Iran's Supreme Leader says Western News Media Attempting to "Poison" Iran: Via Voice of America.

Iran's supreme leader says Western media are to blame for his country's recent political unrest.  

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is pointing his finger at Western news media for inciting political friction in Iran.

His statement follows protests against the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Friday's al-Quds day or Jerusalem day, an annual event to sympathize with Palestinians and condemn Israel.
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Iranian Reformists Challenge Supreme Leader: Via Voice of America.

A group of Iranian reformists is demanding an investigation into Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, questioning whether he is fit to lead.

A letter, issued Friday, asks one of Iran's highest clerical bodies to examine whether the supreme leader has become incapable of fulfilling his "constitutional duties."

Under Iran's constitution, the Assembly of Experts has the power to appoint the supreme leader or remove him from power, although until now challenging the supreme leader's authority has been a political taboo.

Discontent with Ayatollah Khamenei has been growing since June's disputed presidential elections. At the same time, there are increasing allegations that protesters arrested following the election were raped and tortured.
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Op-Ed Contributor - Iran at the Crossroads - NYTimes.com: Via NYTimes/Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

Editor: Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was the first president of Iran after the 1979 revolution.

PARIS — In the weeks since the Iranian election, the government of the Islamic Republic has been publicly divided, delegitimatized and grown increasingly more weak. The current situation offers parallels with the political unrest leading up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended the rule of the shah.

Historically, the Iranian government has enjoyed four sources of legitimacy: its competence in managing state affairs, its official religious authority, its commitment to Iran’s independence, and its ability to provide a stable base of social support. All of these have now been irretrievably undone.

The massive vote rigging on June 12 brought President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ability to run the state’s affairs under intense public scrutiny, and the spontaneous uprising in its wake removed the government’s political legitimacy.

Shortly afterwards, in a speech at Friday prayers, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, threatened a violent crackdown unless the official election results were accepted. This removed the last vestiges of the regime’s religious legitimacy as well.
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Two Ministers Forced to Leave Iran's Cabinet: Via washingtonpost.com .

TEHRAN, July 26 -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired his intelligence minister and his culture minister resigned under pressure Sunday as further rifts emerged in his camp with just days to go until his controversial inauguration for a second term.

Although Ahmadinejad has frequently replaced his cabinet members over the past four years, Sunday's firing and resignation were significant because both Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi are especially close to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, analysts say.

"All ministers are close to him," said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst who shares Ahmadinejad's ideology but has been critical of his actions. "But these two are closer to the leader."

Taken together, the moves suggest deep unhappiness within Ahmadinejad's inner circle at a time when the government is still reeling from the impact of a weeks-long campaign by the opposition to overturn the results of June's disputed election, in which Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in a landslide.
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Iran's illogical cruelty: Via Robert Tait | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk .

The imprisonment of the frail reformer Saeed Hajarian exposes the callousness of Iran's leaders – and their lack of logic

You know things are bad in Iran when the hard-headed schemer Hashemi Rafsanjani is moved to bemoan the plight of the country's political detainees. The mass round-up and incarceration of opposition figures that followed last month's election debacle was denounced by the old "pragmatist" and arch pillar of the Islamic revolution at his much-awaited Tehran university Friday prayer sermon last week, perhaps rather from cold political calculation than heartfelt principle. A more authentically indignant condemnation might have dwelt on some details, wherein lies the devil – and no small measure of stupidity.

Specifically, Rafsanjani might have shamed his apparently conscience-free adversary, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, if he had mentioned Saeed Hajarian. Of all those dumped in Evin prison and other secret detention centres, the case of Hajarian does most to expose the regime's moral squalor and callousness. Long hailed as the intellectual mastermind of the reformist movement, he is today physically frail thanks to a failed assassination attempt nine years ago ordered, in all probability, by the same hardline zealots who plotted the recent election buffoonery.
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