OBL in WDC

Ahmadinejad is crazy … crazy like a fox. Check out this exchange with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: One final question. There’s a new documentary out that says that Osama Bin Laden is living in Tehran. And the subject of the documentary, a man named Alan Parrot, one of the world’s foremost falconers living in Iran, says he’s spoken to Osama bin Laden several times since 2003. Is Osama bin Laden in Tehran?

AHMADINEJAD: Your question is laughable.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

AHMADINEJAD: The U.S. government has invaded Afghanistan in order to arrest Bin Laden. They probably know where Bin Laden is. If they don’t know he is, why did they invade? Could we know the intelligence?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think if they knew, they would find him. They would get him.

AHMADINEJAD: First they should have tried to find his location, then invade, those who did not know about his location first they invaded and then they tried to find out where he is, is that logical? Do you think this is logical?

STEPHANOPOULOS: What I think is that you didn’t answer my question. Is he in Tehran or not?

AHMADINEJAD: Our position is quite clear. Some journalists have said Bin Laden is in Iran. These words don’t have legal value. Our position towards Afghanistan and against terrorism is quite clear.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it true or not?

AHMADINEJAD: Maybe you know, but I don’t know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m asking you. You’re the President of Iran.

AHMADINEJAD: I don’t know such a thing, you are giving news which is very strange.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, let me ask it a different way. If you did know that Osama bin Laden was in Tehran, would you show him hospitality? Would you expel him? Would you arrest him?

AHMADINEJAD: I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No, you didn’t.

AHMADINEJAD: Yes, I did. He’s there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush–

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ll ask one more time and then I’ll let you go. If you knew that Osama bin Laden was in Tehran, which you say you don’t. If you knew, would you expel him? Would you arrest him? Would you show him hospitality?

AHMADINEJAD: Our borders, our borders are closed to the illegal entry of anyone. Anyone who that may be. Whether it’s the three American mountaineers, Mr. Bin Laden or anyone else. The borders are closed. Our position is clear.

I’m quite surprised, to see that you adjust your daily lives based on the news that is being broadcast. I’m concerned that the government of the United States takes positions based on such news. If it is so, it is too bad. The news must be accurate and accountable, otherwise it will disrupt the relations between the nations. Just like this, did the government of the United States knew about the location of Mr. Bin Laden? And you said, “No, they went to find out.” Well, first you locate–

STEPHANOPOULOS: They lost the trail.

AHMADINEJAD: –to find out they have invaded Afghanistan. First they have to find out his location and then invade. It’s like for a judge to arrest someone and then go after the evidence.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you deny categorically that he’s in Tehran today? He is not– Osama bin Laden is not in Tehran today?

AHMADINEJAD: Rest assured that he’s in Washington. I think there’s a high chance he’s there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t agree.

Thank you for your time, Mr. President.

(Hat tip: Mike Allen’s Playbook)

Ahmadinejad joins the 9/11 truthers

Like the rest of his crazy statements, this one is calculated for effect in Iran. Doesn’t make it any less nuts, though.

From the link:

Perhaps concerned that his repeated suggestions that the Holocaust might not have happened have become less shocking over time, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad upped the ante on Saturday, telling intelligence officials in Tehran that the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was staged.

In remarks reported by IRNA, an official Iranian news agency, and translated by Reuters, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” Mr. Ahmadinejad also reportedly described the attacks in New York as a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.” Conspiracy theorists in the Middle East have suggested that the attacks were not the work of Al Qaeda, but carried out by Israeli or American intelligence operatives.

The Iranian despots crack down

From credible accounts coming out of Iran on 22 Bahman, an expected day of renewed green wave protest, the totalitarian state in Iran exposed its cravenness. And that Iran is no longer a democratic state by any definition.

Here is a great round-up from Sully and his under-bloggers at the Daily Dish with links to plenty of video and tweets from Iran.

Iran “censors” its own flag

The green stripe at the top of Iran’s flag has been removed when the flag was displayed at recent official ceremonies. This totalitarian state is now willing to desecrate its national symbol to avoid displaying the color of the green wave revolution.

Ruling in fear is not ruling.

From the link:

Radio Free Europe reports:

[I]n at least two official ceremonies in recent days, images of that flag have been used where the green color has been replaced by blue. The move has led to speculation that the Iranian government is trying to get rid of the green in the Iranian flag because it’s a symbol of the opposition movement that has been challenging the disputed reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The Green Revolution continues in Iran

The despotic regime in Iran must be feeling the heat. At every opportunity since the stolen election in June unrest has been breaking out across the nation. Today was an expected protest day, coinciding with a holiday honoring the holiest martyr of Shiite Islam and made even more potent after the death of Grand Ayatollah Ali Hossein Montazeri last week. The one-week day of mourning for Montazeri — a major player in the 1979 revolution and open critic of the recent regime crack-down against the Green Revolution protests — fell on this day adding fuel and emotion to the protest fire.

Here’s a link to the New York Times’ protest coverage, and breaking update’s from the NYT blog, the Lede.

From the second link:

Update | 2:49 p.m. My colleague Nazila Fathi has spoken with a doctor working at Najmieh hospital on  Jomhouri street in central Tehran, close to the site of violent clashes on Sunday. The doctor said that the hospital has have treated more than 60 people who were seriously injured and performed 17 operations on people with gunshot wounds. Three of the patients are in critical condition. The doctor also said that members of the security forces have filled the hospital.

Andrew Sullivan has done as much as any blogger in terms of getting the news of protest in Iran out there from the very beginning this summer. Here’s a very salient point on today’s activities:

This has to be seen now as a crippling blow to the coup regime. This vivid demonstration that they simply cannot command the assent of the Iranian people except by brutal, raw, thuggish violence, and that resistance to the regime is clearly stronger, more impassioned and angrier than ever before is their death knell. They have lost any shred of legitimacy – and the Green Revolution is outlasting them in conviction and energy and might.

The significance of this day, Ashura, the day Khomeini regarded as the turning point against the Shah, cannot be under-estimated. Its symbolic power in Shia Islam, its themes of resistance to tyranny to the last drop of blood, its fusion of religious mourning and political revolt: this makes it lethal to the fascist thugs who dropped any pretense of ruling by even tacit consent last June.

The Green Wave continues

The revolution against Iran’s despotic ruling faction is far from over and there have been a multitude of reports of “Death to the Dictator” shout and defacing and stomping on posters of Khamenei.

From the link:

1902 GMT: Josh Shahryar, having gone through the videos and reports of today’s events, estimates that 25,000 to 30,000 opposition demonstrators were on the streets of Tehran at some point during 13 Aban. An estimated 2000-3000 were marching in Isfahan, but there is not enough information yet to project the numbers in other cities.

Iran’s leadership between rock and hard place

The secret nuke plant revelations coupled with the continued domestic Green Wave revolution puts the whole group of tyrants under the gun. Ahmadinejad’s little performance at the UN didn’t help matters, and Russia’s joining Western denouncers only adds to Iran’s misery. Good riddance for a bunch of  election thieves.

From the link:

A week ahead of crunch talks on Iran’s nuclear program, the leaders of the U.S., France and the U.K. on Friday accused Tehran of building a covert uranium enrichment facility, a development they said directly challenges the world’s non-proliferation rules.

Later in the day, Iran publicly confirmed and strongly defended the nuclear fuel facility.

Speaking at an overflowing news conference in New York Friday afternoon, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country has complied with rules of the U.N. nuclear agency that requires Tehran inform it of any new enrichment facility six months before any such facility becomes operational, the Associated Press reported.

Iran pours gas on fire

The heirs of the 1979 revolution currently in leadership positions just don’t get it. By openly falsifying an election — not necessarily the results, but actually turning the entire electoral process into a sham — then cracking down on the not surprising uprising against totalitarianism while issuing clearly false propaganda that “outside forces” were at work during the protests, the ruling mullahs have essentially sealed their own demise.

Iran has long been known as a place of contradictions. Hosting a secular, by middle east standards, population with a hardline Islamic leadership and political face to the rest of the world. The nation existed in something of a state of truce where the people went about their lives and enjoyed the idea of living in an enlightened democratic nation, albeit democratic in a very limited fashion.

The stolen election changed the equation overnight. There has now been almost two months of protests against first the election, and now simply against the increasingly desperate and brutal leadership. Recently graffiti that would have been unthinkable even a month ago — “Death to (supreme leader) Khamenei” — is showing up with some frequency.

How do the floudering tyrants react? Like this. Stupidly.

From the link:

The Iranian authorities opened an extraordinary mass trial against more than 100 reformist figures on Saturday, accusing them of conspiring with foreign powers to stage a revolution through terrorism, subversion and a media campaign to discredit last month’s presidential election.State television broadcast images of the defendants, many of them shackled and clad in prison uniforms, as prosecutors outlined the charges in a large marble-floored courtroom.

The trial, coming just days before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be sworn in for a second term, suggested an intensified government effort to undermine the opposition movement, which maintains that the election was rigged and continues to muster widespread street protests.

The green wave continues

Open protests had largely ended before today’s planned gathering. The despotic ruling regime threatened its own citizens once again to not demonstrate for any reason and looks to be making good on its promise to rain physical violence down on any protesters.

It is horrible the people of Iran must suffer at the hands of what is now nothing more than a brutal totalitarian state and a leadership that over the last several weeks has continually broken Irani law in an attempt to break the will and spirit of the Irani people.

Today’s protest makes it very obvious to both Iranians and the people of the world the green wave revolution is not over by any stretch, and that the ruling despots days are truly numbered. The ideals behind the revolution of 1979 are gone from Irani leadership. There’s no telling what will come next politically and no way of telling when change at the top will occur, but change is coming to Iran.

From the link:

It was the first protest in 11 days, and was called to commemorate the 10th anniversary of violent confrontations at Tehran University when protesting students were beaten and jailed. Iranian authorities had announced earlier that the demonstration was illegal and would be met with a “crushing response.”

But at the end of the work day, hundreds of protesters began packing the streets of one area of Tehran, chanting, clapping and sitting in jammed traffic as drivers honked their horns, witnesses said. Families brought their children. Many held a hand in the air in the defiant V for victory.

The security forces quickly moved in.

Reuters, citing witnesses, reported that the police used tear gas to disperse a group of about 250 protesters as they headed toward Tehran University, shouting support for a defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

At the Daily Dish Andrew Sullivan has a great roundup of mainstream media coverage of today’s protests and the ensuing crackdown.

Cato on Iran’s green wave and Obama’s response

The libertarian Cato Institute voices approval of Obama’s measured handling of the green wave revolution going on in Iran right now. The United States hand in this process must be very delicate. The despotic leadership in Iran would like nothing more than to blame “the great satan” America for the popular uprising (indeed they are attempting to do so daily along with trying to pin blame on the British as well).

The green wave is about the Iranian people becoming tired of the cheap and false lip service given to democracy by ruling mullahs. The stolen election ripped that falsehood away and exposed the existing Islamacist leadership as little more than cheap frightened thugs.

From today’s weekly dispatch:

Obama’s Cool Response to Iranian Politics Appropriate

As the voices of protest to the Iranian election grow louder, many have called upon President Obama to use bolder rhetoric when speaking about the elections in Iran. Last week, Charles Krauthammer and Paul Wolfowitz opined in The Washington Postthat Obama’s reaction has not been nearly enough. Cato foreign policy expert Christopher Preble disagrees, saying that Obama’s calculated reaction is appropriate: The louder the neocons become in their braying for a free and fair counting of the election results, the less likely it is to occur. In their more candid moments, a few are willing to admit that they would prefer Ahmadinejad to Mousavi. …It is possible to view President Obama as a more credible messenger, given that he opposed the Iraq war from the outset and has shown a willingness to reach out to the Iranian people. Perhaps a full-throated, morally self-righteous, public address in support of Mousavi’s supporters might have tipped the scales in the right direction. It seems more likely, however, that Obama’s patient, measured public response to recent events is well suited to the circumstances. As the president said earlier this week, Americans are right to feel sympathy for the Iranian protesters, and we should all be free to voice our sentiments openly. But it is incumbent upon policymakers to pursue strategies that don’t backfire, or whose unintended consequences don’t dwarf the gains that we are trying to achieve. In many cases, the quiet, private back channel works well. And if we discover that there is no credible back channel to Iran available, similar to those employed in 1986 and 1991, then we’ll all know whom to blame. Cato scholar Justin Logan says that the U.S. government should stay silent on Iran: President Obama should keep quiet on the subject of Iran’s elections. At least two pernicious tendencies are on display in the Beltway discussion on the topic. First is the common Washington impulse to “do something!” without laying out clear objectives and tactics. What, after all, is President Obama or his administration supposed to do to “support protesters” in Iran in the first place? What would be the ultimate goal of such support? Most importantly, what is the mechanism by which the support is supposed to produce the desired outcome? That we are debating how America should intervene in Iran’s domestic politics indicates the sheer grandiosity of American foreign policy thought.

Live green wave coverage from the Daily Dish

Andrew Sullivan is doing an exhaustive (and exhausting even for me just to attempt to keep up with it all) job of live blogging the green wave in Iran and now today’s crackdown from the despotic ruling regime.

He’s continually adding tweets from inside Iran, embedding video and providing fresh images of the protests and state-issued violence against a democracy seeking population.

Hit the Daily Dish link in my blogroll for his latest posts, and this link goes to “Live-Blogging Day 8.”

From the link:

2.58 pm. good source: Hospital close to the scene in Tehran: 30-40 dead thus far as of 11pm and 200 injured. Police taking names of incoming injured.

Voice from Iran: Shame on a country in which foreign embassies are safer than hospitals 😦

Gunfire Is Hearing From Near Resalat SQ. (East Teharan)

2.47 pm. New footage of fighting in the streets. And another protester is shot.

2.31 pm. Canadians, call your foreign office. It’s confirmed Canadian Embassy rejects injured protesters

Australian Embassy reportedly accepting injured

My Friend Wounded At Haft Hooz SQ, No Clinic Is Open!

Iran-I-am, a green wave comic

This is a great comic from the Atlanic Online’s Sage Stossel:

Iran-I-am by Sage Stossel

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

 

Khamenei lays down gauntlet

In today’s speech Khamenei seems to have drawn a line in the sand. The question for the thuggish Irani regime is it too little too late. He’s threatened violence on the green protesters if demonstrations continue, but the existing government has been exposed for what it is — a despotic ruling class with no respect for even the nominal democracy previously offered the Irani people.

The next few days will be very interesting. The future of Iran is at stake. Hopefully, as outside observers, we don’t witness a brutal crack-down of the Irani spirit. Khamenei seems to have promised as much. No matter the outcome Iran has fundamentally changed and I don’t see how Ahmadinejad could ever be seen as the legitimate president of the nation if he somehow remains in power.

From the link:

In his first public response to days of mass protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opposition supporters on Friday to stay off the streets and raised the prospect of violence if the defiant, vast demonstrations continued.

Opposition leaders, he said, will be “responsible for bloodshed and chaos” if they do not stop further rallies.

He said he would never give in to “illegal pressures” and denied their accusations that last week’s presidential election was rigged, praising the officially declared landslide for the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.”

Protests continue in Iran

From all accounts the ongoing election protests in Iran are relatively peaceful. I’ve read some accounts that make the situation out to be a game of reverse chicken where the first side to go openly violent will end up the loser. At this point I think it’s pretty clear the previous status quo has lost. Regardless the outcome, the legitimacy of the post-1979 government is either significantly reduced or possibly gone altogether.

From the link:

The protesters marched silently down a major thoroughfare, some holding photographs of the main opposition candidate in Friday’s vote, Mir Hussein Moussavi. Others lifted their bare hands high in the air, signifying their support for Mr. Moussavi with green ribbons tied around their wrists or holding their fingers in a victory sign.

The scope and description of the demonstration was provided by participants who were reached by telephone, as well as photographs taken participants and journalists despite warnings by the authorities against reporting on the event. All accredited in Iran have been ordered to remain in their offices.

It was the fifth day of unrest since election officials declared a landslide victory for the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This bit from the same link strikes me as patently ridiculous:

The Iranian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents American interests in Tehran, to complain of “interventionist” statements by American officials, state-run media reported.

If anything the White House is playing this very smoothly and not providing any fuel for “Great Satan influence” rhetoric from the Iranian government.

Of course some on the neocon right don’t see things quite like anyone else.

To wit (from a Robert Kagan op-ed):

It’s not that Obama preferred a victory by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He probably would have been happy to do business with Mir Hossein Mousavi, even if there was little reason to believe Mousavi would have pursued a different approach to the nuclear issue. But once Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers. If Obama appears to lend support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid.

Obama’s policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government.

And with this line of fantasy the neocons fade a little deeper back into history ready to be mothballed in think tanks for another 35 or so years.

Kagan’s outrageous op-ed was immediately countered by the blogosphere.

Here’s Matt Duss:

But I have to say, Mr. Kagan, your op-ed this morning is really beneath you. You can’t actually believe that President Obama is “siding with the Iranian regime” against the Iranian people, or that Obama’s outreach to Iran depends upon keeping hardliners in power, can you? You’re far too intelligent to buy the brutishly simplistic “realism” that you attempt to hang upon President Obama’s approach. These sorts of claims are better left to your friend and occasional co-author Bill Kristol, who uses his series of valuable journalistic perches (with which he inexplicably continues to be gifted) to launch an endless stream of comically transparent bad faith arguments. You’re better than that. You’re the smart neocon.

I wish the best of luck to the people of Iran. People who deserve the modern society denied them for many years. I’m disappointed, but no surprised, the neocon, pro-Israel right would attempt to inject U.S. politics into a situation that belongs to one Middle East nation, and one nation alone, at this time.

This revolution is not televised

I’m going to assume the televised media will eventually pick up the ball on the ongoing situation in Iran. It’s only the most important geopolitical story out there. Thirty years after deposing the Shah, Iranians are rejecting both a sham election and the corrupt Islamic leadership.

Of course if you want any serious coverage of the Iranian green revolution you need to hit the BBC, the blogosphere, NYT’s website or Twitter. For the most part mainstream media is proving its irrelevancy once again. The Sunday edition of my local paper had exactly zero mention of Iran on its front page. Sadly I can’t type “unbelievable” because utter crap has become par for the course.

Hit the link for a Twitter #iranelection hashtag search.

Civil war in Iran?

Looks to be very likely given the stolen election and the enthusiastic level of voting and support for Mousavi.

Andrew Sullivan has done a great job of covering the election and its aftermath including many insights from his myriad of readers.

Looks like even Iran’s monitors are calling the results election fraud.

From the link:

A Farsi speaking military reader confirms the post here, perhaps the most important aspect of which was that Iran’s own election monitors have allegedly declared the election a fraud.