Threatening to crush dissent, the powerful Revolutionary Guards warned protesters Monday that they would face a “revolutionary confrontation” if they returned to the streets to challenge the presidential election results in defiance of the country’s leadership.
The warning, on the Guards’ Web site, was issued despite an admission by Iran’s most senior panel of election monitors that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, according to a state television report two days after the country’s supreme leader pronounced the ballot to be fair.
Oopsie. Aren't Iran's mullahs supposed to be savvier than that?
And the resistance is what we should have done after Bush v. Gore. Oh well. Meanwhile, Willem Buiter has a terrific column in the FT: Bearded old men running scared will lose, though it may take a while. He concludes:
Economic, social, political, cultural and religious reforms will come and transform the country. I look forward to watching Iran join the 21st century not just in a few selective technologies, but in every way, drawing on the astounding wealth of its multi-millennial history rather than on the medieval caricature theocracy the country has had to put up with for the past three decades.
Watching the full sadness of what is going on in the streets of Iran, I cannot but be an optimist.
Yeah, a bit of age-ism there, but I'm sure the Mullahs can take it....
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A trigger for traumatic memories
still unresolved.
Reporter to Mahatma Gandhi: What do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi to reporter: I think it would be a good idea.
Apparently, different Western media are using different trans-
lations of the what was said about the 3 million votes. Looooong comments thread on this at Moon of AL.
On the BBC, it was reported that there were up to 3 million votes which exceeded the number of voters in some areas. However, since any Iranian can vote at any voting location (unlike the US), as the personal identity card is presented in order to vote and then marked when used for the vote, there are many reasons why a voter would vote out of his or her residential location. Vacations, trips, business reasons, etc. etc. This is not an unusual situation, apparently.
It was also said that even if all those votes proved to be fraudulent, the 3 million would not affect the outcome.
And I am no expert--Mo-ham-ed's comment about Shiraz applies to me quite neatly.
The review is also not completed. Story developing....
And I feel I don't yet know enough about what's going on. Someone (oh, where did I read this?) wrote that the Iranian government said only non-lethal weapons were used in controllilng the crowd on Monday, that there were "vandals" and "terrorists" acting as provocateurs who had used actual bullets. Black ops? Internal power play provocateurs? Government lying? I have no way of knowing.
My friend with Iranian contacts says...
1. The local police are the police that matter, and they're "confronting" the protesters with no guns in their holsters;
2. The Army is neutral;
3. Rafsanjani has 40 of the 43 votes he needs to call for a recount in Parliament (??? Not sure I understand the branches of government there).
4. The moral authority of the government is weakening daily, and
5. The government is really anxious not to shoot people; there's been no firing into crowds so far.
So, FWIW. Different from -c's take at MoL, which is also a great post. Time will telll....
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
#3 looks like the king killer--and if you striked the king, you
nust kill him. Or at least his power.
I've decided to sit this one out until I know more. I can't judge how things may play out as I simply do not have enough info about the players, the country, the people.
Back to RL--amazingly there is sunshine!! Wow, wowser, wowowowow! Oh, wait--it's gone! In the time I typed this.
Local meteorologist said we're getting this bcz the jet stream is much farther south than usual. To the south, extremely hot; Seattle hasn't had rain for, iirc, 17 days or more; and we get cooler temps with storms forming where the temps are mixing.