In Iran, health experts have issued warnings on TV and radio discouraging people from overeating during the holy month of Ramadan.

They are right to worry. Some Iranians actually gain weight during this time because they overindulge at iftar, the evening feast when Muslims break their daily fasts, National Geographic News reports:

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

I doubt Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent warm fuzzies across Israel yesterday when he said that it's not Israelis Iran has a problem with, just the Israeli government.

"We have no problem with people and nations," the Iranian president declared. "Of course, we do not recognize a government or a nation for the Zionist regime."

Some analysts suggest that Ahmadinejad's words reveal a softening on Iran's feelings toward Israel, if only as a response to Western pressure.

My take? That's giving far too much international weight to the president's comments, which were likely meant only as a domestic show of support for Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, Iran's vice president. Mashai caused a lot of controversy in July when he said that Iranians were friends to all people, "even Israelis and Americans."

It's hard to believe, moreover, that such a lukewarm statement from Ahmadinejad constitutes a change in policy. The Iranian president was quick to add that it Israel is perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people and repeat his certainty that the Holocaust was "fake." And which Israelis will be charmed by the stipulation that they were duped by an evil Zionist regime?

Finally, if there were any confusion on where the government of Iran really stands on this matter, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did his part to reassure the world that indeed, the Islamic Republic's hostility to Israel and its people still runs red hot. Khamenei, while addressing thousands of worshipers in Tehran today, predicted the two countries were on a "collision course":

Who are Israelis? They are responsible for usurping houses, territory, farmlands and business. They are combatants at the disposal of Zionist operatives. A Muslim nation cannot remain indifferent vis-à-vis such people who are stooges at the service of the arch-foes of the Muslim world."

So, how much backtracking is really going on here? I'd hazard a guess and say: absolutely none. Ahmadinejad, who scoffed on Thursday at the idea of a two-state solution, said, "I have heard some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired. I say that the idea of lesser Israel has expired, too." Hardly the words of a changed man.

Great quote from Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency:

Ahmadinejad is our greatest gift," Halevy told the Arab language television network Al-Hurra on Tuesday. "We couldn't carry out a better operation at the Mossad than to put a guy like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran."

Underscoring the point, the Iranian president wrote on his Web site Wednesday that Israel is a "germ of corruption" to be removed soon.

Somehow, I don't think this comment from Iran's Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashai is going to help anyone sleep easier in Tel Aviv:

Iranian media are quoting the country's vice president as saying Iranians are "friends of all people in the world — even Israelis."

As Haaretz observes, this isn't the first time Mashai has sounded a conciliatory note about Israel:

In late July, Mashai made similar comments, saying: "Iran wants no war with any country, and today Iran is friend of the United States and even Israel.... Our achievements belong to the whole world and should be used for expanding love and peace." 

Well, somebody's willing to step up and defend Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted for genocide last week. Yesterday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the International Criminal Court's prosecution as a colonialist effort to undermine Sudan's sovereignty:

Colonialist powers want to cut Sudan into pieces in their own ways, they want to prevent this country from having a constructive role in Africa and the Islamic world."

The comments were made at a meeting in Tehran with a Sudanese envoy who reciprocated his host's kind words by praising Iran's controversial nuclear program, saying, "This civilian technology would benefit the entire Islamic world."

I guess when you're under U.N. sanction, it can be hard to find someone who can relate.

In a private e-mail list, Iran policy sage Gary Sick responds to John Bolton's latest editorial salvo (posted with permission):

As usual, John Bolton is absolutely right. His policy prescriptions may be reckless to the point of foolishness ("When in doubt, bomb!"), but his understanding of what is happening in Washington policy... is unerringly accurate.

While much of the world was hyperventilating over the possibility that the United States (and maybe Israel) were getting ready to launch a new war against Iran, Bolton was looking at the realities and concluding that far from bombing, the U.S. was preparing to do a deal with Iran. He had noticed that over the past two years the U.S. had completely reversed its position opposing European talks with Iran.

First, the U.S. indicated that it would participate if the negotiations showed progress. Then, when they didn't, we went further and actively participated in negotiating a new and more attractive offer of incentives to Iran. Bolton noticed that when that package was delivered to Tehran by Xavier Solana, the signature of one Condoleezza Rice was there, along with representatives of the other five members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

He had probably also noticed Secretary Rice's suggestion of possibly opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran -- the first step toward reestablishing diplomatic relations. And he didn't overlook the softening of rhetoric in Under Secretary William Burns's recent testimony to the Congress about Iran [pdf].

Now, just one day after Bolton's cry of alarm that the U.S. is going soft on Iran, we learn that the same Bill Burns will participate directly in the talks that are going to be held on Saturday in Geneva with the chief Iranian negotiator on the nuclear file. Bolton's worst suspicions seem to be confirmed.

Unlike many observers and commentators, Bolton has been looking, not at what the U.S. administration says, but what it does. Ever since the congressional elections of 2006, the U.S. has been in the process of a fundamental change in its policy on a number of key issues: the Arab-Israel dispute, the North Korean nuclear issue, and Iran. Since the administration proclaims loudly that its policies have not changed, and since the tough rhetoric of the past dominates the discussion, it is easy to overlook what is actually going on.

Bolton no doubt noticed that Rumsfeld is gone and replaced with Robert Gates, a very different sort of secretary of defense. He will have observed that the worst of the neocons (including himself) are now writing books and spending more time with families and friends, cheerleading for more war by writing op-eds from the outside rather than pursuing their strategies in policy meetings in the White House.

He will have seen the gradual shift of the policy center of gravity from Dick Cheney to Rice and Gates. He will have been listening when the Chairman of the JCS and others have said as clearly as they realistically can that the military option, though never renounced as a theoretical possibility, is the least attractive option available to us and in fact is close to impossible given our overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In other words, Bolton, as someone whose policies (in my view) are certifiably insane, recognizes real pragmatism and moderation in Washington when he sees it. And he does not like what he sees in this lame duck administration.

Over the past two or three years, we have been treated to one sensational threat after another about the likelihood of imminent war with Iran. All of these alarms and predictions have one thing in common: they never happened. Perhaps it is time for us to join Bolton in looking at the real indicators. When Bolton quits writing his jeremiads or when he begins to express satisfaction with the direction of U.S. policy, that is when we should start to get worried.

This is an interesting new development:

In a break with past Bush administration policy, a top U.S. diplomat will for the first time join colleagues from other world powers at a weekend meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator... William Burns, America's third highest-ranking diplomat, will attend talks with the Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, in Switzerland on Saturday aimed at persuading Iran to halt activities that could lead to the development of atomic weapons, a senior U.S. official told the AP on Tuesday.

I wouldn't get my hopes up just yet for this move. As the official told the AP, "This is a one-time event and [Burns] will be there to listen, not negotiate... [O]ur terms for negotiations remain the same: Iran must suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities."

The diplomats will be looking to hear Iran's answer to the latest package of incentives offered by the P5+1 (the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany). Judging by the Islamic Republic's initial response (pdf), we're likely to hear a lot of bluster and claims that Iran is being treated unfairly. But who knows? Maybe Burns's presence could change the dynamic.

Over the weekend, Drudge and a good chunk of the blogosphere linked credulously to this story in The Times of London, written by one Uzi Mahnaimi. The story alleges that U.S. President George W. Bush has given Israel an "amber light" to attack Iran, according to a "senior Pentagon official."

Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you're ready," the official said.

If you read the entire piece, you'll see that it doesn't quite live up to its dramatic headline: "President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran." (The official is later quoted as saying, "If there is no solid plan, the amber will never turn to green," he said.)

The alarmism isn't entirely Mahnaimi's fault, since editors usually choose headlines. But our friend Uzi has a track record of breathless stories about alleged Israeli preparations to attack Iran. Here's one from January 2007 (using tactical nukes!), and another from December 2005. Or we could go back to July 2004. And remember that attack on Gaza? Mahnaimi is also notorious for reporting in 1998 that Israel was developing a biological weapon -- an "ethnic bomb" -- that would only kill Arabs.

The real story here is that the Israelis have developed plans to hit Iran's nuclear facilities -- did anyone think they hadn't? -- but the United States (correctly) thinks it's a bad idea. Read Jim Hoagland. He gets this story right.

Ahmad Batebi, an Iranian student, was sentenced to death nine years ago for appearing on the cover of the Economist under the banner "Iran's second revolution?" He was pictured holding the bloodsoaked shirt of a fellow student protestor -- an unforgettable image that apparently was too much for the Islamic Republic to bear. After enduring years of solitary confinement and torture, the student activist and photographer escaped, crossed into Iraq, and recently made it to the United States.

Today, the Economist reports on Batebi's experiences after he was apprehended and Iranian authorities told him that appearing on the cover of The Economist constituted a "death warrant":

During his interrogation he was blindfolded and beaten with cables until he passed out. His captors rubbed salt into his wounds to wake him up, so they could torture him more. They held his head in a drain full of sewage until he inhaled it. He recalls yearning for a swift death to end the pain. He was played recordings of what he was told was his mother being tortured. His captors wanted him to betray his fellow students, to implicate them in various crimes and to say on television that the blood on that T-shirt was only red paint. He says he refused."

In a moment reminiscent of the Shawshank Redemption, Batebi can be seen on his blog photographing himself in front of the U.S. Capitol building. Welcome to Washington, Ahmad.

Already known for his paranoid conspiracy theories, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasn't had any problem finding new ones. The latest: Abolfazl Zohrehvand, Iran's ambassador to Italy, claims that Western agents attempted to assassinate the Iranian president by using radiation poisoning during his recent trip to Rome:

One day before Ahmadinejad's trip, I checked and found out that the X-ray machine set up in the place where he was staying gave off excessive radiation," Mr Zohrehvand said. "First we suspected the machine was broken and after replacing it with another one it turned out that the radiation was controlled from another source.

"When the president entered this place, the radiation increased and exceeded '1,000' so that the intensity of the radiation was completely felt inside the building."

Some very interesting diplomacy is definitely afoot in Tehran and Paris. Ali Akbar Velayati (right), the right-hand man of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a former foreign minister, published a letter in France's Libération newspaper Wednesday that leaves no doubt about who's ultimately in charge of the nucelar file. Here's a translation by FP's resident Frenchman, Randolph Manderstam:

A European recently asked me who was leading Iran. The answer is clear. When it comes to essential questions of strategy, the constitution, approved by universal suffrage, confers final decisions upon the supreme leader. It is according to this principle, under which the main decisions taken by Ayatollah Khamenei in the last 20 years were applied, that we can judge the past and forsee the path of our diplomacy.

Despite the vastness of his powers, the supreme leader… only intervenes in extremely important cases, leaving those responsible for the state to solve the other problems themselves. Under Imam Khomeini just as under Ayatollah Khamenei, Iranian diplomacy has worked on developing contacts with other countries.... By receiving the dignitaries and leaders of numerous states and by communicating with them, the leader has given undeniable examples of his crucial presence in Iranian diplomacy.

I spoke this morning with Carnegie's Karim Sadjadpour about the letter, and he told me it was a "very important" signal coming from Velayati.

The main message? Don't listen to the rantings of that Ahmadinejad fellow -- the supreme leader is called "supreme" for a reason. "Khamenei's not necessarily the micromanager, but he's the macromanager, so all important issues go by him," Sadjadpour said.

Why proclaim this in a French newspaper? The backstory here is fascinating. Last year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy reached out to Khamenei in the hopes of reaching a breakthrough in the stalled nuclear negotiations. Velayati was to be dispatched to Paris to lay the groundwork for a possible meeting between Sarkozy and Khamenei, and in November he went to brief Ahmadinjad as a courtesy before heading off on his mission. Not only did the Iranian president humiliate Velayati by scheduling him for a midnight meeting and then making him wait for several hours, but he then sent a letter to Sarkozy that was so rude and condescending, it killed any hope of a France-Iran summit. According to Le Monde, Ahmadinejad said Sarkozy was "young and inexperienced," and French diplomats said the letter contained "veiled threats."

More recently, a civil servant and Ahmadinejad ally named Abbas Palizdar publicly accused a number of top clerics of corruption. Several of them are close associates the supreme leader. Too close, in fact, and Palizdar was arrested for "propagating lies." Rumor has it Khamenei saw this incident as Ahmadinejad crossing the line. So, not only is Khamenei, through Velayati, trying to make clear that Ahmadinejad is not the guy to talk to, he's indicating his disgust with the Iranian president and putting him in his place. "I think Khamenei is frustrated with Ahmadinejad's antics. This may have been the last straw," said Sadjadpour.

As for a détente with France or a breakthrough on the nuclear program? Don't bet on it. Iran's recent diplomatic offensive is most likely a "delaying tactic" intended to "cool the temperature" in light of all the recent news, according to Sadjadpour. But it sure makes great political theater. Pass the popcorn.

By now, you may have already read Seymour Hersh's latest magnum opus, this time about the Bush administration's alleged "support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations" in order to stir up trouble for Iran. Hersh later explains that one such organization is Jundallah, a Sunni fundamentalist group in Baluchistan near the Pakistan border. "According to [former CIA case officer Robert] Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support," Hersh writes.

One of those press reports is probably this blog post from The Blotter, the ABC News blog that got in such trouble for employing Alexis Debat, a French counterterrorism analyst who misrepresented his resume and faked interviews with Barack Obama and several other public figures. ABC News insists that its reporting was solid, but as journalist Laura Rozen found, that's at least open to question. Pakistan, for one, sharply denied the ABC News story about Jundallah. I'm not sure what other reporting Hersh is citing, but let's just say that it's far from certain the United States is doing what he claims.

UPDATE: Rozen comments at length. She's skeptical, too.

SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP/Getty Images

Last Saturday, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei sat for an Arabic-language interview on the al-Arabiya network. During a discussion about Iran, ElBaradei was asked how much time the country would need to "produce" a nuclear weapon. "It would need at least six months to one year," he replied.

Even though this estimate has been tossed around for years (particularly by Israel), given some caveats it is still within a generally accepted range of possible timelines for an Iranian bomb. ElBaradei's statement is surprising, though, because previously he has "consistently said that it would take Iran from three to eight years to make a weapon."

This sharp rhetorical shift could be the result of new findings about Iran that have not yet been released. Perhaps ElBaradei knows something we don't and he just slipped. It is possible, for example, that large numbers of Iran's third-generation centrifuges (the IR-3) are installed in secret locations. The IR-3 can probably enrich uranium significantly faster than Iran's current models and could reduce the time needed to produce enough material for a bomb. Tehran has only installed a handful of these centrifuges as far as we know, though, and is apparently still having trouble with them.

It seems far more likely that this was a signal to Iran that patience is running out. ElBaradei trained as a diplomat, and gaffe-prone individuals almost never rise to his level. He was also careful to emphasize that the threat is not imminent, noting specifically that making a weapon so quickly would require Iran to expel inspectors and withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty. In a further sign that the IAEA is willing to increase pressure, its most recent report (pdf) on Tehran's nuclear program expressed -- in unusually blunt fashion -- growing frustration within the agency at Iran’s "persistent stonewalling" and accused Tehran of withholding important information on alleged nuclear weapons programs.

So far, Iran has judged that fostering uncertainty about its nuclear weapons program would divide the international community and defuse pressure for stronger punitive actions. Hopefully, the IAEA's shift signals that Tehran has failed to divide and conquer.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

This morning, attendees at AIPAC's policy conference in Washington heard remarks by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner and -- the main event -- Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

As one might imagine, the speakers' remarks focused heavily on the relationship between Israel and the United States and security threats from Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Reid, for instance, reaffirmed his party's commitment to Israel, calling such a commitment "an American value." The majority leader also said that "America will never allow Israel's existence to be threatened."

Following a raucous standing ovation, Senator Obama -- whose pro-Israel credentials have come under scrutiny throughout the campaign -- strove to leave few doubts in his remarks:

I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security. Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel’s existence, and government-funded textbooks filled with hatred toward Jews."

In addition, Obama said that as president, he would do everything in his power to "eliminate" the Iranian threat, an apparent rebuttal to Senator John McCain's speech at the same podium Monday night that charged Obama as soft on Iran.

If you thought that Hillary Clinton might begin her exit from the race after Obama virtually clinched the Democratic nomination last night, think again. Clinton, while praising Obama as "a good friend to Israel," doesn't seem to be going anywhere just yet. Speaking as if she still might have a shot at being commander in chief, the New York senator reiterated how she "has always been very specific" about how her foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East would be constructed. She was adamant that a Democrat be elected in November, but she still seems to think, or hope, that it will be her.