Iran: Another US Orchestrated 'Color Revolution'?

@Twiter_Thinker on twitter says "R Iran Election Protests US Orchestrated Color Revolution? #iranelection tehran UK RT"

jh64487 said
important note, one of the reasons the shah was so unpopular was because he was trying to force western ideals on his people such as banning veils etc. this inflamed the conservatives in the nation."

My response:
I would like to note that it was the late Shah's father (the first Pahlavi Shah) that banned the veil.......the late Shah gave people choice. It was the fear that made the people hate the late Shah.....people were afraid to speak, couldn't trust their neighbours because many worked for the secret service, and then they were locked up and tortured...................I hate to admit that it was so, but it was so. SAVAK terrorised the population. The people were held by force......as they are in Saudi Arabia today, as they were held by force in Iraq by Saddam, and so on.
In his favor the late Shah tried to bring modernity to his nation, and sadly believed that his people loved him, when in fact they hated him for his SAVAK guards.
I think the Shah was a shy man and probably did not witness the brutality at close quarters, but it existed. I have firsthand information on it and it is documented......and Jimmy Carter wanted that changed. In the process the Shah loosened his hold on the people and the situation spiraled out of control.
It is a fact that you can only hold people by force for so long.
Another problem was that the vast majority were illiterate and Ayatollah Khomeini lied to them.......he told them all of them would share the oil revenue........you can understand an illiterate person struggling to feed their family in a country, with inflation galloping out of control, wanting to follow the Ayatollah who would give him his share of the oil revenue.
The poor and illiterate would share the last food in their house with you, and they would do it if you dropped in today, be you American or Irish. On Trip Advisor I have read some travelers descriptions.....so it was happening all along.

you may both be right. clearly the movement is getting technical support and moral support from abroad. but is that really because of CIA black ops operations? you mention mossadegh highroller but he was simply flat out assassinated. fomenting huge social movement is perhaps beyond the scale of the CIA in reality. fivethirtyeight.com has highlighted the very real possibility of voter fraud and the truth is mousavi may have been espousing rhetoric that was simply too pro-western for the ridiculously conservative anti-western clerics to allow even if the people wanted it.

the rioting is the result of a ridiculously strong outcome for ahmadinejad and a large newly created educated middle class that wants an end to the theocracy's fundamentalism. it's possible that the result are even accurate as the country is still conservative in the countryside but it's the gov's response that is causing the problems now. all they had to do was allow a recount which is actually a normal part of their elections.

i really wish people would stop throwing up that edited youtube video. that's so zeitgeist it's painful.

Delia,

I know that there have been some "tussles" on Current over the value of some of the Twitter events, such as Kutcher's philanthopy. I just want you to know that I am no disparaging the medium. I concur completely with your observation regarding the critical role Twitter has played during and after the Iranian election in getting information distributed.

I have devoted nearly my entire professional career to pushing the availability of telecommunications and information technology capacity to those in American society who are most difficult to reach -- those in rural/remote areas and those whose financial circumstances prevent them from participating in the age of IT and Telecom convergence. Watching this application of a relatively new communications technology has therefore been quite exciting for me.

BUT like most technologies, this one is wonderful for some purposes and not-so-wonderful for others. I have already identified one drawback in the inability of the vast majority of people to even say something INTERESTING in 140 characters let alone something meaningful or even profound.

A separate but related drawback is that these kinds of instant message applications seem to continue to promote the notion that messages should be no longer than 140 characters -- even when a different application is used (like this one) that does not have such stringent limitations.

I swear I went to one of the articles on Current last night and something like 20 posts in a row were four or five-word variations on "That was Great" Awesome!" "Excellent!" "Outstanding!" At the end, I just shook my head in bewilderment: WHAT aspect of the article was so great? WHY was it great? Did the article's author ask ANY questions of the readers when he or she posted the articles?

I have friendships with two Iranian families who relocated to the United States. I can't say that is enough to constitute a representative cross-section of the country, but I would certainly concur with highroller's depiction of them as warm, open, loving and generous people. When visiting EITHER family, I have to be careful about what I say simply because a wistful stray comment about being a little hungry results in them trying to press the entire contents of they pantries onto me.

I don't doubt that the revolution took many and perhaps even most Iranians to a place they really didn't want to go. BUT I am a little skeptical about the allegation that NO Iranians wanted to see the country go that direction. I don't see how they could have arrived at this place without at least a sizeable core group pushing hard in this direction -- most likely the usual mix of the deluded and weak-willed being led by the fanatical...

You can only relate to that if you are also willing to get out in the streets in your own country. I don't see many young people out here now. But then under Obama war is ok. Right?

"Instead, at least at the moment, we seem to be going in the OPPOSITE direction in which responses are contained in Twitter messages. It IS possible to say something substantive and meaningful in 140 characters or less, but doing so is an art that requires a great deal of thought. Judging from 99.9% of the tweets I have seen, that skill is EXTREMELY rare..."

Whether or not this is true, Twitter was absolutely essential to both the people of Iran and the world media today. The supreme leader forbid journalists from reporting and attempted a media blackout. The only source of news coming from Iran for a while today were social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Our American news (and many other countries I suspect) are getting the bulk of their information from the same sources everyone else is- blogs, twitter and youtube!

Many meaningful and substantial things have been tweeted today including pictures, videos, first aid information, maps of embassies taking injured victims, how to confuse government censorship info and more!

"...closed eyes and ears..."

I don't doubt your sincerity, highroller. I have simply grown increasingly frustrated with the way allegations are so often made (not just on this site) and either not supported at all or supported with mere rhetoric or evidence that is at best circumstantial.

Obviously, you are one of the people who makes the greatest effort to direct people to source material. I know that you often use four or five panels for a single post because you put so much material in them. But all source material is not created equally, and a persuasive argument results from the QUALITY of the support, not the QUANTITY.

To my mind, THAT is the direction blogging should go. As people become increasingly comfortable with the medium, the methods they use to persuade others should become more sophisticated. That would force those who disagree to come up with well-reasoned counterarguments.

Instead, at least at the moment, we seem to be going in the OPPOSITE direction in which responses are contained in Twitter messages. It IS possible to say something substantive and meaningful in 140 characters or less, but doing so is an art that requires a great deal of thought. Judging from 99.9% of the tweets I have seen, that skill is EXTREMELY rare...

Given your own often in-depth analyses, I wonder if you concur with my feelings on some evenings that if I see one more post that says: "lol. This is awesome!" I am going to lose my lunch. In fact, I have been trying to think of some humorous way of describing how having to read those kinds of posts is the equivalent of descending into the ninth ring of Hell or something.

Anyway, I would be VERY interested in a story of CIA influence here. But without something solid to back it up, I just feel like my time has been wasted. Sorry if I am coming across as irritable...

Delia.....yes....I agree that Iranians never wanted the religious state they ended up with.....The Ayatollahs hijacked the revolution. I lived in Iran, and witnessed the revolution that overthrew the Shah, and I know that the Iranian people want to get a fair share of their oil revenue....no more, no less,................and this religious state was not what anyone desired. Iranians are/were so fun loving.....they wanted music and dance, and their women loved fashion and make up.

It's saddens me......they are the nicest people in the world......and I sincerely mean that. The hospitality I recieved from everyone, rich and poor, is second to none.

I have sat on the floor in poor homes and been entertained..........and also at the other end of the spectrum.

I hope they do not suffer like Iraq and Afghanistan.

If America enters with clusrers of land-mines (clusterbombs to you) I don't know how I will manage.....I love Iran and the Iranian people more than anyone or any place.

No matter what role the CIA may or may not play in this you can not doubt the desire of the Iranian people who were protesting today.

They have made a historic decision to defy the supreme leader and many people paid for it in blood. Iran has a very young population and they want change in their government. I think we can relate to that...

I think you might have closed your eyes and ears sir.

Pfffft. Yeah. So if I were a prosecuting attorney trying a man for a recent burglary, all I would have to show is that he was convicted of burglary once 20 years ago. "Your Honor, I have not a shred of evidence that the Defendant committed this crime. But I INSIST that you find him guilty nonetheless...on the grounds that history repeats itself."

That is just about the weakest case I have ever seen. I would not be shocked or even surprised if the CIA was stirring the pot on this one. But this post does not cite a single piece of solid evidence. Weak.

i too do not dispute that there are serious protestors there... however, this also does have the earmarks of a CIA covert operation as well. Perhaps that is why Obama is so silent on it.Trying to give the impression they aren't involved even though they are carrying forth the Bush directive. It doesn't make sense that after all of the allegations about Iran's nuclear program and the threat they pose that this government wouldn't in some way be clandestinely involved. And they may not be the only one. Russia has huge stakes in this as well, and they all revolve around oil. How many times has it been done before? This is just a way to foment regime change through the back door. And while I do think that Ahmadinejad is a dictator wannabe, what does anyone really know of this Mousavi and where he came from?

The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine.
It requires total blindness not to see this.

Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the election protests.

Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”
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On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”

On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”

A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”