Iran Analysis: The Supreme Leader's Warning to Ahmadinejad

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For all the agonised analysis of the body language between the Supreme Leader and the President yesterday --- were they still friends? was there a bit of tension still about? when is a kiss not a kiss? --- all it would have taken to get a meaningful answer was this glance at Press TV English's website, "In Leader approval, Ahmadinejad warned over critics":

As certain political figures join opposition in rejecting the disputed election results, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution strongly backs the president for a second term, but urges him to heed the views of his “critics.”

In a step leading up to his inauguration in Parliament, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Monday threw his weight behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, describing him as "courageous, astute and hardworking."

The Leader added that his endorsement and the people's vote remains in place only until President Ahmadinejad stays "on the right path."

The entire article is a series of slaps to the President. "The endorsement decrees are normally read by the previous president -- even for the second term of the new president in office," but Mohammad Khatami was absent, and so were Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and "powerful cleric and official" Hashemi Rafsanjani. "There were also no representatives present from the family of the founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini."
The story up to yesterday is presented in neutral, even favourable, terms for the opposition:

The development against a backdrop of political trials comes as Ahmadinejad's much-disputed re-election in June was met with an outpouring of anger demonstrated in mass protests across the country, with demonstrators dubbing the poll as rigged.

At least 30 people were killed and thousands, including prominent Reformists and journalists, were rounded up in the course of the protests staged by supporters of the opposition who dismiss the official election result as "fraudulent" and call for its annulment.

With leading opposition figures Mousavi, Khatami and Karroubi refusing to acknowledge Ahmadinejad's presidency, the incumbent's re-election provoked bickering in the country's political circles.

Even more importantly, Rafsanjani gets three paragraphs of supportive coverage, including his statement, "Doubt has been created. There are two currents; one has no doubt and is moving ahead. And the other is a large portion of the wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt."

The conclusion? Well, Press TV offers its own body-language photograph, which we've reprinted, for the article and notes, "Ayatollah Khamenei...insisted that the views of the critics 'should be given much reflection'."

Today Ahmadinejad shouldn't worry about kissing the Leader's shoulders. It's time to be looking over both of his own.

The Latest from Iran (2 August): Assessing the Trial

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2045 GMT: According to Mowj-e-Sabz, "principlist" members of Parliament have been warned not to criticise televised confessions.

1650 GMT: Muhammad Sahimi at Tehran Bureau offers a thorough summary and analysis of yesterday's proceedings. The article is particularly effective in depicting the prosecution's attempt to turn the trial into a demolition of opposition groups by linking them to "foreign agents" and, parallelling our own interpretation, exposing the lack of evidence for these assertions.

1630 GMT: Our correspondent Mani has  noted the statement of former Vice President Dr Ebrahim Yazdi, who was detained earlier in the post-election conflict:

We must ask: what has happened in the Islamic Republic of Iran, that prominent Iranians who have served as consultants, presidents, prime ministers, ministers, ambassadors and deputy prime ministers are now according to the prosecutor's claim ready to conspire with foreign powers to overthrow the Islamic Republic? The claim of the perseution is an attack and challenge to the integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last 30 years. [Mani's comment: "This challenge is exactly what Rafsanjani means when he refers to 'the cost of questioning the foundations of the establishment'."]

This trial is a symbol of the existence of internal fighting in the Iranian government and has no goal other then the dominance of one part of the power structure over the others. The ones who are running this trial will be forced by public opinion to scuttle it.....Shia theological tradition explicitly states that coerced confessions from an imprisoned person is absolutely immoral and is against the foundations of islamic law and is therefore illegal.

1615 GMT: Best Line So Far on the Tehran Trial. Mir Hossein Mousavi says the proceedings were "sufficiently ridiculous to make a baked tukey laugh".

1600 GMT: We wrote today, in a separate analysis, about the attempt to use the Tehran trial to portray Hashemi Rafsanjani as an enemy of the regime and of Rafsanjani's response via his leadership of the Expediency Council. A bit more on the Rafsanjani statement:

Besides calling the charges, as laid out in the testimony of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, "absolutely false", the Expediency Council's communiqué said,  "In a meeting that happened after one of the deliberations of the Expediency Discernment Counci, Mr. Khatami postponed declaring his official postion until he had a meeting with his party the 'Association of Combatant Clerics'. Mr. Mousavi had already declared his position, and Mr. Rafsanjani had insisted upon all individuals following all legalities when they declare their postions or state their demand."

Therefore, Rafsanjani "has not supported any of the candidates and he has had no hand in the post-election events, and his opinion about resolving the current untoward conditions has not changed since his sermon in the Friday prayers 15 days ago." The statement ends by turning the allegations in the trial back against Rafsanjani's opponents, "God willing, all of us are not prone to appease a certain faction with statements and extraction of confessions at the cost of questioning the foundations of the establishment."

1555 GMT: The opposition website Mowj-e-Sabz has more on the Khatami statement, and this extract stands out. The former President is making an appeal to key members of the system to break from the politics of prosecution:

I do not think that Ayatollah Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, agrees with this trend [in the court], especially now that all the people are expecting the judiciary to act against the terible abuses against the detainees that has happened during the arrests and in many prisons,...especially since the supreme leader has ordered a serious response to these issues.

1530 GMT: More Reaction to the Trial. Mohammad Khatami, via his website, has said:

The trial on Saturday was a show and the confessions are invalid ... What was called a trial was a violation of the constitution. Such show trials will directly harm the system and will further damage public trust. These confessions have been taken under extraordinary conditions. The detainees were not informed in advance about the court session and lacked access to lawyers.

1510 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi’s close aides, Alireza Beheshti has stated that the Mousavi campaign has gathered the names of 1700 detainees whose whereabouts are unknown.

Afternoon Update (1440 GMT): Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Ahmadinejad's press secretary, has resigned from his post. Javanfekr stated that " there is a need for fresh blood to take over the responsibility,  and one must make way for these individuals".

The Islamic Iran Participation Front, one of the reformist parties has responded to the trials via its news site Norouz:

The show goes on: Wholesale killings and suppressions, wholesale arrests and wholesale trial and sentencing. The trial of the political activists arrested after the presidential elestions has started. As it could have been expected and just as political activists and parties had warned the trial was held eschewing all legal presuppositions favoring the defendants.

The sole reporting news agency in the court was the pro-government and mendacious Fars news agency. Considering the track record of this agency in propagating falsehoods, it is obvious that none of the statements of this agency possess any credibility.

Norouz states that a credible source located in the court has stated that none of the statements of Fars are true and the court is effectively a kangaroo court.

Trials in Iran: English Translation of Mousavi Statement (2 August)

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Iran: Putting the Opposition on Trial

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Correspondent Mani has provided an English translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi's latest statement on the Tehran trials and the manoeuvres of the regime:

It has been claimed that the children of the revolution have confessed in yesterday's court that they were colluding with foreign powers to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Personally, I have paid close attention [to these confessions] and I could not find anything to support this claim. On the contrary, [these so-called confessions] are painful statements of the painful conditions of the accused in the last fifty days.

When the spirit is crushed, individuals admit to everything their interrogators want, while in fact these confessions are just chronicles of woe. These chronicles imply that Mohsen Roohul Amini [who died in detention] rightly chose to be a martyr; that if we [the prisoners] had not resisted for 50 days this farce would have been performed earlier; that we [the prisoners] confessed to whatever they told us to so this would be obvious to all, that these confessions were coerced out of us.

The teeth of the torturers and confessors has reached the bone, and now their policy is to find victims amongst individuals who have done great service to this country and this establishment and indeed have played the most sensitive roles in establishing it. Can you threaten those who yearned for martyrdom with anything less? Are you intending to target the foundation of Islam and the prestige of the establishment after slaughtering the basis of its republic? Observing such a kangaroo court leaves humanity no recourse but to indict those responsible for this trial of hitting a great low in morality and ethics and credibility.

These scenes that we observe is nothing other that a clumsy attempt [by a faction] to jump start the [new] tenth government. They expect a court that is totally fraudulent to verify that no fraud has taken place. If you do not cheat, display your honesty by abiding with the basic procedures of a legal court process.

With such trivial indictments, by stating nonsense, by referring to three-penny publications, by basing your cases upon journalistic reports of dubious quality, and by invoking confessions that reek of the medieval justice system [of Europe], how do you expect to satisfy the people? Have you not read that the prophet [Mohammad] has stated that for a person that confesses after torture there can be no punishment, or that the prophet has stated that from a person that is imprisoned and consequently threatened no confession can be taken?

Our people sympathize with their children, whom they were only able to see after 50 days of uncertainty. Our dear [imprisoned] brothers, be not dejected! Be sure that the people understand your situation and know that your safety is of paramount importance. In the very near future the people will witness how those who performed these horrific iniquities will be legally prosecuted....As the holy book says...the punishment of the oppressors will be visited upon them exactly at the time that God has determined.

Iran Special Analysis: The Politics of the Tehran Trial

The Latest from Iran (2 August): Assessing the Trial

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Saturday, for the first day in recent weeks, it was the regime on the offensive. Ayatollah Jannati's tough address at Friday prayers in Tehran was followed by the showpiece of the trial of almost 100 defendants, including a former Vice President and Deputy Ministers, key members of reformist political parties, and journalists.

As legal process, the courtroom scene was, to be frank, ludicrous. There were no defense lawyers, and the only official press in the courtroom were those from media favourable to the State.

The indictment and presentation of charges offered no evidence of substantive criminal acts apart from the relatively minor acts of throwing stones at security forces. More sinister allegations of bombing relied upon the past, rather the current, records of defendants (and did not include any of the most prominent detainees). And the "foreign plot" scenario was almost laughable. It turned US-based academics into directors of an Iranian insurgency. (Abbas Milani has no love for the regime, but he is a solid historian and political analyst, and Gene Sharp works with theory, rather than application, of non-violent regime change. Mark Palmer may be an irritating polemicist, but he is not a CIA mastermind.)

The central act of the prosecution's play was the testimony of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. While dramatic in its content, it offered no detail of a treasonous plot. Instead, this was blatant political manoeuvre, designed to stigmatise Mohammad Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavai (although he was portrayed as naïve campaigner rather than malevolent schemer), and, above all, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Only Abtahi knows whether his testimony was genuine or coerced. His family and attorney declared that he had been tortured and drugged. Pictures from the courtroom showed a man who looked haggard and unhealthy, losing a lot of weight in his detention. His "confession" had apparently been circulated in advance to news services that would give it the correct interpretation.

Opposition politicians denounced both the trial and Abtahi's suspect testimony. Mousavi's camp declared, via Ghalam News, "The people's movement is peaceful in nature and relies on the demand of the public to achieve their rights which have been trampled upon during the last elections." They specifically ruled out the allegation of conspiracy with foreign agents, responding not only to the trial but some unhelpful calls from outside Iran for regime change: "Despite claims of the dissidents, this just and spiritual movement has no connections with the foreigners and is completely domestic, and our nation is mindful of staying away from foreigners."

Rafsanjani was briefer in his response, calling the testimony "an obvious lie". Significantly, however, his advisors issued the statement through the offices of the Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani heads. The message to the regime? If you want a fight, we have our own bases of support within the system.

What matters in the short-term is not the cold dissection of yesterday's events but the emotive reaction. Will the regime succeed, days before the anointing of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President, in mobilising public opinion against the opposition or at least ensuring acceptance of its authority? Or is this another instance of going too far in trying to crush protest as illegitimate?

The challenge for the regime is that it cannot sustain the high-profile denunciation on a daily basis. It has played its strongest card with Abtahi. Meanwhile, the opposition is countering. A show of dissent was scheduled for this morning outside the offices of the head of Iran's judiciary, and there is talk of protests not only for Wednesday, when Ahmadinejad is inaugurated, but also Monday, when he is approved by the Supreme Leader, and Friday, a day of celebration for Imam Mahdi's birthday.

It is one thing to crush a reformist faction like the Islamic Iran Participation Front, whose leading members are on trial. It is another to take on both the Green movement and Rafsanjani by linking them so blatantly (and, I think, crudely).

The regime may "win" but, to do so, it is gambling. And far from cleaning up the resistance with an easy bet, it is having to raise the stakes.

1440 GMT: Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Ahmadinejad's press secretary, has resigned from his post. Javanfekr stated that " there is a need for fresh blood to take over the responsibility,  and one must make way for these individuals".

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The Islamic Participation Front, one of the reformist parties has responded to the trials via its news site Norouz:

"The show goes on: Wholesale killings and suppressions, wholesale arrests and wholesale trial and sentencing. The trial of the political activists arrested after the presidential elestions has started. As it could have been expected and just as political activists and parties had warned the trial was held eschewing all legal presuppositions favoring the defendants. The Islamic Participation Front states that the sole reporting news agency in the court was the pro-government and mendacious Fars news agency. Considering the track record of this agency in propagating falsehoods, it is obvious that none of the statements of this agency possess any credibility.

Nourouz states that a credible source located in the court has stated that none of the statements of Fars are true and the court is effectively a kangaroo court.