Iran’s Great Debate

Iran’s Great Debate

Over at Vote For Iran, Trita Parsi writes how the U.S. House of Representatives may inadvertantly be helping Ahmadinejad win the election due to some of the language in H.R.1327. Though the White House has pressed for the bill to be tabled until after the election, Parsi worries that the damage may already be done.


 


Al Jazeera has put together a video on the role of new media in Iran’s current presidential election (and featuring a few tidbits of the controversial debates between the candidates–a treat for non-Persian speakers).


 


Meanwhile, Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau has an in-depth, line-by-line examination of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s open letter to Supreme Leader Khamenei. The letter is notable as part of the open debate that has emerged between President Ahmadinejad and former president Rafasanjani, who is not running in this election.


 


Finally, Gary Sick writes that by criticizing many of the fathers of the Iranian Revolution–a group that includes not just Rafsanjani but Ayatollah Khamenei as well–Ahmadinejad may be instigating a “Wizard of Oz moment” for the Islamic Republic. By creating situation in which Khamenei may be forced to intervene, Ahmadinejad may reveal him to the Iranian public “as quite an ordinary man whose powers are anything but magical and who has no answers to the tumultuous uncertainties generated by an election that is assuming historic importance.”


 


The Source