WORLD NEWS: "Revolutionary Guards Extend Reach to Iran's Media: Planned News Agency Fits With Move to Dominate Accounts of Events; 'They Want to Control Public Opinion,'" by Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal, 4 November 2009.

More evidence that the mullahs aren't being allowed to run anything truly important as the Revolutionary Guards consolidate their putsch: the RGs are launching their own Associated Press-like entity that they will control completely.

Ahmadinejad, as a WSJ front-page analysis predicted years ago (I blogged it), has always been about making the RGs the new, independent power inside Iran, marginalizing the mullahs. As for his profound religiosity? Well, only Nixon can go to China, so only a totally religious leader like Ahmadinejad could pull off such a putsch.