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more about IRAN STAGES NEW ROUND OF MILITARY EXERCISES.

Brigadier General Nasir Mohammadifar, commander of Iran's regular ground forces, announced on 2 December that the country's biggest-ever military exercises will begin on 3 December, state radio reported. Codenamed "Followers of the Rule of the Supreme Jurisprudent" (Payrovan-i Vilayat), the exercises will take place in the southwestern provinces of Hamedan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Khuzestan, and Luristan. Mohammadifar said participants in the exercises will include airborne technicians, artillery units, missile units, and electronic warfare units. Rather than emphasizing conventional warfare, Mohammadifar said, asymmetric warfare will be employed. The purpose of this, according to the state radio, is "so that constant blows will be imposed on the enemy, without the enemy knowing from where the blows are coming." Naval war games took place in the Persian Gulf in late-November, and officials said these emphasized asymmetric warfare. BS

source:RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 226, Part III, 3 December 2004

IRANIAN CONSERVATIVES UNDECIDED ON A CANDIDATE.

The hard-line Islamic Coalition Party's secretary-general, Mohammad Nabi Habibi, said on 2 December in Tabriz that his organization will not back a candidate other than the one backed by the overall "fundamentalist trend," IRNA reported. Habibi said the most important thing in the upcoming presidential election is a high public turnout. "Opinion polls show that [Ayatollah Ali-Akbar] Hashemi-Rafsanjani is ahead of [Ali-Akbar] Velayati, [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad, and [Ali] Larijani, and he can win the presidential election if he decides to enter the election race," Hojatoleslam Ali-Akbar Fallahian-Khuzestani said during a question-and-answer session at the Al-Hadi seminary in Qom on 2 December, Fars News Agency reported. Fallahian said Tehran Mayor Ahmadinejad is a competent official who is viewed more favorably that Velayati or Larijani, but the conservatives have not decided whether to back or reject his candidacy. If Hashemi-Rafsanjani decides against being a candidate, Fallahian speculated, then the conservatives probably will back Velayati. BS

comment The problem is that IRI is running out of time. If they plan to have an election in May or June with the "new" president Rafsanjani making a grand bargain with the West, it might be too late. They have to make this bargain sooner perhaps in January! Otherwise they will be toast.