Friday Call: Since I recorded the video, I’ve made a last-minute change. Our call this Friday won’t be with Joshua Leifer. It will be with the Iranian-American scholar and commentator, Reza Aslan, author of the new book, An American Martyr in Persia. We’ll talk about the extraordinary protests taking place in Iran and how the United States should respond. I want to host Josh soon to talk about Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Kahanist who seems poised to win as many as a dozen seats in the Israeli elections. But given the magnitude of what’s happening in Iran I felt we needed to discuss that this week instead.
Actually we have heard very little from teh progressive left in a way of support for Iran's women. Certainly nothing from Tlaib or Sarsour that I can find. And generally, it has been pretty quiet from the progressives but then again many of these have fought for the hijab and this particular revolt in Iran is more than a bit in their face. They are rejecting the forced garb for womankind.
While I think it's irrelevant who here in America supports the Iranian uprising, the question as to what comes after the Mullahs in Iran is still dependent on what percentage of the people in Iran are still strongly affiliated with Islam.
The reason I bring that up is that my observation of governance is that where religion (I include all religions here) is dominant in the culture, it is really hard to set up and follow a democratic system. And the reason is that there will always be some who will say we know what the good book says and we cannot change it.
There is a tension between religion and democracy. Religion owes its allegiance to a deity and a doctrine; Democracy owes it allegiance to majority rule and an earthly constructed rule-based system. Countries where the population is tethered towards a religion often find themselves giving up the people‘s rule for a theocratic alternative. It’s why the Middle East is riddled by these failed attempts. Europe had this discussion several hundred years ago and moved on.
Turkey (not really in Europe) has undergone many see-saws with Democracy and note, to win Erdogan appealed to the poor country masses tethered to Islam to keep him in power. Netanyahu cravenly appealed to the Religious Zionists on the West Bank to put him back in power. And the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt (hardly a Democratic institution) bussed the Islam tethered country folks to the polls to win the elections and to put their version of Islam in power.
So, Peter, you must be supportive of Hamas in Gaza, given that they were “democratically elected representatives”? And not surprisingly, no mention of Iran’s support of terrorism, their continuous threat of Israel’s annihilation, and their general mission of Middle East hegemony by whatever means necessary. The JCPOA, with its open ended opportunity to develop the nuclear weapon, is flawed. Getting this twisted autocracy to understand the wrath of the civilized world against them is the objective of tight sanctions. Hopefully it will lead to regime change. We should be doing everything possible to support this uprising, including tighter sanctions going forward, tied to women’s rights.
It’s very hard to take the “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” caucus in the US foreign policy establishment and in Congress as having any sincere concern for the Iranian street protests. It reeks of opportunism and cynicism.
As we saw in Iraq, to promote regime-change as US policy is to promote mass civil war and the disintegration of society in which the most ruthless will survive and rise to power. Those brave young liberals, women, and street activists would be the first against the wall.
This is especially true if the collapse of the regime had the meddling fingerprints of foreign powers all over it. This would discredit the very cause that the hawks claim to champion among the older more conservative Iranians in rural areas who sympathy for the cause is crucial if democratic reforms are a possible outcome.
Remember Juan Guaidó in Venezuela as a viable opposition leader against Maduro? He was embraced by the Trump administration—usual suspects John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Mike Pompeo—and was directly implicated in a comically inept violent coup against Maduro of questionable connection to the Trump administration. Now Guiadó is completely discredited and his own allies have turned on him.
If American and Israeli hawks had an ounce of concern for the Iranian protestors, they would simply cheer from the sidelines but otherwise stay out of it.
Peter you can't win arguments by pointing your finger and saying "you're authoritarian", or you're just a "client state". Word salad and citing Jew-hater Ilhan Omar wins no arguments. Sorry you're still of the rails.
"this despotic, savage regime" is responsible for the creation of the educated middle class that will overthrow it. Iran is already more democratic than Israel's allies in the gulf; and if Israel, the occupied territories and Gaza are de facto a single state, then Iran is a more democratic than Israel itself. Iran still has the largest Jewish population in the middle east outside Israel, and a sizable number of Christians. All in all, absent foreign meddling, the Iranian government won't collapse when the guardianship is ended. That's a good thing for Iranians, but it's not what the US or Israel or any of the gulf monarchies want.
Mossadegh wasn’t “ democratically “ elected. He was elected by The Shah of Iran. That itself shows the level of your ignorance. If NIAC regime’s mouthpiece retweets your nonsense, we know which side you truly stand with
We lived in in Sudan as well. Isreal, UAE, Egypt and Saudi with the help of Trump backed the Junta and the militia leaders from day one of the revolution to finally over through the transitional government once the PM Hamadok did not join the Ibrahimc accords publicly and said to leave that to an elected goverment.
How do you feel about Israel's assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists?
I remember having a (good-natured) disagreement with an anti-sanctions activist on Twitter about this. If I were a fan of the Israeli government I wouldn't be reading your substack, but opposing this kind of targeted killing seems counterproductive. Shouldn't it be seen as an alternative to economic measures that harm the civilian population?
Actually we have heard very little from teh progressive left in a way of support for Iran's women. Certainly nothing from Tlaib or Sarsour that I can find. And generally, it has been pretty quiet from the progressives but then again many of these have fought for the hijab and this particular revolt in Iran is more than a bit in their face. They are rejecting the forced garb for womankind.
While I think it's irrelevant who here in America supports the Iranian uprising, the question as to what comes after the Mullahs in Iran is still dependent on what percentage of the people in Iran are still strongly affiliated with Islam.
The reason I bring that up is that my observation of governance is that where religion (I include all religions here) is dominant in the culture, it is really hard to set up and follow a democratic system. And the reason is that there will always be some who will say we know what the good book says and we cannot change it.
There is a tension between religion and democracy. Religion owes its allegiance to a deity and a doctrine; Democracy owes it allegiance to majority rule and an earthly constructed rule-based system. Countries where the population is tethered towards a religion often find themselves giving up the people‘s rule for a theocratic alternative. It’s why the Middle East is riddled by these failed attempts. Europe had this discussion several hundred years ago and moved on.
Turkey (not really in Europe) has undergone many see-saws with Democracy and note, to win Erdogan appealed to the poor country masses tethered to Islam to keep him in power. Netanyahu cravenly appealed to the Religious Zionists on the West Bank to put him back in power. And the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt (hardly a Democratic institution) bussed the Islam tethered country folks to the polls to win the elections and to put their version of Islam in power.
So, Peter, you must be supportive of Hamas in Gaza, given that they were “democratically elected representatives”? And not surprisingly, no mention of Iran’s support of terrorism, their continuous threat of Israel’s annihilation, and their general mission of Middle East hegemony by whatever means necessary. The JCPOA, with its open ended opportunity to develop the nuclear weapon, is flawed. Getting this twisted autocracy to understand the wrath of the civilized world against them is the objective of tight sanctions. Hopefully it will lead to regime change. We should be doing everything possible to support this uprising, including tighter sanctions going forward, tied to women’s rights.
It’s very hard to take the “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” caucus in the US foreign policy establishment and in Congress as having any sincere concern for the Iranian street protests. It reeks of opportunism and cynicism.
As we saw in Iraq, to promote regime-change as US policy is to promote mass civil war and the disintegration of society in which the most ruthless will survive and rise to power. Those brave young liberals, women, and street activists would be the first against the wall.
This is especially true if the collapse of the regime had the meddling fingerprints of foreign powers all over it. This would discredit the very cause that the hawks claim to champion among the older more conservative Iranians in rural areas who sympathy for the cause is crucial if democratic reforms are a possible outcome.
Remember Juan Guaidó in Venezuela as a viable opposition leader against Maduro? He was embraced by the Trump administration—usual suspects John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Mike Pompeo—and was directly implicated in a comically inept violent coup against Maduro of questionable connection to the Trump administration. Now Guiadó is completely discredited and his own allies have turned on him.
If American and Israeli hawks had an ounce of concern for the Iranian protestors, they would simply cheer from the sidelines but otherwise stay out of it.
Peter you can't win arguments by pointing your finger and saying "you're authoritarian", or you're just a "client state". Word salad and citing Jew-hater Ilhan Omar wins no arguments. Sorry you're still of the rails.
Don’t you get tired of placing anti Israel comments in all of your articles?
"this despotic, savage regime" is responsible for the creation of the educated middle class that will overthrow it. Iran is already more democratic than Israel's allies in the gulf; and if Israel, the occupied territories and Gaza are de facto a single state, then Iran is a more democratic than Israel itself. Iran still has the largest Jewish population in the middle east outside Israel, and a sizable number of Christians. All in all, absent foreign meddling, the Iranian government won't collapse when the guardianship is ended. That's a good thing for Iranians, but it's not what the US or Israel or any of the gulf monarchies want.
Mossadegh wasn’t “ democratically “ elected. He was elected by The Shah of Iran. That itself shows the level of your ignorance. If NIAC regime’s mouthpiece retweets your nonsense, we know which side you truly stand with
We lived in in Sudan as well. Isreal, UAE, Egypt and Saudi with the help of Trump backed the Junta and the militia leaders from day one of the revolution to finally over through the transitional government once the PM Hamadok did not join the Ibrahimc accords publicly and said to leave that to an elected goverment.
How do you feel about Israel's assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists?
I remember having a (good-natured) disagreement with an anti-sanctions activist on Twitter about this. If I were a fan of the Israeli government I wouldn't be reading your substack, but opposing this kind of targeted killing seems counterproductive. Shouldn't it be seen as an alternative to economic measures that harm the civilian population?