[click image]In too many places I find Iranians angry about the notion that Western interference brought on this mess over the election... and not the way I'd expect them to be angry -- angry about the fact of it -- but anger springing from the idea that this seems to mean that I, and all the others, don't credit them with the brains and heart to have and fight for their own rights. It vexes me because I'm screaming about all this precisely because I think they have those, they have brains, hearts and rights, and they are being abused mightily by people who mean them harm.
It hit me, while reading this piece that they also might hate it because their government is always telling them about Western interference. It probably doesn't occur to everyone that this happens to be true, however often it is used to shore up government actions against giving them the good relations with the West they desire.
It's not their government's fault. They are not the shitheads in this.
WE ARE.
Things have multiple faces and one aspect does not deny the other.
ReplyDeleteStill I think the violence was totally avoidable. They could talk and negotiate.
Another way of seeing it is also that maybe this harsh reaction was also "monitored".
99 this blog translates many things. Worth a look.
ReplyDeletenicablog.wordpress.com
I'm not sure I follow you on the "monitored" thing. I'm wondering who they might have negotiated with. Suppose AN really did win by that huge margin. Just suppose. They would have to have been appalled and horrified by him declaring victory before the polls even closed. That is the hallmark of a Western-backed coup. So they would not have been able to trust him to negotiate with him, or anyone in his campaign, or any of his supporters. They would have had to find someone they could be certain was not in on a coup and to whom the demonstrators would listen. Is there such a person?
ReplyDeleteAnd, they may have been aware of the plan for it in advance of the election, and so when they heard M declare so early, they just fudged the numbers and hunkered down to fight off the coup. This might have been the case, even if Mousavi was just being a jerk and yanking their chains. They HAVE been dealing with an unprecedented onslaught of every sort of perfidy and were in no condition to talk and negotiate. I think maybe the general public in Iran has been kept in the dark about a lot of it... or not.... I just think their backs were up against a wall, and NOT to cheat the voters, but to stop another Western-back coup. The people who put their backs up against that wall are a much bigger danger to Iran than their too strict regime and bad international relations.
I've been at pains to show that "international relations" right now means Reza Pahlavi, the MEK, Halliburton, British Petroleum, those sort of things... all those sorts of things that spell death to the IRI... and more agony for Iranians. They ARE making friends with Russia and China, who can make all the difference in seeing to it that Iran doesn't fall back in the clutches of our plutocrats. They might honestly want to protect Iran more than themselves. They might.
There doesn't seem to be any nicablog at Wordpress, Homie...?
ReplyDeletesry niac! not nica.
ReplyDeleteThey could say ok, here is a panel consisting of people of all side and let's recount.
You know that another candidate R made a list of 147 polling stations where the number of voters were from 95% to 140% of the elligible voters. So far without recount the Council has accepted anomalies in 50 of them for a total of 3millions extra votes. It did so without counting!
If K in his speech had said some kind words toward people such as "I understand your grievance, this is due to bla bla bla and we have to find a way for you to feel represented in society etc.." beleive me it would have calmed down a lot of people. And then if M didn't accept a compromise he would look like faulty.
Instead we had something like " we are right, you are wrong, you are spy agents, thugs, dirt, we will do all we can to crash you", you know a sort of "shock and awe" logic.
The logic which goes beyond an eye for an eye and reaches the "head for an eye" level.
Whose strategy does that remind you of?
:)
I emailed you a Leverett piece that contained some rather startling information about how carefully they did post all the returns and explanations for some of the seeming irregularities. It seems there has been more careful scrutiny of the election there, and here, than anyone on the street seems to realize...?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to remind you that our government, then Bill Clinton's, when our 2000 election was stolen, would have been as severe in dealing with demonstrations like those in Tehran as your government has been. We know for a certainty that it was stolen, but the Supreme Court put in the bad guy anyway.
I don't think you can ever know for a certainty that your election was stolen, not even because your government isn't obliging the effort to make the results clear and transparent, but because there are mobs of people reinforcing each other on the idea that it was stolen, and now they will never believe the numbers, no matter who tells them.
As for a revote, everyone who ever lost an election wants a revote... and after this HUGE propaganda campaign, no way on earth could it be fair. No way. I can see Prince Reza riding in from the horizon now!