Blood On His Hands
"Then, in 2009, a blatantly rigged election returned Ahmadinejad to power, and the country exploded in anger. Demonstrations that were sparked by demands for an honest election grew into opposition to the regime itself. Massive crowds chanted "Death to the dictator!" and "God is great!" -- turning the slogan of the 1979 Islamic Revolution against the theocracy it created. Whereas previous uprisings -- such as the student protests of 1999 -- had involved only subsections of the population, the opposition movement that erupted in 2009 brought in even leading clerics and other members of the country's establishment. It was a seismic shift. The regime and its allies in the Revolutionary Guards and Basij responded with ever increasing repression. They shot unarmed protesters dead in the streets and raped teenaged boys in jail. Show trials followed. Saeed Mortazavi,{responsible for the death of Canadian-Iranian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi} now deputy chief prosecutor of Iran, played his usual role. Iran's parliament later blamed him for the deaths in jail of detained dissidents.
"Such brutality succeeded in suppressing the most visible expression of dissent, but protests continued despite it. Though media freedom is severely restricted, videos from Iran are regularly posted on the Internet. They show spontaneous acts of dissent and more defiance. Police or Basij who abuse citizens on the street are confronted and chased away by ever-growing crowds. It is impossible to know exactly how this movement will develop, but it seems a line has been crossed and the future of Iran's theocracy is precarious. There are too many young and angry Iranians who desire freedom, who now know many of their compatriots feel the same way, and who have experienced the power and potential of their numbers. "I have never seen such a thing in my life", Mastaneh, a 23-year-old Iranian woman, said of one of the June 2009 demonstrations. "We could hear shooting, but people weren't afraid. We kept shouting, 'Don't be afraid. We are all here together'. For years I would say that I didn't have hope in my people and that they would never move like they did in 1979. But I was proven wrong. We have finally learned to fight."
Michael Petrou, Is This Your First War? Travels Through The Post-9/11 Islamic World
The world cautiously rejoiced only recently when yet another presidential election took place, when a come-from-behind conservative establishment figure was elected as Iranian President-elect, and touted as a "moderate". Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is finally rid of former regime stalwart and chief international trouble-maker, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and in the process cleverly ensured that Ahmadinejad's groomed choice to replace him never got a chance.
The new president is Hassan Rowhani. This is a man who was Khamenei's approved appointee on the Supreme National Security Council and the Expediency Discernment Council. How about those titles. The 'expediency discernment council'; sounds downright diabolic. And likely it is just that. Words are never directly related to what they are attached to as descriptive titles in Iran; deception so shallow that no one could ever take them seriously, is the order of the day.
The man considered by the West to be a 'moderate', a 'reformer' has already given ample demonstration of what is of governing and administrative value to him. And dissent is not a principle he holds in high esteem. It is now almost a month since the June 14th presidential elections in Iran. Since that time over sixty Iranians have been executed. Ayatollah Khamenei hand-picked presidential candidate slate out of which Hassan Rowhani emerged triumphant, has made no difference to the country's dedication to capital punishment.
Among those executed -- proving the Islamic Republic's dedication to the concept of egalitarianism, were 6 women, and a young man, 15 years of age at the time of his arrest. And the benevolent regime carried out those 61 executions in the cities of Ahvaz, Shahrekord and Karaj, where the public was invited to view the grisly spectacle. Those who support the Islamist government may view the executions as just desserts for those who defy Islamic Sharia law and the Ayatollahs. Those who view the fundamentalist government with unadulterated loathing understand that they have been warned.
Western countries critical of Iran may choose to believe that Hassan Rowhani's election represents the introduction of a moderate who may in time turn the fanaticism of the theocracy in a gentler direction, but they will shortly be assured that they couldn't be more wrong, when Iran in the not-too-distant future consolidates its caliphate credentials with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Intercontinental missiles included, capable of finding long-range targets.
On Iran's list of enemies are close neighbours in the Middle East, and more far-flung adversarial nations that have raised its ire.
Much has been made of the organized reformist "Green Movement" and its ardent followers hoping to gain traction over time and rouse enough citizens to confront the regime successfully by sheer protesting numbers. It has happened in Egypt, after all. But Egypt's military bears no resemblance to the power and fury of the Republican Guard, totally dedicated to fanatical Shia Islamism. And whose response to popular resistance is swift and bloody.
For one thing, corruption is wide and deep within Iran, encompassing the Grand Ayatollah, his Supreme Council and the Republican Guard elite, all who personally own fortunes that rightfully belong to the state and by extension the people of Iran. If a power wants to overcome resistance it can exert its authority by way of drawing in its detractors, promising them part of the spoils, should they agree to cooperate and set aside differences. And perhaps this is what has happened to the reformist 'green movement', for they appear to have been silenced.
Under the fiction that they guided their trusting reform-minded voters to do an end-run and elect someone it was thought would be a reformer himself. Hassan Rowhani is not a regime outsider, he does not criticize the Supreme Leader, nor the Revolutionary Guards. He has no use for democracy, let alone liberalism. He is a clear conservative comfortable within the confines of the regime, and has been since the Iranian Revolution, forging a life-time career within the country's security and intelligence establishment under the Islamic Republic.
Hassan Rowhani was in charge of Iran's Supreme National Security Council at the time of the 1999 student protests against the regime to which the response was bloody repression. The students were, he asserted, rabble-mongers, and he considered the death penalty adequate compensation for their troubles. It would take a popular revolt of a majority of Iranians to finally bring down their abusively repressive, terrorist government. One infused with sufficient courage to face off against the Republican Guard and the Basij militia, both skilled through grim practise, of brutally settling dissent.
It would take a psycho-social miracle.
Labels: Atrocities, Conflict, Human Relations, Human Rights, Iran, Islamism, Nuclear Technology, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 10, 2013
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