Iran's Musavi Tiptoes Across The Rubicon -- Maybe
RFE/RL / Robert Tait
25-Jun-2010

He has been accused of weak, indecisive leadership of Iran's political opposition and of harboring a naive sentimental loyalty to a political system that has brutally suppressed his followers. 

But now supporters of Mir Hossein Musavi believe he may at last have crossed the Rubicon from loyal but critical insider to outright opponent of the Islamic regime after a year of hesitancy, ambiguity, and equivocation. 

The evidence is mixed and not entirely convincing. At best, Musavi -- still extolling the virtues of the Islamic Revolution and its spiritual leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- may have made the momentous journey, if at all, by nervous tiptoe rather than a decisive march. 

But backers are hailing his latest statement, issued as a "Covenant of the Green Movement" on June 15, as heralding his most defiant critique yet of the stewardship of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and a break with a previously unshakable attachment to the Islamic republic. 

The statement, the latest in a string Musavi has released since last June's disputed presidential election, denounces the current system of vetting election candidates, calls for the independence of "religiou... >>>

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