Iran at war with itself

Roger Cohen:

Iran’s 1979 revolution took a full year to gestate. The uprising of 2009 has now ended its first phase. But the volatility ushered in by the June 12 ballot-box putsch of Iran’s New Right is certain to endure over the coming year. The Islamic Republic has been weakened.

During one of the violent clashes here in recent days, I saw a member of the riot police confront a protester holding a cell phone. “Don’t take a photograph of me!” he yelled at the young man.

“Why?” the man shouted back. “You’re not naked.”

But the Islamic Republic is. Everyone knows where everyone stands; it isn’t pretty. All the fudge that allowed a modern society to coexist with a theocracy inspired by an imam occulted in the 9th century has been swept away, leaving two Irans at war.

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... numbers have ceased to mean anything here. All the evidence is that percentages were simply allotted to each candidate and the votes cast backward-engineered from there. The Interior Ministry took 10 days to divulge results for all provinces. Such engineering takes time.

Iran has squandered a huge opportunity to bridge the gulf between the regime and an increasingly sophisticated population thirsting for greater freedom. A vibrant election campaign opened a door. It has been slammed shut.

“The Islamic Republic is the flag-bearer of human rights,” Khamenei declared in his Friday sermon. Over the past week, it has looked more like a flag-bearing police state.

True, the regime has not opened fire Tiananmen Square-style on the millions who have taken to the streets. I don’t believe it has the unity to do that. Significant cracks have emerged within the establishment, certainly the largest since the bloody first couple of years after the revolution. Relentless official attacks on foreign agents as the instigators of unrest have not papered over these divisions.

As the Association of Combatant Clergy, which represents more liberal mullahs in Qom, said in a statement: “What sane mind believes that a peaceful movement of millions of informed people — including workers, shopkeepers, farmers, students, clergy and others — could be agents of a so-called enemy?”

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There is much more.

Cohen is showing much greater insight into Iran than he did before the election. Most of the revelations that have come out since the election were there to be seen before hand, but too many people chose to ignore them and hope for change by a bunch of religious bigots locked into a world view from the distant past.

Before the election the people of Iran lived their lives of quite desperation mostly being silent about the oppression of the bigots. Since they have found their voice the regime is striking back with clubs and bullets. There are some inhibitions.

The bullets are from sniper rifles hidden from view, but the clubs are used to beat and intimidate. The inhibitions against openly using machine guns and artillery are for the moment. This regime is capable of using bigger weapons and will do so to hold onto power.

A regime that wants to wipe Israel off the map and use nuclear weapons to do it, is perfectly capable of extreme brutality to stay in power. The more it has to use this kind of power the less legitimacy it will have.