(The Pedestrian Blog) | March 10, 2010
The Pedestrian is an excellent blog providing insightful pieces on Iranian culture, politics and life.   Highly recommended by Iran News Now.
Emad Bahavar [1979] is a political activist, writer and the head of “Supporters of Khatami and Mousavi” in the 2009 presidential campaign. He was arrested shortly after the election, [...]

(TehranBureau) | February 20, 2010
by RASOOL NAFISI
This was first published by Tehran Bureau on July 6, 2009.
The momentous June presidential election in Iran and its bloody aftermath will probably be remembered as a turning point in the life of this strange republic. The true face of the state, so meticulously hidden beneath a confusing [...]

NOTE: This is a live-blog article in which updates are being made in real-time as information comes in. To read this in chronological order, read from the bottom up.

Sadness to me is the happiest time
When a shining city rises from the ruins of my drunken mind
Those times when I’m silent and still as the earth,
The thunder of my roar is heard across the universe.
Rumi

It has now been almost six months since those fateful days in June when the people of Iran shattered the [...]

This was reported by an inside source, September 21, 2009
Rafsanjani incorporated [into an agreed upon truce with Khamenei] reformist agendas such as re-establishment of Khatami’s standing and dignity, avoidance of further public attacks against him and other reformists, a return to mutual respect, and curbing of coup-like behavior of Sepah [IRGC]. In exchange, [the [...]

The following Q&A is between INN contributor MikVerbrugge (Mehrzad Vafa) and an insider source with which he is in communication. Following this Q&A is a brief analysis by an analyst that has been providing Iran News Now with insightful information ever since the rigged June 12 elections (preferring to remain anonymous).
Insider Opinion: Back to [...]

While the Green Movement can’t count on Rafsanjani to support them unconditionally (far from it in fact), the situation has some light at the end of the tunnel in that Rafsanjani is likely seething with anger at how Khamenei is handling things. His interests will be aligned with those of the Green Movement insofar as sharing the goal of neutering Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the IRGC, but they will likely diverge when this is accomplished. The people want freedom. Rafsanjani wants a comfortable life for Rafsanjani and family

Who is damaging the Islamic republic?

This question pits two increasingly irreconcilable camps against each other as the debate continues to heat up in Tehran.

To hard-liners, the answer is clear: it is the reformists, who are accused of plotting a “velvet coup.” To reformists, it is the hard-liners themselves, whose actions undermine the very system they seek to preserve.

As the Machiavellian plots continue to unfold in the power structures of Iran, one thing remains certain: the quiet that we are experiencing right now from the people does not mean that they have been silenced. Far from it, this is the quiet before the storm. The Green Movement is alive and well and in waiting for the next opportunity to put a stick in the eye of this regime.

On the surface, “order” has been enforced. But only on the surface. Inside Iran, public anger still burns, flaring up wherever opportunity presents. At the core of the Islamic regime, a struggle has been unleashed that — by stepping off his pedestal into the thick of the fray — the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has lost his once- undisputed power to bring under control. Far from subsiding, dissent is shaking the regime to its roots.