The Iran Thread

[hippie_hunter]

If Poland signed a treaty with Russia, and if apart of that treaty involved Russia owning the land of Poland, then yes - it was ok. Of course that's not what happen.

Again, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were under the control of Egypt and Jordan before the Six Day War. The war happened. The jews kicked ass. They took the land. Jordan and Egypt signed treaties, those treaties did not include Israel returning the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There for the land was acquired not simply by warfare, but by treaty.

As far as a realistic solution, one has already been laid on the table.

The problem is that Egypt and Jordan should have never been in control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the first place.

The Palestinians are entitled to a certain amount of territory decreed by the United Nations Partition Plan that created the State of Israel from the British Mandate of Palestine. The treaties between Egypt and Jordan concerning those territories are completely pointless because:

A. Israel was already in control of those territories and Egypt and Jordan held the Gaza Strip and West Bank illegally in the manner that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded and divided Poland.

B. The primary purpose of those treaties were to establish peace between Israel and two of its Arab neighbors.

The Palestinian people at the very least are entitled to all of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank. Legally though, they are entitled to all of the West Bank as well with Jerusalem as a free and independent city in accordance to United Nations resolutions.

 

[hippie_hunter]

That's what I'm having a problem with. This election was clearly rigged. Now the question becomes, what can be done about it?

Like I said, they could have at least made it believable. If Ahmadinejad got like 54% of the vote or something like that, I think there wouldn't be as many problems that we're seeing right now. Giving him a landslide victory though is essentially telling the world and the Iranian electorate that it was clearly rigged that that they can go **** themselves.

 

[hippie_hunter]

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.

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.

4. Mohsen Rezaie, who polled very badly and seems not to have been at all popular, is alleged to have received 670,000 votes, twice as much as Karoubi.

5. Ahmadinejad's numbers were fairly standard across Iran's provinces. In past elections there have been substantial ethnic and provincial variations.

6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results.

I am aware of the difficulties of catching history on the run. Some explanation may emerge for Ahmadinejad's upset that does not involve fraud. For instance, it is possible that he has gotten the credit for spreading around a lot of oil money in the form of favors to his constituencies, but somehow managed to escape the blame for the resultant high inflation.

But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime.

As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory.

The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable. And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose.

They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts.

This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran.

The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.

This scenario accounts for all known anomalies and is consistent with what we know of the major players.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html

 

[hippie_hunter]

It was a night of fundamental change of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was, however, not the change the overwhelming majority of the electorate indicated to be producing with their real votes yesterday, but a change in the ruling establishment of the country, an almost complete control by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence services, and the most radical forces of the regime.

Actually, everything seemed to be going fine until the polling stations closed at 10 pm Tehran time. By then, streets were green, the color of the favorite opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was generally expected to win with a considerable margin, by many estimates of late Friday even in the first round. Reformist newspapers had already started to announce Mousavi’s victory and the reformist candidate himself was calling the people for a national celebration on Sunday.

Everything started after voting ended and the Interior Ministry with the government-established Election Commission started to count the votes. As the incoming first figures from villages and small towns favored incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the reformers still kept their faith: “Ahmadinejad is stronger in villages that comprise some 30% of the population,” they said. “We will definitely win the cities.” This was while even one percent of the citizens from western Iranian villages and small towns hadn’t allegedly voted for Mehdi Karroubi, the other opposition candidate who, comes from the same region and enjoys considerable popularity in Lorestan and Kurdistan provinces.


Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent film producer supporting Mousavi, who stayed in his favored candidate’s headquarters, told Radio Farda that they were called by the Election Commission well before the first results were announced. “Don’t announce Mr. Mousavi’s victory yet,” they were told by authorities. “We will gradually prepare the public and then you can proceed.” Apparently, though, a well-prepared plan was at the works, but in a completely different direction. Isa Saharkhiz, journalist from Tehran, told Radio Farda that while the whole SMS network of the country was taken down and critical websites were blocked and newspapers closed, they disabled communication among supporters of opposition candidates and everybody started to fear that they are preparing to gradually inject the surprise “shocking news” during the night until they announce it early morning.

The later into the morning, the stronger — and thus more unbelievable — Ahmadinejad started to consolidate his figures.

Unknown and partly masked mobs, meanwhile, encircled the headquarters of the two opposition candidates Mousavi and Karroubi and attacked opposition supporters with sticks and gas spray, forcing them to flee. Mousavi issued a still faithful statement, reiterating his victory and saying that he would oppose and resist any attempt to change the real results. Later, though, he and Karroubi were no longer heard from. Instead, in spite of a ban by security forces, pro-Ahmadinejad groups poured into the streets to celebrate their candidate’s “victory” although the count was still underway. There were clashes between groups of supporters of Mousavi and Karroubi on the one hand and security forces, on the other, in Tehran.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission announced the semi-final results based on 81% of the “counted” votes: Ahmadinejad 65%, Mousavi: 32%, Rezaei: 2% and Karroubi 1%! Interestingly, the percentages remained overall unchanged during the whole night although millions of more votes from different regions with different demographic combinations were “counted.”

The “electoral coup,” as many in Iran interviewed by Radio Farda called it, has changed the face of the Islamic Republic. It has formalized the exclusion of still moderate clerics, founding fathers and technocrats of the Islamic Republic, and consolidated the rule of a new elite led by Revolutionary Guards, intelligence offices, and radical Islamists who feel to be well-represented by the Ahmadinejad leadership of the last four years. It is widely assumed that the coup cannot have happened with the clear approval by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. As Supreme Leader, he is charged with protection of the Islamic Republic beyond all political groups and personalities. Khamenei has repeatedly said that a “truthful election with a high turnout” is the “clearest symbol of the system’s legitimacy.” Last night’s rigged vote count seems to have left that legitimacy in shatters.

A fan of Radio Farda’s Facebook page placed the following comment: “Stalin has shown the path for dictatorships: it’s not important who votes, but who counts the votes.” Another fan continued: “Green is no longer the color of hope, but that of resistance.” Mystery remains on how this “resistance” of all those millions of anti-Ahmadinejad Iranians will evolve. The international community, for its part, will deal with a continued Ahmadinejad presidency that has even hardened its positions.

http://www.djavadi.net/2009/06/13/an-electoral-coup-in-iran/

 

[Heretic]

Has Obama apologized for America being the cause of all this, and begged Iran for forgiveness yet??? He's usually right on time with that.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

I hope he doesn't. The Iranian people of the last generation, the old communists of Iran, the Mojahedin, and Jimmy Carter are to blame for all of this. No one today should apologize for what happened in the past because what has happened has happened, and the only person still not recognizing the fault and continues to commit to it is the Ayatollah Khamenei. HE needs to apologize.

 

[Marx]

I just hope the truth comes out about this election. I wasn't aware that the election had been certfied so quickly.

 

[voyzovrezon]

What a bummer!

 

[Marx]

This is quickly going from bad to worse...

Apparently, Mousavi has been placed under house arrest. Cellphones have been taken down. All social networking has also been shut down. And the protests are growing.

 

[Cosmic]

I never expected that the Ahmadinejad regime would give up their power without a fight. Somehow, though, I thought they'd be smarter and more careful in their methods.

I'm deeply impressed with, and proud of, the Iranian people who are protesting this fraud right now...especially those who are risking their lives and their health to oppose these bastards.

 

[hippie_hunter]

This is quickly going from bad to worse...

Apparently, Mousavi has been placed under house arrest. Cellphones have been taken down. All social networking has also been shut down. And the protests are growing.

Yeah, apparently the police and Revolutionary Guard cannot handle the protesters anymore and are now running away

[YT]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6SaGRnSia7Y&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=sv&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6SaGRnSia7Y&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=sv&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YT]

Also the election monitors picked by the four candidates have called the election a fraud and are pressing for a new one along with a group of Ayatollahs.

 

[Kelly]

Revolution is about to happen......I feel it.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Revolution is about to happen......I feel it.

I think something will end up happening. The Iranian government botched this one up completely and this has to be one of the most poorly executed vote riggings I've ever seen.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Yeah, apparently the police and Revolutionary Guard cannot handle the protesters anymore and are now running away


Also the election monitors picked by the four candidates have called the election a fraud and are pressing for a new one along with a group of Ayatollahs.

They keep running back and forth, away and at each other.

This is quickly going from bad to worse...

Apparently, Mousavi has been placed under house arrest. Cellphones have been taken down. All social networking has also been shut down. And the protests are growing.

Some Mollahs are also under house arrest.

 

[El_Citrus]

This is a potentially historic **** storm we're watching take place. This is gonna get real nasty.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

And I'm happy for it. Apparently all Government facilities were closed today in Iran and they've given better equipment to the soldiers. Later on today, Hezbollah soldiers from Lebanon will be joining the soldiers. Their weapons are far more powerful. They've even planted people with knives in the in the crowd. Also, the Iranian people have body builders, boxers and martial artists at the front of their line. The crowds are still outside and have been since last night.

 

[StorminNorman]

Revolution is the best way to fix Iran. This is a good thing.

 

[Marx]

Revolution is the best way to fix Iran. This is a good thing.

I agree.

 

[Hobgoblin]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/14/iran.election.reaction/index.html?iref=werecommend

Israel's Response to Iranian Election

(CNN) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden expressed doubts Sunday about the validity of Iran's presidential election, but said it would take more time to analyze the results.
Iranians demonstrate near the Iranian Embassy in The Hague against the President Ahmadinejad's victory.



"I have doubts, but withhold comment," Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Biden said the Iranian government has suppressed crowds and limited free speech by shutting down social networking sites such as Facebook, which he said raised questions. He also called the strong showing by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "unlikely," based on pre-election analysis.

"Is this the response, is this the accurate response, is this the wish of the Iranian people?" Biden said.

Ahmadinejad won Friday's election with 62.63 percent of the vote, the Iranian government announced. The result sparked protests by supporters of his main rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who claim the vote was rigged.

Israel warned Sunday that the re-election of Ahmadinejad represented "an intensification of the Iranian threat," and called for redoubled international efforts to halt its nuclear program.

"After Ahmadinejad's re-election, the international community must continue to act uncompromisingly to prevent the nuclearization of Iran, and to halt its activity in support of terror organizations and undermining stability in the Middle East," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

His deputy, Danny Ayalon, suggested that even if Moussavi had been declared the winner, Tehran would still pose a threat.

"Israel had no illusions regarding the elections, as on these two issues there was no substantial difference between the candidates," he said.

Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement backed by Iran, welcomed the results.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urged the world to respect Iranian democracy and accept the results of the elections.

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, which borders Iran, called Ahmadinejad to congratulate him, Karzai's office said Sunday.

Karzai's view was that "relations between the two Muslim nations of Afghanistan and Iran expanded during Mr. Ahmadinejad's first term and hoped that these relations get stronger during his second term," the statement said.

Protests were planned Sunday in cities around the world, including London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Berlin, The Hague, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto.

About 50 people turned out for the protest in London on Sunday, CNN's Don Riddell said from the scene. Video Watch as Iranians in London protest results »

The day before, about 100 people protested in front of the Iranian Embassy in London.

"It was completely unbelievable, especially with the turnout and everything," said one British protester. "It was obvious from the beginning that it was all rigged."


"Everyone was sure that ... Moussavi was the winner," said a woman at the demonstration. "People wanted change, people wanted -- you know, not democracy in a sense of Western democracy, but the democracy that we were hopeful of."

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said his government was monitoring the election. "We have followed carefully, and admired, the passion and debate during the Iranian election campaign. We note the result as announced by the Iranian Electoral Commission. We have also heard the concerns about the counting of ballots expressed by two of the candidates.

"This is a matter for the Iranian authorities to address. We will continue to follow developments. Our priority is that Iran engages with the concerns of the world community, above all on the issue of nuclear proliferation."

In Washington, about 40 protesters gathered outside the Iranian Interests Section to bring attention to what they say is a stolen election.

"People have gathered here to express their distrust of the government in Iran, which has really turned a very genuine election into a sham, and has basically stolen people's votes in order to maintain a regime that is seriously not wanted by the Iranian people," said protester Robert Babeyi.

Babeyi said he moved from Iran to the United States more than 30 years ago, but stands behind those Iranians who he feels have been wronged.

"We are hoping the voices of Iranian-Americans here are heard throughout the world and can express our solidarity for the people of Iran, that we are with them and we understand that they are cheated," Babeyi said.

Canada's foreign affairs minister said Saturday he was worried about reports of irregularities in Iran's election, while the U.S. secretary of state said the United States hoped the outcome reflected the will of Iranians.
advertisement

"Canada is deeply concerned by reports of voting irregularities in the Iranian election," Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters in Niagara Falls, in Ontario, Canada, where he appeared at a briefing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"We're troubled by reports of intimidation of opposition candidates' offices by security forces," he said. "We've asked our embassy officials in Tehran to closely monitor the situation, and Canada is calling on Iranian authorities to conduct fair and transparent counting of all ballots."

I dont know if another Iranian Revolution would be positive for us or not. An Ahmadinejad-less Iran would be great but who else would take his place? Who else could we place nice with? At least we know something about "I'm a nut job." With a new PM, we're back to square one. The Israelis didnt seem to think much of Moussavi, anyway. As we keep saying, the real power in Iran is the clergy.

 

[StorminNorman]

I really don't want Biden commenting about any foreign affairs.

 

[Marx]

Biden is saying what everyone else is saying about the results.

 

[StorminNorman]

Biden is saying what everyone else is saying about the results.

Yes, and I have no problem with what he has said to date. What I am saying, though, is that every time Biden opens his mouth - there's a risk something bad is going to come out. Therefore, I would rather Biden speak publicly about less severe issues.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Mousavi was bad, he might have changed. He seems to want to take down the Islamic Republic and to get rid of the Ayatollah and actually have a democracy, but now it seems like the Mousavi supporters were only using his colour and his name to get together. Green is no longer a colour for Mousavi supporters but now it's the colour of the Resistance. At the moment it looks like Reza Pahlavi will be assuming the leadership of this new found Resistance.

 

[metr0man]

This is pure insanity. Videos of riot police on bikers in flames. one of the Grand Ayatollah's declaring it a stolen election. Reformist politicians arrested

 

[Asteroid-Man]

This is a statement by Reza Pahlavi from yesterday:
"Today the world is witnessing the demonstrated anger of millions of Iranians against a regime that denies their most basic rights, including the right to choose leaders who could improve their abysmal condition.

There is no exit from this condition, so long as one man appropriates onto himself the &#8220;power of god&#8221; and controls the judiciary, the media, the security forces and, through direct and indirect appointees dictates the only candidates claiming to represent an impoverished and disenfranchised people.

Today I stand united with my fellow Iranians and call for the end of the Islamic Republic, or any other prefix in front of the name of my beloved Iran that indicates theocracy or any other form of disregard for democratic and human rights.

I caution the world that offering any incentives or &#8220;carrots&#8221; to the theocracy under these circumstances is an affront to the people of Iran. This is not a time for short-sighted, self-defeating tactical games. This is the time for the free world to stand true to its principals and support the people of Iran&#8217;s quest for democracy and human rights."