Ahmadinejad wins election

[AgNoStIc MuSliM]

Originally Posted by wtf

I think US gets it more wrong on the initial story than being actively greedy. Look at this story for example.

Ayatollah is actually doing the right thing for the country, but New York Times (a paper I have some respect for) actually thinks that it is a sign of weakness and predicts the Ayatollah will be overthrown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/wo...cleric.html?hp
...
Few suggest yet that Ayatollah Khamenei’s hold on power is at risk. But, analysts say, he has opened a serious fissure in the face of Islamic rule and one that may prove impossible to patch over, particularly given the fierce dispute over the election that has erupted amid the elite veterans of the 1979 revolution. Even his strong links to the powerful Revolutionary Guards — long his insurance policy — may not be decisive as the confrontation in Iran unfolds.
...

Yes that's an interesting take on Khamenei's decision.

The BBC analyst in Tehran said much the same as well. The suggestion being that his support for Ahmedinejad during the campaign and after the election cast him in too partial a light for such an exercise to be credible.

Most of the US media focused on analogies to the 1979 revolution, but my mind kept flashing back to the overthrow of the popularly elected Mossadegh by a CIA covert operation, through similar street protests and a demolition of Mossadegh's credibility through disinformation and carefully orchestrated events.

[Kasrkin]

Check out the 1st picture on post 47, this is probably the Iranian military base the protestors were attacking (and they’re certainly attacking as opposed to ‘peacefully’ demonstrating). This would explain a lot. I wonder why these people were stupid enough to go to and try and scale an official zealot-military base with sticks and stones and bottles etc, what did they expect would’ve happened? The military guards would’ve opened fire even if it was an ordinary day in which unknown people were trying to violently break through. I think the western media has been a little unfair while referring to his particular event.

[Durran3]

President Obama makes a statement about the current situation

YouTube - President Obama's Statement On Iranian Presidential Election

YouTube - President Obama's Statement On Iranian Presidential Election

[pakomar]

It’s the real democracy. At least US should be happy they both have one thing common that these both countries have democracy.

[Al Khwarizmi]

Senior Iranian cleric calls regime “illegitimate”
Hot Air Blog Archive Senior Iranian cleric calls regime “illegitimate”

posted at 8:46 am on June 17, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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The Iranian crisis took a promising turn overnight as the senior ayatollah in Iran blasted the regime and its machinations over the election. Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, at one time under consideration to replace Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader, wrote on his website that the official results were so ludicrous that no one could believe them. He attacked the Guardian Council itself, saying that they had proved themselves illegitimate through their clumsy attempt to grasp power:

Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival in the disputed presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, massed in competing rallies Tuesday as the country’s most senior Islamic cleric threw his weight behind opposition charges that Ahmadinejad’s re-election was rigged.

“No one in their right mind can believe” the official results from Friday’s contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi’s charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers “in the worst way possible.”

“A government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy,” he declared in comments on his official Web site. “I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to ’sell their religion,’ and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God.”

Montazeri had fallen out of grace with the Guardian Council years ago. He had the temerity (and bad timing) to criticize the human-rights abuses of the Khomeini regime while Khomeini was alive, which prompted Khomeini to push Montazeri out and put Ali Khamenei in his place. The Guardian Council had him placed under house arrest for his dissent a few years ago, but it has not kept Montazeri from speaking his mind, nor has the Guardian Council taken steps to strip him of his status as an eminence grise.

His dissent at this time would not be unexpected, but perhaps the strength of his argument might be. Montazeri certainly doesn’t hold much back in this statement, accusing the Guardian Council and the regime of stupidity, illegitimacy, and un-Islamic practice. About the only way he could make it worse is by accusing them of having pork luaus in Tehran.

The protestors will certainly take heart from Montazeri’s words, but we will see whether his exhortation to the police and the Revolutionary Guard “not to sell their religion” and to refrain from oppression have any real effect. Those who agreed with Montazeri before now probably no longer work in those jobs, and those who remained likely are the “true believers” in the regime. At this point, though, Montazeri’s statement at least gives dissenters some religious basis, which could boost morale and keep the movement in motion.

[TruthSeeker]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

Most of the US media focused on analogies to the 1979 revolution, but my mind kept flashing back to the overthrow of the popularly elected Mossadegh by a CIA covert operation, through similar street protests and a demolition of Mossadegh's credibility through disinformation and carefully orchestrated events.

From Wikipedia:

"Mosaddeq was removed from power in a 19 August 1953 coup supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments and led by General Fazlollah Zahedi. The American operation came to be known as Operation Ajax in America, after its CIA cryptonym, and as the 28 Mordad 1332 coup in Iran, after its date on the Iranian calendar. Mosaddeq was imprisoned for three years and subsequently put under house arrest until his death.

Among many in Iran and abroad, Mosaddeq is viewed as a hero of Third World anti-imperialism, and a victim of imperialist greed for Iran's oil. However a number of scholars and historians believe that besides the direct involvement of the UK and US, a major factor in Mossadeq's overthrow was the reactionary clerical dissatisfaction with a secular government, fomented with CIA propaganda."

Ironically, the CIA and the conservative Shiite clerics were on the same team with the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh. Also, the coup required major involvement by some Iranian army units in Teheran. So, actually, NONE of the 1953 factors are at play in the events of today, not even a CIA station chief or a US ambassador in Teheran.

[idune]

Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost

By ROBERT BAER Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2009

There is no denying that the news clips from Tehran are dramatic, unprecedented in violence and size since the mullahs came to power in 1979. They're possibly even augurs of real change. But can we trust them? Most of the demonstrations and rioting I've seen in the news are taking place in north Tehran, around Tehran University and in public places like Azadi Square. These are, for the most part, areas where the educated and well-off live — Iran's liberal middle class. These are also the same neighborhoods that little doubt voted for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rival, who now claims that the election was stolen. But I have yet to see any pictures from south Tehran, where the poor live. Or from other Iranian slums.

Some facts about Iran's election will hopefully emerge in the coming weeks, with perhaps even credible evidence that the election was rigged. But until then, we need to add a caveat to everything we hear and see coming out of Tehran. For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran's liberal middle class — an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a terrific book, but does it represent the real Iran?

Before we settle on the narrative that there has been a hard-line takeover in Iran, an illegitimate coup d'état, we need to seriously consider the possibility that there has been a popular hard-line takeover, an electoral mandate for Ahmadinejad and his policies. One of the only reliable, Western polls conducted in the run-up to the vote gave the election to Ahmadinejad — by higher percentages than the 63% he actually received. The poll even predicted that Mousavi would lose in his hometown of Tabriz, a result that many skeptics have viewed as clear evidence of fraud. The poll was taken all across Iran, not just the well-heeled parts of Tehran. Still, the poll should be read with a caveat as well, since some 50% of the respondents were either undecided or wouldn't answer.

No doubt, Iran will come out of last Friday's election a different country. But it would serve us well to put aside our prism that has led us to misunderstand Iran for so many years, an anticipation that there would be a liberal counter-revolution in the country. Mousavi is far from the liberal democrat that many in the West would like to believe he is. The truth is, Ahmadinejad may be the President the Iranians want, and we may have to live with an Iran to Iranians' liking and not to ours.

The absolute worst things we could do at this point would be to declare Iran's election fraudulent, refuse to talk to the regime and pile on more sanctions. Hostility will only strengthen Ahmadinejad and encourage the hard-liners and secret police. We should never forget that Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatullah Khameinei, along with Ahmadinejad, have the full, if undeclared, backing of both the Revolutionary Guards and the army, and they are not afraid to use those resources to back up their mandate.

Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.

Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost - TIME

[idune]

The Iranian People Speak
Washington Post reveals independent pre-poll survey showing Ahmadinejad wins against Mousavi in 2 to 1 margin.

By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead. Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare.

Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.

Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.

Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.

Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.

Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.

Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
For more on polling in Iran, read Jon Cohen's Behind the Numbers.

washingtonpost.com

[TruthSeeker]

idune,

I posted your above Wash Post article some days ago in a thread:

US Thinktank Survey Forecast Ahmadinejad Win in May

[Ratus Ratus]

Is there any real difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad?

Under the face value appearance of the two there is actually fundamentally little difference.
The main issues are the public way they present themselves, but rhetoric aside not much change.

Realise underlying all this is the fact real power still resides with the Office of the Supreme Leader, that is Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

So what is the real questions about?
Simply the way the votes were counted or not. The fact is that Ahmadinejad would have won but the big questions lies with the elegant % differences in all voting electorates.
It is this bad fumbling of counting that has to much extent caused problems.

The next question will now come down to who the scrape goat will be for the “bad” vote count. How will this effect the various institutions in Iran, ie The Office of the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Revolutionary Foundations and Guardian Council.

Other questions have been asked as to whether this was staged by the clerics to try to destabilise the IRGC as they saw Ahmadinejad in conjunction with the IRGC undermining their power

I suspect there is more under the surface that what is being presented.

[idune]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker

idune,

I posted your above Wash Post article some days ago in a thread:

US Thinktank Survey Forecast Ahmadinejad Win in May

Sorry, I must have missed that somehow.

But its amazing how vocal and violent minority try to hijack election from silent majority.

[Twain]

Khamenei on the Ropes?

In Iran nothing is ever as it seems, including presidential elections. It's arguable that Friday's election had less to do with a vote for or against Ahmadinejad than it did with a vote for or against Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. And if the elections were stolen, it was likely in an effort to maintain Khamenei's hold on power rather than Ahmadinejad's.

Iran is not a theocracy. It is a military dictatorship headed by Khamenei and advised by a coterie of generals from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Army, as well as hard-liners in the secret police. Ahmadinejad is little more than the spokesman for this group. He may have a say in the day-to-day management of the economy and other parts of Iranian administration--but all important decisions, particularly those related to Iran's national security, including rigging presidential elections, are made by Khamenei.

What makes this such a tenuous situation is that Khamenei's legitimacy has been in question from the day he succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. It was widely understood among intelligence analysts that Khamenei did not have the religious credentials to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader, Iran's head of state who is supposed to be the most learned religious cleric. In fact, Khamenei is not even really an ayatollah--his license was in effect bought--and he has no popular religious following as other legitimate ayatollahs do. It doesn't help that Iranian leaders of Khomeini's generation have never particularly liked Khamenei and see him as a man who muscled his way into power, perhaps even by killing Khomeini's son, the person most likely to challenge his rule.

A sure signal of Khamenei's political weakness occurred when Ahmadinejad attacked former president Rafsanjani for corruption during the election campaign. Rafsanjani is and always has been a threat to Khamenei's legitimacy. Not only is he more of a real ayatollah, but he is also Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, two powerful government bodies. The Assembly of Experts has the power to remove Khamenei and appoint a new Supreme Leader. And though facts are impossible to come by, it is almost certain that Ahmadinejad's attack on Rafsanjani could not have been made without a green light from Khamenei, who knew that charges of Rafsanjani's corruption would strike a chord with Iranians. Khamenei saw and probably still sees Rafsanjani as a threat to his power, even to his position as supreme leader, and this was an effective way to pounce.

Still, if the protests and demonstrations in Tehran cannot be controlled, we should seriously start to wonder about Khamenei's future. Rafsanjani is rumored to be in the holy city of Qum plotting against Khamenei, seeing if he has enough votes in the 86-member Assembly of Experts to remove Khamenei. A vote recount is unlikely to change the results of the election, but it could lead to more demonstrations, which backed by Rafsanjani and the other mullahs, might just end Khamenei's 20 year run.


Khamenei on the Ropes? - The Plank

[AirforcePilot]

Originally Posted by Twain

Khamenei on the Ropes?


Still, if the protests and demonstrations in Tehran cannot be controlled, we should seriously start to wonder about Khamenei's future. Rafsanjani is rumored to be in the holy city of Qum plotting against Khamenei, seeing if he has enough votes in the 86-member Assembly of Experts to remove Khamenei. A vote recount is unlikely to change the results of the election, but it could lead to more demonstrations, which backed by Rafsanjani and the other mullahs, might just end Khamenei's 20 year run.


Khamenei on the Ropes? - The Plank

You have a good point!!!

[Twain]

Originally Posted by AirforcePilot

You have a good point!!!

I don't know if I had a good point as much as the author of the article had a good point.

The problem the Iranians have now is that no government can survive for very long when protesters control the capital city. They are rapidly approaching the point where they have two choices, crack down severely on the opposition and abandon any pretense of listening to the will of the people or reach some sort of compromise for Khamenei and the military to give up some power.

Just my opinion here but, I question whether or not the protests are about the election and Ahmadinejad or are they are about Khamenei and the electoral system in Iran. When looking at the middle east in general, Iran has the closest thing there is to a democracy but in comparison to the rest of the world's democracies, they are a pretty poor example. Only preapproved candidates can run, so in terms of policies, there really isn't a huge difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad. Anyone who advocates policies too far from Khamenie's views simply isn't allowed on the ballot.

Even if somehow Mousavie were to come out on top, he really won't have any power. Without some form of constitutional reform, Khamenei and the military will still be the people in control.