Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Two more bits of bleg that surfaced this morning:

First, a typically overwordy piece of analysis by Stratfor sees signs of weakening in Al Qaeda. A video offered by as-Sabab, AQ’s media outlet arm, on March 7th is the usual treat for counterterrorism cryptologists, and does appear to signal a weakening of central AQ’s efforts to cause havok – advocating, as it does, individual and “lone wolf” activity rather than a reliance on big, centrally-planned schemes.

It has come a long way from the early days of as Sahab, when bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders issued defiant threats of launching a follow-on attack against the United States that was going to be even more destructive than 9/11. The group is now asking individual Muslims to conduct lone-wolf terrorist attacks and to follow the examples of Hasan [the soldier who perpetrated a massacre at Fort Worth in Texas] and Mir Amal Kansi, the Pakistani citizen who conducted a shooting at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in January 1993 that killed two CIA employees [...] this video is a clear indication that the trend toward decentralization is continuing.

While lone-wolf terrorists remain a threat, research – covered previously in this blog – suggests that, without a sense of cohesive community, the terrorist spirit may find fewer and less fruitful purchases.

Secondly, Ayatollah Akhbar Rafsanjani, the massively influential, famously mercurial and ruggedly individual Iranian cleric and politician, has finally pinned his colours to the mast, throwing his weight behind Khamenei and the government at the expense of the Green Movement. At this stage he had little choice – the Green Movement has more or less run out of steam and no longer possesses the will or capability to project its power onto the streets. But it is not a cause for untrammelled pessimism for Iran:

Rafsanjani has much in common with mainstream conservatives who have long supported Khamenei, but he will never align himself with the new generation of influential hard-liners, led by Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

[...]

In exchange for Rafsanjani’s loyalty, the supreme leader appears to have given him power over a new bill that will establish a National Elections Commission to reform the electoral process. Not only is this issue at the heart of Iran’s political crisis, but the commission would also determine the eligibility of individuals to stand as candidates in elections. And the Expediency Council, which monitors legislation and is responsible for any conflicts that might result over Iranian laws, will also decide the members who serve on the National Elections Commission.

That’s a huge change, and wrests a significant amount of power away from the hard-liners and the Guardian Council. Instead of being a defeat, Rafsanjani’s decision to throw his lot in with the Supreme Leader can be seen as a pragmatic compromise, which has a good chance of bearing greater fruit than the spent reform movement – whose capacity to persist as a political actor he has, effectively, killed.