Are the Iranian Election
Protests Another US Orchestrated ‘Color Revolution’?
By Paul Craig Roberts
June 20, 2009
Information Clearing House
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22875.htm
A number of commentators have
expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi,
Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA
destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has
somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the
outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the
votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory
several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA
destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces
an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval
between the preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement
of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression
that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is
amazing that people don’t see through this trick.
As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was
stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out
to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an
opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the
incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being
manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of
manipulating disgruntled politicians.
There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned
against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus
playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the
ayatollahs' lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my
opinion, Ahmadinejad's attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic.
However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he
is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.
Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own
illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not
the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is,
so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen.
However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working
for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC
News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a
covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government,
current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC
News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr.
Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a
propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and
eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that
Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph
that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after
economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had
failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late
last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund
a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to
current and former military, intelligence, and congressional
sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four
hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding
signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s
religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The
protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in
Georgia and Ukraine.
It requires total blindness not to see this.
Daniel McAdams has made some telling points.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html For
example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the
election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How
would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why
would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote,
especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of
victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US
is involved in the election protests.
Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for
Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’
revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into
the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental
organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy
funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a
private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants
from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote
democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights
in Iran.” |