This was the second such mass mobilization in Iran this year. On February 11, the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution, millions poured into the streets in defiance of threats from Washington. At the time Bush had just labeled Iran, North Korea, and Iraq as the "axis of evil."

The July 19 demonstrations followed another statement by Bush, issued July 12. The Iranian people have voted for political and economic reforms, he said, yet "their voices are not being listened to by the unelected people who are the real rulers of Iran... Members of the ruling regime and their families continue to obstruct reform while reaping unfair benefits.

Bush added that "talented students and professionals, faced with the dual specter of too few jobs and too many restrictions on their freedom, continue to seek opportunities abroad rather than help build Iran’s future at home."  
 
Probe by imperialism
The U.S. president’s statement was a maneuver to probe the possibilities of winning influence among layers in the population who are dissatisfied with the policies pursued by Iran’s government.

On July 9 some 3,000 students around the University of Tehran and in the streets of affluent north Tehran had clashed with security forces and extralegal vigilantes who often show up to disrupt demonstrations. It was the third anniversary of a brutal attack in 1999 on students protesting in the dormitories of Tehran and Tabriz universities. The students express frustration at the lack of action by the government in prosecuting those responsible for the attacks.

The ministry of the interior did not issue a permit for the action this year, and major student organizations canceled their call for demonstrations. Among those who joined the protest, some 140 people were arrested.

The same day, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, the popular religious leader of the southern city of Isfahan, resigned. In a letter explaining his action, he said that civil and elected institutions were being "paralyzed" in the name of religion, and condemned "the increasing power of irresponsible unelected institutions, the undermining of the elected parliament, the distasteful slaughter of the press, the illegal imprisonment of writers, [and] the paralysis of the elected government."

He also wrote that "unemployment, inflation, and the hellish division between poverty and wealth and class divisions" are increasing. "Is this the pact we made with the oppressed at the onset of the 1979 revolution?" he asked rhetorically.

After Ayatollah Taheri’s resignation some 125 parliamentary deputies, associated with the "reform" faction of the government, signed a letter in his support.

In a July 17 interview with the Iranian Students’ News Agency, Ayatollah Taheri said that he "would defend the revolution to his last breath." He encouraged people to participate in the July 19 demonstrations against Washington, saying that "a massive and all-inclusive participation in these demonstrations insures the country’s future and prevents enemies from being tempted to commit aggression against our holy land."  
 
Working people not heeding siren call
In rejecting the U.S. president’s statement, the July 19 demonstrations showed that the working people in Iran were not heeding the siren call of democratic imperialism. Protesters converged at the Friday prayer meetings around the country. Speakers pointed to Washington’s deeds in the last half a century in relation to Iran. Most notably, they referred to the U.S. government-engineered military coup in 1953 that overthrew an elected and popular government in Iran and imposed the 25-year despotic rule of the shah. The 1979 revolution overthrew the shah, one of U.S. imperialism’s strongest allies in the Mideast.

Hojatoleslam Hassan Rowhani, a speaker at the Tehran rally, said, "Bush talks of human rights, but after September 11 they have declared torture to be legal, they have legalized terrorism by the CIA in various countries, and have legalized military tribunals where the lawyer does not have the right to participate and the convict has no right to appeal." Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told the rally, "We tell the Americans to put aside their arrogant behavior. Then this nation could start dialogue with you and talk to you."

Iran’s president, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected on his promises to introduce democratic reforms, responded to Bush’s statement July 17. "The ones who are threatening the world with war through their warmongering policies and misinterpretations should abandon them and apologize to Iran and the Iranian government," he said.

After the president issued his statement, Iran’s clerical head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Khatami had given Bush a "slap in the mouth" by condemning his interference in Iran’s internal matters.  
 
Wide endorsements for action
Ayatollah Khamenei issued the call for the July 19 demonstrations. Within two days the call gained the endorsement of a large number of parties and organizations, including those identified with the reform movement, which is associated with calls for more openings for democratic rights and individual liberties . Ahmad Ali Aminiha, a student in Tehran, told Reuters, "We don’t want the United State’s support, we want reforms."

A day after the demonstrations, Ayatollah Khamenei said that the presence of multitudes in the streets the previous day had announced to the world that "this great nation will not turn back from the road it has taken." The U.S. regime is "homogeneous in its aggressiveness and greed," he said, adding that just as Washington’s attempts to divide Iran’s government "are enemy plots, by the same token attempts to find divisions among the ruling groups in Washington are excuses for conciliation and compromise with it."  
 
 
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