Please accept my apologies if this diary is a little disjointed or disorganized... I just haven't tended to write here too often yet, but this has moved me so much that much of my spare time has been consumed by learning more, keeping informed, and trying to inform others about what's taking place in Iran right now. I am not an expert on Iran or Shi'a culture - for background, I'm an attorney admitted in California, currently living in Arizona, and an undergraduate Islamic Studies major who reads way too much for his own good. I do not speak a word of Persian, although by the end of this I'll probably have a surprising familiarity ;p. But I do care deeply about what happens in Iran, and I believe that we all should care what happens.
I further want to start by saying that, with the cruel crackdown by the Basiji (militia) and Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami (Revolutionary Guard, abbreviated IRGC here), yes, it is entirely possible that this movement for change has been crushed. I don't have any telescopes that can see the 7,500 miles from here to Tehran. But I don't think any Iranian experts thought that the Guardian Council and Ayatollah Khamenei would melt at the first sign of trouble.
Bear in mind that the 1979 Iranian Revolution actually started in January 1978 (or even late '77, depending on how you want to count it), and started and stopped in spurts until the Imperial Army eventually refused to further defend the Shah. Revolutions rarely resolve themselves over the course of a week.
The street protests have probably largely stopped. The Basiji have shown that they have, within their ranks, enough cruelty to violently oppress the protestors, and even if they proved not to in the end, the IRGC certainly has the capacity and the ideology. Khamenei has adequately demonstrated his capacity to tolerate systemic violence in the name of the Islamic Republic (I suspect God will have some words for him upon his departure from this plane of existence), and his sermon at Friday prayers last week presaged this crackdown. At present, street protests appear to have no further effect but to lead to more deaths and arrests.
The Iranian opposition, often referred to as the Sea of Green, is, as far as opposition movements go, pretty well organized and still driven. (link to PersianKiwi, long a fairly reliable twitter source, though nobody knows who he/she is, where he/she is, or the source of his/her information). The nightly shouts of Allah-o-Akbar, originating in the long days of the first Revolution are now accompanied by shouts of Marg bar Dictator, or "Death to the dictator," and even some reports of new shouts of Marg bar Khamenei, or, "Death to Khamenei." These people don't appear to be anxious to go home and resume their normal lives.
Other strategies have been initiated, or are likely to be in the coming days:
- The possibility of a strike at bazaars on Wednesday (6.23). This has been widely reported by PersianKiwi and analyzed by Al Giordano, among others. It's an appealing tactic - the Basiji, whose "value" comes from their willingness to engage in indiscriminate violence, will find a location so resistant to deconstruction that even indiscriminate violence will backfire.
- The possibility of a general strike. There have been conflicting reports about whether such a strike would work. Some say that Iran's economy is so dependent on oil that a general strike would bring Iran's economy to its knees within days, if not hours. Others say that Iran's unemployment is so high that it won't be difficult to find scabs. I'm not sure we'll ever know with any degree of certainty until someone actually tries it. But the inherent chaos that it will cause will certainly not make the Guardian Council's lives any easier. This will have to happen soon or not at all.
- The cycles of mourning associated with Neda Soltani and other protestors. Shi'a Islam has always focused on martyrdom, and has a set period of mourning with days of special note on the 3rd, 7th, and 40th days following the death of a person. One thing that doomed the Shah was that he would crack down on Iranian protestors - only to have them come out into the streets in even larger numbers every 40 days, mourning the previous victims. Neda Soltani was denied a memorial and her parents had to bury her in secret - it is altogether likely that she will be mourned in the streets, which will set off this cycle of protests.
- The possibility of the arrest of Mir-Hussein Mousavi. Khamenei must be tiring of Mousavi by now. But he has three bad choices - keep Mousavi free and let him continue to organize opposition to the election results, or arrest Mousavi and watch counter-protests crack his regime wide open. If he arrests Mousavi, expect the street protests to return with force. If an overly ambitious Basiji or IRGC soldier kills Mousavi (option #3), expect the gates of Hell to open wider than anyone could possible imagine. Khamenei has no good options here - leaving Mousavi free to organize protests appears to be the least bad option.
- What the hell is Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani up to? Rafsanjani is the former President of Iran, a respected Islamic scholar but doesn't exactly have great credentials in terms of either reform or open government. But he has plainly allied himself with Mousavi. This one hasn't been widely reported in the American media, but Rafsanjani has been in and out of Qum (Iran's Najaf, the center of Shi'a learning and leadership) trying to raise support for something. Whatever he's trying to get support for, he has at least 40 clerics out of the 86-member Assembly of Experts to support it. Is he trying to follow Mousavi's coattails into a role as the new Supreme Leader? Does he truly believe in Mousavi's reformist message? Is he trying to clear Mousavi a path to the Presidency? Nobody knows, but Rafsanjani, despite his baggage, is the kind of ally you'd want in this free-for-all, and he wouldn't have thrown his lot in with Mousavi if he thought that the reformists had no chance of success. Khamenei, in his speech last Friday, gave Rafsanjani a face-saving opportunity to step away from the reformists, which Rafsanjani plainly hasn't taken.
Please have hope - the Iranians are a beautiful, educated, resilient people who clearly have the ability to be a beacon of light to the Muslim world - sure, maybe this will end as badly as prior uprisings have, but this has only just begun. So, my lengthy conclusion to all of this - the massive, visible marches down Vali Asr Avenue may have stopped, but the opposition has only begun - don't count them out quite yet.