Iran

They're rounding up reporters again in Iran. Since the June 12 "election," "At least 100 journalists and bloggers have been arrested ... and 23 are still being held," states a group that tracks journalistic freedom. "At the same time, around 50 have been forced to flee the country to escape the relentless repression."

Meantime, my wife and I were walking past an Egyptian diplomatic office in downtown DC the other day when we encountered a bunch of very polite demonstrators protesting the imprisonment of Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who was arrested for writing things not unlike some of the comments you see posted here every day. 

So I want to pause to give a major tip of this blog's hat to the American Bill of Rights, especially my favorite one:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances ... "

BrentDPayne/Flickr

Get this: Iran's Revolutionary Guards are angry at Pakistan for arresting and then quickly releasing a leader of the anti-Tehran Sunni rebels, Dawn of Pakistan reports. 

Some 42 people died last month in a bombing the rebel group claimed to have perpetrated. "How is it possible that this guy can move freely [unless he is] under the protection of the intelligence services?" righteously inquires the  most honorable Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the no. 2 guy in the Guards. (What's the no. 3 guy, Col. Pepperoni?)

It is a little odd to see both the United States and Iran cranky with Pakistan over related issues of harboring bad actors. Maybe Washington, Tehran and Delhi can form an anti-ISI alliance? I admit to just sitting back and enjoying this. OK, I feel a twinge of guilt. But just a twinge. 

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John McCreary of NightWatch fame answers my question of yesterday about what the Saudi bombing in Yemen (and the Israeli arms interception near Cyprus) might mean:

The significance is that Saudi Arabia is now engaged in counter-insurgency operations.  Tallying the score in the Middle East-south Asian region during the past five years, a Shiite government is in Baghdad, replacing a secular government, but violence is down for now. 

The Taliban in Afghanistan now operate in more than 220 of the 400 districts in Afghanistan, compared to fewer than 30 five years ago. A new Pakistani Taliban movement has sustained insurgency in the Pakistan border regions and spread terror east of the Indus River boundary and threatened to carry it to India.

Iran and North Korea have continued to proliferate weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. Lebanon has no government. Most Central Asian states have returned to the Russian fold. Western China has become less stable and more unpredictable. Yemen is fighting a low level civil war that has now required Saudi Arabian air force assistance. Iran continues to send arms to its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. New Iranian made rockets now held by Hamas in Gaza can reach Tel Aviv, and maybe Dimona. Iran's nuclear program continues to expand.

The tally does not look like progress towards stability."

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I see where representatives of the governments of Israel and Iran have been meeting secretly in Cairo to chat about nuclear weapons. I was surprised, but good for them. 

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I've long thought that we have underestimated how active Iranian operatives are in Iraq. I was reminded of this when I saw an article about how a truckload of 75 IEDs (aka roadside bombs) was intercepted recently southwest of Baghdad. That's a lot of bombs!

Also the article asserts that the shipment was going to al Qaeda in Iraq. This is not good for two reasons: 1. Iran helping al Qaeda -- I've heard of this before, but not heard a lot about it lately, and 2. AQI still exists? 

JOHN MOORE/AFP/Getty Images

This angle hadn't occurred to me: The head of the Israeli Space Agency says that the Obama's decision to scrap the deployment of land-based missile defense systems to Eastern Europe is good for Israel. He explains that Israel benefits when U.S.-Russian relations improve:

"Thus far, American attempts to stop the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb have not succeeded -- partially because the Russians have not cooperated with their efforts," he explained. "It is possible that because of this concession -- and it is a concession, even if the Americans said that it was not -- the Russians will be more helpful on Iran and will more support the American initiative." 

I also wonder if he believes that having Europe feel a pang of the vulnerability Israel feels about Iran might improve Israel's international position.

AFP/Getty Images

"Iran is not going to produce a nuclear weapon any time soon and the threat posed by its atomic program has been exaggerated, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said in a published interview," Reuters reports.

"In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped," Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

MICHAEL URBAN/AFP/Getty Images

David Ignatius, who knows more about intelligence and the Middle East than I ever will, inexplicably chose the dog days of mid-August to run a very good column about the increasing domination of Iraqi intelligence forces by the agents of Tehran. He clearly has had a long talk with an Iraqi intelligence official. My guess, and that is all it is, is that that official with whom Ignatius spoke was none other than Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, who, as Ignatius writes, resigned in August over the issue of Iranian influence:

When pressed about what his country would look like in five years, absent American help, he answered bluntly: "Iraq will be a colony of Iran."

Meanwhile, here is a headline from Aswat al-Iraq that caught my eye in August, some six years into the war: 

Official says only 2 blasts occurred in Baghdad today
          August 19, 2009 - 02:28:46    

It was a famous victory.

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images