Another day, another series of disrupted demonstrations. This has been the pattern we’ve seen since Saturday’s brutal crackdown. At this point you have to wonder whether the opposition movement has the capability to organize and mobilize in a way that’s conducive to sustaining the movement.
There are rumors that Mousavi is under 24-hour house arrest (and more speculation that his arrest is imminent). With these rumors being fueled by the fact that Mousavi has not been seen in public in days, the movement seems to be having a crisis of leadership. I’ve written in previous posts how Mousavi fed off of the energy of the crowds and in turn the crowds fed off of the defiance that Mousavi displayed toward the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad led government. With Mousavi’s movement and actions severely limited, this symbiotic relationship seems to have been broken for the time being.
Over the course of one week we have gone from opposition rallies numbering anywhere from the mid-hundreds of thousands to a reported one million people. Today’s ‘Sea of Green’ rally has varying estimates ranging from 300 to 1,000 demonstrators. The governments tactics to date have no doubt yielded their intended results.
All hope is not lost, but that isn’t to say that the Opposition, in its nascent stages, is not fast approaching a seminal moment. Also bare in mind that this movement is operating on parallel tracks. The street protests, and the backroom dealing that is no doubt going on in the Clerical stronghold city of Qom, where reports peg Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Chairman of the Assembly of Experts (the body responsible for selecting a Supreme Leader), and principle opponent of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei (read here for more on that dynamic).
Here is a roudup of the day’s headlines out of Iran:
- Khamenei Vows No Retreat: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed on Wednesday he would not budge in response to protests over a disputed election that has sparked the biggest street demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. “I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue … Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost,” Khamenei said.
- Iranian candidate Mohsen Rezaie withdraws voting complaint: “He said, as a ’selfless soldier for the Islamic republic,’ he could not pursue his allegations given the ‘critical’ and ‘pivotal’ political and social conditions of the country. He said controlling the situation was more important than election results.” At the end of the day, these candidates belong to the system, even if they got burned by the handling of the elections. In other words, they have a vested interest in the continuity of the status quo.
- There is news that a memorial march is scheduled for Thursday in Tehran. We’ll see tomorrow what kind of turnout it yields.
- Wednesday Protests: “Eyewitness reports say there have been clashes near the parliament building in the capital Tehran, in the streets around Baharestan Square.” Reports suggest that the number of protesters was around 300.
Check back later tonight for more updates and a piece on what we can expect in Iran tomorrow
