Egypt Witness: "Political Truthiness" in Cairo (Cook)

[Editor's Note: Yesterday the party of President Mubarak announced that the 82-year-old will run for a sixth term.]

There are creepy things about Egypt, but we aren’t talking about North Korea, after all. So instead of lies you get truthiness: “Egypt is an emerging democracy with 24 legal political parties and 250 newspapers and magazines. The fact that people are asking questions about succession is indicative of how far the leadership is willing to go to reform Egypt. The development of democracy will take a long time; things are not perfect, but Egypt’s come a long way in the last 10 years. President Hosni Mubarak is a transitional figure.” With the exception of the last one, each of these statements contains an element of truth even though they hardly tell the whole story. Still, it seems to be enough for the regime’s constituents. What does it matter really when one’s profits are up 30 percent a year or your ministry’s share of the state budget grows bigger or those shiny new F-16s arrive or you get to be a media personality?

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Iran and Sanctions: EA's Scott Lucas on Al Jazeera English

I will be appearing today at 1730 GMT on Al Jazeera English's Inside Story, discussing sanctions and Iran. Professor Sadegh Zibakalam of Tehran University will also be commenting.

The Latest from Iran (21 October): What if Nothing Important Happens?

2115 GMT: Khamenei Roadtrip --- Media Lowlight of the Day. Oh, dear, a pretty spectacular MediaFail from Reuters who, rather than going to their Tehran correspondent, rely on their reporter in Paris to get the story all wrong:

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears to have scored a political success by gathering leading clerics in the holy city of Qom around him in a show of unity after months of in-fighting.

Iranian media highlighted pictures on Thursday of a smiling Khamenei sitting with several top Shi'ite Muslim dignitaries, including some who have been critical since the disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year....

Among the sages pictured sipping tea with Khamenei was Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, a critic of Ahmadinejad, along with five other clerics who have the elevated status of "marja-e taqlid" (source of emulation), meaning that Shi'ite Muslims may choose them as a personal spiritual guide.

Their turnout belied rumors that senior religious figures would boycott Khamenei's annual visit to the center of Shi'ite learning in protest at a fierce crackdown on reformists and moves to isolate and intimidate dissident clerics.

About the only accurate information in this is that Makarem-Shirazi was present on Wednesday. None of the others at the meeting have the rank of "marja-e taqlid" --- indeed, no cleric with that status apart from Makarem-Shirazi has deigned to see Ayatollah Khamenei in the first three days of his Qom visit.

Yet, as stunning as this failure is, it may be dwarfed by the misunderstanding of the "senior Western diplomat" who fed the Reuters story: "(Khamenei's) trip shows the leader has the power to unite factions ... and it is a message to those who hoped the in-fighting may lead to the collapse of the system."

2025 GMT: Did the Supreme Leader Just Smack Down the Senior Clerics? Well, this is an interesting way to end the evening....

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Iran Snap Analysis: Khamenei's Offensive Stalls?

Only 48 hours after the start of the Supreme Leader's PR offensive in the religious centre of Qom, and its momentum appears to be slowing, if not stopping.

Tuesday's public setpiece of the reception for Ayatollah Khamenei and his speech was always going to provide positive images. The bigger political question was how he would be received in private by Qom's clerics.

Iranian state media struggled on Tuesday to put the gloss of unity on the first meeting, given the notable absences among the attendees --- e.g., all of Qom's maraje (sources of emulation) --- and Wednesday's second effort has made even less impression.

The most incisive coverage comes instead from a leading EA correspondent on Iran: " Looks like Khamenei's mighty propaganda machine finally scored a Pyrrhic victory. Even Makarem is not an extremely senior Ayatollah. Let's see if they drag Saanei, Shobeyri, Mousavi Ardabili, or any other of the big wigs into the frame tomorrow --- I strongly doubt it."

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Egypt Special: Why is Religion All Around? (Samir)

Dina Samir writes for EA:

From the ringtones on the mobile phones of Cairo's underground riders --- chiming out the Islamic call to prayer or Christian worship songs --- to religious products such as Islamic books to the preaching of a Muslim lady in the women-only carriage, a stranger can hear and feel religion in the air. Just one ride gives you Egyptians’ “religious mania,” a term used by various intellectuals to refer to an obsession among many Christians and Muslims in Egypt.

But why is religion all around? Professor Madgy Guirguis offers a challenging conclusion, “Since they cannot speak loud about political activism, corruption, inheritance of power, contemplating religion and football are the safe choices left for Egyptians.”

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The Latest from Iran (20 October): Meanwhile, The Economy....

2010 GMT: The Khamenei Road Trip. The Supreme Leader's office has now released photographs of Ayatollah Khamenei's meeting today with several clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi (left in the photo below):

1735 GMT: The Supreme Leader and the Clerics (Round 2). A bit more of a substantial success for Ayatollah Khamenei this afternoon, at least according to Fars. He met more clerics, notably Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. Other Ayatollahs who were present included Sobhani, Sadegh Larijani, Ahmad Khatami, Ebrahim Amini, and Ka'bi.

A bit of confusion, however, as Fars illustrates the encounter with a photograph from Tuesday's reception for the Supreme Leader. Neither IRNA nor Press TV carries a report on today's meeting. Nor, as far as I can tell, does Khamenei's official website.

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Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu Rejects Obama's Plan A --- No Plan B Before Mid-November (Rozen)

Behind the scenes, the Obama administration is still absorbing the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has to date rejected a proposed American compromise package that would have offered various security and other assurances to Israel in exchange for a 60-day renewal of a partial West Bank settlement freeze that expired last month. 

The American team is said to be frustrated and upset at Netanyahu’s dismissal to date of the package, which was drafted by the NSC’s Dennis Ross in close consultation with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molho. 

“They’re really upset,” one Washington Middle East hand in close contact with administration officials said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, they made this incredibly good faith effort to keep Bibi at the table.” And Bibi proved as yet unwilling to budge."

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Iran Analysis: How is the Supreme Leader's Mission Going in Qom?

Khamenei's quest to shore up his religious authority and legitimacy is manifestly failing.

The next nine days of the visit could see further ectastic crowds, plenty of low and middle-ranking clerics, and even more provocative statements by the Supreme Leader, who yesterday compared the participants of last year's massive protests to "microbes" and railed once again against the plotting "enemy". But it is an almost foregone conclusion that the main aim of Khamenei's visit, meeting eye-to-eye with those high-evel clerics who have repeatedly fired salvos against his rule and that of President Ahmadinejad, will evaporate into the religious air of Qom.

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The Latest from Iran (19 October): The Khamenei Road Show

2000 GMT: Spot the Cleric. OK, here's one publicity photo, put out by the Supreme Leader's visit. Two of the clerics are Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani and Ayatollah Javadi Amoli.

Mehr has more photographs, from Khamenei's office, of a larger gathering.

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Iran's Economic Story: The "Pseudo-Privatisation" (Harris)

Kevan Harris gets behind the headlines for the new journal Muftah, concluding, "In the end, the fate of the Iranian economy likely hinges more on the country’s fractured political situation, deteriorating social welfare institutions, and inadequate policy outcomes than on the [Revolutionary Guard] bogeyman so many would have us fear":

When discussing the current state of Iran’s economy, commentators, activists, politicians, and the U.S. government all seem to agree on the massive role played by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Stanford University Professor Abbas Milani told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington D.C. in June 2010 that this “military junta” controls “minimally about 60% of the economy”.  Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have lamented the IRGC’s economic takeover in their perennial letters and interviews.  Even many conservatives in Iran’s narrowed but still fractious political elite have protested the transferring of state-owned enterprises and land to military-linked companies. Among the general population, the influence of the IRGC has become so well-known that any cab driver in Tehran can identify the highways and tunnels being built by the organization or its affiliates.

Common knowledge, however, has a tendency to steamroll over nuances, especially in the echo chamber that public discussions on Iran resemble today.  While it is certainly true that Iran is undergoing a major economic transformation, in which the IRGC is playing a substantial role, there are other developments that remain largely unaddressed, particularly within the opaque process known to Iranians as pseudo-privatization.

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