Rooyesh

Reports that Ayatollah Ali Meshkini has either died or is on the brink of death shed light on the nature of power in Iran. Meshkini is speaker of the Assembly of Experts — a body that, despite its traditionally minor role in Iranian politics, is constitutionally empowered to not only elect a new Supreme Leader if the post becomes vacant, but also to dismiss a sitting leader. Current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cannot be pleased that this body may now be headed by deputy speaker Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, a former president known to be a wily comeback artist.Although Khamenei has taken full advantage of the constitution to make the Supreme Leader the ultimate arbiter of Iranian politics, that could change depending on his health and Rafsanjani’s scheming. 

Khamenei as Supreme Leader

When revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, a backroom deal brokered by Rafsanjani put then-president Khamenei in his place. Khamenei’s religious credentials were widely ridiculed at the time. He was remarkably weak in his early years; real power was in the hands of new president Rafsanjani, to Khamenei’s disgust.

But by the mid-1990s, Khamenei had consolidated control. His strength grew over the years to match the broad reach given to his office by the constitution. Today, appointed prayer leaders in each city and representatives in each major government office give him eyes and ears everywhere. He selects the members of the Guardian Council, which must approve all legislation passed by the parliament, or Majlis. He closely controls the country’s radio and television networks, whose director he appoints. He also appoints the heads of the clerical court and the regular judiciary, who in turn appoint the nation’s other judges. And he is head of the seminary system (rais-e howzeh).

In addition, Khamenei controls the key instruments of national and regime security: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the politically active Basij paramilitary, and the KGB-like Ministry of Intelligence and Security (charged with security operations both at home and abroad). Nuclear negotiations with the West are conducted by his representative with little or no input from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Khamenei is widely thought to be in poor health, though it is not clear whether he has any life-threatening conditions. He was badly injured in a 1980 assassination attempt in which he lost use of his right arm. He sometimes disappears from public view for long periods, fueling rumors that he suffers from depression. It should also be noted that one stereotype of traditional clerics is that some use opium.

The Assembly of Experts

The U.S. government describes the Supreme Leader as an unelected position. This contention, while incorrect in theory, is true in practice. The constitution empowers the Assembly of Experts to choose the Supreme Leader for a seven-year term. Yet, according to prominent dissident Mohsen Sazegara, “members of the Assembly must pass muster with the Guardian Council, whose members were appointed by the leader. That explains why no member of the Assembly has ever said anything critical of the leader in public session” (see “‘Lawful Crimes’ in Iran,” PolicyWatch no. 999, June 1, 2005).

Article 111 of the constitution empowers the assembly to dismiss the Supreme Leader whenever he “should become incapable [of] fulfilling his constitutional duties . . . or if any time it should be known that he did not meet some of the qualifications mentioned.” The assembly even has a committee for this purpose — according to Towhid Moharami, writing in the assembly’s quarterly journal Hukumat-e Islami (Islamic government), this body was reorganized as the “Constitutional Article 111 Investigation (tahqiq) Committee” in 2004, with seven members chosen by the assembly (the names are not announced, but cannot include leaders such as the speaker or his deputy). According to Guardian Council member Mohsen Esmaeili, the committee meets every two weeks. This suggests a rather active body. Even if the seven clerics only discuss the weather, the fact that they meet biweekly reminds Khamenei of the check on his power.

For years, this check has seemed only theoretical. But the Rafsanjani factor may change that. Although Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad handily defeated him in the June 2005 presidential elections, Rafsanjani was unbowed as he ran for election to the assembly in 2006. In a long interview with Hukumat-e Islami that summer, he violated a taboo by implicitly criticizing Khamenei: “It is not obvious that the most appropriate person is always elected [as Supreme Leader]. It is possible that in the election a mistake could be made.” Then, during the December election, he received the most votes — a result widely seen as a slap to the hardliners (Ahmadinezhad’s Tehran slate performed miserably in the concurrent municipal elections). Rafsanjani was then elected deputy speaker while the top spot was held by the politically inactive and often ill Meshkini.

Rafsanjani excels at turning obscure posts into power centers. As Majlis speaker in the 1980s, he became a central powerbroker between the feuding president (Khamenei) and prime minister (a post since abolished). Ayatollah Khomeini subsequently created the Expediency Council to resolve differences between the many power centers in Iran’s complicated government structure, later enshrined in the constitution. Although the council was initially weak, it acquired a large, active staff and a new headquarters next to the Supreme Leader’s offices once Rafsanjani stepped down as president in 1997 and was appointed council chair. Intriguingly, the council has the main say in what happens while the Supreme Leader’s post is vacant, at least until the Assembly of Experts elects a new leader.

Rafsanjani took full advantage of his success in the December 2006 assembly election to assert himself on the national stage. In early 2007 — a period when Ahmadinezhad was being criticized in the conservative press for endangering Iran’s national unity and security by acting too combatively, and when reports were circulating of Khamenei’s ill health (e.g., Fars News Agency stated that he was hospitalized briefly) — Rafsanjani began acting as if he were the real powerbroker. In February, he made a widely publicized round of visits to top ayatollahs in Qom. Rumors flew that, in addition to seeking their general support, he was sounding them out about reducing Khamenei’s power. Then, at the first meeting of the new assembly, he stated, “The Fourth Assembly of Experts could exercise its supervisory powers more than before.”

Khamenei came roaring back, however, with several fire-breathing major addresses around the Nowruz spring equinox holidays. The Supreme Leader reaffirmed the hardline stance on the nuclear program and asserted that any talks with the West had to be conducted under his strict control.

What to Expect Next, and Implications for the West

If permitted to remain at the head of the Assembly of Experts, Rafsanjani would pose a persistent and open challenge to Khamenei. Accordingly, the assembly will likely meet soon to place a politically inactive senior cleric atop the assembly, such as Mohammad Imam-e Kashani, the Tehran Friday prayer leader. Even in that case, however, Rafsanjani’s twin posts at the assembly and the Expediency Council give him a power base from which he can maneuver to limit or replace Khamenei.

In the event that Khamenei dies, the new Supreme Leader would most likely be a compromise candidate rather than either of the two polarizing figures said to want the post: Rafsanjani, a technocrat, and Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, an extreme hardliner openly dismissive of democracy. The senior clerics, the Majlis, the technocracy, and the revolutionary power structure (i.e., the IRGC, Basij, and the foundations that control the economy) all share a common interest in a weak leader with limited ability to check them.

For the West, there are many advantages if Iran’s leadership is weakened by internal disputes. Such an Iran would be busier domestically and therefore less able to concentrate on foreign adventures. It would also be more aware of its weaknesses and therefore more likely to compromise. To be sure, a weak Supreme Leader would presumably have less authority to impose difficult compromises on objecting factions. That, however, seems like a price worth paying in order to see a less powerful revolutionary leadership.

Source: Washington Institute For Near East Policy

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2638

The Iranian Judiciary should immediately release eight student editors and activists arrested in recent weeks for allegedly defaming Islam in student publications, Human Rights Watch said today.The Judiciary?s spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, on May 2 told reporters that publishers of these controversial editions were not students at all. But the Information Ministry, which handles intelligence operations, are holding the eight Amir Kabir University students in solitary confinement in section 209 of Tehran?s Evin Prison, where they are at risk of torture and ill-treatment.  

Agents from the Information Ministry arrested the eight students between May 3 and June 6 as the student body prepared to hold elections for the university?s Islamic Student Association. The students have denied any role in publication of these editions and called them forgeries.  
 
?The Iranian authorities are using the flimsiest of pretexts to arrests student journalists and activists,? said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. ?Even the Judiciary has admitted that these students had nothing to do with the forged publications. The government unleashed this crackdown just as the university prepared for student elections.?  
 
The lengthy detention of these students, particularly in conditions of solitary confinement, in some cases for up to 50 days, is certain to endanger their psychological health and increase the risk of physical torture, Human Rights Watch said. During this entire period, the students have been denied any access to their families or lawyers.  
 
Student activists face particular risk of physical abuse and torture inside Iran?s security prisons. Human Rights Watch has interviewed more than a dozen former student detainees who testified to being subjected to routine physical abuse and beatings by their interrogators whose aim was to extract coerced confessions.  
 
The recent wave of arrests started as Amir Kabir University students planned elections for their Islamic Student Association. On April 30, four editions of newspapers bearing the format and emblems of student newspapers were distributed inside Amir Kabir University by unknown persons. These newspapers allegedly contained several articles deemed insulting to Islam. The editors of the four publications which the editions purported to be from, immediately denounced this act and stated that the editions were forgeries.  
 
Although the Judiciary?s spokesman on May 2 told reporters that the controversial publications were not produced by students, agents of the Information Ministry began the next day to detain the editors of these papers. They detained Ahmad Ghassaban, editor of the student newspaper Sahar, on May 3 and Meqdad Khalilpour, member of the students? association on May 6.  
 
Despite the tense atmosphere created by the publication of the newspapers, students at Amir Kabir University proceeded to hold elections on May 7 and 8. According to eyewitnesses, students associated with the paramilitary forces known as Basij and university officials tried to disrupt the voting by physical intimidation and threats, but did not succeed.  
 
After the elections, the government began to arrest more students involved with student publications, as well as other student activists. Other students currently in detention are Pouyan Mahmoudian, editor of Rivar; Majid Sheikhpour, editor of Sar Khat; and Majid Tavakoli, member-elect of the central committee of student association. The authorities have also detained three former members of the central committee of student association: Ehsan Mansouri, Abbas Hakim, and Ali Saberi.  
 
At the same time, the Information Ministry is holding three Iranian-Americans in solitary confinement in section 209 of Evin Prison, and is denying them access to family and lawyers. Agents of the ministry detained Haleh Esfandiari and Ali Shakeri on May 8 and Kian Tajbakhsh on May 11.  
 
Human Rights Watch is extremely concerned about the psychological and physical well-being of all detainees, particularly Haleh Esfandiari, who is 67 years old.  
 
?The Iranian Judiciary is using prolonged solitary confinement to break the detainees and coerce false confessions,? Whitson said. ?Any statements obtained from detainees under such circumstances are worthless under the Iranian and international law.?  
 
Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to end its persecution and politically motivated prosecution of student editors and activists.  

Source: Human Rights Watch

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/21/iran16235_txt.htm

U.S. presidential candidates agree Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons but at this point in the 2008 campaign, their prescriptions for preventing such an outcome are vague. Dealing with Iran — its nuclear ambitions, its involvement in Iraq and its opposition to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts — commands a lot of President George W. Bush’s attention.

But he is not likely to resolve the conflicts before leaving office in January 2009, so Iran is expected to be among the more difficult foreign policy challenges inherited by his successor, U.S. officials and experts say.

“Allowing Iran, a radical theocracy that supports terrorism and openly threatens its neighbors, to acquire nuclear weapons is a risk we cannot take,” Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said in a letter to the Israel Project, a pro-Israel group that educates the public about Israel and advocates an end to investment in Iran.

Obama’s tough line on Iran was largely echoed in other letters from seven other candidates, including Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, both Democrats.

Two Republican candidates — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas — stressed, as Bush has done, that the military option must remain on the table.

All were asked by the Israel Project to discuss their views and endorse a petition signed on-line by more than 75,000 people telling the United Nations Security Council “Iran must be stopped now — before it develops a nuclear bomb.”

Tehran, which insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, has defied a Security Council demand to halt its uranium enrichment program, resulting in two sets of sanctions. A third sanctions resolution is under consideration.

DIVESTMENT

Only three candidates — Obama, Brownback and Romney — at this point supported the project’s effort to persuade state pension funds and others to withdraw investments from companies invested in Iran’s oil and gas industry.

Obama praised Florida, Illinois and California for taking the lead on divestment and said he would work to pass this year a new law he is sponsoring to make divestment easier.

Romney outlined a five-point strategy including tightening sanctions, denying Iran access to the international financial system and indicting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for “incitement to genocide” against Israel.

The United States should “isolate Iran diplomatically” but also “keep communication channels open,” Romney advised.

Edwards offered to negotiate directly with Iranian leaders who meet criteria like recognition of Israel, but also promised “new” targeted sanctions for U.S. and foreign companies against Tehran, which he did not define.

He also proposed enticing Iran into compliance with U.N. demands through incentives like offering increased refinery capacity, modification of the U.S. trade embargo, membership in multinational organizations and creation of a fuel bank.

Clinton urged enforcement of “meaningful, tough economic sanctions” on Iran and noted her sponsorship of legislation that would prevent international corporations from evading sanctions through foreign subsidiaries.

During a televised debate on Monday, Obama stressed the need to engage the leaders of Iran, North Korea and other states Bush has kept at arms’ length. He said he would meet them without preconditions during his first year as president.

Clinton promised to pursue diplomacy vigorously but rejected meeting these leaders until the way had been cleared by high-level envoys. “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse,” she said. Edwards endorsed her comments.

In the Israel Project responses, another Democrat, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, said U.S. sanctions are not enough, so the international community must enforce U.N. sanctions, including a resolution calling for disarming Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group Washington says is armed and financed by Iran.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions “demands urgent and decisive action,” but gave no details. Neither did former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican who called Iran an “unacceptable threat” and urged it to halt enrichment and support for terrorism.

By: Carol Giacomo, Reuters

Moscow has delayed the start-up of Iran’s first nuclear power station to 2008 because Tehran has fallen behind with payments for the Bushehr plant, a top Russian official said on Thursday. The timing of the plant’s start-up is significant as it is viewed by Israel and the United States as an important element in a nuclear drive which they suspect is a front for developing nuclear weapons. Iran says the program is entirely peaceful.

Russia has repeatedly delayed the plant which under the latest schedule was due to be started up in September 2007. A Russian sub-contractor said on Wednesday the plant, in southwest Iran, had no chance of being launched before autumn 2008.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said in Baku that Tehran was still behind in payments for the plant and that the delay was not political.

“It will clearly not be possible to start-up the atomic station this year so it will be moved to the next year,” Kislyak told reporters, citing the payment problems.

“We are fully determined to take Bushehr to its logical conclusion and launch the atomic power station,” he said.

The Itar-Tass news agency earlier reported Kislyak had said Bushehr would be inaugurated in early 2008.

PAYMENT PROBLEMS?

Moscow says there is no evidence that Tehran has the capability to make nuclear weapons, but ties have been strained by what Russian officials say are millions of dollars in missed payments for the station.

Iranian officials say they have made the proper payments and that Moscow is delaying due to pressure from the West.

Kislyak said payment delays had forced Russian firms to work on credit although he declined to say how much Iran owed Russian companies for the station.

Iran should pay Russian firms about $25 million a month for the $1 billion, 1-GW plant, the first of what Iran has said will be a network of reactors generating 20-GW of electricity.

Russian nuclear officials say that nuclear fuel would have to be sent to Bushehr, a project initiated by Iran in the 1970s, at least six months before the reactors start.

Russia has traditionally been seen as Tehran’s closest big-power ally but the delays to Bushehr have chilled relations.

Analysts have speculated that Moscow could be tweaking its policy towards Tehran or that the Kremlin is using Bushehr as a bargaining chip in a wider diplomatic game.

By: Afet Mahtiyeva, Reuters

The Bush administration has so far been careful to ensure that any formal American-Iranian dialogue is restricted to the question of security in Iraq and does not spill over into the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme. However, US policy makers have been considering both subjects simultaneously before reaching important decisions.

It is worth noting that during the run-up to the second Iranian-American dialogue in Baghdad on July 24, Washington notched up its list of Iranian acts aimed at undermining the presence of the American and British troops in Iraq. It alleged that the previous pattern of Iranian military and other aid to the Shia militias was being extended to Sunni jihadists of different hues, including individual cells of al-Qaida. The claim was based on the evidence that some caches discovered in Sunni-majority areas contained Iranian-made weapons, ignoring the fact that these caches also included arms manufactured in Bulgaria.

This is part of the Bush administration’s psychological warfare against Tehran. Rejecting a recommendation by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), appointed by Congress, for talks with Iran and Syria regarding security in Iraq, President Bush fired the first salvo against Tehran in his speech on January 10 by threatening cross-border action against the Iranians aiding Iraqi insurgents.

A month later came the “surge” by American troops to secure Baghdad, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. When the promised peace for the Iraqi capital failed to materialise, and pressure from the Democrat-majority Congress for a draw-down of the US forces mounted, Bush began referring to the ISG report in favourable terms.

He authorised an official meeting with the Iranians. In late May the American delegation, led by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, held talks with the Iranian delegation, headed by Ambassador Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, under the chairmanship of the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in Baghdad.

Kazemi-Qomi called the mutual agreement to strengthen the Maliki government as positive, and announced that a second Iran-US dialogue would take place soon. Crocker, on the other hand, remarked that America’s acceptance of an invitation by Maliki for a second round was conditional on whether it noticed any change in the behaviour of Iran, which he claimed was assisting the insurgents and Shia militias in Iraq.

Despite this caveat, Crocker had a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Kazemi-Qomi, in Baghdad on Tuesday, chaired by the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zabari. Crocker complained that since the first US-Iran meeting in Baghdad, there had been an escalation in the Iranian-supported militia attacks on the US and British forces in Iraq. On his part, Qazemi-Qomi asserted as before that Iran had nothing to do with such assaults.

He repeated his earlier proposal for a trilateral security committee - consisting of Iraq, America and Iran - to meet regularly to address issues relating to militias, al-Qaida and border security in Iraq. It was discussed but no decision was taken.

Lately, well-briefed journalists have reported that in the ongoing debate on Iran in Washington, the balance has shifted from the dovish secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice (backed by defence secretary Robert Gates and the Central Intelligence Agency’s director, Michael Hayden) in favour of super-hawk vice-president Dick Cheney, intent on exercising the military option.

Part of the reason for this shift is that the two sets of United Nations sanctions on Iran for defying the UN security council’s resolution to cease enriching uranium have not hurt Iran’s economy although they have cooled the interest of western petroleum corporations and banks in Iran’s hydrocarbon projects. Nor has the CIA’s programme of covert actions to destabilise the mullahs’ regime yielded any tangible result.

So the American policy-makers’ attention has now turned on the third set of UN sanctions on Iran. This move is being resisted by Russia and China who are opposed to any further punitive action against Tehran. Their hands are being strengthened by the moderating of Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue.

On July 9 Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the agency’s 35-strong board of governors that Iran had “slowed down” its uranium enrichment programme. And, following a meeting between Iranian and IAEA officials in Tehran, Iran agreed to let agency inspectors visit the site of the heavy water research reactor being built near Arak - a request it had rejected before. This will take place on July 30-31.

Furthermore, Iran has agreed to answer the IAEA questions it had not done before. On Tuesday July 24, Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, confirmed this to the Guardian. “All the areas, all the questions will be answered,” he said. “We have no problem with that.”

Little wonder that any discussion of sanctions on Iran at the security council has been postponed until September.

Mirroring the behaviour of Washington’s policy-makers, their counterparts in Tehran have combined their concessions with the warning that if, goaded by the US, the security council imposes another set of sanctions, then Iran would seriously consider opting out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Source: Guardian

Tony Karon of Time magazine reports. Tuesday’s talks in Baghdad between the U.S. and Iran are reported to have been something of a shouting match. No surprise there. Nor is it surprising that both sides emerged from the meeting describing the talks as “positive.” Despite their strategic differences on a wide range of issues, Washington and Tehran ultimately share an interest in stabilizing the security situation of the Iraqi government. Still, the competing agendas of Iran and the U.S. will make successful cooperation in Iraq unlikely in the short term.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker, representing the U.S. in the talks called by the Iraqi government, complained that the Iranians continue to support Shi’ite militants engaged in sectarian and anti-U.S. violence in Iraq — and charged that such activity had actually escalated since the previous meeting between the two sides in Baghdad, eight weeks ago. His Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, reportedly dismissed the U.S. complaints and said they were not backed by any proof. He blamed the security crisis in Iraq on the presence of “foreign forces,” and also demanded the release of Iranian personnel being held there by the U.S. Still, the two sides did agree to create a security committee to address some of the issues raised, and there’s every likelihood that such meetings will continue. But their agenda, by mutual consent, will studiously avoid the fundamental strategic conflicts between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s regional ambitions and its drive to attain the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Iran recognizes that Washington is under increasing domestic pressure to extract itself from the Iraq quagmire, which would be hard to achieve without Iranian cooperation in stabilizing the country. But Iran is unlikely to help the U.S. in the absence of any quid-pro-quo on a range of other issues. It could be argued that as long as they fear the possibility of U.S. military action against them, they’re a lot more comfortable with the U.S. bogged down and vulnerable in Iraq.

And even if both sides move toward a diplomatic rapprochement, the Iranians are unlikely to treat Iraq separately from the wider standoff. On that score, Tehran learned a nasty lesson in Afghanistan: As recounted this week by James Dobbins, the former Bush Administration official who led talks with Iran and others on Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, Tehran played a major role in toppling the Taliban and replacing it with a democratically elected government. Expecting to see a warming of relations as a result, Iran instead found itself named to President Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” The Iranians are unlikely to move to help the U.S. in Iraq until they see that such assistance carries broader diplomatic rewards — or unless the situation in Iraq looks so perilous to their interests that they are forced to put their conflict with the U.S. to one side. For Iran, Iraq is but one front in a complex power game with the U.S. And while the two sides were meeting in Baghdad on Tuesday, there was also activity on a second key front — in Vienna, where Iranian negotiators met with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdogs, to discuss plans for inspectors to return to Iran next week. IAEA officials were upbeat about what they said was a “serious and substantial” agreement reached in talks in Tehran two weeks ago, to develop a plan of action in which Iran would settle all outstanding concerns raised by the IAEA over its nuclear program. Anticipating a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions over its failure to end uranium enrichment, Tehran has moved to restore cooperation with the IAEA, and further talks are expected before month’s end between Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana over a deal to end the standoff. By restoring cooperation with the IAEA, Iran isn’t running up a white flag. Instead, it is hoping to forestall further sanctions to pursue a deal with the Europeans that strictly limits but does not entirely eliminate uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.

The Iranians believe the Europeans are willing to settle for a compromise on the enrichment issue that allows Iran to maintain some limited research capability under international supervision, recognizing that Iran has already gained the know-how that Washington’s zero-enrichment position was designed to prevent. And Tehran’s newly cooperative stance appears to have at least succeeded in postponing any further U.N. action at least for the rest of the summer. Sanctions represent a substantial danger to the Iranian regime because of the economic stress felt by the majority of Iranians. The sharpest indicator of their potential to spark unrest came in recent riots at gas stations in many parts of Iran, following the regime’s move to ration gasoline to prepare for the still distant possibility of sanctions on its import. (Although Iran is one of the world’s largest oil exporters, its own refining capacity is so poor that it is forced to import gasoline.) Tehran would obviously also prefer to avoid a frontal confrontation with the vastly technologically superior U.S. military. So, the U.S. and its allies are not without leverage of their own. But it is that broader strategic contest that hangs over the talks between the two sides in Iraq. Absent a “grand bargain” in which Iran and the U.S. find a formula for peaceful and stable coexistence throughout the region, occasional and very public encounters in Iraq are unlikely to produce much progress.

Authorities announced new arrests in the cases of two Iranian-Americans held on charges of conspiring against the government, saying Wednesday that an unspecified number of Iranians had been detained. State radio quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Ejehei as saying that: “Internal elements related to these people have been arrested.” Ejehei did not say how many people were arrested or give details on their purported connections to Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh.

“We are hopeful their names and reasons of detention will be announced,” he said. The Intelligence Ministry has alleged that Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh were seeking to set up networks of Iranians to foment a “velvet revolution” against Iran’s Islamic government. Families and employers of the two have denied the charges. Esfandiari, 67, the director of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been held largely incommunicado since May. Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute, has been held since May. Last week, Iranian state television aired footage of Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh in a program that it said detailed the allegations against them. The 50-minute program showed a montage of disparate quotes combined to form what could be interpreted as incriminating statements, which their supporters and the U.S. government called illegitimate and coerced.

The footage also prompted criticism from moderates in Iran. Two other Iranian-Americans face similar charges: Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda, and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the University of California, Irvine, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding. Shakeri is in prison, while Azima is free but barred from leaving Iran. The detentions have become another point of contention in the stormy U.S.-Iranian relationship. The United States accuses Iran of arming Shiite militants in Iraq, fueling unrest in Lebanon and seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies those claims, and blames the United States for Iraq’s instability. The U.S. has detained five Iranians who the United States has said are the operations chief and members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Iran says they are diplomats who were legally in Iraq, and demanded their immediate release.

Source: The Associated Press

Iran is open to higher level talks with the United States, Iran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Wednesday, the day after envoys from the two arch foes met for a second time this year to discuss Iraqi security. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, reiterated that Tehran hoped that by talking to the United States it could help restore stability to Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, speaking after lengthy talks with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad on Tuesday, accused Iran of increasing support for militias involved in bloodshed in Iraq but, in a rare sign of cooperation, agreed with Tehran to set up a panel to improve security. He also said he had challenged Iran over its suspected support for other radical groups in the Middle East such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Asked whether Iran was ready to hold higher level talks with the United States, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: “It can be considered if Iran receives a formal request from America.” The two rounds of Baghdad talks represent the highest profile face-to-face dialogue between Iran and the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered to sit down with Iranian officials for talks, but only if Iran freezes its nuclear fuel program first — something Iran, which says its atomic plans are peaceful, has said it will not do. U.S.

FRUSTRATION

Mottaki rejected accusations that Iran backed Iraqi militants. “We have always announced our clear responses … the Americans are trying to run away from their own mistakes (in Iraq),” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Mottaki as saying. Crocker on Tuesday expressed frustration with the lack of progress since the two sides ended a lengthy diplomatic freeze to hold face-to-face talks in May. “The fact is, and we made very clear in today’s talk, that over the roughly two months we have actually seen militia-related activities that can be attributed to Iranian support go up and not down,” he said. He said Iran agreed in principle to join a new trilateral security sub-committee to investigate issues such as support for extremist militias and al Qaeda in Iraq. Details will be worked out in the next few days, he said. Shi’ite Muslim Iran blames the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq for the continued bloodshed between Iraq’s Shi’ite majority and Sunni Arab minority. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary to help the security and unity of Iraq and support the Iraqi government and people,” the official IRNA news agency IRNA quoted President Ahmadinejad as saying. “Our goal of these talks is to help the Iraqi government and people.”

Source: Reuters

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday he expected a new UN resolution against Iran to make it toe the line on its nuclear programme, while also refusing to rule out military action. “I firmly believe that the sanctions policy that we are pursuing will work, but I am not one who is going forward to say that we rule out any particular form of action,” Brown said at his first press conference as premier.

“But I firmly believe that the sanctions that we are imposing on Iran are sanctions that are having an effect already,” he told reporters at 10 Downing Street in London. “We are going to have to consider what we do in future, there will probably be a third (UN Security Council) resolution in relation to Iran soon and I believe that that is a way forward that is working and will work,” he said. “And again I appeal to the Iranian authorities to understand the fears that other countries have about the development of a nuclear weapons programme,” he said. The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions to get Tehran to cease enriching uranium and stop building a heavy-water reactor in Arak, along with cooperating fully with the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran has since April blocked inspectors visiting the heavy-water reactor. Such reactors produce plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. The other main atom bomb material is enriched uranium. Iran has rejected any halt in its enrichment work, claiming a right to it under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On July 13, the United States said it was skeptical of Tehran’s agreement to allow IAEA inspections of the reactor. Iran insists its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, but the United States and Britain fear it is a cover for developing atomic weapons. Iran and the IAEA are to hold a fresh round of talks in Vienna this week. Source: AFP

Iran is to launch a new crackdown Monday on slack dressing that targets both men and women whose clothing and haircuts are deemed to be unIslamic, police said. “The police will act against those whose trousers are too short, have skin-tight coats, shirts with Western logos and Western hairstyles,” said Ahmad Reza Radan, the head of Tehran’s police force.

“We will ask those arrested where they bought their clothes and where they had their hair cut so those outlets can be closed down,” state broadcasting’s website quoted him as saying. Radan said anyone arrested would receive a warning and have their name added to a list. “If they reoffend, there will be no pardon.” Since the drive began in April, thousands have been warned and hundreds arrested across Iran for failing to adhere to the country’s Islamic dress code, its toughest such crackdown in years. Women in Iran are obliged to cover all bodily contours and their heads but in recent years many have pushed the boundaries by showing off bare ankles and fashionably styled hair beneath their headscarves. Some women still don figure-hugging coats and skimpy headscarves despite the April crackdown. By renewing the drive, it appears the police want to send a message that they are serious about enforcing the dress rules. Many conservatives have applauded the crackdown as important to protect the security of society, but moderates have publicly questioned whether Iran would be better off tackling poverty and crime rather than slack dressing.

Source: AFP