Iran on Fire

**Furunculus** · 01-07-2010, 17:57

Originally Posted by Hax

Clear case of misinterpretation of what he means, exactly.

Strictly speaking, Zoroastrians aren't Ahl al-Kitab either, as they are not mentioned as such in the Qu'ran. However, Mehdi Karroubi and Ayatollah Montazeri had held a lot of respect for the Zoroastrians in Iran, and I'm sure Sane'i is no exception.

all very well, provided those beardy nutcases in the religious militias don't pop around to my downtown tehran pad and try rearrange my face for me........................

i don't have that confidence.

**Lemur** · 01-07-2010, 18:10

Okay, here's a weird one: Op-ed in the NYT claims that there can't possibly be a revolution in Iran, because three questions haven't been answered:

First, what does this opposition want? Second, who leads it? Third, through what process will this opposition displace the government in Tehran?

Do we need to go into why this is absolutely specious, or can we let a historian do the talking for us?

The Leveretts understand nothing about revolutions. This is important. They suggest that there can't be another revolution in Iran unless the opposition knows exactly what it wants, it has a visible leader in control, and it has a "process" for replacing the current government. How many modern revolutions have ever satisfied those conditions, beginning with the French Revolution?

Those that were really coups d'état did—Russia 1917, Iran 1979—but the most important revolutions in our lifetime have been the velvet ones; they were viral before the internet, succeeded in different and unforeseeable ways, and many were acephalic (word for the day). Thousands of leaderless East Germans climbed the wall of the Hungarian embassy, then walked across the border when a government official made a slip of the tongue. The wall fell. One day Romanians cowered before Ceausescu's Securitate, the next day they booed one of his speeches, and four days later he was dead. Game over.

The odds, the guns, the truncheons, and the will to brutality are all against the Iranian opposition today. They have to live with that, and so do we. The Leveretts for some bizarre reason, want to embrace it. The title of their June piece in Politico was "Ahmadinejad won. Get over it." Well, revolutions happen. Wake up.

**Hax** · 01-07-2010, 19:18

all very well, provided those beardy nutcases in the religious militias don't pop around to my downtown tehran pad and try rearrange my face for me........................

Have you ever even read one statement by the reformist clerics in Iran? I'm pretty sure dismantling the basiji is an important aspect.

**Furunculus** · 01-07-2010, 22:48

so when the man finds out i am a godless heretic, living a life of debauchery in downtown tehran, he'll be cool with it?

not what his statement says......................

something about midgets and basketball, what was that phrase again?

**Hax** · 01-07-2010, 22:56

so when the man finds out i am a godless heretic, living a life of debauchery in downtown tehran, he'll be cool with it?

not what his statement says......................

Ah, but there is a difference between indifference and persecution, isn't there?

**Subotan** · 01-07-2010, 23:54

Originally Posted by Lemur

First, what does this opposition want? Second, who leads it? Third, through what process will this opposition displace the government in Tehran?[/indent]

The First and the Third were not answered in the last Iranian revolution. And there are plenty of examples of protests like this which have been unco-ordinated and unorganised which have toppled a dictatorship (Indonesia, South Korea, many South American countries etc.).

**Furunculus** · 01-08-2010, 01:01

Originally Posted by Hax

Ah, but there is a difference between indifference and persecution, isn't there?

sure there is, is that what it will be when i next fly out to my tehran shagpad? are you really sure?

cos i heard all those horrid stories about nasty beardy men invading uni dorms and beating up students, and i'm not sure they'll just disappear like the tooth fairy when this knight with a shining koran turns up.............

please tell me it will all be ok?

**Hax** · 01-08-2010, 01:15

cos i heard all those horrid stories about nasty beardy men invading uni dorms and beating up students, and i'm not sure they'll just disappear like the tooth fairy when this knight with a shining koran turns up.............

Don't act like you're suddenly forced to move to some remote village some threehundred kilometers east of Qom.

Ever heard of the saying "One step at a time"?

**cegorach** · 01-09-2010, 09:21

Iran's state propaganda decided to 'tell the truth' about Neda's death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Jg...ipcontrinter=1

I don't know if I should laugh or curse. I wonder who will buy this nonsense that she was a foreign agent and faked her death....