Saturday, February 27, 2010

Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It!

By Robert Parry
February 27, 2010

Many in the West may agree that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an unpleasant politician with a rhetorical tendency to bluster about Iran’s power and to foolishly question the historical accuracy of the Holocaust, but that doesn’t answer the crucial question of whether he was democratically reelected.

Read on.
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Parry doesn't explain why hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in protest. Additionally, I cannot see how Parry can describe the Iranian government as in any way democratic-not when they kill and imprison their own people for exercising their right of protest.
Zach

Sat Feb 27, 01:55:00 PM 2010
M Henri Day said...

«The CIA undertook a propaganda campaign to depict Mossadegh as unstable while also passing out millions of dollars to rally big crowds demanding his ouster.» The CIA and those who determine the organisation's policies seem to regard the 1953 operation as a success worth of emulation, given that the same type of claims regarding Ahmadinejad's mental status so frequently figure in US corporate media. As to why «hundreds of thousands of Iranians» have protested the election results, the reason is obvious - the candidate on whom they had based so many hopes for a change in policy in the interests of an urban middle class lost. Accusing the winning candidate of fraud is psychologically easier than accepting the fact - as it seems to be and for which Robert Parry presents the evidence - that the majority of their countrymen had chosen someone else. Protests in themselves are no guarantee for the validity of the claims put forward by the protesters....

Henri

Sat Feb 27, 02:56:00 PM 2010
SAeiD.A said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sat Feb 27, 04:10:00 PM 2010
SAeiD.A said...

First of all Protests was Just in TEHRN and hundreds of thousand(PROTESTERs) was for the time that nobody has any idea of what has happened(until a week after election), and i'm wondering why nobody tries to see other people in iran who voted for ahmadinejad 25 million out of 40 million but ahmadinejad lost in Tehran! and my friends iran's population is more than 70 million not hundred thousand!

Sat Feb 27, 04:13:00 PM 2010
James Young said...

Yeah, you're right.

Wonder if you ever said the same thing about George W. Bush?

Well, actually, no, I don't.

Sat Feb 27, 04:21:00 PM 2010
QLineOrienatlist said...

Thought-provoking article.
The problem is that a complicated situation becomes very simple when you are sufficiently selective with the facts.

Yes, Mousavi, Rafsanjani, and Karroubi were instrumental in Iran-Contra. But do you seriously believe that it was all done behind Khomeini's back? Of course Khomeini knew the whole deal was going down. So I guess he's another guy who is compromised with contacts with the West.
It was Ayatollah Montazeri's office which blew the whistle on Iran-Contra and exposed it. But Montazeri was the spiritual guide of the current opposition. Hmmm. Kind of more complicated now...

The CIA was certainly interested in inciting mob violence, in 1953, but the rent-a-mobs were precisely the uneducated urban poor, and they are currently in the service of the ruling military-clerical Iranian power elite. Patriotic educated public opinion stood up for Mosaddeq, just as it is now standing up for the opposition. Oh, and it's Mousavi who has courageously stood up for Mosaddeq, who is an anathema to the clerical-military clique which runs the country. See how facts make simple things complicated?

To Henri: Doubts about Ahmandinejad's sanity? Are you joking? We have a video of him saying he saw a halo appear around him when he spoke at the UN, just to cite on example. Inviting a bunch of neo-Nazis and other crackpots to hold a conference on the historicity of the Holocaust might be mentioned in this context. His building a highway to greet the Hidden Imam, whose imminent arrival he daily anticipates could also be mentioned.

I am agnostic on the elections. But to say that Mousavi rejected a partial count is a bit rich. The regime could have put a stop to the then-peaceful street demonstrations if it had responded with an investigation of their claims in a timely fashion. Instead, they held out for weeks of head-breaking and then came out for a partial recount, a recount which they tightly controlled. (Just as they tightly controlled the original count, elbowing aside observers from the opposition.)
There's much more to be said. I think we all need to keep an open mind. The opposition lies and the regime lies and lies. I wish this article was a bit more even-handed.

Sat Feb 27, 05:16:00 PM 2010
Iranian said...

WE do live Ir an not you , and im not in Teh ran . you had to be here . in my small town the streets - after the election results - was just like a ghost city , and the nights before there was ceremony of g r e e ns everywhere !( and remember , now most of iran population - near 90 percent - are urban and they are also well educated , so we are not afghan or arab ! )you must be here to feel the res triction and f ear to understand why tens of millions dont dare to come out but they are just angry and disappointed in their homes .

Sun Feb 28, 10:16:00 AM 2010
Anonymous said...

If Mr.Perry does not understand that a theocracy, by definition, is not democratic, then he needs to get his head checked! The several millions who showed up in more than 70 cities in Iran are not Mousavi supporters, they are the secular democratic socialists of Iran. The same people who wre defeated by the 1953 coup! Accept that you are racist and do not see the Iranian peoples as equals...

Tue Mar 02, 09:07:00 PM 2010

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