My Predictions for Iran's 10th Presidential Elections

This article (below) which I found on the Asia Times website, is in my opinion one of the most accurate and in-depth analyses I have read so far about Iran's presidential elections coming up in 8 months!!!!

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JJ17Ak01.html

It's a wonderful piece of analysis, it confirms a lot of things I was guessing about what's going on in Iran, I feel exactly the same as the writer of this article, and I think he's spot on!!!!!
why do I say that? if you scroll down to the last picture on this page (below), you'll see why!!!!

http://yazdonline.com/NewsDetail.aspx?id=979

In this picture you see Dr. Aref standing on the right of President Khatami and Dr. Zarif on his left (or looking at the picture, Zarif on the right and Aref on the left), and as they say "A picture is worth a 1000 words!"!!! :-)

I know people in Iran are so disillusioned and skeptical about FREEDOM (or lack there of) in their Council of Guardians, that they think their only chance for a winning, viable and credible Reformist candidate is President Khatami himself and nobody else, but they need to realize that the world is changing, and Mr. Khatami is actually much more valuable to them as the leader of the Reform movement than a mere President!!!

Now, here's the humble opinion of this "Citizen of the World" (me) about who should be selected by the two main political parties of Iran as the nominnees of the Center-Right and Center-Left camps, and hence, hopefully pushing the current fundamentalist rulers of IRI's establishment i.e., Ahmadinejad's Far-Right to the margines! Who among the candidates that the writer of this Asia Times article is mentioning, should be chosen by the "National Confidence Party" (Center-Left) and the "Islamic Coalition Party" (Center-Right)?

Yes, as Mr. Askari points out, Iranians need to come up with a soft-spoken, Western-educated, smart and rational president to represent them at that "Grand Bargain" negotiating table with President Obama at the other side, but who?

From the right: Dr. Ali Larijani or Dr. Ali-Akbar Velayati,

From the left: Dr. Mohammad-Reza Aref or Mir Hossein Mousavi,


The question is, which one of them, if elected will have the WISDOM and necessary foresight to appoint Dr. Zarif as his Foreign Minister or better yet as the head of Iran's National Security Council?

Watch these videos of Dr. Zarif's AMAZINGLY brilliant speeches at Princeton University and in front of UN, and you will know why I believe so strongly in Dr. Zarif being the ONLY man who can SAVE Iran:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1857501937527604694&q=javad+zarif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVQZd9oyaz8


But the other thing that's important for the future of Iran's Reform movement, is that their candidate should be popular enough to be able to polarize the Iranian electorate, and establish the idea of a two-party politics in Iranian mentality! It's time that the radical, anti-democratic fundamentalists of Iran get to see and ACCEPT that the two sides of the political spectrum have to coexist and respect one another, no matter how they feel about each other's views!

Fundamentalists like Ahmadinejad who do not even like the idea of party politics, need to realize that they can no longer continue to destroy people's credibility and dignity just because they have differing views, they can no longer continue their character assassinations of the other side, and they can no longer even contemplate the shameful practices of the Guardian Council by disqualifying candidates just because they are on the left of the political spectrum in Iran!!!!!!

It's time that the wise men of the Expediency Council do something about REALLY and TRULY allowing Iran to be a non-monolithic society, and recognize the fact that the two sides NEED to each come up with candidates that will solidify their respective bases fairly and freely!

I believe that eventually, after a series of "primary-style" party elections, the "National Confidence Party" nominting either Dr. Aref or Mir Hossein Mousavi from the left, and the "Islamic Coalition Party" nominating either Dr. Larijani or Dr. Velayati from the right, can push radical, extremist, anti-democratic fundamentalists like Ahmadinejad to the fringes of society, and will give the Iranian people a CLEAR choice between the Right and the Left!

Now, unlike Mr. Askari who wrote that article on Asia Times, I would like to also include Dr. Ebtekar in the race? She was not mentioned in that article because she's a woman, but I will explain why she should be considered as well:

We all know that with the current fundamentalist makeup of the Guardian Council (headed by a staunch backer of Ahmadinejad, i.e., Mr. Jannati), there is no way a woman can be given the permission to run for presidency, because people like Jannati are by definition anti womens' rights! They consider women as second class citizens and they say so in public without any shame!!!! But if the reform movement of President Khatami is REALLY progressive and liberal enough to actually want to do something to eventually change that sexist mentality in Iran, they need to start talking about it SERIOUISLY, starting this election cycle!

Just like in America, where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama competed for the nomination of their party, in Iran too, the National Confidence Party aught to at least bring a woman into the field (and there's no other Iranian woman more qualified than Mr. Khatami's former Vice-President Ebtekar), and start to legitimize even the idea of a woman president in Iran, which at the moment is considered an impossible dream! Of course, she will be disqualifiued by the Guardian Council, leaving only one of those two men as the only reformist (or Center-Left) candidate, but in and of itself, the fact that a legitimate party, headed by a prominent cleric (Mr. Karroubi) and led by Iran's most beloved popular leader (Mr. Khatami) will nominate a woman to the Guardian Council for consideration as a presidential candidate, it will be a huge step for Women's Rights in Iran!


Now, even if Dr. Aref or Mir Hossein Mousavi ends up losing the 50-50 divide, by a small margine of 49-51, and one of the two moderate-conservative candidates (Drs. Larijani or Velayati) who will hopefully be nominated by the "Islamic Coalition Party", ends up winning the election next June, this evidence of a polarization (i.e., the 49-51 results) will give the fundamentalists in the system, an accurate picture of how popular and powerful former Presidents Khatami and Rafsanjani and former Parliament Speaker Karroubi still are in being able to move the masses behind their preferred candidate! This is a very IMPORTANT lesson for the fundamentalists to learn! At the moment, it looks like they seem to think Iran is one big united family 100% behind every single opinion Mr. Khamenei has, which is obviously not true! Iran is NOT a monolith, so let's prove that to its own people as well as to the world!



So, for me (half-way across the world from Iran, but looking at it from the proverbial 10000 feet view) the best two candidates representing Iran's Left and Right, are Mir Hossein Mousavi and Ali Akbar Velayati.
BUT NO CLERICS for president, please!!!!! I hope somebody can convince Mr. Karroubi that Iran is going to need good rational and moderate clerics in the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, and the Judiciary system!!!! There are enough non-cleric Islamic experts and experienced young intellectuals to run for presidency, so popular and fair-minded clerics like him can be much more help to the people if they try to get into the existing governmental clerical bodies, hopefully replacing fundamentalists like Mr. Jannati in that shameful entity called The Council of Guardians (or in better words: "Council of Discriminators")!!!!! Same goes for Mr. Rowhani! Please learn from Mr. Khatami and Mr. Rafsanjani, and exert your powers in places where people REALLY need you!