Iranians Protest

While thousands of Iranians turned out for rallies against the US on the anniversary of the storming of the US embassy, it was the hundreds of Iranians protesting the current regime that drew swarms of baton wielding anti-riot police. They fired tear gas into the crowd, dozens of people were beaten, and gunshots were reported.

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President Barack Obama meanwhile said in a statement marking the anniversary of the event that has sparked three decades of hostility between America and Iran that the Islamic republic “must choose” now whether to open the door to opportunity and prosperity.

Khamenei reacts to the warm and fuzzy loving from our Dear Leader–

In a meeting with Iranian students, families of martyrs, and members of student Basij organizations, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei made some of his harshest remarks against the United States since the June 12 election. Khamenei said the United States should stop dreaming that the Iranian government will collapse. He said the Islamic Republic has weathered much tougher storms in the past.

Khamenei said, “The United States is still the number one enemy of an Islamic Iran.” According to Sepah News, the media outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The Iranian people will stand up and fight anyone who tries to violate their rights.” He added, “The list of crimes the United States committed against the Iranian people would fill a thick book.” In this meeting, which was held on the eve of the November 4 demonstrations commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the hostage crisis, Ayatollah Khamenei attacked U.S. policies and said, “They say they have changed, but they are only hiding the dagger behind their backs [to strike you with] and smile at your face.”

Khamenei said only children are fooled by these tactics. He warned Iranian officials and asserted, “Iranian officials who are smart and aware will not be fooled by this American tactic.” Khamenei criticized the US by saying, “On one hand, the Americans talk about negotiations, and on the other hand, they say these negotiations must produce their desired results or else!” He warned Washington about Iran’s domestic matters and said, “Even if a handful of gullible and traitorous people with bad intentions are sanding up against the Islamic Republic, they will never be able to roll out the red carpet for the return of the United States to Iran.”

Obama extends his ‘open hand’ and draws back a bloody stump. Gee, who could have forseen that?

The tail end of this piece from the fascinating site insideIRAN.org is enough to break your heart for these people–

“Obama, Obama, Ya ba una, Ya ba ma!” is going to be the favorite slogan of the Green Movement tomorrow which means, “Obama, you are either with them [the Iranian government] or with us [the people].

I hope they have a back-up plan.

 

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Irony Surrenders

Organizers of the Green Movement, the opposition party in Iran, plan to use tomorrow’s official commemoration of the Iranian hostage crisis to extend an apology to the US. This November 4th will mark the 30th anniversary of the day Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy and took the staff hostage for 444 days. “Students Day”, as it has come to be called, is generally marked by demonstrations outside the building celebrating the takeover of the “Den of Spies” and shouting slogans such as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”. The former embassy is now home  to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, and regularly hosts exhibitions highlighting the “crimes” of the US.

In a stark contrast, present-day Iranian revolutionaries will make an unprecedented gesture to the West.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled film-maker who spearheads the opposition campaign overseas, said Iranians should repudiate the events of 1979, when a group of pro-regime agitators took over the US embassy and held diplomats and other occupants.

“Thirty years ago in the turmoil of the revolutionary zeal an indefensible act of hostage taking was committed that the new generation of Iran are not proud of at all,” he said. “We know very well how that deplorable action hurt the noble American people and how it led to three decades of unnecessary and painful bad relations between our two nations.

“Only a small and repressive minority who rule Iran today still insist on keeping Iran on a confrontation course with the US, Britain and the West and indeed they have now taken the Iranian people as hostage to their destructive policies.”

Protesters plan to deliver a letter addressed to President Barack Obama to the US embassy in London and deliver commemorative plaques to American embassies across Europe.

Today, those who once considered themselves revolutionaries are working to eradicate the new generation of internal discontents agitating for liberty from the repressive regime of the former ‘freedom fighters’.  The Green Movement became an official thorn in the side of Iran’s autocratic rulers this summer, when the world’s attention was captured by their plight as they protested the fraudulent presidential election.

At least 30 people were killed, according to the Iranian government’s own admission, with many more deaths reported by people on the ground.  As of this writing, an estimated 200 members of the opposition remain imprisoned, with three awaiting execution. We might know more, but the Obama team pulled federal funding from the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a watchdog group that has worked for years to accumulate evidence on the torture and imprisonment of Iranian dissidents.

While the world watched in horror as Iranian civilians were beaten and shot in the streets of Tehran, Obama declared that he, and by extension, we, would negotiate with whoever was “elected”.

“It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said.

“What I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was,” he said.

Hear that, freedom fighters? We are inspired by your deaths, imprisonment, and torture. Good luck with that.

It will be interesting to see how the Obama administration handles the awkwardness of being apologized to by the people it left to twist in the desert wind.

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