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 meant. In fact, I like the idea of giving the Iranian people as big a choice of candidates as possible – that is the basic goal of any democracy. So I don’t see being a “reformist” or a “conservative” as either good or bad (as I mentioned yesterday – I find these concepts rather meaningless to begin with). But here is what puzzles me:
The Iranian Guardian Council is composed of 12 jurists who are highly respected and who are entrusted with a vital mission: to vet Presidential candidates. I therefore assume that they must have access to the very best information about these candidates available to the Iranian government.
One of the very basic activity for any intelligence or security agency is to maintain very detailed and carefully crafted psychological profiles of all key personalities in any important country or political movement. I assume that the Iranian intelligence and/or security agencies have exactly the same basic set of tasks as their colleagues in any other country.
The Iranian security services *must* have had a very detailed psychological of Musavi. If not, then they are not doing their job properly. Likewise, I assume that the members of the Guardian Council should have been given access to this profile. If not, then there is something fundamentally wrong in the structure of the Iranian government. Intelligence work is composed of three “A”: Aquisition, Analysis and Acceptance. The latter means dissemination to the relevant decision making bodies.
Musavi’s psychological analysis should not have to include such vague political categories as “reformer”. What is should have contained is a clear warning that the guys is an ambitious politician who will place his personal ego over the welfare of his country and that should he be allowed to run, he would not accept a defeat without trying to create chaos.
The Iranian security services should have figured out what kind of guy Mousavi is, they should have passed on this information to the Guardian Council, and the Guardian Council should have either taken action directly or, at least, passed this information to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who should have stopped Mousavi. But none of that happened.
The question is why? (Considering the highly sensitive nature of this question, we will probably never get an answer to it).
Finally, Mousavi could have been nailed for his corruption and the way his wife used Musavi’s political infuence to to obtain her academic positions. But other than having Ahmadinejad mention that once, nothing was done.
But what is the point of having a vetting system, a Guardian Council and a Supreme Leader if none of that can prevent the likes of Mousavi to run?
Another thought:
Yep. Nothing. Nothing besides the riots and grand statements by politicians.
Which just makes me wonder how some, shall we say, “less than critical” minds can simply assume that the elections were rigged ONLY on the basis of riots (which, according to my info, were limited to one city and were not that big – not by Iranian standards for sure).
The Saker
VS, If super rich sleazeballs like Chalabi have done business with the Iranian government over the years isn’t that proof that
corruption, bribery,etc. are a part of Iran’s govermental structure(Just like any other government basically)?
I am not going to be surprised if (or when!)I hear some revelatory news story about “elites” wanting to “destabilize” the country written by Seymour Hersh.
Curt points out a feature of the Mullahs’ regime, and many accuse Ahmadinejad of being a beneficiary of those murky business.
Why giving for granted that Musavi was corrupt, or more corrupt? Any evidence?
Musavi was the PM during the war years, under Khomeini’s direct supervision. And Khomeini was no joking matter: he didn’t tolerate corruption, and punishment was harsh…
Musavi could not be banned by any electoral inquisition for the very simple reason that he is a man of the establishment, originally a fighter for the Islamic Revolution. He is no outsider, he is a founder! The Western media have made of him a sort of Obama, but it isn’t true. He was slated to continue Iranian foreign policies just the same, as it is a state policy beyond the president’s grasp.
Unlike most of Ahmadinejad’s followers in the West put it, the contradiction between the two men were not about the dealings and wheelings with the US or Israel, Musavi is no traitor, he is a man of the regime.
What opposed him to Ahmadinejad is that the latter is a social and cultural conservative, and therefore the darling of the clergy, and Musavi understood the need for liberalizing and opening the country to a more moder fashion, making culture and social intercourse freer and less subject to religious strictures. And this explains why the clergy has supported Ahmadinejad. It is an internal affair.
Now the danger of this “charade” is that Iran will emerge highly divided and resented, polarized as ever before since 1979.
For the moment the omens are are at a high stake: police arresting overnight people at home.
Is that the celebration of the re-election, or just the fear the mullahs have to criticism?
Whatever the immediate future, the regime doesn’t look too confident by referring to such tactics…
Stealing the Iranian Election
Saturday 13 June 2009
by Juan Cole
http://www.truthout.org/061409Z
Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen
Saker
I read your yesterday’s post and I agree with you. This article brought to me by Lucia may help better understanding on what happenned.
“Since the revolution, academics and pundits have predicted the collapse of the Iranian regime. This week, they did no better”
Abbas Barzegar
“the failure to properly gauge Iran’s affairs is hardly a new phenomenon. When the 1979 revolution shattered the military dictatorship of America’s strongest ally in the region few experts outside of the country suspected that the Islamic current would emerge as the leading party.
I agree with Abbas, “Iran is a deeply religious society” why anybody would be surprised with common Shea (opressed for 1400 years)applying their ideals through the ballot box especially when they feel that their revolution is dangered by Usrael, Moderate Arabs, Ben-Ladens and fifth pillars?
Ahmedinejad, accused Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanji, “of betraying the nation….and compared his betrayal to the alleged deception (Hinting to Chosing Abu Bakr to be the first Lhalifa )against the Prophet Muhammad that led to the Sunni-Shia split 1,400 years ago”
That hint “unleashed a popular impulse that has held the imagination of the masses here for generations”
Why was Mousavi allowed to run?
I agree with Enrique Ferro “Musavi could not be banned by any electoral inquisition for the very simple reason that he” I would say (was instead of is) a man of the establishment, originally a fighter for the Islamic Revolution”
I repeat, like Fateh traitors,he was a foghter.
Therefore, the best cleanest way to expose and kill him politically is let him run for presidency.
His failure, and the victory of Ahmedinejad, is Iran’s reply to Obama Cairo speech, especially after Lebanese election.
You want to take to Iran, talk to Ahmedinejad.
I don’t think Musavi is a traitor. In power he likely would have looked after Iran’s international interests as zealously as anyone.
But he does represent the upper classes of Iranian society and I suspect that group adores him. The thing, that upper class may have been hardly aware of the will of the poorer sections of Tehran or the countryside. As far as they knew, everyone ‘who mattered’ liked Musavi.
Like I said before a similar thing happend in Thailand. A rich business and bourgeois elite hated the idea that poor people could vote and might be able to use the power of the state for their own benefit rather than someone else’s.
I am a libertarian, not a socialist. So I don’t think wealth should be “redistributed” in the common sense. However, it turns out that wealth is constantly redistributed from poor to the wealthiest banksters. So if on occasion the reverse happens, I don’t complain.
“
HAS ANYBODY SEEN ANY EVIDENCE OF ELECTION RIGGING OTHER THEN THE RIOTS THEMSELVES?”
Hard to tell: with foreign media being harassed and local media under state control, most of what we get comes by word of mouth. Via that most ancient of networks comes word that locals have seen ballot boxes burned and that Iran’s own public election monitors have called the results into question.
I don’t know where you’re getting your protest information. Readily at-had pictures, video, and twitter feeds suggest widespread protests in multiple locations with tens of thousands of participants. The voice, cell, SMS, and data networks in the country don’t get switched off every day, that it happened during these protests suggests this is more than a couple angry young people.
@Enrique: Why giving for granted that Musavi was corrupt, or more corrupt? Any evidence?
Yes, Ahmadinejad showed that evidence during the debate with Musawi and Musawi was stoped and speechless. Later, he got really angry and accused Ahmadinejad of prying in Musawi’s private life (which is true). Ahmadinejad showed evidence that Musawi’s wife had obtained her avademic posts without the needed. You can probably find the video of this entire incident on the net somewhere.
@curt: yes, Iran is just as corrupt as any other country. But the point is that you can be as corrupt as you want, but that does not mean that you are stupid. So let me repeat that here: RIGGING A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MAKES NO SENSE IN A COUNTRY LIKE IRAN. So even if every single member of the government is corrupt to the bone, that corruption would not be directed as a largely symbolic election. Does that make sense?
@Curt: just wrote another piece about Cole and his nonsense. Thanks for the pointer – Cole makes my case better than I ever could :-)
@Uprooted: welcome back! Thanks for the link to the article Lucia sent you, I will add it to my latest piece on decontructing Cole’s BS.
Cheers!
Saker
I visit your bloq whenever there something new. But, I have no time to comment
“If super rich sleazeballs like Chalabi have done business with the Iranian government over the years isn’t that proof that
corruption, bribery,etc. are a part of Iran’s govermental structure”
A B S O L U T E L Y
In my latest blog – which no one reads anymore – 100 hits per day :( – my position is that these “revolutionary guards” are not so revolutionary. In fact, they grew out of their religious fanatic phase.
There are many upon many articles on all kinds of news sources – including Iranian – of how the guards turned into basically a Russian Mafia type operation, pushing their own people and stooges into economic and political power positions.
Basically Iran is turning – and saker will understand the analogy – into Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, the same level of corruption.
Anyway, more on my blog if I do so shamelessly spam it here – I am sick, and cannot write a logical argument today for the life of me.