Abbas Milani's Blog
The Green Movement: Past and future
Abbas Milani
- The opposition Green Movement emerged spontaneously two years ago to challenge results of the disputed 2009 presidential election. What is the status of the movement today?
- What are the movement's demands two years later? Have they changed?
- Have the opposition's strategies or tactics changed since the house arrest of its two most vocal leaders--Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi--in February 2011?
- Is the Green Movement still viable or effective, given the arrests of top leaders and thousands of supporters? Is it realistic to think that either Karroubi or Mousavi, both presidential candidates in 2009, will be able to win prominent positions again soon. If not, who is likely to emerge to assume leadership of the largest political opposition?
- In May 2011, former President Mohammad Khatami called for a national dialogue on forgiveness. How were Khatami's words interpreted by the regime and the opposition? Will he or any mainstream politician be able to bridge the widening political gap?
- Given the conservative dominance of government, do reformers have any prospect of genuine choice in the March parliamentary election? And what does that election mean for Ahmadinjad's allies and future?
In the regime’s own words, part of the fight today is over the future elections, which Ahmadinejad’s team hoped to hijack. But the steady attacks on Ahmadinejad by forces loyal to Khamenei put into question whether the president will even still be in office by the next election. The Green Movement’s aura continues to haunt the regime, in spite of reports about its premature death.
Read Abbas Milani's chapter on the Green Movement in "The Iran Primer"
Abbas Milani, author of “The Myth of the Great Satan,” is director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, where he is also a co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at Hoover Institution.
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