Khamenei – No More Mr. Nice Guy
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued an ultimatum to Mirhussein Mousavi. On Friday, Khamenei gave the weekly Friday prayers at Tehran University. This is the same site where 5 students were killed earlier this week. The Ayatollah sternly warned opponents Friday to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged, praising the ballot as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.” “Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This is challenging democracy after the elections.” He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sided with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and offered no concessions to the opposition. He effectively closed any chance for a new vote by calling the June 12 election an “absolute victory.” He totally denied election irregularities. “If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?” Khamenei asked.
Khamenei had told Mir Hossein Mousavi to stand beside him during the prayers. Mousavi did not attend. Mousavi’s Twitter feed apparently has previously announced not to go to prayers tomorrow. This could imply that Mousavi himself will not attend.
This comes following news that multiple leaders in the Revolutionary Guards, the elite Iranian Army units, have been removed, supposedly for refusing to attack protesters.
Clearly the ultimatum was the final straw for Khamenei. He wouldn’t have had such a public event to show Mousavi’s support unless he was at the end of his rope. Now that Mousavi (apparently) did not show up, will it be considered an insult to the Grand Ayatollah? Mousavi is testing the patience of the Islamic state. Analysts were unsurprised by Khamenei’s speech. “The ball is now in Mousavi’s court,” said Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Denver. “His leadership will now be tested. Will he stand firm and continue his nonviolent resistance, or will he compromise and sell out the democratic aspirations of millions of Iranians?”
Mousavi it appears isn’t happy with Obama either. Mousavi’s external spokesperson, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, felt that Obama had slighted the movement by saying that there was no difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Obama continues to make friends everywhere! His protest movement continues, despite very sharp odds. Protesters continued peaceful chants, even through out the night, according to some sources.
U.S. Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Chairman of the House Republican Conference, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have introduced a resolution that goes where the President fears to tread: explicit support for the Iranian dissidents.
The irony here is that Mousavi is far from an outsider. He is a former Prime Minister, who had a very conservative and rough regime himself in the 1980s. He is the consumate insider. So this is a fight among the old boys network, pure and simple. Will Mousavi, who has spent his whole life in the inner circle, really publically stand against Ayatollah Khameni and the Guardian Council?
Friday is going to be an interesting day.
Some historical perspective might be helpful. I’m not an expert by any measure, but in writing my recent novel, THE TEHRAN CONVICTION, I came to better understand the politics of a country that, to our Western eyes, often seems unreasonably and irrationally.
The CIA-sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected government in 1953 has colored the country’s attitudes for fifty-six years. Iran was a fledgling democracy then, trying to achieve economic independence from Britain, who ran the country like the Great Oz, pulling the levers of power from behind a little curtain in the corner. The popular prime minister, Mossadegh, had nationalized the oil and tossed the Brits out a year earlier, and Churchill was doing everything he could to reverse the situation, including an embargo backed by a naval blockade of the country. Desperate for help in getting the oil flowing in the southern refineries, Mossadegh turned to the United States. He trusted America because, after all, it too had made a Declaration of Independence from Britain. But his trust was betrayed. It was the height of the Cold War and the Soviet Union too close to an unlimited supply of oil to take a chance with an untried democracy.
The CIA organized a coup. Mossadegh was arrested and the young Shah Reza Pahlavi was given absolute power and unlimited access to US weapons. When, in 1979, the people had had enough of his abuses, there was turmoil in the streets much like we’re seeing today. The Shah fled, but the democratic forces in the country had been weakened from years of oppression, and the clergy, led by Ayatollah Khomeni, prevailed in the power struggle that took place. The Islamic Revolution was born.
Now, 30 years after that revolution, and 56 years after the coup, Iran has a chance to move beyond the backward-looking politics that has defined the last three decades. If that happens, it could be a game changer in the Middle East and beyond.
Funny how the future always come down to the past.