This is great news, if true. Yes, the guts of the story have already been posted here at The Agonist, but Harper goes into a bit more detail, worth reading, if you ask me. I do wonder what Ross did to get fired.

The media has some news apart from MJ, including the countdown to the USA withdrawal from Iraqi cities over the next day, with Army General Raymond T. Odierno stating that the USA Military has met the status of forces agreement deadline. What is intriguing is how air sovereignty will be handled. Over the past years billions of dollars of USA advanced arms sales have been given to Saudi Arabia and Israel to balance out any war-like aggression from Iran. Who is going to maintain the "air straits"?

Tehran | June 27

CNN - Local staff members at the British Embassy in Tehran have been arrested, the Foreign Office in London told CNN Sunday, confirming earlier reports from Iran's government-backed Press TV

BBC - The UK has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at its Tehran embassy who were arrested on Saturday. Iranian media earlier reported that eight local staff at the mission had been detained for their "considerable role" in post-election riots. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband called the arrests "harassment" and dismissed the allegations as baseless.Relations between the countries are strained after Tehran accused the UK of stoking unrest, which London denies.

aljazeerah - Iranian authorities have detained eight employees of the British embassy in Tehran, accusing them of involvement in post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic, the semi-official Fars news agency has reported. "Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody," Fars said on Sunday, without giving a source. "This group played an active role in provoking recent unrest."
{snip}
Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull in London, quoting British embassy officials in Tehran, said the arrests had taken place over the course of the last two weeks. "This is a sort of running total - if you like - of a number of arrests and detentions of British embassy employees believed to be local Iranians rather than British citizens," he said.

The Devil you know...

I respect Eric Margolis, if more out of old habit than current occasional agreement. He can be persuasive to me, addictive even, in his neat brevity. Even when he concedes no pat answers, it feels like he's neatly summed matters up succinctly. I do respect his familiarity with this beat, but often wonder what his perspective's point is. Often as not, it's simply realpolitik vs democracy.

In any case, I expectantly went to his latest column and was not let down. 'We are at it again in Iran.' Well, yes, of course. Realpolitik...

SEEING THROUGH ALL THE PROPAGANDA ABOUT IRAN

I just saw a video clip from Iran and it seems to be from today or at least recently, it shows open rebellion and the participants seem young with the peppering of the middle aged. They are trying to protect their position with the use of a barricade against a superior force. I have the feeling this have the seeds of a Revolution. I realize it seems unlikely due to the recent reports of strict action on the governments part but yet I have a feeling, perhaps it is the barricade:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fd3_1245825423

Also this little part of the description on Wikipedia
"In history

June 24

Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election?

Foreign Policy Journal/Jeremy Hammond - Following the announcement of victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran’s presidential election on June 12, the country erupted in turmoil as supporters of Mousavi flocked to the streets to protest what they claimed was a fraudulent election, while state security and militia forces cracked down on dissenters, sometimes violently. Iran claimed that the unrest was being fueled by foreign interference, a charge reported but generally dismissed in Western media accounts. But there is ample reason to believe that the U.S. likely had a hand in fomenting the chaos that has since plagued the country many commentators have compared to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah.

_{** Iran's supreme leader declares: The vote stands
** President Obama stops short of calling off his diplomatic overture to Tehran and refuses to threaten consequences.
** Mohsen Rezai, has withdrawn his protest about election irregularities
** Arab states gloat at Iran strife but are wary of result
** Iran bans election protest footballers
** Ayatollah Khameini grants Guardian Council 5 more days to study elections
** Obama is right to not saber-rattle on Iran
** Live-Blogging The Uprising}

Please consider this an Iranian open thread, please check comments for updates. Related posts: Iranian Unrest I and others here.

"Give Me Liberty ..."

Iranian People Demand Democracy

Iranian citizens charge police with courage, their bodies, and a few rocks to secure their rights to self determination and clean elections. Image

We may never know the true vote count in the recent elections and it’s almost irrelevant now. Debate has ended, sides have been drawn, and a test of power, not votes, is underway. Over the last two days, in the face of serious yet restrained repression, street demonstrations are weakening. Relying largely on students and other young people, the opposition has only limited political potential. Maintaining support from military/paramilitary organizations and from important demographic groups, hardline clerics are still in control.

The opposition has not been successful in mobilizing broad support – nothing on the order of what ousted the shah in 1979. Middle-class participation today is in evidence, though limited in numbers and enthusiasm. The urban poor were important in the driving out the shah, but today they are more sympathetic to traditionalist appeals by Ahmadinejad and the clerics. For a decade or more before 1979, the urban poor had found affinities and social support in Islamic study circles, which led them into the massive street demonstrations that ushered in Khomeini’s return. In recent years Ahmadinejad has played to them with flamboyant speeches and generous expenditures – as he did with rural dwellers, who in any event are far from the centers of recent political action in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and other cities.

Jim Mannion | Washington | June 21

AFP - Democrats on Sunday defended President Barack Obama's hands-off approach to the crisis in Iran, urging him to keep US "fingerprints" off the unfolding events despite pressure from Republicans for bolder US action.

The showdown in Tehran was the top topic on weekend television talk shows here, with Republicans criticizing Obama for timidity in the face of the most serious upheaval in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said officials responsible for US clandestine operations had given assurances this week that they had not interfered in the Iranian elections or the ensuing protests.

"I don't think our intelligence candidly is that good," she said in an interview with CNN.

Did you see that article back in February that predicted this Iranian revolution? No? Neither did I. As far as anyone can tell this revolution was unexpected. When millions of people in Iran take to the streets to shout “death to the dictator” – meaning President Ahmadinejad – and when hundreds of demonstrators are injured with many killed by roving militias, something of great significance is occurring. Too bad the world was unprepared for this.

In the United States it is easy to blame the press. After all, this trouble in Iran was brewing right during the middle of American Idol, when the US takes time out to vote for the least objectionable amateur singer. The UK was equally preoccupied this year what with all the fuss over Susan Boyle. It was only a week before the election in Iran than most people who follow the news in the US or Europe even heard about Moussavi vs. Ahmadinejad. But you had to search for the news – the main stream press coverage was spotty or non-existent.

June 22

Iran to review ties with Britain amid claims of 'interference'

Iranian lawmakers are calling for a review of the country's ties with Britain because of its "interference in Iran's recent post-election unrest," government-funded Press TV reported Monday.

Iran's influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, submitted the request Monday to the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission which called on the Foreign Ministry to review the relationship, the report said.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran favors the expansion of relations with all countries, but will never accept interference of other states in its internal affairs," commission spokesman Kazem Jalali said, according to Press TV.

Iran Guards vow protest crackdown

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have threatened to crack down on any new street protests against the results of the country's presidential election.

In a statement, the guards vowed to react in a "revolutionary" way to suppress unauthorised demonstrations.

Reports are coming in that at least 1,000 demonstrators have gathered in a square in the centre of Tehran.

_{** Mousavi defiantly calls for continued protests
** 'Color' revolution fizzles in Iran
** Iran admits 50 cities had more votes than voters
** Iran accuses West of backing "rioters"
** More Votes Than Voters: Iran Admits to Voting Discrepancies
** Iran does not rule out expulsion of diplomats over protests
** Iran accuses Western media of trying to break up nation}

Please consider this an Iranian open thread, please check comments for updates

Robert Fisk | Tehran | June 20

The Independent - At around 4.35 last Monday morning, my Beirut mobile phone rang in my Tehran hotel room. "Mr Fisk, I am a computer science student in Lebanon. I have just heard that students are being massacred in their dorms at Tehran University. Do you know about this?" The Fisk notebook is lifted wearily from the bedside table. ( . . . ) When I arrived at the university, the students were shrieking abuse through the iron gates of the campus. "Massacre, massacre," they cried. Gunfire in the dorms. Correct. Blood on the floor. Correct. Seven dead? Ten dead, one student told me through the fence. We don't know. The cops arrived minutes later amid a shower of stones. Filtering truth out of Tehran these days is as frustrating as it is dangerous. A day earlier, an Iranian woman muttered to me in an office lift that the first fatality of the street violence was a young student. Was she sure, I asked? "Yes," she said. "I have seen the photograph of his body. It is terrible." I never saw her again. Nor the photograph. Nor had anyone seen the body. It was a fantasy. Earnest reporters check this out – in fact, I have been spending at least a third of my working days in Tehran this past week not reporting what might prove to be true but disproving what is clearly untrue.

Alan Cowell | Paris | June 17

NYT - Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: ‘Don’t mess with us.’ ”

He spoke in a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday and Wednesday as protesters took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, demanding that last Friday’s disputed election result be overturned and confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the leadership’s biggest domestic challenge since the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.

Dr. ElBaradei has made similar points in the past, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which he is director general, said Wednesday, but his latest remarks were less hedged with diplomatic caveats than previously.

Maggie Shiels | Silicon Valley | June 17

BBC - Twitter has distanced itself from State Department revelations that it asked the company to delay maintenance so Iranians could continue to communicate.

Twitter is one of the social networking tools being used by people inside the country to coordinate protests disputing the election result.

The planned upgrade would have cut the service at a crucial time of the day.

The State Department declined to give details of its contact with Twitter except to say "we highlighted to them that this was an important form of communication."

AFP - The Obama administration took the unusual step of asking Twitter to delay a planned maintenance outage because of the social blogging site's use as a communications tool by Iranians following their disputed election, a senior official said on Tuesday.

But it also seemed to run counter to President Barack Obama's public efforts not to appear to be meddling in Iran's internal affairs.

Oh this should go over well ;)

Jon Leyne | Tehran | June 16

BBC News - ( . . .) Eyewitnesses, including a reporter for the state run Press TV station, say a huge opposition rally has gathered in north Tehran. It is not organised, and it is not clear if any opposition leaders will attend. But the crowd is moving up past the offices of the state broadcaster IRIB. New restrictions imposed by the government mean that foreign reporters are not allowed to attend opposition rallies. But one eyewitness told me that he believed there were more people even than yesterday's huge rally, which was attended by hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of opposition supporters. Another rally of government supporters was held in central Tehran. From the television pictures, the size was not clear, but it does not appear to have been on the scale of the opposition gatherings.

Robert Fisk | Tehran | June 16

The Independent - Tehran University looked as calm as any summer campus. So much for the latest rumours of a bloodbath. Another piece of Iranian fiction, served up on YouTube. Scarved female students were moving through the university's great black iron gates. I asked my driver, Ali, to drop me off at the corner so I could prowl the college bookshops on Engelob Street, I was looking for a volume of modern Persian poetry for a friend. I did not at first hear the man at the cash desk, motioning out the door.I peered out. The gates of the university were now shut. Behind them was a crowd of hundreds of young men and women, many wearing scarves over their mouths. I crossed the road. And the banners behind those forbidding gates told a frightening story. "Today is a day of mourning," one of them read. "Dignified students are mourners today." "Police, shame on you, shame on you." "Tell my mother – she doesn't have a son any more."

Robert Fisk | Tehran | June 16

The Independent - It was Iran's day of destiny and day of courage. A million of its people marched from Engelob Square to Azadi Square – from the Square of Revolution to the Square of Freedom – beneath the eyes of Tehran's brutal riot police. The crowds were singing and shouting and laughing and abusing their "President" as "dust".
Mirhossein Mousavi was among them, riding atop a car amid the exhaust smoke and heat, unsmiling, stunned, unaware that so epic a demonstration could blossom amid the hopelessness of Iran's post-election bloodshed. He may have officially lost last Friday's election, but yesterday was his electoral victory parade through the streets of his capital. It ended, inevitably, in gunfire and blood.

During 1979, a sequence of events dating back to 1963 finally came to a conclusion. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; a Nelson Mandela like figure for the millions of Iranians who welcomed him back to Iran in February that year; oversaw the establishment of an Islamic Republican Government.

Spurned earlier by Iraq, and in ongoing conflict with the West, the new Iran and the Ayatollah changed the face of Islam, creating a third political "force" extending from Africa through to Indonesia, as "neither east nor west", and separate to nations aligned to the USA and former USSR.

The invasion of the USA embassy and subsequent prolonged hostage drama, war with Iraq, and ongoing attempts to overthrow middle-eastern state monarchies with Islamic republics, alienated Iran from most of the developed world.

Normally, I would have covered the Iranian elections and followed them very closely. I didn't this time around. (That's not to say that I didn't follow them, in a semi-detached way.) I was just too busy. I have a great deal more respect now for young parents--dealing with two kids and two adult lives is no easy task. As a matter of fact, it's more like a three person job split between two people. So, the last several days I've been trying (and probably mostly failing) to help out where I can here in Nyborg. I've also been relaxing and generally enjoying myself and am at a point where I really don't give a fig about the outside world.

That will change, as I will be returning home in the next two or three months. And so it goes, back to life, back to normality. But until then I'm living in the moment, sucking up as much of this wonderful journey as remains.

By the way, CV lost the "Sean Paul will return by March bet" in a really bad way. Feel free, CV, to chip in to the travel fund at Paypal, if you are so inclined. ;-)

This is certainly an interesting rumor. Can't say I saw it confirmed yet, but still, if it plays out, I won't be sad to see Ross go.

Is this man – Hashemi Rafsanjani, former two-term Iranian
president and power-broker – the target of Iranian election fraud?

June 15, 2009 – Washington, DC (electionfraudnews.com) – There most certainly was election fraud in Iran in this election and every previous election under the current electoral system. The question is not, did fraud take place in this most recent election? Of course it did. You just need to study the Iranian Constitution and recent Iranian elections understand that, a step skipped by the major media and some nay-saying bloggers in the United States.

The real questions are who or what was the target of the fraud and why?

The 2009 presidential election produced a 75% turnout, an alleged landslide victory for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and widespread protests by supporters of the losing candidates. It also produced a pervasive and violent crack down by Iranian authorities.

The reelection of Ahmadinejad is highly significant to Iranians and the rest of the world. Iran is a major oil supplier and a political actor of major proportions in the South Asia and the Middle East. Iran may joint the list of nations with nuclear weapons soon, it appears.

The most pressing current problem with Iran is posed by the nation's president who happens to be certifiably insane. He is a holocaust denier; not just once but every time he's asked. Ahmadinejad even hosted a world conference for other deniers. The existence of the holocaust is not a required issue for discussion by Iranian politicians. Ahmadinejad actually goes out of his way to showcase his break with reality. He's also continues the repellent acts of the death penalty for homosexuality and the application of the death penalty for capital crimes by children.

Yet he was approved once again by Iran's Guardian Council as a candidate for the nation's highest office. The council consists of six Islamic jurists appointed by the Supreme Leader of Iran and six from the Majlis, Iran's popularly elected parliament. They screen presidential candidates through background checks and a detailed written examination. Very few pass the test. Since 2004, the counci hasl routinely rejected reform candidates.

That's the fraud. It couldn't be more obvious.

The outcome of every election is determined by 12 men through the selection process that they devise. The choice of Iranian voters is determined before they ever get to the polling place. Candidates represent a very narrow spectrum defined by the 12. This process is supposed to accommodate the various major factions in the country to preserve civil order but the balancing act is entirely under the control of the guardian council.

The 2004 selection process by the guardian's is referred to as the silent coup by many Iranians. The selection of candidates for parliament was so biased against Iran's reform parties, many ended up boycotting the election. The boycott and lower turnout resulted in Ahmadinejad's election as president and a parliament stacked with his supporters. (Note on the use of "reformer" in Iranian politics)

The result of the 2009 election was too much to bear for supporters of the approved reform candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former president of Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. They've taken to the streets.

Demonstrators Prevail over Riot Police

BBC, June 13, 2009

The losing candidate, reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi, is reported missing. He supposedly has an account on Twitter. An Iranian web site published a letter it reported was meant for his followers. That web site is down at this moment. In the letter, Mousavi said:

The reported results of the 10th presidential Election are appalling. The people who witnessed the mixture of votes in long lineups know who they have voted for and observe the wizardry of I.R.I.B (State run TV and Radio) and election officials. Now more than ever before they want to know how and by which officials this game plan has been designed. I object fully to the current procedures and obvious and abundant deviations from law on the day of election and alert people to not surrender to this dangerous plot. Dishonesty and corruption of officials as we have seen will only result in weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran and empowers lies and dictatorships.

I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.

— June 14, 2009 (Original web site not currently available)

There were reports of widespread voter intimidation at the polls by the police and ballot destruction. There were also reports that the bureaucracy that runs elections had been purged of those not loyal to the Ahmadinejad regime. Iran's elections are run by the same group that selects candidates, the Guardian Council. This may explain the suspicious nature of election reporting by government authorities.

An experienced reporter on Iranian politics, Laura Secor, was clear in her assessment:

"There can be no question that the June 12, 2009 Iranian presidential election was stolen. Dissident employees of the Interior Ministry, which is under the control of President Ahmadinejad and is responsible for the mechanics of the polling and counting of votes, have reportedly issued an open letter saying as much."

— New Yorker, June 13, 2009

Her doubts are widely held in Iran, according to a just published story by Reuters:

INSTANT VIEW: Iran's election result staggers analysts

Iran has a perplexing form of government. There are elections – contested ones with candid debate, as this year’s campaign showed – which allow the public to register its views. On the other hand, candidates can be excluded from the ballot and the president’s actions are circumscribed. Above the ballot and the presidency loom a Guardian Council and Supreme Leader. Neither name betokens commitment to democracy and many people feel last Friday’s election was fixed.

The 2009 election had several candidates but only two, the reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were seen as having any chance of winning. The results show Ahmadinejad trouncing Mousavi, 63% to 34%, and this has led to charges of fraud in and out of Iran. Polling data are invoked that showed Mousavi ahead, sometimes by a wide margin, though sometimes by a nose. But many polls showed Ahmadinejad with a wide lead.

“I feel like I went to sleep in one country and woke up in another." So said a Western reporter about the riots that have swept Iran following the disputed election for President between Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hussein Mousavi. Following weeks of increasingly animated, large demonstrations in favor of Mousavi as a reform candidate, and despite polls just before the voting that showed Mousavi with a lead, Ahmadinejad emerged with a “landslide victory” from the Ministry of Interior’s election commission, which counts the votes and which conveniently reports to Ahmadinejad.

The crudity with which the voting has been conducted defies common sense. Ministry of Interior officials who were suspected of favoring Mousavi have been purged in the weeks leading up to the election. The election results are reporting districts with curiously even numbers of votes in favor of Ahmadinejad, such as 1,000 here, or 5,000 there. Districts where reform candidates reside went suspiciously in favor of Ahmadinejad. Mousavi himself has disappeared – some fear he is under house arrest – and internet social sites like Twitter and Facebook have been shut down, as has Mousavi’s website.

Tehran | June 12

AFP - Iran began voting on Friday for a new president after a fiery campaign which has seen moderate ex-premier Mir Hossein Mousavi emerge as the main challenger to incumbent hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Polling started nationwide at 8:00 am (0330GMT). It is on schedule. It is going to last until 6:00 pm (1330 GMT)," the interior ministry, which is in charge of organising the election, said in a statement.

"We are expecting our dear citizens to come forward and vote in the early hours."

Polls, however, may remain open until midnight depending on turnout among the 46-million-strong electorate. Results are expected within 24 hours after voting ends.

The country's 10th presidential election since the 1979 revolution is a close two-horse race with passions running high after three weeks of mass rallies, stormy television debates and vicious mudslinging.

UPDATE: Iranians vote in droves, rival victory claims

Ahmadinejad said his rivals had broken laws against insulting the president.

"No one has the right to insult the president, and they did it. And this is a crime. The person who insulted the president should be punished, and the punishment is jail," he told supporters outside Tehran's Sharif University.

"Such insults and accusations against the government are a return to Hitler's methods, to repeat lies and accusations ... until everyone believes those lies," Ahmadinejad said.