Iran Analysis: Missing the Important Story?

More evidence from Iran on Monday of opposition momentum, of Government jitters, and of a spiralling of arrests and violence.

Sunday's attack on the homes, offices, and car of prominent Iranian figures --- Grand Ayatollah Sane'i, Mehdi Karroubi, and the family of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri --- justly received much attention yesterday. The assault by a crowd (paramilitary Basiji or just "interested" citizens?), reminiscent of attacks on homes and offices of "reformists" just before Ashura (27 December), follows the 4 June humiliation of Seyed Hassan Khomeini at the ceremony for his grandfather, Ayatollah Khomeini.

This is a disturbing indicator either that someone within the regime is using this public strike force to ramp up intimidation or that a section of the Iranian population is now beyond restraint. Both ironic and disconcerting, then, that the regime would not utter a word about Sunday's attacks --- just as they remained silent on the Khomeini shout-down. At the same time, President Ahmadinejad, displaying either hypocrisy or his own lack of authority, was denouncing the enforcement of "morality law", such as the supposedly inappropriate wearing of hijab, by pro-regime groups on the streets.

The paradox, however, is that far from shutting down the opposition, only days after dissent re-appeared publicly on the anniversary of the election, the aggression against reformist clerics and politicians is likely to reinforce the challenge.

Monday was seized, at least for a significant moment, by the video that emerged of a Tehran University rally against the regime. That demonstration, impromptu and not summoned by any opposition "leader", was fuelled in part by the commemoration of the violence of 14 June 2009, when  the university's dormitories were raided and several students were killed by security forces.

That in turn takes us to today's anniversary of 25 Khordaad, 15 June 2009, when millions came out in protest over the outcome of the election. Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was quick to release a comment on Monday linking the vitality of the Green Movement to the illegitimacy of the Government and the violence against Sane'i, Montazeri, and Karroubi, has promised a longer statement today on the objectives and strategies of the opposition.

All in all, then, a sign that the post-election conflict remains a significant conflict entering its second year. At the same time, however, there is a depressing rush of evidence that "Western" difficulties in covering the crisis have degenerated into a collective failure of tangential and plain wrong commentary.

Foreign Policy magazine, which had published seven commentaries of interesting if varied quality on the anniversary of the election, turns the collection into a food fight --- with no further insight --- by inviting in the authors of Race of Iran to offer an overall critique.

Other journalists go off on tangents. Ali Akbar Dareini of the Associated Press, whose dismissal of 22 Khordaad as a "quiet day" raced around non-Iranian outlets, writes, "The hardline spiritual mentor of Iran's president has made a rare public call for producing the 'special weapons' that are a monopoly of a few nations — a veiled reference to nuclear arms."

That might be a story, if not for the inconveniences that Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi did not make a "public call". He wrote, "The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country" in a 2005 book, reprinted in 2009, which was circulated to a small circle of clerics.

And still others just decide to write with limited, if any, consideration of Iran's internal matters to make sweeping declarations. So Joe Klein of Time pronounces, "The real question is whether Iran should be treated as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union." (Answer: "Iran is more like a baby Soviet Union.")

Eyes on the ball, ladies and gentleman. It's yet another day in Tehran )not 1933 Berlin or 1950s Moscow) with events --- events that bring hope, events that bring anxiety, events that bring uncertainty.

Events that deserve more than simple conclusion or dismissal.