Iran’s Political Game of Chess: Khamenai Demoted, Revolutionary Guards Going Chinese. That Elusive Persian Genie. Netanyahu as The Last Great White Hope
“Fort Detrick- US Army: This is the source of dangerous viruses to the world…900 containers of dangerous stolen from a Pentagon facility…..” the main headline on the Iranian conservative daily Kayhan, which also published a report blasting the “electoral contradictions” of Mir Hussein Mousavi.
You can also tell the political situation in Iran is unsettled when Alalam, the official news site, has not a single Iranian headline on the front page. Today it is only on foreign issues: Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Obama, Senator Vitter, Senator Ensign (no, I just threw in the last two to wake readers up, like a double shot of espresso).
Reports on Iran are conflicting, but a trend is discernible. One vice president Meshai was appointed last week by Ahmadinejad. He drew criticism from conservatives for past statements about ‘friendship between Iranian and Israeli people’. He drew criticism also for being related to Ahmadinejad and hence the appointment smacked of nepotism. (On the Arab side of the Persian Gulf it is called wasta, and it is the rule rather than the exception: just look at the list of cabinet members in most Gulf state to see that at least half of them have the same last name). Two days ago news agencies reported that Mr. Meshai has resigned under fire. Yesterday Mr. Meshai spoke for himself and denied having resigned, or intending to resign.
The politicking is still going full blast. There seems to be some positioning and posing going on, probably as a prelude to a compromise solution among the various factions of the ‘regime’. It is highly unlikely now, in my humble opinion, that things will ever go back to the pre-election mode, when the ‘Leader’ Khamenai was deemed above public criticism. He has been brought down some by his own interference in the politicking, and rightly so. He was never perceived as a strongman on the mold of Khomeini, who had solid revolutionary credentials which he earned with many years in forced exile before leading the Revolution of 1979. Nobody in present day Iran is: there was never a Stalin waiting in the wings. Nor will there be a Bonaparte. Any aspiring ‘Leader’ will have to earn the title, probably through some sort of compromise and consensus, preferably through elections.
As for president Ahmadinejad: he has been severely chastised. He is somewhat muzzled now – no more of his past free-wheeling Bush-style absurd foreign policy positions. Such as the denying of the Holocaust, which is much worse than, for example, than Bush’s idiotic “Axis of Evil” sound bite.One ominous signal is the activities and statements of the Revolutionary Guard who, unlike the more professional army, has clearly sided with the Khamenai-Ahmadinejad faction. They are increasingly playing the same role as the People’s Army in China: supporting and propping up the regime against all opponents. The payoff for the Chinese People’s Army has been generous, and it is also for the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It doesn’t look like the Iranians take threats of military action against them, regularly headlined in the Arab press, seriously. They seem to believe, as I do, that there is no real threat of American military. Much of the media of the Arab oligarchies have now pinned their hopes for a war on the right wing Likud coalition of Israel. Netanyahu is their last great white hope.That also is a highly unlikely outcome, and if it did happen it will not do ‘the job’. The Israelis still smart from their drubbing by Hezbullah in 2006. They probably are thinking (the thinkers among them, the Labor members): if weeks of bombings could not bring the Southern Suburb of Beirut to its knees, what could a handful of sorties achieve over Iran, and at what price?
Cheers
mhg
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