The Latest from Iran (9 January): Watching Carefully

2225 GMT: More on Khamenei Speech (see 1445 and 1850 GMT). An EA reader who watched the Supreme Leader's address today sends an interesting e-mail, "His speech did not sound aggressive. It sounded more as a request for calm and acting with wisdom after the fallouts of Ashura. It appeared that he was lacking in confidence. Same for the crowd."

2220 GMT: Halting the Mothers of Martyrs. An Iranian activist reports that, during their weekly march in Laleh Park, about 30 of Mothers of Martyrs in the post-election crisis and their supporters were arrested and taken to Vozara detention centre.

2200 GMT: Mortazavi --- Scapegoat or Valued Official? Iran-watchers may want to set aside a few moments for former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, whose future may turn upon the developments in the internal contest amidst conservatives and principlists.

Days after Mortazavi was reportedly named as prime "suspect" in the Parliamentary investigation of the deaths of Kahrizak detainees, he was formally named as President Ahmadinejad's advisor to combating smuggling of drugs and currency.

NEW Latest Iran Video: Sharif University Demonstration (9 January)
Iran: Four Responses to the “Wrong Questions” of the Leveretts (Lucas)
Iran: “What is This Opposition?” Right Answers to Wrong Questions (Shahryar)
The Latest from Iran (8 January): Karroubi Under Attack

Interpretation? Mortazavi is now the proxy in the battle between key conservatives/principlists and Ahmadinejad. The President wants him as a sign of Ahmadinejad's authority and as a firewall to any move by Parliamentary challenges; Ahmadinejad's critics see Mortazavi's downfall as a necessary victory in their battle.

Another marker in the dispute is a statement by a "pro-Government" student organisation criticising Ahmadinejad for the appointments of Mortazavi and for Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, the former First Vice-President --- a few days after his appointment, he was removed from office amidst vehement criticism from the conservatives/principlists  who may be aiming at Mortazavi ---  who is now Ahmadinejad's chief of staff.

2150 GMT: A Release. An EA reader writers that Reza Najafi, an Iranian translator, was released from jail on Thursday. Najafi worked for Caravan Publishing, which is owned by Arash Hejazi, the doctor who tried to save the life of Neda Agha Soltan.

1920 GMT: The Khamenei Manoeuvre (Part 2). This article, from Payvand, should be read in conjunction with the passage of the Supreme Leader's speech offering some rhetorical concession on violence:

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has criticized the people who made derogatory remarks about Mohsen Rezaei in regard to his recent letter to the Supreme Leader about Mir-Hossein Mousavi's recent proposals. Larijani made the remarks at a meeting with national police chiefs in Qom on Thursday.

"Rezaei has been a real mujahid (one who struggles in the cause of Islam) and strived wholeheartedly during the (1980-1988) Iran-Iraq war. Naturally, since he has entered the political scene, some of his ideas may be criticized. But why do some political figures question his career as a mujahid?"

"Today, society needs convergence not discord and not steps meant to undermine recognized figures' positions," he added.

It is not too speculative to treat Larijani as a channel for the political views of the Supreme Leader, and this manoevure is a clear call --- "Back Off" --- to those "hard-liners" who have criticised Rezaei for suggesting that a deal may now be struck with Mir Hossein Mousavi.

And there's more. Larijani said, "We should not call anyone who has different views a dissident and a hypocrite. In line with the Supreme Leader's directives, all people should try to create unity in the country to prepare the ground for economic activities, investment, and development."

That passage walks hand-in-hand with this week's declarations by high-profile MP Ali Motahari, on video and in print, calling for some negotiation of views and approaches to get out of the current post-election difficulties.

1850 GMT: Mixed Messages. Borzou Daragahi of The Los Angeles Times picks up on a passage from today's Supreme Leader statement (see 1445 GMT) that may point to some pull-back from all-out confrontation:

Relevant bodies should fully respect the law in dealing with the [post-election] riots and the ongoing events. Those without any legal duty and obligations should not meddle with these affairs, Everyone should hold back from arbitrary acts and everything should go within the framework of the law.

The obvious connection to make is that Khamenei's message is, first and foremost, to the conservative/principlist politicians who have been pressing for some sign of regime concession on the crackdown. That has including Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei's letter and the challenge of member of Parliament Ali Motahari (covered in this week's EA updates).

Doesn't look like this part of Khamenei's message has filtered down through the ranks, however. Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, the head of the Basiji militia, preferred to pick up on the Supreme Leader's passage praising action against the "corrupt" and "rioters":

Now, all our people expect the security and intelligence organs as well as the judiciary to take action. People will jump to the fray if they feel these bodies are lax in their duties. People are critical of the laxness of security and judicial bodies against conspirators.

And Islamic Revolution Guard Corps commander Brigadier General Abdollah Araqi has proposed involving the Basiji militiamen, who are now within the Revolutionary Guard, in some IRGC operations.

Most Basijis are not inclined to militarism and so we have trained those interested in military activities separately within the framework of several battalions. The most-trained Basijis are now with Imam Hussein Battalions and their employment in security issues could be influential.

1840 GMT: Getting It Right About the Opposition. Following our responses to this week's attempt by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett to promote the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad Government by belittling the opposition, Abbas Milani adds his critique in The New Republic. The take-away quote: "The U.S. can either stand with the people of Iran, and support their quest for democracy—a democracy, incidentally, that offers the only solution to the nuclear problem as well—or it can side with those who defend the moribund regime."

1815 GMT: The University Demonstrations Continue. Compared to the tumult of last month, Iran's universities have been relatively muted in terms of open protest (though not, it should be noted, signed of opposition such as exam boycotts). Today, however, students at Sharif University came out in a show of protest over detentions of their classmates.

We've posted three clips.

1510 GMT: I'll be back in a couple of hours to round up latest news and analysis. Thanks to EA readers for keeping the information coming in.

1500 GMT: For Mahmoud, It's the Nukes. President Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, is staying away from (or being kept from) the internal situation, as he declared in his nationally-televised speech that that further UN Security Council sanctions will not deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear programme:

[Other countries] issued several resolutions and sanctioned Iran ... They think Iranians will fall on their knees over these things but they are mistaken....We are not interested in conflicts (but) you are continually demanding things.

They should not think they can put up obstacles in Iranians' way ... I assure the people ... that the government will whole-heartedly defend Iran's rights and will not back down one iota.

1455 GMT: Reza Razaghi, one of the members of the central legal committee of Mir Hossein Mousavi, was arrested early this morning and moved to an unknown location.

Yadoolah Eslami, a former member of Parliament, has also been arrested.

1445 GMT: Khamenei's Back. Just arrived back in snowy Birmingham to find that, a few thousand miles away, the Supreme Leader has appeared publicly for the first time since Ashura. (You can have a peek at the video.)

Textbook stuff from Ayatollah Khamenei, speaking to visitors from Qom, about how appropriate it is to come down hard on the demonstrators: "The officials of the three forces saw for themselves what the nation is asking for, therefore, they must perform their duties well towards the corrupt and the rioters." (Note: I would be grateful if readers could verify whether Khamenei referred to Ahmadinejad by name.)

The Supreme Leader also played the foreign-spectre-behind-the-opposition card: "The U.S. and Britain and other arrogant powers, as well as their domestic misguided (allies), acted under the banner of struggle against the Imam (Ayatollah Khomeini) and the revolution since the very beginning of the victory of the Islamic revolution. The situation is the same now."

0320 GMT: The Newest Deal has an analysis, which matches up with some information I've received, of the offering-up of former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi as a sacrifice for the deaths of detainees at Kahrizak Prison. A broader way to consider this is that Mortazavi's fate is a "firewall" for the Ahmadinejad Government. If he is punished, the line might be held against pressure on others, including the President.

0300 GMT: Friday was a day, apart from the drama of the gunfire at Mehdi Karroubi's motorcade, to pick up pieces of information and put them together. I had the pleasure of a long chat with a couple of top Iran-watchers. Parts of the discussion will be shaping analyses in forthcoming days, but the two general lines of note were "marathon, not sprint" and "change is coming".

Meanwhile, some of those pieces to note before making my way back to Britain....

The Western media is now responding quickly to headline news from Iran: within hours of the Karroubi incidence, The New York Times, The Times of London, and The Guardian of London, amongst London, had posted stories.

Iran human rights organisations reacted by building the incident into another demand on the Government, referring to possible Basiji and Revolutionary Guard involvement in the events in Qazvin and calling on the regime to ensure the safety of opposition leaders. Reformist members of Parliament, such as Mohammad Reza Tabesh, are asking Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani to safeguard "insulted" legislators.

The Government is definitely going to use the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) "terrorist" line as a battering ram against the opposition: state media indicated on Friday that 5 Ashura detainees going on trial will be charged with membership of the organisation.

More news is emerging of students at Iran universities boycotting final examinations in protest at detentions of classmates.

Iran: "What is This Opposition?" Right Answers to Wrong Questions

EA's Josh Shahryar offers this analysis, also published in The Huffington Post:

On Wednesday in The New York Times, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett attempted perhaps the most stinging dismissal of the importance of the ongoing opposition protests in Iran.

Bloggers and other foreign policy experts refuted many of the Leveretts' specific points, especially their overestimation of government-sponsored protests and underestimation of opposition demonstrations. [EA's immediate reaction is in Wednesday's updates.] I have covered the numbers on my blog, but a very good second opinion is offered by Daniel Drezner in ForeignPolicy.com.

Drezner and Kevin Sullivan of Real Clear Politics set a wider challenge, however, when they argue that, beyond the Leveretts' distortions, there are "good" analytical questions.

Those questions need a response, not necessarily because they are "good", but because if they are not addressed, the Leveretts may get away with a blatant attempt at skewing facts to hammer in their argument that President Barack Obama should forget about the possibility of regime change in Iran.

This is how the Leveretts set out their three queries:

Those who talk so confidently about an "opposition" in Iran as the vanguard for a new revolution should be made to answer three tough questions: First, what does this opposition want? Second, who leads it? Third, through what process will this opposition displace the government in Tehran? In the case of the 1979 revolutionaries, the answers to these questions were clear. They wanted to oust the American-backed regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and to replace it with an Islamic republic. Everyone knew who led the revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who despite living in exile in Paris could mobilize huge crowds in Iran simply by sending cassette tapes into the country. While supporters disagreed about the revolution's long-term agenda, Khomeini's ideas were well known from his writings and public statements. After the shah's departure, Khomeini returned to Iran with a draft constitution for the new political order in hand. As a result, the basic structure of the Islamic Republic was set up remarkably quickly.

Let's see what ancient China has to offer before I add my assessment. Back in the olden days, this man traveled hundreds of miles to meet a Taoist sage somewhere in China. After the necessary greetings, he said, "I have come a long way to ask you something. What is the answer to the ultimate question in the universe?" The sage smiled and barked, "Well, that is not what you should be asking. You should ask: is there an answer to the ultimate question in the universe?"

In this parable, the first question posed by the Leveretts is fair: what does this opposition want?

Well, certainly not what Mir Hossein Mousavi wants. Even if we ignore the protesters' repeated calls for the freedom of detainees and other chants that call for help from Imam Hossein against tyranny, I think "Down with the Dictator" --- heard for the last six months, heard loudly and clearly --- is a slogan that embodies the demands. President Ahmadinejad Must Go.

In recent months, however, protesters have also widely started chanting against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri was filled with noise denouncing the Supreme Leader. Ashura's protests days later were condemned by the regime for committing the same offense.

Certainly, Mousavi is still bargaining with the government. However, people on the street aren't ready to chicken out of their demands, even in the face of gunfire. If the government hadn't forcefully stopped them from presenting their demands through the media, you would have already seen that clearly.

The second question of the Leveretts is one the Taoist sage would have barked at: Who leads it?

The two questioners attempt to fool us into believing that their enquiry is fair by paralleling it with the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Revolutions need leaders and the current protesters don't have one --- quod erat demonstrandum, this is not a revolution.

The first assumption is not true, however: it is not a prerequisite for revolutions to have leaders. Consider the February Revolution of 1917 that overthrew Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Academics are generally in agreement that it was without what we today consider a definite and centralized leadership. Almost a century later, if you envisage scattered activists working together to bring people out to protest, then Iran has no shortage of those. Mousavi, often considered the de-facto "leader" of the current protesters -- didn't even sanction or support protests that were joined by hundreds of thousands in Ashura.

The third question of the Leveretts made me smirk because it has no immediate relevance: through what process will this opposition displace the government in Tehran?

Well, I wish I knew. But just because the protesters' demands have not been met yet, does not mean that we need to figure how they are going to achieve them. That is their task, a quest for which they've been coming out onto the streets of Iran, chanting as loud as they can, getting arrested, and spilling blood for the past six months to show their commitment to achieving those demands.

Who knows what might overthrow the regime? Maybe the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh) will finally step in. Maybe millions will turn up and storm Khamenei and Ahmadinejad's house and the parliament. Maybe the violence will get so rampant that the leaders of Iran will simply board a plane to Moscow and flee. This we don't know.

But we do know that simply because they have not met their goals yet, does not mean they won't in the future. The Leveretts' attempt to parallel this movement with the Revolution of 1979 tries to force us into believing that we need to know how, but we really don't.

When the change happens, we will know. Until then, all we can do is support the opposition because they're not just fighting for political rights, but for their human rights. If President Obama believes the Leveretts and discounts the power of the Green Movement, he risks making enemies of the open and secular Iran of the future, just like Jimmy Carter did when he discounted the Revolution of 1979. (Not to mention the fact that he would be guilty of legitimizing an illegitimate regime.)

The Leveretts' piece made me really grateful to an old professor of mine, Dr. Rick Schubert, bless him. Dr. Schubert gave me a D in Philosophy 101, but he taught me what now has become my Golden Rule: questions are equally as important as the answer to them, so be careful before you ask. Maybe the Leveretts should attend one of his classes.