Iran: All's Well That Ends Well

The Iranian drama was a good thing, because after years of demonisation, Iranians looked human to the Western audience. Even McCain bewept the killed Iranian girl, though yesterday he would gladly “bomb, bomb, bomb” her and millions of her sisters into oblivion. Glenn Greenwald noted “the "Bomb Iran" contingent's newfound concern for The Iranian People” saying: “Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way! Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is.” This humanisation could not be quickly undone, and thus the bombing may never occur, despite the pleas of Netanyahu and Lieberman.

Although it was a close call. A day or two after the elections, Iran was poised at the edge of the abyss, ready to go berserk with huge unruly crowds and a well armed revolutionary guard facing each other with great hatred. All Iran’s achievements could easily be undone in the turmoil of unrest; a fledging regional power could be thrown back fifty years. For a while, the future script was unpredictable. Would Teheran follow Kiev, Ukraine with authorities giving in to an inexorable push of the rebels, calling another round of elections and installing a pro-Western president, privatising oil and gas, empowering oligarchs and transnationals, joining NATO? Or would it follow the script of Tiananmen, with tanks crushing the stubborn students?

It ended well, avoiding both extremes. Young professionals, sometimes disparagingly called the ‘Gucci crowd’, anti-clerical communists and liberals, many ordinary middle-class Iranians used the chance to show that they wish a less austere regime. They want to have a drink, to wear pretty clothes, to celebrate lavish weddings without being roughed up. Some of them want to limit the power of the state and the mosque to interfere with their privileges. They do not want to be constantly controlled by the security services. Some of Mousavi’s supporters also supported the Palestinian struggle; they are not CIA agents, but good and sincere people. Many of them are involved in the arts, in the glorious Iranian cinema and literature. Iranians abroad supported Mousavi by large margin, and they are a nice bunch, too.

The government of the legitimately re-elected President Ahmadinejad will do well to pay attention to their wishes, at least partly. One may laugh at these westernised youths who called out “Ahmadi bye-bye” in their cartoon-style teenager talk, but nobody can rule well while totally alienating these budding elites, and government is first of all an art of compromise.

Supporters of Mousavi should not get upset overmuch by their defeat – they were such a disparate crowd, from communists to anticommunists, from anti-clericals to mullahs and ayatollahs, that in no way they could all be satisfied even in the case of their victory. Actually, a victory for Mousavi would just begin an open struggle for power, and probably the most vocal and visible adepts of the change would find themselves losers. This happened to Soviet dissidents. In the rather similar Russian confrontation of August 1991 the opposition won – and vast majority of the people who stood at the barricades for Yeltsin came to regret it: they were cheated and robbed. This happened to Iranian dissidents after the Shah’s fall: Tudeh Communists found themselves outlawed after the revolution they worked so hard for.

The vast majority of Iranians voted for Ahmadinejad, for he is a modest man devoted to his people, he took care of the poor and had kept Iran free from the imperialist clutches. His work over the nuclear programme appears to be wildly popular, and even his defeated opponent did not dare to utter a single word against it. A younger man, he is free from cumbersome burden of post-revolutionary crimes, while his opponent was called The Butcher for thousands of executions he ordered. Ahmadinejad received strong support all over the country, even in the Azeri-populated North-West, though his opponent was an Azeri.

He is also popular all over the world as a symbol of the Third World rebellion, on a par with Castro and Chavez. He maintains good relationship with neighbouring Russia and China, even with the US-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Ahmadinejad’s lightning visit to Yekaterinburg to the SCO conference in the midst of the upheaval has proved his statesmanship. In his well-received fiery speech he never referred to the crisis back home, and he was congratulated by his peers President Medvedev and President Hu Jintao for his electoral victory. His stalwart anti-Zionist stand endeared him to the Arab neighbours of Iran, even to the annoyance of Arab rulers. His weapons saved Lebanon in 2006 from being devoured by Israel. Sometimes he goes too far, but otherwise, how can he find out how far he can go?

The accusations of electoral fraud are absolutely groundless, as our friend James Petras has well explained, while Thierry Meyssan explicated the techniques employed to persuade Iranians that they had been cheated. But beyond the sham of “fraud” there was a genuine complaint: elites often do not agree with democracy, with decisions made by the majority. The rich, the educated and the powerful feel that their voices can’t possibly have only the same weight as that of an ordinary worker and peasant. They stand “for the government by an elite, and voting graded by each individual’s rating in that elite”, as an Ian Fleming’s character (James Bond’s friend, and drunken Australian sleuth) Henderson used to say in You Live Only Twice.

Usually the elites find a way to “direct” democracy, so that the ordinary people eventually vote for representative elites. This is the way it’s done from India to the US. However, in critical moments this system does not work. Then the elites tend to disregard the majority vote and act directly. This was the case in Russia in 1993, when the new pro-Western elites did not agree with the majority represented by the Parliament and had sent tanks to shell the Parliament. On its ruins, they installed the new system of direct rule. This was the case in Belgrade, where the Serbs were made to vote time and again until the elites’ candidate was finally confirmed. So on the psychological level, supporters of Mousavi felt they had been cheated of the power they deserve. But elections in Iran are not infrequent: they still can readjust their wishes, give more consideration to the will of ordinary folk and wait for the next election.

Beyond direct participants and candidates, the Iranian drama had two major protagonists whose positive actions helped to avoid bloodshed and disaster. One of them is the elderly Spiritual Guide Ali Khamenei, a wise man and a graduate of Moscow University. He was fully in control of the events. Such a man was missing in Kiev and in Beijing. His Friday sermon calmed the passions. He drew a clear contradistinction between the hooligans and the CIA agents, on one hand, and the sincere supporters of Moussavi’s agenda, on the other. After this separation of sheep from goats, civil peace could proceed without delay. Khameney forgave and embraced the supporters of Mousavi. Indeed, that was the end of the big demonstrations – only small groups of born-again activists defied his orders and were dispersed by non-lethal means.

The second protagonist was located in most unexpected place, in Washington. President Obama is a true hero of the drama. He refused to escalate the troubles despite neocon demands. He never called upon the Iranians to rise in arms against the evil regime; he did not doubt legitimacy of elections, he did not threaten Tehran with extinction. For a recently elected president sandwiched between the old guard of Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden and the young guard of Rahm and Axelrod, with a severe recession on his hands, with his election coffers filled by Jewish donations, this was an act of reckless heroism, of the Iwo Jima variety. I can imagine what Ronald Reagan or George Bush, pere et fils, would say. Something like “We all are Iranians now” at least.

The failed “green revolution” was prepared by the Zionist-infiltrated CIA, a hangover of Bush’s days. Paul Craig Roberts quoted neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman who wrote the day before the election of a ‘green revolution’ coming in Tehran as “the National Endowment for Democracy (NED, a CIA tool – ISH) has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘colour’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups”. But President Obama was a very reluctant player in this drama. Only after being pushed by Biden did he express a very modest desire to see no violence in Tehran.  Thus, in my view, President Obama honourably discharged his Cairo promise to recognize elections and to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the Middle Eastern states. True, he could not stop the CIA, but probably that was outside of his writ.

If one were to turn it into a stage play, the prologue would be played in the White House with arrival of the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. His part could be played by a mature leman used to have things done her way.

-       I want a new mink coat, - she’d ask, and the African would rudely enquire whether she’d be pleased with two kicks instead.

Only, in a peculiar Salome-like twist, instead of the mink, Netanyahu asked for so many chopped Persian heads. He found a Biblical explanation: the Persians are Amalek, the enemy tribe, and so they have to be exterminated to their last cat.

Usually, when encountering Israeli Prime Ministers, American presidents would begin to argue like Abraham with the God of Old Testament: oh no, not to the last cat. Let us leave some Persian cats, please!

However, Barrack Obama did not debate the topic: he demanded from the Israeli instead that he freeze the expansion of Jewish colonies.

-       We should discuss methods of bombing Iran, rather, -

objected Netanyahu, but the superior Negro did not buy the soiled merchandise of the Jew, as Ian Fleming would put it. He insisted on dismantling some of the colonies, and brought it into the agenda. In order to return Iran into the limelight, and to make us forget about the settlements, the Zionist infiltrators incited the trouble in Iran.

The developments in Iran are part and parcel of the present struggle of the American soul represented by their President Obama to cut the excessive Zionist influence down to size. In the very short time he has stood at the helm of the good ship America he has taken a few daring steps:

• He made the Cairo speech and offered a palm branch to the Muslim world.
• He demanded that Israel remove the colonies and lift the Gaza siege.
• He refused to support the Zionist plan to bomb and/or undermine Iran.
• 42 years after the event, his Administration gave a Silver Star medal to a USS Liberty survivor. The USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli jets and torpedo boats, and this dastardly deed was hidden from the American eyes with connivance of all American presidents - until Obama.
• Inspired by his victory, the University of California at Santa Barbara blocked the Zionist Lobby attempt to undermine and expel Professor Robinson. Such things had never happened before in America. This is comparable to first failures of Senator McCarthy and his HUAC, when the machine used to grate people suddenly broke down.

You could not expect that the Lobby would accept its defeat stoically. They counterattack Obama by all means, including silly blogs that list what he has not done yet, instead of being happy with what he already has accomplished.  He has enough enemies on the right, so the left should relent – until safer days.

Iranians now have the important task of mending the wear and tear caused by the Zionist and CIA-inspired colour-coded campaign. They should remember that very advanced techniques of social psycho-engineering enable malefactors to use social networks like Twitter in order to capture and destroy societies. The ordinary Iranians who were captured by this form of mind control are as innocent as if they had been poisoned. The time for throwing stones is over, - now is the time to gather them.

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