WP: U.S. Push for Democracy Could Backfire Inside Iran

[Pirate Smile]

U.S. Push for Democracy Could Backfire Inside Iran

By Karl Vick and David Finkel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; Page A01

TEHRAN -- Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don't need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.

-snip-
"We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush," human rights activist Emad Baghi said as he waited anxiously for his wife and daughter to emerge from interrogation last week. "When he says he wants to promote democracy in Iran, he gives money to these outside groups and we're in here suffering."

-snip-
"Unfortunately, I've got to say it has a negative effect, not a positive one," said Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer recently released from seven months in prison. After writing in a newspaper that his clients were beaten while in jail, Soltani was charged with offenses that included spying for the United States.

"This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers," said Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. "This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301761.html

[IndianaGreen]

1. "...and that stupid George Bush"

Everyone in the world has Bush pegged pretty good, except for that 40% of Americans that think of him as some sort of god.

[Pirate Smile]

2. As usual, this was completely predictable. I can't believe how stupid

this Administration is - it continues to shock me even though I know it shouldn't.

Here's more:

"Activists here said the Bush initiative demonstrates the chasm that often separates those working inside Iran for greater freedoms -- carefully calibrating their actions to nudge incremental changes in a hostile system -- and the more strident approach of many Iranian exiles who often have the ear of Washington policymakers.

"Our society is very complicated," said Vahid Pourostad, editor of National Trust, a new newspaper aligned with Iran's struggling reform movement. "Generally speaking, it is impossible to impose something from outside. Whatever happens will happen from inside.

"It seems to me the United States is not studying the history of Iran very carefully," Pourostad said. "Whenever they came and supported an idea publicly, the public has done the opposite."

[Starfury]

7. Stupid? No, these folks NEED a justification for war, after all...

If Iran became a democracy on its own, what would this adminstration be able to do to advance its agenda? No, better to sabotage the Iranian democracy movement, then the Bushies can use that as a justification to take direct action against a "regime" that suppresses the will of its people. (Yes, I realize the bitter ironies in that statement...)

[cliss]

3. You will refuse to believe who they've contacted....

I just read on the Counter Punch web site that the group promoting "democracy" (headed by Liz Cheney) have contacted the Shah Reza Pahlavi's SON. They want to install him as the NEW SHAH.

The Shah Junior is all for it. They're going to start working on the plans immediately to install him.

MY GOD THEY NEVER LEARN.

[NYC]

4. I read that. I didn't believe it.

As you said: You will refuse to believe...

It's just impossible to believe. I don't know what they are doing, but they can't be intending to do that.

[anitar1]

5. I believe it. n/t

[NYC]

6. The only thing that comes to my mind is:

How stupid can people be? Iran didn't appreciate it the last time we installed the Shah. They won't like Shah, Jr. any better. Why would they even come up with this idea?

[Cooley Hurd]

8. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I cannot think of an instance in which the above quote would be more applicable than this...:eyes:

[PATRICK]

9. Assuming they are not nuts

and that is one big assumption, let's look at the progress toward Z"democracy" in iran in broad terms. Clinton had made rapprochement, a more moderate cleric came to power. The ayatollahs still ruled but there was beginning to be some balance between the moderates, the populace and the radical theocracy.

Bush comes in and all US support for this wise policy was dumped. Even before the Axis of Evil slap the Bush people treated them like pariahs and pretty much set things back as they did too in Korea, trying very hard to keep people within those nations from getting together. Since then the black ops obviously have been working with dissidents, but not the human rights activists ALL power factions in Iran don't want around. When the elections came around the "backfiring" already happened, granting more foxhole support than ever to the unpopular theocracy.

If democracy and peace or stability or anything like were the top goals this would be simply a stupid disaster. But as planning a warstrike and approaching the Shah's son(if true) show, the real agenda is setting up a strongman dictatorship that would give some disciplinary relief to the citizens but mainly in
non material ways that would rile and antagonize the strict observers into the kind of internal strife that keeps a client state forever subjugated. The vision: some stooge, some gray eminence, a lot of sellout to the oil companies, civil strife to neutralize all hopes of a Shia "Empire", setting up an exhausting patchwork war between Sunnis and Shia in the ME(at least). democracy is all hype, bells and whistles and stupidly lackadaisical even as a pretext they are more loathe than ever to put any heart into- considering. But they know that there- as here- the ordinary citizen puts a lot of stock in democracy as a FIRST priority.

So whatever the results are- and they will be ALL bad, even in the best laid plans of the WH perps, they operate in a different set of priorities that puts them in the enviable position of being a con man among perpetual suckers easily played off against each other. Naively assuming that peace and democracy are anywhere close to being real American priorities not only renders the WH actions inexplicable but enables them to carry out cruder, ruthless and venal objectives. Even the PNAC Gloriosus has too many dazzling specks in their eye to face the real horror.

None of what they are doing is contradictory to their real goals. The contradiction comes in trying twist reality to justify or make work the monstrous perversion of democracy so the sham becomes a proud false idol everyone must bow to. Who cares if it works, if people are in civil war, religious war or whatever> All the better to sneak the eventual strongman, powerless without us and without the gun, until the oil spigots run dry.

They can lie to us and even themselves that it will all turn out rosy, but in essence they don't give a damn how many die and eventually civil strife will oil the machinery of looting very nicely as it does everywhere.

And in any scenario the last people Bush or the next Iranian tyrants want to see still hanging around are genuine human rights activists.

There- or here.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Nice summanry and thanks for your view, the diplomatic phase

ended when Bush took office.

[slipslidingaway]

10. Kick, an important topic, already R'd last night. n/t

[Odin2005]

11. More moronism from people who think they can impose Western values...

...on non-western socities. We should of learned our lesson in 1979, but still there are Western Universalists (both on the right AND on the left) who can't seem to grasp that democracy, civil rights and liberties, human rights, and seperation of church and state are creations of Western society, and trying to impose them on other societies doesn't work because they clash with the other societies' values. The Universalists also fail to realize that modernization doesn't mean the same thing as Westernization. Seperation of church and state can't work in the middle east, for example, because that is heresy according to Islam (Turkey is the rare exception caused by it's proximity to Europe and by having a Westernized elite).

[mom cat]

12. This should actually encourage Bush... He hates Human Rights

Activists.

[george_hurley]

13. ***PETITION TO SIGN: NO WAR WITH IRAN ***

Hello,

For the past year, the growing tensions mounting between the US, Israel, and Iran are reaching a point where military action against Iran is w/in months of becoming reality. The repercussions are terrifying as such military action could involve countries such as China and Russia as they share massive energy/economic interests w/ Iran. The most likely scenario we would face would be the collapse of the US economy as the combination of a massive rise in oil prices and a run on the US dollar would surely be the weapon many countries would use to fight back against a preemptive US or Israeli strike.

For a collection of articles and resources on this subject you can visit this link: http://reseaudesign.com/research/iran/iran_summery.html

I'm starting up a petition which I will be sending out to as many members of Congress as possible. I'm asking for help to get this signed by as many people, possible in the next month. Send it to as many people you can.

http://www.petitiononline.com/n0war1rn /



Also, here is another petition you can sign from another group:
http://stopwaroniran.org/statement.shtml




Thanks for your time