Word: iran
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...When Iran's parliament confirmed 18 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 21 candidates for his Cabinet in early September, only those who sift the tea leaves of Iranian politics noticed the confirmation of Haidar Moslehi, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as Minister of Intelligence and Security. For decades, the ministry represented a check on the IRGC's rise toward becoming Iran's most powerful institution: domestic intelligence was out of the guards' reach. With Moslehi's appointment, there is nobody left to guard the guards...
...guards' ascendance, likened by some to a bloodless military coup, has been one of the most striking aspects of Iran's recent development. It has come largely at the expense of the Islamic clergy; while Iran remains a theocratic state, the men in turbans now perhaps wield less temporal power - especially over the economy - than those in uniform. (See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle...
...Iran: This week’s controversial missile tests didn’t even help the fundamentalist dictatorship assert itself on the international stage—the nation capitulated to Western demands for inspections a few days later. The recent complaisance has us wondering: Is all this uranium enrichment just part of Iran’s dark-horse bid to beat out Chicago for the 2016 Olympic Games...
...officials went to Geneva to judge Iran's willingness to address international concerns about its nuclear program, having indicated that they're going to give the process until the end of the year before judging its effectiveness at resolving those concerns. Notes of caution and caveats will abound, but the takeaway from Thursday's meeting will be: So far, so good...
...Maliki decided to gamble on his own prowess, forming a new coalition he touts as nationalist (condemning alleged Syrian support for terrorism in Iraq and promoting a strong central government) as well as anti-sectarian (digs at the INA, which is led by clerics with strong ties to neighboring Iran...