The Latest from Iran: If Khamenei's Other Shoe Drops (20 January)

2240 GMT: Balatarin Lives (for Real). An update and possible correction on our earlier story (1914 GMT) about the fate of Balatarin, the Iranian news portal. The site is back up, and some Iranian activists are saying that the supposed "successor" Agah Tarin was actually a regime attempt at imitation.

2000 GMT: An Iranian activist reports that journalist Nasrin Vaziri has been released after 23 days in prison.

1950 GMT: Rah-e-Sabz reports that Ali Reza Beheshti, Mir Hossein Mousavi's chief advisor, has suffered a heart attack in detention. It adds, however, that Beheshti has contacted his family and said that he is now better.

1914 GMT: Balatarin Lives. Balatarin, an Iranian website similar to the Digg or NewsVine portals, has been an important news source during the post-election crisis but was knocked off-line recently. Now a successor, Agah Tarin, has appeared.

1910 GMT: Mohsen Safai Farahani, recently sentenced to six years in prison, will be released today on bail of $700.000 $ for five days during the appeal against the verdict.

NEW Iran Analysis: “Supreme Leader Warns Rafsanjani” — The Sequels
NEW Iran: Ahmadinejad and the Labor Movement
Iran Analysis: The Supreme Leader Warns Rafsanjani
Iran Special: Breaking Mousavi’s Movement — Beheshti & Abutalabi
Iran Analysis: Reality Check (Yep, We Checked, Government Still in Trouble)
The Latest from Iran (19 January): Cross-Currents

1900 GMT: The Battle Against Ahmadinejad. For all of our attention to the manoeuvres around the Supreme Leader's speech, this may be the most important news on the in-fighting in the establishment. An unnamed influential member of the hardliners who supports the Government declares that Ahmadinejad Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai "is out".

The website that prints this news, adding, "It appears as if the Government will put away Rahim-Mashai at an appropriate quiet moment"? The pro-Larijani Khabar Online.

1845 GMT: A group of economics professors have asked for the release of Professor Ali Arab Mazar of Allameh Tabatabei University, one of Mir Hossein Mousavi's top advisors, arrested after Ashura.

1840 GMT: Journalist, writer and critic Mehdi Jalil-Khani was arrested on Monday in Zanjan. He was brought blindfolded and handcuffed to the intelligence, accused of "insulting the leader".

1830 GMT: Now Poets are Banned. This entry from Pedestrian deserves to be quoted in full:

Ferdowsi is a monumental 10th century Persian poet. His Shahnameh (Book of Kings, translated into English by Dick Davis) is a national epic read and revered across Iran.

Now the wife of imprisoned journalist, Bahman Ahmadi reports that one of the charges for which he will have to serve an eight year prison sentence is, according to the judge’s verdict: “publishing an epic poem by the poet Ferdowsi on June 12th, 2009 in order to invite the public to protest and revolt.”

It is noted that Bahmad Ahmadi himself was not even allowed to read the verdict.

1455 GMT: The Coughing Protest. Rah-e-Sabz claims that a recent "political education" event at an Iran army barracks had to be cancelled when hundreds of soldiers starting coughing, apparently when the speaker criticised the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Commanders have asked for a list of the dissident coughers.

1445 GMT: Toeing the Line. In a prolonged Press TV advertisement for the regime, Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei has blamed the post-election conflict on opposition candidates (Mousavi, Karroubi) who refused to act within the law and on foreign powers trying to unsettle the regime.

The only hint of Rezaei criticism of the Government was the invocation to distinguish between "protesters" and "rioters", both amongst security forces and Iran's state media, but he was happy to support Press TV's uplifting image of "democracy in Iran", with both sides learning to "act within the law".

Rezaei did throw out a conciliatory lifeline to the "Green movement" in the last part of the discussion by invoking the current televised debates as a reason for hope that opposition demands will be considered. Strange, however, that he would allow Press TV to push maybe the most important part of the interview --- Rezaei's letter for "unity" sent to the Supreme Leader earlier this month --- to the final minutes of the conversation.

1440 GMT: Black Comedy. University professors have published a "last will", to be retrieved after their demises: "I, Professor XXXXXX, killed by a bomb/bullet/fallen from a high floor/ suffocated with a string/fallen in a sulphuric acid bath hereby declare that 1) I was not a nuclear scientist, 2) I was never a supporter of Ahmadinejad."

Ebrahim Nabavi offers helpful proposals to Iran police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, who seems to have recently discovered the difference between BMW and SMS.

1435 GMT: Academic Purges. Six prominent professors of Allameh Tabatabei University have been relieved of their duties.

1400 GMT: The Follow-Up on Khamenei & Rafsanjani. We've posted a separate entry on varying responses to yesterday's speech by the Supreme Leader.

1148 GMT: Labour Issues. Deputy Oil Minister Seyfollah Jashn-Saz has warned, "If payments in oil sector continue like this, some employees will leave the country." Not leave the sector, leave the country.

Meanwhile, we've posted an interesting interview with an Iranian labour activist about the situation under the Ahmadinejad Government.

1140 GMT: Baghi's Detention. The wife of journalist Emadeddin Baghi, detained just after Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's death (supposedly for his interview of Montazeri), has spoken about her husband's arrest and detention.

1130 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? Well, in addition to biking and jogging (see 0900 GMT), President Ahmadinejad has met Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi. No mention of Iran's internal situation but Ahmadinejad did put out the line, "Maintenance of unity and integrity among regional countries will be the only way to thwart the conspiracies of enemies."

1125 GMT: While almost all of the Mothers of Mourning detained in recent weeks have been released, Persian2English highlights the case of one supporter who is reported to be in solitary confinement in Evin Prison.

1115 GMT: Who Killed Professor Ali-Mohammadi? Everyone (except us). The "hard-line" newspaper Kayhan reportedly has identified those responsible for the explosion which killed physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi last week. Iran's judiciary should go after Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi who are partners with the "black triangle" of the CIA, Mossad, and Britain's MI6.

0930 GMT: The Khamenei-Rafsanjani Dance. Press TV spins yesterday's speech by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani (and ignores the Supreme Leader's address) to portray unity: "Hashemi echoes Leader in observing law".

0900 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad handles the economic crisis by riding a bike. And jogging.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-FAypZ2JKQ&feature=sub[/youtube]

0845 GMT: The US-based journalist and scholar Mehdi Khalaji has written a long article about his father, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Khalaji, who was arrested last week:

By initiating a crackdown on peaceful protesters and suppressing the first generation of the Islamic Republic, the government has simultaneously discredited its Islamic legitimacy and undermined its revolutionary credentials. This regime has transformed my father from a man concerned with keeping Ayatollah Khomeini's shoulders warm into an enemy of the state. This is a revolution that eats its own children. It places its survival at risk.

0600 GMT: It's a curious but effective phrase: "Waiting for the other shoe to drop" is not just waiting, but waiting with an expectation based on nerves and fear.

So this morning we start by looking around for reactions to the Supreme Leader's speech yesterday. Our initial line, based on a very good source, was that Ayatollah Khamenei had dropped the first shoe to warn Hashemi Rafsanjani that it was time to choose sides.

However, as an EA reader helpfully intervened last night, the warning could have been intended for others in the "elite". Again, we emphasize those within the establishment --- an elite whom Khameini said could assist "sedition" with their ambiguity --- rather than the opposition. In weeks after Ashura (27 December) and before the Supreme Leader's statement, the conservative/principlist challenge to the Government neared insurgency, setting the immediate goals of taking down former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and Ahmadinejad's right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

The insurgency, carried out through newspapers as well as around the Iranian Parliament, has not yet achieved either immediate goal, but it is likely that Mortazavi will have to resign as a Presidential aide, possibly serving jail time. So one reading of Khamenei's warning to the elite is that the challenge stops there.

That said, if this was a throw-down to those in the establishment beyond Rafsanjani, there's a risky slippage in the Supreme Leader's words. Critics like Ali Motahhari have not been ambiguous in their interviews; they want the removal of President Ahmadinejad or, at least, his reduction to a humiliated figurehead as he gives a public apology for the post-election failures and abuses.

If the critics don't back away from that demand, Khamenei will face a moment beyond yesterday's speech and possibly any declaration he has made since the week after the election: does he drop the other shoe and offer his unconditional backing to Ahmadinejad or does he back away and let a far from ambiguous "elite" despatch the President on a permanent holiday?

Comments

[Rev. Magdalen]

Sometimes in chess a player will bait the opponent by seeming to leave a valuable piece unguarded, so the opponent takes it, but then finds himself in a worse overall position, as was the intent. I get the feeling this is the position Khamenei has been in all along but he just keeps taking that bait, again and again. Like he's thinking, "If I just squeeze my fist harder, THEN I can hold on to this water."

If he had just let the people have their president in the first place...if he had just let people gather in protest...if he had at least not killed people on Ashura...it just goes from bad to worse, like he's reading some kind of dictator manual full of the worst possible advice slipped to him by a clever CIA agent disguised as Mesbah-Yazdi.

My prediction? The other shoe will come down hard on the crazy switch! I predict a desperate, insane bid to start a war, any war, with anyone, just so long as there's an enemy and the people have to rally together against whoever it is. Obama's played a lot of chess though so I feel secure that Khamenei will have to find another huckleberry for this old stunt.

[Barry]

Rev Magdalen

Saudi????

Barry

[Rev. Magdalen]

Barry, maybe, things do seem tense between them! But I don't think anyone will take up Khamenei on his offer of a war, he'll just anger a lot of people and wind up looking foolish. I hope.

[ange paris]

Iranian people are not fool to follow him in his frenzy ! perhaps it will be an opportunity to put him sooner in the garbage can !

[Arshama]

Rev Magdalen

Perhaps the people can get around a war. Some days ago an official issued a warning on strikes, if workers are not paid their overdue wages.
Well, here they come: More than 160 workers went on strike at Bandar Abbas port facilities: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=12408
Drivers of steel company Ehyagostaran-e Espadan at Isfahan are striking since Saturday: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=12415
And vice oil minister Seyfollah Jashn-Saz said: "If [low] payments in the oil sector continue, some employees will leave the country" http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=12406
Attention! He doesn't simply say they will quit their jobs, but "leave the country",
whatever that means ...

employees

[Jack]

He doesn't even need a real war. Just the credible threat of one. And I am not talking about the Great Satan is coming to get us stuff that Samuel puts out. I mean a troops massed on the border situation. The recent disputed division of the resources of The Caspian could perhaps provide cover. Of course this is in addition to the gulf cast of characters. You would think that the people would not fall for such a thing, but I don't think you can find many cases in history where the populace did not get behind even the most hated governments in the face of impending invasion. There are a few, but they are a huge minority, and the memory of the Iran Iraq war is still recent enough that patriotism runs deep in Iran. Even among many secular youth.

I am with the Rev on this one. I think it may be one of the few outs the regime has to save its behind. Maybe the only one.

[Arshama]

Scott,

In case of ... a bike wouldn't help him, he needs a rocket.
And you dropped his most important statements: "I beg all those, who are able to do so to quit the city (Tehran) and settle elsewhere." "This accumulation of population causes pollution by itself. We have enough space in Iran so that everyone could live in a villa with a small water basin and garden."
http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=12403

As I already said, sacred land of milk and honey ...

[data]

Curious characterization of Khaliji as a "US based journalist.... and scholar." No mention here or in the FP of his work for WINEP, the highly influential (in Washington politics) "research arm" of AIPAC - aka "the lobby." Interesting too that he simply attributed his father's detention (which in no way do I excuse) to speeches he recently made (apparently after dropping his previous quietism and "naivety" about the IRI -- curious.)

No mention that it's quite possible that the IRI agents were all too aware of the hawkish writings of the son via WINEP re. Iran. (It's quite ironic too that the son was writing frequently last summer about how "the mullahs were all united" behind Khamenei -- which of course was wrong the day he wrote it.... and now even his own father provides evidence, apparently, to the contrary.)

Don't get me wrong -- it is helpful to learn more about the father's own views -- and why he might have run afoul of the system. Pardon me though for pausing at the source.

[zqqz]

Rafsanjani's double speak is quite impressive and entertaining. I gather he has no choice. But I think if we are where we are due to economic and political duelling between two elite factions. In the meantime hope and loss are the dividends for the Iranian people.

[Scott Lucas]

Data,

Point taken. We have identified Mehdi Khalaji in other posts as a Visiting Scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which is hostile to the Iranian Government.

S.

[Arshama]

@ 1140 GMT

The family of leading journalist and human rights activist Emadoldin Baghi is extremely worried about him since the short phone call he managed to make to them from Tehran’s Evin prison, during which he said: “I don’t feel very well.” His wife, Fatemeh Kamali-Ahmad-Sarai, said she was all the more concerned because intelligence ministry officials openly threatened him at the time of his arrest on 28 December, telling him that if he did not modify his views, “it’s not sure you will remain alive.”

Reporters Without Borders asks the world community to break the silence:
"Condemning the continuing arbitrary arrests and illegal detention of journalists, many of whom are being held incommunicado for long periods, Reporters Without Borders today accused the Iranian regime of “crimes against humanity” and urged the international community to speak out." http://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=36142

[zqqz]

There are several stories in the past years since Ahmadinejad came to power that relatives of exiles who could be useful to Iran's intelligence activities have been harassed in order to coerce people to become regime apologists, spies, etc.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/849508.html (heard of this happening to muslims, not just iranian jews).

They are just taking it to another level now, Data is probably on the money here. I always think of this scenario when I hear folks on CNN supporting the regime.

[Greeny]

Data, Scott,

Re. 0845 GMT: The US-based journalist and scholar Mehdi Khalaji....

Khalaji Sr is close to Montazeri and Saneii. His arrest is probably an attempt to disrupt the activities of Montazeri’s followers (Baghi’s detention has probably got something to do with this plan). The regime is probably trying to put pressure on Saneii too in order to stop him from becoming another Montazeri.

Montazeri’s funeral was huge and it was in Qom, which is possibly the worst combination for the Islamic Republic: the heart of the system being in Qom was in mourning for Montazri who 10 years ago said publicly the Khamenie is not a Grand Ayatollah and should stop pretending that he is one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnNJ93Qju7A
(not to mention is numerous fatwas in defiance of the regime). And the huge turnout in a provincial city proves that there are many that have problems with a regime that claims to have the support of an overwhelming majority.

In this interview with Roozonline
http://www.roozonline.com/persian/news/newsitem/article/2010/january/20//-4c0c62ef34.html
Khalaji’s son says that his father was close to Khomeini and liked (and still likes) Khomeini a lot. That he was an activists before the revolution, but has had nothing to do with politics after the victory of the revolution and has never held any posts in IR. He says that his father is close to Montazeri, Saneii and Mousavi-Ardebili and that he had criticised the post election violence against the people. He said that in the during his speeches his father would not prey for Khamenei and when Ministry of Intelligence people asked him about it, he would say that I have preyed for all the people who are in teh service if Islam and Iran and if Mr Khamenei is one of those people then he is also covered by my prayer. Otherwise he is not like the Shah whose SAVAK would force the clergy to pray from him in their speeches. He also says that his father had recently said in a speech that the just rule of Ali (the emam) would not include Kahrizak.

He says that the senior clergy in Qom has set up a taskforce and contacted Khamenei to lobby for Khalaji Sr’s release. He says that this arrest would cost the regime a lot. He also says that his father together with his mother and daughter were due to travel to America during Nourooz to visit him

[Scott Lucas]

Greeny,

Good reading of this --- much appreciated.

S.

[Greeny]

Solders cough in protest

http://www.rahesabz.net/story/8284/

Rah-e Sabz in reporting that yesterday the head of the Ideologcal-Political Office of the armed forces was giving a speech to 2000 soldiers in Army’s 01 Barracks. At one in his speech he stared criticising Ayatollah Montazeri and the solders started coughing loudly in protest. The coughing was so loud that the speech was interrupted. Order was restored after the intervention of senior commanders and Military Police. The commanders of the unit have been asked to provide the names of the coughers!

[Arshama]

Hah! The site of the cadastre has been hacked :-)
http://www.cadastre.ir/

"This site has been hacked because of its direct relationship to the judiciary. Death to the principle of the velayat-e faghih. We come out on 22 Bahman. We are countless."

Thank you, Greens!

[Arshama]

Musical Off Topic:

The documentary on beloved singer Hayedeh has been released on DVD:
http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jan/1181.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEGMci4Q1n8

Masti-am darde mano digeh dava nemikone ;-)

[Peace Maker]

Breaking !!! :( Ali Reza Beheshti had a Heart attack in jail http://bit.ly/8g4NCN

[Greeny]

Alireza Beheshti suffers heart attack in prison

http://www.rahesabz.net/story/8301/

Rah-e Sabz is reporting that Alireza Beheshti has suffered a heart attack in prison. Is says that it has no news about any treatment he might be receiving, but says that he has contacted his family and told them that he is better now.

[Carpe Diem]

[New identity of Fantasy Check, who was formerly Reality Check]

Just wondering if anyone reads all this nonsence in Iran or anywhere in the Middle East?

[Ali]

@ Rev. Magdalen

I've actually been thinking that maybe that's what they'll end up doing. After all, what saved the revolution was not the islamic republic, but the Iran/Iraq war. It unified the country.

But looking at it now, I don't think a new war will help them. In fact, I'm hoping a little that they make this mistake. It will really be their end. The average person will do anything to avoid draft and the ones stuck in the front lines will be none other than the basij, the IRGC and all of Samuel's relatives.
That will be pretty much the end of the regime.

[Plastic Bertrand]

To comments regarding 1-3-this is pure fantasy. The Persian cannot afford financially ,morally or politically to wage war against the cradle of islam.Who would follow them ? No one. This is silly. No 9. is a solution for the Persians.

[florence achard]

I've just listened to Abbas Kiarostami (on France Inter, France's state radio) on the current situation in Iran. He is very pessimistic and very worried because he sees that the young protesters are no longer afraid of anything, the government is totally deaf and, in his opinion, among the politicians who claim they can solve the problem, no one is up to it; so that he fears a bloodshed.

Here is the link, if anyone is interested:

http://sites.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/em/humeurvagabonde/

[Plastic Bertrand]

No 21 is coorect. The Persians are cowards and their attempt to take ARAB OIL two weeks ago proves 2 things-1. They are not to be trusted 2. Like Cocraoches they pounce on the weak and wounded-but are far too weak to sustain such a campaign. Although the persian as infiltrators in iIraq THEY AT THE END OF THE DAY DO NOT BELONG TO THE ARAB FAMILY as the iran-Iraq war showed though they have fellow shiites lodged in southern Iraq they were not able to galvanise enough support amongst them to occupy Arab land. Even the persians ally in Iraq M.SADR dislikes them-remember his early post U.S.Invasion.speeches against Persian Intrigue. Now they are simply useful for his agenda.The Shiite Ayatollah Sistani does not even like Khamenei-though they are both Persian and Khaminie has married into Arab blood.

So No 22. Do not worry no such thing will happen-the Persian has over stretched himself and now he will pay. The Arab family can afford to bury him with more money,weapons, nuclear power,sympathetic powers, etc than they ever imagined by the Persian since they "modernized" under colonel Reza Pahlavi.

[florence achard]

PS: there was also, in the same program, an interview of Sepideh Farsi, very enthusiastic and supportive of the Greens