Tweets From Tehran Streets
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
The streets of Tehran are in chaos following Friday’s highly charged elections that brought out 85% of eligible voters. The government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rushed to release the results Saturday showing a landslide victory that stunned supporters of the primary opposition candidate Hossein Mousavi. In what most anticipated would be a close election, some believing Mousavi would emerge victorious, the governments announcement that Ahmadinejad received 62.6% of the vote to Mousavi’s 33.75 was hardly believable. (more…)
Shiites, Kurds, Christians and, most importantly, the Sunnis who boycotted the 2005 elections turned out in mass to participate in Iraq’s provincial elections today. Faced with threats of violence thousands or Iraqi security forces sealed the country’s borders, shut airports and banned vehicles in polling areas. Iraqi election officials gained accolades of U.N. and other foreign observers sent to monitor the election process. While the event was marred by mortar shells falling in Takrit, Saddam’s former home town, and a car bombing in Tuz Kharmatu where ethnic strife continues between rival Kurds and Turkman factions, proud Iraqis, men and women alike, crowded polling places, often with children in tow, to express their belief in their emerging democracy. 
Christians represent a dwindling minority of the Iraqi population. But those that remain were able to celebrate Christmas as an official holiday for the first time this year. While estimates vary greatly it is believed there are still a few hundred thousand Christians remaining in the country. Christian leaders in Iraq have stated the number has declined by two-thirds since the U.S. invasion of 2003. But this Christmas has come without the extreme levels of violence that drove so many out of Iraq during the same period in 2004 and subsequent years. 
Oil company executives are dragged before Congress time and again suffering indignities at the hands of elected officials who are more to blame for the current oil prices and pending shortages than the industry titans that have consistently delivered this complex product for more than a hundred years with the exception of 1973 when the Arab Oil Embargo sent a delicate delivery system into disarray. Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and others are threatened by the legislators with excess profits taxes on profits that, while staggering by their numbers, are hardly excessive representing eleven percent or less on investment over the last five years. They are more than willing to invest these profits developing new domestic supplies and refineries to process petroleum products were it not for the restrictions imposed by the pompous interrogators who cast a shadow of wrong doing but never issue an indictment for their acts. 
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset last Thursday President George W. Bush reminded all who would listen that appeasement in the face of aggression has a history of failure. While Bush failed to name anyone in particular a whole flock of birds raised their heads as if to heed the call at a county fair turkey shoot. Among those who took offense at the President’s statement was Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama whose reaction was as though the statements were directed specifically at him, stating 
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s stand against Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is essential to establishing the political authority of the popularly elected Iraqi government. Anything less would result in the Lebanization of the country mirroring the chaos of competing militias that has plagued the Lebanese and Palestinians for decades. It also sends notice that the Maliki government will take the initiative against Shiite militants just as the Coalition Forces have against Sunni militants. 
The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has no justification to go anywhere near the site of our greatest national tragedy. The driving force behind state sponsored terrorism, self proclaimed enemy of America and the man harboring bin Laden’s son, he represents the very Jihadist mentality behind the 9/11 attacks. His 
General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker presented concise summaries along with two days of testimony to House and Senate Committees on the current situation in Iraq and the consequences of the surge. Though their reports and testimony were anything but rosy, some Liberal Democrats maintained their posture that these were embellished to suit the posture of the Bush Administration. In fact, they were somber assessments of the challenges we face in helping Iraq realize a stable secular government and achieving security for the region. 
The clamor of Senators preaching the failures of our military leadership was as if they were Roman and Caesar just crossed the Rubicon. The Senators joined MoveOn.org in flooding the media with propaganda dispelling any successes anticipated in the report from General Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Force Iraq . The report from the General was to be discredited at any cost lest the ability of the Democratic Congress to manage the conflict and to end it with the Bush Administration, whatever the repercussions, would be lost. 
With September 11 in recent memory, Saddam Hussein’s defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iraqi artillery firing on U.S. and British aircraft in the no-fly zone and horrendous treatment of Kurdish and Shia populations within Iraq, President Bush enjoyed widespread political support for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by Allied Forces. Major detractors would be France, Germany and Russia who’s substantial financial interest in the Saddam regime led them to delay U.N. actions and assure Saddam the U.S. would not follow through with warnings of the pending invasion. Still, on the home front, most Republicans and Democrats alike supported what was not only perceived as a retaliatory strike but the removal of a tyrannical despot as well.