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aimed at ensuring cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence, education, energy development, and other areas.
In late February 2009, newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for combat forces, with
approximately 50,000 troops remaining in the country to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance. General Ray
Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said he believes all U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011, while U.K. forces ended combat
operations on April 30, 2009. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of U.S. forces. In a speech at the Oval Office on
31 August 2010 Obama declared the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead
responsibility for the security of their country. Beginning September 1, 2010, the American operational name for its involvement in Iraq changed from Operation
Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn. http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiIraqWar
C. Iran Election Crisis
A crisis is defined by Pauchant and Mitroff 1992:12 as a disruption that physically affects a system as a whole and threatens its basic assumptions, its
subjective sense of self, and its existential core. Meanwhile, Haywood makes simple definition of crisis as an emergency condition, Haywood, 2008. From
the definition above we can see that crisis is an unexpected condition and it is a serious problem that must be solved soon. Crisis could happen in many aspects
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such as, economical aspect, political aspect, social aspect, and so on. A crisis hit Iran after the Iranian presidential election started on 12 June
2009. The crisis was caused by the protests following the Iranian presidential election against the disputed victory of Iranian President Mahmoed Ahmadinejad.
The opposition candidate Mir-Housein Mousavi was dissatisfied by the result of the election. He sent a letter to the Guardian Council to cancel the election and
claimed that he was the real winner. He also met the Supreme Leader to discuss the elections.
Official results, released by the Interior ministry, stated that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had got 62.6. Meanwhile his closest challenger, Mir Hossein
Mousavi, received only 33.8. The two other candidates won a much smaller percentage of the vote. Mohsen Rezai gained 1.7 and Mehdi Karroubi just 0.9.
The ministry put turnout at 85. All opposition candidates rejected the official results and claimed that the
votes were manipulated and the election rigged. According to an analysis by Professor Walter R. Mebane, Jr. from the Department of Statistics of the
University of Michigan, considering data from the first stage of the 2005 presidential election produces results that give moderately strong support for a
diagnosis that the 2009 election was affected by significant fraud. The UK-based think-tank Chatham House also suspected fraud in the voting process for a
number of reasons. There were many protests came from the groups who oppose the elected
president. The protests were given several titles by their proponents including
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Green Revolution, Green Wave or Sea of Green, reflecting presidential candidate Mousavis campaign color, and also Persian Awakening. The events have also
been nicknamed the Twitter Revolution because of the protesters reliance on Twitter and other social-networking Internet sites to communicate with each
other. Islamic politician Ataollah Mohajerani blasted the election as the end of the Islamic Republic. In response to the protests, other groups rallied in Tehran
to support Ahmadinejad. The crisis reached into the bad condition. Police suppressed both peaceful
demonstrating and rioting using batons, pepper spray, sticks and, in some cases, firearms. The Iranian government has confirmed the deaths of 36 people during
the protests while unconfirmed reports by supporters of Mousavi allege that there have been 72 deaths twice as many in the three months following the disputed
election. Iranian authorities have closed universities in Tehran, blocked web sites, blocked cell phone transmissions and text messaging and banned rallies.
http:en, wikipedia.orgwikiIranElectionProcess
D. Speech and News Conference
