Important reads via Sullivan, HuffPo Sunday, June 21, 2009

[seafan]

From Nico Pitney:

12:51 PM ET -- Where are the guns? Some readers have been surprised not to see more guns in the hands of the Iranian demonstrators (they're not urging them to carry guns, by the way, just surprised not to see them in light of the violent crackdowns). Regarding this, NBC's Richard Engel reported this morning:

The information war is one war. But (the regime) is much more concerned about a real war. And the only people who are armed in this country, in Iran, are most of the ethnic minorities -- the Baluchis, the Kurds, the Arab populations. So if this protest movement spreads deeply into those areas, then you have a real significant threat against the regime. That is why you are seeing the regime try and say don't participate, this is a foreign-inspired coup, these people in the streets are rioters and terrorists who will be dealt with accordingly.

Zakaria: 'Fatal wound' inflicted on Iranian regime's ideology


From a CNN interview June 19, 2009 with Zakaria:

.....

CNN: As you've seen the situation in Iran develop over the last week, what are your thoughts?

Fareed Zakaria: One of the first things that strikes me is we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy.

CNN: Do you mean you think the regime will fall?

Zakaria: No, I don't mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. It may -- I certainly hope it will -- but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. I mean that this is the end of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian regime.

The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists had divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea was at its heart. Last week, that ideology suffered a fatal wound.

CNN: How so?

Zakaria: When the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was indicating it was divinely sanctioned. But no one bought it. He was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, met with the candidates and promised to investigate and perhaps recount some votes. Khamenei has subsequently hardened his position but that is now irrelevant. Something very important has been laid bare in Iran today --- legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular support.

CNN: There have been protests in Iran before. What makes this different?

Zakaria: In the past the protests were always the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street, but eventually stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again but this time the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly sided with the challenger, Mir Hossein Moussavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. So has Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament and a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy. Behind the scenes, the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, now head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body, is waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even the supreme leader himself. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it is a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is as if a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.

CNN: What should the United States do?

Zakaria: I would say continue what we have been doing. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that they are battling an aggressive America bent on attacking Iran. In his inaugural address, his New Year greetings, and his Cairo speech, there is a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily to the New Year greeting. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel, and especially the United Kingdom were behind the street protests, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to most Iranians. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.

CNN: But shouldn't the U.S. be more vocal in support for the Iranian protesters?

Zakaria: I think a good historic analogy is President George H.W. Bush's cautious response to the cracks in the Soviet empire in 1989. Then, many neo-conservatives were livid with Bush for not loudly supporting those trying to topple the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But Bush's concern was that the situation was fragile. Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks. Handing the communists reasons to react forcefully would help no one, least of all the protesters. Bush's basic approach was correct and has been vindicated by history.

.....

From Blake Hounshell at the Foreign Policy blog:


6-20-09

.....

Roger Cohen, the New York Times columnist who's in Tehran, tells of a police commander who pleaded with demonstrators to go home because, "I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people." From what I can glean from Twitter and various reporting, the regular police aren't quite as eager to beat heads, in contrast with the hard-line Revolutionary Guard and basij militiamen. If we start seeing cracks in those forces, or the regular army, then the regime will really be in trouble. But it will take sustained pressure -- more demonstrations, strikes, and smart politics -- to get there.

As for Mir Hossain Mousavi, the unlikely leader of this uprising, he has reportedly declared his readiness to become a martyr and sent a letter to the Guardian Council demanding a new election. In it, he sounds reluctant to admit that he's past the point of achieving redress through the system. All he seeks, he says, is the restoration of the Islamic Republic -- not its destruction. That makes sense for political reasons, since he needs as broad a coalition as possible and can't afford to alienate potential conservative supporters. He's still hoping to attract the support of the clergy, who could lend his movement enormous weight.

But the clear implication of Mousavi's actions is that he no longer sees the supreme leader as the legitimate, unquestioned ruler of Iran. I'm sure an increasing number of Iranians feel the same way, even if the regime ultimately beats them into submission as we watch helplessly, glued to our monitors. And that will spell the end of the Islamic Republic in the long run.

(bold type added)



From Sullivan:

21 Jun 2009 01:39 pm

"Criminal"

That's what Ahmadinejad is now calling Mousavi. And they are playing their usual card of blaming the uprising on foreign terrorists and the US. In this, the neoconservative call for Obama to join the uprising is exactly what Khamenei wants. But the Islamists may finally have an intelligent foe in Washington, rather than a clueless ideological one.

From Sullivan:

21 Jun 2009 01:42 pm

Now: Gerson

Fred Hiatt's team at the WaPo publishes yet another column making exactly the same exhausted neocon point about jumping into the Iranian revolution. It's doctrine so they repeat it endlessly.

From Nico Pitney:

3:39 PM ET -- Another photojournalist missing. Via reader Teni, Life magazine posts this message about the photojournalist who runs TehranLive.org: "A NOTE TO OUR READERS: We are saddened to report that the Iranian photojournalist, whose pictures appear in this gallery, is missing. He has not been in contact with us; this morning we received the following email from one of his relatives. We will update this space when we have more details. THE EMAIL: Hi im , when he go out side yester day for he never came back home and also his friend and a lot of our young brave people, government arrested them <. . .> don't let them suffer in those bloody hands. With thanks."

The photo below, taken earlier this week by the same photographer, accompanies this post. More of his work is here.

We hope he is safe.


From Sullivan:

21 Jun 2009 03:22 pm

The Other Revolution

The media one, that is. I managed to write a column on this question while blogging. It's at the Sunday Times here. Money quote on Twitter:

The misspelling, the range of punctuation, the immediacy: it was like overhearing snatches of discourse from police radio. Or it was like reading a million little telegram messages being beamed out like an SOS to the world. Within seconds I could transcribe and broadcast them to hundreds of thousands more.

As I did so, it was impossible not to feel connected to the people on the streets, especially the younger generation, with their blogs and tweets and Facebook messages – all instantly familiar to westerners in a way that would have been unthinkable a decade or so ago. This new medium ripped the veil off “the other” and we began to see them as ourselves.

All the accumulated suspicion and fear and alienation from three decades of hostility between Iran and America seemed to slip away. Whatever happens, the ability of this new media to bring people together - to bring the entire world into this revolution on the streets of Iran - has already changed things dramatically.

The rest here.

And one more MUST WATCH from Sullivan:

21 Jun 2009 01:25 pm

The Most Staggering Footage Yet

And I've seen a lot. Just watch this pitched battle in the streets between a crowd and the riot police (via BBC Farsi). And watch it to the very end, as the police suddenly turn tail and run. Yes, you can hear the shouts 'Hurrah!" and I confess I found myself yelling it at my lap-top as well. Let us hope this is a microcosm of the whole thing. Faced with so many with such determination, the will of the regime will crumble.

This is truly a pivotal point in world history that we will share with our children and grandchildren.

And the courage of the Iranian people will empower us all.