CSM: After Sunday clashes in Iran, 'Green Movement' supporters take stock

The Christian Science Monitor today carries a dispatch by its correspondent Isaon Athanansiadis on the road ahead for supporters of the Green movement after Ashura. Athanansiadis quotes this blogger on the organization and the participants of the recent demonstrations in the country.

“The student organizations at major universities are still the most organised fora, but the youths have found other organizations that appear to be non-political, such as associations of painters and calligraphers, where the news of planned actions and slogans are passed along,” said Nader Uskowi, a Washington-based Iran analyst who works for the US government among other clients. “The students and the youths are still the engine of the movement but it is rapidly spreading to other segments including parents who are actively supporting their children."

Is Iran on the verge of a popular explosion?

Iranians follow a truck transporting the coffin of dissident cleric

Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri. Qum. 21 December 2009

Global Post. Reuters Photo

GlobalPost carries a dispatch by Iason Athanasiadis on widening of the scope of protests across Iran in recent days. Athanasiadis examines the importance of the spread of the movement to smaller cities and quotes this blogger on government’s failure to contain the Greens.

“The government chose to wage a campaign of attrition as opposed to an all-out attack on the Greens,” said Uskowi. “It hoped the youths would lose their focus but in reality it was the government forces that lost their vigor."

Iran’s hardliners face off over cabinet – The Christian Science Monitor

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (r.) and Esfandiar Mashaie
Tehran. 22 July 2009. Photo by Reuters’ Yalda Moaiery.

Printed on 26 July 2009 edition of CSM

In a column on Sunday 26 July 2009 edition of The Christian Science Monitor, Iason Athanasiadis examines the growing tensions among Iran’s hardliners. President Ahmadinejad fired his intelligence minister on Sunday after being forced to take back the nomination of Eskandar Mashaie, a close advisor, as his first VP. Athanasiadis also quotes this blogger on the balance of fear between the government and the opposition.

"A delicate and prolonged period of balance of fear has started between the government and the opposition," says Nader Uskowi, a Washington-based Iran analyst and president of Uskowi Associates. "After enduring a month of relentless attack by government forces, the opposition reaffirmed its strength, but the government will hang onto power with support from the armed forces and a segment of the more traditional and rural population" [CSM, 26 July].

Don’t Write Off Reformists – Iason Athanasiadis on Rafsanjani’s Sermon

Iason Athanasiadis, the internationally renowned journalist recently released from Tehran’s Evin prison, writes on Rafsanjani’s main message of the sermon delivered at Friday’s Prayer: Don’t write off reformists.

“Intermittent clashes between police and protesters persisted in Tehran tonight after an emotional Friday sermon by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's most powerful political opponent, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, that has prolonged Iran's political crisis,” writes Athanasiadis in today’s edition of Christian Science Monitor [CSM, 18 July].

Iason Athanasiadis quotes this blogger on the emerging balance of power between the opposition and the government.

"The opposition reaffirmed its strength after enduring a month of relentless attack by government forces, but the government will hang on to power with support from the armed forces and a segment of the more traditional and rural population," writes Nader Uskowi, a Washington-based Iran analyst and president of Uskowi Associates in an e-mail. "Ahmadinejad in his second term will pretend to be the president of all Iranians, and the opposition will assert that they are the future of the country. The future of Iran hangs in the balance."