Iran Snap Analysis: A Regime Still Worried About the Green Movement? (Yes.)

Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a member of the Supreme Leader's inner circle, addresses an audience before the March 2012 Parliamentary elections

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“The impressive participation of 85% of the people in the 2009 election was a subject of pride for us, but unfortunately some embittered the sweetness of the election the day after and labelled the regime [guilty] of fraud....The damage by the seditionists was no less than the damage Saddam did in the 8-year war [between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.”

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Remember Iran 1st-Hand: Moving Beyond the Shroud --- How The Green Movement Became a Beacon for Change

Three years ago the world changed.

Before 12 June 2009, we still lived on a globe where the people of Iran were put in a bubble, alienated from others. Or perhaps it was the other way around: the rest of the world lived in a sort of bubble, alienated from Iran. That rings truer to me.

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Iran 1st-Hand: "The Regime is Really Worried. They're Caught in a Bind" (Secor)

This week's Tehran Book FairThey’re bracing to be hit. And I think that they’re really worried, and I think they’re caught in a bind over how to spin the situation. When I was there, the policy was obfuscation. They hadn’t issued figures on household goods in over a year. About two weeks ago, the Central Bank started to release numbers. They seem to have made a decision. Is that to say, ‘We’re going to do something about it?’ Is it to blame the international community?

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Iran Feature: Has the Regime Decapitated the Green Movement? (Hafezi)

Attempts to revive street protests have fizzled. The opposition, which says its fight for a freer Iran will continue, is following the Arab uprisings with a mixture of envy and regret for its own failure, analysts and moderate former officials say.

"The opposition is leaderless and lacks any strategy. The opposition leaders are under house arrest. Dozens of prominent reformists are jailed. Their supporters have no choice but to wait and see," said a close ally of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who asked not to be named.

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Iran Feature: Assessing Supreme Leader v. Ahmadinejad

We post this article by Afrooz Mahdavi, writing in the US journal The Nation, in part because it offers an overview of the complexity of the conflict within Iran --- involving the Supreme Leader, President Ahmadinejad, conservative/principlist factions, the Revolutionary Guards, and the reformists and being waged on economic as well as political fronts.

We also post it, however, because of a side story on media coverage of Iran.

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Iran Analysis: Thoughts on Resistance and the Green Movement (Salim/Nasiri)

In the end, it is important to note that every Iranian person is entitled to the inherent right of self-defense under international law. This right is clearly provided in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments.

The uprising in Tunisia and Egypt teach us that one need not ask for permission from oppressors when fighting for fundamental transformations. It is rather the spontaneous and mass presence of civilians on the streets that can change the balance of power to the advantage of the population. These experiences also teach us that one should not direct oneself to the oppressors to guarantee fundamental rights. Instead, people should clearly recognize their strengths and potential, and pursue their struggle with self-confidence. Because where danger is, the power of salvation also grows.

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Iran Analysis: Supreme Leader = Machiavelli? (Sadjadpour)

Khamenei's inflexibility has so far served him well. His unwillingness to bend, however, has made it more likely that the Islamic Republic itself will have to break. As a young advisor to opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi recently told me, "We don't want a revolution; we've seen how it turns the country upside down. But they're giving us no other choice."

Machiavelli died in 1527, distrusted by all sides and disliked by the people he aimed to serve. It would be poetic justice if one of his most practiced disciples suffered the same fate.

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Iran Special Analysis: 5 Points for Discussion of the "New Green Manifesto"

UPDATE 1920 GMT: insideIRAN has posted a copy of the Persian version of the "New Green Manifesto"
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"Cells" need outlets and actions to represent them not as isolated pockets of activists but as part of a large, widespread challenge to those who claim authority. Mousavi and Karroubi also put forth a self-serving naivete on this issue: "We are the Media" is an essential call, but it has to be connected to representatives --- students, politicians, lawyers, advocates of gender rights, unionists, and other activists --- who can put out a message with resonance. 

So far the "New Green Manifesto" is reliant on that wider appeal through an overseas site with a "niche" readership. And that for the moment --- as the representatives' latest statement highlights, with its narrow response to critics abroad --- limits any impact of the "several recommendations for the reform and strengthening of the Green Movement".

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Iran Special: An Open Letter to the Authors of the "New Green Manifesto" (Lissnup)

What has always been missing is a clear understanding and definition of what the Green Movement is, and an accepted goal. The initial declaration of pluralism and the rejection of leadership in the classic or accepted sense created a dilemma: protecting individuals with actual authority, but leaving the movement vulnerable to manipulation by insinuation. The original unifying goal of reclaiming stolen votes has not been successfully replaced. All attempts to redefine the movement on an intellectual level – as being for reform, or for secular democracy, or regime overthrow, etc, have dissolved into disagreement. The good news is, it can be achieved, through careful planning, consultation, and constructive organisation.

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The Latest from Iran (13 July): The Opposition Re-Marks Its Ground

1700 GMT: Economy Watch. Ayande News reviews the increasing price of basics, from 350% for oil to 180% for food.

An EA source said today that, in some parts of Tehran, the price of sangak flatbread has risen from 100 tomans (less than 10 cents) to 1000 tomans (about 90 cents). He confirmed that both unemployment and inflation were rising sharply.

1655 GMT: Supreme Leader Brother's Watch. Seyed Hadi Khamenei, the reformist brother of Ayatollah Khamenei, has asked, "How do you expect us to participate in elections?" He said there had been thousands of hours of insults against reformists which had not been possible to answer.

1650 GMT: Supreme Leader Watch. Ali Saeedi, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei to the Revolutionary Guards, has said that people can change government but not the system of velayat-e faqih (clerical supremacy) --- "If they choose what God wants, it's OK."

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