Maybe he's setting himself up to be the future leader of Iran after Israel and U.S. bomb it from here to kingdom come and need a new government, out of exile, to put in place of the displaced Mullahs.

He can govern from the green zone of Northern Tehran......say, in 2011-12.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 14:59 utc | 1

What's odd about Mousaka's audacity is that the Mullahs had to approve him running in the first place. Is he the Trojan Horse he appears to be? Is that likely considering his background and past? He was joined at the hip with the clerics at one time, and did their bidding as prime minister, so who's he representing now, if not the clerics? If it's not the clerics he represents, how could they have been so stupid as to approve his running? Are they losing their grip?

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 15:04 utc | 2

We haven't heard about Rafsanjani for a while. He can't be hiding in a secret bunker like Cheney. I'm starting to think that Musavi is going to be used (and abused) as a lighting rod. I wonder how someone who was completely retired from politics could be convinced to represent such dangerous role. Unless the current outcome was completely unexpected (which I doubt).

But I guess other than propaganda and 'emotion' filled slogans we are not getting much information out of Iran at this moment so the lack of information may not be significative.

Posted by: ThePaper | Jun 17 2009 15:04 utc | 3

I was wondering that. keep in mind Mousavi is an establishment figure.
I suppose he is talking to the referees, make everybody afraid there is a real - this time secular - revolution if they do not cave in.
I do not think people are protesting anymore because of the vote. if there is a real revolution, Mousavi won't be able to control it.
a lot of people have been arrested, beaten and some killed now. maybe, Mousavi cannot stop it if he wanted to.
it is a game of chicken that might go or has gone out of hand I suppose.

Posted by: outsider | Jun 17 2009 15:08 utc | 4

What does Moussavi want? Control of oil and trade liberalization. Not necessarily what Iranians in the streets want. Oh sure, maybe he'll throw them a bone or two in terms of freedom and modernization. What else could you expect from the candidate representing Rafsanjani, Iran's richest man.

Two excellent analyses follow:

"Unlike in the West, where governments are owned and run by the banking and financial system, in Iran it's the Oil Ministry that controls the purse strings and calls the shots. The Khamenei faction has gradually been taking over key positions in the ministry and its myriad state corporations.

It should be remembered that when Ahmadinejad gained power he was able to put in his own appointees as ministers, except for the key Oil Ministry, where the Majlis, or parliament, twice rejected his appointments and appointed someone acceptable to the "Oil Mafia" more or less identified with former president Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In the past couple of years, we have finally seen a new oil minister appointed by Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. In August 2007, National Iranian Oil Company boss Gholamhossein Nozari took over from Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh. Most of the old guard - people like Kazempour Ardebili, who was for 20 years Iran's representative at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and several others of long standing in key positions - have "retired" or become "advisers".

Having finally wrested control after years of struggle of the oil revenues from the Rafsanjani faction, the Khamenei'ites are in no mood to give it up."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF17Ak01.html

What does Moussavi want? Of course, this has not been widely reported in the corporate media, but he's a champion of trade liberalization. That means a lot to powerful Western economic elites, and it could explain their sudden interest in Iran (similar huge protests after the disputed Mexican election of 2006 never registered at all with the media.)

"On economic policy, an international financial crisis may not be the best time to engage in quasi-Thatcherite Reaganomics. The Expediency Council gets the drift of Mousavi’s business school mantras. He has a phalanx of middle class North Tehrani foreign-educated MBAs who are the last people who should navigate the future of Iran. The people of Iran recognize the corruption charge-sheet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad laid out during the fierce TV debates.
http://www.counterpunch.org/rattansi06162009.html

Posted by: JohnH | Jun 17 2009 15:13 utc | 5

"Mousavi could demand recounts with some of his supporters taking part...."

I think that this entire situation could have been forestalled if the transparency and openness of the election campaign up to polling day had continued, with representatives of the candidates involved in monitoring the count at the various provincial centres - whilst I've no doubt that there would still be grouses and bitches about things, there would at least be a degree of consensus that the advertised results actually approximated reality. By definition, when you occlude a key part of the democratic process - counting the actual votes - you preclude the possibility of credible validation. Add in the immoderate haste to publish results, the departure from established protocols and the lack of any coherent communications strategy from an erratic Khamenei and you have a real nasty brew.

To date we still don't have any granular data beyond the overall provincial tallies, and a few select locations, and, as far as I'm aware, they still haven't released a result for Lorestan Province.

The clusterfuck that we are currently witnessing hinges on having held out the prospect of a fair and transparent process and then failing to follow through on it. It's very, very dangerous to do this - especially when you have a record turn-out and 2 prior elections ( 1997 and 2001 ) that exhibited similar characteristics.

Iran played South Korea at footie today. Crucial world cup qualifier. According to the BBC, six of the team on the pitch, including the captain, were decked out with pro-Mousavi symbols ( green wrist bands ) for the first half.

Khamenei has badly stuffed this up - he could have ensured the credibility of the counting process but failed to do so; irrespective of who won, IRI would have emerged with an unparalleled degree of state legitimacy that domestically, regionally and globally would have been game-changing.

Posted by: dan | Jun 17 2009 15:37 utc | 6

mind you the information we get in the media is completely useless

e.g.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55G3VR20090617

10s of thousands is not a big demonstration for a city of 8 million. I have been to much larger demonstrations that did not shake anybody nor achieve anything

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War

if it is not more than peaceful demonstrations the Iranian authorities can sit it out

Posted by: outsider | Jun 17 2009 15:59 utc | 7

Iran's most senior ayatollah disagrees with you. He says the election was rigged.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iran/story/70155.htm

Posted by: Bob Morris | Jun 17 2009 16:09 utc | 8

If Mousavi was planning to bring revolutionary change to Iran, minus any fluff-'n'-stuff change that Obama talks about, I can see why he'd want to defy his country's supreme leader and its cleric-led system of government. But since the level of change that Mousvari will bring to Iranians is about the same that Ahmadinejad will bring to them, Mousavi's defiance is rather pointless and shows that he's only out to serve himself.

Posted by: Cynthia | Jun 17 2009 16:10 utc | 9

@Bob Morris - corrected link.

A translation of the Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri statement is here though I can not vouch for it in any way.

Posted by: b | Jun 17 2009 16:39 utc | 10

If Ahmadinejad was the Bad Ass he's painted to be, i.e. Hitler, how come Mousaka is still alive? It's not as though such a Bad Ass gives a damn about the court of public opinion. The school of Bad Ass teaches that troublemakers such as Mousaka must be dealt with harshly and swiftly. The bud must be nipped and smashed. Yet, that hasn't happened. Ahmathingamabob's not much of a Bad Ass. In fact, he's a wimp.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 16:40 utc | 11

But why exactly should the election results be annulled? I am still missing concrete evidence or witnesses coming forward with evidence of real election fraud.

That's rather the point, isn't it?

You want so much that the result vindicates your predisposition that the 'western-empire press' and 'color revolutionists' are defeated. But the absence of any result, which will surely be the case, will be your vindication. It's a win-win for you.

In a way, you've proven over the course of a week to be a fine low-level propagandist for the iran dictator. He should cut you a check.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 16:44 utc | 12

Does anyone have a good, dirty Islamic joke? The Mullahs love a good, dirty Islamic joke, so maybe we can ease tensions by passing a few out. Levity's a great mitigator, hypocrisy aside.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 16:50 utc | 13

You want so much...

I don't think first going through a responsible recount is asking for "so much".

Worldwide, it's the standard procedure in this sort of situation. Why shouldn't it be in Iran, as well?

It's Mousavi's demands that are outlandish -- not the government's.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 17 2009 16:52 utc | 14

Montazeri in any case was already some kind of critic of the present regime and likely dislikes Khamenei (was a possible candidate for the same position but was dismissed to such criticism). So it isn't that surprising that he would defend that position. That Combatant Cleric association mentioned in the same post are Rafsanjani allies if I remember correctly.

In any case if there is a split between the different groups of clerics each group will just follow their own clerics as it usually done in shiism. Ahmadinejad for example follows a different and more radical ayatollah and it's likely that a lot of his more conservative followers do the same. From the last I read a couple days ago he defended the election results as would be expected.

Right now it's unclear which side will blink first. I'm not sure if the current lack of really hard measures against the promoters of the protests is a demostration of strength (or wisdom) or weakness.

Posted by: ThePaper | Jun 17 2009 17:09 utc | 15

Any pro incumbent president supportive blogs I could visit in either English, German or Spanish. The only blogs I have been reading so far are top heavy with "North Tehranis".

Posted by: Hans | Jun 17 2009 17:14 utc | 16

I can't have much of an opinion whether candidate a or b should win. As we well know from our own experience, voters don't really know either.

One thing seems likely: the vote was rigged. But proving so is impossible, at least to the satisfaction of someone like b, who requires an ahmadinejad victory to prove the "empire" is defeated. Everything else (people dying in streets in the really moving spectacle of mass solidarity) is just a sideshow.

This whole episode of moa analysis deserves a quantitative study. There have been embarrassing errors made in little more than a week: color revolution (no way, jose), AN is an avatar of social democracy (he jails trade unionists, lol), etc.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 17:19 utc | 17

From a Europress http://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-iran-jamenei-asegura-autores-actos-vandalicos-no-estan-relacionados-ex-candidatos-20090617184225.html>report (in spanish).

Some interesting bits from Khamenei:

a) he says that the authors of the current violence are not related with any of the presidential candidates (really?)
b) urges all political personalities to speak against those acts of violence
c) he also says that even if the results of the election had been different the same violent acts would have happenned
d) he is open to a full recount (not just partial like the one requested by the Guardian Council), if required by the evidence, with the presence of representatives of all candidates

Posted by: ThePaper | Jun 17 2009 17:22 utc | 18

From a Europress http://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-iran-jamenei-asegura-autores-actos-vandalicos-no-estan-relacionados-ex-candidatos-20090617184225.html>report (in spanish).

Some interesting bits from Khamenei:

a) he says that the authors of the current violence are not related with any of the presidential candidates (really?)
b) urges all political personalities to speak against those acts of violence
c) he also says that even if the results of the election had been different the same violent acts would have happenned
d) he is open to a full recount (not just partial like the one requested by the Guardian Council), if required by the evidence, with the presence of representatives of all candidates

Posted by: ThePaper | Jun 17 2009 17:22 utc | 19

AN follows the cleric Yazdi who leads the 'twelver' apocalyptic cult Hojjatieh.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 17:24 utc | 20

in the meantime in Berlin

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-43497.html#backToArticle=631023

there will be revolution soon in Germany :-))

Posted by: outsider | Jun 17 2009 17:28 utc | 21

Now I see why Twitter has been all the rage in the past 6 months. It was a warm-up for its first big test in Iran. Beyond hearing about it 24/7 in the mainstream media, I have no idea what Twitter is aside from yet another technological way to communicate meaningless, unverifiable soundbites. I've never used it, and likely never will. Sounds like a perfect medium in which to spread disinformation and panic. Why's it been so heavily publicized in the Mockingbird press? Because it suits their purposes....to control the message, and you.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 17:29 utc | 22

Reuters has photos from both sides from today and yesterday.

One of the photos shows the Ahmadinejad support rally with a huge participation.

http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20090617&t=2&i=10536268&w=450&r=2009-06-17T120046Z_01_BTRE55G0XDI00_RTROPTP_0_IRAN-ELECTION>link

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USTRE55F54520090617&channelName=worldNews#a=5>The link to the gallery

Posted by: ThePaper | Jun 17 2009 17:38 utc | 23

Maybe the Twelth Imam can finally get his ass down here, or over here, or up here, or to Northern Tehran and settle this silliness once and for all. Or Christ. All these Second Comings. So much to do to prepare, even though they come like thieves in the night. Tables set...yet they lie empty...waiting for a promise that never comes. It's always tomorrow...never today...and that's what makes it so appealing. One deferment after another. Wait til your father gets home, even though there is no father. The threat's enough...to pull wool over. Blessed are the sheep, for they shall inherit their destiny.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 17:38 utc | 24

China_Hand2

In most of the rest of the world, the initial count is transparent, with independent observers and party/candidate representatives present, and recounts generally only occur when you have very tight races and tiny margins of difference.

In this instance the initial count has been completely "occulted" - with no independent or candidate representation to validate the process. That's at the heart of the problem.

Add in the fact that there was a huge turnout, which matches the Khatami victories of 1997 and 2001 ( 70% plus ), Khatami's support for Mousavi and the similarities in their agendas, season with the well-trodden observation that significantly large turnouts ( 50%+ up from 2005 ) in general tend to be an uh-oh moment for incumbents seeking a second term, top off with some frankly bizarre provincial "results" and you definitely have a recipe, to put it mildly, for reasonable skepticism.

Posted by: dan | Jun 17 2009 17:40 utc | 25

Slothrop

You're very confused.

The Hojjatieh society was set up under the auspices of the Shah in the 1950's - it's platform was anti-Sunni, anti-Bahai, and anti clerical involvement in politics. I'm pretty sure that it was banned in Iran in the early 1980's because it opposed Khomeini's constitutional theories; that might be somewhat awkward for Mesbah-Yazidi, who remains a wholehearted supporter of Khomeini and the institutions that he created.

Posted by: dan | Jun 17 2009 17:51 utc | 26

Iran's most senior ayatollah disagrees with you.

bob, by most senior do they mean the oldest? according to wiki:

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (Persian: حسین علی منتظری), styled His Honourable Eminence, (born in 1922), was one of the leaders of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. He is best known as the one-time designated successor to the revolution's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini who fell out with Khomeini in 1989 over government policies that Montazeri claimed infringed on freedom and denied people's rights. He currently lives in the holy city of Qom, and remains politically influential in Iran, especially upon reformist politics.[1] Montazeri is a senior Islamic scholar and a grand marja (religious authority) of Islam.

For almost three decades, Hossein Ali Montazeri has been one of the main critics of Islamic Republic's domestic and foreign policy. He has also been an active advocate of civil rights and women's rights in Iran. He is a prolific writer and has authored a number of books and articles.

Posted by: annie | Jun 17 2009 18:30 utc | 27

dan

don't expect clarity or the truth from our friend slothrop. every now & then he does a wolfowitz on us or when he is really in high dugeon - we'll even get a john bolton from him though i expect sloth has real hair

& again comrade slothrop does not proiduce many facts - just a lot of the noise that you can hear at dkos or huffington post

for slothrop usaid does not exist, national endowment for democracy doesn't exist, reporters without fontiers doesn't exist - for sloth there was no influence of yankee imperialism on the politcal & electoral process in latin america especially but not only in venezuela & bolivia, the yankess had no influence of the same processus in georgia & the ukraine - being the good marxist analyst that he is - everything's hunky dory & in any case if there is the glorious miltary force of the u s is there to correct the rule of law with a phosphorous bomb or two

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 18:40 utc | 28

The ballot boxes in many provinces were closed and taken elsewhere by government officials for counting. This is in contrast to previous years where the ballot box was opened and votes counted locally in the presence of the multiple candidates representatives. You can't have an official recount of ballots that have disappeared. Once they have been taken out of sight any trustworthy recount is impossible.
It is hard to ask for proof when the people making the charges have no access to the ballots. It is also impossible to believe that Montazeri lost his own home town by a significant margin. I trustour own news anymore. But enough independent non-msm sources have discussed many of the problems with voting in Iran. Sometimes the truth is simple, this was a stolen election.

Posted by: patrick | Jun 17 2009 18:45 utc | 29

Slothrop

You're very confused.

dan, you must be new around here. He's not confused, he's just a real good indicator of what not to believe. I think Bernhard lets him come around for laughs, or something.

Posted by: Jim T. | Jun 17 2009 18:50 utc | 30

dan (6), you are one of the few voices of reason on this Blog. I'm disgusted that some posters assume there was no fraud, when vote counting was conducted in total secrecy by Interior Ministry officials appointed by Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

I am disgusted that nobody here questions how the main reformists suffered heavy losses even in their home states, though I'm sure you would all have screamed 'foul' if in 2004 Kerry had placed last in Massachusetts, as were the cases with Rezaie in Khuzestan, Karroubi in Lorestan and Moussavi in Tabriz. Doesn't anybody here actually bother to use basic logic?

The only reason I come across as arrogant is because some of you pseudo-revolutionaries can't see the wood for the trees and come up with theories that suit your ideologies even in the face of million-person demonstrations by Iranians, all across the country, who are sick to death of the mullahs and are risking their lives while you all sit comfortably denigrating both their sacrifices and even their motives. Unlike you people, Iranians don't give a shit about the Palestinians or Hugo Chavez. They want food, freedom, justice and job opportunities. I'm sorry if you consider those goals 'decadent' or 'irresponsible'. "Oh, how terribly frightful that Iranians would want freedom and jobs! This must have been engineered by the Americans".

Iranians aren't interested in being the bloody vanguard of your anti-Capitalistic obsessions, and they certainly don't believe that anti-Americanism is justifiable AT ANY PRICE.

And yes, ordinary, even minimally educated Iranians are more politically aware than most educated Americans, because we're not dumbed down by Zionist propaganda, junk food, junk media, junk lobbies, junk economics and a junk culture that favours materialism above all else. No contradiction here. Iranians want freedom from this religious yoke that Christians got rid of 5 centuries ago. This is the 21st century, for Heaven's sake. Is it so difficult for you to understand why Iranians who haven't been coerced and bought off (= the vast majority of us) detest the regime?

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 17 2009 18:59 utc | 31

parviz

you offer no proof - you simply scream but most of all you offer no analysis - or no analysis that can't be found on the very american huffington post

we have our differences - you & i - but on this question i simply don't believe you as i would not listen to the propogandists of saakshivili & i think you'd be very mistaken b indeed to paint our host as a wannabe theocrat

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 19:09 utc | 32

If Ahmadinejad was the Bad Ass he's painted to be, i.e. Hitler, how come Mousaka is still alive? It's not as though such a Bad Ass gives a damn about the court of public opinion. The school of Bad Ass teaches that troublemakers such as Mousaka must be dealt with harshly and swiftly. The bud must be nipped and smashed. Yet, that hasn't happened. Ahmathingamabob's not much of a Bad Ass. In fact, he's a wimp.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17, 2009 12:40:48 PM | 11

Even by your standards that was really pathetic. Do you know how many opposition members the regime has assassinated so far, including Ayatollahs who were trying to separate religion from politics? The only reason they can't do it this time is because they don't feel nearly as strong as they did when they blew up Ayatollah Beheshti, knifed Ayatollah Taleghani to death, etc.,.

The most senior Ayatollah in Iran is under house arrest. They don't dare kill him either and are hoping that he simply dies quickly but naturally as he has a huge following. The beast is weakening by the day, and the beast knows this. It doesn't want to create martyrs.

Obamageddon, don't make stupid, totally uninformed statements that try to portray Ahmadinejad as a decent person in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 17 2009 19:10 utc | 33

Reading Iran

Tom Porteous

We had arrived at Jamkaran, a holy shrine outside the Iranian city of Qom and site of a water well where the 12th and last imam of Shia Islam, the Mahdi, is said to have disappeared a little over a thousand years ago. Many Iranians believe that the so-called hidden imam, or "imam zaman" (lord of all the ages), will at any moment choose this place to make his return to solve the world's problems. In recent years, the millenarian cult of the well of Jamkaran has become so popular that a hotel has been built nearby and the old mosque is being expanded to accommodate the thousands of pilgrims who flock to the shrine every week.

During my latest visit to Iran in November, I decided to visit Jamkaran after reading a report in a newspaper of a speech delivered by the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the occasion of National Saffron Production day. In the speech he had urged Iranians to work hard for the return of the imam zaman, who, according to Shia eschatology, will return at a time of great crisis, defeat the enemies of God and establish an era of universal justice.

On this visit I was struck by two things: the political situation, following the summer's election of Ahmadinejad, was even more finely balanced than usual; and the baffling subject of the imam zaman kept coming up in conversation. It was as if the election had conjured up an element of Shia popular mysticism that had long lurked in the background. There was even a story circulating in Tehran that the new president's cabinet had drawn up a contract with the imam zaman promising to work for the Mahdi's return in exchange for his support. The new minister of Islamic guidance, Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi, had been dispatched to Jamkaran, so the story went, to deposit the contract in the well, thus sealing the deal.

I asked a young artist friend, Reza, if he would accompany me to Jamkaran. He agreed and persuaded a girlfriend of his to drive us there in her SUV. We left during the morning rush hour and crawled south out of Tehran along highways clogged with exhaust-spewing traffic. Three portly women clad in black chadors stared at us from the back seat of a battered Paykan, the ubiquitous Iranian-made car modelled on the 1960s Hillman Hunter, which ceased production only in May. The women had daggers in their eyes. Not only was Reza's girlfriend "bad hijab" (insufficiently veiled), smoking, driving and irredeemably upper-middle class, but she had just insulted their driver by swerving out in front of him without warning.

...

"A lot of people think this is complete bullshit," said my friend Reza, the son of a communist and grandson of an ayatollah. The more sophisticated mullahs in neighbouring Qom and elsewhere, while respecting the tradition of the hidden imam, reject the cult of the well of Jamkaran as popular superstition. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, discouraged the cult of the imminent return of the hidden imam, even though his own immense popularity among Iran's poor owed something to the belief of some Iranians that he himself was the Mahdi. Khomeini also outlawed a semi-clandestine group called the Hojjatieh, which emerged during the revolution, and whose members believe that total chaos must be created in order to hasten the return of the Mahdi and the establishment of Islamic rule throughout the world.

Since Khomeini's death, however, the Hojjatieh has reportedly re-emerged in various sectors of the regime, including the Revolutionary Guard, the elite parallel army that was established to protect the Islamic revolution and that bore the brunt of the fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. There are indications that Ahmadinejad and several of his close associates, mostly veterans of that war, are sympathisers or active members of the group. The new president's key supporter among senior Shia clergy, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Misbah-Yazdi, is also thought to be associated with Hojjatieh. During this summer's presidential election, Misbah-Yazdi is said to have issued a fatwa instructing all 2m members of the paramilitary Basij (the militia that emerged after the revolution as enforcers of Islamist morality) to vote for Ahmadinejad.

In the past decade, at the same time as Hojjatieh re-emerged as a secretive force around the fringes of the regime, the cult of the hidden imam gained in popularity, mostly but not exclusively among Iran's lower classes. So while many Iranians voted for Ahmadinejad because of his programme of wealth redistribution and because he was not a mullah (an important asset in a country where rule by mullahs has badly dented the reputation of the clergy), some also may have been attracted by his millenarian rhetoric. Thus the election saw a conjunction of the ambitions of a small hardline clique and the yearnings and frustrations of the urban proletariat and rural peasantry.

The result was a victory for Ahmadinejad that finally put an end to the efforts of liberal reformers to transform the Islamic Republic from within its formal political structures, put a hardline populist into the president's office, and once again set Iran off on uncharted and potentially turbulent political waters.

...

Many other sources.

As usual, fuck you, you charlatan.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 19:16 utc | 34

if it weren't for slothrop's affinity w/ & endorsement of the neocon worldview, surely he & parviz make a good tagteam in presenting arguments that rely on grotesque distortions & gross generalizations, when not making outright fabrications, about what people in this forum think/believe.

Posted by: b real | Jun 17 2009 19:17 utc | 35

I don't know talking about, and anyway, that's really low, breal.
I don't defend "neocons." really low, dude.

Giap, you stupid cow, supply all the evidence you have the usual suspects like usaid are in Iran, distributing green handkerchiefs.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 19:26 utc | 36

Slothrop (12), thanks for pointing out b's inexcusable comment:

"But why exactly should the election results be annulled? I am still missing concrete evidence or witnesses coming forward with evidence of real election fraud."

"Witnesses"? "Concrete evidence"??? Do you mean witneeses and evidence from the Interior Ministry officials who control the vote counting and are concealing the 'evidence' from public view?

Or maybe you mean the reformists should storm the Interior Ministry building without weapons, seize the ballot boxes (if they still exist) and do a recount?

b, I have never been so dubious of your motives as on the subject of this (s)election, which you deemed fair right from the very beginning and in spite of the numerous FACTS I gave you about a) the impossible vote counts in the leading reformists' home provinces, b) the dismissal of all provincial monitors at the last minute, c) the impossibly rapid vote count (3 hours after ballot closing compared with the 24 hours it took 4 years ago with 50 % fewer votes to count), d) the fact that the nationally popular Karroubi received 94 % total FEWER votes than 4 years ago when he was less popular than today and, last but not least, e) the Interior Ministry's refusal to allow any independent domestic monitoring of the actual vote count.

O.K., let me put it another way:

Saddam Hussein used to receive 99.8 % of the population's votes for the Presidency even though 65 % of the population were oppressed Shi'ites. I suppose, using your logic, we could never have proved the voting was rigged. Where was the evidence of vote rigging. b: In the absence of a 'smoking gun', have you ever heard of "overwhelming circumstantial evidence"? And you still choose to give the regime the benefit of the doubt? Really?

b, this doesn't become you. Sorry, but I think you have either gone completely nuts or have a sinister hidden agenda.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 17 2009 19:29 utc | 37

Parviz, I don't abide by your jew-bashing, but I'm grateful for the participation of those like you who appear to know by experience what they're talking about.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 19:32 utc | 38

b real: "gross generalizations and distortions" from me? Which of these statements would you consider "gross generalizations and distortions":

a) the impossible vote counts in the leading reformists' home provinces?

b) the dismissal of all provincial monitors at the last minute?

c) the impossibly rapid vote count (3 hours after ballot closing compared with the 24 hours it took 4 years ago with 50 % fewer votes to count)?

d) the fact that the nationally popular Karroubi received 94 % total FEWER votes than 4 years ago when he was less popular than today?

e) the Interior Ministry's refusal to allow any independent domestic monitoring of the actual vote count?

???

I await your pathetic answer whenever you can conjure up one. I'll give you a week. Fair enough?

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 17 2009 19:37 utc | 39

@Dan @25 - In most of the rest of the world, the initial count is transparent, with independent observers and party/candidate representatives present, and recounts generally only occur when you have very tight races and tiny margins of difference.

In this instance the initial count has been completely "occulted" - with no independent or candidate representation to validate the process. That's at the heart of the problem.

Factually false - read my new piece on this. Even a Mousvai supporter says that the local level was monitored and controlled and the results at district level ARE publicly available.

Posted by: b | Jun 17 2009 19:38 utc | 40

Disclaimer: This is a somewhat kooky speculation on my part--it's bit too conspiratorial and I don't think I can believe it myself. I don't know enough facts on the ground--so it's total speculation and I don't claim this has any grain of truthiness in it. Still, it seems to make a peculiar sense the more I think about it. I'm posting it here just to provoke some thoughts and responses. Thanks.

One assumption everyone seems to be making regarding Iran is that there are just two sides in this game--Ahmedinejad's camp and Mousavi's camp. In an ordinary election, that would be true, but knowing what we know about Iran, is that sufficient? The more I think about it, it seems to me that the clerical leadership under Khamenei actually rigged the election against both Ahmedinejad and Mousavi. Let me lay out why I started thinking this:

1. The numbers obviously make no sense. We know that Ahmedinejad is a shrewd politician who has a wide support base. But we also know he is a deeply polarizing figure in Iraninan politics. It's at least highly improbable and, in practice, next to impossible for him to have pulled off 60% of the votes.

2. If Ahmedinejad was indeed rigging the election, knowing his position in the Iranian electorate, would he have come up with such unbelievable numbers? We know something about run-off elections. It is common that nobody wins a majority in the first round. So, it would have been more plausible for him to have himself winning a pluarality--or even concede a plurality to Mousavi--and have himself win a majority in the second round. After all, that was what past elections were like in Iran itself.

3. What does Ahmedinejad have to gain by "winning" an election while destroying his own credibility like this? Not much, if you ask me.

But, from the perspective of Khamenei, things are different. While Ahmedinejad has often been described as a political ally of the clerical establishment, that is hardly accurate--at best, he has been a very difficult ally who did his own thing, often at the expense of the ayatollahs. Ahmedinejad is an outsider, a non-cleric, and a rabble rouser. Indeed, he often used rabble-rousing to enhance the prominence of the presidency at the expense of the religious establishments. I've heard that his version of folksy piety has often irked the more "formal" religious authorities. On the other hand, despite the common characterization of Mousavi as an anti-establishment figure, the truth is that he has a good deal more insider credentials as Ahmedinejad has. He has close contacts within the clerical establishment, and while one might mention how his clerics are opposed to Khamenei, one has to think Mousavi is potentially as amenable to the unelected elders of Iran as Ahmedinejad, if anything, as a "devil they know."

If I were Khamenei, then, what would I do? I'd offer Ahmedinejad a poisoned gift--a clearly tainted electoral victory. If Ahmedinejad survives, he would be in a gravely weakened position and far more dependent on Khamenei--who, after all, would have saved his political life. If Ahmedinejad does not, Khamenei will have "graciously" adjudicated the dispute and handed the victory to Mousavi--and he too would be indebted to the religious leadership. Either way, the clerics win--provided that the entire country doesn't fall apart in process. Clearly, a high-stakes gamble--assuming, to repeat, there is anything other than my imagination in this. But while I cannot convince myself that the election results are not utterly phoney, I cannot find any good reason for Ahmedinejad to have rigged the election himself--especially given the form in which the "rigging" took place, which is too "clumsy," especially given previous electoral experiences in Iran. Given the elephant in the room who is not directly involved--Khamenei--and that he is no particular friend of either side, even if he is slightly closer to one than the other, this actually doesn't seem totally ridiculous to me...but perhaps it does to you, in which case I'm hoping to learn why it might be.

Posted by: kao-hsien-chih | Jun 17 2009 19:41 utc | 41

@patrick @29 The ballot boxes in many provinces were closed and taken elsewhere by government officials for counting. This is in contrast to previous years where the ballot box was opened and votes counted locally in the presence of the multiple candidates representatives.

Source? Link? Any more than an assertion?

Posted by: b | Jun 17 2009 19:42 utc | 42

parviz, maybe if you didn't have a recent history of generalizing and denigrating the diversity of commentary here, your comments would be taken more seriously.

you had no problem coming here and telling folks like me to just accept the fiscal policies of my president, and now that people are questioning what you (and our western MSM outlets) are telling us about this election, you throw fucking tantrums.

i'm sorry things aren't turning out the way you wanted to. after two stolen elections in this country, i can sympathize with your anger. but when you say stupid shit like:

Unlike you people, Iranians don't give a shit about the Palestinians or Hugo Chavez. They want food, freedom, justice and job opportunities. I'm sorry if you consider those goals 'decadent' or 'irresponsible'. "Oh, how terribly frightful that Iranians would want freedom and jobs! This must have been engineered by the Americans".

all i can think is what a tremendous asshole you are. during this GLOBAL economic meltdown EVERYONE wants jobs, so fuck your anti-jew/american hate spewing, i'm sick of it.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 17 2009 19:47 utc | 43

Better still, I'm outa here. The comments by many of you conspiracy theorists don't warrant a reply from Iranians actually living in Iran and seeing things first-hand. You armchair critics can continue making fun of the dying students and reformists trying to throw off 30 years of religious hypocrisy and corruption.

I have tried my utmost to give you all my best take on the political situation in Iran for the past year, but I'm not going to sit here and have my allegedly "Upper Middle Class" motives judged by b or anyone else when all I care about is the welfare of my people.

Goodbye everyone. Write whatever you wish. I have more urgent matters to attend to in my own country. You guys couldn't even get rid of Bush, yet you have the gall to protect and defend Ahmadinejad. It figures. b, strike my private email address off your list, because I won't respond. I feel betrayed by a bunch of pseudo-revolutionaries, hypocrites who support dictatorships hostile to America and mock genuine revolutionary movements that seek nothing more than freedom from a brutal religious dictatorship. I don't know why I bothered with MoA to begin with. As soon as you encountered a genuine freedom movement you, of all Blogs, put it down.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 17 2009 19:48 utc | 44

One thing seems likely: the vote was rigged. But proving so is impossible, at least to the satisfaction of someone like b, who requires an ahmadinejad victory to prove the "empire" is defeated. Everything else (people dying in streets in the really moving spectacle of mass solidarity) is just a sideshow.

You MOTHERFUCKING piece of SHIT.

You are attacking b about supporting AN (which he isn't) and for the death of 7 people in Iran, while YOU have supported the Iraq invasion that has killed by one account 100,000 people and another account 1 million people. You have supported ISRAEL's attck on Lebanese civilians and on Palestinian civilians. You have supported the WOT. You have supported every criminal act that the US govet has engaged in overseas. Have you NO SHAME?!!! Are you for real!!! Do you really expect us to take you seriously?!!! Do you really expect us to believe that you care about the Iranian people when you did not care about the Lebanese, Palestinian, Afghan, Pakistani people. WOW.

When Hamas won the Palestinian elections fair and square (as verified by independent monitors) did you rise up and oppose what Israel and the US and Europe did to the people of Gaza? Did you not support the turning of Gaza into one large prison and the starving of the Palestinian people? Where was your support for democracy back then?

From the bottom of my heart I say FUCK YOU.

(sorry about the foul language for the rest of MOA)

Posted by: ndahi | Jun 17 2009 19:57 utc | 45

ah! my gentle rhetorician, slothrop - how your arguments & your style of argument sway me - but thankfully khc offers a more substantial if risky reading. khc - it remains from me an interelite rivalry gone wrong or yet to be played out in its full violence

me, i wrap myself up warmly in the satrap semantics of slothrop - that is fact-free, but after all i'm illiterate, a bad poet, a stupid cow, a charlatan - hell, he hasn't called me a class traitor yet but he will surely he will - as surely as parviz will supply us with 'facts' that can be wrenched from 'sources' that are not completely disinterested. it is all screaming to me, parviz - the cnnisation of the internet essentially

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 19:59 utc | 46

ndahi

You're crazy. I've never done any of the things you accuse me of.

Rgiap, can you provide just a few facts supporting your belief the US and proxy NGOs are funneling resources to mousavi? Any at all?

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:06 utc | 47

BTW, giap, thanks for the "Ghiost Wars" book. I read it, and I must say there is nothing in the book supporting your earlier claims the Taliban did not support AQ. Just the reverse!

You're a charlatan and a liar.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:11 utc | 48

Slothrop,

You are a LIAR. If I had the time and the inclination, I would dig up your previous posts. At every corner, you support ISRAEL and at every instance you attack those who criticize Israel as anti-semite. We are not fools, we have read your posts in the past.

I compare you to that POS Christopher Hitchens. A former trotskyite turned neocon. It is not a coincidence that you know about Marx, allbeit, vulgar Marxism. Most necons are either former Marxists or Democrats from the Scoop Jackson wing of the Party.

You have ZERO credibility here.

Posted by: ndahi | Jun 17 2009 20:16 utc | 49

thank you ndahi - something said saliently

& you are quite right - specifically on the 2006 war on lebanon & in the occupied territories - largely the same people who are screaming abput iran were completely silent - so silent in fact that when jimmy carter without rhetoric speaks humanely of the palestinains being treated like animals - it is shocking in its resonance - because he is saying whatever the world really knows but rarely says. even with the murderous assault on gaza - those very same people wanted to compare slaughter with firerockets

& if there is anthing in slothrop's arguments that are completely disreputable - it is the absence of the milllion dead in iraq, the four million exiles, the daily torture & death, the complete absence of water, of electricity of even the most basic services - this absence is at once horrifying & telling

& i don't think parviz & others can perceive that it is possible to take some distance from the msm narrative & not be a supporter of ahmadinejad

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 20:19 utc | 50

@Parviz @37 - b, I have never been so dubious of your motives as on the subject of this (s)election, which you deemed fair right from the very beginning and in spite of the numerous FACTS I gave you about a) the impossible vote counts in the leading reformists' home provinces, b) the dismissal of all provincial monitors at the last minute, c) the impossibly rapid vote count (3 hours after ballot closing compared with the 24 hours it took 4 years ago with 50 % fewer votes to count), d) the fact that the nationally popular Karroubi received 94 % total FEWER votes than 4 years ago when he was less popular than today and, last but not least, e) the Interior Ministry's refusal to allow any independent domestic monitoring of the actual vote count.

I have no motives or interest in this but the truth.

a) the impossible vote counts in the leading reformists' home provinces,

The explanation for Mousavi's home-province loss (Azeri) seems to be. He has hardly ever been there recently. Ahmadinejad was governor there for eight years and campaigned heavily there holding speeches in Azeri language.

b) the dismissal of all provincial monitors at the last minute,

Source? A U.S./Iranian professor and Mousavi fan says

There were party monitors, and the boxes were all counted, and there were records made, and the information was relayed to the Interior Ministry on a piecemeal basis.

c) the impossibly rapid vote count (3 hours after ballot closing compared with the 24 hours it took 4 years ago with 50 % fewer votes to count)

You, earlier here, asserted that all votes are counted at the Interior Ministry. That was obviously wrong. Votes are counted at the local level (monitored) and reported upstairs. The folks at the Interior ministry sum those up and report them.

Sure, there might be manipulation in their summing up at the interior ministry.

But the speed of reporting those votes is NOT an indication for that. The first report from the ministry came two to three hours after the voting closed and based on some 20% of reporting localities. Ahmadinejad had 69% according to that, which, as more local counts came in decreased to 62%. The speed aspect on which your argument rides is also wrong in historic aspects. The last two elections were reported in 24 hours or less. Check the archives of LAT and NYT and you will find exactly that. And why shouldn't the ministry be more efficient now than four years ago.

d) the fact that the nationally popular Karroubi received 94 % total FEWER votes than 4 years ago when he was less popular than today and, last but not least,

This was the first ever TV campaign vote in Iran with TV debates between candidates. Instead of the usual four or five candidate pre-round and the second two candidate final people indeed might have made up their mind earlier and thereby might have excluded unlikely winners to begin with.

e) the Interior Ministry's refusal to allow any independent domestic monitoring of the actual vote count.

The district results are obviously available (pdf) to U.S. scientist. Why are they not discussed more?

Again: The local results were monitored. The central tallying probably not. The district results available should allow some checking. The documented local results could be re-tallied.

Why doesn't Mousavi demand just that?

Parviz - I simply want to know who has won - I am not a Ahmadinjad partisan - just a simple guy in Germany, with no beef in the game, that tries to find out what is really happening.

Posted by: b | Jun 17 2009 20:21 utc | 51

i watched clips of john mccain extolling obama to come out in support of mousavi on cnn. the guy who sang about bombing iran set to a beach boy tune is now suddenly concerned about democracy in iran.

and parviz can't understand where the skepticism is coming from? no, we're all just a bunch of worthless conspiracy theorists here, i guess.

I don't know why I bothered with MoA to begin with

that makes two of us, parviz.

I feel betrayed by a bunch of pseudo-revolutionaries, hypocrites who support dictatorships hostile to America and mock genuine revolutionary movements that seek nothing more than freedom from a brutal religious dictatorship

if all your movement seeks is freedom from a brutal religious dictatorship, then shouldn't it be addressing the real power structure in your country?

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 17 2009 20:25 utc | 52

The comments by many of you conspiracy theorists don't warrant a reply from Iranians actually living in Iran and seeing things first-hand.

the sitemeter doesn't reflect that. just sayin'

parvis, i feel for you. i know its a bitch not getting the outcome you want. can anyone explain to me why irans election is going globally viral? are there really 'millions' protesting in iran? and even if there were does that mean those millions represent more than the millions who support ahmadinejad. doesn't it seem odd to you that the US news service is more concerned about a stolen election in iran than what happened in ohio in 04?

what are the chances the results of this election are likely to result in over a million deaths and cause millions of refugees like our stolen elections.

what are the chances there was no american or neocon 'inspiration' for this revolution???

early news

""Over the past two evenings, the air in Tehran has been filled with loud cries of ‘Allah-u Akbar' following a request to this end by Moussavi's supporters," a person in Tehran informed an Iran-oriented list Sunday. "Tonight, the chanting started at around 9 pm local time, and has been escalating since. People in all parts of town are reporting the same phenomenon in their neighbourhoods. Amidst the chanting, you can also hear loud bangs, which are either bullets or teargas being fired ...

"One important implication of this action," the note from Tehran continued,
"is that it is a relatively well organised civil disobedience, which is difficult
for the regime to clamp down on and also catches on easily. This can probably go on for a
while even if the street protests were to die down.""

when was this 'well organised civil disobedience' organized? before the vote?

i was stuck in tel aviv over the weekend and all i thought about was how the screaming over this election was going to totally drowned out the bibs speech/response regarding the obama 2 state solution/end settlements speech which nobody seems to be talking about. with all thats going on right now why are we focused on iran? are the iranians suffering like the palestinians? the iraqis? are we all pavlovs dogs salivating over iran news. what exactly is happening in iran that trumps all the other injustivce in the world. no democracy? what else is new? almost 1/2 the people in the region of palestine/israel are under occupation and don't even get to vote, hows that for democracy? screw fucking democracy, this is all so much bullshit.

Posted by: annie | Jun 17 2009 20:27 utc | 53

parviz @ 39 - context, dear sir, context - "gross generalizations and distortions" about what people in this forum think/believe. i do realize you are under emotional duress these days & are projecting much into what you actually read (or take away from it), however you (hopefully) realize that you have a history here that quite often resorts to buttressing an argument w/ the most crude of debate tactics. that shouldn't be a controversial observation...

Posted by: b real | Jun 17 2009 20:30 utc | 54

Tehran is burning, and who is fueling the fires?

excuse me if someone already posted this from mondoweiss

Posted by: annie | Jun 17 2009 20:31 utc | 55

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI09Ak01.html>Here's some more details about the ultra-rightwing nuts AN is linked to.

Again, more support for me, none for you, dan.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:31 utc | 56

ndahi, you're just a cheapshot. Why the libel? Nothing you accuse me of is supported by anything I've ever contributed here. Nothing.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:36 utc | 57

Like I said, giap, you talk a lot, but you don't back up what you say.

That whole thing with Ghost Wars is hilarious. You're a fool.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:39 utc | 58

Obamageddon, don't make stupid, totally uninformed statements that try to portray Ahmadinejad as a decent person in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Whatever. I have not potrayed Ahmathingamabob as a decent person. But he's surely no Hitler. How many Jews has he incinerated today? Does he have plans to invade Kuwait....Poland? Rule the Middle East? Rule the world? Get off it. He's no Hitler. Dick Cheney's closer to a Hitler than Ahmadinejad, and Cheney had the means to kill on a grand scale.....and kill he did....and torture.

Also, I'm not disputing your acccusations of Ahmajiminabob killing off his opponents, it's plausible, but where is your proof aside from your personal conviction?

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 17 2009 20:46 utc | 59

Parviz, I wish you would stay, but I understand if your priorities are elsewhere.

This revolution seems to me to be aimed, at best at increasing the relative power of the single most corrupt, by the most basic definition of corrupt - using position in government for personal and familial enrichment, figure in Iranian politics.

At worst, it is fueled by ties between that person's factions combined with resources and planning from forces outside the country that are hostile to Iran.

The full story of the election could and should have been investigated without a single person demonstrating in the streets, because prolonged street demonstrations very often lead to loss of life, as happened here.

Khamenei is not Saddam Hussein in that there is an openly hostile and resourceful power center to Khamenei and there never was one for Hussein.

The counters in the interior ministry, if you are claiming they fabricated the results from whole cloth, did so against their own laws and their own values and very importantly, there is a powerful alternative power center that would want them to tell their story.

If there is fraud, it will come out without anyone dying. Really without anyone protesting, but if you want to protest that is fine.

Rafsanjani and Mousavi really do not need a bunch of kids out on the streets burning mopeds to find and punish an act of electoral fraud on the scale that you seem to believe occurred.

If you've really convinced yourself that Khamenei is Hussein, then I guess you're doing the only thing you can do. Several weeks ago you agreed with me that there is no comparison between Iran and the Arab dictatorships.

This is a tense time for you I guess. The government announced that your side lost an election and you find that unbelievable.

If there was a real fraud, real evidence exists. One thing is that Mousavi's tactics do not seem aimed at determining the presence of fraud but on attacking the system. In favor of what though? Reform? Backed by the most corrupt Iranian ever?

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 17 2009 20:51 utc | 60

more support for me, none for you, dan.

you crack me up sloth,

Shi'ite supremacists emerge from Iran's shadows
From a Special Correspondent

so 'special' they remain anonymous??? special support for you sloth.

Posted by: annie | Jun 17 2009 20:53 utc | 61

http://www.empirenotes.org/>Mahajan.

A good read. I wish he wrote more.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 20:56 utc | 62

You didn't read it, annie. And the details there are hardly unique. Nor is this a conspiracy theory. AN's links to Yazdi merely help to frame the former's pedigree in much the same way as the knowledge of say, Scalia's ties to opus dei, serve as one way to understand Scalia's conservatism.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 21:03 utc | 63

it would seem that sloth suffers from a form of autism that means he cannot remember what he has sd - repeatedly - on iraq, on lebanon, on hezbollah, on political islam, on the innate intercenine qualites of the middle east & of islam, on the supremacy of u s power, on the absence, weakness, corruptness of any resistance to u s power etc etc etc

its all there in the archives slothrop

on every point mentioned by ndahi @ 45 are substantiated with a reading, even a cursory one of moa archives

if the subtexts were not so murderous i'd go with annie - & just presume you are a funny guy, a very funny guy

i'd also suggest your reading of 'ghost wars' is also autistic - to read that book & not be confronted by imperialism & its projects - is close reading of spaces between words

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 21:05 utc | 64

b:

I would like this to be posted as Dragonfly's position on the Iranian elections, not just a missive at the bottom of comments. I would like your response at the same place so we can have a clear debate.

b says: There is a full effort of the "western" media and some expatriate Iranian organizations to de-legitimize the Iranian election despite the absence of any real evidence of voting fraud. These events show all characteristics of an engineered "color evolution".

The validity of a message must be determined regardless of the messenger. You should not care if AP, the Reuters, CNN or even Fox News reports something or the IRIB. You should find reasons for whether the report is true or not regardless of who says it is or it is not. The credibility of the source or the medium is relevant if and only if you cannot determine the validity of the claim on its own merits. Even then the leap from CNN or any other news channel has an agenda to CNN or any other news organization is helping engineer a color revolution is more than a leap of faith. Do you have any hard evidence for this claim? An email from a news executive to his underlings to foment a color revolution, perhaps? I am asking you this question because you subject those who disagree with you to a stricter standard of evidence than you yourself are willing to undergo. So show us evidence, hard evidence, not conjectures, not hypotheses, not conspiratorial connect-the-dot exercises. Evidence and logic please.

Ahmadinejad and the Poor
b says: As said before I find the reelection of Ahmadinejad quite plausible. He has done a lot for the poor.

What is your evidence for Ahmadinejad having done a lot for the poor? What I would like you to do is to list five things Ahmadinejad has done for the poor that are genuinely good for them. You can also tell me five things that Ahmadinejad has done that are bad for the poor but for some reason they fail to see them as bad and think they are good for them.

Misreading the Professor
You have misread or patently misunderstood Professor Salehi-Esfahani’s post about class in the Iranian society. He is an economist and understands class as income classes, not as a social concept. Regardless, his point is that according to the calculations he has done the size of the Iranian middle class has almost doubled from 1997-2007. Assuming that the percentage of voters does not vary much across classes this means that the middle class candidate, in this case Mr. Mousavi, had a better chance of winning the election. One could say that the percentage of poor or other classes who participate in the elections was more than that of the middle class. There is no data for this claim while we know from the previous elections that when the turnout is high in general, reformists tend to win. Assuming that your conjecture is right, Rezaee and Karroubi had a better chance of breaking the vote of the poor than Mousavi, that is, Ahmadinejad was more likely to compete for the votes of the poor with Karroubi and Rezaee. So even if proportionally more poor voters voted than the middle class we should have seen a surge in Rezaee’s vote or Karroubi’s vote or both. In other words, the higher participation rate of the poor is very little threat to the reformist candidate if we agree on your assumptions, since the number of the middle class has almost doubled.

The Fisk Affair
Do you consider Robert Fisk’s interview with one man conclusive evidence? Has Fisk corroborated the man’s claims about what Ahmadinejad has done? How has he done so? Have you corroborated those claims? For example have you contacted Tabriz University, the largest state university in the northwestern Iran, to ask if they do indeed offer the program the man claims Ahmadinejad instituted? But for the sake of argument, suppose some obscure university in the Azeri speaking provinces of Iran offers this program. Do you have any idea how long it takes to have a program of study approved by the Iranian Ministry of Science and Technology? Wouldn’t knowing that it takes several years to have the program established at any state university in Iran give you pause to realize that maybe his predecessors were the ones pushing for the program and he simply confiscated what was already an almost-finished project in his own name as he has often done in other instances?

Ahmadinejad the Leftist
b says: In interior politics and economics, dominant in elections everywhere, his position is more to the left of the typical "western" right-left scale.

Here is where you go far off track. If this statement is indicative of your knowledge of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, you are in need of serious second thoughts. I assume you are not an economist. That may explain your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of economic analysis. Let’s start with your assertion that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s position is more to the Left. Let’s see how Mr. Ahmadinejad fares against “typical” Left in three areas of economic policy. I can count every area of macroeconomics conceivable and show that contrary to your misguided beliefs Mr. Ahmadinejad has indeed followed the maxims of a brutal form of predatory capitalism far more sinister than the usual libertarian utopia envisioned among the laissez-faire crowd, but for now, let’s just concentrate on three points:

1. Housing Two simple facts about housing: It has the biggest share of household expense and rents are based on property value. Two ways Iranian poor were punished by Ahmadinejad: They cannot afford houses because of skyrocketing property values. Now the demand for house purchases by the people who really want to live in them has decreased because they cannot afford them anymore, so the demand for rentals has gone up. So the poor get punished twice it becomes harder for them to both buy and rent while the real estate speculators among whom one can find prominent backers of President Ahmadinejad are enriched. Question: Ahmadinejad ran a very expensive campaign. Did you see or hear the poor donating money to it? Even Ahmadinejad himself did not claim that he received money from the poor. There was no footage of it; no anecdotes flooding Ahmadinejad friendly blogosphere, no IRIB teaser. Where did the campaign money come from? Why don’t you place Ahmadinejad under the same scrutiny as the others? This willful omission speaks volumes about how “I like him, because the Western media demonize him” plays in much of the ideological blogosphere.
2. Employment Mr. Ahmadinejad, through Mr. Jahromi his longtime friend appointed Minister of Labor, has tried hard to change Iranian labor laws to make firing workers far easier than what it is now. Iranian labor laws are generally labor friendly. Mr. Ahmadinejad opposes labor laws citing inefficiencies and rigidities of the law, a codeword used by Right government to get rid of legal labor protections. Mr. Ahmadinejad has adamantly and at times brutally stifled efforts by workers to unionize or create syndicates. He has not even tolerated the government affiliated Labor House that is supposed to represent the labor force in policy debates, since its leaders have consistently and members have consistently voted Left, that is, reformist. Why do you think Tehran bus drivers staged demonstrations a few years back? They were simply not being paid or had wages far below the poverty line. Of course you can find a color revolution in every protest against Mr. Ahmadinejad; the only color I see here is the color of food at someone’s table whatever that may be.
3. Open Economy Mr. Ahmadinejad’s tenure has seen the rise of consumer imports to unprecedented heights. Remember the very same people who are supposed to be poor therefore voting for Mr. Ahmadinejad were actually being crushed under the onslaught of cheap imports that would have them laid off or work without pay. I suppose you call this economic policy by the Left. I am not citing numbers here so you actually do some search for numbers and face the grim reality rather than a reflexive opposition to whoever is against Mr. Ahmadinejad just because some Western media happen to somehow say it as it is.
Misrepresenting the Professor Again You have misrepresented the good professor’s analysis once more. He uses some numbers from the 2006 census to give a picture of the Iranian labor market in 2009. Using three-year old data to analyze a dynamic labor market is his fault, misrepresenting the results are yours. Assuming his numbers are right, some basic statistics tells us that if you were living in Iran and you were younger than 30 years old in 2006 you had about 22% chance of being unemployed, almost twice as much as the national average of 12.4%. You can download the data from the Statistical Centre of Iran and if you are interested I will show you how these numbers are estimated. At any rate, these numbers simply show the state of the labor market in 2006 not 2009. Would you do the same analysis for the U.S.? Use the 2006 unemployment data to say something about what is going on now? These numbers show the situation of the Iranian labor market some time after Khatami left office. These are the numbers that Ahmadinejad capitalized on to say Khatami did nothing for the economy. Funny they should be looked at as exonerating Mr. Ahmadinejad’s economic performance now. Here is my question: suppose these numbers carry over to 2009, meaning unemployment hovers around 10% and only 5 out of 100 young persons in Iran are unemployed. Also assume that Iranian imports have increased by 75% since the Khatami administration according to official CBI figures and data released by the Iranian Customs Administration and corroborated by the WTO. We also know that the bulk of this surge in imports has gone to consumer stuff not capital goods like industrial machinery. If Iran is not importing capital goods that are used to create jobs how have jobs being created in the economy so as to keep the unemployment rate almost constant or dropping? If I am a businessman expanding my business, do I need bananas and sugar or machinery? I have the economist’s answer to this, but I would like you think about this miracle.

A post on why the election results are not to be believed is next.

Posted by: Dragonfly | Jun 17 2009 21:13 utc | 65

You didn't read the book. All the shit you said about that book is untrue, you moron. Shut up, already.

I have never supported here or elsewhere GWOT. Jesus. I did say wrt Iraq, that everyone here underestimated US power. To this day, b believes the US ARMY will be surrounded by the taliban and destroyed! I said about Iraq that the nat'l struggle would not materialize, as you stupidly insisted. Then, ex post (as all your reasoning goes) you claimed that Iraqis were so imbecilic that they fell for US divide and rule, when it is more than obvious that an admixture historical sectarian animus and US exploitation of these divisions, created the result we see today: the US got its cake, it seems, as I predicted in 2004 here. Things could change.

But I doubt it. Among the many intersections of influence is the present bourgeois backlash in Iran. It seems people in the region, the urban literates, are fed up with religious rule. I'm inclined to sympathize w/ this view. Too often, the 1st revolution is cracking up the ochlacracy's false consciousness bounded by religion, the 2nd revolution is cracking up bourgeois mystifications of reality. My heart goes out to the people of urbane Iran, having experienced 8 years of Bush's religious lunacy brought to us by "heartland" voters.

None of your "empire" horseshit explains any of this. All you do is enter into your ledger of partisans anybody who denounces the US loudly enough.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 21:32 utc | 66

for christs sake slothrop read your own posts as anyone else can here on the archives - your comments around falluja & the battles of tal afar - tell us a different story than the one you would like to tell

but clearly you'll just say i can't read - close or otherwise

you insult your own arguments

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 21:44 utc | 67

You're such a lying asshole.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 17 2009 21:58 utc | 68

@65 "A post on why the election results are not to be believed is next."

It is not about the elections As Hamid Dabashi said in a piece published today it is about the PERCEPTION (although I have problems with that) that the elections have been rigged/stolen. The role of the western media in constructing this narrative and of a coordinated talking point being deployed by the Reformists and their allies in the diaspora is a very crucial part of this PERCEPTION.

Had it been about legitimate grievances concerning the elections then Moussavi could easily seek redress from the GC and have a recount (even without showing any evidence of fraud/rigging what have you - which is the case as it stands now) but what would be the point if the results of the election favor Ahmadi in which case Moussavi's backers - will lose wealth and power to the IRGC/Basaji and the Supreme Leader's continued dominance in this new alliance?

Moussavi is the front for a 'coalition of the willing' around Hashemi, a sizable part of the clerics at Qom, the bazaari's (who are bitching about having to pay VATs and the IRG's growing role in the Iranian economy) and of course the wealthy bunch of old "revolutionaries" (yes, those fundamentalists) who have been milking Iran's oil and wealth through a parallel market and foundations.

The elections have been used as a ruse to grab power and protect wealth. This is a last ditch effort by the Reformists to turn the tide against their dramatic political and (some) economic marginalization. In reverse the principalists led by the Supreme Leader are consolidating their power.

As for the student, urban and professional groups supporting the Reformists they could see this as an opportunity to push for some of the liberal civi and cultural freedoms as much as their disgust with the Ahmadi group. I sympathize for the mass of Iranians that have been mobilized on the streets of Tehran and are calling for political changes. I also sympathize for those who have voted for Ahmadi based on the belief that the endemic corruption and concentration of wealth can be corrected (do they have their twins in Obama voters?).

BUT that does not mean that those who are mobilizing them - the clique centered on Hashemi are not to the man drivers and beneficiaries of any eventual take over.

Who knows maybe we will all be the fools - since we are told Iranian politics are coded beyond deciphering. Thanks for some excellent posts all.

Posted by: BenIAM | Jun 17 2009 22:03 utc | 69

b,

a)The explanation for Mousavi's home-province loss (Azeri) seems to be. He has hardly ever been there recently. Ahmadinejad was governor there for eight years and campaigned heavily there holding speeches in Azeri language.

Actually Iranian Azerbaijan is divided in 3 provinces. Ardabil (where Ahmadinejad was appointed governor from 1993-1997), East Azerbaijan (home province of Mousavi) and West Azerbaijan.
Ahmadinejad got allegedly 51% in Ardebil, 57% in East Azerbaijan and lost West Azerbaijan with 47%.
Source: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/iranian-election-results-by-province.html

So Ahmadinejad just barely won the province where he was governor, won comfortably in Mousavi´s home province and lost barely in the third Azeri province.
Not to mention that Mousavi actually campaigned in the Azeri provinces too!

In the 2005 presidential election, Mohsen Mehralizadeh was a largely unknown and wholly unsuccessful candidate. He came in seventh and last, and yet he still won the Azeri vote in the Azerbaijani provinces. Mir Hossein Mousavi is an Azeri from Tabriz.

Elsewhere, Mehdi Karroubi failed to take his home state of Lorestan; in Khuzestan, Mohsen Rezai, a local scion, was expecting at least two million votes. His total for the entire country has failed to breach one million.

Curiously enough, Azeris seemed to have discovered their enthusiasm for Ahmadinejad only 12 years after he had left them. :)
In 2005 "his" province of Ardabil just gave him 7.2% of the votes in the 1. round. That was 5. place!
Source: http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/i/iran/2005-president-elections-iran.html

b) Source? A U.S./Iranian professor and Mousavi fan says

Is she wrong?

Maybe? Was she there?
http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/17/irans-rural-vote-and-election-fraud/

By Saturday evening, the shock and disbelief had given way to anger that slowly turned into palpable moral outrage over what came to be believed as the theft of their election. The proof was right in the village: “Interior Ministry officials came from Shiraz, sealed the ballot boxes, and took then away even before the end of voting at 9 pm,” said Jalal. In all previous elections, a committee comprised of representative from each political faction had counted and certified the results right in the village. The unexpected change in procedures caught village monitors off guard, as it did everywhere else in the country.

d) This was the first ever TV campaign vote in Iran with TV debates between candidates. Instead of the usual four or five candidate pre-round and the second two candidate final people indeed might have made up their mind earlier and thereby might have excluded unlikely winners to begin with.

Maybe.
But according to the often cited WaPo op-ed (Iran survey) 3-4 weeks before the election, 50% of the questioned people declined to answer / didn´t know how they might vote.
You know, the one with the 2:1 advantage for Ahmadinejad. Who just didn´t mention that it was a 34%:14% advantage and that 50% declined to answer the question.

That doesn´t seem to indicate that people made up their minds early. Not to mention that people might reasonably have expected two rounds of elections like in 2005. In which case people in "home provinces" might have felt inclined to vote for the "homegrown boy"in round 1?

Like you, I don´t know what happened. Or if anything happened at all.

But if Ahmadinejad really won practically almost everywhere, why didn´t he offer a recheck and recount of the district ballots on Saturday?
After all, if he really won, he could have crushed the spirit of the opposition by proving to them that their support was really only 30+%.
Of course now it´s too late for that. Because AFAIK his Interior Ministry is responsible for storing the ballot boxes.
Would you trust ballot boxes once they´ve been in the hands of your political opponent for almost a week?

Posted by: Detlef | Jun 17 2009 22:42 utc | 70

JohnH @ 5--I can't recall where I heard the discussion, but some analyst said Rafsanjani wants Khomeini's job.

Is that possible? Does R have the standing?

Posted by: jawbone | Jun 17 2009 22:47 utc | 71

beniam

i think it is necessary to think foolishly sometimes just to get some sense - when you are surrounded by a noise, a noise that is very familiar to us from color revolutions. a noise which has as its intent to destroy clear thinking

i am a communist after all is said & done - & i think the communists in iran support neither ahmadinejad or moussavi - nor a system of clerics - but the reality is clear - political islam annexed that space & literally it has done the most fighting & its support from the people has been self evident - up to this point

the history of the middle east in the 20th century has also been a history of heroic communists who have been liquidated by british, french & u s imperialism in collaboration with local elites, there has also been a failure by that left to adress the concrete conditions, & above all they have in trying to conquer a political space forget the need for military strategy - hezbollah in two months in 2006 did more to legitimise political islam than 20 years of political work - imperialism has been defeated in iraq & it is being defeated in afghanistan & again it is - political islam which can take the responsibility - tho it will be as it always was - the people doing the dying are the poor sons & daughters of the people

& if push comes to shove in iran it will be those people doing the dying once again. slothrop forever forgets that immutable fact

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 22:57 utc | 72

Something I don't get , maybe someone could explain to me ?

."results at district level ARE publicly available.", ie monitors have numbers obtained at local level BEFORE ballots go to the ministry (where it's have eventually been altered), right ?

so if we have those numbers on one hand, and the officials results listed on the other (that famous google doc sheet linked on some previous thread for instance), why did NO ONE still compare ?

I must have missed something really elementary here ...

Posted by: totoro | Jun 17 2009 23:00 utc | 73

& as in the situation in georgia - all the western media in complete lockstep. even their stories are exactly the same. the only difference which is marginal - is how hysteric they allow their commenters to be

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 23:07 utc | 74

& i suppose i fear that in delegitimising the political process in iran creates an opening for a military attack on her, in the future. & those forces, the forces that want that have not dissapeared under obama - on the contrary they have become more concentrated - iran is a key in us imperialism's long war on china

& the idea that the repressive state apparatus in the west does not operate each & every day in limiting people's freedom - surveillance, isolation & incarceration are used every day against 'real' political opposition. generation after generation of potential leaders of the african american community (who are for me synomonous with the struggle for social justice & equality of opportunity) sit inside the cruelest cells on earth. 2 million & rising & they are there prinicipally because the real menace to the corrupt capitalism comes from those same people

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 17 2009 23:31 utc | 75

The media is overplaying this. The public could get bored. McCain did his best to get something going. Lugar shut him down. New angle needed.

Posted by: dh | Jun 18 2009 0:05 utc | 76

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system ...

One wonders why the man failed to follow the rules when HE was unhappy with the result of a previous election!

But why exactly should the election results be annulled? I am still missing concrete evidence or witnesses coming forward with evidence of real election fraud.

This piece of information appeared on the Press TV site a short while ago. Time will tell whether it is solid or not.

--------

Rezaei has 'proof' of election fraud

An informed source says defeated presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei has gathered evidence supporting his claim of having won more than 900,000 votes in Friday's poll, a report says.

"Mohsen Rezaei, until yesterday afternoon, found evidence that proves at least 900,000 Iranians -- based on their national ID cards -- voted for [him]," Tabnak quoted an informed source as saying.

According to figures released by the Interior Ministry, Rezaei only received 681,851 votes.

The election, which saw the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared as victor by a landslide, has been rejected by main rival Mir-Hossein Moussavi as fraudulent. - LINK

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=98334&sectionid=351020101

--------------

Posted by: ptw | Jun 18 2009 0:20 utc | 77

Speculation continues to fuel speculation here. The speculation about a color revolution has not been substantiated with facts either; and I've seen no analysis here that has yet analyzed it into being. I'm a little shocked that the profound outpouring of the opposition support in the streets is maligned as evidence of a color revolution. I don't think these are naive people being led around by the nose. These are not "teabaggers" or astroturfers.

There is a freaking tidalwave of ideological angst being poured on top of this Iranian history. What is the moral being offered here? Is it that when democracy gets a knife in the heart, the people should protest, but just not protest too hard.

I am at a lost for words when I read on this thread and elsewhere on this blog that Democracy is not important, the vote is not important. But what is important then, for Iran, at this point?

Some here claim that there is no analysis or fact on the side of those who reckon that this election was stolen. And there is a regrettable increase of personal attack going on and it is not improving the case of those who are getting worked up. I thought I read some analysis from Detlef @ 71 and from Dragonfly @ 65; but those who tilt for the conspiracy hypothesis claim to be the only ones who have reason on their side.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 18 2009 0:28 utc | 78

billmon:

"On Sunday, I looked at the institutional and psychological pressures that may be leading the Cheney administration to view regime change in Iran as the only way of out of an increasingly intolerable situation created by the failure of the neocons' Iraq gambit.

Today, I want to consider whether similar pressures might apply on the Iranian side of this crisis, pressures which could lead Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his fellow revolutionary hardliners to seek their own flight forward in a confrontation with Global Arrogance, a.k.a. The Great Satan, a.k.a. the United States of America.

I'm not an Iran expert, I don't speak Farsi and I've never even set foot in the country. So you can certainly take what I say here with several heaping shovels of salt, and I wouldn't blame you for ignoring it all together. I'm not offering expert wisdom, merely probing for an explanation for why Ahmadinejad seems determined to fan the flames of confrontation when a more cautious policy might actually serve Iran's purposes better, even if those purposes include building nuclear weapons."

Posted by: circa 4/06 | Jun 18 2009 0:56 utc | 79

but those who tilt for the conspiracy hypothesis claim to be the only ones who have reason on their side.

i don't think that's the case, copeland. i also don't think any of seemingly contentious opinions are mutually exclusive. there probably is fraud, there probably is western meddling, there probably is distortions being played up on both sides, and there are probably class aspects and cultural aspects an american like me has no business trying to negotiate, because any speculation from me is stems from significant ignorance.

that said, there have been passionate arguments made here with absolute certainty, and attempts to temper that certainty with skepticism have been met with undue vehemence.

parviz, in particular, has come out two fists swinging, escalating what was already a haughty tone. yes, there's been a lot of accusations thrown back and forth. for us "arm chair critics" what else can we do but wait and see?

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 18 2009 1:06 utc | 80

copeland

it is right to rebel but is is also correct to question - to question everything

all b has done is shine the same light he shone on georgia & the ukraine, shining the light on pakistan & afghanistan - as i have attempted to shine a light on latin america

there are enough memories recent memories whether it was in bolivia or georgia & recently in lebanon. i don't like getting whacked around the head with the narratives that are mooched from the mass media - from the most vulgar & efficient tool of capital

this day i think all things are possible but as an observer i approach it with caution & a caution within a context - where there are very strong interests in a fucked up iran

& ndahi is correct to contextualise our reaction to iran - to our reactions to what has passed - even recently in a larger middle east

but it is the rewriting of history - the johnny-come-latelies to moussavi - who is a real hood - his history speaks for itself & now he is suddenly a saint i cannot tell from here whether the opposition is spontaneous or not - in fact it seems quite well plannned for me & what is passing for information mostly is anecdotal

instinct in this instance does not replace analysis & for example thou dragonfly is at least civil - i find that post wanting - is it corrupt for me to question that

i have sd from the beginning that this is interelite rivalry - but history has a way of getting out of hand - the mensheviks thought that they siezed power but it collapsed before their eyes, in the 2002 coup - the putchists were already on cnn in new uniforms & they thought that they had retaken venezuela - less than 48 hours later - those uniforms were empty - history is getting out of hand - but who will be the real benificiaries is yet to be enunciated - tho it seems to me rafsanjani - like meyer lansky beofre him has planned at least some of the scenes of this history

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 18 2009 1:13 utc | 81

Is it that when democracy gets a knife in the heart, the people should protest, but just not protest too hard.

What Democracy? How many times does it have to be said. The Mullahs decide who runs. The candidates are thoroughly vetted beforehand. Such a process is hardly Democracy.

If there's a revolution in Iran, it should be for the right reasons, at the behest of all people, not just a hidden few, and against the right people. As another poster indicated, these protesters are being used for hidden agendas. A revolution should be against tyranny of any stripe. That would necessarily preclude offering support to Mousaka, Ahmathingamabob and The Mullets. All of them, and others of their ilk, should be removed from power and forced to shine shoes the remainder of their lives. That's something I would support, rather than fighting for the right of a privileged Northern Tehrani to snowboard to Led Zepellin without a veil.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 18 2009 1:19 utc | 82

copeland, when i said fuck democracy i didn't really mean it. just the hypocrisy of pretending the ptb supports democracy when they clearly support those who go along w/them whether it is democratic or not.

I thought I read some analysis from Detlef @ 71 and from Dragonfly @ 65

sort of, but i found it a little scketchy. for example detlef references a site that references an unidentified source in tehran claiming ahmadinejad's got his support from rural areas and then proceeded to quote from the piece which asserted this particular rural area and those around it didn't like him. problem tho is this has already been debunked by 538 in the Ahmadinejad's Rural Votes post.

wrt dragonfly, i don't recall b saying regardless of who says it is or it is not. when a news source says 'a reporter' who is unidentified gave them information it is an anonymous source. news from cnn to another news source is not a 'leap'. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to smell 'agenda' when multiple news sources start making assertions as if they are fact. this is b's blog, why should he be task to give 'hard evidence' of dragonflies allegations that do not match b's assertions?

what i find very fascinating is the amount of pushback to b's posts from the newcomers (unless i have been away so long they aren't). so many challenges in this out of the way backwater watering hole. hmm. very interesting indeed. carrion circling for the kill but so far no bloods been drawn.

Posted by: annie | Jun 18 2009 1:37 utc | 83

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgJXvajhWQ>This is for Parviz and his support of Mousaka. The Asian angle is very appropriate, don't you think, considering Iran's geopolitical importance in the slow war against Asia proper?

Posted by: Obamageddon | Jun 18 2009 1:43 utc | 84

@ Lizard

Well Parviz can be forgiven, since it's his country and he's present for this disaster. I don't understand why some want to marginalize the election itself, for ideological reasons, simply because they think Mousavi ought not to have the victory (which he may have won fair and square). Some here have suggested a lot of crazy things:that the middle class does deserve not to win even if its increased size, from 1997, has made this possible. Some are personally offended (the outsiders) at the idea that literacy and political sophistication play a part here.When the shit hits the fan and the young and brave come out in the streets, they are never believed, never given credit or respected, demeaned at every opportunity as being unimformed boobs and sheep.

I begin to wonder whether those who mewl about color revolution even believe in popular sovereignty, or democracy, or the public right to petition for a redress of grievances.

I think I know the difference between a few hundred white-collar astroturfers that the republicans bussed down to Florida in 2000 to whine and wave cheapass, corny placards, and the proto-revolutionary real thing that you can see unfolding on news reports. It's the difference between paid stooges, who are cowards in the first place, and those who are young lions, and understand that it is their country that is in danger.

Mousavi is not interested in overturning the system, only in grasping the legitimacy given to him by a majority of voters. For God's sake, the Iranian presidency is a position of circumscribed power; he is not capable of grabbing the keys to the kingdom. This is allegedly about not allowing what is left public input in government to be hijacked by the autocrats or a nervous military.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 18 2009 1:46 utc | 85

& it proves how degraded we have become when the poor are given their rights - as should be the case by ahmedinejad - as he has clearly done for the rural & urban poor - & people like parviz call it bribery

as a leninist i shouldn't have to choose between two members of the same ruling class - but as an observor - the destabilisation of iran is happening in a context - where she is being constantly threatend with war & worse, she has in recent months been the victim of bombings& other attacks - & there are elites bothg inside & outside iran who benefit clearly from its destabilisation

how the people will benefit is not so clear for me

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 18 2009 2:01 utc | 86

Whatever the results of the previous election, Iran has entered a dangerous phase. It no longer matters who won. The perception seems to be fraud has occurred and until that perception is reversed, Iran is in danger. Here are my suggestions.

1) Announce new elections. No need to admit fraud. The government can simply say the recent blow to national unity has been severe and healing is only possible through a new referendum. It is intolerable for so many to believe there was fraud...even if there were none. It will not matter who wins. If AN receives another commanding lead, it will deflate the protest movement overnight. If the people choose Musavi, so be it. If there is any evidence as to foreign medling or corruption of the candidate and his backer Rafsanjani, now is the time to spill it.The voting and the counting needs to have as many observers as possible. If there is no such eveidence, then a Musavi win may actually be for the best. He will have unassailable legitimacy. He will be in a very strong position to negotiate with the west. I seriously doubt he will give away Iran's nuclear program or strategic position for nothing. Even if he is a secret pawn of the west, we simply have to trust the Iranian public to see through that. And if they saw it last election, no reason why they wouldn't see it again.

2) Following the above announcements, the government must permit peaceful demonstrations. It should act only against vandals who destroy property. Trying to stamp out the demonstrators will only risk escalating the situation to a point where security services will no longer fire at their own people.

At this point there is no longer any point is discussing who won. Iran has to take dramatic and swift action to restore the legitimacy of the government. If it does, I believe it can emerge from these protests stronger than ever.

In other matters I sincerely hope the good nature discussion on this board will return. This topic has caused some serious anger.

Parviz, I hope you reconsider and rejoin MofA. Everyone here would love to see Iran wealthy, prosperous and independent.

Posted by: Lysander | Jun 18 2009 2:08 utc | 87

i hear ya, copeland

but i can't let go statements like

ordinary, even minimally educated Iranians are more politically aware than most educated Americans, because we're not dumbed down by Zionist propaganda, junk food, junk media, junk lobbies, junk economics and a junk culture that favours materialism above all else.

obviously i accept legitimate criticism of america, or i wouldn't hang out at this watering hole, but reducing all 300 million of us to zionist puppets doesn't get me really excited to support his fucking twitter revolution.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 18 2009 2:16 utc | 88

My reply to Lizard leapfrogged over the responses of r'giap, annie, and Obamaggedon. Perhaps I'm getting carried away myself. I appreciate all these thoughtful replies. I hope the Iranians can come to a compromise whereby they don't tear their society asunder. It would be best if passions can be moderated, and a real finding of fact can take place. Perhaps I am revisting some distinct American shame here, recalling when our presidency was stolen and we did next to nothing. All that has happened resonates as a consequence, is our responsibility. When I see the unbridled courage of people who won't fucking take it, I am conflicted and torn up inside.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 18 2009 2:19 utc | 89

slothrop@47

Yes you have.

And still, the heathens are not pacified,

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 18 2009 2:20 utc | 90

& like you sd the other night copeland, fatigued by these last 10 years of constant war & i would add - that though we have been a generation who has been told each & every lie by madison avenue - the way people have been conned into believing a fairy tale about 9/11, about invading afghanistan, about invading iraq, about torture, about rendition, about pure bloody murder, about katrina which we watched with our unbelieving eyes - no matter how doctrinaire we might be - to see what people actually mean for elites - fat bloated bodies stinking to high hell - we have been conned by every trick in the book & as each year passes the telling is more obscene, more vulgar, so much fucking noise - that can only be met by fury

do you remember from the film how the putchist used the media to make it seem as if chavez'z supporters had fired on people, when the opposite was the case - when the spokesperson of the putsch spoke on cnn of the murder before it happened, do you remember when the south ossettians were massacred in their sleep & we were told that the big bad russians had invaded brave little georgia, when we found out both murdoch & berezovsky financed the ukrainian 'revolution' - so much fucking noise that wants to be history - but isn't - its just a phrase that slips from the lips of some cnn cadaver

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 18 2009 2:31 utc | 91

r'giap @ 91

That was so well put, my friend. Thank you for that.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 18 2009 2:42 utc | 92

I have been reading parts of this debate here and I am kind of surprised at the line most of the posters are taking here. I am generally with Parviz on this issue.

First let us just find out what are we supporting? Are we supporting the most regressive and conservative regime in that part of the world or are we supporting the so-called anti US stand that mullah has taken in Iran? Mind you, mullah is not anti west. Mullah is not in favor of redistribution of wealth in Iran in fact the mullah has not even done anything against the remnants of the feudal system in Iran. By insisting to maintain the feudal values in the guise of Islamic laws, the mullah is providing tacit support to the imperialists in that part of the world.

The elections in Iran were held to provide legitimacy to the regime. The issue really is that some factions within the ruling classes in Iran are asking for a fair share in the system. The bogus elections provide them the opportunity to shake up the system. But if these bogus elections also provide an even bigger opportunity to the people of Iran to push for the civil liberties, removal of the unjust feudal laws, laws against the women and some freedoms to the common folks , then why should we oppose that?

The argument that the US is promoting trouble in Iran causes some folks to pause and invoke the silly notion that somehow the fundamentalist Islamists are doing a better job at being the anti-imperialists of this age. I am afraid these people are so far removed from the reality that it would be well nigh impossible for them to see the light of the day. It would be hard to even try to convince them of the true motives of the Islamists that are fighting to support the feudalism and tribalism in that area.

The US may have its supporters in Iran; it might be providing the financial muscle or the propaganda machinery to the opposition in Iran. Clearly, the US is doing all that to promote its interests in the area but what is the guarantee that the next regime in Iran would be Pro-west? Even if it is pro-west, it will be forced to provide some relief to the people of Iran.

I understand the issues involved but in today’s world no one has complete control over the events in public sphere. The US may promote its agenda but the recent history in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan has shown that US has failed to win public support in every single instance. I don’t think the US can get lucky in Iran either.

We need to disregard the election results and support the peoples protest against the oppressive regime in Iran.

Posted by: Hasho | Jun 18 2009 2:43 utc | 93

Perhaps I am revisting some distinct American shame here, recalling when our presidency was stolen and we did next to nothing. All that has happened resonates as a consequence, is our responsibility. When I see the unbridled courage of people who won't fucking take it, I am conflicted and torn up inside.

well said. me too.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 18 2009 2:45 utc | 94

copeland

no, thank you, it"s the dialectic, my friend - you feed me - & hopefully i feed you - we feed each other - & contrary to recent myth - i think that is what we have always done here - & arguing at the top of our voices sometimes to try to perceive in one way or another the terrible truth of our lives through the tyranny of lies

& because lizard works at one of the foci where the illusions of this world of freedom & justice are stripped to the bone - i understand exactly the resonances you speak

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 18 2009 2:50 utc | 95

r'giap. your 91 post is spot on.

remember from the film how the putchist used the media to make it seem as if chavez'z supporters had fired on people, when the opposite was the case

believe me this is the first thing on my mind these last few days. i put nothing past them. nothing. does anyone have the link to that video?

Posted by: annie | Jun 18 2009 4:14 utc | 96

I'm sadly late to this thread, but i was sleeping as this fracas developed.

Here is a basic primer on Iran's vote-counting system. It sounds pretty solid to me. Bold below was added by me:

The Count

Polling stations in Iran are typically open from 8am to 8pm. These hours can be extended by the MoI if the turnout warrants it.

Once the polling station is closed, the counting process begins. Polling station officials first count the ballot stubs, followed by the ballots. If the number of stubs and ballots are equal, then the actual vote count begins. If there are more votes than ballots, then the difference is randomly selected from the ballot box and the votes cancelled, then the ballots are counted. In cases where there are more stubs than ballots, the discrepancy is reported and the votes are counted.

Once the votes are counted and results tallied, the official results are certified, all ballots are returned to the ballot box, which is then sealed and officially transferred to the Executive Committee.

It is important to note that neither the general public nor outside entities are permitted to officially monitor the elections. However, candidate agents may be present at every polling station during the voting hours and during the vote count. Additionally, they may attend every Election Executive Committee meeting during the election period.

So far, i haven't heard of any specific instances of witnessed vote-tampering or deviation from the process. The only complaints i've heard, so far, have been from hasbarics like o making bullshit pronouncements like "statistics prove....!"

Some elements of the election are suspect: Korroubi's (sp?) poor showing, Mousavi's poor showing in Azeri-land, etc. But these are all anomalies within the realm of possibility.

In this instance the initial count has been completely "occulted" - with no independent or candidate representation to validate the process. That's at the heart of the problem.

As i remember, initial media reports indicated that Mousavi had several election observers present at major polling places, and that they registered protests.

Up to now, though, we haven't really heard much about what, precisely, those complaints were. Mousavi wrote an "official" letter of complaint, but in it he implicitly acknowledges that he had observers present in many, if not all polling places, and beyond that i can't see anything at all that touches upon specific irregularities whatsoever. The letter is long on rhetoric, and extremely short on anything resembling facts.

So with that said -- what specific claims have you heard that indicate this poll and the tallying process was somehow sequestered and secret? Because i haven't heard a damn thing, and after doing many, many searches on Google i haven't come up with a single, reliable link that has any specific accusations of irregularities.

Add in the fact that there was a huge turnout, which matches the Khatami victories of 1997 and 2001 ( 70% plus )...

Just because there was a huge turnout doesn't mean the people all intended to vote for a reformer. Remember: the turnout for that Khatami victory was, at the time, precisely a vote against Rafsanjani. In this election, AhamdiNejad successfully painted Mousavi as allied with Rafsanjani. In that light, the huge turnout may well have been for the exact same reasons as it was back in 1997: to keep Rafsanjani from power.

Further, your impression of "reform" and a poor Irani's impression of "reform" are probably drastically, profoundly different.

Khatami's support for Mousavi and the similarities in their agendas...

...as well as the alliance of both to Rafsanjani and his boys...

...seasone with the well-trodden observation that significantly large turnouts ( 50%+ up from 2005 ) in general tend to be an uh-oh moment for incumbents seeking a second term...

In the U.S. that's true. Yet it's not true in: Taiwan, Korea, Venezuela, Australia...the list could probably go on and on.

One should not make the mistake of transferring one nation's political truisms to another.

...top off with some frankly bizarre provincial "results"...

Most of the provincial results aren't in question. There is only the Karroubi and Mousavi results that give pause, and Karroubi didn't even contest them.

...and you definitely have a recipe, to put it mildly, for reasonable skepticism.

Except that "reasonable skepticism" includes a refusal to believe that the results were manufactured, as well.

There is no significant evidence suggesting, either way, that the election was stolen or wasn't. There are some anomalies, but they are not inexplicable nor unbelievable.

The fact is that the Mousavi camp hasn't made much of a case, and hasn't presented much -- if any -- evidence. Khamenei is now offering a complete recount, with observers from all three campaigns present.

What more could one ask for?

In fact, notice: it's more than the U.S. Supreme Court was willing to give the U.S. electorate in either the 2000 or 2004 elections.

So let's just stop with "election stolen" and "coup by conservative Irani clerics" bullshit. It's an election process that's slowly working its way to a conclusion, and so far the process is working as it should.

Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is just pissing in the wind.

@29:
The ballot boxes in many provinces were closed and taken elsewhere by government officials for counting. This is in contrast to previous years where the ballot box was opened and votes counted locally in the presence of the multiple candidates representatives. You can't have an official recount of ballots that have disappeared. Once they have been taken out of sight any trustworthy recount is impossible.

Odd that Mousavi didn't mention this in his official letter to the election commission, don't you think?

However, even if it is true, in Iran every ballot has a receipt-stub that is collected by the voting tabulators and kept, separate from the ballots themselves. With every receipt there is a name signed to a list, indicating to whom it was assigned.

If many, many ballots have disappeared, then it will be an easy thing to corroborate against that list, or against the stubs which have been collected. That gives two controls against the ballot box, making it very, very hard for votes to simply "disappear" or "reappar". It's all very simple: one counts the stubs, then counts the ballots. If ballots are missing, then something's strange. Similarly, one counts the stubs, and then counts the names on the list. If stubs are missing, then something's strange.

Very easy verification process. Easier, i might add, than the ones used in the U.S.

@Parviz, 31:
Iranians aren't interested in being the bloody vanguard of your anti-Capitalistic obsessions, and they certainly don't believe that anti-Americanism is justifiable AT ANY PRICE.

And we're not interested in serving as your Stalinist totems, either. Do you really not care that, with words like that, you're sacrificing the respect you've built up, here, these last few months?

Maybe it just doesn't matter any more, yeah?

More Parviz:
Do you mean witneeses and evidence from the Interior Ministry officials who control the vote counting and are concealing the 'evidence' from public view?

Early reports made it clear that Mousavi had observers present at the polling places. A public recount has been offered. What's the problem, here?

@annie:

Nice to see you back.

Cheers, all.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 18 2009 4:16 utc | 97

Annie @ 83

I guess I had not chosen the right formatting in my post. This is what b has claimed:

There is a full effort of the "western" media and some expatriate Iranian organizations to de-legitimize the Iranian election despite the absence of any real evidence of voting fraud. These events show all characteristics of an engineered "color evolution".

This is what I had written:

The validity of a message must be determined regardless of the messenger. You should not care if AP, the Reuters, CNN or even Fox News reports something or the IRIB. You should find reasons for whether the report is true or not regardless of who says it is or it is not. The credibility of the source or the medium is relevant if and only if you cannot determine the validity of the claim on its own merits. Even then the leap from CNN or any other news channel has an agenda to CNN or any other news organization is helping engineer a color revolution is more than a leap of faith. Do you have any hard evidence for this claim? An email from a news executive to his underlings to foment a color revolution, perhaps? I am asking you this question because you subject those who disagree with you to a stricter standard of evidence than you yourself are willing to undergo. So show us evidence, hard evidence, not conjectures, not hypotheses, not conspiratorial connect-the-dot exercises. Evidence and logic please.

If you disagree with what I propose as a way to analyze information, you are more than welcome to tell me why.

In an earlier exchange I asked b if he is committed to intellectual honesty and rigor. He answered yes to both. If all he is after is the truth, he should welcome healthy conversations. Maybe that will help him get closer to the truth. The reason I asked b for hard evidence is that he, you and I should know the difference between things we know and things we think we know. Sometimes the lines get blurred.

Here is a simple question for you:

Suppose that the Western media have schemed to, are ordered to or simply want to report events in favor of pro-Western color revolutionaries if the U.S. has indeed engineered a color revolution: If the U.S. is fomenting a color revolution in country X the MSM will favor the color revolutionaries in X in the reporting.

Does this mean that whenever the MSM cover events in which some political forces clash with governments that the U.S. doesn't like, they are helping with a color revolution?

Simple logic!

Posted by: | Jun 18 2009 5:22 utc | 98

Annie @ 83

The previous comment was by me.

Posted by: Dragonfly | Jun 18 2009 5:25 utc | 99

Copeland @ 78; rememberinggiap @ 81

I did not want to analyze anything here. It just seemed to me that too many unprincipled "opinions" pass as analysis on MOA, so I thought I might ask b a few questions for my own education.

If you have answers to my questions I would love to hear your answers too. At least, I will learn something.

Posted by: Dragonfly | Jun 18 2009 5:32 utc | 100