ملکوت غربی

What a political coup, a stolen vote, and popular protest movement signify

2009-09-18T03:36:19Z

Rostam Irani (Ph.D.)

19 July 2009

I- Rationale for the Establishment’s Political Coup

The June 12th presidential election in Iran has proved deeply contested and massively consequential.. The official decision to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad as the winner has been openly challenged by Mr. Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the rightful winner). And the consequent popular movement against election fraud – dubbed ‘political coup’ by the opposition - has been met with a bloody campaign of repression by the state’s military and security apparatus and their semi-official militias and violent plainclothes vigilantes. Even according to unreliable official figures, scores have been killed in the course of peaceful street demonstrations, hundreds have been injured, and over 2000 have been arrested. Many of whom still remain in custody, with a number of prominent political activists under severe torture to make videoed bogus confessions. Still on-going outcry by the outside world, inclusive of high-level statements of concern and denunciation by governments, United Nations, human rights advocates, and civil society and academia, have confronted the Iranian authorities with a very difficult situation in the international community.

What has been perplexing to political observers, at home and abroad, has been the rationale behind the seemingly perplexing gamble by the conservative establishment to thwart the actual outcome of a highly participatory election. According to all predictions prior to the vote and all indications on the elections day, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the pro-reform, pro-change candidate, should have won with a wide margin. That explains the shock and bewilderment gripping the country ever since, and the sudden emergence of the “where is my vote” protest movement, at home and abroad. The central question since the election day has revolved around the role of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, in the still unfolding drama. Even if the Ayatollah had tried in his public pronouncements prior to the elections to portray himself as being equidistant to the official candidates vetted by the Guardian Council, his not-so-disguised clear preference for Ahmadinejad was out there for everybody to see. Especially that various conservative circles and the religious networks (mosques,…) and their press and media mouthpieces, most prominently national television, and also his personal representatives in the armed forces and other public institutions, had been more candid for months in making known – even openly propagandizing - the Leader’s choice.

Given the Ayatollah’s known hostility towards the reform platform and pro-reform candidates – since the 1976 surprise victory of Khatami and throughout his 8-year presidency – and also the institutional support extended to Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, such a preference this year was quite understandable or not difficult to speculate or analyze. What proved particularly problematic was the range of restrictive and illegal practical measures introduced and executed by the Interior Ministry during the run up to the elections and in the course of voting negatively affecting the other candidates, and above all, the totally unprecedented and out of the ordinary manner in which the Ministry started announcing the vote count and the final outcome. Equally so was the Ayatollah’s hasty decision on June 13th – the minute the final tally had been announced by the Ministry - to issue a lengthy statement on the elections and congratulating Ahmadinejad as the winner. Worse still, in a sermon at Friday prayers a week after the elections – 6 days after millions of people had already taken to the streets protesting fraud and defying the declared outcome – the Ayatollah almost shocked everybody with his posture and words. To everybody’s amazement, he chose to discard his apparent impartiality as the Guardian Jurisconsult (Vali-ye Faqih), and throw his lot fully and one-sidedly with Ahmadinejad and against the thwarted winner and the majority who had voted for him. In the same sermon, the presumed Leader of the nation and a jurist by learning and position with high moral claims, openly threatened the critics with blatant violence should they choose to continue their defiance and street protests. Contrary to all previous cases during the past two decades where his rulings had been obeyed by everybody within the entire political system – albeit in cases with reluctance and muted expressions of displeasure – his ruling this time was openly defied by Mousavi and Karrubi, who issued statements, and the street demonstrations continued apace. The popular chants of “down with the dictator” addressed to Ahmadinejad during the first week of street demonstrations were complemented with “death to Khamenei” the day after his sermon. That slogan has now become part of the nightly shouts from the rooftops in Tehran signifying the continuation of resistance and defiance, even though open brutality and a pervasive, heavy-handed military and security presence on the streets have managed to drive the demonstrators off the street – as a daily occurrence. Spontaneous protests in 25 different places in Tehran on July 9th on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of student demonstrations a decade earlier and also on the margins of the congregational prayers this past Friday signified that the relative quiet on the streets has been tactical and calculated.

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Post-election analysis by a wide gamut of Iranian political quarters and persuasions tend to share a general understanding of the rather stark choice faced in the elections by the Ayatollah and the conservative establishment. Despite Mousavi’s known political posture and background as former prime minister in the 1980s and expressed distance from the reform platform (or at least some of its radical political positions and demands), the election campaign unfolded in a manner that went beyond his expectations – and equally of others. What might have been deemed as a lackluster campaign by an old-guard politician who had been out of active politics for two decades, picked up momentum during the final weeks of the campaign. His solid pro-change, pro-reform discourse, with an increasingly progressive, pluralistic social and cultural content, energized the youth, released huge pent-up frustrations, shook the apparent apathy of large segments of the urban populace and attracted huge supporters from all walks of life inside the country. What came to be known as the “Green Movement” also found strong resonance among the sizeable Iranian community abroad, the majority of whom could be considered either apolitical or of an active oppositional persuasion. The televised debates between Mr. Ahmadinejad - the incumbent president – and the other candidates, particularly Mr. Mousavi – the principal challenger – served to beat the original intent and purpose. Contrary to the expectations of the establishment, these sessions helped to totally discredit the incumbent as an out-and-out demagogue, unscrupulous populist political animal, and worse, a pathetic, clumsy liar – a man just too small for the job. The debates simultaneously served to portray a much more congenial picture of Mousavi as a soft-spoken, seasoned, mature politician representing principle, reason and moderation and a brighter future through collective wisdom at home and interaction with the outside world. On the eve of the elections, it was all but a foregone conclusion that Mousavi was set to win with a comfortable margin, if not a landslide – similar to Khatami’s 1997 surprise victory. The worst-case scenario for the pro-reform camp was that vote rigging in the order of few millions would send Mousavi and Ahmadinejad to the run-off elections.

A Mousavi victory would have implied substantial policy changes in practically all areas – both domestic and foreign. However, given his commitment, as a matter of principle, to the Islamic Revolution and its original ideals and aspirations and for that matter, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, inclusive of the institution and office of the Velayat-e Faqih (Guardian Jurisconsult/Supreme Leader), his presidency would not have threatened the constitutional position of the Leader per se. But, in light of the on-going and unresolved tussle in the country since 1997 between the pro-reform platform on the one side and the Ayatollah and the conservative establishment and its institutions of power on the other side on the interpretation of the Leader’s constitutional powers and authority and his practical engagement in policy-making and execution, Mousavi’s victory would have most probably implied a more legal reading, interpretation and implementation of the Constitution and its provisions.. Also in light of Mousavi’s independent personality and character, his assumption of office would have most probably implied a more constitutional presidency backed by a strong popular mandate, a more independent Judiciary and less omnipresent, intrusive Leader, with a constitutionally-guaranteed office yet somewhat trimmed interventionist wings. His presidency would have also implied a much less political role – and economic function - for the Sepah (Revolutionary Guards Corps) and a sprawling security apparatus, who have come to permeate and dominate the entire state structure and bureaucracy during the past four years under Ahmadinejad. It was the Guards’ active institutional involvement in the elections back in 2005 that helped him win the race. No wonder, then, that Sepah has gradually become the biggest actor/contractor in the national economy, and its members – uniformed and otherwise - have come to pack the state bureaucracy at different levels, including the Majlis (Parliament) where over 100 deputies are former Sepah officers.

Therefore, the political gamble by the Ayatollah and the entire conservative establishment to thwart the outcome of the elections had a single, overarching objective in mind – to preserve the status quo and prevent structural and policy changes with possible ominous repercussions. Preservation of status quo, implying an omnipresent powers and authority for the person of the Leader and his ever-increasing reliance on a powerful, politically engaged Revolutionary Guards and dreaded security apparatus would have been possible only with an Ahmadinejad victory. Such an overall outlook and policy framework would have also ensured the practical pursual of an aggressive, confrontational foreign policy, as has been the case during the past four years and will continue to be the case from now on in all probability – with not-so-disguised objectives in different areas, including with regard to the nuclear issue. The dominant security state in Iran seems to have felt the dire need to fend off the potent, unsettling challenge from within the system, preserve the status quo, further isolate the pro-reform forces and consolidate the power structure, and continue pursuing the security and military policies it considers imperative for its mere survival. Moreover, certain political, military and security circles and quarters in Iran have never disguised their deep appreciation of the Chinese brutal massacre at Tiananmen Square and the North Korean style governance and foreign policy objectives. The political coup that was pulled off at the Election Headquarters at end of the elections day should, therefore, be seen and analyzed from this vantage point and as the practical response of that particular secret nucleus in the military-security apparatus to such needs and preferences. It may not be clearly known at this stage yet whether the Ayatollah and his inner circle were part of the original plan or they joined the bandwagon at some point, or whether alternatively he was confronted with an actual situation by the military-security coup-makers, leaving him with no other option but to support the fait accompli. Whatever the details of the genesis of plan and its execution, the actual outcome is all the same. The Ayatollah’s unethical pretensions and categorical rejection of electoral impropriety and fraud – and worse, firm signature on the treachery in favor of Ahmadinejad and subsequent sanctioning of bloody repression – make him a full-fledged accomplice in the whole criminal undertaking.

II- Systemic Implications

Looking at the national chess game five weeks after the vote, one thing seems all too clear: the political coup against the republican aspect of the Islamic Republic – popular participation and vote - has succeeded in its immediate objective. Mousavi’s victory has been effectively thwarted, Ahmadinejad has been brought out of the ballot box and declared as the incoming president, and the popular movement protesting election fraud and rigging has been brutally suppressed, driven off the streets, and seemingly contained for the moment. Detained prominent political activists are under torture to produce bogus confessions, hundreds more of civil and political activists, journalists, lawyers, and academics languish in jails awaiting prosecution on thumped up charges as ‘foreign stooges for a velvet revolution.’ Arbitrary arrest and detention of activists and journalists continue on a daily basis. And a heavy-handed, overwhelming military and security presence and the openly expressed resolve to resort to wanton violence and repression – even bloodshed a la Tiananmen - seem to have cautioned the popular, unorganized peaceful mass movement not to risk a precipitous, unequal street fight. The unelected president, while suffering domestic scorn and infamy and international isolation, is set to receive the Ayatollah’s official sanction as the incoming president and take the oath of office at the Majlis (Parliament) within the next few weeks. His second term will commence in late August.

While the political coup has succeeded in its immediate, tactical objective, the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, Mr. Ahmadinejad, and the entire political establishment have lost their political credibility and moral authority in the eyes of the majority of Iranians – at home and abroad. The election shenanigans proved extremely costly, particularly from both structural and strategic perspectives; trading short-term victory and power grab for loss of moral authority and political legitimacy cannot but be considered a short-sighted gamble. Also, the ruling establishment’s resort to election fraud on such a massive scale and its subsequent reliance on open repression has made it abundantly clear to the populace at large and the wide range of political forces and currents still acting within the framework of the Constitution that seeking political reform from within the system has all but been rendered meaningless and impossible. This should be considered a defining moment for the entire system, both the establishment and the fast-expanding democratic opposition. The very fact that the slogans shouted during the mass demonstrations – and now from the rooftops in the darkness of the night – have undergone dramatic shifts and are now directed at the person of the Ayatollah and the institution of Velayat-e Faqih, and in a sense, the ruling theocratic state, are clearly telling. They indicate the substantive change in the tenor and content of the demands of the popular democratic movement and its ultimate, long-term objectives – establishment of a full-fledged democratic, pluralistic republic free from ideological (religious) strictures.
It is true, however, that there exists a discernible disconnect between the substantive democratic slogans and demands of the popular movement as reflected in the street slogans and demands on the one hand, and on the other the immediate political platform pursued by Mr. Mousavi – and for that matter, all pro-reform politicians and activists such as former President Khatami. Mousavi, Khatami and the wide array of pro-reform political forces and currents and activists have called in their public pronouncements for peaceful political activity within constitutional bounds, and have vowed to continue their protests peacefully towards the realization of the trampled rights of the citizenry – vague general demands at best. Cancellation of the fraudulent elections was the original demand of Mr. Mousavi and the protest movement, and still continues to be considered their principal demand, even if rendered less likely now that the entire state system has resolved to keep course, stand firm behind Ahmadinejad, and fight it out. As reported, Mousavi intends to establish a political party and also work with all pro-reform forces and currents within the framework of an overarching political coalition or front to continue the protest movement. The rather limited agenda Mousavi and others are on record to have set for the current stage of the movement is to be understood within the actual parameters of the prevailing situation and the official propaganda campaign accusing him and other leaders and activists of subservience to foreign powers and calling for their prosecution, trial and punishment.

III- Looking to the Future

It is not clear at all at this stage how the Ayatollah, his unelected president and the entire Iranian state will deal with the deep-seated and growing crisis of political legitimacy, and control and subdue the increasingly simmering socio-political situation in the country in the short- and medium-term. Nor is it clear how they will manage – to some degree of success – their intrinsically difficult foreign relations with a partly hostile and partly less-than-friendly outside world. It is yet to be seen how these two intricately linked and mutually feeding situations will unfold in the coming weeks and months. But, while the immediate picture ahead looks and remains murky, uncertain and even perilous for both sides, it could be said with a high degree of certainty that politics and the political equation in Iran as used to be the case prior to the June elections is gone once and for all. The seemingly unchallenged rule of the Ayatollah and the supremacy of the system of Velayat-e Faqih as the lynchpin of the theocratic state has been challenged effectively – not only by millions of angry Iranians on the streets but also by an increasing number of the Shi’ite clergy at various levels of the clerical hierarchy who are finding it difficult to acquiesce to, let alone support, the current blatantly repressive, unpopular policies and practices that can hardly be camouflaged and sold as anything religious or Islamic.Critical pronouncements by an increasing number of formerly supportive clerical figures do not bode well for the Ayatollah and the entire governmental establishment under him. An immediate case in point is the sermon this past Friday by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, currently the Head of the Expediency Council as well as the Council of Experts, in which he decidedly chose to keep silent on the Ayatollah and his definitive rulings on the election and its outcome, took distance from the official propaganda line and judiciously sided with the popular concerns and grievances. He referred, among others, to the widespread doubts among the populace, especially the highly educated, in the veracity of the election outcome, and emphasized the necessity of addressing these doubts. He also called for the release of political detainees and the relaxation of the current stifling constraints and censorship imposed on the media and press.. Even though he voiced such explicit criticisms while underlining his decades-long commitment and service to the Islamic Revolution and also as his way of extending a helping hand to the Islamic Republic in times of political crisis, his independent posture and critical outlook have proved quite unsettling to various conservative quarters and invited venomous public attacks against him. Further expressions of support for or denunciation of his critical statement, as already manifest in the press and mass media, are bound to sharpen the ever-widening chasm within the clerical establishment and the state bureaucracy. Indications are that more desertions, both by lay and clerical supporters, appear to be inevitable as the democratic movement deepens and continues taking its toll on the current power-holders with a shrinking constituency solely bent on pursuing their unpopular political and security agenda vis-à-vis a wounded, uncooperative, impatient, and hostile populace. As borne out by experiences in the past – as recent as the days of the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s – active tension and sporadic street clashes between military and security forces on the one hand and unarmed street demonstrators on the other tend to lead to attrition, loss of morale and gradual desertion from within the ranks of the men in uniform.The quite expected difficult days ahead of the authorities in Tehran will be further compounded should they continue their current aggressive and recalcitrant foreign policy – as reflected in Ahmadinejad’s grandstanding and extremely bellicose remarks in recent days laying out his plans for the second term. As is widely known, the leadership in the Islamic Republic has long relied on a verbally radical and populist “anti-imperialist” foreign posture. Reliance on xenophobic propaganda campaigns and rallying support for certain foreign policy objectives, especially in times of internal difficulty, has always been pursued with vigor during the past three decades. That outlook and policy under Ahmadinejad during his first term was primarily focused on the nuclear issue. This   political expediency still continues to be the case, and is currently further aggravated by a high profile world campaign of solidarity with the unfolding democratic movement and against the on-going repression and massive human rights violations in Iran . Ahmadinejad’s last minute cancellation of attendance at the OAU Summit in Libya a couple of weeks back, indefinite postponement of the state visit by the Sultan of Oman to Tehran, and his decision to stay away from the Non-Aligned Movement Summit last week in Egypt clearly point in the direction of a creeping sense of political insecurity and the mounting pressure of international isolation. Given such a predicament and the strong possibility that outside pressures will persist, at least on the human rights issues, it is difficult to foresee how a much challenged, discredited and isolated Ayatollah-Ahmadinejad team would afford to change gear, make a political-diplomatic U-turn, and opt for a moderated outlook and approach and engage in genuine interaction with their foreign critics and detractors on a wide range of thorny and intractable issues. The US prevarication and Europe’s apparent serious difficulty in extending open recognition to Ahmadinejad as the ‘legitimate’ winner in Iran elections are bound to make his days harder ahead. His continued aggressive and confrontational approach and conduct – driven solely by domestic political considerations - will further complicate the prospects for any meaningful rapproachment with the US on all outstanding bilateral issues, and fruitful negotiations with the 5+1 and the UN Security Council on the nuclear dossier.

As a final reckoning, it can be said that politics in Iran as was the case prior to the June elections has practically come to an end. What transpired in the country over a deeply controversial process and disputed outcome has radically shaken the entire political system, challenged the very foundations of the ruling theocracy, and made the once highly revered, almost untouchable Ayatollah the subject of amusing anecdotes and daily death wishes. The political gamble of stealing in broad daylight of the votes of millions of Iranians who came out peacefully and out of sheer hope to vote for their preferred candidate – a man with established credentials within the existing system of governance and committed to its constitutional perpetuation – simply backfired. The gamble, short-sighted as it has proved, instead produced a huge army of angry protesters and a fast gathering democratic movement calling for the demise of the men in power and the corrupt, cruel system they represent. This seems to represent the end of a chapter in Iran ’s tumultuous contemporary history and the beginning of another – the contours of which Iranians (let alone others) are not yet in a position to discern and describe. But, the writing is on the wall; the future, no matter how far away and however painfully gained, will be different – radically and substantially different, in name, form, content, and everything. The present is already the future; it is only a matter of when not if. Given the inevitability of change in Iran and its politics and polity somewhere down the line (a few years at most), the outside world – everybody, friend or foe, close or far, in Iran’s immediate neighborhood or beyond, big or small, mighty or weak - might find it a better, wiser and more advisable strategic approach and policy to keep an eye on the emerging future Iran while dealing as a matter of their current expediencies, short-term interests, or specific priority issues, with an already doomed governance structure.

Who are Running the Show in Iran?

2009-09-16T20:44:37Z

Rostam Irani (Ph.D)
4 September 2009
I- Stealing the vote and crackdown
II- Who are the putschist gang?
III- The Ayatollah and the military-intelligence community
IV- The Putsche programme: purge and consolidation
V- Concluding remarks: the immediate future?

Executive Summary

The post-election political crisis in Iran , initially quite murky and perplexing, seems to have clarified itself for the most part. It has come to light that the Thar-Allah Command of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Sepah), in coordination with the Office of the Supreme Leader – Ayatollah Khamenei - decided to steal the vote, thwart the rightful winner – Mir-Hossein Mousavi - and produce a fraudulent winner – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The crux of the election coup - putsche - has been to prevent the victory of the pro-reform, pro-change challenger – even though an ardent supporter of the existing Constitution – and ensure maintenance of the status quo and safeguard huge economic rent and interests. The unexpected popular resistance defying the fraud led to the worst repressive campaign in modern Iranian history. Having unleashed the full weight of the security-repressive apparatus against the principal cadres of the major pro-reform parties and organizations, as well as unarmed peaceful demonstrators, the coup-makers have decide to go for the juggernaut and endeavoured to effectively push the pro-reform forces out of active political arena. Through resort to Stalinist-type show trials, the putschist gang have tried to defame and discredit the pro-reform leaders and activists for complicity in the Western-instigated “velvet revolution,” and prepare the grounds for banning their political organizations and parties. The Sepah, having developed in recent years, especially during Ahmadinejad’s first term (2005-2009), into the country’s biggest economic entrepreneur and contractor, appears to have decided to seize the opportunity to buttress its economic and political position and move towards its ultimate objective of consolidation of total power within the existing governance structure. The election coup also has brought to light that the Ayatollah, having gradually and steadily increased his political reliance on the military-intelligence community as opposed to the wide range of other political forces within the framework of the existing system and Constitution, has decide to throw his lot fully and one-sidedly with Ahmadinejad and the Sepah – a classic case of political expediency and mariage de convenance.

The putschist gang has succeeded in imposing Ahmadinejad on the Iranian people – and for that matter, on the international community. The new cabinet, comprising of a large number of Sepah officers or those with close liaison and association with it or with the Baseej (paramilitary militias), has just received the vote of confidence from the Majlis (Parliament). While the new administration is officially instituted and the protest movement – the Green Movement - has been pushed off the streets in large measure with the use of sheer force and cruelty, Ahmadinejad and his team are doomed to face a very difficult situation on both domestic and foreign fronts. The still unfolding drama on the fate of political detainees, the show trials, and the question of rape of women and even men at the Kahrizak detention center seem to be the most burning issues impacting the immediate domestic political scene in the wake of the formation of the new cabinet. The big question mark, however, revolves around the situation at universities at the beginning of the academic year in late September. The domestic scene from now on will inevitably be fraught with all kinds of uncertainties, which will be a subject of the respective approach and policies of both the government and the Green Movement – and their interaction, if at all or however defined. The foreign picture will be similarly difficult and fraught with uncertain minefields - the most urgent issue being the nuclear dossier and the 5+1 high-profile focused pressure on the late September deadline for Iran ’s engagement in substantive negotiations or alternatively their oft-repeated threat to resort to harsher, biting sanctions. Ahmadinejad’s publicly announced upcoming visit to the United Nations General Assembly session aims at breaking out of the current international isolation, also hoping to be able to open some direct channels of communication with Washington. Whether the Obama people will be in a position under the current awkward circumstances to respond positively to such “desperate” vibes from an illegitimate president or not, one thing seems to be certain: he will receive a very warm welcome outside the UN building by throngs of Iranian and American protesters and quite probably a generally cold shoulder inside the building. Regardless of his intentions, preferences or hopes, his deeply challenged and much weaker position at home, and equally important the presumed recalcitrance of his Sepahi backers (the group with the most intractable and maximalist position on the nuclear issue), might make it extremely difficult for him under the circumstances to afford entering into serious meaningful negotiations on the nuclear issue, much less making compromising deals. Vintage Iranian foot dragging on the nuclear issue might be the most probable course of action to be expected from Tehran in the coming months.

]]> I- Stealing the vote and crackdown

The post-election political crisis in Iran , initially quite murky and perplexing, both to domestic and foreign observers, seems to have clarified itself for the most part. Two months and a half into the still unfolding crisis, it is now history that a military-intelligence gang within the ruling conservative establishment simply decided to steal the vote, thwart the rightful winner – Mir-Hossein Mousavi - and produce a fraudulent winner – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the establishment’s darling, though a spoiled baby and erratic, unpredictable, super demagogue rabble-rouser. Subsequently, once the incredulous majority who had been cheated in broad daylight of their votes came out in millions to protest – peacefully – the putschist gang violently unleashed its tremendous military-security prowess against the pro-reform, pro-change camp and unarmed peaceful demonstrators. The horrendous details of the post-election crackdown, violence and mendacious xenophobic propaganda have been widely reported and equally denounced by the international community. The world public opinion is ruefully aware of cold-blooded killings on the streets, detention of more than 4000 people inclusive of hundreds of well-known political and civil society activists, torture of prominent detainees with the expressed objective of extraction of bogus confessions, and as has come to light in recent weeks and days, brutal and in cases gang rape of women and even young men at the Kahrizak detention camp. The televised sham trials held during the past three weeks, in the run-up to and following the official endorsement of Ahmadinead as the incoming president, have further revealed the mindset of the putschist gang as well as the political programme behind the election coup and the crackdown – systematic political defamation and physical elimination of all other forces and currents with a differing or critical outlook from the active political scene as part and parcel of the on-going violent campaign towards total consolidation of the power structure in the hands of the shadowy gang. The blatantly anti-democratic, anti-republican thinking and disposition of the gang geared towards erecting a North Korean-style governance with similar foreign policy objectives are unmistakable.

The election coup, as it has come to light in bits and pieces, went into action in the early evening hours on the elections day, Friday, June 12th. While voting was still under way, the main election headquarters of Mousavi was attacked, occupied and a large number of political activists on the premises were taken into custody. A few hours later, almost around the same time as the voting booths closed, several hundred motorcyclists in full gear converged on the Interior Ministry and cordoned off the whole area; a perfect surrealistic drama a la Luis Bunuel. While it is not publicly known yet as to who entered the building and what exactly took place during the succeeding hours at the Election Headquarters inside the Ministry, what is already known about the circumstances is quite revealing. Sometime during the evening Mr. Mousavi had received a call from the Election Headquarters congratulating him on his victory. While preparing for the press conference to make the announcement, he had been cautioned from the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, not to proceed with the intended announcement. Having already been in touch with that Office and some other high officials during the day on various voting irregularities and in the evening on suspicious events, including the attack earlier in the evening on his headquarters, late in the evening he had dispatched a personal emissary to the Ayatollah’s Office. There the bewildered emissary had received baffling news from those present at the Office pointing to Ahmadinejad’s victory in the first round, and a clear message advising Mousavi against the victory announcement. Given the heavy security activity around the Ministry – close to his office - and the content of the exchanged messages, Mousavi nonetheless went ahead with the press conference and declared himself as the definitive victor of the race. The same evening the editor of Moussavi’s daily, Kalemeh Sabz (Green Word) had been advised in very clear terms from the Office of General Prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, not to carry the title of victory for the paper on Saturday.

Around midnight, while no counting could have taken place yet, the Election Headquarters announced that out of the first five million votes counted, Ahmadinejad was the frontrunner with almost 69 percent of the tally. Quite unlike the previous established practice of counting the vote ballot box by ballot box and announcing the aggregated result by precinct and ultimately by townships, towns and cities (with the vote count coming in first from smaller communities), the counting this time around started in this bizaare manner and continued with announcing the result of additional five million blocks. The final tally, over 39 million votes, around 85 percent of the eligible voters, was announced in mid-afternoon on Saturday, June 13th, giving Ahmadinejad around 64 percent of the vote. A few minutes later a lengthy message was read on national TV and radio in which the Ayatollah praised a historic participation in presidential elections and congratulated Ahmadinejad as the winner, thus hastily confirming and sealing the outcome and confronting the challenger with a fait accompli. Mousavi’s statement reiterating his rightful win had already been issued a few hours earlier.

As it has been revealed later, from different sources, the vote distribution among the four candidates, particularly between the preferred incumbent and the despised challenger, had been decided through a software programme, which had been fed into the vote counting system once it had been established on Friday afternoon that Mousavi had carried the day. The “team” who had entered the Election Headquarters under the cover of the security cordon seem to have been the ones who pulled off the late night shenanigans. The details of the vote count as announced incrementally in subsequent days on the official website of the Interior Ministry betrayed a wide range of incredible results, among others, precise, similar mathematical symmetry in many precincts and vote results as a multiple of hundred in many others. Moreover, hundreds of cases and examples of irregularities and violations of sorts, prior to and during the voting process, on the part of the election officials and supervisors, military (Sepah) and paramilitary (Baseej) supporters of Ahmadinejad, as documented by all the three cheated candidates (Mousavi, Karroubi and Rezai) and submitted to the Guardian Council, failed to make a dent in an already fully executed scenario. The Council, under heavy public pressure, ultimately consented to the recount of a random 10 percent of the ballot boxes. The review, completed in 15 days and carried live on national TV for propaganda purposes, interestingly enough, turned up further evidence for irregularity and foul play, including large batches of unfolded ballot papers exhibiting the name of Ahmadinejad written in the same colour and the same handwriting!   The Council, unmoved at all by the voluminous hard evidence of systematic irregularity and high-tech vote manipulation, duly confirmed the veracity and legality of the process as had already been established by the Ayatollah the day after the vote.

The violent response to peaceful demonstrations as of Saturday, June 13th indicated advance preparation on the part of the Revolutionary Guards, police, Baseej paramilitary forces, and the shadowy plainclothes vigilantes. The brutal attack of a large group of plainclothes vigilantes on the Tehran University dormitory on the night of June 14th, where many students were beaten up, thrown out of windows, with many rooms and facilities damaged and destroyed; rampage of a residential complex where some Majlis deputies lived; and rampage by regular police units, Baseej militias and plainclothes vigilantes in various parts of the capital for a number of nights all pointed to a coordinated military-security scheme aiming at creating a sense of havoc, uncertainty, fear and intimidation among the public and blaming them on the opposition protesting and defying the election outcome. University dormitories were attacked and bloodied in similar fashion in Isfahan and Shiraz during the week. State control of mass media, particularly the national TV, and heavy censorship of the independent and pro-reform press, along with the rupture of text messaging service, and filtering of foreign broadcasts and Internet, put the government in the unique position to project a totally distorted picture of post-election developments and claim the prerogative to impose a heavy-handed security atmosphere in Tehran and a number of other major cities. Simultaneously, while popular peaceful protests were violently attacked and broken and hundreds of young protesters arrested en masse, many more political activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and civil society activists were summarily rounded up and taken into custody, some to the Evin Prison and others to secret unknown places. Leaked revelations in recent weeks portray a gruesome, ugly picture of how the young detainees have been treated at the Kahrizak detention camp – which was announced closed after 40 days once certain cases of death due to torture came to light. As part of a parallel track, many of the prominent political detainees have been paraded in the farcical show trials in recent weeks, especially in the first and fourth sessions of the “court”, held respectively on August 1st and 25th. In the course of these two sessions a number of these detainees, who had been held in solitary confinement and subjected to intensive psychological (white) torture since their arrest in mid-June, had been forced into reading from prepared statements confirming personal and organizational complicity in the Western-instigated “velvet revolution”, denouncing their respective organizations (political parties), and recanting political activism henceforth.

II- Who are the putschist gang?

The nature of the election coup and the political and security circumstances surrounding the shocking development, immediately followed by the sudden rounding up of political activists and a well-coordinated, heavy and ferocious repressive campaign, pointed unmistakably in the direction of the involvement of the military-intelligence community, and in particular the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Sepah-e Pasdaran). The Guards Corps (Sepah) - while a military force similar to the regular classic army which is apolitical and professional - also considers itself as the “guardian” of the Revolution with a peculiar political mission to safeguard the ruling system [Government of Velayat-e Faqih] against all kinds of threats, whether internal and external. The particular claim to an intrinsic unique mission to fight against and suppress internal “threats and enemies”, and the policies and measures emanating from such a belief and outlook, have since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in late 1980s been a bone of contention. While Sepah and its hard-line supporters within the conservative block have followed the line of political engagement – and all that it requires - other political and ideological forces and currents within the existing governance structure - the wide spectrum of moderate/pragmatist and pro-reform forces and currents – have opposed such engagement as unconstitutional and emphasized instead its purely external-oriented military mission. This year, as in previous election campaigns, the question of legality/propriety (constitutionality) of Sepah’s involvement in politics and the political arena, and by corollary, the involvement of its associated Baseej paramilitary militias, turned out to become quite a heated issue during the campaign, particularly that Sepah’s overtly expressed favourite candidate happened to be the incumbent Ahmadinejad. In light of the critical role the Sepah and Baseej had played back in 2005 in getting Ahmadinejad out of the box and into the office, and his extremely generous remunerating policies during the past four years to expand, deepen and institutionalize Sepah’s direct economic role and political stake in the power structure – inclusive of packing the Majlis (Parliament) with over 100 Sepahis – the pro-reform, pro-change forces were visibly apprehensive and vocal in protesting Sepah’s political engagement in the election campaign.

Given the nature of the Sepah-Baseej institutional intervention in the 2005 elections, and also considering the limited (minority) voting constituency of the entire conservative block, the pro-reform quarters were generally of the view during the campaign that a high voter turnout (over 70 percent) would give them such a huge margin that would comfortably offset up to 5 million vote manipulation through various means and mechanisms. This was the kind of rigging that these quarters seemed to have considered possible and doable. Therefore, their efforts appeared to have been geared towards preventing such an eventuality, including through working for a high turnout and also making it politically difficult for undue intervention, and at the practical level, through their own active and effective participation in monitoring the election process at different stages. The rather unexpected emergence during the last few weeks of the election campaign of a dynamic, lively political atmosphere and an energized popular civic movement – later dubbed the Green Movement – composed of all walks of life, especially jubilant, enthusiastic youth, women and university students, gave the pro-reform, pro-change camp the almost total certainty of a comfortable, even landslide, victory in the first round.. Practical lack of any credible political force, whether inside or outside, calling for non-participation or worse boycotting of the election, contrary to the situation in 2005, had also helped to rally and mobilize the largest voting block ever, further assuring the pro-reform platform of Mousavi’s certain victory.

In a rather quizzical manner, as it is known now, the putschist gang – and in a sense, the entire ruling system, inclusive of the Ayatollah himself - also seem to have considered the expected huge turnout a blessing in disguise. Contrary to the generally known view and analysis of the conservatives that a low turnout would afford them a higher chance of win because of their institutional capability to mobilize and bring their constituency to the voting booth, this time around, a huge popular participation in the elections had been deemed as a golden opportunity to be propagandized as a referendum of sorts in support and defense of the “Government of the Velayat-e Faqih” and the person of the Ayatollah – provided, of course, that the outcome would remain in friendly hands, as the election coup later ensured. The totally peaceful street demonstrations during the final weeks of the campaign, even side-by-side simultaneous demonstrations by enthusiastic even zealous supporters of rival candidates up to early morning hours, and practical absence of any violence from Baseej militias and their shadowy plainclothes allies, have been analyzed in political quarters as an indication of a deliberate if unannounced official policy intended to encourage and facilitate as high a participation as possible in a peaceful, tranquil and violence-free atmosphere. Such a peaceful co-existence of the rival camps in the run-up to the election stands in blatant contrast to the violence unleashed against the opposition political elite and the peaceful demonstrators as early as the day after the elections had been stolen and the fraudulent outcome announced and endorsed.

What happened in actuality at the end of the elections day went against the worst possible scenarios conceivable to the pro-reform camp. In retrospect, everybody seems to have been caught by total surprise – except, of course, the rather few in the say; those who had planned and pulled off the election coup. As it has come to light, mostly in the form of news pieces and analyses here and there, on heavily filtered news and political websites, or in the tongue-in-cheek allusions of political activists in post-election statements or interviews, the Sepah’s military command in charge of the capital’s security – Thar-Allah Headquarters (Command) – has acted as the central nerve and control system of the election emergency plan. The Command which had been established a decade ago in the wake of the student demonstrations in July 2009, and is composed of a large number of commando units especially trained for urban anti-riot action, has enjoyed from the outset and further developed a special, close working liaison with the Office of the Supreme Leader and the Office of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, headed by Dr. Firoozabadi, a physician by training. Its former commander – General Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari – is now the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah. For operational coordinating purposes, commander of Sepah’s ground forces has also served as the commander of Thar-Allah.

As the story goes, a detailed emergency and action plan had been prepared by this Command some time prior to the election day, to be implemented in stages, including as regards Ahmadinejad’s election campaign and in particular the rather innovative one on one televised debates between the candidates. Given Ahmadinejad’s well-known disposition to making harsh personal attacks, bland accusations, and controversial remarks, he is reported to have been given the green light to freely attack and smear Mousavi – his principal rival – and other prominent political figures of the Islamic Republic during the past three decades, including in particular former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The original intent and expectation behind this aggressive campaign posture had been that his rabble-rousing smearing words and pretentious down-to-earth “plebian” outlook would portray him as the oppressed underdog as well as the lone fighter against everybody else, and that a radical-sounding supposedly anti-establishment pose would endear him in the eyes of the populace generally disenchanted with the existing system and its past policies. Contrary to the expectations of the emergency plan, his unprincipled conduct in the course of the debates, particularly the one with Mousavi, served to beat the original intent and purpose. The way the debates unfurled in actuality served as an eye-opening, unprecedented political experiment that practically helped to expose the incumbent’s failed economic policies, self-serving confrontational foreign policy, and more importantly, served to totally discredit him personally as an out-and-out demagogue, unscrupulous populist political animal, and worse, a pathetic, clumsy liar – a man just too small for the job. The debates simultaneously served to portray a much more congenial picture of Mousavi as a soft-spoken, seasoned, mature politician representing principle, reason and moderation and better policies in various fields through reliance on collective wisdom at home and interaction with the outside world. The open, if desperate, full-fledged weight and voice of the ruling system and the conservative establishment that was thrown behind Ahmadinejad’s campaign during the final weeks of the race, inclusive of the categorical endorsement of the Sepah-Baseej and the vast traditional religious networks and Friday congregational prayers, and most notably the openly discriminatory policy of the national TV, and hasty organizing of heavily-publicized visits to provincial centers and inauguration of half-completed projects, all failed to turn the tide in favour of Ahmadinejad.

On the eve of the elections, it was all but a foregone conclusion for the general public and the pro-reform camp that Mousavi was set to win with a comfortable margin, if not a landslide – similar to Khatami’s 1997 surprise victory. The worst-case scenario for the pro-reform camp was that Sepah-Baseej institutional vote rigging in the order of few millions would send Mousavi and Ahmadinejad to the run-off elections, to be held a week later. However, the picture for Ahmadinejad and the Sepah seems to have been quite grim and terribly unsettling, hence, requiring the execution of the main elements of the action plan. In retrospect, resort to such extreme security measures as cutting off of mobile services and rupture of text messaging on the eve of the vote – even if unjustified and baffling to the general public - make perfect sense once put in the bigger context of the extraordinary situation that was to unfold. As reported, once initial assessments of the vote had come in from different precincts and areas, around Friday noontime, the Thar-Allah Command had called the Interior Minister Mahsouli, himself a former Sepahi commander, for an emergency meeting, where they seem to have reached the conclusion that Mousavi was the frontrunner with a wide margin. While the Minister had been tasked to keep informed the Office of the Ayatollah as well as the Command of the actual situation on the ground, they proceeded with preparing the final execution of the action plan. As the picture became much clearer by mid-afternoon, the Command is reported to have informed the Office of the Ayatollah of the imperative of executing the main elements of the plan – thwarting the election outcome. Indications are that following some initial doubts and uncertainty on the part of the Ayatollah unsure at the moment of the plan’s success, the green light was received in the early evening hours – as communicated by Seyyed Mojtaba, his second son, who is widely believed to have crafted during the past several years a very close working liaison with the Sepah commanders and especially its intelligence wing and the Thar-Allah Command. It is popularly believed that Mojtaba, a very ambitious young cleric in mid-forties, has his father’s ear and has played an important role in coordinating the election coup between the Sepah Command and the Ayatollah.

Once the final green light from the Ayatollah had been received, the action plan went into full operation, beginning with the attack on Mousavi’s main election headquarters, to be followed a few hours later with the catalyzing action around the Interior Ministry. As of midnight, the rounding up of a large number of prominent pro-reform political activists got under way. As it has just been revealed in the case of a lawyer arrested then and released in late August, the arrest warrant, dated a couple of days before the vote, had been issued by the Office of the General Prosecutor – the infamous Judge Mortazavi, who has personally performed a unique role as the judicial long arm of the repressive apparatus since the reform period (1997 onwards). Further arrests of activists from a prepared list with already issued warrants (blank signed warrants in some cases) went on during Saturday while the result of the vote continued to be announced from the Election Headquarters – as briefly discussed earlier – and throughout the week.. The statement read on national radio and TV in the name of the Ayatollah on Saturday afternoon, confirming in very strong terms Ahmadinejad’s victory, was considered to be the last word on the episode and expected to practically force the cheated candidates, particularly Mousavi, into acquiescence and silence. The response to the announced outcome and the Ayatollah’s full endorsement, both on the part of Mousavi and Karroubi and the general public, as is now history, went against the putschist expectations in the other direction. They defied the announced outcome and its endorsement. Angry, bewildered protesters, brandishing green symbols and shouting “where is my vote,” started pouring out on the streets in various parts of the capital as soon as the final tally had been announced. Simultaneously thousands of armed police and Baseej units, hundreds of motorcyclists, along with large hordes of plainclothes vigilantes armed with clubs, chains, brass knuckles and in cases, revolvers, also took to the streets. This was the beginning of the shaping up of the Green Movement defying the election coup and the fraudulent victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and also the beginning of the worst repressive campaign by the state apparatus in the history of modern Iran .

While much is known about the big picture – election coup, popular defiance and resistance on the one hand and the still on-going repressive campaign on the other – little is known about the blueprint of the “emergency action plan” as prepared by the Thar-Allah Command in close cooperation with the Ayatollah’s Office. Similarly there is little hard evidence on the exact composition of the putschist gang. The available picture, spotty as it might appear, and put together from bits and pieces from various sources and also gleaned from post-election statements and remarks by Sepah and Baseej commanders and other intelligence and police officials, seem to point in the direction of the central role of the Sepah high command in guiding the execution of the coup. While the Intelligence Ministry has been on the sidelines of the operation, the parallel intelligence service, operated and guided from the Office of the Ayatollah, has played the paramount role. This service, established during the Khtamai days by cleric Hossein Taeb, former intelligence official and current commander of Baseej, is comprised of Sepah intelligence officers and agents. The regular police and the Baseej – inclusive of the totally unknown, shadowy plainclothes vigilantes – have acted as executing agents. Office of General Prosecutor Mortazavi has acted as the coordinator for the judicial aspects; issuance of arrest warrants and dispatch to detention centers, both under judicial supervision and otherwise (Sepah’s numerous secret detention centers, and such centers as Kahrizak under police management). The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) – headed by the President - has acted as the coordinating mechanism. It has been reported that the meetings of the putschist gang in the post-election period have been held at the venue of the Council (SNSC), and presided by Ahmadinejad himself, with Saeed Jalili (Secretary of the Council/chief nuclear negotiator) acting as his personal liaison officer for the purpose.[1]

III – The Ayatollah and the military-intelligence community: mariage de convenance

As discussed previously, the objective of the election coup, planned and executed as a joint endeavour of the Office of the Ayatollah, parallel intelligence service and Sepah-Baseej combined capabilities, was directed at ensuring the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential elections which was expected to be carried by pro-reform candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The decision to thwart the election outcome in favour of Ahmadinejad, quite a risky decision fraught with unexpected colossal implications and consequences, cannot but be viewed and analyzed from the vantage point of major shifts in the balance of power in the Islamic Republic. What can be said, in a nutshell, revolves around the cumulative impact of the gradual increasing reliance of the Ayatollah on the military-intelligence community as opposed to interaction with the political forces within the system on the one hand, and on the other simultaneous gradual ascendance of Sepah as a rising military-intelligence force as well as a major political and economic player in the Iranian society. The roots of the peculiar liaison and cooperation are to be found in the very rationale of the Ayatollah’s meteoric rise to the position of the Velayat-e Faqih/Leadership in 1989 following the demise of Ayatollah Khomeini. Lacking requisite religious credentials as a junior cleric within the quite sprawling and highly complex hierarchy of the Iranian Ulama at the time, lacking charisma quite unlike Ayatollah Khomeini and the persistence of his towering persona and image, and equally important also lacking a solid political and organizational base within the ruling system, then brand new Ayatollah Khamenei appears to have felt obliged to seek political and institutional support from the military-intelligence community, and in particular, Sepah and Baseej. Within the broad framework of such a choice, the critical turning point for the further development and consolidation of the liaison offered itself following the sudden, unexpected landslide victory of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami in May 1997, trouncing Akbar Nateq-Noori, the conservative rival and the highly expected winner of the race. That sudden development and the emergence of the reform movement, first dominating the executive branch and over a year later, the majority block of the Majlis (6th Majlis), confronted the conservative establishment, inclusive of the Ayatollah himself, with a fundamental challenge.   Khatami, having campaigned on a platform of political reform, emphasized governmental accountability and transparency, the rule of law for both the rulers and the ruled, and respect for the rights and dignity of the individual. The reform movement, as it came to be called later, pursued in large measure a platform for political development – to expand and institutionalize the rule of law and respect for the constitutionally-recognized rights and entitlements.

Victory of the reform ticket was accompanied, as had been the case in similar previous episodes in modern Iranian history, with popular euphoria and outburst of popular energy in the form of political and social activism and cultural dynamism. Relaxation of some of the previous restrictive measures in the field of print press, in particular in the area of pre-publication censorship,   led to the emergence of a number of independent, critical newspapers and publication of a wide range of books in diverse fields. The new period of civil society blossoming, as in the previous experiences, proved short-lived, even during the first term of Khatami’s presidency. The conservative establishment, with a generally illiberal ideological outlook – even with a strong authoritarian streak – which had been caught by surprise in the immediate aftermath of the reform victory and rising challenge to its supremacy, regained its composure after a year or so and went on the offensive. Closure en masse of a wide range of independent and critical newspapers in the spring of 1999, following expression of open displeasure of the Ayatollah, came to be a turning point in the tussle between the reform ticket and the conservative establishment. Brutal suppression of the university student demonstrations against the closure of a major pro-reform daily in early July 2009, led to the establishment at the Office of the Ayatollah of a parallel intelligence service composed of Sepah and Baseej intelligence officers – as distinct from the traditional Intelligence Ministry, which is part of the cabinet and accountable, in the final analysis, to Majlis. The measure was also aided by the openly and extremely repressive anti-press practices of the Ayatollah’s personal protégé at the Judiciary - maverick young judge Saeed Mortazavi. These measures, kept in force and further institutionalized over time, especially the institutional strengthening of the new intelligence service and establishment of new military commands of the Sepah in Tehran in charge of defending the Office and institution of the Supreme Leader, lay the groundwork for future military-intelligence anti-reform operations.

These developments epitomized the beginning of the process of retreat by the reformers during the second half of Khatami’s first term (1999-2001), a situation that continued during his second term (2001-2005) and further weakened the reformers, popular political participation, and civil society activism. Emergence of the new radical right, which showed its head first in the course of the campaign for the elections of city councils in March 2003 – and as subsequent developments confirmed – was the well-calculated-executed institutional response of the beleaguered establishment and the rising military-intelligence community to the reform challenge. The capture of the Tehran City Council by an hitherto unknown political grouping – Abadgaran – with a militant and radical-sounding right-wing outlook and politics [radical right], also led to the emergence on the political scene of a little-known Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Mayor of Tehran; the beginning of the political liaison between the new rising star and his institutional supporters in the Sepah. Recapture of the majority position in the 7th Majlis elections in February 2004, through the intervention of the Guardian Council and disqualification of prominent reform candidates, especially in Tehran and other major cities, made clear the establishment’s political thinking and planning – reclaiming the executive branch in the presidential elections of June 2005 as the critical component of the drive towards consolidation of power and effective ousting of the reformers from the entire state apparatus.

The radical right, as represented by the maverick mayor of Tehran , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won the 2005 presidential race through the heavy and full force institutional intervention of the security and military apparatus – Sepah, Baseej - and also the entire religious network. The reform block, already in retreat and deeply fragmented, lost badly, which also signified a sense of widespread disillusionment and resignation among substantial segments of the urban middle class and intelligentsia. That resignation and practical boycott of the elections by a rather substantial segment of the visibly disillusioned electorate was much more than offset by the effectively well-mobilized participation of the traditional constituencies of the conservative block, especially in the rural areas and small towns and also among the urban and rural poor who had been particularly energized by the radical, anti-establishment, and egalitarian slogans of Ahmadinejad. During the 2005-2009 period, the resurgent radical right, as spearheaded by a maverick, populist Ahmadinejad, systematically subjected all areas of civil and political activity to increasing pressures of sorts and curtailed and constrained them substantially – whether in the form of independent print press (newspapers and books), general NGO activities, women’s activities, university student activism, or political assembly by the wide range of pro-reform, pro-change groups and currents. Simultaneously, a range of economic and political-administrative policies and measures have helped to bring the Sepah in its entirety from the fringes to the center stage of economic and political life. Thanks to the extremely generous remunerative policies of Ahmadinejad, Sepah is now the biggest entrepreneur and contractor in the national economy, owns and controls a number of ports along the Persian Gulf littoral, and is engaged in a wide range of economic, industrial and commercial activities totally beyond the administrative and budget purview of the formal government.

This gradual, steady ascendance of the Sepah and the parallel intelligence service, outwardly fully and unflinchingly loyal to the Ayatollah and the existing theocratic state [anchored around the office and institution of Velayat-e Faqih], has also had the concurrent impact of making him more and more beholden to the military-intelligence community. Simultaneously, the politics of the resurgent radical right under Ahmadinejad has a matter of deliberate policy systematically pushed the wide gamut of pro-reform and pragmatist politicians and political forces out of the active political/administrative system and has further polarized the political environment. This seemingly inexorable trend has also constrained the available options to the Ayatollah and further limited the space for his political activity and interaction with his political seniors, peers and rivals from the earlier days of the Revolution. It could be said with a high degree of certainty that the Ayatollah, who has surrounded himself increasingly with a host of intelligence and security-minded elements, has capitalized on the trend, especially in light of his undisguised displeasure – even animosity – towards the messy, inconvenient early years of the reform period when he had faced the constant combined pressures of substantial popular demands of a robust, dynamic civil society, a not-so-compliant Khatami and an independent, even unruly Majlis. It is understandable, therefore, that a beleaguered Supreme Leader in search of the assured tranquility of unquestioned supremacy and an ascendant military-intelligence community chafing to forcing itself on the system as its saviour/guardian find each other in a mutually expedient power arrangement of mariage de convenance.

In 2005, while the reform ticket was badly fragmented and the general public was in a state of political disillusionment and apathy, it was not too difficult to ensure the victory of a maverick, dark-horse populist as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It only required some vote rigging in the order of several hundred thousands to get him as the second vote-getter after Hashemi Rafsanjani and ahead of a “slightly” cheated Karroubi. The situation in 2009 for the re-election of the rabble-rousing “spoiled baby” might have been similarly easy if a credible, heavy-weight candidate like Khatami could be prevented from entering the race. Khatami, totally reluctant on his own to get into a re-play of an already painful experience, finally put up his candidature under the political-moral pressure of the reform camp and a rising popular movement of the youth to enter the race and save the country and the system from the depredations of an unscrupulous and incompetent political animal. He did, but as it is fully known to the political elite, the Ayatollah advised him in so many words not to do so. Once he chose to disregard – politely and quietly though – the unmistakable advice, Mr. Shariatmadari, former interrogator at the Evin Prison, and the personal representative of the Ayatollah at the head of the daily Keyhan – wrote in an editorial that should Khatami enter the race he would face the same destiny as Benazir Bhutto – will be assassinated – and the US will be blamed for the “crime”!

Khatami respectfully bowed out of the race before being assassinated by the US agents, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former premier in the 1980s, who had also indicated his willingness to run should Khatami not do so, put up his candidature on a pro-change platform. Given the fact that the 67-year-old architect-painter and Muslim intellectual of the 1970s had been out of active politics for 20 years and also because of his known posture as a proponent of predominantly statist economic policies while in office, the pro-reform camp approached him with some visible reservations initially, and gave him overall support, short of full endorsement. The apparent hesitation was also related to the fact that Mousavi’s expressed positions and analyses up to that juncture on social and cultural issues and such burning issues as human rights and democracy had not been fully developed or expressed – yet. The conservative block, judging the situation and cognizant of the complexities and fissures within the pro-reform, pro-change camp, did not seem particularly disturbed or uncomfortable with Mousavi’s candidature, assuming that his “old-guard” politics would fail to energize the generally apathetic populace, and also the efficacy of their own smearing tactics would easily knock him out. Things simply did not go quite that way as the campaign picked up during the last few weeks prior to the vote. As Mousavi adopted a gradual and yet increasingly progressive posture, he received the full-fledged support of the bulk of the pro-reform political parties and forces. His campaign, in all fairness, was also aided substantially by the presence and activism of his wife, Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, a well-known, progressive intellectual/academic and prolific writer. The fast developing campaign, which had adopted a light green symbol, soon turned out to energize the youth, women, subdued civil society, and the widest possible support from all walks of life, both at home and in the quite sizeable Iranian community abroad, including in particular from among the disillusioned, apathetic and even apolitical segments of the populace who seem to have seen in him and the his campaign a promise for change and a life for the better under a somewhat reformed, less ideological and stringent, governance.

As discussed in the previous section, the aggressive, smearing campaign politics of Ahmadinejad, designed to outmaneuver Mousavi – his principal rival – failed to turn the tide, and the challenger appeared to be on the way to unseat him. That grim prospect, with the benefit of hindsight, seems to have forced the conservative establishment in general, a deeply uncomfortable Ayatollah, a doomed, desperate Ahmadinejad, and the restless military-intelligence community chafing to settle scores and further entrench its burgeoning position and prowess, to have found it imperative to go for the juggernaut and thwart the election outcome through an emergency plan – an election coup, as already addressed. The coup was pulled off with success and an incredulous, visibly demoralized Ahmadinejad was brought of the box and imposed on the country – and for that matter, on the international community. However, the coup-makers had not foreseen the sudden outburst of open, popular - and peaceful - defiance and resistance, both on the part of the general populace as well as the cheated candidates – Mousavi and Karroubi. The emergence and persistence of the unknown factor turned out to radically change the situation and the equation, and that is why and how the post-election explosion emerged and unfolded; a totally new dynamic with its peculiarly uncertain and unfathomable parameters.

IV- The Putsche programme: purge and consolidation

The conduct of the putschist gang since June 12th in stealing the vote, the subsequent violent campaign of repression, and the farcical show trials have brought to light – in fact, betrayed in the most revealing manner peculiar to an intrinsically violent mindset and military-style blind resolve - the real intentions and objectives behind the election coup. The immediate objective of the coup, as has already been discussed in some detail, has been to ensure the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; thus requiring the deliberate, pre-planned thwarting of the rightful winner - Mir-Hossein Mousavi. In other words, the essence of the plan and its execution has been, first and foremost, to prevent, by any and all means possible and at any costs, the victory of the pro-reform candidate and return to power of the political forces and currents considered incongruent with the outlook, objectives, and policies of the current office-holders – the resurgent radical right and its military-intelligence backbone. But, what has transpired since the election coup has, in actuality, gone much beyond the mere blocking of a presidential challenger – even of Mousavi’s caliber as an ardent supporter of the existing Constitution. The process has unfolded as a full-fledged, violent drive towards total consolidation of political power in the hands of a shadowy military-intelligence gang. Some of the actions of Ahmadinejad in the wake of his official endorsement as the incoming president also shed further light on these intentions and objectives.

The mass arrests and detention of principal activists and leaders of major pro-reform political parties along with a large number of prominent civil society activists, journalists, lawyers and academics in the course of the election coup and in its wake, as is now quite clear, was not a mere tactical security measure. Rather, as it has turned out, it was part of the wider political-intelligence campaign to decapitate and paralyze these political formations in the first place, and prepare the grounds for further subsequent stages of the operation- effective, total purge of the political scene from pro-reform forces. Contrary to the general expectations – at least speculations - in many political circles and among the general public that the political detainees would be freed once the initial tense situation had passed, gradual leakage of news from prisons as to the solitary confinement, denial of legal access, and torture of prominent detainees for extraction of bogus confessions soon revealed some other aspects of the unfolding operation. Simultaneously, a high-profile propaganda campaign was initiated against the political detainees – and their respective political organizations – for complicity in a so-called Western-instigated conspiratorial “velvet revolution” aiming at the overthrow of the ruling system.

The propaganda campaign led in early August to the commencement of highly-publicized, televised show trials of around 100 people - a hodge-podge of well-known political detainees, young street demonstrators, a few staff of British and French Embassies in Tehran and also a French national. The Prosecutor’s indictment – an unmistakable political statement against pro-reform parties and activists and based on a long catalogue of bland accusations of a general , even journalistic, nature and totally void of any legal content – manifested, in the clearest possible manner, the depth of the ultimate intentions and objectives of the putschist gang – defamation of pro-reform parties and currents as a prelude to further legal/administrative measures towards officially banning their activities. The Interior Ministry has in the meantime sent out communications to the two major pro-reform political parties to the same effect and accused them of a number of “major violations.” It is interesting to note, as underlined by various political sources, that the bulk of the indictment was a reproduction in verbatim form of a series of columns published a few weeks earlier in the daily Keyhan – which has served for long as the semi-official mouthpiece of the shadowy intelligence community. Parading of a large number of political detainees in the court sessions in haggard conditions, in inappropriate apparel, and without access to legal counsel – in contravention of established juridical procedures – and simultaneous presentation of some detainees who had been forced into making public confession and reading from prepared statements, seemed to pursue a number of concurrent goals – including public humiliation and defaming of respected political activists and their respective organizations; demoralizing their supporters; as well as the immediate objective of rejecting election fraud from the mouth of prominent pro-reform activists.

Determined insistence by a host of supporters of the election coup – political, intelligence and Sepah officers - on the continued detention of political detainees and pursual of the show trials with emphasis on fighting the so-called “velvet revolution” despite expressions of public revulsion and open criticisms by an increasing number of independent political and religious figures and circles further manifested the bigger political will behind the campaign. The Ayatollah who had thrown his full weight behind the election coup and fully sided with Ahmadinejad during the first week after the vote kept a rather suspicious silence on the on-going developments. Continuation of detentions and the show trials even after the scandal of torture and systematic rape at the Kahrizak detention center had come to light and caused public consternation and furor and concurrent official embarrassment, made it all the more clear that the dual violent-defamation campaign was part and parcel of the bigger drive towards breaking the pro-reform camp and pushing it to the brink. Ahmadinejad’s actions in the midst of all these also pointed in the direction of some other aspects of the campaign. He summarily dismissed the Minister of Intelligence and took charge of the ministry, and within a few short days ordered the removal of a number of long-serving deputies, managers and experts and had them replaced them with loyal “new blood” from the Sepah intelligence wing – a measure that did not sit well with the intelligence group around the Ayatollah who seem to have felt that the man is simply going too far in buttressing his personal position and undermining the position of the parallel intelligence service, and hence, ultimately the position and authority of the Ayatollah. Ahmadinejad had already indicated in public pronouncements that once officially instituted he would proceed with smashing the heads of “undesirables” against the ceiling – a very blunt, ominous message for a large body of state employees within the quite expansive bureaucracy. Ahmadinejad’s excuse for dismissing the Intelligence Minister, as reported in the press then and also reiterated by him on a number of subsequent occasions, was his displeasure at the Minister’s report to the Ayatollah rejecting the veracity of the “velvet revolution” scheme; thus poking a hole in the ferocious on-going campaign and its rationale and political underpinnings.

More recent developments have, in fact, served as further indications of the drive towards consolidation of power in the hands of the putschist gang. It was announced just a few days ago that Sepah will be purchasing 51 percent of the shares of Iran ’s Telecommunications Company. The deal, while indicating the economic reward for the Sepah’s success in the election coup and the consequent expanded politico-economic wherewithal, also reflects the extension of its actual control over the country’s telecommunications system – with grave long-term intelligence implications. Simultaneously, official formation of the incoming administration, as an important part of the political-administrative process formalizing the gelling of the putschist gang, lends further credence to the current drive. Composition of the new cabinet, which received vote of confidence from the Majlis just yesterday, leaves little doubt as to the nature and direction of the unfolding developments within the political system. Sepah has come much closer to practically dominate the political, economic and intelligence scene. No wonder, then, that quite a large number of the ministers are either Sepah officers or have had close liaison with it or with Baseej. For example, the Interior Ministry, the most political line ministry, has been handed to the former Defense Minister – a uniformed Sepah commander. The Higher Education Ministry has gone to the former deputy Interior Minister and head of the Election Headquarters – the man responsible for coordinating the election coup from the Headquarters. The fact that a man with such a high political-security profile will be in charge at the ministry dealing with the student body also implies the clear security-minded approach and policy to be pursued with regard to universities, especially in a period expected to experience widespread student activism and opposition in response to the election coup and the repressive campaign. Ahmadinejad’s most provocative nominee was General Ahmad Vahidi for the post of Defense Minister. General Vahidi, former Commander of the Ghods Corps (Sepah’s international wing), is on the Interpol red alert for alleged complicity in terror activities in the 1990s. As it has been reported, his nomination and qualifications were not debated as in the case of others, indicating certain high-level interventions [from the Ayatollah or his Office] discouraging open debate in order to prevent any possible allusion to his personal difficulties as grounds for lacking requisite qualification to assume the post. And interestingly enough, in a highly-charged atmosphere peppered with xenophobic sloganeering at the Majlis, he received the highest vote among the 18 ministers confirmed.

Furthermore and concurrently two sets of pronouncements have shed further light on the picture ahead. Ahmadinejad has already indicated on a number of occasions, including while presenting his nominees for the cabinet to the Majlis a few days ago, the imperative of introducing substantial change in the staff and experts body of the Foreign Ministry. It has been reported in the press that while a large number of experienced diplomats will be retired or encouraged to seek early retirement, steps have already been taken to employ new recruits, with the bulk coming from the Sepah, including in particular from its associated academic institution, Imam Hossein University . The news piece carried just two days ago by the Fars News Agency, close to Sepah, reporting the expeditious recalling of 40 ambassadors from their current posts and the necessity of staffing the foreign missions with new blood with requisite “Islamic and revolutionary outlook” provides a clear indication of the coming purge and changes at the Ministry. Also a string of openly political statements by a number of high-ranking Sepah commanders in recent weeks on a wide range of election-related issues have further unveiled their current and future intentions or political ambitions and objectives. While the head of the Sepah Political Bureau has called for the prosecution of Mousavi, the Commander-in-Chief, General Jafari, has addressed the question of “velvet revolution”. In a long public speech made to a group of young people, he has, among other things, produced a series of statements - “confessions” - from jailed pro-reform leaders and activists implicating them for direct complicity in the scheme. Various Sepah officers have also openly taken the credit for smashing the “velvet revolution” and underlined their commitment and full readiness to continue the current campaign.

V- Concluding remarks: the immediate future?

The discussion in the preceding lines of the post-election crisis in Iran has tried to show, in a clear albeit schematic form, the overall nature and direction of the developments that have taken place since the disputed June elections. The putschist gang has successfully thwarted the election outcome, imposed Ahmadinejad as the incoming president, and has pursued a violent campaign of repression against the popular resistance movement – the Green Movement – with particular focus on the pro-reform forces and currents. While the visible aspects of popular defiance seem to have been controlled for the most part and demonstrators have been effectively pushed off the streets, hundreds of pro-reform leaders and civil society activists still languish in jails with uncertain immediate destiny as to the duration of detention or the outcome of possible prosecution. Change in recent weeks of the head of the Judiciary might - just might – have some ameliorating, face-saving effects on the treatment of political detainees, especially that the infamous General Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has been removed from his powerful office with wide ranging executive powers – even though immediately appointed as deputy Prosecutor-General, a high-ranking position without executive authority. The still unfolding, unresolved drama on systematic rape of women and even men at the Kahrizak detention center – as pursued doggedly by Karroubi and vehemently resisted by those in power - might also serve as a constraining factor. The deeply embarrassed establishment might opt for some sort of face-saving, damage control quid pro quo in order to prevent actual confirmation of the crimes committed at the camp, or reducing its dimensions to the extent possible.

The still unfolding drama on the fate of political detainees, the show trials, and the Kahrizak scandal – three intrinsically complex and potentially explosive dossiers - seem to be the most burning issues impacting the immediate domestic political scene in the wake of the formation of the new cabinet. The big question mark, however, revolves around the situation at universities at the beginning of the academic year in late September. It can be said that all in all the domestic scene from now on will be fraught with all kinds of uncertainties, which will be a subject of the respective approach and policies of both the government and the opposition – the Green Movement – and their interaction, if at all or however defined. The foreign picture will be similarly difficult and fraught with uncertainties - the most urgent issue being the nuclear dossier and the 5+1 high-profile focused pressure on the late September deadline for Iran ’s engagement in substantive negotiations or alternatively their oft-repeated threat to resort to harsher, biting sanctions.

Given the quite vocal world unease with Ahmadinejad’ openly challenged presidency and the still continuing international outcry at the repressive campaign, most probably he will have quite a tough time henceforth pursuing an effective, result-oriented foreign policy. Notwithstanding the purported readiness on the part of Ahmadinejad and his team to engage in serious negotiations with the Obama Administration on the wide range of outstanding bilateral issues, inclusive of the nuclear dispute, his deeply challenged and much weaker position at home, and equally important the presumed recalcitrance of his Sepahi backers (the group with the most intractable and maximalist position on the nuclear issue), might make it extremely difficult for him under the circumstances to afford entering into serious meaningful negotiations on this matter, much less making compromising deals. His publicly announced upcoming visit to the United Nations General Assembly session aims at breaking out of the current international isolation, also hoping to be able to open some direct channels of communication with Washington. Whether the Obama people will be in a position under the current awkward circumstances to respond positively to such “desperate” vibes from an illegitimate president or not, one thing seems to be certain: he will receive a very warm welcome outside the UN building by throngs of Iranian and American protesters and quite probably a generally cold shoulder inside the building. Regardless of Ahmadinejad’s personal intentions, preferences, or hopes, and aside from political and diplomatic coquetry for public relations purposes, he might simply feel obliged to continue, at least for some time in the foreseeable future, his previous bombastic, aggressive, and confrontational foreign policy discourse for urgent, badly needed domestic consumption and also to placate further erosion in an already shaken, vulnerable political base at home. Moreover, the Ayatollah and the intelligence group around him will not allow Ahmadinejad to take the credit for resolving the bilateral dispute with Washington . That happens to be the centerpiece of the Ayatollah’s rabid “anti-imperialism.” Therefore, vintage Iranian foot dragging – especially long monologues a la Jalili on a host of international issues and problems - might perhaps be the most probable course of action to be expected from Tehran on the nuclear issue during the months ahead.

[1] Some of the principal figures in the group, all high-ranking Sepah officers, are as follows:

- General Ahmad Vahidi, a Sepahi officer, former commander of Ghods Corps (Sepah’s international wing), is part of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service and now Ahmadinejad’s Minister of Defense. He is on the Interpol red alert for alleged complicity in terror operations in the 1990s.

- General Mohammad Hossein Hejazi, former commander of Baseej during the reform period and a principal anti-reform/anti-Khatami provocateur, is currently serving as acting deputy commander of Sepah and Commander of Thar-Allah, also one of the principal members of the parallel intelligence service and intelligence team at the Ayatollah’s Office.

- General Mohammad Esmaeil Kowsari, acting deputy commander of Thar-Allah, head of the intelligence department of the Chief Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, is also a Majlis deputy – and in that capacity serves as deputy of the Majlis Intelligence Commission. In one of his latest public remarks, he has called for the arrest and prosecution of Mousavi.
- General Hossein Nejat, a Sepahi officer, a central member of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service.

- General Hossein Hamadani, currently Taeb’s deputy at Baseej, is a member of the Ayatollah’s security team and parallel intelligence service, and also among the leaders of the shadowy Ansar-e Hezbollah plainclothes vigilantes.

- General Abdullah Araghi, commander of the Mohammad Rasul-llah Corps for the Greater Tehran.

Some other figures – clerics - who are known to have played a role in the plan, are as follows:

-   Hossein (Meisam) Taeb, a cleric, known for short temper and penchant for violence, and current commander of Baseej, had been removed from the Intelligence Ministry once under Hashemi Rafsanjani in mid-1990s and for a second time under Khatami because of his complicity in the serial killings of intellectuals in 1998. Subsequently he moved to the Office of the Ayatollah and established the parallel intelligence service.

- Mojtaba Zon-noor, a cleric, and current acting deputy to Saeedi at Sepah, has been known for proclivity to violence and organizing violent attacks on opposition figures.

- Ali Saeedi, a cleric, with extreme hard-line views, is the Ayatollah’s personal representative at Sepah.

- Asghar Mir-Hejazi (Hejazi), a cleric, is in charge of the security affairs of the Ayatollah’s Office, is generally considered a very influential element in the entire security/intelligence establishment.

The above list is not exhaustive, and should be further updated and completed as further data becomes available.

Laughter and Tears: On Being Accused of Spying for MI-6

2009-09-11T15:41:32Z

London, Saturday 1st August: one of those weird moments when glum silence is the most sensible reaction. A colleague telephoned to spill the bad news. ‘This morning, in a preliminary statement before the highest court of the Islamic Republic of Iran’, he began, ‘you were named by the Deputy State Prosecutor as a co-conspirator in an organised attempt to overturn the present regime by means of a velvet coup d’état.’ Surely a prank call, I thought. I hesitated. ‘What? Co-conspirator? Who else?’ My colleague sounded serious. ‘Jürgen Habermas. Richard Rorty. You’re together accused of acting as CIA and MI-6 agents. I’ll e-mail more details this afternoon.’

Laughter: so utterly absurd was the news that the end of the telephone conversation triggered a belly laugh of deep animal dimensions. So far as I know, there is no right to be ridiculous, but that was exactly what the government prosecutor seemed bent on proving to the court, and to the outside world, or so it first seemed. I soon learned that a few weeks earlier the same accusation had first been floated in the prominent Tehran Newspaper Kayhan. In a 5-part ‘treatise’ published between the 4th and 9th of July - just a few days after the election that tore apart the country’s heart - the ‘researcher’ and ‘best-selling author’ Payam Fazlinejad had caused a great political stir by alleging that various people linked to the former president Mohammad Khatami were hatching a plot to take over the state by means of a ‘velvet counter-revolution’.

Almost certainly repeating thoughts obtained from an intelligence source behind the scenes, Mr Fazlinejad said not a word about the elections, or about the fact that millions of Iranians had already reached the conclusion that the result might well be rigged by a power group bent on hanging on forever, using every conceivable dirty trick, blessed by the Supreme Leader. That is of course what soon happened. Mr Fazlinejad instead alleged a nasty conspiracy – a latter-day trahison des clercs organised and paid for by a global network of scheming foreign agencies, including the United States Congress, the Dutch parliament, the German Association for Foreign Policy, the National Endowment for Democracy and my own University of Westminster. Standing at the heart of the grand conspiracy, he claimed, were ‘three thinking engines of the CIA and MI-6’. Habermas, Rorty and I were said to be ‘security and intelligence theorists’ who had managed to ‘transform the project of “civil society” into “civil struggle”, this time targeting Iran. Mr Fazlinejad went on to conclude that Rorty was a ‘fascist’ theorist and an ‘old spy’; and that Habermas, ‘the most distinguished German philosopher’, is in reality a soiled champion of ‘civil struggle’ and the ‘American project of “transition to democracy”’.

How should scholars react to intimidation wrapped in lies? I cannot speak for Jürgen Habermas, with whom I have corresponded about the matter; sadly, Richard Rorty is no longer with us, though almost certainly his first response to these allegations would have been a sceptical smile and signature shrug of the shoulders. What must be said is that the allegations border on libel - and that they may warrant legal action. They are wholly false. Mr Fazlinejad and the state prosecutor and the Fars news agency - the only media organisation allowed to cover the trials now taking place - have twisted and distorted facts to suit their own perverse ends. Their intelligence sources are dumber than they suppose. Their abracadabra gets everything wrong. I am not ‘Civil Society Professor at the University of Westminster’ (I am Professor of Politics). The Centre for the Study of Democracy was not founded in 1988 (it was a year later) and it has never hosted a ‘project on Iranian Civil Society’. I am neither a ‘theorist of MI-6’ nor its ‘brain’ (I have had no contact with any such organisation, and on principle would never knowingly do so). I am no ‘master key’ of things, people or events, although for Mr Fazlinejad and the state prosecutor, who both think in terms of crude substitutions, anything is possible: A stands for B, C stands for B, therefore C is A and A, B and C are causally intertwined and therefore ultimately identical in motive and substance. I am not the ‘hidden figure’ who arranged ‘consultations’ with ‘the American Council on Foreign Relations and the German Foreign Policy Association’. I have not ‘travelled frequently to Tehran’ (I have travelled twice, on both occasions thanks to official invitations and for the purpose of establishing scholarly links). I have indeed met Saeed Hajjarian - a victim of the current trials - with whom I had pleasant and polite conversation, but not for the purpose of ‘soft subversion’ or ‘conveying the latest instructions’ from the shadowy organisers of the planned ‘velvet coup d’état’. In 2004, during one such visit to Tehran, I indeed taught an officially approved short course based on research for The Life and Death of Democracy (which has just been published). This four-part course of scholarly lectures was not a ‘training workshop on the transition to democracy’. It is not true that I participated in ‘operations geared to the collapse of the governments of Eastern Europe’. I did not spend ‘the years 1973 and 1975 in Czechoslovakia’ (I lived in Canada during this period) and at no time have I ‘often travelled to Poland’ or worked for the ‘Polandising of Iran’.

Many errors, multiple distortions, countless confabulations: my spontaneous belly laugh had clearly been triggered by nonsense nurtured by reasoning based on substitutions, non sequiturs and vengeful paranoia. Seconds later, I felt fear. When my colleague hung up, animal laughter morphed into a cloud of pensiveness, riveted by the thought that words can ruin lives, or torture and kill. It is no laughing matter for scholars to be lumped in with plotters, mercenaries and secret agents of ‘Western’ and ‘Zionist’ reaction. It is incomparably worse to be the victim of a carefully constructed narrative whose crude aim is to recast the civil disturbances triggered by a rigged election as a conspiracy orchestrated by foreigners, initially by convicting many of the country’s best and brightest minds, probably for the ultimate purpose of consolidating a coup d’état by banning outright all opposition with ‘green’ democratic sympathies.

I think of Kafka. The whole sordid affair reminds me of his description of the writing machine whose razor sharp ink jets etch words into the blooded flesh of its victims. For over two months, the arrested, dressed in grey-blue prison pyjamas and rubber sandals, have been daily dragged before a revolutionary court in Tehran and subjected to a form of verbal torture. Forced to sit in silence through lies big and small, they stand accused of orchestrating the post-election violence which took the lives of more than 30 people, injured hundreds more and frightened untold numbers of innocent citizens who want nothing more than to live in a country where power is peacefully shared, human and civil rights are respected - and nobody lives in fear of the authorities.

When and where this campaign of intimidation, terror and violence will end nobody knows. From a scholarly point of view, the most worrying development, recently confirmed by the Supreme Leader, is the link that has been drawn between the human sciences, the universities and the so-called ‘velvet counter-revolution’. The attack on the human sciences as treasonous is in effect an assault on all independent scholarly investigation of power, its history, present-day fortunes and desirable limits. It is a recipe for hubris - and the blind hallucinations, follies, third-rate leadership and serial wrongs that it necessarily breeds. The witless assault on scholarly integrity explains why I wish to pass a message to those who are or have been on trial, and to those researchers and teachers who are now being targeted as enemies of state because their vocation is to study society and government. The message is plain: I am just one of many whose thoughts are with you. We suffer. We weep as you are pushed and shoved through pitch-black tunnels of rumour, insults, slander, nightly beatings, false charges, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, rape, forced confessions and kangaroo court sessions. Your prosecution and long-term imprisonment will achieve nothing. It will not put an end to public disaffection, unemployment, poverty, regional instability and rotten government. Whatever is said, or done, hubris, cruelty and incompetence do not have God on their side. Detention without trial - which is prohibited by the constitution - and death in custody have nothing to do with reason or justice, or with the Prophet’s call for listening to people and treating them with kindness and respect. Friends: that is why you know that whatever you say or do in weakness will be used against you - and why you have resolved to be strong, cling to your integrity with all your might and to find courage and consolation in the assurance that your loved ones, and millions of people around the world, will not forget you, or accept your ghastly predicament as fate.

John Keane
London
9 September 2009

What is the role of facebook, twitter and blogs here?

2009-06-19T19:41:19Z

It is a fair argument to say that social network websites may not be objective. It is also fair to say that they do not reflect the whole truth. However, things have to be seen in the right context. These networks do not exist in a vacuum. They have turned out to be the only means through which a part of the Iranian population is trying to make its voice heard around the globe.

Yes, we have had an unprecedented turn out for election, for which we must be proud. But a high turn-out in elections is not synonymous with a landslide victory. Is it possible to fake 11 million votes? Yes, if the body in charge of the elections has everything to win in it and has monopoly over all the mechanisms of the voting in the country (which painfully seems to be the case). So, once there is objectivity and there is independent supervision and monitoring, for sure it would be extremely difficult to fake a landslide and hijack 11 million votes. In the absence of independent monitors, it is very much likely to happen, particularly when we have seen the precedents of it very frequently in the past.

Is it people’s ‘duty’ to vote? Or is it their ‘right’ to vote? I think we are now facing a corrupt political literature which is undermining the very basic principles of political literacy and reinventing a fallacious way of dealing with democracy.

Going back to social networks: yes, they should never be our only sources of information, but in the absence of any reliable source and while all ‘different’ media outlets have been systematically silenced (why silenced if we claim to be right?), they can at least be beacons of the desperate attempts of a population which goes unheard and suppressed.

Is it only social networks on the internet? Then how do we explain the chanting of Allah-u Akbar every night on rooftops and in the streets of Tehran and other cities?

I think social networks serve to tell us, more emphatically than ever, “Hey! Something terrible is going on here that they do not want the rest of the world to know about!” This we can say with a degree of confidence.

I completely understand why some of the supporters of Ahmadinejad are so infuriated by the breathing of social networks: it does not allow them to silence just about everything (the same thing goes for BBC Persian TV even if they claim it is not impartial). That is the whole point and that is why they want to discredit and disclaim the entirety of it.

Who would kidnap you?!

2008-06-19T23:07:52Z

The Iranian President has recently said, in one of his typical extraordinary remarks, that during his trip to Iraq 'the enemies had planned to kindnap and assasinate the servant of the nation...'. What a fool would be anyone who would plan to kidnap and assasinate HIM! Man! You are a liability for the entire existence! Who would want you, alive or dead?!

A mess of drama!

2007-11-06T21:18:37Z

I just accidentally noticed something extraordinary on BBC one. They are showing a TV series called Spooks. The episode I am seeing now is about an Algerian extremist who has escaped home arrest and plotting with local Iranians in the UK to attack US businesses here. So far one could guess almost anything, but moments later you find out that this Algerian is in touch with the Iranian Embassy! There is talk about nuclear achievements of Iran and their involvement in terrorist attacks against the US. Well, so far this is the normal line of propaganda. But then you see the scene at the Embassy (which is obviously supposed to happen in recent year). There are armed guard wearing the Revolutionary Corps Gaurds uniform at the door of the Embassy (an extremely unlikely thing for almost any embassy in the UK). And when you enter the Embassy, you see a lavishly luxurious place, like a palace (what did they think of the Iranian Embassy?). You see men wearing ties and these men are diplomatic digintaries of Iran! You see women at the embassy wearing no veil. A certain lady tears her dress in a murder scene inside the embassy and her bra can be seen, etc. Well, what a drama!

This is full of imagination and lies. I woder why the Iranian Embassy has never criticized the BBC for this stupid theme, particularly at a time when there is this political crisis and controversy about Iran. Anyway, watch Spooks and laugh at it. I always thought the idea of making up such cheap series only comes up in Iran. I never knew that such superficial ideas also appear in the BBC! Well done, BBC! Did they ever think to themselves that if they are Muslim fanatics, they would not have unveild Muslim Iranian women in the embassy. At least they could have paid one visit to the embassy, not to come up with this embarrasment. I thought they would be more mature than this. But for what it's worth, this is just drama, not news or analysis. It is at least good they do not make news based on their drama series.

A shameful disgrace to academics

2007-09-25T15:38:22Z

The controversial visit of Ahmadinejad to the US has been a revealing mirror for what goes on in American politics and the level of degradation of values such as freedom of speech, democracy, human rights and even law itself.

Many Iranians do not agree with their president’s rhetoric. After all, what can they expect from him? They all know what kind of a character he is. Yes, he has been defiant before the Americans and this is exactly what a lot of people, Iranian and non Iranian alike, admire in him. The rest does not matter to those who like him. Those who criticize him do not agree with his extremist opinions. However, what happened in Columbia University was vivid evidence to the fact that politics has degraded the American society to an extent that even the President of the University would just literally lose it and forget his extremely critical role.

Whatever Ahmadinejad is or says cannot be a good enough excuse to address him with such harsh and particularly indecent and impolite words. This was way below the dignity of a university president. And guess what? Ahmadinejad is absolutely right in saying this was no manner of hospitality. This man is ruthlessly correct in what he says. President Bollinger has spoken in a manner which was by no means befitting of the President of such an esteemed and reputable university. It would not be unfair to say that he literally disgraced the University of Columbia. He simply got carried away with all the propaganda and the pressure he was under for inviting the man. If he ever intended to say such discourteous and uncivil words, it would have been a lot better if he did not even invite the man to address people there. What did he mean to do? Make fun of Ahmadinejad? Had he forgotten that the man is not merely an ordinary individual? In that capacity, he was also representing a sovereign state. Forget about the fact that people may not like him in his own country. You should not have forgotten about your own values and the decorum which was indispensable to your office, you were not a politician and you should not have followed the rhetoric of American politicians. I am truly sorry for you, President Bollinger. You just blew one chance you had for showing the world that you can be independent of the political and ideological chaos which surrounds you.

Muhammad's Sword

2006-09-28T17:52:54Z

By Uri Avnery
23-09-2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

]]> The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations".

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith".

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Sweet victory

2006-07-04T22:47:00Z

The Germans deserved every bit of this loss in the world cup! The Italians played stunnigly beautiful. It was impeccable. They never wasted a ball. Always perfect and thoughtful. The Germans always looked so arrogant, so selfish, so bad-tempered. The amazing thing is that the English commentator was supporting the Germans and ignoring all the efforts of the Italians. I loved the game. I have never ever in my life enjoyed a football match so much. Fantastic!

Ridiculous apology

2006-05-24T11:27:34Z

Sometime ago, a chap called Amir Taheri had spread a rumour that the government of Iran is preparing a law to impose certain dress codes for Jews and Christians in Iran. His claim was that this law had been approved by the Majlis and is now going to the Guardians Council. Many bloggers in Iran pursued the issue and it was later revealed that the entire story is the invention of Mr. Taheri.

Frankly, I think the whole idea behind such a rumour is to add another excuse for a military intervention in the case of Iran. Don’t you think somebody is deliberately putting certain pieces of a puzzle together to suggest the idea that the government of Iran is not better than the Nazis who forced the Jews to wear a certain marking on their dress and hence saying that the agenda of Iran is no different than the agenda of Hitler?

First of all, such a law has never been passed. It is a mere misinterpretation and clear slander. The political agenda is quite clear behind Taheri’s claims. The guy is so cheeky that he keeps defending his imaginary thesis without providing any evidence. A little study into his background shows what sort of a person he is. It is still funny that this man keeps repeating his ridiculous illusions. Isn’t there anybody there to wake him up? How far would he go in betraying his homeland? This is not an issue of defending a certain political system. It is an issue of integrity and honesty. This is a dishonest act. To him, means justify the ends. No one wishes to eradicate injustice by injustice and dishonesty. This chap has apparently exactly this very same approach to the political issues of Iran. This is just disgusting.

P.S. Read this post in Farsi (with all other Farsi bloggers links): "Who are you serving by these lies?"

Stop this war!

2006-04-24T09:09:31Z

This is the full text of a letter by three Iranian ladies who are scholars of British universities against a military action on Iran. It is first published in Financial Times on 17th April 2006. It has also been published in Salaam News.

Essential that we do whatever possible to prevent a war on Iran

By Haleh Afshar, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Elaheh Rostami-Povey
Financial Times
17 April 2006

Sir,

As three Iranian British academics, we are writing to express our grave concerns about the growing threat of war against Iran. It is essential that we do whatever is possible to prevent such a disaster.

We would like to clear a number of misunderstandings about Iran. As a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), Iran asserts its right under Article IV of the NPT to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The announcement last week of a nuclear breakthrough is part of this right and is intended for peaceful purposes.

Iran has complied with Articles I and II of the NPT not to acquire nuclear weapons, and Article III, where it accepts full safeguards. It has signed the NPT additional protocol and has allowed intrusive inspections beyond what is required by compliance with the NPT. Numerous inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have failed to provide any shred of evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme.

Iran has repeatedly announced that it is committed to replace the course of confrontation with good-faith interaction and negotiations, as equal partner, for a peaceful solution to its nuclear issue. It has stated its commitment to non-proliferation and to the elimination of nuclear weapons, and considers nuclear weapons detrimental to its security.

It has declared its readiness to abide by its obligations under the NPT and to work for the establishment of a zone free from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. It has invited the west and the world for cultural and technological collaboration.

Iran strongly condemned the September 11 attack and participated in overthrowing the Taliban regime in late 2001. In return, under the pressure of the neoconservatives in the US and their supporters globally, Iran has faced intimidation based on speculations about its intention of producing WMD. For the majority of Iranians in Iran and outside Iran, this hostility towards Iran is about returning Iran to a client state for the benefit of US oil corporations and denying Iran's rights to research and development for generating electricity in the future, independently.

Iran is not a threat in the region or to the world as was suggested by the American Jewish Committee's full-page "statement" in the Financial Times recently. Iran is surrounded by India, Pakistan, Russia and Israel, which have nuclear weapons.

The US, UK and Israel, which perceive Iran as a threat, themselves possess WMD and refuse to commit to nuclear disarmament. Iranians believe that Israel may well use its nuclear weapons against them. They are all too aware that Israel has refused to sign the NPT and has not allowed the IAEA to inspect its nuclear programme.

The only chance the world has of avoiding another disastrous US military adventure in the Middle East is to resolve Iran's nuclear issue through diplomacy. It is essential that all voices opposed to the devastation of a new war in the Middle East speak out now. We need funds for human needs, not endless wars and conflicts.

Haleh Afshar,
University of York

Ziba Mir-Hosseini,
London Middle East Institute

Elaheh Rostami-Povey,
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Are they rubbing nose with the Americans?

2006-04-22T15:40:24Z

It is definitely right that the priorities of the Iranian government now are not set correctly. There are lots of things they have to do for the country before attending to nuclear issues. For certain, this campaign for nuclear energy is not yielding any economic gain in the short run (and maybe not even in the long run). Yet, there is also another serious issue at stake. The Americans (i.e. the Neo-cons or rather the chicken hawks) are casting the image of an arrogant, self-centred bully in the international community. More than anything else, one can easily see the deep hatred of the neo-cons of the existing political system in Iran, which is very simply blinding them to the interests of humanity and the ordinary citizens of Iran. They would never mind if it is the nuclear issue or a different one. As long as their interests are not satisfied within this system, they shall continue to push this struggle. Even in theory, their politics is undermining democracy both domestically and internationally for the Americans. The United States is truly a cradle for democracy, but it appears that it may turn into the doomed grave of democracy as well. Power alone can never guarantee democracy. The power which makes democracy simply a guise for concealing its truly undemocratic methods is the prime enemy of democracy. Iran is definitely no worse than the Arab allies of the US in terms of human rights. I think it is the people of Iran who should deal with the nuclear issue rather than a bullying arrogant like the neo-con administration of Bush. I do not see any clear prospect for the people f Iran to love Americans once for good. Whatever they may do is conditional upon the happiness they receive. You cannot guarantee happiness for these people, as you could not do so in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let them deal with the issue their own way.

A defamatory free speech!

2006-02-03T21:25:26Z

This is not an issue of limiting the boundaries of free speech. It is a question of harnessing racial and religious discrimination and provocative, insulting and harassing behaviour. Republishing those cartoons was simply fuelling a fire which did not have to be lit at all. Is free speech only promoted by drawing a cartoon of the Prophet of over one billion Muslims? Are these cartoons helping us in anyway to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and violence around the world of Islam?

The result is obvious. What was the end of these cartoons? What were they meant to achieve in the first place? Now what is the purpose of stirring the troubled waters again? Politicians all around the world, regardless of their faith, can play a vital role in calming the situation. I have always admired the thoughtfulness and discretion of British politicians. We just saw one example of it in London bombings in July where the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London very courageously dismissed any ideas of racial or religious hatred against Muslims in general, while at the same time condemning the brutal acts. I witnessed the same logical, solid and respectable reaction from the government tonight in Jack Straw’s remarks, where he said, “There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory.” I hope extremists would not call Jack Straw a Muslim radical who does not know the meaning of free speech!

Read the full story of Straw’s remarks in BBC: Straw condemns cartoon row press.

The old lovely snow!

2005-12-24T12:05:20Z

Damn it! The met office is always fooling us here. At least three times listening to their weather forecast, I have been waiting for a snow. Not even a proper snow, just any snow! Last night I saw something like snowing down there, but it is all sunny and clear today. It is just the day before Chirstmas here and NO SNOW! How many years has it been since I saw a proper a snow? This is not fair!

The madness of power

2005-12-15T16:21:12Z

It may sound really absurd that the new President of Iran is always saying weird things revealing an eccentric character who does not hold the slightest regard for not only the international community but also for the establishment within Iran. Logically, one would say that these remarks should at least have some interest for the Iranian nation. It should not be merely the ravings of a sick mind. However, the appling thing is that this is simply isolating the country even further. To many people, it may not be a question any longer whether this chap realy cares about the interests of this nation. What is he avenging these days? Who does he want to fight with? What is with this man that he can hardly ever justify his existence without 'fighting' or 'war'? Could the Iranian politicians ever learn diplomacy? I believe that even in the worst conditions, it is possible to practice 'diplomacy' but this needs a minimum prerequisite which is recognizing even your rival or opponent for 'talks' at least. There is one clear messge in all that this man is saying: we do not recognize any 'dialogue' any more! There is no further 'negotitation'! From now on, you have to play by my rules only, the rules that I have set and I am the only one who believes in it. Yes, rules of the game have changed in Iran. But does he need a bully like Bush to teach him this is not the way to survive in this world? Is he ready to sacrifice everything just to prove his insane theory? One thing is for sure though, the Iranian population, the majority of them, are much more moderate than what he thinks.