It is no surprise that Iran's Council of Guardians has declined to cancel the presidential elections and has set a date for the re-inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the country. The speech by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, signaled the coming phase. The brave Iranian people revolted against a leadership that was unprepared to respond to its legitimate demand to hold a second election after the first one was tampered with, in the interest of a president who has isolated his big country and waged war against the entire world. It is true that the popular demonstrations in Iran demonstrated the great bravery of a people as it confronted the Basij militia, which oppressed and killed people without hesitation. Despite this, demonstrators took to the streets and chanted “Death to the Dictator,” and on Saturday, they cried out “Death to Khamenei,” who leads this repressive regime with the help of the Basij militia and the Revolutionary Guards. The division that the Iranian Revolution has witnessed in its higher leadership, represented by the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad versus others like Hashemi Rafsanjani, former President Mohammad Khatami, and presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, in addition to figures such as Ayatollah Montazari, could result in more repression, militancy and isolation for the Iranian regime. It is obvious that Khamenei possesses the tools of repression, and that his opponents do not have the power to change the situation and topple Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, who represent the current regime in Iran. This important division in the Iranian regime has been present since Khatami became president. Khatami became president thanks to the will of the people, which wanted openness, reform, modernization and an exit from isolation. However, the regime caused him to fail and paralyzed his moves as president, thanks to the forces of militancy and repression that blocked him. Khatami was unable to undertake any reform or change, because he was always forced to placate the conservative, hard-line faction and move slowly. Rafsanjani, Khatami and Mousavi are unable to change the equation; only the people, youth and the bazaar can do this. However, how many people will be killed until the people emerges victorious? Can a people, no matter how brave it is, bear the daily burden of people killed in the streets, and continue to demonstrate? This is the question. No matter how heroic the Iranian people are, they will be murdered and repressed in the end. Thus, the immediate future might bode more repression, militancy and international isolation, and the biggest disaster is the constant meddling by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is meeting in Paris today with French President Nicholas Sarkozy and the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is determined to focus his discussions on Iran, to avoid the topic of freezing settlements, which the US and Europe are demanding of his government. Netanyahu wants to mobilize the Europeans against the threat from Iran's nuclear program, even though there is no need for such a step. The French position is very hard-line vis-à-vis the repression, killing and human rights violations taking place in Iran. However, the Israeli intervention increases instability and escalation in the region, since it works to support hard-line Iranian leaders, who use this intervention as a pretext for more repression. This Israeli stance gives Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria the pretext to strengthen their ties with the Iranian leadership, which continues to use its negotiating cards in the Middle East to confront the West. It is true that the Iranians are an ancient and brave people, and that the current leadership is violating their rights and destroying their future. However, Israeli intervention and the lack of caution by the Europeans in their responses are escalating the repression in Iran; this explains the more cautious stance by US President Barack Obama, who has a greater awareness of the dangers of the near future in Iran. Khomenei's revolution arrived from France, and specifically from Neauphle le Chateau in 1979, but it actually sprung from the rights of the Iranian people. Domestic conditions are the only thing that will decide the country's future. Unemployment, inflation, poverty and misery are behind the people's disgust with the regime, which has yet to lose its legitimacy after rigged elections.
