Friday, February 06, 2004
Iran: Moderates Concede Defeat UPDATE
Just in, the struggle seems to be over in Iran, and the mullocracy will continue, at least in the near future. Apparently the reformers did not have a coherent plan and determined leadership by the president, which allowed them to be defeated by a more determined and persistent conservative opposition.
Here is an excellent explanation of their failure and the larger situation:
I'm quite disappointed that my predictions of a change in government proves incorrect, I dearly want to see the Iranian people gain true freedom in the way they govern themselves.
Will disillusionment stand, or will someone rise up to lead the younger generation against the clerics, since the current reformists have not had the courage to force change?
Time will tell...I'm betting yes, that such will occur this year; as the Iranians see Iraqis gaining more freedoms than they have, another of Wolfowitz's dominoes will fall. Iran has such a large youth population that eventually this group will demand the better the better opportunities that only an open society may provide, and just as in 1979 they will rise up, only this time they will look West instead of to the past for inspiration.
UPDATE: Winds of Change seems to have some very nice coverage of the situation. Perhaps in the future this opera will have a better ending.
Here is an excellent explanation of their failure and the larger situation:
The reformers' admission of defeat came on the final day of a sit-in by incumbents to protest the mass blacklisting of candidates for the elections Feb. 20.
"It has gotten to the point where it is impossible to accomplish political reform within the system," said Fatemeh Hagighatjou, who represents Tehran in parliament. "The fate of the country will be either dictatorship or collapse, although they (the clerics) should remember that the outcome of a dictatorship is also collapse."
...
In defeating the reformers, the hard-liners are likely to lose any hope of gaining widespread public support for the elections or acceptance of the next parliament. Iranians elected a reform-minded president twice and voted in a majority of reformers in the last parliamentary elections.
Turnout this month is likely to be extremely low, as the head of Iran's largest reformist party said its members wouldn't take part, nor would the 127 members of parliament who resigned in protest over the ban.
"We know elections are needed in a democracy, but that does not mean we have to participate in every election," said Mohammad Reza Khatami, the president's younger brother, who heads the party called the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
...
Many reformers are angry with President Khatami for not backing them more forcibly in the acrimonious political dispute, one of the worst in the Islamic republic's 25-year history.
"The president swore to respect the constitution," said Hossein Ansarirad, a reformist cleric and banned incumbent whose colleagues yesterday responded with fervent applause. "He doesn't have the right to hold the elections."
Blame lies with parliament itself for not standing up to the hard-liners all along, said Baha'oddin Adab, who represents the northwestern city of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan. "We should have done this two years ago," he said, gesturing to the dozens of parliament members staging the sit-in outside the main chamber.
Even now, few reform politicians advocate changing Iran's political system, in which unelected clerics hold supreme power and can overrule the president and parliament. The reformers have virtually ignored demands for a referendum on the constitution by many younger Iranians, for fear of altogether eliminating an Islamic republic established by revolution 25 years ago.
That hesitancy played into the hands of the hard-liners, who used public disillusionment with the reformers as an opportunity to silence their movement.
...
Khamenei's speech Dec. 16 on the U.S. capture of Saddam Hussein set the tone. In an apparent reference to Khatami's government, he alluded to a need to remove people from power who were thinking about improving relations with the United States.
I'm quite disappointed that my predictions of a change in government proves incorrect, I dearly want to see the Iranian people gain true freedom in the way they govern themselves.
Will disillusionment stand, or will someone rise up to lead the younger generation against the clerics, since the current reformists have not had the courage to force change?
Time will tell...I'm betting yes, that such will occur this year; as the Iranians see Iraqis gaining more freedoms than they have, another of Wolfowitz's dominoes will fall. Iran has such a large youth population that eventually this group will demand the better the better opportunities that only an open society may provide, and just as in 1979 they will rise up, only this time they will look West instead of to the past for inspiration.
UPDATE: Winds of Change seems to have some very nice coverage of the situation. Perhaps in the future this opera will have a better ending.
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