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Bio
Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.
Precis
All bets are off on the eve of the most crucial presidential election in the 30 years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pepe Escobar argues the campaign of reformist - actually moderate conservative - Mir-Hossein Mousavi has evolved into a green revolution; the color of Islam and also the color of hope for a less confrontational, and more competent and pragmatic administration. Mousavi's campaign - roughly the Iranian equivalent of Obama's campaign in the US - has crossed all economic, ethnic and gender barriers, and was heavily supported by Iran's very young, tech-savvy population. He has the youth vote, the women's vote and the intelligentsia vote. But President Ahmadinejad, running for a second term, has the vote that counts the most: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's - not to mention the bulk of the rural, provincial vote. The stage is set for a second round between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi.
