Political and street battles continue in Iran

Ayatullah Khomeini portrait - he still dominates Iranian politics, Parliament speaker Larijani, judiciary chief Shahroudi, President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei Time photo

Revolutionary ideals of Ayatullah Khomeini drive political process in Iran and threaten to unseat Ahmadinejad and Khamenei

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, August 1, 2009 with story from Time Magazine

While the world attention has shifted from Iranian politics, the battle for control in Tehran continues just below the boiling point. Repression of public protests seemed to end them however new videos show a return to open protests.

Bob Baer(Canada), former CIA station chief in Iran and Iraq published an article time that says the unrest is meant to destabilize Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. When they arrest and have people shot and killed it stiffens the resolve of the opposition who are loyalists to Ayatullah Khomeini who led the revolution against the Shah.

Reports say protests are occurring every day. Bodies of dead protesters are being returned to families which is aggravating the sentiment.

In this raw footage, a protester was shot in Azadi (Freedom) Square. Both clips are recent within the last two days although not verified by western sources, as if that matters. The source we use has been very reliable.

Bob Baer was in the Middle East as a CIA operative and later Station Chief in Iraq. Since his departure, he has written several popular and authoritative books on Middle Eastern politics. The most popular was See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on TerrorismIn Canada which detailed the background work he did that led to his departure from the CIA. He is considered an authority on the area, if not a renegade to official US policy.

In the Time article, Baer and co-writer Omid Memarian point to the rift this week between the Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad fired the intelligence minister who reported directly to Khamenei. Khamenei forced Ahmadinejad to reject Ahmadinejad’s choice for vice president. The two former political allies in the fight against the protest are apparently embroiled in their own feud.

On July 6th, we reported dissension among the top leaders in Iran Top clerics in disagreement in Iran. While nothing has happened that in a decisive move, the maneuvering continues.

Baer and Memarian contend this is less of a desire for pro-Western democracy than the resurrection of the original 1979 revolution.

“In the West, many fall back on the easy assumption that the demonstrations protesting the June 12 election expressed a desire for liberal democratic reform. While there may be some truth to that, the opposition leaders — the candidates who lost the June 12 election — are fighting for something else: the mantle of the 1979 revolution. They believe they are the true inheritors of Khomeini’s legacy. They call themselves the followers of Beit-i Khomeini, the House of Khomeini. They are the pure, untainted revolutionaries who view Khamenei as a usurper.

Former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi is the public face of the opposition, but there are many others who are just as important, from former Presidents Mohammed Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to many grand ayatullahs in Qom, Iran’s Vatican. Mousavi was chosen as spokesman for the opposition because of his impeccable revolutionary credentials. Even at the revolution’s most militant violent and radical peak, Mousavi stood by Khomeini, never questioning his decisions. It was an office under Mousavi that coordinated a series of attacks against the U.S. in Lebanon, including an attack on the U.S. embassy. And when Khomeini died, Mousavi played an Iranian Cincinnatus, retreating from politics and living as a common man. When Khamenei tried to impugn Mousavi’s revolutionary credentials after the demonstrations started, insinuating that he answers to foreign powers, Iranians put absolutely no credence in it. See Time for the rest of Baer’s analysis”

Along with is books, Baer was one of the writers on the George Clooney political thriller Syriana ( Canada) where he wove the themes into a fictional account of the CIA’s interest in the oil and political power in the Middle East.

The movie was exciting but only acts as a dress-rehearsal for this intrigue where real people are putting their lives on the line.

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