On the Iranaian Elections

In Fraud We Trust?
June 25, 2009
Foreign Policy Journal
by Nima Shirazi

Douter de tout ou tout croire, ce sont deux solutions également commodes, qui l’une et l’autre nous dispensent de réfléchir.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.

- Jules Henri Poincaré, La Science et l’Hypothèse (1901)

By now, we all know the story:

[…]

The turnout was a massive 85% by most estimates, resulting in almost forty million ballots cast by the eligible Iranian voting public.

Before the polls even closed, Mousavi had already claimed victory. “In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin,” he said. “We expect to celebrate with people soon.”
And so it was. Ahmadinejad won. By a lot. Some said by too much.

It didn’t take long before accusations started flying, knee-jerk reactions were reported as expert analysis, and rumor became fact. As Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei congratulated Ahmadinejad on his landslide victory, calling it a “divine assessment,” the opposition candidates all cried foul. Mousavi called the results “treason to the votes of the people” and the election a “dangerous charade.” Karroubi described Ahmadinejad’s reelection as “illegitimate and unacceptable.”

The Western media immediately jumped on board, calling the election a “fraud,” “theft,” and “a crime scene” in both news reports and editorial commentary. Even so-called progressive analysts, from Juan Cole to Stephen Zunes to Dave Zirin to Amy Goodman to Trita Parsi to the New Yorker’s Laura Secor, opined on the illegitimacy of the results. They cited purported violations, dissident testimony from inside sources, leaked “real” results, and seeming inconsistencies, incongruities, and irregularities with Iran’s electoral history all with the intention of proving that the election was clumsily stolen from Mousavi by Ahmadinejad. These commentators all call the continuing groundswell of protest to the poll results an “unprecedented” show of courage, resistance, and people power, not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

To me, the only thing unprecedented about what we’re seeing in Iran seems to be the constant media hysteria, righteous indignation, and hypocritical pseudo-solidarity of the West; a bogus, biased, and altogether presumptuous and uncritical reaction to hearsay and conjecture, almost totally decontextualized in order to promote sensational headlines and build international consensus for foreign intervention in Iran.

WSW


An unmistakable indicator of the real attitude of the Obama administration to the events in Honduras is the response of the US media. The media, led by the New York Times, immediately embraced the claims of the Iranian opposition that the election had been rigged and a coup had been carried out, without presenting any concrete evidence to support the allegations. It provided nonstop coverage of antigovernment demonstrations, and proclaimed the dissident faction of the clerical regime to be heading a “green revolution” for democracy.

In contrast, the US media has provided only minimal coverage of a real coup in Honduras. It has barely reported the police-state measures, arrests and beatings carried out by the Honduran military, and treated the anti-coup protests with utter indifference. On Monday evening, the events in Honduras were relegated to a mere mention on all three network news broadcasts, well behind the death of Michael Jackson.

What accounts for this stark contrast? The simple fact that the US government opposes the victor in the Iranian election and supports those who ousted Zelaya in Honduras.

The media, in particular the New York Times, which supported the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez, provides a further indication of US involvement in the Honduran coup. One month ago, as the political crisis in Honduras was heating up, the Times published a provocative article entitled “Chavez Seeks Tighter Grip on the Military.” The article retailed, without substantiation, claims of a massive crackdown by Chavez against dissidents within the Venezuelan military. This article, undoubtedly written on assignment from the CIA, was a certain indicator that the US was preparing subversion in the region.

From Wide Asleep in America

Lord Baltimore
Tehran | June 13, 2009

The Western press has clearly taken a side and has successfully managed to drag its uninformed audience along with it. News reports all refer to the continuing groundswell of protest to the election results as an "unprecedented" show of courage, resistance, and people power against the government not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

But what we have seen this past week seems to have far more in common with the events of fifty-six years ago, rather than just thirty.

In 1953, [deleted rehash of 1053 coup]

So what have we been seeing in Iran this past week?

Whereas there is scant evidence of any actual voter fraud or ballot rigging in the recent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popular movement we've been seeing on the streets of Tehran and elsewhere is being treated by the American media as some sort of new revolution; an energized, grassroots, and spontaneous effort to overthrow the leaders of the Islamic Republic in favor of a secular, pro-Western "democracy."

[deleted …. Examples of US covert operations inside Iran]

Ken Timmerman, the executive director of the right-wing Foundation for Democracy in Iran, which is the Persian Service of Voice of America (VOA), "spilled the beans on activities of the other arm of US meddling overseas, the obscenely mis-named National Endowment for Democracy, in a piece written one day before the election," McAdams tells us. Timmerman apparently stated that “there’s the talk of a 'green revolution' in Tehran," prompting McAdams to "wonder where that 'talk' was coming from. Timmerman did not appear to be writing from Iran." McAdams continues,

Timmerman went on to write, with admirable candor and honesty, that:

“The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.

“Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”

Yes, you say, but what does a blow-hard propagandist like Timmerman know about such things? Well, he should know! His very spooky Foundation for Democracy in Iran has its own snout deep in the trough of NED’s “open covert actions” against the Iranian government.

How does the “Foundation for Democracy in Iran” seek to “promote democracy” in Iran with our tax dollars? Foundation co-founder Joshua Muravchik gives us a hint in his subtly-titled LA Times piece, “Bomb Iran.”

Additionally, Weissman warns of Timmerman's devious sincerity: "Please note that this comes from a very involved right-wing critic who personally knows the expatriate Iranian community," he writes. "It is impossible to know how much government money went to these groups, since Congress has purposely exempted the National Endowment for Democracy from having to make public how it spends taxpayer money."

Even more recently, commentator Stephen Lendman reports that former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig told Pasto Radio on June 15 that "undisputed" intelligence proves CIA interference in the internal affairs of Iran. "The documents prove that the CIA spend $400 million inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election" and to incite regime change for a pro-Western government.

So, are we finally seeing that $400 million pay off in Iran this past week?

There are plenty of clues that reveal the Iranian street protests we're seeing daily in the news may not be all we're told they are. Indeed, the sheer numbers of protesters are impressive and anyone who feels that an injustice has occurred should certainly take to the streets - and not be subject to any sort of police brutality - but much of what we've seen and heard in the past two weeks shows signs of orchestration and bears fingerprints of foreign manipulation.

Many of the protesters we have seen are well-dressed westernized young people in Tehran who are carrying signs written in English, reading, “Where is My Vote?” and other such slogans in English. If the young voters of Iran were addressing their frustrations to their own government, why weren't they speaking the same language? Protesters seen in many YouTube videos and interviewed on American television also speak perfect English. An early message received through a social networking site after the election, sent to the National Iranian American Council and subsequently reported by the American media, came from (allegedly) an Iranian in Tehran. It read:

“I am in Tehran. Its 3:40 in the morning. I’ve connected with you [by hacking past the government filter]. It’s a big mess here. People are yelling from their houses – ‘death to the dictator.’ They are setting up a military government. No one dares to go out. No one has seen Mousavi today. Rumor has it that they have arrested him. I don’t have an email but I will contact you again.

Help us.”

The idea of an Iranian, aware of the long history of US interference in Iranian affairs, beseeching an audience in America for "help" is, to put it lightly, dubious.

(The same should definitely be said about a recent OpEd featured in the New York Times last Sunday which was supposedly written by "a student in Iran." The article, clearly hoping to galvanize the American readership into strongly supporting pro-Mousavi protesters against the Iranian government, was almost surreal. In it, the author - curiously named "Shane M." which is perhaps the least Iranian name ever - denies the accuracy of pre-election polling by writing, "let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later." Later, he describes a scene from the widespread pre-election pro-Mousavi street parties in Tehran, including this observation: "A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style." What possible young "Iranian student" would casually reference bagels and Dukes of Hazzard is beyond me, but I can probably think of a few CIA agents that may enjoy both.)

As for the widespread claim, published in nearly every major newspaper, that Mousavi had been disappeared, imprisoned, or put under house arrest, it obviously wasn't true considering that the very next day Mousavi was addressing a crowd of tens of thousands in the middle of Tehran from the roof of his car.

Furthermore, the chants we hear of “death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad” don't make much sense coming from Iranian citizens. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, "Every Iranian knows that the President of Iran is a public figure with limited powers. His main role is to take the heat from the governing grand Ayatollah. No Iranian, and no informed westerner, could possibly believe that Ahmadinejad is a dictator. Even Ahmadinejad’s superior, Khamenei, is not a dictator as he is appointed by a government body that can remove him." Roberts goes on to say,

[….]

The Western media is certainly not helping matters. It should be remembered, first off, that both the BBC and New York Times played important roles in the 1953 overthrow. Bill Van Auken's The New York Times and Iran: Journalism as State Provocation tells us of the documentation of journalism as the media arm of the imperial state, including the direct military participation of one of its CIA-connected reporters in the coup against Mossadegh:

In 1953, [the New York Times] correspondent in Tehran, Kennett Love, was not only a willing conduit for CIA disinformation, but also acknowledged participating directly in the coup. He subsequently wrote of giving an Iranian Army tank column instructions to attack Mossadegh's house. Afterwards, the Times celebrated the coup and demanded unconditional support for the Shah’s regime.

The BBC is known to have spearheaded Britain's own propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word ("exactly") that launched the coup d'état itself. Even the rise and importance of new media has to be viewed critically - something Western journalists aren't very good at. CNN recently created a new disclaimer icon to account for all the "unverified" material they've been broadcasting 'round the clock in their effort to stand with protesters and against the Iranian government.

The Iranian "twitter boom" has, to a certain extent, been engineered by a small group of anti-Ahmadinejad advocates in the United States and Israel. Whereas media organizations excitedly report about young Iranians twittering away on the streets of Tehran, it's clear that most of the activity is simply Americans "tweeting" amongst themselves. Nevertheless, the US government requested that Twitter postpone a scheduled downtime for maintenance so that tweeting from Iran could go uninterrupted. But, of course, this isn't meddling. Additionally, Caroline McCarthy of CNET News reports that "Users from around the world are resetting the location data in their profiles to Tehran, the capital of Iran, in order to confuse Iranian authorities who may be attempting to use the microblogging tool to track down opposition activity." While I'm not sure about "confusing" Iranian authorities, I am sure that actions like this serve to overhype the scope, reach, and importance of social networking and alternative media in Iranian politics and activism. The voices of the Iranian people should, of course, be heard and listened to - but the twittering mass of American, European, and Israeli support can hardly be said to speak on behalf of the Iranian public.