All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Hi, everyone. Katie's on assignment. I'm Kelly Wallace.

The short and medium-range Iranian missiles soared into the air with an ear-splitting roar, but the message was even louder: Iran is ready for a military threat.

Two of the rockets fired today can carry warheads 12-hundred miles. That's far enough to reach several American military bases, Israel and parts of Europe.

The tests come just days before Iran sits down in Geneva with the U.S. and five other nations to talk about its nuclear ambitions.

The White House is threatening tough sanctions if Iran doesn't halt uranium enrichment.

Iran's leaders insist there's no reason to stop because their nuclear program is only for energy production - and has nothing to do with these missile tests.

Most Western observers don't buy that and many now believe if there had been any hopes of a quick deal with Iran - these missiles found their targets - and took them out.

I'm Kelly Wallace, CBS News.

President Obama's response to the government crackdown has been criticized by some Republicans as timid.

Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came to his defense, saying he believes the protesters understand the tough position the president is in.

Hi everyone. Katie's off. I'm Seth Doane.

You've seen the video: tens of thousands of protesters packing the streets and squares of Tehran One crowd claiming election fraud and demanding a new vote. Another insisting that last week's results were fair and accurate.

This battle is being waged, not just in Iran's capital, but in cyber space. Activists on both sides are getting out their messages by using Twitter, Facebook, and other sites.

Those who dissent risk prison. Iran's government has ordered bloggers to remove anything that would quote, "create tension." But with some Iranian reporters under arrest and foreign correspondents now banned from covering demonstrations in person, these citizen journalists are there to tell the world what they see.

They are passionate and often manage to get around government restrictions on cell phones and the internet by using the technological revolution to fight a political one.

I'm Seth Doane. CBS News.

Hi everyone. Katie's off today. I'm Jeff Glor.

The message from protesters in Iran today is loud and clear, but it seems to be very different from the one at the polls last Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Tehran to support reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. They've been protesting ever since hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by an almost two-to-one margin. It's a result many of them just don't believe.

But Ahmadinejad has his backers too. There's no proof the election was rigged. Although it doesn't help the government's case that police have beaten some of the protesters and the reporters trying to cover them.

Iran's supreme leader is promising an election fraud investigation. But, no matter who really won, the voice of the people crying out for change has been heard by the entire world this week. It might be very tough for the Iranian government to ignore.

I'm Jeff Glor. CBS News.

Roxana Saberi grew up in Fargo. She’s a former Miss North Dakota and, in many ways, an All American Girl. Her dad is from Iran, so she has dual citizenship and was able to travel to that country freely. It was a perfect opportunity for a Western journalist to report from Tehran as an Iranian citizen, and she did so for six years, working for NPR, BBC, and FOX, among others.

In January she was arrested. Iranian officials have accused her of working without credentials, of buying wine (which is illegal there), and, most alarmingly, of espionage.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials have said the charges are completely baseless. One expert I spoke to told me that her attorney wasn’t given any access to the information in the case against her until about two days before her trial.

She was convicted last week behind closed doors. Within days, she was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

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At a time when diplomatic relations with Iran stand at a crossroads, one young woman's fate could be a sign post.

Her name is Roxana Saberi. She's a freelance journalist from North Dakota, her father is originally from Iran and for six years she's been filing reports from that country.

In January, she was arrested there and accused of espionage. The details of the charges haven't been made public, and her one-day trial was held behind closed doors. She awaits the verdict now in a prison where a Canadian journalist and an Iranian blogger both met their deaths.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several human rights groups have called for Saberi's release, saying the charges against her are baseless.

Iran is not a monolith and not all Iranians share their government's views.

But at this moment the world is watching Tehran, waiting for a verdict that could help open the road to diplomacy or put up a massive and chilling stop sign.

That's a page from my notebook.

This morning, Katie spoke with John McCain about whether he'll offer any relief to high gas prices, what's going on inside his campaign and his views on Iran's nuclear program. You can see the full interview tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric at 6:30 p.m., but we've put together a preview. Just click on the monitor below to have a look at what McCain had to say.

David Martin is National Security Correspondent for CBS News.

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Will there be a strike – either by the U.S., Israel or both – against Iran's nuclear complex? And will it happen before the Bush administration leaves office? I doubt leaders in either country know the answers to those questions.

Israel is putting the pressure on, telling the Bush administration in every way possible: "if you don't do it, we will." That's a threat designed to be heard not just in Washington but in every capital of the world – including Tehran. Israel wants the Iranians to know that it really will strike if uranium enrichment continues and it wants the rest of the world to know that the only way to stave off military action is with much more draconian economic and diplomatic sanctions that will persuade Teheran to change its mind.

Everyone agrees on two things: 1) Iran with a bomb would be a disaster and 2) bombing Iran would be a disaster. The only argument is over which would be the greater disaster.

One school of thought says that Iran would be like any other country that has the bomb – afraid to use it for fear of retaliation. But even those who believe that Iran would play by the same rules of deterrence that every other nuclear state plays by acknowledge that at the very least an Iranian bomb would cause other oil rich states to get a bomb of their own and nobody thinks a nuclear arms race in the Middle East can have a good outcome. It's really a moot point because Israel is certain that Iran with a bomb would be a greater disaster and Israel will do whatever it takes to prevent it.

The real question is: "what is Israel's red line? What will it take to trigger a strike?"

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Nancy Ramsey is a contributor for CBSNews.com.

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With so much controversy swirling about the visit to the United Nations this week of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and wild headlines galore -- we thought we needed some perspective.

So we called Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University, is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is the author of “The Shia Revival” and “Democracy in Iran.”

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1. Many other world leaders came to New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, but we barely heard a word about them. Why is all the attention on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president?

His comments on wiping Israel off the map, his comments denying the Holocaust . . . he¹s a controversial fellow. He¹s in the crosshairs of the United States because not only have the two countries not had relations for the past 27 years, but Iran¹s profile has risen with its pursuit of nuclear technology. There¹s also the Iraq war. And Iran¹s been instrumental in supporting Hezbollah. They¹re a big player in Palestinian politics and in southern Iraq. So in the past two or three years, the Bush administration has viewed Iran as an impediment to the peace process.

So you have a president who¹s particularly bombastic, who presents the worst image of a country you¹re already having problems with. For the American public, Ahmadinejad captures the Bush administration’s demonization of Iran.

2. While the New York Daily News ran screaming headlines, ``Go to Hell`` and ``The Evil Weasel,” on Monday the New York Times ran a story headlined, ``U.S. Focus on Ahmadinejad Puzzles Iranians,” reporting that he has far less power than we tend to give him credit for. What’s the disconnect?

He doesn’ have that much power. The Iranian president is not the head of the Iranian state. The head of the state is the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Ahmadinejad, as head of the executive branch of the government, does have certain powers. He appoints ministers and governors. But he does not control the Parliament, the Judiciary. He does not appoint the commander of the military forces. And especially when we talk about the nuclear issue, he does not control the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, the Assembly of Experts, all of these powerful councils that oversee elections and legislation. None of them are under his mandate. And the more powerful foundations that control most of the wealth of the country, those aren¹t under his command...

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Tony Maciulis is host of CBSNews.com's "Irregularly Scheduled Programming."

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On "Irregularly Scheduled Programming," we cover the top few stories making waves online, the quirky news and videos that have people talking. They tend to be silly, irreverent, or just plain tacky.

Every so often the news in the mainstream and the most popular online topics are in lockstep, as they were today.

The top online video is a clip of the acting dean from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs on Fox News, defending the university's decision to bring Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad onto campus for a public forum.

As a graduate of Columbia, I've watched the events of the last couple of days with anticipation, and with mixed emotions.

As the faculty and administration defended the event in the face of some tough criticism, some students and activists took to the campus in protest to state their belief that Ahmadinejad should be turned away.

And the defense, the notion that a university should be a place for the free exchange of ideas seemed naïve. Is there no line that can't be crossed, no boundaries?

Critics on right leaning blogs like Little Green Footballs speculated that Columbia would open its doors to Ahmadinejad and shower him with liberal, East Coast guilt.

I feared it was a possibility.

Then, I watched the forum...