June 2009

NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP: June 30

by Paul Woodward 06.30.2009

Neda in Palestine, sentenced to die alone By Max Blumenthal, Huffington Post, June 30, 2009 For over a week, major American news outlets have broadcast on a virtual loop the video of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, an unarmed 26-year-old Iranian woman, by Iranian security services. The poignant footage of Neda dying before a throng [...]

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Pepe Escobar: Requiem for a revolution

by Paul Woodward 06.30.2009

More at The Real News Requiem for a revolution By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, June 30, 2009 If this military dictatorship of the mullahtariat continues to appease its working-class support base with a little redistribution of oil revenues, they can stay in power for a long time. The West may try to boycott them – [...]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP: June 29

by Paul Woodward 06.29.2009

Is Khamenei controlled by the Revolutionary Guards? By Gary Sick, The Daily Beast, June 27, 2009 There are many different ways to look at the developments in Iran. One perspective that seems to have been ignored is what I regard as the cardinal role of the Revolutionary Guards. Over the 20 years that Ayatollah Khamenei [...]

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Ayatollah Taleghani’s prescient warning

by Paul Woodward 06.28.2009

Ayatollah Taleghani’s warning about the return of despots Via Mir Hossein Mousavi’s Facebook page, June 28, 2009 “If things go the way they are, despots will rule over us. If we don’t appreciate this free and peaceful environment and create an environment of trickery, an environment full of suffering and chaos, just like the Koran [...]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP: June 27

by Paul Woodward 06.27.2009

What will be the legacy of the Green Revolution? By Trita Parsi and Reza Aslan, Foreign Policy, June 26, 2009 Exiled opposition groups, whose political agenda sharply differs from that of the protesters in Iran — indeed, many of these groups urged people not to vote in the elections — have sought to fill the [...]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITOR’S COMMENTS: June 26

by Paul Woodward 06.26.2009

The revolution will not be digitized By Farhad Manjoo, Slate, June 25, 2009 What happened in Baharestan Square on Wednesday? According to a woman who called in to CNN, Iranian security forces unleashed unimaginable brutality upon a few hundred protesters gathered in central Tehran. “They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in [...]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP: June 25

by Paul Woodward 06.25.2009

Burning silence in Iran By Laura Secor, The New Yorker, June 24, 2009 Silence seems to have rolled over Iran’s burning landscape, not because the situation has calmed, but because we know it less and less. Reporters have been banned, communications slowed, and civic organizations that might aggregate information in ordinary times have ceased to [...]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP: June 24

by Paul Woodward 06.24.2009

Bet on Neda’s side By David Ignatius, Washington Post, June 24, 2009 We are watching the first innings of what will be a long game in Iran. President Obama has recognized that with his gradually escalating rhetoric. Yesterday, he was using powerful language to describe the “timeless dignity” of the protesters and the “heartbreaking” images [...]

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IRAN’S INTIFADA

by Paul Woodward 06.23.2009

Iran’s intifada: Symbols are not enough to win this battle By Robert Fisk, The Independent, June 23, 2009 You don’t overthrow Islamic revolutions with car headlights. And definitely not with candles. Peaceful protest might have served Gandhi well, but the Supreme Leader’s Iran is not going to worry about a few thousand demonstrators on the [...]

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“Neda wanted freedom and freedom for all” – updated

by Paul Woodward 06.22.2009

“Neda wanted freedom and freedom for all” BBC Persia, June 22, 2009 (Translation provided by Huffington Post readers.) Caspian Makan, Neda Agha-Setan‘s fiancee, was interviewed by BBC Persia, noting that Neda would have turned 27 this year. “Neda’s goal was not Mousavi or Ahmadinejad, it was her country and was important for her to fight [...]

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Iran update – June 22

by Paul Woodward 06.22.2009

Almost half Assembly of Experts want election annulled Huffington Post, June 22, 2009 Forty senior clerics want election results annulled. The intense infighting among Iran’s clerical establishment appeared to play out in new dramatic fashion on Monday. Via reader Art, the news site Peiknet reported that Ayatollah Rafsanjani has a letter signed by 40 members [...]

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“… the settlements will never go, and yet almost everyone likes to pretend otherwise…”

by Paul Woodward 06.22.2009

Fictions on the ground By Tony Judt, New York Times, June 22, 2009 Israel needs “settlements.” They are intrinsic to the image it has long sought to convey to overseas admirers and fund-raisers: a struggling little country securing its rightful place in a hostile environment by the hard moral work of land clearance, irrigation, agrarian [...]

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Neda’s martyrdom – updated

by Paul Woodward 06.21.2009

Update – Reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, has called for a rally at 4PM to mourn Neda Agha-Soltan‘s death. In Iran, one woman’s death may have many consequences By Robin Wright, Time, June 21, 2009 Iran’s revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out [...]

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Iran: revolution or reform?

by Paul Woodward 06.21.2009

Larijani criticizes Guardian Council, IRIB Press TV, June 21, 2009 Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani suggests that some of the members in the Guardian Council have sided with a certain candidate in the June 12 presidential election. Speaking live on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Saturday, the speaker said [...]

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Assembly of Experts backs Khamenei – updated

by Paul Woodward 06.20.2009

Assembly of Experts expresses strong support for Leader’s guidelines Tehran Times, June 21, 2009 In a statement issued on Saturday the Assembly of Experts expressed its “strong support” for the Supreme Leader’s statements on the presidential elections on Friday. The 86-member assembly stated in the statement that it is hoped that the nation would realize [...]

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DAY OF RECKONING – updated

by Paul Woodward 06.19.2009

Update – Live blogging from Nico Pitney, Andrew Sullivan, and niacINsight. From niacINsight: Iranian state media reportedly lying about what Obama is saying: This morning a friend of NIAC who gets Iranian Satellite TV here said that state-run media showed President Obama speaking about Iran this morning. However, instead of translating what he actually said, [...]

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Editorial: Iran — the human story

by Paul Woodward 06.19.2009

Iran — the human story By Paul Woodward, War in Context, June 19, 2009 No one gets a front-row seat in a revolution. It’s not a spectacle. You’re either out in the open, risking your life; lying low (or on the run), trying to save your life; or far enough away that the shouts, screams [...]

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Iran update – June 19

by Paul Woodward 06.19.2009

Iran’s turning point: The Supreme Leader’s ominous sermon By Howard Chua-Eoan, Time, June 19, 2009 Iranians knew that Friday Prayer in Tehran on June 19 would be a turning point. For those tuning in to watch, its significance could be approached visually, like the old May Day parades in Moscow under the Soviet Union. You [...]

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Iran update – June 18

by Paul Woodward 06.18.2009

Thursday’s rally to mourn the dead in Iran By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, June 18, 2009 The march in teeming South Tehran, the poorest part of the capital, was intended to show a broad base of support for the opposition, which Ahmadinejad and his backers have denounced as reflecting the interests of [...]

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Khamanei has lost his grip on power

by Paul Woodward 06.17.2009

Mousavi calls day of mourning for Iran dead By Dominic Evans and Fredrik Dahl, Reuters, June 17, 2009 Defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi urged supporters to stage protests or gather in mosques to mourn those killed after disputed elections that set off Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory [...]

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Iran update – June 16

by Paul Woodward 06.16.2009

In Iran, an iron cleric, now blinking By Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, June 15, 2009 In the wake of the election debacle, questions are being raised [regarding the military and Khamenei] about who controls whom. But over the years, Ayatollah Khamenei gradually surmounted expectations that he would be eclipsed. “He is a weak leader, [...]

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Pepe Escobar on Iran

by Paul Woodward 06.15.2009

The meaning of the Tehran spring By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, June 16, 2009 Today’s rally in Tehran in support of Mousavi It is 1979 in Tehran all over again. From Saturday to Sunday, the deafening sound deep in the night across Tehran’s rooftops was a roaring, ubiquitous “Allah-u Akbar” (God is great). Then, in [...]

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Iran update and editor’s comments – June 15

by Paul Woodward 06.15.2009

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei orders inquiry into vote-rigging claims in Iranian poll By Ian Black, Vikram Dodd, Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, June 15, 2009 The turmoil following Iran’s disputed presidential election intensified today, after the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered an investigation into claims of vote rigging and an opposition protest rally was cancelled [...]

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Echoes of the revolution

by Paul Woodward 06.14.2009

Echoes of the revolution Tehran, June 9, 2009 “On the rooftops in Tehran, people sounding out into the night ‘God is Great,’ the same chant that sparked the revolution in 1979, only now with a decidedly different subtext.” — National Iranian American Council blog Note: This video was made three days before the election. Share

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