For me, any sensible discussion of Iran must accept a number of facts. I will set these out as Set A and Set B. Both sets are true. But ideologues of the right routinely discount Set A, while ideologues of the left routinely discount Set B. That is why most debate on Iran is inane.
Set A
Iranian Islamic fundamentalism allied to fierce anti-Americanism was born from CIA intervention to topple democracy and keep in power a ruthless murdering despot for decades, in the interests of US oil and gas companies
Iranian anti-Americanism was fuelled further by US support for US friend and ally Saddam Hussein who was armed to wage a murderous war against Iran, again in the hope of US access to Iran’s oil and gas
The US committed a terrible atrocity against civilians by shooting down an Iranian passenger jet
Iran is surrounded by US military forces and has been repeatedly threatened to the extent that the desire to develop a nuclear weapon is a reflex
There is monumental hypocrisy in condemning Iran’s nuclear programme while overlooking Israel’s nuclear weapons
Set B
Iran is governed by an appalling set of vicious theocratic nutters
Iran is not any kind of democracy. It fails the first hurdle of candidates being allowed to put forward meaningful alternatives
Hanging of gays, stoning of adulterers, floggings, censorship and pervasive control are not fine because of cultural relativism. Iran’s whole legislative basis is inimical to universal ideals of human rights.
Iran really is trying to develop a nuclear weapons programme, though with some years still to go.
There are two very good articles on the current situation in Iran. One from the ever excellent Juan Cole. I would accept his judgement on the elections being rigged.
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/class-v-culture-wars-in-iranian.html#comments
The other from Yasamine Mather, which puts it in another perspective.
http://www.hopoi.org/articles/elections%20June%202009.html
I am not optimistic about the outcome of the popular protest.
Of course I don’t know for certain – how is it are any of us can be so certain of our positions that no doubt ever crosses your minds? If we all knew for certain, we would not be having this discussion. Are we supposed to substitute arrogance for honesty, corporate-style? To fll into a line dictated by the state, every time? “Attack Iraq: yes sir! Undermine Iran: Yes sir!”
No, I refuse.
eddie: I haven’t read a single comment here that smears the Iranian demonstrators. Most people are just trying to get a handle on the bigger picture.
Your remarks have indeed been addressed. In particular your assertion that there is no proof of outside interference has been thoroughly shot to pieces and this, after all, was the key point of Roberts’s article.
I do not share your confidence in having a reliable insight into precisely what each demonstrator is demonstrating for. Those asking “Where is my Vote?” are presumably suggesting that the election was rigged and that, had Mousavi got in, they would not be on the streets. The election may have been rigged but at present there is no proof of this. The best evidence available – the opinion poll taken before the election – suggests it was not rigged. If so, the answer to the protesters’ question is that their vote was counted but unfortunately more people voted for the other guy. Tough.
I certainly do not share your view that the protesters are seeking to overthrow the whole system (or at least any that do are in a minority). I believe this is simply wishful thinking on your own Islamophobic part.
I may be wrong but I suspect the majority of Iranians prize their country’s independence and do not want to become another Iraq or Afghanistan. They do not want their country’s rich resources stripped by western interests and a corrupt western puppet government installed. They have been through that and it was hell. You’re happy to call the current regime “wicked and reactionary” but compared with the horrors of the Shah it is a vision of compassion and enlightenment.
“George Perhaps you can enlighten me as I have barely watched Press TV”
eddie
To get enlightenment watch “Press TV”.
You should also stop going to Harry’s Place and mixing with all the other unenlightened ones…it’s doing you no good eddie…
http://tinyurl.com/l9yo9s
“And (culturally) Ireland the next day, George.”
I should amend that. I was in Shannon protesting against US troop planes, and US Gulfstream rendition flights, passing through our airport there. So ‘culturally’ can be left out.
I think this thread, while vigorous, informative and spirited, is becoming circular.
I think also that it important that all discourses, while not dodging any potential narratives, avoid simply revolving around the provocative and disruptive, rather than stimulating and challenging, statements of one particular blogger – whose views in relation to imperial power are well-known and rather predictable – this seems to occur to some extent on several of the threads which I have followed on this blog.; the dynamic is always the same. Hence my Theseus allusion, earlier.
We shall see what happens in, and to, Iran…
dreoilin
One BRIGHT ray of light…
http://tinyurl.com/nbo9wn
“We shall see what happens in, and to, Iran…”
“Iranian police have used water cannon, batons and tear gas to disperse protests over the presidential election, witnesses in Tehran say”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8110582.stm
Under the Shah it would have been tanks and machine guns.
I know, you’re right, MJ.
I do fear that it will escalate, though. I have real fears for people, including friends, in Iran. From the contemporaneous info I’m getting, I think a lot of people there are as baffled as we are – and are very frightened. Once stuff starts happening, whatever the triggers, it can assume a momentum of its own and then no-one is safe, regardless of their views, etc. Perhaps this was the reason for my earlier uncertainty. It’s all very well us engaging in discourse. I think things might be beginning to slip out of control. I think the leaders of Iran need to get together and stop this, on both sides.
I pray for the people of Iran.
Dreolin – apologies, it’s my one weakness to prick your pomposity, I will try to stop and I know it’s wrong. I don’t know what nationality you are.
“And I agree that the demos in Iran have been organised by outside forces, indeed that the whole orchestration has been Made in America.”Suhayl
If that is not a smear I don’t know what is. MJ, I do wish you would stop throwing Islampophobic at me – I have tried to oexplain before that I despise all religions. Religion-phobic would be a better term – personally I am not keen on theocratic governments, whether they are Christian or Islamic. Just because you hate fascists who happen to be muslims it does not make you an Islamophobe. You are right though, the arguments are circular and we shall have to agree to disagree. The truth is that none of us really know what we are saying because the facts are still so obscure. But people are being beaten and killed on the streets of Tehran right now so to claim they are being manipulated by the CIA is truly disgraceful (in my view) and none of you has any proof for such a claim.
Anyway, I have just been to see “Looking for Eric” – it’s a great film and I recommend it.
eddie,
“and none of you has ANY proof that the USA is behind these demonstrations.”
Well there is the $400 millions dollars the Congress put aside for ‘covert actions inside Iran’…..and a multitude of circumstantial happenstances, not least the oft-implemented Soros ‘colour revolution’ meme.
I’ll tell what there is NOT a shred of proof for…that the election was actually stolen.
Here’s a video of Henry Kissinger threatening regime change in Iran if the current coup fails. Is this evidence?
Little eddie the troll,
Demolish this pile of faeces.
http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/kissinger-threatens-regime
We’ll have to see what comes out of all this – and what comes out – information-wise and politically – in the aftermath.
I’m not indicting individuals who are demonstrating, I mean I know people on both ‘sides’ of the argument (if one wants to put it like that). I just think there’s more going on than what we see as a surface picture, and history illustrates that the CIA have worked in exactly this manner repeatedly over the years. Millions of dollars have gone into black ops recently in Iran and other bloggers have already posted articles from various knowledgeable sources in a number of countries – there are some from Israel, incidentally, both from those who seek peace with the surrounding countries and from those who are ‘hawks’ – on the subject.
It’s hellish for the people on the streets right now and also for those in the houses. It’s a very emotive time for everyone who cares a jot about people. But that should not distract one from attempting to delineate underlying dynamics; on the contrary. It is not disrespectful to do this. I’m not smearing the ordinary people, I am critiquing some of the leaders in Iran who I think are being irresponsible in their quest for power (or more power, depending on who we are talking about) and the outside interference and manipulation which is likely to be pertinent in this situation and who are willing to spill, or to allow the spilling, of oceans of blood in their pursuit of power and wealth.
I, too, despise theocracy, religious fundamentalism, etc., I’ve seen what it’s done in Pakistan (with the sustained help of the West, I’m afraid). The Left was crushed in Iran in the early 1980s and in Pakistan has been for decades – and the invasion of Iran by Iraq undertaken at the instigation of the USA worsened the situation wrt the Iranian Revolution. My own (civilian, I hasten to add) relatives are actively struggling to oppose the Taliban in the NWFP of Pakistan right now; I have no time for Islamism of whatever brand.
I am not blogging on this subject because I don’t care or feel for the people of Iran – quite the opposite – or because I’m trying to be clever. I am not ‘anti-American’, I think that there are many wonderful things about the USA – and Britain – and I celebrate those things often!! But I am against the manner in which the military-political establishment of the US has tended to screw up almost every effort of people in the economic South to achieve anything and I resent the active complicity of my own country, the UK in this process (as well as being very aware of, and being formed from, the UK’s own imperial history).
Surveying the past six decades, I find it hard to see how a person on the Left (in its broadest sense) or of Libertarian or Progressive tendencies cannot be at the very least uneasy about the nature of US power in the world.
Perhaps I am stupid and should shut up.
I, too, despise theocracy, religious fundamentalism, etc., I’ve seen what it’s done…
You certainly didn’t see religious fundamentalism nor I suspect can you hate “theocracy” As you have no benchmark.
George,
Indeed.
And my vote was part of that. 🙂
anonymous person – I wish you would stop being so offensive.
If you can bear to watch it, look at this video of a young girl on the streets of Tehran. As she lay dying I wonder if she thought, “The fucking CIA, if only I’d never taken their money.” I doubt it. Suhayl – I respect your measured opinions, but you seem to be saying that there is a power struggle going on in Iran, which appears to be true, but that the US is also manipulating the siutation. Both cannot be true surely? If so, it would mean that one or more of the leaders in Iran is complicit with the CIA/USA, a foolish step by any standards for any serious figure who wished to take power there. Even more incredible would be the notion that one of these senior figures is being manipulated without knowing it.
http://www.hurryupharry.org/
Inquisitor, I must be even thicker than I thought. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Benchmark? I thought that was a corporate accolade. Please explain.
“Mousavi’s supporters have questioned the wide margin of Ahmedinejad’s victory”
http://tinyurl.com/nh7zvq
the most sensible quote of the decade–by the ayatulla khomenni ofiran-2the british are the most treacheropus of all”.
he has hit the nail right on the head. the enlgish nation are the most vile treacheropus lying deceptive cheater and fraudulent race the earth ever has had the misfortune to bear and the world to tolerate so far. High time they are sorted out .]
the same BBC which was daily asking Gore to not push for vote recount in 2000 american elelction is doing the propaganda about fraud in iran !they are shamless and must be destryed.
As for this eddie-he is a usual dog -why give him attention? thse people do NOT WANT to be convinced by argument or fact-they know only one langauge.
“CIA, if only I’d never taken their money”
In the link I give above…
“Finally, one must make a quick comparison with what happened in the June 7 elections in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people of Lebanese origin were flown from abroad, all expenses paid by the Saudis, to vote for the March 14 group led by Saad Hariri. The Saudis also paid each person $500 for pocket money. Despite this massive fraud, Hariri’s group got 68 seats in parliament (two less than they had in the previous one) while the Hizbullah-backed alliance got 57 seats (one less than in the earlier one). There were three independents. Hizbullah Secretary General did not complain that the election was rigged. He told his supporters to accept the result and move on.”
“There was little or no mention in the Western media about Lebanese vote rigging; the only thing one heard was that Hizbullah had been “defeated”.”
They don’t have free elections in the UK/USA friend and ally Saudi Arabia.Nothing said about that by Prime Minister Mandelson or his underling Brown…I wonder why?.
“Dreolin – apologies, it’s my one weakness to prick your pomposity”
Don’t flatter yourself, Eddie. You’d need a bigger prick.
“I don’t know what nationality you are.”
Don’t dissemble either. It’s all over this page and you’ve clearly been reading me.
Now I will take my own advice and ignore you in future. Anyone who seems to think that PSYOP or black ops means standing in the middle of Moseni Square with a bullhorn shouting “We’re the CIA. We think you should protest these election results. Come to XYX street and we’ll explain all”, hasn’t a clue.
“you seem to be saying that there is a power struggle going on in Iran, which appears to be true, but that the US is also manipulating the siutation. Both cannot be true surely?”
“Yes they can”.
anglosaxon scumbag’s conspiracy in Iran and elsewhere.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06192009.html
Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2009/3624econ_science.html
This article appears in the June 19, 2009 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
ECONOMY FOR SCIENTISTS:
Economic Science, In Short
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
May 29, 2009
[PDF version of this article]
The following report has been produced for the special benefit of those serious scientists and poets who are prepared to come directly to the crucial issue underlying the world’s presently accelerating plunge into the onrushing new dark age of general breakdown-crisis of the present world economy as a whole. The subject within which this report is situated, is what is, to my present knowledge, the still rarely considered principle which distinguishes the human mind, knowledgeably, from that of beasts. This is the same uniquely human principle, of that willful potential of the human mind which lies under the same heading, under which the notion of the ontological conception of the tensor must be situated for our study here.
Foreword
Unless there is a relatively immediate reversal of the current economic and demographic policies which had been expressed by both the recent U.S. Presidency of George W. Bush, Jr., and, now, President Barack Obama, civilization on this planet is now doomed to a rapidly accelerating descent of all mankind in a general dark age, a time during which the population of this planet would descend, foreseeably, from the presently estimated level of more than six-and-a-half billions persons, to the less than two billions which has been the stated goal of Britain’s Prince Philip and the Prince’s explicitly pro-genocidal World Wildlife Fund.
This nightmare, born out of current British ideology, which is already now descending upon this planet as a whole, is not a product of natural causes, but, rather, the natural outcome of so-called Malthusian economic policies, policies which had been radiated from the British empire, and had been carried out, during a certain time, by what the British monarchy and its ideological accomplices and interests had created as the Nazi Germany regime under Adolf Hitler, earlier. The same kind of genocidal result packaged as the Hitler regime, is being promoted by the British under the impetus of Prince Philip and his World Wildlife Fund now, with the present collaboration of U.S. President Barack Obama.
These pro-genocidal policies of the current British monarchy, are of a type which is by no means new to known history. The current policies of the British monarchy, of its accomplices inside leading political and related circles inside even our own United States, and its current Presidential administration today, are types of policies which the Eighteenth-Century British Empire’s British East India Company of Lord Shelburne and his accomplices had copied, explicitly, from the policies of practice of the ancient Roman Empire, policies which had been described in the Prometheus Bound of the ancient Greek Classical dramatist Aeschylus.
The continuation of such pro-genocidal policies as those of Britain’s Prince Philip and his World Wildlife Fund today, is not to be traced to the United Kingdom as a nation-state, but, rather, to the imperial character of the role of London’s financial center as the capital of a world-wide empire based on a currently dominant world-wide monetarist system akin to a Keynesian monetarist system. This is a system whose origins are traced to the feudal medieval European monetarist system, centered in Venice, which crashed in the so-called “New Dark Age” of Europe’s Fourteenth Century, and to the monetarist imperial system of usury maintained by the Roman and Byzantine empire earlier. That is the present-day echo of the imperialist form of tyranny, an echo which is known by the name of “globalization” today.
“Globalization” and the attempted global practice of genocide, by the British monarchy and its accomplices, against the world’s population today, is a presently immediate threat to all mankind which has arisen in its present form through the virtual capture of the Presidency of the United States by the British monarchy, as under the recent and current Presidencies of George H.W. Bush (1989-1993), George W. Bush, Jr. (2001-2009), and, presently, Barack Obama (2009 -…).
President Obama and his immediate personal cabal of the pro-genocidal British fanatics gathered within his Presidency, is a present expression of the particular, greatest economic threat to mankind as a whole. It is an expression of the influence of the British monarchy’s currently continuing tradition of Lord Shelburne’s British East India Company, a tradition of hateful efforts against all mankind during the course of the modern world history since that February 1763 Peace of Paris which established that Company as, in fact of practice, a private world maritime empire holding the British monarchy itself as captive.
The United Kingdom, as a form of an only nominally sovereign nation-state, had become, up to the present time, a virtual colony of what Shelburne established, in 1782, as the British Foreign Office and its relationship to a City of London as a center of a global form of imperial monetarist system. President Obama, like the present regime of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, is presently a collateral puppet of that continuing, global form of monetarist imperium crafted according to the paradigm of the Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian traditions.
Our United States
Good points in relation black ops, etc. made by all. Interesting about the Lebanon election, too, I didn’t know that, it would fit with the wider anti-Iran strategy pursued by the USA and Israel.
Avatar, I share your anger at colonialism and neocolonialism, but for a number of reasons, I’d be somewhat wary of drawing on the work La Rouche, he’s viewed by many serious oppositional commentators as ‘halfway to David Icke’ and possibly anti-Semitic. The effect of these types of media figures presence in the general discourse tends to reinforce power, as effectively they debunk the very serious and often accurate and interesting (Byzantine, Venetian, money – that’s intriguing historical purview) economic/ political critiques which they make by making it contingent on crazy foundational stuff about (in the case of Icke) lizards, etc. and in the case of La Rouche, racial material.
“Interesting about the Lebanon election, too, I didn’t know that”
Suhayl Saadi
“US, Biden try to strong-arm Lebanese elections”
http://tinyurl.com/odz5r5
Drearylin
“Yes they can” yet another statement of which you have absolutely no proof. I do NOT know what nationality you are. Perhaps I have not been reading your stuff with as much attention as you think you deserve. Those pesky Persians and their empire eh? Getting their comeuppance at last.
Drearylin
“Yes they can” yet another statement of which you have absolutely no proof, as with the vast majority of your crap. As stated previously, if you believe that senior figures in Iran are knowingly being funded by the CIA then I say that is beyond belief. I do NOT know what nationality you are. Perhaps I have not been reading your stuff with as much attention as you think you deserve and if you think it is important then that says more about you. Those pesky Persians and their empire eh? Getting their comeuppance at last.
eddie: of course it is possible for an internal power struggle to take place and for foreign interests covertly to support one of the parties. One doesn’t need “proof” simply to demonstrate that what you consider a logical impossibility is in fact possible. It can be as banal as a foreign donor contributing to an election campaign. The recipient might not even know the true source of the money.
We know the US has put 400 million dollars into destabilising Iran from within. Any ideas on how the money has been spent?
eddie,
Quote: “….if you believe that senior figures in Iran are knowingly being funded by the CIA then I say that is beyond belief.”
Don’t be ridiculous.
It has happened before in Iran (1953)….not to mention Ukraine and other countries to numerous (particularly in South America) to mention.
What do you think Kissinger is saying here (link below). It is quite clear. If this uprising does not succeed we might have to use military force against Iran. Next step military attacks. Are you still claiming America is adopting a ‘hands-off’ policy with Iran and saving their $400 million put aside to deal with Iran for some other day.
Oh, you’re a joker eddie. A very funny fellow indeed.
http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/kissinger-threatens-regime
I was going to link to the Paul Craig Roberts article at Counterpunch, but I see I’ve been beaten to the ?”
I don’t agree with you and you have no proof. You believe what you want to bleieve, like all your other fantasies over 911 etc. I wish the anonymous person above would sort out their name.
Severe repression now in Iran. What will it take for anyone on these boards to condemn the slaughter?
eddie,
Quote: “I don’t agree with you and you have no proof. You believe what you want to bleieve, like all your other fantasies over 911 etc.”
Fantasies????
My God, you are a living gibbering fantasy….or rather a sponsored promoter of outright lies, i.e. fantasies you know to be untrue.
The CIA interferences in South America (many times) and Iran in 1953 are admitted and copiously documented. Now here’s the grand-daddy of US Imperial interventionism threatening military action against Iran as a next step if they don’t cave in to the ongoing ‘colour revolution’.
No proof? You should apply for a job at the BBC. They’d love you eddie. Hey, maybe you’re already there, posting from their ‘newsroom’ (aka ‘The Lie Factory’)
Here is the Kissinger interview again:
http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/kissinger-threatens-regime
PS The uninformed should disabuse themselves of the notion that a fantasy organisation* ‘AlQaida’ carried out the attacks of 9/11. Watch “911 Mysteries” on google video.
*Here’s a quote from Robin Cook (before he suddenly dropped dead….could there be a connection?):
“There is no such organisation as Al Qaida and everybody with any connection to the intelligence services knows it”.