UANI

The AFP reported that “Iranian hardliners warned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday to obey the country's supreme leader, piling further pressure on the embattled president following his disputed re-election and a series of controversial political decisions. In a rare gesture to Ahmadinejad's opponents, the authorities on Tuesday freed 140 protesters detained in the wave of massive public demonstrations against his return to office in an election the opposition says was rigged. The hardline president's standing has also been weakened even within his own support base, forcing him into a humiliating climbdown over a political appointment that was blocked by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090729/ts_afp/iranpolitics_20090729105953;...)

Pensions and Investments reported that “Florida State Board of Administration, Tallahassee, identified Siemens AG for possible divestment in connection with business activity in Iran, according to a report released Tuesday by the board. The $102 billion FSBA plans to communicate with the Germany-based company to clarify its business relationship in Iran to determine whether to divest. RiskMetrics Group, KLD Research & Analytics and American Israel Public Affairs Committee — research providers Florida SBA uses to help evaluate a company for business activity in Iran — disagree on their categorization of the company, according to the report. Under a 2007 state statute, the Florida Retirement System, which SBA oversees, is generally prohibited from investing in companies with business activities in Iran and Sudan.” (http://www.pionline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090728/REG/90728998...)

The AP reported that “The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday that Iran is still training and equipping Iraqi insurgents but is shifting its focus to influence the upcoming Iraqi elections and exerting ‘soft power’ over its majority-Shiite neighbor. Iranian meddling ‘is more targeted now than it has ever been,’ Gen. Ray Odierno said following meetings with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. ‘They are focused on their attempt to influence the national elections that will come up. They will be very focused on trying to support a government that will be more friendly to Iran.’ Gates was getting a firsthand look at U.S.-Iraqi cooperation following formal handover of control of Iraqi cities to Iraqi security forces. He met with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad over Iraqi requests for more military hardware, including state of the art fighter jets.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090729/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/ml_gates_iraq_12/p...)

The AP reported that “The U.S. is hearing only silence from Iran on its offers of dialogue. Iran's leaders, who initially seemed to welcome engagement, are turning inward to deal with the post-election crisis. If Iran's rulers mention the West at all these days, it's to tell Iranians the U.S. and its allies are behind the turmoil. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his hard-line allies have repeatedly blasted the West, saying it is trying to topple clerical rule by fueling the opposition protests that erupted in the wake of the disputed June 12 presidential election. Still, rhetoric for a domestic audience, no matter how heated, is not a ‘no’ to American diplomatic feelers. Too much is in flux to answer the two main questions: Whether Khamenei and the rest of the leadership even want a dialogue — and, if they do, whether they are in a position to pursue it. Much depends on how secure they feel in their confrontation with the opposition, which has posed the biggest challenge in decades to clerical rule by calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory illegitimate.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goykFnHZsAqRUFl1bXBuWb...)

The AFP reported that “The United States and China are united against Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday after high-level talks with a team from Beijing. Clinton told reporters she was ‘pleased that China shares our concerns about Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state.’ Both nations fear that a nuclear-armed Iran would trigger a regional arms race, Clinton said after the two days of talks. ‘The potential for destabilizing the Middle East and Gulf is viewed similarly,’ Clinton said. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090729/pl_afp/uschinapoliticseconomyirannu...)

The AFP reported that “Iran plans to put on trial about 20 people accused of rioting in the aftermath of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election as the embattled president came under fire again on Wednesday from hardliners over a series of controversial political decisions. The official IRNA news agency reported said the 20 ‘rioters’ would go on trial from Saturday on charges including bombings, carrying firearms and grenades, attacking Basij militiamen and security forces and having contacts with exiled opposition group the People's Mujahedeen. ‘They are also charged with attacking military units and universities, sending pictures to enemy media, organizing thugs and rioters, vandalizing public and state property including destroying banks and houses,’ it said.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090729/wl_mideast_afp/iranpolitics_2009072...)

Reuters reported that “Iranian authorities will release reformist Saeed Hajjarian on Wednesday, the judiciary said, more than six weeks after he was detained with hundreds of others after Iran's disputed presidential election. If it takes place, Hajjarian's release would be the latest reflection of unease among some senior officials about reports of harsh treatment of some of those held since the election. At least two young detainees have died in custody. ‘Political activist Hajjarian, who was arrested in post-election unrest, will be released today,’ the judiciary said in a statement. ‘His release takes place based on recent orders by the judiciary chief.’ Iran's top judge, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, told the judiciary on Monday to review the cases of people still held after the June 12 vote, which tipped Iran into its worst internal crisis in 30 years and exposed rifts in its ruling elite.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090729/wl_nm/us_iran_detainee_4/print)

The New York Times reported that “Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls. The accounts of prison abuse in Iran’s postelection crackdown — relayed by relatives and on opposition Web sites — have set off growing outrage among Iranians, including some prominent conservatives. More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials have told human rights workers that they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have died since the vote. On Tuesday, the government released 140 prisoners in one of several conciliatory gestures aimed at deflecting further criticism. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a letter urging the head of the judiciary to show ‘Islamic mercy’ to the detainees, and on Monday Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, personally intervened and closed an especially notorious detention center.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?_r=1&ref=...)

The Washington Post reported that “Iraqi troops and police carried out a bloody raid Tuesday on the camp of an Iranian opposition group that the United States has long sheltered, marking the Iraqi government's boldest move since it declared its sovereignty a month ago and offering the latest sign that American influence is waning as Iranian clout rises…The Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, has supplied information about Iran's nuclear program to the United States, but the group has long been an irritant to the Islamic republic, which has repeatedly asked the government of neighboring Iraq to expel MEK members. The way Baghdad deals with the group is widely seen as a signal of whether Iraq is more heavily swayed by Iran or by the United States. Leaders of the group said Iraqi troops fatally shot four residents Tuesday night and wounded scores. U.S. officials have long opposed a violent takeover of the camp northeast of Baghdad, and the Iraqi government's willingness to carry out the raid while Gates was in the country startled some American officials.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR200907...)

The LA Times reported that “Political hard-liners warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday that he could be deposed like past Iranian leaders if he continued to defy the country's supreme religious leader. The implied threat was the latest evidence of the rift within Iran's conservative camp and could serve to further sap the authority of a president already considered illegitimate by reformists. The Islamic Society of Engineers, a political group close to parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, warned in an open letter to Ahmadinejad that he could suffer the same fate as Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who was deposed in 1953 in a CIA-backed coup with the acquiescence of the clergy…’It seems you want to be the sole speaker and do not want to hear other voices,’ the group's letter says, noting that recent actions by Ahmadinejad have frustrated his own supporters. ‘Therefore it is our duty to convey to you the voice of the people.’” (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran29-2009jul29,0,4...)

The Washington Post reported that “In an apparent response Tuesday to allegations of abuses, Iran freed 140 opposition activists detained during election protests this summer and the country's supreme leader ordered a prison closed because of substandard conditions. The developments followed local news reports that four activists have died in custody in recent days. However, the Interior Ministry turned down a request by opposition leaders for permission to hold an event commemorating protesters killed in the crackdown after the disputed June 12 presidential election. The release of the 140 activists from Evin prison, one of Tehran's two main detention facilities, came after a visit by a special parliamentary committee, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. Those freed were not named, but the prominent women's rights activist Shadi Sadr was reported to have been among them, released on bail. Sadr was arrested July 17.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR200907...)

The Wall Street Journal reported that “Iraqi forces stormed a camp of more than 3,000 members of an Iranian dissident group that until recently had been protected by the U.S. military, in the biggest unilateral operation since American forces withdrew from Iraq's cities a month ago. Iran has long demanded that Iraq take action against the group, the Mujahedin e-Khalq, or MEK, but the U.S. had stood in its way. The willingness to go ahead with the raid appears to point to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's balancing act between his two most important allies, as the U.S. gradually pulls out of the country and neighboring Iran seeks to expand its influence.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124882660926888597.html#printMode)

The Wall Street Journal reported that “Reports from Tehran families in recent days of receiving the bodies of relatives arrested at opposition rallies who later died from violent treatment in prison have fueled anger at the government. Among the dead is Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a prominent conservative and adviser to presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai. His family said he died of cardiac arrest and bleeding in his lungs, and that his face had been smashed. News of his death in prison last week spurred fury across political lines, prompting even some progovernment newspapers and lawmakers to charge the regime with excessive use of force and violence in crushing its opposition. Opposition leaders warned of a backlash and urged the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to reverse its actions.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124882798823088671.html)

UANI Advisory Board Member Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post that “The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has been designed to clear a path for such talks -- expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without preconditions. Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed…The Iranian regime's reaction to engagement was to cut the ribbon on a nuclear enrichment facility, add centrifuges, conduct a fraudulent election, and kill and imprison a variety of political opponents. Regarding administration overtures, Clinton recently told the BBC, ‘We haven't had any response. We've certainly reached out and made it clear that's what we'd be willing to do . . . but I don't think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now.’” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR200907...)

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam wrote in the Guardian that “Iranians are writing their history. The pen of the revolutionaries of the 1970s has been supplemented by the keyboard of a new generation. Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters perfected clandestine pamphleteering and the distribution of audio cassettes to subvert the regime of the shah; today's activists use Facebook and Twitter to get their message across. This is not a movement for western "modernity"; this is not a battle at the end of which Iran will be either pro-western or anti-western. This is a movement that is realising the original utopia of the revolution in 1979: independence, freedom, Islamic Republic.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/28/iran-protests-martin...)

Roger Hardy of the BBC wrote “In the 30 years since the Islamic revolution which overthrew the Shah, there have been no shortage of rows, crises and factional squabbles. But this time is different. This time the disputes are out in the open - and the stakes could not be higher. There is a sense that Iran is at a crossroads. At the heart of the current crisis is the role of the Supreme Leader. This is the office created by the revolution's founding father, Ayatollah Khomeini. It put him at the top of the pyramid of political power, giving him the final say in all important decisions. But since Khomeini's death in 1989, the office has been held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who lacks the charisma and religious authority of his revered predecessor. It was Ayatollah Khamenei's intervention in June's presidential elections that plunged the country into turmoil. By endorsing the conservative candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as the winner, he abandoned the Supreme Leader's traditional neutrality as a figure above the political fray. ‘The office has been de-legitimised,’ says Iranian political scientist Farideh Farhi of the University of Hawaii, ‘because the Leader has chosen to take sides - and has come out in support of a violent approach to demonstrators.’” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8173066.stm)