Iran Democracy Monitor: No. 109

THE GREEN MOVEMENT, REVISITED?
The recent anti-regime protests that have taken place throughout the Middle East in the past two months are having a ripple effect inside the Islamic Republic. Iranian officials have been quick to depict the revolts that overthrew Tunisian leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and prompted the ouster of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak as part of an “Islamic Awakening” prompted by Iran’s own Islamic Revolution. Events on the ground in Iran, however, tell a very different story. Recent days have seen thousands of protesters gather in cities throughout the country in the largest anti-regime demonstrations of their kind since the emergence of the Green Movement following the fraudulent reelection of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June of 2009.

Iranian authorities have responded harshly to the protests taking place in Tehran, Isfahan, Mashad, Shiraz and other cities. Riot police have been dispatched against the protesters, and street skirmishes have been neutralized with the use of tear gas and electric prods. Regime hardliners, meanwhile, have called for the execution of the titular heads of the Green Movement. "We believe the people have lost their patience and demand capital punishment" for opposition leaders Mir Houssein Mousavi, Mehdi Kharroubi, and Mohammad Khatami, 221 lawmakers said in a public statement following an open session of the country’s legislature, or majles. The government’s reaction, analysts say, belies its true worries about the ferment taking place on Iran’s streets. "It's very clear that we are now way beyond a post-election crisis," observes Columbia University’s Hamid Dabashi. "People are going after the regime."

The Obama administration, for its part, has responded forcefully to the renewed unrest in Iran, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly condemning the “hypocrisy” of an Iranian leadership which egged on Egypt’s anti-regime ferment but denies freedom to its own population. Iranians, she said, "deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright," and the Islamic Republic should commit “to open up the political system, to hear the voices of the opposition and civil society." (Tehran Fars, February 5, 2011; Associated Press, February 14, 2011; Washington Post, February 15, 2011; Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2011)

KHAMENEI IN SEARCH OF RELIGIOUS LEGITIMACY
For some time now, rumors have circulated regarding the flagging religious legitimacy of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and his ongoing attempts to bolster his standing among conservative clerics in Qom. This speculation has only been fanned by Khamenei’s visit this month to the Iranian holy city to meet with hardline cleric Mohammed Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, rumored to be the mentor of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khamenei’s latest visit is the fifth in two months, and comes on the heels of ten-day trip to Qom in December, during which he met with Mesbah-Yazdi and a number of high-ranking clerics at the Qom Theological Seminary in what is believed to be a bid to bolster his religious standing and garner greater support for his policies. (Tehran Rooz, February 13, 2011)

THE FLEETING EFFECT OF STUXNET
Since Stuxnet became public knowledge last year, much has been made of the computer worm’s effects on Iran’s nuclear program. The outgoing head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence service, Meir Dagan, even went so far as to tell the country’s parliament last month that, as a result of Stuxnet and other asymmetric methods, Iran now won’t be able to field a nuclear capability before 2015. But international observers are striking a more sober note about the impact such measures have had on Iran’s nuclear progress. In a recent interview, Yukia Amano, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, told the Washington Post that Stuxnet has had only a fleeting impact on Iran’s ability to produce enriched uranium. According to Amano, “Iran is somehow producing uranium enriched to 3.5 percent and 20 percent” and doing so “steadily, constantly.” (Tel Aviv Ha’aretz, January 7, 2011; Washington Post, February 14, 2011)