Top Stories
NYT: "Iran has discovered a new hostile computer virus designed to damage government systems, an Iranian official who heads a cyberdefense agency said in comments reported Monday. In comments published by Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency, the official, Gholam-Reza Jalali, said the Stars virus had infiltrated government systems but was being decoded. 'Fortunately, our scientists have successfully identified the Stars virus, which has now been sent to laboratories,' said Mr. Jalali, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander. He said no final conclusions had yet been reached about the virus's aim. In its initial state, it mimics a regular executable file. In recent days, Mr. Jalali admitted that the powerful Stuxnet virus discovered last year did indeed infect computer systems related to the country's nuclear program, but said that it was discovered before causing serious damage. Mr. Jalali said that the threat from Stuxnet had not yet been completely dispelled, and cautioned that further attacks were anticipated." http://t.uani.com/gTtxRB
AFP: "Bahrain has declared the second secretary in the Iranian embassy here persona non grata and ordered him to leave within 72 hours due to his alleged links with a Kuwait spy ring, BNA news agency said. The report named the official as Hujatullah Rahmani and said Iran's charge d'affaires in Bahrain was summoned on Monday to the foreign ministry where the decision had been conveyed to him. Earlier this month, Iranian state television said three of Tehran's diplomats and an embassy employee were expelled from Kuwait for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran, reportedly ever since the invasion of Iraq. Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah later charged that the diplomats had proven links to a suspected spy ring, three members of which a Kuwaiti court condemned to death on March 29." http://t.uani.com/hG7mSq
NYT: "Two American citizens who have spent 19 months in detention in Iran, accused of espionage and illegal entry, will appear in court for a third time in May, according to their lawyer. Joshua F. Fattal and Shane M. Bauer, both 28, will attend a court session on May 11, their lawyer, Masoud Shafiee, said on Tuesday. On two previous occasions, judges have delayed a verdict in the case, citing the absence of a third American, Sarah E. Shourd, 32, who was released on bail last September for medical reasons and returned to the United States. The three were arrested near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan in June 2009. While Ms. Shourd has been summoned in a letter from Iran's Foreign Ministry, it is unlikely that she will return to face trial in May. 'When there are several accused persons, a judge cannot postpone the case just because one of them is not present. The judge must issue separate verdicts for Shane and Josh,' Mr. Shafiee said in a telephone interview. 'Sarah's verdict can be issued in absentia, or her case alone can be delayed.' Mr. Fattal and Mr. Bauer have been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for the past 19 months - a period significantly longer than the one-year minimum sentence for the crimes they are accused of committing. Mr. Shafiee said that he had not been allowed to meet with his clients before their previous court appearances, despite assurances from the presiding judge that he would be able to." http://t.uani.com/gQI8wy
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AP: "Iran's government has raised bread prices up to 25 percent, the second hike in four months, as authorities are trying to cut subsidies to ease pressure on the economy straining under international sanctions.State IRNA news agency is quoting deputy governor of Tehran province, Nematollah Torki, as saying the new price will be effective as of Tuesday. A loaf of the popular Sangak bread has gone up from 4,000 rials (about 36 cents) to 5,000 rials (about 45 cents). Bread prices first tripled after the subsidy cuts came into effect in December as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad moved to reduce the massive drain on the state budget from subsidies on foodstuffs and energy. Every Iranian receives the equivalent of about $45 per month to compensate the subsidy cuts." http://t.uani.com/hKEnyn
Foreign Affairs
CNN: "Iran threatened a tit-for-tat response Tuesday after Bahrain declared an Iranian embassy official in Manama persona non grata and gave him 72 hours to leave the country. On Monday, Bahrain ordered Hujatullah Rahmani, the second secretary in the Iranian embassy, to leave because of his alleged links to a Kuwaiti spy ring, the Bahrain News Agency said. Bahrain also said Iran should stop its 'irresponsible behavior' and not interfere in the country's internal affairs, the news agency said. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast responded Tuesday, saying Bahrain's actions are 'not based on realities.' The spokesman said Iran reserved the right to take retaliatory measures against Bahrain, Iran's state-run Press TV said. Relations between the two countries have been tense in recent months as Bahrain contends with an anti-government movement that it said is being fueled by Tehran." http://t.uani.com/gLz6K9
Reuters: "Iraq's Ministry of Electricity and Iranian power development firm Sunir inaugurated a $150 million, 320-megawatt power plant in Baghdad on Sunday that should boost Iraq's feeble electricity supply... Sunir is in negotiations with the ministry to install a natural gas pipeline between Iran and Iraq to feed the Sadr City power station and another in northern Baghdad, Anvari said." http://t.uani.com/ghF823
Culture
Opinion & Analysis
George Friedman in STRATFOR: "The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place. What is actually going on is that the United States is urging the Iraqi government to change its mind on U.S. withdrawal, and it would like Iraq to change its mind right now in order to influence some of the events taking place in the Persian Gulf. The Shiite uprising in Bahrain and the Saudi intervention, along with events in Yemen, have created an extremely unstable situation in the region, and the United States is afraid that completing the withdrawal would increase the instability. The American concern, of course, has to do with Iran. The United States has been unable to block Iranian influence in Iraq's post-Baathist government. Indeed, the degree to which the Iraqi government is a coherent entity is questionable, and its military and security forces have limited logistical and planning ability and are not capable of territorial defense. The issue is not the intent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who himself is enigmatic. The problem is that the coalition that governs Iraq is fragmented and still not yet finalized, dominated by Iranian proxies such Muqtada al-Sadr - and it only intermittently controls the operations of the ministries under it, or the military and security forces. As such, Iraq is vulnerable to the influence of any substantial power, and the most important substantial power following the withdrawal of the United States will be Iran. There has been much discussion of the historic tension between Iraqi Shia and Iranian Shia, all of which is true. But Iran has been systematically building its influence in Iraq among all factions using money, blackmail and ideology delivered by a sophisticated intelligence service. More important, as the United States withdraws, Iraqis, regardless of their feelings toward Iran (those Iraqis who haven't always felt this way), are clearly sensing that resisting Iran is dangerous and accommodation with Iran is the only solution. They see Iran as the rising power in the region, and that perception is neither unreasonable nor something to which the United States or Saudi Arabia has an easy counter." http://t.uani.com/dXhxhS
Ali Ansari in Chatam House: "In the rush to assess the causes and potential consequences of the 'Arab Spring' which has rocked much of the Arab world from the Persian Gulf to North Africa, some have been keen to place the developments in the wider context of the geo-political contest between the United States and Iran. This wider context is reminiscent of previous generations, when events were situated squarely within a cold war narrative, and the effects of 'liberation' movements and 'rebellions' were calculated solely on the basis on the overall benefits and costs to the two superpower blocs. This is certainly the view among the leaders of the Islamic Republic, who have argued that the 'Arab Spring' reflects a somewhat belated spread of the values of the Islamic Revolution to the Arab world. Regularly forgotten in all this is the truism that, at heart, all politics is local. Indeed, if one lesson has emerged from the events of the past few months, it is that it remains difficult to generalise and that ultimately, 'revolutions' are not predictable. On the one hand we have states with large populations and few resources, and on the other, states with small populations and an abundance of riches. Some have been pro-western, others quite distinctly opposed. Almost all have been categorised as functioning and viable states with a monopoly on coercive power. Yet if these are not 'failed states' in the traditional understanding of the term, they are 'fragile states' - they lack authority. And what is true of the contemporary Arab world is doubly true of Iran. The Iranian government is not short on the means of coercion but the Islamic Republic of Iran suffers from a dangerous deficit in authority, almost all of which has been self-inflicted. This crisis of authority came to public attention in the disturbances after the contested presidential election of 2009, following widespread allegations of fraud which the government did little to address. Relying instead on brute force and the generous dispensation of cash to its supporters, it was able to contain the unrest after six months of unprecedented discord which could have quite easily gone the other way. Yet if the symptoms were addressed, the government has singularly failed to tackle the underlying causes, and on the contrary, has tended to exacerbate them. Most would agree that a well-oiled economy provides any government with a comfortable financial cushion against which it may be able to manage a crisis, through patronage and the retention of large well maintained security forces. Yet recent events in both Libya and Bahrain remind us that money alone does not provide either stability or security. Indeed, if money were the panacea, then the Shah should not have fallen in 1979. Iran in the 1970s was amongst the richest oil economies in the world and even British diplomats wryly noted that the Shah's 'problems' would be the envy of his Arab neighbours." http://t.uani.com/eadKKo
Semira Nikou in The Iran Primer: "In an unusual public spat, Iran's top two leaders have split over the future of intelligence chief Heider Moslehi. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly wanted him sacked and accepted Moslehi's resignation on April 17. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei overruled the president-first in a letter to Moslehi and then in a public address--effectively rebuking the decision and even announcing that he was praying for Moslehi. The supreme leader tried to end the controversy in a speech on Apr. 23, 2011. Khamenei said he does not intend to interfere in political disputes but with Moslehi's resignation 'a greater good had been ignored.' The leader also criticized the media for inflating the story and for reporting a rift within Iran's leadership. The public spat is important--and unusual--for several reasons. The first is that it reveals the conflict over the control intelligence ministry--a critical ministry in dealing with both domestic tensions and Iran's escalating showdown with the outside world. The second is that the flap has been so public in normally secretive Iran, rippling into media splits as well. Pro-Ahmadinejad media outlets initially refused to report on Khamenei's rejection of Moslehi's sacking and it was only after Khamenei's official letter to Moslehi was published in other outlets that they acknowledged Khamenei's order. The third is a subplot centered around the president's controversial chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie. Iranian media reports imply that Mashaie, a potential contender in the 2013 presidential election, had urged the president to fire the intelligence chief, at least partly over his assessments the Intelligence Ministry. Mashaie is related to Ahmadinejad through the marriage of their children and is a major influence on the president. In the past, Khamenei has provided critical support for Ahmadinejad. The leader was decisive after the disputed election results of the 2009 vote, when the opposition charged massive fraud. The supreme leader sided with the president and allowed security forces to brutally repress street protests by millions of Iranians in several cities for six months. Iran's supreme leader traditionally approves key posts, such as the intelligence and foreign ministry posts. The supreme leader did not interfere when Ahmadineajd sacked Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in December 2010. Parliament has even been sucked into the dispute, with more than 200 members signing a statement April 20 urging the president to adhere to the supreme leader's order. Senior ayatollahs also pressed the president to accept the leader's instructions. The political skirmish between Iran's top religious and political authorities comes at a particularly awkward time. The regime faces serious internal discontent on both political and economic issues as it nears the second anniversary of the disputed presidential election and with parliamentary elections looming early next year. The region is also in turmoil over pro-democracy protests; Syria, Iran's closest Arab ally, faces unprecedented internal unrest. It is not yet clear how the president will manage his relationship with intelligence minister. Moslehi did not accompany the president and the rest of cabinet ministers in the government's provincial trip to Kurdistan on April 20. The following are public comments by key politicians on the Moslehi affair." http://t.uani.com/hfITwS
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