Election Protests in Tehran

Violence erupted in Tehran Saturday after officals announced election victory for incumbent President Ahmadinejad. Prompting supporters of challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi to protest after he had proclaimed a landslide win earlier on Friday.

Significantly, Mousawi’s claim came several hours before polling booths had even closed. So how did he know he had secured more than fifty per cent of the vote, as he claimed?

Or could it be that he was playing out his part in a hidden agenda?

This website isn’t going to pronounce on who won or lost Iran’s election. We are however going to look at the part played by Western interest groups, starting with the Center for New American Security.

Founded in 2007 with money from the Rockefeller Foundations, it was ostensibly about developing “strong, pragmatic and principled defence policies” in the 21st century.

By September 2008 when it published a report on how best to deal with Iran two things became apparent. First the Center for New American Security was a revised version of the now discredited Neocons, who effectively engineered the Iraq invasion.

Secondly, while the Neo Conservatives claimed themselves conservatives, the Center for New American Security displayed a ‘liberal’ facade. That however was no more than window dressing and while the CNAS talked of “principled defence policies”, like the neocons it had its own hidden agenda.

So while the neocons ultimate objective was regime change in Iraq, the Center for New American Security was focussed on Iran.

And although it wasn’t explicit, the CNAS September 2008 report looked at ways to effectively bring regime change to Iran, by whatever means possible.

“While both Iran and the international community would be better off if Iran plays ball,” the report noted, “game-changing diplomacy is designed to improve prospects for the United States and the international community irrespective of how Iran responds. Source.

What exactly “game changing diplomacy” entails is a moot point but it may have been seen in the western press coverage of Ahmadinejad main challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi.

A case in point being a recent BBC report on the election while voting was still in progress. Reporting from one of Tehran’s more upmarket suburbs, where support for Mousavi was more or less assured, John Simpson spoke to voters in English. Thereby ensuring that whoever he spoke to would be affluent, Western oreintated and more likely to be voting for Mousave.

True, Simpson acknowledged that voters in rural areas would be more likely to vote for Ahmadinejad but his report was presented as representative of Iranian elections as a whole. From which the more uncritical might assume that there would be widespread support for Ahmadinejad’s challenger.

Beyond challenging Ahmadinejad however, the reformist Mousavi is also a painter and architect and a former prime minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989. So he has the qualities to bring the sort of reforms promised by Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and Georgia’s Rose Revolution.

In fact the Western mainstream media’s take on the reformist candidate was reminiscent of early coverage of the Orange and Rose Revolution.

Both movements involved the support of financial oligarch George Soros and neither delivered what they initially promised. Ukraine’s President Yushchenko failed to meet popular aspirations and brought years of political instability though the country’s elite remained untouched.

While Georgia’s Rose revolution ultimately resulted in war with Russia and humilating defeat.

The fact that some commentators dubbed Mousavi’s challenge the “Green Revolution” should have also rung alarm bells.

These colour coded “revolutions” have something about them that could easily have been dreamt up in a political think-tank. Like an advertising product logo, they have wide appeal and are easily recognisable. A quality that crucially, has the power to immediately nuetralise any critical scrutiny.

Again, one is reminded of early Western media coverage of the Rose and Orange Revolutions.

Whether an election victory for Mousavi would have led the same way, if indeed he did actually win, is debatable. But it’s as well to be aware of what was behind these two earlier “Revolutions” because their echoes may be heard right now on the streets of Tehran.

Also see Mir-Hossein Mousavi's Iran/Contra Connection?, which more or less confirms this writers suspicions over what is really behind Mousavi's claims.

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Last updated 17/06/2009

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