The End of the Opposition

I remarked to anyone who would listen over the weekend and on into Monday that if Wednesday passed in Iran without a large scale protest, then the opposition movement will have flamed out. Wednesday has come and gone and while there were those that attempted to stage protests they were few in number and savagely dispersed by agents, sanctioned or unsanctioned, of the Iranian government. All the news coming out today would suggest that despite some vague commitment from Moussavi, posted to his website, that he would not relent, the protests have lost momentum in the face of an increasingly violent crackdown.

I could be wrong. I have been before, and I really hope I am this time but it would appear that the government of Iran has created an apparatus of control and militancy that it effectively crushed opposition and closed the rest of the world off to its citizens. Operating under this debatable premise I want to focus on two things. With the opposition defeated, what now happens in Iran? What are the larger lessons from this incident for the citizens of other “limited” democracies?

What happen in Iran?
The short answer is I don’t know. Perhaps at not point since the revolution have the political rifts in Iran been more dramatically exposed and pronounced. For the U.S. this brief opposition has exposed potential officials that might be keen to a kind word or an offer of a handshake from the U.S. It’s also clearer who won’t be running to the negotiating table. This might sound insignificant, but from all the folks I’ve read and talked to we are simply blind in Iran. We don’t have good analysis or evidence about the overwhelming majority of operators in the country. We don’t know what their inclinations are and how hard-lined or reformist they might be behind closed doors. The information gained by their actions in recent weeks could exponentially increase our understanding of the government.

For those that participated in the protests and had hoped for change, they now are beginning to understand that change isn’t coming. I would anticipate a dramatic tightening of Islamic social norm enforcement, as happens periodically in the country, in an attempt to further stifle oppositional or revolutionary inclinations. I’d also anticipate some who have disappeared in the night will not be seen again and some will be seen, but only in a kangaroo court providing cursory justification to execute or exile them. It will take years for the opposition to muster the manpower and courage to oppose the government again and any promising voice part of the governing apparatus right now has been exposed and marginalized. Without a leader to rally behind, opposition and reformist groups will find it difficult to gather momentum again.

What have we learn in a broader sense?
We’ve learned that despite the proliferation of information avenues, a functioning and ruthless government can turn off the lights of international scrutiny. We’ve learned that opposition movements can be crushed with amazing expediency and brutality. We’ve learned that revolutions will be much harder to come by, despite the necessity or the will of the people. I’ve long argued that while the appearance of democracy has spread throughout the world, the efficacy of government to crush opposition movements deemed a threat to the existing power structure has become frighteningly advanced. I hold little hope for countries like Iran, or China, or North Korea. No matter the will of the people, the power structure is so entrenched, the security forces so lethal and organized, that no dramatic change will come. Instead the best they can hope for is a slow grind of change and the passage or time would seem to indicate is possible. That is of little solace to those that have lost loved ones in the here and now.

Engaging with a Post-Election Khamenei Regime

Matthew Yglesias writes about the possibility of an engagement strategy should Khamenei regime defeat the opposition:

I would add to that the observation that a regime win would simply make me much less confident that engagement will work. The hope behind an engagement strategy was that the Supreme Leader might be inclined to side with the more pragmatic actors inside the system—guys like former president Rafsanjani and former prime minister Mousavi. With those people, and most of the Iranian elites of their ilk, now in open opposition to the regime, any crackdown would almost by definition entail the sidelining of the people who might be interested in a deal. Iran would essentially be in the hands of the most hardline figures, people who just don’t seem interested in improving relations with other countries.

On this point, I think Yglesias is wrong. While engagement with a Khamenei regime that, should it survive, will have brutally repressed its people would be unappealing, the fundamental calculus of engagement remains the same. Engagement is not premised on Khamenei reaching out and working with the pragmatists within Iran (domestic pragmatists) but rather on the notion that he is a pragmatist – or, more precisely, self-interested. The first principle underlying engagement are that Khamenei’s-and by extension, Iran’s-most basic goal is to retain power. This goal supersedes all other, ancillary goals like extending Iranian influence in the Middle East or, perhaps, attaining regional hegemony. Indeed, it is Khamenei’s desire to retain power that is driving his brutal repression of his own people and fundamentally upsetting the mechanics of the Islamic Republic.

The engagement strategy basically recognizes that Iran’s regime desires survival. Survival is difficult when the United States and Israel threaten regime change. Reaching an accommodation with the United States whereby the United States recognizes the Iranian government and forswears regime change would do a great deal to ensure the Iranian regime’s survival. This is the carrot.

The stick, of course, is continued instability due to hostility with the United States and Israel, which threaten the regime’s survival. This instability also likely drives Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Thus, though Khamenei’s regime is becoming daily a less appealing partner in negotiations, its brutal repression does not fundamentally alter the forces which drive an engagement strategy. That repression may, in fact, demonstrate how off-base the neoconservatives’ Big Lie about a messianic and unstable Iran was.

To Answer Bret

In a comment Bret makes a few points: 1) that Neda has not served as a focal point for collective action; 2) that the information we manage to get out of Iran (via Twitter, Facebook and blog posts) is skewed because its produced by tech savvy Iranian youths and, because of limited access to such applications inside Iran, can only serve a limited role; and 3) that the regime is more capable than the Shah’s at disrupting collective action.

To begin with, I was not arguing that Neda's death in particular was serving as a focal point for collective action but rather, mourning demonstration in general could serve a similar function that which they served during the 1979 Revolution. That said, Bret’s point about Twitter and Facebook being more outwardly directed and only playing a marginal role in terms of organizing within Iran is well taken. In fact, Andrew Sullivan reported that Mousavi’s supporters have been distributing newspapers to disseminate information as was done during 1979 and Roger Cohen's first hand account indicates that crowds have been rallying through word of mouth. As far as how quickly information is being disseminated, I take that the Iranian regime felt it necessary to claim that Neda’s death was staged as a foreign plot and subsequently banned a public funeral to mean the Iranian regime, at least, believes that news of Neda’s death is both powerful and spreading quickly.

Finally, I too fear that this regime will be more adept and disrupting an uprising than the Shah’s regime. I don’t attribute this to the regime’s technological savvy, however. First, the 1979 Revolution occurred without the aid of cellphones and twitter; second, as described above, this uprising seems to be adopting similar low-tech communication methods as well as high-tech modes. The regime, I would say, has been generally ham-handed in its response thus far: Khamenei overplayed his hand at the outset by stealing the election and only compounded this error by declaring the results divine, only to have that questioned and be forced to walk back the outcome’s divinity by allowing the Guardian Council to investigate and acknowledge “irregularities.” Further, it strikes me as a foolish that Khamenei allowed the movement to gain a foothold and momentum before cracking down. Those false steps aside, that security presence in Tehran has, seemingly, effectively prevented gatherings of demonstrators since Saturday’s riots, thereby limiting the use of brutal tactics likely to inflame the populace.

Bazaaris Continued

Earlier today The Guardian reported:

Some shops in the city closed or placed black cloth over their doors as a symbol of condolence. Bazaar workers in Tehran and the city of Tabriz were reported to be on strike in protest at the election result. (emphasis added).

With today’s other events, it is likely that this bit information will be overlooked. Its importance should not be discounted, however. As I noted here, the Bazaaris represent an eminently important demographic in Iran – and one that has historically tolled the success or failure of uprisings. No other reports that I’ve seen have confirmed or elaborated on The Guardian’s report, but should it be true it would represent a significant boon to the Iranians rising in the street.

UPDATE: persiankiwi via Sullivan -- Tehranis to flood the Bazaar in a twist on the classic strike. Not quiet the same as the Bazaaris joining the movement but, I imagine, the Bazaaris have either signed up for this or it will become clear very quickly that they are not with Mousavi's movement.

The Situation in Iran Hits Home

I knew this could happen. I’d tried to think that it wouldn’t. A friend of mine is from Iran and she is the nicest, sweetest person I have ever met. She very much wants to see Iran reformed and has told me truly frightening stories from the government crackdown after the student protests in 2005. We don’t talk much anymore, but to check in on each other from time to time and so I was shocked to hear from her this morning letting me know her brother had been taken from her parent’s apartment two days ago in the middle of the night in Tehran.

What do you say at a time moment like that? I was dumbfounded, groping for an appropriate reaction, to say something, to feel something other than fear and anger. I’ve never met her brother but, she often talks about him. He hadn’t attended any of the protests and in fact had been sick, and yet the authorities took him in the middle of the night setting in motion some Kafkaesque nightmare.

Now her parents are concerned that their phone is tapped and their email is being read and they have asked her not to contact them. And so at a time of great civil unrest, when the electorate is rightfully calling for their votes to be counted, not assumed, she can not contact her parents because they are afraid. There is a glimmer of hope for her and her family. Through connections they have it appears her brother will be released soon, but there are no certainties when a government declares war on its citizens.

I have watched, as many have, with incredible interest and quiet solidarity, the opposition movement gain momentum. I will not pretend to be an expert on Iran. I am at best a novice. Ben and Eric bring the intellectual weight to this discussion, but I am sickened by what I was told this morning. I am unable to connect with the experience that someone’s government would declare open war on its citizens. I am fearful for my friend and her family. The only hope is that my fear, my susceptibility to intimidation, is the exception, not the rule. The only hope is that the people of Iran, in the face of wanton violence and intimidation, remain firm in their opposition to a fraudulent election and demand justice.

Today I am hoping for just one thing. I am hoping for the speedy release of my friend’s brother. I am hoping he is unharmed. I am hoping there will be change in Iran.

Why Mourning Matters, Continued

Robin Wright makes this point in reference to the tragic killing of Neda:

The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces — and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.

The same cycle has already become an undercurrent in Iran's current crisis. The largest demonstration, on Thursday of last week, was called by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to commemorate the deaths of protesters three days after they were killed.

Again, because this a cultural and religious expression, it served – and may serve again – an unifying and organizing function for the disparately motivated Iranians who have taken to the street. Its power and efficacy should not be discounted nor overlooked. Indeed, Ayatollah Montazari has already called for another three days of mourning beginning Wednesday.

UPDATE: Karroubi has called for Thursday to be a day of mourning, according to AFP.

Lots Thrown

Mousavi joined the thousands of Iranians who took to the street today in the face of Khamenei’s threat of bloodshed, declaring his readiness for martyrdom. He has thrown his lot in with his supporters, setting his path as definitively as Khamenei did yesterday.

Today was likely a turning point in the Iranian revolution – for it is a revolution, now. Had the Green Sea not taken to the streets – and early this morning, sitting stateside the reports seemed to indicate that they would not – the momentum would have been lost, the movement stymied, and all last week’s promise dissipated. But, by noon on the East Coast, the initial reports of empty streets dominated by riot police and Basiji were being eclipsed by dispatches of street clashes, images of sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Mousavi supporters chanting, running, fighting, and marching in pursuit of something still not well defined but in clear opposition to the status quo.

Faced with thousands of government thugs, water cannons, batons, gun fire and arrests, the Green Sea took to the streets. They were beaten, they were arrested, they were killed, but they were not routed. And because they were not routed the movement lives on tomorrow and the illegitimacy of Khamenei’s regime has been thrust into stark relief. After today, the threat the movement poses to the Islamic Republic of Iran as it now exists is greater than ever before and the impotency of the state more startling than was imaginable even a week ago.

While much remains uncertain, there is no question that Iran will never be the same.

Now go read Roger Cohen, who was on the streets of Tehran with the demonstrators.