Iran News Round Up May 4, 2011

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.

Politics

* Presidential crisis:
o "Members of a security force" arrest "25 individuals close to Mashaei.
o Alef News Agency accuses Mashaei and his close associate Baghaei of irregularities and embezzlement in a case concerning a private tourism company.
o Mashaei shows defiance (video).
o Mashaei visits Mousavi Abdol-Hamid in Zahedan.

o Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi tells Revolutionary Guards it is "an act of treason to replace Islam with Iran[ian nationalism]."
o Hojjat al-Eslam Mojtaba Zolnour, the Supreme Leader's deputy representative to the Revolutionary Guards, addresses participants at the Sadduqi Theological Seminary in Qom:
+ "I say this to Ahmadinejad in a friendly manner. He should revise his words. He says 'I'll prove that my relationship with the Supreme Leader is like a son to a father.' Well, even if it is so, it would be wrong… The relationship with the Supreme Leader must be one between an Imam and his follower. This relationship is one between the obeyed and the submissive, the source of emulation and the imitator.

Diplomacy

* Fars News Agency quotes passages from AEI senior research associate Michael Mazza's piece: "China-Iran Ties: Assessment and Implications for U.S. Policy."
* Khamenei says popular uprisings and revolutions sweeping the Middle-East and North of Africa at present will soon spread to the European continent.
* Iranian Ambassador to Caracas Abdolreza Mesri says Iran and Venezuela have decided to expand their ties to secure their interests and to confront the hegemonic policies of certain countries.

Military and Security

* An Iran-based right group claims that it has obtained authentic documents proving that the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has long had tight cooperation with Al-Qaeda's terrorist cell in Iraq.
* Iran’s defense minister raises doubt about bin Laden’s death.