Thursday
Feb252010
Iran Analysis: The Assembly of Experts Mystery
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 6:41 
UPDATE 1550 GMT: And, as the supposed statement of the Assembly seems to have disappeared, here's another puzzler. The following clerics were not present during the final meeting of the session: Amini, Mesbah Yazdi, Hassan Rohani, Moghtadaiee, Mahdavi-Kani and Mousavi-Jazayeri.Amini. though conservative, has been reported to be very unhappy with the post-election events. Amini is reportedly in hospital. Hassan Rohani is close to Rafsanjani.Mahdavi-Kani is conservative cleric, with very strong links and possible influence within the regime; he was also reportedly a proponent of the National Unity Plan.
OK, so each may have had a reason to be absent. But was Mesbah Yazdi, perhaps Ahmadinejad's most fervent backer, not present at a session that supposedly declared opposition "sedition"?
UPDATE 1430 GMT: Let's add to the mystery. At the beginning of the Assembly of Experts session, Rafsanjani said that Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the Deputy Chair of the Assembly was not present; instead, his son was attending. (Yazdi Senior also missed the autumn session, saying he was ill, and he tried to resign from the secretariat of the Assembly, but Rafsanjani rejected the resignation.)
Legally Yazdi Junior cannot represent his father in Assembly meetings. So was Rafsanjani making the point that Mohammad Yazdi, a backer of President Ahmadinejad, is so used to illegal activity that he sends his son to represent him? And/or was Rafsanjani diminishing the legitimacy of a meeting "under special circumstances" where non-members could sit in?
When the news came through, it hit like a hammer blow. The Assembly of Experts, headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani, had issued their statement after a widely-anticipated two-day meeting. The 86-member body had declared its loyalty to the Supreme Leader:
The more we go ahead, the more our supreme leader proves his competence. Ayatollah Khamenei shed light on realities in dealing with the post-election sedition and undertook huge efforts in view of bringing unity to the nation.
So far, nothing surprising. Last summer's possibility of an Assembly challenge to Khamenei is long gone; all "establishment" figures, including Rafsanjani, have circled political wagons around the concept of clerical supremacy (velayat-e-faqih). But then the unexpected:
The revolutionary patience of the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic ended in December after sedition leaders missed numerous chances to repent and return into the gown of the revolution. Sedition leaders flunked the Dec 30 final exam and they were removed from Iran's political spirit.
Bam. Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, Mohammad Khatami: your resistance is over. Not just over, forbidden. With that doubly-offered word "sedition", the threat of arrest had been made, not by the Revolutionary Guard or the Iranian judiciary but by clerics, some of whom were supposedly sympathetic to the opposition demands.
No wonder a prominent (and shrewd) activist e-mailed me, "This statement has me worried. And it takes a lot to get me worried."
But then the story moves from drama to mystery. Did the Assembly really put down this challenge to Mousavi-Karroubi-Khatami?
The original source for the statement appears to have been Fars News. The Iranian Students News Agency also featured the story but simply summarised the Fars account. However, as far as I can tell, the supposed statement has not been covered by the Islamic Republic News Agency, and it certainly has escaped any mention on Press TV's website.
Perhaps most importantly, there is still no sign of the statement on the official website of the Assembly.
So this morning, we are left, not with the certain shock of a once-and-for-all challenge to opposition leaders but with the uncertainty of whether Fars --- which has been known to create or distort stories --- has been the source of either outright fabrication or the channel for someone (who? take your pick) to "leak" a statement which had not been agreed by the Assembly.
A bit of recent history may be in order. Last summer a statement appeared, in the name of the Assembly, criticising the leadership of Hashemi Rafsanjani and calling on him to step down as chair. The initial reading, given Rafsanjani's high-profile Friday Prayer speech in mid-July standing up to the Government and the subsequent pressure and threats against him and his family, was that the regime had rallied against the former President.
Not so. Within days, it emerged that the statement had been drawn up by only a handful of clerics and signed by the fiercely pro-Ahmadinejad Ayatollah Mesbah Mohammad Yazdi. A number of Assembly members made it clear that they had no part of the effort, and Rafsanjani remained in his post.
So now, rather than the intended portrait of a regime now united against the opposition, we have the picture --- should the speculation of a clumsy propaganda effort be borne out --- of a system whose heart is still divided. There will be no resolution.
Watch this space.
Reader Comments (14)
FNA has a sterling record of publishing seriously inaccurate commentary 'of the moment' that it neither follows up nor mentions again. Usually, no other publication confirms.
Recall in the early summer its pronouncement that the SL had freed over 17000 prisoners to celebrate some holiday, can't recall which one -- 17 THOUSAND, oh please. And we never heard another word about it, just like that.
Seems like this another one of those 'wait and see' propositions, but what else is new! Thank you for the report.
No comment on Majles-e Khobregan, but some news, which attest to an accelerated coup:
Jaras reports that 36 lawyers were denied to run as candidates for forthcoming elections of the Lawyers Association, among them the actual secretary S.M. Jandaqi Kermanipour and Nasser Zarafshan, who represents the victims of the "chain murders" from 1998 and has been jailed several times: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/10923/
Hossein Hamedani, Commander of Greater Tehran's Mohammad Rassoul-ollah Sepah: On behalf of the SL 22 instead of 6 Bassij bases and a resistance HQ shall be established in Tehran: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=13900
I humbly suggest to our Bassiji brothers to evacuate Tehran's population (there are plenty of free deserts around the capital) and to establish "The Greater Tehran Barracks" -- that would be less expensive.
And for all those, who are determined to get back our country:
21 March has been declared as International Nouruz Day by the UN :-)
http://www.radiofarda.com/content/f4_Nowruz_Persian_resolution_UN_assembly/1967417.html
Persian New Year (literally New Day) is celebrated by more than 300 m people in Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan and even in China.
pish be suye Nouruz - ma bishomarim
Arshama, could the Fars 'Assembly of Experts statement' be propaganda in support of what sounds like another last ditch effort by regime to get on top of everything? Thank you for the information, too.
Meant to add, last week they said Mousavi had a heart attack, right? And lots of hot air on the foreign relations front, too.
This is a bit of a tangent, but related to all things clerical. Abbas Djavadi, associate director of broadcasting at RFE/RL, has published an interesting (and personal) article about the difference between a marja and a supreme leader, contrasting the views and position amongst his followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest Shi'ite authority, and the tradition that Ayatollah Khomeini initiated in Iran, continued by Ali Khamenei.
http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Difference_Between_A_Marja_And_A_Supreme_Leader/1968177.html
[...] on: RFE/RL’s website; linked to: Enduring America) مطلب را به بالاترين [...]
Why haven't we an Ali Sistani in the country ? a brother and advisor of all the iranians ; could he do anything to rescue Iran ? if he believes in God and Islam, why is he silent ? it's an obligation for him to do it, to save Islam ! and all that innocent people.
Iran needs a charismatic leader, outside the country, making an uprising of people like in 1979. Is it possible or do I dream ? perhaps they have released the article for this purpose ???
And why didn't Mesbah Yazdi attend to that session ? because he knows that with Ayatollah Sistani he has no longer any future in Iran; that their time is over ! YES !
Ange,
Sorry to tell you but Sistani did not even speak out against Saddam which is why he is alive today. The heroic Sadr family did speak out and they were decimated.
Samuel
He doesn't live in Iran and he's not in danger; as did Khomeyni 30 years ago , outside of Iran, and asked for the uprising of iranian people,; he can speak out freely because there is no lebas-shakhsi to kill him and he has stayed alive because it's his fate to save our country; once succeeding, we will have a referendum to change our constitution and eliminate velayate faghih, and elections to choose our president; thus, Iran, Iranian People, Islam Shiite, Middle East and all the other countries in the world with their populations will be saved and peace will reign on the planet .
Three slants on what Rafsanjani is doing/saying this week:
Radio Zamaneh - Rafsanjani warns Iran's Supreme Leader - http://bit.ly/cqIuRu
LAT/B&B - Rafsanjani condemns 'spiraling wave of sedition' against supreme leader - http://bit.ly/cGFXfA
Tehran Bureau - Deciphering Rafsanjani - http://bit.ly/aP
Observer #3
Thank you for asking, but I am not an expert at all ;-)
There have been no reactions to the False News statement on the 'Assembly of Experts' from the Greens so far, but Khabar Online reports that Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi was transported to a hospital on Tuesday due to a heart condition: http://www.khabaronline.ir/news-45831.aspx
And then there are interesting statements by Raffers, who met with Seyyed Hassan Khomeini at his grandfather's mausoleum, insisting on "the necessity to follow the Imam's path" and warning that "it could be destroyed" -- obviously addressed at AN and his mafia. http://www.rahesabz.net/story/10998/
On the other hand he condemns -- what? A huge wave of "sedition" of course, which has fallen in the trap of foreign powers, trying to destroy this holy republic.
Again a brilliant example of his siding with both camps and with none of them. No, obviously Raffers remains firm with himself, graciously giving good advices to all others...
Who really cares what these senile prunes are saying or doing. Mjles-e- Khftehgan (in never never land) is more descriptive of this bunch. They look like Mullah Naserdin old donkey, one step away from grave.
If this is what Islamic Republic can offer for a Khobreh (an expert) one can imagine what sorry story is its pool of Na khobreh (non-expert) that makes 99.9999% of its entire system.
How could this disaster happen in Iran????? And why did this disaster happen in Iran????????