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Conclusion
by Arnold Evans
lifted from comment 211
I want to say that I am in favor of change in Iran and think there
are policies of Iran's government that are wrong both morally in
respect to its citizens and also in practical terms as in they prevent
Iran from being as powerful as I'd like it to be.
I am not a regime supporter on the basis of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
But it seems plausible to me that Ahmadinejad won. The reports of
the three million votes came with the explanation that they were the
result of people voting away from their home district, which seems
plausible in a very-high turnout election. I think it is possible that
Ahmadinejad won the debates, despite the effect they had of turning you
further against him, and Rafsanjani's letter against him may have made
the aftermath of the debates more favorable to him still.
So there are protesters against Ahmadinejad and in favor of Mousavi.
Mondale lost a landslide in 1984 and there was a large number of people
who supported Mondale, enough to cripple the country if they organized
together to do so. That did not mean they were the majority. I do not
believe Mousavi supporters or protesters are the majority of the
country.
The reports of Mousavi's claims of irregularities seem unconvincing
to me. In his public complaint to the Guardian Council he did not claim
that none of the votes were counted or that all local-based counting
was suspended and even if he doesn't trust the Guardian Council, that
was a place to give his best explanation of what exactly he believes
went wrong with the election, why he does not trust it.
I feel that Mousavi is acting very irresponsibly, and that Mondale,
in similar circumstances could have acted the same and gotten his
supporters, especially his core supporters worked up enough that they
would risk their lives, essentially for nothing, but Mondale could
claim it is for fundamental change in the government or society or
something.
If Mondale did that, I would wonder if he had some organized outside
backing, but in Mousavi's case it could well be that his only backing
is Rafsanjani and that faction, or it could well be that it is
Mousavi's own ego driving this. Or it is possible, I don't claim and
don't necessarily believe that it is driven by the CIA. But there are
signs that Mousavi's tactics are similar to tactics of previous
CIA-sponsored revolutions. But that could be coincidence. I don't think
there is necessarily the connection.
I thought Mondale's supporters were right, and Reagan was a bad guy.
I think Mousavi's supporters have a lot of valid criticisms of Iran's
government.
I think Iran's government takes enough input a wide enough swathe of
Iranian society that it is capable of change internally, and I do not
see indications that Mousavi is more committed to the democratic
process than Khomeini was. Khomeini could have transformed Iran into a
hereditary dictatorship with no restraints from an elected Assembly of
Experts and no input from Iran's people and did not because he felt it
would have been religiously wrong to do so. I don't know that I would
have trusted Khomeini to do that, but I don't trust Mousavi to do that.
I see a Musharraf scenario, of ad-hoc usurpations of power and an
indefinite suspension of any limitations on his office as just as
probably under Mousavi.
To Mondale and Mousavi supporters I say, the vote indicates that you
really do not have the popular support to win an election, much less
complete a revolution.
Does Iran have a consensus behind a "go west" strategy as opposed to
a "go east" strategy? No. If it did, Iran would go west. There is also
no national consensus around relaxing religious restrictions, which I
think is wrong but Iranians have to be convinced, and I'm sure the
pro-Mousavi protests are not the way to convince them.
There is a consensus around reducing corruption, but Ahmadinejad and
Mousavi both say they support that. Iran could easily believe
Ahmadinejad, the one who carries his lunch from home to work and who
named Rafsanjani by name, saying what a lot of people already knew but
wouldn't say in public, is the best candidate to fight corruption.
By my understanding a major motivation behind Rafsanjani's support
for a go west strategy is that he would benefit from it personally.
So those are my views on Iran's election and the situation today. I
don't see a point in further protests. I expect a general strike to
fizzle out, if it is really launched. I mourn all of the deaths. I wish
they had not happened and consider them naive sacrifices to either
Mousavi's ego or the forces behind Mousavi that I do not consider good,
if they are the CIA or Rafsanjani.
I have been dithering since the Iran election over whether there was fraud or not, but there does seem to be some indications of something fishy.
The Chatham House report at: link
is very much worth reading (Thanks Amir S @2)
Money quotes:
• In two Conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of
more than 100% was recorded. (Add that to the ‘infill’ between, say, a ‘normal’ 85% turnout and just 100%, and the figures look cooked. Mazandaran, near the Caspian Sea, maybe overfull of holidaymakers, but Yazd, in the middle of the desert, isn’t -R).
• In a third of all provinces , the official results would require that
Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, and all
former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former
Reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two
groups.
(That’s a massive, and perhaps doubtful, swing – R)
• In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and
Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas.
That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim
that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces
flies in the face of these trends.
• According to the official data, Mahmud Ahmadinejad has received
approximately 13m more votes in this election than the combined conservative
vote in the 2005 Presidential election
Ahemdinajad 2009 – 24,515,209
Ahmedinajad 2005 – 5,711,254
Other Conservatives -2005 – 5,808,317
(In other words, Ahmedinajad almost quintupled his vote over the past 4 years. Surely a popular guy, so why the huge demonstrations? – R)
• In 2005, the more rural a province was, the less support there was for
the three conservative candidates combined. (Fig 5 in the report)
In 2009 the trends described by Fig.4 and Fig.5 have disappeared, and
Ahmadinejad is universally supported (Fig 6)
• The 2009 data suggests a sudden shift in political support with precisely these
rural provinces, which had not previously supported Ahmadinejad or any other
conservative (Fig.5), showing substantial swings to Ahmadinejad (Fig.6). At
the same time, the official data suggests that the vote for Mehdi Karrubi, who
was extremely popular in these rural, ethnic minority areas in 2005, has
collapsed entirely even in his home province of Lorestan, where his vote has
gone from 440,247 (55.5%) in 2005 to just 44,036 (4.6%) in 2009. This is paralleled by an overall swing of 50.9% to Ahmadinejad, with official results
suggesting that he has captured the support of 47.5% of those who cast their
ballots for reformist candidates in 2005. This, more than any other result, is
highly implausible, and has been the subject of much debate in Iran.
This increase in support for Ahmadinejad amongst rural and ethnic minoritiy
voters is out of step with previous trends, extremely large in scale, and central
to the question of how the credibility of Ahmadinejad’s victory has been
perceived within Iran.
(Now he may have captured this massive swing by doling out cash and potatoes, but either way it suggests either massive voter bribery, or fraud – R).
I wonder, by the way, why we hear so Ahmadinejad’s suporters in Iran and outside?
This post was on the c thread but had disappeared by this morning. I have deleted my comments about the attackers on Parviz and Amir S, who are, after all, Iranians, and possibly better equipped to assess the situation.
Having said all of that, I am dithering again, due to b’s comment that Chatham House ignored the second round of the 2005 elections, which Ahmedinejad won
It is based on a comparison of the 2009 election with the first round of the 2005 election which had multiple candidates. Chatham House simply ignores the second round 2005 election pitting Ahmadinejad against Rafsanjani which Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.
This election was, after the TV debates, pretty much like a runoff and Ahmadinejad’s main electoral strategy was to portray Moussavi as a puppet of Rafsanjani, a corrupt clerical big businessmen plus he tried to achieve a high turnout.
Chatham House also ignores the large pool of non-voters in the 2005 election.”
I don’t find those statemenets altogether convincing.
Posted by: richard | Jun 24 2009 3:48 utc | 103
I have been dithering since the Iran election over whether there was fraud or not, but there does seem to be some indications of something fishy.
The Chatham House report at: link
is very much worth reading (Thanks Amir S @2)
Money quotes:
• In two Conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of
more than 100% was recorded. (Add that to the ‘infill’ between, say, a ‘normal’ 85% turnout and just 100%, and the figures look cooked. Mazandaran, near the Caspian Sea, maybe overfull of holidaymakers, but Yazd, in the middle of the desert, isn’t -R).
• In a third of all provinces , the official results would require that
Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, and all
former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former
Reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two
groups.
(That’s a massive, and perhaps doubtful, swing – R)
• In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and
Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas.
That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim
that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces
flies in the face of these trends.
• According to the official data, Mahmud Ahmadinejad has received
approximately 13m more votes in this election than the combined conservative
vote in the 2005 Presidential election
Ahemdinajad 2009 – 24,515,209
Ahmedinajad 2005 – 5,711,254
Other Conservatives -2005 – 5,808,317
(In other words, Ahmedinajad almost quintupled his vote over the past 4 years. Surely a popular guy, so why the huge demonstrations? – R)
• In 2005, the more rural a province was, the less support there was for
the three conservative candidates combined. (Fig 5 in the report)
In 2009 the trends described by Fig.4 and Fig.5 have disappeared, and
Ahmadinejad is universally supported (Fig 6)
• The 2009 data suggests a sudden shift in political support with precisely these
rural provinces, which had not previously supported Ahmadinejad or any other
conservative (Fig.5), showing substantial swings to Ahmadinejad (Fig.6). At
the same time, the official data suggests that the vote for Mehdi Karrubi, who
was extremely popular in these rural, ethnic minority areas in 2005, has
collapsed entirely even in his home province of Lorestan, where his vote has
gone from 440,247 (55.5%) in 2005 to just 44,036 (4.6%) in 2009. This is paralleled by an overall swing of 50.9% to Ahmadinejad, with official results
suggesting that he has captured the support of 47.5% of those who cast their
ballots for reformist candidates in 2005. This, more than any other result, is
highly implausible, and has been the subject of much debate in Iran.
This increase in support for Ahmadinejad amongst rural and ethnic minoritiy
voters is out of step with previous trends, extremely large in scale, and central
to the question of how the credibility of Ahmadinejad’s victory has been
perceived within Iran.
(Now he may have captured this massive swing by doling out cash and potatoes, but either way it suggests either massive voter bribery, or fraud – R).
I wonder, by the way, why we hear so Ahmadinejad’s suporters in Iran and outside?
This post was on the c thread but had disappeared by this morning. I have deleted my comments about the attackers on Parviz and Amir S, who are, after all, Iranians, and possibly better equipped to assess the situation.
Having said all of that, I am dithering again, due to b’s comment that Chatham House ignored the second round of the 2005 elections, which Ahmedinejad won
It is based on a comparison of the 2009 election with the first round of the 2005 election which had multiple candidates. Chatham House simply ignores the second round 2005 election pitting Ahmadinejad against Rafsanjani which Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.
This election was, after the TV debates, pretty much like a runoff and Ahmadinejad’s main electoral strategy was to portray Moussavi as a puppet of Rafsanjani, a corrupt clerical big businessmen plus he tried to achieve a high turnout.
Chatham House also ignores the large pool of non-voters in the 2005 election.”
I don’t find those statemenets altogether convincing.
Posted by: richard | Jun 24 2009 4:10 utc | 104
The problem is: You have no idea, not the slightest clue, why the regime has become so nationally unpopular, and the tragedy (for Iranians) is that you really don’t care.
No. The problem is that we haven’t seen any evidence that these protests and political actions don’t involve more than a minority — a substantial minority, but still clearly a well-outnumbered minority — of wealthy, privileged youth and some cynical, behind-the-scenes political players.
Would i like to see Iran experience a loosening of its political and cultural strictures? I hope that you know i do.
Do i want to see a small minority of Iranis take over the political ministries by force, and impose those liberal reforms by force?
Absolutely not.
What’s happened vis-a-vis the protestors — Neda included — isn’t all that much worse than what has happened to a great many protestors around the world. How many innocent people have been locked up and tortured in Gitmo, these last few years? Iraq and Afghanistan have been reduced to rubble, and its people — its children — turned to prostitutes and wandering beggars. Gaza remains under siege.
What’s happening to the Iranian people, right now, is nothing compared to those atrocities, each of which has been forced upon entire nations by the aggression and short-sightedness of the US.
Be thankful that you still have a country to worry over, Parviz, and be thankful that your people still enjoy enough privilege that they can protest, strike, organize and fight. But don’t point fingers at us, here, and say we have no sympathy, or that our reluctance to join voices and minds with the Americans who insist that we must “do something” is inhumane.
You have seen what happens when America goes down that road; do you want help and sympathy like Haiti got, when it overthrew Aristide? Do you want help and sympathy like Iraq got, when it was liberated? Do you want help and sympathy like Nicaragua got, when the Contras were so determined to liberalize their homeland?
Don’t misinterpret our reluctance to give support to the forces of destruction as callous insensitivity, or alliance with your enemies. You have been here a year, now; you should know who we are, and what we stand for.
Appreciate us for what we are, and let us agree to disagree. I, for one, promise to keep my eye on things, and i will change my mind when enough proof has come out to convince me. Where is that general strike?
In the meantime, i do hope Montazeri, or Mousavi, or Khatami, or Rezai, and other Irani patriots will find some way to come together, and curb the excesses of the Basij. I hope they’ll rid the land of the corruption you decry. There’s nothing i hate more than a bully, and a pack of them is certainly something i’ll join to fight against.
But as things stand, Iran remains what it is. There’s nothing i can do to change things, and nothing i should do except let them — y’all — work it out on your own.
And i call your attention to this: already, the Zionists are turning on Mousavi, painting him in the worst possible light. Already, the enemies of Iran, who have been so intent on invading, are marshalling their forces to restart the momentum.
How long are you going to sit around, here, and beat this dead horse you’re flogging? Even if you were to convince every last person here that your vision is the right one, and verify it beyond any shadow of a doubt, what the hell good would it do? What could we do?
Yet soon, if you really have been coming here for the camaraderie you claim, i think you may be needing it more than ever.
So do you really want to burn those bridges?
Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 24 2009 9:06 utc | 139
china_hand, thanks but we’re still going in circles.
No, we’re not; because you have neglected the major elements of what i said to focus on something much smaller.
The sphere of influence inhabited by me, and these other posters, does not include Iran.
So what do you want us to do? Urge the US to intervene? Support invasion? Call out for justice and send money for weapons?
All of those are utterly antithetical to what i believe in.
Now, if i knew you personally; if i were confident in you, personally, and the people who surrounded you; if i knew there was some measure of support i could provide that would empower you, personally, to persuade all of Iran to join you in standing against the Basij —
then perhaps i’d consider some of those options.
But i don’t know you. You’re words on a screen. I don’t know who you keep company with: it may as well be Liz Cheney as Ayatollah Montazeri. You’re not asking for money, and you’re not asking for guns. You haven’t presented any of us here with a plan, or a forum, where we can join you in welcoming a new Iran.
The only thing that’s been going on, here, AFAIC, is that you and i and many others here have been debating whether or not the protests in Iran were:
A) Being misled;
B) Being directed from behind the scenes, and if so, by who;
C) Going to have any sort of material effect upon US/Iran/Israel relations;
D) Represented any sort of real challenge of the ruling system;
E) Represented any sort of genuine, mass protest by the Irani people aimed at the ruling system.
Now, you don’t believe A) as much as i do; you’ve pretty much side-stepped the entire quetsion of B); C) we all pretty much agree upon (i.e.: varying degrees of “Not much.”); we all agree that “D” would be “Perhaps a lot in terms of foreign policy”, but we disagree on to what degree domestically: you say massive, many of us say “Eh. Not so much.”; yet you appear to have fixated upon E), insisting that yes, indeed, it is —
While i and many others here say “Eh. We don’t really see it, yet.” What i see is a bunch of wealthy, well-educated, western-oriented youth pushing for better more freedoms and better relations with the West.
So can we just agree to disagree? It’s not as if i wouldn’t let you come stay at my house, if you ever were to ask. It’s not as if i wouldn’t build a secret room for you and hide you, if you needed it.
But let’s be realistic: we’re not a charity organization, here. Much as i’d love to do any of those things, you’re never going to ask. We’re a bunch of people discussing what can and can not be trusted in the news, and trying to glean what we can about how the world of international relations, human rights, and economic forces is actually playing out.
Believe me: i understand your frustrations. But until i can read Farsi and start getting underground newspapers from trusted journalists representing genuine Irani mass-movements, then i can only make my decisions on the sparse information i can glean from the internet. And so far, that info just leads me to different conclusions than you appear to be hoping for.
So there you go: if you need help setting up that website, then we can negotiate. I’ll be glad to help as i can; i’m an excellent english language editor (it’s what i do), and i’ll be happy to help as i can. It should be an easy thing for me to find an ISP here in Taiwan that’ll host your website, and i’ll be glad to look after it for you.
Beyond that, though —
It’s time to lay this argument to rest.
Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 24 2009 10:44 utc | 142
@citizen:
Didn’t mean to come off as brusque or dismissive, but i guess i did. Please forgive the error; i was just trying to quickly say something that would take a lot more than a blog-post or two to get into. You explained you were going “academic”, and regrettably that’s kinda my default. I have to try hard not to analyze everything down to its minutest detail.
But that said: as i’m sure you probably know, “Capitalism” does not equal merely “money” or “buying and selling”. “Capitalism” is the modus operandi of the industrial era tycoons. While the tycoons and massive income disparities remain with us, a lot of adjustment mechanisms (and the awareness that accompanies them) have been introduced since then: socialist or social democratic measures like universal health care, social security, etc; corporations; other forms of technological and post-industrial collectivism. I’m sure there are many others.
Another big change from Marx’ era is the (too) slowly growing recognition — at least among scientists (both hard and soft), educators, and (far too few) policy makers — that an effort must be made to protect indigenous peoples, and that there is no inherent value in technological progress.
So yeah — the world we live in is now a post-capitalist society, and you hint at what i’m getting at in your own post: these days, people in modern, technological societies can’t help but acquire personal, direct understandings of things like “abstract value”, “alienation”, “commodification”, and “division of labor”. These experiences motivate them to turn to social and political mechanisms for rectification of what they perceive as wrong, or adjustment of what they perceive as merely corrupt. At the same time, people all across the world — Iran, China, Russia, the US, Europe, Brazil, Venezuela — are demanding admittance to elite markets via stock exchanges, digital trading, and systemic reforms. They are also developing collectives that operate outside the industrialized marketplace, and demanding that these be accorded safe, secure legal and social spaces where they can thrive.
The world has already long outgrown the “capitalist” label, just as what most folks in the US and Europe call “Marxism” isn’t but a tiny, stunted, and distorted version of what Marx was actually saying.
Most people equate “capitalism” with “buying and selling”, “ownership”, and “the acquirement of wealth”, while that same group equates “Marxism” with “communism”, “money-less societies”, and “enforced public entitlement for the everyman”.
But really: what serious, socially-adjusted people in our present world are actually arguing for a universal, enforced rejection of money? Nobody i’ve ever heard of has. And who in our world is actually arguing for a universal enforcement of public exposure? Nobody i’ve ever heard of.
When use din their typical, sloppy, mediated fashion, these two words set up an utterly false, illogical, and rather sociopathic dichotomy.
I could go on but work’s pressing. If you care to continue, i’ll be happy to oblige.
And please don’t take anything that seems implied as an insult. I’m the sorta guy who’ll say the worst, to your face, come hell or high water. So if it seems/-ed like i’m implying something — or just being an ass — i do beg pardon. It was unintentional.
Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 25 2009 4:29 utc | 185
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