CIA memos uncover Mossad “false flag” operations

A series of CIA memos, written during the George W. Bush’s administration, describes how Mossad agents, pretending to be American agents and carrying US passports, reportedly recruited the terrorist group Jundallah to carry out a covert war against Iran (Foreign Policy  01/13).

U.S. sends warning to Iran’s Supreme Leader 

According to government officials, the U.S. has warned Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, via a secret channel of communication, that closing the Strait of Hormuz would constitute a “red-line” which would provoke a U.S. response. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also stated on Thursday that the closure of the Strait would not be tolerated (NY Times 01/12).

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei responded to Wednesday’s assassination of an Iranian scientist by saying that those behind the killing would be punished. “We will continue our path with strong will … and certainly we will not neglect punishing those responsible for this act and those behind it,” said Khamenei (Reuters 01/12). The Iranian scientist, Mostafa Roshan, was buried yesterday in Tehran (BBC 01/13).

U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta echoed strong denials by other top U.S. officials of American involvement in the assassination (The Guardian 01/13).

Russia considers Iran war a threat to security

Russia’s departing ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told reporters that Russia considers Iranian involvement in any military action as a direct threat to Russia’s security. He also said that Israel is pushing the U.S. towards a war with Iran (Reuters 01/13).

U.N. to discuss nuclear program in Tehran

A senior U.N. nuclear agency team will be visiting Tehran on Jan. 28 to discuss allegations over Iran’s nuclear program. Iranian officials have suggested that they are ready to talk about the issue, according to two diplomats (Reuters 01/12). Some in the West have expressed skepticism over Iran’s readiness to discuss its nuclear program (Reuters 01/13).

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned 81 of some 530 political prisoners jailed in the wake of the 2009 presidential election. The fate of the other 450 who remain incarcerated is unknown and new arrests continue to be made.

The government has not released the names of those pardoned or confirmed their wrongful prosecution. According to ILNA news agency, the Leader noted in a letter to Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary, that the pardons were made on the Prophet Mohammad’s daughter’s birthday.

Speculation still surrounds today’s pardons with the Associated Press writing that “the pardons were seen as a gesture of good will by Iran’s leaders just days before the anniversary of the June 12 election.” However, some remain skeptical finding it hard to believe that Khamenei would have been motivated by a sudden change of heart to express good will towards a group of people he has spent the last year repressing. A far more likely explanation would be that the pardons are part of an effort to shift domestic and international attention away from the regime’s many human rights violations in the days nearing the anniversary of the 2009 election.

Aaron Rhodes, spokesperson for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, has come to this conclusion. He notes that the Leader’s pardons speak to the innocence of those imprisoned. It would then follow that those imprisoned under similar circumstances, i.e. the other 450 political prisoners, should be pardoned as well. If the Leader does not extend the pardon to those individuals, then today’s pardons are essentially meaningless and arbitrary.

Further undermining the legitimacy of the pardons are reports made to the Campaign of prisoners being forced to ask for pardons. One example is director and film maker Mohammad Nourizad who was ruthlessly beaten when he refused to seek a pardon for a crime he had not committed.

Moreover, pardoned sentences do not even ensure the detainees freedom. In the past, interrogators have kept close watch on former political prisoners and threatened them in order to keep them in the country and out of the public eye. Long after their release, these former detainees find themselves still in a cell, a larger and more comfortable one certainly, but a cell nonetheless.

Rooz Online (via Payvand) is reporting that Mohammad Mohammadian, head of the Supreme Leader’s Office of University Affairs, stated today that “According to the existing data, 70 percent of students voted against Ahmadinejad.” The situation in the universities nationwide is growing more chaotic very quickly, the article states. Here’s more:

Even for a while prior to the Student Day, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters had lost the chance to speak at university campuses, their speeches or question and answer sessions often being interrupted by student protests.

The remarks of the supreme leader’s advisor in university affairs are made as student protests against the Ahmadinejad administration have grown in an unprecedented manner, with the university administration practically losing control of several large universities in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Mashad and Hamedan.

Security forces affiliated with the ministry of intelligence have been dispatching Basij and Revolutionary Guards foces into university campuses to oppress and stop the further spreading of peaceful student protests.

Mohammadian called for a firmer response to the students and professors allegedly “weakening the regime.”

Meanwhile, yesterday a group of professors from the Tehran University’s technical campus issues a statement blasting the Basij and Revolutionary Guards’ interference in the university’s affairs.

Professors from the Tehran University’s technical campus warned that the continuation of the situation would undermine the safety of university students, professors and staff, and demanded an immediate halt to the security forces’ presence in universities.

Mousavi’s Green Path of Hope news service is reporting that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi’s arrest.  Here is the translation of that report (translation copyright New York Times):

Informed news sources in Tehran report that “hearings” indicate Khamenei has given an order for the arrest of Karroubi.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a meeting with members of the Center for Strategic Research of the Expediency Council, which is currently run by Hassan Rowhani, in referring to a meeting between himself and Ayatollah Khamenei said, “I will back away from everything, they are not granting me permission to speak at the Friday prayers anymore.”

He alluded to the fact that everything is being done under the authority of the IRGC and current conditions are in the control of IRGC members, and declared his great anxiety.

He continued by referring to the fact that he told Ayatollah Khamenei, “You should not have ordered the arrest of Mehdi Karroubi.” At the end of his meeting, Rafsanjani said he told Khamenei that the continuation of this procedure will make the situation more complicated, to which Khamenei replied with silence.

Update: The New York Times has confirmed this report.

A person close to Mr. Rafsanjani, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, confirmed the report, saying the order was issued at least two weeks ago. That left open the possibility that Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech was something of a final warning to Mr. Karroubi.

In the latest sign suggesting that Ahmadinejad’s political power depends on Khamenei’s backing, AFP is reporting that a senior conservative MP has said the Cabinet’s approval depended on Khamenei’s support. From AFP:

TEHRAN — Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged MPs to approve President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, a senior lawmaker said on Friday, the latest sign of his full backing for the hardliner.

The ISNA news agency quoted Deputy Spearker Mohammad Reza Bahonar as saying that if Khamenei had not backed the proposed line-up, eight or nine nominees would have been rejected in Thursday’s confidence vote rather than only three.

“The message of the leader played a big role,” Bahonar said.

The conservative-dominated parliament approved 18 of 21 nominees for the cabinet, rejecting two of three women proposed and the would-be energy minister.

“If we had not received the leader’s recommendations, probably eight or nine ministers would have failed to win the vote of confidence, and that would not have been a good start for the government,” said Bahonar, a well-known critic of the president.

“If we had not received the message of the leader, the ministers of oil, industry, commerce, cooperatives, transport and foreign affairs would have been rejected,” Bahonar added.

He said Khamenei’s “vision” prevented this from happening and “changed the view” of parliament.

Mohammad Reza Bahonar is Secretary-General of the Islamic Society of Engineers, a lynchpin of Iran’s conservative establishment.

Bahonar generally supported Ahmadinejad from 2005 until earlier this summer, when Ahmadinejad tried to appoint a loyal politician who favored relations with Israel to be his Vice President. The Supreme Leader overruled the appointment and now Rahim Mashaie is Ahmadinejad’s Chief of Staff.

Ahmadinejad is a member of the Engineers, but the party is generally closer to pragmatic conservatives like Ali Larijani.

Khabar Online is reporting that the Supreme Leader is placing further pressure on MPs to validate the entire Cabinet (h/t New York Times):

With the publication of news from Majles Representatives based on the announcement from the Supreme Leader that he prefers a positive vote for all proposed Ministers, it is predicted that all 21 ministers will win votes of confidence.

It is said that the Speaker of Majles (Ali Larijani) informed the Representatives of Majles about the Supreme Leader’s desire to have all Cabinet nominees approved.

If this news is accurate, considering that the Majles unanimously accepts the Supreme Leader’s rule, Khabar Online believes it’s worhty of prediction that all of Ahmadinejad’s suggested ministers will win votes of confidence.

In a public meeting in Majles today this morning, conservatives Ali Mottahari and Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghaddam emphasized that the conversations that have been brought up about the Supreme Leader’s personal viewpoint about the need to give votes of confidence to all Ministers  must be documented.

According to unconfirmed reports, the Supreme Leader’s office and the Commander of Iran’s Armed Forces have been pressuring MPs to accept Ahmadinejad’s Cabinet. Rouydad News reports (h/t New York Times):

There have been contacts from the office of the Supreme Leader and people close to Ahmadinejad to MPs [to support his Cabinet]. In one case, Commander of the Armed Forces Hassan Firouzabadi called some MPs into his office.

One MP told Rouydad: “They have contacted Representatives and they want Representatives to approve all of the Cabinet members. Their goal is to show, through a high vote of approval of all Ministers, that their power is great and that the influence of post-election protests has been negligible.”

When asked who did the contacting, this MP said, “The contacts came from the Supreme Leader’s office and some people close to Ahmadinejad, and Maj. Gen Hassan Firouzabadi even called some Representatives into his office.”

According to the information of Rouydad’s reporter, the decision to put pressure on MPs to approve Cabinet officials was made last week in a meeting with the presence of Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, Ayatollah  Ahmad Jannati, Mehdi Taeb, Morteza Moghtadaie, and some of Ahmadinejad’s deputies and some MPs including Gholamali Haddad-Adel, Mehdi Koochakzadeh, Hamid Rasaie, Movid Hosseini-Sadr, and Kazem Mousavi, as well the heads of two pro-government newspapers.

The AP reports that former Reformist lawmakers have called for a probe of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that would investigate his qualification to rule following the post-election protests.

TEHRAN, Iran — A group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body in Iran to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country’s most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.

The call came as controversy heated up Friday over allegations that protesters detained the crackdown were tortured. Hard-line clerics across the country demanded that a senior reform leader be prosecuted for claiming that some detainees were raped by their jailers.

The former lawmakers’ appeal was to the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics that under Iranian law has the power to name the supreme leader and, in theory, to remove him — though such a move has never been attempted. There was no immediate response from the assembly to the group’s letter, sent late Thursday.

But even if the call is ignored and is only symbolic, it was the most direct challenge to Khamenei yet in the turmoil that has embroiled Iran since its disputed June 12 presidential election. The letter breaks a major taboo among Iran’s political classes against overtly targeting Khamenei, whose position at the top of the political-clerical hierarchy has long been unquestioned.

This high-level challenge of Khamenei’s rule is unprecedented in the Islamic Republic — though it isn’t certain that government elites will take it seriously. It seems Rafsanjani’s ability to gather support amongst the Assembly of Experts, which he chairs, will be crucial to this measure’s success.

[polldaddy poll=1721241]

12:23 am: A NIAC member points to propaganda like this video playing up fears of foreign conspiracies against Iran as indicative of why Obama’s approach has been the right one thus far. He notes Iran has stepped up airing videos similar to this.

11:39 pm: With many concerned a major crackdown against the demonstrators may be about to happen, the Obama administration is signaling they will toughen their stance toward Iran if a crackdown occurs.
9:48 pm:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oM6l9PO6Yo]

9:46 pm: “The man Iranians want as their leader has been silenced. This is what he wants you to know” – Mohsen Makhmalbaf, The Guardian:

I have been given the ­responsibility of telling the world what is happening in Iran. The office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who the Iranian people truly want as their leader, has asked me to do so. They have asked me to tell how Mousavi’s headquarters was wrecked by plainclothes police officers. To tell how the commanders of the revolutionary guard ordered him to stay silent. To urge people to take to the streets because Mousavi could not do so directly.

The people in the streets don’t want a recount of last week’s vote. They want it annulled. This is a crucial moment in our history. Since the 1979 revolution Iran has had 80% dictatorship and 20% democracy. We have dictatorship because one person is in charge, the supreme leader – first Khomeini, now Khamenei. He controls the army and the clergy, the justice system and the media, as well as our oil money.

…

So why do the Iranian people not want Ahmadinejad as their leader? Because he is nothing but a loudspeaker for Khamenei. … When Khatami was president of Iran, Bush was president of the US. Now the Americans have Obama and we have our version of Bush. We need an Obama who can find solutions for Iran’s problems. Although power would remain in the hands of Khamenei, a president like Mousavi could weaken the supreme leader.

….

Some suggest the protests will fade because nobody is leading them. All those close to Mousavi have been arrested, and his contact with the outside world has been restricted. People rely on word of mouth, because their mobile phones and the internet have been closed down. That they continue to gather shows they want something more than an election. They want freedom, and if they are not granted it we will be faced with another revolution.

…

Previously, he [Mousavi] was revolutionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he’s a reformer. Now he knows Gandhi – before he knew only Che Guevara. If we gain power through aggression we would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we’re having a green revolution, defined by peace and democracy

These words carry tremendous significance.

8:39 pm: Reuters: Key decision yet to be made

Backers of beaten presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi will decide on Saturday whether to defy a stern warning by Iran’s top authority and stage mass protests over a disputed election.

Iran’s top legislative body holds an extraordinary session on Saturday morning to which it has invited Mousavi and the two other candidates who lost against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election, which Mousavi wants annulled.

6:27 pm: We posted part one of Mousavi’s campaign video yesterday, which was translated by NIAC member Arvin. After we posted it, Arvin’s excellent work even got picked up by the NY Times! Here are parts two and three. Part two focuses on Zahra Rahnavard and encouraging everyone to vote, while part three includes some fiery highlights from the debates.

6:22 pm: From a reader, Shabnam:

If anyone is on Twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Iranian Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians’ access to the internet down! We must help them! Cut & paste & pass it on! Go Humans!!!

5:26 pm: From the Atlantic’s cartoonist, Sage Stossel (h/t Andrew Sullivan): Sam-I-ran.

5:09 pm: Apologies for the confusion, but tomorrow’s 3pm demonstration in DC that we’ve been mentioning has been cancelled. There will be another rally outside the Iranian interests section at 11am, but it is not being organized by the “Where is my vote” campaign. Check facebook for more information.

4:23 pm: More translated news from: http://twitter.com/iranbaan

• “Evin prison’s phones have been disconnected for more than 72 hours.”
• “Tonight, the sound of bullets being shot in the air was heard in Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz and some other cities to scare people. But the people responded more firmly than ever by chanting “God is Great.”

4:10 pm: Ghalam News: Mousavi’s supporters continued chanting “God is Great” for the seventh night:

Ghalm News reported that the sound of Mousavi supporters chanting “God is Great” echoed throughout “all districts and towns in Iran” for the seventh consecutive night. According to Ghalam news, supporters of Mousavi also chanted “Ya [Hail] Hossein, Mir Hossein” to make sure their participation is not attributed to Ahmadinejad supporters. “During reporting this news, the voices of Mousavi’s friends could still be heard in different locations in Tehran,” the report said.

The chant “ya Hossein” is said in respect to the third Shia Imam, Imam Hossein, who is the iconic tragic figure of the Shia religion. “Ya Hossein” is chanted in order to bring attention to injustice by Shias.

4:03 pm: Obama says the world is watching Iran (h/t Nico):

I’m very concerned based on some of the tenor — and tone of the statements that have been made — that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching. And how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and — and is not.

3:52 pm:From the blogger Golrokh:

“God is great.”

“Lies are evil. Guns are evil. Bullets are evil.”

3:46 pm: Another message from a friend of NIAC in Tehran:

According to him, tomorrow’s rally is scheduled for 4-6pm from Engelab Sq (Revolution Sq) to Azadi Sq (Freedom Sq). He believes that there will be casualties tomorrow on the count that people are angry with Khamenei’s sermon today and will voice their outrage tomorrow at the demonstration. He believes that “Khamenei has put the gun to his own mouth.”

3:09 pm: One of our readers requested that we translate the following blog post: “Tomorrow is a big day, maybe I’ll get killed tomorrow!” (http://balatarin.com/permlink/2009/6/19/1625688)

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

2:27 pm: Jami: “Khamenei will be remembered as a leader who split the people, ended his own leadership and became a tribal chief”