Protests in Iran
Iranian students, often the spearhead of the bludgeoned reformist movement, on Monday protested against the banning of presidential candidates, chanting slogans against the authorities. A Reuters witness said 100 to 150 students were clapping, whistling and shouting 'down with dictators' from inside their university dormitory in central Tehran. About 50 ventured out into the street, but were pushed back inside by a line of police. The students then began to chant 'down with the police'.Obviously this is a fairly small protest. This is something to keep an eye on though. Right now, Iran probably feels fairly free to repress it's people as much as it needs to keep control. However, as increased tensions over nuclear programs raise the stakes they have got to be increasingly worried about U.S. action, and a violent clash with their own people could escalate the situation to that level. That is of course on reason they want nukes, they believe that the U.S. would not dare to intervene if they had them. I am not so sure they are right about that, but there is logic to that position. My hope remains that the students and reformers of Iran will be able to mobilize sufficient people to change the regime from within, without direct U.S. assistance. If the regular army and police refuse to crack down on a popular demonstration, this could happen quite quickly. Of course the Iranian regime has prepared for this as well, they have imported foreign jihadists to serve as a revolutionary guard (not unlike the Saddam Fedayeen) who will certainly have the will to fire on civilians. Faced with a large enough popular movement though, there is a fair chance that these thugs will turn and run. Every success in Iraq makes such an event in Iran more likely, and every setback delays the day of reckoning for the Iranian mullahs. The mullahs are aware of this as well, which is why they have taken steps to promote chaos and discord in Iraq.
posted by Dave Justus | 5/23/2005 12:19:00 PM
2 Comments:
Dave, do you think that there is a parallel between this action in Iran, and the demonstrations in Uzbekistan?
If there is a parallel, an equality between the two, then I take it you would support the demonstrations against the Uzbek government also?
If you do not believe there to be a parallel between the two countries, could you perhaps tell me why not?
Yes I think that there are parallels.
If you have read all of my posts on Uzbekistan you would know that I believe strongly in a democratic Uzbekistan and have called for the Bush administration to be far more forceful in calling for reform and decrying this mascre. I suggest you search for Uzbekistan in the blogger search bar above to see all that I have written on the subject.
I also think there are differences in the two situations. It is far from clear that the majority of the opposition in Uzbekistan seeks democracy. As I have stated to you before, I have no real interest in one set of thugs replacing another. Certainly I expect democratic revolutions to suffer setbacks and difficulties in building a funcitoning democracy, but when that isn't even their goal, I have no special desire to support that group.
In this situation, and in many others, I am unsure of what active role I want the U.S. to take. I don't think we have enough interest in Uzbekistan to justify military intervention, and we have to chose to only act when it will serve our interests, as their are more places with problems than we have capability to deal with.
I would be willing to provide other support to a genuine democratic opposition, if Karimov remains unwilling to begin reforming, but if their isn't such a beast in Uzbekistan I don't know what we should do on that front. I do believe, that we should stop providing aid to Uzbekistan, and stop basing our troops there until we see progress toward Democratic reform.
I don't know that I would call for military intervention in Iran should the mullahs start shooting students either. But given other strategic reasons, that would be higher on my list than Uzbekistan if the situations were the same. Uzbekistan, if it degenerates into chaos could end up being a Afghanistan style threat. Iran if it remains as it is, or degenerates into chaos, could be a much worse threat, especially after Iran is a nuclear power. Which it will be fairly soon.
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