Posted By Laura Rozen
Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 3:27 AM
Share
Leading Iranian opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a statement warning of "tyranny" Saturday after a tense night in Iran in which state organs proclaimed that incumbent hardline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won a "landslide" victory by a two-to-one margin, a statistic that defied the belief of many analysts. Voter turnout was an unprecedented 84%.
Meantime, reports from western-based Iranians late Saturday said that several people had been arrested in Iran, including the campaign manager for another reformist presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi, and the brother of former reformist Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, Reza Khatami.
Mousavi's Twitter account said he had been put under house arrest overnight Sunday: "Dear Iranian People, Mousavi has not left you alone, he has been put under house arrest by Ministry of Intelligence," it posted at 740pm EST Saturday. A Los Angeles-based Iranian pro-democracy activist, Pooya Dayanim, said the measure was justified as being for Mousavi's "own safety," but it didn't seem to be in effect Sunday.
Iranian access to Facebook, Iranian cell phones and mobile text messaging have been shut down, Iranians said, and Internet was limited, while international cell phones still worked in Iran. The person coordinating the blackout, Iranians report, is the son of the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. Several newspapers had also been shut down, along with the Tehran offices of Al Arabiya.
"I would like to inform you that in spite of wide-ranging fraud and problem-making, according to the documents and reports we have received, the majority of your votes have been cast in favor of your servant," Mousavi's statement said. "I will use all legal facilities and methods to restore the rights of the Iranian people."
Mousavi wrote a second letter to the clerics in Qom Saturday. The implication, says Iran analyst Trita Parsi, of the National Iranian American Council, is that the fight may escalate and the legitimacy of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may increasingly come into question.
The White House issued a cautious statement Saturday: "Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. government, which had refrained from commenting much during the election campaign, was closely watching the situation -- and would take its cues from the Iranian people. "We watched closely the enthusiasm and the very vigorous debate and dialogue that occurred in the lead-up to the Iranian elections," Clinton said in a press availability with the Canadian foreign minister from Niagra Falls, Canada Saturday. "We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran. But we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide. ... We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people."
"I don't think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence," Reuters cited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Karim Sadjadpour on Friday. "This was a selection, not an election. At least authoritarian regimes like Syria and Egypt have no democratic pretences. In retrospect it appears this entire campaign was a show: Ayatollah Khamenei wasn't ever going to let Ahmadinejad lose."
"I'm in disbelief that this could be the case," Reuters cited Parsi. "It's one thing if Ahmadinejad had won the first round with 51 or 55 per cent. But this number ... just sounds tremendously strange in a way that doesn't add up."
(University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole compiled numerous signs of vote fraud here. Former Iranian foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi detailed more signs of fraud in an interview Saturday with The Nation.)
Police attacks on demonstrators were reported, and fears of a larger police crackdown on opposition leaders and their supporters have been heightened. Several protests and clashes have been uploaded to Youtube. The Huffington Post, news site Tehranbureau and the National Iranian American Council are live-blogging developments in Iran.
NIAC's Parsi said that rumors that key figures had been arrested often preceded them actually being arrested. Currently circulating Saturday night he said was an as yet unconfirmed report that former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a backer of Mousavi, had been surrounded and resigned as head of the Assembly of Experts, Parsi said, although that didn't yet appear to be the case.
The Hague-based human rights NGO, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, issued a statement Saturday calling on the international community to withhold recognition of Iran's elections, "which gives all signs of having been manipulated by government authorities to produce a massive victory for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
"It's a disaster of course," an American reporter in Tehran told The Cable Saturday. "A few violent clashes in distant towns. People are angry, devastated. Crying. Streets in Tehran mostly quiet. Heavy security presence. Street in front of Interior ministry blocked off. People tell me Mousavi and Karrubi will join together to fight this. Rafanjani is really angry, so it's said. Big clampdown expected. I'm afraid people's hopes will be crushed."
Ahmadinejad is expected to hold a press conference and victory rally Sunday. Afterwards, the foreign press may be kicked out, Dayanim relayed; the Associated Press later said foreign press on visas to cover the elections were being told to prepare to depart.
Mousavi was also due to meet with his supporters Sunday 2:30pm Tehran time (8 1/2 hours ahead of EST), Dayanim said.
"The disapointment and disorientation of people in Iran that I've spoken to is unmistakable," said Parsi. "Khamenei, most experts agree, is addicted to the perception of legitimacy for himself and the system. But this coup does away with any chances for such legitimacy.
"Which then raises the question," Parsi continued, "Is he too under pressure from circles in the [Revolutionary] Guard?"
Former State Department Iran hand Suzanne Maloney, who had cautioned in advance that Iranian elections were entirely unpredictable, weighed in Saturday to say the official Iranian vote verdict was patently absurd. "For the Obama administration, the developments of the past week in Iran represent perhaps the worst possible outcome," she wrote.
"Washington now faces a newly fractured Iranian polity ruled by a leadership that is willing to jettison its own institutions and legitimacy in its determination to retain absolute control," she continued. "That does not bode well for Iran's capacity to undertake serious talks and eventually engage in historic concessions on its nuclear program and support for terrorism."
Nevertheless, she said, "Obama has to be prepared to move forward with diplomacy despite the wholesale setback for Iran's limited democracy. But he should do so in full awareness of the farce that has been perpetrated with this Ahmadinejad 'landslide' and of the seething frustration of so many Iranians."
"If the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history," veteran NSC Iran hand Gary Sick wrote. "The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make.
"If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even
their most devoted followers," Sick continued. "But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy, but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries."
(Version updated at 11pm EST Saturday.)
AFP/Getty Images
Obama made Ahmadinejad win possible
You Americans are so stupid to even take this election seriously!!! i suggest everyone of you to come and visit here before offering opinions from your comfort zone in the USA.
IT DOES NOT MATTER YOU IS SO CALLED "PRESIDENT"...since you Obama's administration has come to power, Iranian Mullah's have been emboldened and they feel they have won the war against America...
BY the way Laura, you can not abbreviate Ahmadinejad as AN,,,,you are so stupid and your reporting so naive!!
I guess the logic of Israel is bad, so therefore the arabs never lie or cheat or fix election is a load of garbage I guess. Israel is not hurting the IRANIANS WHO THREATENs TO BLOW THEM UP. THE IRANIANS ARE HURTING THE IRANIAN PEOPLE. FIXING ELECTIONS IS NOT LIBERAL.
Well, even though the election results are being contested as fraudulent, it's going to be hard for the opposition to mount a real effort to formally dispute the results.
On another topic, I couldn't help but be struck by how the American media ignored an arguably important aspect of the whole Iran-US-Israel story- mainly, how prominent US neoconservatives made it clear they essentially wanted the current Iranian President to get re-elected, for reasons that should be obvious.
But the implications of this for US foreign policy are huge- the US goes around the world touting freedom and democracy and yet it would seem that the very same people (including US officials and members of Congress) who promoted the Iraq War and it's horrible results, seem to prefer bombing a nation into a US-and-Israel-loving democracy. Because we all know how well that works.
And because the media has not covered the neocon view of the Iranian elections, most Americans will be left with the impression (particularly if they watch Fox or CNN), that a military showdown with Iran is inevitable).
**********
Secretary Clinton Blog
The YouTube account you mentioned above has a better video showing the size of one of the protests:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eICmB9nwgU&feature=channel_page
The elections in Iran indicate that there is great turmoil under Heaven. The situation is excellent.
Obviously an honest election that resulted in the dismissal of the odious Ahmedinejad would have been preferable from the American point of view. However, the bane of American policy toward Iran for decades has been the lack of reliable information as to what is happening in that country's internal politics. Potential intelligence sources aggrieved enough with the regime to share information with Western intelligence services have been rare.
If anything like what Sadjadpour, Yazdi and Cole are suggesting has happened has happened, this will now change. One hopes that CIA in particular is prepared to take advantage of what ought to be a major opportunity.
A little OT but here is a preview of Bibi Netanyahu's speech tomorrow.
********
Secretary Clinton Blog
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com makes clear why Andrew Sullivan's chart is, honestly, not that useful (especially the correlation).
Iranian Youth- Tools of the Neo Cons
The missed angle:
THE NEO CONS WERE SUPPORTING THE EFFORT TO OVERTHROW THE IRANIAN REGIME, INCLUDING OUSTING KHAMENAI AND AHMEDENIJAD! HR 6198 Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005 was the official gateway to covert (CIA, DOD, AND DOS) funding, coordination, and support to 'nonterrorist' subversion of Iran.
From the looks of it, the proMusavi youth were pawns in the NeoCon plot.
That's why I pity those niave youth. Thinking to have an American style secular regime in Iran would not be like living in Paris, or LA (as the Iranian expats who have them believe from their decadent Persian broadcasting of LA lifestyles). Iran has something which the NeoCons are REALLY after: oil and strategic location. The NeoCons would have brought American corporations back into Iran to lay claim to Iranian natural resources and use Iran as the bridge between American access to the Caspian Sea Basin and the Arabian Gulf.
Iranian youth (those wealthy enough to have internet access & watch Persian videos from LA and Europe) might have been able to live the 'fast' life, but they would have sold the resources of their land to American corporations who have never been known to release those assets. American oil firms still lay claim to Somali oil and mineral rights almost 20 years after the fall of Siad Barre, the dictator who granted it to them.
(Another example: Iraq is nearing the point of privatization of its mineral rights to American firms after submitting to American occupation.)
Those who favored the idea of Iranian youth being able to oust the Iranian regime and present a kind of secular republicanism America would be pleased with find themselves alligned with the NeoCons of the Bush era. They also find themselves pursuing their leftwing ideological purism even if its detrimental to the interests of the Iranian people.
Hence, just as the rightwing NeoCons found their ideological purism to conflict with the reality and interests of others around the world, leftwing ideological purism contains much of the same results. Moreover, both are hosts to the global capitalist economy which are notoriously fraught with detrimental circumstances for peoples NOT in the West.
Lastly, I would not put it past the Iranian ruling establishment to welcome this election precisely because it revealed those who are likely tied to the American covert effort to overthrow the regime there. Iran IS under seige from America, as Sy Hersh in the New Yorker and D Ignatius of WaPo reported. America IS trying to overthrow the regime there. And Iranians ARE colluding against the government for the interests of foreign powers, hence its in a state of war.
Actually, the neocons in the US and the hawks in Israel were saying that there was no difference between the two candidates and were hoping that the current President won re-election so they could continue to gain support for pre-emptive military action against Iran (with US help)- I posted a link about this in my comment above. The neocons were concerned that if a more moderate candidate won in Iran, they would lose support for attacking Iran due to the US view that diplomacy might be more constructive once Ahmedenijad was out of the picture.
*************
Secretary Clinton Blog
BTW, that's an excellent photo. It expresses a great deal and its actually contrary to much of the leftwing media reporting of the riots in Tehran. The police are essentially working class young men. If rioters have no connection with the police, then they are willing to attack and injure them.
This photo reveals young men protecting an injured policeman despite the rage of other rioters.
Obama was in a hurry to handshake with Ahamadinejad...what he would do now? he is loosing his favorite dictator.
Iranian people, with their votes, let obama know that Ahamdinejad is not the guy representing them. and obama was too stupid to see that in the first place!
The situation in Iran is just playing in the hands of Israel.
"How can anyone", they will go, "trust Iran and Ahmadinejad? They need to be contained ... Would the US please help or at least leave us alone?"
The above, coupled with Netanyahu's absurd demands on any future Palestinian state (see link provided by stacyx above) and the lack of a unified political leadership on the Palestinian side will ensure the continuation of the status quo in Israel and Palestine, which is continued expansion of settlements and gradual fall into oblivion and irrelevance of the Palestinian state and people.
Cherry on the pie for Israel: the re-start of the intifada. Come to think of it, Sharon knew how to get a good one going .... maybe Netanyahu will emulate.
As someone said, US administrations and presidents have and will come and go ....
I agree Frankler-
I think Likud and other members of the far-right in Israel were hoping against hope that Ahmadinejad would win re-election. Anti-Arab racist Avigdor Lieberman said as much.
How many times have we heard the Israelis and American hawks talk about Ahmadinejad trying to obtain nuclear weapons and then they trot out all of his reprehensible anti-Israel talking points, thus implying that Iran is very close to being able to wipe Israel off the map? If the right wing Israeli govt lost Ahmadinejad they'd essentially lose one of their justifications for pre-emptive military action of some kind.
This fact really gives us insight into the neoconservative mind-set- they don't want a moderate, democratic Iran which acknowledges Israel's right to exist despite the fact that such a scenario would make the US and Israel much more secure against terrorism. If Israel were faced with more moderate, democratic-leaning neighbors, they would be forced to have a REAL dialogue about peace, nuclear proliferation and a Palestinian state. And that's the last thing Netanyahu and American pro-war hawks want.
Can you imagine if the mainstream media actually covered this angle of the debate over mid-east peace? It would suddenly be much harder to convince Americans that the US and Israel are one in the same.
***********
Secretary Clinton Blog
I've said this twice elsewhere but there's no reason not to repeat it.
Whether it turns out to have been a coup or not is not the most important question for the political leadership of rest of the world. The central question is this: Between the leadership of Iran and Israel, whose actions have been defined more by rational self-interest and whose by immaturity and recklessness?
Who would you trust to keep his head in a crisis, Netanyahu or Khamenei?
The Israelis are the wild cards, and anyone in American policy circles who says otherwise should by fired as a liar or a fool.
Some links.
Robert Fisk
Moon of Alabama.
Follow his links and read the comments.
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani at Brookings. His blog
VELVET REVOLUTION OR VELVET COUP D'ETAT
It was supposed to be the perfect script. Mousavi’s victory was supposed to be hailed as the indication of Iranian rulers having “unclenched their fist”. It was supposed to be the perfect time for reconciliation with Mullahs. It was supposed to be the clearest sign yet of the success of Obama administration’s soft spoken approach towards the Muslim world. It was supposed to be the time for celebration of the Obama effect.
Ahmadinejad’s coup d'état changed the game altogether. It sent all the deal-makers and rapprochement enthusiasts of Washington think-tanks back to the drawing board.
The most important foreign policy implication is that the coup d'état government is dead serious about going nuclear. Any “grand-bargain” between Washington and Tehran under Mousavi would have led to concessions on Iran’s nuclear program. This would have been unacceptable for the Pasdaran commanders who will not be content with any less position than the one enjoyed by their Pakistani counterparts.
As the western governments and in particular US will be wrestling with the question of legitimacy versus negotiations, the coup d'état government will use the time to make as much progress as possible in its nuclear program. Unlike what many might think, the coup d'état government will in fact embrace doubts on its legitimacy to further complicate the issue and seize on it as an opportunity to blame the West for interference in Iranian domestic affairs. As the game continues, Israel will see no choice but to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. What will happen next is anyone’s guess.
This is all obviously conditioned on the success of the coup d'état which by no means is a given at this time. The arrests made by the coup d'état government yesterday has no significance other than a show of force. Rafsanjani is the only person who, as the head of the assembly of experts, has the authority to remove Khamenei from power. He has the will but the question is whether he has enough number of votes (i.e. enough support among clerics). Many believe that he is in Qom to make such assessment. Additionally, such high risk move has a chance of success only against the backdrop of mass dissatisfaction with the election results and at least some support from the armed and security forces.
A velvet change is underway. Whether it turns out to be a velvet revolution or velvet coup d'état remains to be seen.
SOURCE: http://www.zaneirani.blogspot.com/
John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
May/June 2013
-
Profile
-
FP Power Map
-
Think Again
Follow us on Twitter | Visit us on Facebook | Follow us on RSS | Subscribe to Foreign Policy
About FP | Meet the Staff | Foreign Editions | Reprint Permissions | Advertising | Writers’ Guidelines | Press Room | Work at FP
Services:Subscription Services | Academic Program | FP Archive | Reprint Permissions | FP Reports and Merchandise | Special Reports | Buy Back Issues
Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Contact Us
11 DUPONT CIRCLE NW, SUITE 600 | WASHINGTON, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-728-7300 | Fax: 202-728-7342
FOREIGN POLICY is published by the FP Group, a division of The Washington Post Company
All contents ©2013 The Foreign Policy Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
(17)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE