The Latest from Iran (3 January): Re-positioning
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 8:56 
2220 GMT: BBC Persian is reporting on the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution. One interesting claim in the statement: anti-establishment monarchist slogans were encouraged by Government agent provocateurs in the Ashura crowd.222055 GMT: The Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, following the earlier endorsement of the Islamic Iran Participation Front of the Mousavi post-Ashura statement (1420 GMT), have issued their response to the declaration.
NEW Iran: Authority and Challenge — Bring Out the (Multi-Sided) Chessboard
Iran Video of Week: Ahmadinejad 0, Tractor 1
Iran: The Non-Violent “Watershed” of the Mousavi Statement (Shahryar)
Iran: A Gut Reaction to Mousavi’s “Martyrdom v. Compromise” Statement (Lucas)
Iran Document: Mousavi’s “5 Stages to Resolution” Statement (1 January)
The Latest from Iran (2 January): The Ripples of the Mousavi Statement
2000 GMT: The Regime's Fist-Waving. Edward Yeranian of the Voice of America has a useful summary of today's denunciations of protesters, invocation of "foreign agents", and threats of prosecution from Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (1645 GMT) and the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani. Press TV continues to play up the Larijani combination of assurance ("fair trial") and warning ("investigate the events quickly and firmly").
1800 GMT: Green 88 members Mohammad Rafati and Mohammad Keighobadi have been arrested.
1645 GMT: Your Daily US-UK-Israel-MKO Announcement. It's Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar reciting the litany today: "The rioters are encouraged and supported by Britain, the US and the Zionist regime. The involvement of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), enemies and those who seek to take revenge on the Islamic establishment during the past 30 years is quite clear."
Can't say this wins award for originality, although Mohammad-Najjar's promise that some MKO members will soon appear in court --- reportedly some Ashura detainees went on trial today --- has an ominous hint of a new scene in the staged drama.
1625 GMT: More Tough Shows for the Media. On a day when Governments in Washington and Tehran have been spinning tales away from the central front of the internal conflict in Iran, it did not take long for this one to get a headline.
This morning Press TV gave up space to a bit of tough puffery from the Iranian military, with Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan announcing a large military exercise next month to "improve the force's defensive capabilities" and "boost the region's security".
No big prizes for breaking the political code in this move: facing diplomatic pressure and possibly more sanctions on the nuclear issue and looking more than a bit shaky at home, Tehran puts up a show of strength against the ever-present "foreign enemies". CNN has already obliged, recycling the Press TV report and immediately putting it in the context of the US and Israeli portrayal of "time running out" to address Iran's "threat".
Meanwhile, the media's set-up of a case for more sanctions on Iran continues. The New York Times advertisement for the pro-sanctions forces in the Obama Administration (see 0840 GMT), who are working with pro-sanctions forces in Israel, has turned into a magic media circle, with Israel's Haaretz citing the article and bolstering the line: if there are more sanctions, then no Israeli military action.
1455 GMT: The Exam Strike. For the second day in a row, students at Amir Kabir University in Tehran have protested by refusing to sit their examinations.
1425 GMT: A Victory for the Regime. Amidst the political and religious challenges it is facing, the Iranian authorities have succeeded in curbing Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib. After days of attacks on the Qoba Mosque in Shiraz, the Government has confiscated Dastgheib's offices and restricted the cleric's movements.
1420 GMT: Boosting the Mousavi Initaitive. The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has issued a statement of enthusiastic support for the Mousavi five-point resolution in the post-Ashura statement.
1245 GMT: Regime Divisions (cont.). Ayande News criticises the attempt by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, in the name of the Qom Seminary Teachers Association, to denounce the marja (eminent cleric) status of Ayatollah Sane'i (see yesterday's updates).
Ayande has also launched a full-blooded attack on the editor of Kayhan, the "hard-line" Hossein Shariatmadari, accusing him of past duplicity (opposing Ayatollah Khamenei) and current misinformation (minimising the number of anti-regime demonstrators in protests).
Now here's the intriguing part: Ayande has been claimed to be linked to the Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, who just wrote the Supreme Leader asking for reconciliation with a "retreating" Mir Hossein Mousavi. Is this the other part of the initiative, an assault upon those, including allies of President Ahmadinejad, who would block such a deal?
1230 GMT: Breaking the Freedom Movement. Iran's authorities have detained three more senior members of the party: Amir Khorram, Mohsen Mohagheghi, and Sara Tavassoli (daughter of the director of the Freedom Movement's offices).
1200 GMT: Let's Crush Them (But Do It Fairly). Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is featuring a story of the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, speaking about "fair trials" for those who have caused "fitna" (secular sedition).
1150 GMT: More Media Follies. This time it's Paul Harris of The Observer of London who goes Nuclear Critical. His attention to Iran is part of a wider piece on the challenges for President Obama, but the headline points to Tehran Emergency: "Barack Obama talks tough on terror as Iran raises nuclear stakes". Harris bases this diplomatic Red Alert on:
--- "A deadline for Iran to accept a UN-brokered deal passed on Thursday and raised the prospect of a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran" (as we noted months ago, the Obama Administration was going to let any deadline slip because it has not declared a break-down of the nuclear discussions);
--- "A senior Iranian figure said the west had just one month to come up with a better deal for it to swap its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel" (as we noted yesterday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's "ultimatum" was more a rhetorical defence against likely sanctions and an intervention in the domestic crisis, trying to boost the Government with "nationalist" sentiment)
--- "Many experts, however, think any resolution to the situation is unlikely." (no names, no details)
What "distinguishes" Harris' analysis, however, is not an omission of Iran's domestic situation but a distortion of it. He makes a point of noticing "last week, tens of thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime demonstrated in Tehran in organised protests against foreign interference in Iran's affairs" --- you see, this is not only a Iranian Government on the verge of nuclear weapons, but one with popular support --- but he never mentions the anti-regime protests that took place only three days earlier.
1140 GMT: The Domestic Troubles. Testimony to our New Year analysis about the complex challenges to the Ahmadinejad Government --- "Iran's parliament rejected on Sunday the government's request to withdraw a bill aimed at gradually cutting energy and food subsidies".
The Government put forth the subsidy reduction plan as a key plank in its economic programme last autumn. In November, however, the Parliament linked any cut to the overall budget, requiring the Government to put the money into a special account for public spending.
At that point, Ahmadinejad called for the withdrawal of the entire proposal. He got his answer --- economically and politically --- today.
1025 GMT: Handling the Mousavi Statement. A bizarre article from Press TV's website, "Mousavi's statement draws varied reactions" --- instead of considering the political responses that we have noted in our analyses, the article opens with this clumsy attempt at belittling the opposition leader: "The Tehran Municipality has been clearing the Iranian capital of graffiti containing negative comments about defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi."
The last paragraphs do try to set out a party line, but even this is uncertain: "Some, such as Mohsen Rezaei, another defeated presidential candidate, described the declaration as a "retreat" from the position of denying the legitimacy of Ahmadienjad's administration. Others however, condemned the statement, repeating their earlier calls for judicial action against the "leaders of Fitna (Arabic for anarchy)."
1020 GMT: Iranian television is reporting that the first trials, held in Revolutionary Court, of those arrested on Ashura (27 December) have begun.
1010 GMT: Latest Arrests. Journalist Rouzbeh Karimi and his wife, lawyer Forough Mirzaee, have been detained.
0840 GMT: US Sanctions and the Nuclear-First Approach. After weeks in which the White House seemed to shift to a rights-first vision of Iran, a faction in the Obama Administration appear to have re-staked the "All about Nukes, All about Sanctions" ground.
An article by The New York Times' David Sanger and William Broad, the go-to reporters for the nukes/sanctions officials, bluntly opens with the statement that the recent internal tension and demands of the Green movement are again pawns in the nuclear game:
As President Obama faces pressure to back up his year-end ultimatum for diplomatic progress with Iran, the administration says that domestic unrest and signs of unexpected trouble in Tehran’s nuclear program make its leaders particularly vulnerable to strong and immediate new sanctions....
Although repeated rounds of sanctions over many years have not dissuaded Iran from pursuing nuclear technology, an administration official involved in the Iran policy said the hope was that the current troubles “give us a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear program isn’t worth the price tag.”
Beyond the relegation of the internal conflict in Iran to a supporting role in other campaigns, what is bizarre about this public-relations piece is that it promotes sanctions even though the possibility of any supposed Iranian nuclear weapon has diminished in recent months:
Obama administration officials said they believed that the bomb-development effort was seriously derailed by the exposure three months ago of the country’s secret enrichment plant under construction near the holy city of Qum....
In addition, international nuclear inspectors report that at Iran’s plant in Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges spin to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, the number of the machines that are currently operating has dropped by 20 percent since the summer, a decline nuclear experts attribute to technical problems. [Note: EA pointed this out in the autumn; Sanger and Broad ignored the technical issue until the article today.]
The illogic and the (cynical?) political manoeuvring is beside the main point, however. This articles and others, such as a recent piece in The Washington Post that Israel was quite happy to go with the sanctions route, all point to the Administration's acceptance of sanctions measures that will be passed by the US Congress within the next month.
0820 GMT: As the drama of public conflict recedes for the moment --- although the regime continues to arrest activists, journalists, and key organisers ---and is replaced by the political manoeuvres both inside and outside the Iranian establishment, we have posted an analysis, "Bring Out the (Multi-Sided) Chessboard".
Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan, Amir Khorram, Ashura, Ayande News, Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib, Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i, Barack Obama, CNN, David Sanger, Ha'aretz, Hossein Shariatmadari, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani, Mohsen Mohagheghi, Mohsen Rezaei, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, New York Times, Paul Harris, Press TV, Qom Seminary Teachers Association, Sara Tavassoli, The Guardian, Washington Post, William Broad, uranium enrichment in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (16)
I hope after six months of deliberation Obama administration is now seriously resigned to the fact that Iran regime is up to no good on nuclear negotiation front. It took six months for Obama to get the memo on sanctions from Iranians living in Iran who were flooding CNN, VOA, Epersian radio, etc. with calls last June and pleading with U.S. to impose sanctions such as blockade of refined petroleum import to Iran. Obama administration and other members of 5+1 should have listened to those desperate pleas and may be some lives would not have been lost in Iran.
Here is a picture of Iranian regime new toy for crushing protest: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=11652
Each costs $650,000, courtesy of China- another regime with exemplary records on human rights!! These new toys are now on the dock in Bandar Abbas, Iran. They can shoot hot water or teargas or paint (or whatever mullah regime finds deadliest) 200 feet. It can plow through makeshift barricades. Molotov cocktail will not damage it and nothing can harm the operators of these vehicles. Here is a video of it in action in Turkey during a riot; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzKFDyiLrY
To Cyber Basiji on EA,
About the one million man/ women/ children march for regime, here is the naked truth, Your one million (or whatever) were hungry people marching for free food. They are stepping on Khamenei after they get their food: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=11667
Scott,
I think that today the real problem for Iranian nuclear program is not to enrich new uranium but the lack of uranium itself (See the current business with Kazakstan)
There is clear proof that Hezbollah operatives were at the killings on College intersection when people were killed. They are seen wielding guns. Take a look at this article:
http://www.goftaniha.org/2010/01/blog-post_03.html
nice article:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-02/irans-younger-smarter-revolution/full/
Megan
Thank you for posting those pictures of the free food, and felt so sad. Iran should be one of the richest nations in the world - they have so many natural resources - even without oil & gas!!! And yet they have kept so many people in absolute poverty. Shame on them.
We can only hope and pray that the day will come when people will not need to be bribed with food - for they will be free.
Roe Lassie,
Yes, it breaks my heart. The sad part is they do not know how wealthy they are and that they have the right to reclaim their wealth.
Islamic Republic and Khomeini/Khomeini finest crops, plainclothes goons, in action on Ashura, December 27. http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=11670 I guess Khamenei pays them by number of kills and the number of injuries they inflict each and every day.
Khamenei’s mob of inapt men in seats of government and legally insane clerics have the audacity to claim that people who went to the streets on Ashura have insulted the sanctity of Ashura, the day that commemorates some real or fictitious bloody clash between some real or fictitious tyrant and some real or fictitious saints in some foreign land some centuries ago. But the inapt and insane people of this repulsive regime completely justifies to send real thugs to kill real people who went to real streets on real date of Dey 6, December 27, Moharam 10, the Ashura day, to demand an end to real tyrants committing real crimes against them in Iran in 21st century. An insult to some dead real or fictitious Imam is a crime in Islamic Repugnant but not smashing people skulls or putting a bullet in their brains, or running them over by cars. Go figure the depth of the insanity of Khamenei and his men.
Guess you missed the latest from mikverbrugge which appears to be an important declaration by Sistani:
On Sunday 3rd January 2010, @MikVerbrugge said:
reply
Short summary of Ayatollah Sistani's post-Ashura declaration :
He calls SL & cronies enemies of Islam & Believers, says they commited crimes.
He calls ppl who died Martyrs of Hosseinian path who fell for God & Islam, fighting for justice & freedom.
Sistani invites all on 12th (Thursday) to attend memorial service for Martyrs of Ashura.
http://www.sistani.org/local.php?modules=extra&eid=2&sid=78
Alternatively:
http://www.sistani.org/images/display/statements/far-78.jpg
Tony,
We held off on posting this because of uncertainty over the translation of the statement --- the general line now is that Sistani's statement refers to Iraq not Iran. Any feedback from readers would be appreciated.
S.
Megan,
Thank you for the great postings. Re sanction and the US official stance, it's important to consider the following:
1. A clear & strong alignment of the US with the Greens will be a kiss of death to the movement. Khameneinejad haven't been able to get the nationalistic fibre in Iran to accept their propaganda that the Greens are creatures of CIA/IS/Mossad, but a strong US endorsement would make that easier for this bloody regime.
2. The regime is bankrupting the country through corruption and mis-management that include tens of billions (I've see the number $100B) of subsidies mainly for the gasoline they import. Cutting that flow by way of sanctions would immediately free up all this money for other purposes while making life toughest for the Green middle class without impacting the officials, the IRGC or the bassijis (AN will use vouchers to make sure his supporters have all the fuel they need). Initially I was for this specific sanction, but after analyzying the highly probable negative consequences, I came to the conclusion they'd be counter productive.
I think that sanctions won't break the regime's back, but the economy is key at getting the bazaris to finally get off the fence. Financial & banking sanctions will raise their and the regime's cost of doing business and are, in my opinion, the best options. Plus adding the IRGC and their top commanders to the list of terrorist organizations and individuals.
Sistani's message relates to two bloody events on ashura in Iraq, one in Karbala and one in Kazemain. I see no link to the SL or events in Iran whatsoever. Only thing is I don't remember any significant event from last ashura in Iraq, but maybe that's because all the focus was on Iran....
Scott, Tony,
Sistani refers clearly to the events (bombings) in Karbala and Kazemein. I find it doubtful that he'd say anything directly against Khameneinejad given that not even the majority of the Iranian marja'as have come out of the closet yet. Sistani is a thoughtful marja'a, but the culture of these clerics is very much against decisive statements and much more towards using obscure, vague and "double-entendre" ones. Khomeiny was an exception and that's why he gained preeminence although he was not the most learned cleric of his time. Other exceptions are/were Sanaii and Montazeri. Wrt Sanaii, it remains to be seen whether he has the guts to call on to his followers, as was traditional for marja'as who'd come under attack, to rally around him and his school. Dastgheib and Taheri didn't. The other ayatollahs appear just too feckless and indecisive to be of much use.
Progress as charted by the Khamenei, AN and Larijani philosophy of promoting respect for women in Iran. Note that "inappropriate friends" (in the husband's opinion?) and imprisonment for "traffic violation" are sufficient reasons for taking a 2nd wife...
Khabar Online | Jan. 1, 2010
The Majlis Judiciary and Legal Commission approved a 10-article bill which allows men to marry a second wife.
The Islamic Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted Commission spokesman Amin Hossein Rahimi as saying that having the first wife's permission, the first wife's inability to perform marital relations, refusal to perform wifely duties and the wife's insanity or serious health problems were the first four articles of the bill.
Rahimi added that if a woman is sentenced to a one-year prison term for any crime, even traffic law violations, the husband can request permission to marry a second time.
"But if the women is sentenced to paying a monetary fine and is not able to do so and therefore jailed, the husband must wait until after she serves her jail term before applying for a second marriage permit."
Addiction, having inappropriate friends, maltreatment of the spouse, one-year absence from home, and abandoning the husband for one year were the other articles under which the husband can request remarriage.
"Absence from home and abandoning the husband for one year are different; abandoning your spouse means going to a relatives' homes or father's home, while absence means not knowing where the wife is."
Martin/Pic,
Much appreciated....
S.