NightWatch

For the Night of 15 June 2009

Iran: The protests in Tehran continued for a third day. They have succeeded in prompting the Supreme Leader and the leader of the Parliament to order investigations of voter fraud, but not much else. Anti-government demonstrations also have been reported in the cities of Shiraz, Karaj, Esfahan, Tabriz, Gorgan, and Karaj.

Comment: The investigations are significant because they represent a concession that an honest government does not need to make. Now the concession might have been made to placate the crowds, but even that concession is a use of power in response to street action, i.e., a sign of weakness.

One thing to watch for is whether the protests continue. The government banned the protests but has been forced to tolerate them because of their size. That is an incongruity. The theocracy can suppress the demonstrations but doing so contradicts almost every principle of the regime.

A massive crackdown signifies the Iranian revolution is no more righteous than the Egyptian “revolution” or the Saudi Kingdom. The crowds are not yet calling for systemic change = revolution, but for an honest vote with the existing political architecture. If the existing political structure proves sclerotic and inflexible, the next step is to replace the people at the top. The step after that is to replace the architecture itself, meaning a revolution.

Iran, then, could be on an escalating staircase, but it is too soon to make that determination. The size of the youth vote has always been a political powder keg in a country that has too few opportunities, too few jobs for so many young people and which is led by a clerisy that is out of step with modern personal technology.

The situation is not revolutionary yet, but something is seriously flawed when the favorite son of East Azerbaijan fails to carry his own constituency: Mousavi, according to al Jazeerah. The least credible electoral outcome and most persuasive evidence of massive voter fraud is that the Azeris of Tabriz voted for Ahmadi-Nejad by four to one, instead of for Mousavi, who hails from Tabriz. Everyone knows the Azeris are ultra-clannish and always vote for an Azeri. Mousavi is one of their own.

Juan Cole makes the point that the hardline constituency supporting Ahmadi-Nejad never represented more than 20% of the electorate. It is inconceivable that that his appeal could swell to 63% in four years. Moreover, all analysts assessed that a large turnout would favor Mousavi, carried on the votes of women and the youth. The result supposedly is counter-intuitive.

Cole argues persuasively that the divide between the urban elite and the rural farmers is not as important as the voting pattern of the youth and the women. Cole implies that Ahmadi-Nejad and his friends in the Revolutionary Corps subverted and negated this vote in ways not yet determined, but clearly massively.

If Cole’s Holmesian inferences prove true, this election will be the greatest scandal since the fall of the Shah. Every informed observer knows something is wrong with the results. The landslide outcome is statistically impossible based on voting patterns of the past two decades. Ahmadi-Nejad is in trouble, but it might take a few weeks to sort it out.

According to blogger reports, as reported by Escobar in Asia Times Online, Mousavi actually obtained more than 19 million votes and Ahmadi-Nejad obtained 7-8 million votes, a near flip flop of the official results. That measures the potential enormity of the electoral fraud.

As an aside, it is worth noting how religiously- inspired authoritarian regimes feel the need to lie, steal and bribe to keep themselves in power. Zealots never trust the will of the voters. If the protests continue and the clerisy senses its authority is eroding by backing Ahmadi-Nejad, it will dump him in order to save itself, meaning he will resign in disgrace. An outcome to be pursued and praised.

Pepe Escobar suggests that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself may now be at risk from a coalition of Grand Ayatollahs based in Qom, who no longer have confidence in his leadership largely because of the harsh crackdown in the major towns.

Israel: For the record. A massive cyberattack, involving at least 500,000 computers, was carried out against Israeli Internet infrastructure during the January offensive in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reported 15 June, citing recent statements by government officials. Authorities said the attack focused on government Web sites and briefly paralyzed some of them.

The attack was reportedly more severe than others experienced in the past. It consisted of four waves, each gathering intensity, and peaked at 15 million junk mail deliveries per second. Given similarities to a cyber attack in Georgia just ahead of its military clashes with Russia in August 2008, authorities believe it might have been carried out by a criminal group from the former Soviet region and paid for by Hamas or Hezbollah

NightWatch Comment: In international security affairs, transition days occur. Today is one. The world is waiting for North Korea to put teeth behind its words on Saturday.

The Pakistani head of state met the Indian head of government today in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. President Zardari said the right words about peace, including offering to share intelligence with India. The Indians remain open to talks on condition that Pakistan stops terrorist attacks directed at India from Pakistan.

The world is waiting to learn whether Iran has entered a new phase of its Islamic revolution, moving into uncharted territory in the voters and the Guardians of the clerisy hold the government accountable for its excess of zeal in manipulating national elections.

The world has begun to discern in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech the extent of his contempt for the Arabs and the US President. No Arab state considers his speech a break through in conservative Israeli thinking

End of NightWatch for 15 June.