Harry's Place

Lord, Gene, I hope Martin Fletcher is onto to something. But since the Guardian Council controls both the bottle and it’s contents, I don’t thing we will be seeing the Velvet Revolution any time soon.

We might hope.

Whoever wins will bolster Hamas and Hizbullah.

Breaking news is that there are fears of vote-rigging and a Tiannamen Square rout if the election is deemed unfair:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6484707.ece

This has exposed the chasms in Iranian society and shows how incomplete the Islamic Revolution is. As in Pakistan, Islam has divided Iranian society.

Iran is such a paradoxical country. On the one hand, the Muslim-majority country with by far the strongest liberal secular tradition. On the other, the country that gave us 1979. And both Irans are equally real. I had an Iranian girlfriend at one stage, fiercely anti-Mullah (I never got away with not shaving, even on hungover weekends… to say that she found facial hair irritating would be an understatement), no longer even MINO. But there was a sense in which she could be in denial about how significant the other Iran was, the Iran that wasn’t North Tehran, the Iran that may not always have been completely enthusiastic about its government but that didn’t question the rightness of the Islamic Republic per se. The thing is, the Iran that Martin Fletcher knows best is the Iran of the North Tehran middle class. Which isn’t to say that nothing significant is happening, just that it’s a bit soon to judge.

I can remember the day that Khomeini died and my girlfriend phoned home to discover that a drinks party was in full swing at her parents’ house. And there were others going on across North Tehran. If I’d been a Western correspondent in Iran at the time and if I’d been at one of those parties, I’m sure I’d have been tempted to conclude that seismic change was on the way. And it wasn’t.

I really hope so Gene.

Iranians deserve so much better then the revolution or the Shah beforehand has provided.

Iranians are very nationalistic. It can be difficult to admit to outsiders how divided your country actually is – a nationalist will always see the mystical common ground before they’ll see what is staring outsiders in the face.

I don’t hope for a revolt of the middle classes though – unless they are a lot more widespread than North Teheran, which, if the economy continues as badly as it does, is highly unlikely.

I have never met an Iranian I didn’t like.

I spent years in the Middle East, The People, be they Iranians, Iraq’s, Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanian’s, Israeli’s, Palestinian’s, really are great people.

So were many others.

Iran is lost.

The Pretorian Guard or the SS Guard or the Revolutionary Guard, take your pick, are not going to allow anyone other than the current incumbent rulers to rule.

My own feeling is that the way to get change in Iran is to consistently attack their lack of ‘civilization’.
The whole of Iranian society is a dark mirror of the Western democracies, a written constitution, elected government, independent judiciary e.t.c. What they really want is respect and endorsement.
The Iranians are are nationalistic and chauvinistic; and the Persians have a long record of civilization and human rights legislation. The Clergy know this and graft themselves on the ‘democratic’ society.
All the Iranians need to do is remove the parasites; they can be pushed into this by highlighting human rights abuses and the corruption that is rampant in society.
The whole nuclear program is a way in which the Iranian government can cause the west to focus on one issue, and they then use the western reaction to their nuclear program to state that the west wishes to remove their ‘natural’ rights.

I have not heard it reported on any news broadcast; radio or tv that the candidates have been vetted by the mullahs (which, I know sounds like a euphemism for something rather painful). I wonder why not?

The head of the department of Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Haifa University is a little less optimistic:
‘Mousavi bad for Israel’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3730321,00.html

Despite what we are being told by the BBC, Iran is not a democracy. These campaigns are the equivalent of rock concerts in the last days of communism – designed to “let off steam”. They have very little impact on the power structures.

The army have made it quite clear to Mousavi that they will not tolerate anything other than the result intended by the Supreme Leader. Anything else is wishful thinking.