Bad news for the neos if Stratfor says it failed. The fun is going to start as all the major countries involved scramble to prove they weren't *involved* and slyly point fingers at their allies.

I find the situation in Iran every bit as concerning today as it was when it first started.

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
Stratfor Declares Iran Revolt Has Failed

June 22, 2009

By George Friedman


The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test

Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders.
This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.

Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.

A Question of Support

This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.

Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.

In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country. The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.

Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.

Winning the Election With or Without Fraud

We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.

For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.

The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.

It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.
That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.

We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome. The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.

Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.

But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance. They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.

Tensions Among the Political Elite

All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.

The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces. Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces —had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.

The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them, that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.

Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution. The two main factions used the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.

Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.


This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090622_iranian_election_and_revolution_test [/quote]

Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:26pm EDT

By Adrian Croft and Matt Falloon

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it was throwing out two Iranian diplomats in response to Tehran's expulsion of two British diplomats as relations hit a new low following Iran's disputed presidential election.

Iran accused the British diplomats of "activities incompatible with their diplomatic status," Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said. He rejected the charge -- often used to denote spying -- as baseless.

----

"Iran yesterday took the unjustified step of expelling two British diplomats over allegations which are absolutely without foundation," Brown told parliament.

"In response to that action, we informed the Iranian ambassador today that we would expel two Iranian diplomats from their embassy in London," he said.

Diplomats have been given one week to leave on both sides, Brown's spokesman said. He would not give the rank of the diplomats involved.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Iran/idUSTRE55M5RX20090623

June 22nd, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran on Monday stepped up allegations against the West of “meddling” in its affairs, with the foreign ministry accusing media outlets abroad of conducting a cyber war to sow discord in the country following its disputed presidential election.

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi alleged that foreign media organizations, such as CNN and BBC, were mouthpieces of their respective governments that were exaggerating reports of police clashes with protesters who have demonstrated daily since the June 12 race.

He also said that government-run news sites, such as the Iranian Student’s News Agency, had been hacked in recent days and implied foreign outlets were behind it.

“Isn’t it a cyber war of the media with an independent government?” Qashqavi said. “They ask people to use the DOS (denial of service) system to hack our Web sites.”

Denial-of-service attacks make it difficult for users to access a Web site, either temporarily or indefinitely.

Qashqavi said the West should let Iranian courts resolve the controversy over alleged ballot fraud. He cited the disputed U.S. presidential election in 2000 when the Supreme Court stepped into rule the winner of the close race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

“No one in that race encouraged American people to stage a riot. It went to the courts,” he said. “If there was a protest in their own country, police would not issue a permit. Why don’t they treat us the same way? This is a racial mentality — that Iranians belong to the third world. This is a dual standard.”

Qashqavi said lawmakers were meeting Monday to discuss how to react to foreign tampering.

“There is a heated debate in parliament right now,” he said. “We will take necessary steps regarding the West’s interference.”


http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/22/iran-accuses-western-media-of-cyber-war/


This was yesterday. I think the diplomatic explulsions happened as a response.

Google rushed out a new Farsi-English translation tool.

Twitter got its hosting company to reschedule maintenance with an intervention from the State Dept.

It's Revolution 2.0! :yippee:

Sit on your ass and press buttons on your computer!! The faster you press the buttons, the more democracy there is in the Middle East!!

Now reward yourself with a nice frappacino. There's a good little rebel!

The new "activism"

It's frightening to have as a "leader" someone who hourly tests the waters to see which way the wind is blowing.
So-now he speaks out more forcefully re Iran bec that is the way the public media discourse is going.

Protestors, anywhere in the world, are extremely brave individuals whose reasons for demonstrating openly should be listened to and respected. Protest is democracy at work. However, too often, US and other Western-based media pick and choose which protests to cover and which to ignore completely.

The US media often celebrate themselves as the "freest and fairest" in the world, completely independent of a state unlike, for example, the media in Iran. Yet, an astute observer will notice that the US media generally choose stories and cover them in a way that play directly into the US's global agenda.

Who decides whether or not a particular issue is "newsworthy?" One would think that this is the role of the media, to cover issues like conflict or rights abuses as they happen around the world. Although, it seems this isn't the case. Most Western media appear to follow their government's lead when focusing on different issues and then cover them in a way fitting with the government's position, hence the complete domination of events in Iran in nearly every single Western media outlet and the overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the protestors and the opposition as just. The current case of Iran makes it clear that it is governments who are directing the media's coverage, instead of the actual news organizations themselves.

There was also a noticeable shift in the US media's coverage of foreign affairs after the attacks of 11 September 2001. Soon after, then President George Bush's rule of "with us or against us" was applied to all, and media outlets and individuals critical of American foreign policy were immediately demonized and labeled "unpatriotic" or "anti-American." To counter such charges, it became common for American television journalists to prove their patriotism and loyalty by wearing American-flag lapel pins.

These reasons explain why over recent weeks while the Iran elections were happening there has been virtually no coverage in most media of demonstrations numbering in the tens of thousands in Georgia or Peru. It has even been reported in Peru that dozens of persons have been killed during the protests, or "clashes" as they've also been labeled (since more than a dozen police have also been killed), more than the reported number killed in Iran.

Why are protests in Iran receiving more attention than those in other places? One logical explanation is that the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is a key ally of the US and NATO. Thus, the West and its media have remained largely silent about the opposition protests to not give them attention that would likely inspire the demonstrations to continue and grow, undoubtedly weakening the Saakashvili government.

Meanwhile, the situation in Latin America is particularly sensitive. Coverage of protests by indigenous groups and their supporters in Peru might further embolden these efforts and expose the unjust policies of recent Free Trade Agreements with the US and perhaps lead that country down a path like the increasingly popular governments of Venezuela or Bolivia. Of course, both nations are seen as "anti-American" for their critical positions regarding US intervention in Latin America.

However, Iran is different than both Georgia and Peru. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has probably overtaken Osama Bin Laden as the most hated individual in the US. Over the past several years, many officials in Washington have called for more aggressive actions to be taken against Iran. More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave US President Barack Obama an ultimatum that the US president better take care of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, or else Israel would. It's no coincidence then that the protests in Iran are receiving around-the-clock media coverage and are also one of the only examples in recent years where US government officials have showed support for demonstrators like Obama did when he called on Iran to "stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." They are certainly not the only protests that have been met with violent government repression.

For years, Palestinians have organized weekly nonviolent demonstrations against Israel's wall in the West Bank. Each week protestors face the heavily-armed Israeli military and are beaten and shot at with rubber-coated steel bullets and tear-gas canisters, sometimes fatally. Yet, during his recent speech in Cairo to the Muslim world, Obama made no reference to these protests and instead called on Palestinians to "abandon violence" and adopt nonviolent means. Days after the speech a Palestinian was killed and a teenager wounded during the weekly protest, yet there has been no call by the US administration for Israel to "stop all violent and unjust actions" against the Palestinian people. And the media has followed and remained silent, even though covering the demonstrations would be as easy as a 30-minute drive from most Jerusalem-based news bureaus on any given Friday.

Furthermore, at the height of the Bush Administration's call for "democracy" in the Middle East, an indigenous democratic movement arose in Egypt to challenge the corruption and failed economic policies of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Comprised of workers who organized unprecedented strikes for four years that grew in number with each successive rally, the demonstrations received little coverage in the US. An odd occurrence, considering the duration of the strikes and the size of the protests, which a number of observers believe had the potential to lead to something much bigger in Egypt, perhaps even a "revolution." The lack of media coverage of these events can only be explained by the relationship between the US and Egypt. Mubarak, who has governed Egypt for nearly three decades, is often referred to as a dictator for his repression of opposition political figures and journalists critical of his government. Yet, he remains one of the most important US allies in the Middle East, so "violent and unjust actions" against Egyptians are tolerated by the West.

Similarly, during Israel's three-week assault on Gaza this past winter, there were massive and unprecedented demonstrations across the Middle East in support of Palestinians in the besieged territory. Again, these received minor if any mention, likely because it challenged the media and Washington's narrative that Israel was "fighting Hamas."

Also in accordance with that narrative, there was scant footage broadcast in the Western media from inside Gaza. Similar to what Iran is doing now, Israel banned journalists from entering Gaza during the attacks. Despite this, there were large Arabic-language satellite stations like Al-Jazeera reporting from the ground with footage of nearly everything that was happening there.

When images were shown by CNN or its competitors, it was generally not true to the real horror faced by Palestinians in Gaza. I can't recall seeing one video of one of the hundreds of children killed in Gaza shown in the US media. In contrast, two days ago CNN broadcasted footage of a woman who was shot and bleeding to death on a Tehran street. Most of these viral videos are taken on citizens' mobile phones, and they even have a special logo that CNN has created for the "unverified material."

But there is plenty of "verified material" showing violent images from the Middle East and many other places around the world in recent days, weeks, years that has never been shown. Videos and testimonials are readily available on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, waiting, indeed begging, for the US media to take notice. But coverage of certain places might contradict US foreign policy there, something much of the media are proving unwilling to do.

If the elections and demonstrations in Iran have revealed anything, it is that there are undeniably huge divisions that will greatly affect the future of the country. It's the individual's decision to choose which side he or she supports, if any. And it's the responsibility of the media to be independent of the authorities and to present accurate information in context so that news consumers' judgments will be informed and not made based off the foreign policy of Western governments.

A free and independent media is an essential part of any democracy, and something that the West is proving more and more that it lacks.

Matthew Cassel is Assistant Editor of The Electronic Intifada. His blog is http://justimage.wordpress.com.



http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10616.shtml

By SPENCER ACKERMAN 6/23/09 12:33 PM

It is not a question I can answer. Ever since the not-quite-State-Department-Iran-envoy got scheduled to move over to the White House, all I’ve heard is that… he was moving to the White House, taking a position of some undefined scope. Pretty much every State Department briefing for the last week has had an element of Dennis Ross Watch to it. “As of today, he is – he’s here at the State Department. He has been in constant touch with the Secretary,” beleaguered spokesman Ian Kelly said yesterday. “I know that he spoke with her several times over the weekend.”

What I do know is that Doug Ollivant, the National Security Council’s Iraq director, left the White House as part of a long-scheduled departure last week, and there has been no announcement of who’s going to replace him. According to both Al Kamen and Laura Rozen, Ross is nibbling off a bit of the Iraq desk for himself. Rozen reports that there’s some agita about this.


"The Cable has learned that deputy national security advisor Thomas Donilon, among others, is positioning Ross to assume an uber-senior NSC position overseeing Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East. The Iraq portfolio formerly assigned to holdover war czar Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute will be shifted to Ross, leaving Lute to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Puneet Talwar, the NSC’s senior director for the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Iran, will report to Ross, as will Daniel Shapiro, the NSC’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Under the new NSC structure, there will be no dedicated senior director for Iraq and there will be only two or three directors for Iraq, reporting to Talwar."


Interesting. One grumble that’s starting to bubble up in some foreign-policy quarters is that the crush of immediate crises is leading the administration to neglect Iraq. No idea if the Ross move would reverse this or what.

http://washingtonindependent.com/48352/so-whats-up-with-dennis-ross



Dennis Ross Expands His Portfolio
By Al Kamen

-----

Interestingly, Ross has about as much experience with Iraq (virtually zero) as the new U.S. ambassador there, Christopher R. Hill. And both were key players in some of the greatest diplomatic flops of the last 20 years. Hill was point man for North Korea nuke negotiations during the Bush administration. And Ross, an early and ardent Obama backer, has lots of experience in Mideast peace efforts, having been a key player in the Clinton administration's failed effort to broker a deal.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/06/23/dennis_ross_expands_his_portfo.html



This move was leaked on June 15 and it still hasn't happened yet, or even been announced. Signs of turmoil behind the scenes?

"Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.

This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle East.

This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803495_pf.html

"“People who work for peace and justice must show skepticism when the media tell them who deserves their attention and advocacy efforts.” The world, as defined by U.S. Corporate media, turned its head when “1,400 Gazans were killed so that Israel might inflict collective punishment on a civilian population.”"

“There was no campaign to use Twitter as a tool to protest the killings and defend the Gazans right to live.”

Just as they prevented civilians from fleeing, the Israeli government did not permit the world’s news organizations to enter Gaza. The American media conducted incomplete coverage of the crisis without even pointing out that the Israeli government prevented them from doing their jobs. They didn’t exhort their readers and viewers to remind Israel that “the world is watching” them.

/snip/


http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=print/content/freedom-rider-selective-sympathy-iran

The US has intelligence agents in Iran but it is not clear if they are providing help to the protest movement there, a former US national security adviser has told Al Jazeera.

Brent Scowcroft said on Wednesday that "of course" the US had agents in Iran amid the ongoing pressure against the Iranian government by protesters opposed to the official result of its presidential election.

But he added that he had no idea whether US agents had provided help to the opposition movement in Iran, which claims that the authorities rigged the June 12 election in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president.

"They might do. Who knows?" Scowcroft told Josh Rushing for Al Jazeera's Fault Lines programme.

"But that's a far cry from helping protesters against the combined might of the Revolutionary Guard, the militias and so on - and the [Iranian] police, who are so far completely unified."

Limited options

Scowcroft's admission that Washington has agents stationed in Iran comes a day after the US president issued tougher rhetoric against the government in Iran.

Barack Obama's sterner tone came after days of deadly clashes between the opposition and Iranian security forces and militias.

Obama has been criticised by US conservative politicians for not taking a stronger line against Tehran amid the government crackdown, but Scowcroft, a former adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and the senior George Bush, said the US could only do so much.

"We don't control Iran. We don't control the government, obviously," he said.

"There is little we can do to change the situation domestically in Iran right now and I think an attempt to change it is more likely to be turned against us and against the people who are demonstrating for more freedom.

"Therefore, I think we need to look at what we can do best, which is to try to influence Iranian behaviour in the region."

At least 19 people have been killed in post-election violence in Iran, which broke out at the scene of protests questioning the veracity of the poll results.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger to Ahmadinejad, has rejected the official results of the vote and has called for a fresh election to be held, while Mehdi Karoubi, another defeated candidate in the election, has called the new government "illegitimate".

But the Guardian Council, Iran's highest legislative body, has said that there were no incidences of major fraud in the vote and has declared that the official results will stand.


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/2009624225744811593.html



"They might do... who knows?" WINK WINK.

BLITZER: Are you seriously accusing the CIA of killing Nada?

GHADIRI (through translator): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran. These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.

BLITZER: Do you really believe that, Mr. Ambassador? You're a distinguished diplomat representing Iran. This is a very serious accusation that you're making, that the CIA was responsible for killing this beautiful, young woman.

GHADIRI (through translator): I'm not saying that the CIA had done this. There are different groups. Could be intelligence services, could be CIA, could be the terrorists. However, these are the people who do these things.
You could ask Mr. Andreotti, who was an Italian diplomat whether Gladitators were a secret group related to CIA or not. Now they of course they use better methods. Of course, you're not going to say that CIA is a sacred organization that hasn't done anything to other worlds.

BLITZER: Mr. Ambassador, why won't your government allow people to go mourn at a memorial service for Nada, as her family has requested?

GHADIRI (through translator): We have no problem with mournings. Naturally we don't want to provide an opportunity for the rioters to come in and make the situation worse.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-cia-killed-neda.html


This is from Andrew Sullivan's blog. He provides a link, but it doesn't go to the right story.

In any case, looks like Iran is starting to name names. "Gladitators" refers to Operation Gladio.