Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy I appeared on Rachel Maddow’s NBC show tonight discussing my recent blog post, “The Four Iran Scenarios and ‘Basiji Hunting.
Significant differences of opinion today – but a civil discussion nonetheless at this New America Foundation/American Strategy Program forum on the Iran Elections.
I will be appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show tonight about 9:15 pm EST discussing with Rachel some of the things that protesters in Iran are doing to put the feared and violent basij security forces on edge and how some groups are organizing a capacity of domestic insurgency inside Iran.
The New Yorker‘s Laura Secor has a richly detailed account of some complicated history that runs between Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Ali Khamenei.
An anonymous student in Tehran who has been writing and speaking in the media under the name, “Shane M.” has just sent in some more dispatches.
~ Mir Hossein Mousavi calls on his followers to not allow the government to steal the election and calls for more action. Juan Cole has posted a translation of Mousavi’s letter. ~ Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has condemned the attacks on civilians and called for three days of mourning for them. ~ Arrests continue.
All students of revolutionary change should read Chalmers Johnson’s epic work, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power. The book is about so much more than China. It provides one of the best templates ever written to understand that most revolutionary conflict in the modern age is rooted in competing frames of nationalism.
EyeRanProtestr is an example of a Twitter identity that is clearly being used by a pro-Khamenei/Ahmadinejad deployer of misinformation. It’s a remarkable line-up of statements, including the so-far false claim that Mousavi was arrested and that hooligan students are doing all the killing.
(cartoon credit: Jonathan Guyer of The Washington Note) A short while ago, a space-obsessed friend sent me a CNN clip about what it would be like to fall into a black hole, in case I wanted to break up my Iran coverage with something else.
A few years ago, I met then chief Iran nuclear negotiator and now Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani at the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai.
