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Goebbels could be proud of the Iranian show of solidarity to it’s leader (Führer – dictator). Simply blame the foreign media to stir unrest and put blame on the Zionist entities of Great Britain and the U.S. This will always rally his own supporters, I womder how the opposition parties will react to Khamenei’s threat.
Mahmood’s Den – Like the rest of the world, I’ve been half interested in the Iranian elections, not for anything specific, but I guess it’s a good gig to while away the time with. If you think this is endeavor – the elections – are “the real thing” then please be reminded that this is The Middle East. Rule is either by force, charisma, religion or preferably a combination of all three even if the last trait is by proxy. Iran and its leaders has plenty of all three, and then some.
Listening to the big kahuna on BBC News as I type this, and I have been doing so for the best part of an hour so far, what I surmised is the following:
1. It’s a zionist conspiracy. Iran is pure.
2. Shut the fuck up and accept Mahmoodi as my chosen puppet and your president.
3. Everybody else is a liar.
4. You’re simple people and don’t understand. Keep the thinking to us turbanned lot.
5. It’s the Jooze who want the destruction of Islam.
6. They also want to destroy the illustrious Islamic Republic of Iran.
7. My, I have a lot of sheep in front of me whom I can command on a whim.
8. The Amerikans are arrogant and bad and want to destroy us.
9. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the soundest, most democratic and most pure country on earth.
10. But those Zionists are putting out reports that we are corrupt, we are not (stomps feet and thumps lectern).
11. The elections were a-okay and you should trust me, believe me for I am your leader! (on cue, crowd’s fists thumping the air, look into the camera lens and shout Allahuakbar)
12. Islamic Republic will not cheat and will not betray the people election mechanism allows no cheating. (cue cards up, fists thump air again etc)
More to follow …
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i should tell you that we had this assumption and we still assumed that competition betweeen 4 [candidates] was actually competition between people and current or waves between various groups in islam establishment
enemies try through various media, the zionists, they try to make ppl believe through media that there is a fight, there is no right to say that, the 4 presidential contenders, they all are and belong to islamic establishment, they have been and still are, one is president of our country
the president, hard working president, who is serving everyone and confiding everyone.
one of those candidates was prime minister for 8 years when i was president.
one of the candidates was commanders of islamic revolutionary guard force for years and one speaker of our parliament, they all belong to establishment, of course they have difference of opinion, they have different plans and projects but they all belong to islamic establishment this competition was made between establishment, not outside, zionist media in uk [U.K.] and us[U.S.] they have been trying to say otherwise that this is competition from inside and outside, no not true it is within the establishment.
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(The Independent) – After the June 12 elections, Khamenei approved the balloting results as a “divine assessment” and urged the Iranian people to pursue their allegations of election fraud within the limits of the cleric-led system.
But this week’s rallies, which recall the scale of protests during the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended the Iran’s U.S.-backed monarchy, openly defied those orders.
It may be hard for Khamenei — a man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran’s constitution (pdf) — to back down from his support of Ahmadinejad. But Mousavi and his supporters have also shown that they can’t be brushed aside.
The supreme leader, who has the final say in all state matters, has tried to strike a compromise. On Monday, he ordered the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to Khamenei, to investigate Mousavi’s voter fraud claims.
Even Ahmadinejad has appeared to take the growing opposition more seriously and backtracked on his previous dismissal of the protesters as “dust” and sore losers.
“I was only addressing those who rioted, set fires and attack people. I said they are nothing,” Ahmadinejad said in a previously taped video shown Thursday on state TV. “Every single Iranian is valuable. Government is a service to all.”
The government has tried to placate Mousavi and his supporters by inviting him and two other candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad to a meeting Saturday with the Guardian Council. Abbasali Khadkhodaei, a spokesman for the council, said it received 646 complaints from the three candidates.
Mousavi accuses the government of widespread vote-rigging and demands a full recount or a new election, flouting the will of Khamenei.
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Washington, 17 June (WashingtonTV)–Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, who represents U.S. interests there, to protest at “interventionist” statements by Washington on last week’s presidential election.
Citing the semi-official Fars news agency, Reuters reported that the Foreign Ministry voiced Iran’s “protest and displeasure” over statements by U.S. officials about the outcome of the vote.
… a number of websites in Iran, including Fars news and the official IRNA news agency, have been hit by a distributed denial of service [DDoS] attack.
Khamenei’s attack appears to have been prompted by Gordon Brown and David Miliband’s statements on Iran earlier this week, which Tehran branded ‘interfering and rude.’
Iran’s Ambassador to Britain Rasoul Movahedian has now been summoned to the Foreign Office where officials are expected to lodge a formal complaint about the Ayatollah’s remarks.
In the wake of Khamenei branding the UK as ‘treachorous’ today, the crowd made up of thousands of supporters of the anti-reformist regime erupted, chanting: ‘Death to the UK, America and Israel’.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Did you see Giordano’s take on the speech?
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I might add that the son and daughter of Rafsanjani are confined to a sort of house arrest, their passports revoked and barred from leaving Iran in a legal manner.
The chants during this week’s protests “Death to the Dictator” referred to Ayatollah Khamenei and not president(-elect) Ahmadinejad.
Thanks for link!
Iran on the brink?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."interesting that china appears to be supporting the election results…although this article in the asia times is more than a bit obtuse, imo:
Beijing cautions US over Iran
too bad they, the chinese, have a stranglehold on the u.s. econmy, eh. l would posit that this kind of activity and posturing will carry a great deal more weight on the decision making process inside the beltway than any bleating from the pro-israeli neoCONs.
inscrutable it is not.