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]

Postscriptum:

@ Samuel

"the true inspiration for the creation of the IRGC":

What I am 'noting' at the time being is that whenever the IRGC with their auxiliaries Basiji and Ansar-i-Hisbollah are doing service called "crowd control", some civilians are leaving the street/place on a bier and are transported to the morgue.

I am writing that down here, because it seems to be you, who doesn't appear to 'note' THAT.

[Samuel]

Publicola,

You wrote: "With the creation of the IRGC and the basiji militia – for whatever understandable reason (Iraq-Iran-war) –"

I pointed out that both were created BEFORE the Iran/Iraq war. The war was not the reason for their creation. Second you had earlier analogized the IRGC to the 1930-1045 period. I'm simply explaining that the IRGC's ideological origins may simply go back way before that period, to the 18th century in fact.

[Samuel]

Publicola,

"that whenever the IRGC with their auxiliaries Basiji and Ansar-i-Hisbollah are doing service called “crowd control”, some civilians are leaving the street/place on a bier and are transported to the morgue."

Simply untrue. There were no deaths in the demostrations from September until Ashura. As I've often pointed out the Basij use the same crude weapons as demonstrators: sticks, chains, metal bars, etc. The demostrators also use these plus rocks and molotov cocktails. If the goal was to kill people the Basij would be taking out their Kalashnikovs.

The Basij know very well that every death creates a martyr for the greens.

[Publicola]

Parallel armed organisations might have been created for whatever reasons - as I truly indicated ! - , what matters is the purpose they are finally fulfilling within a(ny) society:
an ordinary armed police force will do its service according to its ordinary function,
an ideologized parallel force will do its service according to the precepts of ideology.

[The SS and SA in Germany had primarily been created / invented for the purpose of protecting the election campaigns of the NSDAP, the Social-Democrats and the Communists had similar protective organisations for their election campaigns. I seriously doubt, however, if that [the question of their origing] will help explain the role and function of the SS as a ideologized fanatical police AND military force later after the NSDAP had been elected into power]

[Publicola]

»Malim equidem indisertam prudentiam quam stultitiam loquacem« (Cicero)

As a skeptical admirer of the republican politician and of the philosopher Cicero
it is advisable rather not to continue the discussion about Iran here on this thread any longer.

With a view to the ruling intransigent denial of reality on the part of some commentators,
a brazen denial of intersubjectively verifiable events and facts,
it is to be recommended to follow the plausible and justified claim of this Roman intellectual for a debate:

»Malim equidem indisertam prudentiam quam stultitiam loquacem«
[»I personally prefer prudence and wisdom without many words to a verbose and loquacious ignorance and stupidity«]
(from: Cicero, De oratore 3.142 / On the Orator).

Publicola

[Samuel]

Publicola,

I simply pointed out a small error in what you said about the origins of both organizations. NOTHING MORE AND NOTHING LESS.

"I seriously doubt, however, if that [the question of their origing] will help explain the role and function of the SS"

This is incorrect. From the beginning the SA was a party organization made up of many former WWI veterans (lower ranking officers) like Ernst Rohm and many workers; the SS was Hitler's elite bodyguards corps from day one. It was clear from their origins that the SA would emphasize the "Socialist" aspect of "National Socialism" propagated by leaders like Gregor and Otto Strasser and would be disdainful of the capitalist class and the aristocratic officer corps of the regular army. The SS would always remain loyal to Hitler personally no matter what ideological turn he took.

When Hitler decided that he needed the industrialists to attain power and the artistocratic Junker officer class he symbolically turned his back on eveything that the SA brownshirts stood for. Hitler knew he would have to decapitate this unruly element of the Nazi coalition if he wanted acceptance by the economic and military establisment. He also knew that the SS would back him even if he converted to Shiite Islam.

The massacre in June 1934 by the SS and its Gestapo subunit was predictable given their very different origins.

[Samuel]

Publicola,

As an admirer of Don Miguel de Cervantes of Don Quijote de La Mancha fame:

"La verdad adelgaza y no quiebra, y siempre nada sobre la mentira como el aceite sobre el agua" (Miguel de Cervantes)

[Adam]

"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."

Actually you did say it just a few days ago. I see why you are trying to change the subject though rather than addressing my point that the system of repression of the general population and constantly increasing payments to regime loyalists and mercenaries from oil revenues is doomed due to inability to get anywhere near sufficient investment into Iran's oil industry and oil prices that simply can't go up the way they have in the past.
You realize that there's a fatal flaw in Khamenei's dictatorship and rather than refuting it you are simply changing the subject in every way you can (your completely irrelevant and incoherent reference to Greece being a prime example).

[Samuel]

"Actually you did say it just a few days ago." Show me the post.

You are very good at misquoting me, I give you that.

[Publicola]

To the (community of) commentators on this thread / To whom it concerns :

a) I apologize for the length AND quantity of my contributions on this thread, as
b) I likewise would like to apologize for the decreasing loss of the appropriate tone and the necessary patience on my part the more advanced the time

[I was somehow carried away the more the hands of my watch had crossed the figure 12 (=24 hrs).]

I will not to repeat these transgressions and infractions of good conduct and appropriate manners again !

Publicola

[Scott Lucas]

Publicola,

No apology necessary at all. For me, this has been an illuminating discussion, and your contributions have been vital.

S.

[Publicola]

Dear Prof. Scott Lucas,

(You are too kind !)

Thank you so much !

I do feel honoured !

[but I will keep my promise all the same].

wishing you all the best from everything good

remains

Yours

Publicola