Iran’s History May Be Decided This Friday

I continue to be astonished by the numbers, persistence, and courage of the Iranian people in coming out into the streets to protest the corrupt theocracy, even as that theocracy lowers itself to new depths of brutality to suppress their hopes. The other day, I framed the question that is key to Iran’s fate this way: “I wonder if the security forces can maintain their cohesion as long as the protesters can maintain their courage.” The stakes are rising. There is much evidence that the regime is prepared to escalate the use of deadly force against the people — watch the videos here of police intentionally running over demonstrators with trucks, and firing warning shots. The regime’s worst thugs are hinting of even darker things to come, of a Tienanmen in Tehran:

“In dealing with previous protests, police showed leniency. But given that these opponents are seeking to topple (the ruling system), there will be no mercy,” Moghaddam said, according to the official news agency IRNA. “We will take severe action. The era of tolerance is over. Anyone attending such rallies will be crushed.” [AP, Ali Akbar Dareini]

They mean this literally. The Revolutionary Guards and Basij Militia have recently taken to bashing protestors over the head with nightsticks, sending scores of them to the hospital with serious injuries.

The Tienanmen massacre worked because of the mendacity of the term “Peoples’ Army;” when called upon, the Chinese Army was willing to murder its people by the thousands to protect an oligarchy from the peoples’ will. The same may not be true of Iran. For the first time, there are signs that some elements of the security forces are losing their will to take part in this:

In the middle of a loud, violent brawl in Tehran, Iran, anti-government protesters manage to corner a handful of riot police who were sent to combat them. As the crowd pushes the police against a wall — with screams coming from all directions — a protester points his finger at them. “Why are you doing this?” he yells.

One of the police — the only one whose helmet is off, his face apparently bloody — responds. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” The other police stand still, trapped by the crowd’s grasp. Then the protester says something else, in one of the most telling signs of the historic anti-government rebellion sweeping through the streets of Iran. He demands that the police call Ayatollah Khamenei — the supreme leader of the nation’s hardline Islamic government — a “bastard.” [CNN]

In some parts of Tehran, protesters pushed the police back, hurling rocks and capturing several police cars and motorcycles, which they set on fire. Videos posted to the Internet showed scenes of mayhem, with trash bins burning and groups of protesters attacking Basij militia volunteers amid a din of screams.

One video showed a group of protesters setting an entire police station aflame in Tehran. Another showed people carrying off the body of a protester, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.

By late afternoon, coils of black smoke rose over central Tehran from dozens of street fires, and smaller groups of protesters continued to skirmish with police and Basij militia members. In the evening, loudspeakers in Imam Hussein Square, where most of the clashes took place, announced that gatherings of more than three people were banned, witnesses said.

There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering, or refusing to fight. Several videos posted online show officers holding up their helmets and walking away from the melee, as protesters pat them on the back in appreciation. In one photograph, a police officer can be seen holding his arms up and wearing a bright green headband, the signature color of the opposition movement. [N.Y. Times]

Some of the shift of momentum away from the regime arises from a combination of luck and missteps by the regime. The death of 87 year-old ex-Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri is what revived the recent protests. The mourning for Montazeri, once designated as a successor to Ayatollah Khomeini and an opponent of the current regime, came just before the Shiite holiday of Ashura. The always insightful Michael Totten explains the religious significance of the regime’s decision to launch a violent crackdown on this, of all days.

For that reason, the old tricks that worked before aren’t working now — arresting or limiting the movement of opposition leaders, or accusing western nations of stirring the protests. And in a sign that the White House perceives that the momentum has shifted, President Obama has moved further than ever in the direction of supporting the protest movement:

Speaking in Hawaii, Mr. Obama for the first time publicly demanded Iran’s release of “unjustly” detained political opponents. He joined with European leaders in calling for Iran’s leaders to abide by international conventions on the treatment of political activists.

The Iranian people wish for “justice and a better life for themselves,” Mr. Obama said, adding that “the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.” [WSJ]

Protesters have been met “with the iron first of brutality,” Obama said yesterday in Hawaii, where he is vacationing with his family. “The United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. [Bloomberg]

Below the fold, I give you an extended quote from Robin Wright, a long-time observer of Iran of whom I’m not necessarily fond. Wright has long advocated a soft-line policy toward Iran that accommodates the theocracy. But this very view gives more credibility to Wright’s suggestion that the opposition is now likely to prevail. Imagine Jack Pritchard or Mike Chinoy predicting regime change in North Korea and you get the idea.

But the green movement is far more than simply sporadic eruptions. This is the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the world.

There’s the currency campaign, for starters. Thousands of rial notes have been stamped with a simple green “V” for victory. Others bear handwritten slogans that echo the public chants denouncing the regime. Some have even been reprinted with pictures: one is a cartoon of President Ahmadinejad with “people’s enemy” written underneath. Another carries a picture from the mobile phone images of Neda Agha Soltan as she lay dying on the street from a sniper’s bullet. Underneath is written “death to the dictator” — a common public chant against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The currency campaign even denounces the regime’s foreign policy. “Khamenei the non-believer is the servant of [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin,” declares one slogan, written in green, on a 20,000-rial note. Another chastises: “They stole money and give it to [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez. Some messages simply appeal for others to join the campaign to write anti-regime messages on one billion banknotes. The Government reportedly tried to take the marked notes out of circulation, but found there were too many to replace.

Then there is the boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. People in line at markets whisper to other shoppers not to buy certain products that help to subsidise the Government’s broadcasting monopoly — and its version of events. The opposition has also called for boycotts on mobile phone companies that provide technology to the Government. It is impossible to assess the impact but it adds a critical economic component to the political confrontation.

Civil disobedience is often brazen. Graffiti is increasingly showing up on public walls — in green spray paint — to berate the authorities or to announce a new demonstration. Large posters of arrested protesters and dissidents demanding their freedom have appeared on campuses, often timed for the appearance of a pro-regime event or speech.

At football matches and in subway tunnels, mobile phone videos record spontaneous outbursts of the two key opposition chants: “death to the dictator” and “God is great”. The latter was the pivotal revolutionary chant against the monarchy that has been usurped to denounce the revolution’s hardliners. The implication is that God has abandoned the revolution to side with and protect the green movement.

Participation in civil disobedience is far more widespread than the protests. It includes individual, uncoordinated acts, such as a challenge to the Supreme Leader by Mahmoud Vahidnia, an unassuming maths student with no record of dissent. At a meeting with Iran’s academic elite Ayatollah Khamenei warned that the “biggest crime” was questioning the June 12 election. Mr Vahidnia then went to the microphone and criticised the government crackdown, asking about alleged prison abuses and why no one was allowed to criticise the leader. He also told him that he lived in a bubble.

So far the green movement has insisted on non-violence. Perhaps the ultimate irony in the Islamic Republic today is that a brutal revolutionary regime suspected of secretly working on a nuclear weapon faces its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience. And even such a militarised regime has been unable to put it down. [Robin Wright, Times of London]