Iran Election June 09

[zraver]

Any information on protests outside Tehran, in other cities?

sparse today, reports of massive crackdowns in some silence from others and words of riots from still more.

The girl who the world watched die on Youtube and Live Leak was named Neda.

Event reports from Iran After the Doomed Election!!! - Iran Defense Forum

warning that is 165 pages since the election.

[Donnie]

cnn is showing a video of a "home invasion" in iran, gun fire, sirens, car alarms, scary stuff.

reporting 150+ dead this week.

god speed

[Merlin]

cnn is showing a video of a "home invasion" in iran, ...
reporting 150+ dead this week.

There would be a lot of injuries. Are you sure about the 150 + dead report? If this is true, it is very significant for civil protests against any government as this is past an explosive trigger number.

[Merlin]

This was sent online 45 min ago from UPI.

Mousavi: 'To the slaughterhouse'

TEHRAN, June 20 (UPI) -- Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi attacked the Supreme Leader in a statement on his Facebook page posted Saturday.

The response to a speech Friday by Ayatollah Ali Khameini said the government is taking the country "to the slaughterhouse," CNN reported. CNN said it could not confirm that the statement, posted in Farsi, was actually from Mousavi. ...

Since the election, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the results and there were reports Saturday that at least 19 people -- and perhaps as many as 150 --had been killed in protest-related violence.

[JAD_333]

Switching gears a bit, this analysis from Al Jezeera a week ago pulls together some disparate views on what an A-Jad victory would mean. The prediciton that Obama's new policy toward Iran will change after next January if Iran spurns his efforts to start a dialogue aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries. And could Netty be secretly happy with an A-jad win?

News Middle East

Iran poll result 'harms US hopes'

Ahmadinejad has clashed with West over Iran's nuclear ambitions and his comments on Israel [AFP]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in Iran's presidential election is likely to be a blow to hopes for US rapprochement with Iran.

Washington has had no official ties with Tehran since shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979, but Barack Obama, the US president, has expressed his openness to dialogue since coming to power in January.

Analysts said on Saturday that victory for Ahmadinejad, who has crossed swords repeatedly with the West over Iran's nuclear ambitions and his criticism of Israel, could stall any attempts at improving relations.

"In Washington there was a severe wish to make sure Mousavi [Ahmadinejad's reformist rival] would be the winner because of the atmospherics and the comfort level in not dealing with Ahmadinejad and dealing with him," Trita Parsi, the president of National American Iranian Council, told Al Jazeera.

'Robust debate'

Before the results started to come out, Obama said that he was excited about the debate taking place in Iran and he hoped it would help the two countries to engage "in new ways".

"Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways," he said.

However, Rami Khoury, the editor-at-large of Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper, told Al Jazeera that the decisive victory could have been a reaction to widely-stated Western hopes for a reformist win.

"They probably didn't like the fact that this was being portrayed in the international press ... as though Obama's speeches were changing the Middle East," he said.

"This tells us that Tehran is not Tennessee, there is a difference in how things happen.

"The US doesn't know what is going on in Iran because it doesn't have anybody there," Khoury said.

"It has no officials, it has had no contact with Iran officially for 30 years, so there is a huge gap in knowledge of the basic sentiments of the Iranian people or the leadership."

Mutual respect

Ahmadinejad has previously said that Iran would welcome talks with the US, but only if there was mutual respect between the two nations.

Officials in Tehran have said that means the accusations that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons and supports terrorism must stop.

In March, Obama made a speech to mark Nowruz, the start of the Persian New Year in which he called for a "new beginning" to relations and stressed his respect for the Iranian people.

But Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran's supreme leader, dismissed the message saying that the US still had to show it had changed its attitude towards the country.

Hady Amr, a political analyst at the Brookings Institute, told Al Jazeera that he expected the Obama administration to give Ahmadinejad's second-term government another chance to respond to such overtures.

"If they don't respond, the policy could change around the New Year," he said.

Israeli reaction

Meanwhile, Washington's main ally in the region, Israel, said that the re-election of Ahmadinejad underlined the fact that the international community must act to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"If they don't respond, the policy could change around the New Year"

"If there was a shadow of hope for a change in Iran, the renewed choice of Ahmadinejad expresses more than anything the growing Iranian threat," Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, said in a statement.

Yigal Palmor, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, told Al Jazeera: "The challenge that Iran poses to the international community does not rest on personality.

"It stems from its policies. A policy of obtaining at all costs nuclear weapons, a policy of promoting violence and terrorism throughout the region... This is something that should stop. It really doesn't matter who the president is.

"All the international community should concentrate on making Iran a friendly country ... to its neighbours and the region."

However, Afshin Molavi of the New America Foundation think-tank told Al Jazeera that there were many in the Israeli government who might welcome the outcome.

"In many ways, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for many folks in Tel Aviv who would like to see a serious confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme, is a gift because of his outlandish statements about the Holocaust," he said.

"I would imagine that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is not unhappy with these results."

Israeli officials have repeatedly stressed the need for the US and its allies to act to prevent Iran from building atomic weapons. Tehran says that its nuclear programme is purely to meet civilian energy needs.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran poll result 'harms US hopes'

[Tronic]

Basij Headquarters set ablaze:



After the innocent people these goons have killed, let them have it!

[Skywatcher]

That's certainly great news but do we have any other photos of the headquarters to compare with?

[Castellano]

I think it is worth to state clearly who has really rooted for A-jad, and who has congratulated him for his "divine victory".

Syria (Assad has come out of the closet), Hamas & Hezbollah

[Merlin]

.... Syria (Assad has come out of the closet), Hamas & Hezbollah

These are expected, arn't they?

[Castellano]

Yes well, I'm just dreaming of possibilities.

Dominoes anyone?

[Castellano]

If the regime gets away with it though, it won't be quite the same regime. I think I agree it would have transformed from a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship.

[Bigfella]

Switching gears a bit, this analysis from Al Jezeera a week ago pulls together some disparate views on what an A-Jad victory would mean. The prediciton that Obama's new policy toward Iran will change after next January if Iran spurns his efforts to start a dialogue aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries. And could Netty be secretly happy with an A-jad win?

JAD,

I don't think there is much secret about Netanyahu being pleased about this. Extremism feeds on extremism - A-jad & Hamas are the best freinds Likud has.

[VietPhuong]

The Persians are very strange. On one side they hate the Islamic government but one the side they don't want to do anything to fight it. I believe not all of the population participated in this vote. Like the ones I met in Germany. They had chance to go to Frankfurt to vote but none of them did it.
Mousavi vowed to fight against fraud which means there may be some unrest but personally I think nothing will happen.

I appologize to all Persians with my previous statement. Your blood proves you deserve democracy. Now those Basij have to fight for their life. If the people win, just hang all of them.
I think it is time for international community to show our support. I hope to see protests everywhere to fight together with Persian people.

[Castellano]

JAD,

I don't think there is much secret about Netanyahu being pleased about this. Extremism feeds on extremism - A-jad & Hamas are the best freinds Likud has.

That attempt to draw moral equivalence won't wash. Is not even close. And it is actually outrageous to suggest otherwise.

If some guy in al-Jihad can speculate that Netanyahu preferred A-jad to be handpicked by the regime (which I don't doubt), so I can also speculate that the puppet masters who bankroll that guy and the rest of the edifice of lies of al-Jihad are devastated that the Iranian people have risen up against tyranny, as in fact are quite some people in the Middle East who are not from Israel nor Iran.

It is a certainty that Netanyahu would prefer a free Iran, and that is a problem for all those non-Iranians who seem quite ready to fight Israel to the last Iranian.

So let's tell it like it is, no Bigfella?

[Oscar]

The unrest in Iran makes me green with envy

By Gideon Levy


It makes one green with envy: The scenes from Iran prove that some nations are trying to take their fate into their own hands. Some nations are not floating on the surface in sickly indifference, some are not looking around in endless complacence. And some are not following their leaders with the blindness of a herd. There are moments in the histories of certain nations when the people say enough. No more.

Czechs and Ukrainians, French and Russians, South Africans and Palestinians, Thais and Chinese, Lebanese and now Iranians have taken to the streets on at least one inspirational occasion and tried to make an impact. Some succeeded, some failed, but at least they tried. They did not surrender to their failed leaders, who dragged them from bad to worse. This is not only about rising up against a tyrannical regime; sometimes it's about a struggle for justice in democracies, too. That struggle is not conducted only in polls and elections; such struggles must spill out onto the streets. Here, too.

The scenes from oppressive Iran are of light breaking through. Thousands of women and men protesting and demonstrating, holding signs and shouting out loud. They stand with their faces visible, fearless. All of them are at risk because of their protest. Perhaps less than what we imagine here - our learned analysts know that there is only an Iran of darkness - but certainly much more than in free Israel.

But while Iran's women are taking a risk and demanding that their voice be returned to them, Israel's women are wrapping themselves in silence, from the mall to the parking lot. As Tehran's men cry out "Where is our voice?", here they ask "Where will our next vacation be?" Here in the SUV, there in the streets. Here in front of the stupefying television screen, there in front of the forces of evil. Here in darkness, there in the light of popular protest.

We only take to the streets when there is a festival, hardly ever because of a scandal. Tel Aviv's centennial or the book festival, the beer festival or the tomato festival - but never in protest. In Iran they are fighting for liberty, here for vacation time.

It's true, there is liberty in Israel, but only for us, the Jews. We have a regime that is no less tyrannical than the ayatollahs' regime: the regime of the officers and the settlers in the territories. But what do we have to do with any of this? In Iran, police disperse demonstrations with violence, they shoot and kill. And what do we do?

When you get a chance, go on Friday to Na'alin or Bil'in and see what happens there. Demonstrators are killed here with similar brutality, but in Iran the crowd is standing up to a tyrannical regime, while here only a handful of brave people stand up to the Border Police, who are firing weapons. Moreover, we hardly write anything about the protest being silenced with bullets. It interests no one, and this, too, is called democracy.

A democracy is not tested only with elections. A democracy is measured in everyday life. National aims are not achieved only through power hungry politicians; the street must also speak. In the latest polls, 64 percent of Israelis say they support a two-state solution. Great. But when Israel moves steadily away from such a solution, when the prime minister takes a small step forward but then raises more and more impossible obstacles, no one thinks to do anything. Have you heard a single political conversation recently? Nothing.

One can only imagine what would have happened if the day after Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, that same silent and paralyzed majority that allegedly wants two states had taken to the streets to demand an end to the occupation. Or if they demanded that we say yes to the Arab peace initiative. What a boost that would have been, a genuine wind of change on whose strength Barack Obama, Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas and Bashar Assad could move forward together.

But when the street is silent, only the leaders are left, and their survival drives them.

Israel is now at a fateful crossroads, no less than Iran. An opportunity lies before it that will not be seen again, one that affects the future of all its people no less than the election results in Iran affect the Iranians' fate. Missing the opportunity here will be just as decisive as four more years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. But look what is happening in totalitarian Iran and what is happening here, the sole democracy in the Middle East, blah, blah, blah.

The unrest in Iran makes me green with envy - Haaretz - Israel News