The courage and determination of the protestors in Iran are inspiring, and the brutality of the regime’s response is revolting.  The reminder that, as Fareed Zakaria recently put it, “What you know about Iran is wrong” could not be more timely. 

All that being said – with absolute heartfelt sincerity – it is worth looking ahead and thinking about what is likely to come next.  There are two things to think about here.  First, how long can the opposition sustain itself?  Four, five, or six weeks from now, will the protests still continue? Will the world still be watching Youtube videos being recycled on CNN?  Second, if a revolution were to occur, what would it look like?  The catchphrases of this opposition are “death to the dictator” and “Allah u Akhbar.”  Both are religious arguments: a Muslim ruler is expected to rule justly, so a “dictator” cannot be a legitimate Muslim ruler.  But the religious language in which this uprising is being conducted should make us cautious in assuming too much about the consequences of even a dramatic change in the ruling regime.

Start with the cause of the protests, the stolen election. If there was any remaining doubt on that question, this statement by Guardian Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadhodaei should settle the matter:  "Statistics provided by Mohsen Rezaei in which he claims more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities” and that no more than 3 million votes  are likely to have been affected.  Ah, well, in that case … (Kadhodaei points out that Iranians are not prevented from voting outside their home districts so that some occurrence of greater than 100% turnout is not impossible.  That argument is not remotely persuasive.  For a very fine statistical analysis confirming the conclusion that the election was fraudulent, see Walter Mebane’ paper here.

But the fact that the election was stolen does not mean that Ahmedinijad lacks widespread support.  There is good reason to think that Ahmedinijad would – or at least could -- have won a clean election. There is an unlikely but not impossible scenario in which new elections are called … and the outcome is the same.  (I assume here that the effects of the protests themselves on a subsequent election would be mixed; repeated reports that the basijis being bused into Tehran come from other parts of the country suggest that in this as in all things, “the Iran people” is not a singular, monolithic entity.)

As everyone involved recognizes, however, the protests and the initial government reaction have raised the stakes to the point of a challenge to the legitimacy of the governing regime.  The government’s responding violence should not have come as a shock to anyone.  But it remains the case that that violence is being carefully kept within limits.  Some Western observers are reacting as though there has been slaughter in the streets:  the announcement that European embassies are considering opening their grounds to provide sanctuary to injured protestors reminds me of the “unauthorized acts of decency” that were reported during the massacre at Smyrna in 1922.  But that’s hardly an analogous case:  the massacre at Smyrna involved the murder of tens or hundreds of thousands of Armenians  (150,000 is one common estimate) by Turkish forces.  The current analogy – the one we’re hearing over and over -- is Tiananmen Square. 

The problem is that that, too, is a weak analogy.  Tiananmen Square started with a million people occupying a central location on April 15; thousands participated in a lengthy hunger strike; tens of thousands remained there seven weeks later when the tanks rolled in on June 4.  The Chinese Red Cross estimated that 2,600 people were killed in a matter of hours. The issue at Tiananmen was stark:  particularly against the background of the ongoing collapse of the Soviet Union, the future of Communism itself seemed to be in the balance.  And the world was watching closely, fed reports and images by western correspondents right up to the end.

The Iranian protests don't seem to be going that way.  First, neither the protestors nor the government – especially the government -- seem to be looking for a pitched confrontation.  After the biggest marches, on Monday, everyone went home.  Day after day the protestors have come back for more in the face of teargas and batons and frequent live fire … but there has been nothing like the sustained seizure of public space that set the battle lines at Tiananmen Square.  Saturday would have been an opportune moment for an all-out confrontation:  many protestors were ready to face death, and in some cases the government obliged, making the tragic death of a young woman named Neda the signature moment of the conflict thus far.  But even on Saturday the government forces did not unleash full-scale military repression.

The government’s strategy appears to be Tiananmen in slow motion:  the application of low-level but steady violence in the hopes that the protestors will eventually give up. There are some signs that the strategy is working.  Protests continued Saturday night and Sunday, but the numbers are down.  Tactics like using the police to bar access to public squares and forcing people to keep moving are making it much harder to mount large-scale sustained marches.  Using police and basiji forces to prevent gatherings or disperse them before they grow too large – rather than trying to disperse them by force after the fact -- and the widespread arrests of perceived or potential leadership figures are strategies aimed at turning a flashpoint confrontation into a sustained low-level counterinsurgency operation, a strategy should sound familiar. 

The Iranian government is dominated by a generation that remembers not only the Revolution of 1979, but more immediately the Iran-Iraq War with its million Iranian dead.  The basijis who are doing the skull-cracking and shooting now are the same force that launched suicidal human wave attacks against much better (American) armed Iraqi forces in the marshes.  In other words, this is a regime that has no trouble accepting casualties and has the forces available that are ready to both inflict and absorb much, much more.

Meanwhile, the extensive efforts to curtail the use of cell phones and cameras, the government’s Youtube propaganda strategy, the effective exclusion of direct reporting by Western agencies, in turn, are aimed at preventing the world’s attention from focusing around a symbolic object like the Lady Liberty statue.  (What a triumph Nico Pitney’s live blog has been for Huffpo; and how pathetic has the MSM been in comparison?  Is anything sadder than CNN’s putting up videos they got from Youtube?)  The world is trying to watch what is happening.  Will they still be trying just as hard after a month without direct news reporting?

We hear that there is a fierce power struggle going on in the meantime, between clerics aligned with Rafsanjani – these are real ayatollahs, which Khamenei is not – and others loyal to the regime, but nothing thus far suggests that a revolution will emerge from Qum. The move are complicated, and hard to read – presumably Rafsanjani and Khamenei are each trying to line up support.  Khamenei recently spoke well of Rafsanjani, suggesting the he wants to avoid an outright split.  At the same time, The New York Times has a story today detailing  efforts to discredit Moussavi as an agent of foreign powers in the government press, a move described as suggesting “that the government may be laying the groundwork for discrediting and arresting Mr. Moussavi.”  The story also quotes Iranian politicians calling for retrenchment and “reconsidering relations” with European nations.   The worst outcome could be a power-struggle that Ravsanjani loses, leading to retrenchment and reconsolidation.  The best outcome appears to be some incremental steps or revisions in power-sharing arrangements, at the most; nothing to turn the unrest in the streets into a top-down revolution. 

Finally, even if revolutionary change does come, it might be well to be cautious in predicting its consequences.  As I noted previously, the language of the protests has become religious.  Some of this is an attempt to enlist popular support rather than a reflection of the protestors’ underlying beliefs, but the result is the same:  they are protesting in the name of Islam.  That is part of what makes the opposition's appeal so powerful, which should be yet another reminder of the simplistic American public understanding of Islam – particularly Shiite Islam -- in the Middle East.  But as we have learned time and again, “democracy” does not necessarily equal “Western,” let alone “secular” or “liberal” (this is as true in the U.S., Israel, and Europe as anywhere else.)  And certainly “democratic” does not mean “pro-American.”  Khamenei’s government earned its unpopularity by staggering economic incompetence, not by its belligerent nationalism; very broad support for that nationalism remains.  In other words, a new or revised regime might be one that features considerable reforms internally but that is no less eager to be involved in regional affairs, particularly with respect to Shiite Iraq.  It is ridiculous to assert that Mousavi would not govern Iran differently than Ahmedinijad in terms of its internal affairs, but it is far less clear that Mousavi would be an Iranian Gorbachev, as some have suggested.  (Ironically, this is a fear that has been expressed by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders:  officials in Netanyahu’s government fear that a reformed government would be just as ambitious but less isolated, while Palestinians fear that a reformed government would be less inclined to make their cause a central concern in its dealings with Western nations in order to maintain good relations.)

Most likely the protests will continue through this week, and so will the low-level violence and the clampdown, the obvious acts of violence by government provocateurs, and the equally obvious propaganda.  Down the road?  Something powerful is moving in the streets of Tehra, but (to mix my metaphors) it is not clear that this new bird will be ready to hatch and take flight for some time yet.  And we can have only the dimmest idea as to what kind of bird it will be turn out to be.

[cross-posted at Huffingtonpost.com] 

The pro-Hamas demonstrators were opposed last night at the Israeli Embassy.

The demonstrators threw eggs. The police found some of those demonstrators had brought knives and bricks. High Street Kensington Tube was closed, as a result of the disorder. (Photos to follow).

This is what the Trotskyite-Hamas alliance is planning for future demonstrations:

Think of 100,000 descending on one building. If they decide to go inside the police will need extra forces. There are only, roughly 30,000 officers in London.

That’s why they’re panicking. Good.
Roobin | Homepage | 7 Jan, 10:48 | #

you only need to get within throwing distance
Antonovich | 7 Jan, 10:49 | #

It is vital that Hamas keeps up the fight until the Israelis are forced to end the action. On no account must they accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms.
attila | 7 Jan, 11:22 | #

Just got this:

Can everyone who is coming to the protest in London on 10th Jan please bring balloons filled with RED paint/dye/powder so we can paint the israeli embassy in red. This is just another stunt like the shoes that were thrown last saturday, we will fly red balloons to outline the bloodshed.
Dave S | Homepage | 7 Jan, 13:58 | #

Photos from last night:

Photos (c) Adrian Korsner, Sound Images Photography

Some comments:

Keep rioting!!! Best pics yet! insurrection now ah ah ah ...u make laught ..... to hacked palistian people this is my ansewr to you ......GO FUK YOURSELF COP LOVER .................you are the only asshole .....or u are a cop or you are cop lover so once more GO FUK YOURSELF ............spark in athens , fire in paris insurrection is coming .......... and we are getting prepared ........see you in the barricades anon

so george galloway fucks off again! great example of the class warrior georgie boy, now do us all a favour and fuck off up yer own arse

tosy

Columbia's main lawn: In a rare protester-free momentSo, protests sometimes happen at Columbia University. In the past month alone there has been a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the 1968 riots, a week-long CU Democrats war protest (including a massive red balloon display that, despite its seriousness, only succeeded in getting that song stuck in my head), a protest about Tibet, protests about Columbia’s impending expansion into Manhattanville, and a Take Back the Night rally. Not to mention the blood drive, arts fair, sex fair, free Mumia posters, a relay for life, and that random jumping castle and pink balloon-display that showed up last Friday. Seriously, Columbia students have recently done everything short of throwing a pie in Thomas Friedman’s face.

So what are those crazy kids going to do next? How about an al-Nakba rally – Say, day before Yom Hashoah-ish? Sure, why not – it can at least provide topical fodder for name-calling.

Many Jewcy readers will know that this May is the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence. They might be less familiar with the fact that many Palestinians and Palestinian support groups are marking this time as the 60th anniversary of al-Nakba, a time in which Palestinians were forced out of their homes to make room for the new state of Israel. That's why, starting this week, a new flier campaign began over at the Columbia campus about the mistreatment of Palestinians as a casualty of Zionism. According to the fliers, it’s officially Nakba Week.

Competing birthdays: A poster commemorating Al-Nakba's 60th anniversary Also, a Pro-Nakba Week student published this article in the campus newspaper, accusing the campus Hillel (and its president, Emily Steinberger) of disrespecting the week’s commemoration by refusing to co-sponsor the event simply because it used the word “Nakba.”

Then came the backlash. LionPAC, the pro-Israel group under the broader Hillel umbrella, put up a bunch of retaliation fliers equipped with their own pro-Israel statistics. And in retaliation to the original Spectator article, Steinberger submitted this report, which, among other things brings up (drumroll, please)…the Holocaust! So the whole debate becomes not the “new chapter in Columbia’s Israel-Arab discourse” that LionPAC says it wants, but instead a great big print-based shouting match.

It is of course the prerogative of every ethnic group to raise sympathy for and awareness of their respective oppression by waiving their grievances in people’s faces. But will shoving opposing tragedies at the opposition really solve anything? As Spectator columnist Armin Rosen puts it, this methodology is “more proof that the Zionist and anti-Zionist blocs totally deserve each other.”

Holocaust discourse in general is something that is all too easily buffeted about. Palestinian supporters often accuse Zionists of acting like Nazis toward the Palestinians -- within a homeland that was created to be a Jewish safe haven in the face of Nazism. Similarly, Zionist are often too quick to pull their own Holocaust card. We’ll see who racks up the most references when we get down to the “discourse.”

Jewcy Folk,

Tonight Jewcy and the Armenian-American community's No Place for Denial campaign co-sponsor a rally outside the national ADL headquarters in Manhattan. For the next few days, the national ADL will be meeting somewhere in the City to consider, among other things, whether to continue supporting Turkey's ongoing campaign to deny recognition to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide.

I wish I could be at the rally rather than out here on the West Coast, but Michael Weiss will be there along with other Jewish speakers to represent Jewcy and all those of us in the Jewish community who believe that genocide denial is not a Jewish value, and that the ADL can never represent the Jewish tradition of social justice so long as it seeks to deny recognition to the survivors of genocide and to the descendants of those who perished.

Continue reading...