Speaking at a seminar for public, revolutionary and military prosecutors on March 2 of this year, cleric Hossein Taeb said, "In addition to military and diplomatic measures, the Americans have devised three domestic plans to contain and control. Their hopes have been to get results by linking the (international) sanctions to the (domestic) targeted subsidies. But they failed. For this year, their plan is to first link the sanctions to the next round of targeted subsidies and thus create a new round of chaos. At the same time they want to increase the security threats and keep us engaged in greater security and law enforcement activities and thus exhaust ourselves. And (finally when the election time comes) then plan to launch their "velvet revolution."