Who Is in Control of the Islamic Republic?

Iran’s disputed election marked the rise of a new power elite. Now, with more protests looming and a nuclear program facing international pressure, can the Revolutionary Guard and its allies sustain their tightening grip on the Islamic Republic?

(Jerry Guo | Foreign Policy | 30 September 2009) - The headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are in a European-style palace, replete with Greek columns and a grand staircase, in the eastern suburbs of Tehran. From here, the IRGC orchestrated the crackdown that followed Iran’s disputed presidential vote in June, beating protestors on the street and torturing those behind bars. More ominously, the IGRC and other extreme hard-liners have sidelined fellow conservatives in the Iranian government, carving out their own power base in a regime that is becoming increasingly insular, reactionary, and violent.So far, much of the analysis of the emerging Iranian power struggle has focused on the clash between the country’s conservatives and reformers, pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, against Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two thwarted presidential candidates, and Mohammad Khatami, a former president. (Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and seasoned kingmaker has eased toward the reformists in the election’s aftermath.)

The real struggle, however, is the conflict among the hard-liners themselves, many of whom operate behind the headlines in unseen corners of the state machinery. Although Iran’s opposition movement has witnessed an unprecedented surge in public support, the election and its aftermath mark a radicalization of the system not seen since the early days of the Islamic revolution.

In the reformist era of Khatami, and to some extent during Ahmadinejad’s first term, the country’s conservative theocrats and technocrats — such as Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament, and Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ejei, the ousted intelligence minister who criticized the state’s use of forced confessions — held much of the power over the executive and legislative branches. Although they were entrenched status quo forces, these pragmatists believed in the dual nature of the Islamic Republic’s statehood — a country with religious and political legitimacy.

But now such figures are losing their influence to a new breed of second-generation revolutionaries from Iran’s security apparatus known as “the New Right.” They are joined in the emerging power structure by ultraconservative clerics and organizations such as the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran. These neo-fundamentalists call for the “re-Islamization” of the theocracy, but their true agenda is to block further reform to the political system in terms of reconciling with both domestic opponents and the West.

This coalition includes Hassan Taeb, the commander of the Basij, the paramilitary branch of the IRGC; Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council and the country’s chief nuclear negotiator; and Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s second son, a man so feared that his name is not often uttered in public.

Hard-line figures such as the younger Khamenei and the IRGC leadership are granted religious legitimacy through the support of the most radical mullahs in the theocratic establishment: Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, the committee that certified the election tallies, and Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi, a former head of the judiciary and Ahmadinejad’s spiritual adviser. Yazdi is affiliated with an underground messianic sect called the Hojjatieh Society, which hopes to quicken the coming of the apocalypse. Democratic reforms, the Majlis (parliament), and elections are mere annoyances under this radical Islamic worldview.

It is not surprising, then, that Yazdi issued a fatwa shortly before June 12 that gave authorities tacit approval to fudge the vote. Indeed, the clerics seem to have gotten the intended result: after the election, a number of employees at Iran’s Interior Ministry released an open letter stating that “the election supervisors, who had become happy and energetic for having obtained the religious fatwa to use any trick for changing the votes, began immediately to develop plans for it.”

Yazdi’s influence on Ahmadinejad became pronounced in the early days of the president’s first term, when Ahmadinejad declared that the return of the apocalyptic 12th imam would come within two years. Now, his second term will likely be marked by even more radical behavior: in a meeting with Yazdi in June to discuss his domestic agenda, Ahmadinejad promised to Islamize the country’s educational and cultural systems, declaring that Iranians had not yet witnessed “true Islam.” Then, in August, amid calls to purge reformist professors, a presidential panel began investigating university humanities curricula deemed to be “un-Islamic.” Several progressive students told me that they have been barred from returning to campus this semester, including a top law student at Tehran University. “I was going to continue the protests with my law degree in a more effective manner,” he said. “But now I am just a simple pedestrian.”

But ideology remains secondary in the struggle to maintain and consolidate control within the fractured regime. It is becoming increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and his associated faction of neo-fundamentalists no longer aim to take on the mantle of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolutionary ideals. As Khamenei’s representative to the IRGC put it, “Some people are sticking to Imam Khomeini’s ideas … [but] the situation has changed.” Accordingly, religion and revolutionary ideology have become convenient means to an end, but not the end themselves. Purges of un-Islamic faculty and students are meant to target the organizers of mass protests; the arrests and subsequent trials of political opponents, meanwhile, act to shield the financial interests of the IRGC and its hard-line partners.

The biggest prize is a number of state petrochemical contracts worth billions of dollars. During his presidency in the early 1990s, Rafsanjani steered oil development projects to family and friends. In 2005, Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani and promised to take on the “oil mafia” — but then loaded two-thirds of his cabinet with IRGC veterans, signed off on hundreds of no-bid construction and petrochemical contracts for IGRC-backed companies, and condoned the IRGC’s proliferating smuggling networks, which net $12 billion a year, according to one Iranian lawmaker. A local market analyst told me that the IRGC functions like “a mafia.” It uses free and low-cost labor, as well as an extensive intelligence apparatus, to undercut competing bids.

The resulting opacity and confusion have left many business and financial leaders in Iran unclear of how to navigate the new environment. “We don’t know what they will do,” one financial analyst told me recently. “Maybe they will stage a military coup and then open our doors like China, or maybe Pakistan,” he speculated, referring to the Islamization of the Pakistani state under General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq’s military rule from 1978 to 1988.

To his second-term cabinet, Ahmadinejad has appointed IRGC hard-liners to some of the most influential posts in government, such as the ministers of defense, intelligence, interior, and oil, which together not only control the country’s energy industry but also domestic security.

Until recently, the IRGC was split between pragmatists and hard-liners. In 2001, three-quarters of the IRGC’s 130,000 foot soldiers voted to reelect Khatami. At least one internal government poll before this summer’s election showed that a “high percentage” of the IRGC’s rank and file planned to vote for Mousavi. Four days before the election, the organization’s weekly newspaper, the Sobhe Sadeq, warned of a “Velvet Green revolution” and promised that the IRGC would not allow the opposition to triumph. Then, immediately following the polls, IRGC commanders purged leaders who were sympathetic to the reformists, leaving a united bloc of hard-liners whose views lie at the extreme right.

These new players are wasting little time in attempting to consolidate power. In early August, Yadollah Javani, the head of the IGRC’s political bureau, called for the arrest of the opposition leaders. “What is the role of Khatami, Mousavi, and Karroubi in this coup?” he asked. “If they are the main agents, which is the case, judiciary and security officials should go after them, arrest them, try them, and punish them.” Such a move may not be far off: in early September, security forces raided offices connected to Mousavi and Karroubi and arrested three of their top aides. The same week, Khamenei warned during a Friday sermon that further attacks by the reformist leadership would be met with a “harsh response.” (According to Rafsanjani, Khamenei already issued an arrest warrant for Karroubi in late August.)

If the neo-fundamentalist bloc is able to further concentrate its power, it will not only bode ill for the beleaguered domestic opposition but also dash any hope of an international resolution to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “The nuclear question is finished,” Ahmadinejad said earlier this month. “We will not negotiate over Iran’s undeniable rights.” Eroded legitimacy at home means the ruling hard-liners have little room to budge on a compromise over halting fuel production, for fear of alienating a power base that depends on continued pariah status to feed its clandestine business interests. As such, U.S. administration officials indicated that they have extremely low expectations going into the October 1 meeting with their Iranian counterparts.

For now, the neo-fundamentalists seem to have settled on the tactic of intimidate and escalate. Last month, the regime put French and British diplomatic staff on trial in Tehran, in addition to bringing charges against a Canadian-Iranian Newsweek journalist and an Iranian-American academic. Ahmadinejad has defiantly declared, “We welcome sanctions” — a signal to reconciliatory elements within the conservative camp that he and the hard-liners will not back down in the face of opposition. In any case, the neo-fundamentalists do not seem eager to jeopardize their near monopoly of the black market by reconciling with the West, particularly when China and Russia continue to extend an open hand in business.

Many of my colleagues in Tehran are preparing for a winter of confrontation. “Iranians have been living through these conditions since the Iran-Iraq war, when everything — food, oil, clothes — were rationed,” one coworker told me. But this time, the regime must contend with an embattled opposition that is backed by mass popular support. As the last few months have proven, it is a movement that cannot be easily bullied into submission.

JERRY GUO was an analyst in an Iranian investment bank in Tehran.

Join us in New York City as we raise our Voices for Iran and demand Ahmadinejad be held accountable for crimes against the Iranian people. March with the Green Scroll across the Brooklyn Bridge this Thursday, September 10:30 (ET). Gather at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn.

Please find more information at Voices for Iran.

(Mike Hanna | Al Jazeera English | 23 September 2009) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, launched a scathing attack on Western powers, accusing them of spreading “war, bloodshed, aggression, terror and intimidation” in the Middle East and Afghanistan.  He called for the “awakening of nations” worldwide to counter the “hypocrisy and vicious attitudes.”  Iran’s leader did not directly address the issue of its nuclear programme but called for the “eradication of arms race and elimination of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to pave the way for all nations to have access to advanced and peaceful technologies.”

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reports from New York on the speech that prompted a walkout by several delegations, including the US one.

To:  United Nation members

I am writing to ask you to take a stand against the atrocities being inflicted on the Iranian people by their current government under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Please do not acknowledge this person’s assumed role as President of Iran.

Regardless of the results of the June 12 election in Iran, this individual and his government have exhibited blatant disregard for basic human rights and have broken the international treaties of the Geneva Conventions. Rape, torture, and murder have been thrust upon the Iranian people and their families by the hands of the Iran government.

I ask you to reproach your decision that extends an invitation to Ahmadinejad at the annual General Assembly meeting on September 23rd, 2009. If Ahmadinejad is still allowed to attend, I respectfully ask that you refuse to share council chamber with him and leave the meeting.

The people of Iran have not asked the rest of the world for money, intervention or interference, all they ask is for our support in their struggle for a free, democratic Iran. As representative of your country and its people, I urge you to demonstrate that support and walk out on Ahmadinejad on September 23.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned – Sign the Petition

(AP Tehran | New York Times | 28 August 2009) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called for the leaders of the opposition to be prosecuted over Iran’s postelection turmoil, stepping up pressure against the pro-reform movement that says he won the election by fraud.

It was the first time Ahmadinejad has made such a call, publicly siding with hard-line politicians and clerics and commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard who have demanded in recent weeks that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and his top allies be arrested.

Ahmadinejad took an even tougher line than his top ally, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who earlier this week said he saw no evidence that opposition leaders were tools of Iran’s foreign enemies, a claim that hard-liners have made.

The differing stances suggest there are divisions within Iran’s leadership over how far to take to heavy crackdown against the opposition since the disputed June 12 presidential election.

Hard-liners appear to be seeking to completely crush the pro-reform movement, calling for its political parties to be banned and leaders detained. Khamenei seems to be wary that going too far could fuel a backlash against the clerical leadership, which has already been weakened by the postelection crisis. Khamenei holds ultimate say in political issues in Iran, but he also needs to satisfy hard-liners and the Revolutionary Guard.

The government has already put on trial more than 100 senior figures and activists from the pro-reform opposition, accusing them of being part of a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the Islamic Republic through a ”velvet revolution.” Prosecutors allege that the wave of mass protests that erupted after the election claiming fraud were instigated by the opposition to spark that revolution.

But so far, despite hard-liners’ calls, there has been no move to arrest the very top rung of the opposition — Mousavi and his allies Mahdi Karroubi and former President Mohammad Khatami. Doing so would be a major escalation in the confrontation.

In a harshly worded statement, Khatami lashed out at hard-liners, saying they were accused of ”treason” in the public’s eyes because of the fraudulent vote. He said the claims that the opposition protests were part of a foreign plot were a ”very big mistake” and aimed to ”justify violent, illegal and monopolistic behavior” by the government.

”The sacred Friday prayer podium has been given to those who … call for the punishment of prominent figures … while they are accused in the eyes of the public for committing treason themselves,” he said, referring to hard-line clerics who have denounced the opposition during Tehran’s main Friday prayers, one of the country’s most potent political platforms.
Khatami said killing protesters and abusing detainees in custody has revealed the true nature of the ruling system in dealing with peaceful protests. ”Is this the merciful Islamic image that defends morality and the people’s basic rights?” he said in a statement posted on the Web late Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands joined street protests after the election, supporting Mousavi’s claims of fraud, until security forces, the Revolutionary Guard and the pro-government Basij militia crushed the demonstrations with a crackdown in which hundreds were arrested. The opposition says at least 69 people were killed and that many of those detained were abused, tortured and even raped in prison.

The opposition has dismissed the month-old trial of opposition figures and activists as a ‘’show trial” in which defendants were forced to make public confessions admitting to a plot.

Ahmadinejad’s comments Friday came in a speech to thousands ahead of the weekly Friday prayers in Tehran. He said those on trial were ”deceived” into participating in the alleged plot and that the leaders should be punished.

”These deceived, second-tier elements should be dealt with with Islamic mercy. Don’t give immunity and protection to the main elements while punishing the deceived second-tier elements,” he said.

”There must be a serious confrontation with the leaders and key elements who organized and provoked (the riots) and carried out the enemy’s plan. They have to be dealt with seriously,” he said, without directly naming the leaders.

Ahmadinejad also admitted for the first time that some detained protesters were abused in custody but also denied any government involvement, claiming instead that it was the work of Iran’s enemies and the opposition.

”These actions that were carried out in custody … were part of the enemy’s scenario,” he said. ”Security, military and intelligence forces are free from these shameful acts.”

Top police officials and a parliamentary probe has already confirmed that some prisoners were abused by their jailers. The government has been struggling to contain outrage among many Iranians over the accusations of abuse. The opposition says some detainees were tortured to death. Hard-liners have particularly been angered at Karroubi, who claims some prisoners were raped. The government says about 30 people were killed in the postelection crackdown.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-election triggered a political crisis in the country, has unveiled his list of cabinet ministers.

(BBC | 20 August 2009) - For the first time in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic it includes three women.Mr Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term on 5 August after a disputed poll in June.

Lawmakers are expected to begin voting on the proposed 21-member list at the end of the month.

Under the proposed list, women would head up the country’s health, social welfare and education ministries.

The nominees for the respective posts are Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, Fatemeh Ajorlou and Sousan Keshavarz.

Warning

Analysts say Mr Ahmadinejad is expected to face considerable opposition over the list – both from the conservatives who dominate the assembly and moderates foes who say his government lacks legitimacy.

KEY MINISTRY NOMINATIONS
Defence : Ahmad Vahidi
Interior : Mostafa Mohammad Najjar
Foreign : Manouchehr Mottaki
Oil : Massoud Mirkazemi
Intelligence : Heydar Moslehi

The parliament’s vice-speaker warned that several of the president’s nominations were unlikely to be approved.

“Some of my colleagues and I [...] are of the opinion that close to five ministers proposed by Ahmadinejad will not receive a vote of confidence,” Mohammad Reza Bahonar was quoted as saying by the Mehr News Agency.

Mr Bahonar, a conservative, hinted that as many as five of the president’s proposed ministers would not be approved but gave no names.

Later on Thursday, Mr Ahmadinejad is expected to give a televised address to present the cabinet.

The current Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi is nominated to take control of the powerful oil ministry in a country where crude sales represent 80% of foreign revenue.

He will be expected to bolster oil and gas output despite sanctions imposed on Iran by both the US and UN over its nuclear programme.

Both Mr Mirkazemi and those nominated for the intelligence and interior ministries have a background within the Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, which is seen as fiercely loyal to the values of the Islamic Republic.

At any opposition demonstration in Iran they materialise from nowhere. For opposition supporters, they have become notorious. (See BBC video).

(Jon Leyne | BBC News | 13 August 2009) – The government’s Basij militia have become President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief enforcers, as he tries to consolidate power in the wake of his disputed re-election.Sometimes they tear into demonstrations in fleets of motorcycles, wielding clubs, and sometimes firearms.

Sometimes they are in plain clothes, mingling amongst the crowd until it is time to strike.

One notorious tactic is for them to wield tiny knives or razor blades to use against protestors from behind their backs.

Many are recruited at the age of 12 or younger. In their long training they are steeped in the ideology of the Islamic republic – indoctrinated, some would say.

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi was just such a young Basiji. He has long since left the militia and fled the country.

He describes the training as “brainwashing.”

“I can genuinely say that it’s a form of brainwashing,” he told me.

“It takes place every night or weekly in the mosques they attend, so much so that they really believe that the protesters and opposition supporters on the streets are standing against the Prophet’s teachings and Islam, they are mohareb (enemies of God) and their blood can be spilt, they should be killed.”

He said that Basijis have been performing ritual ablutions, as if before going to the mosque, before going out to quell recent protests.

It is clear the Basij have been preparing to deal with this sort of internal unrest for many years, quite different from their role as frontline soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war.

And it’s a role which Mr Ebrahimi says many of them have taken to with enthusiasm.

“There is no need at all to tell them what to do – when they hand them a baton or gun and tell them to go, it’s clear what they have to do.

“It’s like setting a wolf loose amongst a flock of sheep,” he said.

But there are also some Basijis who are having doubts, according to Mr Ebrahimi.

He says he has received 10 to 20 calls or emails from his former colleagues asking what they should be doing.

‘Complicated situation’

“Some of them have become disillusioned,” he said.

“I can’t tell you how many. But I am sure that many are not happy about what is happening right now.

“But others are standing firm, supporting their revolution, taking up arms and oppressing people. They don’t even have any mercy for the injured.

“They even torture detainees in prison. It’s a very complicated situation.”

That analysis is supported by Alireza Nourizadeh, an expert on the Basij, and director of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

“These Basijis are also part of the nation and gradually you don’t expect them to stay loyal to the authorities when they see that people in the streets are their neighbours and their children,” he said.

“I heard that many, many of the Basijis, especially their commanders, when they go home they have problems with their children and their wives, and they ask ‘why do you kill people?’ “

Fierce ideology

By all accounts the Basijis are a mix of ideologues, some just in it for the power or the money, and some who relish the violence.

But the corps is underpinned by many true believers.

Some interviewed recently spoke about their belief that they were working for the improvement of humanity: “We want to change the world, to save the world and all its people from tyranny and submit only to God.”

That ideology is a strength for the militia, but also a potential weakness.

As the conflict with the opposition drags on, as it seems set to do, the self doubts must surely creep in.

A crucial factor in the success of the Islamic revolution in 1979 was the defection of the armed forces from the shah.

Those who rule the Islamic Republic have worked hard to build up their own loyal cadre, made up of both the Basij and the regular forces of the Revolutionary Guards, to avoid any repeat of that collapse.

But in the ferment into which the country has been driven, even the loyalty of these ultra-loyalists may be open to question.

(Hossein Askari and Trita Parsi | New York Times Op-Ed | 14 August 2009) – In an effort to squeeze Iran into submission over its nuclear policy, Congress and the White House are edging toward a gasoline embargo. This would do nothing to force Iran into submission. In fact, it would be a blessing for the hard-line government to once again be able to point to a foreign threat to justify domestic repression and consolidate its base at a time when opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is increasing among conservatives. An effective gasoline embargo can only be implemented through a naval blockade. This would require U.N. Security Council approval — a tortuous process with no certain outcome. An embargo without U.N. approval is an act of war according to international law, and Iran has declared that it would be met with force.

But even if the Security Council were to miraculously unite, success would still be out of reach. The economics of a gasoline embargo simply doesn’t make sense. Iran imports roughly 40 percent of its domestic gasoline consumption at world prices and then sells it along with domestically refined gasoline at a government-subsidized price of about 40 cents per gallon. As a result, domestic gasoline consumption is high. It is also smuggled and sold to neighboring countries.

Over the past 10 years, this policy has cost Iran in the range of 10 to 20 percent of its G.D.P. annually, depending on world prices and the government-mandated pump price. Yes, a whopping 10 to 20 percent of G.D.P. In need of additional revenues, the regime has wanted to eliminate this subsidy, raise the price to world levels and reduce consumption, but has been paralyzed by the specter of a domestic backlash.

Even assuming that a gasoline embargo would be effective, what would be its result? Consumption would decline by 40 percent and government revenues would go up, because no payment would be needed for gasoline imports.

If Tehran allowed the reduced supply of gasoline to be sold at a price that would equate demand to supply, the price would increase to a level that would eliminate the subsidy, meaning no subsidy for imported gasoline and no subsidy for domestically refined gasoline. The government would have more revenue to spend elsewhere. The sanctions would have done what Tehran has wanted to do for years and the government would not be held responsible!

What about the political fallout? Proponents of the embargo believe that increased economic pressure would cause Iranians to revolt against their unpopular rulers. This is a fundamental misreading of the psychology of an embargoed people.

Iranians have suffered tremendous hardships under the Islamic Republic. And while the Iranian economy is in tatters today, Iranians have seen much worse times. During the Iran-Iraq War, they faced unprecedented economic hardships. This did not ignite a popular uprising.

What caused Iranians to rise up two months ago was not economic hardship, but anger over the fraudulent election.

If the back of the Iranian economy is broken, the first casualty will be hope. Economic misery will kill people’s faith in a better future. The result will be political apathy. And rather than blaming Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranians are likely to blame the United States.

Moreover, Iran’s ruling hard-liners are in disarray. The politics of fear is their bread and butter; they have long benefited from invoking foreign plots and Washington’s discredited regime-change policy. But now — with President Obama’s new outreach to Iran — the hard-liners have lost their 9/11. President Obama has deprived them of their perennial boogeyman.

This has helped the opposition find the maneuverability to challenge Iran’s vote-robbers. The hard-liners have no credible threat to rally around. Their disgraceful show trials on Iranian TV reveal their desperation. This has not only allowed fissures between various factions in Iran to grow, but also increased tensions among the conservatives themselves.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is desperately in need of a threat to help consolidate his conservative base and lend credibility to accusations of conspiracy against his moderate opposition. Imposing a gasoline embargo could be his last, best hope. Congress and the White House should think long and hard before throwing a lifeline to Iran’s vote-robbers.

Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at the George Washington University. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of “Treacherous Alliance — The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.”

With street protests quiet, factional disputes intensify. Hard-line clerics call for opposition leader Karroubi to stand trial, and reformist lawmakers want supreme leader Khamenei investigated.

(Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim | Los Angeles Times | 15 August 2009) - Rival camps within Iran’s corridors of power intensified their threats against each other Friday, signaling potentially dangerous clashes within elite circles and the security establishment after the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Hard-line clerics close to Ahmadinejad called for prominent reformist Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament and a presidential candidate, to stand trial for making allegations of jailhouse rape and torture in the country’s detention centers.

On the opposing side, a group of former reformist lawmakers issued a letter late Thursday demanding that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, be investigated by the Assembly of Experts, clerics who have the power to replace the supreme leader, in relation to the election’s violent aftermath.

The factional disputes, which are expected to get worse before the naming of the next Cabinet, come as street protests have faded.

“The ball of crisis is still rolling, if not on the streets, within the ruling establishment,” said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a reformist journalist and human rights activist in Tehran.

Protesters, nursing bruises and stifled by late-summer temperatures, are sitting back for the moment, apparently hoping they can accomplish their minimal goal — removing from power Ahmadinejad and his circle of hard-liners in the security apparatus — without more bloodshed.

Analysts said that opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s leading challenger in the election, has been reluctant to call for protests for fear he would be arrested. His news website, Ghalamnews.ir, has been shut down for days, and many of his deputies remain in prison.

“There is a plan for paralyzing the system and bringing down Ahmadinejad,” said Mohsen Sazegara, a Washington-based analyst and political activist who supports the opposition. “But Mousavi can’t announce it because he’ll be arrested. If he doesn’t say anything, it doesn’t mean that within the opposition there’s no plan.”

For now, neither hard-liners nor reformists appear to be backing down.

At Friday prayers, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a staunch supporter of Ahmadinejad, reiterated demands by his conservative allies that the judiciary put Karroubi on trial for making allegedly false accusations that prisoners swept up in a wave of protests were raped and tortured in prison.

According to a respected reformist news website, Ahmadinejad has submitted a proposal to the country’s Supreme National Security Council for the arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi, along with other prominent reformists. The plan was spurned by the “highest authorities” for fear that it would cause the “collapse” of the system, reported Norooznews.ir.

Reformists have not gone away despite such threats. The letter to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani signed by hundreds of former lawmakers called for the Assembly of Experts, which he oversees, to examine whether Khamenei should be replaced under an article in the constitution.

Karroubi, meanwhile, has issued more details of prison abuse, stating on his website Thursday that he had evidence that prisoners were stripped naked and forced to walk and scream like animals.

The allegations of sexual abuse, which tarnish Ahmadinejad and his clique as corrupt, are particularly effective in wooing moderate clerics and those within the political establishment, analysts said.

With opposition figures constrained by the threat of prison, hard-liners are finding themselves unsure about the depth of discontent within the country. Their increasingly strident calls to lock up Mousavi and Karroubi prompted the son of former longtime Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi, popular among those in the security apparatus, to warn authorities about consequences that he did not specify.

“The knowledgeable ones among these authorities, if there are any of them, know well that such gestures are like playing with fire,” Hassan Younesi wrote on his blog Wednesday night.

Even conservatives complain that Ahmadinejad has not met the minimum requirements they spelled out to avoid a protracted fight over his next Cabinet team, which he must submit to parliament early next week.

In recent days he has bucked an Iranian law by taking de facto control of the Intelligence Ministry and promptly purging it of longtime ranking officials deemed insufficiently loyal. He also dismissed the head of the Islamic Republic News Agency on charges of being too balanced.

Ahmadinejad managed to elevate his brother in-law, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, to chief of staff despite the disapproval of Khamenei and moved to promote a close ally, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, to the helm of the national police.

In a meeting with a group of scholars associated with the hard-line Basiji militia days before his inauguration, Ahmadinejad made a reference to seizing opponents by their collars and sticking “their heads to the ceiling.”

“Let me take the oath of office,” he said, “and wait for the government to begin its work.”

He later explained that he meant Iran’s foreign rivals, not his domestic foes.

(Borzou Daragahi | Babylon & Beyond | 11 August 2009) Observers have for weeks heard various theories that purport to prove that Iran’s June 12 presidential elections were rigged. They have come from Western think tanks, mathematicians and, of course, supporters of opposition figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who ran and lost against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.But the latest tantalizing tidbit, from the camp of Ahmadinejad, comes from the website Rajanews.com, which is run by a strident backer of the president, lawmaker Fatemeh Rajabi.

In paragraphs tucked into the end of an article posted Monday, the website may have inadvertently published information damning to its own president while trying to smear the speaker of parliament, a conservative rival of Ahmadinejad.

According to an anonymous member of parliament quoted in the article, which has been extensively reprinted, Iran’s well-connected parliament Speaker Ali Larijani telephoned Mousavi the evening of the election to congratulate him on his victory.

How did he know to congratulate Mousavi?

Because, Rajanews reports, he had “access to firsthand and classified information and news” that he should not have disclosed.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

What he did on the afternoon of the Election Day by calling Mousavi and congratulating him on the finalization of his presidency cannot be overlooked. As the head of a branch of power, he is considered to have access to firsthand and classified information and news. When he congratulated Mousvai at a time when voting hours had not even ended yet, it made him delusional and encouraged him to take the seditious and provocative positions and behaviours which disturbed people’s security and calm and significantly harmed the might and honor of the system.

The article also attempts to cast doubt on doctoral degree of Larijani, who was by all accounts a model student and accomplished scholar who has published books on Western philosophy.

Ahmadinejad is embroiled in a huge fight with Larijani and much of the rest of the parliament over the composition of his Cabinet.