The global economic crisis has revealed the folly of large U.S. budget and trade deficits, as well as of the strong dollar that makes them possible. If it is serious about recovery, the United States must balance the budget, stimulate private saving, and embrace a declining dollar.
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Clerical Error The Tipping Point
It is clear that we sit on the cusp of an inflexion point in the Affairs of Man on this Planet. In particular, the new c21st Communication Tools [Mobile Phone and these new wildly Revolutioniary Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter - Twitter more so because its minimalist 140 character limit fits so snugly with the most basic of Mobiles] have permanently altered the relationship between Citizens and those who have elected to rule those Citizens. It is curious how the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah [he of the Peacock Throne] with a Tape recorder [Kapucinski refers] and how today its practically a Twitter revolution.
Khamenei's Friday speech was 'red in tooth and claw' but I am sure he too needs to be cognisant of the fact that the amount of Violence the State can deploy in this new 24 hour looking glass war, is a lot less than ever before in our History.
This is a Laboratory experiment [and if I was the House Saud I too would be entirely alarmed] that we are watching and the Tsunami tide will not be staunched.
Aly-Khan Satchu
alykhansatchu Twitter
www.rich.co.ke
I'm not convinced that the
I'm not convinced that the Iranian people want a revolution - or that one is inevitable. Rather, it seems many simply want the election process to operate properly, and be open to public scrutiny when they believe it isn't.
Following the contested US Presidential election of 2000 many who were unsatisfied with the outcome protested. However, they were not on the path to revolution. The transparency of the process made this possible.
I disagree that we will see a slow growing progression towards revolution. The longer this drags on the more likely I think we are to see a compromise reached. A single or closely-spaced series of events within the next several days would probably be needed to be the tipping point.
Is it too late for the Iranian government to put the genie back in the bottle? Would Khamenei's authority be eroded further by revisiting the election results than it already has been by the ongoing protests?
The Character of the Theocrats
A comment on the often demonstrated nature of the mullahs, that is, the religious leaders, of Iran seems appropriate. Mr. Ganji's article is clearly based on a realist's understanding of these people. Preliminary to launching his violent, orchestrated suppression of the massive dissent in the street of Iran's cities, Khamenei spoke of sweetness and God's will, as though he were some sort of pope. Towering hypocrisy! He is a cruel, repressive tyrant who has enriched himself through financial corruption, a very unpriestly activity. To maintain himself in power he employs beatings, torture, and unjustified imprisonment by his militia and revolutionary guard. He arms and finances subversive militant organizations against Israel and Lebanon, neither of which have assaulted Iran. He has armed, trained, and financed Shia forces in Iraq against that country's regime. He is spending his own nation's finances in a fruitless pursuit of nuclear weapons, which will gain nothing for Iran if and when they materialize. And, as Mr. Ganji points out, he is turning his ancient, highly civilized homeland into a repressive dictatorship. Nothing about his rule reflects the high-mindedness of the Koran. The institutions of democracy have been turned into a sham in his country, yet the majority of Iranians desire effective agencies of popular rule. One wonders whether he and his followers are looking to the model of China and Russia to create an autocracy atop a limited capitalist marketplace. This would indicate a depressing future for Iran's bright young people, most of whom are under thirty and want to participate in the global culture. Mullahs like Khamenei must surely be an embarrassment to Islam and especially to the people of Iran. In the light of recent events, what chance remains for President Obama or other leaders of the western nations to enter into productive negotiations with Iran? Military force would be counterproductive in several ways, yet the path of negotiation may be hard to open, at least for the present.
Clerical Error
Without reading too many parallels between the 1979 revolution, and current tensions inside Iran, one thing seems clear: the pressures of traing to have a "permanent revolution" inside Iran, which is what the religious establishment seems to want, are beginning to tell.
Iran is too big, too developed and to diverse, and, as has been pointed out, too connected to the outside world via electronics, for this to keep working after 30 years.
Most of the population is too young to really remember the Shah period, and so have no personal frame of reference with what went before. By definition, the best educated, proto-technocrats who will be needed to lead the country in the next generation are the ones who are the most aware of the rest of the world, and most dissatisfied with the way the dead hand of the religious elite rules them.
It will take some clever politics to keep things on an even keel going forward - repression, which is the regime's default response, will just increase the rising pressure for change. In that way, it is a little like 1979.
Why the current goverment might prevail
Suzanne Maloney's synopsis of the Iranian election debacle is, by a comfortable margin, the most lucid I've read. Her conclusions suggest a few comments.
I suppose its obvious that the outcome of the present crisis is unpredictable. The examples offered certainly support that contention. On the other hand, the repressive capablities of the regime should not be discounted and lead me to believe that, at least in the near-term future, the theocratic rulers will triumph. Why? First, the current public representative of the regime, the irrepressible Mr. Ahmadinejad, while he might appear to be unhinged to many Western observers, seems to have the uncanny ability to incite the generally 'conservative' Iranian rural population in favor of the government. He does this by the usual demagocic techniques: dispensing favors and money in the appropriate quarters, stridently nationalist rhetoric, appeals to Islamic traditions and arguing that a cabal of powerful 'anti-Iranian' external forces (US, Britain, Israel, etc) are insidiously undermining 'the revolution'. This approach has worked before and, outside a relatively demonstrative minority, seems to be working now. Second, the capabilities of the 'communication revolution' (the internet) in Iran are limited. This assertion was nicely demonstrated by the Iranian government when they shut down Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks to Western technical assistance (Nokia and Siemens, specifically) all internet communications in Iran are filtered through a few nodes which allow government snooping (using a method called 'deep packet inspection'), dissemination of disinformation ('We are having a demonstration at 10:00. Show up and be supportive' might, in fact, be an invitation to show up and be arrested) and complete choking off of electonic means of protest. Finally, and maybe most importantly, Mir Hossein Mousavi is, as Ms. Maloney clearly stated the antithesis of charisma. He has failed to organize the existing opposition and has done nothing to galvanize potential supporters into a coherent protest movement while the opportunity existed.
In summary, I expect that the current Iranian government will quell the opposition, increase the level of strident rhetoric, create external disturbances to divert world attention elsewhere, undermine domestic dissent by continuing the current repression and wait until another day to field a uniformly palatable slate of electoral candidates.