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The New York Times reported that "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Monday that the American overture to engage Iran in talks about its nuclear program 'is not an open-ended offer' as Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, expressed impatience that the Americans were willing to talk to Iran at all. At a joint news conference here, Mr. Barak made clear that he did not agree with the American policy of trying to engage Iran, but he acknowledged that Israel was in no position to dictate to the United States. 'I don't think that it makes any sense at this stage to talk a lot about it,' Mr. Barak said during the news conference at the King David Hotel, referring to talks with Iran. 'Our position is clear.' Alluding to a potential strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities, Mr. Barak said that 'no options should be removed from the table.'...Mr. Gates, speaking with Mr. Barak after meetings at the King David Hotel, said that President Obama hoped to hear Iran's response to the offer of talks at the time of the United Nations General Assembly in late September. Nonetheless, he said, 'we're very mindful of the possibility that the Iranians would simply try to run out the clock.'" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/world/middleeast/28military.html)

Reuters reported that "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and reiterated Washington's commitment to protect close ally Israel from any threat posed by Tehran. 'Your (Iran's) pursuit is futile,' she told NBC's 'Meet the Press' program, adding that Iran did not have the right to develop a nuclear weapon. 'It is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons,' she added. Clinton annoyed ally Israel last week by saying the United States would cope with a nuclear Iran by arming its allies in the Gulf and extending a 'defense umbrella' over the region. A senior Israeli official said the United States should focus on preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon rather than talking as if this may be a fait accompli. 'We are not talking in specifics, because that would come later if at all. My view is you hope for the best, plan for the worst,' said Clinton on Sunday, defending the comments she made while in Thailand last week." (http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINN2651064120090726)

Reuters reported that "The Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that Iran would strike Israel's nuclear facilities if Tel Aviv attacked the Islamic state, state television reported. 'If the Zionist Regime (Israel) attacks Iran, we will surely strike its nuclear facilities with our missile capabilities,' Mohammad Ali Jafari, Guards commander-in-chief, told Iran's Arabic language al-Alam television. The Revolutionary Guards are the ideologically driven wing of Iran's military with air, sea and land capabilities, and a separate command structure to regular units. Iranian leaders often dismiss talk of a possible strike by Israel, saying it is not in a position to threaten Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. They say Iran would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests and Israel." (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090725/world/international_us_iran_is...)

The New York Times reported that "The leaders of Iran's opposition movement sent an open letter of protest to the country's highest religious authorities on Saturday, complaining that the state had used 'illegal, immoral and irreligious methods' in the crackdown following last month's disputed presidential election and calling for the release of hundreds of people arrested since. The letter came a day after the funeral of a young protester with links to Iran's political elite, whose father told a senior military commander that the youth had been beaten after his arrest, held incommunicado and allowed to die of an infection...The open letter was the latest sign of the opposition movement's continuing defiance, despite stern warnings by leading clerics to drop the issue and an enormous police presence that has largely scuttled street protests for the past week." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/world/middleeast/26iran.html?hp)

AP reported that "The Revolutionary Guard tightened its already powerful hold over Iran during the post-election turmoil, raising alarm among some Iranians that it is transforming the Islamic Republic into a military state. The elite force and an affiliated volunteer militia, the Basij, led the crackdown against street protesters who claim mass fraud in the June 12 election after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in a landslide. At least 20 protesters have been killed in clashes and hundreds detained. The Revolutionary Guard weighed in at key moments of the crisis. Two days before the election, with the reformists' Western-style campaign at its zenith, the Guard warned it would crush any attempt at a popular 'revolution.' A few days after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admonished demonstrators in a Friday prayer sermon to stop protests or face the consequences, the Guard followed up with its sternest warning to prepare for a 'revolutionary confrontation' if protesters take to the streets again. A harsh crackdown followed." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyp38blXhx20zB7ncDLiBT...)

AP reported that "Iran's opposition leader asked authorities Sunday for permission to hold a memorial service for victims of last month's post-election unrest, including a young woman whose death was caught on video and became a symbol for protesters. Iranian authorities have pressured the families of slain protesters not to mourn publicly out of fear the gatherings could spark the kind of demonstrations that followed the June 12 presidential vote, according to the opposition. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and fellow pro-reform presidential candidate, Mahdi Karroubi, sent a request to the Interior Ministry to hold a memorial service in Tehran's Mosalla mosque Thursday to commemorate the end of the 40-day mourning cycle for at least 10 people killed on June 20, Mousavi's top aide Ali Reza Beheshti told the Associated Press...One of those killed on June 20 was Neda Agha Soltan, a 27-year-old woman shot to death on the sidelines of a Tehran demonstration. Her dying moments on the street were caught on a video viewed by millions on YouTube, and she became an icon in the opposition's struggle." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGSJEAPs_r2T2wxsL5G3t4...)

AP reported that "Witnesses say Iranian police and pro-government militia have attacked and scattered hundreds of protesters in Iran's capital. One of the witnesses says the protests were in response to demonstrations held around the world calling for the Iranian government to release opposition activists. Protesters in Vanak and Mirdamad districts chanted 'death to the dictator' and 'we want our vote back' before they were attacked and beaten by police Saturday. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
" (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGSJEAPs_r2T2wxsL5G3t4...)

Reuters reported that "Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday defied a call by a group of hardline clerics to back the country's disputed presidential election result, a news agency reported. On Friday, 50 members of the 86-seat Assembly of Experts, called on Rafsanjani in a statement to show more support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed the re-election of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, soon after the June 12 vote, which moderates say was rigged. Challenging the authority of Iran's most powerful figure, Rafsanjani declared the Islamic republic in crisis in during his sermon on July 17 and demanded an end to arrests of moderates. 'My standpoint (about the election) is the same as I mentioned in the Friday prayer sermon,' Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency. The remarks of the cleric, who is head of the Assembly of Experts, which in theory can dismiss the supreme leader, indicated the reformist camp was unwilling to give in quietly despite the pressure." (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSHAF668200)

AFP reported that "The US Senate has approved funds for measures to help Iran's opposition defeat curbs on news and Internet social networking sites it has used to organize since a disputed presidential vote. Lawmakers, some of whom have charged the Islamic republic's June 12 election was rigged, approved the legislation late Thursday without dissent amid widespread US criticism of Tehran's crackdown on opposition demonstrators. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman and Democratic Senators Ted Kaufman and Robert Casey were the lead authors of the Victims of Iranian Censorship (VOICE) Act. 'As this cruel regime works to close off Iranian society, the VOICE Act, by providing assistance for broadcasting and new Internet and communications technologies, will help to open it up,' said McCain. The measure calls for providing 30 million dollars for expanding Radio Free Europe-backed Farsi-language radio broadcasts into Iran, to be used to try to counter Iranian government efforts to jam radio, satellite, and Internet-based transmissions. The funding would also go to try to overrun the Iranian government's efforts to block access to websites or text messages over cell phone networks. Another 20 million dollars would go to create a special fund to develop ways for Iranians to get access to and share information, and counter Tehran's 'efforts to block, censor, or monitor the Internet in Iran.'" (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gkXKwx64nXJo0t90gcGVM...)

AFP reported that "An Iranian student arrested in protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election has died in jail, a newspaper said on Sunday, the second such death reported in two days. Amir Javadifar, 'a student of industrial management in Qazvin (city) died in prison,' the reformist Etemad newspaper said, adding that his family has been asked to come for the body on Sunday morning. Etemad said Javadifar had been arrested in July 9 protests and had suffered injuries to his arm and nose, but it did not elaborate on the cause of death. Newspapers reported on Saturday that Mohsen Ruholamini, 25, who had also been arrested on July 9 when thousands of protesters took to the streets on the anniversary of a bloody student uprising in 1999, had also died in custody. Ruholamini was the son of an ally to conservative defeated candidate Mohsen Rezai and his death has triggered concerned comments by some MPs." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmIg79F47AoAalxkZ6q_I...)

The Washington Post reported that "Thousands of people poured into the streets of cities around the world Saturday in a show of solidarity with Iranians protesting the results of their country's presidential election last month. Billed as a 'global day of action,' rallies led by a coalition of human rights groups were held in more than 100 cities, organizers said...In London, about 1,000 protesters clapped, sang and chanted 'No more bloodshed!' outside the Iranian Embassy. Many carried single red roses or signs saying 'Where is my vote?' The protesters demanded the release of people detained for demonstrating against the disputed June 12 election, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected in a landslide...In Amsterdam, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi told a crowd of several hundred that many of the detained Iranians are being forced to confess on state-controlled television. 'What they broadcast is a lie,' she said, speaking through an interpreter. In Italy, about 300 people gathered in the small northeastern city of Bagnacavallo, where volunteers took turns reading pages from the 'Arabian Nights' for more than 10 hours in the central square." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR200907...)   

The New York Times reported that "In the latest sign of dissension within Iran's conservative ranks, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new deputy withdrew Friday in response to a letter demanding his removal written by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state television and news agencies reported.  The resignation resolved a week of acrimony over the deputy, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who had drawn fierce criticism from hard-liners over comments he made last year that were friendly to Israel. It also underscored the authority within Iran's Islamic political system of Ayatollah Khamenei, whose handwritten letter - made public by state television on Friday - appeared to have overridden Mr. Ahmadinejad's persistent refusal to dismiss his trusted deputy. The dispute may also be a sign that Mr. Ahmadinejad is more vulnerable to conservative rivals in the wake of last month's disputed presidential election, analysts said. The existence of Ayatollah Khamenei's letter was made public several days ago, but Mr. Ahmadinejad refused to back down, despite a withering campaign by conservatives. The criticism peaked on Friday, when hundreds of hard-line students rallied in Tehran to demand Mr. Mashaei's ouster and a prominent ayatollah chastised Mr. Ahmadinejad for flouting the supreme leader's wishes." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html)

The Washington Post reported that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired his intelligence minister and his culture minister resigned under pressure Sunday as further rifts emerged in his camp with just days to go until his controversial inauguration for a second term. Although Ahmadinejad has frequently replaced his cabinet members over the past four years, Sunday's firing and resignation were significant because both Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi are especially close to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, analysts say...Taken together, the moves suggest deep unhappiness within Ahmadinejad's inner circle at a time when the government is still reeling from the impact of a weeks-long campaign by the opposition to overturn the results of June's disputed election, in which Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in a landslide...The two departures from the cabinet on Sunday mean that 12 out of Ahmadinejad's original 21 cabinet members have either resigned or been fired since 2005. Under the constitution, Ahmadinejad is required to submit his cabinet to a new vote of confidence from the parliament if he has replaced more than half its members. That is unlikely to happen, however, because Ahmadinejad is being sworn in for a second term Aug. 5, and he will have to submit a new cabinet for confirmation by Aug. 28. In the meantime, Iranian political observers say Ahmadinejad's government will have trouble functioning. The deputy head of the parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, told Mehr that any cabinet meeting would be illegal until the new cabinet is sworn in." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/26/AR200907...)   

CNN reported that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has appointed Esfandyar Rahim Mashaie as his adviser, a day after the controversial political figure resigned as first vice president, Iran's state-run news agency reported on Saturday...It comes after Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Ahmadinejad to nullify Mashaie's appointment to the key post of first vice president. Mashaie announced he would resign from the position on Friday. Later that day, Ahmadinejad appointed his long-time friend and the father-in-law of his son as his presidential adviser and head of his bureau." (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/25/iran.ahmadinejad.mashaie/)

The LA Times reported that "The 2,700 or so followers of the Bahai faith in Southern California enjoy a life their brethren in Iran have cause to desire. Here, they have access to education, work, and, most importantly for them, the right to worship. Iran's fundamentalist Shiite government has barred the country's 300,000 Bahai from holding government jobs, attending universities and practicing their religion, according to human-rights groups and the United Nations. Conditions have worsened in recent years, observers say, and now seven leaders of Iran's Bahai community are held in Tehran's Evin prison, where they face charges of espionage and possible execution. Their imprisonment has been condemned by the United States and human-rights groups, who see it as evidence of Iran's persistent persecution of Bahais, its largest non-Muslim minority. It has weighed heavily on the faith's adherents in Los Angeles. Nonetheless, the Bahai's response to the arrests has been understated, at least in public. Local Bahais -- immigrants and American converts -- have neither taken to the streets in protest, nor have they tried to ride the wave of international indignation over Iran's disputed presidential election last month. To do so, they said, would run counter to their religious principles of love, compassion and trustworthiness." (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs27-2009jul27,0,5626861.story)

The Wall Street Journal reported that "The creators of a program aimed at counteracting Iran's Internet filters have issued a call for something that lies around unused on plenty of desks: USB thumb drives. The program, called Haystack, allows Iranian citizens to access the Internet without the impediments on Facebook and other sites that the government has imposed. It also masks the user's identity online, a crucial safety measure amid efforts by pro-regime Internet users to track down protesters...Now Haystack is seeking thumb drives, which can be used to spread the software from within the country." (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/27/one-way-to-help-iran-protesters-d...)

The LA Times reported that "Tens of thousands of Iranians were in for a shock in recent days when they got their paychecks and found their wages had dropped back to the same level as before election season. After boosting the salaries of government employees and retirees for two months in the run-up to the June 12 elections -- in what critics decried as a naked attempt at vote-buying --  the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has slashed wages again. According to a report Sunday by the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency, wages for retired army personnel have been cut by $100 to $250 per month. Hamshahri, a daily newspaper run by Tehran's mayor, put the decreases at $60 to $200 per month. That's no small change in a country where civil servants and retirees typically live off a  few hundred dollars a month and inflation continues to eat into people's standard of living. The salary cuts also have hit other public service employees, who were lavished with praise and bonuses in the weeks before the election." (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/07/iran-with-vote-beh...)

Jim Hoagland wrote in Sunday's Washington Post that "The underlying subject for today is the evolving U.S. discussion on Iran's nuclear weapons capability. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew attention to that subject last week with a few ill-considered words in a televised town hall meeting in Thailand...These words are ill-considered not because they are wrong or wrongheaded. The problem is that they state an obvious truth in obvious language. 'Defense umbrella' is a term codified by decades of Cold War experience and theory. It is strategic shorthand for the commitment that an attack on our ally is an attack on us and will be dealt with as such -- including the use of nuclear weapons if necessary...Israeli politicians immediately portrayed Clinton's remarks in Thailand as a weakening of the U.S. stance on Iran by suggesting that the Obama administration is looking at scenarios for living with a nuclear-armed Iran. That goes too far. The president believes that Iran is developing a nuclear-weapons capability through its current U.N.-opposed uranium enrichment program, a senior official told me this month, and he will not accept Iran achieving the ability to make a bomb quickly from the stockpile it is accumulating. Key European nations -- probably including Russia and Germany -- now believe the world will have to live with such an Iranian capability rather than take military action or impose harsh sanctions. That is a fault line far more important than any turf battles in Washington." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR200907...)  

Azadeh Moaveni wrote in Sunday's Washington Post that "Immediately after the election, such protests evoked the grand marches of the 1979 Islamic revolution. But the scale of the dissent soon diminished. Clearly, the state's vicious tactics were partly to blame. But Iranians were not simply terrorized into staying at home. Rather, there was no leader inspiring them to take to the streets -- and put their lives at risk...The unwavering anger, however, is nudging Mousavi and his allies forward. On July 17, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ascended the podium at Friday prayers in Tehran. Mousavi announced he would attend the sermon -- his first official appearance since last month's election -- and urged Iranians to attend as well. After nearly a month devoid of such calls to action, with many fearful that Mousavi would capitulate to the hard-line leadership, the appeal resonated with tremendous force...For the first time, the opposition's empty calls for the election to be overturned took on a more visible strategy. Rafsanjani proclaimed that the state's republican institutions need to be shored up. He increased the pressure against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who as supreme religious leader represents the unelected, absolutist face of the Islamic republic. Two days later, Khatami called for a referendum on the government's legitimacy. Though in principle that demand is meaningless -- only Khamenei is legally empowered to call a national referendum -- the mounting pressure might eventually force the supreme leader to compromise. No one knows whether Mousavi and his opposition allies can sustain this brazen challenge to the establishment. It is a question that Iranians whisper and argue about openly in the streets of their cities, as they resume their prosaic summer routines. In the sultry, pollution-infused heat, they pick up children from day care, buy speckled peaches and commute to work in battered Korean taxis, their conversations grave with concern and still charged with anticipation." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR200907...)

Thomas Friedman wrote in Sunday's New York Times that "After spending a week traveling the frontline of the 'war on terrorism' - from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan - I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys are losing. Yes, the dominos you see falling in the Muslim world today are the extremist Islamist groups and governments. They have failed to persuade people by either their arguments or their performances in power that their puritanical versions of Islam are the answer. Having lost the argument, though, the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels - and they can for a while. Because, while the radicals have failed miserably, our allies - the pro-Americans, the Muslim modernists, the Arab moderates - have not really filled the void with reform and good government of their own. They are winning by default...The fact that Iran's ruling theocrats had to steal their election to stay in power and forcibly suppress dissent by millions of Iranians - according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Iran has surpassed China as the world's leading jailer of journalists, with 41 now behind bars - is the most visible sign of this. The Taliban's burning down of secular schools that compete with its mosques, and its peddling of heroin to raise cash, are also not exactly signs of intellectual triumph...To the extent that the radical Islamists have any energy today, it comes not from the power of their ideas or examples of good governance, but by stoking sectarian feuds...The only way to really dry up their support, though, is for the Arab and Muslim modernists to actually implement better ideas by producing less corrupt and more consensual governance, with better schools, more economic opportunities and a vision of Islam that is perceived as authentic yet embracing of modernity. That is where 'our' allies in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have so consistently failed. Until that happens, the Islamist radicals will be bankrupt, but not out of business." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26friedman.html?scp=20&sq=iran...)  

Robert Fisk wrote in today's Independent that "Protest demonstrations over Iran's presidential election results spread across at least 80 cities in six continents this weekend - with one worrying sign for supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran: in several cities, protesters could clearly be seen carrying posters advocating the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. This is something that neither Mousavi nor his supporters have encouraged. For not one of the original protesters in Iran ever demanded the destruction of Iran's Islamic Republic...The ruling clerical leadership in Iran and their security accomplices have been trying to persuade the world and the citizens of Iran - and, indeed, themselves - that the Tehran demonstrations were part of a monstrous, foreign-inspired plot organised by all the usual suspects: the CIA, the opposition Mujahedin Qalq (whom even the Americans these days regard as a 'terrorist' organisation) and, of course, Britain. The more that Mousavi and his supporters can be painted into a 'spy' corner, the more the arrests and beatings and deaths since the 12 June poll - which this weekend's demonstrations were supposed to be about - can be seen as part of a necessary counter-revolutionary operation...Interestingly, the weekend protesters paid little attention to subjects which respectively obsess the West and put fear into the hearts of Iranians: Iran's nuclear project; and Iranian aircrafts' disturbing habit of falling out of the sky." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/world-focus-as-iran-...)

Rosemary Righter wrote in today's Times that "Shades of 1979 will be evoked this Thursday, when Iranians mark the end of the 40-day mourning cycle for the first protesters - including the iconic Neda Agha Soltan - mown down by the regime. Yesterday Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi requested permission to hold a memorial service for them in Tehran's main mosque. To ban such a ceremony would be seen as un-Islamic. But everyone remembers that in 1979 the cycles of 40-day mourning, and the shooting of mourners, turned opposition to the Shah into an irresistible mass movement. Iran is not nearly at that point yet. Inoculated against the 'martyr culture' by 30 years of Khomeinism, and the horrendous 'Islamic human wave' death toll in the Iran-Iraq war, the young are far less prepared than their parents to die for any cause, even freedom, unless it appears to be attainable. The Revolutionary Guard is an incomparably more powerful and ruthless coercive force than any at the Shah's command. And the regime still has the will to hit back. Khamenei told Iran's elites last week to be 'careful' not to risk 'flunking a test they could never retake,' adding with deliberate menace that 'anyone, with whatever title and position, who pushes the society towards insecurity would be a hated figure.' The message was clear: the Supreme Leader will not shrink at destroying Iran's mightiest, if that is what it takes to retain power. But Mr. Rafsanjani's website countered with a passage from his memoirs. 'The term fear is meaningless. There is a test in the waiting for each generation, and the most important test is how to relate to the people.' The passage, his office innocently but pointedly commented, recorded Mr Rafsanjani's considered reflections - on the 1979 revolution." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rosemary_righter/art...)

Daniel Freedman wrote on Saturday in Forbes that "This week Iran released on bail the remainder of the British embassy employees it had detained following the disputed June 12 presidential election. It is tempting to dismiss the latest arrests and releases--along with the similar episodes that have occurred over the last couple of years involving everyone from U.S. journalists to British Navy sailors--as irrational acts of a regime that doesn't know what it is doing. The reality is that these provocative acts are very rational and serve Iran's interests. They're classic 'dictaplomacy.'...Dictaplomacy is also often used to humiliate Western diplomats. It's a way for the rogue regime to do what it would like to do through war but is unable to do. For Western states facing dictaplomacy from nations like Iran or Syria, the key is to tell the rogue regime that they understand their tactics and won't allow them to succeed. Dictaplomacy didn't work during the Cold War because the U.S. rewarded misbehavior not with promises of more talks but with a willingness to walk away from the table and ratchet up the pressure. Bad behavior was met with a stern response, not concessions. The use of dictaplomacy should produce more concessions--from rogue regimes like Iran." (http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/24/iran-foreign-policy-strategy-opinions-c...)

Fareed Zakaria wrote on Saturday in Newsweek that "What does this turmoil mean for Washington and the world's dealings with Iran? Obviously it makes negotiating with Tehran close to impossible right now. Any talks with Ahmadinejad would confer legitimacy on a regime that has lost it at home. And any gains agreed to in talks with a regime that is searching tactically for legitimacy might well prove to be temporary.The best strategy is to do nothing. Hillary Clinton implied as much when she put off the question of negotiating with Iran. In fact, the ball is in Tehran's court anyway. In April, the West presented Iran with an offer of talks that is serious and generous. Let Khamenei and Ahmadinejad figure out how to respond, as they keep claiming they will. The West faces constraints, but they face many more. Some argue that this allows Iran to inch closer to a bomb. But the best way to blunt that threat-which is still not imminent-has always been deterrence and containment, a policy that worked against Stalin and Mao and works against North Korea, a far more unstable and bizarre regime. Again, Secretary Clinton correctly outlined such a policy last week. (On being offered a nuclear umbrella, Israel criticized the United States, which is a sign of the current Israeli government's poor relations with Washington.) Time is not on the current Iranian regime's side. Amid all this confusion, we have a clear answer to a crucial puzzle. We always wondered, are there moderates in Iran? Yes, it turns out-millions of them." (http://www.newsweek.com/id/208656?from=rss)