Thursday
Jan142010
Iran Analysis: Political Manoeuvring Around the Professor's Death
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 6:20 
0600 GMT: News this morning continues to be dominated by the political moves around the killing of Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi.Non-Iranian media are picking up on the messages of condolence from former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani (see yesterday's updates), noting that both call the murder an act of terrorism but that neither attributes blame to a particular group.
Khatami echoed the language of Iranian state media with the declaration, "The dirty hand who did this murder with no doubt was the enemy of Iran," and he condemned the group trying to "further destabilise the crisis". He stopped there, however, with no further indication of what that group was. Rafsanjani's reference to "cowardly terrorism" may have taken one step towards the regime by denouncing "a new era of intrigue", but he stopped ther
Iran Analysis: Nuclear Myths, Rogue Elements, and Professor Ali-Mohammadi’s Murder
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Latest Iran Video: The Leverett Line on Killing of Professor Ali-Mohammadi (13 January)
Latest Iran Video: How State Media Frames Killing of “Nuclear” Professor (12 January)
The Latest from Iran (14 January): Fighting for Position
That is significant, of course, for what is not said. Neither Khatami nor Rafsanjani are going to provoke a confrontation with the regime but hinting at responsibility of any element within it, or even a "rogue element" whose actions are being covered up. At the same time, neither are going to join in the state strategy of US-Israel-MKO-monarchists killing Ali-Mohammadi to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme and/or to destabilise the Government.
Equally important, the same is true of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, senior clerics challenging the Government, and almost all in the Green Movement. The speculation of an "inside job" has generally been limited to bits and pieces of circumstantial information on blogs and websites. The overwhelming majority of words have been devoted to Ali-Mohammadi, in particular confirming that he is not directly involved in a nuclear programme and that he supported the Mousavi Presidential campaign and had sympathy for the post-election protest.
This, in other words, is not the pretext to advance the legal and political demands upon the regime. To be blunt, there is no evidence to establish Government responsibility for the murder --- even Mr Smith's well-considered suggestion of "rogue elements" is based largely on an assessment of motives and past events such as the 1990s "Chain Murders" --- and one killing, no matter how tragic, should take over the Green movement's presentation. (For those who want to follow up, "Neda" is a different case because of the symbolism surrounding her death at the hands of a Basij gunman.)
The same is not true of the regime, where there is a sustained effort to turn the Ali-Mohammadi death into a rallying call against the "enemy" within and without. The latest volley comes this morning from the head of the Basij militia, Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, "People are angry at those who paved the ground for the recent incidents and assassinations. The revenge for these crimes should be taken on the US and with the support of God we will do so."
Watch for pro-Government analysts, as well as officials, to continue this line, which both replaces earlier lines of defense/attack (such as the alleged defacing of Imam Khomeini's image) and links to them. The story will be that the grave insult to the Iranian nation and Islam on Ashura (27 December) was met three days later by the millions who defended the nation and regime. This latest insult --- to a dedicated "revolutionary" as well as scientist --- will be met by more affirmation of Iran's resistance to and triumph over all its enemies.
Reader Comments (21)
Sobh be kheyr to all,
Another article about the killing, citing Payam Akhavan: "Iran is sliding toward a military state. The best way to justify it is through terrorism and insecurity."
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/749990--scientist-s-killing-rattles-iran
Even if it was not the regime's deed, by now nobody believes them anymore, as Sazegara and Nourizadeh noted on VOA yesterday. The hasty reaction could also be interpreted as an essay to get the situation under control, but in any case it is a lose-lose situation: 1) If the killing was staterun, it has backfired already and the people judge it as Mr Akhavan does. 2) If it was a foreign action, it proves that the regime is not in full control of the situation and cannot guarantee its citizen's security (if it ever pretended to do so).
I Go To This Green War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCnz6B_Ohlk
Arshama
"I Go To This Green War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCnz6B_Ohlk"
This passion cannot be defeated!!
Barry
[u listen to mohammed marandi to much] Ali Mohammadi was not at all involved in Iran’s nuclear program, he did research on quantum mechanics http://germantoenglish.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/attack-against-physicist-iranians-do-not-trust-official-theory-of-sabotage/
Arshama
Sobhe shoma ham bekheyr; you made me cry ! inshallah we will have their revenge ! Allah Akbar V
but im gonna part my ways,because i do not beleive iranians want change..the numbers are not there besides #iranelection is not even in the top 20 trends on twitter.. a few thousand will not bring any change..and i dont feal like waiting until febuary 11 besides im in california im a iranian american.my parents left there in 1975 i just do not beleive iranians in iran want any change by always stalling
I love how no matter what happens the govt. always "loses". It's like playing games with little children. No matter what one does the child will always claim to be the winner. Same thing with the Montazeri situation: his death created a martyr (of course it's stretching the meaning of martyr but who's paying attention?) for the greens so the govt. loses. If he had stayed alive the govt. would have continued to face its most formidable enemy and so would have "lost".
I'm still waiting for the audacious mind to post how the horrible tragedy in Haiti means that the Iranian govt "loses".
Samuel
I am waiting to see how much support Venezuela gives to Haiti - considering it's close proximity, it's considerable oil resources and it's hyperbole about the region in recent times.
That has nothing to do with Iran of course.
Barry
Australian assistance to Haiti here http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-7ZP9BD?OpenDocument&RSS20=03
We are a LONG way away from the Caribbean.
Barry
Barry,
Having been in Venezuela several times I can tell you that they have even provided cheap heating fuel for poor people in the United States not to mention the help they've given other countries in the region.
Of course the Americans bear a lot of responsibility for the pre-earthquake miserable situation in Haiti having intervened there numerous times.
@ Arshama
Funny, my very first thought when I heard about Prof. Ali Mohammadi's assassination was the same as one of Akhavan's: "the killing has all the markings of an amateurish attempt to set up the opposition leaders for some sort of arrest – or execution of people already arrested – to give the regime excuses for drastic measures," because now one could argue that there are indeed terrorist cells operating in Iran, just look at the assassinations of Mousavi's nephew and Prof. Ali Mohammadi, thereby making the accusations of belonging to MKO et al levelled at soon to be prosecuted Ashura detainees sound more plausible.
@ Barry post 7
Caracas January 13, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela sent its first aid airplane to Haiti, a Bolivarian National Armed Force's Hercules C-130, with a fifty-strong advance humanitarian aid team on board, on Wednesday morning, after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake leveled the country’s capital Port-au-Prince, late Tuesday.
Samuel
Come with us !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw1VpvA7oPY&feature=player_embedded
Thank you Arshama for sharing the video.
@ Barry, Catherine and Bijan,
Thanks for your comments. I love this video, because it emphasizes the peaceful nature of the Green movement (even if it speaks of war). It was very likely produced abroad, but reflects very well core sentiments of the movement - if you compare it with posters made in Iran, filed under "tarhe sabz", i.e. green draft, on Jaras site: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/5619/
Catherine, yesterday's siege of Professor Ali-Mohammadi's funeral leaves no doubt, who assassinated him...
Green warrior Arshama
Arshama is right. And, we are winning. The lies have no bounds and the IRI has lost all credibility in the eyes of people who think independently and who are truthful and are truthful. Those who use deceit and lies in this and other forums to show to westerners that "IRI is powerful. IRI is beyond reproach. IRI does not lie" are foolish. People do not fall into this simplistic trap anymore. This is the truth: The IRI lies, it rapes innocents, it pilfers the national wealth, it imprisons any one it wants and tortures them, it has mismanaged the economy to the point of major collapse. Need I say more. The game of blaming some unknown "enemy" or pointing wrongly to Mosad is no longer valuable in any way. I know large numbers who for a long while fell for the 'blame-the-enemy game' but not anymore. As an example, this fellow Marandi does not have a single student who believes in the lies he utters all over. I have heard the only ones who gather around him are paid security guards and the type, and even most of them smile—pooz-khand mizanand, I guess smirk is the term in English. He look uglier and uglier everyday. This is a sign of a torn person. He lies but he knows he doing the bidding of the IRI handlers and he is torn. In turn the strife within shows up on his face, twisted and ugly. Victory is always with those who embrace the truth, and in our case our mythos calls for the aayeen-e raasti, which overcomes palidi, i.e.dark evil, the untruth. So despite how hard it is I take heart. We will win. We will free Iran from despots and rapists and thieves. My politically correct western friends and thinkers please not this. Please note that we respect your principles that move you to allow for everyone to express their point and we want to obtain just that, a free, democratic system where law governs all, and where the pursuit of happiness is available equally to all. I know you see through the petty lies spun by IRI agents, and of course we react more harshly but this is an existential moment in our history. On e of monumental significance. We embrace it and we admire your fairness. We are more sensitive to lies and to deceitful statements made some.
Arshama, Catherine, Hossein,
I am just wondering if the bomb that killed Professor Ali Mohammadi was meant for other high value targets. Is it possible the bomb was placed in the wrong block in that street or in the wrong street in that vicinity? Or were there other residents in that neighborhood or businesses that were the real target? The foot soldiers of this regime do not seem to have high IQs. Your thought?
Perhaps readers in Iran who know the location of explosion can shed light on this matter.
Since we're speculating .... I side with the theory that (rogue) elements of the IRGC or the Basij (or other security forces) are behind this - precisely the folks KH tried to get to chill out. Obviously no one is paying attention to HIM anymore!
Hitting on an academic makes sense given all the letters and statements academics have been making since July protesting the violent treatment of protesters and students (the open letter signed by 300 we just saw today, the letter signed by 88 professors, another signed by 54 or so - can't remember them all now). Taking out this man in particular puts the fear of God into those of all political leanings within the academic community without depriving Iran of someone really crucial to any key scientific projects. It also adds to the list of assassinations the regime can attribute to "terrorists" and "enemies of the people" (Neda, Mousavi's nephew, this professor). The upcoming show trials of Ashura detainees will make much of the defendents' associations with foreign-sponsored "terrorists" - which is why AH, Marandi, Larijani, et al have been loudly proclaiming the involvement of Israel, the US and the MKO (MEK?) and that the style of this attack was "Zionist". The reason I put rogue between parentheses is to leave my speculative doors open ;-) and because an attack carried out by rogue elements can always be put to good use after the fact by mainstream figures who might not have given their permission if asked.
I tend to agree to an extent with Catherine. I think this was planned and executed according to a plan. Look at several facts in the aftermath as evidence..people on scene immediately after explosion, organized groups at funeral, coordinated communications through the media pointing the blame to outside forces....
In my mind the question is why Dr Ali-Mohammadi? And not in a general sense, but why him specifically? There were many professors that publicly supported Mousavi.
I'm afraid this will be another incident we never know the answers to. My heart is with his family.
Samuel,
In what way did American intervention have an effect on the misreable situation in Haiti? The three times America did intervene occured when a coup was taking place. In all three instances the coup was largely home grown and the resulting US presence actually brought stability. My mom helps run a charity "clean water for Haiti" and she has told me just how bad it is in Haiti. Her greatest despair is the culture of issland just seems to swallow up aid with little lasting effect. Her central point is the culture of Haiti needs to change in order for them to survive in the future. It's anarchy fueled by corruption that is the root of all the issues. For god's sake they have had 35 coups since their independence. What America can be blamed for is not the disasters but instead their lack of attention towards them. You have to get over the the "imperialistic" angle whenever America gets involved. Haiti has almost no strategic importance to the US. The only reason it becomes an issue is because a huge number of Haitians now live in the US.
Thx
Bill
Megan,
I agree with Bijan. Explosives are not sold on the corner, even not in Iran. And then there have been no other casualties (fortunately), except for the "target". Agh Bahman's narrative of the "hijacked" funeral, as Times Online labelled it, is also revealing and part of this nefarious political propaganda. The regime tries to create an atmosphere of shock and awe to prevent academics and other freethinkers of getting vocal and to intimidate protesters before 22 Bahman.
It is obviously in panic, as shown by its attempts to calm down people's anger by allowing televised critique (Dr. Etaat), but it is far too late now:
100 Ashura prisoners were crammed into solitary confinement cells in Gohardasht:
http://persian2english.com/?p=4326
Do you really believe the people are not informed about that? And what about those hundreds of other protesters still fading away in Evin, Eshrat Abad and other holes without a sentence, without a lawyer and without contact to their relatives?
The IRI has always been a prison, but now it has become obvious to a vast majority. Meanwhile even False News has switched to the critics' camp by linking to the blog "Ahestan", which criticizes AN's darling Rahim Mashaie:
http://www.farsnews.net/newstext.php?nn=8809221887
As Iran Khabar puts it: "Critique of AN has become cheap"
http://www.iran-chabar.de/news.jsp?essayId=26540
People cannot forget and will take to the streets again on 22 Bahman.
Arshama -
More good points. The precision shows a high level of sophistication - not that I am a bomb expert but this is not hard to deduce. It does not take Sherlock Holmes to put together the argument several readers seem to agree on and that this was a well planned and precise action. To reiterate other arguments I have seen..why would the CIA, etc take the effort to go after a person who does not seem to have any ties to the nuclear program and except perhaps for his inclusion on the letter of support for Mousavi, did not put himself into the political arena. To your point above, it seems very clear this is an attempt to create panic and fear. Also you make good points about the spread of information. One does not even have to leave the boundries of this website to have access to mounds of informaton and is the regime naive enough to think that Iranians and for that matter the rest of the world will simply take everything reported by state and semi-state news sources at face value?