What is happening in Iran is not a Revolution. The election was not stolen, it's rigged from the beginning. Elections in dictatorships are a charade that is enacted for the benefit of Western Governments.
Of course if the leader is "elected" the bastard then is legitimate to do business with and to sit with in public events. The French can sell weapons, the Brits can get into oil deals, the Americans can sell all that stuff.
The Iranian elections start out rigged. People put their name to be elected and the Supreme Leaders disqualify those that are not acceptable. So, the ultimate candidates are part of the system. Watching Al Jazeera for five minutes, the ultimate joke of the election was obvious.
If you read one article on the election read Abbas Barzegar's article in the Comment Free section of the Guardian. His first hand observations make the points that so many Western observers totally miss.
1. Mousavi created a coalition of the urban bourgeoisie, students and merchants. His reach was never beyond Tehran, probably a section of Tehran.
2. The elections are pre rigged.
3. The people outside Tehran are deeply religious and Mousavi could not reach them cause he was identified with the bourgeoisie and the merchants.
- "On Monday night at least 100,000 of the former prime minister's supporters set up a human chain across Tehran. But, hours before I had attended a mass rally for the incumbent president that got little to no coverage in the western press because, on account of the crowds, he never made it inside the hall to give his speech. Minimal estimates from that gathering have been placed at 600,000 (enthusiasts say a million). From the roof I watched as the veiled women and bearded men of all ages poured like lava.
- But the failure to properly gauge Iran's affairs is hardly a new phenomenon. When the 1979 revolution shattered the military dictatorship of America's strongest ally in the region few experts outside of the country suspected that the Islamic current would emerge as the leading party.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Eden Simone
lorianne
Eck Cohen
Long Gone...
Keka
Carole Hallundbaek
Salon.com
Comments
I think it truly is wishful thinking combined with cultural myopia and political naivete.
I just remember how surprised we were in 1979, I truly thought the lefties were gonna make the revolution in Iran, but they were clipped by the Shah and then by the Ayatollahs, now we are hoping for something when we still don't understand.
"now we are hoping for something when we still don't understand."
In a short statement, you've said more than what most people will ever understand.
People have been screwing around in other cultures since we discovered there were other people on the planet, but the culture of the middle east is not for us to toy with. Oh, but I forgot. Oil is there for the taking to support our strategic concept of devine rule.
In a way, it's fascinating to see western governments screw up everything they touch because they have such a myopic view of the world. But, unfortunately, the blowback in the case of the middle east is what the world's people get to live with, while the morons in government walk away, washing their hands of the mess, to build their libraries filled with their spurious successes.
That said, I really really really don't want a US revolution in my lifetime. I don't know what I want, but it's not this passive, 'unable to get a female elected even though we are 1/2 the population, unable to get married, unable to get health insurance due to taking antidepressants', and it's not taking to the streets and rioting. I want to be heard I guess- my perspective, my hopes and fears. I think that is why I'm here at all Stella adding my voice to the mix. I want to be represented in the idea of American, in the voices of America.
But a guess that this was essentially a reasonably fair election is NOT far fetched either.
For all anybody here knows…if the United Nations had been monitoring the election from beginning to end…and if every candidate who declared for election had been allowed to run…the result may very well have been identical to what occurred.
If anyone had ever told me that George Bush could be elected in our country…and then re-elected after what he did during his first four years…I’da thought they were crazy.
Weird shit happens in elections, Stella.
You really have not factored that into this equation.
The election in Iran MAY have been fairer than (or at least, as fair as) one of the last two elections in this country!!!!
It is of course rigged in the sense that they planned on shutting down protests clearly in advance.
This is not a good sign I think because the party of war is now clearly in charge.
The question is how does Great Power Politics play out here.
Iran has Russia and China behind it, and the U.S. is weak and pressuring Israel, which has a Russian born foreign minister: risky.
denese
I also met a young woman from Iran in the late 80s who lived in hiding ever since the revolution. Her family was hunted by death squads and they felt compelled to live secretly a world away.
It is clear the vote was rigged from before the election. Reports from Tehran suggest that even government insiders are saying so. It may be that regimes like that of the ayatollahs like to indulge the charade of democratic legitimacy for western audiences, in order to empower themselves to rule with greater impunity... or it may be that they too have read Machiavelli. The Iranian revolutionary constitution specifies that the power of the revolution is in the people: whether they are true to that principle or not is another story, and I think it's probably in everyone's interest that they feel pressured to try to demonstrate democratic legitimacy.
We have also learned a few things from this election: 1) we know that the ayatollahs are afraid of text messaging; it has been shut down for days... 2) we know that they would rather see their chosen candidate beat a reformist than their version of the Washington Generals... 3) we know that Ahmedinejad is far weaker than he wants anyone to believe, that he is basically a puppet of Khamene'i, and that tens of millions of Iranians detest him and are ashamed of him.
True, the western press would rather talk about the promise of Mousavi, something new, than the same tired garbage we already know about Ahmedinejad. But that doesn't mean they're filtering out important facts. The "estimate" for the Ahmedinejad crowd was an official estimate. In anti-government demonstrations the world over, police estimates are usually 60% to 90% lower than organizers' estimates. In pro-government rallies, we can expect the converse.
The truth is, we have no idea how many people attended that rally, because the truth is obscured by official manipulations. What's more, we have no idea how many people were coerced into attending, or brought there by some means other than their affinity for Ahmedinejad.
Whatever the case, the big news out of Iran is not that the vote was rigged. That's the sad news, but not unexpected. The big news is that there is a very vocal opposition, willing to call the president a failure and a traitor, willing to condemn him for undermining the republic, and willing to confront security forces in the streets.
That is new. We haven't seen anything on this scale since 1979. It's not a new revolution, but it's a clear warning to the establishment that things need to change.
If you read the linked article I do think the support for Moussavi may have been exuberant Twittering.
Of course the Western press if filtering facts, they did not go into the areas outside Tehran, they stayed within the comfort of the Iranians who were engaged in blogging etc.
I think it's the same mistake they made when they thought Kerry was gonna win.
The vocal opposition will not go anywhere if it does not link up with the people that they traditionally help to repress. The merchants, bourgeoisie and students cannot do it alone. This is what the western press missed, that the people who fuel Revolutions were not approached or invited.
I think it's fair to guess that this might very well be the beginning of a process that will eventually lead to another revolution when conditions are ripe enough. But without the groundwork being laid, it might never happen at all.
And no, that's not much different from the US.
Meanwhile over here, in North America, it's the opposite. We have far fewer young people. So political change is a very slow and unlikely thing. This situation alone rigs our system in so many ways.
Whatever happens, the next decade in the Middle East is going to be riveting news. I hope we get it right.
We will see in the next few weeks.
The Western press vastly overestimates the strength of the bourgoisie in Tehran and vastly underestimates the electoral strength of the rural "red state" areas of Iran. While it seems very likely that there was some vote rigging in areas where Moussavi would be expected to do well, it is probably safe to assume that Ahmadinejad did win a majority of votes.
The repression of the students and middle class will have adverse effects on Iran in the next four years, as Ahmadinejad has pursued disasterous economic policies that are not expected to improve for some time. His strength comes from the fact that he amply rewarded the rural areas with cash and development projects. But his problems are like Venezuela in that they are tied to the world price of oil. Ahmadinejad's personal takeover of the Iranian Central Bank will create chaotic conditions in his next term, and the unrest in Iran now is like the unrest (in some respects) of the period before the Shah was overthrown.
Iran is tightening the vice around its own neck economically speaking, and this may make it actually easier to deal with in its negotiations with the USA.
True, every candidate is approved by the Guardian Council, and this makes it a charade from the get-go, but if the candidate chosen by the people actually takes office, and like Mousavi is something of a rival to Khamene'i, at least in the 1980s they had their disagreements, that's something.
Also, what we're seeing in Tehran is young people who are standing up to heavily armed security forces, and I think that when this is done against an authoritarian regime, it's not for us to criticize the unarmed demonstrators as less than real or less than significant. There are people there with the courage to speak up, and that is meaningful.
One can only hope the crackdown doesn't get uglier.
JE: In the next few days it will be telling. The reports were that Mousavi was arrested, now it looks like he is at the demonstration. State television reported that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the election result, urged the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" the complaints. A spokesman for the 12-member council said they would meet Mr Mousavi and Mr Rezai on Tuesday. They are expected to decide on the complaints by next week. Dozens of opposition activists have been arrested since the protests began, while internet sites appear to have been blocked and the media heavily restricted.
By the way, his name, is actually Ahmadi Nejad. It's not one word, in reading some of the tweets and articles from those parts, they kep talking about Nejad, and finally figured out who they were talking about.
I have known some of those middle class Iranians who are well-educated, pro-west and cultured, but hide those inclinations or move away. The fact that the intelligentsia might be breaking that wall of silent disagreement with the government is an important event, no matter what the outcome. That they found their candidate to activate behind from the rosters of approved candidates... well, isn't that what we did with Obama? Have we gotten the change we wanted? No. But change did happen.
http://tinyurl.com/lchblx
it's incorrect to claim that Moussavi couldn't "reach" anyone outside Tehran: there have been protests in smaller cities since the election too, and polls outside Tehran before the election certainly showed him doing better than the 64/33 election "results".
while it's apparently fun to manufacture opportunities to criticize the US, being sloppy diminishes the trustworthiness of your posts: the US is not selling arms to Iran like the French, nor making oil deals like the British.
The US has not taken a position yet. I did not say the US is selling to Iran, it was a comment, not specific to Iran, but to the middle east and how elections are treated by the west. I was speaking about elections in dictatorships and other governments in the middle east. Yes, the Saudis with their public beheadings are truly a bastion of human and democratic values.
So, sorry that it was not clear.
No offense to a local boy, but that's nonsense. The man is Azeri and very popular among his people. That alone gives him reach beyond Tehran. To say otherwise is to ignore facts.
Further, all I read indicates that it's not just Tehran. An urban and not rural thang, yes, but there are other cities with bourgeoisie in them.
just some thoughts to add to the mix...
Of course it was rigged, Khamenei had pretty much admitted it before the election when he said openly to Ahmedinejad, "It's necessary for our strategy that you be president for another term." And if you ask pretty much any Iranian, they will tell you that elections mean very little. Except that this time, to millions of people, they do - because there are so many people who are sick of this regime and this seems to be the straw that has broken the camel's back for them. As another poster commented, this is huge stuff because Iran has not seen protests like these since 1979 - people were simply too afraid.
I think you oversimplify a bit however, when you divide Iran into "Tehran" and "outside Tehran." Ethnic groups are another very important factor there. I have many friends from Urumiyeh, in the Turkish area, they are all convinced that it's fraud. They told me that when Ahmedinejad went there to speak, people were forced to attend the rally under threat of losing their jobs, and they brought bus/planeloads of people from other areas. If they'd claimed a narrower margin it migh have been believable (why are so many in the west so reluctant to admit that it's fraudulent?!), but to claim 60% for Ahmedinejad in Turkish cities like Urumiyeh and Tabriz that were overwhelmingly in support of Mousavi (he's from Tabriz) is simply beyond any kind of logic. This is an indication of something beyond simply rigging the elections; but of an unexpected surge in support to Mousavi and a last-minute fraud job, executed poorly and in haste.
What I am seeing is a clash of two factions trying to convince the Supreme Leadership to change their opinion on election results.
As a reminder all our friends that are Iranian, they are 99% not the Iranians that voted or supported Ahmadi Nejad. Most likely they have great insight and information, but by their class they do not have the same perspective.
What my point was when initially posted, I don't think things are as clear cut as we think they are. Good thing Obama administration is sitting quiet, they have to see the results, cause they will have to talk.
My own feeling is that though it was the elections that sparked the protests, it goes much father than simply whether Mousavi actually won or not; there is so much anger that people have been unable to express publicly for decades. There actually have been lots of small incidents around the country but they are never reported on in the Iranian media; they mostly get out in cellphones and then are loaded onto YouTube. In one, there was a student at Shiraz University who stood up in the middle of an assembly and shouted at the imams there, "I hate this sham of a government, you hypocrites, and this mockery of Islam." The place was in an uproar, and my friends who watched it said basically, "that guy's finished, he won't even be able to go back to his own family because they'll be terrified to be associated with him. His only choice now is to flee the country if he can."
When I hear people talking about the situation now, I'm reminded somewhat of discussion following the destruction of the Berlin Wall. There was the question, "people have been sick of their situation for years and years but they'd done nothing, so why now?" The answer was that it got to the point where people were no longer afraid.
It reminds me of an incident one friend related to me: On a bus one day (in which women sit in the back and men in the front), the woman's section was full but there were seats in the front. An older woman sat in the men's section, and was told "you can't sit here." "Why?" she demanded. "This is the men's section." "Men? There are no men here." she said. "What do you mean, 'there are no men here?'" "If there were men in Iran," she answered, "we wouldn't be in this situation."
For me, I would not support either guy. Mousavi was an original Khomeni guy and was Prime Minister and held other posts, I don't get how he has become the model of reform. He was approved by the Council how could he be a reformist?
Well, I was thinking yesterday that it could end up like Berlin, but these guys have over 200,000 secret police with guns and power to do what the police cannot do. Basically, thugs with the blessing of the Ayatollahs.
At this point I cannot tell what is the movement, what are outside interests and who is saying what.
Iranian politics, a combination of theocracy, oligarchy, and parliamentary coalition are endlessly fascinating and almost always impossible for Americans to grasp.
The Asia Times and Glenn Greenwald point out that Mousavi (the reformer?) was part of the Iran-Contra deal to get Hezbollah to release U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and that he is as hardline as anyone in Iran's politics.
The interesting references to the "hand behind the throne behind the throne", the extremely wealthy Rafsanjani are very intriguing. The idea that the mullahs wanted this sort of confusion is interesting too.
My heart swells to see people in the streets protesting in such great numbers...but it will make absolutely no difference unless the "ruling council" allows it or itself is overthrown.
Mass movements these days have a tendency to gather a storm and then to fizzle, that is why I am not joining the exuberance.
In reference to the your initial commentary on the U.S. MSM, I have to say that I am beyond irritated with the callow level of reportage on CNN today. I realize that Foreign press corps are being expelled, restricted and limited in their abilities, but that never excuses the poor choice of "talking head experts" they tend to gravitate to in order to make "sense" of things.
They still have this cast as a "right" and "wrong"...good or bad situation. The layers of the Iranian onion are so difficult for westerners to grasp.
I remember watching the mullahs being discounted in '78-'79 as a teenager and the belief that leftists would be in charge post-rev. That came abruptly to a halt as those "leftists" began to don Islamic garb or disappear in the aftermath of Khomeini's return and the American hostage taking. We still had it cast in terms of our previous misadventure of '53 vis-a-vis the Cold War ethos.
I often think it would be a very interesting piece of speculative fiction to address the conjecture of a Mossadegh regime in triumph in '53. He's probably the last purely secular leader who has been able to gather mass support.
The Iranian identity with it's deep pride in its non-Arab/Shi'a and even Zoroastrian roots (No Ruz could NOT be wiped out as a holiday even by the mullahs!) is one that we seem not to understand.
A very important work concerning Iranian society is entitled "Gharbzadegi" by Jalal Al-e Ahmad. Written in the 1960's...it is an extremely influential idea and work. The title is variously translated as "west-struckness", "Occidentosis" or "Westitis" conjectures that Western culture is a plague upon the earth.
Though this is certainly not as influential an idea as it once was, its underlying prevalence is found in the fierce rhetoric in favor of Iranian nuclear development, for example.
OOPs...I am so sorry to have hijacked your blog on this comment...I will have to post some on my own, huh? Thanks for this anyway. Keep watching, it will be anything but dull!
I cannot tell you how much I agree with the "good" vs. "bad" narratives. I think the mediums do not help in that respect. It's almost as if people are watching a football match. The layers are complex and each time the west tries to impose it's narrative, they screw things up.
Man, you should be talking on those broadcasts. No one wants to expose people to complexity and the discomfort of complexity, we want easy and simple world views.