News from Iran? Good? Bad? Who knows?

[derspiess]

According to the BBC plain clothes militias have been authorised to use live ammunition at any demonstrations today.

First time I read that, I thought there were BBC plain clothes militia

Anywho, thank heavens Khameini has ordered an investigation.  I guess we can all rest easy now.

[Jos Theelen]

I can't follow a massacre via twitter. I do have my standards.

Too bad. You missed this one.

Tehran. Something pretty bloody awful happened at Univsersity last night. Students up there are chanting massacre.

[DontSayBanana]

Too bad. You missed this one.

Tehran. Something pretty bloody awful happened at Univsersity last night. Students up there are chanting massacre.

From a couple of snippets of things posted by Andrew Sullivan, it sounds like they put a university under siege, and the students fought back- one of the (a bit incoherent, admittedly) messages sounded as though students had actually managed to capture at least one member of the militia.

[DisturbedPervert]

Make no mistake everyone. We have no friends in Iran. Our enemies are fighting our enemies.

It's like the bedbugs in our sheets fighting the centipedes in our bathroom.

[KRonn]

This whole thing is, of course, pretty ugly as people are saying. I honestly don't know whether to believe that the vote was fixed, and there's info to support that. Or if the vote was legitimate, as there seems just as much info to support that also. What it seems to me is that there's a sizable number of people in Iran fed up and wanting change, but that the ruling powers continue to have the upper hand. I expect this latest round of outbreaks to be suppressed. But even at that, it's hard to say. I expect that Iran could fix elections; no idea if that's the case here. I'm trying not to assume that Iran's rulers go that far, while others seem to feel that's a normal occurrence. I do think the Religious leaders run things no matter the President, so it's not much a matter who the Pres is. Now with the Ayatollah calling for investigation into the voting, who knows where the truth is or what will come out of this. He could be doing that to help calm things down, give the impression that the government is genuinely looking into things. Or doing it to give that impression but with no real impact intended.

[jimmy olsen]

As of yet, no protest from the US government.

http://www.reuters.com/article/joeBiden/idUSLF593132

EU leads international pressure on Iran over vote
Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:36am EDT

By Mark John

LUXEMBOURG, June 15 (Reuters) - The European Union increased pressure on Iran on Monday to agree to opposition demands to investigate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election victory and halt a crackdown on protesters.

France, Germany and Britain led the EU campaign to persuade Iran to clarify the election result despite no sign of new pressure from the United States, their partner at talks intended to ensure Tehran does not develop nuclear weapons.

Defeated moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi has called for an investigation and wants the result of Friday's election annulled. Tens of thousands of his supporters gathered in Tehran on Monday after earlier protests over the outcome.

Iran's Guardian Council -- whose chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, endorsed Ahmadinejad before the vote -- said it would rule within 10 days on two official complaints it had received from Mousavi and another losing candidate, Mohsen Rezaie.

The council vets election candidates and must formally approve results for the outcome to stand.

"The German government believes the allegations of manipulation of the vote must be examined quickly by the responsible bodies to remove the doubts about this result," government spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters in Berlin.

"We are greatly concerned about what we see as an over-reaction by the security forces in cracking down on protesters, people who have the right to express their opinions."

Ahmadinejad and Interior Ministry officials have dismissed allegations the vote was rigged. The president has called the election "free and healthy".

But the outcome has alarmed Western powers trying to persuade the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter to curb nuclear work they suspect is intended to develop atomic weapons, a charge Iran denies.

"I asked today that the investigations demanded by the opposition be carried out," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters after talks with other EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

The ministers were expected to issue a joint appeal later on Monday for an investigation and express concern about the use of force against demonstrators.

"There are signs of irregularities," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin.

IMPACT ON NUCLEAR TALKS

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband made clear doubts about the fairness of the election could have an impact on talks on Iran's nuclear programme which involve France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China.

"Our serious concern is about the implications of recent events for the engagement the international community seeks with the government of Iran," Miliband said.

He regretted Iran had not responded to efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to break the deadlock over its nuclear programme, which include looking for ways for Washington to deal directly with Iran.

The United States has said it will not comment until it has been able to review the "whole process" and the authorities' reaction, although Vice-President Joe Biden has cast doubt on the outcome and said Tehran may be suppressing free speech.

"When it comes to Iran the United States have recently stuck their necks out and are being overly cautious," said Daniel Rackowski of the Transatlantic Institute in Brussels.

"The United States probably know they will have to work with Ahmadinejad and they will be the ones doing the bulk of the negotiations, not the European Union. So I think the European Union can be more critical whereas (U.S. Secretary of State Hillary) Clinton will actually have to work with them."

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has acted as mediator in the major powers' talks with Iran, said there had been few expectations of any major change in Iranian nuclear policy before the election, but the EU was still prepared to discuss the issue with Tehran.

"I hope very much that they will get engaged," he said. "I hope very much that at the end of the day the will of the people will be respected." (Additional reporting by Julien Toyer, Sarah Marsh and Timothy Heritage; writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

[DontSayBanana]

Now with the Ayatollah calling for investigation into the voting, who knows where the truth is or what will come out of this. He could be doing that to help calm things down, give the impression that the government is genuinely looking into things. Or doing it to give that impression but with no real impact intended.

I see three, really four, possibilities.

1) The vote was not rigged, pollsters got it wrong, the clerics see that the country will tear itself apart and are trying to get in the saddle to calm things. Really two options, as it could be innocuous or a collusion between Ahmadinejad's group and the clerics.
2) Ahmadinejad went over the clerics' heads and rigged the vote. The clerics would gain the support of moderates who are grateful to see "justice done." Rigged, non-interferential.
3) Mousavi's claims that the vote was rigged are a power play, the clerics will come back and get behind Ahmadinejad, and the country will seriously crack down on reform. Very not good as this would show an increase in power of the elites.

[alfred russel]

So whatever happens, I can only see this eviscerating any stomach for a significant military strike. If people believe there is an invigored opposition, the sanctions have to be a contributing factor, which shows they are having an effect. And a military strike by the west will almost certainly unite people behind their government.

[Oexmelin]

An editorial in the Washington Post makes a decent argument that the election was legitimate. 

Yet, the incredible shift of support from the last election to this one, where all other candidates other than Moussavi were wiped out and traditionnal bases of support of all candidates are twisted beyond recognition do hint at some form of caution. The voting pattern, which shows a constant ratio of support in favour of Ahmadinejad *regardless of regional variation* seem a bit strong to swallow, especially in Iran.

[jimmy olsen]

Thought this article was pretty interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-sedaei/48-hours-later-a-tipping_b_215440.html

48 Hours Later: A Tipping Point In Iranian Resistance
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Ever since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared himself the winner of the election by a wide margin, various groups have had different reactions. On one side are Ahmadinejad supporters who have been expressing themselves in the form of showing up at a victory rally on Sunday and beating up and even killing members of the opposition. Ahmadinejad also has the support of terrorist groups--HAMAS and Hezbollah--and dictators--Chavez and Bashar Al Assad--who immediately offered their own congratulations. On the other side are the much more numerous supporters of the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have understandably been outraged about the regime's set-up election and are protesting by the millions.

But there are a number of critical elements within the current crisis that indicate that the protests can no longer be dismissed as short-term reaction, but that the crisis has passed a critical tipping point that can have permanent ramifications on the continuation of the Islamic Republic in its current form:

1. Protests have entered their third day with the sustained intensity that is historically unmatched since the Iranian revolution. Over the past thirty years--and especially, the last four--there have been many protests, strikes and boycotts in Iran by different campaigns and individuals, including journalists, the One Million Signature Campaign, Tehran bus drivers union and student coalitions throughout the country. But never since the Islamic revolution in 1979 have different campaigns united throughout cities in Iran with such sustained force and intensity to continuously challenge the Iranian regime. Three days having passed since the beginning of the protests, people are showing that they're simply not getting back inside their homes this time.

2. Democracies throughout the world have been very hesitant to accept the result of the Iranian elections. Joe Biden said Sunday morning on Meet The Press that "numbers don't add up," and France and other European countries have expressed similar kinds of doubt and issued criticisms of the regime's brutal reaction to protestors. The Iranian regime is not going to have any legitimacy or claim on democracy if other democracies withhold their unconditional endorsement of election results. Endorsement by HAMAS and Hezbollah alone won't do.

3. For the first two decades since the revolution, the Iranian regime got most of its strength from unity, partially due to Khomeini's rule before his death and the country's eight year war with Iraq. But the election of Iran's first reformist president Mohammad Khatami in 1997 jump started the formation of factions within the regime's ranks and elites. Throughout the 2000s, reformists became a major force, and the conservatives divided up between pro-diplomacy capitalistic pragmatists like another former Iranian president, Rafsanjani, and religious zealots like Ahmadinejad.

The differences between these factions have surfaced in an extraordinary way over the recent election. Following Ahmadinejad's claim of victory, Mousavi was put under house arrest after calling for the cancellation of the results because of irregularities, a call he has made at least once more since. After Ahmadinejad's victory press conference on Sunday, another reformist opponent, Mehdi Karroubi, made an unusual statement when he said, "I am announcing again that the elections should not be allowed and the results have no legitimacy or social standing... Therefore, I do not consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the republic." As if that wasn't enough, the former head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and third candidate in this election, Mohsen Rezaei, also issued a statement, contesting the results of the election.

The notion of losing presidential candidates criticizing the results may not be such an extraordinary concept for Westerners, but it has tremendous significance within the context of the Iranian regime. In Iranian elections, all candidates who are qualified by the Islamic Guardian Council have been either from Ayatollah's Khomeini's original circle of confidants or the leadership ranks of the 1979 revolution. These individuals have always maintained a relatively unified appearance even during the elections and quickly came to rally around the winner after the election. But the current resistance on the part all three candidates shows a deep and permanent crack within the Iranian regime that demonstrates that it no longer speaks with one voice and acts with one hand.

4. But perhaps the most significant and extraordinary trend that hints at a fundamental change in the history and future of the Iranian regime is criticism of the all powerful Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The first major criticism of him was made by Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president and now head of Majles-e Khobregaan (Assembly of Experts), which has the power of appointing or removing the Supreme Leader. In response to Ahmadinejad's accusation during Iran's first televised debate that Rafsanjani was corrupt and the "puppet master" behind attacks against him, Rafsanjani wrote a letter to khamenei, showing outrage and demanding time on state run TV to defend himself. But in doing so, he made his first implicit criticism of Khamenei by saying, "If the system cannot or does not want to confront such ugly and sin-infected phenomena as insults, lies, and false allegations made in that debate, how can we consider ourselves followers of the sacred Islamic system?" He was talking about Khamenei.

What is important to note is that all the candidates who are contesting the results of the election are also opposing the Supreme Leader, because he has so far endorsed the results, twice. But an event that happened on Sunday and was even more unimaginable was for Ayatollah Mohajerani (the Former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance under President Khatami) to appear on BBC Persian (which is not even a legal channel in Iran) to say that Velayate Faghih (the cleric rule, and in this context, the Supreme Leader) can be replaced for dishonesty, implying that the Supreme Leader is being dishonest. That is the most blasphemous criticism that anyone has ever made against either one of the two Supreme Leaders since the revolution.

Finally, the Foundation for Democracy in Iran is reporting that Rafsanjani is in Qom to convene an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts, to debate the legitimacy of Khamenei's decision to certify the election results. These events not only show that khamenei's days may be numbered, but maybe so is the legitimacy of the position of Supreme Leader entirely.

These are unpredictable times in Iran, but what is already obvious is that the protests have gone far beyond expression of any kind of short term post election outrage and entered a new phase that poses a serious threat to the stability of the Islamic Republic in its current form.

[The Minsky Moment]

the army has declared neutrality.

Source me baby.

I believe it's a rumour at this point.  If it's true then that means the regime has only paramilitary forces left.  I believe the tipping point in 1979 was when the army declared neutrality, so if it were to happen it would be very major news.

The army means nothing anyway.  The Revolutionary Guards and the basij are what matters.  The clerics aren't stupid - they didn't make the same mistake as the Shah - they built their own private army that they control and that has as much to lose from the fall of the clerical regime as the clerics themselves.  If not more so.

Indeed, one explanation for what happened here is that the Revolution Guards went around the Supreme Leader and took the iniative to rig the election themselves.

[derspiess]

As of yet, no protest from the US government.

Best thing we can do is keep our mouths shut. 

[Valmy]

Best thing we can do is keep our mouths shut. 

Yep saying anything either pro or anti the Iranian government would be disastrous.

[The Brain]

The Iranians made their bed, I say let them eat it.

[jimmy olsen]

The Iranians made their bed, I say let them eat it.

What do you think their bed is made of?