The Latest from Iran (13 July): Challenge Renewed

NEW Iran Video: Sohrab Arabi Funeral (13 July)
Iran Opposition Alert: Friday is the Day?
The Habitat Effect: Twitter, Spammers, and #iranelection
The Latest on Iran (12 July): When Is Normal Not Normal?

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2000 GMT: If Ayatollah Montazeri is suffering from dementia, with his words written by someone else (see 1400 GMT), he's hiding it well. As expected, he has issued a statement criticising the Chinese Government's treatment of Uighur Muslims and adding, "Silence from other governments, particularly Muslim governments has caused great surprise and regret."

1910 GMT: Media Twist of the Day. Kayhan newspaper,  a staunch supporter of the Ahmadinejad Government, has been summoned to court to answer charges of "disseminating lies intended to poison public opinion".

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami have also lodged defamation charges against Iran newspaper.

1900 GMT: Catching up with news reported earlier today: about 200 faculty of the medical school of the University of Tehran have protested the arrest of political activists. Dr. Jila Marsoosi, a faculty member and the wife of detained politician Saeed Hajjarian, also a member of this faculty ddressed the crowd.

1800 GMT: Now, This is Intriguing. Part of the intrigue is in the report on Press TV's website. Habibollah Asgaroladi, a senior member of the Islamic Coalition Party, has described the formation of a new political party by Mir Hossein Mousavi as "favorable", saying, "Establishing a party to voice one's ideas and political perceptions is a wise move."

Asgaroadi and his party are "principlists", loosely defined as advancing the principles of the Isamlic Revolution and falling in between the "conservative" and "reformist" camps.

That makes his endorsement of Mousavi eyebrow-raising. But the other part of the intrigue is that the report comes via Press TV. That's right, the same State media outlet that has been anxious to downfall the political legimitacy of a Mousavi-led campaign.

Hmmm....

1405 GMT: More jitters. Deutsche Welle reports that Hossein Fadaei Ashtiani, the head of "Society Dedicated to the Islamic Revolution", has said, "One of the results of the elections was a distinction between those who are real fundamentalists and those who claim to be fundamentalists...[it has] been made clear thar some people claiming to be fundamentalists are exhibiting non-fundamentalist behavior". The article links Ashtiani's statement to other "conservative" disquiet, notably Mohsen Rezaei's declaration (which is now being publicised widely) of a six-point programme for electoral resolution.

1400 GMT: The regime is looking very jittery today. A reader sends in this information:

It seems that [Ayatollah] Montazeri [who issued a fatwa on Saturday denouncing the Government] is considered to be a real threat by Ahmadinejad et. al. The pro-Ahmadinejad news site 'Rajanews' has claimed that Montazeri is suffering from some sort of dementia. Rajanews also claims that all fatwas said to be from Montazeri are in fact written by Mohsen Kadivar. The reformist daily Parleman-news has published a statement by Montazeri's son in which categorically denies these charges by asserting that Montazeri is in great health and all Fatwas and statements are issued under his direct supervision. In fact his son concluded that Montazeri is in the process of issueing a statement regarding the plight of the Chinese muslims.

1350 GMT: It is being reported that Mohsen Hajjarian, son of detained politician Saeed Hajjarian, has been released after his arrest yesterday.

1345 GMT: We've now posted video from the funeral of Sohrab Arabi, showing hundreds of demonstrators holding up his photograph and chanting.

1130 GMT: A side story, but an important one. The Iranian Government's effusive support of China's handling of the Uighur crisis in the northwest of the country has been criticised not only by opposition groups but by high-ranking clerics such as Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani and Ayatollah Nasser Makerem-Shirazi, who have objected to the repression of Muslims.

1000 GMT: Unsurprisingly, there is a heated media battle within Iran, one example of which is the rumor (noted in the blog on "Friday is the Day?") that this week's leadership of Tehran prayers will be the last for former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Pro-Government publications are trying to portray the opposition as weak and divided.

The strategy is not working smoothly, however. At least one important cleric, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, has criticised State-run media for issuing statements in his name of support for the Government. He denounced the Islamic Republic News Agency as a purveyor of falsehoods.

0815 GMT: Ferehsteh Ghazi ("iranbaan"), writing for Rooz Online, claims that families of detainees are being threatened by the judiciary. They are told that, if they speak about the plight of their relatives, news will be withheld from them and the detainees "will be held longer".

0810 GMT: We're awaiting news on whether the funeral of Sohrab Arabi, the 19-year-old killed on 15 June by Basiji gunfire but whose body was only released to the family this weekend, was the occasion for public demonstrations.

0800 GMT: One exception to the item below about the absence of the "mainstream" media from the Iran story. The excellent Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times, now reporting from Beirut, recognises the potential significance of this Friday's Rafsanjani appearance at Tehran prayers. Daragahi has also picked up on the statement of the head of Ayatollah Khamenei's office of university affairs, Mohammad Mohammadian (see 0615 GMT), "We cannot order public opinion to get convinced. Certain individuals are suspicious about the election result, and we have to shed light on the realities and respond to their questions."

0703 GMT: Perhaps needless to say, the Iran story is now one for the "new" media. State-run Press TV prefers the image of legitimacy for the Government, covering the arrival of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Egypt for the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement. (President Ahmadinejad has still not been received by a foreign leader since his summit in Moscow days after the election.)

CNN catches up with the story that the family of Shorab Arabi, killed by Basiji gunfire during the mass demonstration on 15 June, only learned of his death in recent days. Al Jazeera English and BBC English, focused on Britain's political and military difficulties in Afghanistan, have disappeared.

0700 GMT: Regime Feel-Good Story of the Day. Javan newspaper, linked to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, has been explaining that it is very good for detained politician Saeed Hajjarian to be in Evin Prison, as he can get the best medical care there rather than at home.

0615 GMT: After a quiet period since last Thursday's 18 Tir protests, there is a sense this morning --- based on movements from both sides --- that the political challenge is about to resume, with private and public protests converging.

The shift is reflected in two stories. The first, which we put together last evening, is of the linking of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani's re-appearance at Friday prayers in Tehran with a mass march to the site.

The second concerns signs from the regime that it may be looking for some limited compromises to meet the political and legal demands of the opposition. Signals come not only from Friday's call at Tehran prayers by Ayatollah Kashani for a Parliamentary review of the election process but also from a statement by the Supreme Leader's representative for universities that "the recent protests in society are not of a malicious nature", criticism at Friday prayers in Qom by Ayatollah Reza Ostadi of the system's handling of public concerns, and a declaration by the judicial commission that all protesters will be freed within 10 days. It is also worthwhile watching the reaction to Presidential Mohsen Rezaei's six-point proposal for a political settlement, which may (or may not) have emerged after discussions with members of the Iranian leadership.

Beyond these emerging manoeuvres is a fatwa from Ayatollah Montazeri, the one-time successor to Ayatollah Montazeri, calling the Supreme Leader "illegitimate", as he is working against religion, and asking the public to challenge and, if necessary, pay a heavy price to remedy the situation. We briefly reported on the fatwa on Saturday but discussion of it only took off yesterday. We are cautious about the significance, as Montazeri has been ostracised and put under house arrest for many years, but others see vital reinforcement for the opposition movement. Tehran Bureau has a useful summary in English.

With the "mainstream" media now almost silent, the political battle is being played out in the "new" media. One of the weekend flutters was over an alleged "cyber-attack" on Twitter, with the important "hashtag" #iranelection overwhelmed at times by spam messages for products and get-rich-quick schemes. EA's Mike Dunn has untangled the story, which appears to be one more of crass attempts by marketers and schemers to make money rather than deliberate political sabotage.

US-Iran-Iraq: Why Were the "Erbil Five" Released?

The Latest from Iran (13 July): Challenge Renewed

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Over the last two years, we paid a good deal of attention to the story of five Iranian officials seized in March 2007 by US forces in Erbil in northern Iraq. It is a measure of how far the world has moved away from the Iraq story, and indeed of how much internal developments in Iran have come to the fore, that the release of the five by the Americans last week received so little attention (apart from Iranian state media, which eagerly featured the return of the men, pictured at left, this weekend).

That's a mistake because this complex tale leaves two long-lasting lessons. The first is that, despite the tensions of Iran's post-election crisis, there are officials in the Obama Administration who want to remove obstacles to long-term negotiations. The second is even more important: as Gareth Porter outlines below in a story for Inter Press Service, the release of the five Iranians points to the emergence of an Iraqi Government that is no longer subject to the demands of the US military:

Behind Detainee Release, a US-Iraqi Conflict on Iran

WASHINGTON - The release Friday of five Iranians held by the U.S. military in Iraq for two and a half years highlights the long-simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iraqi views of Iranian policy in Iraq and of the role of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) there.

For the Barack Obama administration, as for the George W. Bush administration before it, the Iranian detainees had become symbols of what Washington steadfastly insisted was an Iranian effort to use the IRGC to destabilise the Iraqi regime.

But high-ranking Shi'a and Kurdish officials of the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had never shared the U.S. view of the IRGC or of the Iranian role. They have acted on the premise that Iran is interested in ensuring that a friendly Shiite regime would remain in power.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly expressed concern that the five Iranian detainees being released were "associated with" the Quds Force of the Iranian and could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq.

The idea that the Quds Force was fighting a "proxy war" against U.S. and Iraqi troops was the justification for the George W. Bush administration's decision in late 2006 to target any Iranian found in Iraq who could plausibly be linked to the IRGC.

Three of the five Iranian detainees, who had been grabbed in a January 2007 raid, were working in an Iranian liaison office that had been operating in the Kurdistan capital of Erbil. The U.S. military, hinting that it actually had little information about the Iranians seized, said they were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces".

Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari tried to get the U.S. officials to understand that the Iranians seized in Erbil were not part of a "clandestine network" but were working on visas and other paperwork for travel by Iraqis to Iran. Zebari explained that they were working for the IRGC because that institution has the responsibility for controlling Iran's borders.

After Mahmoud Farhadi was kidnapped by the U.S. military from a hotel in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya in September 2007, a U.S. military spokesman made the spectacular claim that Farhadi was an IRGC commander responsible for all Iranian operations inside Iraq.

Kurdish officials acknowledged Farhadi's IRGC affiliation, but the Kurdish president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, publicly confirmed that Farhadi was a civilian official of the neighbouring Iranian province of Kermanshah on a "commercial mission with the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad and the government of Kurdistan".

Although Farhadi had indeed been a military commander at one time, the Kurds pointed out that he was now carrying out only civilian functions.

Iraqi officials also rejected the idea that the IRGC's Quds Force itself was hostile to the Iraqi regime. They had personal relationships with the Quds Force commander Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and they acknowledged that he had ties with all the Shi'a factions in Iraq.

They knew that Iran had trained officers of Shi'a nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and provided some financial support to Sadr. But they also believed that the purpose of that relationship was to exert influence on Sadr in the interest of peace and stability.

After Sadr declared a unilateral ceasefire in late August 2007, the Maliki regime, including Kurdish foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, argued publicly and privately to Bush administration officials that Iran had used its influence on Sadr to get him to agree to such a ceasefire. They used the argument to urge the Bush administration to release the Iranian detainees.

Even the Bush administration itself was divided sharply over the Iraqi government argument that Iranian influence on Sadr was benign. The State Department was inclined to accept the Iraqi argument, and privately urged the release of the five in fall 2007.

In December 2007 the State Department's coordinator on Iraq, David Satterfield, went so far as to agree publicly that the Sadr ceasefire "had to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision".

But Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, strongly resisted that conclusion, insisting that it was U.S. military operations against Sadr's Mahdi Army that had brought about the ceasefire. The internal debate was resolved in favour of Petraeus, and the five Iranian detainees were not released.

A series of events in 2008, however, showed that the Iraqi regime was much more comfortable relying on personal relationships with of the Quds Force than on U.S. military might to deal with the problem of the Mahdi Army.

First, Maliki refused in March to allow U.S. ground forces to participate in an operation against the Mahdi Army in Basra. Then, only a few days into the battle, the government turned to the Iranian Quds Force commander, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, to lean on Sadr and broker a ceasefire in Basrah only a few days into a major battle there.

Iraqi President Talabani met with Suleimani Mar. 28-29, 2008 at an Iran-Iraq border crossing and asked him to stop the fighting in Basra. Suleimani intervened to bring about a ceasefire within 24 hours, according to a report by McClatchy Newspapers Apr. 28, 2008.

And in a second meeting a few days later, revealed by Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor May 14, 2008, Suleimani called Sadr the biggest threat to peace in Iraq. The Quds Force commander vowed support for the Maliki regime and referred to "common goals with the United States".

In a gesture to Washington, Suleimani asked Talabani to tell Petraeus that his portfolio included not only Iraq but Gaza and Lebanon, and that he was willing to send a team to Baghdad to "discuss any issue" with the U.S.

Petraeus refused to talk with Suleimani, according to Peterson's account, supposedly on the ground that his offer was part of an Iranian bid to become an "indispensable power broker" in Iraq and thus establish Iranian influence there.

But Petraeus understood that Suleimani had indeed achieved just such a position of power in Iraq as arbiter of conflict among Shi'a factions. "The level of their participation, centrality of their role, should give everyone pause," Petraeus told journalist and author Linda Robinson. "The degree to which they have their hands on so many lines was revealed very starkly during this episode".

In late April, Petraeus tried to get the Maliki regime to endorse a document that detailed Iranian efforts to "foment instability" in Iraq. But instead an Iraqi government delegation returned from Iran in early May saying they had seen evidence disproving the U.S. charges.

Then, Maliki again used Gen. Suleimani to reach an agreement with Sadr which ended a major military campaign in Sadr City just as the United States was about to launch a big ground operation there but also allowed government troops to patrol in the former Mahdi Army stronghold.

Within weeks, the power of the Mahdi Army had already begun to wane visibly. Militia members in Sadr City were no longer showing up to collect paychecks and the Iraqi army had taken over the Mahdi Army headquarters in one neighbourhood.

The Maliki regime saw that Suleimani had made good on his word. Prime Minister Maliki then began calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2010. He had opted to depend on Iranian influence rather than U.S. protection.

Nevertheless, the U.S. military has continued to maintain the pretense that it is pushing back Iranian influence in Iraq. The successor to Petraeus, Gen. Ray Odierno, continues to denounce Iran periodically for aiding Shi'a insurgents.

Israel: Livni Challenges Prime Minister Netanyahu's 100 Days

In Israel, the Netanyahu Government has concluded its first 100 days with the claim that it has "broad national consensus" for its concept of a two-state solution. Some, however, are still to be convinced.

Tzipi Livni, the head of the opposition Kadima Party, laid out the challenge:

The prime minister still does not really believe that this is the right path for Israel but he understands that this is the right thing to say… Netanyahu doesn't really believe that two states, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, even a demilitarized one, is an Israeli interest… But the prime minister was surprised to encounter the outside world and placed Israel, to my great sorrow, in the position of the party that is rejecting peace and then he understood that at this stage he needs to utter the words "two states".

Speaking to Army Radio, Livni called Netanyahu’s new-found support for a two-state solution  “the height of hypocrisy”:

Everything this government does is superficial… When the public looks at Bibi, it understands that he is playing with words, that there is no process here… This is a government that is trying to survive, that zigzags, that is not dealing with the financial crisis.

To some extent, of course, Livni's position stems from domestic political calculations. The more ground that the Netanyahu Government gives because pressure from the Obama Administration, the better placed Livni will be within the context of a Washington-led settlement. If progress is slow, which is what the Obama Administration is also expecting, the Kadima leader's challenge will be even more important for the US. So Livni, having lost to Netanyahu in March, may already be plotting her domestic and international revenge.

The Habitat Effect: Twitter, Spammers, and #iranelection

The Latest from Iran (13 July): Challenge Renewed

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Twitter users may remember a scandal last month when UK home furnishing store Habitat hijacked Twitter's trending topics (the most popular words and tags currently being used by twitterers) to promote their own products. Jumping on interest in the Iranian election, Habitatuk provoked a virtual uproar with the tweet, "#MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a £1000 gift card". One month later, as Fintan Dunne points out, Iran-related hashtags are drowning in spam. Search Twitter for one of the most popular- #iranelection- and, as well as relevant information on Iran, you'll be offered all kinds of online snake oil.



Dunne notes that on Saturday the #iranelection hashtag was virtually unusable for its intended purpose- those inside and outside Iran using Twitter to find and share post-election information are now also contending with adverts for hot new products and money making schemes.

I differ from Dunne in that I don't see this as a cyberattack so much as a Habitat-style hijacking of an popular topic. Lots of people use Twitter, lots of them are interested in #iranelection, and for spammers that equals lots of potential victims customers.

But Dunne is right to raise the importance of this issue. Already some legitimate Twitter users are moving away from the #iranelection tag, using #iran or #iranrevolution instead. As #iranelection is overwhelmed, the conversation on Twitter risks becoming diluted as users drift towards different hashtags. Dunne has set up an anti-spam Twitter account which tells followers which terms to remove from their searches in order to find relevant information on Iran, and this could prove an extremely useful tool.

Still, Twitter, having recognised its important role in post-election Iran, now needs to act against the spam. If it does nothing, the spammers might succeed where the Iranian authorities have failed, and silence online opposition.

Iran Opposition Alert: Friday is the Day?

The Latest from Iran (16 July): Waiting for Rafsanjani’s Prayers
NEW Iran: How Friday’s Prayers Might Develop

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UPDATE 14 July, 0605 GMT: Latest on plans for the march to Friday prayers. The newssite Sharaf says it is probable that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi will participate, but spokesmen for both men say decisions will be announced in forthcoming days through “official channels”.

UPDATE 13 July, 0845 GMT: How serious could this challenge be? Rumours are being spread, possibly by pro-Ahmadinejad sources, that this Friday's prayers will be Rafsanjani's last. Rafsanjani's son has denied this, and Ali Asghari, the repesentative of the Expediency Council in Parliament, has reaffirmed that Rafsanjani remains a prayer leader in Tehran.

UPDATE: A reader offers the following clarification and comment, "On the Mousavi Facebook it says, "Until now there is no confirmed report of the presence of Mousavi, Khatami and [Presidential candidate Mehdi] Karroubi in the prayers". I also wished that you had given more credit to Karroubi in your analysis. I think that Karroubi was very active and organized in supporting the protesters, organizing ways for families of the protesters to get in touch with the arrested and taking personally taking on the regime regarding the state of the arrested people."

We began today's updates by noting, "For the second day in a row, there were no significant open demonstrations, and statements were limited," and wondering when the opposition would make its next big move.

It's come. Four hours ago, on his Facebook page, Mir Hossein Mousavi declared, part in English, part in Farsi:

"ANOTHER BIG EVENT IS GOING TO COME....
"Venue on 26th Tir (July 17th)"
"Rafsanjani to address the people for Friday's prayers at Tehran University"
"Arise, Green Wave!"
"The day we were awaiting is finally going to come"
"With the presence of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Mousavi"

So the perfect storm of the opposition from "without", the public challenge symbolised by the leadership of the Presidential candidate Mousavi, and the opposition from "within", the private manoeuvring of former President Rafsanjani, may be imminent. Rafsanjani, having refused to lead prayers in recent weeks and limited his pulbic appearances, re-emerges dramatically on Friday, and a vast crowd of demonstrators marches to the University of Tehran to welcome and applaud him. It turns the regime's public displays --- an ayatollah, even the Supreme Leader, setting out the appropriate line to the acclaim of followers --- against it.

This plan also has the clever beauty of complicating the regime's response. Does it dare tell Rafsanjani that he cannot speak on Friday? Do security forces dare block marchers who, after all, are only trying to worship as "good" Muslims?

This, in short, could be the largest mass gathering since 15 June, complete with the presence of Rafsanjani, Mousavi, and Khatami. Start counting dowy the days....

(hat tip to readers who made this analysis possible)