TBird41
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"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
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Iran
Jun 14, 2009 20:23:09 GMT -5
Post by TBird41 on Jun 14, 2009 20:23:09 GMT -5
It's getting kinda crazy over there in Iran, I would have to say. It seems there are a lot of unhappy Iranians because Ahmadinejad "won" and, who knows how long the protests and such are going to last (or until the response starts getting really nasty).
Any SFSers care to chime in? It would seem to me that this is a chance for the U.S. and Europe to start winning the "hearts and minds" of the Iran "street" and get rid of Ahmadinejad by backing the reform party candidate (or calling for new elections or something). Personally, I would have hoped for Obama/Clinton to come out a lot stronger for a fair election than just saying they were "monitoring irregularities" (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55C1Z220090613), but I didn't really do much foreign policy, so I'm sure there's a good reason we're not being more vocal.
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The Stig
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Iran
Jun 14, 2009 21:56:46 GMT -5
Post by The Stig on Jun 14, 2009 21:56:46 GMT -5
I think the US/EU should stay quiet on this.
First, interfering in another country's domestic politics is generally frowned upon. It goes against the norms of international relations, and it often causes more trouble than it's worth.
Second, Ahmadinejad could have very well won the election legitimately. The polls indicated he would win, albeit in a close election. The margin of victory is what makes the election suspicious, not the outcome. My personal view is that Ahmadinejad probably did rig the election, but he probably would have gotten the most votes anyways. The rigging allowed him to avoid a runoff. However, the evidence for a rigged election is far from watertight.
Finally, the biggest reason that we're not being more vocal is that outright American support for Mousavi (the main opposition candidate) would hurt him more than it would help him. Most Iranians don't hate the US as much as Ahmadinejad does, but at the same time we're not exactly popular over there. If we publicly backed Mousavi, Ahmadinejad and his supporters would immediately start calling him an American puppet, which would probably be a very effective attack.
Think about what would have happened if Ahmadinejad had appeared on American TV right before our election, publicly endorsed Obama, and pledged huge amounts of money to his campaign. It would have been a gift from the heavens for McCain, and an unmitigated disaster for Obama. It might have been enough to flip the election.
Similarly, think about what would have happened if, in the aftermath of the 2000 election, Russia had stepped in and very publicly attacked the US over the alleged voting irregularities in Florida. It would have been even worse if they had publicly supported the Gore supporters who were protesting the result and publicly pushed for Gore to be declared the winner.
In short, Americans would be furious if other countries stepped in and tried to influence our election, and Iranians are no different. Any overt American moves here would likely backfire in a huge way. As frustrating as it is, doing nothing/very little is probably our best option.
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 0:28:33 GMT -5
Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 15, 2009 0:28:33 GMT -5
I don't have much to add to Stig's points but may in due course. Perhaps the best thing right now is to figure out what is going on, where various political actors stand, and so forth. I must say that the US media from what I've seen has not done a great job on the election/protests. It almost seems that they went dark on it after it looked like Ahmadinejad won "convincingly" and there was nothing there to assimilate into a cute headline. No "Florida" or "Butterfly Ballot" that would help the supposedly unintelligent masses understand this "place that hates America." Perhaps the [lack of] coverage is worse than this, as you can find the latest "Stay Tuned" nonsense from Blitzer on CNN, another prison show on MSNBC, and whatever else on Fox News. In what little I've seen today as I have searched for some reporting is startling, it seems. The best place for news on this is the BBC and Twitter. The blogging intelligentsia in the US - the Andrew Sullivans, Josh Marshalls, et al. - are running with Twitters from Tehran, which, amidst piles of spam, are live nuggets and real-time in terms of what is happening on the ground. So, I highly recommend some of the more talented bloggers/news aggregators. One particularly cool page is twitter.com/mousavi1388 - indicating that the protests will continue tomorrow. In what little I've seen, it looks like Twitter has become a tool of the protestors, who are using it for revolutionary ends - turning the means of production against the state (which is not an economic bourgeoisie in any sense).
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theexorcist
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,506
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 7:17:24 GMT -5
Post by theexorcist on Jun 15, 2009 7:17:24 GMT -5
I think the US/EU should stay quiet on this. First, interfering in another country's domestic politics is generally frowned upon. It goes against the norms of international relations, and it often causes more trouble than it's worth. Second, Ahmadinejad could have very well won the election legitimately. The polls indicated he would win, albeit in a close election. The margin of victory is what makes the election suspicious, not the outcome. My personal view is that Ahmadinejad probably did rig the election, but he probably would have gotten the most votes anyways. The rigging allowed him to avoid a runoff. However, the evidence for a rigged election is far from watertight. Finally, the biggest reason that we're not being more vocal is that outright American support for Mousavi (the main opposition candidate) would hurt him more than it would help him. Most Iranians don't hate the US as much as Ahmadinejad does, but at the same time we're not exactly popular over there. If we publicly backed Mousavi, Ahmadinejad and his supporters would immediately start calling him an American puppet, which would probably be a very effective attack. Think about what would have happened if Ahmadinejad had appeared on American TV right before our election, publicly endorsed Obama, and pledged huge amounts of money to his campaign. It would have been a gift from the heavens for McCain, and an unmitigated disaster for Obama. It might have been enough to flip the election. Similarly, think about what would have happened if, in the aftermath of the 2000 election, Russia had stepped in and very publicly attacked the US over the alleged voting irregularities in Florida. It would have been even worse if they had publicly supported the Gore supporters who were protesting the result and publicly pushed for Gore to be declared the winner. In short, Americans would be furious if other countries stepped in and tried to influence our election, and Iranians are no different. Any overt American moves here would likely backfire in a huge way. As frustrating as it is, doing nothing/very little is probably our best option. I volunteered for his campaign, and I voted for him - McCain wouldn't have won even if Chavez, Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, and the disembied ghost of King George III all showed up in a campaign commercial to endorse Obama. The best examples here are Lebanon, Ukraine, and Georgia. In each case, the US did very little overtly early on. That seems to be the best approach here, too. People power is greater than the force of any country, and the best way to destroy the rotten polity in Tehran is for its people to do it. Apropos of all of this were Biden's comments, where he essentially said that the votes were suspicious. Another bad move by the VP - you either go in whole hog or keep quiet.
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EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 9:07:57 GMT -5
Post by EasyEd on Jun 15, 2009 9:07:57 GMT -5
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TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 9:45:22 GMT -5
Post by TC on Jun 15, 2009 9:45:22 GMT -5
Ed, even if their long-distance polling into Iran was accurate - and who is to say long-distance polling is accurate within a totalitarian country that shuts off all media and doesn't allow protests - it had Ahmadinejad at 34%, Mousavi at 14%, and 27% undecided. There's a case to be made that Ahmadinejad would have won, but the numbers that were reported (62.7% for Ahmadinejad with giant turnout) seem pretty fishy in the context of that poll.
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The Stig
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 9:53:23 GMT -5
Post by The Stig on Jun 15, 2009 9:53:23 GMT -5
Ahmadinejad's main base of support comes from rural areas and the urban poor. Those are the two groups that are most likely to be missed in public opinion polls.
Ultimately Ahmadinejad will end up winning this, it's just a matter of whether the protests fizzle out or if he has to crush them. There's not really anything sensible that the US or any other external actor can do to change that.
The good news is that this fiasco will damage Ahmadinejad's credibility and legitimacy. It will also help rally the reformists. The Guardian Council has said it will issue its response to Mousavi's protest next week. While they will almost certainly shoot down the protest, it keeps the election on Iranians' minds for another week, which hurts Ahmadinejad. The protests may not change this election result, but hopefully they will help trigger some changes further down the line.
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The Stig
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 10:48:24 GMT -5
Post by The Stig on Jun 15, 2009 10:48:24 GMT -5
The BBC has compiled a good group of resources for info on what's going on in Iran: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099579.stmRemember to take anything coming out of Iran with a pinch of salt. Mousavi's base of support is the more affluent and educated middle class - i.e. those most likely to post in English on the internet. Therefore, what us Yanks can read on the web will obviously be skewed in his favor. On the flip side, Iranian government sources will obviously be biased towards Ahmadinejad. This election was by far more fierce and emotional than any election Iran has had before, so it's unlikely that we'll hear any unbiased views out of Iran.
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SFHoya99
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Iran
Jun 15, 2009 10:56:30 GMT -5
Post by SFHoya99 on Jun 15, 2009 10:56:30 GMT -5
Nate Silver has done some work as well at www.fivethirtyeight.com. There's multiple posts, some pointing out likely problems, some debunking some of statistical arguments that fraud occurred.
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hoyainspirit
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Iran
Jun 16, 2009 7:58:42 GMT -5
Post by hoyainspirit on Jun 16, 2009 7:58:42 GMT -5
Those Iranians truly are efficient, I'll give 'em that. To accurately count tens of millions of paper ballots and announce preliminary results in about two hours is an amazing feat.
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SirSaxa
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Iran
Jun 16, 2009 9:27:39 GMT -5
Post by SirSaxa on Jun 16, 2009 9:27:39 GMT -5
Those Iranians truly are efficient, I'll give 'em that. To accurately count tens of millions of paper ballots and announce preliminary results in about two hours is an amazing feat. Maybe we should send the FL election committee over there for an information exchange.
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theexorcist
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Iran
Jun 16, 2009 10:17:53 GMT -5
Post by theexorcist on Jun 16, 2009 10:17:53 GMT -5
Those Iranians truly are efficient, I'll give 'em that. To accurately count tens of millions of paper ballots and announce preliminary results in about two hours is an amazing feat. As I recall, everything conformed to the expected timelines. You're not counting every ballot one after the other - voting is broken down into districts. After two hours, especially for a landslide win, it's not unreasonable for an election to be essentially over.
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SirSaxa
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Iran
Jun 18, 2009 18:24:30 GMT -5
Post by SirSaxa on Jun 18, 2009 18:24:30 GMT -5
Listening to the NewsHour tonight, with guest experts. They report today's protest marches in Tehran were the biggest yet and completely peaceful.
Regardless of what any of us might think of the legitimacy of the Iranian elections, it appears there are a vast number of Iranians who do not believe the results.
The guests on the show both thought Pres. Obama's measured response to date was exactly the right thing to do. Given the history of US-Iranian relations -- going back to the overthrow of the govt. 60 years ago, supporting the Shah, supporting Saddam Hussein during the Iran-IRaq war, and calling Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil", any overt action or even statements by the US might possibly be used by the Iranian authorities as an excuse to use the military to aggressively and lethally put down the protests - due to US interference.
This is a very dicey situation. My hope is that we listen to knowledgeable and experienced experts and our friends around the world before deciding how to proceed... and using that information rather than responses based on ideology or preconceived notions.
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TC
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Iran
Jun 18, 2009 19:53:19 GMT -5
Post by TC on Jun 18, 2009 19:53:19 GMT -5
Regardless of what any of us might think of the legitimacy of the Iranian elections, it appears there are a vast number of Iranians who do not believe the results. C'mon - I don't know how anyone can think that the election was legitimate. Maybe Ahmadinejad got a majority, maybe he didn't - but he certainly didn't get 63%. 63% of the popular vote is more than Reagan got over Mondale, more than Nixon got over McGovern, and more than LBJ got over Goldwater. You have to go back to the early 1800's to find that sort of landslide in the US.
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SirSaxa
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 8:37:36 GMT -5
Post by SirSaxa on Jun 19, 2009 8:37:36 GMT -5
There is a fascinating OpEd in today's NY Times by an student in Iran who is listed anonymously for his/her own safety. The column presents a much different picture of the scene inside the country, the lead up to the elections and the spontaneous and growing demonstrations across the country since the election. It seems the opposition candidate Mr. Moussavi was only allowed to campaign during the two months leading up to the election and was not allowed access to the State run media. He did indeed trail early in that time frame. The decisive changing point, according to the writer, was a series of 6 Live Televised debated that began on June 1. That was when the polls started to change, and to change quite dramatically. One more thing, he/she says the cities hold 70% of the population and that voter turnout among city residents was extraordinarily high. If you are interested in what is going on in Iran, you will find this piece very interesting. NY Times OpEdEXCERPTLet’s also forget the polls, carried out in May by Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, that have been making the rounds this past week, with numbers that showed Mr. Ahmadinejad well ahead in the election, even in Mr. Moussavi’s hometown, Tabriz. Maybe last month Mr. Ahmadinejad was indeed on his way to victory. But then came the debates.
Starting on June 1, the country was treated to an experience without precedent in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran: six back-to-back live and unscripted debates among the four presidential candidates. Iranians everywhere were riveted, and the poll numbers began to move.
By the Wednesday before the election, Mr. Moussavi was backed by about 44 percent of respondents, while Mr. Ahmadinejad was favored by around 38 percent. So let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later. (And let’s ignore the claim that polling by Iranians in Iran is “notoriously untrustworthy.” A consortium of pollsters and social scientists working for a diverse range of political and social organizations systematically measured public opinion for months before the election.)
Such a major shift has happened before. A month before the 1997 elections, the establishment candidate, Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, was trouncing his opponents in surveys. Then, a week before the vote, the tide changed, bringing to power a reformer, Mohammad Khatami.
The reason for this fluidity in voter preference is simple. Iran has no real political parties that can command a fixed number of predictable votes. With elections driven primarily by personality politics, Iranians are always swing voters. So Mr. Moussavi, hampered by a lack of access to state-run news media and allowed only two months to campaign, began to make inroads into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s lead only during the final days leading into the election, his poll numbers rising with his visits to provincial cities and the debate appearances. [/blockquote]
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rosslynhoya
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 9:22:52 GMT -5
Post by rosslynhoya on Jun 19, 2009 9:22:52 GMT -5
Regardless of what any of us might think of the legitimacy of the Iranian elections, it appears there are a vast number of Iranians who do not believe the results. C'mon - I don't know how anyone can think that the election was legitimate. Maybe Ahmadinejad got a majority, maybe he didn't - but he certainly didn't get 63%. 63% of the popular vote is more than Reagan got over Mondale, more than Nixon got over McGovern, and more than LBJ got over Goldwater. You have to go back to the early 1800's to find that sort of landslide in the US. More precisely, the election "results" showed Ahmadinejad obliterating his rivals in their home towns, akin to Chicago voting for McCain by an 80% margin. You don't have to drift into Pauline Kael territory or be a brilliant psephologist to know that something is seriously wrong with the numbers the Iranian regime released on election day.
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 10:57:11 GMT -5
Post by AustinHoya03 on Jun 19, 2009 10:57:11 GMT -5
Listening to the NewsHour tonight, with guest experts. They report today's protest marches in Tehran were the biggest yet and completely peaceful. Despite the doubts regarding the legitimacy of the vote, Iran deserves credit for (apparently) allowing peaceful protests of the result. Tehran 2009 has not devolved into Warsaw 1981. Hopefully, peace will continue, but the headlines today (Khamenei threatening violence, the Basij kidnapping protesters) suggest violence may be on the horizon. ON EDIT: Yeah, that didn't last long.
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SirSaxa
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 12:52:15 GMT -5
Post by SirSaxa on Jun 19, 2009 12:52:15 GMT -5
Another take from the Foreign Policy Association Analysis: Reading IranEXCERPT Reading recent international media accounts about Iran's internal crisis could easily lead one to believe that a Moussavi victory will lead to western liberal democracy. Perhaps such a victory could potentially plant the seeds for such a reality at some future stage. Until then, Mr. Moussavi remains a moderate among fundamentalists. His goal is not to overthrow the 1979 revolution but to save and reform it, making it less restrictive and more transparent. Not to bring about a liberal democracy.
Comparing Iran's internal crisis to democratic transitions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980's may be appealing to the senses, but is misleading to reason. Moussavi is more Mikhail Gorbachev than Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel. That is, he is someone who believes in reforming the existing political system in order to preserve it. Gorbachev was no great liberal democrat but a committed Communist who truly believed he could fundamentally save the principles of the 1917 Communist Revolution. [/i]
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theexorcist
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 13:42:13 GMT -5
Post by theexorcist on Jun 19, 2009 13:42:13 GMT -5
Another take from the Foreign Policy Association Analysis: Reading IranEXCERPT Reading recent international media accounts about Iran's internal crisis could easily lead one to believe that a Moussavi victory will lead to western liberal democracy. Perhaps such a victory could potentially plant the seeds for such a reality at some future stage. Until then, Mr. Moussavi remains a moderate among fundamentalists. His goal is not to overthrow the 1979 revolution but to save and reform it, making it less restrictive and more transparent. Not to bring about a liberal democracy.
Comparing Iran's internal crisis to democratic transitions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980's may be appealing to the senses, but is misleading to reason. Moussavi is more Mikhail Gorbachev than Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel. That is, he is someone who believes in reforming the existing political system in order to preserve it. Gorbachev was no great liberal democrat but a committed Communist who truly believed he could fundamentally save the principles of the 1917 Communist Revolution. [/i][/quote] There is one other comparison - Deng Xiaoping - and it's the more interesting one. Gorbachev may have tried to save the system, but he didn't succeed. Deng mutated the CCP to keep their grip on the country. The problem is that Deng didn't depend on student protests to come into power.
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thebin
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Iran
Jun 19, 2009 14:52:35 GMT -5
Post by thebin on Jun 19, 2009 14:52:35 GMT -5
Let's back this way up...the "election" was nothing of the sort since the theocrats in Iran get to choose who is sufficiently mentally deranged enough (read: extremely religious) to even run.
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