Obama Signs The Iran Sanctions Act

The President recently signed the Iran Sanctions Act, saying that the Iranian government has failed to meet its obligations under Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reiterating that the United States stands with the Iranian people as they pursue universal rights. July 1, 2010.





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Ahmadinejad Uses Captured American Hikers As Bargaining Tool

Iran Floats Prisoner Swap For U.S. Hikers


Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday proposed a swap of Iranians in U.S. prisons for three American hikers being held in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad said in interview with state TV that there were ongoing negotiations about exchanging the hikers for several Iranians jailed for years in the United States.

"There are some talks under way to have an exchange, if it is possible," he said. "Recently they (the U.S.) have sent messages, we answered to bring them (the Iranians), to bring these people (the hikers). We are hopeful that all prisoners will be released."

Ahmadinejad did not mention any specifics but in December Iran released a list of 11 Iranians it says are being held in the U.S. — including a nuclear scientist who disappeared in Saudi Arabia and a former Defense Ministry official who vanished in Turkey. The list also includes an Iranian arrested in Canada on charges of trying to obtain nuclear technology.

"I had said I would help in releasing them, but the attitude of some of U.S. officials damages the job," said Ahmadinejad. "There are a large number of Iranians in prison in the U.S. They have abducted some of our citizens in other countries."

Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were hiking in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region in July when they accidentally crossed the border into Iran, their families have said.

Samantha Topping, a New York City-based spokeswoman for the three families, said they had no comment on Ahmadinejad's remarks.

Cautious U.S. Response

The U.S. State Department responded cautiously.

"We have made clear that what we want is consular access to our citizens in Iranian custody. If President Ahmadinejad's comments suggest that they are prepared to grant us access through the Swiss and resolve the cases of the three hikers and other Americans in custody, we would welcome that step," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said.

Iran's foreign minister said in late December that the three would be tried in court, but he did not say when a trial would begin or what the three would be charged with other than to say they had "suspicious aims." Earlier, the country's chief prosecutor said they were accused of spying.

Their families have said that's ludicrous and last month hired an Iranian attorney to press the case.

Ahmadinejad said there were "indications they knew they were crossing into Iran."

The last time anyone sympathetic saw the three was at the end of October, when Swiss diplomats were granted a short visit. The U.S. has no diplomatic relationship with Iran and is represented in such matters by the Swiss. At the time, the diplomats said the three were in good health.

Their jailing comes amid continued tension between the U.S. and Iran over that nation's nuclear program.

When the list of 11 Iranians came out State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said it appeared the Iranian government was trying to suggest some kind of equivalence between the hikers and Iranians that had left Iran.

"There really is no equivalence at all," he said at the time.

Three of the Iranians on the list have been convicted or charged in public court proceedings in the United States. The circumstances surrounding some of the others are more mysterious.

Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general in the elite Revolutionary Guard and a former deputy defense minister, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006.

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia in June. Iran's foreign minister has accused the U.S. of helping to kidnap him and has asked for his return.

The list also includes three Iranians who Tehran claims were abducted in Europe and sent to the U.S.: merchant Mohsen Afrasiabi, who it says disappeared in Germany, as well as electrical engineering student Majid Kakavand and a former ambassador to Jordan, Nasrollah Tajik, who it says vanished in France.

French media have reported that Kakavand was arrested in March at the request of the U.S. on suspicion he obtained electronic equipment. He was jailed, then moved to house arrest on Aug. 27. The French press has reported that Tajik went missing in Britain.

Three of the Iranians Tehran is asking about have faced public legal proceedings in the U.S.

One of them, Baktash Fattahi, is a legal U.S. resident. He was arrested in April in California and charged with conspiracy to export American-made military aircraft parts to Iran.

Another, Amir Amirnazmi, is a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who was convicted by a court in Pennsylvania in February of business dealings with Iranian companies banned under U.S. sanctions.

Amir Hossein Ardebili was sentenced to five years in prison on Dec. 14 by a court in Wilmington, Delaware, after pleading guilty to plotting to ship U.S. military technology to Iran. Iran has called it a show trial and said Ardebili was abducted in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2007 before being handed over to U.S. authorities in 2008.

One of the other Iranians, Mahmoud Yadegari, was arrested in April in Canada after a joint investigation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and charged with trying to send nuclear technology to his native Iran.

Authorities allege Yadegari tried to procure and export pressure transducers, which can be used in the production of enriched uranium but also have many legitimate commercial uses.

The other two Iranians on the list are Amir-Shahrzad Amir-Qolikhani and Hassan Saeid Kashari. Iran gave no information about them other than to say they are being held in the U.S. without charge.


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Sources: MSNBC, CNN, Youtube, Google Maps

Iranian Police vs Protesters, Again...Internet Blocked, Again

Witnesses: Iranian police clash with protesters


Security forces and pro-government militiamen with batons and tear gas were clashing with thousands of opposition protesters outside Tehran University on a day of planned student demonstrations, witnesses said Monday.

The witnesses said Basiji militiamen waded into the crowds of protesters, beating men and women on the heads and shoulders with batons, while security forces fired tear gas.

At least two women supporters of opposition leader Mr. Hossein Mousavi were arrested and authorities shut down the mobile phone network in central Tehran to stop opposition protesters from contacting each other, the reformist website Rah-e Sabz said.

Thousands of security forces surrounded universities ahead of protests that pro-reform students called for Monday. It was not immediately known if demonstrations broke out inside campuses because authorities have taken dramatic steps to seal them off, shutting down cell phones in the area and covering fences with banners and signs to hide anything going on inside.

"There are hundreds of riot police, (they are) everywhere around Tehran University and nearby streets," said another witness, who asked not to be named.

The large security operation suggested that authorities planned to make good on their promise to deal harshly with protesters marking the day in 1953 when three students were killed in an anti-U.S. protest. The occasion has in recent years been used by students to stage pro-reform demonstrations.

Journalists working for foreign media organizations were banned from covering Monday's planned protests. They were told late Saturday by the Culture Ministry that their press cards would be suspended for three days starting Monday.

Mousavi support

Government opponents were hoping for a large turnout for Monday's demonstrations to show their movement still has momentum despite a series of government crackdowns since the country's disputed presidential election in June.

Mousavi threw his support behind the planned student demonstrations and declared that his movement was is still alive. A statement posted on his Web site said the clerical establishment cannot silence students and was losing legitimacy in the Iranian people's minds.

"A great nation would not stay silent when some confiscate its vote," said Mousavi, who claims President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the June 12 election victory from him by fraud.

Iran's universities have been strongholds of the opposition movement that grew out of the disputed June election, and authorities have besieged campuses nationwide with a wave of arrests and student expulsions.

The pro-government Basij militia has also recruited informers on campuses to blow the whistle on any opposition troublemakers, according to students.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, accused the opposition Sunday of exposing divisions in the country and creating opportunities for Iran's enemies.

Rooftop chants

Despite heavy rain Sunday night, rooftop cries of "Allahu Akbar" or "God is Great" and "Death to the Dictator" were heard from many parts of Tehran on Sunday night. The protest reprised one of the main tactics of the anti-shah movement in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was revived in the days and weeks after the disputed elections.

The rooftop chants had not been heard since the opposition's last attempt to mobilize, a Nov. 4 rally coinciding with state-sanctioned events to mark the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover. That demonstration drew far fewer protesters than at the height of the summer's unrest. But it still provoked a violent response from security forces.

For weeks after the disputed June presidential election, demonstrations triggered by claims of massive fraud in the vote brought hundreds of thousands to the streets, but the relentless crackdown that followed has taken a heavy toll.

Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration.

The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch.

Confining Journalists

Seeking to confine journalists working for international media to their offices during the protests, Iran's Culture Ministry suspended accreditation allowing them to report from the streets from Monday to Wednesday.

The ministry also warned the few remaining pro-reform newspapers not to publish "divisive" material, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Largely swept off the streets, the opposition relies on the Web and cell phone service to organize rallies and get its message out.

The call for Monday's demonstrations was put out on dozens of Web sites run by supporters of opposition leaders Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who both ran against Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election. Most of those sites have been repeatedly blocked by the government, forcing activists to set up new ones.


Sources: MSNBC

Iran Sanctions May Backfire, Unravel International Alliance

(During an Interview with a TIME magazine reporter, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became very nervous and defensive when asked about concealing additional Nuke plants.)

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(Leaders from U.S., Britain and France hold a press conference to discuss Iran's nuclear facility.)

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How unilateral Iran Sanctions may backfire


Two accounts of how a recent simulation at Harvard with major foreign policy players revealed how Congressional threats of U.S. unilateral sanctions may backfire by unravelling the international alliance.

The first, by the Washington Post's David Ignatius:

The Obama team was confounded by congressional demands for unilateral U.S. sanctions against companies involved in Iran's energy sector. This shot at Iran ended up backfiring, since some of the key companies were from Russia and China -- the very nations whose support the United States needs for strong U.N. sanctions. The Russians and Chinese were so offended that they began negotiating with Tehran behind America's back.

"We started out thinking we were playing a weak hand, but by the end, everyone was negotiating for us," said the leader of the Iranian team, Columbia University professor Gary Sick. By the December 2010 hypothetical endpoint, Iran had doubled its supply of low-enriched uranium and was pushing ahead with weaponization.

The second by another participant in the simulation, veteran NSC Iran hand Gary Sick,

1. The US team went to work with a vengeance to get a consensus on sanctions. This didn't bother the Iran team in the least. We didn't think they could put together a package that would hurt us in any serious way, and that proved to be true. But more important, in the process they managed to offend all of their ostensible allies and wasted so much time and effort that Iran was better off at the end than they had been at the beginning. Since this represents a version of actual US strategy (and its results) over now three administrations, I think there is a lesson there that is ignored at our peril.

2. I compare the actions of the US team (and the US government since at least 1995) as the dog chasing the bus -- what do you do with it when you catch it? As far as I could tell, the pursuit of sanctions was essentially an end in itself. What if the US actually succeeded in putting together a reasonable set of sanctions (as, in fact, we have)? Maybe our efforts will please the Israelis and a few others, but does it stop Iran? To be honest, the Iran team scarcely paid any attention to all this massive policy exertion. Admittedly, we felt lonely at times. But we never felt that our core objectives (freedom to proceed with our nuclear plans and our growing appetite for domestic political repression) were at risk, much less the survival of our rather peculiar regime, which was of course our most immediate concern.

3. The offers made by the Iran team were modest in the extreme and transparently deceptive. Yet those offers were where we ended up after all the sturm und drang. No one ever had the courage or imagination to take our puny offers as an excuse to sit us down at the table and begin to push us on our plans and to feel out our intentions. That would have made us actually think. It would have required some real decisions on our part, which in this game we were spared entirely.

4. Just as we largely ignored the ineffective pressure tactics originating from the US, our own words and vulnerabilities were equally ignored by most of the other players. Why did no one go back to the Iranian offer of a negotiating agenda presented in 2003? Or the more recent catalogue of issues introduced as part of the Geneva/Vienna meetings? The reason seems to be the all-consuming obsession with the nuclear issue and the apparent belief that Iran's words, in whatever form, are irrelevant. The nuclear issue is indeed important, but AfPak, Iraq, Hezbollah, Persian Gulf stability, etc. are also not to be dismissed out of hand. And Iran over the years has offered some interesting suggestions that have never been explored. Why not use the meetings with Iran to create some working groups to explore the possibility of progress on issues other than the nuclear one? By broadening our scope, we might actually improve the environment for constructive work on the nuclear issue.

5. It was probably realistic that no one challenged Iran's right to enrich. That has reluctantly been accepted as a fait accompli. But why was there no push to test Iran on safeguards, inspections, or other techniques that might assure the world of reliable and on-going intelligence about what Iran is doing (early warning); or restricting certain key elements of Iran's nuclear program that would lengthen the time required to actually break out into production of a nuclear device Nobody tried.

6. The fact that Russia and China initiated their own secret accommodation with Iran was an interesting development, and one that is also indicative of the way things are going. But I had the
impression that they took this initiative out of dismay at the single-minded pressure of the US team futilely seeking their support for a sanctions regime that was fundamentally contrary to their
interests.

This game provided an opportunity for me to test my understanding of the dynamics propelling each side in the Iran debate. And the result, I am sorry to say, was even more depressing than I would have imagined. The fact that it was seasoned veterans of the policy process playing these roles makes it even more significant. The lesson was not so much that Iran could "win" this game so easily; it was that the US and its allies were unable even to imagine any alternatives.

The game was structured to inject maximum "reality" into the scenario: the real world as it existed on the day we started, real professionals with real experience playing the roles of real governments, total freedom of action, and an open-ended scenario.

Under those circumstances, the outcome was simply depressing!


The result: that Israel acts alone, and finds itself denounced by the U.S., opening up the largest rift in U.S.-Israel relations since Suez. Or Iran gets the bomb.


Ignatius:

The trickiest problem for our imaginary Obama was his relationship with the fictive Netanyahu. As Burns and Gold played these roles, they had two sharp exchanges in which America asked for assurances that Israel wouldn't attack Iran without U.S. permission. The Israeli prime minister, as played by Gold, refused to make that pledge, insisting that Israel alone must decide how to protect its security. Whereupon Burns's president warned that if Israel did strike, contrary to U.S. interests, Washington might publicly denounce the attack -- producing an open break as in the 1956 Suez crisis.

The two key players agreed later that the simulation highlighted real tensions that the two countries need to understand better. "The most difficult problem we have is how to restrain Israel," said Burns. "My own view is that we need to play for a long-term solution, avoid a third war in the Greater Middle East and wear down the Iranians over time."

Gold said the game clarified for him a worrying difference of opinion between U.S. and Israeli leaders: "The U.S. is moving away from preventing a nuclear Iran to containing a nuclear Iran -- with deterrence based on the Cold War experience. That became clear in the simulation. Israel, in contrast, still believes a nuclear Iran must be prevented."

The game showed that diplomacy will become much harder next year. As Burns explains: "The U.S. probably will get no help from Russia and China, Iran will be divided and immobile, Europe will be weak, and the U.S. may have to restrain Israel."



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Sources: Politico, Washington Post, Harvard University, TIME, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Google Maps

Ahmadinejad Strikes Back At Pres. Obama: "Get Off My Back!"

(During an Interview with a TIME magazine reporter, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became very nervous and defensive when asked about concealing additional Nuke plants.)

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Iranian Civil Unrest Out Of Control Following Election Results....Obama Admin. Rejects Ahmadinejad's Win!

Huffington Post, MSNBC----

(Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks after the Iranian Election are tallied in his favor.)



(Angry Iranian mobs declare death unto Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)

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(Note: Nico Pitney, Huffington Post Journalist liveblogs the latest Iran election fallout. Email him if you see anything notable.)

10:05 PM ET -- Twitter goes dark? I noted earlier that Twitter was the only major social network still operating in Iran. Now something has changed. All of the Iran-based Twitter users I've been reading haven't posted for at least 30 minutes or so. The reasons are unclear. Some on Twitter are claiming there is a complete electricity shut-down in Tehran. One Iran-based Twitter user, @tehranelection, last posted an hour ago: "I have to shut down for a bit, the police are looking for satellites." Will update as soon as I hear more.

9:59 PM ET -- 'Iran perpetrated a farce.' Suzanne Maloney, a preeminent Iran analyst with the Brookings Institution, weighs in on the election results:

Washington now faces a newly fractured Iranian polity ruled by a leadership that is willing to jettison its own institutions and legitimacy in its determination to retain absolute control. That does not bode well for Iran's capacity to undertake serious talks and eventually engage in historic concessions on its nuclear program and support for terrorism.

Obama has to be prepared to move forward with diplomacy despite the wholesale setback for Iran's limited democracy. In the wake of this disastrous election, opportunities for progress on engagement may unexpectedly present themselves. But he should do so in full awareness of the farce that has been perpetrated with this Ahmadinejad "landslide" and of the seething frustration of so many Iranians.

9:55 PM ET -- Tense. This video, sent in by a reader, was filmed during the day on Saturday. I post it because it's unlike the others I've seen -- rather than a boisterous crowd chanting and marching, it is a large group of people sharing a tense moment near the Iranian Interior Ministry, with smoke plumes rising and gun shots being fired in the background. A different side of the day's events:

9:46 PM ET -- Velvet Revolution...or Tiananmen? Writing for the New Yorker, Laura Secor describes voting at the Iranian expat polling place in New York City, then assesses the subsequent events: "In the days before the vote, my Iranian contacts breathlessly compared the atmosphere in Iran to that of 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution. In the last twenty-four hours, the unavoidable analogy has become 1989. The big question is where we are: Wenceslas Square or Tiananmen."

9:40 PM ET -- "This is just the beginning of the story." Andrew Sullivan prints a reader's translation of a statement out from one of the other reform candidates:

Karroubi...calls the election results "comical" and void of any legitimacy, declaring he will not concede. He says: "This is just the beginning of the story".

I have never heard such hard language from anyone inside the government.

9:11 PM ET -- Are U.S. networks covering Iran enough? Several emailers have noted a lack of Iran coverage on U.S. television networks. Now, I have seen some excellent reporting -- specifically the MSNBC coverage anchored by Alex Witt (with Ali Arouzi and Richard Engel in Iran) and CNN's coverage by Fredricka Whitfield (with Christian Amanour in Iran).

But in terms of the quantity of reporting, U.S. networks do seem to be far behind other international networks. Using a transcript database search on TVEyes.com, here are the approximate number of references to "Iran" on various networks today:

Headline News: at least 32 mentions
MSNBC: at least 48 mentions
Fox News: at least 73 mentions
CNN: at least 91 mentions
CTV (Canada): at least 124 mentions
Sky News (UK): at least 149 mentions
BBC News (UK): at least 177 mentions

9:04 PM ET -- Caught in the middle. A reporter from ITV News (unfortunately I can't make out his name as he says it) files a report from Iran on Saturday. He and his camera crew were in the midst of the crowds as riot police charged -- he says his crew was beaten with batons and "briefly detained."

8:12 PM ET -- Mousavi camp says he's under house arrest. Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell notes the latest post on Mousavi's official account on Twitter -- the only major social network that appears to still be functioning in Iran (if anyone knows why, email me). It reads: "Dear Iranian People, Mousavi has not left you alone, he has been put under house arrest by Ministry of Intelligence."

7:43 PM ET -- Mousavi warns against violence. "'The violations in the election are very serious and you are right to be deeply hurt. But I firmly call on you not to subject any individual or groups to hurt. Do not lose your calm and restraint. Everybody should draw a line between themselves and any violent behaviour,'" Mousavi said in a statement posted on his campaign website. He said he hoped the police understood why his supporters were protesting and would 'treat them as their own.'"

7:25 PM ET -- Andrew Sullivan joins the chant. "Allahu Akbar!"

7:11 PM ET -- Iran enters a new phase? The news has slowed significantly, as morning arrives in Iran. But Gary Sick, the former National Security Council member who I quoted below, does have a new, very compelling post on his Tumblr blog:

If the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history. One characteristic that has always distinguished Iran from the crude dictators in much of the rest of the Middle East was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear. ...

It is still too early for anything like a comprehensive analysis of implications, but here are some initial thoughts:

-- The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran's Islamic revolution. All previous leaders at least paid lip service to the voice of the Iranian people. This suggests that Iran's leaders are aware of the fact that they have lost credibility in the eyes of many (most?) of their countrymen, so they are dispensing with even the pretense of popular legitimacy in favor of raw power.

-- The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make. If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even their most devoted followers. But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries.

There's much more here.

6:50 PM ET -- Huge late-night demonstrations.

6:24 PM ET -- More house arrest reports. The National Iranian American Council notes reports that Ahmadinejad's main challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has been placed under house arrest, as well as another of the four presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi, and Karroubi's campaign manager (and former Tehran mayor) Gholamhossein Karbaschi.

6:12 PM ET -- "Deafening." From a reader: "My next door neighbor is an Iranian immigrant who came here in 1977. He just received a SAT phone call from his brother in Tehran who reports that the rooftops of nighttime Tehran are filled with people shouting 'Allah O Akbar' in protest of the government and election results. The last time he remembers this happening is in 1979 during the Revolution. Says the sound of tens of thousands on the rooftops is deafening right now." It's almost four in the morning in Iran.

6:00 PM ET -- Not just Tehran. Video of protesters at the university in Shiraz, Iran.

5:53 PM ET -- Report: Khatami's brother arrested. The excellent National Iranian American Council, which I've cited several times today, offers some new translations of Twitter messages coming out of Iran.

One says the brother of former Iranian President Khatami has been arrested. Earlier today, as we noted, Khatami's clerical group called for the election to be redone.

"Seyed Mohamad Khatami has not been arrested, but his brother Mohammad Reza Khatami and (his wife) Zahra Esraghi have been"


"[Tehran Univ. political scientist] Ahmad Ziadabadi and [prominent political blogger] Saeed Shariati have been arrested"

"There has been no news published about the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi"

Stat guru Nate Silver says it's actually not evidence of fraud (though it certainly doesn't indicate a clean election either). But, as Andrew Sullivan (who has been following this debate closely) notes, there are some informed dissenters from Nate's position.

5:33 PM ET -- "Palpable disappointment" at White House. From the New York Times: "There was palpable disappointment within the administration, where there were hopes, as President Obama said on Friday, that the throngs of people at the polls augured a change in Iran." But one unnamed senior official said the unrest might make Ahmadinejad "more receptive to the United States, if only to defuse a potential backlash from the disputed election."

"Ahmadinejad could feel that because of public pressure, he wants to reduce Iran's isolation," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the delicacy of the matter. "That might also cause engagement to proceed more swiftly."

Also notable: "In Washington, administration officials said they had received back-channel messages from Iran's leadership, urging the United States to wait until the election was over for a response to Mr. Obama's overtures."

5:28 PM ET -- The latest photos. My colleague Nick Sabloff has put together a big slideshow of powerful images from Iran here.

5:20 PM ET -- Legitimacy of the Revolution questioned. McClatchy talks to Gary Sick, who formerly served on the National Security Council and writes about Iran:

"If they'd been a little more modest and said Ahmadinejad had won by 51 percent," Sick said, Iranians might have been dubious but more accepting. But the government's assertion that Ahmadinejad won with 62.6 percent of the vote, "is not credible."

"I think it does mark a real transition point in the Iranian Revolution, from a position of claiming to have its legitimacy based on the support of the population, to a position that has increasingly relied on repression. The voice of the people is ignored."

4:54 PM ET -- Accounts from the ground. The Wall Street Journal has a massive report. Here's a taste:

On Motahari Avenue, one of the major streets in central Tehran, three public buses were set afire by demonstrators. Syamak Izadi, 62 years old, said he was riding on the bus in central Tehran when a group of men, dressed in Mr. Mousavi's trademark green, stopped the bus and told passengers to get off. They then doused it with gasoline and set it afire, he said.

Protestors played cat and mouse with the police. They gathered on corners throwing their fists in the air, then ran away when riot police descended. ... "The results are not acceptable to us, Mousavi needs to lead the crowd and depose this government," said a 37-year-old biologist who gave his name only as Kasra. [...]

Supporters of Mr. Mousavi had begun gathering outside the interior ministry and outside his campaign headquarter in central Tehran early in the morning. ... At one point, groups of supporters near Mr. Mousavi's headquarters shouted "death to the dictator," a chant borrowed from the Iranian revolution. Security forces responded by bludgeoning several with batons.

5:46 PM ET -- The chart. There is a lot of discussion online about a chart showing the sequence of election results announced by Iran's Interior Ministry throughout the day on Friday.

Several argue that the consistency of the results -- virtually identical results throughout the day, even as millions of votes were allegedly counted from around the country -- is evidence of fraud.

Stat guru Nate Silver says it's actually not evidence of fraud (though it certainly doesn't indicate a clean election either). But, as Andrew Sullivan (who has been following this debate closely) notes, there are some informed dissenters from Nate's position.

5:33 PM ET -- "Palpable disappointment" at White House. From the New York Times: "There was palpable disappointment within the administration, where there were hopes, as President Obama said on Friday, that the throngs of people at the polls augured a change in Iran." But one unnamed senior official said the unrest might make Ahmadinejad "more receptive to the United States, if only to defuse a potential backlash from the disputed election."

"Ahmadinejad could feel that because of public pressure, he wants to reduce Iran's isolation," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the delicacy of the matter. "That might also cause engagement to proceed more swiftly."

Also notable: "In Washington, administration officials said they had received back-channel messages from Iran's leadership, urging the United States to wait until the election was over for a response to Mr. Obama's overtures."

5:28 PM ET -- The latest photos. My colleague Nick Sabloff has put together a big slideshow of powerful images from Iran here.

5:20 PM ET -- Legitimacy of the Revolution questioned. McClatchy talks to Gary Sick, who formerly served on the National Security Council and writes about Iran:

"If they'd been a little more modest and said Ahmadinejad had won by 51 percent," Sick said, Iranians might have been dubious but more accepting. But the government's assertion that Ahmadinejad won with 62.6 percent of the vote, "is not credible."

"I think it does mark a real transition point in the Iranian Revolution, from a position of claiming to have its legitimacy based on the support of the population, to a position that has increasingly relied on repression. The voice of the people is ignored."

4:54 PM ET -- Accounts from the ground. The Wall Street Journal has a massive report. Here's a taste:

On Motahari Avenue, one of the major streets in central Tehran, three public buses were set afire by demonstrators. Syamak Izadi, 62 years old, said he was riding on the bus in central Tehran when a group of men, dressed in Mr. Mousavi's trademark green, stopped the bus and told passengers to get off. They then doused it with gasoline and set it afire, he said.

Protestors played cat and mouse with the police. They gathered on corners throwing their fists in the air, then ran away when riot police descended. ... "The results are not acceptable to us, Mousavi needs to lead the crowd and depose this government," said a 37-year-old biologist who gave his name only as Kasra.

Supporters of Mr. Mousavi had begun gathering outside the interior ministry and outside his campaign headquarter in central Tehran early in the morning. ... At one point, groups of supporters near Mr. Mousavi's headquarters shouted "death to the dictator," a chant borrowed from the Iranian revolution. Security forces responded by bludgeoning several with batons.

4:48 PM ET -- To the rooftops! As the clock passes midnight in Iran, the National Iranian American Council translates some messages coming over Twitter. One: "Slogans 'God is great' and 'death to dictator' is echoing in Tehran. People are demonstrating on the rooftops."

4:46 PM ET -- Israel's reaction. "'The results of the election show, now more than ever, how much stronger the Iranian threat has become,' said arch-foe Israel's deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon."

4:40 PM ET -- "Senior U.S. officials" doubt Iran results. Fox News quotes unnamed U.S. analysts weighing in on Iran:

U.S. analysts find it "not credible" that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote, a senior U.S. officials told FOX News.

Despite a reportedly record turnout of 85 percent, the senior official said given the "not credible" counts for Mousavi and Karoubi, the turnout clearly was questionable.

Another senior official said the Obama administration would not describe the outcome as legitimate or illegitimate or deem a victory by Mousavi as necessarily better.

"We're not going to characterize what would have been a better or worse scenario," the official said. "We will deal with this as it is, not as we wish it to be.

Fox also has several Republican members of Congress bashing the election on the record..

4:35 PM ET -- Reform group wants U.S. quiet. Spencer Ackermann talks to the "strongly anti-Ahmedinejad" Hadi Ghaemi, New York-based spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran:

Robert Gibbs' White House statement may not fully capture the depth of the crime committed against the Iranian people. "But I think it's wise for the U.S. government to keep its distance," Ghaemi says. The White House can and should "show concern for human life and protesters' safety and promote tolerance and dialogue." But to get any further involved, even rhetorically, would "instigate the cry that the reformers are somehow driven and directed by the U.S., whether under Bush or under Obama, and there's no reason to give that unfounded allegation" any chance to spread.

4:21 PM ET -- Canada "deeply, deeply concerned." Speaking alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon "said his country was troubled by reports of voting problems," Reuters reports.

"Canada is deeply, deeply concerned by reports about voting irregularities in the Iranian election. We're troubled by reports of intimidation of opposition candidates' offices by security forces," said Cannon.

He said Canadian embassy officials in Tehran were closely monitoring the situation and urged Iranian authorities to conduct a "fair and transparent" counting of ballots.

4:15 PM ET -- A reader gets a message from his cousin in Tehran: "Please share this message on Facebook or share it in a way for us to be heard: Tehran-9:50pm: We don't have text message, cellphone network, Facebook, youTube, Twitter and lots of other websites. BBC PERSIA is gone also on HOTBIRD. 3 reformist newspapers are banned (I can't check the names I've just heard and everything is blocked on internet) If anyone can, help me share the news. They have cut us off from the world."

4:12 PM ET -- New video. From Andrew, some extraordinary -- and at times quite graphic -- video coming in of the protests:

4:01 PM ET -- Rafsanjani resigns? The global intelligence firm Stratfor reports: "Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that Iranian Expediency Council chief Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafasnjani has resigned."

4:00 PM ET -- Iran's ex-Foreign Minister: It's a coup. Via an interview with The Nation's Robert Dreyfuss:

A coup d'etat? They've already made one! They've created a dictatorship, in fact. Do you know that last night the security forces occupied the offices of many newspapers, to make sure that their reporting on the election was favorable? They changed many headlines. They fixed the election.

The Guards are taking over everything, including many economic institutions. The ministry of the interior is increasing its control in all the provinces.

3:49 PM ET -- Why so clumsy? Kevin Drum ponders: "When autocracies decide to do something like this, why do they do it so clumsily? Why not give Ahmadinejad 52.7% of the vote, which would be at least within the realm of reason? Or force a runoff and let Ahmadinejad win a week from now? Why perpetrate such an obvious fraud?"

3:45 PM ET -- Support from Ahmadinejad "pours in." Via the NYT: "Under the headline 'Congratulation Messages Pour In,' Iran's state news agency reports, with an apparent lack of irony, that Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory has been hailed abroad" -- by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, and the government of Syria.

3:41 PM ET -- Potentially stunning development. The National Iranian American Council links to a Farsi language story saying the President of the Committee of Election Monitoring has requested that the election be canceled.

Hojjat-ol-Eslam Yali Akbar MohteshamiPour officially requested that the Guardian Council to cancel this election and schedule a new election balanced and moderated democratically with the widespread and national presence of the people.

Also from NIAC:

According to Mousavi's website, a group of employees in the Ministry of the Interior in an open letter warned that the votes have been changed and manipulated in the state election commission. In this letter, which was addressed to the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the President, the of Majlis of Iran, the heads of the legislative and judicial branch and several other government agencies, a group of employees stated that "as dedicated employees of the Interior Ministry, with experience in management and supervision of several elections such as the elections of Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khatami, we announce that we fear the 10th presidential elections were not healthy."

Full letter is available here in Farsi.

3:33 PM ET -- More anecdotal evidence of fraud. Radio Free Europe notes abnormal election returns and also some suspicious movements at the Interior Ministry:

Critics note the record speed with which Ahmadinejad's preliminary victory was announced, along with some highly unusual local results.

For example, according to the official tally, reformist Karrubi came in a distant second in his own hometown of Oligudarz, garnering less than half of Ahmadinejad's vote.

Sarejeddin Mirdamadi, a reformist journalist in Tehran, says suspicious movements he observed at the Interior Ministry add to his concerns. The Interior Ministry is in charge of counting the votes.

"I wanted to enter the Interior Ministry but they prevented me, even though I had an entry pass," Mirdamadi says. "There I saw that they also prevented a number of the staff who wanted to go to work from entering the building. Later one of them called me and said that a group of personnel from different divisions of the ministry were not allowed to enter the building."

3:23 PM ET -- Parsi: Ahmadinejad will have little legitimacy. Trita Parsi, respected analyst (and HuffPost blogger), assesses the situation on CNN:

"[The election aftermath] is creating significant obstacles [to U.S. diplomacy] in my view. There will be an Ahmadinejad that will have very little legitimacy internationally, mindful of how this is being played out. Or if it is not Ahmadinejad, it probably will be a prolonged internal battle in Iran in which there will be no clarity at all who will hold office of the presidency. That's very negative for the president [who] already has somewhat limited time to be able to pursue diplomacy. He cannot really afford to have more of the time being lost because of political paralysis inside of Iran.

3:21 PM ET -- More journalists beaten. Some more graphic details of the riots from the latest AP account:

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

3:15 PM ET -- Rafsanjani's wife: There should be protests. From Effat Marashi, the wife of Hashemi Rafsanjani Iran's former president and the head of Assembly of Experts, which officially monitors the Supreme Leader's performance: "If people see that [the government] has cheated, they should protest in the streets."

3:01 PM ET -- Iran clergy group calls for new election. "An influential Iranian clergy group on Saturday protested against alleged fraud in the presidential election counting process and called for the nullification of the election."

The Islamic Combatant Clergy Association (ICCA), which is close to former president Mohammad Khatami and supported Mir-Hossiein Moussavi in Friday's election, said on its website that the election should be nullified and held again in a calmer, more logical and more just atmosphere.

After an emergency session in Tehran, the ICCA regretted that the counting process was "widely engineered (manipulated)" and said there was enough evidence to prove the manipulation and to nullify the election.

"We will not leave Moussavi alone," the ICCA said in its statement.

2:54 PM ET -- Reuters reporter injured. "A Reuters reporter said she and others were beaten by police with batons as police chased and arrested demonstrators staging a sit-in at Tehran's Vanak Square, one of the capital's busiest intersections. At least three people were injured in the clash, which broke out after the Interior Ministry announced the hardline incumbent's resounding victory in Friday's vote."

2:48 PM ET -- Report: Between 50-100 dead. Tehran Bureau, an independent Iran news site being widely cited by U.S. papers, reports: "Panic on the streets of Tehran. Outside mass protests. Between 50-100 dead. Police on motorcycles beating people as drive by; attacking women."

Via the NY Times, a report from Channel 4 News' Lindsey Hilsum in Tehran, who says, "I feel like I went to sleep in one country and woke up in another."

2:39 PM ET -- Mousavi adviser: "It's a coup d'etat." Maziar Bahari, a Farsi-speaking, Iran-based correspondent for Newsweek, files an excellent dispatch:

"It's a coup d'etat," says an adviser to the defeated pro-reform Iranian presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, to the telephoned question "So, what happened?" Then, with apologies because the staff is in an emergency session, he hangs up.

What the reformist calls a coup was described today as a great achievement by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who has the final say in all affairs of the country. It was an open secret that the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Khamenei's favorite candidate. If an electoral fraud, tantamount to a coup, had indeed happened, most believe that it was staged with Khamenei's blessing.

2:34 PM ET -- Ahmadinejad attacks foreign media. Via the AP:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the foreign media of coverage that harms the Iranian people after authorities claimed he was re-elected in a bitterly disputed vote.

He called on the public to respect the vote on Friday, after his main pro-reform challenger rejected the results and accused authorities of election fraud.

"This is a great victory at a time when the ... propaganda facilities outside Iran and sometimes inside Iran were totally mobilized against our people," Ahmadinejad said, according to an English translation of his victory speech carried on state television.

"The heaviest pressure and psychological warfare was organized against the people of Iran. A large number of foreign media ... organized a full-fledged fight against our people."

2:26 PM ET -- NYT's Bill Keller in Iran. The New York Times' executive editor offers a lengthy dispatch from Tehran. Notably, he quotes an Interior Ministry official who claimed that plans for rigging the election had been in the works for weeks:

One man who worked in the Ministry of Interior, which carried out the vote count, said the government had been preparing its fraud for weeks, purging anyone of doubtful loyalty and importing pliable staff members from around the country.

"They didn't rig the vote," claimed this man, who showed his ministry identification card but pleaded not to be named. "They didn't even look at the vote. They just wrote the name and put the number in front of it."

Keller also grimly observed that Moussavi has "disappeared from view amid rumors that he was under house arrest or worse."

2:16 PM ET -- Cell phone service down. AP reports: "Cell phone service appears to have been cut in Iran's capital after a disputed election that the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won. There was no immediate comment from Iran's Telecommunications Ministry. But when users tried to call cell phones, a message appeared on their phones saying 'error in connection.'"

2:14 PM ET -- White House statement. Here it is, from Robert Gibbs: "Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians. We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities."

Spencer Ackermann reads between the lines:

The White House is trying to strike a balance between three pressures: speaking in a Samizdat fashion to the Moussavi supporters who have just seen the election stolen by Ahmedinejad and the regime; not interfering in post-election events out of very justified concern that the appearance of U.S. involvement will act as a delegitimizing force; and preserving the administration's freedom of action should it have to accept a second Ahmedinejad term.

2:07 PM ET -- Evidence that the election was stolen. Juan Cole details the evidence suggesting the election results as stated by Iran's Interior Ministry simply don't make sense. "As a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene," he writes.

His assessment of the unfolding unrest:

My own guess is that you have to get a leadership born after the revolution, who does not remember it and its sanguinary aftermath, before you get people willing to push back hard against the rightwingers.

So, there are protests against an allegedly stolen election. The Basij paramilitary thugs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will break some heads. Unless there has been a sea change in Iran, the theocrats may well get away with this soft coup for the moment. But the regime's legitimacy will take a critical hit, and its ultimate demise may have been hastened, over the next decade or two.

2:00 PM ET -- Report: Mousavi under house arrest. The National Iranian American Council says that Mousavi is now under house arrest. Also:

Mohsen Mirdamadi, the head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front has been arrested.

About 200 police forces have surrounded the newspaper offices of Etemademelli and Green Word, holding at least 30 journalist inside. The fate of the journalists is not known.

9:30 AM ET: Security officials and riot police engaged in violent clashes with demonstrators in Tehran today in what one reporter called an "unprecedented scene" in Iran in recent years.

NBC producer Ali Arouzi described the events on Saturday:

What started off as a small rally outside a pro-reformist newspaper swelled into a massive crowd of people chanting, "Death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad!"

Then, what started with a small amount of police pushing the crowd back turned into huge riot police in armored gear and motor bikes beating all the young students here with batons, knocking them back. The students responded by throwing stones, which the police then threw back. Now the police are coming off all the heart streets and main streets to try and disperse the crowd. But this is an unprecedented scene in Iran today.

Arouzi said that many of the demonstrators, afraid of reprisals, were wearing green scarves and surgical masks.

Asked if he believed the election results being reported by Iran's Interior Ministry, Arouzi sounded highly skeptical. "If you were in Tehran the last few days, you would think it impossible that Ahmadinejad won," he said. "Everybody we spoke to was a supporter of Mousavi."

He noted that Mousavi's supporters acknowledged that he was somewhat of a blank slate politically, but that the presidential election had become a referendum on Ahmadinejad.

Arouzi then described the protests in greater detail:

Initially, it was a peaceful demonstration. People were forming a human chain, saying they wanted their vote back... but the more the police came, the angrier the mob got. It became sort of a mob mentality here. Now the police have swelled in huge numbers. They are being very, very violent with the crowds.

Every young person I've spoken to here, I've asked them, 'do you think you coming out onto the streets is going to make a change?' They said, no, but we have to come out anyway if we want our voices to be heard, but they're sure this won't make a change.

Demonstrators have been injured. People have come up to us and they've shown us that their arms have been bruised, black eyes, broken noses, bloody heads. But they are fighting back as well. This is, I mean, I've been in Iran four years here and everything here has always been contained. Today we saw the demonstrators setting on the police. An hour ago, maybe 30, 40 demonstrators rushed the police, throwing stones at them. One of the policemen fell and they were kicking him in the head and some of his colleagues had to come and drag him away.


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Sources: Huffington Post, MSNBC, NY Times, CNN, Fox News, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Google Maps

How Ahmadinejad's Win Might Impact Israel's Future

Newsweek----

"Your people, sir—your people is a great beast!"

The American founding father Alexander Hamilton is supposed to have spluttered at a dinner party more than two centuries ago. He was not a fan of popular democracy, much less of what would later be called populism: he deemed the people too emotional, too volatile, too inclined to vote against their own best interests. And there probably are a good number of analysts in Europe and the United States who feel that way about the voters who just returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power in Iran.

How could they be so … beastly? What happened to all those charming, articulate young men and women in North Tehran, interviewed again and again on Western television? They were so enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's main opponent, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. They were excited about the prospect of more freedoms. They thought Ahmadinejad was a failure and an embarrassment, and they really seemed to like us Americans. Indeed, they seemed almost to be like us Americans. Didn't they speak for the real Iran?

Actually, no. It appears that the working classes and the rural poor—the people who do not much look or act or talk like us—voted overwhelmingly for the scruffy, scrappy president who looks and acts and talks more or less like them. And while Mousavi and his supporters are protesting and even scuffling with police, they are just as likely to be overwhelmed in the streets as they were at the polls.

So what does this beastly development mean for the region and American policy?

The most obvious winner is Israel's right-wing Likud government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. There was never the slightest indication that a Mousavi victory would lead Iran to dial back its program for enriching uranium and, potentially, building nuclear weapons. And Israelis see that program as a threat to their existence, no matter who is president of Iran. But Mousavi's touchy-feely image as a moderate reformist would have clouded the issue, obscuring the potential dangers as the Israelis see them, and making it harder, politically, for Netanyahu to keep open the option of a military attack to set back the nuclear program.

When it looked like Mousavi might win, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) started sending out e-mails to American journalists and opinion makers insisting that Mousavi was a very bad guy, too. Specifically, they said Mousavi was responsible for the secret deal with the underground network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan that laid the foundations for Iran's nuclear program. But now AIPAC doesn't have to worry. Ahmadinejad's solid reputation as a Jew-baiting Holocaust denier will make it easier for Netanyahu to frustrate American attempts at dialogue with Tehran. And for the same reason, in political terms, Iran under Ahmadinejad is a perfect target should Netanyahu decide war is his best or only option.

Would-be peacemakers are losers, of course. Even if Ahmadinejad reins in his rhetoric and tries to reach out to the hand extended by U.S. President Barack Obama, his history will be hard for Obama to shake. America's Arab allies are losers, too. Ahmadinejad's populist appeal reaches beyond Iran to the streets of Cairo, Amman and Riyadh, undermining Arab regimes that have made peace with Israel, or would like to. As Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal put it recently, “Israel is the key for Iran to enter the Arab world.” Mousavi didn't seem interested in that game. Ahmadinejad loves it.

Ironically, the biggest losers may be some powerful members of Iran's clerical establishment. One of the reasons Ahmadinejad was first elected in 2005 is because that beast, the public, was sick of what it saw as the corruption of earlier presidents. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was running against Ahmadinejad and remains at the upper echelons of the theocratic elite, was a particular target. In the closing days of this campaign, Ahmadinejad launched into Rafsanjani and his allies again, suggesting his opponents were just Rafsanjani's tools. And Rafasanjani responded with an unprecedented public letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In thinly veiled language, it warned that all of the old guard, including Khamenei, might be threatened if Ahmadinejad continued with his anticorruption accusations. In the event, Khamenei did nothing to stop Ahmadinejad, and on Saturday Khamenei endorsed the outcome of the elections. But this drama of character assassination at the highest levels of the regime may be far from over.

For the old guard, that could be a beastly development indeed.


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Sources: Newsweek, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Win Spurs Violent Revolt...."Lies, Corruption and Dictatorship?"

(MSNBC reports on how Ahmadinejad's win has created civil unrest in Iran.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MSNBC----

TEHRAN, Iran - Supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires Saturday as authorities claimed the hard-line president was re-elected in a landslide. The rival candidate said the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and his followers responded with the most serious unrest in the capital in a decade.

By nightfall, cell phone service appeared to have been cut in the capital Tehran. And Ahmadinejad, in a nationally televised victory speech, accused the foreign media of coverage that harms the Iranian people. There was more rioting at night and fires continued to burn on the streets of Tehran.

Several hundred demonstrators — many wearing the trademark green colors of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign — chanted "the government lied to the people."

NBC News reported "violent clashes" between rock-throwing protesters and police in the streets of Tehran. Fires continued to burn as protesters lashed out by also shouting "Death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad" and "We want our votes back" as the final count from Friday's presidential election was announced.

It gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mousavi — a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday's election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

Lies and dictatorship:

Mousavi rejected the result as rigged and urged his supporters to resist a government of "lies and dictatorship."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statement on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship," it added.

Mousavi warned "people won't respect those who take power through fraud." The headline on one of his Web sites read: "I won't give in to this dangerous manipulation."

Mousavi appealed directly to Khamenei to intervene and stop what he said were violations of the law. Khamenei, who is not elected, holds ultimate political authority in Iran and controls all major policy decisions.

Mousavi and key aides could not be reached by phone.

Genuine will and desire:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. hopes the outcome of the election reflects the "genuine will and desire" of the Iranian people. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. administration is paying close attention to reports of alleged election irregularities.

At a joint appearance with Clinton, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election.

The clashes in central Tehran were the more serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999. They showed the potential for the showdown to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.

The demonstrations began Saturday morning shortly before the government announced the final results.

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Streets of unrest:

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

In another main street of Tehran, some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone." There was no word on any casualties from the unrest.

It was not clear how many Iranians were even aware of Mousavi's claims of fraud. Communications disruptions began in the later hours of voting Friday — suggesting an information clampdown. State television and radio only broadcast the Interior Ministry's vote count and not Mousavi's midnight news conference.

After night fell, Tehran's cell phone network appeared to be down. When users tried to call cell phones, a message appeared on their phones saying "error in connection." There was no immediate comment from Iran's Telecommunications Ministry and it did not appear that cell phones were down throughout the country. Residents in several provinces say their service is working.

Ahmadinejad aims at the media:

Nationwide, the text messaging system remained down Saturday and pro-Mousavi Web sites were blocked or difficult to access. Text messaging is frequently used by many Iranians — especially young Mousavi supporters — to spread election news. It was also difficult to access social networking sites such as Facebook, which Mousavi's campaign used to galvanize supporters.

Ahmadinejad called on the public to respect the vote and attacked the foreign media's coverage.

"All political and propaganda machines abroad and sections inside the country have been mobilized against the nation. They have launched the heaviest propaganda and psychological war against the Iranian nation. Many global networks continuously worked, employing very complicated methods, that work against our nation and arranged a full-fledged battle against us."

Mousavi's campaign headquarters urged people to show restraint.

Green movement:

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police forces, warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings."

The powerful Revolutionary Guard cautioned Wednesday it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement." The Revolutionary Guard is directly under the control of the ruling clerics and has vast influence in every corner of the country through a network of volunteer militias.

Even before the vote counting began, Mousavi declared himself "definitely the winner" based on "all indications from all over Iran." He accused the government of "manipulating the people's vote" to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.

"It is our duty to defend people's votes. There is no turning back," he said, alleging widespread irregularities.

Mousavi's backers were stunned at the Interior Ministry's claim that Ahmadinejad won after widespread predictions of a close race -- or even a slight edge for the reformist candidate.

Turnout was a record 85 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters.

"Many Iranians went to the people because they wanted to bring change," said Mousavi supporter Nasser Amiri, a hospital clerk in Tehran. "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud. It is very, very disappointing. I'll never ever again vote in Iran."

College exams postponed:

At Tehran University — the site of the last major anti-regime unrest in Tehran in 1999 — the academic year was winding down and there was no sign of pro-Mousavi crowds. But university exams, scheduled to begin Saturday, were postponed until next month around the country.

In the capital, several Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting "Mousavi is dead!"

The election outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies. Those crucial issues rest with the ruling clerics headed by Khamenei.

But the election focused on what the office can influence: boosting Iran's sinking economy, pressing for greater media and political freedoms, and being Iran's main envoy to the world.

Iran does not allow international election monitors. During the 2005 election, when Ahmadinejad won the presidency, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.


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Sources: MSNBC, Wikipedia, Google Maps