I double posted. Sorry. If the duplicates could be removed, I’d really appreciate it.
The link to the MoI counts of election observers is here. (from Loyal)
The link to the summary of Mousavi’s election complaints is here.

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 26 2009 16:54 utc | 3

Don Bacon, yes, pride always comes before a fall. The whole ‘regional superpower’ thing has gone to their heads, Khamenei actually believes he, a mid-level cleric when handpicked for the job by Rafsanjani, was indeed chosen by the Prophet of Time (The Missing 12th Prophet) to reign till the prophet comes. It’s not just America that is worried but ordinary Iranians.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 26 2009 17:32 utc | 5

The last days’ street action were mostly youth riots that can be seen on and off again in any normal state and with the usual outcome. They are no danger to the government.
I think this is a peculiarly European view.
Texas doesn’t have many youth riots; other places in the US do, but where i grew up – zilch.
Taiwan, also, doesn’t have youth riots today. In days not long past, it did; but not now.
In those days past, the riots were a harbinger of change.
This would be an interesting debate if i had the knowledge to explore it any further, but i don’t. Even so, i really do think this “youth riots that can be seen…in any state” is a very European declaration.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 26 2009 17:59 utc | 7

I agree that there will be and should be change in Iran’s political system even though Ahmadinejad did beat Mousavi in this particular election.
Oil revenues are being funnelled into private accounts of members of the clerical or security establishments or their families, is a very important issue concerning the trajectory Iran’s economy will take into the future. One necessary step for ending those practices is getting as much information as possible out into the open.
Does anyone have links that describe this corruption?

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 26 2009 18:31 utc | 9

[comment by Parviz via email – b.]
Nothing has been ‘decided’ other than by the ruling Kleptocracy and by those insisting the election result was fair. What did you expect the Guardian Council to report — that 10 – 15 million votes were manipulated, an admission that the Islamic Republic is rotten to the core? or that the Interior Ministry (whose IT Chief Mahmood Asgari has mysteriously ‘disappeared’) ignored the ballots and simply announced its predetermined results? or that the 20 million mainly young voters who had boycotted EVERY election other than the two which Khatami won by 80 % in the first ballot DID INDEED — oops — vote for Moussavi? Or that, for the first time ever, the winner impossibly received identical results nationwide?
The people are angrier than ever. The entire nation is in lockdown. Few people go out at night in any of the nation’s towns, the streets are virtually empty, Tehran’s traffic is fast flowing for the first time in decades, 70 professors who met Moussavi were arrested and have disappeared, wounded youngsters have been seized from their hospital beds by the dreaded SAVAMA, the nation’s biggest butcher (Public Prosecutor Mortazavi) has been appointed to supervise the torture of prisoners in the same manner as his people dealt with Zahra Kazemi, Friday Prayer Leader Ahmad Khatami (no relation to ex-President Mohammad Khatami) today demanded immediate execution without trial of all dissidents and claimed that Khamenei is the direct representative of the Missing Prophet (some kid who fell down a well several hundred years ago and is considered by Shi’ites as the saviour who will return to purge the world of all non-believers — which includes most of you in
this forum, so you have something to look forward to).
Yes, the street protests have died down owing to a massive military presence enforcing the “kill or maim” policy of the ‘Islamic’ Baseej, but the regime has lost its credibility, its religious halo and its famed cohesion but, just as it took a year for the anti-Shah protests to bear fruit, it will take time for this uprising to be successful too and you are premature to pass judgement on the basis of protests silenced by unimaginable brutality and a state of virtual Martial Law throughout the country, with vastly slowed down internet speeds, closure of liberal newspapers (including Moussavi’s) and arrest of anyone even hinting at disenchantment with the regime.
Finally, b, our wounds are not ‘deepened by outer interference’ but by a treacherous, blood-sucking regime that will kill its own to maintain power and suck the nation dry economically. Its philosophy is “power and money at any price”. Such policies ultimately fail. You have not heard the end of this. Either Khamenei will die or Ahmadinejad will have an ‘accident’ which this regime is so good at arranging for people who have outlived their usefulness. And then the protests will recur and continue till the nation once more becomes ‘Iran’ instead of the Brutal Islamic Kleptocracy of Iran.
[end comment by Parviz via email – b.]

Posted by: b | Jun 26 2009 19:05 utc | 11

Thanks b for your efforts to provide a space to discuss the Iranian elections outside the frame of the pre-designed narratives of the mainstream media.
@ 9 I’d also love to see anything about the flow of oil revenues and the who’s who of the economy.

Posted by: BenIAM | Jun 26 2009 19:13 utc | 13

i think some people here are extremely naive if they think iran possesses a monoploly on what parviz calls “unimaginable brutality”. as lauren pointed out in a post yesterday the death in the cells of an franco algerian man is not far from being a common practice. the repressive state apparatus in the united states imprisons over 2,000,000 people for fuck’s sake – & what has happened to generation after generation of young black men can only be called slaughter? from thatcher to brown – rsa – in england deprives people of both their liberty & sometimes their lives
what the underclass, especially in the west, lives through each day is nothing other than “unimaginable brutality”. i have worked on three continents amongst these communities, as lizard does & the profoundness of their loss can hardly be imagined – i have worked in these communties for most of my life i remain horrified by what rich societies do to those they reject
& what is the ‘unimaginable brutality’ of the inequality of opportunity that lies at the very heart of the imperial project. it is falling aprt this empire, mostly from its own neglect & stupidity but who does it blame – it blames the poor & as i have stated repeatedly – that class will multiply unbelievably in the next few years. we are going to go through the darkest times
when you witness bright kids who will never go to university as they ought to, when you see people never find the health that is their right, that the labor that often enobles is not offered
the iranians will have to fight for their civil rights like everybody else & they are more likely to do that without any interference from outside
i do not delight in the suffering of other people – witness & feel it too often – slothrop may mock but my body has become in its way a site of that suffering – but i do not like lies, or as r w fassbinder suggested if you are not capable of telling the truth – have the humanity to not lie
& i’m afraid that the campaign to delegitimise iran has been nother other than lies, fabrications & outright fantasies
& if there are people who believe that any nation in the west – would allow rioting to continue as it did in iran – without using “unimaginable brutality” is absolutely blind

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 19:33 utc | 15

if there are people who believe that any nation in the west – would allow rioting to continue as it did in iran – without using “unimaginable brutality” is absolutely blind

Traditionally violence has been used by the State and by the protesters in Asian and other countries. The West is a small entity in this world and the protesters don’t go on burning buses, stores and other paraphernalia during public protests but that happens all the time in the rest of the world. Iran is not the west and it is part of the real world.
As has always been the case the protesters in Iran did not start rioting until they were confronted by the violent tactics.
Btw, in the West the police does not go on shooting real bullets at the protesters too. Lets compare apples to apples and not apples to mangoes.
Sounds like the “old timers” on this site are accusing the people of Iran of the brutalities. Earlier in the year, the protesters in Greece were model citizens for the “old timers” here.

Posted by: Hasho | Jun 26 2009 20:29 utc | 17

Arnold@9: I googled Iran + oil + IRGC and got 81,000 references. The first page had the article from Asia Times that I first read of the IRGC’s involvement in oil industry. Most of the articles have assumptions similar to this Wiki note:
Economic activity
The IRGC are thought to control around a third of Iran’s economy through a series of subsidiaries and trusts.[32] The Los Angeles Times estimates that IRGC ties to over one hundred companies that control more than $12 billion in business and construction.[33] IRGC has been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, as well as major infrastructure projects.[34]****
Hard facts are hard to find in these articles. But a sizeable number long preceed the election. There are some commentators who almost surely know some facts related to your inquiry, such as frequent ATimes contributor Kaveh L Afrasiabi, but none to my knowledge have commented on what part of the economy the IRGC controls.

Posted by: ds | Jun 26 2009 20:30 utc | 19

Hasho, in the West the police do shoot protesters. b has a picture of a German policeman with a drawn pistol ready to shoot. In the US we have Kent State where National Guardsmen shot dead four students. In Genova a policeman shot and killed a protester during a G8 demonstration. What set off the Greek riots was a policeman killing a young man. 53 people were killed in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots. As I recall, the French riots in Paris recently were sparked by the death of a young man that was caused by the police too.
from what I saw on the teevee, there were a lot of hooligans in Iran throwing rocks and setting garbage bins on fire. they looked much like the drunken fools you find in the streets after English football games. young men looking to start some shit. the mob mentality takes over and everyone feels invisible and powerful.
someone else talked about brutality before here, he said, you want to see police brutality? spit on a US cop. anyone who has spent any time at all in the US knows exactly what would happen.
I want to say that I am mightily impressed with large crowds showing up to protest and to celebrate for that matter. It means that they still think they can make a difference. Me, I have become much more cynical about the whole thing. I remember the great gatherings and protests all around the world on the runup to the invasion of Iraq. Millions of people all around the world. It didn’t make one bit of difference in any of the countries where it happened. the boy king dimissed it all as “focus groups” and swiftly set up “free speech zones” or highly controlled areas where people could gather, far away from cameras and media.
and for the last time, the general lack of enthusiasm for the opposition candidate in Iran does not mean there is a great deal of support for the incumbent. There are some things that I like about AN such as his dealings with the US where he does not grovel but always leaves the door open to dialogue. Mousavi seems to be just a different color cat in this story, a lot like the choice we had in the US between bush and kerry.
Iran needs an Obama, then everything will be just great /snark

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 26 2009 20:52 utc | 21

& strictly speaking barrack obama, nicolas sarkozy, bernard kouchner & david milliband owe the iranian people & their president a public apology

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 21:15 utc | 23

hasho
i don’t know where you live but the nature of revolts here in europe, or even very active demonstrations – means there are buses & cars burning, stores burnt – they are what they seem to be
in any case the deaths which now include members of govt militias is far from clear – when & by whom
the violence i was speaking of, of course – was the daily violence of the life of the underclass not only but especially in the west – that does its best to deny that violence
i posted from an australian newspaper – the other week – the cooking alive of an aboriginal elder & teacher in a police paddy wagon driven in unbearable heat for over six hours while he was literally cooked in the cage
the murder of aborigal men in australia is not rare – in fact it has happened with sickening regularity – though there have been commission after commission on their murders in custody.
the underclass is overrepresented in prisons & in what is left of mental health institutions & even the latter has thrown them out on the streets since the thatcher reagan period
& this is violence every bit as real as a baton across the head & as the old saying goes a baton over the head by a policeman will teach you more about the violent nature of the state than a hundred paperbacks
& this violence is grown apace in recent decades – that is clear to the people & observers.
strangely, or not so strangely is a corresponding corruption in the political life(money for questions & backhanders being the most normal & obvious); an intense criminality of police forces – with whole squads having to be arrested in some countries & the death of real community life
go to glasgow hasho, or roubaix, or munich, or milan, or sheffield – go to the cities in the east of europe – city after city, town after town – where violnce walks a thin line in both public & private life

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 21:35 utc | 25

bishari – an alternative reading

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 22:04 utc | 27

sorry, the last link – b gave to us a couple of days ago

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 22:50 utc | 29

remembereringgiap, Juannie, dan of steele and others.
I guess I did not make myslef clear. My concern was r’giap’s implication that somehow the protesters in Iran are wrong and mere rioters.(remembereringgiap | Jun 26, 2009 3:33:09 PM | 15).
My point was: the violence by the protesters has no relevance as that happens all the time in many countries and yes, including the Western Countries.
I would refer the readers to the article linked by r’giap in post # 28 (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/aam230609.html)
please read the comments and see how many people don’t agree with the characterization that somehow the protesters are a part of the campaign to malign the regime in Iran. The people of Iran are showing their resentment as humanely as possible given the conditions in Iran. Does anyone remember it was the same segment of the Iranian population that stood up against the Shah in 1978?
The Iranian regime de-legitimized itself the day it refused democratic reforms in the country. Does any one remember what the Iranians in 1978-79 fought for against the Shah? The current regime has modeled itself as the second incarnation of the Shah’s regime. The complete control of the state institutions, the same desire to control who can represent the people and who cannot, the same control over the media, the same suppression of the media and the same suppression of the progressive and the liberal opposition. The only things different are the ostentatious piety and Anti-Americanism.
Is that enough for the people of Iran to be satisfied with? I think we need to ask ourselves whose interests do we hold dear. The Mulllah regime’s or the people of Iran.
The fear that the Mullah regime will be replaced by a pro West regime is completely unfounded. If the US can approach the innermost circles of the Mullah power, if the US can find the Rafasanjanis and the Mausavis within the ruling elite of Iran, then it sure can find a way to change the whole supreme council and AN too.
The people of Iran have already shattered many myths about the Mullah regime. It has many chinks in its armor and the US will exploit that. The best approach is to support the people of Iran to stand up against both the Imperialists and its subtle agents ruling Iran currently.

Posted by: Hasho | Jun 26 2009 23:15 utc | 31

slothro
you are a dishonest dwarf & your ideology nothing other than idiocy

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2009 23:41 utc | 33

@ R’GIAP 33
Are you trying to prove his point?

Posted by: L’Akratique | Jun 26 2009 23:50 utc | 35

Here’s another lark: your surprisingly astute remark that iran’s hybrid political Islam borrowed from Iran’s left–an important fact! I think I know where you got this from Ali Misepassi “The Tragedy of the Iranian Left”–a version located here which I think you probably googled and found, but as usual didn’t read. A shame, because the article explains the subsumption of domestic leftist though excluded quaint shit like the defense of workers, women, human rights.
See also th essays in “Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran” suggested by a lurker here. Maybe when some of the morons here finish their counterpunch conspiracy theory books, they can take a gander at actual history.
Jesus. You’re a fraud, rememberingberia.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 0:04 utc | 37

A part of the essay can be found here.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 0:09 utc | 39

scott@26. It’s unwise to remind Parviz of Shi’te hierarchalism; he knows his country, even if he has a particular political orientation.
giap@27. These two posts are linked in that they bring back the issue of authoritarianism, as in my 22.
giap’s link in 27 brings back the image of Orientalism, as criticised by Edward Sa’id, the image of the eternal autocratic oriental potentate, who makes decisions for capricious reasons.
This Western idea was born in the ancient Greek texts, Herodotus in particular, who for political reasons opposed Greek democracy (which nevertheless excluded women, and accepted slavery) against oriental ‘autocracy’. Actually ‘autocracy’, whatever that means, was born in ancient Egypt under the Pharoahs (thus Mubarak as Pharoah), and in Mesopotamia. According to the cuneiform tablets, in the 3rd dynasty of Ur (2100 BC), the entire economy was controlled by the state. Reminiscent of the modern world, isn’it it? At any rate, all of this continued in Assyria and Babylon. Everything, of course, has since been whitewashed by the scholars, because Egypt and Mesopotamia are our ancestors, are they not?
The same principles of government continued under Islam (not because of the Prophet, but rather in spite of him), but lessons had been learnt. ‘Autocracy’ was hollowed out. Everybody said ‘yes, yes, yes’, but then actually did the opposite. It was normal practice under Saddam, as I myself experienced.

Posted by: Alex_no | Jun 27 2009 0:23 utc | 41

In many ways, it was the cold war west which crushed moslem leftists. About that eqbal ahmad and chomsky are correct.
But, you’d be a fool to defend “political islam” as a “leftist.”
But that’s all you’ve been doing for the past three weeks.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 0:41 utc | 43

From Patrick Cockburn, the former lactating duenna to Donald Rumsfeld:

The weekend of April 11-12 saw the mass looting of Baghdad and all other Iraqi cities and towns. Any building remotely connected to the government or the Baath party was fair game. Looting was an Iraqi tradition born of tribal raiding and poverty, and it should not have come as a surprise. After the invasion of Kuwait, the Iraqi army had systematically looted everything of value, from bulldozers to hotel cutlery. In the Shia uprising of 1991 looters had promptly ransacked the factories as well as state institutions. During the Kurdish civil war in 1996 some five thousand cars had been stolen in a single day in Arbil. There was a social revolutionary ferocity in the robbery and destruction that now swept across Iraq. Houses of the Baathist leadership were targeted in acts of political revenge and on the wholly correct supposition that it was there that the richest pickings were to be found. It was not only the impoverished masses ofSadr City who saw their opportunity. Government officials seized ministerial cars, computers, and photocopiers. The destruction often seemed driven by hatred ofthe powers-that-be and all their works. In the Natural History Museum in the Wazzariyah district of northeast Baghdad looters systematically smashed with the butts of their Kalashnikovs the display cases showing Iraqi wildlife. Only a stuffed white horse, given, when alive, to Saddam by the king of Morocco remained intact, for no obvious reason. Outside in the museum forecourt were enormous model dinosaurs that the looters had sprayed with machine-gun fire. One of them had even shinned up the long sinuous neck of a dinosaur to lop off its concrete head. A Sadrist militant from Sadr City explains that this apparently senseless vandalism was born of a new sense of empowerment and freedom from fear. “When people started to steal and destroy state property,” he says, “they wanted to demonstrate to themselves that fear was gone and there was no longer any authority to watch, trap, and kill them. When a young man smashed up a police car he was really saying: ‘This is the Saddam state and I am destroying it.”‘4 The looting posed a dilemma for the Sadrists. On the one hand, it was deeply offensive to pious and puritanical young Sadrists like Abbas. On the other, the mass of the looters were the very same poor and angry young men who were the main support of Muqtada. Sadrism was a social as well as religious movement, though it was also true that Sadr City had long been famous for its thieves’ markets. Abbas was proud ofwhat he and other selfappointed guardians of order achieved, though his claims are a little too good to be true.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 1:02 utc | 45

i suggest, for example, everyone read the steve coll book ‘ ghost wars’
Heed your own advice.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 1:15 utc | 47

alex_no
my fears from your posts on this thread is that there is something inherent in the culture that lends itself to autocracy. bent as it may be iran is far more democratic than either egypt or saudia arabia & there has been little written about those tensions. the tensions, if you will, not of a closed society – but in context – an open one
when today, obama has again tried to maintain cheney’s junk jurisprudence & of absolute inhumanity of holding people in detention in perpetuity
just on this level, the level of jurisprudence in iran considerably more open, the surveillance which is part & parcel of living in most european cities but especially those of england are vastly more closed than iran – in a real & substantial way
you can speak of iran in millenial terms – but in the west the concentration of power has only really happened within the last 80 years & concretely within the last 40. & this concentration of power & the corruption of its political & jurisprudential life is a fact of life & rather than be challenged – even in the worst of times – that concentration continues
in iran, on the contrary the contradictions of jurisprudent & political life are a living thing

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2009 1:35 utc | 49

Your relativisms (living in the USA is no more limiting to individual rights than tehran) is astonishing. It’s like reading bataille’s defense of stalin (“a reasonable consequence of central planning” analogous to the repression of unions needed in the west to industrialize etc.)
Annie’s recent bold claim that we are infected by spies. Surely, this is no worse than living in iran?

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 1:48 utc | 51

alex_no
hopefully you will elaborate further here because i imagine there is disagreement between us – it is possible to learn something

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2009 1:53 utc | 53

And it’s possible parviz is cia who uses an iranian proxy to marginalize “the left.”
Ok. I’ll play your game.
More, parviz, dragonfly et al. –you go girls!

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2009 1:58 utc | 55

& the hateful thing – is that hesbollah & hamas are spoken of as if they are criminal organisations & not an expression of the people’s will. hamas was democratically elected & the world & its media showed not one inch of respect for them or for the palestinian people. hezbollah stood up in way that was immensely courageous to a brutal enemy that had spent 50 years liquidating all its enemies by bloody murder & their able defence of lebanon was demonised as was its leader nasrallah – as if the people counted for nothing. the terrible destruction visited on lebanon was rarely given the time of day
no the real narrative is too terrible to tell
no they want narratives from people who do not know the difference between shia & sunni, salafist or sufi, wouldn’t know nasser or nidal, habash or haddad – on & on – their ignorance is just an expression of hatred

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2009 2:53 utc | 57

tall tale telling from tehran will not open up possibilities but on the contrary will serve to delegitimise iran & make her vulnerable to attack

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2009 3:00 utc | 59

Fareed Zakaria writes this in Newsweek:

The current supreme leader declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be a ‘divine assessment’, using his key weapon: divine sanction. But millions of Iranians are not buying it

Zakaria argues that a moment has come when many Iranians have seen through the presumption of the infallible judgment of the religious leader.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 27 2009 4:00 utc | 61

This is from Naj’s blog, a statement by Mousavi:

Thursday, June 25, 2009
Mousavi asks Iranians to DISTANCE themselves from all war-mongers and those who profess regime change in Iran.
In the Name of the God, The Compassionate, The Merciful
Dear compatriots,
Honorable Iranians living abroad,
Your widespread and energetic presence in this year’s 22 Khordad elections is indicative of your ties to our beloved Iran, and your admirable worries about the future of your country, and as I mentioned to you in my election message, Iran belongs to all Iranians and all layers of the populous are responsible for its future, and enjoy the same rights in it.
I feel obliged to thank you for your epic presence in determining the future of your country. Your widespread welcoming of these elections and your green and energetic presence at the ballot boxes was so large that it even forced the government and the organizers of the elections to admit to a 300% increase in the participation of Iranians in the tenth presidential elections outside of the country.
Your trust in this insignificant civil servant and your decisive vote for me in most of the voting stations outside of the country has placed a heavy burden on my shoulders. I would like to give you my assurance that I remain true to my existing pact with you and all layers of the great people of Iran, and using all legal avenues will demand your deserved rights that have been violated at the ballot boxes.
Unfortunately, as you witness in the international media, contrary to the letter of the constitution, and the stated freedoms in the Islamic Republic, all my communication with the people and you has been cut off, and people’s peaceful objections are being crushed. The national media which is being financed with public funds, with a revolting misrepresentation is changing the truth, and labels the peaceful march of close to three million people as anarchist, and the media that are being controlled by the government have become the mouthpiece of those who have stolen the people’s votes.
I’d like to thank you again for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
Mir Hossein Mousavi

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 27 2009 4:34 utc | 63

this forum has never discussed Nasrallah in any detail. How to measure this man accordingly. Whom even his greatest adversaries must concede what he has made possible for the community of South Lebanon. Is there a breathing soul who would not wish for a Nasrallah in their corner ?

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 27 2009 6:24 utc | 65

[comment by Parviz via email – b]
Outraged (56), your accusations against me
are plainly, well, outrageous:
“… why the repeated
references to H & H in utterly negative contexts, … you have no sympathy
or identification with oppressed resistance movements, the Shia of
Lebanon”, = a continuation of your usual B.S..
Your accusations just demonstrated you have
not read my numerous posts of the past year fiercely defending Hezbollah and
Hamas. Go back and read, you might learn something.
And China_hand, jumping on the bandwagon
and supporting Outrage’s insults doesn’t say much for your integrity either.
But you are to be excused if you joined this Blog only after publication of my
year of anti-Neocon/Zionist/imperialist posts.
You are both so blinkered that you think Iran’s desire for
its own freedom means we don’t care about other freedom movements. The fact is
that MoA’s general reaction (Copeland and others at least try to fathom what
Dragonfly and other Iranians have been writing) to the Iranian uprising shows
it is most of YOU, not I, who are scared that if the status quo is upset Iran
will become an imperialist, capital tool, which is why some of you so strongly
support the crackdown and suspension of Iranians’ constitutional right to
protest peacefully. For you, survival of the region’s last bastion of anti-imperialism is necessary at any price.
This has led you to completely support a
totalitarian state’s account of how it ran an election, even though the only
two elections of the past 30 years that generated a huge voter turn-out gave
those running on an anti-hardliner platform a 79 % and 81 % majority.
Hardliners have only ever won when the silent majority has boycotted elections,
whether municipal, parliamentary or presidential.
As for the alleged lack of substantiation of my
“breathless accounts re stormtroopers and Darth
Vaders”, what am I supposed to do? Capture one of them and bring
him to you so you can ‘substantiate’ my account? Come down here and I’ll give
you a tour.
[end comment by Parviz via email – b.]

Posted by: b | Jun 27 2009 6:59 utc | 67

Thank you Kathy @60 for bringing to attention your website. It brought memories when I was in Iran and visited the province where my friend and host’s family grew up. This is the real Iran where Twitter can twit as much as it likes and nobody cares a damn!
Rural Areas in Iran: In His Own Words Ahmadinejad

Posted by: hans | Jun 27 2009 8:10 utc | 69

From a HuffPo piece: Iran: new audience for US scholar’s protest guide

[Gene] Sharp denies playing any role in driving Iran’s worst internal turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But he said he would be pleased if his work helped Iranians wage peaceful resistance.
…
Sharp said the Farsi translation of his guide has been downloaded thousands of times from the Web site of the Boston-based center he founded in 1983 to study nonviolent resistance, The Albert Einstein Institution. A shorter introduction to peaceful struggle, written by Sharp, was legally published in Farsi in Iran in recent years, he said.
Sharp, who held a research position at Harvard University for almost 30 years, originally wrote his guide for Burmese dissidents waging an anti-government struggle from the jungle. It eventually made its way to activists in Eastern Europe, where it was cited during the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine earlier this decade.
Sharp has said his group receives no U.S. government funding, but it could become part of Iranian accusations that the United States and other countries are behind the protests.[*]
The roughly 80-page book lists 198 different nonviolent methods that protesters can use to pressure authoritarian regimes, ranging from adopting symbolic colors to staging mass strikes. Less conventional methods include skywriting and “protest disrobings.” A portrait of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi sits prominently in Sharp’s Boston office.
…
“If this movement is defined as street demonstrations against the police that may or may not turn violent, then the opposition will lose,” said Peter Ackerman, the founder of the Washington-based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which held two confidential workshops in Dubai in 2005 for Iranian activists, some of whom were arrested when they returned home.

* according to its own yearly report (pdf, page 2), the Albert Einstein Institute received funding from the NED and other U.S. government institutions.

Posted by: b | Jun 27 2009 8:39 utc | 71

Re b real’s request @64, there have been a fair number of studies now of the looting of Iraq’s antiquities. The general conclusion is that US archaeologists specialist in the area prepared lists of sites and museums to be protected, and a plan prepared with the State Department. At the last minute before the invasion, the Pentagon dropped everything, and ignored all the plans. With the results we have seen. The actual looters were a mix of professional antiquity smugglers, and local people out to pick up something to sell.
Was there collusion between Donald Rumsfeld and his antiquity collector friends? It is possible, but not proven. Certainly the Marine-lawyer Bogdanos, who was selected to investigate, was chosen to whitewash US actions, which he then did.
The issue is more about profit, than about eliminating Iraqi history. Funnily enough, though, nobody has actually made much profit from smuggling out the Museum’s antiquities; virtually nothing has appeared on the world market, as Iraqi antiquities are too well known, and the international legal regime is increasingly strict.
It was another round of the Bush cabal’s incompetence. They didn’t get their hands on Iraq’s oil, nor on the antiquities. It was the US taxpayer who was plundered.
There are of course sub-issues, like the burning of the national archives, which may have had to do with revenge, or concealing evidence of past dealings.

Posted by: Alex_no | Jun 27 2009 9:29 utc | 73

@Parviz
Firstly, if you consider the post an insult, you are incredibly thin-skinned. Don’t you have something more constructive to do … C’est la vie.
Outrageous ? Well, outrageous is your repeated references to Arab & H & H in the said contexts. The following also troubles me greatly “…the Missing Prophet (some kid who fell down a well several hundred years ago and is considered by Shi’ites as the saviour who will return to purge the world of all non-believers …” … what was that about protesting with cries of ‘Allāhu Akbar’ from the rooftops at night …
MOAs self-styled ‘Man in Tehran’, given such claims and no willingness to factually support, corroborate or alternately retract, makes me wonder along the lines of ‘Our man in Havana’ … what next in the serial of the Tall Tales From Tehran …
You continue to attribute a generalised viewpoint I have not articulated and attempt to put words in my mouth not uttered … you consistently do the same to others, this entire blog, in fact … your pompous, bombastic, demanding obeisance to your declared viewpoint, means you come across as ‘authoritarian’, in your outlook and methods … remarkably ironic, really 🙂
Do you follow football (any code), respectfully, my I suggest, you ‘Play the ball, not the man’, Parviz.
Since the claims re H & H are utterly ludicrous, about the only way any informed rational mind would believe it is if there was irrefutable footage with voice recording, from confirmed, corroborated, credible sources … low res, indeterminate mobile phone footage referenced through twitter or facebook wouldn’t count … even then it would defy rational belief re 5,000, trooped in, standing in formation, defending the authoritites, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iraq, Iran, the Iran-Iraq War and Gulf War I, and parts of the Middle East are not personally unknown, nor abstract to me, though not in recent years …
For the record I doubt the elections were stolen, for reasons I have previously indicated … for the record I do not believe the rioting ‘protesters’ have widespread, majority of the population support, given, as I have previously mentioned, no hard Intel Indicators to support such, re numbers, turnout, growing momentum, demographic locations, evidence of wavering or defections from the non-monolithic Police and paramilitaries re their fellow Iranians. As I have asked you, Amir and Dragonfly repeatedly without ever any answer, where are the voices of the voters of Southern Tehran, not the priveledged of the Northern suburbs … demonstrate thier support and one would consider your assertions repeated ad nauseum re claims of majority disenfranchisement … Tehran has a population of over seven million, in a country of over 70 million. Demonstrations of 100,000+, dropping to 3,000, then pfft, do not a national mass population supported movement make, IMHO.
If one accepts your narrative of a 1984 style, overwhelmingly oppressive, all-invasive, inhuman existence, against the will of the majority, then the human beings, your fellow Iranians, many of whom would be mere footsoldiers in the Police, etc, would be worthy of some empathy, sympathy for thier ‘I’m trapped’, ‘unwillingly following orders’ situation … yet, your hostility and invective is so one dimensionally almost feral and monolithically so … where is the nuance re your fellow Iranians being forced against thier will to act in support of the evil authoritarian ‘regime’ …
For clarity, I do not ‘Support’ the rulers of the current Islamic Republic of Iran, nor am I am against it. I do not support the rioting protesters, either … given I have serious doubts re manipulation and external influence and a certain, *ahem* lack of clearly articulated ‘objectives’ …
Only the Iranians people themselves should resolve their own internal disputes, without outside interference, for in the current geostrategic situation, otherwise would result in the gravest tragedy for ordinary human beings, both in Iran and throughout the region.
The Iranian people produced the Constitutional movement at the turn of the last century, the Iranian people responded to the toppling of thier government by the British in WWII, the Iranian people almost succesfully defended against and averted the shambolic USUK coup re Mossadeq, the Iranian people threw off the oppressive, ruthless, brutal, exploitative yoke of the puppet, the Shah, and the Iranian people created the current Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iranians are much better off, worlds apart in fact, then the average Egyptian (What elections ?), the Shia of Saudi Arabia, most Iraqis, or any of the Palestinians, for example … Where it goes from here, is, as always, up to the Iranians themselves.
You have previously referenced culture re nuanced language, love of poetry, etc. The Iranians I have associated with have demonstrated nuance, tolerance, insight, and a very humbling generosity and graciousness of spirit. I have always percieved a many layered, patient, considered, long term viewpoint and depth … probably why I was regularly whooped at chess …
People are unique, and these are huge, broad, generalizations … but …
I do not support and will raise my voice to challenge any attempt to conflate proven, demonstrably legitimite movements that represent the majority of thier people against injustice, oppression and barbarity from the harbingers of death, destruction and exploitation, routinely referred to as the, civilized, ‘International Community’ and ‘Western Democracies’.
Attempts to conflate the events in Iran, and it’s current
government with the formerly mythically demonized Soviet Union (‘the commies toss babies to feral dogs’ and were the first ‘Evil Empire’, weren’t they … “… the bombing commences in five minutes …”) nor other interwoven tropes and memes of the all pervasive, loosely co-ordinated and very real Black, Grey and White propaganda we endure 24 hours from our progagenda and infotainment news(Not) services will not go unchallenged. This cannot be in the interests of Iranians given the very real and ongoing geostrategic threats they face as a nation and people.
I have misspent the major portion of my life, actively serving the false call of ‘Patriotism’, ‘Democracy’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Justice’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Country First’. I seared my soul in the process. Such catch cries and calls no longer readily seduce … having thought one was trampling a new pathway through the jungle to only discover, in my personal epiphany, to have been led down a well worn, heavily trodden path … the evil that old grey men do, as typified by the Yellow Journalism of the 19th centuries cry of ‘Remember the Maine’ never left us, just became more refined, multi-layered and nuanced … (but heh, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good excuse to start a war, invade and occupy a country and earn medals and advancement whilst slaughtering the ‘other’ with ‘honor’ …)
Iran was incredibly fortunate to escape out from under the Shah, and to have remained free of the foreign jackboot since, these last thirty years … things could well revert, given the subtantial forces arrayed against Iran and her people.
Perhaps it would be better if every nation had nukes … the knowledge that Iraq didn’t have WMDs was the determinant that called Saddam’s bluff and meant it was an ‘acceptable risk’, ‘worth it’, to invade, literally massacre and trample a people for thier resources and worth as a piece on the Great Game’s chessboard …
So, what do I wish, Parviz ?
I wish the people of Iran, from all the different strands of internal politics, in the wisdom and the humanity of thier chosen faiths, to resolve thier internal differences peacefully and reap the rewards of thier nations potential and resources, as is thier right. What Iran has achieved as a nation with largely only thier internal resources, few friends, and many powerful enemies, given 30 years of the same inhuman treatment and sustained, very real demonstrable ongoing threats, which the people of Cuba, for example, have and still endure, is highly admirable … I wish ordinary Iranians further success, as a proud, strong, undivided nation, a united yet diverse and tolerant people, choosing thier own destiny, the 21st century bearers honoring a proud contiguous history dating back millenia through the Persia of antiquity, not as a ‘yellowed’, manufactured, ‘one-dimensional’ Pariah, unjustly denied thier place amonsgt the peoples and nations of the world.
Peace, Salaam, Shalom, Parviz.

Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2009 11:31 utc | 75

Outraged, it’s a pity you don’t read all the posts: Tehran Mayor Qalibaf estimated the reformist demonstration the day before Khamenei’s announced clampdown at OVER THREE MILLION despite its having been declared illegal beforehand. Time Magazine estimated it at 2-3 million. So how can you write:
“Tehran has a population of over seven million … Demonstrations of 100,000+, dropping to 3,000, then pfft, do not a national mass population supported movement make, IMHO.”
IMHO, 3 million in a total population of 7 million would (and did) include large numbers from Southern Tehran and across all social spectra. It involved several miles of walking, which reduced the numbers considerably as the aged,the infirm and infants could not participate. The fact that it declined to a few thousand doesn’t mean “pfft”, as you claim, but overwhelming brutality and barbarity far worse than anything the Shah could dish up.
Why are you fiddling the numbers? In any case, the fact that 3 million instantly declined to “a few thousand” bears greater witness to my claims of Darth Vaders than does anything you might have dismissively written to the contrary.
I suppose the lack of open demonstrations in the Soviet Union meant Russians adored their regime …

TWO TO THREE MILLION MARCHED IN SUPPORT OF MOUSSAVI

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 27 2009 12:06 utc | 77

” … but overwhelming brutality and barbarity far worse than anything the Shah could dish up.” ???

Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2009 12:23 utc | 79

79, yes, I 100 % stand by that statement. The Shah was brutal, but after the first 50 deaths at Jaleh Square he ordered his troops to stand down and fled the country. His top generals, especially Oveissi, begged the Shah to let him kill a few thousand and impose Martial Law, but the Shah said he didn’t want mass bloodshed on his hands. EVERY Iranian knows this and will confirm this, even Iranians like myself who were vehemently anti-Shah. His perceived ‘weakness’ contributed to Khomeini’s success. (His father, Reza Shah, would have thought nothing of having 5000 mullahs executed to put down any uprising).
Please don’t knee-jerk question everything I write as you’re clearly ignorant of Iranian history from 1953 – 1979.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 27 2009 12:34 utc | 81

Outraged just gave you a clear, direct elaboration of his outlook and perspective, both of which fly in the face of your characterization of him as “supporting regime terror”, “setting the revolution back”, and “discounting massive fraud” —
among other things.
*Your only response is to point out how many people the Mayor of Teheran estimates were in the streets and remind us that Time Magazine (!?) quoted him.
It’s clear, now, that you really do have no shame. Goodnight, Parviz.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 27 2009 12:38 utc | 83

the wholesale slaughter of iraq’s intellectuals began in 2003 & furthered by the salvador option under direct imperial governance well into 2007 – an absolute silence – the complicity in these crimes against a living culture will never be forgotten

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2009 14:00 utc | 85

Ah.
I now feel that i can rest at ease on the right side of things.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 27 2009 14:46 utc | 87

how old is Parviz? I understand the uprising against the Shah was many years in the making. Demonstrations like what we’ve seen occurred frequently from ’76-’79.

Posted by: scott | Jun 27 2009 15:49 utc | 89

8.67: “It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land.” (In fact, Tehran Friday Prayers leader Ahmad Khatami, by yesterday demanding that the protesters be ‘executed’ in order to “teach them a lesson”, is following the law of the Koran verbatim).
22.19: “These twain (the believers and the disbelievers) are two opponents who contend concerning their Lord. But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads,
22.20: Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted;
22.21: And for them are hooked rods of iron.
22.22: Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning.”
(= basically, non-Muslims will go to Hell, so you guys/gals had better convert pronto!).
I could go on and on, as I did on this Blog, a year ago, when I similarly criticized the Talmud which I believe is even worse. I don’t see what this has to do with ‘exile Cubans’, self-loathing and your other non-sequiturs. Kindly explain.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 27 2009 16:07 utc | 91

I think the only religion that doesn’t advocate killing of ones foes and unbelievers are the atheist.
You don’t know much about religions, then.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 27 2009 16:20 utc | 93

CH2@92
Ahem… umm I meant western monolithic religions. But that said, I’m sure there are sects within sects (insects?) that advocate killing enemies regardless of what their spiritual guides might be; humans love a reason to kill other humans regardless of how zen they might profess themselves to be.
But I must say that the way you stated your “question” was awful! Why don’t you try, if you really think I’m such a religious idiot, educating me?
You don’t even write it as a question but as an attack on my intellect; which I’m supposed to respond, how?
If you would have taken a moment and suggested a couple of religions you feel don’t fit the euro-centric mold of an angry and violent godhead, you would have given me a point to begin a debate with you or an education of myself. Think of the lurkers who aren’t posting and what do they get out of your post? Nothing but a snide comment that won’t make them think at all.
If you’re are trying to insult me, my knowledge or my religion at least give it the slothrop go and use a bit of prose or some really bad-assed lingo…

Posted by: DavidS | Jun 27 2009 17:09 utc | 95

No attack on Iran (for the nth time since on this board.)
The present hullaballo, resistance, call it whatever, has weakened the mullahcracy no end.
Power plays at the top have been aired internationally. That is welcome to the US, Isr, the EU. Discrediting Iran for any reason is all stellar.
Often, a show of strength – Iran top dogs – is evidence for weakness.
As r’giap wrote, interpreting what we have seen points to, if anything, civil war. Not to manipulated elections as the media would have us believe, imho, for the moment. This is just an excuse that is employed to get Westerners riled up, allowing them to push their agenda, champion anyone who contests the powers in place, for any reason at all.
My prediction: nothing mind blowing will happen for one year or two, three at most, and then novel, and perhaps more serious events will unfold, internally, in Iran. Takes time for things to boil up.
Ignoring the ‘class’ war aspect, the power play at the top, and how that resonates to the so-called upper classes who now expect, demand more, a bigger share of the cake, jobs for their children, a more international atmosphere, détente to fill the bank accounts, the right to have…well all that stuff plus international recognition (oh it must be unbearable) is a big mistake.
Not that I am accusing anyone here of ..err.. toeing that line.
Anyway.
Iran is a very rich country. It is a grand prize. It cannot be held or managed without internal stability and control. So no one is going to rock the boat big time.
off the cuff.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 27 2009 17:11 utc | 97

Tangerine, thanks. My only disagreement (strong disagreement) is on the possibility of civil war and the possibility that Iran will be so weakened that it won’t be able to withstand ‘the empire’, the thought of which seems to freak most people out on this Blog.
Iran isn’t Lebanon or Iraq or anywhere comparable. There is a major power play occurring at present, but at some stage the nation will reform internally and it will be over before you even know it.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 27 2009 17:30 utc | 99