Witness

First, a disclaimer: I’m highly skeptical of all the IRI reformist leaders who spent decades propping up the IRI when it suited them, and now, when they find themselves on the outside looking in, suddenly discover that the country is run by a bunch of heavily-armed religious zealots. As if this were news.

Karroubi falls squarely in this category. He was there at the beginning, when Khomeini was consolidating his power and killing his opponents in the years just following the revolution. He was speaker of the parliament from 1989-1992, just after the bloody purge of dissidents in 1988. And he was speaker again from 2000-2004, just after the student protests were crushed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know that he was condoning, through his participation, the actions of a brutal regime. For a while he even served as an advisor to Khamenei. It was only when Khamenei and Company cheated in the 2005 presidential election, likely skewing the vote so that Karroubi placed behind Ahmadinejad in the first round (a result which likely cost Karroubi the presidency), that Karroubi quit as a member of the Expediency Council and began to protest so loudly.

When others were getting the shaft it was one thing, when he was getting the shaft it apparently it was time to sound the alarm.

But still. People can evolve, and should be judged on the whole of their life. And Karroubi was never the worst of the bunch even when he was inside the system. He often counseled moderation, and reconciliation.

More to the point, of late Karroubi has shown real courage. Loudly protesting June’s rigged presidential election. Daring the regime to prosecute him, and in doing so, create a spectacle of itself by eating its own. Calling attention to the brutal torture and rape of reformists. And supporting the rights of women and ethnic minorities.

For all that I give him considerable credit.