Iran Analysis: Reality Check (Yep, We Checked, Government Still in Trouble)

A new EA reader kindly advised us yesterday to make a "reality check" on which is happening in Iran, as he/she is not so sure that the situation is anything but A-OK for the regime. That's good advice, as information and analysis should always be re-considered to ensure there is no exaggeration or distortion.

OK, we've checked again. Government still in trouble.

We have tracked tensions within the regime since June, so criticism "from within" of the Government is not new. What is distinctive now, after the blocked attempt at "national unity" before Ashura (27 December) and the demonstrations and confrontation on it, is the sustained campaign against President Ahmadinejad and his closest allies.

Ayande News, which has devoted the last few day to Government-bashing, goes so far as to declare that Ahmadinejad and his Ministers have missed a "golden opportunity" before the Revolution's anniversary on 22 Bahman (11 February) to resolve the crisis. Not just a opportunity, in fact, but a series of opportunities: the article is a history lesson on Government mistakes since12 June and through the demonstrations of 13 June, 15 June, 18 Tir (9 July), 17 July, Qods Day in September, 13 Aban (4 November), and 16 Azar (7 December) to the present.

Meanwhile, the specific campaign against the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai. Ayande claims that, in a meeting in Mashhad, Ahmadinejad said that Rahim-Mashai is a “relative of God”.

Just as striking, in the face of the more-than-insignificant criticism, is the Government's haphazard response to these developments. We noted yesterday, with the help of Edward Yeranian, how the "mohareb" (war against God) trials seemed to be a rather scrambled attempt --- with far less coordination as a public campaign --- to blacken the opposition, and its supposed foreign backing, out of existence. Today, after the hearings of the supposed mohareb, there is no sustained regime follow-up. Look instead for more hastily-arranged trials to do something --- anything --- to keep the campaign ticking over against the Green movement as a "terrorist" front.

That campaign will be both assisted and exposed by event. Yesterday, a prosecutor in northwestern Iran was assassinated by two unidentified gunmen. What matters at the moment may not be who did it, but the simple fact that no one knows. Already the Iranian state media are drawing links to last week's assassination of the physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, and the overall impression is that another layer of instability has been placed on the political situation.

And that (so far) is your reality check for today.

Oh, except for this. It is three weeks to 22 Bahman (11 February).