The state of play in Syria today

Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib

“Syria was not drowning in her blood yet. She was being swept by peaceful protests suggesting an Arab Spring wind was blowing in her direction,” Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, comments today.

He carries on:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei received an Arab guest. The conversation centered on Syria.

A conclusive sentence by the host summarized the position: “The choice is obvious in Syria. She can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

I met Khamenei’s Arab visitor in Cairo. He was trying to explain to me why Lebanese Hezbollah crossed the border to join the fighting in Syria.

He said, “All sides have laid their cards on the table. From hereon, makeup and facelifts are good-for-nothing. We are in the throes a Sunni-Shiite conflict. The struggle taking place in and over Syria will determine future balances in the region.”

A few hours earlier, I had called on Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar. I saw him worrying lest the conflict in Syria turns sectarian. He felt bitter about Hezbollah hurling itself into the Syria war and tarnishing its image as a party solely devoted to standing up to Israel.

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar does not reproach Hezbollah only.

He did not get convincing answers from one of his visitors named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The dialogue last February was frank and transparent. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar quizzed his visitor about Iran’s position vis-à-vis Bahrain and the three UAE islands.

He also asked him about Iran’s role in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And he did not hesitate to ask Ahmadinejad about the Sunnis’ circumstances in Iran itself.

Ahmadinejad answered the tough questions by encapsulating the Iranian stance in one sentence: “Resistance to the usurper Zionist entity.”

The tiff did not go unnoticed.

The gravity of the conflict in Syria has forced all countries concerned to outpace diplomatic phraseology and lay bare their true positions.

President Mohamed Morsi, who at one point fancied courting Iran and Russia to carve out a Syria peace role for Egypt, buried the idea after Hezbollah’s plunge. He also hardened his position against the regime and went overboard.

The ongoing bloodbath in Syria changed the images of countries and their roles. It unmasked the depth of their contradictory feelings, their conflicting policies and their old and new fears.

The perception of Iran forging ahead under the banner of bravado and resistance hit a brick wall of Sunni resentment across the region. Tehran’s immersion in the Syria crisis lost Iran her aura and image.

At the same time, the axis of resistance lost its sole Sunni interface, Hamas. The Hamas movement in turn repositioned itself in its natural camp.

Overt interference in Syria dramatically changed Hezbollah’s footing. Having said it was joining a life-or-death battle in Syria, the party is now on the first line of engagement with the Sunnis of Syria, Lebanon and the region.

Hezbollah’s venture accelerated the cracks in Lebanon’s state institutions, coupled the “Lebanese arena” with the “Syrian arena” and added new injuries to historic wounds.

There are those who believe Lebanon will suffer from the logic “it is either ours or no one else’s.” This means bringing the temple down if you can’t make it solely yours.

The battle for Qusayr thrust the region into a situation where governments have to be in sync with inflamed passions on their street.

Decisions taken at the Doha meeting show the conflict has reached the point of no return.

Measures by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners targeting Hezbollah loyalists and financiers sent an unmistakable signal. The battle in Syria has turned regional and international.

Russia’s behavior is in step with “Syria can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

Still dithering and fearful of Jabhat al-Nusra and its sisters, America has been whitewashed to accept arming the opposition.

The Syrian regime opted too soon for “Syria can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

For hardliners in the opposition, “Syria can be like we wish her to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

A battle as vitriolic internally, regionally and internationally threatens to pulverize Syria and ravage the weak neighboring milieus.

No one country can endure this level of risks and this number of risk-takers.

Iran presidential hopefuls’ window closing

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

On June 14, exactly five weeks from today, Iranians will flock to the polls to elect a new president to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Candidate registration started Tuesday and ends tomorrow, Saturday.

Iran’s Mehr news agency put the number of hopefuls who had already registered by Thursday night at 243.

An adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was one candidate who joined them earlier today. By registering to run, lawmaker and former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel becomes the first of a trio of Khamenei loyalists to do so.

Allied with Haddad-Adel, 68, are former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, 67, and Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 51. Iranian media say two of them will step aside later in favor of whoever appears to have the best chance of winning the election.

Velayati is another top adviser to Khamenei on international affairs. He served as foreign minister during the 1980-88 war with Iraq and into the 1990s. He is a physician and runs a hospital in north Tehran.

Charismatic Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq War.

Among other candidates who registered on Friday was reformist Mohammad-Reza Aref, who served as vice-president under former moderate President Mohammad Khatami.

Khatami, who was elected in landslide victories in 1997 and 2001, has not made clear whether he will run this time.

Another prominent figure Hassan Rowhani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator and confidant to ex-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, also put forward his name.

Rowhani's allies say he will withdraw his application if Rafsanjani decides to run for president.

Both Rafsanjani and Khatami, whose moderate candidacies would radically alter the contest, appear reluctant to stand unless given the nod from Khamenei but neither have ruled themselves out.

"I will not enter the field without his consent," Rafsanjani said this week, according to the Mehr news agency. "If circumstances are such that there will be conflicts and disputes between me and the leader, we will all lose."

More conservatives than reformists have put themselves forward as candidates, reports say.

The Guardian Council decides who can stand.

In 2009, 475 hopefuls registered as candidates, but the Guardian Council, whose 12 members are either directly or indirectly appointed by Khamenei, only gave its approval to four.

The final list of candidates will be unveiled later this month, around May 23.

"The rules set for the election excludes many who might have been able to stand under normal circumstances. The entire opposition, ranging from Communists to monarchists and passing by nationalists and liberals, are branded as 'enemies' and excluded," Amir Taheri writes today in his weekly column for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Taheri, who was executive editor-in-chief of Kayhan daily in Tehran from 1972 to 1979, authored 11 books and was named International Journalist of the Year by the British Society of Editors and the Foreign Press Association in the annual 2102 British Media Awards, writes in part:

Half of the population -- women -- is barred from running. Only men can register as candidates.

Although legally recognized as religious minorities, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians -- altogether numbering around one million altogether -- are also excluded. So are 300,000 from the Baha’i Faith, on grounds of belonging to an  "illegal" religious minority.

Being Muslim is not enough to make you eligible to run for president. Iranian Sunni Muslims, believed to number around 12 million, are barred from running.

“The would-be candidates must be Shiite Muslims,” the Interior Ministry declares.

Not all Shiite denominations are accepted. The “Seveners” or Ismailis are excluded, as are Zaidis, not to mention smaller esoteric offshoots of Shiism.

However, being a “Twelver” (Ithna’ashari) is not enough either. The candidate must be a political or religious figure and believe in the core tenets of the Islamic Republic. This means, for instance, a businessman, an opera singer or a taxi driver, cannot seek the presidency.

Clearly, such conditions would give the authorities ample opportunity to block the candidacy of figures considered a threat to Khamenei.

This is not about electing a president in the normal sense of the term. It is about choosing a “yes-man” for the “Supreme Guide...”

Iran can’t just gobble up and Shi’ize Egypt

Political analyst Yasser el-Zaatreh, a native of Jericho, has been  freelancing for 27 years. He wrote this think piece in Arabic for Aljazeera.net

File pictures of Morsi and Ahmadinejad

Egyptian leaders are keeping nose to grindstone to mitigate internal disquiet.

They are less focused on recovering Cairo’s Arab and regional clout and role.

So before Egypt overcomes its internal travails, its leadership will find it hard to conjure up a clear Arab and regional vision.

Where events in Syria are concerned, Cairo remains as supportive of the Syrian people as it can be.

President Mohamed Morsi’s Syria statements and Cairo’s backing of the Arab League decision giving Syria’s seat to the Syrian Opposition Coalition corroborate this. The Arab League switch would not have been possible without Egypt’s full backing.

When discussing Egypt’s stance on Syria, we’re talking by implication about the position of Iran, which sees in Bashar al-Assad’s political survival the cornerstone of its strategy in the region.

After all, Iran effectively sacrificed its relations with the best part of the Ummah to preserve this immoral position. And the Islamic Republic’s loss on that matter is immeasurable by strategic standards.

Morsi would not have been supportive of the Syrian opposition had he been anxious to win Iran’s heart and mind.

He is aware that vexing Iran could tempt her to support and fund his opponents, if not tamper with Egypt’s internal security – chiefly in the soft areas of Sinai, where tribal groups and some Islamists are being led to believe they could challenge “Zionists” from that particular frontline.

On his February trip to Egypt for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not meet with Morsi except at Cairo airport, which is where Ahmadinejad offered him oil grants and financial support. Morsi simply ignored the offer.

Likewise, you can’t read much into the bilateral tourism promotion agreement between Egypt and Iran and the normalization of their commercial ties.

By comparison, tourism and commerce links between Turkey and Iran continue to prosper even though the two countries are exchanging blows in Syria and fighting a cold war across the region.

This is not to mention Tehran’s attempts to play the Kurdish card – a no-hoper since Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his historic peace deal with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

While Egypt has yet to resume diplomatic relations with Iran and bilateral tourism and commerce is just beginning, Arab Gulf states and the Islamic Republic share a wide range of diplomatic, tourism and trade links. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Iranians travel to Saudi Arabia annually to perform the Hajj and Umrah. Tens of thousands of Iranians also visit the UAE, Kuwait and Oman.

So can Morsi and his government overlook Egypt’s economic interests and shut out Iran? And is Egypt’s national security so porous as to be easily compromised by Tehran?

This takes us to the preoccupation of many people with Shi’ization (or the “missionary-style” spread of Shiism).

In truth, the obsession with Shi’ization is an insult to the Sunni branch of Islam, depicting it as vulnerable and easily pliable, which is far from being the case.

Inasmuch as Alawites are part of Shiite Islam, did 40-plus years of Alawite rule in Syria convert the country’s Sunni majority to Shiism?

More importantly, was Shiite Iran able to Shi’ize its own Sunni population (of about 10 percent) over the years?

Iran’s occasional dabbling in Shi’ization drives is provocative, featherbrained and futile. But the Arabs’ problem with Iran is far from being sectarian. The problem is political par excellence.

Egypt, it must be said, is a regional heavyweight with an impressive cultural and historical legacy. It is also home to the millennium-old Al-Azhar University, the foremost institution in the Islamic world for the study of Sunni theology and Islamic law, and to Al-Azhar Mosque.

The future will show that whoever thinks Iran can gobble up and Shi’ize Egypt is hallucinating.

Egypt will never fall in Iran’s lap, neither under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood nor under anyone else. Politics, history and the balance of power won’t let this happen.

Let’s stop portraying Iran as an omnipotent sovereign when it is wobbling under the weight of its problems in Syria, in Iraq and at home.

Iran will revert to its original size once Assad is shown the door. The Arab world will then have no problem building good neighborly relations with Tehran as it now has with Ankara.

Azhar rebuke & Syrian shoe greet Iran’s Egypt foray

From top: Ahmadinejad greeted by Morsi, next to the Grand Sheikh and then gloomy after the upbraiding

It was not exactly “veni, vidi, vici” (ecclesiastical Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered”).

It was more like “I came, I saw, I tried” for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he ended the first visit by a president of Shiite Iran to Egypt since the Khomeini Revolution in 1979.

He arrived in Cairo Tuesday for a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). But his priority was to try and thaw long, frigid ties with the Arab world’s most populous nation following the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi as president in June.

Morsi gave Ahmadinejad a red-carpet welcome on the tarmac at Cairo airport, shaking his hand, hugging and exchanging a kiss on each cheek.

In the days he was in Cairo, Ahmadinejad called for a strategic alliance between the two regional heavyweights to counter Western domination and promote unity in the Islamic world. He even offered Egypt a “big credit line.”

But Egypt's presidential spokesman Yasser Ali yesterday said an end to the Syria crisis is a condition to restore Cairo’s diplomatic relations with Tehran.

Additionally, Sunni-Shiite tensions dominated talks between Ahmadinejad and Egypt's most prominent cleric Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar mosque and university, who gave the Iranian leader a dressing down on a string of issues.

Al-Azhar is the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni-Muslim world.

According to a sum up of the talks posted on al-Azhar’s website, al-Tayeb told Ahmadinejad:

• Al-Azhar mosque and university have over a millennium-long history. Over half a million men and women students from 103 countries are enrolled at the university, which teaches all roots, branches and philosophies of Islam without exception

• Two of our ulema are among those attending this meeting. Their respective specialties are two Shiite philosophers, theologians and scholars, namely Sadr ad-Din Muhammad Shirazi (1572-1640) and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274).    

• “Allow me to say we are extremely disappointed to hear ceaseless insults hurled at the (Prophet’s) Companions and the Believers’ Mothers, God bless them. That’s totally unacceptable.” (Those figures are widely resented among Shiites because they are seen as having pushed aside Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb, the prophet's son-in-law, who Shiites consider his rightful successor. The dispute over succession is at the root of the centuries old split between Islam's Shiite and Sunni denominations.)

• “We absolutely reject the extension of Shiite reach” in Sunni countries and in Egypt.

• “Despite all what al-Azhar sees and hears of the insults hurled at the Companions and Aisha – God bless them – and Imam Bukhari, we don’t want to engage in a dispute we all can do without.”

• Iran must give its Sunni citizens their full rights. Citizenship is indivisible according to modern law and Islamic Sharia.

• A word about (Iran’s) meddling in the affairs of Bahrain and the Arab countries: The loyalty of Bahrainis should be to their homeland. No one should interfere in the Bahrainis’ internal affairs or in the affairs of Gulf Arab states.

• Immediate action is needed to bring a halt to bloodshed in beloved Syria.

As the Iranian president walked past the ancient al-Hussein mosque near al-Azhar, a man believed to be Syrian attempted to hurl a shoe at him.

Ahmadinejad in tears next to Sayyida Zaynab's tomb

Unperturbed, Ahmadinejad later visited the mosque and mausoleum of Sayyida Zaynab in the capital's Old Cairo district, where he cried beside the Muslim matriarch's tomb.

Sayyida Zaynab was the daughter of Imam Ali, the central figure of Shiite Islam and the cousin of Prophet Muhammad.

Ahmadinejad greeted the mosque's superintendents with hugs and kisses. After praying inside the mosque, he headed to the adjacent mausoleum where he shed tears and prayed next to Sayyida Zaynab's tomb.

Editorially, Mohammed bin Abdellatif Aal ash-Shaikh, writing for today’s edition of the Saudi daily newspaper al-Jazirah, says the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar must have “greatly embarrassed” Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

“He is a stumbling block hindering Egypt’s move away from its traditional political positions toward rapprochement with Iran. That’s what the Brotherhood’s Egypt is trying to do.”

Ash-Shaikh recalls, “The Brotherhood was the first Sunni group to applaud Khomeini’s takeover in Iran. It sent a delegation to congratulate him on his return to Tehran and considered his accession to power a triumph for Islam and Muslims…

“At the same time, the Muslim Brothers want to draw closer to Iran, the Number One enemy of Gulf Arab countries, to sponge off financial aid from them. The Brothers’ links with Iran, in other words, are meant to pump off cash” from the Gulf Cooperation Council partners. Except that the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb will continue standing in their way.

Egypt’s famed talk show host Imad Adeeb, writing for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, says al-Tayeb told Ahmadinejad in the face, “Stop persecuting the Sunnis of Iran. Respect the security of Gulf Arab states. Don’t back Bashar’s regime in his campaign against Syria’s Sunnis.”

Adeeb notes, “The Egyptian press and TV channels did not welcome Ahmadinejad. The masses did not crowd the streets to greet him. What was supposed to be a historic visit had nothing historic about it. The dream proved a nightmare. The signals from political and religious forces were disappointing…

“Ahmadinejad had hoped the Egyptian capital would compensate for the imminent exit of Assad’s Damascus from Iran’s sphere of influence. The Cairo visit dissipated that hope.” 

Iran’s space monkey, stealth fighter and Bashar

That's the wrong monkey with a mole over its right eye

Tehran was accused of monkey business this week when Iranian officials mistakenly released the wrong photo of their first simian space traveler.

Iranian space agency official Mohammad Ebrahimi yesterday told The Associated Press in Tehran one of two official packages of photos of Iran's first space monkey depicted the wrong creature, but a primate really did fly into space and return safely to Earth.

The two different monkeys shown in the photos released by Iran's state media caused some international observers to wonder whether the monkey had died in space or that the launch didn't go well.

One set of pictures showed a relatively dark-haired monkey. Another showed a different monkey — strapped in a pod — that had light gray hair and a distinctive red mole over its right eye.

Ebrahimi said the monkey who traveled in space was named "Pishgam," the Farsi word for pioneer. Initially, the Iranian media said "Pishgam" was the rocket that took him on a 20-minute journey into space last Monday.

Ebrahimi said one set of pictures showed an archive photo of one of the alternate monkeys. He said three to five monkeys are simultaneously tested for such a flight and two or three are chosen for the launch. Finally, the one that is best suited for the mission and isn't stressed is chosen for the voyage.

Satellite technology expert Pat Norris told BBC News Iran's claim to have sent a monkey into space was not a major advance on what its space program had already achieved.

The achievement was similar to launching a missile at 3,000mph and having its warhead survive the flight -- something Iran had done in several tests in recent years, he noted.

However, survival of the monkey, without incurring any injuries, would demonstrate that the acceleration and deceleration of the rocket were not too severe, Norris added.

In 2010, Iran successfully sent a rat, turtle and worms into space. But an attempt to send a monkey up in a rocket failed in 2011.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in 2010 the country planned to send a man into space by 2019.

Photos and image grabs of Qaher-323 from RT and www.kaskus.co.id 

Homemade “Conqueror”

In related news, Ahmadinejad yesterday unveiled in a hangar in Tehran a homemade “stealth” fighter-bomber jet reportedly capable of engaging targets on the ground, as well as achieving air superiority in dogfights.

Codenamed Qaher-313 (“Conqueror”), the jet is an advanced single-seat single-engine warplane, RT (Russia Today) reports.

According to photos published by Iran’s Fars news agency, the jet boasts impressive technical specifications, with a stealth design similar to the American F-22 and Russian T-50. The large wingspan and inclined outward tail fins resembles the F-35, as well as the unusual-looking wings and modern seamless canopy. The jet may have been constructed using composite materials.

Iranian engineers claim the Qaher is capable of short takeoffs and landings, and can be repaired easily.

Video of the jet suggests it is already undergoing flight tests, and Iranian pilots have reportedly said they are fully satisfied with its performance.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the Qaher is a “fully indigenous” aircraft, designed and constructed solely by Iranian aerospace experts.

"This advanced fighter jet with unique characteristics has a very low radar cross-section and therefore is capable of operating at low altitudes," Vahidi told Mehr.

Unveiling of the fighter jet coincided with Iran's “Ten-Day Dawn” celebrations marking the 39th anniversary of the end of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad said “Iran’s defense might does not serve purposes of expansionism and aggression against other countries.”

Targeted lorries in the air raid on Jaramana

Jaramana

Ahmadinejad’s opposite number and ally, Bashar al-Assad, told an Iranian official today, Sunday, that Israel was trying to “destabilize” Syria by attacking a military research center near Damascus last Wednesday.

In a meeting with Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's National Security Council, he said Syria was able to confront "current threats... and aggression.”

Syrian TV has shown images of the raid Damascus says Israeli jets carried out on a scientific research centre in Jaramana, northeast of Damascus, killing two and wounding five.

U.S. officials say lorries carrying weapons bound for Lebanon were the targets.

Tehran on charm offensive in Gaza and Amman

Ambassador Moslehzadeh and the Jaafar ibn Abi Taleb Mausoleum

The Islamic Republic of Iran, home to the world’s largest Shiite population, took two steps forward this week to keep the predominantly Sunnite Arab world on the back foot.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telephoned Hamas Movement’s prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, to acclaim “the victory of the Resistance” in its eight-day clash with Israel.

Israel launched its air blitz on Gaza -- which it says was aimed at ending rocket fire from Palestinian militants -- with the killing of a Hamas military leader last week.

A total of 162 Gazans and six Israelis were killed during the flare-up in which Gaza militants fired about 1,300 Iranian-made rockets and missiles at Israeli targets, while Israeli warplanes launched approximately the same number of air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Gaza watchers believe Iran proved to be a key player in the Gaza battle. “Her Fajr-5 missile was the star of the face-off.”

Ahmadinejad told Haniyeh Iran stands by the Palestinian people, to which the Hamas leader replied the victory belongs to the Muslim world.

As an Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was taking hold on Wednesday night, Iran made a very public overture to Jordan in what is perceived as another move to extend its influence in the region.

Iran’s ambassador in Amman, Dr. Mostafa Moslehzadeh, said late Wednesday Tehran is ready to supply Jordan with oil and energy for the next 30 years in exchange for Jordanian goods and “religious tourism” by Shiites in the kingdom.

Moslehzadeh made the barter offer during the Fil-Sameem (“In Essence”) program aired on Jordan's private Josat TV channel.

His comments came after a decision by the Jordanian government earlier this month to cut fuel subsidies sparked mass and sometimes violent popular protests, including surprising calls for King Abdullah II to step down.

Since the lifting of subsidies, the price of domestic gas has risen by more than 50%. Diesel and kerosene prices, meanwhile, have increased by a third.

Last year, Saudi Arabia gave Jordan a last-minute $1.4 billion cash handout to keep Jordan afloat, but it withheld aid this year, officials have said.

According to Scott Lasensky, a senior research associate at the United States Institute for Peace’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, oil has always been an important consideration in Jordan’s Arab relations.

“Since the 1980s, not only was Iraq one of the largest players in Jordan’s economy, but also Saddam [Hussein] singlehandedly guaranteed most of Jordan’s energy needs at below-market prices. Oil lay at the heart of Jordan’s late 1990s trade boom with Iraq…

“Baghdad was a generous benefactor. Jordan now has a major stake in either restoring or replacing that munificence. In a bid for greater influence with Amman, Iraq sold oil to Jordan at below market prices after the UN Oil-for-Food Program was established in Iraq; in 2000, with prices around $30 a barrel, Jordan received Iraqi oil at $9.50 a barrel. Moreover, Iraq allowed Jordan, a country without domestic energy resources, to pay for the subsidized oil with consumer goods…

“Exports to Iraq reached $420 million in 2001, nearly a quarter of Jordan’s exports.

“The system amounted to an annual grant, in real terms, of approximately $400–600 million a year. According to some estimates, the benefit was even higher—$500 million to $1 billion annually.

“In the post-Saddam era, Jordan was able to secure its oil needs on-and-off from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates…”

But the generosity of the Gulf Arab oil-producers has waned and post-Saddam Iraq is now under Iran’s thumb.

In its coverage today of Moslehzadeh’s remarks, Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat says, “Observers believe the Iranian offer was timed to coincide with the delay in Gulf aid to Jordan. Jordanian official circles presume the aid – which Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour has estimated at $1 billion -- won’t be coming at all.”

Asharq Alawsat quotes its unnamed sources as saying, “Jordan is unlikely to take up any Iranian offer. The one made [by Moslehzadeh] is akin to a political tradeoff – oil in exchange for religious tourism and political stands a propos the Syria crisis mirroring Iran’s.”

The Saudi daily says there are “several ancient sites in Jordan that are important to Muslims generally and Shiites in particular. Among the latter is the Mausoleum of Jaafar ibn Abi Taleb, the brother of Imam Ali and the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. The mausoleum is in the town of al-Mazar al-Janoubi near Karak, south of the capital Amman.”

Barack Obama in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar

Protesters in Tehran yesterday

Iran’s rial is in a tailspin, having lost more than half of its value against the dollar in street trading in the past two months as U.S. and European sanctions aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear program bite.

Riot police yesterday fired tear gas and sealed off parts of downtown Tehran after the currency’s plunge triggered street protests.

The current rate of 35,500 rials against the U.S. dollar, compared with 24,000 a week ago on the unofficial street trading rate, which is widely followed in Iran. It was close to 10,000 rials for $1 in early 2011.

At Tehran's Grand Bazaar -- the traditional business hub in Iran's capital – currency exchange shops closed down to protest the instability in exchange rates and prices that made trading almost impossible.

The sprawling bazaar has played a critical role in charting Iran's political course - leading a revolt that wrung pro-democratic concession from the ruling monarchy more than a century ago and reportedly bankrolling the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"Leave Syria alone, think of us instead" was one of the slogans protesters wrote on placards, according to Kaleme.com, an Iranian opposition site.

Other slogans raised according to Kaleme.com were, "We Do Not Want Nuclear Energy" and "Leave Syria Now.”

The Iranian economy is finding it difficult to cope with the West’s economic sanctions, but the extensive financial aid to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not stopped.

The Times of London reported this week that Tehran has transferred some $10 billion to Damascus in support of Assad's war on the Syrian opposition.

But in a think piece titled “Obama in Tehran’s Bazaar,” political analyst Zuhair Qusaibati suggests the rial is in a tailspin because of the success of Obama administration’s Iran policy more than anything else.

“Tehran’s bazaar did not close in protest against the rivers of blood in Syria or against the Syrian regime’s diehard though futile attempts” to finish off the Syrian revolution, Qusaibati writes for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

“Nor did the bazaar close in solidarity with the Axis of Resistance (comprising Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah), which is now on the earthquake’s first fault line stretching from Damascus to Baghdad and all the way to Tehran.

“The bazaar did not protest the economic fallout on a ‘Great Power’ still lacking nuclear teeth of funding the Syrian regime’s war.”

The war on the rial is what closed Tehran’s shops, according to Qusaibati. And American soft power is what returned riot police to Tehran’s streets.

“The bazaar shutdown is a windfall for President Barack Obama as it would enhance his reelection chances in November. He is the one who brushed aside Benjamin Netanyahu’s blackmail, insisting that economic sanctions on the Iranian regime were beginning to bite, thus making the costly military option redundant.”

Qusaibati notes, “Recourse to sanctions to choke the Iranian economy and dry up regime funding for its offshoots abroad is probably the Obama Administration’s sole foreign policy achievement.

“The Syrian revolution that took everyone by surprise, including the Americans, presented Obama with a golden opportunity to seize the moment and give his administration every chance to dismantle the Axis of Resistance without firing a shot or deploying Marines to the Arabian Sea and Syria’s shores.”

Sanctions, says Qusaybati, are what caused the Iranian currency to plummet to record lows, inflamed the tug of war between tottering President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his nemesis, parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and triggered the first street protests in the Iranian capital since the demise of the Iranian Green Movement.

“The Iranian Spring might not await the rial’s total collapse, or the unlikely bankruptcy of the self-styled ‘Great Power’ so long as it can dip into the hard currency kitty of its proxy, Iraq.

“The Iranian Spring, for Ali Khamenei, might be the other face of the storm Syrian President Bashar al-Assad once discounted because ‘Syrians cling to their leadership.’”

Qusaibati concludes, “Tehran funds its nuclear program, the battle to salvage Syria’s regime and its endeavors in Mediterranean territory to remain a stone throw’s away from Israel, leaving most Iranians struggling economically.”

Much as Khamenei keeps regurgitating slogans about “resistance against Zionism” while tyrants crack down on their peoples with Zionists gloating over their enemies’ stupidity, he will fail to convince protesters in Tehran that Western leeches are sucking their national currency.

“Iran is not Syria, but borders don’t hinder either spring or autumn. The enemies Ahmadinejad has been expecting in the Gulf and Straits of Hormuz continue to wager their money on sanctions.”