Iran Interview: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Runs Circles Around ABC News' Stephanopoulos

Another forum in New York for President Ahmadinejad to put out his talking points --- "Show me one dictatorship in the world that has not been supported by the United States government or some European governments" --- while knocking back any thought of violations of political, civil, and legal rights after his disputed 2009 re-election: "Don’t you distinguish between those protestors who have something to say and who have some demands, and those who set buildings on fire?"

Like NBC News' Ann Curry in Tehran a week ago,  ABC News' George Stephanopoulos gets his prize in the opening exchange with the prospect of a release of the US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer --- this time, it actually came true in the following 24 hours --- and then the rest of the interview is a broadcast wasteland.

Stephanopoulos is ill-prepared to follow up on some questions, such as the repression in Iran, and unable to to catch up with an evasive Ahmadinejad on others, such as Syria. While for once, this is an interview that doesn't put a priority on the nuclear issue, Stephanopoulos cannot even get the Iranian President to respond meaningfully on the US call for military communications with Tehran to avoid an accidental conflict --- Ahmadinejad shows his interviewer up, "You mean the US is in a Cold War with Iran? Is that what you mean?"

And there is even a gift tied with a bow for Ahmadinejad with Stephanopoulos' presentation of foreign-supported "regime change": "The Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said earlier this year that it’s just a matter of time before this revolution hits Iran.  What did you make of that?"

THE INTERVIEW

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thank you for joining us again.  I want to begin with a topic that  many Americans are interested [in], of course, the Americans, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer.  Last week you raised a lot of hopes here in the United States saying they would be released in a couple of days as a humanitarian gesture.  Many expected them to come back here with you.  Yet they’re still imprisoned in Iran.  Why?

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US and the World (Video and Transcript): President Obama to UN General Assembly "Peace is Hard"

Part 1 of 3

One year ago, I stood at this podium and called for an independent Palestine. I believed then --- and I believe now --- that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But what I also said is that genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May. That basis is clear, and well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.

I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. So am I. But the question isn’t the goal we seek --- the question is how to reach it. And I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN --- if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians --- not us --- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.

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WikiLeaks & Iran Special (June 2009): The Election Was "A Power Grab by Mojtaba Khamenei"

Ali and Mojtaba KhameneiLast week we featured a cable, released by WikiLeaks, in which Ayatollah Syed Salman Safavi --- four days after the disputed 2009 Presidential election --- told Western diplomats in London that a person "very close to the Supreme Leader...working in the Supreme Leader's office" had orchestrated the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Safavi's implication was that the Supreme Leader's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, even if he did not direct the manipulation, was fully supportive of it and that the operation was backed by the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari. Safavi further claimed that the IRGC had been split by the decision to rig the election in favour of Ahmadinejad, whom he said had the backing of only one senior cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

And now, in another cable from WikiLeaks, the other half of this intriguing tale....

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Haiti Video: 20 Months after the Earthquake, A People Abandoned (Al Jazeera English)

Twenty months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, Sebastian Walker of Al Jazeera English finds that "millions of Haitians are still living in makeshift camps, cholera has become an epidemic and the aid money has run out":

US and the World: The Future is Bright, The Future is Drone Attacks (Finn)

The killing of terrorism suspects and insurgents by armed drones, controlled by pilots sitting in bases thousands of miles away in the western United States, has prompted criticism that the technology makes war too antiseptic. Questions also have been raised about the legality of drone strikes when employed in places such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, which are not at war with the United States. This debate will only intensify as technological advances enable what experts call lethal autonomy.

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Iran Breaking: Ahmadinejad Defies the Judiciary over the US Hikers

Shane Bauer and Josh FattalWe act upon whatever we say. And if we don’t want to act, we won’t say it. We didn’t make this decision under pressure. It’s a humanitarian decision. Although, a lot of people are in jail or in prison in American prisons, inside the United States, in Europe, on ships unfortunately there are a lot of people without having had the opportunity of a fair trial. And there are some Iranians who are imprisoned in the United States and did not have the opportunity of a full judicial review. But when we said we will release them, we will release them, as a humanitarian gesture.

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Syria: U.S. Is Quietly Getting Ready for Syria Without Assad (Cooper)

http://bit.ly/oYw0BB

The Syrian President, Bashar al Assad, has stubbornly clung to power since March, despite massive protests and a growing number of defections. Protests show no signs of going away, and the Syrian opposition is trying to organize under the leadership of the new Syrian National Council, which reportedly met inside Syria in recent days.

Still, the pace of defections remains a trickle, and Assad is not backing down. Is his regime finished?

According to Helene Cooper, of the New York Times, the Obama administration believes that the Assad regime will not survive the crisis, and they have begun to plan for a post-Assad Syria.

One of the scenarios that the US government would like to avoid is that of post-Saddam Iraq, where the nation decayed into sectarian civil war. An EA correspondent notes that it is the job of the US intelligence community to plan for the worst, and we have seen ample evidence that the opposition, both the leadership and the people in the streets, have worked to avoid such conflict. Even yesterday, protesters seemed to be working hard to deliver an opposing message.

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EA on the Road: Talking US, Iran, and Israel in Oxford

I will be at a one-day seminar today in Oxford looking at the relationships amongst Washington, West Jerusalem, and Tehran. James Miller will be taking over the EA helm this afternoon, keeping an eye on developments in North Africa and the Middle East on our LiveBlog. Updates on the Iran LiveBlog may be limited today. 

Have a look at our latest features on Yemen and Iran and do keep news and analysis moving with your contributions through Comments. Remember, if you are not signed up through Disqus, your comment may take some time to appear.

Iran Feature: So What Would You Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? (Sadjadpour and Milani)

There is evidence that your chief adviser, [Esfandiar] Rahim Mashai, helped secure loans for the leading suspect in a $2.6 billion bank fraud case, the largest embezzlement scandal in Iranian history. You came to office vowing to “cut off the hands” of the corrupt; how will you deal with Mashai?

Your opponents in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi, 69, and Mehdi Karroubi, 73, have been held incommunicado for nearly a year. On what basis are they confined? If they have no influence, as you have said, why are they under house arrest?

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The Latest from Iran (20 September): Ahmadinejad's Warm-Up Act

See also Iran Feature: So What Would You Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Iran Interview: Azerbaijani Activist Fakhteh Zamani Explains the Lake Urmia Protests

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Basij commander Mohammad-Reza Naqdi1720 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. So why did Iranian authorities arrest six filmmakers on the allegation that they worked for BBC Persian (see Monday's LiveBlog)? Here's a clue....

One of the six, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, was already being targeted: he was barred less than two weeks ago from travelling to the Toronto International Film Festival to screen the documentary This Is Not a Film, about a day in fellow Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s life. Mirtahmasb's offence was to work with Panahi, who has been sentenced to six years and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for supposed activities against the State, on the project.

BBC Persian has said that it has done no more than purchase the rights to documentaries and other projects of the six filmmakers and that it has never employed any of them.

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