Waves Of Dissent

Today was the 40th day since Neda Agha-Soltan was murdered by Iranian militia in Teheran, and in Shiite culture, that date is important for mourning. So thousands of opposition protestors appeared on the streets of Teheran to mark to occasion, and were beaten back by security forces.

Iranian police fired teargas and wielded batons to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters attending a graveside memorial today for victims of a government crackdown in the wake of the disputed presidential election.

Witnesses said plainclothes forces charged at the crowd in the latest unrest following June's disputed presidential election, some of them chanting, "Death to those who are against the supreme leader."

Earlier, hundreds of police surrounded Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated reformist candidate, as he and hundreds of his supporters tried to reach the graveside of Neda Soltan, the young woman whose death was captured on video, turning her into a symbol of the protest movement. Witnesses said police forced Mousavi to leave Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, on the capital's southern outskirts.

"Neda is alive, Ahmadinejad is dead," chanted some of those at the ceremony, referring to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who the opposition claims won the election fraudulently.

The police charge came when an ally of Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi, who was also a candidate in the June 12 election, tried to give a speech. Even after the clash, thousands of supporters continued to visit Soltan's grave.

Eventually, during one of these mourning events, someone else will die. And the protestors will engage in a 40-day cycle of mourning for them. Or some other major event like Rafsanjani speaking at Friday prayers will lead to massive protests. This cycle will not end, I don't think, until the opposition receives a measure of justice. And the hardliners know it. That's why they've intensified their own infighting, with talk of Ahmadinejad being deposed now coming to the fore. This will continue to simmer for at least the rest of the year.

...I think you're going to see mourning over abuse in Iranian prisons get the 40-day cycle as well.

In The Name Of Akbar Hashemi

I understand all the outpouring of support for Neda, killed on the streets of Tehran and captured on YouTube dying. She may become an important symbolic figure in the continued protest movement in Iran, and her martyrdom will form a cycle of protest and dissent. But Neda's memory will not win the battle against the ruling regime, at least not in the same way that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's insider dealing may.

Which brings me to the fight within. On Sunday, I saw Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of the establishment’s embittered éminence grise, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He told me his father, who despises President Mahmoud Adhmadinejad, is fighting a furious rearguard action to have the election annulled by the Guardian Council, the 12-member oversight body that will pronounce this week on the election’s legality.

The ruling had seemed a formality, given Khamenei’s summary dismissal of a recount and the loyalist composition of the body, but the Council is now talking about irregularities in 50 cities and discrepancies that could affect 3 million votes. Out of a total of 40 million votes, that’s a significant number.

There are rumblings from the influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, who is close to Khamenei but not Ahmadinejad. With Rafsanjani, Khatami and the defeated conservative former Revolutionary Guard leader, Mohsen Rezai, the dissenting front has breadth. Rezai, who officially won 680,000 votes, says more than 900,000 voters have written to him with their ID numbers saying they cast their ballot for him.

The people drove this uprising with bravery. But they need Rafsanjani on the inside to be successful. With all the layers of police state forces that can deploy to crush dissent, only a split on the inside will force the necessary changes. Hoping for anything different would be as silly as hoping that the neocon "clap louder!" approach could bear any fruit.

...this is not to say that Neda's story won't be an important part of the uprising, in a similar way that this literally insane story about the Basiji asking a dead bystander teen's family for a "bullet fee" for the ordnance they entered into his body. It's just that Rafsanjani's moves will actually have the most impact, though they will not play out on the streets.

...And the Guardian Council has stated that the vote count will stand, and what's a few million votes among friends, anyway?