Iranians Try Yet Again to Change Their Government
Protesters gather in front of the Iranian Embassy in London, supporting anti-government demonstrations in Iran. Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP
In the closing days of 2017 and the early ones of 2018, Iranians began taking to the streets of cities, towns, and villages across their long-historied nation to demand economic reform, social liberalization, and enhanced personal freedom while hoping at the same time that they might finally succeed in removing the theocratic regime of the past thirty-nine years. Their protests mirror Iran’s recent history in issues, demands, and responses. Most strikingly, as in their previous struggles against the theocratic government, Iranians will have to persevere in their quest without counting on tangible assistance from others.
Death to the dictator!” chanted protestors in late 1978 and early 1979 as Iranians successfully mobilized to oust Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi despite the monarch’s violent resistance.
Thirty years later the phrase “Death to Khamenei” was commonplace when Iranians tried unsuccessfully to undo a presidential election rigged by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his cronies in 2009. That revolution was brutally squashed by the mollahs and their hardline supporters while the free world alternated between pleas and empty threats. Khamenei prevailed because other nations did nothing to aid those seeking reform—quite a difference in action and outcome from December 1978 when the United States pushed the last Shah into capitulating to popular demands that he step down.
Yet the underlying political, economic, and social conditions that have fueled these popular uprisings have not changed. ( Read it all)
Related: 49% of Iranians against compulsory veil, poll released by government reveals.
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Yet the underlying political, economic, and social conditions that have fueled these popular uprisings have not changed. Citizens’ have long resented that they have been denied meaningful participation in a farcical “democratic” political process. For starters, only regime vetted and approved “opposition candidates” may challenge the status quo in an election. Fiscal mismanagement and rampant corruption by and within state bureaucracies and quasi-official foundations has rewarded elites allied with the regime, while ordinary citizens watch their standard of living stagnate or decline.
Unemployment, underemployment, and lack of appropriate job opportunities are a depressing fact of life, especially for young men and women. Restrictions on social and individual liberties, including detention of activists and constant public harassment of individuals viewed as transgressing state-mandated norms, may wax and wane somewhat with changes in presidential administrations but are always maintained within fundamentalist parameters by unelected members of the Guardian Council, Judiciary, and Office of the Supreme Leader.
So, not surprisingly, the current protests resemble those of the earlier revolts . . .
Obviously nobody's going to help them, so here goes another Tianemen Square.
Well, nobody with any power.
The Kurds will help, but they're too busy defending themselves from attempted Turkish genocide to do much. The Israelis might do a little, but their power there is limited (and no, contrary to the believe of some alarmists, Israel is not going to start a nuclear war with Iran). . Some Sunni Arab states would probably like to, but they already have more than can handle with internal terrorism and sectarian religious strife.
Sadly, I believe that's true.
The most Westward leaning people of the past couple of decades in the Middle-East have been the Iranians. Not their government, which is mostly run by a partnership of a corrupt church and an equally corrupt Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Guard smuggles hundred of millions of products that are officially banned by the church, such as cigarettes and alcohol, into the country and sells them openly on the black market, giving the also corrupt church a cut of the money. The corrupt government officials are paid off to look the other way and those who want to bring about change are threatened and killed by the Revolutionary guard who are little more then muscle and collectors for the whole criminal enterprise.
However the vast majority of the PEOPLE of Iran want nothing more then to become a Westernized nation like the United States. If they could they could snap their fingers TODAY and suddenly become a state of the UNITED STATES, they would, complete with the McDonalds, the Malls, the traffic, everything, etc. they would. This has been true since the late 1970's.
We very stupidly invaded Iraq, when with the right touches diplomatically and CIA wise, we already had a Western ally in the Middle-East called Iran (we still could have them now!). All we had to do is the figure out a way to support a revolution in their country and hell we were experts on that! I mean we created the Shah that they had revolted against right? So we already knew what they hated. Easy pickin's.
Actually the majority of the people are more pro-democracy (and more modern-thinking) than many Americans realize. But now no major power will help the forces of democracy there....
And, very stupidly, we are pulling further away, rather then moving closer to, being that major power.
Well, the stupidity really was at the hands of the Iraqi leadership invading a sovereign state: Kuwait. And it wasn't only us that did it, there was quite a coalition of countries that thought invading Kuwait was wrong.
As to the Iranians, the corruptness has alawys been a part of the way of life, after the shah, it is just different people collecting the graft. Hopefully they will overthrow the government-we are damend if we do, damned if we don't help out.
Yes.
And of course there were two "Gulf Wars". (One each under a different Bush administration)
In the first one, Iraq invaded a soverign state (Kuwait) and used force in an attempt to annex it illegally. The main forces fighting to kick the Iraqi conquerers out and liberate Kuwait were the U.S., the British and the French-- but also the Saudis and the Egyptians. That war had great support among the Arabs-- after all, an Arab state (Kuwait) had been invaded in an attempt to conquer and annex it. (And the goal was limited-- it was merely to kick the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait, and liberate the country).
However, the second Gulf war was different. It was basically to find and destroy Iraqi WMDs and to overthrow Saddam. IIRC, most Arab countries did not support that war-- and neither did many western countries. (France especially was opposed to that war-- they did not believe that Iraq had WMDs.Of course it turned out the French were correct. While Iraq definitely did have them in the past, at time, the claim was a lie... a definite "alternative fact"-- Iran definitely did not have them at the time of the war).
And while most Americans are unaware of it, in addition to the war he started by his invasion of Kuwait-- Saddam actually started two horrific wars.
Saddam's war on Iran was the other one-- the total casualties in the Gulf War were few compared tothe war Iraq started with Iran! (And in that war Iraq did have WMD's-- and used them
WMD's including the gas that he used against the Kurds. In the push to go to war against Iraq in the 2nd Gulf War one of the common calls was that "He gassed his own people", but that was not technically correct. In the first place the Kurds were at the time fighting as the nation of Kurdistan on the side of the Iranians as they hoped attain an independent status in what was then north Eastern corner of Iraq. Also the first Gulf war was to push him back out of Kuwait and that was a good reason and why it was well backed by many nations in the region and world. However using the gassing of the Kurds as part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq was wrong on a couple of different levels, the first one being that it happened in 1988, before the 1st Gulf War 3 years later and it seems that it is a justification for punishing him then and not later. Going to war partially to punish him for gassing people who were really not Iraqis and that he had gassed before the 1st Gulf War, when he should been punish then if we were going to punish him at all for it, didn't seem to make much sense. Then again neither did a lot of things about the 2nd war. Like "freedom fries"? I mean come on! Grow up!
Also, as I said, the Kurds were never really "his people". He hated them and they hated him and we should have supported them more or at least as much as we as a nation were constantly leading them to believe that we would and never lived up to under administrations of both Parties for at least three decades. As it has turned out the Kurds have time and time again since the invasion of Iraq, no matter your political opinion on the wisdom of that, proven to be one of our most dependable, efficient and ferocious allies, male and female, in the area. No matter how this turns out and no matter how Turkey feels about it, no one can say that the Kurds have not earned their own homeland, their own nation. And they deserve America's full support in that goal.
The kurds are one of the few (perhaps the only?) groups fighting terrorism and dictatorship on both sides of the wars in the area. (They are fighting both the barbaric dictatorship of Assad in Syria-- but also fighting his opponents, ISIS).
I totally agree.
(And while many Americans are not aware of it, they were promised the return of their ancient homeland..by The Treaty of Sevres, 1920. Of course the promise was never kept ).
(And while many Americans are not aware of it, they were promised the return of their ancient homeland..by The Treaty of Sevres, 1920. Of course the mjor powers screwed them over):
And recently Erdogan's Turkey is intent on stepping up its attempted genocide of the Kurds in Syria...and the Trump administration is not doing what is should to stop it. Here's a recent discussion about that on NT:
The Trump Administration Just Stabbed the Kurds in the Front
I think it's best to remember it was the US and Britan that overhrew the government of Iran and installed the Shah. Now, when the population wants to be rid of the current government we do nothing.
Very true, but when the Iranian people threw out the dictator Pahlavi, they did not realize they had simply replaced him with another two dictators in the form of Khomeni followed by Khameni that turned out to be just as bad or worse in some ways!
I think at this point the vast majority of Iranians want a democratic, secular government. Its difficult to overthrow an established police state-- but the resistance has been increasing over time. (And let's not forget that Iran is a "client state" of Putin's Russia...Russia aids their totalitarian government in many ways).
That is true Doc...One has to wonder if we had kept our nose out of Iran internal bussiness and not overthrown the legit goverment of Iran where would Iran and the US be today.
Yep, but as the saying goes hindsight is always 20/20.
And we are going to be 20/fail under this crappy administration because they are going to platy to the paranoid, we want a war, Jewish base that has Israel by it's throat there and in America. We can see this by members here like Buzz who are so paranoid about Iran that they hate and are so distrustful of Iran that they won't even TRY to get their head around the very idea of a pro-Western ally in the Middle-East Iran...even though it is right there for the taking. They will not even have the courage to look beyond what is there now and try to see the future and the possibilities! They have their heads in the sand! They want to believe that what is now is how it will always MUST be and that is the death sentence for each side and by that they both DESERVE what they get and nether side has a right to say that they are they victim when the path toward the future is there but they turned away from it in fear. They are too smug in there position to have the situational imagination to see what can be. They are cowards and are sentencing their children to the life that they have. Damn them.
One of the problems in situations like this is that many people fail to see the difference between what the actual people of a country are like...and what their their current leaders are like. (Often the leaders don't represent the true values of their population).
Well that might be a it of an exxageration. No matter how understanding we might be re: the plight of Iran's repressed citizenry, they would still have to overthrow their current theocratic dictatorship-- no easy task. (And they've tried and failed before).
IMO there's a current misperception amongst some people in the U.S. that if we friendly with the Iranian leadership they would reciprocate..and even stop abusing their own people, That is not the case!
The "Iranian Green Movement" Protests (2009) were brutally supressed byn he government
The Green Movement protests were a major event in Iran's modern political history and observers claimed that protests were the largest since the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79. [4] [5] [6]
OK I agree that I exaggerate a bit of how easy it will be. The truth is it will be a bloody mess and many people will die, The Revolutionary Guard is powerful and has a strong Financial Incentive to hold to power. However the people are a strong force also and really desire WESTERN DEMOCRATIC freedom and isn't that we are all about too? Aren't we about supporting that around the world? And I honestly so not know another nation in the entire world that is more ripe and more more ready and more bursting at the seams for the freedom then Iran! We in the fuck are we fighting with the regime that has the people there by the throat and not instead working with the people there who really want to be free? We have it within our grasp to turn an enemy government in a very strategic part of the world and to help turn it instead into a government of the people who are a government that is pro-western. That opportunity is very real and is possible and the thing that is standing our way is not the people of Iran. What is standing in our way is the people supposedly on our side. The 911 commission said that one of the main reasons the attack was able to happen was the United states intelligence agencies displayed a "lack of imagination". Well I am convinced that many supposedly on "our side" are stopping us from reaching out for this chance, this plum of peace because of a lack of imagination, a historical blindness on their part. If we do not grasp this chance, then they will partially to blame for the blood to come.