Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING EYE The meaning of the Tehran spring
By Pepe Escobar
Masked mobs encircled and attacked the headquarters of both Mousavi and
Karroubi. By 3am on Saturday, long military convoys escorted by Basij militias
on motorbikes took over the streets of Tehran, crying "Mousavi bye-bye" - the
countercoup to the green revolution's chant of "Ahmadi bye-bye". The whole
thing started to feel like Tiananmen in Beijing in 1989. Or a plain and simple
coup.
On Saturday, Khamenei had to go on the record to stress there was no fraud. And
on Sunday, he felt he needed to re-certify the whole thing, describing the
election as "an epic and ominous event".
The official breakdown of the vote had Ahmadinejad taking Tehran by over 50%.
He may be popular in the rural provinces and in
parts of working-class south Tehran, but not even "divine assessment" could be
expected to give him more than 30% in the capital.
Ahmadinejad won in the big city of Tabriz. Tabriz is in Azerbaijan. Mousavi is
Azeri. Azeris are an ultra-tight ethnic group, they vote for one of their own.
The notion that Mousavi was beaten, four to one, in his home ground borders on
fiction.
Karroubi had less than half of Ahmadinejad's vote and came in a distant second
in his own hometown of Oligudarz. Karroubi not only didn't win in his home
province of Lorestan, he had less votes than volunteers helping in his
campaign. The first numbers on election night came from rural villages and
small towns voting Ahmadinejad. Something immediately seemed to be way off when
less than 1% of voters in western Iran went for Karroubi, very popular not only
in his native Lorestan but also in Kurdistan.
As for Rezai, from Khuzestan, where most of Iran's oilfields are, he expected 2
million votes in his province alone. He polled less than a million nationwide.
Everywhere, all over the country, Ahmadinejad got between a steady 66% and 69%,
no matter the region, no matter the predominant ethnic group, no matter the
demographics.
By law, the Electoral Commission must wait three days before certifying the
results. Then they inform Khamenei and he gives his seal of approval. This is
to prevent any "irregularities". This time, Khamenei approved the official
results in less than four hours.
But could he actually win?
"Landslide" apart, a true Ahmadinejad victory would not be implausible. He
could have reasonably scored something like 48%, for instance, ahead of
Mousavi, and both would square off in a second round of voting. Ahmadinejad
visited every Iranian province at least twice in these past four years. Deep,
rural Iran has nothing to do with upscale north Tehran.
He plundered the reserve fund, full of oil money, set up by Khatami, to shower
more money to pensioners and distribute more pork. Inflation skyrocketed. The
working classes suffered with inflation and unemployment as much as north
Tehran. But the average Iranian still seemed to be satisfied that his standard
of living under Ahmadinejad was slightly higher.
Ahmadinejad turned the election into a referendum on the whole idea of the
Islamic revolution. He literally enveloped himself in the flag - a crowd
pleaser in a very religious and nationalistic country.
Mousavi had the urban youth vote, the urban, educated female vote, the
intelligentsia vote, the upper middle class, globalized vote, and even the
bazaar vote. But that was not enough. In the showdown between SMS and Facebook
and the poor, rural and working-class masses - many of whom have a lot of
empathy with the pious son of a blacksmith - it's fair to assume he could be
the winner. But not in a landslide. Khatami had a real landslide in 2001, when
he got no less than 78% of the vote (after 70% in 1997). The notion that an
over 70% reformist impulse has been transformed over these past few years into
a 62% ultra-right wing fervor is questionable.
See you in the barricades
The biggest winner in all this seems to be the Supreme Leader - who else? This
is how it all played out. When Mousavi said in the TV presidential debates that
Ahmadinejad was a disgrace to Iran's global image, he did not get away with it.
The slap came via the very influential Kayhan newspaper, very close to the
Supreme Leader.
Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, went after billionaire Rafsanjani with all guns
blazing, accusing him of corruption and nepotism. This still strikes a chord at
the popular level, and especially strikes a chord with the IRGC.
Rafsanjani is the de facto number two most powerful player in the Iranian
system, and has been so for more than 20 years now. He controls the Expediency
Council and the Council of Experts (which has the power to depose the Supreme
Leader). The IRGC fear him and are against him. It's no secret that those that
really matter in the Iranian system are the top mullahcracy and the IRGC. (The
name says it all; they are the guardians of the whole idea of the revolution.
And they only respond to the Supreme Leader.)
With the Basij militia working as a kind of military cell in every one of the
90,000 mosques all over the country, and multiplying rapidly (they may number
close to 13 million by now), these forces can do no wrong.
Ahmadinejad was very clever in the TV debates to equate Rafsanjani with Khatami
and Mousavi. He painted them to his key constituency as a shock to the system.
The system had to strike back. Game, set, match. For the Supreme Leader - the
constituency that matters the most - Ahmadinejad even served the divine
satisfaction of crushing Mousavi, who as prime minister in the 1980s (during
the terrible years of the Iran-Iraq war) was played by Khomeini to control the
power of then-president Khamenei.
Will Rafsanjani go for broke? As he prepares a Council of Experts counterpunch
against the Supreme Leader and Mousavi plots the next resistance steps, the
ball is now in the Iranian street's court. Much will depend on this Monday's
peaceful march along Vali Asr street in Tehran and in 19 other cities, and a
national strike on Tuesday, both called by Mousavi. Everyone remembers how a
week ago the green revolution formed a chain down the entire 18 kilometer
length of Vali Asr.
Ahmadinejad's show of force was his victory rally this Sunday - attended by a
huge mass of true supporters in south Tehran, Basij in civilian dress and
rent-a-mobs from all over the place. In a press conference earlier, Ahmadinejad
hinted that in his second term he will be "more and more solid".
Ahmadinejad blamed the whole Iranian turmoil on foreign media - which not by
accident are now being virtually persecuted by the security apparatus. The
crackdown is assuming ultra-hardcore proportions. Yet the revolution continues
to be broadcast to the whole world in English and Farsi, although the
indispensable Tehran Bureau website was been taken down by the thought police.
Riot police have fought students inside the dorms of the University of Tehran.
The Ministry of Interior is now protected by tanks. Many in Tehran believe that
a lot of the motorbiked Basij are in fact Arabs doing the "dirty work" true
nationalist Persians would refuse. Basij have been fighting hard for hours to
subdue throngs of protesters. There are widespread reports of a "staggering"
number of injured in Tehran hospitals. A Basiji center in north Tehran seems to
have been captured by protesters on Sunday night. This means the green
revolution having access to weapons.
This has nothing to do with the US-supported color-coded revolutions in
Eurasia. This is about Iran. An election was stolen in the United States in
2000 and Americans didn't do a thing about it. Iranians are willing to die to
have their votes counted. There is now an opening for a true Iranian
people-power movement not specifically to the benefit of Mousavi, but with
Mousavi as the catalyst in a wider struggle for real democratic legitimacy. The
die is cast; now it's people power against "divine assessment".
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