As Iran is pitchforked into the international headlines, with new dramatic headlines seemingly emerging by the minute, the focus is on the meaning and consequences of election results now being widely perceived as being ham-handedly phony. Here are four must read quotes on the situation — including one that questions the emerging conventional wisdom on the results.
1. Steve Clemons writes that he talked to a powerful, well connected Iranian who predicts there will be blood. Here’s part of it:
He conveyed to me things that were mostly obvious — Iran is now a tinderbox. The right is tenaciously consolidating its control over the state and refuses to yield. There is a split among the mullahs and significant dismay with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A gaping hole has been ripped open in Iranian society, exposing the contradictions of the regime and everyone now sees that the democracy that they believed that they had in Iranian form is a “charade.”
But the scariest point he made to me that I had not heard anywhere else is that this “coup by the right wing” has created pressures that cannot be solved or patted down by the normal institutional arrangements Iran has constructed. The Guardian Council and other power nodes of government can’t deal with the current crisis and can’t deal with the fact that a civil war has now broken out among Iran’s revolutionaries.
My contact predicted serious violence at the highest levels. He said that Ahmadinejad is now genuinely scared of Iranian society and of Mousavi and Rafsanjani. The level of tension between them has gone beyond civil limits — and my contact said that Ahmadinejad will try to have them imprisoned and killed.
Likewise, he said, Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Mousavi know this — and thus are using all of the instruments at their control within Iran’s government apparatus to fight back — but given Khamenei’s embrace of Ahmadinejad’s actions in the election and victory, there is no recourse but to try and remove Khamenei. Some suggest that Rafsanjani will count votes to see if there is a way to formally dislodge Khamenei — but this source I met said that all of these political giants have resources at their disposal to “do away with” those that get in the way.
–Andrew Sullivan says the future will be Twittered:
Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message….
….It’s increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and the old guard mullahs were caught off-guard by this technology and how it helped galvanize the opposition movement in the last few weeks. That’s why they didn’t see what those of us surgically attached to modems could spot a mile away: something was happening in Iran….
The key force behind this is the next generation, the Millennials, who elected Obama in America and may oust Ahmadinejad in Iran. They want freedom; they are sick of lies; they enjoy life and know hope.
This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games.
Go to the link to read it all.
3. Marc Ambinder poses some questions for the upcoming week:
Questions for the next week include: did the American media stand down? (I say no, but lots of other people say yes.) What are Khamenei’s intentions? How foreseeable was the plan to rig elections? Is it AT ALL possible that Ahmadinejad actually won by, say, 51%, but that his totals were inflated? Is the outpouring of protest (Green Revolution) more of an important development than the “re-election.”?
4. Nate Silver issues this cautionary note:
Like most Americans, there are few things I would like to see more than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hateful President, to be voted out of office. Elections in thuggish, authoritarian states like Iran need be treated with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny. I can’t say I have any real degree of confidence in the official results, which showed Ahmadinejad winning with some 62 percent of the vote.
There is a statistical analysis making the rounds, however, which purports to show overwhelmingly persuasive evidence that the Iranian election was rigged. I do not find this evidence compelling.
Go to the link for full details.
A NOTE ON NEW AND OLD MEDIA COVERAGE: Much coverage seems to have an underlying assumption that if the vote was rigged, the government ultimately can’t or won’t get away with it — that people, particularly young people, will take to the streets. Although there have been some instances of this being successful, history is crammed with examples of countries that effectively suppressed what the outside world felt was the begnning of regime change demanded from below. (For instance, remember China’s Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the resulting massacre?)
A regime can swat prostests aside if it doesn’t give a fig for international opinion, is willing to effectively close itself off to the world, jail whomever it wants to jail and kill anyone of any age or status who poses a serious risk or is involved in a demonstration and refuses to disperse.
One ominous sign is when a regime starts to order the foreign press out — and CBS News reports that is starting to happen:
Ahmadinejad also accused foreign media of launching a “psychological war against” against the country.
The protests are being the called the biggest civil signs of civil unrest seen in the country since the revolution, Global Radio News reporter Austin Mackell told CBS News. “There’s a symbol that we’ve seen around, which is a green handprint, and that’s reminiscent of the 1979 revolution when people would put handprints of blood on the walls to show their support of the revolution.”
…Mackell says the crackdown on protests has also extended to journalists, making it almost impossible for the media to cover the story. “I saw yesterday a Japanese camera crew who have full government permission and were working with an approved government translator, still were beaten and arrested by the police for filming at a protest. That kind of thing is happening to a lot of people. Journalists are having their cameras taken.
“There’s been a decision not to extend any press visas. None of the foreign press are going to have their visas extended. And because the visas are only given out for a week to ten days to start with, that means very shortly all of the foreign press will be gone, except for those who have bureaus here.
“I wouldn’t say the police have been showing restraint, they’re been really going hard after the protestors, but after the foreign press goes, who knows what will happen.
If history is any guide, can’t you guess what it will likely be?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.