Yes, good answers. Robster, you could turn your latest into a Speaking Freely article for us if you cited some sources.

Tens of thousands stage surprise protests in Iran
Opposition leaders joined a rally. Their target, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, excoriated Israel.

tinyurl.com/lgcg86

TEHRAN, Iran - Tens of thousands of opposition protesters swarmed Tehran and at least two other Iranian cities yesterday, audaciously turning an annual rally in support of the Palestinian cause into the first major demonstration against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in six weeks.

Iran's hard-line backers, opposition clash on day of support for Palestinian cause

tinyurl.com/mgjgdp

TEHRAN, Iran– Hard-line supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed Friday with protesters who defied a ban on opposition demonstrations to stage the first major street protests in two months.

More than 100,000 opposition supporters took to the streets of Tehran on Friday, and demonstrations were reported in other cities. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned the opposition not to disrupt Quds Day.

Pro-government demonstrators tried to attack two opposition leaders, former President Mohammad Khatami and former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, at separate protest sites in Tehran, but both were unharmed, news agencies and opposition Web sites reported.

Will Iran's Basij stay loyal?

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8200719.stm

That analysis is supported by Alireza Nourizadeh, an expert on the Basij, and director of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

"These Basijis are also part of the nation and gradually you don't expect them to stay loyal to the authorities when they see that people in the streets are their neighbours and their children," he said.

"I heard that many, many of the Basijis, especially their commanders, when they go home they have problems with their children and their wives, and they ask 'why do you kill people?' "

Iranian Students Stage 2nd Big Protest Since Returning to University Campuses

www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html

Students at one of Iran’s largest universities staged an antigovernment protest on Tuesday, the second big demonstration at a major university in two days and a further indication that government efforts to intimidate student leaders have not been entirely successful.

My apologies for being away so long.

The civil unrest continues beyond the universities. However, it is not effecting the regime. The security forces are able to control the demonstrators even though the security folks occasionally suffer some serious losses. The universities are currently the centers of resistance somewhat akin to the anti-Vietnam War protests of the late 60s and early 70s.

Whatever the plans of the government, the current level of protests is not effecting them except maybe on the margin. Until we are talking about general strikes and the like, the principally student lead protests will not topple the government nor change its direction.

Bigbird

Appearances are often deceptive. The fact demonstrations are still occurring 4 months after the rigged June election demonstrates the persistence of opposition and the IRGC's impotence in crushing it.

But Iranian internal affairs do not interest Obama and his team as much as diplomatic engagement and normalization of relations between our two states. Today's events in Vienna also prove that Iranian ultra conservatives want that as badly as opposition conservatives or team Obama.

I mentioned a month ago I believed the US will likely improve or solve US/Iranian relations before the I/P conflict is resolved. Today's face to face dialog was the first in 30 years, a major shift and jump in that direction.

Robster,

Giving Iran two weeks to get the Qom nuke plant inspected doesn't sound like repairing relations. The EU was busy spreading pixie dust but it didn't work.

Right now the protesters are doing a good job of proving the RGC and the Basiji impotent. But neither has resorted to live ammunition yet. In some ways the regime is actually ignoring the protests. Part of that reason is that they have clamped down on reporting from inside Iran. There is no World outrage because there is no media reporting. The marches occur. The civil disobedience occurs. But the only video you see is phone camera video not video from a CNN camera crew. Makes a lot of difference.

These negotiations also put any possible action by third parties on hold. Why else would the Iranians be interested? It's about the same kind of thing as arguing about the shape of the table at the Paris negotiations over Vietnam. It took Linebacker II to get those talks into the serious mode. The Iranians aren't going to get serious until their toys get broken.

Bigbird

BB

The "pixie dust" was making a lot of noise out of an artifact that was known by the US for at least several years. It was an opportunity to score a public relations advantage against the Iranians on one of the few technicalities of the law they have violated and can be proved, in this case failure to notify the IAEA before building the facility. In any event the Iranians have agreed to open the site to international inspectors, which everyone is aware they had intended to do all along.

And as for Iran's "toys" these are so primitive they have to ship their low grade uranium out of country to be properly processed for medical uses??? Give me a frigging, big time break. If that's the best they can do in enriching uranium than a lot of people who have been making a big deal out this should be bitch slapped, denied dinner and sent to bed. At this rate the Iranians are probably a decade away, if not more from mastering the fuel cycle sufficiently to produce anything near weapons grade materials.

The Iranians aren't negotiating out of fear of the west. Nor is anyone is going to "break their toys." And a sanctions regime is only effective if the whole global community backs it, which at this point in time is moot. The principal factors driving the Iranians are in fact those internal political and economic difficulties you have chosen to ignore or minimize. As for the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad lock down on dissent or so called vaunted control over public media, they aren't do all that well in that department either.

Ethicist blasts Ahmadinejad on IRIB

tinyurl.com/yes2kla

Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabayi Shirazi, known in Iran as the television ethics teacher, raked the Iranian president and his officials over the coals during a live debate program on IRIB 2.

I know you don't agree with or approve of this administrations foreign policy agenda, but at least your smart enough not to delude yourself into believing or claiming its something other than what it is.

Robster,

Making medical radioisotopes is not rocket science. There are enough articles on the Internet as their are telling you how to build an atomic bomb. The usual caveat applies. I do not doubt at all that the Russians or the PRC would gladly make medical isotopes for Iran. Or, they could put the stuff in the Arak breeder reactor and make it themselves.

Maskirovka, Robster. Iranians are not stupid people. Neither are they illiterate. They have a long and proud history of being just as sneaky as anybody else in a region known for sneaky. Besides, it is perfectly alright for them to lie. It advanced Islam, at least their brand.

Between the satellites and the Global Hawks we probably have a record of the license numbers of the trucks that delivered stuff to the now public Qom site. So what? The Iranians with the help of a bunch of naive EU folks are so eager to get the Iranian nuclear problem solved they will believe almost anything.

If Obama wants to talk instead of shoot I am all for it. But he is not the Hidden Imam. He cannot still the waters of a 1300 year old conflict either between Muslim and Jew or between Sunni and Shia. Besides, the Iranians don't want a settlement other than the Caliphate (lead by them of course). Read Ahmadinejad's speech. It is a shiite sermon ending with the obligatory offer of Islam. Their religious hands are clean. They can start the jihad any time.

Want to start a pool for the date the Iranians attack Israel?

Bigbird

Bigbird

"Making medical radioisotopes is not rocket science" is only affirming my point of the primitive state of Iranian enrichment. If they could refine the isotopes to the levels necessary they wouldn't be considering exporting most of their stockpile of low enriched uranium out of country to Russia or China.

The war between Jews, or more correctly between Zionists and Muslims began in 1897, not 1,300 years ago. This war was started single-handedly by crusader Ashkenazi Zionists from eastern Europe, for the avowed and deliberate purpose of expropriating indigent, Semitic Palestinians from their homes, lands and patrimony by any and all means.

Equating the current struggle between Israeli and Arab/Muslims to the historic religious differences between Sunnis and Shias is an apples/oranges comparison.

The majority of Iranians are no more interested in establishing a Caliphate than they are in thrall of the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime.

As for Ahmadinejad his senseless anti-Jew and anti-Israel jeremiads are merely bombastic boiler plate and posturing to placate doubts among his own base and Iranian constituencies concerning his Jewish origins.

Report: Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118622.html
Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is secretly ... Jewish?
tinyurl.com/y8kwa45

Now, how is that for "Maskirovka." But deception isn't an exclusive Ahmadinejad trait, as Zionists, neocons and Islamophopes are feverishly burning the midnight oil spinning, dis-informing and lying like bastards in the hopes of sabotaging the Obama administrations diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East, especially with Iran.

And Obama is no angel or savior either. He too can lie like a bastard with the best of them, if not - the - best.

The only way the Iranians would attack Israel is if they are attacked by that theocratic/thuggocracy first. In the absence of provocation I'll bet the farm the Iranians won't.

The war "between Zionists and Muslims began in 1897." No. Actually, the war between Muslims and all infidels began the moment the Prophet M. came galloping out of the desert astride his camel, eyes ablaze, brandishing his blood-stained scimitar, with his pre-teen bride perched side-saddle on the rear hump. Jews are especially targeted only because their presence in Palestine, progressive and accomplished as they are, provides a stark contrast to the barbaric leadership of Islamic entities in the Middle East.

Of course "the majority of Iranians" don't care about a Caliphate, any more than the majority of Muslims approve of their fundamentalist Islamic leadership anywhere. But Islam has them in thrall.

As the Obama administration clarifies its strong support for Israel and its reluctance to accept Muslim diplomatic rhetoric at face value, apologists for Muslim terrorists and CAIR 5th-column operatives turn on the President like snakes.