Iran: Green Message to Obama "Back Us Instead of Dealing With Ahmadinejad"

The Iran Cul-de-Sac: 4 Points on Obama’s Embrace of Ahmadinejad (and Rejection of the Green Movement)
The Latest from Iran (20 November): Manoeuvres in Washington

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UPDATED 1335 GMT: The Washington Times also has a report on the speech. The headline points are the same as those in the Wall Street Journal as is the description of Makhmalbaf, who "has become a spokesman outside Iran for the so-called Green Movement since the country's disputed June 12 presidential
election".

UPDATED 1045 GMT: EA's Mr Smith has done some checking on the important question, raised by our readers, "To what extent does Makhmalbaf represent the Green Movement and Mir Hossein Mousavi?" The response, from those well-connected and well-versed in Iranian politics, is that "Makhmalbaf is not really connected with Mousavi. Nevertheless, Makhmalbaf acts at the least as a roving public ambassador for him."

Earlier this month, we learned of attempts from inside and outside the Green movement to persuade the Obama Administration to back away from an agreement with Tehran on uranium enrichment and the nuclear programme. That effort is in the open this morning.

The Wall Street Journal reveals the Washington mission by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the filmmaker, "Presidential campaign spokesman for Mir Hossein Mousavi", and "international spokesman for Iran's main opposition movement". Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he called for "President Barack Obama to increase his public support for Iranian democrats and significantly intensify financial pressure on Tehran's elite military unit, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps".

As for the nuclear discussions, Makhmalbaf said "that Iranian opposition leaders supported U.S. efforts to use diplomacy to contain the nuclear ambitions of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government". He warned, however, that the current talks would not produce an agreement and should be suspended:

If they agree not to pursue a nuclear bomb and start negotiations, they will lose their supporters. Definitely dialogue is better than war. ... But can you continue your dialogue without any results?

Makhmalbaf suggested an agenda beyond the talks, with the targeted economic measures against the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps: "We need certain sanctions that put pressure on the government but not the people. But they must be done quickly, or they won't have an impact."

Most importantly, Makhmalbaf tried to replace the current nuclear-first priority of the Obama Administration with a democracy-first approach:

We definitely want Obama to say he supports democracy...If he doesn't say that, he will lose his support in Iran.

Don't only focus on the nuclear issue and allow the Iranian government to crack down on the people. You need to focus on human rights.

And, although it is not noted by the Journal, I suspect Makhmalbaf's visit had another essential aim. With the speech at the high-profile Carnegie Endowment, he is trying to repair the damage caused by last month's talk by Ataollah Mohajerani, a former Khatami Government minister and associate of Mehdi Karroubi, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Mohajerani's speech, interpreted (wrongly, we think) by some Washington insiders as a Green manifesto, alienated US support because of its "hard-line" statements on nuclear weapons and Iran's position on Israel.

Makhmalbaf avoided those potential pitfalls on Thursday. Doing so, he is reaching out to officials in the State Department, the National Security Council, and Obama's White House (even if the CIA remains hostile to a Green ascendancy). We are not dead. You can work with us.

And now the follow-up: will he get a response?

Iran: The Political Attack on the National Iranian American Council

The Latest from Iran (14 November): Political Fatigue?

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I had not intended to touch this story when I saw it being pushed by the polemical magazine The Weekly Standard --- why devote attention to an American political squabble, even if it had an "Iran" label, when there were matters concerning Iran that have far more significance than the point-scoring and agendas in Washington? Unfortunately, one cannot let barking dogs lie.

On Friday Eli Lake of The Washington Times paraded an alleged exposé, "Iran advocacy group said to skirt lobby rules", of the status and activities of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). The article is lengthy, offering the appearance of background and context to frame its accusing "questions about whether the organization is using that influence to lobby for policies favorable to Iran in violation of federal law" and its warning to "prominent Washington figures" that they "could come to regret their ties to the group".

Neither length nor the article's placement in the news rather than opinion-editorial section should disguise, however, its intent. This is not journalism but a political attack.

Lake's piece follows weeks of allegations by The Weekly Standard, that NIAC is beyond political acceptability. (Far from coincidentally, the magazine has been pursuing the same line with J Street, the Jewish activist group that often criticises Israeli policy.) The articles claims to rest on thousands of NIAC documents filed in a lawsuit that NIAC's Trita Parsi has brought against Hassan Daioleslam for defamation. Daioleslam, who provided the documents to The Standard and then to Lake, charged in 2007 that NIAC was lobbying for Iran.

Lake cites a total of two of those thousands of documents, both e-mails from Patrick Disney, NIAC's acting policy director. One looks for a campaign to challenge the Obama Administration's appointment of Dennis Ross to shape policy on Iran, and the other queries if NIAC might be acting as a lobby although it has not registered under the Lobby Disclosure Act. (It should be noted that Disney claims that he wrote the e-mail when he had just joined NIAC and from a position of little legal expertise and that Lake carries the rebuttal.)

And that's it, really. Instead of offering any further evidence, or indeed referring to the court's deliberations on the documents Lake asked "two former federal law-enforcement officials" --- former FBI associate deputy director Oliver "Buck" Revell and former FBI special agent in counterintelligence and counterterrorism Kenneth Piernick --- "to review documents from the case showing that Mr. Parsi had helped arrange meetings between members of Congress and [Iran Ambassador to the United States] Zarif". They offer Lake's dramatic flourish:

Arranging meetings between members of Congress and Iran's ambassador to the United Nations would in my opinion require that person or entity to register as an agent of a foreign power; in this case it would be Iran....It appears that this may be lobbying on behalf of Iranian government interests. Were I running the counterintelligence program at the bureau now, I would have cause to look into this further.

Now, Mr Lake might want to correct me on this, but he has just asked for a legal opinion from two people who are not lawyers but federal police officers. He might want to expand on why he put their reactions above the line which he then sneaks in: "Two lawyers who read some of the same documents said they did not provide enough evidence to conclude that Mr. Parsi was acting as a foreign agent." Instead of letting this sink in for the reader --- the only legal experts cited have just said that the charge is without foundation --- Lake simply runs to a new possibility: Parsi is using his NIAC position for financial benefit, for himself and/or Iranian associates such as Siamak Namazi and Bijan Khajehpour, who just spent four months in detention in Iran.

For this is an article resting on the bedrock of insinuation. Parsi, who claims to represents Iranian-Americans, is not an American but "a green card holder". NIAC lies when it claims to represent many Iranian-American, for it "had fewer than 500 responses to a membership survey conducted last summer". Parsi, who has brought a lawsuit against someone for claiming he is an agent of Iran, still might be a foreign agent --- "Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and unofficial spokesman for Iran's opposition Green Movement, told The Times, 'I think Trita Parsi does not belong to the Green Movement. I feel his lobbying has secretly been more for the Islamic Republic.'"

Let me be clear: I am not here to offer any judgement on the specifics of whether NIAC is a lobby --- if there is doubt, that is a matter for US federal authorities to determine. (It should be noted, however, that the salient issue is whether NIAC is a lobby, not whether it is a lobby acting on behalf of the Iranian Government --- that is another conflation in Lake's article.) I offer no judgement on the charges of improper financial and political behaviour by Trita Parsi; that is a matter for the court handling the defamation lawsuit --- NIAC's response to Lake emphasizes that the case is ongoing, as "the judge [has] denied [Daioleslam’s[ motion to dismiss the case on 18 out of 19 counts".

Instead, I ask: why now this campaign against NIAC by The Weekly Standard, now abetted by Mr Lake --- unsurprisingly, within hours of the article's appearance, the magazine was hailing the "blockbuster exposé"? What is it that is so threatening about its activities that it must be put out of action through allegations about its credibility and a "hands-off" notice to any politician, diplomat, or businessman who might choose to engage with it? (Lake serves his notice on two Washington insiders: "Among NIAC's advisory board members are former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, and John Limbert, a former U.S. hostage in Iran, was a board member until his recent appointment as deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran.")

The Latest from Iran (3 November): 8 Hours to Go

NEW Latest Iran Video: Rooftop “Allahu Akhbar” Chants (3 November)
NEW Latest Iran Video: Protests at Iranian Universities (3 November)
NEW Iran: A Response to “What If the Green Movement Isn’t Ours?” (The Sequel)
Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University
Iran: A Response to an American Who Asks, “What if the Green Movement Isn’t ‘Ours’?
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
Latest from Iran (2 November): The World Takes Notice?

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2200 GMT: And So To Tomorrow. We're going to pull down the curtain for a few hours, but please keep bringing in news and comments. Back at 0600 GMT for what should be quite a big day, indeed.

2115 GMT: An Embassy Apology (see 1730 GMT). Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has said that, “considering the negative effects and heightened sensitivity” it produced amongst Americans, the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979 was a “mistaken” act.

Montazeri said the seizure, which led to the holding of 52 American hostages for 444 days, was akin to “declaring war on that country” and claimed that even “some of the revolutionary and committed youth, who were instrumental in that act at the time, now believe that it was a mistake".

2050 GMT: Did You Write This with a Straight Face? Mehr News' English-language site offers a classic one-eye-shut view of events: "Call for massive turnout on Aban 13 rallies".

Here are the groups calling for that turnout: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Navy branch (“Iran’s great nation, especially students [should] commemorate the day and foil the plot of the enemies of the Islamic Revolution"), Moderation and Development Party, Islamic Association of Teachers, Ministry of Defense, Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom ("vigilance of nation against the enemies’ attempts to undermine this epical day"), Iran's judiciary (“national unity, solidarity, obedience of the Supreme Leader, and resistance against hegemonic powers’ plots [will mark] the beginning of the downfall of the US").

Gee, anyone missing from that list? You know, any other groups that may have been today, all day, throughout the day in these updates?

2040 GMT: Homy Lafayette has posted routes of the marches in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz, and Bushehr.

2035 GMT: More videos from universities in Iran --- Ferdowsi and Sajad in Mashaad in the east, Mazandaran in the north.

1950 GMT: Getting Louder. We've got video of tonight's "Allahu Akhbar" chants from Tehran rooftops.

1830 GMT: An EA source sends us the news that Ali Pir-Hosseinloo, a translator and book editor, blogger, and member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been freed from jail after spending 50 days in solitary confinement.

1805 GMT: Yet another video of protest at another Iran university. This one is from Yasouj University in southwestern Iran.

1745 GMT: Did We Mention 13 Aban is Tomorrow? The Washington Post puts out a story on today's speech by the Supreme Leader (see 1030 and 1230 GMT), "Iran's Khamenei rejects U.S. outreach, warns against talks". The authors, Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigan, pays much attention to the "harshest comments against the Obama administration to date" but never once considers that they may have some connection to the internal situation as well as the discussions on the nuclear programme.

Number of words in article: 1135
Number of references to 13 Aban protests: 0

1730 GMT: Fact and Rumor. Having had a go at Borzou Daragahi poorly-timed misrepresentation of the Green movement in the Los Angeles Times (see separate entry), it's only fair that we cast a critical eye on a story trying to boost the opposition.

In The Daily Telegraph, Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat proclaim, "Iran Opposition to Apologise to US for Embassy Siege". Now, as our readers' comments suggest, people may fervently wish that is true, but there is a bit difference between wishing and reality.

The story is based on a single source: "Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled film-maker who spearheads the opposition campaign overseas, said Iranians should repudiate the events of 1979, when a group of pro-regime agitators took over the US embassy and held diplomats and other occupants."

Makhmalbaf has been a high-profile, vocal proponent of the Green movement throughout this crisis but in no way is he a spokesman for the policies and plans of Iranian opposition groups. His desire for an overturn of the 1979 actions is not equivalent to a Green manifesto.

I fear that, once more, the problem is that non-Iranian media reduce Iranian actions and ideas to "what have you done for the US lately?". While it may be desirable to find reconciliation over the past, there is a lot more to be considered in the present.

1645 GMT: And an Important Assurance. The reformist Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, adding to its call for participation in 13 Aban protests (see 0630 GMT) has warned of rumours that there will be violent action against foreign embassies, with the Green movement then accused of the attacks. The MIR stressed that the Green Wave is a civil, peaceful, and anti-violence movement and and warned followers not to fall for these traps and disinformation.

1630 GMT: Another Declaration for 13 Aban (see 0630 GMT). Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat, the main reformist Student Alumni Organisation, has announced, “We will participate in the celebration against the internal tyranny and dictatorship.” The organisation declares that students, as sons and daughters of Iran, have always been at the forefront of fight for democracy and against oppression, and 4 November will be another chapter in this historic effort (English summary).

1505 GMT: Rooz Online has further details on our earlier report (see 1025 GMT) that members of the One Million Signatures for Gender Equality campaign have been summoned to the Revolutionary Court.

1500 GMT: Tip of the Iceberg. We've posted a clip from today's protest at Kashan University, south of Tehran.

An EA source tells us, however, that our reports and videos are only a small part of what is occurring. In Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashaad, university students are demonstrating.

1230 GMT: We've posted the first video footage we've received of today's university protests, coming from Azad University in Tehran.

1210 GMT: Khamenei Says, "Wouldn't You Rather Say Death to America?" The more I read about the Supreme Leader's speech to students today, the less it appears as an intervention in the nuclear talks and the more it feels like a rather clumsy attempt to channel protest against Washington, rather than having those students come out against the Government.

On the surface, Khamenei was acknowledging the "beautiful words" of President Obama to ask if they carried any meaning: “The Islamic Republic of Iran decided from the very beginning not to prejudge and to instead consider the slogan of 'change'. But what we have witnessed in practice during this period of time has been in contradiction with the remarks that have been made."

However, the warning that "Americans talk of negotiations" while "they continue to threaten and say the negotiations must have our desired results or we will take (punitive) measures" seems to carry a significance beyond the recent Vienna discussions and framework agreement: it's no coincidence that tomorrow's "official" 13 Aban rally is in front of the former US Embassy.

1200 GMT: So Much for a Quiet Day. I had thought that, with anticipation of tomorrow's events, all might be in a state of political suspense today.

Fat chance. In addition to the Khamenei speech (see 1030 GMT), which we still have to interpret, President Ahmadinejad has made an extraordinary intervention behind his Government's proposals to reduce subsidies, replacing them with cash handouts for poorest Iranians.

Ahmadinejad showed up at the Parliament, unannounced, to give a five-minute speech defending his proposals. The appearance brought loud protests, with members complained to the Speaker, Ali Larijani, about the "unconstitutional behavior". When Larijani declared the complaints valid, Ahmadinejad threatened to withdraw his economic reforms. This caused further chaos in the chamber.

1125 GMT: Laying Down The Line --- The "Proper" March. Tehran's police force has announced that the "proper" 13 Aban rally, markking the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover, would be held in front of the building. It added that holding any other demonstrations in Tehran is “illegal": "The police will strongly confront people or groups intending to create unrest and unlawful behavior, based on its legal responsibilities."

1030 GMT: Khamenei --- Targeting Nuke Talks or Protesters? Agence France Presse, from Iran state media, reports on the Supreme Leader's speech on the eve of 13 Aban. It focuses on the nuclear talks, quoting Khamenei, "We do not want any negotiation, the result of which is pre-determined by the United States. A dialogue like this is like a sheep and wolf relation, which the late imam (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) has said that we 'do not want'."

Now is that a direct challenge to engagement or is a not-so-coded attempt to link internal opposition to the foreign enemy, less than 24 hours before mass rallies? You decide: Khamenei warned he would not allow people with "ill-intentions" towards Iran to "throw out a red carpet for the United States".

1025 GMT: An EA source informs us of a mass summons, by phone and in writing, of women activists to the Security Branch of the Revolutionary Courts. So far five activists --- Maryam Malek, Jelve Javaheri, Kave Mozzafari, Parisa Kakaee, and Khadijeh Moghaddam -- have reported that they have received written summons on 21 October to appear in court within three days. Six other members have reported that they have been contacted by telephone and are awaiting summons.

1015 GMT: The Public Prosecutor's Office in Tehran is calling for public "consciousness" of the significance of 13 Aban --- read a warning to protestors not to show up and an admonition to others to be on guard against trouble-makers --- as a "national day against global arrogance".

0930 GMT: Reuters has picked up on the call of Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, for the release of women detained during the post-election crisis.

0925 GMT: For the second time in less than 24 hours, I have written about an article in a US newspaper which, in my  opinion, undermines the Green movement in the service of misplaced priorities. This time my concern has been provoked by a piece by Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times.

0810 GMT: Noticing Politics, Noticing Tomorrow. The international media will be in Afghanistan overload today, but Michael Slackman of The New York Times puts out a useful analysis, "Iran’s Politics Stand in the Way of a Nuclear Deal". Slackman's takeaway, based on interview with his US-based pool of analysts, is, "[Iran's eqivocation] may be as much a product of the nation’s smoldering political crisis as it is a negotiating tactic."

0630 GMT: At this time tomorrow, people will be gathering at various points in Tehran and other Iranian cities for the ceremonies of 13 Aban and for demonstrations. A day which the regime has marked as the anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979 by students is likely to take on a very different political symbolism.

Initial news today is of preparations for the gathering. Campaign 88, the youth supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami, has invited the Green nation of Iran to participate in the rallies. The statement offers a nice transition from past struggles against foreign powers to current internal issues: 13 Azad has been the symbol of fighting against tyranny and oppression in the political history of our countrybut the campaign is now influenced by the movements against tyranny closer to home. The campaign declares that Mousavi will be participating and call on all members to make the tyrants and oppressors hear the cry for freedom of Iranians.

The Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party, declaring it will be participating in the rallies alongside other Green reformists, said the history of the past 200 years of Iran chows this fact that domestic tyrants who are hopeless and do not have the support of the people inevitably seek backing from foreigners. If the principle in foreign relations is the national interest, a government that has legitimacy and the support of the people will fulfill this responsibility. Reformists will seek “comprehensive execution of the constitution and the institutionalisation of the rights and freedoms mentioned" in that document.