The ten days of turmoil in the aftermath of Iran’s presidential election sharply divided world public opinion into two opposite poles: those who believed in and supported Iran’s sovereignty and independence, mainly the working people of Iran and the peoples of the developing countries, on one hand, and those whose interests lie in believing in U.S. hegemony in the Middle East and the domination of monopoly capital over the world’s human and natural resources, on the other.
The latter camp consisting of the White House and the State Department spokespersons, the reporters and so-called “Iran Experts” of the corporate and liberal media outlets, the gurus of the financial establishments, the Trotskyites of the Fourth International, the neo-conservatives and the world Zionist entities, the infamous Iranian terrorist group, Mojahedin Khalq (MKO), and the remnants of the late Shah’s monarchial regime, all in unison hailed the defeated Iranian Presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as winner and heralded his raucous and revolting supporters as the champions of freedom, human rights and progress.
During those ten tumultuous days, the domestic supporters of Mousavi shut down a large part of the city of Tehran, the capital, and as a consequence forced the business establishment, the lifeline of the country’s economy, to close and a minority of the demonstrators brought about considerable destruction and human casualties by putting the cars, trucks, buildings and police precincts on fire and as a result of confronting pro-Ahmadinejad supporters, caused the deaths of twenty persons, including eight security personnel who were not equipped with fire arms, unlike the heavily armed machine gun-toting U.S. riot-control SWAT teams.
Pre-Emption, A La Bush
Although the legal avenues and lawful channels suggested to Mousavi by the Guardian Council, the highest judicial institution of the land, to investigate his alleged discrepancies in the electoral process, data collection and reporting the final results, he seemingly preferred to reach a solution by the weight of demonstrations and sheer use of pressure on the streets. Through the use of violence by some of his supporters, Mousavi intended to force the government to annul the election result and hold another election.
The reasons for refusing to attend the meeting of the Guardian Council held specifically for the purpose of discussing his frivolous claims of “wide-spread electoral fraud” were his awareness that such charges had already been leveled by him and his domestic and foreign supporters well before the actual election which was held on June 12th, and secondly, he declared himself the winner of the election sixteen hours before the election results were announced on national media by the Office of the Interior Ministry. Hossein Mousavi and his domestic and foreign enthusiasts in Washington, D.C., London, and Paris knew well before the election that judged by the sense and socio-economic interests of the Iranian working people, including the vast population of small farmers and manufacturing entrepreneurs, the incumbent President Ahmadinejad would be far ahead of Mousavi by at least ten million votes. They resorted to pre-emption, a la George Bush.
Therefore, Mousavi and his cohorts decided to follow the examples of power grabs in Ukraine, Georgia, and the lately unsuccessful attempts in Zimbabwe and Moldova, hoping that a long enough period of social tensions coupled with U.S.-U.K. supports for Mousavi would split the body of clerical hierarchy – the Society of Scholars of Qom Seminary – the Guardian Council and the Revolutionary Guard, which would ultimately, they wished, draw in some layers of Iran’s lower middle class to the western-reformist camp. This was a major element in their plan that never materialized, leaving them instead with just wishful thinking.
But in general, all social and political upheavals in a single country or in a region involving several nations, tend to polarize the societies into two or more distinct and antagonistic forces with certain class characteristics. In the epoch of imperialism, the splits take shape simultaneously along the class lines and the relations of these social forces to imperialism. From long before the Iranian presidential election, two of the most pronounced criticisms of Ahmadinejad’s administration by the reformist camp and its neo-liberal newspapers were centered around Iran-U.S. foreign policy and the allocation of economic resources in Iran.
As to Iran’s policy toward the U.S., the objection of the reformists to Ahmadinejad was that as a result of his inflexible foreign policy, the country is suffering from isolation in the international community. Doesn’t this criticism sound like George W. Bush’s rhetoric? By “inflexible” foreign policy the reformist in fact were advocating that Iran should have accepted the conditions laid down by George Bush for having dialogue with Iran, meaning Iran would have been popular in the eyes of the U.S., the Europeans, and the reformists if it had suspended its uranium enrichment process and given up its right to independent development of nuclear science and technology.
Is Iran Isolated?
The second criticism launched by Iran’s reformists against Ahmadinejad’s management of the economy was that he favors the working families and small farmers over big business interests. We clearly see, the reformists have been pro-West internationally and pro-haves domestically. Furthermore, the claim by the defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi and former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, that Iran is internationally isolated is baseless and could only serve the U.S.-Israeli rhetoric and hegemony in the Middle East region. According to a June 23, 2009 report by AP, from Frankfurt, Germany, Europe is a major trading partner of Iran, exporting everything from rail equipment, machinery, transport goods, including trains and automobiles worth Euro 14.1 Billion worth of goods in 2008, up nearly 1.5% from the year before. For Europe, Iran is a crucial partner for energy, which accounted for 90% of the Euro 11.3 Billion in EU imports from Iran.
The reformists are fully cognizant of the fact that Iran can always look eastward to Russia and China for goods, stoking fears of competition and lost profits for Europe. China is already Iran’s largest single trading partner, responsible for 14.3% of exports to Iran, and 14.5% of imports from Iran in 2008. Russia is Iran’s seventh largest trade partner and Russian-Iranian trade turnover was worth $3.2 Billion in 2008. Russia buys about 5% of Iran’s export, mainly food-stuffs, and supplies steel and non-ferrous metals, wood and machinery to Iran, according to Russian officials.
To test the veracity of their accusations, Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karoubi should travel abroad and ask the working peoples of the Arab countries, Turkey, China, Russia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sudan, People’s Republic of the Congo, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and many more to find out the truth about Iran’s extensive international relations, which have improved during the four year term of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency.
The recent post-election unrest in Iran not only polarized the economically top half of the population inside Iran, but also had a similar impact on the well-to-do Iranians living in the West. Put generally, most of the Iranians who, until a year ago, to some degree, opposed U.S. war threats against Iran, this time around they sided with the western foreign policy objectives of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs and possibly placing a pro-U.S. regime in power. The Iranian western intellectuals who in a span of a few decades have been able to climb up the socio-economic ladder in the former colonial citadels of Britain and France and par excellence in the United States, and occupied, generally speaking, privileged positions in these societies, naturally sided with not only Hossein Mousavi, but also his domestic and international backers who for a long time have been waiting for any kind of unrest in Iran to take shape.
Behind the Human Rights Agenda
The western media had found a gold mine to be exploited at the utmost. Overnight, the care-takers of the media corporate interests turned to up-to-then unknown individuals who had not even visited their motherland for decades into “Iran experts” and coached them on prime time TV shows to say anything, whether substantiated or not was irrelevant, to show their opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran and support for the U.S. standard of “human rights”. These were the kind of Iranians, most of who never appeared in public gatherings to oppose the U.S. maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. Maybe we can’t blame them, because they are only “experts” on Iran and don’t care about the rest of humanity.
Among others, Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) appeared on CNN every day at the beginning of the election struggle to supposedly analyze, but mainly approve the U.S. interpretations of the events taking place in Iran. Parsi expressed all the views that the interviewer was expecting to receive and “safe” for the viewers to see and hear. He did his best to construct an image for the American listeners that the demonstrators represent the opinion and the ideals of the entire population of 72 million people, that the government of Iran is brutally repressing the rights of “peaceful” demonstrators and Tehran does not have respect for human rights. Hopefully, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, BBC and many other corporate media received their money’s worth.
Professor Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University was another “Iran specialist”, appearing on ABC’s NightLine special, as well as CNN, WNYC Radio, NPR, ABC Radio and not to mention the West’s superstar, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran, who was interviewed by Radio Canada, The National Interests, Justin Rosenthal, Media Line, CNN, The New York Times, Talk Radio News Service, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Der Spiegel Online, and the Nation Press Club, just to mention a few.
We venture to ask if any of these major media outlets is brave enough to invite analysts holding the opposite views about Iran and the elections? To our knowledge this has not happened and raises the issue about the so-called free press, which appears to be entirely a monopoly outlet serving one class’s view of the world.
Clashes with no Class Interest?
Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York in his article titled: Iran Conflict isn’t Class Warfare, which appeared on CNN online, tries to show that the current upheaval has no roots in class nature of the Iranian society and the existence of the U.S. as a heavy-weight and the most developed capitalist country has no influence on the aspirations of Iran’s capitalist class. To prove his hypothesis, Dabashi borrows from another scholar of 19th century Iran, Abbas Amanat, that the current clashes between close to a million people living in northern Tehran, where a single family house is marketed for over 3 million U.S. dollars, is the result of the “rise of a new middle class whose demands stand in contrast to the radicalism of the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the core conservative values of the clerical elite…” Framed as such, Hamid Dabashi tries his best to hide the class nature of the struggle by limiting it to the sphere of culture and superstructure in general. However, according to a May 2008 Business report in Gulf Daily News, “A luxury 1,400-square-metre penthouse sold recently for $21 million at $15,000 per square metre in swanky northern Tehran, while the average monthly salary of Iranians stands at $300 to $460. Property prices there compete with upmarket neighbourhoods in Paris at a range of 60m to 100m rials per sqm ($6,500 to $10,700). "You have to spend at least $1m to buy an apartment in northern Tehran where the average property is 200 sqm," says real estate agent Ali Meshkini.” Mr. Dabashi, to us Northern Tehran seems pretty “classy”.
Secondly, no one has claimed that a mass demonstration, albeit rough and tumble, is warfare. The term “class warfare” is usually cried out in the halls of Congress by the most conservative U.S. senators, whenever issues are laid out that involve, however modest, demands of the American working class. The use of the term in the classless society of Columbia University is intended to deny the existence of class altogether and secondly intimidate those who even speak of class interests and class conflict. For Hamid Dabashi’s information, the use of “class” as an economic category is used daily in a less conservative school of higher education, like the Universitat Frankfurt am Main, in Germany.
Corporate Media and “Iran Experts”
Professor Dabashi is a turncoat. Until recently he supported Iran’s right to nuclear technology, sovereignty, and independence. When he appeared on ABC and CNN four different times and began attacking the Iranian government for its “repressive and bloody” response to “totally peaceful” demonstrators (at the same time covering his tracks by off-handedly mentioning that he knew there were ‘some individuals whose anger got the best of them and were not behaving peacefully’), he was fully aware that by characterizing the Islamic Republic with hot-button slanders used during the Bush Administration Axis of Evil days, terms as “oppressive, dictatorial, brutal, bloody, etc.), his views were in line with the U.S. foreign policy objectives of de-stabilizing the Islamic Republic. People who knew Dabashi in the Palestinian movement were stunned and baffled at his complete turnaround, asking themselves “What has happened to this man?”
Individuals like Hamid Dabashi and certain Iranian historians like Ervand Abrahamian, who are brought to the front of the media’s cameras and are introduced as “Iran experts” have an important role to play that assists the system in carrying out its objectives. It doesn’t matter that for all practical purposes, these professors have no followers or legitimacy among the Iranians in the U.S. in general, and certainly much less among Iranian masses inside Iran. With the exception of infinitesimally small circles in academia, the common men and women have not heard the names of these “scholars” let alone are listening and acting upon their conjectures.
Mr. Dabashi’s prescription of “human rights”, which are devoid of any class content, solely pleases the pipers in the State Department and the liberal mass media, not excluding such layers of population as neo-liberals and neo-conservatives, who eternally seek to prove the supremacy of the U.S. liberal-democratic system of government. These bourgeois intellectuals presume that by the force of their “expertise and position in the universities” and with a little assistance, financial or otherwise, from the official establishment and corporate-media backers, they will be empowered in cyberspace, to export their brand of human rights to Iran, not recognizing that the real battles among the social classes and within the organs of the government of the Islamic Republic are fought for much more worldly and tangible issues, namely taxes on profit, allocation of money for first-time home buyers or for builders in housing construction, offering salary increases to teachers, nurses and civil servants, division of the shares of the privatized state industrial and financial assets between workers or between the owners of capital, the level of rents, rent stabilization, monopoly of trades in control of a small number of domestic and foreign traders, which often contributes to higher rates of inflation rather than excess liquidity, etc.
What Factors Influence Price Levels and Inflation?
In other words, price levels come under the influence of many more factors, such as the sophistication of technology, the rate of labor productivity, the availability of materials, the expanse or dimensions of the market, the price of commodities imported and the value of the currency, than simply the volume of liquidity in the market. To say that the price levels are simply a function of liquidity in the market is not understanding how under capitalism the prices are formed. Unfortunately, many of these experts, scholars, social analysts, historians and human rights advocates, do not have a basic understanding of the law of value.
Our esteemed professors may quickly retort that the “Green” masses either do not understand or they are not affected by these earthly issues, and are more interested in the concepts of “social freedoms and dressing choices, etc.”. Quite wrong, Professors! Every thoughtful worker, farmer, shop-keeper and student and teacher in higher education will line up these issues in their conversations with Iranian American tourists visiting the country for even a short time. Our Western-educated intellectuals, especially historians, who pay very little or no attention to the subject of political economy and the evolution of social classes under capitalism and the essential requirements of normal life, make a caricature out of a real social movement.
AUTHOR
Ardeshir Ommani is an Iranian-born writer and an activist in the U.S. anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle for over 40 years, including against the Vietnam War, and now the Iraq war. During the past seven years, he has participated in the U.S. peace movement, working to promote dialogue and peace among nations and to prevent a U.S.-spurred war on Iran. He holds two Masters Degrees: one in Political Economy and another in Mathematics Education. Co-founder of the American Iranian Friendship Committee, (AIFC), he writes articles of analysis on Iran -U.S. relations, the U.S. economy and has translated articles and books from English into Farsi, the Persian language. Please visit AIFC’s website to learn more about Iran and Global issues at www.iranaifc.com . Two of his recent articles, “Capitalism’s Sign Post” can be viewed at: www.tehrantimes.com, and “Iran, the NIE and the Empire” at www.mathaba.net. The author may be contacted at: ardeshiromm@optonline.net.
Recently by Ardeshir Ommani | Comments | Date |
---|---|---|
The Great Heist | 6 | May 17, 2012 |
Boom! | 3 | Mar 01, 2012 |
Can the U.S. Swallow Syria? | 8 | Feb 12, 2012 |
Person | About | Day |
---|---|---|
نسرین ستوده: زندانی روز | Dec 04 | |
Saeed Malekpour: Prisoner of the day | Lawyer says death sentence suspended | Dec 03 |
Majid Tavakoli: Prisoner of the day | Iterview with mother | Dec 02 |
احسان نراقی: جامعه شناس و نویسنده ۱۳۰۵-۱۳۹۱ | Dec 02 | |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Prisoner of the day | 46 days on hunger strike | Dec 01 |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Graffiti | In Barcelona | Nov 30 |
گوهر عشقی: مادر ستار بهشتی | Nov 30 | |
Abdollah Momeni: Prisoner of the day | Activist denied leave and family visits for 1.5 years | Nov 30 |
محمد کلالی: یکی از حمله کنندگان به سفارت ایران در برلین | Nov 29 | |
Habibollah Golparipour: Prisoner of the day | Kurdish Activist on Death Row | Nov 28 |
Here is the actual link
by KouroshS on Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:40 AM PDT//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oJT3pe94nM
Oh by the way
by KouroshS on Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:37 AM PDTJaleho
I think you should see your hero in action: Apparently he loves Maast a great deal.
//www.youtube.com/watch?
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUWOHDx74X0
Khejalat ham besyar chize khoobist.
Look who is talking sh.. about Dreamers
by KouroshS on Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:32 AM PDTDreamer-in-chief Jaleho
It sounds obvious that you still live in the dinasours age. The current regime has stolen and hijacked the dream of democracy that was once espoused by the COLLECTIVE DESIRE of the iranians, the same thing they had to give their blood for in 1979. It high time to wake the hell up and smell the god damn Ghelyoon.
This regime is all about shortcomings and nothing more. It is all about Hipocracy. It is all about doing and giving favors to its supporters and suppressing others. Shah's regime was pretty much the same with the difference that he at least provided his dissenters with decent and reasonable means to clime up the ladder of an economically successful and livable life. The opportunity was there to advance, But of course there was more for those Darbarees. These Mother Be kahats, Take everything away from those who do not like them.
Please refrain from categorizing who is real and who is not a real iranian. I think many on this threat already know about your not-so-popular personality on this site and to hear that coming out of you, it is a little oxymoronic.
Ari Jaan
by Anonymous Observer on Wed Jul 15, 2009 09:36 AM PDTYou may be inetrested in this analysis as well:
//iranian.com/main/news/2009/07/15/statistical-tests-suggestive-fraud-irans-election
Jaleho you're more like
by ganselmi on Wed Jul 15, 2009 07:05 AM PDTJaleho you're more like jahel-o!
"Zahr maar" maybe, but no Gazette!!
by Jaleho on Wed Jul 15, 2009 06:43 AM PDTAri, I was just having fun with FOOD jokes, extending your idea of "umweg" and Fred's idea of "Pavlov dog" to "abgoosht" and "jooh kabab" and "kabab SOLTANI," alluding to Fred's not-so-hidden desire of turning the present democracy to his former ROYAL or SOLTANI dictatorship. After all, I do believe that the present government, with all its shortcomings, is the result of collective wish of Iranian people, attained by a revolution and paid by the blood of Iranian masses towards that attainment, in order to get rid of the former dictatorship regime which Fred seesm to be attached to or prefers.
In other words, I was just having fun at the exense of Fred the alias, nothing more serious than that as I clearly don't know the person. The gentleman for all I know might be the least greedy thing in the world; the best thing since the SLICED BREAD ;-)
But I guess the market efficiency is at work here anyway: Fred is better off selling his "Gazette" on Iranian.com because among REAL Iranians, his Gazette won't have many customers and he would go bankrupt quickly. It was the democratic wish of Iranians that handed him that verdict.
Jaleho
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 04:28 PM PDTAre you kiddin' me Ari?!!
by Jaleho on Tue Jul 14, 2009 03:30 PM PDTyou siad: "What statements has Fred made to make you think he won't be satisfied with his share?"
The ENTIRE material of Fred is the embodiment of "greed" and "unattainable dreams!!" As we are talking about abgoosht, Fred is thinking about "chickens," and counting of them when it is not even the end of July, let alone autumn!
Listen to his godspeed for the impossible; so far as he doesn't lose anything, what's there to lose? Let them lose if it may bring him something!
Thanks Fred
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 02:30 PM PDTJaleho
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 02:24 PM PDTGodspeed
by Fred on Tue Jul 14, 2009 02:22 PM PDTBefore any we count their chicken and extend invitation to others to a non-existent democracy bash, as a fantastic and long overdue event it would be, would they mind extrapolating on this strategy of theirs?
The division in the Islamists’ rank is the we’s doing? Or a classical Mafia turf war masquerading as political movement? Is the undisputed Godfather of the faction that we are hoping to deliver them the democracy that simple a fool? Isn’t he the same chameleon who has played so many for so long?
Being a Monday morning quarterback in a game that its rules, players, umpires, equipments and the field where it is played is assigned and tightly controlled by the opposing team--and still talk of winning and extending invitation to the victory party is rather premature, wouldn’t you say? But still I wish we Godspeed and will be elated and the first to congratulate them for their impossible win would be a delicious win for all.
Ari tells Fred
by Jaleho on Tue Jul 14, 2009 02:07 PM PDT"After all this is over, you'll be fed; democracies don't exclude any member of the tribe,"
Problem is, domocracy wants to feed Fred some "abgoosht" with the rest of the dominion, but Fred Agha wants "chelo kabab SOLTANI" every day of the week, at the expense of the others not being able to even eat abgoosht :-)
Fred
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 01:54 PM PDTCondition reflex
by Fred on Tue Jul 14, 2009 01:23 PM PDTTrying to beat the Islamists by legitimizing their illegitimacy, participating in their various lobbying fronts and using an uber-Islamist within the Islamist set of rules to beat them does not make much sense nor looks like stepping away for sizing it up . But that is just how things look to this admittedly sophistication-challenged bordering on being a simpleton.
That Understood, the sophisticated ones should be wary of not being played, yet again, it has happened to them many times you know, the last one was an eight year odyssey producing zilch.
It seems the sophisticates’ transparent barrier is a one way mirror where the food is watching their every move. It would do them good to do a quick read of condition reflex, better known as Pavlov’s dog.
Fred
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:30 PM PDTJaleho Basiji
by Anonymous111 on Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:43 AM PDTAs I told you before, why don't you STFU and lay low for a while?
Ari, for paid British opinion, at least
by Jaleho on Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:29 AM PDTgo with the master, why Ali Ansari who has NEVER been right on anything?!!
Here's one at least from a classy one, Alistaire Cooke:
//www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-crooke12-2009jul12,0,294349.story
Data says Khamenei is scared
by Ari Siletz on Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:48 AM PDTGetting tired of LOSER DREAMERS on this site
by Jaleho on Tue Jul 14, 2009 06:28 AM PDTHistory will write you as a foonote of what kind of INEFFECTIVE TRAITOR WHINERS the whole bucnh of expats losers have been!! Bunch of Kenan Makiya wanna bes!! Not even worth a new typing! Here's what I wrote to another dreamer's COMMENT:
Bunch of Iranians in the west are abusing the frustration of some youth in Iran about their dress code and limited freedom, and your bunch are getting giddy to sacrifice them by sitting afar and yelling:"lengesh kon!" Then you pat your idiotic back by thinking "I am supporting them...no you are sacrificing them for your own ego! Mousavi at least has something in it beside his ego!"
What for, so that you losers can wear a green hand band in a suuny day and head out for a picnic shouting "death to IRI" and have fun at the expense of USELESS turmoil in Iran?!
None of the working class or any other strata of Iranians except for a group of frustrtaed youth are in the streets, and Mousavi has not been able to call a single strike, simply because the relevant people voted for Ahmadinejad!! If you guys are stupid enough to think that this is anything more than a frustrated youth revolt, and a fringe of Iranian expats in the west who have lost their positions 30 years ago, and dream of riding on the back of Iranians youth, then....
be hamin khyal baash, sannar behdeh aash!
REVOLUTION IN YOUR DIRTY DREAMS not in streets of Iran!!
It is strange .... you losers should remember how a real revolution is, how one REAL revolt spreads like a wildefire in every village and every starta of the society despite THOUSANDS killed, no internet or CNN to spread it....yet you still keep on dreaming!!
Proving the proven
by Fred on Tue Jul 14, 2009 04:01 AM PDT“Though I was convinced the election was a fraud, my conviction was based on circumstantial evidence. You have done us a great favor linking your comment to an objective paper, proving fraud, that would stand up to any standard of scrutiny.”
Thanks to the Chatham House and the work of Mr. Ansari whose own center was inaugurated by a known robed smiley any doubt about the election has been laid to rest and conviction as to it being a fraud achieved.
And those who have claimed all along that any election in which candidates are vetted and only the very few from the inner sanctum of the Islamist cutthroats republic are allowed to run is the very definition of fraud—well, at last, they too are sort of vindicated. Thank you Chatham House for proving the proven.
Great link, Denver
by Ari Siletz on Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:42 PM PDTThe defeated Iranian Presidential candidate, Mir,,,,,,
by Denver Tinbender on Mon Jul 13, 2009 05:59 PM PDTArdeshir noted, The latter camp... hailed the defeated Iranian Presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as winner and heralded his raucous and revolting supporters as the champions of freedom, human rights and progress
I want to focus on the election itself. A newly released statistical study of the rigged election by Chatham House raises enormous questions about the validity of the Interior Ministry's reported vote totals. And Mousavi himself is making the point, in detailed fashion, that the vote was bogus.
The Chatham House analysis, while wonky and full of detailed charts, provides the clearest evidence yet that Ahmadinejad and Co. rigged the vote.
It shows, for instance, that in at least ten provinces, in order to have amassed the vote totals given to him, Ahmadinejad would have had to have won all the voters who backed him in 2005, all of the voters who, last time, voted for the centrist candidacy of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, all of the voters who, last time, sat out the election and didn't vote at all, and -- on top of that -- up to 44 percent of the voters who, in 2005, backed the reformist slate!
Example: Ahmadinejad won 765,000 votes in Hamedan province. In 2005, he received 195,000. To win the additional 570,000 votes, Ahmadinejad would have to have won all 218,000 voters who didn't vote in 2005, all 175,000 Rafsanjani voters, and nearly a quarter of the 322,000 voters who cast their ballots for the reformists. Keep in mind that most, if not all, of the non-voters in 2005 would be people disgusted with and cynical about voting at all, the vast majority of whom would probably have cast their ballots for Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, or Mohsen Rezai this time, if they voted at all.
In province after province, the data hold.
The Chatham House data also show, conclusively, that rural voters do not support Ahmadinejad, contrary to the oft-repeated myth in the media and among many analysts. In 2005, for instance, the report shows a perfect correlation: the more rural the province, the lower Ahmadinejad's vote in 2005. Why? "Much of Iran's rural population is comprised of ethnic minorities: Lors, Baluch, Kurdish, and Arab amongst others. These ethnic minorities have a history of voting Reformist," says the report. In 2005, they voted overwhelmingly for Karroubi and for Mostafa Moin, not Ahmadinejad. The report, backed by detailed statistical analysis, shows that to have won the support he claims to have achieved in rural areas, Ahmadinejad would have to have won fully half of the reformist vote, a notion that the report calls "highly implausible."
It also notes, wryly, that "in two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100 percent was recorded." (The Guardian Council, in preliminary findings about the election, announced on Monday that in some cases vote totals around the country did exceed the total number of registered voters, but that this happened in "only 50 cities.")
Rather stunningly, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani -- a fiercely conservative partisan who, nonetheless, was a backer of Ahmadinejad's conservative opponent in the June 12 election, Mohsen Rezai -- has declared that the vote may be suspect. Here's what he said:
"The Guardian Council should use every possible means to build trust and convince the protestors that their complaints will be thoroughly looked into. A majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election result is different from what was officially announced. The opinion should be respected and a line should be drawn between them and the rioters and miscreants. ... Although the Guardian Council is made up of religious individuals, I wish certain members would not side with a certain presidential candidate."
By "certain presidential candidate," of course, Larijani means Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi himself isn't pulling punches. He said that "disgusting measures" were used to fix the election, adding, in a letter to the mullahs of the Guardian Council:
"All these counts of irregularities plus many others that were mentioned in previous letters . . . are reasons to cancel the election nationwide. ... The result was reversed. ... The number of mobile ballot boxes was increased significantly, and there were no monitors present at those stations. Our representatives were not allowed to be present at the mobile ballot boxes during transportation. Considering the fact that there were 14,000 of those, that gave them the ability to carry out any violation of any sort. The ballot boxes were sealed before we could verify that they were not filled up before election day."
"There were 45.2 million eligible voters, and 59.6 million voting slips with serial numbers were printed. A day before the elections, there were millions more printed without serial numbers. The fact that there were so many extra voting slips itself is questionable. There is no way we could have run out of voting slips so early into the elections."
?
by capt_ayhab on Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:11 PM PDTQuestion Mr. Ommani,
How much did you sell your soul for? I am certain your dignity was worth jack sh!t, since you obviously have none.
Shazdeh,
Sepass for the links.
-YT
Mr. Omanni, please go and watch Sohrab Arabi's funeral footage
by navh on Mon Jul 13, 2009 07:53 AM PDTGo and watch the heartwrenching funeral of Sohrab Arabi, posted on this website. I'm sure you'll be able to squeeze in your busy schedule of treachery and perfidy.
Then, I like to see you sing IRI's praises. Although, I am sure that for shameless psychopaths such as yourself it won't be too difficult.
I think I have identified Ardeshir Ommani
by navh on Mon Jul 13, 2009 07:39 AM PDTOh, my god!!!
I had no idea Mohammad Saeed Al-Sahhaf had a twin brother.
Anonymous111 your not having good advice for Mr Ommati!
by curly on Mon Jul 13, 2009 06:25 AM PDThis next apartment or Villa should be in Yemen !!!!!!!!!!!!!he needs it soon :DD you can not expect him to stay and get killed?
Poeple, You Are Too Hard on Mr. Ommati....
by Anonymous111 on Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:17 AM PDTI'm sorry....I meant to say Omanni. The guy has to eat...right?!!
His efforts have already paid off. He just got an apartment in Shiraz that he wrote about some time ago as a result of his "loyalty". But now he neeeds a new place...you know for when he's in Tehran for "meetings"...so he's working on it. You see, his contract with the "Ministry" says that he gets an apartment from the IRI for every 3 essays and a house for every 5. If it's under "special circumstances" such as when IRI is under threat because of a popular uprising (like now), he gets the house for the same effort as the apartment, i.e., 3 essays. He has written 2 so far (the first one being the "petition" that he sent to the UN). Just keep an eye for the third one. His vacation home in Darband is waiting....
Ardeshir Is Simply Nauseating
by ganselmi on Sun Jul 12, 2009 06:37 PM PDTYou don't have to be a dinosaur to let yourself distort and obfuscate to the extent Ardeshir does - you just have to embrace and give voice to your inner totalitarian.
Is it Ommani?
by curly on Sun Jul 12, 2009 05:22 PM PDTor OMMATTEE??
Dinosaur!
by Asghar_Massombagi on Sun Jul 12, 2009 07:23 PM PDTAnd we all know what happened to dinosaurs.