No what’s absurd is your inability to think in any terms other than military solutions. If you had taken the time to read even post #2 you would have seen that there are other ways to go. And I endorsed that educational approach as soon as I read the post.
Also, in case you had never heard of diplomatic sanctions before today, I at least mentioned that possibility in a later post. As I said, I’m not expert enough in how diplomacy or sanctions or education work to argue tactics, but they definitely work at least some of the time and can be done aggressively.
We haven’t forgotten anything. If Iraq had attacked us, we’d have sent a force over capable of occupying and rebuilding the country. Instead, we tried to do it on the cheap because it wasn’t worth sacrificing too much to vent a little frustration.
As for Iran, stay the hell out of it. It could have been a welcome nudge in the reform direction, but it was largely symbolic. If we do anything big, we’d discredit the reformists, and at best end up with a powerless President. Better to let it shake out on its own.
You are aware that we have not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979, are you not? What could we possibly do to Iran that we are not already doing on the diplomatic front? Ignore them more? Tell an intermediary that if they don’t stop we’ll talk to them less?
Yes, the above was quite facetious. Nevertheless, it highlights the reality of the situation: we have zero diplomatic clout with Iran. Your suggestions, while well-intentioned, have been applied for 30 years and have failed miserably. Not that the military option should even be considered, mind you. The best thing to do, for better or worse, is to let them go about their business. They’ll either conform, continue to resist, or implode, and there is nothing that we can do to influence that.
BBC TV is reporting the peasants are revolting. Satellite dishes are being confiscated in a bid to prevent foreign news from getting in. Seven opposition leaders have been arrested, including Mousavi and others who could just as hardly be accused of being Western spies. Street protests seem to be gaining momentum, so this may be an interesting week for Iran. Apparently, many people inside the government and clergy oppose Ahadinejad, too.
I wonder if Ahmadinejad could have gotten away with this better if he had not made it look like such a landslide.
No, he probably means those people who voluntarily join the armed forces in the most well-defended nations in the world.
What else are they supposed to be doing that is as pressing? We are as good as done in Iraq, we still have a bit to do in Afghanistan, but I’m sure the resources are there if the backing can be found.
Yep, pretty much destroyed the country and now leave it in a state of civil war. An achievement to be proud of and which should be repeated in more countries in that region.
Afghanistan is getting worse, not better, and it will never be what America wants it to be. There is no military solution.
What I find most surpizing is the number of dopers that actually believed fair and open elections would actually take place under the current Iranian leadership.
As I said in the other thread, given that candidates do have to be approved by the religious authorities, Iran has had fair vote counting in the actual elections. Even for Iran, current events are beyond customary.
I’m pretty sure that the US can accomplish absolutely nothing positive in Iran with respect to democratic reform, having no credibility whatsoever on matters democratic there (see: Mossedegh, Mohammed). Americans might be unaware of that bit of history, but Iranians assuredly aren’t.
Which is what I don’t understand about the current situation. Iran doesn’t need to secretly rig elections, they openly rig them by tossing unacceptable candidates beforehand. They’re hardly shy about using this power, several candidates were tossed from the current race prior to the election. And the Presidency is, while not totally toothless, pretty weak compared to the religious authorities. They let reformist President Khatami win several elections prior to Ahmadinajad, and then simply used their power to keep him from doing anything they didn’t like.
Honestly, I suspect that initial polls showing Mousavi in the lead were simply wrong, and that the election wasn’t rigged. The people with the power to do the rigging simply have nothing to gain accept a headache by doing so.
Of course the United States should not directly intervene militarily. No one is suggesting such a thing.
But there are plenty of ways to help a nacent revolt that don’t involve the military. For example, you can help by keeping communication lines open. The CIA can smuggle money in to dissident factions. It can provide satellite phones to key leaders, or provide encrypted internet connections via satellite modems so various groups can stay in contact. It can provide intelligence to leaders to help them avoid capture or to pinpoint key infrastructure. It can help with propaganda, much like the Voice of America did during the cold war. I’m sure many or all of these things are already being done.
But the best way the U.S. could help would be to send strong signals to the Iranian people that it is ready to enter normal relations and help with immediate financial and humanitarian aid should the current regime be replaced by one with a commitment to human rights and peace.
And should a revolution take place and a new provisional government rise, the U.S. should be ready to respond to calls for military aid should the old forces attempt to re-assert control through violence. That doesn’t mean a U.S. invasion or even a single American boot on the ground, but offers to do surgical strikes against Revolutionary Guard formations or using air power to close down routes out of military bases and such. But this kind of intervention would be an absolute last-resort measure.
Primarily the U.S. can help by sending friendly signals to the Iranian people and offers to reach out to any new leadership and to immediately help the financial situation of the country should the government fall. And this has to be done very carefully, because the odds are that any uprising will fail, and the U.S. still has to deal with the mullahs after the fact.
Or the regime may have miscalculated. They want to appear to offer choice without really offering it. Perhaps they had their own internal polling which said that Ahmadinajad would win against the candidates they allowed to run against him, and then things turned out differently and they had to change course.
If it were only a matter of the outcome not matching the polls, I’d be inclined to agree. But the vote rigging was apparently done very, very clumsily. The Juan Cole articled linked in the post above is fairly persuasive.
Iranians seemed to be well able to take care of their own regime change the last time the majority were vastly dissatisfied with the reigning government. If and when they are truly unhappy with the current state of affairs, I suspect they are still perfectly capable of taking care of it themselves.
Any interference by other countries, especially the US, simply gives the authorities an easy way to blacken the moral authority of the opposition by shouting “CIA puppets!”.
They will anyway. I would prefer that they do so groundlessly. But the fact is, largely due George and Rummy’s Excellent Adventure, our reputation is shit. Actually, shit is preferred by about 5% in nationwide polling.
But at least this time it would be a lie. Cold comfort farm.