Good stuff from Tehran Bureau:

The importance of the emerging fissures in the ranks of the clerics is not that the leftist clerics are supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi in his confrontation with the hard-liners, but that the fissures are developing even among the ranks of the conservative ayatollahs and influential clerics who were usually supportive of Ayatollah Khamenei — or at least silent in order to present a seemingly united front against the leftist faction, as well as the reformist and democratic groups.

The clerics in Qom and Mashhad recognize that there is much more at stake than a disputed election. They see an existential threat to the entire Islamic Republic as they mull their decision whether to support the official result, protest it or continue to remain silent.

Although street protests seem to be tapering out (albeit not completely; there are still upwards of 3,000 people gathering in Tehran), the foundations of the Islamic Republic have apparently suffered existential damage. How long it takes to ultimately crumble is unknown — I suspect anywhere from 6 months to 10 years — but the inevitability of it has become clear.

My favourite reaction so far has to be Jeffrey Goldberg’s:

An African-American President with Muslim roots stands before the Muslim world and defends the right of Jews to a nation of their own in their ancestral homeland, and then denounces in vociferous terms the evil of Holocaust denial, and right-wing Israelis go forth and complain that the President is unsympathetic to the housing needs of settlers. Incredible, just incredible.

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Matt Yglesias flags this story in the LA Times:

With campaigns for the June 12 presidential election in full swing, none of the three challengers have shied away from publicly criticizing Ahmadinejad on topics long considered off-limits for debate in Iran, such as his stance on the country’s nuclear program and his vitriol for Israel. Reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi accused the president of so sullying the nation that Iranian passports are now on par with those of Somalia, the African state that has become a hub of poverty, piracy and terrorism.

…

Mehdi Karroubi, another liberal challenger, took on the president’s handling of the nuclear program, which Iran says is aimed at civilian energy production but the West believes is meant to eventually produce weapons. Karroubi said Tehran needed to be more transparent and rational in pursuing its goals abroad.

I think the odds of Ahmadinejad staying in office are better than even, but this is certainly encouraging news. This is the bit I like:

And even conservative contender Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, accused Ahmadinejad of going overboard with his rhetoric on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Is it possible that even the Iranian right thinks Mahmoud’s a kook?

There are two reasons why developed nations pursue nuclear technology: to build power plants, and to build weapons. While Iran is clearly hoping to rely on nuclear power to re-enforce the country’s energy security, most experts seem to assume that the desire to possess a nuclear bomb also factors into Tehran’s decision to continue enriching uranium in the face of mounting international pressure to suspend. However, as Fareed Zakaria ably demonstrates in his latest Newsweek column, this assumption is not really grounded in fact, but constructed primarily from the record and rhetoric of Persian leaders, notably the outrageous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The case against this assumption is convincing. First, the facts. Time and again, IAEA inspectors have determined that, although the Iranians have repeatedly failed to meet their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, there was no evidence to suggest that uranium enrichment at the Natanz facility was indicative of a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the consensus view of all United States intelligence agencies, claims Iran did have a weapons program, but is inactive as of 2003 (the accuracy of this report has been questioned by the IAEA).

Second, the rhetoric. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denounced nuclear weapons as un-Islamic. In 2004, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa declaring the use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islam. Just this week, Iran issued a statement condemning North Korea’s second nuclear weapons test, and called for “global de-nuclearization”.

Of course, there’s no reason to believe the Iranian leadership. But, as Zakaria notes, they could try to fool the internationally community without invoking Islam and issuing Fatwas; doing so puts them in a bind that a nation pursuing elicit weaponry would logically try to avoid.

This evidence, while far from conclusive, does mean a couple of things. It means the Iranians have an exit strategy; that they could conceivably suspend enrichment without loosing face domestically or internationally. It also means the Obama administration has an opening to try and push Iran down this path. This is, however, dependent on one condition: the West would have to accept that Iran is not going to be coaxed into dropping their energy program. Iranians citizens are overwhelmingly in favor of nuclear energy; the plant at Bushehr – due to go online this year – is a source of national pride. Put simply, the nuclear program is, in the eyes of the Iranian leadership, too big to fail.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have options. Given past Iranian statements on the matter, it should be possible to bring the country back into NPT and IAEA compliance; given the right pressure it may even be possible to secure some other concessions to prevent the Iranians from weaponizing once the reactors are complete (this is probably the least anyone will want to settle for). Initially, it may not be enough to satisfy regional interests like the Israelis and the Saudis, but could end up as a workable solution in the long run. And with Iran, maybe that’s the best we can hope for.

Huh, and I though Obama was supposed to be the tough-on-Israel candidate. Secretary of State Clinton, at a press avail with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit yesterday, pushed back hard on Netanyahu’s empty gesture:

With respect to settlements, the President was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interests of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others. And we intend to press that point.

This is good; good for Israel, good for the United States, good for the Middle-East. Israel needs some tough love, and a cessation of settlement activity would buy them a measure of credibility with the skeptical international community, who in turn may lean harder on the Palestinians and the Arab League to make some concessions (like, you know, getting Hamas to stop threatening to blow Israel up).