Iran: Is It a Coup?

Some of the best coverage on what is happening inside of Tehren is coming from Andrew Sullivan. He has a lot of on the spot Twitter updates, complete with photographs showing that this is not just a small number of people protesting. The young men and women from Tehran university have been attacked. At least 11 girls have been attacked in their dorms. On top of that the thugs are preventing the injured from receiving hospital attention. At least one individual, a 17 year old has been killed by the government thugs.

However, the question remains: is it a coup? Looking at how the facts are presenting, the chain of events happens to be that Ahmadinejad must have feared that he would lose the Presidential race. As a result the government had started moving in the thugs prior to the result, in readiness for something to happen. The Mousavi side has been reporting that the Ministry of the Interior had contacted them with the news that Mousavi was the clear winner, and not to say anything because the ground had to be prepared for this result. A few hours later the tables had been turned and Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway winner. This is when the Mousavi supporters took to the streets demanding to know what happened to their votes. The word is that there has been a coup, but it is not at all clear that there is a coup like we have seen in the past in these tin pot dictatorships.

What seems likely is that Ahmadinejad has seized power. There are a number of anomalies regarding the election results that need to be addressed. These anomalies include:

• the complaint that a truckload of ballot papers was made to disappear. One person on twitter stated that the truck was set alight;
• the fact that there were mobile polling stations where there was insufficient checking on the credentials of the voters;
• the most obvious anomaly is the vote for Ahmadinejad in the provinces that supported the opposition candidates. The results were way different than the previous election;
• there should have been a three day gap before Khamenei announced the result of the election, but he has come out stating that the result is final. This raises the question about Khamenei’s involvement in what appears to have been a coup.

From the signs and the protests of the people it seems that a lot of votes either went missing or the information was changed. The people know how they voted, and it was not in favour of Ahmadinejad. Since Dinnerjacket is such a megalomanic it is probable that he decided prior to the result that if he lost that he would seize control of the government. What is unclear is whether he has taken control away from the mullahs or whether Khamenei actually

What makes this look like a coup is the presence of the police and other armed forces, as well as foreign forces. It is believed that the men on the motorcycles who were beating up the demonstrators were not Iranians but belonged to Hezbollah. It has also been reported (not a reliable source at the moment) that forces are on the way from Venezuela. All of this activity points to an Ahmadinejad coup.

This begs the question: Should world leaders acknowledge this now illegal President who has seized power after he was ousted by popular vote? I will for now leave that question unanswered.