Iran: How Washington Views the Green Opposition --- The Next Chapter

Carefully tracking US policy towards Iran, we've noticed since October that many inside and outside the Obama Administration have either stigmatised or dismissed opposition movements. This reduction has both stemmed from and reinforced the Administration's quest for "engagement" and a nuclear deal.

The latest chapter in this belittling of the opposition comes from Mahiar Bahari, the Iranian-Canadian journalist who has been writing and speaking about his post-election detention. We noted last week his curious, rather muddled attitude in a Washington Post opinion piece towards protest and the Iranian people. Now this comes out of the second part of his CNN interview, filmed almost two weeks ago but aired yesterday:

Latest Iran Video: The Bahari Interview on CNN (Part 2)
Iran MediaWatch: Has “Green Reform” Disappeared in Washington?
Iran Video: Maziar Bahari Tells CBS of His Detention and Post-Election Conflict
Iran Video & Text: Maziar Bahari on His 118 Days in Detention

Unfortunately...we cannot really talk about an opposition movement in Iran because the Green Movement in Iran is just a collection of different groups coming together against the Government. Some of them are monarchists, some of them are Communists, some of them are terrorists.

The majority of course wanted a peaceful reform in the Government, but since the Government crackdown which started in June, people just started questioning themselves, "What should be the next step?" At the moment, the slogans are political and cultural, but soon these slogans will be economic. Factory workers [who] were not paid will...join the opposition movement. Farmers who cannot sell their crop will join the opposition movement and then we will see a serious change in Iran....

Soon there will be a more united opposition movement. The danger really is both the opposition and the Government is becoming more militarised. The terrorists both within the regime and the opposition are taking over. As we saw in Baluchistan, there was a suicide attack....I'm sure we'll see more of it....

I think Obama is on the right track right now. I think the world community has to stop a nuclear Iran by any means possible, but most importantly through smart sanctions. But the Obama Administration also has to respect the Iranian people, I think, through smart sanctions and through keeping the dialogue open with the Iranian Government but at the same time talking about human rights abuses in Iran, helping the human rights organisations in Iran, talking about freedom of expression, helping the alternative media.

So, to break this down 1) the US Government cannot really put any faith in the current Iranian opposition; 2) at some point in the (distant?) future Washington can look upon a "more united" movement; 3) in the meantime, the fear of disorder outweighs the hope for change; 4) which, put on top of a nuclear-first policy, means a priority on dialogue with the Ahmadinejad Government while maintaining some supportive general rhetoric about the "Iranian people".

Engagement with the internal situation in Iran, as opposed to engagement with the Iranian Government, will consist of some steps to target elements in the regime through sanctions and to assist dissenting groups with communications.

I suspect readers will raise eyebrows and possibly voices over some of Bahari's analysis. In particular, he not only portrays "terrorism" in the opposition movement but somehow connects post-election protest to the activities of the Baluch insurgent group Jundallah and suicide bombings. His contrasting hope seems to be that a mass repository of factory workers and farmers will save the movement from itself, offering the cohesion that is now lacking.

That's not the immediate point, however. Bahari is very well-connected and well-respected in Washington and that significance has been elevated by his recent detention. So I would think that his line of reasoning will resonate with, and possibly be shared by, key members of the Obama Administration.

The problem for the US Government is that, combined with the difficulties in the nuclear talks, that --- in contrast to Bahari's articulate description of his detention --- that doesn't lead to clarity but even more muddle.

Iran MediaWatch: Has "Green Reform" Disappeared in Washington?

UPDATE: Within minutes of posting this, I read an article in The Washington Post which points to an answer to my question:

Two weeks before President Obama visited China.... Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, both senior officials in the National Security Council...traveled to Beijing on a "special mission" to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program. If Beijing did not help the United States on this issue, the consequences could be severe.

The Chinese were told that Israel regards Iran's nuclear program as an "existential issue and that countries that have an existential issue don't listen to other countries," according to a senior administration official. The implication was clear: Israel could bomb Iran, leading to a crisis in the Persian Gulf region and almost inevitably problems over the very oil China needs to fuel its economic juggernaut, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week, the White House got its answer. China informed the United States that it would support a toughly worded, U.S.-backed statement criticizing the Islamic republic for flouting U.N. resolutions by constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant. The statement, obtained by The Washington Post, is part of a draft resolution to be taken up as soon as Thursday by the 35 nations that make up the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

1. Key personnel in the National Security Council, notably Ross, are hell-bent on getting sanctions as soon as talks with Iran are declared to have broken down.
2. To pursue those sanctions, these officials are prepared to exaggerate to the point of hysteria: "Israe could bomb Iran".
3. To pursue those sanctions, these officials will leak private conversations with foreign powers and sensitive documents to accommodating reporters.
4. To pursue those sanctions, these officials will ignore obvious difficulties: "While diplomats and arms-control experts welcomed China's support of the IAEA resolution, some acknowledged that it is not clear whether Russia or China would go further and agree to new sanctions against Iran."
5. The issue of what is happening inside Iran --- be that "reform", "justice", "human rights" --- is irrelevant to these officials.

Iran: 3 Problems (for the Greens, for the US, for Ahmadinejad)
The Latest from Iran (26 November): Corridors of Conflict

Have "the Greens" disappeared in Washington?

Yesterday's New York Times editorial is an exercise in frustration, bluster, and irrelevance. Its legimitate concern at the oppressions of the Iranian regime falls away into obsession with and distortions of the nuclear issue --- "time is running out"; "Iran’s repressive leaders cannot be allowed to threaten the rest of the world with a nuclear weapon" --- and the knee-jerk call for tougher sanctions through the United Nations Security Council. ( To recap: 1. The Security Council won't adopt such sanctions; 2. They would have little effect on Tehran's position on the nuclear programme; 3. They do nothing to solve the dilemmas of engagement on issues such as Afghanistan; 4. They do nothing with respect to the human rights issue which supposedly concerned the NYT at the start of the editorial.)

Far more interesting is this morning's opinion piece in The Washington Post by Maziar Bahari, the journalist detained for 118 days after the June election, especially if his sentiments are shared by Obama's officials.

After making a striking assertion, "The [Revolutionary] Guards are becoming stronger than the President and the Supreme Leader," Bahari offers an equally striking recommendation,

Can the West, especially the United States, have a dialogue with these people? Yes. Because there is no other choice. The West has to negotiate with Iran on the nuclear program and the stability of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not talking to Tehran doesn't work.

So engagement has to be pursued, even if we don't like the Iranians in charge (including Bahari's jailers).What is most striking, however, is Bahari's treatment of Iranians beyond the Guards, the Supreme Leader, and the Ahmadinejad Government. In contrast to his clear position on engagement, this seems to be a muddled attempt at escapism from his earlier political calculations:

The rumor du jour in Iran is that Obama and the Guards are reaching a deal to normalize relations, in exchange for which America will ignore human rights abuses in Iran. Hence, the opposition movement's slogan "Obama, either with them or with us." The United States has acted against the interests of the Iranian people in the past. Repeating that mistake for tactical gains would be the biggest mistake of the Obama administration.

As for the Iranian people, the more immediate victims of the brutal regime, we have to think long-term. Our anger should be sublimated into something more positive. We have been brutalized to think of the world in black and white. Seeing the shades of gray can be our strongest weapon against those who would jail, beat and torture us.

Given the New York Times flight into nuclear worry and sanctions and the reality of Bahari's engagement --- it is not with the reformists, either as individual figures like Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami or with the grassroots mass of the protest movement, what exactly is the "long-term more positive"?