Iranians may be ready to vote Ahmadinejad out of power

Looks like the gov't is getting pretty desperate - they are now photoshopping people into the pro-gov't rally pictures:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/17/743478/-Ahmadinejad-Rally-Photoshopped-to-Appear-Larger

 

Whoops - image didn't post properly:

 

Wow! Probably just wishful thinking, but I wonder what would happen if the assembly of experts 'impeached' the Supreme Leader.

from the NIAC blog:

[rquoter]
6:49 am: According to Nico (who apparently never sleeps), Rafsanjani called an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts. Reza Aslan went on CNN and said this:


<blockquote>There are very interesting things that are taking place right now. Some of my sources in Iran have told me that Ayatollah Rafsanjani, who is the head of the Assembly of Experts — the eighty-six member clerical body that decides who will be the next Supreme Leader, and is, by the way, the only group that is empowered to remove the Supreme Leader from power — that they have issued an emergency meeting in Qom.Now, Anderson, I have to tell you, there’s only one reason for the Assembly of Experts to meet at this point, and that is to actually talk about what to do about Khamenei. So, this is what I’m saying, is that we’re talking about the very legitimacy, the very foundation of the Islamic Republic is up in the air right now. It’s hard to say what this is going to go.</blockquote>

[/rquoter]

 

Iran’s Hidden Revolution
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/opinion/17pletka.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


JUST after Iran’s rigged elections last week, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets, it looked as if a new revolution was in the offing. Five days later, the uprising is little more than a symbolic protest, crushed by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile, the real revolution has gone unnoticed: the guard has effected a silent coup d’état.

The seeds of this coup were planted four years ago with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And while he has since disappointed his public, failing to deliver on promised economic and political reforms, his allies now control the country. In the most dramatic turnabout since the 1979 revolution, Iran has evolved from theocratic state to military dictatorship.

continued...

 

and Obama support Regime Continuation.

Pathetic.

 

i agree. that assertion is pathetic.

 

son have you been in war? have you seen what it can do, you keep stating that you were for it, I saw what mustard gas could do, and when you prolong the war even more, more deaths would be a result of it, unlike you, Saddam Hussein took away a lot from me, from my left eye to my brothers.

Saddam Hussein was already planing for a peace treaty, that alone was humiliating for any Arab proclaiming himself as the next Khalid, the sword of Allah. He was surrendering his territories to a Persian, and please take note, there was pamphlets being shown to us stating that Persians are one of three things that shouldnt exist, and just by signing this peace treaty he was already signifying that his forces, even though 5th biggest in the world, couldnt beat something that shouldnt exist.

Remember as well he was stating that this was the same as the battle of the Islamic forces against the Sassanids 2000 years ago but the outcome was different. he was willing to stand down and was already willing to pay for the expenses of the war, a good general knows that this was a battle of attrition and what you can get from it, you must. its a tactical decision, Iran kept attacking not because it wanted to humiliate Iraq, quite to the contrary, when I was there, they were telling us that we were going to get karbala back and this was more for Shia Islam than humiliation.

can you give me a link to the video you saw? because if this was about the celebration of the 2500 years of iran then you are gravely mistaken, its benefits are far better than the expenses garnered. it was a tourism ploy by the shah. the tourists doubled after that event, bazaars were full, airports were filled. if this is another video, then please do show me, I am an old man and I am not sophisticated with technology as you are.

secondly, if iran is better, why dont you move back there. its a nice place to live right?

I am nostalgic about my youth but please do remember iran was better during the shahs reign than right now. the economy was better, the exchange rate was better, employment was better, 30 percent less employment right now.

by the way, the shah wont come back I know that but what I am hoping for is a nationalistic government, we have a rich history even before the advent of islam, even before the conquest by umar and khalid. the time of jirsoft, cyrus the great, Mitradates, Sassanids, the Parthians, elamites and so on and so forth.

dont tell me you dont want a nationalistic government that promotes higher learning than something that promotes inequality between men and women.

 

Outside of snide comments what do you advocate Obama should be doing? Should we impose sanctions? Should we start bombing? Should we invade?

 

and I want to add, the person iran needs rather than a mullah is another Mohammed Mosaddeq, that man was amazing, he nationalist oil from the brits but the brits used operation ajax against him, his downfall wasnt because the people didnt want him, it was because Eisenhower and the british parlament didnt want iran to have a nationalist oil industry.

there was an article a friend made me read about hashemi getting 500 million dollars from selling oil to the french, can you link this. Ill try looking for this.

I hope we get a nationalistic government, pro iranian rather than pro religion.

 

watch and see, nothing might happen or at the very most, iran becomes more liberal than it is now, which is probably what will happen.

 

Praise be to Allah Obama doesn’t advocate bombing Iran to hell like yer boys Cheney and McCain.

 

I was going to ask you if you were alive during the time of Mossadeq and if so what you thought of things then.

 

Obama inspired the Iranian people. They saw what he did in the U.S. - and his motion to reach out to Iran and make peace...his Cairo speech, his entire campaign - made the world believe in democracy again.

Obama taught the world to be democratic again, and behold young basso - the Iranian people are rising up!

Sometimes a man doesn't have to speak when he has all the substance. Obama is the real thing, he's not George Bush. he doesn't need to pander to you or the out-of-power right wing - he's sitting back and watching this unfold and playing his cards perfectly.

You have been dupped basso, it's time for you to retire.

 

I'm curious do you, and other Iranian posters please weigh in too, think that Iran could become an Islamic Republic along the lines of Malaysia that still keeps Islam as a state religion but is open to foreign investment and pro-Western in its outlook?

Or do you think Iran could follow model like Pakistan as an Islamic Republic but organized as secular parliamentary state?

 

Imagine if they had their way and Iran was bombed, do you think the events today would be happening?

 

Including Obama I've heard one person say the support regime continuation in Iran. Making up claims out of the blue isn't very sound argument.

I could say that Bush supports scalping blonde children between 3 and 4 years of age. It would have as much merit as this pathetic claim you've made.

basso, please grow up.

 

I think we all know the answer to that.

 

Is Malaysia an Islamic republic? Ive lived there for awhile, seems quite open, beautiful country. quite westernize and they speak eloquently, they mix both tradition and religion beautifully, I believe they still have the sultans for their country.

I do not like mixing religion wtih politics, it doesnt make an open mind, only a small room for change, its almost like a straight line, they wont pass anything that goes against the statements given by the council nor the Quran.

 

basso loves getting owned. it's his thing

 

Robert Fisk reports on protests



The long-standing Middle East correspondent for The Independent, Robert Fisk, is defying the government crackdown on foreign media reporting in Iran.

As he explains, he has been travelling around the streets of Tehran all day and most of the night and things are far from quiet:

I've just been witnessing a confrontation, in dusk and into the night, between about 15,000 supporters of Ahmadinejad - supposedly the president of Iran - who are desperate to down the supporters of Mr Mousavi, who thinks he should be the president of Iran.

There were about 10,000 Mousavi men and women on the streets, with approximately 500 Iranian special forces, trying to keep them apart.

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.

There were a lot of stones thrown and quite a lot of bitter fighting, hand-to-hand but at the end of the day the special forces did keep them apart.

I haven't ever seen the Iranian security authorities behaving fairly before and it's quite impressive.


Protests

Certainly the authorities were very struck by the enormous number of people who turned out for Sunday's march ... from the Square of Revolution to the Square of Freedom.

I walked alongside that march the whole way and was stunned to find one million people at the end, it must have been one million at least.

There were seven killed after that instant alone so we're having a lot of deaths, much more than we realise, in fact some people say there are more deaths than have been recorded.

There was 100 metres of no man's land between these thousands of people and I actually walked up and listened to a Basij guy urging his people on to attack the forces of the opposition, saying 'we fought and defended our country in the Iran-Iraq war and now we have to defend it again and we have to move forward'. You could actually just walk a few metres and talk to Mousavi's people.

Some of them came down and tried to embrace the Basij and indeed the leaders who support the man who indeed thinks he is the president. One man, in the Muslim tradition, tried to kiss him on both cheeks and the Basij man moved back irritably and angry, he didn't want to be touched by this man.

There was a great deal of anger on the part of Ahmadinejad's supporters.


Safe to report

No-one's told me not to drive around so I go and see wounded people and go and watch these confrontations and no-one seems to bother me.

I rather think an awful lot of journalists take it too seriously. If you get in a car and go out and see things, no-one's going to stop you, frankly.

I went to the earlier demonstration in the centre of the city, which was solely by Ahmadinejad's people, immensely boring, although I did notice one or two points where they were shouting 'death to the traitor'. They meant Mousavi.

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.


Election result

My suspicion is that [Ahmadinejad] might have actually won the election but more like 52 or 53 per cent. It's possible that Mousavi got closer to 38 per cent.

But I think the Islamic republic's regime here wanted to humiliate the opponent and so fiddle the figures, even if Ahmadinejad had won.

The problem with that is they're now going to claim they're going to need a recount. If the recount is to actually give Mousavi the presidency, someone is going to have to pay the price for such an extraordinary fraud of claiming Ahmadinejad won 30, 40, 50 per cent more than he should have done.

You've got to remember as well, on the election night, if the count was correct it meant that they would have had to have counted five million votes in two hours.


Next few days

Someone, presumably the supreme leader, who is constitutionally the leader of all Iran and the clerical leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, he's going to have to work out a way of stopping these constant street confrontations.

We've got another great demonstration by the opposition tomorrow evening in the centre of the city. I suspect what they're going to have to do is think whether they can have a system where they reintroduce a prime ministership, so the president has someone underneath him.

Maybe we'd have President Ahmadinejad and a Prime Minister Mousavi or maybe a joint presidency.

All this is what people talk about but it means changing the constitution, it means having a referendum. They didn't believe that the opposition could be so strong and would keep on going.

[The protest] is absolutely not against the Islamic republic or the Islamic revolution.

It's clearly an Islamic protest against specifically the personality, the manner, the language of Ahmadinejad. They absolutely despise him but they do not hate or dislike the Islamic republic that they live in.