As soon as you know how the story will end, simply knowing speeds the end’s arrival. Only five years passed between Lincoln’s House Divided speech and the Emancipation Proclamation. Gorbachev told his wife in 1986: “We can’t go on like this.” On Friday — yesterday — Ali Khamanei used Friday prayers to deliver a harangue against his own people, telling them to ignore logic and the evidence of their own hearts, to accept the sham election, and to go home and live in the dark for yet another few more years.
And he put all the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic itself behind his demand.
Big mistake. From the astonishing column Roger Cohen just filed from Tehran:
The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”
A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of “Join us! Join us!” The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.
Vast crowds? But the Supreme Leader told them to stay home. He wept as he told them he loved them. He said the election was a product of the Islamic Republic itself and therefore couldn’t be flawed. And in so doing he set the regime’s entire legitimacy against what was happening on the street.
Choices force more choices, and events force events. This business did not start out as a people’s revolt. Everyone knows Mir Hossein Mousavi had no plan to to question the regime. He had every intention of serving it faithfully, perhaps a tad less belligerently than Ahmadinejad, but essentially without making any real waves. Everyone can hear that this resistance is one that chants allahu akbar every night; if the regime’s actions had remained even minimally compatible with their faith they would never have questioned the regime. Not like this. Not in massive crowds in every large city, crowds that do not stay away for long even when the regime’s last loyal thugs beat them and tear-gas them and shoot them dead where they stand, dozens so far and more to come.
Khamanei set the terms for this battle. He has put himself on the wrong side of history. Barack Obama has been extraordinarily careful all week, but he called it right today with a modest but implacable statement, with its references to “the universal rights to assembly and free speech,” the regime’s “unjust actions against its own people,” and his evocation of King, whose shrine at the Lincoln Memorial he visited on the day before he became President. “‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’” he wrote. “I believe that…. [W]e are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth.” Note that, as Lincoln did with the House Divided speech, Obama is using quotation to show that he is not asserting a truth but merely acknowledging one. Lincoln was saying, “You don’t need me to tell you a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Obama is saying, “I’m not making this happen. I just know that it will.”
In his Friday sermon, Khamanei said he had seen how the “Americans and Zionists” fomented a velvet revolution in Georgia. He would see to it these “aqmaqha” — idiots — did not get a velvet revolution in Iran.
Very well then. It won’t be velvet.
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Great piece Paul.
Best Quote coming out of Iran that confirms this (or maybe the above help confirms the below…)
"..The chants of death to Khamenei are true…I witnessed peoples fear of the Basij dissapear, an 80 year old chadori woman with rocks in her hands calling for the exacution of khamenei and all Basij…"
Follow it all at THE BEST SOURCE FOR THIS ONGOING PIECE OF HISTORY (let's not keep these things to ourselves okay):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-dem...
The greatest danger with revolution is that the result is almost never the one those who fought for it had been hoping for. And the cost is inevitably great. I wish them well nonetheless.
Thank god for Obama and the re-assertion of reason in the world today.
Know hope.
Olbermann is that you?
A Fisk piece from a few days ago on police behaving as they should ……
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators...
The "volunteer" militias are vicious. The RG remains silent. So far.
And trusting what we hear (and see) is a problem. It doesn't seem much better there …
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators...
An American, and one named Cohen at that, is in Tehran reporting on events? Wow. That takes guts.
May the Iranian people maintain this pressure, and may the revolution be swift and successful.
he's had a great series of columns from iran as of late. worth the lookey-look.
I think he's British by birth. He works for a New York paper.
This report from Al Jazeera English provides an analysis of the power struggle going in within the religious leadership of Iran at present.
An excellent article from Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times on the current situation in Iran. A quote about counting the votes :
"Around half of the 39 million votes cast were counted, by hand, within three hours of polling booths shutting, according to officials.
Impossible, say the defeated candidates and their supporters. Official results show that Mousavi, an Azeri, beat Ahmadinejad by a whisper in West Azerbaijan province and lost in East Azerbaijan, his home province. Massive turnouts like last Friday’s 85 per cent usually tend to favour candidates who, like Mousavi and Karroubi, have courted the moderate and reformist vote, and have managed to persuade those normally reluctant or too jaded to vote."
While all of the other evidence does point to a rigged election, I've found the comments about the impossibility of counting millions of ballots by hand to be odd. In Canada, we almost always have nearly complete results within three hours of the polls closing, and we count 15,000,000 ballots by hand across the country.
The three hour thing is actually a lie. 66% of the ballots were counted nine hours after polling closed in most of Iran. The 3 hour lie comes from ignoring the fact that polling closed later in some places because an extension was granted (there were long lines). If you look at the 2005 election, the time spent to count was similar. This is a dumb theory foisted on us by Americans that assume everything that doesn't look like a US election is fraud.
Here is a better analysis of the election results from Chatham House which concentrates on the meaning of the results. Interested to know your thoughts on this, HtH.
Since Obama it's so gauche to criticise Americans.
Great Link!
I wonder what imact that the Iraq War and subsequent Iraqi government/democracy has had on the Iranian public over the last several years.
Some of the usual suspects are up and running already …
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/w...
You can have that rabbit hole, thank you.
My guess is that the invasion of Iraq has made people in Iran feel more insecure, because they could reasonably believe (particularly during the Bush presidency) that they would be next. For some, this could mean supporting the current conservative regime and ensuring unity. For others, it could mean wanting a more liberal and democratic Iran to ensure that Iran is less of a target. I would also imagine that the majority of Iranians support Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state, if only to ensure that the United States could not invade with relative impunity. Bush's invasion of Iraq has made the world a much more dangerous and insecure place.
I actually meant what the cultural impact would be of photos of iraqi purple thumbs, nightclubs, city markets, and the general struggle of the past two years (when things started turning around) for the people of Iraq to assert more control of their own destiny. By decreasing U.S. pressence, decreasing violence, increasing political cooperation between sunnis and shias, and increasing social abilities, did this have any impact on Iranian culture?
If you have a look at the link above provided by Sisyphus to the New York Times, a blogger named Spencer Ackerman covers this in part – he says that no Iranian on the Twitter site (#IranElection) has mentioned Iraq as inspiration, but rather talk about internal Iranian matters. Hard to see how anybody could look at their next door neighbour being invaded, resulting in countless deaths, anarchy, failure to provide basic services, a virtual civil war at one point, the country being destroyed, etc. and, despite whatever progress has been made since the darkest days, seeing inspiration in any of that. More likely to see a threat. Democracy of a sort has existed since the 1979 Revolution, so that's nothing new for Iranians. Being treated like fools by a bunch of superannuated mullahs is, though.
Ahh I see. Because nobody twittered it, it therefore has no impact.
"I wonder what imact that the Iraq War and subsequent Iraqi government/democracy has had on the Iranian public over the last several years."
Interview with Hugh Hewitt and Reuel Marc Gerecht, June 17, 2009:
"HH: Yesterday on this program, Victor Davis Hanson said the irony is that people thought Iran was going to destabilize the young democracy in Iraq. His argument is that the young democracy in Iraq is in fact destabilizing Iran. Do you agree with that, Reuel Marc Gerecht?
RMG: That may be the case. I mean, I think it’s a little too soon to tell, but the one thing you do know for certain if you follow Iraq and Iran is that the Grand Ayatollah, Sistani, who is the leading cleric of Iraq, Iranian by birth, is also the most popular cleric by far inside of Iran.
HH: Oh.
RMG: I think he is that, because much of the Iranian clergy had been discredited because of its association with the clerical regime. And Sistani, who has backed democracy in Iraq, is seen as a breath of fresh air."
Minor quibble: According to Dr. King, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, not truth.
I'm thinking that Hopey misquoted the good Dr. on purpose. The arc of the moral universe bending towards justice would be fightin' words for the Iranian regime. Nice catch.
"Hopey" has it right in the press release.
Also, Obama has used the quote before, in a speech on the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination which included an addendum that is fitting given the current situation: "But, here's the thing, it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us, in our own ways, put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice, because we organize, we mobilize, we march, we vote…"
Yes, they organize, they mobilize, they march, they vote. Quite right.
there are some really weird people on his blog -2 for what? you don;t like me?
churlish much?
Terrific analysis. Congratulations for giving Barack Obama his due as the foremost moral leader on the world satge today.
You may be right about that. I understand that there are 366 electoral districts. That's just over 100,000 votes to count per electoral district with 39 million votes. As there are about 100,000 eligible in each federal electoral district, with a 60% turnout the count would be of 60,000. It certainly seems feasible. Still, Mousavi was saying today that fixing the election was planned well in advance. Makes you wonder whether he was in on it earlier on …
Hopey’s stenographer here at Maclean’s has made a closer study of Lincoln than of King. The truth/justice mistake is mine and probably I’ll fix it before the weekend is out.
Paul, this was a great and pithy piece. Well-reasoned, carefully reflective and analytical. This is the kind of thinking that it is easy to not undertake for one reason or another, but serves us all well. Thank you for writing this. Sharing with friends via fbook.
Revolutions often don't end well. I hope that this one does.
There are reports that (unlike Australia and others), the Canadian embassy in Tehran is staying closed and not allowing those injured in for help– help they need because the hospitals are crawling with Basiji who either turn the injured away or arrest them upon arrival. I've sent a letter to Canon about this and encourage others to do the same.
I've twice tried calling DFAIT about this over the weekend and there's no one on the phones. Perhaps they are being besieged by calls, don't take complaints ever, or just don't work the phones over the weekend. Guess I should email Cannon too, though I doubt that will really do the trick. Man, I wish we had a government with the guts for a gesture of minimal solidarity (like the Australians have, for instance).
There are now reports (link via Andrew Sullivan) that the word about foreign embassies taking in the wounded are false — the Brits are denying that they are doing so. The theory is that it's an attempt by the regime to blame, via false twittering, the protests on foreign conspirators.
There are now reports (link via Andrew Sullivan) that the stories about foreign embassies taking in the wounded are false — the Brits are denying that they are doing so. The theory is that it's an attempt by the regime to blame, via false twittering, the protests on foreign conspirators.
There are now reports (link via Andrew Sullivan) that the stories about foreign embassies taking in the wounded are false — the Brits are denying that they are doing so. The theory is that it's an attempt by the regime to blame, via mendacious twittering, the protests on foreign conspirators.
Yes, saw that report too. I guess in a situation like this, when verifiable info is harder tocome by, when we're sitting here rooting them on but feeling helpless, that you want to believe that your government would do all it can. If our embassy is open for business as usual on during the week and protesting is still going on, I would hope they keep the doors open to any and all injured who need assistance regardless.
2. Using 2005 first round as a baseline (eg. the 44% reformist thing)
It makes no sense to use Ahmadinejad's first round results as a baseline for comparison. That was a multicandidate race, while this is a 2-man race. In a multicandidate race you only see where people's hardcore supporters are, not where the soft support is. People should compare these results to the second round.
The mantra seems to be the West ought not be involved in what does not concern them… Agreed.
However, the West (western countries) ought get fully involved in what DOES concern them…
Securing the release and return of a country's citizen from illegal detention on the part of another country qualifies.
Now that Abdelrazik seems to finally be on his way home and, the world is watching Iran,
Now is as good a time as any for our government to finally act on the case of Hossein Derakhshan.
In Iran, we have failed Zahra Kazemi, can we not learn from this? (Derakhshan is likely in the same prison).
If the Iranian people are speaking out, in the ways that they are, it is in large part because people like Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian, showed them how… The Iranian government knows this. If the Iranian government succeed in crushing these demonstrations, we will undoubtedly never read a new post coming from Derakhshan again (if that possibility hasn't already been removed).
If peacekeeping stood a snowball's chance of doing anything, we'd send in the blue helnits and let them do their thing. But as we rightly know, they'd come home in body bags. Peacekeeping has a place. But not where the action is.
Agreed, but there's always been a difference "peacekeeping" and peacemaking." The UN is strictly interested in the former, and there's often very little ready-made (or even barely held) peace to keep. The UN has some usefulness, but can never be counted on to do anything in a hurry– which itself has some pluses and minuses. In this case for those of us perhaps "too idealistic," wanting to see democracy (or as close to it as possible) spread as rapidly as possible, it's a minus. Also, specifically Russia and China would obstruct six ways from Sunday to let the UN do anything about this.
Also, I don't think there's a parallel for UN troops going in to stop a civil conflict between the government and the people; IIRC it's always been either conflict between states or conflict between armed forces within a state; and the key thing is that both sides have to want the conflict to stop.
A useful site for daily roundups of the day's tweets:
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/news-current-events/...
So what is motivating Mousavi? Has he suddenly seen the light? Discovered the virtues of free speech and free association? It seems doubtful. If, as his history suggests, he is just the leader of another faction in the religious establishment, the most likely outcome would see him force, with the backing of the Mad Mullah council, the current Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad into early retirement and ascend to political leadership of the current corrupt and tyrannical government.
Any outcome that we might see as just and progressive looks like wishful thinking at the moment.
LOL, exactly ! Welcome to the post-MSM world ! We're all post-modernists now.
I am saying that twitter and facebook, etc assist in the location, timing and passion of the demonstrations, but probably aren't going to capture the larger influence, the deeper impact of what influenced people to finally stand up.
It wasn't just "oh jeez we had a sham election" that caused the deep resentment of the regime. It was the election that was the straw that broke the camels back, per se. There likely was a build-up of tension, anxiety, and influence between the last election and now.
And in that time, Iraq turned itself around from a hell-hole into a potential stable democracy. In that time, Obama was elected to the White House, Iran decided to vigorously pursue nuclear weapons, the recession creeped in, the internet became widely available, information became more attainable, etc. There were probably a dozen internal issues as well.
My interest is on the Iraq point. Yeah it was a boondoggle of a war, yeah Bush is evil, blah blah blah. I'm interested in what impact the cultural change in Iraq has had on the culture of Iranians.
You've answered your own question : " … Iran decided to vigorously pursue nuclear weapons … " – the Iraq invasion is certainly the reason for their vigorous pursuit of a nuclear weapons program.
Also, Obama's election to the White House has both raised expectations and taken the pressure off. Obama is not going to invade Iran. Thus a democratic space has been opened in Iran. The constant threats from the right wing of the GOP while Bushito was in power ensured that democrats in Iran kept their head down.
In any case I suspect that most influence has gone the other way. From Shia to Shia based on millions dead after eight years of war.
I would but every time I post it gets deleted by the administrator.
I see four major problems with most of the findings of the Chatham house thing.
1. Ecological fallacy (eg. the turnout argument)
They are looking at provincial totals and drawing conclusions about individuals. That is problematic. For instance looking at where voter turnout increased does not tell you who won new voters. New voters could have gone for Ahmadinejad, while some of his traditional supporters switched sides, for instance. You need individual level data to make that conclusion (and it isn't there).
Very true, but I specialize in doing stuff before it is cool. I only Bush-bashed when he had high approval ratings. If Obama becomes unpopular I will stop America-bashing.