By Safa Haeri

PARIS 21ST July (IPS)

A French proverb says: "With such a friend, one does not need enemy", talking of someone who, unconsciously and inadvertently, harms his friends.

The Iranian reformists, badly beaten in retreat by their conservative enemies in the recent weeks, can now say the opposite: "With such an enemy one does need friend".
After blowing crushing defeats to the reformists, discrediting their chief, the President ayatollah Mohammad Khatami, arresting hundreds of dissidents, suppressed a protest movement that in less than 5 days metamorphosed from a small students manifestation into a national revolt against the Islamic regime and asserted firmly their power. Like the milk cow that after having been milked out, give a kick to the bucket, the conservatives destroyed all their winnings with two wrong moves: forced television confession extracted from a students leader and the leaking of a protest letter written to the President by 24 Revolutionary Guard Commanders.

Mr. Manouchehr Mohammadi, the leader of the small and newly formed Association of Nationalist Iranian Students (ANIS) was shown Monday on the conservatives-controlled television confessing that while on a four months trip to Turkey, United States and Europe, he received money from Iranian dissidents, delivered speeches stressing on the separation of the State from Religion, was helped by nationalist and secularist parties like the Iranian People's Party, the National Front and specially by Mrs Elaheh Mizani, the wife of Mr. Abbas Amir Entezam, Islamic Iran's longest political prisoner.

His swollen face bearing traces of wounds and beatings shocked and outraged viewers who admired his courage when he "confessed" to his being a nationalist.

A man in his forties and described by all of those Iranians he met in Europe and the US as "rather unsophisticated, unstructured" for someone who claims to be a students leader, "an ambitious peasant", as one Iranian put it, Mr. Mohammadi is now a hero of his own, thanks to the efforts of the Information (Intelligence) Ministry to present him to the Iranian public as the "agent of foreigners responsible for the riots".

"The leader has said that foreigners were behind the 6 days of students unrest that rocked the foundations of the Islamic Republic and all the Administrations controlled by him were up to prove the population that the leader was right. They had to present the culprit and Mr. Mohammadi was there, ready to be arrested. The ideal agent. Someone who had met with Iranian dissidents abroad and got support from them.

"But they forgot that none of us who met Mr. Mohammadi were impressed by him and if we helped him, it was out of sympathy for a compatriot who is struggling for democracy in Iran", pointed out one Iranian who got to know the secretary-general of ANIS and his deputy, Mr. Qolamreza Mohajeri-Nezhad, also arrested alongside Ms. Malous Radnia (Maryam Shansi), a supporter of the organisation.

Others expressed "pity" for the Intelligence Ministry. "They must be amateurs fishermen, those in the Information Ministry who spent so much energy and time in making Mr. Mohammadi a foreign agent or do they really thing that foreign intelligence services are inexperienced to bet on such a naïve person? Was another comment.

Nevertheless, international Human Rights and Iranian opposition organisations such as the Iranian Communist-Workers Party, The Constitutionalist Party of Iran or the League of Democratic Iranian Women expressed concern for the life of Mr. Mohammadi and his friends. A similar demand was made by the Berlin's Free University.

In letters to Mr. Kofi Anan, the United Nations general-secretary, several Iranian groups called on him to intervene with the Iranian authorities to save the life of the dissident student.

"He might have come out to sound out Iranians outside and establish contacts with them on instruction from one group that had been defeated as a result of the past weeks dramatic events in Iran. He is really facing execution", one Iranian journalist warned.

The same that from the leader of a small, controversial student's organisation, the relatively unknown Mr. Mohammadi has become a national figure, the conservatives ill-fated decision to leak to their press the content of the Revolutionary Guard's commanders strange letter to the president has badly backfired on them.

In the letter, classified "top secret" and delivered last week to the office of the President, 24 commanders of this praetorian guard of the ruling mollahs would warn Mr. Khatami that their patience is over, he either stops his political reforms and other civil society gadgets or "tomorrow will be too late".

The letter, published on 19th July by "Keyhan", a newspaper that is considered as the mouthpiece of the Intelligence Ministry and it's Editor, Mr. Hossein Shariatmadari, a high ranking Intelligence officer, is appointed by the leader, immediately caused uproar and protest in the ranks of pro-Khatami circles.

All Iranian analysts and experts said unanimously that considering the structure of the Guards and the fact that their allegiance goes directly to the person of the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, there is "absolutely no doubt" that he is behind the letter.

"Though the letter is signed by 24 Revolutionary Guard high ranking officers, but it had to be written by Khameneh'i himself. And when it did not produce the desired effect, he ordered Keyhan to publish it. That was a big mistake, as it will have a negative on the Guard's file and rank as the great majority of them had voted for Mr. Khatami", noted Mr. Abolhassan Banisadre, Islamic Iran's first President interviewed by the Persian Service of the Radio France Internationale (RFI).

"Now that the Intelligence Ministry, Law Enforcement Forces and other pressure groups have discredited themselves as a result of the unfortunate way they tackled the tragic incidents at the student's dormitories and the resulting unrest, let's hope the Revolutionary Guard will not commit the same mistake", said the Association of Militant Clergymen (AMC), the left wing of the Association of Combatant Clergymen that supports the President and his reforms.

Both the AMC and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeens Organisation (IRMO), the left wing of Mr, Khatami's coalition Government also reminded the Guard commanders that the grand ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had instructed them never meddle into politics.

Protesting strongly to the letter and it's content, the IRMO told the signatories of the letter that with their "unwise action" they have provided the Westerners and the enemies of the regime a "golden document" demonstrating that the regime was crumbling.

Other analysts said the unprecedented letter would harm more the Revolutionary Guard and the leader than the President.

"This is aimed more at creating an atmosphere of fear than staging a coup against Mr. Khatami and in anyway is another mistake by the conservatives", observer Mr. Ahmad Salamatian, a Paris-based political commentator.

Speaking during a conference call with the Persian services of the BBC, both he and Dr Akbar Mehdi from the United States agreed that politicisation of he Guard was very dangerous for the future of the Islamic State of Iran.

"By politicising the Revolutionary Guard and by transforming it into the political arm of one wing of the ruling system that is led by himself, the ayatollah Khameneh'i is playing with fire. He is encouraging the Guard for military intervention in the future", they noted. ENDS STUDENTS KILLED 2179900