Khamenei, whose public statements should be taken seriously, is promising some sort of devastating “punch” against the West on Thursday the 11th, the same day as the Green Movement is calling for a monster protest against his regime.

What might he have in mind?  I don’t know; they say a lot of things just for effect, but threats/promises from the supreme leader have a certain standing. If I were an Israeli official, I’d recheck my information on Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Some think he’s preparing some kind of attack against Israel. Surely there has been no shortage in recent weeks of nasty language against the Jewish state. Here’s Foreign Minister Mottaki a day ago:

“Iran is facing a mad nation led by insane people. This is the reason why all of us in the region – in Syria, in Lebanon, and the Palestinians – must be prepared constantly for any crazy operation against us.”

Other Iranian leaders have spoken of the “inevitability” of Israel’s destruction.  Maybe they have something in mind.

The other obvious possibility is that he’s ordered a massive, Chinese-style crackdown on the opposition.  Since he believes that the opposition is foreign-based and foreign-controlled, a devastating massacre might count as a big “punch” to the West.

He’s totally obsessed with bringing an end to the protests, and the nightly chants of “Death to the Dictator” that haunt him so.  In the last few days he’s been telephoning opposition journalists and intellectuals, telling them to give it up, and the preparations for the crackdown have gone so far as to replace the traditional plastic garbage cans in Tehran — in which demonstrators have been setting fires to combat tear gas — with metal ones.  I don’t understand the point of that, but I’m sure it annoys the sanitation workers, who will now have to hoist much heavier containers.

Meanwhile, the purge of journalists and activists continues. Since June 12th, the regime has arrested slightly more than 11,000 people, more than 3,000 of whom are still in those nightmare cells.  Executions continue at a regular tempo, as does torture.

The Greens expect the regime to go all out on Thursday.  The leaders believe they will be arrested on Friday, and are prepared for it.  In his recent interview Mousavi remarked that a large number of his best friends were in prison, and he was sad not to be with them.

He also said that the Green Movement did not depend on his leadership, or anyone else’s.

That theory may be about to be tested by Ali Khamenei, starting Thursday.

It’s from Sueddeutsche Zeitung, citing a “new IAEA summary.”  The article is in German. Here’s a translation:

“Iran has developed a nuclear warhead, according to an article in the German newspaper “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”. A foreigner alleged to have helped Iran towards developing nuclear weapons is from the former Soviet Union…The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already mentioned the employment of a foreigner in the nuclear programme.

Quoting a new IAEA summary, the Suddeutsche said the scientist had previously worked in a Soviet nuclear weapons laboratory on advanced warheads. It said both western intelligence services and diplomats had confirmed the connection.

The newspaper added that Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon small enough to fit into one of its Shahab 3 medium-range missiles and was designing a so-called two-point implosion system, which requires only two simultaneously exploding detonators to trigger a nuclear blast.

The former Soviet scientist was an expert on the high-speed cameras needed to test if both detonations were symmetrical, and had worked for Iran from the mid-1990s till 2000.

Somebody better tell Director of National Intelligence Blair, who testified this week that the Iranian regime had not yet decided to produce nuclear weapons.

It looks like February 11th will be the most violent confrontation to date.  The regime is taking unusual measures to put down the promised demonstrations.  In many ways it resembles the “Chinese solution.”  First, an unprecedented mobilization: 120 trains and something like a thousand buses have been deployed from as far away as 250 kilometers from the capital.  They will be used by the Revolutionary Guards and Basij to bring tens of thousands of paid “volunteers” to Tehran.  These will consist of entire families (dependent on the regime) to counter the Green Wave.  Each family gets $80 for the day, plus free food.  The regime is aiming at 300,000 thugs in the streets.  The Greens don’t think the numbers will be that high, and in any event they expect ten times that number of protesters, upwards of three million increasingly angry people, demanding freedom and justice.

Their resolve has undoubtedly been hardened by the very tough interview released earlier this week by Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.  As before, Mousavi put himself on the line, defying the regime to move against him as the mullahs have moved against his friends, allies, and family members.  It’s quite a challenge:

Today, the prison cells are occupied with the most sincere and devoted sons of this nation: students, professors and others. [Security forces] are trying to prosecute them with espionage or charges related to financial or sexual misconduct – charges based on expired formulas – while the real criminals and thieves who steal public money are free. Instead of looking for the real spies, they accuse decent religious people. I should take this opportunity to express my regret that all of my advisors, who are decent, honest and educated individuals, have been arrested; that I am not with them. These days, there is not a [single] night that I do not think of Imam [Khomeini], martyr Beheshti and others. I whisper to them that what was achieved is far from what they sought…

Khamenei has still not mustered the courage to strike directly at Mousavi or Karroubi, which everyone sees as a sign of weakness.  They see it as I do, as evidence that he is not prepared for a real showdown, fearing the vastly greater numbers of the Greens, and the unreliability of his armies.  He knows that the recent Green video, appealing to the armed forces to join the revolution, is having an effect.

Silvio Berlusconi, in Jerusalem to sign an agreement with Israel, promised full support for the Iranian opposition, and noted that Iran has a leader “who reminds us of evil people from the past.” Berlusconi has previously compared Ahmadinejad with Hitler.

Would that other Western leaders understood that support for democratic revolution in Iran is the best available option.  Meanwhile crackpot realists purport to analyze our “options” without even mentioning it.  For them, it’s either “make a deal” or prepare to go to war.  Tom Paine stirs restively in his grave…

Every year, as spring approaches, the small remnant of Iranian Zoroastrians gathers to celebrate the rituals of the world’s oldest monotheistic faith.  For many years now, I have been hearing stories about a substantial Zoroastrian movement, and I’ve met some Iraqi Zoroastrians, whose patience and resolve greatly impressed me.  I have an ongoing fantasy that some day, after we are rid of the Islamic Republic, we will witness a rebirth of the religion that gave us Cyrus the Great, the author of the world’s first proclamation of human rights, and the liberator of the ancient Jews.  The regime greatly fears this, and they have removed “Persian Empire” from the curriculum.

I thought you might welcome a peek at the Zoroastrians, so here’s a good video, and some useful background, here and here.  Notice that MSNBC reports that this year, for the first time in recent years, Muslims participated in the ritual.  To which I would add, the regime did not try to quash it.  Let’s hope it’s an augury.

Meanwhile, I was struck by the remarkable good will and discipline demonstrated by Green protestors against the regime’s man in France.   “Homylafayette” provides a very entertaining account here, complete with videos and great photos.  The Iranian Ambassador to France totally lost it, and got a lesson in good manners from the gendarmes.  How sweet it is!

Think of the confrontation as a Zoroastrian-style crowd against a furious fundamentalist who knows his world is burning…ironically just as Persia’s ancient community is kindling the ritual flame of new life.

Let’s start with economics.  Here are three recent tweets:

• Updates on Iran’s economic situation: The price of bread has increased six-fold since subsidies slashed;

• Iran’s Energy Ministry: The price of electricity for households will soon be quadrupled;

• Bank Melli & Mellat have told AN (Ahmadinejad) if they don’t receive funds within 4 days, they’ll be bankrupt.

And here are some data on Ahmadinejad’s accomplishments from a Farsi web site:

• 47% under poverty line.

• 75% of all projects started remain unfinished&halted.

• Average inflation of 20%.

• Budget submitted one month late.

• Welfare under $20 aftr promising $70 during elections.

• Gov employees raises granted days before the election are now deduced in installments on paychecks.

• Failure to submit progress reports & answer to legal authorities for the past 4 years.

• No inflation-adjusting raises of Gov employees salaries & benefits.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that people are racing to the banks to get their rials and toumans out, and convert them to some harder currency.  But the banks won’t give them all their money;  withdrawals are limited to $15,000 per account, and there have been many angry scenes.  The people know that the rulers are shipping out their own wealth, and they hear terrible rumors about the impending failure of major banks.

A Tweet:  “Bank Melli security guard fires at people, injures old man”

This bespeaks a far broader malaise, a slow descent of the Iranian state into the inferno.  As Ahmad Alavi, a thoughtful economist, put it, the state now faces a crisis of legitimacy.  The people are acting on the basis of their experience, and, lacking reliable information and confidence, the only way they have to conserve their assets is to take it from the bank.

Not so long ago I was in the pundit’s equivalent of the psychiatric ward, as one of a tiny handful of people (generally considered deranged) claiming that the Iranian people hated the mullahcracy, were prepared to rise up against it, were totally worthy of American (indeed broad Western) support, and would win.

All of a sudden,  a good-sized gaggle of born-again democratic revolutionaries have entered the bandwagon.  In the last couple of weeks, Bob Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, Jim Glassman, Ray Takeyh and Richard Haass have jumped on board.  God willing, they will stay and attract others.  Welcome, comrades!

So this seems a good time to catch up on bandwagon etiquette.  First, explain what got you here;  that’s a great way to encourage reluctant “realists” to join our revolutionary ranks.  Kagan understands that, and tells us why he changed his mind.  After the June 12th election fraud and the huge crowds that filled the streets of every major city in Iran, he notes, only a blind man could fail to see what was going on:

A year ago…there was little sign the Iranian people would ever rise up and demand change, no matter what the United States and other democratic nations did to help them. If the prospects for a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program seemed remote, the prospects for regime change were even more remote. These probabilities have shifted since June 12.

If he had had more space, Bob would undoubtedly have added, by today it should be clear that the mass movement aimed at regime change in Iran is truly that, and extends throughout all levels of Iranian society, most paradoxically to the Shi’ite clerical leaders.  Poor Khamenei keeps saying that religious leaders should speak up, by which he means “defend me!”  But they won’t;  they want him gone, as most Iranians do.

Yes, I’m starting with Massachusetts.  I’m entitled.  My mother, of blessed memory, was born and raised in Pittsfield, Mass, one of six remarkable sisters, the daughter of a kosher meat wholesaler.  I lived in Pittsfield for a few years, attended Redfield School, and I was there when Dewey lost to Truman, one of my earliest political memories. We also lived for a couple of years in Springfield, where my father, of blessed memory, ran Indian Motorcycle Company towards the end of its storied history.

The Ledeens were of course Dems, and later on, in New Jersey, became liberal Republicans of the Clifford Case variety, but in Massachusetts I only remember Dems. And so it was with considerable surprise that I found that Pittsfield had gone for Brown.  Indeed, 69% of Pittsfield voters chose him.

I don’t think a vote of such magnitude was based merely on anger, a word invariably trotted out to explain Democratic defeats (remember the “angry white man” a few years back?).  I do believe that passion played a big role, but a somewhat different one:  not anger, but fear.  They’re afraid of Obama.  Afraid of what he’s doing to them, and therefore prepared to change sides.

This fear is extremely broad-based.  It is not limited to social class nor to domestic or foreign policies.  Banks are not lending, companies are not hiring, because they are afraid of what Obama will do next.  Both are afraid of onerous taxes, including new health care burdens, and the banks fear new regulations and the consequences of the recently declared war on evil bankers by the president.  Seniors are afraid they will be deprived of medical treatment.  Juniors are afraid they are going to be forced to buy health insurance they don’t think they need.  Across the board, Americans are afraid they’re not going to find work, and won’t be able to afford a house.  And, as the Massachusetts vote showed, Americans are worried about threats from abroad, worried about Iran, afraid of terrorist attacks, and afraid the Obama Administration doesn’t take all this seriously enough.  As Scott Brown put it, most Americans think our tax dollars should go to fighting terrorists, not to pay lawyers to defend terrorists.

This too funny: go to www.hizbollah.ir and watch what happens, heh.  Don’t miss the internet address it takes you to.

The Farsi message at the top quotes the Koran:

“Those who rule over people either by justice or deceit. You should know that deceiving people is like sticking a saw in the a*se. There is no way 4ward and no way back”  (h/t anonymous iran)

In case it’s taken down, you get this:  “THE END IS FUCKING NEAR” on a bright green background.  Here’s another link:  http://www.facebook.com/notes/freedom-messenger-ghasedane-azadi/hezbolahs-web-site-in-iran-has-been-hacked-/253033364589 کون ، لا الطريق أمام وألا يبقى الطريق
ای کسانی که بر جماعتی بر حق یا تقلب حکومت می کنید، بدانید که فریب خلق خدا اره در کون کردن است، نه راه پیش باقی می گزارد و نه راه پس

“THE END IS FUCKING NEAR”

))
IRANIAN GREEN ARMY WAS HERE!
iranian.green.army@gmail.com
ما بی شماریم

Early Tuesday morning — sometime between 7:30 and 8 o’clock — physics professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed in an explosion while in his automobile leaving for Tehran University.  The explosion came from a motorcycle rigged with explosives that had been parked in front of his house for three days.  It was detonated by remote control.

Despite a torrent of disinformation from the regime, Ali-Mohammadi was not involved in the secret nuclear weapons project, and — again contrary to the regime’s lies — he was certainly not a regime loyalist.  Indeed, he was among many university professors who supported Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi during last spring’s heated electoral campaign (see the entry at 1259 GMT on Enduring America).  Why was he killed now?  Because he was planning to leave the country for Stockholm, where he’d been offered a one-year fellowship in his chosen specialty, particle physics.

So unless the killers were totally confused, this was not a blow at the regime by its enemies, whether domestic or foreign (as you can imagine, there were all sorts of wild accusations from official media, blaming the murder on America, Israel, the MEK, which plays the crocodile to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Captain Hook and obscure “royalist” organizations abroad), but rather the opposite:  it was a vicious assault by the regime against one of its critics.

The use of the motorcycle is suggestive, for such devices were used by Iranian proxies in Iraq.  I am told that the assassination is the first such act on Iranian soil by the Revolutionary Guard’s “foreign legion;” highly trained killers from Lebanese Hezbollah.  Members of the legion had participated in street fighting in Tehran during recent demonstrations and were identified at the assassination site. Their bloody act Tuesday morning suggests that Khamenei has decided to go all out to crush his enemies.  If further confirmation is required, it has come from Khamenei’s personal spokesman and representative to the Guards, Ali Saeedi, who, we hear from Scott Lucas at Enduring America, has reportedly declared that the the deaths of 75,000 people will be worthwhile if the Islamic Republic is thereby preserved.

As if the carnage unleashed against the Iranian people were not bloody enough!  So we can expect to see further escalation in the near future.  The regime can be expected to use the disinformation about Ali-Mohammadi’s assassination to justify mayhem on a greater scale.