WarSclerotic

EU to reject Iran invite to tour nuclear facilities – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

EU’s Catherine Ashton: Touring nuclear facilities is not our job; looking at sites and establishing what they are there for is for IAEA inspectors.

By Reuters

The European Union will turn down an offer from Iran to tour its nuclear facilities, the bloc’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said on Friday.

“Yes, what I’ll be saying is the role of the inspections of nuclear sites is for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and I do hope Iran will insure that the IAEA is able to go and continue its work,” she told Reuters after talks with Hungary’s Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi.

Earlier in the week, Iran invited Russia, China, the European Union and its allies among the Arab and developing world to tour its nuclear sites, in an apparent move to gain support ahead of a new round of talks with six world powers.

“My view is that though this is not an invitation that I’m taking a negative view of, it’s not our job and looking at the sites and establishing what they are is for inspectors,” Ashton said.

In a letter made available Monday to The Associated Press, senior Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh suggests the weekend of Jan. 15 and 16 and says that meetings “with high ranking officials” are envisaged.

While no reason was given for the timing of the offer, it comes just weeks before Iran and the six powers follow up on recent talks that ended with agreement on little else but to meet again.

The new round between Tehran, and the permanent UN Security Council members – the U.S. Russia, China, Britain, France – plus Germany, is tentatively set for Istanbul, Turkey in late January.

It is meant to explore whether there is common ground for more substantive talks on Iran’s nuclear program, viewed by the U.S, and its allies as a cover for secret plans to make nuclear arms – something Tehran denies.

Instead, the Islamic Republic insists its uranium enrichment and other programs are meant only to generate fuel for a future network of nuclear reactors.

The offer of a visit comes more than three years after six diplomats from developing nations accredited to the IAEA visited Iran’s uranium ore conversion site at Isfahan, which turns raw uranium into the feedstock gas that is then enriched. Participants then told reporters they could not make an assessment of Iran’s nuclear aims based on that visit to that facility in central Iran.

	EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton.

Analysis: No strike at Iran as Pardo takes Mossad baton.

Meir Dagan formally took leave of the Mossad on Thursday, passing the reins to Tamir Pardo, with Israel facing a strategic situation vastly different from when he was appointed in August 2002.

While the Palestinian terrorism that was running rampant when Dagan took office during the height of the second intifada has since largely been brought to heel, Hizbullah is much stronger than it was then, and Iran – of course – is inching closer to nuclear capability.

Pardo is not entering a vacuum; rather, he climbs to the top of the intelligence community pyramid with working assumptions already in place on a number of issues, notably including the following:

A strike on Iran

Although a nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, at this time a military attack on its nuclear facilities would be counterproductive and would exact an enormous diplomatic, economic and military price.

Iran’s leadership, analysts say, would use an Israeli attack to unify the ethnically fragmented country around the government, and Teheran would leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty with international justification, saying that it had been attacked by a country with nuclear capability and now needed to gain similar capability to defend itself.

The Iranians – who are largely responsible for building up Hizbullah to such an extent that today it has more firepower than 90 percent of the countries of the world – would “call in their chips,” and the organization would launch massive rocket attacks against Israel’s home front.

It is probable some of the Hizbullah attacks would come from Syria, which means that Damascus would be drawn into the conflict. Hamas and Islamic Jihad would also join the fray in a battle that would not be waged against tanks and planes, but against the civilian population.

Iran and the US

There is no significant difference in Israeli and US intelligence assessments regarding Iran. The major difference is in the perception of the danger.

While Israel sees a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, the US doesn’t perceive Iran as an existential threat to the US. It views Teheran as an actor that works against its interests in the region, and it is clear to Washington that if Teheran gained a nuclear capability, it would trigger a wild nuclear arms race in the Middle East. But it is not concerned Iran will blow up Boston. Israel, however, takes the Iranian leadership at its word when it talks about wanting to rid the world of the “Zionist entity,” and does not rule out the possibility that the Iranians would use the bomb against Israel at some point.

The US, already spread extremely thin in the Middle East and paying about $1 billion a day to support its military operations in the region, is unlikely to take on another military action by attacking Iran. This is particularly true since Washington is increasingly facing tough going in Afghanistan, may be unable to withdraw all its troops as planned from Iraq, and is facing major problems now in Yemen, Somalia and Sudan.

Options on Iran

Barring US or Israeli military action against Iran, what is left is to change the Iranian government’s mind about the wisdom of pursuing a nuclear bomb, or to buy more time that may create other opportunities down the line. There are a number of tools that can be used to achieve these goals, analysts say and WikiLeaks cables indicate, including:

• International pressure on Iran to convince it – through sanctions – that the price it is paying to gain nuclear capability is too high.

• Keeping the Iranians from getting the parts to produce the bomb. Thousands of parts go into the production of a nuclear weapon, and not all of those can be produced in Iran. They need to be purchased from abroad, and if these parts are not available, then the program cannot go ahead as planned.

• Economic warfare – not just sanctions, but ensuring that banks don’t do business with the country, and preventing it from getting lines of credit.

• Fanning the ethnic chasms inside Iran, a country made up of 50% ethnic Persians, 25% Azeris, 7% Kurds and a smattering of Arabs, Turkmen, Balochi and other ethnic groups. The creation of ethnic tensions can rock the government.

• Covert actions to set back the nuclear project.

None of these tools by itself can slow down the Iranians, but taken together they can have, and have had, an effect. The fact is that when Dagan took over the Mossad in 2002, the assessments were that Iran would be able to produce a bomb by 2007. In 2007 this was adjusted to 2009, and now in 2011 the date being bandied about is the middle of the decade.

There are serious schisms among the ruling elite in Iran about whether the price of building a bomb is worth it, and the Iranians are well aware of what the Arab world thinks about the program and their designs in the Middle East. The WikiLeaks revelations that showed the loathing of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia toward Iran didn’t tell Teheran anything it didn’t already know.

Syria

The WikiLeaks cables revealed differences of opinion in the Israeli government about whether it would be possible to pry Damascus out of the Iranian orbit. There is wide agreement, however, that just as the Syrians are demanding an Israeli agreement to leave the Golan Heights in exchange for peace as a condition for talks, Israel needs to place its own preconditions on the table: the disarmament of Hizbullah, and Syria leaving the Iranian orbit.

The Syrians have said themselves that they are not willing to make either move, and one influential school of thought in Jerusalem posits that even a peace treaty with Israel would not compel them to do so.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

While Israel has never claimed responsibility for the Mahmoud al- Mabhouh assassination in Dubai, the world widely sees it as responsible.

The whole affair – including allegations that Israel used European and Australian passports to carry out the hit – are not seen as having caused Israel any long-term intelligence damage.

Israel’s intelligence relationship with Britain, which kicked out an Israeli intelligence officer as a result, is considered better. While the Irish expelled a diplomat reported to be connected to the Israeli intelligence community, the Mossad had no presence there.

While the Mabhouh incident attracted a great deal of media attention, it did not cause damage to the country’s intelligence relations with key countries around the world.

Gilad Schalit

While not opposed to releasing terrorists to secure the release of captive soldier Gilad Schalit, the Mossad under Dagan was opposed to releasing 450 hardened terrorists to the West Bank, because of a concern that this would lead to the murder of scores of Israelis.

The 400 terrorists who were released in 2004 to gain the return of businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three IDF soldiers are believed to have been directly or indirectly involved in the killing of 231 Israelis.

Outgoing Mossad chief: Iran won’t have nuclear capability before 2015 – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Meir Dagan tells Knesset committee that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back several years after a series of malfunctions.

By Yossi Melman

Meir Dagan, who retired from his post as Mossad chief on Thursday after eight years, does not believe Iran will have nuclear capability before 2015.

In a summary given to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dagan said Iran was a long way from being able to produce nuclear weapons, following a series of failures that had set its program back by several years.

	Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan
	Photo by: Nir Keidar

Dagan handed over the job to his successor, Tamir Pardo, in the Prime Minister’s Bureau Thursday morning, after having parted from the ministers during last Sunday’s cabinet session.

The former Mossad chief had said on various occasions in the past that Israel should go to war only if attacked, or if in immediate danger of survival.

Dagan concluded his term saying Iran was still far from being capable of producing nuclear weapons and that a series of malfunctions had put off its nuclear goal for several years. Therefore, he said, Iran will not get hold of the bomb before 2015 approximately.

According to a Wikileaks report, Dagan told a senior American official that it would take a series of coordinated moves to stop the Iranian nuclear program. He reportedly suggested increasing the economic sanctions against Iran, preventing the export of products required for the nuclear project to Iran, covert warfare, and encouraging minority and opposition groups to topple the Iranian regime.

Dagan’s work with Pardo over the past several weeks included trips abroad to present his successor to counterparts around the world. Their trip to England did not reflect the crisis between London and Jerusalem over the Mossad’s alleged use of British passports in the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last year in Dubai.

President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior defense and security officials will soon attend a farewell event for Dagan as well. Such events have become customary since 1995, when the government decided to expose the identity of the heads of both the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service.

Reputation restored

During his term, Dagan restored the Mossad’s reputation as an omnipotent organization whose reach extends to the ends of the earth − a myth that has contributed to Israel’s deterrence. Under his command, the espionage agency also regained its dominant status in the Israeli intelligence community and became a central player in the international arena. This was demonstrated in the numerous tete-a-tetes Dagan held with former U.S. President George Bush and other state leaders in Europe and the Middle East.

Dagan’s term centered around two main issues: the Iranian nuclear program; and the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders and Iranian scientists, most if not all of which have been attributed to the Mossad.

The Israeli intelligence community’s assessments of Iran’s nuclear capability have changed during Dagan’s tenure. In 2003, Israeli intelligence officials thought Iran would have its first bomb by 2007. In 2007, they thought it would be 2009, and a year later they put it at 2011. Now the date has moved to 2015. These adjustments were not the result of mistaken evaluations, but due to the difficulties Iran has encountered in advancing its program, largely because of the Mossad’s efforts.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 6, 2011, 3:07 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iraq’s radical Moqtada Sadr ready to move in

The urgent phone call Jordan’s King Abdullah II put in to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday Jan. 5 dealt only marginally with stalled diplomacy with the Palestinians. The king pressed for answers on what Jerusalem and Amman can do to curb Iran’s advancing domination of Iraq in the face of America’s inaction.

Referring to Hizballah’s role, Abdullah commented to Netanyahu: First Iran’s missiles had you jammed from the north and the south, now Iran and Hizballah are cornering you from the east.  The Americans are not lifting a finger to stop this happening.”
The call, which came through the day before the Israeli prime minister met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for lunch at Sharm al Sheikh, elicited no real practical replies. Netanyahu confirmed that Israel still stood by the guarantee of support its armed forces and security services had granted the Hashemite Kingdom and its ruler for the past 60 years.

Both the king and the prime minister appreciated that words are not enough. Since both their military and strategic policies are synchronized with Washington, the total disintegration of American strategic positions in Baghdad Wednesday, Jan 5, was an alarming setback to both Jerusalem and Amman.

On that day, the anti-US radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, a close friend and ally of Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, came marching home from self-imposed exile in Iran, and the new Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi paid his first visit to Baghdad – both in full sight of 50,000 US troops.

Sadr was greeted by thousands of supporters on his return to his old stronghold in the holy city of Najef south of Baghdad three years after his armed militia was defeated in bloody revolts against US forces.

The two arrivals from Iran, the cleric and the diplomat, made it plain that Tehran has Iraq by the throat and plans to impose on Baghdad its regime structure, which rests on two focii, the political capital and the clergy. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is already in Iran’s pocket; he is beholden to the radical Sadr’s support for his appointment. The same cleric – and therefore Iran – will control his fate – both by means of the 40-member Sadrist faction in parliament and the authority he wields from his seat in the religious city of Najef.
Tehran has also not neglected to carve out a position of influence in Baghdad for its Lebanese protégé, Hizballah, whose officers and instructors have been training the commanders of Sadr’s powerful militia, the Mahdi Army, alongside Iranian instructors.
The two ultra-radical Shiite leaders, Sadr and Nasrallah, are now bound closer together than ever before in an adventure for bringing Iraq under pro-Iranian Shiite domination. Iraq’s neighbors, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, could only shudder at the sight of the two black-turbaned Shiite extremists taking charge of Iraq on behalf of Revolutionary Iran against no opposition.

This pair and Maliki have taken out of the hands of Washington and Baghdad the decision on whether a reduced US force stays on in Iraq after the main force departs in 11 months’  time.  Moqtada Sadr has vowed to remove every last American from Iraqi soil and no one shows any sign of stopping him. US troops will be replaced by Shiite-dominated Iraqi forces, the Shiite militias commanded and funded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades and Hizballah militia detachments transferred from Lebanon.
Iran will in the coming months consolidate the Shiite takeover over Iraq. Hizballah will win a place in the sun and strategic depth after being squeezed between Syria, Israel and the sea.
After US troops exit Iraq, the Iranians will be able to deploy their missiles and Hizballah’s rockets in the bases the Americans leave behind in Iraq and point them at Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Livni: Europe’s position against Iran must be resolute.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Wednesday met with EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton in Jerusalem, and said that “Europe’s position against Iran must be resolute so that Iran understands that the world will no longer accept Teheran’s shuffling around and lagging in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons.”

“European interests are clear and things should be said clearly and sharply right now,” Livni added.

The two leaders also discussed the need to advance Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians.

Ashton said overnight Tuesday that there is “no alternative to a negotiated deal,” ahead of her trip to Israel on Wednesday.

“Urgent progress is now needed towards a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace and the European Union will continue to support all efforts towards that goal,” Ashton said.

“There is no alternative to a negotiated solution. We want to see the State of Israel and a sovereign and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security,” she continued.

Ashton’s expected visit comes after diplomatic activity began anew on Tuesday with a meeting in Jerusalem between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Quartet envoy Tony Blair. The meeting following a more than weeklong hiatus in international involvement in the diplomatic process because of the Christmas and New Year holidays.

On Thursday, Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Sharm e-Sheikh for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dealing with ways to break the current diplomatic stalemate. Netanyahu will be accompanied on that visit by Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who is considered to have good relations with the Egyptians. Ben- Eliezer, a Labor party minister, threatened earlier this week that his party would quit the government in two months in the absence of any meaningful diplomatic process.

White House senior advisor Dennis Ross is expected to arrive for further talks in the coming days. Ross was last here some two weeks ago.

Iranian hard-liners blocked nuclear fuel swap deal, WikiLeaks cables reveal – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

According to U.S. diplomatic memos, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to agree to UN-backed nuclear fuel swap deal in 2009 but faced internal pressure from hard-liners.

By The Associated Press

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sought some kind of nuclear fuel swap deal more than a year ago, but faced internal pressures from hard-liners who viewed it as a “virtual defeat,” according to U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

The report, available on the WikiLeaks website Tuesday, also suggested Iran trusted its arch-foe the United States more than ally Russia to follow through with the UN-backed proposal: providing reactor-ready fuel in exchange for Iran giving up control of its low-enriched uranium stockpile.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
	Photo by: AP

The assessment was given to a top U.S. envoy by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose nation has a growing friendship with Tehran and is scheduled to host the next round of nuclear talks later this month between Iran and six world powers, including the United States.

The fuel swap proposal is a centerpiece of efforts for greater international controls on Iran’s nuclear program, which the West and others fear could lead to development of atomic weapons. Iran insists it only seeks reactors for power and research.

The UN plan in 2009 called for Iran to ship its low-enriched uranium out of the country and receive nuclear fuel ready for use. Iran balked at the proposal and outlined alternative fuel swaps involving allies Brazil and Turkey. But the six nations – the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany – said the offers fell short of their demands.

In late 2009, Davutoglu told visiting Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon that Iran’s government was willing to work out some kind of fuel swap arrangement, but Ahmadinejad was facing “huge pressures” at home, according to the secret memo.

Davutoglu was quoted as saying that the proposal deal was “interpreted by some circles in Iran as a virtual defeat” by Western pressures.

The cable said Turkish officials had asked Ahmadinejad “if the core of the issue is psychological rather than substance.”

“Ahmadinejad had said `yes,’ that the Iranians agree to the proposal but need to manage the public perception,” the message said, adding that Turkish officials consider Ahmadinejad as “more flexible than others who are inside the Iranian government.”

It also noted that it appears the Iranians have “more trust” in the U.S. envoys than British negotiators and “the Iranians would also prefer to get fuel from the U.S. rather than the Russians.”

The talks between Iran and the world powers resumed in Geneva last month after an impasse lasting more than a year.

Iran pressed hard to have the second round in Turkey, which has developed close economic and political ties with Iran.

The leaked cable said the U.S. diplomat Gordon noted that Washington believes Turkey can be “helpful as a mediator” with Iran, but he also pushed for a stronger Turkish stance on Iran’s nuclear efforts.

It quoted the Turkish foreign minister as replying: “Only Turkey can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians … but only because Ankara is showing public messages of friendship.”

Ahmadinejad warns West to end ‘bullying’ or face ‘defeat’.

TEHERAN, Iran — As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad warned western nations to stop their “bullying and occupation” or face “defeat and humiliation,” Teheran on Tuesday confirmed it has invited representatives of world powers to tour its nuclear sites.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the invitation went to “the EU, the non-aligned movement and representatives from 5+1 countries.”

The “5+1” countries are the six world powers engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program — the United States, Britain, France, Russia , China and Germany.

He said the invitation to visit is an indication of his country’s “good will” regarding its nuclear program.

Ahmedinejad, however, had harsh words for the West during a speech in the province of Semnan on Tuesday, telling them to “respect other nations and their rights. Stop aggression and invasion … In doing so, nations will forgive you and give you an opportunity to make up for your past errors and heinous crimes,” he was quoted by Press TV as saying.

“You should know that the continuation of your past trend will yield no result for you but further defeat and humiliation,” he added.

“You must accept that you have … committed mistakes, that you have taken a deviant path. You need to return from that path and scrap your dominance over some parts of the world,” Ahmadinejad said.

The proposed tour would take place before Iran meets with the 5+1 nations in Turkey in late January for the next round of nuclear talks.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley on Monday said Iran’s invitation is “a clever ploy, but it’s not a substitute for Iran’s responsibilities to the IAEA,” The New York Times reported.

“It won’t draw international attention away from the issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” Crowley stated.

He added that Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities violated six United Nations Security Council resolutions.

China on Tuesday confirmed it had received the invitation to tour Iran’s nuclear sites but did not immediately say if it would send anyone.

European diplomats who were invited said they were unlikely to accept the invitation, if at all, until after the next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

While no reason was given for the timing of the offer, it comes just weeks before Iran and the six powers follow up on recent talks that ended with agreement on little else but to meet again.

The offer of a visit comes more than three years after six diplomats from developing nations accredited to the IAEA visited Iran’s uranium ore conversion site at Isfahan, which turns raw uranium into the feedstock gas that is then enriched. Participants then told reporters they could not make an assessment of Iran’s nuclear aims based on that visit to that facility in central Iran.

But the new offer appeared more wide ranging, both as far as nations or groups invited and sites to be visited.

Dated Dec. 27, the four paragraph letter obtained Monday by the AP offered no details beyond offering an all-expenses paid “visit to Iran’s nuclear sites.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 4, 2011, 12:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Ahmadinejad – stripped of allies

There are growing indications that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing his second epic struggle to stay in power since the 2009 popular riots against his election – with his back to the wall. Even the secretive revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has been unable to conceal the widening fissures in Iran’s ruling elite.

debkafile‘s exclusive Iranian sources report that the president’s situation must be dire indeed because Monday night, Jan. 3 he called off at the last minute a secret trip to Beirut by his chef de bureau and son-in-law Rahim Esfandiar Mashaee for winding up a key power move in Lebanon. The need to keep his trusted confidant at his side was apparently more pressing than a key step in Iran’s takeover of Lebanon. A day earlier, Ahmadinejad sacked his 14 top advisers, breaking up the inner cabinet which virtually ran the country under his control.
Mashaee was to have persuaded Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to have announced the dissolution of the UN tribunal set up to probe the Rafiq Hariri assassination and try its perpetrators.  He would have had to override Saad Hariri’s government and cut through the Saudi-Syrian formula for solving the Lebanese crisis to pre-empt the tribunal presentation of indictments against Hizballah officials. This stratagem would have satisfied and empowered Iran’s proxy as the dominant power in Beirut. This mission was important enough for Ahmadinejad order Mashaee to remain in Beirut until it was accomplished.
But meanwhile, the president had dumped a body of advisers who had formed a super-government acting out his practical authority for countermanding the decisions of the government, parliament and other constituted institutions.

According to one source, the advisers he fired are: Mehdi Kalhor, media, Mojtaba Rahmandoust, Isargaran (martyrs and devotees) affairs, Davoud Danesh Jafari, senior economics adviser, Tavakkoli Bina, commerce, Etemadian, commerce, Vaziri Hamaneh, oil and gas industry, Sousan Keshavarz, education, Sattar Vafai, Haj Ali Akbari, youths affairs, Mehdi Chamran, councils affairs, Rouyanian, Ali Montazeri, Ali-Asghar Zarei, culture advisor, and Mehdi Mostafavi.

Our Washington sources report that the White House is keenly watching the infighting and deepening splits in the clerical regime. Opinions vary as to the cause which triggered the crisis, ranging from opposition to the deep slashes Ahmadinejad ordered last month in subsidies for essential consumer goods, to dialectical differences and a straight power struggle. But they all agree that the Iranian president is fighting for his life in a struggle that is approaching a resolution.
Washington sees three major forces ranged solidly against him for the first time:

1. The Iranian parliament, the Majlis, and its powerful speaker Ali Larijani, who has been working to check Ahmadinejad’s limitless thirst for power for some time;
2.   The generals: Never before since the 1979 Islamic Revolution have the armed forces chiefs taken a hand in Iranian politics. But they are now deeply concerned that Ahmadinejad’s policies, including his push for a nuclear weapon, are bringing the country into perils it cannot  withstand.

3.  Long-time rival, the former president Hashem Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, the supreme body overseeing the various arms of the regime, is showing signs of recovering from the years of persecution and restrictions placed on the activities of his faction.
It was noticed in Washington this week that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who habitually praises the president and his works, has stopped mentioning him in his public appearances, probably watching and waiting to see how the internal discord turns out. Also sitting on the fence are the heads of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Ahmadinejad’s principle buttress until now. He appears therefore to be fighting for survival singlehanded except for a hard core of the most radical ayatollahs who have backed him through thick and thin.

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