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On the same day (June 13) the Associated Press similarly reported:
Opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police in the heart of Iran's capital Saturday, pelting them with rocks and setting fires in the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. ... The brazen and angry confrontations -- including stunning scenes of masked rioters tangling with black-clad police -- pushed the self-styled reformist movement closer to a possible moment of truth. . . . Young men hurled stones and bottles at anti-riot units and mocked Ahmadinejad as an illegitimate leader. . . . Thousands of protesters -- mostly young men -- roamed through Tehran looking for a fight with police and setting trash bins and tires ablaze. Pillars of black smoke rose among the mustard-colored apartment blocks and office buildings in central Tehran. In one side road, an empty bus was engulfed in flames. Police fought back with clubs, including mobile squads on motorcycles swinging truncheons.
"Thousands of protesters -- mostly young men -- roamed through Tehran looking for a fight with police. . . ." Does this sound peaceful to anyone?
And here is a CNN report, also on June 13, from Tehran: "In the aftermath of the vote, street protesters and riot police engaged in running battles, with stones thrown, garbage cans set on fire and people shouting 'death to the dictatorship.' . . . Later in the evening, an agitated and angry crowd emerged in Tehran's Moseni Square, with people breaking into shops, starting fires and tearing down signs."
Two days later, June 15, Time Magazine had a similar report from Tehran:
Some of Tehran's main streets have been turned into urban battlegrounds. Groups of mostly young men have set large garbage bins on fire in the middle of streets, torn out street signs and fences, broken the windows and ATM machines of state banks and burnt at least five large buses in the middle of streets.
The June 15, 2009 clashes between demonstrators and the security forces around the Azadi square further escalated, claiming seven lives, the first election-related deaths. Reporting on the tragic confrontation, the Associated Press wrote:
Iran state radio reported Tuesday [June 16] that clashes in the Iranian capital the previous day left seven people dead during an 'unauthorized gathering' at a mass rally over alleged election fraud--the first official confirmation of deaths linked to the wave of protests and street battles after the elections. The report said the deaths occurred after protesters 'tried to attack a military location.' It gave no further details, but it was a clear reference to crowds who came under gunfire Monday after trying to storm a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. . . . The deaths Monday occurred on the edge of Tehran's Azadi Square. An Associated Press photographer saw gunmen, standing on a roof, opening fire on a group of demonstrators who tried to storm the militia compound.
Commenting on this dreadful shooting of the protesters by the members of the Basij militia, Phil Wilayto, author of In Defense of Iran, writes: "It's terrible that seven people died. But the Basij members were in a building set on fire by "protesters,' who were trying to storm the building. What were they supposed to do?" [19].
These reports by some of the most established news media in the West makes it clear that, by resorting to illegal and violent methods of demonstration, the protesters did not leave government's security forces much choice to react violently. No other government would tolerate such methods of protest. Imagine for a moment that on the day after last November's presidential election in the United States John McCain's supporters, following his encouragement, challenged the elections results, took to the streets and began destroying public property, or attacking police stations. It goes without saying that the response of the US security forces would have been more violent and much swifter than that of Iran's. US security forces would certainly have not waited for three or four days (as did Iran's) to react; their reaction would have been immediate.
It must be pointed out that reports of violent demonstrators by the mainstream Western media came to a sudden halt after June 19, 2009. Why? Because on that day the US Congress, both the House and the Senate, passed resolutions that condemned the Iranian security forces' crackdown on demonstrators as unprovoked, thereby effectively characterizing the protests as peaceful. Shamelessly, the corporate media followed the official line through-and-through.
6. Concluding Remarks
One does not have to be a fan of Ahmadinejad to find his opponents' "green revolution" a dubious--perhaps disgraceful--project. Mr. Mousavi and/or his campaign architects seem to have run a dishonest campaign: pretending to rely on the ballot box to carry out their "reform" agenda but, then, disobeying the will of the majority when they did not garner the majority vote. As noted earlier, it is one thing to use the voters' dissatisfaction with the status quo to win an election. It is quite another thing, however, to abuse that dissatisfaction and the election process to defy the actual election results when those results turn out to be at variance with what you wishfully projected.
In the absence of irrefutable evidence, it would be unwise to make a judgment on whether Mr. Mousavi personally conspired with his campaign architects on the "green revolution" project, or whether he was led to sincerely believe he could not have lost the election. Likewise, short of concrete evidence, it would be imprudent to make a judgment on whether his campaign consciously collaborated with the external forces of "regime change" in Iran. Nor is the proof (or disproof) of such links germane to the primary intention of this essay. The primary purpose of the essay has, instead, been to show that, regardless of external factors or Mr. Mousavi's personal proclivities, powerful economic interests, or influential social forces, behind his "green revolution" evolved within Iran's own socio-economic structure.
As it is increasingly becoming clear that the claim of "stolen election" was a hoax, Mr. Mousavi and his supporters seem to be quietly shying away from repeating that gigantic lie. Instead, they tend to play up the large number of protesters who supported his campaign and the subsequently heavy-handed crackdown on demonstrators as if these would prove that he did not or could not have lost the election. As a way of (quietly) departing from the claim of "stolen election," as if changing the subject, some of his supporters make arguments like this: "Don't you see the huge, frustrated and angry number of demonstrators? Doesn't this show how tired people are of this dictatorial regime? Who cares about the official account of the elections; they are inherently undemocratic in the theocratic Islamic Republic anyway? Don't you see how thirsty people are for change? Isn't this proof enough to get rid of Ahmadinejad's regime? And so on." Let us briefly examine these arguments.
To begin with, as great as the number of opposition demonstrators were they remained nonetheless a minority of the electorate. Pro-Ahmadinejad counter demonstrations, allowed only a few times, literally dwarfed those who demonstrated in support of Mousavi. (Critics of "color revolutions" point out that one of the strategies of the leaders of these revolutions to create chaos, confusion and instability has been to resort to violence and provoke counter demonstrations. Ahmadinejad's government seems to have avoided this trap by actively discouraging pro-government counter demonstrations.)
