Iran's activities this week, including war scenarios, the IAEA Board of Governors, Iran's internal power struggle, and Islamic law enforcement campaign and finally the Azeri separatism at Iranian soccer match.  

Possible scenarios of war against Iran: a look from Tehran 

This week the official website of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei uncharacteristically published a commentary article titled “Possible scenarios of threat against Iran”.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party appeared to be a big winner in the first round of parliamentary elections held in Egypt on Monday and Tuesday. Early returns suggest the FJP captured as much as 40% of the vote with a surprisingly strong showing from the Salifist al-Nour party. The two Islamist parties together could very well make an absolute majority of 65% of the parliament, which means if voting continues along these lines during the rest of the complex process, it is likely that the first freely elected parliament in Egypt’s history will be run by radical Muslims.    

On November 28, the opportunity that the Muslim Brotherhood has waited for since 1928 came. The first round of elections in Egypt took place, and although the results are not yet in, the Brotherhood’s mammoth political operation blew away its competitors. A Brotherhood spokesman was honest about what the group seeks: “The Sharia, the Muslim legal framework, must be the foundation for everything.”

The vote for the lower house of parliament took place in nine provinces. In districts where a candidate does not take a majority, there will be a run-off election on December 5-6. Two other rounds of voting will take place for a lower house among the remaining provinces, and then there will be three rounds to decide the upper house. The entire process will finish on March 11, ushering in an interim government that will draft the next constitution.   

Egyptians will go to the polls on Monday to take the first of several steps in voting for a new parliament. Up to 30 million of the nation’s 50 million eligible voters may take part in what one Western observer is calling a needlessly “complicated, contradictory and non-transparent” process. And with the threat of violence hanging over the election, it is believed by most observers that any reduction in turnout will almost certainly help the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

The bewildering array of dozens of political parties will field up to 7,000 candidates for the 498-member “People’s Assembly,” or lower house of the new parliament. Further elections in January will fill out the upper house, or Shura Council, with the voting for a new president sometime after that.  

Letter to Senator Mark Kirk in support of amendment to Iran sanctions to block central banks continuing financial relations with the Iranian regime. See Mark Kirk's press release here on his amendment to the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which would impose crippling sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. The Kirk amendment, which comes just days after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that Iran is engaged in activities "highly relevant to a nuclear weapons program," follows the bipartisan Schumer-Kirk letter sent to President Obama in August by 92 Senators urging crippling sanctions against Iran's Central Bank.

Greece is an E.U., NATO and Eurozone country that has traditionally strong links with the Islamic world due to the geographical proximity with the Middle East and North Africa and the Ottoman rule that lasted four centuries, along with numerous historical encounters with Islam since the Middle Ages.