Update [2009-6-13 21:12:19 by Steven D]: Roger Cohen has a video report from a rooftop in Tehran which can be viewed at this link. The video shows black clothed police beating protesters, among other things, including still pictures, all to Cohen;s voice narration. You can also see Cohen himself taping the report while standing on a Tehran rooftop, a place he claims was chosen because he would not have been permitted to tape his report from the streets of Tehran.
Also, Al Jazeeera’s reporter on the scene had this to say about the street protests in Tehran earlier today:
Al Jazeera’s Teymoor Nabili, reporting from Tehran, said major streets in the north of the city had come to a standstill.
“Coming up the street there were running battles happening between riot police and students and there were refuse bins alight in the middle of the road,” he said.
“I saw riot police hitting students with sticks. I saw students – or young people – throwing stones at the riot police, trying to knock them off their motorcycles.
“But you didn’t get a sense that there was any kind of organised movement in this.”
* * *
To the extent that reports are coming out of Iran regarding the election controversy, the indications are of great civil unrest in several cities (clashes between protesters and riot police) and also of alleged arrests of opposition political figures. I refer you to this story at The Huffington Post by Nico Pitney who has been attempting to follow post election developments despite the news blackout imposed by the government.
The highlights:
6:24 PM ET — More house arrest reports. The National Iranian American Council notes reports that Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has been placed under house arrest, as well as another of the four presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi, and Karroubi’s campaign manager (and former Tehran mayor) Gholamhossein Karbaschi.
6:12 PM ET … From a reader: ” My next door neighbor is an Iranian immigrant who came here in 1977. He just received a SAT phone call from his brother in Tehran who reports that the rooftops of nighttime Tehran are filled with people shouting ‘Allah O Akbar’ in protest of the government and election results….”
5:53 PM ET — Report: Khatami’s brother arrested. [Note: Khatami was the former President
Ahmadinejehad defeated in 2005who supported Mousavi] The excellent National Iranian American Council, which I’ve cited several times today, offers some new translations of Twitter messages coming out of Iran. […]“Seyed Mohamad Khatami has not been arrested, but his brother Mohammad Reza Khatami and (his wife) Zahra Esraghi have been”
“[Tehran Univ. political scientist] Ahmad Ziadabadi and [prominent political blogger] Saeed Shariati have been arrested”
[…]
4:15 PM ET — A reader gets a message from his cousin in Tehran: “Please share this message on Facebook or share it in a way for us to be heard: Tehran-9:50pm: We don’t have text message, cellphone network, Facebook, youTube, Twitter and lots of other websites. BBC PERSIA is gone also on HOTBIRD. 3 reformist newspapers are banned (I can’t check the names I’ve just heard and everything is blocked on internet) If anyone can, help me share the news. They have cut us off from the world.” […]
3:41 PM ET — Potentially stunning development. The National Iranian American Council links to a Farsi language story saying the President of the Committee of Election Monitoring has requested that the election be canceled. [
Hojjat-ol-Eslam Yali Akbar MohteshamiPour officially requested that the Guardian Council to cancel this election and schedule a new election balanced and moderated democratically with the widespread and national presence of the people.
Nico Pitney’s report also includes excerpts from a Wall Street Journal report, and videos of street protests and violence occuring in Tehran and Shiraz, including video of buses set ablaze in Tehran.
Alleged Tehran video:
Alleged Shiraz video
A former Iranian Foreign Minister, Ibrahim Yazdi, in an interview with The Nation’s Robert Dreyfusshas described what’s occurring as a coup and the creation of a dictatorship. Whatever is happening, it certainly sounds like a very chaotic and rapidly evolving situation.
Here’s long time and respected Middle Eastern correspondent, Robert Fisk, writing for The Independent:
First the cop screamed abuse at Mir Hossein Mousavi’s supporter, a white-shirted youth with a straggling beard and unkempt hair. Then he smashed his baton into the young man’s face. Then he kicked him viciously in the testicles. It was the same all the way down to Vali Asr Square. Riot police in black rubber body armour and black helmets and black riot sticks, most on foot but followed by a flying column of security men, all on brand new, bright red Honda motorcycles, tearing into the shrieking youths – hundreds of them, running for their lives. They did not accept the results of Iran’s presidential elections. They did not believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won 62.6 per cent of the votes. And they paid the price.
“Death to the dictator,” they were crying on Dr Fatimi Street, now thousands of them shouting abuse at the police. […]
. . . That Mir Hossein Mousavi had been awarded a mere 33 per cent of the votes – by midday, the figure was humiliatingly brought down to 32.26 per cent – brought forth the inevitable claims of massive electoral fraud and vote-rigging. Or, as the crowd round Fatimi Square chorused as they danced in a circle in the street: “Zionist Ahmadinejad – cheating at exams.” That’s when I noticed that the police always treated the protesters in the same way. Head and testicles. It was an easy message to understand. A smash in the face, a kick in the balls . . .
Back on the streets, there were now worse scenes. The cops had dismounted from their bikes and were breaking up paving stones to hurl at the protesters, many of them now riding their own motorbikes between the rows of police. I saw one immensely tall man – dressed Batman-style in black rubber arm protectors and shin pads, smashing up paving stones with his baton, breaking them with his boots and chucking them pell mell at the Mousavi men. A middle-aged woman walked up to him – the women were braver in confronting the police than the men yesterday – and shouted an obvious question: “Why are you breaking up the pavements of our city?” The policeman raised his baton to strike the woman but an officer ran across the road and stood between them. “You must never hit a woman,” he said. Praise where praise is due, even in a riot. […]
Last night, all SMS calls were blocked. The Iranian news agency announced that, since there would be no second round of elections, there would be no extension of visas for foreign journalists – one can well see why – and so many of the people who were praised by the government for their patriotism in voting on Friday were assaulted by their own government on Saturday.
It sounds like a nightmare is being played out in real life in Iran right now.
(I just posted this further down as a comment to Steven’s earlier post, but since it is pertinent and throws some cold water on the emerging fiery narrative, I am reposting it here).
German speakers could do worse than read this post-election interview that Iran specialist Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council, gave to Spiegel Online today.
He states that he fully expected Ahmedinejad’s victory and then goes on to accuse the Western media of wishful thinking and wishful reporting. He too sees Ahmedinejad as the clear winner of the television debate with Moussavi.
On the actual election result he has this to say: “I myself am a little surprised that the result is so clear-cut. But basically this merely convinces me that the election overall went down fairly. Look at the irregularities Moussavi points to: that in some precincts there weren’t enough ballots, that some precincts weren’t open long enough. All this can’t really change the outcome of the election.If one compares this with the irregularities of the US presidential election in 2000 in Florida, it seems hardly serious.“
There is more on the repercussions of the election (and I am too lazy to translate it all) but Leverett’s bottom line is: Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is non-negotiable for the regime as a whole and that includes all the presidential candidates. He closes by stating one more time that in his opinion people in the West who believe that Ahmedinejad didn’t have the necessary support to win this election under normal circumstances are wrong.
That’s all well and good, but this is a post regarding the current protests and the violent response by government forces against the political opposition which is alleged to be occurring, and for which there is certainly some evidence, both visual and eyewitness reports. If the result was legitimate, why does the government feel the need to react so violently? Why has telephone service been shut down? I respect Leverett, but he is not on the scene, and all he is offering is his opinion about the election result. He didn’t monitor the election personally.
How do you think the US authorities would have reacted to unauthorized demonstrations, burning tires and vandalism in response to the reelection of Bush in 2004?
I’m sure they would have cut off all communication by telephone with the outside world, blocked websites and placed opposition leaders under house arrest.
Give me a break please. Even Bush would not have done what is happening in Iran. Cheney, maybe, but not Bush.*
*That’s a joke about Cheney.
Are you actually apologizing for these thugs with batons that are defending a theocratic regime that just jacked up every liberal impulse in the country by beating the crap out of civilians?
You must have been a Nixon man the day Kent State went down.
As I said before, it remains to be seen what is actually going down there. In the meantime, if you feel like revelling in the Western media narrative, knock yourself out (whilst preferably avoiding that eye).
Here’s some more western media for you.
Also read the Fisk article. He states that the majority of the violence was initiated by the police and government forces.
I would also add that I trust Robert Fisk’s reporting, and he is on the scene. I believe that there are legitimate reasons to suggest the election results were rigged heavily in Ahmadinejehad’s favor. Might he have won anyway? We may never know, but reports that the President of the Committee of Election Monitoring has allegedly requested the Guardian Council to conduct new elections is telling, if true.
Robert Fisk is marvelous on everything except Lebanon, where personal loyalties tend to get in his way badly.
I believe that there are legitimate reasons to suggest the election results were rigged heavily in Ahmadinejehad’s favor.“
Check out what I quoted just a minute ago from Shiva Balaghi,
From a report by Shiva Balaghi, an editor at MERIP who has been compiling information on the outcome of the elections from news sources, youtube videos, facebook, and emails from colleagues in Iran.
“The Ministry of Interior is charged with overseeing the election process. Last night, according to news reports, several officials of that ministry protested the way election results were being announced; however, links to these Iranian press reports were blocked on the internet. Even a cursory review of election figures released by the Ministry of Interior gives pause. There is a perfect linear relationship between votes for Ahmadinjead and those for Mousavi–who seems to have received half as many votes as Ahmadinejad in every precinct across the country. As Tehran Bureau, a clearing house for information, reports, ‘Statistically and mathematically, it is impossible to maintain such perfect linear relations between the votes of any two candidates in any election — and at all stages of vote counting. This is particularly true about Iran, a large country with a variety of ethnic groups who usually vote for a candidate who is ethnically one of their own.‘“
The whole report is available at Mondoweiss.
Caution on that linearity argument. Nate looked a version of it and found it wanting. However, if it is true that precinct level data shows that, it would change Nate’s analysis.
Thanks, BooMan. I sounded pretty convincing to me, but Nate is pretty much THE authority on these things.
wiki
I’ll correct that.
ergo?
My editorial note above regarding that Khatami had been defeated by Ahmadinejehad in 2005 was incorrect. That was my error caused by my faulty memory. It was not included in Pitney’s reporting.
Interesting times.
Indeed.
We should be careful about what information that we take as truth until there is better confirmation. Communication in Iran is shut down; transportation is apparently difficult. Which means that the stories that we are getting might very well come only from the part of Tehran that was Mousavi’s base. The folks who have relatives in the West or the folks who can speak English.
That said, there is apparently a shift in power going on. One can now question whether Khamanei is the one running the show. At the very least it looks like Ahmedinejad and the Revolutionary Guards consolidating power over what was a clerical civilian government. If that is true, the 1979 Islamic Revolutionary regime is over and a regime more like Egypt and Syria might be consolidating power. Which means that the military will decide the future–unless so many people go into the street who are related to people in the military that the military refuses orders to suppress the people. Right now, I don’t see massive popular revolution; the few pictures that have come out are more reminiscent of Chicago in 1968.
And I thought that the “Obama effect” meme was arrogant, overblown, and really not terribly helpful to this election. I know that it was the US media, not the Obama administration that encouraged this reading.
The best policy for the US right now is to express our concern with the election process (as the Canadians have done) and then shut up. Any helpful responses will not come from posturing. And Gibbs should ask the media to shut up too with any posturing that they might be doing. Of course those who want to start another war won’t, but he should ask nonetheless.
I refer you to my update for further on the scene video reporting from the New York Times’ Roger Cohen, and the statement of Al Jazeera’s reporter in Tehran.
What I see in Roger Cohen’s piece is swarms of cops (not that different from Chicago 1968), riot police swinging nightsticks, and mostly young and disorganized men and a few women facing down the police.
And there is not identification of where in Tehran the pictures were taken nor any indication of how widespread these incidents were. The adults are still intimidated (except for a couple-three of them). Not a good sign for gaining change. When thousands of mothers and grandmothers take to the streets in the face of this suppression, then you know something has changed. Not that this can’t happen in the next few days.
“a regime more like Egypt and Syria might be consolidating power. Which means that the military will decide the future“
How would a regime of Ahmadinajad and the Revolutionary Guard be like Syria? Syria is run by a very well established many-decades-old political party with a very specific political, economic, and social ideology that includes secularism and pluralism. The head of the government is a member of a religious minority who had established his life in the west before the death of his brother put him in line for the presidency, and is socially quite western and progressive. He is interested in opening Syria up to the West if only the West would talk to him, and has made numerous overtures to Israel as well. He is reasonable, rational, articulate, and not prone to spouting speech that can easily be used to demonize him. His wife is considered one of the most stylish women in the world. Syria is not a military dictatorship. The military answers to the government, it does not run it in any way or determine policy.
I’m also not sure how Ahmadinajad and the Revolutionary Guard might form a regime similar to Egypt’s. Please explain.
“I thought that the ‘Obama effect’ meme was arrogant, overblown, and really not terribly helpful to this election.“
It was also delusional, and patronizing – typical American imperial hubris. Yaaaay! Obama won the Lebanese election, and he’s gonna win the Iranian election next! Puleeeeeeeze! As if the Lebanese and the Iranians are such simple peasants that all it takes is some nice talky-talk from an American President and they will forget their own interests and elect the government that will best serve the interests of the USA.
I, too, seriously doubt that the Obama administration instigated this nonsense. A Bush administration would have crowed it from the rooftops, but not Obama.
I think the best policy for the US right now is to just shut up and tell the media to do the same. There really is nothing they can say at this stage that will help.
on our hands.
Twice.
It looks, to me at this point in time, that there really is widespread civil unrest in Iran caused by the reactions of voters to the election results. Just because the Western media is reporting what’s happening doesn’t invalidate the reports, especially since other non-western outlets are sending out the same reports.
If, indeed, what we’re being told is what is actually happening, it seems to me that the Iranian theocracy made the mistake of ignoring the Obama phenomenon. If Bush-Cheney were still running things, the regime could probably have gotten away with blatantly rigging the election since Iranians, even though they might have hated the theocrats, would likely have swallowed their opposition in the face of a belligerent U.S.
But the U.S. is not belligerent any more. And I would wager the whole calculus of the West’s relationship with Iran, at least as perceived by the Iranian people, has changed because of that perception. The “Us against the world” thing doesn’t work if the world is not perceived as a threat. For whatever reason, Obama seems to have really struck a chord with folks in the Middle East, even the Persians. And that may have led a larger percentage of the Iranian people to decide they’d had enough with the theocrats.
Right now, it’s all conjecture. If the theocrats are able to quickly crush the opposition, they will have won another round. But even then I suspect change is coming whether the theocrats want it or not; it’s just a matter of time because with no threat from the U.S. to hang over the heads of the people, fear is not going to work as a way to repress their own people going forward.
“the Iranian theocracy made the mistake of ignoring the Obama phenomenon.“
So not only did Obama win the Lebanese election for America, he is the reason the Iranian people are rioting in the streets now? Puleeeeeeze! Most of what people in the Middle East do is completely independent of the United States. To assume that this is happening because of Obama is arrogant westernism in the extreme.
yes and no.
it would be retarded to argue that the people in the streets in Iran are there because of Obama. They’re there because they want change, thought they achieved it, and got an even more repressed reality. Raw Deal.
But, Obama and even Bush (economic terrorism, essentially) helped create conditions unfavorable for the incumbent. You are always arguing about America’s imperialism and outsized influence. Well…those things to have an effect.
Yes, America’s self-serving meddling and manipulation do have an effect, I agree. Otherwise I would not bother to expend the energy to oppose them. What I was objecting to was the suggestion that Obama, and especially his speech, has caused people in the Middle East to make choices that favour American interests, and that the reaction to this election is all about Obama.
And by the way, I don’t think people in Iran are all that confident just yet that the American threat is over just because Obama has made some conciliatory noises.
It seems within reason to think that if Iranians were persuaded that the US had become less of an immediate threat, they would be more willing to resist the paranoid security state at home. It also seems reasonable that Obama’s rise to power did in fact make the US look less reckless and hostile. You can see that as a stupid notion, but by all accounts it does reflect a preponderance of worldwide opinion. It’s not about choosing to advance American interests by Iranians, it’s about feeling less in need of protection.
Bush was the best weapon the security-state regimes had, just as al Qaida and the theocrat/authoritarian regimes are the American military/corporate complex’s best weapon. Obama is, at worst, still a question mark.
Absent any actual evidence that is nothing but self-congratulatory, self-referential speculation. It depends on a number of assumptions for which there is no support in reality, and there are other fair more direct explanations that make a great deal more sense in a real-world way.
A preponderance of world-wide opinion? That and $3 will get you a Starbuck’s latte (except in Dubai where they cost $8). In any case, who says it is a preponderance of worldwide opinion? Can you cite a study?
Until Friday, Ahmadinejad was a politician. What he said and didn’t say was calculated to make him electable, or not to harm his electability. He must have felt that bellicose statements were helpful to him politically, which means there must have been an audience for that kind of talk. But it doesn’t work just that way.
Sometimes a politician actually molds or creates desires from the electorate. Bush talked incessantly about the dangers we face. His government issued terrifying warnings. This created or at least cultivated a post-9/11 desire for safety and revenge. A different president with a different tone could have defused those impulses.
So, I believe it does matter what politicians say. And if Bush is threatening Iran it bolsters the authoritarians in Iran just as surely as al-Zawahiri threatening me bolsters my desire for safety and revenge and makes me more willing to see them in an authoritarian leader.
This was, again, a not insignificant part of the presidential debate in Iran. Were Ahmadinejad’s pronouncements making Iran less safe and hurting the economy? Or, was he standing up to the Great Satan and keeping Iran safe?
Is isn’t far-fetched at all to think a change in tone from America could undermine one side of that argument while bolstering the other?
Do we have scientific proof? No.
But, the belief that this is the case is part of the progressive critique of Bush’s style and one reason to applaud Obama’s speech in Cairo and other actions of reconciliation and diplomacy.
Can you cite a study that shows worldwide, or even Iranian opinion says Obama is the same as Bush? That attitudes toward the US are the same now as they were under Bush? Polls seem to say otherwise, and so do the impressions of journalists and others who pay attention to such things.
I wonder how you reconcile your repeated assertions that the US is the world’s great villain and cause of so much worldwide misery with your dismissal of any effect the US might have on the rest of the world.
yep.
“Can you cite a study that shows worldwide, or even Iranian opinion says Obama is the same as Bush?“
This is a non sequitur. And by the way, I really hate it when people make up stuff and pretend I have said it in order to make their own argument better. Where did I so much as suggest that worldwide opinion says that Obama is seen as the same as Bush? What does that question have to do with whether or not Obama is the cause of the Lebanese and Iranian election results? They are two separate questions that might be related a lot, a little bit, or not at all.
And by the way, based partially on his actions so far regarding Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and many of his personnel choices, it is very common in the Arab world for people to say that Bush and Obama are “two sides of the same coin”. That view might have been moderated some for some people by the Cairo speech, but not for everyone who felt that way. Many, if not most people are holding their final judgment until they see whether his actions are consistent with the nice words, and that includes many who were very favourably impressed by the speech. As I said, his actions in Iraq, and much moreso Afghanistan and Pakistan have not inspired hope. His actions on Palestine are somewhat better, but he still has not proved himself there, and most people want to wait and see.
But the main point is that the elections in Lebanon were in no way a reflection of a sudden burst of enthusiasm for Obama, even if that burst of enthusiasm actually exists. They were simply a reflection of Lebanon’s very weird politics. In fact, as someone else pointed out yesterday Hezballah actually “won” the popular vote.
And I would be surprised if Obama had much, if anything to do with events in Iran either. For one thing, Iranians know, as most Americans still have not figured out, that a change in the president will not change foreign policy, will not change nuclear policy (as far as I know there is no evidence that most Iranians even want a change in nuclear policy), will not change military policy. In fact, it won’t change much outside of some aspects of domestic policy and maybe to a degree the way Iran’s policy is presented to the world. If they know that, then it is highly unlikely that a new American President who says good things would be much of a factor in their choice of a president. And granted this is anecdotal and a very tiny, non-representative sample, but the Iranians I know or have heard from did not change their views of AhmadiNejad after Obama’s election or after the Cairo speech. If they hated him before (as most did), then they hated him after, and vice versa.
“I wonder how you reconcile your repeated assertions that the US is the world’s great villain and cause of so much worldwide misery with your dismissal of any effect the US might have on the rest of the world.“
This is a pretty incoherent question. If I assert that the US is the cause of so much worldwide misery, then I cannot simultaneously dismiss any effect the US might have on the rest of the world, can I? And I do not. There is a big difference between committing deliberate actions that cause misery, which I trust you do not deny the US has done a great deal of in its history, and bringing about major changes in the way people in foreign countries vote simply by electing a decent President who makes a good speech.
Once again, please do not try to make your argument stronger by misrepresenting what I have said, or making stuff up. I have not made assertions that the US is “the world’s greatest villain”, so please don’t pretend I have. Please also do not pretend I have dismissed any effect the US might have had on the rest of the world because that is very far from what I have said.
What I am saying is that Obama’s speech did not cause the Lebanese or the Iranian elections to go as they did (however the Iranian elections actually did go, which we may never really know). The Lebanese elections went as they did because of the Lebanese electoral system, Lebanon’s weird politics, and the dynamic inside Lebanon’s population. What has happened and is happening in Iran is a result of the dynamic inside Iran, not some imaginary “Obama effect”.
It is not completely out of the question that a change in the US tone might have had some small effect, but I doubt it was very significant at all. If I see actual evidence to the contrary, I will be open to it, but until then, that is what makes sense to me.
Hurria, Maybe you know more about this. I’ve just read at Informed Comment (comment) that Hezbollah got the majority of the votes in Lebanon but because of the Lebanese system of favoring some ethnic-religious-or-however-they-define-themselves groups over others Hezbollah is in the opposition. Is this right. One more thing: you’re right, the ‘Obama effect’ is the newest buzzword for U.S. hubris and arrogance. What does Obama think of it? I’m sorry to say that I’d probably not like to hear the truth.
Yep, that is correct. Hezballah “won” in terms of the popular vote, but because of the weird confessional political system France imposed they did not win the majority of seats. The system assigns certain positions in the administration to specific sects, and allocates parliament seats also by sect. This system does favour some sects over others, and the Shi`as do not get a lot of seats, so they have to form coalitions with other groups in order to have any chance at being part of the the majority group.
Lebanese politics is so labyrinthine, so fluid, so opportunistic, and so thoroughly corrupt that even most of my Lebanese friends and relatives don’t pretend to really understand it, and I sure don’t understand it except in a fairly superficial way.
One reason the “Obama effect” is so offensive is that it assumes that people in the Middle East are utterly unsophisticated, simple, and easily influenced by a few kind words from the White Man when in fact most Middle Eastern people are a good deal more politically sophisticated and know more about world politics as well as their own than than most Americans do. It is certainly true that most Middle Easterners know more about American politics than Americans know about Middle Eastern politics. It also assumes, of course, that somehow the people of the Middle East do not really know what they want, or what is right for them, and can easily be induced to vote in America’s interest rather than their own. It is horribly patronizing.
Yes, it’s patronizing. It’s also embarrassingly naive and stupid. But don’t worry, they’re ‘closely monitoring the situatution’. What a bunch of frustrated, intolerant scolds! Maybe it’s none of their business, someone should say loud and clear. Oh yes, Iran is a threat to world peace, as if no one has ever heard of the U.S. And the U.S.A.’ians don’t realzize that people of the world outside their bubble see them as not only a threat to world peace but as an active and enthusiastic destroyer of any chance of world peace, if anything like that is remotely achievable. Another good joke is the people in the U.S. bubble don’t realize how sophisticated people elsewhere can be in their knowledge of languages and understanding of different cultures. We are raised in nationalism and ignorance with the sauce of jingoism about ‘the greatest and richest country in the world’. Okay, so why is it such a dump? The propaganda about Iran makes me sick. Not that I’m enthusiastic about the government there. I’ve there three times in the past nine years and have seen quite a bit.
And about Lebanon: how can the U.S. get so excited with a straight face about such a corrupt, ethno-religious western-imposed system. The French gave the world Lebanon, the U.K. and the U.S. gavet the world Israel. And that’s where we are. Mr. Netenyahu is probably warming up at this very moment.
.
Lebanese Electoral System
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."If you’ve argued, as I have, that the Bush-Cheney policy towards the Middle East–arrogance, refusal to conduct serious diplomacy, a predilection to use force with little or no provocation, cultural and religious imperialism–had a negative effect on the entire region, then it doesn’t make much sense to also argue that reversing most of those policies has had no impact at all.
I look at Obama’s effect on the Muslim world as sort of a butterfly effect. It might be small in and of itself–it probably is–but it also might be the proverbial additional straw that leads to breaking the camel’s back. Most Iranians have fared badly, both socially and economically, under the current regime, but the theocrats always had Bush-Cheney to hang over the heads of their opponents. Just like here in the U.S., the theocrats’ message was you’re either with us or you’re against us and given the absolutely stupid U.S. foreign policy during the last eight years, that was an effective stance, one that provided plenty of cover for the ruling theocracy. But with Obama, some of that pressure has been bled off. Maybe even enough to start a chain reaction.
Winston Churchill was the rock upon which Britain built its defiance to the Axis powers during World War II. But as soon as the danger was past, the voters unceremoniously kicked him out of office. It’s not impossible that Iranians, who put up with being embarrassed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the Bush-Cheney years might want to leave their status as international pariahs behind. The problem seems to be the theocrats really do figure God is on their side, and have decided it really is good to be the king.
I think you, and others who believe that Obama has brought about some kind of radical change in Lebanon and Iran are completely overlooking the fact that these countries have their own very powerful and complex internal dynamics that have little or nothing to do with the United States, and that these dynamics are what determine the outcome of things like elections.
The wars, battles, riots and disruptions in the Middle East and Southwest Asia bear rather horrific testimony to how dangerous and unstable life on our planet still is. We need patience and honesty and a devotion to getting the facts and letting them guide our policy.
It would be nice if we could cultivate a respect for life and limb and peace, and maybe even the United Nations as the final arbiter of disputes between nations and people of various sorts. What with nuclear and biological weapons in abundance we are going to need uncommon common sense, as well as more than a little luck, to make it through these troubled times. Let’s everyone keep their cool and remember the human species comes first transcending by far the well being of any individual nation. That includes, of course, the USA.
Dan, I agree. And a good deal of the instability and unrest is largely a result of U.S. attempts to manipulate or force things that it sees as serving its interests, usually at the expense of the interests of the people who live there. As we have seen, the long-term consequences of all this usually go against U.S. interests, and are deeply harmful to the people of the affected countries, and as often as not it all goes awry in the short-term (e.g. Iraq). And very often both the short-term and the long-term negative consequences, while unintended, are 100% predictable (again, Iraq is the most recent and one of the most dramatic examples).
While Iran has declared Ahmadinejad the Winner, these numbers have been leaked out of Iran showing how the votes really accumulated:
Maseeh Alinejad is an Iranian reporter who was censored in her reporting from the Iranian Parliament in 2005. I have no more information about this reported result which I got through reviewing articles in niacINsight, a blog for Iranian-Americans that tries to follow internal happenings. That publication released this e-mail they got this morning:
Did you notice? The chart lists more votes than there are eligible voters. Sooo… what could this all mean?
They couldn’t confirm the source.
Under The LobsterScope
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President Ahmadinejad got 24 million votes …
Trying to add up the math: eligible voters 46.2 million with an turnout of 85% means 39,3 million votes in this election.
See also as reference Election Results in 2005
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."