ItoBlog

The divine world is eternal...

Just read a frightening article in the New Republic  that provides interesting insights on Iran's Ahmadinejad's rise to power, the man himself and his core political base made up of suicidal fanatics.

Here's an article that helps put certain things into perspective when discussing or reading about the current nuclea crisis with Iran. It becomes clear after reading this piece that we're not just dealing with an opportunistic president playing the easy "we against the US" card to help steer attention away from Iran's growing socio-economic problems. We're dealing with a true illuminé propelled to power by a paramilitary force that revels in self-sacrifice and the coming of the 12th imam.

Little did we know back then what treat we were in for when Ahmadinjad was elected...We just thought he was a loony politician who wanted to force men to grow beards...

Keeping an eye on the Iranian blogosphere

A very interesting article on BBC News today describing the mounting criticism of Ahmadinejad in the Iranian blogosphere. Something we often forget is how relatively unregulated blogs are compared to other media in Iran. As this article suggests, most blogs in fact seem to blame Ahmadinejad, and NOT the US, Israel and Europe for taking Iran to the brink of war. Some entries below:

'It smells of war' - Rah-e Man (My Way), 18 January
"Why is it that our planes crash, our buildings collapse at the slightest tremor, our cars burst into flames, we don't have even a half-standard football stadium in the entire country, but when it comes to nuclear energy, it's a national issue?!... Anyway, it smells of war. God help us. Our people have suffered a lot over these past 100 years." http://www.rah-e-man.com/

 

'Deflecting public opinion' - Daftar-e bi Mokhatab  (Notebook without a Reader), 17 January
"Mr Ahmadinejad didn't mention in any of his campaign slogans that, if he became president, he intended to remove Israel from the map...

I also don't recall him promising that he'd take the nuclear file to the point of having international sanctions imposed on the country, having the file referred to the Security Council, sacrificing the country's economic interests and war...
   
What has brought the government to this point today is that it's realised that it's not capable of fulfilling even 55% of its campaign slogans... so it wants to deflect domestic public opinion by creating constant international crises in order to pretend that it's foreigners who are preventing the government from fulfilling its promises."http://hanif.ir/

 

 

'Congratulations Mr President!' - After Rain, 16 January

"Greetings Mr President! I wanted to congratulate you. God willing, you're on a roll, taking our dear country towards ruin... I won't allow the flames of war, ruin, famine and wretchedness to be lit in my country. I don't want to be shamed any further before the world. I don't want war! I don't want nuclear energy. This oil is more than enough for me." http://after-rain.persianblog.com/

 

Read the full article here: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iranian blogs debate nuclear row.

Living up to his promise

An interesting (and scary) piece of news that largely went unnoticed today was the recent ban of Western music in Iran by President Ahmadinejad. I posted a piece on Iran's new president, back when he wasn't yet elected and when most people outside of Iran didn't think Iranians would actually want to turn back the clock and vote for this illuminé. But they did, hélas, and now Ahmadinejad is living up to his campaign promises. What's next on his loony agenda? Forced beards? The expulsion of all "infidels"?

Cartoons galore

Saudi Arabia's champion reformer King Abdullah means business and what better way to show this than to lift the country's ban on...cartoons. That's right. Today Saudis are allowed to watch cartoons in public theaters. One little note though: the law applies only to women and children.

In other happy news, Iran has also gone cartoon-crazy.

The Union of Islamic Students Associations and Iran's House of Cartoons are jointly sponsoring a global competition on caricature, painting and graphic design under the main theme of "A World without Zionism," a morning English-language daily said on Wednesday.

Students between the ages of 7 and 18 can submit their art works to the organizing committee of the competition at this address: Tehran, P.O. Box 5745-774, or e-mail them to [email protected] by November 21, Tehran Times announced.

The competition will also focus on the themes "A World without America," "A Mirage Named Zionism," "The Wishes of a Palestinian Student," and "The Intifada," noted the paper.

The daily went on to say that the international invitation to artists is posted in Persian, Arabic and English at the website of Iran Photographers' House.

In addition, 13 selected cartoons by students from China, Argentina, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, Iran and the United States on the theme "Palestine and the Occupier Zionist Regime" are on view at the site, according to Tehran Times.

The best option

So Iran's reactivated its nuclear program. No big surprise there, we saw it coming despite the "EU fantastic three"'s attempts to convince it otherwise. We can expect an avalanche of editorials tomorrow in the world's major newspapers pondering the question "What next?". Some will inevitably begin weighing the pros and cons of intervention and diplomacy to deal with the crisis. Anticipating Iran's in-your-face move, the New Republic featured an excellent article by Michael Mazarr (professor at the U.S National War College) arguing that an attack and/or invasion of Iran, led by the US, would in addition to total human carnage, spell complete and utter disaster for the region, for the US and plunge the world in a deep, very deep crisis. As he notes:

"Engaging an autocratic regime in order to buy a tentative cap on its nuclear ambitions and hoping that political reforms will outpace bomb-making are hardly neat and tidy solutions or ones likely to warm the hearts of those who crave bold statements of U.S. global supremacy. But we Americans are always seeing the world as a series of problems to be solved rather than challenges to be managed. Impatience with Iran is likely to become self-defeating; patience, meanwhile, offers no guarantee of success. It remains, however, the best option we have."