For Khamenei, Iran's Election Fight Over

Supreme Leader Closes Door On Compromise; Won't "Give In" To Pressure

(CBS/AP)  Iran's supreme leader says the government won't give in to pressures over the disputed presidential election, effectively closing the door to compromise with the opposition.

Iran also said it was considering downgrading ties with Britain,
which it has accused of spying and fomenting days of unprecedented
street protests over the vote.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with
lawmakers that: "Neither the system nor the people will give in to pressures at any price."

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi claims that hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the June 12 presidential election through massive fraud. He has called for annulling the results and holding a new vote.

An unconfirmed report stated that the country's powerful, 86-member Assembly of Experts - headed by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - is split in its support for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. However, neither is expected to lose their positions.

Khamenei's comments come on the heels of a conservative candidate withdrawing his complaints about voting fraud for the sake of the country, state television reported.

The announcement by Mohsen Rezaie, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, moved the cleric-led government one step closer to a final declaration of victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. State TV reported that Ahmadinejad would be sworn in sometime between July 26 and Aug. 19.

IranWatch: Track the latest on the Iran election upheaval.

Mousavi's supporters claim massive fraud tilted the election and want the vote to be canceled and held again. The final tally gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 percent to Mousavi, a landslide victory in a race that had been perceived as much closer. Rezaie came in third.

Mousavi has said little and remained out of the public eye as the government flooded the streets of Tehran with police and pro-government militia to deter further protests. It has quietly been arresting reformist activists and others, according to human rights groups outside the country.

Government tallies have shown that at least 627 people have been arrested in Tehran. Some state media have reported 17 protesters killed by security forces. Other state reports give the number as 27, said Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Ghaemi said he believes the number of dead is much higher, based on conversations with hospital workers, witnesses and relatives of victims in Iran.

There were no reported demonstrations Tuesday and protesters have been resorting to more subtle ways of challenging the outcome of the presidential election: holding up posters, shouting from rooftops and turning on car headlights.

"People are calmly protesting, more symbolically than with their voices," a Tehran resident said in a telephone interview, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retribution.

President Obama hardened his rhetoric on the crackdown, saying the world was "appalled and outraged".

"I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran's affairs," Mr. Obama said. "But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society."

Mr. Obama had been avoiding harsh condemnation of Iran's government, which often labels domestic unrest as the work of foreign agents.

Iran expelled two diplomats from Britain - a nation it bitterly accuses of meddling and spying - and Britain in turn sent two Iranian envoys home. There was no immediate word Wednesday on any Iranian reaction to the speech by Mr. Obama, who had been trying to warm relations with the Islamic Republic.

[BaselessCritique]

Will somebody please learn from John McCain?s mistakes?

Here we are about twelve days out from Iran?s national election. The aftermath has captured the world?s attention, and in a span of less than a fortnight the American public has been introduced, chiefly through television, to a host of previously obscure experts on the Iranian political landscape, making us all experts in the process.

At Starbucks, while pumping gas into your automobile, on the message boards of every news site that accepts comments, everywhere people assemble or exchange information, you can hear newly minted experts trading the currency of certainty and actionable insight.

?The Supreme Leader is vulnerable?.Factions in the Counsel of Experts may force him from power?.I hear that citizens are actually counter-attacking some members of the Basij Militia?.America really needs to take a leadership role in this.?

All said with same level of doubtless confidence one might use to explain what they did last weekend.

To be honest, the events in Iran have captured my attention too. It?s been an amazing confluence of politics and technology. It tempts me to ponder the rosiest ?what if? scenarios. However, if I thought I really had a voice in this, that my opinion might actually affect policy, I would try to be more cognizant of just how little I actually knew before setting on a course of definitive action.

S.I. Hayakawa, the linguist and former U.S. Senator from California, developed a model of what he called The Ladder of Abstraction to describe the level of ?graininess? in conceptual knowledge. Several years later, seemingly inspired by Hayakawa, Ira Glass created an imaginary magazine devoted to profusion of blathering people do using incomplete, minimal, or grainy information to espouse sweeping conclusions about complex subjects. He called the magazine "Modern Jackass."


Please read full post at http://baselesscritique.blogspot.com/

[mrjustice1]

RELIGION:

...hardens hearts and enslaves minds.


Religion continues to be a major, major scourge for all mankind.


Which of our responsible, take-charge, world leaders will have the courage to speak up, and propose phasing-out of, and the eventual elimination of, divisive, destructive, delusional and deadly
religion?

[6591Hou]

If the Iranians want reform, they will have to be the ones who make it happen.
Their reform, if it happens, will not be American Democracy - they don't have the history that went into making it so it would be foreign to them. Their reform will have to be entirely Iranian.
We don't know the motivations of all of the concerned parties, so we cannot choose a side. What we can do is to remain vigilant to the appearance of fractures in the mullah's control of the country, and find ways to make it more rewarding to Iran to change their situation.

[mrjustice1]

THE CURRENT, THEOCRATIC, WARPED,IRANIAN REGIME IS NOT WORKING IN THE GOOD INTERESTS OF WORLD NATIONS AND PEOPLE

Iran's religious, hate-filled, fanatical, Islamofascist leaders - who engage others with calculating savagery and evil - have delusions of power, delusions of domination, and delusions of conquest!

They teach no compromise, no tolerance, no secularism, and specifically teach hate to their children and to others.

The world must take firm and thorough action to meet the Iranian menace, which threatens to throw us into another catastrophic dark age.

Steeped in primitive hate, punishment and revenge mentality, we cannot by any stretch of the imagination, expect anything beneficial to the world community from the current Islamofascist Iranian regime.

The current Islamofascist Iranian regime is the greatest threat to mankind since that of Hitler and the Nazis before and during World War 2!

[connunism]

Don't you Israeli's have somewhere else to post your propaganda? If you lived in the USA, you would know that the US Republicon Party remains the biggest threat to mankind, which is why they are now America's permanent minority.

[mrjustice1]

THE CURRENT, THEOCRATIC, WARPED,IRANIAN REGIME IS NOT WORKING IN THE GOOD INTERESTS OF WORLD NATIONS AND PEOPLE

Iran's religious, hate-filled, fanatical, Islamofascist leaders - who engage others with calculating savagery and evil - have delusions of power, delusions of domination, and delusions of conquest!

They teach no compromise, no tolerance, no secularism, and specifically teach hate to their children and to others.

The world must take firm and thorough action to meet the Iranian menace, which threatens to throw us into another catastrophic dark age.

Steeped in primitive hate, punishment and revenge mentality, we cannot by any stretch of the imagination, expect anything beneficial to the world community from the current Islamofascist Iranian regime.

The current Islamofascist Iranian regime is the greatest threat to mankind since that of Hitler and the Nazis before and during World War 2!

[government_control]

People of Iran --- OBAMA HAS ABANDONED YOU

[daffy64]

"They" were never Obama's to abandon. It's a sovereign country with their own struggles.

[HiTor15]

This is not about what we really want at all...THIS IS ABOUT UNDERMINING THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN ...AS WE DID WITH IRAQ...THIS IS ABOUT SEEING OUR WAY INTO A WAR WITH IRAN BECAUSE A FEW NUTS WANT TO SACRIFICE EVERYTHING WE HAVE FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS!!!! DO YOU GET THAT?? THIS IS ABOUT THE LOSERS OF THE LAST ELECTION TRYING TO SNEAK ACROSS THE LINE FOR A SECOND ACT WHETHER ANYONE WANTS THEM BACK OR NOT...I could not care less for what Iran does or does not do but when the UNITED STATES STARTS TRYING TO COMPROMISE ELECTIONS AND MANIPULATES PERCEPTIONS OF WHAT A FEW EXTREMISTS IN OUR NATION CONSIDER TO BE THEIR ENEMIES THEN ITS TIME TO SPEAK UP. This is how we got started in IRAQ...the government of saddam hussein was illegitimate and Rumsfeld and dick were going to give them the government they really wanted...OURS!!! I oppose this attitude because in the end it will not stop with Iran, it will apply to anyone who gets in their way tomorrow as well....their government aint good enough even if their people chose it in a legitimate election!!!! SO LETS JUST KILL THEM!!!!!

[apple2pie]

If Iran were a democracy..Khamenei could be voted out of office. Instead as with most dictatorships he will probably end up being blown up, poisoned or otherwise assassinated.

[aldon61]

The election is over, now the revolution will begin. Let's just make sure we're not involved, we don't need a "3rd" front in the "war on terror".

[presjfk]

" by vistavermin1 June 24, 2009 5:49 AM PDT
What chumps.. Bush cripple the military how.

Obama is a fool because he thinks he can deal with Iran.. "

Obama never said or even intimated that he could deal with Iran. He only said he would try. That is common sense! If we could talk with the USSR for 60+ years, why can't we have a dialogue wit the Iranians?

The Republican policy of not talking has left us with one war after another.