Daily Briefing on Iran, Sunday, 11/26/2005

Iran's President Engaged in a Titanic Power Struggle

Angus McDowall, Independent News:

A power struggle of titanic proportions has broken out between Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's parliament.

Now the President's domestic political agenda is in danger of collapse, after MPs refused to accept his choices for the top post of oil minister.

And a new scandal in Tehran municipality tarnished his election promises to weed out corruption. The President's former parliamentary supporters say they have been alienated by his closed-door style of rule that has opened deep rifts in the ruling conservative faction. READ MORE

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

**Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that Ahmadinejad knows that a revolution is like a bicycle: It keeps you up and going as long as you keep pedaling. He asks: How Long Can He Pedal?
**Iran Focus reported that a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards boasted that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group learnt suicide operation tactics from Iran.
**Iran Focus reported that Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University. He is best known for his oversight of "prosecution chambers."
**Iran Focus reported that Iraqi police uncovered a military centre with a large cache of explosives near the Iranian border. American and British Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives have been shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with the full consent of the Iranian government.
**Iran Focus reported that Rafsanjani on Friday demanded a pullout of United States-led troops in Iraq after the country’s upcoming elections in December.
**Reuters reported that in a "show of force" thousands of members of Iran's volunteer militia, the Basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities. But state television showed human chains and small crowds, mostly numbering several hundred people, much fewer than expected.
**Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawat reported that despite what the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein say about the need for a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq. The truth, however, is that a timetable has been in place from the first day of the war.
**The Associated Press reported that President Ahmadinejad said that the Bush administration should be tried for War Crimes.
**The Economist reports on Ahmadinejad's struggle to win control of the oil ministry.
**Reuters reported that Iran offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles.
**Amy Kellogg, FOX News released part five of her reports from inside Iran: U.S.-Iran Relations Strained. Video also available.
**Mehrangiz Kar, Rooz Online reports the murder religious and secular intellectuals in Iran are permitted in article 226 of the Islamic Penal Code. A must read.
**Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online reported on the serial murders of Iranian dissidents by Iranian intelligence and how those responsible have actually returned to official positions and have been responsible for other violent policies in the country.
**Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online asked why the Basij Volunteer Militia has started arming some of its units with heavy arms.
**And finally, Curt, The Committee to Protect Bloggers reported that blogger Ahmad Seyyed Saraj has escaped Iran to the Turkish city of Van and needs our help.

To read the entire briefing click here:
Sunday's Daily Briefing.