Word: alie
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...topple the government; rather, Saturday's trial was part of an aggressive strategy to unite its power base, the coalition of conservative clerics in Qum and the Tehran-based commanders of the country's sprawling security apparatus. The masterminds behind the trial - believed to be either Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei or the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, or both - probably realize the proceedings will convince few supporters of the opposition or the average Tehrani. But the confessions may galvanize the still substantial bloc of conservative voters, many of whom are older and rely on state media...
...regime. According to reformist website Mosharekat, relatives and supporters of the dozens of defendants on trial gathered outside the courthouse and chanted Allahu akbar (God is great) until riot police moved in to disperse the crowd with tear gas. The other defendants, who all wore gray prison garb, include Ali Tajernia, a former opposition lawmaker; Shahaboddin Tabatabaei, a leader of the country's largest reformist party; and Ahmad Zeidabadi, a journalist who has written critically of the regime...
Much will depend now on what the Pakistani military does next. Since June, when the government of President Asif Ali Zardari announced the start of a major offensive against Mehsud, the military has confined itself to aerial attacks. Many officers are thought to be opposed to a ground campaign in difficult terrain against a united TTP. Mehsud's death gives the military the opportunity to go in for the kill. But another U.S. official worries that the Pakistanis will hold off and seek another truce. "There will be some [in the military] who say, 'Enemy No. 1 is dead...
After the regime's brutal response to the street demonstrations, an adviser to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi said he handed out "around a thousand" CDs containing hip-hop and rap tracks with pro-democracy messages. A graffiti artist sprayed "Death to [Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali] Khamenei" - a phrase no one would have dared utter two months ago - on a city bus. And a prominent underground Tehran rock band, Hypernova, now living in exile, created a Web portal, the Freedom Glory Project, to gather support from other Iranian performers for the "green movement." (See a video featuring Hypernova...
...swearing-in will have surely reminded Ahmadinejad of the challenge he faces in the Majlis, Iran's elected parliament. The ceremony was addressed by Speaker Ali Larijani, a longstanding conservative rival of Ahmadinejad, who has tried to position himself between the opposition and the government - at times being fiercely critical of the crackdown and demanding a public inquiry, at others distancing himself from the opposition movement and railing against foreign interference. The President requires approval of his Cabinet picks from parliament, and also needs the legislature's cooperation in passing new laws. And he is far from guaranteed the support...