Iran’s Tragic Joke - Roger Cohen

By ROGER COHEN

Published: July 20, 2009

NEW YORK — Allow me to quote the British novelist Martin Amis, writing about Persia in The Guardian: “Iran is one of the most venerable civilizations on earth: it makes China look like an adolescent, and America look like a stripling.”

Iranians, aware of that history, are a proud people. They do not take kindly to being played around with, nor to seeing their country turned into a laughingstock. They do not like the memory of an election campaign that now seems like pure theater, the expression of the sadistic whim of some puppeteer.

So the line I take away from the important Friday sermon of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the two-time former president who believes that the Islamic Republic’s future lies in compromise rather than endless confrontation, is this one: “We shouldn’t let our enemies laugh at us because we’ve imprisoned our own people.”

There’s been tragedy aplenty since June 12 — dozens of killings, thousands of arrests, countless beatings of the innocent — and I hope I belittle none of it when I say there’s also been something laughable.

The rest of this commentary is available here:

Todays

Friday is an Important Day in Iran

According to Nico Pitney of Huffington Post Rafsanjani will be delivering the Friday prayer in Tehran. Rafsanjani is one of the 4 leaders who normally rotate the prayer responsibilities. However, he has declined his normal slot after the disputed election. He is also backed Mousavi in the election and is purported to be at odds with Ahmadinejad . He is also Presidinet of the Council of Experts who have the authority to chastise or, even, fire Supreme Leader Khameini.

What Rafsanjani has to say will be a very strong indicator of where Iran is headed in the near future. Additionally, it will be very difficult for the government forces to crack down on the right of citizens to attend Friday prayers.

From Niko Pitney,

3:52 PM ET -- Mousavi confirms his attendance at Friday's prayers in a new statement. This will be his first public appearance at a state-sanctioned event in weeks. I'm going to be staying up late and covering it live on Friday morning, fyi.

Update: Here's the AP report:

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed not to let the blood of protesters killed in postelection crackdown go in vain as he met with the family of a young man shot to death during the turmoil, reformist Web site reported Wednesday.

Mousavi, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that he will attend Tehran's main Friday prayer services this week for the first time, a key symbolic assertion of the opposition's presence after the crackdown.

The sermon Friday is due to be delivered by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric in Iran's leadership who has not performed the sermon since the turmoil erupted following the disputed June 12 presidential election. Rafsanjani is a top rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is believed to be a strong behind-the-scenes backer of Mousavi.

"I'll join you (for prayers) on Friday July 17," Mousavi said, according to his Web site ghalamnews.ir.

The main Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University is a significant political platform that hard-line clerics have used in recent weeks to demand a halt to postelection protests and spread the message that that turmoil was fueled by foreign enemies. Rafsanjani's sermon could give the first opposition voice in the sermon.

The pro-Mousavi Web site mowjcamp.com said reformist leaders will hold street protests after attending the Friday prayers.

More of Niko Pitney is available here