The American Spectator

Best source continues to report that Ahmadinejad is still missing, or disappeared, as of this hour. He has not been seen now for ninety-six to one hundred twenty hours. Statement read in his name on TV — denouncing the Brits for the Ahvaz explosions — is the first time since his ascendance that he has not appeared in person to breathe fire.

Speculation about missing president is in two directions:

1. Ahmadinejad is out of sight as he participates as president in a war game exercise. This is consistent with intelligence reporting Iranians’ moving around air defense hardware, digging holes and trenches, testing apparatus that would be needed during an air raid from the Great Satan or the Junior Satan, otherwise known as the US and Israel. No name provided for war exercise.

2. Ahmadinejad is out of sight as he confers over the next step in the confrontation with the IAEA. This is consistent with the Iranian approach, which is to maneuver, betray, stall, manipulate, delay.

Of the two choices, the first is preferred. The Iranian air defense systems are undergoing elaborate and expensive updating. At the same time, they are digging some very big holes in the ground. Bunker mentality is the appropriate homely metaphor.

More soon.