I previously posted about the latest rash of scandalous photos coming out of Afghanistan showing U.S. military atrocities under Obama’s command, and wondering if the media would pick up on it the way they did when it was Bush’s army… Well, here’s a twist I wasn’t expecting: yes, one of the U.S. media, Rolling Stone, [...]
Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic, cast a spotlight on yet another disgustingly overt example of pure bias in the mainstream media, particularly at the anti-Semitic Reuters newswire. He points to a Reuters news item which contains the following despicable sentences: Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian [...]
In the [sparse] reporting of the Palestinians’ massacre of the Fogel family, several newspapers stand out with their distorted sense of “balance”, i.e., where they feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable describing the barbarity of the Palestinians without at least taking a swipe or two at the Israelis, no matter how patently irrelevant or disgustingly disrespectful it comes [...]
Thoughts on Iran
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I’m not even going to start tracking the play-by-play of what’s currently going on Iran, because I actually have a real job that pays my bills and wouldn’t leave me enough time for that.
For that, there is a whole slew of sites and blogs working hard to stay up to date, and probably one of the most prominent ones is The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic (which, you should note, I am only promoting for the purposes of following Iranian events; I do not necessarily endorse anything else you come across on that site!).
That said, here are just a few thoughts of my own…
There is a lot of talk of a new Iranian “revolution”, which would sweep out the radicals and bring in more modern leadership, bringing Iran into the 21st century. I personally think that this is delusional thinking—people getting caught up in the romance of a revolution without realizing who exactly are the parties of the revolution.
I say this because while one faction may seem more “modern” and less “radical” than the other, that does not necessarily make them “modern” and “non-radical” by normal standards of the world. People seem to be forgetting that Mousavi still endorses Iran’s push for nuclear development, harbors antipathy towards the West, and is no friend of America or Israel. The only difference is that he doesn’t froth at the mouth like Ahmadinejad when these issues come up.
So, while Mousavi might be the lesser of two evils—or, rather, the outward appearance of the lesser of two evils, since there’s no way for us to see his true intentions just yet—that still doesn’t make him the saint that many are now making him out to be, the persecuted tragic figure of opposition who is supposedly going to bring peace and unity to the realm of global relations with Iran. To think that is to overlook what the political and radical religious mindset is in the majority of Iran. Keep in mind that this is a country where women are routinely stoned to death for the “crime” of being raped, or for adultery, or even for being seen in the company of a man not her husband. Keep in mind that this is a country where the same masses that you now see fighting for this “revolution” were only yesterday in the streets screaming “death to America”.
Another point I want to make is that all these reports that we see from Iran are obviously showing only the action taking place, giving the impression that this is permeating the country. In reality (and this is also pointed out in one of the Daily Dish posts), much of the country is still going about their lives as usual, virtually unaffected by the chaos taking place in a few concentrated areas. So, while it does look like an all-out revolution, it’s somewhat magnified, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and their henchmen put an end to it relatively soon, then whitewash it as best as they can for the world, and then continue on as though nothing happened.
My point is that either way—whether this is quickly quelled or if a coup actually does ultimately take place—don’t expect to see too much change in the way of foreign policy and nuclear policy. The majority of changes will be internal social ones which would hardly affect the rest of the world in any of the ways in which people are fantasizing.