Introduction: Since the fraudulent June 12th Presidential elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), an increasingly emboldened opposition, the green movement, has arisen to demand the overthrow of the IRI. The green movement refuses to desist from launching massive street protests in Tehran, Qom, Isfahan and other major Iranian cities. All this is occurring despite violence wreaked upon thousands of valiant regime opponents by the ruling Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad.
As of this writing more than 15 have been killed in clashes with Iranian security services including the nephew of reformist Presidential candidate Mir Mohammad Mousavi, former IRI Prime Minister. Moreover several dissident leaders have been jailed. Something major is brewing in Iran - possibly revolution.
As the year was closing, first a crescendo of massive protests occurred at Students Day events. Then tens of thousands used the occasion of the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri to demonstrate their determination to end the rule of the Supreme Ruling Council head, Ayatollah Khamanei, and his puppet President Ahmadinejad.
The final bloody weekend of 2009 witnessed the faltering IRI regime undertaking unprecedented security measures to pre-empt public mourning and observances of the Shi’a Ashura holy day. Police, revolutionary guard and the Basiji para-military forces blanketed Tehran in a vain attempt to stifle public gatherings. They failed. Massive throngs of people from all classes in Tehran and other major cities defied bans in spite of warnings that violators would be dealt with mercilessly.
As a Der Spiegel article reported these protesters were shouting: “We will fight, we will die, we will reconquer our country.” There were graphic video images sent via the internet of protesters engaged in street battles with Basiji forces.
Now there are reports that elements of the Iranian Military may have sided with the opposition in support of a secular republic. Jane Jamison in the American Thinker noted in a report, “Iranian Military moves in support the people’s revolution”:
It is difficult to verify, but factions in the Iranian military may be breaking rank to join the people’s cause. A group calling itself the National Iranian Armed Resistance Forces (NIRU) posted a news release on an Iranian protest website at the end of the day’s violence.
We, a number of Officers, Soldiers and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hereby declare our readiness for rise to the armed defense of our nation against the forces of the criminal, illegitimate transgressing and occupying current Government of Iran, and hereby inform our brothers and sisters serving with the armed security forces of Iran, invite them to join us, request their support and ask them to provide cover for us in this moral & national act. A special request for support & cooperation goes to our brothers of the Military Police.
The NIRU says it intends to secure Iranian radio and television stations, the Parliament, and the courts, will hold local elections and referendums within 3 months and new presidential elections within 9 months and will dissolve the murderous “Basij” plainclothes police and establish a new national police force.
Protection and firepower from even a few factions of the military could signal a critical momentum change for the Iranian people, who by law cannot own weapons.
All this occurred despite the visible tyranny imposed by Basij para-military, Revolutionary Guards, and regime secret police arresting, beating and torturing opposition student and opposition political leaders. All this amidst vain attempts to prevent the news of this emerging Iranian revolution reaching the world by cell phone and the internet.
Some observers have even suggested that the apocalyptic version of Shia Islam espoused by the ruling Mullahs, might ultimately be consigned to the dustbin of history if such a revolution occurred.
Amir Taheri, expatriate Iranian journalist, in a Wall Street Journal column, “Iran’s Democracy Moment,” has pronounced the democracy movement a possible “hinge moment” in Iranian history reflecting the increasing demand by opposition protesters for replacement of the oppressive theocracy with a democratic secular republic.
This development comes at a time when the ruling Mullahs are desperate to retain control in a truculent nation where many clearly despise Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei and President Ahmadinejad.
These unexpected developments throw into confusion the responses of the Obama Administration in Washington and that of other international players regarding how to deter the Mullahs from their inexorable quest for the ultimate apocalyptic weapon of choice- a nuclear bomb and the missiles for delivering it.
In the face of evident rebellion by Iranians against the Mullahs, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Sen. John Kerry, was seeking clearance from the White House to travel as an emissary to Tehran to confer with the IRI regime that could be in the throes of dissolution. This was an incredible affront to the opposition movement leaders in Iran and supporters of Iranian regime change in America, Europe and Israel.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Minister of Defense in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government announced daunting prospects of a possible unilateral military option against the IRI’s nuclear facilities. In a Jerusalem Post report when he said:
. . . that the recently revealed nuclear facility at Qom was “built over a number of years, located in a reinforced underground bunker and immune to standard bombs.”
Barak further noted the indifference of the West in assisting Iran’s beleaguered people, when he went on to say:
“It is not pleasant to see the response of the free world to the activities there, to the trampling of citizens by the regime.”
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