For three decades, the west considered the Islamic republic of Iran a widely supported government and the Iranian people in line with the ideologies of its leaders, however as an Iranian who lived most of my life under the rule of Islamic Republic, I had always tried to inform Americans that the majority of people in Iran and specially the generations who grew up or born after the revolution have opposite ideological views than the ruling system and their supporters.
When the post election green movement uprising erupted, the majority in the west considered as just anger for the ballet box cheating and not disagreement to the whole system, however my view and the view of people who've actually lived in Iran as ordinary Iranians without ties to the regime was the fact that the election results were used as an excuse to bring about regime change and secular democracy.
Since the very early days of the demonstrations and specially after they witnessed the brutal crackdown on their peaceful demands and after the people gained more confidence in the movement, they started to minimize the election-results related slogans and focus more on the more radical slogans against the entire Islamic system such as "Mousavi Is Only An Excuse, the Entire System [Islamic Republic] Is the Target" or taking out Islamic and chanting "Freedom, Independence, Iranian Republic" , "Death To Khamenei", "Death To Velayate Faqih [the backbone of the Islamic repblic]" , "Religion must be separated from politics" and so on.
However the western media ignored many of the facts about the peoples demands Vs. the so called "reformist leaders", Mousavi, Karoubi, Rafsanjani and Khatami themselves the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic and loyal to the Islamic Republic and repeatedly stated preservation of the system as their top priority and stayed loyal to the Islamic Republic, its founders and its barbaric constitution up until this day.
Unfortunately the western media as well as the Obama administration and the congress at large are hijacked by thousands of Iranian activists, reporters, journalists, professors, lobbyists, etc with either direct or indirect ties to the Islamic Republic mafias or with personal interest in the Islamic Republic and the rest of the media takes its guidelines from such groups and individuals.
The reformers are respectively the oppositions within the regime and are in struggle mainly for their own demands and interests while trying to save the system, but the demands of the people are far beyond reform of the system "lipstick on a pig" because they've experience Iran under the reformist leadership of Khatami for 8 years, Rafsanjani himself was president for another 8 years and still the head of the most powerful entity within the Islamic republic with power to remove Khamenei from power. Mousavi was also a prime minister when most of the Islamic Republic's crimes took place. However, we can't blame the reformers for anything that went wrong in the past, but their silence to the crimes and their failure to give any logical explanation or apology doesn't convince many of the Iranians to support them.
I should also clarify the fact that none of the reformists has ever claimed the leadership of the movement and are respected as the supporters of the people's demands. The Movement's true leaders are the students, workers and the freedom loving Iranian people.
After all, since the movement has a secular democratic nature, it can only be directed by the like minded groups, parties and individuals. The reformers haven't proved any successful leadership and any of their attempts has so far been to slowdown the movement.
The latest statement from Mousavi showed a progressive shift to move closer to the people's secular demands, talking about the separation of religion from state, gender equality, religious freedom in a very mild way, but yet a good start.
However, one might argue that Khomeini (Mousavi's idol) also promised secularism, separation of religion from state, a true republic but more respectful to religion, share of oil revenue, equality, justice and anything a democratic leader would promise, but the moment Khomeini seized power started to show a different face. first he ordered execution and imprisonment of any member of the Pahlavi regime even the ones who opposed Shah in legitimate ways and even jailed for opposing the Shah starting with the generals and former prime ministers, at least 5,000 people recorded to be executed withing the first 2 years of the revolution. During the so-called referendum people where given only 2 choices, "Do you still want the Shah?" and "Do you want Islamic Republic?" without giving any definition what the Islamic Republic constitution would be. Many of the political party members simply didn't participate because they didn't agree with neither one of the choices giving the Islamic Republic majority vote. Right after the referendum, Khomeini banned all other political parties and ordered his newly established Revolutionary Guards to crush anyone not fully inline with Khomeini's ideologies.
Here's the problem, we don't want the history to repeat itself and the reformers seize power, all other political groups banned and use the same revolutionary guards currently in control of the hardliners to continue oppressing people. I don't see nothing wrong with supporting Mousavi's stance against the other more brutal fractions of the Islamic republic, but we don't want "One man lead all" anymore and since the nature of the green movement is secular democratic (more correct to say secular republic), without any engagement of the reformers with secular democratic and other opposition groups currently abroad 1st, victory won't be that easy 2nd, in case of victory, by having only one legal political party (the reformist party) in power, one dictatorship will be replaced with another one.
Any single party system will result in dictatorship, at the same time since there is no such atmosphere inside the country to form political parties other than the reformist and the hard liners, the only solution is a coalition of the secular democratic parties and organizations abroad with potential coordination with the reform opposition inside the country to create a powerful, influential and organized opposition independent from the Islamic republic to give the movement a better direction and develop strategies that lead the movement to an ultimate victory while capable of controlling the post-Islamic Republic atmosphere until a new constitution is written and national referendum taken place.
Formation of such coalition is far more easier than many think. All we need to do is to unite based on basic principals of human rights and secular democracy and leave our political ideologies behind until there is a level of freedom in Iran to represent our political perspectives before and after the referendum in Iran. We have already put this theory to test under SCADI group and worked, people of diverse political backgrounds including reformers, republicans, non-partisan secular democrats, Marxists, Tudeh, Monarchists, etc have united to participate in joint activities and so far has been very productive and successful.
In a much larger scale, under a similar platform all opposition groups can be united to organize a powerful coalition. By using each one of the groups, individuals and parties resources for a common cause/goal, it can eventually become the most powerful force and also a good example of how all Iranians can one day live together aside from their political, social, religious and other ideologies in peace and harmony. The goal must be to unite all Iranians all around the world in solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran in support for their demands.
The Iranian community in the west has many resources to use and help/direct the movement of people in Iran if united. International Iranian community has many satellite TV stations, radio stations, thousands of websites, can rise millions of dollars in funds if necessary, has political resources and lobby power to get help from other nations, has the highest level of education per capita among all other ethnic groups in the west and millions who truly love and care about their homeland. We need to organize our resources, Iran belongs to all of us.
I am an Iranian engaged with several human rights and pro-democracy NGO's.
All secular democratic Iranian groups and individuals both in and out of Iran (the honest ones w/o ties to the regime) agree that crippling sanctions that pressure the Islamic republic financially by cutting off oil revenue, access to credit, minimize investment in Iran's oil and mineral sector and sanction on all the firms connected to the regime and IRGC are necessary to weaken the regime and give better chances to the green movement.
I was also one of the first to propose satellite internet and satellite mobile service for the Iranians and also gave guidelines about how to make the technology available in Iran by making them available to the smugglers near the Iranian borders.
There is also a need for a "Voice of Democracy" SW radio station to deliver messages and programs to different parts of Iran+ VOA Persian's directory board should be replaced with pro-democracy individuals, the taxpayer funded media outlet is currently under the control of people with connections to IRI and sensor the contents that support regime change and secular democracy.
Cyrus
When the post election green movement uprising erupted, the majority in the west considered as just anger for the ballet box cheating and not disagreement to the whole system, however my view and the view of people who've actually lived in Iran as ordinary Iranians without ties to the regime was the fact that the election results were used as an excuse to bring about regime change and secular democracy.
Since the very early days of the demonstrations and specially after they witnessed the brutal crackdown on their peaceful demands and after the people gained more confidence in the movement, they started to minimize the election-results related slogans and focus more on the more radical slogans against the entire Islamic system such as "Mousavi Is Only An Excuse, the Entire System [Islamic Republic] Is the Target" or taking out Islamic and chanting "Freedom, Independence, Iranian Republic" , "Death To Khamenei", "Death To Velayate Faqih [the backbone of the Islamic repblic]" , "Religion must be separated from politics" and so on.
However the western media ignored many of the facts about the peoples demands Vs. the so called "reformist leaders", Mousavi, Karoubi, Rafsanjani and Khatami themselves the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic and loyal to the Islamic Republic and repeatedly stated preservation of the system as their top priority and stayed loyal to the Islamic Republic, its founders and its barbaric constitution up until this day.
Unfortunately the western media as well as the Obama administration and the congress at large are hijacked by thousands of Iranian activists, reporters, journalists, professors, lobbyists, etc with either direct or indirect ties to the Islamic Republic mafias or with personal interest in the Islamic Republic and the rest of the media takes its guidelines from such groups and individuals.
The reformers are respectively the oppositions within the regime and are in struggle mainly for their own demands and interests while trying to save the system, but the demands of the people are far beyond reform of the system "lipstick on a pig" because they've experience Iran under the reformist leadership of Khatami for 8 years, Rafsanjani himself was president for another 8 years and still the head of the most powerful entity within the Islamic republic with power to remove Khamenei from power. Mousavi was also a prime minister when most of the Islamic Republic's crimes took place. However, we can't blame the reformers for anything that went wrong in the past, but their silence to the crimes and their failure to give any logical explanation or apology doesn't convince many of the Iranians to support them.
I should also clarify the fact that none of the reformists has ever claimed the leadership of the movement and are respected as the supporters of the people's demands. The Movement's true leaders are the students, workers and the freedom loving Iranian people.
After all, since the movement has a secular democratic nature, it can only be directed by the like minded groups, parties and individuals. The reformers haven't proved any successful leadership and any of their attempts has so far been to slowdown the movement.
The latest statement from Mousavi showed a progressive shift to move closer to the people's secular demands, talking about the separation of religion from state, gender equality, religious freedom in a very mild way, but yet a good start.
However, one might argue that Khomeini (Mousavi's idol) also promised secularism, separation of religion from state, a true republic but more respectful to religion, share of oil revenue, equality, justice and anything a democratic leader would promise, but the moment Khomeini seized power started to show a different face. first he ordered execution and imprisonment of any member of the Pahlavi regime even the ones who opposed Shah in legitimate ways and even jailed for opposing the Shah starting with the generals and former prime ministers, at least 5,000 people recorded to be executed withing the first 2 years of the revolution. During the so-called referendum people where given only 2 choices, "Do you still want the Shah?" and "Do you want Islamic Republic?" without giving any definition what the Islamic Republic constitution would be. Many of the political party members simply didn't participate because they didn't agree with neither one of the choices giving the Islamic Republic majority vote. Right after the referendum, Khomeini banned all other political parties and ordered his newly established Revolutionary Guards to crush anyone not fully inline with Khomeini's ideologies.
Here's the problem, we don't want the history to repeat itself and the reformers seize power, all other political groups banned and use the same revolutionary guards currently in control of the hardliners to continue oppressing people. I don't see nothing wrong with supporting Mousavi's stance against the other more brutal fractions of the Islamic republic, but we don't want "One man lead all" anymore and since the nature of the green movement is secular democratic (more correct to say secular republic), without any engagement of the reformers with secular democratic and other opposition groups currently abroad 1st, victory won't be that easy 2nd, in case of victory, by having only one legal political party (the reformist party) in power, one dictatorship will be replaced with another one.
Any single party system will result in dictatorship, at the same time since there is no such atmosphere inside the country to form political parties other than the reformist and the hard liners, the only solution is a coalition of the secular democratic parties and organizations abroad with potential coordination with the reform opposition inside the country to create a powerful, influential and organized opposition independent from the Islamic republic to give the movement a better direction and develop strategies that lead the movement to an ultimate victory while capable of controlling the post-Islamic Republic atmosphere until a new constitution is written and national referendum taken place.
Formation of such coalition is far more easier than many think. All we need to do is to unite based on basic principals of human rights and secular democracy and leave our political ideologies behind until there is a level of freedom in Iran to represent our political perspectives before and after the referendum in Iran. We have already put this theory to test under SCADI group and worked, people of diverse political backgrounds including reformers, republicans, non-partisan secular democrats, Marxists, Tudeh, Monarchists, etc have united to participate in joint activities and so far has been very productive and successful.
In a much larger scale, under a similar platform all opposition groups can be united to organize a powerful coalition. By using each one of the groups, individuals and parties resources for a common cause/goal, it can eventually become the most powerful force and also a good example of how all Iranians can one day live together aside from their political, social, religious and other ideologies in peace and harmony. The goal must be to unite all Iranians all around the world in solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran in support for their demands.
The Iranian community in the west has many resources to use and help/direct the movement of people in Iran if united. International Iranian community has many satellite TV stations, radio stations, thousands of websites, can rise millions of dollars in funds if necessary, has political resources and lobby power to get help from other nations, has the highest level of education per capita among all other ethnic groups in the west and millions who truly love and care about their homeland. We need to organize our resources, Iran belongs to all of us.
I am an Iranian engaged with several human rights and pro-democracy NGO's.
All secular democratic Iranian groups and individuals both in and out of Iran (the honest ones w/o ties to the regime) agree that crippling sanctions that pressure the Islamic republic financially by cutting off oil revenue, access to credit, minimize investment in Iran's oil and mineral sector and sanction on all the firms connected to the regime and IRGC are necessary to weaken the regime and give better chances to the green movement.
I was also one of the first to propose satellite internet and satellite mobile service for the Iranians and also gave guidelines about how to make the technology available in Iran by making them available to the smugglers near the Iranian borders.
There is also a need for a "Voice of Democracy" SW radio station to deliver messages and programs to different parts of Iran+ VOA Persian's directory board should be replaced with pro-democracy individuals, the taxpayer funded media outlet is currently under the control of people with connections to IRI and sensor the contents that support regime change and secular democracy.
Cyrus
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