The number of attendees at the pro-government rallies on Thursday is staggering, STAGGERING, and serves as a wake up call to anyone who thinks that the regime does not have proponents. See the video here.
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”
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I have a question on your Reza Aslan post. Do you agree that Iran is at least in a cultural cold (civil)- war? So the civil war is not a battle of arms, but a battle of ideas, which is where Aslan gets it wrong because I don’t see Iran turning into Lebanon. However I do think Iran has never been so culturally and politically polarized.
I certainly agree w you that Iran is in a cultural cold war and that’s a really good way of putting it. The truth is, Iran has been in a cultural cold war for the past 100 years and it’s surfaced to a more noticeable degree every so many years and now we’re seeing it again.
Iranians never been united as is now, 85% poeple showed up for election and at 22 bahman 50, 000 000 marched through Iran, just 3000 000 in Tehran Helicopter View of 22 Bahman Demonstrators . You call that cultural cold war. Humer is good but not this way. and who the hell is Reza Asalan another gahrab zadeh out of touch of realty, grow up bozo.
“From CIA world fact book”
This is the heart of the problem the US has with Iran,
Just a few years back Iran was the 20th behind Turkey
Sanctions are placed to stop this moving upward, Iran already is the largest economy anywhere in ME, Africa and Central Asia and that after 30 years of sanctions,imposed war,demonetization of all sorts just imagines if there were no western sanctions in past 30 years!
Rank country GDP (purchasing power parity) Date of Information
1 European Union $ 14,520,000,000,000 2009 est.
2 United States $ 14,250,000,000,000 2009 est.
3 China $ 8,767,000,000,000 2009 est.
4 Japan $ 4,141,000,000,000 2009 est.
5 India $ 3,548,000,000,000 2009 est.
6 Germany $ 2,812,000,000,000 2009 est.
7 United Kingdom $ 2,165,000,000,000 2009 est.
8 France $ 2,113,000,000,000 2009 est.
9 Russia $ 2,103,000,000,000 2009 est.
10 Brazil $ 2,024,000,000,000 2009 est.
11 Italy $ 1,756,000,000,000 2009 est.
12 Mexico $ 1,473,000,000,000 2009 est.
13 Spain $ 1,367,000,000,000 2009 est.
14 Korea, South $ 1,343,000,000,000 2009 est.
15 Canada $ 1,287,000,000,000 2009 est.
16 Indonesia $ 968,500,000,000 2009 est.
17 Iran $ 876,000,000,000 2009 est.
18 Turkey $ 861,600,000,000 2009 est.
19 Australia $ 819,000,000,000 2009 est.
20 Taiwan $ 693,300,000,000 2009 est.
Who are these “Greens” anyway? Reading about 50 or so of their blogs and articles(both in Farsi and English), and talking to some of them in the last few months, my impression is this: Problem is a unified Greens group does not exist. A group of people unhappy with government, demonstrated, and it looked like a movement. That has for the most part dissipated, again since there is no unified goal, there never was one. The small sporadic numbers of them on Feb 11 was very real. This doesn’t mean the unhappy people or anti government people do not exist. They do, like in any other country. However they will change things, gain more personal freedoms, within the laws of the land. They will change the bad laws too eventually, but not by street protests. That’s what the majority will do. And the minority can achieve their goals as well, but with grass root activism, not with twitter. Finally it won’t matter who wishes what outside Iran, Iranians are bright and resilient, and they will achieve reform themselves. I personally believe they did this even in this election, by electing Mahmoud Amadinejad. To me he is the most anti-establishment person in the Iranian government.
Of course, many Western observers now say that the Green Movement is not fading, but has been cruelly suppressed by an illegitimate regime fighting with every tool at its disposal to hang on to power. This claim needs to be evaluated both in historical perspective and in the context of the current Iranian state’s capabilities. Historically, in the 12 months preceding the departure of the Shah from Iran and the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iranian security forces gunned down thousands—perhaps even tens of thousands—of anti-Shah protestors. But, even in the face of this brutality, protestors kept coming out, and the crowds demanding the Shah’s removal kept growing until they overwhelmed the Pahlavi regime’s massive security apparatus. That was a real revolution.
Contrast that with the response of the Islamic Republic to social unrest following the June 12, 2009 presidential election. Since last June, just over 100 people have been killed in clashes with security forces. Of course, every life lost is a tragedy. But this is not Tiananmen Square, with security forces mowing down hundreds of demonstrators in a single encounter. If one considers what the Iranian government is capable of doing, its response has, in fact, been relatively restrained. But, even in the face of this relatively restrained response, the Green Movement has been contracting. That is not the stuff of which revolutions are made.
Moreover, the Iranian government has dealt with the post-election protests and follow-on events in a manner that is seen by many inside Iran as legitimate within the context of the Islamic Republic’s political order. The Guardian Council opened itself to receive formal complaints about the conduct of the election and ordered a partial recount of ballots—in keeping with the roles prescribed to it by the Islamic Republic’s constitution. At critical points following the election, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made authoritative pronouncements—in keeping with his constitutional role. When some who had been arrested following public protests were killed, raped, or otherwise abused in custody, the prison where the lion’s share of abuses reportedly occurred was closed, and twelve security force personnel are now under indictment for their involvement in prisoner deaths and abuse. Many in the West may find these responses insufficient—but they were perceived by many in Iran as important and legitimate responses, which has worked to minimize the number of Iranians who might be galvanized to action outside the established political order.
In sum, the Islamic Republic is not going away. It is remarkable how many Green Movement supporters outside Iran are now claiming that no one among them ever talked about “regime change†or the Islamic Republic’s “implosionâ€. But many pro-opposition pundits have, in fact, spoken frequently in recent months about the imminent possibility of the Islamic Republic’s disappearance. These assessments were, clearly, wrong. The erroneous analyses of those who have worked so hard in Washington to promote this view should not go unremarked now.
Nahid, get your head checked.