Kaleme: Detained Political Leader Mostafa Tajzadeh Speaks Out

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a senior member of two of the "most important Reformists groups in Iran" - the Iran Participation Party and the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization- was detained by Iranian authorities only days after the June 12th elections. According to the Iran Human Rights Voice, Tajzadeh has been detained in Evin Prison for over 120 days and was only recently moved out of solitary confinement and permitted to meet with an attorney. Below is an English-translation of Tajzadeh's wife's account of a recent meeting with her husband, followed by an excerpted profile of Tajzadeh from Tehran Bureau's Muhammad Sahimi.Translation courtesy of Mousavi's Facebook Page:

According to Kaleme, "Mostafa Tajzadeh, former deputy minister of interior ministry and senior member of Mojahedin of the Revolution Organisation, in a visit with his wife said that he is unaware of the process of his case and emphasized that he has not done anything ille...gal and so he is ready to face the court PUBLICLY. He was also briefed by his wife about the false accusations and made against him by the coup administration propaganda. In reaction he calmly and with confidence responded: " Let them say whatever they want in an unchallenged environment and in our absence; there is no doubt that there will be an opportunity for the people to hear our side of the story!"

Tehran Bureau: "Patriots and Reformists - Behzad Nabavi and Mostafa Tajzadeh" by Muhammad Sahimi

"Sayyed Mostafa Tajzadeh was born in Tehran in1956. After graduating from high school he went to the United States in 1975 to study political science. He lived there for 31 months. In that period, he joined the Muslim Students Association, a political group active against the Shah. With the start of the Iranian Revolution in 1978 he left the U.S. and went back to Iran. Together with Hasan Vaezi, Homayun Khosravi, and Sayyed Mahmoud Yasini, he founded the Towhidi-ye Khalgh, one of the seven Islamic groups fighting against the Shah. After the Revolution it merged and formed the IRMO.

After the 1979 Revolution, Tajzadeh was active in the Islamic Revolution Committees, and also active in the IRMO, which was involved in a fierce verbal confrontation with the MKO. Because several members of the IRMO were former members of the MKO, they were intimately familiar with the internal structure of the MKO leadership and knew how it operated. This provoked the MKO to continuously attack the IRMO.

Tajzadeh's political career began in May 1982 when he joined the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (CIG). He worked closely with former president Mohammad Khatami, who was the Minister of the CIG in the Mousavi government, and also in the administration of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani during his first term. Eventually, Tajzadeh was promoted to be Khatami's chief deputy at the Ministry.

After the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, and Rafsanjani was elected Iran's president in 1989, Khatami and his aids, including Tajzadeh, began a cautious opening of the press, the arts and literature. In particular, it issued permits for several publications, such as Asr-e Maa, Kian, and Salaam, all of which played leading roles in strengthening the embryonic reform movement in Iran. [Salaam's editor-in-chief was Abbas Abdi, an outspoken reformist]. Iran's film industry also began a revival, and more books were also allowed to be published.

Due to such progressive positions regarding the press, literature and the arts, Khatami was under huge pressure by the right-wing reactionaries. He eventually resigned his position as the Minister of the CIG in 1992, and left to become the head of Iran's National Library. Tajzadeh resigned from the Ministry as well and joined Hamshahri, a daily published by the office of Tehran's mayor. He stayed at Hamshahri until 1997.

When Mohammad Khatami was elected president, he appointed Abdollah Nouri (a progressive cleric) as the Interior Minister. Khatami knew Tajzadeh from their years together at the Ministry of the CIG. Two other reformist leaders, Gholamhossein Karbaschi (Tehran's popular former mayor) and Mohammad Atrianfar (the editor of several reformist newspapers, who is now imprisoned) suggested to Khatami and Nouri to employ Tajzadeh. Thus, Tajzadeh was appointed as Nouri's deputy for security and political affairs. In fact, Khatami had intended to appoint Tajzadeh as the Interior Minister, but had realized that he would not be confirmed by the 5th Majles in which the conservatives were in the majority.

Tazjadeh's influence at the Interior Ministry was clear almost from the beginning. Nouri and him removed almost all the right-wing mayors and governors of the provinces, and replaced them with reformist officials. Next, in the fall of 1998, the Interior Ministry held the first nation-wide elections for city councils around the country. Elections for the councils had been allowed by Iran's Constitution, but had never been carried out. The reformist candidates swept the elections, in many cases by a landslide.

One of the greatest crises that the first Khatami administration faced was the uprising by the students at Tehran University dormitory on July 9, 1999. A few days earlier, the Majles was debating revisions of the press law of 1985, and developing a Draconian set of rules and laws to suppress the press, which was enjoying relative freedom at that time. Then, the day before voting on the revisions, the daily Salaam revealed that the revisions had actually been written years earlier by Saeed Emami, the notorious ring leader and agent of the Ministry of Intelligence who, together with several other agents, had murdered several dissidents in the fall of 1998 (and many more between 1988 and 1998).

The day after, the judiciary shut down Salaam, which was a very popular daily. In the evening of that day, students from the dormitory demonstrated against the closure of the in Salaam the dormitories and the main street next to it. As they were going back to their rooms, they were attacked by paramilitary groups. That sparked huge demonstrations in Tehran and several other cities, which badly shook the Islamic Republic. By then, the Interior Minister was Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, another reformist cleric. (Nouri had been elected to Tehran's city council and had left.) Tajzadeh and Lari, who by law were also members of Iran's Supreme National Security Council managing the crisis, were instrumental in calming the students down, and were constantly present at the site of the demonstrations.

The next important national event was holding the elections for the 6th Majles in late February 2000. The Guardian Council (GC) disqualified relatively few candidates and, as a result, the elections were very competitive. But, the reformists swept all the thirty seats for the Tehran district. This was not what the GC and the conservatives had in mind. Thus, the GC began claiming that there were voting irregularities at several polling stations and, first, ordered recounting the votes, and then annulled, without presenting any evidence, about 700,000 of the votes cast in Tehran. This started a fierce struggle between Tajzadeh, who was supervising the elections, and the GC.

The main goal of the GC was to get both Hashemi Rafsanjani and Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel elected as Tehran's deputies. Because reformist journalists had strongly criticized Rafsanjani at the time, he was in the conservative camp. Haddad Adel's daughter is married to Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader's son. Another goal of the GC was to prevent Dr. Ali Reza Rajaei, a journalist close to the Nationalist-Religious Coalition, from getting elected.

Tajzadeh insisted that no irregularities had taken place, and declared the elections as the "cleanest and freest elections" in the history of the Islamic Republic, a claim that was very much true. After a long standoff between Tajzadeh and the GC, and when it became clear that Tajzadeh would not back down, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the GC to accept the people's verdict. The GC had achieved its goals, though. Dr. Rajaei was prevented from getting elected, and in his place Haddad Adel got elected, and Rafsanjani, though ranked 20th in Tehran in terms of the votes that he had received, resigned his position and never joined the 6th Majles.

The GC took Tajzadeh to court and, in return, Tajzadeh filed a lawsuit against Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the powerful reactionary cleric and secretary-general of the GC, accusing him of trying to rig the elections. Tajzadeh's lawsuit against Jannati never went to trial -- Jannati is too powerful to be tried! But, Tajzadeh himself was put on trial in March 2001. He never admitted anything, and challenged the court to order a recount of all the votes in the dispute, which the court declined to do. He repeatedly clashed with the judge, Naser Daghighi, and said, "Some people are angry about the way people voted last year."

The court "convicted" Tajzadeh and gave him a suspended one year term. He was barred from all government employment for three years, hoping that it would make him go away. Tajzadeh never appealed the verdict, as it was clear that the goal was to remove him from the Interior Ministry, and the appeal would not go anywhere. But, in 2004, once the three-year period was over, Khatami appointed Tajzadeh as his senior adviser, a post that he held until August 2005 when Ahmadinejad's term began.

Throughout his career, Tajzadeh has always been a straight shooter: plain-speaking, blunt, to the point and honest. He has an impeccable record as an uncorrupted official who has held senior positions within the political establishment, and has been a progressive reformist.

Tajzadeh is married to Fakhrossadat Mohtashamipour, a notable political figure on her own. She is active in defending women's rights, and is a first cousin of Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, the leftist cleric who at one point was Iran's ambassador to Syria and is widely believed to be a major behind-the-scene force in founding the Lebanese Hezbollah. They have two daughters, Arefeh and Fatemeh. Tajzadeh is also a first cousin of Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, a former hardline commander in the IRGC who until two weeks ago was the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Tajzadeh is also a doctoral student in political science at Tehran University, though he has not been able to finish his studies."

Enduring America: "Steady As She Goes"

The following is excerpted from today's updates at Enduring America:

"0600 GMT: In contrast to events in Vienna, where Tehran and the “West” neared an agreement on uranium enrichment, a quieter Wednesday in Iran. There were reports of scattered demonstrations, but rumours of a confrontation between President Ahmadinejad and students at Tehran University never turned into reality.

The quest by pro-Ahmadinejad members of Parliament to put pressure on Mir Hossein Mousavi through a formal complaint appeared to run aground in confusion. For the moment, the Revolutionary Guard continues to be preoccupied with the aftermath of the Sistan-Baluchestan bombing.

On the opposition side, movement is still restricted by the Government’s formal and informal measure, but a drip-feed of news continues as the calendar moves towards 13 Aban (4 November). Mehdi Karroubi, meeting the members of the Defenders of Human Rights and the National Peace Council, strongly criticised the measures trying to cut off his communications with the people, such as the shutdown of his newspaper and official website, the arrest of his close allies, and the closure of his office. He assured the audience that he was ready for any further regime moves, e.g. that would be taken against him. The Government’s ignorance of the rights of the people made the situation worse, and the Green movement would continue until those rights are reinstated.

The report of a forthcoming meeting between senior clerics and members of Parliament over the proposed National Election Committee promises another front in the challenge to the President and possibly the Supreme Leader....."

Nooroz News: Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani Speaks Out In Support of Mousavi (Oct. 20, 2009)

Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani made the following statements to students from the University of Qom, who were gathered in his office.

Translation courtesy of Mousavi's Facebook page

"Grand Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani, one of the Marajeh (the highest ranking clerics) in Qum, requested that all people to withstand against what he described as division from the principle of Islamic Republic. The Grand Ayatollah while described the confr...ontation in Iran as a confrontation between two ideologies said: “One side is defending the “Islamic Republic” while the other side does not believe in “Republic” at all and interprets the “Islamic” part the way it likes.” He also added that he defends an establishment that has justice, freedom, respect for people’s vote and their rights and all of the Islamic Revolution slogans inside of it. He reiterated that one of the reasons behind the 1978 revolution was the fact that authorities had not learned from the past and added: “Unfortunately after a not very long period we are simply being caught by the same bitter historical experience again.”While vaguely condemning the interference of some military personnel in political issues, Grand Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani added that there is a party in Iran that does not consider anyone other than some military personnel suitable to control the political, social or even technological affairs. By pointing out the events after the presidential election he continued: “… the situation has escalated so badly that after the massive obliteration of the character and ideas of Imam’s allies and making up different false accusations against every single one of them, today they even sometimes attack Imam Khomeini's family."

Original

CS Monitor: "Societies Don't Have to Be Secular to be Modern" - An Interview with Francis Fukuyama

"Nathan Gardels: In 1989, you wrote an essay, later developed into a book, that stated your famous "end of history" thesis. You said then:

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

What mostly holds up in your thesis 20 years on? What doesn't? What changed?

Francis Fukuyama: The basic point – that liberal democracy is the final form of government – is still basically right. Obviously there are alternatives out there, like the Islamic Republic of Iran or Chinese authoritarianism. But I don't think that all that many people are persuaded these are higher forms of civilization than what exists in Europe, the United States, Japan, or other developed democracies; societies that provide their citizens with a higher level of prosperity and personal freedom.

The issue is not whether liberal democracy is a perfect system, or whether capitalism doesn't have problems. After all, we've been thrown into this huge global recession because of the failure of unregulated markets. The real question is whether any other system of governance has emerged in the last 20 years that challenges this. The answer remains no.

Now, that essay was written in the winter of 1988 or '89 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I wrote it then because I thought that the pessimism about civilization that we had developed as a result of the terrible 20th century, with its genocides, gulags, and world wars, was actually not the whole picture at all. In fact, there were a lot of positive trends going on in the world, including the spread of democracy where there had been dictatorship. Sam Huntington called this "the third wave."

It began in southern Europe in the 1970s with Spain and Portugal turning to democracy. Then – and later – you had an ending of virtually all the dictatorships in Latin America, except for Cuba. And then there was the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Eastern Europe. Beyond that, democracy displaced authoritarian regimes in South Korea and Taiwan. We went from 80 democracies in the early 1970s to 130, or 140, 20 years later.

Of course, this hasn't all held up since then. We see today a kind of democratic recession. There have been reversals in important countries like Russia, where we see the return of a nasty authoritarian system without rule of law, or in Venezuela and some other Latin American countries with populist regimes.

Clearly, that big surge toward democracy went as far as it could. Now there is a backlash against it in some places. But that doesn't mean the larger trend is not still toward democracy.

Gardels: The main contending argument against the "end of history" was offered by Sam Huntington. Far from ideological convergence, he argued, we were facing a "clash of civilizations" in which culture and religion would be the main points of conflict after the cold war. For many, 9/11 and its aftermath confirmed his thesis of a clash between Islam and the West. To what extent was his argument valid?

Fukuyama: The differences between Huntington and I have been somewhat overstated. I wrote a book called "Trust" in which I argue that culture is one of the key factors that determines economic success and the possibilities of prosperity. So I don't deny the critical role of culture. But, overall, the question is whether cultural characteristics are so rooted that there is no chance of universal values or a convergence of values. That is where I disagree.

Huntington's argument was that democracy, individualism, and human rights are not universal, but reflections of culture rooted in Western Christendom. While that is true historically, these values have grown beyond their origins. They've been adopted by societies that come out of very different cultural traditions. Look at Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia.

Societies rooted in different cultural origins come to accept these values not because the US does it, but because it works for them. It provides a mechanism for government accountability. It provides societies with a way to get rid of bad leaders when things go wrong. That is a huge advantage of democratic societies that someplace like China doesn't have. China, at the moment, is blessed with competent leaders. But before that they had Mao. There is nothing to prevent another Mao in the future without some form of democratic accountability.

Problems of corruption or poor governance are much easier to solve if you have a democracy. For enduring prosperity and success, institutionalized, legal mechanisms of change and accountability are essential.

Gardels: In an earlier book, "Political Order in Changing Societies," Huntington argued that Westernization and modernization were not identical. He thought modernization – an effective state, urbanization, breakdown of primary kinship groups, inclusive levels of education, market economies, and a growing middle class – were quite possible without a society becoming Western in terms of a liberal secular culture or democratic norms.

We see this today from Singapore to China, from Turkey to Malaysia and even Iran. Any observant visitor to China these days can see that beneath the logos of Hyatt and Citigroup the soul of old Confucius is stirring, with its authoritarian bent. In Turkey, we see an Islamist-rooted party running a secular state, battling to allow women to wear head scarves in public universities.

In other words, isn't "non-Western modernization" as likely a path ahead as Westernization through globalization?

Fukuyama: For me, there are three key components of political modernization. First, the modernization of the state as a stable, effective, impersonal institution that can enforce rules across complex societies. This was Huntington's focus. But there are two other components of modernization in my view. Second, the rule of law so that the state itself is constrained in its actions by a preexisting body of law that is sovereign. In other words, a ruler or ruling party cannot just do whatever he or it decides. Third is some form of accountability of the powers that be.

Huntington would have said that rule of law and accountability are Western values. I think they are values toward which non-Western societies are converging because of their own experience. You can't have true modernization without them. They are in fact necessary complements to each other. If you have just political modernization defined as a competent state, you may only have a more effective form of tyranny.

What you can certainly have is effective state building and a certain amount of prosperity under authoritarian conditions for a time. That is what the Chinese are doing right now. But I am convinced that their prosperity cannot in the end endure, nor can Chinese citizens ever be secure in their personal progress, without the rule of law and accountability. They can't go to the next stage without all three components that comprise modernization. Corruption and questionable legitimacy will ultimately weigh them down, if not open unrest.

Gardels: Modernization has usually also meant the growing secularization of society and the primacy of science and reason. Yet, in a place like Turkey today, as I mentioned, we see modernization and growing religiosity side by side. That certainly departs from the Western-oriented trajectory charted by Ataturk.

Fukuyama: I agree. The old version of the idea of modernization was Euro-centric, reflecting Europe's own development. That did contain attributes which sought to define modernization in a quite narrow way. Most importantly, as you point out, religion and modernization certainly can coexist. Secularism is not a condition of modernity. You don't have to travel to Turkey to see that. It is true in the United States, which is a very religious society but in which advanced science and technological innovation thrive.

The old assumption that religion would disappear and be replaced solely by secular, scientific rationalism is not going to happen.

At the same time, I don't believe the existence, or even prevalence of cultural attributes, including religion, are so overwhelming anywhere that you will not see a universal convergence toward rule of law and accountability.

Gardels: Still, must accountability entail the same democratic, electoral norms of Europe or the United States?

Fukuyama: You can have nonelectoral accountability through moral education, which forges a sense of moral obligation by the ruler. Traditional Confucianism, after all, taught the emperor that he had a duty to his subjects as well as himself. It is not an accident that the most successful authoritarian modernization experiments have all been in East Asian societies touched by Confucianism.

In the end, though, that is not enough. You cannot solve the problem of the "bad emperor" through moral suasion. And China has had some pretty bad emperors over the centuries. Without procedural accountability, you can never establish real accountability.

Gardels: Some top Chinese intellectuals today argue that when China arises again as the superior civilization in a post-American world, the "tired" global debate over autocracy versus democracy will yield to a more pragmatic debate over good governance versus bad governance. I doubt you would agree.

Fukuyama: You are right, I don't believe that. You simply can't get good governance without democratic accountability. It is a risky illusion to believe otherwise."

Original

NY Times: Iran’s Politics Open a Generational Chasm

"It had been years since Narges Kalhor could talk about politics with her father, Mehdi, a senior adviser and spokesman for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. He advocated greater restraints on social and political expression, while she favored more freedom. Still, they had always managed to get along.

But after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June and the protests that followed, the disagreement exploded into a breach. Last week — as her father accused her of being manipulated by the opponents of the government — Ms. Kalhor, now 25, applied for refugee status in Germany.

“The difference between my generation and my parents’ generation, who are very ideological, is just increasing day by day,” she said in a telephone interview from Germany. “Their goals have not materialized, and it is our turn to lead the way.”

While Ms. Kalhor’s case has been widely publicized, she is hardly alone. Numerous children of prominent Iranians have become estranged from their powerful parents since the election, which the opposition says was rigged. Thousands more middle-class families have been divided by the generational chasm that opened over the summer.

Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was arrested during the protests in July and tortured to death, according to his father, who has staunchly defended the government’s handling of the unrest.

The son of another senior official close to Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is a student activist in Tehran but spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his father, said he and his father had for years avoided talking about politics.

“I know he has tried to protect me in the past and he tells me that whatever I do, I should not get into trouble,” he said. Last year, his father tried to send him to London to continue his studies and stay out of politics. But he refused to go and stayed to campaign against Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mehdi Khazali, the son of Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, a senior cleric close to Mr. Ahmadinejad, criticizes the country’s top leadership on his blog, drkhazali.net. At one point, he wrote that his father supported Mr. Ahmadinejad and the conservatives only because he had been “cheated, lied to and taken advantage of for his religious beliefs.”

Because of the growing alienation of young Iranians, family dynamics could be complex, particularly among the families of elite government officials. “These children are more affected by society and even Facebook and Twitter on the Internet than their families,” said Alireza Haghighi, an Iranian political analyst at the University of Toronto. “The younger generation has been very frustrated with the political situation.”

In Ms. Kalhor’s case, her parents’ religious and political conservatism did not extend to daily life. Her father, who has been an adviser to Mr. Ahmadinejad since 2005, helped and encouraged Ms. Kalhor to become a graphic designer and a filmmaker.

Mr. Kalhor embodied other contradictions, having appeared as a campaigner for Mr. Ahmadinejad on national television in 2005 wearing his long hair in a ponytail — something that is frowned upon by conservatives — and saying that all Iranians in exile, including the son of the shah, would be allowed to return to the country if Mr. Ahmadinejad were elected.

Ms. Kalhor said that through it all she remained close to her father until a year ago, when he moved out after separating from her mother. But she was also developing her own political views, she said.

“My generation wants its most basic needs such as freedom of expression and personal freedoms,” she said. “We want to live, we do not want to face persecution for expressing our political opinion; as women, we don’t want to walk on the street with the constant horror that we could be intimidated for showing an inch of hair.”

She said she began participating in the rallies in favor of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s leading opponent, Mir Hussein Moussavi, before the elections and voted for him in hope of real change. Infuriated by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which she called a “gross lie,” she joined the protests, during which, she said, she was beaten by the police and tear-gassed.

“This was an explosion of 30 years of suppression and intimidations of my generation,” she said of the protests. “I am happy that we finally found the courage to speak up.”

Ms. Kalhor went to a German film festival last week to show her movie “The Rake,” which is based on a Kafka short story about torture in prison, “In the Penal Colony.” While there, she made no secret of her support for the opposition movement at the festival, wearing a scarf of the opposition’s trademark green and appearing without the head scarf that is mandatory for Iranian women, even when they are outside the country.

She said she decided to apply for refugee status after hearing from friends that she faced arrest if she returned.

Her father reacted angrily and said that he was unaware of his daughter’s trip to Germany and that she had been tricked.

“I believe she has been tricked by the country’s enemies and has become a tool for propaganda,” Mr. Kalhor told the Mehr news agency. “As a father, I advise her not take a path that has no return and not become an instrument in the hands of the enemy.”

Ms. Kalhor brushed aside her father’s claims, saying she had no other choice."

Original

Tehran Bureau: "Who Supports Jundallah" by Muhammad Sahimi

"On Oct. 18, 2009, the Jundallah (God's Brigade) terrorist group mounted two terrorist attacks inside Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. One was a suicide attack, and the other was an ambush on a car carrying a group of soldiers. The coordinated attacks killed 42 people and injured dozens more. Five senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran's elite military unit, were killed, including Brig. Gen. Nourali Shoushtari, deputy commander of the IRGC's ground forces.

Jundallah was formed in 2003 and is believed to have about 1000 members. Its base of operations is in Pakistan's Baluchestan province. Jundallah is led by Albolmalek Rigi, a Sunni fundamentalist. Jundallah is a Sunni Salafi group, the most extreme sect of Islam, of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda variety, and has links to both groups. Jundallah has been involved in drug trafficking as well.

Drug trafficking from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran to Europe has been a major problem for Iran for the past 20 years. During this period, at least 3000 Iranian policemen have been killed by drug traffickers in that region alone. This has been acknowledged by the United Nations, which has commended Iran's efforts in stemming the flow of narcotics.

Jundallah has carried out several other terrorist operations in Iran that have killed many policemen and civilians.

Jundallah's first major terrorist attack inside Iran was in the fall of 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was visiting Baluchestan. His motorcade was attacked; at least one person was killed, and many more were injured. Then in March 2006, Jundallah terrorists blocked a road near Tasooki in Baluchestan and murdered 22 people.

Jundallah has also taken responsibility for the bombing of a bus carrying IRGC soldiers in February 2007. At least 11 soldiers were killed in that attack.

Sixteen policemen were abducted in June 2008 and taken to Pakistan, where they were murdered (some beheaded). Earlier, in August 2007, 21 Iranian truck drivers were abducted and taken to Pakistan, but freed later by Pakistani military. There were two attacks in Saravan. One, a suicide attack, occurred on December 29, 2008, which killed 4 people. The second one, on January 29, 2008, was an ambush on a group of policemen, resulting in 12 deaths.

To justify its acts of terrorism, Jundallah has renamed itself the People's Resistance Movement of Iran. Rigi claims to be fighting to improve the lives of Iranian Baluchis (who number about only 1 million). The claim rings hollow.

There is a movement in the Pakistani Baluchestan province to fight against the discrimination of Baluchi people by the central government. However, that movement has no connection with Jundallah. It is also true that the Baluchi minority in Iran has been discriminated against. But this is an old problem, spanning decades. In fact, Iran's central government has been trying to improve the economy in Baluchestan.

All of Jundallh's attacks have been well-planned and well-coordinated, which raises the question: Who supports and fiances Jundallah?

Over the years, Iran has blamed the United States for supporting the terrorist group. It has accused the United States and Britain of trying to create ethnic tension and instability in Iran. In the aftermath of the most recent attacks, Iran blamed the U.S. again for having a hand in the attacks. Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Iran's parliament, said "If they [the U.S.] want relations with Iran, they must be frank [admit their responsibility]. We consider the recent terrorist act the result of a U.S. measure."

Is there any truth to Iran's allegations against the U.S. and Britain? The mainstream media here has been dismissive of Iran's charges. One unfortunate result of Iran's rigged June 12 presidential election is the loss of legitimacy. Even when there is truth to what the Iranian government says, the world is inclined to dismiss it, simply because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has proven to be highly untrustworthy.

But there is evidence to suggest under the recent Bush administration, the U.S. was deeply involved in funding Jundallah terrorists. It is unclear what the policy of the Obama administration is regarding Jundallah. Both Britain and the U.S. State Department flatly rejected Iran's accusations and condemned the terrorist attacks. But there is more than meets the eyes.

The Bush Administration and Terrorist Groups

In February 2007, Dick Cheney traveled to Pakistan and met with then Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. Pakistani government sources said at the time that the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when the two met. In an interview later that month, Cheney referred to the Jundallah terrorists as "guerrillas" to give them legitimacy.

But despite Cheney's efforts to present them as legitimate fighters, Jundallah is a sectarian terrorist organization. It is made of Sunni extremists who hate the Shiites and its goal is to foment a conflict between the two sects of Islam. Because of its Sunni Salafi roots, it is likely that Jundallah is also supported by Saudi Arabia. I will return to this point shortly.

On Feb. 25, 2007, the London Telegraph reported that "America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program. Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the northwest, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the southeast. Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now 'no great secret', according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington."

According to the Telegraph, Fred Burton, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism agent, supported the assertion by saying, "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime."

In April 2007, ABC News reported that, according to Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, the Jundallah group, which is "responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005."

According to the report, "U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. The money for Jundullah was funneled to its leader, Abdelmalek Rigi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states." The Iranian exiles are the Mujahedin-e Khalgh (MKO).

In an interview with the National Public Radio on June 30, 2008, distinguished American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh explained how the Bush Administration's policy of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" led the U.S. to support the Jundallah and MKO (the MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department).

A week later, in his July 8, 2008, article in The New Yorker, Hersh quoted Robert Baer, a former CIA clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East. "The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda. These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers -- in this case, it's Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we're once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties," Baer was quoted as saying.

Baer was referring to the CIA providing arms, and Saudi Arabia supplying funds to the Afghan Mujahedin in the 1980s, who were fighting the occupying forces of the Soviet Union. After Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the Afghan Mujahedin branched out into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In a symposium on U.S.-Iran relations that the author co-organized in October 2008 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Baer repeated his assertions about Jundallah.

Former Pakistani Army Chief, retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, also said that "the U.S. supports the Jundullah terrorist group and uses it to destabilize Iran. Baig was deeply involved when the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban."

In his July 2008 article Hersh also said that the MKO received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the U.S., and that the Kurdish party, PJAK (Party for Free Life of Kurdistan), "which has also been reported to be covertly supported by the United States," has been operating against Iran from bases in northern Iraq for at least three years. PJAK, the Iranian branch of the Kurdish PKK group active in Turkey, has used Iraq's side of Kurdistan as its base to carry out many raids into Iran which have killed many civilians, as well as soldiers and policemen.

Britain and Terrorist Groups

There is still more. In the fall of 2005, there was a series of bombings in Iran's oil-rich province of Khuzestan, which borders southern Iraq, which was occupied by British forces. The bombings killed many innocent people. The Iranian government accused Britain and the U.S. of being behind the terrorist attacks. In his article, Hersh also mentions possible U.S. support for the so-called Khazestan separatists (who exist only in the imagination of some U.S. policy makers).

"Arabization" of Khuzestan and separating it from Iran has always been a goal of Britain, going back to the 1940s. British Arabists have always supported Arab "nationalist" activities against Iran, and in particular in Khuzestan.

For example, in September 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran, Saddam Hussein's declared goal was to annex Khuzestan. The BBC news network, as well as Western mainstream media, provided full overage of the Iraqi invasion in the first week. For several days, the United States and Britain prevented the UN Security Council from convening an emergency session to look into the possibility of calling for a ceasefire.

Their goal was twofold: (a) to show that Iran's resistance would collapse quickly. In fact, the U.S. was hoping that the invasion and rapid advances of the Iraqi army into Khuzestan would provoke a coup in Tehran by the remnants of the Shah's army; and (b) to show that the Arabs of Khuzestan fully support the invasion and can act as a fifth column.

Neither scenario materialized. In fact, not only did the vast majority of the Iranian Arabs not support Saddam, but were at the forefront of resistance to the Iraqi invaders. By spring of 1982, Iraq had been driven from almost all of Khuzestan.

Clearly, the Bush administration and Britain tried very hard, through covert programs, to destabilize Iran by inciting its ethnic and religious minorities.

The policy of the Obama administration toward the program is not clear. But President Obama has always stated that when it comes to Iran, "All options are on the table." So, why should anyone believe that this particular option has been taken off the table?

Saudi Arabia-Jundallah Link

There may still be another angle to the Jundallah terrorist attacks. Since Jundallah is a Sunni Salafi group, it means that it may have some links with Saudi Arabia, the center of Salafism. At the same time, relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been very frosty.

Iran is particularly angry that it has not received a definitive response from Saudi Arabia about the fate of the Iranian nuclear physicist Shahram Amiri, who disappeared there in May. The Saudis may have helped Amiri defect. If that is true, the revelations about the Qom uranium enrichment facility may be linked with Amiri's defection.

Saudi Arabia is worried about the possibility of improved relations between Iran and the U.S., as well as Iran's nuclear program.

The Geopolitics of Energy

Another important but hidden aspect of the strife stems from the transportation of natural gas from Central Asia, a land-locked region, to the international markets. Iran possesses 15.8% of the world's natural gas reserves, second only to Russia.

The most economical route for transporting natural gas from Central Asia, particularly from Turkmenistan to the international markets, is through a pipeline that runs through Iran to the port of Chah Bahar. However, because the U.S. desires to limit Iran's financial resources and integration within the region, it has, since the 1990s, supported the construction of an alternative pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean.

The pipeline does not make much sense, due to the political instability of Afghanistan and its mountainous terrain. But this is not the first time that the U.S. has supported an uneconomical pipeline purely due to its animosity toward Tehran. The Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which transports the Republic of Azerbaijan's oil from its capital Baku to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, is another example.

All Azerbaijan had to do was construct a short pipeline on its border with Iran to connect it to Iran's pipeline network, which runs from the south to the north. But the Clinton administration prevented that from happening.

Here is an interesting twist. Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan native and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations during the Bush administration, was a consultant to the Unocal Oil Company in the 1990s. With Khalilzad's help, Unocal lobbied the Clinton administration very strongly to give it permission to construct the pipeline. The Clinton administration supported the project. But just when the agreement was going to be signed, the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996.

The Clinton administration was still interested in reaching an agreement with the Taliban about the pipeline. But when the horrible treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban became publicized around the world, the Clinton administration and its Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, were too embarrassed to proceed with the project.

On the other hand, Iran and Pakistan have signed an agreement to construct a pipeline from southern Iran to Pakistan for transporting Iran's natural gas to Pakistan. Initially, the pipeline was supposed to continue to India, but under pressure by the Bush administration, India withdrew from the project. Pakistan, however, resisted U.S. pressure and signed the agreement with Iran.

If constructed, the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, which has been dubbed "the peace pipeline," will be in direct competition with the pipeline through Afghanistan, if and when that pipeline is constructed. The pipeline will run from southern Iran through Baluchestan to the border with Pakistan.

Instability in Iran's Baluchistan province, perpetrated by Jundallah, will scare away potential investors in the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, and may prevent its construction altogether. In my view, these facts, hidden from the public, play an important role in Jundallah's attack on Iran. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the U.S. wants the pipeline to be constructed.

Although I believe that Ahmadinejad's government has no legitimacy in Iran, the fact remains that the U.S. and its allies have been trying for years to incite Iran's ethnic and religious minorities to destabilize the country. To do so, the U.S., Britain, and Saudi Arabia appear to have turned to terrorist groups such as the Jundallah and PJAK. This is, of course, in total contradiction to the so-called "war on terror" that the U.S. is supposedly waging."

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Radio Zamaneh: Karroubi - "I am Prepared to Face Anything"

"In a meeting with representatives of the Human Rights Defenders Centre and National Council of Peace, Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi announced that he is ready for any eventuality .

The disputing candidate of Iran’s June presidential elections whose advocacy for the victims of alleged rape and torture in Iran’s prisons in the post-election events has made him the target of fierce criticism and anger from the conservative faction of the establishment, was informed earlier that the state is suing him for “fabricating evidence and making unfounded accusations” regarding abuses in the prisons. He has repeatedly announced that he welcomes an opportunity to appear in court as a chance to reveal every detail about the various violations committed against the detainees.

In his latest remarks on Monday in the meeting with the human rights activists at his home, Karroubi once more expressed his support for people’s protests and maintained “The activists of the Green Movement are after reform, not subversion.”

The post-election protests against the alleged fraud to secure Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the June presidential elections, has been referred to by many as the “Green Movement.” The government has confronted people’s peaceful protests with fierce violence resulting in tens of deaths and thousands of arrests. The authorities allege that the protesters are trying to topple the government, a claim that opposition leaders have repeatedly rejected.

Tagheer website reports that Mr. Karroubi's visitors expressed their concerns about the military atmosphere of the society, the violations of the constitution and the deepening of the economic crisis. They also expressed their regrets about the continued incarceration of numerous political activists such as Issa Saharkhiz, Abdollah Momeni, Ahmad Zeidabadi and Keyvan Samimi.

Mr. Karroubi maintained: “Those who thought they can terminate this business with such pressures have realized that they were wrong.”

In the election protests, a number of people were shot on the streets by the armed forces. A number of detainees were killed while in custody due to alleged torture and beatings.

Furthermore, over one hundred prominent detained reformists were presented in mass trials where many recanted their allegations of fraud in the elections and incriminated themselves in subversion. Opposition and human rights groups claim that the confessions were coerced.

Recently a number of these prisoners have been receiving long prisons sentences and a few were even sentenced to death.

Despite the pressures, tens of thousands of people once more joined an anti-government march on September 18, and since the opening of the universities, students have participated in various anti-government protests.

Another mass demonstration is planned for November 4th by protesters of the election outcome.

Mr. Karroubi and the representatives of the human rights groups also condemned the widespread ban of reformist publications and dailies in the recent months. Mr. Karroubi’s Etemad-e Melli daily was closed down for publishing reports of detainee rapes in the prisons and he is accused by many conservatives of tarnishing the image of the Islamic Republic regime.

In this regard Mr. Karroubi claimed: “I reject their claim that the system’s reputation has been tarnished by these reports. Revealing these issues aims at cleansing the system.""

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Radio Zamaneh: "Global Dialogue Prize awarded to Mohammad Khatami and Dariush Shayegan"

"Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami and Iranian philosopher Dariush Shayegan are the recipients of 2009 Global Dialogue Prize.

ILNA reports that the prize will be awarded to these Iranians in January of 2010 at Aarhus University in Copenhagen.

The Global Dialogue Prize was established in 2009 to promote the importance of intercultural understanding in the modern world and to acknowledge the research done in this area. The organizers of the award have announced that until 2017 they will award a prize biannually to researchers, journalists and independent organizations across the world, active in the area of intercultural dialogues.

Mohammad Khatami is the originator of the concept of “Dialogue Among Civilizations” which has gained international recognition. Based on this concept, the United Nations named the year 2001 as the year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. Khatami introduced the idea of dialogue between civilizations as a counterpoint to Samuel Huntington’s theory of the Clash of Civilizations.

Dariush Shayegan is a contemporary Iranian philosopher whose has written a number of studies in comparative philosophy mostly in French. He is the founding director of the Iranian Centre for the Studies of Civilizations."

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Radio Free Europe: "Iran Lawyer Seeks Cash to Young on Death Row"

"An Iranian human rights lawyer has launched an appeal for money to help avert the executions of juvenile offenders in the Islamic republic, saying $200,000 could spare the lives of four young people now on death row.

Under Iran's Islamic law, Shari'a, the family of a murder victim can pardon the convicted killer in exchange for financial compensation, so-called blood money, although they can also refuse it and demand the death penalty. For most people in Iran it would be difficult to raise the amount needed on their own.

Iran has executed at least 42 juvenile criminals since 1990, according to rights groups that say Saudi Arabia and Yemen are the only other countries to put juveniles to death. Iran says it carries out the death penalty only when a prisoner reaches 18.

"Right now a few of my clients who committed crimes when they were under 18 are awaiting execution.... By collecting 200 million tomans [$200,000], you can save the lives of three to four youngsters," lawyer Mohammad Mostafai said on his website.

Mostafai, a well-known rights activist, said he had set up an account for collecting the funds, urging Iranians living both inside and outside the country to help.

Iran earlier this month hanged one of Mostafai's clients, a man who was under 18 when he stabbed a boy to death. One Iranian news agency said the victim's parents helped to carry out the execution of their son's convicted killer.

Behnud Shojaie was put to death in a Tehran jail a month after the European Union urged Iran to halt his execution, which had been postponed several times. Iranian officials said they had tried in vain to convince the victims' parents to spare him.

Amnesty International has said Shojaie intervened to stop a fight between a friend and another boy, and stabbed the other boy with a shard of glass after being threatened with a knife. It says he was 17 at the time of the crime four years ago.

Amnesty has listed Iran as the world's second-most-prolific executioner in 2008 after China, and says it put to death at least 346 people last year.

Five people were executed in Tehran's Evin jail at dawn on October 21, including a 27-year-old woman who suffered from severe depression and killed her newborn baby with a knife, the "Iran" newspaper reported on October 22.

Iranian officials reject accusations of human rights violations and accuse the West of double standards. Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's Shari'a law, practiced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution."

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Radio Free Europe: "Iran Mulls El-Baradei Nuclear Plan, Others Cite Drawbacks"

"The head of the UN's nuclear agency, Muhammad el-Baradei, has given Iran as well as Russia, France, and the United States until October 23 to consider a plan that envisages Iran sending some 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium reserves abroad for conversion into fuel.

Under the proposal, put forward in Vienna on October 21, the uranium converted abroad would be sent back to Tehran to fuel a reactor producing medical isotopes.

Analyst Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says the virtue of this proposal is that it would remove from Iranian hands the quantity of enriched uranium needed for bomb-making.

"The advantages of the deal are that worries about Iran enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons would be temporarily reduced because most of Iran's low-enriched uranium would now be sent out of the country," Kile said.

The uranium would be shipped to Russia for processing into fuel rods -- a form which cannot be used for nuclear weapons.

But Kile notes the relief would only be temporary. Experts estimate that if three-quarters of Iran's present declared stock of low-enriched uranium is removed and processed, it would take only about a year for Tehran to rebuild its stocks to the present level -- which is approximately enough for one bomb.

There is a further downside for the international community in that such a deal would lend Iran the semblance of responsible cooperation with the international community, while not lessening the risk that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program hidden behind its civil program.

"The disadvantage of the deal is that it could legitimize Iran's nuclear enrichment program in the eyes of many countries around the world and it will put pressure on the UN Security Council to take back its resolutions demanding that Tehran end its enrichment program," Kile said.

In view of this, Kile sees the main value of the el-Baradei plan as being only an initial confidence-building measure among the parties to the dispute. It does not lessen the danger that Iran could one day break its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"The concern is that at some point Iran will break out of the NPT, and decide to re-enrich its low-enriched uranium to the higher weapons grade, and it's much easier to do that if you start with low-enriched uranium than if you have natural uranium,” he said. “Iran in theory would be able to do that in a relatively short time.”

If Tehran decides to agree to the el-Baradei plan, it could also expect to benefit in that the agreement would deflect attention from demands for Iran to be more forthcoming about other aspects of its nuclear program.

After all, only recently the Iranian government disclosed that it was building a previously secret enrichment center deep under a mountain near the city of Qom."

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BBC: Israel Met Iran at Nuclear Talks

"Israeli officials told the BBC each side attended panel sessions of a disarmament and non-proliferation conference in Cairo in September.

Iran had denied the Israeli accounts, but if confirmed it would be the first official exchange between the bitter foes since Iran's 1979 revolution.

Israel is believed to have nuclear arms and accuses Iran of seeking them too.

Representing Israel at the closed-door event at the Four Seasons hotel in the Egyptian capital was the head of arms control at the Israeli Atomic Agency, Meirav Zafary-Odiz, Israeli media reported.

Iran's ambassador to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, was also reportedly at the conference.

Reacting to the reports, Iran's atomic energy organisation spokesmen denied any meetings had taken place with Israeli officials.

"This lie is a kind of psychological operation designed to affect the constant success of Iran's dynamic diplomacy in the Geneva and Vienna meetings," said Ali Shirzadian in quotes broadcast on Iranian state TV.

A senior Israeli government official, meanwhile, described it as "preposterous" that the Cairo panel sessions implied any kind of diplomatic contact between Iran and Israel.

"For years Iran and Israel have participated at the same time in multilateral forums like this," he said, giving the examples of UN agencies, and the IAEA.

Contacts avoided

Iran does not recognise Israel and the two sides are frequently involved in exchanging hostile threats and denunciations.

At international conferences and sporting events, representatives of the Islamic Republic invariably avoid any contact with their Israeli counterparts.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper says three panel sessions of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament conference involved exchanges between the Iranian and Israeli delegates.

The sessions dealt with efforts to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, non-proliferation in the region and developing peaceful nuclear energy.

In one of the discussions, Haaretz quotes Mr Soltanieh directly asking Ms Zafary-Odiz: "Do you or do you not have nuclear weapons?"

Ms Zafary-Odiz reportedly smiled, but did not respond.

The newspaper says the two representatives did not meet separately outside the session or shake hands.

Israel is widely believed to have a stockpile of atomic warheads with delivery systems, but it refuses to confirm or deny their existence and has not signed the international Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty.

The US leads accusations that Iran is engaged in a covert attempt to develop nuclear weapons, although Iran says its nuclear activities are purely for peaceful ends."

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Reuters: Iran Sets Up Oil Task Force

"Iran's government has set up a special task force of top officials to decide on oil-related affairs on behalf of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a business daily said on Thursday.

It appeared to be a bid by Ahmadinejad to strengthen his control of and influence over the industry in Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

Jahan-e Eqtesad, an Iranian newspaper, said Ahmadinejad made the proposal to set up the task force. Its members include the ministers of oil, industries, foreign affairs as well as the central bank governor and other senior officials.

It did not give further details.

During his first four-year term, Ahmadinejad faced criticism over his government's profligate spending of petrodollars when oil prices were soaring, leaving the country more vulnerable when they fell last year."

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Rooz Online: "Coup Supporters Increase Pressure on Karroubi"

"Mehdi Karubi, secretary general of the Etemad Melli (“National Trust”) Party and the principal revealer of post June 12 presidential election crimes in Iran, has been the subject of threats and attacks from official and unofficial channels associated with coup supporters in the past two days, and Ahmad Jannati, secretary of the Guardian Council, called for his prosecution at the Friday Prayers sermon last week. The day before that, Mostafa Pourmohammadi and prior to that Mohseni-Ezhei had threatened Karubi to judicial proceedings. In response to all threats, Karubi has said, “The court can be a good place for me to reveal more details and present new documents.” Threats targeting Karubi, Mousavi and Khatami have intensified since the green movement’s supporters have announced plans to participate in the 13 Aban [November 4] rallies, which is the day commemorating the seizure of the US embassy in 1979.

Threats in Friday Prayer Sermon

Without directly naming Karubi, secretary of the powerful Guardian Council and one of Tehran’s Friday Prayer leaders, Ahmad Jannati threatened the leaders and supporters of the green movement during his Friday Prayer sermon, declaring, “We cannot treat protesters and those who demonstrated the worst enmity toward the regime and saddened the lovers of the Islamic republic all over the world with Islamic mercy.”

Pourmohammadi’s Accusations against Karubi
Yesterday the former ninth administration interior minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who currently heads the State Audit Organization, voiced new accusations against Karubi at a press conference.

Pourmohammadi, who has been relatively quiet since the election coup, said yesterday in unexpected remarks, “What Karubi has done during this time is indefensible and an instance of undermining the regime and government institutions.”

Nouri-Hamedani’s Remarks and Karoubi’s Reaction

Following a week of attacks against Karubi by clerics and military officers supporting Ahmadinejad, yesterday the text of ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani’s latest remarks were published, endorsing threats against Karubi and the government’s crackdown.

Mehdi Karubi, who has so far issued short responses to these threats, immediately responded to ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani’s remarks. In his response to Nouri-Hamedani, Karubi restated his determination to continue protesting election results and the ensuing crackdown and violence.

Prior to his statements directed at Nouri-Hamedani, Jannati and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Karubi had responded to Mohsen-Ezhei’s threats by saying, “This time, not only am I not worried about a trial, but I strongly welcome it, so that I can use the opportunity to discuss my concerns for the national and religious interests of the Iranian people and reveal the sources of those concerns.”

It must be noted that following the remarks of an official in the Islamic Republic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) early last week calling for the prosecution of Mousavi and Karubi, a number of hardline Ahmadinejad supporters in the Majlis, the judiciary and the IRGC have called on the judiciary to confront Karubi."

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Tabnak: Ayatollah Safi Wants Segregated Universities

Translation courtesy of Tehran Bureau:

"Shia Source of Emulation Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi-Golpayegani has called for the segregation of universities across Iran.

Stressing the importance of learning in Islam, Ayatollah Golpayegani said, "The interaction of girls and boys in universities has been repeatedly criticized and is a cause for concern among university officials."

"I hope that circumstances will be changed in a manner so that we will no longer have to see boys and girls interacting in universities."

The Ayatollah demanded the establishment of separate universities for both genders across the country. "I hope that we will be able to have all-girl universities throughout the country so that our girls will be able to study the fields beneficial for women."

"Our universities must teach our girls the science of good housekeeping and raising children properly.""

Farsi Original

Tehran Bureau: Newsweek Reporter Leaves Tehran; 25 Journalists Still in Jail

"With the release of Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari on bail, the Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Iranian authorities to release the 25 journalists who still remain in prison.

Bahari, Newsweek's Tehran correspondent, was released on $300,000 bail on Saturday after spending almost four months in prison, the magazine reported. Newsweek announced his arrival in London today. Bahari was arrested on June 21, following the country's June 12 presidential elections. His wife, Paola Gourley, is expecting their first child on October 26.

"We are relieved that Maziar Bahari is out of jail and that he can be with his family," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "Our thoughts are now with our colleagues who remain behind bars in Iran. We call on authorities to release all 25 journalists, who are being held under inhumane conditions in Iranian prisons."

Among these journalists is Fariba Pajooh, a freelance reporter who has worked for outlets such as Itmad e Milli, the Iranian Labour News Agency, and the Persian service of Radio France International. She was arrested in mid-August and was charged with "propagating against the ‎‎ regime," according Radio France International. The station reported that she has spent about a month in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison and has been under pressure to make false confessions. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a local watchdog group, reported on October 12 that ‎Pajooh has been under constant interrogation for weeks.

Following the presidential elections, authorities arrested thousands of protesters who challenged the official results. The government cracked down on media by arresting dozens of journalists, censoring newspapers, blocking Web sites, expelling and vilifying foreign journalists and media, and putting on trial several journalists. Twenty of the jailed journalists and bloggers were detained after the June elections, CPJ research has found. About 70 journalists were arrested overall in the crackdown; the majority of those who have been released are out on bail.

Earlier today, the Washington-based International Women's Media Foundation honored formerly imprisoned journalist Zhila Bani-Yaghoub, who is in Iran, with a Courage in Journalism Award. Her husband, journalist Bahman Ahmadi Omavi, remains in prison in Tehran."

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Al Jazeera English: "Iran Arrests Three Over Bomb Blast"

"Three Iranians have been arrested in connection to Sunday's suicide bombing attack in the country's southeast that killed at least 42 people, authorities say.

A leading prosecutor on Tuesday said police detained the three on suspicion of involvement in the blast that struck the heart of the country's security forces in Sistan-Baluchestan.

"Due to security reasons, I am not giving the details of their names, but these terrorists are Iranians," Mohammad Marziah, the prosecutor in Zahedan, the provincial capital, told Iran's Fars news agency.

Authorities are also seeking a man who accompanied the suicide bomber, Marziah said.

Fifteen members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were among those killed in the attack, which struck ahead of a meeting between Revolutionary Guards commanders and tribal chiefs.

Guards mourned

Throngs of uniformed mourners paid their respects for the dead at a funeral on Tuesday in Tehran, Iran's capital.

A Sunni group, Jundollah, has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iranian authorities have accused Pakistan of having links to the bombers, a charge Pakistan denies.

Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, said members of the group accused of mounting the attack regularly criss-cross the frontier with Pakistan.

"Members of this terrorist group regularly violate the border and launch attacks inside Iran," he said, without naming the group.

"They cross into Iran illegally. They are based in Pakistan."

Also on Tuesday, a senior commander called for permission to go into Pakistan to hunt for who he called "terrorists", state television reported.

Brigadier-General Mohammad Pakpour, the head of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, said his forces are ready to confront those believed responsible for the attacks.

"Counter-revolutionary sanctuary'

"So far Pakistan has not co-operated with us and today the main counter-revolutionary sanctuary is Pakistan," the AFP news agency quoted Pakpour as saying.

"The terrorists are being trained in that country and Pakistani officials should have the ability to confront the elements on their own soil."

Earlier, Major-General Muhammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, named the prime suspect behind the bombing as Abd ul-Malik Rigi - who is believed to be based in Pakistan.

Jafari said Tehran would send a delegation to Islamabad to deliver "proof to them so they know that the Islamic Republic is aware of Pakistan's support".

He also expressed his belief that US and British intelligence services were involved and that there would "have to be retaliatory measures to punish them".

But a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman has rejected the claim.

"Pakistan is not involved in terrorist activities ... we are striving to eradicate this menace," he said.

Washington has also denied involvement with the group, which it has labelled as a "terrorist" organisation, and has condemned the attack."

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Rooz Online: Coup Perpetrators Insist on Intensifying Security Atmosphere

"While at their latest meeting last Friday Mir-Hossein Mousavi and seyed Mohammad Khatami called for ending the imposition of a “security atmosphere” on the country and warned about the destructive impact of the “continuation of the current unpleasant situation, particularly the continuation of arrests, curtailment of fundamental freedoms in violation of the constitution, ethical and religious norms, and the airing of accusations and insults continue.”

Mousavi and Khatami issue their latest warning while a security atmosphere has dominated Iran for the past four months. Government measures imposing this have included the killing of protesters, the detention of more than 4,000 protesters (according to the judiciary’s spokesperson), the closure of newspapers Yas-e No, Seday-e Edalat, Etemad Melli, Arman, Farhang-e Ashti, Tahlil-e Rooz and Kalameye Sabz, filtering of critical websites, the arrest of prominent reformist activists and journalists (which is continuing), televised broadcast of detainee confessions against themselves and others, issuance of death sentences for several protesters, daily threats of arrest against opposition candidates (Mehdi Karoui and Mousavi), and daily political statements by military commanders.

Government Supporters Want to Expand Violence

While moderate figures in the Islamic republic such as ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, and even prominent figures from the ruling establishment such as ayatollahs Mahdavi Kani, Makarem Shirazi, Mohammad Reza Bahonar and many others have presented or promoted plans for national unity, administration supporters continue on the imposition of a “security atmosphere” through their threatening and violent remarks.

Daily Threats from Military Commanders

The remarks of the administration’s spiritual supporters and groups within the ruling faction seeking violence are made while, since before the June 12 presidential election, officers and commanders from the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basij, which played the main role in suppressing post-election protests, repeatedly interfered in political affairs, accusing the protesters of “seeking to overthrow and oppose the regime,” “preparing for a velvet revolution,” “conspiracy with foreigners” and “elimination of supreme leader.” According to many Iranian politicians, such interference in political affairs has been unprecedented in the Islamic Republic’s history.

In this connection, Yadollah Javani, who heads the IRGC’s political bureau, introduced a plan to arrest reformists and the opposition candidates. He wrote, “If Mousavi, Khatami, Khoiniha and Karoubi are the main agents of a velvet revolution in Iran, which they are, the expectation is that the judiciary and security apparatus would arrest, try and prosecute them in accordance with the law as the main fires behind this conspiracy. “

Shortly after Javani’s remarks, the IRGC’s chief, Mohammad Ali Jafari, made statements based on the confessions of some detainees, calling for confronting opposition candidates and the arrest of reformist leaders."

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Radio Zamaneh: Shadi Sadr Receives Human Rights Defenders Tulip Award

"Shadi Sadr, Iranian lawyer and women’s rights activist, is the recipient of the Human Rights Defenders Tulip award this year. The winner was chosen by the Dutch foreign ministry out of 116 nominees from 63 different countries.

Human rights activities and the political situation of the nominee’s country of residence are amongst the criteria for selecting the winner. It is also taken into consideration that receiving the award does not threaten the life and work of the recipient.

Last year Justine Masika, Congolese human rights activist became the first recipient of the Tulip award that was established by the Dutch government to acknowledge the efforts of those who “showed exceptional moral courage in defending and promoting the rights of [their] fellow citizens.”

On October 20, Dutch foreign minister Maxim Verhagen announced Shadi Sadr the winner of the 2009 Tulip award for her “courageous” struggles in defending citizens’ rights. The awarding ceremony will take place on November 9 in the Hague.

In addition to the Bronze Statuette, the winner will receive a prize of €10,000. The winner can also propose a project to the value of €100,000 aimed at advancing their work as a human rights activist.

The award committee has cited Shadi Sadr’s legal activities, publication of critical articles in various websites, as well as activities in the RAAHI organization and the campaign to stop stoning as reasons for selecting her as this year’s winner.

Shadi Sadr, along with two other human rights activists, Roya and Ladan Boroumand, also received this year’s Lech Walesa award."

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Reuters: "Eyeing Iran, Israel Tests Missile Defenses with U.S."

"Israel and the United States launched a major air defense drill Wednesday as part of what Israeli public radio called preparation for a faceoff with Iran.

During the two-week maneuvers, dubbed Juniper Cobra, some 1,000 American personnel will mesh ground- and ship-based missile interceptors like the Aegis, THAAD and Patriot with Israel's Arrow II ballistic shield, defense officials said.

Spokesmen on both sides insisted the biennial drill was unrelated to world events, but Israel Radio quoted an unnamed commander as saying it served "to prepare for a nuclear Iran."

The United States and other world powers are trying to talk Tehran into giving up nuclear technologies with bomb-making potential, while the Israelis watch warily from the sidelines.

Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has hinted it could resort to force to prevent its arch-foe attaining the means to threaten its existence.

But some analysts believe that tactical limitations, and U.S. misgivings about pre-emptive strikes, may compel Israel to accept a more defensive posture with the help of its top ally.

Iran denies seeking the bomb and has threatened to retaliate for any attack by firing its medium-range missiles at Israel."

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MSNBC: "U.N. Condemns Terrorist Attack on Iran"

"The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned "in the strongest terms" the recent terrorist attack in an Iranian border city that killed top Revolutionary Guard commanders and dozens of others.

A press statement approved by the 15-member council "underlined the need to bring the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice."

According to reports from Tehran, Sunday's suicide bombing killed at least 42 people — including five senior Revolutionary Guard officers — who were attending a conference of tribal and local leaders in the city of Pisin near Iran's border with Pakistan. Iran's U.N. Mission and the Security Council put the casualty toll higher, saying the attack killed at least 57 people and injured 150 others.

The council statement was a response to a letter from Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazee saying the government expected the council to condemn the attack in the strongest terms and send a message that such acts cannot be tolerated.

Sunni militants

Khazee said "the terrorist group calling itself Jundallah," or Soldiers of God, which is led by Abdolmalik Rigi claimed responsibility for the attack and a series of other bombings, kidnappings and violent acts committed in eastern border cities in recent years.

"There are indications that the group enjoys the support of some foreign countries," he said.

Jundallah claims it is fighting to defend the Sunni Baluchi clans in the southeastern border region against alleged discrimination and abuses by Iran's Shiite majority.

Iran has accused Pakistan, the U.S. and Britain of aiding the Sunni militants. A commentary Monday by the official news agency called on Iranian security forces "to seriously deal with Pakistan once and for all." And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his Pakistani counterpart that his nation must hunt down suspected members of Jundallah."

Amnesty International: "Iran Must Open Tehran Trial to International Observers" (Aug. 12, 2009)

"With more than 100 people now on trial before Tehran's Revolutionary Court for fomenting protests against the disputed official result of Iran's 12 June presidential election, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan has challenged the Iranian authorities to open up the court to international observers.

"The trial now going on in Tehran appears to be nothing but a 'show trial' through which the Supreme Leader and those around him seek to de-legitimize recent mass and largely peaceful protests and convince a very sceptical world that Mahmoud Amadinejad was re-elected fairly for a second term as president," said Irene Khan. "It is vital, therefore, that there is an international presence to observe the proceedings at this trial and uphold the rights of the defendants, and I urge the Iranian authorities to allow this."

Film of the trial proceedings shown on state TV in Iran, in which some defendants have been shown "confessing" or apologizing to the court, has heightened fears that many of them may have been tortured or ill-treated following their arrest and have made such statements to the court under extreme duress. Some are said by relatives to have visibly lost weight during their weeks of incarceration pre-trial, when they were denied access to lawyers or their families.

Further compelling evidence of torture has been exposed by Mehdi Karroubi, one of the three rival candidates said to have been defeated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is reported to have complained that both women and male detainees have been tortured, including by rape, by security officials.

Many torture allegations focus on the Kahrizak detention centre, outside Tehran, where many of those arrested in connection with the protests are believed to have been taken. On 29 July, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak, acknowledging that detainees had been abused there. The authorities say the head of the prison and three guards have been imprisoned as a result. Reports reaching Amnesty International shortly before the prison was closed, described it as a place of great cruelty and suffering, with detainees held in grossly overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and subject to frequent abuse.

"As each day comes, more information emerges to indicate that the violence meted out against protestors on the streets, by the Basij and other so-called security forces, was mirrored by further gross abuse of detainees, including some of those now on trial in Tehran, when they were held incommunicado at the notorious Kahrizak and other detention centres," said Irene Khan. "The Supreme Leader and those around him must address this and ensure that all those responsible are held to account, not just a few officials."

Amnesty International wrote to the Head of the Judiciary in Iran, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, on 6 August asking him to allow the organization to send an observer to the Revolutionary Court trial in Tehran, but has received no response. The Tehran authorities have not permitted Amnesty International to visit the country to investigate human rights violations since before the Iranian revolution 30 years ago."

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Amnesty International: "Iran Must Overturn Sentences Issued by Post-Election Show Trials"

"Amnesty International has urged the Iranian authorities to overturn a 15-year prison sentence imposed on an Iranian-American academic for his alleged part in the protests following the June presidential election.

Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, was sentenced by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on Tuesday following a mass trial of more than 100 people accused of organizing the protests.

"The 'show trial' that has so far led to the imprisonment of Kian Tajbakhsh and a number of other reformist politicians and journalists, as well as the imposition of at least four death sentences, was grossly unfair and a travesty of justice," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Media reports say that the charges against Tajbakhsh included espionage, co-operation with an enemy government, and acting against national security.

Similar charges were brought against US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who was originally sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in April. She was released in May following international and domestic protests at her detention.

Tajbakhsh was detained for several months in 2007. He was formally charged with "acting against state security by engaging in propaganda and espionage for foreigners". He was released in September 2007.

"The authorities should welcome the part that intellectuals can play towards developing the political and social life of their country, instead of locking them up on spurious charges," said Malcolm Smart.

"It appears that Kian Tajbakhsh has been targetted on account of his dual nationality and his academic work, and we consider him a prisoner of conscience."

Amnesty International has called on the Iranian authorities to overturn immediately all sentences passed following the mass trial and to release all those detained in connection with it unless they are to be tried fairly on recognizably criminal charges."

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International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran: Urgent Call for Iranian Government to Rescind Conviction of Iranian-American Sociologist

"The Iranian Judiciary should rescind a 15-year prison sentence issued against Kian Tajbakhsh, a dual national Iranian-American sociologist, and order an immediate review of his case and those of others on trial or already sentenced in bogus “show trials,” the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today.

Tajbakhsh was prosecuted along with over a hundred other defendants during the past two months in politically-motivated “show trials” that human rights organizations have condemned as lacking any due process or respect for minimum international standards of justice.

Tajbakhsh was not allowed access to an independent lawyer and had a court appointed lawyer, Houshang Azhari. On 20 October, Azhari told the Associated Press that Tajbakhsh’s sentence was “more than 12 years,” but he could not “divulge further details.” The Campaign has been informed that Tajbakhsh has been sentenced to a total of 15 years by the lower court.

Charges against Tajbakhsh reportedly include espionage, cooperation with an enemy government, and acting against national security. Similar charges have been brought by lower branches of the Revolutionary Courts against other detainees in previous years, including Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist originally sentenced to eight years. However Saberi’s appeals court threw out the lower court’s sentencing, rejecting the charge that the United States could be considered “an enemy government.”

“Tajbakhsh’s sentence is politically motivated and the Iranian justice system continues to demonstrate blatant double standards of justice. Tajbakhsh has been prosecuted for his beliefs and should be released immediately,” said Aaron Rhodes, the Campaign’s spokesperson.

The “show trials” have also resulted in lengthy sentences against political activists. Saeed Hajjarian was given a five-year suspended sentence. Shahab Tabatabai and Hedayat Aghaie, both reformist politicians, were each sentenced to five years in prison. Masoud Bastani, a journalist, received a five-year prison sentence. The Campaign believes these defendants have been prosecuted solely for their political beliefs and writings.

All of the above sentences are subject to review by an appeals court. The Campaign called on the head of the Judiciary, Hojatoleslam Sadiq Larijani, to put a stop to these unfair trials and immediately order an appeals court headed by politically non-partisan judges to review recent sentences and pending cases."

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London Times: "Don't Strike Deal With Ahmadinejad, Pleads Leader of Green Movement"

"A leading opposition figure has expressed fears that the West will abandon Iran’s pro-democracy movement and strike a deal with the Tehran regime over its nuclear programme.

“We are concerned that the West will betray us — and its own principles of liberty, democracy and human rights,” said the man, an Iranian academic and a leader of an underground cell. He cannot be identified for fear of retribution.

Speaking to The Times in a European capital, having recently slipped out of Iran, the senior member of the country’s “Green” movement warned that Iran’s apparent nuclear concessions were merely a ruse to ease international pressure while it sought to crush domestic dissent. “How can you rely on any promises and pledges made by a government that not only stole the June election, has not only killed and raped its own citizens, but also has consistently hidden major parts of the nuclear programme?” he asked.

His concerns were heightened by the presence of the British Ambassador at President Ahmadinejad’s inauguration in August, after the hotly contested elections in June. “This was a slap in the face of the families who had lost loved ones at the hands of Ahmadinejad. We expected the Russians and the Chinese to do something like this, as they have authoritarian governments. But the country that has ‘the mother of all parliaments’ should hold itself to higher standards,” he said.

A growing economic crisis and an uncrushable opposition will destroy President Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government within four years, he said. “We are confident that Ahmadinejad will not be able to finish his term,”

He described in detail how the opposition flourishes, despite the regime’s brutal crackdown on any form of dissent. In Tehran it consists of half a dozen organising cells that co-ordinate with each other but work independently of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates who have become figureheads of the “Green” movement.

Cell leaders meet in tea houses and restaurants to develop plans and directions. They use internet “trees” to disseminate information about meetings, procedures and slogans, the latest activities of the opposition’s political leaders and articles from foreign media. “We try to avoid mass mailing or even mass text-messaging in order to lessen the possibility of detection,” he said, adding that three recent articles in The Times describing the systematic rape of opposition detainees were translated into Farsi within hours of publication and widely circulated in a country whose independent media has been largely extinguished.

Cell leaders had been astonished by the public’s response, he said. Iranians had begun spontaneously defacing officials’ portraits, motorway signs and walls with green paintballs, or with slogans painted in green. He described how people sat in restaurants writing anti-government slogans on banknotes before paying their bills; how individuals used their own money to have 50 or 100 flyers printed and how he once found a young man putting leaflets under the windscreen wipers of parked cars on his own initiative.

“He and his friends had decided that if the movement was to succeed everyone had to do his or her own thing...It is this activity which is driving the regime mad because it can’t control it. It thought that by arresting so many leaders of the reformist movement, the leaderless popular opposition would simply go away. They failed to understand that this is a bottom-up grassroots movement.” The regime’s attempts to stiffle dissent were making it look increasingly ridiculous, he contended.

A recent football match at Tehran’s Azadi stadium was broadcast in black and white, and without sound, because most of the 70,000 fans were wearing green and chanting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans.

The cell leader said that an important turning point occured last month when as many as a million people defied the regime’s warnings and turned the annual Qods Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause into a huge protest against their own repression.

“We never in our wildest dreams believed this many people would turn up. . . We hoped at best for 100,000 people,” he said. “It showed people were no longer scared of the regime, and that the movement is not only alive but growing. It was a huge morale boost.” Similiar demonstrations are planned for November 4, the day Iranians celebrate the seizure of the US Embassy in 1979.

The activist said university students were mobilising now the new academic year was under way, and that there had already been large, angry demonstrations at the University of Tehran and the capital’s Sahrif and Azad universities. He said there was active opposition in many other cities across Iran including Siraz, Isfahan, Mashad, Kermanshad and Rasht. He claimed that the elite Republican Guard on which the regime depends for its survival was “not as united as it seems, and there is growing discontent over the competency of Ahmadinejad”.

As great a threat to the regime, however was a collapsing economy that was destroying its support amongst poorer Iranians.

Largely as a result of Mr Ahmadinjad’s first-term profligacy inflation and unemployment are rising, property prices slumping and construction stagnating. Only 30 per cent of factories are operating at more than 50 per cent capacity, and within six months another 3,000 are expected to close or switch to a two- or three-day week. Private companies, including almost the entire pharmaceutical and engineering sectors, are owed huge amounts of money by the government. Irankhodro, the Middle East’s largest car manufacturer, is effectively bankrupt. There have been strikes in Tehran, Arak and Masahd. “The economic crisis is becoming catastrophic . . . It will help finish the regime,” the activist claimed.

He said that the West had grown used to swift “velvet revolutions” like those that toppled former Soviet regimes, but the struggle in Iran would take longer. However, there was now a widespread belief that the regime was “raftani” — heading for the rubbish bin of history.

“We had believed it was for ever, but now we realise it is no more,” he said. The one disappointment, he said, was the failure of Iran’s leading clerics to join the opposition. With a few notable exceptions “the Grand Ayatollahs have not acted in defence of the people against tyranny and the regime’s use of violence and rape. The people looked to them as a class and were disappointed.” "

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Time: Behind Iran's Diplomatic Snub of France

"It should come as no surprise that Iran wants to shunt France out of a deal to enrich its nuclear fuel abroad. Dividing its enemies and isolating the more hawkish among them has been a hallmark of Tehran's diplomacy, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy routinely plays the tough cop with Iran, threatening and goading its leaders and urging U.S. President Barack Obama to take a tougher line. On Tuesday, Iran struck back with a humiliating slap-down, insisting that France butt out of the deal because Tehran could not trust the nation to honor its commitments. Iranian diplomats even delayed the start of the day's talks in Vienna on the agreement, insisting that it was unnecessary for the French to be in the room. Eventually the talks went ahead with French delegates present, but Iranian officials insisted that they would not accept France as a supplier. The New York Times reported that a face-saving compromise was being developed that would see Iran make a deal with Russia, which could separately subcontract work out to France.

"We do not need a lot of fuel, and we do not need the presence of many countries," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, stressing Tehran's desire to work on the deal with the U.S. and Russia. "There is no need for France to be present," he said, adding that Iran believes that France "is not a trustworthy party to provide fuel for Iran."

Snubbing France while offering an agreement with the U.S. and Russia is vintage Iranian divide-and-conquer diplomacy — although this time there may be incentives for all sides to play the game. The Vienna talks are on the details of an agreement, announced at the Geneva talks on Oct. 1, under which Iran would ship much of its enriched-uranium stockpile abroad for reprocessing to fuel a medical research reactor in Tehran. Together with Iran's agreement to submit its hitherto secret enrichment site at Qum to inspection, the deal offered an important opportunity to strengthen safeguards against Iran's turning its growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium into bomb material. Iran also liked the deal, seeing it as tacit recognition of uranium-enrichment in Iran as an intractable fact — Tehran reiterated on Tuesday that it has no intention of halting uranium enrichment, as Western powers continue to demand, in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Vienna move may be read as Iran flexing its muscle with respect to a deal that the Obama Administration badly needs — international support for harsher sanctions remains limited as long as Iran is ready to offer some form of cooperation. But in doing so while isolating the most hard-line among the Western powers, Tehran may be offering concessions that it's willing to give, while enjoying a personal poke at Sarkozy.

Since his election in May 2007, the French President has taken positions on Iran worthy of the most hawkish members of the Bush Administration. In July 2007, he warned that the world would have to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, or face a "catastrophic alternative: the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran." And that was just his warm-up.

Last month, while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Sarkozy appeared to mock Obama's more temperate and generalized remarks on nuclear proliferation. Nostrils flaring, Sarkozy responded to the U.S. President's remarks by calling Iran's nuclear program the leading threat to international security, which three years of U.N. efforts had not diminished. "What are we going to do about it?" Sarkozy petulantly asked his American counterpart.

And in contrast to Obama's cautious comments on Iran's disputed election last June, Sarkozy took a lead in denouncing the regime, declaring that "the people of Iran deserve better than their current leaders." Little wonder, then, that when the opportunity arose, Iranian officials moved to throw France off the diplomatic bus.

"Dramatically effective though it may seem at times, Sarkozy's aggressive behavior — indeed, his very personality — ensures certain things will inevitably come back to bite him," notes John Kent, professor in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics. "He's a bit like [former British Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in the way he'll stake out strong, antagonistic positions that over time undermine his credibility to calmly seek consensus solutions because the atmospheres he creates are more favorable to histrionics."

Sarkozy's trash-talking of Iran has in fact allowed Tehran to use him as a useful whipping boy, projecting toughness and defiance for a domestic audience, while at the same time keep lines of dialogue open with the U.S. And Tuesday's diplomatic slap was more symbolic than substantial. After all, France remains a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which gives it a seat at the main nuclear talks with Iran. (Those talks began in Geneva on Oct. 1; the Vienna session was a technical meeting on the terms of a processing deal.) Iran isn't refusing to negotiate with France in the room but simply declining to accept it as a supplier of processed uranium.

"Despite the [Iranian] demands, our experts continue to participate in talks as they always have," a French diplomat told TIME on Tuesday. "Tomorrow may be another story — or it might not. Who can tell with Iran?"

The Vienna talks ended inconclusively, and a further session is reportedly scheduled. But they served as a reminder that the search for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear standoff will be protracted and perilous, and their outcome will probably be less than what the Western powers had hoped for. Even then, it may be the only game in town."

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