“Worthy of Execution”

As the unforgiving crushing grip of repression attempts to choke the life out of a reformist movement – all under the convenient palliative of operating under the word of God – is Iran back to the “same old, same old”? As opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has succumbed to government pressure and will hereafter seek government permits for any further rallies, he has effectively distanced himself from the remaining street protests. The big cities, where protests were most pronounced, are quiet now… too quiet. Traffic is sparse. Shops report a dearth of shoppers; sales have plunged from pre-election levels. Even the apolitical citizens who witnessed the carnage are depressed and disappointed in their country. What’s left for this nascent rebellion in the coming months and years?

The fact that so many people, particularly the younger generation that will inevitably take over the governance of Iran – sooner or later – participated in these extremely visible protests augurs well for the long term prospects of this powerful nation-state. But it also threatens the very survival of the incumbent Shiite fundamentalists who, like extremists all over the world, justify their intolerance, their haughty judgment of everyone else and their merciless brutality under the guise of implementing God’s will. Free and open communications – from mobile phones to Internet transmissions – are the mortal enemy of repression. Expect a running battle between the authorities and young technology-sophisticates over secret communications and the expression of ideas deemed threatening to this Islamic, or should I say Islamist, Republic.

But in the short term, expect extremely vicious crack-downs on those who participated in unauthorized street battles and protests. The June 27^th CBS.com: “In one of the harshest statements from authorities since protests broke out after the June 12 election, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking cleric, said ‘Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution.’ … Those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were ‘at war with God’ and should be ‘dealt with without mercy,’ he said [on June 26^th at Tehran University] in a nationally televised sermon.”

While the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, has stepped back from issuing such extreme views of his regime, the world is expecting a litany of quick trials of various dissenters – to create a powerful negative example for the rest of the population – kangaroo courts that, in a mockery of any semblance of justice, will implement tough sentences and perhaps even some executions to crush reformists’ hopes and dreams. But Khatami clearly speaks for the government. Ahmadinejad, basking in the glory of an election he could never have lost, is firmly in control; Iran's electoral authority (the Guardian Council) proclaimed the vote the “healthiest” held since the 1979 revolution that brought the current government to power.

Massive arrests, including family members of high-ranking politicians with known sympathy for the reformist movement, professors at several universities, have joined the street protesters who were snapped by authorities, undoubtedly suffering beatings and torture consistent with past repressive responses from this cruel government. Seventeen deaths and brutality from uniformed and irregular forces (the Basij forces who also lost 8 of their own) show the world the tenuous hold that the incumbent government has on the hearts and minds of masses of the Iranian populace.

CBS.com: “Amnesty International called the prospect of quick trials and capital punishment for some detainees ‘a very worrying development.’ It said Iran was the world's No. 2 executioner after China last year, with at least 346 known instances of people put to death. The group also called on the regime to release dozens of detained journalists it said faced possible torture.”

If military responses, targeting nuclear facilities, are in the cards as Iran escalates its development of that capability, undoubtedly, such strikes may also kill or injure people who are our ideological allies. This reality clearly complicates our strategic decisions even as the underlying message of hope – emanating from the protest movement itself – suggests an erosion of the corrupting violent repression of the Islamic Republic.

President Obama’s words (spoken at a June 26^th press conference which discussed many topics) say it all: “[The] bravery [of the Iranian protesters] in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice… The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government's efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.