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.

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!

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.”

Tracking the coup in Iran

The Daily Dish has been indispensible along with many, many other online resources. Twitter has apparently been indispensible among services in Iran.

As an app Twitter is still an infant battlling growing pains, hype and speculation on monetizing. What is amazing is how those 140 characters affected the San Diego wildfires and now an ongoing international situation where mainstream media is repeatedly dropping the ball. Web 2.0 is proving to be much more revolutionary than anyone could have guessed.

Hit the link for a Twitter search on the hashtag #iranelection.

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.