Take action now:

1. Endorse this statement; demand "U.S./Israeli hands off Iran!" - http://stopwaroniran.org/iran2009endorse.shtml
2. Forward this message to your listserves, or link to it from your Facebook, MySpace, and other sites (use http://stopwaroniran.org/iranstatement.shtml)
3. Please consider making an emergency donation.  Stop War on Iran was founded in early 2005 as an international campaignto oppose a U.S. military attack on Iran and other acts of war, including sanctions and covert destabilization.  Initial signers included former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, author and activist Leslie Feinberg, Michael Parenti, Larry Holmes of the Troops Out Now Coalition, Howard Zinn, George Galloway, Harold Pinter, former First Lady of Greece Margarita Papandreou,  and hundreds more.  Since that time we have organized meetings and forums from coast to coast, and brought Stop War On Iran placards, banners, buttons, and literature to antiwar demonstrations across the country.  Stop War On Iran does not receive funds from U.S. government agencies or corporate-run foundations, which means we need your help to continue to mobilize in the face of the latest threats against Iran.   You can donate online at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
4. Consider organizing a local action on August 1 to demand "U.S./Israeli Hands Off Iran." List your action at http://stopwaroniran.org/iran2009volorgcent.shtml
5. Volunteer!  The Stop War On Iran Campaign relies entirely on volunteers to get things done, and we need your help - http://stopwaroniran.org/iran2009volorgcent.shtml
   

• Why the U.S. anti-war movement should stand firmly against any military attack, sanctions or demonization of Iran.
• Boycott the Phony State Department/NED pro-war events on July 25
• Nationally-coordinated actions on August 1 to say "U.S. Hands Off Iran!"

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s new public threat against Iran underlines the dangers of a new war in the Middle East and the desperate need for political clarity within the anti-war movement concerning Iran.

With his June 6 comments on ABC's This Week, Biden opened the door to a military attack when he said that the U.S. would not stand in the way of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, calling such an attack is Israel’s “sovereign right.” Israel, he said, was “free to do what it needed to do.”  
 
The Geneva Conventions call it a war crime even to threaten to attack another state. This is not just rhetoric. Only with U.S. satellite, radar and the use of air space over U.S.-occupied Iraq could the Israeli bombing raid take place. Biden should be denounced as a war criminal for making such a reckless and dangerous encouragement of unprovoked war against Iran.
 
A U.S.-funded Israeli attack would immediately unleash a wider war. It would have catastrophic results for the whole Middle East and the Iranian people, even beyond what has already been done to the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine.

Biden’s new threat comes during a full corporate media offensive against Iran. Its timing should serve as an alert to the entire progressive and anti-war movement. U.S. aircraft carriers, destroyers, nuclear submarines, jet aircraft and drones clog the seas that wash up on Iranian shores.

In this dangerous war climate the entire U.S. and Western corporate media is again demonizing the Iranian government. It is using the media and well-funded, subversive organizations in a massive effort of destabilization and sabotage. Too often in the past this same combination of phony “human rights” organizations, who are given endless coverage in a corporate media frenzy, have helped to create a war climate through demonization, frauds and fabricated charges. This has happened before every U.S. attack or invasion, along with a concerted campaign of psychological warfare and internal destabilization in the target country.
 
One such organization leading this effort is the newly formed “United 4 Iran,” a fraudulent “left cover” for organizations funded by the U.S. government and big corporations. It is designed to use “human rights” and “democracy” to justify U.S. threats to attack Iran. This group has called phony “human rights” internationally coordinated protests for July 25. United 4 Iran is a front for organizations awash in money from the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cover organization for intervention, subversion, covert action in countries around the world. These same groups are supported by funds from Rockefeller, Soros, and Mellon foundations.  
 
It is telling that United 4 Iran makes NO mention of the U.S. wars currently ripping apart the entire region. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops along with an army of private military contractors and mercenaries have created havoc in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. U.S. funds and equipment have supported Israeli occupation and war on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Nor does this group mention the decades of U.S. military encirclement, sanctions, sabotage, attempted and actual coups against the people of Iran. 

If these organizations were genuinely concerned with democracy, human rights and respect for elections why have they not called emergency actions in defense and support of the democratic elections in Gaza? In Gaza there was a democratic election overseen by Western international monitors. Hamas won overwhelmingly. The U.S. funded Israeli response was blockade and starvation against an entire people. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment.

Why the movement must reject anti-Iran provocations -
UFPJ should withdraw support of anti-Iran actions.

How we respond to these actions is a crucial question for the movement.  Are we for another brutal U.S. war or against it?
 
It is profoundly disturbing that United for Peace and Justice UFPJ and other anti-war organizations have chosen to add their endorsement to these actions targeting the Iranian government. These anti-war groups should be in the forefront of opposing current U.S. wars and threats of wider war.

Stop War On Iran urges them and other honest anti-war forces to reconsider their endorsement of the anti-Iran actions.   Anti-war activists in the United States, while demanding an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, have an additional responsibility to oppose any military moves by the Pentagon or its allies against Iran and to oppose any moves by the former colonial powers to weaken Iran’s sovereignty. 

 
The U.S. imperialist wars throughout the region are an effort by U.S. corporations to gain strategic domination of the vast oil and energy resources.

Since its 1979 revolution, Iran’s independence has been a thorn in the side of corporate billionaires in the U.S. and Britain and of the U.S.-funded Israeli settler state. When the Iranian people overthrew the brutal U.S.-backed shah dictatorship they finally regained control of their rich oil and gas resources. In 30 years time Iran developed industrially and vastly improved the educational and health level of the entire population.
 
Any intervention by the imperialist powers in Iran and any weakening of Iranian sovereignty will only diminish the rights of women, workers, and the access to democratic institutions there, just as it has happened in the rest of the region. Any intervention by the imperialists in Iran’s internal struggles is aimed either at aiding the side the imperialists see as more conciliatory to their plans, or to exacerbate the internal conflict in order to compromise and weaken the Iranian government.

U.S. wars and occupations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan have never brought democracy or human rights. They have brought only oppressive military dictatorships, massive refugee crises, torture and millions of deaths.

Also, we cannot forget that it is U.S. troops, military equipment, and bases that keep corrupt feudal anti-woman monarchies in power in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, as well as the brutal dictatorship in Egypt.

The hypocrisy of U.S. politicians is staggering, as they condemn the actions of the Iranian government while sweeping their own crimes under the rug. Iran’s elections and disputes are an internal matter, to be resolved by the Iranian people and not the governments of imperialist countries with agendas of dominating Iran and a track record of using internal issues to justify military invasion.

Money for jobs and benefits, not for more war

In this time of global capitalist crisis, when millions are unemployed and millions more facing evictions and foreclosures, we must demand that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on current U.S. wars and the trillions that would criminally wasted in a new war be spent for jobs, health care and housing for poor and working people in the U.S. and around the world.

We urge your endorsement and support of these simple demands.

1. We oppose military aggression by the U.S., Britain, or Israel against Iran.
 
2. We oppose economic, diplomatic or other sanctions against Iran whatever their excuse.
 
3. We demand an end to subversion, de-stabilization, covert actions instigated by the U.S. and its military or spy agencies directed at Iran.

Endorse here: http://stopwaroniran.org/iran2009endorse.shtml
 
We urge you NOT to march in the anti-Iran event, which is designed to give humanitarian cover to U.S. threats of war against Iran. Instead, come out AGAINST current U.S. wars and the threats of a new war on the following week in a National Day of Coordinated Actions on Saturday, August 1.
 
Contact Stop War On Iran if you are interested in organizing or supporting an action opposing U.S. threats on Iran on Saturday, August 1

In NYC join us at Times Square, 42nd & 7th Ave at 1pm, August 1 for a march to the Israeli Mission.

STOP WAR ON IRAN
55 W. 17th St. 5th Fl., NY NY 10011
www.StopWarOnIran.org   212.633.6646

Water is considered as one of the most crucial non-traditional security issues. Water security is an elusive concept,but consensus is beginning to emerge in the world community.Water security is essential for human access for health, well-being,economic and political stability.It is essential to limit risks of water related hazards. A complete and fair valuation of the resource,sustainability of ecosystems at all parts of the hydrologic cycle and an equitable and cooperative sharing of water resources is very necessary.

It is a great irony that our planet that has 70% of its surface covered with water is facing an acute water crisis. It is alleged that the next world conflict would be for water. Water is very important for a nation to survive and to ensure their existence. Water is a strategic resource in the globe and an important element in many political conflicts. The world civilization started from the bank of Tigris, Euphrates and Nile rivers. To sustain a civilization water is the basic need. That is why it has been synonym as “life”. Among the 70% water that our planet contains 97.5% water is ocean water which is salty. Among the remaining 1.725% is in glaciers, snow and permafrost. 0.075% is ground water, and 0.025% is in the lakes, swamps and rivers.

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URL:http://www.bipss. org.bd/download/ water_security. pdf

The Early Day Motion George has tabled can be accessed here -If this could be circulated far and wide with the encouragement for people to contact their local MP to support.

Early Day Motion

EDM 1572

That this House notes that the Indian government intends to proceed with the building of the Tipaimukh Dam near the border with Bangladesh; further notes that there is widespread and justified concern amongst many Bangladeshis, people of Bangladeshi origin, environmentalists and naturalists about the implications of this project and in particular for the future of Sylhet; further notes that many British citizens have family and property in Sylhet; and believes that the British Government should make urgent representations to the Indian government not to proceed with this project until such time as there are sufficient reassurances about water supply, the security of the dam and its full environmental impact, and that the project should be abandoned if such reassurances are not forthcoming.

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Source:http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38750&SESSION=899

By Simon Tisdall

Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences - but may be justified.

Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on malign foreign enemies is already under way among so-called principalist, conservative factions. The pro-Ahmadinejad Keyhan newspaper on Tuesday denounced plots by “politically bankrupt dictators” to thwart the popular will. “The hopes of the imperialist triangle (America, U.K. and the Zionist regime) for a crawling coup d’etat in the Middle East and revival of the dead Middle East plan have been dashed,” it declared.

Javan newspaper was similarly acerbic. “Today democracy slogans have become a lever to provoke, interfere and overthrow,” it said. “By announcing results in the presidential elections that did not benefit their favourite candidate ... some foreign media such as BBC Persian [service], al-Arabiya, Fox News, CNN and some French media have started a new wave to create social and political division and cause riots.”

In largely cautious responses to Friday’s polls, Barack Obama’s administration has been careful not to feed the fires of xenophobic resentment. “It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iran’s sovereignty and want to avoid the U.S. being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said. But Iranian officials say U.S. protestations of non-interference would be more credible if the White House cancelled a $400m Bush era covert programme, authorised in 2007, which they say was intended to destabilise Iran, with the ultimate aim of regime change.

According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker last year, covert operations by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command were used to support the PJAK Kurdish dissident group in northern Iran, the disaffected ethnic Arab minority in Khuzestan in the south-west, and militant Baluchi Sunni Muslim separatists in the south-east, bordering Pakistan.

While not officially acknowledged or disavowed in the U.S., the covert programme has been repeatedly linked by Iran to ongoing violence, bomb attacks and assassinations in all three areas, as well as to the main external opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is allegedly funded and armed by the U.S. Iran also occasionally claims to have evidence of involvement by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and British intelligence.

Although the problem can be overstated, Iranian leaders of all political complexions have reason to worry about the so-called minorities question in a country comprising multiple ethno-linguistic groups, namely Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and Georgians. Recent reports from Iranian Kurdistan, for example, speak of 100 or more checkpoints being erected by Revolutionary Guards and the shelling of PJAK positions inside northern Iraq.

Iranian officials have linked the recent suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan, to U.S., British and Israeli support for the Jundullah Sunni Muslim separatist group. A failed attempt last month to blow up a domestic airliner in Ahvaz, in Arab Khuzestan, brought similar claims.

Iran said on Tuesday that members of a foreign-backed “anti-revolutionary group” responsible for fomenting unrest and armed with bomb-making materials had been arrested. Intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the group “wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror and in this connection 50 people were arrested ... They were supported from outside the country.” Given the current uproar in Tehran, the temptation for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad to deflect attention by hitting out at real or imagined foreign enemies, for instance by indirectly re-targeting U.S. forces in Iraq or causing problems for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is growing dangerously. But even such extreme measures may not work.

The moderate Seda-ye Edalat newspaper wasn’t swallowing the regime’s line about external threats on Tuesday. “Why does the government not let the people protest peacefully?” it asked. “Why do we always want to call Iranian protesters a group of hooligans bribed by foreigners to sabotage everything?”

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URL:http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14044

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

By AL GIORDANO

June 19, 2009
It is impressive to some and immensely frustrating to some others that so much of the international left has lined up against the purportedly left-of-center but authoritarian Iranian regime during the historic post-electoral struggle that is underway.

English-language, liberal-leftish journals from The Nation to The Huffington Post to the rank-and-file blogger army at the Daily Kos have rallied in solidarity with the millions of protesters in the streets of Iran.

That the events in Iran have caused a schism on the right is well established. There are neocons freaking out that they may not have Ahmadinejad as a convenient prop to inspire fear and justify warlike policies. In recent days, they’ve succeeded in marginalizing themselves in the same ways that some sectors of the left unwittingly accomplished for so many years, causing an infrequent alliance between what might be called the Reagan right and the libertarian right, which shares the world’s – including the majority on the left’s - shock and horror at the violent response of the Iranian regime to peaceful protest and speech, and our pleasure at seeing People Power rise up against it.

Virtually identical to those neoconservatives on the right are some on the left who do not celebrate that the Iranian regime teeters. What do they have in common? It is a nostalgia for the Cold War and an inability to break out of its dualist mode of thought: one in which the world is divided between two ideological poles (the dinosaur left and the neocon right disagree only on which pole is "good" and which is "evil" but the rest of their analyses line up seamlessly together).

The current situation resonates strongly with what occurred in the 1930s. There came a turning point in the international left when a critical mass turned against its flirtation with Benito Mussolini’s regime in Italy and "that other guy in Europe" whose name can’t be spoken without invoking Godwin’s Law. Woody Guthrie’s legendary guitar, upon which he wrote, "this machine kills fascists," is a wonderful emblem for that historic shift. Those on the left that continued their flirtation with the German and Italian experiments long after they had slid into fascism are not remembered very fondly by history. It seems to me that we are at a similar crossroads today.

Belief in a bipolar world in which "good" countries ally against "evil" ones internalizes the bipolar cycle of mania and depression among its adherents. It disregards what those of us on the left ought to understand better than most: that global capitalism has made the nation-state a secondary player on the world stage. One of the reasons that George W. Bush’s "war on terror" did not last as a new operating principle for the planet is that it did not snugly fit with such Cold War thinking: when the opposing force is not itself a nation state, there’s no longer a clear dualism. Nation states have a very difficult time when they choose to battle with amorphous networks that do not themselves have flags or capital cities. The same flailing that occurred from Bush’s corner in his inept attempt to deal with Al Qaida is inverted today. The Iranian state is in a similar spasm in trying to deal with an amorphous nonviolent network of communications and resistance by its own citizens. It’s confusion can be seen in this statement, yesterday, by its Revolutionary Guard bureaucracy:

"Washington, 17 June (WashingtonTV)—Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps [IRGC] issued a statement today in which it warned online activists that if they fan the flames of 'disorder on the streets,’ they will face 'legal confrontation’ by the IRGC, which will have 'grave results’.

"Addressing the people of Iran, the IRGC said in the statement: 'Unfortunately, currents which deviate from the principles and values of the revolution, have been behind all the disorder in the country in the past few years…and the disorder in these days, which has resulted in hooligans and vandals assaulting people’s lives, possessions, and honor, is the result of a designed, pre-planned scenario on their part.’

"In its statement, the IRGC said that 'the argument over the election and the number of votes and the winner, have only been a pretext for generating insecurity and riot.’

"It adds that 'with precise examination of the country’s cyberspace, the Center for the Investigation of Organized Crime has encountered numerous instances of deviant news websites, which have changed [their] approach and created numerous sites and weblogs to disturb the public, publicize riots and create disorder on the street, and with their lies, fabricated accusations and organized riots, they continue their illegal actions of sabotaging and disrupting order and public security.’

"The IRGC warned 'those who publicize disorder and threats to the people and spread rumors in cyberspace, to take action to eliminate such content.’"

First of all, any government that blames events in the physical world (such as street protests) on words in the virtual world (in this case, the Internet) has lost its grip on reality. Any attempt to hold non-corporate speech responsible for deeds begins the slippery slope to fascism. And the response by the Iranian regime, as seen in that press release, is akin to trying to attack a beehive with a shotgun: you’ll surely kill a few bees, but, man, are you going to get stung, and the bees will thrive anyway.

There are those who really seem to believe that the three million plus people in the streets are merely dupes of the manipulation of destabilization plans hatched in Washington or Tel Aviv. The latter claim is confounded by the words of Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak, who said yesterday, "We should not be confused about Mousavi - these people are fundamentalist Muslims," and those of Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who joins the neocon chorus in pooh-poohing the popular revolt as insignificant: "The riots are taking place only in Teheran and one additional region. They won't last for long." That reeks of wishful thinking and reveals that Israel's government, for one, wants Ahmadinejad to survive the tumult. Yet even if Western governments would like to fuel the protests, it still would not confer legitimacy on Iran’s fascist regime.

Here’s how some leftists mirror neocon thought: Iran serves as a kind of place-marker, psychologically, for the former Soviet system. Because Washington is in opposition to it, Iran must therefore be considered a "good" government, worthy of solidarity. As some disgraced members of the left argued in the last century in defense Mexico’s single-party rule under the PRI, others today argue that if the Iranian state offers social programs and even if it only somewhat resists global capitalism then therefore its violent and authoritarian actions can somehow be justified, forgiven or denied.

Some portray the uprising in the streets there as a phenomenon guided by external powers. They also portray it as an upper class revolt of the elites, a claim that is demonstrably false as anybody who has watched the indigenous media – YouTube videos and such – produced by Iranian citizen journalists has seen. Some of these same people cited and cheered the reports of journalist Robert Fisk when he exposed the falsehoods promoted by the US in the Iraq war. Well, Fisk is on the streets of Iran today, and here’s his ground level view of the protesters:

"…this was not just the trendy, young, sunglassed ladies of north Tehran. The poor were here, too, the street workers and middle-aged ladies in full chador. A very few held babies on their shoulders or children by the arm, talking to them from time to time, trying to explain the significance of this day to a mind that would not remember it in the years to come that they were here on this day of days."

Indeed, there are recent examples of such attempted interventions by Washington and corporate powers in lands like Venezuela, where the opposition was the exclusive domain of previously spoiled elites. But their sneering contempt for the workers and poor of their countries, infused with racist bigotry, was evident any time they appeared in public. The Venezuelan coup attempts indeed were what I called at the time "the revolt of the spoiled brats." It is a gross error in observation and analysis to therefore presume that what occurs today in Iran is the result of the same dynamic. The evidence is overwhelming that the Iranian resistance spans the normal boundaries of class segregation.

Another canard being forwarded by the Iranian regime and its defenders is that "Western media" have somehow generated the uprising. That one is falling flat, though, and the regime has undercut its own argument by putting foreign reporters under house arrest, expelling others, even arresting some, and prohibiting them from shooting video or photographs of what occurs in the streets. They’ve made the capitalist media secondary players, dependent on citizen journalists for the images and words in their reports. Western corporate media has been neutered and spayed when it comes to reporting from Iran this week. And the Authentic Journalism Renaissance – media from below – is evident to the world.

The third argument used by some mistaken voices on the left and right is that Mousavi, the opposition candidate, has as authoritarian a history as Ahmadinejad, and the same goes for any comparison between the opposition’s biggest clerical backer, Rafsanjani, with the current supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei. There is a lot of truth in that, but it is an essentially elitist analysis because it focuses on the power struggle and circus going on up above among the elites and ignores the story from below, of the millions in resistance.

Revolutionary moments change everything, including the context by which either faction – or a third one, yet to be revealed, of the kind that often pops up in these situations – will be able govern. No matter which faction emerges on top as a result of the current tumult, it will not be able to rule as before. A people awakened and organized is not so easy to push around anymore.

As a journalist, I have always followed the stories that help me to learn something new and important to me. And every hour, I’m learning a new set of tricks from these brave communicators in Iran and around the world: methods and techniques that will serve us in this hemisphere, soon enough, too.

The study of how to break information blockades is a life’s study for some of us. What a wonderful classroom we’ve been provided this week. Perhaps, just as Woody Guthrie painted on his guitar, we will finally be able to mark our communications tools: "This machine kills fascists," and then evolve it to his friend Pete Seeger’s rejoinder, painted on his banjo: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."

[Al Giordano is publisher of Narco News at www.narconews.com]

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URL:http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55289

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Ahmajinedad wasn’t the candidate of the establishment,but of the lower classes

1.    From an anti-imperialist point of view, the overwhelming victory of Ahmadinejad in the elections is positive, because the incumbent and president-elect stands for confrontation with the U.S.-led new order for the “Near East”.

2.    Even the Western media had to admit that it is the poor who strongly support the president. His allegations of corruption promptly gained him the epithet “populist” in the West—an indirect admission that he enjoys broad support from below.

3.    The capitalist establishment around Rafsanjani (number two of the regime and chairperson of the Assembly of Experts) and a broad coalition of Islamic forces from the “left” to the “right” actually didn’t support Ahmadinejad, but his contender Mousavi. Ayatollah Khamenei (number one and successor to Khomeini), after the elections sided with the victor; however that doesn’t mean that Ahmadinejad was his favourite candidate, because Ahmadinejad’s fiery attacks against the ruling elite gave everyone in the establishment the creeps. Khamenei’s decision was made to reinforce the stability of the system.

4.    We cannot rule out electoral fraud. Fraud happens in almost any elections in the Third World and even in the West, when opposing interests clash—and not only then. The West overlooks such imperfections if the “right” candidate wins. Only when this is not the case, they scream bloody murder. There are strong political indications that Ahmadinejad actually won by a large margin: First, he doesn’t control the state apparatus, but at most one faction within it. In a certain sense he is not part of the establishment. Reversing the results of the elections would have required a sort of coup. That in turn would have required the full support of the state apparatus, or Ahmadinejad would have had to take preventive action against those parts that oppose him. That didn’t happen. Under the conditions of a complicated factional relations and conflicts within the ruling elite the alleged giant fraud is very unlikely.

5.    The extremely high turnout of over 80 percent is a sign of the strength and the stability of the political system of the Islamic Republic despite the strong factional fights. Such heavy polls are absolutely unheard of in the West. This high voter turnout is as much a slap in the face of Western double standards as Ahmadinejad’s victory, because the West on one hand denigrates Iran as a dictatorship and on the other hand legitimises and supports the worst dictatorships in the region, and particularly as in elections in the West there is no real opposition and only the various candidates of the elite compete, while the elections in Iran actually were about deciding the course.

6.  It is not clear whether Moussavi’s broad coalition is going to give up or not as the rift is very deep. It is obvious that important sectors of the middle class hope for a political liberalisation and cultural latitude, and these are legitimate demands; however, the current opposition organically mixes them with concessions to the West and an expressly capitalist line of the economic elites. It is this combination that is unacceptable and eventually is the millstone around the necks of those who actually demand more political freedom. Uncompromising anti-imperialism is the prerequisite for any democratic movement. The middle-class mainstream—despite some “leftist rhetoric”—is in every respect moving towards adaptation to the West.

7.    Our joy over the success of Ahmadinejad does not mean that we overlook the deep-seated problems of Iran and its regime. The lack of democratic and cultural freedoms also means oppression of national and religious minorities. Ahmadinejad transferred some wealth to the lower classes, but he was not able to relieve the economic difficulties and the structural poverty. He has nothing to offer to deviate from the capitalist path of (under)development on the fringes of the global economic regime of free trade. In addition there is the dreadful game his regime plays in Iraq, where Teheran has been supporting the U.S.-led occupation and the creation of a paradoxical U.S.-Iranian joint “protectorate.” When confronting the U.S., Iranian foreign policy often supports anti-imperialist forces (e.g. Hizbullah and Hamas), but its fundamental line is regional hegemony with a sectarian element. Because of this, the interests of the masses in pursuing a social revolution in the framework of a global anti-imperialist project often fall by the wayside.

A more detailed analysis of the election results should follow.

Anti-Imperialist Camp
14 June 2009

This interview was broadcast by CNN as part of "Aftermath of the Iranian Election; Guantanamo Detainess Being Settled in Bermuda" on 14 June 2009; it is reproduced here for educational purposes:

LEMON: Well, the opposition is up in arms, but there are plenty of people cheering the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Earlier I spoke with an Ahmadinejad supporter.  He is a former political science professor at Tehran University and also a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Do you agree with all the talk of the presidential elections being rigged in Iran?

KAVEH AFRASIABI, IRANIAN POLITICAL SCIENTIST: Well, you know, there's a saying that the proof of pudding is eating.  The burden of proof is on the shoulder of Mr. Mousavi and his allies to prove with substantial documents, and they have, you know, tons of independent observers at all the voting centers to document these alleged violations, to submit to the election commissions as the law requires.

Unfortunately, three days later, Mr. Mousavi has not done that yet and one wonders why because. . .

LEMON: Can I. . .

AFRASIABI: You cannot ask for re-elections based on unfounded allegations.

LEMON: Let me ask you this, and some are asking why, yes.  But you know he had the option to file a complaint, but there are rumors that he is under house arrest, that there are restrictions on cell phones, there's restrictions on Internet.  Did he really have the option to do that at this point?

AFRASIABI: Well, according to his latest communiqué, he went to the Interior Ministry today and he also submitted a complaint to the Council of Guardians asking for basically new elections, so he's had freedom of movement and he's had plenty of time to put together a dossier citing the specific violations, and as I said there were some 3,000 independent monitors by the four candidates in addition to two sets of official monitors overseeing the election.

So Mr. Mousavi has the burden and he has not carried that burden, and add to that the fact that he was so overconfident about being the clear winner one hour after the voting centers had closed on and the vote count hadn't even begun yet, that he pretty much psychologically boxed himself into this winner syndrome that he hasn't been able to get out of that, and we've seen some of the unfortunate results of that.

LEMON: Are there people who say that the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not win by such a huge margin, that he did not get 62, 63 percent of the vote.  Do you believe that he did?

AFRASIABI: Well, look, since the start of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, we've had allegations of, you know, voting irregularities at almost every election, including during the era of reformist former president Mr. Khatami, and I incidentally worked with Mr. Khatami on the program of dialogue among civilizations.

And there's nothing new about that.  However, we've never had this kind of blanket rejection of the entire process, and that reminds me of what Mr. Mousavi himself said back in 1986 when he expressed surprise that some people were calling the elections back then as rigged, and he said that, look, with so many monitors, how is it possible to cheat?  And the same question should come and haunt him today, you know.

LEMON: Hey, Mister. . .

AFRASIABI: And. . .

LEMON: Mr. Afrasiabi, I want to get. . .

AFRASIABI: Go ahead.

LEMON: ... a couple of things in here to make sure that we hear from you.  Do you support the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

AFRASIABI: On balance, I do, and I think that he's done a tremendous job in terms of strengthening Iran.  Iran today is a regional powerhouse with considerable international influence.  He has defended Iran's nuclear right, and he has also made conciliatory gestures towards the United States and has offered to enter into dialogue.

LEMON: What do you think of Mr. Mousavi?

AFRASIABI: So overall I think this has -- well, Mr. Mousavi, you know, during the 21 years that the Iranian rulers were building Iran into the powerhouse that it is today, was concentrating on his artistic skills.  And overnight he was parachuted to the forefront of the reformist movement that he had no connection, organic connection to whatsoever, and now he's doing serious harm to the reformist movement by his, you know, exaggerated claims and so forth without backing them with empirical evidence.

So Mr. Mousavi, you know. . .

LEMON: Do you think that the results here will be contested?

AFRASIABI: Well, Mr. Mousavi and to a lesser extent Mr. Karobi have contested them, but as I said, you know, there are election laws that need to be followed, and the irregularity, the abnormality of Mr. Mousavi's actions consists of the fact that he did not follow those rules.

He did not submit a formal complaint to the Interior Ministry saying that in such and such places there were such, you know, abnormalities and irregularities.  He should have done that.  He did not follow the rules.

Mr. Mousavi, let me add that, you know, he's an amateur when it comes to contested elections.  He was never elected to those positions as prime minister.  This is his first time running, and obviously he's an amateur at this. . .

LEMON: And sir. . .

AFRASIABI: . . . because, you know, he boxed himself in this winner syndrome and ran with it basically.

LEMON: I don't mean to cut you off, but I really want to get as many topics as possible here.  When I said do you think it will be contested, what I really meant is do you think it will be overturned and should it be overturned?

AFRASIABI: Well, in the absence of viable evidence proving that -- proving Mr. Mousavi's blanket rejection and allegations, I highly doubt that.  So the burden is on Mr. Mousavi, and he has not proffered any substantial evidence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: That was Kaveh.  My interview with Kaveh Afrasiabi, former political science professor from Tehran University and supporter of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/afrasiabi170609.html

EDITORIAL

Published Jun 17, 2009 4:27 PM

The first thing to make clear about the Iranian election is that the U.S. and other imperialist states have no right to intervene. The media here are now filled with moralizing, even racist scolding of Iran over the election results. Who are they to act so hoity-toity? Remember George W. Bush’s open theft of the 2000 election in Florida?

And then there are the self-righteous European imperialists. Only 43 percent of the people voted in the recent EU elections. Compared to that, Iran’s 82 percent vote makes it a vibrant capitalist democracy.

The second thing is that absolutely no evidence has been dredged up of significant electoral fraud. Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent total is completely consistent with his 2005 vote total of 61.7 percent. It is also consistent with the only election poll taken. Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty polled a thousand Iranians and predicted a two-to-one win for Ahmadinejad. (Washington Post, June 15)

Given that the Iranian economy is continuing to grow, despite the world capitalist contraction, it’s reasonable that a majority would vote for the incumbent.

The vote breakdown by neighborhood, as provided by the official election authorities, is also consistent with political reality. Ahmadinejad lost in Teheran City, a bourgeois stronghold. He was weakest in the wealthier northern part of the capital. But he swept the rural areas and did well among the urban poor.

All the Iranian candidates—and here we will discuss just the president and his nearest rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi—are part of the Islamic Republic’s ruling circle of politicians. It would be surprising if any deviated far from generally acceptable politics in Iran. That means capitalist economic development and projecting Iranian power in the region. And maintaining some independence from the imperialists—not easy if your economy is integrated with the world capitalist market.

Ahmadinejad is closely identified with militant support for the mass-based resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon, and also with the determined public defense of Iran’s nuclear power program. With a high vote for him, the Iranians thumb their noses at the imperialists. This also explains the strong hostility from the U.S. ruling class.

In Iran, the reelected president is also considered a populist who will fight for economic concessions to Iran’s poor—which explains his strong popularity outside the middle-class and wealthy districts.

Mousavi was first seen as a reformer who might relax cultural and social restrictions and give more leeway to organize for rights. He got some support from women’s organizations, labor and even some progressive circles. By the end of the campaign, however, Mousavi was obviously allied with the power broker and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Ahmadinejad defeated handily in the 2005 election.

All reports—even from anti-Ahmadinejad sources here—describe the Mousavi-Rafsanjani followers as the wealthier, college-educated Iranians who dwell in the cities.

Rafsanjani, who still holds a position of power in the regime, is identified with the wealthiest sector of Iranian society, with privatizing industries, with a more conciliatory approach to imperialism. Mousavi is now linked to him, and it’s their grouping that the imperialists either want to win or want to cause enough internal trouble to weaken the government. In the end, what the imperialists want is to reverse the Iranian revolution and get back control over its rich resources.

But 2009 is not 1953, when the CIA overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh and installed the Shah. The Iranian people have benefitted enormously from their revolution and cannot easily be turned back.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Posted by Lenin 

I think it's a consensus on the liberal-left in the US and UK that the Iranian elections were fixed. If they are right, we are watching a bloodless coup turn into a bloody one, as protesters have been beaten and are now being shot at and killed by cops. One of Mousavi's supporters alleges he was told that a coup was coming. If they are not right, we are still faced with a state busily beating and killing the opposition. The Iranian state is still detaining 'reformist' MPs, censoring newspapers, shutting down access to social networking sites (although people are still finding ways to Twitter), and behaving as if for all the world it had every reason to act guiltily. It is not inherently implausible that Ahmadinejad got 63% of the vote, and it has to be shown that there was a fix. The fact that Ahmadinejad used state oil revenues to fund programmes for the poor can be approved or derided, but it arguably gave large numbers of people an interest in voting for Ahmadinejad against his more explicitly neoliberal rival. It gave him a base among some of the working class and bazaaris. Still, it is hardly implausible either that some vote-rigging went on, if only to make the win decisive enough to avoid a run-off.

So, the first question that occurs is, why should the ballots be rigged? This is skated over in a lot of the commentary as if the answer were obvious - Mousavi advocated reform, duh! However, Mousavi is hardly a dangerous candidate for the Iranian ruling class: rather, he represents a powerful faction of it. True, he was once on the 'Islamic Left' back in the 1980s, and it was due to the support of the left-leaning majles that he was made prime minister against Khomeini's preferences. Today, however, he is a centrist allied to the 'Modern Right'. His solutions to Iran's problems of accumulation and development are impeccably neoliberal. This is why he got the backing of the old crook, cynic, capitalist and Iran-Contra arms dealer, Hashem Rafsanjani. He supports privatization, and wants to reform Article 44 to assist the process. He supports strong counter-inflationary policies. Of course, he would like to take a slightly less 'hard line' with respect to the US. Indeed, like other would-be 'reform' candidates, his campaign tried to channel Obama - with some success since his wife, who spearheaded some important reforms in the late 1980s, was cast as the Michelle Obama of the campaign. Still, he isn't an outsider by any means. His candidacy wasn't struck off, while those that offend the Council of Guardians usually are. He wasn't excluded from the debates, as far as I can find out. He wasn't excluded from the polls, some of which put him ahead, and some behind. Why should he have suddenly become so dangerous that the Iranian state, or powerful sectors within it, would risk a stupid fix? The answer could only be that by tapping a popular demands for reforms, the candidacy might have unleashed a movement that seriously frightened some factions in the ruling class.

The next question is, what can come of the protests? Whatever the motivations of Mousavi, we have an enormous number of people on the streets, with a clear demand for political reform. They took to those streets, reportedly ignoring warnings that the police were carrying live ammunition. This means they are brave, certainly, and also confident in their numbers. Already, Khamenei has ceded the question of investigating the elections, which it seems clear he didn't want to do. The Iranian state may kill people, but these protesters are already starting to win. They can make gains far beyond the very limited promises that Mousavi made in order to excite progressive layers. (As far as I can tell, Mousavi was mildly critical of some state repression of television channels, and promised to 'review' legislation that could be harmful to women - hardly a tribune of the oppressed). So, whatever the truth about the claims of a fix, these protests can do nothing but good. They may, in addition to getting rid of some particularly onerous forms of oppression, open up a space in which the left can operate more freely, and in which the labour movement can assert itself more forcefully.
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URL:http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/06/iran-vote-and-protests.html