Telephones Cut Off, Mousavi Arrested, Rafsanjani Resigns

[Percival]

Well the CIA has a history of doing exactly what I described above in places like South America etc. That is well documented.


Also, excellent post by Cannonfire, thanks for sharing!

[JackRiddler]

Well the CIA has a history of doing exactly what I described above in places like South America etc. That is well documented.

Of course, of course, and the Twitter-blog propaganda feels embarrassingly staged. (Even if most of it should be from genuine oppositionists and not operatives who are consciously producing propaganda; the voices are too well-trained in modern PR and add to the feeling that it's coming from educated, prosperous "North Tehran" and US expatriates with tunnel vision.)

But there is also a long history of election fraud unrelated to the CIA -- in fact, it goes bak thousands of years -- and Iran is a repressive regime regardless. One that produced both Mousavi and Ahmedinejad as hardliners in their respective eras of holding office! At this stage I'm refusing to be certain!

That's what amazes me. The way Mousavi's 10 years in power as the Ayatollah's chosen man were just wiped from the slate. Surely his record was an issue in Iran, for good or bad?

And obviously Ahmedinejad has a big base and may really have won...

But if so, then what was going on? Why the immediate announcement of a victor only two hours into a count of 24 million paper ballots? What made Mousavi's people feel they were ahead and prompt them to announce victory? Did they make that up, or did they really have sources inside the government telling them it was the case (as they claim)?

Most of the likely outcomes of this situation will be sad for Iranians all around.

[Percival]

Well the CIA has a history of doing exactly what I described above in places like South America etc. That is well documented.

Of course, of course, and the Twitter-blog propaganda feels embarrassingly staged. (Even if most of it should be from genuine oppositionists and not operatives who are consciously producing propaganda; the voices are too well-trained in modern PR and add to the feeling that it's all "North Tehran"/US expatriates.)

But there is also long history of election fraud unrelated to the CIA, and Iran is a repressive regime regardless -- one that produced both Mousavi and Ahmedinejad as hardliners in their respective eras of holding office. At this stage I'm refusing to be certain!

That's what amazes me. The way his 10 years in power were just wiped from the slate. Surely they were an issue in Iran, for good or bad?

And obviously Ahmedinejad has a big base and may really have won...

So what was going on? Why the immediate announcement only two hours into a count of 24 million paper ballots? What made Masouvi's people feel they were ahead and prompt them to announce victory? Did they make that up, or did they really have sources inside the government telling them it was the case (as they claim)?

Most of the likely outcomes of this situation will be sad for Iranians all around.

No doubt! Good points all, Jack. Should be interesting to watch this unfold and even MORE interesting and ironic if WE (the US) starts lecturing them on shady and stolen elections. Oh the humanity!

[SonicG]

No doubt about the CIA's history- especially in Iran itself but I think at this point in time the US would not get away with unilaterally sending in troops. I wonder what Russia and China are thinking about all of this? It could certainly pan-out as a major crisis for Obama and that together with NorKor's tantrums might prove very problematic.

[Percival]

No doubt about the CIA's history- especially in Iran itself but I think at this point in time the US would not get away with unilaterally sending in troops. I wonder what Russia and China are thinking about all of this? It could certainly pan-out as a major crisis for Obama and that together with NorKor's tantrums might prove very problematic.

No real need to send in troops, in fact if this is a CIA backed attempt to forment civil war the ensuing chaos that would result from such would likely be enough to weaken Iran to the point that they would be easily controlled and manipulated from the marble walls of DC.

Personally I am not even considering it to be anything other than that, Iran is and always has been crawling with spooks, as you mention, and I think this is definitely a covert op to weaken and divide the country just enough for us to get our foot in the door. The whole thing just stinks of a covert op, from the BS on twitter to the speed in which the various participants claimed victory.

[SonicG]

I found this article on Counterpunch written before the elections and then the blog of the author who believes there was fraud, although also has a very radical-cynical take on it all.

To have witnessed and tasted the feel of some 'openness' in the political atmosphere during the campaign weeks, to have participated in mass debates in the streets, in the squares, to have felt that their votes would really count and that they could force some 'change', to have held impromptu rallies and expressed themselves freely in hopes of persuading others, all of which sent them to euphorically high places, and THEN to have had their hopes crushed in a matter of hours after the closing of polling stations, and in such blatant, in your face, take it or stick it fashion ... that must be a huge disappointment to bear. No wonder then that street protests were so swift to come about.

How the government handles the aftermath of these elections will be a matter of deep concern for a large number of people for some time to come.

For now, the Iranian establishment has spoken unambiguously for the continuation of the Ahmadinejad presidency. So, welcome to four more years of back and forth on 'to bomb or not to bomb', four more years of sanctions, talk of more severe sanctions, and reports of covert ops and infiltrations, four more years of seeing Ahmadinejad palling around with Chavez, waxing philosophical about the Bolivarian Socialism and imprisoning socialists at home; four more years of empty promises for the poor, whose socio-economic infrastructure is eroded further and deeper daily as they are handed sacks of potatoes to avert starvation. And, painfully, four more years of absolute and utter lies, spread by the Israelis, the neoconservatives and their liberal colleagues regarding Iran's 'threat'.

[SonicG]

And here's Lenin's Tomb defending Ahmadinejad's victory. Note the poll info. The comments are full of Yoshie offering ample reasons why Ahmad. could've/should've won.

[Percival]

Good stuff, Sonic, keep it comin, this is all becoming very interesting. Tomorrow may be even more interesting and check out my North Korea thread, they are now threatening nuclear war.

[Ben D]

The Iranian People Speak

washingtonpost.com

By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

Link

[Ben D]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak05.html

Rafsanjani's gambit backfires

Asia Times
By M K Bhadrakumar

Iranian politics is never easy to decode. The maelstrom around Friday's presidential election intrigued most avid cryptographers scanning Iranian codes. So many false trails appeared that it became difficult to decipher who the real contenders were and what the political stakes were.

In the event, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei won a resounding victory. The grey cardinal of Iranian politics Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been dealt a crushing defeat. Is the curtain finally ringing down on the tumultuous career of the "Shark", a nickname Rafsanjani acquired in the vicious well of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) where he used to swim dangerously as a political predator in the early years of the Iranian Revolution as the speaker?

By the huge margin (64%) with which President Mahmud Ahmedinejad won, it is tempting to say that like the great white sperm whale of immense, premeditated ferocity and stamina in Herman Melville's epic novel Moby Dick, Rafsanjani is going down, deeply wounded by the harpoon, into the cold oblivion of the sea of Iranian politics. But you can never quite tell.

The administration of President Barack Obama in the United States could see through the allegorical mode of the Iranian election and probably anticipate the flood of destruction that would follow once vengeance is unleashed. It did just the right thing by staying aloof, studiously detached. Now comes the difficult part - engaging the house that Khamenei presides over as the monarch of all he surveys.

First, the ABC of the election. Who is Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmedinejad's main opponent in the election? He is an enigma wrapped in mystery. He impressed the Iranian youth and the urban middle class as a reformer and a modernist. Yet, as Iran's prime minister during 1981-89, Mousavi was an unvarnished hardliner. Evidently, what we have seen during his high-tech campaign is a vastly different Mousavi, as if he meticulously deconstructed and then reassembled himself.

This was what Mousavi had to say in a 1981 interview about the 444-day hostage crisis when young Iranian revolutionaries kept American diplomats in custody: "It was the beginning of the second stage of our revolution. It was after this that we discovered our true Islamic identity. After this we felt the sense that we could look Western policy in the eye and analyze it the way they had been evaluating us for many years."

Most likely, he had a hand in the creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Hezbollah's patron saint, served as his interior minister. He was involved in the Iran-Contra deal in 1985, which was a trade-off with the Ronald Reagan administration whereby the US would supply arms to Iran and as quid pro quo Tehran would facilitate the release of the Hezbollah-held American hostages in Beirut. The irony is, Mousavi was the very anti-thesis of Rafsanjani and one of the first things the latter did in 1989 after taking over as president was to show Mousavi the door. Rafsanjani had no time for Mousavi's anti-"Westernism" or his visceral dislike of the market.

Mousavi's electoral platform has been a curious mix of contradictory political lines and vested interests but united in one maniacal mission, namely, to seize the presidential levers of power in Iran. It brought together so-called reformists who support former president Mohammad Khatami and ultra-conservatives of the regime. Rafsanjani is the only politician in Iran who could have brought together such dissimilar factions. He assiduously worked hand-in-glove with Khatami towards this end.

If we are to leave out the largely inconsequential "Gucci crowd" of north Tehran, who no doubt imparted a lot of color, verve and mirth to Mousavi's campaign, the hardcore of his political platform comprised powerful vested interests who were making a last-ditch attempt to grab power from the Khamenei-led regime. On the one hand, these interest groups were severely opposed to the economic policies under Ahmadinejad, which threatened their control of key sectors such as foreign trade, private education and agriculture.

For those who do not know Iran better, suffice to say that the Rafsanjani family clan owns vast financial empires in Iran, including foreign trade, vast landholdings and the largest network of private universities in Iran. Known as Azad there are 300 branches spread over the country, they are not only money-spinners but could also press into Mousavi's election campaign an active cadre of student activists numbering some 3 million.

The Azad campuses and auditoria provided the rallying point for Mousavi's campaign in the provinces. The attempt was to see that the campaign reached the rural poor in their multitudes who formed the bulk of voters and constituted Ahmadinejad's political base. Rafsanjani's political style is to build up extensive networking in virtually all the top echelons of the power structure, especially bodies such as the Guardian Council, Expediency Council, the Qom clergy, Majlis, judiciary, bureaucracy, Tehran bazaar and even elements within the circles close to Khamenei. He called into play these pockets of influence.

Rafsanjani's axis with Khatami was the basis of Mousavi's political platform of reformists and conservatives. The four-cornered contest was expected to give a split verdict that would force the election into a run-off on June 19. The candidature of the former Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Mohsen Rezai (who served under Rafsanjani when he was president) was expected to slice off a chunk of IRGC cadres and prominent conservatives.

Again, the fourth candidate, Mehdi Karrubi's "reformist" program was expected to siphon off support from Ahmedinejad, by virtue of his offer of economic policies based on social justice such as the immensely popular idea of distributing income from oil among the people rather than it accruing to the government's budget.

Rafsanjani's plot was to somehow extend the election to the run-off stage, where Mousavi was expected to garner the "anti-Ahmedinejad" votes. The estimation was that at the most Ahmedinejad would poll in the first round 10 to 12 million votes out of the 28 to 30 million who might actually vote (out of a total electorate of 46.2 million) and, therefore, if only the election extended to the run-off, Mousavi would be the net beneficiary as the votes polled by Rezai and Karrubi were essentially "anti-Ahmadinejad" votes.

The regime was already well into the election campaign when it realized that behind the clamor for a change of leadership in the presidency, Rafsanjani's challenge was in actuality aimed at Khamenei's leadership and that the election was a proxy war. The roots of the Rafsanjani-Khamenei rift go back to the late 1980s when Khamenei assumed the leadership in 1989.

Rafsanjani was among Imam Khomeini's trusted appointees to the first Revolutionary Council, whereas Khamenei joined only at a later stage when the council expanded its membership. Thus, Rafsanjani always harbored a grouse that Khamenei pipped him to the post of Supreme Leader. The clerical establishment close to Rafsanjani spread the word that Khamenei lacked the requisite religious credentials, that he was indecisive as the executive president, and that the election process was questionable, which cast doubt on the legality of his appointment.

Powerful clerics, egged on by Rafsanjani, argued that the Supreme Leader was supposed to be not only a religious authority (mujtahid), but was also expected to be a source of emulation (marja or a mujtahid with religious followers) and that Khamenei didn't fulfill this requirement - unlike Rafsanjani himself. The debunking of Khamenei rested on the specious argument that his religious education was in question. The sniping by the clerics associated with Rafsanjani continued into the early 1990s. Thus, Khamenei began on a somewhat diffident note and during much of the period when Rafsanjani held power as president (1989-1997), he acted low key, aware of his circumstances.

The result was that Rafsanjani exercised more power as president than anyone holding that office anytime in Tehran. But Khamenei bided his time as he incrementally began expanding his authority. If he lacked standing among Iran's clerical establishment, he more than made up by attracting to his side the security establishment, especially the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC and the Basij militias.

While Rafsanjani hobnobbed with the clergy and the bazaar, Khatami turned to a group of bright young politicians with intelligence or security backgrounds who were returning home from the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war - such as Ali Larijani, the present speaker of the Majlis, Said Jalili, currently the secretary of the National Security Council, Ezzatollah Zarghami, head of the state radio and television and, indeed, Ahmadinejad himself.

Power inevitably accrued to Khamenei once he won over the loyalty of the IRGC and the Basij. By the time Rafsanjani's presidency ended, Khatami had already become head of all three branches of the government and the state media, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and even lucrative institutions such as Imam Reza Shrine or the Oppressed Foundation, which have almost unlimited capacity for extending political patronage.

All in all, therefore, the power structure today takes the form of a vast patriarchal apparatus of political leadership. Thus, perceptive analysts were spot on while concluding that Ahmadinejad would never on his own volition have gone public and directly taken on Rafsanjani during the controversial TV debate on June 4 in Tehran with Mousavi.

Ahmadinejad said, "Today it is not Mr Mousavi alone who is confronting me, since there are the three successive governments of Mr Mousavi, Mr Khatami and Mr Hashemi [Rafsanjani] arrayed against me." He took a pointed swipe at Rafsanjani for masterminding a plot to overthrow him. He said Rafsanjani promised the fall of his government to Saudi Arabia. Rafsanjani hit back within days by addressing a communication to Khamenei demanding that Ahmadinejad should retract "so that there would be no need of legal action".

"I am expecting you to resolve the situation in order to extinguish the fire, whose smoke can be seen in the atmosphere, and to take action to foil dangerous plots. Even if I were to tolerate this situation, there is no doubt that some people, parties and factions will not tolerate this situation," Rafsanjani angrily warned Khamenei.

Simultaneously, Rafsanjani also rallied his base in the clerical establishment. A clique of 14 senior clerics in Qom joined issue on his side. It was all an act of desperation by vested interests who have become desperate about the awesome rise of the IRGC in recent years. But, if Rafsanjani's calculation was that the "mutiny" within the clerical establishment would unnerve Khatami *(Khamenei?), he misread the calculus of power in Tehran. Khatami*(Khamenei?) did the worst thing possible to Rafsanjani. He simply ignored the "Shark".

The IRGC and the Basij volunteers running into tens of millions swiftly mobilized. They coalesced with the millions of rural poor who adore Ahmadinejad as their leader. It has been a repeat of the 2005 election. The voter turnout has been an unprecedented 85%. Within hours of the announcement of Ahmadinejad's thumping victory, Khatami* (Khamenei?) gave the seal of approval by applauding that the high voter turnout called for "real celebration".

He said, "I congratulate ... the people on this massive success and urge everyone to be grateful for this divine blessing." He cautioned the youth and the "supporters of the elected candidate and the supporters of other candidates" to be "fully alert and avoid any provocative and suspicions actions and speech".

Khatami's*(Khamenei?) message to Rafsanjani is blunt: accept defeat gracefully and stay away from further mischief. Friday's election ensures that the house of Supreme Leader Khamenei will remain by far the focal point of power. It is the headquarters of the country's presidency, Iran's armed forces, especially the IRGC. It is the fountainhead of the three branches of government and the nodal point of foreign, security and economic policies.

Obama may contemplate a way to directly engage Khamenei. It is a difficult challenge.
-----------------
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

ON EDIT: * Please note that Bhadrakarumar appears to have confused the names of Khatami and Khamenei, but it should read Khamenei.
Ben D.

[AlicetheKurious]

Interesting take Percival although I can't see US troops going in there. Cannonfire has an interesting take on Mousavi:

This story gives some of the background for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the Iranian politician allegedly robbed in the election. Turns out he has close ties to the old Iran-contra gang -- Manuchar Ghorbinfar, Adnan Khashogghi, and dear old Michael Ledeen. Long-time readers know my feelings about Mikey. The following comes from Time magazine, January 1987:

"By [Ghorbanifar's] own account he was a refugee from the revolutionary government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, which confiscated his businesses in Iran, yet he later became a trusted friend and kitchen adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, Prime Minister in the Khomeini government. Some U.S. officials who have dealt with Ghorbanifar praise him highly. Says Michael Ledeen, adviser to the Pentagon on counterterrorism: "[Ghorbanifar] is one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." Others call him a liar who, as one puts it, could not tell the truth about the clothes he is wearing,"...

Here's the story he links about the connections.

Moon of Alabama mentions the same point, and some others as well (all links in original):


Some Dots You May Want To Connect

In any ordinary business, Manucher Ghorbanifar would cut an implausibly mysterious figure. Officially, he has been a shipping executive in Tehran and a commodities trader in France. By his own account he was a refugee from the revolutionary government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, which confiscated his businesses in Iran, yet he later became a trusted friend and kitchen adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, Prime Minister in the Khomeini government. Some U.S. officials who have dealt with Ghorbanifar praise him highly. Says Michael Ledeen, adviser to the Pentagon on counterterrorism: "He is one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." Others call him a liar who, as one puts it, could not tell the truth about the clothes he is wearing.

The Murky World of Weapons Dealers, Time Magazine, Jan. 19, 1987

---

On or about November 25, 1985, Ledeen received a frantic phone call from Ghorbanifar, asking him to relay a message from the prime minister of Iran to President Reagan regarding the shipment of the wrong type of HAWKs.

United States v. Robert C. McFarlane, Walsh Iran Contra Report, 1985

---

Franklin, along with another colleague from Feith's office, a polyglot Middle East expert named Harold Rhode, were the two officials involved in the back-channel, which involved on-going meetings and contacts with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and other Iranian exiles, dissidents and government officials.
...
The administration's reluctance to disclose these details seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a "regime change" agenda not approved by the president's foreign policy principals or even the president himself.

Iran-Contra II?, Washington Monthly, September 2004

---

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.
...
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”

Preparing the Battlefield, The New Yorker, July 7, 2008

---

The Ukrainian Orange phenomenon was modeled quite explicitly on the example of the Rose Revolution, which featured a disputed election, massive youth-oriented street protests, and plenty of subsidies from U.S. government agencies.

The 'Color' Revolutions: Fade to Black, Antiwar, September 29, 2006

---

The Pentagon and US intelligence have refined the art of such soft coups to a fine level. RAND planners call it ‘swarming,’ referring to the swarms of youth, typically linked by SMS and web blogs, who can be mobilized on command to destabilize a target regime.

Color Revolutions, Geopolitics and the Baku Pipeline", Engdahl, (no date)

---

Even before the count began, Mousavi declared himself “definitely the winner” based on “all indications from all over Iran.” He accused the government of “manipulating the people’s vote” to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.

“It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back,” Mousavi said, alleging widespread irregularities.

Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote, Associated Press, June 13, 2009

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2009/06/so ... nnect.html

In any case, Supreme Leader Khamenei has decided to initiate a probe into the election results.

[yathrib]

Watching "live" Fox coverage of the riots. The Iranian police keep beating up the same guy in a navel-length leather tank top every five minutes!

[AlicetheKurious]

Watching "live" Fox coverage of the riots. The Iranian police keep beating up the same guy in a navel-length leather tank top every five minutes!

That poor man!

"Tens of thousands" join victory rally for Ahmadinajad:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099501.stm

I wish I could watch the vid that goes with the article, but it won't load on my computer.

[OP ED]

No doubt about the CIA's history- especially in Iran itself but I think at this point in time the US would not get away with unilaterally sending in troops. I wonder what Russia and China are thinking about all of this? It could certainly pan-out as a major crisis for Obama and that together with NorKor's tantrums might prove very problematic.

No real need to send in troops, in fact if this is a CIA backed attempt to forment civil war the ensuing chaos that would result from such would likely be enough to weaken Iran to the point that they would be easily controlled and manipulated from the marble walls of DC.

at the very least the Iranians will now find themselves much too busy to continue their subversive efforts in Iraq.

[AlicetheKurious]

at the very least the Iranians will now find themselves much too busy to continue their subversive efforts in Iraq.

You underestimate them. They've had lots of practise walking and chewing gum at the same time during the past 30 years.