Mir-Hossein Moussavi (Roshan Norouzi/ZUMApress.com)

As the Obama administration and its allies prepare new economic sanctions for Iran, the Iranian dissidents of the Green Movement and their supporters abroad are expressing concern over what the sanctions will mean for a nascent political force that has the potential to transform the Islamic Republic. But some are beginning to think that sanctions specifically targeting the most hardline elements of the Iranian regime might be acceptable.

[Security1] Ever since the fraud-filled June 12 presidential election yielded the largest protests in 30 years from Iranians demanding widespread political reform, the Iranian regime has embarked on a campaign to discredit the Greens by portraying them as tools of nefarious western interests. The attack on the Greens’ nationalist credentials has come alongside mass detentions and brutality directed at them by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological vanguard of the Iranian military, and the pro-regime militia known as the Basij. Under those pressures, Green leaders like Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Kerroubi have staked out an even more nationalistic stance than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urging him to reject a deal offered by the Obama administration that would tamp down international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.

Similarly, both Moussavi and Kerroubi have denounced the prospect of new international sanctions. “I do not agree with any pressure on any government because, at the end of the day, the ordinary people will suffer,” Kerroubi said in October. Moussavi has circulated a statement portraying sanctions as ultimately benefiting a regime prone to demagoguery and hurting “the people who have already been agonized by this government.”

That sentiment has been echoed by some Green allies in the United States, who cringed over an exchange this spring between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) about placing “crippling sanctions” on Iran. “Economic sanctions, particularly ‘crippling’ or blanket economic sanctions, are counterproductive and will only hurt the regular Iranian citizens,” said Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “Sanctions such as the petroleum sanctions will surely help the government and Revolutionary Guards who are already so apt at smuggling and will transfer the burden to the average citizen while blaming the foreign powers for their hardship.”

On Dec. 15, the House passed a bill sponsored by Berman, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, granting President Obama new powers to place sanctions on petroleum products and other fuel imports to Iran. In a press conference after the bill passed, Berman derided “the notion that you are going to have effective sanctions that don’t impact on the Iranian people,” contending that it would be hard to devise a real sanctions package that did not have adverse economic effects on Iranian citizens.

Still, that’s exactly the distinction that some Green supporters in the Iranian exile community say lawmakers must draw if sanctions are to gain even reluctant Green support. Over the past several years, the IRGC has played an increasingly prominent role in Iranian civilian economic activity and especially in the nuclear program that has prompted the prospective sanctions. Ghaemi said he supports “very well-defined, targeted sanctions” aimed at “the government or Revolutionary Guards’ pocket book, not the people’s.”

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he perceived a shift in how Green supporters in and outside of Iran were discussing sanctions. While they once opposed any form of punitive measure against Iran, the post-June 12 anger at the regime and the IRGC has led some to view sanctions targeted against the IRGC more favorably, though that view is not universal.

“There’s a diversity of views, with some in favor and some opposed,” Sadjadpour said. “Post-June 12 was a real earthquake. Many friends who unequivocally opposed U.S. punitive measures in the past now believe [IRGC-focused sanctions] could be a necessary evil. But I don’t claim that’s necessarily a majority view, just that the view exists.”

An example of the heated debate within pro-Green communities in the United States came earlier this month in New York, when a student group expressing solidarity with the Greens held a forum featuring Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi and Akbar Batebi, a former Iranian student activist leader. According to an account of the forum posted on Iranian.com, Batebi contended that “we have to use sanctions against the coup government,” while Dabashi countered that “sanctions would be a precusor [sic] for military strikes on Iran, as they had been in Iraq.”

Sadjadpour noted that while some on the pro-Green side were starting to warm to sanctions, none accepted the prospect of a military strike on Iran. “Military action would would kill the opposition movement.”

In an unexpected move, last month the Iranian filmmaker and close Moussavi ally Mohsen Makmalbaf endorsed “sanctions to hurt the regime, but not the people” during an appearance at at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. Provocatively, Makmalbaf suggested that Green leaders only publicly opposed sanctions because they would be placing their lives in danger if they endorsed them. At his press conference on the 15th, Berman echoed the suggestion that Moussavi and Kerroubi’s opposition to sanctions was insincere. “There are a lot of different reasons why they might have said that,” he said.

To Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, attempts at reading Green leaders’ minds are exasperating. “The opposition has made it as clear as it possibly can make it: They’re not seeking sanctions,” Parsi said. “How many different ways do they have to say it before it sinks in?”

The Obama administration has yet to decide on a sanctions package, and accordingly has not secured international support for any specific sanctions. But the administration is looking at targeting the IRGC specifically — although a knowledgeable U.S. official said that unintended effects of sanctions on the Greens were a real concern. “It’s a fair critique,” the official told TWI last week.

Absent a diplomatic breakthrough, the sanctions package will likely be finalized early in the new year. However, circumstances could change before then; Iran’s foreign minister said this weekend that Iran might accept a modified version of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal.

“The demonstrations and the reaction of the government shows the aspirations of the Iranian people for fairness, human rights and democracy has not been crushed,” Trita Parsi, NIAC’s leader, told me after the panel. “It shows the opposition’s timeline is correct: this is not a hundred-meter sprint, but a marathon” to achieve Iranian democracy. “The western media may have lost interest, but the marathon continues.”

Similarly, one of NIAC’s kindred organizations, the International Committee for Human Rights in Iran, put out this statement:

Security forces and militia used brutal force to disperse thousands of protesters on the streets of Tehran and other cities today, resulting in a number of injuries and arrests, in violation of international standards regarding the proportionate use of force against peaceful demonstrations, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The protests occurred parallel to officially sanctioned demonstrations on the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the United States Embassy in 1979.

Protests also took place in other cities, including Shiraz, Rasht, and Tabriz. Many protesters were reportedly arrested in Tabriz after security forces attacked demonstrators using pepper spray and tear gas.

Eyewitnesses have told the Campaign that, despite an intense intimidation program aimed at stifling the demonstrations by SMS threats promising prosecutions for taking part, and the closure of metro stops to discourage gatherings, thousands of protesters appeared at Hafte-e-Tir Square, Kargar Shomali, and other locations, and were met by vast numbers of riot police backed up by quasi-official militiamen. The presence of huge numbers of security and anti-riot forces and brutal attacks were common in all reports by eyewitnesses.

Numerous demonstrators were arrested, including Ali Mashmouli, Vahideh Movahed and other prominent persons. According to a report by his son, security forces shot tear gas canisters directly at opposition politician Mehdi Karoubi, seriously injuring his bodyguard who was taken to a hospital. According to reports received by the Campaign, live ammunition was used in shots fired over the heads of demonstrators.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran expressed its deep concern about the continuing and excessive use of violence against peaceful demonstrators, and called for the immediate release of detainees.

In the document, titled “Cooperation for Peace, Justice and Progress,” Iran reiterated many of its previous ideas for talks while scaling back specific requests made in previous proposals [2] (PDF). Among other things, Tehran called for an end to hostilities and for talks on issues of specific concern to Iran, such as drug trafficking and security in the Middle East. Unlike previous Iranian proposals, this one does not contain a litany of past grievances with the United States and does not assert an Iranian commitment to advancing its nuclear efforts.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that “the offer is still being evaluated” by the United States and its allies. “I will say Iran’s proposals have, time and again, failed to live up to its international obligations.” Iran’s offer is in response to coordinated efforts by the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.

Read the document yourself. National Iranian American Council head Trita Parsi, an opponent of the Ahmadinejad/Khamanei regime, finds some (small) reasons for cautions optimism, according to Politico’s Laura Rozen:

Parsi also said the letter’s rejection of a curb on Iranian enrichment could be seen as Iran’s opening bid in talks, not the end point.

“They ruled out a compromise on the enrichment issue,” he said. “Who can be surprised. That is what they have been saying for two years. Just because they will not make a compromise on that issue, doesn’t mean there can’t be a compromise on the [nuclear] issue as a whole.”

An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult.

Guy might know what he’s talking about.

Well, OK, sure. But what good is that if the regime can withstand legitimacy-based challenges through the use of brute force? I asked Parsi if the opposition’s goal was still to overturn the election, given that its legal recourses are few, and if not, what a new goal might be. “The goal at this stage remains” a fair election result, he replied, since the “wiggle room is still extensive” for overturning the election. Contingencies could emerge, compelling an overturn of the results, such as “a large number of senior ayatollahs com[ing] out to criticize the legitimacy of the electoral results” or if the opposition could “get a majority of 86 people on the Assembly of Experts to come out, that can really threaten Khamenei and his institutions.”

Parsi further explained, in response to Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress, that the critical constituency would be conservative clerics who feel threatened by Ahmadinejad’s consolidation of power. In an irony from the perspective of the American debate about Iran — which conflates reformism with secularism — the clerics see Ahmadinejad “as a dangerous element, quite correctly, who tries to undermine the clergy as a whole.” That might compel some of them to resist Ahmadinejad, or to place pressure on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to find some compromise with the opposition.

But if a compromise can’t be found, then the opposition enters a new phase, having to face a choice between accepting Ahmadinejad and moving to a more radical position. “There are people loyal to the system, who don’t want to bring the system down but at the same time believe the system is quite imperfect [and wish to] ensure the system changes through peaceful means,” Parsi said. If they fail, “then we face a significantly more radical movement in Iran, with more bloodshed than we’ve seen.”

The important criterion for American policy right now has to be to reject Ahmadinejad’s attempts at portraying his victory as final. That means no negotiations, which is “creating some problems with the Obama administration, which is so very dedicated to the process of diplomacy,” Parsi said. While the administration has placed the onus for any diplomacy on Iran, if Iran calls the U.S.’s bluff and talks renew, it will send the message that the international community views the opposition’s efforts as futile.

I don’t really want to argue with this so much as I’d like to suggest broadening its focus. While we don’t know what exactly success would mean for the opposition, governing Iran, to some degree, is presumably part of the picture. And there the opposition would have to govern more than just the people who already support it. There are millions of Iranians who voted for Ahmadinejad. They’re not going anywhere. Same goes with the revolutionary generation. One of the biggest mistakes that revolutionaries make is failing to expand their constituent base once in power.  And there all I’d suggest is that it’s probably better not to say anything that could make the United States into an obstruction to the opposition’s attempts, once in power — and, yes, we’re a long way from there — to win over its opponents. There will already be enough internal problems for any successful opposition to contend with, as well as actual substantive disagreements with the United States and other countries, to add to the burden.

That said: Trita Parsi told me last week that the prudent course for anyone seeking solidarity with the Iranian opposition is to stay “two steps behind” the Iranians. It’s good advice. What it should mean, when followed rigorously, is that the American position changes as the Iranian opposition’s positions change. Jocelyn is happier with the administration’s later statements than its earlier ones. I take it from Trita’s op-ed the other day that he thinks it’s time for Obama to start condemning the regime as it continues its violent suppression of the opposition. We’ll hear from the president shortly, but all this should signal that the administration’s rhetoric has some room for maneuver.

Now, irony is when someone who helped broker the sale of American weapons to the Iranian government calls someone else “a leading apologist for the regime,” but if you read my colleague David Weigel’s piece today about conservative advice for Obama on Iran, you noticed that Michael Ledeen said exactly that about Parsi. Dismissing Parsi’s argument that external rhetorical support for the opposition could be used against it by Ahmadinejad, Ledeen told Weigel, “Why would a statement supporting the freedom of the Iranian people undermine the movement?”

Parsi said he wouldn’t reply to personal attacks. But he said, “no serious human rights actvist has gone out and supported making the U.S. the issue in the election,” since real human rights activists support “condemning the use of violence” by the regime. “What these conservatives are saying — they’ve got no track record of supporting real human rights in Iran, and are only seeking to advance their own agenda” by making “the U.S. part of the issue,” Parsi said. “They pretend to speak in favor of the protesters without ever considering what the Iranian people want. And the people who brought us the Iraq war don’t have a leg to stand on on this issue.”

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