Are the Iranian Election Protests Another US Orchestrated Color Revolution?

Of course it is impossible to know the extent of US involvement in the Iranian situation but it is clear that the mainstream media are supporting the opposition to the hilt. There is no need for secret operations to be involved in this nor in enlisting the support of US liberals for the opposition for this support almost comes by nature. Support for US imperialism is bipartisan. Those who are critical of this support are few and far between but are on both the right and the left.
However, Roberts is no doubt right that there is also clandestine support for the opposition involving funds put aside for destabilizing the regime. News reporters often cite official Iranian complaints of foreign interventions as if they were just to be dismissed as propaganda when the facts show as this article points out that the US has made it an explicit policy to destabilise the regime! Of course the Iranian response is almost automatic and used as a tool but it also happens to have considerable truth in it.


Are the Iranian Election Protests Another US Orchestrated ‘Color Revolution’?
By Paul Craig RobertsJune 20, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --
-A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs' lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion, Ahmadinejad's attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government. On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger 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.”On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this.Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the election protests. Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”

The US has been trying to destabilise Iran for some time.

This is part of an article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker about a year ago. Now certainly one way to destabilise the leadership is to foment splits such as that between Rafsanjani and Khatemi and Ahmadinejad. Of course all of this is done. Obama can make it look as if the U.S. is not interfering at all by his very cautious statements that at first did not directly criticise the govt. However the Republicans and even some Democrats have encouraged him to be more critical not caring it seems that this will just help the hardliners and confirm what should already be known that the US is working behind the scenes to help get Ahmadinejad out. They want the rich, accommodating, economically liberal and purportedly corrupt Rafsanjani to be more powerful. The US and western media in general need no direction from the CIA or special ops because on their own they have become cheerleaders for the reformers and want to steal the election from Ahmadinejad. The State Dept. did its part by asking Twitter not to go down for maintenance but keep up the good work by helping the reform cause.


Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
By Seymour M. Hersh
29/06/08 "New Yorker" -- -- Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.