Posted on 12/02/2004 9:56:10 PM PST by freedom44
The Islamic Republic has been in a political coma for quite some time. Now this coma has become irreversible. The political system that came to power with a bang is whimpering towards the twilight. Many combinations needed to effectuate the disintegration of the clerical dictatorship are rapidly falling into place and setting the stage for the enforcement of the kind of people's power the world witnessed in Georgia in 2003 and currently in Ukraine.
Hopeful signs have created a sense of urgency amongst opposition groups, and those preparing to present Iranians with a viable political option in the post-mortem of the Islamic Republic. The listlessness and despair of the past few years, or even few months, has given way to a heightened sense of readiness and vitality. The end of last week witnessed a significant move by prominent Iranian dissidents and human rights activists. They called for the organization of a nationwide referendum to convene a constituent assembly and draft a new constitution(http://www.60000000.com).
Underlining the impossibility of reforming the present political system, the signatories to this appeal champion the principle of democratic governance based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They argue that a truly democratic constitution will interalia be able to foster a badly needed trust environment with the international community. For the first time, this move has brought together leading Iranian figures of various political persuasions, as well as Iranian citizens from all walks of life. The number of people joining this national movement from within Iran and outside is absolutely unprecedented.
The creativity and vibrancy of the opposition at the moment stands in sharp contrast with the low morale and ineptitude of the Islamic regime whose each and every vital organ is quickly disintegrating. It has fallen apart politically, economically, socially, ideologically and morally. The country is infected by poverty, crime, drug addiction, prostitution and human rights abuse in the hands of rulers who have based their raison d'être and legitimacy on the claim that they are the best spiritual healers the world over. In the huge gulf between the ethical high ground from which the regime has talked down to the people, and the dire reality faced everyday by ordinary Iranians, lies the ship of the Islamic state, wrecked and unsalvageable.
The discrepancy between rhetoric and reality has become evident even to the diehard band of fanatics and anti-western fundamentalists who form the backbone of the regime. They feel humiliated on account of what many of them consider to be a giving-in to the Europeans on the nuclear issue. Their disillusion was echoed last week by Ali Larijani, member of the Supreme Security Council of the Islamic Republic who referring to nuclear agreement in Paris said: "In that agreement we gave rare pearl and received a bon-bon instead". For a regime that thrives on political bravado and was particularly using the issue of reaching nuclear capability to boost its internal prestige, that is quite a hard blow. This, and many similar disillusionments will make it much more difficult for the theocratic dictatorship to count on the support of its spiritless followers when people pour into the streets to call for fundamental political change.
That process actually began in May 1997 - the day people turned out on a massive scale to vote against the status quo by electing a President who ran on the putative platform of supplanting it with a civilized democracy. Instead of doing that however, Mohammad Khatami kept the clerical dictatorship artificially alive on the life-support machine of illusory reform, and proved that the political system of the Islamic Republic is incapable of accommodating any real change.
Today, the presence of the signature of many prominent reformists on the appeal for a national referendum is a clear sign that Iranians have gained valuable lessons from the political experience of the past seven years. They have learned that the only way they can achieve their democratic aspirations and political freedom is by moving beyond the present system. There are hopeful signs that what no military strike on selected targets by any outside power could ever accomplish in Iran, can be realized by a broad national consensus of all those Iranians who put their country ahead of their particular political leaning. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair was the first Western leader who reacted positively to this initiative when he was asked yesterday (29 November 2004) by Radio VOA about the National Appeal for Referendum in Iran. He replied ‘We support those who would like the same democratic rights as we have here'.
The momentum is building up for peaceful political change in Iran, let's pray it moves in the right direction by those who will emerge as its leaders.
Bump for latrer read
this has been building for some time - but they have been held back for lack of confidence about International support or recognition. They were ecstatic when Pres. Bush won reelection...but MSM was quiet about their reaction.
Now, perhaps, they feel they have a friend in the U.S. for at least 4 more years - and maybe they'll have more courage to act
Hopeful words beg for bold actions.
(Hope you did well on your test!)
ping
..."...Underlining the impossibility of reforming the present political system..."...
Iran, with nukes, is on the "Doomsday Road".
Political changes are an irrelevant issue. Nukes will explode, and we in the non-Islamic world will have beaucoup "THANKS" to say to Iran for what they are sure to make happen.
Iran will make sure to bring us into the Islamist cesspool of small-scale annihilation of some part of the human race. It's all for the greater glory of Allah that we should all die.
The Iranian youth are more pro-US than the US Democratic Party i seriously doubt nukes will be flying anywhere near our nation with a democratically elected regime in Iran.
I wonder if the "orange revolution" in Ukraine will embolden the reformers in Iran? The Iranians get information from an underground media, so they must be watching it closely.
Millions of Iranians receive illegal satellite TV beamed in by Iranian-Americans in California. There are 20 largely pro-US stations that beam into Iran.
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=25896
Iranian Exiles Use Satellite TV to Promote Change
by Saloumeh Peyman
TEHRAN - A combination of light entertainment, talk shows and politics beamed into Iran by a dozen or so satellite stations set up by Iranian exiles in the United States is proving to be explosive in the Islamic country.
Iranian hardliners have denounced foreign satellite broadcasts for trampling on Islamic values and say they are used increasingly by exiled opposition groups, especially those based in Los Angeles, Calif., to stir anti-government unrest.
According to official estimates, about three million households have access to satellite television, while security forces have in recent years only managed to seize 70,000 sets.
Oh yeah...Iran's really on the skids. That sure makes their becoming a nuclear power that much easier to handle. /SARCASM
Gertz says the dangerous part is the missile program is in the hands of the revolutionary guard.
By its persistence, the regime is moving itself to the top of W2's to-do list.
External pressure plus the growing dissatisfaction of the majority population makes the black-turbaned mullah an endangered species.
It's encouraging that Housain Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic's founder, has called for regime change, even welcoming US intervention (Scotsman, Aug 03).I linked to it from an old article post, I can't seem to find it.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030930-084107-9658r.htm
Cleric's grandson applauds the U.S.
By Eli J. Lake
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
The grandson of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is in Washington this week and giving his blessing to the United States should it decide to invade Iran and throw the clerics out of power.
"The establishment of democracy should be taken very seriously in Iran," Hossein Khomeini said in an interview.
"Even if the situation necessitates for the United States to take military action in Iran, they should not hesitate," Mr. Khomeini said.
He called Americans liberators for invading neighboring Iraq and throwing out the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Hossein Khomeini has his grandfather's eyebrows, dark bushy lines arched like wide triangles over his dark eyes, but similarities to his grandfather, who established Iran's theocracy in 1979 and labeled the United States the Great Satan, end there.
For the interview, he wore loose-fitting gabardine slacks and a gray long-sleeve T-shirt with the outline of two arrows.
Mr. Khomeini said he opposed Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, a point he made last week at the United Nations for a terrorism conference.
"I like Washington," he said. "But I really love New York. The city has such a warmth to it."
Mr. Khomeini, a junior cleric, moved to the Iraqi holy city of Karbala last spring during the U.S. war against Saddam.
While he said he used the occasion of his Friday sermons to criticize the Islamic Republic while he was in Iran, since his arrival in Iraq his words have become sharper.
"The rulers of Iran have to go and they have to go forever," he said. "If the Iranian people rise up, they will kill them all."
This may be unsettling news to some in the Bush administration who had hoped for a bloodless revolution in Iran.
The State Department, for example, held preliminary talks last month to discuss how to funnel nonmilitary assistance and training to democratic groups in Iran.
Mr. Khomeini said he believed that President Bush's encouragement over the last year and a half to the democrats in Iran would ultimately be helpful to their cause.
"If there is honesty in what the president says and he follows up with it, it may not give them the result we want immediately, but in the long run, if the United States is committed to democracy and freedom for Iran, it is going to be effective and not hurt us."
But he also warned against U.S. policy-makers putting too much stock in the opinions of Iranian Americans.
"The United States should not make the mistake of looking at this generation inside Iran from the perspective [of the] Iranian community here," he said.
"With all due respect I have for the Iranian Americans, because of the historical baggage they carry they cannot be representatives of the young generation in Iran."
Thanks. No wonder the MSM is keeping quiet about the situation in Iran. They focus on the nuke issue, or on Iranian insurgents in Iraq. They're doing everything they can to avoid good news about the Mid East, because they can't credit a Dem.
That's why there's Freerepublic. :)
SHOCKINGLY loud and clear!!
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