May 6, 2006
IF THE VELVET GLOVE FITS, YOU MUST ACQUIT THE IRON FIST:
Editor's Notes: Undoing the ayatollahs (David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post, May 4, 2006)
In Washington a few days ago, I met with a longtime Iranian-born opposition activist who, among other efforts, is a member of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, a three-year-old, US-based opposition group which seeks, it says, "to promote a strategy of nonviolent political defiance to the rule of the dictatorial theocracy in Iran, and set the conditions for a transparent national referendum," under which Iranians would "determine their future form of government in a free, fair and democratic manner." The group has good ideas but, he readily acknowledged, next to no resources ...The activist ... painted a complex picture of an Iranian populace at once overwhelmingly resentful of the regime and deeply dispirited over the prospects of removing it....
Where he was categorical and unequivocal was in expounding the depth of the Iranian government's anti-Western mind-set, the absurdity of the delusion that it contained any genuine reformist elements within its ranks and the scope of the danger it poses should it go unchecked. If the Western policymakers grappling with Iran, its aims and its nuclear drive are sleeping at night, he said simply, "then they are fools."...
The people ... don't participate in elections. They know it is meaningless.
They did not choose Ahmadinejad. The election was a total fraud. The turnout was far, far lower than claimed. Some of those from poor neighborhoods, south of Teheran, did vote for Ahmadinejad - but not in nearly as high numbers as the regime claimed....
The people have given up. If there is a good incentive, they could come into the street again. If they believe something can change. But they say "President Bush told us to come out, so did Reza Pahlavi, so did all the opposition leaders. We came to the streets and nothing happened. Our friends were beaten up. A lot of our friends are in jail. We kept our end of the bargain; nobody else kept theirs."
I'll give you a recent example. In the last few months, the bus drivers have [twice] gone on strike, seeking a legal right to protest and to boost salaries and working conditions. Others might have joined. But the regime suppressed the protests after a few days. It brought in poor people to drive the buses and it beat up the drivers and their families. [Hundreds were arrested.] The leader, Mansour Ossanlu, is still in jail. What did America do? Mr. John Sweeney, the president of the Teamsters Union, wrote two nasty letters to Ahmadinejad. That was it....
In 1999, when the Khatami government shut down a pro-reform newspaper, there were much bigger protests [initiated on the campus of Teheran University]. The first students who came out were beaten up. More students joined them. It continued for seven or eight days until the regime had completely beaten everybody up. Some of them were condemned to death. They were tortured and are still in jail. The torture and suppression was so savage, and the support from outside and from within Iran was so small, that they all got discouraged....
The message from those outside, particularly America, has to be that they will be with the Iranian people to the end. They must send the right message into Iran. [US-sponsored] Radio Farda and Voice of America are a joke.
Oddly enough, even a few American conservatives think that the Supreme Leader of the Guardian Council, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, is a democrat and reformer, and that the leader of the torturers, Ahmadinejad, got most of the people's votes. Posted by pjaminet at May 6, 2006 11:16 AM
Ahmadinejad is a puppet, he is the Mouth of Sauron. What makes anyone think that what he says is anything but what the ayatollahs want said?
Posted by: Mikey at May 6, 2006 11:25 AM"President Bush told us to come out, We kept our end of the bargain; nobody else kept theirs."
I'll give you a recent example. ... The leader, Mansour Ossanlu, is still in jail. What did America do?"
This is complete bull. The same bullshit that the leftists said about Bush I of not going to Baghdad, then about Bush II of getting rid of Saddam. They blamed Bush I for "betraying" the Shias. What have the Shias done when Bush II started fighting their war? Some of them supported Sadr, then threatened the Americans that they would join force with the Sunnis to get rid of the occupiers. Sistani refused to meet with Bremer, an infidel. Where the hell's their appreciation?
Revolutions began from within. If the Iranians really wanted to get rid of the mullahs, then many many more Iranians should rally. Have they seen what happened in Lebannon? A lot more Iranians must defy the mullahs without fear for their own precious lives. A lot of more Iranians who wanted freedom must die. Don't try to drag the Americans in and let the GIs die for them. When a few suicide bombers killed a couple of hundreds, then protest the Americans for not protecting them.
Bush II believed the Iraqis would fight for their own freedom once the Americans started the war. Remember all those "flowers" and supposed appreciations? Where are they? Instead, the Iraqis complained days in and days out that the Americans have not wasted their soldiers' lives to guard their museum junks, to guard their archiological sites. I value our American lives more than dead men's junks. If they still prided themselves as the "cradle of civilization", then we should tell them to get out of their crib and grow up, everybody else has. Then they complained about not getting electricity, not getting water. Yet our men are still dying for such ingrates, and we are wasting billions on them.
Not again. Want freedom? Fight for it.
The Israelis fought their own independence. We might have given or sold them a few tanks, but we've never 'invaded' Palestine to pop up a democratic govt. They did it themselves.
The Poles fought for their own freedom. We provided 'moral support'. Chinese students have tried. They failed, but conditions improved. Why the hell can't the Iranians fight their own war? What are they good for? Why sre their lives woth more than our GI's?
Posted by: ic at May 6, 2006 12:02 PMic - "leftists" are not necessarily wrong about everything. Bush I did betray the Shia. It's wrong to call for people in Iran to resist, if people outside are not ready to help them win.
Revolutions need organization before they can begin. Totalitarian regimes destroy organizations in the larval stage. Poland could have a revolution because the regime allowed Solidarity and the Catholic Church to organize it. Iran isn't allowing anything like that. If a revolution is to occur in Iran, it has to be organized and initiated from outside. Then, Iranians inside the country can join it.
As for the Shia Iraqi, I for one am impressed with how well and how consistently the majority have worked for freedom and democracy. Pay no attention to the sniping, the war in Iraq has gone very well for us.
It warms my heart to see the U.S. military used like a sharp, sharp knife. I cring when I hear people who want to 'Kill them, Kill them all. God will know his own.'. You can't keep your hands clean, but you don't want to cover them with blood.
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at May 6, 2006 2:35 PMOf course his point is so contradictory as to be self-refuting, but for those who can't follow: The people having given up on voting for reform is precisely how a cipher like Ahmedinejad won. That was Khamenei's miscalculation. If the reformist majority were voting and this nutbag won then you could argue there was a fix.
Posted by: oj at May 6, 2006 9:40 PMAhmadinejad was the mayor of Tehran and was known in Revolutionary circles. He may have been a 'dark horse', but he wasn't really a cipher.
But, given the state of politics in Iran, Khameini could have sent up a horse, and it probably would have received a plurality.
I don't know enough about their current situation to go any further, but I do know that no one whom the 'Guardians' disapproved of was going to be on the ballot. Why do you suppose their parliamentary choices were so filtered?
Ahmadinejad may be Frankenstein's monster, and the ayatollahs may well have to kill him, but he can't be a surprise to them. People have known what he is since 1979.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 6, 2006 10:07 PMoj - I agree that his ideas are in tension with one another - notably, his opposition to military force doesn't square with his belief that the regime has brutally suppressed all resistance so that domestic resistance is futile - but that doesn't mean there isn't an element of truth in all of them. The people didn't participate in the election because they knew their votes wouldn't affect the areas they cared about. Voting wouldn't have made a democrat/reformer win.
It's possible voting might have shifted the winner to one a more Khamenei-favored candidate - if the Revolutionary Guards hadn't had to manufacture so many votes to make it look like a good turnout, then maybe the leader of the Revolutionary Guards wouldn't have won - but either way the winner would have been a supporter of torture and murder.
As he says, the regime may have rival factions, but they are all united in opposing democracy and the U.S., and will work as a team to protect their power.
Posted by: pj at May 7, 2006 8:01 AMRevolutions can only happen when those with the guns lose faith in their masters, and are no longer willing to kill their own people to defend the discredited. Until that point, any public opposition is just going to get you killed.
I think there are still plenty of people in the Revolutionary Guards and elsewhere in Iran that are willing to kill in defense of the regime.
The democracy activists are currently powerless and cannot affect Iranian policy. Any resolution of the nuke crisis should take their interests into account, but that is clearly a subordinate priority to preventing Iran from getting nukes.
Ideally any military strike would target the instruments of military power that supports the regime, not just the nuke installations. If you can do enough damage to the goons who prop up the mullahs, the people might have a chance.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at May 8, 2006 1:23 PM