Violent clashes erupted today in downtown Tehran between more than a thousand determined young men and women chanting, “Death to the dictator” and “God is great” and security forces wielding truncheons.
The screams of a woman being beaten could be heard from nearby buildings, a witness said. Business owners could be seen hustling protesters into their buildings to shield them from plainclothes officers and anti-riot police who fired tear gas canisters.
Passing drivers and motorcyclists honked their horns and flashed the “V” sign in support of the clumps of demonstrators. At least one trash bin was set afire, a witness said, sending a plume of black smoke rising as dusk approached.
Many of the demonstrators wore surgical masks to protect their identities from cameras stationed at adjacent buildings. They could be seen escaping into side streets and regrouping as shops quickly were shuttered.
Some witnesses said pro-government Basiji militiamen also could be seen wearing masks to hide their faces from digital cameras.
Protesters chanted in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in disputed elections last month, and urged the security forces to join them.
The news from Iran has been depressing since the thugs who run the government cracked down on the Iranian protesters, but more and more evidence surfaces that the Iranian government has lost legitimacy with much pf the public.
The most important group of religious leaders in Iran has called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.
The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.
“This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”
Despite the brutal crackdown by Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and their fascist thugs, the reform movement is united in opposition to the Iranian government.
Iran’s reformist opposition on Wednesday delivered a co-ordinated message to Iranians, declaring the government of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad illegitimate and encouraging supporters to challenge it.
A statement by Mir Hossein Moussavi, the opposition leader who says the June 12 election was rigged in favour of the hardline Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, followed similarly defiant calls by Mosharekat, Iran’s largest reformist party, and Mehdi Karroubi, the second reformist candidate.
Mohammad Khatami, the former reformist president and a strong supporter of Mr Moussavi, also joined the chorus warning that the regime, with its “poisonous propaganda” against protesters and its security crackdown, was waging a “velvet revolution” against the “people and the system’s republicanism”.
The concerted effort came two days after the Guardian Council, the constitutional watchdog dominated by hardliners, confirmed the election result. It underlines the determination of the opposition to undermine Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s presidency.
A huge security crackdown has restricted the opposition’s ability to organise protests, but the refusal of reformist leaders to accept the election result could discourage western governments from dealing with Mr Ahmadi-Nejad.
“From now on we have a government which will be in the worst conditions in terms of its relations with people because the majority of society – and I am one of them – will not accept its political legitimacy,” Mr Moussavi said.
Hopefully their courage and determination will be rewarded.
Roger Cohen has a stunning piece about the fighting in Iran, and the bravery or ordinary Iranians fighting their brutal regime.
The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”
A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of “Join us! Join us!” The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.
Dark smoke billowed over this vast city in the late afternoon. Motorbikes were set on fire, sending bursts of bright flame skyward. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, had used his Friday sermon to declare high noon in Tehran, warning of “bloodshed and chaos” if protests over a disputed election persisted.
He got both on Saturday — and saw the hitherto sacrosanct authority of his office challenged as never before since the 1979 revolution birthed the Islamic Republic and conceived for it a leadership post standing at the very flank of the Prophet. A multitude of Iranians took their fight through a holy breach on Saturday from which there appears to be scant turning back.
Cohen believes that the momentum is with the protesters.
The war for the future of Iran has begun, and the Iranian dictatorship and the Basiji thugs have tried to stop the protesters. The Iranian people are fighting back, and many are chanting, “Death to the Dictator!”
If you want to follow the minute-by-minute updates, the best sources are Andrew Sullivan at his blog and Nico Pitney at The Huffington Post. Both have been live-blogging updates, and both have been passing along Twitter messages as well.
Here’s Barack Obama’s statement about today’s violent attacks on the Iranian people:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
The thought of this brings a smile to my face. The Basiji are the thugs who have been attacking defenseless protesters, including women and children. Their actions have help to rally even conservative Iranians to the cause of the protesters.
The Basij (literally “Mobilization”) — also Bassij or Baseej, or Persian: بسيج; also Baseej-e Mostaz’afin, (literally “Mobilization of the Oppressed);” and officially Nirouye Moqavemate Basij (”Basij Resistance Force”)[1] Persian: نیروی مقاومت بسیج — is a volunteer-based Iranian paramilitary force founded by the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. The Basij are subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Originally consisting of those males “either too young or old for regular military service,” the Basij are perhaps most famous for providing the volunteers that made up the human wave attacks against the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War, particularly around Basra. Currently Basij serve as an auxiliary force engaged in activities such as law enforcement, emergency management, the providing of social service, organizing of public religious ceremonies, and more controversially morals policing and the suppression of dissident gatherings. They have a local organization in almost every city in Iran.
I commend the protesters and the opposition leaders for stressing nonviolence in the demonstrations. That strategy is critical. But, at some point, fire must be met with fire, and many young Iranians are now going after the Basij thugs, in what is now being referred to as Basiji hunting.
By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things … as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets ‘Basiji hunting’.
Their resolve is no less than these thugs — they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks — they’re organised and they’re supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they’re after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again – and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour — they’re community-connected.
The Basiji’s are not.
These are not the students in the dorms, they’re the street young — they know the ways better than most thugs – and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.
Also, with $10K every local police station lock can be broken and guns taken out…the police too are crowd friendly…for sure put a gun in their hands and these young become a serious counter-balance to the Basij…call them 10% of 18-22 year olds – that makes circa 10 million around the country versus max 4 million Basijis.
I think Khamenei has miscalculated, and that any attempt to end this through the use of force may very well topple this despicable regime.
Khamenei will not back down, and he basically told the protesters in Iran that they will be dealt with harshly if they do not put a stop to the movement.
This is the moment of truth for the opposition, and I suspect that they will not back down. There will be bloodshed, unfortunately, but tyrants like Khamenei will not go without a fight.
Hopefully, many in the army and in the leadership will break from Khamenei and Ahmadinejad if they try to crush the rebellion with violence.
The Boston Globe has compiled a host of compelling photos from Iran.
This may be wishful thinking, but I’m starting to believe that there’s no way that the thugs in power can stop this movement in Iran. The numbers are too great.
Rumours are still swirling about the shooting in Azadi Square. Some claim four demonstrators were killed with “many more” wounded; others claim that the assailant, a Basiji (unofficial “religious” police), was then beaten to death by the crowd. There is also an unconfirmed report of gunfire in three districts in north Tehran. French media put the number at the rally at up to 2 million.
Reports are sketchy as the Iranian dictators have tried to block Twitter and email, but it seems clear that the protesters are becoming bolder and more determined. The leadership is panicking as the chief Mullah has ordered an “investigation” in an effort to appease the Iranian people, but that doesn’t seem to be working.
Hopefully we’ve reached a tipping point in Iran. The protests are intensifying, and it’s clear many Iranians will never see their “government” as legitimate in the future.
It is difficult to get any reliable picture of the scale of the protests in Tehran, let alone the whole country.
But they spread rapidly during the evening. The cheers and chanting echoed even in customarily quiet middle-class neighbourhoods.
Many Iranians came out on to their roofs to shout “down with the dictator”.
It has become a challenge not just of an election result, not just to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei himself.
That means it is, in effect, a challenge to the whole basis of the Islamic Republic.
For two years I have watched as young, ambitious Iranians go about their lives with growing frustration.
They feel the system stifles their aspirations. Now they feel that their intelligence and their pride has been insulted by an election result many Iranians believe is blatantly fraudulent.
And President Ahmadinejad’s almost casual dismissal of their complaints just adds to the anger.
The thugs who stole this election didn’t count on the Iranian people rising up against this farce.
It’s stunning to see young and old people in Iran saying “Enough!” Many people there realize that Ahmadinejad is a disgrace to their country, and his bigoted, divisive and incompetent leadership must come to an end.
Whatever happens with the green revolution, nothing will ever be the same in Iran.
Andrew Sullivan has some of the best coverage of this unfolding story. He’s also reporting how most of the mainstream media has been AWOL for most of the weekend as this story developed. No wonder more people are turning to blogs and the Internet for their news.
President Obama shows he’s serious about diplomacy with a stunning video message to the Iranian people seeking a new beginning to the relationship between our two countries.
It’s depressing to see the same pattern unfold in Gaza. Tom Friedman provides some useful background on the situation.
One point Friedman makes is that Iran can now dictate when fighting will resume in the region. Given how low gas prices have further decimated the Iranian economy, one has to wonder whether Iran is pushing for more rocket attacks with the purpose of having this conflict increase oil prices.
Since 2006, Iran’s leaders have called for direct, unconditional talks with the United States to resolve international concerns over their nuclear program. But as an American administration open to such negotiations prepares to take power, Iran’s political and military leaders are sounding suddenly wary of President-elect Barack Obama.
“People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous,” Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
“The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from a hard conflict to a soft attack,” Taeb said.
For Iran’s leaders, the only state of affairs worse than poor relations with the United States may be improved relations. The Shiite Muslim clerics who rule the country came to power after ousting Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S.-backed autocrat, in their 1979 Islamic revolution. Opposition to the United States, long vilified as the “great Satan” here in Friday sermons, remains one of the main pillars of Iranian politics.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Obama a congratulatory letter last week, but by Wednesday his welcoming tone had dissipated. “It doesn’t make any difference for us who comes and who goes,” he said in a speech in the northern town of Sari. “It’s their actions which are studied by the Iranian and world nations.”
Dictators and corrupt regimes need an external enemy in order to help them control their citizens. The demonization of the United States has been a useful tool in Iran, as it distracts the population from the economic misery caused by the government’s disastrous policies.
Now, the incoming Obama administration is ready to call their bluff, and the Iranian leadership realizes that they’ve put themselves in a box. If they refuse to negotiate, we gain a tremendous amount of leverage with the Europeans and Russians as we turn the screws with even tougher sanctions.
It’s embarrassing that the McCain campaign is clinging to Joe the Plumber in a final act of deperation. Mr. Plumber hit a new low when he agreed with a loon at a rally that the election of Barack Obama would lead to he death of Israel.
Shep Smith, one of the few voices of reason at Fox News, interviews Joe about his statement and unmasks him as a complete fool.
Tom Friedman writes about the huge problems facing Iran now that oil prices have collapsed.
I’ve always been dubious about Barack Obama’s offer to negotiate with Iran — not because I didn’t believe that it was the right strategy, but because I didn’t believe we had enough leverage to succeed. And negotiating in the Middle East without leverage is like playing baseball without a bat.
Well, if Obama does win the presidency, my gut tells me that he’s going to get a chance to negotiate with the Iranians — with a bat in his hand.
Have you seen the reports that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is suffering from exhaustion? It’s probably because he is not sleeping at night. I know why. Watching oil prices fall from $147 a barrel to $57 is not like counting sheep. It’s the kind of thing that gives an Iranian autocrat bad dreams.
After all, it was the collapse of global oil prices in the early 1990s that brought down the Soviet Union. And Iran today is looking very Soviet to me.
As Vladimir Mau, president of Russia’s Academy of National Economy, pointed out to me, it was the long period of high oil prices followed by sharply lower oil prices that killed the Soviet Union. The spike in oil prices in the 1970s deluded the Kremlin into overextending subsidies at home and invading Afghanistan abroad — and then the collapse in prices in the ‘80s helped bring down that overextended empire.
This is an example of the tremendous leverage we get by destroying domestic demand for oil by switching to alternative fuels.
