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In a public address, Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad alludes to Hossein ‎Mousavian, the spokesperson of the country’s former negotiations team on the nuclear ‎issue as a spy. On the very same day, Mousavian appears in the front row of a ‎government seminar with other leading officials of the state, next to Hashemi Rafsanjani. ‎Question: Is it difficult to predict how Ahmadinejad’s administration would respond to ‎this type of support for the former spokesperson of the nuclear negotiations team? Not ‎really.‎

The response of the government came one day later. Mohsen Ejhei, Iran’s Minister of ‎Intelligence, for the first time formally accused Hossein Mousavian to espionage for ‎Britain.‎

And through this charge, after months of vague accusations against Iran’s former nuclear ‎negotiations team by the President, a specific charge has been aired by the Minister of ‎Intelligence, which will most likely result in very serious responses. To actually witness ‎the reverberations of the current round of battles between the President and the Chairman ‎of the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregan) one has to wait for immediate ‎upcoming events. But now that the first step in clarifying the nature of the government’s ‎accusation against Mousavian has been taken, this process must include responses to a ‎number of other specific ambiguous as well.‎
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First. Hossein Mousavian was arrested in May 2007 by the Ministry of Intelligence on ‎charges of “anti-state security activities in connection with the nuclear dossier.” This ‎came at a time when according to news sites close to the office of the presidency, Mr. ‎Ahmadinejad concurrently had spoken of the discovery of “incredible” intelligence about ‎the “treason” committed by some officials of the nuclear dossier and their connections ‎with foreigners. Still, just 8 days after his arrest, Mousavian was released on a $200,000 ‎bail(equivalent to the bail amount that is set for a teacher accused of participating in a ‎syndicated demonstration without a permit). At first one may easily conclude that that ‎easy release was the result of a discrepancy between the judgment of a judge and the ‎view of the Ministry of Intelligence in the case. But when 27 conservative PM’s ‎summoned the Minister of Intelligence to the parliament to explain why a “nuclear spy” ‎was released on such a light bail, almost without any hesitation and without trying to ‎blame the release of a spy on the judiciary, the Minister announced that he did not ‎consider the bail amount to be “disproportional”. ‎

Question: How can an official of the intelligence apparatus of a country on one hand ‎consider the release of a person 8 days after his arrest with a light bail to be ‎‎“proportionate” while on the other, believe that this person is a British spy in the nuclear ‎issue?‎

Second. A few months earlier, the government spokesperson had assured after the arrest ‎of Mousavian that “the information on this case would be handed over to security ‎authorities in due time.” Four months later, Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke of 8 to 10 people ‎who had passed on classified intelligence to the West. More recently, he had stressed that ‎‎“had he not exposed the spies, they would have handed over everything” to the enemy, at ‎the same time calling on the Ministry of Intelligence to “release the documents ‎‎[espionage activities].” But following all these threats and promises to disclose ‎information in this case, all that has emerged is an accusation by the Ministry that there is ‎only one person, i.e. Hossein Mousavian, who has been a spy for Britain.‎

Every espionage case has two parties, and so the immediate response that one would ‎expect the President and the security apparatus to follow is to deal with the foreign party ‎of the nuclear espionage case, which according to the Minister was at the receiving end of ‎the classified intelligence from Mousavian. In today’s world, when it is categorically ‎proven that a foreign power has been engaged in espionage regarding the most sensitive ‎secrets of a country, how that country is treated is very clear.‎

Question: Does Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government consider the security claims recently ‎raised by the Minister of Intelligence to be credible enough to deal with a country which ‎has been engaged in “nuclear espionage” according to international norms?‎

A minor point. In the course of his accusations against nuclear agents, Mr. Ahmadinejad ‎has also mentioned the role of other foreign powers in uncovering the espionage ‎activities. Last May, following the disclosure of “treason by some nuclear officials and ‎their relations with foreigners”, he attributed the source of this information to be from ‎‎“outside the country”, after which the domestic services came up with more leads which ‎they followed up,” he said. More recently at Elm-va-Sanaat University (Science and ‎Technology), the President said, “Westerners themselves told us that they [i.e. the ‎betraying Iranian officials] had said that Ahmadinejad’s term must come to its end.” ‎

Last question: Now that the “exposure” of nuclear espionage has begun, is Mr. ‎Ahmadinejad’s Ministry of Intelligence prepared to confirm the role of “Westerners” and ‎‎“foreign sources” in the exposure of the acts of treason in the nuclear issue? ‎