Dark Days in Bahrain and Iran
Nicholas Kristof reports on ham-fisted response to protest in Bahrain:

• The pro-democracy movement has bubbled for decades in Bahrain, but it found new strength after the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Then the Bahrain government attacked the protesters early this week with stunning brutality, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets at small groups of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Two demonstrators were killed (one while walking in a funeral procession), and widespread public outrage gave a huge boost to the democracy movement.
• King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security. That’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep. ("Blood Runs Through the Streets of Bahrain," by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, New York Times, February 17, 2011)
  

While another report notes a more secret but disturbing response in Iran.  (A posting on Facebook site 25 Bahman, notes "Green Way of Hope Council published a statement inviting all Iranians on the 20th of February to take part in the memorial service of two martyrs who were killed on February 14th.... Ardeshir Amir Arjamand, Moussavi’s vice president, confirmed the call.")

• A main leader of Iran’s opposition was reported missing on Thursday and both the opposition “green movement” and Iran’s hardliners issued calls for street rallies, escalating tensions after the reemergence of street protests and their brutal suppression on Monday.
• The daughters of the missing opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, told an opposition Web site that they had had no word from either of their parents since Tuesday and feared they had been detained. Security forces have surrounded their home, and all communications have been cut.
• On Wednesday, the Web site of another opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, reported that the house of his eldest son had been raided and damaged by security officers seeking to arrest him. ("Iranian Opposition Leader Missing as Tensions Rise," by The New York Times, February 17, 2011)

By the way, how reliable is this statement from Iranian.com?

• One main development is that the regime can not rely on its revolutionary guards (IRGC)anymore and now mainly relies on the Basij and Ansar Hezbollah militias who are mostly illiterate thugs and criminals hired from mostly rural and poor areas, paid large bonuses to suppress the protesters while their Basij ID gives them free pass to sell drugs, receive government bonuses and in some ways become untouchables.("25 Bahman Updates: The Iranian Democratic Movement Is Matured," by SecularDemocraticIran, 16-Feb-2011)
  

Meanwhile, Elsewhere

• Algeria
• Call for a popular march on February 19 in Algiers (El Watan, 13 Feb. 2011)
• (Babylon & Beyond, "Algeria: Clashes, arrests reported at banned anti-government demonstration," February 12, 2011)
• Iran
• TEHRAN - One of Iran's most prominent opposition leaders was placed under house arrest Thursday, with security agents posted at the entrance saying they would stay there until a possible anti-government protest had passed, the cleric's Web site reported.  "Only his wife is being allowed into the house," Sahamnews.org said. "This probably has to do with the protest scheduled for Monday, Feb. 14." ("Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi placed under house arrest," by Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, February 11, 2011)
• And, after 25 Bahman (14 February), protests continue: (16 February 2011, BBC, "Iran protests: Clashes at demonstrator's Tehran funeral")
• Libya
• Global Voices in English, "Libya: Protests Begin in Benghazi Ahead of February 17 Day of Wrath," by Amira Al Hussaini, 16 February 2011) 
• ("Violent protests break out in Libya: Clashes reported in eastern city of Benghazi as security forces and government supporters confront demonstrators," Al Jazeera, 16 Feb 2011)
  
• Bahrain (and all of the above)
• ("In Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, protesters take to streets," February 14, 2011, by Ramin Mostaghim and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times)
  
  
  • 
    A woman shows empty packages of tear gas said to have been used by riot police… (Hamad I Mohammed, Reuters)

Military Officers + The People = Co-Rule?

12:05 CST.  MSNBC discussing whether it is a military coup.  Richard Engel notes it is "a bloodless military coup."

12:00 CST.  Aljazeera has an article on "Egypt's military leadership," which profiles the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (11 Feb 2011)

Defence Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi
11:50 CST.  Anderson Cooper asking Mohamed ElBaradei about how you keep the revolution from being "betrayed" (odd word, evidently coming from a CIA adviser), Mr. ElBaradei answers "the Army must co-rule with the people (my paraphrase).  Uppermost on everyone's mind.

Regime Change = Curriculum Change?

We used to have to revise notes on yellow legal pads.  Now we have to alter our Powerpoints. "The 'Arab Moment' began January 2011.  Discuss."

• What just happened in Tunisia is going to change the canon that Columbia students read for Contemporary Civilization. As either current or former Columbia students, we all know what the French Revolution of 1789 represented for Europe. We will soon see what the Tunisian revolution of 2011 is going to be for the Arab world. ("A new beginning for Tunisia: Tunisia's revolution is a call for increased student awareness," by Youssef Cherif, February 8, 2011, Columbia Spectator)
  

Roll me over, Romeo

Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi have made a request to support the Egyptian protests. "With just under a week to go before the proposed demonstration, the call has provoked a large online response centering around the 25 Bahman Facebook page, a reference to the rally’s date in the Persian calendar"  ("Iran’s Opposition Seeks Rally to Back Egypt and Tunisia," by William Yong, New York Times, February 7, 2011)  It should be noted that the Iranian government changed more than Egypt's in the last few decades, I suppose.

Mapping Dissent (and Counter-Revolution?)

A useful interactive map. ("Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East," by Sara Sorcher, Brian McGill and Julia Edwards, National Journal, February 2, 2011)

Does Hope Spring From the Barrel of a Tank?:  the Problem with Relying on Military Officers to Foster Change

Thoughtful detail from Londonistani on the roots of the Egyptian protests.  Americans have to ask how much and for how long they are willing to fund those officers.

• Mubarak...was the fourth leader of the Egypt's Free Officers' regime which came to power in a military coup against a constitutional monarchy in 1952. Egypt has a long history of being at the forefront of Middle East affairs and its people have a strong sense of pride. Political squabbling, corrupt politicians and disastrous war against the newly formed state of Israel motivated the middle class military professionals to remove their king, and British influence along with him. The coup's leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, made Egypt the focal point of Arab hopes and earned their eternal admiration. In reality, he achieved little. His successor, Anwar el-Sadat switched the regime from the pro-Soviet to the pro-Western camp during the cold war. Sadat realised post-independence Egypt's central problem; it's economic muscle didn't match its ambition....
• Egypt's military leaders['s]...phobia of political competition acquired by their experience of the constitutional monarchy they replaced prodded them to the conclusion that Egyptians were not ready for democracy....
• [T]he problem with a rule-by-military-clique approach to government is that it does little for long-term development. Sadat's solution to this problem was to leverage Egypt's strategic value to the United States as a source of income. ("Mubarak and Me," January 31, 2011, Londonstani, Abu Muqawama)

Comparing Egypt with Egypt: J-Curve and Revolutions of Rising Expectations

Perhaps Hosni Mubarak's political party will recognize the situation they are in.  It is reminiscent of the one that brought them to power. James C. Davies, “Toward a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 1 (February 1, 1962): 5-19, developed the J-Curve theory of revolution.  One figure is the J-Curve of rising expectations in Egypt ca. 1950, which don't continue, leading to Nasser's Revolution.  Not often does a 50-year old, political science theory have legs.  Fareed Zakaria seems to have been channeling Davies on his CNN GPS show, 30 January:

• You see, Tunisia and Egypt had been reforming their economies. This stimulated growth as a consequence. Tunisia have been growing at 5 percent a year and Egypt much faster than that. Economic growth stirs up expectations. It is this revolution of rising expectations that often undoes a dictatorship, because it is unable to handle the growing demands of its citizens. (FAREED ZAKARIA GPS, "Unrest in Egypt," Aired January 30, 2011 - 10:00 ET)

To compare or not to compare:  Is Revolution an Egyptian Word?

The blog Abu Muqawama ("Egypt: A Humble Request," January 30, 2011) makes a timely point: "can we all agree to stop using European historical analogies to describe what is taking place in Egypt? It's not Europe in 1848 or Eastern Europe in 1989 or France in 1789: it's Egypt in 2011.... When we use "western" frames of reference to make sense of what is taking place, by contrast, we a) sound really freaking narcissistic and b) fail to take those local phenomena seriously and thus miss a lot of what is going on."

I think the problem is not a Western frame of reference. After all, students of revolutions have developed some interesting insights into revolutions around the World by comparing them to earlier revolutions for which there is a fair amount of detail (France, Russia, China, etc.). 

The problem is the use of an analysis of a past revolution, to explain the future development of a rebellion that has not developed into a revolution as yet.  It turns out that no revolution springs full-blown from the head of Zeus, or from those involved in the early days (American mythology of founding fathers not withstanding).  Entrenched groups resist, movements radicalize, and the end result is much different than what people foresaw going in. (see The Dangers of Reification)

So, yes, that said, it IS important to remind commentators that (1) understanding 20th-century Egyptian history is more important than understanding 19th-century European history in understanding the current situation in Egypt (in this sense, 1952, 1956, 1981 in Egypt are more important than 1848, 1968, etc., elsewhere); and (2) to compare in revolutions is to deploy a metaphor (and as John Gaddis, Landscape of History suggests, that is what scientists, from geologists to astrophysicists, do).

Why Egyptian Street Protests?: a University Professor Lays Out the Bullet Points

• First of all, they want a real democracy.
• Another issue is the use of torture by the police, who are protected by the Emergency Law.
• The third is corruption.
• Connected to the corruption is the bureaucratic inefficiency.
• The last problem is the poverty.

("A Short Primer on Egypt Now," by guest post by Noor Khan, American Footprints, January 29th, 2011)  Professor Ulrich recommends We are all Khaled Said which includes latest video links.

Liberation 1944, 2011

• The Egyptian tanks, the delirious protesters sitting atop them, the flags, the 40,000 protesters weeping and crying and cheering in Freedom Square and praying around them, the Muslim Brotherhood official sitting amid the tank passengers. Should this be compared to the liberation of Bucharest? Climbing on to an American-made battle tank myself, I could only remember those wonderful films of the liberation of Paris. A few hundred metres away, Hosni Mubarak's black-uniformed security police were still firing at demonstrators near the interior ministry. It was a wild, historical victory celebration, Mubarak's own tanks freeing his capital from his own dictatorship.
• In the pantomime world of Mubarak himself – and of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Washington – the man who still claims to be president of Egypt swore in the most preposterous choice of vice-president in an attempt to soften the fury of the protesters – Omar Suleiman, Egypt's chief negotiator with Israel and his senior intelligence officer, a 75-year-old with years of visits to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and four heart attacks to his credit. How this elderly apparatchik might be expected to deal with the anger and joy of liberation of 80 million Egyptians is beyond imagination. When I told the demonstrators on the tank around me the news of Suleiman's appointment, they burst into laughter. (Robert Fisk, "Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorship," Sunday, 30 January 2011, The Independent)

Blog Update: New Issues, New Sites

Events in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt require a few changes to the blogs I read and recommend.  I have added the following:

• Al Jazeera Transparency Unit
• Arabist
• Blog Stephen A. Cook (CFR)
• Democracy Arsenal
• EAWorld View
• Lede (New York Times)
• Mark Lynch (FP)
• Octavia Nasr / Blog

Après moi le déluge?

An apocryphal comment by Louis XV, but perhaps the dismissal of Turgot, Calonne, Brienne, or Necker (that is the rearrangement of the chairs on the deck of the Titannic) might be the better historical metaphor to today's news from Egypt.

• 1776 Louis XVI dismisses his finance minister, Turgot 
• 1786 August 20: Finance minister Calonne informs Louis that the royal finances are insolvent 
• April 8: Louis dismisses both Calonne & the keeper of the seals, or minister of justice, Miromesnil, in an attempt to break the impasse.
• April 30: The Archbishop of Toulouse & vocal leader of the higher clergy, Loménie de Brienne is appointed chief minister of state 
• 1788 June: Outcry over the enforced reforms ensues, & courts across France refuse to sit 
• July 5: Brienne begins to consider calling an Estates-General 
• Late August: Brienne resigns, & Jacques Necker replaces him as Minister of Finance.
• 1789 June 30: Large crowd storms left bank prison & frees mutinous French Guards 
• July 11: Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats homes in search of food & weapons 
• July 14: Storming of the Bastille(adapted from Timeline of the French Revolution)
• 2011 Jan. 29. Mubarak appoints the former head of Egyptian military intelligence (Omar Suleiman) his vice president (and therefore likely successor). He appoints the Air Force Chief of Staff (Ahmad Shafiq) as prime minister. ("Mubarak’s Response to Demand for end of Military Rule," 01/29/2011, Informed Comment by Juan Cole)

Wild in the Streets (1968, 2011)




Is youth rebellion always good or always bad?

• Some political scientists warn of the dark side of the "youth bulge." A study by Population Action International asserted that 80 percent of the world's conflicts between 1970 and 1999 started in countries where 60 percent of the population was under 30. ("The Arab World's Youth Army," by Ellen Knickmeyer, Foreign Policy, January 27, 2011)

Some indications of hope from the young protestors:

• Now Al Jazeera is reporting that young protesters have formed a human chain around the museum to protect it against looting. It seems for now that this treasure trove of human ingenuity and the natural world's wonders is in no immediate danger. ("Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Black Hole or Another Day of Revolution," January 28, 2011, Scott Lucas, EAWorldView) 

But the riot police are generally young as well (as here from Liberation Square, Cairo).  The median age in Tunisia is 30; the median age in Cairo is 24; the median age in Yemen is less than 18.  More than 2/3 the population of Yemen is under 24.  (source: 29 January 2011, "What next in Yemen?," by Ginny Hill, BBC)

Iran Film Director Jafar Panahi Sentenced to Prison, Artistic Ban

Amnesty International notes the following with a call for action and signatures

• Jafar Panahi, an internationally celebrated film director who won the coveted "Golden Lion" prize at the Venice Film Festival for his 2000 film "Dayareh" (Circle), has been sentenced to six years in prison plus a twenty-year ban on all his artistic activities—including film making, writing scripts, traveling abroad and speaking with media. Jafar Panahi was convicted of “propaganda against the state” for having exercised his right to peaceful freedom of expression through his film-making and political activism. He was specifically accused of making an anti-government film without permission and inciting opposition protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election. Mr. Panahi's artistic collaborator, Mohammad Rasoulof, was also sentenced to six years in prison. (see also, Offside Director Remains Imprisoned)

The Dangers of Reification (Verdinglichung) of Riot and Rebellion


Green Revolution, Jasmine Revolution, Twitter Revolution, Pink Revolution 1, and Pink Revolution 2:  some are, some aren't.  The revolution happens after the riots.  And it is difficult for journalists to know.  The danger is not just in our pronouncements.  It is also on the streets.

The Real Palestine Papers?

The Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change.

Michael Steele Removed from the RNC

Well, yes.  But this is regarding another regime change.  Make that men remove torn photo of former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis (from "Tunisians celebrate their freedom as country slides towards lawlessness," by Adrian Blomfield, 16 Jan 2011, The Telegraph)

The BBC has a useful timeline of the Tunisian twitter/wikileaks/social network rebellion/revolution:

• 17 Dec: Man sets himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over lack of jobs, sparking protests
• 24 Dec: Protester shot dead in central Tunisia
• 28 Dec: Protests spread to Tunis
• 8-10 Jan: Dozens of deaths reported in crackdown on protests
• 12 Jan: Interior minister sacked
• 13 Jan: President Ben Ali promises to step down in 2014
• 14 Jan: Mr Ben Ali dissolves parliament after new mass rally, then steps down and flees
• 15 Jan: Parliamentary Speaker Foued Mebazaa sworn in as interim president (16 January 2011, "Tunis gun battles erupt after Ben Ali aide arrested")

The Revolution Will Be Televised (or Live Blogged)

("Tunisia Revolution LIVE UPDATES," Huffington Post, 01/14/11)

Andrew Sullivan also drew attention to the following:

• As in the recent so-called "Twitter Revolutions" in Moldova and Iran, there was clearly lots wrong with Tunisia before Julian Assange ever got hold of the diplomatic cables. Rather, WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site. ("The First WikiLeaks Revolution?," by Elizabeth Dickinson, January 13, 2011, Foreign Policy)

Tunisia and Belarus compared?

(December 20, 2010, "Video of Opposition Protests in Belarus," by Robert Mackey, The Lede, New York Times)




("Tunisia: What Does It Mean?," 14 Jan 2011, Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish)

It Is Official (at least according to President Ahmadinejad): The Cape Verde Islands Are British!

The President's speech at Hamedan (where he may or may not have been attacked) included the following bit of historical geography news:

• Look at this country of England — a small island west of Africa. These people made weapons and ships; they attacked people; they subjugated India, whose area is 10 times the size of England, whose populations is tens of times larger! (August 4, 2010, "The Iranian President’s Geography Lesson," by Robert Mackey, The Lede)

(It would make for longer days in Winter in Lincolnshire.)

Rereading Tehran

Misreading Tehran is a fine series of articles by Iranian-Americans looking back over the past year of the so-called Green Revolution. (Foreign Policy, 7 June 2010).  As much as these are from outside Iran, they often still point to the importance of "granular details from Iran" to get a fuller story.  ("What the West Isn't Hearing About: To understand the big stories of the last year in Iran, we need better access to the little stories," by Azadeh Moaveni, July/August 2010)

 (picture from "A Year Later," the Daily Dish, 8 June 2010)

Notes of Evin Prison outside Tehran

• After the Iranian Presidential elections of 12 June 2009, and subsequent widespread political arrests, the visitation pattern of political prisoners’ families changed drastically from previous years. The number of political prisoners increased and therefore the number of families who were in search of their arrested loved ones also increased. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has conducted several interviews with the families of political prisoners regarding the details of their visits to Evin prison. (for a summary of their descriptions of Evin Prison, see "Evin Prison: Visiting political prisoners," 4 March 2010)
  

Offside Director Remains Imprisoned

• Internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, slated to serve as a jury member at the [63rd Cannes Film Festival] festival, couldn't attend because he was being held in Tehran’s Evin prison....

• In March 2010, plainclothes security officials raided Panahi’s Tehran home and arrested him along with his wife, daughter and 15 house guests. Though Iranian authorities shortly released the others, they held on to Panahi, accusing him of “making a film against the regime following the post-election events," according to the French daily Le Figaro.
• Despite this, the prosecutor's office in Tehran argues that Panahi’s imprisonment has no political motive.
• "The arrest of Jafar Panahi is not because he is an artist or for political reason[s]," prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the Iranian Students News Agency....
• Authorities had previously arrested Panahi, a supporter of the protest movement that emerged after last year's disputed presidential elections held in June, for participating in a memorial service for Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman killed in July 2009 allegedly at the hands of a pro-government militiaman. ("Iran: Cannes 2010: Imprisoned filmmaker Jafar Panahi is honored at film festival," Babylon & Beyond, May 13, 2010)

The director's arrest and imprisonment is so counterproductive for the current Iranian regime, as Panahi's "Offside" (2006) is a film which suggest the richness and vitality of modern Iranian culture.
(see "Jafar Panahi on Offside," Payvand's Iran News 7 March 2007)

Cliff Notes for the Revolutionary Guard

Prompted by Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton's statement of fact that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship.

IRAN'S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD

• Founded 1979
• Numbers about 125,000 troops
• Operates independently of the regular army
• Controls the Basij militia, Iran's "moral police"
• Commercial arm involved in construction, oil exports, petrol imports, defence and transport contracts
• The Qods Force special unit is thought to back armed groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon Source: Reuters (via BBC, 15 Feb. 2010)
  

• Some analysts believe IRGC influence in the political arena amounts to the irreversible militarization of Iran's government. Others, like Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, suggest the guard's power has grown to exceed that of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who legally has final say on all state matters. But Frederic Wehrey, an adjunct senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and the co-author of a recent study on the IRGC, notes that the Revolutionary Guard is far from a cohesive unit of likeminded conservatives. Instead, he says, it's a heavily factionalized institution with a mix of political aspirants unlikely to turn on their masters. ("Who are Iran’s Revolutionary Guards?," by Greg Bruno, Council on Foreign Relations, MSNBC, 23 June 2009)
  

Movement within the Regime?

• A leading conservative rival to Ahmadinejad, lawmaker Ali Mottahari, warned that Iran was not yet out of the clear.
• "We cannot claim the crisis is totally over until both sides make up for their mistakes," he said in an interview with Khabaronline (in Persian), the news website affiliated with parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani. "The differences of opinion between the government and [the opposition] might have been eased to some extent, but they still exist. Our statesmen should not imagine that people's massive presence in the Thursday rally reflects the approval of their performance...."
• Mottahari recently called on opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to stop calling for protests for a bit and let government insiders like him take care of Ahmadinejad and his ilk.
• In the interview he seemed to be auditioning to replace them, echoing their calls to restore civil liberties. "The government should respect social freedoms and stop its press bans," he said. "The government should also take action to secure the release of political prisoners and create a climate of friendship and affection."(LA Times. Babylon & Beyond, "IRAN: A day after 22 Bahman rally, a conservative Ahmadinejad rival opens fire," February 12, 2010)

(Note: Babylon & Beyond has a full post-mortem of the Iranian government's actions and those of the Green movement on 22 Bahman here.)

Iran: Prisoners Issue Statement in wake of 22 Bahman

• On February 11th, the regime once again showed its true face. It used all its power to prevent people from peacefully expressing their righteous demands in the streets.
• Not only did they fill every step of the streets with security and plainclothes forces, but they did not spare us, the prisoners, either. They took several prisoners such as Mansour Osanloo (the head of the bus driver union) and Arzhang Davoodi (long time political prisoner) to solitary confinement, and denied all prisoners every form of communication with the outside world, such as telephone calls and visitation. They even closed the gates of all sections, halls, and cells, thus depriving us from breaks in the open air....
• As the entire world witnessed, the regime blocked people’s way to freedom, and even to Azadi (Freedom) Square. We wish that the international and human rights organizations, and in particular, governments, would realize that lack of freedom is Iranian people’s essential problem with the regime. The solution to all the problems that foreign governments have with this regime lies in Iranian people’s freedom, and we hope that they would see the necessity of taking action and seriously supporting the Iranians. (Persian2English, "Gohardasht Prisoners Issue Statement," February 13, 2010)

Gohardasht prison in Karaj includes, among others,

• arrested Baha’is — Leva Khanjani, Babak Mobash-sher, Payam Fana’ian, Nika Hoveyda’i, Jinous Sobhani, Artin Ghazanfari, Farid Rohani, Ahmad Rohani, Ibrahim Shad-Mehr and Zavosh Shad-Mehr — who have been arrested on charges of participation in Ashura observances and organizing [Baha'i] gatherings, have not had any visits with their families....
• Some time ago, the Tehran Prosecutor-General [Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi] had talked about finding weapons and bullets in the homes of the arrested Baha’is. The Baha’i International Community has vehemently denied these accusations, and declared that the arrested Baha’is were innocent. ("Transfer of arrested Baha’is to Gohar-dasht prison in Karaj," January 26, 2010, Iran Press Watch)

Friday-morning quarterbacking Iran

Juan Cole's assessment is pessimistic, but worth reading in full.

• What I would say is that coming off the Ashura protests, the Green Movement had the momentum and the regime was under pressure. The rallies had spread to a number of cities, including conservative ones like Isfahan and Mashhad. The crowds seemed to be turning on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
• After Thursday, the momentum is now with the regime. Either the Revolutionary Guards are getting better at countering the dissidents or movement members are tired of getting beaten up with no measurable political impact. As I said yesterday, the regime blocked the 'flashmobs' by interfering with electronic communication (google mail, Facebook, Twitter). They also thought strategically about how to control the public space of major cities, resorting to plainclothesmen rather than just uniformed police squads....
• The Green Movement cannot depend on being able to go on indefinitely mounting big public demonstrations, especially since the cost to the protesters is rising, with beatings, firing of live ammunition, mass arrests and executions. It also cannot continue to depend on informal networks to organize, since these can be fairly easily disrupted.
• Mir Hosain Musavi has said he refuses to form a political party. There are such parties or at least vague groupings in Iranian politics (former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani leads one), and they have members of parliament. By refusing to develop a grassroots political organization, Musavi may be making the same mistake as former president Abo'l-Hasan Bani-Sadr, who was toppled from the presidency in summer, 1981, because he declined to seek a mass organization, whereas his enemies had the "Hezbollah" popular militia and the Islamic Republican Party that grouped key hard line clerics. Ahmadinejad has his Alliance of Builders in Tehran, and is backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitary, and other security forces. Musavi has the little flashmobs who couldn't, at least on Thursday. (Informed Comment, "How the Iranian Regime Checkmated the Green Dissidents on a Crucial Day," 12 Feb. 2010)
  

Also, I think we cannot discount the overwhelming force on that day.

Isfahan: Protests outside Tehran

• Isfahan (Noon): Large crowds gathered and were trapped on Si o Se pol Bridge. Since the people had no way to escape, security forces arrested large numbers of them. Not even the children and elderly were spared: a 12 years-old, as well as old men and women, have been arrested. The police are using extreme violence hitting people with chains, hoses, and batons.
• The shops are closed in the area. No shots have been fired, but the security forces are generating loud aerial sounds to intimidate people.
• Most people in their cars showed their solidarity by honking their horns.
• Slogans chanted: “Have no fear, we’re all in this together” and “Death to Dictator.”
• People report that they gather, chant slogans, then get dispersed. But they eventually gather again. The people have a strong presence in the area. ("Isfahan: Despite Intimidation and Violence by Security Forces, People Resist," Iran News Agency, Translation by: Siavosh J., Persian2English.com, 11 February 2010)

It is a serious time, but this must count as funny, yes?

• Iran has issued a new stamp to commemorate the massive turnout in the country's 10th presidential election held on June 12, 2009....
• "The stamp will be the symbol of the Iranian nation's unity and their massive turnout in the presidential election," [Iran's Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Mohammad Soleimani] added. ("Iran issues new stamp to commemorate election," 13 Aug 2009, Iran's PressTV)
  

22 Bahman Coverage

• Enduring America’s coverage of the marches of 22 Bahman, the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, will start at 0600 GMT (9:30 a.m. in Tehran)...[:] a LiveBlog with the quickest updates on events, the latest videos, and snap analyses throughout the day.... ("Iran: Enduring America’s Coverage of 22 Bahman," by Scott Lucas, 10 Feb. 2010, Enduring America)
  

countdown

• What we now may have, for the first time since November, are the two halves of the challenge to the Government, and possibly the Iranian system, coming together. If the numbers are large, and even more if those multihttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=27755667&postID=6680908798766513271tudes are peaceful, then the Green wave for change will carry more possibilities for the politicians and clerics; conversely, each move by those politicians and clerics will bolster the demonstrators who are risking arrest and condemnation just by stepping foot into the streets and squares of Tehran and other cities on Thursday.
• “From top” and “from below”: it is less than 24 hours to 22 Bahman. (10 Feb. 2010, "Iran Analysis: On the Eve of 22 Bahman," by Scott Lucas in Middle East & Iran, Enduring America)
  

Preparing for Thursday (watching the Iranian Government)

• So much is happening in these last days before Feb 11th. The internet is almost not working in much of Tehran or it is so slow that most people cant even open their Gmail or Yahoo. The Greens have announced alternative routs to Azadi sq. if the Gov. blocks all the entrances to the main street. But the Gov. has installed 100s of massive speakers alongside the street of the march so people's chanting cannot be heard. They also have called on Basijis from other cities to come to Tehran and have assigned a major intersection to each group to prevent the Greens from entering the official protest. This video shows city workers taking away the garbage cans to prevent people from blocking the roads with them in case of clashes. The Green girl is explaining how funny it is that the Gov. has started a garbage bin campaign out of fear. She and her friend laugh at them. (08 Feb 2010, "The Revolutionary Guards Prepare For Thursday," Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan)
  

the whole world is watching (and taking names of the oppressors)

• The government has vowed to suppress further protests with even greater force than before, while a hardline cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, secretary of the powerful guardian council, has called for more executions to deter further protests. "There is no room for Islamic mercy," Jannati told a recent Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University.

• At the heart of such confrontational rhetoric is a battle for the very soul of the revolution and what it was designed to achieve. While supporters of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, swear loyalty to the concept of velayat-e faqih (leadership by an Islamic jurisprudence) devised by him, Mousavi and Karroubi have been suggesting with increasing boldness that the revolution has failed to free Iranians from tyranny. In fact, they claim, "leadership" by an Islamic jurisprudence has merely instituted a new form of political bondage. ("The Iranian revolution grinds to a halt on the eve of its anniversary," by Robert Tait and Noushin Hoseiny, The Observer, Sunday 7 February 2010)

Green?: What Green?

• Scott Lucas, who runs the blog “Enduring America,” and Golnaz Esfandiari, a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, pointed out that Iran’s president had appeared before two backdrops that featured images in which Iran’s national colors seem to have been reimagined to remove any trace of the color green, which is the country’s opposition has adopted as its symbol.
• (Lucas:) I don’t want to say the Government is in any way threatened by the Green movement, but somebody has apparently decided that, when President Ahmadinejad is speaking, the Iranian flag no longer has to be red, white, and green. (February 2, 2010, "Puzzling Over a Red, White and Blue Iran," by Robert Mackey, the Lede, New York Times News Blog)

Day of Remembrance/Reckoning Inches Closer

• The anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, February 11, is commemorated in Iran as a day to recognize the Iranian people’s stand against all forms of dictatorship. That day 31 years ago was one of the bloodiest of the Iranian uprising that toppled the Pahlavi dynasty and its dictatorial regime. This year, the government expects massive popular protests to erupt as Iranians continue to hijack official government holidays to demand their rights and demonstrate their frustration with the disputed June 2009 election that put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in office for another four years. (“Revolution is not Completed; Dictatorship Still Exists,” February 2, 2010, niacINSIGHT)
  

Stability and Guidance in an Unstable Regime

Mir Hussein Moussavi: “The majority of people believed in the beginning of the revolution that the roots of dictatorship and despotism were abolished. I was one of them, but now I don’t have the same beliefs. You can still find the elements and roots that lead to dictatorship.” ("Opposition Hardens Line Inside Iran," by Nazila Fathi, New York Times, February 2, 2010)

Page F30 lists the sites of protests in Iran 27-28 December 2009

How many cities did the protests yesterday (Ashura) take place in?

Answer: at least 21.

1. Tehran - تهران
2. Yazd - یزد
3. Hamedan - همدان
4. Sari - ساری
5. Rasht - رشت
6. Tabriz - تبریز
7. Ilam - ایلام
8. Esfahan - اصفهان
9. Ahvaz - اهواز
10. Ardabil - اردبیل
11. Arak - اراک
12. Urmia - ارومیه
13. Qazvin - قزوین
14. Qom - قم
15. Karaj - کرج
16. Kerman - کرمان
17. Kermanshah - کرمانشاه
18. Yasuj - یاسوج
19. Mashhad - مشهد
20. Bandar-Abbas - بندرعباس
21. Zanjan - زنجان

BBC Timeline: Iran, December 2009

19 Dec: Influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri dies aged 87

21 Dec: Tens of thousands attend his funeral in Qom; reports of clashes between opposition supporters and security forces

22 Dec: Further confrontations reported in Qom

23 Dec: More clashes reported in city of Isfahan as memorial is held

24 Dec: Iran reportedly bans further memorial services for Montazeri except in his birthplace and Qom

26 Dec: Clashes reported in central and northern Tehran

27 Dec: At least eight dead following anti-government protests in Tehran; 300 reported arrested (BBC, 29 December 2009)

It is 1641 Come Again

• Muhammad Sahimi, an Iran expert at the University of Southern California in the US, said the government's crackdown was unlikely to stop the opposition.
• "If they were going to be cowed, they should have been by now," he told Al Jazeera.
• "Over the past six months, violence has been used, a lot of people have been arrested, tens of people have been killed, but yet you don't see any decrease in the level of demonstrations," he said.
• "The demands have gone way beyond cancellation of elections, and now people are demanding fundamental change in the system" of government, he told Al Jazeera.
• "The goal right now, is at the minimum, to weaken the position of [Iran's ] supreme leader, to make him sort of a figure head ... if not outright elimination of the supreme leader, and the writing of a new constitution." ("Iran MPs demand demo punishment," Al Jazeera, 29 Dec. 2009)

Mapping Protests December 2009

("Summary Update on Ashura Protests, Dec 27," Nite Owl, Dec.28, 2009)

Juan Cole on the murder of Mousavi

• The killing of Ali Mousavi, the 34-year-old nephew of former presidential candidate Mir Husain Mousavi, was also a violation of Shiite values. The Mousavis are putative descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, a sort of caste in Muslim societies called 'sayyid' or 'sharif.'
• In fact, in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, one of the complaints of the crowd was that the Qajar monarchy had had sayyids beaten. So if beating a scion of the House of the Prophet can help spark a revolution, what about shooting one? And, oppositional film maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf maintains that Mousavi was killed by a death squad that came for him in a van rather than just falling victim to random police fire.
• Killing a sayyid is a blot on any Iranian government. Doing so on Ashura, the day of morning for the martyred grandson of the Prophet, Imam Husayn, borders on insanity. (Monday, December 28, 2009, "Iran Roiled, Crowds Burn Banks, Police Station; Chanting against Theocrat Khamenei; But No Revolutionary Alternative Yet," Informed Comment)
  

1979 or not 1979

When one is concerned about the viability of a company, one looks to the actions of investors. When one is concerned about the viability of a country, one looks to those of its citizens.

A recent critique of Andrew Sullivan's suggestion that something revolutionary was occurring in Iran claims that the repressive government in Iran is firmly established and not likely to be overthrown by protestors (RCW Blog, Compass, December 27, 2009, "Answering Andrew"). Perhaps we should ponder the observation of a Daily Dish reader: "I'm just really struck by the fact that so few of these folks have masks on today. In June, half of the people were hiding their faces -- this Ashura, not so much.... Something very real has changed in the last six months." (27 Dec 2009 10:17 pm, "Are Some Baseej Defecting?," Daily Dish)

We all know that power grows out of a barrel of a gun (The Real Clear World blogger and Mao have something in common). But when you lose the intelligensia (universities), running a country becomes that much harder. And when you lose respect/fear on the streets....

(Below is a snippet of protest evidently from 27 December, Tehran.)

More on Mousavi

• Seyyed Ali Mousavi, a 35-year-old engineer and a son of Mir Hossein Mousavi's sister, was killed today. He was among the demonstrators at Maydaan-e Enghelab (Revolution Square) when he was shot in the shoulder. He was taken to Ibn-Sina hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Mousavi, his wife, and his sister and his family, and a large crowd were reportedly still at the hospital.
• The hospital denied that anyone by that name had been admitted, even as dozens of police and a truckload of Basijis were reportedly guarding the hospital.
• Apparently a "large number" of opposition supporters gathered there, and according to Jaras, they have promised to continue protests into the night and over the following days. ("Ashura Updates," Frontline: Tehran Bureau, 27 December 2009)
• According to Mr Mousavi's website, Seyed Ali Mousavi was shot in the back as security forces fired on demonstrators.
• Correspondents say his funeral on Monday is likely to be a focal point for further protests. (28 December 2009, "Iranian protests spark fresh clashes in Tehran," BBC)
  

Brownshirts 1934, or Champ de Mars Massacre 1791, or Romania 1989?

"On Saturday night in Tehran, members of a pro-government militia broke into a mosque where former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist leader, was speaking, forcing him to break off before concluding his remarks." (December 27, 2009, 12:14 am, "Iran Militia Halts Former President’s Speech," by Robert Mackey, New York Times)

The Revolution will not be Televised...

or, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

This next set of blog entries is just me playing catch up. I think what I am heading towards is the fallout of, if true, the murder of Ali Mousavi, "nephew of the rightful president of Iran, murdered by the brownshirts of the military coup" (to quote Andrew Sullivan).

But perhaps we might begin with the burial of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri in Qom on Monday, 21 Dec. 2009.

• "There were reports of Basij attempting to beat Karroubi, however, it is said that the crowd shielded him against the attacks. After the funeral was over, Mousavi’s entourage was harassed by plainclothesmen. His car was chased and one of his companions was injured after the plainclothesmen broke a side window of the car he was traveling in. He did not receive any injuries himself. One plainclothesman also got injured in the attack." ("Full Report of Montazeri’s Funeral in Qom," by Josh Shahryar on Dec.21, 2009, Daily Nite Owl)

Just viewing from the outside, it seems someone has either give the Baseej a green light, or they are beginning to sense that they cannot control the streets.

mapping dissent: we still need a basiji map

Turkey's USAK/ISRO (International Strategic Research Organization) has put out a new report on the elections (reported from Page F30). Below is the map of protests.

Overcrowding at Evin Prison is just the least of the problems

A description of incarceration there on a sweep for protestors (actually the witness here was taken into custody just for supposedly filming protestors):

• They were headed to the notorious Evin Prison, but M said he was relieved to get there. He knew that's where his family would look for him first. But he was horrified to learn that more than 500 prisoners would be crammed into a cell of about 500 square feet.
• Older than most of the prisoners, M was designated the cellblock leader, in charge of scheduling four-hour sleeping shifts for the inmates, who had to stand during the rest of the time, share a single toilet or make quick calls to their family on a single phone....
• Prisoners were frequently singled out and pulled away for interrogation. They came back hours later with bruises or with blood in their urine, he said. Some would be pulled out at 8 a.m. and returned 14 hours later, limping and exhausted.
• Guards told him that about 4,500 people were swept up June 20, with unaccounted numbers jailed in many other places. At one point, he met a family whose members were all jailed. A man, who was with his two sons, said his wife and daughter were in the women's section of the prison.
• Finally, M was taken for interrogation. He was blindfolded, never getting a chance to see his questioners. But judging from their voices, they were young men. ("Iran book publisher recalls weeklong ordeal in prison," by Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2009)
  

Like I said: you can punish some of the people, some of the time...

"Tehran's notorious Evin prison is full, now they use football stadiums." No idea if this Twitter post (Jim Sciutto, ABC, 30 June) is true, or if the following is as well: "Rooftop Allahu Akbars still on, despite Basij raids - 1 case where all residents of a 5-floor apt building were bused to Evin but we have seen this in crack-downs around the world before" (Lara Setrakian, ABC, 3 July 2009). But we have seen this in crack-downs around the world before, and if the bused-in Basiji are staying in hostels in East Tehran, surely these snippets suggest they are running out of prison space in North Tehran.

Stadium-sized Guantanomos

Reporters without Borders note Evin Prison in Northwest Tehran, originally built under the Shah in 1971 and manned by the SAVAK.

• “Like Chile’s Santiago football stadium in 1973, Evin prison has become a bloody detention centre where arbitrary treatment is meted out. We urge the international community to do its utmost to break the silence surrounding prisoners of opinion in Evin prison”, the organisation added, pointing out that 26 June is World Day against Torture”. ("What is going on in the silence of Evin prison?," 27 June 2009)
• 

Saruman the White was a wizard....

niacINsight picked up the following from Salon:

• They want to keep us indoors, and quiet. But which subversive programmer picked “The Lord of the Rings”?
• In Tehran, state television’s Channel Two is putting on a “Lord of the Rings” marathon, part of a bigger push to keep us busy. Movie mad and immunized from international copyright laws, Iranians are normally treated to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. Now it’s two or three films a day. The message is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
  

Perhaps Khamenei does not look like Saruman. But actions?

• With his sweet lies Saruman tried to persuade Gandalf to join him.....
• Saruman likes to be the first in everything. There is a spirit of unsporting competitiveness and envy within him....
• Theoden in his turn affirms that “you are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter of men's hearts.” And Gandalf adds: “Saruman, you missed your path in life. You should have been the king's jester and earned your bread, and stripes too, by mimicking his counsellors.”
• Saruman didn’t trust anyone and didn’t want to surrender.
• 

Up Next: Rick Steves Reviewing Hostels in East Tehran

From the Guardian Blog. Forget the IRGC, in comparison, even the Basiji look well-trained with this lot.

• Newspaper Roozonline has an interview (in Persian) with one of the young plainclothes militiamen who have been beating protesters.
• UPDATE: Robert says the man is paid 2m rial per day, which would be about £1220 for ten days of work. A hefty fee, even by UK standards....
• The Guardian's Robert Tait sends this synopsis.
• The man, who has come from a small town in the eastern province of Khorasan and has never been in Tehran before, says he is being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protestors with a heavy wooden stave. He says the money is the main incentive as it will enable him to get married and may even enable him to afford more than one wife. Leadership of the volunteers has been provided by a man known only as "Hajji", who has instructed his men to "beat the counter-revolutionaries so hard that they won't be able to stand up".
  
• The volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces such as Khuzestan, Arak and Mazandaran, are being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran. Other volunteers, he says, have been brought from Lebanon, where the Iranian regime has strong allies in the Hezbollah movement. They are said to be more highly-paid than their Iranian counterparts and are put up in hotels. The last piece of information seems to confirm the suspicion of many Iranians that foreign security personnel are being used to suppress the demonstrators. (Guardian, News Blog, "Iran crisis: live," 24 June 2009)
  

Text and context

Excellent article by Juan Cole on the historical context of internal revolts and external diplomacy.

• Obama will likely be as helpless before a crackdown by the Iranian regime as Eisenhower was re: Hungary in 1956, Johnson was re: Prague in 1968, and Bush senior was re: Tienanmen Square in 1989. George W. Bush, it should remember, did nothing about Tehran's crackdown on student protesters in 2003 or about the crackdown on reformist candidates, which excluded them from running in the 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections, or about the probably fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. It is hard to see what he could have done, contrary to what his erstwhile supporters in Congress now seem to imply. As an oil state, the Iranian regime does not need the rest of the world and is not easy to pressure. So Obama needs to be careful about raising expectations of any sort of practical intervention by the US, which could not possibly succeed. (Despite the US media's determined ignoring the the Afghanistan War, it is rather a limiting factor on US options with regard to Iran.) Moreover, if the regime succeeds in quelling the protests, however odious it is, it will still be a chess piece on the board of international diplomacy and the US will have to deal with it just as it deals with post-Tiananmen China. (June 24, 2009, "Washington and the Iran Protests: Would they be Allowed in the US?," Juan Cole, Informed Comment)

Who are these men?


And why are they wearing camouflage? And why are they smiling? Police or Pasdaran - Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG)?

Baseeji as Rude Boys

Why me black brother why, dis robbing and killing?
Why me black brother why, dis looting and shooting?
Why me black brother why, you ruling your mumma?
Why me black brother why, you mash up your puppa?
What you gonna do when de voice say come?
Remember the day of judgment.
Pick up your guns and you go to town,
See your black brother and you shoot dem down.
That's wrong! (Mighty Diamonds, "Why Me Black Brother Why?")

Or, a song more related to what is going on on the ground by popular Iranian singer (now in exile I believe), who goes by the name Googoosh. (The Farsi is basically about those abroad remembering those back at home.)

Bit of a ramble: my response to those who claim we are only supporting street protesters because they look like us

Anonymous worries that we don't have any evidence of fraud and that we should perhaps assume that Ahmedinejad was the clear victor. But evidence is hard to come by because the government refused to let any observer near the polling stations, refused specific polling data, and, of course, refuses post-polling. What is probably true is that there is some real support for Ahmedinejad, although that is difficult to gauge because there are a lot of "supporters"out there like the police chief who stated, "I have a family." Collaboration takes its toll on the soul. I'd venture a guess that Ahmedinejad won the most votes, although well short of the 50% to prevent a run-off. But, it also seems that much of that support is weak. All circumstantial? I live in the USA, and we got very tired of our most unpopular president, Richard Nixon, claiming to speak for the "silent majority" (who, by definition, haven't said a thing). I suspect Iranians have tired of having Ahmedinejad and Khemeni claim the same, unprovable, mantle. As for Republicans moving from bomb Iran to our brother freedom fighters, well international politics means you cannot choose your "supporters." It doesn't damn the cause.

It is the singer not the song: know your players

• At least four distinct security institutions are involved in suppressing the demonstrations that have erupted since the June 12th election: The Pasdaran, the Army, the police and the Basij.
• The Pasdaran or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp have the primary mission of protecting the Islamic Revolution. The Pasdaran number more than 100,000, or roughly one-sixth the size of the standing Army. I have not seen any indication in recent days of any hesitancy among thePasdaran leadership in putting down the disturbances, but I have read some unconfirmed reports of a division between Pasdaran officers and troops.
• The Army may be another matter. Soldiers share an heroic self-image as defenders of the nation and they certainly do not like suppressing civilians, especially unarmed, relatively respectful ones. Moreover, responding to civil unrest is hardwork. Soldiers hate doing it in my experience....
• Police have the task of keeping civil order, but once the numbers of demonstrators grew into the thousands and the demonstration sites increased, they lacked the numbers needed to maintain order. At present, the role of the police seems to be relatively unimportant.
• In the Iranian case, the Basijis are the heavies who use thuggery to intimidate demonstrators. The higher the profile of the Basijis in suppressing demonstrators, the higher the reputational costs for the regime of suppression. When mobilized, the Basij are supposed to be subordinate to the Pasdaran, but I cannot tell if this is actually the case at present. (Saturday, June 20, 2009, "Does the state have the upper hand?," Informed Comment blog)
  

Basiij, Google, and Farsi: an unlikely combination

from Friday, June 19, 2009, "How to help now that Google Translate is available in Persian / Farsi" Page F30)

Basij (بسیج) - Twitter / YouTube
Basiji (بسیجی) - Twitter / YouTube Note: Google is translating Basij and Basiji as "mobilize" so when you see that word it actually means Basij / Basiji.