Iran Puts Mousavi and Obama in Tight Spots

As predicted the Mosavi opposition has been weakened in Iran by the government crackdown to the point irrelevance amid a US distracted by slobbering over Michael Jakcson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s deaths.. Ahmadinejad and his supporters have begun to use his disputed victory to toughen the nation’s stance internationally and to consolidate.

Obama is licking his wounds and trying to come up with tactical tricks to make his Ramsey Clark-Rodney King foreign policy look less incompetent.

Ahmadinejad and henchmen  vilified President Obama for what they call his “interventionist policies,” which is absurd in the face of a flaccid U. S. resonse. According to the Washington Post there is a threat to put opposition candidate Mousavi’s advisers on trial and even to execute some of the Mousavi supporters who took to the streets.  

Sunday, various news agencies reported that the police broke up another opposition rally of a reported 2,000 and detained eight British Embassy staff members, accusing them of a role in organizing the demonstrations. Monday Iran said it would not break relations with the UK although it is still unclear what or if those embassy staffers role was.

The actions reflect the growing power of a small coterie of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders.

This puts Mousavi between a rock and a hard place. On one hard he is accused of fomenting trouble-including the demonstrations so he can either admit defeat or risk fighting on.  Everything depends on Mousavi.

If he continues to battle many could be jailed or worse or give up in either case opposition is over and all aAuthority would be in  supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hands with Ahmadinejad, as his lacky.

Ironically , analyst say, accepting defeat could allow Mousavi to create a political party that, although unable to challenge the rule of Khamenei, could give him an opposition role during Ahmadinejad’s second term.

A Monday Washington Post article thinks the one possible wild card in Mousavi’s favor seems to be coming from the holy city of Qom, one of the most influential centers of Shiite learning. There, several powerful grand ayatollahs have issued statements calling for a compromise and, most tellingly, have not joined Khamenei in his unequivocal support of Ahmadinejad.

The semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported  Saturday,. Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili said during a meeting with members of the Guardian Council  that “Events that happened have weakened the system,. You must hear the objections that the protesters have to the elections. We must let the people speak.”

Another grand ayatollah issued two fatwas, or religious edicts, also on Saturday, saying Islam forbids security forces from hitting unarmed people. Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani said the protests were Islamic. “These gatherings are the lawful right of the people and their only method for informing the rulers of their requests,” he said.

Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, have vehemently refused to recognize the election results, which officially gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. They have also declined to participate in recount efforts by the Guardian Council, which must certify the final results Monday but which the opposition insists is biased.

Monday it was disclosed a sprinkling of ballots are being recounted. Cynics say it is a meaningless gesture to appease dissidents.

The reliable Israeli based DEBKAfile says two fundamental conceptions underpinning the Obama administration’s Middle East policies have been swept away by the upheaval in Iran including:

• direct or even multilateral nuclear negotiations with Iran have vanished in the distance -
• progress on the Palestinian peace front is the key to a breakthrough with

The turmoil in Tehran has demonstrated that any connection between internal unrest in the Islamic republic, its nuclear program and the Israel-Palestinian issue is contrived.

Still, Obama White House officials, refuse to admit they were wrong, continue to pressure the Netanyahu government to freeze all settlement construction as though it were relevant to their Middle East woes. Now, apparently they have decided that Netanyahu is weak enough to be squeezed into surrendering and Obama  can  claim a big Middle East success at Israel’s expnse and to the delight of Arabs and Iran..

On Sunday, June 28, a number of Washington observers familiar with Obama White House thinking were speculating that should Netanyahu venture to defy the US, his coalition government is too fragile to survive a breach with Israel’s foremost ally, he would be pushed out and succeeded by defense minster Ehud Barak.

Their logic is that since the main Israeli settlement concentrations cover less than 2% of West Bank territory and the marginal expansion for growth would add less than one percent. Clearly, the controversy is more political than territorial.

 Some circles particularly in Jerusalem Obama has blown it up more to undermine Netanyahu than to placate the Arabs.

 Barak’s arrival in Washington DC Monday, June 29, to iron out the settlement controversy between the Israeli and US governments. So, Netanyahu couyld get snookered by the Obama argument that the settlement issue is trivial and it is to Barak’s political advantage.

In other words, the Iranian scarecrow is now replaced by an Arab bogyman for brandishing in front of Netanyahu.

Washington and Jerusalem share the fear that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s humiliation and diminished status at home may well goad him into embarking on a dangerous military adventure against Israel or US targets in Afghanistan or Iraq. Tomorrow the Obama ordered retrenchment in Iraq could give Iran a perfect opportunity for mischief to embarrass Obama.

Jerusalem says it makes sense for the United Stats to strengthen the informal Saudi-Egyptian-Israeli connection as a bulwark against wild Iranian ideas. This alliance, the brainchild of Barak, has been enthusiastically embraced by the prime minister. They are entirely of one mind on this policy.

Therefore, Obama’s presumption that the defense minister can be turned against Netanyahu makes little logical sense.

From Jerusalem, it looks suspiciously as though the Obama White House anti-settlement drive has become a two-pronged campaign to undercut Netanyahu’s position at home and assemble a new set of principles - or at least a new if ficticious strategy to give an appearance of compentence. Specifically it replaces Obama’s foundering Iran policy which Ahmadinejad blocked in his weekend mudslinging match with Obama that made the US appear petulant and impotent.