Robert Fisk: Fear has gone in a land that has tasted freedom
The Independent / Robert Fisk
17-Jun-2009 (2 comments)

The fate of Iran rested last night in a grubby north Tehran highway interchange called Vanak Square where – after days of violence – supporters of the official President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at last confronted the screaming, angry Iranians who have decided that Mirhossein Mousavi should be the president of their country. Unbelievably – and I am a witness because I stood beside them – just 400 Iranian special forces police were keeping these two armies apart. There were stones and tear gas but for the first time in this epic crisis the cops promised to protect both sides. "Please, please, keep the Basiji from us," one middle-aged lady pleaded with a special forces officer in flak jacket and helmet as the Islamic Republic's thug-like militia appeared in their camouflage trousers and purity-white shirts only a few metres away. The cop smiled at her. "With God's help," he said. Two other policemen were lifted shoulder-high. "Tashakor, tashakor," – "thank you, thank you" – the crowd roared at them.

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capt_ayhab

"Please, please, keep the Basiji from us,"

by capt_ayhab on

The fate of Iran rested last night in a grubby north Tehran highway interchange called Vanak Square where – after days of violence – supporters of the official President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at last confronted the screaming, angry Iranians who have decided that Mirhossein Mousavi should be the president of their country. Unbelievably – and I am a witness because I stood beside them – just 400 Iranian special forces police were keeping these two armies apart. There were stones and tear gas but for the first time in this epic crisis the cops promised to protect both sides.

"Please, please, keep the Basiji from us," one middle-aged lady pleaded with a special forces officer in flak jacket and helmet as the Islamic Republic's thug-like militia appeared in their camouflage trousers and purity-white shirts only a few metres away. The cop smiled at her. "With God's help," he said. Two other policemen were lifted shoulder-high. "Tashakor, tashakor," – "thank you, thank you" – the crowd roared at them.

This was phenomenal. The armed special forces of the Islamic Republic, hitherto always allies of the Basiji, were prepared for once, it seemed, to protect all Iranians, not just Ahmadinejad's henchmen. The precedent for this sudden neutrality is known to everyone – it was when the Shah's army refused to fire on the millions of demonstrators demanding his overthrow in 1979.



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to Capt. jaan

by Anonym4656465465 (not verified) on

I know that a whole lot of people are exicited and even overjoyed to see Iranian people moving their arses and doing something after 30 years of theocratic tyranny but I think you are going too far! this is not a revolution but a civil disobedience! Please don't compare the revolution of 30 years ago with this! there are some minor similarities but they're quite different.

People don't want the entire system overhauled, they just want a different president but what can a president do in that system to better lives of people and improve the whole country while everything else remains intact (e.g. IRI constitution, VF, GC, etc.) is beyond me.

Even if we assume that people want the entire system changed, mullahs are not like the Shah (who although a megalomaniac dictator but was more civilized and compassionate than mullahs and knew he was no longer wanted) and will not give up running and controlling the country to leave that easily without a very lengthy bloody fight and possible assassinations!

Those turbaned vermins have tasted enormous power and wealth beyond their wildest imagniation for the last 30 years, why would they give all that up so easily?