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This week  one of IRIBâs popular nightly talk shows was dedicated to the protests. The Channel Two show featured Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani  a conservative MP  and  Reza Seraj   introduced as an âexpert on strategic questions and a university professor.â
 Seraj  is well-known to many Iranian activists  although not exactly in those terms. Many of the thousands who have gone through the notorious interrogations blindfolded in Tehranâs Evin Prison remember his voice as an âexpert interrogator.â He is known for meting out psychological torture rather than physical torture by flaunting his supposed knowledge of the intricate webs of espionage with which any given activist is allegedly involved.
Born in the southwestern city of Ahvaz in 1966   Seraj  has cut  his  teeth in different wings of the IRGC  especially its autonomous volunteer paramilitary  the Basij. One story alleges that in 1988  the then-21-year-old Seraj galvanized a group of angry Basijis to stop a speech by Ali Khameneiâwho was president at the timeâto soldiers on the frontlines of the war with Iraq. Back then  President Khamenei was engaged in a power struggle with Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi  who was regarded as being more revolutionary and closer to the founder of the Islamic Republic  Ayatollah Khomeini.
As it turned out  two decades later  in 2009   Seraj  played a lead role in defending Khamenei  by then the supreme leader  harassing and torturing supporters of Mousavi  who was by that time the leader of the Green Movement that threatened Khamenei.
â 'The Americans  the Israelis and the Saudis had a strategic operational plan that was to be put in action next year '  Seraj  said  'but some factors led them into hastening  it .' â
 Seraj  headed the student organization of Basij from 2008 to 2010 and was lauded by the pro-IRGC Fars News Agency as a transformative Basiji figure. In the years since  he has become known for working with outlets like Fars and the state broadcaster to defend the regime and spin tales of foreign espionage.
His real identity didnât remain hidden for long. Ali Afshari  the student activist who was driven to exile after bouts of prison and torture in Iran  recalled  Seraj  very well in an interview he gave to the New Haven-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.
âWhen I gave up  they had taken my blindfold [off] and I could see my interrogator â Afshari said. âHe introduced himself as Alavi but I later found out that his name was Seraj. He sometimes writes for Fars now and is the head of student Basij. I complained to the judge and asked for a different interrogator.  Seraj  used to tell me that it was  he  who told the judge what to do  not the other way around.â
Adding more to spice up the story  Amirabadi claimed that part of the U.S. plan was to bring the forces of ISIS to Iranian territory  but this had been thwarted by the Quds Force (a part of the IRGC which is not supposed to operate on Iranian territory) and the Unknown Soldiers of the Twelfth Imam (the name used for the forces of Iranâs ministry of intelligence.)  Seraj  quickly agreed with this claim.
According to  Seraj   now that the Americansâ âPlan Aâ had been defeated  they had resorted to âPlan B â which had been started by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haleyâs calling on the United Nations Security Council to meet about Iran.
âTheir plan is to lead Iran to miscalculation and to change its behavior according to what U.S. and the European countries want â  Seraj  said. âThey had designed a game of dominoes. The Americans were to threaten us with leaving the JCPOA [nuclear agreement] and ramping up the sanctions while the Europeans were to play the good cop.â
Confirming "the Conspiracy" and Worries for Whatâs  Next
Seraj  doesnât officially speak for the IRGC so someone unfamiliar with  his  significance might dismiss  his  elaborate theory as the thoughts of one man. But Iranian Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri has given a version of events that coincides very closely with Serajâs.
Montazeri then gave numerous details to back up the story put forth by  Seraj  and Amirabadiâand added some new claims. The cities of Herat in Afghanistan and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan had been picked as centers of operation  he said  and ISIS forces were to come to Iran from there. He also claimed that Michael DâAndreaâwho was revealed in U.S. media reports back in June as the newly appointed head of the CIAâs Iran Mission Centerâhad organized the protests  a claim previously made by some pro-government Turkish newspapers (these reports were so inaccurate they had mistakenly published photographs of U.S. actors instead of DâAndrea.)
The Green Movement of 2009 was followed by Stalinesque show trials during which the accused confessed to involvement in elaborate espionage plans.  Seraj  is known to have played a role in concocting those fantasy plans. So  now  many worry that a similar fate awaits more than 1 500 people who have been arrested over the last few days.
Reza Seraj

The White House confirmed Sunday that  Russian President Vladimir Putin  spoke with President Donald Trump in what Russian state media has described as a thank-you call following a CIA tip about a bomb threat in St. Petersburg.
Russia's main state broadcaster  Vesti  said Sunday that  Putin  called Trump to thank  him  for a CIA tip that helped Russian police thwart a terrorist attack in St Petersburg.
According to  Vesti  Putin  asked Trump to thank CIA Director Mike Pompeo for providing the information  and  he  told the U.S. president that "the Russian security services  in the case where they receive information regarding terrorist threats in relation to the U.S. and its citizens  will without question and immediately pass it to their American colleagues."
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed the call from Putin to Trump took place and said a readout would be provided to the press shortly.
Putin

Story highlights  Kim  raises possibility of North Korean athletes in Winter Olympics in South Korea
(CNN)  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un  has warned the United States that  his  country's nuclear capabilities are now complete and the nuclear launch button is always on  his  desk.
"The entire mainland of the US is within the range of our nuclear weapons and the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office. They should accurately be aware that this is not a threat but a reality " said  Kim  during  his  annual New Year's Day address  according to a CNN translation of the speech.
"No matter how much America wants to attack us with their military might and nuclear power  they know that now we possess such great nuclear power and therefore they will not dare "  Kim  said  adding that  his  country's greatest achievement of 2017 was the "historic accomplishment of completing our nuclear capabilities."
Since coming to power   Kim  has overseen a dramatic increase in the pace of North Korea's missile program. As of February last year  Pyongyang has fired off 23 missiles  improving its technology with each launch. In September  the regime carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test.
Euan Graham  director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute  told CNN that  Kim 's nuclear button comment is "effectively just noise."

Kim Jong Un