Is the Iranian regime Sistani-able?

Those who doubt the force or staying power of Iran's Green movement often characterize the movement as essentially leaderless and unfocused in its goals. It's true that putative leaders Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami are presently focusing on reform platforms; they condemn violence and assert that they want to work within the Constitution of the Islamic Republic.  As the regime and hardline establishment figures repeatedly retreat into recalcitrance, arresting and terrorizing demonstrators, intimidating the reformist leaders, calling for executions of demonstrators and sometimes death sentences for the leaders, it's hard to imagine the old establishment reformists finding a path toward meaningful compromise with a regime that has (as they sometimes themselves assert) has lost legitimacy. And it's true that there is no high profile leader calling for a full-scale regime change - which would be impossible from within the country.

At World Politics Review, Masoud Shafaee suggests a possible source of galvanizing leadership for those seeking change in Iran.  In an article tracing divisions between Iranian clerics, including recent assaults on close Montezari associate and presumptive spiritual heir Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, Shafaee speculates:

Yet ironically, the regime may face its greatest threat not from within, but from outside the country. Ever since June's contested election, observers have been keeping a close watch on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who hails from Iran but resides in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq), considered the highest living authority in all of Shiite Islam. Sistani comes from the "quietist" tradition of Shiite theology, one that, unlike the Islamic Republic's ruling doctrine of velayat-eh faqih, holds that clerics should abstain from becoming directly involved in politics. So far, he has refrained from condemning the regime's actions. But his clout is so strong in the Shiite world that, were this to change, the Islamic Republic would arguably no longer face just a political crisis within Iran, but also a crisis of religious confidence among all Shiites.

For now, the influential cleric has shown no signs of weighing in on the unrest. As Ashura came and went, Sistani issued a statement only inviting followers to attend memorial services for the "martyrs" who died in recent terrorist attacks in Karbala and Kazemein, Iraq. Yet there is little doubt that Sistani is watching events unfold in his native land. In November, he met with Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, and more recently, he defended Sanei in the aftermath of Yazdi's attack.

Exhorting the Iranian people, denouncing the regime

An opposition leader finds "proof of life" in the Iranian people's protest:

As we are gathered here, according to the information reaching us, all the major cities of Iran are closed down: Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad, Qum...

The people have identified the true criminal. It was obvious before, it is true, but some people didn't recognize him as such or didn't dare speak out. Thanks be to God, this barrier of fear has collapsed and the people have discovered the true criminal and come to understand who is responsible for the misery of our nation.

The center for religious learning in Qum has proven its vitality; the people of Qum and the respected students of the religious sciences have fought the government...with their bare hands, with a courage rarely equalled in history, and yielded their martyrs. When the agents of the regime spilled into the streets and alleyways of Qum and attacked the people--according to the reports we have received--the people resisted them to the utmost degree possible, both before and after the massacre, thus proving how alive they are. They proved that they were alive, not dead!

- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
  "In Commemoration of the First Martyrs of the Revolution"
   February 19, 1978

Hopeful developments in Iran

As Khamenei and Ahmadinejad continue to arrest and torture protesters and ramp up threats against Mousavi, Karroubi and their supporters, two more hopeful signs arise of resistance within Iran's ruling elite:

1) A group of top-tier religious leaders has ramped up its opposition to the official election results and the crackdown, the NYT reports:

The most 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 — if not impossible...

The clerics’ statement chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the use of force in crushing huge public protests.

It even directly criticized the Guardian Council, the powerful group of clerics charged with certifying elections.

“Is it possible to consider the results of the election as legitimate by merely the validation of the Guardian Council?” the association said.

Perhaps more threatening to the supreme leader, the committee called on other clerics to join the fight against the government’s refusal to adequately reconsider the charges of voter fraud. The committee invoked powerful imagery, comparing the 20 protesters killed during demonstrations with the martyrs who died in the early days of the revolution and the war with Iraq, asking other clerics to save what it called “the dignity that was earned with the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs.”

2) Rafsanji, still cryptic, appears to point toward some solution other than acquiescence to the official election results. CNN:

"People from across the country participated in the elections, with excitement," ILNA quoted Rafsanjani as saying in Saturday's story. "But unfortunately the events that occurred after that and the difficulties created for some left a bitter taste, and I don't think that any wakened consciousness would be satisfied with the resulting situation."

He referred to the recent expressions of opinions across the country regarding the election crisis as a reflection of a power struggle "at the highest levels of the system."

"I hope that with proper management and fortitude, in the next few days, we can be witnesses to the betterment of the situation, resolution of the difficulties and the decrease in the number of the families waiting for their loved ones," Rafsanjani said. "We must think about safeguarding the long term interests and benefits of the system."

Everything Rafsanjani has said publicly since the election can be read two ways, e.g., his call on Mousavi et al to work through legal channels (June 27) and his dubbing the election aftermath “a tangled mess, perpetrated by suspicious sources whose objectives are to create differences and separations between the people and the system and eroding the trust of the people in the Islamic system" (June 29).

Did Rafsanjani cave?

It's been generally assumed that the "special commission" of Iran's Khameini-controlled Guardian Council charged with investigating the vote will merely rubber-stamp the official results.

Now, according to the Iranian government-controlled Press TV, the Rafsanjani-led Expediency Council is calling on Mousavi and Karroubi to "resolve disputes through legal channels" -- that is, through the special commission, which would mean presenting their cases by Sunday. For what it's worth, the Expediency Council statement also promises a genuine investigation into the vote:

The body, led by the influential cleric and former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, asked the candidates, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei, to fully cooperate with the Guardian Council -- tasked with supervising the elections.

The statement called on the candidates to “use this appropriate opportunity to submit their documents and evidence for a comprehensive and precise investigation”...

The Expediency Council also called on the election watchdog to precisely follow the complaints, respond to suspicions, and to use an appropriate team of experts with the aim of building the necessary confidence in the society, ISNA reported.

From the beginning of the post-election struggle, there's been widespread rumors -- often tagged as wishful thinking on dissidents' part -- that Rafsanjani has been working through the Assembly of Experts the Expediency Council, both of which he chairs, to mount some kind of challenge to the official election results. Does this report indicate that he's given in? Is this statement not his doing? Or is there still some glimmer of a possibility that he's laid the grounds for an investigation result other than ratification?