Challenging Ahmadinejad's "Win"
by: Maya Schenwar,
t r u t h o u t: June 16, 2009
After Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was proclaimed the winner of a presidential
election widely believed to be rigged, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
deemed the results a "divine assessment." However, after 48 hours of
intensive protests throughout Iran, Khamenei backtracked, calling for an
investigation into election complaints. The probe is to be conducted by the
Guardian Council, a 12-member body of clerics and Islamic law experts. As
demonstrations blaze on across the country, do reform-minded Iranians
actually have a shot at a revote?
It is unclear what evidence would be used in a voting probe. According
to leaked election results, purportedly disclosed by disaffected government
officials, Ahmadinejad came in third in the election, after reformist
candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi. However, a poll of Iranian
public opinion taken three weeks ago by the nonprofit Terror Free Tomorrow
showed Ahmadinejad winning nationwide by a more than 2 to 1 margin.
Mousavi and another defeated candidate have filed complaints with the
Guardian Council, and Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodayi told Iran's
state-funded news agency that the election probe's results would be
disclosed in ten days.
On the surface, the probe may seem an impartial investigation by an
outside body. However, half of the Council is chosen by Khamenei, while the
other half is elected by the legislature from among a group of jurists
vetted by an appointee of Khamenei.
"The Council is selected directly and indirectly by the leader," Rasool
Nafisi, a Middle Eastern studies professor at Strayer University and author
of "The Rise Of Pasdaran," told Truthout. "It is the Council that has the
power of vetting the candidates, and its chief, Ayatollah Jannati, sided
openly with Ahmadinejad before the elections."
Mousavi himself seems doubtful that the probe will turn the tables on
Ahmadinejad's alleged win.
"I have appealed to the Guardian Council but I'm not very optimistic
about their judgment," he said on his web site, according to a translation
printed by Reuters. "Many of its members during the election were not
impartial and supported the government candidate [Ahmadinejad]."
As protests raged Monday night and state brutality abounded - including
the death of one man when pro-government gunmen opened fire on a crowd of
protesters - many foreign journalists were threatened, arrested or asked to
leave Iran. An election probe by the Guardian Council would likely not be
subject to direct international oversight.
Still, the groundswell of public expression that this election has
sparked is proof that anything can happen, according to Jason Rezaian, a
correspondent covering the Iranian election for Tehran Bureau.
"More than anything, people want their voices heard," Rezaian told
Truthout. "A recount or revote seems really unlikely, but the last couple of
weeks have seen many unlikely events here and I think it's shaken the entire
nation. The people for the first time feel like they have a say, and that
it's trying to be silenced."
Yet, with Khamenei still in place as supreme leader, the protests don't
stand a good chance of affecting concrete official action, according to Juan
Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute.
"The reformists will likely just be crushed," Cole told Truthout.
"Khamenei cannot be challenged in that system, and there is no recourse. It
would take a coup or revolution."
It is possible, however, that quiet sort of coup may be fomenting among
Iran's Assembly of Experts, the scholarly body responsible for supervising
the supreme leader. The chairman of the Assembly, former President Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, supports Mousavi and favors the reformist agenda,
including a diplomatic relationship with the US and Europe. Rumor has it
that Rafsanjani has been rallying support among the Assembly to vote
Khamenei out of his post, according to an op-ed in The Guardian by Simon
Tisdall.
In a blog entry on ForeignPolicy.com, National Iranian American Council
President Trita Parsi observes that Mousavi has already challenged
Khamenei's authority. To protest the election results, Mousavi wrote a
letter to powerful clergy in the city of Qom, instead of to the supreme
leader.
Already, a loud affirmation of Mousavi's complaint has come from Qom:
Grand Ayatollah Sanei, who had previously termed vote-rigging a "mortal
sin," is calling the Ahmadinejad presidency "illegitimate."
Moreover, last week, after being accused of corruption by Ahmadinejad,
Rafsanjani released an angry letter, which took the bold step of
remonstrating the supreme leader for allowing public slander, and demanded
that Khamenei ensure the elections were fair.
Despite the public outcry from influential Iranian voices, the
reformists' calls may well fizzle and die eventually, especially if the
voting probe comes back "clean." A revolution - even a quiet one - is a lot
to ask for. Nafisi worries about that another four years of Ahmadinejad
might dash the incipient optimism of the reformist movement.
"If this election is not challenged seriously and effectively, it would
put a damper on the youths' aspirations for change and improvement," Nafisi
said.
Their hopes aren't dampened quite yet, though. Rezaian noted that,
regardless of state-imposed obstacles, the reformists are rallying on.
"Tonight tens of thousands of people all over Tehran went to their
rooftop to shout 'God is Great,' 'Death to the Dictator' and simply
'Mousavi,'" he said last night. "With text messaging cut, social networking
blocked, they are doing whatever they can to keep the voice of dissent
alive. I'm not sure if anyone knows what they're hoping to get out of it.
They're just hoping."
***
Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem on the Eve of Obama's
Speech In Cairo
Max Blumenthal writes: On the eve of President Barack Obama's
address to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt, I stepped out onto the
streets of Jerusalem with my friend Joseph Dana to interview young
Israelis and American Jews about their reaction to the speech. We
encountered rowdy groups of beer sodden twenty-somethings, many
from the United States, and all eager to vent their visceral, even violent
hatred of Barack Obama and his policies towards Israel. Usually I offer
a brief commentary on my video reports, but this one requires no comment
at all. Quite simply, it contains some of the most shocking footage I have
ever filmed. Watch it and see if you agree. (This video was removed
from the Huffington Post on the grounds that it had "no news value" and
"did not move the conversation forward.")
http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/06/feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-the-eve-of-obamas-speech-in-cairo/
June 4th 2009
3:49
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