It’s not so remarkable to see hecklers at a presidential speech. But if the protesters are Iranian students and the one heckled is the loose-cannon Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, perhaps it’s a hopeful sign.
According to the BBC, hundreds of students chanted “death to the dictator” and burned a portrait of Ahmadinejad as the Iranian leader spoke at a college campus on Sunday.
Anti-government protests are rare in Iran, particularly since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Whether the protest represents a trend is impossible to say, but from a Western perspective, a little domestic pressure on the Iranian president would be coming at a very good time.
Posted by Dave Knadler
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- george on Open thread 11/22
- DorisKing on Open thread 11/22
- Chas on Open thread 11/22
- george on Health care reform would save state money
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- Politico on So they said
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
- JWink on Health care reform would save state money
- Politico on Health care reform would save state money
45 Comments
The U.S. could have defused the situation with Iran long ago, were it not for the delusional, disconnected, empire fantasies of the Bush administration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5377914.stm
“In a time of faith, skepticism is the most intolerable of all insults.”Randolph Bourne
Love this quote – seems to fit in here…
If the hecklers had been at Bush’s or Cheney’s speech, they would have been promptly dragged out and booked! Don’t those Iranians know how to run a dictatorship?
Chuckle… We have a story on the Iranian president, probably the most vocal and concerning enemy of our nation; and look who the libs go after. Their programming must allow only one response to any subject.
Iran has an educated portion of their population who can’t be happy with the rantings of their nut case. We can only hope the protests are evidence of a moderating influence. Probably of little short term significance.
I am extremely happy to see these demonstrations against Ahmadinijad. It is a very good development.
Is it a good development? Someone posted earlier that the Shah has failing health and will most likely die soon. There were also reports of several air disasters that just happened to knock out key religious and military leaders of the reigning party. With the students demonstrating (bully for them!!!) and the above mentioned, is it possible that Iran too is headed for a civil war? Iran and Iraq in chaos? That can’t be good for anybody.
Outlander–last time I checked, Ahmanijad is not the president of MY country.
Criticizing HIM does nothing about OUR situation.
Again, it’s that CONservative arrogance that just thinking the right thoughts can somehow effect change in foreign countries.
Who’s singing kumbaya now, eh?
“THE SHAH!” You mean the Shah we and the British helped impose after we knocked off the duly elected Prime Minister Mossegedeh?
(see Operation Ajax)
The Shah died of heart failure decades ago. What Shah are you talking about?
Something about his picture scares me. Perhaps its the UN Logo on the podium.
Why on earth would they allow that yobbo to speak at a UN marked podium!
Hang on Capn, I’ll find the post
Right, Erik, because after all the United Nations shouldn’t be a forum for nations to express themselves to the rest of the world or anything.
They should only let people we really like speak.
Like Pinochet, for instance. Or Somoza. Or the king of Saudi Arabia.
You know, one of those democracy hating right-wing dictators we support.
I was more concerned that the UN podium would be at a university… But I’m not awake yet and hadn’t considered that maybe that was a file photo of when he spoke at the UN or at a UN conference.
Where is my latte?
My mistake, not the shah but Ayatollah khomeini
Sol–
It may be a hard post to find since the last Shah died in 1980 in Egypt.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry:
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (Persian: ???? ??? ??????) (October 16, 1919, Tehran – July 27, 1980, Cairo), styled His Imperial Majesty, and holding the imperial titles of Sh?hansh?h (King of Kings) and Aryamehr (Light of the Aryans), was the monarchial ruler of Iran from September 16, 1941 until the Iranian Revolution on February 11, 1979. He was the second monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty and the last Shah of the Iranian monarchy.
Ah, the Ayatollah.
Yup, I wonder how he’s enjoying his extended stay in the lake of burning fire.
Sol – Khomeni is also dead I think. There are a lot of problems in that country right now; the reason I consider the demonstrations a hopeful development is that they might be the beginnings of a real democracy movement. they ahve not had a true free democracy there since the CIA overthrew their last one and installed a pro-US dictator (Shah). that has been followed by a succession of other strogman regimes with strong theocratic overtones.
I think I recall that Khomeni is also quite dead. They were carrying his coffin through the streets in Tehran, wailing and doing that self-flagellation shit, and dropped the casket and the lid popped off and the shrouded corpse fell out onto the ground. Plop! Some days just nothing goes right! :)
Khamenei is the name of the current “Grand Ayatollah”; eerily close in spelling to Khomeni, the one to which others have referred above.
“Chuckle… We have a story on the Iranian president, probably the most vocal and concerning enemy of our nation; and look who the libs go after. Their programming must allow only one response to any subject.”
Uh, not quite, Outie. Let’s leave aside the obvious desire for a more open, fair, less theocratic society among Iranian young people (this is well-known to anyone’s been paying attention to the situation the past decade). Can we say Mohammed Khatami, kiddies?
From the link you didn’t bother to read:
“And just a few weeks after Iran and the US had worked so closely over Afghanistan, Iran was described by President George W Bush as part of an “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address.
Javad Zarif, now Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said this was a big surprise at after the co-operation over the Afghan government.
“We were all shocked by the fact that the US had such a short memory and was so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago,” he said.
But the hardliners in Washington had been bolstered by Israel’s discovery just a few weeks before the speech of a consignment of arms alleged to be heading from Iran to Palestinian groups.”
“Another potential opening came in May 2003.
America’s swift march to Baghdad the previous month had led to fears in Tehran that it would be next.
So Tehran made a dramatic – but surprisingly little known – approach to the Americans.
Iran’s offer came in the form of a letter, although Iranian diplomats have suggested that their letter was in turn a response to a set of talking points that had come from US intermediaries.
In it, Iran appeared willing to put everything on the table – including being completely open about its nuclear programme, helping to stabilise Iraq, ending its support for Palestinian militant groups and help in disarming Hezbollah.
I believe the nuclear issue could have been resolved long time ago
Javad Zarif, Iran ambassadorWhat did Iran want? Top of the list was a halt in US hostile behaviour and a statement that ‘Iran did not belong to ‘the axis of evil”.
The letter was the product of an internal debate inside Tehran and had the support of leaders at the highest level.
‘That letter went to the Americans to say that we are ready to talk, we are ready to address our issues,’ explains Seyed Adeli, who was then a deputy foreign minister in Iran. But in Washington, the letter was ignored.
Larry Wilkerson, who was then chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, thinks that was a big mistake.
‘In my mind it was one of those things you throw up in the air and say I can’t believe we did this.’
He says the hardliners who stood against dialogue had a memorable refrain. “We don’t speak to evil’.”
***Sol, hate to tell you this, but. . . both the Shah and Khomeini have been dead for many years. . .
Found the damn thing. Long, but worth reading.
“SPECIAL TO PJM: Iran Supreme Leader Hospitalized. Condition Grave.PJM in SeattleDecember 6, 2006 9:45 PM
Supreme Leader Ayatollah ali Khamenei
Ayatollah’s health fails as Iran power struggle growsby Michael Ledeen
Three days ago, Iran’s dictator, Supreme Leader Ayatollah ali Khamenei,was rushed to the vast medical facility traditionally known as “Vanak”hospital (it now has an Arabic name that means “the 12th ImamHospital”), a 1,200-room facility that saves half of its beds for theleadership.
Khamenei is known to be suffering from cancer, and taking considerablequantities of an opium-based pain killer. He has lost more than 17pounds in the past ten months, and was told last spring that he wasunlikely to see another New Year (In the Iranian calendar, the New Yearbegins at the end of March).
Khamenei first complained of chills, and then broke out in a cold sweat.He lay down to rest, and began to lose feeling in his feet, at whichpoint his aides got him to the hospital.
Amidst maximum security, and under orders that the event be kept secretat all costs, the theocrat was placed in one of the luxurious suitesreserved for the country’s most important figures. Khamenei’s bloodpressure and pulse were alarmingly low, and his physicians atfirst feared some sort of hemorrhage. But they could find no trace ofinternal bleeding, and concluded that he had had some sort of cardiaccrisis.
Khamenei is still undergoing tests and receiving maximum attention. Itis clearly a serious problem because he wanted to leave the hospital,only to be talked out of it by the doctors. The precise gravity of hiscondition is not known, but the argument over the wisdom of moving himto his own home suggests it may be quite serious.My sources for this information are a very knowledgeable Iranian clericplus another Iranian who has previously provided strikingly accuratestories from the highest levels of the regime in Tehran, suggesting thata major crisis may be underway in Iran.
The Power Struggle
The Supreme Leader has good reason to keep his condition secret, and toseek to demonstrate he retains his ability to rule the country. Khameneiknows that his regime is riven by intense conflict, some of which hasbeen dramatically exposed in recent weeks in the run-up to the electionof a new Assembly of Experts (the clerical body whose mainresponsibility is the selection of the Supreme Leader).News of Khamenei’s heart problems, especially if they turn out to belife-threatening, would undoubtedly catalyze the battle at the highestlevels of the regime to control the choice of his successor. Recentevents document both the intensity and the violence of the powerstruggle.
On November 27th, a military aircraft–an Antonov 74—headed for amilitary site near Tabriz crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran.Nearly forty deaths were reported, including several top leaders of theRevolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military organization.The dead included some of Khamenei’s closest allies and advisers, andtheir loss was a serious blow for him.
Most Iranians–who are in any case reluctant to believe in accidents whenthe mighty are killed–are convinced the plane was sabotaged, especiallyas this is the latest in a sequence of spectacular airplane disasters,producing high-level military casualties.
About a week earlier, a military helicopter came down, killing all sixpeople on board. Last January, Ahmad Kazemi, the Revolutionary Guards’ground commander, and seven other senior officers, were killed in thecrash of a French-made Falcon, a small executive jet, near the Turkishborder. Barely a month before, yet another military aircraft, a C-130,came down near Tehran airport, hit a ten-story building, and killed 115people (mostly journalists).
A week ago, the Majlis (the national assembly) passed a law effectivelyreducing the presidential term of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nezhad by a full year.This was universally seen as an attack in favor of former PresidentHashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadi-Nezhad’s most visible political rival, and acandidate to succeed Khamenei.
Meanwhile, as reported in Iran Press News, the ongoing public challengeto the regime itself continues unabated.
On Wednesday, thousands of students demonstrated on the campus of TehranUniversity, chanting “death to despotism,” and “death to the dictator.”And in Mazandaran Province, up by the Caspian Sea, thousands of angryworkers protested in front of Ahmadi-Nezhad himself, announcing theywere starving and demanding the government honor its promise to improvethe lot of the poor.
As yet, news of the Supreme Leader’s medical problems has remained asecret, known only to a handful of trusted aides and colleagues. But itis only a matter of time before Khamenei’s condition becomes publicknowledge. With unknown ramifications to the stability of Iran and theregion at large.”
The above is the post to which I referred earlier, in its entirety; sorry couldn’t just provide a link. It (the post) raises many issues, which the ISG may have known. Obviously, I cannot say for sure.
Posted by: Vaughn Tolle | December 08, 2006 at 09:45 AM
Interesting. I suppose civil war COULD be possible, although I think Ledeen may be a little too committed to making regime change happen to be entirely objective about the subject. Still, the man is an expert on Iran, albeit an archconservative one who used that expertise to facilitate illegal arms deals in the 80’s.
However, elections are coming up:”Iran elections a last stand for reformistsHard-liners hope to wrest away control of the panel that appoints the country’s most powerful official.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iranelex13dec13,1,6066402.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Let’s hope Lincoln was right, and the ballot will be stronger than the bullet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3018932.stm
Those students do know something. In this country, we hold as an ideal that power flows upward from the people; “Government by the consent of the governed.”Actually, this isn’t an ideal, it’s a natural law of politics. That’s why dictators are so paranoid- they know they can be overthrown!When we start meddling in the affairs of other countries, we are trying to subvert the will of their people, however good our intentions might be. Sometimes, our intentions aren’t all that noble, as in the case of Iran, where we supported (and glorified) the brutal dictatorship of the Shah, for oil and military bases. We’re paying the price for that now with our loss of credibility in an entire region. If we lend any support to those Iranian students, we will have doomed them to failure. Their (and our) only hope for democracy there is for us to leave them alone!
There is a huge secular movement in Iran consisting primarily of college students. They want a return to Iran like it was before the US government overthrew the secular democracy and installed a right wing dictator who drove the people into poverty by giving oil interests to England and America. Bush simply wants to install another Shah who will be friendly with the oil companies and he couldn’t give a damn about the Iranian people (just like he doesn’t care about the Iraqis).
Well! At least Doug has common sense in understanding that American foreign policy is its own worst enemy!
Sol, Iran has LONG been heading for civil war. Apparently you hadn’t been paying close attention.
Perhaps these college students feel the way they do towards their president like the majority of Americans feel towards their president George Bush?
“Iran has an educated portion of their population who can’t be happy with the rantings of their nut case. We can only hope the protests are evidence of a moderating influence.”
This is hopeful.
“I am extremely happy to see these demonstrations against Ahmadinijad. It is a very good development.”
Isn’t it interesting the one true hope for a democracy in the Middle East is the very country Bush has refused to talk to. Surely there are helpful inroads into Iran that we can find and pursue.
And, if those inroads can’t be found by the State Department, what do we have the CIA for?
If the current regime in Iran is expected to change, what good would talking to them do? If we instead talk to who we think (or want) to win, wouldn’t that come off as the US meddling again?
Sol – I think the idea would be that we talk to the current government and also cultivate contacts throughout the society.
In the case of the former Soviet Union we pursued such a strategy.
Ben,It might be worth a shot. Who do we send? We really can’t send Condi because I don’t think she would be taken seriously as she is a black female. Not trying to be racist or sexist, I just think Iran would be.
We can’t send Dubbya because he can’t seem to string a sentence together. Again, not taken seriously. Reagan would be awesome. Well spoken and tough.
How much do you think Iran wants to a) help us and b) stabilize Iraq?
“…wouldn’t that come off as the US meddling again?”
Of course. But our interest in a democratic Iran justifies the risks, IMHO. Plus, the CIA can meddle in ways that are not obvious. Instead of trying to topple Chavez, let’s sic the CIA on the above pictured clown. Let the Langley boys & girls slip him a few hits of acid like they tried to do with Kadafi. Of course that action may make his message more coherent — which of course is something we don’t want.
Interesting question. I agree that YOU are not being racist/sexist, just observing. Perhaps just as an envoy how about our current ambassador to Iraq – Afghani I think. Colin Powell?
We are sadly lacking in personnel who know the region. In our embassy in Baghdad the number of fluent Arabic speakers is single digits – either 6 or 8 as I recall. In Tehran we obviously will need people fluent in Persian.
We need to start with someone fluent in English in the White House!
Sol,
Wouldn’t Iran have an interest in there not being a wider sectarian war in the middle east? If they don’t see that, it is time to educate them. If they turn us down, which, of course is quite possible, we can at least say we tried.
Such diplomacy could even help destabilize the current regime — if the said regime acts in ways contrary to the interests of the people in the street in Iran. I say it’s win-win propositon.
An idea on the “who” to sell the U.S. plan to Iran: Bush-I and Clinton. Of course it will never happen, but a nice fantasy.
Worst case scenario; we pull out of Iraq too soon (as I fear the democrats might try to make happen). The Saudi’s have given their support to back the S… crap, I forget the sect. So they start piping people into the fight. Iran supports the other S sect I believe. THEY start piping people in to fight the Saudis.
Iran wins. They take Iraq and float a boat over to the Saudi oil fields near Dhahran. Iran controls 50% of the world’s oil.
Every time we go fiddling with them we f*$# ourselves. We pretty much put Saddam in power and kinda gave him the go-ahead to take Kuwait. Hell, Kuwait is his anyway. The Brits carved it out. And just look at the GLORIUS job we did with Israel. Let’s not even get into the tribal warfare in Africa thanx to the Brits carving up THAT country.
It just seems like we need to keep our fingers out of those pies. I know we never will learn that lesson, but DANG !!!!!
Good call SD. I loath Clinton for who he is, but no one can take away from him the politician he is.
Bush Sr. gets it. His time with the CIA has paid off for him. So you get the smooth talker (Sr. is no slacker either) and someone with a pretty good clue on the Arab situation
Maybe Baker?
point is, we have some good ’slicksters’ who can be useful.
I was against talking to Iran when the idea was brought up. I don’t know what kind of choice we have now. We have no friends left over there. Turkey? Nah. Saudi? They have more terrorists than Iran and Iraq.
I did come across a military quarterly report that shows improvement in Iraq. Violence is in a downward trend (though still not acceptable), electricity is on an upward trend, and unemployment is going up though.
The point being, Iraq is getting better, just at a snail’s pace. With Iraq wanting to take over security of Baghdad (and if they can pull it off) then wouldn’t the violence drop off even more as the US is not so much of a presence there?
Is it getting better? We don’t know that. I would take a sponsor’s ad with a bit of salt.
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf
From the report:
““Sectarian tensions increased over the past quarter … current reporting period the average number of weekly attacks increased 15% … Iraqi casualties increased by 51% …
277,600 Iraqi soldiers and police … ”
Note: violence INCREASED. And there is growing evidence that these soldiers and police we are training are participating in the attacks.
The report is a rosy picture painted by the DoD; and it is hardly encouraging.
And, to illustrate my point about the soldiers and police …
“Gunmen kidnap dozens in BaghdadGunmen dressed in military uniforms have kidnapped dozens of people from a commercial area in central Baghdad, according to Iraqi police.Between 20 and 30 people – including Shia and Sunni shopkeepers and pedestrians – were abducted in the Sanak area of the capital, reports say.
Eyewitnesses said the men were in 10 vehicles – some of them painted like government cars. Shots were heard.
Correspondents say mass kidnappings are becoming commonplace in the capital.”
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/12/14/gunmen-kidnap-dozens-in-baghdad/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F2%2Fhi%2Fmiddle_east%2F6178667.stm—–
The problem with either Bush I or Clinton is that both have a history in the middle-east to overcome. Neither would be accepted as credible in Iran.