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Special Report
Interesting Times in Tehran
What a difference a few days can make. Last week, ahead of Iran's presidential elections, I wrote here that the outcome would matter little in the grand scheme of Iranian politics. I may have spoken too soon. Since Friday, that country has descended into political turmoil of a type not seen since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The cause is a rigged election that has catalyzed widespread outrage among ordinary Iranians and threatened the legitimacy of the ruling regime in Tehran.
Ordinarily, clerical interference would be par for the course -- a function of the pervasive influence of Iran's powerful religious institutions. This time, however, things appear to be different. The wildly popular campaign of populist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, with its promises of economic revitalization and greater enfranchisement for Iranian women, had captured the imagination of ordinary Iranians. So when, mere hours after the polls closed, Iran's Interior Ministry certified incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the overwhelming victor, defying both unofficial polling and conventional wisdom, Iranians took to the streets in protest.
They have remained there ever since, despite mounting pressure from the Iranian government. Over the past three days, the Iranian regime has authorized a massive mobilization of security forces. It has also instituted a virtual electronic embargo, revoking the work permits of foreign journalists, blocking broadcasts by the BBC's popular Persian service, limiting Internet access and stopping SMS text messaging. There are even reports that it has enlisted foreigners to help control restive crowds in a sure sign that Iran's ayatollahs are nervous about the mounting social discontent on the Iranian "street."
They should be. By any yardstick, Iran is a country in the grip of massive socio-economic malaise. Inflation now stands at nearly 30 percent. Unemployment is rampant, officially pegged at over 10 percent but unofficially estimated to be as much as two-and-a-half times that figure. Nearly a quarter of the Iranian population now lives under the poverty line, and both prostitution and drug addiction are rampant. Add to these Ahmadinejad's gross mismanagement of the national economy over the past four years, and it is easy to see why Iran's leaders fear that outrage over a stolen election could spiral into something more.
How events in Iran will play out in coming days is anybody's guess. Iran's ayatollahs may well blink in the face of unprecedented public opposition. Indeed, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly expressed his willingness to reexamine the election results, while parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani has created a commission to investigate possible excesses by regime security organs. Just as easily, however, Iran's theocracy could return to its thuggish roots, using its feared clerical army, the Pasdaran, and its ruthless domestic militia (known as the basij) to crush the protests violently and decisively. Nor is a more fundamental transformation out of the question, if Iran's various opposition forces manage to coalesce into a coherent, sustained challenge to the country's clerical elite.
So far, the silence from the Obama administration has been deafening. The White House has adopted a "wait and see" approach to the current turmoil, refraining from weighing in decisively on the political turmoil engulfing Tehran. In doing so, Administration "realists" hope to avoid having to make hard choices about who, exactly, the United States supports.
But Washington does have a dog in this fight. For years, the United States has been preoccupied by the growing threat of an Iranian "bomb," with little attention paid to the domestic opposition within Iran. Those two things, however, are intimately related. The threat posed by Iran's atomic program has little to do with nuclear technology, and everything to do with the nature of the regime that will ultimately wield it. The United States therefore has a vested interest in the emergence of a more pluralistic, moderate Iran -- one that can be a mature nuclear custodian, and which won't see itself as irreconcilably in conflict with the West.
To that end, President Obama can and should use his tremendous political capital to put Iran's regime on notice that its place in the international community hinges on how it treats its political opposition during the current crisis. And, in the longer term, his administration would do well to recognize that its safest bet lies in engagement with the Iranian people, rather than their repressive, unrepresentative government.
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Steve| 6.16.09 @ 6:43AM
*President Obama can and should use his tremendous political capital to put Iran's regime on notice that its place in the international community hinges on how it treats its political opposition during the current crisis....*
How naive is that? Obama admires the Iranian thugocracy! ACORN and the New Black Panthers intimidating voters and stealing elections -- perhaps the Man Child could teach the mullahs a few Chicago-style tricks about manipulating elections. But in the long run Obama will do nothing about Iran because he is too busy waging war upon America, a much larger and more important project.
Melvin| 6.16.09 @ 7:23AM
Since 1979 as an American I had to live with the fact that the sanctimonious little so-in-so from Plaines Georgia Jimmy Carter has given us the current problem with Iran.
If he had supported the Shah who was instituting Democratic reforms and keeping the mad mullah's in check we would not have a nuclear Iran on the Mid East's door step.
What happened in Iran to our embassy was the single most deciding factor in why I joined the United States Marine Corps. For twenty years I wanted to get my bare hands around Ayatollah Khomeini's and Ahmadinejad's scrawny little necks and squeeze the very life out of them the way the squeezed the life out of Iran.
We should not be having these issues with Iran or the Mideast but unfortunately for this Country we had a President in 1979 who wasn't worth a Tinker's damn and in 2009 history repeats itself. Twice the Iranian people looked to us for freedom and support and twice two inept fools who were President at the time turned their backs on them with silence.
Doc Holiday| 6.16.09 @ 8:29AM
You damn dumbasses! US best keep it's trap shut and not give reason for the Ahmadinejad to exploit anti-Americanism rhetoric that has kept him in power thus far.
Good gawd there's a lot of idiots on this planet! No wonder the economy is tanking with so many fools without a clue.
Anthony| 6.16.09 @ 9:29AM
Don't expect our bowing president to act here. Obama is a moral and intellectual coward, as are most on the Left. Besides, Obama's sympathies lie with the mullahs and the radical clerics, not with the people seeking freedom. Obama doesn't believe in freedom for Americans, so why would he support freedom in Iran? No, Obama will sit by, speaking in platitudes, which the MSM will eat up, while freedom once again evades the people of Iran.
Son Of Sam| 6.16.09 @ 9:33AM
hmmm, a radical nutcase steals an election with the help of stick wielding thugs and massive voter fraud...are you sure we're not talking about America last November? WE may have a "dog in this fight", just as civilization does, but unfortunately for Mr. Berman's thesis, the TelePrompter in Chief does not represent US in any meaningful way. He doesn't speak for us, he speaks for himself and his "hate America" cronies. That's why there's a "wait and see" attitude in the White House: they're hoping that this will all just blow over so they can get back to apologizing for America and sending Ahmadinejad kissyface mash notes via YouTube
stand strong until freedom dawns
Son Of Sam
http://www.samadamssos.bravehost.com
PS to Doc Holiday: the silence you're advising for us will do NOTHING to help the situation. Ahmadinejad will continue blasting the "great Satan" no matter what we do. Or, as Thomas Jefferson once said "the king is a tyrant whether we say so or not. We might as well say so."
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Siegfried X| 6.16.09 @ 10:02AM
Don't you think that the CIA is already involved? The challenger certainly has a lot of money and organizational skill. A 5 mile line of protestors doesn't just magically appear the day after the election; it takes hard work and money. The Iranian challenger appear to have expert knowledge of the "orange" and "rose" revolutions which took place in Europe.
If would seem strange if the US government didn't use covert ops to try to get a better Iranian government.
Siegfried X| 6.16.09 @ 10:07AM
I agree with Obama keeping quiet. How would we react if the Iranian government told us to be sure to count every ballot in our Minnesota senate recount? It's none of our business.
Doctor Right| 6.16.09 @ 10:33AM
Siegfried X:
Please go back to your comic books, and leave the thinking to the adults.
Sean| 6.16.09 @ 10:41AM
Pat Buchanan has a wonderful column up on this. He is right again in that we should not get involved and have the focus switched back onto us.
JP| 6.16.09 @ 10:43AM
SiegfriedX,
Where have you been the last 2 decades? The CIA does't do covert operations. Despite enjoying a $50 billion annual budget, the CIA relies mainly on NSA intercepts and sat recon, foreign assistance, and its large cadre of analysts. In case you didn't know, the CIA was caught with its pants down when AQ Khan assisted the Pakistanis in making thier nukes, it had no resources in Niger (a nation whose main industry is mining uranium)when VP Cheney asked it to confirm if Saddam was purchasing Uranium there; and the CIA had no assests in Iraq to confirm if Iraq had WMDs.
You should also read up on Iranian current events. Mousavi is a very well known Irania politician, and his wife is even more so. Thus far, te demonstrations have no central leadership, but are organized along local and regional lines.
You also seem blissfully ignorant in distinguishing between a peacefull, legal recount which is supervised by both the courts and local governments, and a violent regime which has murdered protestors, tortured demonstrators, as well as calling out foregin paid terrorists (Hamas) to put down the demonstrations.
Like Obama, you side with the Mullahs.
William| 6.16.09 @ 11:16AM
Barack Hussein Obama will not assist any struggle for freedom anywhere. The words 'Freedom' and 'Liberty' seldom pass his overused, prolapsed lips.
Exactly how different would his "civilian defense force", equally funded and capable as the military, differ from the Pasdaran and basij mentioned in this article? What function would the "civilian defense force" have other than the kind of suppression seen in Iran from those hoodlums?
BHO will not intermeddle in the fixed election of a fellow thug cut from the same pattern as himself.
Old Texican| 6.16.09 @ 11:21AM
More sad days in Iran. It is a shame they never read the words:
"Love one another as I have loved you"
Oh wait...many Americans haven't read those words either!
One thought that might seem irrelevant on first glimpse: The whole world is watching the charade being played out in Iran.
TEA-PARTIES IN MASS WILL HAVE THE WHOLE WORLD WATCHING AS WELL!
PLEASE,
Make it a point to attend your local tea party on July 3rd. (A Friday). go to tea party (then your nearest large town or city) on your search engine, or, go to "tea party" and begin your search.
Also,
Please encourage friends to go with you, and call your local media...especially Fox. The word WILL get out if enough Americans give a darn!
Siegfried X| 6.16.09 @ 12:02PM
National building and moaning about the "human right" of protestors is weak liberal stuff. That's what Jimmy Carter did.
If a bunch of Iranians shoot each other, oh well. Life's a beach. Not a drop of American blood should be spilled in someone else's civil war.
Both sides in Iran are using force:
Witnesses saw people firing from the roof of a building used by a state-backed militia after some Mousavi supporters set fire to the building and tried to storm it.
Siegfried X| 6.16.09 @ 12:04PM
Corrected:
Nation building and moaning about the "human rights" of protestors is weak liberal stuff. That's what Jimmy Carter did.
Joe Tech| 6.16.09 @ 2:16PM
Making corrections on Siegfried X post (CAPS):
Don't you think that _GEORGE_SOROS_ is already involved? The challenger certainly has a lot of money and organizational skill. A 5 mile line of protestors doesn't just magically appear the day after the election; it takes _BILLIONAIRE_MONEY_. The Iranian challenger appear to have expert knowledge of ____ revolutions which took place in Europe.
Best George Soros quote: "I'm having a very good crisis." (while his "offshore" investments got 30% returns)
Siegfried X| 6.16.09 @ 3:07PM
Another problem with endorsing the protestors is that it could it could eventually backfire and cause them to be hurt.
Like when the first President Bush seemed to be encouraging the Kurds and Shiites to escalate their attacks on Saddam. Then when we didn't send the military in, Saddam slaughtered them with weapons of mass destruction.
America fly in the ointment| 6.16.09 @ 5:20PM
Siegfried X
The Americans and the British are operating inside Iran as Agent provocateur, several weeks leading up to the election Vice president Biden said, we will support Iran depending on who wins.
The same thing occured in Iraq, before the CIA killed the former leader to put in Saddam to serve American interest in the Middle East attacking its neighbours.
Much the same way they do with Israel today, providing the weapons to attack neighbouring countries.
America has been operating covert operations is over 100 countries over the last 50 years to bring down elected leaders across the world.
Old Texican| 6.16.09 @ 5:53PM
America Fly in The ointment:
YOU ARE A LIAR AND A GODDAMNED LIAR!
pLEASE GO PLAY WITH YOURSELF IN GAZA RUINS.
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Alan Brooks| 6.16.09 @ 8:57PM
Iran is a nightmare. FM Esfandiary came from there and it warped his futurist brain for life.
Iran may be as perverted as Germany was long ago. And there's only one way to find out-- the hard way.
Christopher Holland| 6.17.09 @ 12:01AM
Only a short while ago Obama told Israel that friends had to tell the truth - his excuse to kick them over building houses in the West Bank. He said nothing about terrorism. Now he says nothing about Iran - all the talk about democracy, women's rights etc in the Middle East was just a crock. Obama is a gutless windbag, a showboat who stands for nothing except looking good. The terrorists and thugs aren't frightened of him and now the moderates he wants to appeal to wont trust him because he will leave them in the lurch. Obama is a bigger loser than Jimmy Carter, he has been in office for less than six months and already he looks like a disaster. God save us all from this weak, preening fool.
EdLaskie| 6.17.09 @ 1:37AM
Bush was on the Green Side long ago, but if CIA was involved Obama will press criminal charges against them (CIA) if true. If those guys was smart they would have retired or moved on during this adminstration and burn all evidence.
The Iranians them self are pro-western especially the under 30yr group and they have been talking to their parents, who may not agree fully, but won't let the children be massacred and be proven wrong. This revolution was coming without CIA, I don't see any help they could give that couldn't back fire. Iranians deserve their Freedom We should give them our support. At a minimum Obama should support Freedom, he is an idiot if he thainks he can make points with Ahmadinejad, How sick! God Help US!!
Struggle & control| 6.17.09 @ 8:51AM
EdLaskie| 6.17.09 @ 1:37AM
What is sick is American involvment in the Middle East. Could the Iranians involve them selves in regime change in America?.
American finger prints could be found in the deaths of millions of people around the world, as well as 2 Million Iranians that America funded Saddam to kill in the late 1979 in the Iraq -Iran WAR.
CIA & Israeli spies| 6.17.09 @ 8:59AM
Another very good example of a CIA-organized regime change was a coup in 1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. At the time, Richard Helms was Director for Plans at the CIA. That is the top CIA position responsible for covert actions, like organizing coups. Helms served in that capacity until 1966, when he was made Director.
In the quotations collected below, the name of the leader who was assassinated is spelled variously as Qasim, Qassim and Kassem. But, however you spell his name, when he took power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington. He carried out such anti-American and anti-corporatist policies as starting the process of nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact (which included another military-run, US-puppet state, i.e., Pakistan) and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was Iraq's most popular leader. He had to go!
In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq.
Iraq is once again a target of US regime change. Despite that, precious little is being said by the corporate media about how the CIA aided and abetted political assassination, regime change and mass murder, all in the name of putting Saddam's Ba'ath power into power for the first time in Iraq.
One thing is for sure, the US will find it much harder to remove the Ba'ath Party from power in Iraq than they did putting them in power back in 1963. If more people knew about this diabolical history, they just might not be so inclined to trust the US in its current efforts to execute regime change in Iraq.
Here then are some quotations that I've gathered on this fascinating early history of CIA involvement in the vicious history of regime change in Iraq:
Jon Cox| 6.17.09 @ 5:09PM
The US has nothing to gain from getting involved. Tough talk is best left to radio hosts. In fact it's Obama's open hand approach that is enabling political protest. Why becasue the US can't credibly be accused of being behind this that makes it home grown desent that is way more difficult for the mullas to deal with. So far Obama has done an outstanding job on this. It also shows why we needed the neo-cons out of power.
Nick| 6.17.09 @ 11:10PM
Mr. Cox,
A little early to be popping the champagne corks isn't it?
How would making a statement promoting freedom and self-rule, like President Reagan did with Poland, make B.O. look like he was "behind this"?
FJS| 6.18.09 @ 1:58AM
Jon Cox, you keep telling yourself that your Messiah and his incoherence has somehow made the protests in Iran possible. Even paraphrasing your statement is painful. Despite the fact that nearly all of the Iranian's interviewed by Hugh Hewitt (ex-pats, students, and those with families still in Iran), by the BBC in Iran, Iranian cultural associations, interviews with Iranian activists (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/06/iranian-hero-human-rights-activist.html) etc. have expressed nearly univeral disappointment in Obama's lack of support for the demonstrators, Jon Cox and co. think the President is doing just dandy! Jon, France, Canada and Germany have all come out strongly against the Iranian regime, while Obama assures the world that the US should not "meddle" in the affairs of a foreign nation...unless its Israel. Those damn French neo-cons!
Resveratrol Ultra| 6.18.09 @ 5:08AM
Thank you! That was very interesting!
Give up the mentality of war| 6.18.09 @ 12:49PM
Americans are afraid to live in peace with the rest of the world. Because if they did, they would have to pay attention to their own stupid self.
And focus on pay off their National debt to the rest of the world. And the life of poverty that is facing future generation, paying off the madness of the past generation.
The secret to life is learning how to live not how to die, death comes to us all.
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