ALL QUIET ON THE PERSIAN FRONT?

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IRANIANS AWAKE TO A FINAL DAY OF STRUGGLE

YOUTUBE: IRANIAN NEWS
"Iranian Riots - Protests will continue as long as Ahmadinejad remains in power (June 20th)"
The final battle: Will it mean the end of the Ayatollahs, or the end of democracy in Iran?


THE AYATOLLAHS HAVE DRAWN A BLOODY LINE IN THE SAND

YOUTUBE: FARHAD 43
"Iran riots Basij shooting Girl Murdered in Iran June 20 2009"
A woman dies for her freedom in the streets of Tehran today.


Will The Iranian Liberal Democrats Put Their Lives On That Line?

Would American liberal democrats put their lives on such a line? No. They had the opportunity, indeed the responsibility to do so in the stolen election of 2000, and again in the great fraud of 2004. No one did anything. There wasn't even any talk of a general strike or mass demonstrations. Everyone meekly went about their business, allowing authoritarian corporatists to unlawfully take power. The illegitimate government of George "Dubya" Bush went on to allow the worst attack in history on U.S. soil, then to use that attack as an excuse to start America's first unprovoked war, to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's and Afghans, to shred the Constitution of the United States of America, to unlawfully detain and torture thousands of people with no significant connection to terrorism, to loot the U.S. treasury and to ruin the economy of the entire world, all for their own enrichment and empowerment. They were the right-wing Christian fundamentalist Ayatollahs of America.

Americans sat on their fat, timid, self-satisfied asses throughout all of this. For eight long years, no one said or did anything to any effect. No one risked a dollar or a day of work, a broken bone or a drop of blood. The world could be destroyed in our name, but we weren't going to do anything about it.

In Europe, the people take to the streets and shut the country down when their liberty and their way of life are threatened. Right-wing governments have been brought down or forced to back down by collective action. In Asia and Latin America, similar democratic movements have succeeded in removing despots and thieves from power, and making government work for the people.

Now even the always-oppressed Persians are standing up for their rights. After years of torture and repression under the UK & US-backed oil regime of the so-called "Shah of Iran," the Iranian people threw the bastard out. Unfortunately, that opened the door for the Ayatollahs, a small group of insane old religious fanatics with almost as much hatred for their own people as for the "Great Satan," America. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been killed, tortured, unjustly imprisoned or exiled since the 1978 Iranian "Revolution." There was no hope of ever rising up against the half-wit clerics; until now.

Up until now, there has at least been the pretense of fair elections. All the candidates had to be approved by the self-appointed religious leadership, so, why not? Well, this time something went wrong. The people picked the wrong candidate. The old men's choice failed so spectacularly that the entire election had to be rewritten in reverse: It was the slightly more "liberal" clerical choice who lost by a landslide, not the current puppet. But the people knew better. Their outrage gave them courage and they were able to join together in great numbers to effectively bring the country to a halt, and stop the theft of their election. They are crying out now for support from the rest of the world for real democracy in Iran.

America cannot help. The US has shamed and delegitimized itself in the Middle East constantly since "Dubya" stole power in 2000. The Iranian beef with us goes all the way back to the 1950's, when the Republican Eisenhower Administration overthrew the Persians' legitimately elected government, to prevent the nationalization of the country's own oil. Nationalization happened everywhere in the world subsequently, save the US (except Alaska, where the State owns the oil). But in Iran, the memory of an overthrow of their chosen government by a foreign power never went away. That's why the US & UK can do nothing to help liberal democratic Iranians today. Any taint of foreign involvement would provide an excuse to crack down ruthlessly on the Iranian democrats, and delegitimize them forever. So all we can do is sit and watch. Ironically, the past bad acts of American conservatives are now helping to prop up todays religious conservatives in Iran, against the liberal majority there.

Well, tomorrow we will see what happens. Americans may learn several lessons from all of this. We may learn that democracy is worth fighting for, and that right-wing religious fanatics cannot be allowed to steal elections. We may learn that we can only stop tyranny by fighting it. Or we may learn that tyranny supports tyranny, and the American right-wing has handed the Ayatollahs a victory, once again.

Let's hope that democracy wins in Iran. Let's see if Americans learn a lesson from this. We voted for change in 2008. We have had mostly more of the same. If we do not get the change we voted for, will we be able to change the government again? If we cannot really change the government, do we really have a democracy? If we do not have a democracy, what are we going to do about it? Well, for starters, pay attention to what happens in Iran in the next few days. Watch and learn. But remember: Democracy is not a spectator sport. If we don't participate, if we don't fight for our point of view, if we're not willing to sacrifice to protect our democracy, we could end up like the Iranians, up till now. Watch and learn.


YAHOO NEWS
"Iran warns opposition against staging street rally"
Ayatollahs set to rock and rolla.

' Iran's opposition leader received another stern warning Saturday not to encourage his supporters to take to the streets a day after the country's top leader sought to end the deepening election crisis by effectively declaring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have planned a massive rally in Tehran later Saturday, but it was unclear if he would attend and how large the rally would be after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered opposition leaders on Friday to end street protests or be held responsible for any "bloodshed and chaos" to come. Iran's Interior Ministry reiterated the warning to Mousavi on Saturday, saying he would "be held responsible for the consequences of any illegal gatherings." The ministry also accused the 67-year-old former prime minister of supporting protests that "have lead to the disruption of security and public order," State Security Council secretary, Abbas Mohtaj, said in a statement on the ministry's Web site. The warnings place Mousavi at a pivotal moment. He can either back down or risk a crushing response from police and the forces at Khamenei's disposal — the powerful Revolutionary Guard and their volunteer citizen militia, the basij. '

REUTERS
"Iran rally to go ahead - Karoubi aide"
Oh, it's on!

' A protest rally against a disputed presidential election will go ahead on Saturday, an aide of defeated candidate Mehdi Karoubi said, a day after Iran's top authority demanded an end to such demonstrations. "The demonstration plan has not been canceled and accordingly it must be held this afternoon," said the Karoubi aide, who declined to be named. If they proceed in defiance of Khamenei's explicit warning, they risk a severe response from security forces, which have so far not tried to prevent Iran's most widespread street rallies since the 1979 Islamic revolution. '

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: CHICAGO NOW
"Good Afternoon Tehran"
Live from the battlefield?

' It's Saturday afternoon here in Tehran. I arrived in here late last night and toured the areas of Tehran that have usually held protests, with no sign of demonstrations or Mousavi supporters. The Mousavi camp had previously planned on having a mass rally in Tehran today, but since Ayatollah Khamenei's sermon yesterday essentially telling demonstrators to wrap it up and choose more peaceful means, it's unclear what will happen. While Khamenei stated people have a right to protest and file complaints, he denounced the violence that usually came with the demonstrations. If the protests today happen, it's absolutely important that the protestors don't start fires, both literally and metaphorically. It's good to be back in Tehran, though, where the epicenter of the post-election protests occured so I can gague the streets and get a feel for what's going on. Walking around this morning on Vali Asr street, things seemed normal as people went about buying fresh bread and hurrying to work. '

AL JAZEERAH
"Police crack down on Iran protests"
UPDATE: Latests news from the "Islamic Republic."

' Riot police in Iran have used tear gas, water cannon and batons to disperse about 3,000 people attempting to protest over the disputed presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmdinejad, the president. Witnesses said that dozens of people were hospitalised after being beaten by police and pro-government militia in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday. "Lots of guards on motorbikes closed in on us and beat us brutally," one protester said. "As we were running away the Basiji [militia] were waiting in side alleys with batons, but people opened their doors to us trapped in alleys." Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a defeated reformist candidate, had planned to stage a rally in the city's Revolutionary Square, but arrived to find their way blocked by police. A witness told Al Jazeera that police were turning people away. "The roads were pretty much blocked by the militia, they were out with retractable metal batons. It looked like they were very frantically trying to keep people from the area," he said. '

TIME AND DATE .COM
"The World Clock - Time Zones"
Tehran is 4 1/2 hours ahead of London, England. As of this moment, it is 2:30pm/ 14:30 SAT 20 JUNE 2009 in Iran.

' Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT +4:30 hours '

WIKIPEDIA: HISTORY OF IRAN
"United States and the Shah"
Those who fail to learn from history are Republicans.

' In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. Mossadegh was briefly removed from power in 1952 but was quickly re-appointed by the shah, due to a popular uprising in support of the premier and he, in turn, forced the Shah into a brief exile in August 1953 after a failed military coup by Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri. Shortly thereafter on August 19 a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, organized by the American (CIA) with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax). The coup — with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mossadegh — forced Mossadegh from office, and was remembered with anger by Iranians. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, his sentence reduced to house arest on his family estate while his foreign minister, Hossein Fatemi, executed). Zahedi succeeded him as prime minister, and suppressed opposition to the Shah, specifically the National Front and Communist Tudeh Party. Iran was ruled as an autocracy under the shah with American support from that time until the revolution. The Iranian entered into agreement with an international consortium of foreign companies which ran the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years spitting profits fifty-fifty with Iran but not allowing Iran to audit their accounts or have members on their board of directors. In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the Baghdad Pact and receiving military and economic aid from the US. In 1961, Iran initiated a series of economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms to modernize the country that became known as the Shah's White Revolution. '

TIME MAGAZINE
"Who's Who in Iran's Political System"

' Despite all the bad-mouthing Iran gets from the West, the Islamic Republic is more democratic than most other nations in the Middle East — that's why millions of Iranians are on the streets demanding that their votes be counted. Ayatullah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic revolution produced a hybrid political system combining the principle of giving the clergy ultimate executive authority with holding democratic elections — albeit from lists of candidates restricted by the clerics to those deemed loyal to the principles of the revolution — for parliament and the presidency. The result was a regime comprising competing factions and personalities, with its own version of checks and balances by distributing power across a variety of different institutions, from structures of government to unelected councils of clerics. Even the Supreme Leader, who holds ultimate executive power, is appointed by a clerical body — the 86-member Assembly of Experts — which also has the power to remove him. The conflict in Iran thus far has been not so much a wholesale revolt of the masses against the system, as it is a complex struggle for power within Iran's ruling establishment, and a battle over the country's direction. Here's a Who's Who of the players that may determine Iran's future in the unfolding drama. '

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