The Latest from Iran (27 February): The Mousavi Interview

2230 GMT: Sneaking Out the News. It appears that the official statement of the Assembly of Experts meeting has been quietly placed on its website. We are reviewing and will have an analysis in the morning.

First impression is that while the statement is effusive about the "leadership and guidance" of the Supreme Leader to get Iran through the post-election crisis, it is not as severe in condemning the "sedition" of the opposition as the alleged statement released by Fars News in mid-week.

2115 GMT: Larijani Watch. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, continuing his Japan tour with a visit to the Peace Memorial Museum in Nagasaki, declared both Tehran's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and the perfidy of the West:

Iran will host an international conference on nuclear disarmament within the next two months....After the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US made no change in its policies. Two nuclear bombs of the United States have now increased to tens of thousands.

NEW Iran Analysis: Now It Gets Interesting….
Iran Document: Latest Karroubi Interview “The Shah Didn’t Behave Like This”
Iran: Mousavi, The Regime, & “The Prerequisites of Escalation”
Latest Iran Video: The Rigi “Confession” (25 February)
Iran Analysis: Khamenei’s Not-So-Big Push
Iran Follow-Up: Interpreting the Assembly of Experts “The Certainty of the Uncertain”
The Latest from Iran (26 February): Closing the Door?

2100 GMT: And the Jundullah Beat Goes On. More of the same from Iran's Foreign Ministry on Saturday, via spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast:

Ties between this terrorist group and security services of the so-called advocates of human rights including the US, Britain and certain other countries indicate that they are not honest about their claims of having respect for human rights.

The support of certain so-called human rights advocates for terrorist groups and criminals such as Abdolmalek Rigi has turned into a routine issue. We have always witnessed the support of these countries for terrorist groups to continue their moves in the region.

1720 GMT: Waiting for News on "Earthquake Weapons". Apart from the Mousavi interview, a quiet day inside Iran. Press TV's website has noted the Chilean earthquake and tsunami warning; so far, however, it has not blamed the disaster on US "secret weapons" (as Iran and Venezuela did with Haiti).

1505 GMT: Academic Newsflash. Fars News reports that more than 1000 "experts" have asked for an independent inquiry of the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The article is based on a press conference held by Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth on 19 February.

1455 GMT: Almost all major news outlets now have summaries of the Mousavi interview. A prominent Iranian activist, via Iran News Now, offers anotherabridged version in English that parallels our translation (see 0955 GMT).

1235 GMT: Discovering Mousavi. Agence France Presse and the Los Angeles Times have now noted Mir Hossein Mousavi's interview (see 0955 GMT). Both are picking up on Mousavi's condemnation of the 22 Bahman "engineered" rally by the regime and his call for a "free" march of the Iranian people.

1200 GMT: Big in the Countryside? Peyke Iran claims that the publications, Hemmat and Mowj-Andishe, banned earlier this year are still distributed in Iran's provinces. Both are allegedly linked to President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

0955 GMT: Mousavi's Interview. Setareh Sabety provides a few important extracts: "Mr. Karroubi and I, in our meeting, decided that we will once again ask for a permit, according to Article 27 of the Constitution, for a march that will put an end to the rumors and accusations."

Referring to 22 Bahman (11 February) as an "engineered" rally, Mousavi says that he does not like "insulting those who do not agree with us" and continues, "We did not suppose that everyone shared our opinions or that those who were not like-minded were bad people. All are our compatriots with the exception of some sabre-wielding thugs and murderers."

Mousavi compares the amount of money and methods used to muster crowds and transport them to Tehran for 22 Bahman --- "these kinds of engineered and mandatory rallies remind us of those used prior to tne 1979 Revolution" --- with the protest of the opposition. "Our movement looks like a traditional bazaar with many kiosks, cafes and store fronts of opinion connected to one another," Mousavi asserts, and he ends with an optimistc question, "When millions of young students are part of this movement, which is unique in our history and perhaps in the history of the world, how can we not have hope for the future?"

0950 GMT: Economy Watch. Seyyed Hossein Hashemi, the head of the Mining Commission, has declared that if Iran continues its present level of imports, "grave problems will arise". He warned in particular of under-investment in the domestic metal and mining industries.

0945 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary (A Day Later). Rah-e-Sabz offers a biting commentary on the Friday Prayers of Tehran's Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and other clerics: "Praise of the Assembly Experts and [Jundullah leader Abdolmalek] Rigi's arrest, that's all."

0940 GMT: So Much for Unity. Davoud Ahmadinejad, the brother of the President, pronounced in a speech before Friday Prayers in Isfahan that the National Unity Plan "equals the reconciliation of Yazid with Imam Hossein" (Yazid, in fact, killed Hossein)". He declared, "After all these insults, why should we sit at a table for the 'dialogue of civilizations'? We have nano-technology and we have a nano-quarrel."

0930 GMT: Economy Watch. Member of Parliament and Larijani ally Ahmad Tavakoli, writing in the pro-Larijani Khabar Online, declares that the Government's claims on implementation its subsidy reform plan are ridiculous: "In the current year the administration has not taken an actual step for executing subsidy reform bill. The Government should have requested the permission of the Majlis [Parliament] for amending the bill, but it didn't."

Rah-e-Sabz publishes a long anlaysis by Professor Mohsen Massarrat with "Answers to the Riddle of the Subsidies", especially in the energy sector.

0905 GMT: No doubt what the big story will be this morning. Kalemeh has just posted its interview with Mir Hossein Mousavi (see separate, earlier analysis). The tone is defiant, but the deeper issue will be the substance of Mousavi's call. Defending the opposition over 22 Bahman and calling for a "spread of awareness" is fair enough, but it is the substance of Mousavi's 5 points --- issued in his statement of 1 January --- that gave a boost to political demands. We'll be reading closely to see if and how Mousavi expands that platform.

Elsewhere, Robert Mackey of The New York Times has a thoughtful, in-depth consideration of the regime's propaganda over the capture of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi. He raises the interesting point that the spin on Rigi's "confession" of his contacts with US officials is meant to discredit President Obama's "engagement" launched in his March 2009 Nowruz address to the Iranian people.

Comments

[Publicola]

By the way:

the brief report by GlobalSecurity.org (2005) on the militia-group "Ansar-i Hizbullah" (my posting here Nr. 7) seems to answer some questions connected with the video on the recent attack on Tehran University students
(here just a few questions to be answered:
Why do the security forces appear relatively disorganized?
Why are rules, normally painstakingly observed by security organs, not observed?
Why do some/quite a few of the perpetrators (members of the security unit)
appear not to be as physically fit and present as it is to be expected from trained security forces?
Why has this video been published at all? etc. etc)

[samuel]

“Pasdaran no pasaran!”

Thanks Arshama: Great epigram !"

Ah yes the famous slogan of La Pasionaria during the Spanish Civil war. Of course we all know what the Franco forces did with that slogan. "Pasaremos" AND THEY DID.

[Barry]

@Publicola

"One answer can be found when one looks into a history book dealing with the years 1930 – 1945."

This is why I have stated often here that Iran 2010 is analogous to Germany 1933.

The world has 6 years to stop it. Otherwise we will have learned nothing from history.

Barry

[Publicola]

IRGC [parallel ideological military force plus parallel ideological police force]

1) Individual political opinion versus “esprit de corps » and «command and obedience »
[Independently of any possibly moderate voting behaviour and any possibly moderate political outlook of members of these forces they still are subjected to the principle of “command and obedience” when in service. ]

2) The war generation clings to power

The Iran-Iraq War took place 1980 – 1988, the reason and start of the emergence and existence of the IRGC and Basiji. Let us assume that the main contingent of men fighting at that time might have been 18 to 25 years on average.
Now, twenty to thirty years later these men, who are about 40 to 55 years old, presumably form the middle and upper echelons of the command structure within the IRGC, the Basiji and possible further auxiliary paramilitary/parapolice forces.
This generation and age cohort (age group), having fought for Iran, will presumably not be willing - now in the prime and at the peak of their active (working) life - to let go of their potential influence and power within society they have acquired with Ahmadinejad coming to power at the latest.
It will last about at least 5 to – at the most – 20 years until these men who have direct fighting (and killing) experience at their disposal will leave active working life, will leave the ranks of the Basiji.

3) Circumstantial evidence of military rule

It is obvious that nearly daily/weekly the statements of high-ranking senior members of the IRGC, part of the executive power, are published in/by Iranian media, as if these statemens were instructions imparted by a Supra-Ministry to the government itself and in particular to the two other powers of a republic, the judiciary and the legislative.
Does a division/separation of the different branches of state power, deserving that term truly in its republican and Montesquieuan sense, function like that?

[samuel]

Barry,

I'm curious why 2010 is like 1933 (when Hitler took power). Shouldn't 1979 (When Khomeini took power) be like 1933 to keep you comparison consistent? That would make 2010 like 1964 (1933 plus 31 years).

If you want to associate the current Supreme Leader with Hitler that would make 1989 (the year Khamenei became the Supreme leader) like 1933. Then 2010 would be like 1954.

[Publicola]

@ Barry

I agree with you, but only to the certain extent of the initial state of some mechanisms of wielding power inside the country
(parallel military and police organizations; relevance of the ideological-religious aspect; responsibility-structures rather blurred and confused: if needs be, any official can always fall back upon aphorism(s) "the SL has ordered/wanted it", "we are acting according to the SL's wishes" or "if the SL knew" or "the SL did not know that")

(to a certain extent only, because Iran does not seem to me to be an expansive middle power, intent on acquiring world rule, intent on conquering all its neighbouring countries, intent on waging war against the whole world)

[outsider]

In order to believe Rigi's confession you have to suspend common sense. He is an avowed enemy of the Shiites why would he give them correct information? Would anyone believe his statement that the US has no problem with Al Qaeda? Either he hates Americans more than the Shiites, he does poorly under torture or the government is threatening someone close to him.

[Publicola]

@ Samuel:
Your hint at "La Pasionaria" and your "and they did" (capitalized) leads to some inevitable questions:

Who and where is Franco ? Mussolini ? Hitler ? Stalin ? Salazar ? Pinochet ? - now ?

Were they a boon to their countries, their people, their neighbours, history, world ?

Are their methods of wielding power in any way desirable ?

[Barry]

@Publicola

"(to a certain extent only, because Iran does not seem to me to be an expansive middle power, intent on acquiring world rule, intent on conquering all its neighbouring countries, intent on waging war against the whole world)"

I think this is where we differ in our opinions :)

Barry

[Adam]

Samuel,

I asked you to confront my point that the model Khamenei/Ahmadinejad has chosen requires more and more oil revenue to maintain some semblance of economic stability. Instead you simply repeated lies that Ahmadinejad loves the poor and Iran has become stronger militarily, and incomprehensibly you have repeated Ahmadinejad's lie that Iran is at full employment.
You didn't address my point that it will be impossible to maintain the current model with declining oil production and prices that can't continue to rise at anything close to the rate they have.

[Thomas]

Outsider,

"Why would he give them correct information?"

"The government is threatening someone close to him."

Yes, his own life. And he is stating what they want to be heard to the outside world.

[Barry]

@Samuel

Well, I guess it all depends on how you look at things . I equate the period in Iran from 1979 to 2010 as analogous to the period end of WW1 to 1933.

Give or take a short time, 1933 was when Hitler finally came to office and very soon thereafter achieved almost total control over Germany and it's people. The Iranian Regime hasn't quite got total control yet - but it is almost there. Once it does achieve that it will look outside the country- it is already starting to do that.

Hitler eventually took on more than he could handle - and this will also be Iran's destiny, but it will cause much pain to the world first.

Barry

[Barry]

PS -- unless it is stopped first.

Barry

[Rev. Magdalen]

Samuel, you bring up an excellent point. Why, exactly, does Iran need two parallel armed forces? Three if you count the Basiji? This is another one of the many things the Islamic Republic does that other countries don't do. Probably because other countries are more than 31 years old and have figured out the kind of trouble that inevitably comes from keeping several different standing armies simultaneously. Also probably those other countries aren't ruled by "in groups" who care more about their clique infighting than the actual tasks they're supposed to be accomplishing, like building roads and hospitals.

[Samuel]

Publicola,

"Your hint at “La Pasionaria” and your “and they did” (capitalized) leads to some inevitable questions"

La Pasionaria is the person who made the "no pasaran" slogan famous. I simply pointed out a historical fact, they did pass.

"Who and where is Franco ? Mussolini ? Hitler ? Stalin ? Salazar ? Pinochet ? – now ?"

They are all dead of course. I do not admire any of them but I do recognize some of their accomplishments. I don't believe any other leader could have done what Stalin did in contributing to the defeat of the Nazis. Stalin was a monster to be sure but he industrialized his country and took it to victory at the battle of Stalingrad which became almost a personal dues between Hitler and "the man of steel".

Pinochet was a brutal man yet the subsequent "socialist" governments have pretty much followed his economic policies which have resulted in the country having the best, most robust economy in Latin America. It is that economy which will enable Chile to quickly recover from today's earthquake. You did not mention Mao but he liberated China from foreign forces and is at least partyly responsible for the success of that country today.

"Were they a boon to their countries, their people, their neighbours, history, world ?"

The larger point is that these individuals committed crimes just like the "democratic" govts of England, France and America who exploited and invaded India, the African Continent, and Latin America. "Democratic govts" who TODAY kill and torture muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and who subsidize and protect the Apartheid/Zionist govt. of Israel.

[Samuel]

Adam,

"I asked you to confront my point that the model Khamenei/Ahmadinejad has chosen requires more and more oil revenue to maintain some semblance of economic stability. Instead you simply repeated lies that Ahmadinejad loves the poor and Iran has become stronger militarily, and incomprehensibly you have repeated Ahmadinejad’s lie that Iran is at full employment.
You didn’t address my point that it will be impossible to maintain the current model with declining oil production and prices that can’t continue to rise at anything close to the rate they have."

1. If your point is that guns and butter spending creates economic problems if oil revenues don't keep increasing yes that is an obvious point. Why would anyone contradict that? It's like saying that when it rains stuff gets wet.

2. I did not say that AN loves the poor. I said that AN promised to spread the wealth to poorer areas in his campaign and then he shifted and increased spending from the capital to poorer areas. This is simply a fact. Again this type of social spending can be wasteful and it does lead to a backlash. Why do you think that the British under Thatcher and the Americans under Reagan revolted so strongly against spending for the poor in the 1980's.

3. I did not say that Iran is at full employment. I said that was the goal just like in post-war europe.

4. Once again I did not say that Iran is stronger militarily. (though I believe that to be the case)
I said that Iran felt threatened by the American invasions and increased defense spending which is detrimental economically. Why do you think that Western Europe and Japan have always resisted American Pressure to increase military Spending?

Nevertheless, to restate what I wrote before, it is necessary to increase defense spending despite the economic fallout particularly when your enemy gets $6 billion in free military aid.

"You didn’t address my point that it will be impossible to maintain the current model with declining oil production and prices that can’t continue to rise at anything close to the rate they have."

Even AN would not disagree with that basic, obvious statement which is why he has proposed the current plan. There you go, you and AN in full agreement.

If you want to accuse me of having said something please quote me accurately.

[Adam]

It's interesting that you suddenly are calling it "basic and obvious" that it will be impossible to maintain the current model of the Iranian government due to declining oil production and oil prices that can't rise the way they have in recent years. It is interesting to me because you have been the one all along saying that all is well and that Iran's youth could have a prosperous life if they just obeyed Khamenei/Ahmadinejad and stopped being influenced by the west.
Beyond saying that the current model is utterly unsustainable I also was pointing out that Khamenei/Ahmadinejad's plan to eliminate subsidies is an urgent reaction to what is already a crisis despite historically high oil prices and at unsustainable production levels. I thought in saying that I was being clear enough that I don't believe that plan is nearly enough to deal with the future stagnation and decline of oil revenues, its merely an urgent immediate measure.
Since Khamenei/Ahmadinejad has lost the illusion of legitimacy and popular consent forever, they will not be able to extract these economic sacrifices from the population.

[Samuel]

Rev,

"Why, exactly, does Iran need two parallel armed forces?"

Even from a purely military perspective they have different roles. Artesh is the conventional armed forces. They would confront an invader with traditional infantry, artillery, and armored forces and engage in large scale WWII style battles.

The Pasdaran would stay behind and engage in asymmetric, unconventional, guerrilla style warfare. Ambushes, cutting off supply lines, indirect surprise attacks, nightime operations etc. Jafari, the head of the Pasdaran has applied the lessons of the Hizbollah/Israeli conflict of 2006 to the current operational doctrine of the IRGC. Hizbollah was able to inflict considerable losses on the heavy, mechanized Israeli armed forces through superior strategy, discipline and intimate knowledge of the terrain.

As to the internal role of the Pasdaran:

The IRI has been under constant unrelenting attack since 1979. First the war, then the challenge of internal enemies like the MKO, then the Invasion of Iraq etc, etc. This institution was created first and foremost to preserve and protect the Islamic Revolution which has been under threat since 1979. In 31 years I would say they've done a pretty good job.

[Publicola]

re: IRGC - parallel armed forces with military AND police function

There usually [in European countries] is a clear, meaningful and pertinent division or separation of the functions of the armed executive organs of the state, the army and the police.
The police are subordinate to the (central) ministry of the interior and represent the state internally [ In a confederation like the USA or Germany sections of the police are also subordinate to the (devolved/decentralized) different ministries of the interior of the respective federal states of a country, some sections are subordinate to the the administration of the local authority/municipality. ]
The military armed forces, the army, however, are subordinate to and commanded by the (central) ministry of defence or might be responsible (often at the same time) to the head of government or to parliament, and protect and secure the borders of the state or the state outside its borders.
With the creation of the IRGC and the basiji militia – for whatever understandable reason (Iraq-Iran-war) – this clear-cut distinction between the function of protecting public safety or public security and the function of defending the country against foreign outward threats and aggression has been blurred. Thus the aforementioned different functions of an army versus a police force tend to be easily forgotten and somehow cancelled – at least the public is no longer aware of this difference.
The decisive difference between the spirit and purpose, the where, when and why of a deployment of the one type of armed executive organs, the army, and the strictly different situation of the deployment of the other type of armed executive organs, the police, is fading, vanishing out of public consciousness.

That implies in addition, that the politically necessary differentiation between inner conflicts on the one hand and conflicts with foreign states on the other hand tends to be vanishing and to be being neglected and disregarded.

That again implies that the politically relevant differentiation between the maintenance of public safety (protection of rallies, crowd control) and the military defence against or the military (counter-)attack against foreign armed forces in order to defend and protect one’s country is possibly vanishing and being cancelled alongside with it as well.

The relevant distinction between political protest or political opponents and political opposition in contrast to foreign hostile armed forces and military enemy powers tends to be being blurred, tends to be fading within public consciousness.
Thus an election with undesired results might possibly tend to be equated with the threat of a foreign invasion or even with a foreign invasion itself.

[Samuel]

Adam,

"It is interesting to me because you have been the one all along saying that all is well and that Iran’s youth could have a prosperous life if they just obeyed Khamenei/Ahmadinejad and stopped being influenced by the west."

Now you are just making things up. I would love to see the Greek nation convert to Shiite Islam and to the rule of the Supreme Jurist tomorrow but it would be ridiculous to say that would immediately result in the elimination of their catastrophic deficit and a "prosperous life".

Now Adam I know you are very, very sensitive about so-called "personal attacks" on you and this isn't one but really the sentence you just wrote is simply cartoonish. I would never say or write that nor would
my eight year old cousin.

"you have been the one all along saying that all is well and that Iran’s youth could have a prosperous life if they just obeyed Khamenei/Ahmadinejad and stopped being influenced by the west."

[Publicola]

Rev. Magdalen,

I tried to answer - superficially and in an offhand manner only (apologies for that !) - your question

“Why, exactly, does Iran need two parallel armed forces?”

in/with my posting Nr. 46.

Thanks for your question and in particular for your contributions

Yours

Publicola

[Samuel]

Publicola,

"Let’s call it a day for the aforesaid reasons." Fair enough.

Note that the IRGC and the Basij were created before the Iran-Iraq war. In fact it has been said that the true inspiration for the creation of the IRGC was the 18th century Usuli Mirghadabs.

[Publicola]

@ Samuel

»Democratic govts” who TODAY kill and torture muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and who subsidize and protect the Apartheid/Zionist govt. of Israel.»

You ought at least to risk looking at/into the online-pages of Los Angeles Times / commentary column every now and then,
where sometimes I am discussing the question Palestine/Israel,
before you put such a [reproachful?] remark forward,

e.g.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/02/middle-east-papers-in-moderate-arab-states-apoplectic-over-alleged-mossad-hit-in-dubai.html#comments

Yours

Publicola

[Rev. Magdalen]

Publicola, thank you very much for the kind words and for the reply; you put it so clearly and thoroughly! It made me think that there IS one situation in which the functions of defense and policing are combined: in an occupied nation ruled by martial law! It seems to me that is becoming more and more the situation of the Iranian people, as if they were citizens of a land occupied by a military force. In practice it doesn't seem to matter very much that this occupying force arose from within instead of invading, the results on individual freedoms are the same.

[Samuel]

Publicola,

That was a very accurate statement on your part re: Israel.

Samuel