The Best Reading on Iran

What’s Happening Now

• Nico Pitney liveblogging on HuffPo
• A regular stream of useful stories in the Lede NYT blog [updated several times each hour]
• Twitter impact negligible from The Cable, and Daniel Drezner of Fletcher School grades the coverage;  A defense of Twitter, not for the news content but for the solidarity by Douglas Rushkoff
• Video from Iran speaks louder than words, via The Daily Beast.  (Maybe the revolution will be on tv?)
• Continual updates from Andrew Sullivan
• Various updates from Commentary magazine, mostly on the domestic (US) political scrum over what to do, who did what, etc.

In Context

Reading list for the more policy-inclined, from Foreign Affairs magazine.

“Ignore All the Experts” and a helpful essay on the reality of confusion and the fact that most experts are/will be wrong, according to Charles Kurzman, FP.com.

And, from an expert…human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, via The Lede, NYT:

In order to calm the situation, a few things must be done. First of all, all the people who have been arrested and detained must be freed immediately. All government violence must be ordered to be stopped and the government should stop dealing with the people in an aggressive manner. The election should be voided and new elections must be held. The new elections should be held under the supervision of international observers. The families of those injured and killed should be paid compensation.  When I asked if that was a realistic formula, she said, “The people are very angry and they are not going to relent this time…. I hope the government is clever enough to realize this.”

The election was stolen.  Discussion with Iran-watcher, writer, and CNN analyst, Reza Aslan.

Helfpul new discovery in the blog On Message, noting that the regime aims to calm things down in Tehran, but nationwide protests may prove too difficult for the government to resist.

Motivation for the street from “Tehran’s Eternal Youth“?:

But young Iranians now seem more likely to fight for their rights and die trying, rather than abandon their country and seek asylum abroad as so many of us have done over the last 30 years.

How the Ayatollah gained his power, and why he could lose it:

Still, lacking a political base of his own, he set about creating one in the military. It was the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and many senior officers returning from the front demanded a role in politics or the economy for their sacrifices. Ayatollah Khamenei became a source of patronage for them, giving them important posts in broadcasting or as leaders of the vast foundations that had confiscated much of the pre-revolution private sector.

“By empowering them, he got power,” said Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the wake of the election debacle, questions are being raised about who controls whom. But over the years, Ayatollah Khamenei gradually surmounted expectations that he would be eclipsed.

“He is a weak leader, who is extremely smart in allying himself, or in maneuvering between centers of power,” said one expert at New York University, declining to use his name because he travels to Iran frequently. “Because of the factionalism of the state, he seems to be the most powerful person.”

What Should the US Do?

• Bret Stephens shows no love to Obama’s ‘inconsistency’
• Kagan says Obama sides with the Regime
• Former Iranian Hostage says stay out of domestic affairs, this isn’t a revolution, on HuffPo
• Obama’s policy options from Iran advisors, via The Cable