From Robert Fisk

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's irascible, unpredictable but devout president, may be forced to resign in the coming weeks as a political crisis far greater than the massive street violence which followed his re-election in 2009 threatens to overwhelm him and his court favourites in the government.

The overweening influence of his close friend and confidant Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaee, the president's chief of staff – who is blamed for the firing of two intelligence ministers and for infuriating even the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei – is expected to bring down Ahmadinejad in one of the most spectacular putsches in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Iranian politicians are already speculating on who will succeed the president – Ali Akbar Salehi, the foreign minister and for four years the head of Iran's atomic agency, is a favourite – as three of Rahim-Mashaee's close allies have been purged in just three days over the past week, arrested by security agencies while Ahmadinejad has remained uncharacteristically silent. Mohamed Sharif Malekzadeh, who served briefly as Ahmadinejad's foreign minister; Ali Asghar Parhizkar, director of the Arvand free trade zone in the south of Iran; and his opposite number in the Aras trade zone in the north, Ali-Reza Moqimi, have all been charged with corruption, a dangerous accusation in the Islamic Republic where a fine line separates "corruption on earth" from "an enemy of God"

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/how-the-demise-of-a-trusted-adviser-could-bring-down-ahmadinejad-2303671.html

Iran has acknowledged its attempt to send a live monkey into space last month - touted as its first step towards launching a man into space - was a failure.

"The Kavoshgar-5 rocket carrying a capsule with a live animal [a monkey] was launched during Shahrivar," an Iranian calendar month spanning August 23 to September 22, deputy science minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

"However, the launch was not publicised as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished."

He said the launch of a live animal into space was "strategic, and a priority," and expressed hope that future launches would attain more of the objectives set.

On October 3, Iran indefinitely postponed plans to send a live monkey into space, without giving any reasons.

"One cannot give a set date for this project and as soon as our nation's scientists announce the readiness [of the project] it will be announced," said Hamid Fazeli, head of Iran's Space Organisation.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-13/iran-admits-failure-to-launch-monkeys-into-space/3568954

 

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EVEN by the forgiving standards of American credulity, the supposed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US is spectacularly ludicrous. That doesn't mean it isn't a sinister harbinger of a new crisis, possibly war.

Why would Iran want to kill the Saudi envoy - not the colourful and influential Prince Bandar who used to hold the job, but the mild-mannered functionary, Adel al-Jubeir (above)? To kill any ambassador - particularly a Saudi ambassador - is to invite lethal retaliation, even war. Iran doesn't want war with the US.

Manssor J. Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American used car salesman from Corpus Christi, Texas, has been indicted as the chief conspirator working for Iranian intelligence. He is charged with promising to pay $1.5 million to Los Zetas - one of the Mexican drug cartels - to kill the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in Washington.

The FBI claims that Arbabsiar told the Drug Enforcement Agency's informant - posing as a high-ranking member of Los Zetas - that it would be "no big deal" if many others died at the restaurant, possibly including United States senators. He also proposed bombing the Israeli embassy.

If even one US senator died in a terrorist bombing in Washington, if anything larger than a firecracker detonated outside the Israeli embassy, US bombers would be raining high explosive on Iranian targets within 24 hours. Why would Iran want to invite such a response?

The supposed plot is wreathed in incidental grandiose absurdities: a side deal between the Quds Force, part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and Los Zetas to smuggle vast shipments of opium from the Middle East to Mexico, and plans to bomb the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina.

To repeat: Iran doesn't want war with the US. Quite the reverse. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently tried to refloat the Tehran Research Reactor nuclear fuel swap. He proposed that Iran suspend production of some uranium-enrichment activities in exchange for fuel supplies from the United States. On 29 September the International Herald Tribune ran an oped piece saying the proposal was well worth consideration by the US government. All such hopes of a warming in relations have now been snuffed out.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/85834,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-iranian-terror-plot-is-it-just-a-pretext-for-war-saudi-arabia#ixzz1aen3FqtO
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