I am a young Iranian citizen. I am not disputing if there is going to a revolution or not. But your article is more than a joke to Iranians than reflecting an aspect of truth. It honestly shows how you have no insight on Iran , the regime and the people at all. I am also sure you are connected to a limited source feeding you what the Iranian regime lobby is to do and you just reflect what you get from them. I do not mean that you necessarily represents the regime propaganda but you have been manipulated to do so and your article ridiculously is showing the what regime struggles to persuade people with, something they already fail to do due to losing people’s trust.

Let me bring some highlights of funny comments you mentioned. It is redicuously wrong that you barely can find an unbiased Iranian to buy it:

“On Dec. 27, large crowds poured into the streets of cities across Iran to commemorate the Shiite holy day of Ashura; this coincided with mourning observances for a revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had died a week earlier. Protesters used the occasion to gather in Tehran and elsewhere, setting off clashes with security forces.”

You still are ignorant of this absolute fact that the people have no way to gather up to protest but on the days there are some occasions. That day was one of those occasions no matter if it was the 7th day after the death of Ayatollah or not , It would have happened. It wasnt due to that.

“Antigovernment Iranian Web sites claim there were “tens of thousands” of Ashura protesters; others in Iran say there were 2,000 to 4,000.”

The regime does block all the major streets in order to evade the stream of people getting together. any gathering over three instantly would be smashed by the anitoriot cops and even in such condition under a totally militarized condition, you see the protesters. If what you claim which is exactly the regime’s propaganda, they shouldnt have bothered on letting the journalists report the situation but the banned any journalist activity.

“one thing we do know is that much of Iranian society was upset by the protesters using a sacred day to make a political statement.”

Man, youre a big joke with what you said above! Are you kidding me?!!!

What you wrote has no analytical value and is one of the most misguiding and false representation of Iranian situation. By the way that state fabricated so called supporting Demonstration with the close up fixed shuts that you mentioned, including around 20 to 100,000 people( based on the area measured and fitting 2 to 3 people per square meter) they have brought by the bus and subway from suburbs and the cities and villages around, was just a show for the regime in a small square in a city with over 12 million population. Iranians name it as “The Fruit Juice Support”. If you dont know what it means, it means you dont know whats going on. If the regime had the support, they would have let the world report directly their show. Do not also bother with those closed-shut photo which most of them also get edited by photoshop. Go thru some Iranain blogs to see some of them.

Whenever you saw the Iranian regime let a secure demonstrations for the opposition, then you can judge like what happened after the rigged election in few hours.

I recommend you do not bother with IRAN. You yourself know you know nothing on Iran. I bet you have not even been there. Also if youre in touch with some one providing these false picture, manipulating you for the regime propaganda, I bet he or she is the regime hand over here paying you.

If regime knew that they had the people support, a competitive demonstration could have solved their problem, every one knows they barely have the support of even 5% of people. They can not. that is why they oppress people. shoot them, assassinate them. hit then by the police cars and run and on the top ban and journalist activities there. You dont have to be a genius to get who is right and if the regime is still in control or not…
Good luck :)

I do not even want to bother for the rest of your so called article.

Mousavi’s supporters and/or the Green Movement can only claim to speak for the country if they are a majority. There is no evidence that they are and the elections provide good evidence that they are not. Which a post-election poll confirms.

What you want looks like it is not what the country wants. What you’re fed up with does not look like it is what the country is fed up with.

Sorry.

I will spend one more sentence on you: read my previous post and keep your brain open.

Good Luck

You’ve been emphasizing your own opinion, I’ve been doing the same. Where our opinions disagree, I’m willing to show the reasoning that leads to mine. You say it is clear that Ahmadinejad’s margin was fabricated. It is clear to me that the opposite is true.

The votes were counted by hundreds of thousands of election workers all over the country, if the country really has a pro-Mousavi majority, very likely there would also be a pro-Mousavi majority of the vote counters.

Mousavi had over 30,000 election monitors all over the country. Between him and the other opposition candidates, there were more opposition election monitors than there were ballot boxes.

Mousavi has issued a formal list of his complaints with how the election was conducted. His election monitors obviously did not give him information to support a claim that votes were not counted by the people who were supposed to count them, otherwise he would have made that claim.

The results were published so that every person who counted, and everyone who monitored the counts can see if the numbers used to make Ahmadinejad’s margin fit with what they did. Nobody yet, six months later, has come forward to say those numbers are wrong. Mousavi says he’s willing to die. Why is he not willing to say he got more votes that Ahmadinejad?

It is not clear that Ahmadinejad’s margin was fabricated. It is clear that it would nearly be impossible, given what we know now, for Ahmadinejad’s margin to have been fabricated to the degree that Mousavi could be the rightful President of Iran.

If you refuse to engage the argument, it is more likely that you have no reasonable response than that you refuse on principled grounds to discuss the matter with someone “pretending to be asleep” or something.

After reading your last response I see that you are not here to find the truth, but to emphasize your own opinion. It is said that it may be hard to wake up those who are sleeping, but it is impossible to wake up those who pretend to be asleep. I will not continue this discussion any longer.

Regards

I too fear the consequences of an attack on Iran, both as an Iranian, and as a person living in the West. I hope those with cooler heads will prevail.

I have to say that I agree 100% with the sentiments expressed in your last post directed to me. I personally believe that we should let the Green movement take its course (although I would, frankly, be willing to aid it if I thought it could win through and establish a popular regime in Iran). If it were in my power, America would not be involved in the Middle East at all. But let’s face it, we are not operating in a vacuum. There are people, nations, interests that have enormous influence on American policy; these seek to direct that policy towards their own particular objectives. Therefore America cannot simply say “we will not interfere in the region.” I wish it were not so, but there it is.

I do have a particular interest in Iran because of our disastrous intervention in 1953 (disastrous both to us and, above all, to the Iranian people), and because I also believe the two nations are natural allies. Most of all I am concerned that we will be dragged into another war in the Gulf, this time against Iran. In my opinion this would be a disaster for America, one that could have consequences even more far-reaching than those that flowed from Vietnam. That is the only reason I spend time writing and blogging on the subject. Nevertheless, I have great sympathy for the Iranian people and wish them the best. I don’t dismiss their legitimate claims and concerns at all.