An update, from 30 weeks ago
Last October, on the 20th and 23rd, I wrote the following two pieces. At the time, the resignation of Iran's primary negotiator with the IAEA was coded in the US and dependent presses as supporting the for-weapons narrative for fuel-grade enrichment in the Islamic Republic. I differed, which isn't very unusual in itself. I haven't covered the 8th Majlis anywhere near how I covered the 7th Majlis. There were three reasons for this -- first, I estimated the risk of US belligerency to be significantly reduced, second, the Juan Cole group blog includes content on Iran by Farideh Farhi, which fills the lack of blog coverage that motivated my Return of the King, first and second series, and finally because ...
The representative of the holy city of Qom, Ali Larijani, was elected speaker of the 8th Majlis. The vote was 232 to 31. Hassan Abutorabi-Fard and Mohammad-Reza Bahonar were elected the first and second deputy speaker of Majlis respectively winning 223 and 167 votes out of a total of 264 cast ballots.
The texts delivered, first by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, and then by Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, are interesting. I don't see any substantive US coverage or anywhere else, but perhaps Farideh or Helen will post something for the benefit of their readers.
October 20th:
Ari Larijani resigned today. In the last cycle he finnished 6th in the first round, with 1,740,162 votes and I was surprised when he joined Ahmadi-Nejad for a highly visible post. Color me surprised again.
My uninformed-guess-at-a-distance is that its not substantive w.r.t. the pilot production of LEU for fuel, either at the single in-country (and incomplete and idle) electrical generation reactor, or more likely (according to me anyway) the unfilled millions of SWU (red area) in the regional electrical generation reactor LEU fuel market.
My WAG is that the 8th Majlis election cycle just kicked off. By February of 2004 Persian politics was in total meltdown, and the ballots will go out in about 150 days, about when Super Tuesday used to happen, before someone got a bunch of state parties to front-load the hell out of the primary and caucus cycle. Coding this as nukes-only is like coding Dodd's popularity as a sudden party preference for white hair, and missing the FISA filibuster.
October 23rd:
Primary season in Persia in the '05 cycle began (for me) with Eric's Guide to Garbage, and going over the candidates (some of whom later dropped out to advance others, e.g., Ali Akbar Velayati (and others) to advance Rafsanjani (and others)) [November 15th, 2004]. Later in the cycle Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf tossed his considerable hat into the ring, and INRA polling data had a three-way tie for third place (Rafsanjani being first, Mehdi Karroubi second), between Ali Akbar Velayati, Mostafa Moin and Ali Larijani [March 17th, 2005]. Still later Velayati did drop out, specifically to advance former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [April 11th, 2005], prior to the blow-up that lead Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei to direct the Guardian Council to reconsider the disqualification of former minister of science, research and technology Mostafa Moeen and Vice-President Mohsen Mehralizadeh [May 23rd, 2005].
Reading and re-reading Robert Tait's piece in today's Gruniad, that Velayati criticised Larijani's resignation, and a letter signed by 200 members of the 7th Majlis in support of Larijani, and a separate (or perhaps the same specified differently) letter from the Majlis' foreign and national security committee to Ahmadi-Nejad, that Larijani's resignation "put the country in danger", it still seems like politics rather than substantive policy.
I'm still of the ignorant opinion that its 8th Majlis electioneering, since all of the participants have a stake in the outcome of next March's election.
