Wednesday
Sep092009
The Latest from Iran (9 September): The Stakes Are Raised
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 15:44
NOW POSTED Iran Analysis: Retrenching Before Friday's Prayers
Iran: Mousavi Statement on Arrests of Top Opposition Advisors
Iran: Ahmadinejad’s “All-In” Move?
Iran Urgent Analysis: Is This the Defining Showdown?
The Latest from Iran (8 September): Picking A Fight?
Iran: Ahmadinejad Chooses Confrontation Over Compromise and Governing
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2220 GMT: Did Sadegh Larijani Just Jump Behind the President (Continued)? Earlier today (1125 GMT) we noted that the head of judiciary seemed to be aiming at those who went "beyond the law" because of the "false claim" of electoral fraud. Another snippet of the interview is even more dramatic, as Larijani denounces those who have brought “great costs to the Islamic system" with their opposition.
2020 GMT: More on Ayatollahs Take a Stand? (1540 GMT) Some interesting developments from the Sunday meeting of senior clerics in Qom that we have been following. Ayatollah Golpaygani wrote a letter criticising the Ahmadinejad Cabinet; the Supreme Leader replied sharply, effectively prohibiting the Ayatollah from "interfering" in Government issues. Meanwhile, the Qom meeting has asked Grand Ayatollah Sistani, based in Najaf in Iraq, to travel to Iran for discussions and Grand Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani has expressed regret for congratulating Ahmadinejad on his election victory.
2010 GMT: Report that Sadegh Noroozi, head of political council of the Mojahedin-Enghelab party, has been released.
1850 GMT: Bemoans?! Our friends at Press TV show their respect for the Mousavi statement: "Mousavi bemoans arrest of top aides, urges calm".
1840 GMT: Remember our emerging assessment that the biggest challenge for President Ahmadinejad may be governing Iran, especially handling the economy, rather than confronting the opposition? This from Press TV: "The value of Iran's oil products exports has plunged by 51 percentage points in the first half of the current Iranian year due to the global economic downturn."
1815 GMT: A Correction. We reported earlier (0920 GMT) that Emadeddine Baghi, head of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners, was arrested yesterday. In fact, there has been no confirmation of Baghi's arrest although the Association's offices were shut down.
1810 GMT: Quick! Look Over There! I suspect international media will be absorbed by this story, rather than any international developments in Iran, until the Supreme Leader's speech on Friday. From Press TV: "Amid international calls on Iran to engage the West over its nuclear program, the country presents the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany with its latest package of proposals to tackle global issues."
1800 GMT: CNNFail/TwitterSuccess. I know, I risk being repetitive but this exchange, over the arrest of Alireza Beheshti, has to be noted to be believed:
(1330 GMT) verypissedoff: Why are CNN & ABC silent? #iranelection Reuters: Ally of Iran's Mousavi detained
[The Reuters story was posted at 1251 GMT. Enduring America ran it as an urgent update, following Twitter to the Mowj-e-Sabz website, at 1945 GMT on Wednesday.]
(1655 GMT) rosemaryCNN Reuters: Ally of Iran's Mousavi detained, website says
Despite the fact that Rosemary Church, one of CNN's anchors, finally acknowledged the story almost 24 hours after it happened, CNN's website still has no reference to the far-from-minor development.
This is in no way a slapdown of Rosemary Church, who does good work and has used Twitter (unlike others in the media) to interact with others rather than for self-promotion of her and her network. However, based on the last 72 hours, let alone the last three months, I will take my stand against anyone who says Twitter is merely a diversion which should be set aside in the work of "real" journalists.
1540 GMT: Ayatollahs Taking a Stand? We reported on Monday about a meeting in Qom of several Grand Ayatollahs and senior clerics including, Ayatollahs Golpaygani, Makarem-Shirazi, Bayat-Zanjani, Montazeri, and Mousavi-Ardebili, on “practical steps against the coup government”. Now the Green movement's website, Mowj-e-Sabz, is reporting that the clerics are pressing their challenge against an "illegitimate" government, including its selection of female ministers, despite an attempt by the Supreme Leader through Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi to check the opposition.
1420 GMT: We have posted a translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement on the arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi advisors in a separate entry.
1400 GMT: Another Arrest. In addition to the detentions on Tuesday of Mousavi advisor Alireza Beheshti, Karroubi advisor Morteza Alviri, Etemade Melli website editor Mohammad Davari, security forces arrested Mohammad Ozlati-Moqaddam, a former IRGC commander and head of the veteran’s faction of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign, at his home.
Ozlati-Moqaddam, who formerly served in the IRGC political bureau alongside Hossein Shariatmadari and Hossein Safar-Harandi, was arrested on Tuesday.
1330 GMT: A slow period has been broken by the latest statement from Mir Hossein Mousavi. Condemning the arrests of Alireza Beheshti, his top advisor, and Mortreza Alviri, Mehdi Karroubi’s top advisor, he warns people that “more difficult” days are on the way and advising them to be calm and remain careful and alert. At the same time, Mousavi is asking them to not be intimidated by "the coup government", as the regime's "pathetic acts" are doomed to fail like their previous efforts.
1140 GMT: Hours before he was arrested yesterday, Mehdi Karroubi's aide Morteza Alviri, who was also a member of the Karroubi-Mousavi committees investigating detentions, gave an interview to Rooz Online (translation by HomyLafayette):
The regime's actions have pushed political activity out of parties and into homes and within the population....Silence is not acquiescence. There is a bomb within the hearts of the people, and it can explode at any time....I still believe that fraud took place in the election. The country is in a state of martial law.
1125 GMT: Did Sadegh Larijani Just Jump Behind the President? The head of Iran's judiciary has said that the "false claim" of election fraud led some people to go "beyond the law", adding, "The life of our social system is dependent on law enforcement."
Larijani was vague beyond this, for example, on detentions and trials, but I wonder if the statement could be read as implicit acceptance of the Ahmadinejad line.
1040 GMT: It's All about Us (outside Iran). The perils of an attention span which is all about what Iran means for "us" rather than what is happening inside Iran is all too clear in Simon Tisdall's blunt statement today in The Guardian of London: "If anyone still wonders what happened to the Iranian revolution of 2009, the answer is: the hardliners won."
Even a quick glance at EA's analyses, and those of other sites like Anonymous Iran and Keeping the Change, complicates Tisdall's assertions. Who exactly are his "hardliners"? Ahmadinejad? The Revolutionary Guard? The Supreme Leader? All of the above? And has the opposition just evaporated in the face of measures such as yesterday's raids?
These are trifles, however, because Tisdall is not really concerned with anything beyond a superficial reference to the internal situation. His focus is "the difficulties inherent in dealing with Tehran". Nuclear programme. Sanctions. "Soft power". All of which leads him into the cul-de-sac:
As bleak as the picture may be in Iran after the last 48 hours, it's far better than this simplifying of "our" options by reducing the Iranian people to bystanders and pawns.
0920 GMT: A Far-from-Incidental Note. The Mousavi-led Committee for the Tracking of Prisoners and Mehdi Karroubi's operations were not the only organisations targeted in the last 48 hours. Emadeddine Baghi, head of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners, was also arrested yesterday. Baghi's office was searched and documents and equipment were taken by security forces.
0825 GMT: MediaWatch. Both New York Times and Washington Post have articles on yesterday's raid of Karroubi offices, although they only briefly mention the later arrest of Alireza Beheshti. The Los Angeles Times, normally in the lead of US-based coverage, get tangled up: anxious to feature their journalistic coup of an interview with Mehdi Karroubi, they reduce news of the raids and arrests of his staff to an insert paragraph.
CNN, continuing its poor coverage even as its correspondents pile onto Twitter to promote themselves, do not notice the Beheshti arrest. Al Jazeera also misses the Beheshti news, however, and the BBC, however, is even worse: distracted by Iran's promotional claim that it is submitting proposals on its nuclear programme today, they see nothing at all inside Iran.
0820 GMT: It appears that, with its offices raided and its editor-in-chief arrested, the Etemade Melli website (which includes Saham News) is suspended. There have been no new posts since 3:25 p.m. local time yesterday.
0800 GMT: The Mousavi response to the raid on their office and later arrest of chief advisor Alireza Beheshti? This was posted three hours ago on Facebook: "Coup gov.! We R the Media & wont let our leaders be taken hostage silently.Go Green & Bring #iranelection back on top:World will be watching /"
0750 GMT: Almost lost in yesterday's chaos was the statement of the commander of the Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari, pressing the foreign-led "soft war" pretext: “Iran's great territory, population, military might, and unique geographical location in the Middle East have turned it into a strong power, and political experts in Western countries know that they cannot overwhelm Iran by launching a military attack or hard war."
Saffari claimed that a “media war” had stirred up “civil disobedience”, asserting, “The US strategy to confront the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on soft measures," even as it continues threats to launch a military attack.
The rhetoric is far from new, of course. What is significant is how the IRGC is pushing it less than a week after the Supreme Leader denied that foreign powers were able to pursue their "soft war" because of the strength of the Iranian system.
0730 GMT: It looks like folks in Iran are picking up the pieces from yesterday's dramatic events, so we've spent the time on a detailed analysis, "Ahmadinejad's 'All-In' Move", considering the significance of the raids and arrests. Our easier conclusion is that this is an attempt to break the Green movement and back down Hashemi Rafsanjani. The tricker reading is whether the President and Revolutionary Guard have done this as an assertion of authority against the Supreme Leader. We'll be debating this throughout the day (and beyond) and welcome your comments and ideas.
Josh Shahryar is also working on an analysis for a high-profile publication; we'll keep you posted on when it appears. Meanwhile, his latest "Green Brief" summarising Tuesday's events is out.
Iran: Mousavi Statement on Arrests of Top Opposition Advisors
Iran: Ahmadinejad’s “All-In” Move?
Iran Urgent Analysis: Is This the Defining Showdown?
The Latest from Iran (8 September): Picking A Fight?
Iran: Ahmadinejad Chooses Confrontation Over Compromise and Governing
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
2220 GMT: Did Sadegh Larijani Just Jump Behind the President (Continued)? Earlier today (1125 GMT) we noted that the head of judiciary seemed to be aiming at those who went "beyond the law" because of the "false claim" of electoral fraud. Another snippet of the interview is even more dramatic, as Larijani denounces those who have brought “great costs to the Islamic system" with their opposition.
2020 GMT: More on Ayatollahs Take a Stand? (1540 GMT) Some interesting developments from the Sunday meeting of senior clerics in Qom that we have been following. Ayatollah Golpaygani wrote a letter criticising the Ahmadinejad Cabinet; the Supreme Leader replied sharply, effectively prohibiting the Ayatollah from "interfering" in Government issues. Meanwhile, the Qom meeting has asked Grand Ayatollah Sistani, based in Najaf in Iraq, to travel to Iran for discussions and Grand Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani has expressed regret for congratulating Ahmadinejad on his election victory.
2010 GMT: Report that Sadegh Noroozi, head of political council of the Mojahedin-Enghelab party, has been released.
1850 GMT: Bemoans?! Our friends at Press TV show their respect for the Mousavi statement: "Mousavi bemoans arrest of top aides, urges calm".
1840 GMT: Remember our emerging assessment that the biggest challenge for President Ahmadinejad may be governing Iran, especially handling the economy, rather than confronting the opposition? This from Press TV: "The value of Iran's oil products exports has plunged by 51 percentage points in the first half of the current Iranian year due to the global economic downturn."
1815 GMT: A Correction. We reported earlier (0920 GMT) that Emadeddine Baghi, head of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners, was arrested yesterday. In fact, there has been no confirmation of Baghi's arrest although the Association's offices were shut down.
1810 GMT: Quick! Look Over There! I suspect international media will be absorbed by this story, rather than any international developments in Iran, until the Supreme Leader's speech on Friday. From Press TV: "Amid international calls on Iran to engage the West over its nuclear program, the country presents the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany with its latest package of proposals to tackle global issues."
1800 GMT: CNNFail/TwitterSuccess. I know, I risk being repetitive but this exchange, over the arrest of Alireza Beheshti, has to be noted to be believed:
(1330 GMT) verypissedoff: Why are CNN & ABC silent? #iranelection Reuters: Ally of Iran's Mousavi detained
[The Reuters story was posted at 1251 GMT. Enduring America ran it as an urgent update, following Twitter to the Mowj-e-Sabz website, at 1945 GMT on Wednesday.]
(1655 GMT) rosemaryCNN Reuters: Ally of Iran's Mousavi detained, website says
Despite the fact that Rosemary Church, one of CNN's anchors, finally acknowledged the story almost 24 hours after it happened, CNN's website still has no reference to the far-from-minor development.
This is in no way a slapdown of Rosemary Church, who does good work and has used Twitter (unlike others in the media) to interact with others rather than for self-promotion of her and her network. However, based on the last 72 hours, let alone the last three months, I will take my stand against anyone who says Twitter is merely a diversion which should be set aside in the work of "real" journalists.
1540 GMT: Ayatollahs Taking a Stand? We reported on Monday about a meeting in Qom of several Grand Ayatollahs and senior clerics including, Ayatollahs Golpaygani, Makarem-Shirazi, Bayat-Zanjani, Montazeri, and Mousavi-Ardebili, on “practical steps against the coup government”. Now the Green movement's website, Mowj-e-Sabz, is reporting that the clerics are pressing their challenge against an "illegitimate" government, including its selection of female ministers, despite an attempt by the Supreme Leader through Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi to check the opposition.
1420 GMT: We have posted a translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement on the arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi advisors in a separate entry.
1400 GMT: Another Arrest. In addition to the detentions on Tuesday of Mousavi advisor Alireza Beheshti, Karroubi advisor Morteza Alviri, Etemade Melli website editor Mohammad Davari, security forces arrested Mohammad Ozlati-Moqaddam, a former IRGC commander and head of the veteran’s faction of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign, at his home.
Ozlati-Moqaddam, who formerly served in the IRGC political bureau alongside Hossein Shariatmadari and Hossein Safar-Harandi, was arrested on Tuesday.
1330 GMT: A slow period has been broken by the latest statement from Mir Hossein Mousavi. Condemning the arrests of Alireza Beheshti, his top advisor, and Mortreza Alviri, Mehdi Karroubi’s top advisor, he warns people that “more difficult” days are on the way and advising them to be calm and remain careful and alert. At the same time, Mousavi is asking them to not be intimidated by "the coup government", as the regime's "pathetic acts" are doomed to fail like their previous efforts.
1140 GMT: Hours before he was arrested yesterday, Mehdi Karroubi's aide Morteza Alviri, who was also a member of the Karroubi-Mousavi committees investigating detentions, gave an interview to Rooz Online (translation by HomyLafayette):
The regime's actions have pushed political activity out of parties and into homes and within the population....Silence is not acquiescence. There is a bomb within the hearts of the people, and it can explode at any time....I still believe that fraud took place in the election. The country is in a state of martial law.
1125 GMT: Did Sadegh Larijani Just Jump Behind the President? The head of Iran's judiciary has said that the "false claim" of election fraud led some people to go "beyond the law", adding, "The life of our social system is dependent on law enforcement."
Larijani was vague beyond this, for example, on detentions and trials, but I wonder if the statement could be read as implicit acceptance of the Ahmadinejad line.
1040 GMT: It's All about Us (outside Iran). The perils of an attention span which is all about what Iran means for "us" rather than what is happening inside Iran is all too clear in Simon Tisdall's blunt statement today in The Guardian of London: "If anyone still wonders what happened to the Iranian revolution of 2009, the answer is: the hardliners won."
Even a quick glance at EA's analyses, and those of other sites like Anonymous Iran and Keeping the Change, complicates Tisdall's assertions. Who exactly are his "hardliners"? Ahmadinejad? The Revolutionary Guard? The Supreme Leader? All of the above? And has the opposition just evaporated in the face of measures such as yesterday's raids?
These are trifles, however, because Tisdall is not really concerned with anything beyond a superficial reference to the internal situation. His focus is "the difficulties inherent in dealing with Tehran". Nuclear programme. Sanctions. "Soft power". All of which leads him into the cul-de-sac:
One is to admit the Israelis may be right in arguing that military action is the only sure way to hinder or stop Iran's nuclear advances. The other is to do nothing – and hope that Iran's repeated assurances that it does not seek the atom bomb are true.
As bleak as the picture may be in Iran after the last 48 hours, it's far better than this simplifying of "our" options by reducing the Iranian people to bystanders and pawns.
0920 GMT: A Far-from-Incidental Note. The Mousavi-led Committee for the Tracking of Prisoners and Mehdi Karroubi's operations were not the only organisations targeted in the last 48 hours. Emadeddine Baghi, head of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners, was also arrested yesterday. Baghi's office was searched and documents and equipment were taken by security forces.
0825 GMT: MediaWatch. Both New York Times and Washington Post have articles on yesterday's raid of Karroubi offices, although they only briefly mention the later arrest of Alireza Beheshti. The Los Angeles Times, normally in the lead of US-based coverage, get tangled up: anxious to feature their journalistic coup of an interview with Mehdi Karroubi, they reduce news of the raids and arrests of his staff to an insert paragraph.
CNN, continuing its poor coverage even as its correspondents pile onto Twitter to promote themselves, do not notice the Beheshti arrest. Al Jazeera also misses the Beheshti news, however, and the BBC, however, is even worse: distracted by Iran's promotional claim that it is submitting proposals on its nuclear programme today, they see nothing at all inside Iran.
0820 GMT: It appears that, with its offices raided and its editor-in-chief arrested, the Etemade Melli website (which includes Saham News) is suspended. There have been no new posts since 3:25 p.m. local time yesterday.
0800 GMT: The Mousavi response to the raid on their office and later arrest of chief advisor Alireza Beheshti? This was posted three hours ago on Facebook: "Coup gov.! We R the Media & wont let our leaders be taken hostage silently.Go Green & Bring #iranelection back on top:World will be watching /"
0750 GMT: Almost lost in yesterday's chaos was the statement of the commander of the Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari, pressing the foreign-led "soft war" pretext: “Iran's great territory, population, military might, and unique geographical location in the Middle East have turned it into a strong power, and political experts in Western countries know that they cannot overwhelm Iran by launching a military attack or hard war."
Saffari claimed that a “media war” had stirred up “civil disobedience”, asserting, “The US strategy to confront the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on soft measures," even as it continues threats to launch a military attack.
The rhetoric is far from new, of course. What is significant is how the IRGC is pushing it less than a week after the Supreme Leader denied that foreign powers were able to pursue their "soft war" because of the strength of the Iranian system.
0730 GMT: It looks like folks in Iran are picking up the pieces from yesterday's dramatic events, so we've spent the time on a detailed analysis, "Ahmadinejad's 'All-In' Move", considering the significance of the raids and arrests. Our easier conclusion is that this is an attempt to break the Green movement and back down Hashemi Rafsanjani. The tricker reading is whether the President and Revolutionary Guard have done this as an assertion of authority against the Supreme Leader. We'll be debating this throughout the day (and beyond) and welcome your comments and ideas.
Josh Shahryar is also working on an analysis for a high-profile publication; we'll keep you posted on when it appears. Meanwhile, his latest "Green Brief" summarising Tuesday's events is out.
tagged "The Green Brief", Al Jazeera, Alireza Beheshti, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Ayatollah Mousavi-Ardebili, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, BBC, CNN, Emadeddine Baghi, Etemade Melli, Facebook, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, Iran, Iran Election 2009, Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Josh Shahryar, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Davari, Mohammad Ozlati-Moqaddam, Mojahedin-Enghelab, Morteza Alviri, New York Times, Press TV, Reuters, Rosemary Church, Sadegh Noroozi, Saham News, Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, Washington Post in Middle East & Iran
"The Green Brief", Al Jazeera, Alireza Beheshti, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Ayatollah Mousavi-Ardebili, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, BBC, CNN, Emadeddine Baghi, Etemade Melli, Facebook, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, Iran, Iran Election 2009, Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Josh Shahryar, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Davari, Mohammad Ozlati-Moqaddam, Mojahedin-Enghelab, Morteza Alviri, New York Times, Press TV, Reuters, Rosemary Church, Sadegh Noroozi, Saham News, Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, Washington Post in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (45)
Where is my Vote.
Agree. The model you describe is what they are trying to implement. More on the side of Russia with the intelligence & security services morphing into the political machine with party front. Though I don't think they will be even that subtle about it.
I am sure Vladimir Vladimirovich gave Mahmoud div alot of pointers during drinks after SCO meetings.
Scott,
I thought of you the minute I saw the title
whereismyvote
I saw your post after already posting #25 above. I agree it is impossible for Pasdaran to achieve Burma. I picked it up as the logical end to what they are doing. They are using Burma methods on a country where it just can't work. On the other hand, the vision you described would be hard to achieve if the people are oppressed to the degree they would have to be for Pasdaran to succeed. It won't work for the reasons you stated about the people of Iran. People would have to want to participate & excel. So what would Pasdaran have in the end???
Why is Mousavi still "urging calm"? It seems that the authorities are testing the waters for an arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi themselves, and by then it might be game over. Demobilizing the protests without getting any of their demands recognized in return didn't make sense to me at the time and makes even less sense now. What is Mousavi waiting for? What is the Green Movement's next move?
EA, re your 1800 GMT: CNNFail/TwitterSuccess, I made the case for social media/#iranelection at USC yesterday, 9/8, where I was on a panel with Roger Cohen and Mike Shuster. Today, Cohen repeated his position in the NYT http://bit.ly/GHdPE, where he begins by quoting me but only to make his case against social media in favor of professional journalists on the ground. I'll respond to him and will refer to EANewsFeed and other sources.
In a country where foreign media are banned and local journalists are jailed, the practical question is where else do we get the real news other than thru social media? The bigger question, in a globalized, plugged world, is a socio-philosophical one of people vs governments.
I think the very strength of AN / Pasdaran alliance is their very weakness. Aggression and willing to use force / the gun as many commentators have said (Thomas and others) makes them weak. The power of the gun is in its fear. Once used it is seldom likely to be used again.
The power of the reform movement was in its rule of the street and disobedience to the use of force. I fear when Rafsanjani helped quash the street protest, he made the hands tip. If there is a second protest and then there is mass murder, it will invigorate the reformers overnight. Blood of your brother and sister spilled will only harden the resolve and push out the people further. AN and Pasdaran know this too well, and they will threaten force, but not use it. We need the supposed leaders of the green wave to act like catalysts for this march to martyrdom, by becoming the Pish Marge for the masses. The arrest and subsequent death of them shall help drive out 100000 and then a million protesters. This will be one way to create a new opening.
The gun is like a stick, once you use it, you lose it....
whereismyvote
I think what you just said is the reason Mousavi, Karoubi & Khatami are not in jail. Whether they are actively leading or not, their arrest or assassination would spark a reaction that couldn't be controlled
@Amy and wimv:
How about this then? They TRY to implement Burma, succeed in the very short-term, before, as you, say they can no longer control it. THAT (along w/ a boatload of blood) seems plausible.
As to why they are urging Greens to stay calm: Don't get in the way of your enemies missteps.
I don't think it is necessarily a misstep by the regime Kevina. If they want to maintain power without public support then arresting the Green movement leaders one by one may be the only rational option. They have been holding back on doing that largely because they fear provoking another uprising by the green movement, but if the Greens are being urged to continue hiding by their own leaders then Ahmadinejad doesn't have a huge amount to fear.
I still feel that the protests never should have dispersed from the public squares in the days after the election when they numbered in the millions. The pressure on the regime should have been constant from that point on until the regime at least gave the Greens safer, legal ways to continue their non-violent protests
Scott reported this story somewhere above. I hope it's OK to post it here. My question is: will the Majlis, the Judiciary & the clerics stand for treating Beheshti this way? I know it would receive little notice if not for his name-- it took the death of Mohsen Rouholamini for conservatives to speak out. It sounds like the Pasdaran are well on their way to killing Beheshti, and not very quietly. Is there no outrage?
OR are the Pasdaran publicly blowing off all authorities, demonstrating that they can treat people any way they want with inpunity?
http://tehranbureau.com/alireza-beheshti-beaten-undisclosed-location/" rel="nofollow">Beheshti reportedly admitted to hospital unconscious with broken skull
“The value of Iran’s oil products exports has plunged by 51 percentage points in the first half of the current Iranian year due to the global economic downturn.”
Is this news? Iran is subject to the world economic downturn like everyone else. Let's blame the SL for the world economic downturn.
Samuel,
Is ridiculing an assertion that nobody has made really the best critique of all the information on this page you can offer?
Chris Emery
ChrisE,
The information set forth merely stated obvious non-news and deserved ridicule. "The value of Japanese automobile exports has plunged due to the global economic downturn". There now you have another piece of non news.
"Meanwhile, the Qom meeting has asked Grand Ayatollah Sistani, based in Najaf in Iraq, to travel to Iran for discussions".
Good luck with that. Sistani proved himself to be pretty much a useless leader when the Shiite masses were being massacred daily by Al-queda in Iraq a few years ago. The young and relatively inexperienced Iraqui leader Moqtada Sadr rose to prminence precisely because he helped organize forces to fight Al-queda Sunni types in Baghdad, Sadr city, Basra and other places. The Shiite population survived because of folks like Sadr while Sistani continued to follow the "quietist tradition".
By the way it is precisely that quietist tradition followed by Sistani that was so despised by the Ayatollah Khomeini. See for example his book "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist".
Samuel,
It's a straightforward point. If you have an economy which is heavily dependent on revenue from a single industry/commodity and your revenue from that industry/commodity drops by half, you might have some significant budgetary issues, which in turn might affect subsidies, social provision, support of infrastructure. That is likely to be a major challenge for the Iranian Government, as it would be for any Government in a similar economic position.
S.
Mahasti,
Good gosh, that is an appalling article by Cohen! Fortunately, it's late so I'll hold fire until AM but I sense a special EA feature in the AM about New Media overcoming Professional Blindness.
S.
@Adam.
But what the Green leadership is saying is "don't provoke 'them.'" Mousavi, from day one, though has said, if we're arrested, mass protest.
Scott, there's still no news of the arrest of Baghi. And IranQuest did not reply to my comment.
And the news of Beheshti's injuries were also not on any of the reformist websites. Just one blog.
Mahasti, I'm neither with you nor Cohen. Social media have done lots to discredit the movement in Iran, and as far as I can tell, they were not significantly useful for the movement either. Look at all the wonderful news sites that have emerged after the election: Mowjcamp, ayandehnews, mashrotenews, etc.
These are citizen journalists deeply involved with the movement and the leaders and thus, very rarely are they susceptible to rumor, chatter and paranoia of social media. That's where we should be looking.
Pedestrian,
Thanks re Baghi --- we pulled our "confirmation" and have not been able to establish if he was arrested. And I never felt we had solid enough information to run the Tehran Bureau story of Beheshti's beating by security forces.
I have thoughts on social media and the new sites you mention --- put bluntly, they have been vital for my work with EA, especially on they crisis, when you manoeuvre between and with them, both as sources and as distribution networks for news --- but I'm save the rest for an entry I'm thinking of posting.
S.
.
51% drop in Oil revenues in a massively corrupt economy dependents on the said revenues is not Newsworthy!!??
In my opinion, watching too much CNN tend to cause this in individuals(Myself included).
Otherwise, if confirmed and depending on your vantage point, it is a very encouraging event specially if the trend continues and the 5+1 delivers on its threat to limit the flow of Refined Petroleum products.
Lets not forget the incoming watershed day of September 23rd of the schools Opening Day and the wild-card of September 18Th the “Ghods Day”.
As far as the circle of violence and current events concerned, everything seems to be going by the script it seems that the noose is tightening around Karoubi and Mousavi’s dwindling circles and culminating shortly into Jail and House arrest for them respectively. It may finally give the necessary breathing ground to some of the personalities in exile like Ebadi, Sazegara, Moshiri or Makhmalbaf an opportunity to build an audience from a safe and effective distance and to legitimize them in the eyes of the Iranian public.