Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
"Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s correspondent in Iran, was arrested in Tehran on July 22 almost certainly not because of anything he had written, but because the hard-liners among Iran’s ruling elite seek to embarrass and weaken President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate. For good measure, they arrested Mr. Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also a journalist, and two American citizens working as freelance journalists.
Since Mr. Rouhani’s election in June 2013, elements in Iran’s intelligence services, its judiciary and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have sought to undermine him and his agenda of pragmatism and reform. For the sake of his credibility abroad, as much as for the cause of justice, he needs to speak out now on these journalists’ behalf and on behalf of many other unjustly incarcerated Iranians.
The Rezaian case involves much more than a journalist and his wife. The hard-liners are especially angry about President Rouhani’s attempt to reintegrate Iran into the international community. They disapprove of concessions they say the president is ready to make in the current negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program; confronting the West, they assume, is the way Iran can achieve regional importance. By contrast, Mr. Rouhani and his team believe that cooperating with the West is more certain to gain Iran the respect that it craves.
In short, the Rouhani team wants good relations with America; the hard-liners do not. They also oppose the president’s cautious attempt to ease up on political controls and official efforts to dictate how Iranians live."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/opinion/haleh-esfandiari-jason-rezaians-arrest-in-iran-is-a-ploy-to-weaken-rouhani.html?_r=0
