Iranian state television reported that the Guardian Council had certified the official results of the country's disputed presidential election, despite continuing protests. June 29, 2009

The Iranian government arrested nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy, while the police in Tehran beat and fired tear gas at several thousand protesters. June 29, 2009

The Iranian government extended by five days its deadline to investigate opposition claims of vote rigging in the disputed presidential election, but the government's underlying stance remains unchanged. June 29, 2009

Step by step, Iran’s leaders are successfully pushing back threats to their authority, crushing protests and restricting the main opposition leader. June 26, 2009

The Iranian leadership has begun casting anyone who disputes the presidential election result as an enemy of the nation. June 25, 2009



Updated: June 23, 2009

Iran has had a quasi theocracy since the ouster of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In June 2009, widespread protests over the results of a presidential election grew into the greatest challenge to its authority that the Shiite regime has faced.

On June 12, 2009, after an unusually bitter campaign, voters went to the polls. Four hours after the last of some 40 million paper ballots was cast, the authorities announced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected in a landslide. The announcement of his victory -- in which it was said that he had received more than 60 percent of the vote -- prompted mass protests by demonstrators who claimed that he had stolen the election. Mr. Admadinejad's main challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister with a reputation for honesty and competence, called on supporters and fellow clerics to fight the election results. In the final weeks of the race, Mr. Moussavi's campaign had gained tremendous energy, and huge rallies by his supporters had packed the streets of Tehran day and night.

After tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in the streets of capital and elsewhere, the country's supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for a high-level inquiry into accusations of election irregularities. The move failed to appease the protesters, as did an offer to conduct a partial recount. Since the elections, both pro- and anti-government demonstrators have gathered in the streets, increasing tensions. Clashes with members of the Revolutionary Guards and their militia supporters left at least 17 people dead during the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the Iranian revolution.

The election and violence, the worst in 30 years, have laid bare the deepening rift among Iran's ruling clerics. The government briefly detained relatives of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, his powerful backer and a founder of the Islamic republic.

As the protests continued, the regime switched to a harder line. On June 19, Ayatollah Khomenei gave an angry sermon in which he insisted on the validity of the election results and warned protesters that they would be responsible for any violence if demonstrations continued. In the days that followed, the police and paramilitary forces took a more aggressive role in breaking up gatherings, and large-scale arrests of opposition figures were reported. Divisions appeared in the opposition, as one losing candidate withdrew his complaint of voter fraud.

President Obama on June 22 responded to the crackdown by saying he was "appalled and outraged,'' but many Republicans criticized him for not taking a more forceful stand.

By June 26, two weeks after the vote, the authorities appeared to have gained the upper hand. The number of people attempting to demonstrate appeared to dwindle sharply -- although details were hard to come by in the face of severe media and telecommunications restrictions -- and protests were swiftly and violently dispersed. A spokesman for the Guardian Council, a conservative 12-member body responsible for vetting elections, called the balloting "the healthiest in decades'' even before its review was complete.

Despite continuing protests, Iranian state television reported on June 29 that the Guardian Council had certified the official election results.

President Ahmadinejad called for a judicial inquiry into the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot and killed on the sidelines of a protest on June 20 and who became a symbol of the uprising after film of her last moments was shown worldwide. Mr. Ahmadinejad, adding to government accusations that foreign agents played a role in the killing, said that Ms. Agha-Soltan's death had been exploited by enemies "for their own political aims and also to distort the pure and clean image of the Islamic Republic in the world."

The turmoil comes after a period in which the country's stature in the Middle East has grown but discontent has crept up internally. The greater prominence in the region comes as a result of a combination of factors: the American invasion of Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussein, a longtime enemy, and replaced him with a friendly Shiite government; the rise in oil prices between 2001 and 2008; and its aggressive foreign policy, which included support for radical groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

The country's nuclear power program is another source of international tension, leading the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions after Iran ignored its order to halt the enrichment of uranium. Internally, the hard-line clerics who control the government tightened their hold after Mr. Ahmadinejad, a conservative, succeeded Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, as president in 2005. Much of the economy is propped up by the country's rich oil reserves, and lower export prices have led to mounting criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

The Nuclear Challenge

Mr. Ahmadinejad has sought to rally support by defiance of the West and the United States over Iran's nuclear program. In 2003, under President Khatami, Iran admitted that it had been cladestinely pursuing an atomic program and agreed to suspend it. In 2006, the country restarted a nuclear research program that it insisted was purely for peaceful purposes.

It defied a series of Security Council resolutions calling for a halt, and rebuffed diplomatic overtures from Europe and the United States. In May 2007 international inspectors reported that the country's scientists had mastered the process of enrichment, in which uranium is concentrated to the levels needed for power generation or, eventually, for an atomic bomb.

Late that year, American intelligence agencies issued a new National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that the weapons portion of the Iranian nuclear program remained on hold. Contradicting the assessment made in 2005, the report stated that the Iranian government did not appear determined to obtain nuclear weapons, although it said Iran's intentions were unclear, and that the country probably could not produce a bomb until the middle of the next decade.

On May 20, 2009, Iran test fired an upgraded surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. The reported range of the Sejil-2 missile would put it within striking distance of Israel and of American bases in the Persian Gulf. The launch would appear to represent Iran's first successful test of a solid-fuel missile, which would be much more mobile and easier to hide than their current generation of liquid-fueled rockets. Until now, the country's longest-range missile has been the liquid-fueled Shahab-3, which is based on a design that it obtained from North Korea.

American officials and international inspectors are concerned that Iran seems to have made significant progress in the three technonologies necessary to field an effective nuclear weapon: enriching uranium to weapons grade; developing a missile capable of reaching Israel and parts of Western Europe; and designing a warhead that will fit on the missile.

The greatest mystery surrounds the warhead program, which intelligence agencies said in late 2007 had been halted at the end of 2003. It is unclear whether Iran has restarted its weaponization program.

Relations with the U.S. and Israel

Mr. Ahmadinejad has often denounced Israel. In 2008, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran -- which go back many decades, from Washington's participation in the 1953 coup that installed the shah, to the seizure of American diplomats in 1979 after the shah fell to an Islamic revolution -- also rose in 2007 and 2008 over Iran's involvement in Iraq. American military officials accused elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard of supplying Shiite militants in Iraq with powerful roadside bombs to use against American forces.

During the 2008 American presidential campaign, Barack Obama broke with rival candidates to say he favored unconditional talks with Iran, though he condemned its nuclear program. In his first interview after taking office, on Al Arabiya television, an Arabic-language channel based in Dubai, Mr. Obama said that "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us."

President Ahmadinejad responded by calling for an apology for decades of American misdeeds, but did not explicitly reject the overture. The move signaled the start of a long-delayed war-or-peace drama that may help define the Obama administration's plans to remake America's approach to diplomacy, but could cause problems between the U.S. and Israel.

The 2009 Presidential Campaign

The major candidates in the hotly disputed 2009 presidential election were the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister.

Mr. Moussavi's moderate views won him support from other reformers in Iran, including former President Mohammad Khatami. Public rallies in his support were of unexpected size and enthusiasm. The leading candidates exchanged accusations that were extraordinarily fierce for Iranian politics.

In early June, the presidential campaign reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard of in Iran. In part, that appeared to be because of a surge of energy in Mr. Moussavi's campaign. Rallies for Mr. Moussavi drew tens of thousands of people, and an unofficial poll suggested his support had markedly increased, with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Many Iranians said the campaign's raucous tone was due largely to Mr. Ahmadinejad's unexpectedly fierce rhetorical attacks, which infuriated his rivals and their supporters, and drew some blistering ripostes.

Many observers said a critical moment was a nationally televised debate on June 3, in which the president opened with a furious attack on Mr. Moussavi. Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to spare no one, accusing his conservative and liberal opponents of being corrupt. The most shocking thrust, to some viewers, was when he held up a document with a small picture of Mr. Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, and asked him in a derisive tone, "Do you know this woman?" Mr. Ahmadinejad then accused Ms. Rahnavard -- a respected professor of political science -- of entering a graduate program without taking the entrance exam and other, lesser violations of university policy. Ms. Rahnavard held a news conference in which she threatened to sue if Mr. Ahmadinejad did not apologize.

Mr. Moussavi served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988. He is well remembered by many Iranians for managing the country during its eight-year war with Iraq, and for introducing food rationing.

An architect and painter, he has not held a government post since the Constitution was amended to eliminate the position of prime minister in 1989.

After Mr. Moussavi announced in March 2009 that he intended to stand in the June election, Mr. Khatami, a leading moderate candidate, withdrew from the race. Aides said he quit so as not to split the vote against Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Moussavi has said that he favors freedoms of speech and the press and would try to change the law that bans private television stations.

But he has also said he would not back down from the country's nuclear program, which began during his tenure as prime minister. Instead, he said, he would try to build international confidence that Iran's nuclear ambitions were peaceful.

"Weaponization and nuclear technology are two separate issues, and we should not let them get mixed up," he said.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in June 2005 on a mandate to distribute the country's growing oil income among the poor. The son of a blacksmith, he was an unknown figure in the country's politics who had only served as Tehran's mayor for two years and earlier as a provincial governor for four years. But with the support of the country's religious and military circles -- who had been frustrated with the policies of Mr. Khatami, his moderate predecessor, Mr. Ahmadinejad appealed to a large rural constituency who voted for him in hope for economic change.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad soon became known on the international stage as the face of Iran's defiance over its nuclear program and hostility towards Israel. He shocked the world when he called the Holocaust a "myth' and repeated an old slogan from the early days of the 1979 revolution, saying "Israel must be wiped off the map."

After his election, Iran broke the United Nation's nuclear agency seals on its nuclear facility and resumed sensitive enrichment activities -- a process that can be used for making nuclear bomb or nuclear fuel. Iran contends that its program is peaceful and that it merely wants to produce fuel for its nuclear power plants. But because of secretive past activities, the United States and some European countries accuse Iran of having a clandestine weapons program. The country has been the target of three sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions over its program.

In the last few years, the country has been hit by high inflation, soaring unemployment and unrest. In recent months, lower export prices of oil lessened Mr. Ahmadinejad's popularity.

A Disputed Election and Its Violent Aftermath

Before the voting, supporters of Mr. Moussavi were hopeful, given the large and energetic crowds that had been turning out at his rallies. But then on June 13, the day after the voting, Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, with 63 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Mr. Moussavi.

On June 15, in an unusual radio address broadcast every 15 minutes, Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as telling Mr. Moussavi to pursue his objections to the election result calmly and legally. But later, in a turnabout from the government's earlier position that the vote had been free and fair, the ayatollah called for the vote to be examined. He instructed the powerful Guardian Council to examine opposition complaints of widespread electoral irregularities.

The council, in its ruling the following day, said the law prevented it from voiding the last vote and holding a new one. It announced that it was prepared to order only a partial recount, according to state television and news reports. Mr. Moussavi and other opponents of Mr. Admadinejad rejected the proposal.

By June 17, Iran had expanded a crackdown on journalists and for the first time directly accused the United States of interference in the disputed presidential election. President Obama said a day earlier that it would be counterproductive for the United States "to be seen as meddling." But he also said he was "deeply troubled by the violence" and that democratic values needed to be observed.

Mr. Moussavi, in a message on a Web site associated with him, called on his supporters to rally again on June 18, and to go to their local mosques to mourn protesters killed in the demonstrations. His call directly challenged Ayatollah Khamenei, who had urged him to work through the country's electoral system in contesting what was declared a landslide victory for Mr. Admadinejad.

Later, on June 21, Mr. Moussavi called on his supporters to demonstrate peacefully despite stern warnings from Ayatollah Khamenei that no protests of the vote would be allowed. Earlier, police briefly detained five relatives of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who leads two influential councils and openly supported Mr. Moussavi's election. One of Mr. Rafsanjani's relatives said the detainment was a pressure tactic.

The developments, coming one day after protests in the capital and elsewhere were crushed by police officers and militia members using guns, clubs, tear gas and water cannons, suggested that Ayatollah Khamenei was facing entrenched resistance among some members of the elite. Though rivalries have been part of Iranian politics since the 1979 revolution, analysts said that open factional competition amid a major political crisis could hinder Ayatollah Khamenei's ability to restore order.

Despite the ayatollah's insistence of the election's legitimacy, Iran's most senior panel of election monitors, in the most sweeping acknowledgment that the election was flawed, said on June 22 that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters by three million, according to a state television report. The authorities insisted that the discrepancies did not violate Iranian law. A day after the announcement, the Guardian Council, which oversees the elections and legislation in Iran, said that there was not enough proof of fraud to overturn the election.

The government has continued to aggressively crush dissent and ruled out the possibility of overturning the victory of the incumbent. Though allies of the nation's leadership expressed their own anger with the brutality of the crackdown, summoning the interior minister before a committee of Parliament, the government moved forcefully ahead, calling for Mr. Ahmadinejad to be sworn in by early August as the winner of the Islamic Republic's 10th presidential election.

In the face of the crackdown, rifts appeared among the opposition. One losing candidate, Mohsen Rezai, withdrew his charge of voting fraud. Mr. Rezai had initially complained that while the official count gave him 680,000 votes, he had evidence that 900,000 people voted for him. But he decided to abandon the complaint, saying the current "political, social and security situation has entered a sensitive and decisive phase which is more important than the election."

Trailing Mr. Moussavi and the former Parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi, Mr. Rezai was the most conservative of the losing candidates and had been under strong pressure from Iran's rulers to pull back from the confrontation.

Some opponents maintained their defiance, calling for continued protests and the release of detainees. Despite efforts to silence dissent and despite an appearance of disarray in opposition ranks, Mr. Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, who has played an influential role in the opposition, issued a call for the immediate release of Iranians detained in election protests, his Web site reported.

But Mr. Moussavi has few options other than to express his outrage, and he is growing increasingly isolated. He does not have a political organization to rally, and during the height of the unrest he attracted a large following more because of whom he opposed -- Mr. Ahmadinejad -- than because of what he stood for, political analysts said. Mr. Moussavi also seemed to be sending mixed messages.

According to Tehran residents, members of the government's Basij militia, ordered to prevent any gatherings, have beaten even small groups of passers-by so the mourners arrived in groups of two or three, muttered brief prayers and left, the Associated Press reported, quoting unidentified witnesses.

There were other signs of continued resistance. A few conservatives have expressed revulsion at the sight of unarmed protesters being beaten, even shot, by government forces. Only 105 out of the 290 members of Parliament took part in a victory celebration for Mr. Ahmadinejad on June 23, newspapers reported two days later. The absence of so many lawmakers, including the speaker, Ali Larijani, a powerful conservative, was striking.

And in the evenings, large numbers of Tehran residents continued to take to their rooftops at 10 p.m. to call out "God is great!" and "Death to the dictator!"-- a form of anonymous protest first used against the Shah.

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RELATED: Iran: Nuclear Program | Haleh Esfandiari | New York Times Special Report: The C.I.A. in Iran
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June 21, 2009
MORE ON IRAN AND: UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ELECTIONS, DEMONSTRATIONS AND RIOTS, OBAMA, BARACK
A Supreme Leader Loses His Aura as Iranians Flock to the Streets
By ROGER COHEN
As protesters defied a warning from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country faces its gravest test since the founding of the Islamic Republic.
June 21, 2009
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Bullets and Barrels
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
If supporters of Mir Hussein Moussavi want their ballots to count, they must continue their protests and show Iran’s leaders that they can be neither bought nor bullied.
June 21, 2009
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Violence Grips Tehran Amid Crackdown
By THE NEW YORK TIMES; THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY ROBERT F. WORTH IN BEIRUT, SHARON OTTERMAN IN NEW YORK and ALAN COWELL IN PARIS BASED ON FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS FROM TEHRAN.
As police officers used sticks and tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators, the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, said at a rally that “I am ready for martyrdom.”
June 21, 2009
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Police Officers Clash With Protesters in Iran
The Koran and the Ballot Box
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
The current demonstrations are not just the end of the first stage of the Iranian democratic experiment, but the collapse of the Islamic approach to political self-rule.
June 21, 2009
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Iran’s Top Leader Dashes Hopes for a Compromise
By NAZILA FATHI; STEVEN ERLANGER CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FROM PARIS.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, raised the prospect of violence if the vast, defiant protests of opposition supporters continued.
June 20, 2009
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World; Khamenei Speaks in Tehran
MIDDLE EAST; The Lede: Images From Iran
Ayatollah Taps Into Distrust Rooted in History
By JOHN F. BURNS
An attack on Britain by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, experts said, was playing to popular resentment of the country.
June 20, 2009
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City of Whispers
By ROGER COHEN
In the streets of Tehran, communication among protesters has taken the form of whispers. Still, President Obama must let them know he hears their voices.
June 20, 2009
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Iran’s Tensions, Foreshadowed in Its Cinema
By A. O. SCOTT
From the early 1990s until the middle of this decade, Iran’s historically rich movie culture entered a remarkable period of rejuvenation.
June 20, 2009
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Obama Resists Calls for a Tougher Stance on Iran
By MARK LANDLER; DAVID M. HERSZENHORN CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON, and STEPHEN CASTLE FROM BRUSSELS.
President Obama’s reluctance to respond more forcefully may change if Tehran carries out a sweeping crackdown.
June 20, 2009
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Stealing the Village Vote
By ERIC HOOGLUND
Ahmadinejad didn’t get his ‘victory’ in rural areas, either.
June 19, 2009
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Fragile at the Core
By DAVID BROOKS
The Iranian elections have stirred a whirlwind that will lead, someday, to the regime’s collapse.
June 19, 2009
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A Different Iranian Revolution
By SHANE M.
Americans have to stop looking at the Tehran demonstrations through the prism of 1979.
June 19, 2009
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(source:topics.nytimes.com)