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Iranian Crackdown Goes Global
An anonymous reader writes "Tehran's leadership faces its biggest crisis since it first came to power in 1979, as Iranians at home and abroad attack its legitimacy in the wake of June's allegedly rigged presidential vote. An opposition effort, the 'Green Movement,' is gaining a global following of regular Iranians who say they never previously considered themselves activists. The regime has been cracking down hard at home. And now, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows, it is extending that crackdown to Iranians abroad as well. Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad. People who criticize Iran's regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them."
I know this sounds odd, but it makes we want to get a million people who are not Iranians and put enough information on our Facebook pages to at least slow the Iranian govt. down, by making them wade through it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
the best thing to do is to wait it out. this is the first time that the new generation is old enough to get involved in politics, and they made a very strong statement. over 70% of the country is under 30 due to the iran-iraq war, which basically wiped out a whole generation. this government is a legacy outdated establishment that is totally incompatible with Iran. The country was run by a foreign minority of non-Persians who used religion to control a country of children. Well, the kids grew up and they will rebel. Iran has a strong history and culture, and is too mature to put up with this crap for much longer.
When Iran cracked down on their citizens last time, during this summer's protests, Western companies such as Siemens and Nokia provided them the technology to do this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html
I also highly doubt they're building massive databases with worldwide surveillance on Iranian citizens -- for the purposes of going after their relatives within Iran -- with their own home-brew technologies.
This takes some scary stuff some Iranian University students could not simply hash together -- things like deep-packet inspection of all internet traffic and massive data-mining algorithms in the scope of millions upon millions of megabytes.
What all this obsession about who actually won the Iranian presidential vote masks is IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO IS PRESIDENT OF IRAN. Sorry for the all caps but that really needs emphasis. The Supreme Leader holds all control over foreign policy decisions, security and so forth even nuclear power/weapons. I mean come on you can't even run for President of Iran with out approval of the Supreme Leader. Ahmadinejad only has control over domestic policy and even then as long as the Supreme Leader approves. He is there as a bargaining chip, if he attracts too much heat internationally or domestically he will be thrown under the Revolutionary bus so that the Ayatolla can find someone else to implement his policies.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
The invasion of Iraq may have helped a little in that way. As you said, many Iranians were extremely worried that the US would use Iraq as a stopping point to invade their country. What's more, they saw a demonstration of the US's true power, that an army which could hold them at bay (remember the Iran-Iraq war) was swept aside in a matter of weeks. As you said, there was heavy propaganda related to this at home and abroad.
Ok however, the threat didn't materialize. The US stayed in Iraq and did nothing towards Iran. Even when there were some fluff ups over things like a boat supposedly drifting in to Iranian waters, nothing happened.
What something like that does is cause people to question the propaganda. They start to say "You know, maybe the US really isn't bad like they are saying, they haven't made a move towards Iran at all." The government keeps the propaganda going, and yet the propaganda shows an increasing disconnect with reality. The US elects a new leader that tries to engage them in discourse and still the propaganda continues.
Then of course there's the blatantly rigged election and what does the US do? Nothing militarily, and the citizens speak up in support for Iran.
That kind of stuff can lead to people really questioning the government line. The US quite clearly has the ability to crush their military and destroy their cities if they wish, yet there has been no move to do so. That tells them that what they've been hearing is not the truth.
While I don't agree that the majority of Iranians support their government, a large enough minority does to make a quick transition to some type of truly representative governing impossible without violence.
What I absolutely agree with is the idea that the US, the UN and everyone else needs to stay out of the way and not become a distraction or 'common enemy'. The greatest good we can do in America is to be less dependent on oil, lowering the price. Right now a little bit of isolationism would help force them to get their own house in order. In time.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
there were two schools of thought in iran since the 1979 revolution:
1. its a democracy. the whole supreme leader bs is just for window dressing
2. its a theocracy. the whole elections bs is just to appease the crowds
this central crisis in the iranian government seems to have been resolved in june 2009, with iran going the theocratic route, which is the substance of your comment
but its actually going a third route: military dictatorship, with the supreme leadership bs as window dressing AND the elections bs as crowd appeasement
the supreme leader is actually now hostage of the elite revolutionary guard, he has no real power. ahmadinejad is an old hand of the revolutionary guard. watch the next leader of iran to be handpicked from the revolutionary guard and "elected" by the people and "approved" by the ayatollah. now, the whole of the complex iranian government apparatus is under their sway and influence. the central unanswered schism between theocracy and democracy in the previous complex government arrangement has meant someone had to fill the power vacuum, and it has been filled: by the military
either way, the crowd appeasement obviously isn't working. the people of iran are pissed, and as in any country where the will of the people is not addressed, the government's illegitimacy grows over time, as the agenda of the government and the agenda of the common man grow further apart. this will reach a breaking point. could take years or decades, with plenty of suffering during that time. throw in nuclear weapons for fun
but until such time as iran falls yet again into revolution due to not being a democracy, iran is now a military dictatorship. not officially of course. much like north korea is officially the DEMOCRATIC people's republic of korea. yeah, north korea is a democracy (roll's eyes)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it