Mousavi's letter to Iranians (Aljezeera)

[struggle4progress]

Fellow countrymen,

I am receiving news about objections to the declared results of the latest elections, from all over the country. I am certain that these reactions are not for my personal sake, but it's due to concern about a new way of political life that is being forced on our country ...

I have repeatedly, during the course of these elections, have spoken of dangers of escaping from the law and have emphasised that this method might result in tyranny and dictatorship, and today our nation is standing at a point that finds this prospect tangable.

We, as those who are loyal to the Islamic Republic and its constitutional laws, consider the Holy Jurisdiction one of the fundamentals of this regime and follow the political movements within legal frameworks ...

As someone who likes the police, I recommend them avoid harsh reactions towards people's self-motivated actions and not let the people's trust to this worthy organ be damaged ...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009614142547175118.html

[msongs]

1. there is NO Islamic REPUBLIC - it's a religious dictatorship with fake democracy nt

[struggle4progress]

3. They may not want the bomb and other unexpected truths (Zakaria in Newsweek re: Iran)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=450763&mesg_id=450763


Sloganeering about Iran is not a substitute for accurate thinking

In 1979, the Iranians rebelled against one repressive regime, propped up by outside support -- and managed to replace it with another repressive regime. The dynamics that allowed the religious fundamentalists to seize control in 1979 are not entirely clear to me: one possibility is that the mosques became the only safe places as the Shah attempted to maintain control

The history of covert US involvement may be more extensive than anyone realizes: of course, the CIA role in 1954 is well-known, but the Iran-Contra arms transfer when Reagan was President and Mousavi was Prime Minister remains a murky mystery -- and perhaps the US oddly was supporting both sides in the Iran-Iraq war. The US neo-cons are curiously supporting Ahmadinejad currently, apparently in order to be able to strengthen a case for war against Iran

Today, there are a number of posts on DU blaming the 1988 political prisoner executions on Mousavi, who was prime minister at the time, often with the claim that Mousavi was a "socialist." But the pretext for those executions was an MEK attempt to invade from Iraq to overthrow the Iranian government, and the W administration subsequently used the MEK as the face of Iranian opposition. This suggests long-term covert connections with the MEK and the possibility that the 1988 invasion was deliberately engineered as a provocation. Mousavi, of course, was appointed Prime Minister by Ayatollah Khomeini -- and therefore his credentials as a reformer are suspect, at best. But the only high-level first-hand account of the 1988 prisoner executions comes from Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who attributes a significant role to Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi -- Ahmadinejad chose as Minister of Interior

I cannot imagine how anyone of sound mind could really support the present Iranian regime, as it is reactionary and brutal. On the other hand, the neocon warmongers remain eager to unleash a Middle Eastern Armageddon, which cannot help the majority of people in the region, and in pursuit of their goal they continue to be exceedingly dishonest. This leads to painful policy considerations. For example, under W the neocons tried to create hysteria about Iran's nuclear program, as part of a more general neocon attempt to undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Iran is a signatory and under which Iran's nuclear activities are actually legal: as an opponent of nuclear power, who thinks the civilian nuclear power industry was created as a propaganda cover for the Cold War arms race, I find myself in the awkward position of having to support Iran's enrichment activities because the NPT deserved support

I posted this Mousavi piece for information purposes. He is writing for an Iranian audience and the piece may therefore shed some light on politics and culture

Towards a Theory of Nonviolent Revolutions: The Case of Iran 1977-79 (Daniel Ritter)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=456181&mesg_id=456181

Elliot Abrams: "Don't Cry For Me Ahmadinejad"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=455787&mesg_id=455787

Shame on Max Boot and Commentary (booman | Daily Kos)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=110&topic_id=13030&mesg_id=13030

Neocons Using Iran Election To Push For War (TPM)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=456182&mesg_id=456182

Posted 4/14/2005 11:33 PM
Iran's 'terrorists' helped disclose nuke program
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
... The U.S. posture has been ambiguous. The MEK's violent habits — it has a history of bombings and assassinations, including the murder of six Americans — earned it a spot on the State Department list of terrorist groups in 1997. But the group gained publicity three years ago by exposing a secret Iranian nuclear program, alerting the public to the extent of Iran's apparent efforts to build a bomb. President Bush alluded to this in a March 16 news conference, when he said that the nuclear program had been revealed by a "dissident" group. Meanwhile, nearly 4,000 members of the group are in a military camp in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, 60 miles north of Baghdad. The regime of Saddam Hussein gave them refuge before the war ... http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-14-mek_x.htm

MEK Tricks US Progressives, Gains Legitimacy
by Rostam Pourzal
On May 26, 2006, a representative of the violent Iranian fugitives based in Iraq, known as MEK, addressed a forum -- an anti-war forum -- sponsored by the liberal Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists in Berkeley, California, as he had done the year before. Introduced as Ali Mirardal, the speaker lamented human rights abuses in Iran and offered the National Council of Resistance, a Paris-based front group for MEK, as the best hope for a democratic Iran. The US State Department has listed both as terrorist organizations ... http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal120606.html

Ministers of Murder: Iran’s New Security Cabinet
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/iran1205/index.htm

[Duke Newcombe]

2. I love his tact...

Although it was a bit hard to decipher the translation, it seems he knows he has a very powerful force--a people force--at his disposal, and it sound like he knows how to diplomatically send a message to the police, military, and the mullahs---don't fuck with us.