[beyond the sea]

The Last Days of the Mullahs

Yet another Rather thread......

;-)

[FormerACLUmember]

There are plenty of American-friendly, freedom loving Iranians.

The Dark Ages of modern Iran and the enslavement/oppression of its people may hopefully be coming to an end. The mad mullahs will not go easily however.

What may be needed is an Iranian Ataturk to secularize and moderize the nation.

[Arkie2]

But the administration should not wait to be pushed by Santorum; now is the time for Secretary Rice and her colleagues to support a free referendum in Iran.

Bush wants this vote so he can get the democrats on record as supporting the Mullahs by voting against it.

[Keith]

It will be a great day when Free Persia is a reality...

[Billthedrill]

I don't see the mullahs going down in the face of a referendum. These are unbending, fanatical, violent men who believe quite literally that they rule by divine right, and that they imperil their eternal reward by acceding to secular demands.

It's going to come down to this - international support or no international support, are the young people of Iran willing to die for their freedom? Some, sadly, already have. There isn't a lot of middle ground left. This revolution is far more likely to resemble the French than the American, and by that I mean blood in the streets and a clerical class that may or may not escape annhilation by an infuriated populace.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't see a "velvet" or an "orange" revolution here. Red will be its color.

[ModelBreaker]

As Kenneth Pollack wrote in his recent book, "The Persian Puzzle," we have tried every possible approach, and they have all failed. And he sadly concluded that they all failed because the Iranian tyrants are not interested in rapprochement with us.

This is the diplomatic equivalent of "He's Just Not That Into You."