The recent Presidential election in Iran, on one hand, is typical. The candidates were hand-picked by the ruling mullahs. And the "winner" will be the "chosen one".
As Michael J. Totten states:
Iran’s presidential election isn’t real. The four candidates were hand-picked by the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei. It’s turning into something more than he bargained for, though, even if his regime is rigging the outcome for Mahmoud Admadinejad.
The tides are rising:
Times UK
It was open insurrection, a rebellion of a sort seldom seen in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic, an eruption of pent-up rage against the repressive Government of President Ahmadinejad.
“Death to the Government,” chanted the several thousand Iranians packed into a football stadium in Tehran. “Death to dictators,” roared the young men and women, draped in green shirts, ribbons, bandanas and headscarves to signal their support for Mir Hossein Mousavi. “Bye-bye Ahmadi,” they sang as they waved a sea of banners for the man who hopes to topple Mr Ahmadinejad in the presidential election on Friday. “Don’t rig the election,” they added for good measure.
[snip]
Men and women scaled the floodlight pylons for a better view. Hundreds more crammed on to a nearby overpass. Astonishingly there was not a policeman or basij (Islamic vigilante) in sight, further evidence of how the regime seems to have relaxed — or lost — its grip in the final days of an election far more competitive than anyone had expected.
The biggest roar of the afternoon was reserved for the main speaker, Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi’s wife. “You’re here because you don’t want any more dictatorship,” she declared. “You’re here because you hate fanaticism, because you dream of a free Iran, because you dream of a peaceful relationship with the rest of the world.” The candidate himself was nowhere to be seen, but that hardly mattered because the crowd was inspired by a hatred of Mr Ahmadinejad rather than a love for Mr Mousavi.
And,
Times of London:
Whatever the reason, Mr Mousavi's campaign took off. The youth of Tehran and other cities took to the streets in huge numbers. They flocked to Mousavi rallies in their tens of thousands. They turned the capital into a seething sea of green with their ribbons, headscarves, balloons and bandanas. They festooned the city with posters and banners. Until the small hours of each morning they packed squares, blocked junctions and careered around town in cars with horns blaring and pop music blasting.
The Islamic republic has never seen such sights before. It was almost open rebellion, an explosion of pent-up anger after four years in which the fundamentalist President and his morality police cracked down on dissent, human rights groups, and any dress or behaviour deemed unIslamic. “Death to the dictator,” young men and women roared at Mousavi rallies. “Death to the Government.
[…]
Mr Mousavi is an unlikely champion for such people. He is no reformist. He promises some social and economic liberalisation, and to do away with the hated “morality police”, but he is not challenging the political system. At 68, and distinctly lacking charisma, he is more Bob Dole than Barack Obama. Mousavi-mania is less a reflection of his popularity than of the loathing most educated, urban Iranians feel for a messianic President who has curtailed freedom, embarrassed Iran internationally and squandered record oil revenues through reckless spending.
In 2005 many liberal Iranians refused to vote, partly because they did not want to legitimise a political system that they abhor, and partly because they were profoundly disillusioned at how the conservative establishment had thwarted the reform efforts of their previous champion, President Khatami. But they will turn out in huge numbers today because they cannot contemplate four more years of Mr Ahmadinejad. “Now you and I vote so he will be defeated,” was the text message sent to millions of mobile phones after campaigning ended yesterday.
[…]
It is possible that violence will erupt if Mr Ahmadinejad is declared the victor and Mr Mousavi's supporters cry foul. It is likely that Mr Mousavi will fail to meet his supporters' sky-high expectations, partly because the Supreme Leader remains the real power in the land and partly because he is, in truth, a flawed vehicle for their hopes and aspirations.
Only one thing is certain. Iran will never be quite the same again. “We are in a new phase in this country and civilisation,” Saeed Laylaz, a respected political consultant, said as his compatriots prepared to vote.
And now, as expected, the regime is claiming Nejad has won.
TEHRAN: Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered a thumping victory in Iran's fiercely-contested presidential race, official results showed on Saturday, in a major upset for his moderate rival.
After all the euphoria of last week, crackdown begins.
Pictures that need no explanation:
This is obviously a fluid situation.
Update:
The Radicalization of an Already Radical Iranian Regime?
An Electoral Coup in Iran
It was a night of fundamental change of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was, however, not the change the overwhelming majority of the electorate indicated to be producing with their real votes yesterday, but a change in the ruling establishment of the country, an almost complete control by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence services, and the most radical forces of the regime.
Actually, everything seemed to be going fine until the polling stations closed at 10 pm Tehran time. By then, streets were green, the color of the favorite opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was generally expected to win with a considerable margin, by many estimates of late Friday even in the first round. Reformist newspapers had already started to announce Mousavi's victory and the reformist candidate himself was calling the people for a national celebration on Sunday.
Everything started after voting ended and the Interior Ministry with the government-established Election Commission started to count the votes. As the incoming first figures from villages and small towns favored incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the reformers still kept their faith: "Ahmadinejad is stronger in villages that comprise some 30% of the population," they said. "We will definitely win the cities." This was while even one percent of the citizens from western Iranian villages and small towns hadn't allegedly voted for Mehdi Karroubi, the other opposition candidate who, comes from the same region and enjoys considerable popularity in Lorestan and Kurdistan provinces.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent film producer supporting Mousavi, who stayed in his favored candidate's headquarters, told Radio Farda that they were called by the Election Commission well before the first results were announced. "Don't announce Mr. Mousavi's victory yet," they were told by authorities. "We will gradually prepare the public and then you can proceed." Apparently, though, a well-prepared plan was at the works, but in a completely different direction.
[snip]
The "electoral coup," as many in Iran interviewed by Radio Farda called it, has changed the face of the Islamic Republic. It has formalized the exclusion of still moderate clerics, founding fathers and technocrats of the Islamic Republic, and consolidated the rule of a new elite led by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence offices, and radical Islamists who feel to be well-represented by the Ahmadinejad leadership of the last four years.
UPDATE
News and video from the BBC:
Ahmadinejad re-election sparks Iran clashes
Police clash with supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi in TehranThousands of angry protesters have clashed with police after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's presidential poll.
Secret police have been attacked, while riot police used batons and tear gas against backers of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who called the results a "charade".
Correspondents say the violence is the worst seen in Tehran in a decade.
Video shows a human wave of demonstrators chasing frightened police.
9 comments:
Does the Iranian opposition have the means to mount a real revolution? If this results in a massive crackdown can they still respond? I don't expect Obamoud to sanction interference with the regime if he can avoid it, which leaves us several more years of the Dwarf and NorKies show.
Like RRA said . . .does the Iranian opposition have the means?
Sunni's of SA have a vested interest (continued control of two 'holy' places) for undermining the Shia's mahdi mentality in Iran.
I'm with Hugh Fitzgerald when it comes to encouraging the natural divisions within the umma.
*****
Imagine, for a moment, attempting to arrive at, and then to articulate to one's colleagues or to policymakers, what has been suggested so often here: the need to see the belief-system of Islam and Jihad as a source of permanent threat to all non-Muslims, and then to formulate a policy designed to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam in order to lessen that menace, and at the same time to allow the natural fissures within Islam, ethnic, sectarian, and economic, develop -- so that they will do the work that might otherwise have to be accomplished by Infidels in other ways.
and
I have, however, noted the resentment, among the Arabs “of the north” -- Egypt, Syria, Jordan -- for the “desert Arabs of the peninsula,” whom the Syrians and Egyptians think of as bedu, primitives who nonetheless have unfairly somehow been given all that oil wealth, oil wealth that those “desert Arabs” have undeservedly received. Those “desert Arabs” are supposedly so much more uncivilized than the suave Syrians and Egyptians, but it’s no longer true, because some of those younger Qataris and Kuwaitis and Saudis have acquired a sheen from going to school in America or England. But if the Infidel funds are cut off, and if Egypt, Jordan, the “Palestinian” Arabs, and even the Pakistanis (who by such things as the Mumbai raid are, some of the annoyed Arabs realize, “harming the image of Islam” -- they care only about the p.r. aspect of the thing, they don’t disapprove of violent Jihad in the slightest) have to go hat in hand to the rich Arabs, and call the bluff of the whole “loyalty of the Umma” business, by demanding that that oil wealth be shared, really shared -- well, you can just imagine what would happen.
Talk about resentment. Talk about fury. Talk about the rottenness of those “rich Arabs” who won’t share the wealth, and it’s Allah’s wealth, for god’s sake. It has nothing to do with geology. Allah decides everything. And of course those rich Arabs are supposed to share those oil (and gas) revenues with their fellow members of the Umma. Why, it could almost make a young Muslim feel like setting off a bomb or two in Kuwait City, and Doha, and Riyadh, and Jiddah.
Go to it, boys. You’re right to be mad.
*****
Look to Sudan and Nigeria to how the Arab muslim is at war with the far too dark African Muslim. Why? Because the 'abed'African Muslim had the audacity request a share in their nations oil wealth. Arabs do not share their wealth with abed.
Oh Darfur . . .such is the consequence of spilling Christian blood for the doctrine of Islam propagated by the Arabs.
And those Somalis who eagerly join the jihad despite the opportunities provided in gaining American refugee status.
The wealthy Arab's whose unearned oil wealth purchased the sermons which captured Somali-American sons' imaginations for jihad while those plump sheiks look mighty splendid in their pristine white cloaks utterly ignoring the umma's dispensible Somali sons splattered in the wastes of Darfur.
Such is the peace of Islam.
Speaking of Islam and Iran. Following is part of Michael J Totten's article I didn't post.
Islamist law is so widely detested and flouted in Iran that it’s a wonder the regime even bothers to keep up the pretense. In June 2005 Christopher Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair that every person he visited there, with the exception of one single imam, offered him alcohol, which is banned.
Everyone I met at the Komala compound said the Iranian regime itself wallows deep in the post-ideological torpor that inevitably follows radical revolutions. Except for the most fanatic officials, the government cares only about money and power. “Followers of the regime are not ideological anymore,” Sanjari said. “They are bribed by the government. They will no longer support it in the case that it is overthrown. Even among the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards, there are so many people dissatisfied with the policies of the regime. Fortunately there aren’t religious conflicts between Shias, Sunnis, and different nationalities.”
Mohtadi concurred. “The next revolution and government will be explicitly anti-religious,” he said.
The Iranian writer Reza Zarabi says the regime has all but destroyed religion itself. “The name Iran, which used to be equated with such things as luxury, fine wine, and the arts, has become synonymous with terrorism,” he wrote. “When the Islamic Republic government of Iran finally meets its demise, they will have many symbols and slogans as testaments of their rule, yet the most profound will be their genocide of Islam, the black stain that they have put on this faith for many generations to come.”
Speaking of Islam and Iran.
Christine,
You wrote,
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Following is part of Michael J Totten's article I didn't post.
Islamist law is so widely detested and flouted in Iran that it’s a wonder the regime even bothers to keep up the pretense. In June 2005 Christopher Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair that every person he visited there, with the exception of one single imam, offered him alcohol, which is banned.
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That's really good news. If most of the people there truly do not want to live under Islamic law, it may lead to a revolution, but unfortunately, its extremely hard to mount a successful revolution in a totalitarian dictatorial. However, if in the worst case scenario we are forced to invade Iran, maybe this means that many of the people won't be willing to risk their lives defending the regime.
You wrote,
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Everyone I met at the Komala compound said the Iranian regime itself wallows deep in the post-ideological torpor that inevitably follows radical revolutions. Except for the most fanatic officials, the government cares only about money and power. “Followers of the regime are not ideological anymore,” Sanjari said. “They are bribed by the government. They will no longer support it in the case that it is overthrown. Even among the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards, there are so many people dissatisfied with the policies of the regime. Fortunately there aren’t religious conflicts between Shias, Sunnis, and different nationalities.”
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More good news for us.
You wrote,
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Mohtadi concurred. “The next revolution and government will be explicitly anti-religious,” he said.
The Iranian writer Reza Zarabi says the regime has all but destroyed religion itself. “The name Iran, which used to be equated with such things as luxury, fine wine, and the arts, has become synonymous with terrorism,” he wrote. “When the Islamic Republic government of Iran finally meets its demise, they will have many symbols and slogans as testaments of their rule, yet the most profound will be their genocide of Islam, the black stain that they have put on this faith for many generations to come.”
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I hope Mohtadi is correct. The world will be a much better and much safer place with a truly secular Iran. But lets not let our hopes get too high. The Iranian Mullahs maybe corrupt and they maybe hypocrites, and they may not care what the majority of their people want, but that doesn't mean that they don't still have a tight grip on power. Also keep in mind that Saudis won't want a secular Iran as well. They might not like the current regime for all we know, but I don't think they'll be happy with an Iran that doesn't have an Islamic government.
Damien,
I agree, this regime is going to be a tough nut to crack.
In order for the people to overthrow the government, all of the ducks will need to be in a row.
The statements made regarding the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards, will need to be true. They will need some outside "assistance".
And unlike Marcos, the regime will not step down quietly. Even without outside military assistance, it is going to be violent and bloody. Possibly a civil war.
The people's anger is there. But, do they have the will?
All we can do is hope, pray and wait.
Christine,
Thanks for keeping up on this stuff and reporting it for us.
This is when it would be good to have our own people in there fomenting, pushing it, driving it. Maybe we are.
Nah. Not with the current crop of ninnies in office.
Ket's hope Mousavi doesn't disappear into Evin or end up with one final vote at the end of a rope or 9mm.
midnight rider,
You never know, the CIA and our other intelligence organizations operated in secret.
That's what I'm hoping, Damien.
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