The resignation of one ofIran's most public officials seems to be a tactic to buy more time for Iran to pursue their nuclear project.

In a complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri, aka Turkcell, the Turkish mobile media giant, alleges that MTN Group Ltd, Africa’s largest mobile operator, bribed Iranians, sold South African votes at the IAEA and UN, and otherwise prostituted South African foreign policy to oust Turkcell from its contract in Iran and gain the lucrative market for itself.

The importance of Iran’s March 2 parliamentary elections was not so much in their function to choose a new Majlis but rather because they were the first nationwide poll since widespread fraud during the 2009 presidential election sparked the largest protests Iran had witnessed since the Islamic Revolution.

In July 2011, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Maj. Gen. Rostam Qassemi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as oil minister,[1] bringing the number of former IRGC officers in his cabinet to twelve out of eighteen. Yet the IRGC's seizure of the Oil Ministry could have far reaching economic,...

It is too early to tell whether the revolutions sweeping across the Arab world will prove the long awaited "third wave of democratization." It is clear, however, that no regional regime is immune to their impact, not even the self-proclaimed vanguard of permanent world revolutions, the Islamist regime in Tehran.

The low turnout of elections in Iran is another sign that Iran is not headed for change and that the Ayatollah's regime is here to stay.

The Obama administration is attempting to affect the Iranian regime's behavior through sanctions, but Iranian officials' responses to the recent U.S. Nuclear Posture Review suggest they will not change their behavior.

How has the president managed to build such a formidable power base? Who are the key members of his coterie, and will they enable their benefactor to outsmart the supreme leader to become Iran's effective ruler?