You’re touching on a fallacy that very few people recognize. The idea that the youth ever give up seeking power. It’s just a truism that the youth always gain power in the end. The gestalt that a generation creates will always find itself in full bloom unless they are wiped out, in which case that culture has no opportunity to proliferate at all. Ayatollah Khameini is not immortal, he is old, and he will die one day. Eventually his replacement will not remember the revolution as a participant. As these shifts happen change occurs. If a large amount of the youth continues on trends toward liberalization, which we see rampant in the cosmopolitan culture of Tehran, then if not them, then their kids will eventually liberalize, not by some sort of revolutionary overthrow, but through the inertia of culture.
The other fallacy you are tending toward is a belief that because Democracy is a sham right now that they will believe that Democracy is ALWAYS a sham. Just because they are not allowed free and fair elections today doesn’t mean they will simply give up for a dream of holding actual elections. At a certain point the Mullahs only have so much control over the populace, and to maintain control eventually they have to give concessions lest they find themselves without support amongst anyone but a geriatric based with some influence over some young extremists.
From what I read about Iran, I don’t see people giving up at all. I see them changing tactics from trying to participate in the election to boycotting it, but on the streets of Tehran the culture is changing and the Mullahs do not seem to have the power to stop that.
It’s amazing that you guys don’t even realize that this statement is basically counter-factual. It is looking quite likely that Iraq was a stunning success.
Nation-Building takes a whole generation, not 6 years.
You’re dogma corresponds to reality on this one.
It’s unecessary. The people of Iran will become Democratic on their own and stand that much taller and prouder because of it. I look forward to a Democratic Iran and Iraq being the supporting pillars for a more Liberal middle-east.
You are correct. Anybody remember the Shah of Iran? The CIA propping him up is largely the reason we have not had diplomatic relations with Iran for so long. Any new interference from the US in the internal affairs of Iran is a very bad idea.
The revolution of the '70’s was the work of a dissatisfied younger generation, which is now the older generation in charge. A great deal of the responsibility of that revolution lies with attempts by the US to controll the government through puppet leaders. Today’s younger generation of Iranians greatly outnumber the older generation in power and if change is to come it is up to them.
Iraq has a functioning government, the Iraqi military is taking over more of the functions of national security. It looks like things are going to work out for Iraq.
This whole, “Iraq is on the brink of civil war.”, meme has played out. It WAS on the brink of civil war, but it’s not anymore.
This stuff doesn’t happen in 6 years. Where do you think Japan and Germany were in 1951? Everything was roses in the Marshall Plan states? It had all been fixed, everything was better?
Iraq is trending toward actual stability. The fact that there is still violence there and that not everything is hunky dory doesn’t signal a complete and total failure there.
We won’t know whether Iraq was a success or not until about 2020 at the very least. But you all keep repeating that Iraq is a failure dogmatically as though it’s just widespread public knowledge that it’s true. You want Bush to be a failure so badly that you take it as axiomatic that his biggest misadventure was in the end a total failure.
Some of the blog postings I’ve read suggest that these election shenanigans may have less to do with Khamenei and more to do with hardliners in the Iranian military. The religious authorities appear fractured and weak.
Do you honestly believe that the initial polls were actually wrong? That Ahmadinejad somehow managed to take 2/3 of the vote across the board, even in areas he wasn’t popular in? Iran’s own election monitors have come out and said something was wrong.
In 1953 the legally elected government of iran was overthrown by the US and Britain. Mosaddeq was overthrown and the brutal Shah regime was ensconced. For 26 years they lived under a wasteful and repressive regime. I doubt the Iranis have any use for our meddling. I don’t see why any one there would trust us.
The overthrow was due to the Irani government trying to get back control of their oil from the petroleum companies. Nationalizing pissed them off.
Covert support of the dissidents is the way to go, and I assume this is already happening. However any public promise of support for the opposition would be disastrous. The best thing that can happen for us would be to have a growing percentage of young Iranians in loud opposition to the government - and then become opposed to the Islamic clergy supporting the government also. This might lead to a secular government in the long run.
Several years ago, I made a prediction, and I’m still sticking by it:
No matter when the U.S. finally leaves Iraq, whether it’s next week, next month, next year, or a decade from now, Iraq will experience a fairly bloody civil war within six months. The outcome will be a Shiite-dominated Islamic Republic, loosely allied with Iran. Yes, indeed, a great victory for U.S. foreign policy!
The only revision I might make today is to concede the possibility that the Shiites will completely disenfranchise the Sunnis without having to shoot and/or bomb them out of the way. Same outcome, nonetheless.
Yeah, I’m not convinced. The Sunni minority isn’t like some tiny minority like Black people in America, it’s something like 40% of the population.
I’m also not convinced that every Shi’ite is pining for a Mullahocracy. They aren’t in Iran so why would the Shi’ites in Iraq be more likely to be total Islamists?
Another example is how people say that George III policy for the Colonies was a failure, yet here is America, which he made possible by his prescient blundering and visionary stupidity.
shrugs I don’t know whether you have read my posts over the past several months or not, but I don’t think that every political opinion needs to be a referendum on George W. Bush. Yes, his blundering was idiotic, but that doesn’t mean it will be a failure. Arguing because/despite might serve a partisan gestalt but at the end of the day it misleads us from reality. If it is successful it will be partly because of Bush and partly despite him.
My two cents, the Iranians will protest for about a week, then everything will return to a sense of normality, the only changes will be the average Iranian will just be even more apathetic about life in Iran. I see alcholism, drug use and rampant corruption and societal decay in the cities to continue a much faster pace, much like Russia during the closing years of the Soviet Union.
No revolution is gonna happen, but the cynicism of the government and it’s actions will permeat through out Irans society, so Iran’s government might of staved off reformists for now, but has probably hastened it’s collapse sooner rather than later.
Over half the Sunnis are Kurds, who may have an interest in throwing their own wrench in the works. (And, something about using the word “success” to describe the result of a “misadventure” grates on me. Can’t quite say why.)