Clerical Group In Iran Challenges Election Results

From the New York Times:

The most important group of religious leaders in Iran has called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.

“This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”
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The clerics’ decision to speak up is not itself a game changer and could fizzle under pressure from the state. Some seminaries in Qum rely on the government for funds, and the supreme leader and the man he has declared the winner of the election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have powerful backers there.
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The clerics’ statement called not only for the election results to be thrown out, but also chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the government’s use of force in crushing public protests over the election.

Perhaps more threatening to the supreme leader, the committee called on other clerics to join the fight against the government’s refusal to reconsider the charges of voter fraud. The committee invoked powerful imagery, comparing the 20 protesters killed during demonstrations with the martyrs who died in the early days of the revolution and the war with Iraq. In doing so, they effectively cast the government as betraying the ideals of the revolution.

Fareed Zakaria answered a question put to him at CNN:

CNN: What about a military strike?

Zakaria: It would be bizarre to bomb Iran-- which means bombing Iranians -- now that we have seen the inside of that country. Moussavi and his supporters want a less confrontational approach to the world. So do many members of the establishment.

Moussavi attacked Ahmadinejad repeatedly for his aggressive foreign policy. So we now know the answer to the question, "Are there moderates in Iran?" Yes, millions of them.

For years now, I've read that there were a good many moderates amongst the people of Iran, but the members of the Bush maladministration were having none of it. Attack was the way to go, and since Iran is quite a large country, invasion was out of the question. What was the alternative? Attack with bombs and missiles from the air and sea.