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June 17, 2009 07:15 AM UTC

Iran Open Thread - it is a revolution

  • 47 Comments
  • by: DavidThi808

(Seems to warrant another off-genre promotion, note that we try not to make a habit of these – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Yes we have crowds this big in America. But we also have a ballot box and by giving people a vote that does decide, a crowd is an affirmation, not a revolt.

But in a dictatorship, crowds this size are a revolt. There is a revolution occuring in Iran. Here’s hoping that it is as peaceful as possible – and that it is successful.

And I am in awe of the people demonstrating in the face of the violence the Iranian state is inflicting upon them.

As always – The Daily Dish & HuffPo

Update: Can someone post updated news in the comments below? I will be way too busy at work (making up for wasted time yesterday) and will not have time to post anything here.

thanks – dave

Comments

47 thoughts on “Iran Open Thread – it is a revolution

  1. from McClatchy

    “No one in their right mind can believe” the official results from Friday’s contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi’s charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers “in the worst way possible.”

    “A government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy,” he declared in comments on his official Web site. “I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to ‘sell their religion,’ and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God.”

    1. but before we all get TOO excited, lets remember that ALL candidates had to be approved in order to be allowed to run at all and, in Iran, the President and elected government don’t have the ultimate power by a long shot. Even if the reformers ultimately triumph, the level of reform may be a whole lot less than what we dewy eyed American cheer leaders are envisioning.

      Yes, this is a heartening show of support for change in Iran. Does it mean that, even in the unlikely event of the best possible outcome, suddenly Iran will no longer be a problem and we’ll all be joining hands as new best buddies? Not so much. We need to come back down from cloud nine and get a grip.  Agree this is all pretty exciting, though.

      1. I don’t think anyone’s expecting (at this point) a true reformer to take office, but this has gone beyond the point of simply installing a new President.

        Montazeri’s statement is probably better explained in context with this tidbit: the Expediency Council is rumored to be holding an “emergency meeting” today.  The Expediency Council is likely meeting to figure out how to put the country back together peacefully, and that may include ousting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni.  Mousavi supporters have been trying to gauge the level of support within the Expediency Council since the election results were announced; the Chair of the council is a Mousavi supporter, and probably would not have called the meeting without knowing in general how it would turn out.

        IMHO, even if a new election is held under more transparent voting procedures, and even if Mousavi wins that election, I don’t think Iran will ever be quite the same…  This “revolt” is going to demand some political reforms at the top, and the Guardian Council is likely to lose some power in the bargain.

          1. and there is some supreme council that can remove him from the office of “Supreme Leader.” (Unlike the Soviet Union, where the real authority was within the party while the state offices were given to figureheads, they wrote in the office of Supreme Leader as the ultimate head of state.)

            Will that happen? Maybe. Khameni is certainly respected but Khomeni, for whom the office was initially created, was nearly seen as a new incarnation of the Prophet when he was alive.

            It’s interesting – two of Khomeni’s grandchildren are reformers. (That’s Khomeni, not Khameni.) One has even called for intervention. The old man must be spinning in his grave.

            1. For some reason the Iranians, rather than vesting all power in the Guardian Council, created the Expediency Council to resolve disputes in power and decision-making.  It plays little role in everyday government, only coming into play during conflicts.

              Montazeri was “supposed” to assume the title of Supreme Leader after Khomeni died, but lost a power struggle to Khameni.  In that respect, Khameni’s hold on power is by no means absolute.

      2. Certainly 500,000 is a lot of people.  

        11:11 AM ET — Huge reformist rally underway. From the Guardian:

        More than 500,000 Iranians are silently marching from from Haft-e-Tir Squre to Vali Asr Square, reports Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.

      3. Mousavi is conservative himself, and he too was approved to run in the election by the guardian council, but he’s gotta be a hell of a lot better than Ahmadinejad, who is the W of Iran.

        The main thing that is very heartening, and something we should not forget, is that the guardian council is listening to the will of the Iranian people.

        1. they’d damn well better listen, that this thing has legs. So some degree of change IS coming.  Just think we need to be careful of imagining a cuddly relationship with a Jeffersonian Democratic Iran any time soon. Lost in the past couple of news cycles is sufficient attention to the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanese elections.  Pretty clear that Obama IS responsible for at least SOME positive movement in relations with the Muslim world.

          1. and I don’t really think that is the issue.

            However, if it has better relations with the West, and is more responsive to the needs of its people, and less repressive, then theocracy or not that is a huge step.  I think this is what you’re getting at anyway.

            1. ….Iran had a democracy (1950), they nationalized the oil fields (ending BP’s long-held concession).  BP was able to get Ike to believe that, under the newly elected president,  Iran was a communist “domino” waiting to fall.  Ike sent in the CIA to orchstate an overthrow of the president and install the Shah. BP got some of their concession back, US oil companies got more. You probably know the story from there.

              1. I bet that the election stands, and policy changes only modestly.

                Protests might increase on the regime to renounce nuclear weapons if the the Iran Refined Petroleum Products Sanctions Act passes.

                1. .

                  does it commit US Forces to fight Likud’s battles in its quest for “Greater Israel,” if the Grand Ayatullah refuses to cede territory to Jerusalem ?

                  Like the Iraq Liberation Act, or the Syria Liberation Act, which, it turns out, had little to do with “Liberation ?”

                  .

                  1. It tells foriegn businesses that until Iran renounces it’s pursuit of a nuke that they Presdident has the power to make them  choose between doing business with the USA economy, or Iran’s.

                    It’s designed to increase social unrest in Iran to get the current regime to change it’s policy about nuclear weapons.

  2. This has to be worrisome for the regime. Because if they order the police in and the police refuse to go, then the revolution has succeeded.

    Because once they find out, it may be that they’ve lost, it can make the regime reticent to order the police in. And if they are afraid to do so, again, they’ve lost.

    from the NY Times

    For the first time, I saw traffic police smiling at the crowd. Even the black-clad elite riot police were impassive. “Raise your arms, raise your arms,” one man murmured to them.

    If the regime had hoped to quell Iran’s powerful democratic stirring with a massive show of force since last Friday’s vote, it failed to do so.

    For the first time, in that crowd, it seemed to me that the forces of change, the deeper Iran of civility and courage that I first encountered several months ago, might prevail. Seldom has silence been more eloquent or potent. […]

    Many women are trying quietly to bridge the chasm and avoid the worst. I’ve heard them whispering to the Basij and the police that “We are all Iranians,” urging them to hold back.

    And from someone in Iran

  3. The NY Times has had some of the best reporting in Iran. But the part I find myself returning to is The Lede and not their articles. There is a place for thoughtful analysis. And there is a place for big picture professional reporting.

    But I find getting all the grimy details myself, as it happens, a lot more interesting. And I may do a worse job than a reporter with 20 years experience pulling together what matters. But I prefer getting all the pieces myself.

    At the same time, the blog posts and immediate videos from the professional reporters are great. Some of the best pieces of information.

    Which leads me to the conclusion that the MSM has a future for reporters. But it may not have one for editors.

    1. as of Thursday morning:

      – The crackdown on telecommunications is starting to suffocate all of Iran. As of now:

      * Gmail and GTalk are shut down

      * Yahoo is shut down

      * AIM is most likely shut down

      * Phone lines are down

      * HTTPS and other such protocols are down

      * Iranian ISPs have been shut down

      * They are trying very hard to close down the Iranian connexion to twitter and giving proxies they control in order to track down people

      * Cellphones and SMS are shut down

      If this produces a sea change, look to other dictatorships to cancel modern telecommunications services.

      .

  4. are giving President Obama heat over not “doing more” to support the protesters.  That probably wouldn’t be a good idea, Iranians won’t view American intervention as a good thing.

    From Michael Totten

    Iran, though, isn’t Lebanon. And I’ve been privately advised by sources I trust very much – and who aren’t generally supportive of Obama’s approach to Iran – that caution from the White House is the right move at this point.

    All we can do is watch what’s going on and hope for the best result, whatever that turns out to be.

    1. Iran is extremely suspicious of the West in regards to their trade and their government. It’s not just the US that’s been poking them about human rights, trade, Iraq, etc. The EU countries have meddled about in Iran’s internal & trade affairs as well.

      If there’s even a HINT that the Reformists have Western help, they’re sunk. They’ll be mercilessly targeted by the Government forces, and the resulting crackdown will be seen as a defense against the “Godless Crusader Stooges.”

      It also has an effect with the rest of the Arab world – if the US & UK jump in and help the Reformists topple the current Iranian Government, The House of Saud is going to look quite dimly at the results. Giving their Reformist/Revolutionary citizens any ideas about revolt would sink our dysfunctional relationship with that dictatorship…and a resulting spike in Oil Prices, and drop in oil supply.

      The President and the Brit Prime Minister are doing the right thing…it sucks, but it’s the right thing.

      1. If this were happening with Cheney and Bush’s saber rattling and harsh rhetoric it would be easy for the establishment to turn the protesters into tools of the great American Satan. Even most of those who feel the election was stolen and want reform don’t want to have their internal affairs manipulated by the US.  That’s what crushed democracy and brought the Ayatollahs to power in the first place, after all.

    2. that are being lobbed at Obama are yet another lesson in the immaturity and cluelessness of that school of thought–as if the post-invasion shit show in Iraq wasn’t evidence enough.

      Everyone with a dose of common sense and some knowledge of the history of US-Iran relations will know that the official intervention of the US Government would completely undermine this uprising, legitimize Ahmadinejad’s & Khameini’s rule, and would give them cover to crank up a Tiananmen-scale repression.  

  5. from Robert Fisk – ABC News

    It was interesting that the special forces – who normally take the side of Ahmadinejad’s Basij militia – were there with clubs and sticks in their camouflage trousers and their purity white shirts and on this occasion the Iranian military kept them away from Mousavi’s men and women.

    In fact at one point, Mousavi’s supporters were shouting ‘thank you, thank you’ to the soldiers.

    One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi’s supporters, and said ‘can you protect us from the Basij?’ He said ‘with God’s help’.

    It was quite extraordinary because it looked as if the military authorities in Tehran have either taken a decision not to go on supporting the very brutal militia – which is always associated with the presidency here – or individual soldiers have made up their own mind that they’re tired of being associated with the kind of brutality that left seven dead yesterday – buried, by the way secretly by the police – and indeed the seven or eight students who were killed on the university campus 24 hours earlier.

    Quite a lot of policeman are beginning to smile towards the demonstrators of Mr Mousavi, who are insisting there must be a new election because Mr Ahmadinejad wasn’t really elected. Quite an extraordinary scene.



    You’ve got to realise that what’s happening at the moment is that the actual authorities are losing control of what’s happening on the streets and that’s very dangerous and damaging to them.

    It’s interesting that the actual government newspapers reported at one point that Sunday’s march was not provocative by the marchers. They carried a very powerful statement by the Chancellor of the Tehran University, condemning the police and Basij, who broke into university dormitories on Sunday night and killed seven students.

    They’ve even carried reports of the seven dead after the march on Sunday … almost as if, not to compromise but they’re trying to get a little bit closer to the other side.

  6. I share the excitement.  And I agree with much that has been offered.  I think Mousavi won’t be that different policy-wise.  My dream is that Khameni is replaced with a progressive, but I think that’s unlikely.  

    1. This is no longer in the control of anyone at the top, not even Mousavi. Different people have levels of influence, but this radically changes the game.

      I think the people will demand a change in the constitution to make it a true democracy. The supreme council may become their supreme court, but the ability to void laws is a lot less than running the country and selecting candidates.

      We have to wait and see how it plays out, but I think there will be much more change than Mousavi wants.

    2. He would ban the thugs of the Basij, for example, and favors more freedoms for the people.  However as far as the U.S. and Israel are concerned, still the Great and Little Satans.

      Sometimes you have to have a Gorbachev before you get to the Yeltsin.

  7. This was one of the more interesting items on my Twitter follow list today, courtesy of Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-MI:

    “Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.”

    1. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo

         ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil

         chrisbaskind @petehoekstra My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!

         aciolino @petehoekstra Today I poked my finger on a hanger. Now I know what all those aborted babies go through.

         ceedub7 @petehoekstra I got a splinter in my hand today. Felt just like Jesus getting nailed to the cross.

         netw3rk @petehoekstra Someone walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

         TahirDuckett @petehoekstra ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina

         paganmist @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like. #GOPfail

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