Shayan Ghajar

In his first sermon following the massive protests on December 27, the religious day of Ashura, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei praised the fervor of supporters of the government while urging them not to take “arbitrary action” against the opposition.

His sermon followed the attack on opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi’s vehicle, which was fired upon by unknown parties. In the incident, Karroubi was mobbed by anti-opposition paramilitaries and protesters outside a building he was visiting in the city of Qazvin. Both the front and rear windshields were shot, though the bulletproof glass prevented any harm to Karroubi or his guards.

Khamenei’s sermon, though advising restraint on the part of government supporters, should not be interpreted as a gesture towards reconciliation with the opposition or even as a backing down of sorts. He urged restraint only to ensure that government supporters would not “contribute to the enemy’s sedition by going too far.”

Ayatollah Khamenei went on to add that the current supporters of the opposition are of the same groups that opposed the Revolution in 1979, namely communists, monarchists, foreign-backed groups, and other “anti-religious fronts.” He characterized them as all collaborating under one front, presumably a reference to the Green Movement.

The sermon seems to be an attempt by Khamenei to counter the Green Movement’s claims to grassroots popularity. The Green Movement has effectively framed itself in Iranian political discourse as a movement of the downtrodden against a tyrannical government, and Green Movement websites in the days after the Ashura protests cited the spontaneity and diversity of the opposition protests as evidence of the movement’s broad appeal and large number of supporters.

In his sermon on Saturday, the Supreme Leader praised the enthusiasm and readiness of the government’s supporters. In an apparent response to allegations that the pro-government rallies on December 30 were organized and funded by the government itself, Khamenei declared that mobilizing “tens of millions” of supporters in two days was impossible to stage. The BBC estimated the crowds to be in the tens of thousands rather than millions.

Khamenei is waging a war of legitimacy. The violence used by government forces to suppress the Ashura protests, the murder of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s nephew, as well as the attack on Mehdi Karroubi, have all lent credence to the Green Movement’s claim to be struggling against tyranny while revitalizing the Islamic Republic’s principles of justice and popular sovereignty. Khamenei’s speech reveals his awareness that unless he is able to demonstrate more popular support, the battle to represent the true guardianship of Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideals will be lost. By asserting that demonstrations in support of the government are grassroots, Khamenei is both portraying himself as a representative of a loyal majority while in effect absolving himself of responsibility for their actions.