Transcript and Analysis: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell the Afghanistan War on CNN (23 August)

Video & Transcript: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell Afghanistan War on "Meet the Press" (23 August)

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This may be one of the most depressing interviews I have read since the start of the Obama Administration. (And it will get worse later today --- I have seen clips from a similar performance on NBC's Meet the Press; we're waiting for the full video and transcript.) The White House, amidst the political complexity of this week's events in Afghanistan, put up two military men --- Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the US Ambassor to Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry --- for set-up questions from John King.

The political knowledge in this exchange is almost vacant, with the platitudes about "democracy" (note Eikenberry's excited spin that he couldn't get the indelible ink off his finger) substituting for the serious issues about the election --- today, there are reports that the declaration of the vote may be delayed because of fraud allegations --- and the politics beyond it.

Instead the conversation turns to militarising the US involvement, with the question, "How many more troops?" And, of course, this is all rationalised by skipping over the Afghan people and referring to "Al Qa'eda" (who, I'll note for the record, are not in Afghanistan but in another country).

KING: This is the “State of the Union” report for Sunday, August 23rd.

In Afghanistan today, both President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger are claiming victory in last week’s election, raising tensions, even though it could be weeks or more before the official results are certified. It is an uncertain military situation, as well, with fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban intensifying. And fresh indications President Obama could soon be asked to commit more American troops.

Here to talk about this and other global challenges are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen , and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. He joins us from Kabul.

And Mr. Ambassador, let me start with you. There are complaints, escalating complaints this Sunday about fraud in the elections. On the threshold question of will this balloting be credible, what is your answer?

EIKENBERRY: Well, John, it was an extraordinary two months that we’ve been through, with this being a very historic election. Afghanistan, the first time in the past 30 years that the Afghan people have led an election for their president, for provincial councils, very intense campaign that occurred over the last two months, all new in Afghanistan. Presidential televised debates, campaign rallies. A very civil debate that occurred over this time.

The election itself, everyone knows how challenging it is in the country like Afghanistan to run an election. There’s an insurgency in parts of the country right now. It was an election in which over 6,000 voting stations were set up, crossing deserts and mountains, donkeys carrying ballots to the last polling stations of Afghanistan, and a very well-organized campaign. The Afghan-led independent electoral commission looks like it managed a pretty good process. There’s adjudication systems that have been up, an electoral complaints commission. There was a media complaints commission that was set up.

I got out myself and looked at some of the voting that was going on, and I can tell you, at least one part of the process, the indelible ink, over three days now I haven’t been able to get it off the finger.

Now, against all of that, where are we? Well, right now we’re waiting for the results of this election to come in. The electoral -- the independent electoral commission, they’re waiting for the tallies to be count from across the country. There’s been charges of fraud. The electoral complaints commission is taking those on right now.

We’re really not going to know, John, for several more weeks exactly where we do stand in this process.

We’re not sure exactly what the level of voter turnout was. Millions turned out to vote, but of course, Taliban intimidation, especially in southern Afghanistan, certainly limited those numbers. But for now, we don’t know, and it’s for us to wait and see and allow this process to move forward.

KING: Well, Admiral, jump in on that point. Wait and see, could be weeks, could be longer. It’s already a very tenuous political situation, a dangerous military situation. How worried are you that if you have complaints of fraud, you have a candidate from the north, one challenger, the president who’s from the south. Are you worried about ethnic tensions, ethnic violence escalating and complicating an already bad situation?

MULLEN: Well, this election was truly remarkable, and in terms of what Ambassador Eikenberry has laid out, in the face of what has been a growing insurgency, and certainly intimidation to a certain degree -- and we’ll see over the next few weeks how it actually plays out.

Our forces under the leadership of our new commander out there, General Stan McChrystal, were very focused in support of the Afghan security forces. And one of the highlights for me is that the Afghan security forces, the police and the army, provided security for these elections. And over 95 percent of the polling stations were open.

And so, we’ll keep that focus. And one of the possibilities, obviously, if there isn’t a majority winner here is a runoff. And so we’ll keep that focus and be able to keep that focus.

And at the same time, we’re aware of the insurgency. We’re addressing that, particularly in the south and the east. And so our combat leaders are very focused on that, as well, while General McChrystal shifts his focus to the security and the needs that the Afghan people have specifically for that security.

KING: Well, you mentioned General McChrystal. He is preparing a report to the president, in which many, especially members of the congressional delegation that just met with him, believe he’s going to ask for more troops.

Here’s what [Senator] Susan Collins said on her blog after meeting with both the ambassador and the general. She said, “Along with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and their aides, the general provided us with a detailed briefing. He begins with his chilling assessment that the situation in Afghanistan is serious and deteriorating.” She says, sir, she left that meeting with no doubt that he will ask for more troops. And there have been a number of options circulated. A low-risk 15,000 more; medium-risk 25,000 more; high-risk 45,000 more.

Senator John McCain out this morning saying that he is worried that that has been made public, because he thinks there’s political pressure, and that at best, then, you guys will split the difference and give 25,000 more troops. Pressure?

MULLEN: Well, I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I’ve said that over the last couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated. Their tactics just in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicate that.

General McChrystal is about to wrap up his assessment, and he’ll come in with that assessment in detail, and I haven’t seen that, that...

KING: You have no doubt he’ll ask for more troops?

MULLEN: Actually, we’re not at a point yet where he’s made any decisions about asking for additional troops. His guidance from me and from the Secretary of Defense was to go out, assess where you are, and then tell us what you need. And we’ll get to that point. And I -- I want to, I guess, assure you or reassure you that he hasn’t asked for any additional troops up until this point in time.

KING: Mr. Ambassador, you’re also a retired general, so you’re a military man now in a diplomatic role. I want to read you something from Senator John Kerry , the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in the context of rising doubts here in the United States about what is the mission in Afghanistan, not only in the Congress but with the American people. Senator Kerry says, “I’m very concerned about Afghanistan’s footprint. The breadth of the challenge that we face there, with police, with governance, corruption, narcotics, tribalism, other kinds of things may well be beyond the narrower definition the president gave the mission.”

Do you believe, sir, that the American people understand what the mission is in Afghanistan?

EIKENBERRY: John, there are extraordinary challenges that we face in carrying out this mission, but we need to go back and remember Afghanistan and how it looked on the 10th of September of 2001. At that time, this was a state that was controlled by international terrorism. And so, the president’s strategy, the administration’s strategy is clear. It’s to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda.

Now, for what this means to us here in Afghanistan, to prevent the conditions that existed on the 10th of September in 2001, it means the hardening of the Afghan state, and that has a dimension to it of an Afghanistan where the government can provide for its own security with a capable army and a police force. It means the government upon which those security forces rest. It’s a government...

KING: Sir, I want to interrupt you. I want to interrupt you. I’m sorry to interrupt, but...

(CROSSTALK)

EIKENBERRY: ... services to the people.

KING: I just want to jump in, because there’s a credibility question that many people ask. And it may not be fair to you in the challenge of Afghanistan, but because of what happened in Iraq, people in Congress and the American people, certainly in my travels -- I was at Ft. Riley this past week -- they asked these questions.

I want to go back in time. In 2006, you were on this network when you were still in the military and you were asked about the situation in Afghanistan in 2006, and you said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EIKENBERRY: Things are getting better in Afghanistan in every dimension. If you look at it from the Al Qaida or the Taliban perspective, four and a half years ago, you ruled in Afghanistan. Now you’ve been pushed out of Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And that a year later, sir, you were back on this network, 2006 turned into a not so good year, but you were back the very next February and you sounded optimistic again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EIKENBERRY: I think as we’re now moving into 2007, we’re very well-postured for success. We see a very significant increase in the combat power of the Afghan national army, the police. President Karzai continues to improve governance. So I think we’re reasonably well-postured in 2007.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is it not fair now in 2009, we are 18 days from the eighth anniversary of 9/11 -- you mentioned the situation on September 10th -- is it not a fair question for the American people to say, where has all the money gone? And why has there not been more progress? And should they, I’m sorry, sir, believe optimistic statements from their government?

EIKENBERRY: Well, John, I don’t think my statement right now would be characterized as optimistic. I’m being -- I’m giving a candid assessment that, as Admiral Mullen said, we have a very difficult situation in parts of Afghanistan today.

What we do have for the first time, I believe, since 2002, we have a very clear strategy, and matched against that we have sufficient -- we have resources that are being mobilized. That’s in the security domain. That’s in terms of very (ph) importantly on the civilian side here within the United States embassy, and our mission.

Admiral Mullen talked about the military dimension for Afghanistan. It’s critical, but in and of itself, it’s not sufficient. This is not going to be won entirely on the battlefield here for us in Afghanistan. It’s going to require that the government of Afghanistan develops capability over the next several years. It’s going to require further work in helping to develop a sustainable economy.

There’s a regional diplomacy dimension to this. And I think that as we look ahead, we see what our goals and objectives are. We’re mobilizing sufficient resources for those, but I don’t want to understate the degree of challenges that we’re facing.

KING: I would like to ask the ambassador and the admiral to stand by. Much more with Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Eikenberry in just a moment. When we come back, we’ll head to the magic wall for a closer look at these global challenges.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen , and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry.

Gentlemen, let’s continue the conversation. Here are the three leading candidates in Afghanistan -- President Karzai, Dr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani. I want to move on to a major challenge, and you have a new strategy for dealing with this, Admiral. Help me understand. Look at this, the numbers are stunning. In 2001, Afghanistan produced 185 metric tons of opium. In 2008, look how much that has gone up, 7,700, from 12 percent of the world’s poppy crop to 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop.

Do you have a new counter-narcotic strategy that allows you to target drug kingpins if you believe they are supporting the Taliban and the insurgency? Is that correct?

MULLEN: Actually, yes, and we’ve had that for many months, and specifically changed our rules of engagement so that kingpins, laboratories, individuals who support, transport, specifically, these products are also able to be both either captured or killed. But we’re just...

KING: How? How if there is a pro-U.S. government, how has that happened?

MULLEN: We’re -- I just think it’s something that has not been the focus of the Afghan government, specifically over the last seven or eight years.

I mean, some of the things we’re seeing right now in terms of this conflict and the challenge is really a very comprehensive addressal of all aspects of it. So yes, I’ve got -- and -- changed ROE that allows me to do this, but that’s just part of the counter- narcotics strategy. Because...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I’m sorry to interrupt, but if this has happened under President Karzai, do you have any reason to believe that if he’s reelected, that that will go down?

MULLEN: Well, I think it’s clearly something we’re going to have to keep a very close eye on and move in that direction.

There’s an agricultural strategy that goes across this, where they grow it. It wasn’t -- it was a few decades ago, but -- that Afghanistan actually produced enough food for itself, it exported food in this very rich agricultural valley.

Now, we’ve got to, I think, across our government and theirs focus on creating the infrastructure which allows them to produce the kind of products that they used to produce agriculturally.

KING: I want to look now, here is a glimpse at the U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. 62,000 now, and most expect, although you say the review is not complete, that number to keep going up. Ambassador, I want you to come in on this point here. 62,000 U.S. troops, about 35,000 from other nations, those NATO allies. Many of the NATO allies invested a modest number of troops to provide security through the elections. Mr. Ambassador, define through the elections. Are some of these 35,000 now going to leave that the elections are over? Or do you have commitments for them to stay through final results?

EIKENBERRY: John, they are committed. We’ll know on the 17th of September, that’s the target date, at least for the independent electoral commission of Afghanistan, Afghanistan-led, to give the final announcements on the election. If no candidate achieves 50 percent, then there’ll be a runoff among the top two contenders, and we would expect that that election will occur then perhaps six weeks later or about four weeks later in mid-October. So we could have a four to six weeks delay here in the whole process if we do go to a runoff. But we have commitments from the forces that are here to stay on if needed for a runoff.

KING: For a runoff. Would you like more NATO forces, sir? And just how deep is your frustration that our allies, given the increasing challenge, will not commit more? To you, Mr. Ambassador?

EIKENBERRY: John, that was for me?

KING: Yes, sir.

EIKENBERRY: John, the commitment that we’ve got from our NATO allies here is pretty extraordinary. We’ve got, as you had pointed out, 100,000 troops on the ground; about 40,000 of those are non-U.S. They’re from 40 different countries, 40 plus different countries, from all the countries of NATO. This is the most ambitious, the most difficult mission that NATO in its 60-year history has ever conducted.

And so, yes, we’re hoping for more progress with our allies, but if we look at where this alliance was 10 years ago and where they are today, far from Europe, inside of Afghanistan, I think we have to take stock of the extraordinary commitments that our European and Canadian allies have made.

KING: We are running short on time, but Admiral Mullen, a couple quick questions for you in closing. Here’s the U.S. troop level in Iraq, down now to in the mid-120,000. We were at about 140,000 at the beginning of the year. Horrific violence this past week. Many saying just what was to be expected. They knew the U.S. troops were coming out, that the insurgents, those who want to commit violence, waited. Are you concerned about what’s happening in the context of the Iraqi response and to whether you’ll be able to keep this timeline to keep pulling U.S. troops out?

MULLEN: Extremely concerned by the incidents last week. I think everybody was, and the key is whether this is an indicator of future sectarian violence. And certainly, many of us believe that one way that this can come unwound is through sectarian violence.

Our leadership’s focussed on it. I know the leadership in politically and militarily in Iraq is very focussed on that. We’ve got also a little longer-term focus through the elections in January, and then after that, you know, that slope that you see there on the right-hand side of your graph is going to continue pretty dramatically between March and August of next year. The message is that the Iraqi leadership really has to take control and ensure...

KING: Is there a risk -- is there a risk this stops?

MULLEN: There’s always a risk. We have not seen a lot of this really until last week. And we’ve seen some positive signs up north, where possibilities existed before, but it’s something we’re all very, very mindful of and watching very carefully. Not just us from here, but our troops on the ground there as well.

KING: I want to ask you lastly, sir, your impressions, reactions. The Scottish court released the gentleman who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. He has gone back to Libya. There was a hero’s welcome on the ground in Libya despite a very strong message from the United States -- one, that they did not want him released, and two, that he should be put under house arrest in Libya. The FBI director says Libya is now -- that decision gives comfort to the terrorists, and obviously you saw the reaction in Libya.

There are proposed military sales to Libya on the table. As the gentleman who has to sign the orders sending men and women into combat around the world, what signal did the court send? And what have you seen out of Libya?

MULLEN: Well, this is obviously a political decision, which is out of my lane. But I mean, just personally, I was appalled by the decision.

KING: And if there are proposed Pentagon sales to Libya on the table, you’ll say no?

MULLEN: Well, we’ll deal with those down the road. It’s just where I am right now.

KING: All right, Admiral, I understand the restrictions you’re under there. I can tell by your face you’d like to say something a bit stronger. Admiral Mike Mullen , Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, thank you very much.

And up next, three U.S. senators from across the ideological spectrum debate whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether Congress hears your concerns about proposed health care changes. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: President Obama says the war in Afghanistan is not one of choice, but of necessity. Still some in Congress are concerned that there’s no endgame for the U.S. military mission. Let’s talk it over with the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Armed Services Committee member and independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Gentlemen, welcome. I want to get to Afghanistan in a minute, but I want to start where I ended with Admiral Mullen. Your reaction, the three of you involved so much in our international policy, to what happened, the Scottish court first releasing the gentleman convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

And then we can show our viewers, I hope, the hero’s welcome he received back in Libya after a direct message from the United States to put him under house arrest and to not do just this.

Senator Lugar, what should the United States do now in the context of, A, relations with Libya which had improved and, in fact, on the table were some proposed military sales.

LUGAR: Well, I think we ought to continue our relations with Libya, but we ought to condemn as strongly as possible this release. I think the president has indicated he felt it was obnoxious, I would certainly concur with that.

But I think it’s very important to notice that the President Gadhafi has a constituency in Libya, which I suppose he was appealing. And the rest of the world is now engaged in diplomatic relations with Libya.

KING: You were there, sir...

LIEBERMAN: Yes.

KING: ... on a congressional delegation. And you delivered this same message. That you hoped he was not released, but if he was, there should not be that welcome. What should the consequences be?

LIEBERMAN: That’s absolutely right. That’s exactly what we said to Colonel Gadhafi. He obviously didn’t get the message that he believed that Al Megrahi was convicted politically. But the fact is he was convicted in a court of law according to the rule of law. This release -- the Scottish justice secretary committed an act of gross injustice here. The suggestions that have followed both from Libya, Gadhafi himself, his son Saif, and from the head of the British Libyan Business Council, that there was an intermixing here of Megrahi’s fate with British interest in oil exploration in Libya, are shocking.

I don’t want to believe that they are true, but they are hanging so heavily in the air that I hope that our friends in Britain will convene an independent investigation of this action by the Scottish justice minister to release a mass murder.

With regard to Libya, we warned respectfully at that point, because we hoped Colonel Gadhafi would get our message that he could not expect relations with the United States, which have been good since after the Iraq War of 2003.

He has destroyed his WMD. He is cooperating in counterterrorism with us. But he could not expect them to go on normally if Megrahi was not only released, but greeted as a hero. And that has happened. So I would say suspension of arms sales, don’t expect President Obama to meet Gadhafi at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.

This is a real setback for the anti-terrorist cause and takes our relations with Libya back to where they were for too long, a bad place.

KING: Do you agree with that assessment vis-a-vis Libya? And what do you believe was the motivation of releasing? Is it a humanitarian gesture, he has terminal cancer? Or do you believe there is something more suspicious?

CARDIN: Well, first, I think there should be consequences to those actions. So the terrorist showed no compassion for his victims. And to give him a compassionate release was wrong.

I think we also have to realize what impact this has on our war against terror. Here you see a terrorist being released after serving just eight years, a mass murder. I think it’s very serious and I think there should be consequences.

KING: And in terms of the motivation of the Scottish court? Do you share his questioning?

CARDIN: I think Senator Lieberman raises a very valid point. I think we need to know what this oil deal was all about and whether there was a compromise to the judicial system for commercial gain.

KING: All right. Let’s move on to Afghanistan and I want to ask a threshold question first, because we all lived through the Iraq debate. From a policy standpoint and from a political standpoint, it got pretty ugly here in the United States.

And, Senator Lugar, starting with you, has the president laid out to the American people a clear statement of the mission? Now, where we’re going, and what the endgame is?

LUGAR: In Afghanistan, is that a question?

KING: Yes.

LUGAR: No. And I think everyone waits for General McChrystal to give, really, the outline of where we’re headed, how many troops or whatever else is going to be required, and of course, as time goes by, the debate goes on.

The Washington Post had polling that indicated that a large number of Americans are losing faith in the mission. A majority of Democrats do not really favor continuing very strongly. Republicans still in favor of it. So I hope we don’t get into a partisan battle of that variety.

I think the president really has to face the fact that his own leadership here is critical. He really can’t just leave this to the Congress, to General McChrystal, and say, folks, sort of, discuss this, after the report comes in.

KING: Well, let me bring in Senator Cardin on that point. As the Democrat of the group here, 70 percent in that poll, Senator Lugar just referred to in The Washington Post poll, 70 percent of Democrats say this is a fight not worth fighting.

If General McChrystal says, I need more troops, will you vote for them?

CARDIN: Well, first, I think we have to see what he says. Clearly the president is defining our mission to go after the terrorists. There’s a lot of problems in Afghanistan. We didn’t choose this war, they attacked us. We need to make sure that Afghanistan and, quite frankly, the border with Pakistan is not a safe haven for terrorists.

That should be our objective. And we now need to know what do we need to do as far as resources to accomplish that mission?

KING: You were there and you met with the ambassador and you met with the general on this same international trip with Senator Collins, Senator McCain, Senator Graham. How many more troops is he going to need, sir?

LIEBERMAN: That we didn’t talk about in detail. But it’s very clear that General McChrystal is going to ask for more troops.

Incidentally, I think, John, that President Obama has been strong and clear in Afghanistan. Obviously there has been a lot else going on in Washington and in American politics.

LIEBERMAN: The recession, health care reform, et cetera, but the president came in and basically recommitted to what he had said during the campaign last year, that this was a war of necessity. That we were struck from Afghanistan when the Taliban was in charge on 9/11 ‘01. We can’t let the Taliban come back. This is as if we were in the end of the second world war, democracy was beginning to take route in Germany and the Nazis started an offensive to take the country back. That’s what the Taliban is doing. So right now, the president has put a new team in charge, and they’re good. General McChrystal, Ambassador Eikenberry, he’s committed to 21,000 more troops. They’re beginning to arrive. They’re making a difference, those marines, in southern Afghanistan under General Larry Nicholson, doing a great job in turning the tide.

KING: Do you see any political pressure on General McChrystal to ratchet down those numbers, to not ask for a significant number of more troops?

LIEBERMAN: I haven’t seen any. I sure hope there’s not. If there’s a lesson we should’ve learned from Iraq, some of the pressure that was put on our generals there not to ask for what they thought they needed to win meant that we lost a lot of lives, spent a lot of money. My own opinion coming back from Afghanistan with a new team, new strategy, we ought to take the option that General McChrystal gives us that has the least risk.

In other words, don’t dribble it out, don’t go for incrementalism. That’s a lesson we learned in Iraq. Frankly it’s a lesson we learned a long time ago in Vietnam that give our troops and our civilians there State Department, economic assistance, people, the support that they need as quickly as we can get it to them, and then demand that the Afghan government do the same. Raise the number of security forces that they have in the battle and produce a good government for their people.

KING: I want to move on domestic issues. Senator Lugar lastly on the international, how long do the American people need to be prepared for significant U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan?

LUGAR: Well, that’s the question the president will have to try to define much better. For example, we heard on your program this morning about the politics of the country, maybe taking several years to work out.

They have various other institutions in the economy, agriculture, the drug business and so forth. How many of these missions, leaving aside the Taliban and the al Qaeda being chased over to Pakistan, what have you. I think General McChrystal can’t answer all that. He can give some military guidance, but the political guidance of why Afghanistan should be reformed and how long we stay with it is a presidential, and it’s likely to last many, many years beyond this particular term.

KING: Many, many years, a sober assessment.

Iran Document: The Mousavi Speech to University Professors (23-24 June)

The Latest from Iran (23 August): An Anti-Ahmadinejad Bloc?

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On 24 June, we reported: "A curious and, if true, troubling incident. It is alleged that 70 faculty members, having met with Mir Hossein Mousavi, were later arrested."

Almost all of the faculty, most of whom were sociologists, were released, but it was unclear why the authorities reacted so fiercely to the gathering. Now Iran Quest has gone back to the speech, printed in Mowj-e-Sabz on 5 July, and offered an English translation. (The clarifications and notes in parentheses also come from Iran Quest.) The speech stands not only as an important record of Mousavi's thoughts in the day after the election but as a possible guide to continued protest:

We are accused that we are American and European (agents), that we are controlled by outsiders. That’s why I think it is imperative to state what (really) is the foreigners’ plan; And to take a stance against this issue. That’s why we need to talk about these issues. Even today and in the context of our current situation, if we truly do believe that one of the most significant outcomes of our revolution has been our independence, then we are obligated to indeed take a stance despite the harm that it may cause us. What I am really saying is that it is not going to harm us, but even if it did, we would still have to take a stance; it is important to work on this issue more extensively and declare a clearer position on as soon as possible. (The issue: accusations that Mousavi is an imperialist agents attempting regime change)

We can not completely get rid of this (accusation) influence altogether because fundamentally there is something wrong with this from the roots. There are limited media outlets that could communicate with people, gain their confidence and ultimately turn people’s attentions to those forces inside the country loyal to the Islamic Republic, Islam, the Nation, and its independence. In this regard (lack of media outlets) we are facing some serious problems. In the recent week, I have constantly discussed that this (lack of media outlets) is harmful to the whole system not just one group; that this would hurt us all. Unfortunately, we can not make a compromise. As we speak, 25 to 45 personnel of ‘Kalameh-e-sabz’ (Green Wave – Mousavi’s campaign newspaper) have been detained on charges of conspiracy. This shows how misinformed those who are in charge and take a stance against us really are.

In regards to taking legal action, I used to believe and still do that taking action that is lawful is our ultimate principle and our departing point of every action even if those laws are not taken very seriously. We can’t withdraw from this principle. Even if we disagree with a rule of law, we must resolve our issue through legal channels. I have mentioned this on numerous occasions during and after the election campaigns. Rumors and propaganda that accuse me of acting illegally are all absolute lies. I completely follow the rules and guidelines, even with regard to the Guardian Council to whom we drafted our complaint. But when 7 (out of 12) members of the Council are favoring one political party (allusion to Ahmadinejad's campaign) against the law we start having objections; if they want me to fawn and flatter them and attend their meetings, (despite the illegalities) then I would not go. I have filed my report and drafted my complaints, if they want to act appropriately they have all the documents. A person like Mr. Mohtashami (one of Mousavi’s campaign chiefs and the head of the Ministry of Interior during Khatami’s reformist presidential period) is constantly following up on the fraud issue, going back and forth and he is prepared to attend any meeting and explain what has happened.

You have seen, when Mr. Kadkhodaie (spokesperson of Guardian Council and Ahmadinejad supporter) announced on the case of ‘the cities with more votes than total number of eligible voters that “the investigated cases fraud totaled 3 million votes but that doesn’t affect the election results”. When Mr. Karroubi (the cleric and the more reformist presidential candidate) responded, the response was censored even in Mr. Karroubi’s newspaper Etemade Melli (National Trust Daily.) If you look carefully some of Mr. Karroubi’s phrases from his response are missing, and wording does not resemble Mr. Karoubi’s usual wording. Such is the environment that they have created throughout the country. We definitely won’t act illegally, we would act based on laws. Issues that Dr. Hazeri (one of the attendees who spoke before Mousavi) touched on are very significant and beneficial; these problems should get out there and be discussed….

There are many ways to voice your objections while keeping within the frameworks of the law. Of course, some are creating an atmosphere (of enmity). Today, Kayhan’s (most prominent pro-Ahmadinejad newspaper) headline was about (people’s) angry waves of vengeance from Mousavi. These personal attack are character assassinations to stop this movement. I believe with our canny and clever people these (character assassinations) would fire backwards. What they say would radicalize the atmosphere and create some problems but would bring no benefits to the legitimacy of the current government.

My view, of course hoping to god’s will I hope I am wrong, is that the Guardian Council will ultimately declare no fraud. Then a government will be formed base on legal procedures that exist and will continue on. However, if the previous government had the problem of being incompetent, deceiving, and many other problems that it created for itself and for the country, this government would have an additional problem on their hands; it will suffer from lack legitimacy. There will be doubts whether this government is rightful or not, and such doubts will make the government very vulnerable internationally and nationally, this would even make it possible that government would give away privileges to foreigners. That’s how the governments act when they weaken. We also know from signs and previous events that in the past whenever the current government has had such problems they’ve backed down.

It’s the same story with internal affairs. We (with the incumbent government staying in power) would find many problems. The crucial issue is what other forces would do when the new government (of the incumbent) is supposed to become official through the inauguration and the sworn-in ceremony in the parliament. This is one of our most important questions without any answers. Yesterday in a meeting there were talks that considering the recent events, and new awareness, we must act. This should not mean we stand against the government meaning that god forbid whatever they do we sabotage. However, we should organize nationally and independent from the government to take actions that are possible.

There is an important point here. They are after a hegemony from the current situation. They want to put people’s contentment and satisfaction to support their illegal actions. This is a critical point here. This means that they want to convince people that in regards to all (the post election disputes) that happened they were right and everybody else was wrong; that there was no fraud in this very healthy elections and everything turned out just fine in the end. We can’t submit to this. It’s our right to stand up through legal channels and declare that this incident (election fraud) was not fortunate , and if there’s no awareness (on this incident) this could establish the fundamentals for a dictatorship and god forbid lead the nation on an ominous path.

I introduced, early on in the elections, the discourse on issue of evading the rules of law (and how they plant the seed for dictatorship). I never thought we would reach a point where the election itself would be the solemn support for my arguments of dangers that I warned about from the beginning; this is the most important issue in our nation. This (election) showed that audacities of some to evade the laws can be stretched to extents that it is now; existence of such behaviors would make anything (ominous) possible in our nation.

Despite all this, they would only be able to stabilize their hegemony if they convince people to reconcile with the election results. They have to force those devoted religious forces [to accept] that nothing has happened, and everything (all the fraud cases) have happened in accords to the Islamic laws in place and that these justify all the crackdown on newspapers and imprisonments. This is what we need to push to get out there, to campaign on so that we can keep our constitution alive; our religious beliefs, independence of our nation and the rest of the revolutionary values that formed our fundamentals of our society with the leadership of Imam (Khomeini). I believe everybody has a say in this and has a role to play. Everyone must rely on their own creative talents to do something. We should eventually come together in our thoughts and locate common routes that we can all agree on. Till then, I think we must do something (to accommodate) whoever, with whatever plans and creativity, does something; just like how I’ve said each citizen is a medium; so that we can push on this agenda to some extent.

Rapport with different classes including the religious leaders

Fortunately, in the national arena we have the support of various classes of society specially the clergy who are grown sensitive to recent events. We occasionally saw clerics in the election and protest rallies, and our friends here know that. There are movements in Qom (the seminary city of Qom holds one of the largest school of Shiite Islam in Iran and is home to many grand clerics who act as religious leaders to the whole Muslim population and have many followers) and we have lobbied and met with some of the grand ayatollahs (top senior religious figures) of the city. The mere fact that these religious leaders have not approved the elections, despite all sorts of pressure to do so, is further proof to my words (that there are things happening in Qom.) But we need more work on this. Me, contacting, and camping and few others going back and forth to Qom is not going to do it. We must all feel the need here, and expand our relations with the grand ayatollahs. I believe we have good channels and informing the ayatollahs about your analysis or problems would have a positive influence.

The same course of action applies to the rest of society. We must try hard that our future movement does not step outside the system boundaries. This is dangerous to us and to the nation, and we don’t even believe in it either. My vision, is that we can move inside the system, but the system that the Imam Khomeini (the Grand Ayatollah who overthrew the Shah and established the Islamic Republic) defined with pure Islamic basis, stripped from lies and deceit, and toward clarity, bravery and accompanied by the type of rationalism coherent with the modern world. We would be critical in this framework, and this will be the base for our new movements.

There was another discussion on multiple people leading the movement. I believe in this (that this is the right way to go.) I have had talks with Mr. Karroubi and prior to that with Mr. Rezaei and Khatami. The movement would continue this way. Our intention is to expand this even further. The bigger this becomes the less vulnerable we’d become and the more we’d able to benefit from a collective will and rationale. In our future agenda too we are considering a collective movement, not individually. Of course, it’s possible that the wave be directed to me, but rest assured that this is not about me and it is a much greater aspect to it. The awareness that rose in the country is irreversible, meaning that it’s not possible to go back where we were six months ago even under any amount of pressure and appearances security forces on high alert. We must believe in this (irreversibility). However it’s not certain that we always move forward. There are always backlashes, and mismanagement could lead to some undesired outcomes, that’s why we must be watchful. This means that sessions like this must continue and information should be distributed. We must keep raising awareness. The movement must be managed properly specially considering the shock that people have had to bear.

One of our most important issues, is media. We solved our problem prior to the election by relying on the people. If you’ve noticed, we neither used TV nor any costly media. Even our posters were printed on A4 paper to save and reduce costs...as much as possible and in return we’d managed to get great amount of benefits.

However, there is a new modern perspective on use of virtual space in expanding truth that our youth took advantage of. This is our secret weapon. I don’t think we can get access to a mass medium anytime soon but by relying on virtual spaces, a belief in our youth and their creativity in using these new tools, we can fill up this media gap to some extent.

There was another topic about installing a satellite channel from outside the country. I think these options should be on the table, but the significant point here is that despite all the censorship and clampdowns (on websites and web logs) we stress on expanding our youth base and ask them to provide us with solutions to extend our news networks.

We have big problems here ( in regard to the media), especially with a strict one-way manner of broadcasting from IRIB. However, from the my own experiences these omni-directional exaggerations broadcasted in support of diminishing our movement would fire backwards on them. Nonetheless they (their propaganda) could cause doubt, and disorder within us and I can see the effects myself sometimes. What I mean is that on the first day, there was no question whether there was fraud or not, everyone felt like there was. But people have been asking by now about the true stats, the real results and the reasons behind the fraud. That’s why we must work on ourselves. What I say is that the media are effective: when someone (comes on TV) and blasts everyone (in the movement), true that this would make people angry, but it’d also raise questions deeper within their thoughts, question that they cannot answer alone (based on the limited access they have to information). That’s why we should find ourselves responsible to resolve these questions.

As Mr. Hazeri knows well, even from early stage of this campaign we were a small group but a our campaign gained great amount of power from the contact that it established with the masses of people, and from people’s trust in us. That’s what is needed right now. There was delicate work done from this trust of the people that is that we said we are not going to constrain any creativity. Anyone is free to do what they want, and this worked for us. Right now that’s what we need. That’s why this group gathered around here, could think within themselves of ways to open up this blockade on flow of information so that we can have access to a medium. In regards to legal support (for establishing media) we had a great and knowledgeable person working with us Mr. Amir Arjmand who’s been detained and is now in prison. There are other strong people around who helped out. We have also recently noticed that we need great work in this area.

Necessity of capitalizing on people’s creativities and inclinations

There were talks about plainclothes officers. Presence of such officers as you know is very illegal. I have voiced my objection to this. We also wrote a legal document which caused reactions from Chief of Police and some other institutions (context: people within security institutions denied associations with such plainclothes officers, and tried to label them as rebels within the crowd) which should reveal to you how sensitive this case is. I believe we should continue a legal and lawful protest against this presence. Such an act could close up (at least some) opportunities for these forces to be used. Because those who use security forces against people can’t legally hold their forces on the streets without any uniform, not every organ of security forces commit to this continuously, which makes presence of plainclothes officers even worse (in that nobody is willing to take their responsibility.) People too have shown a strong and persistent reaction against these (plainclothes) forces, and we must capitalize on that. Some of our friends here mentioned that some of these plainclothes officers have been identified by people using their pictures on different website; Such methods are good and could be effective; this could restrain their presence. We should also continue working from the legal and political channels to protest against this so that we can wipe these issues off this nation. If we have police forces and security forces, they should react to such illegalities so that we can rid of these problems from our country.

Another question was asked that addressed why I entered the electoral battle without a campaign team. I had my own view of how the situation would developed, and I don’t think I made a mistake that I declared (my candidacy) late. In any case, if I had declared my candidacy a year earlier I would have not even made it to the elections; they wouldn’t have let me make it. I wanted to declare my candidacy on the 15th of Esfand or even later (last month of the Persian calendar, corresponding to late February) so that I would have time to organize and plan out so that we can gather our friend and move carefully. That’s why I declared it on the 15th. I even tried to get the message across without actually saying it that I can’t declare that I am running now, because there would have been an atmosphere (of enmity created against me through character assassinations, personal attacks, false accusations, and associations by proxy) to destroy my image, among many other things. I believe I acted realistically with regards to this. If I had declared it couple of couple of months earlier around Mehr (September) I would have not have probably even lasted till Nawrooz (new year in March). Anyhow, (admittedly) this (extent of fraud) was not something I had anticipated. I do agree that we’ve all been surprised. The recent news of the extent of fraud shows clearly that the extent was much more than I anticipated. I was also not anticipating the extent of interest the Supreme Leader took in the incumbent. If I had known about this, I may have changed some of my perceptions.

We had another problem too in this elections, the very important problem of campaign head-starts. Issues here are no more legal than other acts of fraud during the election. Issues (mentioned earlier) are problems that even with a sound election would necessitate nullifying the elections; just like someone who starts with the wrong epilogue (the epilogue to the prayers is Vozoo: act of washing the hands and face and anointing the head and feet) would be praying a null prayer. That’s why the introductory acts are illegal and against the law. Things like distributing money, falsifications of facts. And another one that was just discovered that there were laws on how to distribute subsidies from oil income; Parliament has objected to what has happened. It’s obvious that because of the elections the parliament has postponed the issue. Other things like the breakdown of SMS (Short Message Service text) networks occurred during and before the elections that...could have crippled us. We had based our whole communication system based on these networks. With all of constrains brought about to our election supervisors we had relied to these networks to communicate. (and we were assured too that this network is reliable, we had a whole group of computer and information processing specialists in a headquarters to process and organize all the information received, with the collapse of the networks all this was useless. When we protested to what has happened with two of our groups approaching two bodies of TCI (the only state-owned telecommunication company of Iran) we got nothing, they dodged responsibility claiming that "we didn’t do it". The shutdown orders did not come from us.’ This wasted our time and led to even more constraints.

One of our friends here had asked, where are we headed with all this? The "where" would definitely cover the current state of affairs (in regards to continuation of the protests) and could even be stretched as far as the next month or even year. It all goes back to analysis of what has happened in our country until right now (from the election), based on the analysis we are going to evaluate our opportunities and anticipate possible processes to unfold and plan accordingly. There could be discussion here that would take a whole session by itself. Those sociologists and political scientists amongst us could allocate some time to these issues. They could sit down and discuss issues, and think about short and long term solutions out of this mess.

There is a another thing that is of utmost important; that is the forces that take interest and have attended the elections themselves come from different brands of thought. Some say that street protests should stop and shift to a different format, some disagree. Some are radical, and some advocate a more conservative approach. Such discussions should keep happening so that we can collectively find solutions. Differences definitely exist between your friends and between our fellows too.

Hopefully we should reach some conclusion. Right now we are according certain necessities. There are some issues that we just have to follow after people. Many of the incidents that happened after Friday (the election day) were not organized by any one centralized group or organization; such is that massive rally on Monday that many of our friends here attended too. Our perception was that only a few would come out. My own presence, even if I were beaten a little, would at least reduce the violence against people and give them something to reduce their anguish. We attended the rally with this perception, but the immensity of the rallies and the presence of the people was much more than what we had anticipated. Or the rallies in Toopkhone Square (note: it’s ironic because the square is named after the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini; the name that Mr. Mousavi uses to refer to the square is the name that common people use all the time which should reveal degree of informality during this speech) were not organized from a headquarters either.

Right now too (arbitrarily organized) movements such as these keep happening. I’ve said this even in the statements that the idea of green color too came to us from people, there wasn’t a group of scientists trying to think this through and advertise it with people. In one of our trips to the provinces a roughly 18-19 year old boy suggested the idea and they put a green scarf around me, and they told the reporters too mind you that I think it’s a good color, I am not bad with aesthetics due to my occupation as an artist (painter). We thought this would go out well, and Fateh (another senior member of Mousavi’s inner circle) and others thought it’s a good idea too, and this (green color) became the symbol, and managed to get many around itself and turned itself into a flag. This helped because of the great value our people have put into this color through out history that we have always associated this color with the great prophet, his family, and allies. That’s why the color has a religious tone to it and people have a good image and are comfortable feeling with this color. It’s also one of the colors in our national flag, and a color in nature too. God greatly helped us too. Our fortune with this color was great and it became very influential throughout the whole nation. Things (ideas) like these came out of people. I am not saying that we should not have any plans and just follow what people do, but that we should plan properly and follow people when we can, it’s a two way thing.

Dr. … insisted that between the significance of our Iranian nationality and Islamic roots, we must rely on Islamism in our system; that it’s the Islam of our system which is in peril. (I believe) this is right. But let me tell you about an episode which taught us a lesson during the campaign. In our campaign trips to Rasht (center of a province in among one of the greenest provinces in Iran) during our heated discussions about cultivating tea leafs and why they are uneconomical when Iranian farmers grow Iranian tea based on their sense of nationality and honor, I noticed that despite imports of tea that kills the profit for these farmers, being oblivious to our own products is being oblivious to our strong sense of nationality and honor which is very strong throughout the whole country.

It came to my mind that we can talk to people about many issues from similar perspectives. That’s why, when I talked about rice and rice imports hurting our own growth in that court in a gym in Rasht, and about how this is harmful to our economy and is a disregard to our sense of nationality, and about where our hundreds of years of love and yearning for Iran has gone, the crowds got very excited. And there was strong sense of nationality in that court. We expanded this to our national campaign, and we always got very excited response in Isfahan, and other places whenever we introduced issues in a the light of our sense of nationality. Without me saying anything, people started shouting “Iran Iran” and hitting the ground with their feet. I think this sense of nationality is something that in these past 20 years has been very lost. Because I believe the great departed Imam (Ayatollah Khomeini) put a great value to these feelings. It’s also true that discussions around this topic (whichever Islamism or nationality should be insisted) have been there in past 20 years. For our future, an future full of hardships until the country stabilizes, we need to return to these values to excite people and unite them around goals that would keep our country safe and would lead us toward solutions that are beneficial to the country. Such acts would help with our own integrity in pushing for groups that would become active economically and culturally.

When we talk about Iranian-hood, just like Dr. Shariati (one of the most prominent of Muslim sociologists and thinkers of the years prior to the revolutions) used to say, when we return to the composing elements of our society most of the fabric of our society is Islamic, and we can’t separate our nationality from Islamic traditions. We don’t have an Iranian-hood without the Islam, this is what the last regime used to do and it lost, In the (years of) Islamic revolution, and even before the revolutions Dr. Motahari (another very prominent but more Islamist sociopolitical thinker) talked about similar issues and that was one of his most important books. After the revolution too, this has always been with us, but we’ve never benefited form it as we should have.

This is situation where we can use this (sense of nationality). Many of the wrong and harmful policies that cause disadvantage and fallbacks is because of lack of this sense and the yearning for our country.

In another hall in Zanjan (another capital of Iran’s provinces), I was among a group of students, some of these kids that were bothering (others). They were waving a Palestinian flag. I said that it’s true we like Palestine and have defended it and this (support) has always been a slogan ever since the revolutions. But in a group meeting that we are talking about elections of Iran, what meaning does that flag has? Students started shouting chants, and the person was embarrassed and lowered his flag. There, when I was going to talk about these slogans and issues, I remembered Yaser Arafat coming to Iran as our first international guest when Imam (Ayatollah Khomeini) was told that he was going to make a trip to Khozestan (southern province of Iran with extensive oil resources) and Imam asked to stop him, concerned that he was going to take advantage of the Arab minorities living in Khozestan.

We have forgot about this (Iranian nationality) especially in this last four years, and we must return to these values. This can have a great influence over our messages and our future plans, I believe in this, and I would follow through with it. There are solutions suggested like boycotting the Seda-Sima (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) which I don’t’ want to get into. There was criticism that I did not anticipate such moves. It’s only true that I didn’t. I didn’t anticipate the extent of it. However, what I think we should view as an opportunity here is what has happened (recently.) What happened (the massive organized fraud, coup …Mousavi avoids using some of these words) was not a hasty act of self-defense. Instead what has toppled this election is a something that has been developing within our country and our establishment for years, and thanks to recent events it has revealed itself and its dangers. Such new findings should be seen as an opportunity.

Let’s pay attention to what people’s preferences are. Expensive methods would reduce people’s support for us. We shouldn’t be thinking that we can’t fight back through legal channels. When all the talk about lying was getting out there people came up with that very amazing poster where they sketched a “Lie” and covered it with a “Stop Sign”: “Lying is forbidden.” As someone with a bit of expertise on arts myself, I say this is one of the most amazing and most expressive posters designed ever (in hundred years). I never stepped into a city after that incident where I haven’t seen that sign again. Rest assured, some (ominous) deeds have been conducted in this nation and the election revealed these (deeds) and they became posters. This condemnation of a "Lie" (in posters) is not only condemning the deceit in the government but is also (a condemnation) of the desire to create lies and deceit; (the same) lie and deceit that unfortunately is created deep inside us all due to different (from our proper revolutionary values and thus wrong) policies that we had towards cultural issues.

Prior to the election, people tried to overcome this issue (of deceit and lies within us). The green waves that started and stretched from Tajrish (one side of the city in North with the well higher above average incomes) to Rah-Ahan (all the way to the other side with more middle and poorer classes) were (all) created on this very issue; to move beyond this deceit and hypocrisy which has shredded our nation to pieces, a nation of different groups and customs. This is why, when I see the (subject of) lie and the posters – I don’t know who drew this poster, since it’s a populist poster too with language of streets, but it seems like it is this very language the has contributed so much to the popularity of this poster. I guess that we can build on the opening that has revealed the (incumbent’s) government for what it really is and on appetites within the heart of our society (a phenomena that we must try to understand) and push forward with this movement.

People also showed us the solutions. People aspire to be together, be cheerful, and love Iran and be able to advance it ahead; (they aspire to) science, tolerance for one another, and that there’d be freedom.

Something funny happened to me that I told Mr. Khamenei (the current supreme Leader who at the time of Khomeni’s leadership had been president with Mousavi acting as his vice-president) too. I’ll tell you about it too to lighten up the mood here. One (campaign day) I was driving to Yaft-Abad from Navab St. (streets of mid to south Tehran)We happened to ride beside a Peykan (a decreasingly in some areas but still very common car on the streets of Iran manufactured internally) with Ahmadinejad (supporters) passengers. They recognized me, stretched their heads out of the windows holding posters of Mr. Ahmadinejad and yelling the slogan:” Freedom of expression, cannot be done with, something, and uhhm, and something.” (during the debates Mousavi was not as fluent as people would expect a presidential candidate to be. Ahmadinejad supporters are making fun of Mousavi here through the slogan.) I told our driver to slow down so that we can driver closer to them, and we (Mousavi and Ahmadinejad supporters) started chatting and joking. We were doing this for almost a good 10 to 15 minutes, I did not sense any enmity, like any tendency from them to want to throw something at me, or conduct agitated driving, or me feeling that I’ve been berated.

So, this was our spirit before the elections that variety of groups with different ideas would come together. If the establishment had capitalized on this, certainly, we would have had more centrist approaches on the speed of our progress (in the country.) I guess, one of our future projects should be reviving this very spirit through out our nation. We must take a stance against any action that would encourage disparity between classes of people. We must not gain a reputation of favoring those who are with us and not those who are against us. Our nation is one and there are different ethnicity and ideas that tolerate each other. If someone is a felon, well, they’d take him and put him behind bars. As for the rest of people, when they are innocent they can live their lives together and tolerate each other (in his words he’s advocating the policy of innocent until proven guilty against the policy of pre-emptive strike).

The election, and the environment prior to the election revealed that this is possible. People here ask me for a sample. An example is the nights prior to the elections when people poured into the streets without the slightest of confrontation. We must not let these achievements go to waste. We must add this to our vocabulary, and use as the achievement. In our communication with people we must regard it as an achievement.

We must not – they accuse me, not personally me but it’s unimportant now – act in such a way to expose us to accusations of illegality. This is a very important point. We shouldn’t think that we can’t confront and voice our concerns through legal channels. We have examples of people who fought and got results (using similar methods) around the world and in our country. We must note that the hardships in this method is not any less than the illegal methods. Some think that a revolutionary method is to ignore consequences and as they say "just get down with it". No, legal approaches have their own problems, hardships and headaches, but they would provide the country with something more stable instead. This approach would help us bond with other classes of society, bond with cleric classes, gather people together and reduce risks and costs for those classes who want to take part in mass activities.

If people are involved and exposed in a movement for a long time, it’s going to harm them. Naturally, with country’s current problems and the economic situation, their support would deteriorate. We must not let the official format (of the current government) become hegemonic, meaning that they have got the people to cope with whatever. We must raise and discuss these issues so that people are aware.

Action within the frameworks of the system

I have pointed this out before that hopefully (if God is willing) our actions too should remain in the frameworks of the system. Now our strategizing units should take care of questions like what organizational work we should take on, or things like necessity of a new party through brainstorms. Yesterday we had a discussion with a group of friends and managerial executives of the country. We talked about how the course of action that the (incumbent) government took, has ignored and alienated an immense force. If university professors and elites of the country stay with this (immense force ignored by incumbent) we can organize a national project through different NGOs active in economic, cultural and political issues while at the same time come together, centralized, all following the same goals. This is a challenging work, but it’s very doable, and we can take it on. This would consequently allow us to keep those forces that have recently risen alive and awake; and fight hopelessness as the most fearful condition we could be led to.

I remember many of you when we joined together to make this crowd 25 years ago. You were all young. I was here from the very beginning. You have all grown up now and have children. You probably have children that had turned away from politics, but have accompanied you this time around [people in the crowd: not only accompanied but also stepped further ahead of us], ok and stepped further ahead of you, [people in the crowd: and now they are hopeless], Alas, this is what I’m talking about, we must do something that they (the younger ones) would not yield to hopelessness, we must do something that they wouldn’t lose hope, we must open up a new way and tell then that future maybe full of hardships but it’s a doable future to make.

Our whole system of governance is not limited to the presidential government, and our whole history is not 4 years or 8 years. We are a country with a long history. History tells us we are 2500, 3000 years old, but we have artifacts dating back to 12000 years. We have a long ancient history. We’ve had countless ups and downs, and this is one of those ups and downs. It’d require sacrifice. Some may not survive. Some would rise up and others would fall down. However, in the grand scheme of our history all this would have minimal influence. We must get this across to our young ones. We must tell them that this is some hard work, nobody would just hand you a well developed future. I don’t think that there’s a well-developed country that has not gone through these phases. What I mean is that, all countries have gone through some challenging routes, and we are no exception.

Hopefully (if God is willing) we should inspire our youth with a hopeful spirit and maintain the unity of the nation and push forward with it. We must also think of solutions, practical solutions. Managing our current position in the incoming month, would one of the most arduous phases. There are many possibilities. Obviously, our establishment would have paid minimally if it would have investigated the truth, and everybody would have abided by the results. Now whether we find a solution or not; well, Mr. Khatami (a former and first reformist president of Iran) has taken action for a solution and some of the Ayatollahs of Qom (the seminary city), have devised a solution, some of the higher ranking people within the system too are looking for solutions, to see whether they can find a way out.

Now, like the annulment of any second stage in the election process, or the ostensible investigators’ committee (fact-seeking committee) with ideas just to wrap stuff up, our solutions are almost, not completely but at least almost, impossible to conclude to anything practical. I am not very optimistic on this, but this is a phase we must go through. Same (pessimism is expected) from the Guardian Council, hopefully (if god is willing) I am wrong that they would act partially, we can only pray that they would act impartial. They could at least assuage people a bit even if they find 5% fraud, and they come out and declare that 5% as illegal actions committed during the election.

Now, the extent to which they are willing to admit to this (fraud) is another thing, but the important things are what course of action we would take and what people’s expectations are. Some people shout very radical slogans. There were slogans saying: “Mousavi, Mousavi, get our votes back” as if I have collected the votes myself. (Mousavi chuckling) In the crowds I replied that “I don’t have the votes with me!” (audience in the room laughing) I told them that we would all try and will get our votes back together. (audience in the room now shouting slogans too: “get our votes back, get our votes back”) Yes, of course, get our votes back. Of course, people are getting more realistic and they know that our resources are very limited, they are adapting to this reality (of limited resources) and (instead) they are organizing themselves within themselves.

In the current situations (of people getting detained) this issue, and continuing on (with the movement), is naturally accompanied by many costs and possible harms, which should makes questionable whether this would continue on or not. What Dr. Hazeri said earlier on in this meeting is very important. It should be discussed and talked about so that we can find approaches on our next steps. For now, we have a shabby little campaign headquarters. They’ve attacked us, they took whoever could have been more helpful and influential and locked them away until they got to top senior members.

The same Alireza Beheshti (Son of Ayatollah Beheshti. The father was assassinated by People’s Mujahedin (fighters) of Iran (hereafter MKO) bombings during the war, who was the first head of judiciary courts in the Islamic republic and one of the three closest and most influencial men on Ayatollah Khomeini the leader of the revolution along with Rafsanjani – now head of Assembly of Experts and Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. and Khamenei – the Supreme Leader.) when he got arrested in our newspaper headquarters; he was one of the most influential of our people. We thought they would arrest both brothers (both sons are close friends and consultant to Mr. Mousavi) and they got really close to arresting them too, but they decided to let them go.

We are analyzing our current position, hopefully (if God is willing) we would take decisions that are in line with our national interests and religious beliefs. We should not leave our principles no matter how radicalized the environment turns out to be, even if we have to sacrifice ourselves for it. We are committed to avoid lies, act truthfully, accept something if it turns out right, and committed to open up if a proper solution would come about even if it would harm us. I know that if our intentions are good, God too would help us.

I here take stand and swear that all the incidents that have happened were significant events and I don’t associate them with any weaknesses in our management. We were a bunch, among us Mr. Manouchehri who laughs a lot because he knows this. (Mousavi chuckling himself) You (Mr. Manouchehri) do know. (audience laughs) We were a group of friends and people we decided to run and to act and strategize the way we did. Because of our honesty, God blessed us and this nation-wide environment was created as an asset for our nation. In future too we will believe in our own abilities and we would rely on our own ethics and of course we must have aptitude in our management to move within our frameworks. I am confident and hopeful that definitely (in the end) this movement will be beneficial to our nation.

Iran: Assessing the Challenge to Ahmadinejad and Khamenei

The Latest from Iran (23 August): An Anti-Ahmadinejad Bloc?

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Since the start of the post-election crisis, our assessment at Enduring America has been that the primary challenge within the Iranian system is to President Ahmadinejad's authority; we've gone so far as to argue that he is a "lame duck" even before his second term is underway. Despite flutters over the last week that the Green opposition is spent and that Hashemi Rafsanjani has caved in, we stand by that analysis.

Maryam at Keeping the Change has her own critique of this issue:

The "Freedom to Challenge:" Public Criticism of Ahmadinejad and Khamanei

For more than two months, the world has watched as Iran's Reformists have battled with Establishment figures over the June 12th election results. In recent weeks, the friction within Iran's Establishment has received comparable attention, becoming headline grabbing news for media outlets across the globe. Whether it's conservative-camp criticism against Ahmadinejad or statements attacking the Supreme Leader by former MPs and religious figures, the international press has been up in arms, "probing," "examining," and "demystifying" what it has understood as " significant challenges" from inside and outside the Establishment to Ahmadinejad and Khamanei's continued power.

This response to the public outpourings of approbation, while unsurprising, is to a certain extent an exaggeration of the situation. Admittedly, Iran is hardly a bastion of individual liberty, with freedom of speech, much like the right to vote, being a much circumscribed right within the Islamic Republic. Nonetheless, whatever its quality, political criticism in Iran does exist in a limited form. To whit, "freedom of speech" bubbles over, as long as the denounced subject is relatively powerless and, therefore, a non-controversial target.

In this spirit, criticism of Ahmadinejad is alive and well in the country -- even prior to the June 12th elections, robust challenges to Ahmadinejad and his policies came in all shapes and sizes, from the highest-echelons of the government to the man on the street. Public censure of the Supreme Leader is, however, another matter entirely. As many have noted by now, instances of open criticism against the Leader are unheard of and overt critics of Khamanei few and far between (the government is widely-believed to be responsible for the 1995 death of Ahmad Khomeini, son of the Islamic Republic's founding father and a vocal critic of Khamanei). The current outpouring of sentiment critical of the Leader should, therefore, rightly cause the world to stand up and take notice. At the same time, however, interpreting these public statements as representing a political threat to the Leader's continued rule is another matter entirely.

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Iran: Government Says, "Overweight? Try Prison"

The Latest from Iran (23 August): An Anti-Ahmadinejad Bloc?

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From Press TV, "Ahmadinejad aide says jail improves health condition":

Amid concerns over health conditions and treatment of Iran's post-vote detainees, an aide to the Iranian president moves to defuse the controversy by saying that serving time in prison helps you understand the importance of keeping your weight under control.

Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisor for press affairs, addressed concerns over health conditions of jailed Reformist figure Mohammed-Ali Abtahi.

Former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a Reformist cleric, appeared in one of Iran's mass post-election trials saying that the three opposition leaders - Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani formed an alliance in which they "promised to always back each other up" in their efforts to rob the presidency from its 'legitimate winner.'

Following the televised trial, photos of Abtahi circulated the media with human rights activists and opposition figures questioning the credibility of the confessions made by Abtahi who had lost visible weight.

In an interview on Saturday, President Ahmadinejad's advisor explained why the Reformist figure looked so frail during his appearance at court in Tehran.

"It is only natural for a person who has gained an excessive amount of weight to come to his senses in prison that being overweight is not good for your mental of physical health," Javanfekr reasoned.

"Maybe Mr. Abtahi has seized this opportunity and made an effort to lose weight," he was quoted as saying by Tabnak.

The jailed cleric was an advisor to defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi and is accused of provoking and taking part in protests in the capital, Tehran.

Latest Iran Video: Protests from Prisons to Football Stadiums (21-22 August)

The Latest from Iran (23 August): An Anti-Ahmadinejad Bloc?

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In Front of Evin Prison, 22 August

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkWm4-CbwyQ[/youtube]

Azadi Stadium, Tehran, "Ya Hossein! Mir Hossein!", 21 August

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaQOAg86tw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkWm4-CbwyQ[/youtube]