• Conservative pressure keeps Iran presidential campaign tame

    Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA, file

    Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili (center) is surrounded by media as he leaves an election campaign event at Tehran University on Monday.

    By Ali Arouzi, Correspondent, NBC News

    TEHRAN, Iran -- For a while it looked like Iran’s upcoming presidential elections would have come with a fair share of fireworks. After all, the country, which remains at odds with much of the world over its nuclear program and steadfast support for Syria’s President Bashar Assad, is set to decide who will succeed firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    But so far, some of the more dramatic events in Iran’s 2013 presidential election have not even involved politics – over the weekend, three major players all suffered mechanical incidents within hours of each other.

    Ahmadinejad's helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in the north of the country.

    Supreme leader's office via AP

    Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech in a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, shown in the picture in background, at his shrine just outside Tehran on Tuesday.

    The airplane of Mohsen Rezaei, a former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, was forced to return to the airport in Tehran 20 minutes after takeoff because of mechanical faults.

    And front-runner Saeed Jalili's convoy was hit by a truck; the candidate was not injured.

    So by all appearances, Iran’s conservative establishment has succeeded in stopping the sorts of protests and riots that preceded Ahmadinejad’s reelection in 2009 before they even started.

    Key to this relative calm was the powerful Guardian Council’s decision to bar former president and key player Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad protégé Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei from running.

    Conservative forces set the tone for the entire race during a speech by Iran’s most powerful man, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    He warned the field of eight candidates not to bow to Western pressure to halt the country’s nuclear program, and not to make concessions

    “Some have the wrong analysis that by giving concessions to enemies, their anger towards Iran will be reduced; this is a mistake,” Khamenei said during an hour-long speech before tens of thousands of people at an annual ceremony to commemorate the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

    Candidates have also been instructed not to spend a lot of money on their campaigns.

    Even the first round of debates was a far cry from the ones four years ago when candidates seemed to have declared open season on each other, which is thought to have fueled the subsequent violent street protests.

    Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, starts his campaign with a boisterous anti-American rally in Iran. NBC News' Ali Arouzi reports from Tehran.

    This time around, candidates were given two minutes to address complicated issues like the economy, or were shown pictures and asked to give one-word answers. Some candidates refused to participate in this style of questioning, saying it was an insult to them and the Iranian people.

    So it is no surprise that Sayed Jalili, the country’s top nuclear negotiator who maintains deeply conservative credentials, remains a front-runner.

    Hasan Rowhani, who is seen as a moderate politician who may be open to dialogue with the West, has complained about the pervasive presence of police, intelligence officers and members of the Basij paramilitary corps during the campaign.

    "In the streets, universities, schools, organization – we must put an end to this security atmosphere,” he said at a recent rally.

    Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator himself, has aligned himself with reformist leaders. Local media is reporting that Rowhani and another reformist candidate, Mohammad-Reza Aref, are in negotiations to build a united front by choosing one candidate to represent both.

    A number of people were arrested at Rowhani's rally after chanting slogans calling for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader and candidate in the disputed 2009 election who has been under house arrest for more than two years.

    With less than a week to go, it looks like the only chance that centrist and reformist camps have is if they unite and inspire their voters to go to the polls. Otherwise, a hands-down victory for the hardliners looks certain.

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  • Last-minute entry transforms Iranian race

    Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

    Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani waves as he registers his candidacy during the registration for Iran's upcoming presidential election.

    By Yeganeh Torbati and Marcus George, Reuters

    Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani threw himself into Iran's election race on Saturday as a flurry of heavyweight candidates rushed to beat the registration deadline in the most unpredictable contest for decades.

    Iranian media reported that Rafsanjani - a relative moderate - had registered for the June 14 presidential election with just minutes to spare. His candidacy radically alters what was previously seen as a contest between rival conservative groups.

    The former president could scupper the hopes of 'Principlists', loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who are aiming to secure a quick and painless transition and paper over the deep fissures between the opposing camps.

    Who's running for president in Iran

    Rafsanjani, 78, who was president from 1989 to 1997, is expected to draw some support from reformists because he backed the opposition movement whose protests were crushed after the last, disputed election in 2009.

    The election comes at a critical moment, as Iran reels from international sanctions over its disputed atomic program and faces the threat of attack by Israel if it crosses what the Jewish state calls a 'red line' towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. Tehran strenuously denies it wants an atomic bomb.

    A vast field of more than 400 candidates have thrown their names into the ring as potential successors to outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has long been at odds with the supreme leader.

    Shortly before Rafsanjani's announcement, Saeed Jalili, a hardline conservative who is seen as close to Khamenei and has led rounds of so far unsuccessful nuclear talks with world powers, entered his name as a candidate. 

    Soon afterwards Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, an aide to Ahmadinejad and a man viewed with intense distrust by conservatives, registered for the race, gripping Ahmadinejad's hand as the two flashed peace signs for photographers.

    Khamenei's camp sees Mashaie as leading a "deviant current" that seeks to set aside clerical influence in favor of a more nationalistic doctrine.

    The presidential vote is the first since Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election four years ago, when mass "Green movement" protests erupted after the defeat of reformist candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi. Dozens were killed in the worst unrest since the 1979 revolution.

    The outcome of next month's contest will signal the extent of Khamenei's control at the summit of power in the Islamic Republic.

    It will also show whether he feels the need to reach out to opposition groups and whether the reformists are capable of making a comeback. Proponents of greater social and political freedoms have been suppressed or sidelined: Mousavi, his wife and Karoubi have been under house arrest for over two years.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Western intelligence sees 'small signs of wavering' on Iran nuclear policy

    By Keir Simmons, NBC News

    LONDON -- Western intelligence has begun to detect tension within the Iranian regime over the country’s nuclear program, officials told NBC News on Friday.

    Even so, the European Union on Friday provisionally approved substantial new economic sanctions against Tehran.

    The new sanctions will have to be formally approved on Monday at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg before coming into effect.

    The sanctions, aimed at trying to change policy in Tehran, will target areas such as shipping, banking and trade in parts that could be used to build a nuclear weapon. Measures already in place include an oil embargo that is causing serious economic woes and leading to protests on the streets.

    Tehran denies its nuclear work has any military intentions and says it wants nuclear power for electricity supplies and medical needs.

    Despite stalled talks between Iran and a six-country alliance of Western powers, including the United States, a Western diplomatic source said contact with Iranian officials has been sustained consistently, including during the months since the summer.

    Western official: 'Tension within the Iranian regime'
    The official told NBC News there are some signs of “tension within the Iranian regime” over the issue.


    "We’ve picked up some small signs of wavering on the nuclear policy," the official, who did not want to be named, said. "But I don’t want to exaggerate it."

    He added that so far there is “no sign Iran is prepared to move” making renewed sanctions necessary.

    Any change in policy from either side is only likely to emerge after the U.S. presidential election: If Iran is prepared to negotiate, it will want to know whether it is talking to an Obama administration or a Romney administration.

    The United States has so far led the way on sanctions against Iran.

    Even so, in Thursday’s vice presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, accused the Obama administration of not doing enough. Ryan warned that Iran is “moving faster toward a nuclear weapon.”

    Complete Middle East & North African coverage on NBCNews.com

    He warned that if Iran is able to attain nuclear weapons it could “trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

    In this assertion, Ryan appeared closer to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who dramatically told the United Nations in September that Israel was drawing a “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program and claimed the country could be on the brink of a nuclear weapon in less than a year.

    In an attempt to convey what he sees as a threat to Israel's existence, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a cartoon to illustrate how close he says Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly he asked the world to help stop them. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    With Iran issue simmering, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu calls early elections

    EU steps up pressure
    On Friday, the Western official said the chief purpose of the sanctions is to “slow down Iran’s nuclear program” and that the aim is not to target the Iranian people.

    The trade and finance measures mark a major step-up of European pressure on Tehran, amid growing concerns over its nuclear program, foundering diplomacy and threats of attack on Iranian installations by Israel.

    The EU is also targeting Iran's shipping industry, in an effort to curb Tehran's ability to sell oil to obtain funds and hard currency. It banned imports of Iranian oil earlier this year.

    Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

    New measures will ban European companies from providing shipbuilding technology and oil storage capabilities, as well as flagging and classification services to Iranian tankers.

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    At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

    Launch slideshow

    But some worry that whatever the intent, the effect is a dramatic cut in living standards for ordinary Iranians that may inflame anger against the West and fuel Iranian defiance.

    In a speech broadcast on state television on Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei labeled the sanctions "barbaric."

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Iran launches sub as US, allies hold massive naval drills in Persian Gulf

     

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    DUBAI -- Iran launched a submarine and a destroyer into the Persian Gulf from Bandar Abbas port on Tuesday at the same time as U.S. and allied forces held massive naval exercises in the same waters to practice keeping oil shipping lanes open.

    Tehran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a route for oil exports from the gulf, if Iranian nuclear sites are attacked by Israel, which believes Tehran is trying to develop an atomic bomb.

    The United States, Britain, France and a number of Middle Eastern states are conducting a naval exercise in the gulf this week, focusing on how to clear mines that Tehran or guerilla groups might deploy to disrupt tanker traffic.

    The exercises, with 25 countries participating, are the largest ever of its kind in the region, according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper 


    The multinational force includes three U.S. Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than Iran’s entire air force, the newspaper said.

    The force is also supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships, which carry thousands of U.S. Marines and special forces, the Telegraph reported.

    Netanyahu: Iran guided by 'unbelievable fanaticism'

    Iran's refitted Tareq-901 submarine and Sahand destroyer were launched on the direct orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    Iran's 'strong fence'
    On the other side of the country, Khamenei visited the northern coastal city of Nowshahr on Tuesday to watch naval cadets practice planting mines, freeing hijacked ships, destroying enemy vessels and jumping from helicopters, his official website said.

    Israeli  PM tries to strike more neutral pose in U.S. election

    "The armed forces must reach capabilities such that no one can attack the strong fence of the country and the dear people of Iran," Khamenei told army commanders, according to the Iranian Students News Agency.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discusses violence against Americans in the Middle East with NBC's David Gregory.

    Iran's Tareq-class submarines are diesel-electric boats that were originally built in Russia in the early 1990s, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organization that focuses on security affairs.

    Iran: 'Nothing will remain' of Israel if war starts

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Tehran was close to being able to build a nuclear bomb, fuelling speculation about an Israeli strike. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.

    Publicly, Iranian military officials have sounded relaxed about the U.S. naval exercise.

    Complete Mideast & North Africa coverage on NBCNews.com

    Friction mounts as Israel asks that U.S. give Iran an ultimatum; a tricky position for Obama, whose foreign policy has been lauded. NBC's Andrea Mitchell and CNBC's John Harwood report.

    "This exercise is a defensive exercise and we don't perceive any threats from it," Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told local media.

    "We are not conducting exercises in response," he said.

    NBC News staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • 'Insulting' Ahmadinejad angers Iran lawmakers during grilling

    Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at the parliament in Tehran on Wednesday.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was summoned to parliament Wednesday for an unprecedented grilling by lawmakers who accused him of economic mismanagement and making "illegal" appointments.

    Less than two weeks after a drubbing in parliamentary elections, Ahmadinejad became the first president in the Islamic Republic's history to be called before the legislature, which has the power to impeach him if unsatisfied with his answers.

    Traditionalist factions who express complete loyalty to Iran's most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been trying to summon Ahmadinejad for months over what they say are repeated challenges to the supreme leader's authority.

    Emboldened by their success over Ahmadinejad supporters at parliamentary elections this month, they finally had the chance to interrogate the president about the near-stagnant, high-inflation economy and concerns over his allegiance to Khamenei.

    Flippant tone
    Chairing the meeting, lawmaker Ali Motahari asked why Ahmadinejad had stayed at home for several days last April after Khamenei overturned the president's decision to sack the intelligence minister -- an absence seen by some as a protest against the supreme leader's decision.

    Belying his weakened standing, Ahmadinejad responded in a confident and, at times, flippant tone that did little to calm the excitement of the hearing, broadcast live on state radio.

    Vahid Salemi / AP

    An unidentified Iranian clerical lawmaker walks inside the parliament as legislators listen to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, answering questions Wednesday.

    On his absence from work last April, he said: "This is one of those things -- Ahmadinejad staying home and resting. Some of my friends have repeatedly told me to rest. In this government, work has never been stopped for even a day."

    He played down the historic significance of the summons, saying it was parliament's right and not out of the ordinary.

    "I was ready to answer questions before the election," he said. "But I thought it might have an impact on election results and then I would be blamed for it. I am the easiest to blame."

    BBC News reported that the president's last comments at the hearing resulted in uproar.

    "It was not a very difficult quiz," he told lawmakers, the BBC said, citing the Associated Press. "To me, those who designed the questions were from among those who got a master's degree by just pushing a button. If you had consulted us, better questions could have been drawn up."

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    At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

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    Ahmadinejad added that he should get top marks for his performance, saying "Be fair. Any grade of less than 20 [out of 20] will be rude."

    'Illogical, illegal'
    After an hour-long grilling -- that included questions on the botched financing of the Tehran metro and the veracity of government figures showing the creation of 1.6 million jobs in 2009 and 2010 -- many parliamentarians remained unimpressed.

    "Ahmadinejad's answers to lawmakers' questions were illogical, illegal and an attempt to avoid answering them. With an insulting tone, Ahmadinejad made fun of lawmakers' questions and insulted parliament," Mohammad Taqi Rahbar was quoted as saying by parliament's news agency.

    Having made several ministerial appointments that were unpopular with parliament -- including a brief stint when he named himself oil minister, in charge of Iran's biggest economic sector -- Ahmadinejad was questioned about how he picked people for key posts.

    Former Deputy Secretary of State, P.J. Crowley, joins MSNBC to discuss whether Iran is showing signs that it is willing to engage in nuclear talks with the EU.

    Outgoing reformist lawmaker Mostafa Kavakebian said that the president “did not give any logical answers and took everything as a joke."

    Attacks on Ahmadinejad by rival hardliners in parliament increased after last year's spat over the intelligence minister with his critics saying any challenge to Khamenei threatens the foundations of the Islamic Republic.

    The theocratic nation's first president, Abolhassan Banisadr, was impeached in 1981 and fled the country after being accused of threatening Iran's new religious foundations.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Iran lawmaker: Obama sent secret letter to Ayatollah

    By NBC News and msnbc.com news services

    Updated 3:30 p.m. ET: White House spokesman Jay Carney would not confirm the letter or overtures for direct talks with Iran when asked in a news briefing on Wednesday, NBC News reported.

    "We don't discuss specific communications -- diplomatic communications. I would say that we have a variety of channels through which we can communicate with the Iranians. And that any message we communicate to the Iranians about these issues is -- would be entirely consistent with what we've said publicly, what I've said publicly, the president, secretary of state and others."

    Original story: An Iranian lawmaker claimed Wednesday that President Barack Obama called for direct talks with Iran in a secret letter to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader that also warned Tehran against closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

    Obama administration officials denied to The Associated Press there was such a letter. A report in The New York Times on Jan. 12 quoted unnamed U.S. government officials as saying a similar letter had been sent.

    Iran has threatened to close the waterway, the route for about one-sixth of the global oil flow, because of new U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program.

    Conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari revealed the content of the purported letter days after the Obama administration said it was warning Iran through public and private channels against any action that threatens the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.

    "In the letter, Obama called for direct talks with Iran," the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Motahari as saying Wednesday. "The letter also said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is (Washington's) red line."

    "The first part of the letter contains threats and the second part contains an offer for dialogue," he added.

    Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast confirmed that Tehran received the letter and was considering a possible response.

    In Washington, an Obama administration official denied that Obama sent a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, saying communication of U.S. views were being delivered through other diplomatic messages. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

    U.S. forces are fully prepared to deal with any Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday.

    "We are not (taking) any special steps at this point in order to deal with the situation,'' Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon, Reuters reported. "Why? Because frankly we are fully prepared to deal with that situation now.''

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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