Short Note - Update on Iran

The Guardian Council has finally confirmed Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as the victor in the June 12th election. He will be President for a second term. The security forces, including the Basij, were on high alert.

The propaganda war between the two sides continues but the protests are virtually over, thanks to a firm crackdown by the regime. The bulk of the Western media remains firmly positioned on the side of the reformers.

Moussavi continued to try to keep his campaign for a re-run of the election going to the bitter end but it was steadily being contained. The reward for his persistence may now be some form of legal action against him and his supporters.

The diplomatic centre of attention is the arrest of nine (five were later released) Iranians who worked at the British Embassy. This was condemned by all 27 nations of the EU at the Foreign Ministers Summit in Corfu with a warning that they would respond firmly to any ‘harassment or intimidation’ of their staff.

The EU governments then warned Iran that they could recall their ambassadors and implicitly threatened sanctions if the remaining four British embassy Iranians were not released.

Analysts are becoming increasingly pessimistic about Obama’s strategy of engagement and see some serious re-thinking going on in Washington in due course.

The US continues to keep open the door to talks with Iran in Paris, but the room for manouevre must have been limited by Sarkozy’s aggressive comments on the regime. The European allies (the US is not in a position to go it alone on this matter) have been far more ‘hawkish’ than Washington.

The stakes are now very high, if only because the narrative (true or false) of Western intervention increases the chances of Iran deciding to defy both the West and Israeli threats and just going for its bomb.

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Update On The Iranian Revolt

Those keen to sustain a now slightly faltering public interest in Iran (in the West) as the regime cracks down, and as journalists are restricted in what they are able to report, are being forced to slip ever further into iconic and propagandistic territory.

In this case, the gruesome imagery of the death of a protestor (Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan) looks set to be the ‘martyr icon’ of the revolution. In fact, the internet coverage could equally deter some less committed activists from protesting as the possible consequences of doing so become clearer.

On the other side, Iranian Government public relations is beginning to get into gear with the Iranian foreign affairs spokesman appearing on CNN (June 22nd) to put the Government case.

The message is clear – and confirmed by Guardian Council rulings (twice) within Iran – the vote will not be re-run so don’t even think about it. Moussavi, though, will not be silenced and is even increasing his rhetoric with reference to regime ‘lies’ (in effect, he is calling the Supreme Leader a liar).

The regime is also beginning to develop its position on vote-rigging allegations. Its claim is that there have been irregularities that might have amounted to 3m votes but that these were not part of some regime plot but arose out of weaknesses in electoral law.

This did not affect the final result (it avers) insofar as the difference between the candidates was in the region of 11m. Opinion on the elections amongst the opposition is now so fixed that anything coming from the Guardian Council, possibly unjustifiably, will not be trusted.

Yet, there is still no sign of that expected split in the ruling order. Indeed, the Revolutionary Guards and the State machine (based on their counter-propaganda) appear to be increasingly confident of their line of command.

Reports also indicate that the international resistance to Anglo-Saxon ‘pretensions’ (the SCO) are relaxed and integrating Iran into their plans.

A moderate split is probably not made any easier by Moussavi’s own street rhetoric. It is much harder to back a man who is calling a religious leader, respected by half the country, a liar.

As we write, the judiciary are being brought into play with a clear statement by the Head of the Parliament’s Judiciary Committee that Moussavi’s continued call for protests is ‘illegal’ and that his statements were criminal acts.

Hundreds are apparently being arrested (457 on June 20th according to state radio) though it is unclear whether they are being held for long. Demonstrations are continuing but the numbers are much smaller now (if reported correctly) - a thousand or so rather than tens or hundreds of thousands.

Indeed, it is becoming deeply puzzling to us how and why much of the official British Press is drawn to its conclusion that the revolution could still succeed and that machinations within the ruling elite will result in the constraining of the Supreme Leader.

Either they have exceptional sources or they are living in a fantasy land in which wish fulfilment and emotional engagement has replaced objective reportage.

It is almost impossible to know what is actually going on inside the reformist camp inside Iran but clues come from the diaspora and from the sharp criticism that anyone who calls Rafsanjani a reformist must have a rather curious sense of the meaning of the term.

There are at least 500,000 Iranian-origin Americans. Many of these were exiled from the country during or after the 1979 revolution. Many are concentrated around Los Angeles and have their own Farsi radio station, Kirn Radio Iran, and a large Facebook presence. They are not really representative.

As might be expected, there is a camp that still wants reform of the existing Islamic Republic and a camp looking for radical change and overthrow – whether for liberal secularist reasons (there are gay activist and feminist elements) or to restore the monarchy.

The sight of a Pahlavi defending democracy is a wonder to behold but the air time being given to him indicates just how out of touch with reality some journalists have become.

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