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An educated perspective on on the Iran protests

Link here. The author is a writer who has lived in Iran and seems very knowledgeable about the country and the specific cities where the protests are occurring. His comments about the city where the protests began, Mashad, are very revealing. They suggest that the Islamic mullahs that have been controlling Iran for the past few decades might have forgotten their base, and thus their base is now revolting.

He also notes this detail:

Now, there’s rioting in Qom. Qom is THE religious center for Shia Islam. Rioters burned a SEMINARY. Anti-mullah riots in Qom is a VERY BAD SIGN. That’s comparable to anti-Catholic riots in Vatican City. If you’re burning pictures of Khomeini and Khameini (two different people) in the religious center of Shia Islam… The Mullahs have lost their base and not just on the subject of payments.

So, this is, yeah, a very serious revolt. Not just some minor anti-government protests or some people arguing for better pay-offs. Posters weren’t being burned in Qom in the Green Revolution. (Which was very much centered on the middle class and students.) ‘Blue-collar’ protesters are chanting in favor of Reza Pahlavi, the guy who reestablished the Peacock Throne.

He also concludes by saying that if the mullahs do not stamp this revolt out soon this could very well end up to be a fight to the death.

Hat tip from reader Geoffrey Carman.

Update: More information here, including some details about why our mainstream press seems incapable of reporting on these protests with any knowledge or depth.

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11 comments

  • Laurie

    Interesting the former administration and its associates are outspoken, again, in their tacit approval of the status quo – these people still have an agenda, it seems.

  • ken anthony

    protesters are chanting in favor of Reza Pahlavi

    That’s a very good sign I hadn’t expected. That makes it even more important that we take massive positive clandestine support of the Iranian people.

  • wayne

    Laurie-
    Nail, on the head.

  • Dick Eagleson

    John Ringo, for those of your readers who may not be familiar with him, is one of the leading authors of military sci-fi and politico-military contemporary thrillers currently working. He is a former paratrooper (82nd Airborne) who spent his formative years in a number of foreign countries including Iran.

    “I’m not the expert on Iran,” Ringo says by way of opening his article. Maybe not, but he’ll definitely do until one comes along. As your other linked article makes clear, the usual run of “Iran experts” are paid shills for the Iranian regime, Obama-bots and members of the “Middle Eastern Studies” professoriat – from none of whom can one reasonably expect anything resembling objectivity.

  • Localfluff

    The movement for democratization in Iran about 10 years ago didn’t go anywhere. They were voted down by the majority. Even with cheating, a large part of the Iranians want islamic terror tyranny. And the radicals are 20% (or 15 million) more now than ten years ago just by birth rate. I doubt that movement had any support in Qom. I doubt those demonstrators would replace this regime with any better regime.

    The problem with the Middle east is not politics. It’s a grass root movement. The remaining dictators surely realize that they need to crush opposition and be friendly with the US (or Russia, possibly China as for Pakistan) in order to survive in power. The people revolting against them want more true islamic tyranny and more money to themselves. I doubt they care at all about democracy or justice other than as a temporary tool to fool some dimwit Western sponsors to help them take power and spread islamic terror all over the world.

    I don’t think it matters at all what happens in Iran. One fraction or the other fraction, that’s same same. And the vast majority of fanatic islamists in Iran will prevail in power, with this regime or the next they install. When the Middle East was at its freest, it was during the occupation of the Eastern powers after the caliphate had attacked them in 1914 and been defeated. It was made by westerners, not by arabs. A small minority of the arabs became westernized, the middle class in the bigger cities, those were the first to flee from Iran in the 1980s, the few left changed sides.

    Sunni war against Iran is what could change Iran, but hardly to the better.

  • ken anthony

    Localfluff,

    Suppose you’re right. Does it matter? Americans think our country is a democracy and democracy is a desirable form of government. It is not and never has been. Whenever you see words twisted like this you know the lying left is behind it.

    The Shaw helped some people and not others. That’s normal. Islam intends to conquer the world a piece at a time. That’s normal too. Only a small percentage of the people ever have rulership of a country. Again, entirely normal, even in a democracy.

    So it doesn’t matter if the majority of the people are Islamic other than we don’t want the country to become a democracy. We want a pro-western country that fights with us to eliminate terrorism. The Shaw was that.

  • Localfluff

    ken anthony
    The Shah was an utter failure! A totally corrupt and incompetent idiot. The US support of this trash dictator founded the Persian hate against the US and against everything American, for the last 40 years, if not 70 years now. It was such a totally self-destructive foreign policy of the US to support the losing Shah. It directly slaughtered some marines, didn’t it? But also many thousand civilian victims in terror acts that would never have happened if the US had not supported the obviously failed Shah, and that still continue to murder many more.

    “Americans think our country is a democracy and democracy is a desirable form of government. It is not and never has been. “
    Well, we certainly differ there!

  • ken anthony

    Localfluff, we are a republic. The problem with democracy was identified with the very first Geek example. They do not endure and don’t even make life better for the majority.

    I said there were problems with the Shaw. But the problems you cite were not caused by the Shaw. The Shaw was satan just like America was satan. Know the enemy, which is the Islamic algorithm (which assures our destruction if followed and it is being followed in this country) plainly recorded in the Koran.

    During the time of the Shaw, they had a middle class that no other Islamic country has and whatever wealth he kept for himself, much more went into the infrastructure of the country benefiting everyone. Just look at photos of people in Iran in the 70s and you can clearly see it. Just talk to Iranians that lived their at the time.

    Just ask the protesters that are risking their lives to put the Shaw’s son in power.

  • ken anthony: I just need to correct you on a very minor point. It is spelled “the Shah” not “the Shaw.” :)

  • Edward

    From the John Ringo article: “The leaders of dictatorships of late have seen what happens when they lose. … It used to be that vicious, horrible dictators were afforded some decency in their retirement. Flown to asylum countries and allowed to rail in the UN for decades after.

    Ironically, it was the Iranians who caused the first ruckus when the Shah came to the United States. Who, now, would allow fleeing dictators safe haven when the result would be an embarrassing 444 day nightmare at the embassy? If the Iranian leadership has to “fight to the last even if it’s like a cornered rat,” then it is the fault of the Iranian revolutionaries, four decades ago. I can’t work up much sympathy for their plight.

    Laurie,
    It is hardly surprising that the former administration is still pro Iran — meaning pro tyranny and pro terrorist. We can only hope that if there is a successful revolution that the new regime will not favor terrorism, as the current Iranian regime does.

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