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Debs Take On Iran’s Election
by Debs is dead
lifted from a comment
I'm really reluctant to post on any of this because it is none of
our fucking business and that includes the bourgeois sons and daughters
of Iranian 'refugees'. What happens in Iran is Iran's business comment
either way is mined and then used to develop talking points to bring
the neo-cons, neo-libs, & national socialists onside for sticking
their sticky beaks into Iran.
At most Oblamblam and co will be spinning up acceptance for more
overt destabilisation of Iran, a full on attack is completely off the
agenda despite however much Israelis, imperialists and pseudo leftie
national socialists may want it. The plain fact is the odds of America
and whatever other scurds of cannon fodder can be scraped out from
under Oblamblam's fingernails after he has scoured the bottom of the
foreign support barrel couldn't win a bar blue at happy hour, let alone
take on Iran's well organised and well resourced defence forces.
And they, (the war mongers) know it. Consequently they are stuck
with trying to organise a colour revolution in the hope that even if
they don't get a puppet in, they may get the opportunity to leverage a
bit more of an opening. One to either take over and at best install their trained chook or at least weaken Iran's defences.
Nukes and crap have about as much to do with this as WMD had with Iraq, they are an excuse not a reason. The motive is exactly the same as that which has had Americans
slaughtering native Americans from the Amazon to Angoon for the last
300+ years.
It won't stop – it can't stop, the empire must be fed or it will die, and Iran is much favoured sustenance.
Iraq was a stopgap, a small taster that fortuitously became available
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Iran has been on the agenda
since Stalin offered the loot up to Roosevelt in 1943 as payment for
the material required to defeat Europe's national socialists.
Tehran's kids are an easy target for the quiet Americans, the
situation parallels that of Moscow in the 80's where kids would sell
their society for a few pairs of Levis. The Iranians regime know that and attempt to keep most consumerist
stuff coming for the bourgeois youth, they know how this goes otherwise.
However the effect of the sanctions combined with the controls on the
media the ruling elite believes they have to put in place cause they
can see no other way of preventing the covert disinformation campaign America and co are running now from going right over the top, have
combined to convince the kids that their own leaders are 'uncool' –
which is probably true but nevertheless the alternative would be much
less cool for a whole lot more Iranians – worse there would be no way
back from it. Well no bearable way. Ask the Zimbabweans what happens if
you close your legs once the gang has begun to bang.
Attempting to convince kids of this is likely to make matter worse,
so the Iranian administration is forced to sit on it's hands and hope
that if things go real quiet some of the kids might just hear the Americans and work it out for themselves.
Sometimes that isn't possible. Setting fire to buses and smashing
windows provokes a crackdown anywhere in the world. When Tibetans
protest that's good and the crackdown bad, but until recently
protesting was frowned on in Nepal – the protesters were Maoist
murderers on the streets of Kathmandu – until the Maoists won power
that is, now Nepalese rioters are freedom fighters.
Same in Thailand, when the Bangkok middle and merchant class put their
airport under siege for weeks so as to overthrow the democratically
elected government – that was good, but when the rural people who voted
for the former government arrived in Bangkok to protest the coup, the
western media dubbed them illiterate peasants greedy for hand outs.
Still in Iran none of it will matter in the end. Ahmadinejad has got
another 4 years and his mob was ready for the losers' dummy spit, the
'riots' will die down and things will be tougher for America next time
round in Iran.
I'm betting that it will be the heroin the amerikans are smuggling
into Iran that will likely bring them undone in the eyes of the young
Iranians – they will get caught at it as they eventually always do.
There hasn't been much talk about this problem in the west (I wonder
why not) and the Iranians are staying shtum for their own reasons, but
since the coalition of the willing cranked up the Afghani 'O'
cultivation racket, the bulk of that O has been refined into hammer and
pushed into Iran.
The BBC ran a story a few weeks back saying Iran now had 4 million
yep you read right 4,000,000 junkies. I have an Iranian student in one
class who told me he reckons that Tehran probably has 4 million
addicts. He said the real figure for all Iran is much much higher.
Smallpox in blankets becomes smack in bindles but this hammer thing
won't work, it never really has. I suppose you could say that taking
crack into Compton helped America keep it's slaves in their place, but
the destruction of black society hasn't been anything like complete and
has relied upon a number of other controls which cannot easily be
replicated in a country whose leadership doesn't play ball.
For example the Iranians are treating the problem as more of a health
issue than a good old American "war on drugs". They have been opening
many treatment centres (altho without getting the "turn yourself into a
pliant vegetable" Bill and Bob scam going)
In the end the young people will realise that their difference of
opinion with Ahmadinejad is just a family dispute which America
exploits for it's own ends. One is an overly authoritarian parent, the
other a sleazy old sex addict whose seeming charm is just grooming in
preparation for rape.
From the ‘west’, the usual slant in the MSM:
1. Pictures of crowds who support the guy who will lose (yes, often)
2. An attempt at color-revolution crap the results of which are reported endlessly. This time the color was a mistake, as green is the color not of Cohn- Bendit (EU ‘greens’) or of US Transition Town Types, but of Islam. If one takes color symbolism seriously.
3. Highly selective pictures of demos after the result.
4. Accusations of electoral fraud. Guff about the underdeveloped, etc. The largest electoral frauds that have taken place in the past few years (barring some small elections I am not aware of) have been in the US. There were some reps. of the UN at Bush 1 election, their report was buried.
5. Lamentations at the result, democracy is demolished, or dodgy to begin with, because how could anyone elect a baby-killer, a terrorist, a holo denier, an extremist, a woman hater, a complete chump, etc. (Bush, anyone?)
6. Interviews of selected stooges who bemoan (often for payment) the lack of varied things such as miniskirts for women, boosting indigenous sports so that they can win olympics, letting the IMF do its thing, cracking down on non PC actions, hate speech, letting artists sell controversial works (and note the contradiction here), etc. etc. While completely ignoring education and health care, infrastructure, etc. and, just to add it in, the position and outlook for women who are not up there hob-nobbing with the pols or the CIA wearing western garb with ethnic touches, but simply rad poor and desperate, starving, in fact.
These ‘west’ supporters are generally blinded by financial, status, class, inherited or just new-grabbed advantage, privilege, and look no further than their own bank account and kow-towing to the powerful or playing cute by making some minor moves towards whatever nonsense is current, as a way of maintaining income and safety, and their cards in the hand. So they are easy to exploit, and can be counted on to perform, in print and on camera.
More fool them. Or good for them. They will survive, their countrymen, not.
– i didn’t read the whole of the last Iran thread
Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 15 2009 17:35 utc | 29
1- Are you saying Ahmadinejad is more corrupt that Mousavi? More corrupt than Rafsanjani? Really?
No, they are both corrupt and everyone in Iran knows this.
2- Iran’s supreme leader, and Iran’s basic policies are not at risk in the election. What terrible fate are would you claim either Ahmadinejad or Khamenei is afraid of that one would crudely invent election results?
I’ll simplify things a bit, sorry in advance if this seems a bit cartoonish. It’s the only way to properly describe the situation to someone without access or experience with 40 years of literature.
I guess your question is, why didn’t they do this 1997 when the reformists won. In 2009 for the first time we have an alignment of interests of disjoint factions such as the Intelligentsia, the Religious Old Guard who never accepted Khamenei, Reformists, Bazaar, Students, the middle-class, and large portion of the urban poor. On the other side we have the militarist Hojjatiye factions, including Ayatollah Yazdi, Khamenei and A.N.
Now looking at history, the 1979 revolution was brought about by the Religious Old Guard (Qom), Bazaar and to some extent the Intelligentsia. In 1997 we had the Reformists and Intelligentsia vs everyone.
The reason why the militarist faction in Iran felt threatened enough to attempt a power grab, is because they felt threatened. For the first time, they are essentially alone with interests counter to those of all other factions.
3- Where is the evidence? You say you can’t believe Ahmadinejad got this many votes in that place, and all your friends voted against Ahmadinejad. Where is the person saying publicly, “I was asked to participate in a fraud”, or “here is a copy I made of the real results in this district” or “here is a picture of uncounted ballots”
There were some people reporting boxes of ballots found on the back of pickup trucks which had been left unopened, and reports of burning of ballot boxes. These are all rumors. For a complete analysis we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
4. Here’s the thing. The richest man in Iran, and the chair of the Assembly of Experts that appoints and can remove the Supreme Leader is on your side. Who is he afraid of? Forging votes is clearly against the constitution. If it happened, who is there that could blow the whistle that Rafsanjani could not protect?
It’s not that simple. First of all, the Majlis Khobregan votes; it is not Rafsanjani’s decision. Also they’re really only meant to choose the leader. Removing the leader is really unchartered and undocumented in Iranian law.
Secondly, Rafsanjani would only attempt to do this if all else fails. As long as there is a chance that the Velayat E Faqih system can survive, through a change of heart of the leadership, Rafsanjani will wait. This is after all a power struggle inside the Islamic Republic. None of the factions are interested in weakening and destroying its core pillars.
5- Why allow Mousavi to run if he’s a threat to someone powerful enough to fabricate the entire election? Hosni Mubarak really could fabricate an election. But because he’s powerful enough to fabricate an election, he never has to throw one where the outcome is in doubt.
I don’t think they expected him to become popular enough. Also it is in the interest of the Islamic Republic to legitimize itself through elections.
6- The street protests are following the pattern of color revolutions in other places, exactly. Eerily in fact.
I disagree. It follows the pattern of previous Iranian uprisings. In particular Azar 1332. (Oct 1953)
7- The United States has openly allocated hundreds of millions of dollars towards destabilizing Iran, so when Iran suddenly destabilizes, in a manner similar to other US destablization efforts, including Iran’s in 1953, how do you get to call it an impossible conspiracy? Maybe it is not what’s going on. I hope it is not, but it is completely possible.
I’m sorry, did I miss something? Did A.N. just nationalize Oil? The comparison is very superficial and misleading. The destabilization efforts have also been directed at creating opposition to the Islamic regime. What we are witnessing is a power struggle internal to the regime. These uprising are similar to 1953, just not May 1953, but October 1953 when the students of Tehran University came into the streets. In fact, today, 119 professors of Tehran University resigned. Reason? This weekend, for the very first time since 1953, security forces had entered the student dormitories. 12 students have been killed.
People with more distance, informed people in Moscow and Beijing would wonder what the fuss is about. Really Obama’s policies are going to be a nudge different from McCain’s.
I completely agree with you. But this doesn’t apply to Iran. America has a coherent power structure and one single ruling hegemony; Obama and McCain are its representatives. Iran has many different factions and doesn’t have a ruling hegemony. These disjoint groups have been allied among each other in different ways over the years. In recent years, the interests of one of these factions has run counter to those of all others. This power struggle is essentially one faction (that of Khamenei) which still controls the military by attempting to assert control over the country. Most Iranians understand this, and many are risking their lives to keep it from happening. In the last few days, many have died to keep the faction of Khamenei from taking over the country.
I hope this clarifies some of the issues.
—A.S.
Posted by: Amir S. | Jun 16 2009 5:39 utc | 61
china_hand2:
private and public universities are very different entities in most place in the world, other than the US. so saying that someone owns the education system is false. Either way your assertion is false, the students attacked were at public universities.
Ok, i’ll answer the rest of your post:
But back just before the first U.S.-Iraq war, i remember a group of inarticulate, poorly groomed, “politial science” majors from UTSan Antonio suddenly showed up on our campus claiming they represented “Students for a Free Kuwait” — this was South Texas, these were College Repulicans, and my guess is that not a single one of them had even heard of Kuwait until a couple weeks before, when their political contact came to them and said “We need to do some Astroturfing”. They hadn’t the first idea what was really going on over there (i, on the other hand, had just returned from an archaeology dig in Tunisia, where i’d gotten quite the crash-course in Middle East and Muslim history), but man — they were all up in arms about how we needed to protect the freedom(!) of Kuwaitis from the evil dictator Hussein.
Irrelevant.
Ellis is right, as are the other posters here who’ve mentioned it: when college kids throw their weight behind a mainstream political figure (whether Obama, Bobby Kennedy, Saakashvili, or Mousavi), nine-times-out-of-ten they’re being manipulated by elders or superiors in the political and business hierarchy.
No. Students make up a very small portion of those behind Mousavi.
That said, if labor groups and other independent, adult institutions start joining in, then i’m a bit more inclined to believe in such movements — but not by much. Often, the kids are being used to pull others in: once they see young people (or their own progeny) bloodied and beaten, most people are inclined to join in and fight the people who’ve done it.
Labor groups are behind Mousavi. Mousavi has in fact always been very popular among to old left i.e. Tudeh. Organization of Iranian Feminists have put their support behind Mousavi. Organization of Artists, Academics, etc.
Yes. When a government attacks students and kills them, it becomes less popular. To call this a ploy is like saying a girl being weaker than a guy is a ploy for the girl to be raped by the guy.
It’s going to take a lot more than just Pepe Escobar to convince me the U.S. didn’t have a hand in this. Rafsanjani is a mastermind of layered and varidimensional political conspiracy that plays both sides of the line, whether for international or domestic purposes. He has always been interested in working with the West and in creating a more open and business-friendly Iran. He is smart enough to recognize the threat the U.S. and Israel pose for Iran, and powerful enough to convince others around him of the necessity of action.
No. Mousavi’s government is the most socialist government Iranians ever had, during the most difficult economic situation. Iranians remember his presidency fondly.
Yet i still can not imagine him attempting so bold a move against the dominant powers without at least some assurances from abroad that the USUK will remain neutral, and hold their fire.
So there is nothing, so far, to suggest that these movements aren’t, at least in part, the product of targeted U.S. money and influence — or at the very least, tacit U.S. support and cooperation — and until we get more information from Iran’s relevant bureaucracies and oversight agencies, i doubt i’m going to change my mind.
Read previous post. In particular the difference between supporting opposition to the Islamic report, and factions inside the islamic republic.
To b:
I guess Flynt Leverett is right, and ~100,000-1,000,000 people who risked their lives to come into the streets of Tehran are wrong.
1. About Leverett: He used to be a fellow at the Saban institute. It was started by Israeli Haim Saban. First director was the former director AIPAC.
2. Israel and AIPAC prefer Ahmadinejad.
Try to connect these two dots.
—A.S.
Posted by: Amir S. | Jun 16 2009 7:11 utc | 67
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