Iran's Leader Calls Election Over, Warns of 'Bloodshed and Chaos' if
Protests Continue
Iran's Supreme Leader declares the presidential race over. But for
reformists braced for more confrontations, there's no backing down.
By Robert Dreyfuss,
The Nation. Posted June 20, 2009
Speaking to a government-organized throng bused in from around Tehran and as
far away as Qom, Iran's religious capital, and other cities -- a crowd, no
doubt, vastly inflated by dutiful members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps and the fascist, mosque-based Basij thugs -- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
threw down the gauntlet against the Green Wave.
He said:
"Nothing can be changed. It's finished, the Presidential campaign."
He added, as if we didn't know, that he's on the side of President
Ahmadinejad. "The President was closest to my point of view," huffed the
Leader. And he issued not-so-veiled warnings to Iranian citizens to behave,
to "be careful how they are acting, careful what they are saying."
The election he said, was "a sign from God." And in case people didn't get
God's message, he warned of "bloodshed and chaos" if the street protests
continue. "Street challenge is not acceptable," he said.
Make no mistake: it's by far the most serious, even existential crisis for
the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979. By blatantly rigging the
vote, and by their heavy-handed crackdown in the wake of the travesty, the
regime has shattered its legitimacy. Its leadership, including Khamenei and
Ahmadinejad, are isolated from virtually every important segment of Iranian
society -- students, workers, intellectuals, the business class, and even
the very clergy that is at the heart of the system -- and they stand
revealed as a repressive, reactionary military dictatorship.
What remains to be seen is whether the opposition will back down in the face
of that repressive power.
We'll know soon. The real explosion could some within a few days, when the
so-called Guardian Council -- a group of twelve bearded old clerics
slavishly loyal to Khamenei -- confirms the bogus election results. If they
do, as expected, sometime mid-week, it's possible that the sustained street
protests could become a revolution.
From an Iranian source, it appears that for Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, Medhi Karroubi, and other leaders of the movement,
there's no backing down. Here's what he said:
"Mousavi and the others cannot compromise. They know that if Ahmadinejad
remains in power, he will try to eliminate all of them. All of them. And it
will be violent.
"The Ahmadinejad people are trying to weaken and destroy the 'republic'
part of 'Islamic republic.' They dislike democracy, they dislike elections,
they dislike accountability. What they want is to establish a regime with an
unelected Islamic leader, something like a caliph, who has absolute,
unchallenged authority."
On the other hand, although many of the protestors -- including Mousavi and
Rafanjani, the wily wheeler-dealer -- have impeccable establishment
credentials, it's increasingly clear that most if not all of the opposition
leaders want a fundamental change in the way Iran is organized.
That, highly informed Iranian sources say, would include replacing Khamenei
with a council of leaders, radically reinterpreting the Constitutional
requirement for a Leader, or rahbar, who represents the velayat-e faqih
principle ("rule of the jurisprudent") with a far more flexible, collegial
body. Were this to happen, it wouldn't mean the fall of the Islamic
Republic, but it would represent a huge step toward eliminating its worst
features.
Many supporters of the opposition -- as I learned during nearly two weeks in
Iran -- don't want the clergy to rule at all. "The mullahs are like idols,"
one government official told me. "They must be broken."
Rafsanjani is a two-term president (1989-1997), an extremely well-connected,
wealthy power broker, and chairman of the Expediency Council. Back in the
1980s, he helped to elevate Khamenei, who was president of Iran from 1981 to
1989, to the post of Leader -- succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the
founder -- in exchange for Khamenei's support for Rafsanjani becoming
president. Since then he's shuttled back and forth between the hardline camp
and the reformist camp, while maintaining a pragmatic (opportunist) stance.
Now it seems he's irrevocably thrown his lot in with the reformists,
including Mousavi and former President Khatami. And it's Rafsanjani who, if
he chose to, might be able to manipulate the levers of power in Iran to oust
Khamenei as Leader.
So far, it's still unlikely. The ruling clique has the army, the Guard, the
intelligence service, and courts, the police, the media, and its street
thugs to support them -- and, according to some reports, Rafsanjani is under
house arrest. But the opposition has the streets.
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped
Unleash Fundamentalist Islam" (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books).
***
From: Karen Pomer
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 6:41 PM
Subject: Sat 6/20: Protest Vigil: Stop Killing Innocent People in IRAN -
Westwood Federal Building.
Where are our/their votes?
Stop Killing Innocent
People in IRAN
WHEN: Saturday, June 20 from 11AM - 1PM
WHERE: Westwood Federal Buliding
Wilshire and Veteran
Los Angeles
In protest to the fraud in the Iran's presidential election and brutality of
the government against peaceful
demonstrations in Iran, Iranian and non-Iranian students are gathering in
front of the LA Federal Building
This event will be covered by major international news.This is the second
massive demonstration in LA as part
of a global movement by Iranian students around the world.
- Please bring green flags only ( No Iranian flag )
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