You say you want a REVOLUTION

[RhaegarTar]

Gorn,

Oh, good grief.

I'd tend to agree with Congressman Paul. Its none of our business, and more importantly, I have yet to see evidence that Moussavi or any of the other "reformers" are really willing to drastically alter the entire government. That does not mean this evidence is not forthcoming, we can hope.

The first step towards tearing down our trillion dollar empire is wishing the Iranian people good luck, privately, and continuing our people's business. *shrug* When the government starts issuing official opinions about the internal politics of another nation, eventually that leads to "maybe we should do something about it..." and the entire complex grinds into gear.

[Galactus]

were arrested by a group of clothes

I know they probably mean something like "uniformed police officers" but I prefer to imagine they were arrested by a pair of blue jeans anda white shirt.

[lokisnow]

What the hell is happening in Iraq the past week? has the level of violence changed at all?

perhaps a civil war in Iran would cause a cessation or near cessation of violence in Iraq?

And then we could withdraw more quickly, in theory. :-p

[turinturambar]

My husband was surprised to learn this. He speculates Khamenei only said that because we elected a muslim POTUS. ;p

The British have been stuck their noses in Iranian politics before, just as the US has. I don't think there's much surprising about this.

I doubt most people in this thread agree with him, but its a perfectly valid worldview.

Best reason I can think of to vote against it, honestly.

Ron Paul makes a good point. Though, the 450 who voted for it make good points as well. As Dante said, he is consistent.

[turinturambar]

What the hell is happening in Iraq the past week? has the level of violence changed at all?

perhaps a civil war in Iran would cause a cessation or near cessation of violence in Iraq?

And then we could withdraw more quickly, in theory. :-p

Extreme short-term changes in violence have little to no effect on withdrawal. It must be a semi-persistent change in a district, along with a sizable and well-trained police force.

[Benjen Stark]

The Washington Post proposes this strategy for Obama (paraphrased):

- Support the protesters & condemn the crack down.

- Insist upon negotiations with Khamenei, ignoring anything Ahmadinejad says.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I'd personally couch it more in the sense of: "Since we cannot ascertain without some sort of open and complete vote count with impartial observers whether the accusations against Ahmadinejad of usurping the election via massive fraud are true, the United States wishes to negotiate exclusively with the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Republic who is not shrouded with illegitimacy on the world stage."

Long, run-on, redundant sentences are popular in politics, right?

[DanteGabriel]

The Washington Post proposes this strategy for Obama (paraphrased):

- Support the protesters & condemn the crack down.

- Insist upon negotiations with Khamenei, ignoring anything Ahmadinejad says.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I'd personally couch it more in the sense of: "Since we cannot ascertain without some sort of open and complete vote count with impartial observers whether the accusations against Ahmadinejad of usurping the election via massive fraud are true, the United States wishes to negotiate exclusively with the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Republic who is not shrouded with illegitimacy on the world stage."

Long, run-on, redundant sentences are popular in politics, right?

I'm not placing that much stock in Post since its editorial page has gone all neocon crazy.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ashington_post/

[Shryke]

Always remember this guideline for newspapers

News

New York: Times Good, Post Crap

Washington: Times Crap, Post Good

Editorials

New York: Times Crap, Post Crap

Washington: Times Crap, Post Crap

[Shryke]

The real question right now, I think, is can the protests maintain an image of non-violence. As long as it's seen as the government starting the bloodletting, the people will be pissed.

Although, I think the fact that it's alot more then just students doing the protesting means that even with violence, this won't go the way of '99.

Also, re: The UK

It's kinda funny, but to any Iranian I've ever talked to, the UK is the big boogeyman. The US are the new guys. The loud obvious ones. The UK is old and nasty and sneaky. Their distrust of the UK approaches conspiracy theory like levels. It's almost a mythic evil organization to them.

[Benjen Stark]

Gotta say, this:

"The writer, a special assistant to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan from 1997 to 2003, is a consulting senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies."

just doesn't set off my neocon radar. However, I'm not paid to guess the results of this stuff. I'm just interested.

[Angalin]

Gotta say, this:

"The writer, a special assistant to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan from 1997 to 2003, is a consulting senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies."

just doesn't set off my neocon radar. However, I'm not paid to guess the results of this stuff. I'm just interested.

I know someone who used to be at the IISS back in the '90s or so, and he is definitely not neo-con (to the point of opposing the Iraq invasion). Working for Kofi Annan doesn't scream "neo-con" to me either.

[DanteGabriel]

Fair enough, and the bit that Benjen excerpted doesn't seem notably crazy either. I'm just very skeptical of Obama taking any notes from the Post these days.

[Ckrisz]

Good Lord, this is depressing.

Khamanei, I think, is betting that the security forces and the establishment will, in the end, choose loyalty to the Islamic regime over the uncertainty of following the demonstrations to an unknown end. By doubling down, he is putting his own prestige as Supreme Leader on the line. The only way out now is to either back him or remove him, and the latter would shake the establishment to the foundations almost as much as a violent revolution.

Hard to really know how this will go. But I have to confess to being much more pessimistic now.

[dalThor]

I'm not sure about the wearing green thing exactly but it certainly seems like a good way to show support. As far as Sat./Sun., this from an earlier post:

In related news: MOUSAVI HAS ASK THE WORLD TO PARTICIPATE IN SEA OF GREEN IN ALL CAPITAL CITIES THIS SUNDAY - #Iranelection - confirmed

Persiankiwi via twitter. <--from last night I think.

Also, there's a Facebook group (where is my vote) that is apparently going for demonstrations tomorrow.

From the Beltway blog niacblog today.

One of our readers requested that we translate the following blog post:

"Tomorrow is a big day, I may get killed tomorrow!" (http://balatarin.com/permlink/2009/6/19/1625688)

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children"

Speaking of the poet Shamlu, and on somewhat lighter note, funny signs from a previous day's protest read as follows:

To slaughter us

why did you need to invite us

to such an elegant party

(Poem by Shamlu).

(eta: hopefully this will remain whimsical in the days to come)

Others from the same day included:

Hello! Hello! 999? / Our votes were stolen

The Miracle of the Third Millenium: 2 x 2 = 24 million (alluding to the claim by Government that Ahmadinejad obtained 24 million votes)

Iran fax project

[Benjen Stark]

This article in interesting, just for the following passage:

The highly dubious election results, however, are arousing concern far outside Mr Mousavi's millions of voters. Fifty-two MPs have asked the interior minister why he could not prevent the post-election intimidation and violence. Parliament has asked for a fact-finding investigation into the vandalisation of Tehran University property. Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi, a member of the Combatant Clerics Assembly – an important figure who founded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and sent them to Lebanon when he was Iran's ambassador to Damascus – has demanded a committee to investigate the election results, made up of senior clerics, MPs, members of the judiciary, the Council of Guardians and an official of the interior ministry.

Most of it deals with the document purporting a runoff between Mousavi and Karroubi would be required.

However, I have to say that I'm 95% sure that letter is a fake as Mohsen Rezai is attributed only 38,716 votes, which is almost as improbable as the government's claim that Karroubi got only 300K total. IIRC, there was a previous article that said that Rezai had already gotten more than 200K more written testimonies with state ID numbers from people who said they voted for him than were in the government figures of about 600K, even ignoring whether Ahmadinejad did so much worse than Karroubi.

[mormont]

I have been working on the presumption that no accurate count of the vote ever took place, and so all of the various numbers are false. This may be misguided, though.

[boiled leather]

I have been working on the presumption that no accurate count of the vote ever took place, and so all of the various numbers are false. This may be misguided, though.

what else can one think where religious fundamentalism dictates to government and real change does not/can not occur?

[The Stranger]

I am now officially revising my opinion on Khamenei: I think he's lost it. His speech betrays a complete lack of understanding re:why people are upset, and a genuine disbelief in how people can be dissatisfied with the Iranian system. That said, for him the only explanation must be that these people are foreign-backed operatives guilty of treason. That means that any conciliatory gesture would be tantamount to buying off traitors, and I don't think he could possibly countenance that.

So he and Ahmadinejad are now the sound-box, while the Republican Guard has mobilized two divisions outside Tehran. I think the RG are getting dissatisfied with how far the clerics have fucked up their handling of this insurrection, and a purely military response might be in the making, since it's clear that the Rahbar's own forces have failed to keep a lid on this.

that said, I think this thing will indeed end with Khamenei being gracefully retired. I think this is what Rafsanjani has been quietly doing behind the scenes, getting the rest of the Assembly of Experts on his side to force an ouster. I re-read the Iranian Constitution last night, and the entire system of dismissal is very informal: all it takes is a majority of the assembly claiming someone else is better at the job, and right now that wouldn't be hard to prove. This, to my mind, is the only reason Khamenei was so conciliatory towards Rafsanjani, a man he has previously accused of disloyalty and graft; I think he's attempting to say "I'm going to win in the streets, so back off behind the scenes and all will be forgiven."

everyone is being pushed towards positions that look to them like self-preservation. ugliness is imminent.

[Shryke]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124537040666029677.html

Editor's note: The following are firsthand accounts that were solicited by Journal assistant editorial features editor Bari Weiss. Some were translated from Farsi. Surnames have been omitted to protect the writers.

I live in the dorms at Tehran University. I was asleep when Basij militiamen entered my room early Monday morning, demolished everything and started beating us. A man with a long beard broke my notebook and said: "It is destroyed, this book that you were using against Islam and Ahmadinejad."

They beat students more when they saw posters of Mousavi in their rooms. And they carried big knives and guns.

They also attacked the women's dormitory next door. The Supreme Leader calls us rioters, but I want to ask him: How can sleeping women in their beds be rioters? Is this the Islamic justice he believes in?

When we finally arrived at Azadi Square, which can accommodate around 500,000 people, it was full. We saw smoke coming from Jenah Freeway and heard the gunshots. People were scared but continued walking forward.

Later, my sister told me that she saw four militiamen come out from a house and shoot a girl. Then they shot a young boy in his eye and the bullet came out of his ear. She said that four people were shot.

On my way home at around 2 a.m. I saw about 10 buses full of armed riot police parked on the side of the road. There were scattered militiamen in civilian clothes carrying clubs patrolling the empty streets. And in Tajrish Square I saw a boy around 16 holding a club, looking for something to attack.

[Shryke]

This thing is just awesome