Posted on 07/03/2009 9:55:28 AM PDT by nuconvert
As Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, Iran enters limbo, an uncertain yet perilous period of time separating anger-driven demonstrations from either bloody tyrannical repression or sustained popular struggle producing a liberalizing revolution.
Frustration, righteous anger and bitterness powered Iran’s post-election demonstrations. These emotions are also fuel for revolution. Toppling Iran’s corrupt Khomeinist regime, however, requires leadership, organization and time — in other words, calculated assessments and cool political war-fighting skills.
American independence required a field army, ragtag force though it was. Anger may lead to enlistments, but it doesn’t solve supply problems. Anger fades when you freeze at Valley Forge; superior leadership — leading by immediate example and demanding sacrifice to achieve common goals — turns anger into long-term commitment.
It is possible the Iranian people aren’t ready for the sustained sacrifice revolution against murderous tyrants requires. Confronting riot police and armed pro-regime gangs demands courage and a corporate willingness to accept casualties, meaning dead friends in the street. When and where this threshold is reached, then crossed, is a psychological and historical mystery — hence limbo.
The Iranian people weren’t ready to fight the regime’s thugs in 1995, though broad dissatisfaction with the ayatollahs’ increasingly corrupt regime was already evident. The surprise election of Ayatollah Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997 may have tempered public disaffection with hope. Khatami, a respected scholar, was supposed to lose, but he won over 70 percent of the vote — a protest-vote candidate writ large. Moreover, professorial Khatami had the temerity to win re-election. The embarrassed Khomeinist mullocracy (with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, playing a key role) rigged the electoral system to ensure there would be no more Khatami-type interlopers.
Now, the robed tyrants pre-selected presidential candidates. As a result in 2005 the noxious, Holocaust-denying, nuclear-weapon-coveting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Our convoluted system where the citizens pay the bill for the hilarity and 'reaching out' in DC has finally reached the point of completely ruining our lives!
George Bush's legacy and fight endures in the Mid East, despite, and in spite of Obama, and THAT is Obama's real dilema.
It was George Bush's policy of direct engagement and support of liberty that has led to the people of Iran seeing the measure of freedom now established on both sides of them in Iraq and Afghjanistan...and desiring it for themselves.
Obama cannot possibly go too far in recognizing that, or he absolutely repudiates himself and his entire foreign policy.
...but Obama doesn't want to "meddle".
The fight in Iran goes on.
6/24/2009 - Not all fights on June 24th were losses - Iranian people take back streets from Basif
Others were not.
Eyewitness Account to Slaughter in Iran 6/24/2009
While brave Iranians are slaughtered in the street by their own government as they seek liberty, Obama disinvited Iranian officials to American 4th of July celebration.
Meanwhile, they are axing students to death.
Young Woman (Neda) shot to death in Terhran. 6/20/2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVyGo7rZUI
Crowd Hunting Basij, Man shot. 6/20/2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYaL4mA-bSY
POEM FOR THE ROOFTOPS OF IRAN - INCREDIBLY MOVING
You can follow me on twitter if you want.http://www.twitter.com/Jeff_Head
"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.
"Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are -- the future leaders of your free country.
"The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."
George W. Bush Jan 2005
I’m a lot more concerned about US. We cannot influence Iran to any great extent. Yes, we can encourage and support, but that pales in comparison to the outright imprisonment and/or murder of “dissidents”.
I think we are profoundly justified to be really, really selfish, and enormously concerned about the future of the American Republic. We have a cabal of saboteurs, traitors, and ghouls in power and every legislative travesty they want to cram down our throats is an exercise in Chicago thug politics in too much of a hurry for them to actually read. Who the hell knows what’s being crammed in at the last minute, never mind the pure stench of what’s explicit in their socio-fascist agenda.
So I’m an advocate of enlightened self-interest. And I mean that in a non-traditional way. America is rapidly being divided into two (IMO) irreconcilable classes, both of whom believe thay are working for their self-interest. One form of self interest is self-aggrandizement; bribery, theft, rip off “the system” or “the man” and continuation of political power and influence. The other form of self interest is the preservation of what made the US unique in history as an experiment in freedom and human potential.
This is our struggle. As for the future of Iran, we need all our resources just to keep what we have that’s so alarmingly slipping away. If we go the way 0bama wants to take us, there won’t **BE** a US to influence Iran.
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