THE REALITY IN TEHRAN - AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  Defying any sense of decency, Iran is going ahead with trials of political dissidents.  None of the arrested dissidents, or the mullah-directed police, have been invited to the White House to sit down, have a beer, and shoot the breeze over the history of oppression.

As all this is going on, the Obamans are trying to get Tehran's attention because, you know, we are seriously interested in talking about their nuclear program.  Just let us know by September.

TEHRAN, Aug. 1 -- More than 100 political activists and protesters went on trial Saturday on charges of rioting and conspiring to topple the government in the turmoil surrounding Iran's presidential election, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

The defendants included several prominent politicians -- former members of parliament, first-generation revolutionaries and an ex-vice president -- who have been locked in a decades-long power struggle with Iran's hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Wearing gray prison uniforms and appearing thin after weeks in jail, some defendants gave lengthy confessions, saying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the disputed June 12 election free of fraud.

COMMENT:  Haven't seen any comment from the president. But the idea that the mullahs will negotiate any serious changes in their nuclear program grows more and more absurd.

August 1, 2009