Supreme Leader to Demonstrators: "Drop Dead!"
I am writing this as the sun is about to rise in Iran. I have this dreaded feeling that very bad things are about to happen throughout Iran in a few short hours and I pray I am wrong.
In his Friday Prayer address, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei essentially threw down the gaunlet at the foot of presidential contender Mir Hossein Mousavi and his allies warning that no matter how the Guardian Council may see it, the election was divinely free and fair no ifs, ands, or buts. Khamenei ominously warned that any further mass demonstrations, such as the ones planned by Mousavi's legions of supporters for today, are now considered a direct threat to the regime and no longer deemed by the mullahs a mere protest against a rigged election. Demonstrators, according to Khamenei's Fatwa are now fair game for the regime and will be met with the full force of the state.
If, as predicted, Mousavi's hundreds of thousands of followers take to the streets throughout Iran, Khamenei and Ahmadenijad may follow through and unleash the much feared Basij Militia -- the regime's dreaded Nazi equivalent of the SS and Gestapo. Think of the Basij Militia as roaming divisions of religious zealots armed with pipes, chains, knives, swords and guns who only answer to Ahmadinejad. Under his direct control and dispatched by his hand-picked Revolutionary Guard commanders, the Basij have begun to transform Iran from a theocracy to an outright military dictatorship and protesters will not merely face a round up, but the full wrath of the state's deadly force.
That full force is something Americans barely comprehend -- with good reason. Iran being a police state, Khamenei has decided that no matter the magnitude of the outcry, whether domestic or foreign, he would rather commit state sponsored mayhem and murder against his citizens rather than cave into the demands of his opponents. While overtly Khamanei is no firebrand like his presidential puppet Ahmadenijad, he is a diabolical believer in a pontifical-like divine ordination of his absolutist authority. In the warped reasoning of such tyrants, It is Allah's will that his rule be absolute, and, therefore, preservation of the Islamic Republic and the mullahs' monopoly on such divine-right power is worth every drop of spilt Iranian blood, especially if that blood is spilt to prevent the evil hand of foreign forces from overthrowing the Islamic Republic.
In 1979, when faced with the prospect of massive demonstrations against his rule, Shah Reza Pahlavi was convinced by Jimmy Carter not to fire on his citizens, and the rest as they say, was another nail in the coffin of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 2009, when faced with a similar street conflagration, Ayatollah Khamenei will pay no heed to President Obama, and that, I venture to say, will be the first big well-deserved nail in the Ayatollah's coffin for the violence he will unleash on Tehran's streets.
I say that because while Khamanei may succeed in silencing his detractors in the short run, the ruling clerical establishment is not universally beholden to him, and may very well turn against the Supreme Leader if they believe that his rigidity has irrevocably turned the Iranian public against the regime itself. Unlike the Pope, a supreme leader can theoretically be religiously "impeached" by the Council of Experts.
Unfortunately, the titanic struggle of wills between the Supreme Leader (how Orwellian a title) and Mousavi that is so riveting may very well seal the fate of any durable prospect of a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran.
Why so? Because Khamenei and Ahmadenijad are drinking their own foreign interventionist Kool Aide and assert the regime itself is under assault by the West.
Indeed, in yesterday's ominous address, the Supreme Leader brought up the dreaded bogeyman Britain and denounced it as the "most evil" of Iran's enemies. Like feeding candy to a baby, exhorting the regime's supporters to blame the UK for the disturbances is all Khamanei's mad followers need to strike at pro-democracy demonstrators. Khamenei and Ahmadenijad are holding their fire against the U.S. because in the annals of Persian history the UK warrants a much more demonic place.
For good measure, the Supreme Leader can't stand the BBC's Persian radio and television broadcasts, which have become the most feared instrument of truth against the regime and are virtually impossible to jam. And, just to make sure the U.S. is caught up in the regime's anti-foreign tirade, Ahmadenijad's political hatchetman, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi fired a preemptive shot at Washington warning President Obama that any further statements on his part will irrevocably impair any hope for a serious dialogue -- as if Ahmadenijad was going to listen to reason in the first place.
Quite likely, Khamanei fears taking on Obama and the U.S. right now, as well. He may be calculating that to do so will only further inflame his domestic detractors who are mesmerized with the possibilities of what Obama's outreach to Iran may mean for Iran. Khamanei may also want to keep the door open to Washington to manifest an artificial appearance of external reasonableness while cracking heads inside his country. But deep down inside, Khamanei likely believes that the U.S. is instigating the crisis, and that Washington's preoccupation with Iran's nuclear program is nothing but a stalking horse to ultimately bring down the regime. All the more reason why, in my estimation, the Ayatollah will want to accelerate his nuclear weapons program regardless of any rapprochement with the Obama Administration.
That may backfire.
The more the regime clings to its nightmarish fear of its own people, and fails to accommodate to the forces at play, the more likely the regime may accelerate its own decay.
Those in the U.S. constituting the discredited neoconservative bund demanding a clarion call to the ramparts from President Obama to Mousavi's followers dangerously misunderstand Iran and the Ayatollah's calculations.
As tempting as it is for seriously callow Iranian observers such as Charles Krauthammer or Paul Wolfowitz to denounce the Obama Administration's carefully calibrated approach, they do so merely to cleanse their flawed reasoning for invading Iraq. They believe that the Iran today (like Iraq or Eastern Europe or the Phillipines) is ripe for a democratic uprising if only the U.S. rushes in a megaphone or three of rhetorical support no matter how many may die in the streets (ask the Kurds what Wolfowitz's clarion call brought onto them in 1992. These miscalculations always like at the root of what trips up such emotion-laiden flawed logic. How interesting to read Wolfowitz's Washington Post Op Ed yesterday taking one giant leap over his most recent and utter catastrophic miscalculation of what an American intervention could accomplish just next door to Iran.
Other than scoring cheap political points against the administration and perhaps feeling good about it, there is absolutely no basis to assert that should President Obama stand on the rooftop of the White House shouting out his solidarity with Iran's women and students, as such action would help tip the balance against the Ayatollah -- it is the Ayatollah's own obstinancy that will bring that about.
Rather, it could very well backfire on America's own goals and objectives and the hopes and aspirations of the very demonstrators we are most committed to supporting.
Indeed, the advice coming out of Iran from Mousavi's supporters is totally contrary to the flawed neocon logic. Iranian intermediaries in the UAE who are communicating with their brethren in Tehran are sending carefully worded messages urging Washington not to take Khamenei's or Ahmadinejad's bait.
But why would chaps like Krauthammer or Wolfowitz respect the wishes of Iran's anti-Khamenei democratic forces if such entreaties fly in the face of their own preconceived ideological beliefs?
I trust that those excoriating the White House until now will take a moment and listen not to their own voices, but to the credible messages coming out of Iran from the regime's opponents and accept that they are serving no one inside Iran by trying to provoke an irrational and unhelpful statement out of the president at this time -- a statement that would be seized as an excuse to unleash the Basij.
But should blood flow through the streets of Tehran as many fear, the president will be justified in taking a stronger position against the regime, which will no longer have a pretext to justify its crackdown from anything the president may have said to date to blame America for its resort to force and violence.
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What a hollow victory it always is to "rule" by fear and control. Now the entire world
can see through it and see that the emperor has no clothes.
The mullahs and their ilk
clearly can see the tidal wave of their country wishing for transformation from a repressive
theocracy, and they freaked when they saw the vote was clearly against them. It takes
great courage and desire for truth to continue protesting the outcome of the vote, and likely
to get worse. divinely appointed, indeed- snort!
The ever-diminishing ranks of the aging fellows in the odd headgear who claim to be in contact with the "Supreme Being" or confirmed in their status by divine decree are fading out of human history. Their authority (always "God-given") cannot long stand against the growing mutual recognition and respect that humans have for one another as free and equal persons. The beginning of the end for the likes of the "Supreme Leader" (and all other Kings, Dukes, Princes of the Church and otherwise, etc., etc began with the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, and with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, in 1789. Since that time the unquestioned rule of those who claim to be "divinely appointed" has been in rapid decline -- yes, even that of our last President who claimed that "Jesus was his favorite philosopher" and then decreed torture and unjust war. The sad spectacle of the bible-thumping Evangelicals who clustered about this fellow might not have worn odd hats but they are cut from the same cloth as Khamenei. Hang in there humans! And God bless all of the folks in Iran who seek nothing less than human dignity.
I wish I could share your optimism. Any religion whose answer for defection is to execute any members who attempt to do so has an abnormally high retention rate. And the flocks will always demand aging fellows in odd headgear to lead them.
Why has the Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri not been heard from yet? Peace
He has! He has issued an statement denouncing the fraudulent election last week. (I couldn't find an English translation of his statement.
The solution to this whole mess is simple. Simply go on a national strike. Everyone who believes in Mousavi should stay in doors until the country folds.
The dysfunctional leaders of Iran think they have everything under control. You know what? The blood that runs in their veins is fueled by consumer spending. If that stops, so does the government.
Yes they should have inacted "Free Speech Zones" like we did in NY at republican national convention.
Where people were tricked into walking into cages where media could ignore them. Remember the good ole days?
Detroit riots
Los Angeles riots.
The Army and National Guard was called out.
That was ok then.
"I trust that those excoriating the White House until now will take a moment and listen"
Listen? What? Why should they change their behaviour now?
... Khamenei and Ahmadenijad may follow through and unleash the much feared Basij Militia -- the regime's dreaded Nazi equivalent of the SS and Gestapo.
Hmmm... Iran's Basij has committed the equivalent of millions of genocidal murders to enforce racial purity. How many million, pray tell? And why are there any Christians or Jews still there who the Basij haven't found?
Doubt that they are any worse than the former Shah and his secret police whose tyrannical rule (supported by the U.S.) led to his ouster in the revolution that made Iran a theocracy. So far, Obama is handling the Iran elections just right -- after all, it is a civil affair, not an international one.
Who do you think they recruited to form the Basij?
There are still Christians and Jews still in Iran. They live together but have jobs and own businesses within the in the general population The Bahai is a religious sect that was driven out of Iran.
"Khamanei fears taking on Obama an the United States" No Marc , unless you are a Somali pirate , no one outside of US citizens fears the Obama administration and the USA....Ira
This is just plain dumb, since Obama has increased the defense budget, expanded U.S. military activity in Afghanistan, etc. Under Bush, the inept handling of the Iraq war and (especially) the occupation and subsequent (largely U.S. military-led) "nation-building" efforts there only served to demonstrate U.S. military weakness. Ultimately China and Russia will need to deal with North Korea, and they probably will. As for the rest of the world, the problem is obvious: Through the early 1970s, the primary galvanizing force behind opposition to the virtual dictators we propped up was communism, which offered oppressed peoples some hope of a (materially) better life. Communism was an economic philosophy that some people were ready to die for. Since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, communism has been replaced as a galvanizing force for revolution by radical Islam, for which many people are willing to die. Communism was a much more manageable "enemy." Communists by and large were not "terrorist
they respected and feared us....
HA HA...respe
As for fearing us....why should they fear us? Fear is NOT the way to earn respect. These people live in fear of their lives every day thanks to a so-called religious zealot.
Are we SO great that we should be feared?
I mean come ON....we lost our integrity when we invaded Iraq - AFTER we had the good will of the whole world with us after 9/11.
Religion is to aid people, not to hinder their growth.
Ah, but it does though, doesn't it, and not only their growth...
Religion is mythology that some people care to believe in.
You are SO wrong. Religion is a political tool used to turn people into close-minded puppets and simpletons. Growth???? You gotta be kidding!!!
Religion IS the opiate of the masses...o
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