Iran: The Non-Violent "Watershed" of the Mousavi Statement (Shahryar)

EA's Josh Shahryar offers his views, complementing but also differing from those of EA's Scott Lucas, on the post-Ashura declaration of Mir Hossein Mousavi:

Mir Hossein Mousavi today released a new statement denouncing the regime’s brutal tactics against the Green Movement and outlined peaceful measures the government can take to calm the situation. While the statement is quite similar to other statements he has released in the past, several points on closer inspection stand out. The statement also shows Mousavi’s resolve and his continued willingness to finding a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.

One of the most striking features of the speech is Mousavi omitting any mention of the killing of his nephew Sayyed Ali Mousavi in Tehran on Ashura (27 December). It echoes his response and that of his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, response to the imprisonment of her brother, Shahpour Kazemi, which they kept private or months because they did not want to let personal statements speak for the entire Green Movement.

Iran: A Gut Reaction to Mousavi’s “Martyrdom v. Compromise” Statement
Iran Document: Mousavi’s “5 Stages to Resolution” Statement (1 January)
The Latest from Iran (2 January): The Ripples of the Mousavi Statement

What is more important, however, is that Mousavi for the first time discounts his own influence and that of Mehdi Karroubi. He admits that even though people asked him to call for protests or at least lend his support, he did not do so in the case of Ashura. He also acknowledges the fact that people came out without his call.

The Green Movement has partially spiraled out of the hands of Karroubi and Mousavi. What this could achieve cannot be easily quantified or qualified, but it is important that the movement will continue even if Mousavi and Karroubi are no longer alive. Mousavi acknowledges this by saying that he is ready to die alongside other members of the movement, knowing that the opposition would not disappear.

Beyond this, there are three significant new points First off, Mousavi openly speaks out against the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. It is no secret that the IRGC has been one of the driving forces behind the suppression of peaceful protesters and the main source of the power of the Supreme Leader and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. . Along the Basij – which falls under its command – they have been responsible for most of the bloodshed on the streets of Iran during protests.

Mousavi ridicules the IRGC, possibly sending a message to his supporters that they can now openly denounce the Revolutionary Guard as well as Basij. As he denounces corruption in his statement, Mousavi says, “We say that a large and influential organization like IRGC cannot defend the country and national interests if it wants to calculate everyday how much the stock market has gone up or down; it will corrupt both itself and the country.”

Secondly, Mousavi again questions the government’s legitimacy. In an earlier statement yesterday, presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei denounced Ashura protests and forwarded the preposterous idea that Mousavi has somehow come to accept Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president. Despite this, and possibly responding to it, Mousavi continues to defy Ahmadinejad. Iranian state media’s propaganda regarding Rezaei’s letter --- that Mousavi has "retreated" and now acknowledges Government legiimtacy --- is promptly disqualified:

Assume that, with all the arrests, brutalities, threats, and shutting the mouths of newspapers and media, you can silence people for a few days. How do you solve the change in people’s view of the establishment? How do you rectify the lack of legitimacy? How do you change the stunned and blaming views of all people of the world over all this brutality of a government against its own people? What do you do with the problems of the country’s economy and living conditions that are getting worse because of extreme weakness of the administration? With what backing of expertise, national unity and effective foreign policy, can you alleviate the shadow of more UN resolutions and international attempts to win more points against our country and our nation?

Mousavi places the calls of pro-regime protesters and Friday Prayer leaders for the killing of Mousavi and Karroubi squarely upon the government:

I clearly and bluntly say that the order of execution, murder, or imprisonment of Karoubi, Mousavi and figures like us will not solve the problem. The announcements made this Wednesday in Enghelab Square (central Tehran) and before that during the last Friday prayer by some figures affiliated with the establishment will make the consequence of any terrorist act the direct liability of the center [of the establishment] and will make the problem of the current crisis unsolvable.

Thirdly, and perhaps most important, Mousavi acknowledges the opposition taking action against security forces during the demonstrations while putting the blame for violence against security forces on the government. He neither endorses these actions, nor asks for further actions in future protests; instead, he also notes that people were compassionate to security forces and tried to save them from angrier protesters.

The passage is significant because it indicates that Mousavi continues to wish for a peaceful political resolution and does not want the government to be violently overthrown:

Watching the shocking footage of Ashura shows that if sometimes slogans and actions moved toward unacceptable radicalism, it is because of throwing innocent people off bridges and heights, shooting them, running them over by cars and assassinations. It is interesting that in some of this footage, people were seeing their [religious] brothers behind the faces of the oppressive police and Basij forces, and in that critical situation and on that deafening and hateful day they were trying to protect them from any harm. If the state-run television and radio had the slightest bit of fairness,to calm the atmosphere and bring people closer together, it would have shown a little of these scenes. But no way! The progress of events after Ashura and the extent of arrests and other Government actions show that the authorities are repeating the same past mistakes this time in a greater scale and think that the policy of terror is their only solution.

Mousavi again calmly asks the government to take steps to resolve the current crisis. This might seem repetitive; however, it comes as no surprise. The Green Movement has repeatedly shown that they are open to talks and that they are not in favor of violence, unless it is required in self-defense and then only in extreme cases. Finally, the movement still hopes for a peaceful and non-violent resolution to the current conflict. Mousavi outlines these points in his five-point proposal:

1. The administration should be held liable in front of the people, the parliament and the judiciary system so that there would be no unusual supports for the administration in response to its incompetence and ineffectiveness and the administration be held accountable for all the problems it created for the country. For sure if the administration is competent and right it would be able to respond to the people and the parliament, and if it is incompetent and inept, the parliament and the judiciary system would confront it based on the constitution.

2. Legislating new and clear election laws in a way that it would regain people’s trust in the free and fair elections without meddling and interference. This law should ensure the participation of all the people despite their differences in opinions and views and should prohibit the biased and partisan interference of the authorities in all levels. The primary parties in early days of the revolution can be considered as a model.

3. The release of all political prisoners and restoring their dignity and honour. I am sure that this move would be interpreted as a strong point for the establishment rather than a weakness and we know that the defeated political movements are against this solution.

4. One of the necessities of the improvement is the release of the banned press and media and letting the shut down newspapers to publish again. The fear of free media should be eliminated and the international experience in this matter should be considered. The expansion of the satellite channels and their growing importance and the decisive influence of this media clearly show the inadequacy of the traditional methods and limitations of National TV and radio channels. Signal jamming methods and internet censorship can only be effective for a short time. The only solution is having various free and informed media inside the country. Isn’t it time to turn eyes back from beyond our borders to domestic political, cultural and social prosperity by a courageous act and based on trusting the intellectual and innovative forces of the society?

5. Recognizing people’s rights for having legal demonstrations and forming parties and groups and abiding to the 27th principle of the constitution. Acting in this matter that can be done with the wisdom and collaboration of all of the country’s enthusiasts can replace the battle between the Basij and security forces and people or people and people with an atmosphere of friendship and national affection.

After all is said and done, Mousavi’s statement can be seen as a watershed. After the bloody events of Ashura, many expected Mousavi to give some consideration to more violent means to change the political situation. In this statement, he could have at warned the government or, at least the IRGC or the Basij, of violent confrontations. Instead, he offered his own life instead of endorsing retaliation.

This is perhaps the last chance for the Government of Iran to act peacefully if it wants to resolve the current crisis. Tensions run high. Arrests are becoming rampant. Violence has increased. Mousavi and Karroubi no longer look as safe as they did a few months ago. In such a climate, Mousavi’s conciliatory statement is a breath of fresh air. Whether the government is going to make use of the time that is running out or not remains to be seen.

Iran: A Gut Reaction to Mousavi's "Martyrdom v. Compromise" Statement

Over the last 24 hours, what has been almost as striking is Mir Hossein Mousavi's post-Ashura statement is the division in responses to it. Some activists and observers have seen the letter, with its references to "martyrdom", as a declaration of Mousavi's defiance and willingness to take that defiance to a final showdown with the Iranian regime; others, looking at the five steps proposed by Mousavi for a resolution of conflict, have seen the statement --- for better or worse --- as a proposal for compromise, accepting and indeed affirming the current Iranian system.

For me, the division arises because Mousavi's letter is actually two statements directed to two different audiences, seeking their recognition and possibly acceptance:

Iran Document: Mousavi’s “5 Stages to Resolution” Statement (1 January)
The Latest from Iran (2 January): The Ripples of the Mousavi Statement

Statement Number 1 is to the activists of the Green movement: "I am with you. I am with you to the end against the injustices and betrayals of this regime."

Statement Number 2 is to the regime: "I do not want to have to go to the end with the opposition. I do not want to do so because this will bring more bloodshed and tear apart the Islamic Republic. So let us move towards an agreement that will restore what is best about our system."

Thus, the first part --- indeed the majority --- of the statement is an eloquent, passionate, at times fiery pronouncement (perhaps significantly, written within a few days of the death of Mousavi's nephew in the Ashura demonstration) that Mousavi stands with the Green movement in its fight. At no point, interestingly, does he claim to lead the movement. Indeed, there is the striking remark that he, as well as Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami, refrained from a call for Ashura demonstrations, but still the movement turned out in force last Sunday.

Because Mousavi does not claim to lead the movement, he does not have to deal with the issue of what that movement's demands have moved beyond a "reform" of the Islamic Republic. Instead, he moves to the second part of the statement, a pragmatic, point-by-point description of measures which is cool both in tone and in language --- let us ease the rushing river that both threatens to overwhelm us and stagnates under the burden of conflict.

Those measures are far from new. Indeed, once the conflict moved beyond the question of the results of the Presidential election and to the illegitimate, unjust declarations, threats, and punishment of the Government, they were set out by both Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi in the autumn. Respect for the Constitution, freeing of political prisoners with compensation for them and their families, acknowledgement of errors, corruptions, and violations by Government officials: these are the steps of restitution and reconciliation within the system.

Well, the tension between the first part and second part seems evident: as an EA reader concisely pointed out this morning, "[The issue is] if these reformist circles still adhere to reforms within the system, or if they have recognized them being impossible in the velayat-e faqih [system of ultimate clerical authority]" of the Islamic Republic."

Put even more bluntly, what happens if Mousavi's 5-point plan is rejected by the Government? The one way out may be the ultimate scapegoating, with the dismissal of President Ahmadinejad both as implicit recognition of the electoral manipulations and explicit condemnation of the corruptions --- political, economic, and ideological; note Mousavi's attention to Iran's economic issues and foriegn policy --- of the Government. Surely, however, that moment passed once the Supreme Leader anointed Ahmadinejad's second term in August.

So what happens when Mousavi is met not by negotiation but by silence or even by more threats? Does he indeed declare that he is with the Green movement to the end --- an end which means not "unity" but more conflict? Does he really declare that not only Ahmadinejad and his inner circle but the Supreme Leader and his have had their last chance?

Does he still stand alongside the factions in the Green movement, not as leader but as "one of them"?

Iran: 2009's Year of Living Dangerously (Part 1)

A special analysis from EA's Mr Smith:

When Iran entered 2009, most observers thought that the year --- which marked the 30th anniversary of the Revolution that swept away the Shah's regime and the 20th anniversary of "post-Khomeini Iran", the unwieldy political arrangement that emerged in the aftermath of the death of the founding father of the Islamic Republic --- would also see a lacklustre confirmation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second Presidential term.

As Iran exits the year, it is reeling from its worst-ever political crisis, one that has finally undermined the halo of sanctity built over the persona of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the past two decades and has finally witnessed the collapse of the fragile factional equilibrium that held sway for the past decade.

After half a decade of carefully pasteurised electoral lists produced by the Guardian Council, there were serious doubts about the population's appetite for electoral politics. Iranian history, however, always remind us that change is sudden and abrupt rather than gradual and predictable. Conscious of their eroding influence in state affairs and their descent into oblivion in the eyes of public opinion, reformist political leaders were determined to make a last stand, one that had to rely upon the return to the scene of its most prominent figure.

Shortly before the anniversary of the Revolution's triumph, February 11, former President Mohammad Khatami, still loved by the urban middle classes, succumbed to the incessant campaign carried out --- largely through the Internet --- by his youthful supporters. He announced that he would "seriously" enter the Presidential campaign. The declaration seemed to fulfil Khatami's earlier promise that either he or the hitherto obscure Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a darling of Ayatollah Khomeini in the Eighties who had estranged himself from politics ever since the death of his mentor, would join the race.

For reasons unknown, Mousavi did not keep to this informal pact and stand aside for Khatami. Several weeks later, he suddenly announced the end of his political lethargy and his intention to register as a candidate for the 12 June elections. An embarrassed Khatami was forced to withdraw from the race shortly afterwards, with the prospect of three heavyweight reformist candidates --- former Majlis speaker Mehdi Karroubi had long announced his presently in the race --- weakening the reformist chances.

Mousavi's re-entrance into the mainstream was an enigma to many. Notwithstanding his long absence from day-to-day politics, his particularly bad relationship with Ayatollah Khamenei throughout the late 1980, with Mousavi's departure from the scene once he was defeated by the present Supreme Leader in a struggle over the reform of the Constitution, meant that any forced co-habitation with Khamenei would not be a happy one.

After a long Internet-based prologue and the start of campaign meetings in March and April, Iran's presidential race picked up pace about three weeks before June 12. Indeed, it was proving to be different. Suddenly the whole nation's squares were ablaze with incessant debate on the virtues and fallacies of each candidate. Popular participation in hustings and meetings was unprecedented, considerably higher than even Khatami's quasi-mythical victory back in May 1997. When the administration of Tehran's Polytechnic (Amir Kabir University), the nation's most politicised campus, denied Karroubi the use of their premises for a campaign event, the 72 year-old cleric was lifted into the campus for an impromptu sermon within the university mosque. It was there that the slogan "Marg bar Diktator" ("Death to Dictator") re-echoed where it was conceived a generation earlier.

A few days before the elections, another innovation of political campaigning had a lasting effect on the emerging contest. For the first time ever, Iranian television featured US-styled debates between the political candidates. The detached criticism that marked the previous presidential campaigns was replaced by the unearthing of latent tension and hatred.

Anxious to prove his position of defender of the common man against the vicious tentacles of the likes of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad claimed --- in his highly-anticipated debate with Mir-Hossein Mousavi --- that he was the victim of a plot hatched by Rafsanjani and executed by Mousavi and Karroubi. The association of the head of the Assembly of Experts and the two candidates was, however, a clumsy move. Karroubi had fiercely criticised Rafsanjani on many occasions during the past two decades, while Mousavi was anything but an ally of the then-Majlis speaker during the 1980s. It was and still is impossible to gauge the effect of Ahmadinejad's accusation on the population.

The last days before the vote transformed the streets of Tehran and other major cities into a never-ending open-air carnival. At 6 or 7 p.m., acting as though a switch had suddenly turned them on, tens of thousands of people would descend upon the capital's main thoroughfares in cars, on motorcycles, or on foot to campaign for their candidate. The equally-divided crowds of the first few days of campaigning soon developed into large crowds for either Mousavi or Ahmadinejad --- Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei appeared to be lagging behind in the final stages of the campaigning. Rather than being based on distinct electoral programmes, the campaign took the form of a clash of personalities, with voters left to chose the candidate that best embodied their own social position and aspirations. Mousavi's calls for the removal of limits to the "flow of information", his statement that Iran should stop being an enemy of many foreign powers, and, most importantly, his defiant calls against the "lies" and "unaccountability" of Ahmadinejad were decisive in shoring his support for him amongst a vast segment of the urban population.

On the eve of the vote, virtually all analysts and journalists were placing their guess on a run-off between the two major candidates. The exception was the management of the Karroubi-owned Etemade Melli newspaper, who over the course of the last few days before the vote was repeatedly warning observers in private that "things had been arranged to ensure a first-round Ahmadinejad victory". A similar warning was given, before a single vote had been cast, to one of the major international news agencies in Tehran by another source well-placed inside the regime. Etemade Melli devoted most of the front page on the eve of the vote to an article, "We Shall All Remain Awake on Friday Night". It was an implicit reminder of Karroubi's "nap" at 5 a.m. on the night the votes were counted in the first round of 2005, which allegedly cost the cleric the chance to compete in a run-off with Rafsanjani (a run-off that would have precluded any Ahmadinejad Presidency).

June 12 began as a hot, sticky day in Tehran. At the last minute, Mir-Hossein Mousavi reverse his decision to vote together with Rafsanjani and Khatami at Ayatollah Khomeini's residence in Jamaran, North Tehran, and cast his ballot instead at a mosque in Shahr-e Rey, an old and humble area of South Tehran. His smile ended as soon as he took to the podium to deliver a short post-vote speech. In it he claimed, at 10:30 a.m. on Election day, that irregularities were already taking place across the country.

Ahmadinejad voted in Afsariyeh, West Tehran. For the rest of the day, people turned out in droves to cast their votes in all areas of the capital. Turnout was especially strong in middle-class areas whose desertion from the ballot box had helped Ahmadinejad become Mayor of Tehran in 2003 and President in 2005.

As nightfall descended, the news was not quite what was expected. Reformist supporters had already gathered outside the Interior Ministry, and Mousavi emerged for a press conference, during which he dared to claim that he was the victor of the bitterly-fought contest, and that any other result would be the product of fraud.

As the night wore on, the official returns would not show a Mousavi victory. Indeed, they would not even point to the run-off predicted by almost all observers. Not only would the gap between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad widen, the President would easily hurdle the 50 percent required for a first-round victory. To the shock and dismay of the reformist supporters and voters, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner on 13 June.