News from Iran? Good? Bad? Who knows?

[CountDeMoney]

or they're spirit might leave as the see the movement melt around them with a relative wimper. Defeat doesn't always leave stronger footings for the next try.


i say that not knowing what the hell will hppen in this case.

Right. We should begin a covert airlift immediately, parachuting calling cards and pre-paid minutes to all these well-armed internet revolutionaries.  It could be called Operation Chai Hook.

[CountDeMoney]

Sometimes a lie is just a lie.

Go you, freedom fighter.

[grumbler]

Sometimes, g, I wonder how you get past the drug tests.

This is a merely hiccup.  This is not 1979 in reverse.  This is not some sort of late 80s-early 90s Eastern European lovefest.

After it's all said and done, all the smart, young, pissed off Iranians are going to do what they've always done the last 30 years:  leave, go to school elsewhere, and never come back.
The rest of the hoity-toity Iranians with too much to lose are going to stay nice and quiet, so their ski resorts in the north don't get messed with.
And the mullahs will stay.  The IRG will stay.

Ah, the old strawman argument.  How quaint.

I have never said that this was 1979 in reverse, that the mullahs would go, or that the IRGC would go.  What i have said is that the situation creates the potential for a real split between the Iranian unelected government and the electorate.  Over time, that will be incredibly damaging to the credibility of the unelected government, because from now on the government, and everything it fucks up (and Ahmadinijhad has an almost unparalleled ability to fuck things up) will be laid at the doorstep of the mullahs like Khameni.

It would be nice to think that the protesters could push the government out of power, a la the other "color revolutions," but that looks increasingly unlikely.  Even if the do, though, the IRGC is around for a while, and likewise the mullahs.  It would be a different group of mullahs, though, who would be less interested in interfering with peoples' lives.

Face it.  I have studied Iran, read books about it, talked with Iranians (and most of the youth don't get foreign educations, BTW), and you have played Fifth Fleet.  Solo.

[grumbler]

Sometimes a lie is just a lie.

Go you, freedom fighter.

And out come the ad homonyms! 

[CountDeMoney]

Over time, that will be incredibly damaging to the credibility of the unelected government,

Over time, the sun will burn out too. Doesn't mean we'll be around to see it.

Face it.  I have studied Iran, read books about it, talked with Iranians (and most of the youth don't get foreign educations, BTW), and you have played Fifth Fleet.  Solo.

You forgot Gulf Strike.  Dick.

[CountDeMoney]

It would be nice to think that the protesters could push the government out of power, a la the other "color revolutions," but that looks increasingly unlikely.  Even if the do, though, the IRGC is around for a while, and likewise the mullahs.  It would be a different group of mullahs, though, who would be less interested in interfering with peoples' lives.

The only lives they'll still be interested in interfering with are Jews and Lebanese.  And women.
The turbans may change, but it'll still be the same SOP.

WTF, grumbler? Since when did you become such a misty-eyed optimist, anyway?  You been hanging out with Zoupa or something?  I'm disappointed.  You're not the snarky sailor I fell in love with.

[dps]

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.

I don't know that you can say that, given the relatively amazing heavy industrialization that the Stalinist government was able to produce.  Lots more tractors became lots more tanks, heavy command economy tradition goes well into a total war scenario, etc.

The Russian economy and industrial base was also expaning very rapidly in the period 1900-1914, so there's no particular reason to believe that that trend wouldn't have continued if the Revolution hadn't happened.

[ulmont]

The Russian economy and industrial base was also expaning very rapidly in the period 1900-1914, so there's no particular reason to believe that that trend wouldn't have continued if the Revolution hadn't happened.

Except for the fact that the Czars had repeatedly proven unwilling to undertake any plan that would lead to even temporary social disruption.*

*Even the emancipation of the serfs was just trying to ward off the (late) revolutions of 1848.

[Neil]

Over time, that will be incredibly damaging to the credibility of the unelected government,

Over time, the sun will burn out too. Doesn't mean we'll be around to see it.

Face it.  I have studied Iran, read books about it, talked with Iranians (and most of the youth don't get foreign educations, BTW), and you have played Fifth Fleet.  Solo.

You forgot Gulf Strike.  Dick.

[Warspite]

For those of you tards with delusions of democracy.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
(snip) 

Old news, and if the tards that keep bringing out this bit of "analysis" bothered to look at the numbers, they would see that the "2-1 margin" was something like 32% favoring Ahmadinijhad and  14% favoring Mousavi, with 52% not answering.  Plus, the polls were taken long before the elections, and so of limited use (since Mousavi had not even started campaigning yet).

But the authors of this opinion piece mention none of that, do they?  Why?  Because they knew the truth made their polling pointless, and they wanted their moment in the sun.

Sometimes a lie is just a lie.

Not to mention the irregularities in the voting which cannot simply be explained away by a pre-election telephone poll.

[Alatriste]

I agree 100% with Grumbler in this. Even if the hardliners succeeded tomorrow in crushing or appeasing the protesters, results in the long term will be great. The democratic fig leaf has fallen and the regime is far weaker than before... think Poland after Jaruzelski's coup, Hungary 1957, or Czechoslovakia 1969, or China after Tien An Men (even if in this case protests were far more restricted, being more of a local Beijing student protest if I'm not wrong).

The situation is complex, with many factions maneuvering for power and influence in both fields, and honestly I can't see Ahamdinejad as a true protagonist in this fight. I think he's being used and will be swiftly discarded when his uselfulness is gone.

[alfred russel]

I agree 100% with Grumbler in this. Even if the hardliners succeeded tomorrow in crushing or appeasing the protesters, results in the long term will be great. The democratic fig leaf has fallen and the regime is far weaker than before... think Poland after Jaruzelski's coup, Hungary 1957, or Czechoslovakia 1969, or China after Tien An Men (even if in this case protests were far more restricted, being more of a local Beijing student protest if I'm not wrong).

The situation is complex, with many factions maneuvering for power and influence in both fields, and honestly I can't see Ahamdinejad as a true protagonist in this fight. I think he's being used and will be swiftly discarded when his uselfulness is gone.

If the ultimate concern with Iran is that it will use a nuclear weapon, I don't see how you can say that this is in any way positive. Iran, under its current regime, will probably obtain a nuclear weapon soon, and a cornered hardline religious theocracy may be more prone to use it on Isreal before the reformers kick them out.

[Valmy]

If the ultimate concern with Iran is that it will use a nuclear weapon, I don't see how you can say that this is in any way positive. Iran, under its current regime, will probably obtain a nuclear weapon soon, and a cornered hardline religious theocracy may be more prone to use it on Isreal before the reformers kick them out.

...

How is this different from before the protest?

[alfred russel]

If the ultimate concern with Iran is that it will use a nuclear weapon, I don't see how you can say that this is in any way positive. Iran, under its current regime, will probably obtain a nuclear weapon soon, and a cornered hardline religious theocracy may be more prone to use it on Isreal before the reformers kick them out.

...

How is this different from before the protest?

They weren't cornered.

It is similar to fears that the Soviets would attack in 1989-1991, but thankfully the Soviets had somewhat rationale leaders that they didn't let be overthrown.

[Warspite]

I agree 100% with Grumbler in this. Even if the hardliners succeeded tomorrow in crushing or appeasing the protesters, results in the long term will be great. The democratic fig leaf has fallen and the regime is far weaker than before... think Poland after Jaruzelski's coup, Hungary 1957, or Czechoslovakia 1969, or China after Tien An Men (even if in this case protests were far more restricted, being more of a local Beijing student protest if I'm not wrong).

The situation is complex, with many factions maneuvering for power and influence in both fields, and honestly I can't see Ahamdinejad as a true protagonist in this fight. I think he's being used and will be swiftly discarded when his uselfulness is gone.

If the ultimate concern with Iran is that it will use a nuclear weapon, I don't see how you can say that this is in any way positive. Iran, under its current regime, will probably obtain a nuclear weapon soon, and a cornered hardline religious theocracy may be more prone to use it on Isreal before the reformers kick them out.

I don't really see how a timetable for nuking Israel depends on the reformers' power within the Iranian system. Furthermore this assumes the overriding objective for Iranian possession of a nuclear weapon is do with with wiping Israel of the face of the map. This would ignore the chief objective of Iranian foreign policy since the British retreat east of Suez: becoming a regional power. The bitter lesson learnt by the current leadership in the 1980-88 war was that Iran has to rely on herself for security, and that she is weak. Nuclear weapons are one form of corrective for this. Other aspects of foreign policy, such as the Three Islands dispute with the UAE, are also aligned with this quest for power and security.