TEHRAN, Iran – Iran declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner Saturday of an election that pitted the conservative establishment against candidate with broad backing from the country's youth. Riot police attacked opposition supporters, beating them with clubs and smashing cars.
A statement from Mousavi posted on his Web site condemned what he described as the "manipulation" of election results.
Demonstrators wearing the trademark green color of Mir Hossein Mousavi chanted slogans condemning the results that gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad. Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry in the most serious unrest in Tehran in a decade.
Witnesses also said a commercial bank elsewhere in the city was set on fire.
Police attacked the demonstrators near the Interior Ministry, where the election results were announced, beating them with clubs and smashing cars. Police also moved to disperse any large gatherings of people around the city.
An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon.
In another main street of Tehran some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone."
Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police forces warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings" as he gave detailed results for the elections.
"If there are gatherings in some places, people should not join them," he said. "Lets not give opportunities to people who aren't affiliated to any candidates."
He added that in Tehran itself, Mousavi won more votes than the incumbent.
Overall, however, Mousavi only took 33.75 percent of the vote in a contest that was widely perceived to be much closer than the official results.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, thanked the people for their record 85 percent participation and warned opposition candidates to "avoid provocative behavior."
"I assume that enemies intend to eliminate the sweetness of the election with their hostile provocation," he said in his televised address.
He called the results a "divine assessment" and called on all the candidates to support the president.
Nationwide, the text messaging system remained down Saturday and several pro-Mousavi Web sites were blocked or difficult to access. Text messaging is frequently used by many Iranians — especially young Mousavi supporters — to spread election news and organize.
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #1 on: 2009-06-13 16:59:19 »
Classic country vs city situation with a rapidly shifting demographic, with a lot of additional support for Ahmadinejad due to ongoing US interference and support to the tune of millions of dollars - to opposition groups both political and guerilla. It will be interesting to see how things pan out due to the ongoing decrease of average age and urbanization. Even more interesting to see what would happen if the US stopped interfering.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #2 on: 2009-06-15 17:37:26 »
[Blunderov] I was wondering what to make of all of this. Luckily Lenin has done all the thinking - and research - for me.
Iran vote and protests posted by lenin Monday, June 15, 2009
I think it's a consensus on the liberal-left in the US and UK that the Iranian elections were fixed. If they are right, we are watching a bloodless coup turn into a bloody one, as protesters have been beaten and are now being shot at and killed by cops. One of Mousavi's supporters alleges he was told that a coup was coming. If they are not right, we are still faced with a state busily beating and killing the opposition. The Iranian state is still detaining 'reformist' MPs, censoring newspapers, shutting down access to social networking sites (although people are still finding ways to Twitter), and behaving as if for all the world it had every reason to act guiltily. It is not inherently implausible that Ahmadinejad got 63% of the vote, and it has to be shown that there was a fix. The fact that Ahmadinejad used state oil revenues to fund programmes for the poor can be approved or derided, but it arguably gave large numbers of people an interest in voting for Ahmadinejad against his more explicitly neoliberal rival. It gave him a base among some of the working class and bazaaris. Still, it is hardly implausible either that some vote-rigging went on, if only to make the win decisive enough to avoid a run-off.
So, the first question that occurs is, why should the ballots be rigged? This is skated over in a lot of the commentary as if the answer were obvious - Mousavi advocated reform, duh! However, Mousavi is hardly a dangerous candidate for the Iranian ruling class: rather, he represents a powerful faction of it. True, he was once on the 'Islamic Left' back in the 1980s, and it was due to the support of the left-leaning majles that he was made prime minister against Khomeini's preferences. Today, however, he is a centrist allied to the 'Modern Right'. His solutions to Iran's problems of accumulation and development are impeccably neoliberal. This is why he got the backing of the old crook, cynic, capitalist and Iran-Contra arms dealer, Hashem Rafsanjani. He supports privatization, and wants to reform Article 44 to assist the process. He supports strong counter-inflationary policies. Of course, he would like to take a slightly less 'hard line' with respect to the US. Indeed, like other would-be 'reform' candidates, his campaign tried to channel Obama - with some success since his wife, who spearheaded some important reforms in the late 1980s, was cast as the Michelle Obama of the campaign. Still, he isn't an outsider by any means. His candidacy wasn't struck off, while those that offend the Council of Guardians usually are. He wasn't excluded from the debates, as far as I can find out. He wasn't excluded from the polls, some of which put him ahead, and some behind. Why should he have suddenly become so dangerous that the Iranian state, or powerful sectors within it, would risk a stupid fix? The answer could only be that by tapping a popular demands for reforms, the candidacy might have unleashed a movement that seriously frightened some factions in the ruling class.
The next question is, what can come of the protests? Whatever the motivations of Mousavi, we have an enormous number of people on the streets, with a clear demand for political reform. They took to those streets, reportedly ignoring warnings that the police were carrying live ammunition. This means they are brave, certainly, and also confident in their numbers. Already, Khamenei has ceded the question of investigating the elections, which it seems clear he didn't want to do. The Iranian state may kill people, but these protesters are already starting to win. They can make gains far beyond the very limited promises that Mousavi made in order to excite progressive layers. (As far as I can tell, Mousavi was mildly critical of some state repression of television channels, and promised to 'review' legislation that could be harmful to women - hardly a tribune of the oppressed). So, whatever the truth about the claims of a fix, these protests can do nothing but good. They may, in addition to getting rid of some particularly onerous forms of oppression, open up a space in which the left can operate more freely, and in which the labour movement can assert itself more forcefully.
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #3 on: 2009-06-15 21:19:45 »
I read it differently.
I think the investigation has been handed to an independent group precisely because it shows there was no illegitimate vote-skewing action on the part of the government and the government thinks that dirty handprints are going to be found and considers that the announcements of this and whose hands were involved will be more credible coming from an independent group. Given that we know some of the money poured into Iran's political system by the US (75 million) which is 25 times more than the total cost of previous Iranian elections, and given that the previous "color revolutions" all transpired to have been financed by the US State Department and orchestrated by the CIA, I think that the US, possibly assisted by Israel, will eventually be shown to have meddled mightily in Iran's internal affairs in a dramatic reversion to gunboat diplomacy. In fact, I think we are seeing a failed attempt at a "color revolution". It may yet turn into a fighting revolution, and it does, and we are behind it, the blood will be on our hands.
I think that should this be the case all the people of the world but American's (at least those getting their news from Murdoch outlets and the religiously Israeli aligned press) will eventually recognize it, and I think that the US will inevitably attempt to abuse the security council to block retribution. Where that leads to is not clear, but in a time of crises on every front, it will not be good news however it plays out.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #4 on: 2009-06-16 00:08:31 »
[ Hermit : Perhaps I should mention that the $75 million handed out in 2008, which I mentioned above, came on top of the $400 million voted by Congress to "opposition parties" (which included groups the EU has listed as terrorist organizations but which the USA supports) in 2007 to "destabilize" Ahmadinejad's government. ]
Iran erupts as voters back 'the Democrator'
Source: The Independent Authors: Robert Fisk Dated: 2009-06-14
A smash in the face, a kick in the balls – that's how police deal with protesters after Iran's poll kept the hardliners in power
First the cop screamed abuse at Mir Hossein Mousavi's supporter, a white-shirted youth with a straggling beard and unkempt hair. Then he smashed his baton into the young man's face. Then he kicked him viciously in the testicles. It was the same all the way down to Vali Asr Square. Riot police in black rubber body armour and black helmets and black riot sticks, most on foot but followed by a flying column of security men, all on brand new, bright red Honda motorcycles, tearing into the shrieking youths – hundreds of them, running for their lives. They did not accept the results of Iran's presidential elections. They did not believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won 62.6 per cent of the votes. And they paid the price.
"Death to the dictator," they were crying on Dr Fatimi Street, now thousands of them shouting abuse at the police. Were they to endure another four years of the smiling, avuncular, ever-so-humble President who swears by democracy while steadily thinning out human freedoms in the Islamic Republic? They were wrong, of course. Ahmadinejad really does love democracy. But he also loves dictatorial order. He is not a dictator. He is a Democrator.
Yesterday wasn't the time for the finer points of Iranian politics. That Mir Hossein Mousavi had been awarded a mere 33 per cent of the votes – by midday, the figure was humiliatingly brought down to 32.26 per cent – brought forth the inevitable claims of massive electoral fraud and vote-rigging. Or, as the crowd round Fatimi Square chorused as they danced in a circle in the street: "Zionist Ahmadinejad – cheating at exams." That's when I noticed that the police always treated the protesters in the same way. Head and testicles. It was an easy message to understand. A smash in the face, a kick in the balls and Long Live the Democrator.
Many of the protesters – some of them now wearing scarves over their faces, all coloured green, the colour of Mousavi's campaign – were trying to reach the Interior Ministry where the government's electoral council were busy counting (or miscounting, depending on your point of view) Friday's huge popular national vote. I descended into the basement of this fiercely ugly edifice – fittingly, it was once the headquarters of the Shah's party, complete with helipad on the roof – where cold chocolate lattes and strawberry fruitcake were on offer to journalists, and where were displayed the very latest poll results, put up at 10.56am Iranian time.
Eighty per cent of the votes had been counted and the results came up as Ahmadinejad 64.78 per cent; Mousavi 32.26 per cent; Mohsen Rezai (a former Revolutionary Guard commander) 2.08 per cent; and Mehdi Karoubi (a former parliament speaker) a miserable 0.89 per cent. How could this be, a man asked me on a scorching, dangerous street an hour later. Karoubi's party has at least 400,000 members. Were they all sleeping on Friday?
There were a few, sparse demonstrators out for the Democrator, all men, of course, and many of them draped in the Iranian flag because the Democrator – devout Muslim as he always displays himself – wrapped his election campaign in the national flag. Each of these burly individuals handed out free copies of the execrable four-page news-sheet Iran.
"Ahmadinejad," the headline read, "24 million votes. People vote for Success, Honesty and the Battle against Corruption." Not the obvious headline that comes to mind. But Mousavi's Green Word newspaper allegedly had its own headline dictated to it by the authorities – before they shut it down yesterday: "Happy Victory to the People." And you can't get more neutral than that.
Back on the streets, there were now worse scenes. The cops had dismounted from their bikes and were breaking up paving stones to hurl at the protesters, many of them now riding their own motorbikes between the rows of police. I saw one immensely tall man – dressed Batman-style in black rubber arm protectors and shin pads, smashing up paving stones with his baton, breaking them with his boots and chucking them pell mell at the Mousavi men. A middle-aged woman walked up to him – the women were braver in confronting the police than the men yesterday – and shouted an obvious question: "Why are you breaking up the pavements of our city?" The policeman raised his baton to strike the woman but an officer ran across the road and stood between them. "You must never hit a woman," he said. Praise where praise is due, even in a riot.
But the policemen went on breaking up stones, a crazy reverse version of France in May 1968. Then it was the young men who wanted revolution who threw stones. In Tehran – fearful of a green Mousavi revolution – it was the police who threw stones.
An interval here for lunch with a true and faithful friend of the Islamic Republic, a man I have known for many years who has risked his life and been imprisoned for Iran and who has never lied to me. We dined in an all-Iranian-food restaurant, along with his wife. He has often criticised the regime. A man unafraid. But I must repeat what he said. "The election figures are correct, Robert. Whatever you saw in Tehran, in the cities and in thousands of towns outside, they voted overwhelmingly for Ahmadinejad. Tabriz voted 80 per cent for Ahmadinejad. It was he who opened university courses there for the Azeri people to learn and win degrees in Azeri. In Mashad, the second city of Iran, there was a huge majority for Ahmadinejad after the imam of the great mosque attacked Rafsanjani of the Expediency Council who had started to ally himself with Mousavi. They knew what that meant: they had to vote for Ahmadinejad."
My guest and I drank dookh, the cool Iranian drinking yoghurt so popular here. The streets of Tehran were a thousand miles away. "You know why so many poorer women voted for Ahmadinejad? There are three million of them who make carpets in their homes. They had no insurance. When Ahmadinejad realised this, he immediately brought in a law to give them full insurance. Ahmadinejad's supporters were very shrewd. They got the people out in huge numbers to vote – and then presented this into their vote for Ahmadinejad."
But of course, the streets of Tehran were only a hundred metres away. And the police were now far more abusive to their adversaries. My own Persian translator was beaten three times on the back. The cops had brought their own photographers on to the pavements to take pictures of the protesters – hence the green scarves – and overfed plain-clothes men were now mixing with the Batmen. The Democrator was obviously displeased. One of the agents demanded to see my pass but when I showed my Iranian press card to him, he merely patted me on the shoulder and waved me through.
Thus did I arrive opposite the Interior Ministry as the police brought their prisoners back from the front line down the road. The first was a green-pullovered youth of perhaps 15 or 16 who was frog-marched by two uniformed paramilitary police to a van with a cage over the back. He was thrown on the steel floor, then one of the cops climbed in and set about him with his baton. Behind me, more than 20 policemen, sweating after a hard morning's work bruising the bones of their enemies, were sitting on the steps of a shop, munching through pre-packed luncheon boxes. One smiled and offered me a share. Politely declined, I need hardly add.
They watched – and I watched – as the next unfortunate was brought to the cage-van. In a shirt falling over his filthy trousers, he was beaten outside the vehicle, kicked in the balls, and then beaten on to a seat at the back of the vehicle. Another cop climbed in and began batoning him in the face. The man was howling with pain. Another cop came – and this, remember, was in front of dozens of other security men, in front of myself, an obvious Westerner, and many women in chadors who were walking on the opposite pavement, all staring in horror at the scene.
Now another policeman, in an army uniform, climbed into the vehicle, tied the man's hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs, took out his baton and whacked him across the face. The prisoner was in tears but the blows kept coming; until more young men arrived for their torment. Then more police vans arrived and ever more prisoners to be beaten. All were taken in these caged trucks to the basement of the Interior Ministry. I saw them drive in.
A break now from these outrages, because this was about the moment that Mousavi's printed statement arrived at his campaign headquarters. I say "arrived", although the police had already closed his downtown office – Palestine Street, it was called, only fitting since the Iranian police were behaving in exactly the same way as the Israeli army when they turn into a rabble to confront Palestinian protesters – and Mousavi's men could only toss the sheets of paper over the wall.
It was strong stuff. "The results of these elections are shocking," he proclaimed. "People who stood in the voting lines, they know the situation, they know who they voted for. They are looking now with astonishment at this magic game of the authorities on the television and radio. What has happened has shaken the whole foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and now it is governing by lies and dictatorship. I recommend to the authorities to stop this at once and return to law and order, to care for the people's votes. The first message of our revolution is that people are intelligent and will not obey those who gain power by cheating. This whole land of Iran belongs to them and not to the cheaters."
Mousavi's head office in Qeitariyeh Street in north Tehran had already been besieged by the Democrator's loyal "Basiji" volunteers a few hours earlier. They had chucked tear gas at the windows. They were still smouldering when I arrived. "Please go or they will come back," one of his supporters pleaded to me. It was the same all over the city. The opposition either asked you to leave or invited you to watch them as they tormented the police. The Democrator's men, waving their Iranian flags, faced off Mousavi's men. Then, through their ranks, came the armed cops again, running towards the opposition. So whose side were the police really on? Rule number one: never ask stupid questions in Iran.
Last night, all SMS calls were blocked. The Iranian news agency announced that, since there would be no second round of elections, there would be no extension of visas for foreign journalists – one can well see why – and so many of the people who were praised by the government for their patriotism in voting on Friday were assaulted by their own government on Saturday.
Last night, the Democrator was still silent, but his ever-grinning face turned up on the posters of his supporters. There were more baton charges, ever greater crowds running from them. Thus was the courage of Friday's Iranian elections turned into fratricidal battles on the streets of Tehran. "Any rallies," announced the Tehran police chief, General Ahmad Reza Radan, "will be dealt with according to the law." Well, we all know what that means. So does the Democrator.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the blacksmith's son and former Revolutionary Guard, who, since his surprise victory four years ago, has seemingly gone out of his way to play bogeyman to the US. In his first term in office, Mr Ahmadinejad became known for his fierce rhetoric against America and Israel, his proud promotion of Iran's nuclear programme and persistent questioning of the Holocaust.
In Iran, he benefited from a surge in petrodollar revenues and has distributed loans, money and other help on his frequent provincial tours. But critics say his free spending fuelled inflation and wasted windfall oil revenues without reducing unemployment. Prices of basics have risen sharply, hitting more than 15 million Iranian families who live on less than $600 a month. He blamed the inflation, which officially stands at 15 per cent, on a global surge in food and fuel prices that peaked last year, and pursued unorthodox policies such as trying to curb prices while setting interest rates well below inflation.
During the campaign, in a series of bitter TV debates with his three rivals, he was repeatedly accused of lying about the extent of price rises. Mir Hossein Mousavi also accused Mr Ahmadinejad, 53, of undermining Iran's foreign relations with his fiery anti-Western speeches and said Iranians had been "humiliated around the globe" since he was first elected.
During Mr Ahmadinejad's first term, the UN Security Council imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, which the West suspects has military aims.
Mr Ahmadinejad, the first non-clerical president in more than 25 years, basks in the support of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who called on Iranians to vote for an anti-Western candidate. The Ayatollah ultimately calls the shots in Iran, where the president can only influence policy, not decide it.
Mir Hossein Mousavi
Life for President Barack Obama would be a great deal easier if Mir Hossein Mousavi had won Iran's election. The man who was prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s says he would seek detente with the West, ask Mr Obama to debate at the UN with him, and floated the idea of an international consortium overseeing uranium enrichment in Iran.
On the domestic front, the 67-year-old architect and painter urged a return to the "fundamental values" of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He advocated economic liberalisation, and pledged to control inflation through monetary policies and make life easier for private business. He has also promised to change the "extremist" image that Iran has earned abroad under Mr Ahmadinejad and has hit out at his profligate spending of petrodollars and cash hand-outs to the poor, which, he says, have stoked rising consumer prices. He also advocated removing the ban on private firms owning TV stations.
Mr Mousavi has been politically silent for the past 20 years, but he broke new ground in Iranian campaigning by having his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a former university chancellor, not only join him on the stump but work for him. The couple even held hands at rallies, rare behaviour for politicians in the socially conservative state. His support was largely urban, and mostly young. He enjoyed also the backing of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami and apparent backing from Mr Khatami's pragmatic predecessor, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
He was widely expected to make a close-run thing of the election. But even as he was claiming a premature victory on Friday night, Mr Mousavi was alleging widespread malpractice in the conduct of the election. Where he goes from here – apart from into history – is far from clear.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.
The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.
The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.
Misreading Sentiment in Iran
Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.
Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.
Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this. Ahmadinejad’s Popularity
It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.
First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.
Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.
Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.
Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.
For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal.
Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then preceded to gut the constitution [ Hermit : This is a dramatic simplification. Over concerted opposition by the cabinet, despite having never obtained more than 40% of any vote, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by Hindenburg on the basis that he would be able to control his mobs which, together with (at least partially American engineered) economic havoc, had been instrumental in the collapse of the previous two governments] . Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.
The Road Ahead: More of the Same
The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position.
Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon [ Hermit : And there is no evidence that Iran desires one or is working towards one or has ever done so, and no evidence that any nuclear material, required to produce any sort of nuclear weapon, has been diverted from the civilian nuclear programs. ] , but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.)
What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give.
On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack.
For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #6 on: 2009-06-16 04:35:53 »
Appearing yesterday on ABC's "This Week," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) said, "What has occurred is that the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you're seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest." [ Source: Washington Post ]
After the embarrassments of 2000 and 2004, and my recollection of his own misspeaking about Iran, I'd have thought that even lumbering Republican dolts would heed the beams sticking out of their own eyes and restrain their criticism. Prior to posting a humorous response, I googled to confirm my facts, and discovered that "Avenging Angel" had done a wonderfully droll post mortem on Mitt Romney over at Daily Kos. Linked for your pleasure - Despite Own Iran Follies, Romney Blames Obama for Election Fraud
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #7 on: 2009-06-19 06:56:01 »
Proof: Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter #IranElection
[ Hermit : If you wondered why Twitter became the most overhyped technology ever to have been broadcast by the media, we now may have a reason. It is one way to sway global perception, insert news stories and start revolutions. A lovely bit of detective work follows. The formatting and emphasis other than use of color is original. A screenshot of the relevant JPost page is appended. Read the Related items. I found them compelling support for this articles' thesis.]
Right-wing Israeli interests are engaged in an all out Twitter attack with hopes of delegitimizing the Iranian election and causing political instability within Iran.
Anyone using Twitter over the past few days knows that the topic of the Iranian election has been the most popular. Thousands of tweets and retweets alleging that the election was a fraud, calling for protests in Iran, and even urging followers hack various Iranian news websites (which they did successfully). The Twitter popularity caught the eye of various blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch and even made its way to mainstream news media sites.
Were these legitimate Iranian people or the works of a propaganda machine? I became curious and decided to investigate the origins of the information. In doing so, I narrowed it down to a handful of people who have accounted for 30,000 Iran related tweets in the past few days. Each of them had some striking similarities -
[1.] They each created their twitter accounts on Saturday June 13th. [2.] Each had extremely high number of Tweets since creating their profiles. [3.] “IranElection” was each of their most popular keyword [4.] With some very small exceptions, each were posting in ENGLISH. [5.] Half of them had the exact same profile photo [6.] Each had thousands of followers, with only a few friends. Most of their friends were EACH OTHER.
Why were these tweets in English? Why were all of these profiles OBSESSED with Iran? It became obvious that this was the work of a team of people with an interest in destabilizing Iran. The profiles are phonies and were created with the sole intention of destabilizing Iran and effecting public opinion as to the legitimacy of Iran’s election.
I decided to do a google search for 2 of the 3 - @StopAhmadi and @IranRiggedElect. The first page to come up was JPost (Jerusalem Post) which is a right wing newspaper pro-Israeli newspaper.
JPost actually ran a story about 3 people “who joined the social network mere hours ago have already amassed thousands of followers.” Why would a news organization post a story about 3 people who JUST JOINED TWITTER hours earlier? Is that newsworthy? JPost was the first (and only to my knowledge) major news source that mentioned these 3 spammers.
JPost, a major news organization, promoted these three Twitterers who went on the be the source of the IranElection Twitter bombardment. Why is JPost so concerned about Iranian students all of a sudden (which these spammers claim to be)? I must admit that I had my suspicions. After all, Que Bono? (who benefits).
There’s no question that Israel perceives Iran as an enemy, more so than any other nation. According to a recent poll, more than half of Israel’s population support using military force against Iran if they do not cease from developing nuclear energy (which they have the legal right to do as per the NNP treaty). Oddly enough, this comes out of a country which is not a cosigner to the NNP treaty and has no right to develop nuclear energy, yet posses an arsenal of nuclear BOMBS. [ Hermit : The author no doubt means NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty) when he says NNP, and misunderstands what it means not to be a member - or even why the USA and France's collusion with Israel's nuclear developments makes them the world's two most egregious violators of the NPT. That does not detract from the balance of the analysis. ]
Of course, Mousavi himself plays an important role in causing the social unrest within Iran. How often do you see a candidate declare himself the winner before any votes are counted and then, when faced with defeat, call the entire election process a fraud? As obvious as it was in our own 2000 election, Al Gore would not touch the topic of voter fraud. No major US politician goes near the subject. They know full well that such an accusation would shake the entire foundation of our democracy and threaten the political structures that are in place.
These twitting spammers began crying foul before the final votes were even counted, just as Mousavi had. The spammer @IranRiggedElect created his profile before a winner was announced and preformed the public service of informing us in the United States , in English and every 10 minutes, of the unfair election. He did so unselfishly, and without any regard for his fellow friends and citizens of Iran, who don’t speak English and don’t use Twitter!
IranRiggedElect 3146 followers. 31 friends. 340 tweets in past 4 days. none before that. Top 5 words - iranelection, cnnfail, mousavi, tehran, All tweets in English Time: Bulk between 12pm and 2pm eastern standard time Most retweets: @StopAhmadi @IranElection09 @change_for_iran
Change_for_Iran 14,000 followers. 0 friends 117 tweets in 2 days. none before that. All tweets in English Time: Bulk between 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm eastern. Top 5 words: iranelection, people, police, right, students No retweets
IranElection09 800 followers. 9 friends. 196 tweets in 3 days. none before that. 185 in English. 11 in Farsi (Arabic appearing letters. Not sure if it’s Farsi) Time: bulk between 2:00pm and 6:00pm eastern. Also 1:00am. Top 5 words: iranelection, rt, mousavi, tehran, march Most retweets: @IranRiggedElect @StopAhmadi
StopAhmadi 6199 followers. 53 friends. 1107 tweets in past 3 days. None before then. top 5 words: iranelection, ppl, news, rt, iran. All tweets in English Time: bulk between 9:00am and 5:00pm eastern Most retweets: @mohamadreza @mahdi
mohamadreza 1433 followers. 142 friends (protected account. cant see data)
The following all have the same photo in their profile [ Hermit : "Where is my vote" in English on a green square ] and are followed by the profiles previously mentioned.
[Update 3] Wonder where all of the nasty comments are coming from? FYI- DDOS = distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is one in which a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted system. (Recognize the avatar?) BUT….their latest spamming campaign (Against CS) is backfiring.
[ Hermit : Graphic reflecting requests on twitter for people to DDOS the site reporting this (http://www.chartingstocks.net) by various people omitted ]
Spammers get a taste of their own medicine!: Block CS eh? It’s not us being blocked…..
[ Hermit : Graphic reflecting requests on twitter for people to block the idiots calling for DDOSing above omitted ]
[Update 4] The Guardian: Iran’s election result may not be fraudulent. Our polling suggests that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory is what voters wanted
[Update 5] Iran blocked access to twitter yesterday BUT that doesn’t stop the “Iranian Students” from continuing to tweet every 10 or so minutes. [ Hermit : I find this compelling. ]
[Update 9] Washington Post: “Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles. “Here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.”
[Update 10] CIA Factbook: Languages spoken in Iran: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2%. Sure, some of the more educated people (a small amount) do speak English but its not at all popular.
[Update 11] This post became one of the most followed, tweeted and retweeted stories regarding the #IranElection on the net yesterday. The 3 “Iranian Student” spammers specifically mentioned this post as did hundreds of others. So, um, where are the Iranians?? The screen shot below is of our traffic yesterday by country.
Disclaimer: Before I get attacked as being an Anti-Semite,you should know that I am half Jewish. Alternatively, I hope that people do not misinterpret this as some “JEWISH” conspiracy. It isn’t. These are the workings of the extreme right wing of Israeli politics. They have their own Bush’s and Cheney’s there too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #8 on: 2009-06-19 07:26:35 »
Very interesting article Hermit. But I wonder how this now compares and why Iran's Supreme Leader deemed the election a "definitive victory". The plot thickens.
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's supreme leader said Friday that Iran's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters to halt massive demonstrations demanding a new election or be held responsible for creating chaos.
Ayatollah Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sided with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and offered no concessions to the opposition. He effectively closed any chance for a new vote by calling the June 12 election a "definitive victory."
The speech created a stark choice for candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters: drop their demands for a new vote or take to the streets again in blatant defiance of the man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran's constitution.
Khamenei blamed foreign media and Western countries of trying to create a political rift and stir up chaos in Iran.
"Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory," he said, according to an official translation on state TV's English-language channel. "It is your victory. They cannot manipulate it."
Khamenei said the 11 million votes that separated Ahmadinejad from his top opponent, Mousavi, was proof that fraud did not occur.
"If the difference as 100,000 or 200,000 or 1 million, one may say fraud could happen. But how can one rig 11 million votes?" Khamenei asked during Friday prayers at Tehran University.
Mousavi and his supporters have staged massive street rallies in recent days that have posed the greatest challenge to the Iran's Islamic ruling system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power.
So far, the government has mostly allowed the protests to take place. But Khamenei opened the door for a much harder crackdown.
"It must be determined at the ballot box what the people want and what they don't want, not in the streets," he said. "I call on all to put an end to this method. ... If they don't, they will be held responsible for the chaos and the consequences."
Khamenei blamed Great Britain and Iran's external enemies for fomenting unrest and said Iran would not see a second revolution like those that transformed the countries of the former Soviet Union.
He remained staunch in his defense of Ahmadinejad, who attended Friday's prayers, saying his views were closer to the president's than to those of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful patron of Mousavi.
Khamenei's address was his first since hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters flooded the streets in Tehran and elsewhere in the country in rallies evoking the revolution that ended Iran's U.S.-backed monarchy. On Thursday, supporters dressed in black and green flooded downtown Tehran in a somber, candlelit show of mourning for those who have been killed in clashes since Friday's vote.
Khamenei said the street protests would not have any impact.
"Some may imagine that street action will create political leverage against the system and force the authorities to give in to threats. No, this is wrong," he said.
The supreme leader left open a small window for a legal challenge to the vote. He reiterated that he has ordered the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to the supreme leader, to investigate voter fraud claims.
The Council has said it was prepared to conduct a limited recount of ballots at sites where candidates claim irregularities.
He stressed that the four candidates were part of the country's Islamic system reminded listeners that Mousavi was prime minister of Iran when Khamenei was president in the 1980s.
"All of them belong to the system. It was a competition within the ruling system," he said.
So far, protesters have focused on the results of the balloting rather than challenging the Islamic system of government. But a shift in anger toward Iran's non-elected theocracy could result in a showdown over the foundation of Iran's system of rule.
Ahmadinejad has appeared to take the growing opposition more seriously in recent days, backtracking Thursday on his dismissal of the protesters as "dust" and sore losers.
The crowds in Tehran and elsewhere have been able to organize despite a government clampdown on the Internet and cell phones. The government has blocked certain Web sites, such as BBC Farsi, Facebook, Twitter and several pro-Mousavi sites that are vital conduits for Iranians to tell the world about protests and violence.
Text messaging, which is a primary source of spreading information in Tehran, has not been working since last week, and cell phone service in Tehran is frequently down. The government also has barred foreign news organizations from reporting on Tehran's streets.
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #9 on: 2009-06-19 12:59:00 »
[Fox] Very interesting article Hermit. But I wonder how this now compares and why Iran's Supreme Leader deemed the election a "definitive victory". The plot thickens.
[Hermit] Actually, I think that this simply supports what I have been saying all along. The highly popular, at least in the teeming masses with which Iran is well supplied, incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was re-elected with a very healthy two-thirds majority of the vote.
[Hermit] Any other claim is smoke and mirrors, and the hysteria to the contrary was created, probably deliberately and likely by people who are no friends of Iran.
[Hermit] The smoke is now clearing a little, allowing most of those without personal bias to see what was there all the time. There was lots of evidence for Ahmadinejad's public support, and no tangible evidence of electoral fraud at all.
[Hermit] What will take time to unravel is who if anyone was responsible for the claims to the contrary (America? Israel? Individuals? Liberals? Neocons?), the "perfect storm" of media lead hysteria, and perhaps whether this lead directly to the riots and deaths. Whether Iran will be able to act against anyone who bore legal or ethical responsibility, direct or contributory is less than clear. For example, had the deaths been Israeli, an American Court may well establish that the directors of Twitter carry a contributory legal responsibility, although, being that the mayhem and deaths were Iranian, even if Americans are shown to be involved, America's rather visibly biased injustice system might well refuse to examine such questions. And if Israelis or national intelligence services were involved, it may well be difficult for Iran to respond in any public fashion, although my guess is that if they are not already disgusted beyond belief (and they ought to be), they might try to take any evidence they develop before the Security Council. Unfortunately for Iran and the world, it is clear that the US controls that body in an even more blatantly partisan fashion than they do their court system - or there would not currently be sanctions causing massive damage to Iran's economy when Iran has clearly not provided any cause for such sanctions.
[Hermit] I am content to let this develop over time without trying to predict every turn and twist in the plot. I will say that the Iranians are not only one of the world's oldest civilizations, but that they are extremely clever and very, very good at dealing with court intrigue. I'm sure they will develop a response. Even if the response is to simply close their shell a little tighter against Western ideas. Which is all that sanctions ever really achieves - other than starving the poor in the futile hope that this will lead the wealthy to surrender.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
You have probably heard it asserted that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad principal strength is in rural areas, whereas Mir-Hossein Mousavi did relatively better in Iran's cities. However, it is not clear that this is true. Moreover, in 2005, it is demonstrably false. On the contrary, Ahmadinejad did much better in urban areas in that election.
I was finally able to track down data on the urbanization of each of Iran's 30 provinces, as listed on the website of the Statistical Center of Iran. Although Iran is a fairly large country, most of its population -- about 68 percent -- lives in cities. Its population density is quite comparable to that of the continental United States.
The percentage of Iranians living in urban areas in each province follows below:
Now, let's compare that to the percentage of the vote that Ahmadinejad received in each province in the first round of the 2005 election:
This is, obviously, a rather strong correlation. In 2005, Ahmadinejad was a man of the cities. Iran's most urban province, the small province of Qom (or Ghom), is also where Ahmadinejad got his largest share of the vote (55.2 percent) in the first round of the 2005 elections. Ahmadinejad's performance was quite not as strong in Tehran province, where he got 30.1 percent of the vote, but that was still better than the 20.3 percent he got overall, which was just enough to place him second and qualify him for the run-off.
Now, let's contrast that to what happened on Friday:
The correlation disappears, although it does not actually reverse itself. While Ahmadinejad did relatively poorly in some urban provinces like Tehran and Yazd, he did well in others like Qom and Ishafan.
So it's not exactly correct to say that Ahmadinejad's strength was in rural areas. What we certainly can say, however, is that almost all of the improvements that Ahmadinejad made over his 2005 totals came in rural areas. What was once a weakness of his turned into another strength.
This means that at least one of two things must be true. Either the urban-rural dynamics of Iran have changed significantly over the last four years -- at least insofar as it they affected perceptions of a candidate like Ahmadinejad. Or, alternatively, the election was rigged, and those who rigged it for some reason decided that rural votes were easier to steal.
Gallup polling conducted in 2008, incidentally, found that rural Iranians expressed much more confidence in the integrity of Iran's elections:
Again, I don't think this proves much of anything in and of itself; both explanations I outlined above are entirely plausible. But if you're going to steal votes, it is probably advisable to do so people who are less likely to notice that you're stealing them. In Iran, that means people in rural areas.
An Electoral Coup in Iran Abbas Djavadi
It was a night of fundamental change of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was, however, not the change the overwhelming majority of the electorate indicated to be producing with their real votes yesterday, but a change in the ruling establishment of the country, an almost complete control by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence services, and the most radical forces of the regime.
Actually, everything seemed to be going fine until the polling stations closed at 10 pm Tehran time. By then, streets were green, the color of the favorite opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was generally expected to win with a considerable margin, by many estimates of late Friday even in the first round. Reformist newspapers had already started to announce Mousavi's victory and the reformist candidate himself was calling the people for a national celebration on Sunday.
Everything started after voting ended and the Interior Ministry with the government-established Election Commission started to count the votes. As the incoming first figures from villages and small towns favored incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the reformers still kept their faith: "Ahmadinejad is stronger in villages that comprise some 30% of the population," they said. "We will definitely win the cities." This was while even one percent of the citizens from western Iranian villages and small towns hadn't allegedly voted for Mehdi Karroubi, the other opposition candidate who, comes from the same region and enjoys considerable popularity in Lorestan and Kurdistan provinces.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent film producer supporting Mousavi, who stayed in his favored candidate's headquarters, told Radio Farda that they were called by the Election Commission well before the first results were announced. "Don't announce Mr. Mousavi's victory yet," they were told by authorities. "We will gradually prepare the public and then you can proceed." Apparently, though, a well-prepared plan was at the works, but in a completely different direction. Isa Saharkhiz, journalist from Tehran, told Radio Farda that while the whole SMS network of the country was taken down and critical websites were blocked and newspapers closed, they disabled communication among supporters of opposition candidates and everybody started to fear that they are preparing to gradually inject the surprise "shocking news" during the night until they announce it early morning.
The later into the morning, the stronger -- and thus more unbelievable -- Ahmadinejad started to consolidate his figures.
Unknown and partly masked mobs, meanwhile, encircled the headquarters of the two opposition candidates Mousavi and Karroubi and attacked opposition supporters with sticks and gas spray, forcing them to flee. Mousavi issued a still faithful statement, reiterating his victory and saying that he would oppose and resist any attempt to change the real results. Later, though, he and Karroubi were no longer heard from. Instead, in spite of a ban by security forces, pro-Ahmadinejad groups poured into the streets to celebrate their candidate's "victory" although the count was still underway. There were clashes between groups of supporters of Mousavi and Karroubi on the one hand and security forces, on the other, in Tehran.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission announced the semi-final results based on 81% of the "counted" votes: Ahmadinejad 65%, Mousavi: 32%, Rezaei: 2% and Karroubi 1%! Interestingly, the percentages remained overall unchanged during the whole night although millions of more votes from different regions with different demographic combinations were "counted."
The "electoral coup," as many in Iran interviewed by Radio Farda called it, has changed the face of the Islamic Republic. It has formalized the exclusion of still moderate clerics, founding fathers and technocrats of the Islamic Republic, and consolidated the rule of a new elite led by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence offices, and radical Islamists who feel to be well-represented by the Ahmadinejad leadership of the last four years. It is widely assumed that the coup cannot have happened with the clear approval by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. As Supreme Leader, he is charged with protection of the Islamic Republic beyond all political groups and personalities. Khamenei has repeatedly said that a "truthful election with a high turnout" is the "clearest symbol of the system's legitimacy." Last night's rigged vote count seems to have left that legitimacy in shatters.
A fan of Radio Farda's Facebook page placed the following comment: "Stalin has shown the path for dictatorships: it's not important who votes, but who counts the votes." Another fan continued: "Green is no longer the color of hope, but that of resistance." Mystery remains on how this "resistance" of all those millions of anti-Ahmadinejad Iranians will evolve. The international community, for its part, will deal with a continued Ahmadinejad presidency that has even hardened its positions.
The Islamic Republic regime in Iran is vividly revealing itself as an enemy of the entire world.
“Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei’s police and the Basij militia are using violence and terror to suppress the Iranian people at home. His terrorist proxies fire missiles at Israel while torturing, maiming, and murdering Palestinians. He sponsored a violent coup d’etat against the elected government in Beirut last year with his Hezbollah militia. He sponsors a terrorist insurgency against the elected government of Iraq, while his fanatical proxies shoot and kill American soldiers. A car bomb cell belonging to the regime’s Lebanese franchise was recently arrested in Azerbaijan, and more cells were rolled up in Egypt. Terrorists sponsored and encouraged by him and his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, have murdered civilians from Argentina to Japan.
The regime’s only allies in the world are terrorist armies and Bashar Assad’s Baath Party state in Syria. Assad himself, like Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, is a pariah among the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Azeris, and Israelis who make up the region.
Iranian civilians risk violent beatings and worse by the thousands for standing up to the regime in the streets and treating it as the enemy it clearly is. There is no better time for the rest of us to do so, as well, especially since such gestures carry far less risk for us. The Pasdaran have no divisions in Washington, Paris, or London.
Obama Administration officials still hope they can talk Khamenei out of developing nuclear weapons and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. This is delusion on stilts. Khamenei can’t even compromise with his own regime or his hand-picked presidential candidates. He placed them under house arrest, along with a Grand Ayatollah, and deployed thousands of violent enforcers into the streets. Not only does he confront the world, he is at war with his very own country.
Understand the mind of a totalitarian. “Probe with a bayonet,” Vladimir Lenin famously said. “If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”
The Khomeinists in Iran likewise only stop when they meet steel. In his book “The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution“, Amir Taheri describes how since 1979 the regime has always continued to push until, as he put it, it hits something hard. It’s hitting something hard right now within its borders. This is no time for mush from everyone else. The regime today is weaker than it has ever been. If the insurrection continues, a fast hard shove might well push it over. If the regime survives, it may well feel invincible.
Military action against Iran should be the very last option and used only if everything short of it fails. Dialogue, though, is only the first option, one that has been failing for three decades. And there is a vast range of options between war and discussion.
If President Barack Obama simply must get this out of his system, at least his patience may be partly sapped by the brutal suppression of hope and change in Iran. He will learn soon enough, if he hasn’t already, that Khamenei, if he survives after defeating Iranians who bravely stood up and said “death to dictatorship” to his face, will be in no mood to compromise with diplomats who are afraid to speak up from thousands of miles away.
The delegates from the office of the supreme leader, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran, reached Mir Hossein Mousavi's residence around midnight on election day, Friday, June 12th. Mousavi knew he was not the supreme leader's favorite candidate, yet he expected nothing but good news. All day long the proceedings and monitors had reported a big win for him, a three-to-one victory resulting from the enthusiastic participation of a large number of young voters from densely populated urban centers. His nearest rival would have been another reformist candidate, Mehdi Karubi. But a 7 million to 8 million margin over his opponent meant he was a favorite to win the runoff.
But the men from the office of the supreme leader had other things on their mind. It was that odd combination of good-news-bad-news that provided most of the midnight irony. Surely they had come to congratulate him on his landslide victory. But they also carried a somber note from the supreme leader that it would not be in the best interest of the country for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to step aside. They informed Mousavi that the incumbent Ahmadinejad would be declared the victor, and that Mousavi was to fulfill his duties by abiding by the supreme leader's wish and accepting the new plan in the interest of national security. I don't know how long exactly it took Mousavi to make the most important decision of his political life. But the next fateful morning, he emerged defiant and uncompromising. He declared victory and demanded that the government respect the people's vote and that Ahmadinejad step aside.
Overnight, Ahmadinejad had mobilized his military-security force in the streets of Tehran. On Saturday, the Basij and Ashoura battalions took control of all major streets, and Ahmadinejad was publicly announced the winner. All cell phone lines were cut off to interrupt instant messaging, the main communication channel of the politically active youth. It took only hours for the young forces of Iranian civil society to get over the initial shock. Then, in an act of defiance, people poured into to the streets demanding that their votes be counted.
With a speed and ferocity that not even the activists expected of themselves, one of the largest demonstrations in the Islamic Republic's history shaped up against all the odds. Security and anti-riot police clashed with the protesters, but in at least two places had to retreat. Smaller crowds were broken up with violence. Some of the activists were heavily beaten. Mousavi's election headquarters were occupied by the armed forces, and the organizers were arrested or beaten severely.
Saturday ended with apparent calm in the streets. But the military units showed their discomfort, repeatedly announcing harsh punishments for those who would gather unlawfully in the streets. They correctly expected more to come.
The second wave of resistance came from the university student movement. They took over the University of Tehran and called for Ahmadinejad's resignation. Only a few hours later I learned of the uprising in Isfahan, another major urban center. The city is now under marshal law.
I expect to hear about demonstrations in another large city, Tabriz, very soon. Meanwhile workers and unionists are planning a nationwide strike. It is possible that the whole country will come to a stop in the next 24 hours. The resistance to the coup will likely spread to the entire country.
The elite clergy are up in arms about these developments. Secret negotiations are under way to make face-saving deals for both sides, but it may be a little too late for a compromise. There are reports of the armed forces firing on student protesters and at least one death. People are back on their rooftops screaming, "God is great," along with anti-regime slogans reminding everyone old enough of the 1979 revolution. Ahmadinejad supporters are calling for the arrest of former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, accusing them of treason. Returning the genie to the bottle looks increasingly difficult.
There are at least two possible outcomes for the current crisis. If the Ahmadinejad's coup is successful, we will witness another post-1968 Prague spring, crushing the reform movement and including a military attempt at "normalizing" society. Mousavi will be forced to appear on television and play the role of an Iranian Dubcek, expressing regrets and calling on people to stop resisting the military regime.
If this coup fails, on the other hand, Tehran may experience the Prague spring of 1989, and the country will be wide open to the possibility of substantial reforms and liberalization, well beyond what was seen in the Khatami era. In either case, the Islamic Republic we have known for the last three decades is gone. That strange, fragile and contradictory 1979 newborn, a hybrid of clerical theocracy and Western-style republic, has long been dead. Some have argued it was a stillbirth. Others have insisted on its potential. Either way we evaluate the regime, it's clear today that only brutal military force can sustain the theocratic element.
Monday June 15 was a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was the first time that demonstrations against the government reached nearly 3 million in Tehran. Five other cities, Tabriz, Urumeyeh, Shiraz, Rasht and Isfahan, joined the action with several hundred thousand people taking to the streets.
By all accounts Monday was also the bloodiest day of the new democracy movement. Plainclothes men belonging to Iran's notorious paramilitary force, the Basij, opened fire on the protesters, killing more than a dozen and injuring many more. In a Tehran University dormitory, five students were shot to death and many more were injured. Another city, Shiraz, witnessed multiple bloodbaths.
Tabriz, Shiraz and Tehran are now officially under martial law. The death toll is still not clear but the outcome of this violence is. On Wednesday people came out wearing black, mourning in solidarity with families who lost their loved ones. Evening hours are spent on the rooftops, voicing protest with slogans like "God is great," "Ahmadinejad is Pinochet but Iran will not become Chile," "Bye Bye Ahmadinejad," and "He can see the halo but can't see millions of people."
I have watched with horror the new footage of violence committed against the youth almost every hour. In at least one film clip, Arabic-speaking men treat a young protester like a piece of meat getting ready to be cut in the local butcher shop. The activists report seeing many of these Arabic-speaking men among the anti-riot police force in the streets of Tehran. This poses a special problem for students committed to nonviolent protest. The cornerstone of nonviolence strategy is to talk to your oppressor, to remind him of your humanity and to show him his family members in the crowd. How do you do all that when your oppressor has been imported from abroad, selected from oppressed, poor Palestinian or Lebanese communities?
The Iranian regime is also rounding up foreign reporters. A few European correspondents were forced to pack their bags and leave. Others have been confined to their hotel rooms. They were told that the Iranian government can no longer insure their safety. CNN's Christiane Amanpour went on the record as having bought the government story and told CNN's Larry King that the Iranian government probably didn't want to have reporters' blood on its hands. But the truth is likely elsewhere.
The expulsion of foreign journalists is another ominous sign indicating that more bloodshed is planned. The government has made a calculated decision to confront demonstrations with pure force. It believes that the excitement of the people over the election results will be short lived. That the movement can be contained and the majority's will can be subdued using massive force and unimaginable brutality. In preparation for that scenario, it plans to isolate the country from the rest of the world as much as possible.
The government has other urgent reasons to crush the opposition swiftly. Two grand ayatollahs, Montazeri and Sanei, who are the highest religious authorities, have declared Ahmadinejad's government illegitimate. They have issued decrees. These are hard to reverse and difficult to deal with, particularly if they accumulate or take a harsher tone.
A quick resolution will probably silence the seminary and allow Ahmadinejad some time for reconciliation with the religious order.
Both Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, the former presidents, have so far failed to convince the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to agree to a compromise. Recounting all the votes is out of the question. In his last speech Khamenei insisted that Ahmadinejad received 24 million votes and called the victims of the paramilitary force a bunch of criminals. His tone of voice left little to the imagination as to what will happen between now and Friday.
The government's strategy of using force has already targeted all potential leaders of the opposition movement. From the loyal Islamic reformist Saied Hajarian, to more traditional outsiders like members of the National Front, all have been arrested and are now in detention. This is the first attempt by regime strategists to disconnect the people from their leaders.
It is clear that the regime is committed to a carefully planned, extremely violent campaign in the next few days. Will this silence millions of people who are desperate for change? Even if the authorities successfully clear the streets, could Ahmadinejad's government effectively govern after such a campaign? The strategy could backfire as it did in 1979 with Shah's regime. But every dictator feels entitled not to learn from the past and instead make mistakes of his own.
JUST after Iran’s rigged elections last week, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets, it looked as if a new revolution was in the offing. Five days later, the uprising is little more than a symbolic protest, crushed by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile, the real revolution has gone unnoticed: the guard has effected a silent coup d’état.
The seeds of this coup were planted four years ago with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And while he has since disappointed his public, failing to deliver on promised economic and political reforms, his allies now control the country. In the most dramatic turnabout since the 1979 revolution, Iran has evolved from theocratic state to military dictatorship.
Disenchantment with clerical rule has been growing for years. To the urban youths who make up Iran’s most active political class, the mullahs represent the crude rigidity of Islamic law. To the rural poor, they epitomize the corruption that has meant unbuilt schools, unpaved roads and unfulfilled promises of development.
This hostility overflowed during the 2005 presidential race, with the defeat of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cleric widely considered corrupt, by Mr. Ahmadinejad, a former officer in the Revolutionary Guards.
In Mr. Ahmadinejad, the public saw a man who repudiated the profligacy of the clerical class, a man who was ascetic, humble and devout. And he capitalized on that image to consolidate power and to promote his brothers in arms. Fourteen of the 21 cabinet ministers he has appointed are former members of the guards or its associated paramilitary, the Basij. Several, including Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, are veterans of notorious units thought to have supported terrorist operations in the 1980s.
This creeping militarization has not been restricted to the central government: provincial governors, press commissars, film directors, intelligence officers and business leaders are increasingly former members of the guard. The elite force controls much of the economy either directly — the Basij has rights to oil extraction — or through proxy companies like Khatam al Anbiya, which dominates construction throughout Iran.
Technically, the pinnacle of power in Iran remains Ayatollah Khamenei, along with the 12-member Guardian Council. Yet he has proved eager to fall in with the president’s overthrow of the clerics. Indeed, Western intelligence services suspect Ayatollah Khamenei approved the rigging of the second round of the 2005 presidential election to throw decisive votes to Mr. Ahmadinejad. And this time around, the supreme leader made clear his preference with coded references like his exhortation to vote for “a man of the people, sincere, with a simple lifestyle.”
Why would he deliberately undercut his own clerical class? Survival. Far from fretting about an impending attack from Israel or America, guard leaders have been warning the ayatollah that the most formidable threat to the Islamic Republic is a “soft regime change policy” involving the use of “orange revolutions” (as the hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan recently editorialized).
Encircled by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, besieged from within by disgruntled citizens, the supreme leader has turned to a bellicose strongman to preserve the system that elevated him. Indeed, Ayatollah Khamenei — who was scorned as a religious lightweight by many more established mullahs when he was chosen for the top post in 1989 — has repeatedly shown himself willing to undercut the “Islamic” in Islamic revolution. In doing so, he has painted himself into a corner — a permanent alliance with Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards. And this fraudulent election will only push them closer together.
Many have been struck by the crudeness of the recent vote rigging, with reformist candidates losing even their hometowns. The unusually speedy certification of the election and Ayatollah Khamenei’s quick blessing — “a divine miracle” — only served to underscore an obvious sham.
Yet you don’t have to be paranoid to wonder if events were following a script: protesters pour into the streets only to be beaten down by Revolutionary Guard and Basij gunmen; the regime is prepared to detain dissidents — reportedly using Facebook and Twitter to locate them; Mr. Ahmadinejad is so unworried he jets off to Russia; and every element of the confrontation has provided a pretext for an overwhelming assertion of domestic power by the Revolutionary Guards.
What does this mean for President Obama and the policy of engagement he hopes to pursue? Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective. Meanwhile, the Iranian people will have suffered the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship. That Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.
Demonstrators in Iran distributed seven demands in print.
1. Dismissal of Khamenei for not being a fair leader 2. Dismissal of Ahmadinejad for his illegal acts 3. Temporary appointment of Ayatollah Montazeri as the Supreme Leader 4. Recognition of Mousavi as the President 5. Forming the Cabinet by Mousavi to prepare for revising the Constitution 6. unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners 7. Dissolution of all organs of repression, public or secret
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
The noble and oppressed Iranian nation,
Greetings and salutation. In the recent days, I witnessed the exuberant and devoted endeavour and presence of you dear and honorable brothers and sisters -old and young, men and women - from all strata of society, on the scene of the 10th presidential campaign. During this period, the youth came on the scene, full of hope and in pursuit of their rights, and counted the days to the Due Day. That was a perfect and suitable opportunity for the officials of the system to take the best advantage of to establish the best religious, affectionate, and national bond with the massive stratum of youth and all the other strata of society.
Unfortunately, however, the worst use was made of this best opportunity. Following the announcement of [election] results, which cannot be accepted by anyone of sound mind - and, based on reliable evidence, substantial alterations have been made in the votes of the people - and subsequent protests by some parts of society against such a conduct, and before the eyes of these very people - who have endured the heavy load of the victory of the Revolution and eight years of an imposed war [1980-88 Iran-Iraq war], and resisted the bullets of the Shah's regime and the enemy's tanks and artillery, without bearing arms - and the world, and in the presence of the cameras of the domestic and foreign media, they encountered the children of these people, the defenceless men and women and the dear students, with full force, suppressing, arresting and injuring them. And now they have started to settle political scores with activists, intellectuals and progressives, and are detaining and arresting many individuals, some of whom were among the high-ranking officials of the system of the Islamic Republic, without any reasons.
Now, owing to my religious and national duty, and based on the verse in the Holy Koran, "Advice is of benefit to the believers," I would like to give the following pieces of advice:
1. The distinction of a powerful government - Islamic or non-Islamic - is its ability to heed both similar and opposing views and, with religious compassion, which is a prerequisite of government, allow all the strata of society, whatever their political beliefs, to participate in the running of the country, instead of totally alienating them and constantly increasing their [the dissidents] number. Since this government is known as a religious government, I fear that the conduct and actions of the officials may ultimately harm the religion and undermine the people's beliefs.
2. The current situation and the issues that have occurred since the recent elections have made many people astonished and cynical. Based on religious and ethical teachings, the rulers and relevant officials are expected to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the government and its officials in such an important matter - which entails the rights of the people in general and to which the principle of assumption of innocence cannot be applied - through reliable and impartial means that are acceptable to both sides. In such circumstances, one expects the government to provide a rational and satisfactory response, and to eliminate people's doubts, cynicisms and suspicions through correct means. Otherwise, it will merely increase the people's cynicism toward the government, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the system and its elected representative, and undermine its credibility. I have emphasized so many times that the votes of the nation are sacred, and a government that is based on appropriating the votes has no religious or political legitimacy whatsoever.
3. I urge all the people, in particular the youth, to pursue the realization of their rights with patience and grace, to maintain calm and security in the country by virtue of sagacity and intelligence, and to refrain from aggression or any action that may harm their image and legitimate demand, and which would give an excuse to those of unfit character, who infiltrate the crowds, to create turmoil and disorder, and set people's homes and belongings on fire, in a bid to generate an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. So, it is essential that, while remaining on the scene, they [the people] exercise total wisdom to allow the candidates whose rights have been violated to pursue their actions through legal means.
4. I advise all the officials, as well as the military and security forces, to uphold their religion and not sell their souls; they must understand that the term "officials are excused [because they are only doing their duty]" would not be accepted by the Almighty God on the Day of Judgement. They must regard the protesting youth as their own children, and refrain from violent and cruel actions. They must learn from the mistakes of the predecessors and understand that, eventually, those who oppress the people will receive their just comeuppance. In this day and age, one cannot hide the truth from the people through censorship, closures and restrictions of communication means.
In conclusion, I beseech the Almighty God to grant success to all those who serve Islam and the Muslims, and honor and glory to the dear Iranian nation.
To start with, the BBC, long considered a shill for the regime by most Iranian dissidents, estimates between one and two million Tehranis demonstrated against the regime on Monday. That’s a big number. So we can say that, at least for the moment, there is a revolutionary mass in the streets of Tehran. There are similar reports from places like Tabriz and Isfahan, so it’s nationwide.
For its part, the regime ordered its (Basij and imported Hezbollah) thugs to open fire on the demonstrators. The Guardian, whose reporting from Iran has always been very good (three correspondents expelled in the last ten years, they tell me), thinks that a dozen or so were killed on Monday. And the reports of brutal assaults against student dormitories in several cities are horrifying, even by the mullahs’ low standards.
Western governments have expressed dismay at the violence, and Obama, in his eternally narcissistic way, said that he was deeply disturbed by it, and went on to add that freedom of speech, etc., were universal values and should be respected by the mullahs. I would have preferred a strong statement of condemnation–stressing the evil of killing peaceful demonstrators–but he finally said something.
He probably thinks he’s in a bind (he isn’t, actually). He probably thinks that if he condemns the violence, and the regime wins, that will lessen his chances to strike the Grand Bargain he so avidly desires. Somebody might remind him that Ronald Reagan was unstinting in his criticism of the Soviet Union (”The Evil Empire”), but negotiated no end of bargains with them, including quite dramatic arms reductions.
It’s always better to assert American values, both because he’s our president and he should be speaking for all of us, and because catering to the tender sensibilities of the murders in Iran won’t gain anything. It will only increase their contempt.
What’s going to happen?, you ask. Nobody knows, even the major actors. The regime has the guns, and the opposition has the numbers. The question is whether the numbers can be successfully organized into a disciplined force that demands the downfall of the regime. Yes, I know that there have been calls for a new election, or a runoff between Mousavi and Ahmadinezhad. But I don’t think that’s very likely now. The tens of millions of Iranians whose pent-up rage has driven them to risk life and limb against their oppressors are not likely to settle for a mere change in personnel at this point. And the mullahs surely know that if they lose, many of them will face a very nasty and very brief future.
If the disciplined force comes into being, the regime will fall. If not, the regime will survive. Can Mousavi lead such a force? If anyone had said, even a few days ago, that Mousavi would lead a nation-wide insurrection, he’d have been laughed out of the room. Very few foresaw anything like the current situation, although I will claim credit for predicting that neither side in the electoral circus would accept the official verdict.
Does Mousavi even want to change the system? I think he does, and in any event, I think that’s the wrong question. He is not a revolutionary leader, he is a leader who has been made into a revolutionary by a movement that grew up around him. The real revolutionary is his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. And the real question, the key question in all of this, is: why did Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei permit her to become such a charismatic figure? How could he have made such a colossal blunder? It should have been obvious that the very existence of such a woman threatened the dark heart of the Islamic Republic, based as it is on the disgusting misogyny of its founder, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
I was told months ago that Khamenei and Mousavi had made a deal. Mousavi would run, and win, and then slowly introduce greater freedom. I didn’t believe it at the time, but it has seemed more and more plausible. When somebody at the Interior Ministry called Mousavi on election night to tell him to prepare a victory statement, that was part of the deal. But by then, the mullahs had seen their doom, and used the only weapons at their disposal: lies and violence. Some have asked why Khamenei used such grossly implausible numbers to “reelect” Ahmadinezhad, but that bespeaks ignorance of the mullahs: there is no lie that will shame them. No, the real question is why Zahra Rahnavard was given a free hand, and the real answer is that the mullahs, with Khamenei in the lead, made a blunder.
In any event, all of that is irrelevant now. The only thing that matters is winning and losing. Whatever plans Mousavi had for a gradual transformation of the Islamic Republic, they have been overtaken by events; the issue now is the survival of the system. Mousavi has called for a general strike on Tuesday. That is the right strategy, since he must demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want an end to the regime. And the dissidents must show that they are not afraid of the thugs. Mousavi has said that they must use flowers, not guns, since he must aim at the disintegration of the armed killers, not at winning a gunfight.
There are reports of members of the Revolutionary Guards defecting to the dissidents. There is this report from an Iranian website (the only place i’ve seen it) according to which 16 senior Revolutionary Guards officials have been arrested:
“These commanders have been in contact with members of the Iranian army to join the people’s movement. Three of the commanders are veterans of Iran-Iraq war. They have been moved to an undisclosed location in East Tehran.”
If true, it’s very important, but, as I have often noted, the regime has distrusted them for some time. The young Islamic revolutionaries of the late 1970s are now middle aged, and do not wish to slaughter their neighbors. That is why the mullahs have imported killers from abroad: the five thousand or so Hezbollahis who, according to Der Spiegel, have been brought in from Lebanon and Syria. Dissidents on Twitter report clashes with security forces who do not speak Farsi, and there are even some rumors suggesting that Chavez has sent some of his toughs from Venezuela. Who knows?
The other great threat to the regime comes from the upper reaches of the clergy. Do not be surprised to see some senior ayatollahs denounce the regime; many have done so in the past (Ayatollah Montazeri has been under house arrest for years, and Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been subjected to horrible torture for criticizing the lack of freedom in Iran). We are still quite early in this process.
But the key element is the people. They are only just beginning to understand the reality of their situation. Virtually none of them imagined that they would be in a revolutionary confrontation with the regime just two days after the electoral circus, and few of them can realize, so soon, that they can actually change the world. I think the Mousavis now understand it (they know that they are either going to win or be destroyed). It remains to be seen if they can instruct and inspire the movement.
Much will depend on their ability to communicate. The regime has been waging a cyberwar against the dissidents, shutting down websites, cell phones, Facebook, and the like. As most people have learned, the basic communiations tool is Twitter, which somehow continues to function. Bigtime Kudos to Twitter, by the way, for postponing its planned maintenance so that the Iranians can continue to Tweet. Would that Google were so solicitous of freedom.
We don’t know who’s going to win. The Iranian people know that they’re on their own; they aren’t going to get any help from us, or the United Nations, or the Europeans. But paradoxically, this lack of support may strengthen their will. There is no cavalry on the horizon. If they are going to prevail, they and their unlikely leaders will have to gut it out by themselves. God be with them.
Don't Call What Happened in Iran Last Week an Election It was a crudely stage-managed insult to everyone involved. By Christopher Hitchens http://www.slate.com/id/2220520/
For a flavor of the political atmosphere in Tehran, Iran, last week, I quote from a young Iranian comrade who furnishes me with regular updates:
I went to the last major Ahmadinejad rally and got the whiff of what I imagine fascism to have been all about. Lots of splotchy boys who can't get a date are given guns and told they're special.
It's hard to better this, either as an evocation of the rancid sexual repression that lies at the nasty core of the "Islamic republic" or as a description of the reserve strength that the Iranian para-state, or state within a state, can bring to bear if it ever feels itself even slightly challenged. There is a theoretical reason why the events of the last month in Iran (I am sorry, but I resolutely decline to refer to them as elections) were a crudely stage-managed insult to those who took part in them and those who observed them. And then there is a practical reason. The theoretical reason, though less immediately dramatic and exciting, is the much more interesting and important one.
Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not "run." Any newspaper referring to the subsequent proceedings as an election, sometimes complete with rallies, polls, counts, and all the rest of it, is the cause of helpless laughter among the ayatollahs. ("They fell for it? But it's too easy!") Shame on all those media outlets that have been complicit in this dirty lie all last week. And shame also on our pathetic secretary of state, who said that she hoped that "the genuine will and desire" of the people of Iran would be reflected in the outcome. Surely she knows that any such contingency was deliberately forestalled to begin with.
In theory, the first choice of the ayatollahs might not actually "win," and there could even be divisions among the Islamic Guardian Council as to who constitutes the best nominee. Secondary as that is, it can still lead to rancor. After all, corrupt systems are still subject to fraud. This, like hypocrisy, is the compliment that vice pays to virtue. With near-incredible brutishness and cruelty, then, the guardians moved to cut off cell-phone and text-message networks that might give even an impression of fairness and announced though their storm-troop "revolutionary guards" that only one form of voting had divine sanction. ("The miraculous hand of God," announced Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, had been present in the polling places and had announced a result before many people had even finished voting. He says that sort of thing all the time.)
The obvious evidence of fixing, fraud, and force to one side, there is another reason to doubt that an illiterate fundamentalist like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could have increased even a state-sponsored plebiscite-type majority. Everywhere else in the Muslim world, in every election in the last two years, the tendency has been the other way. In Morocco in 2007, the much-ballyhooed Justice and Development Party wound up with 14 percent of the vote. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the predictions of increased market share for the pro-Sharia parties were likewise falsified. In Iraq this last January, the local elections penalized the clerical parties that had been making life a misery in cities like Basra. In neighboring Kuwait last month, the Islamist forces did poorly, and four women—including the striking figure of Rola Dashti, who refuses to wear any headgear—were elected to the 50-member parliament. Most important of all, perhaps, Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah was convincingly and unexpectedly defeated last week in Lebanon after an open and vigorous election, the results of which were not challenged by any party. And, from all I hear, if the Palestinians were to vote again this year—as they were at one point supposed to do—it would be highly improbable that Hamas would emerge the victor.
Yet somehow a senile and fanatical religious clique that has failed even to condition the vote in a country like Lebanon, where it has proxy and surrogate parties under arms, is able to reward itself by increasing its "majority" in a festeringly bankrupt state where it controls the media and enjoys a monopoly of violence. I think we should deny it any official recognition of this consolation. (I recommend a reading of "Neither Free Nor Fair: Elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran" and other productions of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation. This shows that past penalties for not pleasing the Islamic Guardian Council have included more than mere disqualification and have extended to imprisonment and torture and death, sometimes in that order. A new movie by Cyrus Nowrasteh, The Stoning of Soraya M., will soon show what happens to those who dare to dissent in other ways and are dealt with by Ahmadinejad's "grass roots" fanatics.)
Mention of the Lebanese elections impels me to pass on what I saw with my own eyes at a recent Hezbollah rally in south Beirut, Lebanon. In a large hall that featured the official attendance of a delegation from the Iranian Embassy, the most luridly displayed poster of the pro-Iranian party was a nuclear mushroom cloud! Underneath this telling symbol was a caption warning the "Zionists" of what lay in store. We sometimes forget that Iran still officially denies any intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet Ahmadinejad recently hailed an Iranian missile launch as a counterpart to Iran's success with nuclear centrifuges, and Hezbollah has certainly been allowed to form the idea that the Iranian reactors may have nonpeaceful applications. This means, among other things, that the vicious manipulation by which the mullahs control Iran can no longer be considered their "internal affair." Fascism at home sooner or later means fascism abroad. Face it now or fight it later. Meanwhile, give it its right name.
Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.
And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued "dialogue" with their clerical masters.
Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists, arresting activists. Engagement with -- which inevitably confers legitimacy upon -- leaders elected in a process that begins as a sham (only four handpicked candidates permitted out of 476) and ends in overt rigging.
Then, after treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamenei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election."
Where to begin? "Supreme Leader"? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts -- a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.
Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.
This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle East.
This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.
The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism -- leave it forever spent and discredited.
In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 -- the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, the first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt -- was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.
Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception -- Iraq and Lebanon -- becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.
All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None. Except for the desire that this "vigorous debate" (press secretary Robert Gibbs's disgraceful euphemism) over election "irregularities" not stand in the way of U.S.-Iranian engagement on nuclear weapons.
Even from the narrow perspective of the nuclear issue, the administration's geopolitical calculus is absurd. There is zero chance that any such talks will denuclearize Iran. On Monday, President Ahmadinejad declared yet again that the nuclear "file is shut, forever." The only hope for a resolution of the nuclear question is regime change, which (if the successor regime were as moderate as pre-Khomeini Iran) might either stop the program, or make it manageable and nonthreatening.
That's our fundamental interest. And our fundamental values demand that America stand with demonstrators opposing a regime that is the antithesis of all we believe.
And where is our president? Afraid of "meddling." Afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror -- and the people in the street yearning to breathe free. This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world.
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #11 on: 2009-06-19 23:04:04 »
I haven't really thought out a lot on the Iranian situation. I've never lived there, nor do I have any dear friends who have. Obviously the speed declaration combined with the declared margin of victory seems to indicate some rush to judgement. But then who ever thought Iran was really democracy? In 2000 I thought the US was a democracy, but was apparently wrong at the time. Perhaps we've improved since, and perhaps not, but we in the US can certainly sympathize with having your election stolen from you. I'm sure we are all adjusting our expectations and activism as the fight progresses, but its nice to know that there are so many of us together in this fight to have our voices heard. Whether its in Iran, the US, or from the least among us.
Some of my chatty #virus IRC musings follow:
19:53:37 MoEnzyme I'm not really sure what to make about the Iranian election situation. 19:54:43 MoEnzyme I'm rather certain that some fishy things happened, mostly based on the speed with which a winner was declared when obviously the technology actually used was incapable of rendering such a fast decision. 19:56:04 MoEnzyme other than that, and perhaps due to the fact that there was no serious international observation of their elections, the opposition seems left with empty hands. 19:56:42 MoEnzyme no real evidence to stand on, since their political adversaries control all access to such evidence. 19:57:22 MoEnzyme Yeah its a sucky deal, but its the same sucky deal that all Iranian politicians bought into from the begining. 19:57:46 MoEnzyme So the big surprise shouldn't be that Iran is not actually a Democracy. 19:58:07 MoEnzyme The real surprise is that anybody outside of Iran ever thought that it actually was. 19:59:00 MoEnzyme Even this Mousavi bought the deal. 19:59:47 MoEnzyme So while I feel badly for his possibly deluded followers, I can't summon up much sympathy for the man himself. He's a better complainer than actual leader. 20:01:02 MoEnzyme which may be just as well, because there was no way he was actually going to have the initiative to lead. He's only important in that the lead was stolen from him by people with much more initiative. 20:01:50 MoEnzyme I understand his wife was popular. Too bad more of that didn't rub off on him. 20:16:19 MoEnzyme I think that covers it.
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #12 on: 2009-06-20 01:05:49 »
Mo, I think perhaps:
You greatly underestimate the Iranians. You have forgotten that they not only invented chess, but also the puzzle of its inventor who asked for 1 grain of rice on the 1st square, 2 grains on the second square, etc. And who the Shah of the day was smart enough to execute immediately rather than having to wait to discover that he could not afford the final sum (a moral may be drawn from the contrast with Americans, who are still paying their bankers handsomely to create money for them). These are also the people who used teams of thousands of women to sort and paste the fragments of tens of thousands of documents shredded by the Americans in the embassy at the fall of the Peacock Throne, and pasted them back into complete documents which were then photographed - on both sides, interpreted, and the originals and interpretations placed on exhibition, to prove to the world how America had conspired against the Iranian people. They understand pattern analysis, mathematics, progressions and percentages as well as anyone. They have successfully launched vehicles into space and solved many nuclear challenges alone and while suffering under bruising sanctions.
You don't understand that the chronology is all wrong for fraud. First the opposition claimed to have won the election, then claimed electoral fraud well before official electoral results were available. The twitter storm, begun after the JPost pointed to a few twitterers, also began well before official results were released.
You don't understand the Iranian poll counting methodology perhaps because you have forgotten (if you knew) that during the Second World War the major combatants called rooms full of women computers and used them to perform amazing complicated calculations for ballistics, bomb-aimers, encryption, nuclear fission and so forth. This was not a new idea. The Persians (now known, of course, as the Iranians) were using rooms full of abasists (l'ab'aq - the sand) to perform complex calculations by 600 BCE (ie, over 2600 years ago). The idea was reinvented by a French astronomer in the 1700s and used by the British for their global trigonometric surveys in the 1800s. Amazing what you can accomplish with parallel processing. So when you say their results were given too fast, you may have missed the point that each polling point had a team of workers that validated and counted the ballots into piles, totalized them and called the totals. In parallel. In case you missed the point. Not only is it very quick, but also thousands of people are involved in the counting. Which actually makes fraud very difficult to accomplish.
Like many others, you are seeing a small English speaking elite protesting using sophisticated methods, not the huge masses who are not.
I think all the above points are well supported by the articles and analysis I posted prior to the troll-flood. I give particular credit to the article by the Farsi speaking Robert Fisk, internationally recognized doyen of foreign correspondents and brilliant Arabist. Pay careful attention to what he reports, not about the brutality, but about the voting. "The election figures are correct, Robert. Whatever you saw in Tehran, in the cities and in thousands of towns outside, they voted overwhelmingly for Ahmadinejad. Tabriz voted 80 per cent for Ahmadinejad. It was he who opened university courses there for the Azeri people to learn and win degrees in Azeri. In Mashad, the second city of Iran, there was a huge majority for Ahmadinejad after the imam of the great mosque attacked Rafsanjani of the Expediency Council who had started to ally himself with Mousavi. They knew what that meant: they had to vote for Ahmadinejad." ... "You know why so many poorer women voted for Ahmadinejad? There are three million of them who make carpets in their homes. They had no insurance. When Ahmadinejad realised this, he immediately brought in a law to give them full insurance. Ahmadinejad's supporters were very shrewd. They got the people out in huge numbers to vote – and then presented this into their vote for Ahmadinejad."
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote
« Reply #13 on: 2009-06-20 04:15:25 »
[Blunderov] Why is it, I can't help wondering, that Israel is so hell bent on precipitating a war between America and Iran? (This business about an "existential" threat to Israel is, let's face it, very obviously snake oil of the rudest sort.) So why? Answer: so that Zion can bask in an actual relevance to the United States amounting to more than just the trinket of the Jewish vote back home. Bottom line: Israel has no oil and "peak oil" is now an acknowledged geo-political fact. Remember; "America has no friends, only interests." The times they are a changin' - and Israel knows it!
We are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy in Iran. I don't mean by this that the Iranian regime is about to collapse. It may—I certainly hope it will—but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. We are watching the failure of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian government. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists were presumed to have divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality, but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea, velayat-e faqih, rule by the Supreme Jurist, was at its heart. Last week that ideology suffered a fatal blow.
When the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was using the key weapon of velayat-e faqih, divine sanction. Millions of Iranians didn't buy it, convinced that their votes—one of the key secular rights allowed them under Iran's religious system—had been stolen. Soon Khamenei was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, promised to investigate, meet with the candidates and recount some votes. Khamenei has realized that the regime's existence is at stake and has now hardened his position, but that cannot put things back together. It has become clear that in Iran today, legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular will. For three decades, the Iranian regime has wielded its power through its religious standing, effectively excommunicating those who defied it. This no longer works—and the mullahs know it. For millions, perhaps the majority of Iranians, the regime has lost its legitimacy.
Why is this happening? There have been protests in Iran before, but they always placed the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president Mohammad Khatami was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street after student riots broke out in 1999 and 2003, but in the end he stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again—the difference this time is that the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly backed the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. Even Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, not a cleric himself but a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy, has expressed doubts about the election. Behind the scenes, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—the head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body—is reportedly waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even possibly the Supreme Leader. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it would represent a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be as though a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.
The Islamic Republic might endure but would be devoid of legitimacy. The regime could certainly prevail in this struggle; in fact, that would have to be the most likely outcome. But it will do so by using drastic means—banning all protests, arresting students, punishing senior leaders and shutting down civil society. No matter how things turn out—crackdown, co-optation—it is clear that millions in Iran no longer believe in the regime's governing ideology. If it holds on to power, it will do so like the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnev era, surviving only through military intimidation. "Iran will turn into Egypt," says the Iranian-born intellectual Reza Aslan, meaning a regime in which guns, rather than ideas, hold things together behind a façade of politics.
The Islamic Republic has been watching its legitimacy dwindle over the past decade. First came Khatami, the reformist, who won landslide victories and began some reforms before he was stymied by the Guardian Council. That experience made the mullahs decide they had to reverse course on the only element of democracy they'd permitted in Iran—reasonably open elections. The regime's method of control used to be to select permissible candidates, favor one or two, but allow genuine, secret balloting. In the parliamentary elections of 2004, however, the Guardian Council decided that normal methods would not achieve acceptable results. So it summarily banned 3,000 candidates, including many sitting parliamentarians. Because public support was even less certain this time, the regime went further, announcing the election results in two hours and giving Ahmadinejad victory by such a wide margin that it would preclude any dispute. Khamenei revealed the strategy in his sermon last Friday. "A difference of 11 million votes—how can there be vote rigging?" he asked.
How should the United States deal with the situation in Iran? First, it is worth pointing out that Washington is dealing with it. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Barack Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that it is battling an aggressive America, bent on attacking Iran. A few years ago, this was a perfectly plausible claim. George W. Bush had repeatedly declared that the Iranian regime was a mortal enemy, that Iran was part of the Axis of Evil and that a military assault on the country was something he was considering. Obama has done the opposite, making clear that he views the Iranian people with warmth and would negotiate with whichever leaders they chose to represent them. In his Inaugural Address, his Persian New Year greetings and his Cairo speech, he has made a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily throughout most of his response to the New Year message. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. (Of course, ever the ruthless pragmatist, he also carefully left open the door to negotiations with the United States.)
In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel and especially Britain were behind the street protests that have roiled Tehran, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to many Iranians. But not all: suspicion of meddling by outside powers is deeply ingrained among even the most Westernized citizens in Iran. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.
Neoconservatives are already denouncing Obama for his caution. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary under Donald Rumsfeld, has compared the White House reaction to Ronald Reagan's reticence when Ferdinand Marcos's regime was challenged on the streets of the Philippines. But the analogy makes no sense. Marcos was an American client—he was in power courtesy of the United States. The protesters were asking Reagan to withdraw that support and let events take their course. Iran, on the other hand, is an independent, fiercely nationalistic country with a history of British and U.S. interference in its politics and economy. Britain essentially took over Iran's oil industry in 1901; the United States engineered a coup in 1953. The chief criticism of the Shah of Iran was that he was an American puppet. As in many such countries—India is another example—this anti-imperial sentiment is quite powerful. Iranians know this is their fight, and they want it to be.
The appropriate analogy is actually to George H.W. Bush's cautious response to the cracks that started to appear in the Soviet empire in 1989. Then, as now with Obama, many neoconservatives were livid with Bush for not loudly supporting those trying to topple the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But Bush's concern was that the situation was fragile. Those regimes could easily crack down on the protesters, and the Soviet Union could send in its own tanks. Handing the communists reasons to react forcefully would help no one, least of all the protesters. Bush's basic approach was correct and has been vindicated by history.
But there is one statement that I wish Obama had not made. Discussing the events taking place in Iran, he said that there was no important difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, since they would both defend the Islamic Republic's key foreign-policy choices, from its nuclear ambitions to its support for organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah. That viewpoint has actually been voiced by some in the neoconservative camp who have openly preferred Ahmadinejad: a more threatening foe would more clearly highlight the dangers of the regime to the rest of the world. But even if this were true before the election, it is no longer true. Mousavi has become a symbol of change, anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment and even anti-regime aspirations. He is clearly aware of this and is embracing the support. A victory for him would mean a different Iran.
Even during the campaign, what did Mousavi say that resonated most with voters? That he would do a better job on the economy? That corruption had gotten out of hand? Perhaps, but every challenger says that, and Mousavi didn't really have many new ideas or an impressive recent record to make these claims credible. The theme that Mousavi constantly hit was that Ahmadinejad had isolated the country, engaged in an aggressive foreign policy and needlessly turned Iran into a pariah state. For many of his supporters, this was the key issue: they craved more engagement with the world, not less. Ahmadinejad's willful rejection of the West and constant references to America's supposed decline were insults to their ambition to be included again in the world community.
President Obama could look at these events and simply say, "Iran has a proud and long history of being actively involved with the world, not being isolated from it. The world has long wanted to extend the hand of engagement with the Iranian people. Watching the elections and the remarkable, peaceful demonstrations that are ongoing, it is clear that the Iranian people also want engagement with the world. We hear your voices and wish you well." That way, in a careful fashion, Obama could turn Iranian nationalism on the regime itself.
But the real issue here is not a few words from Obama, but events on the ground in Iran. The faltering of the Islamic Republic will have repercussions all over the Muslim world. Although Iran is Shia and most of the Islamic world is Sunni, Khomeini's rise to power was a shock to every Muslim country, a sign that Islamic fundamentalism was a force to be reckoned with. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, tried to co-opt that force. Others, like Egypt, repressed it brutally. But everywhere, Iran was the symbol of the rise of political Islam. If it now fails, a 30-year-old tide will have turned.
I have been given the responsibility of telling the world what is happening in Iran. The office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who the Iranian people truly want as their leader, has asked me to do so. They have asked me to tell how Mousavi's headquarters was wrecked by plainclothes police officers. To tell how the commanders of the revolutionary guard ordered him to stay silent. To urge people to take to the streets because Mousavi could not do so directly.
The people in the streets don't want a recount of last week's vote. They want it annulled. This is a crucial moment in our history. Since the 1979 revolution Iran has had 80% dictatorship and 20% democracy. We have dictatorship because one person is in charge, the supreme leader – first Khomeini, now Khamenei. He controls the army and the clergy, the justice system and the media, as well as our oil money.
There are some examples of democracy – reformers elected to parliament, and the very fact that a person like Mousavi could stand for election. But, since the day of the election, this element of democracy has vanished. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won, and that whoever opposed this will be suppressed – a position he affirmed speaking today in Tehran. People wanted to have demonstrations within the law, but the authorities would not let them. This is the first time we have seen millions on the streets without the permission of the supreme leader.
Now they are gathering to mourn those who have died. The people of Iran have a culture that elevates martyrdom. In the period running up to the revolution, when people were killed at demonstrations, others would gather again in the days following the death. This cycle carried on for six months, and culminated in the revolution. Today they are gathering in Tehran for those who were shot on Tuesday, and if there are more killings, this will continue.
So why do the Iranian people not want Ahmadinejad as their leader? Because he is nothing but a loudspeaker for Khamenei. Under Ahmadinejad, economic problems have grown worse, despite $280bn of oil revenue. Social and literary freedom is much more restricted than under his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami. The world views us as a terrorist nation on the lookout for war. When Khatami was president of Iran, Bush was president of the US. Now the Americans have Obama and we have our version of Bush. We need an Obama who can find solutions for Iran's problems. Although power would remain in the hands of Khamenei, a president like Mousavi could weaken the supreme leader.
Some suggest the protests will fade because nobody is leading them. All those close to Mousavi have been arrested, and his contact with the outside world has been restricted. People rely on word of mouth, because their mobile phones and the internet have been closed down. That they continue to gather shows they want something more than an election. They want freedom, and if they are not granted it we will be faced with another revolution.
Thirty years ago we supported each other. When police used tear gas, fires would be lit to neutralise its effects. People would set their own cars on fire to save others. Since then, the government has tried to separate people from one other. What we lost was our togetherness, and in the past month we have found that again. All the armed forces in Iran are only enough to repress one city, not the whole country. The people are like drops of water coming together in a sea.
People say that Mousavi won't change anything as he is part of the establishment. That is correct to a degree because they wouldn't let anyone who is not in their circle rise to seniority. But not all members of a family are alike, and for Mousavi it is useful to understand how he has changed over time.
Before the revolution, Mousavi was a religious intellectual and an artist, who supported radical change but did not support the mullahs. After the revolution, when all religious intellectuals and even leftists backed Khomeini, he served as prime minister for eight years. The economy was stable, and he did not order the killings of opponents, or become corrupt.
In order to neuralise his power, the position of prime minister was eliminated from the constitution and he was pushed out of politics. So Mousavi returned to the world of artists because in a country where there are no real political parties, artists can act as a party. The artists supported Khatami and now they support Mousavi.
Previously, he was revolutionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he's a reformer. Now he knows Gandhi – before he knew only Che Guevara. If we gain power through aggression we would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we're having a green revolution, defined by peace and democracy.
Indeed god demands you to safe keep what people entrust in you, and to rule them with justice. [this a verse of Koran]
Respectable and intelligent people of Iran,
These nights and days, a pivotal moment in our history is taking place. People ask each other: “what should we do?, which way should we go?”. It is my duty to share with you what I believe, and to learn from you, may we never forget our historical task and not give up on the duty we are given by the destiny of times and generations.
30 years ago, in this country a revolution became victorious in the name of Islam, a revolution for freedom, a revolution for reviving the dignity of men, a revolution for truth and justice. In those times, especially when our enlightened Imam [Khomeini] was alive, large amount of lives and matters were invested to legitimize this foundation and many valuable achievements were attained. An unprecedented enlightenment captured our society, and our people reached a new life where they endured the hardest of hardships with a sweet taste. What this people gained was dignity and freedom and a gift of the life of the pure ones [i.e. 12 Imams of Shiites]. I am certain that those who have seen those days will not be satisfied with anything less.
Had we as a people lost certain talents that we were unable to experience that early spirituality? I had come to say that that was not the case. It is not late yet, we are not far from that enlightened space yet. I had come to show that it was possible to live spiritually while living in a modern world. I had come to repeat Imam’s warnings about fundamentalism. I had come to say that evading the law leads to dictatorship; and to remind that paying attention to people’s dignity does not diminish the foundations of the regime, but strengthens it. I had come to say that people wish honesty and integrity from their servants, and that many of our perils have arisen from lies. I had come to say that poverty and backwardness, corruption and injustice were not our destiny. I had come to re-invite to the Islamic revolution, as it had to be, and Islamic republic as it has to be.
In this invitation, I was not charismatic [articulate], but the core message of revolution was so appealing that it surpassed my articulation and excited the young generation who had not seen those days to recreate scenes which we had not seen since the days of revolution[1979] and the sacred defense. The people’s movement chose green as its symbol. I confess that in this, I followed them. And a generation that was accused of being removed from religion, has now reached “God is Great”, “Victory’s of God and victory’s near”, “Ya hossein” in their chants to prove that when this tree fruits, they all resemble. No one taught hem these slogans, they reached them by the teachings of instinct. How unfair are those whose petty advantages make them call this a “velvet revolution” staged by foreigners! [refering to state TV and Khameneni, perhaps!]
But as you know, all of us were faced with deception and cheatings when we claimed to revitalize our nation and realize dreams that root in the hearts of young and old. And that which we had predicted will stem from evading law [dictatorship], realized soon in the worst manifestation.
The large voter turnout in recent election was the result of hard work to create hope and confidence in people, to create a deserving response to those whose broad dissatisfaction with the existing management crisis could have targeted the foundations of the regime. If this good will and trust of the poeple is not addressed via protecting their votes, or if they cannot react in a civil manner to claim their rights, the responsibility of the dangerous routs ahead will be on the shoulders of those who do not tolerate civil protests.
If the large volume of cheating and vote rigging, which has set fire to the hays of people’s anger, is expressed as the evidence of fairness, the republican nature of the state will be killed and in practice, the ideology that Islam and Republicanism are incompatible will be proven.
This outcome will make two groups happy: One, those who since the beginning of revolution stood against Imam and called the Islamic state a dictatorship of the elite who want to take people to heaven by force; and the other, those who in defending the human rights, consider religion and Islam against republicanism. Imam’s fantastic art was to neutralize these dichotomies. I had come to focus on Imam’s approach to neutralize the burgeoning magic of these. Now, by confirming the results of election, by limiting the extent of investigation in a manner that the outcome will not be changed, even though in more than 170 branches the number of cast votes was more than 100% of eligible voters of the riding, the heads of the state have accepted the responsibility of what has happened during the election.
In these conditions, we are asked to follow our complaints via the Guardian council, while this council has proven its bias, not only before and during, but also after the election. The first principle of judgment is to be impartial.
I, continue to strongly believe that the request for annulling the vote and repeating the election is a definite right that has to be considered by impartial and nationally trusted delegation. Not to dismiss the results of this investigation a priori, or to prevent people from demonstration by threatening them to bloodshed. Nor to unleash the Intelligence ministry’s plain clothes forces on people’s lives to disperse crowds by intimidation and inflammation, instead of responding to people’s legitimate questions, and then blaming the bloodshed on others.
As I am looking at the scene, I see it set for advancing a new political agenda that spreads beyond the objective of installing an unwanted government. As a companion who has seen the beauties of your green wave, I will never allow any one’s life endangered because of my actions. At the same time, I remain undeterred on my demand for annulling the election and demanding people’s rights. Despite my limited abilities, I believe that your motivation and creativity can pursue your legitimate demands in new civil manners. Be sure that I will always stand with you. What this brother of yours recommends, especially to the dear youth, in terms of finding new solutions is to not allow liars and cheater steal your flag of defense of Islamic state, and foreigners rip the treasures of the Islamic republic which are your inheritance of the blood of your decent fathers. By trust in God, and hope for the future, and leaning on the strength of social movements, claim your rights in the frameworks of the existing constitution, based on principle of non-violence.
In this, we are not confronting the Basij. Basiji is our brother. In this we are not confronting the revolutionary guard. The guard is the keeper of our revolution. We are not confronting the army, the army is the keeper of our borders. These organs are the keepers of our independence, freedom and our Islamic republic. We are confronting deception and lies, we want to reform them, a reform by return to the pure principles of revolution.
We advise the authorities, to calm down the streets. Based on article 27 of the constitution, not only provide space for peaceful protest, but also encourage such gatherings. The state TV should stop badmouthing and taking sides. Before voices turn into shouting, let them be heard in reasonable debates. Let the press criticize, and write the news as they happen. In one word, create a free space for people to express their agreements and disagreements. Let those who want, say “takbeer” and don’t consider it opposition. It is clear that in this case, there won’t be a need for security forces on the streets, and we won’t have to face pictures and hear news that break the heart of anyone who loves the country and the revolution.
I do not believe it likely that the people of Iran will overthrow the Revolutionary regime in the next few weeks. This is not one of the goals of the Green revolution. Its explicit demands, however, do include not only the resignation of Ahmedinejad in favor of the popular reformist Mousavi, but also the resignation of the Supreme Leader, Khameni, who has supported Ahmedinejad. Contrary to what some overly intelligent analysts think, it seems clear that we should all be rooting for them to get what they want.
Westerners, including many Israelis, often find the Middle East to be a baffling place, and as a result they find themselves saying things that in any other context would sound absurd. One of my favorites is the argument that goes: “It’s better if something really bad happens, because then people will understand how bad it really is.”I heard this in defense of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. The obvious flaw in the argument is that less actual terror, with ambiguous world support, is still better than more actual terror with worldwide sympathy. Sympathy evaporates eventually; lives lost can never be returned. Predictably, what happened with Gaza was that Israel ended up losing on both counts. On the one hand, Hamas took over and built a massive terror infrastructure that enabled it to start taking the fight into Israel’s urban centers in the South. On the other hand, international support was short-lived. When Israel dared fight back, it was subjected to a brutal international outcry.
The same arguments are surfacing today with regard to the Iranian demonstrations since the election. For several days we’ve been hearing both Israeli and American officials saying we’re better off having Ahmedinejad win rather than the reformer Mousavi. (Today it comes from the head of the Mossad.) True, it’s unlikely that an explicit supporter of the Islamic revolution in Iran will suddenly become pro-Israel. It’s not even clear that he’ll stop Iran’s nuclear program. And it’s also true that there’s a limit to how much change a reformer can affect when he’s under the thumb of the Mullahs setting foreign policy. And yet, I still cannot imagine that having Ahmedinejad remain as president is somehow a desirable outcome.
This, for a few reasons.
1. The logic according to which it is “better have an extreme leader than a reformist one” is flawed. It is always better for things to be better than for them to be worse. The actual reality of life in Iran is the most salient reason — there is something perverse about wishing for the continued oppression of Iranians because of its possible PR advantages for us Westerners. But there are other reasons as well:
2. A Mousavi victory sends a stunning rebuke to the most extreme anti-democratic, pro-fascistic forces in the region. It puts a sudden stop to the momentum of extremism, which until now was threatening not only the citizens of Israel and the West, but pro-Western Arab regimes like Egypt. It is easy for us to say that we’d rather wait for the “real” revolution, i.e., a pro-West democratic one. What’s more likely to happen if Mousavi fails is that Iranians will conclude that they’re better off just accepting their rulers than trying to overthrow them.
3. A Mousavi victory creates a dynamic of reform — a dynamic which, once begun, may go much further than Mousavi himself may have intended. The image of Mikhail Gorbachev comes to mind, who was brought in to save the Soviet system by allowing a measure of reforms known as Glasnost and Perestroika. This opened the door for a popular revolt by a population that had long ago stopped believing in Communism as an ideology. We may not know who will play the role of Yeltsin, but looking back, it seems silly to prefer Brezhnev and Andropov and Chernenko over Gorbachev, just because it made Cold Warriors more comfortable to have a more unambiguously despicable enemy.
For days now, Mousavi’s revolt is gaining steam. It is being handled wisely, minimizing violence from the side of the protesters, garnering the quiet support of major Iranian figures like Khatami and Rafsanjani. According to journalists on the ground, yesterday’s rally brought together over a million people, and they are just getting angrier with every killing by the pro-government militias. The military has stepped in — to protect the demonstrators, rather than stop them. Iranians had come to expect a certain measure of self-rule by being able to choose their own leaders, at least to a point. Today they feel they were robbed. If they get to have their freedom, even in limited amounts, they may well end up wanting more.
Ayatollah Khamenei's Speech Gives Legitimacy to Police Brutality, Charges Amnesty International Human Rights Organization Urges Iranian Authorities to Protect Right to Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20090619001&lang=e
This morning’s speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, indicates the authorities’ readiness to launch violent crackdowns if people continue to protest which may cause a widespread loss of life, Amnesty International said today.
"We are extremely disturbed at statements made by Ayatollah Khamenei which seem to give the green light to security forces to violently handle protesters exercising their right to demonstrate and express their views," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program.
"If large numbers of people take to the street in protests in the next couple of days, we fear that they will face arbitrary arrest and excessive use of force, as has happened in recent days, particularly as permission for a demonstration to be held in Tehran on Saturday, June 20, has been denied."
In a televised address to the nation during Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei called for an end to street protests against the outcome of the election. Instead of warning security forces, including the volunteer Basij militia, to act with restraint and in accordance with the law, he said that if people continued to take to the streets, the consequences would lie with them.
"For a Head of State to put the onus of security on peaceful demonstrators and not on the security forces is a gross dereliction of duty and a license for abuse," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
Peaceful assembly is expressly permitted under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a state party. Law enforcement officials must use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty. They must not use firearms unless strictly unavoidable and in order to protect life. Law enforcement personnel must exercise restraint, minimize damage or injury and respect and preserve human life.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani suggests that some of the members in the Guardian Council have sided with a certain candidate in the June 12 presidential election.
Speaking live on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Saturday, the speaker said that "a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced."
"The opinion of this majority should be respected and a line should be drawn between them and rioters and miscreants," he was quoted as saying by Khabaronline -- a website affiliated with him.
He was referring to rallies that have been held on a daily basis in Iran, since the announcement of the presidential election results last Friday, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with almost two thirds of the vote.
The president's main rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who according to the Interior Ministry has lost to Ahmadinejad even in the East-Azerbaijan province where he hails from, cried foul and described the election as a 'charade' -- a charge the president and his interior minister have denied.
Mousavi -- Iran's last prime minister -- has as a result called on the Guardian Council, the body that supervises the electoral process, to nullify Friday's vote and hold the election anew.
Larijani, however, believes that the Iranian people have lost their trust in the country's legal system. "Although the Guardian Council is made up of religious individuals I wish certain members would not side with a certain presidential candidate."
"The Guardian Council should use every possible means to build trust and convince the protesters that their complaints will be thoroughly looked into," the parliament speaker added.
Larijani who, was formerly in charge of IRIB, criticized the organization, saying that "the IRIB should not act in a way that provokes people."
The authorities should provide an atmosphere in which people feel free to express their opinion, he concluded.
The Iranian leadership is falling into the same trap that their arch-enemy the Shah of Iran fell into in the 1970s.
They are not listening to the people.
After a meeting with Shah Reza Pahlavi, the US ambassador William Sullivan complained: "The king will not listen."
Soon afterwards, the king had to leave the country, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in triumph.
Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed at Friday prayers at Tehran university that "foreign agents" were behind efforts to stage a velvet revolution.
Change
Having spent 10 days in Iran for the 12 June election, that accusation sounds to me like a classic case of blaming the messenger.
There is a velvet rebellion taking place. It is not a revolution yet - but it could evolve into one if the Supreme Leader and his associates do not listen to the people.
I heard with my own ears dozens of peaceful, young Iranians saying they wanted change.
Sixty percent of the population are under 30 years old. They have no memory of the Islamic revolution in 1979. Many of them use the internet and watch satellite TV. Their window on the wider world is irreversibly open.
Many of them simply want peaceful change - and in particular an end to the strict laws that govern personal behaviour in Iran.
Double lives
They want to be able to sing and dance. They wonder why the Iranian leadership continue to ban such expressions of human joy - a ban very similar to the rules imposed on Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
And of course Iranians do sing and dance. I have been to several parties where the dancing was intense. And so was the drinking, though alcohol is also illegal.
Prohibition does not work. Many Iranians simply lead double lives.
An article in a magazine - available at Tehran news stands when I was there last year - carried the headline: "We are all hypocrites now."
Many women only cover their heads because they would be arrested if they did not.
Several women I met openly complained about the religious "guidance" police enforcing the female dress code of the chador, or the hijab and "manto" coat.
One young student told me: "I like the hijab. My friend doesn't like it. I should be free to choose to wear it, and she should be free to choose not to."
Another woman said: "The hijab is not really the problem. The real problem is that men and women are human beings - they are the same, and they should have equal freedoms."
Embarrassed
Most of the Iranians I spoke to - even supporters of the president - lamented Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic performance over the past four years, especially his failure to control inflation.
Others - including two former Ahmadinejad supporters - told me they could not vote for a man who used a live TV debate to level "undignified" accusations of corruption against former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his family.
And others - a significant number - told me they were embarrassed by Mr Ahmadinejad's goading of the West - especially his hysterical tirades against Israel.
One man referred to a phrase that is often associated with Mr Ahmadinejad, though its exact translation has been disputed.
"Talk about 'wiping Israel off the map' is simply not rational. It is not rational," he repeated several times.
There is widespread opposition to Zionism in Iran - but at the same time most Iranians vehemently deny that they are anti-Semitic.
Two men separately volunteered that they "like and respect" Jewish people. One pointed out that more than 30,000 Jews happily live in Iran, many of them resisting pressure from the Jewish Agency to move to Israel.
The antique dealers who cluster along a small street off Ferdowsi Avenue in central Teheran are nearly all Iranian Jews.
And surrounded by a crowd in a bazaar, another Ahmadinejad opponent said for all to hear: "I believe our uranium enrichment is not only for peaceful purposes. It is bringing us nothing but trouble. And we should stop it."
What so many Iranians want now is very simple. It's freedom.
A man in a crowd supporting the main reformist candidate in the election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, said: "We want the freedom to talk, and the freedom to think. We want freedom for our spirit, ok? That's not very much to ask."
Violence
Since the election demonstrations began a week ago, the official line has been that "provocateurs" were stirring the violence.
The only people I saw "stirring" violence were the riot police and the volunteer basiji militia.
The day after the election, I watched a small crowd of unarmed, and very courteous Mousavi supporters being charged by baton-wielding riot police.
A few minutes later, I was in a larger crowd of Mousavi supporters who were demonstrating entirely peacefully when they were attacked by Basiji militia driving motorcycles and wildly swinging wooden batons at anyone in their path.
I saw who was stirring the violence on the streets of Tehran. It was not the unarmed demonstrators.
Another accusation from the Iranian leadership is that British "meddling" is behind some of the vote-rigging protests.
You can't prove a negative, but my sense is that the British are doing all they can to avoid meddling.
When the UK (and America) interfered before, conspiring to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953, the law of unintended consequences came fully into play.
The blowback from that case of meddling is still being felt more than half a century later.
The 1953 coup led to more than two decades of repression under the Shah, and sowed the seeds of the Islamic revolution that sent Mohammed Reza Pahlavi into ignominious exile 26 years later.
I doubt the British want to risk anything like that happening again.
At Stake in Iran Uprising: Trust in the Islamic Revolution Despite street violence on Saturday that officially claimed 13 lives, opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi again on Sunday called for the June 12 election results to be annulled. By Scott Peterson http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0621/p06s07-wome.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's government said Sunday it arrested the daughter and four other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country's most powerful men, in a move that exposed a rift among the ruling Islamic clerics over the disputed presidential election.
State media also reported at least 10 more deaths, bringing the official toll for a week of confrontations to at least 17. State television inside Iran said 10 were killed and 100 injured in clashes Saturday between demonstrators contesting the result of the June 12 election and black-clad police wielding truncheons, tear gas and water cannons.
Police and members of the Basij militia took up positions in the afternoon on major streets and squares, including the site of Saturday's clashes. There was no word on any new clashes Sunday, although after dark many people in Tehran went to their rooftops to shout "Death to the dictator" and Allahu akbar," a common form of defiance in recent days.
State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani's eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention. However, Iran's ambassador to France Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi said on France's RFI radio that Hashemi had been released.
Last week, state television showed images of Hashemi, 46, speaking to hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He alleges fraud in the June 12 election, which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.
After Hashemi's appearance, hard-line students gathered outside the Tehran prosecutor's office and accused her of treason, state radio reported.
The arrests are the strongest sign yet of a serious divide among Iran's ruling clerics.
Also Sunday, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on state television that the number of people questioning the election results was large and "this group should be respected and one should not mix this big population's account with a small group of rioters."
Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.
The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.
Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime's repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations - another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the supreme leader.
Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign and has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei.
His daughter's arrest came as something of a surprise: In his Friday sermon to tens of thousands of worshippers, Khamenei praised Rafsanjani as one of the architects of the revolution and an effective political figure for many years. Khamenei acknowledged, however, that the two have "many differences of opinion."
Khamenei has accused foreign media of making "malicious" attempts to portray a schism among the ruling clerics. At Friday's prayers, he acknowledged that all four presidential candidates "have differences, but all of them belong to the system."
Iran's regime continued to impose a blackout on the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But fresh images and allegations of brutality emerged as Iranians at home and abroad sought to shed light on a week of astonishing resistance to hard-line Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said scores of injured demonstrators who had sought medical treatment after Saturday's clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital.
It said doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities, and that some seriously injured protesters had sought refuge at foreign embassies in a bid to evade arrest.
"The arrest of citizens seeking care for wounds suffered at the hands of security forces when they attempted to exercise rights guaranteed under their own constitution and international law is deplorable," said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the campaign, denouncing the alleged arrests as "a sign of profound disrespect by the state for the well-being of its own people."
"The government of Iran should be ashamed of itself. Right now, in front of the whole world, it is showing its violent actions," he said.
Thousands of supporters of Mousavi, who claims he won the election, squared off Saturday against security forces in a dramatic show of defiance of Khamenei.
Iran has also acknowledged the deaths of seven protesters in clashes on Monday.
State media also reported a suicide bombing at the shrine of Khomeini on Saturday killed the attacker and injured five other people.
There was some confusion about the overall death toll. English-language Press TV, which is broadcast only outside the country, put the toll at 13 and labeled those who died "terrorists." There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
Amnesty International cautioned that it was "perilously hard" to verify the casualty tolls.
"The climate of fear has cast a shadow over the whole situation," Amnesty's chief Iran researcher, Drewery Dyke, told The Associated Press. "In the 10 years I've been following this country, I've never felt more at sea than I do now. It's just cut off."
Iran has imposed strict controls on foreign media covering the unrest, saying correspondents cannot go out into the streets to report.
Reporters Without Borders said 23 journalists were arrested over the past week. The British Broadcasting Corp. said Sunday that its Tehran-based correspondent, Jon Leyne, had been asked to leave the country. The BBC said its office remained open. The U.S.-based newsmagazine Newsweek said its journalist Maziar Bahari was arrested Sunday morning and had not been heard from.
Also Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a news conference where he rebuked Britain, France and Germany for raising questions about reports of voting irregularities in hardline Ahmadinejad's re-election - a proclaimed victory which has touched off Iran's most serious internal conflict since the revolution.
Mottaki accused France of taking "treacherous and unjust approaches." But he saved his most pointed criticism for Britain, raising a litany of historical grievances and accusing the country of flying intelligence agents into Iran before the election to interfere with the vote. The election, he insisted, was a "very transparent competition."
That drew an indignant response from British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who "categorically" denied his country was meddling. "This can only damage Iran's standing in the eyes of the world," Miliband said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran anew to conduct a complete and transparent recount.
In Washington on Saturday, President Barack Obama urged Iranian authorities to halt "all violent and unjust actions against its own people." He said the United States "stands by all who seek to exercise" the universal rights to assembly and free speech.
Obama has offered to open talks with Iran to ease a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze, but the upheaval could complicate any attempts at outreach.
Republican senators criticized Obama on Sunday for not taking a tougher public stand in support of the protesters, with one saying the president had been "timid and passive."
Israeli President Shimon Peres applauded Iran's pro-reform protesters Sunday, saying the young should "raise their voice for freedom" - an explicit message of support from a country that sees itself as most endangered by the hard-line government in Tehran.
Saturday's unrest came a day after Khamenei sternly warned Mousavi and his backers to all off demonstrations or risk being held responsible for "bloodshed, violence and rioting." Delivering a sermon at Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands, Khamenei sided firmly with Ahmadinejad, calling the result "an absolute victory" that reflected popular will and ordering opposition leaders to end their street protests.
Mousavi did not directly reply to the ultimatum.
His camp, meanwhile, denied reports that he had proclaimed himself ready for martyrdom on Saturday.
"Mousavi has never said this," his close ally, Qorban Behzadiannejad, told the AP. Mousavi's Web site also said statements that Mousavi was preparing for death were inaccurate.
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