Wampum

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf formally tossed his hat into the ring today. He'd resigned a head of the national police last week as the prelude to starting his retail political campaign for the June election. Qalibaf was head of the air force wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and frontline veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war before becoming the national police chief. Some quotes:

I am a pragmatist, I believe in basic principles, I am not a rightist nor a fundamentalist. I have no attachments to any conventional political wings.

In today's world it is essential to have relations with all the countries. I do not see any limitations in this respect; we have to consider our national interests and use our entire capacity,

Who does Qalibaf think are his rivals? He said he considered powerful former president and top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani his only potential rival. Rafsanjani as president was considered a pragmatist, and is expected to run, though he hasn't yet made a formal announcement. Several other potential candidates, including former Foreign MinisterAli Akbar Velayati, have indicated willingness to quit the race if Rafsanjani throws his hat in the ring. I posted IRNA'spublic opinion survey earlier.

So what didn't Qalibaf say? He didn't create limitations w.r.t. either the Zionist Entity or the Great Satan. Of course, both the Sharon regime and the Bush regime are exceptionalist towards Iran, and are postured towards a relationship of war, not a relationship of peace. So Qalibaf is running a pragmatic defense of the realm campaign, with the message to the voters that compeating campaigns that adopt exceptionalism towards Israel and/or the United States act contrary to the defense of the realm, so that's a caution to, and a distance from, the actors who interfered with the campaigns for the 7th Majlis, broadly, the religious activist conservatives, creating exceptionalist litmus tests for determining legislative candidate fitness, and with the message to the voters that Iran's best defense is not some secret war plan, but the front pages of Le Monde. I expect Rafsanjani will message similarly, and this is what Mohammad Khatami has been doing, diplo work to isolate the US, for the last several months.

It must be tough to campaign with cruise missile populated submarines and carriers to the south, over 130,000 troops, armor, and air to the west, more troops and forward air bases to the north and east, and the steady infiltration of logistics and prepositioned troops and air assets to the east, and message what is in effect ... "Wait for it. Wait for it. Don't fire until you can see the whites of their eyes."