More Iran Round-Up

That picture is from today (Wednesday). The resistance isn't backing down yet. And now the state is threatening executions of dissenters.

In a message on a Web site associated with him, Mr. Moussavi called on his supporters to rally again on Thursday, and to go to their local mosques to mourn protesters killed in the demonstrations, officially numbering seven. His call directly challenged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had urged Mr. Moussavi to work through the country’s electoral system in contesting the election results.

Iranians using the Internet messaging service Twitter had already spread the word about the silent demonstration Wednesday.

The sense of threat against the opposition was growing. Reuters reported that Mohammadreza Habibi, the senior prosecutor in the central province of Isfahan, had warned demonstrators that they could be executed under Islamic law.

“We warn the few elements controlled by foreigners who try to disrupt domestic security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson that the Islamic penal code for such individuals waging war against God is execution,” Mr. Habibi said, according to the Fars news agency. It was not clear if his warning applied only to Isfahan, where there have been violent clashes, or the country as a whole, Reuters said.

As many have said, because it seems pretty obvious: Both sides now seem locked into direct, violent confrontation, as it appears impossible for either side to agree to some kind of negotiated solution that wouldn't be a complete capitulation. Either the mullahs get their way and force Ahmadinejad on the public for another term, or the resisters get their way and force the mullahs to back down and admit Ayatollah Khameini's will is not in fact "God's will" at all.

In the Khomeinist system, Khamenei is supposed to represent divine power on earth, via the “Hidden Imam.” He is supposed to be the leader of all the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, with the power to suspend the rules of Islam itself, if and when he so wishes.

His word is supposed to be final on all matters; when he speaks, Allah has spoken. Now he looks like just another politician engaged in a bitter power struggle for the control of the country. …

However the current struggle turns out, the regime has lost a good part of its legitimacy. It is also made clear that peaceful evolution within the regime is not possible. This makes the “regime change” option attractive for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Obama meanwhile continues babbling that there's no big difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad.

Of course that is absurd. For one thing, should Mousavi prevail, the mullahs would have lost an incredible amount of authority and credibility -- and this in turn would open up the possibility of actual democracy down the road, a democracy in which the mullahs do not control the candidates and the outcomes of elections.

For another thing, even if Mousavi wasn't that much different than Ahmadinejad before, he'd be greatly different after this. The President of Iran answers to the mullahs, the Guardian Council; effectively, he has only 12 constituents in the whole nation, those 12 members of the council. He can ignore everyone else because only those 12 count.

If Mousavi prevails, it would be in direct defiance of that council. There would be little advantage in doing much to appease them, having so thoroughly repudiated them and angered them.

His constituents would be the actual populace of Iran, more specifically, the reformist/liberal segment of the population. Obama more than anyone should know that one's politics can change dramatically depending on what audience one is seeking to please.

It's insulting this shape-shifting two-faced double-talking cryptosocialist Alinskyite douchebag needs that fact pointed out to him.

A good cheat-sheet for the players in Iran. Explains what the Guardian Council is, and what the Council of Experts is, for example, as well as the individuals involved.

The Daily Show sends Jason Jones to Iran for its "Access of Evil" reportage. The segments begin airing tonight.

Segments of the left seem to think this is a big deal, even if Bammy would prefer to nap through it.

Mossad: Iran will have the bomb by 2014.

Even El Baradei, useful idiot head of the IAEA, says he has a "gut feeling" that Iran wants the bomb. Nothing escapes this guy.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: don’t mess with us.”

...

Dr. ElBaradei has made similar points in the past, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday, but his latest remarks were more dramatic and less hedged with diplomatic caveats than previously.

That's dramatic? That's less hedged? That tells you how much he's been spinning for Iran in the past.

posted by Ace at 04:01 PM

| Access Comments