The real struggle in Iran is not happening in the street, backed by foreign powers, but within the core of the Iranian establishment, writes Mustafa El-Labbad While the world has been following the dramatic developments taking place in Iran, Arab public opinion is divided between support for the demonstrations as the legitimate right of all peoples, and rejection of them as a product of the West and a tool for bringing down the Iranian regime. The Tehran demonstrations in protest of the election results have entered their third week and created a new reality that must be intellectually and philosophically engaged with. The question is whether Tehran's streets are witnessing a Western conspiracy to overturn Iran's regime, or whether they are an expression of pure popular will in which the West has no part. Political analysis differs from criminal investigations in that it does not deal with material evidence but rather indicators and context. It seems that the best answer to the question posed above is a blend of the two -- the demonstrations represent the will of a part of the Iranian people that some Western circles are exploiting to meet goals they have failed to reach through political and economic pressure on Iran. The evidence for this is the fact that international reactions to the demonstrations have gradually changed, being initially diffident and then growing in correlation to the demonstrators' persistence and strong will before the police and security arms. It is clear that the outside world is not creating events in Iran but rather running after them, just the opposite to other Middle Eastern states. Yet this does not rule out the possibility that some parties siding with the demonstrations are in fact being driven by outside forces. To begin with, there is nothing new in opinions varying on political phenomena; it is natural and logical that there be a plurality of views and for each party to seek to secure its own perspective. What is new and unfortunate is for political analysis in the Middle East to move to the level of a global war the world is waging against the Iranian president, as his supporters in Iran and the Arab media are describing it. The peaceful demonstrations of unarmed protesters have turned into a global war against Iran, and according to the logic of this global war, the supporters of candidate Mir-Hussein Mousavi have turned into foreign agents and Iran's reformist figures such as Mohamed Reza Khatami, Mohsen Mir Damadi, Mohsen Armin, Abbas Abadi and Said Hejarian have been turned into talons for the major forces. With all due respect, Ahmadinejad's vocal supporters sum up Iran and its unique culture in the president's persona, and in doing so, they come very close to classic models of dictatorship and its political values from the Middle East -- one opinion, one voice, one group. Although Iran has been distinctive in its political pluralism that has granted a relative vitality to its political system, Ahmadinejad's vocal supporters are using their voices and fists to push Iran into a corner that is much smaller than its actual historical and cultural size, simply because that serves their personal interests. Examination of the conflict in Iran shows that those in opposition to Ahmadinejad include historical figures from the Iranian Revolution such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, and this fact negates the "global war" theory and supports the idea of it being a domestic struggle. Rafsanjani is a pivotal regime figure -- he is the chairman of the Assembly of Experts that is elected (and dismissed) by the supreme guide, as well as chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council that settles legislative disputes between upper government institutions. With the exception of the position of supreme guide, he has also held all the Islamic Republic's top posts from speaker of parliament to president. Rafsanjani further has alliances throughout the Iranian state apparatus, and as such forms personality number two in Iran following the supreme guide with whom he shared rule of the country from 1989 -- the year Khomeini died -- to 1997, until 2005 when Ahmadinejad was elected over him. Since that time their paths have diverged but never completely broken off from one another. Iran's experts concur that Rafsanjani is number two in the country; they differ only over the space separating him from Ali Khamenei. The mobilisations in Iran are taking place on two levels: demonstrations on the streets and before the cameras, on the one hand, and on the other Rafsanjani's mobilisations within the state's upper echelons and behind the scenes to build an alliance in opposition to Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani is formidable as he defends his political presence in Iran, his battling fierce, but he's not only competing with Ahmadinejad politically now that the dispute has grown considerably. Rafsanjani is just as dangerous for Ahmadinejad as the demonstrators are, and possibly more so. His declaring obedience to the supreme guide is a purely tactical move that does not necessarily mean submitting to Ahmadinejad. In contrast, former president Mohamed Khatami has a different status -- he supports Mousavi and reform but does not have a presence in the state apparatuses like Rafsanjani, and his popularity abroad is stronger than it is domestically. Khatami has become infamous in Iran for not being able to take action or to confront adversaries. If Mousavi had won the elections, Khatami might have become an advisor to him, but given the current crisis, other, more important roles may open up to Khatami in the future, and he might at some stage become a mid-way solution between the conflicting currents. Stabilisation of matters in Ahmadinejad's interest would mean a decline in Khatami's presence and luck in Iranian politics. Mousavi has been created by the historical context of these demonstrations. His age, at 67 years, creates a generation gap between him and the young demonstrators, and his positions prior to being nominated for the elections and his 20-year distance from politics are all factors that largely drain him of charisma and influence. Yet with time Mousavi has proven that he's grown with this historical context. He hasn't bowed to the election results or to the oppression of the demonstrations, as was expected, but rather has remained a street-level opponent using phrases that strike deep in the Iranian psyche such as "I've made my ablutions in preparation for martyrdom". And yet it appears that the continuous block of street demonstrations is formed of separate groups connected by a single thread -- opposition to the policies of the Iranian president either with reference to the economy, demands for greater freedoms, a desire for a greater opening up to the outside world, or even opposition to the entire Iranian regime and not just President Ahmadinejad. All of these groups are probably more radical than Mousavi himself and are not tied to the interests of the Iranian Islamic Republic like Mousavi is. As a result, the steps they take may not be as studied as his are. The conflict in Tehran's upper state echelons led by Rafsanjani against Ahmadinejad will be decisive in determining Iran's near future and more so than the street demonstrations that seem to have now ceased. In the end, the answer to our initial question seems to be as follows: those blaming Iran's dictatorship should first look in the mirror, and those accusing the demonstrators of being foreign agents are simply avoiding the toils of analysis.
