Mr Leverett, who now works at the New America Foundation, a thinktank in Washington, is the latest in a series of analysts and agents to accuse the CIA publication review board of stifling criticism of the administration or the intelligence-gathering operations in the run-up to the war in Iraq. However, Mr Leverett goes a step further in accusing the White House of putting pressure on the CIA to prevent the distribution of views which do not conform to its policy of refusing any diplomatic discussions with Iran.

His 1,000-word article was based on a longer published piece that the CIA had cleared without demanding any changes, and that is available on the net. At the website talkingpointsmemo.com, Mr Leverett wrote: "The White House inserted itself into the prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration's bungling of the Iran portfolio."

Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts

Thanks. I think I was able to put out some of my basic ideas on how we need to be engaging Iran diplomatically. They're, you know, expounded on in greater length on paper. I wanted to say something briefly about the administration, and where it is.

I have been extremely pessimistic that this administration is inclined or capable of genuinely rethinking its approach to Iran in the way that we need it to at this point, and I've had an unfortunate experience this week that has only confirmed that for me. As I do with all of my publications, the Century Foundation paper, I showed to the CIA, for whom I used to work, to verify that I was not revealing classified information. They did so, as they have with 30 other things that I've published since leaving government. Didn't ask to change a word.

I prepared an op-ed for the New York Times off of this paper, which is ready to go, ready for publication. The CIA says that as far as they're concerned, there's not any classified information in it. But the White House has intervened, claiming that there is classified information in the op-ed, even though it's already been cleared. It's all published. It's all based on stuff that Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Armitage have talked about publicly. It's been extensively reported in the media. But the White House is saying I can't publish an op-ed in the New York Times that lays out the argument. I've been doing this for three and a half years since leaving government, and I've never had to go to the White House to get clearance for something that I was publishing as long as the CIA said, 'Yeah, you're not putting classified information.'

Why this week - after the Baker study group, when pressure is on them to rethink their position on Iran - why do they not want this op-ed, based on my experiences in government, my experience dealing with Iran, with Iranian officials, after I left government? Why do they not want this op-ed going in the New York Times this week? I think it says something, and I think it says something about just how low people like Elliot Abrams at the NSC [National Security Council] will stoop to try and limit the dissemination of arguments critical of the administration's policy.

UPDATE: For more on Leverett's perspective on Iran, read a paper he wrote for The Century Foundation earlier this month.

His reaction came after President George Bush rejected a call from the Iraq Study Group to engage with Iran and Syria on broader Middle East issues.

President Assad called on Mr Olmert to heed his calls for negotiations, in an interview with the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.

Amir Peretz, Israel's Defence Minister, called for an "urgent debate" to weigh the possibility of severing Syria's ties with Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. But Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said: "The Syrian government has shown, in actions rather than words, it has no interest in real negotiations."

In December this year a fanatical Islamic Jew-hater convened a conference in Tehran dedicated to denying the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews as a prelude to wiping Israel off the map. Jew-haters including outright Nazis attended from all parts of the globe burying their ideological differences in order to put this fiendish plan into action.

The above sums up the consensus on the recent Tehran Conference on the Holocaust and on its convenor, Iran's charismatic President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As a participant in that conference I can report that the Western media is up to its old tricks of lying in unison again, this time in order to stoke up the fuels of fire against Iran. Not content with sending nearly three thousand American and over a hundred British servicemen to their deaths in Iraq while plunging that country into a civil war in all but name, the hawks in Washington are now preparing to start another war, this time against Iran.

Iran we are told is a threat to world peace, it is developing nuclear weapons which will be used against Israel. The lies go on. So what is the truth?

The truth is that the roots of this conference lie in a series of blasphemous cartoons which the enemies of Islam thought were hilarious; now the boot is on the other foot and the Islamophobes are laughing no more. In September last year a Danish newspaper published a number of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. Although Islam is far from the intolerant, patriarchal, totalitarian philosophy it is often portrayed as, there are two things you never do. You do not spit on the Holy Koran, and you do not guy the Prophet. The prohibition against any representation of Muhammad is particularly severe, not because he is regarded as divine or sacred; unlike Jesus of Nazareth he did not claim to be the Son of God, and unlike Jesus, Muhammad was a real historical person, he actually existed. Just take it from me, you dont mess with Muhammad.

Nevertheless, some people regard this prohibition as a violation of their right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so they defended the newspaper in the wake of anger and protests from Islamic organisations. If this defence had gone no further than the usual mutterings about freedom of expression, that would have been the end of it, but seeing Muslim anger aroused, and determined to push their luck just for the sheer hell of it, a number of foreign newspapers reprinted the cartoons, an act which led not only to rising anger in the Islamic world but to violence and even murder.

While no reasonable person would condone acts of murder even in response to gross blasphemy, there can be no doubt that the Western media must bear the responsibility for a large slice of the violence that followed. Free speech or not, no one has the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre; Western newspaper editors may be many things but by and large they are not stupid. They must surely have known that murder and mayhem would follow if Muslims felt they were being pushed too far. If nothing else, they must each and every one of them have been acutely aware of the fact that there are extremists within the Islamic community who will use any pretext to resort to violence. Havent they heard of September 11?

Seeing his religion offended and the blasphemers defended on the grounds of free speech, some bright spark in Iran decided that sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, and the newspaper Hamshahri announced that it would hold a Holocaust cartoon competition.

"Does the West's freedom of expression extend to... an event such as the Holocaust or is this freedom of expression only for the desecration of the sanctities of divine religions?" the paper asked. That is what is known as a rhetorical question, because international outrage followed at this blasphemy against the religion of the Holocaust.

Enter the President of Iran. The name Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was all but unknown in the West until he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. True or false? The first part is true; the second part is a lie. What he actually said was that the Zionist entity Israel would go the same way as the Soviet Union, it would simply cease to exist, and all its citizens, Gentile and Jew, would be much better for it. It may be that this claim is wishful thinking, but it is certainly not genocidal.

Ahmadinejad is a plain speaking man, and when it comes to International Zionism, he is totally fearless, unlike the overwhelming majority of Western politicians and all Western statesmen.

In December last year he was quoted thus by the official BBC website: "If someone were to deny the existence of God... or prophets and religion, they would not bother him. However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can".

For once this quote is accurate. An honest person may disagree with the first part of that statement, but no honest person could take issue with the second part.

This week, the Iranian Government went one better than Hamshahri when it hosted the first ever Holocaust conference of its kind. There have of course been numerous conferences on the Holocaust before, including those organised by Revisionists, but never has a meeting of this nature been funded and hosted by a government.

I was one of those selected from some eight hundred applicants to present an original paper on the Holocaust. The Iranian Government paid for my ticket and accommodation, although I was not offered any inducement or bribe to attend. Our hosts extended us every courtesy, although they did not bend over backwards to try to impress us. I have no illusions about Iran and although I saw precious little of Tehran in the short time I was there and nothing at all of the rest of the country, it was obvious that the good will of the regime was sincere. There was no hatred of either Westerners or Americans evident. Street signs and shop signs are often in English as well as Farsi; Western TV programmes including American music are ubiquitous.

The title of my paper was THE NAZI GAS CHAMBERS: Rumours, Lies And Reality - One Researchers View. This is a subject dear to my heart. I dont claim to be an expert and am not an accredited historian, but I have been reading this subject for a quarter of a century, and over the past eighteen years I have researched certain aspects of the Holocaust in greater depth than the vast majority of bona fide historians. My researches have led me to believe that undeniable though it was during the Holocaust and World War II, the full extent of Jewish suffering has been greatly exaggerated, and I told my audience so adducing evidence in support of my arguments at every point. Not every speaker was so meticulous, but not every speaker shared my viewpoint. Among the speakers at this conference were members of Neturei Karta, the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist sect. Rabbi Ahron Cohen said it was ridiculous to deny the Holocaust, meaning the genocide of the Jews, and said that it didn't matter if six million, five million or some lesser number were murdered by the Nazis, nor did it matter if the victims died in the gas chambers or by the bullet, it was still genocide.

Neturei Karta are often derided as cranks, but they are the real Jews, the men and women who practise the undiluted, uncontaminated essence of Judaism. All shades of opinion were present including one or two nutty Arabs and people who espoused genuine anti-Semitism, but the conference was all the better for it.

Contrary to the Western media's assertions, the conference did not declare the Holocaust a myth, although some individual participants were surely of that opinion.

At the end of the presentations on the second day the speakers were taken to what I presumed was the Presidential Palace where we met the great man himself. I say great man because that is what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is; he is the Tehranosaurus Rex of statesmen, Mahmoud the Tehranible. You may not think he is right, you may not even like him, but you have to admire the guy. If half a dozen statesmen had exhibited the same courage, forthrightness and honesty over International Zionism and the so-called Jewish Question over the past fifty years the Middle East would not be in the sorry state it is in now, there would have been no Gulf Wars and probably no Six Day War or Yom Kippur War either. The Palestinian problem would almost certainly have been solved, or at the very least these wretched people would not still be living in rat-infested camps strewn halfway across the region.

When we met Ahmadinejad he repeated what he had said about the Zionist entity, and so there could be misunderstanding his intentions he embraced several rabbis.

One of the major speakers at the Conference was David Duke. In an earlier incarnation Duke was a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan, something he has never been allowed to forget. White Supremacist or White Separatist or both, Dukes bigotry, if it exists, does not extend to the mass murder of innocent civilians. He stated quite clearly that the US Government and media (which he sees as Zionist-controlled) is itching to start a war with Iran, and made an impassioned plea that it be averted.

Although like everyone else at this conference I have no illusions about Jewish/Zionist power or mendacity I dont see the hidden Jewish hand behind every event on the world stage, but there can be no denying the fact that International Zionism and its allies do want war.

In the last few weeks the Bush Administration has suffered an outburst of realism; a ground war and invasion of Iran is probably now out of the question, public revulsion at the inevitable loss of life would be too much for even the sheep-like American public, but it is not impossible that the Americans may make a "pre-emptive strike" against Irans nuclear facilities, or even more stupidly they may put the Israelis up to it.

If there is any sort of attack against Iran, the consequences for Iran, for the United States, for Britain and indeed for the world will be catastrophic. It must not be allowed to happen. Ahmadinejad has no intention of using his countrys nuclear program for malignant purposes, but even if he had, it ill-behooves the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons in anger to tell Iran or any other sovereign nation that it has no right to develop such a weapons programme.

We in the West, Christians, non-believers and Muslims, Gentile, Jew and Arab alike, must resist this folly. We must exert whatever pressure we can against both the American and British Governments to ensure that Iranian sovereignty is not violated on any pretext. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man we can do business with. When Tony Blair condemned the Holocaust Conference, Irans reaction was to invite him to attend it. Naturally this invitation was not accepted, but perhaps Blair, or whoever is running the country then, will attend the next one.

There is a saying that "jaw jaw" is always preferable to "war war"; many veterans of the First World War, the Great War - of which there are now so few remaining - believe this and have gone on record as such. They saw the horror of the trenches; we too have seen the horrors of war, although most of us fortunately not at first hand, we experience it vicariously through CNN or the BBC. Does anyone in the West really want the madness of Iraq to be extended to Iran? And then where next? Syria? North Korea?

As I said, Ahmadinejad is a man the West can do business with. He is currently offering us an olive branch. Anyone who doesn't like Iran's Holocaust conferences will be more than welcome to attend the next one and put an alternate point of view - as did the Naturei Karta rabbis. And anyone who wants to discuss other matters with the Iranians, like mutual nuclear disarmament, swords into ploughshares and perhaps developing alternative energies, will find its President a more than willing listener. Bear this in mind next time you read that Iran is a threat to world peace.

WASHINGTON - It hasn't been a good year for neocons, that group of conservative American intellectuals pulling some strings of US policy, particularly during the George W. Bush administration.

The strongest indictment against them is the war in Iraq, a quagmire in which the US is currently stuck up to its neck. And as Bush's days in the White House grow numbered, they are leaving one by one.

Among the few remaining neocons is David Wurmser, an advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney on Middle Eastern affairs. Wurmser is a Middle East expert, just like his wife, Israeli Meyrav Wurmser, a researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute.

Meyrav Wurmser was also one of the co-founders of MEMRI, which tracks Arab leaders and translating their political statements from Arabic to English.

Despite the fact that many neocons are no longer part of the government, it turns out they're still one big happy family, who make sure to remain in touch.

Many are Jews, who share a love for Israel . Some of the accusations against the government regarding the war in Iraq is that it was undertaken primarily for Israel's sake and that the attack on Iraq was actually an Israeli objective.

In an interview with Ynet, Dr. Meyrav Wurmser refutes the accusations and criticism.

"Since I'm an Israeli in the gang, you wouldn't believe what's been written about me," she said. "That I'm proof of the covert neoconservative connection with Israel and the Mossad."

What are you trying to achieve?

"We believe in a strong and active American foreign policy. America is a good force in the world, a nation that believes in freedom. We believe in exporting American ideas of freedom and democracy, to promote greater stability."

Did you, in practice, bring about the war in Iraq?

"We expressed ideas, but the policy in Iraq was taken out of neocon hands very quickly. The idea was that America has a war on terror and that the only actual place for coping with it is in the Middle East and that a fundamental change would come through a change in leadership. We had to start somewhere.

"The objective was to change the face of the Middle East. But it was impossible to create a mini-democracy amidst a sea of dictatorships looking to destroy this poor democracy, and thus, where do insurgents in Iraq come from? From Iran and Syria ."

Should they have been conquered?

"No. There was a need for massive political action, of threats and pressure on these governments, financial pressure, for example. The sanctions on Syria were nothing. There was a period of time when the Syrians were afraid that they were next. It would have been possible to use this momentum in a smarter way. There's no need to go in militarily."

Everyone feels beaten after last 5 years

At their prime, the neocons held the reigns of American decision making. In the Pentagon, there were Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and Harold Rhode, a senior Pentagon advisor on Islam.

In the vice president's office were Louis Libby and John Hannah. Richard Perle headed the committee advising to the Pentagon. In the White House were Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy Elliott Abrams and Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, who later became the US ambassador to the UN.

According to Wurmser's description, the group is comprised of academics, most of them lacking operational experience, who became part of the Bush administration but failed to get their ideas through bureaucracy.

"These are intellectuals who came with great ideas, in which I still believe, but did not find a way to promote their beliefs in the complexities of bureaucracy," she says.

Your people held senior positions in the Pentagon. Didn't Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith implement your theories?

"The final decisions were no in their hands. In the Pentagon, the decisions were in the hands of the military, and the political leadership had a lot of clashes with the military leadership."

Did the military leadership ask for more soldiers in Iraq?

"Rumsfeld prevented that. He was a failure. The State Department opposed the neocons' stances. Also John Bolton, who is also part of the family, and was no. 4 at the State Department under Colin Powell, was incapable of passing decisions...

"Powell curbed our ideas and they did not pass. There was a lot of frustration over the years in the administration because we didn't feel we were succeeding.

"Now Bolton left (the UN - Y.B.) and there are others who are about to leave. This administration is in its twilight days. Everyone is now looking for work, looking to make money... We all feel beaten after the past five years... We miss the peace and quiet and writing books...

"When you enter the administration you have to keep your mouth shut. Now many will resume their writing... Now, from the outside, they will be able to convey all the criticism they kept inside."

In the meantime you left the US inside Iraq?

"We did not bring the US into Iraq in such a way. Our biggest war which we lost was the idea that before entering Iraq we must train an exile Iraqi government and an Iraqi military force, and hand over the rule to them immediately after the occupation and leave Iraq. That was our idea and it was not accepted."

Your man was Ahmed Chalabi, who was later suspected of spying for Iran?

"That is true, but we didn't want him as a dictator but as a person in a government that will act democratically... We must help the current democratic government. The borders with Iran and Syria should have been blocked immediately when we entered Iraq. Now it's already a disaster."

Why didn't you attack Syria?

Many of Wurmser's friends believe the disaster is not only in Iraq, but in the entire region. They are also very frustrated over the way in which Israel embarked on the war against Hizbullah this summer, and on the way it returned from it.

"Hizbullah defeated Israel in the war. This is the first war Israel lost," Dr. Wurmser declares.

Is this a popular stance in the administration, that Israel lost the war?

"Yes, there is no doubt. It's not something one can argue about it. There is a lot of anger at Israel."

What caused the anger?

"I know this will annoy many of your readers... But the anger is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. Instead of Israel fighting against Hizbullah, many parts of the American administration believe that Israel should have fought against the real enemy, which is Syria and not Hizbullah."

Did the administration expect Israel to attack Syria?

"They hoped Israel would do it. You cannot come to another country and order it to launch a war, but there was hope, and more than hope, that Israel would do the right thing. It would have served both the American and Israeli interests.

"The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space... They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its strategic and important ally should be hit."

"It is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country. If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran, that it would have weakened it and changes the strategic map in the Middle East.

"The final outcome is that Israel did not do it. It fought the wrong war and lost. Instead of a strategic war that would serve Israel's objectives, as well as the US objectives in Iraq. If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended."

Wurmser says that what most frustrates her is hearing people close to decision makers in Israel asking her if the US would have let Israel attack Syria.

"No one would have stopped you. It was an American interest. They would have applauded you. Think why you received so much time and space to operate. Rice was in the region and Israel embarrassed her with Qana, and still Israel got more time. Why aren't they reading the map correctly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?"

The verdict of the Baker-Hamilton report is extremely pessimistic: the international image of the United States will remain damaged for the foreseeable future, while inside the country, the opinions of Americans themselves will become "even more polarized."

What to do? The report proposes curtailing the violence in Iraq by involving Iran. This is a logical proposal, but given the mutual antagonism of Tehran and Washington, there is cause for doubt.

American-Iranian cooperation in Iraq would require direct bilateral talks, which for several reasons has been considered unthinkable by the Bush Administration. The first is Iran's notorious nuclear dossier. A White House spokesman has already ruled out bilateral talks with Iran until it stops enriching and processing uranium.

But there is another more disturbing concern in Washington: it is unclear how Iran - which has been positioning itself as the Middle East's new superpower - will behave. There is no doubt that Tehran will demand a lot, if, of course, it "condescends" to participate in talks at all.

Besides, Iran is less likely than anyone else in the region to want a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Tehran is perfectly aware of the level of responsibility it would have to shoulder if the U.S. did leave. Does Iran have the strength, money and capability to prevent the situation in its neighbor from escalating into a war; this is to say nothing of developments in Lebanon and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

Certainly not. Moreover, the tendency to claim leadership in the region by virtue of its nuclear program has been met with hostility by the Persian Gulf states. Their rejection of Tehran's proposal for a non-aggression and non-interference pact which would remove tensions centered on Iran's nuclear file is proof enough of this.

So if the U.S. withdraws, there is every reason to believe that Iran would be left alone to confront - not only all potential problems in the region - but an anti-Iranian coalition as well. Nevertheless, Tehran will continue to "boycott" America's presence in the region, without stepping over the "red line" that it has drawn. For Tehran, this position has obvious advantages when "trading" with Washington, not only over the nuclear dispute but also in addressing regional difficulties.

And then there is the current Iraqi government, which for obvious reasons doesn't want to speak too loudly about an American withdrawal - a fact that creates additional problems for Iran. This was seen, for example, at the recent Iran-Iraq summit. The visit of Iraqi President Jalal Talibani to Iran was promoted by Teheran as the unfolding of a new strategic alliance in the Middle East. The joint statement signed by Talabani and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touches upon many important issues like bilateral relations in general, but it says nothing about U.S.-led forces deployed in Iraq.

The White House hasn't ruled out an announcement - before the end of December - changes in its strategy in Iraq. This will occur after President Bush has a chance to compare the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton report with two similar reports being prepared by his own administration. One of them is being drafted by the National Security Council and the other by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

For the present, it is obvious that the Bush Administration should recognize that the U.S. lacks a distinct position on any recent developments on the Middle East. These concern Israeli-Palestinian relations and the situation in Lebanon. Its position on Iraq also needs a major adjustment. The key to many of these could be found in Iran, but as we can see, this will not be easy.

In a recent blog entry, he described a scene he saw while talking to a greengrocer about soaring prices: A young child was pleading, " 'Mommy, I want watermelon.' The woman, shy and sorrowful, singled out one broken, small watermelon from the spoiled fruit bin and told the grocer, 'Just this one, please.' She put 20 cents on the counter and hurried away."

Samiei, 27, is among the growing ranks of Iranian bloggers who are relentlessly pushing the boundaries of free expression, making Farsi one of the 10 most popular languages for blogs. The bloggers are testing just how much political and social dissent the nation's rulers will tolerate on the Internet.

The authorities are pushing back. They have blocked access to thousands of websites in recent years that are deemed to threaten Iran's Islamic revolution, including the BBC's Farsi-language site. A trial began this month against four bloggers on charges including propaganda against the state. And in October, the government barred high-speed Internet service in private homes.

Especially threatening, it appears, are sites that create online communities that might allow Iranians to assemble virtually. The government banned the hugely popular Orkut site, an online Iranian social club. The latest casualty this month: YouTube.com, the American site for sharing videos online. Click on it in Iran and the screen reports, "Access denied."

The Paris-based rights group Reporters Without Borders includes Iran on its list of 13 countries designated "enemies of the Internet." That organization's website is also blocked in Iran.

The organization said repression of bloggers has eased somewhat in 2006. But in a report in November, the group said Internet filtering has accelerated, with two political sites, tik.ir and meydaan.com, closed down in recent weeks. Both had criticized the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Bloggers agree that they have found some latitude in recent months. Many have developed a feel for the boundaries, and some are trying to stretch them rather than break them.

Farzana Sayid Saidi, a 29-year-old reporter and colleague of Samiei, has two blogs, one political and the other showcasing her poetry. She has been blogging in her spare time for two years. Her first blog was shut down within three days, she said, after she wrote that school officials were providing access to abortions in clinics for young students.

Now she's back at it. She blogged a few days ago that while Ahmadinejad wants people to have more children, his economic policies make it difficult for many families to do so. She said she received some obscene and abusive replies. In a poem on her other blog, she compared Iran's leaders to the pharaohs of Egypt.

She estimates her readers at only in the hundreds, but adds: "We just want to express ourselves. We don't know how many people are reading."

Farzana's colleague Samiei admires her courage.

"Of the things she writes in her blog, only 1 percent would be acceptable in print," Samiei said.

She and hordes of other Iranian bloggers are pushing the envelope of the permissible. Technorati, a Silicon Valley search engine for blogs, said in October that Farsi has moved into the top 10 languages worldwide for bloggers. Most estimates put the number of active blogs in Iran at 70,000 to 100,000, and growing fast.

Iran has a long tradition of controlling the airwaves and the print media, banning papers and jailing journalists who criticize official policies.

But Iran's online activists have proved harder to quash. They have used fast-changing Web addresses, proxy sites, and other technological tricks to get around the restrictions.

"They block us and we evade the blocks," Samiei said. "It goes on every day. They code, we decode."

The Ministry of Information periodically sends lists to Internet service providers saying which keywords to filter out so that users can't get access to websites or blogs that contain them. The government contends that the principal target is pornography and other morally offensive material. The word "sex" is among those blocked.

That has some odd consequences. At one point, an Internet café owner said, the word "hot" was blocked. And that briefly prevented access to Hotmail, the popular e-mail program.

Amirhussein Jaharuti, the manager of a major Internet service provider in Tehran, said the government's restrictions focus on pornography, and he feels that filtering is appropriate.

"This is the demand of Iranian families, that they don't want their children to use these kinds of sites," he said. Asked about the political restrictions, he said: "All governments have ways to control their societies. . . . It's natural that when we see that someone wants to destroy us, we limit them."

Jaharuti said his client base has doubled in the past two years, to nearly 70,000. He provides dial-up and digital-subscriber line service to home and business customers at a cost of 20 to 40 cents an hour, or about $20 per month.

Internet use in Iran has exploded in recent years, with about 7.5 million users in 2005 in a country of nearly 70 million people.

Some journalists say the Internet has become even more vital in Iran as the government has suppressed other, more easily controllable forms of expression. Several opposition newspapers have been shut down since September, including the prominent paper Shargh.

The editor, Mohamed Atrianfar, said in an interview that the closure of Shargh and other publications and renewed pressure on critical websites reflects the government's concern that "the more challenges we have, the more agile and fresh the society becomes."

"All the hard-liners have mustered all their strength to fight this war. I am proud that we have invoked this reaction in them," he added.
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Despite its closure, Shargh has maintained a website to continue coverage of elections last week.

Atrianfar estimated that about 70 to 80 Iranian journalists have their own blogs.

"Websites and blogs have real impact," he said. "They have been very powerful in forming a word-of-mouth culture, especially for those between 17 and 35."

An Internet café owner in central Tehran who gave only his first name, Shariar, said the filtering of keywords rather than individual sites often blocks legitimate websites that people need for academic research. He also said limits on credit cards resulting from US financial sanctions against Iran have all but eliminated e-commerce on Iran's Internet, a major obstacle to economic growth.

Shariar said that while the government contends it is aiming its restrictions at pornography, "I think they are worried about politics. . . . I think they fear everything. They don't want people to make connections overseas. They are worried about information."

The authorities also close Western media sites temporarily. Both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times sites were blocked briefly this month.

A 22-year-old university student, Morteza Yeganeh, said the state-owned broadcasters and newspapers "brainwash people, so we need to find ways to educate ourselves."

But he said the filtering of sites is effective because "even though people can get around the filters, it is difficult and time-consuming and people give up."

Most Iranian blogs are apolitical, and government members -- including Ahmadinejad himself -- have their own blogs to convey their views. But those with blogs that challenge the government know they are taking a risk.

Niloufar Taslim, 24, said that three years ago, she was one of Iran's first bloggers, writing about social and political problems. But she started receiving e-mails signed by a group calling itself the Army of God, listing her name, telephone number, and address and threatening to kill her.

She shut down that site, but now has two new blogs. One talks about social problems without crossing what she also considers political red lines: transportation and environmental problems.

Another blog features her poems. One laments that she has lost her voice, that in "a situation without possibilities" her hands are "in pain because they cannot write."