In the wake of a solid week of anti-government protests in Iran, the government announced a day off for all public employees and urged them to attend massive pro-government rallies that were backed by the regime.
Protesters shouted “death to Mousavi,” a mirror to the pro-Mousavi protests over the weekend at which ralliers were shouting for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Though the rallies were obviously bolstered by calls for government employees to attend, the large turnouts and vigorous chanting suggest that Iranian society is becoming all the more polarized between the backers of the existing government and the supporters of the reformist bloc.
Iran’s police chief declared the era of showing mercy to the anti-government rallies was over, and that any future protests against the government would be crushed. Officials have claimed the opposition protests are being backed by Israel and the United States.
The comments of the police chief of Iran point to the correct direction the United States Government should take with respect to the protests in Iran. The United Government and it officials should do or say nothing that could be interpreted as encouraging or supporting the protesters in Iran. Any such statements of support or encouragement will only give credibility to the Iranian Government's claim that the protesters are acting in the interests of the United States Government.
The chances of United States Government officials taking this "do nothing" approach are slim and none. The protesters in Iran give U.S. government officials the opportunity to puff themselves up, and make it look like they have moral courage by praising to the heavens the protesters in Iran. The fact of the matter is in making these statements these officials risk nothing. The protesters in Iran are risking everything including their lives. This praise U.S. government officials give to the Iranian protesters is an attempt to steal a portion of the moral courage that in its totality is the exclusive property of the individual protesters in Iran.
Close Statistical analysis of two American polls on Iran sheds an important illuminating light on the recent Iranian events.
One poll was conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow in May 2009 before the June election and the other was carried out by World Opinion Poll of the University of Maryland in September (after the election). Both of these polls match closely with the election data published by the Iranian Interior Ministry.
So, Leverett couple were right in proclaiming “Ahmadinejad won (by a wide margin)”.
WOP created a shockwave, it rose a well founded suspicion that the well orchestrated plot to USE the angry anti-regime Iranians and every other means available (such as their Iranian stooges, MEK,, Twitter, the Mass Media etc) was planned outside Iran by that country’s determined enemies.
The above polls and the media’s collectively identical deceptive characterization of Iranians issues deserve a closer analysis of the actual facts. That analysis might produce universally significant conclusions.
I suspect the neocons might be pursuing more horrifying sinister plans, if not starting a war then instigating a CIVIL WAR.
i find it interesting that when antiwar discusses pro-government protests, it includes comments that tend to suggest that they are manipulated, but somehow antiwar forgets to include such caveats when reporting on and commenting on the anti-government protests.
isn't it time antiwar woke up the the reality that the people of iran, who clearly want real reform, are being torn apart, with Western Connivance, between two factions, niether of which cares about the real needs and real hopes of the people?