Archive for the 'Security' Category

My eyes are getting tired from staring at this news for too long but wanted to post one more. There is quite an interesting debate going on about the nature of the Mousvi movement and the base of support for the current protests in Iran. Rob at Arabic Media Shack sums up a debate between Juan Cole on the “elections clearly rigged” side and Andrew Exum, among others on the “Western media are elitist and underestimate Iranians’ true arch-conservatism” side. Rob came down on the Exum side, asking if we were wildly misreading Iran through the lens of Western journalists. For me, watching the videos of the Mousavi protests that came out today left little doubt that there is a fairly broad based mass movement on the Mousavi side, not just some pajama wearing twitter jockeys (spoken with love from someone who has been glued to the twits all day and not left the house). So what’s going on and how do we know these are significant? A few points:

• Khamenei has already backed down and assented to an investigation into vote rigging. This is the day after he declared Ahmadinejad’s a “divine victory.” A huge climb down any way you look at it.
• The government all day on state media had been announcing that the protests were not legal or had been cancelled. The protests ended up being enormous, to the point where the government resorted to gunfire to break them up. (Last I heard they were decamping to a Tajrish protest led by Karroubi)
• The shots fired and casualties mean that there will be memorial services in 40 days for those killed tonight, thus lowering the chances that this will go away quietly
• Coverage is bad outside Tehran, but I am seeing some Twitter reports of violent protests in other cities. This is a place where projects like Swift and Meedan have a lot of potential – filtering out the “reTweets” and organizing the information in a more usable way
• We need to see how this plays out, but there is a major component of intra-elite competition and rivalry going on within the government. This is not just a mass movement of disaffected youth, but one that is tearing the Islamic Republic’s leaders apart. Witness the statements by Rafsanjani before the vote and after, the protests of several clerics, and also voting objections raised by former Revolutionary Guard commander and candidate Rezai — not exactly a narrow sliver of Iran’s political spectrum. The best roundup of these angles is in the Jim Muir’s snap analysis here. I agree with him and ISN’s Kamal Nazer Yasin that all eyes will now be on Qom for more clergy to announce where they stand.

This is a developing and explosive situation, and there is no telling how it will end up. At very least, it will mean a severe reshuffling of who the major Tehran power players are. I think, however, it goes far beyond the smaller bouts of unrest we have seen in the last ten years. The Obama Administration is doing well to express concern, but avoid getting to far into the fray.

Signing off for tonight but keep up to date with Cole, NIAC, CUMINet, Meedan, Sullivan, Uskowi, Ulrich.

-WW

Will Ward

In the new Arab Public Opinion Poll released yesterday Shibley Telhami’s team surveyed 4087 individuals across six Arab states and the numbers are not looking great for Iran. The incidence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being listed as a “most admired” foreign leader dropped from 2008. Respondents also were more likely to list Iran as a “threat” and support international pressure to curb its nuclear program.

In his talk, Marc Lynch hits it on the head in attributing this to the propaganda campaign in Egyptian and Saudi media that has gone into overdrive in the last year or two. I would only add that this campaign is not limited to state media, but has often carried over to religious figures like Qaradawi who have also helped turning up the anti-Iran/ anti-Shia rhetoric in recent months. The fact that Ahmadinejad’s year on year figures dropped more sharply with Egypt included (-7%) than with it excluded (-4%). should give pause to those who might worry about Iran attempting to gain influence in Cairo by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

I’d be fascinated to see polling data on some of the countries in the region with warmer relations with Iran – Oman, Syria, Iraq. But the holy grail would be some solid data on wider Arab attitudes towards Iran across the Sunni- Shi’a divide to better test the reams of ‘Shi’a crescent’ style punditry that puts sectarian indentification in the analytic drivers seat.

The above image is taken from the slides presented at the Brookings event. You can download them here (PDF), and watch the video recap here.

Juan Cole links to the latest episode of Inside Iraq on al-Jazeera English (parts one and two are embedded below). The show features Richard Schmierer, a fairly high-ranking US diplomat, appearing opposite Seyed Mohammad Marandi, head of North American Studies at University of Tehran. Marandi is not an Iranian official but does express views that are fairly mainstream within the Iranian establishment. Under the previous American administration, officials rarely appeared on al-Jazeera, much less alongside guests supportive of Iranian government positions. Could this be evidence of a new Obama approach to engaging regional media?

Yesterday Mohammad Khatami officially declared he would run in the June presidential elections. Thanks to Marc Lynch who flagged an important article from a regular columnist in Asharq al-Awsat, a newspaper that while not official, has ties to the more ‘liberal’ wing of the Al Saud. For a bit more on the newspaper and its track record of supporting the Saudi line, check out Andrew Hammond’s article in Arab Media & Society (shameless plug alert) from fall of 2007. Below is my translation of the article (with a few less important parts omitted):

We don’t want Khatami to win the presidency
by Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed

There is a sense of enthusiasm and cautious optimism since former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami announced that he would run in the Iranian presidential elections. For many, Khatami represents a peace-loving moderate Iranian political model following a long series of conflict-seeking leaders. This is correct, yet to stake anything on Khatami is a mistake, not because of the reformist leader himself, but because of the Iranian power structure. Indeed, the system is composed such that it doesn’t permit a popular but politically weak president like Khatami to steer Iranian politics in a way he sees fit. The proof of this is his previous presidency [1997-2005] in which he suffered serious, humiliating setbacks at the hands of extremist elements within the system. This included the closure of newspapers and magazines affiliated with him, barring candidates from this faction from running, and harassment of his staff – to the point where he was marginalized and left the presidency without achieving anything important that he had promised the Iranian people and was elected to do.

As for the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he truly belongs to the ruling regime; he belongs to the Revolutionary Guard which has become more powerful than at any time in the past, and more involved in domestic and foreign affairs. He is closer to the ruler who wields true power – the supreme leader Sayed Ali Khamenei. It is thus better to keep Ahmadinejad in power than to hope for a president like Khatami….
And while Islamist reformers might still be the preferable choice for winning the election, if they win, this still would not be cause for much celebration because they will be doves without wings. If there is to be a real agreement (or not) it must be with the true holders of power.