Roger Cohen on Iran in NY Review Books.

This is what I know is going to be a great article on Iran by Roger Cohen in the current NY Review of Books when I get around to reading it.

Military might: The real source of power in Iran.

There is a tremendously revealing article on who is really in charge in Iran in the NYTimes today.

Michael Slackman makes it very clear that the real power - economic, political - lies with the Revolutionary Guard rather than the Ayatollahs. Evidence in the article, as well as recent protests, should make us question whether Iran's 'religious' regime would exist without the muscle of the Rev Guard and basij forces behind it?

Most importantly, this situation as it stands is a taint on the face of 'Islamic' governance, as it is merely serving to legitimize the corrupt dictatorial power of the forces that maintain it.

(I do understand that Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei do have support among the pop - people did vote for 'tinyjad in the last election. But who were these voters? And why did they vote for him? Is it because of the vast security apparatus? The article counts Basij recruits in the millions, which could make for a a tremendous voting block.)

Rasool Nafisi, expert in Iranian affairs, calls out the regime for the pervasive role of the Rev Guard in Iranian society, economy and government in an "exhaustive study" he co-authored for RAND and in Slackman's article: “It is not a theocracy anymore...It is a regular military security government with a facade of a Shiite clerical system.”

Please refer to the article and the study linked to above for details about the Rev Guard's networks of power in Iran. Briefly, in terms of political power, Rev Guard alum hold "dozens' of seats in Parliament and occupy many top government positions. In terms of the economy, "Revolutionary Guards have been awarded more than 750 government contracts in construction and oil and gas projects." Slackman even claims that the reason behind Iran's silence on the Muslim Uighurs is the Rev Guard's economic ties to China. (Once again, Muslim solidarity prevails!) In addition, "The corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate, with control of Iran’s missile batteries, oversight of its nuclear program and a multibillion-dollar business empire that reaches into nearly every sector of the economy. It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, manufactures cars, builds roads and bridges, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling..."

Rafsanjani's hairy back.

Elaine Sciolino raises the issue Rafsanjani's Khamanei-Ahmadinejad like past in discussing the meaning and significance of his current stance in today's NYTimes.

While Rafsanjani's sermon at Friday prayers evoked the just governing style of the Prophet Muhammad, and Ayatollah Khomenei's focus on the people's will, though that was more of a saying than a reality under his rule, Sciolino argues that "Still, it would be wrong to say that Mr. Rafsanjani has suddenly become a proponent of justice, human rights and freedom." He has a checkered past; for example, the speech he gave after the 1999 student protests as well as his violent stance against the protestors resemble Khamenei's speech and the reaction of the Basij against demonstrations today.

His past considered, what are Rafsanjani's purpose and goals today?

Here are some of the other points about Rafsanjani's hairy back:

"In the summer of 1999, after all, when the government crushed student demonstrations at Tehran University, he delivered a harsh sermon in the same place as he did on Friday. Back then, he blamed “enemies of the revolution” and “sources outside the country” for the unrest. He praised the use of force by the state."

During much of his earlier eight-year presidency, many Iranians were executed, including political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, even clerics.

Politically, Mr. Rafsanjani was humiliated twice: in 2000 when he ran for Parliament and came in 30th and last place in Tehran (amid charges of ballot fraud in his favor), and again in 2005, when he performed dismally in his bid to regain the presidency.

But unlike many political figures, and certainly unlike most clerics, Mr. Rafsanjani is the consummate politician. He refuses to abandon the political battlefield in a country in which silence in the face of defeat is the norm.

He also knows how to shift gears. A campaign photograph in the 2000 campaign showed him without his turban. He must have thought that a clerical uniform had become a liability."

Rafsanjani - The Opening at the Top?

I was going to take a hiatus from my blog while in Essaouira, besides of course posting many, many pictures of my lovely life here in my room with a view, but could not restrain myself after reading reports on Andrew Sullivan's blog on what is going down in Iran.

Briefly, Rafsanjani gave Friday prayers today and with his words surprised I think even those who predicted critical rhetoric from him. After reading the available excerpts from his sermon, his focus seesms to be on the people, that the people have been betrayed, and that the legitimacy of the nation comes from the people, according to Islam. While Nico Pitney warns us not to get toooo carried away in a Rafsanjani Daydream, as many among the progressive masses think of him as a sellout to the regime they are fighting, he clearly aligned himself with the people today and with a system based on Islamic and democratic principles, and against Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. Could he be the opening at the top that Iranian protestors need?

I suggest that ALL read (and watch the videos) on Andrew Sullivan and Nico Pitney and NIAC (National Iranian American Council) and Tehran Bureau blogs immediately and straight away! Here are a few excerpts. (All of the following are Rafsanjani quotations from Sullivan’s blog with the exception of the first which is from Pitney and the second from the NIAC.)

- "The Imam [Khomeini] would always quote the Prophet [Muhammad] who would say to Ali [Muhammad's successor]: leave the people if they do not want you"

- *** "...very unusual event occurred before Rafsanjani’s speech, when the head of the organization that oversees the Friday prayers (Taqavi) spoke. In Friday prayers, people are supposed to repeat what the speakers chant. Today, it was different. When Taqavi said “Death to America,” people responded “Death to Russia” or “Death to China” instead. Also, when he said “The blood in our veins, is a gift to our leader,” people said “The blood in our veins, is a gift to our nation.” According to our witness, “whenever Taqavi mentioned the name of the Supreme Leader, people would whistle and boo.” Typically, when the Supreme Leader’s name is mentioned people chant “salavat” (a phrase in Arabic meaning “peace be upon Prophet Mohammad).

- "Islamic = the people choose"

- "Which ever of those elements of our governance (Islamic or Republic) is not respected, then we have failed our revolution."

- "People shouldn't be in prison. Let them get back to their families. Our enemies are laughing at us (b/c we have put our people in prison). Don't limit the media if they operate within the law."

- This post is live twittering during Rafsanjani's sermon (REALLY INTERESTING)

- "13:41 Rafsanjani is getting teary. “The prophet respected the rights of all those under his rule.” He brings an example from the end of the prophet’s life where the prophet comes to the people and asks that if he ever treated anyone unfairly, they speak up and let him know."

- "13:44 The prophet felt, during the last years of his life, that animosity was brewing amongst his people [he is crying now]. The prophet felt that his old friends are now enemies."

- "13:46 The prophet went to Baghi [where his old friends were buried] and said to them: you are lucky that you are no longer here to see that your old brothers are killing and destroying one another."

- Thousands are demonstrating in the street A LOT of tear gas everywhere
- Reported stabbing of women outside Tehran U.
- female HR activist Shadi Sadr beaten and whisked away
- Mousavi was present at prayers
- Karroubi was attacked during protests to the point his turban fell off
- First time in history tear gas and violence used by regime during Friday prayers

What is on Iranian TV:
1) a discussion on havij bastani (an Iranian desert with carrots and ice cream)
2) a 1986 Japanese cartoon
3) an Indian movie
4) an even cheesier Iranian movie
5) a documentary on the Iran-Iraq war

Jason Jones' Iran Rap.

Jason Jones plays football (American style) and hooks up with Iranian hip hop artist Hich Kas in this Daily Show episode.

I haven't heard back from you, Jason, with regard to my last proposal, but I just wanted to let you know, it still stands, and I've made up my own rap songs and dances before too.

No calm after the storm in Iran.

Instead of calm after the storm, it seems there is definitely some bad weather in middle and upper levels in the Iranian system.

Massive demonstrations of past weeks have created, or exposed, cracks at the middle level, for example, among clerics in Qom who two days ago sent a letter calling the government illegitimate, and, to a lesser extent but albeit important way at the top in the Assembly of Experts. Karroubi (reformist candidate in recent elections) Khatami and Moussavi are the most visible representatives of this camp. The NYTimes reported on all of this today. Other news sources have also been reporting on it here and there.

This is not to say they have the upper hand or are alone in expressing feelings on the election. Hard liners and conservatives have been vocal in validating the elections. Qom seminary Ayatollah Morteza Moghtadai called the election 'case closed'. Ayatollah Muhammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's spiritual leader, has dismissed the elections as 'window dressing'; they didn't, and don't, really matter in a religious system like the one in Iran. Or at least the one he envisions in Iran; the people most probably disagree with this vision. Here he mistakes the legitimacy of a government as purely religious, when Iranians seem to see legitimacy come from other sources, like their own will, their voice, popular elections.

Either way, the Iranian regime - Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmadinejad - has lost a great deal of legitimacy. I found myself raising my eyebrows and a 'yeah right, good luck with that' smirk on my face when reading that the regime might arrest and try Moussavi and Khatami and other outspoken reformists who they call terrorists. What power do they have to do this, I thought to myself. Their loss of, and desperate struggle for, legitimacy is also visible in their attempts to dismiss protestors as foreign agents, an attempt to remove their legitimacy and return it to the Assembly taking their legitimacy and return to its 'proper' owners. (Please excuse excessive use and abuse of the word 'legitimacy' in this post and paragraph.)

Rami Khouri on Arab reaction to Iran.

Rami Khoury writes an broad yet important synopsis of reactions in the Arab world to the situation in Iran. Sad, but true.

Jason Jones, will you marry me?

Jason Jones has had some truly spectacularly awesome reports from Iran this week on the Daily Show. Wednesday night's segment, in which he juxtaposed questions posed to Americans with similar ones posed to Iranians was particularly witty, hilarious, telling...and embarrassing if you're an American.

It's a must watch.

Can someone please set up a debate between John "The Iranian situation is all about American values" McCain and this guy???

Excellent interview with Iranian-American Hooman Majd that Andrew Sullivan posted here earlier today. Here is the interview in its entirety on Salon.com. Majd is someone whose advice should be trusted and followed, to name just a few of his credentials: he translated for Khatami and Ahmadinejad, is the grandson of an Ayatollah, and his father was a diplomat for the shah. A friend once told him that he was "...the only person he knew who was both 100 percent American and 100 percent Iranian."

Some amazing quotes from the interview:

But this is an internal matter. For the U.S. to get involved in any way is a huge mistake in my opinion. It makes Iranians very suspicious. One reason they were able to get 3 million people out on the streets from a broad socioeconomic spectrum across all political lines -- you don't get 3 million people on the streets of Tehran if they're all students like in 2003 -- is because the lower class, the middle class, the upper class, students, old people, families, religious families, women in chadors, men in beards, they all came out. These people also voted against Ahmadinejad or felt the vote wasn't fair.

The neocons know nothing about Iran, nothing about the culture of Iran. They have no interest in understanding Iran, in speaking to any Iranian other than Iranian exiles who support the idea of invasions -- I'll call them Iranian Chalabis. It's offensive, even to an Iranian American like me. These are people who would have actually preferred to have Ahmadinejad as president so they could continue to demonize him and were worried, as some wrote in Op-Eds, that Mousavi would be a distraction and would make it easier for Iranians to build a nuclear weapon and now all of a sudden they want to be on his side? Go away.

I'm not saying Obama is the most knowledgeable person on Iran, but he's obviously getting good advice right now. He understands way more about the culture of the Middle East than any of the neocons. For them to be lecturing President Obama is a joke. I have criticized Obama; for instance, I criticized him for having a patronizing tone in his Persian New Year message. But right now I think he's doing a good job. The John McCains of the world, they're Ahmadinejad's useful idiots. They're doing a great job for him.

Hired hands for the Iranian regime...

Andrew Sullivan just reported here that The Guardian has this firsthand account that the men carrying out these massacres are hired hands, paid by the Iranian regime to beat protestors to death.

Massacres in Tehran.

Andrew Sullivan, The Guardian, CNN, Huffington Post, and several other news sources are reporting that there were massacres last night and today in Iran. Many reports are about one that occurred at Baharaestan Square during which hundreds of men armed with clubs emerged and beat demonstrators mercilessly. See Andrew Sullivan's post on this here; it includes a recording of a phone call from a woman who called CNN from Iran about the violence. Hundreds are reported to have been beaten and shot (some severely, some fatally) by the Rev Guard and Basij. You can also read the firsthand accounts here at the Guardian blog.

Hospital workers are providing many of the accounts, which the government has tried tirelessly to prevent them from doing, read one here at The Guardian.

Mullahs protesting in Iran.

CNN is reporting that mullahs are joining the protests. An important development.

Obama 1 million; Nico Pitney 1 million; Regular Press 0.

Obama is just too good at this and this.

Fred Barnes needs to go read an Iranian history book, or talk to an Iranian, and then come back and talk about Iran.

This is a great exchange between Fred Barnes (who clearly has NEVER asked an Iranian if they remember 1953 and furthermore understands little about US-Iran dynamics or about successful revolutions and social and politcal movements in the current Middle East/ Iranian context) and a woman with the last name Powers who I think is Samantha but who they list as Kristen. (I found this on Andrew Sullivan's blog.)

(Also note that Henry Kissinger supports Obama's approach to Iran.)

POWERS: I haven't heard that and I have seen many people come out, including Henry Kissinger, saying that he handled this very well, and that, in fact, it would be bad for the United States to get involved in this.
FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: It is not a question of getting involved. We're not going to send troops there or anything like that.
The question was whether we would support the democratic voices and condemn the regime — a tyrannical regime — as Kirsten said, no question about that.
Obama has gotten better, I'll have to say, over the weekend. He got better. His statements are a little stronger, but really not strong enough yet.
And it was clear from the beginning what he was trying to do. I think it was probably clear to Mousavi and the demonstrators and the democratic forces in Iran, too. He tried to protect whatever relationship he has with Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Khamenei because he thinks somehow he is going to get some grand bargain that they will back away from nuclear weapons.
They're not going to do that. They're the people who are not going to do it.
Mousavi might be. Mousavi is different on nuclear weapons too. He has said we will have nuclear power, but whether we have nuclear weapons or not, that's negotiable. That's the opposite of what the other regime has said.
He, also, is representing — I'm not sure how pro-American he is, but all of a sudden he represents the forces in Iran that are pro-American.
And then when you see, you know Obama has used — the most pathetic thing is to say, gee, well, we were involved in 1953 — 1953! This is an extremely young society. You think those demonstrators are thinking, well, we hope the U.S. stays out because they were involved in 1953? That's total nonsense.
POWERS: I think there is a history there.
BARNES: 1953?
POWERS: They do remember the United States meddling.
BARNES: No, they don't. [REALLY FRED???]
POWERS: I think the reason Obama didn't get involved I don't think is because of what you just said. I think it is because he truly believed that meddling in it would make them be able to come out and justify the repression...
BAIER: Very quickly, Kirsten, do we hear a different tone from the president at his news conference tomorrow in the Rose Garden?
POWERS: Well, I think we already started to hear a different tone. And I think he feels that he has to at least acknowledge that we do not condone this kind of behavior. But I think at the end of the day he still does not want to be seen as somebody who is propping up this revolt.
BARNES: But there is no way he can prop up demonstrators. All they want is expressions of support.
These democratic revolutions — wait a minute — these democratic revolutions, whether it is in Poland or the Philippines or South Korea or Indonesia or South Africa, they have always wanted international support. And it has always been important. [Did you ever think about the fact that the current (anti American foreign policy) context in the MENA region might counteract this??]
POWERS: But is there any doubt where Obama stands in this? Does anybody doubt that?
BARNES: Yes, there is great doubt. Of course there is doubt.
POWERS: Do you think the people of Iran don't know he stands behind them? Do you think he's on the side of Ahmadinejad?

Ideological, simplistic nonsense from McCain.

McCain: "I don't consider it meddling when you stand on the side of the principles that made our nation the greatest..."

What a bunch of ideological, simplistic nonsense. I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with Iran? How does it address Iranians concerns?

I second that!

“They are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran’s borders,” he said. “This tired strategy of using tensions to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States and the West. This is about the people of Iran, and the future that they, and only they, will choose.”

(Obama today)

Brzezinski on neocon/ Ahmadinejad parallel

Zigbiniew Brzezinski drew an accurate parallel on Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN; he compared Ahmadinejad and his cronies to U.S. neocons. "And there are those who are supporting the regime, who in many respects are like our neocons -- very similar to our neocons." Both groups thrive on a aggressive hawkish black and white view of the world, where might makes right and bold words and provacative ideological statements define of foreign and domestic policy.

Brzezenski goes on to reveal why these neocons actually want Ahmadinejad in power:
"One of the paradoxes here domestically is that many of the people who call for the most energetic involvement by Obama in the process, they simply would prefer to have an American-Iranian showdown."

Successful revolutions always have a friend at the top.

I think a really, really key point here is that in successful revolutions, protestors, the masses, always have a friend at the top. This friend opens the gates to the governing structure, allowing the protestors to access power from within.

The masses seems to have several friends at the top right now in Iran in Ali Larijani, Rafsanjani and Montazeri. The last two names are powerful members of the Assembly of Experts and are reported to be trying to persuade other members of the Assembly top join their reformist team.

Ex reformist president Khatami is also clearly on the side of the protestors.

Parallel between 1979 and 2009. (Oh and, just for kicks, between Khamenei/ Ahmadinejad and the Republican party in the US.)

I think an interesting parallel exists between the 1979 Revolution and the current situation in Iran.

In 1979, there existed a great distance between the Shah and the Iranian people. By distance, I mean, generally speaking, he was not in touch with the needs of his people. To name just a few, he did not address the needs of the merchants, of the new working class in cities, of the religious parties. (I will elaborate on this more later, I am in a bit of a hurry right now.)

Similarly, today, a great distance exists between Khamenei and the Iranian people, especially those out in the streets. Sure, a bunch of old conservative clerics support him, but they do not represent the people of Iran of today. The represent only a small segment of society. It was so interesting watching a video of Ahmadinejad supporters and the crowd at a Khamenei speech...all religious old Iranian men. (Ok they were a few chicks at Ahmadinejad's rallies.) but little diversity. It kind of reminded me of watching the Republican Party convention last summer.

The Iran of today is diverse, the majority of students are women, just like the majority of protesters are reportedly women; they are currently equal to men in practice but not by law. This is what Iranians are on the streets - their rights - right to have a vote, for women's rights.
(For example, here is the story and words on the revolution of one woman who has a law degree but can't practice.)

Limited democracy can't last forever.

Iran has existed since 1979 as an odd mix of autocracy and democracy, with the Supreme Leader holding ultimate power, but with elections for a president. The democracy was never real though; elections were never open and transparent. Human rights activists and journalists were consistently arrested at random, women were harassed in the streets by morality police, candidates were hand picked by Khamenei, to name just a few violations. Iranians were allowed certain freedoms, just enough to survive; this coupled with a pervasive and much feared Revolutionary Guard and basij, kept many at bay.

But as we see today, when Iranians' rights were challenged and disregarded in such a blatant way, they took to the streets, challenging the regime, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij.

Roger Cohen stated today in the NYTimes:

Iranians have fought this lonely fight for a long time: to be free, to have a measure of democracy.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution, understood that, weaving a little plurality into an authoritarian system. That pluralism has ebbed and flowed since 1979 — mainly the former — but last week it was crushed with blunt brutality. That is why a whole new generation of Iranians, their intelligence insulted, has risen.