View Single Post
Old 03-26-2005, 03:28 PM   #28 (permalink)
Rodney
Observant Ruminant
 
Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei
Alienating the good people of Iran might be the only option if some real threat should surface. The reality is good intentions and good people are all fine and dandy, but they have zero power and zero control. Bush has played it pretty solid thus far, trying to encourage change through the people, hopefully he is motivated to continue this because it is the best means for change plus there seems to be some response from the people; but at the sametime he would be a fool to take all options off the table.
Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1982. The place: Argentina. The regime: a cruel and corrupt dictatorship led by a guy named Galtieri which had oppressed, tortured, and "disappeared" many, and run the economy into the ground; unrest was beginning to swell despite the fact that all the guns and weapons were in the wrong hands.

Junta is is trouble, tries to came things down by: invading the Falkland Islands! The Falklands were a British colony in the south Atlantic which Argentina had a dubious claim to. The idea: pull the country together around a nationalist cause and against a foreign power: the United Kingdom.

Which very quickly came down from the North Atlantic and whipped Argentine ass off the Falklands. Sank some principal ships. And it turns out the Argentines defending the island were poorly trained conscripts who didn't really want to be there. Argentina capitulates. Everybody hates the junta again, only twice as much. Galtieri resigns, democracy begins to stir.
http://www.yendor.com/vanished/falklands-war.html

The point is that the people do have power, a lot of power. But they won't exercise it until the collective zeitgeist says, "It's time to get rid of these turkeys." When everybody, or most everybody, feels strongly the same way, it's safe to push for change. In Argentina, the tipping point was international humiliation and an unutterably stupid war that was obviously waged for all the wrong reasons.

Will this happen in Iran, if the U.S. bombs? I truly doubt it. The mullahs are a pain in the ass, but they're much less brutal that the Argentinian junta, and the economy's in adequate shape. All the young people may hate them, but they don't hate them enough to stand up and try to throw them out, because 1) the mullahs still have a lot of support which would fight back, and 2) life's not really that bad. In time, things will change, I believe, as the generations change. Or, if the West got off oil and stopped funding the mullahs by filling their gas tanks, the mullahs would be out of there pretty quickly.

What may well happen is sort of what Galtieri hoped for in the Falklands: an external threat to Iran will silence dissent and cause everybody to pull together in defense of the country and stop criticizing the regime. Just as people who don't like GWB still support the president in war because he's the president, so will a lot of the young people support the mullah's government in a conflict against the external enemey -- the United States ! -- because the mullahs lead the defense of the country.

It's a great way for the mullahs to gain support, but they aren't doing it: we, apparently, are going to do it for them. Forget any lack of knowledge about the middle east: our administration apparently doesn't understand basic psychology.
Rodney is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360