Earlier today we posted an analysis by our Mr Smith of the significance of 16 Azar and the possibilities for the future. His points are complemented by those made by Masoud at The Newest Deal, who has kindly sent us a copy of the blog:
Though impossible to tell with the blanket censorship draped over Iran at present, it appears that the size of yesterday’s protests were smaller than what was seen on 13 Aban, and on Qods Day before it. No matter. The demonstrations of 16 Azar signaled a shift — if not response — on the part of the Green movement to the tyranny and brutality that the regime has come to represent. The message was clear: there is no turning back. In fact, the Islamic Republic’s future has never been more uncertain.
As things stand now, this movement is no longer about a stolen election. Truthfully, it hasn’t been for quite some time, but that conclusion only became crystalline today. Only four months ago, this was hardly the case. At that time, the Greens represented a peaceful, non-violent movement asking “Where is my vote?” and led by a Prime Minister [Mir Hossein Mousavi] who stressed — no, urged — the need to stay true to the Islamic Republic’s framework and constitutional structure, not to mention the wisdom and guidance of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.
No longer. Yesterday’s demonstrations were organized by a fractal grassroots whose structure is horizontal rather than hierarchical. That is to say, it has no leader. (Incidentally, neither Mousavi, Karoubi, or Khatami apparently took part in yesterday’s marches.) These were protests that saw Iranian flags whose white centers were bare, missing the iconic ‘Allah’ written in form of a red, martyr’s tulip. Gone was the silent marching of peaceful demonstrators holding up ‘V’s’ in the air. Instead, pockets of protesters confronted the Basij physically, and at times, overwhelmingly. And protests were not just limited to Tehran, either. Demonstrations have been verified in Mashhad, Shiraz, Rasht, Kermanshah, Hamedan, Arak, Kerman and Najafabad. Read the rest of this entry »
1900 GMT: Some Good News for Mahmoud. President Ahmadinejad and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signed 13 cooperation agreements on trade, energy, stocks and banking, agriculture, news agenices, technology, culture, and visa requirements.
1735 GMT: Mortazavi Mystery Over? After days of rumours that he was in Evin Prison, former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi has appeared at the memorial service for Ali Kordan, the former Minister of Interior who died this weekend.
1725 GMT: Isolating Rafsanjani? Division of opinion here amongst EA staff: one colleague is saying Hashemi Rafsanjani is a spent force while another is arguing strongly that “the Shark” is far from finished and about to make another move.
If the latter, those in the regime opposed to Rafsanjani (and possibly worried about the possibility of his working in combination with Ali Larijani) will try to block it. Having dismissed him from the rota for Friday Prayers in Tehran and the Qods Day Prayer, authorities are now taking away the Eid al-Adha Prayer from Rafsanjani and giving it to Ahmad Khatami.
0800 GMT: In recent days there has been an apparent shift in the content of the statements of opposition leaders. Despite Government restrictions, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami have continued to get out public declarations, mainly through meetings with reformist groups or appearances such as Karroubi’s visit to Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani in hospital, but their content now seems to be carefully hedged. While the abuses of the Government are still identified, all three have been at great pains to put their calls for changes within the framework of the Constitution and the Iranian system, as well as warning their followers not to resort to extreme action.
In tone, this is not new. The Green movement has always maintained that it is upholding the laws and values of the Islamic Republic and that it is the Government which has dismissed or violated those foundations of 1979. There has been far less in content, however, from Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami on political objectives, and even specific issues such as the enquiry into detainee abuses, spurred by Khatami’s letter of 29 July to Hashemi Rafsanjani, have not featured so prominently.
I will be honest. I saw this article by Brian Murphy of the Associated Press earlier in the week but decided not to post it or even refer to it. I did so because I could not find the basis for his claims about the Green movement. Neither the quotes from his “some experts” do not or his knowledge of the situation (he claims, for example, that only “several thousand” demonstrators turned out in Iran on 13 Aban) support his sweeping conclusion of a “potential unravelling” of the opposition. They do not back his speculation that “Mousavi and Karroubi’s reluctance could leave room for more militant opposition leaders to emerge in the future” — indeed, Murphy’s implication is that the mainstream of the Green protest desire revolution while Mousavi and Karroubi “have repeatedly said they do not seek to overthrow the ruling clerics”.
On second thought, however, the far better-informed and thoughtful discussion amongst EA readers has considered the direction of the Green Wave after the latest protests and statements and actions by its leaders. So I’m posting Murphy’s piece as his personal contribution to the debate and looking forward to the ideas and critiques of our own “experts” on the Comment board.
Iran’s opposition steers challenge toward the top
Brian Murphy
Just minutes before anti-riot police charged opposition marchers in Tehran last week, a new chant bubbled up from the crowd: “Death to Nobody.”
It was more than just a play on the “Death to America” slogans that are staples of Iran’s political life. The cries give a sense of how much the protest movement has evolved since the raw outrage of last summer.
The demonstrations have moved beyond narrow attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June. They are now drifting toward a blanket challenge of the Islamic leadership’s right to rule. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 1600 GMT: EA’s Chris Emery has now posted a response, adding to Mr Smith’s points that 13 Aban has been “a major blow to the Supreme Leader’s authority”.
—
Mr Smith, who was one of the EA correspondents following and updating on yesterday’s events, offers his analysis:
The Green Wave has bounced back. The strongly-worded threats by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps did not deter the supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who made it to the police-infested streets of Tehran in their tens of thousands for yet another day of demonstrations, countering the official ones organised by the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei regime.
Yesterday’s events are yet again proof of the fact that the opposition has not been defeated and is not going away. Nearly five months into the Iranian post-electoral crisis, the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei camp has not quite figured out a workable plan to fulfil its intent of silencing the critics. The litany of street violence unleashed by security forces, the background of the occasional killing and raping of reformist activists, and the current warnings by the IRGC and Ayatollah Khamenei that criticism of the “legitimate government” amounted to a crime did little to cow the Green Wave supporters. Instead, the Supreme Leader found himself at the receiving end of the street chants. Read the rest of this entry »
The one aspect I missed in your analysis, particularly in regard to the political manoeuvrings of the Larijani brothers and the much-vaunted National Unity Plan, is any mention of the Supreme Leader. Today was undoubtedly another major blow to his personal authority. Yet he is far from an irrelevancy. Any strategy to remove Ahmadinejad will undoubtedly have to include a carefully calibrated approach to Khamenei.
On 17 July Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric who had finished a distant fourth in the Presidential vote, allocated a measly percentage point of the toll, joined the crowds marching to the Friday Prayer ceremony being led by Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was jostled by security forces, with his clerical turban knocked from his head.
Far from removing Karroubi from the political scene, however, the incident symbolically propelled him to the centre of it. The former Speaker of Parliament, was well-known inside Iran, of course, but Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had finished a disputed second to President Ahmadinejad in the vote was the most prominent leader of the Green Wave. By late July, that was no longer the case. After Karroubi published a letter he had sent to Rafsanjani, asking for full investigation of the regime’s abuses of detainees, he too became a representative of the demands for reforms that millions of people had sought from the first marches after the election.
Yesterday the turban was knocked from Karroubi’s head again. He arrived at the Iran Media Fair, which has been running all week. One look at the videos, however, will show the impact of the appearance. The electric effect on the crowd, as they were spurred into both positive chants for Karroubi and, allegedly, anti-regime outbursts (“Death to the Dictator”), overturns weeks of speculation that the Green movement is spent.
2010 GMT: Our Daily Contribution to the Khamenei Death Rumour Mill. The Supreme Leader’s Facebook site has the following message from Wednesday, “Today Noon; Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran attended a rite in respect of Imam Sadeq(A.S)”.
If true, this would disprove Tuesday’s Peiknet story, the original source of the current health rumors, that the Supreme Leader had been confined to his house by doctors.
Protest at the European level is not enough. The Netherlands should also use its own channels. There is an escalation of political oppression in Iran and we should react to that by using heavier diplomatic means….To prevent the eradication of any kind of opposition in Iran, the Netherlands must act now.
Human rights is one of Verhagen’s policy priorities, and he can be contacted in English or Dutch via Twitter.
1545 GMT: Mehdi Karroubi has responded — big-time — to Government attempts to arrest him over his allegations of abuses of detainees. We’ve got the details in a separate entry.
Earlier today we posted an analysis by our Mr Smith of the significance of 16 Azar and the possibilities for the future. His points are complemented by those made by Masoud at The Newest Deal, who has kindly sent us a copy of the blog:
1910 GMT: Prosecuting Journalists. Reporters without Borders has published a summary of latest news on 
0800 GMT: In recent days there has been an apparent shift in the content of the statements of opposition leaders. Despite Government restrictions, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami have continued to get out public declarations, mainly through meetings with reformist groups or appearances such as Karroubi’s visit to Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani in hospital, but their content now seems to be carefully hedged. While the abuses of the Government are still identified, all three have been at great pains to put their calls for changes within the framework of the Constitution and the Iranian system, as well as warning their followers not to resort to extreme action.
I will be honest. I saw 
UPDATE 1600 GMT: EA’s Chris Emery 
The one aspect I missed in your analysis, particularly in regard to the political manoeuvrings of the Larijani brothers and the much-vaunted National Unity Plan, is any mention of the Supreme Leader. Today was undoubtedly another major blow to his personal authority. Yet he is far from an irrelevancy. Any strategy to remove Ahmadinejad will undoubtedly have to include a carefully calibrated approach to Khamenei.
On 17 July Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric who had finished a distant fourth in the Presidential vote, allocated a measly percentage point of the toll, joined the crowds marching to the Friday Prayer ceremony being led by Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was jostled by security forces, with his clerical turban knocked from his head.
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