Gathering the news about Iran's 2009 National election in one place.

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Trita Parsi on the Iranian Opposition: Nothing Is Over

Posted Fri, 2009-07-03 04:53 by IRelec09

Trita Parsi on the Iranian Opposition: Nothing Is Over: Via The Washington Independent.

The regime crackdown has broken up the large demonstrations and the international media has largely moved on — enabled unintentionally by Michael Jackson’s death — but don’t think the Iranian opposition is done for, according to Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council. Parsi just held a conference call to reinforce the point. “The is not one-trick pony … and it’s not just street demonstrations,” Parsi said. While the crackdown has left the opposition with the sensible calculation that assembling in the streets would be tantamount to a suicide wish, the opposition still has a potent weapon: “Ahmadinejad and Khamenei himself have lost a significant amount of legitimacy in the eyes of average Iranians.”
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Norman Solomon: Full-Spectrum Idiocy: GOP and Chavez on Iran

Posted Thu, 2009-06-25 16:47 by IRelec09

Norman Solomon: Full-Spectrum Idiocy: GOP and Chavez on Iran: Via Huffington Post.

When approaching Iran, the Republican Party line and the Hugo Chavez line are running in opposite directions -- but parallel. The leadership of GOP reaction and the leadership of Bolivarian revolution have bought into the convenient delusion that long-suffering Iranian people require assistance from the U.S. government to resist the regime in Tehran.

Inside Iran, advocates for reform and human rights have long pleaded for the U.S. government to keep out of Iranian affairs. After the CIA organized the coup that overthrew Iran's democracy in 1953, Washington kept the Shah in power for a quarter century. When I was in Tehran four years ago, during the election that made Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president, what human rights activists most wanted President Bush to do was shut up.

But Bush played to the same kind of peanut gallery that is now applauding the likes of Sen. John McCain. The Bush White House denigrated the 2005 election just before the balloting began -- to the delight of the hardest-line Iranian fundamentalists. The ultra-righteous Bush rhetoric gave a significant boost to Ahmadinejad's campaign.
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Iranian Dissident Akbar Ganji interview on the Iranian Uprising and Obama

Posted Thu, 2009-06-18 16:32 by IRelec09

The Washington Independent » EXCLUSIVE: Iranian Dissident Akbar Ganji on the Iranian Uprising and Obama: Via The Washington Independent.

I’ve(Thats SPENCER ACKERMAN - not me) just conducted a phone interview with Akbar Ganji, one of the leading Iranian dissidents and most prominent voices in the international community for a more liberal Iran. He knows its brutality in a deeply personal way: the regime imprisoned Ganji for five years after he wrote a series of articles exposing its human rights abuses. Although the Bush administration sought to fund Ganji’s efforts in the hope of encouraging his fellow dissidents, Ganji took a high-profile stance against American support, arguing that even the suggestion of U.S. backing would set back the cause of human rights in Iran. We spoke through a translator. This is the first interview he’s given to an English-language news outlet since the Iranian uprising broke out last weekend.

Naturally, Ganji hailed the opposition movement, but was cautious about claiming that Iran was in a revolutionary situation, as some have contended. “So far, the people have stood their ground really well. I’m hopeful that with everyone’s support, they can actually keep this movement going forward,” Ganji said.

Read Original Article:(Via The Washington Independent.)
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