Posted on 02/06/2005 5:42:32 AM PST by Cornpone
SABRE-rattling by George W Bush against Iran as the world’s primary state sponsor of terrorism has given the mullahs who run the country the opportunity to crack down on dissenting voices.
With parliament firmly in their grip, the hardliners in the Tehran theocracy have increased pressure on moderate-minded politicians, journalists, writers and internet bloggers.
But the risk of being caught has not stopped the bloggers flooding the net with complaints at the state of their country. One on-line diarist in Tehran wrote: "The people in Iran are getting sadder and sadder. You see no music or dancing outdoors. There are no discos or nightclubs in any city of Iran. All the happiness is behind the closed doors of houses - the so-called ‘underground’. Many crimes are done here in the name of God. There are no really free newspapers. All the journalists are afraid of telling the truth because they will be arrested and sent to the jail, if they are lucky enough not to killed by hard-liners.
"All books to be published must undergo a strict line-by-line reading by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to make sure there is nothing against the rules made by mullahs inside them.
"The more the government pushes people toward Islam, the more people hate both them and their version of Islam."
Yet so great is the disillusionment with the reformists in Iran that their candidate is unlikely to win in the forthcoming presidential election in June. When the present reformist president Mohammad Khatami won a stunning victory in 1997 and repeated it in 2001, there was widespread euphoria, especially among the young.
But the real power remained in the hands of the Supreme Religious Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, with the result that there was little change in Iran’s efforts to suppress democratic opposition and deny human rights and to be a prime supporter of anti-Israeli terrorism.
A crackdown followed, and Khatami was left even more isolated when reformists were barred from parliamentary elections last year, resulting in a parliament dominated by conservatives and hard-liners.
Last October, widespread anti-government protests in Tehran and other cities were met with violent repression.
Khatami is not allowed to stand for a third term as president, according to the constitution. But the reformers are split over who should be their candidate to replace him.
Khatami’s successor faces huge challenges, including the task of convincing the international community that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme is peaceful. With Iran clearly placed with Syria on top of the Bush administration’s "to do" list, Israeli officials are watching very closely to see if the Europeans will speed up their efforts to find a diplomatic solution to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Last year Iran successfully tested the upgraded Shihab-3 missile which is now capable of striking at the heart of the Jewish state.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, told the Scotland on Sunday: "The possibility that the current Iranian regime could have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them is a clear threat to Israel’s existence and one that Israel cannot accept lightly."
Israeli security services have reported an increase in attempts by Iranian-backed militant groups such as Hizbollah to undermine efforts by Palestinian Authority chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, to end violence by militants and move towards negotiations with Israel.
The view from within the British Foreign Office remains that a negotiated solution to the Iranian problem is preferable to threats, and achievable.
Meanwhile European governments who feel vindicated in their opposition to war in Iraq, have offered Iran technological and financial support, and have hinted at a trade deal if weapons development stops.
I smell brialliant strategery here. The more the Khomeiniacs clamp down on the Iranian people the more unpopular they become with their already estranged subjects. So just be creating uncertainty about our intentions we are moving the ball down the field towards the eventual liberation of the Persians. Pretty clever.
Works for me;-)
I wonder what event will trigger the uprising over there?
External pressure, fracture, disintegration from within. The wild card is the nuclear one. Either way, the mullahs are goin' down.
Well, there is no decent MSM in the U.S. but Fox, so Iranians wanting the truth are going to have to rely on blogs and computer printers to get the word out.
If the country disintegrates into internal chaos no one would question the legitimacy of a stabilizing force going in to secure the nuclear weapons program.
This is exciting. Reminds me of eastern Europe in 1989. All hell is about to break loose.
The question is still out but I can't see anything but a democratic state evolving amongst these highly educated, independent peoples. They've already tried everything else with miserable results. They're close enough to Europe to have tasted the sweetness of freedom and market economies and they are powerful enough to defend their democracy if it is allowed to establish itself. In my mind, the real question is what impact it will have on Islam?
True, provided that happens in time. I suspect it is already in the works. The President's comments to the Iranian people during his SOTU speech came across to me like one of those Pre-D-Day radio messages to the French Underground, ie..."John has a long mustache".
"Yet so great is the disillusionment with the reformists in Iran that their candidate is unlikely to win in the forthcoming presidential election in June"
Especially since as with the last election, very few people will vote.
The people want ALL the mullahs out of the gov't; no difference between conservatives and reformists.
The population has been disarmed. It will take some doing...
We'll have to fix that.
This hearkens back to the former Soviet Union which collapsed upon itself with a not so gentle shove from Ronald Reagan. GW is president during some very historic times...
Does anyone know the name of the leading, US based movement for the liberation of Iran? I think I'd like to contribute to them somehow.
Here if the website: www.mugamullah.org
Bottom line is you won't have mullahs or Osama bin Laden religious whackos running countries, at least under the aegis of religious authority.
When the military, police and security apparatus grow tired of the crackdowns and begin to disobey or at least slow-down on the repression,
... watch for a key unit to join a large group of protesters and the whole regime will crumble into dust in a few weeks.
... or another unit will step in and we will have another Tinnamen square massacre (Iran has actually had quite a few of those already.)
That seems to be the two ways it goes in similar situations around the world in the last few decades.
I haven't been to a good gun show in quite a while.
I agree. The US should start putting out rumors that the Iranian military is planning a coup. The US should open training camps in Iraq and Afghanistan for Iranians to train militarily. We should spread rumors that the US has infiltrated the Iranian nuclear weapons program and that scientists are sabotaging their effort. We should offer Iranian pilots a huge reward for flying their jets to Iraq or Afghanistan.
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