Race to Publish Classified Information
Hossein Bastani h.bastani@roozonline.com - 2008.06.15

Recently, after the President’s recent revealing “disclosures” that were directed against some authorities in various state agencies while on a trip to Qom – which was supposedly done because he believed they blocked his policies - conservative news sites in Iran published reports indicating that the Leader of the Islamic regime had criticized the President.
The importance of this news is that soon after the President was scolded by the Leader for his regular disclosures against his political rivals, on May 17, 2008 he participated in a question and answer session with supportive students at the presidency in which he embarked on newer “disclosures” against Majlis’ obstructions, and those of the Judiciary and even two of his own cabinet ministers.
This type of response by Mr. Ahmadinejad is very similar to the way he had responded to an earlier admonition made by ayatollah Khamenei when the latter had called for the President stop making “revelations” about Azad University. That unofficial warning did not lead to the termination of the President’s “revelations”, and instead the warning was made public. It the Spring of last year when a supportive student asked the President why the government had not followed up on its plans against Azad University, the President made a reference to the Leader and said, “Some very senior authorities had advised that the issue should not be pursued under the current nuclear conditions.” This reference was repeated on at least two other occasions by the President.
The news of ayatollah Khamenei’s criticism of the President’s accusations against other officials came after the classified letter that the Judiciary had sent to the Majlis on January 13, 2008 was made public in response to the publication of a report by the Majlis regarding the work of the Judiciary, which contained some strong accusatory language against it. This letter was revealed to the public as the Judiciary took an unprecedented step in actually beginning the prosecution of a Majlis deputy who had a criminal sex case sitting on a docket (which was a reminder of the sex scandal to which the former Police chief was recently exposed to).
These revelations and counter-revelations by the Majlis and the Judiciary are a reminder of the earlier expose fights that went on between the Majlis and the President, which began last February when Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel read out a presidential letter that he had received from Ahmadinejad in which the latter had objected to a certain legislature as being unlawful. The Majlis Speaker approached the Leader to intervene, whose unofficial response he read out on the very same floor, and consequently to the media.
This race to reveal classified letters and information has also included the most sensitive issues relating to the national security. These revelations have included those regarding the serial killings of intellectuals in 1998 that were recently made by two individuals close to security agencies, going to the extent that one of them (Abdollah Shahbazi) published the secret remarks of the Leader of Iran that were made in the presence of the heads of the three branches of government in December of 1998. The revelations have also included those regarding the nuclear case, for example, when former Interior Minister’s statement in June 2007: “Iran has more than 100 kilograms of enriched uranium,” was published by ISNA news agency (even though this amount appears very unlikely). Another case was of course when the President invited television cameras to follow him while on a visit to a secret nuclear enrichment facility, which shocked observers.
Since then, there have been many revelations by current and former officials, and news websites belonging to the conservatists regarding discussions and details of the government’s unofficial meetings etc. These have in fact turned into regular shows.
It appears that the ascent of vocal yet unqualified neo-conservatists to power in Iran has created a situation that it has become very easy to obtain classified information about the country.
One cannot forget that the cries that these very individuals who now boat the “homogeneity” of the government made about “exposing state secrets” during former President Khatami’s administration when they were in the opposition.
In all honesty, one wonders how does the state of protecting intelligence in the Islamic republic look like, while the Iranian neo-conservatists make the loudest noise about state “security” and “intelligence”?
