This article titled “Alleged Iran plot could have been trigger for war in Middle East” was written by Julian Borger, for The Guardian on Tuesday 11th October 2011 22.55 UTC

Whoever was behind the Washington plot was ready to start a war in the Middle East. The region is already on the brink of conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme, with Israel increasingly twitchy over the progress Tehran is making towards a capacity to make nuclear weapons.

Leaked US State Department cables also make clear that the Saudi king, Abdullah, has repeatedly urged the US to “cut off the head of the snake” and attack Iran.

Against that backdrop, the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, with mass American casualties and perhaps an attack on the Israeli embassy too, would have ensured that the region went up in flames.

The US accuses the Quds Force (QF), the external operations wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, of being behind the plot. Given the hierarchy of the Iranian regime, such a huge undertaking would have required a direct order from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who personally controls the QF.

Khamenei’s involvement would be surprising, to say the least. Throughout his tenure – since the death of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei in 1989 – he has shown himself to be highly cautious and devoted to entrenching the power of the clerical regime.

Meir Javendafar, an Iranian-Israeli, said: “Khamenei’s first priority is regime stability, and then a distant second, safeguarding the nuclear programme.”

One speculative explanation circulating on Tuesday night was that Khamenei feels so threatened by internal opposition that he would provoke a foreign attack to allow himself to strengthen his grip on the country. But the opposition Green movement is currently in abeyance, and the nuclear programme is advancing steadily with little threat of concerted international action, or much global support for an Israeli strike.

The plot is also out of character for the QF. The unit is well-funded and has considerable freedom of action abroad. It is suspected of involvement in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, the funding and arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of Shia militias in Iraq, and even the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2008, the head of the QF, Kassim Suleimani sent the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus a message in which he said, according to Petraeus, that he controlled Iranian foreign policy in the region.

However, to extend those operations to US territory would represent a significant leap in scope and ambitions. The way the plot was conducted would also suggest that the ruthlessly efficiently QF had lost its touch, being clumsy enough to transfer money from accounts under its control directly to US bank accounts.

Robert Baer, a former CIA agent with long experience of observing the QF, said: “This stinks to holy hell. The Quds Force are very good. They don’t sit down with people they don’t know and make a plot. They use proxies and they are professional about it. If Kassim Suleimani was coming after you or me, we would be dead. This is totally uncharacteristic of them.”

Another possibility is that this is a rogue operation, perhaps organised by a faction inside the QF, without the Supreme Leader’s blessing. There is an argument that it suited the purposes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently lost a bloodless power struggle with Khamenei.

If the attack succeeded, it would set in train events dramatic enough to turn the rigid, dusty hierarchy of the clerical republic on its head, giving Ahmadinejad the chance to seize the advantage.

Or the plotters could be fanatics inside the military establishment, bent on bringing the Revolutionary Guard to the top of the regime pyramid, beginning an open race to develop a nuclear weapon and confronting Israel directly.

“If this is a bunch of crazies, then anything is possible,” Baer said.

All such possibilities are speculative. They would fundamentally reshape the Islamic Republic, and yet – for Iran experts – they are scarcely any more far-fetched that the idea that the Iranian establishment was behind a plot as brazen and reckless as this.

The thwarting of the plot almost certainly averted a conflict, but regional tension will escalate nevertheless. Any remote hope of resumed nuclear talks is dead for now. More sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions will be on the table instead.

Conceivably, that could break Khamenei’s will to press on with the nuclear programme, and produce a compromise deal that defuses the threat of conflict.

Or it could just as plausibly convince him to accelerate the programme, persuaded that the regime’s enemies are closing in. In that case, this extraordinary plot could yet succeed in sparking a new conflict in a very fragile region.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. I honestly don’t know how Ann Curry can look herself in the mirror after this. This is pure Iranian propaganda and she’s the star of it along with mass murdering tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It’s not hyperbole to compare this to hanging out with Adolf Hitler. The president of Iran is a monster.  Iran executed 3 men last week for being gay. NBC News allowed themselves to be used as propaganda aimed directly at the people of Iran. This was for domestic consumption and it’s sickening.

Ahmadinejad is not a “controversial” leader. He’s a mass murdering lunatic who hates America and Israel.

(H/T Conurls)

This article titled “Iranian blogger loses appeal against 19-year sentence” was written by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 9th June 2011 14.15 UTC

Iran’s appeals court has upheld the conviction of a renowned blogger who was sentenced to 19 years in prison, his family said.

Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian with joint Canadian citizenship, was arrested in November 2008 after returning to his home country. The 36-year-old, regarded as one of Iran’s first bloggers and known among many as the “blogfather”, was convicted last September. He was found guilty of co-operation with hostile countries, spreading propaganda against the regime and insulting Islamic thought and religious figures.

Derakhshan’s family told the Iranian media that an appeals court has confirmed his sentence. His punishment also includes a five-year ban on belonging to any political or media organisations.

Derakhshan, who has contributed articles to the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, drew the attention of Iranian authorities when he travelled to Israel in 2006 and posted a series of articles about his visit. Iran does not recognise Israel and bans all its citizens from travelling there.

After his visit to Israel he resumed blogging and was forthright in his support for hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – a stance that infuriated many fellow bloggers as well as opposition activists.

Some bloggers believe Derakhshan was confident he would not be arrested because of his support for Ahmadinejad.

Following his arrest the blogger was detained for 500 days before being charged, his family say. His first trial was held in June 2010.

Meanwhile, Iranian human rights groups announced that Sakhi Reigi, an Iranian blogger from the country’s Baluch ethnic minority, has been sentenced to 20 years in jail. Another blogger, Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki, has been in prison since December 2009 after being sentenced to 15 years. Navid Mohebbi, an 18-year-old blogger and high school student, was recently given a three-year suspended sentence.

Persian is among the world’s top languages used in blogs. Ahmadinejad launched a campaign against Iran’s online community soon after he took the office for the first time in 2005. Many bloggers have since been arrested and some have been given lengthy prison terms.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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This article titled “Ahmadinejad’s enemies scent blood in Iran power struggle” was written by Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Julian Borger, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 19th May 2011 11.53 UTC

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has suffered a series of dramatic setbacks in his power struggle with the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, after a failed attempt to challenge the clerical establishment, according to Iranian observers and diplomats.

Ahmadinejad, who drew on crucial backing from Khamenei during his disputed re-election in 2009, has been so roundly rebuffed by his erstwhile patron that it is by no means certain he will complete his second term as president.

In recent days, Ahmadinejad and the men described as his strongest allies – his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, and executive deputy, Hamid Baghaei – have come under direct attack from senior figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guards and some of most important clerics in the Islamic regime.

Ahmadinejad’s many enemies across the political and religious spectrum have scented blood after the arrest of at least 25 people close to him and Mashaei. The president’s immediate entourage has been reduced to a handful of serious people and has faced accusations of corruption, revolutionary “deviancy” and even espionage.

Even the president’s spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who strongly supported him in the 2009 presidential election, is distancing himself.

In a recent interview with an Iranian publication, Yazdi said: “That a human being would behave in a way that angers his closest friends and allies and turns them into opponents is not logical for any politician.” .

He told Shoma Weekly that he believed “with more than 90% certainty” that Ahmadinejad had been bewitched”. “We saw that this questionable person [Mashaei] has conquered this gentleman [Ahmadinejad] and is in his fist,” he said.

Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, a close ally of Khamenei and head of the Guardian Council, also attacked Ahmadinejad directly. “We did not expect this from him,” Janati said. In a reference to Mashaei, he said that “some people seek to cause a deviation, and act against the country and the supreme leader”.

Yazdi and Janati’s comments have been repeatedly echoed by senior officials in the Islamic Republic in recent days.

“It is like wolves who have been waiting for a sign of weakness and they are now lunging in,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli Middle East analyst and co-author of book on Ahmadinejad, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran.

In the latest sign of his dwindling authority, Ahmadinejad’s bid to streamline his cabinet and merge eight ministries into four was blocked by the supreme leader in a private meeting attended by the parliamentary chief, Ali Larijani.

Unable to proceed with his initial plan, Ahmadinejad fought back by dismissing three ministers and temporarily taking over the oil ministry but drew unprecedented criticism from Khamenei’s camp.

It has not helped the president that the attacks come at a time when the cash-strapped government, straining under international sanctions, has gambled on removing long-standing but costly subsidies on fuel, food and other daily essentials, triggering widespread popular resentment.

With zero growth projected this year, organised labour is beginning to flex its muscles. Last week, some union members refused to go to work, in protest at delayed salaries and rising unemployment. They blamed Ahmadinejad for the crisis.

Ahmadinejad emerged from relative obscurity to win the presidency in 2005, not least because the supreme leader adopted him as his protege.

In recent months, he has sought to assert the presidential prerogative in hiring and firing ministers. He got his way in December, sacking the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, a Khamenei favourite, without warning.

When he tried to do the same thing in April to the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, Khamenei struck back and ordered Moslehi’s reinstatement. In response, Ahmadinejad took the quixotic decision of boycotting his own job and disappeared from office for 11 days. Ultimately, however, he had little choice but to return and grudgingly put up with Moslehi.

“Ahmadinejad must know he was always pushing his luck. He has always been a risk-taker, and he always knew that sooner or later he would hit something hard,” a western diplomat said.

“Whether this is terminal for him, it’s a bit early to say, but the defence of the supreme leader and the attack on Ahmadinejad has had the look of a whole government acting in concert. People were sent out to the regions, including the IRGC [the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], to send the message that the supreme leader is in control.”

Ahmadinejad, whose presidency is limited to two terms under Iranian law, must step down in 2013. The depth of rift with the supreme leader has raised speculation he might leave early, triggering a crisis.

Some are comparing him to Abdulhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first post-revolutionary president, who was impeached in 1981 after clashing with Ayatollah Khomeini and forced to flee the country.

Speaking from Paris, Banisadr said: “Khamenei is so fed up with Ahmadinejad that [the president] might not even survive before his term finishes.”

Conversely, Ahmadinejad could resign. But to do so before securing the position of a chosen successor would leave him little protection once out of office.

For Khamenei, the worry is whether the Islamic republic can survive him in its present form; Khamenei turns 72 in July.

“There’s always the issue of Khamenei’s death and what happens then,” said Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. “Ahmadinejad and his people have an eye on the days after Khamenei’s death from now and are seeking to make the position of the next supreme leader as rather symbolic.”

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This article titled “Ahmadinejad grooms chief-of-staff to take over as Iran’s president” was written by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, for The Guardian on Thursday 21st April 2011 14.32 UTC

A close ally of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who favours cultural openness and opposes greater clerical involvement in politics, is being groomed as a possible successor to the Iranian president when he steps down in two years time.

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s chief-of-staff, is positioning himself as a candidate who will champion a nationalist rather than a theological narrative of Iran. Mashaei, whose daughter married Ahmadinejad’s son, has become the most controversial political figure in Iran, provoking harsh criticism from the conservative establishment, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hardliners close to Khamenei have accused Mashaei of compromising the Islamic Revolution and the principles of Islam by focusing on Persian history.

Mashaei infuriated conservatives in 2008 when he said that Iranians are “friends of all people in the world – even Israelis”. He was also criticised for applauding at a ceremony in Turkey in which women performed a traditional dance. Women are not allowed to dance in Iran.

Mashaei used to head Iran’s cultural heritage organisation. He was appointed first vice-president in 2009 when Ahmadinejad resumed office following disputed elections that generated mass protests. But he was forced to step down when Khamenei intervened and said in a letter to the president that “the regime’s expediency” required Mashaei to leave his post.

Ahmadinejad appointed Mashaei as chief-of-staff instead, a move seen by many as a blow to Khamenei and the first sign of split emerging between the president and the supreme leader.

A confidential US diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks said the incident underlined Mashaei’s significance in Ahmadinejad’s team. “Ahmadinejad’s stubborn defence of Mashaei bespeaks his importance as a key adviser for the increasingly isolated president; he also has emerged as a spokesman for the Ahmadinejad administration. Ahmadinejad has even told press that he would gladly serve as vice-president in a Mashaei administration, prompting many to speculate that Ahmadinejad seeks to have Mashaei replace him in 2013,” the cable reads.

Some analysts believe that a regime which has crushed the green opposition movement and is short of internal opposition, is merely creating one in order to create a show of legitimacy come the next election.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, the president of the American Iranian Council who knows Mashaei, told the Guardian: “The reformist movement in Iran did not succeed for various reasons. I think Mashaei has become another alternative and the regime is using this opportunity to heat up the next election in Iran. Mashaei is saying that Iranians are at first Iranians and Islam comes afterward.

“He is reviving a source of national pride of Iranians, something that has been neglected not only since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but in the past two centuries.”

Amirahmadi said: “After the revolution, an extensive obsession with Islam made the authorities neglect Iran’s history and Mashaei is now seeking to promote this sort of nationalistic narrative. I think Ahmadinejad himself is also in favour of Iran’s history and has sought to revive Iran’s ancient glory and power.”

Iranians are proud of their history and still largely celebrate many ancient traditions that goes back as far as the country’s Zoroastrian era, such as the Persian new year, Nowruz.

Mashaei is also believed to have played a crucial role in securing the loan from the British Museum of the Cyrus Cylinder. The artefact, considered the first human rights charter, was seen by a million visitors in Tehran during its six-month exhibition, although hardliners and clerics largely boycotted the event. The relic was returned to the UK last week.

“Obviously Mashaei’s nationalistic views are a threat to clerics. They are afraid that their power might wane if people begin to respect their pre-Islamic history,” Amirahmadi said.

Mashaei, whose name has been touted among political activists as a possible 2013 candidate, has not ruled out the possibility of running for president, recently telling reporters he would make a definitive decision six months from the election.

Kayhan, a newspaper aligned with Khamenei, predicted that Iran’s powerful Guardian Council would block Mashaei’s candidacy if he decides to run. The Guardian Council vets all candidates before any elections in Iran.

Mashaei, who is launching a newspaper next month, is also believed to have tried to secure the release of three Americans detained in Iran, a move that resulted in the release of one of the prisoners, Sarah Shourd. Her friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, remain in Tehran after their release was believed to have been blocked by hardliners.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Iranian thug dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a trip to Beirut this week and gave a speech to Hezbollah. He purposely gave his speech in Southern Lebanon which is only 2.5 miles from the Israeli border.

He told the cheering crowd of radical Muslims that “The Zionists will not last long.”

“The whole world should know that the Zionist will eventually disappear and Bint Jbeil will remain alive… The occupier Zionists have no choice but to return to their original homelands.”

That’s Obama’s cue to tell him the door for negotiation remains open.

“Dr.” is a nice touch, don’t you think?

Major kudos to Fox News’ Eric Shawn for having the brass balls to confront Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It’s just so bad ass. Nobody would dare question this lunatic back home and it irritates the hell out of him that a US reporter would.

The US walked out during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in front of the UN today after he said America was behind 9/11. No, I’m not suddenly fluent in Farsi, but that’s supposedly what he said. Normally there’s a woman with a British accent who translates for this thug, but apparently not today.

Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal was among a group of reporters who had the “privilege” of asking Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad some questions while enjoying a breakfast buffet. He writes an interesting account of how the meeting went and what it was like in the room. What was his final conclusion?

…but my own impression of Ahmadinejad was that he was easily the smartest guy in the room. He mocked us in a way we scarcely had the wit to recognize. We belittle him at our peril.

Let’s hope our political leaders recognize that as well.