Iran's paranoid delusional 'intelligence' minister

CNN:

Iran's intelligence minister Sunday blamed Western powers for stirring up protests over its disputed presidential election, singling out Britain and saying the British Embassy in Tehran "played a heavy role in the recent disturbances."

"The fact that Iran is stable, calm and secure, they're upset with this," Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hosein Mohseni Ejei told Iran's Press TV.

Iran intensified its crackdown on the protests that have followed the June 12 election over the weekend, reportedly seizing wounded protesters from their hospital beds and arresting local British Embassy staff in Tehran. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband protested the arrests as "harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable."

"About nine" staffers have been affected, he said, adding that some had already been released.

"We have protested in strong terms directly to the Iranian authorities about the arrests that took place yesterday," but there has been no response, Miliband said.

Last week, Tehran expelled two British diplomats. London responded by booting two Iranians, prompting Iran to recall its ambassador to Britain -- a serious gesture in diplomatic circles -- and threatening to reconsider Anglo-Iranian diplomatic ties.

Ejei told Press TV that Iran had "hard evidence" of outside powers, led by the United States, stirring up demonstrators.

"Behind this there are at least two Western countries, with the United States spearheading them," he said. Dissidents "had orders from different places, but they all followed the same goal," he said.

And Ejei told the semi-official Fars news agency the British Embassy played "a heavy role in the recent disturbances, both through the media and by using its local people."

"One of the things the embassy did was to use the cover of their local employees to send certain people out on the streets among those who caused the disturbances to spread what they wanted among them and to the society at large," he said.

"A number of these people have been clearly involved in the disturbances and have been identified and filmed and photographed," he added. But he said Iranians "have separated themselves from those who create disturbances, and surely the people will confront them and the security forces will naturally confront them as well."

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If these people were really on the streets they were probably gathering information on what was happening since the regime has been blocking normal news gathering. The regime has also been upset by the BBC-Persian service which is available by satellite dish. They have the same concern about CNN and the VOA. They have all made it difficult for the regime to control the message and you can see that frustration in the words of the "intelligence" minister.

This loss of control by a control freak government has knocked them off their game. They are not used to having to defend their actions. That is further proof that they are not a real democracy where governments are always having to defend what they do.