Miss-Interpreting Iranian Politics

November 2, 2011

Some opposition parliamentarians blame a government minister over a banking fraud. There is no reasonable proof that the minister was involved or had any knowledge of the fraud. Still the opposition tries to impeach the minister. In a 141 to 93 vote the parliament rejects the impeachment attempt.

In any country the above would be seen as a win for the government in a normal political fight and a big loss for the opposition. The administration in question would be seen as stable and unchallengeable.

But that is not the case when the "western" media are reporting and the country in question is Iran. See how the Wall Street Journal characterizes the vote and the victory of Ahmedinajad's administration:

"battle between the president and the country's political establishment"

"a powerful vehicle for rivals of Mr. Ahmadinejad to attack his administration"

"an uneasy victory for a president"

"five influential lawmakers who favored Mr. Hosseini's impeachment used the opportunity to slam Mr. Ahmadinejad's administration"

"a critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad, asked lawmakers to give the economy minister a second chance"

Going with the simple facts it seems to me that a 60% rejection of the impeachment here showed:

that the political establishment is united with the president
that the "vehicle to attack" was underpowered
that the "uneasy victory was" non-ambiguous
that those "five influential lawmakers" were not that influential at all
and that the critic that sided with the government isn't really that much of a critic.

Why can't the "western" media just go with those obvious facts of the politics in Iran and simply interpret those? Instead, like the WSJ here, they cling to some meme of an alleged split in the Iranian establishment, not supported by any evidence, and interpret everything from there.

After years of having been wrong about the alleged instability of the Iranian political structure wouldn't it be time for some self-reflection and some acknowledgement that the facts in Iran are really that and not an expression of the opposite?

Posted by b on November 2, 2011 at 12:37 UTC | Permalink

Comments

The Leveretts Nov 1 post explores similar ground using Shrillary’s nonsensical Saudi assassination plot bluster as a central theme. They actually employ the expression ‘wishful thinking’ to underline their disgust/dismay.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 2 2011 13:49 utc | 1

“Wishful thinking,” indeed. USUK are awfully pissed off with how stable the Iranian government is:

“One senior Whitehall official told (the Guardian) that the regime had proved ‘surprisingly resilient’ and appeared to be ‘newly aggressive – and we are not quite sure why’.”

Obviously, it appears to be “newly aggressive” because, yet again, the PTB are believing their own propaganda. If the regime seemed unstable, the country would have to be incinerated for “humanitarian concerns.” Since the regime does not seem to be unstable, however, the country will have to be incinerated for fear that (and this quote is awfully telling) “…within a year it may be impossible for the US or other forces to cripple it from the outside.”
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 3 2011 11:19 utc | 2

a stable state outside of its hegemony is an existential threat to the Us
it could be the starting point of a new definition of totalitarianism, couln’t it?
(and of paranoia)

Posted by: claudio | Nov 3 2011 12:02 utc | 3

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