1 Boring Old Man

Iran: Protest that refuses to die
The Guardian
29 December 2009

^{It is fruitless to speculate whether a tipping point has been achieved by Iran’s burgeoning opposition movement. But after the weekend’s protest marches in which at least eight people and probably many more died, we do know that the movement is both exceptionally resilient and spreading. What started out as a loose-knit coalition of reformist groups led by defeated opposition candidates protesting rampant fraud in the presidential election is becoming bolder, more focused and angrier by the week. Many protesters on the streets of Tehran on Sunday did not even cover their faces in the videos uploaded to YouTube, as they did in the post-election protests six months ago. The crowds displayed great bravery, refusing to retreat under police baton charges and volleys of warning shots. The other feature of the internet clips was the scenes of policemen either being overwhelmed or giving up and walking away. The protest is also going national. Opposition websites reported clashes in Qom and seven other cities in central, northern and eastern Iran. None of this seems likely to melt away.}

^{If the protesters are getting bolder, there is, however, little sense that the Revolutionary Guards, loyal to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are losing their grip. Yesterday they arrested at least 10 leading opposition figures, three of them advisers to the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. The day before, they killed his nephew. According to one opposition website, Ali Habibi Mousavi was run over by a sports utility vehicle outside his home and then shot dead by its five occupants. Faced with a choice of trying to cut deals with the opposition and crushing it, hardline supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad know only one path – further repression. The next step would be to arrest Mir Hossein Mousavi and another opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi. Iran’s intelligence ministry said yesterday that members of an exiled opposition group, the Mujahideen Khalq Organisation, were among those arrested, and it is not hard to see where those arrests are leading. At least one cleric yesterday portrayed the clashes during the Ashura religious festival as the work of foreign governments.}

^{Caught between trying not to appear as the opposition’s backers and not abandoning them either, the US national security council spokesman Mike Hammer reminded the regime that it was fighting its own civilians seeking to exercise their universal rights, not the might of foreign powers. But the US is surely right not to do anything more at this stage than to issue statements. Thus far the Iranian regime is doing a good job of discrediting itself with its people. It does not need any assistance from abroad to do that. In the immediate aftermath of the rigged presidential election, Ayatollah Khamenei made a huge strategic mistake of supporting President Ahmadinejad and the bloody crackdown which ensued, shedding his role as the supreme arbiter and descending to the level of the government thugs on the street…}

^{So far the regime has been able to control events using the Basij militiamen and the Revolutionary Guards, but there are 15 more national religious holidays to come, each one a focus for further protest. It is a question of who cracks first, and there are no indications of either side backing down.}

^{The Iranian Revolution (Also known as the Islamic Revolution or 1979 Islamic Revolution, Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, Enghelābe Eslāmi) refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran’s monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution. It has been called an event that "made Islamic fundamentalism a political force … from Morocco to Malaysia."}

^{The first major demonstrations against the Shah began in January 1978. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile in mid-January 1979, and two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The royal regime collapsed shortly after on February 11 when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, and to approve a new theocratic constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.}

^{The revolution was unusual for the surprise it created throughout the world: it lacked many of the customary causes of revolution (defeat at war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military); produced profound change at great speed; was massively popular; overthrew a regime heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security services; and replaced a modernising monarchy with a theocracy based on Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih). Its outcome — an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of an 80-year-old exiled religious scholar from Qom" — was, as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained."}

^{Not so unique but more intense is the dispute over the revolution’s results. For some it was an era of heroism and sacrifice that brought forth nothing less than the nucleus of a world Islamic state — "a perfect model of splendid, humane, and divine life… for all the peoples of the world." On the other hand, some Iranians now believe that the revolution was a time when "for a few years we all lost our minds", and which "promised us heaven, but… created a hell on earth."}

It’s interesting how ideology driven government take-overs always seem to deteriorate into repressive power-driven regimes that are devoid of the ideology that created them. Russia had a Stalin, Germany had a Hitler, Iran had a Khomeini and now an Ahmadinejad. The notion of Iran being directed by Islamic principles is absurd. It’s just about consolidating power and suppressing dissent.

Obama Offers Rhetorical Support to Iran Protesters — Is It Enough?
FOXNews
December 28, 2009

^{John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under the Bush administration, said the United States and its allies should do more than offer words of support – in order to strive toward the ultimate goal of regime change.}

^{"I think the international community needs to do more than just give rhetorical support to the opposition," Bolton told Fox News. "I think we need to give them tangible support. … I wish we had done more over the last 10 years — finance, communications, possibly other kinds of support."}

^{Bolton said the persistent and recurring anti-government protests demonstrate how "profoundly unpopular" the regime is in Iran, but said that’s no guarantee the regime will crumble. "If you look at the regime’s willingness to use force, there’s no indication that they’ve begun to fragment," Bolton said…}

Bolton: Strike On Iran Is No Problem As Long As It’s Accompanied By A ‘Campaign Of Public Diplomacy’
ThinkProgress
December 23, 2009

^{Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad yesterday rejected a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration to agree to a U.N.- sponsored proposal for Iran to ship its low-grade uranium abroad for further processing.}

^{On Fox News today, John Bolton — who has wanted nothing short of a military strike on Iran for years — dismissed any talk of sanctions and lamented that if Israel “take[s] a pass” on attacking Iran, then “Iran gets nuclear weapons.” When host Trace Gallagher wondered if attacking Iran might cause the opposition there to coalesce around the regime, Bolton said that wouldn’t be a problem because all that would be needed is an accompanying public diplomacy campaign:}

^{BOLTON: I don’t agree with that, if handled properly. … I think a careful campaign of public diplomacy in the wake of a military strike could explain to the people of Iran who are knowledgeable and sophisticated, that the attack is not aimed against them, it’s aimed against this regime that they dislike so much.}

^{Unfortunately, this kind of public diplomacy campaign didn’t work out so well coinciding with the U.S. war in Iraq. Indeed, just before the invasion, President Bush addressed the Iraqi people, saying the war “will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. … We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.”}

^{And while Bolton has routinely ignored questions of how military action will “play out” in Iran and the region, the consequences are real and sobering.}

^{The Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour — an actual Iran expert, not just some war-hawk flack like Bolton — has said that any use of force would all but kill the Iranian opposition movement. “Khamenei and Ahmadinejad would actually welcome a military strike,” he said, adding that “it may be their only hope to silence popular dissent and heal internal political rifts.”}

Can you imagine bombing Iran, and then starting a careful campaign of public diplomacy in the wake of a military strike [that] could explain to the people of Iran who are knowledgeable and sophisticated, that the attack is not aimed against them? We are at war with two of Iran’s immediate neighbors, and now we’re bombing them, then Bolton suggests saying to the mythical people of Iran who are knowledgeable and sophisticated, "Listen guys, we’re not after your country and oil, we just want to help you."

It’s called a Pincer Movement, and it was used by Hannibal in the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC and later against the Iranians’ ancestors by Khalid ibn al-Walid at the Battle of Walaja in 633 AD. It’s older than Islam! I expect that the people of Iran who are knowledgeable and sophisticated have already noticed what Bush/Cheney/Bolton were up to. So I would suggest that Ahmadinejad’s nuclear program is as much a response to our threat as its cause. If Iran invaded Canada and Mexico, I expect we’d crank up our military too.