Iran: The Battle for the Ministry of Intelligence Continues

The Latest from Iran (7 August): The Opposition Bounces Back

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Last week we posted an exclusive analysis on the battle to control the Ministry of Intelligence and its wider political significance: "The irony is that any notion of an outside 'velvet revolution” has been overtaken by an inside bureaucratic war. How far this war spreads could define the next phase of the post-election challenge to the Iranian system.

 Iason Athanasiadis has an intriguing follow-up in Thursday's Washington Times, "Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency". Inevitably, a lot of the piece is rumour and speculation but the hard facts are worthy of consideration.

The theories behind President Ahamdinejad's sacking of the Minister of Intelligence, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, such as "failure to press for convictions on espionage charges of former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian and two Iranian-Americans, scholar Haleh Esfandiari and journalist Roxana Saberi" are peripheral (the immediate reason for Ejeie's firing could just as easily have been thew Cabinet bust-up over the appointment of the First Vice President, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai). Instead, the significant signal of the power struggle is here:
[blockquote]
Mr. Ejei was present on Monday when Ayatollah Khamenei presided at a ceremony confirming Mr. Ahmadinejad's second term: "Ejei came for the supreme leader, not for Ahmadinejad, because he derives his credibility from [the leader]."
[/blockquote]Just as important are the sources of the rumours for Ejeie's dismissal, as well as the firing of two Vice Ministers and more than 20 other officials: pro-Ahmadinejad activists quoted in the "conservative" Baztab and the "reformist" Mizan News. And there is the President's own reference to the "failings" justifying his changes at the Ministry:

Two weeks before the riots started, the Foreign Ministry reported that it was very suspicious that a significant number of people were traveling to Iran from Britain. But the intelligence ministry did not pursue this matter. The ministry also did not act as it was expected in the recent unrests, and there were blatant cases of negligence. 

Is the President now running the Ministry via its interim head, Majid Alavi, taking supervision away from the Supreme Leader?  Is he, as the 20+ dismissed officials have warned in a letter to the Ministry, erasing security files relating to his allies, including the former
First Vice President Rahim-Mashai? And are there manoeuvres behind these manoeuvres in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is ensuring that it is the power behind this regime?

None of this is any clearer now than when the crisis broke more than two weeks ago. What has been established is that this is a system which is battling forces within as much as it is the opposition outside.

Israel and Palestine: The Latest Manoeuvres of Hamas and Fatah

After Saudi Arabia rejected the US plan for Arab gestures towards Israel to establish diplomatic ties, Saudi King Abdullah warned that the rift among Palestinians was more damaging to their cause of an independent state than the Israeli "enemy".

In a letter to Palestinians gathering at Fatah’s sixth General Assembly, the King said:

"The arrogant and criminal enemy was not able, during years of continued aggression, to hurt the Palestinian cause as much as the Palestinians hurt their cause themselves in the past few months... I can honestly tell you, brothers, that even if the whole world joins to found a Palestinian independent state, and if we have full support for that, this state would not be established as long as the Palestinians are divided."

Abdullah's message comes as Hamas sends stronger signals that it wishes to sign an agreement with Fatah on August 24 in Cairo. On Wednesday, Hamas’s leader in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, stated that Hamas had informed the Egyptian leadership that it wants a unity deal by the 25th.

It is too simple, however, to see this as a one-way Hamas drive for unity. Instead, it appears that the organisation is also looking to pin any blame for failure on Fatah.

Hamas is still guarding against any appearance of weakness and of a Fatah freed to strike a unilateral deal with Israel. So it did not let Fatah delegates leave the Gaza Strip for the West Bank.

Yet Hamas' fears of Fatah "giving in" to Tel Aviv may be overstated. Although some observers expected a significant shift in strategy, the Fatah leadership is not ruling out the option of struggle through arms, although delegates may agree on replacing a statement of 'armed struggle' to 'resistance'. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas said, "While we stress that we have endorsed the path of peace and negotiations on the basis of international legitimacy, we also reserve our authentic right to legitimate resistance as guaranteed by international law."

So Fatah is aiming at distancing itself further from a “terrorist” Hamas but, at the same time, it is not permitting any political vacuum that Hamas to fill. And that in turn means that Abbas will reiterate Fatah's positions on the right of Palestinian return and the rejection of Jewish settlement construction both in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

If Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, which it leads, can get tangible concessions from Israel and if the Obama Administration can get close to a settlement, then Hamas will be stuck inside the Gaza Strip. However, if the process is drawn out, then Fatah will suffer and, conversely, Hamas will strengthen.

The Latest from Iran (6 August): Getting Past Ahmadinejad

Video: The Inauguration Protests (5 August)
The Latest from Iran (5-6 August): The Inauguration

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2200 GMT: Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to give Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai greater influence by giving him responsibilities traditionally reserved for the vice president.

2145 GMT: Opposition Resumed. The Facebook pages of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard can once again be accessed.

2110 GMT: Closing the Evening with an Urgent Question. Last night we reported the breaking news that Hashemi Rafsanjani would be leading Friday prayers in Tehran on 14 August. Tonight there is doubt. Seyed Reza Taghavi, the head of the committee responsible for Friday prayers, has stated, "The presence of Ayatollah Hashemi is not yet clear and depends upon his health and the queue before him."

2045 GMT: Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, the chief prosecutor of Iran, has stated that the recent televised confessions, "although collected legally, will have little effect upon the outcome of the court and sentencing". Dorri-Najafabadi also claimed, "[Detained politician Mostafa] Tajzadeh is in good health"

The chief prosecutor made clear that he would have preferred to have court proceedings behind closed doors. "If we were consulted about having these open trials, we may have had a different opinion."

2025 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Payoff for Moscow? The Russian mobile phone operating company Megafone, which is alleged to belong to the wife of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has reportedly obtained a license to open a branch in Tehran. Initially the UAE company Etisalat won the auction to be the third mobile operator in Tehran but then suddenly the Kuwaiti company Zain was put in its place. Now it is alleged that Megafone is going to be the operator.

This news is entirely unconnected, of course, to the fact that Russia was the first country to give significant recognition of Ahmadinejad's "re-election", receiving him at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit a few days after the 12 June vote.

1950 GMT: We're just adding footage of a "Death to the Dictator" protest in Vanak Square, Tehran, this evening.

1940 GMT: The Facebook pages of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, still cannot be accessed. A source close to Enduring America believes attacks on Facebook pages "almost confirmed" as coming from Iran and attacks on Twitter "probably" as well.

1930 GMT: Twitter filled with reports of protests and clashes across Tehran.

1715 GMT: Roozonline reports that yesterday the Iranian Association of Journalists' headquarters was sealed.

1700 GMT: The BBC carries an apparent eyewitness account which describes a massive security presence at an opposition demonstration yesterday:

Anti-riot police were out in force, and there was a severe security crackdown. At the top of every street there were Basijis and plain clothed guards - in extraordinary numbers. I think out of every ten people, three of them were security personnel.

0535 GMT: The Helicopter Controversy. President Ahmadinejad's travel to his inauguration has provided a bit of entertainment. The reformist press claim that he dropped in by helicopter. His conservative supporters respond, "Reports of travelling by helicopter is a part of psychological warfare....The President travels with no ceremony and his travels cause no limitation to the flow of traffic".

0530 GMT: The medical examiner's office has said that it is investigating the deaths of some of the recent detainees.

0500 GMT: And More Pressure from Mehdi Karroubi. Speaking to a group of politicians, Karroubi denounced the "widespread fraud" in the Presidential vote and expressed his concern about the strain that it had placed on the Islamic Republic and Constitution. He criticised the Guardian Council and pro-Ahmadinejad figures such as Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi for statements that had contributed to the post-elections problems.

0445 GMT: More on Ayatollah Sanei's denunciation of the treatment of detainees, shich we mentioned yesterday alongside the criticisms of Ayatollahs Bayat-Zanjani and the statement of Ayatollah Montazeri. Sanei has said that those involved in extracting confessions are involved in "criminal acts".

Latest Video: The Inauguration Protests (5-6 August)

The Latest from Iran (5 August): The Inauguration

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6 August?: Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GEo5UCtVE[/youtube]

6 August: Vanak Square, Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJ3cRFuP9Y[/youtube]

6 August: Car Horn Protest

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmCjYWDrjqQ[/youtube]

Baharestan Square, in Front of Iranian Parliament

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHR13sK9Cho&feature=channel[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6AV76fIQL8[/youtube]Tehran Metro: "Ahmadinejad is Not Our President"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF7AQAO-_6w[/youtube]

Iran: The Principlists Search for Compromise

The Latest from Iran (6 August): Getting Past Ahmadinejad

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Enduring America's correspondent, Mani, has reported the facinating interjection of Ali Motahari, a key member of the Principalist bloc within Iranian Parliament, the Majlis, on the allegations levied against Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to Motahari, these allegations were a major factor in Rafsanjani's non-attendance at the inauguration ceremonies for President Ahmadinejad.

According to the website of Iranian politician Ali Motahari, the MP from Tehran has stated that avoiding factional prejudices is the most effective way to arrive at an understanding and cooperation between the executive  branch and Parliament. Motahari commented about the absence of reformist  MP s from inauguration ceremonies, "It is possible that these individuals have issues with how the elections were held and the events after the election, and they have not been satisfied, investigating the faults of each sides and exposing and punishing the culprits will lead to better understanding [between the factions]......I believe that the broadcasting of confessions in which  Messrs Rafsanjani, Khatami and Mousavi have been accused of plotting a velvet revolution has at least been a major cause preventing Mr Rafsanjani from participating in the inauguration ceremonies."

After stating his belief that Mr. Rafsanjani had intended to participate in the ceremonies, Motahari continued, "In my opinion, there are individuals amongst the security elite that do not want unity to exist among high ranking officials....I believe that both those that have incited the public to riot and those who have trampled the rights of the people during the confrontations with the protesters must be punished." Motahari concluded, "The recent actions of the high commission  of national security  in punishing  guilty security  officials is  a  starting point for  exiting the crisis and  attaining calm."

Motahari's comments follow his call for an investigation into the deaths of detainees whilst in custody:

If the confessions of those detained recently are to be aired, the infractions of the law by interrogators, which in some cases have led to the deaths of some detainees, must also be investigated, along with the reasons leading to the situation being made public.