Basij Taking A Beating

Iran's revolution entered a new phase with Ashura - the protestors, as I noted here, have become far more militant. The protesters are willing to stand and attack the IRGC and basij thugs attempting to brutally repress them. And here is a bit more anecdotal evidence - a video showing a crowd attacking a group of basij on their motorcycles.



(H/T Instapundit and Dr. X's Free Associations).

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Obama On Vacation While Iran Burns

There could be no more surreal a juxtaposition than Obama vacationing in Honolulu while people in Iran, seeking freedom, are beaten, fight and die in the streets.

Today is a critical day for the nascent Iranian revolution, as it will no doubt be the largest demonstration since June. The success of the revolution - and the end of this most evil of regimes - increasingly hangs in the balance. Obama should be giving "full throated" support to the Iranian protesters and excoriating the regime for their brutality and illegitimacy. Instead, at this critical juncture, he reclines silently in Honolulu.

Indeed, not only has Obama remained silent, he did not even take the opportunity to express condolonces upon the death last Sunday of the spiritual leader of Iran's nascent revolution, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Obama's silence, his refusal to decisively stand with the protesters, and his continued treatment of the bloody regime of Khameini and Ahmedinejad as a legiitimate government constitute a failure of leadership and strategic thinking on a grand scale.

Demonstrations this week in Iran have been large and ongoing since the burial of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri on Monday. Those protests will culminate with today's celebration of Ashura, the day on which Muhammed's grandson, Husayn ibn Ali, was "martyred" during the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D. It is one of the most important holy days in Shia Islam.

You can see the demonstrations that occurred with Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's burial here. Below is a clip of one of the demonstrations occurring yesterday outside of Tehran University and another from an unknown site in Tehran last night.





This from the NYT on yesterday's demonstratons:

Police officers and militia forces clashed with demonstrators in central Tehran all day Saturday and then again in northern Tehran in the evening, where the government forces shut down a speech by former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist leader.

The demonstrators, who defied an official ban and turned a Shiite ceremony into a protest, underlined the government’s inability to suppress the opposition despite the use of violence. Protests have continued since a disputed presidential election in June, . . .

Witnesses and an opposition Web site said the police and Basij militiamen beat and arrested protesters in central Tehran.

The police fired tear gas at protesters in three central squares — Imam Hussein, Enghelab and Ferdowsi — the opposition Web site Jaras reported.

The militia forces attacked protesters with batons and chains, the Web site said.

Government forces also attacked cars whose drivers had honked in support of the protesters, and smashed their windows. Many vehicles’ license plates were taken away.

“They beat up people relentlessly although many were in mourning groups for Imam Hussein,” said a witness, who spoke via Skype on the condition of anonymity. “I saw many people with bloody noses or limping away. It was clear that they particularly targeted women and savagely beat them.”

The clashes came during the Iranian observance of Tasooa, an important Shiite holiday that falls just a day before the culmination of the Ashura mourning observances marking the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. . . .

This from WaPo on the larger demonstrations expected today:

Iran's opposition is gearing up for a potentially large demonstration against the government on Sunday to coincide with the climax of a major Shiite religious commemoration.

The Rah-e Sabz Web site, a mouthpiece of the grass-roots opposition movement, called for nationwide protests around noon in the capital, which on Saturday was the scene of several clashes between anti-government protesters and riot police.

"Today was only a test to show our readiness," read a statement on the Web site, which also denounced the government's use of violence during the present period of mourning for a Shiite saint. "Tomorrow we will come out following the invitations of the social network Green Path Of Hope movement." . . .

Everybody concerned with Iran should be paying attention to what happens today - not the least of whom is Obama. The government has tried once again to shut down all communications, but Twitter seems to still be working. There is a lot of traffic on #iranelection. More on what to expect comes from an exceptional article in the Guardian:

. . . The reported disturbances came amid evidence that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered a crackdown on any challenges to his leadership during yesterday's Tasua ceremonies and Ashura, which is today.

The Observer has learned that the authorities have cancelled all leave for police and emergency services over the two days in anticipation of violence, while hospitals have been put on full alert to expect multiple casualties. The order is effective until midnight tonight.

"Cancelling leave means we are in for a very violent time," a paramedic said. "The authorities are very scared. They are prepared for everything and anything."

The move came after the opposition Green Movement had vowed to stage demonstrations during the ceremonies – held to mark the death more than 1,300 years ago of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hossein.

The continuing crackdown since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bitterly disputed re-election six months ago has limited the opposition to holding protests on state-sanctioned occasions that the government is unable to ban.

This year's Ashura has been given added piquancy because it coincides with ritual seventh-day mourning ceremonies for Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the Green Movement's spiritual leader and one of Khamenei's fiercest critics, who died last Sunday aged 87.

Government fears have been further raised by the opposition's depiction of Montazeri as the modern incarnation of Hossein, who is revered in Shia Islam as a symbol of resistance against oppressive rulers. Montazeri spent the last 20 years ostracised by the theocratic hierarchy but re-emerged as a significant opposition figure after denouncing Ahmadinejad's victory as fraudulent and the subsequent suppression as "un-Islamic". The potent symbolism of his death was displayed last Monday when hundreds of thousands of mourners turned his funeral into the biggest opposition rally in months, despite stringent security.

An attempted mourning event by Montazeri supporters last Wednesday was broken up by riot police and plain-clothed agents using batons, teargas and pepper spray.

The cancellation of leave for emergency workers raises the chilling possibility of more lethal methods being used today. Leave was also cancelled in the weeks after the election, when scores of protesters were killed and hundreds more were injured after security forces were ordered to use extreme force.

The orders included permission for some members of the hardline basiji volunteer militia to shoot protesters, according to the paramedic.

On 20 June – a day after Khamenei had warned of a brutal reaction if unrest continued – the Tehran ambulance service's internal radio system confirmed that at least 47 people had died, many from gunshot wounds.

Among that day's dead was Neda Agha Soltan, a female protester who became a symbol of the demonstrations when her dying moments were caught on film after she had been shot by a sniper.

The government put the death toll on 20 June at around a dozen and says about 30 people died overall during the post-election unrest. It has denied giving orders to open fire on demonstrators.

But the paramedic said: "Out of every 100 basijis, 10 of them would have permission to shoot. We knew this because we were based alongside them. As eyewitnesses, we could see two or three of them shooting. I saw a basiji on the roof of a five-storey building shooting at people. He was ducking down and then coming up occasionally to shoot.

"The shooting was so severe that we ambulance workers were warned by the Revolutionary Guards to be careful we weren't shot. They would come to us for medical help, bandages and so on, and as a sign of appreciation they would say: 'If you're going to such-and-such street, be careful because they are going to be shooting from the roofs.' The city was like a war zone."

Some analysts have warned that increasing violence and mounting casualty figures are inevitable as Khamenei seeks to quash a revolt that has swollen beyond anger over the election into a revolt against his leadership.

In a graphic indication of the personal nature of the protests, demonstrators have begun to compare him to the Umayyad Caliph, Yazid, who was responsible for Hossein's death in AD680 and is a symbol of cruelty and moral corruption in Shia Islam.

Protesters in Tehran were yesterday heard chanting: "Khamenei has become Yazid and Yazid is now rehabilitated." The slogan was a new variant on existing anti-Khamenei chants, which include: "This month is the month of blood, Seiyed Ali [Khamenei] will be overthrown."

"Yazid was affected by drunkenness caused by wine and Khamenei is today ignoring the role of people in religion because he is drunk on power," Ebrahim Mehtari, an opposition activist who fled to Turkey after being raped and tortured, told the Observer. "If he carries on trampling on people's rights, he will be classified in the same category as other blood-spilling tyrants."

Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that Khamenei would resort to ever more brutal methods to preserve his leadership. "Mohammad Khatami [Iran's reformist former president] was asked during a visit to Washington last year why he hadn't done more to resist Khamenei," he said. "He replied that it was because Khamenei is determined to fight his enemies if they come to the streets and that he is ready to kill up to 200,000 people. There are many pieces of evidence that confirm Khatami's understanding that Khamenei is prepared to kill more people.

"But it is Khamenei who has radicalised the opposition movement. His statements and behaviour have become more and more provocative and this has hurt the emotions of the people."

Montazeri's death removed one of the last sources of vocal clerical opposition to Khamenei. Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, another pro-reformist critic of the regime and a putative successor to Montazeri, is seen as less substantial.

"The Shia clerical establishment is under the thumb of Khamenei," said Khalaji, a former Qom seminary student. "Even those who don't like him don't dare criticise him because they want to preserve their economic interests. What they think isn't important."

Among the opposition – still nominally led by the defeated reformist presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi – the initial aim of reversing the election has been replaced by the more far-reaching goal of reforming the Islamic system to eliminate the supreme leader's role, which gives Khamenei the final say on all matters.

"The Green Movement is not after unseating or deposing anybody from power," said Mehtari. "It wants the elimination of those currents that stand against people's rights. This includes Mr Khamenei, who determines his own right.

"I don't know if the state is still prepared to cover its hands in blood or not. But the more blood that is spilled, the more people will come out. This movement involves people from all spectrums of society. Those who shout in the streets range from labourers to the rich. They don't share a social class but they share a trampled right."

It took a year for the Shah's regime to fall. It did so three weeks after Iran's military declared for the protesters. Since the stolen election in June the mad mullah's brutal repression of protests, the penultimate question has been what will the military do and when will they do it?

In the past, the military has refused orders to suppress protests. Thus the IRGC and the mad mullah's brown shirts, the basij, have been carrying out the brutal suppression. Khameini has not called on a single regular military unit to help suppress this nascent revolution, and the military has remained silent. That changed two weeks ago, when many important military figures warned Khameini that they would not sit idly by if the brutal repression continues or gets worse.

It is doubtful that demonstrations today will prove decisive, but they will surely ratchet up the intensity, moving Iran ever closer to a decisive act by the military and the fall of this most evil of regimes. Such an event is hardly assured, and the revolution can still fail, which makes it all the more imperative that Obama lend decisive support to the protesters, as discussed in the post here. His failure to do so is on par with the failure of Britain and France to stand down Hitler in 1936-37, when Worl War II could have been averted.

Lastly, here is a video of Iranians braving bullets and tear gas to stop a hanging. According to the write-up on the video:

Sirjan, Iran Dec 22, public hanging of two men in the southern Iranian city of Sirjan in Kerman province, the semi-official news agency Fars reported on Tuesday. The crowd braved tear gas and bullets fired in the air by security forces and dragged the men down from the gallows. One seemed to be still alive when his body was removed, Fars said. The men were identified as Esmaeil Fathi More..zadeh and Mohammad Esfandiarpour and had both been convicted of armed robbery. The crowd, which included many relatives of the two men, chanted slogans against the Iranian authorities and threw stones at the security forces.

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Today In Tehran (Updated)

One 26 year old engineering student said: “tell the world what is happening here. This is our revolution. We will not give up.” Asked what he wanted he said “We want democracy.”

Report from Tehran, The NYT Lede, July 7, 2009

Today is the tenth anniversary of the student riots that took place after basij raided the dormitories of Tehran University. Mousavi had called for protests today, and they are happening - with chants of "Death to the Dictator" and "Death to Khameini's Son." The son of Iran mid-level cleric cum Supreme Guide, Ali Khamini, is now leading the Basij, Iran's brutal version of the Nazi Brownshirts. Meanwhile, our own feckless President and his party are turning their backs on Iran. NIAC is reporting that, "last night, the U.S. Congress shelved a controversial motion to restore $75 million in funding for regime change in Iran." Moreover, Obama, who had taken the wrong-headed stance against imposing any further international sanctions on the theocracy over their fradulent election and brutal repression of their citizens, succeeded - the G-8 went so far as to express their concern. Leadership, eh?

Meanwhile . . .







This from two messages sent to the NYT Lede by an individual who has provided reliable information in the past:

The phones are completely out. I’m hiding in an international hotel…. riot police wanted to break in but the managers convinced them. The crowd is running in the thousands, starting in Enqelab where riot police and basij started beating people. Saw one middle-age woman with blood stains. Then they pushed up kargar st to laleh park, squads of 25 police would run up the streets with batons beating people. I hid in a clock shop, like many other people who would hide in street shops and come out once these attack squads went up the streets.

Fires of trash are burning in main streets. Everyone honking, women and men of all ages out, even kids in cars (most families have driven their cars and blocked the streets). No phone so hoping there will be internet later. One 55-year-old housewife said to me proudly “This is Iran. We are all together,” in front of Fatemi street where the crowd stretches as far as the eye can see, but again crowd is moving because riot police is moving as well as the basij on motorcycles. Lots of people chanting “Down with Dictator!” and “Moussavi! Moussavi!” and “God is Almighty.”

. . . The crowds are too huge to contain. Riot police running up and down Fatemi Street beating people, barely got out of the way. The crowds just get out of their way and come back. Saw two undercover Basij, one was actually a late 40s businessman in a suit, whipped out a collapsible metal baton and started beating someone with a camera. He was beaten until the baton broke, another Basij came on motorcycle to help but crowds started surging and booed them away. Someone threw a water bottle but otherwise crowd is peaceful — keep chanting “Please Stop!” and chased the two Basij away.

Then riot police came back up. More fires in the street as trash and various containers are burned. Tear gas everywhere, no gunshots yet I think but again undercover Basij everywhere. Again I stress crowds in thousands and this is just one street. One 27-year guy in black shirt said “We don’t want war. We just want freedoms. Here, [he signals getting shot] no matter. Down with the dictator,” and people joining in the chant. Also [chanting] “God is Great!”

The main theme is that people are surprisingly non-violent. They seem very hopeful and energetic. People from all levels of society are out. No one is throwing rocks but people have been setting fires in the street.

And this from Michael Ledeen, giving his final update of the day:

4:30 PM (last reliable information I’m going to have today, I think). Khamenei was told the following:

* massive demonstrations
* 3 killed
* 78 known as seriously wounded, many broken bones and ruptured internal organs, several may not make it; other wounded may have disappeared
* 600 arrests

SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM OPPOSITION: “please tell the world about these atrocities; people did nothing, silence, no provocations, no violence but fierce attacks by the government forces.”

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Iran 7/7 - The Pot Simmers (Updated)

(A great music video from Cyrus Mafia on Iran's uprising, with some English subtitles / Hat Tip Michael Ledeen)

A summary of the current situation in and about Iran:

1. Mousavi called for a 3-day strike leading up to a major rally planned on Thursday, 9 July.

2. Khameini ordered another crackdown, with hundreds more arrests and orders to confiscate all satellite dishes. He also has ordered most businesses closed, apparently in an effort to prevent a wide scale general strike being portrayed as a show of support for Mousavi

3. Money is flooding out of Iran as Iran's rich read the writing on the wall

4. The Commander of the IRGC has publicly announced that they have taken over all internal security missions since the election

5. A major development two days ago was the decision of Iran's most influential clerical body to condemn the election and the repression of protesters. Christopher Hitchens speculates that the hands of Rafsanjani and Grand Ayatollah Sistani were behind the move. He further ponders whether the example of Iraqi democracy played a substantive role in the current Iranian discontent.

6. The utterly spineless and wrongheaded Obama regime has come out against any international sanctions against the bloody theocrats for their repression, reasoning that any sanctions "might backfire." Fortunately, Congress is acting independently of Obama.

7. Biden has greenlighted Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and Saudi Arabia apparently will do its role to assist Israel. That said, this should not be Israel's burden to carry alone. Unfortunately, with Obama at the helm, it will be.

Update: 8. Amir Taheri writes on the likelihood that Khameini is likely to be far more brutal than the shah in attempting to put down the current unrest. He also writes on the fact that Ahmedinejad is now unwelcome in most parts of Iran.

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1. Mousavi, facing calls from supporters of Ahmedinejad for his arrest and punishment for treason, has called for a 3 day general strike leading up to a major planned protest on Thursday, "the 10th anniversary of a 1999 attack by pro-government militiamen on the dormitories of Tehran University that led to weeks of political unrest." Mousavi is not backing down. While some rumblings are being heard about arresting Mousavi, there can be little doubt that this ham-handed regime would already have done so if they were fully confident of their ability to weather the unrest.

2. According to Michael Ledeen, Khameini has ordered another round of arrests, as well as the confiscation of all satellite dishes:

The Iranian tyrant, Ali Khamenei, told his cluster of top advisers two days ago that it was time to totally shut down the protests, and he ordered that any and all demonstrators, regardless of their status, be arrested (although there is no longer room for new prisoners in Tehran’s jails; they are now using sports arenas as holding areas). He further ordered that all satellite dishes be taken down (good luck with that one; there are probably millions of them in Tehran alone). He ordered that the crackdown be done at night, to avoid all those annoying videos. By Sunday night, hundreds of new arrests had been made, including the regime’s favorite targets: students, intellectuals, and journalists.

His deadline: July 11th. He told his minions that if that were accomplished, the rest of the world would come crawling to him.

He may be right about most of the rest of the world, which has distinguished itself by its fecklessness, but he is certainly not right about his own people . . .

The regime was apparently so worried that the general strike would show massive support for Mousavi that they took the step of ordering the businesses and offices to close for three days. The Telegraph is reporting that most businesses in Tehran's Central Bazaar are closed, though there is no word coming out on the rest of the country.

3. File this one under "rats deserting a sinking ship." Underscoring the continuing seriousness of the unrest in Iran, the Telegraph is reporting on the mass movement of money out of the country:

Millions of pounds in private wealth has begun flooding out of Iran in the wake of mass demonstrations which have paralysed commercial life after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Fears of a new round of crippling sanctions are also thought to have fuelled the movement of money out of the country.

Western intelligence agencies have reported that prominent private businesses and wealthy families have moved tens of millions of dollars out of Iranian banks into overseas accounts. . . .

4. The IRGC is a corrupt organization whose leadership has a fully vested interest in seeing the theocracy propped up. The leadership of the IRGC is getting as rich from corruption, graft, and business interests as have many of the politicized members of Iran's clerical establishment. Thus it is no surprise to find that the IRGC is now running the internal security to brutally crush the protests. This from the LA Times:

The top leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest and warned late Sunday, in a threat against a reformist wave led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, that there was no middle ground in the ongoing dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said the guard's takeover of the nation's security had led to "a revival of the revolution."

. . . "Today, no one is impartial," Gen. Yadollah Javani said at the Sunday news conference, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. "There are two currents -- those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it."

The uniformed Revolutionary Guard leaders, joined by the turbaned cleric Ali Saedi, Khamenei's representative, said they would play a more active role in defending the Islamic Republic's core values . . .

It should be noted that the basij, Iran's version of the Nazi brown-shirts, who have played a central and bloody role in repressing the protests, are under the command of the IRGC.

5. I blogged here on the recent major development of Iran's most respected clerical organization, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, who issued a statement that condemned the regime for their repression of the protests, called the regime illegitimate, and challenged the Guardian Council for certifying the election. Related to this, Abbas Milani has written an exceptional article at TNR giving the history of the split among Iran's clerics over the theocracy itself that we now see spilling out into the open.

Christopher Hitchens, writing at Slate, makes the point that the impetus for the Association's statement - a group that normally stays out of politics - was likely prompted by Mousavi's backer, Rafsanjani, and the most popular cleric in Iran, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Hitchens goes on to ask a salient question:

Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself.

I will be amazed if, once all is said and done, we find out that Iraq's model did not play a significant role in promoting the discontent of Iran's rank and file. I have been saying for years that the greatest single threat to Iran was a border with Iraq's secular, Shia dominated democracy - and indeed, that the two could not possibly coexist. But don't expect Hitchen's question to get asked by our MSM. Instead, we have the MSM regurgitating the Obama administration's laughable claim of credit for being a cause of the uprising, pointing to the Cairo Speech. That would be the speech wherein Obama signalled a retreat from promoting democracy in the Middle East. And it would be the speech that was not broadcast in Iran. The theocracy actually jammed the signal to prevent people from picking it up on satellite dishes.

6. As I posted here, Obama has come out against any international sanctions against the theocrats for their bloody repression because of concern that any sanctions "might backfire." As Robert Averich cogently points out on his blog, such a move could not be more counterproductive, nor more useless.

Fortunately, Congress is acting independently of Obama. McCain and Lieberman announced two weeks ago that they were sponsoring a bill to require the U.S. to assist with the communications into and out of Iraq - perhaps the most critical area where we can assist the nascent revolution in Iran. Unfortunately, that also tells us that if we are having to legislate such actions, Obama must have our covert operators sitting on their thumbs, doing nothing to assist the protests. That, if true, is an atrocity. But it would comport with Obama's simply mystifying continued push to hold talks with this illegitimate and brutal theocracy. The Telegraph also reports on more legislation in the U.S. pipeline:

. . . Republican congressman Mark Kirk has claimed there is growing support for a bill he is sponsoring which would strip American support for foreign companies supplying refined petroleum to Iran.

Iran is a large oil producer but decades of financial isolation means it must import petrol and other end products from abroad.

Reliance, the Indian operator, provides one-third of Iran's daily needs while also enjoying a massive trade loan from the US.

Another bill that would exclude companies involved in the trade from doing business in the US was put on hold earlier this year as a gesture from President Barack Obama to improve relations.

Iran's economic problems are severe. Their per capita GDP is only slightly over $3,100, inflation is running almost 25%, and their unemployment rate is well into double digits. These are not transitory conditions that just came about as a result of the global economic meltdown, but are the result of years of misrule by clerics and now Ahmedinejad. Real sanctions, particularly ones that attack the theocracy's dependence on foreign refined fuel products, could prove very effective in furthering unrest in Iran. But with Obama seeking to derail international sanctions over Iran's brutal repression, it is unlikely he would ever sign such bills.

I recommend that you take a look at how Obama has long approached such issues to evaluate their effectiveness. We learned today that Obama was highly critical of Reagan in 1983 for going ahead with the deployment of new nuclear missiles in the face of Soviet opposition and opposition in Germany - the so-called nuclear freeze movement. Obama was very much on the wrong side of history there, and if his policies were then in place, we might still be facing the Soviet Union. Let us hope Obama does not manage to throw a lifeline to our own modern "evil empire," Iran's bloody theocracy.

7. VP Biden has greenlighted Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, stating that Israel is a "sovereign nation" entitled to make its own decisions on security without U.S. interference. Given the current state of Iran, Israel would be foolish to pull the trigger yet. If they strike Iran, they may put back Iran's nuclear weapons program by a few years but unite a country on the verge of toppling. Conversely, if Iran's theocracy falls, the threat to Israel would likely vanish overnight.

That said, it is also being reported that Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow Israel to overfly Saudi airspace to attack Iran. It is now being denied, but I do not doubt that this is true. For all of the vile hatred Wahhabists preach against Israel and the Jews, the bottom line is that Israel is no threat to the House of Saud. Iran, however, is not only a religious enemy of the Wahhabis because they practice Shia'ism, but Iran also poses a major threat to the Sauds. Iran has long been reaching out to all Shia in the Middle East in an effort to expand their influence. The House of Saud rules over a substantial and strategically placed Shia minority. Anything that the Sauds and most of the other Sunni countries could do informally and covertly to assist Israel against Iran has probably already been considered and discussed.

To go one further, Daled Amos, blogging at Soccer Dad, ponders the question of whether it is time for there to be a Sunni-Israel alliance directed against Iran and what it would take to achieve such an alliance. I doubt that a formal alliance would ever coalesce until the Sword of Damocles visibly appears over the Arab Sunni world. But it is a sign of the times that such an issue is even being discussed with seriousness.

Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon was one issue that President Bush clearly wanted to deal with on his watch. It was only vociferous intervention led by Obama, Reid and Pelosi against even the threat of force, coupled with the release of a highly politicized NIE, that tied Bush's hands. Now Obama owns the Iranian problem and is responsible for countering the mad theocracy's rush for a nuclear arsenal that will threaten the U.S. every bit as much as Israel.

During his campaign, Obama said he would consider using force to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was then, this is now. In light of totality of Obama's approach to Iran, it is fair to assume that Biden's statement was, if not a public punting of the ball to Israel, then at least an acknowledgement that Israel is on its own in this.

The Obama administration has given us many things things already - a record debt, rising unemployment, a failing dollar to name but a few. What they haven't given us or the world is anything remotely approaching leadership. Apparently, that is now Israel's job. At least the House of Saud seems to recognize it.

8. Iranian columnist Amir Taheri has several recent articles on Iran. In "For Mousavi: Three Roads Ahead," Taheri points out that Khameini is no longer even making a pretense that Iran has a "republican" system of government and that Khameini will not shirk from using all of the violence necessary to stay in power:

Thanks to Mousavi’s decision to fight back, the current crisis has already produced at least one positive result. It has clarified the situation by exposing the composite noun Islamic Republic as an oxymoron. The space allocated to the "republic" has shrunk to its smallest since the start of the Khomeinist regime.

On Tuesday, the official Islamic News Agency (IRNA) published the text of a long sermon by the "Supreme Guide" in the province of Kurdistan and for the staff of the elite 27th Division, spelling out the nature of the regime.

This is what Khamenei says: "Islamic society is the society of the imamate. This means that the imam is at the head of the system. {The Imam is} a man who exercises power because the people follow him as their leader from their heart and because they have full faith in him."

Khamenei makes no mention of the presidency or any other organ of state because the system he is defending has a single, all-embracing institution: the imamate.

With pretensions about democracy and popular will gone, the current system in Iran is closer to models such as the imamate in Yemen and the "Islamic emirate" in Afghanistan under the Taliban, than to a republic in which Mousavi, or anybody else, could claim a mandate based on victory in an election.

Khamenei's sermon also contains a clear warning that the regime is prepared to provoke a bloodbath to maintain its hold on power. Khamenei says that had the Shah killed half a million people he would not have been overthrown.

He criticizes the Algerian Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS) for not having called the masses onto the streets and provoked a bloodbath by confronting the army. "Had they brought the crowds onto the streets there would have been an Islamic government in Algeria today," he says. "But they were afraid and showed weakness."

With admiration, the "Supreme Guide" recalls the massacre of one million Communists in Indonesia under General Suharto that he claims saved the system in that country.

A reluctant hero, Mousavi has succeeded in drawing the true battle lines in Iran's politics. Whether he wishes to be present on those lines, for how long, and with how much determination remains to be seen.

This throws into stark relief the paucity and imprudence of the Obama administration's decision to minimize sanctions against the regime. Khamieini is set on his path and beliefs. Nothing Obama could possibly do will light a fire in the regime that was unlit before. To the contrary, the best hope of limiting the repression against those braving it in a fight for democracy would be to significantly increase the external pressure on the regime, making the regime's already noticable faultlines into crumbling chasms. As is becoming a regular pattern, Obama is doing the polar opposite.

Taheri also writes in a seperate article, A Suddenly Most Unwelcome Guest, that Ahmedinejad has been cancelling most of his travel plans inside Iran because of the likelihood of his presence leading to mass protests. Ahmedinejad is, writes Taheri, a very diminished figure whose "legitimacy is challenged at all levels of Iranian society, including every segment of the Khomeinist establishment." I don't see this ending well for Ahmedinejad.

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Iran Update - 25 June: Mousavi Fights Back, Dissidents Call On Israel To Help In The Commo War

Many things of import happened in Iran today, but I held off writing this post to see if a rumor spreading on twitter could be verified. That rumor was that Iraq's senior cleric - and Iran's most popular cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - had publicly denounced the Iranian regime for its brutality. I've blogged about Sistani's importance here. If you haven't read it, you should also see this 2007 Boston Globe article, "Shi'ite Cleric Gains Sway Across The Border." If the rumor was true, the importance of a public denunciation from him could not be overestimated. Unfortunately, I could not verify it.

The most important development has been Mousavi's decision not to capitulate to pressure from the theocracy and to come out swinging. This from yesterday's LA Times:

After days of relative quiet, Mir-Hossein Mousavi launched a broadside against the Iranian leadership in comments published today, suggesting that the political rift over the country's disputed presidential election is far from over.

The former prime minister turned artist and scholar accused Iran's supreme leader of not acting in the interests of the country and said Iran had suffered a dramatic change for the worse.

He slammed state-controlled broadcast outlets, which have intensified a media blitz against him and his supporters with allegations that recent unrest over the disputed June 12 presidential election was instigated by Iran's international rivals. And he vowed to pursue his quest to have President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection annulled.

Read the entire article. There has been some question, given his relative quiet of the past few days, whether Mousavi was getting cold feet and would fall from the titular forefront of this revolutionary movement. That is the subject of Krauthammer's article today, noting that the revolution may wilt if it does not find its Yeltsin. Mousavi appears, for the moment, back on track now to try to fill Yeltsin's shoes, though the effectiveness of the theocracy's repression is relentless. Indeed, the same LA Times article linked above goes on to say that Mousavi met with a 70 person group of university professors on Wednesday and that, immediately following the meeting, the professors were arrested en masse by the regime.

Several days ago, I blogged that the U.S. should be doing all in its power to covertly support the uprising, noting in the comments that the greatest need was to counter the theocracy's attempts to shut down communications and to facilitate as much as possible communications to and inside of Iran. Congressional Quarterly is reporting that Senator's McCain, Graham and Lieberman are drafting legislation to require the U.S. to do precisely that. Good for them, but what that tells us is it is likely Obama has our covert operators sitting on their thumbs at the moment. If so, that is an atrocity. If Obama still has dreams of crafting a grand diplomatic bargain with the butchers of Tehran, he is a danger to us and the world. As Robert Averich states, Obama seems to have graduated from the "Neville Chamberlain school of international relations."

Communications is critical to this ongoing revolt. In fact, it is important enough so that some of the protesters inside Iran are reaching out for assistance to Israel. This from Arutz Sheva News:

. . . "Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful. Please help opposition television and radio stations which are blocked and being jammed by the Islamic Republic (Nokia and Siemens) resume broadcast to Iran. There is a total media blackout and Iranians inside Iran for the most part are not aware of their brave brothers and sisters fighting and losing their lives daily. And the unjust treatment and brutal massacre of the brave Iranians in the hands of the mullah's paid terrorist Hamas and Hizbullah gangs are not seen by the majority of the Iranians. Please help in any way you can to allow these stations resume broadcasting to Iran.

"And, please remember that we will remember, as you have remembered Cyrus the Great's treatment of you in your time of need," Irandoost concludes, signing his blogged call for help "Your Iranian Brothers and Sisters!"

In an interview with Israel National News, Iranian expatriate pro-democracy activist Amil Imani said that Irandoost's message represents the sentiments of much of the youth in the streets in Iran. They have a strong belief in the technological know-how of the Israelis to overcome the Iranian regime's attempts to block communications. . . .

Shiran Ebadi, famous Iranian female lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, made a statement the other day that she is willing to represent the family of the slain girl, Neda Soltana, in an action against the government. Iranian News announced today, reported at the blog NIAC, that a formal complaint has been filed against Ebadi to strip her of her license to practice law for "repetitive infringement of Islamic decrees, Sharia law and the constitution."

I blogged in the post Faultlines Developing that significant cracks throughout the regime were becoming apparent. Yet another became apparent today when President-elect Ahmedinejad held his formal victory party. All members of Iran's 290 person stong Parliament were invited to attend. The BBC is reporting that a substantial majority, 185, did not attend. The BBC, stating the obvious, notes "the move is a sign of the deep split at the top of Iran after disputed presidential polls."

There was supposed to be a general strike on Tuesday, though there was no confirmation of it occurring from any of the news sites. The progression of the 1979 protest went from street demonstration to general strikes. That will likely be the next phase of things if the revolution continues to grow. Gooya News now has pictures from a strike among the bazzaris in at least one city, Saghez, in the Kurdish region of Iran.

Lastly, via Hot Air, here is a BBC interview of the doctor who attempted to treat Neda, the girl brutally murdered by the basij during a protest in Iran.



Prior Posts:

24 June 2009: Glimpses Into Chaos - Iran, 24 June
23 June 2009: Obama, Iran & The Rising Of The Sun
23 June 2009: Obama On Iran: A Broken Moral Compass, A Distorted Perception Of Reality
21 June 2009: Faultlines Developing
21 June 2009: When The Regime Will Fall
20 June 2009: The Regime Turns On Its Own People (Updated)
20 June 2009: Life, Death & Terrorism On Iran's Streets - Neda
19 June 2009: Countdown To High Noon
19 June 2009: An Iranian Showdown Cometh - Liveblogging Khameini's Speech At Friday Prayers
18 June 2009: Iran Update
16 June 2009: Iran 6/16: The Fire Still Burning, An Incendiary Letter From Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, State Dept. Intercedes With Twitter & Obama Talks Softly
16 June 2009: Breaking News: Vote Recount In Iran, Too Little, Too Late
15 June 2009: Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized
15 June 2009: The Fog Of War - & Twitter
15 June 2009: Chants Of Death To Khameini
15 June 2009: Heating Up In Iran
14 June 2009: Heating Up In Iran
14 June 2009: Tehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
13 June 2009: The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
15 April 2008: The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran's Theocracy)

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More Coming Across From Twitter

Shown in the video below, 5 basij retreated into their headquarters to escape mob justice last night. According to the write-up on this video, the mob managed to fire the natural gas lines leading to the building. Five basij were believed dead in the explosion and fire.



The regime, concerned that the basij and IRGC may balk at killing their unarmed countrymen - people whose sole sin is to protest the corrupt regime - is importing Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas from Gaza to form seperate basij units. They speak arabic, not farsi. Messages have been going across Twitter telling people to destroy street signs to confuse these foreign basij. Clever.

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The Regime Turns On Its People - 20 June (Updated)

UPDATE: Fox News is reporting confirmed sightings of tanks entering Tehran streets. This marks a major escalation by the Iran's corrupt theocracy.)

Protestors march on 20 June chanting death to the dictator.



The size of the protests today are not clear. Part of this is because the police have been positioned so as to stop large groups from coallescing. There are clearly thousands of people who turned out to protest, but it is just not possible to say whether these are the hundreds of thousands of past days. The reality may be that Khameini's threat coupled with the regime show of force has in fact done enough to spell the beginning of the end of the protests. Or not. A retired General recently appeared on Fox News who noted that he was in Iran during the period of the 1979 revolution. According to him, this does not merely duplicate what he saw in 1979, but is actually running ahead of the 1979 timeline.

The regime appeared to be responding today primarily with traditional crowd control techniques - CS gas and water cannons. There are persistent claims on Twitter of the regime using helicopters to dump acidic liquids on the protestors that are causing severe burns. And it would seem that the level of violence has in fact increased.

The military has not been called in, but the regime's thugs, the basij, are appearing today armed with guns and there are many reports of protestors being killed, but one example of which is the horrendous video of the murder of an unarmed young girl posted below. Reports on Fox are that up to 50 people across the country have been killed today. Likewise, there are reports of injured all across the country. If what is coming across Twitter is accurate, they are being directed to foreign embassies rather than to hospitals where thugs of the basij are stationed.

Ahmedinejad has been completely silent since his initial comparison of the protests to little more than soccer holliganism. This is interesting, as one of the prime purposes of the presidency is to provide a buffer between the people and the theocracy.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at the shrine to the theocracy's founder, Khomeini. Iranian television is reporting nothing of the protests, but this bombing was reported across Iranian news shortly after it happened. Who carried it out is an open question. There was no damage to the shrine but for a window destroyed. This could as easily be an IRGC act to blame on the protestors as it could be an actual act rebellion by a protestor. If the latter, it just drives home the same point that the chants of "death to Khameini" do - that this revolt is now aimed at the theocracy itself.

Mousavi supposedly started to take part in today's protest, but there has been no further word on his whereabouts since the claim that he left his office to join the march. On his web page, he claims that he is ready for martyrdom and calls for a general strike if he is arrested.

Prior Posts:

20 June 2009: Life, Death & Terrorism On Iran's Streets
19 June 2009: Countdown To High Noon
19 June 2009: An Iranian Showdown Cometh - Liveblogging Khameini's Speech At Friday Prayers
18 June 2009: Iran Update
16 June 2009: Iran 6/16: The Fire Still Burning, An Incendiary Letter From Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, State Dept. Intercedes With Twitter & Obama Talks Softly
16 June 2009: Breaking News: Vote Recount In Iran, Too Little, Too Late
16 June 2009: The Fog Of War - & Twitter
15 June 2009: Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized
15 June 2009: The Fog Of War - & Twitter
15 June 2009: Chants Of Deat To Khameini
15 June 2009: Heating Up In Iran
14 June 2009: Heating Up In IranTehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
13 June 2009: The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
15 April 2008: The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran's Theocracy)

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Life, Death & Terrorism On Iran's Streets - Neda

The work of a basij sniper during today's protests. A young girl, unarmed, shot through the heart in the middle of Tehran's streets, her father crying in anguish as he watches her die . . .



The theocracy is truly evil. They have no morality. They act throughout the world, spreading terrorism at whatever the cost in blood. And now, it is turned inward. God help the Iranian people. For their benefit and ours, this regime must end.

Update: This girl is being identified by CNN as "Neda." As CNN reports, this horrific video has gone viral and is rapidly becoming the horrific icon of the revolution. Rest in peace, Neda.

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Breaking - Vote Recount in Iran, Too Little Too Late

The Telegraph is reporting that the Guardian Council, in an obvious bid to find something to stop the protests now spinning out of control, has just announced that it will allow a limited recount of ballots in "disputed areas." I doubt seriously that this will do anything to mollify the Mousavi camp. Their charge is that the numbers were cooked across Iran and that vote fraud took place on a massive scale. If what is coming across twitter is accurate, their demand will be for scrapping the election and a revote.

As I wrote below, this is a no-win situation for Iran's mullahocracy. Khameini already tipped his hand when he did not wait the three days provided for vote counting under Iranian law to verify the vote and announce the results. Then he referred to the landslide as a "divine" gift, thus invoking the legitimacy of his religion to further sanctify the vote. Even if no revolution occurs and this peters out, there is no question that this series of events will work a fundamental change in the relationship between the Iranians and their government. The mullahocracy will have lost much, if not all of its legitimacy. And now, backtracking, Khameini appears both dishonest and weak - two historically fatal flaws for a repressive and autocratic ruler.

Blood has already been spilled and protestors are dead. Soon, a tipping point will be reached. Unlike the failed protests of a decade ago, these involve not just university students, the protests are not merely in Tehran, and they are not merely in the Universities. It will be much harder, it would seem, for the IRGC to quell these protests should that be what the regime opts to do. But if the protests go unabated for much longer, that may be the only option that the mullahocracy has left.

Update: Iran specialist Michael Ledeen has his assessment of the situation at PJM that I strongly recommend. As he sees it, we are at the tipping point, with the only question being whether the populace of Iran can become sufficiently organized. Interestingly, he sees the defections as coming from the IRGC, not just the Army, and moreover, as the hammer that the regime will/has turned to being Hezbollah. Read his article here. Also for a good roll-up, see Memorandum.

Previous Posts:

The Fog Of War - & Twitter
Chants Of Deat To Khameini
Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized
Heating Up In Iran
Tehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran's Theocracy)

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The Fog Of War - & Twitter

The following were some of the reports being sent over Twitter at #iranelection during a 20 minute period between 12:40 and 1 p.m. Iran Standard Time. New twits (or is it twitters?) are coming in at a rate of about 1,000 per every 5 to 10 minutes.

There are reports of violence at various places throughout Iran as well as rumors about everything from foreigner visas being cancelled to speculation on what the Iranian Army - as opposed to the IRGC - is doing. I wrote two days ago that the wild card in this, as events progressed, will be what the non-IRGC Iranian military decides to do. At any rate, here are some of the substantive twits - (or is it twitters?):

letzi83: . . . now anyone with camera or laptop is attacked in street

lakarune: . . . BULLETIN -- IRANIAN GUARDIAN COUNCIL SAYS IT WILL RECOUNT VOTES.

thegaryrosen: Why would you believe the "recount" would be any less fictional than the count?

adagop: . . . are hearing that all foreigner visas are being cancelled by gov

iranStreetNews: . . . There are rumours of Basij HQ in Tabriz set on fire. Can not confirm yet.

TaraGolightly: BIG explosion at Nooshiravani Babol University (North Iran),police does not lets people to go there

darkepi: RT Shiraz Resign: . . . "I denounce the invasion of the university by military forces, and announce my resignation"

toddmit: rumour spreading Tehran - Army Generals have met in secret - Army considering position

Khuzestani: reliable source Isfahan hospital - many injured from last 24 hours

TaraGolightly: Basiji HQ in Tabriz burned by protestors with 'many' dead

draddee: Rallies by both Pro-Ahmadinajad and Pro-Mousavi supporters are scheduled for today. Clashes expected.

El: Reports say Univ. protest are continuing, Sharif and Politechnic faculty joined the protest.

mediamadam: Isfahan hospital: many injured from last 24 hrs, Shiraz U reports of unrest & governor resign

Stardragonca: from iran:"They are evacuating all buildings around valiasr Sq&filling it with Basij", please be careful!

sarahinaz: Moussavi rejects idea of recount & wants fresh elex b/c recount will provide more opp. for fraud, his camp said

BelondyDuJour: Urge Prz. Obama to come out stronger against violence & support the people! Speak up! Your a leader now...no more campaigning.

Previous Posts:

Chants Of Deat To Khameini
Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized
Heating Up In Iran
Tehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran's Theocracy)

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