Christian Science Monitor – Excerpt: “Opposition Green Movement activists in major cities around Iran are playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities seeking to shut down their operations ahead of Feb. 11, a revolutionary anniversary that the activists are hoping to use for the country’s largest street protests yet. ‘The whole future … is at stake,’ said Shahab Mousavvat, a London-based exile who used to work for the state-run broadcaster Press TV. ‘Incremental actions are planned from the 1st through the 11th of February.’ Feb. 11, 1979, was the culmination of the Islamic Revolution that overthrew Iran’s then-monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi. Demonstrators communicating via e-mail and cellphone are planning a week of ‘civil resistance.’ Since Monday, organizers have been seeking Green Movement supporters through SMS messages, patriotic video clips posted on the Internet, and slogans daubed on walls. They’re encouraging residents of large cities to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ from rooftops, and are planning a series of protest marches leading up to Feb. 11, when a major pro-government march is planned. Opposition activists say they intend to infiltrate that pro-government march in large numbers. Once in Tehran’s Azadi Square, where state broadcaster cameras will be rolling, they plan to whip out protest banners and transform the crowd into a sea of green.”
iPouya: In my opinion, if they actually go through with the plan of hijacking the pro-regime demonstrations, the pro and anti-regime protesters will end up turning the event into a street fight. In other words, this specific plan is a horrible strategy. Turning official days of protest as days to vent against the regime makes complete sense, but to try to take over pro-regime rallies is foolish and naive. I really hope they are not considering this option seriously.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0616_iran_election_salehi_isfahani.aspx
What if Ahmadinejad really won?
Iran’s young people helped energize this election with the hope that it would bring relief to their twin problems of unemployment and social restrictions.
Young people ages 15-29 make up 35 percent of the population but account for 70 percent of the unemployed. In addition, they feel constantly harassed by restrictions on how to dress and who they can hang out with. In the weeks before the election, they had come to believe that, thanks to their sheer numbers (40 percent of the voting age population) and strong determination, they could take control of their destiny by electing a new president. Their optimism was underscored by the fact that though they have no memory of the Islamic Revolution, its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, or of the 8-year war with Iraq, they chose as their leader — Mir Hussein Moussavi — a well-known figure with strong ties to all three.
Now that the results have gone completely contrary to their expectations, they are naturally very disappointed, and, as the world has witnessed, they are taking great risks to express it.
So far, protests are confined to Tehran and a few large cities, and smaller towns and rural areas have been very quiet. True, large crowds in large urban centers offer a degree of safety that is lacking in rural areas and small towns. But, behind the difference in reactions to Ahmadinejad’s election may lie real divisions among the young Iranians in large cities and in small towns and rural areas. Mr. Moussavi’s main appeal to them was on social, not economic, issues, which are more important to the more affluent youth in Tehran and large urban centers. Indeed, he confined his campaign to Tehran and a few large cities.
By contrast, Mr. Ahmadinejad spent the last four years traveling across the country courting the rural and small town votes. There is even evidence that his programs to distribute income and wealth more evenly have begun to bear fruit. The so-called “justice shares†that entitle each individual to receive about $1,000 worth of equity in public companies pay out about $70 a year have been distributed to many in rural areas, and many more are waiting for their turn. Others are waiting to receive funds for housing and marriage from various funds that his administration has established.
Once these factors are taken into account, it is not so implausible that Mr. Ahmadinejad may have actually won a majority of the votes cast, though not those cast in Tehran. The well-to-do urbanite Iranians and their political leaders would do well to allow room for the possibility that a recount may reduce but not eliminate Mr. Ahmadinejad’s lead, and, in that case, respect the voters will and prepare for a comeback in 2013. After all, as the Moussavi camp has correctly pointed out, while Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies have put money in poor people’s pockets, they have failed to provide more jobs for their young. If his critics are correct, the next four years will be difficult years for Mr. Ahmadinejad and may well see the undoing of his populist majority.