Iran

chlamor
Posts: 520
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:46 am

Iran

Post by chlamor » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:50 am

Iran - Regime Change Agents Hijack Economic Protests

Yesterday and today saw some small protests in Iran. They are probably the first stage of a large "regime change" operation run by the U.S. and Israel with the help of Iranian terrorist group.

Earlier this month the White House and the Zionist prepared for a new assault on Iran:

A delegation led by Israel's National Security Adviser met with senior American officials in the White House earlier this month for a joint discussion on strategy to counter Iran's aggression in the Middle East, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Haaretz.
Another report about the meeting quotes Israeli officials on the result:

"[T]he U.S. and Israel see eye to eye the different developments in the region and especially those that are connected to Iran. We reached at understandings regarding the strategy and the policy needed to counter Iran. Our understandings deal with the overall strategy but also with concrete goals, way of action and the means which need to be used to get obtain those goals."
This is probably a result of the above meeting:

Hundreds took to the streets of Iran’s second largest city of Mashad on Thursday to protest over high prices, shouting slogans against the government.

Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators in Mashad in northwest Iran, one of the holiest places in Shia Islam, chanting “death to (President Hassan) Rouhani” and “death to the dictator”.

The semi-official ILNA news agency and social media reported demonstrations in other cities in Razavi Khorasan Province, including Neyshabour and Kashmar.

A video of that protest in Mashad showed some 50 people chanting slogans with more bystander just milling around.

Protests against the (neo-)liberal economic policies of the Rohani government in Iran are justified. Official unemployment in Iran is above 12% and there is hardly any economic growth. The people in the streets are not the only ones who are dissatisfied with this:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly criticized the government’s economic record, said on Wednesday that the nation was struggling with “high prices, inflation and recession”, and asked officials to resolve the problems with determination.
On Thursday and today the slogans of some protesters turned the call for economic relief into a call for regime change.

My hunch is that the usual suspects are behind these protests. Note that these started in several cities at the same time. This was not some spontaneous local uproar in one city but had some form of coordination.

Then there is this:

Carl Bildt‏ @carlbildt - 9:38 PM - 28 Dec 2017 from Rome, Lazio
Reports of signals of international satellite TV networks jammed in large cities of Iran. Would be sign of regime fear of today’s protests spreading.

A search in various languages finds exactly zero such "reports". Carl Bildt is a former Swedish prime minister. He was recruited in 1973 as a CIA informant and has since grown into a full blown U.S. asset. He was involved in the Ukraine coup and tried to personally profit from it.

The only response to Bildt's tweet was from one Riyad Swed‏ - @SwedRiyad who posted several videos of protests with one of them showing burning police cars.


I am not sure the video is genuine. The account has some unusual attributes (active since September 2016, 655 tweets but only 32 followers?).

Just yesterday one lecture at the CCC "hacker" congress was about the British GHCQ Secret Service and its sock-puppet accounts on Twitter and Facebook. These are used for acquiring human intelligence and for running "regime change" operations. Page 14-18 of the slides (11:20 min) cite from obtained GCHQ papers which lists Iran as one of the targets. The speaker specifically notes a GCHQ account "@2009Iranfree" which was used in generating the protests in Iran after the reelection of then President Ahmedinejad.

Today, Friday and the weekly day off in Iran, several more protest took place in other cities. A Reuters report from today:

About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars called a “call by the anti-revolution” and shouted “Political prisoners should be freed” and “Freedom or death”, while destroying some public property. Fars did not name any opposition groups.
...
Footage, which could not be verified, showed protests in other cities including Sari and Rasht in the north, Qom south of Tehran, and Hamadan in the west.

Mohsen Nasj Hamadani, deputy security chief in Tehran province, said about 50 people had rallied in a Tehran square and most left after being asked by police, but a few who refused were “temporarily detained”, the ILNA news agency reported.

Some of these protests have genuine economic reasons but get hijacked by other interests:

In the central city of Isfahan, a resident said protesters joined a rally held by factory workers demanding back wages.
“The slogans quickly changed from the economy to those against (President Hassan) Rouhani and the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei),” the resident said by telephone.
...
Purely political protests are rare in Iran [...] but demonstrations are often held by workers over layoffs or non-payment of salaries and people who hold deposits in non-regulated, bankrupt financial institutions.
...
Alamolhoda, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in northeastern Mashhad, said a few people had taken advantage of Thursday’s protests against rising prices to chant slogans against Iran’s role in regional conflicts.
...
“Some people had came to express their demands, but suddenly, in a crowd of hundreds, a small group that did not exceed 50 shouted deviant and horrendous slogans such as ‘Let go of Palestine’, ‘Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I’d give my life (only) for Iran’,” Alamolhoda said.

Two videos posted by BBC Persian and others I have seen show only small active protest groups with a dozen or so people while many more are just standing by or film the people who are chanting slogans.

Videos published by the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq [MEK], 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, also show mostly small protests despite the MEK's claim of Tens of thousands of people chant “death to dictator". The MEK, or its "civilian" organization National Council of Resistance of Iran , seem to be most involved in the current protests. Its website is currently filled with the protest issue with a total of ten reports and its head figure issued a supportive statement:

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, saluted the heroic people of Kermanshah and other cities who rose up today chanting “death or freedom”, “death to Rouhani”, “death to the dictator”, and “political prisoners must be freed”, and protested against high prices, poverty and corruption.

She said, “Yesterday Mashhad, today Kermanshah, and tomorrow throughout Iran; this uprising has tolled the death knell for the overthrow of the totally corrupt dictatorship of the mullahs, and is the rise of democracy, justice and popular sovereignty.

This very early engagement of the MEK -its first report was published yesterday at 10:26 am- is extremely suspicious.

In 2012 it was reported that Israel had used the MEK terrorist organization to assassinate nuclear scientists in Iran:

On Thursday, U.S. officials speaking to NBC news claimed that Mossad agents were training members of the dissident terror group People’s Mujahedin of Iran in order assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, adding that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was aware of the operation, but had no direct link to them.

The U.S. officials reportedly confirmed the link between Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), with one official saying: "All your inclinations are correct.”

In October a CATO Institute paper analyzed (and rejected) several options for U.S. handling Iran. Under Option Three: “Regime Change from Within” it noted:

In this approach, the United States would pressure the Iranian regime and simultaneously back groups that oppose it-whether the exiled extremist National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), pro-democracy Green Revolution factions, or ethnic minorities within Iran-a strategy advocates often compare to Reagan’s support for civil society groups in the Soviet Union.
...
[A] proponent of “coerced democratization,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Dubowitz, urged President Trump to “go on the offensive against the Iranian regime” by “weakening the Iranian regime’s finances” through “massive economic sanctions,” while also “undermin[ing] Iran’s rulers by strengthening pro-democracy forces” inside Iran. This option appears to be gaining traction in the Trump administration’s ongoing Iran policy review and has received public support from Tillerson. CIA Director Mike Pompeo also favored such an approach during his time in Congress.

The MEK/NCRI noted that Senator Tom Cotton, who will likely replace CIA chief Pompeo when Pompeo moves to the State Department, issued a supportive statement for the protests.

The White House and the Netanyahoo regime agreed on a strategy towards Iran. Major members of the Trump administration are in favor of "regime change" by "pro-democracy forces" in Iran. A few weeks after an agreement was found, coordinated economic protests start in Iran which are soon hijacked by small groups of very active regime changers. A group of Iranian exile terrorists, well known for deadly collaboration with Israeli spies as well as for having operation cells in Iran, is highly engaged in the protest from very early on.

If this the "regime change" operation I presume, the protests will soon get bigger. When the people need money a few thousand dollars are enough to create a large crowd. Small groups will riot while hiding within the larger protests of maybe genuinely concerned people. The "western" media will engage with their usual pseudo liberal humanism and concern trolling. When the police in Iran tries to arrest those rioters who are raising havoc the media will scream "brutality". Some "martyr" will be created and iconified. Rumors of censorship and suppression will be raised (see Carl Bildt above), fake news will come from everywhere and hundreds of sock puppet Twitter and Facebook accounts will suddenly be "Iranian" and breathlessly report "from the scene" of their Langley offices.

For the Iranian politicians and police the issue is tricky. Economic protests are clearly justified with even Khameni voicing support for the issue. But rioting in the streets must be suppressed before it further escalates and becomes uncontrollable. Weapons on the protesters site firing in all directions may soon become a problem. The Mossad and the MEK are not shy of killing random people.

But the Islamic Republic in Iran has genuine support in large parts of the society. There are big civil organizations that support the government - not on every issue but in its general framework. Most Iranian's are proud nationalists and will be difficult to divide. If this is indeed the "regime change" attempt I suspect, I predict that it will fail.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/ir ... .html#more

chlamor
Posts: 520
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:46 am

Re: Iran

Post by chlamor » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:33 pm

Syria 2011 all over again? Watch as Kurdish, Islamist groups call for a violent uprising in Iran
December 31, 2017 - Fort Russ News - Paul Antonopoulos

TEHRAN, Iran - In scenes reminiscent of Syria 2011, armed groups in Iran have used mostly peaceful protests to call for an armed struggle against the Iranian government.

In Syria in 2011, peaceful protesters calling for economic and political reforms had their peaceful protests hijacked by armed Muslim Brotherhood fanatics who fired upon security forces, allowing for the protests to descend into a civil war.

The same is now occurring in Iran with protesters who originally called for economic reforms days ago, being hijacked by violent people who are attacking Iranian security forces and sacking government buildings throughout the country.

The violence has been agitated by imperialist shrills who are spreading fake news that the protests are about regime-change in Iran, as reported in detail by FRN earlier today. The details of a color revolution descending can also be read here.

The terrorist group Ansar al-Furaq has called for an armed uprising and struggle against the government. They also claimed yesterday to have blown up an oil pipeline in Iran's southern Khuzestan province where Iran's Arab minority are mostly concentrated.

Meanwhile, Al-Sura News has also reported that the separatist Kurdish Free Life Party (PJAK) has also called for an armed struggle.

With a radical Islamist group and separatist Kurdish group calling for armed struggle, this truly bares resemblance to what occurred in Syria in 2011.

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/12/syria- ... ch-as.html

chlamor
Posts: 520
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:46 am

Re: Iran

Post by chlamor » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:34 pm

FAKE NEWS surrounding the Iran Protests
December 31, 2017 - Fort Russ News - Paul Antonopoulos



TEHRAN, Iran - With protests spreading throughout Iran, the United States and its imperialist shrills have found this the perfect opportunity to spread fake news and create a narrative for intervention.

If you are confused about events in Iran, this comprehensive analysis by Fort Russ' very own Joaquin Flores is a MUST. It can be read here.

For example, this Tweet by Ken Roth, the Executive Director for Humans Right Watch.

With no option for voting out their supreme leader, Iranians take to the streets to press him to resign. https://t.co/Pwd6YfzZG5 pic.twitter.com/QPt1H2AXBS
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) December 31, 2017
Roth makes the claim that the protests are calling for the country's leaderships resignation, but rather they began as calls for reformations to the economy, not the replacement of the government.

Secondly, Roth then proceeds to use a pro-government counter-protest photo to push his regime-change agenda. Roth foolishly posted a photo that has signs saying "Down with the US" and with photos of the country's leadership. He still has not realized he has been caught out....

Case Two: John McCain.


John McCain

@SenJohnMcCain
For too long, the Iranian people have been oppressed by their government, which cares more about sowing instability abroad than its own citizens. The U.S. stands with the brave protesters who yearn for freedom, peace, and an end to corruption in Iran. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iran- ... KKBN1EN0Q3
11:07 AM - Dec 30, 2017

Price protests turn political in Iran as rallies spread
Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonst...
uk.reuters.com


Consistent war-hawk and war-monger has also ignored that the protests began as calls for economic reform rather than regime-change. John McCain has consistently called actions against Iran, demonstrating his so-called care for the Iranian people. He also remained quite when US President Donald Trump banned Iranians from coming to the US.

These are just a very few examples of the US State and its shrills attempting to disintegrate calls for economic reforms into a color revolution. However, despite what the mainstream media shows, the truth on the ground is that the overwhelming majority of Iranians support the government and want to avoid a Syria 2011 scenario where legitimate protests were hijacked, with the help from the US, by violent jihadists.

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/12/fake-n ... tests.html

chlamor
Posts: 520
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:46 am

Re: Iran

Post by chlamor » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:34 pm

IRAN PROTEST CRISIS: Everything you need to know

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/12/iran-p ... -need.html

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:10 pm

Unrest in Iranian cities will soon end : Deputy interior minister
Tue Jan 2, 2018 10:37AM

Image
The photo shows the scene of sporadic clashes in Tehran, Iran, December 31, 2017. (By Fars news agency)
Iran’s deputy interior minister for security says the situation in most of the country has now returned to normal, vowing that the latest wave of unrest will soon come to an end.

Hossein Zolfaghari said on Tuesday that police and security forces had exercised maximum tolerance in bringing the situation under control as long as there was no attempt to damage public property and military sites.

However, security forces “decisively countered the saboteurs” who resorted to violence, he added.

Despite their complaints about a number of problems, Zolfaghari said, Iranian people clearly understood what was going on and therefore they distanced themselves from those disrupting public order and cooperated with authorities to restore security instead.

“In most parts of the country, the situation is now normal and the unrest that took place in certain areas will soon end with the people's cooperation and the efforts of security forces,” he pointed out.

Iran govt. stresses respect for Constitution

Separately on Tuesday, the Iranian administration’s spokesman, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, said at a press conference that Iran's Constitution clearly distinguishes between rioting and protesting without disrupting public security.

He reiterated that the government respects people’s right to protest within a legal framework.

“Even the rioters should be dealt with within the framework of law,” Nobakht said.

A number of protests over economic grievances initially started peacefully in several cities but turned violent and deadly when groups of participants, some of them armed, launched attacks on public property, police stations and religious sites.

Over a dozen people have so far been killed amid the violence, according to state media reports.

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/0 ... ri-Nobakht
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:27 pm

Iran Protests: Tudeh Party supports people's struggle, strongly opposes any kind of foreign intervention

The CC of the Tudeh Party of Iran (حزب تودۀ ایران‎) issued a third statement about the developments in the country. Also, read the first statement and the second statement.
• The regime’s plots to violently and bloodily suppress the protest movement of the frustrated people must be prevented through an organised struggle and united action.
• We strongly oppose any kind of foreign intervention in Iran and believe that the right-wing and racist leaderships of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and the criminal and reactionary regime of Saudi Arabia, are no friends to the people of Iran and certainly do not strive for freedom, independence and social justice in our homeland.
• We condemn the deliberate and purposeful attempts of the mass media of imperialist states, as well as the propaganda and news outlets of the Iranian regime, to misrepresent the democratic, patriotic and virtuous characteristic of the current protest movement in Iran
• The way to save Iran is not to replace one dictatorial regime with another kind of dictatorship and tyranny. Our people are striving for a national, popular and democratic republic
• The struggle to reject the dictatorial regime of the Supreme Religious Leader in Iran should be progressed with careful organisation. The broad participation of manifold social layers - and particularly the workers and working people - in this struggle, in paralysing the ruling apparatus, would be a decisive factor in forcing the regime to retreat.
Dear compatriots,
Despite all the repressive attempts of the regime to silence the voice of protests, your heroic struggle against the ruling dictatorship has continued for the sixth day. Despite the scores of people killed and injured - and the hundreds who have been arrested by the security forces of the regime - you have proved that you will no longer put up with the circumstances imposed by the ruling dark-minded regime. The regime leaders, from Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani to Larijani, while claiming that they hear the clear voice of discontent and protest emanating from the overwhelming majority of the nation - regarding the terrible socio-economic conditions, extensive poverty and marginalization, and lack of a bright future for the young generation (the blame for which lays squarely with these leaders and the entire Islamic regime) is responsible for - accuse the people of being foreign agents and threaten them with suppression unless they leave the scene of struggle.
The received reports indicate the comprehensive planning and preparation of the regime to widely and brutally suppress the protesting people in various cities of the country. The massive dispatch of anti-riot forces of the Guards Corps to various cities - including the military occupation of some parts of Tehran and the larger cities - and the disrupting of communications, including the heavy filtering and even shutting down of some social networks, are tantamount to the imposing of martial law in order to take control of the situation and to crush the protest movement of the people. Regime agents are looting public places and resorting to violence in order to divert the movement towards its bloody countering and, by doing so, detach the majority of the frustrated masses from the body of the protests, forcing people to turn against each other, ultimately leading to the crushing of the protest movement of the people - which otherwise spreads day by day to more and more towns and cities across the land.
Dear compatriots,

We deeply believe - and reiterate here - that the hypocritical support of such racist reactionaries as Trump; his Vice President; some of the most right-wing forces of the US Republican Party; Netanyahu, the prime minister of the corrupt and anti-people government of Israel; and, long with the support of the criminal and reactionary regime of Saudi Arabia, for the struggle of the people of our nation, is not because of their belief in the need to improve the situation in our country or for the realisation of the people’s demands for freedom, democracy, and justice in Iran. Instead, its sole purpose is to destabilise the situation in the Middle East region and the Persian Gulf area in accordance with their strategic interests. The support of these anti-people governments for likewise reactionary forces, such as the monarchists or those who have already “elected” a President and government for our people and who have repeatedly asked for foreign military intervention in Iran, is an indication of the dangerous game that is seriously threatening the movement for freedom in our nation and will serve only to help the regional reaction and the plots of the suppressive forces inside Iran.
The experience of the protest movement of the masses in recent days has also underlined the complete bankruptcy and lack of credibility of those who claimed to be pro-reform in Iran. The co-accord of these political bankrupts with the screams of individuals like Sadegh Larijani (Speaker of Parliament) and Hossein Shariatmadari (who runs the conservative Kayhan daily newspaper, the voice of the Supreme Leader) to “identify and crush [the protesters]” also indicates the end of the political life and social credibility of those forces that, under the guise of reformism, have persuaded our people for years to accept the Islamic regime and that their choice is limited to between “bad and worse”.
Dear compatriots,

Once again, we reiterate, the only way to confront and defeat the designs and plots of the regime is through a united action, organised struggle and joint movement of all social layers - from the workers and working people to the brave youth, students and women of the nation - and through the preparing of nationwide strikes and the paralysing of any possibilities the regime has to survive.
The Tudeh Party of Iran once again state that Tudeh members and sympathisers consider themselves as an inseparable part of your protests against the continuation of the despotic regime. We call upon all freedom-loving and progressive forces of the nation, workers, working people, militant students, youth and women of the nation to gather in a united anti-dictatorship front for:
• Rejecting the Supreme Leadership Regime and the rule of clergy over our nation, and to put an end to the despotic regime,
• The unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners,
• Putting an end to the poverty, marginalisation, high prices, economic hardship, corruption, and oppression of the ruling regime,
• Putting a stop to the atmosphere of repression and suppression and the returning of all suppressive forces to their garrisons,
• and
• Transition to establish a national and democratic regime and for the people to determine their own destiny,
in order to prepare for organizing the nationwide and great movement of the people by choosing appropriate slogans.
The regime should not be allowed to divide the broad protest movement of the masses from its social base, derail the movement towards violence and crush the growing movement of the people by violent and brutal suppression so that they might become dissuaded in continuing the struggle.
Victory to the united struggle of the people of Iran against the ruling dictatorial regime!
The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran
02 January 2018.

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2018/0 ... ports.html

***********************

Iran Protests: Statement of the CC of the Tudeh Party of Iran on recent developments

On the occasion of the recent mass protests in Iran, the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party (حزب تودۀ ایران‎) issued the following statement:

Dear compatriots,

The politico-economic crisis of the bankrupt theocratic regime of Iran is growing and deepening daily. The impact of this crisis can be observed in the internal regime conflicts and the unprecedented revelations of infighting between powerful factions - revealing the depth of corruption and oppression that prevails in the so-called “exemplary system of the world”.
The spiralling poverty, deprivation, high prices and chronic unemployment - which have ruined the lives of a large portion of the population and in particular the youth, - the extensive and disastrous destruction of the environment, due to the catastrophic policies of the ruling power, and the complete economic bankruptcy of the regime as well as escalation of external pressures on the regime, have altogether created a very critical and explosive situation in our society. The heads of the regime who are living a luxury life with an unprecedented fortune that they have amassed over the last forty years by plundering the national resources and wealth of the nation, ask the people to be patient and tolerate the hardship in order to “guard the Islamic regime” - a regime that has brought nothing to our nation except destruction and cultural, political and economic regress. The current rulers have shown in practice that their only goal and desire is to save the current despotic regime and the absolute rule of the dark-minded clergy over our nation at the cost of any crime and any tragedy.
Recent weeks have witnessed the escalation of discontent and unprecedented protest gatherings of the people in numerous cities, as well as broad and extensive labour protests against high prices, oppression and the injustices perpetrated by governing bodies, from the government and parliament (Majlis) to the Judiciary and the Islamic Guards Corps and the Supreme Religious Leadership all of which protect the interests of the grand capitalists. The escalation in the discontent of the people regarding the existing situation and, more importantly, the readiness and willingness of the enraged and frustrated masses to take on the suppressive apparatus of the regime is an indication of the significant developments in the level of preparedness of the masses in opposing - and waging an open fight against - the rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Contrary to the claims of some leaders of the pro-regime reformists that such protests are “conspiracies”, we deeply believe that the majority of the people of our nation are disappointed and frustrated with the slogans of those whose only objectives are to make some cosmetic and minor adjustments to the current regime, and are now demanding fundamental changes in the governance of the country. Today only those who would like to somehow preserve the current disastrous situation fear the escalation and growth of the people’s struggle. The experience of the last two decades and several presidential, parliamentary, and city council elections that were held, and manipulated under the control and direction of the Supreme Leader, has proved that the people are rapidly moving away from the strategy of making a choice between bad and worse, and are no longer willing to submit to the manipulation of their demands by the regime and the pro-regime reformists who by and large play the role of that nation’s power brokers these days. The majority of the people of the homreland today want to put an end to the despotic theocratic regime; to end the oppression and injustice; and bring about the establishment of freedom and social justice. These demands can only be achieved through a joint struggle of all the national and freedom-loving forces without foreign intervention.
Dear compatriots,
At the same time, it should be noted that under the critical conditions of the current dangerous regional tensions, the regional reaction - supported by the Trump administration in the US and the right-wing government of Netanyahu in Israel - is seeking to distinctly impact the developments in our country and to replace the current reactionary regime with another reactionary regime. The support of these forcesi.e. the regional reaction, Trump administration, and the right-wing government of Netanyahu, for the Iranian monarchists and those political groups whose agenda is to cooperate with the most reactionary regimes of the region and to persuade the European states to impose sanctions on Iran’s economy - thereby exacerbating the misery for the destitute and disadvantaged people of our country - and to encourage foreign states to interfere militarily in Iran, leaves no room whatsoever for any optimism regarding the future designs of such “opposition”. The progressive and freedom-loving forces of Iran must increase their presence in the protest movement of the masses - more than ever before - providing proper people-oriented slogans, offering sensible guidance and relying on the legitimate demands of the masses for abolishing the existing suppressive regime and ending the economic deprivation, oppression, injustice and plundering of the natural and human resources of the nation, while avoiding reactionary and divisive slogans. We should not let the past repeat itself whereby the heroic struggle of the nation for freedom, democracy and social justice is hijacked by a bunch of reactionary opportunists who do not believe in the people’s rights or democratic freedoms.
Dear compatriots,

The way to save the country is through a joint and organised mobilisation of all the national, anti-dictatorship and freedom-loving forces to abolish the despotic and anti-people theocratic regime of the Supreme Leadership. Our party has been of the resolute belief that the ruling political regime in Iran - a regime that is based on the rule of one individual as the “representative of God on Earth” who is above and beyond all the laws and executive governing institutions, the legislative, the judiciary and the police and military apparatus - is a regime beyond reform and a people-based democratic regime cannot be created through any reworking of the current system. The solution is to wage a joint and organised struggle of all social layers - from the workers and all working people to the militant youth, student, women and progressive and freedom-loving intellectuals - around popular slogans against the rule of tyranny. The experience of our contemporary history has demonstrated that the peoples of Iran have the ability to convey their voice to the ears of the ruling reaction. Once again, we call upon all the national, progressive and freedom-loving forces of the nation to put aside their theoretical-historic disagreements and mobilise together, alongside the people’s movement to effectively help the struggle – the goal of which is to reject the tyranny and to establish the rule of the people and freedom, peace, sovereignty and social justice.
The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran
29 December 2017.

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2018/0 ... tudeh.html

This is tricky business, in principle correct but practically and tactically dangerous. I don't know.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:31 pm

a succinct tweet thread:

what is happening in iran is the straightforward implementation of the strategy and military doctrine of the usa. this has been openly published to the public, leaked and otherwise exposed time and time again for years now

of course there are legitimate reasons to protest, of course there are economic issues that should be addressed. that's the whole fucking point of this strategy: infiltrate, hijack, turn protests into violent riots. the desired result is destabilization

and destabilization is the prelude for military intervention. this is also openly published us military doctrine meant for waging contemporary hybrid wars

its the same program that was implemented in iraq, ukraine and libya and that has been attempted in egypt, syria and venezuela. this much should be beyond obvious to anyone paying even a little attention

by 我们心中的红太阳 @mont_analogue Jan 3
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 05, 2018 2:04 pm

Interview: Legitimate Protests Have Been Taken Over By West-Backed Rioters in Iran
BY SHOBHAN SAXENA ON 04/01/2018

In conversation with Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Iranian scholar and professor at Tehran University, on recent events in the country.

Image
Seyed Mohammad Marandi. Courtesy: Shobhan Saxena

Last Thursday (December 28, 2017), a few cities in Iran saw demonstrations by small groups of people protesting against the rising prices of essential commodities. In the next few days, as these rallies became bigger and more violent, some also raised political slogans against the country’s leadership. As of January 3, more than 20 people have been killed in disturbances across several cities across the country. While the Western media has been quick to brand these rallies as “growing unrest” and an “uprising” against the Iranian “regime”, the local media has called it the work of “foreign agents” trying to foment trouble in Iran.

To understand the unsettled situation in Iran, a country very important for India from the strategic and economic point of view, The Wire spoke to Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a well-known Iranian scholar and professor at Tehran University.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1966 to an Iranian professor and a political prisoner under the Shah regime, Marandi spent his first 13 years in the US, where he grew to love NFL football and the Dallas Cowboys. He was raised in an upscale neighbourhood in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1970s. When his family moved back to Iran after the Shah regime was overthrown in the revolution of 1979, he started to improve his Farsi and getting to know his country better. Three years later, he fought in the Iran-Iraq war, during which he was injured four times.

Today, Marandi is professor of North American studies and dean of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. In an interview with Shobhan Saxena, he put the on-going demonstrations in Iran in perspective.

Excerpts from the interview:

This past week, there have been a number of demonstrations in some cities across Iran. What is the nature of these rallies and what are the main issues being raised by the people participating in these demonstrations?

Over the past few months, we have had a series of demonstrations after the collapse of a number of financial institutions, resulting in many people losing their money. These people have been demonstrating to put pressure on the government in order to receive compensation. At times, they would demonstrate in front of the parliament, and last week they protested in Mashhad. As they were carrying out their peaceful protest in Mashhad, a smaller group of people began chanting very radical slogans among the crowd, and they were also behaving violently. In the following day, we then saw violent protests spread to different cities, and it was becoming clear that these protests were being coordinated by Western-backed groups based in Europe and the United States. They were openly using social media apps, encouraging people to gather in different areas to attack public property and even police stations. They even taught people how to make Molotov cocktails and other types of weapons. The legitimate and peaceful protests and protesters that were about economic grievances gradually discontinued protesting because they saw that the violent rioters had a completely different agenda.

After a couple of days it was just riots, yet they were called demonstrations in the Western media and the footage that the Western media would use was mostly from the first couple of days and sometimes not even from events in Iran. So the demonstrations were peaceful and they were focused on economic issues – but the rioters were a different set of people.

Apparently there is a growing anger among the people against the country’s economic situation. How widespread is this discontent and what are the main hardships being faced by people in general?

There is definitely discontent, but that has very little to do with the riots. Iran is a country where all the political leaders are elected, either through direct or indirect elections. And President [Hassan] Rouhani was just recently elected with a turnout of roughly 73%. Discontent was reflected by those people who were demonstrating peacefully, but the violent rioters who were looting banks, burning down public buildings, destroying bus stations and privately- and publicly-owned vehicles, and who also killed a number of police officers, they are pursuing something else.

Of course, the economic problems are linked to mismanagement and corruption, which exist all over the world, but also to the fact that the US has not abided by its side of the nuclear agreement. Despite the fact that Iran has given many concessions regarding its peaceful nuclear programme, the US has kept the sanctions in place. Also we had a severe drought, which is itself causing significant problems.

The nuclear deal with the West was supposed to give a boost to Iran’s economy but the US has imposed new sanctions against Iran. Do you think the US has taken Iran for a ride by neutralising its nuclear programme and re-imposing sanctions?

Unfortunately, the United States has played a very dishonest game. Both under [Barack] Obama and [Donald] Trump, they have repeatedly violated the nuclear agreement. As a result, Iran has not been able to normalise its economic relations with its economic partners, and the economy continues to suffer. The Americans have shown to the Iranians that their commitments are meaningless.

Image
People protest in Tehran, Iran December 30, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media. Credit: Reuters

Also, there was a pro-government rally in Tehran on Saturday. Was this show of support for the government a warning to those participating in “anti-government” rallies?

There have been many pro-government and anti-riot demonstrations over the last few days across the country, and some of them have been very large. However, they were not directed against the peaceful protests, but rather directly against the violent rioters. One of the more saddening events of the last few days was when the rioters commandeered a fire engine and pushed it down a hill. The fire engine crashed into a car and crushed a whole family.

Though the number of participants in the rallies has been quite small, the Western media, especially BBC and the Guardian, is projecting it as something big. Why do you think they are projecting these rallies as an anti-government uprising?

The Western media has always been very hostile towards Iran, and they consistently portray Iran in a very negative light. So this is nothing new. Iran’s independent foreign policy and its opposition to apartheid in Palestine are always causes for anger in Western government circles. However, it may be interesting for people to know that BBC Persian and VOA Persian have been doing their utmost to fuel the flames and to manufacture a crisis over the past week. It is ironic that Western governments complain about unproven allegations about Russian interference in their internal affairs, yet they blatantly interfere in the internal affairs of others, in ways which lead to the death of innocent people.

US President Donald Trump, who has openly criticised Black Lives Matter and women’s rallies in the US, has warned the Iranian government against a “crackdown” on demonstrators in Iran. Why do you think he is interfering in Iran’s internal matter?

Trump has shown support for neo-Nazis. He supports police officers who kill innocent African-Americans, and when a person was killed in clashes in Charlottesville, he refused to sympathise with the victim. On the other hand, he helps Saudi Arabia destroy Yemen and create mass starvation there. What can you expect from such a person?

Iran has emerged as a major player in the region in recent years, especially after its role in taking ISIS out of Syria and Iraq. Do you think that is the reason why Washington is taking an aggressive attitude towards Iran?

I think Iran’s successes in the region in defeating extremism, such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, has angered the Saudi and Israeli regimes, as well as the United States’ political establishment. They would do almost anything to hurt Iran.

Iranian democracy was sabotaged by the US-UK combine in the 1950s. Since the 1979 revolution, they have not stopped talking against the Iranian “regime”. Do you see a threat of the current government being toppled by a colour-coded revolution, as has happened in Ukraine, Egypt and other countries in recent years?

No, I do not believe that the United States has the ability to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the revolution, the United States, from almost the very start, attempted to stir up internal unrest as we have seen in the US embassy documents. They then supported Saddam Hussein and gave him chemical weapons to use against Iranian soldiers and civilians a well as against his own people. They imposed sanctions on Iran, they shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing almost 300 people, they destroyed Iranian oil installations, they imposed severe sanctions on ordinary Iranians and they have supported terrorist groups to weaken Iran. However, the Iranian political order is a product of indigenous culture and values, combined with popular participation and democracy, and therefore, it has a high degree of popular legitimacy. The US and its allies will not succeed.

Shobhan Saxena is an independent journalist based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

https://thewire.in/210474/iran-protests ... interview/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 08, 2018 7:13 pm

This is quite disappointing, both that Tudeh would take this idealistic stance and that IDC would post it without criticism. Perhaps Tudeh has been in exile too long.

*********************************
Iran Protests- Tudeh Party appealing for the release of more than 1500 arrested in Iran (تظاهرات ایران)

The Appeal of the Tudeh Party of Iran to All Progressive and Freedom-loving Forces of Iran and the World:
A broad campaign must be organised for the release of hundreds of students, working people and freedom fighters in Iran who have been detained by the repressive forces in recent days.
As anticipated, the anti-people and dictatorial theocratic regime of Iran have proceeded to deploy large squads of the Guards Corps, Basij militia and the mercenaries of the security forces to violently repress the protest movement of the youth and working people of our nation. As has been the case in recent years, the response of the heads of the dictatorial regime to the people - who are frustrated by the poverty, deprivation, oppression, corruption and lack of freedom - is to accuse them of association with foreign powers and then fire at and detain them.
According to the latest reports received, more than 1500 protesters have been arrested by the security forces of the despotic regime, hundreds have been injured and tens of people have lost their lives during the protests. Yet the popular protests continue across the nation. Tens of militant and freedom-loving students are among the detainees.
Although the roar of the people’s protest can be responded to by bullets here and there and thus inevitably silenced awhile, contrary to the perceptions and will of the heads of the Islamic regime, the strategic demands of the popular protests cannot be crushed through intimidation and suppression forever - demands such as rejecting the despotic theocratic regime; an end to the rule of a bunch of dark-minded, inhumane characters; an end to the oppression and economic injustice resulting from the following and application of neoliberal policies; an end to the unprecedented corruption in the regime and government apparatus; and the establishing of a free, sovereign and democratic Iran. The demand for fundamental changes in the governance of the country from a political system based on the absolute dictatorship of the Supreme Religious Leader is that of the majority of the people of Iran. This is a system whose irrational policies over recent decades have been disastrous for our nation - a system underpinned by neoliberal capitalist socio-economics that has destroyed the productive infrastructure of the country and has driven Iran to unprecedented levels of poverty and deprivation - a system oriented towards, indeed dominated by, rent and brokerage relations and one that concentrates the vast of the country’s economy in the hands of rentiers and a parasitic capitalist mafia, namely the heads of the Guards Corps, the Basij militia force and other security forces. This demand of the people of Iran cannot materialise without a change in the current rulers and the establishment of a government based on the people’s will.
In recent days and alongside the heroic struggle of our nation in various cities, the Tudeh Party of Iran has consistently stated that in order to force the dictatorship to retreat and prepare the conditions for fundamental, democratic and sustainable changes in our country, the united action of all social strata - from the workers and working people to the militant youth, students and women, as well as the freedom-loving and progressive forces - is decisive and instrumental. Without having and presenting a clear and democratic alternative for the current despotic regime, it is not possible to bring together all the layers and forces of the society and challenge the continuation of the dictatorial regime in Iran under a minimum program based on the demands of freedom, social justice, bread, jobs and housing.

Fighting for the release of all the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience - whose ranks are once more swelled by the large number of protesters detained by the regime over recent days - is one of the most important and urgent tasks of the protest movement and all the progressive and freedom-loving forces of the nation. We cannot allow the regime to force the detained activists to make baseless and forged confessions in its courts or media through both physical and mental torture with impunity - as has been its conventional and typical recourse in dealing with opposition. According to reliable reports received, the interrogators and torturers of the regime’s security apparatus are conjuring and preparing scenarios to force the prisoners - who have no access to lawyers and legal advice - to recant through coercion and torture. The freeing of the detained activists from the claws of the dictatorship would be a great victory for the popular movement and a heavy defeat for the regime and its supporters.
We call upon all the freedom-loving and progressive forces of Iran and the world to do all they can to collate and release the names of all the detainees and the places where they are imprisoned, and call for the immediate and unconditional release of all of them. Launching international campaigns, continuing to pressure the regime, organising protest demonstrations and gathering people in front of the prisons to keep vigil and demand the release of the detainees, in the days when the flames of the mass protests are still burning across the country, is a priority.
A salute to all the militant workers, working people, youth, students and women who are detained in the regime’s prisons!
Free all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally!
Victory to the united struggle of the people of Iran against the ruling dictatorial regime!
The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran
7 January 2018.

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2018/01 ... g-for.html

Ill-timed at the very least. What part of a united front against imperialism do they not understand?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Iran

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 09, 2018 3:33 pm

‘Iran Does Not Bow: This is Its Real Crime in the Eyes of Western Ideologues’
January 8, 2018 | 9:13 pm | Analysis, Imperialism, Iran
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/2018 ... deologies/

Pro-government demonstrators march in Iran's holy city of Qom, some 130 kilometres south of Tehran, on January 3, 2018
‘Iran Does Not Bow: This is Its Real Crime in the Eyes of Western Ideologues’


Image
© AFP 2017/ Mohammad ALI MARIZAD
Columnists
15:51 06.01.2018(updated 03:55 07.01.2018) Get short URL
John Wight
8373
That Iran is not a free country is a self-evident truth. How could it possibly be free when it exists in the crosshairs of US imperialism?

In this respect, Iran shares the same status as Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, and China – in other words it is one of a select group of countries that do not kowtow to the diktat of ‘Rome’. For strip away the obfuscation, the dissembling words proffered by the usual parade of well fed and handsomely remunerated Western ideologues, and the only reason, the single reason that Iran is being depicted as a “terrorist state” in which human rights are non-existent, is because under its current government it refuses to bow to Washington or its vassals in western Europe and the region itself.

This is not to suggest that the protests that have broken out across Iran have no basis in legitimate grievances. As British journalist and Middle East correspondent, Patrick Cockburn, points out in a recent article, “grievances [in Iran] are similar to those in other oil states where there is long-suppressed anger against corruption and inequality. Youth unemployment was 28.8 percent last year. The nuclear deal with the US and other major powers in 2015 reduced sanctions, but has not produced the benefits that many expected. A 50 percent increase in the price of fuel was announced in the budget in December. Egg and poultry prices recently rose by 40 percent.”

Image
Iranian Authorities Remove Instagram Temporary Block – Reports

As night follows day, sudden price hikes of this magnitude are guaranteed to bring those impacted out onto the streets — and understandably so. People’s ability to survive, to feed themselves and their families, is a fundamental right that any government impedes or undermines at its peril. The problem for an economy such as Iran’s is that while it may assert political and geopolitical independence, they exist in a neoliberal economic reality, trading in a global marketplace dominated by economic nostrums devised in and which emanate from Washington.As such, until Iran, along with its other dissenting counterparts, makes a decisive break with neoliberalism, which by necessity also means breaking with the dollar as the international reserve currency, it will always be vulnerable to global economic downturns and shocks, such as occurred back in 2008. More crucially, it will be vulnerable to the machinations of dollar diplomacy, whether delivered via Washington directly, or indirectly via the IMF or World Bank. Ultimately, there can be no independence from the ‘Rome’ until there is independence from its currency.

Image
© AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik

US Looking for Pretext to Step Up Pressure on Iran – Russian Deputy FM

Neoliberalism is the economic arm of US hegemony. Yet as an economic model it has been completely discredited as a result of the 2008 financial crash and ensuing global economic depression. The so-called Arab Spring of 2011, which morphed into an Arab winter with the eruption of Salafi-jihadism in Libya and Syria, was the product of this aforesaid crisis in neoliberalism. And in the Middle East, one of the most serious symptoms of this crisis has been the very youth unemployment that has bedeviled Iran. This particular social malaise was indeed a key factor in the tumultuous events that engulfed Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria back in 2011.Compounding Iran’s economic problems has been the sanctions regime imposed on it by Western governments, led of course by Washington. The much-heralded P5+1 nuclear deal, reached in 2015 between Tehran and member states of the UN Security Council plus Germany, is considered to have been the landmark achievement of Obama’s foreign policy, trading the lifting of economic sanctions in return for the guarantee that Iran’s nuclear development program would remain non-military in its objectives.

But lest we lapse into any romantic illusions when it comes to Obama’s tenure in the White House, we are obliged to recall that prior to the agreement the Obama administration had done its utmost to derail Iran’s nuclear program by nefarious means. US author and historian, Perry Anderson, reveals how the Obama administration “launched a massive joint US-Israeli assault on Iranian computer networks to cripple the development of its nuclear programme. A blatant violation of what passes for international law, the projection of the Stuxnet virus was personally supervised by Obama.”

Image
© AFP 2017/ Jewel SAMAD

Russia Criticizes US Call for UNSC Emergency Session Over Protests in Iran
This episode of US and Israeli covert actions in Iran, which also included the assassination of Iranian scientists working in the country’s nuclear program by the Israelis, should be borne in mind when we read various commentators dismissing out of hand allegations by the current Iranian government of Western involvement in the wave of demonstrations that have taken place during the current crisis. Too, no serious analysis of Iranian affairs today can abstract the role of the joint US-UK covert operation, Operation Ajax, that was mounted to topple the country’s democratically elected president, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 in response to his decision to nationalize the country’s oil.

Replacing Mossadegh was Washington’s placeman the Shah. Over the next three decades Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to give the Iranian dictator his real name, set about plundering the country’s wealth for the enrichment of himself and his own, whilst keeping dissenting voices in check with his dreaded secret police and domestic security service, known by its acronym SAVAK, whose methods were a by-word for savagery even in a region where security services are notorious for their brutality. The point is that this history of Western imperialist intrigue in Iran and its internal affairs must be factored into the current crisis, as well as the overall state of the country’s development if we are to arrive at anything approximating to an accurate rendering.

Image
© AP Photo/

Protests in Iran Abating but Possibility of New Escalation Exists – Specialists

Returning to the P5+1 deal, rather than the result of any Obamaesque reaching out to a former enemy, it was the product of realpolitik, recognition that Iran was just too tough a nut to crack militarily or by dint of economic sanctions, and that the received truth embraced by every US administration since the Iranian revolution of 1979 – namely that the Islamic Republic was a mortal enemy whose overthrow and destruction was non-negotiable – was no longer viable.However in Donald Trump we are dealing with probably the most capricious US president in history, whose animus towards the Islamic Republic — to the manifest delight of both the Saudis and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu — is all-consuming. Trump has made known his opposition to the P5+1 deal, and at his behest, the US Treasury reintroduced sanctions against Iran, which came on stream in July.

The reasoning for the new tranche of sanctions has been given as “Iran’s malign activities across the Middle East which undermine regional stability, security, and prosperity. Iran continues to support terrorist groups such as Hizballah (sic), Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that threaten Israel and stability in the Middle East. Iran has maintained its steadfast support for the Assad regime, despite Assad’s atrocities against his own people.”

Image
© AP Photo/ Ebrahim Noroozi

Iranian Interior Minister Reveals Number of Protesters: ‘Not Too Much’
In the upside-down world that passes for reality in Washington, we are expected to believe that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism when in truth its role in combatting terrorism in the region has been crucial. Sorry guys but such base and transparent solecisms simply will no do. And neither will the blatant attempt to turn the UN Security Council into a rubber stamp of US foreign policy.The day that Trump’s otherworldly UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, blatantly abused the Security Council, scheduling a debate on events in Iran during which she took the opportunity to unleash a barrage of condemnation against the country’s government, irony died. Fortunately, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, was on hand to deliver a righteous slapdown. “If your logic is to be followed,” he told Haley, “Security Council meetings should have been called after the well-known events in Ferguson, Missouri, or when violence was used against Occupy Wall Street demonstrations on Manhattan.”

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

http://houstoncommunistparty.com/iran-d ... deologues/

Uh, somebody blocking access to Sputnik
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply