Excerpt from today’s Ha’aretz: If Mossad chief Meir Dagan is correct, and the alleged voting irregularities in Iran are no different than the mishaps which occur in democratic countries, then the latest developments further highlight the notion that the current tensions have less to do with the election results per se. At the most, allegations of voter fraud are just an excuse, or a pretext.
I am rather pleasantly surprised by the fact that it appears that more and more commentators seem to be distancing themselves from the “Ahmadinejad stole the elections” canard. I can’t say that the tide is turning, not quite, but at least the hysterical screams are just a tiny little bit less stringent, less overwhelming. Stratfor – the otherwise highly zio-compatible – think tank has just published a critical article by
Take a look at this recent statement by the Ueber-Zionist French President Sarkozy: LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AFP)–French President Nicolas Sarkozy questioned the legitimacy of Iran’s presidential election Tuesday, saying the “extent of the fraud” was “proportional to the violent reaction” there. Get that? Ok. Now ask yourself: IF the extend of the fraud was proportional to the violent reaction then WHO has a major stake into seeing as much violence as
It is with somewhat of a relief that I found a good article about the situation in Iran published by Counterpunch. Maybe, just maybe, will the voice of Paul Craig Roberts bring some people back to their senses. Anyway – check out what this highly knowledgeable observer has to say and please read it carefully and heed the warning of this honest man who knows – from first hand experience
by RFS for the RFS blog What do Michael Ledeen (the American ‘neo-conservative’), Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the Iranian presidential candidate of ‘chagne’) and Adnan Khashoggi (the opulent Saudi Arabian jet-setter) have in common? They are all good friends and associates of Manuchehr Ghorbanifar (an Iranian arms merchant, an alleged MOSSAD double agent, and a key figure in the Iran/Contra Affair, the arms-for-hostages deals between Iran and the Reagan administration). In one
The situation in Iran is volatile and fluid and things could get much worse (there are already reports about Mousavi supporters being arrested with explosives!) and it is way too early to draw some deep conclusions about these events. One thing, however, is absolutely clear: the so-called “Left” showed no common sense, no critical thinking and no analytical capabilities whatsoever. Even the best Leftist websites and commentators (Pepe Escobar, Counterpunch,
By Phil Wilayto for AlterNet As this is being written, official announcements in Iran today of a landslide victory by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are being met with cries of “fraud” by supporters of his principal challenger, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The New York Times is reporting that “at least one person had been shot dead in clashes with the police in Vanak Square in Tehran. Smoke from burning
by Simon Tisdall for The Guardian The man accused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of masterminding the opposition campaign to oust him from the presidency has dropped out of view since election day. But Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani remains a formidable figure in Iranian politics with a network of well-placed allies straddling the reformist and moderate conservative camps. If any one leader is able to force a re-run of last Friday’s disputed
By M K Bhadrakumar for the Asia Times (thanks for Lucia for pointing out this article to me) Iranian politics is never easy to decode. The maelstrom around Friday’s presidential election intrigued most avid cryptographers scanning Iranian codes. So many false trails appeared that it became difficult to decipher who the real contenders were and what the political stakes were. In the event, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei won a
While the “big story” right now is the situation in Iran, check out this other “big story” which is not getting nearly as much attention: The American Empire Is Bankrupt by Chris Hedges De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire by Michael Hudson (thanks to C. for bringing these two articles to my attention!)
I am publishing a report form one of my contacts who actually has, shall we say, “inside access” to the ongoing events in Tehran. I have asked him to explain to me what the real context of these events actually is, and I am deeply grateful for his reply. He also told me that he would be available to answer any questions his analysis might raise. So please, if you
Take a look at what one American poll showed in May of this year: Listen also to his comment that most Azeris would vote for Ahmadinejad and not for Musavi (Hey Juan Cole – are you paying attention?!) For other polls, check out the Wikipedia entry on this topic here
The AFP reports: A member of the political bureau of Hezbollah Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, told AFP on Saturday that during the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic has succeeded, “once again the test of democracy” . Abu Zeinab said that the party was “pleased with the choice of democracy and the Iranian people.” “Iran has proved its democracy, and succeeded time and again in the test of democracy.”
I just saw this quote from Bibi’s latest speech: Any demand to resettle refugees within Israel undermines Israel as a state for the Jewish people He is absolutely right. And denying the right of return of those illegally displaced is, in itself, a form of Jewish racial supremacy, in particular when combined with the equally racist right of “return” for any and all Jews worldwide (nevermind that they never lived
Againt the background of the “Tsunami” of baloney coming out from so many less than critically thinking “experts” and pundits, I recommend this well written article from the Guardian. VS by Abbas Barzegar for The Guardian I have been in Iran for exactly one week covering the 2009 Iranian election carnival. Since I arrived, few here doubted that the incumbent firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would win. My airport cab driver
The Iranian election is a fraud. Now we have “proof” and that “proof” of fraud is in the open, via Juan Cole. He has not one, but six elements of “proof” listed in his latest article. Let’s take a closer look. 1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is
I am coming back to one of the points I made yesterday – the issue of why a person like Mousavi was ever allowed to run. In the comments section of my previous article on the elections in Iran, altigerrrr make a very good point that the Guardian Council could not prevent Mousavi from running because he is a reformist. I understand that, but that is not quite what I
Let me begin my saying that I did not follow the campaigns of the four contenders to the post of President of Iran very closely. Nor did I carefully scrutinize their electoral platform. I did have a vague preference for anyone the West would consider a “moderate” (an utterly nonsensical concept) if only because it would make a military aggression on Iran by Israel and/or the USA harder to sell,
By ESAM AL-AMIN for South Lebanon Blog Since the Lebanese parliamentary elections on June 7, the mainstream media have declared that the results of the elections clearly show that Hizbollah and its coalition partners have suffered a “crushing defeat.” Some, led by the New York Times and cable news outlets, went even further, suggesting that the Cairo address by President Barack Obama was what made the difference, tilting the elections
