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Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as Iran’s president from 1989-1997, lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005, and was a behind-the-scenes mover of Mir Hussein Musavi’s 2009 campaign that led to the Green Movement, has been taking major political hits for at least a year, possibly as payback for his 2009 actions. Tehran Bureau reports: [...] Both Robert Mackey and Barbara Slavin round up the reasons many experts are skeptical of the Obama administrations assertions that the Iranian government was planning to launch an assassination and terrorist attacks within the United States. For me, the most convincing evidence that Iran’s main intelligence organs were not involved is the sheer incompetence [...] One trend of the past decade or so of Iranian history has been the growing involvement in the IRGC in Iran’s economy. Now, a prominent officer/businessman has become the country’s oil minister: “Iran’s parliament has voted to approve Rostam Qasemi, a Revolutionary Guards commander, to head the country’s oil ministry. “The country’s president had [...] Gregory Gause’s The International Relations of the Persian Gulf provides an excellent overview of its subject over the past 40 years since the British withdrawal, while providing both interesting unifying themes and well-supported arguments about several controversial issues. Gause views the Gulf states bordering the Gulf as forming a “regional security complex,” meaning that [...] Those interested in a brief (109-page) overview of the historical and political context for Iran’s June 2009 election controversy should check out Ali Ansari’s most recent book, Crisis of Authority: Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election. In this Chatham House publication, Ansari analyzes the competition between principlists and reformists before and after the election as the [...] This guy sounds like someone whose name I’ve certainly run across before, but he’s definitely never made an impression until now: “Since the mass unrest that followed the June 2009 presidential election, the Iranian authorities have succeeded in suppressing street protests and decapitating the opposition movement. “The two leaders who stood against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [...] Gold traders in Iran’s bazaars are on strike again: “Gold merchants throughout Iran are joining a strike to protest a new tax on gold that they say severely hurts their business, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports. “The gold bazaar in Tehran went on strike shortly after the government announced on September 26 that it was [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's now reporting on the Egyptian Revolution from Cairo. 
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