Sadly, Pepe Escobar is writing a lot of nonsense these days, parroting pretty much whatever the USraelian Empire wants everybody to hear. Still, he is a good reporter and that makes him keep a careful eye on what is going on. In a recent article for the Asia Times, Pepe reported something quite interesting:

“Here’s the upgraded voice of the Tehran street, where the new top rallying cry is “Seyyed Ali Pinochet, Chile Iran nemishe” (Seyyed Ali Pinochet, Iran won’t be like Chile). A seven-point list of demands has been Twittered and passed hand-to-hand (here in its original Twitter English version) since Tuesday afternoon.

1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn’t qualify as a fair supreme leader.
2. Remove [President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully.
3. Put [Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali] Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi [constitution] is set up.
4. Recognize [losing presidential candidate Mir Hossein] Mousavi as the official president.
5. A government by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution
6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs and buts, right away.
7. Call off any secret organization such as gasht ershad [morality police].”

Some agenda, no?! Especially for a *Presidential* election (which, in Iran, is mostly about representation and not about real power).

How did we go from “fixing election irregularities” to “replacing the Supreme Leader” and “changing the Constitution“?! Or was that the intention all along?!?!

Pepe is wrong, that is sure, conned as he is by a mix of carefully orchestrated propaganda and by his own ideological blindness, but he is not dishonest and we can be sure that this “ultimatum” is really being circulated on Twitter and elsewhere.

So now, hopefully, nobody will doubt the real nature of what is being attempted in Iran. Let me spell it out for you in plain, simple words:

  1. The Gucci Revolutionaries lead by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are trying to overthrow the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
  2. They are using the elections for a largely symbolic post of President as a *lever* to trigger a crisis which give them the control of the most powerful post in Iran, the one of Supreme Leader
  3. The Presidential election gave the Guccis a fantastic opportunity to achieve “regime change”: either their puppet candidate Mousavi wins, and they can use his position to further their agenda, or he looses and they can then holler about the election being stolen (the latter option is made easy by the fact that in a large country like Iran some irregularities will always occur).
  4. Rafsanjani’s Gucci Revolutionaries are probably infiltrated by the USraelien intelligence services on the low to middle level, but their top leaders are not so much “agents of the CIA” as in a situation of objective community of interest with the Washington and Jerusalem.
  5. Given the fact that the opposition cannot come up with any real evidence of major irregularities in the elections, and given the fact that they have no other legal recourse, they have only two possible card left to play:

a) to get the Assembly of Expert to dismiss Ayatollah Khamenei (highly unlikely)
b) trigger a bloodbath and blame it on the government

The government is now in a very difficult situation. It probably has the names of all the top leaders of the “Gucci Opposition” and it could easily have them arrested in a couple of hours. But the government probably does not have the means to arrest all the mid-level ringleaders, i.e. precisely those who are most likely to be manipulated by the CIA, Mossad & Co. Thus simply arresting the top Guccis would do nothing to prevent a bloodbath.

Hoping to peacefully defuse the time bomb which has been set by Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead the Friday prayers tomorrow at the University of Tehran and try to appeal to the hundreds of thousands “useful idiots” whom the “Guccis” have promised the “pot of gold” at the “foot of the rainbow” and try to convince them that they have to accept the rules of the Iranian democracy and not yield to any calls for violence.

There is another option which the government might consider: if incontrovertible evidence could be made public showing that Rafsanjani and his Guccis are the real puppet masters of Mousavi that would take a lot of wind out of the oppositions sails.

When the local “Guccis” in Venezuela attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez (and almost succeeded) the only thing which stood between them and success was the popular reaction in defense of the Constitution and the rule of law. Fundamentally, the people of Venezuela stood by and protected their institutions. Now, it is the Iranian people themselves which need to do the same thing.

What is now at stake goes way beyond Musavi versus Ahmadinejad or even Rafsanjani versus Khamenei. What is taking place now is nothing short of an attempt to achieve “regime change” in the deepest, most fundamental meaning of this word.

It is not Ahmadinejad who stole the election, but Rafsanjani and his Guccis who, acting with the full and active support of the USraelian Empire, are trying to overthrow the Constitution and Institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Only the Iranian people can stop them now. If they fail to take a firm stance in defense of their country, Rafsanjani “The Shark” will seize power and take away everything they fought for since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago.

The Saker

PS: also check out Paul Craig Roberts’ latest excellent article “Iran Faces Greater Risks Than It Knows” (thanks AA for the pointer!) and M K Bhadrakumar latest piece in the Asia Times Beijing cautions US over Iran.