News from Iran? Good? Bad? Who knows?

[The Brain]

Is it just considered cool to be all pessimistic and negative about this stuff?

I dunno, I guess I am just naive, but I think anytime people are standing up and dying while chanting shit like "down with the dictators!" and such, that is pretty fucking awesome. Maybe the guy they want to replace him with isn't Thomas Jefferson, but it is pretty damn likely he is a hell of a lot more amenable to democracy (or will be if the revolt succeeds) than the asshat running the show now.

Most of the people who took over the nascent United States where "part of the system" they overthrew as well - does that mean it would be oh so middle school cool then to pooh-pooh the effort because it wouldn't really matter?

Revolutions in general are pretty hit and miss when it comes to bringing about democracy.

To the Americans living in slavery the revolution wasn't all that awesome. Maybe the Iranian revolution (if it comes to that) will do something other than just reshuffle the elite. Maybe it won't.

[Berkut]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

[The Brain]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

It is probably better, yes.

[Neil]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

Not at all.  Look how much the UK improved between 1715 and 1900, all without a revolution.

[The Brain]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

Not at all.  Look how much the UK improved between 1715 and 1900, all without a revolution.

Improved? They were overstretched and had let go of colonies and allowed them to rise up to a position where they were poised to take over the world. FAIL

[grumbler]

Even revolutions that result only in reshuffling the elite are a step in the right direction, as the newly-installled elites are even less legitimate than the old ones (look at France after the Revolution and Empire, then again after 1830).  Even revolutions that fail (like the 1905 Russian Revolution) are generally a step in the right direction.

Autacracies are seldom strengthened by revolutions, and often weakened, so I think it is important to hope that there is a revolution in Iran - even if the absolutists win.

[grumbler]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

Not at all.  Look how much the UK improved between 1715 and 1900, all without a revolution.

[Neil]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

Not at all.  Look how much the UK improved between 1715 and 1900, all without a revolution.

Improved? They were overstretched and had let go of colonies and allowed them to rise up to a position where they were poised to take over the world. FAIL

Never underestimate the duplicity of an American.

[Barrister]

Even revolutions that result only in reshuffling the elite are a step in the right direction, as the newly-installled elites are even less legitimate than the old ones (look at France after the Revolution and Empire, then again after 1830).  Even revolutions that fail (like the 1905 Russian Revolution) are generally a step in the right direction.

Autacracies are seldom strengthened by revolutions, and often weakened, so I think it is important to hope that there is a revolution in Iran - even if the absolutists win.

Your point is only made by looking at the extremely long run.

Take 1905 - it may have been a step in the right direction, but 1917 and later were clearly steps in the wrong direction and the Stalinist dictatorship put anything the Czars did to shame.  You can only argue it was better in the long run if you're willing to skip forward 80+ years.  Similarily the Chinese revolution - modern day China may be more free than it was even under the KMT (debatable, but whatever), but then you're skipping 30 years of brutal Maoist dictatorship.

[grumbler]

Your point is only made by looking at the extremely long run.

Take 1905 - it may have been a step in the right direction, but 1917 and later were clearly steps in the wrong direction and the Stalinist dictatorship put anything the Czars did to shame.  You can only argue it was better in the long run if you're willing to skip forward 80+ years.  Similarily the Chinese revolution - modern day China may be more free than it was even under the KMT (debatable, but whatever), but then you're skipping 30 years of brutal Maoist dictatorship.

I'd say my point was true even in the short run.  The Bolshevik and Chinese Revolutions were the opposite of shuffling the elites.  I am not arguing that all revolutions are for the good, just that revolutions weaken autocracy even if they fail or only semi-succeed.  Solidarity in Poland is a good example.  Most of the 1848 revolutions are another.  Even when they failed, the autocrats were discredited, and had to make concessions over time to retain their positions.  Where they succeeded but only resulted in new autocracies, the new autocrats lacked the legitimacy of the old ones.

[The Brain]

They may be hit or miss, but on the other hand, doing nothing is miss or miss. So this seems better.

Not at all.  Look how much the UK improved between 1715 and 1900, all without a revolution.

Improved? They were overstretched and had let go of colonies and allowed them to rise up to a position where they were poised to take over the world. FAIL

Never underestimate the duplicity of an American.

I always think of you as an Albertan.

[KRonn]

Still a lot of hard liners to over come, such as the powerful Revolutionary Guards, who  have a lot of control in Iran. Even as, apparently, the upper levels of the ruling religious leaders quarrel among themselves. But maybe this could wind up opening the door for the current President to gain power at the expense of the religious leaders, likely gained by more violence and crackdowns? That's not a good direction either - an even more repressive regime it would be. But who knows where this all may go; the events have been significant and against the status quo of a repressive regime, and though not easily rolled back it doesn't necessarily mean a more open Iran will be the result, at least over the short term.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31504947/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

Who are Iran's Revolutionary Guards?
'Guardians' of the revolution's power and influence have wide reach

BACKGROUNDER
By Greg Bruno
Council on Foreign Relations
updated 10:26 a.m. ET, Tues., June 23, 2009

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was founded in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the regime against internal and external threats, but has since expanded far beyond its original mandate. Today the guard has evolved into a socio-military-political-economic force with influence reaching deep into Iran's power structure.

During the first term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current and former fighters carved out their place in government: they have been appointed ambassadors, mayors, undersecretaries, provincial governors, and fourteen of the country's twenty-one cabinet ministers are veterans of the force. Analysts say the organization, with its control of strategic industries, commercial services, and black-market enterprises, has evolved into one of the country's most influential domestic institutions.

Crackdowns on protestors in the wake of the disputed June 2009 presidential elections have brought new scrutiny of the guard's role. Some analysts believe IRGC influence in the political arena amounts to the irreversible militarization of Iran's government. Others, like Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, suggest the guard's power has grown to exceed that of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who legally has final say on all state matters. But Frederic Wehrey, an adjunct senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and the co-author of a recent study on the IRGC, notes that the Revolutionary Guard is far from a cohesive unit of likeminded conservatives. Instead, he says, it's a heavily factionalized institution with a mix of political aspirants unlikely to turn on their masters.

...........

[Zanza]

Take 1905 - it may have been a step in the right direction, but 1917 and later were clearly steps in the wrong direction and the Stalinist dictatorship put anything the Czars did to shame.

Total guessing, but I wonder how a Russia that is ruled by perhaps a weak czar and has no powerful ideology would have faced the fascist onslaught of WW2. Would they have crumbled or would they have done better? The destiny of a Russia ruled by the Nazis would have been even more horrible than everything Stalin inflicted on them after all.

[Barrister]

Take 1905 - it may have been a step in the right direction, but 1917 and later were clearly steps in the wrong direction and the Stalinist dictatorship put anything the Czars did to shame.

Total guessing, but I wonder how a Russia that is ruled by perhaps a weak czar and has no powerful ideology would have faced the fascist onslaught of WW2. Would they have crumbled or would they have done better? The destiny of a Russia ruled by the Nazis would have been even more horrible than everything Stalin inflicted on them after all.

Russia in WWII wasn't unified by ideology, but rather by nationalism, which the Czars or a Kerensky-style democracy would have been equally able to call upon.

I would say that given the purges and famines of the Stalinist era that the USSR was probably the weakest possible government for the Nazis to face.

[Valmy]

Yeah the Russians had been pretty good at doing basically the same thing against the Swedes in the 18th Century and the French in the 19th Century.  The Germans escaped this effect by not invading Russia proper in WWI but then blew it in WWII.

The Revolutionary Guard sounds almost like the Praetorian Guard or the Janissaries or a similar body.