The Real Race for Iran

Human rights vs. Tehran's defenders

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The Real Race for Iran
by Josh Shahryar
28-Jun-2010
 

Since Iran was thrust into internal turmoil by last year's election, the world has been moved by events that unfolded during the protests of the Green Movement. As we watched the violence of the agents of the Iranian government against peaceful demonstrators, most of us thought that it would be impossible to defend the regime's position amidst the bloodshed we witnessed on our TV screens.

Not so. The Iranian Government, despite all the detentions, abuses, and unlawful killings since June 2009, still has support overseas in the guise of purportedly unbiased political analysts, none more vocal than that of the authors of Race for Iran, one a former CIA and National Security Council official, the other a former diplomat in the State Department.

Their solution to the human rights abuse issue? Pretend it is not relevant. Arrests, torture, rape, and the murder of protesters are set aside.

The testament to how far they can go in defending an indefensible position? Consider the lengthy response of RFI's authors to "Misreading Tehran", a series of seven articles published on the Foreign Policy website.

In this article, the duo close their eyes to all other internal matter to declare that the 2009 Presidential election is legitimate, simply because the opposition has allegedly not provided any evidence to back up claims of fraud. Thus, the vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be free and fair.

If we were to accept this argument, then every election under Suharto in Indonesia was free and fair. Every election held in Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan is free, as is every vote held in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Robert Mugabe is the rightful ruler of Zimbabwe. If stolen or "created" ballots cannot be exhibited, the result is not only legal but legitimate.

Under this "legitimate" Iranian Government, freedom of speech is severely curtailed. Newspapers are regularly banned, journalists regularly imprisoned. Candidates for elections are screened by the establishment, and only those passing the Guardian Council's ideological tests are allowed to run. There are hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of political prisoners suffering in Iran's jails. Under such harsh conditions, it is a distortion -- a dishonorable distortion -- to say that elections in Iran can be free, fair and honest.

If that were not enough, high-ranking clerics -- from within Iran's own establishment -- came forward and decried the elections as fraudulent. Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani was quoted, "Every healthy mind casts doubt on the way the election was held." Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri called the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "illegitimate" and "tyrannical." Perhaps the most revered cleric after Khamenei, Grand Ayatollah Lotfullah Safi Golpayegani called the results "a grand lie." Their voices were silenced by the media blackout, with Western journalists unaware of their clout within Iran's government and society.

But to RFI's authors, it is beyond consideration that Iran's leadership is a brutal regime hell-bent on keeping itself in power. They dismiss that people from within Iran's establishment question the legitimacy of the election. To them, an inquiry can only be considered if the Green Movement takes up arms, fights the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, confiscates all the ballot boxes from the election through force of arms and then counts them somewhere in Europe in front of international media. Only then, will 'healthy" minds accept fraud.

Yet there is a somewhat tortured twist in RFI's line, illustrated in the article in Foreign Policy. Having declared -- following the sudden execution of five Iranians on 9 May -- that the consideration of human rights was beyond their agenda, the authors resurrect two months-old "studies" of the 2009 election to establish that the political and civil rights of Iranians were respected and defended.

Doing so, they hold up a cracked mirror with RFI's reflection of post-election Iran: one of the purported reports on the election is by little-known "analysts" who have also suggested that Neda Agha Soltan, killed during the protests of 20 June 2009, was slain by agents of "the West":

It is inconceivable that an Islamic regime which understands the power of martyrdom in its own culture would sanction the cold-blooded murder of an innocent and ordinary young woman on the streets of Tehran. However it is every bit conceivable that those who thought the opposition movement needed a symbol and icon of resistance -- recipients and supporters no doubt of a $400m CIA-backed destabilization program for Iran -- would have arranged this horrible murder and try and pin it on the Iranian authorities.)

If RFI's authors claim that rights have no place in their forum, why resurrect a long-surpassed and rather creaky case for a proper vote on 12 June 2009?

In part, it is a necessary tactic to support the authors' main objective, which is to promote US-Iran discussions on important regional and global issues. Putting forth that case requires the notion that President Ahmadinejad can be engaged because he has a legitimate position.

More importantly, though, the tactic is a deflection. The Green Movement and civil rights organizations inside Iran long ago moved beyond contesting the elections to the campaign for a political, social, economic, and religious system that upholds rather than abuses its citizens' rights. Mir Hossein Mousavi has released several statements in recent months emphasizing that the Green Movement needs to firm up its ties with the Iranian populace to spread the message of change and to ensure that the Islamic Republic fulfills the rights set out in its Constitution.

Iran's Government is unable to address these issues, but they are also unable to prevent their consideration. It has persisted in arresting people who protest brutality and human rights abuses, but the challenge continues. It has tried to penetrate the ranks of the Green Movement, but it cannot prevent activists from interacting with disgruntled Iranians who have been affected. It has pursued the alternative of proclaiming Iran's exalted international position, but that distraction cannot be sustained when headlines are re-claimed by the heckling of Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson and the attacks on Iran's most esteemed clerics.

So the solution is sought by Tehran's defenders: while announcing that rights do not matter, revive the notion of the "legitimate" rule -- with the implication that legitimacy confers the authority to pursue any and all acts in the name of the Iranian state -- established by the 2009 election.

The problem for this defense is that rights will not go away. Those who bravely persist in the face of repression are emphasizing human rights and democracy more than ever. Ten days ago, Iranians who marched in Tehran were not heard chanting, "Where is My Vote?"; amidst the calls of God is Great, they were demanding that their rights -- as Iranians and as human beings -- be affirmed by their Government and by their Supreme Leader.

An objective analysis worthy of the label would question why the Iranian government fills the countries streets with security forces if it is stable and loved by its people. It would investigate why foreign media is effectively banned and why dozens of Iran's journalists are in jail, barred from working, or under threat of punishment if they dare to write. It would at least raise a quizzical eyebrow at the scores who are on death row and the hundreds more behind bars or on heavy bail simply because they voiced their opposition to the regime.

But that analysis would be tantamount to a questioning of legitimacy. And there the authors of RFI meet their self-imposed limit. They have shackled themselves even more effectively than the Government which they defend has shackled its people.

If there is a Race for Iran, those who defend the regime -- in the name of the irrelevancy of human rights -- can only stand still, stamping their feet loudly that there is no alternative. And in that race, it is the alternative which -- while hobbled by intimidation, restricted by suppression, hindered by punishment -- continues to move forward towards its goals.

First published in HuffingtonPost.com.

AUTHOR
Josh Shahryar is a Journalist and Human Rights Activist. Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JShahryar

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Yousef Bozorgmehr

Who are the opponents of Velayat e faqih?

by Yousef Bozorgmehr on Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:27 AM PDT

 

It is obvious: Communists, Royalists, Homosexuals, Monafeqeen,  Atheists, gharbzadeh sosool and other miscreants and traitors.

This "Green movement" is just a coalition of these "people" who disrespect Islam and Iran. They are an irrelevant minority inside Iran but are chamopioned by westerners as the majority.

I wish the Iranian government would rescind their nationality - they are just Farsi-speaking infidels, uprooted from their culture and religion.


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khaleh mosheh

Yousef Bozorgmehre

by khaleh mosheh on Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:26 AM PDT

Registered approx 2 hrs ago- ?Another sock puppet in the mould of Jaleho/kharmagas/no fear/Sargoze/agwm3 etc.

Good show pal but I aint buying a ticket. 


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Yousef Bozorgmehr

The deaths of "protestors"

by Yousef Bozorgmehr on Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:05 AM PDT

 

I am avoiding nothing.

According to Muhammad Sahimi of the pro-green "Tehran Bureau", 107 people were killed over the past YEAR's political violence. Mousavi and Karroubi claim it is 84.

Need I remind you that, while this is deeply regrettable, it is the same number that were killed EVERY DAY at one point during 1978 by your beloved Shahanshah's Army!

Many of those who died in the sedition were clearly mofsed and mohareb. They waged rebellion against God and the people, burning buses and throwing petrol bombs - their death is accidental and not a crime.

Surah 5:33
"The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and
strive after corruption in the land will be that they
will be killed or
crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or
will be expelled
out of the land."

If, however, they were deliberately killed or injured unjustly by the police or baseej then the perpetrators should be punished - as they were with respect to Kahrizak.

In Iran, there exists the rule of law and divine justice for all. 

 

 

 

 

 


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Cost-of-Progress

Koocheckmehr

by Cost-of-Progress on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:46 AM PDT

You can take your surveys,  add 75 cents and you may get a cup of coffee.... 

Who're you kidding with these surveys? You mean to tell me that Iranians trust a guy on the phone whom they never met to tell what's REALLY on their mind?

Too much rose water have made you light headed...or is it that the turban is on too tight

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________


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Onlyiran

Don't chicken out on us now

by Onlyiran on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:43 AM PDT

You haven't answered the questions.  Here, I repeat them for you:

 What about the countless others who were murdered?  What about Sohrab Arabi?  Let's hear it.  Come up with some BS to justify that one too.


And what kind of a zoo is the IRI, where CIA agents can run around in the streets and kill innocent Iranians?  How did these agents get in, plan the attacks and then get out without the mighty Islamic Republic knowing or arresting them?  Is this the security that they have brought to Iran?  

But tell us, what about the other who were murdered?  what about the police pickup that runs the protester over and then back up and runs him over again?  Let me guess...the pickup was hijacked by the CIA.  

We're all ears... 


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Cost-of-Progress

Dude..Green is an excuse

by Cost-of-Progress on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:42 AM PDT

Because mousavi and karoubi are yet another chapter in the shameful book of the Islamic regime. People are smarter than that. Green is the highway via which they had planned the scape route...........

Separate religon and politics by a million million miles and there maybe hope. Otherwise, It's the same old crap.

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________


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MM

how do you argue w/ a self-rightous Islamist...

by MM on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:42 AM PDT

like mirza yousef who thinks his commands come from god and will potentially let his 12 year son do the violent barbaric animalistic acts depicted in the following video because the other person is a monafegh?

//www.truthtube.tv/play.php?vid=2008

Answer:  You just gather the power of the people and set him in jail if guilty, try to humanize him (amr-e be homo-sapien), or if hopeless, set him in a booth (hojreh) in Ghom, Mash'had or Najaf (preferrably Najaf) and ask him to sit and pray in solitude.

Agh Mirza Yousef is the first person who actually believes the nonesense IRI tried to feed us about Neda's murder.  How brain-washed is that?

May god have mercy on them since the young Iranians may not. 


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Cost-of-Progress

...till the end of time?

by Cost-of-Progress on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:39 AM PDT

Is that when we should expect the kid in the well to come back and save humanity? A recycled idea and ideology stolen from other brainwashing machines..........

The purported 85%, even if true, only reaffirms that the public is sick and tired of your crap and "believes" that actually coming out to vote will make a difference - which it did not.

Religion is incompatible with democracy and there's no amount of lies you can churn out that will cleanse the filth you represent. 

You are anti-Iran and anti-humanity.... all of you.

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________


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Yousef Bozorgmehr

The Iranian people speak

by Yousef Bozorgmehr on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:35 AM PDT

 

The deluded expatriates here (royalists, communists, marxists, terrorists, homosexuals, atheists, mercenaries and propagandists)  think their view enjoys 100% support among the people. Well, 3 post-election surveys show that the "green movement" is supported by no more than 20% of the people.

//www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/br...

Also, this talk of "repression" is a nonsense. We all saw the pro-American Thai and Kyrgyz governments shooting demonstrators in the streets with tanks and guns - that is "repression". More people were killed in a single day in Bishkek than in an entire year's rioting in Iran.

Your friends in the infidel British media were silent about this.

Enough said. Let Neda be remembered for who she was, not what you want to make her out to be - that is posthumous exploitation of the most despicable kind.

 


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AMIR1973

IRI Groupie Lies: Rahbar was popularly elected?

by AMIR1973 on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:32 AM PDT

You know you are lying, because the Leader of the country was chosen by 86 "experts" 21 years ago. That's your Rapist "democracy", okay. All four "candidates" are Islamist thugs who are fanatically loyal to either the first Head Rapist Khomeini or the second Head Rapist Khamenei. Iranians have no freedom of speech, press or religion to criticize this regime of killers, rapists, and thieves. This is democracy? Islamist Animals have killed more Iranians than anyone else and made the country pathetically poor (IRI's GDP per capita is lower than Botswana and Gabon!!!).

If you like, I will pass the time reading Press TV, Tehran Times, and  Kayhan (whose quality is as good as all the products of the IRI  :-)and read about the progress being made with IRI's advanced Saeqeh fighter jet, the Rapist "navy" and "airforce" and all the fake technological progress of your backward rapist, murdering regime--the worst regime in Iranian history.

Islamic popular government is here to remain in Iran till the end of time.

Areh, ta enqelab-e Mahdi, the "popular" Rapist Regime will be in power, killing and raping Iranians. and continue stealing Iranian's money. It is important to be "patriotic" and to support Rapists. Khar Khodeti, IRI Cyber Groupie, khar khodeti.

BTW, where do you live? In the Islamist Utopia? I though Iranian.com was blocked in Iran. Are you just another one of the Rapist Regime Groupies who lives in the decadent and Evil West? Now, THAT is very funny.


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fooladi

"How can you sleep at night?"

by fooladi on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:22 AM PDT

He sleps at night with help of heavy doses of opium purchased with the proceeds of his BSing on behalf of islamic regime, from the safety of his hiding hole in the west.

Thanks for the good article though. I do remeber a time, not a long time ago that Islamic regime had good support amongst the masses of Iranian people. Since last year, since murdering the innocenst on the streets right in front of the world to see, the picture is changes. They have lost their support even amongst devout muslims. The regime is extremely frightend and confused. Have you noticed that they have not been able to execute one single policy internal or external. The regime is at brink of collapse, it needs one final push, a hard and bloody one, to be despatched to the dustbin of history.

Neda, is indeed the hero of Iran. She opened the eye of the world to attrocities being commited in Iran for the past 31 years, in thge name of God, by sacrificing her life. No wonder the regime and it's scum bag mercenaries hate her and memory so much...


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AMIR1973

The Number One Murderer is the Animal in Jamaran

by AMIR1973 on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:16 AM PDT

CIA assassins have killed all the opponents of the Rapist Leaders of IRI, Khomeini and Khamenei, just to make those Rapists "look bad".

I sleep very well at night knowing that the traitor-led "green movement" has been defeated by the believers.

By believers, do you mean the Islamist Animals who sent 12-year old boys with plastic keys to heaven to walk on landmines? Or do you mean the believers who rape virgins in jail before killing them to prevent them from going to heaven? Or do you mean the believers who stone people to death, chop off limbs, steal the Iranian people's money, kill their opponents (including old men and their wives), etc, etc. Islamists are murderers and liars--thank you for, once again, demonstrating what animals Islamists are.


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Yousef Bozorgmehr

No freedom?

by Yousef Bozorgmehr on Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:14 AM PDT

 

Amir, this is pure delusion. Iran witnessed the most vibrant and free election campaign - there were no restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. The newspapers expressed support for all 4 candidates. Even the western media, who you always run to for support, admitted this to be true.

Despite claims that the candidates were "screened" and therefore "unrepresentative", 85% of Iranians decided to vote: In the United States, the Democratic-Republican party gets 50-60%  of the electorate to support its corporate-approved candidates.

By denying the will of 24 million Iranians and rioting in the streets, the greens have done untold damage to the reform movement - Islamic popular government is here to remain in Iran till the end of time.

You can pass the time watching VOA and BBC Persia.

 


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Onlyiran

قرآن بخوره فرق سرت

Onlyiran
Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:11 AM PDT

What about the countless others who were murdered?  What about Sohrab Arabi?  Let's hear it.  Come up with some BS to justify that one too.

And what kind of a zoo is the IRI, where CIA agents can run around in the streets and kill innocent Iranians?  How did these agents get in, plan the attacks and then get out without the mighty Islamic Republic knowing or arresting them?  Is this the security that they have brought to Iran?  

But tell us, what about the other who were murdered?  what about the police pickup that runs the protester over and then back up and runs him over again?  Let me guess...the pickup was hijacked by the CIA.  

I know that you sleep well at night.  That's because you have no conscience.   


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Yousef Bozorgmehr

وَقُلْ جَاء الْحَقُّ وَزَهَقَ الْبَاطِلُ إِنَّ الْبَاطِلَ كَانَ

Yousef Bozorgmehr
Mon Jun 28, 2010 09:03 AM PDT

                                                                         

How am I "justifying" Neda's death? I believe her murderers are now hiding in Britain, France and elsewhere. As Esfandiari and myself point out, CIA assassins have a habit of killing people to make others look bad - take PC Yvonne Fletcher - it was made to look like she was murdered by Libyan diplomats by American intelligence operatives.

//www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/01/13/186351...

Also, as we point out in the artcile, Hejazi first claimed the assassin was a rooftop assailant who "aimed at her heart" and then changed it to a Basiji on a motorbike.

The attack on the Basij HQ is a different case - the rioters were shot because they tried to take control of it - which they did and later set it on fire.  The militiaman was defending himself and his colleagues.

//www.foxnews.com/images/539515/1_68_b320.jpg

I sleep very well at night knowing that the traitor-led "green movement" has been defeated by the believers. It was based on a lie and all lies are doomed to die.

"Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood
perished: for Falsehood is bound to perish." [Qur'an
17:81] 

 

 


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AMIR1973

When an Islamist speaks, an Islamist lies

by AMIR1973 on Mon Jun 28, 2010 08:46 AM PDT

They did it in 1953 and they tried again in 2009

Islamist thugs participated in the 1953 coup (e.g. Ayatollah Kashani, Fadaiyan-e Eslam) and Islamist thugs have been killing and raping Iranians for 31 years. It's nothing new, and these Islamist animals have been blaming Zionists, Mossad, CIA, KGB, etc for their murders, rapes, and Islamist savagery all the time.

democratically-elected government

Oh yeah, the Leader of Iran was democratically elected by 86 "experts" 21 years ago. Iranians have no freedom of speech, press, assembly or religion. What do Islamist animals know about "democracy" when their garbage IRI regime is a theocracy ruled by the Twelfth Imam's representative, aka Head Rapist Khamenei. Was he "democratically elected"?

This election showed clearly who is a patriot and is prepared to defend the will of the people, and who is a traitor and seeks support from the worst elements in the West.

IRI Groupies fight their Holy Jihad against the West and buy their technology for repression from Europe, Russia, and China, while living and/or travelling in the West. Islamist animals who are the Number One Killers of Iranian men, women, and children and want to create an "Islamist Ummah", are now talking about "patriotism". Now, that's very funny. Kharha Khodetunin, IRI Groupies.


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Onlyiran

Mr. Bozorgmehr, you're a fascist

by Onlyiran on Mon Jun 28, 2010 08:19 AM PDT

trying to justify the death of an innocent person at the hands of a murderous regime.  How about the other deaths?  the guy who was shooting from the rooftop into the crowd?  How about Sohrab Arabi?  All agents?  Pre-arranged?  The Basiji shooting people from rooftops, was he a British and "Zionist" agent?

How can you sleep at night?   


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Yousef Bozorgmehr

موج سبز گود می‌افتد

Yousef Bozorgmehr
Mon Jun 28, 2010 08:12 AM PDT

 

 

Anyone who still thinks that this "green movement" is not a color revolution, as witnessed elsewhere in the world and supported by a coalition of foreign interests, really needs to wake up and smell the coffee. They did it in 1953 and they tried again in 2009 - as before, the street was mobilised by foreign intelligence and their Iranian lackies against a democratically-elected government (although unpopular in Shemiran and Vanak).

//pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/cia-has-d...

//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/...

Esfandiari and myself stand by our claim posted in Iranian.com that Neda's death was pre-arranged and designed for propaganda purposes. I think this is obvious to everyone but the blind. The motive, method and opportunity belongs to those who posted her dying moments on youtube and sent it to CNN within minutes. The fact that the incident happened in a side street away from the protests, and involved an Iranian "doctor" studying in Britain who "happened to be in the wrong place at the right time" leaves no room for any doubt. Neda has been exploited and manipulated to make her out to be a "Joan of Arc" martyr figure which she was not. 

This election showed clearly who is a patriot and is prepared to defend the will of the people, and who is a traitor and seeks support from the worst elements in the West. That much is true.

The opposition has lost all legitimacy and moral authority.


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