of Iran and Iraq. Mr Jahanbegloo was reportedly filmed after his arrest last year, confessing to collaboration with foreigners to spark a peaceful revolution in Iran. The authorities did not air the footage at the time, although Mr Jahanbegloo on his release walked into a state news agency to admit to links with US bodies.