From Jerusalem, Iran can look pretty threatening, especially if its policies are as hostile as those of the Islamic Republic. Fortunately, an Israeli lawyer, an expat from Iran named Daniel Dana, keeps tabs on events in his homeland. Apparently all is not smoothly flying carpets in the Islamic Republic after all. From his web-site, the "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI), I regularly get reports of unrest on universities, worker unrest and the like. The image he paints is one of a low to medium-boil of constant on-going revolt.
Yesterday evening, three reports came in concerning riots at universities and in town squares all over Iran over the Fire Feast, a holdover from Persia’s Zoroastrian past, used these days to protest the religious suppression and control of life in Iran. The final report is "current news".
According to this report hundreds were arrested last night. Women who've been arrested are expected to be punished by flogging, and the young men can expect to sit a long time before being even sent to trial.
The most violent clashes happened in the Madar, Javadieh, and Sadeghie areas of Tehran and main squares of cities, such as Esfahan, Ahvaz, Khorram-Abad, Hamedan, Sari, and Kermanshah.
Apparently the secret police tried to put an anti-Israel spin on the whole affair by burning Israeli and American flags. Also according to this report,
"The riots... took the regime by surprise due to an unprecedented participation which marks the increasing Nationalistic and Secularist feelings of
Iranians."
This morning, a report came in from the Washington Times about how the elites in Iran are starting to spurn the country’s president for pursuing irresponsible economic and military policies that could isolate his country. The paper cites an indirect swipe at his ties to the messianic circles with whom he is linked.
"Mr. Ghaninejad was one of 13 experts in economics who warned, in two petitions to the government just before Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected, that his populist, short-term policies would spell disaster for Iran in the long term.Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
1 - Mark Schannon
Ruvy,
As always, you bring great insight to this bizarre crowd.
[b]The Hidden Imam is the Mahdi, the Shi'ite version of a messiah. Could it be that as a believer, Mr. Ahmadinejad is trying to speed the arrival of his messiah? Actions that seem so irresponsible to his country's business elites, whose voices are heard clearly in this Washington Times article and whose views reflect a secular frame of mind, may be entirely reasonable to a man who puts his faith in Allah.[b]
This revelation alone is incredibly powerful and explains a lot of Mr. Ahmadirjishseirusdkhja's bizarre actions and utterances.
However, one wonders if the unrest is enough to topple the regime. Their secret police rival the SS in their efficiency and brutality. One can only hope.
In Jamesons Veritas
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Mark, thanks for the kind words.
After all the talk I've heard about "born again" Christians in office in America, you may actually be seeing someone who really believes in his faith.
I know this will sound scary to you, but that is what we need in this country.
3 - Pat Fish
Wow.
There's a country on the verge. Interesting about those riots. Why isn't some enterprising mainstream guy out there getting these facts?
Should it keep up, well there's only so many jails, only so much flogging that can go on, before it implodes.
One can only hope.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Pat,
Getting the word out of Iran appears to be no mean feat. The fellow I get my information from is from here, but it has been a consistent drumbeat of the same kind of news.
TRhe possibility that the situation may spiral out of hand is what makes me fear extreme actions on the part of the Iranian president. He is not nuts. This is somthing very important to understand. He is following a different drummer. It's just that I don't want to get hit by his drumstick.
5 - ApFaq
I think that Iran's situatio is getting out of control and soon will be full blown out of control.
Iran has vowed to "wipe Isreal fromt he face of the map" before and i think that this attiutide and the theocratic government with no freedoms or rights will cause great instability in the region and possible even a war in the coming future.
The situation is degrading
6 - MeMoey
@Ruvy
I wouldn’t dwell on it if I was you... These false news’ have been popping all over the place as long as I could remember, only a few are truth, and if they are true they make it into the main stream news out here.
Although some Iranians hold up pro-democratic signs and see the current regime as 'anti-everything nice', almost all Middle Eastern countries have a vast majority of their people wanting religion and government together. Just look at Iraq, Only one secular (pro western democratic) member was elected into parliament.
Now if you really believe that small portion is goanna make a difference in Iran, than I would have to tell you to go back and check what happened with the mujahedeen; they had a handful of supporters and how about now, the only sign of them left is a bomb every two year once in Iran. Iranian government is more stable than what the Whitehouse wishes it to be.
Although Iran is changing over time with demands of people, or people themselves are changing the social norms. Because change in their desire is already slowly happening People don’t feel the need to revolt. It’s obvious because back when shah was shooting bullets at protesters, millions of people still got out, marched the streets demanding a change. Are we seeing anything close to that in Iran today? uuuhhh No...?
and to the people that are naive enough to believe that Iran is going to wipe Israel off the map with a ‘Islamic Nuclear Bomb’, well its just a very dumb statement, its a holy place to the Islamic Republic, and Iran has allot of allies there, and if a bomb was going to explode there Israel is goanna rape Iran with its own ‘invisible’ nuclear bombs. Israel is a small place, hitting it would cost Iran all Islamic Nations, a mythical enemy (Israel), and unrest in Iran, plus the MAD thing.
So to all of you, dont dwell on it.
7 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Unfortunately, ApFaq, the Iranians now have a gun to our heads - 10,000 missiles sitting in S. Lebanon in the hands of their lapdog Hizb Allah. That's two minutes warning time, max with the possibility of ten thousand-missile waves of assault to overcome any missile "deterrence" system.
So it is neessary to take seriously what the Iranian leadership says. There is no guarantee that the infighting going on behind the Iranian president's back will topple him. and he may be just as aware of the infighting as I, if not more so, and may be timing his actions accordingly.
Finally, I cannot emphasise too strongly that this man actually believes in the coming of the Mahdi, and may be trying to hasten his arrival. If this isn't so, he is putting on one hell of an act.
8 - MeMory
Well the desire of coming Mahdi runs insanely high within the shia communities, but Ahmadinejad is just using the Mahdi card as a public support tool, and its not as significant as you make it sound.
But yes Israel has always been facing a security dilemma, what do they really expect? you cant come take some one's ancestral lands based on the writings in your Torah and except peace with the nations around you, It's just common sense that all of the neighbouring nations are going to have 10,000+ bombs pointing at you. And Israel really can’t complain with their own nukes, and advance military and defence..
So yes Israel is always going to face a security dilemma, but no, nothing is going to happen and Israel knows that best.
It’s like the Cold War, if Israel won’t make a wrong move in the other nation, Iran wouldn’t either. And right now it’s the Cuban Missile crisis part, and Israel will not goanna bomb Iran, nor is America, because you cant bomb a nation and still expect its people to find your propaganda appealing(the 70 Million $ fund)
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
'Tisn't as simple as the Cold War. In the Cold War, the main players swinging the nukes were sovereign powers and could make their own decisions.
Israel is no longer a sovereign nation. The American government controls its sovereignty. So the Israelis are not acting independently at all. One could say the same for Iran, but considerably less so. There may be foreign troops on Iranian soil today, but they are nto there with Iran's consent, and if the Iranians kill them off, the country that sent them won't say anything.
This makes the moves a lot trickier...
10 - MeMory
See I don’t know much about it, but I thought Israel has total sovereignty over its own soil, and America just uses it at its strongest ally in the oil rich Middle East, and I also thought America’s involvement and support could also be result of the Jewish investments and businesses in America. Being that Jewish community is the strongest of it all in the world, it is logical that a powerful Jewish business man in United States demand support for their own nation 'Israel' (like how british supported in early days), I doubt Israel don’t have sovereignty over themselves, cause even back when JFK was around, before he was assassinated he demanded some things (I think it related to their nuclear activities) from Israel and Israel remained defiant. I do not know. You live there you'd know better.
11 - David
"Magic Carpet"? Racist much? Much too much. But let's not forget that Israel can wipe out the entire middle east in a weekend should it want to do so.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Please David, let's not infect this comment list with stupid arguments over political correctness. There are enough real issues to cover. Jews, Arabs, and Farsi are all pretty much the same so far as DNA and racial stock go. Nobel Prize winner Yisrael Aumann and his brother Moshe, who both spoke last Thrusday at the Israel Center, were both raised in Frankfurt Germany. But genetically, they are far closer to President Ahmadinejad than they are to Angela Merklel.
My wife's sister, raised amidst Danes, Swedes and Germans in the Middle Western United States, looks like a lot of the women around here. Indeed, she looks as if she could have come directly from Esfahan or Baghdad. I'm not going to lie and say she is as beautiful as Queen Esther, but photos of her young grandmother looked like many of the young Persian women I see here. There is no racism intended in the image of a flying carpet, just an image to hold the attention.
Responsible people who expect to have a future - at least acording to the standards we are all used to - do not threaten nuclear annihilation of their neighbors as a matter of policy, even if it something they would much like to do. Either they are insane - or they are using very different standards than we are. I make the second argument about the Iranian president.
It is worth considering carefully.
13 - xtech
ive been to iran and have relatives there and i can say it is a risk trying to document these things reporting it taking pictures by doing so you are risking the life of you and your family members if you get caught thats why people dont usualy get news orpictures out of the country and the ones who do usually do it by satelite phones they have hidden in there houses but like i said if you get caught it is the end for you then hang you in the middle of the city off a crane but before they do they lie and tell everyone you were a drug dealer or something i actually saw that happen once right before they hung him he yelled im not a drug dealer im a political prisoner fight the goverment then they hung him
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
xtech,
Thank you! You confirm what I wrote to Pat Fish in comment #4.
There are two kinds of dictatorships. One carefully hides its nature, like Israel. The other, like Iran, does not.
15 - Dave Nalle
What's racist about a magic carpet? That's like saying someone is racist for comparing an American to Paul Bunyan. All you'd get is a 'huh'? For it to be racist the cultural stereotype has to be NEGATIVE, get it?
Dave
16 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave,
While you're shaking the dust off your flying carpet, could you please comment on the two basic issues of the article - unrrest in Iran and the idea that Mr. Ahmadinejad is following a faith based policy?
17 - Dave Nalle
Sure, Ruvy. Ahmadinejad is a religious nutcase. Iran has a long tradition of secularism and education, and the educated secular people are getting fed up with being made to look like a nation of fanatics. This alliance of the poor and uneducated with a fanatical leadership elite is a classic dynamic for a totalitarian state. If it doesn't break down in civil war we can expect massive suppression of the educated classes and perhaps even 'reeducation camps'.
Dave
18 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
So Dave, if I understand you correctly, you reflect the opinions of the folks quoted in the Washington Times article. These are the business elites there who think that the Iranian president is being irresponsible - to put it politely. You might want to check the link in the article to make sure...
Now I have a question for you. What if a faith based leadership emerged here? I'm not talking about some dictatorship or a theocracy, such as Iran has, but an approach to policy within constraints that generally preserved individual freedom that gave Torah concepts primacy?
I'm also not talking about the irresponsible waste of money, such as we've seen with certain religious parties here in the past, and which is referenced in the article above in an analogous way to Iran. This regime would be fiscally conservative.
19 - Dave Nalle
I have to admit to not having read the Washington Times article, but other souces I've looked at suggest that the educated and business classes in Iran are not happy with the situation there.
I'm not sure about your second question. You're talking about mosaic law advocates of some sort taking over Israel? If their rule didn't include silencing freedom of speech, racism, restricting the rights of women, stoning people and invading their neighbors I guess I wouldn't have a problem with them. Leaders can be religious without imposing their beliefs on the people.
Dave