The Corner

Iran News Round Up

By

(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation)

Nuclear Issue

Military and Security

Diplomacy

Trade

  • Asr-e Iran wonders how the United Arab Emirates, a state with territorial claims against Iran, is also Iran’s largest trading partner of Iran.
    • Iran’s trade deficit with the Emirates: $9.2 billion
    • Iran’s trade deficit with the Emirates: $4.9 billion
    • Iran’s trade deficit with the Emirates: $3.0 billion
  • Russian mobile phone operator Megaphone starts operating in the Iranian market.

Economy

  • According to Asr-e Iran, the rice market in Iran has reached a “chaotic point.”
  • The public seems to have made a run on stores and rice is sold out. Rice sold at 18,000 rials ten days ago is now sold at 41,000 rials.

Human Rights and Labor

  • The lawyer Hadi Rostami examines stoning in the Islamic Republic’s Criminal Law.

Religion, Culture, Society

Media and Communications

Politics

  • 77 members of the Iranian parliament demand the Iranian ministry of intelligence deal with former president Khatami’s reinterpretation of the words of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Grand Ayatollah Rouhllah Khomeini with regard to the doctrine of “Export of the revolution.”
    • Alikhani, Khatami supporter from Qazvin in the Iranian parliament, says the Iranian ex-president’s words are a “misunderstanding made by the press.”
  • Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting airs a month-old speech (transcription) of the Iranian president to theological students in Mashhad. Regarding the housing problems of the youth he said: “For five long years no investment was made n the field of housing, and this government inherited the problem.”
    • The Iranian president also spoke of widespread conspiracies against the Islamic Republic.
    • Ahmadinejad: “When it comes to fundamental reforms, the government is alone… But there is God, and the Supreme Leader, and God willing there is also victory.”
    • Regarding the Twelfth Imam: “Even the devils have understood” that the executive leadership of world affairs is done by the Imam of the Era.
    • The Iranian president attributed his “victory” at Columbia University to the Imam of the Era.
    • Ending his speech, Ahmadinejad said: “The final movement has started. We should clear out domestic matters soon, and attend to our international revolutionary responsibilities.”
  • Agahsazi introduces the Assembly of Defense of the Values of the Islamic Revolution.
  • According to Alef, the entire Ahmadinejad government could face a vote of no confidence should the minister of trade face a vote of no confidence.
  • Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, Iranian parliamentarian from Tehran and member of the Combatant Clergy Association, alluding to the Iranian president’s references to the Twelfth Imam says: “The Imam of the Era most certainly does not approve of 20 percent inflation rate.”
    • Madani Bojestani, another clerical member of the parliament, says: “We do not deny the fact that the infallible Imams supervise all executive affairs, but reference to the pure Imams could lead the public to accuse the holy Imams of the short-comings of our parliamentary authorities, the executive or the judiciary. This is a very serious threat.”
  • Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, general secretary of the Assembly of Scholars and Professors at Elmiyyeh Theological Seminary in Qom, attacks the Hojjatiyeh movement: “Unfortunately, the retrograde thoughts and ideas of Hojjatiyeh assemblies are being propagated in the society, since the more progressive [followers of] Hojjatiyeh are in motion…Linking all matters with the Imam of the Era and cleansing themselves and others [from responsibility] is nothing but the words of foreigners and the outlandish who desire to degenerate the great people of Iran into laziness and inaction…Those who said things like this before the revolution were those who did not want the Shah to abdicate.”
  • Hojjat al-Eslam Rouhollah Hosseinian, head of the Islamic Revolution Document Center, talking to the students at Amir Kabir University elaborates upon the ”Thermidor phase of revolution,” attacks the “Khatami phenomenon” which he likened with the Israelite worship of the golden calf, and wishes he could open the “files of the serial murder case.” 
    • Hosseinian adds that he, at the time of the murders, was deputy public prosecutor in the ministry of intelligence and found out that a certain “Kazemi Ma’roufi, also known as Mousavi” from the Khatami movement was responsible for the deeds.
    • Hosseinan also says that Said Emami, who was accused of committing the murders, and who ”was made to commit suicide while imprisoned” was innocent. Hosseini also attacks the official Islamic Republic of Iran historian, Dr. Shahbazi, whom he accuses of being a former member of the Iranian Communist Party, the Tudeh, who changed his beliefs while being held in prison. More.
  • After Iranian historian Shahbazi’s attack against Hojjat al-Eslam Rouhollah Hosseinian (See May 5 Iran News Round Up), Morteza Mirdar asks the official Islamic Republic of Iran historian some direct questions:
    • “1. Please tell us something about your family background.
    • 2. Please do deliver an account on how you were absorbed by the Tudeh Party.
    • 3. What was the structure of the Tudeh Party and what goals did the party follow in Iran?
    • 4. Deliver an account on your career in the Tudeh Party.
    • 5. What was the relationship between the Tudeh Party and the Soviet Intelligence Agencies?
    • 6. What characteristics made you a welcome guest at the international conferences of the Communist Party in Moscow?
    • 7. How was your relationship with Ehsan Tabari, Amouyee, and other Tudeh Party leaders? 
    • 8. What plans did the Tudeh Party have to prevent the Islamic Revolution?
    • 9. How a long time did you continue your work in the Tudeh Party? And how did you leave the party while being imprisoned, and under what circumstances did you claim you were a Muslim? 10.
    • Since when, have you, with your history of enmity against the Islamic Republic have become a party of the Islamic Revolution?”
  • Government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham silent for the thirtieth consecutive day.
  • Moetalefeh’s Habibollah Asgarowladi supports the reformist minority of the Iranian parliament.
  • Former Greater Tehran Police Chief and current member of Tehran City Council Morteza Talayee says he is not happy with his performance in the council: “I expect to be in the service of the public. This expectation has not been met, and therefore I am not satisfied with myself, or with my surroundings…This does not mean I want to return to my former position, but should the circumstances be right, I am ready to do so. When I held my farewell speech [in the Police] I said that I am a soldier of the Velayat [the Supreme Jurist] and the people. It is possible to serve the people in any position…”
  • Ahmadinejad accepts a revised statute of the Foundation of the Martyrs.
  • Mohammad-Ali Ansari, head of the Publication office of the Books of Imam Khomeini, writes an open letter to Hassan Khomeini asking for support in a time “in which the words of the holy founder are being forged.”
  • Former minister of intelligence Ali Younesi comments on the recent parliamentary elections:
    • “One of the problems which arose and was very strange for the health of the elections was the homogeneity of the voting system and the supervisory mechanisms, which was indeed a worrying phenomenon.
    • In previous elections, the supervisory committees and those performing the mechanics of the elections were chosen from rival factions, and in such a way the health of the elections was secured…
    • Another problem was the widespread rejections, problematic from both a national security point of view and also from an ethical Islamic point of view, and which weakens the beliefs of the public…
    • Participation of the military [including the Revolutionary Guard] has never been as clear as the presence being felt now. To begin with, the one person being the head of the election process is a military person, and this person appoints commanders and provincial governors from the military…  These people enter the election in visible way, and even worse, defend their intervention.
    • In the parliament in which I was a part of, a military commander whose name I do not want to disclose used to say that ‘We have become members of the Revolutionary Guards to intervene, we intervened during the war, and we intervene now, and this is a revolutionary deed.’…
    • This is problematic for the armed forces… and bad for the system.”

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Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Civil-Military Relations, and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
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