13 August 2009 (22 Mordad 1388) NIAC members spot on about American foreign policy on Iran, Larijani not doing too well

NIAC (the National Iranian-American Council) has just published the results of a survey of its members here and the results seem to be spot on - the overall opinion on American foreign policy towards Iran is that 1) Broad sanctions are not a good idea right now; 2) Diplomacy is good but not at the moment, and should be delayed while the situation in Iran continues to change, and 3) Specific targeted sanctions could be a good idea (only a tiny majority agrees with this).

This is pretty much the approach being taken by the Obama administration at the moment as well.

In other news, Majlis speaker Larijani seems to be having a hard time at the moment as he is being attacked from all sides. For a while after the election he seemed to be torn about which side to support, but eventually decided to congratulate Ahmadinejad and attend the shoulder kissing ceremony (that's him just over Khamenei's other shoulder). Just a few days later though, an Ahmadinejad-backed newspaper published a column saying that Larijani called Mousavi on election day and congratulated him, because he had access to information that others didn't.

What?

That's right - in an attempt to make Larijani look bad the newspaper implicitly stated that Mousavi had won the election. It then went on to go after him for apparently calling himself a doctor before obtaining his Ph.D. This seems to be a favourite tactic of Ahmadinejad's side and Ahmadinejad himself (remember the debate with Mousavi when he falsely accused Mousavi's wife of having a fake degree). Very interesting considering that it's Ahmadinejad's interior minister who was shown to have a fake degree last year.

Now Larijani is saying that the allegations of sexual abuse in prison are false. Whether he truly believes this or is simply trying to assuage the partisans of the side he has chosen to support is hard to say.