What next in Iran?

I looked up through the smoke and saw a poster of the stern visage of Khomeini above the words, “Islam is the religion of freedom.”

When he’s not acting as an apologist for the Iranian regime, Roger Cohen has a really good eye for detail. Earlier Cohen wrote:

Khamenei has taken a radical risk. He has factionalized himself, so losing the arbiter’s lofty garb, by aligning himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against both Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding father of the revolution.

He has taunted millions of Iranians by praising their unprecedented participation in an election many now view as a ballot-box putsch. He has ridiculed the notion that an official inquiry into the vote might yield a different result. He has tried pathos and he has tried pounding his lectern. In short, he has lost his aura.

The taboo-breaking response was unequivocal. It’s funny how people’s obsessions come back to bite them. I’ve been hearing about Khamenei’s fear of “velvet revolutions” for months now. There was nothing velvet about Saturday’s clashes. In fact, the initial quest to have Moussavi’s votes properly counted and Ahmadinejad unseated has shifted to a broader confrontation with the regime itself.

(via memeorandum)

Wolf Howling takes comfort from another observation of Cohen’s

The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”

and adds:

Maybe the next time, that Iranian policeman does not turn away from the protestors, but joins them. For there will come a point when those in the security apparatus see their kinsman being beaten, maimed and killed and say, enough is enough. When that happens, the evil that is Iran’s theocracy will fall.

Is Cohen’s description of a “ballot box putsch” accurate? There’s an excellent Iranian electoral map (from the Guardian) over at the Middle East Strategy at Harvard blog that illustrates s the unlikelihood of this being an honest election.

And what of the man around whom the protesters are uniting? Here’s something from Michael Ledeen who produces a statement he believes comes from Mosavi’s camp regarding the American administration (via memeorandum):

By such statements, your administration and you discourage the Iranian people, who believe and trust in the values of democracy and freedom. We are pleased to see that you have condemned the regime’s murderous violence, and we look forward to stronger support for the rightful struggle of the Iranian people against the actions of a regime that is your enemy as well as ours.

Given his history, it’s reasonable to wonder if Mousavi himself believes in freedom and democracy. Indeed Fausta – who notes that electoral thief Chavez is apparently looking to help out Khameini – links to Andrew Bostom, who writes:

One need only watch this surreal pre-election “debate” between the head of the Khameini faction, Ahmadinejad, and the champion of the Rafsanjani faction, Mousavi-“Hizballahi” (see reference below) to understand the closed circle which Iran remains. They don’t disagree on “issues” such as Holocaust denial, or brutality to prisoners of war—let alone the notion that Iran remain an oppressive, jihadist theocratic Shiite Islamic State—in the mold of their ultimate spiritual leader the late Ayatollah Khomeiini—they have trivial tactical disagreements, and are in a jealous power struggle between themselves and the competing jihadist factions they represent.

However Michael Totten holds out some faint hope, that perhaps the protests will transform Mousavi too:

Mousavi himself probably doesn’t know what his agenda will be a week or a month from today if he’s still alive and out of prison. If he wins the internal power struggle, topples “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, and becomes president, he might end up more Khrushchev than Gorbachev. History, though, is moving at light speed in Iran. And human personalities can be powerfully transformed during volcanic upheavals where the stakes are victory or destruction.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.