مقاله بسیار جالبی در شماره اخیر نیوزویک در مورد ایران و انتخابات چاپ شده است. مختصری ازآن در اینجا ترجمه شده است. یکی از مشاوران خاتمی میگوید که هر بار خاتمی از موسوی خواست که وارد رقابت ها شود موسوی جواب رد قطعی میداد. خاتمی تصمیم گرفت که خود وارد شود. یک مقام رسمی اطلاعات ایران که خواست نامش فاش نشود گفت طبق یک نظرسنجی محرمانه در دسامبر ۲۰۰۸ خاتمی محبوب ترین فرد در ایران شناخته شده است. افراد نزدیک به خاتمی میکویند که وقتی موسوی اعلام کاندیداتوری کرد خاتمی شکه شد و گفت که فکر نمیکردم اینگونه به من خیانت شود. یکی از مشاوران خاتمی که خواست نامش فاش نشود گفت که خاتمی چند هفته قبل از اعلام کاندیداتور خود با خامنه ای دیدار کرد و خامنه ای دوستانه گفت که بهتر است وارد انتخابات نشود. ولی وقتی خاتمی تصمیم گرفت که وارد میدان رقابت شود حامنه ای ناراحت شد و به خاتمی پیغام خصوصی فرستاد که از تصمیمش منصرف شود. (خاتمی این را انکار میکند) همزمان نزدیکان خاتمی شایعه ترور خاتمی را شنیدند و روزنامه کیهان هم در یک سرمقاله ادعا کرد اطرافیان خاتمی قصد مرگ او را کرده اند. پیغام واضح بود و خاتمی قرار بود به نحوی حذف میشد.
Anyone but Ahmadinejad
The unlikely candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi
The candidate looked as if he wished he could be anywhere but where he was—among his most enthusiastic supporters. About 4,000 mostly young people had gathered in Tehran's Milad Hall for several hours, waiting to see and cheer their man: Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main reformist running in the upcoming Iranian presidential election
The crowd, overflowing with hope for freedom and a more open society, chanted, "Political prisoners should be released!" Then, "Death to the dictator!" And then, not quite as an afterthought, "Mousavi, we support you!" On a giant, pitiless video monitor above him, his face loomed large and wan. Mousavi hates to be photographed; he's said to be embarrassed by the size of his nose. But his cavernous nostrils looked insignificant compared with the chasm between what his supporters expect from him and what he can actually deliver.
Less than a month before balloting starts, all the polls give a healthy edge to the hardline incumbent. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows what working-class Iranians want, and in the run-up to the vote, he's been handing out heaps of cash saved up during the oil boom of 2007 and 2008. Still, Iranian pollsters and pundits have guessed wrong before. They counted Ahmadinejad out in the 2005 contest—until he won. Mousavi's team is hoping the unexpected will happen again. "The choice is now between democracy and an authoritarian government," said Mohammed Javad Mozafar, a historian in the crowd at Milad Hall. "If Ahmadinejad wins, that means the end of this reformist dream for a while. Many of these young people will be depressed and even leave the country. But if Mousavi wins, that means the citizens have won despite Ahmadinejad's deceitful policies and the support he receives from above." Although Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei doesn't stoop to publicly endorsing a candidate, few Iranians doubt that Ahmadinejad is his man.
But whose man is Mousavi? Even by the baffling standards of Iranian politics, he and his candidacy are a puzzle. His revolutionary zeal made him a leading figure in the Islamic Republic's early years. Trained as a painter and architect, he accomplished a protean feat after the fall of the shah in 1979, building a name for himself as both a committed leftist and a fiercely loyal follower of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He served as prime minister throughout most of the 1980s until he dropped out of politics in 1989, after Khomeini's death. Most supporters at this year's Milad Hall rally were too young to remember those times; the crowd's average age looked to be about 25. In fact, roughly 75 percent of Iranians are under 30. Mousavi is 68
In the two decades since he left public life, Mousavi has devoted himself mainly to his first love: abstract painting. At the start of this year's race the reformists' standard bearer was not Mousavi but Ahmadinejad's immediate predecessor, Mohammad Khatami. Before the former president declared his candidacy, he spoke repeatedly to Mousavi about joining the race. Calling him "one of the best politicians in Iran," Khatami told newsweek that he'd urged Mousavi to enter the contest. "Every time Khatami asked Mousavi if he wanted to run, the answer was a big 'no'," says a Khatami adviser, asking not to be named talking about the two men's relationship.
So Khatami hit the stump, touring Iran for more than a month. Cheering crowds greeted him as the man to defeat Ahmadinejad and the conservative establishment. An Iranian intelligence official, requesting anonymity because he's not authorized to talk to reporters, cites a confidential December 2008 survey that ranked Khatami's popularity higher than that of any other public figure in Iran. And several people close to Khatami say that he was shocked when Mousavi changed his mind. "When he heard Mousavi's announcement, Khatami became so furious," says a Khatami confidant. "He said, 'I didn't know I would be betrayed like this'."
The decision should have been no surprise to Khatami. He had met with the Supreme Leader a few weeks before announcing his candidacy. "In the meeting Mr. Khamenei told Mr. Khatami as a friend that it would be better if he didn't enter the race," says a Khatami adviser, asking not to be quoted by name on such a sensitive subject. When Khatami went ahead and announced he'd run anyway, the adviser says Khamenei became quite upset and sent a personal message to Khatami asking him to step down. (Khatami denies that the Supreme Leader made any such request.) At the same time, Khatami's team heard rumors that there were plans to assassinate him if his campaign continued. The hardline newspaper Kayhan heightened the paranoia with an editorial purporting to warn Khatami that people in his own camp might want him dead. "The message was obvious," says the Khatami adviser. "Khatami would be gotten rid of one way or another. He had no choice but to withdraw." Khatami insists he stepped down simply to avoid splitting the reformist vote.
