Michael Slackman reports that Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karroubi - two key actors in the Iranian opposition movement - have accepted the results of the country's June 12 election:
The statements from Mr. Karroubi, a former presidential candidate and speaker of Parliament, and Mr. Khatami, a former president, follow the lead of Mir Hussein Moussavi, another opposition leader, who on New Yearâ??s Eve criticized the government but offered a prescription for solving the political crisis that for the first time did not include holding a new vote.
The letter, like Mr. Moussaviâ??s New Yearâ??s Eve statement, called on the government to end the political crisis by releasing political prisoners, opening the political process and battling extremism.
It's unclear what kind of impact this will really have on Iran's so-called Green Movement. One problem, as Patrick Clawson recently outlined, is that one of the binding grievances shared by protesters was the question of Ahmadinejad's legitimacy as Iranianian president. Now that the Green Movement's three figureheads have all ceded that key issue, where will the opposition turn? Will it splinter as a result, or evolve?
I think there's a case to be made for a viable, long-term Iranian reform movement without the likes of Khatami and Karroubi. These men are ultimately survivalists who have happily fed off the Islamic Republic as it presently exists, and the repeated pressures and threats they've very likely received from the police state probably played a role in their acquiescence.
But if Iranian reform is a ticking clock, then this surely gives the regime more minutes to work with. Without Mousavi, Khatami and Karroubi the Greens lack institutional credibility. Any future unrest or violence in the name of the Islamic revolution will henceforth be dismissed, as every relevant member of the old guard slowly drags their feet back to the Supreme Leader's tent.
(AP Photo)
