Robert Fisk: Symbols are not enough to win this battle
It is indeed an 'intifada' that has broken out in Iran, however hopeless its aims
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Independent Minds
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 streets, even if they do cry "Allahu Akbar" from their rooftops every night.
This chorus to God emanated from the rooftops of Kandahar every night after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 – I heard it myself in Kandahar and I heard it last week over the rooftops of Tehran – but it no more stopped the Russians in their tracks than it is going to stop the Basiji or Revolutionary Guards. Symbols are not enough.
Yesterday, the Revolutionary Guards – as unelected as they are unrepresentative of today's massed youth of Iran – uttered their disgraceful threat to deal with "rioters" in "a revolutionary way".
Everyone in Iran, even those too young to remember the 1988 slaughter of the regime's opponents – when tens of thousands were hanged like thrushes on mass gallows – knows what this means.
Unleashing a rabble of armed government forces on to the streets and claiming that all whom they shoot are "terrorists" is an almost copy-cat perfect version of the Israeli army's public reaction to the Palestinian intifada. If stone-throwing demonstrators are shot dead, then it is their own fault, they are breaking the law and they are working for foreign powers.
When this happens in the Israeli-occupied territories, the Israelis claim that the foreign powers of Iran and Syria are behind the violence. When this happens on the streets of Iranian cities, the Iranian regime claims that the foreign powers of the United States, Israel and Britain are behind the violence.
And it is indeed an intifada that has broken out in Iran, however hopeless its aims. Millions of Iranians simply no longer accept the rule of law because they believe that the law has been corrupted by a fraudulent election. The dangerous decision by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to throw his entire prestige behind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has erased any chance that he could emerge above the battle as a neutral arbiter.
Relatives of Mirhossein Mousavi's powerful ally Ali Akbar Rafsanjani are arrested then released; Mousavi is threatened with arrest by the Speaker of parliament; yet one of the most socially popular clerics and an ally of Mousavi, Mohamed Khatami, remains untouched.
Mousavi may have been a prime minister, but Khatami was a president. To touch Khatami would take away the future protection of Ahmadinejad. And the latter's powerful political friend Ayatollah Yazdi, who would like to be the next Supreme Leader, is a threat to Khamenei. And while every bloodied body on the streets of Iran's cities will now be declared a "terrorist'" by Ahmadinejad's friends, it will be honoured by his enemies as a martyr.
Mousavi, to win, needs to organise his protest in a more coherent way, not make it up on the hoof. But does Khamenei have a longer-term plan than mere survival?
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Comments
Well, neither have the men, women, and children demonstrating in the Occupied Territories, and neither have the men, women, and children cowering in their homes as Israeli aircraft and artillery and bulldozers work their way through towns and villages.
I guess the old saying is that you can sometimes judge a man by his enemies. If the comment before mine from 'antifisk' is indicative, Mr. Fisk is a damn fine man.
I totally disagree with what antiFisk has to say but I wholeheartedly agree with his right to say it.
And, Israel is up against people who want to murder Israelis and murder Jews.
The people of Iran aren't trying to kill Iran, like Palestinian terrorists try to kill Israelis and kill Jews.
Fisk is untrustworthy on any subject relating to Israel.
He's claiming this as if it's not true.
But it is true. Iran funds and arms Palestinian terrorist groups. They don't deny this. They also help fund Hezbollah.
Fisk knows this.
But he's unfairly biased against Israel, so he spews this garbage into his editorial.
In Iran, though, the bad nutcases have the power.
In the Palestinian territories, the bad nutcases are contained by defensive-minded Israel.
If sane moderates can take over Iran, it's good for Iran.
If sane moderates ever, someday, take over the Palestinians, it would make peace between Israel and Palestinians very easy to come by.
But as long as crazy radical Palestinians who are obsessed with destroying/undoing Israel are the religious, social and political leaders of the Palestinians, it makes sense for Israel to maintain control of that whole general area.
This is called REALISTIC, PROPER PERSPECTIVE.
I only feel compelled to review the obvious because of Robert Fisk's flawed analogies.
As for realistic, I wouldn't listen to an Israeli if my life depended on it, bunch of nasty little murdering lying racists who like to harp on how the world has to circle around them, I like a great deal of people I know are heartily sick to death of hearing about Israel, bloody holocaust and everything else, if an Israeli said to me the sky was blue I would take a second look...
The Revolutionary Guard alone has 150,000 members, and the Basiji has 300,000. The opposition
would be unlikely to overthrow the Ahmadinejad regime, unless there is a coup in the Revolutionary
Guard in support of Mousavi.
Mousavi supporters will probably split into a group favoring protests, and incremental democratic
solutions. More radical splinter groups will probably mushroom, and create an insurgency favoring
a violent overthrow of the Ahmadinejad regime. These insurgent groups may also drop Mousavi as
their leader, and seek to create an armed insurgency similar to some of the jihadist subgroups in Iraq.
for more check out:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2009/06/105
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/200
A very interesting article indeed and also the closing statement of a special forces man who was forced not to end Mousavi's life by order of the White House... Hmmm.
And didn't ABC do an expose of the US and Israel's support for the MEK, a lovely group that kills indiscrimately, that targets Iranian military and doesn't care if a few innocent people get in the way, a listed terrorist group by most countries INCLUDING the US despite Israeli and NeoCon pressure to get this group downgraded.
And the President of Iran is only doing what the President of the United States would do in such civil unrest or the President of Russia, France, China and maybe if it got that bad... here in the UK too, so whats the beef in what he is doing, everyone else does but because its "evil" Iran, we hear about it whilst we watch our own police and politicians get away with murder literally.
Mr. Fix seems to suffer from compulsive obsession with Israel, I suspect him to be able to insert it in a cuisine, or in home improvement conversation.
How did he succeed in sticking Israel here is quite amazing. Talking about slaughter, he had Hama, Lebanon, Black September all far more brutal and brief than the Intifada.
Mr. Fix should relax a bit, it is Iran at stake and about people who wants a change of the government, not about Pals whose have been more interesting in destroying Israel than building their own.
Keep up with the good work.
To those who reduce this conflict in Iran, as a mere tit for tat struggle between basiji youth and opposition youth, have no understanding of Iran's intricate political system.
In 1999, student uprisings were crushed. In 1988, the regime's opposition members were sent to the gallows by the truckload. In 2009, one thing is different. For the first time in the regime's official public profile, we have seen that the average Iranian is now no longer afraid to criticize the Supreme Leader himself - meaning......gone is the notion that Khomeini's velayate-faqih is an infallible system. Gone also, is the notion that the Supreme Leader, unelected and unrepresentative of the majority, should retain final word on all matters.
However, as with all revolutions and counter-revolutions, eventually, people need to eat. As such, the defiant marches, usually dwindle down to a small group of dedicated but hopelessly underpowered handful of youth. In a sad twist, we see youth on one side of the movement, highly educated, yet unemployed, living with soaring inflation, and no hope of a change for the better.... and youth on the other side of the movement, undereducated, unemployed, living with soaring inflation, and with no hope of a better future, who for a simple promise of food and a 'respected' role (to defend the Islamic Republic) are coopeted, with the result being the loss of innocence (Neda).
The current clash is not about Ahmadinejad vs. Musavi, nor is it about Khamenei vs Rafsanjani.......in my humble opinion, and in direct contrast to Iraq (Iraqis want something they never had....freedom), Iranians want back what they lost........the freedom to choose, to speak, to select their identity.....and this is where the greatest threat to the Islamic Republic lies..........the freedom to choose identity, equates to the final nail in the coffin for the system of velyate faqih.
Apparently the opposition is going nowhere and soon will be silenced.
There are some reasons for it;
a) Current generation are not as strong and deep-rooted in their beliefs as 1978 generation
b) It has no core leadership and no established opposition leaders abroad
c) It is mainly an uprising movement by upper middle class and lack working class support
d) The movement has no ideology, policy, strategy or cultural links with the rest of people
e) It has not much (if any) influence in the security and armed forces
f) They are unable to call for general strike as they have direct financial ties with regime
Anyway, good luck and take care to all of them.
Change start from oneself, another word; Rome was not built in a single day.
Are hospital nurses and kids working as travel agency clerks upper middle class? I did not realise that the Iranian economy was that bad.
Is it that the young working class are already resigned to having no voice at all? They had none under the Shahs, they have had none under the Islamic revolution, they are unlikely to have any under Mousavi or any the reformers - so it's hard to get excited about in-fighting amongst the oligarchy?
P.S. - For Khamenei, survival is a long term strategy becoz in the long long term we r all dead.
On the basis of some of the comments here, Robert Fisk has ruffled a few feathers, especially in the Zionist camp. What I like about Mr Fisk's reporting is that he spares no-one. If criticism is due, then he makes it. As far as I can see he's in no-one's pocket, which usually makes enemies of partisans from both sides of an argument.
Carry on reporting Mr Fisk. From where I'm sat you go to the heart of the matter. The truth hurts but we need to know it nevertheless.
Now what were we talking about? Oh yeah. How many times has Fisk commented on unkempt facial hair in conflict zones around the ME! The man is clearly an anti-moustachite and can't be trusted to write a few hundred words here or a few books there.
47. O children of Israel! call to mind the (special) favour which I bestowed upon You, and that I preferred you to all others (for My message).
(The Qur'an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 2)
104. And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, "Dwell securely in the land (of promise)": but when the second of the warnings came to pass, We gathered you together in a mingled crowd.
(The Qur'an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 17)
16. We did aforetime grant to the Children of Israel the Book, the Power of Command, and Prophethood; We gave them, for Sustenance, things good and pure; and We favoured them above the nations.
(The Qur'an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 45)
However, with the setting up of the state of Israel, things became much worse. This isn't a simple matter of racism or hatred of religion. It's all been mixed into a very nasty pot of nationalism and realpolitik.
Here we go again. The inevitable Fiskean reference to Israel. He really can't get over the notion that there might be a regime that is worse than Israel and he is bearing witness to it daily - even if he is in denial. The worst he can bring himself to admit is that the Iranian regime's actions are almost as bad as (or, OK, as bad as Israel's) but worse certainly not.
While I would certainly concur with the viewpoint that Israel's actions have been utterly reprehensible on many occasions let's just remind ourselves that:
(a) The Iranian demonstrators have not been nearly as violent as their Palestinian counterparts (they have not used stone-throwing children as a screen for gunmen. They have beaten up some Basiji but I am not aware of any lives being taken (apart from one death at the hands of a suicide bomber in mysterious circumstances)
(b) The Israelis do not wage war on their own people. It's ironic that the Iranian regime is so obsessed with the rights of Palestinians while being prepared to trample on the rights of its own people.
Grow up Fisk. All paths of comparison do not lead back to Israel. After all you wouldn't excuse Israel's actions by reference to the actions of others (or even contextualise them on that basis). Iran particularly needs to be judged on the basis of its failure to measure up to common notions of acceptable human behaviour and by the most minimal standards it is clearly wanting. References to Israel are simply a moral evasion and an excuse for zionist-bating.
The cannon fodder on the streets are simply pawns in the tug-of-war between the medieval clerics for Khamenei's job. Khamenei is caught between Yazdi on his right and Montazeri & Rafsanjani on his left. He "occupies" Tehran U with prayer-meet and forces Mousavi to bow before him, then Montazeri responds with a fatwa. Both try to keep Rafsanjani on their side, with Khatami defending him against Ahmedinejad's corruption accusations and getting his relatives released.
The westernized rioters, unaware of the theocratic despots whose interests they serve, are merely out to get the Basij, who always kick them around for their un-Islamic ways, and the Basij are raring to tear the "green revolutionaries" apart because they consider them as foreign agents out to destroy their glorious "revolution."
What any of this has in common with Israel is a mystery to all but Israel-obsessed crackpots, one of which Robert Fisk has apparently become. Fisk practically admitted to the pitiful depths to which he has sunk by candidly revealing that his entire screed about the alleged "election fraud" is based on propaganda pumped into him by the westernized elites of Tehran North:
When has Fisk forgotten that it's the presence of fraud that you have to prove, not the absence of it? A reporter who inveighs against a country for election fraud 24/7 and then admits in a rare moment of lucidity that he doesn't really believe there was a fraud needs psychiatric help:
So this is the sort of trash that this newspaper sees fit to print: The ramblings of an senile fool and a front-page story on the bystander who was killed that criticizes the BBC for delving into the life of the unfortunate woman:
Information, I'll have you know, is supposed to be why people buy newspapers and why you lot publish them. Not "myth." Not "suspicion." That's what the Sun and Mail are there for.
That appears to have been done. In some areas the votes cast actually exceed 100% of the registered electorate. If one thinks that the highest turnout figures would probably be in the region of 80 to 85% (even that sounds suspiciously high) it is not hard to see that the voting figures have clearly been inflated. How that would have affected the result cannot be know for certain but the clear probability is that Ahmadinejad's figures have been inflated.
Furthermore, if Ahmadinejad has ineed won a resounding victory one would think the the regime would jump at the chance to have the elction re-run in order to have the result independently confirmed and that would silence any claims of vote-rigging. The less inclined it is to take this easy and obvious way out the more you have to ask why!
Iran looked in the ascendancy for a period with its involvement in Southern Iraq, influence over Iraqi Government, operations in Southern Lebanon and support for Hamas, but things have changed quite quickly, they seem definitely on the back foot........terrible tragedy abou that young girl Neda who was killed............humans, when will they learn?
Now, if we could just get the BBC back on the streets ...
Read his speech here...
www.gregfelton.com/int_politics/2009_05_
And not Iran that so brutally keeps its own people in servitude and threatens to wipe other states off the map?
That figures!
Fisk's journalism isn't to be trusted because he is blinkered by chronic subjectivity and a dose of deep anti Israeli-itis. Please INDEPENDENT - whats' going on in Iran demands decent journalistic coverage not colourful fiction.
That's a fine point to make about exec_ceo et al!