Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [11/20-11/26] major news events regarding Iran. (The reports are listed in chronological order, not by importance)

Ahmadinejad.

• Roya Hakakian, The Washington Post reported that when Iranian President Ahmadinejad called last month for Israel to be wiped off the map, he showed that he hasn't learned any lessons from recent Iranian history.
• Iran Press News reported that Khamenei's newspaper criticized Ahmadinejad for his attempt to reestablish ties with the government of Egypt but praised him for his comments about “wiping Israel off the map”.
• TurkishPress.com reported that Iran's parliament rejected President Ahmadinejad's third nominee for oil minister.
• Iran Mania reported that Brigadier General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, an IRGC commander, has been appointed the new deputy interior minister for security affairs.
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that the failure of Iran's ultraconservative president to appoint an oil minister acceptable to Parliament has raised concerns about the fate of some major energy projects and created a domestic political crisis.
• The Financial Times reports that Iran's President has becomes an unlikely fashion icon to some in Iran.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran's government is getting a new spokesman.
• Angus McDowall, Independent News reported on a power struggle of titanic proportions has broken out between Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's parliament.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University. He is best known for his oversight of "prosecution chambers."
• The Associated Press reported that President Ahmadinejad said that the Bush administration should be tried for War Crimes.
• The Economist reports on Ahmadinejad's struggle to win control of the oil ministry.

Ahmadinejad's Mentor - Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

• Winston, The Spirit of Man reported that Mesbah Yazdi, the Ayatollah of Iran's suicide bombers, has announced that the Iranians living in the US need 5000 Islamic clerics for their religious services.
• The Telegraph UK reported Mr Ahmadinejad takes his spiritual cue from a man whose views go beyond even the orthodoxy of Iran's religious establishment - a little-known cleric nicknamed "Professor Crocodile."
  

Iran's Nuclear Program.

• Yahoo News reported that Iran's parliament approved a bill requiring the government to block international inspections of its atomic facilities if the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
• Malaysian National News Agency reported that Iran says it will not bow to UN nuclear agency demands to visit a military site in Tehran unless the UN provides "concrete proof" to justify an inspection.
• Philip Sherwell, Telegraph UK reported that President Bush has backed a plan to allow Iran to enrich uranium in Russia.
• Debka File reported that the Bush-Putin plan is not aimed at rescuing Iran but to draw Moscow into abandoning its resistance to sanctions.
• The Economist reported America, has been showing around documents that purport to be Iranian design work on a missile nose-cone of a sort that that could carry a nuclear warhead.
• Reuters reported that the EU powers and Washington have suspended their bid to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council instead focuses its efforts on a statement voicing concern about a document received by Iran which contained partial nuclear bomb-making instructions.
• ABC News reported that Iran has built, with the help of North Korea, dozens of underground tunnels and facilities for the construction of nuclear-capable missiles.
• Spiegel Online reported that Germany's Angela Merkel says she'll take a hardline against Tehran if Mahmoud keeps up the madness.
• Reuters reported that Britain's Jack Straw insisted that Iran meet its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty after Iranian lawmakers voted to block snap U.N. checks of nuclear sites.
• Louis Charbonneau, Reuters:The EU is ready to resume talks with Iran on its nuclear program provided it agrees to discuss a Russian proposal.
• George Jones, The Telegraph UK reported that Tony Blair said: Iran would pose a serious threat to world stability and peace if it developed a nuclear capability.
• Bronwen Maddox, The Times UK reported that Iran’s new President has sidestepped a fight with the rest of the world Thursday.
• Claude Salhani, United Press International provided details of North Korea's aid to Iran's secret tunnels reportedly used for their nuclear weapons program.
• ABC News reported that Washington and its European allies, in a diplomatic coup, are gradually Ilan Berman, The National Review argues that in dealing with Iran both the U.S. and Europe have substituted diplomatic negotiations for a serious strategy enlisting Chinese support on how to deal with Iran.
• Parinoosh Arami, Reuters reporting that Iran expects new EU nuclear talks after the IAEA meeting, Thursday.
• RIA Novosti reported that Russia said it was possible Iran's nuclear dossier would be referred to the UN Security Council.
• Louis Charbonneau, Reuters reported that Iran is pushing ahead with plans to enrich uranium in defiance of international pressure. However, western nations on the IAEA board would be likely to push for an immediate referral to the Council if it restarts enrichment.
• The Telegraph UK reported that Britain and key European allies are using intelligence briefings to convince major powers that Iran is trying to develop nuclear warheads for its Shahab-3 missiles.
• Louis Charbonneau, Reuters reported that the U.N. nuclear watchdog's governors broadly agree it is better to explore a Russian compromise over Iran's nuclear activities.
• The Associated Press reported that the European Union is accusing Iran of possessing documents used solely for the production of nuclear arms.
• Cecile Zwiebach, The Washington Institute asked: What Else can be Done about Iran's Nuclear Program?
• Adnkronos International reported that Rafsanjani said Iran is prepared to remove all ambiguities regarding its nuclear program.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran's hardliners claim victory after "EU climb-down."
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that Iran declared itself willing in principle to cooperate with Russia over uranium enrichment, but insisted it be allowed to carry out part of the enrichment on Iranian soil.
• The Washington Times reported that Britain, in a statement on behalf of the 25-nation bloc, offered Iran new negotiations but added it won't be open for a great deal much longer.
• Reuters reported that Iran offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles.
  

Iranian Dissidents.

• Iran Press News reported on several bloggers and political prisoners being framed and threatened by regime.
• Iran Press News reported on the sentencing of 3 youths described as “unruly”, to prison and flogging.
• ET, View from Iran found an interesting conversation with Nasser Zarafshan, Ganji's attorney, published in Germany, under the title: Tehran’s reformist mask has come off.
• Iran Press News reported that a group of the Evin prison guards stormed ward 350 of the prison and beating the prisoners confiscated their books, tapes and personal belongings.
• Iran Press News reported that a Kurdish journalist sewed his mouth up in the Marivaan Prison in protest.
• The Middle East Quarterly reported on the Iranian security forces arrest of 28-year-old Iranian journalist and weblogger Arash Sigarchi and other bloggers.
• Iran Press News reported the trial of Abdollah Nasseri, ex-general manager of the other regime-run news agency IRNA will begin on Saturday, Nov. 26th. He has been charged with "“intent to stir up public opinion through publication"”.
• Curt, The Committee to Protect Bloggers reported that blogger Ahmad Seyyed Saraj has escaped Iran to the Turkish city of Van and needs our help.
  

The Unrest Inside of Iran.

• Islamic Republic News Agency reported that a group of workers staged rally outside the Majlis (Parliament) on Sunday to protest the enforcement of the law on employment on temporary basis.
• Iran Press News reported on a worker from Esfahan who self-immolated in front of the Islamic Parliament’s Assembly.
• Iran Press News reported on the arrest of members of the regime’s information and security forces in provinces on charges of corruption.
• Iran Press News reported on the regime’s new crimes in the town of Mahabad, Kurdistan.
• Iran Press News reported on the story behind the execution of three people who raped an Islamic a novitiate seminarian.
• Radio Farda reported that a group of strangers destroyed the grave markings created by families of those who perished in the massacres of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.
• Iran Mania reported more unrest in Iran's northwestern city of Mahabad.
• Iran Press News reported that a group of teachers from Qazvin protested in front of the Islamic Parliament’s Assembly.
• Iran Press News reported on the gruesome murder of a Sunni cleric and his son in Kermanshah.
• Iran Press News reported that Mullah Meshkini told members of the Basij and the revolutionary guards that their main mission was to guard the existence of the regime against the ire of the Iranian people.
• Iran Press News reported that the Iranian regime tightened security at Amir Kabir industrial University over student protests.
• Reuters reported that in a "show of force" thousands of members of Iran's volunteer militia, the basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities. But state television showed human chains and small crowds, mostly numbering several hundred people, much fewer than expected.
• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online asked why the Basij Volunteer Militia has started arming some of its units with heavy arms.
  

Human Rights/Freedom of the press inside of Iran.

• Reporters Without Borders today condemned a wave of summonses being issued to journalists to appear at the intelligence ministry'’s offices where these journalists are being intimidated into not to criticizing the new government.
• Iran Focus reported that the EU finally plays the Human Rights card.
  
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s State Security Forces have launched a new crackdown on individuals selling satellite dishes.
• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online reported on the serial murders of Iranian dissidents by Iranian intelligence and how those responsible have actually returned to official positions and have been responsible for other violent policies in the country.
• Mehrangiz Kar, Rooz Online reports the murder religious and secular intellectuals in Iran are permitted in article 226 of the Islamic Penal Code. A must read.
  

Iran's troublemaking.

• Iran Press News reported that Iran's Ansar Hezbollah said “We must do battle with America in Iraq.”
• Iran Focus reported that a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards boasted that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group learnt suicide operation tactics from Iran.
• Iran Focus reported that Iraqi police uncovered a military centre with a large cache of explosives near the Iranian border. American and British Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives have been shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with the full consent of the Iranian government.
  

The Economy.

• Iran Press Newsreported that with the sum total of the regime’s debts exceeding $40 billion and the decrease of oil prices this leaves the regime with 8 months worth of monetary reserves.
• Iran Press News reported that in the midst of the political tumult of the regime a number of Iranian oil experts have left Iran.
• Adnkronos International reported that important newspapers in Tehran have been "advised" to reject any advertisements for products made in South Korea, in response to South Korea's support for referral of Iran to the UN Security Council.
  

Iran and the International community.

• The Times of India made the case against Iran.
• Newsweek reported on this week's Iran/Iraq memorandum of understanding to cooperate on sensitive intelligence-sharing matters.
• Lanueva Cuba reported that Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Fidel Castro taught a very good lesson to world countries... on how to stand firm in their positions.
• Ha'aretz reported that Germany's Angela Merkel's new government will supply two German-built Dolphin submarines to the Israel Navy. This will offer Israel the most reliability when it comes to second-strike capability.
• ABC News reported that Iran's Supreme Leader urged visiting Iraqi officials to ask U.S.-led forces to leave their country.
• Iran Press News reported that the Dutch Foreign Minister opposes establishment of a "reformist" lead Persian-language TV.
• Financial Express reported that Russia is keen to build Iran pipeline to India.
• Iran Focus reported that Rafsanjani on Friday demanded a pullout of United States-led troops in Iraq after the country’s upcoming elections in December.
  

Can You Believe This?

• Islamic Republic News Agency reported on the "Weeping Dog in a Shia Pilgrimage Journey!" Watch the movie soon, no kidding.
• Iran Press News reported that Mullah Jannati, the Secretary General of the Guardian Council of the Islamic regime said: “Non-Muslims are varmint that roam around the earth and spread corruption.”
• Iran Press News reported that half of the buildings in Tehran will demolish in case of an earthquake.
• Adnkronos International reported that Iran's religious authorities officially invited Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, to convert to Islam.
• Adnkronos International reported that Iran's religious minorities have slammed recent controversial remarks by a top aide to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing non-Muslims as "sinful animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption."
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned on Thursday the British ambassador to Tehran and protested what it called human rights abuses in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
• Iran Press News reported that Iran's Director of Foreign policy commission of Islamic Parliament'’s Assembly said that "“Blair is uncivilized"” for encouraging the Iranian people to take action against their government.
• Iran Press News reported that Khamnei'’s newspaper called Blair "delusional" and said that "westerners reason like cows."
• Iran Press News report 300 cases of self-immolation has occurred this past year in the Luristan province of Iran.
  

Must Read reports.

• Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily reported that Newt Gingrich sees Iran threat to U.S. like Nazi Germany.
• The Guardian UK provided an interesting analysis of Iranian negotiating tactics.
• Mehdi Khalaji, The Washington Institute produced a concise review of Tehran's renewed war on culture. A must read.
• Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian UK provides insight into Iranian popular thought on the current international crisis with Iran adding that the Iranian people want western nations to stick together and gave a consistent policy on Iran. A must read.
• Mehrangiz Kar, Rooz Online reports the murder religious and secular intellectuals in Iran are permitted in article 226 of the Islamic Penal Code. A must read.
  

The Experts.

• Cato.org asked: Is Iran a Trap?
• Amir Taheri, The New York Post reviewed John Bradley's "Saudi Arabia Exposed" which offers insight into Saudi life seldom reported in the West.
• Ilan Berman, The National Review argues that in dealing with Iran both the U.S. and Europe have substituted diplomatic negotiations for a serious strategy.
• Michael Ledeen, The National Review argued that our problems in Iraq have their origins in our complete denial see the war in Iraq as just part of a larger regional war which includes Iran and Syria.
• Strategic Studies Institute published a new book, Getting Ready for a Nuclear Iran, edited by: Mr. Henry D. Sokolski, Mr. Patrick Clawson. Available for download here.
• Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawat reported that despite what the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein say about the need for a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq. The truth, however, is that a timetable has been in place from the first day of the war.
• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that Ahmadinejad knows that a revolution is like a bicycle: It keeps you up and going as long as you keep pedaling. He asks: How Long Can He Pedal?
  

Photos, cartoons and videos.

• Advarnews published photos of a ceremony held to remember the victims of the chain murders of Iranian dissidents.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released the first of her reports from inside Iran: A Country at a Crossroads. Video also available.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part two of her reports from inside Iran: The Younger Generation. Video also available.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part three of her reports from inside Iran: The Jewish Question. Video also available.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part four of her reports from inside Iran: Iran's Nuclear Capability. Video also available.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part five of her reports from inside Iran: U.S.-Iran Relations Strained. Video also available.
  

And finally, The Quote of the Week.

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

Reported that Mullah Jannati, the Secretary General of the Guardian Council of the Islamic regime said:

“Non-Muslims are varmint that roam around the earth and spread corruption.

Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 11.27.2005:

Iran's President Engaged in a Titanic Power Struggle

Angus McDowall, Independent News:

A power struggle of titanic proportions has broken out between Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's parliament.

Now the President's domestic political agenda is in danger of collapse, after MPs refused to accept his choices for the top post of oil minister.

And a new scandal in Tehran municipality tarnished his election promises to weed out corruption. The President's former parliamentary supporters say they have been alienated by his closed-door style of rule that has opened deep rifts in the ruling conservative faction. READ MORE

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that Ahmadinejad knows that a revolution is like a bicycle: It keeps you up and going as long as you keep pedaling. He asks: How Long Can He Pedal?
• Iran Focus reported that a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards boasted that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group learnt suicide operation tactics from Iran.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s State Security Forces have launched a new crackdown on individuals selling satellite dishes.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University. He is best known for his oversight of "prosecution chambers."
• Iran Focus reported that Iraqi police uncovered a military centre with a large cache of explosives near the Iranian border. American and British Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives have been shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with the full consent of the Iranian government.
• Iran Focus reported that Rafsanjani on Friday demanded a pullout of United States-led troops in Iraq after the country’s upcoming elections in December.
• Reuters reported that in a "show of force" thousands of members of Iran's volunteer militia, the basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities. But state television showed human chains and small crowds, mostly numbering several hundred people, much fewer than expected.
• Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawat reported that despite what the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein say about the need for a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq. The truth, however, is that a timetable has been in place from the first day of the war.
• The Associated Press reported that President Ahmadinejad said that the Bush administration should be tried for War Crimes.
• The Economist reports on Ahmadinejad's struggle to win control of the oil ministry.
• Reuters reported that Iran offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles.
• Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part five of her reports from inside Iran: U.S.-Iran Relations Strained. Video also available.
• Mehrangiz Kar, Rooz Online reports the murder religious and secular intellectuals in Iran are permitted in article 226 of the Islamic Penal Code. A must read.
  
• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online reported on the serial murders of Iranian dissidents by Iranian intelligence and how those responsible have actually returned to official positions and have been responsible for other violent policies in the country.
• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online asked why the Basij Volunteer Militia has started arming some of its units with heavy arms.
• And finally, Curt, The Committee to Protect Bloggers reported that blogger Ahmad Seyyed Saraj has escaped Iran to the Turkish city of Van and needs our help.

How Long Can He Pedal?

Amir Taheri, Arab News:

Is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting a rough deal from his rivals within the Khomeinist regime?

Judging by the daily chorus of derision organized against him in Tehran the answer must be yes.

Many mullas worried about Ahmadinejad’s thinly disguised intention to drive them back to the mosques, are using their pulpits to pour invective on him. Last week they went as far as calling for his impeachment and removal from the presidency on unspecified charges. An Iranian website is even taking bets on Ahmadinejad being forced out within less than a year.

The problem with Ahmadinejad’s Khomeinist foes is that they do not quite know where to place him. For over a quarter of a century the mulla-businessmen who have dominated Iran since the Khomeinist seizure of power have had it easy against their opponents.

Anyone who called for a free media and fair elections was branded as “an agent of Imperialism and Zionism.” Those who called for social justice and a fairer deal for the poor were dismissed as “remnants of the bankrupt left”.

Those who wanted a mixture of Islam and Marxism were called “the munafeqin” (hypocrites) and agents of the fallen Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein. Those who talked of Iranian nationalism in the context of a plurimilennial history were branded as “monarchist enemies of the revolution”. Finally, the extra-pious Muslims who expressed shock at the way the mullas were plundering the country were labeled “plotters against Islam.”

In many cases any of those labels could lead to death by execution. According to Amnesty International, the mullas have executed almost 100,000 of their political opponents since 1979. Hundreds of thousands more were sent to prison and almost five million driven into exile.

Interestingly, much of the criticism made against the rule of the mullas by all those branded opponents of the regime has now become part of Ahmadinejad’s official discourse. He is talking of “decades of corruption and repression” and promises to bring to book “all those who have robbed the people.” Worse still, he is making it clear that the 1979 [revolution] was not about having more but less individual freedom. He also exposes the so-called moderate mullas who talk of “religious democracy” as frauds out to deceive the Iranians and hoodwink the gullible Westerners.

For mullas like Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad is the worst possible nightmare. For he is dismantling their business empires while exposing their so-called “moderate” discourse as a sham.

These mullas cannot brand Ahmadinejad either as a monarchist or a nostalgic leftist. Nor can he be charged with collaboration with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. To question his religious piety is also impossible while it is now clear that Ahmadinejad is better versed in the Qur’an and the Hadith (sayings and traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) than most mullas.

The Rafsanjani-Khatami faction cannot question Ahmadinejad’s revolutionary credentials. For, he is much more a child of the revolution than they.

He has no pre-revolutionary past to speak of while the mullas who oppose him al had interesting business, political or bureaucratic careers before Khomeini’s seizure of power.

In a recent visit and in an informal chat with citizens in Khorassan, Ahmadinejad reminded everyone that the 1979 events that led to the seizure of power by Khomeini had been “a revolution, not a garden party.

Ahmadinejad knows that a revolution is like a bicycle: It keeps you up and going as long as you keep pedaling. Stop pedaling and you are sure to fall head on. READ MORE

And a revolution, which certainly is not like a garden party, needs enemies to divest of privilege, to drive into exile, to imprison and, whenever necessary, to massacre. A revolution needs fifth columnists to kill and foreign foes to face. It must incite followers of one faith against those of another, and prosecute those who subscribe to an ideology in the name of another ideology. A revolution must incite the poor against the rich and the common folk against privileged elites. The symbol of the revolution is the guillotine.

Thus if the Rafsanjani-Khatami faction consider themselves to be revolutionaries they must rally to the banner of Ahmadinejad’s “second revolutionary wave.” But if they believe that the Khomeinist revolution, though a historic fact, was a tragic mistake, they should say so and join those who want the revolutionary episode in ran to come to a definitive close. A revolution cannot be reformed for reform and revolution are as far apart as fire and water. But a revolution can be brought to an end, as history has shown on countless occasions, including in such afflicted countries as France and Russia.

Are mullas like Rafsanjani and Khatami trying to deliberately misunderstand the Ahmadinejad phenomenon?

Sometimes they describe the new president as “nothing but a pawn” in the hands of occult groups and organizations such as the Hojatieh (the followers of the Hidden Imam) or the Usulyoun (The Fundamentalists). They claim that he not only has no policy but is not even capable of knowing what policy is. At other times, however, the same pawn is described as “a dangerous dictator” as if the Islamic Republic has not been a dictatorship all along.

None of those labels, however, seem credible. Ahmadinejad has started a massive purge of all levels of the state apparatus and the public sector of the economy. Hundreds of officials and businessmen who belong to the Rafsanjani-Khatami faction have been purged and legal proceedings are impending against scores of them on charges of embezzlement and misuse of public funds. Ahmadinejad has also imposed his style on virtually all public servants. Clearly, he is nobody’s pawn.

But is he a dictator? It is too early to tell. But what is certain is that he has not done what Rafsanjani and Khatami did during their presidency; the two mullas between them held the presidency for 16 years. During Khatami’s eight-year stint as president over 300 newspaper, magazines and other journals were closed down and over 3000 journalists, intellectuals and university teachers imprisoned for varying lengths of time. Khatami also established a black list of Iranian and foreign authors that contained more than 4000 names. The list of works banned, including some by a number of Iran’s greatest classical poets, was even longer.

Ahmadinejad, however, has not closed down any newspapers, at least not yet. Nor has he ordered the arrest of any journalist or academic — again at least not yet.

He may well turn out to be the dictator that his rivals claim he is. And he may even prove to be a crypto-fascist with a religious veneer, as even some of his friends fear.

All he has done is to trigger a tremor at the heart of the new ruling class that has taken shape in the past quarter of a century. He has cancelled some big contracts awarded to South Korean, Chinese, Malaysian, Turkish and Austrian companies represented in the Iranian market by members of the Rafsanjani-Khatami faction. He has, as already noted, also booted out hundreds of cronies and provoked much excitement among Iran’s poorest masses.

In other words, he is trying to keep the creaking bicycle going by pedaling as hard as he can. The question is how long he can pedal.

Hezbollah learnt suicide bomb tactics from Iran - commander

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group learnt suicide operation tactics from Iran, a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards boasted.

Mohammad-Ali Samadi, the spokesman for a government-orchestrated campaign to recruit suicide bombers said that Iran first developed the tactic during its eight-year war with Iraq, which left over a million people dead.

Samadi’s organisation, the Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, is run by the IRGC in an effort to recruit potential suicide bombers. At a recent rally in the city of Shahroud, north-eastern Iran, it claimed to have signed up 1,000 volunteers for suicide attacks against the West and Israel. READ MORE

The former regime of Saddam Hussein, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia disseminated negative propaganda against suicide operations to keep them apart from Palestinian culture, Samadi said.

“Lebanese Hezbollah used its ties with Iran to adopt the Iranian model and utilised it successfully with light guns and light-weight short-range rockets”, the senior IRGC officer said.

In October, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and threatened the leaders of Muslim countries that developed ties with the Jewish state.

Earlier this month, Samadi told a state-run news agency that 50,000 people had enlisted for martyrdom-seeking operations throughout the country and were willing to attack targets on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The group’s organisers previously said that their targets were three-fold; U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Jews in Israel, and Salman Rushdie, who still has a fatwa against him issue by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran rounds up hundreds of satellite dishes near capital

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Iran’s State Security Forces have launched a new crackdown on individuals selling satellite dishes in and around the town of Khomein, south of Tehran, local dailies reported on Saturday.

Some 409 satellite dishes were confiscated from three residences, the dailies wrote, without offering much detail.

The Islamic Republic banned satellite dishes in 1995 under the pretext of being “too Western”. The crackdown on satellite dishes was prompted by broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups whose television programs are reported to have a large audience in Iran.

Iran appoints cleric to head Tehran University

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University, a state-run news agency reported on Saturday.

The inauguration of Ayatollah Amid Zanjani is set to take place on campus during a ceremony on Sunday.

During the early days of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Zanjani, an ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, headed the komiteh in Tehran’s eastern Jaleh and Farah-Abad districts. The Komitehs were local police stations that also served as prosecution chambers. They achieved much notoriety as the power base of radical Islamist vigilantes who imposed rigorous religious laws on the population. READ MORE

Under new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s social institutions such as school, universities, and hospitals have been experiencing renewed political and social crackdown.

Iraq discovers explosives cache on Iran border

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Iraqi police uncovered a military centre with a large cache of explosives near the Iranian border, a government spokesman announced on Friday.

Saleh Al-Shamiri, the police chief in Azizya, 80 kilometres southeast of Baghdad, announced on Friday that more than 300 mortars and explosives used in roadside bombs were discovered in the military centre.

Al-Shamiri said that the explosives had been recently brought to the centre.

Roadside bombs are the number one killer of Coalition troops in Iraq. U.S. and British military and intelligence officials have told journalists that large shipments of high explosives have been smuggled into north-eastern and southern Iraq from Iran. These "shaped charges" are especially lethal because they are designed to concentrate and direct a more powerful blast into a small area.

American and British Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives have been shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with the full consent of the Iranian government. READ MORE

Iran’s Rafsanjani: U.S. must leave Iraq after elections

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Iran’s former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday demanded a pullout of United States-led troops in Iraq after the country’s upcoming elections in December.

Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told a prayers congregation in Tehran that U.S.-led “occupation” had lasted too long.

Rafsanjani, who chairs the State Expediency Council, said the U.S. “crimes in Iraq could not be tolerated”.

“The occupation of Iraq has lasted far too long and the existence of such a large number of foreign soldiers in Iraq is concerning. The occupation must end after the elections”, Rafsanjani said.

The 71-year-old cleric also blasted increased U.S. pressure against Tehran’s regional ally Syria. “The humiliation of Muslim nations is unbearable and is rooted in the imperialist aggression of America”, Rafsanjani said, warning the U.S. that it would eventually suffer at the hands of its own policies in the Middle East, which he described as a “powder keg” which could explode “with a single match”.

Highlighting the recent riots by mostly-Muslim youths in France, Rafsanjani also warned European nations not to create a crisis for other countries or else they would face the crisis at home.

“These events [in France] brought [the Europeans] to their senses and made it clear to them that when they create crises in other countries, the crises will come home to themselves”, Rafsanjani said. READ MORE

Iran militia makes show of force over atomic work

Reuters:

Thousands of members of Iran's volunteer militia, the basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities on Saturday as a show of force against international pressure on Tehran's atomic programme.

The basij volunteers became national heroes during the 1980-1988 war of attrition against Iraq. More recently, they have been employed to put down student demonstrations and crack down on women who flout strict dress codes.

In Tehran, some 3,000 basij, clutching automatic rifles and wearing chequered headscarves, paraded before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted "God is the Greatest".

Ahmadinejad told them their militia spirit would help thwart foreign powers in an international dispute over Iran's atomic ambitions.

"Of course the (foreign powers) get angry when they see the power and spirit of the militia now governs our international policy, diplomatic relations and negotiations," the president said. "In reply to their anger say: Go ahead, be angry but Die in your anger."

The United States has accused Iran of using its nuclear programme as a front for attempting to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the accusation.

Iran is facing increasingly widespread international pressure to let its most sensitive nuclear fuel work be conducted in Russia.

Ahmadinejad has been reorganising the country's leading political and financial institutions, replacing key managers with those sympathetic to the conservative ideology of the basij and the Revolutionary Guard.

State media said nine million basij had gathered across the country but it was impossible to confirm such figures.

State television showed human chains and small crowds, mostly numbering several hundred people, in the cities of Tabriz, Zanjan and Bushehr. READ MORE

Several dozen women in the all-enveloping black chador garment formed a widely spaced human chain in the surf on Iran's Gulf coast at the Straits of Hormuz.

Ahmad Seyyed Saraj Has Escaped into Turkey

Curt, The Committee to Protect Bloggers:

Ahmad Seyyed Saraj has escaped Iran to the Turkish city of Van, according to S'CAN-IRANIC.

Seraji, in an interview with Tabriz News Agency's Human Rights Bureau (here), confirmed that he had escaped Iran to Turkey illegally, as he did not possess any valid passport. He has already approached the United Nations High Commissioner's office in the city of Van, in eastern Turkey.

He clarified that overall he would be subjected to three years of incarceration. He clarified that his earlier two-year suspended conviction that he had received was mainly because he had enchained himself to the entrance door of the UN mission in Tehran about two years ago. READ MORE

More importantly, Seraji added that during his arrest, in the summer of 2005, he was kept in the same part of the prison with inmates who were accused of murder, drug-trafficking, and other crimes. Later on, he was moved to another detention centre and was beaten up and tortured. His torturers told him that they could easily cut his veins so that it would appear that he had committed suicide!

I again call for all free-spirited people in the blogosphere to throw their support for Iranian webloggers, and especially Seyyed Ahmad Seyyed Seraji Tabrizi, who is now a fugitive in the city of Van in Turkey.

If any of our members are in Turkey, or are involved with their governments in a way that they could secure help for Ahmad, please contact us at committeetoprotectbloggers[at]gmail[dot]com.

Withdrawal from Iraq ? Here Is the Timetable

Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawat:

In the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein one word is making the rounds these days: timetable.

Having failed to stop the war that liberated Iraq, and with their hopes of the insurgents marching triumphant into Baghdad dashed, they are now focusing on one issue: the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces. Some want this to happen immediately, while others are prepared to grant a few weeks or months.

Those Democrat politicians in Washington, who had backed the war with as much enthusiasm as George W Bush, are now using the issue of withdrawal as a means of distancing themselves from their initial positions. The Arab reactionaries who shuddered at the thought of a despot being toppled by foreign intervention are now clinging to the withdrawal slogan in the hope of sabotaging the process of democratisation in Iraq. In Europe, professional anti-Americans of all ilks are trying to cover their political nakedness with the “ withdrawal” fig leaf.

The truth, however, is that a timetable has been in place from the first day of the war that ended the Ba’athist tyranny in 2003. READ MORE

In that timetable the coalition’s military presence in Iraq is, as it should be, linked to the programme for the nation’s political reconstruction. In other words the coalition forces are in Iraq to accomplish a precise political task and not to provide the United States or any other foreign power with a forward base in the Middle East.

The grand goal of that task was to take power way from a small clique ld by Saddam Hussein had hand it back to the people of Iraq. The idea was not to impose democracy on Iraq, as some anti-liberation circles claim. The idea was to remove impediments to the democratisation of Iraq. Today the Iraqis are not forced to create a democracy. But they have a chance to do so, if they so wish. The task of the coalition was to provide them wit that chance. And in that sense the Iraq project has been a tremendous success.

The task of giving the Iraqis that chance consists of a series of objectives many of which have already been attained, often in the teeth of diplomatic chicanery by the anti-liberation powers and nihilistic insurgency by the largest coalition of terrorists the region has seen in its recent history.

Any checklist would clearly show that the Iraq project has been more successful than Saddam nostalgics with to portray.

The first objective, to bring down Saddam Hussein, was achieved in three weeks. The next objective was to break the apparatus of oppression created by the Ba’ath. Despite some residual problems that objective, too, has been achieved. Another objective was to break Saddam’s war machine that had been used against Iraq’s neighbours as well as the Kurds and the Shi’ites. After just three years nothing is left of that infernal machine.

One could continue the checklist with the formation of the Governing Council representing the first step towards the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty.

Next on the checklist we have the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis that was accomplished in June 2004.

That was followed by the formation of an interim government, a series of municipal elections, a general election leading to the formation of Iraq’s first pluralist government, the writing of a new constitution and a referendum to get it approved. The next item on the checklist is the general election scheduled for 15 December.

The checklist clearly shows that every objective included in the political programme has been achieved within the exact timeframe fixed by the new Iraqi leadership and its coalition allies.

A key element in all this has been the explicit understanding by both the Iraqi leaders and the coalition that no foreign troops will remain on Iraqi soil without the express agreement of the nation’s elected representatives. In other words the timetable for withdrawal already exists and the mechanism for starting it could be triggered by the parliament and the government that will merge from next month’s general election.

In fact the first item on the agenda of the next elected government, to be formed by next February at the latest, consists of a decision on the presence of coalition troops in Iraq. It was with that understanding that the United Nations agreed to end its largely negative stance on Iraq and play a role in helping the country in efforts to build a new political system.

The United States and all its allies in the coalition are equally committed to withdraw their troops if that is the express wish of the next elected parliament and government in Baghdad.

Iraqis from all ethnic, religious and political backgrounds are unanimous in their desire to see all foreign forces leave their country as soon as possible. The question that divides them is the timeframe within which withdrawal should take place.

With the exception of the Zarqawi gang and its residual Ba’athist allies, almost no one in Iraq wants an immediate withdrawal of he coalition forces. The Iraqis know that their country is located in a rough region with predatory neighbours that cannot be trusted. They see the presence of the coalition forces as a kind of insurance policy against even more brutal intervention in their affairs by several of Iraq’s neighbours.

The idea of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been built into the entire project from day one. It was on that understanding that the Iraqi people chose not to fight for Saddam, thus allowing the coalition to win a rapid and easy military victory. That fact created a moral contract between the people of Iraq and the US-led coalition as co-liberators of the country. The Iraqi people’s part of the bargain was not to prevent the dismantling of the Ba’athist machinery of repression and war and to welcome the chance to build a new political system. The coalition’s part of the bargain was to protect Iraq against its internal and external enemies until it was strong enough to look after itself.

In the general election and the constitutional referendum held this year, the people of Iraq formally endorsed that contract. The coalition, for its part, must continue to honour that contract until new Iraq feels strong enough to bid farewell to its liberators.

That moment could come as early as next spring. But it could also take another year or two. My understanding of the situation in Iraq today is that the bulk of the coalition forces could be safely withdrawn within the next year.

The insurgency, which has already lost the political battle, is set to peak out in terms of the violence it is still capable of triggering against the Iraqi people. And if the recent performance of Iraq ’s new armed forces in a series of operations in two Western provinces is an indication, the Iraqis will be able to manage the insurgency on their own for as long as it takes to finish it off ..

What matters, however, is that it is up to the people of Iraq and its coalition allies to decide the moment an the modalities of the withdrawal. It is a judgment that no outsider could make .. Those who opposed the liberation and those who have done all they could to undo it have no moral right to join that debate.

Iran's President Digs in as Leadership Crisis Deepens

Angus McDowall, Independent News:

A power struggle of titanic proportions has broken out between Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's parliament.

Now the President's domestic political agenda is in danger of collapse, after MPs refused to accept his choices for the top post of oil minister.

And a new scandal in Tehran municipality tarnished his election promises to weed out corruption. The President's former parliamentary supporters say they have been alienated by his closed-door style of rule that has opened deep rifts in the ruling conservative faction. READ MORE

An investigation into municipal spending has revealed Tehran's conservative council exhausted most of its £11.6m budget for cultural activities in the run-up to June's presidential election when Mr Ahmadinejad was city mayor. Officials have admitted there is little documentation for the spending, leading to speculation that it was used unofficially for the election campaign.

On Wednesday, parliamentarians from the President's own political wing cheered and congratulated each other after inflicting a stinging defeat on the President by rejecting his third choice of oil minister, the most important job in the cabinet. With oil prices soaring, the minister controls a sector worth a third of government revenue and has huge influence to support or block funding for the social engineering projects so beloved of the President.

Mr Ahmadinejad made a last-ditch appeal to the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, before the vote. "The government respects the Majlis, but unjustly accusing a brother on an unknown internet site ... is not fair," he said, attempting to swing the vote behind his choice. Mohsen Tasalloti had been accused of having a US residence permit.

Even Mr Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, managed to win support for his first cabinet from a Majlis dominated by conservatives who opposed his reformist ambitions. The failure to appoint an oil minister three months into a new administration is unprecedented and two top government watchdog committees have been tasked with finding a solution to the deadlock.

Majlis members quoted after the vote said they were angry they had not been consulted about the President's choice, which is part of a wider policy of replacing senior government officials with lesser-known ideologues. Political supporters have been brought in to manage the diplomatic service and cultural and economic organisations. This week the head of Tehran's stock exchange, which has lost a quarter of its value since the election, was replaced by a 27-year-old economics graduate.

"Ahmadinejad has a slogan of co-operation between parliament and government, but it would be better if he actually conferred with his lawmakers," said a Majlis deputy.

Reformists and technocrats talk of a purge, but the changes were not unexpected and fall within the rights of an incoming president. However, they have displeased political allies, who are concerned that these inexperienced young ideologues are not up to the job. Appointing a nonentity to the oil ministry post was seen as a step too far.

Last week Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who despite his election defeat in June remains a leading figure in the regime, openly criticised Mr Ahmadinejad's supporters for ousting officials on the pretext of corruption. "They soil the reputation of our political and economic managers with abandon in the name of fighting corruption," said the former president, who has a foot in both the reformist and conservative camps.

Since his election, Mr Ahmadinejad has focused power in a small cabal of close supporters, infuriating powerful figures.

President Ahmadinejad: U.S. Should be Tried for War Crimes

Nasser Karimi, The Associated Press:

Iran's hard-line president said Saturday the Bush administration should be tried on war crimes charges, and he denounced the West for pressuring Iran to curb its controversial nuclear program. "You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq, should be tried as war criminals in courts," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the United States. READ MORE

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate, but he apparently was referring to the U.S. military's reported use of artillery shells packed with depleted uranium, which is far less radioactive than natural uranium and is left over from the process of enriching uranium for use as nuclear fuel.

Since the Iraq war started in 2003, American forces have fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium, an extremely dense material used by the U.S. and British militaries to penetrate tank armor. Once fired, the shells melt, vaporize and turn to dust.

"Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear armed activity?" Ahmadinejad said during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of Iran's volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

Iran has been under intense international pressure to curb its nuclear program, which the United States claims is part of an effort to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies such claims and says its program is aimed at generating electricity.

Iran insists that it has the right to fully develop the program, including enrichment of nuclear fuel-- a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.

On Thursday, the European Union accused Iran of having documents that show how to make nuclear warheads and joined the United States in warning Tehran it could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Iran has temporarily stopped its enrichment program, but negotiations with Britain, France and Germany broke off in August after Tehran restarted another part of its program: the conversion of raw uranium into the gas that is used as the feeder stock in enrichment.

Iran also has rejected European calls to halt work at its uranium conversion facility near the central city of Isfahan.

Ahmadinejad dismissed Western concerns over his country's nuclear program.

"They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day," Ahmadinejad said. "They speak as if they are the lords of the world."

State-run TV said more than 9 million Basij members formed human chains in different parts of the country to mark their militia's anniversary. Thousands linked hands to make a 12-mile chain along an expressway in northern Tehran.

Some Basij members also formed chains around an enrichment plant in the central city of Natanz and a nuclear plant under construction in the southern city of Bushehr, symbolizing their readiness to defend the country's nuclear program, Iranian TV reported.

It is estimated that the Basij comprise 15 percent of Iran's population, or about 10 million people.

Iranian President Says Nuclear Program Will Continue

Radio Free Europe:

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says Tehran will not accept what he called Western efforts to prevent Iran from having nuclear technology. "Our enemies believe that they can make us retreat," Ahmadinejad said, "but who are they to be suspicious of our peaceful nuclear program. It is we who are suspicious of their arsenal of weapons of mass destruction." READ MORE

He made the remarks in a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the creation of Iran's voluntary Basij militia.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 25 November called on Iran to accept a Russian proposal for Iran to enrich uranium in Russia.

The United States has accused Iran of seeking nuclear-weapons technology under the cover of a peaceful nuclear energy program. Tehran denies the charge.

He's Even Stirring Up the Oil Ministry

The Economist:

He pledges to lay low those “aristocrats” who sit on a dozen managing boards, default with impunity on loans from public banks and drive armour-plated cars worth USD300,000. But the fight picked by Iran's fiery president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be hard to win—not least because, in Iran's semi-socialist economy, the line between entrepreneur and civil servant is all but invisible and the rot so pervasive. He has already made an enemy of the architect of many of these ambiguities, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who selectively liberalised the economy when he was president in the 1990s.

Early this month, Mr Ahmadinejad sacked the bosses of seven of the big public banks that have extended, so he says, 60% of their loan facilities to a privileged 4% of Iranians. He claims to have a “long list” of people who have “dipped into the public purse” but declines Mr Rafsanjani's invitation to reveal it. Most worrying for the president, three months into his tenure, he does not have a grip on the oil ministry, the linchpin of the system he detests. READ MORE

Here, Mr Rafsanjani, a grandee who retains much influence over the ministry, has been helped by parliament, which also gets on badly with the new president. This autumn, deputies have withheld votes of confidence in Mr Ahmadinejad's successive nominees to be oil minister; this week they rejected Mohsen Tasalloti, his third choice. One top oil official criticised the government's plans to spend $3 billion of oil revenues to buy petrol, of which Iran consumes far more than it produces, and its refusal to stop subsidising prices at the pump. Another questioned the existence of what the president calls the “oil mafia”.

In a hydrocarbon-reliant country that Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption lobby, considers to have a “serious corruption problem”, it would be a surprise if Iran's oil industry were squeaky clean; in 2003, some top people in Norway's Statoil resigned after it emerged that the company had paid bribes to win the right to develop an Iranian oil field. Still, for all the rumours of rigged tenders, there have been, tellingly, no high-profile court cases in Iran. The industry is enfeebled by American sanctions and politicians' antipathy to foreign investors. Scandal is the last thing it needs.

According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, Iran's oil industry must attract some $80 billion in investment over the next 25 years if it is to meet soaring domestic energy demand and remain a major exporter. Its fledgling gas export industry needs a similar injection; though Iran has the world's second biggest reserves, it is a net importer. But foreign deals need strong leadership. Some putative ones, such as India's plan to buy liquefied gas and develop an oil field, are mired in politics and small print.

Mr Ahmadinejad says he wants to bring Iran's oil lucre to the “dining table of the people”. Not if he can't find a new oil minister.

Iran Offered N. Korea Oil for Weapons Help

Reuters:

Iran has offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles, German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources. A senior Iranian official traveled to the North Korean capital Pyongyang during the second week of October to make the offer, the magazine quoted the sources as saying. It was unclear what North Korea's response was, it added. READ MORE

Diplomats and intelligence sources say Iran is pushing ahead with plans to enrich uranium in defiance of international pressure to stop developing sensitive nuclear technology to calm fears it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful.

Iran's Shahab-3 missiles are based on North Korea's Nodong rockets and Pyongyang is Tehran's most important partner in developing missile technology, Der Spiegel said.

Inside Iran Part V: U.S.-Iran Relations Strained

Amy Kellogg, FOX News:

FOX News' Amy Kellogg recently visited Iran, where she interviewed journalists, students and others on life inside the Islamic Republic. This is the fifth in a series of eight installments about that trip, which will be aired every night on FOX News Channel.

There is no U.S. military or diplomatic presence in Tehran, just a lot of mocking graffiti. READ MORE

The eagle's head is completely faded on the former U.S. embassy in Tehran; one can barely make out the words on the seal. The United States cut off diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic after militants took about 70 Americans hostage back in 1979.

"We have not received an apology from the Iranian government since then, [they] acted detrimental to American interests," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs for the State Department.

Iran has a history of resentment toward America; it predates U.S. support of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a strong Cold War ally whose secret police was loathed by Iranians.

The CIA was part of a coup that deposed Iran's first democratically elected prime minister, Mohamed Mossadeq, back in 1953. The Eisenhower administration thought Mossadeq was leaning toward the Soviets and that was the reason for the intervention. Iranians are still bitter.

Iranians point to a period of cooperation between Washington and Tehran after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when Iran helped bring down the Taliban in Afghanistan. But they say President Bush's "axis of evil" comment set things back in Iran.

"This hurt many Iranian's feelings. If the United States president is interested to win the heart of Iranian people, I'm afraid that hurt more than gaining any sympathy," said Iranian dissident politician Ebrahim Yazdi.

But at this point, no one's talking about sympathy. Washington demands that Iran curtail its nuclear program, stop supporting terrorism in Israel and Iraq and improve its human rights record.

"Iran is a major violator of its own people; there is a great democracy deficit in Iran," Burns said. "It's a large, powerful country but that's going in the wrong direction on these three issues."

In Iran, there is both denial and a sense of siege. Tehran blames the Bush administration for the breakdown of relations.

"They are not ready to respect others, they are not ready to speak with others on equal footing. That is the problem," said Hamid Reza Asefi, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry. "As long as American arrogance in thinking and approach exists, I do not think there is any way out."

Meanwhile, the United States is waiting for Tehran to prove it is not a rogue regime.

The way things look now, especially with a new hard-line regime in Iran, cobwebs are likely to collect at the old U.D. embassy for some time to come.

Watch Part VI of the series, which focuses on the lives of women in Iran, Saturday on FOX News Channel's "FOX Report w/Shepard Smith" at 7 p.m. ET.

Click here for a video report by FOX News' Amy Kellogg. Look for the "Free Video" section on the right. Click on "Click here for more video. Choose your connection speed and select the "Special Report" Section. This video is called "Inside Iran Part 5."