At the same time, the tensions within the regime are intensifying. The Guards commanders will not fail to draw a significant lesson from Tuesday’s events: the supreme leader turned to Lebanese Arabs, not to Iranians, to kill the dissident physicist. This bespeaks a certain lack of confidence in the Revolutionary Guards and the local security forces. If Khameni’s suspicions are justified, he will now have further reason to worry. As if to put an exclamation point on this fear, I have learned that the Deputy Commander of the Guards in the Greater Tehran area, Brigadier General Azizollah Rajabzadeh, is in intensive care following an axe attack to his cranium by one of his crack troops. This follows the shooting of General Ahmad Reza Radan by one of his men, about which I reported earlier.
Students of revolution will recognize all this. As judgment day approaches, and the restraints of the social order are systematically eroded, the regime reverts to the Hobbesian state of nature, described by the great philosopher as a “war of every man against every man.” And so it is, for Ali Khamenei is fighting a two front war: one front pits him against the vast majority of his subjects, who refuse to accept his legitimacy, and who seem to gain strength and courage every time he orders his storm troopers to crush them. The other front faces significant elements within the regime, who are looking for ways to preserve their wealth and power. Khamenei would like to put both groups into a strong cage, so that he alone can dictate. But if he tries that, he is likely to find elements of his “own side” making at least temporary alliances with the Greens, since they will discover they have a common foe.
It is a rare moment, one that should be seized by the West on both strategic and moral grounds. The fall of the Islamic Republic would literally change the world dramatically in our favor. As we all know, neither America nor any other Western country seems to recognize the nature of the moment, and it may pass, to the great shame of an entire generation of so-called Western leaders. I do not think that will happen. I believe the regime has gone beyond the Point of No Return. But our feckless behavior will no doubt ensure that the new, free Iran will regard us with profound suspicion, if not contempt. If we do not help them in their hour of profound need, why should they strain to make our lives easier in the future?
I must say that when I read that article this morning (NY TIMES?) it looked bogus to me. Thank you for clarifying the story.
On one hand I agree that indeed this was an inside job at the highest level on the right.
The maximum speed of Islamic Rep. TV to cover news is slower than a turtle. YET, when I just watched the news coverage of this killing produced by Iranian TV, it is clear they dispatched number of people to cover this event from so many angles and expanded coverage from the moment this explosion took place. Such coverage DOES NOT take place UNLESS it was ALREADY decided and AGREED in ADVANCE to make such a coverage in a VERY SPEEDY manner.
On the other hand, I am troubled reading Debka site stating things like: “The covert war against Iran’s nuclear program”. And then it goes on saying: “Those sources stress that his death was unrelated to the political turbulence sweeping Iran since the June elections.” I wonder what makes Islamic Rep. news and Debka so much synchronized in such a complementary coverage. While evidence might show this as an inside job, Debka comes out and do its best to show it could have been us who did it! Its like they know what Khamenei is looking for.
So I’d say this is indeed an inside job, while I also read that this poor guy was very active to load a bus with his students to public rallies against Ahmadinejad, beside signing letters in support of Musavi. The same people who killed Musavi’s nephew also killed this great Iranian.
Regime knows so well that Iranian people hate MEK because of their killing of so many people in Iran. So they are hoping somehow they could develop similar cases and dump it on the Green movement, so they lose Iranian’s respect for this movement.
The challenge is to AVOID any violent TRAP that this regime is creating for the opposition in wanting to fight with guns and killing. I hope God will help Iranian to silence those who drool over bloody violence in Iran.
” I am told that the assassination is the first such act on Iranian soil by the Revolutionary Guard’s “foreign legion;” highly trained killers from Lebanese Hezbollah. ”
And now here is the proof! This is a link to a picture of Abu Nasser who is one of the top Hezbollah members in Lebanon, who is also present after the explosion.
http://irandokht77.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_12.html
Michael,
Thank you, thank you. You write brilliantly, with a moral voice so lucid that it belongs more to prophecy than commentary.
I have a presumptuous request. In a future article, could you take us inside the minds, and, perhaps more importantly, the souls of Barack Obama and his merry band of fellow travelers?
Why this incoherent and ahistorical policy towards Iran? Are they morally blind, indifferent, or so steeped in moral relativism that they are incapable of seizing this moment?
They are promoting the idea that they are practitioners of realpolitik. Why not use this moment to crush the regime, without firing a shot, and parade the “dear leader” in a thousand “victory laps” around the world, using his favorite pronoun (I) at least ten thousand times.
Explain please! Faster!
Once again, the lack of statecraft on the part of the obumbla administration comes to the fore. . .How many “seize the moment” chances are sent down the toilet by these fools? How is the hope and change working out for you “o”lovers? Idiots all!!
There was a story before Christmas that regular army generals had said publicly that they would not stand by and see revolutionary thugs beat up and kill Iranian citizens. Nothing more of this has been heard since. On the other hand we do not hear stories of the army being involved in putting down the protests. If this Hobbesian situation develops further there must come a tipping point for the regular military when they can stand by no longer.
“… the new, free Iran will regard us with profound suspicion, if not contempt.”
What are you smoking in that hookah? Look, I’m all for fomenting as much mayhem, fratricide, regimacide, mullahcide, insurrection, and civil war within the House of Islam. I see turning Islam’s swords of Jihad against other Muslims as one handy off-the-shelf way to blunt Islam’s Jihad against US. But the Dr. Ledeens of the world have for decades been peddling their malpractice of “winning Muslim hearts and minds” to the severest detriment of America and the West. That malpractice has promised the end of the Islamic regime for 30 years. Still waiting… It has invited millions of Muslims into the West claiming exposure to our civilization will tame the Jihad imperative of Islam. How’s that working out, Dr. Ledeen? Last I checked, Muslims in the West have begun churning out their own crop of “homegrown” Jihadis accross the board, in the USA, in Canada, the UK, France, all of Europe… When will we turn our backs on the quacks and charlatans who have lured us so far into the dangerous Jungle of Jihad in which we find ourselveds entangled ? When do we fire these “Islamic experts”, and begin undoing the heinous damage they have wrought against our proud civilization?
Dr. Ledeen, please stop scolding us. Stop painting your failure’s and the infinity of failures authored by the barbaric Muslim civilization as OUR failure.
Doodslag, you forgot to blame me for the Civil War and the Black Death. Please be more thorough next time.
Michael Ledeen – Several thoughts – The first is that this POTUS will do nothing to help the Iranian dissidents. (Old saying from Psalms – Put not your trust in princes or the son of man … ) Secondly, whether or not the “Greens” will be successful will depend on the which the military turns. While isolated stories of insubordination are tantalizing, so far it seems that the military is still with the regime.
Naw. I’ll just stick to the facts. It’s obviously not all your fault, but you are complicit with your fantasies of a “free Iran” when/if the regime falls. The greens shout the classic Jihad battle cry. They choose the color of Islam as their badge. They raise equally vile Islamic Jihadis for their leadership, they call, not for the end of Islamic tyranny but for more adherence to Islam. That guarantees only more tyranny. This is a religious motivated movement determined masquerading as a freedom movement. Their calls to re-assert Islam to end tranny is downright Khomeinist. We should have no delusions.
Your delusions of moderate Islam do us (and Muslims) no favors. You and the Daniel Pipedreams, Ruel Gerechts, and Noah Feldmans perpetuate theories which spread gauzy confusions about Islam when we need clarity more than ever.
Dear Dr. Ledeen, you’re right. Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was planning to move to Sweden escaping the regime’s deadly brutalities. Sweden kept him waiting asking him to find an academic program to apply and under which he can legally and easier get his visa. The Islamic regime found out and certainly did not want another anti-regime mind get out of the country and cause mayhem for them in the free world. The barbarians occupying Iran not only decided to exterminate him but more importantly they decided to do the job on that very same day when they put those poor 7 Baha’i s on trial. They did not want the trial to get noticed by the international community, believing killing the professor will certainly overshadow the unjust trial of the Baha’i citizens and they were right. Our media news organizations reported the brutal killing of the professor and not a word on the trial of the Baha’i s.
This regime is the most barbaric, most fascistic and filthiest in the human history more so than the mongols in the eyes of the Iranian people. They have done these kinds of schemes many many times in the past not only in the cities of Iran but in the cities of Europe as well where they put out any disagreeing voice and killing any critic they found dangerous to their filthy existence. All we can hope for is for the international communities and its people truly find the evil nature of this regime and support Iranian nation’s will to uproot this cancerous cell from its existence. They need to force their leaders NOT TO EVER make deals with this evil. We all know what happens to us commoners when evil seduces and commoners give in!!!
Doodslag, I believe Mr. Dedeen is referring to the suspicion Greens will have if we don’t help them in their hour of need. If the Greens are ever successful, how would they trust a US government that, while they were dying on the streets, emphasized “dialogue” with their enemies? If we’re all up on freedom and democracy, why do we not help them now? Why does our wimpy POTUS instead engage in appeasement with the repressive mullahs?
As I have written elsewhere, consider the example of Poland. Why are they such a staunch US ally? Because during their darkest hour, while the Left and liberal Europeans abandoned them in the name of detente, the US -specifically Reagan- opted to stand with them. Reagan supported the Solidarity protesters publicly, and covertly funneled money to fund their movement. The Poles have not forgotten this. Iran today faces a similar situation, but Obama apparently cannot bring himself to do the same for the young Iranian protesters. He is blinded by a self-defeating doctrine that calls for sacrificing our friends to make peace with our enemies.
Having said this, I do agree with Jack #11 in that so long as the mullahs and the Republican Guard hold the guns, it’ll be difficult to overthrow them. Consider the turn of events in Zimbawe. This, unless some elements of the regular Iranian Army actually dared to turn against the RG/Basij.
It is clear that POTUS supports Islam and the most radical brand. POTUS is following the standard liberal line of liking anyone that hates the US and the west, including Russia and China. If they are hostile to us, he supports them. It is like when western liberals supported communism in the past, but this time there are more on the left and the struggle has not only a religious but a racial aspect that there is no point in ignoring although we would like to pretend it is not there. Few african americans supported the USSR but many seem to like the Islamic cause.
Those in the Islamic world that are friendly to the west, obama does not like. The struggles in Iran for reform leave him cold, that is obvious. He has no sympathy for the opposition. When people like obama talk of self determination for muslims or anyone else, they mean their right to choose what is anti western. If they choose anything else, that is no good.
The maximum of liberalism in the west and the minimum of it in other parts of the world is the liberal agenda. That the west should have no identity, no point of reference except “tolerance” which is a death sentence, no pride, no unifying features, and that everyone else should be very particular and have many points of identity and cling to all of them and be very united, what is the point of it? From the viewpoint of obama, it may be a matter of siding with those he regards as his people and those he wants to win and increase in power and numbers. He is not about destroying everything, just those alien to him. This is unfortunate but understandable and human. But for the western liberal to succeed in destroying liberalism and ultimately all of the west, his own culture, why is it so desired? What happened to make us so self hating?
to #5 Gene,
Kudos to you Gene! That is exactly what we Iranians have been saying all along for decades! Support us without a single shut, no troops, no blood and Iranians will uproot this monstrous regime giving the gift of liberty to themselves and the gift of security and peace to us all in the world!
What happened to the Jan 7th strike? I think a series of general strikes would put the nail on the coffin of this regime, especially since the Guard has so many business enterprises. It would also seem that staying home is allot safer form of protest than marching in the streets.
You mean like the contempt for our interventionist behavior in 1953 that lead to the 1979 revolution?
If we stay out, whatever happens to the Iranians, they can’t blame it on us.
Leave them to fight the regime’s foreign thugs. That will only serve to embitter the Iranian people against their Arab neighbors which will remove a key pillar of support in the Islamic world for the terrorist groups that attack the US and Israel.
Here is a letter written (in Persian) by a group of professors of University of Tehran, who wrote a complaint to the head of University protesting against the infamous bloody attack of “Basijis” on student dormitory after the elections. Dr. Masoud Ali-Mohammadi signed this letter on July 14 2009 (25/3/1388 in Persian Calendar). His signature is on top right of all other signatures on this letter. See:
http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2010/01/098983.php
This is a document showing that he was against the action of the government and its pressure groups after the June elections fiasco.
Let’s try not to spread propaganda in favor of the totalitarians:
our president hugs chavez who hugs the mullahs.
Period.
This president is not on the side of the iranian democratic revolution.
The people, brainwashed by the media controlled by the subversives, have elected a subversive.
He will not help Freedom, not here, nor anywhere else in the world.
I would GREATLY like to be proved wrong by solid facts, but all he solid facts until now confirm the diagnosis.
The cure will be the elections in November, that could stop the totalitarians who are presently at work to build a regime.
God bless the people of Iran. There freedom is our peace.
OFF TOPIC
MESSAGE FOR THE MODERATOR
until 1.20 PM Eastern, the COMMENTS on Zombie’s post are not working, the “COMMENTS” link brings to the same post and to the same links, in a circle.
“Doodslag, you forgot to blame me for the Civil War and the Black Death.”
That’s because everyone knows you and yours were responsible for both causing the Civil War and possibly complicit in the spread of the Black Death as a means to save Mother Earth from the evils of the last worldwide warming cycle.
Some folks folks, though, are still under the media spread illusion that you and yours aren’t not aiding and abetting the jihadists. If you prefer that people mention everything you and yours represent (slavery, secession, Civil War, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, eugenics laws, filibustering of the Civil Rights act, destruction of the black middle class, and the racist mass murder of infants) each and every time they respond to you and yours it could probably be arranged.
have a nice day
You are in good company Mr. Ledeen.
If President Bush didn’t do it, you did.
Ya’ll can work the details out. I just want credit for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Of course, there are those that say until Senator Bryd goes, they aren’t extinct. I guess that makes the good Senator a ‘Klanasaurous REX’.
I am told that the assassination is the first such act on Iranian soil by the Revolutionary Guard’s “foreign legion;” highly trained killers from Lebanese Hezbollah.
Ahmadinejhad & surrogates have attempted to pin Ali-Mohammadi’s assassination on America and/or Israel.
Cowards who won’t even own up to their own acts of cowardice.
Michael, when you have Khameini, and those who still stand with him, going all out to stay perched on their thrones of bayonets, and when combined with this: http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2033 , the fat lady is humming, so that her voice is ready to practice, and then sing.
Somebody should tell rashputen tomorrow is all-you-can-eat pie day at Belleview.
I guess they let them all out for the holidays. (Boy, was that a mistake.)
#10, 13:
Morton,
I don’t know what to esteem higher, your perfect nick (which as a northern German guy I’m in a position to linguistically appreciate) or your uncompromisingly realistic comments.
Regards,
H.
So the regeime can and does kill its own citizens with impunity and openly boasts it is willing to kill tens of thousands to stay in power? Good. Mr. Ledeen, is this not proof of the total impotence of the so called Iranian opposition? They have been unable to accomplsih anything for the past 30 years and there is every reason to believe they will be just as useless for the next 30.
As long as the Iranian government has the loayalty of the revolutionary guards and is willing to kill off its opponents, there is no reason it cannot stay in power forever. (See North Korea for another example of dictatorship longevity). That being the case, do not expect Iran’s nuclear weapon programs to stop, either.
Within at most a year, Iran will have an operational nuclear arsenal. Nuclear terrorism directed against Israel and the USA will follow. Iran can use their Hamas and Hezbollah mercenaries to transport nuclear weapons into both countries and detonate them. Does anyone think Obama would have the will to retaliate? It is more likely he would offer to surrender.
I have been getting this creepy feeling that Iran will test a nuke on its own people. It is not a stupid thought. Now I am wondering if this big event of Mayan Prophecy for 2012 is actually when the whole damn thing will erupt into a nuclear war that, even McCrimmon’s ‘Swan Song’ cannot compare. I hate it that history is soooo repeating itself.
Re #30
A nuclear Iran could mean the distruction of Israel without Iran doing anything. Victo Davis Hanson explains how here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2259949/posts
POTUS Obama is an Islamic mole. Wake up people.
Interview with Heydari, Iranian diplomat in Norway who recently defected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNPRfuR3WE&feature=related
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1142960.html
funny the egyptians believe it was a Mossad coup
and the dissidents think it’s probably an iranian terrorist’s and that a chage was stick under his car in his own garage, contrary to what was displayed by the authorities, plus he was the very responsible of the atomic program, and as such he benefitted of body guards, but also that he might had the velleity to leave Iran, and was eliminated fo this motive by the smart regime. Though, these are still suppositions !
fantastic piece as usuall…
First-class article it is definitely. We have been seeking for this update.