Mousavi forms new ‘popular front’ political movement

Up until recently, over the last few weeks, defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Mousavi has been pretty quiet.

No longer. He has formed a new political movement, “The Green Path of Hope.” What the story doesn’t mention, though, is what has me most curious – will this light a fire under Grand Ayatollah Akbar Rafsanjani to do more in opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, or not?

Mousavi – Iran election protests to continue

He’s asking authorities to permit a Thursday gathering; fat chance of that.

Mousavi doesn’t say what he will do, or what the next step is, if the permit is denied. He does say detentions can’t stop the protests.

Oh, let’s hope all levels of federal courts reject the immunity deal then-Senator Obama supported, so we can put Hayden on a witness stand.

Rafsanjani to lead Iran Friday prayers

Grand Ayatollah Akbar Rafsanjani, spiritual patron of Iranian presidential candidate Mir Mousavi will lead Friday prayers at Tehran University.

Add in the fact that Mousavi will attend.

Boy, you talk about a situation with potential for about anything to happen.

Meanwhile, just because you don’t hear about resistance to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t mean it isn’t happening:

Passive resistance includes trying to crash the electricity grid by turning on home appliances at appointed times and creating power surges, or stuffing newspapers into Islamic charity boxes reputed to contribute to the upkeep of ideological militias involved in suppressing the protests.

Meanwhile, as the Wall Street Journal notes and I have blogged before, who knows what “the cynical operator” Rafsanjani will even say? He’s not going to do anything overt or stupid, but a crowd looking to parse every subtle inflection could get ideas.

Mousavi needs to get more organized on ‘intifada’

As protests over the Iran election results continue in Tehran (and perhaps elsewhere in Iran, but that’s where the Twittering, as well as the limited media coverage, is happening), the ever-insightful, indefatigable Robert Fisk says opposition leader Mir Mousavi needs to get more organized in controlling what Fisk – who would know from his reporting background – calls an “intifada.”

Basically saying that “Kumbaya time” has failed, Fisk said Mousavi needs to do more:

You don't overthrow Islamic revolutions with car headlights. And definitely not with candles. Peaceful protest might have served Gandhi well, but the Supreme Leader's Iran is not going to worry about a few thousand demonstrators on the streets, even if they do cry "Allahu Akbar” from their rooftops every night.

Mousavi, to win, needs to organise his protest in a more coherent way, not make it up on the hoof. But does Khamenei”have a longer-term plan than mere survival?

Well, know, Khamenei probably doesn’t. And, neither does Mousavi.

Unplanned revolts and revolutions are usually the bloodiest, history shows, precisely because there aren’t organized leaders to ride herd.

So, the Iranian bleeding, for what isn’t that much of a reform by secular western liberalism standards continues, continues to brutally slouch toward Isfahan.

Mousavi – ‘reformer’ or ‘Butcher of Beirut’?

Well, leopards can change their spots, but, 25 years ago, Iranian presidential challenger Mir Mousavi was the Butcher of Beirut.

Conservatives flaying Obama for not supporting Mousavi, and mindless bloggers like Juan Cole and Andrew Sullivan, perhaps ought to ponder the attacks on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, 1983, and their mastermind, the Butcher of Beirut.

This leopard, the one who within the last week, called for a “reformation” for the Islamic Republic of Iran and saluted the spirit of Ayatollah Khoumeni, would have to have changed his spots a lot to really be a “reformer.”

Oh, and I am going to continue to hammer on Sully and Cole by name until I see that they have some sense on this issue.

Iran election claims and counterclaims analyzed

IranAffairs has a good summary post of election fraud claims by the Mir Mousavi camp and U.S. supporters such as Juan Cole and Andrew Sullivan, with counterclaims by foreign policy “realists” such as the Leveretts and others. Beyond the fraud claims and counterclaims, though, Cyrus Safdari is gathering claims and counterclaims from the online world about whether or not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad camp had improved the economy or not in the last four years, and so forth.

It’s a good read, and Safdari asks for further contributions of news stories, blogs, think tanks etc. that have weighed in on these election-related issues.

Mousavi not visible enough?

A very interesting observation by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen. Cohen also notes that the opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is broad, and that Khamenei is pushing it in a more absolutist direction.

Interesting, as Tuesday starts in Tehran.

I think that the opposition will likely “pace the resistance” until Friday. Then? Stay tuned.

Mousavi wants new Islamic Republic of Iran

That’s the bottom line of Iranian presidential challenger Mir Mousavi’s Statement No. 5:

We are not up against our sacred regime and its legal structures; this structure guards our Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic. We are up against the deviations and deceptions and we want to reform them; a reformation that returns us to the pure principles of the Islamic Revolution.

He said this after saluting the memory of Khomenei, saying the original message of 1979 (I’m assuming he’s omitting the secularist part of that) was “so pleasant,” and more.

So, if the West should agree with him on nullifying the election, what do we expect from him? How strict of an intrusion of Shia hadith does he expect into daily Iranian life? More, the same, or fewer freedoms for women?

And, that’s why President Obama was right Wednesday when he said there’s not necessarily that much difference between Mousavi and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So, once again to the idiotic Juan Coles and Andrew Sullivans of the world on this issue: Know who you’re supporting before blindly supporting them.

Time: Four endgames on Iran misses No. 5

Time has a thought-provoking speculative article four ways the Iranian political tussle could play out. It rightly notes none of the main actors want to destroy Iran’s current political structure, for example.

But, it misses option No. 5.

That would be for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former President Akbar Rafsanjani to cut a deal behind the backs of both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and opposition presidential candidate Mir Mousavi.

Ahmadinejad has no particular loyalty to Khamenei, despite the latter’s pre-election quasi-endorsement of him. Rafsanjani has no special loyalty that I know of to Mousavi; rather, I think he’s just seen him as a stalking horse to his goal of unseating Khamenei.

If the two can line up enough support among both the Council of Guardians and the Academy of Experts, Ahmadinejad has control of the Basij to nullify any lingering Mousavi street protests after Rafsanjani sells him down the river.

Amnyay, take a look at the Time story and judge for yourself if a scenario like mine is plausible, then, if it is that likely.

Update: True, Ahmadinejad attacked Rafsanjani during the election, over his foreign policy as well as alleged opulence. But, politics can always make strange bedfellows. And, I don’t think I”ve yet exhausted the possibilities.

Rafsanjani might cut a deal with Khamenei, for that matter, that could involve a new election, or other possibilities.

To use an old foreign policy word, I think the situation in Iran is very “fluid” right now.

From comments, “uninformed” shows he’s anything but:

I agree that there are more than 4 possible scenarios. Another, real possibility, is Mousavi and Rafsanjani simply back down. I think both have too much too lose in a full scale revolt. A sick variant of this, is this was the plan all along. An agreement to reform, but only after the revolutionary element could be weeded out from the reform camp. Mousavi publicly distances himself from those who revolt, leaving a smaller group isolated, allowing the government to cull them. After the dust settles, the 2 major and 2 minor players "mend" fences.

Definitely agree these are all possibilities.

Also agree that the four major/semi-major players probably would like to at least be started on a resolution process by Monday.

Update: The Guardian’s four-option scenario, though DOES have a Rafsanjani takeover as one of the options. As often is the case in the world of foreign affairs, the British MSM thinks more broadly than America’s.

Did Iran election debates make May poll worthless?

I suppose that claim of an anonymous Iranian student, writing in a New York Times op-ed, saying May’s Terror Free Tomorrow poll’s findings of a strong Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lead were wiped out by Mir Mousavi’s performance in post-debate presidential debates on TV.

By the Wednesday before the election, Mr. Moussavi was backed by about 44 percent of respondents, while Mr. Ahmadinejad was favored by around 38 percent.

Is the Iranian electorate that volatile? Quite possibly. Did Mousavi do that well in the debates? I don’t know, and that’s the first time I’ve seen that angle raised; Juan Cole didn’t mention it, when he dissed the TFT results.

Also, “Shane M.” doesn’t mention the source of his polling claims. It, too, is something new to my reading. That doesn’t mean it isn’t legitimate, but to throw out specific numbers without a specific source doesn’t boost his credibility in my eyes.

That said, he is right about two things. Many Westerners hold a 30-year-old image of Tehran, and nobody knows what will happen next.

On those two lines, that’s why I continue to look for what Robert Fisk has to say, because he has a current image of Tehran, and as for nobody knowing what will happen next, that includes “Shane M.,” who isn’t guaranteed to know why things are happening now the way they are.

‘Mousavi is the Obama of Iran’ – do jokes abound?

So claims Iranian filmmaker and Mir Mousavi spokesman Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who compares Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to George W. Bush.

Is this an “insert joke here” moment? Or, an “irony alert” moment? If enough of Mousavi’s “rallies” are actually controlled by Ayatollah Akbar Rafsanjani, then actually Mousavi is in the position of George W. Bush, December 2000.

And, for Makhmalbaf to claim Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election (also) had massive fraud? Let’s not forget that it was Ahmadinejad vs. Rafsanjani in the final runoff in 2005.

So, again, behind Mousavi, arguably, we have the voice of Rafsanjani.

Back to the more humorous side, I suppose real reformers in Iran, and real liberals in the U.S., might actually agree with Makhmalbaf’s comparison, namely how close to each other the political leaders in the two countries actually are on many issues.

For Westerners believing Mousavi’s truth claims

An alleged confidential letter from the Iranian minister of interior, Sadeq Mahsuli, to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims Mir Mousavi nearly quadrupled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vote total in the June 12 Iranian presidential election, and that Ahmadinejad came in third behind Mehdi Karroubi. Karroubi, like Mousavi, claims to be a reformer, yet also claims to support Supreme Leader Al Khamenei, showing just how meaningless Western-type labels are in Iran. (Are you listening, Juan Cole and Sully?)

Speaking of meaningless, in the story, Robert Fisk wonders, naturally, if if’s a forgery. If so, he says it’s the biggest one in Iranian history since Bud McFarlane and Ollie North went to Iran in 1986 on stolen Irish passports with forged information.

Excellent breakout of Iran’s political background

Again, not coming from a wide-eyed person here in the U.S., but from Dieter Bednarz at Der Spiegel. He, as have I in previous blog posts, focuses on the Khamenei-Rafsanjani square-off, as the key to what’s happening now.

Also contra wide-eyed Juan Cole and Andrew Sullivan claims of vote fraud, when Mir Mousavi claims not just that he won, but that he got nearly 70 percent of the vote, he comes off as just as unbelievable as any other battlers in the current Iranian political scene. And, Cole and Sully continue to lose credibility the longer they continue to keep Mousavi on any sort of pedestal, even if a small one, and the longer they ignore Rafsanjani’s camel’s nose in the tent.