Turning Point for Iran?

Laura Secor writes in The New Yorker that this is a key point for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iran.

That’s what makes it interesting and, for the moment, perplexing. What are Khamenei’s options? With protesters yelling “Down with the dictator” in the streets of nearly every city in Iran, his position could not be more precarious. He has staked his very legitimacy, and perhaps that of the edifice he sits atop, on forcing Iranians to accept Ahmadinejad’s supposed landslide victory. He can continue to try to force that down their throats with a show of raw power, or he can bend, which would show the opposition that he and the system are not really so powerful after all, that they are vulnerable to pressure from below. If he takes the latter road, it would be a radical departure from his style of governance up until now. This is the regime that violently quelled protest movements in 1999 and in 2002, crushed the hopes of reformers under Mohammad Khatami from 1997 through 2005, and apparently could not tolerate even the possibility of a Mousavi Presidency. But if he chooses the path of violence, he will transform his country into a crude and seething autocracy.

This is uncharted territory for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Until now, the regime has survived through a combination of repression and flexibility. The dispersal of power throughout a complex system, among rival political factions, and with the limited but active participation of the voting public, has allowed a basically unpopular regime to control a large population with only limited and targeted violence. There have always been loopholes and pressure points that allow the opposition and the regime to be dance partners, even if one or both of them is secretly brandishing a knife behind the other’s back. That has been less true under Ahmadinejad than in the past. But the culture of the organized opposition under the Islamic Republic has tended to remain cautious and moderate. Many of the protesters of recent days are not calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. They are calling for their votes to be counted. More nights like last night, however, when some seven protesters were allegedly shot, could swiftly change that.

Many informed observers of Iranian politics seem to think that the street protests reveal not just a popular uprising of dissent against a rigged election but a split among rival factions of powerful clerics behind the scenes. Just as this is a delicate and unprecedented time in Iran, so it is for a response to events there from the United States. Despite the posturing of some on the right (e.g. Rep. Mike Pence, R-IN, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, Karl Rove), President Obama seems to be striking the right tone of condemning violent suppression of peaceful protests while avoiding taking sides and undermining the dissidents by allowing them to be identified as tools of the US.

--Ballard Burgher