Senate Iran — now discussing the nuclear deal and Congress

I support their cause in Iran, but Ahmadinejad is just one of the problems. Khamenei is the true dictator. For too long his crimes against humanity through the brutal persecution of the Bahai, the irreligious, homosexuals, journalists, political dissidents, and women have gone unanswered. The entire theocratic system has been unfair from the beginning. Iran needs a fresh start and it will take more than simply removing Ahmadi to give it that. Let us work together to give it a new beginning.

Help Iranians:

http://emsenn.com/iran

http://www.i-policy.org/2009/06/iranelection-cyberwar-guide-for-beginners.html

Be careful with these (could slow internet connection for Iranians):

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc4rpwn7_0g7xxc4d3

http://www.nyrpowered.net/iranelectionddos/

 

I guess the question then will be: CAN Iran crack down? Does the council wield adequate control?

It's more than likely in thier power to do so over the short-term, but does the government have the capacity to control the population over the long term as in North Korea and China? Or are things in Iran too porus and are there too many within Iran that would resist?

The thing about Tianammen is that the people did not, in the end, fight back. I'm not so certain the same would happen here. And is the council's grip on the armed forces absolute? Can they count on the military the way the Chinese can count on thiers? Or might they be more divided as were the Russians in 1991?

 

The real question is, is the middle-class and inteligentia enough to remove Ahma?

 

Can they crack down? I think so. It would be far more difficult if the dissent was in the countryside. In Iran, though, it's nicely contained in the big cities, making it far easy to sen d in the security forces to crack down, I would think. On the other hand, the protesters are showing an impressive ability to get their message out through the web, potentially making a crack down less effective.

I'm still pessimistic. The council ordered the recount because they know the result won't be substantially different. I saw an article yesterday where two expatriate experts discussed how voting in Iran takes place -- no observers, no closed booths. The illiterate (a significant part of the population) ask for help, and where do you think polling place workers tell them to put their "X" regardless of who the person really wanted to vote for? A recount won't uncover the fraud that was committed. It's far too late for that. So the question becomes, what do the protesters do after the recount show the same result. Does a fatwah really happen?

 

I'm actually reminded in this case by Thomas Friedman who, in one of his books I read a few years ago, said that one reason why Iran should be approached differently was that they have a taste of democracy already, and so that seed is planted it just now needs the people to realise they want more of that to the point that they push things further. This seems to be that instance. This has the potential to be that instance that he spoke of.

 

Although I do echo Darth-Ghost and belive it would be foolish for the supreme leader of Iran to go against his people but what about the other people who voted for Ahmeddinnajad (or how like to call him Dinnerjacket )

- are they suppose to be silence just to bring Mr Mousavi
- who is to say they won't accept his rule and go into the street in the same manner ?


I think at the end of it all Khotoneimi wll have a very hard chice

 

Lowbacca, good point about Friedman's observations. HW Brands and other historians have commented how revolutions occur when a population's expectations far exceed the pace of reform a government has instituted. I just wonder how high the Iranian's expectations are.
If they are at the tipping point historians have pointed out, then we could have a revolution scenario.

I'm not sure where the Iranians are at though.

 

The larger point Friedman made, as I recall, was that there was a difference between Iraq and Iran where Iraq was purely totalitarian, whereas in Iran, there was a bit of heavily locked down voting freedom, but that because of that, you'd need force to get rid of totalitarian regimes, but one that has a slight bit of democracy, you just had to wait for the people to decide they want more, and he'd put it as some time within the next, 15 years, I think. Now, he was looking at them just wanting more democracy, whereas this is more a case of the restricted democracy being cheated, so as of now, it might not apply unless this pushes them towards reforms in the process to make this sort of thing more difficult in the future.

 

Well having 30% unemployment(by some measures)and the EU breathing down your neck at the elections surely won't help the hardliners.

 

I hate to be the devil's advocate, but I don't know that it is clear that Ahmadinejad lost. From what I have read there probably were some irregularities and fraud, but there usually is to some degree in any election in non-Western nations. I don't think we know enough to say that he would have lost if there had been no intervention. He could have won by a large margin and it would be very difficult for us to really determine that.

Personally I think it is up in the air if the fraud was 5% or 30% in his favor. And Mousavi did declare victory before the polls closed, so that goes part way explaining why they didn't want to wait to declare Ahmadinejad the winner.

Far too many in the West want to believe that the Iranians have a sort of democracy that works for them. I think this result is helpful in showing that the Iranian people have only a sham democracy that is not an open system. However as far as US interests go, Mousavi would have made it much easier to deal with them, even while pursuing the same policies.

I don't know that all the energy of the young people will change their systems, because somebody with power is going to have to turn on the system and be strong enough to bring the other parts down. We'll see.

 

It's not clear that Ahmadinejad lost, and I do think its worth noting that their democracy is a sham, and I think this has exposed that notion.

I'd point out that Iran already had a revolution 30 years ago, so one shouldn't dismiss the concept out of hand, and I'd point out that 2/3rds of the population is under the age of 30, so 'young people' as its termed, may well be representing a sizable population of Iran.

 

An interesting note seems to be what's coming out about how the media is being treated in Iran right now, and and ABC News (the Australian one) correspondant Ben Knight has a piece up about how they were pressured out of the country.

Beyond what's happening to foreign media, there's been attempts to arrest Iranian media as well, which Anonymous has been trying to keep track of, although its fairly unsourced, in part given the situation.
This part resonates a bit since only a few months ago, a graduate student from the university I'm at was arrested in Iran while shooting film for a documentary on, I believe, women's rights.

It's seeming at this point like the crux of the battle is focusing much less on the protests going on within Iran and more on trying to prevent all communication into and out of the country, although it might be open for discussion if they are going for just being able to wear down the protesters or if the means for subduing it will get more violent if there's less chance of it being reported.


An additional thought, prompted by another ABC News piece here is how accurate a portrayal is this getting? A lot of what I've been hearing about is implying that there's, in part, protests of the very nature of Iranian government, but is that an accurate assessment of what's going on, or are the protests simply over who won without any critique of the system itself, and its only people outside Iran that are adding that element to the story?

 

It has relatively little to do with current election I'd say and much more to do with economic unrest coupled with pent up and mounting frustration over the attempt to suppress the reform movement, which was basically stamped out by the Khamenei and the guardian council in 2004-2005 but has had a bit of a resurgence with the recent election.

The reform movement won 70% of the vote in the 2000 parliamentary elections. A question we can ask is whether cracking down on the reform movement was made easier for Iran's rulers as the result of our invasion of Iraq. In contrast, Obama's more conciliatory approach to Iran may in turn be fueling the confidence of pro-democracy activists.

 

Espaldapalbras, I guess I'm confused by your argument. You started out saying is much more plausible than is currently being acknowledged that Ahmadinejad won. I agree with that, in that I feel Western reports overstated Moussavi's chances of winning beforehand, the claims of irregularity he made aren't very convincing (running out of ballots and not extending poll hours enough is bad, yes, but it's not going to reverse a 2:1 vote deficit), and contrary to many claims, the results do stand up to a fair bit of statistical scrutiny. Overall, I'm concerned that this may turn out to be like Moldova's "Twitter Revolution" where great hue and cry was made about reformist youth parties protesting election results, only to have it discovered later that they had, in fact, lost badly to the Communists in a fair and legitimate election, and that Twitter wasn't an important organizing tool to boot. Still, though, this case gives me pause because of things like the returns from Tabriz. We certainly ought to keep an open mind.

My confusion, though, comes in regards to your second point. If this was, in fact, a free and fair election, how would that prove that Iranian democracy doesn't work? Wouldn't that demonstrate exactly the opposite?

 

Well, I know one of the images circulating is that over a few hours, one of the candidates lost something like 45000 votes in the reported results, and there's been some reports of ballot boxes that weren't opened, hundreds of ballots thrown away, etc. So there's been a fair bit I've read that seems to say that they may have wanted to make things look decisive, but did so in a way that was fairly suspicious.

 

Heh. Remember that photoshopped rocket launch from last summer? They're at it again.

 

It goes beyond the alleged vote rigging. Even if if the protesters only represent a minority they deserve our support. The IRI as led by Khamenei and Khomeini before him has a horrible human rights record, which in itself is grounds enough to resist the regime. Extending beyond that only muslims are allowed to hold high positions within the government and secularist would ever be allowed to run for office given that candidates have to approved by the mullahs.

 

RF, that's awesome.

 

Well, awesome find. Not so awesome that they're doctoring pictures to peddle thier theocracy.

 

Actually, that's pretty awesome too! Long as it's figured out...

 

The leading rival cleric to the Supreme Leader (possible succesor to current Supreme Leader) has backed Mousavi, called on the military and police to disobey orders and that receiving orders does not excuse them from God, he said "a government not respecting a people's vote has no political or religious legitimacy" and is a mortal sin. The government is sending out robo-calls saying "you've been spotted protesting" and is threatening protestors with executions, proudly sharing the news they have killed 7 protestors so far. A video that has come through shows that the protest marches have been completely peaceful and even silent, sitting down and making the peace sign whenever the Revolutionary Guard or the police come by. The Iranian government has been spreading false rumors of riots and violence. Also, the Supreme Council is calling an emergency meeting. Some news sources say there has been 2 million out in the streets of Tehran. The original revolutionaries of '79 are backing Mousavi and not the current establishment. The Iranian government is trying to convince people that the protests are small, violent, and solely backed by Iran's enemies (U.S.).

 

Montazeri would probably make a much better Supreme Leader then Khamenei, but that being said if he is elevated to that position it should only be temporary. He should only fill it in transition from theocracy to secular democracy.

 

A friend tipped me off to the following explanation of the political situation in Iran
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=400

Its about a half hour of watching, but fairly insightful. Regarding new info, I'm continuing to be somewhat cautious as its very tough to tell what's propaganda and what's reality here.

 

I don't see why you couldn't make the office of the Ayatollah equivalent to the modern-day Emperor of Japan. Might smooth things over to have them still around.

 

An AP story that just came out a couple hours ago is talking about the support for the protests seeming to be growing beyond the students

If that really is the shift that is going on, it could mean there's a very big change underway. It's seeming like a better assessment of stuff is flowing out of Iran today though.