Iran’s Elections: Organized Fraud

L’élection présidentielle de 2005 : les bastions du vote fondamentaliste

L’élection présidentielle de 2009 : les indices d’une fraude organisée

Cartes (PDF) réalisées par Marie Ladier-Fouladi

Iran and Revolution

It doesn’t seem like a good idea to attempt to silence a people that is basically brought up on the idea of revolution, especially if that revolution took place during the lives of many and its ideas formed the foundation of a nation. It would be like trying to install monarchy in the United States in 1800. In any case, it’s difficult to get a sense of what is happening, but this has been a news item – Grand Ayatullah Husayn (Hossein) ‘Ali Montazeri has issued a statement condemning the electoral fraud:

First Elections, Then Violence.

It has become a rather disturbing tendency probably since the 1990s and the “non-violent” revolutions in Eastern Europe. Now it happened in Zimbabwe – elections, wrong results, violence, and it looks like people are reacting the same way in Iran – elections, confused results, violence. I suppose unless people trust the governmental electoral process, these things are bound to happen. Yet on the other hand, American elections are known to have all sorts of shameful practices of supression, intimidation, misinformation and so on. It seems that even the world’s oldest and healthiest democracy is not really trustworthy. If you look at the rise of extremist violence, or just simple partisan discourse in the US today, even the legitimately elected president has to deal with issues of legitimacy among those who voted against him. And it wasn’t very different during the Bush years either – then it was 2000 “stolen” election, now it is Obama’s mystical birthcertificate and so on. Legitimacy, it seems, is a rather thorny concept…

Bush’s Semiorrhea

From J Street (I’ve added some links):

Speaking to Israel’s Parliament, President Bush accused those who believe in diplomacy to make America and Israel safe of indulging in a “foolish delusion” and the “false comfort of appeasement.”

Even more offensive, he likened us to those who favored talking to rather than defeating Adolf Hitler on the eve of World War II. How dare he invoke the memory of the Holocaust to justify his disastruous policies.

For seven and a half years, this President’s policies have fueled the fires of extremism rather than dampening them. His delusions led us into a disastrous war in Iraq. His disdain for diplomacy has alienated friends and emboldened enemies.

And the results? The forces of extremism are stronger than ever. Al Qaeda is on the move – into Iraq and elsewhere. Moderates are on the defensive from Lebanon to the Palestinian territories and elsewhere. And the United States and Israel are less secure.

This is Bush’s legacy. And he has the nerve to accuse us of indulging in “foolish delusions”?

This, Mr. President, is not what we want to hear on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Real friends of Israel know that only a US-led diplomatic offensive in the region will resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israel conflicts and ensure Israel’s security for another 60 years.

I don’t know if I’d go so far to say “only a US-led” diplomatic offensive will help move towards a resolution, but Bush’s speech in front of the Knesset was um…pretty silly. I wonder if Bush really thinks that Obama is to Iran or Palestine as Neville Chamberlian was to Germany, but I suspect that remark was also directed to many of the European countries that favor a diplomatic tack (instead of brute force) as well, especially in their criticisms of Bush’s debacle in Iraq, as well as the ongoing ravings of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

There was an interesting op-ed in the Buenos Aires Herald about 60 years of Israel here. Here is an excerpt: