Mir Hossein Mousavi's attempt to protect the protesters may destroy the momentum of his movement
Like a street protester fleeing a police baton charge, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran's reluctant radical, spent the weekend frantically ducking and weaving in a bid to sustain his people's insurgency and at the same time avoid provoking a bloodbath on the streets of Tehran. But as momentum slows in the face of an all-smothering state security clampdown, time is running short.
Mousavi's dilemma was painfully clear. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put the opposition leader on notice on Friday that the responsibility would be his if "illegal gatherings" continued. But by then, millions of fired-up Iranians were looking to him to show a lead in confronting not just alleged electoral fraud but the Islamic establishment itself.
On Saturday, with another big demonstration scheduled, Mousavi largely kept out of sight, possibly because of concerns about his safety, possibly because he had little choice. Patchy reports suggested he had told supporters in an appearance in Jeyhun, in southern Tehran, that he was "ready for martyrdom" and would urge a national strike should he be arrested.
At the same time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main presidential rival declined to encourage demonstrators to defy the ayatollah and go on the streets, now pre-emptively occupied by heavily armed security forces. Instead he tried to maintain lines of communication with the regime, issuing a half-conciliatory, half-defiant open letter to the Guardian Council, which is supposedly investigating the conduct of the disputed 12 June poll.
"We are not against the Islamic system and its laws but against lies and deviations and just want to reform it," he said. Therefore peaceful protests should be permitted and even encouraged.
"The people expect from their officials honesty and decency ... The Islamic revolution should be the way it was and the way it should be," Mousavi said.
Poignantly summarising the opposition's dilemma while exhibiting a notably more responsible approach than the confrontational Khamenei, he told supporters: "I will never allow this beautiful green wave to risk its life because of me. Be sure that I will always be at your side."
Mousavi's ambivalence, however understandable, has inescapable consequences for the movement he leads. By his actions, or inaction, this weekend, he may have saved the lives of thousands of young, idealistic Iranians at the cost of torpedoing the reformist cause to which they are pledged.
By stressing his allegiance to the Islamic system and the 1979 revolution, he left open the door to some sort of compromise deal, or political accommodation, with Khamenei and the divisive Ahmadinejad.
But Mousavi's cautious moderation will disappoint many followers, reminding them that this presidential candidate, too, is a product of the post-1979 Islamic establishment, a former prime minister and a protégé of its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. These are not the credentials of a mould-breaker.
As they wait, so far vainly, for strong leadership from the top, the opposition's rank and file may be reminded, too, that Mousavi was also the system's choice, promoted by the moderate conservative Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani – a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad - and vetted and approved by the guardian council.
Mousavi, unlike the much-abused former president Mohammad Khatami, was seen by the mullahs as the acceptable face of the disunited reformist movement and was allowed to run on that basis. The Islamic system does not permit "outsider" candidacies. Genuine alternatives are not on offer, only variations on a 30-year-old theocratic theme. And of course, he was expected to lose.
Other key opponents of the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad axis failed to step up the plate at the weekend, leaving the protesters out on their own. Mehdi Karroubi, another thwarted presidential candidate, abruptly cancelled participation in Saturday's abortive rally. Ali Larijani, the Majlis (parliament) speaker, previously critical of regime tactics, took refuge today in joining the supreme leader's attacks on foreign meddling in Iran's internal affairs.
Most tellingly of all perhaps, Rafsanjani, having boycotted Khamenei's Friday sermon, has been silent, leaving Mousavi to stew. The reported arrest of several family members may be a factor. But maybe Rafsanjani knows his internal coup against Ahmadinejad, plotted over many months and financed from his own bulging purse, has failed.
Right now the perception grows that Iran's transformatory moment finally arrived at the weekend, only to slip from the protesters' grasp in a cloud of teargas, terror and vacillating political trepidation. Perhaps, for them, all is not yet lost. But as matters stand, Mousavi, the reluctant radical, will be remembered as the nearly man.
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