I think if the official outcome is not ultimately accepted the Iranians would likely suffer from a civil war. Ahmadinejad certainly would resort to even bloodier repression than is happening now. Fortunately, this does not seem likely. The protests are petering out and the strike strategy that Escobar suggests will be used is not evident as yet. If the head of Mossad thinks Ahmadinejad won and that the protests will not come to much that is probably some evidence that there will be no green revolution at the moment.
It is hard to say exactly to what degree the Iranians would be better off if Mousavi won. A lot would depend upon the relative power of progressive forces among the protesters . Neither Ahmadinejad nor Khameni are that popular among the clerics. Rafsanjani is an astute politician. He might be able to make a deal with the clerics and start to put the brakes on any liberal reform. As long as the regime opened up their economy and Rafsanjani increased his holdings and power he would be happy to accomodate the west as much as he could. However Mousavi was the one who started Iran's nuclear programme. As the head of Mossad put it, it could very well be more difficult to deal with him than Ahmadinejad. But that is enough rambling. The reality is that all of this is very hypothetical
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Zizek on Iran
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:59 AM
>
> On Jun 24, 2009, at 11:16 AM, Michael McIntyre wrote:
>
> > Really, just how bad does the repression in Iran have
> to get before the
> > Hanly/Smith axis reconsiders?
>
> The repression is a lie, or a necessary price to resist
> U.S. imperialism.
>
> What I don't get is how a victory for U.S. imperialism - if
> you accept that the fall of the Islamic regime would be such
> - would be in any significant way worse than what Iranians
> are experiencing now? The U.S. is having a helluva time
> running a puppet government in Iraq now. How could Langley
> run Iran?
>
> Doug
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>