Israel Matzav

Iran's 'establishment' split over election results

Writing in Sunday's Times of London, Iranian ex-pat Amir Taheri points out how much of Iran's religious establishment is opposed to the high handed tactics of Ayatollah Ali Khameni (pictured) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Friday, the 20% democratic part disappeared, as Iran was transformed from an Islamic republic into an Islamic emirate headed by the Emir al-Momeneen (Commander of the Faithful) Ali Khamenei. As Iranians marched in the street in support of more freedom and democracy, Khamenei served notice that he was determined to lead the country in the opposite direction.

A sign that the self-appointed emir wanted to jettison the republican part of the system was there for all to see. The diminutive Ahmadinejad was relegated to the third rung of the faithful praying behind Khamenei. Sandwiched between two mullahs with giant turbans, he was almost hidden from public view. For almost a week the usually voluble Ahmadinejad has been kept off the airwaves. Suddenly the office of the president has become irrelevant. Ahmadinejad is there not because the people wanted him but because the emir found “his views closer to mine than the views of others”.

Khamenei’s decision to kill the Islamic republic may lead Iran into uncharted waters. The move has split the establishment as never before. All prominent figures of the “loyal opposition”, including former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, boycotted the Friday gathering. Nearly half the members of the Majlis, Iran’s ersatz parliament, were absent – along with most members of the Assembly of Experts, a body of 92 mullahs supposed to supervise the work of the supreme leader. Many senior figures of the military/security establishment were significantly absent, too.

If Khamenei had hoped to intimidate the protesters into accepting the results, he was quickly disappointed. No sooner had the “emirate” been born than millions of people throughout Iran were on the rooftops shouting, “I will die, but won’t accept humiliation!” A week of nationwide protests has claimed at least seven lives. Khamenei’s intervention has been followed by a wave of arrests. The supreme leader has tried to divide the opposition by offering public assurances to Rafsanjani and Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, the former parliamentary Speaker, that they would not be prosecuted on corruption charges as threatened by Ahmadinejad. Nevertheless, both men still refuse to endorse Ahmadinejad’s re-election.

One cannot help but wonder how religious Iranians would be but for the repressive regime that is in power, and whether the fact that so much of the religious establishment is opposing Khameni might not turn a lot of the country secular altogether. Gateway Pundit noted on Saturday:

Banafsheh and Playboy salute the Lipstick Revolution [Note - The links go to Playboy's website. The initial links are 'safe for work.' I cannot vouch for anything beyond that. CiJ]:

For them, protesting Iran's current regime goes beyond rallies and marches—it's also about displaying their centuries-old legacy as voluptuaries. Up until 1980, when the Ayatollah Khomeini forced them to trade Chanel for chadors, Persian women were regarded as among the most lovely and stylish in the world. Since then the country's bizarre theocracy has made simple pleasures like wearing makeup or showing off hair grounds for imprisonment (or far worse). Here we salute Persian women as they fight for freedom—and femininity—once again.

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:15 PM