Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Iran: Legitimacy Test
Thanks to Oxblog for pointing this story out to me:
This story brings to mind times in the past when regimes have faced similar tests of legitimacy. The test here will be if the conservatives will enforce these dictats with force. If the moderates do not back down, and continue to let their voices be heard through print and protest, will the clerics crush a student protest (ala Tiananmen Square) or will one of two things happen: will the government refuse to use force, and therefore let the whirlwind sweep them out of power like when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR collapsed, or will perhaps the police and military refuse to crush the moderates (ala Petrograd and Red October, when the Czars personal guard refused to fire on the crowds in the streets) and either turn against their masters or sit the conflict out?
Military force will determine who holds legitimacy in the sense of the reigns of political power in Iran in the coming days; if the clerics win, we will see that the legitimacy test has revealed that they have the power, but no true legitimacy. I hope, however, that in this case might does make right and side with the democrats who are supporting a legitimate form of government in the truest sense of the term, in the sense that the people have hand in their government and their political futures; let this test be positive.
albawaba.com: Student protests over political crisis banned in Iran: "Iran banned student protests over the barring of reformist candidates from this month's elections and Tehran's hardline prosecutor warned eight pro-reform newspapers about their reporting of the political crisis."
This story brings to mind times in the past when regimes have faced similar tests of legitimacy. The test here will be if the conservatives will enforce these dictats with force. If the moderates do not back down, and continue to let their voices be heard through print and protest, will the clerics crush a student protest (ala Tiananmen Square) or will one of two things happen: will the government refuse to use force, and therefore let the whirlwind sweep them out of power like when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR collapsed, or will perhaps the police and military refuse to crush the moderates (ala Petrograd and Red October, when the Czars personal guard refused to fire on the crowds in the streets) and either turn against their masters or sit the conflict out?
Military force will determine who holds legitimacy in the sense of the reigns of political power in Iran in the coming days; if the clerics win, we will see that the legitimacy test has revealed that they have the power, but no true legitimacy. I hope, however, that in this case might does make right and side with the democrats who are supporting a legitimate form of government in the truest sense of the term, in the sense that the people have hand in their government and their political futures; let this test be positive.
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