Iran Update: Khameini Warns Opposition that they Could End in "Collapse"; Moussawi Says Hardship is Price of a Better Future

by Damozel  | In Iran, the supreme leader has told protesters to give it up.  (L.A. Times)  In the meantime, "defiant reformists" are still calling for a referendum on the disputed election. (LAT)  The supreme leader had this to say:

“The [political] elite should be careful,” warned Ayatollah Khamenei. “They [the opposition leaders] are in an exam session; a big exam. Failing in this exam does not mean getting one [academic] year behind. It will lead to [their] collapse.

“Anyone under any title and position who pushes the society toward insecurity would be a hated figure in the eyes of the majority of Iranian nation,” he said, in a clear reference to the top opposition figures.  (Financial Times)

Opposition leader Moussavi, meeting with families of people who died protesting the allegedly stolen election, insists that the current troubles is the price of a better Iran.

“This wave [of protests] won’t be extinguished with the arrest of a few thousand or even tens of thousands,” he said. “Some cannot sit and say the problem is over.” (Financial Times)

There's no indication whatsoever that the opposition is prepared to back down.  (LAT) 

The leading reformist clerical party, the Association of Combatant Clerics, led by Mohammad Khatami, the former president, called for a referendum on “what has happened”.

A referendum, the association said, would help Iran get out of the “deadlock and crisis”. But such a poll should be monitored by impartial bodies. “If the current situation continues, all will be losers,” it warned.

Messages on blogs and websites have called for fresh rallies on Tuesday, the anniversary of the creation of the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. (FT)

In The New York Times, Roger Cohen muses on this "shameful interlude" in the history of a proud and sophisticated people. 

Iran is not some banana republic. The events since the night of June 12 have been a shameful interlude. Iranians have not digested this grotesquery.

No, Iran is not a banana republic. It’s a sophisticated nation of 75 million people. It pretends to a significant role in the affairs of the world.

And for this reason, he says, one can only be bemused by the recent actions of the government.

What president would celebrate a “victory” by two-thirds of the vote with a clampdown resembling a putsch? What self-respecting nation would attribute the appearance in the streets of three million protesters convinced their votes were stolen to Zionists, “evil” media and British agents?....

What sort of country invites hundreds of journalists to witness an election only to throw them all out? What kind of revolutionary authority invokes “ethics” and “religious democracy” as it allows plain-clothes thugs to beat women?...

What is to be thought of a supreme leader who calls an election result divine, then says there are some questions that need resolution by an oversight council, and then tells that council what the result of its recount is before it’s over?...  (Roger Cohen)

Oh, and this:

Ahmadinejad was speaking in Mashad. “As soon as the new government is formed, it will enter the global sphere with a power that is 10 times greater than that of the West and overthrow the West from its hegemonic position,” he said. (Roger Cohen)

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