[This commentary was originally published in CounterPunch.]

President Obama called on the Iranian government to allow protesters to control the streets in Tehran. Would Obama or any US president allow protesters to control the streets in Washington, D.C.?

There was more objective evidence that George W. Bush stole his two elections than there is at this time of election theft in Iran. But there was no orchestrated media campaign to discredit the US government.

On May 16, 2007, the London Telegraph reported that Bush regime official John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”

We are now witnessing in Tehran US “attempts to foment a popular revolution” in the guise of another CIA orchestrated “color revolution.” It is possible that splits among the mullahs themselves brought about by their rival ambitions will aid and abet what the Telegraph (May 27, 2007) reported were “CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.” It is certainly a fact that the secularized youth of Tehran have played into the CIA’s hands.

The Mousavi protests have set up Iran either for a US puppet government or for a military strike. The mullahs are in a lose-lose situation. Even if the mullahs hold together and suppress the protests, the legitimacy of the Iranian government in the eyes of the outside world has been damaged. Obama’s diplomatic approach is over before it started. The neocons and Israel have won.

The US intervention and the orchestrated disinformation pumped out by the western media are so transparent that it is impossible to believe than any informed person or government is taken in. One cannot avoid the conclusion that the West wants the 1978 Iranian Revolution overthrown and intends to use deception or violence to achieve that goal.

It has become increasingly difficult to believe that facts and truth motivate the western news media. For the record, I would like to point out a few of the most obvious oversights, to use an euphemism, in the Iran reporting.

According to a wide variety of news sources (for example, London Telegraph, Yahoo News, The Globe and Mail, Asbarez.com, Politico), “Before the polling closed Mr. Mousavi declared himself ‘definitely the winner’ based on ‘all indications from all over Iran.’ He alleged widespread voting irregularities without giving specifics and hinted he was ready to challenge the final results.” Other news sources, which might not have been aware that the polls were kept open several hours beyond normal closing time in order to accommodate the turnout, reported that Mousavi made his victory claim the minute polls closed.

Mousavi’s premature claim of victory before polling was over or votes counted is clearly a preemptive move, the purpose of which is to discredit any other outcome. There is no other reason to make such a claim.

In Iran’s system, election fraud has no purpose, because a small select group of ruling mullahs select the candidates who are put on the ballot. If they don’t like an aspiring candidate, they simply don’t put him on the ballot.

When the liberal reformer Khatami ran for president, he won with 70 per cent of the vote and served from 1997-2005. If the mullahs didn’t defraud Khatami of his win, it seems unlikely they would defraud an establishment figure like Mousavi, who was foreign minister in the most conservative government, and is backed by another establishment figure, Rafsanjani.

As Mousavi was seen as Rafsanjani’s man, why is it “unbelievable” that Ahmadinejad defeated Mousavi by the same margin that he defeated Rafsanjani in the previous election?

Neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman let the cat out of the bag that there was an orchestrated “color revolution” in the works. Before the election, Timmerman wrote: “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” Why would protests be organized prior to a vote and announcement of the outcome? Organized protests waiting in the wings are not spontaneous responses to a stolen election.

Timmerman’s organization, Foundation for Democracy, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for the explicit purpose of promoting democracy in Iran. According to Timmerman, NED money was funneled to “pro-Mousavi groups who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”

The US media has studiously ignored all of these highly suggestive facts. The media is not reporting or providing objective analysis. It is engaged in a propagandistic onslaught against the Iranian government.

We know that the US funds terrorist organizations inside Iran that are responsible for bombings and other violent acts. It is likely that these terrorist organizations are responsible for the burning buses and other acts of violence that have occurred during the demonstrations in Tehran.

A writer on pakalert.wordpress.com says that he was intrigued by the sudden appearance of tens of thousands of Twitter allegations that Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian election. He investigated, he says, and he reports that each of the new highly active accounts were created on Saturday, June 13th. “IranElection” is their most popular keyword. He narrowed the spammers to the most persistent: @StopAhmadi, @IranRiggedElect, and @Change_For_Iran. He researched further and found that on June 14 the Jerusalem Post already had an article on the new twitter. He concludes that the new Twitter sites are propaganda operations.

One wonders why the youth of the world, who do not protest stolen elections elsewhere, are so obsessed with Iran.

The unexamined question is Mousavi and his motives. Why would Mousavi unleash demonstrations that are obviously being used by a hostile West to discredit the government of the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the US puppet government? Are these the actions of a “moderate”? Or are these the actions of a disgruntled man who kept his disaffection from his colleagues in order to gain the opportunity to discredit the regime with street protests? Is Mousavi being manipulated by organizations funded with US government money?

John Bolton laid out the US strategy. First we try to destabilize the regime. Failing that, we strike them militarily. As this strategy unfolds, Iranians will pay in lost independence or in blood for the naiveness of its secularized youth and for the mistake the mullahs made in trusting Mousavi.

[This commentary was originally published in CounterPunch.]

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Paul Craig Roberts, was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Click here to contact Mr. Roberts.

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