Iran Analysis: Karroubi's Challenge --- Who Acts and What Happens Next?

It's hard to tell yet if it has caused a fuss inside Iran --- certainly state media won't be giving any space to Mehdi Karroubi's dramatic letter to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani --- but for us outside the country, it knocked the current President off his publicity perch as he made his declarations and headed to New York.

Will it shake Mahmoud Ahmadinejad off his political perch?

The Karroubi letter is nothing short of a call to both Rafsanjani and to the Supreme Leader to deal once and for all with this troublesome Government. Initially, Karroubi's message is to Rafsanjani and the Assembly of Experts, asking them to fulfill their duties in supervision of Iran's institutions. The judiciary must be restored to independence, the press must be responsible, the Government must be accountable.

But then the message goes out to Ayatollah Khamenei via Karroubi's reminder: the Assembly of Experts has the Constitutional authority to replace the Supreme Leader if he is incapable of carrying out his duties. That is not the first time this smoke signal has gone up: some anti-Government clerics made a similar statement last summer, when Ahmadinejad was battling Khamenei over issues lie his key ally, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, and trying to assert his control over key Ministries like Intelligence and Interior.

However, Karroubi has revived this challenge after months of Government repression. His house was under siege two weeks ago. It is now blockaded, preventing visits from his allies and sympathisers. He is vilified as a "leader of sedition". And still he does not stop.

That makes for a dramatic and, for some, admirable story. Still, it would not have been significant had it not been for a helping hand given by none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In recent weeks, the President has pursued a power play equal to and probably beyond his fight for legitimacy and control last summer. He has tried to seize the reins of international affairs, striking at his Foreign Ministry and possibly even the advisors around the Supreme Leader. His dispute with Parliament has escalated, despite Ayatollah Khamenei's call for "unity". There are signs that he is ready for a showdown with those running Iran's judiciary.

And so others in Iran's system face the question now rather than later, from their own President rather than the "Green Movement": do they give in?

Karroubi's letter is the brick, with this message attached to it, thrown through the establishment window. It goes to Rafsanjani, following the former President's complicated, cautious manoeuvres to move against Ahmadinejad but to do so with the assured support of the Supreme Leader. It goes to Parliament and to the judiciary. And, indirectly in passage but not in content, it goes to Khamenei.

So what next? Well, don't expect the immediate steps to come from the Supreme Leader: as Ali Akbar Mahdi set out on EA yesterday, Khamenei may not be thrilled with Ahmadinejad, but he will not publicly break from him because of the gift --- as he perceives it --- this gives to Iran's "enemies". 

Unless recent form changes, Rafsanjani will not make a dramatic escalation in his rhetoric and actions. He may edge closer to the message of "Go, Ahmadi, Go", but he won't press that. The former President is worried that, if he moves too soon and too dramatically, he will be out front on his own. And that means those in the regime threatening his family for months can strike.

So for now, look to the Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, his brother Sadegh at the head of Iran's judiciary, and their allies within the Iranian establishment.

First, it is they, not Karroubi, not Rafsanjani, not Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have been on the battlefront with the President in recent weeks. My impression is that Ahmadinejad is no longer concerned with the Green Movement or with the reformists --- his contest for power is with those who have legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic authority. Indeed, that was true last summer: the situation has just gotten a bit more intense in autumn 2010.

Second, if the Supreme Leader is going to make a move against the President he helped elevate but now distrusts, it will come through someone like a Larijani.

At the end of last month, Khamenei decided once more to go for a proclamation that all should embrace "unity". Weeks ago, he chastised Ahmadinejad for not adhering to that with his actions in international affairs and on the economic front.

The President, as he presses on with his appointments, his rhetoric, and his journeys --- "Look at Cyrus the Great." "Now Look at Me." --- has thrown the Supreme Leader's intervention back at his feet. 

So after Rafsanjani put out his coded jab at Ahmadinejad at the Assembly of Experts this week, after Karroubi tossed in his brick of a letter, and after the President persists in his grandstanding, does the Supreme Leader finally set aside a "unity" which is not happening? Does he point the finger at the Larijanis --- or others in the establishment --- and say....

"Will not someone rid me of this troublesome....?"