The Islamic Engineers Society said in a Tuesday letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he had ‘acted against his own interests’ by appointing Esfandyar Rahim-Masha’i as head of the presidential office.

Ahmadinejad had initially appointed Rahim-Masha’i as the first vice president, a post he resigned from after the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, sent a handwritten note to the office of the president on the issue.(… more)

BEIRUT, July 28 (Reuters) – Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a strange moment to cross swords with his chief patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As if widespread popular unrest and the wrath of reformists over a disputed election were not enough, Ahmadinejad has alienated some of his own allies and lost two hardline cabinet members by defying Khamenei over his choice of vice president. The disarray in the hardline camp is likely to complicate Ahmadinejad’s job of forming a new cabinet, risking prolonged paralysis in decision-making even as a Western deadline looms for Iran to enter substantive talks on its nuclear programme. (… more)

In an unusually aggressive speech published on his website, Mir Hossein Mousavi accused the regime of a catalogue of crimes and abuses. He said a key test of its commitment to the constitution would be whether it permits a ceremony in Tehran’s huge Grand Mosalla prayer halls on Thursday to mourn protestors killed in Iran’s post-election violence.(… more)

(CNN) — Whatever the end result of the current electoral crisis in Iran, the dramatic rise of national politics has already cast a long and enduring shadow over the geopolitics of the region. No country can go back to business as usual. The climate has changed — for good.

Before the June 2009 presidential election, the realpolitik of the region had placed Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iraqi Mahdi Army on one side of the geopolitical divide, and U.S. and its regional allies on another. With an extended foot in Venezuela, Iran had even a claim on the backyard of the United States.

The grand ayatollah believes that government is instituted by man as a social contract, with rights and responsibilities on both the part of the people and the government. “The state belongs to the people,” he said. “It is neither my property or yours.” Compare this to our Declaration of Independence, which states that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.(… more)

On the surface, normality is returning. Underground, things may be different

DESPITE a renewed crackdown by the security forces, Iran’s students are looking for clever new ways to keep their campaign for democracy going. But it is a struggle. Nearly all foreign journalists, bar a handful of agency reporters, are being kept out, so that channel of communication is barred. Websites such as those of the BBC and Facebook are blocked. The text-message system has been stop-go. The authorities have randomly declared public holidays and told people to stay off the streets because of “unhealthy pollution levels”. Security men in plain clothes stop people, especially young ones, at crossroads, to check their bags and identities. Communication between Tehran and other big cities is similarly tricky; there have been reports of dozens of students being arrested at a university in the central city of Isfahan, a former capital of Persia.

The authorities have closed down Tehran’s main university, where the Islamic Revolution began in 1979. Last month it witnessed bloody battles between police and students. Stone-faced security men now stand guard at the front gate, while other entrances have been padlocked. A small number of teachers and students favoured by the authorities are let in. (… more)

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iranian pro-government Basij militia members dispersed crowds of protesters here Thursday — sometimes with force — witnesses said.

An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people crowded the streets in different locations of the city, and headed toward Tehran University, the site of a student uprising in 1999. Several protesters were hit on the arms and backs by the Basij, pro-government militia members, while elsewhere riot police released tear gas into crowds.

Iran’s state-funded Press TV described the crowd size near the university in the hundreds.

Some of the protesters shouted “Allah u Akbar,” or “God is Great” and “Ya Hussein, Mir Hussein” referring to opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, the witnesses said. Police blocked roads leading to Tehran University, while some protesters set trash cans afire so smoke would counter the effects of the tear gas. (… more)

Nearly two weeks of silence on the streets of Tehran were broken in the evening of July 9 when thousands marched through the central districts of the Iranian capital to protest the June 12 presidential election. Another anniversary helped precipitate the show of apparent defiance: the 10th anniversary of a bloody student uprising that was brutally put down by the government. Despite threats earlier in the day of a “crushing” response, men, women and even some children went onto the streets with chants of “Death to the dictator” and “Mousavi, Mousavi!”

But the response was indeed crushing. Members of the élite Revolutionary Guard and the dreaded paramilitary group the Basij rushed the initial crowd gathered at Enqelab (Revolution) Square with batons at around 5 p.m. One woman who was fleeing the scene had bloodstains on her white skirt splattered from demonstrators nearby. But pockets of protesters numbering in the hundreds soon resurfaced along many of the main streets north and east of Enqelab Square and in the city’s main squares. (… more)

TEHRAN, Iran — Thousands of protesters streamed down avenues of the capital Thursday, chanting “death to the dictator” and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said.

Turning garbage bins into burning barricades and darting through choking clouds of tear gas, the opposition made its first foray into the streets in nearly two weeks in an attempt to revive mass demonstrations that were crushed in Iran’s postelection turmoil.

Iranian authorities had promised tough action to prevent the marches, which supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been planning for days through the Internet. Heavy police forces deployed at key points in the city ahead of the marches, and Tehran’s governor vowed to “smash” anyone who heeded the demonstration calls. (… more)