Follow the laptop.

[ opinion ] The much anticipated report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran's nuclear program was finally released by the agency. For at least two weeks, the press has been reporting on various aspects of the report, describing it in terms such as "game changing" and "landmark" with the intention of hyping the subject and the report as much as possible. As noted earlier, there are at least some indications that Israel, and even possibly the United States, might use the report and its revelations to justify a military attack on Iran.

First, a general observation on the IAEA reports on Iran ever since Yukiya Amano began his work as the agency's director-general on December 1, 2009. As I pointed out in an article after the Amano-led IAEA issued its first report on Iran's nuclear program in February 2010, the new director-general has steadily politicized the agency and moved it in a direction in which politics appears to be a main component of the work of an agency whose nominal main task is scientific and technological -- that is, inspecting and monitoring the nuclear programs of the IAEA member states and providing the agency's board of governors with reports on those programs. The New York Times reported on Monday that Amano visited the White House on October 28, 12 days before the agency released its report on Iran, to meet with top officials of the National Security Council concerning the report. In addition to the fact that the visit was treated as so sensitive that the Obama administration declined to even confirm the meeting or Amano's presence in the White House, the questions arise, Is Amano supposed to brief the U.S. administration on his upcoming report, and if so, why? Does the United States have special rights? Was the meeting meant to be an exchange of ideas about what to report and how to articulate it?

The tone of the latest report, as well as its speculations and allegations, are in sharp contrast with those issued under former IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. Amano has set aside ElBaradei's cautious approach and measured tone and uses blunt language. While the blunt language is not a problem per se -- I am a blunt man myself -- the fact is that, as the latest report indicates, the IAEA has shifted from its mandate as an objective international organization to a politicized position that can be used by the United States and its allies to advance their agenda regarding Iran's uranium enrichment program.

To see the politicized nature of the latest IAEA report on Iran, all one need do is compare it with the last report issued by the agency right before ElBaradei stepped down at the end of November 2009. Whereas the reports issued by the ElBaradei-led IAEA generally did not address the resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council that ordered Iran to suspend its entire nuclear program, the new report brings the subject in very prominently, as if to remind the world what Iran is supposed to do. Another major difference is that the Amano report speaks of "undeclared nuclear materials" without providing any evidence for their existence -- which, if it were a fact, would be a major violation of Iran's Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. The report makes the claim, but does not provide even an iota of evidence for it.

The latest report is divided into two major parts. One part deals with what the IAEA refers to as "[nuclear] facilities under Iran's Safeguards Agreement." The most important conclusion of this part is that the IAEA can certify that no diversion from a peaceful to a nonpeaceful nuclear program has taken place in such facilities. But, even here, the report makes an unreasonable demand. On page 6, it states,

Since its visit to the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) on 17 August 2011, the Agency, in a letter to Iran dated 20 October 2011, requested further access to HWPP. The Agency has yet to receive a reply to that letter, and is again relying on satellite imagery to monitor the status of HWPP. Based on recent images, the HWPP appears to be in operation. To date, Iran has not provided the Agency access to the heavy water stored at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) in order to take samples.

But a heavy water production plant is not covered by Iran's Safeguards Agreement. In fact, heavy water is not even considered as nuclear material covered by any IAEA Safeguards Agreement, and its presence in the context of a nuclear program makes sense only if there is a heavy water nuclear reactor in operation. Iran does not have one operating, but one is under construction, and the IAEA report states that it might become operational in late 2013, although most experts doubt that it will, and believe that it will not be before 2014 at the earliest.

Another important aspect of the report is that it indicates that Iran is trying to fabricate fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), a five-megawatt reactor that is used for producing nuclear isotopes for medical and agricultural use, as well as research. Aside from enriching uranium at low level -- around 3.7 percent -- for a light water nuclear reactor of the type that has begun operating at Bushehr, and at 19.75 percent for the TRR, Iran was not known to have the technical expertise for taking further steps to fabricate the enriched uranium into fuel rods or pellets. The report indicates that Iran has made progress in this direction as well.

The second part of the report discusses "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program. In the run-up to the report's publication, there was much speculation that it would contain "irrefutable" evidence that Iran is close -- as close as six months, some claimed -- to making a nuclear weapon. (The Washington Post asked rhetorically but also matter-of-factly, Is Obama going to let Iran get the bomb?) But the report does not come even close to providing evidence that this is the case, although it does contain some new interesting information. It begins with a sort of rhetorical statement:

Previous reports by the Director General have identified outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program and actions required of Iran to resolve these. Since2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information.

Since 2002? In August 2002, the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization alleged that Iran had a secret nuclear weapon program. Then, in February 2003, former President Mohammad Khatami formally announced that Iran was constructing the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and a few other facilities, and invited the IAEA to inspect them, in complete compliance with Iran's Safeguards Agreement obligation that it must inform the agency about the existence of any nuclear facility by at least 180 days prior to the introduction of any nuclear materials into that facility. Since then, as the IAEA has acknowledged, Iran has undergone the most intrusive inspection in the agency's history, and yet even the report constantly uses "alleged" when referring to the various "worrying" issues that it raises. The report again emphasizes,

The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured program, and that some activities may still be ongoing.

In other words, the entire allegations come down to this: Before 2003, Iran supposedly had an active nuclear weapons program. That was stopped, by the IAEA's own admission:

Owing to growing concerns about the international security situation in Iraq [invasion of Iraq by the U.S.] and neighboring countries at that time, work on the AMAD Plan [an allegedly comprehensive program of research on nuclear weapon] was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a "halt order" instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials. According to that information, however, staff remained in place to record and document the achievements of their respective projects. Subsequently, equipment and work places were either cleaned or disposed of so that there would be little to identify the sensitive nature of the work which had been undertaken.

This is completely consistent with the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007, which stated that Iran stopped its nuclear weapon program in 2003, although the unclassified version of the report provided no evidence that any such program in fact existed prior to that year. According to a June 2011 article by Seymour Hersh, the updated NIE that was submitted to the administration in February 2011 (but went unpublicized) maintained the position that Iran did not have an active nuclear weapon program. All the IAEA report now says is that some elements of that program may have been restarted.

With the exception of a few new twists, the allegations made by the IAEA in its latest report are not new. They emanate from a laptop that supposedly contained extensive documentation about Iran's nuclear program prior to 2003. It was purportedly stolen in 2004, taken to Turkey, and given to Western intelligence agencies. The laptop's documents supposedly talk about a Project 5 for converting uranium oxide (UO₂) to "green salt," or uranium tetrafluoride (UF₄), an intermediate compound in the conversion of uranium ore to gaseous UF₆; Projects 110 and 111 for the design of a missile re-entry vehicle; and Project 3.12 for testing high-power explosives. They were supposedly led by Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a 43-year-old physicist, not a nuclear engineer as has been reported in the West, who received his Ph.D. from Shiraz University in southern Iran and works openly in physics research institutes in Tehran. All of the "Projects" are discussed prominently in the latest IAEA report, as well (see Attachment 1 of the report, the center table).

The IAEA expresses concern about what Fakhrizadeh is up to now. According to the report,

The Agency has other information from Member States which indicates that some activities previously carried out under the AMAD Plan were resumed later, and that Mr. Fakhrizadeh retained the principal organizational role, first under a new organization known as the Section for Advanced Development Applications and Technologies, which continued to report to MODAFL [Ministry of Defense Armed Forces Logistics], and later, in mid-2008, as the head of the Malek Ashtar University of Technology in Tehran. The Agency has been advised by a Member State that, in February 2011, Mr. Fakhrizadeh moved his seat of operations from MUT to an adjacent location known as the Modjeh Site, and that he now leads the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research. The Agency is concerned because some of the activities undertaken after 2003 would be highly relevant to a nuclear weapon program.

Now it may be news to the IAEA where Fakhrizadeh has moved to, but not to those who follow developments in Iran closely.

The report essentially represents a rehash of what Olli Heinonen, former IAEA deputy director-general for safeguards -- a man who has a reputation inconsistent with impartiality and objectivity -- presented to the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna in February 2008. On that occasion, he presented a dark view of Iran's nuclear program under the guise of an "Agency Evaluation," even though the agency had declared only two days earlier its satisfaction with the resolution of many issues that, up until then, had been considered "crucial" and "critical." In fact, there were persistent rumors about tension between ElBaradei, then the agency's director-general, and Heinonen.

The new IAEA report avoids mentioning the laptop. It proved to be too controversial, and its essential premise and claims were demolished by Gareth Porter, this author, and others. So what the new IAEA report claims is that it now has corroborating evidence, supplied by up to ten member states, about the same allegations. No country is specifically mentioned, nothing is said about how the member states obtained the intelligence, and no dates are given about when the information reached the agency.

The report talks about procurement activities and Iran's attempt to obtain nuclear materials. The agency acknowledges,

In 2008, the Director General informed the Board that: it had no information at that time -- apart from the uranium metal document -- on the actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weapon or of certain other key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies, and that it had not detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies.

But it then claims,

As indicated in paragraph 22 above [the report], information contained in the alleged studies documentation suggests that Iran was working on a project to secure a source of uranium suitable for use in an undisclosed enrichment program, the product of which would be converted into metal for use in the new warhead which was the subject of the missile re-entry vehicle studies. Additional information provided by Member States indicates that, although uranium was not used, kilogram quantities of natural uranium metal were available to the AMAD Plan.

Information made available to the Agency by a Member State, which the Agency has been able to examine directly, indicates that Iran made progress with experimentation aimed at the recovery of uranium from fluoride compounds (using lead oxide as a surrogate material to avoid the possibility of uncontrolled contamination occurring in the workplace).

In addition, although now declared and currently under safeguards, a number of facilities dedicated to uranium enrichment (the Fuel Enrichment Plant and Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz and the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant near Qom) were covertly built by Iran and only declared once the Agency was made aware of their existence by sources other than Iran. This, taken together with the past efforts by Iran to conceal activities involving nuclear material, create more concern about the possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran.

This is pure innuendo and insinuation. The Natanz facility was declared to the IAEA when it was supposed to be, and it was incomplete at that time. The timing of Iran's declaration of the Fordow facility, from a safeguards viewpoint, is a matter of dispute. I discussed this issue in a previous article, and will not repeat myself here. But the upshot is that, in my opinion, Iran did not violate its safeguards obligations when it declared the existence of the Fordow facility. The rest, again, is simply innuendo and insinuation.

The most important part of the report deals with alleged work on high conventional explosives, not for conventional weapons, but supposedly for use in triggering a nuclear device. The report discusses in detail fast functioning detonators, known as "exploding bridgewire detonators" (EBWs), which are needed in nuclear weapons. By the IAEA's own admission, Iran informed the agency in 2008 that it had developed EBWs for use in conventional and civilian applications. The accusation is that

Iran has not explained to the Agency its own need or application for such detonators.

In other words, the IAEA demands, "Tell us what you want to do with it," even though it was Iran that supplied the information in the first place, and Iranian scientists had published their work in scientific journals that even the IAEA mentions in its report. Dariush Rezaeinejad, the Iranian scientist who was assassinated last July, was presumably connected with this woek. The agency also states that it has information that Iran has conducted a number of practical tests to see whether its EBW firing equipment would function satisfactorily over long distances between a firing point and a test device located down a deep shaft.

The IAEA acknowledges that

there exist non-nuclear applications, albeit few, for detonators like EBWs, and of equipment suitable for firing multiple detonators with a high level of simultaneity. Notwithstanding, given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device, and the fact that there are limited civilian and conventional military applications for such technology, Iran's development of such detonators and equipment is a matter of concern, particularly in connection with the possible use of the multipoint initiation system referred to below.

Despite detailed discussions, however, the IAEA does not present any assessment of Iran's capability to make a nuclear explosive device based on what it knows. Why? Is the agency not sure of its own knowledge? In 2009, the IAEA presented an assessment. Has all the "new" knowledge done nothing to sharpen that assessment?

One of the most interesting parts of the report is the reference to a "foreign scientist" who apparently contributed to Iran's alleged experiments with high explosives:

The Agency has strong indications that the development by Iran of the high explosives initiation system, and its development of the high speed diagnostic configuration used to monitor related experiments, were assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable in these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career with this technology in the nuclear weapon program of the country of his origin. The Agency has reviewed publications by this foreign expert and has met with him. The Agency has been able to verify through three separate routes, including the expert himself, that this person was in Iran from about 1996 to about 2002, ostensibly to assist Iran in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra-dispersed diamonds, where he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications.

So, once again, something might have been done in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but if we are to believe the NIE, it all ended before 2003. The report says only that the foreign expert -- presumably from the former Soviet Union -- "lectured" on high explosives. That is the entirety of the evidence.

Regarding high explosives, the matter has been contentious for several years. To carry out experiments with high explosives, one must construct a containment vessel. It was supposed to be in Parchin, southeast of Tehran, where since the 1950s Iran has had a plant for the production of conventional ammunitions. The agency visited the site twice in 2005, but could not turn up evidence of anything. Even Heinonen has acknowledged this. Parchin was not mentioned again in any report, until now. The agency does not provide any new evidence, but states that it believes that Iran does have a containment vessel somewhere in Parchin. It also reports that it received information from a member state that Iran has manufactured simulated nuclear explosives components -- materials that act similarly, but do not involve uranium -- presumably to conduct experiments, but without leaving a fingerprint of nuclear materials, although it does not claim that Iran has experimented with the material. If true, it could be significant, but even the agency is cautious about this aspect.

The agency then turns to modeling and simulation studies. It reports,

Information provided to the Agency by two Member States relating to modeling studies alleged to have been conducted in 2008 and 2009 by Iran is of particular concern to the Agency. According to that information, the studies involved the modeling of spherical geometries, consisting of components of the core of an HEU [highly enriched uranium] nuclear device subjected to shock compression, for their neutronic behavior at high density, and a determination of the subsequent nuclear explosive yield. The information also identifies models said to have been used in those studies and the results of these calculations, which the Agency has seen. The application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the Agency. It is therefore essential that Iran engage with the Agency and provide an explanation.

Once again, if true, this could be significant and requires explanation by Iran, although a purely modeling effort is not nearly sufficient to support the argument that Iran has been trying to make a nuclear weapon. The report continues,

Research by the Agency into scientific literature published over the past decade has revealed that Iranian workers, in particular groups of researchers at Shahid Behesti University and Amir Kabir University [Tehran Polytechnic], have published papers relating to the generation, measurement and modeling of neutron transport. The Agency has also found, through open source research, other Iranian publications which relate to the application of detonation shock dynamics to the modeling of detonation in high explosives, and the use of hydrodynamic codes in the modeling of jet formation with shaped (hollow) charges. Such studies are commonly used in reactor physics or conventional ordnance research, but also have applications in the development of nuclear explosives.

But if the intention was to do work related to nuclear weaponization, why would Iranian scientists publish their work in freely accessible scientific journals?

Finally, the report tries to present new evidence regarding Project 111, supposedly for the design of a missile re-entry vehicle. It refers to computer simulations that Iran has supposedly carried out, using standard commercial codes:

Studies of at least 14 progressive design iterations of the payload chamber and its contents to examine how they would stand up to the various stresses that would be encountered on being launched and traveling on a ballistic trajectory to a target.

But this could very well relate to Iran's conventional-warhead missile program that it has never hidden, but has in fact boasted about. Even the IAEA acknowledges such a possibility (see below). The agency itself does not even allege that the enumerated activities are related to a nuclear warhead, but that "they are highly relevant." It is only here that the agency obliquely refers to the alleged laptop documents:

Iran has denied conducting the engineering studies, claiming that the documentation which the Agency has is in electronic format and so could have been manipulated, and that it would have been easy to fabricate. However, the quantity of the documentation, and the scope and contents of the work covered in the documentation, are sufficiently comprehensive and complex that, in the Agency's view, it is not likely to have been the result of forgery or fabrication. While the activities described as those of Project 111 may be relevant to the development of a non-nuclear payload, they are highly relevant to a nuclear weapon program.

So the IAEA lends credence to the documents. Many experts have, however, cast doubt on the authenticity of the laptop's contents. A senior European diplomat was quoted by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger of the New York Times in a November 13, 2005, article as saying, "I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt." Another European official said, "Yeah, so what? How do you know what you're shown on a slide is true, given past experience?" A senior intelligence official was quoted as saying, "It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that beautiful pictures represent reality, but that may not be the case." Another U.S. official was quoted as saying, "Even with the best intelligence, you always ask yourself, 'was this prepared for my eyes?'" Julian Borger of the Guardian quoted an IAEA official as saying, "There is some doubt over the provenance of the computer."

The last part of the report deals with fusing, arming, and firing systems. It states,

The alleged studies documentation indicates that, as part of the studies carried out by the engineering groups under Project 111 to integrate the new payload into the re-entry vehicle of the Shahab 3 missile, additional work was conducted on the development of a prototype firing system that would enable the payload to explode both in the air above a target, or upon impact of the re-entry vehicle with the ground. Iran was shown this information, which, in its 117 page submission (submitted a few months ago to the IAEA), it dismissed as being "an animation game." The Agency, in conjunction with experts from Member States other than those which had provided the information in question, carried out an assessment of the possible nature of the new payload. As a result of that assessment, it was concluded that any payload option other than nuclear which could also be expected to have an airburst option (such as chemical weapons) could be ruled out. Iran was asked to comment on this assessment and agreed in the course of a meeting with the Agency which took place in Tehran in May 2008 that, if the information upon which it was based were true, it would constitute a program for the development of a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA does not, however, state what has happened since the 2008 agreement.

Summarizing, as I see it, the allegations are nothing new and are all based on the aforementioned laptop. New evidence is mentioned, but without any documentation, source, or date. There are only a couple of issues that require serious explanation by Iran. The conclusion: The report was deliberately hyped to make a case for much harsher sanctions, or war.

Update: Inter Press Service's Gareth Porter reports that the "foreign scientist" who supposedly helped Iran's nuclear program has, in fact, never worked with weapons. Porter names the scientist as Vyacheslav Danilenko and reports that he has nothing to do with the nuclear weapons field, but rather is one of the world's leading experts in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives. According to Porter, the Ukrainian Danilenko has never been involved in any weapons research and the "unnamed [IAEA] member state that informed the agency about Danilenko's alleged experience as a Soviet nuclear weapon scientist is almost certainly Israel, which has been the source of virtually all the purported intelligence on Iranian work on nuclear weapons over the past decade."

Update: Vyacheslav Danilenko has denied helping Iran with its nuclear program. Danilenko, 76, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant, "I am not a nuclear physicist and am not the father of the Iranian nuclear program." He confirmed that his field of research is nanodiamond production.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Photos show drug dealers and addicts, including a prostitute, score as children play in a poor south Tehran neighborhood. Photos from contributor in Tehran. Text translated from a recent report by Iran's Khabar Online.

[ society ] Research conducted by Iran's Center for Counter-Narcotics in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the summer of 2011 shows that there are more than 72,000 women addicted to narcotics in the country.

The findings indicate that while the proportion of addicted females remains at around 6 percent of the total drug-addicted population of 1.2 million, they tend to face many more difficulties than male addicts.

According to research conducted by sociologist and women's rights activist Jaleh Shaditalab, most drug-addicted women in Tehran sleep on the streets and have no job skills. The void of government-sponsored assistance centers is palpable. There is not a single facility set up to serve the city's female addict population, and there is only a rudimentary shelter available for them, which in the cold months handles twice as many women as its 40-person capacity. In other words, from the mass of homeless women who are addicted to drugs in the capital, only 80 are lucky enough to be sure of surviving each freezing winter night.

Although most of the women who come to the Tehran shelter identify themselves as housewives, according to Shaditalab, nearly all married very young and most have left their families, either by force or willingly. Thus, they have no support from their families, and no desire or opportunity to return to their homes after overcoming their addictions.

Women in the capital's poorer, southern neighborhoods often quit school in the primary grades and are thus far less educated and employable than most women in the city center.

Shaditalab's research further shows that the standard four-week detoxication periods have no lasting benefits and that most treated women will return to prostitution and drug abuse due to lack of income and shelter.

Previous research on drug-addicted men has shown that employed and married men turn to drugs more often than those who are unemployed and/or single. This latest research indicates that women in the poor precincts of south Tehran become addicted mostly through their parents. Shaditalab suggests that they start using narcotic drugs to deal with "pain." This is in contrast to central and north Tehran, where addicted women tend to start using drugs with their spouses. They have relatively high degrees of family support and encouragement for their detoxication efforts.

Non-governmental organizations were key in identifying addicts for her research, says Shaditalab, who adds that the condition of drug-addicted women in south Tehran is so woeful that identifying them is quite easy. The help available to them is not adequate by any measure and their conditions worsen day to day.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

A look behind the scenes.

[ society ] Life in Iran is split in halves: the half lived in the open and the half lived behind closed doors. And this duality goes deep: every man and woman in Iran leads two lives, an external life that conforms to the pressures and norms of the society and an internal life governed by the wants and needs of the person.

This is a continuation of the ways of traditional Iranian society, which has evolved into a modern, complex form of duality present at every level of social activity. At the core of the old Iranian way of living were houses that were split into andarouni (literally, "internal," and commonly confused with harem, a section of an aristocrat's castle), in which people relaxed far from public scrutiny -- women were not obliged to wear hejab, and singing and dancing was allowed. Outside this safe haven, life changed -- women were expected to be chador-clad and demure; men, formal and rigid.

The ritual of a domestic visit was a layered one; you would start at the door, which was the farthest that street vendors, gypsies, and fortune tellers could come. The next step was the hashti, an octagonal room filled with seats, where most visitors were greeted and entertained. If a person was to be allowed in further, a call was made inside the house, usually something like "Ya Allah," still common today when a stranger enters a residence. The call meant that the home's inner sanctum was about to be breached and everyone assumed the roles assigned to them by social norms; again women were clad in hejab and men became formal. The lucky guests who were allowed further than the hashti were guided to the panjdari or talar, a large room specifically designed for entertaining guests. But that was the furthest any outsider could penetrate the layers of the house; still further, behind closed doors, was the living room, centerpiece of the andarouni.

This layered approach to life allowed traditional Iranians to leave their public personas at the door and live life as they pleased inside. Over the years, despite the transformation of Iranian architecture, this notion of layered life was incorporated into Iranian society. The average Iranian is preoccupied with social standing and the image that he or she projects; this acts as an external force that shapes the way an Iranian lives outside the safe inner sanctum.

The external forces are themselves manifold: On the one hand, there is the universal communitarianism of Islam, enforced by the government, that obliges every Iranian to follow a strict set of moral and social codes -- women must wear hejab, men are prohibited from wearing ties, and so forth. The social norms and trends, on the other hand, act as a counterbalance -- you are labeled based on how you look and behave, you are expected to look hip and trendy lest you be frowned upon. For example, a bearded man is considered a Basiji unless proven otherwise, and yet without a beard a man cannot hold a significant government job. The truth is that everyone plays along. You know that if you need something done for you in a governmental bureau, you are better off wearing a beard (or bribing someone, which is another issue). So when your friends see you with your newly grown whiskers, almost all invariably ask "Mikhay vam begiri?" (You want to get a loan?), a joke that is often not far from the mark.

When I leave my house and go to work, I project a persona that is completely different from me. My colleagues never suspect who the real me is nor do I know much about them. I dress and behave very formally, despite the fact that I am quite casual by nature. Then I meet with friends and I project a fun and easygoing image, wearing trendy clothes and acting cool despite being reserved and indifferent to style inside, and then at home I am a totally different person. Most Iranians, even though they won't admit it, live such dual lives. Even now that I live outside of Iran, I see that my fellow Iranians in the diaspora are still leading dual lives. This duality is even reflected in the global media's portrayal of Iran and Iranian lives: Iran is depicted as a conservative society entangled with tradition, but the reality is that the society is moving so fast toward modernity that many desperately grasp at traditions in order to preserve their sense of identity.

This duality has consequences. It has led to a widespread sense of hypocrisy and mistrust; you can never be sure that what others say is true or not, because you don't project a very honest image yourself. Iranian society has become extremely complex, and this is evident at every layer, especially the political; the authorities, for instance, publicly demonize the West and yet behind the scenes many have or seek ties to it. Consider the case of Mahmoud Reza Khavari, former head of Bank Melli, the country's largest bank, who fled to Canada amid the multibillion-dollar embezzlement scandal that roiled the regime in recent months. While for years, Khavari projected the image of an ultra-conservative patriot and devoted follower of the Supreme Leader, all along he had a Canadian passport. Or take Morteza Agha Tehrani, the ultra-reactionary Majles deputy known as the "moral guide" for the Ahmadinejad administration; he has a U.S. green card. Despite all the animosity displayed by officials toward the West, many Iranians believe that the current government is a puppet of Britain.

The duality of Iranians lives has led them to believe that, as an ancient proverb puts it, there is always "Kasei poshte nim kase" -- there is always something going on behind the scenes.

Photos by Amirali Ghasemi

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

At least 17 people, including a general, died as a result of an explosion on a military base near Tehran.

Reports indicate that at around 1:30 p.m. Tehran time (many placed the blast at around 1 or 1:15 p.m. ) there was at least one, and possibly several huge explosions at the Amir-ol-Momenin military base which belongs to the Organization of Self-Sufficiency Jihad. It's where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stores its ammunition and explosives. The depot explosion was so powerful that it was even heard in western parts of Tehran. Fars news agency, which is run by the IRGC, has confirmed the explosions.

A Tehran resident who was near Vard-Avard, which is 18 kilometers west of capital, told Tehran Bureau that he spoke to a manager at a nearby factory. "'A forceful wave went through the factory and broke all of the windows and glasses,'" he told him.

"My mother-in-law who lives in Tehran, north of Saadat Abad, heard the bang (the source of which was 20 kilometers to the West of her flat), and was so scared that she ran out and went into the street fearing that there has been an earthquake," he added.

For an aerial view of the location click here.

The explosions occurred in a village called Bidganeh, in a Malard suburb in the Alborz province, west of Tehran. Lieutenant Brigadier General Ramazan Sharif, head of the IRGC public relations department, said that 17 people were killed and that 16 others were injured, some critically. (The IRGC changed its official tally from 27 to 17, attributing the discrepancy to an illegible fax.)

He said that the blasts occurred when explosives were being transferred from a storage area to another location in order to be used (he did not specify the intended use). He also rejected speculations that the explosion may have had something to do with a nuclear-related test.

Mohammad Esmail Kosari, a former IRGC officer and currently the deputy head of the Majles commission on national security and foreign policy, said that security agents have ruled out the possibility of terrorist activity, but said that the cause of the explosion is under investigation. The matter was expected to be discussed Sunday at the commission's meeting.

Separately, Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Radan, deputy commander of the national police, also said that the cause of explosion is under investigation.

Meanwhile, quoting Guard spokesman General Ramazan Sharif, the Los Angeles Times reported it as an "accidental" explosion, even carrying it in its headline.

The explosions caused massive fires and firemen were deployed from different departments as well as neighboring towns to control the blaze. Rescue dogs were helping with search efforts.

Mahmouid Mozaffar, head of the rescue operation division of Iran's Red Crescent, said that it is possible that other explosions may occur.

He said that thick smoke has slowed down rescue operations. The streets around the military base have been closed by the IRGC, and only six rescue workers have been allowed to enter the base because of the possibility of successive explosions, he said.

Mozaffar added that his organization has also been trying to identify the victims.

While the number of injured was initially said to be 10 and then 16, ISNA, the Iranian Students News Agency, later reported that 23 people had been transferred to several hospitals, and that the rescue operation has ended. ISNA said that rescue personnel will remain at the military base until Sunday morning to ensure that the place is safe.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

"I wish that no one had the concept Iranian-American--which might sound pessimistic, but just ask any of your local neighborhood Others what identification has done for them lately," Khakpour is quoted as saying. "[I]n putting this issue together, I found that the contrarian instinct in me was useful for soliciting a broad spectrum of writers and writings for a reader unfamiliar with the work of diasporic Iranians. Instead of showcasing commonalities in crude clumps and bulging brands, I wanted to present a collection that's testament to the fact that ethnic origin is where oneness ends. In this way, the grouping is intentionally unsettling."

Click here to read the issue.

Photo by Iraj Isaac Rahmim

Copyright © 2011 Guernica

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

1:30 p.m., 22 Aban/November 13 The AP is quoting a statement from the Revolutionary Guards stating that General Hassan Moghaddam, the Guard commander killed in the explosion, was "a key figure in Iran's missile program":

The Guard praised Moghaddam, saying the military force will not forget his "effective role in the development of the country's defense ... and his efforts in launching and organizing the Guard's artillery and missile units," the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted the statement as saying Sunday.

Iranian officials did not explain why Moghaddam was at the site at the time of the explosion.

Saeed Qasemi, a Guard commander, said Iran owes its missile program to Moghaddam.

9:15 a.m., 22 Aban/November 13 Richard Silverstein, who writes an influential blog on Israel and has credible sources there, reports on a significant claim that the explosion yesterday afternoon at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) depot was the result of a joint operation by Israel's Mossad and the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO, also referred to as the MEK). According to Silverstein:

An Israeli source with extensive senior political and military experience provides an exclusive report that it was the work of the Mossad in collaboration with the MEK. It is widely known within intelligence circles that the Israeli intelligence agency uses the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations. A similar act of sabotage happened a little more than a year ago [on October 11, 2010] at another IRG[C] missile base [Imam Ali base in Lorestan province] which killed nearly 20 [the actual toll was 18 dead and 14 injured].

Meanwhile, Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the MKO's political arm, claimed that the explosion occurred at a Revolutionary Guard missile base, rather than a munitions depot, as officially reported. Jafarzadeh did not attribute the explosion to the MKO, nor did he specify what he thought caused the explosion.

Rooz, the online daily, reported that Hamed Ebrahimi said that the explosion occurred at a Revolutionary Guard missile storage facility where Shahab missiles are stored. According to Ebrahimi, who reportedly once served at the base, it has very tight security and, therefore, the possibility that the explosion was the result of a sabotage operation is very low.

The Revolutionary Guards have confirmed that a corps commander during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s was killed in the explosion. He was Brigadier General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who had been heading the Guards' Organization of Self-Sufficiency Jihad. Moghaddam also worked at Imam Hossein University, which is controlled by the Guards.

The number of casualties has been a matter of dispute. Originally, it was announced that 27 people had been killed and 23 injured. But Lieutenant General Ramazan Sharif, head of the Guards' public relations department, declared the accurate figures were 17 and 16, respectively. At the same time, Iran Emrooz, an opposition website, put the number at "hundreds killed and injured." Citing "human rights and democracy activists in Iran," the website quoted unnamed sources as saying that the number of casualties is anywhere between 170 and 300.

The families of political prisoners incarcerated in Rajaei Shahr Prison near the town of Karaj, west of Tehran, have expressed concern over the safety of their loved ones, as the prison is not too far from the explosion site.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

11:20 p.m., 22 Aban/November 13 The AP is reporting that the son of Mohsen Rezaei, who ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, apparently committed suicide in a Dubai hotel (photo and video via Iranian.com).

A Dubai police official said the body, with a slit left wrist, was found late Friday by hotel staff in an 18th floor room.

[T]he Iranian website Tabnak, which is close to conservative Mohsen Rezaei, said that the politician's son Ahmad Rezaei died in Dubai's Gloria Hotel. It called the death "suspicious," but offered no other details.

Prior to his return to Iran in 2005, Ahmad Rezaei had lived in the United States and openly criticized Tehran's rulers [see video above]. This put his father, a conservative closely associated with clerical hard-liners, in an awkward political position.

According to Press TV, the English-language subsidiary of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has rejected reports that the explosion Saturday at a Guard facility that killed at least 17 people was a deliberate act:

Head of the IRGC Public Relations Department Lieutenant General Ramezan Sharif said on Sunday that investigations to determine the main cause of the incident are underway and that the public will be informed of the findings.

Sharif also ruled out the possibility of acts of sabotage being behind the blast. [...]

Initial reports had cited "relocation of ammunition" as being behind the explosion.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the Islamic Republic has compromised as much as it is going to over its nuclear program. As reported by AFP,

"I think there's no more point in making additional concessions," he [said.]

"The nuclear question is just a pretext to weaken us by all means," he added.

Salehi rejected an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released Tuesday citing "credible" evidence that Iran had worked towards nuclear weapons, saying the Vienna-based agency had given up its "earlier objectivity."

He said IAEA head Yukiya Amano was headed for hard times.

"We will call him and the atomic energy authority to account for these conclusions," he warned.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Leading candidates appear to have little understanding of the Green Movement.

[ opinion ] Last night's GOP debate in South Carolina came at a time when the specter of a conflict between Iran and the United States and its allies is haunting the world. The current state of tension has been amplified by the recent IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program. Many viewed the foreign policy-focused debate Saturday as a chance for the Republican Party's presidential candidates to outline their vision regarding the country as well as long-term and short-term solutions for the mitigation of another costly conflict.

Sadly, that was not to be.

The candidate currently at the top of the polls, Herman Cain, staked out a convoluted position, saying he would "not entertain military opposition" while arguing for the deployment of "ballistic missile defense-capable warships" ready to be used "strategically" against Iran. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who is just behind Cain in the polls and considered the favorite by many observers, along with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum explicitly endorsed possible military engagement with Iran. The potential benefits of diplomacy were roundly ignored in favor of "crippling sanctions" -- Rick Perry declared that the United States should "sanction the Iranian Central Bank right now and shut down that country's economy" -- and, ultimately, a military approach that could result in the death of hundreds of thousands and cause trillions of dollars in destruction and collateral economic losses.

In addition to that, three of the candidates, including the two frontrunners, endorsed a strange foreign policy initiative -- the United States should have and must from now on help the Iranian opposition, but an opposition defined in very peculiar ways: Cain referred to the "opposition movement that's trying to overthrow the regime," Romney spoke of "insurgents," and Santorum spoke of "rebel forces."

Such references might well have confused informed listeners at first, who could easily have taken them to mean that the Republican Party supports the militant Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO), which remains on the U.S. government's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Those fears were dispelled when Romney clearly invoked the Green Movement as he described what he saw as President Barack Obama's failure: "What he should have done is speak out when dissidents took [sic] the streets and say, 'America is with you!'" This is when things went from confusing to downright discouraging.

Indeed, it was a tragedy that Obama didn't help the Iranian democracy movement in 2009. Among the steps that might have been taken, the United States could have provided opposition activists communication tools they could have used without fear of government detection; taken Iran to the United Nations Security Council over its human rights abuses and pressured its allies to force Iran to stop using violence against the protesters; and help activists escaping Iran -- like those now stranded in Turkey -- who could have served as a direct line of communication between the U.S. government and the opposition. But the fact that the Obama administration did not take such steps hardly makes it less disappointing to see that, two years on, the GOP's leading lights seem to have no idea that the Green Movement is not a rebel force.

Clearly, if candidates like Cain and Romney, who are spending millions of dollars on their campaign organizations, had hired advisers who were well aware of the situation in Iran, they would be able to differentiate between a movement that seeks to bring about change through peaceful demonstrations and one that puts stock in armed tactics. Or perhaps they have no interest in making such distinctions. As Ron Paul observed, "I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq."

Sadly, the characterization of the supporters of the Green Movement as "insurgents" bent on "overthrow" proves yet again that leading Republicans and Democrats alike are blind to the value of options other than economic sanctions, military intervention, and meaningless Nowruz messages when it comes to Iran.

If helping Iran's opposition movement is an initiative the GOP is interested in, then it needs to get informed about the realities on the ground and the parties involved. Otherwise, the initiative endorsed last night is going to come across as nothing more than a soundbite drowned out by the candidates' desire to halt Iran's nuclear program through force of arms.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

9 a.m., 23 Aban/November 14 Speculation is swirling around the death of Ahmad Rezaei, the 31-year-old son of Mohsen Rezaei, the former presidential candidate and top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and current secretary-general of the Expediency Discernment Council.

Ahmad Rezaei, who was found in a Dubai hotel with his left wrist reportedly slit in an apparent suicide, was a controversial figure. In 1998, he moved to the United States, where he gave interviews in which he fiercely criticized Iran's ruling elite. He claimed, for example, that political dissidents had been murdered on the direct order of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His interviews caused deep embarrassment to his father, who has been a fixture in the Islamic Republic's political and military establishment since the 1979 Revolution.

The elder Rezaei claimed that certain Americans had tricked his son, claiming that they worked for NASA, in order to entice him to leave his homeland and move to the United States, so that they could take advantage of him. He condemned his son, saying that if he ever came back to Iran, he would be treated like any other critic of the Islamic Republic. Ahmad Rezaei eventually returned to Iran in 2005, though his father made that public in a television interview only a year later. He was never prosecuted and later left again for the United States, where he reportedly married an American citizen. A subsequent attempt to return to Iran was opposed by the government, and thus he stayed in Dubai, where police reported his nationality as American. His family has arrived in Dubai to take his body back to Iran.

Aftab News, a website that is close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, claimed that he was electrocuted. Shahram Gilabadi, deputy head of public relations for the Expediency Discernment Council, told Mohsen Rezaei's own website that the death is suspicious and still under investigation. Ammariyon, a website close to the vigilante group Ansaar-e Hezbollah, claimed that the young Rezaei was assassinated by Israel's Mossad.

Debka, a website linked with Israel's intelligence agencies, offered both an intriguing comparison and purported details of Rezaei's demise that contradict all of the official reports:

The cause of his death strongly resembled the method by which Hamas' contact man with Tehran Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was slain on Jan. 19, 2010 in another Dubai hotel. The local authorities laid that death at the door of Israel's Mossad. For instance, Rezaie's body showed no signs of violence. He appeared [to] have been injected with the Suxamethonium muscle relaxant and then smothered with a pillow.

Debka also claimed that while Rezaei was still in the United States,

[H]e contacted Israelis with an offer to help run down what happened to the Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who has been missing since 1986, when his plane went down over Lebanon and he was captured by Shiite groups and believed handed over to Tehran. Rezaie offered to travel to Dubai and use his contacts in the Expediency Council to discover what happened to the Israeli navigator in return for a handsome down-payment. His Israeli contacts eventually turn him down.

Debka speculated that Ahmad Rezaei might have been murdered on the order of Khamenei as a warning to his father to step back from his close relationship with Rafsanjani. No evidence at all to support this far-fetched claim has been presented.

Major political and military figures have visited with Mohsen Rezaei to convey their condolences, including Majles Speaker Ali Larijani; Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Revolutionary Guards' top commander; Major General Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force; Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi; Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, commander of the national police; and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard air force.

Ahmadinejad versus Khamenei

In an obvious slap at Supreme Leader Khamenei and his supporters, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, his chief of staff and closest confidant, and Hamid Baghaei, his vice president for executive affairs. Mashaei has been accused of leading the "perverted group," which Khamenei's supporters claim is plotting to expel the clerics from the government, while Baghaei has been accused of financial corruption. In a ceremony at Iran's national museum, Ahmadinejad spoke about the nation's 5,000-year history, and said, "If Ferdowsi had not lived, Iran would not exist today." Abolqasem Ferdowsi (940-1020) wrote the epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings), which helped the Persian language to survive the Arabs' invasion of Iran. Mashaei has repeatedly lauded the nation's pre-Islamic history, which has angered the hardliners around Khamenei and the conservative clergy. Ahmadinejad thanked the Organization for Cultural Heritage, which has been run or controlled by Mashaei and Baghaei since 2005, for the work that it has been doing to preserve the symbols of Iranian history and said, "If a nation destroys its cultural heritage, it is committing suicide."

Majles deputy and Ahmadinejad critic Ahmad Tavakoli denied Ahmadinejad's assertions about him regarding the 2005 presidential election. As noted here last week, Ahmadinejad delivered a speech filled with strong statements against his critics. In his speech, Ahmadinejad referred to a conversation with a Mr. "T" and said,

In 2004 someone from the opposition met with me and said that we were thinking about supporting another person for the presidency, but realized that he cannot do it. "Are you ready [to run for president]?" [he asked.] I said, "Do you realize what you are saying? If someone from the ranks of people with bare feet [the poor] becomes the president, it will represent another revolution, and will end aristocracy, royalty, nepotism and embezzlement. Will you be able to tolerate that?"

It turns out Mr. "T" is none other than Tavakoli. He denied having that conversation with Ahmadinejad and said that he was a serious candidate for presidency at that time and, thus, he would not have suggested to Ahmadinejad that he run.

In an angry letter to Ahmadinejad, conservative Majles deputy Bahman Akhavan rebuked the president for threatening to publicize classified information about various state officials. "Do you think that if you were not the president, you could have had access to such information? They would not have even allowed you even at the door to the building of Ministry of Intelligence," Akhavan wrote. He also criticized the economic performance of the Ahmadinejad administration, saying that poverty and corruption have increased, while Iran has had the highest earnings from the oil exports since 2005. Akhavan said, "Given people like Ahmadinejad, Iran needs no more enemies."

Damage to historical monuments

While Ahmadinejad was praising his close aides for the work they have done to preserve Iran's cultural heritage, multiple reports indicate that some of the country's most important historical monuments have been damage by nature, or deliberately destroyed. Serious fissures have developed in Persepolis, the palace of Persia's ancient emperors, and one of the most treasured cultural heritage sites in the world. Excess humidity has damaged the monument, and the unrepaired fissures have worsened. In Ramhormoz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, a hill containing historical artifacts from the Parthian era (248 B.C.-224 A.D.) has been completely destroyed as a result of the city's efforts to to build a sewer system. In Yazd, in central Iran, the historic "Shams House" was completely destroyed, even though it was registered as a historical monument.

Economy

Between two and three million accounts have been blocked since Saturday by Bank Saderat, one of Iran's largest financial institutions. The announced reason is "wrong information" given to the banking system. Reports indicate that large crowds have gathered around branches of the bank, worrying about the fate of their savings. The bank has asked people to go the banks with their national identity cards and birth certificates in order to correct any mistakes in their information, so that their accounts can be unblocked.

Human rights

In a major statement, the Organization of Islamic Revolution Mojahedin (OIRM), one of the leading reformist political groups that has been outlawed by the hardliners, warned that the nation is facing international threats and serious internal crises. Pointing to the United Nations Security Council's resolutions against Iran, the many reports on the violation of human rights in the country, harsh economic sanctions, continuous propaganda against the nation, and the "scenario" for the assassination of Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington, the OIRM said that these are the result of an aggressive foreign policy -- which it contrasted with the foreign policy of former President Mohammad Khatami -- and declared that the state of affairs in the international arena is totally unprecedented since the 1979 Revolution. The OIRM assigned the hardliners and their government direct responsibility for the consequences of what is happening. It condemned any form of military attacks on Iran or violation of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty -- particularly the efforts of the "Zionist regime" (Israel) -- and declared that the only way to emerge from the current impasse and protect Iran is for the ruling group to apologize to the nation, respect the people's wishes, end the dictatorship, and guarantee people's participation in national affairs through free and fair elections.

Hassan Fathi, a reporter for the BBC, was arrested in Tehran. He was charged with "propaganda against the state" and "spreading lies". He had spoken to the BBC in a live program and said that the explosion at a Revolutionary Guard that killed at least 17 people occurred at a missile base.

Hossein Najafi, a political activist in Fars province, was arrested. He is a member of the youth branch of Islamic Iran Participation Front, the largest reformist (and now outlawed) political party, and worked for Mir Hossein Mousavi's presidential campaign in Fars. He was previously arrested in the aftermath of the 2009 election and jailed for ten days. He has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment, and he may have been arrested to enforce the sentence.

Saeed Saedi, a Kurdish journalist and civic activist in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Kurdistan province has been sentenced to three years of incarceration. He was previously arrested in December 2010 and spent 74 days in solitary confinement.

Assassination attempt

Yadollah Sadeghi, head of the Organization of Industry, Mines, and Commerce of Tehran, was attacked by his deputy Faramarz Ebrahimi, who tried to kill him by firing three shots at him. Some reports indicate that Sadeghi is comatose and in critical condition, while other reports indicate that he was injured, but not too seriously. Apparently, Ebrahimi was angry after he heard that Sadeghi had fired him.

Arrest of alleged spies

Two Kuwaiti citizens were reportedly arrested in the oil city of Abadan in Khuzestan province and charged with espionage. According to the report, they were equipped with spying equipment and arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

A walk through an alien world, harsh and magnificent.

[ passport ] A crowd of many hundreds have gathered by the dried-up bed of the Zayanderud (life-giver river); the river has been dry for a long time due to an extended drought that has affected Iran in recent years. Now, despite the ongoing drought, the dam upriver has been opened for a few days so that the farmers in the Zayanderud basin can irrigate their crops. The crowd eagerly awaits the arrival of water, the very pulse of the city of Isfahan.

Iran enjoys a variety of climates, from the lush forests of the north to the mighty mountains of Zagros and Alborz to the saline deserts known as kavirs. Iran has two great kavirs: the Kavir-e Markazi, located in the heart of the country, and the Kavir-e Lut, located in the southeastern province of Kerman.

The kavir is an unforgiving place, dry and harsh. From a distance, it appears an endless landscape of sere land speckled with arid hills and mountains. The average rainfall is so low that many parts of the kavir have no vegetation at all. Even where there is a little water available, the soil and sand are so salty that nothing but the tamarix, or gaz, can grow; the tamarix, a remarkably resilient tree, has roots that run very deep to find the smallest trickle of water to sustain it -- it can endure saltiness, extreme heat, and the unrelenting sun. It's a disheveled-looking plant, but it can withstand the desert's brutal attacks and is so tough that it is used in anti-desertification programs: not only does it act as a windbreak, its roots also pacify the ever-shifting dunes.

In the kavir, you will experience the extremes of weather, from the subfreezing cold of a winter night to the scorching heat of a summer noon. Within just 12 hours, you can encounter the kavir's extremities: around midyear, the days are blisteringly hot, while at night the cool breeze of the desert makes you shiver.

The night sky of the kavir more than makes up for the featureless landscape of the day; just as the sun goes down, the stars start to twinkle to life, one after another. On a moonless night, as the last rays of the sun vanish beneath the horizon, the sky suddenly lights up with thousands upon thousands of stars -- the effect is literally breathtaking. Many become mesmerized by it, gazing up until they feel dizzy. It is a trick of desert that has entranced people for many thousands of years and never gets old.

The kavir has no compassion, it shows no mercy, and it will severely punish the unready. But like any beast, the kavir can also be tamed. You have to know it, know its ways and secrets, adapt to its aggression and its peculiarities. And people have. For many millennia, the kavir and its margins have been inhabited by humans. It seems that wherever in the kavir that water could be found, humans have found it and settled there. There are many small towns and villages scattered inside the kavir, and along its fringes are grand cities that have played crucial roles in the history of Iranian civilization.

The people of the kavir can be likened to the tamarix; they are as tough as it comes, they look weathered and harsh, but they have roots that are deep and long, as long as the thousands of years that they have lived in the desert. And just like the tamarix, they are a force against the desert's might. They are sunburnt and it seems that they are always frowning (it is because of the sunshine). But deep down, they are very warm and welcoming. Just like the desert that hides within it deep wells full of water, the people of the kavir are also full of life deep within. The desert's dry winds, the sand, and the sun have over the years abraded and hardened the kavir dwellers. They have learned the survival game amid one of the planet's extremes and while to the outsider the people and the land may seem angry and bitter, still the kavir is full of romance. Its beauty and harshness, one inextricable from the other, have inspired poets and scholars, from Heydar Yaghma to Ali Shariati, whose book Kavir is dedicated to life in the desert.

Religion is very important for the people of the kavir. Faith is a source of inspiration and a stronghold for them, and throughout the ages it has been faith that has allowed them to endure one of the harsher environments on earth. From the pre-Islamic era, when Zoroastrianism was dominant, through today, the kavir dwellers have attached themselves to religious ceremonies, from Ghalishuyan in Mashad-e Ardehal -- where the people every second Friday of the month of Mehr gather to wash the ghalis (rugs) of the local mosque, wielding clubs in hand -- to the lifting of the great alam (banner) in Yazd on the Day of Ashura. As a result, the cities of the desert and its fringes such as Yazd, Qom, and Isfahan are considered conservative and deeply religious.

For the people of the kavir, water is currency. Those villages scattered around the desert wherever water was discovered are like fortresses within which the people of the kavir have stood their ground, generation after generation. They appear like green heavens amid the dry landscape that surrounds them. Some date back to the arrival of Aryans in the Iranian plateau. Water management is a task that desert dwellers mastered early on, building oases by virtue of a system of qanats, artesian wells and underground aqueducts. The qanats of the Iranian plateau are a remarkable feat of ancient engineering, and if it wasn't for the extreme water demands of modern lifestyles and the profligate drilling of deep, machine-made wells, they would still be providing the necessary water for many villages.

Nowhere in world is the attachment of life to availability of water felt more than in the desert. There is barely enough water to sustain life in the kavir, so a slight dip in the amount of rainfall -- let alone the drought that has gripped the kavir for most of the past decade -- can cause many hardships. Rain and the very rare snow bring immense joy to the lives of kavir dwellers; they are considered nature's greatest blessings and prayed for year round.

Before water storage and water tanks were developed anywhere else in the world, the people of the kavir built ab anbars, underground reservoirs in which they stored water for later use during the dry season. The water was kept deep in the earth, where it remained as cold and fresh as possible. Although these aesthetically pleasing structures have given way to ugly water tanks, they can still be found in almost every desert city and village.

The harsh life of the kavir has always inspired innovation and its people came up with other ingenious ways to make their lives a little more pleasurable. They built the first air-conditioning structures, known as badgirs (windcatchers), towers that capture and redirect the flow of the wind to cool domestic interiors. They are a prominent feature of Iranian desert architecture and the city of Yazd is famous for its many badgirs. The kavir dwellers also built part of their residences underground, with a water cistern in the middle, where it is pleasantly cool even during the hottest days of summer.

The livelihoods of the kavir dwellers for many years depended on herding -- mostly camels, occasionally goats -- and agriculture, where it was possible. They were role models for sustainability, living as frugally as possible, wasting nothing and doing as much as possible with as little as possible.

Trees are revered, especially fruit-bearing trees such as the palm and the pomegranate. Palm orchards have been a source of livelihood for the people of the kavir for many centuries, and nothing is dearer to a kavir dweller than a palm tree. Wherever water is found in the desert, a palm orchard exists. No disaster is greater than the loss of a palm orchard and many villages have been abandoned when their palms were lost. An unexpectedly cold winter a few years back destroyed many orchards around the central kavir and efforts aimed at recultivating them continue. In Iran, there is an ancient tradition of killing a farm animal for a dear guest, both as sustenance and sacrifice in return for good health. In the kavir, for the dearest of guests, a palm is killed -- locals refer to the felling of a tree as "killing," indicative of its significance and gravity -- and its heart, the heart of palm, is offered to the honoree.

Where more water is available, pomegranate trees are planted. In Iran, the pomegranate is considered the tree of love. When the legendary lover Farhad died, a pomegranate tree grew from his axe. Legend has it that the rulers of ancient Iran traded the seeds of pomegranates for the seeds of peaches that belonged to the rulers of ancient China. The pomegranate is served on Yalda, the longest night of the year, and its paste is used with ground walnuts in the delicious stew known as fesenjan.

It seems that what the kavir could not produce, modernity has. For many thousands of years, the people of the kavir knew nothing of despair. Now, with paved roads and ready transport, they have become aware of the easier life outside the desert's boundaries. Many have left, some to the cities at the desert's fringes and some even further, to Tehran and beyond. Those who remained for the first time felt impoverished; rich before they could compare their lives to those outside the harsh reality of the kavir, now they were poor. Today, the kavir suffers both a steady outflow of inhabitants and a high rate of drug addiction.

In recent years, however, with the efforts of the government and local people, the kavir is finding new reasons for hope. The kavir is rich with minerals such as salt alkalis and many mines and processing plants have been built, like the potash plant in Khur, in the northeast of Isfahan province. Modern irrigation techniques have allowed for pomegranate and palm orchards to be cultivated at an industrial scale, and there is also the prospect of tourism. The kavir, so alien and amazing, has huge tourism potential, on which the locals are recently starting to capitalize. Many of the old houses and caravansaries are being converted into hotels and there are regular tours from the big cities. The young are especially eager for the kavir tours, because in the desert, away from the ever-present eye of the authorities, they can experience a bit of freedom -- though that very freedom and the tourism it supports are in turn being threatened as officials step up their efforts to limit access by groups of young people to the kavir.

If I may, I should like to provide a little guide for the traveler who wants to see the kavir and understand its mesmerizing beauty. I will presume that you start your journey in Tehran, and first go to Qom to visit the most religious city in Iran, a focal point for Shia Islam. See the scholars and mosques in every corner, and try to take in the strong presence of faith in the everyday lives of the people of the kavir. Then go to Kashan and visit the many magnificent ancient houses and the Bagh-e Fin, a prototypical Persian garden with its ancient cedars and exquisite architecture. Then a night at the hotel in Abyaneh, a very ancient village full of red houses that offers you a chance to experience traditional Iran. You can visit the old castle and its unusual graveyard, see the orchards, follow the waterway through beautiful scenery, and mingle with the warm and hospitable people.

The next day, midway to Isfahan, stop at Natanz, now notorious for its nuclear facility, but skip that and visit the old Masjed-e Jame; in its vicinity you will find a platanus tree, hundreds of years old, as well as an ancient fire temple. Next is Isfahan; you need at least two days here to begin to grasp what this magnificent city has to offer. Go see the famous bridges and the Naqsh-e Jahan Square (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), have a drink in an old teahouse, try the delicious cuisine, visit the fire temple, scale Sofeh Mountain (or take the lift). Then stop at Naeen and enjoy the old city's ab anbars and mosques. Next, in Yazd, the largest adobe city in the world, you can visit the badgirs and the Zoroastrian temple.

If you have more time and want to see the true kavir, you must head out from Naeen toward Khur, a small city in the middle of desert, stay a night at one of the converted caravansaries, go see the dunes in the village of Mesr, watch the night sky, wander down to the magnificent salt lake, take a stroll in the palm orchards, and also visit the green heavens, small villages so incredibly verdant and beautiful that you cannot believe that they are surrounded by the desert.

At the very end, we journey back to Isfahan, at the margin of the kavir, where the eager crowd waits expectantly. The sound of a trickle is heard and slowly the water proceeds from the west. The cracked and thirsty surface swallows as much as it can and the crowd cheers, encouraging the water on. The water flows under the bridges and washes over the riverbed, with people cheering it every inch of the way. The river fills, "Zayanderud zende shod" -- the life giver is alive once again.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

[ spotlight ] The 2d London Iranian Film Festival opens this Friday, November 18, and runs through Saturday, November 26, when prizes will be awarded in four categories: feature film, documentary, short film, and animation. Festival venues include the Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus, King's College London's Greenwood Theatre, and the French Institute's Ciné Lumière. Eight feature-length dramatic productions will headline the festival (a ninth, A Very Close Encounter, directed by Esmaeel Mihandoust, screened last week):

* Saadat Abad, dir. Maziar Miri (Friday, November 18)
* Mourning, dir. Morteza Farshbaf (Saturday, November 19)
* 3 Women, dir. Manijeh Hekmat (Monday, November 21)
* Gold and Copper, dir. Homayoun Asadian (Tuesday, November 22)
* A Separation, dir. Asghar Farhadi (Thursday, November 24; see Tehran Bureau's review here)
* The Other, dir. Mehdi Rahmani (Thursday, November 24)
* There Are Things You Don't Know, dir. Fardin Saheb-Zamani (Saturday, November 26; pictured on homepage)
* Please Do Not Disturb, dir. Mohsen Abdolvahab (Saturday, November 26)

Among the documentaries that will be presented at the festival, notable entries include:

* Bonjour, Monsieur Ghaffari, dir. Parviz Jahed (Saturday, November 19)
* Tehran Taxi, dir. Bahman Kiarostami, with The Original Certified Copy, dir. Hamideh Razavi (Sunday, November 20)
* Minor and Major, dir. Ali Reza Rasoulinezhad (Monday, November 21)
* Green, White, and Red, dir. Mohammad Reza Hashemian (Friday, November 25)
* This Is Not a Film, dir. Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Friday, November 25; see Tehran Bureau's review here)

A special all-Farsi evening devoted to Ebrahim Golestan, a seminal force in the history of Iranian cinema, will take place on Sunday, November 20. Three short films will be screened, including two of Golestan's classic documentaries: The Hills of Marlik (1963) and The Crown Jewels (1965).

On Wednesday, November 23, there will be a special tribute to Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, who codirected This Is Not a Film with Jafar Panahi and who is currently imprisoned in Iran on charges of illegally collaborating with the BBC. Two of Mirthamasb's documentaries will screen at the event: Back Vocal and Off Beat (both 2004).

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Preoccupation with internal repression weakens Iran's national security.

[ opinion ] As reported here, there was a huge explosion on Saturday at a military base about 30 miles west of Tehran. Official reports stated that the facility, controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was a conventional munitions depot. According to other reports, however, missiles were stored there, a conclusion supported by the white smoke that could be seen after the explosion, indicative of phosphorous-based materials that are used in rockets' solid fuel.

Officially, the Revolutionary Guards insist that the explosion resulted from an accident during the transfer of munitions, and not sabotage. An article published by Tabnak, the website close to Major General (ret.) Mohsen Rezaei, the former top Guard commander, claims that any allegations about the blast not being accidental emanate from the "Zionist regime [Israel]." But there is increasing evidence that Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, in collaboration with its Iranian agents, may have been behind the explosion. As noted here, shortly after the blast, a reliable Israeli source told Richard Silverstein, who writes an influential blog about Israel and its relations with the outside world, that Mossad, and quite possibly the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO, also referred to as the MEK in the Western press), were responsible. Since his original report, Silverstein has posted further discussions of the evidence in support of these allegations; see here for his latest.

A Western intelligence source told Time, "Don't believe the Iranians that it was an accident," adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede Iran's ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. "There are more bullets in the magazine," the official says. The Guardian quoted a source "with close connections to the Islamic Republic" who blamed the explosion on Mossad.

Perhaps most important are the statements that have been made by several top Revolutionary Guard commanders. The explosion killed Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who is considered a key architect of the Iranian missile program that was founded in 1983, in particular surface-to-surface missiles, in which Iran is now self-sufficient. The Guard commanders have paid tribute to General Moghaddam, while referring to the culpability of Iran's enemies and, implicitly, Israel.

Brigadier General Abbas Khani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' air defense system, told IRNA, the state news agency, that Iran "owes its missile capability and deterrence to Moghadam." He added, "As the result of the efforts of martyr Moghadam, our missile capability reached such a level that we were able to hit the heart of Baghdad [during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s]," and that Iran's "enemy" always wanted to identify and eliminate Moghadam.

In his eulogy, published by Farda News, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a brigadier general and former commander of the Revolutionary Guard air force, wrote, "Martyrdom was Hassan's right, but news of it was shocking. Martyr Moghaddam was unknown even in the Sepah [the Guards], but our enemies knew Hassan better than us." An anonymous conservative blogger wrote, "It happened, that which should not have happened. General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, they were looking everywhere for you to make you a martyr, and they finally did it."

Brigadier General Hossein Alaei, one of the most important Guard commanders during the war with Iraq and the first top commander of the Guards' navy when it was formed in 1985, wrote in a eulogy published on the website Tabnak, "Hassan spent his entire life in Sepah. He was always preparing himself to confront the threats by the United States, and was sure that he has endowed the Sepah missile force with the necessary power to react in a timely manner, and has helped the country reach self-sufficiency.... Following the recent threats [by Israel to attack Iran], he was naturally preparing himself when he was killed and finally joined his martyred comrades."

Major General Saeed Haj-Ghasemi, a former commander of the Guards' ground forces, told the conservative website Raja News that Moghaddam "was always threatened by counterrevolutionaries, the hypocrites [the MKO], and foreign intelligence agencies." He added, "It would have been a pity had he passed away due to natural causes.... He deserved martyrdom." Another former commander of the Guards' ground forces, Major General Mostafa Izadi, wrote in the hardline newspaper Kayhan that Moghaddam was the founder of the Guards' artillery and missile forces that "have shaken the back of the Zionist regime." Brigadier General Mohammad Hedjazi, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, said, "The enemies were always afraid of the name Major General Moghaddam. The Sepah generals are not afraid of martyrdom; their greatest dream is to become a martyr."

Moghaddam is the second key person in Iran's missile program to have been killed. In July 2001, Colonel Ali Mahmoudi Mimand, referred to at the time as the father of Iran's missile program, was found dead in his office with a bullet in his head.

The explosion this weekend and the recent assassination of several key nuclear scientists are directly linked with the struggle for democracy in Iran. While the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence unit are preoccupied not with protecting the nation against foreign attacks -- which should be their main task -- but with the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of human rights, women, and labor activists, journalists, university students, and political figures, a foreign intelligence service such as Mossad and its Iranian collaborators find ample opportunity to kill whomever they perceive as a threat.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

3:10 a.m., 26 Aban/November 17 Speaking with reporters in New York on Wednesday, Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of Iran's High Council for Human Rights and often described as a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressed the situation in Syria, where the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran's, is increasingly embattled. On Saturday, the Arab League suspended Syria's membership in the face of the Assad regime's ongoing crackdown against protestors and effective dismissal of a league-sponsored peace pact -- a move delayed late Wednesday by the league's announcement of a new offer to send monitors to the country.

According to the Voice of America's account,

Larijani condemned what he said is "incitement" by the United States, European powers and Arab nations to urge the opposition to take up arms against the government.

"These are very dangerous events; we are against this kind of meddling in the situation," he said. "Our position is that all the hands should be cut off from this kind of interference. It is up to the people of Syria to decide. We respect, everybody should respect, the decision of the people of Syria."

Asked about the move at the Arab League to suspend Syria, Larijani questioned the group's motive, saying he did not think it was about protecting the rights of Syrians to pursue democracy.

"So it seems that democracy is not the issue," said Larijani. "So if democracy is not the issue, then what is the issue? I think the issue is they want to generate a government that is submissive toward Israel more than the present government."

While Larijani, like other Iranian officials before him, lauded the Arab Spring in general terms, a report that appeared Wednesday evening on the website of Press TV, the English-language subsidiary of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, is indicative of the slant that Iran's official and semiofficial media have taken on the specific case of the Syrian uprising:

The Shia community in the Syrian city of Homs has been the main target of armed groups since the beginning of unrest in the country.

According to local reports, more than 115 Shias have been killed in the restive city in the past few months.

Assailants have also destroyed and set ablaze dozens of Shia-owned homes and businesses.

The violence has forced many families to flee the area and seek refuge elsewhere.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have rallied across the country on Wednesday to express their support for President Bashar al-Assad.

The demonstrators also stressed the need for national unity, security and stability. They also condemned the AL decision to suspend Damascus from the 22-member bloc.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March, with demonstrations held both against and in support of President Assad. [...]

The opposition and Western countries accuse Syrian security forces of being behind the killings in the country, but the government blames what it describes as outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

As rhetoric escalates from Israeli officials suggesting the possibility of a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program, the Majles this week approved stringent new penalties on travel to Israel (referred to as "occupied Palestine") by Iranian citizens. As reported by Radio Zamaneh,

Iran's Parliament has passed new legislation approving prison sentences of two to five years for Iranians who travel to Israel.

Iranian MPs also voted to withhold a passport from Iranians caught travelling to Israel for a period of three to five years, on top of the two to five years in prison. The motion was passed 131 to 3 with 11 abstaining.

Previously, the law stated that an Iranian passport was valid for travel to all countries except where banned by the government for particular reasons.

Failure to follow those regulations was subject to two months in prison and up to ten dollars in fines.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have cancelled their planned participation at Washington D.C.'s annual Saban Forum, evidently to avoid being drawn into a debate over the Iranian nuclear program. Haaretz, Israel's leading relatively liberal daily, reports,

According to sources in Jerusalem, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned to Barak and Lieberman asked them not to give speeches on Iran, which is one of the main subjects of the conference, due to the current international sensitivity of the issue and Israel's desire to keep a "low profile" on the matter in order to avoid harming efforts to impose further sanctions on Iran.

According to other sources, Lieberman and Barak were asked to cancel their participation in the event in order to avoid a public debate on the Iranian issue with former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi, who are publicly opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran. [...]

Barak's office confirmed that he had canceled his participation in the Saban Forum, but claimed the reason was simply due to scheduling. Lieberman's office refused to comment.

In 2009, Barak had declared, "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel." However, according to a report that appeared in Haaretz Magazine in late September (as translated by blogger Richard Silverstein), several people who had spoken with Barak concerning the Iranian issue in recent months "were shocked by his apocalyptic tone. In the case of Barak, the question always arises whether he really means what he's saying...does he believe that if Israel prepares a military option and threatens persuasively enough, that the world will awaken and take action on its behalf. But nevertheless, more and more people are worried that Barak is serious." Lieberman, who formerly opposed an attack on Iran, was reportedly convinced to change his position recently by Barak and Netanyahu.

As noted here, Dagan, by contrast, told a meeting of Israel's Council for Peace and Security in early October that a military attack against Iran was "far from being Israel's preferred option" and that "there are currently tools and methods that are much more effective." He also expressed the view that the Iranian nuclear program was still not close to weaponization.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Is the Middle East becoming more 'secular'? Is Islam an obstacle to secularization? Yes, and no, answers professor Sami Zubaida in a new collection of his most important work.

[ review ] "Secularism" in the Middle East is seen by some as a mark of honor and by others as an ideological western import. The term "secular" is applied to parties, groups, and leaders as diverse as Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord, Tunisian feminists, Lebanon's Amal, the Syrian Baath party and the Syrian Social Nationalists, the Turkish and Egyptian military, Egypt's new Wafd, greens, and communists.

Charles Taylor, the Canadian philosopher, distinguished three kinds of secularism in The Secular Age, published in 2007. The first sense is concentrated on the state, existing where religion is a "private matter" and public spaces "allegedly emptied of God, or of any reference to ultimate reality."

This, Taylor noted, was "compatible with the vast majority of people still believing in God, and practising their religion vigorously." But in a second sense, used perhaps more widely, "secularity consists in the falling off of religious belief and practice, in people turning away from God."

Taylor, never a philosopher to swim in shallow waters, isolated a third sense "closely related to the second, and not without connection to the first...[in which] the shift to secularism...consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others."

The three senses are quite different. While the United States, for example, may be secularized in the first and third aspects, its high levels of church attendance means it is not in the second sense. And the first sense, concerning public space, may be uncorrelated with the other two, which Taylor suggested might be the case in India.

So what is the case in the Middle East? It is commonly argued, or simply assumed, that a society where the vast majority of the population are practicing Muslims cannot be secular in its public spaces because Islam prescribes behavior for all aspects of life and requires that law derive from the Sharia.

Such a view, popularized both by modern Islamists -- Salafis and the rulers of Iran among them -- and by the likes of Bernard Lewis, has long been challenged by Sami Zubaida, professor of sociology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. Beyond Islam, recently published by Tauris, brings together many of Zubaida's essays going back to 1995 in which he has argued that Middle Eastern societies have long undergone a process of secularization triggered by their incorporation into the global capitalist economy.

For Zubaida, this was evidenced in shrinking of the religious sphere in the late-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire. And within both the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, the struggle for a constitution epitomized the struggle for political representation and equality before the law. This, Zubaida writes, marked the birth of political divisions that have persisted ever since:

"Islam was then ideologized and politicized in forms that recur in modern politics: the conservatives, resorting to populism as well as the support of authoritarian rulers; modern reformers reading liberalism into Islam; and, emerging in the early decades of the twentieth century, radical populists such as the Muslim Brothers. At the same time, much of cultural, intellectual and political life was secularized, favoring the emergence and dominance of secular ideologies and political movements."

Zubaida here seems to be using "secular" in the third, and perhaps the second of Charles Taylor's three senses, although his references to constitutional reform hint at a level of support among at least some reformers for a public sphere in which the role of religion was curtailed.

The main concern in Beyond Islam is to reject the common rendition of Islam as an all-inclusive concept where all social features become Islamic. Zubaida wishes not just to debunk "Islamic architecture" and "Islamic banking" but to challenge "the very idea of a homogeneous 'Muslim society.'" For, he writes, "there are many Muslim societies...their range of variation is comprehensible in terms of the normal practice of social and political analysis, like any other range of societies."

This is surely right. In an introduction penned for Beyond Islam, Zubaida criticizes those who have explained "modernity" in these societies as "a writing-out of some historical or cultural essence of Islam as a religion or 'civilization.'" Unfortunately, such a flawed explanation has proved "a powerful ideological motif both for ethno-religious nationalism in the region and for certain approaches in Western writing that present Islam and the region as totally other."

The oldest piece in Zubaida's Beyond Islam is his classic critique of the theory of Islamic society advanced by Ernest Gellner. In Gellner's work, Zubaida found not only an intellectual rigor but a sociological study based on field work in a Muslim country, Morocco, and he was clearly intrigued by Gellner's belief that Islam by its nature resisted secularization.

Zubaida's point-by-point refutation of Gellner's thesis cannot establish a general thesis about the relationship between "Islamic society" and secularization, but this is precisely his point. Different societies in which Islam is the main or almost only religion will vary in many ways -- including their power structures, economic systems, and levels of secularization (in all three senses used by Charles Taylor). Zubaida's call for greater attention to be paid to specifics is further borne out in that each of the essays in Beyond Islam covers such wide ground that each could become a book.

The role currently being played by "moderate" Islamic parties in the Arab Spring has surprised many, and this, Zubaida might argue, is largely a reflection of the widespread assumption over the incompatibility between Islam and secular, or quasi-secular, constitutional politics. It is germane to recall that in his The Society of Muslim Brothers, published in 1969, Richard Mitchell wrote: "Our feeling, for some time now shared by others, is that the essentially secular reform nationalism now in vogue in the Arab world will continue to operate to end the earlier appeal of this organization."

But another big surprise has been that the appeal of political Islam could often not be gauged by the strength of religious authorities, and consequently that their weakening has not always been a sign of secularization. In many countries, the Islamization of the public sphere was inspired by laymen such as Hassan al-Banna and Abul Ala al-Mawdudi.

In Iran, something of the impetus of the 1979 Revolution came from writings of Ali Shariati in which he downgraded the "black Shiism" of the clergy. More recently, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes from a devout family but not one that has produced clerics, making him an outsider to a political class where a network of marriages link influential families and explaining much of the hostility towards him in Qom.

Many would argue, against Zubaida, that the upsurge of Islamic movements in the 1970s -- after defeat by Israel in the 1967 war undermined the Arab nationalist project -- reflected the limited nature of secularization in Middle Eastern societies. Just as Zubaida has argued against Gellner's general theory of Islamic societies, so others have rejected Zubaida's general link between modernization and secularization.

Bassam Tibi, the Syrian-born politics professor, writes in his Islam Between Politics and Culture that the process lacked "structural roots since secularization in the sense of a structural process of functional differentiation of society had not yet taken place."

Indeed, for Tibi, secularism "was more or less simply an ideology based on normative claims set by Westernized intellectuals." In the Arab and Ottoman world, and in Iran, it was a common belief that Europe's superiority could be explained in part because it had moved away from religion and consequently that secularism was part of a model they needed to emulate. Ironically, then, "secularism" as a cause can become yet another example of the essentialism that Zubaida wishes to reject.

The dangers of generalization are further evidenced in The Shia of Lebanon, recently published in paperback, in which Rodger Shanahan surveys the historical development and social background of politics among Lebanese Shia as the traditional leaders of the zuama (clans) gradually gave way to political parties -- Arab nationalist, leftist, and then Amal and Hezbollah.

Shanahan notes that "the secular/sectarian divide in Lebanese party politics is quite problematic." In general, he argues, a successful political party in the Lebanese system must motivate its core support among a particular sect but also win at least some votes from other sects: more specifically Amal, which is committed in theory to abolishing Lebanon's sectarian system and is often described by westerners as "secular," has shown itself adept within Lebanon's sectarian political structure and particularly skilled in directing "the wasta gravy train" (a phrase Shanahan draws from the Beirut Daily Star).

Can a politics be "secular" if it is sectarian? Can a political system be secular if, as in Lebanon, one cannot be a citizen -- vote, marry, hold a passport -- unless one is a registered member of one of 18 religious sects, and where the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the house speaker a Shia?

In prompting such questions -- and in other societies the questions will be somewhat different -- Zubaida's rich collection serves up much food for thought.

* Sami Zubaida Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East, IP Tauris, 2011

* Rodger Shanahan The Shia of Lebanon: Clans, Parties and Clerics, IP Tauris paperback edition, 2011

Nader Iskandar Diab is a research associate at Right to Non-Violence, the Beirut/Washington/Baghdad-based NGO; Gareth Smyth has reported from the Middle East since 1992. His publications include Fundamentalists, Pragmatists and the Rights of the Nation: Iranian Politics and Nuclear Confrontation, The Century Foundation, New York, 2006. Photo: Along Istanbul's Eminönü waterfront via Reuters blog.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Latest Developments | The Tide Turns against Bashar Assad

Even as Mr Assad struggles to contain the waves of protest, the diplomatic tide is running sharply against him. On November 2nd he accepted a set of proposals laid out by the 22-country Arab League, including a promise to withdraw his security forces from the cities, to release political prisoners (said to number between 10,000 and 20,000), to let in some 500 diplomatic monitors along with the foreign media that had hitherto been barred, and to engage the opposition in talks that would lead eventually to multiparty elections. Mr Assad freed several hundred prisoners but entirely flouted the rest of the deal, thereby prompting the league, on November 12th, to suspend Syria from membership. Four days later, in Morocco, the league said it would impose sanctions if Mr Assad did not relent within three days.

Worldview | How the World Stacks Up on Syria

As the international community mulls how to respond to the crisis in Syria, it faces a complex and changing web of geopolitical alliances, heated rivalries and strategic interests. Here's a closer look at the key international players.

Iran and Syria

Primer | Iran and Syria

The Iran-Syria alliance grew out of common cause -- and common enemies. Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the two regional powerhouses have pooled political leverage and military resources to enhance their position, build a network of surrogate militias and frustrate the plans of opponents. Together they ensured Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which bordered both countries, would not become the predominant regional power. They forced U.S. peacekeepers out of Lebanon in 1984, and thwarted Israel's effort to bring Lebanon into its orbit during an 18-year occupation that finally ended in Israel's unilateral withdrawal in 2000. The odd bedfellows together sired or supported Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and an array of radical Palestinian groups. All reject peace. And together they have inflicted repeated setbacks on six American presidents.

Analysis | Iran's Nightmare: Losing Syria

Syria has been Iran's main platform from which it has built formidable influence over the Arab-Israeli conflict, setting up Hezbollah in Lebanon and supporting Palestinian groups, mainly Hamas in Gaza. Tehran officials are beginning to wonder what their alternatives are in ensuring the maintenance of the status quo with Israel.

Q&A | The Impact of Syria's Unrest on Iran

In April, the United State claimed that Tehran has been helping Damascus put down the Syrian uprising. Two rounds of U.S. sanctions on Syria for human rights abuses have since named Iran's Revolutionary Guards for a role in the bloody crackdown. The sanctions specifically targeted Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC Quds Force, and Mohsen Shirazi, head of Quds Force operations. The Quds Force is the elite IRGC wing that liaises with foreign governments and militias. Accounts of Iran's role vary significantly. But other reports have suggested that Iran's security apparatus, including police and intelligence, have also provided support to the Assad regime.

Q&A | Iraq Adopts Iran's Backing of Assad

Film | Syria Undercover and The Regime

Watch Syria Undercover on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Watch The Regime on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Audio | The Lion's Den

Copyright © 2011

[ media watch ] On Thursday, Al Jazeera's The Stream grilled Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi, co-hosts of the satirical television program Parazit, which is broadcast to Iran by the U.S.-funded Voice of America. "Can the VOA help Iran's pro-reform movement," The Stream host Imran Garda wanted to know, "or is it peddling Washington's agenda?" Al Jazeera itself is owned by the state of Qatar.

"Parazit is much, much more popular than any program on BBC Persian," in the words of a blogger popular in Iran. But does the fact that the U.S. government funds it undermine its credibility? Probably as much as the British government's support for BBC Persian, judging from reaction to the show on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. In that regard, Parazit has been able not only to successfully distinguish itself from other programming on VOA Farsi, which is struggling to improve its brand, but it's emerged more influential than anything offered by network rival BBC Persian -- no easy task.

Join the debate: What's your take?

Copyright © 2011

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

12:45 a.m., 29 Aban/November 20 In an interview with the newspaper Iran, which supports Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Tehrani Moghaddam -- brother of Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the Revolutionary Guard officer considered the founder of the Guards' artillery and missile program, who died along with at least 16 others in a massive explosion last Saturday -- said that his brother was testing a new ballistic missile when he was killed. In the interview, Moghaddam, himself an officer in the Revolutionary Guards, or Sepah, said,

He did many things [for the Guards]. One of them was a high-technology system that he himself invented and made it indigenous [so that Iran could produce it]. He founded Sepah's Organization of Self-Sufficiency Jihad and his innovations gave our country a ballistic missile. We are among the few countries in the world that have such technology. In his recent speech, the Supreme Leader said that the response to a threat [against us] is a threat [by us]. One of the the things that General Moghaddam was doing was developing the ballistic missile for which he lost his life. He lost his life when the latest test was being done on the missile. Sepah had intended to present this innovation to the world when that accident occurred. He succeeded, spilling his own blood, to make this technology indigenous and make us the owner of this technology that, God willing, will soon bear fruit. Martyr Hassan had many successes, but I am allowed to speak about only some of them.

Last Wednesday, Major General Hassan Firoozabadi, chief of staff of the armed forces, had obliquely referred to the new weapon system: "The killing of General Moghaddam will postpone by only two weeks the presentation to the world of the results of the research he was carrying out.... [It] will be a big blow against the U.S. and the Zionist regime [Israel]." Another Guard officer said a few weeks ago that Iran was working on the development of new weapons, largely in secret, because it did not want the United States and Israel to learn about them until the time was right.

Just a few hours after the interview with Mohammad Tehrani Moghaddam was published, Fars, the news agency run by the Revolutionary Guards, reported that he had denied telling Iran about the ballistic missile. Fars quoted him as saying, "Even we were not aware of the work that General Moghaddam was doing. What Iran has reported about ballistic and intercontinental missiles is something that it has done on its own, as I did not tell Iran anything about them. I have contacted Mr. Naeemi, the managing editor of Iran, complaining about it publishing something on its own and attributing it to me. I have also sent a letter to Iran denying it, which I asked them to publish."

At the same time, disagreement continues over the number of people killed in the explosion. Originally, it was announced that 27 people had been killed and 23 injured. Then Lieutenant Brigadier General Ramazan Sharif, head of the Guards' public relations department, declared the accurate figures to 17 and 16, respectively. On Friday, the funeral of Reza Nadi -- reported by various sources as the 37th person killed in the explosion -- was held in his home town, Khodabandeh, in northeastern Iran. An unnamed Guard official told ISNA, the Iranian Students News Agency, that there is no contradiction between the initial estimate and the later numbers, because some of the injured people may subsequently have passed away.

While the Guards have denied that the explosion was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, Guard officers continue to accuse foreign powers of being behind the explosions. In addition to what what was already reported by Tehran Bureau, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, an ultra-hardline Guard officer and commander of the Basij militia said, that "Israel is not at the level of capability to carry out such operations," but also that "in recent years the Zionists [Israel] attempted many times to assassinate this martyr [General Moghaddam], but all the teams that they sent were identified and destroyed. If there was one of their operatives in that accident, he would have done it the next day, because there would have been many important officials there the next day." Naghdi was referring to a meeting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has with top military commanders on the occasion of Eid-e Ghadir, the day Shiites commemorate the Prophet's declaration of his cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali, as his successor. On the same occasion last year, Khamenei spoke to over 100,000 members of the Basij, along with high-ranking armed services officials.

Iranian armed forces continued their four-day-long maneuvers in the eastern part of the country, during which new equipment -- produced in Iran -- for the Iranian air defense system is being tested. A military spokesman said that 1,000 monitors have been following the maneuvers.

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved a new resolution concerning Iran's nuclear program, "stressing once again its serious concern that Iran continues to defy the requirements and obligations contained in the relevant IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council Resolutions," and expressing "deep and increasing concern about the unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program, including those which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military Dimensions." The board noted "the letters by the Iranian side to the Director General dated 30 October 2011 and 3 November 2011 where Iran expressed its readiness to cooperate with the Agency, and reiterating the Board's view that such cooperation is essential and urgent" and urged "Iran once again to comply fully and without delay with its obligations under relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, and to meet the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors, including the application of the modified Code 3.1 and the implementation and prompt ratification of the Additional Protocol." The board expressed "its continuing support for a diplomatic solution, and calls on Iran to engage seriously and without preconditions in talks aimed at restoring international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, while respecting the legitimate right to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy consistent with the NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty]." Thirty-two members of the board voted for the resolution, while two countries, Ecuador and Cuba, voted against it and Indonesia abstained.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's permanent representative to the IAEA, told ISNA, "Before the recent Board of Governors meeting, Iran had invited the deputy director-general [for safeguards] to enter negotiations with Iran, but the invitation was rejected by the director-general. We must study the new request." Soltanieh also reported, "Fortunately, despite the pressure by the U.S. and Europe, all the [nuclear] projects suggested by Iran were approved by the committee of technical projects cooperation, and were then approved by the Board of Governors." Iran had proposed eight projects covering industrial and medical applications, nuclear safeguards, and the Bushehr reactor. Regarding the Parchin facility, where Iran has been producing conventional ammunition since the 1950s, about which the latest IAEA report made allegations, Soltanieh said, "[Olli] Heinonen [former IAEA deputy director-general for safeguards] said on the second day of visiting Parchin [in 2005] that...'the issue [of alleged high explosive experiments] is closed' and this was conveyed to the Board of Governors."

After the approval of the new IAEA resolution, Soltanieh said, "We will not stop enriching uranium even for a second," and that Iran will not take part in a conference on nuclear disarmament in the Middle East, to be held next week. Soltanieh also accused IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano of endangering the lives of Iran's nuclear scientists. In a letter to Amano, Soltanieh said, "The international community is witnessing the ugly phenomenon of assassination of Iranian nuclear experts and scientists by terrorist groups. Publicizing the names of Iranian nuclear scientists makes them a target of assassination by terrorist groups as well as intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Israel."

Meanwhile, Britain, France, and Germany issued a joint statement on Friday, declaring that Iran has developed the necessary expertise to make nuclear weapons and charging that the Islamic Republic is openly breaking the international treaty banning their development. The statement, issued at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna right before the Board of Governors meeting, appeared to be an attempt to influence the board's debate. "This latest IAEA report paints a very disturbing picture," German Ambassador Ruediger Luedeking told the board on behalf of the three countries. "That would be a blatant violation of the non-proliferation regime," he added.

A U.N. General Assembly resolution deploring the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, in which Islamic republic officials were implicated by the U.S. Justice Department, was adopted by a vote of 106 to 9, with 40 countries abstaining. The text, drafted by Saudi Arabia and cosponsored by 50 nations, expressed its "deep concern at the assassination plot, and encouraged Member States to take additional steps to prevent, on their territories, the planning, financing, sponsorship or organization of terrorist acts, and to deny safe haven to those who engaged in such activities."

Venezuela's ambassador to the U.N. said during the debate that the international community was being "sold" the idea that Iran had endorsed the assassination plot, even though no hard evidence had been provided. He said that he was struck by the fact that the statements of condemnation stemmed from the same intelligence sources that had alleged that Iraq had held weapons of mass destruction and fabricated "lies" to promote the military interests of one country's "imperial power." Through the resolution before the assembly, the pretext of terrorism was again being used to unfairly stigmatize a sovereign country, he said.

Follow Tehran Bureau on Facebook and Twitter.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

[ dispatch ] New analysis published in the journal International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive reveals that despite severe legal restrictions, abortion is common in Tehran. This should come as no surprise to anyone, as evidence shows that abortion is common worldwide, even where outlawed. Mere incidence does not equate news.

What is interesting about these new numbers for Tehran, however, is how the city's abortion rate compares to those of nearby countries. Amir Erfani, the sociologist at Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada, who conducted the study, compared Tehran to selected Central Asian and Eastern European countries and found the city's rate of about nine in 100 pregnancies ending in abortion to be lower.

Why? One answer is Iran's high rates of contraceptive use. Erfani estimated Tehran's abortion rate by looking at responses from nearly 3,000 women who completed the Tehran Survey of Fertility. A full 85 percent of those women reported using a method of contraception. Fifty-four percent used modern methods, like condoms and birth control pills and male and female sterilization; the remaining 31 percent relied on traditional methods, like withdrawal.

Erfani estimates that 11,500 abortions take place in Tehran annually. Of these, more than two-thirds were pregnancies terminated by women who were using withdrawal, the pill or condoms. The policy implications, Erfani writes, are clear. Behind every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. Better access to modern methods of contraception and better knowledge of how to use them consistently and correctly would result in fewer abortions.

Again, none of this is really news so much as evidence confirming what public health experts around the world have been saying for decades. What Erfani provides that is brand new are breakdowns. The study offers the first ever comparison rates for different groups of women. The findings again differentiate Iran from neighboring counties. Unlike Central Asia and Eastern Europe where abortion rates are highest among younger women, in Tehran women in their early 30's had the highest abortion rate. Rates were also higher among more educated women, those who identified as less religious, women who already had two children and women who said they did not want to have any more children.

What these findings show is that abortion in Tehran is not the picture of desperate unwed schoolgirls that fulfills international stereotypes of who has abortions. It is an issue faced by adult married women motivated by the desire to plan their families, space their births and take care of the children they already have. Seven in ten women surveyed who had sought an abortion cited fertility-related or socioeconomic reasons for doing so.

Abortion is legal in Iran only in cases where they life of the mother is in danger or when the country's Legal Medical Organization diagnoses the fetus with one of several legally recognized diseases or defects. Such severe restrictions drive women seeking abortions who do not meet these requirements to seek clandestine and often unsafe procedures. The stakes, Erfani points out, are high. Five percent of maternal deaths in Iran are estimated to result from complications of unsafe abortion; unknown numbers of women suffer permanent injury and disability.

Previous work by Erfani and colleagues has shown abortion to be common not just in the capital, but throughout Iran. Though breakdowns for more rural regions don't exist, neither does any evidence that women living in remote parts of the country have access to quality care in the event of complications from an unsafe abortion.

Studies like this one provide a roadmap for those in positions of power to address public health problems and better direct resources. Though better off than some neighboring countries, this evidence reveals women in Tehran's need for better access to contraception.

Legal experts tracking abortion policies note a worldwide trend toward liberalization. And evidence shows that abortion and complications from unsafe abortion are lowest in countries, like many in Western Europe, where abortion is widely available and there is strong government support for access to modern methods of contraception.

On the other hand, as Erfani notes, the government of Iran views the country's low fertility rate as a threat and has called for a doubling of the population. How this recommendation plays out in new laws and policies remains to be seen. The evidence clearly shows the dangerous consequences of limiting women's access to methods of controlling their own fertility.

Photo via Flickr.

Follow Tehran Bureau on Facebook and Twitter.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

Iran Standard Time (IRST), GMT+3:30

5 a.m., 30 Aban/November 21 Elias Hazrati, the managing editor of the moderate reformist daily Etemad said that his newspaper has been barred from publishing for two months. Hazrati, a former university activist and Majles deputy from 2000 to 2004, told IRNA, Iran's official news agency, that the reason was his paper's publication of an interview with IRNA director Ali Akbar Javanfekr, an ardent supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (At the time of this writing, the IRNA webpage about Hazrati's statement has become inaccessible.) Hazrati said that Etemad had actually deleted some of the things that Javanfekr said, to no avail. Etemad, which began publishing in 2001, was also barred from publishing from March 2010 until this past June.

In the interview, Javanfekr (seen here, and in the homepage image, on the left) strongly attacked the so-called principlists, the conservative and hardline supporters of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who have been opposing Ahmadinejad and the so-called "deviationist" or "perverted group," the circle around Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei (seen here on the right), the president's chief of staff and closest adviser. When asked what he and the president's camp have deviated from or been perverted about, Javanfekr said,

The issue of the group goes back seven months, not two years [as some claim]. I have asked them [Ahmadinejad's adversaries] the same question. [Can] someone be found among them and explain what "perverted phenomenon" means? What have we deviated from? Yes, we have deviated from these "friends." We have deviated from their beliefs, behavior, and interpretation [of various issues]. We do not agree with them, and do not accept their behavior and manners, and have deviated from them. This is correct, and if this is what they mean by "perverted group," we confirm it.

The interviewer then asked, "Why then did you not say in 2005 [when Ahmadinejad was first elected president] that you have deviated from them and do not accept them? Now that they helped you to come to power, you have separated your path from them?" Javanfekr responded,

We do not accept the manners of the principlists, and we have deviated from them. Has the country become a company with stocks that they demand their share [of power] from us? After the [2009] election, they began raising hurdles against the government's work, and demanded their share. Ahmadinejad is popular and does not owe them anything.

More of Javanfekr's comments from the wide-ranging interview follow:

Regarding the principlists' claims by the principlists that they elevated Ahmadinejad in the political hierarchy, and that he is their creation: No, I reject this notion, and it is not correct. Who has claimed this? Mr. Ahmadinejad demonstrated high capabilities and the people supported him. They are, of course, free to make any claim, but what matters is whether or not the people believe such baseless claims.

Regarding the charges of financial corruption by Ahmadinejad's supporters: What financial corruption? Did they not say that we are geomancers, but could not prove it? Did they not say that we have stolen 150 million? Where is the evidence? Why is it that they are prepared to create tension for the sake of the "interests of the political system," but now, for the sake of the same interests, do not want to provide any evidence that they have against us? What are they afraid of?

Regarding the arrest of Rahim Mashaei's aides: Why was [former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Sharif] Malekzadeh kept in solitary confinement for 60 days? Why was he released [if he did commit an offense]? He developed health problems in solitary confinement, and his wife had a miscarriage. Who is responsible for this?... What was the offense of Malekzadeh and other people from our side who were arrested? The [Tehran] prosecutor [Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi] must respond to the accusations that he made against us.

Regarding the struggle for control of the Ministry of Intelligence that brought to the fore the deep rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei: Who says that we controlled the Ministry of Intelligence in the aftermath of the [2009] election? If that was true, we would not have agreed with the resignation of [Intelligence Minister Heydar] Moslehi. [Former Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni] Ejei [fired by Ahmadinejad in August 2009] was never our minister.

Regarding the absence of Mashaei and the rumors that he has been arrested: Mashaei has not been [arrested and] interrogated, [but] others [?] do not allow him to be [publicly] active. How many innocent people have been arrested because of Mashaei, [and] for what? Is he attacked because he is popular with the people?

Regarding former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's and Ejei's criticisms of the administration: Mottaki and Ejei had better keep silent. Their respect will be preserved in silence. If the curtain is lifted, people will find out what is going on.

Regarding Ejei's challenge to Ahmadinejad to debate him: Why should the president debate Ejei? For what? Is it right if the president debates his [former] minister of intelligence? [And what is the use, since] the president cannot say what he wants?

Regarding Ahmadinejad's threats to expose certain cases of corruption: It is due to [protecting] the interests of the political system that Mr. Ahmadinejad does not reveal the evidence. But let them ask how much Ahmadinejad has and how much others. They should truly investigate this, but not just Mr. X or Y and then say "release him" [a reference to Malekzadeh]. What are they afraid of? In the satire column of Iran [an IRNA subsidiary] it was said...that 140,000 documents [regarding corruption cases] would be presented to the public; they were terrified and said bar Iran from publishing.

Regarding Moslehi's resignation last spring: They [the administration's adversaries] contacted me and told me to remove the news about Moslehi's resignation from IRNA's website. I said, Who are you? They said, We tell you to remove it [because] it is the Supreme Leader's order. I responded that his view should be conveyed by his office, and...they said, No, you should do what we tell you, and I responded, I will not do it. They said, Then you should respond to the judiciary, and the next day the pressure [on the administration] began.

Regarding the claims by some that they voted for Ahmadinejad reluctantly: Did [Majles deputy and Ahmadinejad critic Ali] Motahhari vote for Ahmadinejad? Then what was he doing in the demonstration for [Mir Hossein] Mousavi? [Ahmad] Tavakoli [another critic of Ahmadinejad in the Majles] and Motahari claim that the Majles can approve laws that are against Islam [a reference to Ahmadinejad's claim that the reason he does not order the implementation of certain laws is that they are un-Islamic]. How credible are the views of such Majles deputies?

Regarding the next presidential election in 2013: They are thinking about the next election. Does Ahmadinejad want to be the next [Dmitry] Medvedev or [Vladimir] Putin [a reference to the accusations by some hardliners that Ahmadinejad wants to install a close aide as the next president, so that he can rule from behind the scenes]? They [the principlists] still do not recognize that they have lost the game [of attracting popular support].

Regarding the rumors last April that Ahmadinejad was going to resign: If someone steps forward to serve [the nation], he stays until the end. He stays until [even] martyrdom.

Regarding the rumors that for the past 17 months Mashaei has tried to secretly negotiate with the United States: This is another lie, out of thousands of others, that they attribute to Mashaei. Is it possible to negotiate without the Leader's permission?

Right after Javanfekr's interview appeared in Etemad, it was announced that the judiciary has sentenced him to one year of incarceration and a three-year ban on any journalistic activities. He was convicted of charges related to Iran's publication in July of a special section on women that mocked the hardliners' directives about appropriate outfits and colors for Iranian ladies. Quoting IRNA, Aftab News, a website close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, reports that Javanfekr will hold a press conference on Monday to talk about his conviction.

Meanwhile, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini said that Etemad was barred by the Tehran prosecutor-general, Jafari Dolatabadi, and not by the press monitoring commission that is controlled by his ministry. He claimed that Etemad had received multiple warnings, but did not answer the question of whether its closing had anything to do with Javanfekr's interview and said "ask the prosecutor about it." Reformist Majles deputy Mohammad Reza Tabesh, nephew of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, criticized the paper's closure. He said, "On the one hand, moderate principlists want the reformists to run in the Majles elections [next March], and on the other hand the newspapers that reflect the views of the reformists are barred."

But Bultan (Bulletin) News, a website close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Etemad was indeed closed due to the Javanfekr interview. The website accused Etemad of "disturbing the public mind under the current sensitive conditions of the country," and opined that what Javanfekr said was of no benefit to the nation.

In response to the Javanfekr affair, an Iran editorial discussed what it called pressure on "the family of Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam", the Revolutionary Guard officer who was killed in a huge explosion at a Guard facility on November 12. As described by Tehran Bureau, General Moghaddam's brother, Mohammad, said that his brother was killed during a test of a new ballistic missile, but was apparently forced to retract his statement. Iran expressed "its deep regrets" for the conditions that have been created for the Moghaddam family, and that "it understands that the family has to deny some of the things that have been said."

In an unprecedented move, Khamenei's official website posted an article by right-wing journalist Amir Mohebbian in which he discussed the possibility of the United States and its allies waging war on Iran. The fact of the article's posting strongly suggests that Khamenei agrees with its analysis. Surveying "three probable scenarios" for war, it first describes what the United States is counting on in its confrontation with Iran:

One is that Iran is a country with multiple ethnic groups, and therefore the West has tried to disrupt the security of some regions on Iran's borders. Examples include support for the Party of Free Life for Kurdistan [PJAK] and for Jundallah [the terrorist group that operates in Sistan and Baluchistan].

The second is the U.S. hopes that internal developments in Iran will be such that the central government loses control, and that is why the Western press supported what happened in the aftermath of the 2009 election.

What worries the West, in Mohebbian's view is,

Expansion of Iran's influence in the region and the growth of Islamic awakening, which has toppled those regimes that were U.S. allies and against Iran.

Ineffectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Iran.

The ideological and very close relations between Iran and the [Lebanese] Hezbollah.

Very close relations between Iran and Syria.

The growth of Iran's military power despite the sanctions.

Mohebbian offers a survey of what the United States has done to counter Iran's influence in the region, including presenting the Quds Force as a new al-Qaeda, supporting the Syrian opposition with the ultimate goal of weakening Iran's ties with both Syria and Hezbollah, and imposing harsher sanctions on Iran. He then discusses the possibility of war with Iran and questions whether the West is in a position to wage it. Since, according to Mohebbian, everything on which the United States and Israel have been counting -- such as inciting ethnic tensions, supporting terrorist groups' attacks inside Iran, the reform movement, and the demonstrations in the aftermath of the 2009 election -- has failed, they are left with only two possible scenarios:

(1) Weakening the political system so that fissures are created within it and the internal opposition becomes strong enough to attack the system "like a virus"

(2) Initiating a war

Regarding the possibility of war, Mohebbian considers three types of conflict:

(i) An all-out war of attrition by ground forces following heavy bombardment.

(ii) War as a tool to achieve political goals, in a way that either causes political chaos in the country and destroys the system from within, or forces it to come to the negotiation table.

(iii) Selective or localized war, meaning attacking certain sites, so that Iran cannot attack anyone, particularly the Zionist regime [Israel].

Mohebbian opines that the first scenario is impossible, enumerating various reasons including the implausibility of occupying Iran, next year's U.S. presidential election, President Obama's having learned from the mistakes of the George W. Bush administration in Iraq, the terrible economic conditions in the United States, Iran's size, and what he describes as the population's support for the regime. Mohebbian then says that even the second scenario is problematic, because the United States cannot be sure that the political system in Iran will be overthrown by the people or crumble amid the chaos that military attacks would create, since the system has gained extensive experience since the 1979 Revolution. There is also, he says, no way to be sure that Iran would even alter its policies after being subjected to a severe attack. At the same time, European countries may not be willing to pay the price for supporting the United States. Mohebbian then says that even if Iran is forced to the negotiation table, there will be no guarantee that talks will bear fruit quickly. And if the Iranian government signed an agreement that was rejected by the Iranian people, he asks, would the U.S. continue to bomb Iran?

Mohebbian then opines that the third scenario is the most plausible, but even here there are problems because the question will be, What should be bombed? Economic, military, political, or nuclear sites? If economic, the Iranian people will be directly targeted. If military, many attacks will be needed, Iran will strike back strongly, and the war will quickly become an all-out one. If political, it will increase people's support for the government. And if the United States and its allies wish to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, wich ones? If Bushehr, it will create another Chernobyl. If other sites, will it destroy Iran's nuclear capability?

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that the new resolution by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency expressing "deep and increasing concern about the unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program" and the evidence presented to the board by IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano have had no effect on Iran. He said that most of the evidence had previously been made public, and while it is possible that some other documents may have been passed to the IAEA by foreign intelligence agencies, they have not benefited from presenting them. He added that the 77-nation nonaligned movement has warned Amano about his report. Despite this, Salehi said, "We are trying to preserve our good relation with Amano, because we consider the agency as the only legal organization for [monitoring] our nuclear program and do not wish its credibility to be hurt." He predicted that the IAEA will change its handling of Iran's nuclear program because "it has no other choice."

Follow Tehran Bureau on Facebook and Twitter.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau