Saturday saw a third night of growing public demonstrations in Iran, mostly centered in Tehran but also erupting in cities across the country’s west. The Iranian government has attempted to slow the rallies by announcing such gatherings are illegal, and shutting down some mobile communications networks to try to limit organizers’ ability to inform their supporters.
The protests began small, as economic protests about the government’s failure to come through on pledges of economic growth and more jobs. These grew and fairly quickly turned into hostility toward Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the violent crackdowns on demonstrators have only added to the size of the protests.
This has resulted in the largest anti-government protests in Iran since 2009, with protesters shouting “death to the dictator” and clashing with riot police. While not as large, there have also been reports of counter-protests at some universities, expressing support for the government.
At least three protesters were reported to have been killed in the course of crackdowns on the rally. Exact figures on the deaths aren’t totally clear, however, with some other reports sugg3esting an unspecified but substantial number of deaths.
While the protests appear to be wholly about internal politics within Iran, and the struggles with high inflation and unemployment, Israeli media was quick to try to portray it as an anti-Palestinian backlash by the Iranian public, since the protests began roughly at the same time Iran’s parliament issued a statement recognizing Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.
In reality, the protests appear to be fueled largely by attempts to crack down on the smaller economic protests, which are not particularly uncommon in Iran, and warnings that protests are now illegal are only adding to the sense of defiance among disaffected locals.
Do they hope to overthrow Rouhani and replace him with someone who will be more amenable to isolating Iran and starting a war?
I think that it’s just an updated version of the same damn playbook from 1953.
An interesting story to watch and full of undertones.
Something tells me that Israel and Saudi Arabia have something to do with this. Not that the protesters don’t have legitimate grievances but there’s nothing new about this kind of dissent in Iran. What’s new is Iran’s disproportionate response which leads me to believe that they know something about these protests that we don’t.
Precisely.
It is more media than protest, lots of photos but not allot of substance on what they mean. I am sure there are unhappy folks there just like in Israel or where-ever but a revolution??? Not firiggin likely they are Persian and already have been overthrown by the CIA, the dumb ones here are those who beleive this means anything.
So far the response doesn’t seem to be any different than the response in 2009 and 2011-12.
BTW, the Iranian government is denying that they shot anyone.
From Ukraine to Venezuela, we know that the current edition of the CIA playbook leads to some dead protesters which are then use to inflame the propaganda.
Well, I don’t take US MSM claims at face value, and my general inclination is to consider US government claims false, or at least highly questionable, until and unless they’re proven beyond reasonable doubt.
That said, if Soros was behind everything he’s accused of being behind, instead of being a billionaire behind all the stuff he’s actually behind, he’d be too broke to buy a pot to piss in and too busy to take a leak anyway.
CIA has the money and the man-hours, of course, but my impression is that they don’t have a lot of human assets on the ground, especially in Iran. If I was guessing at outside operators, my guess would be the Saudis. They have all the money in the world, and presumably their intel agencies have become better in the 25 years since I had occasion to chase their spies away from US military facilities.
There were plenty of protests in between and after those however that received much more tepid responses. The supposed Green Revolution had all the marks of a Soros fueled color revolution. Ahmadinejad was also a bit of a hot head.
These ones seem different, both because Rouhani is far more level headed and because there is more of a working class presence in the protests. This leads me to believe that the protests were a small but authentic reaction to the economic climate created by continued sanctions and some duplicitous intelligence source managed to fool Rouhani into believing otherwise and overreacting. Thus spreading the discontent.
It’s pretty solid work. Cointelpro grade sh*t. Too sophisticated for the Saudis or even post-American Century Washington. My vote is on Mossad. Say what you want about the motherf**kers but there crafty. This has got their signature all over it.
Are you on the scene telling us about ‘the disproportionate response’ from your own knowledge? Or are you telling us this because the CIA controlled news outlets are telling you this?
At this point, I wouldn’t believe these fake news outlets if they told me that the sun was going to set in the West tonight?
Soon after there were stories about how the US and NATO were going to spend millions ‘countering Russian propaganda’, outlets like Reuters and The Guardian started running lots of anti-Russian fake news stories. Quick, Ukraine is being invaded by Russia, and the only possible reason that anyone would ever vote against Saint Hillary the Greatest would be because of Russian meddling in the election.
Like I said, I wouldn’t believe these sources if they predicted a sunset in the West at the end of the day. At least not without verification.
An early phase of a regime change operation, orchestrated by the indispensible nation, in coordination with regional enemies.
Sounds like they are re-running the Maiden sniper operation……
“No shots were fired by the police and security forces. We have found
evidence of enemies of the revolution, Takfiri groups and foreign agents
in this clash,” deputy province governor Habibollah Khojastehpour told
state television. “Takfiri” is the name that Iranian state media sources
usually use to describe Sunni fundamentalists who target Shiites
in Syria and elsewhere, such as Daesh (ISIS) and the Al Nusra Front.
More Soros “activism”, testing various
permutations of protest topic potential. In Teheran, one can always find mondialism among the wealthy young. This is not new. What is new is the wealthy students protesting the economy? However, in other places, outside the trendy Teheran university crowds and Soros friendly activists, there was very little protest. It will be interesting to see if it gains traction, as this is what the organizers are aiming for. I hope nobody believes in some spontaneous, genuine protest is at the root. The technology of organizing, funding and agitating is so well known — it is almost boring. The only danger is in Kiev style violent elements spreding mayham, misinformation and vandalism. One can expect this. But Gucci crowd will run at the first sign of trouble, and forget their lofty economic concerns for the poor.
But the article says the protests at the universities have been counter-protests expressing support for the government.
New information coming in. Pro-govt protests are getting bigger, and this explains the government nervousness. There is a potential for clashes, and — just as it played out in Mosadeq book, there is a danger that among pro-government are armed provocators, causing casualties among protesters. Similarly, how in Kiev, snipers killed both protesters and the police — an early investigation by EU proved it. Estonian foreign minister reported the findings to EU Ashton, who — knowingly — was more concerned about takeover of Parliament, then the killings by the very “opposition”
EU supported. Having to deal with two opposing groups, has a potential for major problems.
Jerusalem statement is handed out, world condemnation ensues, and- out of the blue- anti-government protests break out in Iran. Seems a bit sketchy to me, and belongs in the ‘ooh look, something else to look at in the news instead of my bad decision’ category. I suspect there’s an awful lot of foreign money involved in these protests; it’s just too conveniently timed.
This will be over in a couple days. It is more MSM than substance.
Hope you are correct but history (even recent history) tells us otherwise…The PNAC has been in place for nearly two decades and it continues in place, as ever…Iran has always been the neocon-zionist end game. For the neocon-war hawks: Iran is the prize.
Regardless of the outcome, I seriously doubt that the result will be a pro-Sunni, pro Israeli Iran. Most likely this will be pitched as reason for an “Iran Liberation” narrative which plays so well as opposed to Iran conquest.
The US, Israeli, Iranian and many other govts seem determined not to learn the obvious lesson here: declaring protests illegal and killing some of them is the fastest way to make grassroots turnout over a grievance 10x as big and 3x as effective.
Of course Israel would try to find more blame for Palestinians.
I also note that Pegasus Airlines is advertising on antiwar.com for flights to Tel Aviv. How thoughtful.
Funny, but “Israeli media” is about the last place I’d look for accurate information about what’s going on in Iran.
On the other hand, if you want to know what Mossad is doing these days, well remember that Israeli media is censored, so again, its about the last place I’d go.
In fact, on pretty much anything, Israeli media is about the last place I’d go. Kinda like CNN, the NYT and WaPo, since you know they are lying and since they regularly say that they knew about stories but held off because the government asked them to do so, why on earth does anyone read them? I suppose people like being lied to?
Hang a big sign up that says “the CIA was Here!”
Especially as its being reported in all of the fake-news outlets that have the motto “All the news the CIA tells us is fit to print.”
American police have killed over 1000 people this year. I’ll be worried about Iran when they break those records.
In America, if you protest against a President you don’t like, they threaten to throw you in jail for 75 years.
So, the government that wants essentially a life sentence for protesting complains about another government crushing protests? And, note that the Iranian government is denying that its police or security forces shot anyone, while the threat of 75 years in prison is a public, printed, and acknowledged position of the US government.
The protests seem to be lasting longer than usual, I suppose it is reasonable to assume some covert activities. I think Iran is a poor target for the Arab Spring tactic however, as Iran was already over thrown by the CIA once and Iranians are unlikely to ever forget that.