National Security -- Iran's Contested Revolution

June 15, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, Nate Carlile, and Matt Duss

NATIONAL SECURITY

Iran's Contested Revolution

Given the pointed attacks traded over the past weeks between Iranian presidential candidates Mir-Hussein Moussavi, Mohsen Rezae, Mehdi Karroubi, and incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the enthusiasm of their respective supporters, many had predicted that Iran's presidential election on Friday -- its eighth since the 1979 revolution and the creation of the Iranian Islamic Republic -- would be close. But no one predicted that it would result in the sort of crisis that has unfolded over the weekend. The dispute began "even before polls closed Friday night." Before the first vote counts were released, leading challenger Moussavi held a news conference to declare himself "definitely the winner" based on "all indications from all over Iran." Soon after Moussavi spoke, Iran's state news agency reported that Ahmadinejad had won, but did not cite official figures. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then announced (even before the official Interior Ministry count had been issued) that Ahmadinejad had won more than 24 million votes. Moussavi remained defiant, and thousands of his supporters flooded the streets of Tehran to protest what they saw as a stolen election, "pelting [police] with rocks and setting fires in the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade." In statements Sunday, Moussavi and Karroubi "asked people to continue their 'nonviolent demonstration' throughout the country and criticized the government for using violence against demonstrators." Asked about the demonstrations at a Sunday press conference, Ahmadinejad said that they "would disappear after a while, just like those angry fans following a defeated football match." But today, in a sign that Iran's ruling elites have grasped the seriousness of the situation, Ayatollah Khamenei "ordered an investigation into claims of vote rigging...a surprising turnaround for Khamenei, who had previously welcomed the [election] results."

A FIGHT FOR IRAN'S FUTURE: A former prime minister of Iran, Moussavi has sterling revolutionary credentials. He was a member of the founding generation of the Islamic Republic, and helped guide Iran through its painful and destructive eight-year war with Iraq. He was considered "a hard-liner closely allied with then-president Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, and a 'firm radical,' as The Economist described him in 1988." After a twenty year absence from politics, he was embraced by Iran's young reform movement, and endorsed by reformist leader Mohammed Khatami, who pulled out of the presidential race in March in order to support Moussavi. Though he is cast in the West as a moderate because of his support for greater social freedom and for warmer relations with the United States, like all of Iran's leaders he strongly maintains Iran's right to a nuclear program. It's believed that Moussavi and his ally former president Hashemi Rafsanjani are perceived as dangerous competitors by Ayatollah Khamenei and his inner circle. Unlike Ahmadinejad and his cohort, Moussavi and Rafsanjani have political power and legitimacy derived from the revolution, and not primarily from their proximity to Khamenei and ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

AN ELECTORAL COUP?: Numerous observers and analysts noted signs of "major improprieties." Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told CNN that "there were were 40 million votes cast and just two hours after the polls had closed they announced Ahmadinejad's victory: and these votes are hand counted in Iran." Sadjapour also noted that Moussavi, who is an ethnic Azeri Turk, "lost the province of Iranian Azerbaijan. This is the equivalent of Barack Obama losing the African American vote to John McCain in 2008." Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, however, wrote that a "nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election." But Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote that "in the final two weeks before the election all reputable polls inside and outside of Iran showed that Ahmadinejad's popularity had decreased significantly." Khalaji suggested that Ayatollah Khamenei had engineered a "military coup." Writing on his blog, former National Security Council official Gary Sick suggested that "if the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history."

OBAMA'S OUTREACH: The Obama administration has "insisted that it would not interfere with the struggle for power" between Iran's factions, drawing some criticism from those who feel that the United States should weigh in more strongly on behalf of the anti-Ahmadinejad forces. Asked about the election on Friday, President Obama said, "Ultimately the election is for the Iranians to decide. ...[But] whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways." Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council, told journalist Spencer Ackerman that the Obama administration "is doing exactly the right thing. They're not rushing in and they're not playing favorites. They might prefer the democratic process to be respected, but that's different than [supporting a] specific faction." Iranian state television said earlier today that in a private meeting, "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to pursue his complaints over the election through legal means," indicating that this election may not be over yet. Iran's Guardian Council, said "it had received two official complaints from defeated presidential candidates and would issue its ruling within 10 days."

EDUCATION -- SEC. DUNCAN ANNOUNCES $350 MILLION PLAN TO DEVELOP NATIONAL EDUCATION STANDARDS FOR READING AND MATH: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced yesterday an ambitious plan to help states develop uniform national standards for reading and math. Duncan pledged $350 million to help states develop the new standards and end the "current patchwork of benchmarks across the nation." Forty-six states and the District of Columbia agreed earlier this month to "craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation." Duncan praised the move, declaring, "We have 50 different standards, 50 different goal posts. ... We want to fundamentally reverse that. We want common, career-ready internationally benchmarked standards." Duncan said yesterday that the federal funds would be used to design new national tests, replacing the numerous tests in use in individual states. Responding to questions about the focus on testing, Duncan said, "I think in this country we have too many bad tests. ... If we're going to have world-class international standards, we need to have world-class evaluations behind them." In a report from 2008 on the need for national standards in education, Matt Miller at the Center for American Progress wrote that, "by leaving the definition of standards and proficiency requirements to the states, No Child Left Behind -- like earlier efforts in the educational standards movement -- makes it impossible for us to know where kids stand. ...[I]n today's 'flat' world we can't have the rigor of a child's education, and thus chances for success, depend on the accident of where they happen to be born."

Iran's reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has called off a major rally to protest last Friday's election results. Mousavi said, "I am under extreme pressure to accept the results of the sham election. They have cut me off from any communication with people and am under surveillance." Responding to those concerns, Ahmadinejad dismissed them: "He ran a red light, and he got a traffic ticket."

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Dennis Ross will be relieved of his duties as U.S. envoy to Iran in the coming days and speculates that his removal may be a result of "Iran's persistent refusal to accept Ross as a U.S. emissary given the diplomat's Jewish background as well as his purported pro-Israel leanings." But a diplomatic source in Jerusalem suggested that perhaps Ross is looking for a "more enhanced role" at the National Security Agency.

Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, in a major foreign policy speech yesterday, "offered conditional support for the establishment of a Palestinian state and refused to bring a halt to divisive expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank." Despite reports calling the move a "concession," it is "simply a recognition of Israel's past commitments."

In a speech to the American Medical Association (AMA) today, Obama will "endorse the creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan operating alongside private coverage while maintaining existing relationships between doctors and patients." The AMA has been critical of such an approach in recent days.

On CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said there were not enough Senate votes to pass a public health insurance plan like the one President Obama has pushed for. "In a 60-vote environment, you've got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all the Democrats together, and that, I don't believe, is possible with a pure public option. I don't think the votes are there," Conrad said.

"Democratic allies remain at odds over provisions of a House climate bill and a Senate energy bill, even as congressional leaders and Obama administration officials are pressing to complete work on the legislation." Various Democratic lawmakers are pushing for expanded offshore oil drilling, greater giveaways to the agriculture business, and either a stricter or looser renewable electricity standard.

After spending seven years at Guantanamo Bay, and "four days after their surprise predawn flight to Bermuda," four Uighur Muslim men are basking in their new-found freedom. "I went swimming in the ocean for the first time ever yesterday, and it was the happiest day of my life," said Salahidin Abdulahat, 32.

And finally: Roll Call digs through the latest financial disclosure forms of members of Congress to find some interesting tidbits. For example, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) won $2,500 in the New York lottery. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) reported receiving a painting from noted artist Jamie Wyeth worth more than $5,000. "Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) got two presents that sounded lovely from nonpolitical family friends: a 'glass pumpkin' worth $675 and a 'seahorse ruby and diamond brooch' worth $2,250."

On cable news, if an event "can't be captured by two talking heads debating each other, it's like it never happened."

The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney is providing extensive live-blogging coverage of the Iranian elections.

Rising oil prices pose a major threat to the economic recovery.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): Who cares if Europe doesn't like Guantanamo? They didn't like when we invaded Iraq either.

The myth of "Cheeto-eating people in the basement working in their underwear who write blogs."

Ahmadinejad claims "Iran is the most stable country in the world."

Are conservatives really worried about health care cost controls?

Separate Washington Times op-eds compare the Obama-era to 1930s Germany and 1930s England.

"I never said anything like it."
-- Fox News's Glenn Beck, 6/12/09, claiming he never warned of the possibility of FEMA concentration camps

VERSUS

"We are a country that is headed towards socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest imagination. ... I wanted to debunk [the existence of] these FEMA camps...[but] I can't debunk them."
--Beck, 3/03/09

Think Progress

Iran's Contested Revolution

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