latest on huffington post has the Revolutionary Guard warning it will crack down on further demonstrations - setting the stage for potential major bloodbaths

It's an interesting development, but I'm not sure that we can be certain what would happen in a situation where the Revolutionary Guard is called upon. The statement is from the top leadership of the guard, but there is plenty of evidence in the form of numerous arrests of the Revolutionary Guard middle leadership that there could be a good portion of them that will stand down or turn against the Iranian leadership. I think this is rhetoric more than an actual threat.

If the Revolutionary Guard is called upon, it could be just as much a sign of desparation by the Supreme leader as it is a show of force.

FWIW I agree with you. I think of this much more as a symbolic, rhetorical, desperate thing than an actual threat. I think that top leadership might be afraid to call out the Revolutionary Guard for exactly this reason - not being sure where the loyalties of the individual soldiers would lie in this instance (so many of them young, so many of the protestors young, mass movement, etc). So I think this is them basically playing their last trump card and saying "go home and behave or we'll call out the Guard" but I think in reality they'd be hesitant / very worried if it got to the point where they actually had to, because it's at that point that things could really spiral out of control against them quickly.

It's one thing (and an expected thing) for the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard, who owe their positions to those in power now, to back the establishment, but I have to wonder if they have any confidence that the ordinary soldier will fire into a crowd of women + men their age.

Just an interesting and significant development.

The ones who have the most to lose (Baseej (sp?)) are the once that are lashing out at protesters. A successful opposition movement would destroy their power. The Revolutionary Guard is much different. They would still hold quite a bit of power even if the opposition were successful.

Right, but the elite of the current Revolutionary Guard are tied into the existing power-structure. They get to go to all the good parties and profit from the existing system (intentional oversimplification, but you know what i mean).

Much more so than the ordinary soldier in the ranks. Which is why the leadership of the RG might say one thing, but that's no guarentee that the average soldier is going to open fire on a crowd of women + young people + grandparents.

True, but the Revolutionary Guard will still play a major role in the new government as well. If you don't work them into the power structure of a new government, they are powerful enough to start a civil war and establish a military state.

of course. you can't do away with them altogether. i wasn't trying to say they would dissapear. just that their senior leadership has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and that that may or may not be what the vested interest of the ordinary soldier is

Seeing reports of a national strike tomorrow and Wednesday on twitter.

any link showing the divide between upper and middle management? No Sarcasm intended, I shouldve made that clear due to our history....apologies. This isnt the Obama thread :)

Mizzou B-ball fan doesn't link. He posts with great frequency and you are expected to nod and approve.

would love to see that!

Dear Son of Shah,

This isn't about you either.

Thanks.

oh god really?

he needs to STFU or he's just going to cause problems

8:07 PM ET -- 'Rafsanjani poised to outflank Khamenei.' An analysis by Eurasianet, a project of George Soros' Open Society Institute:

Looking past their fiery rhetoric and apparent determination to cling to power using all available means, Iran's hardliners are not a confident bunch. While hardliners still believe they possess enough force to stifle popular protests, they are worried that they are losing a behind-the-scenes battle within Iran's religious establishment.
A source familiar with the thinking of decision-makers in state agencies that have strong ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there is a sense among hardliners that a shoe is about to drop. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- Iran's savviest political operator and an arch-enemy of Ayatollah Khamenei's -- has kept out of the public spotlight since the rigged June 12 presidential election triggered the political crisis. The widespread belief is that Rafsanjani has been in the holy city of Qom, working to assemble a religious and political coalition to topple the supreme leader and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"There is great apprehension among people in the supreme leader's [camp] about what Rafsanjani may pull," said a source in Tehran who is familiar with hardliner thinking. "They [the supreme leader and his supporters] are much more concerned about Rafsanjani than the mass movement on the streets."

Ayatollah Khamenei now has a very big image problem among influential Shi’a clergymen. Over the course of the political crisis, stretching back to the days leading up to the election, Rafsanjani has succeeded in knocking the supreme leader off his pedestal by revealing Ayatollah Khamenei to be a political partisan rather than an above-the-fray spiritual leader. In other words, the supreme leader has become a divider, not a uniter. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Now that Ayatollah Khamenei has become inexorably connected to Ahmadinejad’s power grab, many clerics are coming around to the idea that the current system needs to be changed. Among those who are now believed to be arrayed against Ayatollah Khamenei is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shi’a cleric in neighboring Iraq. Rafsanjani is known to have met with Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani’s representative in Iran, Javad Shahrestani.


A reformist website, Rooyeh, reported that Rafsanjani already had the support of nearly a majority of the Assembly of Experts, a body that constitutionally has the power to remove Ayatollah Khamenei. The report also indicated that Rafsanjani’s lobbying efforts were continuing to bring more clerics over to his side. Rafsanjani’s aim, the website added, is the establishment of a leadership council, comprising of three or more top religious leaders, to replace the institution of supreme leader. Shortly after it posted the report on Rafsanjani’s efforts to establish a new collective leadership, government officials pulled the plug on Rooyeh.

Quit meddling.

It was posted earlier in the thread and has been linked a couple of times on Huffington Post. There was an initial wave of arrests of 16 leaders within the Guard who were organizing their troops together to back the protesters.

There's also an unconfirmed report today that another senior leader has been arrested. We'll likely hear whether that's true later today.

Iran is basically shut down today. Strike is in full effect. Government is threatening their jobs if they don't return to work tomorrow. Given that another strike is planned for tomorrow, that's not likely to happen. Protests are expected to renew Thursday. Will likely be another very large rally.

didnt see anything about the strike today reported yet - that's good news

Interesting correspondance here. The women have figured out that the death of Neda has resulted in police/military steering clear of injuring women seemingly at all costs. As a result, many women are using that against the police knowing that they won't be attacked.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Nice to see the Iranian police is sexist.

More communications from Mousavi to organize the opposition. They've told everyone to go to the local markets and flood the places with people every day while not buying anything. It's another form of strike.


Also, protest locations will be announced just before protests to make sure government doesn't have time to mobilize and short-circuit the protests.

What a great country...


Time frame set for Ahmadinejad's inaugural - Los Angeles Times

And remember, loose lips sink ships, so whatever you do don't tell anybody about our super double secret plan. The government will never think of looking at my Twitters so this should really catch them completely by surprise.

Eh, I don't think they were aiming for secrecy clearly. More like "plausible deniability" or something. If you get a bunch of people dressed normally heading to the central market like they're going shopping and they get beaten/tear-gassed/massacred by the Revolutionary Guard and such, that is about 10 million times more powerful than a bunch of protestors getting beaten/gassed.

I think it's also supposed to be more inclusive and provide a way for people who might have been afraid to be out there protesting and getting beaten to say "see it's okay for you to participate safely and this is how."

I actually think it's an ingenious idea, and when combined with the mass strikes (that mbbf claims are going on though i haven't heard anything to that effect, but otherwise will start tomorrow i guess?), does a lot to portray it as much more of a popular-movement and make it accessible.

Nicely done DT...

How plausibly deniable is this though? I mean seriously, it's like a revolution plan conceived by the cast of Code Name: Kids Next Door.


Sorry, I don't really see that. I mean, unless we're supposed to be stupid enough to find them more sympathetic because of what they're wearing / not wearing, either they are or they aren't. Let's think about this a minute, just for the heck of it. If you're the guys in charge & the guys with the guns, then what matters ultimately is whether you're doing what you're told to do, not what form of disobedience you're practicing. Meanwhile if you're on the outside watching and are upset by an armed response then I'd say the hue & cry is going to be raised & at roughly the same volume regardless of whether it's protesters with signs being shot in the streets or someone taking part in a fake-shopping-it's-really-a-strike protest and especially if you're made the scam known publicly. What denial would be plausible after that? It's just sort of insulting to the intelligence if what you suggest they're thinking is actually the logic behind this amateur hour stuff that MBBF posted.


Struck me completely the opposite I guess, to the extent that it really made we wonder whether the new guy is capable of handling a major role even if there is some sort of regime change.

LOL - If there's one thing you can't argue with it the ability of the people in power ON BOTH SIDES in Iran right now to successfully stage a revolution. The leadership of the establishment and the leadership of the hardliners is still entirely composed of people who were insturmental in the 1979 Revolution.

No offense, but I'd take their revolutionary-planning (which has succeeded in the past spectacularly) over yours any day. If they say that this is the best course of action then there isn't a doubt in my mind that it is.

it's not about whether we find them sympathetic. it's about whether the ordinary soldiers and riot police will massacre them if instead of being a mob of marchers it's a more orderly throng of people with their kids/parents/etc who are headed towards the central market, and whether framing it in this way will get people's mothers and grandmothers to join in and swell the numbers beyond what they have been.

Time will tell, I just see the only difference this making being which clothes they're wearing when they get beaten or shot.

As for any impact on the troops/militia, if they ultimately don't shoot based on the composition of the crowd then this is already over (whether either side knows that for sure yet or not) & we're just watching it wind down to the conclusion anyway.

as much as i say that, i think the resolution to this won't come down to the troops and whether or not they'll fire on the crowd.

instead it'll be Rafsanjani and his supporters removing the Ayatollah and setting up a "Council of Ayatollahs" in his place.

after reading the report that was linked in the huffington post snippet that i posted last night i really see that as the likely outcome of all of this.

the continued protests and mourning is just ensuring that Rafsanjani gets the like...4 more clerics on his side that he needs and keeping the pressure on those that have "committed" to him to stay the course

Sounds like a bloody confrontation today. Live rounds being fired at the protesters as they assembled.

From what I can see on Twitter, things have gotten very bad.

damn.

gah. my heart breaks for those brave souls.

Man, it looks like from the reports that there's one hell of a battle going on in multiple locations in Tehran.

Also, the gov't taped and photographed demonstrators and is now showing their pics on state TV so they can arrest them.

I'm not trying to make a domestic political point, but it's too bad Iran citizens seemingly have no practical right to firearm ownership.

Just saw another video on MSNBC showing protesters rushing police and military and running them off holding nothing more than stones. Crazy stuff.

Gun ownership rights for Iranian citizens is only one of many bullshit things they have to deal with. What a shitty region to live in. :(

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Officials: President Obama reconsidering July 4 invitations to Iran « - Blogs from CNN.com
Well... that'll teach 'em!

urban gun ownership is low, but rural gun ownership is apparently very high, which is one reason they're worried if the protests start spreading outside tehran

Shouldn't you be smuggling guns into Iran or something?

Some things I found interesting in this article:


huh. interesting.


What HAVEN'T we been blamed for by these douchebag countries? Whether it is true or not is irrelevant, their hatred for us knows no boundaries.


This sounds suspiciously arrogant, egotistical, and dictator-like to me. Worse, our stupid media adds to the propaganda by referring to him in this manner.



huh. can you define "we", "no witness", and "major fraud or breach" please? Oh wait, that would only be possible if you weren't corrupt, Western hating power-mongers.

Moussavi has to distance himself from the officially in order to avoid making it easy for the government to imprison him

Exactly. He's the main organizer. He's also made himself bullet-proof to some extent by proclaiming that he's ready to be martyred if need be. That puts the government in a position that they'll likely face a civil war if he's killed. In addition, he's asked them to continuing the strikes and protests if he's imprisoned. So the gov't risks even larger and more vigorous protests if he's arrested.

It's obvious that he and his cohorts have done this before. They appear to be outflanking the government moves every step of the way.

I am amazed (but not) that you guys think this situation would be better if the average citizens had firearms. Violence begets violence. There would be dead police as well as FAR more dead protestors. Imagine if the civil rights movement involved protestors firing back at police brutality.

Didn't he flatly deny saying that though?

Yeah, the guy who finished third in the race also has withdrawn his request for a new election count. (Can't think of his name at the moment).

I didn't see that.

But your point also leads to something else. We have to remember that communication is very limited in Iran. Even if he didn't say it, it was communicated throughout the movement and any denial was probably not passed on. Many people don't identify with him on all issues, but he's become a figurehead for this movement. He's almost a puppet of the people at this point. If he's killed, protesters will go nuts and defections within the police, army and Revolutionary Guard will occur.

The anti-civil rights movement had no issue with this.

But imagine if the Colonists had had no access to firearms...

Fixed.

I don't know if it would be "better", but its surely the only chance for regime change. The side that doesn't have firearms isn't going to win against the side that does.

thanks. ;)

Dear molson,

I agree.

Sincerely,
The former Shah of Iran

well played sir

Here ya go, I knew I remembered something along those lines from somewhere.


So I don't think it's a "he denied" outright, but both allies & his own web site denied it. The difference might be more along the lines of "isn't willing to admit" IMO, but I knew I saw something about that somewhere.

Reports out of Iran tonight say that the rooftop chants are deafening in some place in Tehran. Amazing how these people fight for their lives every day on the streets and then go on their roof for three hours each night and taunt the dictator. Wash, rinse, repeat. These people don't give up easy.

Well it is somewhat easier to do the nightly rooftop thing when you've got an unemployment rate of at least 17% (and estimates as high as 30% for young & women). A lot of them don't exactly have much else to do right now.

Pre-election link with the reference, although their unemployment figures are notoriously hard to pin down.
As Iran Gets Ready to Vote, Economy Dominates - NYTimes.com

Pretty sure those estimates are really low. The Iranians I chat with over lunch on a daily basis say that 35-40% is much closer to reality.

Given that snipers have taken aim at people on rooftops here and there over the past week, I'm not sure that it is without risk. Brave stuff either way.

And be accused of meddling? Heaven forbid!

Excellent. Shooting at unarmed people on rooftops. What's next, secretly buying weapons from the United States?

35-40% is what i've heard too

touche, my friend, touche. However, I would argue that this is a very different time. With mass media, globalism, etc, a revolution like the United States achieved in 1776 is very different from what we are dealing with today.



What he said.

just a side note sure, but anyway :
the Iran has had 4 soccer players "retired" and essentially banned for life yesterday (and confiscated their passports upon return, haven´t yet found a statement if that means they are actually trapped in Iran ?) who wore green wristbands to support the demonstrators in a June 17 game. They were forced to remove them at half time, Mahdavikia still wore a green captain´s band though for the 2nd half.
And not no-names but the team captain (Mehdi Mahdavikia) and it´s biggest star (Ali Karimi) .

and o yeah, that´s the official version : http://www.iransportspress.com/news/...009-06-24.html

yeah, right ...

I'm confused about this point based on the different people making it, I can't tell whether it's literal or sarcastic.

Are you saying the Iranian rebels weren't armed and didn't have the support of the military in 1979? You're going to need one or both to get anywhere. Protesting is nice, but it doesn't accomplish anything on its own.

How exactly will they accomplish regime change with Twitter alone?

I don't disagree, I was just trying to err on the side of a conservative estimate so nobody could accuse me of inflating the influence it would have on crowd availability.

Holy moly. Anybody see this cartoon from the Guardian? If you've seen the 'Neda' death video, you'll get the reference..........

Attachment 789

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. The revolution in 1979, to my knowledge, involved no weapons on the side of the opposition.

Somehow my quoting of your "twitter" comment did not get multi-quoted. It's nice of you to take my reasoned statement and turn it into only being about "Twitter". I said nothing about twitter and I was not referring to twitter as the differencebetween today and 1776. You may not have noticed but we have the United Nations, television, telephones, the internet, aircraft, satelites, and many other things that did not exist in 1776. There was no hope for American colonists to use the global media in an attempt to make a peaceful break from Britain.

Mousavi speaks out about the government crackdown. Anyone want to take a guess how long before he mysteriously disappears? Also, 70 professors that have spoken to him have been arrested. I am sure we will never find out what happens to them.

Iran opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi lashes out; 70 professors arrested - Los Angeles Times

Yikes. Not for the faint of heart. This is what happens when you're a protestor on the streets and you say the wrong thing to a religious police officer carrying an ax........

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Interesting first-hand account of a reporter abduction.

http://tehranbureau.com/abduction/

FYI......66 of the professors were released this morning.

1979 was fueled initially by protests, but we only had regime change because of the armed street fighting towards the end, and most importantly, the Iranian military abandoned the Shah and was on the side of the rebels.

I was using Twitter as shortform for all of those things - none of which will cause regime change. There will have to be real violence, the threat of violence, or most hopefully, for those with the guns on the other side to join you.

That's a pretty disinegnuous shortform then. You even said "twitter alone" as if to mean there was nothing else you were talking about.

When you say initially, you mean nearly a year of protests? There was a cycle of non-violent mourning protests, much like what we're going to see over the coming weeks in the current opposition movement. The fighting didn't occur until after a year of protests and the reason the military abandoned the Shah was BECAUSE of the protests. Basically speaking, the guys without the guns convinced the guys with the guns to come to their side through non-violent measures.

Everything achieved in that revolution was achieved through non-violent means, including the conversion of the police and military to their side. Sure, there were some flare-ups after that, but the Shah could see the writing on the wall and left pretty quickly after that.

I'm glad I clarified then.

The Internet/Protesting/UN don't cause regime change.

That's true, and if protests can cause the guns to change sides, that's great. I'm just saying at the end of the day, it's the guns that decide the power.

It's just an interesting hypothetical to me, I don't have a crystal ball to know what would happen. If there were established, armed, revolutionary groups in Iran, maybe this would already be over. Maybe just the threat of such a group would have encouraged clean elections. It's easy to be a corrupt government then the only thing you have to worry about is protesters, the internet, and the UN. I believe this regime will be able to hold out for much longer than the Shah did. Worst case scenerio, they have several years to be able to figure out how to deal with the peaceful protests until regime change becomes even a small possibility.

This situation of what will the military do makes me think of a great passage from A Song of Ice and Fire (a couple names changed so as to not to spoil for anyone):

It depends on what you mean by 'regime change'. Do you mean a full conversion away from the current form of government?

Actually, you're incorrect. After the events at Lexington and Concord, for example, the patriot leaders in Massachusetts took great pains to both write a comprehensive account of the battles, and to make sure that their account made it to England before Gen. Gage's official account did. They actually got their account published in England weeks before Gage's account arrived.

Additionally, the colonists used the 18th century version of Twitter (a series of messengers on horseback) to communicate the news of Lexington and Concord up and down the Eastern seaboard. By the evening of the 19th, residents of Providence, Rhode Island had been alerted to the battle. By the afternoon of the 23rd, word had reached New York City. By the 24th, Philadelphia. Heck, just a week after the battle had occured, residents of Alexandria, VA (and George Town, Maryland) knew what had happened.

I think it's also pretty evident that the Delcaration of Independence wasn't just written for an American audience. The "long list of abuses" that Jefferson listed was, at least in part, intended to influence European opinion of the Americans and their cause.

It's true that these aren't perfect parallels. As you say, this was 1775-1776, not today. But to say that our colonists were either uninterested or unsuccessful in using what amounted to the "global media" just isn't true.

As for the whole question about guns and tyranny... it's just my opinion, but I believe that civilian ownership of firearms is a much better check on the formation of tyranny than it is in overthrowing an established tyrannical government.

Some might even say it was self-evident.

gotta say - Cam wins here

Unless you have a tank factory hidden in the woods somewhere ;)

That's my fault for taking short form just as molson did. Yes, the colonists could reach a "global" (English) audience, but not at the same rate and not with the same coverage. Today not only through twitter, but through MSM contacts, Iranians are able to reach almost every corner of the world instantly. If it were 1776 it would have taken weeks for any account of the situation to reach Europe (I assume, but maybe my timing is slightly wrong). Could the colonists reach other parts of the world with their message? Of course. Is it really anything like today? I don't think you can even pretend like it was.

As for your statement about gun ownership preventing tyranny, I agree (I think, but haven't put a lot of thought into it). However, I think the idea that guns in the hands of the protestors in this specific case would improve the situation is just incorrect.

Lots of things reportedly going on behind the scenes to oust or significantly cripple the Supreme Leader's power.

Supreme Leader?

I think you're focusing way too much on how the means of communication have changed while ignoring the fact that the ends of this type of communication with the outside world are/were largely the same. Yes, communication was much slower back then. That hardly means it was less important.

this is true, because reaction time was also much slower.

welp, I have a feeling that this is over and all goes back to status quo except the hardliners are more emboldened, no?

hmm?

well the crackdown has basically quieted the biggest revolutionaries and the uprising is becoming more and more underground...

all the while the hardliners ratchet up the US Israel rhetoric and continue to wait out the uprising. Me thinks their endurance rating isnt high enough to wait out the government's.

This is much different than a western world protest. The 1979 revolution went this way as well. There would be anywhere from 3-7 days in protests followed by a 20-25 day lull and then it would start all over again. Don't forget that the mourning protests were a big part of that movement and of most movements in Iran. We haven't even got to the 40th day following the deaths yet. I'd expect more major uprisings in another 30-35 days as the 40th day mournings begin. The 40th day after Neda's death will be especially explosive. In 1979, the government was dumb enough to kill people at the 40th day protests, which would repeat the cycle and more protests and uprisings would begin 40 days after that.

Don't confuse the relative lull for a government victory. Things in Iran work MUCH differently than they do in the western world. Also, the nightly rooftop protests have continued without end since the elections. If anything, they've gained strength with the daytime crackdowns.

I tend to agree that it's over. THe people tried and they put the hammer down. With that said, at some point, it'll happen....just isn't going to be this time around.

no offense but so far youve been off on this...as well. Much of what you said hasn't materialized and has simply been speculative, inaccurate, and assumptive. I'll believe what I see from the News reporters and while the information is sparse at best it seems to be more in line with what 'we' are seeing. The fever has died down and at 99.2 degrees, a fever doesnt accomplish much. Wanna make a bet about what happens in 30 to 45 days? This has nothing to do with Partisanship if you plan on throwing the martyr card and has everything to do with speculative misses and inaccurate directions...

to further prove my point:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090628/..._iran_election

Clashes today in Mousavi's hotbed of support...3000 protestors now. Down by a lot, is that #. Its a shame really but you cant blame them when theyre outgunned.

So, can we at least call Iran a dictatorship now?

I thought we had been calling them that for awhile now.

well a theocracy no doubt.

What? You mean the revolution will not be Twitterized? Or rather, knowing how to play with the techno flavor of the month doesn't equal a revolution?

I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

tell that to....

well go into the obama thread and tell that to'm.

Thousands of protesters back in the streets today hoping for a peaceful protest. Instead, battles are raging again. Reports of many wounded.

Guardian Council stated that the recount was complete after only a few hours and the results were certified with no irregularities found.

And, well, I'll let this speak for itself.........

Iran recount seen as bid to placate opposition - Yahoo! News

dola

Looks like that whole 'elections showed no irregularities' announcement didn't go over too well. Protest numbers swelled after the announcement and protests continued into the night.