Moscow Advances Military and Economic Ties with Tehran

Washington and Tel-Aviv apply more and more pressure to Tehran. In fact, their actions against Iran leave the impression that something like a joint military operation might be undertaken soon.

Lieutenant General Henry Obering of the US Missile Defense Agency recently said that Tehran was actively working on Ashura (a modified Shakhab-3 missile) with the range of 2,000 kilometers and that it had a satellite in orbit. According to Obering, it is a clear indication of Tehran's determination to design missiles with larger and larger ranges until at last it comes up with something capable of reaching the US territory (by 2017 or so). Obering concluded that America needed mobile defense systems near the Russian western borders right now.

Moscow in the meantime keeps telling whoever will listen that the American ABM defense framework threatens Russia and that the hypothetical Iranian menace is but an invention of the Pentagon. In any event, there are certain circles in Washington that will be happy to make their move against Iran. Intermediaries (United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and Germany) offer close economic cooperation to Tehran in return for dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programs. Iran in its turn categorically refuses to stop enrichment of uranium which it claims is an element of peaceful programs. Official Washington nevertheless suspects that Iran is but stalling for time.

Israel, one of the countries that view Iran as definitely an enemy, is playing its part in all this decision-making. Iran meanwhile arranges field tests of its new weapons and vigorously exercises its army.

Military exercises of the Iranian regular army take place against the background of media speculations that the United States and Israel will strike at Iranian nuclear sites before the year is over.

Iranian missile tests stirred criticism throughout the West and particularly in the United States that demanded an end to all work on ballistic missiles fearing that they might be put to use as delivery means for nuclear weapons. Washington and Tel-Aviv issued their traditional warnings to Iran.

Afraid of economic risks, Western businesses sever their ties with Iran. Russia appears to be the only country to keep advancing its military and economic contacts with Tehran.

Gazprom made an agreement with the Iranians last week to establish a joint venture to develop oil and gas projects (including the ones countries of the West abandoned). The matter concerns development of the Southern Pars gas field and construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India. Russian companies will also participate in the Northern Azadegan oil field development and construction of a refinery in Iran.

Military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Tehran continues as well. Two years ago, Moscow sold the Iranians intermediate-range antiaircraft complexes good for engaging the enemy at the distances of between 30 and 50 kilometers. Other weapons of defense that may end up in Iran include S-300s, high-precision weapons, and antiship missiles. Experts say that Tehran might also be willing to buy Tochka-U and Iskander-E antiaircraft complexes, Kornet-E antitank weapons, and mobile antiaircraft guns used for defense of troops and strategic objects.

Golshifteh Farahani was banned to leave for Hollywood

Iran has banned a young actress from leaving the country over her appearance in a Hollywoood production, AFP reported. "Golshifteh Farahani was banned from leaving by the authorities at the airport on Tuesday when she was about to leave for Hollywood to examine a new offer," the report says. it has been reported that the decision was prompted by her starring in Ridley Scott's latest movie Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. The 25-year-old Farahani is one of Iran's most popular actresses and has starred in several Iranian movies, including Santouri, The Wall and The Fish Fall in Love. Her appearance in Body of Lies, which tells the story of a CIA agent sent to Jordan to track down an Al-Qaeda leader, marked the first by an actress living in Iran in a Hollywood production.

Most Reformists Appear Purged From Iran Ballot

When voters go to the polls on March 14 to select members of Parliament, they may be able to choose only between conservative candidates and other conservative candidates, leaders of Iran’s main reform party said Wednesday. With more than 7,200 candidates registered to run for 290 seats in Parliament, officials with the party, the Islamic Participation Front, said it appeared that 70 percent of reformist candidates had been disqualified. The decisions are not final and will not be completed until early March, but the early indications are that the religiously conservative forces in control of every branch of government will try to block a comeback by the reformists close to Mohammad Khatami, the former president. “Such a large number of disqualifications is unprecedented,” said a statement by the reformist party posted on the Emruz Web site. The out-of-power reformists had hoped that the coming election would be a referendum on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s management of the state. With inflation and unemployment high, and now a serious shortage of heating gas during a record cold winter, the races were seen as a way for reformists and their allies to gain a second chance at power in Iran. They had once controlled Parliament and the presidency. But the president and his allies control the system of vetting candidates for access to the ballot. The first step is for local boards in each province, known as the Executive Councils, to approve a candidate for access to the ballot. The boards are appointed by regional governors who have been appointed by the president. The next step is for the Guardian Council, a hard-line body of clerics close to the supreme leader, to approve or disqualify candidates. In past elections, the Guardian Council was where reform-minded candidates found themselves disqualified. This time, however, candidates and party officials said that the mass disqualifications began at the regional boards. “We have learned that the majority of the disqualifications were done by the Executive Councils, not the Guardian Council,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a member of the party. “The Executive Councils are dominated by much more radical members than the Guardian Council,” he added. Mr. Abtahi said most of the reformists’ better-known candidates, who could attract votes, had been disqualified. Two members of Parliament were disqualified as well, including one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s most outspoken critics, Akbar Alami, who lost most of his right hand in the war with Iraq and has already served two terms in Parliament. “At age 52, I learned that according to the Executive Board I had allegations of noncommitment to Islam, lack of belief in the system of the Islamic Republic and lack of following the Constitution of the Islamic Republic,” Mr. Alami said He and other disqualified candidates can now appeal to regional supervisory boards and then to the Guardian Council. In past years, to ease the tensions caused by disqualification, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, intervened, encouraging the reversal of some disqualifications. The key to the value of this next election, analysts said, will be whether the system shuts out those in the opposing camp, or lets them have access to the ballot. A member of a conservative party, the Independent Fundamentalists, Saeed Abutaleb, said Wednesday that all the party’s candidates had been approved, the news agency ISNA reported. The party’s members have also been critical of the president’s economic performance. The Interior Ministry said it had screened more than 7,000 candidates, but it was not clear how many had finally been approved to run. Rejected candidates can appeal to the regional supervisory boards until next Wednesday, or they can appeal directly to the Guardian Council.

Tehran’s Mayor Speaks of Making Iran Less Isolated

The annual economic gathering here not only attracts those with power in business and politics but also offers a springboard for those who wish to wield it. Among the contenders in attendance this year is Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the 46-year-old mayor of Tehran who is being urged by some to run for the presidency of Iran next year as an “authoritarian modernizer.” Mr. Ghalibaf, who ran for president in 2005 and comes from the hard-line Islamic Revolution tradition, was once a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards. But he is also part of an emerging group of politicians who consider President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be harming the country’s economy through his acerbic anti-Western speeches and isolationist policies. So, will he run again? The mayor was asked in an interview Friday at his hotel below the ski slopes along this Swiss village. “The most important thing is the will of the people,” he said, declining to be more specific. “It is a long time remaining to the elections. Only time will tell.” But if he were to run, he went on, he would campaign for greater openness toward the outside world to attract more foreign investment and so reduce unemployment. The idea of a Tehran mayor becoming president is not improbable. Mr. Ahmadinejad was also the capital’s mayor, and Mr. Ghalibaf suggested that his achievements since his election as mayor in 2005 — improving public transportation projects and creating local councils — would help place him in good standing. In the two and a half years that he has been in office, Mr. Ghalibaf has built bridges and highways, fixed sidewalks and paved streets and has earned a reputation as someone who gets things done. As police chief, he enforced seat belt use and orderly driving regulations in a city not known for either practice. According to his official biography, Mr. Ghalibaf fought in the Iran-Iraq war for eight years and became a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards. The biography also describes him as an airplane pilot, a former presidential contender and an academic. He denied in the interview that he was a “military man.” When Mr. Ghalibaf was Tehran’s police chief, reform-minded Iranians saw him as a hard-liner because he and other commanders of the Revolutionary Guards signed a letter threatening to intervene unless the authorities quelled a pro-democracy uprising. But, his aides said, he was the first police chief since the Islamic Revolution to hire female officers. Mr. Ghalibaf did not take issue with the description of “authoritarian modernizer.” Before making an administrative decision, he said, he consults widely but, once the decision is made, “we go forward strongly.” As for Iranian politics, Mr. Ghalibaf did not seem prepared to criticize the government openly. “The government of President Ahmadinejad is elected by the Iranian people, and we respect it,” he said. But “we are different on some issues,” including the management of power and economic relations. “We would be more open,” an aide said. That offer of openness, however, did not extend to the United States, where Mr. Ghalibaf seemed to adhere to the Iranian orthodoxy requiring Washington to change its attitude before deep animosities could be eased. “If the United States can change its unilateral approach and replace it with a bilateral approach, then we can have dialogue,” he said. An aide explained that he meant Iran wanted the United States to treat it as a partner, not as a renegade. The deepest gulf between the two concerns Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Mr. Ghalibaf seemed as insistent as any other Iranian official in saying that his country neither sought nuclear weapons, as Western nations say it does, nor threatened its neighbors. “If Iran needs to defend itself, it can use conventional weapons to resist any attack,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. “We don’t need any atomic weapons or unconventional weapons. In our Islamic belief, these kind of things are forbidden.” Mr. Ghalibaf said he had come to Davos to convince foreigners that “in Tehran they can find stable economic opportunities, and in Tehran we have got security.” Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran.