Posted on 06/13/2009 12:53:48 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The White House is playing it cool lest U.S. support for Mousavi discredit his supporters but U.S. analysts have little doubt. The fix is indeed in:
U.S. analysts find it “not credible” that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote, a senior U.S. officials told FOX News.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini apparently has released a statement calling the results “final” and hailing the election as a legitimization of the regime and its elections…
The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama’s gestures of engagement.
Maybe. Or maybe popular unrest will force them to clamp down harder, become more recalcitrant about negotiations, and double down on nationalist propaganda about nukes to get the public back on their side. More from Time on what a shabby fraud this was:
By Saturday morning, the most often repeated exclamation in Tehran was: “It’s not possible!”…
A group of young men said they had talked to their families in the provinces, including Kurdish Kermanshah, Azeri Oroumiyeh and Ardeblil. Mohsen, 23, said, “Everyone in Tabriz [Mousavi's hometown] voted for Mousavi. The official count says a majority for Ahmadinejad. That’s not possible.” Mehdi, 27, chimed in, “Even if just Karroubi’s family in Lorestan had voted for him, he would have won more than 300,000 votes.”
More serious allegations came from officials involved in the various reformist candidates’ campaigns. Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, part of opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi’s campaign, pointed out that the government “announced a wholesale figure of 70% for Ahmadinejad last night, as opposed to breaking it down province by province as they usually do.” The first figures were announced shortly after voting closed, he added. A breakdown of how people in each city and province voted has not been released yet.
At the Mousavi headquarters, former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour protested that Mousavi observers had not gained access to many of the polling centers. He also said that in Tabriz, Mousavi’s birthplace, many of the polling stations had run out of ballots only two hours after opening, even though about 59 million ballots had been printed by the government, about 13 million more than the number of eligible voters.
The regime shut down text messaging across the country yesterday too to hamper organization of the protests they knew would follow the results. Even so, the Beeb says street violence today is the worst Tehran has seen in 10 years, replete with Iranian cops beating women with nightsticks. The clip below will give you a taste but see Michael Totten for more vids, including one of a monster rally where protesters chanted “Death to the government.” There’s also a hot rumor going around that Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, current head of the powerful Assembly of Experts, and rival-in-chief to Ahmadinejad, has resigned from the Expediency Council in protest of the results, a move which should go a long way towards delegitimizing them. After 30 years, only a diehard optimist would bet on this clusterfark exploding into full-fledged counterrevolution, but the more discredited the regime is and the more alienated Iranians are, the more leverage the west has to get tough with them over the nuclear impasse. Assuming, of course, that the political will to do so exists. Which it doesn’t.
As I write this, news is breaking that Mousavi’s been arrested. Three questions now. One: Why didn’t they rig the vote in a more convincing way? Everyone expected the margin to be close after such a nasty campaign; a close Ahmadinejad win, with Mousavi victorious in the urban areas he was supposed to carry, would have been credible. I guess they figured that a narrow defeat would be treated as especially suspect by Mousavi’s supporters, so they went in the opposite direction and made it a landslide — to an implausible degree, as it turned out. Two: With the regime more illegitimate than ever, where does this leave The One vis-a-vis nuke negotiations? He’s been careful in the past to distinguish Khamenei from the more toxic Ahmadinejad, but Khamenei blessed the results today as a “divine assessment.” His credibility’s shot now too. If Obama meets with him anyway, it’ll put the U.S. on the side of a sham government against the Iranian people more starkly than ever before. Three: Did Khamenei order the election rigged on Ahmadinejad’s behalf or did Ahmadinejad order the election rigged on his own behalf? That is to say, who really controls the levers of power in Iran? If you read nothing else I’ve linked here, at least read this fascinating interview in the Nation with a former Iranian minister who argues that because Dinnerjacket is closely allied with the fantastically powerful Revolutionary Guard (and a former Guardsman himself) and oversees the ministries that keep Khamenei informed of what’s happening, they can effectively isolate and manipulate him into doing their bidding. Maybe — maybe — the situation is now less a case of Khamenei using Ahmadinejad as a public mouthpiece than vice versa. Good luck, Barry.
Anyone who thinks the outcome of this election will NOT be determined by the mullahs probably buys Letterman’s “explanation” too...
Send Jimmy Carter over there with instructions not to come back until it’s all straightened out. And have him take Al Gore along for company.
in other news our election too was rigged.
intimidation
prepaid credit cards
overseas money/donations
biased and corrupt media
multiple votes by a person
etc
etc
etc
in just my state we had 100,000 illegal votes just from OH and GA
add that to the vacation snowbirds who use their vacation addresses while living up in the north east and the illegals voting then it is time maybe we had UN observers
Duh. Of course the elections are rigged just like they were in Iraq under Saddam or any other dictator. Obama’s breathless premature claiming of credit for the “close” election and “robust debate,” shows how naive and inexperienced he is. The mullahs are not going to be toppled by a real election. It will take force not “just words.”
Spot on.
The US Government has a lot of room to talk with their fraudulent cover ups.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBpHSyuueMU
This was supposed to be the validation of Obama’s speech to the Arab world....validation of Obama’s global leadership....validation of Obama’s ability to win hearts and minds........
Instead, it was a validation of reality....evil is not defeated by nice speeches, but by the blood of the good.
Hopefully the citizens will revolt, like I wish our citizens would.
David Letterman and Helen Thomas too!
The US policy towards Iran should be regime change. Just by talking to the current regime, legitimizes it. The Iranians have been killing Americans for decades with Iraq just being the latest example of what the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism does.
Apparently, ACORN had a Tehran branch, as well.
I believe our election was rigged(acorn) why would I doubt Irans election wasnt rigged
the only way the Iranian people are going to get out of this mess is to kill Khamenei and all the other pig feces high mullahs and run the rat raced Prez out of the country in disgrace . As long as they let the mullahs hold the power they will be their slaves . Time to throw off the yoke folks
Was Jimmah unavailable?
Nam Vet
Thank you. I’ve only been shouted down by a chorus of “We don’t want to look like Al Gore”.
What the hell, just let the country burn I guess.
He is defective.
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