* Ahmadinejad vows to toughen stance toward West Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Saturday to toughen Iran’s stance toward the West during his new term in office, the official news agency IRNA reported.

* N. Korea: We’ll intercept Japanese jets North Korea threatened Saturday to shoot down any Japanese planes that enter its airspace, accusing Tokyo of spying near one of its missile launch sites.

* Blair sees Middle East deal if Israel acts Quartet envoy says deal on a two-state solution could be within reach if Jerusalem compromises on issues such as halting settlement expansion.

* Syria threatens to take back Golan by force Syrian officials threatened on Saturday to take back the Golan Heights by force if a peace agreement involving the return of the strategic plateau is not reached with Israel, Army Radio reported.

* Turkey to ‘never give up’ EU bid Turkey has urged France and Germany to back its bid to join the EU, rejecting calls for a special partnership rather than full membership.

* Hariri named as Lebanon’s new PM Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman has named Saad Hariri as the country’s new prime minister, following parliamentary election earlier this month.

* Iran’s security council tells Moussavi to back off Members of Iran’s influential National Security Council have told opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi that his repeated demands for the annulment of the June 12 election results are “illogical and unethical,” state media reported.

* Iraqi PM Calls for National Unity Following Deadly Bombings Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for national unity, following a spate of deadly bombings just days before U.S. forces are set to withdraw from Iraqi cities.

* Medvedev says first African tour came just in time Russian President Dmitry Medvedev returned from his trip to Africa on Saturday, declaring that such a visit should have been made sooner but it was not too late for Russia to play a role on the continent.

* European leaders mark Iron Curtain fall in Hungary European leaders marked the 20th anniversary of the symbolic fall of the Iron Curtain, often described as the first crack in the Berlin Wall and one of the key episodes leading to the end of communism in Eastern Europe, in Budapest on Saturday.

* Holy Ark Announcement Due on Friday An Ethiopian church leader says Friday, June 26, marks the right time to unveil the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, which he says has been hidden in his church for centuries.

* G8 urges Israel to halt W. Bank settlement construction Foreign ministers of Group of Eight countries urged Israel to halt all settlement construction in the West Bank Friday.

* Hamas leader: Obama must do more for peace Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal on Thursday called on the United States to take a more active role in the Mideast peace process “so that America and the rest of the world can take a break from the headache of the region.”

* Lieberman slams Obama’s Iran policy Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman lambasted American policy of engagement with Iran and the US demand that Israel halt natural growth in the West Bank settlements.

* U.S. providing weapons to Somali government, officials say The United States is providing weapons and ammunition to Somalia’s transitional government as it fights al Qaeda-linked Islamic militants.

* US hopes to start Mideast talks soon US envoy George Mitchell said on Friday that the United States hoped Israelis and Palestinians would soon begin “meaningful and productive” peace negotiations.

* Iranian Cleric: Protesters at War With God A senior Iranian cleric has called on the government to punish the leaders of the country’s post-election protests cruelly and without mercy.

* Palestinians want to build settlements The last thing that Abu Mohammed al-Najjar wants is for Israel to succumb to US and European pressure and halt construction in the West Bank settlements.

* Kurdistan prime minister rejects Iraq oil auctions The prime minister of Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region condemned on Friday plans by the Oil Ministry to auction six fields in a June 29-30 tender for service contracts.

* Hariri set to become Lebanon PM, meets with Nasrallah A majority of Lebanon’s parliament will nominate U.S.-backed Saad al-Hariri for the post of prime minister.

By: –

European institutions, especially the European Commission, should be given more power, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday (19 June), in a foretaste of his upcoming EU reform proposals.

“I am really for a strong European Commission, a strong Council [the institution representing EU member states] and a strong European Parliament,” Mr Sarkozy said at a press conference following a two-day meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

“For the parliament, it’s done. For the council, I hope that with the Lisbon [treaty] it will be done. I really think we can have a win-win system for the three big institutions.”

According to the president, the European Commission at the moment is too weak, mainly due to its size – it has 27 commissioners, one from each member state and a large number of “smaller portfolios.”

The commission president “does not have enough authority over his commissioners,” Mr Sarkozy said, stressing he was not referring to Mr Barroso personally, but rather to the presidential office in the organisation.

He said all three institutions should be equally strong in order to avoid “imbalance.”

“If there is one that is stronger than the other, this introduces imbalance into the system,” the French leader explained.

The remarks foreshadow Mr Sarkozy’s speech on Monday, when he is to address both chambers of the French parliament, outlining his vision for reforms in the EU in the aftermath of the European elections.

The president did not confirm French press reports that he supports former Spanish socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez to become the first EU president if the Lisbon treaty enters into force. The treaty creates the new position and may come into life after a second Irish referendum in autumn.

Mr Sarkozy declined to put forward any names, but said the person in the new job should be “strong and ambitious [for Europe].”

The candidate’s nationality and political affiliation would also play a part. “Whether he is from a small or a big member state, his experience and his European engagement,” will count, the French leader indicated.

“One political family cannot have all the posts,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy expressed support for Polish ex-premier Jerzy Buzek to become the new European Parliament president. Mr Buzek is competing for the post with Italy’s Mario Mauro, but is believed to have greater support.

“I think he would be an excellent candidate,” the French president said. “[It would] send a very positive signal to our friends from eastern Europe.”

By: –

The past two weeks have been an eye-opener for a lot of people, including Arab and Muslim communities around the world. While most Middle East analysts and those familiar with Iranian politics knew that the Iranian theocracy did not enjoy the support of the country’s 70 million people, this was news to many in the West. In fact, Iranians are more westernized, in their values and lifestyle, than we might think from viewing most news stories about Iran. The majority of Iranians have far different values from those ruling them at gunpoint.

The global impact of the Iranian rejection of theocracy on Muslim activism has started to be noticed. There is a sense of confusion and despair among many recipients of Iranian government funding around the world. The links between Iran and the movements it supports will become more visible as its beneficiaries try to find their place in the chaos. In fact, while uncorroborated like most news coming out of Iran now, we’ve even heard about a brief appearance of Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian Hamas on the streets of Teheran and Mashhad. It is understandable that at any given time there will be groups belonging to Hizbullah and Hamas training in Iran, but it was rather unusual to hear of their deployment and willingness to fight the people of Iran in the streets of their cities. People there actually try to chat up the police and Basij Militia to see whether they even speak Farsi.

Muslim theocrats observing one of their main supporters in this holy movement being challenged must be unsettling in a culture not used to such actions. That the majority of Iran’s population is questioning the theocracy and the sense of fairness of the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei puts the livelihood of some commentators in question. For example when CNN reports that Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a pan-Arab newspaper, defending the actions of the Iranian government and blaming the democracy seekers in Iran, the reason probably lies in self-preservation.

Iran spends billions of dollars in different regions for various causes. Iran is the second-largest source of funds in the world, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia, for Islamic causes. From Somalia to Lebanon’s Hizbullah, from Hamas to the Egyptian Shiite movement, Iranian support – whether through direct funding or military and training – will be jeopardized if the theocrats are unseated. So would Iran’s support as a major donor to various proactive Muslim organizations in Europe, North America, and South America. The Iranian government’s role in supporting, training and facilitating the Sudanese Holocaust in Darfur is significant, with only the Chinese playing a larger role.

So when Abdel Bari Atwan expresses his dismay with Mir Moussavi and millions of Iranians who are no longer interested in being ruled at gunpoint by Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, it is a telling sign that the global theocracy movement is worried and distressed.

THE HISTORY of the Iranian government’s support for exporting Muslim ideology and activism goes back to the early ’80s, when it contributed financially to Iranian foreign students funds in different countries in return for wearing the hijab. Then they became savvy and provided funding and moral support for other organizations across the globe. Today, there are private Muslim schools in North America and Europe that wouldn’t exist if it were not for direct or indirect monetary assistance from the Iranian government. The number of organizations receiving funding and support from Iranians is probably in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

It is certain that those groups and organizations that might expect their funding to be in danger would start lobbying various governments to turn a blind eye to events in Iran. Whether Western politicians have any stomach for this type of lobbying at this point is another topic of discussion. Indeed the global Muslim theocracy movement is in danger at the hands of the Iranian people not only financially, but also in terms of the legitimacy of theocracy as a political system.

It is too early to say what the long-term impact will be, but it is certain that there has been at least a negative psychological impact on the legitimacy of theocracy as a result of the Iranian protests. There may be those who will try to spin the story and claim that the people of Iran still support theocracy and their beef is only with the election and Ahmadinejad. One can say with certainty that for the first few days the Iranian people tried to manage this evolution leaving some wiggle room for the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But as of last Friday the gloves were off. With Ayatollah Khamenei showing no restraint, people started chanting “death to Khamenei”, a sign of the realization that they could even go further and let the world know what they really want: the abolition of theocracy in Iran.

Whether the brave people of Iran are successful in their aspirations to live without theocratic rule is unknown. However, it can be said with certainty that their efforts have changed the face of the theocracy movement not only within Iran, but also globally.

* Iran’s Mousavi defies crackdown Iran protest leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says he holds those behind alleged “rigged” elections responsible for bloodshed during recent protests.

* NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

* Iran unrest to dominate G8 talks Unrest in Iran is expected to dominate discussions between foreign ministers gathering in northern Italy to prepare for a G8 summit.

* Somali Islamists cut off hands, feet of thieves In a brazen show of power in Somalia’s capital, Islamist rebels punished four convicted thieves by cutting off a hand and a foot each before hundreds of onlookers who gathered for the bloody spectacle.

* The global Muslim theocracy movement is worried The past two weeks have been an eye-opener for a lot of people, including Arab and Muslim communities around the world.

* Baghdad market bomb kills scores Police said the device went off in a market place in the predominantly Shia area of the Iraqi capital.

* China accuses Google of spreading pornography China accused Google Inc. on Thursday of spreading pornography after Chinese users were unable to connect to the search giant’s Web site.

* Netanyahu, French officials discuss peace efforts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met France’s prime minister and foreign minister Thursday.

* Major Hamas Speech Awaited on Thursday Following major policy speeches by US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and even the PA’s prime minister Salam Fayyad in the past three weeks, it will now be the turn of Khaled Mashaal of Hamas.

* Jerusalem gay pride parade kicks off The Jerusalem gay pride parade, which regularly riles up religious and haredi city residents, kicked off Thursday afternoon under tight security.

* Iran ‘will not yield’ over poll Iran’s supreme leader has said the nation “will not yield to pressure” over a disputed presidential election.

* Assad- Israeli partner willing to commit to peace doesn’t exist Although tensions between Washington and Damascus may be thawing, it seems the relations between Israel and Syria are as cool as ever.

* US-Israel talks in Paris aborted A meeting between Israel’s prime minister and a senior US envoy has been cancelled amid growing differences over settlement building in the West Bank.

* US ‘to send ambassador to Syria’ Washington is to send an ambassador to Damascus, ending a four-year diplomatic absence in Syria.

* Polls Show Americans Less Pro-Israel Yet Tougher on Iran Two recent polls have shown that while less Americans see themselves as pro-Israel, more Americans support coming to Israel’s aid if Iran attacks it.

* Klaus pledges to be last to sign the Lisbon Treaty Czech President Vaclav Klaus has pledged to be the last in the EU to sign the Lisbon Treaty.

* US, Russia Resume Nuclear Arms talks The United States and Russia have resumed negotiations in Geneva on cutting their nuclear arsenals.

* Israel keeps anxious eye on Iran turmoil Israel is keeping an anxious eye on the turmoil in Iran for any signs on what the crisis may mean for its arch-enemy’s nuclear drive.

* Communists turn to Stalin to fight crisis Russian communists have put up giant billboards of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a southern city.

* U.S. contacted Iran’s ayatollah before election Prior to this month’s disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations.

By: Robert Maginnis – Human Events

President Obama must heed the advice of a new congressional commission which warns against bargaining away our nuclear deterrent at the upcoming Moscow summit. It cautions the president to “maintain a nuclear deterrent that is safe, secure, and reliable” which is becoming more difficult as our complex atomic threat grows.

The May 2009 congressional commission report, “America’s Strategic Posture,” acknowledges President Obama’s campaign goal to eliminate all nuclear weapons but cautions such a reality would “require a fundamental change in geopolitics.” The bipartisan commission, which was led by former secretaries of defense William Perry and James Schlesinger, doesn’t believe elimination of nuclear weapons is possible anytime soon but accepts an interim “base camp” position that “would be safer than where we are today.”

The commission warns arms control is a minefield marked by opaque and incomplete information as well as advantages for our potential adversaries. It provides clear recommendations for President Obama’s strategic nuclear planning: maintain our triad of delivery systems, sustain an infrastructure to protect atomic weapons reliability, cache enough warheads to keep our potential enemies in check and maintain policies like the doctrine on weapons of mass destruction [WMD] that deter emerging threats.

President Obama travels to Moscow on July 6 at the invitation of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, for a summit to curb nuclear arms replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires this December. The commission proposes a limited — “base camp” — summit outcome, “a mutual reduction of operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons in some increment should be achievable.”

We have made significant progress since the height of the Cold War. The U.S. nuclear arsenal numbered over 32,000 warheads and the Soviet arsenal had over 45,000 in the 1980s. Today, the U.S. has 2,200 strategic warheads deployed and Russia has 2,800. The 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions between then-President Vladimir Putin and President George W. Bush called for cuts to between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012. Both nations have withdrawn about 14,000 tactical nuclear weapons from forward deployments as well.

The commission suggests our future atomic posture should “create the conditions in which nuclear weapons are never used” but warns of a growing “new, more complex and fluid threat environment.” President Obama must consider this global threat when negotiating arms reduction at the Moscow summit.

The new threat environment includes potential state adversaries, rogue countries like North Korea and Iran as well as terror groups. The terror group al Qaeda declared that obtaining a nuclear weapon is a “holy duty” for its members. “That’s why preventing nuclear terrorism is closely tied to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” states the commission.

“But we are in danger of losing the battle to stop proliferation,” states the commission. North Korea has a nuclear arsenal and is willing to sell that technology. Iran appears to be following in Pyongyang’s atomic footsteps. “Thus, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and fissile materials is dangerously close to a ‘tipping point,’” warns the commission.

China’s nuclear arsenal is significantly smaller than the U.S.’s arsenal, but they are expanding rapidly and their no-first-use of nuclear weapons commitment “may be conditional,” according to the commission. China’s expansion covers the spectrum of capabilities on land, air and sea.

Russia maintains a large ICBM force and is modernizing its complete arsenal on nuclear capable platforms. The U.S. doesn’t know, definitively, the numbers of atomic weapons in the Russian arsenal, especially tactical warheads. The commission states Russia “stores thousands of these [tactical] weapons in apparent support of possible military operations west of the Urals” and “as reductions continue in the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons, this imbalance will become more apparent and allies less assured.”

The commission makes a number of recommendations for America’s future strategic posture. These should guide the President in Moscow.

It recommends structuring our nuclear force to discourage Russia and China from trying to “compete for some new advantage in the nuclear realm.” We should keep enough capability, says the commission, “to impress upon Russian leaders the impossibility of gaining a position of nuclear supremacy.” We should also “retain a large enough force of nuclear weapons that China is not tempted to try to reach a posture of strategic equivalency with the United States.”

The commission defends our triad — bombers, ICBMs, and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) — of strategic delivery systems as providing “unique contributions to stability.” It argues our triad “should be maintained for the immediate future and this will require some difficult investment choices.”

Our bomber force is a visible presence in times of crisis which in itself extends deterrence. It also, as the commission states, imposes a significant cost burden on adversaries to invest in air defenses.

Our highly responsive ICBM force is widely dispersed, which would require an aggressor to attack with a very large number of atomic weapons. This would deplete his forces especially for small nuclear powers like China and ensure a devastating response from the U.S.

Our SLBM force is the most survivable and our insurance policy should the other parts of the triad fail.

The commission promotes the continued threat to use nuclear weapons as a WMD deterrent. It affirms the U.S. should “continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including through resort to all of our options — to the use of WMD against the United States.”

Use of atomic weapons in response to WMD use is justified, says the commission, in part by the principle of “belligerent reprisal,” a rule of international law under which the “illegal action of an aggressor permits the victim to carry out retaliation.”

The commission cautions the U.S. to preserve our at-risk atomic infrastructure. It warns we are losing our nuclear weapons technical talent to other industries and morale has declined in part because of budget cuts and the fact that we no longer build and test new weapons or produce fissile material. The commission says the U.S. risks inadvertently reducing “laboratory capabilities below some tipping point, after which it would be necessary to redevelop the capability to design and produce nuclear weapons if there is a future requirement.”

The commission dispelled a myth Obama embraced during the presidential campaign. American and Russian forces are not on so-called “hair trigger” alert. Their alert postures are “in fact highly stable” with multiple layers of control.

It called for investment to reduce the vulnerability of the nation to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects. The commission indicated this is a serious potential threat, given the high level of vulnerability from emergent atomic powers like Iran and North Korea. The commission indicates “such attacks could have catastrophic consequences” such as shutting down our electrical system, disabling the Internet and incapacitating transportation systems.

The commission concludes with a sobering warning that the global community of atomic powers must preserve the non-use atomic weapons policy. “Any future use of nuclear weapons is likely to be the beginning of a catastrophic change in the world order … and would risk a highly unstable nuclear disorder.”

In Moscow, Obama must live up to his promise to “maintain a nuclear deterrent that is safe, secure, and reliable.” That deterrent requires our triad of delivery systems, a reliable infrastructure that maintains our atomic arsenal, enough warheads to keep our potential enemies in check and policies like the doctrine on WMD that deter emerging threats.

By: Scott Peterson – The Christian Science Monitor

The price has been high of massive and sometimes violent Iranian reaction to the official landslide reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But no one has paid more than the country’s supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, whose decision to bless the result as “divine” – and side openly with Mr. Ahmadinejad, despite charges of extensive fraud – has sparked the widest popular challenge to the Islamic Republic in 30 years.

So why is Ahmadinejad the chosen one?

Experts suggest a number of reasons, from his ties to the military and security forces, to populist domestic and hardline foreign policies, to sheer loyalty, that might have caused the leader to approve of – or even engineer – an Ahmadinejad win.

“[Ayatollah Khamenei] realizes that the armed forces of the establishment are more supportive of Ahmadinejad than they would be of anyone else,” says Massoumeh Torfeh, an Iran specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

On Monday, police and armed basiji militants, operating from their makeshift base at the large Shirudi sports complex in downtown Tehran, forcefully prevented several hundred people from gathering at the nearby Haft-e Tir Square.

The Revolutionary Guard threatened a “revolutionary confrontation” to put down any further protests.

Analysts say that, among other things, Ahmadinejad’s four-year cultivation of the basiji and Revolutionary Guard forces with posts and contracts may have given him an edge.

“Ahmadinejad came from them. Ahmadinejad always had their support, and Ahmadinejad placed them in all important positions of power, right across the country; governors and all the provincial places are full of Revolutionary Guards, basiji, and his people – he changed everyone,” says Ms. Torfeh. “He’s put them there. He’s looked after them…. He’s got the thugs. He’s got the power behind him, and of course Khamenei has.”

A political analyst, speaking in Tehran, says the supreme leader prefers Ahmadinejad’s tough stance in foreign policy, which in four years has yielded a boost in Iran’s nuclear program from zero to some 7,000 centrifuges enriching uranium – despite United Nations and Western sanctions. In addition, Washington is no longer talking about regime change, but asking for dialogue.

“This was Khamenei’s hardball foreign policy, and it’s worked,” says the analyst, who asked not to be named. “If you care about your geopolitical position, what matters most? Not sanctions. You are standing tall, and you basically won against your [foreign] enemies.”

But Khamenei’s domestic strategy has yielded an unprecedented challenge to the regime – seen in the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have protested in the past 10 days.

“[Khamenei] never anticipated such a reaction [and] miscalculated everything,” says another political analyst in Tehran, who could not be named for fear of reprisal. “I strongly believe that he is the one pulling the strings [and] this has been a project in the making over the last year or so.”

Official decision: ‘No major fraud’

The Guardian Council – the powerful 12-cleric body examining 646 electoral complaints – stated on Tuesday that “no major fraud” occurred in the election, and ruled out a rerun. Earlier it had found that 50 cities showed more than a 100 percent turnout, affecting some 7 percent of the entire vote.

The negative public reaction was predictable over such a large and unexpected Ahmadinejad victory, if not the scale of protest that has brought protesters onto the streets, to be stamped out violently by riot police and basiji militiamen with bullets, clubs, and knives.

The official death toll is 20, but sources in Tehran suggest one far higher. More than 450 have been detained, though unofficial figures suggest it could reach 1,500. Human rights groups describe agents arresting and taking away wounded protesters from hospitals.

Judicial official Ibrahim Raisi said on Tuesday a special court would be set up to try demonstrators: “Elements of riots must be dealt with to set an example. The judiciary will do that,” he said, in remarks quoted by state radio, according to the Associated Press.

Khamenei left no room for compromise when he declared during a Friday sermon that Ahmadinejad was the clear victor, that the election was clean, and that street marches had to end.

Khamenei: Ahmadinejad’s views closest to mine

For two decades as Iran’s highest authority, Khamenei has largely kept above the political fray. But on Friday, he said Ahmadinejad’s views were closest of all candidates to his own, and ruled out a rerun of the vote as demanded by supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

During protests, demonstrators have burned banners showing the supreme leader and chanted “Death to Khamenei,” according to video images uploaded onto the Internet.

Frustration seems to have grown in recent days, since big clashes on Saturday yielded to the much smaller street showing on Monday.

“When is it right to take up guns?” asked one angry Iranian contacted on Tuesday. “We are emphasizing silence and peaceful. Is it wrong [to] think about the violent way?”

“I think right now the aim is just to push them back and scare them enough to stop killing us,” says this Iranian, who could not be further identified. “Then we will think of what we want for the country.”

Lonely at the top

Though Khamenei has “crushed” key rivals, says the second analyst, his standing is less sure. He has “already lost the reformist camp, [and] many within the conservative camp are not happy with the way he handled the situation by bringing himself down to the level of Ahmadinejad.”

“So he is lonely, though still supreme leader. But the supremacy comes from the gun rather than loyalty,” adds the analyst. “The slim minority that loves him no matter what is still there, even though part of that constituency has become a little concerned.”

By: ANDREW LEE BUTTERS – Yahoo! Inc.

If the street protests roiling Iran since its disputed election have created a problem for the leadership in Tehran, imagine the dilemma it raises for Iran’s allies elsewhere in the Middle East. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah was quick out of the blocks to congratulate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the authorities announced his re-election, calling the result a “great hope to all the mujahedin and resistance who are fighting against the forces of oppression and occupation.” But since supporters of defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi have taken to the streets to decry the election as rigged, Nasrallah has become more circumspect. And he specifically refuted suggestions that either candidate might be more pro-Hizballah than the other, merely saying that “Iran is under the authority of the Wali Al Faqih [divinely-inspired clerical rule] and will pass through this crisis.”

As a longtime client of Iran, Nasrallah is wise to hedge his bets, for he’ll need patronage and weapons from whoever emerges victorious in the post-election battle. But his caution is more than just good politics: the electoral crisis in Iran poses a problem for Hizballah and other Iranian allies in the region that goes far beyond simply who controls the purse strings in Iran. (See pictures of the turbulent aftermath of Iran’s election.)

For Syria, Iran’s closest ally, the problem hits close to home: a mass anti-government protest movement over allegations of a fraudulent election is not a welcome sight for an authoritarian regime whose President, Bashar Assad, won his first presidential referendum with 97% of the vote. (No surprise, then, that the official Syrian Arab News Agency website is largely ignoring news of Iran’s election.) For Syria, the sooner the Iranian government cleans up this mess – by any means necessary – the better.

But for Iran-backed “resistance” movements such as Hamas and especially Hizballah, the dilemma is more acute. Both groups are Islamist organizations committed both to religious law and secular democracy. Hamas’ legitimacy as an expression of the Palestinian political will was put beyond question in 2006, when it was democratically elected as the ruling party in the Palestinian parliament. Hizballah uses the fact that it is the largest political party in Lebanon as well as its self-proclaimed commitment to the country’s constitutional norms to burnish its claims to bear arms in defense of Lebanon’s national interest. And its devotion to political Islam gives its struggle a resonance among people ruled by secular autocrats throughout the Arab world. (See pictures of the enduring influence of Ayatullah Khomeini in Iran.)

There may be an inherent contradiction in at once following God’s laws, which are non-negotiable, and the pragmatism of democracy, but Iran, for all its flaws and limits, has managed to make that combination work for 30 years in the face of extreme international hostility. But as the two sources from which Iran’s system claims its legitimacy – democratic and clerical – come into conflict, Iran may become more authoritarian. And, of course, that will make it look a lot more like some of the regimes against which its supporters in the Middle East are fighting.

The strains inside Iran’s system are replicated, to some extent, within Hizballah, which is officially committed to the goal of making Lebanon an Islamic republic but long ago adopted the pragmatic realization that no single sect can dominate Lebanon’s religiously diverse society. Nasrallah’s movement largely plays by the rules of the Lebanese Republic: it accepted its defeat at the polls in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections earlier this month in a show of what, by Middle Eastern standards, was unusually good sportsmanship. But there remains a degree of blind faith in the devotion of Hizballah supporters, many of whom will do almost anything that the charismatic Nasrallah asks of them – including holy war, martyrdom and turning their weapons against fellow Lebanese in order to protect their sect and the resistance.

Indeed, the crisis in Iran seems to have heightened the sectarian and authoritarian sensibilities of some Lebanese Shi’ites. A recent reporting tour of Hizballah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut found overwhelming support for Ahmadinejad, hailed not only for standing up to the U.S. and Israel, but also as a champion of Lebanese Shi’ites. There was not much sympathy for the revolutionary credentials of Mousavi and his supporters. “Those who are demonstrating in Iran must be burned,” says Wissam al-Amin, a 34-year-old architect. “We are with dictatorship in preventing demonstrations if their purpose is to create instability in Iran.” (Read an exclusive interview with Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Mousavi.)

Iran built its regional influence in no small part by contrasting itself with the Arab regimes that stood by helplessly when U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad or Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza. Its image may lose some luster on Arab streets, however, should Iranian tanks roll through Tehran.

* Netanyahu: Settlements debate is a waste of time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that international “arguing” over Israel’s stance on settlements was impeding progress on the Middle East peace progress.

* Netanyahu: Iran greatest threat to peace In Rome for his first European visit since being elected, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu briefed Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on his peace plan.

* China urges caution on North Korean ship checks Beijing backed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning North Korea’s nuclear test on May 25.

* Iran’s Crisis Posing a Problem for Its Mideast Allies If the street protests roiling Iran since its disputed election have created a problem for the leadership in Tehran, imagine the dilemma it raises for Iran’s allies elsewhere in the Middle East.

* China and US hold military talks Defence officials from the United States and China are meeting in Beijing for two days of high-level talks.

* Russia aims to host Middle East peace parley by end of 2009 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in Cairo on Tuesday that Moscow aimed to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009.

* No ‘Big Bang’ for EU foreign service, says Solana The EU’s planned foreign service should be established gradually and not in a ‘Big Bang’, if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified after a second Irish referendum.

* Iran’s supreme strategy: Why is Ahmadinejad the chosen one? The price has been high of massive and sometimes violent Iranian reaction to the official landslide reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

* Ethiopian troops return to Somalia With or without an international mandate, Ethiopian forces have entered Somali territory to back up a fast-failing Somali government.

* Europe must change after economic crisis, says Sarkozy In a historic speech before a joint session of the French parliament on Monday (22 June), President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the global economic crisis meant that “nothing will be the same any more”.