Posted on 06/14/2009 3:23:54 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
(To get a feel for what is going on in the streets of Tehran, watch this linked BBC video clip.)
Last night in London after appearing on Keith Olbermann's show, I got an email from a well-connected Iranian who knows many of the power figures in the Tehran political order asking to meet me. I told him that the only place possible was Paddington on the way to Heathrow -- and there we met.
He conveyed to me things that were mostly obvious -- Iran is now a tinderbox. The right is tenaciously consolidating its control over the state and refuses to yield. There is a split among the mullahs and significant dismay with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A gaping hole has been ripped open in Iranian society, exposing the contradictions of the regime and everyone now sees that the democracy that they believed that they had in Iranian form is a "charade."
But the scariest point he made to me that I had not heard anywhere else is that this "coup by the right wing" has created pressures that cannot be solved or patted down by the normal institutional arrangements Iran has constructed. The Guardian Council and other power nodes of government can't deal with the current crisis and can't deal with the fact that a civil war has now broken out among Iran's revolutionaries.
My contact predicted serious violence at the highest levels. He said that Ahmadinejad is now genuinely scared of Iranian society and of Mousavi and Rafsanjani. The level of tension between them has gone beyond civil limits -- and my contact said that Ahmadinejad will try to have them imprisoned and killed.
Likewise, he said, Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Mousavi know this -- and thus are using all of the instruments at their control within Iran's government apparatus to fight back -- but given Khamenei's embrace of Ahmadinejad's actions in the election and victory, there is no recourse but to try and remove Khamenei. Some suggest that Rafsanjani will count votes to see if there is a way to formally dislodge Khamenei -- but this source I met said that all of these political giants have resources at their disposal to "do away with" those that get in the way.
He predicted that the so-called reformist camp -- who are not exactly humanists in the Western liberal sense -- may try and animate efforts to decapitate the regime and "do away with" Ahmadinejad and even the Supreme Leader himself.
I am not convinced that this source "knows" these things will definitely happen but am convinced of his credentials and impressed with the seriousness of the discussion we had and his own concern that there may be political killing sprees ahead.
This is not a vision he advocates -- but one he fears.
-- Steve Clemons
I hope that I'mANutJob & 0booooooombashit both slither off into the twilight somewhere!!!
Sounds like an Iranian Tea Party to me.
I used to like the color green. I think I just switched to blue!!!
You mean Diverthity?
8,500 troops partake in exercises
MOSCOW - ABOUT 8,500 Russian troops will take part in military exercises starting this month in the country's North Caucasus region, just north of Georgia, the Russian defence ministry said on Thursday.
The Russian exercises will run from June 29 to July 6 and will focus on counter-terrorism and the handling of emergency situations, the ministry said.
He could experience the wonders of tropical rain forests in some nice villa.
Of course in this case the L/MSM have been pretty well taken out of the loop at this point.
Hope you have an unlimited calling plan:
Another angle, click pic for bigger.
Ding Chavez and John Clark are doing what they do best. ;)
Tom Clancy, you magnificent bastard! ;)
Obama is the worst of the old criticism of US policy. He is merely for the status quo.He retreated from President Bush’s policy about freedom for ALL. The old cynicism about the ME is deader than dead re: Iraq. Even with their issues, they are building a Republic.
And others in the region are asking, “If Iraq can, why not us?”
Thus the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, etc. But Obama sits by and will not “impose” our God given rights of freedom on others.
Loser!!!! Obama is a loser. And he sits by without a word of praise for Iranians dying for freedom. Nary a word on their behalf.
You think Reagan would sit by and say nothing about that?
Hussein the naricissist with his nose in the air is actually in the closet clutching the RuHero costume.
I called the White House Comment Line today and told the lady our president ought to be supporting the democracy activists and by not doing so is perceived as weak here and there.
I told her the president's pal Bill Ayers took it to the Chicago streets October 8-11 1969 and were smashed by Daley's police army--
--and that now our president is being Nixon--
I repeated, our president is now Nixon.
Friends, of course he is a crypto Islamo-Communist, and his vice president is a friend of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The whole world is watching, Hussein the coward complicit in the Ayatollah's Islamofascist repression.
A billion for Hamas to strap Jew-killing bomb belts to children but not one syllable in support of a generation born since 1979.
We have a traitor denouncing our Judeo-Christian Republic and destroying the engine of the world's freedom.
We shall all be Iranians until we are rid of DICK (Doper Islamo Commie Kenyan).
...............
YES!
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Hussein is now called ali Hussein according to Aljazeera.
His agenda is so transparent--he is the comrade-in-arms of Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad and Coup-Coup Hugo and Lil' Kim.
He sends Acorn thugs to bully political critics but makes our military Mirandize terrorists and our Navy beg to board Stalinist ships bearing WMDs.
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