Blogging the democratic revolution
For at least two years in a row now, women have gathered by the hundreds, if not thousands, on June 12 to demand equal rights from the tyrannical Islamic government. They’re sick of being treated as second class citizens — no, animals — in their own society. Publius reported on these events, the first one in 2005 where demonstrators gathered to protest this gender apartheid. It was one of the first such large demonstrations by women, for women, since the revolution. In 2006, the event unfolded once again, with the women taking confidence from the year before that they could…
As the Bush administration moves towards disengagement in the Middle East from those regarded as extremist — including Syria, Iran, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Iraq, Hamas in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon — the result has been a vacuum of power left from the absence of traditional diplomatic channels. In the post Cold War era, this meant typically working with, and in the least, involving the United States. But in recent months as American policy becomes more rigid and inflexible, Middle Eastern diplomatic channels have rerouted outside of Washington and back into the Middle East proper. In this…
I have to say that I am quite disappointed by the free world’s total focus on the Iranian nuclear issue (a pressing one, of course) while ignoring what goes on in Iran. It happens that, while all eyes are on whether the Mullahs are arming the Iraq-based terrorists (and they are, despite claims of the opposite by the Bush-haters) and their nuclear plans, ancient archeological sites dating back to the pre-Islamic invasion era are about to be flooded. I want you to just spend a few minutes to read my article published by the American Thinker on this topic and…
Throughout most of the Cold War, prevailing wisdom in foreign policy suggested that international relations between governments and the study of comparative politics should remain separate. The leaders of the United States spent most of their time meeting with, negotiating with, and occasionally threatening leaders from the Soviet Union. Whether or not people were being sent off to the gulag or purposely starved made no difference. Those people had no power, whereas the Politburo did. This went on largely until the Helsinki Accords were signed in 1975, effectively tying America’s foreign policy to the Soviets’ treatment of its own citizens.…
Our friend Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit continues the amount of information building up showing that extremist Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be running out of support at home. Prices are doubling and tripling, unemployment is even worse than it was before, and support is dwindling for him in the parliament. Is it a sign of things to come? Read on: he government puts unemplyment at 10 per cent but economists say it could be as high as 30 per cent. The government also says inflation is 11 per cent, but experts estimate it at 30 per cent! Ä…Å…
Iran’s Islamofascist barbarians have either come to their senses or caved in to international pressure on the infamous case of Nazanin Fatehi, an unjustly accused Iranian girl whom we’ve blogged about here at Publius as a worthy freedom cause. Nazanin, age 17, was walking in the park with either her little sister or her boyfriend, when she was beset by a pack of brutal thugs who sought to rape her. By Iranian Islamofascist law, she was supposed to just lay back and enjoy it (being a temptress and all), and then take 100 lashes from the state for getting raped…
The news of the defeat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s allies in elections for both local councils as well as the Assembly of Experts is good news to those of us who want to see the influence of the madman diminished. The winners are a general alliance between former President Rafsanajani’s “pragmatic” conservatives and reformists, an alliance which could make way for a slow transition even past where Iran was before Ahmadinejad took power. Here is the Guardian’s article on the subject: The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faced electoral embarrassment today after the apparent failure of his supporters to win…
From a post at my Free and Secular Iran Yahoo Group: The bitter reality under the Islamist Regime of Iran, where Love is a crime. A young couple in a park in Tehran. The Islamist regime????????s Police on a daily basis scrutinizing and eavesdropping on citizens???????? private lives The park police approaches the young couple asking for their ID cards as proof that religiously he is not committing a ‘crime’ for sitting next to her or putting his arm around her The couple is taken away by the police and their ???????crime???????? is love And the authorities think they can…
Doctor Zin at Regime Change Iran has found a megatrend piece that’s so arresting it can’t help but make you stop and think. World oil prices right now are dropping like a stone. If they go below $50 a barrel and stay there, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are in for hard times. They won’t be able to maintain their political popularity because in all case, that popularity is derived from pork-barrel spending and government handouts. If they lose popularity, will that make them more, or less, aggressive against their own internal opposition and the…
Aman Imani, an Iranian writing for The American Thinker, has an amazingly interesting article about just what Iran’s freedom fighters are facing as they stand down the mullahs – a parasitic class that feeds off of their society and demands to be king or kingmakers. It’s full of good local details and enlightens us about just how tough the task is of reforming Iran. It’s well worth reading here.
Something very little noticed but very important almost slipped under the radar. Perhaps one of the biggest policy detours ever is about to happen in the Middle East. No, Bush is not pulling out of Iraq, and no, Hassan Nasrallah hasn’t played groundhog and come out of hiding. What has happened, in fact, is that the Arab states — which have historically argued for a nuclear-free Middle East (except for Saddam) — are beginning to rethink their loving attachment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Rahman al Attiyah, said at its most…
The mainstream media decided to ignore the big anti-Khatami rally that took place in front of the Washington National Cathedral while Khatami was delivering his taqiyya on September 7. Worst, the few media that reported it, have falsified the truth by telling that the protestors were only “50”, while in reality they were about 1,000, Iranians and non-Iranians alike. Read the report here. I have also found it very hard to find photos of the rally. Mainstream media, however, were quick to post pictures of the pro-illegal immigration rally as well as Khatami’s speech. Hence, I ask you to post,…
When I heard about the protests planned against Khatami’s speech at Harvard, I knew just the guy to contact. I emailed Jesse Sage over at HAMSA and he filled me in on all the information. Khatami was to speak at 4:00 p.m. so the protests would start around three. We arrived in Harvard Square outside of the Kennedy School of Government just before then, and people were already gathering by the dozens. It wasn’t just the people I knew from HAMSA and the Iran Freedom Concert Coalition, either. There were many, from pro-Israel Jews to Americans concerned about our security…
In a moment where the forces of dictatorship and tyranny seem to be pushing back against democracy, the common thread that has successfully aligned nations such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China, and Sudan have been the supply and demand of energy. While it is encouraging that the relationships forged seem to be more based on Machiavellian pragmatism then aligned ideologies or long term goals, problematic occurrences and diplomatic realignment have debilitated the West????????s efforts to act against undemocratic forces. Increasingly, the ability to act as a geopolitical actor has been taken away from the United States and the UN as…
Deep sea oil rig, Gulf of Mexico Source: National Aeronautics & Space Administration Today, a quiet revolutionary time bomb was presented to Hugo Chavez. He has no idea what it is or what it means. But this gift means it’s all over for the brutal Venezuelan tyrant in the next few years. He won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be bothering anyone anymore. He’s finished. Treasure was discovered in America’s Gulf of Mexico waters today, black gold so vast and so deep and so surprising and so recoverable that overnight, America’s energy reserves have just increased as much as…
The decision, by the State Department, to grant a visa to former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami to play taqyia to promote the genocidal Islamist agenda of the Islamic Republic he is part of, has justly angered many, from Jewish organizations to U.S. Senators and Congressmen. But of course it has angered much more the Iranian freedom fighters, both in Iran and outside, who had always trusted the U.S. gov’t in its promises to stand with the Iranian people against the murderous and terrorist Mullahs’ regime. Some of the most active and genuinely committed Iranian opposition groups in the U.S. launched…
I????????ve just found some month-old photos showing Iranians (in Iran) celebrating the banned pre-Islamic Chahar Shanbe Souri festival. As you know, every woman is forced to wear the mandatory veil when in Iran (this goes for non-Iranian women,too). But, look at how the Iranian women below defied the regime by not fully covering their hairs and someone even took it out!! Source: Roozi.com
Look, I haven’t even gotten used to the idea of San Francisco raves! Ten years ago, they used to be this thing people I knew did at old warehouses in the South of Market in San Francisco. I think I went to see an indy flick at the Angelica Theatre in New York about these things, I recall it was pretty good, but cripes, it was about taking drugs! I never went to a rave itself on my own. But I had a roomate, Melinda, who always did. She was one of the cool people, and I adored her. She…
Netcraft claims that President Ahmadinejad is running NetBSD or OpenBSD — maybe he will have BSD tortured or killed. Also check out the blog, and don’t miss out on this opportunity to send Mahmoud some e-mail feedback — I’m sure he would appreciate receiving some “generous offers” and perhaps a “limited” amount of your honest advice… Actually, it looks like I got it wrong and ahamdinejad.ir is the blog, while president.ir has a bunch of other stuff. ahmadinejad.ir is apparently running Windows 2000 (infidel software from the Great Satan). Oh, and for readers as well as spam crawlers, please send…
As Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz es-Saud meets with Turkish leaders this week, the Sunni Arab world’s desperation should be kept in mind. Though economic concerns have been paramount in Turko-Arab relations for many years, and have grown since the election of the Turkish PM Erdogan, the Saudi King made a few remarks indicative of the Sunni Arab world’s fearful position. At a meeting with the Turkish President Ahmed Necdet Sezer, Abdullah called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, obviously aimed bolstering Turkish support for the Arab position on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He then stated that ???????Like you…
There may be an Arabo-Iranian Cold War brewing, if the Arabs make themselves relevant again As the Arabs furiously try to guilt Syria into curbing Hezb Allah????????s activities and ???????rejoining??????? the Arab world, one cannot help but see an almost laughable, but certainly pathetic, last ditch attempt at salvaging what influence the Sunni Arab states have in the Middle East. Ever since the American invasion of Iraq, the strong men of the Sunni Arab world have become less and less relevant in a region that has become increasingly polarized on various fronts. On the one hand, with the liberation of…
Michael J. Totten reported a conversation with Lebanon expert Tony Badran (who blogs as “Anton Efendi at Across the Bay) about the current situation in Lebanon. Totten brings up several points in his piece, but two are especially striking. The first is Badran’s estimation that Hezb Allah has basically taken away the gains that were made by the Shia community in Lebanon, at the very least on the material level. The second is that a new moderate and modern Shia leadership is needed. The first point is troubling because Hezb Allah was able to rise because the Shia had become…
When I was in Washington, D.C. last week, I had dinner with the relatives I was staying with at their good friends’ house. These family friends happened to be Iranian. They had a son and two daughters, the boy was the youngest and the girls were about four years apart from each other. I had a conversation with the oldest girl about a variety of things, and by about 15 minutes before her mother had finished making our dinner, it turned political. She was very intelligent, she has one year to go until she achieves her degree in biology from…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez embraces Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! America, behold the future! Carlos the Jackal’s biggest (and fattest) fan embraces 1979’s Iranian “student” hostage-taker of American diplomats ringleader in an epic spread-the-love embrace. I’m gonna throw up. I can’t blog anymore after looking at this. If you aren’t, Quico at Caracas Chonicles has a whole gallery of photos of all the other dictators Hugo’s embraced down the side of his page here.
Here’s an amazingly elaborate YouTube satirizing Iran’s loathesome president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even without being able to read or understand the language, you can see exactly what the sentiment is and marvel at how well done and funny the little parody film really is, making the Iranian president look like a clown. All this is a sure sign of a dynamic Iranian democratic opposition. See it here.