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Iran
Topic Started: Jun 13 2009, 06:51 PM (863 Views)
eco
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The key, surely, is breaking the Ayatollah stranglehold on Iran. Short of revolution or war (neither particularly desirable for anyone with a stake in the matter), the best that Iranian 'liberals' (and many, I'm sure, deserve that monicker without inverted commas) and the Western world can hope for is for regrettably slow reform. And this isn't going to come about through the likes Ahmedinajad but via the Khatamis, Rafsanjanis and Mousavis.

What good does it do to instinctively write these guys off as silken-tongued fakes? Do you really think no one in Iran is capable of genuine non-theocratic thought? We're talking about Persians here! Take a look round the richer, middle-class neighbourhoods of Tehran and you see next to no enthusiasm for theocracy. The Khatami government actually delivered some freedom for these people; pity the poorer working classes who, as always, get fuck all.
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Allech-Atreus
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I think if I'd just seen a report on CNN or BBC a few days after the event I wouldn't really care. I found a thread on fark, then followed that to twitter, then through all sorts of aggregators and news sites - for nearly two hours. When I see cell phone camera footage of people around my age, marching down the street shouting "give me back my vote" and reading the twitter uploads of university students duking it out with riot police, it's a reminder that they're people exactly like me.

My personal political convictions color it, of course. And whether it's right or wrong, I'll stand with people supporting a not-so-reformist reformer against the hardline theocrats any day. Mousavi is probably a means to an end; but at the moment he's a symbol for the disaffected youth of Iran who are demanding change and demanding answers from the establishment.

I suppose, at the heart of it, is envy. I am actually envious they have the will and courage to march by the thousands for something they believe in. I wish something like that would happen in the States.
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Kenny
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I suppose the radical students who stormed the embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans for 444 days were "just like me," too -- in fact, one of them looked just like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! -- but my parents can be forgiven for not immediately running out and buying posters of the Ayatollah because they felt some romantic connection with the "youth of Iran."

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I suppose, at the heart of it, is envy. I am actually envious they have the will and courage to march by the thousands for something they believe in. I wish something like that would happen in the States.

:unsure:

Have you tried googling the words "anti war protest"?
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Allech-Atreus
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I suppose the radical students who stormed the embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans for 444 days were "just like me," too -- in fact, one of them looked just like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! -- but my parents can be forgiven for not immediately running out and buying posters of the Ayatollah because they felt some romantic connection with the "youth of Iran."


The situations are absolutely not the same and you know it. Unless I'm getting confused and it wasn't the CIA and the US government that supported Shah Pahlavi and his SAVAK thugs.

I am definitely not defending the Islamic Revolution, either. What's happening right now, today, this instant, is a movement for democracy- not Islam, not monarchy. Democracy.

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Have you tried googling the words "anti war protest"?


Try replacing them with the words "cynic" and see what comes up.
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Kenny
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Allech-Atreus,Jun 15 2009
11:57 AM
The situations are absolutely not the same and you know it.

I am definitely not defending the Islamic Revolution, either.

Of course they're not and of course you're not. I was only being sarcastic.
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Allech-Atreus
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I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be accusatory or sound rude.

It's just a very passionate feeling- the footage and the photos are all very compelling; groups of women in full hijab defending a man being beaten by the Basij; young students helping a riot office who's been hurt by the crowds... these reports from uni students that Ansar Hizbullah is using teargas to take control of the dormitories.

We joke about that sort of thing here in East Lansing. When the police use teargas at MSU, it's because people are drunk or we won some sports game. It's sad, actually, because there are uni students in Tehran being beaten for voting for 'the other guy,' and not because the soccer team lost a match and they got out of hand (like Ahmadinejad would like us to believe).
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altan
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Ahmadinejad comparing the protests (and the brutal response to them) to the aftermath of a soccer game, or people breaking traffic laws, is the most disingeunous bunch of crap I've ever heard. I am more and more convinced that Ahmadumbass is Iran's Bush: aggressive, prone to saying stupid things, not all that bright, and apparently fond of stealing elections as well. The only difference is that Ahmadinejad fails at subtlety in theft.

I would love to see the anger at this election result in positive change in Iran; I'm just dreading what it might take to enable that to happen. Ultimately, until Khamenei and his fellow berobed lunatics are forced out of power somehow, nothing is really going to change. Even if Mousavi, by some miracle, unseats Ahmadinejad, the same people will be pulling Mousavi's strings (or, alternately, tying him down with them).
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Allech-Atreus
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A great BBC article here.

There are allegations the elections that put Ahmadinejad in power in the first place were fixed; Khatami was well-liked and supported as a reformer, but his policies were hampered by the Supreme Leader and the Guardians. What really strikes me is how ridiculous the 'official' election tallies really were- it's like the government assumed no one would notice or think that much of how monstrously disproportionate the margins were.
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qumkent
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The Southern Commonwealth,Jun 15 2009
12:05 PM
Ahmadinejad comparing the protests (and the brutal response to them) to the aftermath of a soccer game, or people breaking traffic laws, is the most disingeunous bunch of crap I've ever heard. I am more and more convinced that Ahmadumbass is Iran's Bush: aggressive, prone to saying stupid things, not all that bright, and apparently fond of stealing elections as well. The only difference is that Ahmadinejad fails at subtlety in theft.

I would love to see the anger at this election result in positive change in Iran; I'm just dreading what it might take to enable that to happen. Ultimately, until Khamenei and his fellow berobed lunatics are forced out of power somehow, nothing is really going to change. Even if Mousavi, by some miracle, unseats Ahmadinejad, the same people will be pulling Mousavi's strings (or, alternately, tying him down with them).

OK I agree that the Ayatollahs and Imams need to be dispossessed of power, but I can't help thinking that the US was enthusiastically involved in helping their coreligionists and political puppets come to power in Iraq.

In Iraq the election of chaps in robes preaching radically conservative interpretations of Islam was touted all over the world as a triumph of western democracy. While gay people, women, Transsexuals and others faced violence and death for living lives they were free to live under an otherwise execrable tyrant.

We can't have it both ways in the west, we can't encourage radically socially conservative theocrats in one country and then condemn them in another.

I'm pretty certain that Ahmedinejad has stolen this election and that obviously at the command of the conservative Ayatollahs, and I do hope that the people on the streets of Tehran and Kazvin and Isfahan get the leader they want.

But if we deplore the crookery and gerrymandering of elections which place people like Ahmedinejad in power we also have to admit that western backed "democracy" hasn't been much better at preventing them from gaining power and using it elsewhere.
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Allech-Atreus
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There's a distinction to be drawn between the Iranian theocrats and the Shia clerics. The theocrats are all clerics, but not all clerics are theocrats. It has to do with the decentralized way Shia Islam is organized- Ayatollah Khamenei might be Supreme Leader of Iran, but he's not Supreme Leader of Shia Islam.

You get to be a Grand Ayatollah by spending years studying Islamic law and jurisprudence and writing several books on the subject- or something like that. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Iraq, and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, in Iran, are both Shia, but they both aren't theocrats- only Mesbah Yazdi is.

It's confusing to say the least, because in Iran you also have to be on the Council of Guardians to have any sort of religious pull, which is why the Intelligence Ministry put Ayatollah Sanei under house arrest for calling the election an attack on Islam. Sanei doesn't happen to be a Guardian.
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qumkent
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Allech-Atreus,Jun 15 2009
01:55 PM
There's a distinction to be drawn between the Iranian theocrats and the Shia clerics. The theocrats are all clerics, but not all clerics are theocrats. It has to do with the decentralized way Shia Islam is organized- Ayatollah Khamenei might be Supreme Leader of Iran, but he's not Supreme Leader of Shia Islam.

You get to be a Grand Ayatollah by spending years studying Islamic law and jurisprudence and writing several books on the subject- or something like that. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Iraq, and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, in Iran, are both Shia, but they both aren't theocrats- only Mesbah Yazdi is.

It's confusing to say the least, because in Iran you also have to be on the Council of Guardians to have any sort of religious pull, which is why the Intelligence Ministry put Ayatollah Sanei under house arrest for calling the election an attack on Islam. Sanei doesn't happen to be a Guardian.

I'm aware of that but many of the clerics in Iraq are supported by the Iranian Ayatollahs, and in terms of their politics and attitudes you couldn't get a cigarette paper between them any of them, perhaps the majority of the clerics in Iraq qouldn't want Iranian influence to control Iraq's destiny but they readily accept Iranian support to achieve their aims none the less.
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Kenny
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I'm willing to admit I misunderestimated the impact these demonstrations would have; that said, however, I don't know which response is more laughably feckless: that the mullahs are promising a "limited recount" of the ballots, or that President Obama is "deeply troubled" by the violence. :rolleyes:
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The Palentine
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Kenny,Jun 16 2009
03:44 PM
I'm willing to admit I misunderestimated the impact these demonstrations would have; that said, however, I don't know which response is more laughably feckless: that the mullahs are promising a "limited recount" of the ballots, or that President Obama is "deeply troubled" by the violence. :rolleyes:

Surely you didn't think that Jimmy Carter v.2.0 would actually grow a backbone and show something more, Bossman? :P

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Allech-Atreus
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I would love Obama to stand up and do more, but realistically, he runs the risk of exciting more violence and propaganda. From the start of this, Ahmadinejad has been blaming (if quietly) the "west" and America for interfering; for the US to interfere in any physical way would be a propaganda coup for the mullahs and give the radical IRG and Ansar groups more reason to crack skulls.

It's a tough line to toe- Obama obviously can't support Ahmadinejad; that would be murder for Israel and his constituency. He can't obviously support Moussavi, either, because if this whole thing ends up with the mullahs on top, the nuclear talks and diplomacy process will be fucked six ways from Sunday, because the clerics in charge all remember 1979 and SAVAK and the Shah and how the CIA supported it all.

I think, diplomatically, the best thing to do is just watch and wait. I'm betting, too, that there are dozens of analysts at Langley and in Washington that are crunching numbers and coming up with scenarios on how this whole thing could play out. The last thing we need is a Bush-style heavy handed Axis of Evil or planting democracy approach.
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The Palentine
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I figure the nutjob is living on borrowed time anyway. Bebe can only wait so long to act. And make no mistake, Bebe will act to protect Israel no matter what the Chosen one wants. I figure with this turmoil in Iran, and reports that Iran is continuing towards a Nuke even more rapidly, Bebe will probally strike late summer, or early fall. The only thing that can delay action is if the nutjob gets removed from office, and someone more moderate becomes President(which isn't very likely).

Its also time for some of Iran's neighbors to stand up. None of them want nukes in the hands of that Theocracy, but insted of doing anything they are relying on the UN, to do something. And anyone who places any faith in the UN is a fool. It would be far better for them to finally deal with reality and admit that Israel has a right to exist, and have proper recognition of Israel. Then they could stand united against Iran.
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