Harry's Place

Nervous indeed I hope he is shitting himself, and not because of the Dirty Zionists but because his own population has discovered the courage and the strength to oppose him.

He seems to be saying, your vote is a waste of time, whoever you vote for we stay in control, get over it or you will regret it (and stop listening to the dirty British radio).

Strange that Khamenei appears to pinch so much of his rhetorical strategy from the respected Islamist mystic, the Ayatollah Milne, in yesterday’s Guardian.

Is it just me, or has Khamenei just persuaded an untold number of Iranians that libels on ‘Zionists’ are just that; libels.

Ha: this comment on Guardian link of the David T school of revolution:

I’m with PJ O’Rourke on this, you can judge the chance of a revolution succeeding by the hotness of its supporters. Coverage of Moussavi’s supporters inculdes countless shots of hot girls, Ahmadinejad’s chielfy appear to be bearded men.

In Iran, the accepted wisdom is that those “darned sneaky Jews” are behind absolutely everything. Sadly, this thinking is not confined to the beardy extremists, but believed to some extent by the urban, educated well-off.

The funniest conspiracy theory I heard last year was repeated by several Tehrani taxi drivers: Ahmadinejad is an Israeli stooge! Go figure…

Finally, some sense on Iran.

Finally, some actual analysis instead of the usual goodies versus baddies shit.

http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2009-06-18/iran-at-the-crossroads

“The street is the place of living and trading. Why are you taking to the streets. We have had the election. Street demonstrations are a target for terrorist plots. Who would be responsible if something happened?”

How wonderfully sinister.

“The worst are the British.”

YES!

NUMBER 1 AGAIN.

the bad British radio

Chris Moyles is obviously enemy no.1.

It gets worse -

“Rioting after the election is not a good way. It questions the election. If they continue [the consequences] will be their responsibility. If they continue they will be receiving other consequences, behind the scenes.”

Not even attempting to veil the threats.

How ironic when so many people I talk to don’t even know what’s going on. They certainly knew or at least thought they knew what was going on in Gaza.

Street demonstrations are a target for terrorist plots. Who would be responsible if something happened?

No surprise who the Iranian regime has in mind:

http://jta.org/news/article-ambush/2009/06/18/1005987/iran-claims-israel-involved-in-bomb-plot

Iran claims to foil Israel bomb plot
June 18, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Iran claims to have foiled a plot linked to Israel to bomb crowded sites in Tehran on Election Day.

Iran’s intelligence ministry also linked the plot to America and other “foreign enemies” of Iran, in a statement released Thursday, Reuters reported.

A report on Iran state television said the plot, which included planting bombs in at least two prominent mosques in the capital, was foiled on Election Day, June 12.

Reza -why is that in your opinion? Is it sucessful propoganda on the part of the regime? A reaction to Israeli/Iranian relations in the days of the Shah?

He seemed to be saying “Same Shit, Different Beard”.

Sure – none of the candidates were campaigning against the “Islamic State” – I mean you just can’t.

Sure Mousavi’s earlier regime oversaw all the usual glories of Islamic Jurisprudence – the choppings, stonings and hangings of the gentlefolk of Iran. He’s no Amnesty International fan.

But a vote against Ahmadinejad is tacitly a rejection of the Islamic State. It’s the best people can do in that direction.

As for bad British radio….I keep forgetting that they can get 5 Live over the Net.

““The worst are the British.”

YES!

NUMBER 1 AGAIN.”

I am so dissapointed! We are not getting enough credit.

He hates us even more than he hates Israel!

It’s like beating Australia at sports.

I think he’s talking about Europe, so that’s doesn’t include Israel.

Hang on, surely we agree with him on the bad British radio thing.
Or am I missing something?

‘Some diplomats from the west are showing their real face and that they are enemies. The worst are the British.’

Sorry Fabian, but we’re still number 1 on the shit list because of our less-than-glorious past in Iranian affairs. I’m afraid this time you come second place ;o)

Oh, and the ‘International Bureau of the Revolutionary Party’ as informed commentators? Why not the People’s Front of Judea?

I have just watched some asshole called Paul Woods on BBC world prattle on about Israel and how they want to see extremists in power in Iran so as to justify opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, five fucking minutes after the end of the Theocratic lunatic’s speech and this asshole from the BBC spends almost all of his “opinion piece” going on about Israel.

What A Complete and Utter Biased Bastard, I feel ashamed to be English.

http://hoekstraisameme.com/

I’m with PJ O’Rourke on this, you can judge the chance of a revolution succeeding by the hotness of its supporters

Isn’t it that popularity of the cause, rather than the chances of success, though? I don’t think the American founding fathers were over burdened in the totty department after all.

As for bad British radio, now is the time to up the stakes and drop Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross and Victoria Derbyshire on Tehran.

“I think he’s talking about Europe, so that’s doesn’t include Israel.”

It does at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Anaximander: Write and complain to the BBC (use the complaints button on the home page and request a reply). They will answer, as they always do, that they presented both points of view and were within BBC guidelines on impartiality, but it doesn’t matter. They should be confronted with their appalling standards of reporting. BBC journos just seem to know nothing about anything any more, and complaining might help some editor to notice.

OMG Bill, I wouldn’t wish Victoria Derbyshire on anyone – even on the Iranian regime

@Israelinurse

“Reza -why is that in your opinion? Is it sucessful propoganda on the part of the regime? A reaction to Israeli/Iranian relations in the days of the Shah?”

This is something I’ve pondered for years. My own relatives in Iran, who are predominantly anti-regime and in even many cases, pro-Israeli, are also Jewish conspiracy theorists.

I think that we all have a deep human need to blame our inadequacies on others.

So when a group is more successful in education or business your group, then it must be because they’re ‘cheating’ in some way.

Naturally, the leaders of the failing groups promote this way of thinking. It’s an easier option than self-reflection.

We see this way of thinking everywhere, including the ‘victim’ ideology that permeates the British race industry.

Jews are simply targeted because of their relative success and influence.

I am utterly disgusted with the BBC right now I will wait a few hours to calm down first. I will be complaining however, Thanks.

Well, the BBC most definitely did have a very specific and important and definitely malign role in interfering in Iranian affairs on one occasion, blimey, more than 50 years ago.

But maybe he just heard a bad edition of the Moral Maze or something.

Can anyone who obsessively follows IRI propaganda and jargon clarify one thing for me: we all know who the Great Satan is, but who did Khomeini refer to as the Little Satan?

At various times and places I’ve been told it was, variously, the UK, Israel, or the USSR. Surely one (or possibly more than one) of these is the drunken and sprawling satan with ideas above its station, and the other or others are well, not of the same size, at least.

I wonder how IRI flags (stacked along the Cuban ones) are selling by Derry city walls at the moment? And I wish this weren’t a serious question, as far is it goes?

JPost gives Zionist radio the credit:

“In one part of his speech, Khamenei slammed “Zionist radio,” referring to the Israel Broadcast Authority’s Persian language station, for “planting doubts” in the hearts of Iranians.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184875107&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Which evil radio station will ultimately take bragging rights for toppling the Islamic Republic I wonder?

I think the Little Satan is the UK and Israel is the Zionist entity. Or maybe it’s a floating title, like the Fifth Beatle.

I am glad that Khamenei is making a fool of himself and demeaning his function completely. More rope…

Anaximanders other sandal wrote:

“I have just watched some asshole called Paul Woods on BBC world prattle on about Israel and how they want to see extremists in power in Iran so as to justify opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ”

I wrote:

“The funniest conspiracy theory I heard last year was repeated by several Tehrani taxi drivers: Ahmadinejad is an Israeli stooge! ”

F*ck me! Those Tehrani taxi drivers are getting it from the BBC!

“Chris Moyles is obviously enemy no.1.”

Seconded.

Some diplomats from the west are showing their real face and that they are enemies. The worst are the British.”

Whilst these pleases me, what diplomats is he talking about? Our government has barely said a thing about the Iran situation

Is Khamenei saying elections are a good thing? If so, how come nobody gets to vote for the Supreme Leader? I suppose Seumas Milne could explain.

Thank You Khomeni! Thank You Me Old Son!

You have made my day!

You have driven a wedge between the Free World and your Islamist World and probably a stake through the heart ob Obama’s outreach.

“Dirty Zionists” is just music to the ear. Israel will send you a big Kissogram!

David Milliband will no doubt offer a robust and convincing riposte to Ayatollah – NOT! If he does he will certainly bring Khomeni up on his “Dirty Zionists” jibe – NOT!

Khomeni is in the classic hole and is digging deep. Feel VERY sorry for the innocent seekers of justice in Iran. Somehow, even if they overturned the result or got a run-off will Khomeni and the nutters he leads go away? Nope!

Top Cat! Where are you? Any comment?

Bad British radio? Has he been listening to George on TalkSport?

So what will happen tomorrow. If there are hundreds of thousands on the streets again………

I hope they do go out again – very brave – but I fear a bloodbath.

Having said that, a bloodbath will kill the regimes legitimacy, so would the Revolutionary Guards risk it???

BBC doesn’t print the text of the speech, leaves in the bit about The British, leave OUT “Dirty Zionists” and then invites its web readers to comment on the speech http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8108661.stm

Chistopher de Bellaigue in Prospect:

“Those [Iranians] who suffer from this syndrome imagine Britain to be fathomlessly powerful and duplicitous, constantly striving to
achieve Iran’s collapse -a nation of people capable, in the Persian saying, of “cutting off your head with cotton.” To a remarkable degree, this perception has survived the end of empire and the decline of Britain’s global influence. No country in this age of cramped diplomatic horizons is more comforting to the British ego than Iran.

To be a British diplomat in Tehran is to be privileged with suspicion and abhorrence. To the Tehrani in the street, Britain’s power is confirmed by its ownership of two huge embassy compounds, which occupy many acres of verdant garden and are dotted with English suburban cottages. The absence of diplomats from the US, with which Iran has no diplomatic relations, means that Iranian ire at western perfidy is directed at the British embassy, whose chancery windows occasionally afford a view of stage-managed crowds burning Union Jacks and hurling rocks.

Many Iranians ascribe to the British a combination of Machiavellian cunning, Metternichian realism and mystical omniscience. Far from being America’s servant, Britain is often credited with duping the Americans and getting them to do its bidding. (Recent evidence includes the division of labour in occupied Iraq, where Britain assigned itself the relatively quiet south, leaving America to deal with the much tougher Sunni heartland.) When, during a round of nuclear negotiations, a British official dropped a piece of paper detailing Europe’s diplomatic strategy (which was leaked to the press), clumsiness was ruled out. Iran’s foreign minister speculated that the paper was dropped “on purpose.”

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/pdfarticle.php?id=10477

Our government has barely said a thing about the Iran situation

However, al-Beeb have. See here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/

The BBC’s ability to transmit to the Iranians in their own language how the rest of the world is viewing their struggle is one of its great strengths. The fact that BBC satellite co-ordinates and transponder frequencies were being Twittered by Iranians throughout Tuesday is testament to its importance. The reports of secret police going door-to-door confiscating satellite dishes would appear to back that up.

In any case, I’m pretty sure that the BBC are a graver threat to the Iranian regime than the spineless Milliband.

“The worst are the British”. There are times when I rather proud of not being liked.

One of the Iranian regime’s ways of striking back against the prefidious British was to change a street named after Winston Churchill to one named after Bobby Sands. That showed us.

““The worst are the British”. There are times when I rather proud of not being liked.”

I fear that the reason he chose the British is that he knows we are the weakest link and that within no time at all we’ll be beating ourselves up over our apparent racism, imperialism and foreign policy decisions. Few will consider it ‘a good thing’ that we are hated by the Iranian regime. We must be loved by all.

I am utterly disgusted with the BBC right now I will wait a few hours to calm down first. I will be complaining however, Thanks.

The World Service virtually get name-checked by the Iranian Supreme Leader as being behind the demonstrations and still you’re bitching…

On Twitter somebody translated him as going further and saying “Death to the UK.”

I never thought I’d agree with Khameini on anything, but he’s right – our radio stinks.

I think you’ll find it’s Albion, not Britain that is “toujours perfide”, Bill.

Well, at least that was the case before Alec Salmond came to his present position.

Particularly Radio 4 “Comedy” and Thought for the Day.

Reza: ‘My own relatives in Iran, who are predominantly anti-regime and in even many cases, pro-Israeli, are also Jewish conspiracy theorists.’ I’m intrigued. Do your relatives know many Jews? I thought it was only a small community. Quite often people who have regular dealings with Jews lose their prejudices against them. Is it perhaps the idea of the Jew they distrust?

From what I can gather there are calls for demonstrations all over the world on Saturday to show solidarity, does anyone know where the London one will be? Outside the embassy?

@Nicole S
“I’m intrigued. Do your relatives know many Jews?”

No, they don’t. I suspect that most Jewish conspiracy theorists don’t. But I suspect they envy the success they percieve Jews have, even if they won’t admit it.

Flesh posted an excellent article above which describes further the conspiracy mentality in Iran.

“Bad British radio? Has he been listening to George on TalkSport?”

Presumably. That’s where George has been condemning Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial as disgraceful, apparently.

Reza, thanks. Yes, I read the article in Prospect (thanks Flesh) and agree it is excellent. Sounds like Iranians are overlaying a Jewish conspiracy theory, based on propaganda against Israel, onto a well-founded British conspiracy theory.

Well-founded as in past, not present, British conspiracies.

I have just read his speech – he keeps going on about the nasty British radio. Doesn’t he know that we also invented the TV and the internet? Perhaps that’s why he refuses to look at them.

Reza V

“In Iran, the accepted wisdom is that those “darned sneaky Jews” are behind absolutely everything. Sadly, this thinking is not confined to the beardy extremists, but believed to some extent by the urban, educated well-off.”

Reza, it isn’t just the leaders that are antisemitic. Their antisemitism i is merely a reflection of the antisemitic in the society at large.

‘No Comment’ Is Not an Option

By Paul Wolfowitz
Friday, June 19, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803496.html

I have just read his speech – he keeps going on about the nasty British radio.

If he’s got his receipt and can show how its badly made or doesn’t work I’m sure Comet will give him a full refund. Comet don’t need a fatwa.

Does Khomeni’s love of Britain go back to us giving protection to Rushdie I wonder. It can’t be some plot carried-out by the FO and ordered by Milliband cos he spends most days at Game choosing some new software for his Wii. “Mummy, get that boy home and tell him to start acting like a grown-up and read that “Foreign Secretary For Dummies” book you bought him”

David T
Not only will we murder you and your familiees but we will use Hamas and Hezbollah to do so.

There seem to be credible reports of Hamas and hezbollah militias involved in putting down protests.

If this is substantiated then I would say it rather puts paid to Obamas strategy of engagement over I/P and with Iran.

————————————–
Twitter reports on Sunday that government forces were heard speaking Arabic, raising suspicions that Hizbullah and Hamas reinforcements have been brought in.

This item was only available in the mainstream media on Wednesday, three days later; a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post in Teheran reported first-hand allegations of Hamas involvement overnight Tuesday

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1245184858248&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
———————————————–
Palestinian Hamas members are helping the Iranian authorities crush street protests in support of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, two protesters told TheJerusalem Post On Tuesday.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184851049&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
———————————————
Sunni terrorist group from the Palestinian Authority, Shi’ite mullahs of Iran join to crush street protests

Hamas and Hezbollah unite to crush Iranian dissidents
Encountering Hamas in Teheran is tantamount to meeting an African American at a KKK gathering.

And yet, the Sunni terrorist group from the Palestinian Authority is now joining hands with the Shi’ite mullahs of Iran to crush street protests

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12109

No Comment’ Is Not an Option

By Paul Wolfowitz
Friday, June 19, 2009

Shmuel, I happened to catch Wolfowitz on the Michael Medved show yesterday (where a caller lambasted Wolfowitz for the “neo-con Jews” in the administration who led the USA into an illegal war). But Medved made the point that many are making and that is how come he will meddle with Israel – a democracy but NOT want to be seen to meddle with Iran?

OK. he has threatened more in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But coming so soon after his outreach to Islam then this is a slap in the face for him. He’s now shown weakness against North Korea and Iran. He’s not going to win with Israel.

When the POTUS is perceived as so weak then its not a good thing for World safety,

(BTW – did you all hear that the USA has ordered anti-missile and radar systems for Hawaii because of the threat that NK made to weaponise their nukes and take it as an act of war if they stop an arms ship. And they are tracking one now,)

Hamas and Hezbollah unite to crush Iranian dissidents
Encountering Hamas in Teheran

And Obama thinks that Israel is the stumbling block to peace in the I/P conflict.

Its unravelled oh so quickly for him. Turn those headlights off you’re scaring the poor bunny. When it comes to defence, he wouldn’t hurt a fly – unless it happens to land on him!

Clearly Ali Khamenei has heard the new ‘I am sorry I haven’t a clue’ and is not a happy ayatollah. Not only is Mr Fry not a patch on Humph but he is a thief and a homosexual. Probably a scumbag as well!

Spectrum,
The last thing the Iranian reformers need is the US Pres coming down off the mountain – that would be a gift to the hardliners.

It is presently much more difficult for the Regime to use the US Prez as a issue when he has held out a olive branch to the Muslim World – a branch that is only there if the fist is unclenched – no quid pro quo, no rapproachment.

Of course Obama and Co want to see a free, democratic Iran, only the neo con morons at The Corner and NR seem to want the opposite. Guess they need a bogayman.

Unravelling – hardly. Weak – hardly.

I think you need to take the longer, more measured view that Obama and Co take, it will reap far more dividends for everyone – inlcuding the young people of Iran then the simplistic bellicosity of the Bush GOP.

NeilW,

“EU and Brun gets tough with Iran”:-

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that European Union nations are unanimous in condemning violence against opposition protesters in Iran, and that they do not wish to isolate the Islamic republic.

“We want Iran to be part of the international community and not to be isolated,” Brown told reporters after talks with EU leaders in Brussels.

“We are not asking the Iranian people that other countries should choose who they elect. We wish to protect the right of the Iranian people to elect who they wish.”

It is also for Iran to show the world that the repression and the brutality that we’ve seen in these last few days is not something that is going to be repeated,” he said

Now you’ve been warned, Iran. If you repress your people or show violence towards them again then we, the EU, will be FORCED to issue another statement!

LOL!

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094266.html

Reza and Israeli Nurse:

Perhaps Tarek Fateh’s observations about Pakistan’s anti-Semitism might say a lot about the rest of the Islamic world. He says that Pakistan’s hostility has much to do with the way the cold war was fought in the 1960s, with the CIA supplying the Pakistani government with textbooks published in the US that blamed godless communism on the Jews and that it’s very hard to undo beliefs like that. Similarly, Khalid Abu Toameh says the PLO really shot themselves in the foot by promoting hatred of Israelis on the basis of religion as the Palestinian mass says how can you now tell us they are not so bad that we can’t negotiate land for peace and co-exist. Hence, the support for Hamas, because there’s less shame in being oppressed by your own people than believing you are being oppressed by foreigners you’ve been taught contempt for.

“I fear that the reason he chose the British is that he knows we are the weakest link and that within no time at all we’ll be beating ourselves up over our apparent racism, imperialism and foreign policy decisions.”

Hahaha – as if on cue:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4248

That “Socialist Unity” thread Brett links to is amazing. Why anyone would want to have anything to do with John Wight is beyond me.

This is perhaps the “best” so far in the thread:

17.#14 – Apollo, of course I don’t agree with women not being allowed to stand for elections in Iran, but what of the women who support the culture and social mores under which they exist in Iran? You see, this cultural universalism you espouse is something I reject. I prefer to look at the imperfections in my own culture, of which there are many, instead of judging those in others.

Though he is quite amusing on the regime’s “restraint” as well:

15.Apollo: ‘Restraint? What about the arbitrary arrests, the use of live rounds, the people whose whereabouts are currently unknown? In this was happening in any other country there is no way you would be giving the regime the benefit of the doubt.’

Reply: What you fail to take into account with this is the enormous pressure Iran is under from without. For the past few years it’s been the number one target of hawks in the US and Israeli establishments. Sanctions have been imposed, which as I’m sure you know is an act of low intensity war, and it is surrounded by hostile troops, missiles, and a navy battlefleet. Too, the knowledge of what happened to Iraq, another regime which laboured under US driven sanctions, must also be factored in.

Surely, these material conditions have to be taken into account when analysing the present crisis? The surprise for me is that there hasn’t been more violence, more repression or deaths, not that there has been any.

Now there’s a real scumbag for you.

Khamaeni’s made a BIIIG mistake IMHO in demanding the protests cease. He could have got away with a few poxy reforms and a recount / re-run, but now he has the unenviable choice of shooting everyone a la tianamen square, (what? several million? There aren’t that many bullets, surely!) and running like hell, because now people have just got it straight from the horses mouth that the system is against them, will not compromise and has to be smashed.

Der Spiegel Journalist eyewitness report of Arabic speaking Militia attacking protestors.;

Der Spiegel

[From] the crowd [in which] I stand, [I see] the guardsmen.

With faces, distorted with hatred they swing chains at us and threaten to ram into us with their bikes.

Right and left [of me] [people] are [being] beaten as they flee..

“Make that your get away,” the men shout in Arabic.

reports from the station “Voice of America” say up to 5000 fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, [have been deployed] by the regime to put down the protests.

[My translation]

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,630463-2,00.html

I take away two points:-

1. No matter how conciliatory and appeasing the UK is, the Mullahs will accuse us of interfering. In which case we might as well interfere – on the side of true democracy for Iran. Of course the Mullahs play on a lot bad history – we did indeed interfere in the life of Iran in an illegitimate way in the past. There must be a decisive break with the imperial past. We must pursue energy independence for ourselves and democratic independence for the Iranians.

2. The Mullahs have not the slightest intention of giving an inch and will if necessary murder people in their thousands to cling on to power. There may be a power battle going on but it is irrelevant to that central fact. Even if Khamanei gives way whoever follows will be similarly wedded to the Islamic Republic.

I think this event will show us whether the ‘Supreme Ruler’ is anything of the kind or like many a Pontiff before him has been outwitted by the machiavellian use of temporal power by men of violence.

A better analogy is that this is the murderous infighting of the jacobin revolutionaries and Robbespieres time might be up.

The Los Angeles Times reported on June 18, 2009 that “hard-line Ansar-e Hezbollah militiamen warned that they would be patrolling the streets to maintain law and order.”

Members typically wear full beards, dress in black clothes, and wear Palestinian keffiyehs on their shoulders.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-protests19-2009jun19,0,4249713.story

—————————————–

Ansar-e Hizbullah, or Followers of the Party of God or more literally Helpers of Hizbullah in Persian, is said to be a semi-official, paramilitary group formed in 1995 and consisting of “religious zealots who consider themselves” to be “preservers of the Revolution.”

It is thought to be financed and protected by many senior government clerics.

[Which factions now control it I wonder or is its loyalty split as some reports of them standing aside at protests suggests]

It is often characterized as a vigilante group as they use force but are not part of government law enforcement, although it may not meet the strict definition of the word inasmuch as the group pledge loyalty to theSupreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei[5] and is thought to be protected by him.

It has been described as an “offshoot” or “vigilante associate” of the Iranian Hezbollah, a loose-knit movement of groups formed at the time of the Iranian Revolution to assist the Ayatollah Khomeini and his forces in consolidating power.

Membership
Most of the members of Ansar e Hezbollah are either members of the Basij militias or veterans of the Iran–Iraq War.

[veterans of the iran-iraq war are Ahmadinajad's power base]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar-e_Hezbollah
———————————————————-

The tragedy is that these protestors cannot win against the armed forces controlled by different clerical factions of the islamist state.

The popular protests of the 1979 revolution were used propaganistically by Khomeini to gain popular legitimacy but the force was iranian hezbollah the product of centuries of Shite clerical networks hold on temporal force.

Iran is certainly a fascinating case study – if you’re not living there, that is (in which case it is a bloody and tormenting tragedy).

Give his Khomeini his due I think he was in his own way as clever and inventive as the framers of the American Constitution. If you had to design a constitution for an Islamic Republic, then it would probably difficult to better his system of checks and balances.

Of course, the problem with the constitution lies not in its architecture per se but in its Islamic character, which puts a cleric in supreme charge and doctors the electoral process – and throws the dead weight of Sharia on top for good measure.

From another angle the Iranian system certainly has features that remind one of Nazi Germany – in particular there are the large autonomous power centres analogous to the Nazi Party, the SA, SS, military and independent satraps of the East. In Iran you have the “charitable” foundations, the Presidency, the Revolutionary Guards,the Guardian Council, the military etc

The Nazi system was bound by personal loyalty to one man and soon fell apart after his death with faction fighting faction. Perhaps the Iranian system also cannot function once loyalty to the Supreme Ayatollah breaks down.

But that does not mean that one man might not focus power more on one centre, as the Communists did under Stalin and Mao.

“I fear that the reason he chose the British is that he knows we are the weakest link and that within no time at all we’ll be beating ourselves up over our apparent racism, imperialism and foreign policy decisions.”

Indeed.

And as Brett points out, here is John Wight right on cue -

we live in a different culture from the Islamic culture which currently dominates in Iran and throughout the Middle East. Perhaps if the West hadn’t spent the last 100 years colonising, occupying, and interfering in the region, to the evident detriment of its development, peoples, and cohesion then they may have adjudged our culture and enlightenment values as something to be embraced, rather than rejected as belonging to their oppressor.

Comment by John Wight — 19 June, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Textbook stuff. Faced with an awkward question about women not being able to run for the Iranian presidency, John Wight decides that

IT’S ALL OUR FAULT!

I hope that the BBC is very pleased with itself. Its interference in the Iranian electoral process – from its launch of an entire “service” to presume to tell Iranians how to vote, to its lavish coverage of petulant foot-stamping by North Tehran glitterati – has reawakened the never very deep-sleeping giant of hostility to Britain going back to the overthrow of Mossadegh.

It’s like beating Australia at sports.

Clearly an imposter. One says sport, as ane fule kno

David Lindsay, believe it or not some of us are pleased to pay taxes to ensure the foreign office can grant the BBc enough money to launch “entire new” services (what’s with the scare quotes, by the way?) for people in places like Iran.

I am sure, though, that you are basing your view it’s just the “North Tehran glitterati” out on the street on the basis of (a) your extensive first hand knowledge of Iran and (b) your current sujorn in Baluchistan.

Either that or you are a prick.

David Lindsay is a silly twit.

Question now is: Will Moussavi and the demonstrators be cowed into submission or will they continue to take to the streets in the hundreds of thousands? And if they do, How will the regime respond?

Israelinurse & Reza: To paraphrase Samuel Johnson,
Conspiracy Theories are the Refuge of Failures.

Reza -thanks for the answer. It seems so strange because most Israelis ask only two things of Iran -to treat the remaining Jews there well and not to nuke us. Oh, and maybe to stop financing Hamas & Hizbollah too. I think there is great respect for Persian culture in Israel -we haven’t forgotten who let us out of Babylonian exile and helped rebuild the second temple.

‘One of the Iranian regime’s ways of striking back against the prefidious British was to change a street named after Winston Churchill to one named after Bobby Sands. That showed us’.

There was also the inappropriately named ‘Bobby Sands Snackbar’ on the same street.

‘Many Iranians ascribe to the British a combination of Machiavellian cunning, Metternichian realism and mystical omniscience. Far from being America’s servant, Britain is often credited with duping the Americans and getting them to do its bidding’.

A product of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the 1907 sphere of influence agreement with the Russians, the invasion of 1941 (done in collaboration with the Soviets – harsh but necessary) and the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953 (which incidentally, the mullahs were delighted with, even though they harp on about it for propaganda purposes).

It’s rather flattering for a depleted ex-Imperial power to have all this Machiavellian potency ascribed to it – but delusional nonetheless.

We certainly need to make a break with our imperial past – by going all out for energy independence. But at the same time we should as a matter of principle support the democrats in Iran.