The Latest from Iran (26 February): Closing the Door?

2110 GMT: Khamenei v. Khomeini. Radio Zamaneh has more on the criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, Seyed Hasan Khomeini, by the Supreme Leader's representative in the Revolutionary Guards, Ali Saidi.

The conflict was sparked when the head of the Institute of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Publications, Mohammad Ali Ansari, wrote to Saidi to remind him of the Khomeini's insistence on no military intervention in politics, Ali Saidi then criticized Hassan Khomeini’s decision not to attend the August inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He alleged that the Ayatollah's grandson was standing against "the system and the Leader".

NEW Iran Document: Latest Karroubi Interview “The Shah Didn’t Behave Like This”
Iran: Mousavi, The Regime, & "The Prerequisites of Escalation"
Latest Iran Video: The Rigi “Confession” (25 February)
Iran Analysis: Khamenei’s Not-So-Big Push
Iran Follow-Up: Interpreting the Assembly of Experts “The Certainty of the Uncertain”
Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery
The Latest from Iran (25 February): Misleading Statements?

2100 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mehrdad Bal Afkan, a senior member of the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party and Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, was arrested in Isfahan on Thursday.


2050 GMT: That "Path to Atonement" Thing (see 1915 GMT). Could the regime be setting up an offer of amnesty or reduced punishment for those who will give up their opposition? Alongside Ayatollah Jannati's Friday Prayer are the words of Iran's Attorney General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie: "If those who have been arrested in recent riots truly repent and compensate for the damages they have caused and correct their past conduct, they will be helped in the Appeals Court."

2005 GMT: Back to the Friday Prayer (see 1915 GMT). Ayatollah Jannati might have been a bit less hard-line than usual with the invocation that all the naughty protesters "to wake up and come to their senses", but I think he may have a message for a Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani: “If the elite are not in accordance with the movement of these rioters, why don’t they protest against them and advise them?”

1945 GMT: Larijani Watch. Blink and you might miss the story....

Agence France Presse headlines a ritual denunciation by Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, speaking in Tokyo, of the International Atomic Energy Association and the "West":

One of the defects in the IAEA is that it changes positions and attitudes if it is put under certain political pressure. I think the IAEA should be an organisation that states its views based on concrete facts, but should not comment on something such as 'there is a possibility.

Yawn. It's only in the 8th paragraph that AFP gets to the real story, with Larijani repeating his Thursday welcome to "third-party enrichment" by Japan: "I don't know if you read the Japanese offer, but various proposals are made in it. We welcome this kind of subsurface-level initiative."

1915 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati taking the podium in Tehran, and a bit of a surprise. After all the talk this week of the "sedition" of the opposition, the hard-line head of the Guardian Council appears to have been a bit of a softie, declaring, "the path to atonement is still open". Of course, those who atone need to recognise that, on 22 Bahman, the Iranian people "showed that [they] do not fear enemies, threats or sanctions, are committed to [their] stances and are loyal to and believe in 'velayat-e-faqih' (clerical authority)."

1910 GMT: An EA Special. We've posted the English translation of Mehdi Karroubi's latest interview, with his forthright defiance and the lament, "The Shah didn't behave like this."

1500 GMT: Nuclear Power Play. What a way to come back from an academic break. I find that Press TV is pushing the statement of the head of the Parliament's National Security Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, declaring in Tokyo:

Japan's participation and involvement in the construction of Iran's power plants will serve the interests of Japanese state and private companies. Iran's suggests that Japan start its job from a particular point, by building a nuclear power plant inside the country.

How big? Boroujerdi is in Japan with Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, who announced yesterday that "third-party enrichment" is back on the table, with Japan enriching Iran's uranium stock. So the deal is laid out: the international community gets its oversight of Iran's nuclear fuel, Tehran gets a nuclear power programme with the assistance of Tokyo, and Larijani and his allies --- no doubt representing the wishes of the Supreme Leader --- also outflank President Ahmadinejad.

1130 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (cont.). Activist websites reported that the women's ward in Section 209 of Evin Prison is overcrowded, with cells holding seven detainees rather than the recommeded two or three. Most in Section 209 are academics.

The news follows the revelation of imprisoned journalist Bahman Ahmadi-Amoui that 40 prisoners are being held in a 20- meter cell in Evin.

1105 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. A series of reformist members of Parliament and parties have asked the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani. to release journalists and political activists for Iranian New Year, Nowruz. Pro-Ahmadinejad MPs replied that it is up to the judge to decide the status of detainees, and this has nothing to do with Nowruz.

1100 GMT: Larijani v. Ahmadinejad Watch. Even when he's in Japan, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani is slapping at the President: he has declared that 34 of 39 proposals presented by the Government do not conform to the law.

1055 GMT: Khamenei, Khomeini, and the Revolutionary Guard. The Supreme Leader's representative in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Hojatoleslam Ali Saidi, has sharply answered the criticism of those who accuse the Revolutionary Guard of interference in political matters: when civilians attack the holy republic, how can the IRGC stand aside?

There were also pointed words for the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, Seyed Hassan Khomeini: how could he oppose the Supreme Leader and the Iranian system (nezam)?

1050 GMT: A slow political day, but that gives us the chance to feature a provocative analysis, from The Newest Deal, that the momentum for the Green Movement will come from the regime's rejection of Mir Hossein Mousavi's five proposals for justice and reform.

0810 GMT: The Committee for Human Rights Reporters posts that women’s rights activist Somayeh Rashidi has been released from Evin Prison after more than two months in detention.

0800 GMT: The big manoeuvres yesterday were within the regime, as key participants either tried to close the door on any challenge or to keep it slightly open for further manoeuvres. We've got two special analyses: Mr Verde takes a long look at this week's inconclusive, somewhat confusing Assembly of Experts meeting, featuring Hashemi Rafsanjani, and we assess the Supreme Leader's "not-so-big push" to secure his position.

Meanwhile, you could take your pick of sideshows. There was Iran's unsubtle propaganda push on captured Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi with his confession (see separate entry) as proof of US sponsorship. Bashir al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck their poses in Damascus, and US and Israeli officials met in Israel in a "strategic dialogue" which featured Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran: Mousavi, The Regime, & "The Prerequisites of Escalation"

From The Newest Deal:

In his 17th statement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi made five specific points that he deemed necessary to start the political (and national) reconciliation process. The proposal lead to a noticeable uptick in the weeks leading up to 22 Bahman in talk of the need for national "unity" and also garnered much attention from Iranian intellectuals and dissidents. Ultimately, the regime's more radical elements reemerged and silenced the chatter before the security apparatus prevented a strong opposition showing on the revolution's 31st anniversary. But Mousavi's "five points," as they have come to be called, still carry much weight. Generally, they are:

1. Government accountability for post-election violations


2. Legislation of new election laws that would safeguard reform-minded candidates from regime's current vetting process


3. Release of all political prisoners


4. Freedom of the press and political-neutrality on state-run IRIB television


5. Freedom to assemble, as guaranteed by the Islamic Republic's constitution

Were these five conditions to be met, the Green movement would arguably have the breathing space it needs to mobilize and begin the long process of transforming Iranian society. For if anything became apparent in the weeks leading up to and after the June election, it was that Iran has undergone an awakening. It has simply been the repression that the above five grievances capture that has prevented the social movement's aspirations from coming to fruition.


Therefore, perhaps an alternative frame can be adopted to view Mousavi's five points. As a recent Tehran Bureau profile wonderfully captured, the reluctant leader of Iran's opposition has matured into a rather shrewd, cautious, and patient figure. While circumstances prevent him from voicing such a sentiment in public, the leader of the Green movement likely recognizes that the regime has reached a point of no return. The tyranny, the executions, the outright fascism -- all of it is, to quote his Mousavi from an interview on the eve of 22 Bahman, an outgrowth of the "revolution's failures" and the "roots of tyranny and dictatorship" that persist in society from the reign of the Shah. These are damning (and yet still very measured) words from one of the Islamic Republic's own founding fathers.

Thus, seeing the regime in this light gives Mousavi's five points new significance. The demands would no longer be five steps the regime must take in order to rescue the country from its current crisis, but rather, five blatant and particularly egregious shortcomings that the regime will inevitably be unwilling to address, and that will thus escalate the conflict between the Greens and the regime. For in the wake of the June coup d'etat, if one thing has become clear it is that those currently in control will never meet any such conditions, even if moderate voices within their camp plead otherwise. Political calculus has been replaced by megalomania, with the possibility of reconciliation falling victim.

And so if these five points are instead five tests that the regime must fail before confrontation with the regime escalates to the next phase, the news emerging this week from the Expediency Council and Assembly of Experts -- both bodies chaired by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- is indeed very telling. First, the Council began considering aproposal being pushed by Rafsanjani and Mohsen Rezaei that would take away the Guardian Council's vetting role and instead give it to a new "National Election Committee" of sorts, which would conveniently be under Rafsanjani's supervision in the Expediency Council. (Ironically, the proposal to revise the country's election laws was made to Supreme Leader two years ago, after which he ordered for a new plan to be drawn up).

Make no mistake: this would essentially be a first step in meeting the second condition laid of Mousavi's 17th statement. Were the change to the vetting process be enacted, the Guardian Council would no longer be able to disqualify candidates from running for president or parliament, as it did when it disqualified all but four candidates from running in the 2009 presidential election.

The chances of the plan coming to fruition, however, appear slim. With the regime still reeling from the aftermath of the June elections and still off-balance going forward, it would have no reason to suddenly invite more political opposition in Majlis through freer elections in 2012. Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the ultra-conservative Kayhandaily and someone who is regarded as being close to Khamenei, has already come out on the attack, stating that any propsoal to create such an electoral commission would be "against the Islamic Republic's constitution."

No sooner than the proposal was being discussed, more divisive conservative rhetoric emerged from the other body Rafsanjani chairs, the Assembly of Experts. In a statement reported by Fars News, the Assembly allegedly declared that the regime's patience with the opposition "ended in December after sedition leaders missed numerous chances to repent and return into the gown of the revolution." (Enduring America notes, however, that the statement is missing on the Assembly of Experts' official website and that several prominent members were absent from the Assembly's two-day meeting). Khamenei, for his part, has reiterated the statement's pronouncement in his own statement, saying that those who still do not accept the June presidential election result "would be disqualified from participating in the Islamic system."

The obstacles in revising the regime's election laws aside, the other four points from Mousavi's 17th statement have gone unheeded as well. Saeed Mortazavi, though implicated by Majlis [Iran's Parliament] in the Kahrizak torture-murders, remains a free man. Rather than having political prisoners freed, the country recently saw the greatest wave of arrests sweep dissidents since late June and early July. Meanwhile, state-controlled media remains entirely propagandized while any questions regarding citizens' right to freely assemble were surly answered by the enormous security presence deployed on 22 Bahman.

Not even appearing to consider the proposals, the regime seems bent on acting counter to each of Mousavi's five points. Despite the intentions of some del-soozan, (or "heartbroken" moderate conservatives), any promise for political reconciliation also appears dead. Rather, the crisis seems destined to continue indefinitely, and with neither side refusing to back down, Mousavi's five grievances may come to be prerequisites for the regime to unconditionally reject before the opposition begins to decide on how to take the uprising to the next level.

Iran Follow-Up: Interpreting the Assembly of Experts "The Certainty of the Uncertain"

Mr Verde follows up our analysis of the "mystery" of the Assembly of Experts statement/non-statement supporting the Supreme Leader and declaring that time has run out for a seditious opposition.



For the latest on the continuing politics, see our analysis of the Supreme Leader's "big push" and our latest updates:

The Assembly of Experts has been holding twice a yearly for many years. Most of its meetings are behind closed doors. The official reports of the meetings usually included a few set-piece and rather predictable speeches. And they were ignored by most people.

Iran Analysis: Khamenei's Not-So-Big Push
Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery

The only notable “news” about the Assembly meetings in recent years was the 2007 election to replace the deceased Ali Meshkini as chair. Until then only one candidate stood in the election and was elected unanimously to show unity. This time, however, there were two candidates: Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.


Most people expected Jannati to win because Jannati heads the Guardian Council, which has to approve members of the Assembly. Rafsanjani had lost the second round of the 2005 presidential election to Ahmadinejad. Yet Rafsanjani beat Jannati. And then people again forgot about the Assembly and its sessions.

This was until the June 2009 presidential elections.

Soon after the disputed elections, a statement was released by the secretariat of the Assembly declaring that the members not only supported the Supreme Leader but they also supported the results. It later transpired that the statement was signed only by Mohammad Yazdi, a strong Ahmadinejad backer, a Guardian Council member close to Jannati, and the secretary of the Assembly. It was in effect Mohammad Yazdi’s opinion printed on Assembly letterhead.

Some of those hoping that the Islamic Republic would find a way out of the post-election crisis looked to the autumn session of the Assembly for a solution. They were disappointed, but this time they took note of the limited news of the Assembly’s proceedings. Mohammad Yazdi did not attend the meetings of that session, and citing his illness, he resigned as secretary of the Assembly. His resignation was rejected by Rafsanjani, who wished him a speedy recovery and return to his duties (a few days later Yazdi was pictured attending another event, which may point to illness being used as an excuse).

During the session some members criticised the actions of the regime and, by implication, the Supreme Leader. They were and still are attacked by the radical right for their stance.

Then during the final meeting, a strongly worded statement was read out on behalf of the Assembly by Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric and fervent supporter of Ahmadinejad. It was reported that Rafsanjani was not present during that part of the meeting and, later, that he had received a call from Khamenei asking him to attend a meeting with the Supreme Leader immediately. No news was ever published about the subject of this meeting was about and why it was it so urgent that Rafsanjani had to leave in the middle of the Assembly.

The struggle between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad supporters continued after the autumn session. At one point Rafsanjani was criticised, indeed threatened, by Yazdi. For the first time in the post-election crisis, Rafsanjani responded directly to an attack and said that he would reveal facts about Yazdi’s past actions. This lead to Yazdi calling a truce.

This week, Ahmadinejad supporters were hoping to create an atmosphere in which they could force Rafsanjani out as the head of the Assembly. The Yazdi attacks were accompanied by castigations of Rafsanjani’s family and political associates.

It seems that the plan to remove Rafsanjani has not worked, but there were no reports of speeches by critics of the current situation either. Instead, there were anomalies putting a question mark over the legitimacy of the meeting. Again Yazdi was absent because of "illness"; instead his son, who has no legal right to attend, was present.

Rafsanjani made a point of announcing the attendance of the younger Yazdi, raising speculation. Was the head of the Assembly effectively declaring that the body's status had been compromised? Was this a personal response to Yazdi, implying that he is so used to illegal actions that he would dare send his son to represent him? Or was Rafsanjani trying to protect the legitimacy of the gathering by citing "special circumstances"?

Yet the meeting was further damaged, at least in its official standing, by the absence of key members. Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini was either too ill or staged a personal boycott. (Amini, although a "conservative", stepped down as Friday Prayer leader of Qom because of his dissatisfaction with post-election events.) Rafsanjani ally Hassan Rohani was missing, as was Ayatollah Mahdavi-Kani, who had reportedly worked with Rafsanjani and others last autumn to forge a National Unity Plan. Perhaps most surprisingly, Mesbah Yazdi, a hardline cleric reported to be Ahmadinejad’s religious mentor, was also a no-show.

So instead of ending in resolution, this week's meeting merely adds more puzzles and complications. The regime was trying to demontration both its unity after the events of 22 Bahman and its power, amidst symbolic developments like the launching of the Jamaran warship and the arrest of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi. It wanted to present the image to the Iranian people that all is back to normal. Meeting Assembly members yesterday, the Supreme Leader tried to drive home the impression, emphasising that those who continued to question the June election were no longer acceptable in the Iranian system.

Rafsanjani served the regime to an extent by warning all to be careful that the arrows of criticism are not turned towards the Supreme Leader. Yet he later said, in a statement he repeated yesterday at Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum, that some officials are not taking responsibility for their own actions and are instead trying to push the blame onto Khamenei. (At one stage he said that we need to be careful that the crisis does not escalate further, using the word “toghyan”, which can be translated into English as insurrection or insurgency or uprising.)

So, just as the Assembly was far from "normal" with the absences and the continuing political manoeuvres within its ranks, the Islamic Republic is far from settled. In one moment, the call is "all is well". In the next, it is that "all should be well" with the threats against the opposition. And then, finally, with a wink and a nod, Hashemi Rafsanjani says "all might not be well" because of "uninformed individuals" (who are they?).

This is the certainty of the uncertain.

The Latest from Iran (25 February): Misleading Statements?

2110 GMT: Not-Over-The-Top Statement of Today. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testifying to a Congressional committee, reveals that the current manoeuvres over Iran's uranium enrichment are just like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:

My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy. It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons.

That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran.

2100 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. After all the political positions (take your pick) he adopted at the Assembly of Experts, Hashemi Rafsanjani used a ceremony at the tomb of the late Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a warning about "uninformed individuals" (who are they?): "These individuals shirk from their responsibilities and make irrelevant declarations, thus causing the leadership to bear the responsibility of all the actions that the people reject."

1935 GMT: Diplomatic Poses (cont.). Well, I guess Washington had to strike its own posture given the statements of President Ahmadinejad and his Syrian counterpart Bashir al-Assad in Damascus today (1335 GMT). Here's State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley:

As the secretary [Hillary Clinton] reiterated yesterday, we have expressed our concern directly to President (Bashar) Assad about Syria's relationship with Iran. This is ultimately a decision that Syria has to make, but as President Assad assesses Syria's long-term interests, he need only look around the region and recognize that Syria is increasingly an outlier.

We want to see Syria play a more constructive role in the region. One step would be to make clear what Iran's need to do differently and unfortunately there was no evidence of that today.

The key here is that it is a spokesman making the statement, not the President, not the Secretary of State. Yes, of course, the US would prefer that Damascus put Iran into isolation. But they know that, given the regional dynamics, Syria will not publicly cut off Tehran. So the real diplomacy will take place away from these statements.

1925 GMT: Back from a lengthy academic break --- the US Ambassador to Britain was in Birmingham today --- to catch up on the full force of Iranian propaganda. Here is the "confession" of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi, tailor-made to put the US as the main sponsor of his terrorism:

After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting.

I said we didn't have any time for a meeting and if we do help them they should promise to give us aid. They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran.

They asked to meet me and we said where should we meet you and he said in Dubai. We sent someone to Dubai and we told a person to ask a place for myself in Afghanistan from the area near the operations and they complied that they would sort out the problem for us and they will find Mr. Rigi a base and guarantee his own security in Afghanistan or in any of the countries adjacent to Iran so that he can carry on his operations.

They told me that in Kyrgyzstan they have a base called Manas near Bishkek, and that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and that if such high-ranking people come to the United Arab Emirates, they may be observed by intelligence people but in a place like Bishkek this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach an agreement on making personal contacts. But after the last major operation we took part in, they said that they wanted to meet with us.

The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran…not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don't have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them.

One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level.

NEW Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery
Latest Iran Video: Rafsanjani’s Daughter is Confronted
Iran Special: Interpreting the Videos of the Tehran Dorm Attacks
The Latest from Iran (24 February): Shocks and Erosions

1350 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Hengameh Shahidi has been arrested again.

Ebrahim Yazdi, former Foreign Minister and head of the Freedom of Movement Iran, underwent open heart surgery soon after his 10-day release yesterday. His family said that the surgery was a success.


1340 GMT: Trying to Shut the Door. The Supreme Leader has returned to his rhetoric of last June. In a statement reported by Iranian state media, he said those not accepting the results of the Presidential election "would be disqualified from participating in the Islamic system, and they have already lost their credibility". Certain individuals caused the post-election turmoil because they wanted to "deny the vote of the people."

1335 GMT: Damascus Poses. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made their declarations during the Iranian President's visit.

Assad gave a lecture to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her comments that the US is "troubled" by Syrian ties with Tehran, "We hope that others don't give us lessons about our region and our history. We are the ones who decide how matters will go and we know our interests. We thank them for their advice."

Ahmadinejad was even bolder, "(The Americans) want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that. We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."

No real surprises in either man's pose. What is more important is whether there is any substantial support from Damascus for Iran, and more specifically Ahmadinejad, beyond the rhetoric of increased cooperation and cancelling of visa restrictions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, vowed increased cooperation during a meeting in Damascus and canceled visa restrictions between the countries.
1330 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. An activist updates that Mousavi campaign aide Asghar Khandan has been sentenced to 2 years and 74 lashes. Another aide Jahanbakh Khanjani, a former senior official in the Ministry of Interior, has been released on bail after eight months in detention.

1038 GMT: Claim of Day. According to Kalemeh, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Hosseini, has said that "there is no censorship" of the press.

1035 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad is in Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. Let's see if he can trump Ali Larijani's political manoeuvre.

1000 GMT: Larijani's Nuclear Move. This looks like it may be big news. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, after talks with Japanese officials, has said Japan's offer to enrich Iran's uranium "has the substance to be worth discussing. We want to deepen the discussion on it."

That would be a major shift from Iran's line since November that uranium had to be enriched or swapped inside the country, and it is a dramatic change in Larijani's previous hostility to third-party enrichment. A likely assumption is that the Speaker is representing the views of the Supreme Leader.

So now the key political question: is Larijani also speaking for the President or is he making a move to claim personal credit, surpassing and pushing aside Ahmadinejad?

0950 GMT: The Rigi Mystery. It may be that Iranian state media, when it finally settled on the story that the leader of Jundullah, Abdolmalek Rigi, was detained on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, had it right (and that our reports of Rigi's detention last week were inaccurate). The deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan's national airline has confirmed that a plane was forced to land in Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on Tuesday (in fact, other information indicates that the interception occurred Monday night) and two passengers were taken away by Iranian authorities.

0905 GMT: The Wrong Lawyers. An unexpected but still stunning story from Rooz Online about the screening of "unsuitable" human rights lawyers:

Last week the administrative committee of Iran’s bar association has disqualified nearly half of the candidates seeking to serve on Iran’s bar association.

The official website of the Iranian Bar Association reported yesterday that 36 candidates running for management positions at the Association’s headquarters were disqualified. The Association’s President, Seyed Mohammad Jondoghi-Kermanipour...said, “Today we received a letter from the administrative judicial tribunal, which stated that, pursuant to their previous letter, only 43 candidates were qualified, the remaining candidates having been disqualified for failing to meet the specified criteria.”

[As well as] Jondoghi-Kermanipour, other prominent attorneys such as Abdolfatah Soltani, Naser Zarafshan, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, Mohammad-Ali Dadkhah, Nemat Ahmadi, Farideh Gheirat, Goudarz Eftekhar-Jahromi (former head of the Association), Ali Najafi-Tavana, Reza Nourbaha, Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi, Jahangir Mostofi, Akbar Sardarizadeh, Ramezan Haji-Mashadi have been disqualified.

0855 GMT: Satire of Day. Ebrahim Nabavi sets a Philosophy Quiz for readers. A sample question:

[Government spokesman] Gholam-Hossein Elham said, "Cutting off AN's government is the insurgents' next project." What is the logical mistake in this sentence?

1 - There exists no government to be cut off.
2 -  The government will be cut off by itself. There is no need for the insurgents to do anything.
3 - Even if the insurgents killed themselves, they could not stop the downfall of the government.
4 - The Agha [Supreme Leader] himself has started this project a long time ago.

0840 GMT: The Forgetful Assembly. Amidst the confusion over the statement/non-statement from the two-day meeting of the Assembly of Experts (see separate analysis), the Green website Rah-e-Sabz offers an overview of the divisions within the body since the election and declares that it is suffering from "Continuous Alzheimer's".

0825 GMT: Comparing the Numbers. Iran News Now, using video and photographs, compares the non-crowd at the President's speech in Birjand, Khorasan, yesterday with the masses who turned out for a Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign rally and concludes:

Let’s look at the crowd gathered in Birjand for Ahmadinejad...and let’s be realistic. This thing is FAR from over. The aspirations of the Iranian people will not go unheeded.

EA's Mr Verde adds, "The interesting fact about the turnout (if one can claim it is interesting at all) is that even in a place close to Ayatollah Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad, people don’t really care about Ahmadinejad."

0820 GMT: Economy Watch. Mohammad Reza Khabbaz, a member of Parliament's Economy Committee, has denounced President Ahmadinejad's proposed budget as "unrealistic".

0815 GMT: This is a Secure Regime? Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Hamedani, in his statement yesterday, announced that the number of Basiji bases in Tehran would be increased from 6 to 22.

0800 GMT: Wednesday was marked by loud proclamations from the Government. There were the attempts to limit the damage of the video of June's attack on Tehran University dormitories, the aggressive promotion of the "terrorist" threat from Jundullah to Kurdish groups to the Green Movement, and the President's sparsely-attended speech in eastern Iran (see  inset.

However, the most intriguing statement by far was the supposed proclamation of the Assembly of Experts supporting the Supreme Leader and warning against the "sedition" of opposition leaders. This morning, however, it looks this was a non-statement, an attempt by pro-Ahmadinejad members of the Assembly and media to create the image of a regime ready to crush Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami (and, probably, to back Hashemi Rafsanjani into a corner). We have a special analysis.

Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery

UPDATE 1550 GMT: And, as the supposed statement of the Assembly seems to have disappeared, here's another puzzler. The following clerics were not present during the final meeting of the session: Amini, Mesbah Yazdi, Hassan Rohani, Moghtadaiee, Mahdavi-Kani and Mousavi-Jazayeri.

Amini. though conservative, has been reported to be very unhappy with the post-election events. Amini is reportedly in hospital. Hassan Rohani is close to Rafsanjani.Mahdavi-Kani is conservative cleric, with very strong links and possible influence within the regime; he was also reportedly a proponent of the National Unity Plan.

OK, so each may have had a reason to be absent. But was Mesbah Yazdi, perhaps Ahmadinejad's most fervent backer, not present at a session that supposedly declared opposition "sedition"?

UPDATE 1430 GMT: Let's add to the mystery. At the beginning of the Assembly of Experts session, Rafsanjani said that Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the Deputy Chair of the Assembly was not present; instead, his son was attending. (Yazdi Senior also missed the autumn session, saying he was ill, and he tried to resign from the secretariat of the Assembly, but Rafsanjani rejected the resignation.)

Legally Yazdi Junior cannot represent his father in Assembly meetings. So was Rafsanjani making the point that Mohammad Yazdi, a backer of President Ahmadinejad, is so used to illegal activity that he sends his son to represent him? And/or was Rafsanjani diminishing the legitimacy of a meeting "under special circumstances" where non-members could sit in?

When the news came through, it hit like a hammer blow. The Assembly of Experts, headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani, had issued their statement after a widely-anticipated two-day meeting. The 86-member body had declared its loyalty to the Supreme Leader:

The more we go ahead, the more our supreme leader proves his competence. Ayatollah Khamenei shed light on realities in dealing with the post-election sedition and undertook huge efforts in view of bringing unity to the nation.

So far, nothing surprising. Last summer's possibility of an Assembly challenge to Khamenei is long gone; all "establishment" figures, including Rafsanjani, have circled political wagons around the concept of clerical supremacy (velayat-e-faqih). But then the unexpected:

The revolutionary patience of the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic ended in December after sedition leaders missed numerous chances to repent and return into the gown of the revolution. Sedition leaders flunked the Dec 30 final exam and they were removed from Iran's political spirit.

Bam. Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, Mohammad Khatami: your resistance is over. Not just over, forbidden. With that doubly-offered word "sedition", the threat of arrest had been made, not by the Revolutionary Guard or the Iranian judiciary but by clerics, some of whom were supposedly sympathetic to the opposition demands.

No wonder a prominent (and shrewd) activist e-mailed me, "This statement has me worried. And it takes a lot to get me worried."

But then the story moves from drama to mystery. Did the Assembly really put down this challenge to Mousavi-Karroubi-Khatami?

The original source for the statement appears to have been Fars News. The Iranian Students News Agency also featured the story but simply summarised the  Fars account. However, as far as I can tell, the supposed statement has not been covered by the Islamic Republic News Agency, and it certainly has escaped any mention on Press TV's website.

Perhaps most importantly, there is still no sign of the statement on the official website of the Assembly.

So this morning, we are left, not with the certain shock of a once-and-for-all challenge to opposition leaders but with the uncertainty of whether Fars --- which has been known to create or distort stories --- has been the source of either outright fabrication or the channel for someone (who? take your pick) to "leak" a statement which had not been agreed by the Assembly.

A bit of recent history may be in order. Last summer a statement appeared, in the name of the Assembly, criticising the leadership of Hashemi Rafsanjani and calling on him to step down as chair. The initial reading, given Rafsanjani's high-profile Friday Prayer speech in mid-July standing up to the Government and the subsequent pressure and threats against him and his family, was that the regime had rallied against the former President.

Not so. Within days, it emerged that the statement had been drawn up by only a handful of clerics and signed by the fiercely pro-Ahmadinejad Ayatollah Mesbah Mohammad Yazdi. A number of Assembly members made it clear that they had no part of the effort, and Rafsanjani remained in his post.

So now, rather than the intended portrait of a regime now united against the opposition, we have the picture --- should the speculation of a clumsy propaganda effort be borne out --- of a system whose heart is still divided. There will be no resolution.

Watch this space.