Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November --- 3rd Set)

Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 4th Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 2nd Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 1st Set)
The Latest from Iran (4 November — 13 Aban): Today Is The Day

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Another Video of Karroubi's Arrival at Rally

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLShLX0y84E[/youtube]

Azad University, Qazvin

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XVdavbHivs[/youtube]

Tabriz

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

Protesting and Hiding from Security Forces

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

"Ya Hossein! Mir Hossein!" in Tehran Metro

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TToTuwv3Spc[/youtube]

Surrounding a Basij

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxTMCh58_SM[/youtube]

Crowd Rally in Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Gy1aXzZ1Q[/youtube]

Security Personnel Beat Women

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5s4iXeQOkE[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfJyPOCiLy8[/youtube]

Tabriz

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPM7cGAjJFA[/youtube]

Ferdowsi University, Mashaad

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhZzx8mYqTw[/youtube]

Tehran, Vali-e Asr Avenue

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRQ-ppt_82A[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN4bJ84B_wg[/youtube]

Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November --- 2nd Set)

Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 4th Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 3rd Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November --- 1st Set)
The Latest from Iran (4 November — 13 Aban): Today Is The Day

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Stomping on Khamenei's Image, Attacking His Billboard

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67CHF49BB0o[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVjqewNANCY[/youtube]

Plainclothes Forces Arrest Protestors

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXp7bv3Biv0[/youtube]


Karroubi Arrival at Rally

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W78A7DcVBm8&feature=sub[/youtube]

Tabriz University

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB1tN5fpZlA[/youtube]

Azad University, Mashaad

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnSdn-E1QCs[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7mR8sizy2A[/youtube]

Chamran University, Ahwaz

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

Security Forces Beating People

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ONZxOB4k0[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOoNuIXb0bE[/youtube]

Tehran, Shariati Street

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGqGiXi0Ct8[/youtube]

Shiraz

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyocNTR7yCI[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D6mcsTP_iw[/youtube]

Tehran University

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2U9ALI4XN0[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXkw3DUM6ps[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUbfDN_H_FU[/youtube]

Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November --- 1st Set)

Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 4th Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November — 3rd Set)
Latest Iran Video: The 13 Aban Protests (4 November --- 2nd Set)
The Latest from Iran (4 November — 13 Aban): Today Is The Day

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Twelve top videos from 13 Aban. Another 15+ in our 2nd set of clips. There are 15+ in  our 3rd set, and we've now started a 4th set.


Arrival of Mehdi Karroubi at March Near 7 Tir Square

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EaAnioHs8c[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuGNPxkIXU4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoYOo7UYIo[/youtube]

"Obama, You're Either with Them or with Us"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-yLLZ3JGfM[/youtube]

Tehran: "Khamenei is a murderer, his Rule as [Supreme Leader] is null and void".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQDMHL8ZWsw[/youtube]

Security Forces on Bikes

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3asHyk_TWN4[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVMJagCnQs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beCpmZ6QBwU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vuAuz6J520[/youtube]

Tehran, Karimkhan Bridge

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi0YCxEIFpo[/youtube]

Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GANX_lA0GqQ[/youtube]

Rasht

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heY4pt68xXk[/youtube]

Iran: Josh Shahryar on Fictions & Realities of "Revolution"

Iran: A Response to “What If the Green Movement Isn’t Ours?” (The Sequel)
Iran: A Response to an American Who Asks, “What if the Green Movement Isn’t ‘Ours’?

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First of all, I must say that I admire and respect Roger Cohen. He has a been a vital asset for the international community in discerning truth from fiction when it came to the ongoing crisis in Iran. However, his recent article in The New York Times angered me not because it is ridiculously flawed – it is not – but because I did not expect Cohen to be so shallow in thought on protest and "revolution".

In his article, Cohen asks a question that confounded me:

In 1989, the revolutionary year, the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in Beijing and, five months later, the division of Europe ended with the fall of the Wall in Berlin. Could it have been otherwise? Might China have opened to greater democracy while European uprisings were shot down?

We cannot know any more than we know what lies on the road not taken or what a pregnant glance exchanged but never explored might have yielded.

Well, I respectfully beg to differ on the comparison between Eastern Europe and China. We do know: the respective outcomes of the movements in 1989 could not have been otherwise. For what Mr. Cohen fails to mention is that the political situations in China and Eastern Europe were worlds apart.

The Eastern Bloc, along with the USSR, was economically feeble, with rampant problems plaguing it for decades. The governments had lost trust to the point where 99% of the people of Poland voted for the anti-communist Solidarity party in the 1989 elections. At the same time, authoritarianism had waned considerably in the region.

Eastern Europe had been steadily opening up its approach to popular dissent among its citizens. Glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev’s policies that radically opened up Soviet society, had been in effect for years. The USSR had relaxed its intervention in the internal affairs of Eastern European countries, and governments were more ready for peaceful negotiations than for massacres.

This was not the case in the People’s Republic of China in 1989. The country’s political elite had been strengthened by the West so that China could be used as a pawn against the USSR in the Cold War. Domestic policy was pretty much the same as it was under Chairman Mao.

Furthermore, the West was not really that interested in negotiations with the Chinese over human rights issues as they were in the case of Eastern Europe, and China’s government was not being pounded as much as its less fortunate Communist counterparts by internal problems. While the Eastern European economy had gone from relatively good to very bad, the Chinese economy had improved significantly since Mao’s disastrous utopian schemes.

These differences are the key to understanding why the 1989 revolutionary wave failed in China and succeeded in Eastern Europe. Yet, to go further and to arrive at the heart of Cohen's analysis and our discussion, both these revolutionary waves are inapplicable in the current Iranian situation. Unlike Eastern Europe, the Greens do not form an almost uniform majority of the populace, but unlike China, their numbers are much higher and they are distributed across the country more uniformly.

The position of the Iranian Government is neither absolutely safe nor absolutely vulnerable like Eastern Europe 1989. There is growing dissent among former members of the government and the elite's clerics. Finally, the Government’s policies on access to information are neither open like those during the Eastern European uprisings nor utterly closed like those in China. Although pro-Green media have been largely blacked out now, before the protests the anti-establishment faction of the population had relatively good access to news and analysis.

Given these circumstances, the best way to describe the situation in Iran is that of stalemate. The government cannot possibly attempt to repeat the Tiananmen Square suppression of 1989 because it could bring undesired results. It would alienate the already-raging opposition clerics, politicians within the government who are sympathetic to Greens, and supporters of the government within the population. This could prove disastrous.

The Greens, on the other hand, do not have a quick victory in sight. Even if Mir Hossein Mousavi marched his supporters and took over government buildings, the Revolutionary Guard would step in and massacre them. The idea that three million protesters are unstoppable because no one can halt millions is naïve.

There is an old fable in Persian: If 20 sparrows are perched on a tree and you shoot one, how many sparrows remain? The answer is none. You don’t have to kill a million people to scatter two million. You only need to kill a thousand or so, and the government of Iran seems to have the power to do so if it is pushed too far too soon.

So, for now, both sides are reluctant to escalate the situation further because neither is prepared or ready to strike a killer blow. Tomorrow’s 13 Aban protests throughout Iran will be yet another replay of strategies. The protesters will attempt to isolate the government further, and the government will attempt to emerge with minimal casualties inflicted upon the populace and minimal damage to its grip on power. Both sides will likely retire after the showdown to prepare for forthcoming rounds. Unlike China and Eastern Europe in 1989, we are in for a very long haul.

Text: President Obama's Statement on Iran (4 November)

The Latest from Iran (4 November — 13 Aban): Today Is The Day

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"Thirty years ago today, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized. The 444 days that began on November 4, 1979 deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and we owe these Americans and their families our gratitude for their extraordinary service and sacrifice.

This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation. I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. We have condemned terrorist attacks against Iran. We have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power. We have demonstrated our willingness to take confidence-building steps along with others in the international community. We have accepted a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet Iran’s request for assistance in meeting the medical needs of its people. We have made clear that if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.

Iran must choose. We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for. The American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history. The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights. It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people."