A confession. After several hours, we were still not certain of the significance of yesterday’s statement by the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, who declared that the Government was “illegitimate”. Our initial thought was that the group was just one of a number of clerical factions, in this case a “reformist” faction such as the Assocation of Combatant Clerics linked to former President Khatami. We were not sure who the members were or what relationship they had to prominent critics of the Government such as Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Sane’i, or Ayatollah Taheri. Read the rest of this entry »
2030 GMT: Tehran Bureau, which has been doing sterling work through this crisis, comes through again. It has just posted an invaluable guide to the Assembly of Experts, the one Iranian body that has the power to name (and to remove) the Supreme Leaders. Notable in the article is the dissection of the politics of a key member, the pro-Ahmadinejad Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
2025 GMT: A curious and, if true, troubling incident. It is alleged that 70 faculty members, having met with Mir Hossein Mousavi, were later arrested.
2015 GMT: An Interesting Development. The head of Iran’s National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, is reported to have met former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohsen Rezaei. No word on the specific topics of discussion.
A confession. After several hours, we were still not certain of the significance of yesterday’s statement by the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, who declared that the Government was “illegitimate”. Our initial thought was that the group was just one of a number of clerical factions, in this case a “reformist” faction such as the Assocation of Combatant Clerics linked to former President Khatami. We were not sure who the members were or what relationship they had to prominent critics of the Government such as Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Sane’i, or Ayatollah Taheri.
2030 GMT: Tehran Bureau, which has been doing sterling work through this crisis, comes through again. It has just posted 
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