Two of Iran’s opposition leaders, Mohammed Khatami and Mehdi Karroubi, have apparently dropped their demand for a new presidential election, saying that while they still believe the vote in June was fraudulent, they accept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the head of state. Mehdi Karroubi is a former presidential candidate, who has been very vocal in his criticism against the government for raping and sodomizing protesters arrested in post-election crackdown. Mohammed Khatami is a former reformist President, who has also criticized the government for the election fraud and treatment of the protesters.

The New York Times cited Iranian news agency, the Fars News Service, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as the source behind this shocking story. Fars has quoted Mr. Karroubi as saying “In response to your question in particular, I must say that I also recognize the president of the Islamic republic officially.” But before we all start getting agitated against Karroubi for giving up on the reformist movement, Mehdi Karroubi’s son, Hussein Karroubi, contacted Saham News, a news service affiliated with the reform movement, to clarify that his father had not backed off any of his charges of fraud, or of protesters’ mistreatment. In an interview with Sahem News, Hussein Karroubi quoted his father as saying, “I stand firmly by the belief that cheating took place in the election and the results were doubtful, and I believe the vote count was completely rigged. However, since Mr. Khamenei (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s Supreme Leader) endorsed Mr. Ahmadinejad, for this very reason I consider him the president of the current government of this system.”

Mohammed Khatami also expressed similar emotions saying that “The reform movement and I personally recognize the current administration of Mr. Ahmadinejad, but we must combat extremism.”

The New York Times states that “while the intention of the two statements was not entirely clear, it was also not clear what, if any, impact they might have on the many thousands of people who have taken to the streets of Iran in postelection protests.”  But I think it is not unreasonable to believe that the reform movement will not be too effected by these shifts in position. Reform movement has shown over and over again its resilience and its independence.

As 2010 starts, the same two stories that dominated the headlines in 2009 are in the news already. The post-election protests and the ongoing game of nuclear brinkmanship are still continuing. Here is an AFP video that highlights the major events that took place in Iran in 2009, giving us an insight as to what to expect in 2010:

Under the thick smoke billowing from toppled and burnt motor cycles used by the militia forces in the tumultuous streets of Iran lies a strong narrative: a 104-year-old struggle for democracy and social justice.

This struggle started with the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the first of its kind in the region, which led to the development of modern civil institutions in Iran and paved the way for what many hoped to be a democratic future. Nearly eight decades later, it became crystal clear that the monarchy, despite its penchant for economic modernization, had little if any stomach for political participation and dissent. The monarchy’s lack of respect for political pluralism led to growing disenchantment with the Shah’s regime and its eventual collapse in the 1979 revolution.

Fast forward three decades and in the waning days of 2009 what the world is witnessing is a truly historic realization by Iranians that in order to build a secular state, there is no need for heroes to rely on and that they are their own heroes. It is a tectonic cultural shift on the part of Iran’s young generation that makes up over 70 per cent of the country’s population. This shift can be termed as ‘the grand detachment’.

A sense of constant search for a hero has been a long-standing trait embedded in Iran’s social political psyche. Central to this detachment is the abandonment of search for heroes; idolized figures whose job it is to emancipate Iranians from their social and political malaise with promises of prosperity, freedom, equality, and social justice for all. Chief factors behind detachment from this search include unmasking of the tall façade behind the clergy’s claims to Islamism, social justice, and moral values embedded in Shiite branch of Islam. An immediate reflection of this detachment is seen in the absence of a clerical figure leading today’s masses in the streets of Iran and the shrinkage of Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karrubi into nothing more than symbolic figures with no significant impact on the movement’s direction. This shift carries enormous significance in a traditionally religious society built on ethos and themes of Shiite Islam that chiefly include struggle for egalitarian values and social justice.

Iranians appear to have come to the realization that behind their rulers’ claims to all aspects of religiosity and social justice lies nothing but utter disdain for human dignity and lack of respect for people’s social and political aspirations. The latter has been on display lately by the Islamic regime’s unbridled bloody violence unleashed against ordinary Iranians. With the regime’s unmasked face in public open, the current struggle for democracy is bound to get more violent.

Traumatized by their exposure to the unmasked face of their rulers and subsequently emboldened by the above grand detachment, Iranians feel reinvigorated and confident of their ability to confront Iran’s weakened theocracy and its multilayered security forces. Organizationally, the struggle in Iran has a completely flat structure with no central figurehead. With a traumatized mind but reinvigorated determination, Iranians appear to be on a path to chart a new role for them in the 21^st century. And they appear unyielding in charting this new role based on recognition of and respect for human dignity without dependence on heroic figures.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a story that showed just how desperate the Iranian government is getting. If harassing Iranian protesters living in Iran was not enough, the Iranian authorities are now threatening Iranians living abroad. As the article states:

In recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide — not just prominent dissidents — who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran’s elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program.

Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.

Interviews with roughly 90 ordinary Iranians abroad — college students, housewives, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople — in New York, London, Dubai, Sweden, Los Angeles and other places indicate that people who criticize Iran’s regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them.

But Monday’s student protests are a reminder that the government’s suppressive techniques are failing.  Despite a wide-ranging effort  by the Iranian  forces to block the protests, students took to the street on the National Student Day, a day that commemorates the killing of three students by the shah’s forces in 1953.  A New York Times’ article described the protests taking place all across the country:

Large crowds of university students gathered on campuses across Iran on Monday morning, many holding banners or wearing armbands in the opposition’s trademark bright-green, to chant “God is great!” and “Death to the dictator!” Twitter and opposition Web sites featured video clips of rallies in Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz and other cities.

One video showed hundreds of students at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran waving bank notes in the air to ridicule the Basij members, who are officially volunteers but who are widely said to receive money for cracking down on protesters. Another video showed students breaking down the university’s front gates, which the authorities had locked to prevent the protests from spreading.

Another group of protesters near Tehran University waved a Russian flag at the police and then set it on fire, in a gesture mocking the Iranian government’s ritual anti-Americanism. Russia was quick to recognize Mr. Ahmadinejad as president after the election, prompting protests from opposition supporters, who believe the election was stolen through extensive fraud.

For a in-depth coverage of the Iranian student coverage, which include You-Tube videos showing the protests and the shuffle between the protesters and the Basij forces, check the New York Times News Blog.

The student protests were not the only reminder that the green movement is far from being over. On Sunday, Rafsanjani, a former president and a highly regarded political figure who initially provided crucial support to the opposition in the aftermath of the election turmoil but has since been silent, criticized the government on Sunday. Rafsanjani complained that “constructive criticism is not tolerated in the country.”

This year, newspapers all around the world have been dominated by one topic: Iranian post-election turmoil.  Therefore, it is not surprising that an Iranian reformist leader is on the Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers. Though it is a pleasant surprise that the person is Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi.   Here is what Foreign Policy had to say about this remarkable woman:

3. Zahra Rahnavard

for being the brains behind Iran’s Green Revolution and the campaign of her husband, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Political scientist and Reformer | Iran

Of all the critical moments in the Iranian presidential election that captured the world’s attention this year, one stands out: On June 3, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly questioned the credentials of his opponent’s wife, wondering in a televised debate if her Ph.D. in political science was legitimate. Furious, the 64-year-old Rahnavard staged a blazing, 90-minute news conference in which she accused the president of lying, debasing her sex, and betraying the Islamic Revolution. The attack galvanized the opposition and rejuvenated the campaign of her husband, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Ahmadinejad should have known better. During and after the Islamic Revolution, Rahnavard had been an ardent Islamist who worked to discredit secular feminist groups. But years later, when the revolution failed to yield dividends for women, she changed course and became a driving force behind the nascent feminist movement in Iran. After she was placed on the High Council of Cultural Revolution, the body issued its first declaration in 1992 advancing women’s rights. She was later fired as chancellor of Tehran’s exclusively female Al-Zahra University for inviting feminist lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to speak.

This year, Rahnavard’s rage at Ahmadinejad drove her husband’s campaign. She began stumping with him and organizing supporters through rallies, Facebook, Twitter, and text messages. Campaign posters that depicted the couple holding hands subtly hinted at the liberal reforms Mousavi would make in office; she has more explicitly said these would involve greater democratization, a stronger role for women in the cabinet, and a relaxing of Iran’s notoriously discriminatory gender laws.

Just in case you missed it, Maziar Bahari was on the Daily Show on Monday night. Bahari, a Newsweek reporter, was arrested in the aftermath of the Iranian election and kept captive for 118 days. When John Stewart commented, “You were imprisoned in Iran…” Bahari replied, “Yes. Because of you.” While it sounds ridiculous, it is true. As Bahari recounted in a Newsweek article that his previous appearance for the Daily Show, in which Jason Jones interviewed Bahari in Iran, was used by the Iranian interrogators as evidence of his spying activities:

I saw the flicker of a laptop monitor under my blindfold. Then I heard someone speaking. It was a recording of another prisoner’s confession. “It’s not that one,” said the second interrogator. “It’s the one marked ‘Spy in coffee shop.’ ” Mr. Rosewater fumbled with the computer. The other man stepped in to change the DVD. And then I heard the voice of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

Only a few weeks earlier, hundreds of foreign reporters had been allowed into the country in the run-up to the election. Among them was Jason Jones, a “correspondent” for Stewart’s satirical news program. Jason interviewed me in a Tehran coffee shop, pretending to be a thick-skulled American. He dressed like some character out of a B movie about mercenaries in the Middle East-with a checkered Palestinian kaffiyeh around his neck and dark sunglasses. The “interview” was very short. Jason asked me why Iran was evil. I answered that Iran was not evil. I added that, as a matter of fact, Iran and America shared many enemies and interests in common. But the interrogators weren’t interested in what I was saying. They were fixated on Jason.

“Why is this American dressed like a spy, Mr. Bahari?” asked the new man.

“He is pretending to be a spy. It’s part of a comedy show,” I answered.

“Tell the truth!” Mr. Rosewater shouted. “What is so funny about sitting in a coffee shop with a kaffiyeh and sunglasses?”

“It’s just a joke. Nothing serious. It’s stupid.” I was getting worried. “I hope you are not suggesting that he is a real spy.”

“Can you tell us why an American journalist pretending to be a spy has chosen you to interview?” asked the man with the creases. “We know from your contacts and background that you told them who to interview for their program.” The other Iranians interviewed in Jason’s report-a former vice president and a former foreign minister-had been ar-rested a week before me as part of the IRGC’s sweeping crackdown. “It’s just comedy,” I said, feeling weak.

“Do you think it’s also funny that you say Iran and America have a lot in common?” Mr. Rosewater asked, declaring that he was losing patience with me. He took my left ear in his hand and started to squeeze it as if he were wringing out a lemon. Then he whispered into it. “This kind of behavior will not help you. Many people have rotted in this prison. You can be one of them.”

Now that Bahari is out of jail, we can laugh at how absurd the Iranian interrogators are. But unfortunately it is not a funny matter when you look at how the other person interviewed in the same Daily Show segment is faring. Mohammed Ali Abtahi, also known as the “blogging Mullah”, was sentenced to six years in prison.

While I am a huge Daily Show fan, I do question how wise was their decision to air the interviews after the election turmoil. Those interviews were hilarious, but unfortunately many repressive governments do not understand satire.

Today, on your local PBS channel, Frontline will have a documentary investigating Iran’s controversial election and how Neda Agha Soltan became a potent symbol for the reform movement.  Frontline has a press release that provides more detail on this documentary:

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES THE CONTROVERSIAL IRANIAN ELECTION AND THE DEATH OF ONE YOUNG PROTESTER SEEN AROUND THE WORLD

FRONTLINE Presents
A DEATH IN TEHRAN
Tuesday, November 17, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

At the height of the protests following Iran’s controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death–filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web–quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government’s hold on power.

In A Death in Tehran, airing Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on the life and death of Neda Soltan and the movement she helped inspire.

In response to the international outcry over Neda’s death-including President Obama’s confirmation that he’d seen the “heartbreaking” video on YouTube–the regime set about attempting to rewrite the story, pointing a finger at the CIA and outside agitators, the same forces they blamed for the mass street protests and allegations of vote rigging that led to the greatest upheaval in Iran since the revolution of 1979. FRONTLINE uncovers some video of Neda’s killer–a member of the Basij militia who’d been brought into Tehran by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards to stamp out the “Green Revolution. ” A medical doctor in the crowd who had watched Neda die now watched as the crowd considered its own violence against the Basij militia member:

“They started to discuss what to do with him, ” the doctor recalled. “They grabbed his wallet, took out his ID card and started shouting, ‘He is a Basiji member; he is one of them,’ and started swearing and cursing him, and he was begging for people not to harm him or kill him. … They believed the police wouldn’t do anything to him as the Basiji are really powerful and he would have easily have got away, so in all of the chaos they decided to release him. “

The Iranian government admits 11 protesters were killed on June 20, but doctors from three Tehran hospitals confirmed at least 34. Other bodies were buried by security forces without first being identified. In October, the regime tried to script the end of the story for Neda. But instead, Neda’s mother made a very public stand. The government offered her financial help if she would blame Neda’s death on opponents of the regime. All she had to do was to agree to call Neda a “martyr ” for the Islamic Republic. But she refused, telling FRONTLINE: “Neda died for her country not so I could get a monthly income from the Martyr Foundation. If these officials say Neda was a martyr, why do they keep wiping off the word ‘martyr’ which people write in red on her gravestone? “

A Death in Tehran is produced in partnership with Tehran Bureau, a unique online source of independent reporting, essay and comment on Iran. Tehran Bureau’s popularity during the post-election protests prompted FRONTLINE to partner with the site in order to stay on top of one of the major stories of our time and to continue to integrate the Web into FRONTLINE’s public-interest mission by using all platforms to incubate and publish stories.

A Death in Tehran is a Ronachan Film production in association with WGBH/FRONTLINE and the BBC. The producer is Monica Garnsey. The senior producer for FRONTLINE is Ken Dornstein. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and described for people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group at WGBH. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of the WGBH Educational Foundation. The executive producer of FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Last month, Iran was shaken by a suicide attack in its province, Sistan Baluchestan.  The attack killed more than 42 people, including 15 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.  Here is an Al Jazeera report that examines the root causes of discontent in this province:

The report reveals that lack of security and poverty are the two main problems facing this province. Moreover, drug smuggling has also become an issue.

It sounds like a travesty when you hear that the Obama Administration has cut down funding to Iranian human rights groups, until you take a deeper look at the facts.

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Freedom House and International Republican Institute (IRI) will be among the groups that will be denied State Department funding this year.  Moreover, the State Department’s Iran Democracy Fund will be shut down.  A Wall Street Journal’s Op-ed by David Feith and Bari Weiss provides more detail on funding received by these groups:

• The Connecticut-based Iran Human Rights Documentation is a nonpartisan group that documents Iran’s human-rights abuses. The group had previously received $3 million over the past five years.  It will shut down in May, said Executive Director Renee Redman, unless private donors save it.
• Freedom House is a nonpartisan watchdog group founded in 1941 that applied in April for significant funds to support initiatives including Gozaar, its Farsi-English online journal of democracy and human rights, and was turned down in July.  Since 2006, Freedom House had received over $2 million from the U.S. and European governments for Iran-related efforts.  “We might have to close Gozaar if we run out of money,” deputy executive director Thomas O. Melia stated.
• The International Republican Institute (IRI) had received State Department support to train Iranian reformers and connect them to like-minded activists in Europe and elsewhere.  IRI’s recent application for funds was denied, an IRI official told us last week.
• The Bush administration had requested $65 million for the State Department’s Iran Democracy Fund in fiscal year 2009.  But Congress and the Obama administration have replaced it with a Near East Regional Democracy Fund, whose mission is not specified in law and therefore, can be used in any Near Eastern country.

The Op-ed goes on to impugn Obama administration’s decision to cut off the funding.  But before we jump to the conclusion that Obama does not care about Iranians, lets examine the facts more carefully.  There is a reason why many prominent Iranians, Iranian-Americans, and non-Iranians who support the reformists, are happy with the Obama administration’s decision to cut down the funding.

The Iranian democracy fund was initiated by the Bush administration in an effort to topple the clerical regime in Tehran by financing Iranian NGOs. But the fund only hindered the actions of Iranian NGOs as they were now accused of working to overthrow the government with the help of the United States. A BBC’s article had an example of how the U.S. funding placed additional risks on Iranian activists:

Human rights defenders in Iran, however, point to the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center’s activities as an example of exactly why the fund should be cut.

In 2005, the centre organised a seminar in Dubai. Though it was advertised as a human rights seminar, participants tell the BBC that they soon realised that the aim was to train Iranian human rights defenders on how to overthrow the Iranian regime through non-violent means.

Several of the participants were subsequently arrested and jailed in Iran.

Today, they bitterly complain that the Human Rights Documentation Center knowingly put them under immense risk by luring them to Dubai - a hub for Iranian intelligence services - under false pretences.

The episode is believed to have focused the attention of the Iranian regime on NGOs and political activists. The authorities began to regard them a as a potential national security threat, prompting a severe crackdown on Iranian civil society.

In the Daily Beast, Reza Aslan, a prominent Iranian-American writer, apprises the readers on the people supporting Obama’s decision:

• Ianian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is among those who have praised the move.  Her spoke-person told BBC reporters: “These U.S. funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds. The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever.”

• Similarly, Akbar Ganji, Iran’s most famous political dissident, has stated that the Iran Democracy Fund is “severely counterproductive,” and “none of the human-rights activists and members of the opposition in Iran had any interest in using such funds.” Ganji pointed out that the funds were counterproductive as even though Iran’s homegrown democracy activists refuse to go anywhere near the money-because the U.S. government will not release information about who actually receives the funds-the Iranian government simply assumes that any nongovernmental organization working for human rights in Iran must be in league with the U.S. government. This greatly damaged the democracy movement in Iran.

Reza Aslan also defends Obama’s decision to cut off the funding and argues that Obama’s current approach of engaging Iran is much more effective than the funding previously received under the Bush administration:

The fact remains that there is simply no way for the United States to promote democracy in Iran except through dialogue and diplomacy with its reviled regime-not through more meaningless and thus far totally ineffective sanctions, not through empty threats of military actions, and certainly not through sexy music videos.

It is quite simple, really. The only way to punish a country for its bad behavior is first to have some kind of relationship with it. That is precisely what Obama is trying to do. By working toward the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran, Obama is laying the groundwork for real, meaningful, and lasting reform in Iran.

So on behalf of most, not all, young Iranians struggling for change in Iran, I say, keep your measly $85 million, America (chump change as far as covert propaganda operations go).

During the Iranian presidential elections, Mehdi Karroubi was the long-shot candidate.  He was not as well known as his opponents, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi.  His reformist credentials were strong, but with Mousavi in the race, reformists already had a leader.  His speeches about stronger women’s rights and more individual liberty resonated with many Iranians, but he still lacked a strong base.  Like many losing politicians, Mehdi Karroubi was destined to be just a side-note in the newspaper articles.

But the post-election turmoil has changed all that.  The protests against Ahmadinejad’s election victory have been labeled as the “green movement” after Mousavi’s campaign color, but the leader, who has been instrumental in keeping the protest movement alive and highlighting the egregious treatment of protesters arrested, is not Mousavi, but Karroubi.  Karroubi has emerged as the voice of Iranians protesting against the current government’s fraudulent election victory.  He is the one who accused the government of torturing prisoners arrested in the post-election turmoil.  He is the one who denounced the security forces for raping and sodomizing prisoners. And now he is the one who is in threat of being prosecuted for his vocal opposition.

The Tehran Bureau has an article detailing the life of this dauntless cleric, who is worth knowing.

Photo taken from the Tehran Bureau.