News from Iran? Good? Bad? Who knows?

[Ed Anger]

I totally agree; I'd never turn to twitter for news...well really anything.

I always knew you are a bright lad. 

Get a room, you two

Garbon keeps my anti-Marti feelings from flaring too much against the gays. He is a brake against excessive poofery.

[Sheilbh]

Once you start threatening people, if the protest has a decent chance of success that will just encourage them to back the protests further as their only chance to escape retribution by the regime.  If done poorly attempts to intimidate people can have the exact opposite effect.

This is a real danger for any regime experiencing large-scale protests.  If they fear that the regime won't last then self-preservation will often hasten the regime's end.

[The Brain]

Aren't they done yet? Iran bores me by now.

[Sheilbh]

The Mousavi campaign have said they now have concrete evidence of voter fraud.  In several provinces more votes were counted than there were voters eligible.

The BBC is saying that the reports they've received which, because journalists are being kept away, they can't verify is that today's protests were even bigger than yesterdays.

[Sheilbh]

The footage I've seen from today's protests, which do look large, though not as large as yesterday's, look like the party message got through.  The campaign asked them to wear black in mourning for the 7 dead and much of the crowd did.  Apparently tomorrow they're calling for more rallies and, in a clear reference to 'velvet revolutions' asking them to bring flowers to give to the Basij.  I expect to here more 'we're all Iranian' chants.

Apparently Tehran tonight was incredibly loud with the chants of 'Allah akbar' and 'death to dictators', both I believe, clear references to 1979.

I think this piece is very good:

Laura Secor: The Supreme Leader's Next Move

Today begins with seemingly contradictory news from Iran: the Guardian Council, a body of clerics that holds more power than the President or the parliament, has agreed to recount some of the votes from Friday's disputed election. At the same time, the regime has expelled some members of the foreign press, forbidden Iranian journalists from leaving their offices, and arrested major reformist figures, including the former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the former member of parliament Behzad Nabavi, and the reformist political strategist Saeed Hajjarian. These are men with impeccable revolutionary credentials—Hajjarian and Nabavi were founders of the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus—and unquestionable loyalty to the constitutional order. What is going on here?

The Guardian Council's gambit, while not entirely without promise, should be viewed with some skepticism. First, the council is not recounting all the ballots, if they can be found; it is reviewing only disputed ballot boxes, whatever that means. Second, this is not a disinterested review of the election results; in Iranian politics, the Guardian Council is essentially the practical hand of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the organ by which he most directly intervenes in the affairs of state. Through it, he has veto power over all legislation and can disqualify candidates for public office at will. Its members are directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader, and manifestly beholden to him. So this is not a neutral intervention; it is Khamenei's next move.

That's what makes it interesting and, for the moment, perplexing. What are Khamenei's options? With protesters yelling "Down with the dictator" in the streets of nearly every city in Iran, his position could not be more precarious. He has staked his very legitimacy, and perhaps that of the edifice he sits atop, on forcing Iranians to accept Ahmadinejad's supposed landslide victory. He can continue to try to force that down their throats with a show of raw power, or he can bend, which would show the opposition that he and the system are not really so powerful after all, that they are vulnerable to pressure from below. If he takes the latter road, it would be a radical departure from his style of governance up until now. This is the regime that violently quelled protest movements in 1999 and in 2002, crushed the hopes of reformers under Mohammad Khatami from 1997 through 2005, and apparently could not tolerate even the possibility of a Mousavi Presidency. But if he chooses the path of violence, he will transform his country into a crude and seething autocracy.

This is uncharted territory for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Until now, the regime has survived through a combination of repression and flexibility. The dispersal of power throughout a complex system, among rival political factions, and with the limited but active participation of the voting public, has allowed a basically unpopular regime to control a large population with only limited and targeted violence. There have always been loopholes and pressure points that allow the opposition and the regime to be dance partners, even if one or both of them is secretly brandishing a knife behind the other's back. That has been less true under Ahmadinejad than in the past. But the culture of the organized opposition under the Islamic Republic has tended to remain cautious and moderate. Many of the protesters of recent days are not calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. They are calling for their votes to be counted. More nights like last night, however, when some seven protesters were allegedly shot, could swiftly change that.

So is there any way Khamenei can dial the situation back even to the unhappy modus vivendi of June 11th? He could have the Guardian Council concede that the official figures were wrong, and assert that the vote was close enough, after all, to send the election to a second round between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad. If this had been the initial announcement from the Interior Ministry on June 12th, it would have been entirely plausible. Ahmadinejad has a reliable base that could comprise as much as thirty per cent of the country, as well as all the advantages of incumbency, including access to state television; his conservative challenger, Mohsen Rezai, had amassed little momentum; and, at least until Mousavi's late surge, there was a real contest between Mousavi and Karroubi for the hearts of the uncommitted. A split vote and a run-off would hardly have raised an eyebrow in the first instance. But to call one now, after having already endorsed a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad and called out riot police to enforce it, would be an admission that a brute power grab had been attempted and abandoned.

If Khamenei did allow a second round, the next question is whether he would be prepared to conduct it under some kind of monitoring that would be acceptable to both sides, and whether he would be prepared to accept the outcome, whatever it might be. There is good reason to think that Khamenei found the possibility of a Mousavi Presidency, backed by the sort of youth movement that became evident in the days just prior to the election, intolerable. Imagine him accepting a Mousavi Presidency backed by a revved-up, furious, volatile crowd—one that has just emerged victorious from street battles with the Supreme Leader's own militias. And if there could be any doubt that Mousavi would prove a stronger advocate than Khatami for the agenda of his constituency, his steadfast, courageous behavior in the last three days has put it to rest.

Who knows what sort of president Mousavi would have been, or could yet be? He is an entirely different kind of animal from reformist politicians of the past; he is identified not with students and intellectuals but with the hardscrabble war years and the defense of the poor. But as one analyst explained to me, the problem he faces is that he is perhaps the only person on the Iranian political scene whose public stature is equal to Khamenei's. He was a favorite son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the nineteen-eighties. Many Khomeinists in the power structure respect and support him; within the Revolutionary Guards, as well as within the upper clergy, he has a constituency. Traditional, religious people are among his supporters, too. On the morning of June 12th, he may have been the uncharismatic compromise candidate for the anyone-but-Ahmadinejad crowd. But to other voters he was then, and he has increasingly become, something else: the vehicle both for the memory of the utopia that never came, and for the hopes of a younger generation that imagines he shares its vision of the future.

I think what makes this more dangerous to the regime and the protesters than any previous revolt in Iran is that this is one that has the very top of the Iranian state locked in a zero sum game.  I can't see how either side can compromise enough to achieve a result both can be satisfied with, without destroying their credibility and seriously damaging whatever power they may have.

[Neil]

The Mousavi campaign have said they now have concrete evidence of voter fraud.

Of course they do.  Electoral fraud takes place in virtually every democracy, especially in the Third World.

[Ed Anger]

Next up: Big Butter Jesus appears in Qom.

[Malthus]

The odd part is that the Iranian public are so damn mad that they are being cheated out of Kodos.

[Sheilbh]

The odd part is that the Iranian public are so damn mad that they are being cheated out of Kodos.

Well it's about more than that now.  And I think it was about more than that earlier, which is why the election was rigged.  The regime clearly didn't have an issue with Mousavi I think they had an issue with the campaign that built up around him.

[Malthus]

The odd part is that the Iranian public are so damn mad that they are being cheated out of Kodos.

Well it's about more than that now.  And I think it was about more than that earlier, which is why the election was rigged.  The regime clearly didn't have an issue with Mousavi I think they had an issue with the campaign that built up around him.

I guess i don't understand the situation at all. What would happen if the regime held a recount or a new election, and said "okay you guys ... Kodos wins!"

I mean, what's the downside for them? He's their guy as well.

[alfred russel]

The odd part is that the Iranian public are so damn mad that they are being cheated out of Kodos.

Well it's about more than that now.  And I think it was about more than that earlier, which is why the election was rigged.  The regime clearly didn't have an issue with Mousavi I think they had an issue with the campaign that built up around him.

I guess i don't understand the situation at all. What would happen if the regime held a recount or a new election, and said "okay you guys ... Kodos wins!"

I mean, what's the downside for them? He's their guy as well.

Maybe they are worried he isn't their guy anymore?

[Queequeg]

This, and the fact that Kodos is now the focus point for disaffected youth who are putting all of their hopes and dreams on him, who will either be crushed and disappointed when he doesn't pan out or will push his idealogical agenda to become more liberal. 

[Sheilbh]

I guess i don't understand the situation at all. What would happen if the regime held a recount or a new election, and said "okay you guys ... Kodos wins!"

I mean, what's the downside for them? He's their guy as well.

Khamanei came out within an hour or two of the 'results' on Friday night and said that this was a 'divine assessment', he has arrested hundreds of reformist figures, he called the riot police and Basij out onto the streets and has tried to violently suppress protests against the result.  Because of that at least 7 people died yesterday and at least 30 were injured - all of this is in Teheran alone.  They've switched off the entire mobile phone network in the country.  He has backed down to some degree, already unprecedented for a Supreme Leader, but he has had a number of Ayatollahs declare the results damaging to Islam, which is remarkable.

Now we don't know the reasons that Mousavi threatened Khamenei so much.  I think Secor is onto something when she says that Mousavi's the only figure who can claim to be the inheritor of Khomeinism at least as much as Khamenei can.  Perhaps it was just the sheer popularity of Mousavi and the strength of his campaign.  Whatever it was he has invested a huge amount into keeping Ahmadinejad in power.  I don't see how he can't back down now without losing almost all of his credibility and power which will bleed towards Mousavi.   Especially because Rafsanjani is, apparently, in Qom seeing if there are the votes to remove Khameinei.  Khameinei may feel that if he gives up now he has no chance of survival, similarly if the protests continue then I think he could similarly be under threat.

The other possibility is that Khameinei has next to no power and that this was done by Ahmadinejad and the IRG - though, as I say, they are the most difficult group in Iran to get any decent information on - in which case Khameinei can't make that choice anyway.

As I say I think the campaign is now threatening the foundations of the Islamic Republic to a degree that I don't think they fully realise.  I also think that Mousavi's campaign is very cleverly using the same tools that Khomeini used in 1979.  It must be chilling for Khameinei, who like Mousavi, was around and remembered that Khomeini encouraged the people to stand on their roofs of a night and chant 'Allah akbar' to build unity and remind the Shah that they were still there and still angry.  Right now that's happening and it's reminding the Supreme Leader.

I think it's very difficult for Khameinei to give in now.  What we don't know is what's motivating the politics at the very top of the Iranian state.  What is motivating Khameinei, Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani, Mousavi and others right now?  What's going on at the top?  What's going on in the country?  And what's going on in the apparatus of the security state?


Also as to why they're angry it is worth remembering that Iranian governments don't steal elections.  They are rigged before it reaches the ballot box.  This is the first time that the Iranian state's ever done this in the past 30 years at least.  It's unprecedented and I think it's put the entire structure into danger.  As one Ayatollah put it, they've switched it from an Islamic Republic to an Islamic government, while another described it as the actions of a state that is neither Islamic nor a Republic.

And I wonder to what extent we fully know Mousavi's views.  My understanding is that his platform was very sparse - now of course he was approved - but he hasn't played a part of political life for 20 years.  I think he's currently a bit of a tabula rasa for both his supporters and his opponents.

[MadImmortalMan]

Next up: Big Butter Jesus appears in Qom.

Dunno where you found that, but well done sir. 

[Ed Anger]

Dunno where you found that, but well done sir. 

Deadspin, where the joke has already been said that the students better hope the Revolutionary Guards aren't recruiting from Florida.