Reading White House Tea Leaves on Iran Getting Difficult

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(Washington Note publisher Steve Clemons, Obama political guru David Axelrod, and Al Jazeera’s Mysa Khalaf) Yesterday evening, I chaired a dinner featuring Austan Goolsbee, the charismatic economic guru of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and a key adviser to the President in the White House.

MEDIA ALERT: Rachel Maddow Show on Basiji Hunting

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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.

Some Iran Updates

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~ 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.

Iran’s Fight is Over True Nationalism: Khamenei & Ahmadinejad Re-Radicalizing the Country

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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.