President Ahmadinejad is smearing his enemies while under persecution himself for insisting on pushing his own candidate for president in the June 24 election and bringing the economy to the brink of disaster.

Israel’s leaders are again talking about a unilateral strike on Iran after discovering that contrary to US reports, its nuclear program has picked up speed and after watching the tame US handling of the Korean crisis.

The Al Qods Brigades chief, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, candidly Iran’s hopes and ambitions in a public lecture this week. He indicated that Syria is no longer the focus of Iran’s plans of expansion but rather Iraq, which has been chosen as the main vehicle for exporting the Shiite ...

Washington’s insistence that Iran has slowed down nuclear progress out of political motivations impelled the IAEA chief Yukiya Amano to offer proof that Iran is secretly continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

President Barack Obama persuaded Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in their talks in Jerusalem this week to give Tehran three more months to work through nuclear diplomacy with the P5+1 group of world powers, debkafile discloses. This grace period expires after Iran’s June 24 presidential election, although military action against its nuclear sites may not necessarily follow the next day. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, however, warned Thursday, March 21, that if attacked, “the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

The White House was unmoved by the IAEA finding that Iran had installed 180 advanced centrifuges at Natanz to speed enrichment and commented Thursday, Feb. 21 that “a diplomatic solution is still possible” for Iran’s nuclear program. debkafile: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling in a debt from the US president: He respected Barack’s Obama’s campaign for reelection and gave up Iran’s “October surprise. Now he expects the US president not to upset his push to get his handpicked choice elected as Iran’s next president.

Khamenei has cut short the brawl between Ahmadinejad and Speaker Larijani in the run-up to the June presidential election, by picking a bland, unassuming professor as his favorite candidate for next president.

The North Korean test of a “miniature nuclear device” capability, combined with Iran’s ability to launch a capsule with a monkey payload into orbit, add up to their having achieved a nuclear warhead capacity through shared technology. Officials in Jerusalem were dismayed to discover that, instead of cutting this menace short, members of President Barack Obama’s circle were studying a bizarre plan to appease Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by seeking UN Security Council endorsement for his nuclear fatwa.

Revolutionary Guards and army chiefs are weighing a military takeover in Tehran to end the ferocious infighting within the regime and prevent Ahmadinejad stirring up trouble to get his candidate elected in the June presidential vote.

No one is listening to Ali Khamenei when he says there will be no substantial nuclear negotiations until sanctions are lifted on oil revenues and banks. Iran is furnishing the Assad regime with $1 bn per month in aid despite sanctions.

Iran’s Ali Khamenei closed the door on the direct nuclear talks offered by Vice President Joe Biden, arguing, Thursday, Feb. 7, that they “would solve nothing” because, "You are holding a gun against Iran.” debkafile: He was reacting both to the new sanctions the US imposed Wednesday and to President Barack Obama’s forthcoming visit to Israel to confer with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Iran and Syria. The US has cancelled the departure of a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf due to budget cutbacks.

Khamenei is at his old tricks of spinning out nuclear negotiations while developing Iran’s nuclear capabilities and grabbing strategic assets in the Middle East. No longer fearing a US military strike, he is now bent on pumping Obama for more concessions on Iran’s nuclear program. He and his advisers decided that the same old tactics which worked  for 12 years would do perfectly well for the second Obama administration team, especially if Chuck Hagel and John Brennan are approved as Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech Wednesday, Jan. 2, “The country’s economy should not be controlled by 3,000 or 10,000 people.” Seventy-six million Iranians still don’t benefit from the country’s oil revenues, "only an elite minotiry."  debkafile:  The president’s new role of social crusader has sent his relations and friends rushing for the exits, selling property and packing their bags. They know his fate and their own hangs by a thread in a country where car accidents are a common feature of political life.

Obama has made it clear to Ayatollah Khamenei that lack of progress Iran abandoning its work on a nuclear weapon within the three-month framework for negotiations will lead to US approaching the UN Security Council as its penultimate move before a military offensive.

A confidential report submitted to Ayatollah Khamenei advises a massive expansion of military spending focusing on earmarking more money and scientific resources for developing missile and sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles. The technology and manufacturing plants for sophisticated drones should be transferred to Gaza and Sudan – not Lebanon. This ...

President Barack Obama, in a phone conversation with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu early Saturday, reiterated his support for Israel’s right to defend itself. He also spoke to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Where does the sudden harmonious Obama-Netanyahu cooperation over the Gaza operation come from? debkafile: The US is using Israel’s Gaza operation to drag Iranian ruler Ali Khamenei to the negotiating table. Netanyahu hopes Obama will be led into a military confrontation with Iran. An Israeli ground operation is up to both.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has decided against opening direct talks with the Obama administration, upsetting the reelected President Obama’s best-laid plans to solve the Iranian nuclear controversy by diplomacy.

Barack Obama’s decision to go for direct talks with Iran comes too late to stop its nuclear program. He is left with bargaining over the size of the Iranian nuclear arsenal and its disposal with Ali Khamenei holding most of the high cards.

US President Barack Obama aims to launch direct, fast-track nuclear talks with Tehran in December with a three month deadline for their conclusion, debkafile reports. His advisers warn him that Iran’s campaign for its June 14 presidential election kicks off in March and Tehran cannot be expected to commit to a resolution of their nuclear controversy by then.  Iranian strategists would prefer to hold off nuclear diplomacy for eight months until after their election “just as Tehran waited for the US vote.”

An Iranian ex-diplomat and a lawmaker provide unknown details of the four years of secret American-Iranian exchanges on solving the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program which ended without results.