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By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
An Iranian opposition leader and a key dissident called this week for radical reforms in the country's system of Shiite Muslim clerical rule, as they sought to rally a beleaguered grass-roots movement that has been decimated by a harsh government crackdown in the year since the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(Decimated might be a too strong a word, cowed and slightly rudderless might be a better description of Iran's Green Movement. The general dissatisfaction with mullah rule is still there, indeed greater than the imposed rule of the Shah for 24 years.
The problem is the Likud Israelis and Obama who through their endless sanctions narrative against Iran give greater "credibility" to the mullahs and their platform, which thus appeals to ordinary Iranians sense of nationality. Israel and the USA, not for the first time in calculated ways are helping the mullahs.
Israel and the USA have since the 1950's developed close linkages with Islamic fundamentalist in the Greater Middle East, which thus destabilize many Muslim countries...............Iran being the classic example for the last 31 years.
The Green Movement in Iran is thus not only struggling against the mullahs of Iran, but also against the USA and Israel, indirectly)
Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who ran against Ahmadinejad in the June 12, 2009, presidential election, published a political charter Tuesday that attempts, for the first time, to unite the opposition movement behind a clear set of goals.
The charter emerged a day after dissident politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former top Interior Ministry official, issued a controversial letter calling for apologies for what he described as the government's mistakes since the 1979 Islamic revolution, including the killing and jailing of political foes.
(We could say that the mullahs have made a FEW mistakes in the last 31 years both inside and outside Iran:
1. The mullahs sustained the Iran/Iraq war for 8 years; causing $1000 billion worth of damage to the country, and the death of possibly 1 million boys and men fighting Iraq, and Saddam an American recruited agent since the 1950's. Saddam the American agent sought peace after two years of the war in 1982; the mullahs in Tehran were not interested. The mullahs were willing to fight into infinity...into 2010, with 4--5 million dead Iranians if they could but alas, they started attacking neutral ships in the Persian Gulf, which angered mullah Iran's main arms suppliers the UK/USA. They imposed an arms embargo in the black market, and the mullah military machine came to a halt, and Saddam was in a position to march into Tehran, but didn't........the mullahs in Tehran..in panic knowing this fact executed thousands of political prisoners in 1988 "action speak louder than words". It is the absurd idea that mullah Iran, without a properly trained professional military could defeat Iraq, which was backed by 40 + countries including the USA, UK, France, Russia and many others....and that they were willing to achieve this through the sacrifice of millions of lives.
2. The Iranian civil war 1981-1982 between the mullahs and the Tudeh left alliance; 100,000 dead. The Shah dealt with them in a more civilized and professional way........The Shah never massacred that many Iranians in order to stay in power
3. The mullahs promoting pan-Islamism, and general Arab culture over and above traditional Persian identity. For a genuine Iranian who loves his country this might be considered a GREAT crime. A nation that prostitutes its true identity for a false foreign one is all but finished spiritually and at many other levels. Are you Iranian or are you not? What does it mean to be a true Iranian? What does the culture and history books say?
4. The de-legitimation of Iran's standing in the world, with silly OTT antics; taking over foreign embassies; threatening foreign writers ; holding Holocaust revisionist meetings and so on and so on. We hope no silly stunts are pulled per Gaza; the Gazan's are not propaganda fodder for mullah Iran; they don't deserve to be used that way by the mullahs in wholly cynical calculated ways.
5. The destruction of the Middle Class; their partial expulsion from the country 3-4 million of the most educated articulate Iranians in favor of the illiterate villagers, who are constantly promised great things, and used primarily in the security apparatus to keep the rest of the population in line.
6. Running a banana Republic economy which could collapse at any time. $800 billion to $1 trillion worth of Capital flight by wealthy Iranians who refuse to or cannot do business in mullah Iran. The current wisdom that mullahs and mullah cronies are the only people privileged and qualified to own and run significant parts of the economy.
7. Running a very repressive police state, which has accounted for the death of possibly 30,000 political prisoners since 1979. A regime that executes more children than any other regime on earth.
8. Seeming to posture internationally, usually through speeches against Israel and the USA, and through talking up the Uranium Enrichment issue designed to niggle the USA and Israel. And through the support of Hamas and Hezbollah directly, WHILST not making any real efforts to defend itself militarily......spends 3% of GDP on defense, and is not a significant conventional power....at rank number 18, with Israel at 11, and the USA at number 1. Turkey at 10; Pakistan 15, Egypt 17.
9. Upwards of 3 million drug addicts in mullah Iran where the regime touts its conservative austere, puritanical credentials, but is unable, and unwilling to tackle this serious national problem. Credible reports indicate that aspects of the mullah regime are involved in the narcotics trade into Iran from Afghanistan, and towards other countries such as Iraq and Turkey.
10. The mullahs are modern slave runners selling "surplus" destitute Iranians to Gulf Arab countries, who face an obvious bleak future there after. Any Iranians who dare criticizes this national mullah shame are punished with imprisonment or death.
Realistically speaking I cannot see the mullahs apologizing about their rule. That would be tantamount to admitting that they should not be ruling Iran in the first place. Most regimes never apologize for their crimes, whether in banana republics or First World countries.
HOW WILL AN APOLOGY, EVEN IF OFFERED, IN A MULLAH RUN PAPER SOLVE THE BASIC AND FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF IRAN NOW)
Both men proposed radical reforms in the way Iran is ruled but stopped short of urging the abolition of the country's system of Islamic governance.
(This is pragmatic. Turning Iranian society upside down through foreign backed revolution again, with a new regime made up of political exiles from the USA AND Europe is clearly unwanted. HOWEVER realistically speaking how do you change/reform a wholly corrupt regime that relies ultimately on violent repression to sustain itself in power? The Green Movement clearly needs to go beyond mass guerrilla demonstrations, and mere REASONING with this vile mullah regime. Reasoning and demonstrations alone will not be enough to get rid of this vile mullah regime)
The proposals come as the opposition marks the first anniversary of Ahmadinejad's proclaimed landslide election victory, which led to months of demonstrations and fierce street battles between security forces and urban protesters belonging to what became known as the Green Movement.
(It was a rigged election led by Khamenei and his network)
But the opposition movement, named after Mousavi's campaign color, has come to be seen as leaderless and disorganized, with no clear common goals and no answer to a harsh government crackdown that has landed many of its key figures in prison.
Now, Mousavi said, the new charter can be used as a guideline for the movement's supporters. He stressed that the opposition should be nonviolent and adhere to the Islamic Republic's constitution, which he said is not being implemented by Iran's leaders.
Many protesters have said they seek the downfall of the country's rulers, some of them unelected clerics whose powers are enshrined in the constitution. Mousavi's charter tries to soften such demands by emphasizing that the constitution and laws are not "eternal and unchangeable documents."
The movement wants to return power to people through free elections, demands equality for women, minorities and other ethnic groups and promotes "compassionate religion," Mousavi said.
"This document is only the first step, and, during its evolution, the Green Movement will create a better and more complete set of guidelines," Mousavi wrote in the statement distributed on the Internet and in leaflets.
Tajzadeh, one of the main ideologues of the banned Islamic Iran Participation Front, lamented in his letter what he described as dark episodes in the 31-year history of the Islamic Republic.
A former official in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the Interior Ministry in governments that preceded the Ahmadinejad administration, Tajzadeh himself apologized for past governmental transgressions, including the mass killing of opponents in 1988, the imprisoning of dissidents in the early days of the Islamic revolution and the ousting of revered religious figures who opposed the new system.
"If we had objected back then, we would not have these problems now," Tajzadeh wrote.
He also called for a new look at the influence of religion on the state, a taboo subject among the highest ranks of Iran's leadership.
"We must discuss which method is the most effective and least costly for the presence of clergy in politics," he said, stressing that he wants an end to veto rights by a key clerical vetting council.
Tajzadeh now is officially on sick leave from prison, where he has been serving a six-year sentence for conspiring against national security. He was reported arrested in June 2009 during the post-election protests.
It was not immediately clear whether the charter and the letter were coordinated, but Tajzadeh spelled out a detailed list of guidelines for the opposition movement similar to those of Mousavi.
"The society I saw after coming out of prison had undergone such great, deep changes that it is nearly impossible for me to understand all of its dimensions," Tajzadeh wrote. "It's belittling to call this a smoldering fire under the ashes [because] very soon this movement will make all of Iran green."
In comments on dissident Web sites, not all opposition supporters agreed. Some said Tajzadeh should have apologized while he was in power. Others criticized both him and Mousavi for continuing to support the constitution of the Islamic Republic.
"Over 30 years have passed since the Islamic revolution and the constitution," wrote one commenter who called himself Arash on the Kaleme.org Web site. "Today's world has completely new and different issues. We need a new constitution that returns the power to the people . . . not a remake of the 1979 revolution."
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(The Green Movement need to build serious linkages with the Revolutionary Guard, member by member, and those in VEVAK, and conduct a soft revolution there after, which does not result in civil war..........the mullahs must go)
