Bernd Kaussler | August 1 (analysis)

Al Jazeera -(snips)

When Mohammad Khatami was president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, reformist hermeneutics largely centered on the notion of justice - a fundamental tenet of Shia jurisprudence - civil society and human rights.

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, the extent of human rights violations in Iran intensified dramatically.

Iranians had not only lost an advocate of liberties and democracy, but were now faced with a government which aimed to achieve the very opposite by implementing the original radical Islamist tenets of the Revolution.

The chief architect of Ahmadinejad's ideology is the hardliner cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi. Time and again, Yazdi has questioned the legitimacy of the concept of republic within an Islamic system and he continues to advocate totalitarian rule of the jurist consult over the people, who he considers unable to form any social contract with the state.

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_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

bbc

The ayatollah backed the incumbent two days ahead of the official inauguration and amid allegations of post-election torture of protesters.

Mr Ahmadinejad faces a struggle to assemble a team of ministers acceptable to parliament, correspondents say.

Opposition groups alleged major vote-rigging and staged large protests.

Since then, there has been open disagreement among senior figures in the Iranian political establishment.

In June, Ayatollah Khamenei offered his backing to Mr Ahmadinejad at the height of the post-election protests.

But senior and respected figures, including two former presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have spoken out against the process.

Mr Rafsanjani, Mr Mousavi and another defeated presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, were absent from Monday's endorsement ceremony, state TV said.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says the process of formally installing Mr Ahmadinejad for his second term in office will begin despite growing criticism of the president from the opposition and from many conservatives.

The real challenge to Mr Ahmadinejad after his swearing-in could be whether he can assemble a credible government that can be endorsed by parliament, our correspondent says.

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By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 2 Aug 2009

TEHRAN BUREAU] Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a new statement, blasting the sham trials that got under way yesterday.

The statement begins,

"They [the hard-liners] say that in the trials that began yesterday the Revolution’s children confessed to having links with foreigners and planning to overthrow the Islamic Republic. I carefully examined what they said, and could not find any truth to this [the claim]. But what I did hear was the deep moaning of the arrested who were telling us about their painful fate over the past 50 days [since their arrest after the election]; [I saw] broken and humiliated people who would have confessed to anything else also [under torture]. What else could they have said other than the story of their pains? They [the accused] say that Mohsen Ruholamini [a young man belonging to a prominent conservative family who was tortured and killed] was martyred because he was righteous. They said that if they had not resisted, this show [trial] would have happened weeks ago. They said that they repeated what they [the hardliners] had told them to say.

"The torturers’ and interrogators’ teeth have reach people’s bone, to the extent that their victims are now those who have greatly served the country and the political system; they [torturers and interrogators] are threatening those who had the most fundamental role in the establishment of this system [after the Revolution] and its growth and development. Are you [the hardliners] threatening those who have always dreamt of martyrdom, to something [punishment] less than that [martyrdom, meaning that the arrested people are prepared to die for their cause]? Or, after destroying the republican side of the political system [with the rigged election], are you targeting the Islamic side and its credibility with [your] dishonorable acts? The only definitive judgment of the human conscience after watching the show trials is a de-legitimization [of the system] and the lack of moral credibility of the perpetrators [of the show trials]."

The statement ends by quoting a Quranic verse that promises eventual punishment for the torturers and interrogators:

"And if God questioned the oppressors, no one would survive on earth, but He postpones their punishment until a certain time, and when the time of their death arrives, no one can postpone it for even an hour."

In a similar development, former president Mohammad Khatami also rejected the trials as a show and a sham. He said the confessions aired during these show trials lacked all legitimacy. He called for those who have committed crimes in the detention centers to be put on trial and punished.

Meeting a group of political activists, and current and former Majles [parliament] deputies, Khatami emphasized that defending the [true] political system is important for everyone, and people should not allow the deviants [from the principles of the Revolution] to harm the people and the system. He said that,

"In our political system, which is the result of the Islamic Revolution, the rights and honor of the people have the highest place, and a [true] defender of the political system is one who defends people’s rights, including their vote.

"Relying on confessions that have been obtained under a special circumstance [through torture] have no legal validity. In addition to what we witnessed about the arrest of the people [through the show trials], there are important problems with the [show] trials, including not allowing the attorneys for the accused to be present in court, not allowing the accused know in advance when their trials would begin, and many other problems.

"The most significant effects of these show trials will be the harm [they do] to the political system and the [destruction of the] public’s trust [in the system]."

More here and here

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Furthest from him whom reason hath equaled, force hath made supreme above his equals.

(among other issues)

Iran: The power and the ignominy

Guardian Online ...
Many members of parliament may vote against his choice of cabinet members tomorrow, but the power struggle does more than hamper Mr Ahmadinejad's ability to form a new government. It also raises a challenge for Barack Obama.

As the price for taking a strong line over settlements, Mr Obama has been placatory with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, about the need to face up to Iran. Mr Netanyahu has made no secret of his desire to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.

One way and another, Mr Obama has been bounced into setting an early September deadline for Iran to reply to the US offer of talks. If Iran misses it, congressmen are preparing fresh legislation to cut off the country's imports of petrol and other refined oil products.

A premature conflict with the US over sanctions could prove the salvation of a beleaguered supreme leader and his tarnished president.

The only way they can explain this level of domestic unrest to their nation is to blame it on the interference of foreign powers, Britain and the US – the old enemy behaving to stereotype. What chance then for Iran's opposition?

Mr Obama does not need to follow this timetable, which is dictated more by Israel than it is by a considered US assessment of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity. Mr Obama should not hand Ayatollah Khamenei victory on a plate.

_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

05 Aug 2009 15:32:15 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds quotes, background)

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Aug 5 (Reuters) - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said he had misspoken in calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran's elected leader and that Washington will let the Iranian people decide whether Iran's election was fair.

"Let me correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say that's not for me to pass judgment on," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"He's been inaugurated. That's a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that, and we'll let them decide about that."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as Iran's president on Wednesday in a ceremony boycotted by reformist leaders and parliamentarians and marred by street protests over his victory.

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