Blake Hounshell's blog

First came word that the United States would be sending an ambassador back to Damascus, and now this:

Syria's leader sent a July 4 message full of praise to President Barack Obama on Friday and invited him to visit Syria -- the latest signs Damascus is hedging its bets in Mideast politics, warming up to its rival the United States at a time when its longtime ally Iran is in turmoil. [...]

Assad sent a telegram to Obama on the occasion of the July 4 Independence Day holiday, saying, "The values that were adopted by President Obama during his election campaign and after he was elected president are values that the world needs today."

"It is very important to adopt the principle of dialogue in relations with countries based on respect and mutual interest," Assad said in the telegram, which was carried by state-run news agency SANA.

In an interview with Britain's Sky News, Assad invited Obama to visit Damascus to discuss Mideast peace.

''We would like to welcome him in Syria, definitely. I am very clear about this,'' Assad said in English. Asked whether such a visit could take place soon, Assad said: ''That depends on him.''

He added with a smile, ''I will ask you to convey the invitation to him.'' 

I'll be interested to see if Obama takes up Assad's offer. No U.S. president has been to Syria since 1994, when Bill Clinton visited Damascus.

Historically, the Assads have sometimes seemed queasy about their alliance with the Iranian regime. So, it's not too surprising that, with Tehran in political turmoil and lashing out at foreigners, Syria is lining up a potential Plan B.

An interesting report on EurasiaNet.org, written without a byline, alleges that former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is making headway in his attempt to mount a clerical challenge to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:

A source familiar with the thinking of decision-makers in state agencies that have strong ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there is a sense among hardliners that a shoe is about to drop. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- Iran’s savviest political operator and an arch-enemy of Ayatollah Khamenei’s -- has kept out of the public spotlight since the rigged June 12 presidential election triggered the political crisis. The widespread belief is that Rafsanjani has been in the holy city of Qom, working to assemble a religious and political coalition to topple the supreme leader and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"There is great apprehension among people in the supreme leader’s [camp] about what Rafsanjani may pull," said a source in Tehran who is familiar with hardliner thinking. "They [the supreme leader and his supporters] are much more concerned about Rafsanjani than the mass movement on the streets." [...]

A reformist website, Rooyeh, reported that Rafsanjani already had the support of nearly a majority of the Assembly of Experts, a body that constitutionally has the power to remove Ayatollah Khamenei. The report also indicated that Rafsanjani’s lobbying efforts were continuing to bring more clerics over to his side. Rafsanjani’s aim, the website added, is the establishment of a leadership council, comprising of three or more top religious leaders, to replace the institution of supreme leader. Shortly after it posted the report on Rafsanjani’s efforts to establish a new collective leadership, government officials pulled the plug on Rooyeh.

The article, if the sourcing is solid, builds on analysis by FP contributor Geneive Abdo, who writes:

Given the tools at Khamenei's disposal, it should be no surprise that during this past week there have been few clerics either permitted or bold enough to express their views on the present crisis. Nevertheless, some are likely working behind the scenes against Ahmadinejad. Clerics such as [dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali] Montazeri oppose the president not only for his repressive policies used against the Iranian people, but because he believes in ideas that theologians view as heretical -- such as the return of the hidden imam who will come to Earth after a world war in which Islam is victorious.

We'll have to see what happens on the street tomorrow and over the next few days, but I would be very surprised if Rafsanjani does pull the trigger at this point. The protests have died down, especially outside Tehran, and the organizers are being rounded up. As Steve Walt says, the security forces show little to no sign of breaking with the regime. Even Mohsen Rezai, one of the losing candidates and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, is reportedly withdrawing his complaints about fraud. And keep in mind that most Iranians aren't getting their news from the Internet and Twitter -- they're watching state television that is doing its best to discredit Mousavi and his supporters. And there are signs that the regime is laying the groundwork now for Mousavi's arrest.

So it strikes me as highly unlikely that Rafsanjani would make his move now, with all the momentum seemingly with the regime. He's nothing if not a canny political operator. Moreover, it's worth pointing out that plenty of clerics have opposed the concept of a supreme leader and velayat-e-faqih for a long time now, with little discernable consequence for Khamenei.

One interesting historical footnote. During the Iran-Iraq war, Mousavi and Montazeri were considered among the hardest of the hardliners, and Rafsanjani and Khamenei were considered pragmatists and allies. Now, Mousavi, Montazeri, and Rafsanjani are all seemingly on one side, with Khamenei on the other. But at least for the time being, it seems the supreme leader has the upper hand.

Our apologies to all those inconvenienced by today's site outages on ForeignPolicy.com. Our mini-launch is proving to be a bit more complex than we anticipated. Hopefully, we've stabilized the situation for the time being, but we expect problems to continue intermittently as we diagnose the problem. Thanks for your continued patience.

From the scattered, fragmented reports coming out of Tehran today, it seems the Iranian regime was successfully able to prevent demonstrators from assembling en masse. Riot police, like the ones shown above (who may also be Rrevolutionary Guards in riot gear) beat back or tear-gassed the protestors in the streets. In some cases, like that of this woman shown here (warning: graphic), demonstrators were shot in cold blood. It looked a lot like chaos.

U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement calling on the Iranian government to "stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people."

"Martin Luther King once said," he continued, "'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

It's hard to tell who has the upper hand, but it seems like there are still plenty of people willing to beat, maim, even kill their fellow Iranians. That's bad news for the good guys. Roger Cohen, the New York Times columnist who's in Tehran, tells of a police commander who pleaded with demonstrators to go home because, "I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people." From what I can glean from Twitter and various reporting, the regular police aren't quite as eager to beat heads, in contrast with the hard-line Revolutionary Guard and basij militiamen. If we start seeing cracks in those forces, or the regular army, then the regime will really be in trouble. But it will take sustained pressure -- more demonstrations, strikes, and smart politics -- to get there.

As for Mir Hossain Mousavi, the unlikely leader of this uprising, he has reportedly declared his readiness to become a martyr and sent a letter to the Guardian Council demanding a new election. In it, he sounds reluctant to admit that he's past the point of achieving redress through the system. All he seeks, he says, is the restoration of the Islamic Republic -- not its destruction. That makes sense for political reasons, since he needs as broad a coalition as possible and can't afford to alienate potential conservative supporters. He's still hoping to attract the support of the clergy, who could lend his movement enormous weight.

But the clear implication of Mousavi's actions is that he no longer sees the supreme leader as the legitimate, unquestioned ruler of Iran. I'm sure an increasing number of Iranians feel the same way, even if the regime ultimately beats them into submission as we watch helplessly, glued to our monitors. And that will spell the end of the Islamic Republic in the long run.

AFP/Getty Images

Carnegie Endowment Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour sends along an update to his Q&A with CFR:

Q. In light of Khamenei's firm speech Friday indicating he was not going to support a new election, what do you think will happen? Do you think the opposition will have to retreat?

First, it was expected that Khamenei's first response would be very firm, that's his modus operandi as a despot: Never compromise in the face of pressure, it only projects weakness and invites more pressure.

Khamenei is [a] shrewder politician than Ahmadinjedad. Whereas Ahmadinejad has a penchant for alienating even hardliners, Khamenei reached out and for now seemingly co-opted some of those that seemed to be previously be sitting on the fence, namely Speaker of the [P]arliament Ali Larijani and Mohsen Rezai, both of whom are tremendous opportunists.

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.