Tuesday
Jul272010
Iran Document: Mousavi on Governing and Mis-Governing, Now and in the 1980s (26 July)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 8:58 
An English translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement on Monday, posted on the Facebook site supporting him:During the last years of his regime, the second Pahlavi (the Shah, overthrown in 1979) also announced that the Rastakhiz Party (Renaissance Party) is the only party in the country and we all saw what his fate was. [Editor's Note: This is a reference to President Ahmadinejad's recent declaration that Iran only needs one political party, the Velayat Party.]
Some have seriously mixed the celebration of this day [the birthday of Imam Mehdi, the 12th "hidden" Imam] and the philosophy of “waiting”[for his reappearance] with political agendas and superstitious. Now there are some internet websites that based on their forecast for the resurrection give made-up commentaries on country’s internal and international policies.
In these commentaries, the presence of the United States is considered as a confrontation with Imam Mehdi. Worse than that, dangerous and adventurous policies are recommended to help the resurrection [of the Imam Mehdi]....Some of the foreign policies that have caused the current critical situation have root in this kind of mentality, and the problem does not even end with the foreign policies. With a mind like this, an unordinary sensitivity toward the word progress is formed and this is one of the reasons behind eliminating the planning system and shutting down important councils.
With this belief that in six months to a year Imam Mehdi will emerge, they shut down Kangan Port and Southern Pars [oil and gas] projects. Any planning for water or electricity and in general the economy of the country is halted and instead of creating jobs and trying to invest, the charity-type economy and distributing money among people is substituted. The philosophy of “waiting”, which has always made the believers and followers of Imam Mehdi put in more effort, has been turned upside down.
The rule of justice and elimination of injustice and oppression from the society is the focus of narratives about the resurrection. The root of immoralities in the society are the rule of injustice and the government’s divergence from justice. Don’t think that you can keep a great number of the nation’s children, including intellectuals, academia, teachers, workers, journalists, women and youths, in prison in the name of Islamic government but that this injustice and oppression will have no effect on the people’s beliefs.
Establishing justice and avoiding injustice is the important criterion for measuring how close is a societyto that to the kind ready for Imam Mehdi. The more a regime distances itself from justice and commits injustice, oppression and mistreatment of the people the more it distances itself from the kind of society acceptable to Imam Mehdi.
Ignoring the nation’s right to rule its own fate, disregarding the national covenant and demolishing nation’s rights, shutting down voices and newspapers and turning the national media into an exclusive one, wasting public resources with major economic corruptions, and breaking the backs of the workers, farmers, and employees under high costs are all signs of injustice and oppression and society distancing from the Imam Mehdi’s values.
In a society acceptable to Imam Mehdi, they don’t overlook the major thieves to cut off the hands of a petty thief. We ask again and we will not get tired of asking, "What happened to the files of major financial corruptions?" They were opened in the Parliament, which is in line with the administration, but then the Parliament was shockingly and suddenly silenced.
In this effort not only the foreigners and allies of Saddam [Hussein] are active but the administration’s agents as well.
The appendices that were published [in Government newspapers around the 12 June anniversary of the 2009 Presidential election] are good excuses for the Green Movement to, alongside all its activities, face the history of the last 30 years realistically and study it with its independent investigation.
These days, with the excuse of the anniversary of UN Resolution 598 (the resolution that ended the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq) --- in no previous year had they remembered it --- clear and planned distortions about the history of the Holy Defence (against Iraq’s invasion) and the role of the administration at the time (the cabinet of Prime Minister Mousavi) are fabricated.
These days some are claiming that they wanted to conquer Baghdad but the administration at the time prevented them. I have not yet spoken of the first decade after the revolution and had never intended to speak about it. Apparently, if these distortions continue, to defend the brave soldiers and leaders who had great roles [in protecting the country], I have to tell my untold stories and also what was the reason behind my resignation in 1989.
That former Minister, who himself knows how he was forced on me and knows better than anyone else how all of the government’s facilities were flooding to the war fronts, now says that, if the government’s facilities were at the disposal of the war fronts, we would have conquered Baghdad.
I say that if you [this former Minister]....had the control of the government, you would have done the same thing to the country that you did with the money set aside for the poor and orphans in the Foundation for the Underprivileged during your time as its head.
I cannot believe that [the former Minister has] forgotten that $4 billion out of the $6 billion of the oil revenues were spent at the war fronts and on the war, and the remaining $2 billion were in fact to protect the country....You force me to say that despite the bright outcome of the Holy Defence --- at the cost of the sacrifice of the blood of many and the devotion of the soldiers ready to die --- was that not even a square centimetre of the land of this country was forfeited to the enemy....
Conquering Iraq by handing the government to a few military commanders was not possible. But to achieve the enemy’s certain defeat, it was necessary that from the beginning the relationship between the administration and the control of the war and military planning was not cut. How this relationship was cut is another story that maybe I will explain at another time.
After, as this former minister says,...the control of “the command headquarters for all forces” was given to the administration, there were great improvements in the war fronts in that small time frame....At that time, I accepted the responsibility of heading “the command headquarters for all forces” with the condition that I bring some of the brilliant managers and directors to that centre.
One of the most prominent and most influential of them was Mr. Behzad Nabavi, the senior member of the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution Organization, who we know has all kind of troubles these days [Nabavi has been detained since last summer]. The decision that the headquarters, alongside the military commanders and these brilliant managers, was a fundamental change in the arrangement of the fronts and it was decided that in the least possible tim,e using all of the country’s facilities, the troops present in Kurdestan were transferred to Khuzestan. With the efforts of the governor of Khuzestan,...Mohsen Mirdamadi (the currently imprisoned chairman of the Islamic Iran Participation Front), and other managers in the province, measures were taken to deal with the imminent attack of the enemy.
The prediction of the headquarters was correct. Soon one of the strongest attacks of Saddam occurred and there was one the most epic battles in the history of the Holy Defence, which involved the martyrdom of several children of our country. The enemy received such a slap in the face that after thatit could not manage another attack and that all it could do was to support Monafeghin (the "terrorist" Mojahedin-e-Khalq --- MKO), which led to that great betrayal against Iran with the support of Saddam’s forces, but our people crushed them with their resistance.”
These remarks are to say that if you truly respect the blood of martyrs and the efforts of the support teams and the thorough resistance of all of the nation and the administration during this decisive war..., don’t give in to the demands of those who distort the history and play politics with it.
In the past two decades, I did not think that my own direct information from the war was sufficient, and I tried to also study the documents, manuscripts and printed analyses. I was always careful not only to look at the official documents which had been prepared under the direction of the commanders but also to use the articles and analyses of all experts including those of the Army. One of the best analyses was by the intelligent and patriotic officer, Sergeant Moeeni Vaziri, which I benefited from greatly.
This war has a lot of untold stories, and I have not seen that Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, as the acting commander-in-chief, ever speak of his troubles harmonizing the army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps. The troubles in my view had nothing to do with the body of the IRGC or the army, and I witnessed how eroding these troubles were.
In my opinion, three years into the war, there were fundamental mistakes in determining war strategies. Sending troops to Kurdestan was one of them, and more significant than that was hoping for a great classic operation similar to the enemy’s operations. This greatly diminished our relative advantage as well as the country’s facilities, and for almost five years all of the country’s facilities --- even to the points of taking snow ploughs off the roads, using all of the government’s trucks and even confiscating trucks that belonged to the private sector, as well as employing all financial-industrial capacities of the country --- were used but the result was what we all witnessed.
The idea that this former minister raised was the remainder of those wishful hopes for the classic war plans....This kind of view of the war from the very beginning was opposed among the fighters...In the communications that the commanders, such as the martyr Haaj Davood Karimi, had with me, they preferred operations similar to those during the first era of the Holy Defence. These plans were more in line with the country’s economic and social abilities. In future, if it is needed and I am forced to, I will explain these discussions in more depth.
Reader Comments (5)
[...] News vom 27. Juli Moussavi: Ahmadinedjads abenteuerliche Politik des Wartens auf den Verborgenen Imam [...]
You need to stop calling people martyrs who are not martyrs. A man who gets drafted into the army and is killed in battle is not a martyr. He's only a dead man...
This got picked up by the Western press pretty fast:
'Iran's opposition leader warns rulers could topple'
The Associated Press
Monday, July 26, 2010; 1:17 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/26/AR2010072603012.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
Long live AP! It's the only wire service picking up on this... unfortunately. Have been looking all over the internet for hours for some explanation of whatever Mousavi is saying here. Didn't understand a word of it. Couldn't put it into context. But AP made my day! Thank you, Catherine!
Thanks Catherine! So it all boils down to a former Mousavi minister (Mohsen Rafighdoost) who recently attacked Mousavi, by claiming he - as prime minister - was more concerned about feeding people than conquering Baghdad when the country didn't have enough resources for (Iran - Iraq) war. And who also, incidentally, admitted in his attack to confiscating industrial factories against the wish of the government, to produce weapons - and to smuggling and potential war profiteering... Can't wait to see the next entry on the Neo-Resistance blog! Blogger Naj promised to get back with a translation of Rafighdoosts attack. That will certainly give a better understanding of Mousavi's rebuttal.
http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/