Top Stories
WashPost: "In his first public appearance in a week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lead a cabinet meeting on Sunday and dismissed rumors of tensions with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state media reported. Reports of a dispute between the two surfaced after Khamenei publicly overturned the president's April 19 decision to dismiss Iran's minister of intelligence, Heydar Moslehi. The minister, a cleric, did not attend the cabinet meeting, but had instead travelled to the Shiite learning center of Qom for discussions with leading ayatollahs, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. During the meeting, Amadinejad thanked the leader for his continuous support of the government and said that all government members are obedient to the Supreme Leader, Fars reported. 'The enemies and deviators should be sure that their efforts [to create a rift] will not have any results,' the agency quoted him as saying. Ahmadinejad faced unprecedented criticism from influential clerics, members of parliament and other senior Iranian leaders for failing to promptly and publicly accept Khamenei's decision to reinstate the intelligence minister." http://t.uani.com/jV0RkN
Reuters: "The United States collaborated with Saudi Arabia to increase crude oil supplies to China at the expense of Iran, U.S. diplomatic cables show. The move was designed to hurt Iran and win Beijing's support for sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme. China has long worried that oil supplies from Iran could be choked off if Beijing sides too closely with the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear activity, which opponents say is intended to give it the means to assemble nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful. But as Saudi deliveries of crude increased to China over the past years, so has Beijing's support for U.N. sanctions against Tehran -- although Chinese state oil conglomerates have been moving into the vacuum created by the withdrawal of most major players from the Iranian oil patch. The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, lay out how U.S. diplomats worked with Saudi Arabia and other big Middle Eastern oil suppliers to persuade Beijing to back tougher sanctions on Iran. Saudi Arabia and the United States discussed how increasing Saudi crude supplies to China 'would have the welcome side impact of reducing Iranian leverage over China', U.S. officials told the Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi in August 2009." http://t.uani.com/k7ox71
AFP: "A top Iranian military officer on Saturday denounced what he called an 'Arab dictatorial front" and claimed that the 'Persian Gulf has belonged to Iran for ever', media reports said. 'The Arab dictatorial regimes in the Persian Gulf are unable to contain the popular uprisings,' General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, was widely quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday. 'Instead of trying and failing to open an unworkable front against Iran, these dictators should relinquish power, end their savage crimes and let the people determine their own future,' Firouzabadi said. He also denounced 'plots' by the Gulf Arab petro-monarchies to 'carve out an identity for themselves by rejecting the identity of others,' referring to Iran. 'The Persian Gulf has always, is and shall always belong to Iran,' the general said." http://t.uani.com/mOGIF0
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AP: "The Obama administration on Friday imposed financial penalties against three top Syrian officials, Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard over the violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria. The penalties freeze any assets that the officials, including two relatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as Syria's General Intelligence Directorate and the Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them... Syria is already under U.S. sanctions because it's designated a 'state sponsor of terrorism' by the State Department. The new ones extend the penalties to individuals. Iran and its Revolutionary Guard Corps are under similar U.S. punishment. The officials said the new designation for the Revolutionary Guard would add another layer of penalties and make clear that Washington believes it is providing material support to help Syrian authorities with the crackdown." http://t.uani.com/iDVKEI
AP: "A business consortium connected to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard was awarded without tender two giant natural gas development projects, a senior Iranian official said Saturday. Mahdi Fakoor, a senior Oil Ministry official, said the Revolutionary Guard's most important financial venture, Khatam-ol-Anbia, will develop two gas fields in the south of the country without tender. 'A contract to develop Halgan and Sefid Baghoon gas fields has been signed with Khatam-oil-Anbia ... without tender,' the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Fakoor as saying. Fakoor said development of the two gas fields located in Fars Province will result to production of 19 million cubic meters of natural gas a day. Khatam-ol-Anbia is currently the largest contractor of government projects in Iran, handling 1,500 of the country's most important state projects over the past four years." http://t.uani.com/iveb0x
Reuters: "Bahrain's chamber of commerce called on Gulf Arab nationals to boycott Iranian goods and halt financial transactions with Tehran, accusing it of interfering in the country's affairs, state media said. Bahrain has blamed Iran for stoking Shi'ite-led protests calling for democratic reforms and an end to sectarian discrimination in the Sunni-led island kingdom. 'A call has gone out today to boycott Iranian goods, in retaliation to Tehran's flagrant interference in Bahrain's internal affairs and non-respect of its independence and sovereignty,' Bahrain's state news agency reported. 'Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also urged all Gulf Cooperation Council nationals to follow suit and boycott Iranian merchants,' it added. Bahrain mainly imports food, including dry fruits, from Iran." http://t.uani.com/m6vowF
Reuters: "Iran has secured the release of some funds that India had paid for Iranian oil and that had been frozen in Germany, a news agency reported. 'When Iran sells its oil to a country, it should be able to receive the payments,' the Central Bank of Iran's governor, Mahmoud Bahmani, was quoted as saying by Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency. 'One of these transactions was related to India, which had to pay for Iran's oil ... but Germany blocked the money. A part of this money which had been blocked, has been released now and the rest will be released in the future,' Bahmani said, without giving further details." http://t.uani.com/jB3WMI
Human Rights
AFP: "The EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Friday condemned the public execution of juvenile offenders in Iran last week and urged Tehran to halt the use of the death penalty. 'I deplore the public execution of four young men in Bandar Abbas, Iran, last week. At least two of the men were under 18 at the time of their alleged offences,' Ashton said, adding that this contravened Iran's obligations under international child rights agreements. The four had been convicted of murder and rape, an Iranian news agency said. The hangings brought to 101 the number of executions so far this year in Iran, according to an AFP count based on media reports. The European Union has already expressed concern 'over the alarming rate of executions in Iran this year', Ashton also said in a statement." http://t.uani.com/kHWxP6
AFP: "East Timorese president Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, appealed Sunday to Iran to release two American hikers arrested on the Iraqi border in 2009 and accused of espionage. The trial of Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal will resume on May 11, 18 months after they were detained for alleged spying and illegally entering the Islamic republic across a remote section of the border. The three have pleaded not guilty to the spying charges and maintain they innocently strayed into Iran across the unmarked frontier... 'It is hard for any of us to appreciate the torment these individuals... and their families have suffered since that fateful day,' Ramos-Horta, the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner, told AFP in a statement." http://t.uani.com/koY9AR
Guardian: "Fears are growing for the fate of a political activist in Iran who is facing imminent execution after being convicted of acting against national security. Sherko Moarefi, a 31-year-old ethnic Kurd from Baneh in north-west Iran, was arrested in October 2008 on suspicion of being a member of a Kurdish opposition political party, Komala. The leftwing separatist group has been branded a terrorist organisation by Iran. Moarefi was sentenced to death after being convicted of 'acting against the national security' and moharebeh (waging war against God) - vague charges that Iran has used against many political activists in recent years." http://t.uani.com/l2wVw2
Domestic Politics
LAT: "Electronic surveillance of officials at the highest levels of political power lies at the heart of a rift between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a source close to Tehran's conservative leadership told The Times. Intense mistrust of Ahmadinejad's closest aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, put him in the sights of the nation's spy services, the source said, triggering a sequence of events that has humiliated and weakened Ahmadinejad after Khamenei reversed a presidential decision to fire the nation's intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi. On Sunday, after word of Ahmadinejad's continued absence from Cabinet meetings began making international headlines, the president resumed participating in state affairs to halt speculation about any breach between him and Khamenei. 'The relationship between the supreme leader and the president is that of a father and a son,' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency." http://t.uani.com/jM7R30
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will end his nine-day boycott of official activities and chair a cabinet meeting on Sunday, the official IRNA news agency reported. 'The afternoon session of the cabinet will be convened and chaired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,' it quoted an unnamed informed source as saying. Mr. Ahmadinejad, known for his near daily public appearances and speeches, has shunned cabinet meetings and withdrawn from public view since April 22, reportedly after a rift with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The confrontation came to light after Mr Khamenei, who has the final say in all state affairs, rejected the dismissal of Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi." http://t.uani.com/mRXOaG
AFP: "Iranian lawmakers have called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to end an eight-day boycott and accept the supreme leader's decision to reinstate the intelligence minister, Shargh newspaper reported on Saturday. More than 216 conservatives out of the parliament's 290 MPs wrote a letter to Ahmadinejad after an 'extraordinary' meeting on Thursday, urging him to accept the reinstatement of Heydar Moslehi, the report said quoting Tehran MP Reza Akrami. 'You are expected to adhere to the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and put an end to that which our enemies are taking advantage of,' the lawmakers wrote. The all-powerful Khamenei reinstated Moslehi despite Ahmadinejad having reportedly forced his resignation, only minutes after it was made public on April 17." http://t.uani.com/kQlFja
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Bahrain accused Iranian computer hackers of breaching the Housing Ministry's website in an attempt to access data, which lists the names of people receiving housing services, the Bahrain News Agency said. The hackers failed to 'carry out this criminal act, which testifies to their latent rancor,' the state-owned news service said, citing a statement from the ministry. The government denied that the data had been leaked, it said. Bahrain's Sunni-led monarchy declared on March 15 a three- month state of emergency after Saudi-led Gulf troops arrived to help quell mainly Shiite demands for democracy and civil rights. The government has accused Iran of interfering in its internal affairs since the protests started in the Persian Gulf country." http://t.uani.com/ihu7UC
Opinion & Analysis
David Ignatius in WashPost: "The turmoil in Syria already appears to be adjusting the strategic map in the Middle East - possibly eroding the positions of Iran and the radical Palestinian group Hamas. U.S. officials see signs that Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, has concluded that to survive the massive protests against his regime, which continued today across the country, he will have to distance himself somewhat from Iran. The protesters have largely been Sunni Muslims who have criticized Assad's alliance with the Shiite Muslim leadership of Iran. That anger grew last week after U.S. intelligence reports revealed that Iran had secretly supplied Assad with tear gas, anti-riot gear and other tools of suppression. Whatever happens in the anti-Assad protests, Iran is likely to lose some of its easy access to Syria, its key Arab ally. If Assad survives, he will have to establish some distance from Iran to appease Sunni protesters, U.S. officials believe. And if he's toppled, Syria is likely to be ruled by a Sunni-dominated regime that will be more hostile to Iran. Some Arab analysts caution, however, that the Syrian regime's ties to Iran are so deep that Assad's room to maneuver may be limited. Even if he personally favored some greater distance from Tehran, other members of his family and the other ruling Alawite clans might block any major change. Indeed, one Saudi source late Thursday described an unsubstantiated rumor that more hard-line members of Assad's family might be considering a coup against him. U.S. officials couldn't confirm that rumor." http://t.uani.com/m0AFu2
Jonathan Spyer in The Guardian: "One early casualty of the Syrian uprising has been the 'Syrian option' favoured by an influential section of Israel's policymaking elite. The case within Israel for engagement with and potential concessions to Damascus rested on a number of assumptions. Most centrally, Syria's strategic alliance with Iran was thought of as an uncomfortable fit for the non-Islamist rulers of Syria - so it was assumed that President Assad was looking for a way out if it. Assad's relations with allied Islamist movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas were considered similarly instrumental in nature, and hence similarly susceptible to alteration. The Israeli 'Syria firsters' therefore advocated a process whereby Syria would receive territorial concessions from Israel in return for a strategic realignment away from Iran and toward the US. These assumptions were noteworthy in that they were not only untrue, but in many ways represented the precise opposite of the truth. Syria's alignment with Iran and its backing of local paramilitary and terrorist clients are not flimsy marriages of convenience. They were and are the core of a successful regional policy. Through it, Damascus has magnified its local and regional influence, and obtained an insurance policy against paying any price for its activities. This insurance policy is now paying dividends. Syria's alignment with the regional axis led by Iran represents Assad's best hope of survival. Indeed, western fear of Iran is the crucial factor making possible the crackdown in Syria and hence the survival of the regime... The fall or weakening of the Assad regime in Syria would constitute a serious body blow to Iranian regional ambitions. Its resurgence under the protective tutelage of Tehran, by contrast, would prove that membership of the Iranian alliance provides a handy guarantee for autocratic rulers hoping to avoid the judgment of their peoples. In the ongoing cold war that remains the key strategic process in the Middle East, the west should see preventing this outcome as a key objective." http://t.uani.com/lmK5W1
Abbas Milani in FP: "While most of the Middle East region has been risking life and limb for the sake of a democratic future, in Iran, different factions in the regime have been busy debating the virtues of the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great. Neither side brings any new historical insight, but it hasn't been an exercise in mere navel-gazing -- in Iran, debates on ancient history have been a high-stakes affair. Today, the question is whether the Islamic Republic should pay closer attention to the country's pre-Islamic Iranian heritage; the answers recently offered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten the collapse of the current regime. The dispute itself is nothing new. For decades, if not centuries, the twin enigmas of Iran's identity and the nature of Islam in Iran have bedeviled Iranian scholars and politicians alike. Iranian identity is bifurcated, split between the pre-Islamic traditions of Zoroastrian and Manichean millennium before Islam, and the Islam-influenced developments of the last 1,300 years. But there has never been a consensus about which side of this bifurcation should be privileged. Even in the first centuries after the arrival of Islam in Iran, though Iranians had a decisive role in formulating Islamic laws, governance, and literature, there was considerable tension between Arabs and Persians: The former routinely referred to the latter with the pejorative moniker Ajam. Some Arabs (and some Iranians) even questioned whether Shiism -- the dominant sect in Iran today -- qualifies at all as a legitimate branch of Islam, arguing that it was actually a thinly disguised form of Iranian nationalism. Indeed, many scholars have pointed out that key ideas singular to Shiism in the Islamic world -- like the concept of a messiah (mahdi), and millenarian optimism -- are in fact a reincarnation of pre-Islamic Iranian ideas and concepts drawn from Zoroastrian and Manichean philosophies. Negotiating these tensions has long been a requirement for any Iranian regime." http://t.uani.com/jzVmca
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