New thread needed mods, please, Thank you.

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I don't know what Obama was supposed to say, but I think he did as well as could be expected.

In before thread explodes.

Hi guys. What's going on in this thread?

The shareef dont like it.

In at the beginning! But I probably won't stay long. These threads get out of control fast.

President Barack Obama says it's up to Iran to determine its own leaders.

But he also says he's troubled by the situation in Iran and that it would be wrong to stay silent. Obama says any investigation into Iranian election results must not result in bloodshed.

Good non-answer answer. Not much else you can say without taking a side, and that would be foreign policy death.

The election wasn't kosher!
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

This seems to be helping quite a few people, so I'll go ahead and repost it in every threads with some adjustments. Sorry, this has reached the level of TL;DR but I really am trying to cram the most relevant information and speculation only. Everything is updated as events unfold, especially the timeline and what will happen in the future.

Suppression of Dissent - The Players

Currently, there are either two or three groups who are suppressing the students on the ground that you'll read about throughout this thread:

1. The Basij
2. Ansar Hizbullah (which I will refer to as Ansar)
3. Lebanese Hizbullah (Unconfirmed but highly probable. Many different independent reports and video point that way. Even in the last hours other independent twitter feeds have declared witnessing thugs beating on people while shouting in Arabic; I will refer to them as Hizbullah)

- The Basij are your regular paramilitary organization. They are the armed hand of the clerics. The Basij are a legal group, officially a student union, and are legally under direct orders of the Revolutionary Guard. Their main raison d'être is to quell dissent. They are the ones who go and crack skulls, force people to participate in pro-regime demonstrations, and generally try to stop any demonstrations from even starting. They are located throughout the country, in every mosque, every university, every social club you can think of. They function in a way very similar to the brownshirts.

They were the ones who first started the crackdown after the election, but it wasn't enough. While they are violent and repressive, they are still Persian and attacking fellow citizens. A beating is one thing, mass killings another.

- Another group was working with them, whose members are even more extreme, is Ansar. There is a lot of cross-membership between the Basij and Ansar, though not all are members of the other group and vice-versa. The vast majority of Ansar are Persians (either Basij or ex-military), though a lot of Arab recruits come from Lebanon and train with them under supervision of the Revolutionary Guard. They are not functioning under a legal umbrella, they are considered a vigilante group, but they pledge loyalty directly to the Supreme Leader and most people believe that they are under his control. They are currently helping the Basij to control the riots, but due to the fact that they are Persians and in lower numbers than the Basij, they are not that active.

- (the following paragraph includes some speculation based on reports from ground zero) Hizbullah flew in a lot of their members in Iran, most likely a good deal even before the elections in case there were trouble. They are the ones who speak Arabs and are unleashing the biggest level of violence on the Persians so far. Another wave arrived recently and there is chatter that yet another wave of Hizbullah reinforcements are coming in from Lebanon as we speak. According to Iranians on the ground, they are the ones riding motorcycles, beating men women and children indiscriminately and firing live ammunitions at students.

The Lebanese Hizbullah is a direct offshoot (and under direct control) of the Iranian Hizbullah (itself under direct control of the Supreme Leader) and cooperates closely with Ansar though Ansar occupies itself only with Iran's domestic policies, while Hizbullah occupies itself only with Iran's foreign policy unless there is a crisis like right now. However, Hizbullah has been called to stop violent riots in Iran in the past.

What will happen

Unless the army decides to intervene in the favor of the Council and to stop the early beginnings of the new Revolution, Ansar & Hizbullah members will be the ones doing the brunt of the killing and repression with Basij as a support while also protecting government buildings and try to do crowd control. The police seems to have for the most part disbanded in centers like Tehran according to all reports, including international media. If the police decides to come back, they will focus less on protection and crowd control, so the Basij will start to crack more skulls).

Currently, this is what is happening.


Timeline
note: I built this through both articles and twitter feeds, so I do not claim that this is a 100% factually correct representation of reality, but this is the general narrative.

- When the first spontaneous riots erupted, the first wave the Iranian Riot Police was called in, and short after the Basij also took the scene. The RP concentrated mostly around public buildings and streets while the Basij took position around student groups, especiallly universities.

- As things got more out of hand, more and more Basij troops were called in, as the police started dispersing. The riot police are less inclined (or, rather I should say the Basij are more inclined) to use violence so they retreated and leaving the place to the Basij.

- With the second wave of Basij also came Ansar Hizbullah members. This is the point where firearms started being used. There are reports of a few murders but it was mostly fired in the air or on walls in order to scare away protesters in University dorms.

- It's around the time of the second wave that the first reports and videos of an important number of non-Persian thugs shouting in Arabic and violently beating people with chains, clubs and electric batons (similar to cattle prods). The end of the second wave came right before the beginning of the current manifestation. Things were getting quieter with only sporadic reports of dissenters being assaulted. Important to note: at this time. the Supreme Leader has authorized these militias to use live ammunition against the crowd if things get out of hand (source: BBC)

- This brings us to the third wave, which just began around 12:30PM for those of us on the East Coast. According to all reports, plainclothes militia have opened fire on civilians protesting peacefully.

Right now, there is chaos in the streets, reports of fighting all over Tehran, plenty of pictures of people shot, some to death. Things are ugly and this is spreading in other cities as well. There is a major crackdown on students, especially those with connections to the outside world going on right now. Some people report that the students are fighting back in some areas. Telephones are being bugged and everyone twittering and sending videos outside of Iran are being rounded up.

Violent and murderous repression has started. At least a twenty people have been killed so far. Things will spiral down fast, and very soon.

- The people are fighting back. First, they took over and burned down a Basij base, killing its commander. Then, they attacked the Basij HQ with molotov cocktails and there are reports of Basij beaten to death as well.

Right now, most people have gone to sleep and there is a major manifestation tomorrow as well, including a general strike all over Iran. This is the end of the third wave.

- Major events during the third wave: Basij bases have been attacked, and the Basij HQ has been burned to the ground. A Basij shot a girl in the face in front of their HQ, at which point a policeman went to confront them. The Basij beat the policeman, at which point students stormed the compound, throwing molotov cocktails, burning it to the ground. This is big.

Links

For further information on the Basij, Global Security has a good article about the history of the Basij.

CNN has a good article where eyewitnesses describe the current violence unleashed by the Basij here

Here is another good article from GS again giving more background information on the ruthless Ansar thugs.

First GREENLIGHT EVAR! Thanks Mods!

Thinking of you IRAN!

From Twitter:

Guy at Server company says they've only received a/b 100 calls. Pls call! 888 341 7867 opt 3- opt. 3

all normal proxies are down?

that can mean only one thing right?

Previous post from PK

Very late here but still city is full of noise of ambulance/police/motorbike sometimes gunshooting #Iranelection

Well fark, could have had a little warning there.

Paraphrased:

Obama: Obviously all of us have been watching the news out of Iran and I want to be clear it's up to Iranians to decide their leader, and I'm going to avoid being the issue inside Iran. Having said all that, I am very perturbed by the violence I am seeing in Iran, I think that the ability to dissent without violence is a universal value that should be respected, when I see that, when the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled.

My understanding is that the Iranian government is going to look inside irregularities that possibility happened. We did not have observers on the group, so I cannot say one way or another if something happened. People who are committed to Democracy feel betrayed.

As deep as the differences between US and Iran on many issues, the use of tough use of diplomacy is necessary when developing a core set of diplomatic interests such as Iran not launching a nuclear arms race or sponsering terrorism and we do not wish to see this this is our core diplomatic interests and we will address this in the future.

I would say to the people who are watching Iranians in the street are excited and happy, regardless of what the results were, we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for you but we do want to make clear that we think that the youth should have their voices heard.

macaddict0: numb3r5ev3n: Tatsuma: No, they are the Brownshirts circa 1933

How sad is it that I just read that as "Browncoats?"

Me too... three times. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

See, this just makes me want to translate the Ballad of Serenity Valley into Farsi, which should probably never happen (unless it already has?)

But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a wiff
Of that crazy casbah jive...

Actually, this is like thread number eight or nine...

And from what I caught of it, it seems that Obama managed not to rack himself during that high-wire bit.

*crosses fingers*

Thanks mods. As I said in the last thread, Obama's words were about as good as they could be. The recent reports coming out of Iran, however, are disconcerting. It sounds like the government is beginning to re-establish control.

Tatsuma

Thanks for your time in gather all this info for us.

We aren't just commenting on the news, we're seeing it before everyone else. Hell, I'd not be surprised if tomorrow (and the day after) is full of discussions that we've already had in their entirety.

Our sources in Iran need to rest and hide and stay safe.
/salute to the protesters, brave souls every one

Looks like the Obama administration recognizes (correctly) that this thing needs to be handled with kid gloves. Let the people in Iran know we are watching, but say really nothing else.

+1 Obama.

Rock the Casbah - Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine (new window)

Linked this towards end of last thread, reposting in case anyone has any information to confirm/deny-- sauce was discovered via Andrew Sullivan's liveblog on Iran @ The Atlantic:

http://twitter.com/tehranelection9

Again, thanks to Tats for the info.

Tatsuma: Paraphrased:

I wonder how much sleep he has had the last couple days.

strangeguitar: The election wasn't kosher!
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

Well when the riots started all the protesters smelled was bacon...

"The Youth Should Have Their Voices Heard"

It's about time America pledged their support.

Been following this all day, I hope pk and other's stay safe through the night.

Aaaaaand now CNN has switched back to healthcare. Look, Wolf, this is important but it's not farking explosive.

LoadShark: Tatsuma

Thanks for your time in gather all this info for us.

If Persiankiwi is right and all the ISP's in Iran are being systematically closed, we might not get much more information, and what little we get probably will come at substantially greater risk.

http://twitter.com/persiankiwi

KaponoFor3: Looks like the Obama administration recognizes (correctly) that this thing needs to be handled with kid gloves. Let the people in Iran know we are watching, but say really nothing else.

+1 Obama.

it also looks like's realizing that it has to be handled by the iranians first, that we can't get directly involved.

I just wanted to say thank you all for gathering the information, I've been following these threads all weekend. Especially your timeline posts, Tats. Those are great for catching up and explaining the players.

To the people of Iran, we are watching and our thoughts go with you.

KaponoFor3: Looks like the Obama administration recognizes (correctly) that this thing needs to be handled with kid gloves. Let the people in Iran know we are watching, but say really nothing else.

+1 Obama.

Yeah, I wish there were more that could be done, but this has to be handled by Iranians from start to finish. They don't have short memories, and even among the more progressive youth there's still a lot of resentment for the United States, from what I've read.

Tatsuma: Paraphrased:

Obama: Obviously all of us have been watching the news out of Iran and I want to be clear it's up to Iranians to decide their leader, and I'm going to avoid being the issue inside Iran. Having said all that, I am very perturbed by the violence I am seeing in Iran, I think that the ability to dissent without violence is a universal value that should be respected, when I see that, when the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled.

My understanding is that the Iranian government is going to look inside irregularities that possibility happened. We did not have observers on the group, so I cannot say one way or another if something happened. People who are committed to Democracy feel betrayed.

As deep as the differences between US and Iran on many issues, the use of tough use of diplomacy is necessary when developing a core set of diplomatic interests such as Iran not launching a nuclear arms race or sponsering terrorism and we do not wish to see this this is our core diplomatic interests and we will address this in the future.

I would say to the people who are watching Iranians in the street are excited and happy, regardless of what the results were, we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for you but we do want to make clear that we think that the youth should have their voices heard.

I'm kind of a fan of this guy.

Sounds like Obama mostly pulled off the balancing act necessary in this situation -- praise the expression of dissent, say everyone's watching, and don't throw any obvious meat to Ahmadinejad and his supporters.

Now, if only he'd publicly burn that nasty legal brief filed in defense of DOMA... oh well, one thing at a time.

/he's the least worst person for the jorb at the moment
//go iranians!

By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI
Published: June 15, 2009

TEHRAN - Hundreds of thousands of people marched through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran's disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance that appeared to be the largest antigovernment demonstration here since the 1979 revolution.The march was largely peaceful, but toward the end of the day, gunfire broke out in at least one clash between protesters and militia members, and one protester was reported killed. News photographs showed several people who appeared seriously injured. In Isfahan, south of the capital, police officers attacked a crowd of several thousand with sticks and tear gas, and rioters set fires in parts of the city.

The protests began hours after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for a inquiry into opposition claims that the election was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The ayatollah's call - announced every 15 minutes on Iranian state radio throughout the day - was the first sign that Iran's top leadership might be rethinking its position on the election. But it was too soon to tell whether the announcement, or the government's decision to let the enormous rally in Tehran proceed, indicated more than a superficial shift. Many in the crowd said they believed the government was simply buying time, and hoping the protests would dissipate, as smaller protest movements have in 1999 and 2003.


well, that's probably good. Or not, who the hell knows Iran's inner machinations.

The news of Iranian government thugs rounding up people using twitter or youtube is rather scary.

Tatsuma's work is gathering info is easy as he works for the Mossad.

Its an open secret now.

Tatsuma: Paraphrased:

Damn, he's good, isn't he?

But now, what of the feeds?

Tats, I didn't say thank-you in the last couple threads for that "Iranian Threat Groups" writeup. So I'll say it now.

Thanks.

And the timeline updates as appreciated as well.

My prayers are with you, good farkers of Iran/ Iranian farkers. Persepolis, Tet and co., you are truly heroes the this major historical event. Hold true to your values, your beliefs and (if applicable) your God. What runs your nation is not a real manifestation of the will of God. It is the greed of man masquerading as the will of God. Honestly, I hope your countrymen show them no quarter.

Great headline in times of crisis makes the LCW laugh.

edflyer: It's about time America pledged their support.

I, and a lot of the Iranian-American community disagree with this... for now.

/dinner.

Tatsuma: Paraphrased:

Obama: Obviously all of us have been watching the news out of Iran and I want to be clear it's up to Iranians to decide their leader, and I'm going to avoid being the issue inside Iran. Having said all that, I am very perturbed by the violence I am seeing in Iran, I think that the ability to dissent without violence is a universal value that should be respected, when I see that, when the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled.

My understanding is that the Iranian government is going to look inside irregularities that possibility happened. We did not have observers on the group, so I cannot say one way or another if something happened. People who are committed to Democracy feel betrayed.

As deep as the differences between US and Iran on many issues, the use of tough use of diplomacy is necessary when developing a core set of diplomatic interests such as Iran not launching a nuclear arms race or sponsering terrorism and we do not wish to see this this is our core diplomatic interests and we will address this in the future.

I would say to the people who are watching Iranians in the street are excited and happy, regardless of what the results were, we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for you but we do want to make clear that we think that the youth should have their voices heard.

Thank you for posting this. I should probably see if it's up on youtube now.

Not normally a fan of Obama's but that was exactly the correct way to handle this. +1

Just got this tweet:

mousavi1388 We have no national press coverage in Iran, everyone should help spread Mousavi's message. One Person = One Broadcaster. #IranElection

WhyteRaven74: Tatsuma: Paraphrased:

I wonder how much sleep he has had the last couple days.

God Forbid the revolution hits the fan Friday night...

thanks Tats.

what_now: Look, Wolf, this is important but it's not farking explosive.

Well, if I had taco bell recently, my health would involve something explosive.

goosebumps man, goose bumps.

Iran - we support you - the people of the webs support you - it may not mean anything now but a global community is starting to form - you are the spark!

Thanks, again, Tats. You've been more helpful than any article I've read today.