Amir Jahanchahi, an exiled Iranian businessman, today called on his countrymen to rally round and act more decisively, suggesting that elements of the powerful Revolutionary Guard could be persuaded to turn against the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Keeping the pressure on elsewhere, dozens of government-supporters descended on the home of Mahdi Karroubi, one of the main opposition leaders, on Sunday night, shouting slogans against him and vandalizing his property.

No harm in that. Except that usually, the Israel Football Association is not included on the list, since Iran refuses to recognize Israel’s existence, including its FA.

In most places, being a star means ranking top of the class, but in Iran it means your name appears on a list of students considered a threat by the intelligence ministry. It also means a partial or complete ban from education.

The term comes from the fact that some students have learned of their status by seeing stars printed next to their names on test results.

While the West may be doing all it can to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions it is helping many countries in the Middle East to obtain civilian nuclear technology.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, said that failure to enforce Iranian compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, could lead to a race for nuclear weapons. “Think of Egypt or Turkey or Saudi Arabia,” he said. “They can hardly afford not being nuclear if Iran turns . . . nuclear.”

The head of Israeli military intelligence said that Iran had shown how the line between civilian and nuclear intent could become dangerously blurred. “In its nuclear programme Iran is conducting a strategy that it designed for itself,” said Major-General Amos Yadlin, whose country has an unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.

“Marg bar diktatur” (Death to dictatorship), they chanted in their thousands, waving green banners and posters behind high canvas screens tied to the railings as basij miltiamen and revolutionary guards prowled the streets outside.

Some held up Iranian flags with the symbol of the Islamic republic cut out of the middle. Others, masked against teargas, burned pictures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s heir as the once inviolate supreme leader, made V-signs or taunted basiji with banknotes – a contemptuous dig at the regime’s hired thugs. “Liar basiji, where is your student card?” went another slogan – meant to scare off militiamen using fake IDs.

The effort appears to be part of a wider drive to counter opposition groups and other pro-reform factions that have been emboldened by the unprecedented protests after June’s disputed presidential election.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi strongly attacked the Revolutionary Guard in a new statement Wednesday, accusing the elite corps of using brutal force to crush the massive street protests.

Authorities have recently emphasized the need to battle the reach of Western media, viewpoints and culture — which resonate strongly in a country where nearly half the population was born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defense Ministry official said Asgari had defected and was providing considerable information to the West on Iran’s nuclear program.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is warning Iran that it will face further sanctions if it walks away from the talks.

The US pressure on Iran comes ahead of next week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, which will be attended by Iran’s President.

The US says there are no plans for President Barack Obama to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But that has not stopped US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from warning Iran that time is running out for it to address concerns about its nuclear program.

“Iran’s continued failure to live up to its obligations carries profound consequences for the security of the United States and our allies,” she said.