0555 GMT: Amid the regime statements on Friday, the address of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi, introducing Tehran Friday Prayers, may have been the most interesting. International media were entranced with his claim that "foreign intelligence agencies" --- US, Britain, Israel, France, Germany --- were "in shock" over the round-up of their "terrorist networks"; however, they missed the more significant declaration:
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi says the repetition of the unrest that followed the 2009 presidential elections will not be allowed in the country....
Moslehi noted that some leaders of that “sedition” are thinking about restarting political activities and posing new challenges to the Islamic Revolution....“The Intelligence Ministry is completely monitoring all such currents and will handle them so that people will not face any challenges or even feel [they are being] challenged,” he added. Supporting anti-revolutionary elements, saboteurs and those who try to create rift between the Islamc establishment and people are the main goals of the enemies, he cautioned. “The players in the soft war [game] are trying to destroy the ties between the people and the [Islamic] establishment by destroying their beliefs,” Moslehi stated.
Why --- especially if the Green Movement has been defeated --- would Moslehi issue this pointed warning? The answer may lay in the more conciliatory statements the regime has been making about a settlement in nuclear talks --- a settlement with the same "Western" powers who supposedly were behind the terrorists trying to undermine the Islamic Republic.
One of the worries, perhaps the chief worry, for Iran's leaders is that they will look weak if they sign a deal over uranium enrichment --- weak not in the eyes of Washington or London, but in those of their own people. So authority will have to be maintained, and the Minister of Intelligence was setting out a marker for this on Friday.
We have much more in an audio analysis, recorded by Scott Lucas with Monocle 24, posted later this morning.
Posted via email from lissping
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