Iran's Conservatives Take Lead in Election, End Nuclear Negotiations
by Liam Bailey
2008-03-15 19:10:00 **news**
Iran's hardliners led by Ahmadinejad have taken a massive early lead according to the count thus far. With results from 190 of the 290 seats revealed, Iran's hardliners had taken 60 seats and the reformists only 33.
Iran's hardliners celebrated taking a massive early lead in the country's parliamentary elections by announcing that talks with the west over their nuclear program are over. This is a huge blow to anyone who still hoped this crisis could be resolved peacefully, and takes us one massive step closer to a US military attack on Iran.
It is unsurprising that the conservatives have taken such a lead in the provincial seats, because more than half of the reformists were banned from standing by the un-elected Guardian council of religious clerics, on the grounds that they lacked loyalty to the Islamic system.
One shimmer of light of the election, is that, according to so far unconfirmed reports, Ali Larijani has been elected in the parliamentary elections for the seat of Qom, an important religious city in Iran. Larijani is the former Iranian chief negotiator in the nuclear crisis, and advocate of a peaceful agreement with the West.
Larijani was a conservative and a supporter of Ahmadinejad, but their difference over the handling of the nuclear row led to Larijani and others breaking away and forming a political group now known as revisionists. Basically they don't want the sweeping changes to the political system that the reformists do, but they hate the way Ahmadinejad has allowed the economy to collapse, the main reason for which being UN resolutions targeting the economy, because of his failure to peacefully resolve the nuclear row. The reformists have taken 48 seats of the results so far revealed.
Last week's resignation of long-standing Naval Officer and central commander in the Middle East, General Fallon was widely regarded as a sign that war with Iran may be just around the corner. Another sign is Israel's preparations to go to war with Hezbollah, an Iranian backed terror group in Lebanon who would attack Israel in retaliation for any US strike on Iran. Iran's conservatives winning the provincial elections, and calling of negotiations over the nuclear row, I'm afraid to say, takes us far too close to war with Iran for my liking.
