Iran pt 8

More. via Hilzoy at Washington Monthly:

Carnegie Endowment Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour:

"The weight of the world now rests on the shoulders of Mir Hossein Mousavi. I expect that Khamenei's people have privately sent signals to him that they're ready for a bloodbath, they're prepared to use overwhelming force to crush this, and is he willing to lead the people in the streets to slaughter?
Mousavi is not Khomeini, and Khamenei is not the Shah. Meaning, Khomeini would not hesitate to lead his followers to "martyrdom", and the Shah did not have the stomach for mass bloodshed. This time the religious zealots are the ones holding power.

The anger and the rage and sense of injustice people feel will not subside anytime soon, but if Mousavi concedes defeat he will demoralize millions of people. At the moment the demonstrations really have no other leadership. It's become a symbiotic relationship, Mousavi feeds off people's support, and the popular support allows Mousavi the political capital to remain defiant. So Mousavi truly has some agonizing decisions to make.

Rafsanjani's role also remains critical. Can he co-opt disaffected revolutionary elites to undermine Khamenei? As Khamenei said, they've known each other for 52 years, when they were young apostles of Ayatollah Khomeini. I expect that Khamenei's people have told Rafsanjani that if he continues to agitate against Khamenei behind the scenes, he and his family will be either imprisoned or killed, and that the people of Iran are unlikely to weep for the corrupt Rafsanjani family.

Whatever happens, and I know I shouldn't be saying this as an analyst, but my eyes well when I think of the tremendous bravery and fortitude of the Iranian people. They deserve a much better regime than the one they have."

From NIAC, a translation of a blog post:

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children..."

Iran pt 7

I thought I would pass this along, as things there are looking polarized and grim (from The Washington Note):

One of my colleagues at the New America Foundation's Global Strategic Finance Initiative, Douglas Rediker, received this note from a friend abroad. It's illuminating as to how a well-connected Iranian internationalist who has been in Tehran during much of the post-election unrest sees matters now. To protect Rediker's source, I can't make references about where he is today.

The email:

As of yesterday the options facing the country were well summarised by Simon Tisdall and Ellie Rose in The Guardian:

1 - Happy ending

To widespread surprise, the hardline Guardian Council conducts a thorough recount of votes, as ordered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and decides, amid much embarrassment, that there should be a new election. Mir Hossein Mousavi wins. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepts defeat. Pro-democracy demonstrators celebrate triumph of "green revolution". New government responds positively to US invitation to "unclench fist" and open talks on nuclear issue.

2 - Damp squib

The partial recount ordered by the Supreme Leader concludes Ahmadinejad won a clear victory, although by a narrower margin. Despite lingering suspicions of foul play, the opposition is forced to accept the verdict amid a continuing nationwide crackdown on dissent and warnings that further disorder will be dealt with harshly. Ahmadinejad, in bad odour with the Supreme Leader for provoking demonstrators, moderates his line on policy issues. Mousavi vows to fight again.

3 - Confrontation

The Guardian Council's partial vote recount and investigation into electoral fraud are rejected by the opposition. Demonstrations spread and intensify, with ever greater numbers of Iranians taking to the streets calling for the resignation of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Security forces respond with increasing force, arresting thousands and closing down media coverage, texting networks, websites and Twitter. Purge of reformist leaders, intellectuals, students and journalists continues. Leaderless demos gradually peter out, leaving resentment. Ahmadinejad steps up anti-western rhetoric. Resumed protests at a later date considered highly likely.

4 - A second revolution

An insider cabal of senior clerical and establishment conservatives challenges Khamenei and forces his resignation after a vote in the Assembly of Experts. Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected in his stead and orders an investigation into the actions of Ahmadinejad and other senior members of the regime. Hardliners rally round the president while reformists demand new elections. Amid growing instability, Iran's unique Islamic/secular system of governance appears in danger of collapse".

As of Mr. Khameneni's speech today it seems that (1) above is no longer an option. For everything that Mousavi has publically announced option (2) also seems unlikely.

Unfortunately for everything I know, it now seems its either (3) or (4).

By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things ... as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets 'Basiji hunting'.

Their resolve is no less than these thugs -- they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks -- they're organised and they're supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they're after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again - and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour -- they're community-connected.

The Basiji's are not.

These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.

Also, with $10K every local police station lock can be broken and guns taken out...the police too are crowd friendly...for sure put a gun in their hands and these young become a serious counter-balance to the Basij...call them 10% of 18-22 year olds - that makes circa 10 million around the country versus max 4 million Basijis.

For all I've seen, discussed and observed on the ground I wouldn't dismiss option (4) too easily.

I hope Mousavi has thought through strategy and next steps. Where his protesters have come to was predictable up to a point.

What is the unpredictable thing he may do to change the board?

A psychological doom notice

In the eighties and early nineties a young woman in her early 20's with a history of volatile relationships and generally desperate and manipulative behavior would be diagnosed as having "borderline personality disorder". There was no WWW to confirm one's desperation...had there been, the landscape at the time would have seemed grim. No treatment, and a lifetime of despair, longing, and loneliness. And addiction, abusive relationships, and suicide.
Marsha Linehan changed all that. She drew significant insights from Buddhist ideas of non-attachment and the nature of suffering, and from the burgeoning field of Cognitive-Behavioral therapy. The untreatable became treatable. It is a huge amount of work demanded of the client, and boring, too. But it works. Life gets better. Linehan also made sure that the approach was designed in such a way that it produced reams of quantifiable data. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy opened up vast regions of help for once impossible clients.
It works for many, many different types of suffering. It works so well that one begins to wonder if the missing link between Borderline Personality, Bi-polar, and other such things (diagnoses that I find to be far less helpful than harmful) is really trauma and abuse.
Here is a refreshing little article from the NY Times (whose mental health coverage has been very, very good over the last few years) on DBT and the Borderline Diagnosis.

Iran pt 6

from American Footprints

Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri is starting to become a presence in the ongoing Iran turmoil, both calling for three days of mourning for murdered demonstrators and saying the election results "cannot be accepted by anyone of sound mind." As others have noted, he has an interesting history, one which intertwines with that of Khamene'i in interesting ways.

Montazeri was close to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the 1980's, and a strong proponent of his version of the Islamic Republic. He was considered Khomeini's preferred successor until the late 1980's, when he became increasingly critical of the use of force against dissidents. Khomeini denied this was taking place, either for cynical reasons or because by his late 80's he was detached from day-to-day affairs and in denial over what had become of his experiment. As a result, he was fell from favor, and was forced to resign in March 1989. Shortly thereafter, and shortly before his death, Khomeini signaled that his new preferred heir was then-President Ali Khamene'i. Khamene'i did not have the proper clerical credentials, and it required a massive PR move to win some acceptance of him as an ayatollah. This is considered by many to have touched off one of the worst waves of "title inflation" in the Shi'ite world, which has devalued once-august designations and led to the creation of new ones, with "Grand Ayatollah" being the most recent.

After Khomeini died that June, the Assembly of Experts met and duly selected Khamene'i as his successor. Partly to enhance his status, however, they adjusted his titulature. In the constitution, the word "supreme" was inserted before "rule of the jurisprudent," and the same followed in the popular use with "Supreme Leader" gradually replacing just "Leader." Montazeri and many others objected to this change and its implications, as well, for which they were harassed and Montazeri eventually placed under house arrest. Khamene'i continued to accrue religious flattery, particularly when Ali Larijani was head of the state broadcasting company.

There's an additional angle that occurred to me while writing this, and that is that Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who moved from Speaker of Parliament to President in 1989, was rumored to prefer a council of jurists to a single powerful Leader. If he is, in fact, in Qom politicking among the Assembly of Experts to potentially remove Khamene'i, the issue of what to do after him will come up, and that may be a factor.

Some more psycho-pharm shenanigans...

Faked research? Naw. Deaths caused by untested medications. Really?

Those untested ADHD drugs...

In the study of 564 children and teens who died suddenly, researchers led by Madelyn Gould of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University in New York City found that that those who died suddenly were 7.4 times more likely than not to have been taking the stimulant medications. The results of the study are reported online in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

"Although sudden unexplained death is a rare event," the researchers said, "this finding should be considered in the context of other data about the risk and benefit of stimulants in medical treatment."

Read the whole article.

more

and this:

Juan Cole

Hello, Tuesday!

Some excellent links to the convulsions in Iran:

For general news and hourly coverage both of these have been excellent:
Talking Points Memo
Huffington Post

For some informed commentary on Iran:
Gary Sick
American Footprints

Late Posting Today, check in later...