Senate Iran — now discussing the nuclear deal and Congress

How clean is the guy anyway?


I would accept him over Ahma even if he has shady buisnissdealings.

 

That wouldn't surprise me. The events of the past few days remind me that I have a book I need to read - I finished vali Nasr's The Shia Revival and picked up his Democracy in Iran, but it's been sitting on the shelf for the past few months.

 

Of course, all of this is rather silly to being with. From the beginning it was always about those in power too afraid to lose it: which is precisely what actual democracy demands: regular and consistent cycles of appointment and removal from power.

And that's why there is a stronger internal reaction with this election. At least the council allowed Khatami to be elected, which upheld the election process itself. Of course, the same council ruled that Khatami was ineligible for re-relection, so he was barred from running, but at least it didn't taint the process itself.

By clouding the results of this election, the ruling council has demonstrated that "voting rights" in Iran don't matter. Jabba's correct in point out that Iranians already know they don't live in a democracy, so it forces an obvious choice.

Years ago, this is why I kept pointing out that Iran's policies were so short-sighted. People would attempt to counter by claiming that Iran was holding all the cards, but that was never the case. Iran is still loosing billions of Euros in foreign investment from the EU, and is also loosing billions more due to oil prices.

Mousavi is a threat to the ruling council, not because of his personal beliefs, but because he is a businessman. The more foreign investment and influence Iran is exposed to, the less influence the ruling council has.

 

Merkurian posted:

Valid question. Seems like he's connected to the gov't that came into power after the Revolution of '79. Y'know...the one where Americans were taken hostage and weren't released until Reagan took office.



I knew that. I think Ahma accused him for corruption. I just hoped someone has some info.

 

And that's why there is a stronger internal reaction with this election. At least the council allowed Khatami to be elected, which upheld the election process itself. Of course, the same council ruled that Khatami was ineligible for re-relection, so he was barred from running, but at least it didn't taint the process itself.

I had been somewhat surprised that his being barred from running didn't go over with more violence such as we are seeing now: after all -- correct my memory -- but didn't the council just say he couldn't run for re-election and that was that? As in, they didn't try to offer any reason that he was disallowed other than to just say he and his supporters weren't allowed to run.

I had thought the Iranian government hadn't actually barred anyone from running before. And as a result they sort of "Commied-in" Ahmajinadhad by making him the only candidate the same way everyone running in the old Soviet elections were members of the Communist party. Which makes me wonder why they didn't try that again this time -- it might have gone quieter than this, which was clearly not a well-coordinated effort to "tweak" the election.

Lesson: when trying to fix an election for your candidate who's favored to lose, don't make it a landslide. Unless you're Saddam Hussein opr Jong-Il and you've made it clear you'll shoot anyone who says anything.


Years ago, this is why I kept pointing out that Iran's policies were so short-sighted. People would attempt to counter by claiming that Iran was holding all the cards, but that was never the case. Iran is still loosing billions of Euros in foreign investment from the EU, and is also loosing billions more due to oil prices.

I thought that was in respect to Iraq, which I think is still the case: if Iran is suffering right now it's from internal division that nobody's able to directly effect from the outside. Essentially if the US was still in the same spot it was in 2005-06 with the Iraq conflict, it would essentially be betting that Iran would defeat Iran in the end. If someone's holding cards with respect to that situation, it's just means the Iranian government isn't holding all of them -- it doesn't mean other nations happen to be holding any in particular. And there are still ways for the government to try to "acquire" those cards: by saying to hell with appearances and going into a total crackdown.

I wonder what Hugo Chavez is saying about all of this... although the thing about people in a situation where they're committed is seeing what they want to see. America elected a Black Man? Pshaw, that's... a distraction of it's imperialist nature! Iran cracked down on it's own people? Pshaw, that's... hey look over there, it's IMPERIALIST AMERICA! Shiny!

 

Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate and cooperating with his government against Islam. There are strong rumors that his house and office are surrounded by the police and his website is filtered. He had previously issued a fatwa, against rigging of the elections in any form or shape, calling it a mortal sin.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/an-ayatollah-dissents.html

Now it gets interesting...






EDIT: This was definitely a stolen election:

Experts point to many reasons why the elections could have been rigged: There is no independent monitoring, many voters are illiterate and officials help them fill in their paper ballots. There are also no booths, so all of the voting is done in public.

According to the official results ? Ahmadinejad won in all regions of the country and among all classes and ages ? which is highly unlikely. For example, Ahmadinejad won in cities where he is unpopular; and the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Moussavi, lost among his own ethnic group. Also, there were 40 million votes cast and just two hours after the polls closed, Ahmadinejad?s victory was announced. In Iran there are no machines. All the votes have to be hand counted.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/15/were-irans-elections-honest/

 

Is this Ayatollah one of the ruling council?

Mousavi is currently seeking a Fatwa too.

 

I think we might want to remove the question mark from the thread title now.

 

It seems a bit as thought the ruling council have bitten themselves in the butt. If they had given results showing Ahmadinedschad with a slight victory (say getting 52% of the vote) there'd have been some protests, but not nearly on this scale. Instead they decided to show a clear mandate to continue the ultra-conservative course and came up with completely unrealistic numbers, and now they have complete chaos on their hands.

In a way, they'd have been smarter to let Mussawi win. He has no real power anyway, but would have put a far friendlier face on Iran, making it harder for the US to take a hard line against them.

Sadly, though, I don't expect anymore to come out of this than came out of the Tiananmen Square protests almost exactly 20 years ago.

EDIT: How do you say "hanging chad" in Persian?

 

Yankee posted:

In a way, they'd have been smarter to let Mussawi win. He has no real power anyway, but would have put a far friendlier face on Iran, making it harder for the US to take a hard line against them.


At least Obama wont go to war with Iran, the people wouldnt accept it.

 

He doesn't have to go to war with Iran. There's other things that can be done to keep it off it's footing.

 

Yep-although we'd be wise to keep our hands out of Iran for the most part; it didn't do us any good with the Shah and an American influence with the protestors could give the hard-liners ammunition.


Edit: On a personal note, I'd love to see the theocracy crumble. What's the point of even voting for a President when he can be overruled at any time by whomever the oldest Ayatollah at the time is?

 

What's the point of even voting for a President when he can be overruled at any time by whomever the oldest Ayatollah at the time is?


The illusion of people having the power, prety much the same all around the world.

 

Yeah, but they're not even pretending that the President has power, as anyone who can read a flow chart can probably figure out.

 

I imagine there must be some capacity within the office of the President to increase its power or else they wouldn't have so blatantly rigged the election, or bothered to rig it at all.

The fact it came out so obviously non-sensical could have been a lack of overall coordination. The word going out to every ministry that Ahmajinadhad was going to win and that every district was to see to it that he one -- rather than one person keeping track of the whole thing and realizing they needed to give the oppsoition a few more victories.

But I'd imagine the need they feel to do this must have something to do with the experience they had with Khatami, and that the President still has power to affect things within Iran.

 

I agree. The world is due for some democratic revolutions here and there. How long's it been?

 

I realize my earlier call for the Obama administration to condemn this whole affair would backfire.

There are some pretty insane photos of the protests going on in Tehran here:

Tehran protests

The last 3 images, particularly the final one, are gruesome. You have to click them to see the image though, otherwise they will be hidden. If the moderators find these photos to be inappropriate, then of course edit this link out.

Anyway, Iran is dealing with some pretty serious upheaval. I am also hoping for a revolution, I wonder where the breaking point would be for this regime.

 

Offhand-Portugal in the 1970s. That one was unique in that the Portugese military overthrew the dictator and then installed a democratic government, iirc.

 

I'll be waiting for Sven Starcrown to set you straight, DB

 

Oops. Yeah, and Eastern Europe.

 

Technically the outcome of the Russian coup in 1991.

Although there's been some rollback, 1989-1991 was probably the most postive outcome the world had had in a long time. Although it's still not as good as in the West, Eastern Europe is now able to essentially join the First World.

We're not without our problems now, but those events gurenteed a lot of things and probably saved lives the world over in places like Africa and Asia.

 

Iran demonstrates the danger to a nation when religious zealots seize power and codify their religion into THE law.

 

But I'd imagine the need they feel to do this must have something to do with the experience they had with Khatami, and that the President still has power to affect things within Iran.

Yep. Bingo.

Remember, while the ruling council controls the "hard" functions of government-the military, internal security, the nuclear forces, etc.... The President is head of the civilian agencies- diplomats, trade representatives, etc.. While the President is realistically beholden to the council, it is a position that isn't completely powerless, especially if the President acts to force the council's hand, make it look bad to the rest of the world, or at least highlight the division that exists.

Khatami was skeptical of the West, but open to it. At least he would do things like go around to other countries and say that he didn't want nuclear weapons, and it would force the council to look like the antagonists when they would nix everything. (A role they were far to willing to take in Iran) What Khatami demonstrated was that the more he visited other places, the less the people within Iran were willing to follow the hard way. It's an idea which is probably taken for granted by us around here, but it's what is leading to the crackdowns Iran has now.

Ahmajinadhad is simply a mouthpiece for the council, which is why they couldn't afford another independent thinker.

 

I'll be waiting for Sven Starcrown to set you straight, DB

On what?

Goraq=Sven Starcrown.