Iran Democracy Monitor: No.94

HOW IRAN SEES GENEVA
On October 1st, representatives from the United States and Iran met in Geneva for long-anticipated negotiations over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The talks featured notable developments - including Iran's agreement in principle to more stringent inspections and potential uranium enrichment by a third party - leading officials in Washington to express "cautious optimism" about the prospects of dialogue. In Tehran, however, the negotiations are being viewed very differently - as a reflection of America's capitulation to the Islamic Republic's strategic clout. "Our emphasis on our preparedness during the [regime's recent wargames], once again, led the enemies to an understanding of the fact that military threats against Iran would prove useless and that they should even give up their sanctions," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Commander of Iran's clerical army, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, announced. "Of course, the timing and the situation of the wargames which took place before the nuclear talks (in Geneva) was a determining factor." (Tehran Fars, October 4, 2009)

OBSTRUCTIONISM FROM BEIJING
China may be one of key players in the evolving debate over sanctions against Iran, but the PRC increasingly is adopting another, exceedingly unhelpful, role - that of sanctions-buster. In September, according to Western media sources, Chinese firms stepped into the void partially created by the exit of skittish foreign firms and began providing refined petroleum to the Islamic Republic. The results have been marked: a month on, Chinese gasoline shipments account for as much as one-third of the Islamic Republic's total imports of petrol - a state of affairs that will tremendously complicate any U.S. effort to target Iran's deep dependency on foreign refined petroleum should nuclear negotiations fail. (Financial Times, September 22, 2009)

READING THE TEA LEAVES IN RIYADH
Iran is weathering an internal crisis of legitimacy that has the potential to alter its standing in the region, according to a leading Arab commentator. "[T]he Iranian regime, its Supreme Leader, and his military forces, are suffering from the loss of internal legitimacy," writes columnist Tariq Alhomayed in Saudi Arabia's influential Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. "This has weakened the regime's position with regards to supporting its allies and agents in the region, whether they are groups or nations." As a result, Alhomayed predicts, Iran's regional hegemony is likely to be lessened and proxies may soon seek greener ideological pastures. As evidence, he cites the recent visit to Saudi Arabia of "a high-ranking member of Hamas" who signalled a significant change in his organization's outlook when he intimated that "he is more eager towards Saudi Arabia and Egypt than any other country, and that he is ready to reconcile with Mahmoud Abbas." (London Al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 20, 2009)

THE PASDARAN IN AFGHANISTAN
Iran's feared clerical army is providing training and weapons to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, expanding the threat that those forces pose to the United States and its Coalition partners. In a confidential assessment of the war effort in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, the head of U.S. and NATO forces, warned of the possible future threat to Western forces from Iran's military. McChrystal's assessment echoes the thinking of U.S. intelligence officials, who increasingly are warning that the involvement of the IRGC in the Taliban resistance has now reached "very troubling" levels, complicating Washington's efforts to bring stability to the wartorn state. (Reuters, September 21, 2009)

MONTAZERI VERSUS THE IRI
One of Shi'a Islam's most senior religious figures has publicly broken with the Iranian government over its handling of the domestic unrest that followed the country's disputed June 12th election. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, once viewed as the heir apparent to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, fell out of favor with Iran's clerical elites in the late 1980s - languishing under virtual house arrest since shortly after the ascendance of current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But since the June 12th polls, Montazeri has emerged from the political shadows to pose a serious challenge to the regime's religious authority. In recent weeks, the Grand Ayatollah has denounced the Iranian government as a "military regime," and warned that its actions were harming religious beliefs within the Islamic Republic. More subversive still have been his recent calls to the country's other top religious figures to break publicly with Tehran over the "crimes" it had committed "in the name of Islam" - a stance that resulted in the imprisonment of three of his grandchildren by regime forces. (Abu Dhabi The National, September 21, 2009)