Iran: Looks Like The Ahmedinejad Factions Has Lost

Proves the adage that morons can get elected AND defeated, like Dubya.

I don't see Ayatollah Rafsanjani as an opponent of Brother Ahamd's foreign policy vision. Rafsanjani, being a multi millionaire, is more souk oriented, and less social programs oriented, but his world view is nearly identical to Brother Ahamad's. He's just a tad bit more diplomatic with his word choice. Personally, if I was in the American government, I'd prefer dealing with the straight shooter, everyman, Islamic Revolutionary than dealing with the Billionaire, smooth talking, cut throat tycoon, Islamic Revolutionary.

LOL

Between the two of them, be perfectly clear. Neither one of them is a fool. Neither one of them is a "terrorist." Both of them are very much Mujahideen. And both of them love the Islamic Republic, and are very famous OG Khomeini-ites who have fought hard and sacrificed much for The Republic. So as long as our people continue to think that you're not free unless you're free to get butt naked-nasty and jiggy with it because all's fair in love and war... as long as our people are empathetically influenced by the ubiquitous pro Zionist press... and as long as our people forget and sweep under the rug all the wrong our governments have done to the people of the Middle East to fix that oil monkey on our junky backs... Americans won't like Rafsanjani for very long either.

Very high turnount, perhaps 60%. In Isfahan, reformists won three seats on the city council, with the other eight places going to a mixture of Ahmadinejad loyalists and independents.
The results for the Tehran city council are not expected until next week, but unofficial reports suggest some wins for reformists. Rafsanjani would have won a place on the Assembly of Experts anyway, but the moderates' backing him probably increased his plurality over the second highest - some 400,000 votes . The "neo-con" Yazdi came in 6th.

I have no illusions about Rafsanjani 'the pistachio king of Iran.' However, from all I've seen and heard from Iranians is that if American and Iran are to find a modus vivendi, Rafsanjani is the one best placed to deliver it. Abu, you and I see Ahmedinejad differently, so we'll have to agree to disagree.

It doesn't mean things have probably changed all that much. There is still the matter of the crazy president. Maybe there will be more evidence of moderation, but I'm not holding my breath.

Sam - nice try on the rewrite of history. Bush was elected and then elected again (win, win). He was not defeated. He is merely playing out his term limits.

I would like to know what the majority of Iranians think about their current leader? I have heard, many times, that the people of Iran" like" America but I've seen no evidence of that under their current leadership. Where is Iran going? Are the Iranian people willing to destroy an entire Country, to say nothing about self destruction, in their quest for worldwide Islam? The lack of honest and detailed reporting by the leftist media leaves everything to the imagination in finding answers to the thousands of questions posed by concerned Americans.

Judith, if you would like to know what the majority of Iranians think about their leader why don't you go over there and find out? I did. I was there for 3 weeks. And the problem of lack of information from Iran and lack of reporting isn't a 'Leftist' problem. It's a national problem. The only thing most Americans know about Iran is that a.) their leader says he wants to wipe Israel off the map and b.) they took our hostages in 1979 and c.) they are close to having nukes. Two of the three of those pieces of information most American's "know" are wrong. Part A, or the first example is wrong because Ahmedinejad is not the most powerful man in Iran (as I never tire of telling people. The most powerful man in Iran is the Supreme Leader). Part two or B is correct. But then again, the Vietnamese killed 50,000 US troops and we have diplomatic relations with them. And part 3, or C: is wildly incorrect. The CIA, DIA, INR and NSA plus the IAEA all say that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. What they have is a civilian nuclear program that we are afraid at some future date will be able to create plutonium which will then be able to be used to make a bomb. Time frame on that, at the earliest, again, from the CIA/DIA/INR/NSA and the IAEA all say is 10 years at the earliest. And all of that is publicly available information. Don't blame the 'Leftists' Judith for your own lack of curiosity.

But all of that doesn't make a very good soundbite for Sean Hanity, O'Reilly, or the rest of the Fox News crew to report. That's why you never hear it.

And last of all: Iran had nothing, nothing at all to do with September 11. 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia (our ally), 3 were from the UAE (our ally) and 1 was from Egypt (our ally). You see the problem here?

Sean:

I think what people are missing in the election results is that the voters want to move away from religious authority on all matters and towards some form of representation. Rafsanjani offers the alternative to the reformers, not because he is such a "great guy" but rather because he didn't bow down every minute to the mullahs.

As the "under 30" generation in Iran gets more into the political mainstream, that is where the change will take place.

Ahmadinejad is Iran's President, not the The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has authority for Iran's domestic and foreign poicy. There has been no threat to attack Israel or any country. The slogan " Israel should be wiped off the map " (literally , in Persian ,"Israel should vanish from the pages of history" ) is a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini , circa 1980. This is about the moral legitimacy of Israel being put on the map by the UN and not having honored the rights of the Palestinians as specified by the UN charter. It resonates with the Arabs, but most Iranians don't consider the Palestinians' cause theirs, because they are Arabs , and Israel and Iran had good relations until the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iranian Jews travel freely to Israel and emigre Iranian Jews in Israel visit Iran . Officially, Iran supports the cause of the Palestinians, but doesn't interfere in their business, that is, whether the Palestinians and Israel choose to accept a one state or two state settlement. Iran offered to recognize Israel in 2003 , during the time of the reform President Khatami (1997-2005), but Bush refused to respond. For the past decade, Iran has had a pragmatic foreign policy, seeking to have normal trade relations with other countries, including the US . The hostility of the US, calling Iran part of the Axis of Evil empowered the hard-liners to crack down on the reformers in Iran. Ahmadinejad had about 15% support from the electorate when he won the Presidency in 2005 . Many Iranians didn't vote in the 2005 election in protest against the harsh repression from 2003 by the hard-liners. Ahmadinejad is a true believer,a throwback to the early days of the revolution and a populist , promising to deliver jobs and money to the provinces and reform the corrupt rule of the wealthy class. He is an articulate and crafty politician, and has made himself very popular outside Iran. He doesn't enjoy the same popularity in Iran and his talk about the Holocaust being used by the Zionists to justify Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians doesn't mean much to most Iranians. Iranians did protest against the Tehran Holocaust conference. Iranians are pro-American but paranoid about the US governments' interference. There is a lot of bad blood to be sorted out between the US and Iran. I recall the hostage crisis in 1979. There had been several takeovers by Iranian students of the US Embassy that summer. They were not taken seriously. A few phone calls between the US Embassy and the Iranian government and they left. It was the time of the revolution. But the Khomeini clerics wanted to get control of the government, and eliminate the many democrats in the government. The students didn't plan to stay at the embassy when they took it over, but the clerics got involved to create the crisis with the US after the students were there. It was a "nest of spies". The desk-job CIA people in DC had been angling for tours (usually two months at a time) in Tehran all that year so they could experience " a real revolution." There were a bunch there. And there were plenty of spy documents around. The head station for the CIA east had been moved from Athens to Tehran several years before;the US ambassador in Iran , Richard Helms, was the former CIA director in DC. The clerics used the crisis to eliminate their opposition.

Clarke, love your writing and thoughts, but can we get you to break it down into paragraphs?

No Sean-Paul. Let's slug it out. There are reasons why you don't like the guy, and their are reasons why I do. Tell me. Why don't you like the guy?

I read it and didn't even notice how compacted it was. Very interesting.

Your eyes are better than mine Jerry.

Clarke, a wealthy of information for those who are interested in information.


Paragraphs, for Sean-Paul and Nanci. Just a little white space around the

"Iran offered to recognize Israel in 2003 , during the time of the reform President Khatami (1997-2005), but BUSH refused to respond"

would be good. And bullets would be nice, but I don't think we can do bullets in these comment windows.

The Persian phrase "Israel should vanish from the pages of history" vis a vis the UN charter is interesting, and not something parsed over by the corporate media in general, much less Fox News -- who whore so blatantly for ratings and marketshare, and the Bush agenda.

I agree that A. is an articulate and crafty politician, and a global kind of guy, his lettrs to the Prez and tete a tetes with other global populist figures and "his talk about the Holocaust being used by the Zionists to justify Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians" all do show that. It makes sense to me that his "populist" stance might not be so popular with those who would like to get some semblance of western goodies back.

Some kind of unconscious slip but typed, wealthy, as opposed to "wealth"

Abu,

which "american gov't are you talking about? The American "gov't" I know almost always prefers, and does, deal with the Billionaire, smooth talking, cut throat tycoon, Islamic Revolutionary. . .rather than the straight shooter, "everyman," Islamic Revolutionary. Course the "everyman" guys don't always stay that way and can get just as cut throat as the billionaire.

Would you amplify on the differences between the two? I really don't know.

The wealthy Rafsanjani has been a "pragmatist" for over a decade. Iran and Israel have ongoing negotiations for the millions Israel owes Iran, and Rafsanjani has had many dealings with the Israeli establishment. He had to have supported the the 2003 proposal by Iran to recognize Israel. http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000467.htm

Yes, Nanci, the elections do matter in this way. The Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamanei is seriously ill, by many reports, and will have to be replaced soon. The body that replaces the Supreme Leader is the Assembly of Experts, for which elections were just held.

The two parties running were the old line conservatives/pragmatists versus the Ahmedinejad crew. Had Ahmedinejad's crew won, they might have been able to install a man name Yazdi, who is Ahmedijenad's spiritual mentor. That would not have been in our interests or in the interests of the regualr guy/gal on the Iranian street. So, that's one reason why these elections counted. It's a good question and one I was happy to answer.

Thank you Sean-Paul. Everyone kept talking about Ahmadinejead getting smacked in the face but no one was explaining the long term implications.

I guess I will quietly go cheer now.

Clarke, Thanks,

All of gather is indebted to you for the serious information you provide.

Ms. Whitfield, I was just joshing with my man Sean-Paul. There are a lot of differences between the Ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guard Commander. They're fundamentally the same, however. There are many people who would like to see Iran go back to the days of The Shah. Why? Because most of us think a religious base is a bad place to center your constitutional consciousness. Very few Iranis share that point of view. But they are being affected if not infected, and it may be that they will lose their high principles and values before the next century. I think that will be a world tragedy if it happens. Because I believe that many of the the problems that we have here in America could be solved with good, rational Islamic philosophy and theological discipline. I wish more of us would read the Imam Ali's Najul Balagha as religiously as we've read The Prince. Sahifatas Sajadiyyah are life lessons written as rhymed supplications by Muhammad's great grandson who watched his family slaughtered in a purge sponsored by the same anarchistic ilk that's killing civilians in Iraq, in the name of God, and his prophet. And those are just the basics. I dread what will happen if our people have their way and people offer their soul on the alter of the idol god poli-tricks. Because when the good go bad they go wicked.

Abu,

Thanks, and call me Missy.

//"Because most of us think a religious base is a bad place to center your constitutional consciousness. Very few Iranis share that point of view."//

I heartily concur with the first sentence, being a very hearty and sometimes feisty agnostic with an equally feisty and independent attitude toward politics. No one niche suits me particularly well. So, I try to educate myself as best I can and then like everyone else take a plunge and hope constant oversight will make the difference.

As to the second sentence: "few Irani's share that view," I'll have to take your word for the moment. With regard to the subtlies and nuance of middle eastern philosophies and politics, I'm like the person who stands in front of the Picasso and says, well, I only know what I like -- altho I have to say I like and appreciate Picasso.

you say //I believe that many of the the problems that we have here in America could be solved with good, rational Islamic philosophy and theological discipline//.

Being a hearty, vigorously independent agnostic, I believe we would all be better off if we applied some of the tenets of the world's great religions to our daily lives. But I don't want any religion in my government and not too much in my pocketbook. I just don't look or feel good in long dresses and head scarves or caps, or veils, or aprons, [and hasten to add that I've no idea whether that is part of your theology or philosophy].

And, while I'm not fanatically in agreement with all feminist views, I am pretty feisty and not inclined to have others tell me what is best for me or my body or my children. If I were forced to choose between patriarchy or matriarchy -- I would choose the latter and leave religion out of the equation entirely. It's true that most of us could benefit from "self-discipline" and "commitment and responsibility," but I don't care for the word "discipline" -- smacks of rigidity and control and mindlessness and punishment. In the latter situation, women always get the short end of the stick and stuck in the middle of ungodly wars.

I will read more of your articles to learn more.

Thanks, Clarke,

I knew you would cut to the chase.

Good article and exchange of ideas. However, the Jerusalem Post is generally not a very reliable source and I therefore recommend BBC =


BBC Report On Election + Reformist Victory

One thing that may have been overlooked by Westerners who are eager to see Ahmadinejad leave office in Tehran is the fact that this is an election for local and the equivalent of ecclesiastical office. This was NOT a parliamentarian election so that, technically, it was not a loss for the ultra conservatives. Majlis offices were not up for election contrary to what some of you may have been led to believe.

Just last week, the parliament or Majlis voted to consider ending Iran's dependence on the US dollar and may now subscribe to the Euro as the medium of currency exchange. This means that if Bush continues his sanctions against Tehran, it can still collect oil revenues by way of Europe.


Tehran Considers Euro As Medium of Exchange


Tehran's Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament) remains very loyal to Ahmadinejad. Therefore, don't make the mistake of gloating over his recent "defeat" as he is still very much in the political picture.

Luckky, no one said it was a parliamentary election.