Robert Fisk: Battle for the Islamic Republic

Robert Fisk: Battle for the Islamic Republic





Iran's Supreme Leader and its officially elected president are terrified by the spectre of counter-revolution




What we are now seeing is a regime which is far more worried than the
Supreme Leader suggested when he threatened the opposition so baldly on
Friday

Now that Iran's
Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has placed himself shoulder to shoulder
with his officially elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the very
existence of the Islamic regime may now be questioned openly in a
nation ever more divided between reformists and those who insist on
maintaining the integrity of the 1979 revolution. Had Khamenei chosen a
middle ground, some small compromises towards the countless millions –
for in the election, it appears, they were indeed uncounted – who
oppose Ahmadinejad, then he might have remained a neutral
father-figure. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters had religiously –
in the most literal sense of the word – refused to criticise the
Supreme Leader or the existence of the Islamic Republic during last
week's street demonstrations

But reacting as all
revolutionaries do even decades after they have come to power – for the
spectre of counter-revolution remains with them until death – Khamenei
chose to paint Ahmadinejad's political opponents as potential
mercenaries, spies and agents of foreign powers. Treason in the Islamic
Republic is, of course, punishable by death. But Khamenei's political
alliance with his very odd and hallucinatory president may have sprung
from fear as much as anger. During his Friday prayers address
at Tehran University, the Supreme Leader mentioned the dangers of a
"velvet" revolution and it is clear that the regime has been deeply
concerned by the democratic overthrow of Eastern European and west
Asian governments since the fall of the Soviet Union. People power –
through which the 1979 revolution was ultimately successful – is a
devastating weapon (albeit the only one) in the armoury of a serious
but unarmed political opposition.
In the aftermath of the Ahmadinejad "success" at the polls, his
supporters were handing out leaflets condemning the secular revolutions
of Eastern Europe, and their content says much about the anxieties of
Iran's clerical leadership. One of them was entitled: "The system of
trying to topple an Islamic Republic in a 'velvet revolution'." It then
described how it believes Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and other
nations won their freedom. "'Velvet' or 'colourful'
revolutions... are methods of exchanging power for social unrest.
Colourful and 'velvet' revolutions occurred in post-communist societies
of central and Eastern Europe and central Asia. Colourful revolutions
have always been initiated during an election and its methods are as
follows: "1. Complete despair in the attitude of people when they are certain to lose an election... "2.
Choosing one particular colour which is selected solely for the Western
media to identify (for their readers or viewers)." Mousavi used green
as his campaign colour and his supporters still wear this colour on
wristbands, scarves and bandannas. "3) Announcing that there
has been advance cheating before an election and repeating it non-stop
afterwards... allowing exaggeration by the Western media, especially in
the US. "4) Writing letters to officials in the government,
claiming vote-rigging in the election. It's interesting to note that in
all such 'colourful' projects – for example, in Georgia, Ukraine and
Kyrgyzstan – the Western-backed movements have warned of fraud before
elections by writing to the incumbent governments. In Islamic Iran,
these letters had already been written to the Supreme Leader." Another
leaflet maintained that a study – which Khamenei's advisers have
obviously undertaken, however inaccurately – demonstrated that
vote-rigging will be alleged on the very day of the election and that
victory will be claimed by the opposition hours before the counting is
finished and before their own defeat is announced. The results, says
the document, will therefore already have a "background" of fraud. "In
the final stages... supporters gather in front of the regime's official
offices, holding colourful banners and protesting against
vote-rigging." This part of the demonstration, the leaflet says, "is
run by the foreign media who are the opposition movement's supporters
so that they make good pictures and mislead the international
community". All this shows a unique and obsessive concern among
the Supreme Leader's disciples about just how popular Mousavi's
post-election campaign has become. Even the cutting of SMS and mobile
communications – and in a sophisticated society such as Iran, this must
have cost millions of dollars – did not prevent the calling of rallies
which always assembled at the same moment and at the same place. What
we are now seeing is a regime which is far more worried than the
Supreme Leader suggested when he threatened the opposition so baldly on
Friday. Having refused any serious political dialogue with Mousavi and
his opposition comrades – a few district recounts will produce no real
change in the result – the Iranian regime, led by a Supreme Leader who
is frightened and a president who speaks like a child, is now involved
in the battle for control of the streets of Iran. It is a conflict
which will need the kind of miracle in which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad
both believe to avoid violence.