by Bernard-Henri Lévy, The HuffingtonPost
Whatever happens from this point on, nothing will ever be the same in Tehran.
Whatever happens, if the protest gains momentum or loses steam, if it ends up prevailing or if the regime succeeds in terrorizing it, he who should now only be called president-non-elect Ahmadinejad will only be an ersatz, illegitimate, weakened president.
Read more...
Listen to the message to the young people of Iran by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Friday, June 26, 2009
Iran’s Many Wars
by Behzad Yaghmaian,Foreign Policy Journal
A specter is haunting Iran, the specter of a bloody civil war... The democracy movement may become collateral damage in a larger war. The future remains unclear.
Read more...
A specter is haunting Iran, the specter of a bloody civil war... The democracy movement may become collateral damage in a larger war. The future remains unclear.
Read more...
Symbols are not enough to win this battle
by Robert Fisk, The Independent
Symbols are not enough to win this battle: It is indeed an 'intifada' that has broken out in Iran, however hopeless its aims.
Read more...
Symbols are not enough to win this battle: It is indeed an 'intifada' that has broken out in Iran, however hopeless its aims.
Read more...
Commentary: Iran conflict isn't class warfare
by Hamid Dabashi, Special to CNN
We are witness to something quite extraordinary, perhaps even a social revolution... We need to adjust our lenses and languages in order to see better... This movement is ahead of our inherited politics, floating ideologies or mismatched theories.
Read more...
We are witness to something quite extraordinary, perhaps even a social revolution... We need to adjust our lenses and languages in order to see better... This movement is ahead of our inherited politics, floating ideologies or mismatched theories.
Read more...
will the cat above the precipice fall down?
by Slavoj Žižek, Infinite thought
We are witnessing a great emancipatory event... If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads.
Read more...
We are witnessing a great emancipatory event... If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads.
Read more...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Where Will the Power Lie in Iran?
By The Editors, The NewYork times
In the largest antigovernment demonstration since the Iranian revolution of 1979, thousands of people took to the streets in Iran on Tuesday to protest the disputed presidential election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner this past weekend.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for an examination of opposition charges of vote-rigging and the country’s powerful Guardian Council said Tuesday that it would order a partial recount. That concession was rejected by the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and other opponents, who demand that a new election be held.
We asked some experts to give some background on the developments over the past few days, and what the Obama administration’s reaction should be.
* Abbas Amanat, scholar of modern Iranian history
* Meyrav Wurmser, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute
* Mohsen M. Milani, political scientist
* Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, economist
* Janet Afary, professor of history and women’s studies
To read the response of the experts, please click here
In the largest antigovernment demonstration since the Iranian revolution of 1979, thousands of people took to the streets in Iran on Tuesday to protest the disputed presidential election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner this past weekend.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for an examination of opposition charges of vote-rigging and the country’s powerful Guardian Council said Tuesday that it would order a partial recount. That concession was rejected by the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and other opponents, who demand that a new election be held.
We asked some experts to give some background on the developments over the past few days, and what the Obama administration’s reaction should be.
* Abbas Amanat, scholar of modern Iranian history
* Meyrav Wurmser, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute
* Mohsen M. Milani, political scientist
* Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, economist
* Janet Afary, professor of history and women’s studies
To read the response of the experts, please click here
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election
Ali Ansari, Daniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul, June 2009, Chatham House
Working from the province by province breakdowns of the 2009 and 2005 results, released by the Iranian Ministry of Interior, and from the 2006 census as published by the official Statistical Centre of Iran, this paper offers some observations about the official data and the debates surrounding the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election.
To read the complete paper, Click here
Working from the province by province breakdowns of the 2009 and 2005 results, released by the Iranian Ministry of Interior, and from the 2006 census as published by the official Statistical Centre of Iran, this paper offers some observations about the official data and the debates surrounding the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election.
To read the complete paper, Click here
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Void the Elections or Risk Violence
By Shirin Ebadi, The Huffington Post
On Monday, June 15, more than 1 million people marched in the streets of Tehran to support Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi -- two defeated presidential candidates -- and to object to the results of last week's election. Their destination was Azadi Square (Freedom Square) which, at the time of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, had been the gathering spot for revolutionaries. Mir Hossein Moussavi climbed on top of a minibus and spoke to the people through a loudspeaker. He told them to continue their objections but refrain from aggressive behavior, in order not to give security forces an excuse to resort to violence.
To read the complete article, click here
On Monday, June 15, more than 1 million people marched in the streets of Tehran to support Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi -- two defeated presidential candidates -- and to object to the results of last week's election. Their destination was Azadi Square (Freedom Square) which, at the time of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, had been the gathering spot for revolutionaries. Mir Hossein Moussavi climbed on top of a minibus and spoke to the people through a loudspeaker. He told them to continue their objections but refrain from aggressive behavior, in order not to give security forces an excuse to resort to violence.
To read the complete article, click here
Women in Iran march against discrimination
By Moni Basu,CNN
(CNN) -- Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran's streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. "Change," said the placards around her.
The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother's. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination -- and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day.
Women, regarded as second-class citizens under Iranian law, have been noticeably front and center of the massive demonstrations that have unfolded since the presidential election a week ago. Iranians are protesting what they consider a fraudulent vote count favoring hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for many women like Parisa, the demonstrations are just as much about taking Iran one step closer to democracy.
Click here to read the complete news.
(CNN) -- Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran's streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. "Change," said the placards around her.
The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother's. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination -- and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day.
Women, regarded as second-class citizens under Iranian law, have been noticeably front and center of the massive demonstrations that have unfolded since the presidential election a week ago. Iranians are protesting what they consider a fraudulent vote count favoring hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for many women like Parisa, the demonstrations are just as much about taking Iran one step closer to democracy.
Click here to read the complete news.
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran
By Al Giordano, counterpunch
It is impressive to some and immensely frustrating to some others that so much of the international left has lined up against the purportedly left-of-center but authoritarian Iranian regime during the historic post-electoral struggle that is underway.
English-language, liberal-leftish journals from The Nation to The Huffington Post to the rank-and-file blogger army at the Daily Kos have rallied in solidarity with the millions of protesters in the streets of Iran.
That the events in Iran have caused a schism on the right is well established. There are neocons freaking out that they may not have Ahmadinejad as a convenient prop to inspire fear and justify warlike policies. In recent days, they’ve succeeded in marginalizing themselves in the same ways that some sectors of the left unwittingly accomplished for so many years, causing an infrequent alliance between what might be called the Reagan right and the libertarian right, which shares the world’s – including the majority on the left’s - shock and horror at the violent response of the Iranian regime to peaceful protest and speech, and our pleasure at seeing People Power rise up against it.
To read the complete article, click here
It is impressive to some and immensely frustrating to some others that so much of the international left has lined up against the purportedly left-of-center but authoritarian Iranian regime during the historic post-electoral struggle that is underway.
English-language, liberal-leftish journals from The Nation to The Huffington Post to the rank-and-file blogger army at the Daily Kos have rallied in solidarity with the millions of protesters in the streets of Iran.
That the events in Iran have caused a schism on the right is well established. There are neocons freaking out that they may not have Ahmadinejad as a convenient prop to inspire fear and justify warlike policies. In recent days, they’ve succeeded in marginalizing themselves in the same ways that some sectors of the left unwittingly accomplished for so many years, causing an infrequent alliance between what might be called the Reagan right and the libertarian right, which shares the world’s – including the majority on the left’s - shock and horror at the violent response of the Iranian regime to peaceful protest and speech, and our pleasure at seeing People Power rise up against it.
To read the complete article, click here
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Commentary: Rigged or not, vote fractures Iran
by Hamid Dabashi, Special to CNN
(CNN) -- In a recent article published both in the Washington Post and the Guardian, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty reported that according to their "nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote ... Ahmadinejad [was] leading by a more than 2-to-1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election."
That may or may not be the case, but the abiding wisdom of Aesop's fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" or its Persian version, "The Lying Shepherd," has now made any such Monday-morning quarterbacking an academic exercise in futility.
The assumption that the government has rigged the election has become a "social fact" that millions of Iranians believe. On the basis of that belief, they have put their lives on the line, with reported casualties of dozens injured and at least one, perhaps up to nine, people killed.
Please click here to read the complete article.
(CNN) -- In a recent article published both in the Washington Post and the Guardian, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty reported that according to their "nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote ... Ahmadinejad [was] leading by a more than 2-to-1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election."
That may or may not be the case, but the abiding wisdom of Aesop's fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" or its Persian version, "The Lying Shepherd," has now made any such Monday-morning quarterbacking an academic exercise in futility.
The assumption that the government has rigged the election has become a "social fact" that millions of Iranians believe. On the basis of that belief, they have put their lives on the line, with reported casualties of dozens injured and at least one, perhaps up to nine, people killed.
Please click here to read the complete article.
Poll Indicating Legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s Victory Called into Question
Analysis by Sharif University alum, TehranBureau
[TEHRAN BUREAU] The only major doubt in the western media over significant fraud in Iran’s presidential election came with the publication of poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-profit group. The poll’s findings – which had put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comfortably ahead of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – were interpreted by some western commentators as an indication that Ahmadinejad’s “victory” may have been legitimate.
In fact the poll, while it had interesting findings on public opinion, cannot be taken as a prediction of the election result and indeed was not presented in this way by organizers, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty. Several limitations regarding the survey’s methodology have been discussed in the last few days. Notably, it was conducted before the election season even started in Iran. Interviews began on May 11th, a month before the election, and ended on May 20th. Although public opinion in western elections is generally set by such a late stage, a month is a long enough period for a drastic shift in the popularity of candidates in Iran. With the absence of solid political parties and government control of public media, the election season is very short and limited to the few weeks before the election.
Please click here to read the complete analysis.
[TEHRAN BUREAU] The only major doubt in the western media over significant fraud in Iran’s presidential election came with the publication of poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-profit group. The poll’s findings – which had put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comfortably ahead of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – were interpreted by some western commentators as an indication that Ahmadinejad’s “victory” may have been legitimate.
In fact the poll, while it had interesting findings on public opinion, cannot be taken as a prediction of the election result and indeed was not presented in this way by organizers, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty. Several limitations regarding the survey’s methodology have been discussed in the last few days. Notably, it was conducted before the election season even started in Iran. Interviews began on May 11th, a month before the election, and ended on May 20th. Although public opinion in western elections is generally set by such a late stage, a month is a long enough period for a drastic shift in the popularity of candidates in Iran. With the absence of solid political parties and government control of public media, the election season is very short and limited to the few weeks before the election.
Please click here to read the complete analysis.
Struggle within Iranian elite
Pepe Escobar, theRealNews network
Pepe Escobar: Two camps locked in fierce struggle, as Revolutionary Guard stages an election "coup"
Please click here if you want to watch the video
Pepe Escobar: Two camps locked in fierce struggle, as Revolutionary Guard stages an election "coup"
Please click here if you want to watch the video
Iran protests: live
guardian.co.uk
As the Iranian authorities continue their crackdown on opposition rallies, foreign journalists, and the internet, what next for the protest movement? Follow live updates on the aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election.
Please click here to read the complete news.
As the Iranian authorities continue their crackdown on opposition rallies, foreign journalists, and the internet, what next for the protest movement? Follow live updates on the aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election.
Please click here to read the complete news.
Polling Predicted Intimidation -- and Not Necessarily Ahmadinejad's Victory
by Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, who work for a nonprofit group called Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, are out with a comment in today's Washington Post which claims that their poll of 1,001 Iranians conducted last month predicted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory.
Ballen and Doherty are doing admirable and important work. Regular readers will know how difficult it is to conduct a good poll in the United States. Take that difficulty to the fifth power, and you'll have some sense for how difficult it is to conduct a good poll in Iran.
Unfortunately, while the poll itself may be valid, Ballen and Doherty's characterization of it is misleading. Rather than giving one more confidence in the official results, the poll raises more questions than it resolves.
Ballen and Doherty wrote in the Post that their poll showed "Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election." But let's look at what their poll (.pdf) actually said:
To read the complete article, please click here
Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, who work for a nonprofit group called Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, are out with a comment in today's Washington Post which claims that their poll of 1,001 Iranians conducted last month predicted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory.
Ballen and Doherty are doing admirable and important work. Regular readers will know how difficult it is to conduct a good poll in the United States. Take that difficulty to the fifth power, and you'll have some sense for how difficult it is to conduct a good poll in Iran.
Unfortunately, while the poll itself may be valid, Ballen and Doherty's characterization of it is misleading. Rather than giving one more confidence in the official results, the poll raises more questions than it resolves.
Ballen and Doherty wrote in the Post that their poll showed "Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election." But let's look at what their poll (.pdf) actually said:
To read the complete article, please click here
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Iran: A Coup In Three Steps
Abbas Milani, Forbes
The U.S. must side with Iran's people.
What happened in Iran last Friday was a fully planned but clumsily executed coup, intended to obliterate the last vestiges of democracy in the country. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini abducted the democratic revolution and instead of creating the free and inclusive republic he had promised during the months before the revolution--a republic, he said, that would have no clerics in any position of power--he established what he called Velayat-e Fagih or the rule of the Shiite Jurist. In this regime, a disproportionate share of power remains in the hands of an unelected cleric whose legitimacy rests not in the support of the people but of the divine.
To read the complete article, click here
The U.S. must side with Iran's people.
What happened in Iran last Friday was a fully planned but clumsily executed coup, intended to obliterate the last vestiges of democracy in the country. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini abducted the democratic revolution and instead of creating the free and inclusive republic he had promised during the months before the revolution--a republic, he said, that would have no clerics in any position of power--he established what he called Velayat-e Fagih or the rule of the Shiite Jurist. In this regime, a disproportionate share of power remains in the hands of an unelected cleric whose legitimacy rests not in the support of the people but of the divine.
To read the complete article, click here
Stealing the Iranian Election
Juan Cole, truthout
Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen
1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers. [Ahmadinejad is widely thought only to have won Tehran in 2005 because the pro-reform groups were discouraged and stayed home rather than voting.)
3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not.
Click here to read the complete article
Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen
1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers. [Ahmadinejad is widely thought only to have won Tehran in 2005 because the pro-reform groups were discouraged and stayed home rather than voting.)
3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not.
Click here to read the complete article
Iran’s Day of Anguish
Roger Cohen, The New York Times
TEHRAN — She was in tears like many women on the streets of Iran’s battered capital. “Throw away your pen and paper and come to our aid,” she said, pointing to my notebook. “There is no freedom here.”
And she was gone, away through the milling crowds near the locked-down Interior Ministry spewing its pick-ups full of black-clad riot police. The “green wave” of Iran’s pre-election euphoria had turned black.
Down the street outside the ghostly campaign headquarters of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the baton-wielding police came in whining phalanxes, two to a motorbike, scattering people, beating them.
To read the complete article, click here
TEHRAN — She was in tears like many women on the streets of Iran’s battered capital. “Throw away your pen and paper and come to our aid,” she said, pointing to my notebook. “There is no freedom here.”
And she was gone, away through the milling crowds near the locked-down Interior Ministry spewing its pick-ups full of black-clad riot police. The “green wave” of Iran’s pre-election euphoria had turned black.
Down the street outside the ghostly campaign headquarters of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the baton-wielding police came in whining phalanxes, two to a motorbike, scattering people, beating them.
To read the complete article, click here
An attempted coup in Iran,
Henry Newman, guardian.co.uk
There seems little doubt now that something resembling a coup d'état has been attempted in Tehran. The next few days will reveal if it is to succeed. In scenes not witnessed since the mass protests that brought about a revolution that deposed the Shah in 1979, violent demonstrations have broken out in multiple Iranian cities. Crowds chant anti-Ahmedinejad slogans such as "Death to the Dictator". Hundreds of thousands of supporters of the candidate heavily defeated in Friday's presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have rejected his defeat – claiming foul play. They are joined by key figures from Iran's political elite including the Association of Combatant Clerics who are calling for the result to be annulled. All three defeated candidates, including the conservative Mohsen Rezaee, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards, reject the election results as fraudulent.
To read the complete article, click here
There seems little doubt now that something resembling a coup d'état has been attempted in Tehran. The next few days will reveal if it is to succeed. In scenes not witnessed since the mass protests that brought about a revolution that deposed the Shah in 1979, violent demonstrations have broken out in multiple Iranian cities. Crowds chant anti-Ahmedinejad slogans such as "Death to the Dictator". Hundreds of thousands of supporters of the candidate heavily defeated in Friday's presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have rejected his defeat – claiming foul play. They are joined by key figures from Iran's political elite including the Association of Combatant Clerics who are calling for the result to be annulled. All three defeated candidates, including the conservative Mohsen Rezaee, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards, reject the election results as fraudulent.
To read the complete article, click here
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