The Leveretts comment. They refer to this article quoting Philip Giraldi.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the strange case of Shahram Amiri is the behavior and public statements of U.S. officials since Amiri returned to Iran. These officials are talking to the media about Amiri in a way that makes one think they are out to goad the Iranian government into prosecuting Amiri for espionage. Why would they do that? Are they simply immature and unprofessional? Or, could it be that Amiri told them something they did not want to hear?

Telegraph report.

But his decision to fly back voluntarily, claiming outlandishly that he was kidnapped by CIA and Saudi agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last June and then tortured in the US, has prompted suspicions that he was a double agent working for Iran all along, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

New York Times report.

Iran's deputy police chief accused Pakistan on Saturday of providing a haven for members of an armed rebel group that has claimed responsibility for the deadly twin suicide bombings last week in front of a mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

Oxford Research Group report.

This report concludes that military action against Iran should be ruled out as a means of responding to its possible nuclear weapons ambitions. The consequences of such an attack would lead to a sustained conflict and regional instability that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and might even encourage it.

Associated Press report.

An Iranian official says the toll for an explosion outside a mosque Thursday night has risen to 22 and may increase further.

Ali Mohammad Azad, governor general of Sistan-Baluchistan province has told state TV that "some 22 people were killed instantly" in the twin bombing in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

The Leveretts comment on the Amiri affair.

As we wrote in April,

"[H]ow could it be that Amiri, who would have been 31 years old at the time of his defection, would have had meaningful access to anything sensitive about Iran's nuclear program--much less to have had such access "for at least a decade"? Unless Amiri completed his doctorate as a teenager and was given a senior position in Iran's nuclear program with high level access at the age of 20 or 21, this claim literally does not add up."

Now we learn, see here, that the CIA apparently tried to pay Amiri $5 million. Along with trying to figure out the details of Amiri's trajectory over the last year, journalists ought to be focusing on what the Agency's willingness to pay $5 million to a hyped-up source signals about the U.S. Intelligence Community's desperation to make a prosecutor's case against the Islamic Republic. Indeed, the CIA and the rest of the Intelligence Community seem sufficiently desperate to make their case that they will pay taxpayer dollars to gotten-up defectors who might be prepared to say--for the right price--what Washington elites want to hear. As we noted in our April piece, if the CIA and its partners in the Intelligence Community are unable to make a case against Iran, "how could Washington argue for intensified sanctions against the Islamic Republic--much less keep the military option 'on the table'."

Juan Cole comments on the Shahram Amiri affair.

This story, with the walk-in Iranian physicist who shows no interest in the reward money, who proves inconstant and toward the end tries to embarrass his host, has raised alarums among observers of the intelligence scene that Amiri was a double agent.

I am disturbed by this possibility because Amiri may have given false information to Washington. And the false information may have exaggerated Iran's nuclear capabilities.

New York Times report.

A strike at the traditional bazaar in Tehran continued into a second week on Thursday, spreading beyond the original gold and garments sectors and to at least two other major cities, news Web sites reported.

The strike, only the second at the bazaar to protest government policies since the 1979 revolution, began last week after the government proposed a 70 percent income tax increase and has continued even after the government lowered the planned increase to 15 percent. Major sections of the grand bazaar in Tehran have been closed this week with vendors sitting in their shops but keeping their doors and shutters closed.

BBC report.

Iran says a nuclear scientist it claims was abducted by the US has taken refuge in its interest section at Pakistan's embassy in Washington, state media say.

Shahram Amiri disappeared a year ago while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

From Jeff Stein's "Spy Talk" (Washington Post).

Reza Kahlili, a self-proclaimed former CIA "double agent" inside Iran's Revolutionary Guards, appeared in disguise at a Washington think tank Friday claiming that Iran has developed weapons-grade uranium and missiles ready to carry nuclear warheads.

The pseudonymous Kahlili, whose previous accounts have been greeted with widespread skepticism, also said Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with "a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S."

[...]

Several current and former U.S. intelligence officials in the audience "rolled their eyes" at Kahlili's claims, said one observer who was present.

New York Times report.

The Iranian government declared a sudden, two-day national holiday on Sunday and Monday, after a long-simmering dispute between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Tehran bazaar erupted last week, leaving one prominent merchant dead, according to opposition Web sites.

PA report.

Tony Blair "very much exaggerated" Iran's role in supporting al Qaida insurgents in their attacks on British and American forces in Iraq, a former ambassador to Tehran has said. And Sir Richard Dalton said that the UK and US misread the intentions of the Iranian regime, believing it would inevitably be hostile to their mission in Iraq when in fact Tehran wanted them to succeed in installing a stable government in Baghdad.

Washington Times report.

The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran's nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose.

In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran's nuclear program, if sanctions fail to stop the country's quest for nuclear weapons.

AP report.

The EU on Tuesday banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe due to safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Telegraph report.

BAA, which owns Heathrow Airport, and other civil bodies have denied taking action, which would go beyond the sanctions agreed at the United Nations last month.

But The Daily Telegraph has been told that BP stopped its contract to provide fuel to at least one Iranian air company in Dubai, an important hub for Iranian travel, three days ago. BP is also understood to have sent orders to its European subsidiaries and partners telling them to withdraw services from Iranian airlines.

AFP report.

Iran said on Tuesday that claims made by some Iranian officials that its passenger planes were being denied refuelling by airports in Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates are "false."