The body language coming out of the first round of talks about Iran’s nuclear program is excellent. As David Ignatius writes today, we seem to be moving down a path toward a well-calibrated and sensible deal. And that should make everybody happy. But, of course, it won’t. The neoconservatives won’t like it, no matter what. They’ll say, you can’t trust Iran. They’ll say, we’ve been suckered. And they will have a point. So ongoing IAEA inspections of every aspect of the Iranian nuclear system will be a quietly crucial part of the deal. It is also important not to get too optimistic too quickly: the Iranians highly overvalue their ability as hagglers–just ask the Indians, Russians, Chinese and any other country that has tried to close a trade deal with them–and could easily haggle themselves off a cliff. But I suspect that the economic sanctions, patiently organized by the Obama Administration, have forced the Supreme Leader into a corner. If this deal is made, it will be a major diplomatic triumph, not just for Obama, but for the idea that America doesn’t need to go clumping around the world like a clumsy Goliath, that multilateral diplomatic and economic actions can sometimes lead to significant results. If this deal is made…

But Mr. Najafi’s latest song, “Naghi,” named after a Shiite saint, has prompted a particular uproar. Opponents of Mr. Najafi are using a recent fatwa by a leading cleric, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi-Golpayegani, which labels all those insulting the 10th Shiite imam, Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, also known as Imam Naghi, as apostates. An Islamist Web site then offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone who kills Mr. Najafi, who was born in Iran, raps in Persian but lives in Germany.

In his song, Mr. Najafi asks for Imam Naghi to return instead of the 12th imam, the Shiite messiah. He cynically raps that Iranians are ready to sacrifice themselves with the imam’s help to solve problems like “shallow slogans” and “Chinese-made prayer rugs.” The song is laden with rough street language.

Shia-Online.ir, an Iranian Web site, said that Mr. Najafi had gone too far in insulting the imam, who is revered by Shiite Muslims. The site’s manager, Fouad Ebadi, said the $100,000 bounty was offered by someone from an Arab state on the Persian Gulf. “We do not want to reveal his identity, in order to protect him,” he said.

Mr. Najafi, 31, said he did not intend to criticize Islam. “I thought there would be some ramification,” he told Deutsche Welle, a German broadcaster, according to Reuters. “But I didn’t think it would upset the regime that much. Now they are taking advantage of the situation and making it look like I was trying to criticize religion and put down believers.”

On Facebook, which millions of young Iranians use for heated debates on subjects that state television will never discuss, several pages attacking and defending Mr. Najafi have popped up.

One page, liked by nearly 1,000 people, showed a picture of the rapper with the text, “We will kill you, you animal.” Mr. Najafi’s supporters called for the page to be closed and said his song was an example of free speech.

Being labeled an apostate could be punishable by death under Islamic laws in Iran. Still, the fatwa is different from the religious death verdict issued in 1989 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the British writer Salman Rushdie over his book “The Satanic Verses” because it was made by a religious leader who has no political role.

“Just as Florida pastor Terry Jones, who last month burned Korans, does not represent the United States government, this fatwa does not represent the government of Iran,” said Sadollah Zarei, a columnist for the hard-line state Kayhan newspaper. “This is done by a religious group in our society.”

Ramtin Rastin contributed reporting.

Correction: May 15, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of the rapper as Shanin Najafi. He is Shahin Najafi.

By 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Monday May 14, 2012 6:41 AM

VIENNA — A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives
containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect
Tehran has conducted there. Iran denies such testing but has neither confirmed nor denied the
existence of such a chamber.

The computer-generated drawing was provided by an official of a country tracking Iran’s nuclear
program who said it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran’s refusal to acknowledge it.

That official said the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at
the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant.
The official comes from an IAEA member country that is severely critical of Iran’s assertions that
its nuclear activities are peaceful and asserts they are a springboard for making atomic arms.

A former senior IAEA official said he believes the drawing is accurate. Olli Heinonen, until
last year the U.N. nuclear agency’s deputy director general in charge of the Iran file, said it was
“very similar” to a photo he recently saw that he believes to be the pressure chamber the IAEA
suspects is at Parchin.

He said even the colors of the computer-generated drawing matched that of the photo he had but
declined to go into the origins of the photo to protect his source.

After months of being rebuffed, IAEA and Iranian officials meet today in Vienna, and the IAEA
will renew its attempt to gain access to the chamber, allegedly hidden in a building. Any evidence
that Iran is hiding such an explosives containment tank, and details on how it functions, is
significant for IAEA investigations.

That two-day meeting also is being closely watched by six powers trying to persuade Iran to make
nuclear concessions aimed at reducing fears that it may want to develop atomic arms. Those six
countries are to hold talks May 23 with Tehran in Baghdad.

Warnings by Israel that it could attack Iran’s nuclear facilities eased after Iran and the six —
the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — met last month and agreed there was
enough common will for the Baghdad round. But with the Jewish state saying it is determined to stop
Iran before it develops the capacity to build nuclear weapons, failure at the Iraq talks could turn
such threats into reality.

In Tehran yesterday, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, said it was up to the Western
nations coming to the Baghdad talks to “build trust of the Iranian nation.”

The IAEA has been stonewalled by Iran for more than four years in attempts to probe what it says
is intelligence from member states strongly suggesting that Iran secretly worked on developing
nuclear weapons.

It mentioned the suspected existence of the chamber in a November report that described “a large
explosives containment vessel” for experiments on triggering a nuclear explosion.

Press TV, an Iranian satellite broadcaster, identified the man as Majid Jamali Fashi and said he had been convicted of killing the scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, in January 2010. Mr. Mohammadi was a 50-year-old professor at Tehran University whose role in Tehran’s nuclear program was unclear. At the time of his death, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said he had no role in the nuclear program.

The case seemed to be part of a shadow war played out between Iran and Israel, which has shown growing impatience with Western efforts to employ diplomacy and sanctions in the enduring crisis over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes, but Western leaders suspect that Tehran is seeking the capability to build a weapon.

At the time of Mr. Mohammadi’s killing, state media in Iran reported that a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle was detonated outside his home in north Tehran. Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the attack. A State Department spokesman in Washington dismissed the accusation of United States involvement as “absurd.”

Press TV said Mr. Fashi had been executed at Evin prison in Tehran. He had also been found guilty of “receiving training from Mossad” — the Israeli spy agency — inside Israel and of being given $120,000 to assassinate Mr. Mohammadi. He had also confessed to using forged documents, received in Azerbaijan, to travel to Tel Aviv, the broadcaster said.

The Iranian state news agency accused Mr. Fashi of traveling abroad “on several occasions” to be trained.

The killing was one of several apparently aimed at Iranians associated with nuclear research. The latest came in January when Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, who was deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, was killed on his way to work in rush-hour traffic in Tehran.

While Israel generally declines to comment on such assassinations, Iran routinely accuses Israeli agents of seeking to derail its nuclear program.

Iranian news accounts said that a motorcyclist slapped a magnetized bomb on Mr. Roshan’s car, killing him and mortally wounding his driver and bodyguard, identified as Reza Qashaqei.

The execution of Mr. Fashi came weeks after Iran’s state media announced that 15 people, including Iranians and unspecified foreigners, had been arrested in connection with what the country’s Intelligence Ministry described as a “Zionist-regime-linked” plot to assassinate one of its “specialists.”

The report by the state broadcaster IRIB also said Iran’s intelligence services had uncovered an Israeli spy base in a neighboring country, without elaborating.

The execution also coincided with inconclusive talks in Vienna between Iranian envoys and officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency to discuss the agency’s desire to inspect facilities that it suspects have been used to test explosives capable of detonating a nuclear charge, which Iran denies. The talks are also seen as an informal precursor to talks scheduled this month in Baghdad between Iran, the United States and other nations.

In a statement, the I.A.E.A.’s deputy director general, Herman Nackaerts, said the agency and Iranian officials “had a good exchange of views” and would meet again on Monday.

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York.

A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that United Nations inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted.

The computer-generated drawing was provided to The Associated Press by an official from a country tracking Iran’s nuclear programme who says it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran’s refusal to acknowledge it.

The official comes from an IAEA member country severely critical of Iran’s assertions that its nuclear activities are peaceful and claims they are a springboard for making atomic arms.

Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber.

The image was based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, the official said, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant.

A former senior IAEA official said he believed the drawing was accurate. Olli Heinonen, until last year the UN nuclear agency’s deputy director general in charge of the Iran file, said it was “very similar” to a photo he recently saw that he believed to be the pressure chamber the IAEA suspects is at Parchin.

He said even the colours of the computer-generated drawing matched that of the photo he had, but declined to go into the origins of the photo to protect his source.

After months of being rebuffed, IAEA and Iranian officials are to meet in Vienna, Austria, and the IAEA will renew its attempt to gain access to the chamber, allegedly hidden in a building.

Any evidence that Iran is hiding such an explosives containment tank, and details on how it functions, is significant for IAEA investigations.

Beyond IAEA hopes of progress, the two-day meeting is being closely watched by six powers trying to persuade Iran to make nuclear concessions aimed at reducing fears that it may want to develop atomic arms as a mood-setter for talks on May 23 between the six and Tehran in Baghdad.

Press TV, an Iranian satellite broadcaster, identified the man as Majid Jamali Fashi and said he had been convicted of killing the scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, in January 2010. Mr. Mohammadi was a 50-year-old professor at Tehran University whose role in Tehran’s nuclear program was unclear. At the time of his death, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said he had no role in the nuclear program.

The case seemed to be part of a shadow war played out between Iran and Israel, which has shown growing impatience with Western efforts to employ diplomacy and sanctions in the enduring crisis over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes, but Western leaders suspect that Tehran is seeking the capability to build a weapon.

At the time of Mr. Mohammadi’s killing, state media in Iran reported that a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle was detonated outside his home in north Tehran. Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the attack. A State Department spokesman in Washington dismissed the accusation of United States involvement as “absurd.”

Press TV said Mr. Fashi had been executed at Evin prison in Tehran. He had also been found guilty of “receiving training from Mossad” — the Israeli spy agency — inside Israel and of being given $120,000 to assassinate Mr. Mohammadi. He had also confessed to using forged documents, received in Azerbaijan, to travel to Tel Aviv, the broadcaster said.

The Iranian state news agency accused Mr. Fashi of traveling abroad “on several occasions” to be trained.

The killing was one of several apparently aimed at Iranians associated with nuclear research. The latest came in January when Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, who was deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, was killed on his way to work in rush-hour traffic in Tehran.

While Israel generally declines comment on such assassinations, Iran routinely blames Israeli agents for seeking to derail its nuclear program.

Iranian news accounts said that a motorcyclist slapped a magnetized bomb on Mr. Roshan’s car, killing him and mortally wounding his driver and bodyguard, identified as Reza Qashaqei.

The execution of Mr. Fashi came weeks after Iran’s state media announced that 15 people, including Iranians and unspecified foreigners, had been arrested in connection with what the country’s Intelligence Ministry described as a “Zionist-regime-linked” plot to assassinate one of its “specialists.”

The report by the state broadcaster IRIB also said Iran’s intelligence services had uncovered an Israeli spy base in a neighboring country, without elaborating.

The execution also coincided with inconclusive talks in Vienna between Iranian envoys and officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency to discuss the agency’s desire to inspect facilities that it suspects have been used to test explosives capable of detonating a nuclear charge, which Iran denies. The talks are also seen as an informal precursor to talks scheduled this month in Baghdad, between Iran, the United States and other nations.

In a statement, the I.A.E.A.’s deputy director general, Herman Nackaerts, said the agency and Iranian officials “had a good exchange of views” and would meet again next Monday.

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York.