UPDATED Iran: The Opposition's New PR Campaign in the US

UPDATE 14 March: We've put the pieces and think we have the story of what happened at the press conference. More to come....

Iran: The Opposition’s Campaign in the US — Sequel With Revelations and A Lesson

UPDATE 2255 GMT: A journalist at the press conference writes to assure us that the "former Karroubi aide" was NOT Ataollah Mohajerani. The journalist also says that the theme of the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad rift, which was the Tehran Bureau headline (but which we think is tangential in the political situation) was the big pitch of the aide both during the formal conference and afterwards in conversations.

All of this indicates that the attempted PR effort of the opposition has been rather botched, with almost no coverage and a failure to bring out the points that would resonate in the US such as the position on sanctions and the declared aims of the Green Movement.

UPDATE 0915 GMT: Barbara Slavin, one of Washington's top journalists, adds, "A top aide to Mehdi Karroubi...said [President] Obama should send Nowruz [Iranian New Year] greetings this year. However, he argued that the message should focus on human rights and commemorate the scores of Iranians --- such as Neda Agha Soltan --- who have been killed since June by plainclothes thugs, prison torturers, and government executioners."

More than four months after their last public-relations effort in the US, Iranian opposition leaders have made another move to influence American political circles. "A senior aide to opposition cleric Mehdi Karroubi" met journalists at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday. The senior aide "worked with [Karroubi] for more than 25 years" but is now based outside Iran (while he is anonymous in the TB story, skilled Iran-watchers will identify him easily).

The headline claim in Tehran Bureau is that the aide revealed that "Iran's supreme leader has cooled his support for president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad". That, in fact, is not much of a story. The claim --- at least as reported in the article --- has no specific evidence but echoes a number of points (such as the incident over Ahmadinejad's close ally Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai) that we have noted since last summer.


What is far more significant is the strategy behind the assertion. Putting forth the vision of a Khamenei-Ahmadinejad rift tries to shift a US Government from an approach to Iran based solely on "engagement"; it may even accept that Washington can work with the Supreme Leader while boycotting the President.

Even more important, but tucked away in the TB story, is this assertion from the senior aide: "The end goal is to have transparent, free and fair elections....Once that happens, you can be certain the Iranian people will elect [a president] who will secure peaceful and friendly relations with the world."

Last October, when a close ally of Karroubi appeared at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, US journalists criticised the Green Movement's speaker for refusing to declare acceptance of Israel and renunciation of Iran's nuclear programme. In this article, no mention of the Israelis or the Bomb and thus no cause for a dismissal of the Greens.

Instead, the senior aide said that the Obama Administration's nuclear-first approach, at the expense of ignoring Iran's human rights violations, is "exactly what Ahmadinejad wants....If the U.S. reverses this approach and focuses on pressuring Iran for its human rights abuses...this is what the Iranian government fears most." he said.

And another point to notice:

Karroubi's aide recommended the use of "smart sanctions", targeted financial sanctions against members of the Revolutionary Guard. "For such sanctions to be truly 'smart', we need only to look at the multitude of companies set up in Dubai in the past 3-5 years," he said, hinting that much of import traffic to Iran from the UAE happened under the auspices of the Guards....

"As an Iranian, I'd hate to see our citizens suffer. But even if they are hurt in the short term, whatever shortens the life of this government is in the interests of the [Iranian] people."

Comments

[DaughtersofLight]

I wonder who this mysterious "close ally or aid" is! Why no Identity?
And I was also wondering why , after so much suppression and Death tolls and sentences, this "Aid" does not even mention a "firm" position of the US towards the coup government in Iran? ( Got me thinking!)

[Scott Lucas]

DaughtersofLight,

It is surprising because, if I am right, this "close aide" was very public when he made his appearances in Washington last autumn.

S.

[Picard]

Hi Scott. Here we go again. Fun intrigue I suppose, good for "pr" for the host perhaps.

Somebody on the outside sets up a meeting for someone presumably tied to the opposition to speak, but his name is curiously kept quiet.... and then when he says something rather opposed to what Karroubi and Musavi have repeatedly have been saying in multiple statements and interviews, e.g., that they're opposed to sanctions of any kind. (Ah, but some will then patronizingly chime in that "if we really knew Iran, then we'd know that they really do want them")

Oh, and if this indeed the same speaker as the chap who so thoroughly disappointed his WINEP hosts, (and for which we never got a transcript) why's he being coy now? (Hmm.... refresh our memories -- give us a link to the previous reports on that. )

And can we really say this is a "new PR campaign?"

Just wondering. Perhaps other "enquiring minds" can enlighten us on the missing gaps.

[Picard]

Re. your points about the quip that "free elections" will result in better relations with the US.... that IS interesting, but begs so many more questions.

Of course, left unstated is the question that most inside-the-beltway pundits on Iran have been ducking -- that Iran's major opposition figures are not at all opposed to Iran continuing to pursue its nuclear program. (that said, they surely are interested in being less confrontational, of actively pursuing avenues of common interest with the US -- a major issue last May)

[Scott Lucas]

Picard,

OK, time I stopped being coy. I suspect the unnamed "senior aide" is Ataollah Mohajerani, Minister of Culture in the Khatami Government, who appeared at WINEP in October. See http://enduringamerica.com/2009/11/02/iran-an-american-asks-what-if-the-green-movement-isnt-ours/.

S.

[Anthony]

Some possible candidates are:

Mojtaba Vahedi
Ataollah Mohajerani
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo
Mousavi Khoeniha
Mojtaba Vahedi

I'm pretty sure Mojtaba Vahedi is the name considering his recent interview with radiozamaneh which pretty much repeats the Khamenei/AN split almost word by word. http://zamaaneh.com/analysis/2010/03/post_1404.html

I hope I dont put his life at risk.

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[DaughtersofLight]

Thank you Scott,

To: Picard

Please clarify : And can we really say this is a “new PR campaign?”
Are you referring to more "engagement"?
if so What are effective ways that would be realistic to the Iranian political landscape ( of course bearing in mind the suppressive organizational ability of the coup gov.)

[Maria Rohaly]

I read this before - it got me hot then, and it still makes me angry now:

“The end goal is to have transparent, free and fair elections….

(Once that happens, you can be certain the Iranian people will elect [a president] who will secure peaceful and friendly relations with the world.”)

Going back to emphasizing the election after all of these months is a well-known reformist tactic. By steering the conversation back to the question of elections, it tries to remove the issue of whether velayat-e faqih remains a viable form of governance from the field of discussion.

"Ooooh yes, if we only had fair elections, EVERYBODY would be happy, problem solved for Iran, problem solved for US."

Yah, they would LOVE to see THAT fairy tale be bought hook, line & sinker. Except the problem would NOT be solved for the Iranian people. :|

In a way, this strategy would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous: anyone can see that it took about 2 weeks post-election for this movement to irrevocably shift its focus from elections to a much broader target.